The End of Seeking

Catherine is in conversation with New York Times best-selling author Geneen Roth on coming to the end of spiritual seeking.  Recorded in Sept. 2016.


Transcript

Welcome to In the Deep.

I'm your host,

Katherine Ingram.

My guest today is my very close friend,

Janine Roth.

She is a New York Times bestselling author and has been leading workshops and seminars for nearly 30 years.

Her work is based primarily on the ways that people use food for,

As she puts it,

Feeding the hungry heart,

A phrase that became one of her book titles.

The understandings she has come to in this work also apply to the ways people are hungry in general,

Emotionally,

Physically,

And spiritually.

You can find out more about her work at JanineRoth.

Com.

Hi,

Janine.

Hi,

Katherine.

So it's kind of funny to be having this conversation since we've been having it for 15 or 18 years or something.

But you and I have been talking a lot over the many years about seeking,

About spiritual seeking.

And we have explored it from so many different angles.

I hope we can remember a few of them today.

So you begin.

As do I.

Yeah.

It's such an important topic.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It certainly drove me for a lot of my early life and into my middle age.

It was basically what my life was about starting when I was a teenager.

It was about I wanted a perspective or a philosophy or a practice or something that would make sense of my world.

And that was all that I was.

I didn't really focus on anything else.

I just went on a major spiritual quest and landed up in this long practice phase of mindfulness practice that I did for 17 years,

But mercifully ended in 1991.

But it was all driven by this motor of discontent and hope that there was something out there that would be some kind of solace.

Yes.

I think I could say the same is true for me.

Your seeking ended way before mine did.

But the same thing was driving me as well.

I would call it a kind of restless and somewhat desperate hunger to settle into myself or to rest really to just stop the feeling that there had to be something that I wasn't seeing,

Discovering,

Hearing about that would be the answer to what you just called the discontent.

I would call it the ongoing discontent and the hunger to quell it.

Yes.

Right.

And I would imagine perhaps with few exceptions,

That is what drives pretty much everybody into a spiritual quest.

And it's not to of course make that a bad thing or a useless endeavor,

But there does come a point when one sees the futility of the continuation of that endeavor.

You know,

I remember when I first met you and heard you speak and I've told you this before,

But I think it's worth saying again,

Because that was your perspective then and of course it is now.

And it was in 1999 and I remember the year because it was the year before my father died.

And you said something to me.

And I asked a question.

It was about stopping my judgmental or the judgmental critical voice,

What people usually call the super ego.

And I had been engaged in many different kinds of practices,

Some spiritual,

Some psychological to stop that voice because I was merciless on myself,

Unkind,

Harsh,

Punishing.

It was awful the way I treated myself or the and I told you this was in a whole group.

I told you what was going on and that I just had to figure out a way to stop it.

And I couldn't stop it.

And you said a version to me of so what?

Meaning that doesn't make you a bad person.

So what you have a crazy mind or I think you called it then and have called it many times crazy aunt in the attic.

So what?

You don't need to do something about that.

You can notice it.

You can hear it,

But you don't need to this is,

You know how I heard you,

You don't need to take yourself to be that it's not a big deal.

You are not bad,

Because you can't stop it.

And that changed so much for me in that moment.

I couldn't quite believe what you were saying,

Because what you were saying so easy.

And I was used to hard.

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah,

I mean,

This notion that we many of us were indoctrinated with through various spiritual trainings in the past,

Which promised some sort of purification of the mind and somehow a transformation of the content of mind,

Or even stopping the mind entirely.

These were the carrots that were held out,

None of which are realistic,

Or even necessary.

And so that,

You know,

Of course,

Everybody felt like a failure within spiritual training programs,

Because no one was landing on this,

You know,

This fairy tale in the sky called enlightenment,

In which,

You know,

All of the troubles of mind would be wiped out,

And there would only be the occasional altruistic thought that might arise.

You know,

Instead,

It's a lot more,

You know,

Human centered basic,

Ordinary stuff that runs through the mind,

Same as ever.

And yet,

I think the real,

The true perspective of any kind of inner spaciousness has to do with the understanding that it doesn't actually matter what the content is at all.

It doesn't matter how crazy depraved,

Pathetic,

Pitiful,

You know,

Neurotic,

Anxious,

All of those things,

All of which I experienced in my own case.

Yeah,

I don't I couldn't care less what's running through my mind at all.

It's background noise most of the time.

Yes,

And I think that's the part that you said then,

That I couldn't quite believe,

Because it felt like what was running through my mind defined me.

