From Runway to Renunciation with Lama Aria Drolma

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:21):
Hello all, my entrepreneurs and business leaders, and welcome to
the Michael Esposito Show, where I interview titans of industry
in order to inform, educate and inspire you to be great.
Hello all, my entrepreneurs and business leaders, and welcome to
the Michael Esposito Show, where I interview titans of industry
in order to inform, educate and inspire you to be great.

(00:43):
My guest today once graced the cover of magazines and
strutted down the runway as a fashion model, showcasing Armani
and Chanel, to name a few. She lived the posh
life of a celebrity, touring the world in luxury, in luxury,
and attending a less parties. Yet she was left with

(01:03):
an empty feeling. One day, upon returning from a party,
surrounded by her luxurious lifestyle and three hundred pairs of shoes,
she decided this was not the legacy She wanted to
leave behind. It was at that moment she picked up
a book on Buddhism, awakening the Buddhist within, and had

(01:26):
a spiritual awakening. She set out to live a more
meaningful life and became a Buddhist monk or nun. She
lived in Tibet for three years and soon became a lama,
a spiritual teacher. Today, she has taught mindfulness and meditation

(01:47):
at the Harvard Business School of Women, Oxford University, the
Reuben Museum, and even the United Nations. She loves abundantly,
gives jennyesly, lives wisely, and knows that we are all interconnected.
Please welcome, Lama Aria Roma.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Welcome.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
Thank you, Michael. It's lovely, wonderful, Thank you for inviting
me to your shoe.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
I am honored to have met you, and I remember
specifically the day that we met. Who's at the Grenell
Library in Wappingers and a good spiritual friend of ours,
Linda Esposito, no relation to me, which is also very incredible.
We have no relationship to each other, but she invited

(02:36):
you and you came, and it was just so fortuitous
that that day we were talking about meditation and we
were talking about awareness and all this other stuff, and.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
You were there and you were actually leaving I.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
Think the next day, yes, to guide a group in
New York City on meditation and mindfulness.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
And so that was the very first time we met,
and from there we've met their times and I soon
learned your story and couldn't.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Wait to have you on today. So this is exciting
for me.

Speaker 3 (03:06):
Thank you. I'm really excited to shape my story with you, Michael.
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
So let's take this. Let's I mean, this is what
I think the magazines have reached out.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
To you for.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
I have three different magazine articles in front of me
and so many more. And part of what caught my attention,
outside of, of course your dress that you wear today,
But what caught my attention was when you told me
that you were once a model. And I remember when
you said it to me, and my first reaction was cool, like, okay,

(03:39):
you wore a model, not thinking much of it and
not to downplay it in any way, but just you know,
we all have past lives. And then you showed me
pictures and I went, well, wait a second. And then
you sent me the articles. I went, well wait a second.
And so I think the intriguing question, and I think
why so many reporters reached out to you to learn

(03:59):
about your story is you weren't just a model on
the cover or in a newspaper article, which nothing wrong
with that, but you were a top notch model and
you left that world for a life of simplicity. And
so if you could help us one see the contrasts

(04:21):
of the world that you once lived in or the
person you once were, and you even had a different name,
and share with us that story of who that person
was and what she lived like. And then we're going
to get into who you are today. And I think
that it'll be a wonderful experience for everybody to hear
all of this.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
Oh, absolutely sure, thank you. So I have to go
back to my childhood here. So I was born in India,
and I was born in this beautiful little district called
kirk and it's called Kordugu right now, and it's so beautiful.
It's called the Scotland of India. But in the map
of India it's almost like a do It's sometimes it

(05:01):
doesn't even exist in the map of India. But I
did go and study in Mysore and then went to
college in Bangalore and went to Bombay and I won
a beauty contest there when I was seventeen years old.
It was an intercollegiate beauty contest. So Bombay for you
is like, you know, just for a it's almost like,

(05:22):
you know, Bangalore is also a beautiful city, but Bombay
is that metropolitan like a New York city. And you
go there from Bangalore and you're competing with all these
fabulous women from Bombay colleges. It was an intercollegiate musical
night and film award night. And I won this beauty

(05:43):
contest and my whole world change one hundred and eighty degrees.
I was actually seventeen years ago, seventeen years old, and
so you know, I got modeling offers, I got movie offers.
I've got a stage you know, to play on the stage,
a playoffer. And I also got an offer to join

(06:05):
the airlines. So he and at seventeen, my mother was
really wanting to marry someone from my own community, you know,
like have an arranged marriage. Your daughter's all taken care
of in that notion. So I wanted to really escape
that arranged marriage situation. And I thought to myself the

(06:26):
modeling world and I did model. I model did some
commercials for Ponce cold cream soap, Ecclaires chocolate, Modella suits
and one of my first modeling offers for Fourhands toothpaste,
so that it was a lot of fun. And so
what I did was I joined the airlines because I
was only seventeen eighteen. Then I wanted to travel the world.

(06:48):
I wanted to go and live in Hong Kong because
that's where I was based. But when I went, you know,
and we were just thirteen of us who got hired
for Cathay Pacific. They were like three thousand some girls
who showed up for that interview, you know, to join
the airlines. And it was I don't know, but what

(07:10):
was wonderful about joining Kathay Pacific was it was a
life learning. We got to learn everything. We got to
learn how to, you know, deal with people. We got
to learn about food, cheese, wine, all aspects to life.
And then we traveled around the world. But when I

(07:30):
joined kathy Pacific, even there I they would take me
to do some modeling events in the sense when we
went to say we opened a new route to Switzerland,
they would take ten different nationalities because we had ten
different Asian nationalities like say Singaporeans, Malaysians, Chinese, Thai and

(07:51):
I was Indian, so we were ten different Asian different nationalities.
We would go to Switzerland and we would put on
a wonderful show and all our uniforms by designer uniforms.
So we would do a modeling show and then we
would do you know, they would showcase the culture of
Hong Kong, the food, the places, and I would They

(08:12):
would also ask me to do calendars for Cathy Pacific.
Long story shot. I landed in Manhattan. Now this is
where it gets so interesting. So remember I told you
I was born in India in that little spot. That
was my dream when I was a little girl. You know,
I wanted to be a model and I wanted to

(08:33):
be in New York City. And that was such a
far fetched dream because you know my Kirk where I
was born, it's not It's like a dot in that
old map. And so when I did land up in Manhattan,
I want I was. I wanted to be a smart
woman because I wanted to have a career because modeling

(08:54):
life is very short. So I you know, my first
job was burked off Goodman the most fabulous exclusive department
ster in Manhattan, and I also became an in house
model there and then soon after I got a lot
of modeling offers and I was the face of Majunga Handbags,

(09:15):
accessories and so on.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
Yes, well you went through that very quickly.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
Yes, Oh my goodness. There's so many questions.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
I have for you.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
The first I have for you here is you mentioned
this was a dream when you were a little girl,
so prior to entering this beauty contest, you had already
dreamed of being a model.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
Yes. Actually I had many dreams because I just thought,
for some reason in my heart that I could do
anything I wanted. I don't know how I got those
thought processes. But you see, in India, we're very very
respectful to our father's and our mother's wishes. They wanted
me to be in that box where they wanted me

(09:58):
to be a doctor. And my my stepfather was a
it was a very famous criminal lawyer advocate. It was
an advocate in India, and he wanted me to follow
his step footsteps. And so when I you know, when
I was in college. Actually there was a group of
scouters who came when I was in pre university and

(10:21):
that was my first initial thing into more the modeling world.
They selected a few girls in India in Bangalore. It
was very amateurish and you know, it was a lot
of fun. It was a fundraiser. So after that I
had this thought, oh my god, that'll be wonderful. You know,
that's another venue I can do. Because I had the
I was tall, but I didn't know where I was

(10:44):
going to go because I was still in pre university.
I wanted to be a model, I wanted to be
a doctor, perhaps be a lawyer, and I probably even
wanted to be like a pilot, you know. So all
these were my dreams and really I believed I could
pick any of it.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
Yes, it's very ironic that you had all of these
dreams to be a model, a pilot, all these different things.
And the irony I find is that now you live
a life of simplicity, yes, right, which is very I
think almost normal in your world, right, because because you

(11:22):
see the world as so open and available to you.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
Is why you're.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
Able to be so in a life that's so simple.

Speaker 2 (11:31):
Is because you could do anything.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yes, but you choose yes to have this spiritual impact
in the world.

Speaker 3 (11:38):
Absolutely, I chose to be an ordained nun. I chose
to do what I'm doing right now because I realized,
you know, while having my spiritual spiritual I was kind
of a seeker and I was really wondering. There was
a time in my life I asked myself, who am

(12:02):
I and what is the purpose of my life? And
that propelled me to go on the spiritual path.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
Yes, and that happened during the modeling career.

Speaker 3 (12:11):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (12:11):
And so because I don't want to keep going back
to the modeling career too much, because I want to
move into what you've done, and I really want to
learn about the three years in Tibet, like, oh my goodness,
I cannot wait to get there. Yes, but I want
to just really again create this contrast this lifestyle. You
had three hundred pairs of shoes, Yes, so I would
assume that you were earning lots of money, you were

(12:34):
being gifted lots of expensive things.

Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (12:38):
Tell us about what you learned from that experience when
you look back at it today.

Speaker 3 (12:44):
Okay, So just to give you a little more of
this modeling world in Manhattan, you know, it's like the
Pinnacle coming to Manhattan and continuing your modeling journey. So
what happened to me was, you know, a lot of
tax i had made in Hong Kong, or you know
even in India. When those designers would come to India,

(13:06):
I mean to New York, they would hire me to
do their runway shows. And like I said, I was
a face of Majunga Accessories and I did a lot
of runway shows and so on. And I remember two
months me being in Manhattan, just to give you what
the lifestyle was. I had. By then, I had made

(13:27):
a lot of contacts worldwide. I had a friend in
Australia who was a journalist, and he called me from
Australia and he said, Aria, we are going to Monocco
because the Princess Era won first in work. She's passed away.
Now she's having a art the object collection. They were
like beautiful arts and she was showcasing it in Monocco.

