June 27, 2025 • 52 mins
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What happens when we numb ourselves to life's subtle symphony, constantly seeking louder experiences? This question forms the heart of our exploration into numbness—a concept that emerged from a casual conversation after Sunday service but quickly revealed itself as fundamental to understanding human suffering and awakening.
Numbness takes many forms in our lives. Sometimes we use substances to escape pain, moving from suffering toward a perceived "normal" state. Other times, we seek stimulation to elevate ourselves from boredom, chasing dopamine hits through increasingly intense experiences. Both paths lead away from genuine presence. As we discuss in this episode, self-harm can serve similar purposes—either escaping overwhelming emotions or creating physical sensation when emotionally numb. These represent the extremes that Zen philosophy warns against.
Our modern world has systematically designed ways to keep us from sitting with our thoughts. Look around at people standing in line, most plugged into devices, consuming content, avoiding stillness. Algorithms exploit our tendency to normalize experiences, requiring ever-increasing stimulation to maintain interest. This creates what we call "the algorithm of greed"—a progressive desensitization that pulls us further from subtle awareness and deeper into artificial stimulation.
Contrary to misconceptions, Zen doesn't encourage emotional detachment. Rather, it invites us through what initially feels like boredom to discover the richness beneath. Picture passing through a pinhole focus that strips away callouses, leaving us raw but wise—able to feel deeply while maintaining the ability to function without drowning in emotion. Like trained lifeguards jumping into suffering's ocean, we can be fully immersed in experience while possessing the skills to navigate safely.
Join us as we explore how numbness represents the opposite of wakefulness and how Zen offers a path toward complete participation in life—an attunement to reality as it is, not as we wish it to be. By breaking free from our addiction to stimulation, we might just discover that the subtle experiences we've been avoiding hold the key to awakening.
Have you found value in these discussions? Consider supporting our work by visiting Soshimsa.org/the-world-through-zen-eyes-podcast to make a donation that helps offset our production costs.
Dr. Ruben Lambert can be found at wisdomspring.com
Ven. MyongAhn Sunim can be found at soshimsa.org
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Hi, my name is Lauren and I'd like to take a minute
to say how much I love the WorldThrough Zen Eyes podcast.
I think the combination ofperspectives from modern
psychology and Zen Buddhism is areally brilliant one, and I
think it combination ofperspectives from modern
psychology and Zen Buddhism is areally brilliant one, and I
think it ultimately offerssomething for everyone, whether
you're new to Zen or anexperienced practitioner or
neither of those things andyou're just someone who's
looking for new ways to thinkabout something you've been
(00:36):
wondering about or a thingyou've been struggling with.
A lot of the topics are basedon suggestions from listeners
about those things, about thedaily chaos of everyday life
that we all experience, so Ithink it's a great service and I
hope it's able to stick aroundfor a long time.
If you're a listener who'sgained something meaningful from
the podcast, please considermaking a donation to help offset
(00:59):
the weekly production costs.
You can do so by going to thepodcast section of Soshimsaorg
or go there directly atSoshimsaorg.
Slash the World Through ZenEyes podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Welcome back to another podcast, or another
episode of the podcast, theWorld Through Zen Eyes.
I am Yonan Sunim here with DrRuben Lambert and this is going
to be interesting.
The topic came up.
(01:31):
Well, the topic sort ofdeformed and not completely done
actually is what this is.
And Sunday, after the Sundayservice, I popped in my head
(01:54):
into the lunchroom amidst of theconversation that I know
nothing of the beginning of.
I was just mid-entry and a setof eyes shot at my direction and
said maybe that's a goodpodcast topic.
I said what is?
And they said numbness.
(02:16):
And before I could inquireexactly of what was being talked
about, what they meant by thething, I was wafted away to
other responsibilities and it'snever been fully formed as a
question or a topic.
So a one word title numbness,and yeah, so that's, that's
(02:42):
where we're at and we'll kind ofgo with that.
Um, I think I mean, were youthere for some part of this?
Speaker 3 (02:52):
yes, I was there for some part of that discussion.
So give us the start the onsetwas a discussion that everyone's
having, uh, regarding likeaddictions.
Primarily, it was beingdiscussed with uh, one of our
(03:13):
members who has stopped smokingcigarettes and was, uh, chewing
nicotine gum, and in addition tothat, he was talking about some
of the alcohol use and he wasjust connecting all the reasons
behind why, when he was at hisworst, he would use alcohol or
(03:37):
rely on cigarettes to getthrough difficult times, and
part of the things that werebeing highlighted was the
numbness that drugs and alcoholcan create right when you're
dealing with some kind of pain.
It can numb you from the painright.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Okay, yeah, so numbness as a sort of avoidance,
and dealing in terms of pain,in terms of in pain and
suffering, yeah, of whicheverway.
And okay, so right, becausethere is the.
On one hand, we have the use ofsubstance as a sort of I want
(04:20):
to feel good type of thing,right, and, and that's if, if
the norm is normal, then thesubstance use means I above
average.
So it's, if it's the averagemode of operation, I want to
feel something above average andso I want to feel good, high,
whatever and um.
And then we have thisparticular sort of way of using,
(04:46):
or the reasoning for use, whichis I'm suffering and so I want
to go from, essentially we couldsay the other direction, so
from some elevated state, inthis case discomfort or pain or
suffering of some sort, to anaverage, and so it's either like
(05:07):
, not, either these aren't theonly options, but you know I'm
too average, so I want to feelsomething more.
So there it is.
Or I'm feeling too much and soI want to feel less and kind of
return to the average.
I just want to be sort ofnormal, quote-unquote.
Okay, well, it is it, we havethat, and also we see this in in
(05:34):
self mutilation, right it's.
It's sometimes the I feelnothing.
Some I am numb, and you know,if I cut, then I feel something,
and feeling something is betterthan feeling nothing.
And then sometimes in the otherway around, I'm feeling too
much, so too many things goingon.
(05:56):
So let's say, if I cut myself,then I'm feeling the one thing.
It's sort of all of thatephemeral thing collapses onto a
very specific.
At least I know what it is thatI'm feeling, I know why I'm
feeling it, right, mm-hmm it'salmost like to also hook to mind
to a point I thought of.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Like you know, when unsung him, our teacher does
like acupuncture right and theneedle gets stuck, he uses the
technique of pinching over hereand then it gets loose over
there.
Movement of the mind Sometimespeople who are going through
overwhelming intense emotionalpain and they have no idea how
to manage it or get rid of it,they can cut, because then the
(06:40):
mind will shift away from thisgrave, intense pain to the
physical pain and just hunkerdown on that, releasing, or at
least temporarily not reallyreleasing, I can't say releasing
temporarily forget DistractingFrom the intense emotional pain.
So it brings to them this ideaof a temporary alleviation this
(07:03):
idea of a temporary alleviation.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
So you know, I think to sort of place it somewhere
within purugyo satsang, withinthe Buddhist philosophy.
It's extremes, sort of dealingwith extremes.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Well, think about it, they're bouncing.
You're going from cuttingphysical pain to emotional pain
and then they bounce back andforth those two spots right.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
So there really is no real, or running away from pain
towards some normalcy, orrunning away from normalcy
towards a feeling of somethingand sometimes anything.
So, yeah, it is bouncingbetween the extremes and this is
kind of where the I guess wecould say the starting point
(07:42):
within the Zen philosophy.
We could kind of just anchor itthere and, in terms of extremes
, we have that same thing.
You know, the Zen philosophywarns us of extremes in whatever
(08:05):
, whichever direction, and Ithink frequently I've talked
about the extremes of hate andlove in their extreme
expressions.
But this is a thing for ushuman beings.
This is a thing for us humanbeings living in this world.
This is a thing for us humanbeings living in this world.
(08:32):
We, like some people at times,whatever.
Disclaimer, disclaimer,disclaimer.
(08:53):
We take a very hot dish on oneend and a very cold on the other
hand, our perception of thefull expression of flavors
really is more middle path.
So when the food is too hot,you can't taste the whole
bouquet of flavors.
When the food is too cold, youcan't taste the whole bouquet of
flavors.
When the food is too cold, youcan't taste that either.
You know, which is why icecream is so extremely sweet?
Because the sweetness of itgets lost in in the, in the kind
(09:15):
of temperature of it and so we,we, I bring.
I say this to say that we areseeking some kind of a happening
, some kind of going on, on thebasis of the fact that it's the
(09:38):
pursuit of the loud and that thesubtle kind of escapes us,
right.
So there's a subtle tea, a sortof umami of life, if you will.
But it's also like.
Take fruit, for example right,we enjoy a fruit, and this isn't
(10:02):
to say everybody, right, butcold, right.
Or salad, for example, we wantan refrigerator, nice and
crispiness, and that, and itsort of deviates from the
natural state.
The flavor of cabbage, say,it's in sort of natural
(10:22):
surroundings, right, it's insort of natural surroundings,
right, but when we eitheroverheat it or sort of
refrigerate it, there's a lossof something it's almost like
the fire, like you were sayingthe fire the hot dish will burn
your tongue.
you can't taste right and thecold one will numb.
(10:44):
Freeze will numb or give yourbrain freeze and then you can't
taste again, right?
Speaker 3 (10:48):
so, and I was also thinking, I was like the, you
know you're talking about zenand things like that, the
balance of the elements, rightto have hot and cold, like.
What is it that you're tryingto do, right, if you want to
make?
You were telling me yesterdayhow every, everything has an
element of the other one.
It's just what are theproportions that you're trying?
to get right.