That's who I was.

I was my mind.

And I had been engaged in the path and I had been to so many retreats where I had watched my mind the path and amongst five other different kinds of things over a period of many,

Many,

Many years,

Convinced that I needed to stop my mind.

And also there was a hierarchy or a progression of enlightenment.

I don't think I named it enlightenment then,

But there was a progression of spiritual development.

Yes.

And that it happened through understanding concepts and through exploring them and also through stopping my mind.

Yes,

We were trained in those days.

In Vipassana training,

There was something called the progress of insight,

Along which you were to tick off these various markers whereby anger falls away and this and that falls away and eventually all judgment falls away.

And I just,

You know,

I never hit one of those markers.

Neither have I.

Although I have stopped seeking.

That's right.

I have stopped seeking.

We hit that one.

We got there.

We made it.

We're no longer trying to stop the angry thoughts.

And what's true though is that they do come and then they go and they don't.

I notice,

For instance,

Wow,

I feel really angry right now or I hate that person now.

I can feel hatred.

And then I noticed it and I allow it just to come through,

To wash through and realize it doesn't mean anything.

Yes.

And my position and it has been all along is that when there's that kind of what I consider a very healthy relationship to the arising of let's say negative mind flow,

When there's that kind of relationship,

You're actually very free within it and are very unlikely to act upon it.

It's only when there is repression and denial and a sort of guilty feeling.

And we see this,

Of course,

Everywhere we look in terms of people who are proposing one thing and behaving in a very different way.

You realize these people are repressing whole parts of themselves probably in an ongoing way and therefore it becomes very powerful.

Whatever you make a taboo gets power,

Right?

Any taboo thought or object gets a lot of power.

And so in this way,

It's actually the most free.

And maybe that seems counterintuitive to some people at first,

But in the lived experience as you and I both know,

When you don't really care what goes through your crazy mind due to whatever your own conditioning is,

Some people are lucky in their conditionings,

Most of us not so much.

And whatever that conditioning may be,

You feel very free in it because you're no longer trying to manipulate it or make it be better.

And it's an incredible kindness to yourself.

And it also allows you to be much more understanding to everyone else who are locked in with their own conditioning.

Yeah,

It does.

I think the catch here that I got snagged on for quite a while,

And this is a twist of what you were saying when I first met you,

Which was,

Okay,

Well,

What do I have to do to get to the point of not doing?

Uh-huh,

Yes.

Practices.

Right,

Right.

You need to engage in and try really hard at.

They always think there's some catch.

They're always asking for the catch and there is no catch.

It's simply just relax,

Let everything be as it is.

But you know,

Kath,

I do think that takes in my own defense and defense of anybody who still can't quite believe it's that easy.

You know,

Had I been,

I don't know if the word is willing to in 1999,

Able to,

Capable of dropping it when I first met you.

I often have said this to you,

That I met you that once at Spirit Rock and you were in the process of moving.

And I felt like if I could have just followed you everywhere for six weeks and just kept listening to you the way you did with Poonjaji,

Then maybe the immersion in that simplicity,

Because it felt too good to be true.

And it was so counter to everything I had ever learned,

Heard about,

Done,

That just dropping it,

Stopping it,

Calling off the search,

As you say,

And I knew,

And I know Poonjaji says,

Said what felt like,

At least for me,

Years ago,

Years before when I had stopped dieting,

After so many years of torturing myself with dieting and depriving myself and forcing and shaming myself.

And I finally got to the point where I couldn't stand it one more second and was on the verge of suicide and realized I had an option left besides killing myself and that was just stopping,

Stopping it.

And I did,

I stopped it.

And it felt like that in that moment when I met you.

But I felt like in the dieting years,

At least the risk was I had to be willing to gain weight.

And when I heard you was,

Wow,

I have to be willing to lose everything,

Really.

That's what it felt like to me.

I have to be willing to lose,

Like what happens if I don't do anything?

Am I just going to sit around like this self-indulgent blob for the rest of my life?

And if I don't wake up and okay,

Now I have to meditate,

Now I have to do this practice and now I have to do that practice and now I have to suffer because suffering is noble for this.

Now I have to do the equivalent of sleeping on a bed of nails.

It was scary.

Well,

I mean,

I know that that,

Again,

Back to the spiritual conditioning,

You know,

It gets sort of woven in with so many other endeavors of life do require a lot of effort.

And,

You know,

If you want to learn to be a good writer or play the piano or be a good brain surgeon or any number of things,

It takes study,

It takes time,

It takes effort and focus and enormous energy.

