Living With Injustice

Fair play in life was never guaranteed and instead, we often experience and observe injustice. We are called upon to live with injustice and yet to carry on with dignity and justice in our own behavior so that at least we can live with ourselves. We see human behavior through an evolutionary lens--as a species feature -- and use our attention to override the more selfish impulses within ourselves and to find understanding for those who cannot.

Transcript

Welcome to In the Deep.

I'm your host,

Catherine Ingram.

The following is from a Zoom session broadcast from Australia on August 7th,

2021.

It's called Living with Injustice.

As we were just sitting there,

These words just floated through.

The future as a concept,

Which is all that it is,

The future as a concept,

An idea in our minds,

Is unresolved.

The present as a lived experience is perfectly resolved.

The future as a concept in our minds as an idea,

Unresolved,

Right?

Anything can happen.

It can go any which way.

It can go in difficult ways.

Even in ways that we imagine it might go well,

We're not sure that it will.

We're not sure that you'll get to go on the plane that day or that the picnic's going to happen or that the job is going to come through or,

Right,

Many things that are uncertain,

Unresolved.

The future as an idea,

As a picture in the imagination always remains unresolved.

And that comes with a little tension,

Sometimes more than a little,

Depending on the anxiety attached to whatever the imagination about the future is.

Whereas the present is perfectly resolved.

Whatever it is,

It's already so.

I once heard Ram Dass say,

It was something very comforting,

Actually,

I must say.

I've mentioned it before other times on Dharma dialogues,

But,

You know,

He died a few years ago and he had had a stroke in the 90s and had lived with partial paralysis and inabilities that came with having a pretty massive stroke.

And not very,

Very long after he had the stroke,

I mean,

Maybe within a year or so,

He said this thing,

He said,

The idea about having a stroke or any kind of paralysis prior to the stroke was one of the most frightening things he ever had thought about.

And I think most of us would agree that that would be something that would be terrifying most times when we would think about something like that.

But he said the lived experience was so different than what his fear had been.

Now,

He wasn't saying it was a big,

You know,

Romping party,

But that the imagination about it was very different than the momentary existence within it.

I found that very,

Very encouraging.

And it's been my experience too,

In many ways,

Things that I maybe dreaded or worried about that didn't quite come to be in the way that I was worrying about them,

Or even things that did come to be or were worse than I thought,

That the actual lived experience when you're just moment to moment,

And especially if you have a habit of being very present,

You can be very,

Very present in all kinds of circumstances and find a kind of lightness in them.

Now,

Some,

We have to give the biological animal its due.

There are some circumstances,

Such as starvation,

Which so grips the attention that there's just probably a fixation on just getting fed,

Whether it's food or thirst that you're dealing with.

When you consider the hierarchy of needs,

As Maslow talked about,

You would want,

Of course,

To have the survival needs met.

So we're going to have to allow for the biological animal to have just at least the basics,

Some food and water,

And perhaps also a sense of general safety,

Because otherwise,

If you're being attacked or being chased or anything like that,

Again,

The full grip of the attention will be on survival.

But when you're not just on the survival level at the most basic of the needs,

Of the hierarchy of needs,

When those are met,

Now what are we doing with our minds?

Are we in a constant state of feeling unresolved about the future?

We've just lived through this time,

We're still in it,

Of just immense uncertainty.

That has been a great factor in the anxiety and stress and mental illness we're seeing.

Understandably,

Of course,

That's a big factor,

Because especially if we live a lot in the future,

If in our minds we're thinking about the future a lot,

Well,

It was never a situation where it was resolved for anybody at any time.

But especially of late,

Especially in our time of pandemic.

So it's very,

Very hard to make plans,

And you can't really dream the kind of dreams that you might have been able to do or used to doing for much of our privileged lives and so on.

It's this sort of big,

Blank,

Kind of dark sky out there.

I don't mean that in a necessarily gloomy way or anything,

But just a mystery floating in our minds,

Unresolved.

That's why it's so helpful to have a habit of present awareness.

And obviously you can't just stick in present awareness all the time.

We are creatures who do like to plan,

And we do have some relationship to what's called the future.

We like to think about it.

We like to have some kind of sense of control,

Even though it's illusory,

But we like it.

We like that feeling.

And so of course we're going to fantasize or we're going to dread or whatever about the future.

That's just natural.

But if we have a strong habit of present awareness,

And you're hanging out there mostly,

Mostly,

Then things feel resolved.