(13:49):
And we're going to be in this event, and I
want you to come as my friend because he could
bring a first guest with him. And it'll be we
will be having three European prince royalties, three Middle Eastern royalties,
and there'll be a lot of beautiful people, all the
European society people. So I would like for you to

(14:13):
attend and we'll just make you as the Indian princess.
But the important thing is you got to weigh your
six six heel six inches heels. I want you to
look very dramatic and glamorous, you know. So this was
two months me being in Manhattan, so I do did
wry to Monocco. I stayed at the Ermethage, the fabulous hotel,

(14:37):
and then it was amazing when we went to that event.
You know, they were really royalties. There were this the
most famous artist and in some of the homes his
the smallest painting probably is one million dollars. It was Botero.
And I said, oh, this is great. I can absolutely
get used to this lifestyle. You know, so modeling has

(15:00):
many aspects to it, and so having that kind of
a lifestyle, We're flying here to roam Paris, meeting friends.
It was very normal. And then one day I went
to this very exclusive party and I come back home
and I was taking off my makeup and as I

(15:21):
was wiping off my makeup, I was staring naked, you know,
with my no makeup face in the mirror. And I said,
who am I really? And what it was? By then
it was just going to another party after another, and
after you come back home, you've forgotten what you did,
you know, two days ago. And it was that moment

(15:44):
where I said, who am I? What I am? Who
am I? What is the purpose of my life? Because
exactly I was also now going back. I was looking
at my mother, who had passed away when she was
very young, like she was fifty two years old, and
when when we went and opened her closet, it was
filled with shoes and sorries that as though she was

(16:06):
going to be living for a hundred years. And I said,
if I die, you know, the thought of death came
into my mind. I said, I'll be dead, lying in
pair in these three hundred pairs of shoes and clothes
that had still tags on. What a life, What a
wasteful life. And you know, look at the carbon footsteps

(16:26):
I'm leaving, because you know, every time you're go and
have even a sandwich, there's papers and papers and the clothes.
And it was such a useless world, you know, it
was so useless. And I really went back to back
into thinking about Mama Gandhi mother, Teresa, look at what
they contributed to the world, and I would be a

(16:48):
dust zilch nothing And that was okay, but I didn't
want to live that life of waste and no, it
had no meaning. It had become empty. All these parties.
It was not giving me any happiness or joy. It
was just becoming cumbersome to do all the dressing go
there and the falsity. You know, nothing was genuine. You

(17:11):
don't really have any true friends. You know, it was
all air kisses. You could see that clearly. Nothing And
believe me, I enjoyed all the aspect of it, but
there was a deeper picture in the sense of who
am I and what is the purpose of my life?
Am I going to continue living like this? So useless?
And those thoughts that those were the thoughts permeating.

Speaker 1 (17:36):
And there's a couple of different ways that you could
have gone. I know that spiritualism was a part of
your family at a very young age, yes, and that's
one aspect.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
Which obviously you grasped too.

Speaker 1 (17:48):
But the other one is there was an entrepreneurial side
to you as well, with handbags. Yes, from what I understand,
you had a handbag company that you had started.

Speaker 3 (17:54):
Yes, actually I was modeling. I was the face of
a my Junger handbags, and that was somebody else's company.
I was just a model for his accessory. But what
I had started was my own clothing line. Yes, yes, yes,
and you know, because I wanted to wear all the hats.
You know, I was a model. I wanted to be

(18:15):
a fashion designer. I wanted to learn advertising, marketing, all
aspects of it. Yes, I really thought I could do everything,
you know. So so I had a fashion line that
sold at all the museum stores, at the Philadelphia Museum store,
at the Reuben Museum, at the Newark Museum because it

(18:36):
was so well handicraft. And I was also those days
I was thinking, Okay, maybe I need a little change,
and that those days, Dubai was the happening city and
everybody was moving there, and I was thinking, maybe that's
something I would probably want to go and see, you
know what, you know, have a career there, have my

(18:56):
fashion designing business there. But it was the New Year's
resolution in two thousand and eight to go and really
go to a mindfulness meditation session because when I looked
back in when I was young, it was that spirituality
that foundation, that meditation that we didn't in a home

(19:19):
that gave me the stability, you know. So I said,
you know, why why not going to explore that and
get that foundation back again because there was too many
distracting It was too distracting in Manhattan. There was too
many things going on, but there was really no happiness,
you know, that inner joy was gone.

Speaker 2 (19:41):
So you were looking for the stability and the ener
joy and the joy.

Speaker 3 (19:45):
Yes, and it was that question who am I? What
is the purpose of my life that propelled me deeper.
And that was when I went to you know, literally
to Ruben Museum. They have a bookstore there and I
picked up this book. And the book is The Awakening
the Buddha Within You. I think it was by Suria.

(20:05):
Thus the most amazing book that led me to you know.
Then I understood there are Tibetan Buddhism and there are
a lineage. So I went and went and googled everything,
and I started going to this mindfulness meditation class in
Manhattan upper Upper east Side where it all started. My

(20:26):
spiritual journey started.

Speaker 2 (20:27):
So you were but you were still modeling while.

Speaker 3 (20:31):
Yes, so I was just coming to do my once
a week meditation class. Right, But within ten days, my
teacher from here, from this monastery came to New York City,
Wapincher Falls came to New York City and gave us
teachings on Buddhism. And there's something called in Buddhism you

(20:52):
take refuge, which means that you really take you know,
you're saying to yourself, I will practice the Buddhist teachings.
You know, like when you go go to college, you
know you'll be the under the guidance of the principle.
When you're at home, you're in the guidance of your parents.
So here you're under the guidance of a teacher. So

(21:12):
he came and gave the initiation. And then I started
going to meditation class. And they were nuns from here,
ordained nuns from here who'd come there to teach once
a week. And then there was that spiritual realization and
that I'd found myself, that I found what I'm seeking,
and it was so grounded, it was so centering, and

(21:36):
I felt such a sense of purpose, and I then
I started coming to the monastery here and volunteering, cooking
and doing all kinds of things that you know, really
gave me more joy than all you know traveling around
the world, because I had done it all.

Speaker 1 (21:51):
There when you think back of the little girl and
you think that you could have done it all. One
of the choices that you made and ended up seeing
manifest thing was to become a model, was becoming a nun,
a Buddhist nan or a spiritual guide in any way
ever part of one of your thoughts.

Speaker 3 (22:09):
Absolutely not, not even in the my furtherish dream. But
one day I remember when I was in school, I
must have been nine ten years old, and it was
I remember very clearly. It was a physics class and
the teacher was teaching us physics and I asked her,

(22:29):
you know, she asked us, do you have any questions?
So I put my hand up and I said, do
you believe in God? And everybody died laughing because it
was not a physics related question. And then she turned
around and she said, okay. And then that started a
conversation who do we want to be when we grew up?
And for some reason or by now, I'm in India

(22:51):
studying in a Catholic school. So we went to Catholic
boarding school and we embraced that tradition of praying to
Jesus Mother Mary, because hindusam is such an open tradition
that there is no harm for us to go and incorporate,
you know, pray to Mother Mary. Because it was a

(23:12):
Catholic school run by Irish nuns, and it was a
boarding school. So here, you know, in this physics class,
she turned around and said, what you know, who are
you going to be when you grow up? And I
put my hand up and I said, I want to
be a nun. But the whole class literally laughed and
rolled down because I was the most mischievous student as well,

(23:33):
they would they didn't think. So here I was the
games captain and so on, you know, in school. So
that also was a part of spirituality that I embraced.
And you know, we would read the Bible. There was
a nun, a beautiful nuns. She would say, okay, if
you come into my room and you know, organize my

(23:54):
room and clean everything, then you get to sit here
and read all the Bible and everything. So we would
go and sneak into a room women read the Bible
because they were all in beautiful format. And I remember
that as well.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
That's interesting, just speaking you said Hinduism. Yes, and you
were you have Hindu so you were raised I guess Hindu. Yes,
and you went to Catholic school yes, and now you're
a Buddhist nun.

Speaker 3 (24:18):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (24:18):
I'm interested in your openness to religion. And you just
mentioned Hinduism has a very openness, yes, which is very
interested in that way of thinking.

Speaker 3 (24:27):
Yes, so you know I was born a Hindu, but
it is really not nobody there in India says I'm
a Hindu. It is a way of living. The way
of living is you know, with all the principles Hinduism has,
one of it is saying karma. Karma is a very
important aspect in the sense all my mother would do

(24:47):
is when we would go and you know, we had
a house help and we would go and upsetter or anything.
You know, we had a couple of them, and if
we did something wrong and we were rude, and my
mother would all all share to say, Karama is going
to get you. If you don't know how to treat people,
it'll come back to you. And that's all we knew.
The main meaning, you know, we really literally thought we'll

(25:09):
be punished at that very moment. So hindusum is a
way of life. It is like, you know, being kind
to people, it's being generosity, helping others, and it's a
whole lord whole amazing philosophies, the Vedas, Vedantapannishida, these very

(25:31):
very old sacred ways of living ways, you know, and
those really, when I look back at it, we didn't
really you know, although my father influenced it and you know,
probably in some schools, but it was up to us
to seek it out here when I went to the

(25:52):
boarding school. Same thing, morality, you know what Jesus did
for us, Kindness, generosity, all those where the way to live.
So hindusm you're right is a very open a kind
of a tradition. And I remember in Indian homes we
all have a small room. It's called like a meditation

(26:12):
room or a prayer room. So in this room we
would have all the pictures of all the deities like
Ganesh and Lakshmi and Saraswati and like that, many pictures.
And my father would bathe. After he had a shower,
he would come and he would do his prayers and
we would have flowers so he can put on all

(26:35):
those pictures. It's like a symbol of respect. And when
we went to the Christian school. When we came back,
we brought pictures of Mother, you know, Mother, Mary, Jesus
and josephin we just put it inside that room. And
so my father came and then he ran out of
flowers because there were three more additional pictures, and he
looked at it and he said to them, to our help,

(26:56):
he said, we need more flowers for this. So the
next day there were flowers on that. So it was
that kind of openness, you know, that we could embide in.
And there's a church in Bombay where on Wednesdays, this
church is apparently believed to be very sacred and everybody's
wishes come true. So guess what, that whole church is

(27:17):
filled with Indians. And you know, so there is that openness.
You know, there's no that you can only do one tradition.
And that's why I think spirituality became such a big
part of our culture because there was openness and there
were so many different aspects, different ways of thinking, you know.
And so today it is a place where every body

(27:40):
travels to India to seek spirituality and to you know,
for the seekers, they still go there because it's a
place of spiritualism. And the irony is I had to
travel three continents come to America and find my Tibetan
master as an Indian.

Speaker 1 (28:00):
I was thinking about that, how you ended up going
back to to Tibet.

Speaker 3 (28:03):
Actually here in Dutchess County.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
Oh so you did you travel to Tibet at all?

Speaker 3 (28:09):
No?

Speaker 2 (28:09):
No, you did so this is a yes.

Speaker 3 (28:12):
So you know, Michael, the tradition is Tibetan Buddhism. The
monastery is Tibetan Buddhism. Okay, Yes, so I did my
three and a half year retreat program here in the
Tibetan Buddhist retreat.

Speaker 1 (28:26):
Okay, And we're going to talk about that in a second.
I want to just touch now, just staying on the
topic of this open spirituality. But you also studied Catholicism, Yes,
and I grew up Catholic. I consider myself more of
a spiritual person today I don't. I guess I identify
as Catholic because that's how I was raised, and I haven't.

