True Communication

Our spoken words and communication through other means, such as music or movement or being with others in silence, are powerful expressions that might project our momentary internal landscape as a clear image into another’s mind. But the communication that might actually reside in another’s heart from you is that of kindness, a warmth that underlies all the words and dancing and even the silence.

Transcript

Welcome to In the Deep.

I'm your host,

Katherine Ingram.

The following was excerpted from a Zoom session of Dharma Dialogues,

Which was broadcast from Australia on June 20th,

2020.

It's called True Communication.

We're going to start as we've been doing with some quiet gazing at Arunachala,

Because our dear friend Noah is there in India,

Right by the mountain,

And we can actually look at the mountain.

We've been doing these meditations just at the beginning and at the end of these sessions,

These last few times doing Zoom sessions.

Really an incredible privilege for us to be able to sit with Arunachala,

The mountain.

Not that there's something magical,

In my opinion,

About that,

Except that,

As with many places that are considered holy places,

They've been imbued,

Infused with people's reverence for them and that people go there for the very purpose of immersing themselves in quiet and in a reflection of the eternities,

Of the sense of that which,

In a sense,

Breathes life.

It's this beautiful,

Simple teaching of Ramana Maharshi.

It's where he went when he was 16 years old and where he died.

He never left that place from the time he was 16 until he died.

Seekers and lovers of simplicity have been going there for decades.

And just for a few minutes,

We'll just gaze at the mountain or,

Eyes closed if you prefer,

Just coming to your own quiet,

Your own remembrance,

Of yourination.

Thank you,

Noah.

There's a neuroscientist,

He's a neuroscientist and a primatologist at Stanford,

Whose work I've followed for years and years.

He does a lot of very interesting work on stress.

And he had one of his famous books is called Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers.

And his pointing out is that zebras don't get ulcers because when they need their stress hormones,

That is when they're being chased by a lion,

Let's say,

Their stress hormones kick in,

All the things that they're going to need to get out of the way and to run as fast as they can.

All of those hormones kick in and it works very,

Very well most of the time for them.

Once the danger is over,

Their system regulates itself basically to normal.

So not only do they go to normal after the event is over,

But I'd also propose,

I don't think I've ever heard him speak about this part,

But it must be the case because he understands,

He measures stress hormones in animals before and after various events.

Some of the experiments,

By the way,

Are a little bit distasteful to me as a kind of animal rights lover,

As a lover of animals and champion of their rights.

But in any case,

Prior to the event with the lion,

Probably the zebras are not sitting around worrying about the fact that there are lions out there.

They're not instigating stress responses by their own worrying because they probably don't really worry.

Now we're very different.

We do get stress-related diseases because we imagine lots of things that are very worrying or we go over things that have happened that are very stressful to us and essentially trigger our stress response even though we're not experiencing the event at that moment.

We tend to do that as humans.

And it's very bad for our health.

It's bad for our mental health.

As perhaps you've experienced when you're in high stress or in some phase of depression,

Often those things can actually go together.

You can't think straight.

Your decisions are very much handicapped by the stress,

By the worry,

By the depression.

You can't really function very well,

Though you might think you are doing okay.

You might think that you're behaving intuitively.

You're using your stress response to justify your various crazy decisions and things that dig your hole a bit deeper.

You're only working with a partial amount of your intelligence,

Of your wakeful intelligence.

It's perhaps why people turn to drugs or psychotropics or alcohol.

One of the things that those substances can do is they sort of turn off.

They turn off parts of the brain so that it's like the noise of the brain,

The noise of the stress response gets turned down,

The volume gets turned down.

And that's one of the things that people will say about lots of things that they use.

They'll say that it opened the doors of perception,

The famous title by Aldous Huxley borrowed later by the Doors in the 1960s,

The rock band.

People will say that the doors of perception were opened on various substances when in fact probably what's happening according to neuroscience is that certain types of brain activity are just quieted and it allows perception to be that much clearer.