But in this understanding,

Which is so beautiful and as you use the word simple,

Whereby you really get that just simply being,

Just really like any other creature on earth,

Just being without having to be a conceptualized being,

But rather just,

You know,

Going about in an enlivened taste of this existence,

That doesn't require anything else.

It's already happening.

And what's happening for so many people is that their mind is clouding their experience of that with these ideas.

Some people are not on a spiritual quest,

They're on a kind of self aggrandizing quest in various ways,

Whether it's getting more and having and presenting themselves or getting powerful or famous or having more money,

All of those kinds of things that are a different kind of hunger.

At least in the spiritual quest,

You maybe have a chance of coming to the end of the seeking,

You know,

Because with the other plan,

You know,

Of just thinking that if I could only get that Gulf Stream,

You know,

Jet,

Then I'm going to be really have made it,

You know,

Because there's kind of no end to the accruing of the fortunes until perhaps you get to a point where you just have so much that it becomes obvious that the only thing to do with it now is give most of it away.

And that's for very few people,

Very few people either land at that point or have the kind of good heartedness to turn to that.

But what I'm saying is that in many kinds of hungry realms,

The hunger goes on and on and the spiritual hunger realm,

There can come a point where you just are sick to death of practice,

You know,

Which often has a goal,

Practice,

The whole notion of it usually has the concept of a goal in mind.

You know,

And an eye who will get that.

That's right.

Yeah.

And so,

You know,

That,

That aside from that kind of confusion,

There can come a point where one is just weary from all of that and,

And then much more open to hearing,

You know,

Is there an easier way?

And there can be just a momentary flash,

Because obviously,

When you heard that in 1999,

Something in you did accept it,

Even though you're saying it was hard to believe,

But something in you was drawn to that in a very powerful way such that that has become your,

Your interest and lived experience since then.

Yes,

I,

My heart relaxed something in me,

Settled down,

I felt like I was like a cat who was walking around with her hair standing straight up and her tail straight up in the air.

And when you said that,

It was as if all that fur got moved down and the tail went down and it was a breath.

And it was wow.

And yes,

And,

And,

And it took me a while more,

Took more linear time,

Another 10 years or so before I got weary of that,

Before something in me from listening to you so much and other teachers that I loved and happened to just come into contact with something just said,

Or not even said just recognize,

I'm done with that search.

I'm done with it.

Or it's done with me.

It's just over.

Yeah.

Yeah,

It's like that Zen story of,

You know,

You take the boat across the river,

But then you don't have to carry the boat once you get to the other side.

And even the recognition of there really was never a need for a boat actually,

But except that for some of us there was because we didn't,

We couldn't hear the simplicity before that.

I mean,

Some,

Some people actually can hear it.

Yes,

I know.

I've grilled you on this many times because I have said to you,

Well,

What does it take?

Do you have to get sick,

You know,

And weary?

Do you have to have meditated for 30 years?

Do you have to,

And,

And what you've said to me is,

You know,

Not necessarily,

Some people can hear it right away.

And,

And I've asked you this before,

Well,

What if you hadn't spent 17 years doing Vipassana?

And your answer to me was it's a moot point because I already did,

But some people don't have to do that.

Yeah,

Because I've met them and I think you have too.

Yeah.

You know,

I've met many of them who never did practice.

Yeah.

And I have to admit,

I have met people who think they understand the simplicity,

Who sometimes I wonder perhaps they could have used more mindfulness practice because their mind,

You know what I mean?

That their minds are jumping around a lot and are not really clear and focused,

You know?

So,

You know,

It's really case by case.

So I don't really want to,

You know,

Put forth a condemnation of practice or of all of that.

It was,

It was a boat that I definitely used to get to a point where I saw that I don't have to keep dragging around this boat.

Yeah.

And me too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Me too.

Yeah.

But I mean,

It's hard to know why.

I mean,

It might've been our particular conditioning.

I also suspect,

And I think it's true for you as well,

That had we run into these teachings earlier on,

I would have been ready for them.

I would have been ready,

You know,

After just a few years of practice.

But I just didn't,

I didn't run into these teachings because they really weren't around in those years.

Yeah.

Right.

And that's a good point.

Yeah,

They really weren't.

It wasn't until quite a bit later that they were popping about.

And,

And now they're so available.

I mean,

It's,

You have to practically trip on them,

You know,

And they're everywhere.