It's not even a word that even comes up.

You're just there.

It's not even that there's a resolution.

It's just that you're just at ease.

Things are more simple.

Yeah,

I,

It's kind of related to the tension of the sort of jitteriness really of that unresolved sensation that you referred to.

Like a jitters and a sense of seeking after something else than what's here.

And I had a,

An experience this week.

I found myself very berating of myself for not being more at ease,

For not being more at ease.

And I kind of just came upon this phrase that I thought,

God,

I've kind of got sloganitis.

It was,

I was fishing around when I had the sensation of jitteriness.

I had my mind coming up with berating type of thoughts for various not good enough reasons.

And I was fishing around desperately for,

Okay,

What is it?

This is enough,

Right?

Okay,

This is enough.

Let it go,

Right?

Let it go.

And I thought,

God,

I was trying to pull on kind of wisdom sentences that I have either heard maybe you say,

Or I've read in Pemmick Chodron,

Or it was a phrase that Ticnac Han said,

Which is suffering is not enough,

That there needs to be some sort of kindness and gratitude,

Etc.

And I felt myself desperately casting around,

Trying to,

Trying to grab comfort from slogans.

Well,

Sometimes the reminders do work.

But if you're finding that they're actually causing an agitation because you're feeling even further some sort of failure,

Because the slogans aren't working,

Then that's the time to let them go.

And to really and to allow yourself sometimes jitteriness.

As human animals,

And of course,

Depending on one's nature and conditioning and all kinds of things,

We experience anxiety to different degrees.

And some of us experience anxiety very,

Very strongly.

So one has to be very aware that you're working with your own nature.

And to be gentle about that,

You don't have to say,

I've got to be gentle now about my nature,

But you can just sort of realize there are going to be times when you feel anxious,

Possibly if that's your nature and tendency.

But I'm a big proponent of redirecting the attention in any way that does work for you,

Because it's all just a matter of how much you want to suffer through.

If you're feeling jittery,

And it's just going on and on and on.

And the problem with those kinds of chemicals is that they feed the system into jitteriness,

More anxiety.

So it is helpful to interrupt it if you can.

It's not a problem that it's there.

It's not a problem that it arises.

And if you don't really feel like interrupting it,

Then it just goes on and then you'll suffer through a bit longer.

But there are ways,

Of course,

To interrupt.

And I do recommend that because it just calms the whole system down.

So sometimes saying something to yourself,

A reminder,

Sometimes it's a matter of putting on your some beautiful music,

Even though like,

It's weird when we're in a kind of funky mind state,

We'll resist doing the one thing that we know might pop the sound.

Whether that's go for a walk,

Or,

You know,

Go for a clean the house a little bit or put on some great music and dance.

Anything,

You know,

Anything that you know will be a slight change of mood or change of the mind movie for the moment,

Or a Dharma reminder in terms of reading something that calms you down or reflecting on something that you know is true in your heart.

Those kinds of,

I mean,

This is all just classic stuff that I'm saying.

And I know you,

You having done a lot of practice and trainings and so on,

Know this.

But if what you're saying is this,

This sloganitis doesn't work for you,

Then don't use sloganitis,

Use something else or use slogans when you're more receptive.

I sometimes and I know you've probably heard me say this.

Sometimes if I'm having a thought that's troubling me,

I will force a counter thought.

I'll debate the idea in my mind,

Right?

I'll say hang on a minute,

Even if this thought I'm having,

The anxiety producing thought may have validity,

I will give it its due.

But then I'll have a counter thought that contradicts that thought.

Then I also can see validity in that one as well.

So they kind of,

It becomes a wash.

And I'll sometimes just get quiet behind it.

I'll just get quiet after that little exercise.

As you as you all know,

Everyone who knows me on this call knows that I pay a lot of attention to the news.

I could just do I have a lifelong interest from the time I was pretty young,

Really,

But certainly for many years as a journalist as well.

And I have this interest in the historical moment in which we live.

I've said it many times,

I just have that interest that we're sharing this planet with all these other beings.

And it's just this wild,

Wild happening.

Maybe the wildest in history,

Because there's more of us than ever before ever in history by far.

Just in my lifetime,

There are more than three times the number of people on the planet since I was born.

So just by dent of the numbers and the fact that we're all interconnected and can know about things that are going on everywhere and everything is going faster and faster.

And it's all it's wild.

And talk about unresolved and uncertain.

And,

You know,

So in the watching of all of this,

I can sometimes envision very,

Very dark scenarios,

Which can seem perfectly realistic.

