Keeping It Simple

Excerpted from Dharma Dialogues with Catherine Ingram in which Catherine looks at how an "elegant simplicity" is born of a clear mind. Recorded in July 2017 in Byron Bay, Australia.

Transcript

Welcome to In the Deep.

I'm your host,

Catherine Ingram.

The following is excerpted from Dharma dialogues held in July 2017 in Byron Bay,

Australia.

It's called Keeping It Simple.

One of my Buddhist teachers used to tell this story,

I don't know if it's true or not,

But it makes a good point.

There was an exam going on at one of the great schools of England,

And the prefectures walking around the room,

And he notices that one of the students is not writing anything.

So the assignment was to write an essay on the miracle of Jesus turning the water to wine.

And there's this one,

One of the students just staring out the window.

Everybody else is busy writing.

So it gets to the point where there's only a few minutes left in the session to complete the exam,

And the prefecture announces that.

And the student,

Who happens to be Lord Byron,

Picks up his pen and he writes one line,

The water met its master and blushed.

The water met its master and blushed.

So it's,

I always love any kind of representation of an elegant simplicity,

Because I always sense that it's coming from a clear mind.

It may not always be the case,

But almost always.

That kind of elegant simplicity,

And we actually do know the difference.

We actually notice when we hear someone speaking,

And it sounds like just a mush of chaotic thought,

Right?

And you kind of can't quite get what they're talking about,

And you're struggling to find even a line or two that pops in clarity.

And with other people,

Their words have a kind of jewel-like feeling in your mind.

They kind of shine.

So both in the speaking of the words and in the receiving of the words,

One senses either a clear mind or a confused mind,

Or everything in between.

Thich Nhat Hanh one time told me in an interview,

He was talking about his friendship with Martin Luther King Jr.

And he said this beautiful line about his friendship.

He said,

You could tell him just a few things,

And he understood the things you did not say.

And that's another power of a clear mind.

You can receive the things the person did not say with just a few words.

So it's very good to not be fooled by complication.

There's so many labyrinths of mental thought and projects going on in the world,

Just labyrinth upon labyrinth.

And there's many,

Many webs of complication.

And there's a way in which it's become kind of the norm to assume that that's how it should be.

That life is complicated and you expect all of the communication to be kind of complicated.

And we've lost our deep appreciation for simplicity and our attraction to it.

We live in a world that is just getting faster and faster and more convoluted.

It's good to challenge these things in your own heart and be attracted to simplicity and love it when you hear it.

Like Thoreau,

Right?

And so many others.

Even Bob Dylan said,

Love is so simple to quote a phrase.

So many things are just very,

Very simple.

And as one gets quieter and more relaxed and as your mind kind of gets a bit shinier in itself,

There's an automatic attraction.

You may feel you're going against the flood,

Right?

The flood of the culture.

But you're not going against it.

You're not going against it.

You're not going against the flood of the culture.

But it's good to know that you're in good company with the greats of the world of history.

Yesterday I had an interesting experience.

I was quite frazzled from going to the optometrist,

As I told you.

I've got quite a sensitive nervous system and the whole eye check thing just just thrazzled my nervous system.

And then there were other things I needed to attend to so I couldn't really rest.

And then at some point I felt quite overwhelmed and I was like,

Okay,

This is really starting to take over now.

But I am not this experience.

This experience is in me.

Like I turned it around as in I am so much more than just this experience.

And it gave so much space and it just settled,

Even settled my nervous system.

Definitely.

Yeah,

I love satsang.

I love what it brings.

Yes,

Right,

Well,

The sense of not collapsing onto any particular phenomenon,

Right?

And yeah,

I mean,

I've many,

Many times spoken of,

Like even with gigantic grief that hits you,

Or information that you know is going to morph into deep grief.

A big loss that you've just learned about first,

There's the shock and then grief comes.

And even so,

One can sense the open space in which all of that is rising.

