July 31, 2025 • 42 mins
“Everything that has the nature to arise… has the nature to pass away.” — The Buddha
In this deeply honest episode, Jacob shares the emotional aftermath of car trouble, financial pressure, and fatherhood as his son steps into adulthood. With humor, heartbreak, and wisdom drawn from Buddhism, the Bible, and beyond, he explores the theme of impermanence—how everything we cling to, from stability to identity to love itself, will one day dissolve like breath on a mirror.
You’ll hear reflections from Ecclesiastes, the teachings of Jesus, Vipassana meditation, and a hilarious metaphorical lesson from a clumsy bricklayer who just wouldn’t let go of the rope. Jacob also performs a powerful excerpt from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (“It’s Only a Paper Moon”) that touches on trauma, avoidance, and learning to re-engage with life.
🎥 Watch the original DS9 scene
This episode isn’t about despair. It’s about learning to live more vividly because things change. To let go—not in defeat, but in freedom.
Content warning: Includes vulnerable reflections on financial stress and emotional overwhelm. If you're struggling, please reach out or join the Discord. You're not alone.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jacob (00:00):
Hello everyone and welcome back to Standing
Nowhere.
This is episode 6.
I'm your host Jacob Buehler.
It's a pleasure to be back withyou.
(00:20):
It's been a crazy couple ofweeks here.
As you know from the lastepisode, I had some car trouble
and my brother was very nice andhelped me repair it.
I was unfortunately out of workfor about three or four days.
Let's see, half a Friday,Saturday, Sunday, Monday.
Yeah, about four or five daysactually.
(00:42):
After the repair, anotherproblem arose with the car with
the control arms.
So my brother once again cameto my rescue and helped me
repair those, but I was out ofwork for another day or two from
that.
But now the car's in goodworking order.
I am behind on my rent and mybills, so I was a little bit
stressed out about that.
And about two days ago when wewere fixing the car, it took
(01:06):
most of the day, and it wasreally hot and hard on both of
us, and we had some issues atthe end after we repaired the
car, and I lost my cool.
Took the car for a drive withmy brother, and there was a big
squealing sound.
It wasn't a really big deal,but my brain just started to
panic, and I hadn't beensleeping too well, and I just
(01:30):
lost it.
And this last week is also theweek I chose to quit one of my
habits, which I mentioned,having a puff at the end of the
day to take the edge off.
And I lost my center.
I came back home.
to examine the car with mybrother and I just threw my
(01:51):
glasses on the ground.
My shades, they were a prettycheap pair, but I liked them
because I'd had them for solong.
I've done thousands ofdeliveries with them.
Not that I'm attached to themor anything, but they were a
good pair of glasses and I justsaid, darn it.
I didn't say darn it, but Ithrew them on the ground and
(02:12):
they broke and I was sad.
I hadn't lost my cool like thatin a while.
And all the thoughts startgoing through my head like, oh,
such a centered guy, huh?
I'm doing a podcast aboutcultivating peace.
Waking up.
Here I am throwing my glasseson the ground.
Part of the pressure was tryingto figure out what to do for a
(02:36):
weekly podcast too.
And I was like, man, this isgreat material.
Just being honest and raw withyou guys about it.
But the car is working now.
I'm super far behind on my rentand my bills, but a lot of my
family came to my rescue.
My cousin, she pitched in andgot us some groceries.
That was nice of her.
It's hard to get help frompeople, you know, to receive
(02:59):
help.
I mean, getting help is nothard, but receiving it, at least
for me, is tough.
I love to help people, but it'snot easy for me to receive
help.
And sometimes we need help, youknow.
And Today I'm going to talkabout some of that, also what
(03:23):
it's like to go through lifewhen it comes to things being
impermanent.
Like my car, as you guys knowwith your vehicles, nothing
lasts in this world.
And it's not a depressing thingto remember.
It's actually a good thing toremember because it makes you
appreciate what you have whileyou have it.
And I lost my center.
(03:47):
I'm going to be looking for ajob soon too.
It's high time for me to getout of gig work.
Gig work I've been doing forabout eight years now.
A couple of years doing Uberand Lyft, driving people around.
And then the last three years,three and a half years or so,
I've been doing deliveries.
A little over three years.
But it's time for me to getback in the working world.
(04:10):
And I got my resume touched up.
I got a Google phone number.
So I can start shooting outIndeed applications.
We're going to see how thatgoes.
But yeah, that's what I want totalk about today is how nothing
is permanent.
My financial stability that Ihad enjoyed through most of my
life, I've been prettyresponsible with my bills,
(04:32):
handling my money and myspending.
That rug got pulled out fromunder me.
Starting about with COVID,really when inflation went up,
cost of living went up, I had acar that was paid off, and I
totaled it, driving through arain puddle, blew the motor.
I paid $372 a month on thatcar, and I thought it was going
(04:53):
to last me a long time.
I actually had the motorreplaced, and then I drove
through the rain puddle andtotaled the brand new motor that
was put in it, and that wasrough.
My insurance used to be $80.
Now it went up to $350 for awhile while I was living here.
My rent was like $1,100 four orfive years ago, and...
Went up to about $2,400 for thelast few years.
(05:17):
Just got it down a little bit,but man, you think life is going
to be smooth sailing and youget comfortable in it, and then
it just pulls the rug out fromunder you sometimes.
Same thing with relationships.
That was the first corespiritual truth that the Buddha
(05:37):
realized when he becameenlightened is that nothing is
permanent.
has a quote where he says allthat has the nature to arise
also has the nature to ceasethat was his first great insight
after his enlightenment so wecan take from that and remember
that we shouldn't wait untilsomething's gone to realize its
(06:00):
beauty now in the moment andit's good to remember as often
as possible that everything willbe gone someday And again, it's
not something you need to bedepressed about, but it is
something you need to remember.
You've probably noticed, a lotof you listening, that even your
own body as you age changes.
(06:20):
Everything you love ischanging.
I used to love playingPlayStation 2, but it's out of
date now.
No, I'm joking.
Everything changes.
Your job, your role, your body,everything.
Relationships, they come to anend for a lot of people, or they
(06:41):
change in dynamic as you age.
Your children, they change asyou grow up.
Your spiritual highs.
My son, he was born in 06.
He turned 18.
He's going to turn 19 here in acouple of days.
And he moved out last year inNovember.
(07:01):
And I'm...
I miss him.
I miss him a lot.
And I didn't really, allthrough his life, I didn't
(07:28):
remember that one day he isgoing to grow up and become a
man and move out, you know?
And, you know, he may come backfor a bit if he decides to go
to college or he may just stayon his own for the rest of his
life.
Whatever he decides, you know,we're close and we love each
other, but I miss the crap outof him.
You know, I walk by his emptyroom every day.
(07:49):
Sorry, I'm emotional about itstill.
I love him so much.
And I remember the first weekhe moved out, you know, walking
by his empty room every day.
Everything changes.
Everything that has the natureto arise also has the nature to
(08:10):
cease.
That's Buddhist wisdom, butit's also Hebrew wisdom.
If you read the book ofEcclesiastes in the first
chapter, there's that saying,vanity of vanities, says the
teacher, vanity of vanities, allis vanity.
That word vanity, it's actuallya Hebrew word, hevel.
They say, And hevel meansvapor, mist, breath.
(08:39):
You can translate it as vanity,but I think vapor or mist or
even breath is a bettertranslation and what they were
really pointing to.
It symbolizes transience orinsubstantiality, ephemerality.
It's here one minute, it's gonethe next.
There's that famous...
(08:59):
Ecclesiastes line, it says, foreverything there is a season
and a time for every matterunder heaven, a time to be born,
a time to die, a time to plant,a time to pluck up what is
planted, a time to kill, a timeto heal, a time to break down, a
time to build up, a time toweep, and a time to laugh, a
(09:24):
time to mourn.
a time to dance, a time tothrow away stones, a time to
gather stones together, a timeto embrace, a time to refrain
from embracing, a time to seek,a time to lose, a time to keep,
a time to throw away, a time totear, a time to sew, a time to
keep silent, a time to speak, atime to love, and a time to
(09:46):
hate, a time for war, and a timefor peace.