(28:47):
I'm not part of any other religion like a Buddhist
or anything. But I don't pray to a god anymore.
I guess I don't. I don't view my spirituality that
way any longer. And and it's interesting because I've said
this so many times on my podcast, and it's probably
because of the Catholic guilt that I've received over the
years of is there a God? And I better believe

(29:08):
in God? I better believe in Jesus and all this
other stuff. And this is where where my question is
coming from. Is that growing up Catholic, it was embedded
in me that there's one God, one creator of all,
that Jesus Christ was his son and is also part
of him, and that not that it was sinful to
worship well, I think it is, Yeah, it is. It's

(29:29):
part of the ten commandments, I think the only worship
one God. Right, And so therefore there is no outlet
to other religions. I guess growing up where I grew up,
and also in the time that I grew up, I
was able to see other religions.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
I grew up in a Jewish area.

Speaker 1 (29:44):
And also Catholic area, so I saw other religions and
a little bit of a mix, but not tremendous obviously
a big contrast to where I wasn't able to just
jump into that one, right. But what I'm saying is
there was a lot of constraints. There are a lot
of constraints in the Catholic religion.

Speaker 3 (30:04):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (30:04):
And so you are Hindu and you are going to
a Catholic school and you have Irish nuns, yes, which
again in my upbringing, are the utmost of Catholicism, if
not maybe just a notch either above or below the Italians. Right,
So I don't know which one is worse in terms
of like strict strict.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
Philosophy on Catholicism. Yes.

Speaker 1 (30:28):
So more of my question lies here is how now
do you go to this Catholic school but also bring
in the spiritual mindset of praying.

Speaker 2 (30:38):
To these other gods? How is this taken by them? Yes?

Speaker 3 (30:42):
So you see these Catholic nuns, they came to India,
like you know, they spread everywhere or the world missionaries exactly.
So they were in India and in Mysol. This was
the convent called guaB Convent in Mysol, and we had
a church in the school, which was such a beautiful church,

(31:03):
and we would go to Sunday masses and everything. The
only thing was we couldn't take the Holy Christ, the.

Speaker 2 (31:08):
White for the host.

Speaker 3 (31:11):
But we were very encouraged to go into the novena,
the prayers, attend Sunday masses, all that which we loved.
And I was also in the chorus singing Christmas carols
and so on. But see, because I was born as
a Hindu, they accepted because all the students they had
from Hindu families, there were probably a few Christians, so

(31:32):
they accepted that that we all came from Hindu families,
and we could also while we were in the school,
we had to you know, abide by the rules, and
we could go to church if he wanted.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
Were they trying to convert you no? No, yeah, okay.

Speaker 3 (31:47):
And that was the funny thing about India because we
had this openness to spiritualism and all kinds of tradition.
When even the British came, they could never convert Indians
because the Indians would say, yes, yes, we will go church,
yes we will go. But they never converted, you know,
in the sense they didn't have to convert because we
were so rich in our tradition, you know, so likewise

(32:10):
at home.

Speaker 2 (32:11):
That explained so much.

Speaker 1 (32:12):
Yes, I really you've just enlightened me and so much
more about Indian culture and what we see with the
sari's and how you the way of dressing, but also
being able to wear jeans and sneakers at the same time.
And I guess sometimes without really knowing the culture, it's
very like I don't understand which one are you?

Speaker 3 (32:34):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (32:34):
And what I'm hearing you say in this moment is
AHA moment for me is I'm both, I'm either, I'm neither.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
I just am yes exactly.

Speaker 3 (32:44):
And in India, because there are so many different traditions,
spiritual traditions, my best friend was a Muslim friend. We
would go to her house during celebrate ed in a
house and that was okay. We had a zorational friend.
So in India this was this is a fun part.
You know, we are Hindus, so we invite all the friends,

(33:04):
whether it's Muslims or Astians, what are other different traditions
to our house for New Year's Devali and we get
invited to their houses like Christmas. Christians will inviters, you
know Muslim you know during ed around about this time
is eed. So there's that also. And one thing about

(33:25):
India which everyone says, if you want to understand India,
everything you say the contradiction is also true. You know
that's the irony of India. Whatever you say is the truth,
the contradiction is also true.

Speaker 1 (33:41):
So then with what you're saying, then there's openness to religion. Yes,
then there's a contradiction to it as well. Yes, there
are people that are very firm, yes, in their religious.

Speaker 3 (33:50):
Roots, some fanatics in the Hindu fanatics.

Speaker 2 (33:52):
Very very interesting.

Speaker 1 (33:54):
So this this makes sense now when I hear about
all the different religions that you've been a part of. Yes,
the Catholic question inside of you, Yes, it has to
do with then how do you choose who or what
to worship?

Speaker 3 (34:07):
Yes, So in school we worship Jesus, Mother, Mary, and Joseph.
And you know we, as I said, we part took
in Christmas carols. Christmas was celebrated in school. And I
left out those parts where in my mind which said
if you don't pray to Jesus you will go go
to purgatory. I left out those things. I made it convenient.

Speaker 2 (34:30):
You didn't allow those thoughts to hold you.

Speaker 3 (34:32):
Yes, but that's where it was not fulfilling. Yes, that
is where it was not fulfilling. I didn't feel that
that's the truth that only Christians will go to heaven
and if you followed another god, you didn't. I couldn't
believe because I thought to myself, if who you know,
if somebody was born in another country, a different language

(34:54):
and never had you know, access to Christianity, how is
he going to hell?

Speaker 1 (35:00):
You know.

Speaker 3 (35:00):
It never made sense as a child, you know, but
I took all the good parts and and of course
one day I also even tested Jesus. You know, when
I was a little girl, I said, Jesus, I believe
in you, and I pray to you, and I want
my mother to come, you know, this month because we
were body in the boarding school. And that very day,

(35:22):
you know, it was not her time to come, but
she came, and I said, Jesus, I will always believe
in you for the rest, and I do pray to him.
I really find find them all to now to be
like spiritual teachers. And we call them both the satwas
bodisathwas are spiritual beings with a mission of knowing everybody's
interconnected that deep spiritual wisdom there and there's as we

(35:46):
call them as angels, and they exist everywhere, Michael, everywhere.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
Yeah, I think with what you're you're sharing here is
it's breaking down the structures, the confinement of these names
of Catholic, Jewish, all the rest, and just stripping it
to its form, which is, as you said, spirituality of
just believing in something. And so I'm going to go

(36:14):
back to the question and just a little bit different
because you answered it beautifully. I struggle, and maybe this
is maybe how I should phrase it. I struggle with.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
Whether there is a God or not a God.

Speaker 1 (36:26):
And I know many do too, right, And I think that,
especially in the Catholic faith, we'll blindly believe that there's
a God because we must. One we must because we
were taught that. But two, we must because it also.

Speaker 2 (36:38):
Gives us sanity.

Speaker 1 (36:39):
Right by having this belief that there's a higher being,
it helps us deal with our anxieties, with the pain
and suffering of death, with all these different things. And
I know in the Buddhist faith it's about confronting death.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
Right.

Speaker 1 (36:53):
So my question for you, with having this experience, with
a knowledge of all these different religions and having this
spiritualness about you, how do you believe in a God?

Speaker 3 (37:06):
Yes? So here here here's what Buddhism And now I'm
following the Buddhist faith. The Tibetan Buddhism. There is no
God in the Buddhist faith, but there is Buddha. And
he was a teacher who came down and what his
message was that we are all divine beings in human

(37:29):
bodies and you, and we're all interconnected, and we are
greater than what we imagined to be. And Buddha came
to say, you know this, there is karma, which means
there is rebirth, and this cycle that you'll keep going
is coming as human beings or any form of beings

(37:50):
going through that cycle, and then again you're reborn. And
there are many aspects of teachings which makes so much sense.
In fact, I found find Buddhism to be such an
intellectual tradition, spiritual tradition that a lot of doctors, intellectual
people are very drawn to Buddhism because all the answers

(38:12):
are contained there. So the whole point of Buddhism is
that because this whole cycle, it's like, you know, the
when the rat goes on that cycles, the real yes,
it's like that we're going to be born, reborn, reborn.
And one of the he gave us four noble truth
which is almost scientific in the sense, which makes so

(38:34):
much perfect sense. And the first noble truth he said
was life. So Buddha became enlightened. And that's our highest potential.
All the beings sent in beings your potential, my potential.
So the idea is when you put a seed into
the ground, what is the potential of an apple seed
to become an apple tree? Right, that's the highest potential.

(38:57):
Our highest potential is to be fully enlightened. But then
we are not reborn again in this mundane life that
we have. And then he gives He gave the first
teaching when he became fully enlightened under the Bodhi tree
in India where this place exists, it's called both Gaya

(39:17):
and under that Bodhi tree, he became fully enlightened. And
he's taught us for forty years. And the first teaching
was that. Then we call it the noble truth. And
the first truth was life is duka. Duka is like
a Sanskrit world. Duka means suffering, but it is not
that great suffering that but it is underlying dissatisfaction. Once

(39:43):
he gave that truth, and then he'll say what is he?
Then the second one is why, what is the cause
of that dissatisfaction and then how to you know, raise
that caused those causes, and then how to live your life.
He gives us the path, So in that can you
imagine how pragmatic you know it is to give us

(40:05):
that path. So that's why for me scientifically, Buddhism makes
so much sense. And then he teaches us in that path.
One of the things is he gives us in the
path how to be patient, generosity, meditation, and then if
you look at where all your dissatisfaction comes, it all

(40:26):
comes from your mind. So he teaches us how to
train this mind with mindfulness and meditation. That's why when
you see some old Buddhist monk who's up in the Himalayas,
he probably doesn't have much to eat, but he's the
happiest because he has trained his mind.

Speaker 1 (40:44):
Hmmm. I like how you describe the chromatic way because
I think sometimes not sometimes very often it's taken completely
out of context of what karma is.

Speaker 2 (40:56):
Oh, yes, and the rebirth of things.

Speaker 1 (40:58):
I would love if you can maybe describe it a
little bit further for everyone of what karma maybe means
in your definition of it.

Speaker 3 (41:06):
Yes, karma basically means for every action, there is a reaction,
and that's what it is. In fact, karma is so
rich and also complicated that Buddha didn't speak a lot
about it. He said, these are the practices you do,
and you know that there is rebirth. You know. Even

(41:28):
sometimes you know, if you were born and you have
black hair and gray eyes or you know, or distinctive,
we'll say, oh, that is karma. And then there's this,
you know, sometimes it says, look at your life today
and it will show you what you did in your
previous life. This is the karma of your previous life

(41:49):
that you were born in all these situations, you know.
So it's so it really makes perfect sense because sometimes
when you know which no other tradition gives me the
answers to this, I often question, what did a child
do that it had it and it went through so

(42:11):
much difficulties and it died suddenly? You know, a child,
I mean it has done nothing, but how many child
they've done some horrific things to a child and the
child has died. And that is the explanation that makes
perfect sense that because of the past karma, you know,
the child sometimes the child is bond saying I'm going

(42:31):
to take out all those negativities. Let me bonn and
go through all that and take out my karma.

Speaker 2 (42:37):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (42:38):
And so as I said, karma is your actions reaping
this action. You know what you did, what your your
actions bring forth all these actions. If I have to
say something, yeah, and.

