Hungry & Not Hungry

Hungry and Not Hungry || The late actor/comedian Robin Williams said hell and heaven are metaphorical constructs for "hungry" and "not hungry." Of course, hunger comes in many forms. We might be enduring a hellish mind state that is fixated on what we cannot or do not have — constant wanting. We can move the attention to a heavenly mind state wherein we feel gratitude and contentment for what we have, what is here.

Transcript

Welcome to In the Deep.

I'm your host,

Katherine Ingram.

The following was excerpted from a Zoom session of Dharma Dialogues,

Which was broadcast from Australia on September 19th,

2020.

It's called Hungry and Not Hungry.

Last week,

I watched a new documentary about Robin Williams' last phase of life.

It's called Robin's Wish.

I think that's the name of it.

Robin's Wish.

It's new.

And it's about the final phase.

And it has his wife in it quite a bit.

His wife and some of his best friends are speaking about that last phase.

For those who don't know,

He's a very famous American comedian who killed himself a few years back.

But he had a disease called Lewy body.

It can be associated with Parkinson's.

He was diagnosed with Parkinson's.

But what they didn't know was that he had this other thing,

Lewy body,

Something that my dad also was suspected to have had.

My dad didn't get an autopsy,

But they did do an autopsy on Robin Williams.

And the Lewy body was basically just eating away his brain.

This disease was.

It was actually amazing that he was as high functioning as he was in the end.

But he was really losing it.

And because there wasn't a proper diagnosis,

He was really distressed.

Also what comes with Lewy body is loss of confusion and depression and hallucination and paranoia.

So it was a combination of all those things that were going on.

And his friends and his wife really wanted to tell the world that he was not depressed in the way that that's understood as though he was suicidally depressed.

He wasn't.

He was fine before he got very ill,

Which only happened in the last six months or something like that of his life.

In any case,

There were these moments that they kept showing of his former life,

Of his younger life when he was in the success of his career.

And he said a line.

I suspect he was actually very,

Very wise.

We mostly know him as saying funny things.

But when you hear about him through his friends and you see the way that he would go and entertain the soldiers and sit at the bedsides of some of the wounded soldiers for hours on end and just hang out with them,

You realize that he was kind of a body's thought for really.

But anyway,

He had this one line that just happened to be in the movie.

He said,

Hell and heaven are metaphorical constructs.

For hungry and not hungry.

Hell and heaven are metaphorical constructs for hungry and not hungry.

Now,

As we know,

Hunger comes in many forms.

Of course,

On a fundamental form,

When you're very hungry,

Like for food,

That can perhaps feel like quite a hell.

And when you've had a wonderful,

Satisfying,

Fantastic meal that can feel like heaven.

But there are lots of types of hunger.

And we often go around hungry in hell when we could switch it around and be content in heaven.

When the basic needs are met,

And I don't deny that when the basic needs are not met,

They're screaming in your head.

Like when you're very hungry or very thirsty.

There's a certain urgency that is very hard to kind of experience contentment in.

At least it is for me that way.

But I also know that sometimes I make myself feel hungry just by certain of my thoughts.

Not having to do with food,

But other types of things.

So one of the things we all hear a lot about these days is a kind of lament about the way we want certain things that we can't have.

I think,

Though,

And I sense that this might be true for those of us who have a love of Dharma.

We've been making quite an adjustment to doing without and to refocusing the mind as soon as it starts going down a sad track of,

Oh,

I'll never get to do that again,

Or I'll probably never get to,

You know,

It's going to be years before we can blah,

Blah,

You know.

Perhaps you've noticed your own adjustment that kind of snaps out of it.

Snaps out of being hungry for something you can't have right now.

And goes back to heaven.

Where you feel gratitude for what you have.

This is like a toggle switch in the mind.

And perhaps it kind of goes on all day,

You know,

It's like there's a way in which we're so conditioned to want.

Maybe it's very strongly evolutionarily programmed for us.

I've often spoken about that how it was probably very advantageous for a long time.

But at this point,

Given that most of us still have quite a lot of access to food,

I can see we're all in shelter here on our various spots in the world.

Our basics are covered.

Our fundamentals are covered.

It's really good to acknowledge that and to feel full.

There's a metaphorical realm description of hell in Buddhism called the Petaloka or the hungry ghost realm.