This points to the wisdom thateverything in life is...
ephemeral.
It's here and then it's gone.
So you got to really appreciateit while it's here.
And remembering that everythingwill be gone someday helps you
live more vividly with it rightnow.
(10:08):
And these cycles in life,they're not problems.
They're sacred rhythms.
It's like your breath.
There's the inhale and there'sthe exhale.
The hardest change that I'vebeen dealing with as I
mentioned, is my son, uh, movingout and, um, you know,
(10:31):
financial instability ties intothat.
I haven't been able to providefor him, you know, and, um, you
know, every morning I sit andmeditate.
Uh, I do Vipassana, which isinsight meditation where you're
basically just kind of watchingyourself and seeing what comes
up.
You know, you start with, uh,well, I'll go into that in a
(10:51):
little bit, but, um, Two daysago when I was meditating, I had
the insight that I really missmy son.
I always knew that I did themoment he moved out, but I
didn't realize how much I missedhim until two days ago in the
morning when I was sittingthere.
I quit smoking at the end ofthe day, which I think was
(11:13):
numbing the pain a little bit,sweeping it under the rug.
I had quit for a while, butwhen he moved out, I picked up
the habit again.
But like I mentioned on thelast episode, I just desire to
be present now and not sweepthings away, but be with them
and embrace them.
I was reading the Bible thismorning in Numbers chapter 21.
(11:34):
There's the part where God getsmad at all the Israelites for
complaining, so he sends out allthese fiery snakes to bite
everybody.
And then they say, okay, wescrewed up, we're sorry.
And God says, okay, Moses, holdup a snake, a bronze snake, and
have everyone look at it.
And everyone who looks at itwill be okay.
And that symbolizes that whenyou focus on the pain that
(11:57):
you're going through instead ofrunning from it, it'll be all
right.
And Jesus referenced himselflater, just like Moses with the
snake, I have to be lifted up onthe cross.
And what is the cross?
It's a symbol of death.
And it's not a morbid thingthat we need to look away from,
but we need to look directly atit because it's a reminder that
(12:18):
you're not going to be heresomeday.
Everyone in your life is goingto be gone someday.
I had that realization that Ireally, really missed my son.
It's a new chapter in life.
I had to learn how to let himgo.
Financial security.
(12:38):
I'm learning how to essentiallycrawl and walk again in this
new economy we live in.
It's not easy.
It's not easy at all.
I've lost friends.
I remember when my son, whoI've been talking about, he's my
oldest of my three kids, I wasa single dad when he was three
(12:59):
months old.
And I won't go into the detailson that, but I was a single dad
for the first three and a half,almost four years of his life.
And during that time, when hewas about...
I want to say a year old, maybea year and a half.
I met some friends at the job Iwas working at, and they
invited me to their weekly pokergame.
(13:20):
And it was great, you know.
I was suddenly welcomed intothis new weekly social
gathering, this new socialcircle.
And I met a lot of good friendsthere, you know.
And one of them, he passed awayjust very suddenly.
He was a motorcycle driver.
driver and he was driving alongone day and somebody pulled out
(13:41):
of a apartment complex withoutlooking and he crashed right
into him and died it was theother guy's fault you know but
it didn't matter he was gonejust like that boom he had a
couple of kids too and hisex-wife uh was at you know she
was at our poker games too theythey remained good friends and
and she couldn't believe it hewas just gone and um the guy who
(14:03):
kind of hosted the poker nightsand He was a great friend of
mine too.
His name was Pat.
He was the one that reallywelcomed me in, made me feel a
part of the crew or part of thepoker gang, you know, and he was
a big dude.
And one day he just stoppedbreathing.
(14:24):
And I remember it was back in,I want to say 2018 or 19, just
before COVID and that I got thenews.
One of my buddies from PokerNight, he texted me and he's
like, Pat died just straight uplike that.
He was pretty on the nose aboutit and I couldn't believe it.
(14:44):
You start to get older and whenyou're young, everyone's alive
and healthy and vibrant, but asyou start to age, your friends
start dropping off and then itstarts to hit you.
We're not going to be hereforever.
And I was devastated.
First, my buddy Chris on themotorcycle, now Pat.
(15:07):
My son moving out.
But the thing is, we need toremember that things are not
permanent.
But at the same time, we can'thold on.
Because holding on hurts.
I remember there was a quotefrom Alan Watts.
He was talking...
He was talking about twophilosophers, and one
(15:29):
philosopher was trying to figureout how he could control nature
for his own, you know, the Tao,as they call it, which the word
Tao means kind of the way ofthings, like the water course
way, just the way of life ingeneral.
And the philosopher says, howcan one get the Tao so as to
(15:49):
have it for one's own?
And the other philosopheranswers, Your life is not your
own.
It is the delegatedadaptability of Tao.
Your offspring are not yourown.
They are the outputs of Tao.
You move, you know not how.
You are at rest, you know notwhy.
These are the operations ofTao.
(16:10):
So how could you have it foryour own?
There's a funny thing that wecan experience ourselves through
and through as something thatjust happens.
Now you see me, now you don't.
And I remembered that quotewhen my son moved out, that he
doesn't belong to me.
I got to stop bringing him upbecause it's making me
(16:30):
emotional.
He doesn't belong to me.
I had the extreme privilege ofAnd I have the privilege of
being in the role of his father,but he's not my possession.
And I can't force him to go oneway or the other.
(16:55):
You know, there's wisdom fromyour parents that you can give
to your kids, but there's alsowisdom in your children because
they're new.
They learn from the old things,their parents, but they also
have to go their own way.
They have to learn themselves.
As parents, we have to trustthe wisdom of our children
(17:18):
because they have a wisdom wedon't understand either in
youth.
So we have to learn how to letgo of our identity, our image of
success, our friends, ourrelationships, our kids.
Your role in your story oflife, you have to let go of it
because you appreciate it whileit's here, but you can't hold
(17:42):
on.
You can't cling to it.
If you cling, like I said,you're going to be in pain.
There's a metaphor, let go oryou'll get rope burn.
You can't hold on to the rope.
You got to let it go when itwants to go.
And that's the rhythm of life.
Again, there's the inhale,there's the exhale.
What happens if you inhale andtry to hold on to your breath?
(18:04):
You start turning blue in theface.
That's just the way of life.
There's the paradox from Jesusin the 16th chapter of Matthew.
He says, for those who want tosave their life will lose it,
and those who lose their lifefor my sake will find it.
And the Aramaic word for save,like for those who want to save
(18:26):
their life, is It also meanslike to clutch, to preserve.
And when he says, those wholose their life for my sake,
that word in Aramaic also meanslet go of, give up, surrender.
It's not saying you throw yourarms up and become a limp noodle
(18:48):
and say, I can't save anything.
But you enjoy things whilethey're here, but you don't
cling to them.
And you remember that.
while you're enjoying them,that they are going to be gone
someday.
There's a funny story on this,the rope burn metaphor.
I don't know if it's true ornot, but it's called the
(19:08):
bricklayer's accident.
And it's kind of a metaphor ora parable for when we cling or
hold on to life too hard.
And this guy, he basically gotinjured on the job doing some
bricklaying.
And I'll read it to you.
It's hilarious.
So this is the bricklayer'saccident report.
It says, Dear sir, I am writingin response to your request for
(19:31):
additional information in blocknumber three of the accident
reporting form.
I put poor planning as thecause of my accident and you
asked for a fuller explanationand I trust the following
details will be sufficient.
I am a bricklayer by trade.
Okay.
