Envy and Other Human Foibles

Dharma Dialogues session with Catherine Ingram in which Catherine debunks the idea of mental purification and instead encourages a gentle acceptance of human flaws. Recorded in June, 2017 in Lennox Head, Australia.

Transcript

Welcome to In the Deep.

I'm your host,

Catherine Ingram.

The following is excerpted from Dharma dialogues held in June 2017 in Lenox Head,

Australia.

It's called Envy and Other Human Foyables.

Good evening and welcome.

We hear a lot in spiritual circles about compassion.

We're encouraged in that direction.

When you see someone suffering,

There's a natural arising for many people.

A suffering with an empathy,

An understanding,

A concern.

And compassion has a cousin,

A beautiful cousin named sympathetic joy,

Mudita in Buddhist terminology.

Sympathetic joy whereby your friend or someone you know is having some great success or something wonderful is happening in their life.

And from a spiritual point of view,

We're encouraged to feel sympathetic joy,

Although it's not as easy to come by as compassion.

Sometimes it's difficult to feel sympathetic joy for some people,

Many I would say.

Easier to feel compassion,

Easier to feel when someone's having a hard time,

Easier to feel a welling up of empathy and concern.

But when there's success,

Your friend is having success,

Someone you know,

It's a bit harder for many,

Many people,

Which is natural,

Normal.

If you ever read any of the work of the primatologist who study say chimpanzees or baboons in the wild,

You discover very quickly a lot of high drama goes on with regard to jealousy and fighting and it's very highly programmed.

This competitive nature we have,

Very highly programmed,

Highly conditioned.

The fact that it arises,

The fact that things like that arise whereby you don't feel particularly happy for your friend and their success.

You're not wishing them ill,

Just when these things arise,

It's not a cause for you to feel ashamed or to feel that it shouldn't arise or that somehow you've taken a wrong turn and you've done something wrong.

You're not very spiritual.

You're not very evolved.

All of this is extraneous.

These kinds of things arise for almost everyone.

Now we do know the difference.

There are some people who have natural sympathetic joy.

We know who they are of our friends,

Let's say,

The one you can't wait to tell of your success or of your,

The win,

The little win you might have had.

You know who those ones are that you know are going to be genuinely happy for you.

And you might also know the ones you maybe will dim your success a little bit when you're speaking to them because you can feel a little agitation.

You may still be good friends but you notice that maybe you're not going to tell them of your latest,

Greatest thing.

These are the little negotiations we make in relationships.

But what do we do with the internal material as it arises?

The material that arises in each of us,

I dare say,

That we're not too happy with,

That there can be a self judgment,

Especially if you've been in some way indoctrinated in spiritual belief systems that would tell you that somehow all of this material is being eradicated or should be eradicated.

My Buddhist teachers used to say that the awareness purifies the mind.

Well,

I don't think so.

Right.

Now,

The awareness can be allow the mind to feel very free in its conditioning.

Right.

This idea of purifying the mind,

Purifying the thoughts,

Purifying the reactions,

Hopeless.

Why not live in a total acceptance?

I think I've told this story in here before,

But it is illustrative of what I'm saying.

Many years ago,

I was teaching in Dublin,

Ireland.

Maybe I'm remembering this story because Marianne and I,

Just on the way here,

Marianne was telling me she's just returned from Ireland.

I was just remembering so many moments.

Anyway,

I was on my way into the city,

Into Dublin.

I was staying outside of the city and I would take a train to go into the city,

The train called Dart,

The fast train,

Called Dart,

The Dublin area rapid transit.

It is a little Dart.

It's very,

Very fast.

It pulls into the station.

It just zooms into the station.

They probably wouldn't allow it in America,

Actually.

They're so litigious.

Anyway,

It just zooms in like a bullet and it stops.

The door is open,

People get off,

People get on.

I'm standing on the platform on my way into Dharma dialogues and I'm watching these trains going by and I started thinking,

If you wanted to kill yourself,

This would be a really effective way because they wouldn't have time to stop.