Hungry ghosts are,

They can never be fed no matter how much they eat.

They can never get full.

Constant hunger.

So they're going around just in a state of white hot desire.

In this metaphorical description of hell.

Sometimes I just say the phrase to myself,

This is enough.

Right?

Truth is,

I and probably we have had way more than our share if we averaged it out among humans,

Not only at this time,

But at any time.

We really kind of hit the lottery.

And this is enough.

Pretty great,

Actually,

With all its troubles.

As soon as we landed here,

Troubles began.

A place of a lot of troubles.

And still,

We've all had a lot of joy,

A lot of love,

A lot of interest in things.

So,

Yes.

If you're feeling hungry,

If you're telling yourself,

Oh,

I can't have that.

I can't.

I thought we were going to be able to do this.

And now we're locking it down again.

And on and on the story goes of what's missing and what could have been better in your version of reality.

And all of that goes on in our human minds.

A great strong program.

But we can have another strong program that counters it.

The contentment program.

The enough program.

You can use the word enough both ways.

It's like enough already.

And this is enough.

I'm very close to what you were just saying about heaven and hell and what I think of it as letting go of what's no longer possible.

Yes.

Yeah,

Which for me is letting go of London and staying in Thailand.

We got retirement visas to stay here for another year.

And I realized that letting go of London was a bit of a thing for us because we love that city to go to the theater,

The galleries,

The restaurants and everything about it.

And the parks.

But actually seeing that I'm living in paradise here.

And it came to me more deeply because I remember the first time I zoomed with you,

I talked about being content nearly all the time.

And you said I was living in a rarefied air.

And after that,

A number of things happened.

I had an x-ray of my lungs and thought I had lung cancer.

And what happened out of that was I rushed on a pavement and tripped up and broke my arm in 10 pieces.

And yeah,

Really.

So out of that,

I saw I lost a lot of trust in existence.

Because I had felt that I was beyond falling over.

I'd been doing lots of balance exercises,

For instance.

And so that was a huge shock to me.

And then the shock of the fall and the anesthetic somehow made my prostate close up completely.

So then I had to have prostate surgery in the hospital.

My goodness.

I had a very difficult summer,

To say the least of it.

But somehow,

Now I'm recovering from both operations quite easily,

And made this adjustment that you're talking about,

Which is like,

Oh,

I've actually got everything I need here.

I can't go to the theater,

But I can watch movies on the laptop.

And I never give up loving walking on the beach or swimming in the pool,

Neither of which I can do in London.

So it's like seeing that I was.

.

.

Making a hell of heaven.

Yes.

And I'm not sure how it happened,

Because it wasn't by thinking about it or coming to any mental adjustment.

I just,

It just sort of,

All that disappointment with life just evaporated somehow.

A strange process.

I see that so many things seem to happen,

Which are beyond the mind completely.

Yes.

Yes.

A lot of the process goes on without our involvement.

Yes.

And then we try to sort of explain it or something to somebody else,

And it doesn't make any sense.

Yeah.

But I got a feel for it.

I think we all might have gotten a feel for what you've just spoken about and what the process might have been.

Because sometimes it is true.

We're cruising along and we think,

Oh,

Isn't this sweet?

And then wham,

Something.

.

.

Yes.

.

.

.

Just bangs to it.

Chaos.

Yeah,

Chaos.

And the life that you were leading is no longer.

You've got a whole new thing you're dealing with and a lot of trouble on the plate.

And it's part of our human resilience to adapt.

So even though there are really hard things we go through,

Almost all of us are coming from very strong stock.

It's like just when you think you couldn't handle this or that circumstance that you imagine,

And then it's on you.

It's upon you.

And you handle it,

Right?

And it's not only that there's reserves of strength,

It's that often going through the process isn't as bad as your fear or hearing about that kind of process without having experienced it.

For some people it is,

And for some people it makes life not worth living.

But for many people,

They go through something really hard.

And it changes them in certain subtle ways because they see that something let go in the process.

There was a sweet surrender to,

Okay,

This is the new way.

This is how it is now.

Yeah,

I feel like I've become more mature out of this dreadful experience.

And I saw that part of it was giving up self-deceptions that I had,

One of the biggest ones of which was that I can heal myself more than I can.

I mean,

I can heal myself to some extent and have done.

