What 50 Years with the Dalai Lama Taught About Midlife | Pico Iyer - The Midlife Chrysalis

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Life has better plans for you than you have for life.
I think that that's the main thing.
So when I was 48, I wasn't thinking about the clock ticking
in the same way is to see what you have chosen to give your
life to in your 60s. So it's not the place where we
happen to live, it's what lives inside us.
Welcome to the Midlife ChrysalisPodcast with Chip Conley, where

(00:23):
we explore how midlife isn't a crisis, but a chrysalis, a time
of profound transformation that can lead to the most meaningful
chapter of your life. Welcome to the midlife
chrysalis. I'm Chip Conley, and I was so
excited to connect with my good friend Pico Iyer again.

(00:43):
I consider him to be one of the wisest people in the world.
He's certainly worldly and he'lltell you his story about how
he's lived around the world and he's one of the best known
travel writers. He's actually given more Ted
talks in the last dozen years than anybody else in the world.
He's a bit of my modern elder. I think you're going to enjoy

(01:03):
this conversation. It was wide reaching, including
the fact that he has been close friends with the Dalai Lama for
more than 1/2 century. I hope you enjoy it.
This is a guy that I have known for a long time, somebody I
really admired from afar, somebody who had, we had a lot

(01:24):
of common interests, travel, meditation and stillness, the
definition of home. And I, you know, he's probably
one of the most hospitable people I've ever met.
And I'm speaking to, speaking about you in the third part,
third, third party right now. But Pico I, you're just an

(01:45):
incredibly lovable human. Thank you for joining us.
Thank you, Chip. I'm I'm just so delighted that
the friendship that we formed and may it continue forever.
Yeah, agreed completely. And Hiroko, your your your wife
is just as much of A delight. So let's start with the fact,
let's give you some credit here.I don't.

(02:05):
I did some research and there isno one who is given more Ted
talks in the last dozen years than you.
You've given 5 Ted Talks, so whydo you think Ted likes you so
much? Better the devil you know than
the devil you don't know you know.

(02:25):
They, they know the known quantity.
They're working with me and all the many difficulties I present
to them. So.
But I've been really grateful tothem because, as you know, I'm a
writer spending most of my life in my desk in the middle of
nowhere Japan. So Ted has really helped me come
out into the larger world. So I'm very glad of the global
megaphone they've given me. And I know you've given at least

(02:47):
three talks, so we share that again.
In which of the which of these five talks is the one that is
most close to your heart as of today?
I think almost inevitably is thefirst one, which was about that
what what is home really? And just the fact that you're a
perfect example that more and more of us have more and more
homes. And I think that's a great

(03:08):
blessing. I've never spoken about this,
but there's so much despair and anxiety in the world.
And because I'm 68, when I look back at the world I grew up in,
I think our universe has advanced in so many ways and has
got richer and more interesting and more long lived.
And so that's one of them. You know, I remember when I was
at high school, 12150 boys in our school, only boys.

(03:33):
There were three of us with darkskin.
And where was this? This was in England near London,
and even Catholic and Jewish boys were so unusual that there
were only, I think 12 of them inthe entire school.
So 12135 boys, all from the samesmall segment of society.
Now when I go back to that high school, every other kid is from
China or Russia or Nigeria or some blend of the two.

(03:56):
And of course, that's true of every classroom and major
cities. So I'm really grateful that the
world has expanded so much. Tell us a little bit more about
your upbringing and and also your evolving perspective on
home. Yeah, thank you.
So I was born in England to parents from India.
And then when I was 7, I, we moved here to Santa Barbara, CA,

(04:19):
where I'm sitting. And so I remember I was so
excited. I felt I had three pairs of
eyes, three ways of seeing the world.
And I could mix them and match them and see England with
Californian eyes or California with Indian eyes.
And as I was saying, in those days, it was so unusual.
I never imagined that would almost be the norm.
I think if you go to any classroom tomorrow, the kids you

(04:42):
meet will be more multiculture and international than I am.
And then maybe the other thing Ishould say, because you did
mention travel, is that in thosedays, such was the exchange
rate, I worked out it was cheaper to continue going to my
old school in England, which wasa day school and a boarding
school, than to go to the schooldown the road here in Santa
Barbara. And so from the time I was 9, I

(05:03):
was flying by myself over Greenland 6 * a year, going to
school and flying back to see myparents.
And so got used to living in planes and mixing cultures and
being kind of living in the passageway between cultures.
And So what does home mean to you though, in terms of just the
evolution of home? What it and, and, and in a in a,

(05:24):
an era in which we have such a migrant population, what do you
see as the the perspective on home that is a modern
perspective that might not have been true 50 or 70 years ago?
Yeah, that's perfectly sad. And I think, I think more and
more of us feel that home is nota piece of soil.

(05:45):
It's really a piece of our soul.It's a collage and a work in
progress made-up of the many different influences from
everywhere that make us who we are.
So I think home, I always felt it's not the place where we
happen to live. It's it's what lives inside us.
And as you know, because you've heard me talk about this before,

(06:05):
my house where I'm sitting now burnt to the ground, I lost
everything in the world. But the next day I realized I'd
lost a house. But I hadn't lost a home because
my home was internal. And because I think of my home
as my my wife to be Hiroko, whomyou mentioned, and my mother and
my words and my memories, maybe most of all my sense of purpose,

(06:26):
none of that had been taken awayby by the fire.
And I think what excites me is that people much younger than I
have a much richer sense of home, almost like this stained
glass pattern to which they're constantly adding new elements.
And just as you say, that was not possible 70 years ago when
my grandparents were born, all four of them were born in India.

(06:47):
And I think almost when they were born, they were given these
little cards saying this is yourtribe, this is your caste, this
is your religion, these are yourfriends over here.
Those are your enemies on the other side of the street.
And you'll be locked inside thatframework your entire life.
And now you and I and so many ofthe people we know are free of
that and free to create our own home.
And it's always a challenge because you can end up feeling

(07:09):
neither here nor there and kind of falling between the cracks,
like the gratings on the sidewalk.
But I think by and large, it's much better to have too much
choice than too little. And I think we're the
beneficiaries of that. With the idea of home being
inside of yourself, maybe a soulful place that you that you
can reside in no matter where you are in the world.