And more and more,

That's the case of,

You know,

You start to just feel,

I was talking about it in Melbourne,

How,

You know,

The truth is we're sitting in infinite space,

As far as we know,

Right?

As far as we know,

It's infinite.

In any case,

It's pretty big.

Yeah,

Let's just say it's very big.

And often people feel very locked in with,

You know,

Just their thoughts or their pain or their story,

Or thing that happened,

Things that might happen.

There's a way in which these,

This phenomena engulfs their experience.

As though they're locked in a closet with the boogeyman of this fill in the blank,

This thought,

This memory,

This dread,

This pain,

You know,

Like being locked in a closet with it.

Whereas in fact,

You're in very big space with whatever is arising.

So whether it's a pain or a certain difficulty,

A loss,

Your grief,

And even your joys,

You know,

Those are also just fluttering by in this very big space,

Coming and going,

All of it.

Yeah.

So more and more,

Not to sort of force the awareness to have to kind of constantly think in terms of big universality,

But definitely when needed,

It can be a really helpful reflection.

One of my friends told me he was studying with his end teacher in Hawaii.

Aiken Roshi was his name.

He died.

But anyway,

My friend was studying with him and he said that Aiken Roshi would always have people,

Whenever they were in the midst of a loss or a death of a friend or loved one,

He would have them go out in the evening and look at the night sky.

It was a really powerful,

It's a powerful practice.

One can kind of have that sense even in the daytime,

Right?

You can have the sense of just allowing your awareness to just drift out into bigger space whenever there's a feeling of collapse onto a particularly troubling circumstance,

Including physical pain.

You know,

I think you were there when we spoke last Sunday about,

You know,

When just the power of physical pain to get your attention,

It does get your attention.

And sometimes there is a way in which you feel like it is just taking up the whole screen,

Depending on the level of the pain.

But even then,

As I told the story last week,

You know,

I've got two friends who've had their backs broken.

And both of them are,

It's now years and years after the fact,

And they're both living with that circumstance of relatively continual pain.

But cruising along,

You know,

So somehow they're using their awareness to flow into bigger,

Bigger space.

When you have a desire for,

When you experience that fairly expansive space,

And it goes because that's kind of like an undulating phenomenon as well,

I guess,

Sometimes the desire for it can be extremely overpowering to like,

You know,

The point of substantial distraction.

How do you contend with that?

The desire for feeling that more expansive.

Expansiveness,

Because it's so delightful.

Yes,

Right.

Pleasurable when it does occur.

Yeah.

And it's something I can't control anyway,

And maybe some can,

But it's certainly not within my capacity to do so.

Yeah.

I mean,

Of course,

It's just basic acceptance of what is,

That sometimes there's a feeling of exhilaration with an expanse,

But sometimes one can just simply be peaceful and content and easy in oneself,

And that that's also incredibly delicious.

And you begin to develop a taste for the subtleties of how your life is flowing.

And even times when there's difficulty,

Actually,

You know,

And where that's kind of what's happening,

There can be a confidence,

Born of experience,

But a confidence that your awareness will track back to its more calm place as soon as possible.

So whether it's calm or exhilarated in terms of big open space,

As you said,

That you can have a sense that the awareness will not just obsess endlessly on the troubling part.

That you have this love of that feeling is very good.

Hmm.

That attracts the attention to it.

But we can't expect to just always be in this sort of big,

Gigantic,

Exhilarated spaciousness,

You know.

Well,

It tends to come like lightning bolts to me anyway,

And then it's gone.

And when it's gone,

It's kind of always,

Life is a bit secondhand,

To put it.

So it seems more dull in comparison or something.

But I think it's possible to really start to feel into the subtleties of being,

Right?

The subtleties of existence,

The subtleties,

The little tiny pleasures,

The little tiny noticings,

The watching of the dogs on the beach,

Then all of that starts to become more and more,

You know,

The dogs on the beach,

Then all of that starts to become rich in a different way.

And it's also fantastic,

Right?

It's much more safe,

Actually,

As a way of finding delight in life,

Right?