But there's a limit to that which I didn't want to see,

That it has,

In fact,

Is quite limited with the extent to which I can heal myself.

And I had an exaggerated idea of that.

I like that you're saying this because one of my pet peeves is magical thinking,

Right?

Now,

Of course,

To your point,

There's certain things we can do to stay more healthy or to get more healthy.

Of course,

There is.

And part of it is also a way that we keep our mind healthy because when the mind gets very depressed and agitated and stressed,

That's also bad for the immune system.

But there's a limit to how much we can do.

And I find it a very kind of new age oppression to believe,

One,

That you gave yourself some sort of illness,

And number two,

That now it's your responsibility to heal it.

And somehow,

If you're not doing that,

If it's not healing fast enough or at all,

Then it's a double failure that you somehow did whatever it was you did to get it,

And now you can't get rid of it.

And I've seen it over the course of 35 or 40 years,

People who get caught in that belief system.

And I've known a lot of people who are working with people who are struggling with those kind of beliefs,

And those people who are the helpers,

They really,

Really resent those kinds of beliefs being put on people because sometimes when someone's ill,

The last thing they need is to be feeling guilty about not being able to be healing fast enough or at all,

Especially if they're surrounded by people who believe these kind of new-agey things.

So of course,

I mean,

It's not to say that we can't do plenty to try to stay healthy.

Obviously,

We know all the good things.

And by the way,

There's some new studies,

Just as an aside,

There's some new studies out that have proven without a doubt they're very great double-blind,

Placebo-controlled studies that are showing that vitamin D,

If you've got plenty of vitamin D in your system,

That means your levels are either normal or above,

You're pretty protected from COVID.

I mean,

Even if you get it,

You might get only a mild case of it.

And the numbers are looking very,

Very good.

And why this isn't known throughout the whole world and why it isn't on the news every minute,

I don't know.

But it's good to tell everyone to keep your vitamin D3 levels up.

Yeah.

Anyway,

Dear,

I'm going to move on because we've got others who need to.

But anyway,

So lovely to see you.

I'm glad that you seem so well,

Despite quite a lot of surprises that you've had there.

And also,

Yeah,

There you go.

It just started raining here.

Yeah,

It's beautiful.

But one of the Tamil words that I learned that I've been saying a lot is padum,

Meaning enough.

That's a good word to know.

Because they keep feeding you.

I've been having these amazing lunches at my friend's house and they just keep keeping more rice and more veg.

So you have to know.

I need to know,

Padum,

Padum.

I like the way that sounds.

I'm going to start saying that instead of my enough padum.

Yeah,

Padum.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But yeah,

That's something I'm really trying to take to heart what you're saying about,

You know,

Because I've soaked up so much here.

I was only supposed to be here for five weeks.

And now it's turned into seven months.

And now I'm really having a hard time,

You know,

Getting prepared to go and the unknown of going back to New York.

And I'm struggling with that.

I was just talking to my parents this morning,

And they'll probably be on the call tomorrow.

And it's been such a struggle with the technology even to communicate.

You know,

There's been such a delay when I talk usually.

And so that's been a real struggle.

And it's like hard on my throat even to talk on the WhatsApp.

So I'm looking forward to not having that barrier.

It's definitely made it a struggle to,

I've already like not felt to communicate with anyone back home very much at all,

But it's made it that much harder.

So that's one thing I'm looking forward to.

But it was hard not to just to be.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And one thing that I've actually been noticing lately that has is that,

I guess maybe because I'm leaving soon is that,

You know,

Not many people speak English here.

And just being in the car being around,

You know,

People and just speaking Tamil and just keeping quiet around that and not being able to understand or communicate is definitely a challenge that I haven't really even been paying much attention to.

But now that I'm leaving,

You know,

It's a frustration that I can't really express.

But then so much is expressed without the words.

But that's one thing.

Another thing I'm looking forward to being back with people I can talk to and relate in a deeper way.

Absolutely.

Yes.

Probably your Indian friends understand a bow and the words Namaskar,

Namaste.

Oh,

Yeah.

I mean,

They understand a lot of English for sure.

Yeah.

Oh,

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well,

Yeah.

But you're right.

It's good to be happy about where you're going and to be reflecting all the things you love that are pulling you back there.

And of course,

Friends and family are,

You know,

Pretty,

Pretty great treasures to be to be with.