If you're making fire, there'san element of moisture there,
(11:10):
but if you have too muchmoisture, then the fire is put
out right and vice versa.
You know you can have heat.
There's actually an ice burnthat occurs if you take ice and
you rub it on your skin.
It actually gets to the pointwhere the friction burns your
skin right.
So, there are elements of eachfactor but depending on what
your outcome, the ingredientproportions are different.
(11:34):
But ultimately, I think whenthings are out of, we're getting
to the same point that wealways kind of get to make is
what is the goal?
Speaker 2 (11:41):
when things are out of balance, then, whether it's
an emotion, or whether it'seating or an activity, then your
life is out of whack, rightbecause we have this, we have
this idea of, of this fearperhaps that in subtlety, um,
there's boredom there, right,because in this or in the
(12:02):
average normal thing, there'snothing special about it.
And that has to do with ourkind of deafness to it and our
desensitization to it.
So, the way of attunementreally is frequently a Zen thing
of attunement really isfrequently a Zen thing.
(12:25):
Right, we're deaf to lives that,beneath that which seems to be
kind of average, the amount ofgoing on, the amount of
happening, the amount of goingon, the amount of happening, the
(12:46):
amount of activity, action, oneaction in the stillness,
seeming stillness, of things,all of that is going on.
Not that long ago, we weredoing one of the healing arts
classes and we focused onbalancing.
So a lot of exercise, standingon one leg and this and that and
(13:06):
challenging the balance, and wedon't think about it, but, as
we walk normally, the amount ofcalculation that your toes do,
step to step, calculation,adjustment, balancing, all of
this thing, I mean the soul ofthe foot, it's really busy with
(13:33):
going on.
It's the opposite of boredomright, it's the opposite of
boredom.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
We're just mindless.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
We don't even focus and pay attention to that.
But there's a whole universegoing on and there's a whole
coffin and a whole orchestraworking there Intriguing.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
It's not boredom, it's intriguing thing, but it's
hidden in the sort of low volumeor low nuanced thing and this
is a problem I see with a lot ofpeople.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Teenagers, in particular Kids, get to a
certain stage where they justsay I'm bored.
I'm bored, and some people too,some adults also, either in
relationships or their jobs.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Well, do you recall?
The details of thatself-electrocution study that
they did oh the milligram studyself-electrocution study that
they did.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Oh, the milligram study.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
No, no, there was a group of people that they were
given a chair and a table and abutton and I don't recall the
details of it, but I think youwere told to sit there for like
10 minutes and nothing to do.
You can't read no phone, no,nothing.
You just get in a room and yousit there.
You can't read no phone, no,nothing.
You just get in a room and yousit there and the only form of
stimulation was that you hit abutton and it electrocutes you.
(14:51):
Obviously nothinglife-threatening, I'm supposing,
and I don't remember whatexactly the number was and this
was kind of an anomaly.
But there was a fellow whoelectrocs or something to the
tune of like 300 times.
Yeah, I could see that you knowand and, but there's to say,
(15:12):
many people have and it was asof like nothing, anything but
just sitting here.
Boredom, but it's.
But is it boredom?
Is the question right?
Is it boredom?
Or is it just me and my demonshaving a chit-chat?
Just drive me nuts facing,because that's the thing, when
(15:35):
nothing goes on, we have to facesomething.
Then faces the things thatdredge up sort of all on its own
accord, that habituated kind ofhauntings of our, of our goals,
that come out of the baseboardof our aryashic consciousness,
(15:55):
the storehouse consciousness,and so anything, anything but
this all ties into the numbnesspiece.
Right, it is numbness.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
As an individual or as a collective society, I feel
as though we've designed societyto do anything but be left
alone with our thoughts andfeelings.
Oh yeah, out of this I couldsay collective fear, like
anything you know AirPods,iphone All you got to do is look
at people standing on a line,right.
But you can also think aboutpeople who have difficulty
(16:27):
sleeping.
Why, in particular, is sleepdifficult?
Because you have to unplugright All of the distractions
that you tune into throughoutthe day that keep you anchored
to something externally, whetherit's you're listening to
something, you're seeingsomething, you're having a
conversation, you're feelingsomething, you're bombarding
(16:47):
your taste buds.
When all that ceases, likeyou're saying what gets dredged
up.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
And my goodness, and it doesn't even have to be Some
people numb themselves when theytake a look, they run.
That's why pursuit ofstimulation or overstimulation,
is a form of sort of numbness,right, it's the numbing of the
things that matter frequently,right, the voice that matters,
(17:13):
the voice that is where thetransformative element is.
So it's a distraction, but thedistraction pulls away from that
and so we could say numbness toit, to some experience of life,
um, you know, it's frequentlythought to be simply in regards
to an unpleasant something, thetraumas, the, the suffering, the
(17:37):
very, but those, those are loud, those are loud, those are loud
.
It doesn't have to be loud,it's just simply.
And you know, there's a,there's a sort of systematic
disin, this insetization.
That is that because humanbeings have the tendency to
(17:58):
normalize, right, and we havethe tendency to normalize as a
self-preservation mechanism,let's say, you are forced to go
someplace or move somewhere orwhatever, and you arrive at a
new place, unlike the place thatyou're accustomed to, and
(18:21):
although there are people who,in their minds, dwell and
quote-unquote, I miss my old,whatever house, the nostalgia
country place something, yeah,but what?
what we get, in a sense, is thatthis normalization is a
self-preservation mechanism,because we have to.
We have to normalize the shockof the new so that we could
(18:44):
operate with it, so so that wecould operate with it.
So, so that we're not kind ofthrown by it, it's sort of okay,
this is where I am, this is nownormally.
You know, I, I wasn't on, I was, you know, living in Antarctica
and I'm living in the Sahara,you know, and if you just be
moaning continuously, then youcan adapt.
So the adaptability, in a sense, is close to normalization of
(19:06):
your situation, which makes yoube able to operate.
So I think it's ingrained inour sort of physiology.
Having said that, this adaptivetendency that we have is, I
think, very much exploited inconsumerism, like you were
saying.
Very much exploited inconsumerism, like you were
saying it is.
You know, it's almost devious.
(19:30):
The incremental increase, it'slike I call the algorithm of
greed, but there's thisincremental increase in whatever
.
Whatever, the baseline is right.
So it's the increase of time,increase of stimuli, increase of
the, the loudness, theintensity, whatever, right, um,
(19:53):
environmentally speaking, whathave you so like?
Video games and the algorithmof video games.
How are you drawn into it?
right the, the social media,whatever, whatever it is a movie
, the gore, pornography has thesame element.
Right it's.
It's increasingly pullingtowards some direction you know,
(20:16):
and and it's, uh, it's anexploitation of, in a sense, the
the on hand, the fear ofnormalization.
When the mind normalizessomething, it then becomes sort
of free to gravitate tosomething else.
Now, if you're a corporation orif you have a product that
(20:41):
you're trying to push, you can'thave people normalized to it.
You know, I mean apple.
Uh, we're gonna get sued byapple now, but the apple um
universe does this perfectly,right, it's, it's these
incremental things.
Oh, the new phone has x, y and z, and then, just, you know, just
(21:04):
so, it's this, it'sexploitation of the chemistry,
and and so, from the zenperspective, this we would call
the yoki, this world of greedand and constant desire, and and
, when not controlled, gets outof hand.
But it is the way it is, theway things are, and so they,
(21:25):
it's exploited then, because,essentially, right, it's, it's a
dopamine addiction, right andso, like you play a video game
and and there's struggle, andthat struggle then becomes so
you've struggled sufficientlyenough.
Here's a single drop ofdopamine like it's this, it's
(21:46):
this ivy dopamine turned tofaucet dopamine.
You know it's, it's, it's thisbreadcrumbs that that pull you
further and further and furtherin the direction that whoever's
exploiting this um wants you togo in a sense, and you know I'm
not like some conspiracytheorists, but that's
(22:06):
essentially what the algorithmsare right.
They, they learn what you likeand they give you what you like.
But they don't just give youwhat you like.
You have to scroll for fiveminutes before you get that one
drop of your cat picture youknow, that, that you're so fancy
and then you scroll throughwhatever else advertisement,
whatever other things and thenthere's another cat picture you
know that you're so fancy andthen you scroll through whatever
else advertisement, whateverother things and then there's
(22:28):
another cat picture that youenjoy.
So video games are the samething.
You pass a level.
What's a level, you know?
So it's this increasing kind ofleading carrot to a donkey type
of thing that we are to pursuea thing.
What we're pursuing and this isthe fundamental, I think,
misunderstanding we're notpursuing a thing.
(22:50):
The thing is symbolic for adopamine release.
So whatever your poisonquote-unquote is whether it's a
video game or a sport, watchinga sport, whatever we're pursuing
chemistry.
(23:11):
So the addiction.
In that sense we arefundamentally an addicted
species that is addicted to thepursuit of brain chemistry.
But we seek it outside and,when properly exploited and
organized, what you get is well,you know.
I mean, look at this new gadget, it's upgraded.
(23:32):
What's upgraded?
Oh, now it's sleek.
What is that?
What does that word mean?
That it's sleek, you know.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
And they just do a shift.
Right, it's always expansionsand contractions, right.
They go big and then people arelike wow, mine is small, they
have that, what is it?
Iphone plus or whatever pro?
Speaker 1 (23:51):
or they went big and then they're like now they're
going to sleep like you'resaying they're like well, wait,
mine is big.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Now we got to go slick and I think I think you
bring up a very interestingpoint.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Yeah, because there is, like it's a generational
thing also right, so that thereis a movement in the kind of a
rising counter um response tothat typical bigger, stronger,
more power.
