April 11, 2025 • 54 mins
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Every morning when you wake up, cross the street, or sip your coffee, you're exercising a power that shapes your entire reality—belief. But this isn't about religion. It's about the fundamental way humans navigate an uncertain world.
In this enlightening conversation, we rescue the concept of belief from its narrow religious connotations and reveal how it operates as the invisible engine driving our everyday lives. When you close your eyes to sleep, you believe your ceiling won't collapse. When you make plans for tomorrow, you're facing the unknown future with belief as your guide. This forward-facing perspective is essential to human function, yet we rarely acknowledge its presence.
The distinction between belief and knowledge emerges as particularly crucial. As we note, "If you see it, that's not believing—then you now know." This reveals the absurdity in statements like "I'll believe it when I see it." Every innovation, from flying machines to medical breakthroughs, began with someone believing in possibilities that hadn't yet manifested. The Wright brothers believed they could fly while skeptics merely watched from the sidelines.
Perhaps most fascinating is how belief shapes perception itself. We don't see reality directly—we see it through the filters of our beliefs, projecting our inner world onto the external one. Two people can look at the same tree or cloud and perceive entirely different things, revealing more about their minds than the object itself. This understanding offers tremendous freedom, particularly when facing suffering or limitation.
The podcast concludes with a powerful story about two hospital patients—one who saw only smokestacks from his window, while another saw rolling hills and blue skies. When the first patient moved into the second's room, he discovered they shared the same view of a brick wall. The difference wasn't what existed outside but how each chose to see—not with "meat eyes which cannot see past misery" but with "the eyes of the heart."
What beliefs are shaping your reality? And more importantly—are you letting them operate unconsciously, or are you ready to take the wheel?
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 (00:15):
welcome back everyone to the world through the nice
podcast.
I'm young and sitting here withI'm dr Ruben Lambert.
We are back with episode, Ibelieve number eight.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Alright.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
There will be a time when I stop counting, and that's
getting very close.
Apparently, I was told by oneof our listeners Splendid
podcast.
Regarding our last podcast,however, two seconds in
Myung-han Sunim can rememberthat it was a third, not a
(00:54):
second, fan mail episode andthat's true Was it yeah.
It was the third one and in mybrain it was the second one.
So you see how much of that itreally is.
You know, we at least do somereally minor, if you will,
(01:20):
preparation, and this isn't tosay that we don't want to
produce something well, but itsort of is the nature of the
podcast right.
We kind of meander as we sayand and things come to mind as
we do it.
It's not sort of rehearsed.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
We have no rehearsal podcast prep, if you will it's
sort of like if you were hangingout at a coffee shop with us,
right, and you're justeavesdropping.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
That's right, and it's somewhere, probably during
the middle of the week.
We'll say, hey, what should wedo the podcast about?
Speaker 2 (01:58):
By the way.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
By the way it's coming.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
And this is where the listener participation really
is kind of nice and alsounburdens, at least for myself.
The basic principle really is,and in Zen in particular, that
unless there's a question youdon't teach.
That's the purest kind of thing.
(02:24):
So unless someone meaningquestion means it suggests
interest, otherwise the breadthof topics is so broad, so wide,
so much stuff available, so manyentryways and so many doorways
and entry points and topics andthings and entry points and
(02:44):
topics and things so to Well, weknow, or Buddhism encompasses
the whole cosmos.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
We have right, 84,000 sutras, which 84,000 is really
not the extent of the sutras,it's just a number delineating a
lot, right?
And so, yeah, I want to learnsomething.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
What's the question?
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Yeah, what's the question?
Helps you zoom in on the pointRight.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
So today's topic, belief, again one of these
topics.
So far, I think what we've doneis we've I don't know synapses
is what we do within the onehour or so of time.
We really haven't the time toget into the thing.
(03:36):
So I'm sure at some point intime we're gonna kind of come
full circle and reincarnate backinto the episodes that we
started with, patience, forexample.
I mean, how much can we talkabout patience and the self and
the no self and theconsciousnesses and such?
These topics really, really aregeneral topics.
(03:57):
They're broad topics and wecertainly will be returning to
them.
It is also our hope that inwhat we say, let's say today,
we're going to talk some aboutbelief.
Hopefully a listener hearssomething, gets inspired by it,
moved by it in whatever way, andthen wants some clarification
(04:20):
or some detail and ergo thebirth of some new future
episodes.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Right, I think that we're always open for someone to
have a question, even if it'sin reference to a prior episode,
right, it's very nice forsomeone to say hey, you know, I
heard you guys talking aboutpatience and its function when
it comes to BOP, the weather,the environment.
(04:46):
Can you further expand on that?
I like to go hiking and I wantto further understand, For
example, you know and we coulddefinitely in future episodes,
like you're saying, come backaround and elaborate on the
topic.
And if there's something goingon in your daily life, you've
encountered some difficultsituation and you're pondering
(05:07):
about how I can change my mindabout viewing this situation or
what kinds of techniques I canuse to adapt to the situation.
Sure, ask away.
There's really no limit to thetopics that we're willing to
tackle and expound on.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Absolutely, and that's where the fan mail comes
in and you could comment in thevarious platforms and we'll hope
to get to it, I think.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
We just can't talk about one topic how to fix a bad
hair day that one's beyond ourreach, oh I know.
Topic how to fix a bad hair daythat one's beyond that one's
beyond our reach.
Oh, I know exactly how.
I don't have any personal waita second speak for yourself,
mister.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
I know exactly how to fix a bad hair day.
How's that?
A razor?
Speaker 2 (05:58):
just get rid of it, right, I never have a bad hair
day.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Just uproot the whole problem never have a bad hair
day.
I'm always aerodynamic, that istrue, uh, you know so.
So, uh, move through the worldlike santa claus that's zipping
because of the higher dynamichead.
Yes, belief, I would likebefore we jump in.
(06:22):
I don't know, is it really,before we jump in, I would like
to extricate this term belieffrom its captivity by the
religious sector.
It seems to me, for the mostpart, when the word belief comes
out, somehow the mind tends toimmediately conjure up religious
(06:45):
connotation, religious contextand with it.
For those of us who have beenburnt by religion, uh, tired out
by religion, our particularmaybe.
Religion, what, what have?
you as is the common situation.
(07:08):
People are wanting more and therigidness, perhaps, of religion
is not suitable to this modernday, and so we have to have some
adaptability.
Anyway, no, tangent belief itis not a religious term.
(07:31):
Folks believe is how we operatein the day-to-day.
Yeah, consider every momentfrom here on that I'm facing
forward.
I am facing forward and towardsthe darkness of the unknown.
(07:53):
We don't know what the nextmoment brings.
And so, forward facing.
We are facing belief, we arefacing life with belief, that
which we look behind us and theexperiences, those things, that
is the knowing.
We've had the experience, weunderstand that.
But the next moment is hinged,entirely based on belief.
(08:17):
We make a lot of presumptionsand things like well, I wake up
in the morning and I'm going tobe alive, for example, and I
believe that, and so I madeplans yesterday for the today,
but the truth of the matter iswe have no guarantees.
Furthermore, I went to sleep.
I slept quite well, why?
(08:38):
Because as I was drifting offto sleep and I was looking up at
the ceiling, and then I closedmy eyes, and my eyes still
closed and I still comfortably,and I sailed away on that Carmel
waterfall of sleep.
Yes, because I believed thatthis roof is not going to cave
in in the middle of my night.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Because we see also the complete opposite to be true
too.
The complete opposite to betrue, too For the person that
puts their head on the pillowand they believe that there's
some impending doom that's goingto come to them in that very
moment or in the future.
Primarily, it's the futureright People get into this
anticipatory anxiety state.
(09:20):
They can't rest, they don'tclose their eyes because they
believe they actually trulybelieve, that some harm will
come to them, and their body andmind responds as if it were
true Right.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
So we have that belief.
It's almost like the power ofcreation and destruction is
within your hands.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Is it good, like I was just saying, saying like,
what are you creating or whatare you destroying?
Speaker 1 (09:46):
that's right so again , this idea of belief as a, as a
one-sided thing, makes itlopsided thing and and also I
think that's why it it is soheavily made into a religious
thing, because you believe in athing and that thing largely,
(10:08):
you know, has this one-sidedconnotation.
But, like you said, you couldbelieve enough to cause yourself
anxiety.
You could believe enough to tocause yourself insomnia.
You could believe enough tomake yourself physically ill.
I mean, psychosomatic illnessesare a real thing and they're
rooted in the psyche, they'rerooted in the belief.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
That's a great topic, that so-called psychosomatic.
There are so many anecdotalstories referring to that and,
yes, it is very powerful.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
So now that we have sort of rescued it out of its
only purely religiousconnotation, we have to consider
it that it exists in ourday-to-day life.
Everything we do believe thatthat's not poisonous, that it is
(11:02):
in fact coffee.
That is in fact what you'veordered.
That is in fact you know.
Shenanigans aren't going on inthe kitchen yeah, you don't
believe that it's poisoned.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
right, because if you're working with someone that
suffers from delusions, I'lltell you.
When they believe that somebodyis out to, if they have
delusions of persecution whichis actually a subcategory of
schizophrenia they may believethat their coffee's poisoned.
And guess what?
It's not an idea.
Everything in that chain ofcommand will then follow that
(11:38):
order.
Their thoughts will then matchoh my God, someone's out to kill
me.
