Talk: The Easy Way

An excerpt from Dharma Dialogues with Catherine Ingram, recorded in Los Angeles in 2016.

Transcript

Welcome to In the Deep.

I'm your host,

Katherine Ingram.

The following is excerpted from a session of Dharma dialogues called The Easy Way.

It was recorded in Los Angeles in 2016.

My brother has nine grandchildren,

Ages eight and younger.

So when the firstborn came along,

She was quite the star of the family.

She had two sets of grandparents living right near her parents,

All in the same neighborhood,

And all the rest of the family living nearby as well.

So she was doted on incredibly.

But pretty soon her siblings and cousins came along and she had to,

Unfortunately for her,

Share a lot of the limelight,

Which she had some time adjusting to.

So a couple of summers ago when she was six,

My brother took her younger sister out for a day at the beach.

They went out on his boat and they went to the beach.

They were gone all day.

So he returns home to his house and his oldest granddaughter happens to be over there and she's sobbing her.

She's sobbing her heart out and he thinks something terrible has happened.

So he,

Sweetheart,

What's going on?

And she says,

Through her sobs,

You spent the whole day with Maggie and you have been having fun all day and she's just crying her eyes out.

Just the biggest catastrophe.

So my brother says,

He doesn't know what to say to her.

He wants to calm her down and he says to her,

Well how do you know that Maggie didn't get stung by a whole bunch of jellyfish today?

And she brightens up and says she did.

Now usually for most of us we learn to curtail those kinds of sentiments.

We are socialized as we go.

We don't just sort of blurt out.

First of all,

We wouldn't be sobbing in the first place,

Even though inside we might be feeling a little jealous or some kinds of feelings like that.

And we certainly wouldn't brighten up when we heard that our sister might have been stung by jellyfish.

We learn along the way,

We become more socialized.

But of course a lot of that material does continue to arise,

Doesn't it?

And in many spiritual circles that is made to be not okay,

As though you have some control over it,

Right?

As though you could sort of decide or meditate enough or whatever,

Have some sort of realization that would prevent the arising of negative thoughts,

Pitiful thoughts,

Depraved thoughts even.

These arise.

They arise in the awareness.

They come on their own.

And also all kinds of other troubling arisings.

Let's face it,

There's a lot of trouble in the world and a lot of trouble comes and visits each of us.

Minding our own business,

It comes,

Right?

So here's my,

What I use in emergency situations,

Whether it's something really banal,

Like a rising of jealousy,

Or something a little more,

With a lot more teeth,

Let's say someone has almost just hit you on the freeway.

You've had a quite close call.

Or you have just heard news either about your own situation,

Your own health,

Or about someone you care about.

Or you've just read something incredibly troubling in the news.

Here's my go-to,

And that is to go to silence,

Go to quiet.

Now that may not cut through immediately the stream of thought about the subject,

But it's almost as if there are two currents now running.

There's the surface current that is troubled,

And there's the undercurrent that is getting very quiet.

I liken this often to the ocean.

The turbulence on the ocean when there's a storm,

When there's a hurricane,

When there's any kind of uproar on the surface.

But the depths of the ocean are still and silent,

Like the Mariana Trench,

Right?

Very deep place,

The deepest of earth.

Very,

One can imagine how very quiet it must be there,

Even though there's lots of stuff happening on the surface.

And this understanding,

This reflection,

This switch of attention,

Go to silence,

Go to quiet.

I apply it a lot.

Anytime there's turbulence.

So one doesn't have to be afraid of the negative arisings.

In fact,

Assume they're going to come.

I often say,

Assume the mind is mad.

Let's just start there.

Assume that difficulty and according to your conditioning,

Maybe negative interpretations arise a lot,

Or pettiness or whatever,

Doesn't matter.

Not very,

Very few people have a kind of very sweet,

Completely altruistic mindstream.

Very few people,

Even the people who are manifesting beautifully with acts of altruism.