Speaker 1 (42:56):
I know it's a little bit difficult to say, but
I guess I'm I need a little more clarity. I
guess on the child one, right, Yes, So just to
try to understand or reflect back to you what I
heard in the chromatic situation, I think I kind of
understand it. The child one kind of maybe confused me

(43:16):
a little bit, and maybe everybody listening. That's why I
want to clarify it is, uh, maybe what happened for
me in a previous, previous life life. Yes, is the experience,
Is the effects the cause? Yes, I'm living out today. Yes,
And I can understand that.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
Go ahead.

Speaker 3 (43:32):
Yes. And I want to tell you add something. See
the way we see life, you and I with our
all these sixth senses, it is a delusion. Really, it
is not the truth in reality. If there was an
alien who could see through your body and mine and

(43:53):
through everything, if there was such such a thing when
that person, the alien sees your body, what are you?
You're basically atoms, neutrons, space, and that's what I am,
and so is the whole universe. So in that level
we are so connected. Okay that not to confuse it.
It's not related to the karma question you ask. But

(44:15):
what I mean by karma is all the actions we've done.
It is reaping in life to life.

Speaker 1 (44:22):
Right.

Speaker 3 (44:22):
Another thing for us we don't understand it because we
die and then we are reborn.

Speaker 2 (44:29):
But in.

Speaker 3 (44:31):
Another sense, there is a saying there is no time.
There is no space as we see it, because we
see you know, the sunrise, we see the night, those
are changing where you know, the changing of the day elements.
But there they say there's really no space and there's

(44:53):
no time. Spiritually, a lot of spiritual people say that
as we see time, there's no time. So in my
your action, you know, you whatever you're doing right now,
the good action or a bad action, you reap. So
if there's no timeline, you know, then you probably if

(45:13):
I did something terrible to some other child or something else,
I reap that action as karmicly So and another version
is you know, my good teacher would say, you want
to have a beautiful face in your next life, do
good deeds, you know, take care of that anger, take

(45:33):
care of be generous, be patient, all this, all these
karma karmas that you you collect, you will have a
beautiful You'll be beautiful and you'll have a good life.
You know, if someone was very generous you know today
also where at our monastery, there are so many people

(45:53):
who come and donate a lot of money, They donate
food for us just because they will have the same belief.
When they donate generosity and so on, they reap good karma.

Speaker 1 (46:06):
And so I guess from what I understood what you
said there is that we're all interconnected.

Speaker 2 (46:11):
Yes, we're all made of atoms.

Speaker 1 (46:12):
Yes, And therefore when you're talking about a rebirth, is
that it's not necessarily a rebirth of myself. It could
be a reboth birth of many people of many different
past lies. Yes, that are coming together in these atomic bodies. Yes,
that are now this child or this adult. And therefore
there might be some that come together and was an

(46:36):
issue or whatever it was. Yes, And I won't go
further there because I don't want to turn this into
anything where it becomes a debate not between us, but
for anybody. And I don't want anybody to feel uncomfortable.

Speaker 3 (46:47):
It's not the purpose of my show because it's a
very very deep subject.

Speaker 1 (46:51):
It is very very deep, and so I want to
add to this of one of the learnings that I've received,
not from any spiritual teachers, but like from more of
the personal professional development teachers of like Tony Robbins and
Brendan Bouchard and so on.

Speaker 2 (47:07):
Is that life happens for us.

Speaker 1 (47:10):
And so when I think about what we're talking about
here with the charmatic ideas and the rebirth of things,
is that everything that's happening that we think is happening
to us, it's actually happening for us. And when you're
sharing with me about past lives and maybe mistakes that
could have been made or things that could have been
done wrong, and so we see today the effects of it. Yes,

(47:33):
it's happening for us to teach us, Yes, to do
something different.

Speaker 3 (47:37):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (47:38):
And I think of maybe having like for me, I
have dyslexia, and being born with dyslexia reading impediment and
having that rather than looking at it, which I did
most of my life. As to you, know, darn, why
do I have this? Why does this happen to me?
But looking at it as how did it happen for me?

Speaker 2 (47:57):
And what are the things that I.

Speaker 1 (47:59):
Can gain from this experience and using it as an
advantage and it changes everything.

Speaker 3 (48:05):
Changes your perspective absolutely. But then you know, if you
look at rebirth, which is karmic. Also even in Christianity,
you know, Jesus rose from the dead and he you know,
three days he appeared, So what does that really mean
he was also reborn? Yes, so those are there are elements,

(48:29):
and I think sometimes we don't know how deep to
go in. But in Buddhism, it really gives you a
great perspective. It gives you the perspective of so many
almost scientific related views. One is, you know, the when
I told you the thought process of life is like

(48:49):
dissatisfaction or life is excuse.

Speaker 1 (48:54):
Me, yes, and you're talking about life being as dissatisfaction
and suffering. And these are some of the ideas or
principles that Buddha share.

Speaker 3 (49:04):
Sharrees So regarding life being you know, he said the
dissatisfied with whatever we have, and you'll see that often.
And a great example is Robin Williams. He had it
all comedian, you know, fame, wealth, everything, and yet he

(49:25):
committed suicide. You know that there was that underlying dissatisfaction.
We're never happy, you know, like even in our own lives.
We'll see, we want a new car. The minute we
get the new car is just satisfactory only for a week,
even the best, and then we want something else. And
then after that, yes, say we want a new house,
and you know, we'll get that fabulous house, then we

(49:46):
want to add a wing to it, or no, the
neighbor's house looks better. So we constantly dissatisfyed, you know,
and that is one of the causes. And then he
but he doesn't, you know, the Buddhism doesn't stop there.
He give you what to do, you know, how to go,
how to live a fruitful.

Speaker 2 (50:05):
Life, fruitful life.

Speaker 1 (50:06):
Yeah, and I like that you bring that up, because
you know, we talked a lot about your modeling experience
and all the things that you had, yes, and all
of these luxurious things. And I said, a less parties,
your royal parties, yes, from what you shared with us,
and to give it all up.

Speaker 2 (50:24):
But truly you didn't give it up.

Speaker 1 (50:25):
Yes, you didn't give anything up nothing because with what
you just shared, the goal is not to die with
the most shoes.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
Yes, the goal is to die and be enlightened.

Speaker 3 (50:34):
Yes, so yes, I'm sorry I have to interrupt you. Yeah,
I realized when that moment happened that who am I
and what is the purpose of your life? There was
a deep, deep thought that we are here on earth
to benefit beings, to benefit others, and that is where

(50:56):
the joy comes from. But when I lived in Manhattan,
in that glamorous lifestyle, it was just about me, myself
and I and I think I went back to when
I was in India and all the things that brought
joy to us. It was like welcoming guest, being with
people helping us, other people, the community, and that is

(51:20):
what was so enriching our lives, benefiting others. You know,
today they're so you know, look at the world. I
really want a kind of world. I really want a
safer world. And that was all there when I was
living in India, you know, in the community, we shared everything,

(51:40):
we came together, we danced. Look at such a wonderful
developed country. A lot of people are lonely, you know.

Speaker 1 (51:51):
Yeah, yes, and so yeah, so you had this life,
and we just talked a lot about karma, and we
got very deep there, and you know, I wouldn't feel
comfortable to go any deeper, to be honest, And it's
only because I want to make sure that we stay
open and I want to keep everybody open to what's

(52:12):
next with what we're going to talk about. And you know,
I'm very mindful of that, and so being mindful in
that Buddhist religion, many religions have mindfulness and prayer and
all sorts you.

Speaker 2 (52:25):
Call it, whatever they choose. Of course, with what you practice.

Speaker 1 (52:29):
Is mindfulness and meditation. And this has now become a trend.

Speaker 2 (52:35):
I thought I was cool.

Speaker 1 (52:36):
I thought I was not cool, but I thought I
was unique when I was meditating. But now it's become
everybody meditates, and so I'm very interested in, let's say, meditation.

Speaker 2 (52:47):
One oh one.

Speaker 1 (52:48):
So when when people talk about meditation, what is it
truly to you? What do you really see meditation as?

Speaker 2 (52:55):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (52:56):
So to me, you know, if you really look at
where all your anger, your dissatisfaction, your depression, your stress,
where does that come from? It really comes from our
thoughts and from our minds. I'm just pointing out here,
But it's our thoughts and from the mind that you know,

(53:16):
we can never Our minds are like a monkey mind.
Every time one thought to another is jumping and jumping
and jumping. You know, it's so stressful and there is
no space in your mind to enjoy your life.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
You know.

Speaker 3 (53:30):
You know, you're in college and then you have that
pressure to get married and the children comes, and then
you have to work hard, and then while you're working
you die. Do you know that they question people who
were dying and said, what are your regrets? And some
of the regrets is we didn't spend much time with friends,
We worked too much, you know, all the regrets. So

(53:51):
coming back, why has mindfulness and meditation become important? Because
now it's there's so many scientific rea search that when
you do meditation you calm your mind. You can then
you know that anger that can come so quickly and
then you go and react and you do do such

(54:11):
destructive things. You can subdue those thoughts. You can let
go of those thoughts and live life mindfully. And you know, Michael,
I really want to tell you something about mindfulness. I
looked up certain research and there were all these Ivy
League research that they had done studies and mindfulness. Do

(54:33):
you know there was pages and pages and pages of mindfulness.
Even to describe mindfulness, it gave me a headache, really,
but you know how simple mindfulness is. Have you ever
taken a mug of coffee from the coffee or the
tea from wherever, from the kitchen and you filled it
to the brim? Now you want to bring it to

(54:55):
the desk, and you're slowly bringing it to the desk
where your computer it is, and you put it down
and you said, ah, it didn't spill. Right, that's mindfulness. Absolutely,
Where were you mindful? You were mindful that the cop
your cup doesn't spill, you know, so very carefully you
brought it here. That's mindfulness. Now, what if you're mindful

(55:16):
in all areas of your life. You're automatically mindful when
we drive, right? What when you go home and you
see all the scenario that triggers you, and if you're mindful,
you know, like if you just had something to tell
yourself calm down, Michael, it's okay. You know your house
is a mess today, I walked in, the dog is
running all over or whatever. You know, it triggers us

(55:38):
that's okay, that's okay. So mindfulness is that you know
when your anger rises, you're going to be mindful. You're
not going to react. That's on mindful teachers, and as
just as I explained with that mug, you're just going
to be mindful of your mind. You know what's going
to come. How you know if the anger comes out,

(56:00):
you can say, I'll let go. And what is meditation.
Meditation is different than mindfulness. It really helps you to
calm your mind. And when you're doing formal sessions, you'll
understand the thoughts are just coming in your mind. That's
what your mind does. You know, your mind is to think.
We don't stop the thoughts, just like we can't stop
the waterfall. But what we're going to do is we're

(56:22):
going to let go of that thought. Then the wisdom
comes because in the wisdom in the Buddhist tradition, they
say that the mind is as wide as space itself.
Has anyone measured space, we cannot write your mind is
as space as big a space itself, but you have

(56:44):
narrowed it because you don't understand that. And through meditation,
through a formal practice it's experiential, you can make your
mind so spacious. And there's a very simple example I
can even give you right now. I can say, okay, Michael,
can you bring visualize this room and yes? Can you

(57:04):
visualize your house?