(07:32):
This sort of bring builds a bridge to your work on
stillness, your beautiful book on stillness, your your Ted Talk
on it and just what I've heard you say.
So could you just tell us a little bit about your point of
view on stillness And, and in particular, this, this podcast
is called the Midlife Chrysalis for a reason.

(07:54):
The idea that in midlife, it maynot be a crisis, but it may be a
gooey, dark and solitary time that you're going through some
kind of circumstance, whether it's external or even internal
that requires A transformation. Talk a little bit about how
stillness can foster that kind of transformation.

(08:16):
And maybe just talk about maybe your own point of view on how
you went through a midlife chrysalis and the fact that
going inside helped you to get through?
It yes, be prepared for a six hour long answer.
That's OK. OK.
You know, I was saying before that I grew up in planes going

(08:37):
back and forth all the time. And so I think drawing upon that
background, my first half of life, I, I was constantly
travelling the world. I was going from Tibet to North
Korea, from Yemen to Easter Island, and just thinking I
belong to the first generation in human history that has the
chance, if you can save up the time and resources to go to
those places. And I think at the second-half

(08:59):
of life, I began to think that stillness was the only way you
could take everything you've seen in travel and convert it
into meaning or convert it into vision.
That travel is a wonderful way of stimulating yourself, but the
only way of really turning it into a vision for life was by

(09:20):
sitting still. I find, you know, it's very hard
to be moved when you're racing from place to place.
And so just as you say, I think I began spending more and more
time being still. And I think I said to you once
before that travel to me is likegoing to the farmers market and
collecting vegetables and herbs and spices.
But stillness is how you turn them all into a meal.
And then to speak really to the other part of your question

(09:44):
again, you may know that I beganmy midlife crisis really early,
my midlife transition very early, ahead of the curve,
because when I was 29, I was really leading the life I might
have dreamed of as a little boy.I had this wonderful office in
midtown Manhattan and apartment on Park Ave. and this job of

(10:05):
writing world affairs for Time magazine.
So in some ways it was everything I might have hoped
for, and I was having a great time.
But I realized that happiness isnot the same as fulfilment.
And I was thinking, I'm having such a good time, maybe I'm
excluding the possibilities of adeeper or better time.
And since I was in my 20s, I didn't have dependents, I didn't

(10:26):
have responsibilities. I threw all that over and moved
to a single room along the eastern hills in Kyoto, Japan.
Or I didn't have a bed, didn't have a phone, didn't have a
toilet of my own. But I thought the foreign is
going to teach me much more thanthe familiar.
And I also thought when I got toJapan, I was stripped of my
resume and I was stripped of my words.

(10:47):
I still can't speak much Japanese.
So I thought, I'm going to have to learn to listen.
I'm going to have to learn to observe.
And I'm also going to have to learn to be part of a community
and to be invisible, which is something I'd never really
learned before in in England or the US.
So I'm glad I did that. I think something in me thought,
I'm having such a great time in this job, I could easily wake up

(11:09):
and find I'm 70 and realize I'm about to die and I've never
really lived. I've never explored other
alternatives. So when you're 20 in your 20s,
it's not hard to try something different.
And in a curious way, 3 1/2 years after I moved to Japan, I
lost everything in the world when this family home went to
the ground. And I realized that there was

(11:30):
probably some kind of reason I'dchosen to lead a simpler life,
because then I had to lead a simple life.
I didn't have any possessions anymore.
So there's a great shock to loseeverything in the world.
But at some level, I suppose I'dbeen preparing it for it, or
life had been preparing me for it.
And in retrospect, I was glad that I'd moved to a much quieter

(11:54):
life. And then I know just what you
mean about how I think in the middle of the life, all of us
feel like Dante. We're waking up in a dark forest
and we've lost our way and our youthful dreams are exhausted,
but we haven't yet reached the kind of wisdom and the ripened
state of older age. And so we're caught in this kind
of limbo. And I'm sure I went through that

(12:16):
in my late 40s or when I was 50,not in a dramatic way like you,
but probably wondering, you know, I don't seem to have a
future and I don't seem to have a past.
What am I going to do now? But I was glad that in some ways
I'd sort of made things possiblefor myself at an earlier stage
by by moving to Japan. There's two things I want to
talk about, but let's start first with moving to Japan.

(12:39):
Why Kyoto? What was it about, you know,
going from Park Ave. to Kyoto? And this is way before the
digital nomad thing started to become a thing.
Actually, frankly, before digital.
What was it about Kyoto and specifically Japan and
specifically Kyoto that attracted you and, and also, you

(13:03):
know, to move into the simplest of lifestyle?
So I could give you lots of answers, but I wouldn't believe
them. In other words, I think it's
just kind of intuition. I don't know if I've ever told
you, but while I was living in New York, I once had a 20 hour
layover at Narita Airport near Tokyo, which I didn't want.

(13:24):
I was on my way back from Hong Kong to JFK, and I walked around
that little airport town and I felt such a sense of familiarity
that I realized if I didn't spend more time in Japan, I
would be an exile all my life. It's like when you meet somebody
and you feel that person is youroldest friend, though you've
never met him or her before. And so I was glad of that

(13:46):
intuition. And later, when I thought of it,
maybe the fact that Kyoto's veryquiet and contemplative place
seemed like the ideal complimentto New York City.
I certainly knew that whatever happened or didn't happen when I
moved, just going to the grocerystore would be an adventure, and
also being freed of distractionsevery day would last 1000 hours.

(14:07):
And although I didn't last in that single room for very long,
as you probably know, I now livewith Hiroko in A2 room
apartment, not so far from whereI first moved.
And how much do you pay in rent a month?
I know $500 a month, we're living as if we were 21 years
old still and and loving it. I mean, we're not missing
anything. I think when I was living in New

(14:28):
York, I could feel I was missingsomething and I was caught up in
this all the world that, you know, very, very fast driving,
exciting world. But something was not being
satisfied. And now I never feel that that
I'm missing anything and never regret that move.
So I think in a curious way, Kyoto did seem the perfect place

(14:48):
for a more inward looking life and and kind of preparation for
the second-half of life. And I know when I spoke to you a
few weeks ago, I suddenly struckme that when I chose Japan, of
all the other places I could go from New York City, I was
choosing a grandmother culture. I was choosing an elder and a
wise season place that had been through 1600 years of wars and

(15:11):
plagues and turbulence and knew how to deal with it.
And so I sort of went as a student wanting to learn from
Japan, the things I could never have learned in England and the
US. And it's never let me down,
really. I mean, I know you know Japan
very well and you know how it's like another planet.
It's more alien than anywhere I know.
But to me, that's a blessing in so many ways.
There's a lot of value in being an expat in especially in

(15:35):
midlife and beyond. Talk about that for a moment in
terms of, you know, as advice tothose who are listening about
why there's value in that. I, I have found that in Baja
because it means you're a beginner again.
Maybe you pick up the let you'repicking up the language, you're
learning about another culture. You're having to be the other.