So,

But right now the desire to stay feels much feel stronger.

Even though I am booked to go I still feel that my heart is here.

And I also feel like,

Like things are maybe slipping now like this is the home and that's the vacation.

Well,

And in that regard,

Then maybe you could go make a quick visit home and come back.

We'll see.

We'll see.

Yeah,

Thinking about the heaven part of what you talked about,

I guess.

I guess,

You know,

We've had a lot of smoke here.

I'm sure you went through that for a long time.

And we had some pretty bad days,

You know.

So,

There was a day,

I don't know,

Four or five days ago where,

You know,

It was literally dark,

You know,

It was completely dark all day long.

It was like the middle of the night.

Yeah.

And you know,

So you go,

Oh my God,

You know,

This is,

You know,

This is how bad things can get.

You know,

You kind of feel like,

You know,

The dinosaurs going extinct or something,

You know.

So,

Anyway,

The last couple of days it actually cleared up,

You know,

It was pretty good the last couple of days.

And I,

You know,

I,

I felt I was pretty good and pretty thankful because I do have good clean air in the house.

That's very lucky because I have clean air and I have lots of friends in California and Oregon who didn't have air purifiers.

Yeah.

And so,

It was really hard.

I've got six of them going full blast and a monitor.

So,

Wow.

You know,

If you don't measure things,

You can really fool yourself what's going on.

So yeah,

So I'm grateful we kind of worked that out last time.

And but I,

You know,

I kind of realized that there was,

You know,

I wouldn't say depression,

But I can see in retrospect that I was kind of down about doing stuff,

You know,

Just,

You know,

It's just harder to do stuff.

Yeah,

I would say to you that,

Now let me also take another step aside.

When you're living in a place as we did here in Australia last summer,

Where the sky is darkened,

It's a god-awful,

You know,

Hideous alien color of burnt orange.

The sun cannot even be seen except as a little tiny yellow dot in the sky.

There is something that that does to the psyche.

You know,

It's just so alien and so foreboding and so the whole body is in rebellion also because the air you can't breathe any longer if you're outside.

And you're aware of all the creatures and all the trees and all the animals who can't even get away from any of it.

And so there's a,

That comes with sadness that comes with kind of feeling of it's like horrifying.

So thankfully,

The air is clearing up there right now.

I mean,

There were moments in this,

In these fires last year,

I mean,

It really did feel kind of like,

It felt apocalyptic.

And there were times I was looking at the sky and thinking,

It's never going to look right again,

It's never going to look like it used to look.

But it did.

I mean,

It's cobalt blue now,

You know,

And it did clear up surprisingly fast.

And that doesn't mean that it's okay that all this,

It's not over or anything like that.

But it's just not to assume a condition of permanence that's scaring you when it probably isn't permanent at this point.

Yeah,

Yeah,

I agree.

Right,

Right here.

Did you have?

I think one thing that happened today is,

Because I just said screw it,

You know,

I just,

I just kind of went to build something.

And it just felt so,

It just felt so good just to try to sketch out this plan,

Even though I like messed it up twice and it went on forever.

But it felt good when I was,

When I was doing it.

And I,

You know,

And I,

I think it's that aspect where you let go a little bit that you really,

You really care about achieving anything.

You know,

Just because of the situation,

Like,

I knew it didn't matter whether I made it or not.

I'm just,

I'm just changing the channel,

You know.

Exactly,

Exactly.

Just using your attention in a different way and in an enjoyable way.

Yeah.

Or like when you're sick,

What was being talked about before,

You're so much more receptive to,

You know,

The wind on your face or the flowers or just being able to sit there and feel okay,

You know,

So.

Yes,

Yes.

That's the ticket.

We just have to keep,

You know,

Just really get it that our days are very precious.

Our days are,

This is our precious life and it's enough.

Yeah,

There's so much that's been said.

It's very relevant for me,

Particularly in recent weeks,

The wanting and the hunger and then the trying to switch my mind back from that.

One thing that I've been saying to myself is the thing that I want or the situation that I want,

I can compare my life to other people's lives who seem to have this great sense of family and settledness and,

You know,

That I don't have.

One of the things I say to myself is,

Am I able for that what I think I want?