You would just jump off at the last minute and they would do the job probably.

Then I was thinking,

And it would be really easy to push one of those people off.

Then off I went to Dharma dialogues.

You might think that that might have been rattling to me,

But it wasn't at all because I don't care what arises in my mind.

I assume it's mad.

I've lived with it a long time.

I don't take much responsibility for the content of the thoughts.

Where I do apply some responsibility is in the actions that follow any thoughts,

But mostly I let the thoughts go by.

Mostly I don't bother with them.

Mostly I assume that they're mad.

There's only a few ones that one needs to bother with.

Like that,

We get along very happily,

My mind and I,

Because I gave up a long time ago trying to purify it.

Believe me,

I did try.

As many of you know,

I was in mindfulness practice for 17 years beginning in 1974 and quitting in 1991,

A long time ago.

But I did do 17 years of pretty heavy duty practice and watched my mind and watched the thoughts and watched the nonsense.

I lived in a circle of people in a community,

In a sangha,

In which there was the hope and we were taught that as you went along on what was called the progress of insight,

Certain things would fall away.

Certain bad things would fall away.

You would no longer feel hatred or jealousy or even judgment,

Even comparing anything.

Anger,

It was a promise that never came to be and I never saw it in anybody else,

Frankly.

So it was a great relief to let that go,

Let that expectation,

Even let that want go.

It was an incredible relief.

And since that time,

It has felt freer and freer and freer because I really don't mind what my mind is doing.

And so for instance,

I do find compassion arises easily.

I find sympathetic joy is not as easy.

That's just the truth of it.

And I notice it when it happens.

I'll notice when something arises that reminds me of that.

But again,

I don't have any extra story on it.

I see myself as a human creature with human conditioning.

And as such,

When there is that kind of relaxation around this kind of material,

There's a gentleness that one feels toward one's own self.

And you also have then understanding,

Easier access to understanding when you see others who perhaps are displaying these kinds of feelings and reactions.

You know it well.

Okay.

If anyone has anything you'd like to discuss on these matters or similar matters,

Please feel free.

I had a realization through the week.

It was just a moment.

But that I measured my consciousness in terms of how vital I felt in my body,

In my sense of vitality.

And so I got to recognize that maybe that's not the truth of it.

And maybe even if I'm not feeling vital,

It's okay.

So there was just a moment where I wasn't so caught in the story of the cause and effect or something.

Very good.

Yes.

Excellent.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

That's a,

Who needs that extra interpretation,

Right?

Well,

I figure as well that,

You know,

The truth is that,

I mean,

I have,

Everyone's got their own story with their physical stuff,

But,

You know,

Life goes on.

And I mean,

Being,

If I measure how conscious I am through my vitality,

Who am I going to be if I make it to 96?

I might not be feeling vital then,

But I'll still be possibly alive.

You know?

And if,

Does that mean that I'm there for a big failure?

Where's the gap,

You know,

Between?

Right.

Yes.

So there's so much about the frame through which you're experiencing anything,

Right?

I mean,

I know so many people who have,

You know,

What's often called chronic fatigue,

Although they tell me,

And I believe them that that's a very puny name for what it is,

That it's actually quite a,

You know,

Quite a debilitating thing.

Do you call it that here?

Yeah.

And I guess it's called ME in Europe or something.

Anyway,

That it doesn't quite capture the full,

The full effect.

Now,

Obviously,

If one is afflicted with something like that,

To add on a story that you're not really alive,

Right?

That you're just missing life is just another torment,

Right?

Another added suffering to the already existing physical suffering.

Completely.

Yeah.

One of my girlfriends was in a terrible accident,

A terrible car accident many,

Many years ago,

Decades ago.

Her back got broken and she has lived with pain ever since.

And she lives in London.

And the last time I saw her,

I was struck by how radiant she is.

She's radiant.

She has this,

Her eyes are blazing and she smiles a lot.

And she's been living with pain all this time.

She was in the hospital a long time.

She was bedridden a long time.

