Offering Solace

Keeping your own sanity is not only important for you but for everyone around you. This is especially needed in our time of increasing pressures—to be a shade tree for others, to offer peace in the midst of chaos, and, at least, to not be an added worry for those who love you. Your very presence can be a solace for those who might feel that they are going under.

Transcript

Welcome to In the Deep.

I'm your host,

Katherine Ingram.

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

2021.

It's called Offering Solace.

We've had the experience,

Most of us,

I dare say,

Have had the experience of being in a room where there was some kind of,

Might have been a refrigerator running or lights overhead making noise,

Any number of electronic sounds possibly.

Or if you've ever used noise cancelling headphones on an airplane,

You know the difference when you put the noise cancelling headset on as opposed to when they were not,

Just as in the room when the refrigerator suddenly goes off,

Even though you weren't consciously aware that it was buzzing,

There's a way in which the system relaxes.

It's almost like the sound was holding a certain vibratory energy in your system.

And it's why they say,

Who knows if it's true,

Maybe it's just the advertisement for the headsets,

But they say that when you use the noise cancelling headsets on the plane,

That you have far less response to jet lag.

That's interesting,

Isn't it?

If it's true,

I kind of think it is because I've used them a lot back when we used to fly around in airplanes.

There is a way in which it's kind of exhausting really to have that long haul noise.

So you might know where I'm going with this.

There's a lot of noise in our heads,

A background noise.

And usually it's attached to one of two things,

Not always,

But a lot.

I like,

I don't like.

I like,

I don't like.

Or I want,

I don't want.

And it's just this murmuring,

This background noise.

And it's tiring.

It's tiring,

Even if you're not really bothering to chase a lot of stuff that these thoughts are about.

And that's why it's so nice,

Such a great habit.

You don't have to even be in it all the time.

Such a great habit to dip into this well of nothingness,

As Poonjaji used to call it,

This well of just,

Just being,

Just this,

Forgetting even your name,

Just nothing extra.

I always experienced that as sanctuary.

That's a word that comes to me,

Sanctuary.

Now as human creatures,

We like to run about and have fun and do all kinds of things and we interact and it's important for us to relate.

And those are all well and good.

But we also know,

And many of us are of an age where we know this quite well,

That it's like Jesus said,

Lay not up your treasures where moth and dust corrupt,

That all of it goes,

All of the things,

All of the baubles and fun and even the wonderful,

Incredible relationships.

So the love might be left in your heart.

You will be parted one way or another at some point or another.

And where does one find sanctuary in this changing landscape,

In this changing world of everything that is impermanent?

So knowing this sanctuary,

Having a relationship with this kind of deep,

Quiet,

Deep nothing happening,

Part of your own self,

We might even say it's the truest part,

Is your touchstone of sanity whenever you need it.

And in this life,

We will need it a lot.

I feel very lucky to have seen lots of people who have been through hell in various ways,

Various types of losses,

Real tough,

And who,

If they had some kind of relationship to this touchstone of sanity,

To this deep,

Deep quiet,

Could access it more easily,

Maybe not consistently,

Maybe not every minute,

But could get there.

So these are the reasons we put our attention on this and we value it.

This is not something that the world values much.

We are in a time where,

As I've spoken about recently and as the people who are on the world stage criticizing what social media is doing to us and what the onslaught of tiny bits of information is doing to us,

But we are in a time when our very attention is being sold.

That's what's being sold on Facebook and all the social media is your attention.

Even our attention is being sold.

And part of the power of the selling is keeping your eyes and your thoughts on a constant assembly line of want and don't want.

The don't want is also a big seller.

Anything that will keep your attention there so that the advertising pops up in front of your eyes or your ears.

That's the world we live in.

That's what's happening out there.

What I'm speaking about is pretty much the opposite,

The extreme opposite.

It's a complete non-engagement with that use of attention.

And the more you spend time in this sanctuary of being,

The less at risk you are for being sucked into that other system where your attention is just being sold and where you are like a gerbil on a wheel just running.

And instead,

It's truly the noise canceling so that you can feel yourself,

So that you can feel the beauty of kindness and of love and of insights that you might have and of wonder.

Being able to look at the stars or the color of the moon.

It's really amazing to me,

And I know a number of you on this call have done a lot of retreats,

How happy one gets in the subtraction of all of the stuff and the running and the more and the experiences and the objects and all the bits of information,

All the gossip,

All the drama of this and that and the latest political horrors and scandals,

Machinations.

So don't worry if you feel out of step with the culture.

That's a good thing.

It's a really good thing.

And it's really now a global culture,

Right?

It's a global culture now.

It used to be we could hide away and escape to slower cultures.

When I first went to India in 1976,

You wrote a letter on these little blue aerograms that took about six or eight weeks to get to the destination.