Securing the rope at groundlevel, I went up to the roof,
(20:09):
swung the barrel out, and loadedthe bricks into it.
And then I went down and untiedthe rope, holding it tightly to
ensure a slow descent of the240 pounds of bricks.
And you'll note on the accidentreporting form that my weight
is 135 pounds.
Due to my surprise at beingjerked off the ground so
suddenly, I lost my presence ofmind and I forgot to let go of
(20:31):
the rope.
Needless to say, I proceeded ata rapid rate up the side of the
building.
In the vicinity of the thirdfloor, I met the barrel, which
was now proceeding downward atan equally impressive speed.
This explains my fracturedskull, minor abrasions, and the
broken collarbone, as listed inSection 3, Accident Reporting
(20:51):
Form.
Slowed only slightly, Icontinued my rapid ascent, not
stopping until the fingers of myright hand were two knuckles
deep into the pulley, which Imentioned in Paragraph 2 of this
correspondence.
Fortunately, by this time, Ihad regained my presence of mind
and was able to hold the rope.
In spite of the excruciatingpain I was now beginning to
(21:12):
experience.
At approximately the same time,however, the barrel of bricks
hit the ground and the bottomfell out from the barrel.
Now devoid of the weight of thebricks, the barrel weighed only
50 pounds approximately.
And I refer you again to myweight.
As you might imagine...
Pardon me, I refer you again tomy weight.
(21:34):
As you might imagine, I began arapid descent down the side of
the building.
In the vicinity of the thirdfloor, I met the barrel coming
back up.
This accounts for the twofractured ankles, broken tooth,
and severe lacerations of mylegs and lower body.
Here, my luck began to changeslightly.
The encounter with the barrelseemed to slow me enough to
(21:55):
lessen my injuries when I fellinto the pile of bricks, and
fortunately, only threevertebrae were cracked.
I am sorry to report, however,as I lay there on the pile of
bricks in pain, unable to move,and watching the empty barrel
six stories above me, I againlost my composure and presence
of mind, and I let go of therope.
A little funny story, but Ithink it's kind of true in life.
(22:20):
The more we cling to it, themore we're going to experience a
lot of pain.
One of the things I wasclinging to...
was the pleasant experiencesthat I would distract myself
with, like a puff at the end ofthe day or maybe a little video
game time on the little timethat I did or do get off.
(22:40):
And clinging to that, it feelsgood in the moment, but then I'm
not dealing with the things Ineed to deal.
I'm not looking at the bronzesnake.
I'm not looking at the cross,whatever symbol you want or the
pain that's in my life.
I'm not embracing it.
I remember on Reddit, there's aforum for people that are
(23:06):
looking how to quit smokingweed.
I think it's called Leaves,L-E-A-V-E-S.
And you see a lot of stories onthere.
I recommend anyone that'slooking to quit, whether it's
weed or another habit, just readthe stories that people have on
there.
And I remember commenting onone guy who was...
having trouble with quittingbecause of the side effects like
(23:30):
insomnia, racing thoughts, etcetera, et cetera.
And I told him a little bit ofthat Buddhist wisdom, remember
how it affects you negatively,remember how it affects others
negatively.
But the thing that seemed toreally help this guy was when I
told him in my comment, I said,you have to embrace your side
effects and withdrawals insteadof confronting them as an enemy
(23:53):
that you have to defeat.
Open your arms to them and holdthem in complete awareness.
Whatever you're feeling, justembrace it.
Don't grunt and grind yourteeth.
Just be completely open.
Oh, this is what insomnia feelslike.
Oh, this is what cold sweatsfeels like or whatever it is.
(24:15):
Embrace it.
And remember, it'll pass.
Everything that has the natureto arise will pass, and that
includes the downsides of life.
There's a guy named JackKornfield.
He's a Buddhist teacher in theWest, pretty popular dude.
He has a little excerpt abouthis teacher and the way his
(24:35):
teacher told him to look ateverything in life.
He says, quote, One day, myteacher, Ajahn Chah, held up a
beautiful teacup.
And he says, quote, again, itlets you love things more fully
(25:09):
now.
It brings peace because itfrees us from the illusion of
control.
And one of the ways that we canpractice, because it takes
practice to do this.
Like if I say all this stuff toyou guys and it sounds true and
rings a bell of truth in you oryou're nodding your head right
now, that's good.
(25:29):
That's one thing.
But if you don't practice likeanything, like a muscle, it
begins to atrophy.
So How do we stay present amidthese changes?
Well, first thing you need iswhat they call virya in English.
Buddhist speak.
I forget the Sanskrit word, butit basically means having an
energy or an effort, a courage.
(25:50):
There's a little excerpt Icopied here for this.
It says, in Buddhism, virya isconsidered a key spiritual
quality, often translated asexertion, diligence, or right
effort, representing the energyand enthusiasm needed to
cultivate virtue and overcomeobstacles on the path to
enlightenment.
And When you have thatenthusiasm, you can put it into
(26:16):
a practice.
The one I like, and there'smany options, but the one I like
is called Vipassana orVipassana.
It's basically insightmeditation.
It's very simple.
You just watch things rise andfall without clinging to them.
So you sit on a cushion.
You start out by watching yourbreath until your mind calms
down.
And as you're watching yourbreath, you'll notice that your
(26:38):
mind is kind of like a littlepuppy dog.
It wants to get up and startwalking away.
And every time you notice thatit does, you just gently bring
it back.
Just like a little puppy dog,you don't want to smack it and
say, where are you going?
Get back here.
You know, when your thoughtsdrift, you just notice when you
notice and you come back to yourbreath.
Your breath kind of gives youthat little comparison to see
(27:00):
when it's running off.
And then eventually you'llnotice that that your mind will
start to calm down.
The little puppy will sit downa little bit more and be calm.
And when that happens, you openit up.
You don't have to focus on thebreath exclusively.
You just let your awareness,they call it a choiceless
(27:21):
awareness.
So you just kind of, you gofrom one pointedness on your
breath and you transition into achoiceless awareness.
You keep that mindfulness, thatcuriosity with that viria
energy, that enthusiasm, and youkind of say to yourself, oh,
let's see where my awarenessgoes next.
Oh, there's a sensation in myfoot.
It's going to sleep a littlebit.
(27:42):
Oh, there's a dog barking.
I can hear my neighbor's dogbarking.
And you don't talk to yourselfwhile you're doing this.
You just notice it.
And you know that you'renoticing it.
Mindfulness can be described asbeing aware of being aware,
essentially.
And your awareness might comeback to your breath a little
bit.
(28:02):
And then a thought might pop upand you notice that.
You notice your emotionschange.
That's why I was saying twodays ago when I was doing this
practice, the big thing thatpopped up in my head was my son
and how much I missed him.
And that's why they call itinsight meditation because it
gives you insights of thingsthat were already there and you
(28:25):
didn't notice.
They're just going on in yourhead.
The first big insight that mostpeople get when doing insight
meditation is just how noisyyour mind is.
It's like, wow.
People who think they can'tmeditate, they're wrong.
Meditation is just watchingwhat is.
And if you sit down and yourmind is noisy, then you watch
(28:49):
it.
You just become aware of it.
You bring it into the light.
And this will help you reduceyour clinging because the big
insight you get from Vipassanais that All kinds of things will
pop up even in your momentaryexperience.
Like to everyone listeningright now, just watch how many
(29:12):
things are arising and falling.
You know the sound of my voicecoming to you?
It comes and it goes.
You might be feeling littlesensations throughout your body.
Just everything in life.
Just start paying attention andnotice.
It just pops up and then itdisappears.
And that's true abouteverything.
(29:32):
Our whole galaxy will be gonesomeday.
The earth, the sun, everything.
And I think in our society, wecling too much to life, to
youth, staying young.
And look at all the people inthe West.
We worship youth.
We worship youthful beauty.
(29:53):
We don't see the beauty inaging.