Their feelings will match thatThere'll be a feeling of
paranoia and then their actionswill follow that same course.
You won't see that personsipping peacefully that cup of
coffee.
They'll be there.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
You'll see it in their eyes.
You'll see it in their body.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Yeah, they won't even be there because that will
bring them harm, and that is thegoverning belief that has
impacted all of those aspects ofthe person Right.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
There is a Zen thing, and I don't recall exactly if
it's from one hill, teza, orelsewhere.
It's the idea that there are,there are no roadways through
(12:34):
the great ocean, and yet wetraverse it.
There are no steps or laddersin the sky, and yet birds take
flight on a path, etc.
Etc.
And so there is no way really,or there are no steps to
enlightenment.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
We've mentioned the seven steps of one and three and
I'm going to write my book,which is six steps.
Gotcha beat there you go.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
But there are steps to enlightenment, but they're
steps of no steps, in a sense.
So, xin he, heng, zhong are thesteps, if you will, and xin
being belief, yeah, he is.
Then, therefore, theacquisition of knowledge, the
wisdom, the heng, then, is theactivity of the putting the
(13:18):
thing into practice, putting itinto into motion, and then zhong
is this seal of approval.
It's your, your diploma, yourdriver license, your
certification of any kind.
When a student enrolls incollege, they have to believe
(13:44):
that they're going to graduateeventually, and that's within
their reach Right.
They have the capacity and thatgoal is within their reach, and
so then they wake up on a dailybasis.
They wake up, they go, they dothe thing.
Why?
Because behind it sits and it'sthe wind in the sails is the
(14:05):
belief, and then eventually youget your diploma, which is your
proof of persistency.
That's powered by belief.
What I see, and take it how youwant it, in child rearing I see
(14:32):
sometimes parents who reallywant to explain the truth of the
matter to their children andthey're so fixed on this.
I don't tell my childrenstories, I tell them exact truth
as it is, and the dismissal ofthe capacities we're not ever
going to get into that, but theidea that a child, as a person
(14:59):
then, who grows up, has neverfor lack of a better word
practiced belief.
Yes, and then we're asked doyou have to believe in yourself?
How, how?
I've never exercised the muscle, because the idea of belief is
something that is to simplify it, maybe something that is not
(15:21):
yet, but I can, I will, and soyou have to envision, you have
to have an imagination and youhave to envision the thing that
isn't.
You know, wright brothers andand yeah, inventors and things
of that medicine.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
It's in it's, it's in that, in the hands of belief, I
mean I have a saying and I useuse the Wright Brothers for that
saying is the person that hadto see it to believe it stood on
the sidelines and watched theWright Brothers believe they can
fly.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
I'm glad you bring that up because, pardon me, but
if there was ever a more sillyand absurd statement as I will
believe it when I see it youmissed it.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
I mean it's an oxymoron for one right.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
If you see it that's not believing, then you now know
.
So I will know when I see it istrue, I will believe it when I
see it is not true.
The definition here of beliefand knowledge, or experience, if
you will, is completelydifferent.
(16:40):
And so to say I'll believe itwhen I see it is an absurdity,
it's a ridiculous statementRight.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
That's why there are so many missed opportunities
that come to people thatstrictly adhere to that
philosophy and that becomes agoverning principle in their
life.
When you look at any newmovement, they typically call it
a grassroots movement.
Why?
Because when you plant a seedright, you don't see any action.
There's no activity, there's nosprout there.
All you look and see is dirt.
(17:07):
And in the early stages, whenthere's nothing there, there's
nothing tangible.
The people that jump on boardare only the people that believe
truly in that project and themission of that project, because
when you look, you just seedirt.
Like what are you guys doing?
There's nothing going on there.
And there have been so manyexamples of people that missed
the boat.
I think I don't know the exactname, but there's that story of
(17:30):
the gentleman that was part ofthe apple team in the early
stages with uh steve jobs and hesold his stock very, very early
on and he oftentimes getsknocked because it's like man,
if you just would have stuckaround like everyone else that
stock that you had, if youbelieved in the project, your
worth would have been 100million times more.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
And so we could say, we could say you know,
philosophically speaking, right,that is the thing you know to
say, I'll see when I believe it.
That means you can't travelanywhere If you haven't been
there before, then how do you goto a place that you've never
been to?
In a sense, belief is the waythat we operate in the world.
(18:21):
That we operate in the world,like I said, it's been sort of
hijacked and utilized seeminglyonly in the religious context.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Isn't that a little sad too?
It makes me a little sad whenyou describe it that way.
You're referring to a parentearlier talking to their kids
that way.
I've never seen it.
Dad does such and such exist.
I've never seen it.
How do you know?
That's not just the extent ofyour experience whatever wall
right.
And then you have now thatchild which is budding with the
(18:53):
full potential of anything inlife.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
You've now put that kid into a box solely because
that didn't come to you in yourlifetime yeah, the little kid is
playing with, you know, say, atoy car, and and he's driving
his toy car around the carpet onhis imaginary roads and all of
a sudden he takes off and he'sflying, and and the parent sits
(19:16):
by and says, listen, you know,cars have wheels because they
drive, they don't fly, so youkeep the wheels of your car on
the road the way that.
this is exactly why I don't haveflying cars yet, because every
parent with the wisdom of theirown grandoy's experience has
(19:38):
imparted onto their child, notthe things that ought to be
imparted how to be a good humanbeing, this sort of home
education but the technicaleducation or the technical
knowledge of the parent.
And we all have shortcomings,everybody has shortcomings.
(20:00):
But to then pour onto, and ofcourse this is all we have.
So you impart what you have.
But we have to be cautious intrampling things, like you said,
in that potential genius of thechild and to trample and
(20:21):
bulldozer and flatten it outwith our big boots of life
experience, usually with someflavor and seeds of already
having been jaded by existenceand beaten down.
And personal disappointmentsand failures are in there.
They sneak in consciously orunconsciously, subconsciously,
(20:42):
subconsciously.
Episode number seven all aboutsubconscious.
So this idea of allowing forbelief to exist without our
thought that everything must beexplained.
Then you explain away invention, you explain away wonder, you
(21:11):
explain away awe.
And again, this is, you know, agood scientist believes.
I believe that a good scientistbelieves Right, they go to the
lab, they go to the research,whatever it is that they do, why
?
Why would you?
I mean, unless you're one ofthose people that just goes and
just logs in hours to get thepaycheck, then you're just a
(21:37):
worker, maybe not a pursuer, nota researcher, maybe that kind
of thing.
And you know, maybe I'm being alittle harsh and I hope people
don't take it that way.
What I'm saying is that in theheart of the researcher there's
a belief that we can find,whatever it is, you know, the
(21:59):
cure for such and such diseaseor a solution to such and such
problem that yet hasn't beenfrequently found.
And that's why we're doing allthat work, all the scientific
pursuit, all of the research,all of that hard, hard work, and
that whole Edison thing I thinkit was.
(22:20):
I didn't fail a thousand times,I just found a thousand ways
not to do it.
Think about it Each one, eachone, each one, each one.
There's a persistence, and thatpersistence must be governed by
belief.
In fact, that's what itsheartbeat is.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
It fuels perseverance .
If you don't have that Ioftentimes tell this to students
when they want to pursue higherdegrees like a master or a
doctorate If you don't trulybelieve two things number one,
you're capable of achieving thatand number two, the value in
the doctorate you have to seethe value in that goal Because
(23:00):
if not the second you enroll inone of these higher degrees or
in college, you're going to befaced with some kind of a
challenge and it's almost like amathematical equation If the
pressure, the resistance that'sbeing thrown at you outweighs or
outdoes your driving force,you're going to succumb to that
(23:23):
weight that's in front of you.
Because your driving force,you're going to succumb to that
weight that's in front of you.
And the only way that you'regoing to push through that
hardship and push through thosenights where you just don't have
it anymore to continue is ifyou go back and you hunker down
and you go back into the depthsof your heart and soul and you
see that you believe, no matterwhat, you can do.
This and all of this work, allthis effort, whatever you
(23:46):
sacrificed because it's alwaysgoing to take sacrifice it was
all worth it.
When you feel like it was worthit, you push through.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Yeah, it makes you overcome difficulties.
It is belief, at least deep,deep inside, is what's there.
So the first step to action isbelief and in that Zen context,
in that Zen saying, like I said,the first thing is we believe
(24:17):
that the thing we are pursuingis reachable, we believe that
the thing we are after existsfor one.
It is the first step.
In every action, Whether it's aconscious thing or unconscious
thing, still, this is the mindand the heart and the soul moves
(24:39):
in that way.
Then, through the action, likeI said, through the action, like
I said, through the hard work,through hunkering down and doing
, doing what you need to do.
This is where the acquisitionof the experience is.
So, as we're forward moving, you, we do the work.
If we contextualize it in zen,you know, know, you do your
(25:02):
meditation, you do your training, you do your practice, and your
life becomes lighter, happier,and you keep going that way and
you acquire wisdom and thiswisdom then governs your next
behavior.
So it's a chain reaction.
It's not just that the onething keeps on going.
(25:22):
They're, they're links,connected links.
Uh, if you want to think of itin terms of that imagery of the
indra's net, where it's a bignet.
At each point where it's tiedthere's a diamond, and that
diamond reflects all the otherdiamonds and if you tug at it
(25:43):
here, that kind of thing.