Often if you get to know them,

And you have really heart to heart conversations,

You discover they're dealing with the same schmutz that the rest of us are.

So don't worry about that.

Don't bother trying to purify the content of your mind.

It's pretty hopeless.

Just don't bother.

But rather,

Notice this silence,

This quiet,

These depths of yourself that in fact you know well.

And let your awareness touch that as frequently as possible in your day and especially when there is trouble on the line.

Okay,

So I'm going to invite anyone who'd like to speak,

Please feel free.

Hi.

It's not so easy.

I mean,

What you describe to find the silence,

To allow yourself to,

With all the monkey mind hubbub,

To just get in touch with that silence,

You make it sound so easy.

And it's not that easy.

And any thoughts or guidance on your part about how to do it,

I know that's contradictory,

Is,

I'll put it in the form of a question.

What could you,

What would you have liked your brother to have said to his granddaughter?

Oh,

I was fine with what he said.

I was fine with what he said,

You know.

But let's address your other question really.

So you said it's not easy.

And as you said that,

Just after you said that,

I was remembered,

I remembered this line that Poonjaji used to say,

When people would say that to him,

My teacher Poonjaji would say,

No,

I'm telling you the easy way.

This is the easy way.

Do nothing,

Right?

Relax.

Surrender to the beingness of you.

Right.

And when you look at it,

Let's look at it rationally for a moment.

Well,

Actually,

Always.

You know,

We're here for a short time.

Really a blink,

Right?

And we know the difference when we're very present,

When we're very kind of just simple inside,

When we're not just racing along some crazy track of conditioned monkey mind,

As you said,

When we're feeling content,

When we're grateful,

You know,

When we look at what we enjoy in this world,

Love,

That love in our lives,

You know,

The abundance that we live in.

We're in the courtyard of the planet,

Right?

We're like the royals of the planet.

And I know people think here in our culture,

They compare themselves to the 1% or something,

Especially in this town.

And,

You know,

And they feel they're just poor,

They're barely making it.

My house is only worth a million dollars.

Right?

So,

You know,

It's very skewed,

And people forget gratitude,

You know,

We take a very short time living in a different circumstance before you would be thinking about how easy and wonderful your life is.

So all of this by way of saying,

We get distracted on complete nonsense on a kind of sort of a,

What's the word I want,

A wheel of desire.

And time passes in a weird,

Fast way,

Weirdly fast,

Like,

I noticed that the times of my life where that was the program,

You know,

They're like a blur.

Like a year can pass really quickly.

It's like you don't even know what happened.

Or two years or decade can just go by.

It's like,

What?

What was that?

Whereas when there's this brightness of presence,

When there's this strong,

Easy sense of being,

Such that,

You know,

Your eyes are wide open,

You see what you're looking at,

You actually see it.

You hear clearly.

I spoke last night about just the fidelity of when your awareness is open and free.

Your intake of information has sort of perfect fidelity,

Or almost perfect.

And it somehow elongates your sense of time.

When you have a day in strong awareness,

It feels like it's longer than a day.

And that's not in a bad way.

It's not in a negative way.

It's in a rich way.

Just as certain of our experiences of life,

Even just a few hours,

Pop in our memory many years later,

Because they were drenched with a kind of intensity.

So I'm suggesting that you have a light intention,

You've heard me say this before,

A light intentionality to just touch that space all through your day,

As much as you can.

It doesn't have to be all the time.

Just often.

Is this instead of,

Or your version of a meditation practice?

Yes,

It's my version of a very relaxed,

It can be done in the grocery line,

In traffic,

On the telephone,

Right?

Even watching television.

The spaces between the notes.

Yes,

Exactly.

John Cage would have talked about.

Yes,

Exactly.

Exactly that.

The spaces between the notes or the silence around the music.

Yeah.

Yes.

And do you then not have or recommend that people do not have a daily practice?

No,

I don't say not to,

Of course.