We discover this also in meditation or in nature.

Anytime that you're able to be tapped into the quiet stream of being,

There's a way in which the doors of perception open.

It's pretty universally true.

It's why we like doing it,

Of course.

It's a natural high,

As they say,

But what if it's just a natural way of being?

That's my position about it.

It's your natural way of being.

Now,

Are some people more anxious by nature?

Of course they are for whatever reason,

Conditioning or genetics,

Whatever it is.

Some people are more high strung,

Just as some animals are more high strung.

But what I think is very,

Very important for us to consider is to not,

If you happen to be,

Number one,

A high strung person,

And number two,

You're sort of ruminating on things that are stressing you a lot.

And goodness knows,

We have plenty to pick from these days.

We have lots of things that we can focus on that will for sure guaranteed raise our cortisol levels of stress.

That will work.

But is it possible to acknowledge that there are stressful things happening in this world,

Stressful things happening in our personal lives,

But that we can use our attention intelligently,

Not deny any of that,

But reposition how our attention is being used?

So for the most part,

I propose one can float in present awareness.

One can focus a lot on gratitude,

Focus on things that you love,

Put your attention there as much as possible.

And of course,

That doesn't mean that you deny and put aside the events of the world and the sense of what could be coming,

Because we are creatures who have a relationship to looking at trajectories of how events are going in order to anticipate how it might turn out.

Even with all that,

Even if you think it's going to get harder,

And that is what I think,

I think it's going to get harder.

But in the meantime,

We can be like the zebras,

We can basically address things as needed,

And then let ourselves come back to calm for the most part.

Why I don't propose,

As some do,

Why I don't say that you can actually completely come to silence in your being is that I don't know many people who can do that.

I've never managed to do it entirely.

I tend to have anxiety,

Just due to my conditioning,

I do work with anxiety.

But I have learned over the years to not let it just rule,

To not just sort of lay down and shiver.

I've learned to manage my attention.

That's what I do with it,

I manage it.

I notice when I'm getting high strung about something.

And by the way,

One of the other unfortunate components of a sort of background anxiety is that because there's this stress that's in the system,

Every little tiny glitch in life becomes dramatic.

You have some technical problem or somebody cuts you off in traffic,

Small things,

They become big dramatic issues,

Because it's landing on a bed of stress.

Now obviously,

In life,

There might be phases that are relatively stress free,

Even in terms of the events going on in the world.

We're not in one of those phases at the moment,

But we have been,

We have most of us on this call are old enough to have lived through some really good times.

And obviously,

We've been lucky in the kinds of places we live.

But even so,

Things can get hard all of a sudden.

One of my many favorite stanzas of Leonard Cohen,

The ponies run,

The girls are young,

The odds are there to beat.

You win a while and then it's done,

Your little winning streak.

And summoned now to deal with your invincible defeat,

You live your life as if it's real,

A thousand kisses deep.

I love that part.

You win a while and then it's done your little winning streak.

So yeah,

We sometimes have a winning streak.

But it's important not to just be swinging from your winning streak to your losing streak to your winning streak.

And having your stress hormones being battered about all the while,

Dependent on circumstance for your well being.

That's a very dangerous proposition.

Because there is an invincible defeat coming and many along the way.

And it's possible,

I say this because as I said,

I work with it myself and also because I've known so many people who have managed to use their attention in wise ways.

Nothing esoteric about this.

Nothing hard about it,

Really.

It's just about habit.

It's about habit and you don't have to be perfect at it either.

You just find your own ways of calming yourself,

Regulating yourself.

That might be listening to music or playing music or reading something that calms you or sitting quietly gazing at the stars or a park or out your window or sitting quietly with your eyes closed or lying on your couch.

Or having tea with your friend,

Your loved one,

Your pet,

So called.

A creature you might live with that's four legged.

Or find yourself in India next to Ranachala.

For me,

Gardening is a very important way to level between the extremes of being swept up in stress about something or being in a very,

Very blissful,

Quiet state.