So so this idea of putting thething into work, being birthed
initially by, by belief, beingput into work, then we get the
experience.
From that experience comes thewisdom and then we get the
certification mm-hmm and themore lofty the certification
(26:15):
that we're pursuing, the morestronger the belief must be
usually.
And and then we get into thiskind of slippery slope within
Zen, where the things that seemto contradict everything in our
(26:36):
sensorial experience is what weare after.
And this is where I think theWestern interest in Zen lies,
and this is frequently where thebig snagging hooks are, within
this idea of self and no self.
(26:57):
We touched briefly upon it, andthe Buddha himself says that,
for one who fixated himself onthe idea of emptiness or void or
whatever you want to call it,even the Buddhas can help him.
You know, because we believe,believe in a thing, and and I'm
(27:28):
kind of overlapping some otherepisodes here, but you know,
this is what we do, right, the,the belief in a self and and and
a physical self as the onlyself.
We could inspect it with our,with our, uh, we could make a
thought exercise of it, and andwe could unbind from it.
(27:48):
But how we could unbind from it?
But how do you unbind from thebinding?
That is no binding Right right.
Which is this idea of emptinessand whatever that people get so
entangled in and flap around inthis net of it.
So, just to echo some of theother episodes stop it.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Well, yeah, I think, for example, when it comes to
the body and belief in health isone of my favorite topics,
actually, because then you getinto these topics of placebo and
nocebo, which are the positiveversions and the negative
versions of what you believe andhow it governs and functions
within your body.
Belief and how it governs andfunctions within your body, and
(28:33):
it is a very, very powerfulfunction of the mind, right.
But when referring to thebelief about the self, if you
just believe, it's a very sadlife.
If you just put yourself intothe box of this is solely who I
am and what I am, because it'singrained even in our language.
Raise your right hand, right,I'm gonna hypnotize you now that
(28:58):
was a hypnosis test.
You, you, you, you, you agreedto my suggestion.
Now close your eyes no, but uhyour hand.
We don't say raise hand, right.
You know what I'm talking aboutright and so, yeah, that, right
there, even in our language,it's referring to yes, this is
just a part of the self, it'snot the soul self.
(29:19):
Because then, when youencounter any kind of tragedy,
if you're encountering sickness,for example, or pain, if it's
your pain, then understand thatyou are experiencing this.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
You are not that.
There's a freedom that if youcan tap into that right.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
It's built into our language so many people miss it.
Even there was a movementseveral years ago in psychology
when it came to labeling aperson as schizophrenic, for
example.
We don't say that anymore.
We say a person withschizophrenia Because again,
when your mind just shrink,wraps around some label and you
(30:02):
believe well, this is the extentof who I am.
These are the four walls inwhich I am.
That governs who I am, thenthere's no escape.
Which I am, that governs who Iam, then there's no escape.
There's no freedom.
But listen to the language.
This is your body.
What's the your?
Speaker 1 (30:17):
that holds this body?
Who's this?
Speaker 2 (30:20):
you, yes, All these things tying together.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Zen fits in very well there, and there's a freedom
there, of freedom from sufferingif you can tap into that, want
(30:45):
to, because this division,almost right Like the belief, is
this silly, childlike thing.
You just believe the thing, youbelieve anything, blah, blah,
blah.
And in the search for somecertainty, and you hear the
(31:06):
arguments against believing inwhether it's God, whatever,
whatever it says.
Oh, you know, you want acomfortable blanket.
You know there's no such thingas this and that All these
things have been conjured up,they're fairy tales for the
adults.
And the argument then is why?
Oh, because it brings somesense of peace and certainty.
(31:30):
And so you know we're notwalking around, all you know,
just vibrating and caffeinatedand panicky about.
You know the reality of life,Because the reality of life is X
, Y and Z, and so then thebelief is then pinned against.
What that kind of person mightsay is the certainty.
(31:54):
And pardon me if I'm wrong here, but certainty gives you the
certainty and you're certainthat your way is the way.
You're certain that of yourperspective You're certain of
your point of view, you'recertain of your thing, and so
your certainty gives you peace,and of your point of view you're
certain of your thing, and soyour certainty gives you peace
and comfort.
And it's a fairy tale.
So it could have a certainty ofthe fairy tale, and the
(32:18):
certainties are constantlyevolving.
So, if we really look at itclosely, every scientific
breakthrough, there's nocertainty in it.
In a sense, the certainty ismomentary aha, moment right and
then we, what do we do?
(32:38):
we keep on going, we keep ongoing.
So it's a momentary celebrationof some discovery and and this,
this is not a certainty thediscovery and the celebration is
for just ah, my mind has beenenlightened to some new
understanding.
Aha, I had an aha moment.
(32:59):
We celebrate it.
So it's a personal journey in asense, and collective if it's
something that is broader in itsimplications.
So we have these woo-hoo andaha moments, but we continue
forward, moving on thisheartbeat of belief.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
It's no different than school, right?
You graduate eighth grade andyou're like woo-hoo.
Then guess what?
You get to freshman year inhigh school.
Yeah, when you look downwardyou know eighth grade, down
through pre-K.
But when you look forward,guess what?
There's a whole new world thatyou now have to explore.
So enjoy, but also be humble,because there's more learning.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
It's never-ending right.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
There's more learning to be done.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
And this is the never-ending element.
The never-ending element is awonderful thing to consider,
because ending would be sort ofto die, but to die is not to end
either.
Everything is never-ending, ina sense, so there's a continuum.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
I know a guy who said that 2,500 years ago, right
Siddhartha, good old Siddhartha.
I think I was onto something.
Perhaps this is not the episode.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
but you know, dr Ian Stevenson famously has that you
know a big book.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Oh, I want to do a whole episode on that, yeah, of
reincarnation and the childrenand the recollection of their
lives and things.
Which reaffirms that life iscontinuous but that's.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
It says that.
Right, so you believe if youwant to believe.
You don't believe.
If you don't want to believe, Icould tell you this I
immigrated here when I was 12ish, I think, and when I came
(34:54):
here you know I've seen, we'vehad TV, we didn't live in a cave
, where I came from right.
But consider if you will, maybesome tribe somewhere you know,
living nakedly in a forest, andnow you take them and you
(35:21):
helicopter them or fly them overinto a New York skyrise with
hot running water and a jacuzziand air conditioning and heating
, and what I mean.
Tell me.
That person doesn't say well,I've died, and this is now
heaven.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
This is heaven.
Yeah, Heaven on earth.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
They found it.
And so this idea of belief as afirst step, it is a belief as
the first step that then getsrenamed experience, or gets
renamed understanding or wisdomor what have you.
Wisdom is not.
(36:02):
There are varying definitionsof wisdom, at least within Zen
tradition.
One definition of it is alittle bit more transcendent.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Where you know, I have the wisdom, the wisdom of
foresight and the wisdom of.
In a sense, the wisdom is theand, without getting into
xintongliu, which is the kind ofpowers supernatural powers, if
you want to call it that butthey're not supernatural,
they're natural but anyway, theidea of wisdom as the ability to
(36:44):
see the outcome of one'sactions, the kind of causality
and we all do it.
I mean, if I throw a rock atthis camera, it's going to break
it or knock it over or whathave you.
So there is that foresight andI have the wisdom to see into
the future in a sense, but it isbased on only my experiences,
(37:10):
and if I've never experienced acamera that's maybe designed for
extreme sports and and getsrocks and things pelted at it
all the time, it might donothing to this camera.
So we are governed by belief,whether we like it or not
whether we contextualize it insome organized fashion or not,
(37:33):
but you don't wake up, frankly,you don't go to sleep if belief
is not some.
And when we call this the fiveroots, also the within central
chemical, the five roots arethese things that are innately
existing in every body.
(37:54):
Everybody has it.
But, as you were talking aboutthe seed and the grass roots,
the roots, why are the roots?
Because they're beneath thesoil.
You cannot see it.
When they sprout, when theybreak out into, if you will,
into, the conscious mind, thenthey are seen as a sprout, et
cetera, et cetera.
Exactly, but prior to thatthey're unseen.
(38:16):
But just because a thing isunseen doesn't mean it's not
powerful.
I mean, yeah, I mean, we've hadmany cases.
Gravity is unseen, in a sense.
I mean when we had the pandemic.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
Nobody can see COVID and wiped out almost, yeah, 2
million, 3 million people.
Radiation is unseen and I don'tknow anyone taking vacations to
Chernobyl.
So I think across the board, weunderstand that just because
it's unseen to you doesn't meanit's not real and it doesn't
(38:54):
mean it can't impact you.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
And just because that's you know, it's an
important point to highlightbecause someone might say well,
you know, we can see COVID whenyou look at it under a
microscope and whatever, butit's like you said, you can't
see it under the microscope.
You can't be in a room and say Isee it right now, unseen to who
(39:23):
, like you said, unseen to whoand unseen by what machinery, if
you will, and perhaps in thefuture, we really are in an era
where technological developmentreally has kind of exploded.
I mean, I just heard about theAI therapists.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
Oh no, we're not going there.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Well and.
But.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
I'm starting to boycott now.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Well, and then I believe it was in the University
of Zurich, if I have itcorrectly, a study was done that
found that ai it was showingsymptoms of anxiety.
I don't know if you've seen thatum so I think I read the
headline yeah, so the the, thecontrol was that the ai was fed
(40:11):
the information from a vacuumcleaner manual and then the
other AI was fed sort of theinformation as it is fed by the
world and language changes.