If whatever is helping you touch that stone of,

You know,

Your touchstone,

By all means,

Right?

It doesn't have to be that,

Is my point.

It doesn't have to be that.

If that does help you,

Well and good,

Wonderful.

You know,

But a lot of times,

People are in circumstances all through the day that it's very useful to just dip in,

Go to silence,

Go to quiet.

I'll share with you something I do,

Because I do try to do what you're talking about.

Yeah.

Especially when I'm dealing with my 12 year old when she doesn't want to do her homework.

In my meditation practice,

I've developed a habit of putting my tongue on to touching the roof of my mouth with my tongue while I practice.

And during the day,

Waiting on the line in the grocery store,

Or driving or dealing with some annoying person,

I find,

And this has taken a long time to develop,

That if I put my tongue to my upper palate,

I can go into that,

What you're referring to as a quiet zone,

So to speak.

And it gets me in touch with that.

And then I can then deal with what's happening in a more controlled and peaceful way.

And it's worked well for me.

I'm just sharing that.

I don't know if you have your own methodology or technology.

I'm telling you my methodology tonight.

I simply say,

Go to quiet.

And you actually say that to yourself.

I mean,

It's a thought that arises.

I'll say it out loud,

But I just switch the attention.

So I apply it often because there's a lot of troubling information that floats around.

And I feel very,

Because I pay attention to the news,

It's just part of my conditioning.

It's just part of my makeup.

I'm not suggesting people do it,

But I happen to be someone who does pay attention to the news.

And I've even been studying climate science for two years,

Which I totally don't recommend.

But anyway,

So there's a lot of very troubling news that I'm privy to.

And a lot of times it will cause the arrival of scary feelings,

Feelings of dread,

Feelings of foreboding,

Feelings of depression.

And I'm quite hyper aware if that starts to get strong,

To go to silence,

To go to quiet,

To stop letting the story take over.

So in these ways,

One just,

I call it mind management.

You're directing your attention very lightly.

It doesn't take a big yanking.

You just lightly redirect it.

And even if there's some residue,

There's a little residue that comes of nervousness or a little bodily chemistry that arises.

It's okay.

One isn't bothered by that.

You know that it's passing and that it was part of the process.

So I hope everyone is hearing that we're not speaking about some level of attainment that you're going to land on and be forever free.

Right?

I've often likened it as like,

You know,

The old space movies where,

You know,

You're zooming along in space and then they hit what was called warp speed.

I don't know if it has any basis in reality,

But then suddenly everything goes.

And that's how I think people imagine some idea of something called enlightenment,

Which I don't know what that is,

But I think that's how they imagine it.

That it's just,

You know,

You're going along,

Going along,

You're trying,

Trying,

Trying,

And then you hit warp speed.

But I doubt it's like that.

I think it's more like you're dealing with the stuff as it arises.

You just handle it as you go.

And mostly you can,

If this appeals to you,

You can spend a lot of your precious life in this kind of strong,

Bright sense of presence.

It's not far away.

It's right here.

We overlook it.

Right?

You know,

I said,

I don't know whether it was last week or the week before,

I see,

I often look at things from the perspective of my deathbed.

And I think that's the most important thing.

And I think that's the most important thing.

I think that's the most important thing.

And from the perspective of your deathbed,

Every boring moment you had during your life,

It's going to look pretty good,

Right?

Every difficult moment,

Every little struggle,

Every little disappointment,

Not to mention the joys,

The high points.

But when you see it from that perspective,

You realize,

Wow,

This is pretty,

Actually pretty amazing.

Pretty amazing to be these creatures with this level of experience.

So I say,

Don't miss it.

Just float in this,

Float in it as much as you can.

You'll have moments of forgetting.

We all do.

You'll have moments of irritation.

You'll be surprised by your own pettiness sometimes.

I love the story my teacher,

My teacher and longtime friend and long ago boyfriend,

Joseph Goldstein,

Used to tell of,

Used to tell of,

He had been in a month long retreat.