We cling to it.
And we're all afraid of dying.
And it's good to have areasonable fear of death, like
not walking in front of traffic.
or sticking your hand in afire, as they say.
But there's a quote from AlanWatts where he talks about this,
how people cling and overvaluesurvival.
(30:15):
There's a little lecture he didcalled The Unpreachable
Religion, and I'll read it toyou.
He says, and so in the sameway, the thought that the
supreme value is survival value,the thought that In other
words, that it is absolutelynecessary for us to go on living
is a basis for life which takesthe joy out of life and is
(30:40):
really contrary to life.
I feel that the biologicalprocesses that we call life,
with its marvelous proliferationof innumerable patterns and
forms, is essentially playful.
By that, I mean it doesn't havea serious purpose beyond
itself.
But now if you say to a form ofplay, you must happen, you've
(31:03):
got to go on, you immediatelyturn it into work.
And you immediately turn italso into what we call
colloquially as a drag.
Are we surviving as a duty tosurvive in order that our
children may go on surviving?
Well, if we think that ourchildren catch the same point of
view from us and they go onstruggling along for the then
(31:25):
the whole thing becomes afatuous process to an ever
eluding future.
And it is because I thinkfundamentally that we have this
compulsive view of the necessityof existence that our culture
is distinctly lacking in gaiety.
And I tend to agree with him onthat.
That doesn't mean that we,again, we don't worry about
(31:48):
dying.
Well, we don't worry about it,but we don't obsess about it.
We're going to die someday, andthat's okay.
It reminded me when I wassearching for content for this
episode to talk aboutimpermanence.
I was watching Star Trek withmy wife.
(32:10):
I turned her into a Trekkie.
Yes.
And we're watching Star Trek,and there's this character.
He's like in his early 20s.
He was really eager to sign upfor Starfleet.
And in this particular seasonof Star Trek, they've been at
war with this other alienspecies, like an empire trying
to take over, you know, they'repart of the galaxy.
(32:34):
And long story short, this kid,you know, he signs up, he loves
what he does with his newcareer, but then he sees combat
for the first time and he seessome of his friends die.
and his leg actually gets blownoff, or he gets shot in the
leg, and then they have toamputate his leg.
And he's like this young guy,you know?
And his name is Nog.
(32:56):
He's the cutest littlecharacter, and it's so cool to
watch.
In the beginning of the show,he was so little, and then you
watch him grow up with the showand get out there, and then he
sees just something thattraumatizes him.
And his way of dealing with itwas to go into like this virtual
(33:16):
reality room.
They call it a hollow suite.
The whole thing is like ahologram, but it looks and feels
like real life.
And he goes in there and it'slike the 1950s.
There's a character named VicFontaine.
And Vic is a hologram, but he'slike a super advanced AI.
And he's kind of like thementor to a lot of people on the
(33:36):
ship.
so uh nog after going throughthat trauma he just wants to
stay in there and he doesn'tever want to come out and at
first everyone thought it wasgood for him to help him heal
but then they start gettingconcerned because he doesn't
come out for like a week or twoand everyone starts getting
really worried and everyone thattries to get him out he starts
(33:58):
to get really aggressive towardsthem and says you know leave me
alone i want to stay in hereAnd Vic, the hologram guy, he's
kind of like a Rat Pack singer.
He's actually a real singer.
I forget the guy's real name,but you can look him up on
Spotify.
I'll try to put a link in thedescription.
And he kind of sounds likeFrank Sinatra.
(34:21):
He looks like somebody whowould be in the Rat Pack.
Anyways, so Vic, he startsgetting concerned because Nog
won't leave the Holosuite.
He won't deal with his trauma.
He won't face it.
And, um, Vic, he's actuallysentient enough, even though
he's artificial to shut thewhole program down and he forces
(34:41):
him out.
So nog is trying to like, youknow, mess with the wiring and
stuff to get the hologram backup.
But Vic, you know, he's, uh,he's so advanced that he can't
be outsmarted and he won't letthe hologram come back.
He's like, no, you know, yougot to stay out there.
So I just wanted to read to youguys a little, um, a little
scene that they did togetherwhen Nog is trying to get the
(35:05):
holosuite back up, Vic appears,just him without the whole
hologram, just himself.
And he says, so now the chief'stold you I'm smarter than the
average hologram.
Will you stop messing aroundwith my holosuite?
And Nog, he says, if you'llturn the program back on.
And Vic says, what is it?
I'm not making clear to you,Charlie.
(35:26):
You got to go.
And Nog says, don't you get it?
I can't go out there.
And Vic says, why not?
And Nog says, I'm scared, okay?
I'm scared.
When the war began, I wasn'thappy or anything, but I was
eager.
I wanted to test myself.
I wanted to prove I had what ittook to be a soldier.
(35:47):
And I saw a lot of combat.
I saw a lot of people get hurt.
I saw a lot of people die.
But I didn't think anything wasgoing to happen to me.
And then suddenly Dr.
Bashir is telling me he has tocut my leg off.
I couldn't believe it.
I still can't believe it.
If I can get shot, if I canlose my leg, anything could
(36:07):
happen to me, Vic.
I could die tomorrow.
I don't know that I'm ready toface that.
If I stay here, at least I knowwhat the future is going to be
like.
And Vic says, if you stay here,you're going to die.
Not all at once, but little bylittle.
Eventually you'll become ashollow as I am.
And Nog says, you don't seemhollow to me.
(36:29):
And Vic says, compared to you,I'm as hollow as a snare drum.
Look, kid, I don't know what'sgoing to happen to you out
there.
All I can tell you is thatyou've got to play the cards
that life deals you.
Sometimes you win and sometimesyou lose, but at least you're
in the game.
And with that, It's such apowerful scene.
(36:51):
And the kid, you know, he justgrabs his walking stick and he
just walks out of the hollowsuite.
And I was like, dude, that'sperfect.
I'm going to put that in theepisode.
It's so good.
So the point is, everything isimpermanent in life, guys.
It's going to be here and thenit's going to go away.
And we have to accept that.
We can't cling to things.
We can't mourn.
(37:13):
As the Hebrews say, we can'tmourn the vapor.
We can't mourn...
the transient stuff.
We have to celebrate it whileit's here.
It's not about despair.
Yes, all things will pass, butrealize that it's just like a
breath or a wave.
Whatever leaves always makesroom for what's coming next.
(37:37):
The prophet Isaiah in the Biblesays, "'Remember not the former
things, nor consider the thingsof old.
Behold, I am doing a newthing.'" Now it springs forth.
Do you not perceive it?
Or again in Revelation, Johnsays, behold, I'm making all
(37:57):
things new.
So yes, everything will pass,but there's always going to be
new things as well.
And we got to make room for thenew by not clinging to the old.
We can't stop the waves, but wecan learn how to surf.
And when we let go, it's not indefeat.
It's in freedom.
(38:18):
We have to trust this ride,this roller coaster, guys, of
life.
It will go up and it will godown.
We can't have all ups.
We're going to close out here,but I want to read to you
something from Lao Tzu.
And before I do, I just want totake a quick second to say if
(38:39):
you guys appreciate this show,please follow and leave me a
review and a comment.
I would really love that.
And you can...
Check the links below in thedescription if you want to
connect to our Discord and shareyour story or reach out to me,
and I can share your story,whatever you want to do.
But from Lao Tzu in the Tao TeChing, listen to this.
(38:59):
He says, "'Men are born softand supple, but dead they are
stiff and hard.
Plants are born tender andpliant.
Dead they are brittle and dry.'Thus, whoever is stiff and
inflexible is a disciple ofdeath.
(39:20):
Whoever is soft and yielding isa disciple of life.
And remember, guys, like Rumisays, do thou smile like the
rose at loss and gain.
For the rose, though its petalsbe torn asunder, still smiles
on, and it is never cast down.
(39:43):
Thank you for listening.