When you're depressed, yourlanguage changes.
You might be expressing thesame.
We both might be looking atthat plant and in fact I was was
(40:38):
the brown leaf just looks likeit's dying.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
Ah, and I think I am too right.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
And then, if you're in love that green, bright green
, ah, look at it coming sobeautiful, yeah, you know, and
uh, and if you're a farmer, ifyou're a farmer, if you're a
chemist, that needs potassium.
That's why the colors arechanging.
I went I think we had gone on ahike with the Zen Center and
(41:08):
one of the members commented onwe had gone through a.
I want to say it was at therutgers gardens.
You know that pine forestthat's sort of a pine school.
Really.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
It's like mythical almost yes, when you're there,
you feel like you're in thenight to the round table forest
in a fairy tale.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Yeah but it's planted right.
So it's planted in these neatrows.
It's kind of, you know, toosterile in a sense and um, but
so I believe it was in there andthere was one particular tree
that was significantly stood outbecause it was crooked.
All the other ones, pinesgenerally, um, tend to grow
(41:54):
straight and in particular, Imean, certain species are little
rambunctious and they don'twant to.
But there's a, there's a wisdomin the way that the tree, and
especially what it calledcarnivorous, kind of her
carnivores, you know they'rebranches kind of slope down and
(42:19):
and they're perfectly straightto distribute the load when
they're covered, because theyhave needles in the winter, so
they, they hold the snow.
So there's a, there's areasoning for its geometry and
and that's why they're they'revery straight, you know to to
make sure that the displacementof the weight, and that's why
they're very straight, you know,to make sure that the
(42:39):
displacement of the weight ofthe snow.
But this one particular, forwhatever reason, maybe it was
sickly or maybe whateverhappened to it during its growth
, not unlike a child, whensomething happens, there's
oppression during its growth andthen it corrects itself, but
there's that bend that you knowthe s shape there, that stays
with it.
Um, and and after the the trip,people commented on you know
(43:06):
the general experience of the,of the trip, etc.
Etc.
These things and one personcommented on, like you said,
commented, commented on that oneuniquely deformed tree.
It stood out so much to themthat it was almost a fixation
(43:28):
and they were plagued byepisodes of severe depression,
generally speaking, and thismirroring was there that they
identified perhaps with that onesingle tree that all the other
(43:49):
trees aren't and this one singletree and that kind of thing.
But we digress.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
They saw themselves in the tree.
Yeah, it's almost like a worldRorschach test.
It is, yeah, tree and and thatkind of thing.
But we digress.
They saw themselves in the tree, yeah, yeah, it's almost like a
world rorschach test.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
It is, yeah, and and it is, you know, we, we believe
and what we believe we impartonto the world.
So this, this is a two-waystreet to some degree, but I
would say more so it's a one-waystreet.
I I think in the lastmeditation class I spoke about
clouds and I had kind of it's uhtime for angle, which is the
(44:24):
meditation retreat season, andand the in between the angle I
kind of come out from from, frommy under the rock, from the
cave, from the depths of thecave to kind of come out from
under the rock, from the cave,from the depths of the cave, to
see what's going on in theoutside world, to see what's
going on in the outside world,and I take in some of it to be
(44:47):
able to communicate like a humanbeing.
I try my best.
And so I was talking aboutclouds and how I think almost
everybody as a child they lookat clouds and they're trying to
make out shape.
You know, we have that searchfor this anthropomorphic quality
(45:09):
, so on.
That looks like a face and it'sgot eyes, and it's a bunny, and
it's a this and it's a that,and, and so we imagine various
things.
And I said, you know, and maybethat one's a cybertruck, and.
And so everybody laughed at that, because clouds are, generally
speaking, roundish, they're notas angular as as it may be.
And you know, I paused for amoment because it was a
(45:35):
teachable moment.
And it was a teachable momentin the sense that so much in my
current out in the world.
You know, the Cybertruck thingis coming up and up and up again
and I could care less eitherway.
You know I'm not judginganybody's choices, whatever you
do to you, but it seeped into mypsyche sufficiently enough that
(46:05):
it was included in a.
You know, it was meant to bekind of funny, because clouds
aren't shaped, you know inangular ways, but and so think
about it.
That is how our minds and andthat which we diet on it really
is projected onto the world, andsomeone said exactly that.
What you said.
It's like.
This is like a big rorschachthing.
Right, we look at, we look atreality, and and the truth of
(46:28):
the matter is, what we're tryingto do within zen is to actually
look at reality.
We don't look at reality, welook at the content of our to
actually look at reality.
We don't look at reality.
We look at the content of ourmind.
We look at the screen that theeyeball is and to which, like
those new AI glasses where it'sgot print on the inside, of it
(46:48):
right, this is how we see theworld.
So this invention quote unquoteif you will of the AI glasses
with the screen that youreyeball could see, but you're
also seeing the reality, as is.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
That's not new.
It's not new.
Humans have been distortingreality since the beginning,
since we crawled out of the muck.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
Yeah, it really is that it's the same principle.
It's the same principle.
We look at reality through ourAI lenses and the AI has been
fed the information that I havebeen fed throughout my life, and
then I see not what is, butwhat I imagined to be.
(47:29):
And if you believe sufficientlythat that person is out to get
you, they are out to get you.
Oh yes, if you believe thatworld is in this way and that
way, and so to maybe startcircling back and kind of tying
(47:51):
it all neatly, belief is a thingthat is.
It's a thing that we do, inwhat context we do it and where
the topics of it or theinterests of the belief we
believe in.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
What that varies, but in terms of its governing
principle in our life, it'sthere and I I want to give a
message also that it's somethingthat you should actively be
aware of and try to train it.
You referred to Ogun, the fiveroots that every person has, and
(48:27):
when I think of root, I thinkwell, how do you make it sprout?
Or how do you make a flower orfruit?
You have to nurture that root,you have to nurture that root,
you have to feed that root.
And I believe that Zen is a.
It is the training ground forpeople to learn to first
identify what are the governingbeliefs that are leading them
(48:48):
into these pitfalls and thesetraps and these, this revolving
door of misery and suffering.
Because when you understandthat it is your belief that can
literally change your outlook onlife, then you have to train
your mind to shift or to see thepositive, see the way through,
find hope.
(49:08):
And if you don't train that,then you're just going to again
be that hamster on that wheel,continuously crashing up against
that same problem or hardshipand feeling like there's no way
out.
And there's a story that mygrandmother taught me, told me,
and I think it highlights thispoint, and the context is in an
(49:31):
institution, a hospitalinstitution, and there's this
patient we'll just call himpatient A for the case of
example.
That's been in his room formany years now and he looks out
the window and he is discontentwith the view.
From his window, all he seesare smokestacks and gray skies.
(49:53):
And then on the other sidethere's we'll say Mr Jones, this
patient.
He can hear him talking loudlyand laughing and saying how
wonderful it is.
When he looks out his window,right, he sees the rolling hills
and the beautiful blue sky andthe birds chirping and the
(50:13):
flowers blossoming.
And so patient A also happensto hear one of the hospital
employees say that oh, mr Jonesis finally being discharged.
And so he calls in the hospitalemployee and says excuse me,
can I move into Mr Jones' room?
And the hospital employee saysyeah, sure you know you've been
(50:33):
here a long time, you've been agood patient.
And the hospital employee saysyeah, sure you know you've been
here a long time, you've been agood patient.
Absolutely, we'd help you moveinto that room.
And so when the time comes,patient A moves into that room
and he's so excited he can'twait to look out that window.
And he raises up the shade andhe looks and he sees oh, it's a
brick wall.
And he's like wait a minute.
He calls in the hospital workerand says excuse me, excuse me,
(50:56):
wait, I didn't want this room, Iwanted Mr Jones' room, you know
, the one with the beautifulrolling hills and the blue skies
.
Oh, that's what Mr Jones said.
He saw.
He goes yeah, yeah, that's whatMr Jones saw.
This cannot be his room.
And he goes, oh, you don't know.
He says, oh, mr Nice, he didn'tlook with these meat eyes which
(51:21):
cannot see past misery.
He looked with the eyes of hisheart which can cut through
suffering and look at the rootof happiness and joy and peace.
People need to work on andtrain, because sometimes there's
this rubber band effect wherewe just get pulled back into the
cogent quantum, these habitualways of seeing the world with
(51:45):
limitations and, of course,negative things stand out.
Right, you turn on the news,like you were saying earlier,
about cyber trucks.
All the negativity is whatstands out.
Sometimes in our, in our world,those are the things that make
the most noise.
Yeah, but we have to learn toquiet that and then we can have
the freedom to choose what wewant to hone in on and what we
(52:05):
want to focus yeah, so belief isa thing, yes, it.
Speaker 1 (52:09):
It does its work, whether you like it or not.
Yeah, and training it?
How do you use any tool?
yeah so we don't become the tool.
You know, if we, if it'sunconsciously done in a way that
it largely is, we are the tool,not the mercy of it, mm-hmm.
(52:30):
And.
And if we don't choose to train, if we don't choose to access
that control panel, if you will,then we are there for the ride
and we're definitely not behindthe steering wheel.
And so, absolutely Belief is areal thing.
It's there for you if you knowhow to use it, for you, if you
(52:54):
know how to use it.