And there were certainly no faxes.

If you wanted to make a phone call,

Which was not an easy thing to do,

And it meant a long wait,

I was staying in this village where supposedly the Buddha had been enlightened,

Bodh Gaya.

And I went into the post office one day because I heard you could make a phone call from there.

And of course,

It would have cost a fortune.

But anyway,

I really needed to call my family.

I'd been gone many,

Many months.

And I asked if it was possible.

And they all said,

Yes,

Yes,

Possible,

Possible.

So they're on the phone,

It became this whole like there was a cluster of Indian guys on this project,

Seemingly hadn't happened before.

And they're yelling down the line,

They're yelling and screaming at the top of their lungs.

And they're all speaking in Hindi.

But some of them did speak English.

So at some point,

I said,

Who are they talking to?

How,

Like,

Where's this call going?

And he says,

They're talking to the guy in Gaya,

Which is the next little town over.

It's a bigger town.

So all this long waiting,

And finally,

They're talking to somebody.

And it's the people in the next town.

They can't even really get through them.

That was how it was then you could actually drop off the map and pretty much be gone and live in ways and at a pace that people had lived for centuries,

Where you just walked around.

And even in New Delhi in those days,

A lot of transport happened on elephants and ox carts.

Actual goods were being transported in the city of New Delhi on elephants and ox carts.

There were very few cars.

And then once you got to the countryside,

You just didn't see them anymore.

It was a different world within my own lifetime.

And now,

Obviously,

The speed that people are living the madness,

We have not evolutionarily evolved for this to be handled in a healthy way.

So the last thing you need is to speed it up further.

So this is an invitation to actually know where your sanctuary is,

And frankly,

To resist the lures,

The toxic lures of the culture.

It takes some recognition.

It may sound scary in a way to hear this kind of conversation,

But it takes a recognition of the harm and of the danger and of the cost.

And it takes almost a kind of internal vigilance to choose a different path when the rest of the world is stepping,

Not just stepping,

Running and galloping in a different direction.

So this first step is awareness of the sanctuary and also awareness of the lures out there.

But we'll spend this next while enjoying the sanctuary.

So I love your message.

It's a beautiful message,

A much needed one.

And I'm sure that most of the people on this call probably resonate very deeply with it.

My question is,

I've got children that are young adults,

28,

31.

I've got a new grandson,

I think I've mentioned to you before.

And with that,

Seeing that new life come onto the planet,

You know,

As a grandfather,

I definitely have concerns.

I don't know where these kids,

What they're sanctuary is.

We have this group,

You know,

The age we're at,

We have acquired a certain amount of wisdom.

Our generation seemed to be oriented towards seeking truth,

Certain others.

I don't see that in a lot of young kids today.

And it's concerning to me.

I don't know where they turn to when push comes to shove.

I'm wondering if that's somewhat of our role now that we are that shade tree.

I can't bring this up to my kids.

I don't talk to them about any of this stuff.

I can only kind of embody it and model it and hope that somehow that's beneficial to them.

But I'm wondering what you have to say about that.

I'm with you.

I totally agree with you.

That all you can do is model it and be available and be that shade tree and show a different way.

And sometimes words can be spoken that they're ready to hear and that they might bring up to you.

I think things are going to get a lot tougher going forward in general.

And that might be a cause for a lot of waking up on their parts or it might not.

You actually cannot control their destiny.

And you're a part of their unfolding,

Thankfully for them,

You know,

That they have a wise,

Steady hand that they can turn to as needed.

But in terms of changing their course,

That's pretty hard.

It's really hard as we know.

And I wasn't asking about that.

What can I do to be of service?

How can I help?

Yeah,

I think that keeping your own clarity,

Your own sanity,

Your own well of quiet,

Strong,

Like having that be really important to you,

Not only for you,

But for everyone around you,

Because yes,

I think you're right.

I think those of us who are steady are going to be called upon more and more and more as time goes.

I think that's going to be very important to be offering solace.

And it's so important in times of severe stress that there are people who are emanating peace in the midst of chaos.

Just that one thing alone becomes the most valuable thing.

So that becomes your job as a parent and as a grandparent.

And it's also,

Of course,

Important for yourself.

And by the way,

We should all know,

It doesn't have to be 100% of the time,

It doesn't have to be always consistent because you're a human being too.

And there may be times when it's a bit too much,

It's all too much.

And you feel overwhelmed and you feel crushed by it.

But like I said,

If this habit is strong,

At some point,

It usually kicks in.

And also,

It's very helpful to have sangha,

You know,

To have sangha so that sometimes when one is falling down,

The others can help pick him up or her up.

That there's a certain way in which you're with others who get it and who are still in their buoyancy.