I love you guys, and blessingsto all.
No heroes, no headlines promisesmade just a whisper that won't
(40:19):
be afraid standing nowhere andit feels like home no flags to
wave no need to roam the silenceSpeaks louder than war ever
(40:45):
could And I've never felt sounderstood The static is kind It
leaves me alone No orders tofollow No keys The sky's turning
(41:13):
amber The clock's all reset AndI haven't stopped walking just
yet Standing nowhere Air wideand free No chains, no names The
(41:49):
sky turns white, I'm stillhere, nothing to hide
Hello everyone and welcome back to Standing
Nowhere.
This is episode 6.
I'm your host Jacob Buehler.
It's a pleasure to be back withyou.
(00:20):
It's been a crazy couple ofweeks here.
As you know from the lastepisode, I had some car trouble
and my brother was very nice andhelped me repair it.
I was unfortunately out of workfor about three or four days.
Let's see, half a Friday,Saturday, Sunday, Monday.
Yeah, about four or five daysactually.
(00:42):
After the repair, anotherproblem arose with the car with
the control arms.
So my brother once again cameto my rescue and helped me
repair those, but I was out ofwork for another day or two from
that.
But now the car's in goodworking order.
I am behind on my rent and mybills, so I was a little bit
stressed out about that.
And about two days ago when wewere fixing the car, it took
(01:06):
most of the day, and it wasreally hot and hard on both of
us, and we had some issues atthe end after we repaired the
car, and I lost my cool.
Took the car for a drive withmy brother, and there was a big
squealing sound.
It wasn't a really big deal,but my brain just started to
panic, and I hadn't beensleeping too well, and I just
(01:30):
lost it.
And this last week is also theweek I chose to quit one of my
habits, which I mentioned,having a puff at the end of the
day to take the edge off.
And I lost my center.
I came back home.
to examine the car with mybrother and I just threw my
(01:51):
glasses on the ground.
My shades, they were a prettycheap pair, but I liked them
because I'd had them for solong.
I've done thousands ofdeliveries with them.
Not that I'm attached to themor anything, but they were a
good pair of glasses and I justsaid, darn it.
I didn't say darn it, but Ithrew them on the ground and
(02:12):
they broke and I was sad.
I hadn't lost my cool like thatin a while.
And all the thoughts startgoing through my head like, oh,
such a centered guy, huh?
I'm doing a podcast aboutcultivating peace.
Waking up.
Here I am throwing my glasseson the ground.
Part of the pressure was tryingto figure out what to do for a
(02:36):
weekly podcast too.
And I was like, man, this isgreat material.
Just being honest and raw withyou guys about it.
But the car is working now.
I'm super far behind on my rentand my bills, but a lot of my
family came to my rescue.
My cousin, she pitched in andgot us some groceries.
That was nice of her.
It's hard to get help frompeople, you know, to receive
(02:59):
help.
I mean, getting help is nothard, but receiving it, at least
for me, is tough.
I love to help people, but it'snot easy for me to receive
help.
And sometimes we need help, youknow.
And Today I'm going to talkabout some of that, also what
(03:23):
it's like to go through lifewhen it comes to things being
impermanent.
Like my car, as you guys knowwith your vehicles, nothing
lasts in this world.
And it's not a depressing thingto remember.
It's actually a good thing toremember because it makes you
appreciate what you have whileyou have it.
And I lost my center.
(03:47):
I'm going to be looking for ajob soon too.
It's high time for me to getout of gig work.
Gig work I've been doing forabout eight years now.
A couple of years doing Uberand Lyft, driving people around.
And then the last three years,three and a half years or so,
I've been doing deliveries.
A little over three years.
But it's time for me to getback in the working world.
(04:10):
And I got my resume touched up.
I got a Google phone number.
So I can start shooting outIndeed applications.
We're going to see how thatgoes.
But yeah, that's what I want totalk about today is how nothing
is permanent.
My financial stability that Ihad enjoyed through most of my
life, I've been prettyresponsible with my bills,
(04:32):
handling my money and myspending.
That rug got pulled out fromunder me.
Starting about with COVID,really when inflation went up,
cost of living went up, I had acar that was paid off, and I
totaled it, driving through arain puddle, blew the motor.
I paid $372 a month on thatcar, and I thought it was going
(04:53):
to last me a long time.
I actually had the motorreplaced, and then I drove
through the rain puddle andtotaled the brand new motor that
was put in it, and that wasrough.
My insurance used to be $80.
Now it went up to $350 for awhile while I was living here.
My rent was like $1,100 four orfive years ago, and...
Went up to about $2,400 for thelast few years.
(05:17):
Just got it down a little bit,but man, you think life is going
to be smooth sailing and youget comfortable in it, and then
it just pulls the rug out fromunder you sometimes.
Same thing with relationships.
That was the first corespiritual truth that the Buddha
(05:37):
realized when he becameenlightened is that nothing is
permanent.
has a quote where he says allthat has the nature to arise
also has the nature to ceasethat was his first great insight
after his enlightenment so wecan take from that and remember
that we shouldn't wait untilsomething's gone to realize its
(06:00):
beauty now in the moment andit's good to remember as often
as possible that everything willbe gone someday And again, it's
not something you need to bedepressed about, but it is
something you need to remember.
You've probably noticed, a lotof you listening, that even your
own body as you age changes.
(06:20):
Everything you love ischanging.
I used to love playingPlayStation 2, but it's out of
date now.
No, I'm joking.
Everything changes.
Your job, your role, your body,everything.
Relationships, they come to anend for a lot of people, or they
(06:41):
change in dynamic as you age.
Your children, they change asyou grow up.
Your spiritual highs.
My son, he was born in 06.
He turned 18.
He's going to turn 19 here in acouple of days.
And he moved out last year inNovember.
(07:01):
And I'm...
I miss him.
I miss him a lot.
And I didn't really, allthrough his life, I didn't
(07:28):
remember that one day he isgoing to grow up and become a
man and move out, you know?
And, you know, he may come backfor a bit if he decides to go
to college or he may just stayon his own for the rest of his
life.
Whatever he decides, you know,we're close and we love each
other, but I miss the crap outof him.
You know, I walk by his emptyroom every day.
(07:49):
Sorry, I'm emotional about itstill.
I love him so much.
And I remember the first weekhe moved out, you know, walking
by his empty room every day.
Everything changes.
Everything that has the natureto arise also has the nature to
(08:10):
cease.
That's Buddhist wisdom, butit's also Hebrew wisdom.
If you read the book ofEcclesiastes in the first
chapter, there's that saying,vanity of vanities, says the
teacher, vanity of vanities, allis vanity.
That word vanity, it's actuallya Hebrew word, hevel.
They say, And hevel meansvapor, mist, breath.
(08:39):
You can translate it as vanity,but I think vapor or mist or
even breath is a bettertranslation and what they were
really pointing to.
It symbolizes transience orinsubstantiality, ephemerality.
It's here one minute, it's gonethe next.
There's that famous...
(08:59):
Ecclesiastes line, it says, foreverything there is a season
and a time for every matterunder heaven, a time to be born,
a time to die, a time to plant,a time to pluck up what is
planted, a time to kill, a timeto heal, a time to break down, a
time to build up, a time toweep, and a time to laugh, a
(09:24):
time to mourn.
a time to dance, a time tothrow away stones, a time to
gather stones together, a timeto embrace, a time to refrain
from embracing, a time to seek,a time to lose, a time to keep,
a time to throw away, a time totear, a time to sew, a time to
keep silent, a time to speak, atime to love, and a time to
(09:46):
hate, a time for war, and a timefor peace.
This points to the wisdom thateverything in life is...
ephemeral.
It's here and then it's gone.
So you got to really appreciateit while it's here.
And remembering that everythingwill be gone someday helps you
live more vividly with it rightnow.
(10:08):
And these cycles in life,they're not problems.