(15:55):
And but I'd love to hear your thoughts on and your your
suggestion about whether it's a good idea for someone to pick up
and leave and be an expat for a little while.
I love that question and I know you learnt to surf, I think by
being in Baja, even though you're a Californian, though, I
think it's definitely a good idea.
I was, I was going to say a variation of what you just said,

(16:17):
which is everything is new, everything is strange.
You're brought back to a child'ssense of, of wonder, beginner's
mind, as you say, you're humbled.
You're not the centre of the world, you're kind of servant of
the universe rather than a master of the universe.
It helps you to understand your home better.
I think living in Japan and talking to Japanese people has

(16:40):
made me appreciate what's wonderful about America, which
is still a youthful, fresh worldof opportunity that they don't
have in older cultures. But it's also made me see what
the United States doesn't have that Japan does, such as
experience and a sense of limitsand a kind of realism.
And of course, just in a practical sense, you can live
much more cheaply. I meet a lot of young people who

(17:02):
want to be writers. And it's, as you know, it's very
hard to make that work economically these days.
And I tell them, you know, go toPrague, go to Buenos Aires, go
to Hanoi. You can easily live probably for
$500 rent a month there. You're surrounded by fascinating
things. There's never a shortage of
material. And that's the place where
you'll probably have the time and space and material to, to

(17:27):
write your first book and to andto become a different person.
So I'm a great believer, I think, in expatriation.
Yeah. And, and for an older person
who's going into retirement and has worries about do I have
enough money if I'm going to live longer than I thought I was
going to live, you know, and expat lifestyle can be very
helpful for that as well. Yes.
I mean, so many people travel now for medical tourism because

(17:50):
they know that they'll get much better care in Thailand or
Mexico than they would in the USand for 1/10 the price with US
trained doctors. And I think you're probably in
the same state. So many of my friends recently,
they're a little unsettled by the US right now.
So they're moving to Panama and and Mexico and Argentina, so
many other places. So back to stillness for a

(18:10):
moment in Portugal for sure, Portugal's become very popular.
You're the idea of stillness in midlife and the idea of finding
that home to weather this storm.You know, we're we're going to
be Co leading a workshop this summer, later this summer in
late August at our Santa Fe campus.

(18:31):
Talk about that, how that stillness can be helpful when
you're dealing with a world thatfeels in disarray and chaotic
and, and maybe, you know, just alittle bit more content around
like what, what is that the workshop going to focus on?
It's going to focus entirely on how we kind of find calm in a

(18:52):
world of mounting uncertainty and how we stay hopeful in the
midst of impermanence. And as you know, I earlier this
year, I brought out a book called A Flame about how the
whole world is on fire literallybecause there are more and more
wildfires, but metaphorically because even if you're not
worried about wildfires, turbulent politics, runaway

(19:12):
technologies, wars, earthquakes,hurricanes, flash floods, all of
it, I've never seen my friends so despairing and so anxious as
right now. And I think what we're craving
is the ability to stay clear andgrounded and confident in the
midst of these swirling winds. And so at the at our workshop, I

(19:36):
think I'm going to be drawing from certain examples.
The Dalai Lama, I've spent a lotof time with the Benedictine
monks of Big Sir who, you know, also Japan, which is very good.
Even through the pandemic, it remained unruffled.
And also just inviting everyone through prompts to think about
where they have felt truest and deepest and most unfazed by the

(19:58):
world around us. Because I think the other two
things that we're all facing is that our nation and our world
are more divided than ever and that there's greater
distraction. Just two years ago, the
Department of Labor sent out a survey.
And 79% of people who responded said they never had a minute to
rest or to think. And so if we're thoughtless and

(20:19):
if we're stressed out, we're never going to make the right
decisions. And I think also aligned with
that, you've spent a lot of timearound Silicon Valley.
I think we all know that technology has made our lives
longer and healthier and richer,some ways happier.
But the one thing it hasn't given us is a sense of how to
make wise and discerning use of technology, how to make sure

(20:41):
we're not the servant of our machines, but we're in balance
with them. And again, that's the kind of
thing you can only do by by sitting still.
And you've heard me talk before about how the inner savings
account and how I try to think about how all of us are going to
face terrible challenges in our life.
Reality is going to make a housecall more than once, and what do

(21:03):
we have to bring to it? And I think it's at those
moments when suddenly you lose aloved one or you lose a job or
the market is turbulent, you realize that your resume isn't
really going to help you. And all your, the achievements
you've done in the world aren't much help.
And even your bank account is only of limited use.
So the only thing you have to draw on is your inner savings

(21:23):
account. And I think we build that up not
by running around, but by by sitting still.
That's the only way we gather inner resources.
You know, 6-7 hundred years ago,Meister Eckhart, the wise German
philosopher, said as long as theinner work is strong, the outer
will never be puny. Your career, your relationships,
they'll all take care of themselves.

(21:44):
But if your inner landscape isn't strong, you'll be like a
car without an engine. And so I maybe that's the reason
why. Also, I moved to Kyoto because I
thought I've got to take care ofmy inner resources as well as
all the external stimulations. So one of the reasons I've been
writing about silence is that I think words and beliefs cut us

(22:05):
in two and divide us, and silence brings us together.
So if you and I were to talk forthree hours about things we
really care about, we share so much, but we'd probably be at
odds in certain ways. But if we share a moment of
silence, I think we're brought to our deepest self where we're
absolutely we're united and we're united with everyone

(22:26):
around us. That's why moments of silence is
so powerful in in a church or even in a crowd.
So what are some practical tips?So let's acknowledge that I
think you have. You've done a pilgrimage to the
new Camaldi. Yes, yes, Hermitage South of
Esalen Institute in Big Sur maybe 100 times, Correct.

