April 19, 2024 • 52 mins
In this episode, Grace Shireson explores ways to learn how to embrace awareness and let go of ego. She discusses the importance of observing the mind and understanding emotions. Grace’s interesting journey led her to confront the concept of ego in meditation, recognizing the subtle desire for perfection that could obscure the true essence of spiritual practice.
In this episode, you will be able to:
- Gain clarity and peace by exploring the benefits of spiritual practice for heightened awareness
- Discover practical ways to overcome the ego and deepen your meditation practice
- Learn effective strategies for dealing with suffering and finding inner peace
- Uncover the stories of historical female figures in Zen Buddhism for inspiration and wisdom
- Explore how to apply Zen principles in modern life for greater mindfulness and resilience
Habits That Stick Masterclass (FREE!): How to be remarkably consistent no matter what goal you set!: Click Here to to Watch the FREE Replay NOW
To learn more, click here!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
How we look for that space around situations. The possibility
that it could be different is a very important way
of turning away from whatever we're hung up with into
the possibility of change.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers
have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
think ring true. And yet for many of us, our
thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
(00:43):
have instead of what we do. We think things that
hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
the right direction.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
How they feed their good wolf. We hope you'll enjoy
this episode from the archive.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is
Grace Sheerson, president of the Shogaku Zen Institute and a
clinical psychologist. Grace received her or doctorate in clinical psychology
at the Right Institute in Berkeley, California, and founded two
practice centers and a retreat center under the Central Valley
Zen Foundation. Today, Grace and Eric discuss her book Naked
(01:42):
in the Zendo Stories of uptide Zen, Wild ass Zen,
and Enlightenment Wherever you are.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Hi, Grace, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Well, thank you, thank you for having me.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
It is a real pleasure to have you on. We're
going to be discussing your book, which is called Naked
in the Zendo of uptight Zen, Wild ass Zen, and
Enlightenment Wherever you are. But before we do that, we're
going to start, like we always do, with a parable.
In the parable, there's a grandmother who's talking with her
(02:12):
granddaughter and she says, in life, there are two wolves
inside of us that are always at battle. One is
a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery
and love, and the other's a bad wolf, which represents
things like greed and hatred and fear. And the granddaughter
stops and she thinks about it for a second, and
she looks up at her grandmother and she says, well, grandmother,
(02:32):
which one wins? And the grandmother says, the one you feed.
So I'd like to start off by asking you what
that parable means to you in your life and in
the work that you do.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
I think the most important part of that parable is
feeling or seeing or being in touch with what actually
is going on in your mind. My teacher in Japan
used to say, what's the most important thing. It's watching
your mind and or the emotions in your body. So,
(03:04):
for example, anger can be very exciting in your body,
and if you don't recognize that wolf for one that
needs to calm down a bit, then it's impossible not
to feed it because you need to know it when
it arises. So for me, the most important step in
knowing which wolf to feed is knowing yourself and being
(03:27):
honest with yourself and watching your own mind.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
That's a great way to start. You've got a bunch
of lines in this book that I thought were so great,
But the one where I wanted to start was you
say that exposing the egos cover up is the task
of spiritual practice. Say a little bit more about that.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Right, So, the book Naked in the Zendo really isn't
so much about taking off your clothes, although we do
have one example of that in a chapter accidental pants
falling off in the Zendo, which made me think about it.
But one of the things that we notice as we're
watching these wolves is that we want to get good
(04:09):
at doing meditation. We want to be good at practice.
We want to be the best one in the zendo. Actually,
and if that's a wolf, we need to watch because
it has its disguises and it can look like sitting
in a perfect posture or learning the chance perfectly correcting
(04:31):
other people. But really it's about the ego, and we
need to be able to use practice to see even
how the ego gets in there to steal our spiritual practice.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
Yeah, I love that listener. As you're listening, what resonated
with you in that? I think a lot of us
have some ideas of things that we can do to
feed our good wolf. And here's a good tip to
make it more likely that you do it. It can
be really helpful to reflect right before you do that
thing on why you want to do it. Our brains
are always making a calculation of what neuroscientists would call
(05:06):
reward value. Basically, is this thing worth doing? And so
when you're getting ready to do this thing that you
want to do to feed your good wolf, reflecting on
why actually helps to make the reward value on that
higher and makes it more likely that you're going to
do that. For example, if what you're trying to do
is exercise, right before you're getting ready to exercise, it
(05:26):
can be useful to remind yourself of why, for example,
I want to exercise because it makes my mental and
emotional health better today. If you'd like a step by
step guide for how you can easily build new habits
that feed your good Wolf, go to Goodwolf dot me,
slash change and join the free masterclass. It is astounding
(05:47):
the way it shows up everywhere, isn't it? And you
talk a lot about that in the book, and I
really appreciated that about how much we are trying to
do it right. You make a nice job of showing
this because I think that trying to do it right
comes from two motivations. Right, there is a genuine motivation
of like my spiritual practice matters, the world matters. I
(06:09):
want to show up and I want to contribute the
best I can. And then there's the ego side of it.
I want to be seen as being good. I want
to be seen as doing.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
It right right.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Yes, there are those two sides to most everything we do.
Like the two wolves you speak of and when people
ask me, for example, when they're getting ready to give
us one of their first spiritual talks in the Zendo
away seeking mind talk, they ask me, you know what
they should say or how should it be? And I say,
be helpful, don't be good at it. Do something that's
(06:46):
helpful to other people. Give them something that will help them.
But if you try to be good at it, that's
what's going to show up your selfishness.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
That's really good advice. There's another line that you use
where you're also talking about spiritual practice. You say, spiritual practice,
however it develops, provides ways to see ourselves in a
larger context.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Right. So, one of the things I realize, because I'm
tall and because I have a lot to say, is
that I can be rather dominant in a situation. And
at some point when I was practicing, I realized, wait
a minute, I am just a vegetable in this soup
that's offering some flavoring. I don't want to overwhelm it.
(07:34):
How can I keep practicing to be that vegetable in
the soup and be aware of being in the soup
of all these people and be useful and not stand
out as outstanding.
Speaker 4 (07:49):
Right, This idea of seeing ourselves in a larger context
is really so important. It's this ability to take some
perspective that is bigger than our our own. I've got
a program I teach called spiritual habits, and we talk
about that in this we talk about you know, perspective,
and the idea is that the bigger our perspective is
(08:10):
generally the better.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Yes, Because in that perspective, if we can only see
ourselves and not the surrounding environment that we're in, we
are stuck with ourselves in a particular way. There's no
room to turn, so to speak. So for example, if
we say pride is arising, there's a context around which
(08:37):
this emotion, this negative feature is arising. But if we
say I am proud, that takes up the whole context,
and we don't see the movement that we are within
awareness and something is arising within that awareness, but it
isn't me. I am the awareness, I am the context.
(09:00):
And these things arise and they fall away. But if
we keep emphasizing I am proud or I am smart,
rather than my pride is arising, there's no room for
it to move. We're only reinforcing these feelings of pride. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
I like the way of thinking of that as that
bigger perspective gives us room to move, to turn around,
to look to see it from different angles. You've got
a balloon that's filling up the entire box.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
You can't.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
I don't know why I chose a balloon in a box, but.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Well, it's not you. Whatever it is, it's not you.
It's a balloon in a box and it's filling it up.
And that's what we need to see. So it's really
important to see our existence within this large space of awareness.
And this is something that Joke go Back emphasized in
her teaching a bigger content. Otherwise our ego just keeps
(10:03):
growing to fill that space like the balloon.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
Yeah, you mentioned that teaching from her, and you also
mentioned one of my favorite sort of spiritual analogies ever,
which is this idea of you know, if we take
a tablespoon of salt and we drop it in this
little eight ounce glass of water I have, it's gonna
taste pretty bad. But if we drop that same tablespoon
(10:27):
of salt in a gallon of water, well, okay, it's
not gonna be great. But okay, if I dump it
in a fifty five gallon drum, I'm not gonna taste it, yeah,
you know. And it's that idea of the same amount
of pain, the same amount of salt, the same amount
of problem. If it's in a bigger container, doesn't feel
the same way, doesn't taste the same way, right.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
You know. There's a toy that I used to get
in Chinatown, and you would put your finger in a
woven tube, one finger in each end, and if you
pulled it, it would become tighter and tighter. And it's
like that that as we pull and struggle with whatever
(11:10):
is on our minds, it becomes tighter, and if we relax,
it's easy to remove it from the fingers, you know,
it becomes looser, and we want that spaciousness, that looseness
so we can actually see we don't have to do
this right right.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
That always reminds me of the story of I've never
verified if this is true, but sooner or later somebody's
be like, that is not true. But the way that
they used to capture monkeys, they would put sweets inside
a coconut. The monkey would put his hand in and
then he would grab the sweets and once he made
that fist, he couldn't get his fist back out, you know.