You swing around usually,

Which is true.

Gardening is for me very much a way to find peace and to care for something that is not demanding really,

Like plants and flowers.

It fills me with enormous joy and also the unpredictability of gardening.

Things grow,

Things disappear.

Trees wither,

Trees blossom.

It is all,

You just give a little hand,

But most of it is unpredictable and still the joy is tremendous for me as a city girl,

As a city dweller.

Next to meditation,

Which we actually do every day together,

I still practice.

For me,

It's very important to get to know my nervous system and to give it quiet messages,

Calming messages.

Yes,

Very good,

Something I discovered as well.

As you're speaking,

I was kind of just feeling into a kind of Taoist view of letting or noticing the flow of things basically.

I was going to say letting them be,

But it's not even that.

It's just noticing,

As you say,

The unpredictability,

But it's also essentially a kind of way that,

Yeah,

Something's there one day and then next day something's eaten it or something,

One plant dies,

Even though it's sitting next to one that's thriving.

There's just this way of the way of all things,

Actually,

Just the eternal flow of being and non-being.

I'm thinking about today,

I'm thinking about vulnerability.

Is that how you say it?

Yes.

Vulnerable.

Yes.

Yeah.

It seems like,

Well,

The last 25 or 30 years I've been heading in,

Yeah,

You can say all kinds of spiritual directions.

I guess I've been a seeker all my life.

And a lot of that has fallen in place since I met you about 12 or 14 years ago,

First time.

But I'm thinking about that vulnerability because I've always been hiding myself when I'm together with people who are not those sort of people who are seekers or just,

How can I say ordinary people?

I don't know.

Do you know what I mean?

I do indeed.

And also,

I have a desire now to show myself to say,

Well,

Here I am with all of me.

So I don't want to hide that side of me anymore.

Do you know what I mean?

I do.

Yeah.

And then since my husband died,

It's been a great issue for me to go out in the world and show all of me.

I've been hiding myself,

I think all my life.

And my husband,

Before he died,

He said,

Honey,

Go out and show the world who you are because you are incredible.

And he said all those wonderful things to me.

And I realized since he died,

I've been hiding.

And so now I go out in the world and I show myself with all my things.

And then I feel very vulnerable and sensitive.

So can you talk about that sort of vulnerability that I feel when I show who I really am?

And I want to do that because I can't live in that box anymore.

I don't want to be in the cupboard.

I want to show all of me.

I want to take my place in the world.

You know what I mean?

I do.

I do.

And I completely understand the impulse.

In my own experiments,

Which all I can share is my own experiments.

And I sometimes talk about how the deeper one goes into the sort of quiet regions of being that maybe not everyone visits frequently.

But if you're visiting that area frequently,

Your doors of perception are often open,

Essentially.

And you've probably heard me say,

Because you've listened to all my podcasts,

You've probably heard me say that the deeper you go in your own understanding,

The more that you're offering understanding and not asking to be understood.

Oh,

Yeah,

That's right.

Because asking to be understood when someone cannot understand you.

It's going to cause a feeling of separation.

It doesn't go well.

That's what I feel.

Yeah,

I can feel that separation because I expect if I explain me enough,

She can understand me,

But she cannot.

Right.

So the easier path is to meet her where you can find connection,

Where you have conversation that is amenable,

Is easy for both of you.

Am I true to myself?

You are true to yourself.

Just as you and I don't mean this in any kind of way of putting down someone,

But let me just say it another way.

And I think I said it to you last week,

Or I was said it on the call last week,

Two weeks ago.

Just as you would adjust if you were talking to say,

Someone who spoke a foreign language,

Right,

Or a child,

Right?

You would adjust your conversation,

You would adjust to find common ground.

And that's really,

I think,

Because you know what,

Real communication with each other is actually not about the concepts.

It's about the vibe.

It's about how does it feel for us to be together?

Yeah,

The energy.