(22:49):
A wonderful place for silence and retreat and writing and a
simple basically a great place to have a simple life for a
short time. So you do that as as one of your
practices. How about people who don't have
the ability to go and spend a week there or 100 times, but but

(23:09):
they're looking for something that's closer to home,
something, you know, Do you do you have any recommendations?
I'm going to talk a little bit of I'll let me tell you mine, a
couple of mine. I have two that that work for
me. No, I love meditating and I, and
that's something I, I try to do if I can every day.
Not a long meditation, but just a short one.

(23:31):
But the two things that actuallyI sustain myself with as almost
a ritual and the difference between a ritual and a routine
is in a ritual you're willing tobe altered is I try to have a
Sabbath. I try to have a day on the
weekend. It's usually Sunday in which I
am offline most of the day. You rarely the whole day, but
most of the day I go offline andI go hike and I if I'm in Baja,

(23:55):
I'm hiking with my dog Jamie or my partner Oren.
But usually I'm doing this aloneand in Santa Fe it's usually
alone and it's we've got 25166 acres here on the ranch.
So I can literally do a half marathon 4 hour hike on the
ranch, 13 plus miles and just look at nature and ask nature as

(24:20):
I go on the hike in nature, whatdo you have?
What can you teach me today? I call it spying on the divine.
So that's one thing I do and I try to do that each week if I
can because I know as I've gotten a little older, I've
gotten a little more introvertedand I know that I need that
fuel. The second thing I do every
single day, and this is without,you know, I do it and it's not a

(24:43):
routine. It does feel like a ritual is I
stack a habit in the morning when I'm taking a shower.
I just did it a few minutes ago and the the habit is I say 3
prayers and six mantras in the shower each morning.
Same three prayers that one of them is the serenity prayer, the
second one is the Saint Francis prayer.

(25:04):
The third one is the 7th step prayer in, you know, the 12 step
program and then six mantras that are quite specific to me.
And I say the six mantras 3 times each.
So while I'm doing the showers, it's 5 or 7 minutes in the
shower. So an example of a mantra would
be I'm lovable for who I am, notwhat I do.
And I'll say that three times and there's six of those I do.

(25:26):
So that's a center, a way to center myself going into the day
and create this sense of in, in the case of my weekend Sabbath
space and stillness, maybe I'm, I'm, I'm doing activity.
I might be, you know, walking, but there is stillness and in
the shower it is a way to just sort of center myself and ground

(25:48):
myself for the day. So what are some thoughts and
practices you have? Well, I love that.
And to no surprise, nobody's surprise.
You said exactly the things I was going to say.
I mean, we're really, really aligned on this.
The first thing I was going to say was take a walk.
And the second thing I was goingto say was, you know, some of
us, some people, including myself, find meditation a little

(26:10):
intimidating. But if you do, you can still sit
for 20 minutes every morning without your devices clearing
your head, filling your head, preparing yourself for the
tumult to come. 20 minutes is only 3% of your day, but it
completely transforms perhaps the other 97 percent.
I love your notion of an Internet Sabbath.

(26:30):
And it's even more moving because you're the fastest
e-mail respondent I know, and I'm pretty quick too.
But nonetheless, you are. We can both afford to be slower
at least one day a week, and none of our friends is going to
be thrown out, especially because they know that we tend
to respond very fast. And as you know, so many people
in Silicon Valley realize that they have to go offline for

(26:50):
maybe 24 hours every weekend so that they have something fresh
and creative to offer when they go online again on Monday
mornings. I also, as you know, I'm a firm
believer because I've been in the news business for 43 years
of not following the news. I'm limiting yourself to 5
minutes a day and 5 minutes a day for the news because that's

(27:11):
usually about two minutes worth.And turning to the beauty around
you, just as you were saying, and to the practical things,
practical ways you can help the people around you, which I never
get from the news. The news makes me feel usually
hopeless and powerless, and looking around me on a bright
summer morning in California fills me with hope and

(27:34):
possibility. And that probably.
It's interesting because I'm lucky to travel with the Dalai
Lama once. I was once having a long dinner
with his brother, his younger brother, who's also a Rinpoche,
an Incarnate lama, quite a high teacher.
And he said exactly what you said, Chip.
He said you take a shower every day and you're spending 1015
minutes and why don't you use itfor some good instead of just

(27:55):
idly singing your latest Bruce Springsteen song or whatever,
why don't you use it as a time to set a tone for the day, which
is just just what you do. And I've found that the older I
get, the more I devote my showertime.
Not exactly the same to you, butto gratitude.
Certainly, I don't think take things for granted the way I did
when I was a kid. And I'm so glad at 68, I and my

(28:17):
wife are relatively healthy and can do most of the things that
we love. And so I always say that I pan
around the places that have given me hope and feel like
protect us to me much the same way as you do.
I love the serenity prayer. I really think the only way I
get almost all the wisdom we need is right in that and the
beauty of it. It just doesn't ask you to

(28:37):
subscribe to any belief system or religion.
It's just a truth of life that people have discovered.
And then I think this is a variation on what you're saying.
It came home to me in the pandemic.
Am I going to think about all the things I'm missing and can't
do? Or am I going to think about all
the things I do have and that I can do every day?
So will I turn myself towards gratitude or frustration?

(29:00):
And of course, the more gratitude I activate in myself,
the happier everyone around me is.
The happier I am too. So I think you and I are just
perfectly aligned. I don't that really think of
anything that you didn't mention.
I wish I did had learnt to surf,but you're way ahead of me on
that. You have been travelling with
and spending time with the DalaiLama for maybe 30 years.