Speaker 2 (57:07):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (57:07):
Can you visualize the city you were born? This room,
your house, the city you were born? Can you visualize
the best movie? What is your best movie? You went
to Titanic. Everybody saw the movie. I'm just thinking it
ages you also. But you can bring to your mind
this room, your house, the city you were born in,

(57:30):
and the movie Titanic. You know, you may not do
it from bingning, but you can get the whole part.
And then you can go further down. What if you
were an aerial pile pilot, you know, like you could
go from every you know, the whole aerial view to
the earth. You can bring it to your mind. It

(57:51):
can fit in your mind's space, and you can try
at home. You can bring three movies into your mind.
That's why you can recall everything. But yet we'll say no,
I can't, I can't. I can't deal with this. My
mind can't take it. But that's a lie. So we
don't know all the truths. You know, these are experiences,
so with meditation. It's that you know, when the thought comes,

(58:14):
you're going to let it go, you know, And then
it's a practice, like you know, you haven't you know.
Most of them say I don't know how to meditate
and so on, and I say to them, did you
go to the gym and get that fabulous body in
one day? No, it's a practice.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
Yeah. And just for everybody's reference, mine was Ninja.

Speaker 3 (58:36):
Turtles the movie, Yes, because they were all sequences.

Speaker 1 (58:41):
Well, I yes, I did watch, Yeah, I one and one.
Probably one is the one that sits in my mind
the most. If I were to recall two, I remember watching,
but one was the one that I watched on repeat
very often and went to the theaters and saw it.
I was a big Ninja Turtle fan, Michael Angelo being
my favorite Ninja Turtle of them all.

Speaker 3 (59:02):
So can you imagine three hours of the movie. You
can totally recall all of it.

Speaker 2 (59:07):
It's incredible.

Speaker 3 (59:07):
It's incredible. So our mind is that space itself.

Speaker 1 (59:11):
Yeah, and so I've taken to meditation and I really
enjoy it. And I can attest to everything you just
said in being mindful and it helping me in so
many areas of my life. Of being responsive rather than reactive,
where I'm able to take a moment to respond thoughtfully

(59:32):
in the moment rather than react to the moment. Not
to say that I don't react, I still react and
get upset and all the rest. Yes, And I think
of just dealing with my children is where we have
wonderful times. But I'm talking dealing because let's talk about
a stressful time of when they're aggravating me or frustrating me,
or causing some sort of feeling inside that I'm upset,

(59:55):
I'm angry, right, And as a parent, I think many
parents can understand, and pet owners as well, right, you
know all the rest.

Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
And I know that my past.

Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
History would be to react, get upset, scream, yell, shout,
whatever it is, right, react And not to say that
I don't do that because sometimes when yeah, we do
feel stressed and we do have so many things going on,
it is very challenging.

Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
To be mindful.

Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
But for the most part, yes, because of the combination
of meditation and mindfulness, I know, and I'm picturing this
so I'll tell everybody exactly what I'm talking about. Here
is every morning my daughters and I read together and
my daughter Denise is nine years old. She sets a
timer for twenty minutes and reads on her own. And
my daughter, Tenley is seven years old and she reads

(01:00:42):
with me, and it's to monitor her reading so that
you know, and also to help her. And she said,
we set a timer for ten minutes. Now, of course Denise,
who reads on her own, she's the one who is
very calm and pensive and it's very easygoing, and in fact,
she sets the time on her own.

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
You even need to tell her.

Speaker 1 (01:00:57):
Tenley is more like me, wild girl, wild spirit, and
always challenging, always asking, and you know, it has this
way about her and she never wants to read, but
she's come to it to where it's become such a
such a habit that she just does it now, right,
But very often she challenges me while we're reading. And

(01:01:20):
in fact, this morning when we were reading, she was
challenging me, and one of her challenges was she didn't
like where I moved her clothes getting ready for school.
I moved it and that started it. And then the
way she was reading was she was upset with me.
So now she's reading differently. So now we're having a talk.
But what I'm getting at here is. I noticed myself
getting very upset with her.

Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
I felt it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
I felt the anger in my chest. I felt myself
getting frustrated with her and wanting to shout at her
and say enough, close the book, slam it shut, and
say I have had enough.

Speaker 2 (01:01:54):
And I've done that in the past. It's the truth.

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
I've done that in the path, but more often now
with meditation and mindfulness, I'm able to go through my
mind and think of if I'm able to stay quiet
for twenty minutes, just stay quiet for twenty minutes, then
I could stay quiet for three minutes here. And if
I stay quiet for three minutes, she's going to move on,
and I'll move on. Yes, and this moment will pass. Yes,

(01:02:20):
And that's exactly what happened. I was frustrated, and it passed.
Now she continued to frustrate me. Yes, and I continued
to stay in that moment. And then I reached my point.
And I think many parents know what I'm talking about.
I reached a point that was it. She was still
doing the action that was causing my frustration and anger,
and it was because she was upset with me about

(01:02:42):
whatever it was right. And again I had the option
to slam the bookshot and say enough is enough. Yes,
I didn't do what I did previously, But what I
did do is I closed the book and I said
to her, all right, Tenley, you're upset with me and
I'm getting upset with you.

Speaker 2 (01:03:02):
Let's talk about it. I want to know how you
feel right now so that we can talk it through.

Speaker 1 (01:03:07):
Because the way you're reading and the way you're acting
right now I don't like, and I'm getting frustrated.

Speaker 2 (01:03:14):
And so we had this dialogue between us where.

Speaker 1 (01:03:17):
I shared with her that I'm frustrated with her, I'm upset,
and it's going to a place that we're not going
to like. And I had her share with me her feelings.
And this isn't to tell people how to parent in
any way.

Speaker 2 (01:03:30):
What I'm speaking to is I.

Speaker 1 (01:03:32):
Put into practice the meditation and the mindfulness, and it
was like it worked like a charm with her. She
turned around and she said, you know, I didn't like
how you moved my clothes and I was upset by it,
and I said, I'm sorry I moved it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:46):
Here's why I did it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:48):
We talked about it, and at the end of it,
she still was like a little upset and I said, Tentley,
you can choose to be upset right now and continue
reading upset, or you can choose to read happy and
be happy.

Speaker 2 (01:04:00):
I said, I forgive you. Do you forgive me? She
said yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
I said, I forgive you and you forgive me, so
I'm happy. You can choose to be happy right now
for those Oh okay, and then she did it, and
it was like amazing. Yes, And I'm sharing this because
this is what I'm seeing play out from me and
my experience of meditation and mindfulness is it's helping me
be a better person but also be a better parent.

Speaker 3 (01:04:24):
Fantastic, amazing, Dad.

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
It's wild.

Speaker 3 (01:04:27):
You need a gold medal for this every day challenging,
you know. But what you did was fantastic. As a father,
you know, who gives you a manual that you know
you here's a manual. You have two daughters all coming
to that age of you know where we get frustrated. Oh,
thing you did fantastic. That's wonderful what you did. And

(01:04:50):
this is where meditation is so helpful. But perhaps David,
I mean Michael, I was thinking of something, Michael. What
I was thinking was there are different aspects of meditation
and the eighty five thousand Teachings of Buddha. It's all
about mind training. Can you imagine? It's about mind training.

(01:05:11):
So the three and a half You're a treat program
I did was mind training, but it is experiential because
you can't read from books. One of the other form
of meditation is when you're with to me mine. Now,
my mantra is live intentionally. And what I mean by that, Michael,

(01:05:32):
is in the mornings when we get up, what do
we normally reach out to the phone and then it's
so tempting to go to Instagram and see how many
likes I have, or YouTube or whatever we do, and
that sets the mode, the mindset for the day, you know,
that anxiousness. Instead, I'm saying you have to be as

(01:05:54):
careful with your mind when you're taking a drive to
another city. You know, you look at all the whole
map and you'll say, okay, this is why I have
to stop. You're not going to go and say, oh,
let me just go to this lane. This lane that's
you know, where you're going putting your mind all over
in fact with your reading. Maybe you can put this

(01:06:15):
mindset when you wake up with your children. Three thoughts
of gratitude because there you're you know, you're cleverly parenting them,
Grateful for mom for making breakfast, Grateful for Dad for
sitting with them with that time. Anything you can put
three thoughts of gratefulness if you want, make it into five.

(01:06:36):
And it could be as simple as I can go
to the kitchen and get myself water. How many children,
how many people in the world can say that? Not many?
Second three thoughts of thankfulness. Anything. It could be oh
my god, look I can breathe the air, and then

(01:06:56):
you can say, let's see you know. And now, I'm
a big fan of simple things that make you happy,
which is, look at the flower that's blooming. And I
go to this Adams market and I look at all
the plants during winter. I'll touch the plant, look at
the leaf, and I feel so joyous with these simple things.
So teaching them simple things can make you joyful in

(01:07:19):
the sense you don't need that big gadget. Even you
make that into a habit. Everything we do is a habit. Literally,
you make it into a habit. You are very quietly
teaching them, you know, gratefulness, thankfulness, simple things that can
make you happy.

Speaker 1 (01:07:38):
Yeah, it changes everything. We actually do many of these
practices that you speak about, because I follow a lot
of these teachings. And that's why I say so often
that I'm more spiritual than I am Catholic in any way.
I don't follow the Buddhist face or any specifically, but
we're I follow more of this idea of gratitude, and
my daughters follows suit. And I find it to be

(01:07:59):
much easier too when they're upset about anything. Is you know,
what are you grateful for?

Speaker 2 (01:08:04):
Or be great?

Speaker 1 (01:08:05):
You know when people say be grateful for what you have, yes,
they don't know what they're grateful for. But if you
ask them what are you grateful for? Now, I can
go back to that and say say it to them.

Speaker 2 (01:08:15):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:08:15):
While I appreciate the what you shared with me in
terms of being a great father and all that things,
I do want to say that there there is also
imperfections in it all, absolutely, And for the amount of
times that I'm able to be mindful and patient and
have this wonderful dialogue, I also lose my patience absolutely.
And I bring this up intentionally because when we think

(01:08:38):
about meditation, we can have a wonderful meditation and I
know I've experienced them. I actually had one not too
long ago. This was so cool, and I want to
ask you the question. You know, we always think that
more is better, and so I strive for more. Right,
how can I meditate longer? Or I want to med it,
have a great long meditation, or oh, today is going
to be a great day. I have half an hour,

(01:09:00):
have an hour to just set aside and meditate. And
the other day I only had five minutes. But I
said I want to meditate before the session. I pretty
much do it every day. I said, I want to
do I want to meditate before the session. I only
have five minutes. I'm going to do it. And can
I tell you it was one of those that I'm
going to ask you about or talk we're going to
talk about.