And maybe that shifts around for them and you're the one who's in the buoyancy.

So it's also the power of sangha and of knowing that you're not alone in what you see.

Right.

But it's,

Of course,

A very compassionate,

Very,

Very profoundly compassionate question that lives in the heart of parents and grandparents and anybody who loves the younger ones coming along.

I think we're all concerned about their future.

Yeah,

Everyone who has young people must be concerned about what they're facing.

And what resources they might have.

But you're out here.

I hear you.

But I actually think that the crisis itself will force a lot of waking up.

And there are,

Of course,

A lot of amazing young people who are doing extraordinary things and who are looking into these matters.

So that could be a larger wave as time goes,

Given the pressures.

Sometimes it takes suffering to wake people up,

Not just sometimes,

Mostly.

Mostly it does.

So I'd say just be a loving grandfather and a loving father.

And if possible,

And I know this is a bit of a challenge to limit the transmission of fear for them in yourself,

Like when you're around them,

That they might pick that up.

And of course,

They're very sensitive.

We're all very sensitive,

But especially young people with their powerful brains.

They pick up things easily.

And I'm guilty of this too.

You know,

There's a way in which I,

It's partly that I want to warn my loved ones.

And yet,

If they're not ready,

All it does is frightens them.

So yeah.

All right.

Well,

Thank you.

You're welcome,

Dear.

One thing that keeps coming to my mind the last few weeks is Leonard Cohen's,

One of his songs,

Your dear friend,

Leonard Cohen.

Everybody knows the war is over.

Everybody knows the good guy's lost.

And that just,

It's always been a good line,

But it seems so pertinent today and so sad today.

And the last podcast that you put up was just exactly what I needed to hear.

And I'm hoping you can talk more about it.

It was about how do we move forward?

How do we not fret about these things that we can't control and understanding what we can change and not change?

And you mentioned the,

And all the big things in the world that we have no control over and how that causes us so much anguish.

And I,

One of the stories that you were,

The illustrations you've given over the years,

And I might not be saying it right,

But again,

Just keeps coming to my mind these days is the person that goes off the cliff and is hanging from the vine with the tiger beneath him,

Something like that,

And can still pluck the strawberry and enjoy the strawberry.

And I feel like it's that kind of time in the world.

And then of course climate and that's another example of the war is over and the good guy's lost,

The whole climate change.

And so maybe just to give us some more inspiration,

We've all heard this before,

But to say it again,

And then we hear different words and just are reminded how to just live in this kind of situation that we're in.

Yeah,

It is why I led this conversation at the beginning with this notion of the sanctuary.

It's becoming the only sanctuary we have,

And maybe it always was.

We keep trying to find sanctuary in the circumstances of the world.

And we can't really find sanctuary in the circumstances of the world.

It's just these shifting quicksands under our feet,

Right?

So we'll see a little glimmer here or there.

We win a few,

Right?

We win a few little skirmishes.

Not even skirmishes,

We see little tiny motions of evolutionary change that look good in the moment.

But the overall view is really tough.

It's a bigger picture and the pressure of,

We're headed toward 8 billion people,

8 billion people.

We are in a pickle and those messages are coming through to all of us,

To our psyches.

I realized the only place I can go in terms of looking at this is this very sanctuary I'm talking about.

I just go to quiet.

And in that quiet,

Is this quiet acceptance?

It's not that I have to like it.

It's not that I have to like it.

But there's a quiet acceptance of what is.

So that for me is the sanctuary.

That for me is the peace.

And I imagine it's what people of all time,

Those who faced death gracefully,

That's the point they came to,

Right?

Where at that moment,

And it's death on the line,

It's death coming and you know it.

Perhaps you're in your last few breaths.

And if you're lucky,

And if this habit of sanctuary is strong,

That's where you'll go.

To the sanctuary,

To the also,

Such as it is.

So I'm encouraging us to practice that now.

It's always good.

It always keeps you in good stead in all circumstances.

I just had one recently.

It's minor,

But nevertheless,

Someone plowed into the back of my car,

In her very large car that she was living in,

A hippie girl with no insurance,

That was living in her car.

And I think was stoned.

And she just drove into the back of my car.

She didn't even put on her brakes.

So it was a big crash into the back of my car.

My friend and I were in front seats.

And immediately I was in acceptance.

Like it was a shock to my body.

You know,

It's a big shock when you get banged in a car.

And I did feel the reverberations in my body.

And then the next day my neck was sore.

But in the aftermath,

What I said to my friend was,

Because we were on our way to the beach,

I literally turned to him and said,

I guess we're not going to the beach today.

Because I kind of went straight to this deep quiet.

Like I just went straight into,

Okay,

This.

It's a habit.