It's there in you and we juststumble and operate in ways
whatever if we're notconsciously have taken the time
to see what actually the workingof it is.
So, until next time, take careof yourselves and each other.
(53:17):
If you have questions orcomments, please do let us know.
If you'd like to support thepodcast, to offset the cost of
the platforms, etc.
Etc.
We appreciate that, of course.
Also, thank you for listening.
Until next time, take care ofyourselves and each other.
(53:40):
I'm Myung Han.
Speaker 2 (53:42):
Sunim.
Thank you, I'm Dr Ruben Lambert.
From my heart to yours, I wantto wish everyone some happiness
in their life and some peace,and please subscribe and like.
And if you heard somethingtoday that you feel that it
tugged on the strings of yourheart, if you heard something
today that you feel that ittucked on the strings of your
heart, that you learnedsomething new that can better
your life, please share it withothers.
(54:03):
Thank you very much.
welcome back everyone to the world through the nice
podcast.
I'm young and sitting here withI'm dr Ruben Lambert.
We are back with episode, Ibelieve number eight.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Alright.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
There will be a time when I stop counting, and that's
getting very close.
Apparently, I was told by oneof our listeners Splendid
podcast.
Regarding our last podcast,however, two seconds in
Myung-han Sunim can rememberthat it was a third, not a
(00:54):
second, fan mail episode andthat's true Was it yeah.
It was the third one and in mybrain it was the second one.
So you see how much of that itreally is.
You know, we at least do somereally minor, if you will,
(01:20):
preparation, and this isn't tosay that we don't want to
produce something well, but itsort of is the nature of the
podcast right.
We kind of meander as we sayand and things come to mind as
we do it.
It's not sort of rehearsed.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
We have no rehearsal podcast prep, if you will it's
sort of like if you were hangingout at a coffee shop with us,
right, and you're justeavesdropping.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
That's right, and it's somewhere, probably during
the middle of the week.
We'll say, hey, what should wedo the podcast about?
Speaker 2 (01:58):
By the way.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
By the way it's coming.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
And this is where the listener participation really
is kind of nice and alsounburdens, at least for myself.
The basic principle really is,and in Zen in particular, that
unless there's a question youdon't teach.
That's the purest kind of thing.
(02:24):
So unless someone meaningquestion means it suggests
interest, otherwise the breadthof topics is so broad, so wide,
so much stuff available, so manyentryways and so many doorways
and entry points and topics andthings and entry points and
(02:44):
topics and things so to Well, weknow, or Buddhism encompasses
the whole cosmos.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
We have right, 84,000 sutras, which 84,000 is really
not the extent of the sutras,it's just a number delineating a
lot, right?
And so, yeah, I want to learnsomething.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
What's the question?
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Yeah, what's the question?
Helps you zoom in on the pointRight.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
So today's topic, belief, again one of these
topics.
So far, I think what we've doneis we've I don't know synapses
is what we do within the onehour or so of time.
We really haven't the time toget into the thing.
(03:36):
So I'm sure at some point intime we're gonna kind of come
full circle and reincarnate backinto the episodes that we
started with, patience, forexample.
I mean, how much can we talkabout patience and the self and
the no self and theconsciousnesses and such?
These topics really, really aregeneral topics.
(03:57):
They're broad topics and wecertainly will be returning to
them.
It is also our hope that inwhat we say, let's say today,
we're going to talk some aboutbelief.
Hopefully a listener hearssomething, gets inspired by it,
moved by it in whatever way, andthen wants some clarification
(04:20):
or some detail and ergo thebirth of some new future
episodes.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Right, I think that we're always open for someone to
have a question, even if it'sin reference to a prior episode,
right, it's very nice forsomeone to say hey, you know, I
heard you guys talking aboutpatience and its function when
it comes to BOP, the weather,the environment.
(04:46):
Can you further expand on that?
I like to go hiking and I wantto further understand, For
example, you know and we coulddefinitely in future episodes,
like you're saying, come backaround and elaborate on the
topic.
And if there's something goingon in your daily life, you've
encountered some difficultsituation and you're pondering
(05:07):
about how I can change my mindabout viewing this situation or
what kinds of techniques I canuse to adapt to the situation.
Sure, ask away.
There's really no limit to thetopics that we're willing to
tackle and expound on.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Absolutely, and that's where the fan mail comes
in and you could comment in thevarious platforms and we'll hope
to get to it, I think.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
We just can't talk about one topic how to fix a bad
hair day that one's beyond ourreach, oh I know.
Topic how to fix a bad hair daythat one's beyond that one's
beyond our reach.
Oh, I know exactly how.
I don't have any personal waita second speak for yourself,
mister.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
I know exactly how to fix a bad hair day.
How's that?
A razor?
Speaker 2 (05:58):
just get rid of it, right, I never have a bad hair
day.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Just uproot the whole problem never have a bad hair
day.
I'm always aerodynamic, that istrue, uh, you know so.
So, uh, move through the worldlike santa claus that's zipping
because of the higher dynamichead.
Yes, belief, I would likebefore we jump in.
(06:22):
I don't know, is it really,before we jump in, I would like
to extricate this term belieffrom its captivity by the
religious sector.
It seems to me, for the mostpart, when the word belief comes
out, somehow the mind tends toimmediately conjure up religious
(06:45):
connotation, religious contextand with it.
For those of us who have beenburnt by religion, uh, tired out
by religion, our particularmaybe.
Religion, what, what have?
you as is the common situation.
(07:08):
People are wanting more and therigidness, perhaps, of religion
is not suitable to this modernday, and so we have to have some
adaptability.
Anyway, no, tangent belief itis not a religious term.
(07:31):
Folks believe is how we operatein the day-to-day.
Yeah, consider every momentfrom here on that I'm facing
forward.
I am facing forward and towardsthe darkness of the unknown.
(07:53):
We don't know what the nextmoment brings.
And so, forward facing.
We are facing belief, we arefacing life with belief, that
which we look behind us and theexperiences, those things, that
is the knowing.
We've had the experience, weunderstand that.
But the next moment is hinged,entirely based on belief.
(08:17):
We make a lot of presumptionsand things like well, I wake up
in the morning and I'm going tobe alive, for example, and I
believe that, and so I madeplans yesterday for the today,
but the truth of the matter iswe have no guarantees.
Furthermore, I went to sleep.
I slept quite well, why?
(08:38):
Because as I was drifting offto sleep and I was looking up at
the ceiling, and then I closedmy eyes, and my eyes still
closed and I still comfortably,and I sailed away on that Carmel
waterfall of sleep.
Yes, because I believed thatthis roof is not going to cave
in in the middle of my night.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Because we see also the complete opposite to be true
too.
The complete opposite to betrue, too For the person that
puts their head on the pillowand they believe that there's
some impending doom that's goingto come to them in that very
moment or in the future.
Primarily, it's the futureright People get into this
anticipatory anxiety state.
(09:20):
They can't rest, they don'tclose their eyes because they
believe they actually trulybelieve, that some harm will
come to them, and their body andmind responds as if it were
true Right.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
So we have that belief.
It's almost like the power ofcreation and destruction is
within your hands.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Is it good, like I was just saying, saying like,
what are you creating or whatare you destroying?
Speaker 1 (09:46):
that's right so again , this idea of belief as a, as a
one-sided thing, makes itlopsided thing and and also I
think that's why it it is soheavily made into a religious
thing, because you believe in athing and that thing largely,
(10:08):
you know, has this one-sidedconnotation.
But, like you said, you couldbelieve enough to cause yourself
anxiety.
You could believe enough to tocause yourself insomnia.
You could believe enough tomake yourself physically ill.
I mean, psychosomatic illnessesare a real thing and they're
rooted in the psyche, they'rerooted in the belief.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
That's a great topic, that so-called psychosomatic.
There are so many anecdotalstories referring to that and,
yes, it is very powerful.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
So now that we have sort of rescued it out of its
only purely religiousconnotation, we have to consider
it that it exists in ourday-to-day life.
Everything we do believe thatthat's not poisonous, that it is
(11:02):
in fact coffee.
That is in fact what you'veordered.
That is in fact you know.
Shenanigans aren't going on inthe kitchen yeah, you don't
believe that it's poisoned.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
right, because if you're working with someone that
suffers from delusions, I'lltell you.
When they believe that somebodyis out to, if they have
delusions of persecution whichis actually a subcategory of
schizophrenia they may believethat their coffee's poisoned.
And guess what?
It's not an idea.
Everything in that chain ofcommand will then follow that
(11:38):
order.
Their thoughts will then matchoh my God, someone's out to kill
me.
Their feelings will match thatThere'll be a feeling of
paranoia and then their actionswill follow that same course.
You won't see that personsipping peacefully that cup of
coffee.
They'll be there.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
You'll see it in their eyes.
You'll see it in their body.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Yeah, they won't even be there because that will
bring them harm, and that is thegoverning belief that has
impacted all of those aspects ofthe person Right.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
There is a Zen thing, and I don't recall exactly if
it's from one hill, teza, orelsewhere.
It's the idea that there are,there are no roadways through
(12:34):
the great ocean, and yet wetraverse it.
There are no steps or laddersin the sky, and yet birds take
flight on a path, etc.
Etc.
And so there is no way really,or there are no steps to
enlightenment.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
We've mentioned the seven steps of one and three and
I'm going to write my book,which is six steps.
Gotcha beat there you go.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
But there are steps to enlightenment, but they're
steps of no steps, in a sense.