But one of the counters and it's not to say I don't usually counter it with no,

That'll never happen.

I don't say that.

But what I do sometimes say is,

Is my overindulgence in thinking about this and paying attention to this,

It's to the degree that it's actually causing me anxiety.

Is that going to help anything?

Is it going to help me?

Is it going to change the course?

Or is this?

Are these my precious moments of my life?

And is this really how I need to spend most of them?

Maybe I can spend some of them that way because I'm having interest.

But at what point is the balance tipped over?

And I don't really need to be thinking about those kinds of things.

So that's how I would counter and do counter what can sometimes be obsessive interest in,

You know,

Going down rabbit holes of information that is just causing anxiety.

This is my recommendation.

You use your own ways of balancing yourself,

Of regulating your system and give yourself permission to do whatever needs to be done in that regard.

Give yourself permission to have some joys that you know will calm you down.

And only you know what those are.

Nice to see all of you.

Your thoughts about future anxiety are very well timed.

You know,

I have this picture in my mind of high in the mountains,

A huge glacier,

A very high glacier that weighs down heavily on a little alpine hut.

And what it must be like to live in that alpine hut when you come out in the morning and then you turn around and you see this massive glacier that just for some reason is hanging above where you are.

Is it hanging or is it or is it on solid ground?

It's on solid ground.

But what I mean is to say it stayed there for one more night yet again.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Right.

I hear you.

And so I sort of feel like this future angst is really a thing because in a way we're all living with this glacier behind our hut.

And at any moment the glacier could have a slip.

You know,

So we have these kinds of angst,

Angst,

And then we also have the angst from the construction of this crazy society that we have.

We have angst about our money,

About the government whom we've given our trust to perform the act of future for us.

We ask the government to be our future because they decide the relations that we have with other countries.

They decide how the corporations should be regulated.

They decide our lives.

So all of this makes me feel smaller and smaller and smaller.

Then yesterday I had a meeting,

A wonderful,

Gorgeous time with my three adult daughters who live all in different places in the world.

And they were all here and we spent the day and their ages are between 21 and 30.

And we talked about the future.

And do you know,

The three of them agreed and said to me that my generation has taken all of the chips off the table and left nothing for them.

We've sucked up all the air.

We've consumed all of the goods of the earth and we've left them no future.

So I would ask you,

What can I say to my daughters and what can I say to myself in view of their criticism?

Have we in fact created a world where our younger generation has no entry into the lives that we have,

The lives of privilege,

The lives of wealth,

The lives of freedom from fear of future?

I mean,

Let me back up slightly,

Which is that we are part of a long line of evolutionary movements,

Big and small.

We are part of a species that did this for a very long time.

We are exactly where our species was headed all along.

Every step of that way,

Humans were trying to make their lives better.

They were trying to have stored,

Like even just agriculture,

For instance,

When agriculture became a thing,

That was so that they could live better lives,

Longer lives,

Have food stored instead of having to chase it down every day or forage it.

Every step,

The steam engine,

The car,

The planes,

Every step of the way,

It seemed a good idea to the people at the time.

They wanted those things and it seemed like it made life much,

Much better.

It wasn't just our generation.

Now,

We did get a very disproportionate amount of the spoils by just happenstance due to our time of birth.

We got a lot of the spoils.

We got the apex,

Maybe,

Of the spoils and of the party that got to fly around and do all those things and not have to worry.

We really didn't have to start worrying about the complete collapse until fairly recently.

My heart breaks for the younger people.

It really does.

I have had to really work through that over the years and see that I have a section in my essay called No Blame.

No Blame.

We all did it.

It's not fair.

It's not fair.

I agree.

But fairness was really never part of the equation in this thing called life.

You have to basically find some kind of acceptance to live with injustice and to carry on with as much dignity and justice in your own heart as you can given the circumstances.

So what I would say to them is,

And I do find that the concept of no blame takes a lot of the sting out and also acknowledging that,

Yes,

You're right.

It's not fair.

Their future looks tougher,

Frankly.

I don't have a crystal ball,

But it does look tougher from all that you and I both know and that many people on this call know about climate collapse and about all of the pressures that that's going to put on everything.

There are already so many shortages going on that we in our privileged lives aren't so much yet aware of.

There are many,

Many,

Many serious shortages that are happening,

Not just food,

But electrical parts and car parts and all manner of things that are going to be disruptive.