Speaker 2 (01:09:17):
It's where my alarm went off.

Speaker 1 (01:09:20):
And it was as if when you say there's no time,
it was as if, WHOA where did the five minutes go? Yes,
five minutes is a small period of time, but normally,
you know what I do planks every day where you
hold your body weight up three minutes, you feel three minutes,
you know, like you know every second that goes into
three minutes.

Speaker 2 (01:09:39):
But this five minutes.

Speaker 1 (01:09:40):
Was like like that, and I was like, whoa, it
was the best meditation. And so I feel that so
often as beginner meditators. Now I've been doing it, I
want to say two years, three years now from when
I had first learned as beginner meditators. That's what we want.
We want to get that every time that meditation, it
was the mind was totally blank and clear. But the

(01:10:04):
truth is is that we're not perfect. Yes, And the
truth is is that we have very more often than
not the monkey mind. Yes, And so I want to
ask you in this moment, what what do we do
when we experience this monkey mind where we know that
we can't prevent the thoughts from coming in, but it

(01:10:24):
is uncontrollable.

Speaker 2 (01:10:25):
They're flooding our minds? What do we do in these moments? Yes?

Speaker 3 (01:10:29):
And I know it probably yours was like a three
part question and one part to tell you it's okay, Michael,
if you're not perfect, right, because as human beings, we
you know, according to the Buddha tradition, Buddhist tradition, we
are already divine beings. You know, That's what the Buddha
has buddh Us teaching we are already Buddhas, but we

(01:10:51):
are just taking out all the onions to see that
that's divine being within us. And it's okay if you're
not perfect. Nobody is perfect. Being a human being is
not being perfect, and that's being okay with it. So
when you are with your children, this little example you
gave that you were getting really you know, or getting

(01:11:13):
pulled into that because remember we all interconnected our energy.
We only think it's the energy with speech, it's also
speechless energy. You know that you're picking up on. And
so one of the things you can do is when
you are in that midst of that anger clash to yourself,

(01:11:34):
you can say, center yourself. This is a cue you're
giving yourself, sent to yourself, Michael, And you can put
your hand like this and say center yourself, Michael, you know,
and then you can if it is unbearable, you can
say it's okay, Michael, it's okay. This stewo will pass
in your mind. And then there's another powerful meditation you

(01:11:57):
can do. It's not only just calming the mind. It's
called my compassion meditation. And you can just look at yourself,
the situation you are in, and you know you're going
at it every day and you're going to show self
compassion on yourself, which is it's okay, Michael, that's okay.

(01:12:19):
And you're literally going to you know, bring in, bring
in the energy of deep compassion for yourself. And in
the mindstream, you can bring a thought of whoever gave
you that unconditional love. It could have been your mother,
it can be your grandmother, of someone who took care
of you, and bring into that mindstream that unconditional love.

(01:12:44):
And if it's your mother, you can visualize her right
in front of you and she's giving you this unconditional love,
and then you're feeling compassion for yourself. That's okay. And
it's a practice. It's a called a practice called Tonglin.
And there's a book, very well written, but it is
very very traditional, which is love every breath. I'm not

(01:13:06):
in any way promoting that book, but what I mean
is showing compassion to yourself constantly. Why it distracts that
anger because we're training our mind. You see that when
that anger is coming, you don't have to play around.
You can look at it and subdue it like down boy,

(01:13:28):
you know, something like that, and then instantly bring the
thought of compassion to yourself because you're dealing with this
right and saying center yourself, and you know, there's a
beautiful practice of compassion that I just thought yesterday at
Roman Museum. Because compassion and loving kindness is a very
high state of being. It is, you know, close to divinity.

(01:13:51):
So when like the Buddha who's enlightened, when he sees me,
he doesn't see any fault because he's fully enlightened. Is
by default he only chose love to me, loving kindness,
like the energy of Jesus and all these holy beings.
So our essence is to elevate our anger or distress
to that loving kindness and compassion. And it's a practice.

(01:14:14):
So this beautiful practice I thought yesterday about compassion was
to this is like when you meditate, right, you sit
and meditate. This is another way to meditate that you
visualize yourself in front of you, whatever age you want
to be, two, three, four, eight, ten, twenty, whatever, and
then you see this beautiful white light, and this white

(01:14:35):
light is unconditional love. Somebody must have loved you unconditionally,
you know. And then taking this light of unconditional love
and sending it to yourself who's facing you, filling yourself
with light. That minute the light touches you, you're transformed.
All your anger, everything is gone, and you're filled with loving,
kindness and compassion. So these are all meditation techniques we

(01:15:00):
do to practice. When that person is like going about you,
you're saying to yourself in your mind, I have to
be centered. I have to be centered. And if you
fall into that anger thing, that's okay. You can come
back again and show sell you know, compassion and all.

(01:15:21):
This is a practice, and it's so important, Michael, to
teach your children gratitude, thankfulness, all those you know, when
I go back to my childhood in India, we were
not never depressed, Oh my god. We were hungry all
the time. Never depressed or stressed or anything. We were
young children. Why because when we went to school, even

(01:15:43):
though I went to, you know, not a Christian school.
I think the first school I went was not a
Christian but we all had to wear the same uniform,
all white, red ties and all this. So everybody is
the same. Nobody's wearing Nike Adidas. You know I'm this No,
you know, we're all the same. The first school, it

(01:16:03):
started with prayers, you know, and the prayer we're very
well said, I'm going to be a kind person. I'm
going to be a good you know, some things of
that nature. It was in prayer. But here in America,
it's unbelievable how many children are depressed. And we are
in a developed country. And you know today's newspapers Americans

(01:16:26):
highest case of suicide with men. How can it young
young people? How can be it possible? So we have
to strive. As a father, mother, it's my own responsibility
to myself. I can't say, hey, what are you doing?
I want a kind world. I want to say, we
have to work towards a kinder and a safer world.

(01:16:48):
And it starts from families, fathers and mothers and schools
and the intention. And there are so many kind people
Michael today. Also, I cannot tell you how blessed I
was because I wanted to come in time for your show.
I had other things to do, so I rushed to
have breakfast like brunch quickly at one of the Wappinger restaurants.

(01:17:13):
And there was an old couple who walked back, came
to sit next to me, and you know, the man
was so gentlemanly he made space for his wife, who
was very old, and then he had to get in
to this side and it was all crushed. So he
managed to pull his chair and I was sitting next there,
so I moved very graciously, sick, and I said, you

(01:17:35):
want help, you know, because I wanted him to sit comfortably,
the older man, because I know he can't pull the
chair and all as fast. And he was so gracious
and he looked at me, and then we had a
small conversation after that because he thought I was alone,
you know, and I did. And then he said you
were alone. I said, yes, yes, I'm a nun and
we've been alone, you know, in the sense not to worry.

(01:17:57):
And he said where, And I'm from the Buddhist church.
And that's all the conversation, like with the warm and
I ate my food. And when the bill came, he
chose to pay for my bill. That small words of kindness,
like I just said, it's okay for you to pull
your chair. You're not bothering me nothing, you know, And
it was few words, and he paid for my breakfast

(01:18:20):
and I was so touched that, you know. In what
I did was I went and paid extra money to
the waiter who say served me. So it's a chain reaction,
you know. And there's a beautiful another Italian restaurant I
think called Santo in Fishkill, same thing I went and
was having lunch. The person said your haircut is very nice,

(01:18:42):
and I said, thank you your hairstyle as well, you know,
so warmbly, and he ended up paying for my.

Speaker 2 (01:18:48):
Lunch with you.

Speaker 3 (01:18:51):
Yes, I think what it is we've lost that kindness that,
you know, our own generosity to smile, you know, doesn't
have to be to pay bills, but to smile, to
be kind to each other. And that is what if
we all practice that, we teach our children, you know

(01:19:11):
how much bullying and everything, that act of kindness is
definitely going to make the world a kinder and a
safer world. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:19:21):
I love what you just said there with kindness, I mean,
I know that when we first met, you might have
remembered my shirt that said Kindness will save the World.

Speaker 3 (01:19:29):
Oh really, you know I must have taken it subliminally.

Speaker 2 (01:19:34):
Yes. In my daughter's school, they have a.

Speaker 1 (01:19:39):
Fundraiser and it's to these shirts is kindness shirts, and
they have be kind and Kindness will Save the World
and several other sayings and we've bought them over the year,
so I have two that I wear pretty regularly and
that's one of them. And the reaction that I get
from wearing that shirt, everybody loves it.

Speaker 3 (01:19:56):
I really love it.

Speaker 2 (01:19:57):
And it's what you're saying.

Speaker 1 (01:19:59):
It's even if somebody is having a bad day, you
can give them the gift of your smile or your
kindness or your kind eyes.

Speaker 2 (01:20:07):
And I've seen that to be true. I have seen
that to be true.

Speaker 1 (01:20:10):
So you know, it goes back to this whole interconnectedness
in that we don't know what other people are experiencing
or have experienced, but we can help them just by
being kind to them. And even if it's just momentarily,

(01:20:30):
you know, because my smile or your smile might make
that person happy in that moment, but then it passes.
But the more like what you're saying, the more that happens,
the more it becomes something. And I know this because
at the supermarket that I go to, there's a person
there that works there very often. She's always there and
I'm trying to not divulge too much about her because

(01:20:52):
I don't want anybody to know who it is.

Speaker 2 (01:20:56):
But she never smiles. She never smiles else.

Speaker 1 (01:21:00):
In fact, she won a lot of money, and I'm
saying it that way intentionally. She won a lot of money,
and I think.

Speaker 2 (01:21:08):
She was maybe happy for a week from what you
could tell, but not even and it was a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:21:14):
It was a life changing event, and I think to
her credit, she went back to work, and that's wonderful that.

Speaker 2 (01:21:19):
She didn't view it as like, you know, I'm going
to quit my job.

Speaker 1 (01:21:23):
But on the other end, I think it also emphasizes
the fact that just because you have a bunch of
money or win a bunch of money, it's not still
not going to make you happy. Yes, and I know
that I always try to smile at everybody, but sometimes
it becomes exhausting when you don't receive it back.

Speaker 2 (01:21:41):
Yes, And I know that.

Speaker 1 (01:21:43):
I think of her and when I see her, I
always try to smile for her or say hello and smile,
and every once in a while I'll get a little
smile back, but not often.

Speaker 2 (01:21:53):
But again I don't know what her life experience is.

Speaker 1 (01:21:56):
Yes, and I think what I'm saying here is that
we have to be true to ourselves and we have
to do things because sometimes well it's not about making
her smile. Yes, it's about me being happy and being
true to who I'm trying to be or becoming. Yes,
and I share that with my wife and others around me.
Is that why my children especially, you know, why are

(01:22:18):
we doing this? You know they're not going to do
it for us? Things like that, you know, those kind
of conversations, and I say, I'm doing it or we're
doing it because we're choosing to do it. Yes, Whether
they do it for us or not is not the
reason why we're doing it. We're doing it because it's
what we believe is right and because it also makes

(01:22:38):
us happy. Yes, And I believe that in the end.
And I would love for you to expand on this.
When we talk about enlightenment, it's about us being happy.