And that is a habit that can get stronger.

So I'm saying,

When we sit together in our silence,

Hang out there.

Just doing nothing.

You don't have to be meditating in any way.

You don't have to control your breath.

You don't have to watch your thoughts.

Thoughts fly by,

No worry.

Just being.

Just hanging out,

Okay?

Home base.

All right.

Home base.

Doing nothing inside.

No story,

No agenda.

Things are as they are.

And that touchstone,

Which I recommend visiting a lot,

Right?

All through the day.

Like I really recommend for all of us,

For instance,

And this is something that helps me through the day,

Is sometimes I just stand and stare out the window and look at what's going on out there without any story,

Without looking for a particular thing to happen.

Oh,

I hope the special birds come while I'm standing.

None of that.

Just receiving.

Just pure receiving.

With no agenda and not a sense of wasting time at all.

Like I think a lot of people don't give themselves those moments anymore like people used to,

Because they think they're wasting time when in fact maybe you're fulfilling yourself in time.

So it's just,

This is all about changing daily habits.

Instead of checking your Facebook or your Instagram or whatever one you're on,

Instead of that,

Just go stand and look out the window or stand on the corner of the street or in your yard and do nothing.

Go to ground.

Go to the well of nothingness,

As Poonjaji said,

Where you're refreshed and where the noise is dimmed.

Because when we think about all the noise we've been listening to in our heads and on the media and over the decades and all the latest dramas of this and that,

For what?

What was that all about?

What did it matter most of it that we were listening to it?

If there were things we could have done about it,

Then well,

Then we either tried or didn't try.

But mostly we have not been,

Not any one of us has been able to change much the course of events.

A little bit here and there in your own lives,

But changing the course of history,

Changing the course of events is a tall order.

And it usually moves in these big mass movements where there's like an idea starts taking form and then it's thousands or millions of people then move with this idea or this new trajectory.

So maybe we can be part of those now and again.

But for the most part,

A lot of what we've been fretting about and thinking about and are,

Whether personal or on the world stage,

It kind of came to naught.

It didn't really matter that we were thinking about it so fervently,

All our great obsessions.

But what I noticed as I get older,

I'm very interested in the things I remember and I don't entirely trust them by the way,

But some things I do remember vividly and they have to do with how I felt in a particular place.

How I felt walking around in Copenhagen back in the days when I used to go there regularly and how I felt the first times in Hawaii,

Like the smells and what my senses were doing in those sort of circumstances.

The story of what was going on is long forgotten.

And like I said,

Even if I could remember it,

I wouldn't trust its details.

But how I felt seems very visceral to me still.

All these years later,

Even when I was telling that story about being in India,

I can feel myself sitting in that little post office,

Very dark and hot.

You know,

Like being just this experience of being,

How powerful that is.

And I've had so many people tell me who've been to silent retreats over the years,

The ones that we run,

So many people have told me that they're sure that at the end of their lives,

Those retreats are going to be what they most remember,

What they most remember as their experience of being.

And we're not adding on there at all.

It's not an entertainment.

It's much more about subtraction of the noise.

You know,

There are all these research around psychedelics being used for helping people with mental illness and PTSD and all kinds of things,

Right?

And one of the things that is interesting about the discovery of what psychedelics actually do is they turn off noise.

They shut down certain neurotransmitters in the brain.

They're turning things off instead of on.

Isn't that interesting?

Because it's basically telling you they're serving as noise counselors.

And therefore there's a certain other kind of perception and intelligence and revelation that roars through the brain,

The mind when there's space for it.

So I'm not recommending that we go out and get on psychedelics.

I'm recommending we do it in a natural way that we can actually do our own noise canceling very naturally.

You're welcome.

So for the last few months,

I've been struggling with work and finding the right place for myself to be.

I work in integrative health,

I guess,

Or,

You know,

Some people would call it alternative,

But certainly in the United States and integrative health,

There is a whole lot of marketing,

Just really,

Really a lot of marketing.

And it's a tough way to make a living.

It really is.

You know,

It's hard to get to get paid.

So I understand why people really want to work towards making a living,

I guess.

But for me,

The experience has been that a lot of the integrity of what we do gets lost in building websites and blog posts and blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

And so I used to have my own practice and I gave that up because it was just too much.

And so I've been trying to find the right place to go from there.

And I have been struggling with that.

And what I have found in the past couple months is that I'm feeling just really angry at capitalism and frustrated.

And it has brought all of these issues,

I think that are a lot of the problems in the world into start relief for me,

This having to bump up against social media and capitalism and marketing myself.

So I've been really angry a lot of the time and really frustrated.

And then this morning,

I was participating in a conversation with a group of people about mindfulness and somebody in the group who was fairly skeptical said,

You know,

So what do you get out of being silent?