So, xin he, heng, zhong are thesteps, if you will, and xin
being belief, yeah, he is.
Then, therefore, theacquisition of knowledge, the
wisdom, the heng, then, is theactivity of the putting the
(13:18):
thing into practice, putting itinto into motion, and then zhong
is this seal of approval.
It's your, your diploma, yourdriver license, your
certification of any kind.
When a student enrolls incollege, they have to believe
(13:44):
that they're going to graduateeventually, and that's within
their reach Right.
They have the capacity and thatgoal is within their reach, and
so then they wake up on a dailybasis.
They wake up, they go, they dothe thing.
Why?
Because behind it sits and it'sthe wind in the sails is the
(14:05):
belief, and then eventually youget your diploma, which is your
proof of persistency.
That's powered by belief.
What I see, and take it how youwant it, in child rearing I see
(14:32):
sometimes parents who reallywant to explain the truth of the
matter to their children andthey're so fixed on this.
I don't tell my childrenstories, I tell them exact truth
as it is, and the dismissal ofthe capacities we're not ever
going to get into that, but theidea that a child, as a person
(14:59):
then, who grows up, has neverfor lack of a better word
practiced belief.
Yes, and then we're asked doyou have to believe in yourself?
How, how?
I've never exercised the muscle, because the idea of belief is
something that is to simplify it, maybe something that is not
(15:21):
yet, but I can, I will, and soyou have to envision, you have
to have an imagination and youhave to envision the thing that
isn't.
You know, wright brothers andand yeah, inventors and things
of that medicine.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
It's in it's, it's in that, in the hands of belief, I
mean I have a saying and I useuse the Wright Brothers for that
saying is the person that hadto see it to believe it stood on
the sidelines and watched theWright Brothers believe they can
fly.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
I'm glad you bring that up because, pardon me, but
if there was ever a more sillyand absurd statement as I will
believe it when I see it youmissed it.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
I mean it's an oxymoron for one right.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
If you see it that's not believing, then you now know
.
So I will know when I see it istrue, I will believe it when I
see it is not true.
The definition here of beliefand knowledge, or experience, if
you will, is completelydifferent.
(16:40):
And so to say I'll believe itwhen I see it is an absurdity,
it's a ridiculous statementRight.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
That's why there are so many missed opportunities
that come to people thatstrictly adhere to that
philosophy and that becomes agoverning principle in their
life.
When you look at any newmovement, they typically call it
a grassroots movement.
Why?
Because when you plant a seedright, you don't see any action.
There's no activity, there's nosprout there.
All you look and see is dirt.
(17:07):
And in the early stages, whenthere's nothing there, there's
nothing tangible.
The people that jump on boardare only the people that believe
truly in that project and themission of that project, because
when you look, you just seedirt.
Like what are you guys doing?
There's nothing going on there.
And there have been so manyexamples of people that missed
the boat.
I think I don't know the exactname, but there's that story of
(17:30):
the gentleman that was part ofthe apple team in the early
stages with uh steve jobs and hesold his stock very, very early
on and he oftentimes getsknocked because it's like man,
if you just would have stuckaround like everyone else that
stock that you had, if youbelieved in the project, your
worth would have been 100million times more.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
And so we could say, we could say you know,
philosophically speaking, right,that is the thing you know to
say, I'll see when I believe it.
That means you can't travelanywhere If you haven't been
there before, then how do you goto a place that you've never
been to?
In a sense, belief is the waythat we operate in the world.
(18:21):
That we operate in the world,like I said, it's been sort of
hijacked and utilized seeminglyonly in the religious context.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Isn't that a little sad too?
It makes me a little sad whenyou describe it that way.
You're referring to a parentearlier talking to their kids
that way.
I've never seen it.
Dad does such and such exist.
I've never seen it.
How do you know?
That's not just the extent ofyour experience whatever wall
right.
And then you have now thatchild which is budding with the
(18:53):
full potential of anything inlife.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
You've now put that kid into a box solely because
that didn't come to you in yourlifetime yeah, the little kid is
playing with, you know, say, atoy car, and and he's driving
his toy car around the carpet onhis imaginary roads and all of
a sudden he takes off and he'sflying, and and the parent sits
(19:16):
by and says, listen, you know,cars have wheels because they
drive, they don't fly, so youkeep the wheels of your car on
the road the way that.
this is exactly why I don't haveflying cars yet, because every
parent with the wisdom of theirown grandoy's experience has
(19:38):
imparted onto their child, notthe things that ought to be
imparted how to be a good humanbeing, this sort of home
education but the technicaleducation or the technical
knowledge of the parent.
And we all have shortcomings,everybody has shortcomings.
(20:00):
But to then pour onto, and ofcourse this is all we have.
So you impart what you have.
But we have to be cautious intrampling things, like you said,
in that potential genius of thechild and to trample and
(20:21):
bulldozer and flatten it outwith our big boots of life
experience, usually with someflavor and seeds of already
having been jaded by existenceand beaten down.
And personal disappointmentsand failures are in there.
They sneak in consciously orunconsciously, subconsciously,
(20:42):
subconsciously.
Episode number seven all aboutsubconscious.
So this idea of allowing forbelief to exist without our
thought that everything must beexplained.
Then you explain away invention, you explain away wonder, you
(21:11):
explain away awe.
And again, this is, you know, agood scientist believes.
I believe that a good scientistbelieves Right, they go to the
lab, they go to the research,whatever it is that they do, why
?
Why would you?
I mean, unless you're one ofthose people that just goes and
just logs in hours to get thepaycheck, then you're just a
(21:37):
worker, maybe not a pursuer, nota researcher, maybe that kind
of thing.
And you know, maybe I'm being alittle harsh and I hope people
don't take it that way.
What I'm saying is that in theheart of the researcher there's
a belief that we can find,whatever it is, you know, the
(21:59):
cure for such and such diseaseor a solution to such and such
problem that yet hasn't beenfrequently found.
And that's why we're doing allthat work, all the scientific
pursuit, all of the research,all of that hard, hard work, and
that whole Edison thing I thinkit was.
(22:20):
I didn't fail a thousand times,I just found a thousand ways
not to do it.
Think about it Each one, eachone, each one, each one.
There's a persistence, and thatpersistence must be governed by
belief.
In fact, that's what itsheartbeat is.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
It fuels perseverance .
If you don't have that Ioftentimes tell this to students
when they want to pursue higherdegrees like a master or a
doctorate If you don't trulybelieve two things number one,
you're capable of achieving thatand number two, the value in
the doctorate you have to seethe value in that goal Because
(23:00):
if not the second you enroll inone of these higher degrees or
in college, you're going to befaced with some kind of a
challenge and it's almost like amathematical equation If the
pressure, the resistance that'sbeing thrown at you outweighs or
outdoes your driving force,you're going to succumb to that
(23:23):
weight that's in front of you.
Because your driving force,you're going to succumb to that
weight that's in front of you.
And the only way that you'regoing to push through that
hardship and push through thosenights where you just don't have
it anymore to continue is ifyou go back and you hunker down
and you go back into the depthsof your heart and soul and you
see that you believe, no matterwhat, you can do.
This and all of this work, allthis effort, whatever you
(23:46):
sacrificed because it's alwaysgoing to take sacrifice it was
all worth it.
When you feel like it was worthit, you push through.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Yeah, it makes you overcome difficulties.
It is belief, at least deep,deep inside, is what's there.
So the first step to action isbelief and in that Zen context,
in that Zen saying, like I said,the first thing is we believe
(24:17):
that the thing we are pursuingis reachable, we believe that
the thing we are after existsfor one.
It is the first step.
In every action, Whether it's aconscious thing or unconscious
thing, still, this is the mindand the heart and the soul moves
(24:39):
in that way.
Then, through the action, likeI said, through the action, like
I said, through the hard work,through hunkering down and doing
, doing what you need to do.
This is where the acquisitionof the experience is.
So, as we're forward moving, you, we do the work.
If we contextualize it in zen,you know, know, you do your
(25:02):
meditation, you do your training, you do your practice, and your
life becomes lighter, happier,and you keep going that way and
you acquire wisdom and thiswisdom then governs your next
behavior.
So it's a chain reaction.
It's not just that the onething keeps on going.
(25:22):
They're, they're links,connected links.
Uh, if you want to think of itin terms of that imagery of the
indra's net, where it's a bignet.
At each point where it's tiedthere's a diamond, and that
diamond reflects all the otherdiamonds and if you tug at it
(25:43):
here, that kind of thing.
So so this idea of putting thething into work, being birthed
initially by, by belief, beingput into work, then we get the
experience.
From that experience comes thewisdom and then we get the
certification mm-hmm and themore lofty the certification
(26:15):
that we're pursuing, the morestronger the belief must be
usually.
And and then we get into thiskind of slippery slope within
Zen, where the things that seemto contradict everything in our
(26:36):
sensorial experience is what weare after.
And this is where I think theWestern interest in Zen lies,
and this is frequently where thebig snagging hooks are, within
this idea of self and no self.
(26:57):
We touched briefly upon it, andthe Buddha himself says that,
for one who fixated himself onthe idea of emptiness or void or
whatever you want to call it,even the Buddhas can help him.
You know, because we believe,believe in a thing, and and I'm
(27:28):
kind of overlapping some otherepisodes here, but you know,
this is what we do, right, the,the belief in a self and and and
a physical self as the onlyself.