And I really think that the,

For the younger people and for the people,

You know,

Who have done a lot of practice,

Perhaps it's very lucky to be able to have this message so readily available and so consistently available such that you can kind of remind yourself a lot.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's deep rest.

I mean,

I find now that it's a different life.

Yeah.

It's a different life when I'm not seeking,

When I'm not looking for the answer out there for the next thing,

Convinced that somebody that I haven't yet met or that I have,

But I haven't quite been able to follow their teaching has that answer.

There's nothing to find now.

There's nothing to look for.

There's no place to go.

No,

I know.

There's nothing to do.

Well,

I've often described it as life at last because for me,

When I was,

You know,

In that process of seeking and of practice and of goal and of thinking I needed to be mindful much more of the day,

If I was to get anywhere and all of those things,

There was this sense that I always had homework that wasn't getting done.

Yes.

Right.

Right.

And now it's just as you're describing,

I'm just flowing along in my life just as it is.

There's not a sense that something's missing or something's not being handled or just,

It's a completely irrelevant concept that I actually haven't even lived with for now many,

Many years.

It's hard to even remember what that felt like,

In fact.

Not hard for me.

I think I spent a lot longer than you thinking that I had homework and that I was going to get a gold star.

Somebody was going to give me a gold star for doing it well.

Right.

As if somebody's tracking it.

As if there's anybody anywhere or any being tracking it.

You know,

It's ridiculous.

Yeah,

That's right.

Yeah.

Only you are tracking it.

Yeah.

Well,

May it become a distant memory,

My dear.

I think it's on its way to that.

I think so too.

Yes.

And it's a blessed release because the fever is gone.

The feverishness and the franticness and the hunger is gone.

And the other thing that I think is also very lovely about that understanding is that because one then so deeply relaxes in oneself,

You know,

There's a way in which that signals,

It's sort of,

You know,

It's sort of a frequency that you send out when you're with other people that,

You know,

There's really nothing to do here.

Because whenever I'm with somebody who is in some sort of training and think they're getting somewhere,

There's usually so much ego involvement that it's uncomfortable to be around them,

You know.

It's sort of like,

You know what I mean?

It's sort of.

.

.

I do.

One has to basically avoid any kind of real,

You know,

Conversation on the matter.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think,

You know,

It's for me,

Which is one of the many reasons I love our friendship and the waves that we surf and the deep dives that we do together.

For me,

It's about hanging out in myself and also with people who realize there's no place to get to.

I mean,

Not only,

Obviously,

Because I'm living in this world,

I'm working,

I'm doing what I do,

But it's so wonderful to have friends.

I know.

I'm just reflecting as you were saying that on how long you and I have been trying to set up this podcast,

But the truth is we talk to each other many times a week.

Sort of like hours.

We do.

Many times a week.

And we go from the sublime to the ridiculous.

We can start talking anywhere.

Exactly.

Like,

Well,

What do you think about that character on television anyway?

And then just go right for the deep dive.

Absolutely.

No.

And to kind of do it even paragraph by paragraph,

You know?

Yeah.

No.

I mean,

And that's how I love to hang out.

You know,

I love to just be in a kind of cruise with someone with,

You know,

Just cruising along,

You know,

Like the old Smokey Robinson song.

Well,

You know what that reminds me of,

Kath,

This time recently,

Which was,

I've thought about many times the night that we went to visit Stan in the hospital.

And I dropped the key fob,

Lost the key fob of the car key.

And the hospital visit was very short.

And we spent hours looking for the key fob through the corridors of the hospital.

But the whole thing was just like you just said about Smokey Robinson cruising along.

It was from one minute to the next.

It just didn't really matter very much what we were doing.

We were strangely having fun going out into the cold.

We had a great time.

Looking under cars.

We did.

We had a really good time.

I'm sorry that it cost you four or $500 to get your new key fob.

But it was a night to remember.

It was.

It was.

And the last time we saw Stan.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Beautiful Stan.

Yeah.

Last time he was alive that we saw him.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So yes,

That's exactly it,

Isn't it?

And I think that,

You know,

People love to be with people who have that capacity,

You know?

Yeah.

And it's never,

You know,

It's never heavy.

It's always just,

You know,

I mean,

Of course,

There are times of grief and of real sorrow in life.

And there's no denying that.

And times when one can't easily shake out into just simply being and in a kind of state of gratitude,

There are moments that are just damn hard.

But for the most part,

Especially freeing up this,

This big,

Huge homework thing,

It allows you to just feel better.

You know,

You just feel better in the day.

Yeah.

You know,

Right.

You feel lighter and you feel more prone to gratitude and just simple joys.