And I just want to hug all the young people and just tell them,

Have fun,

Do things you love.

Don't strain in different ways that sometimes young people will tend to do,

Thinking they need to prove something.

But really,

You can only model a kind of calm and a kind of understanding that is what we've got here.

I do find that the younger people that,

You know,

When I say younger people like the age of my daughters or my students,

That they are very,

Very present.

I mean,

They're really in now much more than I was at that stage in my life.

And they've sort of shifted from the very egocentric future goal-oriented living that we grew up with.

I had a very strong narrative in my life that was sort of a backbone of my striving.

They don't have that.

They don't have this huge imposition on them of what is expected of them.

Go out and get that job and you've got to make these goals by this age.

Make a name for yourself and all those things.

Yeah.

Well,

Kudos to you as their dad that they're not afflicted with that,

You know,

Because that's yet another unnecessary burden,

Especially now.

I have managed to forgive us a lot,

Our species.

I have struggled with my fury at the injustice and the unfairness and the limitations that I foresaw for the young people I love.

But I have for the most part come to this quiet of saying this is what evolution did.

This is the human story.

Well,

I'm always happy to be here with you all,

My boys who are 20 and 23 now.

And my heart just breaks like you.

You know,

I could just sit and cry about it.

But yeah,

It's really it's a big,

It's a big one.

Yeah,

It is a big one.

You know,

I watched a conversation between Joe Rogan and this woman defector from North Korea was a very long conversation,

About three hours.

And I was riveted.

I was blown away by this conversation.

And by hearing what life in North Korea was for her.

I mean,

No matter what we think we know about it,

And how horrible you thought it might have been,

It was 1000 times worse.

I had just no idea it was as bad as it is.

And listening to that conversation was a shift for me also listening to her and feeling her strength and her.

She didn't even know what love was.

They don't have a word for love.

You just can't believe how stripped down it's just pure survival.

You know,

Just pure.

Yeah,

Really sad.

Talk about an injustice that is going on in our time.

The brutality of it,

The cruelty of it.

If anybody does anything wrong,

Like they have to have pictures of,

You know,

The dear leader in their home in their houses,

They have portraits.

And occasionally the guards randomly come into your house.

And if there's dust on the picture,

You will be executed.

And sometimes they execute three generations of your family.

Even the in-laws,

I mean everybody and over the most incredibly tiny infractions.

And they live in this,

This sort of nightmarish,

No future,

No warmth,

Complete terror.

And I was,

I was so amazed to be in the presence of this person,

This beautiful,

Beautiful young North Korean woman.

And all of,

All of our stories pale.

You know,

You think about what we humans have had to live through and just keep getting up,

Keep going.

And we sometimes get tormented,

Which we can't help because we,

We have been so privileged and so lucky.

We did hit such a good time slot in history.

But I think it's helpful to really try as best we can to be in gratitude and to say the ones we love,

Although there's some young ones in there,

Your children,

People on this call,

Their children,

My little ones in my family,

They may not get what we consider their fair share of life.

They may not,

As many people haven't in history.

So we are left with what is the wisest way then to spend this time here on this planet?

Right.

That's what I've been thinking about the lately,

The latest time.

I think it's pretty much in that direction,

Which you're talking about now.

It's about how am I spending this time?

And I've asked myself,

What have I learned during this grief period and also the lockdown?

And one of the things I've learned is a very important one.

And that is I have become so slow.

Well,

Actually,

I think I've always been slow,

But I've always been rushing around in my life,

Always stressing,

Stressing,

Rushing,

Rushing,

You know,

And it's been actually horrible.

And now,

Well,

Now I'm just so slowly and it's really good for me.

So when I ask myself,

Like you often say,

What makes you happy?

It makes me happy to be slow.

Good.

And I can feel that I don't want to compromise anymore.

So no matter who I'm going to meet in the future,

I'm going to continue to be slow.

And it's my nature and it makes me happy.

It's beautiful.

So it's just,

I think it's a very,

For me,

It's a very big insight.

I've been pressuring myself my whole life and now I'm not anymore.

And it feels so good.

So it's all about allowing myself to be slow.

So I just wanted to share that too.

That's a great thing to discover.

And it's pretty easy to come by,

You know,

Your life is not set up in such a way that you're having to race around.

Yeah.

So I like to go slow as well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well,

You've been talking about,

I've heard you say it since 2008.

I thought I heard you,

But I didn't.

You know,

I hear you now.

Yeah,

Very good.