Speaker 3 (01:22:47):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:22:48):
I think it sounds selfish, but it's not. Because if
I'm happy, if I love myself, if I'm happy, if
I'm content with who I am, more than content, you
know what I mean. And as you were saying, showing
compassion to myself and I'm happy, then I can give
that to everyone, and so it's no longer selfish. Yes,

(01:23:09):
it's like filling your cup. You know, when I say
fill your cup first, putting the mask on, for it's
filling your cup so that you can fill others.

Speaker 2 (01:23:17):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:23:18):
Yes, you know, Michael, when I first met you, I
don't know who you were, but you exude happiness and
warmth and generosity and love you. I mean, it's such
a wonderful trait you have. You're like larger than you
have a hu bague personality, and that personality you know,
comes out your love and that inclusivity. Really like such

(01:23:40):
a perfect man, you know if it's a joy to
be around you. And I genuinely say that to you,
and it's very contagious and talking about enlightenment. I want
to leave you with a thought. You know how blessed
we are just because we were born, became out of
a mother's womb in some country. You I don't know

(01:24:03):
where you were born. I was born in India. I
can'd of find. I say to myself, I am so
blessed to be born in India, to have all that
deep tradition and come to America and be thought, I'm
fortunate to be in America, But I don't know where
you were born in New York City, How lucky to
be born in this country? Of abundance. You know, the

(01:24:27):
American dream can come true, you know for so many
people even now. But I want to leave you with
a thought. Just imagine, you know, just like a podcast,
there's a computer generated thing that you are born in
New York City, you're a father, you hold an American passport,
and you're just coming in front of that Internet which

(01:24:48):
reaches out to the entire universe. And if you say,
anyone can exchange my life right now, not with your family,
but you suggest yourself, you know, be the way you are,
the job, you have the passport, living in this country,
and we have seven and a half billion people in
the world. How many people would exchange your life in

(01:25:09):
a heartbeat? I don't know, so seven billion. India has
one billion, China has one point two. Definitely maybe a
billion would want to have been in.

Speaker 2 (01:25:21):
Your life that maybe have less, right who has less?

Speaker 3 (01:25:25):
In a heartbeat, they say, I want to be in
your place. You're in New York. I want to You're American,
you're you have a passport, you have a house, you
have a job. I want to be you. If it
is in the old world, you know, it goes out
to India, China, all the fifty three countries, you know, Pakistan, Afghanistan,
all the country. How many people instantly would want to

(01:25:46):
exchange that life for you write? Many many, yes, let's
even if it's one percent. I don't know one percent
of seven point five billion. Let's even say one million example,
without a doubt, go home and pencil that one million
in your room. You'll be shocked how many that is.
And so we should be skipping with joy not to

(01:26:09):
have this this, have this opportunity, you know, and when
you go to the grocery store, I'm like an amazement.
I don't know which cereal to choose. Do you know
a lot of countries don't have that, So that itself
should be should be so happy. But again, coming back

(01:26:30):
to another alturist thing. You know how many how often
we've gone and got ourself a cup of coffee and
we're like, hmm, this is from Starbucks and it's my
cup of coffee. You think it's yours?

Speaker 1 (01:26:42):
Right?

Speaker 3 (01:26:43):
Do you know how many hands touched that coffee? I
grew up in a coffee estate in Court. We have
the best coffee that comes from that place. You know,
the moon shined on it, the sun shined on it,
the insects, the bees, the flowers came out of the air,
the fragrance, the rain, everything took to make the coffee.

(01:27:05):
And then the coffee pluckers went and plucked the red
cherries and then they came home. In our homes we
would have this huge kind of like a plastic carpet
where they would dry the coffee under the sun. And
we were very mischievous child children when nobody was saying,
we would go and roll on the coffee, you know,
just to play with it, right. And then that went

(01:27:26):
to the mill, got ground, and so many spices and
how many bags everything it took. And then it comes
to Starbucks, the powder, the few people who are making it,
the water from some so many sauces, and then you
got your cup of coffee. And how delusional that we
are we think it's my cup of coffee. Look at

(01:27:48):
the interconnectedness the whole universe, the insects, everything, the water, sauces,
everything made that cup of coffee. That's a small example
of our interconnectedness.

Speaker 1 (01:28:02):
I think it also speaks to the mindfulness, correct of
being mindful of everything. And then as well as the
gratefulness when you're talking about the one million would exchange
our lives or more.

Speaker 3 (01:28:13):
I think more, but yes, just a number.

Speaker 1 (01:28:15):
It just speaks to gratefulness, and I know that for
me that's gotten me over so many challenging situations, so
many situations that I've been in business and in life
and in love, but mostly in business today where the odds.

Speaker 2 (01:28:33):
Are against me.

Speaker 1 (01:28:35):
The challenge is huge and scary, and what has gotten
me through it all is I look at it and
I go But I'm also so lucky to have this challenge. Yes,
I'm also so lucky to have this experience, to even
have had the opportunity to have been put in front

(01:28:58):
of this challenge, you know, to have been the thirteen
of the three thousand chosen yes for that challenge? Yes, right, Yes,
I mean that alone, to be grateful for.

Speaker 3 (01:29:08):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:29:09):
So it's I'm honored to have you here.

Speaker 1 (01:29:14):
And I said that earlier, But because the teachings that
you embody are what have gotten me through and have
made me the person that I am today, And in
that you know, beautiful way of expressing your thoughts about me,
and I really really appreciate it's because of the practice, right,

(01:29:36):
It's the same with you. It's like, why did we
have this instant connection. You know how many people I
meet that are you know, wonderful, well successful, well established
people that you know, I meet them all the time,
but we don't always connect.

Speaker 2 (01:29:50):
Yes, and I.

Speaker 1 (01:29:51):
See them often and regularly, but we don't always connect.
And with you, it was instant. It was instantaneous.

Speaker 2 (01:29:59):
We had a connection.

Speaker 1 (01:30:00):
And then the second time we met, same thing and
it was like I had to have her here. And
it's because of what you embody. Yes, and what that
practice has done for me in my life is what
you see and that energy, that's what you see so
much so, and I want to share this because you're
the perfect person for me to share this with in
this moment.

Speaker 2 (01:30:19):
With us is so much.

Speaker 1 (01:30:21):
So that I've worked so hard on developing two businesses,
an insurance business and my communications business is what we're
in right now, and this is the insurance one, so hard,
so hard, and all this time working with a business
coach and accountants and all these different people.

Speaker 2 (01:30:38):
I worked so so hard.

Speaker 1 (01:30:40):
On these businesses and speaking with my coaches, my coach
and other mentors about what I want and the values
and what I want to give back to the world
and how I see myself in so long and working
through lists of ideas and again values of integrity and
all this other stuff, right, and recently, you know, going

(01:31:00):
through all of that and then the challenges and going
through the meditation and everything that we do and everything.
And recently I'm working with my coach on my business
and my communications business, and I'm working on the podcast
and the keynoting and the workshops and all these different things.
And we're talking about I'm saying to her, you know,
the one thing I never did with this communications business
is I never really wrote out a business plan and

(01:31:21):
I never really wrote out a mission statement.

Speaker 2 (01:31:23):
And I'd like to work on that with you. So
we started going through.

Speaker 1 (01:31:26):
The process of what does that look like and what
is the mission statement? And as we started developing it,
and she asked me, she said, you know, well, what
do you enjoy from the business? And I told her,
I said, I feel like when I speak in front.

Speaker 2 (01:31:39):
Of others, and you could attest to this.

Speaker 1 (01:31:43):
You were an audience for several of my speeches, I
feel like the universe is speaking through me, and I
feel this like amazing power of not power over others,
but power running through me to share with others and
I said something I've always known since I was a
kid is that I just love people, right, I just

(01:32:06):
love people, and it's up to them for them to
make me not like them. It's up to them to
do something to me to where I don't like them.

Speaker 2 (01:32:14):
But outside of that, I just love people.

Speaker 1 (01:32:16):
And so we developed my mission statement together, and she
put me through a whole exercise, and in the end,
my mission statement came out to be I want to
inspire love in others.

Speaker 2 (01:32:26):
And that's it.

Speaker 3 (01:32:27):
That's it love.

Speaker 2 (01:32:28):
I just want to inspire love in others.

Speaker 1 (01:32:30):
And so I'm so happy that you said everything you
said because that means that I'm living my mission, which
is incredible.

Speaker 3 (01:32:37):
You're living your truth and that's what makes you so joyous,
and that's what makes you when you come out there
that in you know, you just had to articulate it.
You know, sometimes all this is lost in the articulation.
You know, you just got the sentence right, And I
think that that mission that's is that T shirt your
company kindness something?

Speaker 1 (01:32:57):
No, No, it's the part of the fund raiser for
the school. But I have an idea for company to
make beautiful the.

Speaker 3 (01:33:04):
One you're wearing, because it just people connect with it
and people already have it. You know the example I
gave today, you know, that act of kindness and the
names was Angelo and Betty. Shout out to them, thank you.
You know these were there. I took their names because
I said, I'm going to pray for you all you
know in my when we do our prayers. So that's

(01:33:27):
so wonderful what you just said. You know that I
think that voice, that storytelling to inspire, you know, like
when I saw you, I said, that's the speaker I
want to be. You know, that's the confidence I want
to have to articulate what my teachings is because now
I go out and teach in many places and so
see you inspired me. And I said, I should ask

(01:33:49):
how Michael got to do all that? You know, how
did he do it?

Speaker 1 (01:33:52):
And you know the irony in that, and I want
to say, part of what I'm sharing too is that
it was so simple.

Speaker 2 (01:33:58):
Yes, right, What I.

Speaker 1 (01:33:59):
Was saying before is I worked on all of these
different ideas and all these numbers of different these are
the four pillars and there, and really it's just here's
this one thing, yes, And here's the irony in what
you just said, to.

Speaker 2 (01:34:10):
Me just now about wanting to learn from me, and we.

Speaker 1 (01:34:12):
Talked about this, but I think we were off air
about your heritage of being Indian and me learning about
your culture is when I joined toast Masters. So, by
the way, everyone we met at toast Masters. So when
I joined toast Masters, the president his name was a Mode,
Nila Nera. And I don't know if that triggers anything
for you. He's Indian.

Speaker 3 (01:34:31):
Yes, he starts master. No did he start start?

Speaker 1 (01:34:38):
So he was the president of the Dutchess County toast Masters,
which is the one that I'm a party.

Speaker 3 (01:34:41):
I didn't know that.

Speaker 1 (01:34:42):
And the very first meeting that I went to he
was the president and he was giving a speech and
I remember sitting in the audience and I said, I
want to speak like him. I want to be as
confident as him, and I want to give a speech
like him. And he had remember you before you got on.
My part of why we spoke about it was you
were talking about your accent. Yes, he had a heavy
Indian accent. Sometimes a Mode is very difficult to understand,

(01:35:06):
but he gets it across.