And if the monkey just let go, yeah, the hand
(11:50):
comes out, you know. Same thing with those Chinese finger traps.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Yes, yes, both of those are lessons in how we
make ourselves miserable by grabbing onto something and insisting that
has to be this way. How we look for that
space around situations. The possibility that it could be different,
that there's something else is a very important way of
(12:15):
turning away from whatever we're hung up with into the
possibility of change.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
Yeah, you have a phrase that you use in the
book that is really good and that you say is
really the root cause of suffering or a you know,
one of the big root causes of suffering, which is
wishing it to be otherwise or witbo. We could probably
spend the rest of the episode on witbo and dealing
with it, but share a little bit more about what
(12:43):
that is, and then let's maybe talk about some strategies
for working with it.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Right, So, when something happens, we wanted to come out
the way we wanted to come out, and unfortunately the
universe doesn't work that way. Sometimes it comes out the
way we wanted to and sometimes it doesn't. But if
we set our mind when something happens on this idea, No,
I wanted the other thing. I wanted it to be
(13:09):
this way. If we set our mind on that, it
is a formula for suffering. Because I often would say
to my students, now, let's examine the situation. Is your
wish true or is reality true? And reality always trumps
whatever it is you want, So we have to go
(13:30):
with reality and not wish it to be another way. First,
what way is it? And let's try to take that in.
That doesn't mean we are going to try to change it,
but we need to start there.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
Yeah, this, I think is such a profound teaching. We
can all recognize this fairly intellectually that like, okay, well, yeah,
it's me resisting the way things are that causes me
to suffer. Right, it's sort of a rephrasing of the
second Noble Truth in some way. And yet boy, it's
so wired into us, and it's really easy to say, well, okay,
(14:08):
I get it intellectually until I'm not getting what I
really want right, even in some cases what I think
I need, And so it isn't fair. Yeah, yeah, it's
not right.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
No, it's not fair.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
It's clearly not.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Uh yeah. So again this is like the two walls,
and it's a survival tool, right, I mean, it has
to be part of the equipment we have is how
do we survive. We need to get the food, and
then it turns out to be it's food that I
find delicious, and then the ego puts it all the
way up. There has to be a special you know,
(14:44):
gluten free da da da da da kind of food
before it's good or vegan food is good. And as
we keep saying this is what I need, there's something
true in it, there's some survival in it, and yet
when the ego gets its hand on it, it becomes
a kind of fixation and I want it the way
(15:05):
I want it, like Burger king Well, make it your way.
So it's this wishing to have it my way, which
comes from initially a need to survive. We have to
get some of what we need, but as we turn
what we need into status, it becomes a kind of
(15:29):
obsessive trait where only certain things will do. So I'm
not saying that being a benion is obsessive or needing
to be gluten free. I'm just saying, as we take
survival drives and work with them, and we can manufacture
higher and higher standards for me, I need this to
(15:50):
be the way I want it to be.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
And yet it's the most natural thing in the world.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Yes, it is natural, just like not wanting to be
killed walking across the street is natural. You want to survive,
And so how do you recognize a difference between a
need and a want.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
Let's say we recognize it and we go okay, here
I am insisting that the world be the way I
want it to be, and it's not, and I'm suffering
because of it, and yet I can't seem to let go.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Well, the first thing to do is to feel the
suffering wherever you are. Feel that first, so that takes
you back to their suffering, a rising within this space,
rather than I'm grasping for this thing, because when it's
me grasping, that takes up the whole space. But when
(16:45):
we say, oh, they're suffering arising, now we can feel
that there's a part of us that can recognize suffering,
and there's a part of us that is suffering. But
we need to turn to what actually is first of all,
even if we don't like it, and that's where we
encounter our suffering and are grasping and are wishing it
(17:06):
to be otherwise. Well, I would say also that that's
kind of the first step if we want to make
change in the world. The first step is recognizing how
we're suffering with it. And so what is a genuine
need for justice, for example, and what is just our
having a tantrum about things the way.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
They are right? And I think this gets more complicated.
It's easier to see through when we go, oh, that's
just me one in another set of golf clubs. I
don't play golf. You know where these analogies are coming from.
It's just me one in another set of golf clubs,
versus saying something like, oh, I want to see justice done.
(17:48):
You know, you and I were talking about the trial
that was happening just before we came on right.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Now, Yes, the verdict.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
A lot of us have this deep desire for justice
to be done, you know. So it's easier to It's
easy for me to go, Okay, that's just me being
selfish when it's just me wanting the other thing I want.
But this gets harder when we see something out in
the world and yet the principle is still true, right
that me insisting that the world be the way I
(18:17):
think it should be is a cause of suffering.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
It's true that the insisting is and that's where we
have to see that our suffering is arising based on
this situation. Just before COVID, my suffering was for these
children who were in these border facilities, and there was
only so much I could do before COVID. During COVID,
(18:41):
I couldn't go there, but I could go there. I
could go there. I could bring my body there to
make a statement, which I did four or five times,
to go to these different facilities and to experience it
and to be making a statement. But I couldn't make
it stop. And so I had to recognize that as
part of the suffering, there was something for me to do,
(19:04):
and unless I wanted to sacrifice my life for this cause,
I could not find a way to do more. It
really came to me in terms of social justice when
I was in Spain, and when I was in Spain
was about the time that Trump was elected, and I
was talking to some of the old timers there about
(19:25):
their experience during Franco. It's like, how do you get
through this injustice. The Spanish Man said to me, you
need to survive it. So that took on a kind
of meaning to me that wherever I saw injustice, I
had to make it consistent with my ability to survive.
(19:48):
I couldn't just throw myself at it. I couldn't just
wish it away. But it's like, how do I live
my life and continue to live my life so I
can stand up for this injustice.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
This reminds me of another part of your book that
I loved, And you're quoting a Japanese philosopher and Buddhist
scholar whose name I'm not going to be able to pronounce. He'samatsusu,
all right, I did, who said there is one essential
co on in human life. When nothing will do, what
(20:34):
will you do?
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Right? So, we spend a lot of time in the
philosophy and the history of Buddhism, but I think this
statement encapsulates the life struggle we have, which is when
we can make a decision and when we can affect things,
that's not so hard. Let's just move on and let's
(20:58):
not feed the wrong wolf. However, when we don't know
what to do, then we're stuck and that's when we
have to spend some time allowing our awareness to grow
in a way until it guides us into the direction
we need to be in.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
Yeah, I just love that phrase that you know, when
nothing will do, what will you do? That really is
a great it's a great on.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Yeah, it is. It is, as he said, the essential
co on. It's like all coons come from this experience
of I don't know what to do, I don't know
how to answer this, and I just have to go
to a deep place. And that was a very interesting
experience in Japan when I did co on practice in Japan,
(21:46):
because you had to fail, and of course that wasn't
very good. I'm used to being a good student, a
good zen student, and in order to do con work
you have to go in and face the teacher and
not know and fail over and over again. Now, some
of the time I was there, I see the teacher
(22:07):
five or more times a day with what I had,
and I remember one time going to him and I
was really tired. I mean, your retreat schedule is something
like three in the morning till ten at night, and
you're doing your meditation and your co on there, so
you're tired and you're cold and you're hungry, and you
don't have any of your comforts, and so how do
(22:28):
you keep working on the nothing nothing will do? What
do I do now? So I sat waiting to go
see the teacher and have my interview, and I had nothing.
And I came in and I thought to myself, you know,
I am a bad sotos En student. And that was
(22:50):
my thought. It's like, oh, Rind's eye's where you do
the co on? So I thought to myself, I am
a bad sotos En student. And I went in to
him and I just bowed. And he looked at me
as if there was a bad smell in the room,
and he said, is that your answer? And I said yes.
(23:11):
He said no, good, and no, I was right. I'm
no good at this good moving right along and being
able to sustain oneself and not the self of I'm
good at this, but be able to continue to go
into the depth of when nothing will do? What will
(23:32):
I do? To continue with that? It takes something. And
I think that was the essential of the training that
I had in Japan, was no, you don't just bow,
you don't give up. You come up with an answer,
even though it might not be the right one do it,
So that was very powerful for me.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
My teacher is slightly more diplomatic. His usual thing is
he'll say, I think you need to sit with that
some more, which is a nice way of saying, Nope,
that's not it. You did not get it right.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
There are many ways to say no, that's not it.
And in Japan that kind of slap no good or
just ringing the bell is like putting the wall there
and you have to throw yourself against it. So it
requires a different kind of energy. And I tried doing
co on practice with some of my students here in
(24:26):
the West, and they became very anxious. And I realized
that the kind of environment that I had been in
in Japan was so intense I really didn't have any
energy left over to think or be anxious, and that
I just had to use everything I had to survive
(24:48):
and come up with an answer. So it's a lot
harder to translate the co on practice to our Western
style for the teachers. But your teach, you're restrained most
likely in the West.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
I want to pause for a quick good wolf reminder.
This one's about a habit change and a mistake I
see people making and that's really that we don't think
about these new habits that we want to add in
the context of our entire life. Right, habits don't happen
in a vacuum. They have to fit in the life
that we have. So when we just keep adding I
(25:23):
should do this, I should do that, I should do this,
we get discouraged because we haven't really thought about what
we're not going to do in order to make that happen.