(29:23):
I don't I don't know how long. Yeah, 51, Yeah, a long time
since since I was a teenager, yeah.
Well telly, give us the origin story of how you became good
friends with the Dalai Lama in your teens and have had a half
century with him and has how? What have you learned from him?
What are some evolutions and have you seen seen him evolve

(29:45):
over time? Did he have a midlife crisis?
Well, let's start there. No, you know, I think he
prepared himself for a midlife crisis when he was four years
old. He became a monk at the age of
four, and he became ruler of hispeople on the Lion Throne in
Lhasa at the age of four. And he did go through, you know,
20 words, 20 years of really rigorous education to get the

(30:07):
equivalent of a doctorate. And people don't always remember
he got a doctorate in logic. And so I think that's what he
has used because he certainly has suffered as much as anyone I
know. But I don't think he's faulted,
and I don't think he ever had a midlife crisis.
And I can talk more about that. But to go back to the origin
story, I was just lucky I inherited this connection

(30:29):
because my father was a philosopher and knew a lot about
Buddhism. And so when the Dalai Lama came
out of Tibet in 1959, my father was one of the few people who
realized for the first time in history this great treasure
House of wisdom was available tothe world.
So he sailed all the way back from England, where we were

(30:50):
living, to India, and requested an audience with the Dalai Lama.
The Dalai Lama, newly arrived inthe outside world, was really
keen to talk to everyone and to learn from anyone he could.
And so my father was one of the first people to meet him in
1960. And the Dalai Lama has a
remarkable memory, so he never forgot that.
And so my father took me up to meet the Dalai Lama in his home

(31:14):
in northern India when I was a teenager.
And of course, I couldn't followwhat they were saying.
But we all know that Dalai Lama has a certain charisma and
presence and a gift for making everyone in his room feel as if
you're meeting your oldest friend.
And that transmitted itself to me.
Five years after that, he began coming to the United States for

(31:35):
the first time, and he came to Boston, which is where I
happened to be living. And then it's hard to believe
nowadays that in the early 1980s, nobody really knew who
what the Dalai Lama was. He sounded like a figure out of
legend or like the Abominable snowman or some kind of mythic
person. So I remember in the early
1980s, he would come to New YorkCity, where I was living, and

(31:56):
he'd hold a press conference. There'd be 5 people, 4 Tibetans
and me. I remember in 1984, because I
was working at Time magazine, I set up a lunch for him to meet
my editors because I knew that they would enjoy meeting him.
And I realized it would help himtell the story of Tibet.
Literally an hour before that lunch, one of my bosses called
me up and said, oh, blow this guy off.

(32:17):
Just cancel the lunch. We don't want to come in on a
Monday morning to see a monk. And of course, five years later,
after he won the Nobel, the sameeditors were flying across the
world just for 10 minutes with him.
But I was lucky to know him before the world discovered him.
And lucky, too, that he always remembered those those early
meetings. And then recently he came to
Japan for 10 straight November's.

(32:38):
And every time he came, my wife and I were by his side for every
minute of his working day. So we'd go shopping in a busy
Yokohama mall for eyeglasses with him, or share cans of hot
tea in a convenience store as wewere driving across Japan.
So the remarkable thing is to answer whether he's changed.
When I go back and read an article that my father wrote in

(33:01):
1960 when the Dalai Lama was 25,everything he says then is what
he would say tomorrow. He is so strong in his
principles that he knows where he stands, and he's never
deviated from that. What he's so good at is reading
the news. And as you may know, every day
when he's doing his first four hours of meditation, he listens

(33:22):
to the BBC World Service. So he knows more about the news
than I do as a journalist. And so although his principles
are rock solid, he's always adapting them to what's
happening in Ukraine or Gaza or Washington, whoever.
It's really up-to-the-minute. I think one of the things I've
learnt most from him, which really speaks to the MEA and the

(33:42):
second-half of life, is to be very realistic in your
expectations. Otherwise you're just writing a
prescription for disappointment.Because when I travel with him,
hour after hour, every mid 10 minutes, somebody comes up to
him and says, your Holiness, my son just died or the hurricane
just wiped out our town or I just lost my job.

(34:03):
Well, I've really worked hard toreverse the climate crisis and
it hasn't worked. And the Dalai Lama always looks
at that person with great warmthand kindness, like an A
godfather or an uncle. It's his wrong dream.
You have to be very precise in assessing your dreams and you
have to make them, you know, plausible and doable.

(34:23):
You're not going to be able to bring peace to the Middle East
tomorrow. People have been trying that for
hundreds of years. What you can do maybe is try to
bring the competing parties intothe same room and try to set a
foundation for discussion. But don't expect quick results.
It's interesting when he gives lectures around the world, quite
often somebody will put up a hand and say, Your Holiness, how

(34:46):
do you feel, how do you find enlightenment?
And tears will come to his eyes and he will say, if I as a Dalai
Lama live 10,000 lives, I may come within sight of what
enlightenment means. No shortcuts in life and no
quick answers. And, you know, work with with
what you have and don't set yourexpectations unreasonably high.

(35:08):
I think another thing that's very touched me, which speaks to
in so much of what you're thinking about working with the
difference between resume and the eulogy say, and I apologize
if I've told you this before, but I once went to see him for a
series of discussions in 1996 athis home.
Every afternoon we'd meet for three hours and talk about

(35:29):
various things. And that time he'd won the Nobel
Prize, the two big Hollywood movies coming out about him.
He was on every other magazine cover.
He's probably the most beloved and respected person on the
planet. And so I asked him, what's your
greatest achievement? And to my surprise, he
remembered that once he'd been visiting South Africa and he was

(35:49):
in Johannesburg and he asked to go to meet a typical family in
the Township of Soweto. And so he went in and he talked
to a group of black S Africans and he met somebody.
And the guy said, you know, I just have no hope.
I live under the system of apartheid.
I've never voted. I'm not able to get education.

(36:10):
I can't get a good job. There were no possibilities
available to me in life. And the Dalai Lama talked to him
for an hour. And he, the Dalai Lama, felt at
the end of that hour, suddenly that man had a sense of hope and
confidence. And so the Dalai Lama said to
me, that's my achievement, just one person.
And I think it's helped me a lotin in in my life and in my

(36:33):
practices because I sometimes think, as you were saying, you
and I can give a Ted Talk, 3 million people will listen to
it. But I think often the way we
touch and affect people more is you're so good about responding
to emails. And I try to be too.
And if some reader writes to me and says, I read something from
your book or I saw a Ted Talk and it helped me to respond with

(36:53):
all your heart, probably it's going to be something that will
stay with that person for life. And that may be affecting that
one person's life is at least asuseful as as delivering a talk
that goes out to 2 million people.
And maybe that's an example too of realistic expectations.
I was thinking just this morning, waking up very early,
you know, I, I write books and that's what I do for a living.