You know, bigger, bigger,bigger, better, better, better,
(24:23):
faster, faster.
All of that pursuit of that.
There's almost like a counterresistance, and so minimalism
has, has made its way kind ofaround back you know, that's a,
that's a fancy thing.
Minimalism, you know, and um,the dumb phones are a thing
coming out, or have been comingout, the, the, you know, the
(24:46):
dumb watches.
Everything was, you know,started dumb, quote-unquote, and
then going to smart and smart,smart.
Now ai is going crazy and thenyou know, and, and, but there's
a sort of counter-resistance.
People, and it's a generationalpeople, certain generations are
the, which is the newergenerations, interestingly, so
(25:07):
are kind of.
There's a counter movement andright.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
I've heard response talk about teachers, talk about
going back to paper and pencilas a counter to the AI and the
computer.
Yeah, the reliance ontechnology doing the thinking
for you and that they did.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
They did a study I think mit did it, yeah uh of
people who use chat, gpt and aito write their, their essays and
whatever, and and there's asignificant decrease in brain
function yeah, I mean you knowhow you don't.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
I mean congratulations, but you don't
need that to know.
Right, you could just you couldlook at I talked about this in a
podcast right, when somethingis created, it's a benefit, but
then what is the loss or thecost, like I've spoken about,
when cell phones came out?
Right, and then?
How many phone numbers doesanyone in the audience really
remember today?
There's probably people thatremember a ton of way back when,
(26:02):
before cell phones right, yourchildhood telephone number, your
best phone's telephone number,because you actually had to
recall and use it time and timeagain when you had to get to the
pay phone.
Yeah, right, you had to recallto use it.
But then, when the cell phonescame out, all the new phone
numbers that you learned youdidn't practice.
You know retrieval, putting,encoding and retrieval, encoding
(26:22):
and retrieval time and timeagain.
No, so you don't know it.
Right, because you becamereliant.
Same thing If you're havingthis technology, do the thinking
when it comes to writing.
You're going to see over timepeople not being here.
You give them paper and pencilon the spot they're going to be
drawing a blank Right.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
But what's the other element of it is that it's sort
of murderous to innovation andimagination, that what it's
doing, in a sense it's creatinga singular collective.
Because that's what AI right.
It peruses the information andit kind of algorithmically
(27:00):
arrives at what would be thesort of medium or medial or
whatever the term is, the kindof average they look at trends.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
They're analyzing constantly trans people that
want to go viral on social media.
It's just trend analysis yeah,and so what?
Speaker 2 (27:14):
you get back to the trend.
There's no uniqueness, so it itsaps the uniqueness of the, of
the thought of that person.
But but I mean not to soundlike an old man bemoaning some
good old days.
Progress is not only needed,but it's sort of natural.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
It's evolution, right ?
Well, you know, we didn't haveto.
Let's go back to caveman times.
We spent a lot of our time andwe dedicated it to figuring out,
you know, chopping wood, howwe're going to make fire, to
have light and to have heat, andthen hunting.
And you know, as time, as weprogressed and those things were
like instantaneously taken care, taken care of for us, then,
(27:57):
well, other things develop,technology, and so forth and so
forth.
So, yeah, there's a loss, butthen if there's a, I guess a
healthy way to look at it is ifthat then frees up.
You know, it's like a computer,right, all your space is taken
up.
But if you free up that space,what do you do with that freed
space?
If you then take that freedspace to to break barriers and
(28:18):
expand your consciousness,expand your thinking and break
the mold?
Speaker 2 (28:23):
which is a lot of wishful thinking.
Well, because COVID and thelockdown of COVID.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
A lot of people didn't fall into the category
that I'm describing right now,but hey, I'm projecting that out
into the universe to see ifpeople can catch on to that
shooting star.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Right, because you know, usually we get to sort of
complain and be moaning of lackof time.
And then during COVID, you, youknow, everyone, just had time.
The wish was, was granted, butyou know how was the time
utilized and what was it?
Was it replaced?
You know?
So we, we make a lot, I think.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
I think the memes of the door you know.
Before covet I could walk tothe door.
Postcovid, people got stuck atthe door Because we sat around
with Uber Eats and video gamesand that's it.
But yeah, the wishful thinkingwas that you only had time Did
you read Did you write a book?
(29:18):
Did you do meditation?
Sometimes we say that in ourheads, but then, when reality
actually hits, we don't takeadvantage of those moments.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Right, because they're excuses.
Fundamentally speaking they'reexcuses, yeah, to be honest.
And dishonesty is numbness,right.
Right, it's avoiding of areality.
That is numbness.
It's avoiding of a reality thatis numbness.
And you know, we, the Zenprinciples, really we talked
(29:54):
about emotions and sometimes itseems like Zen suggests that we
are to be sort of emotioncastrated, as I've put it, I
think, and the idea of you knowthat absence.
So it almost suggests, if youdon't pay attention, if you just
(30:17):
kind of haphazardly grasp at it, it almost would.
One could say, wrongly so, butone could say that Zen invites
or suggests some kind of anomnis it mustn't go into the
extremes and this and that, andso then you're left with this
average kind of.
But it isn't that, and this isa rather gory imagery per se.
(30:42):
But I frequently talked aboutthis mechanism of enlightenment
as a funneling right.
So let's say we have thisbroadness of the whole and then
(31:03):
that slowly funneling and wecould apply that to simply the
focus of the mind or payingattention or attunement to those
things that are subtle.
So you're going cross through adesert of what seems like
numbness or what seems likeboredom or what seems like just
(31:24):
completely why, even then,nothing going on.
But it's not that it's nothinggoing on that we've just.
You know, you go to a concertand you stand well, I don't
think you even have to standnext to the speaker your ears
are ringing for whatever threedays and you can't hear the
(31:45):
normal volume of things going onbecause you still have the
ringing of ears.
So if volume was at 10 and nowit's lowered and your head is
still ringing at 10 and you haveanything playing at 5 or God
forbid at 1, that might as wellnot even exist.
So the experience of life isnumbed out of us.
(32:09):
But as we move through thisfunnel thing and we get to a
pinhole and this is either apinhole, we could say, in our
focus state of mind that's whyin Zen know, in Zen we
frequently talk aboutsingle-mindedness and that focal
(32:32):
point of you've driven to justthis pinhole thing.
And if you pass through thatpinhole and like I said, this is
a little bit, you know, grossof a imagery, but I think it
illustrates it so if you'resensitive, or if you have
(32:54):
children in the room, as youpass through this pinhole of a
focus thing of an attunement, ofa single thing that you've,
that you've entered into.
In a sense, your skin's rippedoff of you and you fall through.
(33:15):
This pinhole becomes a door andyou fall through it to the
other side, and the other sideis the prodigiousness of the
universe, the prodigiousness,the great experience, the
entirety of humanity.
So, essentially, you almostreturn back.
It's this kind of as if it werea warm hole or a black hole,
(33:36):
but it pitches you back into thelife that you just left,
however skinless, and in thatsense raw, and in that sense the
calloused, and so the boredomand and in that sense, the
calloused, and so the boredomand all of these avoidances, the
numbness, all of these thingsare stripped away.
That we could say, is a stateof compassion, but it has an
(34:04):
element of wisdom.
So there's a rawness to theexperience, but it has an
element of wisdom.
So there's a rawness to theexperience, because sometimes
people claim that you know Zenand the Buddhist.
It sort of does the opposite.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
No, I can't disagree with more with that statement.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
So you're raw and every gentlest of breeze you
feel, so that your experience oflife is magnified, but not
magnified by running away fromthe subtlety or from from from
unpleasant experience orwhatever.
You, you're, you're there, you,you're, you're in it and
because, and this is and becauseand this is I can't trumpet
(34:47):
about this enough this idea ofwisdom as the two wings of the
same.
So one wing is the compassionand the other one wisdom, I mean
they're synonymous almost, ifyou really get into the detailed
philosophies of it.
But the idea is you absolutelyfeel this is the bodhisattva
(35:10):
thing, right, the pangs and thesuffering of the world, but the
wisdom allows you to maneuverwithin it without drowning in it
Because we get that.
What's that Empathy?
Right, and empathy is anotherone of those words that's thrown
(35:31):
around, and I'm empathic,empathic, empathy can be such
crippling as if it were adisease, right.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
Without the wisdom.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Right and I hope our listeners who are empaths and
you understand what I mean here.
I'm not criticizing the stateof being.
What I'm saying is that withoutwisdom it's unhealthy.
The compassion with wisdom hasa, there's a power of function
(36:13):
and an understanding of thelimitations of my function and
how I can best participate inthe world around me.
Otherwise I'm drowning in it.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
Right.
So you're using the Zenmetaphor that I'm just going to
piggyback off of.
In Zen, we call this earth whatkohe?
The ocean of suffering, right?
So you're like a lifeguard onthe side, that is the
bodhisattva.
Looking down, you see somebodydrowning.
You use compassion.
It means you literally have tojump in to the ocean and you're
(36:46):
submersed into kohe, into thisworld, this life.
Every inch of your body issubmersed in the water, feeling.
If it's cold, if it's hot, ifthere are waves, you're there,
you're entrenched in that, andthen you can't just jump in and
(37:06):
then not know how to swim orjust grab the person and then
they are struggling for theirlife and you allow them to punch
you in the face, and now youboth are drowning Right Many a
lifeguard's been drowned byanother person drowning, right.
So this would be just reckless.
No wisdom, empathy, justjumping in without thinking,
(37:31):
without planning, without takingsome tools with you, and then
the wisdom piece is well now,prior to jumping in, I did some
training, some suheng.