The feeling of sweetness,

A feeling of safety.

Now,

That said,

It's incredibly delightful to have a friend with whom you actually do share concepts,

Right?

You do share more subtle perceptions and reflections and nuances whereby,

You know,

Do you know who Thich Nhat Hanh is?

Yeah,

So I interviewed him a few times long ago.

Oh,

You did?

Yeah,

Before he was known,

I did the first big interview in the US with him long time ago.

And in one of the interviews,

He told me,

He just talked about his friend with Martin Luther.

He was friends with Martin Luther King Jr.

,

Who was one of our great civil rights leaders,

Nonviolent leader of the civil rights movement in the US.

And I love this thing that he said about Martin Luther King and his friendship.

Thich Nhat Hanh said,

You could tell him just a few things,

And he understood the things you did not say.

Right?

So there's people with whom you can say a few things.

And because those few things are so bright in the other's heart,

You know,

That there's a cascade of information that comes with just a few words.

That's why I love to hang out in these communities.

Yeah,

Because you find a place where you can have these kinds of,

You know,

This language of the heart,

You know?

Yeah.

Just as we share music,

Right?

Sometimes you're sharing the experience of music with someone who you don't have any language together.

You have no common language in terms of they speak a completely different language.

They might speak an African language,

For instance,

Where you don't even have Latin words that are overlapping,

You know?

And yet you're having this profound experience.

Yeah.

But I feel like when I'm with people who are not there,

Then I have a tendency for the most of my life,

I can,

Like you say,

I talk in the way that how we can relate.

And I'm actually so good at that.

Sometimes I hold myself back because I'm so good at mingling with people and in Denmark,

I don't know if you say that in English,

But in Denmark we say,

Sing with the birds who you are along with.

Yes.

Do you know that?

Yes,

We call it birds of a feather.

All right.

That's me my whole life.

So sometimes I feel like I've just been,

You know,

Always I'm so good at going out to the others and being where they are.

So I sometimes give up.

Yeah,

I just don't feel like I'm myself.

Well,

Part of yourself could be that it's a loving act.

That's a kind act to meet people and to be friendly,

Right?

I do that a lot.

Yeah.

Well,

What I would suggest for you is,

Since you already do that part a lot,

And we all have to do a lot,

But it is nice,

I agree,

To have these deeper conversations.

So maybe it's just a matter of adjusting the balance of who you're hanging out with so that you have friends with whom you can go to the deep places or the wordless places,

But know that they get it.

And also,

You know,

So that I think,

Again,

With the absence of your husband,

And that being so recent,

Perhaps that hole in your life also contains that kind of connection that you probably relied on.

Yeah,

Of course.

Yes.

So it's a way in which,

You know,

There are probably many,

Many things you cannot replace about the loss of your husband.

Right.

Because he was also my best friend.

He was your best friend.

Yes.

But that one,

Communication in the deep waters,

I think you can find.

And there are plenty of people out there who hang out at that frequency,

On your frequency,

Your feather.

It's taken me a lifetime of training in this actually,

But to really meet people in these deeper places and not ask of them to be different,

Right?

Not ask them to be on a certain frequency that I'm hanging out on.

So it's just a matter of how I can also be in the room because I feel like my whole life I've been giving myself away,

I've been hiding myself away to be like them.

But I don't want to do that.

But I would like to be me,

Authentic.

But of course,

Also,

I can't help being friendly,

Because that's the way I am.

So I guess that's just the way it is.

It's just the way it is to live in this world and have communion with other people.

It's just how it has to be.

Now,

Does it sometimes get tiring?

Yes,

It does.

It gets tiring to constantly be translating in your mind,

What's not going to kind of make them think I'm a weirdo and what's going to be non-occurrence.

This subject we avoid and that one and,

You know,

Censoring.

And that can get tedious,

I agree.

So you want to basically do that to whatever level,

However much you can feel comfortable with.

And then you don't have to do it beyond that too much.