And I just remembered what it's like to be on retreat.

And I explained to him this process of how,

You know,

For me personally,

It usually starts for the first day,

It's like,

I'm uncomfortable,

I'm hungry,

This is stupid.

Why am I doing this?

You know,

Like day three or five or whatever,

All of a sudden,

I have all of this compassion for my own crazy mind.

And then I can have all this compassion for everybody else's crazy mind.

It was so beautiful to remember that.

Yeah.

And it sort of brought me back to myself where I've been sort of so struggling with myself lately.

And now I feel like I'm not to myself,

But with my life and that just just remembering that and explaining it to somebody else.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes,

Exactly.

Yeah.

Sometimes when I'm having those kinds of thoughts of resistance and of agitation and frustration and judging and all those things,

Sometimes I just am so angry at humanity.

And I will have this sort of benevolent shift in the midst of all of that,

Of simply saying,

Okay,

Okay,

Fine.

Here it is.

Right.

This is it.

This is what we've got.

This is our moment in history.

This is where we landed in the historical rollout.

There were some other ones that were really tough,

Surely,

Lots of them,

Lots and lots of them.

It's being a human.

And I think being any creature almost,

Although your dog looks like it has a lucky life,

But being born into this world,

It comes with so much struggle.

It comes with struggle for everyone,

Some more than others,

But we all get our turn.

And all the ways sometimes I look at,

Like if I stand back and look at the historical picture and just see all the movements like this,

Like if you're looking at an anthill with gazillions of ants running all over it,

You know,

And all programmed to just be doing what they're doing.

You start to just say,

Awesome.

Okay,

Here it is.

And then your little spot in it,

And the little group around you,

You know,

You can just be a light for that group,

You know,

And realize that the bigger thrust of this juggernaut is really on its own.

We can do a few things here and there,

You know,

We can vote or we can march or we can write letters.

But mainly,

Your influence is in your immediate circles.

And just as you remembered the power of your own insight in silence,

Where you gave everybody a pass,

Right?

To have that kind of lightness in your being within your own circle is really fantastic.

It's really helpful.

And I always point out to people,

You might give enough sustenance to someone whose own circle isn't so big,

But they might be giving sustenance to someone whose circle does turn out to be huge.

In other words,

You become an influence that influences down line,

And you don't know where that influence blossoms.

And nor do you need to keep track of it or even be interested in that.

I'm just saying as an aside,

That that can happen that way that you just give it all freely and keep your own well topped up.

That's your job.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

What a wonderful,

Wonderful conversation.

And at Dharma tonight,

Really,

I wrote a lot of things down.

I was sort of laughing at the very beginning and thinking about my ex-husband used to say,

This guru in the 70s,

You must be so tired at the end of the day with all your liking and disliking.

So true.

Yeah,

The preferences and talking about attention and really great Dharma talk.

Thank you.

And the talking about the kids,

I can't understand this picture taking,

Look at me.

We talked about it in earlier Dharma talk.

It's so strange.

Yeah,

I mean,

It's making them unhappy.

That's the other bizarre thing is that it's throwing them into this self-obsessed world where it's just miserable.

There's some rates of depression rising and anxiety and suicide.

And it's interesting how even with that data out there,

People still can't resist doing it.

Even when we're all now hearing and even the kids are saying to each other that they're getting more and more miserable online.

And even then they can't stop.

It's like a real addition.

But mindfulness has found its way into the lexicon.

Yes,

It has.

And so that's good.

And yeah,

I think it's thinking about authenticity.

What is authentic?

You know?

Yeah.

Thank you.

This is a powerful conversation and I'm struck by many facets of it.

One word that I think I feel compelled to chip in at this moment is a little bit of hope and inspiration for youth today.

I'm working as a workshop facilitator for kids in grades K through five.

Then working in the context of social emotional learning program and finding myself really quite often amazed at how much they comprehend about themselves and that they're learning at such a younger age than even I did.

Mindfulness is something they're learning.

We're teaching and they're learning in other contexts as well from the time they're in kindergarten,

If not before then.

And yes,

They are also struggling with the competition of other distractions for their attention.

So it's kind of like there's a bit of a tug of war that they're experiencing in that regard because they're learning these mindfulness skills.

And yet,

As you were saying in the beginning,

Kath,

Like everything else is showing up to buy and sell their attention.

And it's not clear whether or not they necessarily value the mindfulness piece enough that they're willing to really make a stand for it.

Because even as we were describing in the beginning,

As you were describing in the beginning,

Kath,

Like it does take a certain kind of vigilance.

When you use that word to describe what it takes for even those of us who have a huge appreciation for the Dharma and for the benefits,

Lived benefits of the well of silence and nothingness,

It's still,

I find myself often really struggling to direct my attention to something that I know is going to be soothing for my heart and my mind.