That's what makes that person alifeguard.
There's countless hours oftraining and knowledge and
(37:51):
understanding.
That all equates to wisdom.
So when you jump in, you jumpin with your banya, right, yeah,
wisdom.
Then you have to swim and thenyou can properly rescue a person
.
Leave all those tools behind,you're just jumping into it Two
(38:12):
drowning people is what you get.
It's an abyss that will justsuck you in.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Yeah, it is.
So this idea of numbness is, Ithink, largely connected to our,
you know, we've sort of beenhijacked, like I was saying, you
know, the exploitation of thathuman tendencies.
You know, monks take vows andsome of the vows are aimed at
(38:41):
that very premise.
Right, like monks are, you know, not allowed to watch people
fighting, for example, right, orsort of the violence thing.
Because the idea is, you know,initially one is repulsed by
repulsive things.
Then if one over time watchesthe repulsive things
(39:04):
sufficiently, that repulsivething sufficiently, that
repulsive thing becomes, thenbecomes curiosity, and then
becomes normalization and thenbecomes want you like it, you
like it, and so you want more ofit.
So it's this kind of that whichinitially a person might have
found repulsive if exposed to itsufficiently enough.
(39:27):
There's a stabilization,normalization, and then, out of
the absence of it, there's sortof normalize.
Now that continuous trajectoryturns into now we want it.
So there are certain vows thatmonks take that take into
account this human nature andwarn us against falling prey to
(39:51):
these things.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
It's a common complaint I hear nowadays and it
is valid.
With the advent of certainsocial media apps, there's
instant access to just any kindof information, whereas when I
was growing up I'm not trying tosound like someone going to
(40:14):
nostalgia, or my generation orera was better.
That's not the point of this.
It's just a fact that there wasless access, let's say, to
seeing a violent video.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
Now you can again a particular act you can see.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
every kid can see that yeah so you can see really
aggressive acts of violence.
And not only one you know, thealgorithm kicks in and it just
connects the dots to manydifferent other videos that all
have violence, extreme forms ofit, not just people fighting
(40:51):
with fists.
No, you have weapons, you haveblood, you have gore.
Actually, there are a lot ofvideos of accidents and death
that are out there.
So if that's not beingmonitored and regulated, then
exactly what you're saying canhappen.
People grow up beingdesensitized to violence.
Then what happens when you'redesensitized to violence?
It becomes your norm.
(41:12):
You don't feel?
Speaker 2 (41:13):
You don't feel about it.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
Yeah, there's no feeling.
And then you know, the worstcase scenario is when you like
it or you're drawn to it.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
Which is a process, for for many people, this is a
process of sort of of that exactthing.
this it's an evolution towardsyou know, for lack of better
word towards darkness it's funnybecause it brought up nostalgia
and and again, I thinkpartially as a, as a um, that
(41:52):
counter response to, I don'tknow, maybe like two years,
three years.
You know, I, like I said, I Istick my head out of, you know,
into the world, I look around,see what's new and you know,
next angle comes and I, Idisconnect, but the, the
(42:12):
nostalgia as the new,fashionable thing, right so
appliances, right, appliances,microwaves, and, and your
blenders and your ovens and yourrefrigerators, uh, the, the
colors of them, it's like theflashback colors to like the 60s
(42:34):
, and even you know, the noscreen display but knobs.
So they're kind of returned tothis note.
There's a big, seems to me,like this whole thing of
nostalgia, furniture andnostalgia.
Like I said, I've seen this inappliances and particularly
striking because the colors, thecolor schemes of back in the
day, they're, they're, they'reeither, um, not silver and and
(42:58):
metal and not futuristic.
They're, they're pinks and andbaby blues and and and bright
reds the fire engine reds yeah.
And all of the, and you know,aqua colored and and the whole
entire microwave set, themicrowave oven and your
refrigerator same color, withrounded corners, which is kind
(43:19):
of futuristic of the time, butnot futuristic of this time in a
sense, because this time thefuturistic is the sharp angles
of the Cybertruck Right.
Speaker 3 (43:29):
they didn't follow those trends.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
And so I think, as a part of the general psyche, we
are trying to kind of change thetrajectory a little bit, or at
least slow down that movementtowards that, that other extreme
and and uh, uh.
Speaker 3 (43:55):
But also there's a like everything we're talking
about there's something at itsbest, something at its worst.
There's a you know connectingto something healthy in a
healthy manner, versus unhealthyfashion, because even nostalgia
there's in general.
You know, you can be nostalgic,you can visit the past.
You can, you know, go back toyour memories and look at old
movies.
The thing is, if you becomestuck there, then then
(44:18):
essentially, it becomes whatwe're talking about.
You're just numbing yourself,castrating yourself from the
reality that's around you, yeah,or the real thing.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's .
You know your nostalgicmemories.
If they they come, you know wecould say if you want to take a
zen thing, it's like you couldsay hello to them, just don't
serve them tea right, because ifnot, they'll pack their bags
and they'll move in right teawith the habit for you know,
usually with that, but it's anaverage two hours, you know, and
(44:45):
it's simply because you knowthat's han chum, you know the,
the old way of counting han chumis chadjuk in myojin, so it's a
two-hour window and thenusually people, people, but it's
it's um, yeah, the sitting anddwelling and all of this thing,
like I said, it's, it's thatdynamic is interesting because
(45:06):
it's numbing of one thing, um,by use of another thing, and
this kind of back and forth timetravel, and so we have, yeah,
we have the numbness.
Uh, I think we've done somethingwith this numbness idea as a
you know single word with youknow, yeah, because there's that
, uh, like you said, the originperhaps of this conversation on
(45:29):
sunday, that that I was ever sobriefly a part of, and was this
kind of particular kind ofnumbness, of numbing, you know,
drinking until your teeth arenumb so that you feel nothing,
remember nothing, know nothing,or using, or whatever it may be.
(45:53):
Numbness means not wakefulness.
Yeah, the complete oppositenumbness means not wakefulness.
Speaker 3 (45:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
And so the Zen thing would say be on a lookout for
numbness in all of its variousforms, this one with the
addiction and the kind ofcertain behaviors that numb us
to an experience or frequentlyto a memory.
It's almost a much more commonthing, it is the louder end of
(46:31):
the spectrum and then we have,like we said, these more subtle
things.
It's the numbness to, or theabsence of awareness we could
say, which we could call itignorance if you wanted to,
really.
So this numbness is inopposition to wakefulness, there
isn't a sensitivity in numbness, so we don't pick up the less
(46:57):
obvious, the less perceivable,which is again in opposition to
the Zen principle of wakefulnessand really complete
participation in life.
Because in participation inlife, from the Zen thing, you're
attuned to what is not whatyou're like, whatever, what is
(47:18):
how it is, as it is.
So that's the attunement to acomplete experience of life.
So numbness can take variousmore louder or less louder, if
you want to call it thatexpressions of it.
Call it that expressions of it,and obviously it's easier to at
(47:44):
least note the very pronouncedtypes.
And then we move progressivelydown and this is where you know
the whole therapy concept, Ithink, and I don't want to speak
for psychologists, I only knowBuddhist psychology, if you will
.
I don't want to speak forpsychologists, I only know
Buddhist psychology, if you willand call it that.
But it is the fact that wegenerally, people don't know to
(48:11):
themselves and they'reoverwhelmed by the going on, so
the subtlety and theirnumbnesses and the quietudes
those things are seen by thegoing on.
So the subtlety and theirnumbnesses and the quietudes and
the that those things are seenby the therapist.
And the therapist says oh, haveyou noticed how, when you were
saying this and and you avoid itaddressing the thing and blah,
blah, blah, blah, you know thepsychotherapeutic kind of thing
of just bouncing, holding amirror to the person,
(48:34):
essentially right um I'mlaughing I'm laughing because
you're, because you talk aboutthe psychology piece and I'm
talking about the Zen piece thenBecause, yeah, zen, I'm
thinking.
Speaker 3 (48:44):
Zen is like reading the emotional user manual.
If you think about a usermanual for anything that you buy
, it's going to give you thestep-by-step instructions on how
to construct the object, it'sgoing to explain to you how to
maintain it, what tools you need, on how to construct the object
, it's going to explain to youhow to maintain it, what tools
you need, and then it's going togive you the troubleshooting
(49:05):
section.
So you're going to be veryfamiliar with all facets of the
emotional world how to maintaina healthy state of mind, how to
troubleshoot when problems come.
And this is a constant state ofwakefulness that we're
searching for.
Speaker 2 (49:20):
Not numbness and avoidance.
Might as well go down the routeof.
I'm talking about this thingyou're talking about that thing
I wrote, I don't know, when justa little here.
I jot down things.
So in terms of therapy, right,it's a little thing that I had
written down and then maybe I'llshare a little poem.
How about that?
Yeah, that would be great.
So therapy, it seems to me, isa practice of returning a person
(49:42):
back to themselves minus thedelusions and confusions.
They walk away lighter andcloser to their true self and
therefore closer to heaven.
Sad Zen monk about therapistssaid a Zen monk about therapists
, but sort of to connect maybeto that rawness of experience.
(50:06):
I did write a little poem a fewyears ago.
It's not exactly well.
Whatever it is what it is, andI think a bookend via poem is
cute.
Let's go with that one.
So it hasn't the title, buthere it is.
Speaker 3 (50:29):
Maybe someone in the audience we can.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
Oh, suggest a title.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
Suggest a title Suggest a title and win a signed
copy.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
I don't know something.