And a lot of times I'm saying,

Well,

No,

Actually,

Like this is kind of what I have is actually what I'm actually able for,

If that makes sense.

It does make perfect sense.

And that seems to be what it's this,

It has been this constant backwards and back and forth of it.

But that does seem to do something,

The recognition.

If I had the thing that I want or think that I want,

You know,

I'm not sure that it would really suit me or I'd be able for it.

So it's very interesting.

Yeah.

And I think what you're saying about the evolutionary aspect of it,

It has to be that that it has to be related to that as well.

And the pandemic and the lockdown doesn't have that kind of effect on me because there are things that I'm blocked from doing,

But there's a lot that's opened up for me.

These Zoom meetings,

I don't think I would be here speaking with you.

Yeah,

I wasn't doing them.

No.

And so it's opened up in my own particular life.

It's enabled me rest instead of feeling I have to keep always trying to make to the next activity,

Which was sort of stressful.

So it's not that it's without its losses,

But in my own particular life,

I almost feel selfish that it has certain advantages.

But yeah,

The struggle with the wanting more is a hard one,

Definitely.

And something else that I was thinking about,

The ego drama where at times it feels I'm fated to win and then there's times it feels that there's somebody out there that's laughing at me.

And in certain areas of my life that's fating me to lose,

But obviously neither can be true because I'm not that important that somebody has a voodoo doll saying,

I think I'll teach Sarah this lesson then.

No,

No,

There's no puppeteer.

Nobody's watching.

No one's keeping score.

There's no record being kept.

It's just you.

You've been the only one keeping the record.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's helpful to recognize that I can't be that important that somebody is keeping record of.

No,

No.

Everyone's keeping a good.

.

.

I think I'll make her news on this one.

Right.

No.

I mean,

We're very conditioned with those kinds of ideas from childhood and from our old religions.

Oh,

Really?

Where there was a sense.

And we were conditioned,

First of all,

We were also conditioned with not only sort of a God that was paying attention and knowing whether you're going to go to hell or heaven in the afterlife,

But there was also Santa Claus and the tooth fairy.

It was like these poor little children growing up terrified that every little misstep is somehow going to be a blowback of punishment,

Which I see as a kind of form of child abuse in a sense,

That it's so unfair.

I mean,

Just imagine to not be conditioned in those ways and to really just be to understand that helping others and doing good just feels good.

And that's all there is to it.

It feels better.

And it's a nice,

Kind way to live.

And then that's just for its own sake,

That what you do.

And then in that kind of self-acceptance and relaxation.

And if you make a misstep,

You're the one who forgives yourself.

You understand.

You're the one who gets the lesson and understands that I did something that caused a mess or caused suffering.

You're your own lab.

You're your own alchemist.

And you're the one making meaning of the events of your life.

And that's why you can be the one who says,

Yeah,

Some things about this are hard and other things are great,

Preferred in fact.

I mean,

There's been a lot,

Because I tend to be quite an introvert.

So there's a lot about this phase that I'm liking enormously.

It's just parts of it are just fine with me.

And I also like that there aren't many planes in the sky,

At least here in Australia,

Because it's pretty locked down.

And so we hardly hear any airplanes.

And there's just a feeling of things are a bit slower.

And the stores are not all kind of jamming and pounding.

And there's not this frenzy of consumerism.

And there's all kinds of things that suit me just fine.

Not as much traffic on the roads.

And you're kind of not expected to be very social.

Exactly.

Yeah,

Exactly.

One of my favorite things to do is to meet random people.

There's a local coffee shop nearby and just have chats.

And I've been able to do more of that the last week.

And it's given me such joy.

But it's a very simple thing.

But yeah,

It's just to chat about whatever they have going on in their lives.

Yes.

It's great to just find all of those ways that are giving you a sense of living a nice,

Fine life.

Peaceful and intimate with even total strangers having chats.

And the things that people have been through.

They don't have to be some big,

Profound conversation.

It's just.

.

.

No,

No.

The idea of the great romance,

This is what I was discussing with somebody yesterday,

It seems exhausting.

These ideas of being blown away by something.

All of that just seems like way too much hard work.

I don't want to be blown away in that sense.

Or you can be blown away in other senses,

But not in the grand romance idea.

Yeah,

I get it.

What do you think about karma?

The idea of karma?

I don't have a belief in afterlife.