She was in physical therapy a long,

Long,

Long time.

And I've talked to her about this a number of times.

And she,

Something shifted in her that basically said,

This is the what so of my life and I can either fight it and be depressed and wish to die.

Or I can say this is how it is and this is my life.

And so I talk a lot and you've probably heard me talk about dignifying the life that you have,

Right?

Not being tormented by this wish that your life was somehow different.

Somehow your life,

The one you're living isn't quite the one you're supposed to be living.

There's another life out there somewhere,

Or something that can happen with regard to your body or your mind or any fill in the blank people have their postponement plans well in place for waiting to live their life at some other point.

But what if you said yes to your life exactly as it is?

I have been really struggling with that idea over the last week.

And I think it was catalyzed through hearing somebody talking about purpose,

This notion of purpose and in Dharma dialogues,

Or somewhere.

There was someone who spoke about not feeling like they completely were alive in each moment and that was in Dharma dialogues.

And then there was a follow on conversation with a friend of mine who was talking about feeling like she was always unsettled because she knew she wasn't meeting her purpose.

And this concept of purpose.

It's one of my pet peeves that this whole thing of purpose,

You know,

It's,

It's,

I mean,

As soon as you bring it up,

You start feeling nervous,

Right?

None of us have managed to fulfill our potential.

Except there's a few people who sort of went beyond theirs.

But no,

That's another one of the sort of new age tropes that goes around of,

You know,

Realizing your potential and finding your life's purpose.

And,

You know,

It's a very,

It's almost mercenary somehow.

And what if you gave that one up,

Right?

I always love,

You know,

I always love the lines like,

You know,

Jesus's line,

Consider the lilies of the field,

You know,

They toil not and yet does anyone know the stanza?

So beautiful.

I don't know,

Solomon and all his glory is not as beautiful as one of these.

And that,

You know,

That,

That just being in your sweetness,

Right?

And showing up in presence with those that you interact with.

Vitality or lack of.

Either way.

But,

You know,

That's just an interpretation,

Right?

It's maybe,

Right?

That,

That might be the most beautiful taste of this existence,

Right?

All of this finding of purpose,

Much of it,

I would say is ego driven.

Look at what it's done.

Just have a gander in the news of what it's done on the planet.

All these people who want to,

You know,

Make a name and leave something,

You know,

Of themselves,

Leave a mark,

Which really is a marring on this poor planet,

You know,

Have a look at what it looks like and think about the cultures where the highest,

The highest good in their understanding was that when you left,

You left no trace.

Right?

Think about the difference of that.

You know,

It was only until about 70,

000 years ago that human animals were,

There was basically no trace left when,

When they,

When one died,

They were,

They were basically not making any marks on the planet other than what the other animals,

Just a little bit,

Barely.

Right?

It has been this thrust of,

Of self aggrandizement that has gone completely wacky out of control that has ensued over these many years of humans,

Of homo sapiens who were a very rough group.

There were lots of other humans,

It turned out,

We killed them all.

Homo sapiens killed,

Killed all the other ones.

Even the Neanderthals were really much more gentle group than homo sapiens.

Homo sapiens got rid of all of them and,

And are doing a good job of getting rid of everything else that's alive on the planet.

And,

And that's part of all of these kinds of notions,

You know,

The grandness of me,

The wonder of me,

You know,

My fabulous purpose,

My fabulous potential,

All of these things,

You know.

One of my friends,

He wrote the book,

The Art of the Deal.

His name is on the cover with Trump's.

He wrote it in the 1980s.

But he actually wrote it.

He thinks Trump read it.

He's not positive that he did.

Anyway,

He said nothing about that engagement to,

And he told me about it a lot because I knew him at the time he was doing it.

And he was,

He did it because it was a lot of money.

And he had a wife and two kids living in an apartment in New York City.

And that changed his life in terms of the money.

And at the time,

Trump was just a real estate guy in New York.

So anyway,

Time passed,

But my friend,

Tony,

Came out this past summer when he began to realize that this man might become the president of the United States.