There's a lot more of it to be had.

There are all these happiness studies that are interesting that might be applicable here.

So when this big,

Huge university in the States that did this very big study of thousands of people,

Many thousands of people,

Having them rate their happiness set point,

That is,

Like,

Asking them a lot of questions and having them rank it one to 10,

You know,

What makes you happy in this way and that way.

And anyway,

So they established a certain happiness set point for each of these individuals.

And then they tracked them over time.

And they had them reassess when,

Like,

Something big would happen that was great or something terrible would happen.

So the happiness point would go up and down,

But it would tend to revert eventually back to its set point.

So no matter what happened,

If you won the lottery,

Or you got married,

Or you've had some huge raise,

Or you've sold your book,

It spikes.

And then it drops back to its normal point.

Same with when bad things happened.

It would drop,

But then it would kind of climb back to its normal.

Back to its set point.

The way that you actually could raise the set point is not through any of the big events.

It's through allowing yourself lots of little joys in the day.

Little tiny joys.

You sprinkle more of those in,

Like letting yourself really enjoy your coffee or doing some little small thing that you find pleasurable.

You do that more in life,

And you actually raise the happiness set point.

So this applies a little bit to what you're speaking about,

That if you start to really kind of get into smaller pleasures,

Right,

But have more of them,

It actually increases your sense of well-being.

And then when the big ones come,

Of course,

They're welcome,

You know.

You have these big ah-has and these big moments of feeling merged with everything,

Or feeling your heart expanding or something just makes you laugh like crazy.

All of those are beautiful and fleeting,

Right?

So you start,

I guess my whole point here is to allow yourself,

Incline your awareness to more simple pleasures.

It doesn't preclude the big ones,

But it gives you a more consistent sense of aliveness and well-being.

The big ones are probably more likely to manifest in those circumstances anyway.

I would think so too.

I'm not talking about like,

You know,

Finishing a job or any material stuff.

I'm just talking about sometimes,

So I don't know why the reason is I just get spontaneous,

Pretty radical states of consciousness sometimes.

And when it sort of climbs back down,

It feels like such a huge mountain to climb again.

And I don't know how to exactly.

That's all I'm saying.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well,

It is certainly my experience and I've observed it as the experience of a lot of people who've reported it,

That it is in the relaxation that those sort of free samples come along,

You know?

It is in the deep relaxation and in the kind of openness and a certain gentleness with it all.

And a kind of gratitude,

You know,

That's another open secret to happiness is just gratitude for the little things,

You know,

That you're spending another day above ground is a really good thing to be grateful for.

Just that,

You know?

I know it seems we take it so for granted,

You know?

That answered my question,

But I had a completely different question.

What was your question?

Not aspiring to some greater experience,

But kind of,

Oh,

Why do I want things like that?

I mean,

I'm not a person who's been in a relationship for a long time.

What kind of,

Oh,

Why don't I want things like that?

It's like someone said a couple of weeks ago,

I don't feel motivated to do anything.

And it's kind of similar to that feeling.

But when you mentioned acceptance,

I thought,

Well,

Yes,

Of course.

Yes,

That's fine.

Right,

Yes.

Yeah,

Just to have no quarrel with how you are at all.

Have no big project that you're on in terms of reformation,

You know?

And then the whole system relaxes,

You know,

It's amazing how much peace and delight and love and all the things one kind of hopes for in a spiritual sense.

They all arrive in just the pure relaxation and deep acceptance of your own dear self,

Warts and all.

Someone was saying at the retreat how she could not love herself because there are these innate flaws that she felt about herself,

These things that she just couldn't stand about herself.

So I asked her,

You know,

Have you ever loved anyone,

Warts and all?

And first she hesitated and I said,

For instance,

Your son.

And she said,

Well,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Of course.

Yes,

My son.

And I said,

And anybody else?

She said,

Well,

Yes,

Yes,

Other people as well.

I said,

And can you not apply that to you?