We could inspect it with our,with our, uh, we could make a
thought exercise of it, and andwe could unbind from it.
(27:48):
But how we could unbind from it?
But how do you unbind from thebinding?
That is no binding Right right.
Which is this idea of emptinessand whatever that people get so
entangled in and flap around inthis net of it.
So, just to echo some of theother episodes stop it.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Well, yeah, I think, for example, when it comes to
the body and belief in health isone of my favorite topics,
actually, because then you getinto these topics of placebo and
nocebo, which are the positiveversions and the negative
versions of what you believe andhow it governs and functions
within your body.
Belief and how it governs andfunctions within your body, and
(28:33):
it is a very, very powerfulfunction of the mind, right.
But when referring to thebelief about the self, if you
just believe, it's a very sadlife.
If you just put yourself intothe box of this is solely who I
am and what I am, because it'singrained even in our language.
Raise your right hand, right,I'm gonna hypnotize you now that
(28:58):
was a hypnosis test.
You, you, you, you, you agreedto my suggestion.
Now close your eyes no, but uhyour hand.
We don't say raise hand, right.
You know what I'm talking aboutright and so, yeah, that, right
there, even in our language,it's referring to yes, this is
just a part of the self, it'snot the soul self.
(29:19):
Because then, when youencounter any kind of tragedy,
if you're encountering sickness,for example, or pain, if it's
your pain, then understand thatyou are experiencing this.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
You are not that.
There's a freedom that if youcan tap into that right.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
It's built into our language so many people miss it.
Even there was a movementseveral years ago in psychology
when it came to labeling aperson as schizophrenic, for
example.
We don't say that anymore.
We say a person withschizophrenia Because again,
when your mind just shrink,wraps around some label and you
(30:02):
believe well, this is the extentof who I am.
These are the four walls inwhich I am.
That governs who I am, thenthere's no escape.
Which I am, that governs who Iam, then there's no escape.
There's no freedom.
But listen to the language.
This is your body.
What's the your?
Speaker 1 (30:17):
that holds this body?
Who's this?
Speaker 2 (30:20):
you, yes, All these things tying together.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Zen fits in very well there, and there's a freedom
there, of freedom from sufferingif you can tap into that, want
(30:45):
to, because this division,almost right Like the belief, is
this silly, childlike thing.
You just believe the thing, youbelieve anything, blah, blah,
blah.
And in the search for somecertainty, and you hear the
(31:06):
arguments against believing inwhether it's God, whatever,
whatever it says.
Oh, you know, you want acomfortable blanket.
You know there's no such thingas this and that All these
things have been conjured up,they're fairy tales for the
adults.
And the argument then is why?
Oh, because it brings somesense of peace and certainty.
(31:30):
And so you know we're notwalking around, all you know,
just vibrating and caffeinatedand panicky about.
You know the reality of life,Because the reality of life is X
, Y and Z, and so then thebelief is then pinned against.
What that kind of person mightsay is the certainty.
(31:54):
And pardon me if I'm wrong here, but certainty gives you the
certainty and you're certainthat your way is the way.
You're certain that of yourperspective You're certain of
your point of view, you'recertain of your thing, and so
your certainty gives you peace,and of your point of view you're
certain of your thing, and soyour certainty gives you peace
and comfort.
And it's a fairy tale.
So it could have a certainty ofthe fairy tale, and the
(32:18):
certainties are constantlyevolving.
So, if we really look at itclosely, every scientific
breakthrough, there's nocertainty in it.
In a sense, the certainty ismomentary aha, moment right and
then we, what do we do?
(32:38):
we keep on going, we keep ongoing.
So it's a momentary celebrationof some discovery and and this,
this is not a certainty thediscovery and the celebration is
for just ah, my mind has beenenlightened to some new
understanding.
Aha, I had an aha moment.
(32:59):
We celebrate it.
So it's a personal journey in asense, and collective if it's
something that is broader in itsimplications.
So we have these woo-hoo andaha moments, but we continue
forward, moving on thisheartbeat of belief.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
It's no different than school, right?
You graduate eighth grade andyou're like woo-hoo.
Then guess what?
You get to freshman year inhigh school.
Yeah, when you look downwardyou know eighth grade, down
through pre-K.
But when you look forward,guess what?
There's a whole new world thatyou now have to explore.
So enjoy, but also be humble,because there's more learning.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
It's never-ending right.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
There's more learning to be done.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
And this is the never-ending element.
The never-ending element is awonderful thing to consider,
because ending would be sort ofto die, but to die is not to end
either.
Everything is never-ending, ina sense, so there's a continuum.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
I know a guy who said that 2,500 years ago, right
Siddhartha, good old Siddhartha.
I think I was onto something.
Perhaps this is not the episode.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
but you know, dr Ian Stevenson famously has that you
know a big book.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Oh, I want to do a whole episode on that, yeah, of
reincarnation and the childrenand the recollection of their
lives and things.
Which reaffirms that life iscontinuous but that's.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
It says that.
Right, so you believe if youwant to believe.
You don't believe.
If you don't want to believe, Icould tell you this I
immigrated here when I was 12ish, I think, and when I came
(34:54):
here you know I've seen, we'vehad TV, we didn't live in a cave
, where I came from right.
But consider if you will, maybesome tribe somewhere you know,
living nakedly in a forest, andnow you take them and you
(35:21):
helicopter them or fly them overinto a New York skyrise with
hot running water and a jacuzziand air conditioning and heating
, and what I mean.
Tell me.
That person doesn't say well,I've died, and this is now
heaven.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
This is heaven.
Yeah, Heaven on earth.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
They found it.
And so this idea of belief as afirst step, it is a belief as
the first step that then getsrenamed experience, or gets
renamed understanding or wisdomor what have you.
Wisdom is not.
(36:02):
There are varying definitionsof wisdom, at least within Zen
tradition.
One definition of it is alittle bit more transcendent.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Where you know, I have the wisdom, the wisdom of
foresight and the wisdom of.
In a sense, the wisdom is theand, without getting into
xintongliu, which is the kind ofpowers supernatural powers, if
you want to call it that butthey're not supernatural,
they're natural but anyway, theidea of wisdom as the ability to
(36:44):
see the outcome of one'sactions, the kind of causality
and we all do it.
I mean, if I throw a rock atthis camera, it's going to break
it or knock it over or whathave you.
So there is that foresight andI have the wisdom to see into
the future in a sense, but it isbased on only my experiences,
(37:10):
and if I've never experienced acamera that's maybe designed for
extreme sports and and getsrocks and things pelted at it
all the time, it might donothing to this camera.
So we are governed by belief,whether we like it or not
whether we contextualize it insome organized fashion or not,
(37:33):
but you don't wake up, frankly,you don't go to sleep if belief
is not some.
And when we call this the fiveroots, also the within central
chemical, the five roots arethese things that are innately
existing in every body.
(37:54):
Everybody has it.
But, as you were talking aboutthe seed and the grass roots,
the roots, why are the roots?
Because they're beneath thesoil.
You cannot see it.
When they sprout, when theybreak out into, if you will,
into, the conscious mind, thenthey are seen as a sprout, et
cetera, et cetera.
Exactly, but prior to thatthey're unseen.
(38:16):
But just because a thing isunseen doesn't mean it's not
powerful.
I mean, yeah, I mean, we've hadmany cases.
Gravity is unseen, in a sense.
I mean when we had the pandemic.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
Nobody can see COVID and wiped out almost, yeah, 2
million, 3 million people.
Radiation is unseen and I don'tknow anyone taking vacations to
Chernobyl.
So I think across the board, weunderstand that just because
it's unseen to you doesn't meanit's not real and it doesn't
(38:54):
mean it can't impact you.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
And just because that's you know, it's an
important point to highlightbecause someone might say well,
you know, we can see COVID whenyou look at it under a
microscope and whatever, butit's like you said, you can't
see it under the microscope.
You can't be in a room and say Isee it right now, unseen to who
(39:23):
, like you said, unseen to whoand unseen by what machinery, if
you will, and perhaps in thefuture, we really are in an era
where technological developmentreally has kind of exploded.
I mean, I just heard about theAI therapists.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
Oh no, we're not going there.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Well and.
But.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
I'm starting to boycott now.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Well, and then I believe it was in the University
of Zurich, if I have itcorrectly, a study was done that
found that ai it was showingsymptoms of anxiety.
I don't know if you've seen thatum so I think I read the
headline yeah, so the the, thecontrol was that the ai was fed
(40:11):
the information from a vacuumcleaner manual and then the
other AI was fed sort of theinformation as it is fed by the
world and language changes.
When you're depressed, yourlanguage changes.
You might be expressing thesame.
We both might be looking atthat plant and in fact I was was
(40:38):
the brown leaf just looks likeit's dying.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
Ah, and I think I am too right.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
And then, if you're in love that green, bright green
, ah, look at it coming sobeautiful, yeah, you know, and
uh, and if you're a farmer, ifyou're a farmer, if you're a
chemist, that needs potassium.
That's why the colors arechanging.
I went I think we had gone on ahike with the Zen Center and
(41:08):
one of the members commented onwe had gone through a.
I want to say it was at therutgers gardens.
You know that pine forestthat's sort of a pine school.
Really.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
It's like mythical almost yes, when you're there,
you feel like you're in thenight to the round table forest
in a fairy tale.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Yeah but it's planted right.