He began speaking out about who he was and who he is.

And it was very brave of him and difficult.

And anyway,

What I'm getting at is one of the things he has been saying recently is that the emptiness inside of Trump is so intense that now even in the presidency,

It's only intensifying.

Do you follow?

He's now at the top of whatever,

He's at the top job on the planet and he's got all eyes looking at him,

Which is what he craved,

According to my friend.

Everyone's looking at him.

Everyone's talking about him.

And the emptiness is intensifying.

Do you follow?

This is an extreme case of someone finding their life's purpose.

And it's not enough because the problem is the emptiness is still there.

And then when you're in that top job and you realize it's not fixed,

Then you have nowhere to go.

So these are notions,

As I said,

This is one of my pet peeves,

Because I look around and I watch how well that sells,

Like the secret and all kinds of programs and all kinds of spiritual scenes and workshops.

And like I said,

It just seems mercenary.

The happiest people,

Real happiness is contentment.

People who know how to appreciate,

People who can just experience simple joys,

Right?

Doesn't have to be a big grand thing.

If those come along,

They're welcome,

But it doesn't have to be that.

It can be just,

You know,

You just start to attune to small joys and beautiful connections.

And that's how one feels more and more a sense of abundance.

It's not adding on to the me story.

That is never going to do it.

Never.

In Buddhism,

There's something called the hungry ghost realm.

It refers to a particular kind of hell where the image of,

It's also called the petaloka.

The image is these creatures that have these enormous bellies and a tiny pinhole of a mouth.

So no matter how they try,

How hard they try,

They can't get fed.

They can't get any sustenance in.

So there's a constant hunger,

Hungry ghost.

It's an incredible,

Powerful image,

Hungry ghost.

And we know people who are like hungry ghosts.

They just can't get fed.

They can't get food like I was saying about Donald Trump.

Poonjaji once said something very brilliant.

Many things he said were brilliant.

But he's talking about being a beast of burden for your desires.

It's like the desires are driving you like a beast of burden,

Like a donkey being whipped along.

It's like,

Go get that,

Now go get that,

Now go get that,

Now go get that.

And then he said,

The interesting part is that often when you get the object of desire or have the experience that you desired,

The relief you're feeling is in the cessation of the desire.

It's not in the object.

It's in the cessation of the desire.

I mean,

You might have a little bit of pleasure in the object initially or in the experience.

But also it was like that thing that was driving you along,

That burning wanting that was going along.

And now you get to have that come to a cessation because you got the object,

Except that if the hunger is still running for whatever reason,

Now you're going to think of a new desire to chase another,

You're going to be a beast of burden again.

Now that is not to say that all desires are bad.

I'm not saying that.

Obviously we're human animals and we have desires and we're supposed to have desires.

But one becomes again,

Discerning about how you play it,

How what you're doing with chasing desire.

Some of them are not worth chasing.

A lot of them aren't.

And you become also very clear,

I talked about this recently,

That every desire comes with a tax,

A tax of energy,

A tax of upkeep.

Whether it's a relationship or a new car,

Whatever it is.

First of all,

If it's an object,

You've got to work,

Unless you're just inherited wealth,

You've got to work a number of hours to get the money to buy that car.

So there's an exchange of energy already at the get go.

And then there's also the all the upkeep of it and all the ancillary things that go with any object or anything,

A house or anything.

And the same with a relationship.

They require maintenance.

So you become very clear on that some desires you're going to play with,

You're going to dance with,

You're going to celebrate.

And some you can let go and let peace reign in your house.

You become more easily content,

Little simple joys like I've been saying.

Often people have a sense that they're that something out there,

Some big thing out there is going to transform their life.

You know,

If only that big thing would happen.

And I think that is what drives a lot of people.

And it is the it is the cultural hallucination that is happening.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

I've got an afterthought.

Sure.

Because it's so quiet.

I'm so glad because I didn't have any.

It was related to how you were speaking when you opened.

And I thought for me,

There is this jealousy thing.

So I'm sure it's ego driven.