Speaker 2 (01:35:07):
Yes, just like you have.

Speaker 1 (01:35:08):
The whole time, I haven't had any trouble understanding you. Yes,
and it's so funny. That was back in twenty eighteen, wow,
when I joined Toast Masters.

Speaker 2 (01:35:17):
But I remember that moment.

Speaker 1 (01:35:18):
I remember his speech, even to the point where I said,
I want to be a toast Master. I want to
speak just like him, I want to have the combent.
And now you're saying this to me. So yes, it's
kind of funny. It just the tradition of an Indian,
like an.

Speaker 2 (01:35:31):
Indian inspired me, and I inspired an Indian exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:35:34):
Exactly, because you know, our messages are very powerful to interconnect,
to connect communities, and you probably didn't when you were talking.
You probably had no idea. I was thinking the same
and the impact you're going to do on me, because yesterday,
I think one time I came and said, you know,
I'm going to be having a class tomorrow. What do
I do? There were two times you gave me some suggestions.

(01:35:57):
I followed twice and it was will notice that you know,
I'll tell you later what it was, but you know
it's a long story. So that it was amazing that you,
know your generosity to give me these thoughts so genuinely
and with generosity. I really thank you. And I wanted

(01:36:19):
to tell you another reason that we really have to
be so mindful in teaching our children. And now you
do know when you go to talks of that toast master,
how much you impact other people. And you know, I
saw this way recently a movie and I have no
connection to that movie in any way, but just the

(01:36:39):
thought that it invoked in me. It's called the one field,
the one field, and so here it's one field, yes,
or any field, and what it says. In this movie,
they did an experiment where, you know, a lot of
countries gathered together people few people from different countries, so

(01:37:01):
many countries, and they had a glass of water all
the way, say Russia. If I got the country's name wrong,
I'm apologized. But they had this glass of water someway
far and at that one moment that they were all
the people in that representing countries, it was probably in
zoom or something said okay, now give some good thoughts

(01:37:21):
to that glass of water, all of them. All they
had to do was send out positive thoughts. Do you
know that at that very moment, when they timed it
and scientifically researched the water, that water changed the alkaline process.
It became more alkaline. So this is that message in
that movie and to say how deeply were all connected

(01:37:44):
if we don't even have to talk even our thoughts.
That's why sometimes you go to some places and you
know if you sent something and you just want to
avoid that person mentally, you know, if they're not in
a good vibration. So what I'm trying to tell you
for you to you know, when you're in that business
and you want to get the right kind of business

(01:38:05):
for you to be in that mental space. And one
of the best ways is when you start a business,
you can always say, instead of getting the Foe foundation,
the main thing is how can I benefit people with
my business? And you know, my own teacher came to
America with eight dollars forty five years ago, no English,

(01:38:26):
no business sense, nothing. His only goal was to build
this beautiful to have a beautiful monastery, the three and
a half year retreat programs so we can all benefit
and we can study the Buddhist teachings and become enlightened ourselves.
And forty years later he was able to build this

(01:38:46):
most magnificent monastery and with millions of dollars, which was
you know, came through donation to him, But his goal
was to benefit the others. And I truly believe that
when you have that intention deep within you, that you
excel in your businesses.

Speaker 1 (01:39:06):
Yeah, and we've seen that with others. I mean you
mentioned Mother Teresa earlier. Yes, there's a wonderful book that
speaks of some of I think it's a it's a
book about money, and it just it speaks about how
Mother Teresa, you know, was on one end dealing with
the situation in Calcutta, but on the other end, she
was also propped up to receive donations. Yes, and you know,

(01:39:27):
to be able to help the people.

Speaker 2 (01:39:28):
So very very interesting. This has been wonderful.

Speaker 1 (01:39:31):
I know that we didn't even get into the three
years that you spent at the monastery es, but you
know what, I'm sure that that was an experience that
you're okay with, yes, with releasing right now. Yes, it's
it's been I think, both a learning experience for me
to learn from you, but also a bit cathartic for

(01:39:52):
me to be able to share with you. Yes, it's
been such an honor.

Speaker 3 (01:39:55):
Yes, thank you so much, Michael, because you've shared so
much with me and it just makes me feel so
happy that you know what, You're so happy that you
are even taking that time and spending with your children
and your wife as a family. Who are then your
children are going to give back that back to the
when they go back to school. It's such an impact

(01:40:16):
you're doing. You We don't even realize that, And thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:40:20):
I gotta thank my wife for that, right, because you're
the one who lays down the rules.

Speaker 2 (01:40:23):
Yes, you know you do teachings, and you you've.

Speaker 1 (01:40:27):
Like I've said earlier, you've taught of the Harvard Business
School of Women and so many others, and you go
down to the city very often.

Speaker 2 (01:40:32):
You do teachings.

Speaker 1 (01:40:33):
I know that you and I spoke. You also do
teachings at libraries, and you know, I would love if
you can share with our audience of course as well
be in the show notes. But how can people connect
with you in order to maybe hire you or have
you come and speak with them.

Speaker 3 (01:40:48):
Yes, well, I think I don't have a website because
I always feel word of mouth is good. So you know,
my email is easily. I'm on Instagram, which i I'm
under the name lama Aria Drolma. Yes, and I also
teach now at the Howard Boston Club and at Reuben

(01:41:09):
Museum at Fordham University. So Lama Aria Droma. Instagram easily accessible.

Speaker 1 (01:41:16):
Yes, and you have pictures there, you have videos there.
I know that you have several videos on there of
what you teach. Yes, you've created some reels, which is
really cool to see you in. You also have some
pictures of when you were a model, which is so
for anybody who's interested just to see. It's an amazing
experience to witness your development throughout the years of who

(01:41:37):
you are and who you've become.

Speaker 2 (01:41:39):
It's really beautiful. You know.

Speaker 1 (01:41:40):
My last question for you is one of what I
just said there is some people look and say their
past selves and they say that's who I was, and
I'm no longer that person and this is the new me.
And just to be vulnerable for you, I know that
I look at myself and I joke and I say,
I'm Michael like eight point zero, you know, because Michael
one point oh man, he was a mess and then

(01:42:04):
one point two he started understanding.

Speaker 2 (01:42:06):
He was a mess, but he still was a mess.
And you know, and I'm always.

Speaker 1 (01:42:09):
Growing and developing, and I say, well, which Michael did
you meet I'll joke with people, you know, and they say, oh, yeah,
I knew you or I met you. I said, which
one did you meet? Because there's a whole different Michael
out there, right, There's one who who I believe, you know,
I know, was not a nice person, did bad things.
I always had a good, good sense to myself and
would come back and be apologetic and all this other stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:42:31):
But he was awful. And so I speak about.

Speaker 1 (01:42:34):
Myself as a different person, and I speak about me
as today as this is who I am, and then
I know that I'll speak about this Michael and I'll
be Michael twenty point zero, you know, and this will
be a different Michael. So with that being the question
of do you look at your life as when you
were a model, as a whole different person of than
who you are today or is it all one for you?

Speaker 3 (01:42:54):
Yes, you know, there's a This is an amazing question.
You're almost intuitive. And I met a friend, yes today
who was also a model, and she's still models and
she does gaming. Now you know, she's a very intelligent lady.
Her name is Carli Beck, and we've had the same
conversation because now I'm going and teaching and more places.
And so my question was, yes, I was a model before,

(01:43:17):
but now I'm ordained none. But to that question, it
was to me it was very clear. It was all
of that is a part of me. And thanks to
those experiences, now I'm relatable to you. If I was
an ordained nun living in the Himalayan mountains, I could

(01:43:37):
not relate to the ordinary folks, not ordinary in the
sense people in general, where what they're thinking, what their
life is about. And for me, all those are experiences
of life and life's journey. And the hilarious moment is
everybody goes to India to seek spiritualism. I had to
travel through the continents to find my teachers. Hilarious. So

(01:44:01):
life had a journey, life had a purpose. And also
I feel so lucky because when I went to the
three and a half Here Retreat, there was somebody very young,
she was a stage. She was some well educated, comes
from a very good family, and for her, her struggle
was that she had not seen life. So once she

(01:44:21):
completed three and a half Here Retreat, she went back
back into the world. Because you know, we have a choice.
Once we do the three and a half Here Retreat,
we can be a nun, continue to be a nun,
or give up that and go back into the world
and do whatever we want, you know, start a family
or something. I chose to be an ordained thing because
this teachings was gold. It was so amazing to me,

(01:44:46):
and I want to reach that higher self because once
you are enlightened. You know, I don't know what the
feeling of enlightened meant is because I'm not I'm still
in the path. But an enlightened being is someone like
an angel, who benefits in one moment. They can benefit
millions of people in many many ways. So for me,

(01:45:07):
I'm so glad I went through all those life journey
because today I don't crave for that world, even though
a couple of weeks ago I was in a setting where,
you know, I was with a lot of speakers all
into well well being and wellness, and they were all
the New York society people. Before I would be like

(01:45:29):
so happy to you know, be a part of all that,
And today I could step back and say, Wow, I'm
admiring what they were and the way they're talking and
all their business ses. But I could admire from far
and yet come back to my space of peace and tranquility,
and that's what they're trying to get, you know, peace

(01:45:50):
and tranquility.

Speaker 2 (01:45:52):
That's amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:45:52):
Yes, this has been really, really wonderful. I want to
thank you again so much for thank you today, and
I appreciate you driving in the pouring rain, and the
wonderful part is it looks like the sun came out
for a little while and has cleared up for you.

Speaker 3 (01:46:06):
It was absolutely adventurous. And Michael, I want to thank
you with all my heart because I just look up
to you and I look up at that energy that
you give everyone you know, with that positivity and that
exuberance that we all want to have a small part
of it. And so I really thank you for your
generosity and thank you for inviting me to the show.

(01:46:27):
I so truly enjoyed it, and.

Speaker 2 (01:46:29):
I thank you as well.

Speaker 1 (01:46:30):
And I want to say that, as you said, everything
has a reaction and has a contrast to it. Yes,
we also or I also want to thank you for
your calmness and your stillness because I really really appreciate
that and sometimes it's what I want more than even
that external that you see. So I appreciate you too,
So thank you so much for coming on today.

Speaker 3 (01:46:51):
Thank you, Michael, wonderful.

Speaker 1 (01:46:53):
Thank you for listening to The Michael Esposito Show. For
show notes, video clips, and more episodes, go to Michael
inc dot com backslash podcast. Thank you again to our
sponsor dn ten Insurance Services helping businesses get the right
insurance for all their insurance needs. Visit Denten dot io

(01:47:13):
to get a quote that's d E n ten dot
io and remember when you buy an insurance policy from Denten,
you're giving back on a global scale. This episode was
produced by Uncle Mike at the iHeart Studios in Poughkeepsie.
Special thanks to Lara Rodrian for the opportunity and my
team at Mike Lesposito, Inc.

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