So it does feel like a tug of war and it's unclear whether or not they'll ultimately choose a more mindful path.

But as many have said,

It does seem like they're going to be inheriting a moment in history that will force any of them who have those skills to use them.

And that's what I hope is that they are learning them.

And for many of us,

It takes significant suffering before you make use of the knowing that you have or seek it out.

So I'm feeling some mixed emotions when I think about kids and youth.

Yes.

But to your points,

Yes,

Great.

First of all,

It's beautiful to hear your experience with them and that they are little young trainees in mindfulness.

And it's got to be going in there.

And I agree with you that I think the stresses on the system will force a lot of people to,

Young people to turn into those directions.

And unfortunately,

They may have,

Some of them at least may have some pre-existing simpatico with it.

So that's all great.

And I think that this general stresses on the whole system are forcing reflections for people of any age.

I mean,

Just what we've been through with COVID has forced a tremendous amount of contemplation that people weren't really used to.

So all of those things are very,

Very interesting and who knows how it's going to play out and where it's going to go with that.

And then of course,

It comes back to what I'm saying tonight.

I love what you said about the vigilance piece because it takes a determination of sorts to wrest yourself away from your usual habits of attention and do something different entirely that you know is better for you,

Even if you don't really want to do it.

I mean,

That's kind of the hump that you have to get over.

Like you kind of get over that hump and you soon just forget about the old habit that was so toxic and that was making you feel bad.

It was all the noise.

So yeah,

We're at the end of summer here.

And this summer,

Certainly COVID was part of my vow to myself,

But all my previous summers here,

I've not been swimming as much as I could have been.

I live near some of the most beautiful beaches in the world.

And I love swimming.

And yet for the last few summers since mooning here,

I didn't swim all that much,

Like really not much.

And it was like I was always on task.

I was doing things and it would mean interrupt my day.

And it's a bit of a production to go to the beach and the sand and then you come home and everything's wet and you have to wash your hair again.

And so I would have excuses though.

I can't,

I don't have time today,

But this summer,

This is in keeping to my encouragement for us to choose things,

Really choose them because I made this sort of vow to myself that I was going to really treat this as though this could be my last summer.

And do I want to spend it with answering more emails and cleaning the house or whatever else?

So I have been swimming a lot this summer.

And sometimes it took like,

I really don't want to do it,

But I should do it.

And of course,

Every time,

You know,

There's an exhilaration that is so clearly salubrious and that in lots and lots of tiny ways as well for us,

You know,

Whether it's just buying something or have picking it out of your yard,

I know you love to garden and really spending time preparing your meal,

Like really understanding how wonderful that is to be able to prepare beautiful food,

Take your time,

Slow preparing,

Slow cooking,

Slow eating,

All of those kinds of things.

We have to choose them now.

I think sometimes we also need to outrun ourselves before we can slow down.

You know,

I think that because even if we're making the choice to step away from all of those polls on our attention,

Consumptive polls,

You know,

There's just an opera,

Like a general operating speed that especially like those of us in our thirties and forties,

You know,

Are being forced to engage with in order to keep up,

You know,

Conversations happen quickly,

Text conversations happen even quicker.

Multitasking is required for job functioning.

You know,

There are so many ways that neurologically I feel like I'm being programmed to speed up.

I'm following task,

You know,

And I find that,

Yes,

I have Dharma training and a love of the Dharma and a love of the of the contemplative arts and a love of stillness.

And I can't always go there.

Like,

I can't always turn the switch on or off.

You know,

Sometimes I need to task my mind with something before I can relax.

Finding that this is a pandemic discovery,

That I love doing jigsaw puzzles,

That,

You know,

I take out one of these things and I keep upping the number of pieces and puzzles because I'm getting better at doing it after.

You know,

In our area,

Those all sold out and all of the secondhand shops sold out as well because I have friends who were like,

It was like getting,

You know,

A hold of some contraband to get a jigsaw puzzle.

That's why I'm finding that they did that.

But like,

You know,

Something to sink that kind of speedy mind into you and that kind of the consumptive appetite,

Like the needing to do,

Needing to think,

Needing to arrange,

Needing to fix and like giving it something that's totally harmless.

That's actually calming and feeling like,

Oh,

An hour later or 30 minutes later,

Oh,

I can actually sit and do nothing,

You know,

And I can really appreciate that deep well.

But I often I've been finding lately just not to beat myself up for having to take some of those steps and the value of them and that if you can quiet your mind faster and ultimately it's just about relaxation and enjoyment,

Right?

Yeah,

Right.