They're sacred rhythms.
It's like your breath.
There's the inhale and there'sthe exhale.
The hardest change that I'vebeen dealing with as I
mentioned, is my son, uh, movingout and, um, you know,
(10:31):
financial instability ties intothat.
I haven't been able to providefor him, you know, and, um, you
know, every morning I sit andmeditate.
Uh, I do Vipassana, which isinsight meditation where you're
basically just kind of watchingyourself and seeing what comes
up.
You know, you start with, uh,well, I'll go into that in a
(10:51):
little bit, but, um, Two daysago when I was meditating, I had
the insight that I really missmy son.
I always knew that I did themoment he moved out, but I
didn't realize how much I missedhim until two days ago in the
morning when I was sittingthere.
I quit smoking at the end ofthe day, which I think was
(11:13):
numbing the pain a little bit,sweeping it under the rug.
I had quit for a while, butwhen he moved out, I picked up
the habit again.
But like I mentioned on thelast episode, I just desire to
be present now and not sweepthings away, but be with them
and embrace them.
I was reading the Bible thismorning in Numbers chapter 21.
(11:34):
There's the part where God getsmad at all the Israelites for
complaining, so he sends out allthese fiery snakes to bite
everybody.
And then they say, okay, wescrewed up, we're sorry.
And God says, okay, Moses, holdup a snake, a bronze snake, and
have everyone look at it.
And everyone who looks at itwill be okay.
And that symbolizes that whenyou focus on the pain that
(11:57):
you're going through instead ofrunning from it, it'll be all
right.
And Jesus referenced himselflater, just like Moses with the
snake, I have to be lifted up onthe cross.
And what is the cross?
It's a symbol of death.
And it's not a morbid thingthat we need to look away from,
but we need to look directly atit because it's a reminder that
(12:18):
you're not going to be heresomeday.
Everyone in your life is goingto be gone someday.
I had that realization that Ireally, really missed my son.
It's a new chapter in life.
I had to learn how to let himgo.
Financial security.
(12:38):
I'm learning how to essentiallycrawl and walk again in this
new economy we live in.
It's not easy.
It's not easy at all.
I've lost friends.
I remember when my son, whoI've been talking about, he's my
oldest of my three kids, I wasa single dad when he was three
(12:59):
months old.
And I won't go into the detailson that, but I was a single dad
for the first three and a half,almost four years of his life.
And during that time, when hewas about...
I want to say a year old, maybea year and a half.
I met some friends at the job Iwas working at, and they
invited me to their weekly pokergame.
(13:20):
And it was great, you know.
I was suddenly welcomed intothis new weekly social
gathering, this new socialcircle.
And I met a lot of good friendsthere, you know.
And one of them, he passed awayjust very suddenly.
He was a motorcycle driver.
driver and he was driving alongone day and somebody pulled out
(13:41):
of a apartment complex withoutlooking and he crashed right
into him and died it was theother guy's fault you know but
it didn't matter he was gonejust like that boom he had a
couple of kids too and hisex-wife uh was at you know she
was at our poker games too theythey remained good friends and
and she couldn't believe it hewas just gone and um the guy who
(14:03):
kind of hosted the poker nightsand He was a great friend of
mine too.
His name was Pat.
He was the one that reallywelcomed me in, made me feel a
part of the crew or part of thepoker gang, you know, and he was
a big dude.
And one day he just stoppedbreathing.
(14:24):
And I remember it was back in,I want to say 2018 or 19, just
before COVID and that I got thenews.
One of my buddies from PokerNight, he texted me and he's
like, Pat died just straight uplike that.
He was pretty on the nose aboutit and I couldn't believe it.
(14:44):
You start to get older and whenyou're young, everyone's alive
and healthy and vibrant, but asyou start to age, your friends
start dropping off and then itstarts to hit you.
We're not going to be hereforever.
And I was devastated.
First, my buddy Chris on themotorcycle, now Pat.
(15:07):
My son moving out.
But the thing is, we need toremember that things are not
permanent.
But at the same time, we can'thold on.
Because holding on hurts.
I remember there was a quotefrom Alan Watts.
He was talking...
He was talking about twophilosophers, and one
(15:29):
philosopher was trying to figureout how he could control nature
for his own, you know, the Tao,as they call it, which the word
Tao means kind of the way ofthings, like the water course
way, just the way of life ingeneral.
And the philosopher says, howcan one get the Tao so as to
(15:49):
have it for one's own?
And the other philosopheranswers, Your life is not your
own.
It is the delegatedadaptability of Tao.
Your offspring are not yourown.
They are the outputs of Tao.
You move, you know not how.
You are at rest, you know notwhy.
These are the operations ofTao.
(16:10):
So how could you have it foryour own?
There's a funny thing that wecan experience ourselves through
and through as something thatjust happens.
Now you see me, now you don't.
And I remembered that quotewhen my son moved out, that he
doesn't belong to me.
I got to stop bringing him upbecause it's making me
(16:30):
emotional.
He doesn't belong to me.
I had the extreme privilege ofAnd I have the privilege of
being in the role of his father,but he's not my possession.
And I can't force him to go oneway or the other.
(16:55):
You know, there's wisdom fromyour parents that you can give
to your kids, but there's alsowisdom in your children because
they're new.
They learn from the old things,their parents, but they also
have to go their own way.
They have to learn themselves.
As parents, we have to trustthe wisdom of our children
(17:18):
because they have a wisdom wedon't understand either in
youth.
So we have to learn how to letgo of our identity, our image of
success, our friends, ourrelationships, our kids.
Your role in your story oflife, you have to let go of it
because you appreciate it whileit's here, but you can't hold
(17:42):
on.
You can't cling to it.
If you cling, like I said,you're going to be in pain.
There's a metaphor, let go oryou'll get rope burn.
You can't hold on to the rope.
You got to let it go when itwants to go.
And that's the rhythm of life.
Again, there's the inhale,there's the exhale.
What happens if you inhale andtry to hold on to your breath?
(18:04):
You start turning blue in theface.
That's just the way of life.
There's the paradox from Jesusin the 16th chapter of Matthew.
He says, for those who want tosave their life will lose it,
and those who lose their lifefor my sake will find it.
And the Aramaic word for save,like for those who want to save
(18:26):
their life, is It also meanslike to clutch, to preserve.
And when he says, those wholose their life for my sake,
that word in Aramaic also meanslet go of, give up, surrender.
It's not saying you throw yourarms up and become a limp noodle
(18:48):
and say, I can't save anything.
But you enjoy things whilethey're here, but you don't
cling to them.
And you remember that.
while you're enjoying them,that they are going to be gone
someday.
There's a funny story on this,the rope burn metaphor.
I don't know if it's true ornot, but it's called the
(19:08):
bricklayer's accident.
And it's kind of a metaphor ora parable for when we cling or
hold on to life too hard.
And this guy, he basically gotinjured on the job doing some
bricklaying.
And I'll read it to you.
It's hilarious.
So this is the bricklayer'saccident report.
It says, Dear sir, I am writingin response to your request for
(19:31):
additional information in blocknumber three of the accident
reporting form.
I put poor planning as thecause of my accident and you
asked for a fuller explanationand I trust the following
details will be sufficient.
I am a bricklayer by trade.
Okay.
Securing the rope at groundlevel, I went up to the roof,
(20:09):
swung the barrel out, and loadedthe bricks into it.
And then I went down and untiedthe rope, holding it tightly to
ensure a slow descent of the240 pounds of bricks.
And you'll note on the accidentreporting form that my weight
is 135 pounds.
Due to my surprise at beingjerked off the ground so
suddenly, I lost my presence ofmind and I forgot to let go of
(20:31):
the rope.
Needless to say, I proceeded ata rapid rate up the side of the
building.
In the vicinity of the thirdfloor, I met the barrel, which
was now proceeding downward atan equally impressive speed.