But particularly,

I can be so excited about friend success if it's not in my field.

When it's up here,

That's when it hits.

So this is jealousy aspect that comes in.

It could also be something to do with if I look at it from an evolutionary point of view or watch the animals that are relatives.

It also could have to do with self preservation that basically,

You know,

If there is scarcity,

Then you know,

Some portion of the,

You know,

Food source or whatever it was,

The mate or whatever got taken.

And so there's that part of it as well.

So anyway,

Go ahead.

Oh,

No,

That's it.

It's just more that that's something that I definitely have gone into struggle with for myself.

I definitely feel like I'm going between the less than for feeling it and then the oh,

I mightier kind of aspects.

Yeah.

So I guess I was just bringing that up for you.

And I'm sure you speak for many in this room.

And it's a very common thing.

It's a very common feeling.

And it's,

You know,

And it has a kind of actually,

I noticed for me,

Yeah,

It's woven into almost like a poor me victim thing.

So that's my patterning a little bit that I don't know,

It's like there's a self righteousness and there's a poor me.

So I did my two bits that I bounce through.

So here's the here's the good news about it.

What?

So what?

Yeah,

Right.

You know,

I mean,

That's just a patterning.

It's just a conditioning.

You know,

When I say that I really don't care about what arises in my believe me,

If if my mind were being broadcast,

Except for the selective little bits that I'm telling you,

You'd be horrified.

But most of it,

I'm it's filtered out.

It's just,

You know,

Background spam.

It's done don't care.

And so like that.

And there are certain types of conditioning that are stronger due to whatever life circumstances,

Genetics,

Things that happen,

Parents,

Etc.

You know,

I'm really at the point mercifully in my life and have been for quite a long time,

Where I'm just really okay with it.

You know?

And I also notice,

Just in terms of my preferences,

That I really like hanging out with people who are in touch with their shadow and are in touch with you know,

I love the line by Alan Watts,

Divine rascals.

You know,

I like I like hanging out with the rascals and people who are authentic in those ways,

You know,

Who are honest and who can really get down about stuff they're going through or things something they felt or just kind of,

You know,

Put it out in the room and laugh about it together,

You know,

And live in that kind of freedom.

I find it very,

Very oppressive when I'm around a holy roller,

You know,

Someone who's everything's a little too precious.

And you just suspect there's a lot going on there that is under the rug,

You know?

Often that's actually where I go into my jealousy and the what if and oh,

I'm not quite holy enough.

But it's fine.

I don't know if I believe it.

It just comes sometimes.

Right.

But is that based on seeing people you think are?

Oh,

No,

It's just a moment.

Oh,

Yeah.

It's just a moment thing.

It's not a big thing.

Yeah,

Well,

Those are the kinds of those are the kind of feelings that actually can be really let go easily.

Those kinds of,

You know,

Things of being spiritual and,

You know,

And instead one is just being a lot more true.

And at the same time,

There's a kind of freeing that starts to happen when you're basically just saying yes to you as you are.

And you're a lot more loose with other people as well.

Let them be themselves as well.

You may not want to choose to hang out with some of them.

But at the very least,

There's a certain,

You know,

Authenticity that's happening.

And like that just gets more real.

As someone who's completely new to these talks,

If you have any tips for cultivating ambivalence of the mind,

To the mind,

Sorry,

Not of the mind,

To the mind.

Yeah.

Well,

Some of it is simply redirecting the attention.

So that's a very easy way to do it.

When there's troubling things,

When there's a kind of stream of neurotic thought that's just starting to drive you crazy,

Then let that be a Dharma bell in and of itself that pulls you to,

You know,

You could use little cues to yourself,

Like go to,

I say often to myself,

Go to quiet,

You know,

Or you could say snap out of it,

Let it go,

Or just whatever that kind of interrupts,

Says to yourself,

I don't really want to be obsessed in this.

I don't want to have this taking up my whole screen of awareness.

So then you're basically moving your awareness.

You don't have to move it far.