Can you not love you to just say okay to you as you are?

And she said,

Well,

I can't love the warts and all part.

I can't,

I can't,

I can't love me because of that.

And I said,

Well,

You don't have to love,

You don't have to love the parts that you see as warts.

You love yourself despite that.

You love it all.

The whole package,

You say,

Okay,

Just as you are.

All right.

Marianne and I were talking on the way here tonight,

Just about an aspect that we both happen to share that is,

You know,

It's kind of in the category of deficiency.

Socially unacceptable.

Yes.

Socially unacceptable,

Yes,

We both confessed this thing.

And then we were both saying how,

You know,

It's just how we are.

Right?

Now,

Obviously one doesn't go around justifying things that harm other people.

Right?

You don't go around saying,

Well,

It's just how I am.

I don't,

I like to rob people.

You don't do that.

But if it's just something about yourself that isn't really hurting anyone else,

It's just something that you feel,

It's not something you're proud of.

It's something you're not particularly proud of at all.

So be it,

You know,

These demands we have on ourselves about perfection and about,

You know,

Somehow these improvement projects,

These self-improvement programs,

Right?

I just see it all as,

You know,

It just tightens the screws actually on the psyche.

It tightens you down such that it doesn't allow for a kind of magnet,

Magnetivity in your own self toward yourself or toward others.

We know that,

Don't we?

When we've been around people who are trying to be pure,

There's a weird vibe.

Right?

It's like a weird vibe.

It's like not accepting the shadow or the other side,

The dark.

Right,

Sure.

And also it's like not even an understanding that you didn't even do it.

You didn't even,

You,

This manifestation,

Right,

You didn't grow it.

You didn't grow it.

Just as you're not growing your hair,

Right?

You're not beating your heart,

You're not growing your hair.

You're not even thinking your thoughts.

They're just rolling through.

They're all conditioned,

Right?

So there's this conditioned creature.

We have very little control over.

We have just a little tiny bit,

I always say.

We have a little way that we can direct our attention.

And little rudder on the big ship.

And we get to move our attention around.

Most of us,

Not everyone can,

But most of us can.

But in terms of redoing the thing,

Like restructuring it and making it have different thoughts and different inclinations and less fears about certain things and all of those things,

I just see it as a fool's errand at this point.

And I see also how when there is this deep yes,

This profound yes to your own dear self,

Just as you are,

That all the things you may have yearned for kind of come.

Clarity and more feelings of love and being more lovable even.

And our brightness,

A simplicity in how you are.

One of my friends told me years ago,

He was leading a satsang in Seattle.

And someone said to him,

Do you ever get angry?

And he said,

No,

I get furious.

Just the willingness to just say that as it is,

Just how refreshing,

Isn't it?

Didn't you feel that as a refreshing thing to hear?

Or in the way Leonard Cohen,

The kind of brilliant honesty in his work,

Just incredible honesty.

And one of his stanzas is,

I smile when I'm angry,

I cheat and I lie.

I do what I've got to do to get by.

Right?

Just the way Leonard Cohen,

The kind of brilliant honesty in his work,

Just incredible honesty.

I lie,

Right?

Just the honesty of that.

We all know it.

We all probably do it.

A bit.

But it's in the deep,

Deep recognition of that.

Right?

The gentleness around it that would deter you from doing it in such a way that it's harming people.

Just as he was one of the most gentle and kind and incredibly ethical people I've ever known.

I'm just reflecting,

Like since with your opening,

I think what it really comes down to for me is just loving to see the truth of how things actually are.

Like more than how I wish they would be or I wish they would not be.

And I think that's the simplicity of being and not having to dress it up with a lot of beliefs or aspirations.

But just being in love with just the truth of how things are.

Yeah.

And sometimes it takes a little bit of lightly held intentions to appreciate all those little quirks or all the ways in which the way this system is operating does work.

Yes.

In the unique way that it does.

I was really surprised when my luggage shows up at the airport.

How did they do that?