So it's really helpful for you to think about where
is this going to fit and what in my life
might I need to remove. If you want to step
by step guide for how you can easily build new
habits that feed your good Wolf, go to good Wolf
(25:44):
dot me, slash change and join the free masterclass. I've
worked with another Zen teacher who is a little more perfunctory.
Give the answer and he just he just rings the
bell like Nope, that's not it.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
So since I didn't have that experience, it was a
little hard for me to translate it for my own students.
And I also recognized in the West, the kind of
environment I was providing at my Zen center was comforting,
even though it was spare, and that left a lot
(26:19):
of room for people to think and to become anxious.
So it was a different environment, and so I actually
stopped teaching the coins. My teacher in Japan wanted me
to teach the cons that I had practiced with him,
but I didn't find a way to do it.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
So let's talk a little bit about awareness. You talk
a lot about awareness throughout the book, and I want
to start by having you just share a little bit
about two aspects of awareness, or maybe let me back
up from that and allow you to sort of just
say a little bit about when you're using the word awareness,
(27:04):
what do you mean.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Actually, for me, awareness is the true self, and so
I don't remember what aspects I described of it, other
than you know, there's an aspect of light, there's an
aspect of penetration. But for example, I was just talking
to some women in a zen group I teach now,
(27:26):
and I said, you can see yourself as the entire universe.
And one woman said, I don't see that. I don't
get there. And I said, but you can with your
mind reach out to see the entire limits as far
(27:47):
as your mind will go of the universe. And if
you recognize that your breath is coming from there, the
furthest reaches of the universe, and you are made of
this breath, then you are the entire universe, and your
awareness of it is what really helps you to see that.
(28:11):
So the awareness is your connection to the entire universe.
Speaker 4 (28:15):
Yeah, the two aspects that you're talking about. You say
that there is the essence of the mind and the
contents of the mind. And I love this basic idea
because usually when we're talking about mindfulness, we're talking about
being present, and the place that we usually start is
(28:36):
with what is around right, like present to what, oh,
present to a sound, oh, present to a site. We
see the contents of our minds. Yes, and I love
the way you describe that. This essence is when we
shift from the contents of the mind, it's into what
it is that's seeing the contents. Would that be a
(28:56):
way of saying it?
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Yeah, absolutely, what I said. What I said, So, Yeah,
much of mindfulness is this kind of awareness, moment to moment.
Now I'm taking a bite of food. This is the
way they eat in a mindful retreat. Right, I'm taking
a bite now, I'm chewing it this many times. But
what is it that's aware? What is it that is aware?
(29:19):
Not only of what's in your mouth and you're chewing,
but of some other connections to the universe. What is
it that is aware? And I really experience awareness as
something that's not just part of the brain, but is,
as I was describing, part of the entire universe. So
(29:43):
awareness exists. That's the essence of awareness exists both inside
and outside and in a certain way. The mind is
an antenna for this awareness, and then the antenna this
information and we see it as content. But something is watching,
(30:07):
and that's something is very interesting. People do usually discover
that something the first time they're meditating all of a sudden,
it's not just that they're having thoughts, it's that they're
aware of having thoughts. So you don't have two brains,
so you have only one mind, and the mind has
(30:28):
this quality of observing itself. The essence of mind can
see and the contents are what it's seeing. So oftentimes
I think when describing mindfulness, we don't go far enough
into the other aspect, which is mindlessness, an essence of
(30:48):
awareness without content. Mindlessness.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
Say more about that last part mindlessness.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Well, mindlessness is I think one of the aspects of
a Samadi experience or an enlightenment experience where there's no ownership,
there's just pure awareness, and we've lost that identification with
the content of who we are, which we're usually watching
and it can be rather brief, but it's what happens
(31:19):
if we're very lucky with a meditation experience. All of
a sudden, we're just aware and we're not stuck with
this particular vision of who we are or what we're experiencing.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
You talk about four stages in developing awareness, discovery, amplification,
circulating awareness, and then finally awareness arising spontaneously. So maybe
we could walk through each of those four stages.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
So the first one is what I described for sitting
down to meditate. We never knew that there was a
quality of the mind that wasn't thinking. We thought thinking
was our entire mind, And all of a sudden, we
sit down to meditate and we're watching the thoughts arising
and it's like, whoa, there's something that is aware of
(32:32):
the content of the thoughts. And then the amplification is
how we practice, whether it be yoga, taij or zazen,
how do we practice the exercise of relating to awareness,
you know, focusing on the breath, for example. And then
(32:53):
in the next stage in circulation is about how do
we bring it into our activities. So it's not just
I'm sitting here and I'm aware of being aware, but
as I'm moving through my life, my awareness is actually active.
(33:15):
I remember when I used to cook at Berkeley's End Center.
I was a head cook for a while, and all
of a sudden, my body would turn around and I
would see somebody about to put soy sauce in the coalslaw.
It's like, no, you don't put soy sauce in the coleslaw.
But something in my awareness warned me because that was
my job. Now we turn around and we look and see, oh,
(33:39):
what is he doing over there? He's putting soy sauce
in the coal slice. That was a good idea, so
it wasn't in the recipe anyway. That is how we notice.
Sometimes I would talk to my students about when you're
walking outside, take the position of the gravel that your
foot is on, so that you're not just hearing the
(34:02):
sound of your foot on the gravel, but the gravel
itself is part of your awareness. And so that's a
way of kind of changing position and circulating that awareness.
Speaker 4 (34:14):
What you just said there reminds me of co on
practice so much, taking that different position.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Yes, letting go of thinking it through. So then, obviously
or maybe not so obvious. Obvious to me anyway, is
that when awareness is spontaneously arising in a certain way.
When I was trying to use awareness in my work
of cooking, it spontaneously arose to save the coal saw
(34:40):
from the soy sauce. It just came up and my
body turned, you know, I remember it very vividly, and
that I was standing in the opposite direction, and all
of a sudden my body turned and I saw this
horrible possibility.
Speaker 4 (34:57):
You're very opposed to soy sauce in the cult law.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
I have my opinions, yes, but people loved my Coleslaw.
So one of the things about Coleslaws it has to
be fresh. It has to have a fresh flavor. So
it's garlic, mayonnaise and mustard and whatever sal you need
to balance it, that's all. And then all those flavors,
especially during sesshin, are just very vibrant. A soy sauce
(35:23):
not so much.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
This gentleman was wishing it to be otherwise.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Well, he was a cook helper who generally, I guess,
used soy sauce in his food and thought it was
a good addition. But anyway, I was famous for my coleslaw,
so I must say I have a big ego attachment
there as well.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
So I guess we've sort of stumbled into stories about cooks.
And the title of the book, Naked in the Zendo
comes from a story that occurred to a cook. I
don't know if it was a cook at the Berkeley's end,
I think it was right, Yeah, you want to share
that story?
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Well, yes, then this was a great way to circulate awareness.
You might think you were the best cook in the
world and your coalslaw was the best coal slaw. But
then what happened when you tried to serve the food
when you had the position of being a server in
the zendo, and you had to be present for each person,
So each job required a different kind of awareness. And
(36:24):
in that particular case, I was a server assigned to
take the bowls that had come from the kitchen and
offer them and scoop or use tongs to serve the food.
And as I was standing there in the back of
the zendo, the room where we were all meditating, and
there must have been at least fifty people in there.
(36:45):
The cook came in, and in Berkeley, the cook would
make bows before the food was served, so the food
would be delivered and then the cook would step in
make his bows, as this is my offering to the community.
And this cook, when he made his third bow, his
pants fell off, and too much to his credit, he
(37:08):
was wearing underwear, because some things can go by the
bye during a long retreat, but he hadn't managed to
get underwear on that day, and so his pants fell off.
And I was standing very close to him, watching, and
so I said to myself, I didn't see that that
didn't happen, wishing it to be otherwise because I had
(37:31):
to serve the food and I didn't want to destroy
the meal ceremony. However, when I looked up at my teacher,
Sojoan mel Weizmann, he was laughing hysterically. So then I
couldn't hold it back, because Sojoan was across the room
from the man who's George whose pants fell off, so
(37:51):
he couldn't help but see. And anyway, that's his job
is to watch all of us. So then I started
laughing as I'm carrying the bulls, and I laughed so
hard everything is running down my face, my nose, my eyes.
But at some point during this I noticed that George
had left the zendo. I mean, it was kind of embarrassing,
(38:13):
so he didn't stay for the meal. He went outside.
And so when it was time for me to take
the bulls back after I'd finished my job of serving,
I saw George sitting on a bench and I said, George,
how was it for you? And what happened? And he said, well,
my pants were loose, so I took a big breath
(38:34):
so that my belly filled out my pants and they
were on snugly. But when I bowed the last time,
I exhaled, so that left room for my pants to
fall off. But I said, well, how did it feel?