All you have to move it into is reality.

It's always waiting for you.

So you move it into reality.

Here you are in present awareness.

Right.

And usually,

Almost always,

When you move it into present awareness,

Into your sense doors,

Into just this,

Almost always it's pretty good.

It's fine.

There are times that it's not.

There are times that our attention wants to flee in certain circumstances.

If you're being beaten,

You're being raped,

You're being chased,

You're being whatever,

Or you've just had terrible news.

You've just gotten the terrible news.

Okay,

We leave aside,

There are some times when the attention goes numb or wants to escape or does escape,

Disembodies,

And maybe that's good in those moments.

But there are few and far between for most people.

A lot of what happens is we spend a lot of time,

You know,

Worried and in fear and in neurotic madness and so on,

When the moments we were experiencing were perfectly fine,

Except for that.

So this is a kind of discernment that starts to kick in whereby you develop a taste for,

Hey,

It's kind of easy really right now.

In fact,

You just get sort of true about what's happening.

And then when the mind starts running down its old tracks,

And you find there's a lot of attention on it,

It's not a problem if it's running down the old tracks and you're not paying much attention.

But when it's running down those old tracks and it is calling you and kind of making you sick,

Use that.

Let it be an ally and say to yourself,

Well,

This is nuts.

Let me go back to living here.

Let me go back to my beautiful moment that's here waiting.

And I'm not suggesting you impose anything like some,

You know,

Enhanced picture,

Just regular old beautiful life,

Right?

Thank you.

Yeah,

You don't have to Photoshop it.

No,

No,

No.

And to really start to taste it that way,

Start to taste the sweetness of that simplicity of being.

And then you just find,

I often say,

There's so many little joys in life that you're sort of tripping over them.

You know?

This is great.

I think online,

It's called the dog diary and the cat diary.

Do you know it?

Does anyone know it?

It's really hilarious.

You can look it up.

But anyway,

The dog diary is all through the day.

It's like a walk.

Wow.

My favorite thing.

The people put out water.

Wow.

My favorite thing.

And it goes on and on,

Even all the way to the night watching TV with the people.

My favorite thing.

Well,

Then it goes to the cat,

The cat diary,

Which is extremely different,

But I won't go into the cat diary,

Which is hilarious.

But in a way,

It's like you become like you're wagging your tail through the day.

You know,

That it's like,

You get up and you get to have whatever your coffee or your smoothie or whatever it is,

You know,

Wow,

It's nice.

You know,

It's great.

And,

You know,

You go for a walk and you feel,

I mean,

Especially around here,

You know,

You live in beauty,

You know,

Spectacular beauty,

Breathtaking beauty,

World class,

You know,

So you just rather than just sort of take it for granted and just another day,

You're awake to it.

You know,

You're seeing it and appreciating even just in a very simple way,

Just that you're experiencing a peaceful circumstance,

You know,

And like that tasting your food or you go to the markets and you look at what this abundance is just here.

And,

You know,

You go to Santos and there's everything that you could need or want and more than that.

And on and on like that through the day,

You know,

And you,

You know,

You talk to your friend and it's so nice to just look into each other's eyes and have a real conversation.

It doesn't have to even be deep.

It can just be anything.

And like that,

You start to channel your attention intelligently rather than let it run willy-nilly on its own conditioning.

You're intelligently directing your attention and that becomes like a habit.

It does become a habit.

And even though occasionally you dip into neurosis and you get afraid or you get jealous or you have all those things,

You discover that they don't last as long as they used to.

You don't dip into the old mud as long as you used to.

Right?

I like to say you have a holy haunting,

A different kind of haunting that starts to,

When you're lost,

There's something that starts pulling you.

Right?

And in an evening like this,

We're basically sitting in it.

We're sitting in that ease of being.

We're sitting on that frequency.

We're steeping,

Steeping in it.

And as that gets stronger,

Just through being in it,

It becomes more the default position of your attention.

It becomes more where your attention tends to hang out more.

And it doesn't ever have to be constant.

That's another mistake people make.