So I also need to take care of myself not to give too much away of that because I get too vulnerable,

Actually.

It brings out fear in me.

Yes.

But,

You know,

Here's a clue.

Almost everybody's afraid.

Yeah.

They're having fear too.

So to really know that and you can move more from compassion and looking for the points of connection and not necessarily needing them to see you,

Especially if you sense they're actually not going to be able to see you in whatever your deepest waters might be.

So that's just another,

You know,

It's just a kind of worrisome task that you don't have to engage in.

So it's also about taking care of yourself in that matter.

Is that correct?

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah.

I'm not so good at that.

I need to learn that.

Yes,

You do.

Yeah.

Yeah,

More joy and ease.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And knowing that you have boundaries and that some things exhaust you and it's nobody's fault.

It's not their fault that it's tiring,

But you have to just know that some people's company,

You spend a little time with them and you feel like you've been plugged into a light transformer or something,

But others,

You just feel like someone's taking your blood and it's going on for hours.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So good to see you.

So good to see you again.

So nice.

It's great to join the community today.

It's the first time I've joined something like this or taken part in any kind of chat room.

And let me start by saying it's been such a pleasure to hear your conversation and your sensitive comments with Jeanette.

And Jeanette,

We're very sorry for your loss.

And I want to say,

I really understand a lot of what she's talking about.

And I have the feeling so many times when I reveal something about myself that I go away from the conversation and think,

Did I say too much?

Have I revealed too much about myself?

And then I think,

Can I reveal too much about myself?

Is there a limit to what we can reveal to others when what we're really after is truth and understanding between individuals?

Yeah,

Right.

Well,

I guess it all has to do with how it plays when you have been revealing a lot.

Because yes,

It's so wonderful to feel that you can just,

Like I said before,

That you don't have to censor anything.

You can just let your thoughts run through without any kind of check.

That is very,

Very pleasant.

It's thrilling,

Actually.

It's thrilling to have that happen.

But we also probably all know the experience of sometimes when we're speaking,

We start to sense that there's a bad vibe happening,

A kind of weird energy,

A way that now there's an opaque cloud forming between us and our friend or group of friends.

And while that can be,

Sometimes one has to do that,

And sometimes one does have to stand alone and speak your truth.

In my own case,

I'm pretty judicious with that,

Because I tend to ruminate on conversations that maybe didn't go so well in the moment,

And then I replay them over and over and over and over in my head.

So for myself,

Just the way I'm built,

I've learned to be looking for the points of connection without feeling compromised that I'm being deceptive or untrue.

It's like the Buddha said,

According to lore,

Always speak the truth,

But only the truth that's skillful.

Now,

You know,

You spend a lot of time in silence.

I mean,

To kind of sense,

Is this a warm conversation?

Sometimes we do have to say something that's a hard truth,

But we're doing it for the greater good,

Let's say,

You know,

That something has to be said.

And unfortunately,

One finds oneself in the position of the one having to be the one to say it.

But to kind of have that surrender internally of being in communion,

There's this great Emerson quote.

He's basically saying that all conversation really is this other kind of communion going on.

Or like in Wonderful World also,

The song,

The great song that I see friends shaking hands saying,

How do you do?

They're really saying,

I love you.

You know,

It's just the kind of these kind of noises we make that have a different function actually underneath.

And of course,

It's so thrilling.

I've so loved our communication just in our emails.

This is the first time you and I've ever spoken because of the incredible conceptual connection.

Right?

That's been so thrilling for me.

Quite beautiful.

Yeah.

Oh,

Well,

So you know,

You're a natural poet,

It seems.

By the way,

Unfairly gifted,

I want to say.

You're really unfairly gifted.

But anyway,

Very kind.

But you know,

That that kind of connection is fairly rare in the big scheme of things and has its own place of beauty and wonder.

But one can also find,

I have very profound connection with some all kinds of people that I might not share that particular mindstream with.

But I've just learned over the years.

Here's another thing that I,

I do.