He said, well, I really wanted to go up to
our teacher and say, Master, I have been enlightened. And
(38:57):
I realized, yes, of course, you're enlightened. I just did
one of the most embarrassing things you could do in
a group of people, and you live through it. And
that's when I began to understand the notion of how
much we try to look good in doing this practice.
And how important it is to make mistakes in front
(39:20):
of everyone. So then this became a teaching that I
had for my own students, which is, make your mistakes
often and publicly, and don't let your need to be
good at this constrain your freedom. Your freedom to make
mistakes and understand you just continue. Your life continues, and
(39:46):
your ego isn't growing because you just got it slapped
a little bit. So I think it's a very important
practice for those of us doing a spiritual practice in
a community. We automatically compete to be good at it
and to get it right, and so there's a point
(40:06):
where that crosses over into ego versus just I really
want to learn how to practice as a way of
amplifying my awareness.
Speaker 4 (40:14):
Yeah. Yeah, that's a funny story.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
Yeah it is.
Speaker 4 (40:17):
As I was reading this story, I was waiting to
hear about how mortified George was and what a lovely man.
Speaker 5 (40:23):
He was.
Speaker 1 (40:24):
A lovely man. In fact, before I included this story
in the book, he had deceased, and I contacted his
widow to make sure it was okay with her to
include this story in the book. Because he was such
a sweet person and a quiet person. So this wisdom
was not something we all were exposed to by his
(40:47):
blathering about it. He just sat there quietly understanding that
his ego had just been exposed and he had dropped
it with his pants. So this was a form of an.
Speaker 4 (41:01):
Let's have you tell another story for us here, and
I'm going to let you pick the story. But you
wrote a book that really was to expose we're talking
about exposing, to expose the stories of Zen women, and Buddhism,
for all its wonderful things, is a very patriarchal culture
and Zen is no different better or worse, I don't know,
(41:24):
than other aspects of Buddhism. But you wrote a book
that was really about bringing out some of the wonderful
stories of some of the women throughout Zen who have
played an important role in the tradition. And so I
was wondering if you would tell us one of their stories.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
Yes, I will, because there was one woman in particular
who's a favorite among Zen students now that we've gotten
her story out, and her name was meunce On. That
was her practice name, and she was practicing at a
temple called Hinshan and Qinshaan actually is in the ancestral
(41:58):
lineage of Tofu, where I ended up practicing. So this
when I uncovered her story through one of the Buddhist scholars,
I didn't know I was going to be affected by
her behavior. At Qingshaun. So she was one of the
senior students of a teacher named Dohway, and at that
(42:19):
time it was common for women to be excluded from monasteries,
and so the head monk was very upset with Dohuay,
his teacher, for allowing this woman to be in the
monastery with the monks. And there's all kinds of reasons.
He wasn't out of the question because the teacher who
(42:40):
uh was Dophway's teacher, actually had relationships with some of
his women's students, So this was quite some time ago. Anyway,
the monk who was upset one none, he was upset
by having a woman in the monasteries. So Dohuay said,
why don't you go talk to her rather than complain
(43:00):
to me, go complain to her. So this senior monk
went to her, and she was in her quarters, her
little retrieve room in Qingshan, and she asked him if
it was to be a dharma interview or a personal interview.
So was this going to be about Buddhist practice or
(43:21):
was it going to be something between the two of them?
And he said it was going to be an interview
about Buddhism, a dharma interview. So she said, well, because
it's a dharma interview, I'm going to send my attendance
away my helpers, and you send yours away, and we'll
just face each other one to one. And so when
(43:42):
he entered her room, he found Mensong naked and spread
eagle on her bed, and he said, what kind of
a place is this, probably pointing to her genitals with
great composure. Unzong replied, this is the place where all
Buddhas and ancestors enter the world, possibly contemplating his own
(44:04):
sexual advances. Wanan asked, and may I enter it or not?
And she said, very calmly, horses cross, asses do not.
This is a very famous phrase from another earlier teacher,
which she turned around and used on her own. This
was Joshu's response when someone came to him and said,
(44:28):
I've heard about this great bridge of Joshu, but all
I see is an O long bridge, and Joshu said,
horses cross and ass's cross. So she used Joshu's famous
zen expression for her own purpose. And then when she
said horses cross, but asses do not, she closed her
legs and turned her backside to him and said this
(44:50):
interview is over. And he left and he went to
the teacher to tell the teacher what had happened. And
the teacher said, you can't say that she lacks wisdom.
So it was a very awakened teacher. But what really
struck me, as I had studied this story for years
(45:13):
before I practiced in Japan, was that actually my teacher
was a descendant of Dahue. So the temple I was
in was part of that lineage Tofukuji in Japan. In fact,
it was built on the plans of Qingshan in China.
And when Miaotsong stayed at Qingshan in China, she stayed
(45:38):
in the abbots quarters, some section of the temple that
was a little restricted, so the monks didn't come and
go all the time, so she had some privacy. And
when I stayed at Tofukuji, I stayed in the abbots quarters,
so I could see the direct connection to her insisting
(46:01):
that she had a place there to my being able
to practice in a male monastery in Japan because of
what she had done historically, and this was a very
profound experience for me to recognize that what I was
doing by being in Japan would possibly open doors for
(46:24):
other women, and that this was very important. That what
we do for each other to conserve the practice and
make it available for others is very important, and we
do that with our own courage and our own heart
and our own intent practice.
Speaker 4 (46:41):
That's a great story. So speaking of what we do
for others and carrying this practice forward, tell me a
little bit about the Shugaku Zen Institute that you have founded.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
Suzuki Roshi's name was Shogaku shunn'ri use Suzuki, so Shogaku
is auspicious peace. I think I can't remember assuming you
something about the dragon. So what bothered me and why
I started at Showgakuzen Institute was that Zen students might
spend twenty or thirty or more years practicing in a
(47:15):
Zen monastery, and sometimes an American Zen temple would say, okay,
well now it's time for you to go, and they
had no skills. I know one story of a young
man who later went back to school and was one
of our graduates of Shogakuzin Institute who start out by
refinishing floors, and while certainly using awareness to do tasks
(47:38):
is an important part of Zen, all those hours of
meditation which could be used to listen to with a
full heart, to listen to other people and to counsel
them and to be a chaplain for example, that's the
kind of work that would also be beneficial. So in
Shogakuzen Institute we offer with as little cost as possible
(48:03):
because we do things online and don't have a brick
and mortar institute to support, and we pay the teachers
according to how many students come into the class. We
are offering classes foreign Masters of Divinity, so it's a
graduate degree. And with that and with other training, Zen
students can become chaplains or spiritual advisors, something that makes
(48:28):
a direct use of the awareness and attention that they've
developed during their practice of Zen.
Speaker 4 (48:34):
So you're basically trying to give them some sort of
credit for all the work they've done on meditating.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
Yes, so what we can do for a certain number
of units, as most universities can, is say, tell us
what classes you've had, what practice periods you've gone to.
Let the teacher who we know is an authorized in teachers,
sign up off on that class and we can give
you some credit for that, some credit for your hours
(49:05):
of meditation. And you need to take the classes you
know in Buddhist history and philosophy and so on. But
we're also trying to make the classes, for example, Buddhist history,
like the history of races in Buddhism. How has Buddhist
practice been discriminatory? Right now, we're offering a course in
psychological first aid, which we think people are going to
(49:28):
need to use. We've all been traumatized by this pandemic,
So how can we help people? If people don't have
time to go into therapy, how can we be helpful
to people? So these are the kinds of skills that
we're trying to develop so people can use the time
they've spent meditating to help in the world.
Speaker 4 (49:49):
So listener and thinking about that and all the other
great wisdom from today's episode. If you were going to
isolate just one top insight that you're taking away, what
would it be remember or little by little, a little
becomes a lot. Change happens by us repeatedly taking positive action.
And I want to give you a tip on that,
and it's to start small. It's really important when we're
(50:11):
trying to implement new habits to often start smaller than
we think we need to because what that does is
it allows us to get victories. And victories are really
important because we become more motivated when we're feeling good
about ourselves, and we become less motivated when we're feeling
bad about ourselves. So by starting small and making sure
that you succeed, you build your motivation for further change
(50:35):
down the road. If you'd like a step by step
guide for how you can easily build new habits that
feed your good Wolf, go to Goodwolf dot me, slash
change and join the free masterclass. Well, Grace, thank you
so much for taking the time to come on the show.
It has been a real pleasure to chat with you,
and I really appreciate everything you shared with us. We'll
have links in the show notes to your website and
(50:58):
to your books and other ways that people can find
you terrific.
Speaker 1 (51:01):
Thank you for having me, and it's been great to
talk to you. I'm going to see someone who has
read my book and actually understood some things that I'd forgotten.
Speaker 4 (51:09):
I did read it and I loved it. Thank you
so much.
Speaker 5 (51:11):
Okay, bye bye.
Speaker 2 (51:29):
If what you just heard was helpful to you, please
consider making a monthly donation to support the One you
Feed podcast. When you join our membership community. With this
monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members only benefits.