And he came after the after the month,

He had nobody had seen him during the month,

People were putting his food outside of his door.

He finally came out after a month and he walks into the staff dining room.

And everyone said,

Wow,

You're here.

God,

How was it?

And he shook his head and said,

The mind has no pride.

You know,

The mind is wild,

You know.

So let it be as it is.

You don't have to fight.

Let it be.

Some people are very lucky with their conditioning.

They had fabulous parents,

Fabulous parents,

Wonderful,

Smart,

Wise,

Loving people.

Right.

And they were genetically blessed as well.

There's a few of those on the planet.

I have rarely met any of them.

Very few of these in the world.

Most of us,

It's been a rough and tumble ride.

Right.

We're lucky to have survived it.

And so,

Okay,

There's conditioning that comes with that.

You know,

I said last week or the week before,

In my own case,

I have a lot of anxiety conditioning.

So in your experience,

You said that you happen to have more anxiety or you have an anxiety conditioning or something.

Do you still experience that?

Yes.

Yes,

I did on the way over here.

In the car.

Would you say that it's,

You're experiencing that with everything else?

Like,

It's just like a smaller portion of your experience?

Or is it just as intense?

What happens is it gets your attention,

Like,

You know,

It grips you immediately.

And there's a kind of,

You know,

A rush,

Like,

Oh,

That was close,

You know.

And then there's a little mini aftermath of just,

You know,

But what doesn't happen is a whole big story about,

Oh,

They shouldn't have been turning right in front of us and blah,

Blah,

Blah.

You know,

All that is irrelevant and unnecessary suffering.

I don't bother with that.

And then there's a go to quiet.

That just comes over me as my default position.

So I don't mind that those things happen.

I expect them because of the conditioning.

Right?

Some people are I noticed sometimes being with people who are just chilled out a lot,

You know,

That they don't react heavily,

You know,

It's like,

Wow,

That must be nice.

You know,

But I do have that,

As of my childhood,

Which was,

You know,

Tough.

So,

You know,

Yes,

I don't,

I manage it,

You know,

I don't expect to eradicate it.

Or that would have happened long ago.

Because I tried.

Yeah.

You know,

But I then gave up this,

This whole project of trying to do anything about this creature,

But let her be.

Right.

And just,

You know,

In a very gentle way,

Live with myself as is,

You know,

It's like you take the delivery as is.

Yeah.

You know,

I know.

You know,

Yeah,

Yeah.

It's so it's,

It's when when you have that,

That kindness to your own self,

It allows you to really let people be as they are as well.

And it doesn't mean that you have to hang out with everybody.

But that you,

You see,

You know,

There's one of each of us,

And they're doing them and you're doing you.

Not even doing you,

You're not doing you,

You're just manifesting.

You know,

This is just a manifestation that you are.

Yeah.

Sometimes there's still that little hope that maybe one day it will go away.

Then maybe one day it will go away.

That's really ultimately what people,

That's really the if you take it to its rational conclusion,

They want to be somehow somebody else.

But not really,

Right?

It's actually okay to be you.

This has been In the Deep.

If you'd like to know more about my work,

Book a private session by phone or Skype,

Or make a tax deductible donation in support of these podcasts,

Which would really help as it takes quite a lot of time and expense to produce them every week.

Please visit katherineingram.

Com Till next time.

Reviews

Calming and relatable. I will be listening to more.

Thank you Catherine for your wisdom and encouragement. I have been sitting with anxiety while listening to this talk! My favourite line was about how people feel like they want to be someone else.... but not really 😊 Made me smile 😁🙏❤️

Always enjoy your yalk

Ahh. This is truly wonderful. A pure gem ❤️

Thanks for the good conversation and teaching Catherine 🙏❤️🙂

I am trying to meditate to get away from trying harder at life, believing that I am enough. Didn't realize that seasoned meditators struggle with trying too hard to meditate. Very good talk. Thank you for sharing.