And just having your system clear so that you respond to whatever presents itself in your life,

You respond with as much wisdom and intelligence and calm and kindness as possible because that's more available to you when your system is calm and clear.

I've watched a lot of period drama,

Especially out of England.

They've made so many great period series,

Right?

So there's a preponderance of those around.

And I was even starting to think in kind of 19th century English phrases.

But one of the things I've been struck by is how many images there are of women sitting in rooms,

Sometimes with a fire and sometimes depending on whether they're poor or not,

But sewing,

Like sewing and mending and darning,

You know?

And that was a lot of what they did in the evening in their so-called time off.

They'd be sitting around chatting and sewing.

And I have thought about just the way in which the human animal,

It does like to have some little task.

And I understand that despite the amount of sitting I've done in retreats back a long time ago,

I designed my own retreats to not have as much sitting because I understand that we human animals don't,

It's not so great for us to just sit for many,

Many hours a day.

So there has to be some kind of balance of using the attention.

But my point that I'm making here is why don't we consciously choose that,

How you're going to use it.

So yes,

Doing a jigsaw puzzle or wearing the screen on the window or whatever it happens to be,

You know,

Is a nice focus for the mind to give it something to do.

Talking about concentration,

I play still two hours a day.

And there's one thing that I know from my music practice is I make mistakes when my mind wanders.

So I talked to somebody and they said it's a bit like driving a car.

But I think it's more than that,

Because just a small lapse of concentration.

And immediately,

It interferes with the sort of total process.

And there becomes a point where you just don't know what to do next.

You just forget because your mind is somewhere else.

And I was thinking about that.

I think it's my kind of jigsaw puzzle.

You know,

Remembering pieces and playing them.

You've got to stay with it.

Yeah.

But as you're speaking,

I'm sure this is some kind of morphic resonance I'm picking up because of the time that you have lived all this time in London as a musician.

And anyway,

I saw this show in Portland years and years ago,

20 some years ago,

Called Ringo and the All Stars.

And it was Ringo and Peter Frampton and a couple of other big name musicians.

And they were kind of early in the tour.

I think Portland might have been their second city.

Anyway,

So they're doing all of each other's hits.

And they're making lots of mistakes.

And they're laughing like crazy as they're making mistakes.

But they're continuing to play like they just keep going.

And it was fantastic to see.

And it gave me some kind of permission inside about,

Yeah,

That's how you do it.

That's how you do it if you're at the mastery level.

So what you make the mistake,

You just pick it up where you do next and go.

And everybody went with it.

It wasn't like there was not any kind of hush in the audience.

Everybody was laughing and clapping all the way through.

It was one of the most fun concerts for me,

Just because of that.

And I think in our life,

You know,

It goes like that,

Doesn't it?

It's sort of like you take a misstep or you mess up or you have to redo it.

It's in the continuing ingrace.

That's where the beauty of the whole thing lies,

Just as seeing those guys on stage laughing with each other when they were messing up each other's songs,

You know.

Yeah,

I think we're coming back to something we've talked about before,

Maybe,

You know,

Last year,

That it comes back to some kind of healthy self-love.

If there's healthy self-love,

There's no fear about making mistakes.

Yes,

That's nice.

Yes,

That's really true.

Yeah.

And in their case,

They,

You know,

Like I said,

They were all masters in their own case and their audience loved them.

And so there was that permission to just be completely authentic.

But yes,

I really love what you just said.

Yeah.

And you see it with kids who are well-loved,

Who have confidence even when they've made big mistakes,

You know,

They don't shrink.

They just,

They understand they made a mistake and they carry on.

Thank you.

It's good to be here.

Good to see you.

Feels good.

Right from the beginning,

The silence,

I could really feel it.

And I was able to receive it.

And you're talking about looking out the window and receiving.

I find it very difficult to receive,

I think.

I was doing a class online last week or the week before.

And the exercise was,

It was with somebody else who was grieving.

And the exercise was just to sit and listen to the other person for three minutes and receive,

Just receive what he has to say.

You don't have to say anything at the end of three minutes.

And it was such a relief that I didn't have to fix anything.

I didn't have to have to have something lined up to say when he was done.

And it created so much space.

And it was beautiful.

But I'm not,

I'm not good at that.

I need to practice.

But it was a wonderful feeling.

And it just stayed with me.

And also,

I really resonated with,

You know,

The whole sanctuary thing.

I am,

It's my making great effort to find those places of quiet in my mind as much as possible.

It's my aim every day now.

It's my biggest thing just to drop from my head down into my body and to try and live from there as much as I can.

And it's,

I'm realizing how noisy my head is.

But I'm also realizing that I don't have to be there.

I don't have to be there.

It's just a bad habit.

You know,

You can live from here.

You can live from here.

You can talk from here.

You can listen from here.