(37:14):
But books very quickly get forgotten.
But acts of kindness don't. And that's why I think just
speaking from the heart and trying to interact with people
just on a one to one basis is perhaps one of the greatest
contributions we can make. And if even the Dalai Lama feels
that, then probably the rest of us surely could.
You just reminded me what why I created MEA.

(37:37):
Yeah. Because of those, you know,
those ripples of impact, not, not the ROI of return on
investment, but the ripples of impact, another form of ROI.
Yeah, thank you. That was that was beautiful.
So, you know, as we get older, II've said that we become
alchemists. We learn how to take our the

(37:57):
polarities of introvert and extrovert, masculine and
feminine, curious and wise, gravitas and levity.
And I look at your life, Pico and I see like this is a man who
has been alchemizing his polarities a long time.
You know, New York, Kyoto, home,travel, savoring, seeking.

(38:22):
There's a sometimes a tension between these polarities.
And part of maybe wisdom and part of learning how to live a
good life is knowing how to takethose opposites and fuse them
into something that's quite beautiful as the alchemy of
these opposites. What does that mean to you in

(38:44):
terms of how you've lived your life?
The idea of just, you know, evenseeking and savoring, which I do
think is that to me, that is a an interesting dichotomy of I
see you as a seeker and as someone who savers being a
speaker, an amazing speaker and being silent.

(39:06):
So what do you think about the idea of we're alchemist as we
age? I love that.
And I've never thought of seeking and savoring together.
And it's a beautiful way to put it.
And I think, as you say, we're all seeking a balance.
And I think it's almost like breathing in and breathing out.
We all need to be in the world. That's how we offer something to
the world. But we all need to be quiet to

(39:26):
gather the resources that we share with the people that that
we meet. I am a seeker, but I never
expect to find anything. And I think I sometimes hope to
be found by something, but I know that it's folly.
Just, you know, to go to Lasso and expect that suddenly
revelation is going to come to me.
And I think one of the things I've gained from growing older

(39:49):
and you write about it in so many of your recent books, is
not expecting answers and being happy to live in the absence of
answers and actually being grateful for asking deeper
questions rather than answers. And, you know, I was very moved
when I heard that Pope Francis. When he prayed and he was just
living in a very difficult situation, didn't pray for

(40:11):
answers, He prayed for the calm to live with the absence of
answers, to live with answerlessness, which is where
most of us are. And I think when I was a kid, I
really wanted to know everythingand I wanted to be on top of
everything. And now I'm really grateful to
be bottom of everything, as it were, to be humbled by life and
not to know. And I find that the things that

(40:32):
I don't know are really what inspire me.
Why do we fall in love? Why did I move to Japan?
Why does a forest fire suddenly burn down our life?
I couldn't claim to explain this, nor do I want to need to.
And so I think living calmly with the absence of answers has
has been a great blessing for me.
And maybe that has something to do with living calmly with what

(40:55):
seems to be contradictions. Because it's true.
I think some people looking at my life, traveling a lot and
then spending weeks on end with the Benedictine monks not going
anywhere, would say, you know, you're just moving from one
extreme to the other. But I suppose by exploring both
extremes, that's a way better tocome to the middle Rd. as the
Dalai Lama would say. In other words, a way of
balancing and drawing from each of those.

(41:17):
Maybe the way that, you know, when I was a kid, I was going
back and forth between England and California, and I always
felt that England was the land of the past but didn't have much
hope. And California was the land of
the future but didn't have much of A sense of history.
And if our life is about bringing hope and history
together in the sense that we'veall had sorrows and wounds, but

(41:37):
we can't live without hope. You know, even in those days, I
was mixing together these two radically different worlds and
thinking what a what a blessing to be able to be a part of both
of them and to learn very opposite lessons.
And probably the same with New York and Kyoto.
I learned so many wonderful things in New York and they were
certain to be different from thethings that I learned in Kyoto.

(41:58):
And therefore, Kyoto seemed likea like a good companion.
But I like that notion of, of living in contradictions.
You know, I think one of the wisest speakers on religion I
know who's a student of your friend Richard Ruhr is Bono.
And I remember Bono said at once, you know, that's what life
is about, living at the center of a contradiction because
everyone asks him that same question.

(42:18):
And he's thrived on being an extrovert who's drawing from his
moments of prayer, and on being a musician who's still ready to
brave, trying to save the world.You've lived, you've created a
beautiful life yourself, and 10 years from now, what you might
you regret if you didn't learn it or do it now.
So because I'm 68 and I don't know how long my wits are going

(42:40):
to hold out, I feel that the onething I know how to do is write.
So I'm trying to write as much as possible.
And because who knows what is going to happen next year or
three years from now. And I've still got a lot that I
want to share, but I have been basing some of my decisions on
that very question. And for example, when my mother
was going through the last seasons of her life, she had a

(43:03):
stroke when she was 83 and then she lived to 90.
And I, I'm her only child and I was her only living relative.
I realized that if I didn't spend as much time as possible,
nearly all my time with my mother, that's something I would
regret forever. That was the non negotiable
first priority. And now I, I feel freed because

(43:24):
I accompanied her to reaching 90years old and my kids are grown
up and out in the world. And so, you know, that's one of
the ways in which getting older actually makes you feel happier
in fear than ever before becauseI've feel I've discharged my
responsibilities. So when I think about what I
would regret, I think it mostly of what should I be doing now?

(43:44):
And I think one of the beauties,we felt it all in the pandemic
because we're living so close todeath.
It made us think, how do we wantto live?
And getting older makes you think that too.
And you faced it, I think with more urgency than I.
But you know, we don't know how much time we have.
So what really calls us, and I suppose for me, it is the
writing, I think my last book, but one almost the central

(44:05):
sentence was the fact nothing lasts is the reason that
everything is important. And I love the fact that an
older age as during the pandemic, we're not taking
anything for granted. As you and I were saying, we're
taking walks in our neighborhood.
We're looking out on a beautifulmorning and say, let's make the
most of this morning. We're thinking, you know, we get
the chance to talk to each other.
This is what a great opportunity.