They think,

Oh,

Well,

Then I'm going to end up enlightened if this keeps up.

But I don't subscribe to that notion and I don't think it's useful to have that,

Even that hope.

It doesn't have to be constant.

It can just be frequent.

That's good enough.

Thank you.

Yes.

So I have a little bit of a mess in my head and I'm all the time thinking,

Oh,

I never will get it.

And then the voice comes,

Meh,

Meh,

Meh,

Meh,

Meh.

There's nothing to get.

But it's difficult to say.

I really have the feeling I am blockade,

Stuck.

I'm stuck because- But maybe you're only stuck because you think there's something else to get or be.

Yeah,

Yeah.

I know.

I think like you talked before,

Waiting.

Yeah,

There's something to get.

And I know there's nothing to get,

But even so.

And we talk so much with Rama,

You know,

Because I think he get it and I don't and I'm glad for him,

You know.

It's not like- You have sympathetic joy for him.

In this case,

Yes.

So yeah,

It's very difficult actually to explain,

But I'm so frustrated actually,

You know.

And I feel helpless in this.

And yeah,

There's many choice in my day.

Yes.

There's many choice and I'm not a completely frustrated negative person.

But I think I'm really- I mean,

Really,

Can you just simply give up any idea of a spiritual search or life or any kind of identity having to do with anything spiritual?

Like just really get down to just this ordinary,

Simple,

Just basic,

Really basic.

Yeah,

But behind there is this,

You know,

Like- Well,

Okay.

But let's say that's the conditioned thing.

You were spiritually conditioned 17 years of Zen practice and then Advaita and your love of Ramana and some kind of maybe hope that snuck in there that all of this would lead to something.

Yeah.

And then you have the people that say,

Oh,

I'm not the body.

I'm not the body.

And I don't also believe that.

Oh,

Yeah,

Me neither.

That's really poor.

All you have to do is pinch one out of them and- Oh,

You know,

Or the mountain,

The mountain will make it for me.

I think one of the things you're experiencing,

If I may say,

I may be wrong,

But is that all of that time that you'd logged in as a relatively young person all through your,

You know,

That was heavy duty conditioning.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

I mean,

There's worse conditioning out there to be had certainly,

But that was a kind of conditioning.

And I had it too.

You know,

I had it too,

Which is what I'm saying tonight.

This is what I would love to see you be free of.

All idea,

All your spiritual ideas,

Having none.

Just- Yeah,

But like,

You know,

Like just like,

Wow,

A clear,

Clear,

You know?

No,

But even- Yeah.

So what,

That there's a chattering that goes through,

Not even having a fight with that,

But just don't bother listening to it.

Don't believe it anymore.

Right?

That there's something that you're not getting,

That there's something else,

That there's some way that some,

You know,

Like I said,

The other day,

I think you were there in Lennox,

You know,

As though there's some secret lock.

And if you just had the right key.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And it's not that it's all the things that the great ones have told us.

And they told us in every tradition,

All turns out to be exactly true in terms of the ordinariness of this.

That,

You know,

The earth where you stand is the pure lotus land.

Right?

And that the kingdom of heaven is within and that the musk deer searches the world over for the source of its own scent and on and on it goes.

Right?

Yeah.

I would like to let go of all this.

It's like,

You know,

It feels like it's like a black bowl,

You know?

And I would like to just let go.

But then there is this comes these thoughts in,

Oh,

Don't believe the mind.

Don't believe your thoughts.

You know,

It's all this conditioning is there.

I see that,

But I don't know how.

Well,

What I would suggest is what I said earlier is just redirect your attention.

Whenever that material is arising,

Redirect your attention into your ordinary existence here in the moment,

Here and now things you've heard,

But just make it simple and ordinary,

Having no expectation of any glamorous insight.

Right?

You've had enough.

You've probably had several lifetimes of your share.

Because doing Zen practice all those years and being in the monastery and just,

You know,

Thousands of conversations like this,

You've had,

You've looked at this plenty.

You've got the picture.