You can see from here.

And I have to because my head,

You know,

Goes to places that are really redundant and are not serving me and are blocking me from,

Blocking me from the present moment,

But blocking me from my grief even.

Distraction,

You know,

And it's,

It's,

And it's,

They're not good thoughts.

They're thoughts about when April was in hospital and if we'd done B instead of A and,

You know,

Very painful stuff.

But it's bringing me back to the present all the time because I'm realizing,

I'm just realizing that I don't want to live there.

I don't have to live there.

And so I'm doing like,

I'm working with someone who you probably know in New York,

Doing like a course and we,

A peer group also meets every week and we do the exercises and we help each other to try and live from here as much as possible.

And it's all about remembering.

That's all it is.

I mean,

It's,

It's,

I don't,

It's not hard for me to drop from here to here.

You know,

I can do,

You know,

I can do,

But I just keep forgetting,

You know,

Because it feels safe just to go back to your head all the time.

So out of all this there's,

You know,

Something is shifting,

Which is,

Which is a good thing,

But it feels necessary.

I'm at a point like it's a kind of a,

You know,

There's,

There's that saying,

Pain is the cornerstone of spiritual growth.

And it makes,

That makes sense to me.

It makes sense.

Yeah.

Yes.

It's been a popular motivator for a long time,

You know?

Yeah.

But I'm so,

It's so nice to listen to you speak.

So nice to hear you because I can feel having watched you in this process for a while,

I can,

I can really sense this movement that's happening in you and it's powerful to see.

And I think that it's,

It's,

It's being softly held by your Dharma intentionality.

And you're absolutely right.

It is a matter of remembering.

And it may mean many,

Many times a day,

Which doesn't matter how many times it does have to occur,

But it is exactly that I use the word vigilance,

You know,

Also that,

That you set a certain intention and you say,

Okay,

When I start to notice my mind,

The noise is getting too loud.

My mind is starting to drive me crazy.

Interrupt it,

Right?

Just interrupt it,

Change,

Change the picture.

And you don't have to,

Like I spoke about this last night,

You don't have to supplant it with some kind of happy story,

But just come into reality,

Into your senses,

Into the experience of this very moment.

Just keep it simple in the sanctuary.

Yeah.

It's also,

I must say,

It's been a privilege to watch you go through this.

It's been encouraging,

Not just for me,

But I think for anyone who's been,

Who's been on the calls and watched as this process has unfolded to see that the,

The loss of such an intense,

Perfect love.

And I know it maybe had some warts,

But from your description,

It was really a,

You know,

Really a lucky,

Lucky experience to have reconnected with her and had those 10 years,

But then to,

To lose her,

It's right up there with the big,

Huge losses of the world,

You know?

So to see someone go through the process and not deny the feelings and not sidestep anything and let yourself have the deep,

Intense,

Heart-wracking grief and then to see you these,

These months later,

Obviously you're not free of grief and probably never will be.

None of us really are when we have a huge loss,

But just to see that the,

Just the gracefulness in the process and the insight and the softening,

And even just as you described,

Listening without needing to speak and understanding the power of that.

And that it's what we,

What we love is to just be heard.

We just want to be heard and have someone who we sense understands us.

That's huge.

You know,

It doesn't have to be any more than that.

And anyway,

All of,

All of it is great jewels for every,

For every one of us to hear.

And it goes to the point again,

When we were talking about how can we offer anything to this world or to anyone who's struggling in it?

And it really is just that you become,

You are a sanctuary to yourself and you become a sanctuary to other people,

Especially when they know you've been through the war already.

It's not as if you haven't seen it.

You have seen it.

And,

And it's very,

Very encouraging.

It's how I used to feel when I would,

In the early days,

I had the privilege of being around the Dalai Lama for a number of times when he would come to a bhagaya and there weren't many people trying to get his attention.

And in those days,

There were often when you go to see him at the place he lived,

They would be Tibetans who looked like they had literally just walked out of Tibet.

I mean,

Like really the old school,

Old style Tibetans and who looked so sad,

Really sad.

You'd be waiting out in the waiting area with several of them.

And then they would go in and you'd hear murmuring in there,

Not laughter,

But murmuring.

And you know that they're telling the Dalai Lama things that are going on in Tibet,

Which were bad.

And then it would be your turn to go in for your audience.

And he would just be bright as a button.

He would just be so warm and beautiful.

And you know,

He's hearing hard stories all day of his own people.

And it was so encouraging to see that kind of strength in a human being and to realize when there is a Dharma sanctuary,

You can handle a lot,

You know,

And you can be a solace to everyone in your life.

Reviews

Thank you Catherine for sharing this wonderful conversation with us. It led me straight to quiet 🙏🙏🌺🌹🌟💞