It's our way of saying thank you for your support now.
We are so grateful for the members of our community.
We wouldn't be able to do what we do without
(51:50):
their support, and we don't take a single dollar for granted.
To learn more, make a donation at any level and
become a member of the one you Feed community, go
to one you feed dot net slash join the One
You Feed podcast. Would like to sincerely thank our sponsors
for supporting the show.
How we look for that space around situations. The possibility
that it could be different is a very important way
of turning away from whatever we're hung up with into
the possibility of change.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers
have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
think ring true. And yet for many of us, our
thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
(00:43):
have instead of what we do. We think things that
hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
the right direction.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
How they feed their good wolf. We hope you'll enjoy
this episode from the archive.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is
Grace Sheerson, president of the Shogaku Zen Institute and a
clinical psychologist. Grace received her or doctorate in clinical psychology
at the Right Institute in Berkeley, California, and founded two
practice centers and a retreat center under the Central Valley
Zen Foundation. Today, Grace and Eric discuss her book Naked
(01:42):
in the Zendo Stories of uptide Zen, Wild ass Zen,
and Enlightenment Wherever you are.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Hi, Grace, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Well, thank you, thank you for having me.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
It is a real pleasure to have you on. We're
going to be discussing your book, which is called Naked
in the Zendo of uptight Zen, Wild ass Zen, and
Enlightenment Wherever you are. But before we do that, we're
going to start, like we always do, with a parable.
In the parable, there's a grandmother who's talking with her
(02:12):
granddaughter and she says, in life, there are two wolves
inside of us that are always at battle. One is
a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery
and love, and the other's a bad wolf, which represents
things like greed and hatred and fear. And the granddaughter
stops and she thinks about it for a second, and
she looks up at her grandmother and she says, well, grandmother,
(02:32):
which one wins? And the grandmother says, the one you feed.
So I'd like to start off by asking you what
that parable means to you in your life and in
the work that you do.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
I think the most important part of that parable is
feeling or seeing or being in touch with what actually
is going on in your mind. My teacher in Japan
used to say, what's the most important thing. It's watching
your mind and or the emotions in your body. So,
(03:04):
for example, anger can be very exciting in your body,
and if you don't recognize that wolf for one that
needs to calm down a bit, then it's impossible not
to feed it because you need to know it when
it arises. So for me, the most important step in
knowing which wolf to feed is knowing yourself and being
(03:27):
honest with yourself and watching your own mind.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
That's a great way to start. You've got a bunch
of lines in this book that I thought were so great,
But the one where I wanted to start was you
say that exposing the egos cover up is the task
of spiritual practice. Say a little bit more about that.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Right, So, the book Naked in the Zendo really isn't
so much about taking off your clothes, although we do
have one example of that in a chapter accidental pants
falling off in the Zendo, which made me think about it.
But one of the things that we notice as we're
watching these wolves is that we want to get good
(04:09):
at doing meditation. We want to be good at practice.
We want to be the best one in the zendo. Actually,
and if that's a wolf, we need to watch because
it has its disguises and it can look like sitting
in a perfect posture or learning the chance perfectly correcting
(04:31):
other people. But really it's about the ego, and we
need to be able to use practice to see even
how the ego gets in there to steal our spiritual practice.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
Yeah, I love that listener. As you're listening, what resonated
with you in that? I think a lot of us
have some ideas of things that we can do to
feed our good wolf. And here's a good tip to
make it more likely that you do it. It can
be really helpful to reflect right before you do that
thing on why you want to do it. Our brains
are always making a calculation of what neuroscientists would call
(05:06):
reward value. Basically, is this thing worth doing? And so
when you're getting ready to do this thing that you
want to do to feed your good wolf, reflecting on
why actually helps to make the reward value on that
higher and makes it more likely that you're going to
do that. For example, if what you're trying to do
is exercise, right before you're getting ready to exercise, it
(05:26):
can be useful to remind yourself of why, for example,
I want to exercise because it makes my mental and
emotional health better today. If you'd like a step by
step guide for how you can easily build new habits
that feed your good Wolf, go to Goodwolf dot me,
slash change and join the free masterclass. It is astounding
(05:47):
the way it shows up everywhere, isn't it? And you
talk a lot about that in the book, and I
really appreciated that about how much we are trying to
do it right. You make a nice job of showing
this because I think that trying to do it right
comes from two motivations. Right, there is a genuine motivation
of like my spiritual practice matters, the world matters. I
(06:09):
want to show up and I want to contribute the
best I can. And then there's the ego side of it.
I want to be seen as being good. I want
to be seen as doing.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
It right right.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Yes, there are those two sides to most everything we do.
Like the two wolves you speak of and when people
ask me, for example, when they're getting ready to give
us one of their first spiritual talks in the Zendo
away seeking mind talk, they ask me, you know what
they should say or how should it be? And I say,
be helpful, don't be good at it. Do something that's
(06:46):
helpful to other people. Give them something that will help them.
But if you try to be good at it, that's
what's going to show up your selfishness.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
That's really good advice. There's another line that you use
where you're also talking about spiritual practice. You say, spiritual practice,
however it develops, provides ways to see ourselves in a
larger context.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Right. So, one of the things I realize, because I'm
tall and because I have a lot to say, is
that I can be rather dominant in a situation. And
at some point when I was practicing, I realized, wait
a minute, I am just a vegetable in this soup
that's offering some flavoring. I don't want to overwhelm it.
(07:34):
How can I keep practicing to be that vegetable in
the soup and be aware of being in the soup
of all these people and be useful and not stand
out as outstanding.
Speaker 4 (07:49):
Right, This idea of seeing ourselves in a larger context
is really so important. It's this ability to take some
perspective that is bigger than our our own. I've got
a program I teach called spiritual habits, and we talk
about that in this we talk about you know, perspective,
and the idea is that the bigger our perspective is
(08:10):
generally the better.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Yes, Because in that perspective, if we can only see
ourselves and not the surrounding environment that we're in, we
are stuck with ourselves in a particular way. There's no
room to turn, so to speak. So for example, if
we say pride is arising, there's a context around which
(08:37):
this emotion, this negative feature is arising. But if we
say I am proud, that takes up the whole context,
and we don't see the movement that we are within
awareness and something is arising within that awareness, but it
isn't me. I am the awareness, I am the context.
(09:00):
And these things arise and they fall away. But if
we keep emphasizing I am proud or I am smart,
rather than my pride is arising, there's no room for
it to move. We're only reinforcing these feelings of pride. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
I like the way of thinking of that as that
bigger perspective gives us room to move, to turn around,
to look to see it from different angles. You've got
a balloon that's filling up the entire box.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
You can't.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
I don't know why I chose a balloon in a box, but.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Well, it's not you. Whatever it is, it's not you.
It's a balloon in a box and it's filling it up.
And that's what we need to see. So it's really
important to see our existence within this large space of awareness.
And this is something that Joke go Back emphasized in
her teaching a bigger content. Otherwise our ego just keeps
(10:03):
growing to fill that space like the balloon.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
Yeah, you mentioned that teaching from her, and you also
mentioned one of my favorite sort of spiritual analogies ever,
which is this idea of you know, if we take
a tablespoon of salt and we drop it in this
little eight ounce glass of water I have, it's gonna
taste pretty bad. But if we drop that same tablespoon
(10:27):
of salt in a gallon of water, well, okay, it's
not gonna be great. But okay, if I dump it
in a fifty five gallon drum, I'm not gonna taste it, yeah,
you know. And it's that idea of the same amount
of pain, the same amount of salt, the same amount
of problem. If it's in a bigger container, doesn't feel
the same way, doesn't taste the same way, right.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
You know. There's a toy that I used to get
in Chinatown, and you would put your finger in a
woven tube, one finger in each end, and if you
pulled it, it would become tighter and tighter. And it's
like that that as we pull and struggle with whatever
(11:10):
is on our minds, it becomes tighter, and if we relax,
it's easy to remove it from the fingers, you know,
it becomes looser, and we want that spaciousness, that looseness
so we can actually see we don't have to do
this right right.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
That always reminds me of the story of I've never
verified if this is true, but sooner or later somebody's
be like, that is not true. But the way that
they used to capture monkeys, they would put sweets inside
a coconut. The monkey would put his hand in and
then he would grab the sweets and once he made
that fist, he couldn't get his fist back out, you know.