Well also in our own strategies and ways of going about things.

It's also inbuilt into the system,

Just the way that we do what we do,

Just the way that we are.

And just to notice,

We're actually super successful most of the time.

It's just going about how we do what we do.

It's really fine the way it happens.

Yeah.

And also there can be a kind of recognition that in fact a lot of the day,

Unless you're really obsessing about something,

A lot of the day you're just kind of cruising along.

You're just a creature cruising along.

Sometimes eating,

Sometimes walking around,

Sometimes talking.

And so one becomes more being willing to just be simple in that way as well.

Just another being here for a few minutes.

So one of the things I think,

There's a phrase I like a lot.

It's the title of a book by someone I admire.

It's called the myth of human supremacy.

And along with all the other points that he makes in the book,

But one of them is just the pressure we put on ourselves as humans to be special and to be enlightened and to be spiritual and to be fill in the blank.

It's just the endless ambition,

Right,

To be somebody.

And of course it's played out on the planet in terms of the myth of human supremacy.

We've assumed that the whole entire thing was just here for our use.

And unfortunately,

Some of our primitive religions have also taught us that as well.

That the entirety of nature is just here for our own pillage.

But when you take that deeper,

When you take the understanding,

That myth deeper,

You also see how it affects us in terms of thinking we have to kind of gussy up our belief as to who we are and how we should be.

Right.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

Absolutely.

I mean,

Especially here,

Because we're also into being evolved politically,

Spiritually correct human beings.

Correct.

And in fact,

Don't get any more superior than that.

That's right.

Supreme than that.

Yes,

That's right.

Yes.

Yeah,

There's a pressure and all that.

And a pretense.

So,

You know,

Another way to play it,

Of course,

Is to see,

Not in any kind of false humility,

But to really see that we're just another animal here.

We really shouldn't be so proud of our species,

Frankly,

Since we've basically killed off almost everything.

And we're working hard to kill off the rest.

And so,

Again,

This whole sort of pressure on us to sort of be these grand creatures who have everything and can do everything and then get enlightened.

And it's a lot of hubris,

You know.

There's another way to play it.

Other cultures in previous times,

And even a few still left,

Their highest value was to leave no trace of themselves,

Make no history.

Right.

There's a beautiful,

Not just from Burning Man.

This predates Burning Man and thousand years.

There's a beautiful Changsu essay or poem,

The title of which is something like,

When Life Was Full,

They Made No History.

Right.

They kind of came and went as the seasons.

They left no trace.

That people were good just because it felt good to be good.

People helped each other,

You know,

Not for any other kind of advantage,

Except that they enjoyed it and they,

You know,

Loved each other.

It's a whole thing like that,

Basically,

That they made no history.

Right.

They didn't leave their mark.

And it's those kinds of reflections that I think we've lost,

Especially our Western cultures.

I try to recognize that even on like a moment to moment basis of just staying even one step ahead of my own mind,

You know,

Which is going to come in and just claim it all and make something out of it.

You know,

Just to stay naturally responsive just to what is before it just gets itself all tangled up in some agenda.

Yes,

Absolutely.

Yes,

Indeed.

Yeah.

Yeah,

It is a kind of moment to moment thing,

The way you can feel the impulses of ambition,

Basically,

Of wanting to be asserting oneself somehow in the world.

Right.

And it's amazing when that thrust turns off,

Like when it's not there,

Like the difference.

Right.

The difference of just,

You know,

Walking down the street and not having any acquisition story going on.

Right.

I think you've heard me tell this and some people have heard me say this too,

But I was once traveling in Patagonia with my then boyfriend.

And a friend of his who was a photographer for National Geographic.

And the entire day was dedicated to acquisition.

We could not have a moment without it having to be caught captured.

Right.

So it was such it's so opposite the way from the way that I travel and like to be like I can hardly ever be bothered to take a photograph.

I have so few photographs of my entire life.

I only have the ones people have taken for me,

Like have given me.