So it's planted in these neatrows.
It's kind of, you know, toosterile in a sense and um, but
so I believe it was in there andthere was one particular tree
that was significantly stood outbecause it was crooked.
All the other ones, pinesgenerally, um, tend to grow
(41:54):
straight and in particular, Imean, certain species are little
rambunctious and they don'twant to.
But there's a, there's a wisdomin the way that the tree, and
especially what it calledcarnivorous, kind of her
carnivores, you know they'rebranches kind of slope down and
(42:19):
and they're perfectly straightto distribute the load when
they're covered, because theyhave needles in the winter, so
they, they hold the snow.
So there's a, there's areasoning for its geometry and
and that's why they're they'revery straight, you know to to
make sure that the displacementof the weight, and that's why
they're very straight, you know,to make sure that the
(42:39):
displacement of the weight ofthe snow.
But this one particular, forwhatever reason, maybe it was
sickly or maybe whateverhappened to it during its growth
, not unlike a child, whensomething happens, there's
oppression during its growth andthen it corrects itself, but
there's that bend that you knowthe s shape there, that stays
with it.
Um, and and after the the trip,people commented on you know
(43:06):
the general experience of the,of the trip, etc.
Etc.
These things and one personcommented on, like you said,
commented, commented on that oneuniquely deformed tree.
It stood out so much to themthat it was almost a fixation
(43:28):
and they were plagued byepisodes of severe depression,
generally speaking, and thismirroring was there that they
identified perhaps with that onesingle tree that all the other
(43:49):
trees aren't and this one singletree and that kind of thing.
But we digress.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
They saw themselves in the tree.
Yeah, it's almost like a worldRorschach test.
It is, yeah, tree and and thatkind of thing.
But we digress.
They saw themselves in the tree, yeah, yeah, it's almost like a
world rorschach test.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
It is, yeah, and and it is, you know, we, we believe
and what we believe we impartonto the world.
So this, this is a two-waystreet to some degree, but I
would say more so it's a one-waystreet.
I I think in the lastmeditation class I spoke about
clouds and I had kind of it's uhtime for angle, which is the
(44:24):
meditation retreat season, andand the in between the angle I
kind of come out from from, frommy under the rock, from the
cave, from the depths of thecave to kind of come out from
under the rock, from the cave,from the depths of the cave, to
see what's going on in theoutside world, to see what's
going on in the outside world,and I take in some of it to be
(44:47):
able to communicate like a humanbeing.
I try my best.
And so I was talking aboutclouds and how I think almost
everybody as a child they lookat clouds and they're trying to
make out shape.
You know, we have that searchfor this anthropomorphic quality
(45:09):
, so on.
That looks like a face and it'sgot eyes, and it's a bunny, and
it's a this and it's a that,and, and so we imagine various
things.
And I said, you know, and maybethat one's a cybertruck, and.
And so everybody laughed at that, because clouds are, generally
speaking, roundish, they're notas angular as as it may be.
And you know, I paused for amoment because it was a
(45:35):
teachable moment.
And it was a teachable momentin the sense that so much in my
current out in the world.
You know, the Cybertruck thingis coming up and up and up again
and I could care less eitherway.
You know I'm not judginganybody's choices, whatever you
do to you, but it seeped into mypsyche sufficiently enough that
(46:05):
it was included in a.
You know, it was meant to bekind of funny, because clouds
aren't shaped, you know inangular ways, but and so think
about it.
That is how our minds and andthat which we diet on it really
is projected onto the world, andsomeone said exactly that.
What you said.
It's like.
This is like a big rorschachthing.
Right, we look at, we look atreality, and and the truth of
(46:28):
the matter is, what we're tryingto do within zen is to actually
look at reality.
We don't look at reality, welook at the content of our to
actually look at reality.
We don't look at reality.
We look at the content of ourmind.
We look at the screen that theeyeball is and to which, like
those new AI glasses where it'sgot print on the inside, of it
(46:48):
right, this is how we see theworld.
So this invention quote unquoteif you will of the AI glasses
with the screen that youreyeball could see, but you're
also seeing the reality, as is.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
That's not new.
It's not new.
Humans have been distortingreality since the beginning,
since we crawled out of the muck.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
Yeah, it really is that it's the same principle.
It's the same principle.
We look at reality through ourAI lenses and the AI has been
fed the information that I havebeen fed throughout my life, and
then I see not what is, butwhat I imagined to be.
(47:29):
And if you believe sufficientlythat that person is out to get
you, they are out to get you.
Oh yes, if you believe thatworld is in this way and that
way, and so to maybe startcircling back and kind of tying
(47:51):
it all neatly, belief is a thingthat is.
It's a thing that we do, inwhat context we do it and where
the topics of it or theinterests of the belief we
believe in.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
What that varies, but in terms of its governing
principle in our life, it'sthere and I I want to give a
message also that it's somethingthat you should actively be
aware of and try to train it.
You referred to Ogun, the fiveroots that every person has, and
(48:27):
when I think of root, I thinkwell, how do you make it sprout?
Or how do you make a flower orfruit?
You have to nurture that root,you have to nurture that root,
you have to feed that root.
And I believe that Zen is a.
It is the training ground forpeople to learn to first
identify what are the governingbeliefs that are leading them
(48:48):
into these pitfalls and thesetraps and these, this revolving
door of misery and suffering.
Because when you understandthat it is your belief that can
literally change your outlook onlife, then you have to train
your mind to shift or to see thepositive, see the way through,
find hope.
(49:08):
And if you don't train that,then you're just going to again
be that hamster on that wheel,continuously crashing up against
that same problem or hardshipand feeling like there's no way
out.
And there's a story that mygrandmother taught me, told me,
and I think it highlights thispoint, and the context is in an
(49:31):
institution, a hospitalinstitution, and there's this
patient we'll just call himpatient A for the case of
example.
That's been in his room formany years now and he looks out
the window and he is discontentwith the view.
From his window, all he seesare smokestacks and gray skies.
(49:53):
And then on the other sidethere's we'll say Mr Jones, this
patient.
He can hear him talking loudlyand laughing and saying how
wonderful it is.
When he looks out his window,right, he sees the rolling hills
and the beautiful blue sky andthe birds chirping and the
(50:13):
flowers blossoming.
And so patient A also happensto hear one of the hospital
employees say that oh, mr Jonesis finally being discharged.
And so he calls in the hospitalemployee and says excuse me,
can I move into Mr Jones' room?
And the hospital employee saysyeah, sure you know you've been
(50:33):
here a long time, you've been agood patient.
And the hospital employee saysyeah, sure you know you've been
here a long time, you've been agood patient.
Absolutely, we'd help you moveinto that room.
And so when the time comes,patient A moves into that room
and he's so excited he can'twait to look out that window.
And he raises up the shade andhe looks and he sees oh, it's a
brick wall.
And he's like wait a minute.
He calls in the hospital workerand says excuse me, excuse me,
(50:56):
wait, I didn't want this room, Iwanted Mr Jones' room, you know
, the one with the beautifulrolling hills and the blue skies
.
Oh, that's what Mr Jones said.
He saw.
He goes yeah, yeah, that's whatMr Jones saw.
This cannot be his room.
And he goes, oh, you don't know.
He says, oh, mr Nice, he didn'tlook with these meat eyes which
(51:21):
cannot see past misery.
He looked with the eyes of hisheart which can cut through
suffering and look at the rootof happiness and joy and peace.
People need to work on andtrain, because sometimes there's
this rubber band effect wherewe just get pulled back into the
cogent quantum, these habitualways of seeing the world with
(51:45):
limitations and, of course,negative things stand out.
Right, you turn on the news,like you were saying earlier,
about cyber trucks.
All the negativity is whatstands out.
Sometimes in our, in our world,those are the things that make
the most noise.
Yeah, but we have to learn toquiet that and then we can have
the freedom to choose what wewant to hone in on and what we
(52:05):
want to focus yeah, so belief isa thing, yes, it.
Speaker 1 (52:09):
It does its work, whether you like it or not.
Yeah, and training it?
How do you use any tool?
yeah so we don't become the tool.
You know, if we, if it'sunconsciously done in a way that
it largely is, we are the tool,not the mercy of it, mm-hmm.
(52:30):
And.
And if we don't choose to train, if we don't choose to access
that control panel, if you will,then we are there for the ride
and we're definitely not behindthe steering wheel.
And so, absolutely Belief is areal thing.
It's there for you if you knowhow to use it, for you, if you
(52:54):
know how to use it.
It's there in you and we juststumble and operate in ways
whatever if we're notconsciously have taken the time
to see what actually the workingof it is.
So, until next time, take careof yourselves and each other.
(53:17):
If you have questions orcomments, please do let us know.
If you'd like to support thepodcast, to offset the cost of
the platforms, etc.
Etc.
We appreciate that, of course.
Also, thank you for listening.
Until next time, take care ofyourselves and each other.
(53:40):
I'm Myung Han.
Speaker 2 (53:42):
Sunim.
Thank you, I'm Dr Ruben Lambert.
From my heart to yours, I wantto wish everyone some happiness
in their life and some peace,and please subscribe and like.
And if you heard somethingtoday that you feel that it
tugged on the strings of yourheart, if you heard something
today that you feel that ittucked on the strings of your
heart, that you learnedsomething new that can better
your life, please share it withothers.
(54:03):
Thank you very much.
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