That's beautiful.

Nice to be here with everybody.

Nice to see you.

I work with a lot of young people who have had a lot of trauma in their lives and I've had a lot of conversations of late,

Incidental conversations.

And I just wanted to share a little bit about what an irony it is that the planet is so damaged and so many,

You know,

We've talked about this tonight,

So many things we have destroyed to the point of extinction and we could list them all,

But we know it,

We're living it.

And I feel like what an irony it is that there are also so many young people with so,

So much,

I don't want to get into a big hope cycle about it because I do not know what is going to happen,

But I think it's ironic and deeply interesting that all of this is happening in the context of lots of things fragmenting and actually there are some quite remarkable young people there.

And I'm not saying that,

You know,

I'm not just talking about,

You know,

Climate ambassadors and Greta and people like that.

I just mean people in everyday life who are navigating their lives as young people in a way that I would never have had the thoughtfulness or the encouragement,

Even with all their trauma.

I find it really an interesting,

Just an interesting dynamic.

And I just put that into the conversation as well.

I just know it's a very deep experience to witness young people amid all the mess,

Finding their way through.

It makes me think there's something amazing about this time as well.

I agree.

It's like wartime.

In America,

I don't know if you had the same phrase here in Australia,

But the people of that era of the wartime of World War II in particular,

They were referred to as the greatest generation.

Actually,

They went through two wars,

You know,

But they were called the greatest generation because there was some kind of metal of heart and cohesiveness of purpose and cooperation.

And a lot of people,

As hard as it was,

A lot of people who lived through that have very complicated feelings about how alive they felt in those times and how connected they felt.

Now,

Of course,

There was a lot of sorrow and loss and grief and heartache.

But there is something too about this time.

We're not just sort of drifting along in some kind of sleepy,

Woozy,

Materialistic fixation that we actually had been in for quite some time.

It's a different thing.

And I agree.

There is something very awake.

There's something very alive and awake about this.

And it sure snaps into place what the priorities are here and what matters.

And,

You know,

Who do you love and all those things?

Yeah.

Yeah.

When you were saying about the future,

I was thinking not unusually,

But yesterday I visited a relative who's in decline,

You know,

Health-wise.

And I suppose I'm at that stage of life where the elder generation,

One after the other,

It's kind of the age and different illnesses.

And it's,

You know,

Apart from the sort of,

You could say,

Existential future reality of the world,

There's also an individual level.

It's hard.

It's hard going through that.

And I don't have children.

So I do find there's more of a focus on the elder generation going,

You know,

Or going into,

You know,

Having different conditions.

And yeah,

It's the whole living in the present and the future thing.

It's tricky because it's,

And particularly depending on your constitution.

I mean,

I won't go into too much detail,

But a couple of weeks ago,

I went on this crusade of watching documentaries about the Holocaust.

Because I've been feeling a lot of life's not fair and things have happened for me that aren't fair.

And so I thought,

Okay,

You think life isn't fair,

But look at what happened even for the people who were liberated,

You know,

The horrific atrocities.

And then I started feeling angry that,

You know,

One of the fundamental things about humanity is they're not wanting to know.

And I find I get really irritated with people,

You know,

Generally,

I have to really watch it.

That,

You know,

If I can see this subtle excess of positivity mindset,

I'm getting,

I have to kind of hold myself back on being a little bit too much of the reality party pooper,

You know.

But the paradox for me is that I don't find it easy to live with a difficult sense of the future.

But nonetheless,

I do get irritated at what I see to be the not wanting to know,

You know,

The COVID deniers who don't want to accept that the virus is dangerous or the Holocaust deniers who don't want to face the reality of what people did.

So after this fate of watching the documentaries,

I just thought I'm not buying that as a species,

We're really nice,

You know,

Just not buying it,

You know.

Here's the thing.

Here's the thing.

Let me just stop in there.

We're a big range of,

You know,

We're a big range.

Yeah,

There are people,

I mean,

Listening to that whole North Korea thing was stomach turning to think of what people do.

And that's not just there.

It's all over.

You know,

It's Yeah,

Yes,

Of course,

There's a depravity,

You know,

And we can talk about we can wonder about,

You know,

The old phrase,

Hurt people,

Hurt people.

You can give a number of people a pass because they're so miserable themselves and never had any kind of warmth and so on.

But nevertheless,

Yes,

Very dangerous species here.

Very dangerous killer species.

And,

And there's an incredible range.

You know,

We really knock it out of the park on a whole lot of things.