So it kind of goes away in one fell swoop.

I believe in cause and effect in simple ways.

And not always a linear line and not even in effect necessarily that always has shown up.

But there's simple ways you can see that if you've been drinking too much and you go get in your car and you have an accident,

There's a clear line of cause and effect.

Or you're really,

Really kind in your life and therefore there's a lot of response to you that's very generous because you're being kind.

But some people may be really mean to you,

No matter how nice you are.

I don't subscribe to any magical beliefs whatsoever.

Unless it's been proven somehow,

Which I haven't seen any evidence that makes me think that those kinds of assumptions should be taken on.

And I did check it out for many,

Many,

Many years.

I really looked around for any kind of philosophy that would make just this unjust world.

Because that was my big thing.

I wanted it to be fair.

I wanted it to be just.

I tell a story and it's on another podcast,

But I have this adorable great niece.

I have quite a few of them actually.

One of them is this one,

This story's about her.

And everyone says that she's the third in a family of,

She's the third sibling and her two older sisters,

They boss her around because they're the older sisters.

And so she's always kind of the one that's tagging along and always trying to play with the bigger kids.

And anyway,

So everybody jokes that on her epitaph will be,

It's not fair because she says that all the time.

It's not fair.

What I want to say is you are so right.

It's not fair.

It is not fair.

It's not an even playing field.

There's none.

I cannot assume that there's going to be justice either here or any other time.

Sometimes we get lucky and there is justice and we do see something work out that does rectify a certain situation.

But yeah,

A lot of times we don't.

So these kinds of concepts about karma and so on are really extraneous and they're like a buffer between your feelings and the injustice that you are having to bear and witness.

Right.

Like if you can tell yourself a story that makes it okay in any way.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I see what you mean.

Yeah.

You don't have to feel the deep.

Yeah.

Injustice.

You don't have to feel injustice and injustice is painful.

Absolutely.

That's one of the things that I see that my lives are so different and it just seems unfair.

Yeah.

And it's getting more unfair because the people who are experiencing climate catastrophes,

They're on the total front lines,

Are experiencing that it's going to be just the worst for them and it already is.

They have had the least to do with causing it.

Right.

It's really the poor people of the world and in the poor places that aren't going to be without food and drowned with sea rises and all manner of very,

Very terrible things that are already happening,

Drought and there's mass migration,

As we all have heard.

And that's because they simply can't grow food in a lot of these places any longer.

They can't grow food on a desert and there's no rain.

Or there's too much rain and all the crops just got drowned.

But this is happening to the poorest people of the world who had very little to do with putting all the carbon into the atmosphere.

So this is going to be the greatest injustice ever in history and it already is starting.

So we're going to be witnessing a lot of this and it's a heartbreak.

And yet there's a fierce and powerful awake beauty to seeing things clearly.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

And to really letting it in and to really so that when you say,

I suffer with you,

Right,

Even though you're not going to be suffering maybe at that same level,

But at least be letting it in to your idea and your imagining,

Your empathy,

Without the buffer of this story that is saying,

Oh,

But it is just their karma.

There's no buffer,

There's no filter.

There's just,

Okay,

That is awful.

And everything happens for the best and it happens because it's meant to happen and all of that.

That's another one.

There are all these famous,

They're all famous old time stories.

If it's for you,

It won't pass you by.

Yes,

It's all the ways that a lot of it is religious stuff,

You know,

A lot of it is new agey stuff.

And when all of that is gone,

You are flat up against the raw experience of what it is to be here and to suffer.

But also to love.

I mean,

That's the thing I say all the time that in a certain type of awakeness,

You're just living on a bigger spectrum of the experience.

The spectrum widens and now you've got lots of joy on one end and mercy and beauty and fun and delight and love.

And on the other end,

Pure depravity and just cruelty and madness and ignorance and just greed and everything in between,

Which actually we can feel in ourselves,

You know.

But you start living in a way that you're recognising the range of human-ness.

You're recognising and you're not telling any stories about it.

You're just there witnessing and experiencing.

An expansion then.

Yeah.

It's a much more,

You know,

I would say it's a braver place to live.

It requires a lot of lion heartedness.

And that's why people clutch on their religious stories.

It's because they don't want to,

They just can't bear it.

They can't stand it.

And I understand that.

I understand why people do and I wouldn't presume to take away their stories.