I look for Buddha nature.

And sometimes it comes in packages that aren't necessarily articulate in language,

But are articulate in other ways.

And you as a musician would certainly know that in terms of the way some people perhaps when you're talking with them,

You don't necessarily find them so riveting,

But you hear them play an instrument.

And you realize,

Wow,

You know,

There's that's real genius that is plugged into something that is,

You know,

It's like this cosmic whisper that they're hearing.

And so I look for Buddha nature.

I meet people.

And that's,

That's what I'm kind of listening and watching for is that.

And sometimes it's hard to see in some people.

Sometimes it's hard to see.

I think,

I think for us,

Or for me,

My parallel to that would be that when I hear someone play,

I don't hear the sound but I hear the person.

Yeah,

Yeah.

And I think I tend to hear what's behind or the intent or what's even going on in the person and their spirit at the moment that they're playing.

Sorry,

I interrupted you.

No,

No,

No,

Go ahead.

It's just,

There's very much more to the unseen than to the seen.

And to the just what we get as a feeling from the from the person.

Then there's sound.

You know,

That's all.

And what we hear is the sound we see.

That's kind of just the wrapper around something.

The core.

It takes a lot of patience and openness to,

To,

To,

To feel a person.

Yeah,

That's,

Yeah.

That's what I was trying to get at is just the,

The sensing of,

Of the being and that that that the communication,

You know,

Just as we have wordless communication with say,

A beloved animal or any animal we meet with some we might have,

Which just feels like instantaneous what my teacher Poonjaji used to call self unto self.

Like you just,

You're just blended like water into water.

Others you might meet a dog or cat or whatever,

And you know,

You both keep your distance perhaps.

You know,

We're sensing creatures,

But that we're communicating in all these other ways,

All these other subliminal ways.

And so yes,

To your point,

It's right,

You're,

You're feeling the being you're feeling,

I feel that too,

When I look at like art from other times,

Or even art from our time,

Actually,

You know,

That it's transmitting.

And also,

When I've seen a lot of Asian art that is produced anonymously,

Right over the centuries,

That,

You know,

You're getting a message in a bottle from another time,

You know.

So,

Yeah,

All these ways to rework our,

And this is for Jeanette,

Especially,

To rework what we think is our communication,

Right,

And to realize that some forms of communication you're going to have very strongly with some people,

And other forms that not so much that with other people that you don't,

Can't really meet on all those levels,

But you meet in a different way.

I related to everything all of you have said,

The thing I really want to say is,

And I felt this last week,

It meant so much to see your faces.

And it did again,

It does again today that,

That you're,

If I've never met you,

You're still my people,

And I can feel it through the airwaves.

I know this,

And you can't fake frequency,

Which is the shorthand about the way that you just mesh with some people and you don't need to speak because you can't fake frequency.

Yes,

Yes.

And one of the things I have been doing,

Well,

One of the things I did recently,

Because I've been deconstructing my life and breaking up with everyone and quit my job and I'm saying I like the pandemic has made things so acutely clear that I had to make a list to remind myself things that make me happy.

And it was so much like your list,

Catherine.

It was so many simple,

Quiet moments that I had not left enough time for in my day,

The way I had been living that I realized is what really does sustain me more than the big things.

Like,

After writing a list of maybe 15 things,

I remembered to write travel at the bottom,

But it doesn't seem important.

And I'm so grateful I got to do it as I'm sure you are when,

When we did.

Yes.

Yeah.

I'm really,

That's beautiful,

Debré.

That's beautiful.

Yeah,

It's all,

It's like the easiest way is to find the little joys instead of constantly holding out for some big extravaganza.

If you go for the little joys,

They're all over the place.

Yeah,

I've too been experiencing a similar thing around a sense of feeling safe in relating to people.

And what I noticed as a nuance is as I speak to people who are currently going through lots of changes,

Or perhaps trauma is arising in them,

Or they have a period in their time that they feel unstable,

I found myself feeling very porous to that and sensitive to it.