And if the monkey just let go, yeah, the hand
(11:50):
comes out, you know. Same thing with those Chinese finger traps.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Yes, yes, both of those are lessons in how we
make ourselves miserable by grabbing onto something and insisting that
has to be this way. How we look for that
space around situations. The possibility that it could be different,
that there's something else is a very important way of
(12:15):
turning away from whatever we're hung up with into the
possibility of change.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
Yeah, you have a phrase that you use in the
book that is really good and that you say is
really the root cause of suffering or a you know,
one of the big root causes of suffering, which is
wishing it to be otherwise or witbo. We could probably
spend the rest of the episode on witbo and dealing
with it, but share a little bit more about what
(12:43):
that is, and then let's maybe talk about some strategies
for working with it.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Right, So, when something happens, we wanted to come out
the way we wanted to come out, and unfortunately the
universe doesn't work that way. Sometimes it comes out the
way we wanted to and sometimes it doesn't. But if
we set our mind when something happens on this idea, No,
I wanted the other thing. I wanted it to be
(13:09):
this way. If we set our mind on that, it
is a formula for suffering. Because I often would say
to my students, now, let's examine the situation. Is your
wish true or is reality true? And reality always trumps
whatever it is you want, So we have to go
(13:30):
with reality and not wish it to be another way. First,
what way is it? And let's try to take that in.
That doesn't mean we are going to try to change it,
but we need to start there.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
Yeah, this, I think is such a profound teaching. We
can all recognize this fairly intellectually that like, okay, well, yeah,
it's me resisting the way things are that causes me
to suffer. Right, it's sort of a rephrasing of the
second Noble Truth in some way. And yet boy, it's
so wired into us, and it's really easy to say, well, okay,
(14:08):
I get it intellectually until I'm not getting what I
really want right, even in some cases what I think
I need, And so it isn't fair. Yeah, yeah, it's
not right.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
No, it's not fair.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
It's clearly not.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Uh yeah. So again this is like the two walls,
and it's a survival tool, right, I mean, it has
to be part of the equipment we have is how
do we survive. We need to get the food, and
then it turns out to be it's food that I
find delicious, and then the ego puts it all the
way up. There has to be a special you know,
(14:44):
gluten free da da da da da kind of food
before it's good or vegan food is good. And as
we keep saying this is what I need, there's something
true in it, there's some survival in it, and yet
when the ego gets its hand on it, it becomes
a kind of fixation and I want it the way
(15:05):
I want it, like Burger king Well, make it your way.
So it's this wishing to have it my way, which
comes from initially a need to survive. We have to
get some of what we need, but as we turn
what we need into status, it becomes a kind of
(15:29):
obsessive trait where only certain things will do. So I'm
not saying that being a benion is obsessive or needing
to be gluten free. I'm just saying, as we take
survival drives and work with them, and we can manufacture
higher and higher standards for me, I need this to
(15:50):
be the way I want it to be.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
And yet it's the most natural thing in the world.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Yes, it is natural, just like not wanting to be
killed walking across the street is natural. You want to survive,
And so how do you recognize a difference between a
need and a want.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
Let's say we recognize it and we go okay, here
I am insisting that the world be the way I
want it to be, and it's not, and I'm suffering
because of it, and yet I can't seem to let go.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Well, the first thing to do is to feel the
suffering wherever you are. Feel that first, so that takes
you back to their suffering, a rising within this space,
rather than I'm grasping for this thing, because when it's
me grasping, that takes up the whole space. But when
(16:45):
we say, oh, they're suffering arising, now we can feel
that there's a part of us that can recognize suffering,
and there's a part of us that is suffering. But
we need to turn to what actually is first of all,
even if we don't like it, and that's where we
encounter our suffering and are grasping and are wishing it
(17:06):
to be otherwise. Well, I would say also that that's
kind of the first step if we want to make
change in the world. The first step is recognizing how
we're suffering with it. And so what is a genuine
need for justice, for example, and what is just our
having a tantrum about things the way.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
They are right? And I think this gets more complicated.
It's easier to see through when we go, oh, that's
just me one in another set of golf clubs. I
don't play golf. You know where these analogies are coming from.
It's just me one in another set of golf clubs,
versus saying something like, oh, I want to see justice done.
(17:48):
You know, you and I were talking about the trial
that was happening just before we came on right.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Now, Yes, the verdict.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
A lot of us have this deep desire for justice
to be done, you know. So it's easier to It's
easy for me to go, Okay, that's just me being
selfish when it's just me wanting the other thing I want.
But this gets harder when we see something out in
the world and yet the principle is still true, right
that me insisting that the world be the way I
(18:17):
think it should be is a cause of suffering.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
It's true that the insisting is and that's where we
have to see that our suffering is arising based on
this situation. Just before COVID, my suffering was for these
children who were in these border facilities, and there was
only so much I could do before COVID. During COVID,
(18:41):
I couldn't go there, but I could go there. I
could go there. I could bring my body there to
make a statement, which I did four or five times,
to go to these different facilities and to experience it
and to be making a statement. But I couldn't make
it stop. And so I had to recognize that as
part of the suffering, there was something for me to do,
(19:04):
and unless I wanted to sacrifice my life for this cause,
I could not find a way to do more. It
really came to me in terms of social justice when
I was in Spain, and when I was in Spain
was about the time that Trump was elected, and I
was talking to some of the old timers there about
(19:25):
their experience during Franco. It's like, how do you get
through this injustice. The Spanish Man said to me, you
need to survive it. So that took on a kind
of meaning to me that wherever I saw injustice, I
had to make it consistent with my ability to survive.
(19:48):
I couldn't just throw myself at it. I couldn't just
wish it away. But it's like, how do I live
my life and continue to live my life so I
can stand up for this injustice.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
This reminds me of another part of your book that
I loved, And you're quoting a Japanese philosopher and Buddhist
scholar whose name I'm not going to be able to pronounce. He'samatsusu,
all right, I did, who said there is one essential
co on in human life. When nothing will do, what
(20:34):
will you do?
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Right? So, we spend a lot of time in the
philosophy and the history of Buddhism, but I think this
statement encapsulates the life struggle we have, which is when
we can make a decision and when we can affect things,
that's not so hard. Let's just move on and let's
(20:58):
not feed the wrong wolf. However, when we don't know
what to do, then we're stuck and that's when we
have to spend some time allowing our awareness to grow
in a way until it guides us into the direction
we need to be in.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
Yeah, I just love that phrase that you know, when
nothing will do, what will you do? That really is
a great it's a great on.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Yeah, it is. It is, as he said, the essential
co on. It's like all coons come from this experience
of I don't know what to do, I don't know
how to answer this, and I just have to go
to a deep place. And that was a very interesting
experience in Japan when I did co on practice in Japan,
(21:46):
because you had to fail, and of course that wasn't
very good. I'm used to being a good student, a
good zen student, and in order to do con work
you have to go in and face the teacher and
not know and fail over and over again. Now, some
of the time I was there, I see the teacher
(22:07):
five or more times a day with what I had,
and I remember one time going to him and I
was really tired. I mean, your retreat schedule is something
like three in the morning till ten at night, and
you're doing your meditation and your co on there, so
you're tired and you're cold and you're hungry, and you
don't have any of your comforts, and so how do
(22:28):
you keep working on the nothing nothing will do? What
do I do now? So I sat waiting to go
see the teacher and have my interview, and I had nothing.
And I came in and I thought to myself, you know,
I am a bad sotos En student. And that was
(22:50):
my thought. It's like, oh, Rind's eye's where you do
the co on? So I thought to myself, I am
a bad sotos En student. And I went in to
him and I just bowed. And he looked at me
as if there was a bad smell in the room,
and he said, is that your answer? And I said yes.
(23:11):
He said no, good, and no, I was right. I'm
no good at this good moving right along and being
able to sustain oneself and not the self of I'm
good at this, but be able to continue to go
into the depth of when nothing will do? What will
(23:32):
I do? To continue with that? It takes something. And
I think that was the essential of the training that
I had in Japan, was no, you don't just bow,
you don't give up. You come up with an answer,
even though it might not be the right one do it,
So that was very powerful for me.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
My teacher is slightly more diplomatic. His usual thing is
he'll say, I think you need to sit with that
some more, which is a nice way of saying, Nope,
that's not it. You did not get it right.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
There are many ways to say no, that's not it.
And in Japan that kind of slap no good or
just ringing the bell is like putting the wall there
and you have to throw yourself against it. So it
requires a different kind of energy. And I tried doing
co on practice with some of my students here in
(24:26):
the West, and they became very anxious. And I realized
that the kind of environment that I had been in
in Japan was so intense I really didn't have any
energy left over to think or be anxious, and that
I just had to use everything I had to survive
(24:48):
and come up with an answer. So it's a lot
harder to translate the co on practice to our Western
style for the teachers. But your teach, you're restrained most
likely in the West.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
I want to pause for a quick good wolf reminder.
This one's about a habit change and a mistake I
see people making and that's really that we don't think
about these new habits that we want to add in
the context of our entire life. Right, habits don't happen
in a vacuum. They have to fit in the life
that we have. So when we just keep adding I
(25:23):
should do this, I should do that, I should do this,
we get discouraged because we haven't really thought about what
we're not going to do in order to make that happen.
So it's really helpful for you to think about where
is this going to fit and what in my life
might I need to remove. If you want to step
by step guide for how you can easily build new
habits that feed your good Wolf, go to good Wolf
(25:44):
dot me, slash change and join the free masterclass. I've
worked with another Zen teacher who is a little more perfunctory.