Right?

There's just something extra that's in there that's,

I would suspect,

Is spiritual conditioning that thinks it's something other than this.

And what if it isn't?

What if this is it?

And then all the advaita?

Forget all that.

Leave all of that.

Leave it all.

All of it.

Right.

Because then everyone will get it.

Really the advaita,

Not for me,

But for some reason.

It's not for me either.

I get labeled as an advaita teacher,

Not by me.

I just can't get it.

It's a little too transcendent for me.

I just find it's like,

Huh?

Yeah,

Me too.

It's just like,

Yeah,

Okay.

Right.

Let's keep it really simple and basic and real and ordinary and speaking.

You know,

Do you know who Martin Luther King Jr.

Was who is an American leader of the civil,

One of the civil rights leaders of America.

Beautiful,

Beautiful guy.

I mean,

Really a Dharma brother,

You know?

And whenever he would speak,

His congregate,

He's a black guy.

Whenever he would speak,

His congregation would be shouting out,

Say it plain,

Martin,

Say it plain.

Because he did say it plain.

He did say it beautifully plain.

Anybody could understand it.

And it was so powerful a message that even the white people started hearing it,

You know?

And so,

You know,

It's like you just get really more and more plain and you speak in regular language,

You know,

And you set aside all of this.

Whenever I have observed this,

Not just in spiritual domains,

But in other domains as well,

When things get co-opted over time,

You know,

They really get degraded,

Right?

So sometimes you have a spark of a brilliant blaze of a person,

A genius of some sort,

A spiritual genius or a mathematical genius or an artist of some sort or literature,

You know?

And then people get inspired by it and they start sort of copying it in their own inauthentic way,

Just trying to copy.

And it never really looks as good as it did in the original.

You know,

So why not truly have this taste of this existence in your totally authentic way and leave aside naming it and leave aside all the concepts,

You know,

Just leaving them,

Even if they arise as conditioned mind,

Which they might go keep going back to what is my own actual taste here.

And then you start to speak from that and it has a freshness,

It has the ring of originality for one thing,

Which I'm sure you appreciate.

And you can hear when you hear it.

And you know when you're saying it.

And this is what this would be my wish for you.

Me too.

Yeah.

This has been In the Deep.

You can find the entire list of In the Deep podcasts at KatherineEgram.

Com where you can also book a private session by phone or Skype,

See the schedule for Dharma dialogues and retreats,

Or make a tax deductible donation in support of this work.

Till next time.

Reviews

Wonderful talk so clear and with hunour thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and support 🙏✨🌞🌷

A lot of great material in here. Will be listening again.

I loved this. Very down to earth and re-assuring. Thank you 🙏🏽

This is so needed. It resonates with the turmoils of living in this “me” society. I loved this!!! 🙏🏼

Very insightful .

I loved this! Thank you SO much Catherine. Your words are truly liberating.

I have really loved this, thank you 🙏

Thank you for being vulnerable, speaking the truth and practicing authenticity . The discussion made me feel normal for these human emotions. I love how you actually talked beyond the topic of envy. I loved your voice; it was very soothing and calm. I work with teens in a high school as a school social worker and I practice mindfulness meditation with them. A lot of them are just learning for the first time. I will be sure to pass your teaching onto them, for they are the future. Simple living. I love it. Thank you.

I would give this 20 stars if 20 were available. Especially the center section, where she talks about life purpose. Check it out for yourself.

How wonderfully unexpected! So many great bits of truth and clarity.

Thank you so much Catherine! This is one of the most profound teachings I have listened to. I'm now going to your website for more of this exemplary teaching.

This was earth shaking news to me. I love the part about Purpose.

Really enjoyed this thought-provoking talk. Thank you 💜

Simple, clear, beautiful, grounding informal chat. Thank u. 💝

Fresh perspective for me. Much appreciated.

Wonderful talk! Thank you so much!!

Excellent talk. Thank you. 'It's a gift to be simple it's a gift to be free it's a gift to come down where you are happy to be.'