But I give myself permission to say these things on these kinds of calls because I see my role,

I guess,

In these conversations is to be fully authentic and to not hold back what I actually do feel and see.

But I might not,

If I'm not at the coffee shop,

If someone is talking to me about their God,

I wouldn't.

No,

No,

No.

That's just magical thinking.

You're just trying to calm yourself down.

Yeah,

Very interesting.

It's not for the faint of heart to look at this world without any kind of magical stories that let you off the hook.

No,

No.

Thank you so much.

It's a great relief as well.

It is.

And it's a real incredible relief for people who love truth.

Because even if it's hard,

It's like,

Just give me some truth.

I don't care.

Just give me the truth.

For me,

I've always gravitated to truth tellers,

To lovers of truth,

To people who can look at the hard stuff.

Because I don't feel comforted by pretending the hard stuff isn't there or trying to put some sort of sugar coating on it when I know that no,

It's not sugar coated.

That doesn't give me any comfort whatsoever.

I just want to know,

Let's get down to it.

Yeah,

Because you just have a space then,

I think,

With truth.

Yes,

Yes.

There can be this invisible process that's going on in the background.

When you're starting to really come to terms with the truth of the situation,

There are layers of acceptance that just start happening without your having to think about them.

It's just adjustments start happening in your psyche.

And so that you're less likely to be someone who is suddenly shocked and in panic when the reality reveals itself and cannot be denied.

Yeah,

That's a great way of putting it.

Thank you so much.

It's so good to be back with you.

You too,

Catherine.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Hello.

What a joy.

Thank you.

Hi,

Everyone.

That conversation is just unbelievable.

It just really resonated with me so deeply.

It is such a relief.

A big one of mine has always been,

You know,

Everything happens for a reason.

You know,

My life,

The things that have happened have happened because there's a bigger plan or everything,

You know,

It's happened for a reason.

And that has fallen away more and more.

And I'm left with the raw heartbreak or the raw grief.

But I find that the closer that I stay with the grief,

That there's love.

It opens up and there's just this mercy and this love for everything.

It's actually bigger than me.

It's beyond my experience.

So yeah,

It's just really wanting to see things and feel things,

The truth of things,

And feeling the chaos at the moment and everything and just this part of me that I don't want to turn away.

Don't turn away.

Having said that too,

It can sometimes be overwhelming.

And some of the last few Zoom sessions we've had where you talk about finding the joy in simple things,

You know,

Taking a walk down the park and seeing the new ducklings that are coming in the spring,

Fills my heart.

And that somehow balances the chaos and the destruction and just what I see that I feel helpless to,

You know,

See refugees,

These people in camps that don't have water,

Don't have food.

It's just,

Oh,

You know,

It's just,

There's nothing I can do.

And then I think,

Well,

Maybe there is something that I can do in being real.

I don't know.

Yeah.

I've just been reading a book called The Choice by a 90 year old woman,

Dr.

Edith Eger,

I think her name is,

And she was an Auschwitz survivor.

And she has a line in the book,

And it reminds me of what you often talk about,

About attention.

And she said,

No one can take away what you put into your mind.

Suffering that she experienced that helped her survive,

Making sure that she turned her attention to whatever it was that sustained her.

I feel like that is my responsibility more than anything else.

Yeah.

And in so doing,

You become an inspiration for anyone around you.

So it's very,

Very helpful for others.

It's helpful for both you and others,

Right?

It's not a small thing to be clear and not in denial,

Seeing the picture clearly and being solid,

Being kind of buoyant,

Not giddy,

Of course,

But just buoyant enough.

It's very,

Very encouraging for people.

Over the many,

Many years,

I have called up in my mind,

Images of people that I know,

Get the picture and yet are showing up and living and loving and being kind and not collapsed in a heap,

Right?

They're still trucking along with sometimes tears in their eyes,

But still mostly not,

Mostly joy and mostly just well-being.

And oh,

Yeah,

I find that the more that I am living on that wide spectrum,

The more open I am to a lot more,

Like you're describing,

Just feelings of incredible tenderness and gratitude.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And to let that be enough.

I mean,

The me project that I've been so invested in all my life and being conditioned to really invest in it.

Everyone else is doing it.

It's a trip,

You know,

It's a trip.