But this this sense of somehow constantly capturing things and we now see it in the life of social media.

Right.

That there's this constant record having to be acquired to assert that I was there and look at me and I'm having a fabulous time and isn't so wonderful event.

And,

You know,

Just the again the the it's the opposite of making no history.

It's constantly needing to be acquiring and promoting your lived history.

You know,

It's just a way that the that the mind is is tracking.

Right.

And it moves into acquisition.

Right.

It automatically will be moving into how can I acquire this?

How can I make something of it?

How can I mine this?

How can I throw this out as my,

You know,

Avatar in the world?

But the bizarre flip side of that is that then you get to be everything.

I mean,

You get to really play in that.

Yeah.

Because you don't have to make any.

That's right.

Record out of it.

That's right.

No,

It's true.

You're kind of free to play.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You can live very freely.

Right.

Yeah.

And no matter what the record you think you're creating for those people,

I often tell this story here in Byron back in about 2003 or four,

Back when they had video stores.

I back in the old days,

I was at a video store here in Byron Bay and I was looking for the film The Verdict starring Paul Newman.

And so I go to the counter and I tell the guy I'm looking for this film and he looks at me blankly and I said,

Well,

It's with Paul Newman.

He looks at me blankly.

I said,

You know,

Like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

I'm going through the Paul Newman films and he's staring at me.

He's never heard of Paul Newman,

Not even on the tomato sauce apparently.

And I was so amazed by that because he works at a video store,

Right?

He's dealing with films,

Right?

It's not like he worked at the gas station or at the pet shop.

He worked at the video store and he's never heard of Paul Newman.

And that was not to say anything about him.

He was young.

And it was basically what it was saying.

Paul Newman was no longer in the zeitgeist.

Now when I was growing up,

Paul Newman was maybe the biggest male star in the world for a long time,

Right?

But it's just to show that,

You know,

All of these collections of the somebodyness,

Right?

Even those who think they have it in history,

Right?

Even those who think that it's going to carry on.

I mean,

Unless your name happens to be Shakespeare or something,

You know,

It's going to be gone pretty fast.

So to really understand the,

You know,

To really understand the ease that you could feel by letting yourself off the hook.

And then what's also very,

Very interesting,

I've always found,

Is that it allows a creativity to come through you,

Right,

That is not tempered by your ambition and is not a slave to that,

But rather is a kind of pure creativity that's doing it for the love of the offering,

Right?

It's coming from a completely different place.

I've had so many conversations with people over the years who are artists of different types who were worried that if they didn't have their angst and their edge and their anxiety,

And all of those things,

That they wouldn't create.

And I've known so many of them over time to report back after they get more relaxed that their creativity is coming through from a different place,

Just as powerfully and sometimes more powerfully.

It's just coming from a different motivation,

A different,

It comes from wanting to give itself away rather than wanting to get something from the world.

It's a different place that it comes from.

Just for the love of it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And for the offering of it,

Just to feel you're just being well used.

Is that how you discern between healthy and unhealthy acts?

Well,

I would be a little reluctant to make that quite so black and white because I think it would be possible for some people to be motivated from a lot of ambition and wanting to get something from the world and be doing good things.

I think there's a lot of that that goes on.

In fact,

I think a lot of people,

It's become hip and stylish to be world savior warriors.

Well and good.

I'm glad that those guys are out there,

Even though they may be motivated in many cases by a lot of ego material.

It's kind of the new status symbol,

The new status activity.

I would say that in those cases,

It's on balance.

It's relatively healthy that that's happening because it's helpful.

But having been in those circles over the many,

Many years,

I am very keenly attuned to the vibe when it's not coming from a kind of personal aggrandizement and when it's coming from a really pure heart.

I really can notice it and I've been around both a lot.

I've been around the warriors and the kind of,

You know,

The people who you do sense that this is a lot about them and about their glory.

And I've also been around people who are purely humble in it and who it's just about trying to help.

And it's just a very,

Very different vibes.