And maybe years ago,

I didn't have that sensitivity.

And I'm just starting to notice that a bit more and feeling a little bit resentful and frustrated that I'm learning also to being a quite a porous person to people's feelings.

I feel like I've had a long time trying to create boundaries.

And so it got to a stage where I felt I have a sense of boundaries between myself and others.

And I can own,

But I can hold.

But it seems to be a bit different now that I feel a little bit like I consciously don't want to hold.

Are you saying you feel resentment because someone's energy is draining to you?

Yes.

So it feels to me that because they're going through things that I feel that I'm becoming more sensitive to,

I feel a sense of resentment that is expected that I hold that for them because perhaps that's the role I've played for many years being a more empathic person.

And I feel like I've got to a stage where perhaps feeling empathic,

I have a choice,

Something like that.

Like this seems like I can choose my boundaries.

I've been working with my boundaries and choosing having more choice and how I showed up before as perhaps a rescuer,

As a helper or a person that was always open that people came to for help.

They were patterns that I didn't have conscious choice with.

And so now I'm not saying that I'm not open to helping people holding space for people,

But I feel that with my boundaries now,

Working with my boundaries and working with the choices I have that maybe my question is getting to put round to it,

That doesn't mean I'm not compassionate.

Like is there a sense that because I'm holding my boundaries or that I feel don't have to hold space for people if I feel I don't want to,

Does that mean like.

.

.

Of course,

You're not an infinite energy machine,

Right?

You don't have infinite energy.

So we all have our points of exhaustion,

Whether it's mental exhaustion,

Emotional exhaustion,

Physical exhaustion,

Right?

And sometimes when you feel that you're just in a constant situation of giving and giving and giving and giving,

It's time to fill up your own well again.

And then you can give out some more,

Right?

But it's important to fill your own well and your own well can only ever spill over if it's full.

When you're just draining the well all the time,

Pretty soon you've got nothing there left.

Now some people,

Because we're all different,

We're made differently,

Some people can just be this constant font of help and rolling up the sleeves.

I mean,

You hear about these Doctors Without Borders that are on triage for 17 hours a day or 18 hours a day,

Right?

I mean,

They're just built differently perhaps.

And I think also sometimes we do get energy from feeling that our life is helping someone.

It's like our whole life is somehow sort of dedicated to the greater good and it's actually being effective in that way.

That can give energy.

I've seen so many people,

Because I used to always interview activists,

For instance,

Who had worldwide actions.

I often came away thinking,

Wow,

They're made of like some other kind of stardust.

But I could also see that they were being fed because of the love that was coming in and the appreciation,

Even though in some cases they were also getting a lot of barbs and arrows at them as well.

So what you come back to,

Though,

Is your own authentic self.

And you basically have to be honest about what you can handle.

And I doubt you're ever going to be erring on the side of unkind,

You're not going to be unkind,

You're not going to close down and not be compassionate to friends and so on.

But one of the things that comes with aging is that you get a lot more real about,

First of all,

Your ideals about who you think you are and what you can handle.

And you get good at being able to say no.

And if you can do that in a very authentic way,

Often it isn't an offense to someone.

You say,

I just can't do that.

And people will hear it from the place you said it,

Which was a very clean place.

If you're in a place of self-recrimination,

Because you're saying no,

That will also be transmitted in the conversation,

In the communication.

They'll hear your feelings of guilt,

And they might interpret that wrongly,

That it's something about them or something.

So it can mess up the communication is what I'm saying.

So when you're very clear in yourself and you basically say,

God,

No,

I just can't do it,

I'd like to do it,

But I can't.

They'll hear you more clearly.

Not always.

Sometimes people just are going to be disappointed no matter what.

But most reasonable people will respect you for your having a boundary.

And you tend to err on the side of overly generous and overly compassionate.

So that will probably continue.

Thanks,

Katherine.

Katherine,

I really loved your introduction today.