Give the answer and he just he just rings the
bell like Nope, that's not it.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
So since I didn't have that experience, it was a
little hard for me to translate it for my own students.
And I also recognized in the West, the kind of
environment I was providing at my Zen center was comforting,
even though it was spare, and that left a lot
(26:19):
of room for people to think and to become anxious.
So it was a different environment, and so I actually
stopped teaching the coins. My teacher in Japan wanted me
to teach the cons that I had practiced with him,
but I didn't find a way to do it.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
So let's talk a little bit about awareness. You talk
a lot about awareness throughout the book, and I want
to start by having you just share a little bit
about two aspects of awareness, or maybe let me back
up from that and allow you to sort of just
say a little bit about when you're using the word awareness,
(27:04):
what do you mean.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Actually, for me, awareness is the true self, and so
I don't remember what aspects I described of it, other
than you know, there's an aspect of light, there's an
aspect of penetration. But for example, I was just talking
to some women in a zen group I teach now,
(27:26):
and I said, you can see yourself as the entire universe.
And one woman said, I don't see that. I don't
get there. And I said, but you can with your
mind reach out to see the entire limits as far
(27:47):
as your mind will go of the universe. And if
you recognize that your breath is coming from there, the
furthest reaches of the universe, and you are made of
this breath, then you are the entire universe, and your
awareness of it is what really helps you to see that.
(28:11):
So the awareness is your connection to the entire universe.
Speaker 4 (28:15):
Yeah, the two aspects that you're talking about. You say
that there is the essence of the mind and the
contents of the mind. And I love this basic idea
because usually when we're talking about mindfulness, we're talking about
being present, and the place that we usually start is
(28:36):
with what is around right, like present to what, oh,
present to a sound, oh, present to a site. We
see the contents of our minds. Yes, and I love
the way you describe that. This essence is when we
shift from the contents of the mind, it's into what
it is that's seeing the contents. Would that be a
(28:56):
way of saying it?
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Yeah, absolutely, what I said. What I said, So, Yeah,
much of mindfulness is this kind of awareness, moment to moment.
Now I'm taking a bite of food. This is the
way they eat in a mindful retreat. Right, I'm taking
a bite now, I'm chewing it this many times. But
what is it that's aware? What is it that is aware?
(29:19):
Not only of what's in your mouth and you're chewing,
but of some other connections to the universe. What is
it that is aware? And I really experience awareness as
something that's not just part of the brain, but is,
as I was describing, part of the entire universe. So
(29:43):
awareness exists. That's the essence of awareness exists both inside
and outside and in a certain way. The mind is
an antenna for this awareness, and then the antenna this
information and we see it as content. But something is watching,
(30:07):
and that's something is very interesting. People do usually discover
that something the first time they're meditating all of a sudden,
it's not just that they're having thoughts, it's that they're
aware of having thoughts. So you don't have two brains,
so you have only one mind, and the mind has
(30:28):
this quality of observing itself. The essence of mind can
see and the contents are what it's seeing. So oftentimes
I think when describing mindfulness, we don't go far enough
into the other aspect, which is mindlessness, an essence of
(30:48):
awareness without content. Mindlessness.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
Say more about that last part mindlessness.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Well, mindlessness is I think one of the aspects of
a Samadi experience or an enlightenment experience where there's no ownership,
there's just pure awareness, and we've lost that identification with
the content of who we are, which we're usually watching
and it can be rather brief, but it's what happens
(31:19):
if we're very lucky with a meditation experience. All of
a sudden, we're just aware and we're not stuck with
this particular vision of who we are or what we're experiencing.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
You talk about four stages in developing awareness, discovery, amplification,
circulating awareness, and then finally awareness arising spontaneously. So maybe
we could walk through each of those four stages.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
So the first one is what I described for sitting
down to meditate. We never knew that there was a
quality of the mind that wasn't thinking. We thought thinking
was our entire mind, And all of a sudden, we
sit down to meditate and we're watching the thoughts arising
and it's like, whoa, there's something that is aware of
(32:32):
the content of the thoughts. And then the amplification is
how we practice, whether it be yoga, taij or zazen,
how do we practice the exercise of relating to awareness,
you know, focusing on the breath, for example. And then
(32:53):
in the next stage in circulation is about how do
we bring it into our activities. So it's not just
I'm sitting here and I'm aware of being aware, but
as I'm moving through my life, my awareness is actually active.
(33:15):
I remember when I used to cook at Berkeley's End Center.
I was a head cook for a while, and all
of a sudden, my body would turn around and I
would see somebody about to put soy sauce in the coalslaw.
It's like, no, you don't put soy sauce in the coleslaw.
But something in my awareness warned me because that was
my job. Now we turn around and we look and see, oh,
(33:39):
what is he doing over there? He's putting soy sauce
in the coal slice. That was a good idea, so
it wasn't in the recipe anyway. That is how we notice.
Sometimes I would talk to my students about when you're
walking outside, take the position of the gravel that your
foot is on, so that you're not just hearing the
(34:02):
sound of your foot on the gravel, but the gravel
itself is part of your awareness. And so that's a
way of kind of changing position and circulating that awareness.
Speaker 4 (34:14):
What you just said there reminds me of co on
practice so much, taking that different position.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Yes, letting go of thinking it through. So then, obviously
or maybe not so obvious. Obvious to me anyway, is
that when awareness is spontaneously arising in a certain way.
When I was trying to use awareness in my work
of cooking, it spontaneously arose to save the coal saw
(34:40):
from the soy sauce. It just came up and my
body turned, you know, I remember it very vividly, and
that I was standing in the opposite direction, and all
of a sudden my body turned and I saw this
horrible possibility.
Speaker 4 (34:57):
You're very opposed to soy sauce in the cult law.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
I have my opinions, yes, but people loved my Coleslaw.
So one of the things about Coleslaws it has to
be fresh. It has to have a fresh flavor. So
it's garlic, mayonnaise and mustard and whatever sal you need
to balance it, that's all. And then all those flavors,
especially during sesshin, are just very vibrant. A soy sauce
(35:23):
not so much.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
This gentleman was wishing it to be otherwise.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Well, he was a cook helper who generally, I guess,
used soy sauce in his food and thought it was
a good addition. But anyway, I was famous for my coleslaw,
so I must say I have a big ego attachment
there as well.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
So I guess we've sort of stumbled into stories about cooks.
And the title of the book, Naked in the Zendo
comes from a story that occurred to a cook. I
don't know if it was a cook at the Berkeley's end,
I think it was right, Yeah, you want to share
that story?
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Well, yes, then this was a great way to circulate awareness.
You might think you were the best cook in the
world and your coalslaw was the best coal slaw. But
then what happened when you tried to serve the food
when you had the position of being a server in
the zendo, and you had to be present for each person,
So each job required a different kind of awareness. And
(36:24):
in that particular case, I was a server assigned to
take the bowls that had come from the kitchen and
offer them and scoop or use tongs to serve the food.
And as I was standing there in the back of
the zendo, the room where we were all meditating, and
there must have been at least fifty people in there.
(36:45):
The cook came in, and in Berkeley, the cook would
make bows before the food was served, so the food
would be delivered and then the cook would step in
make his bows, as this is my offering to the community.
And this cook, when he made his third bow, his
pants fell off, and too much to his credit, he
(37:08):
was wearing underwear, because some things can go by the
bye during a long retreat, but he hadn't managed to
get underwear on that day, and so his pants fell off.
And I was standing very close to him, watching, and
so I said to myself, I didn't see that that
didn't happen, wishing it to be otherwise because I had
(37:31):
to serve the food and I didn't want to destroy
the meal ceremony. However, when I looked up at my teacher,
Sojoan mel Weizmann, he was laughing hysterically. So then I
couldn't hold it back, because Sojoan was across the room
from the man who's George whose pants fell off, so
(37:51):
he couldn't help but see. And anyway, that's his job
is to watch all of us. So then I started
laughing as I'm carrying the bulls, and I laughed so
hard everything is running down my face, my nose, my eyes.
But at some point during this I noticed that George
had left the zendo. I mean, it was kind of embarrassing,
(38:13):
so he didn't stay for the meal. He went outside.
And so when it was time for me to take
the bulls back after I'd finished my job of serving,
I saw George sitting on a bench and I said, George,
how was it for you? And what happened? And he said, well,
my pants were loose, so I took a big breath
(38:34):
so that my belly filled out my pants and they
were on snugly. But when I bowed the last time,
I exhaled, so that left room for my pants to
fall off. But I said, well, how did it feel?
He said, well, I really wanted to go up to
our teacher and say, Master, I have been enlightened. And
(38:57):
I realized, yes, of course, you're enlightened. I just did
one of the most embarrassing things you could do in
a group of people, and you live through it. And
that's when I began to understand the notion of how
much we try to look good in doing this practice.