This explains my fracturedskull, minor abrasions, and the
broken collarbone, as listed inSection 3, Accident Reporting
(20:51):
Form.
Slowed only slightly, Icontinued my rapid ascent, not
stopping until the fingers of myright hand were two knuckles
deep into the pulley, which Imentioned in Paragraph 2 of this
correspondence.
Fortunately, by this time, Ihad regained my presence of mind
and was able to hold the rope.
In spite of the excruciatingpain I was now beginning to
(21:12):
experience.
At approximately the same time,however, the barrel of bricks
hit the ground and the bottomfell out from the barrel.
Now devoid of the weight of thebricks, the barrel weighed only
50 pounds approximately.
And I refer you again to myweight.
As you might imagine...
Pardon me, I refer you again tomy weight.
(21:34):
As you might imagine, I began arapid descent down the side of
the building.
In the vicinity of the thirdfloor, I met the barrel coming
back up.
This accounts for the twofractured ankles, broken tooth,
and severe lacerations of mylegs and lower body.
Here, my luck began to changeslightly.
The encounter with the barrelseemed to slow me enough to
(21:55):
lessen my injuries when I fellinto the pile of bricks, and
fortunately, only threevertebrae were cracked.
I am sorry to report, however,as I lay there on the pile of
bricks in pain, unable to move,and watching the empty barrel
six stories above me, I againlost my composure and presence
of mind, and I let go of therope.
A little funny story, but Ithink it's kind of true in life.
(22:20):
The more we cling to it, themore we're going to experience a
lot of pain.
One of the things I wasclinging to...
was the pleasant experiencesthat I would distract myself
with, like a puff at the end ofthe day or maybe a little video
game time on the little timethat I did or do get off.
(22:40):
And clinging to that, it feelsgood in the moment, but then I'm
not dealing with the things Ineed to deal.
I'm not looking at the bronzesnake.
I'm not looking at the cross,whatever symbol you want or the
pain that's in my life.
I'm not embracing it.
I remember on Reddit, there's aforum for people that are
(23:06):
looking how to quit smokingweed.
I think it's called Leaves,L-E-A-V-E-S.
And you see a lot of stories onthere.
I recommend anyone that'slooking to quit, whether it's
weed or another habit, just readthe stories that people have on
there.
And I remember commenting onone guy who was...
having trouble with quittingbecause of the side effects like
(23:30):
insomnia, racing thoughts, etcetera, et cetera.
And I told him a little bit ofthat Buddhist wisdom, remember
how it affects you negatively,remember how it affects others
negatively.
But the thing that seemed toreally help this guy was when I
told him in my comment, I said,you have to embrace your side
effects and withdrawals insteadof confronting them as an enemy
(23:53):
that you have to defeat.
Open your arms to them and holdthem in complete awareness.
Whatever you're feeling, justembrace it.
Don't grunt and grind yourteeth.
Just be completely open.
Oh, this is what insomnia feelslike.
Oh, this is what cold sweatsfeels like or whatever it is.
(24:15):
Embrace it.
And remember, it'll pass.
Everything that has the natureto arise will pass, and that
includes the downsides of life.
There's a guy named JackKornfield.
He's a Buddhist teacher in theWest, pretty popular dude.
He has a little excerpt abouthis teacher and the way his
(24:35):
teacher told him to look ateverything in life.
He says, quote, One day, myteacher, Ajahn Chah, held up a
beautiful teacup.
And he says, quote, again, itlets you love things more fully
(25:09):
now.
It brings peace because itfrees us from the illusion of
control.
And one of the ways that we canpractice, because it takes
practice to do this.
Like if I say all this stuff toyou guys and it sounds true and
rings a bell of truth in you oryou're nodding your head right
now, that's good.
(25:29):
That's one thing.
But if you don't practice likeanything, like a muscle, it
begins to atrophy.
So How do we stay present amidthese changes?
Well, first thing you need iswhat they call virya in English.
Buddhist speak.
I forget the Sanskrit word, butit basically means having an
energy or an effort, a courage.
(25:50):
There's a little excerpt Icopied here for this.
It says, in Buddhism, virya isconsidered a key spiritual
quality, often translated asexertion, diligence, or right
effort, representing the energyand enthusiasm needed to
cultivate virtue and overcomeobstacles on the path to
enlightenment.
And When you have thatenthusiasm, you can put it into
(26:16):
a practice.
The one I like, and there'smany options, but the one I like
is called Vipassana orVipassana.
It's basically insightmeditation.
It's very simple.
You just watch things rise andfall without clinging to them.
So you sit on a cushion.
You start out by watching yourbreath until your mind calms
down.
And as you're watching yourbreath, you'll notice that your
(26:38):
mind is kind of like a littlepuppy dog.
It wants to get up and startwalking away.
And every time you notice thatit does, you just gently bring
it back.
Just like a little puppy dog,you don't want to smack it and
say, where are you going?
Get back here.
You know, when your thoughtsdrift, you just notice when you
notice and you come back to yourbreath.
Your breath kind of gives youthat little comparison to see
(27:00):
when it's running off.
And then eventually you'llnotice that that your mind will
start to calm down.
The little puppy will sit downa little bit more and be calm.
And when that happens, you openit up.
You don't have to focus on thebreath exclusively.
You just let your awareness,they call it a choiceless
(27:21):
awareness.
So you just kind of, you gofrom one pointedness on your
breath and you transition into achoiceless awareness.
You keep that mindfulness, thatcuriosity with that viria
energy, that enthusiasm, and youkind of say to yourself, oh,
let's see where my awarenessgoes next.
Oh, there's a sensation in myfoot.
It's going to sleep a littlebit.
(27:42):
Oh, there's a dog barking.
I can hear my neighbor's dogbarking.
And you don't talk to yourselfwhile you're doing this.
You just notice it.
And you know that you'renoticing it.
Mindfulness can be described asbeing aware of being aware,
essentially.
And your awareness might comeback to your breath a little
bit.
(28:02):
And then a thought might pop upand you notice that.
You notice your emotionschange.
That's why I was saying twodays ago when I was doing this
practice, the big thing thatpopped up in my head was my son
and how much I missed him.
And that's why they call itinsight meditation because it
gives you insights of thingsthat were already there and you
(28:25):
didn't notice.
They're just going on in yourhead.
The first big insight that mostpeople get when doing insight
meditation is just how noisyyour mind is.
It's like, wow.
People who think they can'tmeditate, they're wrong.
Meditation is just watchingwhat is.
And if you sit down and yourmind is noisy, then you watch
(28:49):
it.
You just become aware of it.
You bring it into the light.
And this will help you reduceyour clinging because the big
insight you get from Vipassanais that All kinds of things will
pop up even in your momentaryexperience.
Like to everyone listeningright now, just watch how many
(29:12):
things are arising and falling.
You know the sound of my voicecoming to you?
It comes and it goes.
You might be feeling littlesensations throughout your body.
Just everything in life.
Just start paying attention andnotice.
It just pops up and then itdisappears.
And that's true abouteverything.
(29:32):
Our whole galaxy will be gonesomeday.
The earth, the sun, everything.
And I think in our society, wecling too much to life, to
youth, staying young.
And look at all the people inthe West.
We worship youth.
We worship youthful beauty.
(29:53):
We don't see the beauty inaging.
We cling to it.
And we're all afraid of dying.
And it's good to have areasonable fear of death, like
not walking in front of traffic.
or sticking your hand in afire, as they say.
But there's a quote from AlanWatts where he talks about this,
how people cling and overvaluesurvival.
(30:15):
There's a little lecture he didcalled The Unpreachable
Religion, and I'll read it toyou.
He says, and so in the sameway, the thought that the
supreme value is survival value,the thought that In other
words, that it is absolutelynecessary for us to go on living
is a basis for life which takesthe joy out of life and is
(30:40):
really contrary to life.