You know,

There are real wisdom heroes,

People who are just naturally good,

And who are self sacrificing and who are merciful and who are not even that they have to be forgiving because they don't take on the hate in the first place that there's just this way in which the spirit is stunning.

And the talent and the nuance and the communication and use.

I know so well what you're saying because I fall into that as well.

I feel like people should bear witness.

I don't hear I don't want to hear a bunch of Pallianus stuff.

And I can't stand hopium and all those things.

And it's,

You know,

True of my nature.

Right.

I've had to work with it and forgive everybody everything and realize that a lot of people can't handle anything more than what they're already handling.

Like they're not made of strong stuff.

And they can't,

You know,

And maybe maybe they can find that kind of strength when pressed.

Sometimes people surprise themselves and those around them,

They step up.

But some people can't.

So yeah,

Anyway,

I interrupted your thought but I wanted to know.

No,

Absolutely.

No,

I,

Yeah,

I totally agree.

And what I'm saying as well is that,

You know,

It's very difficult for me to that reality I find of the generations having to witness sometimes difficult ends that people didn't deserve that I know,

You know,

And that you would think,

Oh my god,

Of all things,

They shouldn't have had to have that kind of a difficult end.

And yet that happens sometimes.

It's,

It's the small little unfairnesses that are getting to me at the moment,

Apart from the kind of the global and what you were saying as well about with your needs aren't met.

I think that's a critical point,

You know,

Sometimes if needs aren't being met,

Or this chronic physical pain all the time,

Sometimes people are just pushed to limits where you really it's just clinging to the side of a rock.

And,

And I know you've mentioned before,

Robin Williams,

I haven't been able to find that documentary,

But that sometimes I think suicides are simply beyond what we can understand because people have been pushed to limits that we probably can't conceptualize and that some natural instinct maybe takes over.

You know,

Yeah,

A few people who committed suicide,

And they just were at the end of their line at the end of the rope.

And life had life was no longer worth living with them.

Yeah,

It was like it had the balance had tipped so that there wasn't enough that was making it meaningful or tolerable.

Yeah,

Maybe that might be different for everybody.

Yes,

I would say so.

I would say that it is.

Yeah.

That said,

You know,

One of my really close friends has Parkinson's,

He's in very early stages,

But it is progressing as it does.

And so there are new limitations for him.

As time goes every few months or so or six months,

This changes.

And he said to me the other day on the phone,

He said,

You know,

Life's still good.

And I just keep adjusting.

And I still thought that,

You know,

Similar to what Ram does had said,

Just all the ways that again,

The human spirit can be very,

Very strong.

And we are being called upon to bear a lot,

Witness to a lot.

And at the same time,

That was the price of the ticket for being here.

The paradox that sometimes,

You know,

These,

You know,

That some of the Nazis that fled and they were they were able to,

Whatever,

Hide their identity,

But then create incredible kind of technological creations,

Despite being these horrendous people who did what they did.

Yet they were able to maybe produce,

You know,

It's a paradox of the human evolutionary spirit as you're talking about.

It's mind blowing,

Really.

I mean,

Yeah,

It is a wild time to be here.

I mean,

You know,

I keep coming back to that as well.

It's just an incredibly wild time slot.

And the extremes of the denial versus the terror,

You know,

It's to try and counter the narrative of the personal narrative of sometimes it's life isn't fair that I try and bear witness.

And then it becomes overwhelming,

You know,

As soon as you enter into the realm about fairness and justice here on planet Earth with the humans running about.

Yeah,

You're in trouble already.

There is none.

As very little,

Very little works out to be just.

And then you strive for it,

Don't you?

It's kind of part of our nature.

There's some innate yearning for it.

I had a big passion about that as a child because I felt the world was so unjust and unfair and in my personal life as well.

And so I've had a real Jones about it for a long time.

But that one will really get you because it does make me miss it.

Yeah,

It's not the narrative of the it's not fair.

But if you think that's happened for me as well,

That just don't seem to make sense,

Given all the good deeds I did and blah,

Blah,

Blah.

That just it just doesn't work.

You know,

It really doesn't.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm always I'm always baffled when I hear it like something terrible will happen to say a relative,

Somebody dies and and their relatives are saying,

I just can't believe it happened to someone so good,

So kind,

Such a good person.

It's like,

Where have you been?

What have you been paying attention to?

It's like,

Yeah,

It's a hard one.

It's a hard one to read.