(44:26):
Let's give our full bodies and hearts to it.
So, but I love that question. I think it's one that I and most
people would want to keep in ourheads forever.
Well, it's, it's my favorite MEAquestion, partly because
anticipated regret, imagining a regret is not something that you
care about at age 20 so much, but you do care about it as you

(44:47):
get older because time becomes so scarce.
And I think the anticipated regret is a form of wisdom
because it also it it also brings the catalyst.
It makes you it makes you have aquickening that that quickening
of life to say like, you know what, seize the day.
And this is something I need to do.
And, you know, if the older you are, the maybe it shouldn't be

(45:09):
10 years. It's like 5 years.
I asked, I asked my parents who are both 87, you know, in the
next year, you know, what would you regret if you didn't learn
it or do it now? And it's a it's a question that
they that they ponder And so, well, thank you for that.
And I think, I mean, sorry to interrupt you, but I think maybe
you've also put your finger on why midlife is such a difficult

(45:31):
time because we've lost some of the freshness and energy and
hopefulness of youth, but we haven't gone the gain, the
urgency of being a little older.As you say, you and I in our 60s
don't want to waste a minute. But when I was 47, I didn't have
that sense of urgency. And yet I didn't have the sense
of propulsion that I had when I was 19.
And so you're in this kind of stagnant state easily unless,

(45:52):
and that's maybe that's the timeto start remembering.
I don't know how much longer I have.
Let's let's make them embrace the moment and make the most of
it. How are you different than you
were 20 years ago? I think that that's the main
thing. So when I was 48 I wasn't
thinking about the clock tickingin the same way and I was.
I was the poorer for it. So this will be in August 18th

(46:14):
through the 23rd will be the second time you're coming to MEA
in Santa Fe to teach. And I just so for those who are
listening and our growing audience, by the way, this
episode, this podcast has becomevery popular.
So, you know, I'm enjoying this new medium.
I, I, I should have done this long ago, but there are a lot of

(46:36):
people who've never been to MEA who are listening to this and
don't really understand it. And what's your perspective on
it based upon what you've seen as well as what you've seen in
the online community conversations that have gone on?
Do you have an observation that you know would that is not

(46:56):
coming out of my mouth, but it'scoming out of yours?
Yes. And and you said it a few
minutes ago when you said This is why you created the MEA to
affect one person at a time. And I would say my definition of
the MEA is intimacy and depth and instant intimacy with people
you might never otherwise meet or choose to meet.
And as you know, I think I don'tlead workshops as a rule.

(47:19):
I live in Japan. I'm happy at my desk.
And when I before I was coming to visit the MEA last summer,
but I and my wife had so many apprehensions.
And within the first night, after the first night when we
went round in a circle and everybody shared very deeply
what you don't know about me, suddenly I was propelled.

(47:40):
You know, so many of my defensesfell away and suddenly I felt so
close to 21 people I'd never met6 hours before.
And that deepened and intensified through the week.
And my wife and I came away feeling that we had 21 friends
that we knew at a very deep level and with whom we'd shared
more perhaps than people we've known for 40 years to such a

(48:02):
point that my cohort so that 25 people.
In the coalicious, your cohort is called picolicious.
Let's be clear. Yeah, they dubbed it
Picolicious. They still maintain a Zoom
conversation every month, and mymy wife and I join it because
we're so keen to find out where they are in their lives and to
share where we are. We travelled to Boulder and met

(48:22):
one friend. We had dinner with another
member of our cohort here. It's really become a deep sense
of community in ways I never could have anticipated.
And I think if I remember it correctly, as soon as I arrived
at MEA, you and I had a 30 minute conversation, I said,
Chip, I'm so glad you invited meto do this.
To be honest, I'm never going tobe able to do it again.
This is a once in a lifetime thing.

(48:44):
And I'm making an exception because you posed the invitation
so attractively. By the end of that week, I said,
Chip, can we do this again? And, and The funny thing is,
just last week, I, I had the same same experience because I
met my old friend Krista Tippettin Colorado and she was on the
way to the MEA and she had some apprehensions.

(49:04):
It's so different from what I usually do.
And you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'mquite a guarded person.
I'm very introverted and I don'tknow how I'm going to function.
She wrote to me four days later after her last session, She
said, I've already signed up forthe next 1.
And I think it just has to do with making connections.
And I sensed that the people coming there were clearly in

(49:26):
search of the wisdom and they knew that we were all on a
common journey and, and pilgrimage together.
But it felt to me like the humanconnections we were making with,
with a great treasure we were taking away.
And, and I think because you've worked with Esalen and Burning
Man and so many festivals aroundthe world, you've drawn from all
of those to see exactly how to dissolve people's defenses and

(49:49):
reservations and bring us very quickly into a place of trust
and, and deep community. And it's not something I've
encountered anywhere else. You know, I've been lucky enough
to teach at Esalen and Tassajaraand gained a lot from places
like that. But this was a unique experience
in terms of, as you said, I think changing an individual one
at a time. And so the midlife part almost

(50:10):
becomes secondary, I think, to the sense of shared adventure.
And we're all in this together. We're all entertaining the same
questions. We may not come with answers,
but the fact we're thinking about the same things and we're
being prompted to come up with certain new habits and
disciplines, like the one of anticipated regret or I loved,
you know, you're telling me before I came.

(50:31):
Imagine writing an obituary for yourself.
I mean, that's something that's really stayed with me.
And the lists that you suggest that we make for our
expectations or for the things that we we would regret not
having done all those kind of practical exercises.
It's hard to find anywhere else.I, well, there's a Decker
Keltner who's one of our facultymembers talks about on.