Because it was just so speaking to what I am,

Well,

To a focus that I have right now.

Because it's like this time is,

I think it's so intense,

And so it kind of takes all of my vigilance to stay balanced,

I've noticed.

So all these things that we've been speaking about over the years,

The simple truths,

It's like,

I just feel that they are the ones that are here for us now,

In a way.

Absolutely.

And it's also like,

Today when I was listening to everybody,

It was like,

In some ways,

It's taking me this long to kind of realise that there is no other way,

There is nothing else that's going to come and save me or save us or lead the way.

How can I say it's,

And there's no escape either.

It's like,

I just feel,

Okay,

Now's the time for really getting clear.

I think things are very clear for me these times,

But there's also some kind of gap between the inner knowing and the living.

Maybe because the times are so intense,

It just takes so much vigilance.

Otherwise other things can come and sweep me along,

Going with emotions or patterning,

Old patternings or something like that.

So it really,

I really just really need to stay very present.

In Ireland,

They have a saying,

There's nothing like an execution to concentrate the eye.

Yeah,

There's nothing like that in a way.

It seems to be like that in a way.

So it's,

Yeah.

It's that way for me too.

You've heard me speak many,

Many times about how we know something at different portals of our being.

So we can know something intellectually and then we kind of know it a bit emotionally and it keeps kind of drenching us,

Soaking us.

Will,

You know it kind of in your cells.

Like you just,

It's no longer even in thought form.

It's that there's this deep,

Deep,

Profound knowing.

And I also have been feeling that certain recognitions about the time that we're in,

Not just the COVID crisis,

Of course,

But the bigger crisis that is engulfing the world,

The collapse of our ecosystem and the warming of our planet,

That living with this has been so,

It's been stripping all the extra,

What you were kind of going to begin the good times where everything's kind of cruising along.

It's easier to go to sleep.

You can kind of forget about everything.

You forget about your own personal death and about every other thing,

You know,

And you just,

You know,

You just bounce along and groove along.

But our time that we're in is very,

It's very,

Very different,

I would say than any other time.

There have been other times where things looked bad for a given population in a certain part of the world.

But now we're in this planetary crisis,

And you and I have talked about this over many years.

We sat at that restaurant years ago in Rome.

But I've also never felt more awake.

I mean,

All the stuff we've been saying about not sweating the small stuff and not obsessing about nonsense and also letting go easily about,

I mean,

The pandemic has also been very effective in that regard,

Where we've all,

Everyone I know has been in a pretty impressive adjustment.

We've suddenly gotten used to,

There's lots of things that are no longer on our list of possibilities that used to be not very long ago.

It's been a very dramatic change.

So yes,

You kind of fall back into the Dharma and into the most simple versions of the Dharma of really being grateful for just this moment,

This taste of this tea,

The bird twittering,

Eda's out in her garden.

You know,

Debray has figured out to let go of a lot of things that were stressful and come in turn to the very most simple joys on the list.

And all of those,

All of those recognitions just get stronger and stronger in this time that we're in.

And I would,

I do recommend that we that we have courage,

That we have courage in this,

That we let go easily.

Realize your let go muscle.

And I've often said it's like having the benefits of hospice without yet falling apart physically,

That we're getting the benefits,

What benefits there are.

And I think there are many for people.

I was just hearing a story on the BBC about this Sri Lankan reporter,

His name is George,

Something as Sri Lankan name,

Last name,

Who he has metastasized cancer,

And he has COVID now.

But he's,

He's in an awake,

He's in a very awake state.

And it's pretty beautiful to hear him speak.

You know,

He's been this successful BBC reporter.

And I mean,

It's like that,

You know,

It's sort of like when you really wake up to the circumstance,

Then all that's left,

Like you said,

There's no there's no cavalry coming to save us.

It's it's,

You're left with the Dharma and it is a fabulous sanctuary.

It'll hold you.

It'll hold you to the last breath.

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Namaste