Yeah, the breaking free fromthe great bondage is accompanied
by the thunderous crack of theribcage ripped open, dust of the
settled thoughts and ideasspewing into the air, the vain
(51:02):
vines of bondage snapping likewhips.
The cage ripped open, take andfillet your heart.
Stretch it open so that each ofits four chambers encompasses
the four directions.
You must catch the world inyour heart, the whole of it,
(51:24):
like a butterfly net, swoop itdown over the existence, over
all of the existence.
Be sure to catch it all, for ifyou leave a single speck of
dust behind, it will tip thescales and you will lose it all.
Once again, I am Myung An Sunim.
Speaker 3 (51:48):
I'm Dr Ruben Lambert.
I like to name that poemPokemon Gotta Catch them All.
Pokemon Gotta Catch them All,gotta Catch them All.
Speaker 2 (51:57):
Until next time, take care of yourselves and each
other.
Speaker 3 (52:00):
From my heart to yours.
If you like what you heard,pass it on to someone else so
that they can enjoy it and learnfrom this podcast also.
Hi, my name is Lauren and I'd like to take a minute
to say how much I love the WorldThrough Zen Eyes podcast.
I think the combination ofperspectives from modern
psychology and Zen Buddhism is areally brilliant one, and I
think it combination ofperspectives from modern
psychology and Zen Buddhism is areally brilliant one, and I
think it ultimately offerssomething for everyone, whether
you're new to Zen or anexperienced practitioner or
neither of those things andyou're just someone who's
looking for new ways to thinkabout something you've been
(00:36):
wondering about or a thingyou've been struggling with.
A lot of the topics are basedon suggestions from listeners
about those things, about thedaily chaos of everyday life
that we all experience, so Ithink it's a great service and I
hope it's able to stick aroundfor a long time.
If you're a listener who'sgained something meaningful from
the podcast, please considermaking a donation to help offset
(00:59):
the weekly production costs.
You can do so by going to thepodcast section of Soshimsaorg
or go there directly atSoshimsaorg.
Slash the World Through ZenEyes podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Welcome back to another podcast, or another
episode of the podcast, theWorld Through Zen Eyes.
I am Yonan Sunim here with DrRuben Lambert and this is going
to be interesting.
The topic came up.
(01:31):
Well, the topic sort ofdeformed and not completely done
actually is what this is.
And Sunday, after the Sundayservice, I popped in my head
(01:54):
into the lunchroom amidst of theconversation that I know
nothing of the beginning of.
I was just mid-entry and a setof eyes shot at my direction and
said maybe that's a goodpodcast topic.
I said what is?
And they said numbness.
(02:16):
And before I could inquireexactly of what was being talked
about, what they meant by thething, I was wafted away to
other responsibilities and it'snever been fully formed as a
question or a topic.
So a one word title numbness,and yeah, so that's, that's
(02:42):
where we're at and we'll kind ofgo with that.
Um, I think I mean, were youthere for some part of this?
Speaker 3 (02:52):
yes, I was there for some part of that discussion.
So give us the start the onsetwas a discussion that everyone's
having, uh, regarding likeaddictions.
Primarily, it was beingdiscussed with uh, one of our
(03:13):
members who has stopped smokingcigarettes and was, uh, chewing
nicotine gum, and in addition tothat, he was talking about some
of the alcohol use and he wasjust connecting all the reasons
behind why, when he was at hisworst, he would use alcohol or
(03:37):
rely on cigarettes to getthrough difficult times, and
part of the things that werebeing highlighted was the
numbness that drugs and alcoholcan create right when you're
dealing with some kind of pain.
It can numb you from the painright.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Okay, yeah, so numbness as a sort of avoidance,
and dealing in terms of pain,in terms of in pain and
suffering, yeah, of whicheverway.
And okay, so right, becausethere is the.
On one hand, we have the use ofsubstance as a sort of I want
(04:20):
to feel good type of thing,right, and, and that's if, if
the norm is normal, then thesubstance use means I above
average.
So it's, if it's the averagemode of operation, I want to
feel something above average andso I want to feel good, high,
whatever and um.
And then we have thisparticular sort of way of using,
(04:46):
or the reasoning for use, whichis I'm suffering and so I want
to go from, essentially we couldsay the other direction, so
from some elevated state, inthis case discomfort or pain or
suffering of some sort, to anaverage, and so it's either like
(05:07):
, not, either these aren't theonly options, but you know I'm
too average, so I want to feelsomething more.
So there it is.
Or I'm feeling too much and soI want to feel less and kind of
return to the average.
I just want to be sort ofnormal, quote-unquote.
Okay, well, it is it, we havethat, and also we see this in in
(05:34):
self mutilation, right it's.
It's sometimes the I feelnothing.
Some I am numb, and you know,if I cut, then I feel something,
and feeling something is betterthan feeling nothing.
And then sometimes in the otherway around, I'm feeling too
much, so too many things goingon.
(05:56):
So let's say, if I cut myself,then I'm feeling the one thing.
It's sort of all of thatephemeral thing collapses onto a
very specific.
At least I know what it is thatI'm feeling, I know why I'm
feeling it, right, mm-hmm it'salmost like to also hook to mind
to a point I thought of.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Like you know, when unsung him, our teacher does
like acupuncture right and theneedle gets stuck, he uses the
technique of pinching over hereand then it gets loose over
there.
Movement of the mind Sometimespeople who are going through
overwhelming intense emotionalpain and they have no idea how
to manage it or get rid of it,they can cut, because then the
(06:40):
mind will shift away from thisgrave, intense pain to the
physical pain and just hunkerdown on that, releasing, or at
least temporarily not reallyreleasing, I can't say releasing
temporarily forget DistractingFrom the intense emotional pain.
So it brings to them this ideaof a temporary alleviation this
(07:03):
idea of a temporary alleviation.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
So you know, I think to sort of place it somewhere
within purugyo satsang, withinthe Buddhist philosophy.
It's extremes, sort of dealingwith extremes.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Well, think about it, they're bouncing.
You're going from cuttingphysical pain to emotional pain
and then they bounce back andforth those two spots right.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
So there really is no real, or running away from pain
towards some normalcy, orrunning away from normalcy
towards a feeling of somethingand sometimes anything.
So, yeah, it is bouncingbetween the extremes and this is
kind of where the I guess wecould say the starting point
(07:42):
within the Zen philosophy.
We could kind of just anchor itthere and, in terms of extremes
, we have that same thing.
You know, the Zen philosophywarns us of extremes in whatever
(08:05):
, whichever direction, and Ithink frequently I've talked
about the extremes of hate andlove in their extreme
expressions.
But this is a thing for ushuman beings.
This is a thing for us humanbeings living in this world.
This is a thing for us humanbeings living in this world.
(08:32):
We, like some people at times,whatever.
Disclaimer, disclaimer,disclaimer.
(08:53):
We take a very hot dish on oneend and a very cold on the other
hand, our perception of thefull expression of flavors
really is more middle path.
So when the food is too hot,you can't taste the whole
bouquet of flavors.
When the food is too cold, youcan't taste the whole bouquet of
flavors.
When the food is too cold, youcan't taste that either.
You know, which is why icecream is so extremely sweet?
Because the sweetness of itgets lost in in the, in the kind
(09:15):
of temperature of it and so we,we, I bring.
I say this to say that we areseeking some kind of a happening
, some kind of going on, on thebasis of the fact that it's the
(09:38):
pursuit of the loud and that thesubtle kind of escapes us,
right.
So there's a subtle tea, a sortof umami of life, if you will.
But it's also like.
Take fruit, for example right,we enjoy a fruit, and this isn't
(10:02):
to say everybody, right, butcold, right.
Or salad, for example, we wantan refrigerator, nice and
crispiness, and that, and itsort of deviates from the
natural state.
The flavor of cabbage, say,it's in sort of natural
(10:22):
surroundings, right, it's insort of natural surroundings,
right, but when we eitheroverheat it or sort of
refrigerate it, there's a lossof something it's almost like
the fire, like you were sayingthe fire the hot dish will burn
your tongue.
you can't taste right and thecold one will numb.
(10:44):
Freeze will numb or give yourbrain freeze and then you can't
taste again, right?
Speaker 3 (10:48):
so, and I was also thinking, I was like the, you
know you're talking about zenand things like that, the
balance of the elements, rightto have hot and cold, like.
What is it that you're tryingto do, right, if you want to
make?
You were telling me yesterdayhow every, everything has an
element of the other one.
It's just what are theproportions that you're trying?
to get right.
If you're making fire, there'san element of moisture there,
(11:10):
but if you have too muchmoisture, then the fire is put
out right and vice versa.
You know you can have heat.
There's actually an ice burnthat occurs if you take ice and
you rub it on your skin.
It actually gets to the pointwhere the friction burns your
skin right.
So, there are elements of eachfactor but depending on what
your outcome, the ingredientproportions are different.
(11:34):
But ultimately, I think whenthings are out of, we're getting
to the same point that wealways kind of get to make is
what is the goal?
Speaker 2 (11:41):
when things are out of balance, then, whether it's
an emotion, or whether it'seating or an activity, then your
life is out of whack, rightbecause we have this, we have
this idea of, of this fearperhaps that in subtlety, um,
there's boredom there, right,because in this or in the
(12:02):
average normal thing, there'snothing special about it.
And that has to do with ourkind of deafness to it and our
desensitization to it.
So, the way of attunementreally is frequently a Zen thing
of attunement really isfrequently a Zen thing.