And that sort of really wanting to unwind and unravel itself,

It's like,

Oh,

It's just really not that interesting.

It's pretty boring.

So boring.

No,

Not that I'm saying yours is,

But mine sure was.

It is that thing of,

Yeah,

Sort of how to be in the world when everybody's running the story of the me and just letting that sort of fade back,

You know,

And it's an interesting time.

It's interesting is that me sort of is unraveling and to let that be enough,

Whatever I do,

Just by being,

That is enough.

Yes.

Very good.

Yes,

Very good.

And if you're called to do something or there's somebody there that you can help or whatever,

You'll just do it because you'll have plenty of space to be able to do it.

You know,

When the me project is no longer the main thing that you're up to in the life,

Then there's a whole lot of energy left over.

And it's not magical thinking,

Is it,

To think,

Well,

I can trust that organicity of my own being that it will know when.

Sometimes I think,

Oh,

That's a bit magical.

What are you waiting for?

Like,

You know,

That's very,

That's experiential because it's not saying that something has to happen just because you're sort of surrendered to whatever is to be.

It's not maybe that things just cruise along like they are,

You know.

Yeah,

Thank you.

Thanks,

Everyone.

What you're talking about has been very pertinent to my own world about stories and magical thinking and getting rid of the,

Not getting rid of,

That's exactly the wrong thing to say.

Realising that I've had unlived grief about giving up some of these stories.

This will happen.

Women will be recognised in life,

Like today's news and things have just gone,

I really,

You know,

I actually thought a lot of these things would happen.

And now I'm not so sure.

I'm okay with that.

It's such a,

Like,

Oh,

Why did I think that?

It's like Father Christmas or something.

Like,

I know some things have changed and I've done my work and I thought A plus B would end up somewhere else.

It would all work out in a different way or something.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And understanding that it's not that.

And then with all the other things that are happening,

You know,

I realise when you say fair and just,

I'm like,

Yes,

It still should be fair and just.

And I know it's not.

And I think there's time of such peace,

Actually,

For me,

You know,

To know where I live,

Like having the ocean just out there and such springtime,

All the gorgeous flowers,

Like it's beautiful and it's quiet and it's lovely.

And it gives me the chance to think of these things.

Yes.

And yesterday,

It was a session that I was given,

But it was coming across the stuff that happened when I was three when I gave up hope.

In a very specific way,

You know,

Like I'm never going to get the attention.

It's never going to happen.

There are more children coming along.

I'm here.

It's all over.

And that was so real.

I'm going,

Okay,

I've got time to sort of have a look and go,

What?

And move next,

Next.

Because it is quiet.

Yes,

I think that that's been a really amazing part of this whole COVID phase.

Like,

I've even noticed in listening to some of like the newscast guys on CNN,

I know them all because we've been watching them for many years.

And even they,

Like,

Sometimes they're giving little Dharma talks on the news.

It's really amazing.

You know,

Talking like,

For instance,

One of them,

Chris Cuomo,

He got COVID.

So did his wife.

She caught it from him and he was broadcasting from his basement.

He's a major news anchor in the US.

He's the brother of the governor of New York from a very famous family.

His father was also governor of New York.

Anyway,

He has given a few talks.

Like there's these five minute talks of just him talking directly to the camera about just what matters and what are the values of a life.

And they've been very beautiful,

Very,

Very good.

You know,

So that is,

I just think that the whole world has been thrown into,

Now some people are not so susceptible to much inner reflection,

No matter what.

They're just sort of,

You know,

Chomping at the bit to get everything back,

Roaring along.

But a lot of people have had an imposed retreat in which a lot of examination has gone on inside of themselves and a kind of taking account of their lives and who are the beings that they love.

We've talked about it already on the Zooms,

How many old friends are reaching out to each other or sending a note by email saying just thinking of you and wanted to just tell you,

You know.

I know I have that.

I have those thoughts so frequently and typically in my life prior to COVID,

I always had a to do list.

I was always a bit too busy to get to all the people I think about,

You know.

But this phase,

And especially during the Zoom sessions,

Has allowed that kind of expression,

You know,

Which I'm so grateful for,

Really grateful for,

That it has made super clear what matters,

Really has been thrown that into high relief,

Which is a fantastic gift to have while you still have time to understand how you might act on that insight.

Thank you.

Thank you.

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