I feel that the biologicalprocesses that we call life,
with its marvelous proliferationof innumerable patterns and
forms, is essentially playful.
By that, I mean it doesn't havea serious purpose beyond
itself.
But now if you say to a form ofplay, you must happen, you've
(31:03):
got to go on, you immediatelyturn it into work.
And you immediately turn italso into what we call
colloquially as a drag.
Are we surviving as a duty tosurvive in order that our
children may go on surviving?
Well, if we think that ourchildren catch the same point of
view from us and they go onstruggling along for the then
(31:25):
the whole thing becomes afatuous process to an ever
eluding future.
And it is because I thinkfundamentally that we have this
compulsive view of the necessityof existence that our culture
is distinctly lacking in gaiety.
And I tend to agree with him onthat.
That doesn't mean that we,again, we don't worry about
(31:48):
dying.
Well, we don't worry about it,but we don't obsess about it.
We're going to die someday, andthat's okay.
It reminded me when I wassearching for content for this
episode to talk aboutimpermanence.
I was watching Star Trek withmy wife.
(32:10):
I turned her into a Trekkie.
Yes.
And we're watching Star Trek,and there's this character.
He's like in his early 20s.
He was really eager to sign upfor Starfleet.
And in this particular seasonof Star Trek, they've been at
war with this other alienspecies, like an empire trying
to take over, you know, they'repart of the galaxy.
(32:34):
And long story short, this kid,you know, he signs up, he loves
what he does with his newcareer, but then he sees combat
for the first time and he seessome of his friends die.
and his leg actually gets blownoff, or he gets shot in the
leg, and then they have toamputate his leg.
And he's like this young guy,you know?
And his name is Nog.
(32:56):
He's the cutest littlecharacter, and it's so cool to
watch.
In the beginning of the show,he was so little, and then you
watch him grow up with the showand get out there, and then he
sees just something thattraumatizes him.
And his way of dealing with itwas to go into like this virtual
(33:16):
reality room.
They call it a hollow suite.
The whole thing is like ahologram, but it looks and feels
like real life.
And he goes in there and it'slike the 1950s.
There's a character named VicFontaine.
And Vic is a hologram, but he'slike a super advanced AI.
And he's kind of like thementor to a lot of people on the
(33:36):
ship.
so uh nog after going throughthat trauma he just wants to
stay in there and he doesn'tever want to come out and at
first everyone thought it wasgood for him to help him heal
but then they start gettingconcerned because he doesn't
come out for like a week or twoand everyone starts getting
really worried and everyone thattries to get him out he starts
(33:58):
to get really aggressive towardsthem and says you know leave me
alone i want to stay in hereAnd Vic, the hologram guy, he's
kind of like a Rat Pack singer.
He's actually a real singer.
I forget the guy's real name,but you can look him up on
Spotify.
I'll try to put a link in thedescription.
And he kind of sounds likeFrank Sinatra.
(34:21):
He looks like somebody whowould be in the Rat Pack.
Anyways, so Vic, he startsgetting concerned because Nog
won't leave the Holosuite.
He won't deal with his trauma.
He won't face it.
And, um, Vic, he's actuallysentient enough, even though
he's artificial to shut thewhole program down and he forces
(34:41):
him out.
So nog is trying to like, youknow, mess with the wiring and
stuff to get the hologram backup.
But Vic, you know, he's, uh,he's so advanced that he can't
be outsmarted and he won't letthe hologram come back.
He's like, no, you know, yougot to stay out there.
So I just wanted to read to youguys a little, um, a little
scene that they did togetherwhen Nog is trying to get the
(35:05):
holosuite back up, Vic appears,just him without the whole
hologram, just himself.
And he says, so now the chief'stold you I'm smarter than the
average hologram.
Will you stop messing aroundwith my holosuite?
And Nog, he says, if you'llturn the program back on.
And Vic says, what is it?
I'm not making clear to you,Charlie.
(35:26):
You got to go.
And Nog says, don't you get it?
I can't go out there.
And Vic says, why not?
And Nog says, I'm scared, okay?
I'm scared.
When the war began, I wasn'thappy or anything, but I was
eager.
I wanted to test myself.
I wanted to prove I had what ittook to be a soldier.
(35:47):
And I saw a lot of combat.
I saw a lot of people get hurt.
I saw a lot of people die.
But I didn't think anything wasgoing to happen to me.
And then suddenly Dr.
Bashir is telling me he has tocut my leg off.
I couldn't believe it.
I still can't believe it.
If I can get shot, if I canlose my leg, anything could
(36:07):
happen to me, Vic.
I could die tomorrow.
I don't know that I'm ready toface that.
If I stay here, at least I knowwhat the future is going to be
like.
And Vic says, if you stay here,you're going to die.
Not all at once, but little bylittle.
Eventually you'll become ashollow as I am.
And Nog says, you don't seemhollow to me.
(36:29):
And Vic says, compared to you,I'm as hollow as a snare drum.
Look, kid, I don't know what'sgoing to happen to you out
there.
All I can tell you is thatyou've got to play the cards
that life deals you.
Sometimes you win and sometimesyou lose, but at least you're
in the game.
And with that, It's such apowerful scene.
(36:51):
And the kid, you know, he justgrabs his walking stick and he
just walks out of the hollowsuite.
And I was like, dude, that'sperfect.
I'm going to put that in theepisode.
It's so good.
So the point is, everything isimpermanent in life, guys.
It's going to be here and thenit's going to go away.
And we have to accept that.
We can't cling to things.
We can't mourn.
(37:13):
As the Hebrews say, we can'tmourn the vapor.
We can't mourn...
the transient stuff.
We have to celebrate it whileit's here.
It's not about despair.
Yes, all things will pass, butrealize that it's just like a
breath or a wave.
Whatever leaves always makesroom for what's coming next.
(37:37):
The prophet Isaiah in the Biblesays, "'Remember not the former
things, nor consider the thingsof old.
Behold, I am doing a newthing.'" Now it springs forth.
Do you not perceive it?
Or again in Revelation, Johnsays, behold, I'm making all
(37:57):
things new.
So yes, everything will pass,but there's always going to be
new things as well.
And we got to make room for thenew by not clinging to the old.
We can't stop the waves, but wecan learn how to surf.
And when we let go, it's not indefeat.
It's in freedom.
(38:18):
We have to trust this ride,this roller coaster, guys, of
life.
It will go up and it will godown.
We can't have all ups.
We're going to close out here,but I want to read to you
something from Lao Tzu.
And before I do, I just want totake a quick second to say if
(38:39):
you guys appreciate this show,please follow and leave me a
review and a comment.
I would really love that.
And you can...
Check the links below in thedescription if you want to
connect to our Discord and shareyour story or reach out to me,
and I can share your story,whatever you want to do.
But from Lao Tzu in the Tao TeChing, listen to this.
(38:59):
He says, "'Men are born softand supple, but dead they are
stiff and hard.
Plants are born tender andpliant.
Dead they are brittle and dry.'Thus, whoever is stiff and
inflexible is a disciple ofdeath.
(39:20):
Whoever is soft and yielding isa disciple of life.
And remember, guys, like Rumisays, do thou smile like the
rose at loss and gain.
For the rose, though its petalsbe torn asunder, still smiles
on, and it is never cast down.
(39:43):
Thank you for listening.
I love you guys, and blessingsto all.
No heroes, no headlines promisesmade just a whisper that won't
(40:19):
be afraid standing nowhere andit feels like home no flags to
wave no need to roam the silenceSpeaks louder than war ever
(40:45):
could And I've never felt sounderstood The static is kind It
leaves me alone No orders tofollow No keys The sky's turning
(41:13):
amber The clock's all reset AndI haven't stopped walking just
yet Standing nowhere Air wideand free No chains, no names The
(41:49):
sky turns white, I'm stillhere, nothing to hide
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