(50:52):
I, I do believe that one of the,the magic pieces of MEA is the
number one and #2 most common pathways to awe in the world,
which are interestingly not in nature.
That's number three. Number one is moral beauty.
To witness compassion, kindness,equanimity, grit, tenacity, and

(51:12):
the best humans have to offer. And then to feel that elevation
of realizing I can do that too. And then secondly, collective
effervescence, a term that comesfrom Emile Durkheim, the French
sociologist studying religious pilgrimages 115 years ago, in
which he saw that in certain environments, people's sense of
ego separation starts to dissolve and their sense of

(51:34):
communal joy starts to emerge. And it is those two things,
moral beauty and collective effervescence, they're really at
the heart of an MEA experience and will be with you because I
just, I love teaching with you. I feel that sense of elevation
by being in your presence. So I just want to say thank you
for that. Well, I want to say, you know, I

(51:55):
don't want to turn this into mutual admiration society and I
I don't want to embarrass you and I'm not here to give an
infomercial to MEA. But I think the third thing that
you're probably too shy to mention is to see what you have
chosen to give your life to in in your in your 60s.
So right after I was at the MEA last year, we were back here in

(52:18):
Santa Barbara and a member of our cohort lives nearby.
So we all had dinner. He's in his 30s and it's
interesting he's thinking about these midlife issues already.
And he said, well, I saw Chip and I know Chip hasn't hasn't
always. He's had certain health
challenges in recent times. I know he's been opened 52
hotels and been the wise elder for Airbnb.

(52:40):
And it's so interesting and moving that not knowing how many
years he has, none of us knows that he's chosen to give himself
so with so much energy to thinking about the purpose of
life in the second-half of life.And he said that made him
rethink his life. And I think he'd worked in the
tech community, and he decided he wanted to be a coach to try

(53:01):
to help people. So I think just the model of
thinking this is the important thing we should be thinking
about. I think many of us get caught up
in the resume treadmill and forget about the eulogy till
it's too late. And just by redirecting our
minds towards that, I think the MEA is helping to clarify our
priorities and and as you said, anticipate the things that we
might regret. Nobody famously, it's always

(53:23):
said on the deathbed. Nobody says I wish I'd worked
more. Last question, someone comes to
you who's, I don't know, maybe in their 30s and says I want to
spend, I want to do some tea with you in Kyoto next week.
I would love to tap into your wisdom.
Could you come to the tea, our little tea affair here and just

(53:45):
give me one little bumper sticker of wisdom that you've
learned and, and how did you learn that?
What was the origin story of that piece of wisdom?
Life has better plans for you than you have for life.
And the origin story is I've learned it the hard way, as all
of us do, again and again through my life.
Because like, like most of us inmy 20s, I had all kinds of

(54:07):
plans. I mapped out my future.
I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and I was sure that that
life would allow me to do it. And again and again, surprises,
good and bad have come my way, and I realize that I'm not
master of my destiny and that circumstances, whatever it is in
the universe, is determining my life much more than I am.

(54:27):
And to some extent, I'm in the passenger seat rather than the
driver seat. And that's scary because
sometimes I'm in the passenger seat in a car in India.
You know those cars well and they're driving at 90 miles an
hour and then no red lights. And you don't know if you're
going to survive. But that act of trust and the
sense that that, that, that whatlife is going to do to you is,

(54:48):
is I'm going to speak for a higher logic than the rational
logic that that you could access.
So whether it's, you know, I haven't said yet that when I
moved to from New York to Japan,I went to live in a little
temple in Kyoto, Japan. And I actually had a book
contract to write about a year of foreigner living in a temple

(55:11):
in Japan. And my third week in Japan, I
went into another temple and I sat next to a woman and fell in
love. And that was the end of my year
in the temple and the beginning of a very different year.
And then that woman whom you know, my wife Hiroko had two
kids. So suddenly, as a writer who
loves being alone, I was thrown into a family in A2 room

(55:33):
apartment with two adolescent kids in a foreign country.
And I had to learn all kinds of things I never did, would have
learned otherwise. And then, you know, my house
burnt down. But suddenly I realized I don't
have any notes. Now I can write fiction instead.
And again and again, just a torrent of things happen, good
and bad. And I realized my job in life,

(55:53):
and I think most of us it's the case, is to kind of follow the
prompts of life rather than to imagine that we know more than
life does. So that's a long answer to the
poor person who requested AT in Kyoto.
But first sentence is the bumpersticker.
Thank you, you're amazing. I love you and look forward to
seeing you in August in Santa Fe.

(56:15):
Thanks for joining the Midlife Chrysalis.
I'm so looking forward to this and thank you for all you do
Chip in the MEA and in your books and right here.
Thank you. I can't wait to see you about 5
weeks from now. Well, wasn't that a delicious
conversation? I always come away from hanging
out with my pico friend feeling that pico licious that we talked

(56:37):
about this idea of life is delicious when you're with
hanging out with pico. Three key things I learned from
that conversation. Number one is the idea that home
is not the soil, it's the soul. Something he said.
And I just, you know, I, I love,I love aphorisms.
And that's one that I can remember.

(56:58):
It's not about where you're living.
It's about how you're living andhow you're embodying living in
yourself. And, and that brings me to the
second learning I had, which is really this idea of stillness
and this inner savings account. We need to, you know, replenish
ourselves, fuel ourselves with whether it's meditation or being

(57:18):
in nature or going out and doingthings that fuel you on a
soulful level, not necessarily accumulating knowledge, but
learning how to invest in your soul.
And that's a really important piece of being able to have the
resilience. You know, Pico and I are
teaching August 18th through the23rd, basically a workshop on

(57:43):
how to be resilient in the chaotic times we live in.
So that's a big piece of what I heard.
I loved the idea of, you know, the Dalai Lama as his modern
elder. I had never heard as much of the
Dalai Lama story as he told today and how much he has been

(58:03):
by that man's side. And, you know, the Dalai Lama
has cited that Pico is one of the people in the world he has
the closest relationship with. And yet there are lots of people
who write books with the Dalai Lama.
Pico's not one of them. Pico's one of those people who's
sort of the quiet person on the side who's listening and
observing from the Dalai Lama. And I think he'll talk quite a

(58:24):
bit about that in the workshop. I do have one last thing.
And he said books will be forgotten, but acts of kindness
will be remembered. It reminds me of a little bit of
Maya Angelou, which is about it's not what people you know,
it's people will not remember what you, what you said or what
you did. They'll remember.
They'll remember how you made them feel.
And Pico is one of those people in the world who always makes

(58:45):
people feel as if they are the most important person in his
life. And I think he learned that from
the Dalai Lama. So I hope you enjoyed that
episode. Look forward to seeing you next
week. Thanks for listening to The
Midlife Chrysalis. This show is produced by Midlife
Media. If you enjoyed this episode,
help us spread the word by subscribing and leaving a review

(59:08):
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What 50 Years with the Dalai Lama Taught About Midlife | Pico Iyer

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