And that was another thing when I was younger and laboring under this enlightenment fantasy.

Simple joys were sort of discounted because you were waiting for something much more glamorous and big,

You know?

So you kind of overlooked simple joys.

Yeah.

And now I realize those are kind of the only joys to be had.

Yes,

That's right.

Yeah.

Yeah,

It's true.

Those are where the sublime is,

You know,

In color and sound and being with a friend and a good meal and laughter and just any little thing.

Playing with the dog and yeah.

Playing with the dog.

Playing with the dog.

Yeah.

All those,

All those kinds of ways of being that are just so basic and that maybe,

You know,

Maybe a lot of people in the world,

Maybe in simpler cultures that are not as driven as our culture,

Not that they're simple exactly,

But that they're not as driven.

Yeah.

You know,

Maybe they have access to this way of being.

But let me just go to one other point about this,

Which is something I've thought a lot about.

Even though there comes a point where seeking becomes irrelevant and contraindicated,

Still I find myself most at home with people who have either gone on the search or have profoundly come to this realization in a very clear way.

I find myself in terms of who my friends are and who I like to be with.

And that may be a function of just having more in common with them.

But you know,

While there may be,

You know,

Peasants living in Peru who do exist in a state of pure being,

I might find it difficult to relate to them.

And not only because we have a language gap,

But because there's,

You know,

There's not that kind of understanding of having gone on the search.

Yeah.

Right.

I think that's why the fluency from what I called from the sublime to the ridiculous,

Even though it's not really ridiculous,

But why that's so easy,

Why it's so easy to go so quickly from one to the other,

Because there's a basic trust in the ground,

So to speak,

Although it's not really the ground,

But trust in where what each of you hold dear or what each of you knows or loves or and,

You know,

There aren't really any words I was going to say is established in,

But that's a terrible way to describe it,

I think,

Because it's not actually being established in anything.

It's more like nothing.

It's more like just the life force itself.

Yes,

Exactly.

But the actual,

You know,

Understanding and the,

Like I'm saying,

The lived experience of that does inform all conversation,

Even when one is on the completely banal,

You know.

Yeah,

It does.

And yet,

You know,

When you're with someone whose entire sort of output stream is mostly banal,

I have to admit,

I do find that a bit tiring,

You know,

And but if it's in the context of being with someone who I know,

You know,

Hangs out in the deep water,

Then it doesn't then it's fun,

Actually.

Yeah,

It is fun because you have to talk about Jessica on suits to someone.

That's right.

And we were about to deconstruct the debate we just watched last night before we were on our Skype call,

Which maybe we should end this.

Maybe we should end this Skype call and get on to that.

That sounds like a good idea.

Let's do that.

Okay,

Bye.

Bye.

This has been In the Deep.

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Book a private session or make a tax deductible donation for the ongoing production of the podcasts,

Please visit KatherineIngram.

Com.

Till next time.

Reviews

I've heard these ideas but I actually think this conversation brought them home. Makes me look forward to today and beyond in a whole new way.

Excellent. What a concept.

I found this very thought provoking and could relate to the seeking aspect perfectly. Wow, is it truly that easy? I've been looking for that golden ring of happiness my whole life! Thank you for a perspective I've never heard before.

Simply fantastic - I found the dialogue so joyful. Thank you!

Very insightful!

The end of seeking is the beginning of living ... what a relief ; )

I am a sseker. Wow

The concept of "there's no homework to be done" helped me profoundly this morning. Thank you.

In a fun and familiar way, they give their mature, experienced and thoughtful point of view on spiritual quests. I really enjoyed it. Thank you!

Very real, fun, candidand insightful. They had to first seek to come to the realization of not to seek.

Very interesting.

So enjoyed this conversation about making it OK that where we are spiritually is perfect! Allowing, non-resistant and the embracing being the end of continually striving toward a never ending prize. Thank you ladies! ❤️❤️

I want to end the years old seeking...thank you for saying it's possible.💜

Very freeing!
Love the connection.

Loved this! Thank you

Wow ......
Very little lately makes me stop and think. ..this has just stone walled me.
Amazing !!!!

Thank you for your refreshing chat and insight🙏🏻🌈💕❤️

Thank you 😘. Listening to this talk is going to be helpful to me as a beginner walking this path.

I really liked this. I remember reading Geneen Roth's work years ago. It was a kind view at a time that food was a tyranny in my life. This podcast won't be for everyone, but for me I liked the idea of ceasing seeking and still swimming in the deep waters.