But I think it's critical,

Isn't it?

Yeah,

It is.

Yeah.

Basically,

Basically,

Having to accept the unacceptable to having to imbibe things that just are unfair and hurt and and having no real story that makes it OK.

Like,

You know,

When I was a young Buddhist,

I really liked the whole idea about karma and,

You know,

Just leveled the playing field.

If you didn't get your justice in this life,

It's going to come,

You know,

Yeah,

Yeah.

And but,

You know,

When all those kinds of beliefs fall away,

You're actually left with much more difficult to hoe with watching injustice and having to find quiet in the midst of that.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you so much.

You're welcome.

Good to see you.

I'm back in Ireland.

So that's why I'm on this call.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I usually see you on the US calls.

So you're in Dublin?

I'm in temporary.

OK.

Yeah,

I'm back.

I've been anxious for a while about this trip.

I'm back with my wife's ashes.

So we're bored from the same town here.

Yeah.

And the service is not so we're having a service next Saturday and like a celebration afterwards and stuff.

But I'm just it's really about allowing people,

Allowing myself to let the love in and allowing myself to be kind of vulnerable and emotional back here,

Which is kind of difficult for me because I didn't grow up kind of in a place where I was able to be vulnerable and emotional.

So I find it easier to be more open in New York than I do back here.

People are so loving and kind and it's just but it but it brings all it brings the grief really to the surface.

You know,

Every time I meet somebody who knew who knew me when we were younger or April or both of us,

You know,

It's a small kind of town,

Only,

You know,

Seven or eight thousand people and most people know one of us or both of us or our families.

Yeah.

So everywhere you go,

It's kind of somebody.

And I find myself trying to actually I'm only here a couple of days,

Which is fine.

But because I'm like I'm finding myself like trying to avoid people,

Which I don't want to be.

I want to be more open,

But I'm still like,

You know,

Sure if that makes any sense.

Yeah,

It makes perfect sense.

And just obviously you're being you're being reminded of all the the history of it all.

And and I mean,

I would I would think so that what you're doing there is part of the thing with a memorial of sorts with,

You know,

Being with those who knew you both.

It's a kind of catharsis.

It's like basically,

I think it's one of the things that when we lose someone,

There is something about being with those who loved that someone as well,

Like really being with the ones who really knew and loved that person.

And there's something that I mean,

It's it's been a tradition in in our human way of grieving for forever.

You you're with the people who loved the one who's departed.

And this nobody else who quite gets it the same way.

Now,

Nobody probably gets it like you or her family.

But but just those the other people who would know the two of you are sharing and second amortizing of grief.

And it allows you the tears again.

And it's very,

Very amazing that you did this that you brought her ashes back home.

What an incredible act of love.

Yeah,

She wanted her ashes on a on a certain beach in the west of Ireland.

So and then some of them with her mom and dad here as well.

And I'll keep some of them.

There's a lot of ashes.

But it's important for like,

You know,

Only one sister was able to come to New York at the time for the funeral.

So,

You know,

She's a brother and sister and nieces and nephews and uncles and aunts and a lot of friends and a lot of friends.

Well,

Like I know it must be incredibly emotional.

And yet it feels like something very healthy about doing this that will just feel like a really important piece of the whole process.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I'm gone.

You know,

I'm gone.

I've lived in New York longer than I've lived here now.

But the love that came from this town.

It's unbelievable.

It was like we never left.

Which is a beautiful thing.

The kind of sense of community I feel very fortunate.

Yeah,

I bet.

Just unbelievable.

Yeah.

People have really showed up.

Do you feel tempted to go back home?

No,

It just rains too much.

Yeah.

I just couldn't live with the rain.

I'm serious.

But April always wanted to come home eventually.

And we probably would have had.

But it wouldn't have been my choice.

But I think she would have come home for community.

You know,

And she probably would have been right.

I don't know what I'll do,

But I'm quite happy where I am for now.

Yeah.

Good.

Good.

Yeah.

Well,

Yeah,

Just let the love wash through and it'll come with tears.

I mean,

Sometimes,

You know,

Not just sometimes,

A lot of times the tears flow even more when there's so much love that's showering you.

And yeah,

Good to see you,

My dear.

Good to see you.

Yeah.

Thank you.

No,

Thank you.

I have just a question that may be too intellectual,

But it's been with me since you've been talking about where do you see the systems in that?

Like,

To me,

We can talk of humans and the whole range of what we're capable of.