It was a very,

That subject was quite compelling to me and was the basis of my journalism of 12 years.

It was based on activism and consciousness.

Those were the two subjects that I merged.

I wanted to look at activism that had a component of it that was conscious.

And so I was able to interview a lot of people who I felt represented those understandings very clearly.

But I was also exposed along the way to some of the sort of activist warrior types who,

You know,

It was just a very different energy.

Is there a difference in the outcome or was it?

That's a really good question.

Yeah.

Yeah,

Actually,

I think there was a difference in outcome in many of those cases.

Because when it's coming from the love of it and the purity of it,

It's much more sustaining to keep doing it.

But when it's not,

And it's coming from either anger or some sort of self aggrandizement,

It starts to get exhausting.

So there is a difference in that regard that a lot of the sort of movements that I've seen that were based in this kind of love giving itself away,

They're very sustaining.

They've been going on for a long,

Long,

Long time.

Yeah.

They also tend to be more effective in other ways in that because of that understanding,

They know how to communicate with the so-called opponents,

Right?

There's an understanding of nonviolent communication.

So they are able to not treat people as less than or as enemies.

They're always looking for the way in for communication,

Knowing that communication is the most effective tool for change.

So we can see on the world stage how it works when you don't have communication,

Right?

And how it all just gets more and more mired in violence.

You see it in small ways and in big ways.

I was just,

Well,

Have been sort of sitting with this question since you've been talking,

Especially the last question with these different sort of activists,

One who is really coming from the heart and not really from having any story about what they're doing.

And then the other kind who are coming from,

Well,

Exactly from the story and from that ego place and sort of seeing how that relates to all of our own lives and how it's very easy to get caught up in your own stories about playing the victim or playing the martyr or playing whatever story you have going.

I'm sort of just wondering if there's,

I guess,

Not a foolproof fix,

But sort of any insight you have on how to catch yourself in that or transform that or change that.

Yeah,

One recommendation is to really feel into when you're in one of those states of mind,

The fear that comes up if you're wanting to be seen in a certain way and you might not be or you're being misunderstood or you're trying so hard to present a certain face to the world.

Just feel inside yourself in those moments what it feels like.

Really let yourself notice how it feels and see if you can possibly move your attention out of that and into letting be what will be,

Not needing to present a face at all,

Just to let your own face be the presentation,

Your true face.

It's basically an experiment of feeling into it in each case.

Sometimes for myself,

I'll notice,

Let me think of an example.

Sometimes you meet someone and you think,

Oh,

This person can help me in a certain way.

I might notice some movement in myself that goes into a sort of a presentation.

As soon as that starts to happen,

It feels uncomfortable to me.

As soon as that starts to happen,

I start feeling nervous inside.

And now suddenly I'm not really with this person.

I have an agenda.

I have an agenda that's making me feel nervous.

I have a habit now when that arises,

I challenge it as fast as I can.

I challenge it and I move my attention into letting go.

Let this be.

Do not keep going down this path in my mind.

I go into,

I want nothing.

I just let it play out as it does.

A sort of surrender rather than anything else.

Yes,

Yes,

Exactly.

A sort of surrender,

Basically.

A surrender.

And you can feel when you're with someone who's very surrendered in being.

I once saw Oprah interviewing Richard Gere.

She said something like,

They were talking about just the burden of celebrity.

And she said something like,

I imagine that you're mostly just comfortable around your parents.

They must be the people you're most comfortable with.

And he said,

Well,

Actually,

I'm most comfortable with the Dalai Lama.

And she said,

Oh,

Really,

Why?

And he said,

Because he wants nothing from me.

Right.

I thought that was so beautiful.

Because someone like Richard Gere,

He probably feels a certain something even with his own family.

That there's maybe even with them,

There's something,

An agenda of some sort,

A little bit.

But with the Dalai Lama,

There was no agenda at all.

So to really sort of sit in the place where you really are offering out there,

First of all,

Fearlessness to anyone around you.