(12:25):
Right, we're deaf to lives that,beneath that which seems to be
kind of average, the amount ofgoing on, the amount of
happening, the amount of goingon, the amount of happening, the
(12:46):
amount of activity, action, oneaction in the stillness,
seeming stillness, of things,all of that is going on.
Not that long ago, we weredoing one of the healing arts
classes and we focused onbalancing.
So a lot of exercise, standingon one leg and this and that and
(13:06):
challenging the balance, and wedon't think about it, but, as
we walk normally, the amount ofcalculation that your toes do,
step to step, calculation,adjustment, balancing, all of
this thing, I mean the soul ofthe foot, it's really busy with
(13:33):
going on.
It's the opposite of boredomright, it's the opposite of
boredom.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
We're just mindless.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
We don't even focus and pay attention to that.
But there's a whole universegoing on and there's a whole
coffin and a whole orchestraworking there Intriguing.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
It's not boredom, it's intriguing thing, but it's
hidden in the sort of low volumeor low nuanced thing and this
is a problem I see with a lot ofpeople.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Teenagers, in particular Kids, get to a
certain stage where they justsay I'm bored.
I'm bored, and some people too,some adults also, either in
relationships or their jobs.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Well, do you recall?
The details of thatself-electrocution study that
they did oh the milligram studyself-electrocution study that
they did.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Oh, the milligram study.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
No, no, there was a group of people that they were
given a chair and a table and abutton and I don't recall the
details of it, but I think youwere told to sit there for like
10 minutes and nothing to do.
You can't read no phone, no,nothing.
You just get in a room and yousit there.
You can't read no phone, no,nothing.
You just get in a room and yousit there and the only form of
stimulation was that you hit abutton and it electrocutes you.
(14:51):
Obviously nothinglife-threatening, I'm supposing,
and I don't remember whatexactly the number was and this
was kind of an anomaly.
But there was a fellow whoelectrocs or something to the
tune of like 300 times.
Yeah, I could see that you knowand and, but there's to say,
(15:12):
many people have and it was asof like nothing, anything but
just sitting here.
Boredom, but it's.
But is it boredom?
Is the question right?
Is it boredom?
Or is it just me and my demonshaving a chit-chat?
Just drive me nuts facing,because that's the thing, when
(15:35):
nothing goes on, we have to facesomething.
Then faces the things thatdredge up sort of all on its own
accord, that habituated kind ofhauntings of our, of our goals,
that come out of the baseboardof our aryashic consciousness,
(15:55):
the storehouse consciousness,and so anything, anything but
this all ties into the numbnesspiece.
Right, it is numbness.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
As an individual or as a collective society, I feel
as though we've designed societyto do anything but be left
alone with our thoughts andfeelings.
Oh yeah, out of this I couldsay collective fear, like
anything you know AirPods,iphone All you got to do is look
at people standing on a line,right.
But you can also think aboutpeople who have difficulty
(16:27):
sleeping.
Why, in particular, is sleepdifficult?
Because you have to unplugright All of the distractions
that you tune into throughoutthe day that keep you anchored
to something externally, whetherit's you're listening to
something, you're seeingsomething, you're having a
conversation, you're feelingsomething, you're bombarding
(16:47):
your taste buds.
When all that ceases, likeyou're saying what gets dredged
up.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
And my goodness, and it doesn't even have to be Some
people numb themselves when theytake a look, they run.
That's why pursuit ofstimulation or overstimulation,
is a form of sort of numbness,right, it's the numbing of the
things that matter frequently,right, the voice that matters,
(17:13):
the voice that is where thetransformative element is.
So it's a distraction, but thedistraction pulls away from that
and so we could say numbness toit, to some experience of life,
um, you know, it's frequentlythought to be simply in regards
to an unpleasant something, thetraumas, the, the suffering, the
(17:37):
very, but those, those are loud, those are loud, those are loud
.
It doesn't have to be loud,it's just simply.
And you know, there's a,there's a sort of systematic
disin, this insetization.
That is that because humanbeings have the tendency to
(17:58):
normalize, right, and we havethe tendency to normalize as a
self-preservation mechanism,let's say, you are forced to go
someplace or move somewhere orwhatever, and you arrive at a
new place, unlike the place thatyou're accustomed to, and
(18:21):
although there are people who,in their minds, dwell and
quote-unquote, I miss my old,whatever house, the nostalgia
country place something, yeah,but what?
what we get, in a sense, is thatthis normalization is a
self-preservation mechanism,because we have to.
We have to normalize the shockof the new so that we could
(18:44):
operate with it, so so that wecould operate with it.
So, so that we're not kind ofthrown by it, it's sort of okay,
this is where I am, this is nownormally.
You know, I, I wasn't on, I was, you know, living in Antarctica
and I'm living in the Sahara,you know, and if you just be
moaning continuously, then youcan adapt.
So the adaptability, in a sense, is close to normalization of
(19:06):
your situation, which makes yoube able to operate.
So I think it's ingrained inour sort of physiology.
Having said that, this adaptivetendency that we have is, I
think, very much exploited inconsumerism, like you were
saying.
Very much exploited inconsumerism, like you were
saying it is.
You know, it's almost devious.
(19:30):
The incremental increase, it'slike I call the algorithm of
greed, but there's thisincremental increase in whatever
.
Whatever, the baseline is right.
So it's the increase of time,increase of stimuli, increase of
the, the loudness, theintensity, whatever, right, um,
(19:53):
environmentally speaking, whathave you so like?
Video games and the algorithmof video games.
How are you drawn into it?
right the, the social media,whatever, whatever it is a movie
, the gore, pornography has thesame element.
Right it's.
It's increasingly pullingtowards some direction you know,
(20:16):
and and it's, uh, it's anexploitation of, in a sense, the
the on hand, the fear ofnormalization.
When the mind normalizessomething, it then becomes sort
of free to gravitate tosomething else.
Now, if you're a corporation orif you have a product that
(20:41):
you're trying to push, you can'thave people normalized to it.
You know, I mean apple.
Uh, we're gonna get sued byapple now, but the apple um
universe does this perfectly,right, it's, it's these
incremental things.
Oh, the new phone has x, y and z, and then, just, you know, just
(21:04):
so, it's this, it'sexploitation of the chemistry,
and and so, from the zenperspective, this we would call
the yoki, this world of greedand and constant desire, and and
, when not controlled, gets outof hand.
But it is the way it is, theway things are, and so they,
(21:25):
it's exploited then, because,essentially, right, it's, it's a
dopamine addiction, right andso, like you play a video game
and and there's struggle, andthat struggle then becomes so
you've struggled sufficientlyenough.
Here's a single drop ofdopamine like it's this, it's
(21:46):
this ivy dopamine turned tofaucet dopamine.
You know it's, it's, it's thisbreadcrumbs that that pull you
further and further and furtherin the direction that whoever's
exploiting this um wants you togo in a sense, and you know I'm
not like some conspiracytheorists, but that's
(22:06):
essentially what the algorithmsare right.
They, they learn what you likeand they give you what you like.
But they don't just give youwhat you like.
You have to scroll for fiveminutes before you get that one
drop of your cat picture youknow, that, that you're so fancy
and then you scroll throughwhatever else advertisement,
whatever other things and thenthere's another cat picture you
know that you're so fancy andthen you scroll through whatever
else advertisement, whateverother things and then there's
(22:28):
another cat picture that youenjoy.
So video games are the samething.
You pass a level.
What's a level, you know?
So it's this increasing kind ofleading carrot to a donkey type
of thing that we are to pursuea thing.
What we're pursuing and this isthe fundamental, I think,
misunderstanding we're notpursuing a thing.
(22:50):
The thing is symbolic for adopamine release.
So whatever your poisonquote-unquote is whether it's a
video game or a sport, watchinga sport, whatever we're pursuing
chemistry.
(23:11):
So the addiction.
In that sense we arefundamentally an addicted
species that is addicted to thepursuit of brain chemistry.
But we seek it outside and,when properly exploited and
organized, what you get is well,you know.
I mean, look at this new gadget, it's upgraded.
(23:32):
What's upgraded?
Oh, now it's sleek.
What is that?
What does that word mean?
That it's sleek, you know.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
And they just do a shift.
Right, it's always expansionsand contractions, right.
They go big and then people arelike wow, mine is small, they
have that, what is it?
Iphone plus or whatever pro?
Speaker 1 (23:51):
or they went big and then they're like now they're
going to sleep like you'resaying they're like well, wait,
mine is big.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Now we got to go slick and I think I think you
bring up a very interestingpoint.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Yeah, because there is, like it's a generational
thing also right, so that thereis a movement in the kind of a
rising counter um response tothat typical bigger, stronger,
more power.
You know, bigger, bigger,bigger, better, better, better,
(24:23):
faster, faster.
All of that pursuit of that.
There's almost like a counterresistance, and so minimalism
has, has made its way kind ofaround back you know, that's a,
that's a fancy thing.
Minimalism, you know, and um,the dumb phones are a thing
coming out, or have been comingout, the, the, you know, the
(24:46):
dumb watches.
Everything was, you know,started dumb, quote-unquote, and
then going to smart and smart,smart.
Now ai is going crazy and thenyou know, and, and, but there's
a sort of counter-resistance.
People, and it's a generationalpeople, certain generations are
the, which is the newergenerations, interestingly, so
(25:07):
are kind of.
There's a counter movement andright.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
I've heard response talk about teachers, talk about
going back to paper and pencilas a counter to the AI and the
computer.
Yeah, the reliance ontechnology doing the thinking
for you and that they did.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
They did a study I think mit did it, yeah uh of
people who use chat, gpt and aito write their, their essays and
whatever, and and there's asignificant decrease in brain
function yeah, I mean you knowhow you don't.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
I mean congratulations, but you don't
need that to know.