And how important it is to make mistakes in front
(39:20):
of everyone. So then this became a teaching that I
had for my own students, which is, make your mistakes
often and publicly, and don't let your need to be
good at this constrain your freedom. Your freedom to make
mistakes and understand you just continue. Your life continues, and
(39:46):
your ego isn't growing because you just got it slapped
a little bit. So I think it's a very important
practice for those of us doing a spiritual practice in
a community. We automatically compete to be good at it
and to get it right, and so there's a point
(40:06):
where that crosses over into ego versus just I really
want to learn how to practice as a way of
amplifying my awareness.
Speaker 4 (40:14):
Yeah. Yeah, that's a funny story.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
Yeah it is.
Speaker 4 (40:17):
As I was reading this story, I was waiting to
hear about how mortified George was and what a lovely man.
Speaker 5 (40:23):
He was.
Speaker 1 (40:24):
A lovely man. In fact, before I included this story
in the book, he had deceased, and I contacted his
widow to make sure it was okay with her to
include this story in the book. Because he was such
a sweet person and a quiet person. So this wisdom
was not something we all were exposed to by his
(40:47):
blathering about it. He just sat there quietly understanding that
his ego had just been exposed and he had dropped
it with his pants. So this was a form of an.
Speaker 4 (41:01):
Let's have you tell another story for us here, and
I'm going to let you pick the story. But you
wrote a book that really was to expose we're talking
about exposing, to expose the stories of Zen women, and Buddhism,
for all its wonderful things, is a very patriarchal culture
and Zen is no different better or worse, I don't know,
(41:24):
than other aspects of Buddhism. But you wrote a book
that was really about bringing out some of the wonderful
stories of some of the women throughout Zen who have
played an important role in the tradition. And so I
was wondering if you would tell us one of their stories.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
Yes, I will, because there was one woman in particular
who's a favorite among Zen students now that we've gotten
her story out, and her name was meunce On. That
was her practice name, and she was practicing at a
temple called Hinshan and Qinshaan actually is in the ancestral
(41:58):
lineage of Tofu, where I ended up practicing. So this
when I uncovered her story through one of the Buddhist scholars,
I didn't know I was going to be affected by
her behavior. At Qingshaun. So she was one of the
senior students of a teacher named Dohway, and at that
(42:19):
time it was common for women to be excluded from monasteries,
and so the head monk was very upset with Dohuay,
his teacher, for allowing this woman to be in the
monastery with the monks. And there's all kinds of reasons.
He wasn't out of the question because the teacher who
(42:40):
uh was Dophway's teacher, actually had relationships with some of
his women's students, So this was quite some time ago. Anyway,
the monk who was upset one none, he was upset
by having a woman in the monasteries. So Dohuay said,
why don't you go talk to her rather than complain
(43:00):
to me, go complain to her. So this senior monk
went to her, and she was in her quarters, her
little retrieve room in Qingshan, and she asked him if
it was to be a dharma interview or a personal interview.
So was this going to be about Buddhist practice or
(43:21):
was it going to be something between the two of them?
And he said it was going to be an interview
about Buddhism, a dharma interview. So she said, well, because
it's a dharma interview, I'm going to send my attendance
away my helpers, and you send yours away, and we'll
just face each other one to one. And so when
(43:42):
he entered her room, he found Mensong naked and spread
eagle on her bed, and he said, what kind of
a place is this, probably pointing to her genitals with
great composure. Unzong replied, this is the place where all
Buddhas and ancestors enter the world, possibly contemplating his own
(44:04):
sexual advances. Wanan asked, and may I enter it or not?
And she said, very calmly, horses cross, asses do not.
This is a very famous phrase from another earlier teacher,
which she turned around and used on her own. This
was Joshu's response when someone came to him and said,
(44:28):
I've heard about this great bridge of Joshu, but all
I see is an O long bridge, and Joshu said,
horses cross and ass's cross. So she used Joshu's famous
zen expression for her own purpose. And then when she
said horses cross, but asses do not, she closed her
legs and turned her backside to him and said this
(44:50):
interview is over. And he left and he went to
the teacher to tell the teacher what had happened. And
the teacher said, you can't say that she lacks wisdom.
So it was a very awakened teacher. But what really
struck me, as I had studied this story for years
(45:13):
before I practiced in Japan, was that actually my teacher
was a descendant of Dahue. So the temple I was
in was part of that lineage Tofukuji in Japan. In fact,
it was built on the plans of Qingshan in China.
And when Miaotsong stayed at Qingshan in China, she stayed
(45:38):
in the abbots quarters, some section of the temple that
was a little restricted, so the monks didn't come and
go all the time, so she had some privacy. And
when I stayed at Tofukuji, I stayed in the abbots quarters,
so I could see the direct connection to her insisting
(46:01):
that she had a place there to my being able
to practice in a male monastery in Japan because of
what she had done historically, and this was a very
profound experience for me to recognize that what I was
doing by being in Japan would possibly open doors for
(46:24):
other women, and that this was very important. That what
we do for each other to conserve the practice and
make it available for others is very important, and we
do that with our own courage and our own heart
and our own intent practice.
Speaker 4 (46:41):
That's a great story. So speaking of what we do
for others and carrying this practice forward, tell me a
little bit about the Shugaku Zen Institute that you have founded.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
Suzuki Roshi's name was Shogaku shunn'ri use Suzuki, so Shogaku
is auspicious peace. I think I can't remember assuming you
something about the dragon. So what bothered me and why
I started at Showgakuzen Institute was that Zen students might
spend twenty or thirty or more years practicing in a
(47:15):
Zen monastery, and sometimes an American Zen temple would say, okay,
well now it's time for you to go, and they
had no skills. I know one story of a young
man who later went back to school and was one
of our graduates of Shogakuzin Institute who start out by
refinishing floors, and while certainly using awareness to do tasks
(47:38):
is an important part of Zen, all those hours of
meditation which could be used to listen to with a
full heart, to listen to other people and to counsel
them and to be a chaplain for example, that's the
kind of work that would also be beneficial. So in
Shogakuzen Institute we offer with as little cost as possible
(48:03):
because we do things online and don't have a brick
and mortar institute to support, and we pay the teachers
according to how many students come into the class. We
are offering classes foreign Masters of Divinity, so it's a
graduate degree. And with that and with other training, Zen
students can become chaplains or spiritual advisors, something that makes
(48:28):
a direct use of the awareness and attention that they've
developed during their practice of Zen.
Speaker 4 (48:34):
So you're basically trying to give them some sort of
credit for all the work they've done on meditating.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
Yes, so what we can do for a certain number
of units, as most universities can, is say, tell us
what classes you've had, what practice periods you've gone to.
Let the teacher who we know is an authorized in teachers,
sign up off on that class and we can give
you some credit for that, some credit for your hours
(49:05):
of meditation. And you need to take the classes you
know in Buddhist history and philosophy and so on. But
we're also trying to make the classes, for example, Buddhist history,
like the history of races in Buddhism. How has Buddhist
practice been discriminatory? Right now, we're offering a course in
psychological first aid, which we think people are going to
(49:28):
need to use. We've all been traumatized by this pandemic,
So how can we help people? If people don't have
time to go into therapy, how can we be helpful
to people? So these are the kinds of skills that
we're trying to develop so people can use the time
they've spent meditating to help in the world.
Speaker 4 (49:49):
So listener and thinking about that and all the other
great wisdom from today's episode. If you were going to
isolate just one top insight that you're taking away, what
would it be remember or little by little, a little
becomes a lot. Change happens by us repeatedly taking positive action.
And I want to give you a tip on that,
and it's to start small. It's really important when we're
(50:11):
trying to implement new habits to often start smaller than
we think we need to because what that does is
it allows us to get victories. And victories are really
important because we become more motivated when we're feeling good
about ourselves, and we become less motivated when we're feeling
bad about ourselves. So by starting small and making sure
that you succeed, you build your motivation for further change
(50:35):
down the road. If you'd like a step by step
guide for how you can easily build new habits that
feed your good Wolf, go to Goodwolf dot me, slash
change and join the free masterclass. Well, Grace, thank you
so much for taking the time to come on the show.
It has been a real pleasure to chat with you,
and I really appreciate everything you shared with us. We'll
have links in the show notes to your website and
(50:58):
to your books and other ways that people can find
you terrific.
Speaker 1 (51:01):
Thank you for having me, and it's been great to
talk to you. I'm going to see someone who has
read my book and actually understood some things that I'd forgotten.
Speaker 4 (51:09):
I did read it and I loved it. Thank you
so much.
Speaker 5 (51:11):
Okay, bye bye.
Speaker 2 (51:29):
If what you just heard was helpful to you, please
consider making a monthly donation to support the One you
Feed podcast. When you join our membership community. With this
monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members only benefits.
It's our way of saying thank you for your support now.
We are so grateful for the members of our community.
We wouldn't be able to do what we do without
(51:50):
their support, and we don't take a single dollar for granted.
To learn more, make a donation at any level and
become a member of the one you Feed community, go
to one you feed dot net slash join the One
You Feed podcast. Would like to sincerely thank our sponsors
for supporting the show.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.