They don't have to impress you.

They don't have to be anything other than themselves.

And then give that present to yourself as well.

You don't have to be anything in particular.

And just to be clear with all of this,

This doesn't mean that you don't love being creative.

Right?

It doesn't mean that you don't love finding the ways in which you can give yourself away with your own true talent and genius.

Right?

That's all beautiful.

It can come from a very different place inside.

I'm working on an essay on the efficacy of mindfulness in preventing the relapse of depression and anxiety.

And I very much want to grasp the topic and understand it well and embody it both so that I can teach it and because I suffer from those things myself.

But in the process of writing this essay or starting to research this essay today,

I worked myself into a state of anxiety.

And I was really trapped in it.

And even though I was reading these academic papers about the theory and the Four Noble Truths and whatnot,

I was still in it.

And it just created more pressure for myself,

Which just made it worse.

And then I tried some of the usual distractions like eating or having a nap and talking to some friends,

Listening to an inspiring talk.

But I was still very anxious when I came here.

And now after hearing your beautiful teachings on the Dharma,

I feel a lot more relaxed.

So the term that comes to mind is taking refuge in the Dharma.

And that's how I feel this evening.

So thank you.

Yes,

Beautiful.

Lovely.

Yeah,

It's amazing how,

You know,

A sort of shift of attention,

Things just kind of calm down.

Sort of.

Well,

I think it was useful to be reminded a number of times this evening about the tendency to strive.

Yes.

And this week,

I've just realized reflecting on my week that I've been doing this,

Oh,

I need to do that course and I need to do this and I need to do that and watch this and listen to that.

And actually,

What I just need is none of that.

I need simplicity and space.

Right.

That's what all those programs are pointing to.

Exactly.

And I've been doing the same thing for years.

Yes,

I know.

It's the trap of the modern world and the internet.

It's all just there.

It's so tempting.

I know.

I know.

And you keep thinking it's going to,

You know,

You're going to pull the lever and all the coins will fall out somehow.

All the wisdom.

Yes,

All the wisdom coins.

Yes.

Yes.

Right.

Yeah.

We're very indoctrinated to keep acquiring.

Right.

As though with enough mass of the acquisition,

It's somehow going to,

You know,

Pay off.

It's the other direction.

It's the other direction,

Especially in this regard.

Right.

In this domain of being that turns out to be so simple,

You know,

So simple that any idea that you have to do something to experience it is in itself the obstacle.

So then when you free all of that up,

When you free all of that belief up and all that's driving,

Then your great energy can be used appropriately.

And by the way,

I would say in your own authentic language and your own authentic talent,

It doesn't have to mimic anything that you see out there.

Maybe when you're sitting in the center of your being,

It won't mimic anything.

It'll be completely unique as you are.

So you'll be giving,

Punjaji used to say,

A true teacher only gives you his or her experience.

All the rest are preachers.

Right.

All the rest are preachers.

There are a lot of preachers out there with various programs.

They go by the lists and the books and the certain ways that they view the world.

It's just rampant out there.

And yet to really speak it from your own inner self,

From the center of your being,

It's going to come out fresh and be,

Like I said,

Unique.

This has been In the Deep.

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

Com,

Where you can also book a private session by phone or Skype and see my schedule of upcoming events.

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Please consider making either a one-time or a recurring tax-deductible donation in any amount that is comfortable for you.

Until next time.

Reviews

Very calming and supportive talk. Thank you!

Needed/ready to hear this. Humility over hubris. Sustainable non-violent communication creates a comfortable approachable space

Thank you that was beautiful. I love the simple things and love that I can give myself the permission to live my own truth.

Beautiful message!

Very inspiring! Thank you for reiterating taking off the mask and being ourselves!

Wonderful talk. Thanks for being here and opening up with your insights.

Nathan

Awesome 🙏🏽🦋🕉

Dear Catherine, thank you for such clarity on simplicity. My heart really concurred.

Many thanks for heart felt sharing 🙏🦋