Right, you could just you couldlook at I talked about this in a
podcast right, when somethingis created, it's a benefit, but
then what is the loss or thecost, like I've spoken about,
when cell phones came out?
Right, and then?
How many phone numbers doesanyone in the audience really
remember today?
There's probably people thatremember a ton of way back when,
(26:02):
before cell phones right, yourchildhood telephone number, your
best phone's telephone number,because you actually had to
recall and use it time and timeagain when you had to get to the
pay phone.
Yeah, right, you had to recallto use it.
But then, when the cell phonescame out, all the new phone
numbers that you learned youdidn't practice.
You know retrieval, putting,encoding and retrieval, encoding
(26:22):
and retrieval time and timeagain.
No, so you don't know it.
Right, because you becamereliant.
Same thing If you're havingthis technology, do the thinking
when it comes to writing.
You're going to see over timepeople not being here.
You give them paper and pencilon the spot they're going to be
drawing a blank Right.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
But what's the other element of it is that it's sort
of murderous to innovation andimagination, that what it's
doing, in a sense it's creatinga singular collective.
Because that's what AI right.
It peruses the information andit kind of algorithmically
(27:00):
arrives at what would be thesort of medium or medial or
whatever the term is, the kindof average they look at trends.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
They're analyzing constantly trans people that
want to go viral on social media.
It's just trend analysis yeah,and so what?
Speaker 2 (27:14):
you get back to the trend.
There's no uniqueness, so it itsaps the uniqueness of the, of
the thought of that person.
But but I mean not to soundlike an old man bemoaning some
good old days.
Progress is not only needed,but it's sort of natural.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
It's evolution, right ?
Well, you know, we didn't haveto.
Let's go back to caveman times.
We spent a lot of our time andwe dedicated it to figuring out,
you know, chopping wood, howwe're going to make fire, to
have light and to have heat, andthen hunting.
And you know, as time, as weprogressed and those things were
like instantaneously taken care, taken care of for us, then,
(27:57):
well, other things develop,technology, and so forth and so
forth.
So, yeah, there's a loss, butthen if there's a, I guess a
healthy way to look at it is ifthat then frees up.
You know, it's like a computer,right, all your space is taken
up.
But if you free up that space,what do you do with that freed
space?
If you then take that freedspace to to break barriers and
(28:18):
expand your consciousness,expand your thinking and break
the mold?
Speaker 2 (28:23):
which is a lot of wishful thinking.
Well, because COVID and thelockdown of COVID.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
A lot of people didn't fall into the category
that I'm describing right now,but hey, I'm projecting that out
into the universe to see ifpeople can catch on to that
shooting star.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Right, because you know, usually we get to sort of
complain and be moaning of lackof time.
And then during COVID, you, youknow, everyone, just had time.
The wish was, was granted, butyou know how was the time
utilized and what was it?
Was it replaced?
You know?
So we, we make a lot, I think.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
I think the memes of the door you know.
Before covet I could walk tothe door.
Postcovid, people got stuck atthe door Because we sat around
with Uber Eats and video gamesand that's it.
But yeah, the wishful thinkingwas that you only had time Did
you read Did you write a book?
(29:18):
Did you do meditation?
Sometimes we say that in ourheads, but then, when reality
actually hits, we don't takeadvantage of those moments.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Right, because they're excuses.
Fundamentally speaking they'reexcuses, yeah, to be honest.
And dishonesty is numbness,right.
Right, it's avoiding of areality.
That is numbness.
It's avoiding of a reality thatis numbness.
And you know, we, the Zenprinciples, really we talked
(29:54):
about emotions and sometimes itseems like Zen suggests that we
are to be sort of emotioncastrated, as I've put it, I
think, and the idea of you knowthat absence.
So it almost suggests, if youdon't pay attention, if you just
(30:17):
kind of haphazardly grasp at it, it almost would.
One could say, wrongly so, butone could say that Zen invites
or suggests some kind of anomnis it mustn't go into the
extremes and this and that, andso then you're left with this
average kind of.
But it isn't that, and this isa rather gory imagery per se.
(30:42):
But I frequently talked aboutthis mechanism of enlightenment
as a funneling right.
So let's say we have thisbroadness of the whole and then
(31:03):
that slowly funneling and wecould apply that to simply the
focus of the mind or payingattention or attunement to those
things that are subtle.
So you're going cross through adesert of what seems like
numbness or what seems likeboredom or what seems like just
(31:24):
completely why, even then,nothing going on.
But it's not that it's nothinggoing on that we've just.
You know, you go to a concertand you stand well, I don't
think you even have to standnext to the speaker your ears
are ringing for whatever threedays and you can't hear the
(31:45):
normal volume of things going onbecause you still have the
ringing of ears.
So if volume was at 10 and nowit's lowered and your head is
still ringing at 10 and you haveanything playing at 5 or God
forbid at 1, that might as wellnot even exist.
So the experience of life isnumbed out of us.
(32:09):
But as we move through thisfunnel thing and we get to a
pinhole and this is either apinhole, we could say, in our
focus state of mind that's whyin Zen know, in Zen we
frequently talk aboutsingle-mindedness and that focal
(32:32):
point of you've driven to justthis pinhole thing.
And if you pass through thatpinhole and like I said, this is
a little bit, you know, grossof a imagery, but I think it
illustrates it so if you'resensitive, or if you have
(32:54):
children in the room, as youpass through this pinhole of a
focus thing of an attunement, ofa single thing that you've,
that you've entered into.
In a sense, your skin's rippedoff of you and you fall through.
(33:15):
This pinhole becomes a door andyou fall through it to the
other side, and the other sideis the prodigiousness of the
universe, the prodigiousness,the great experience, the
entirety of humanity.
So, essentially, you almostreturn back.
It's this kind of as if it werea warm hole or a black hole,
(33:36):
but it pitches you back into thelife that you just left,
however skinless, and in thatsense raw, and in that sense the
calloused, and so the boredomand and in that sense, the
calloused, and so the boredomand all of these avoidances, the
numbness, all of these thingsare stripped away.
That we could say, is a stateof compassion, but it has an
(34:04):
element of wisdom.
So there's a rawness to theexperience, but it has an
element of wisdom.
So there's a rawness to theexperience, because sometimes
people claim that you know Zenand the Buddhist.
It sort of does the opposite.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
No, I can't disagree with more with that statement.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
So you're raw and every gentlest of breeze you
feel, so that your experience oflife is magnified, but not
magnified by running away fromthe subtlety or from from from
unpleasant experience orwhatever.
You, you're, you're there, you,you're, you're in it and
because, and this is and becauseand this is I can't trumpet
(34:47):
about this enough this idea ofwisdom as the two wings of the
same.
So one wing is the compassionand the other one wisdom, I mean
they're synonymous almost, ifyou really get into the detailed
philosophies of it.
But the idea is you absolutelyfeel this is the bodhisattva
(35:10):
thing, right, the pangs and thesuffering of the world, but the
wisdom allows you to maneuverwithin it without drowning in it
Because we get that.
What's that Empathy?
Right, and empathy is anotherone of those words that's thrown
(35:31):
around, and I'm empathic,empathic, empathy can be such
crippling as if it were adisease, right.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
Without the wisdom.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Right and I hope our listeners who are empaths and
you understand what I mean here.
I'm not criticizing the stateof being.
What I'm saying is that withoutwisdom it's unhealthy.
The compassion with wisdom hasa, there's a power of function
(36:13):
and an understanding of thelimitations of my function and
how I can best participate inthe world around me.
Otherwise I'm drowning in it.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
Right.
So you're using the Zenmetaphor that I'm just going to
piggyback off of.
In Zen, we call this earth whatkohe?
The ocean of suffering, right?
So you're like a lifeguard onthe side, that is the
bodhisattva.
Looking down, you see somebodydrowning.
You use compassion.
It means you literally have tojump in to the ocean and you're
(36:46):
submersed into kohe, into thisworld, this life.
Every inch of your body issubmersed in the water, feeling.
If it's cold, if it's hot, ifthere are waves, you're there,
you're entrenched in that, andthen you can't just jump in and
(37:06):
then not know how to swim orjust grab the person and then
they are struggling for theirlife and you allow them to punch
you in the face, and now youboth are drowning Right Many a
lifeguard's been drowned byanother person drowning, right.
So this would be just reckless.
No wisdom, empathy, justjumping in without thinking,
(37:31):
without planning, without takingsome tools with you, and then
the wisdom piece is well now,prior to jumping in, I did some
training, some suheng.
That's what makes that person alifeguard.
There's countless hours oftraining and knowledge and
(37:51):
understanding.
That all equates to wisdom.
So when you jump in, you jumpin with your banya, right, yeah,
wisdom.
Then you have to swim and thenyou can properly rescue a person
.
Leave all those tools behind,you're just jumping into it Two
(38:12):
drowning people is what you get.
It's an abyss that will justsuck you in.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Yeah, it is.
So this idea of numbness is, Ithink, largely connected to our,
you know, we've sort of beenhijacked, like I was saying, you
know, the exploitation of thathuman tendencies.
You know, monks take vows andsome of the vows are aimed at
(38:41):
that very premise.
Right, like monks are, you know, not allowed to watch people
fighting, for example, right, orsort of the violence thing.
Because the idea is, you know,initially one is repulsed by
repulsive things.