But I also see this thing of,

Let's say,

Capitalism or,

You know,

Whatever might be going on in North Korea,

Having a kind of a life of its own in some way,

Even though it's made up of people.

Yeah,

I'm just wondering how,

I mean,

To me,

An awful lot of what you,

You know,

You've named evolution for some reason that that capitalistic part,

The part that's grown out of maybe the part of humans that's into greed and the notion of scarcity and I must have it for me and the cost to everybody else and the world doesn't matter.

Now that's,

Dran has flourished and I would still see it having huge,

Huge impact on humans.

Yeah.

I just wonder if you have anything to say on the interface between us and those systems.

I mean,

It's probably too huge a consideration for this particular format.

I can certainly recommend some books that have considered it very,

Very profoundly,

But it's really not for this format.

But what I would say instead is that,

Again,

This is just what we did here.

There was capitalism.

We tried,

You know,

Communism wasn't such a success either.

Socialism,

Certainly whatever they've got going on in China and in places like North Korea doesn't exactly appeal to me.

There've been all kinds of experiments and ideas and mad men with their various power driven needs that were able to kind of create a mass psychosis in various points of history we keep seeing and keep being replayed.

All of that is just going on and we humans who are just living ordinary lives,

So-called,

Are just trying to get by and have some loving interactions and be gentle.

Sometimes we're the fodder in these people's games.

And again,

It's not fair.

It's not fair.

You didn't sign up for it,

But it's just what we've got here.

And so I always come back to how much time am I going to spend shaking my fist at the sky?

How much time and effort and rage and probably cost my health?

Am I going to spend railing against the system?

One of my friends in LA,

His dad was a famous cinematographer who won two Oscars.

But when he was a young man,

His dad put out a magazine in his college and the name of the magazine was Against Everything.

I found that strangely charming,

Just against everything.

It's sort of like when you're a firebrand in college,

It's a perfect time to go through that phase,

But it doesn't play well in older age,

Actually.

And so to kind of come to a point where you just say,

Okay,

Here it is,

Suchness.

This is what it is.

And are there bad actors on the stage?

Yes,

There are.

There are people who are really incredibly selfish and cruel and unfair and are happy to take not only just more than their share,

They're happy to take everything.

And then there's the angels are on the stage as well.

And I don't even see this show anymore as a battle of light and darkness.

I just see it all smushed all in together and it's all just roaring along.

There's a meta level above the political dramas,

The ideas that drive the political systems and so on.

There's another level where it's quiet and where it's like witnessing from afar almost,

You know,

Like you widen out the lens and you just see there is this wild species.

There's this amazing planet that lent itself to a tremendous burst of life of all myriad that are unknown.

Actually,

We can't even know all the life even that's here at the same time we are,

Let alone what has gone before.

And we don't even know all the life,

All the species on this planet.

But here it is all just the planet was so perfectly capable of supporting all of this.

And then this one species,

You know,

Got so clever with tools and language and,

You know,

Now they're jetting around in the atmosphere and the billionaires in their little boutique rockets.

And,

You know,

It's just horrifying and astonishing and awesome on so many levels.

And,

You know,

Yeah,

It had there's political systems and there's educational systems and every possible kind of drama that we could dream up all going on here.

So a lot has to do with where are you putting your lens?

Like what are you going to look at?

That's my own personal response is to really see what I'm for and pour my energies there,

You know,

Such as they are.

Yes.

Just as you were talking about evolution and about people,

I kind of for me the whole question kept coming up.

Yeah,

But it's not just a lot of individual people.

It is these systems that seem that have effects on people.

But as you say,

It's immense.

And there's to come to that meta level.

Yeah.

Yeah.

For me,

It's it is just about what am I for?

How can I try to find ways of building connecting with other people to try to work for the world that we want to have?

And I also sometimes have glimpses of and I even sometimes induce them of being on my deathbed,

Of being in the last moments as a kind of sharpening of the lens that just goes,

Wow,

And all of the all of the kind of fixations that I might have had along the way and the thinking deeply about,

You know,

Political issues or capitalism or in all the different systems that I've,

You know,

Dabbled in studying and so on.

Just seeing it from this completely other point of,

You know,

Wow.

And usually from that point,

That vantage point in my imagination,

I really do know that just the sharing of the love was pretty much the main and perhaps the only relevant thing.

Reviews

Thank you for this wonderful talk! I needed to hear this amidst our current moment, both domestic and abroad. Sending loving kindness to you and all who collaborated on this episode.