Then if one over time watchesthe repulsive things
(39:04):
sufficiently, that repulsivething sufficiently, that
repulsive thing becomes, thenbecomes curiosity, and then
becomes normalization and thenbecomes want you like it, you
like it, and so you want more ofit.
So it's this kind of that whichinitially a person might have
found repulsive if exposed to itsufficiently enough.
(39:27):
There's a stabilization,normalization, and then, out of
the absence of it, there's sortof normalize.
Now that continuous trajectoryturns into now we want it.
So there are certain vows thatmonks take that take into
account this human nature andwarn us against falling prey to
(39:51):
these things.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
It's a common complaint I hear nowadays and it
is valid.
With the advent of certainsocial media apps, there's
instant access to just any kindof information, whereas when I
was growing up I'm not trying tosound like someone going to
(40:14):
nostalgia, or my generation orera was better.
That's not the point of this.
It's just a fact that there wasless access, let's say, to
seeing a violent video.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
Now you can again a particular act you can see.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
every kid can see that yeah so you can see really
aggressive acts of violence.
And not only one you know, thealgorithm kicks in and it just
connects the dots to manydifferent other videos that all
have violence, extreme forms ofit, not just people fighting
(40:51):
with fists.
No, you have weapons, you haveblood, you have gore.
Actually, there are a lot ofvideos of accidents and death
that are out there.
So if that's not beingmonitored and regulated, then
exactly what you're saying canhappen.
People grow up beingdesensitized to violence.
Then what happens when you'redesensitized to violence?
It becomes your norm.
(41:12):
You don't feel?
Speaker 2 (41:13):
You don't feel about it.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
Yeah, there's no feeling.
And then you know, the worstcase scenario is when you like
it or you're drawn to it.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
Which is a process, for for many people, this is a
process of sort of of that exactthing.
this it's an evolution towardsyou know, for lack of better
word towards darkness it's funnybecause it brought up nostalgia
and and again, I thinkpartially as a, as a um, that
(41:52):
counter response to, I don'tknow, maybe like two years,
three years.
You know, I, like I said, I Istick my head out of, you know,
into the world, I look around,see what's new and you know,
next angle comes and I, Idisconnect, but the, the
(42:12):
nostalgia as the new,fashionable thing, right so
appliances, right, appliances,microwaves, and, and your
blenders and your ovens and yourrefrigerators, uh, the, the
colors of them, it's like theflashback colors to like the 60s
(42:34):
, and even you know, the noscreen display but knobs.
So they're kind of returned tothis note.
There's a big, seems to me,like this whole thing of
nostalgia, furniture andnostalgia.
Like I said, I've seen this inappliances and particularly
striking because the colors, thecolor schemes of back in the
day, they're, they're, they'reeither, um, not silver and and
(42:58):
metal and not futuristic.
They're, they're pinks and andbaby blues and and and bright
reds the fire engine reds yeah.
And all of the, and you know,aqua colored and and the whole
entire microwave set, themicrowave oven and your
refrigerator same color, withrounded corners, which is kind
(43:19):
of futuristic of the time, butnot futuristic of this time in a
sense, because this time thefuturistic is the sharp angles
of the Cybertruck Right.
Speaker 3 (43:29):
they didn't follow those trends.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
And so I think, as a part of the general psyche, we
are trying to kind of change thetrajectory a little bit, or at
least slow down that movementtowards that, that other extreme
and and uh, uh.
Speaker 3 (43:55):
But also there's a like everything we're talking
about there's something at itsbest, something at its worst.
There's a you know connectingto something healthy in a
healthy manner, versus unhealthyfashion, because even nostalgia
there's in general.
You know, you can be nostalgic,you can visit the past.
You can, you know, go back toyour memories and look at old
movies.
The thing is, if you becomestuck there, then then
(44:18):
essentially, it becomes whatwe're talking about.
You're just numbing yourself,castrating yourself from the
reality that's around you, yeah,or the real thing.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's .
You know your nostalgicmemories.
If they they come, you know wecould say if you want to take a
zen thing, it's like you couldsay hello to them, just don't
serve them tea right, because ifnot, they'll pack their bags
and they'll move in right teawith the habit for you know,
usually with that, but it's anaverage two hours, you know, and
(44:45):
it's simply because you knowthat's han chum, you know the,
the old way of counting han chumis chadjuk in myojin, so it's a
two-hour window and thenusually people, people, but it's
it's um, yeah, the sitting anddwelling and all of this thing,
like I said, it's, it's thatdynamic is interesting because
(45:06):
it's numbing of one thing, um,by use of another thing, and
this kind of back and forth timetravel, and so we have, yeah,
we have the numbness.
Uh, I think we've done somethingwith this numbness idea as a
you know single word with youknow, yeah, because there's that
, uh, like you said, the originperhaps of this conversation on
(45:29):
sunday, that that I was ever sobriefly a part of, and was this
kind of particular kind ofnumbness, of numbing, you know,
drinking until your teeth arenumb so that you feel nothing,
remember nothing, know nothing,or using, or whatever it may be.
(45:53):
Numbness means not wakefulness.
Yeah, the complete oppositenumbness means not wakefulness.
Speaker 3 (45:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
And so the Zen thing would say be on a lookout for
numbness in all of its variousforms, this one with the
addiction and the kind ofcertain behaviors that numb us
to an experience or frequentlyto a memory.
It's almost a much more commonthing, it is the louder end of
(46:31):
the spectrum and then we have,like we said, these more subtle
things.
It's the numbness to, or theabsence of awareness we could
say, which we could call itignorance if you wanted to,
really.
So this numbness is inopposition to wakefulness, there
isn't a sensitivity in numbness, so we don't pick up the less
(46:57):
obvious, the less perceivable,which is again in opposition to
the Zen principle of wakefulnessand really complete
participation in life.
Because in participation inlife, from the Zen thing, you're
attuned to what is not whatyou're like, whatever, what is
(47:18):
how it is, as it is.
So that's the attunement to acomplete experience of life.
So numbness can take variousmore louder or less louder, if
you want to call it thatexpressions of it.
Call it that expressions of it,and obviously it's easier to at
(47:44):
least note the very pronouncedtypes.
And then we move progressivelydown and this is where you know
the whole therapy concept, Ithink, and I don't want to speak
for psychologists, I only knowBuddhist psychology, if you will
.
I don't want to speak forpsychologists, I only know
Buddhist psychology, if you willand call it that.
But it is the fact that wegenerally, people don't know to
(48:11):
themselves and they'reoverwhelmed by the going on, so
the subtlety and theirnumbnesses and the quietudes
those things are seen by thegoing on.
So the subtlety and theirnumbnesses and the quietudes and
the that those things are seenby the therapist.
And the therapist says oh, haveyou noticed how, when you were
saying this and and you avoid itaddressing the thing and blah,
blah, blah, blah, you know thepsychotherapeutic kind of thing
of just bouncing, holding amirror to the person,
(48:34):
essentially right um I'mlaughing I'm laughing because
you're, because you talk aboutthe psychology piece and I'm
talking about the Zen piece thenBecause, yeah, zen, I'm
thinking.
Speaker 3 (48:44):
Zen is like reading the emotional user manual.
If you think about a usermanual for anything that you buy
, it's going to give you thestep-by-step instructions on how
to construct the object, it'sgoing to explain to you how to
maintain it, what tools you need, on how to construct the object
, it's going to explain to youhow to maintain it, what tools
you need, and then it's going togive you the troubleshooting
(49:05):
section.
So you're going to be veryfamiliar with all facets of the
emotional world how to maintaina healthy state of mind, how to
troubleshoot when problems come.
And this is a constant state ofwakefulness that we're
searching for.
Speaker 2 (49:20):
Not numbness and avoidance.
Might as well go down the routeof.
I'm talking about this thingyou're talking about that thing
I wrote, I don't know, when justa little here.
I jot down things.
So in terms of therapy, right,it's a little thing that I had
written down and then maybe I'llshare a little poem.
How about that?
Yeah, that would be great.
So therapy, it seems to me, isa practice of returning a person
(49:42):
back to themselves minus thedelusions and confusions.
They walk away lighter andcloser to their true self and
therefore closer to heaven.
Sad Zen monk about therapistssaid a Zen monk about therapists
, but sort of to connect maybeto that rawness of experience.
(50:06):
I did write a little poem a fewyears ago.
It's not exactly well.
Whatever it is what it is, andI think a bookend via poem is
cute.
Let's go with that one.
So it hasn't the title, buthere it is.
Speaker 3 (50:29):
Maybe someone in the audience we can.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
Oh, suggest a title.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
Suggest a title Suggest a title and win a signed
copy.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
I don't know something.
Yeah, the breaking free fromthe great bondage is accompanied
by the thunderous crack of theribcage ripped open, dust of the
settled thoughts and ideasspewing into the air, the vain
(51:02):
vines of bondage snapping likewhips.
The cage ripped open, take andfillet your heart.
Stretch it open so that each ofits four chambers encompasses
the four directions.
You must catch the world inyour heart, the whole of it,
(51:24):
like a butterfly net, swoop itdown over the existence, over
all of the existence.
Be sure to catch it all, for ifyou leave a single speck of
dust behind, it will tip thescales and you will lose it all.
Once again, I am Myung An Sunim.
Speaker 3 (51:48):
I'm Dr Ruben Lambert.
I like to name that poemPokemon Gotta Catch them All.
Pokemon Gotta Catch them All,gotta Catch them All.
Speaker 2 (51:57):
Until next time, take care of yourselves and each
other.
Speaker 3 (52:00):
From my heart to yours.
If you like what you heard,pass it on to someone else so
that they can enjoy it and learnfrom this podcast also.
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