What Makes You Happy?

Excerpted from Dharma Dialogues with Catherine Ingram. Recorded in Lennox Head, Australia in September 2018. From the opening talk: “What makes you happy? Just let the question roll around inside you. You don't have to have an immediate answer, but feel into it. Some of the things that make us happy, generally speaking, are about a connection with our loved ones.”

Transcript

Welcome to In the Deep.

I'm your host,

Katherine Ingram.

The following is excerpted from a session of Dharma Dialogues held in Lenox Head,

Australia in September of 2018.

It's called,

What Makes You Happy?

I'm going to ask a question and just let it roll around.

You don't have to have an immediate answer but feel into it.

What makes you happy?

Some of the things that make us happy,

Generally speaking,

Connection with our loved ones.

I know some of you are parents and perhaps in a general sense,

You could say your children give that sense of intense connection that has with it a deep well-being,

Even though it's hard at times.

For some people it's music or ideas,

Dance,

Different forms of creativity,

Or something.

One of my friends told me the other day that she's a master at pottering.

She's a master potter.

She loves pottering.

Living in her garden,

Fixing this and that.

It's interesting,

Isn't it,

How despite we each know in our own case what gives us really a deep sense of happiness,

What are our deep sources of happiness?

Sometimes we don't choose that somehow or we don't quite.

It's almost like we're saving it for later or we feel a little guilty about indulging it or we're attracted in a bizarre way to things that are the absolute opposite,

That make us unhappy.

It's almost sometimes for some of us an act of will to put aside that which is making us unhappy and simply choosing what makes us feel good.

It's amazing that.

And maybe it just takes a reminder to yourself that this is really a smart way to play it here in the few minutes we have left,

Right?

That it's really wise.

It's helpful.

It's helpful to you.

It's helpful for everyone around you.

Not only is it helpful for them because you're more pleasant to be with,

But it gives them permission to make that kind of choice in their own life.

For instance,

I was listening to a podcast.

One of my many indulgences is that I like to listen to podcasts.

There's so many amazing minds now that we have at our fingertips that we can just study anything we want.

I was listening to someone whose show I sometimes listen to.

He's just come back from,

He stopped his show.

He gave it over to a guest host for a month.

He's got kind of a daily show.

And he stopped his show.

He gave it over to the guest host.

He was gone a month.

And all he did was unplug.

He didn't go on a specific retreat.

He just lived his life in Los Angeles.

And he put his phone in a safe,

Didn't look at the news.

And he's a news person.

He's someone who does a lot,

His show has a kind of news show component.

Didn't talk about politics.

And he said he was so happy.

He said he felt so good.

And even as he was,

I heard him on his first show back.

And he was talking about just how good he feels.

And all he did was just go on a fast from all of that.

Amazing.

He said that typically,

He'd find himself on a corner waiting for someone he's about to meet.

And he said usually you'd get your phone out.

You'd check your messages.

You'd look at your Instagram.

You'd look at your email.

But because he didn't have his phone,

He was forced to look at what was going on around him.

And that he was having these conversations with the girl at the hardware store and just he had this whole other way of life,

Which many of us may remember from we're of an age that we would remember that's how it used to be.

And you think about just the quiet of that way of life,

Right?

And just that little dip of one month for him in this strange way of living,

Of not being plugged in,

How absolutely salubrious it was.

And this is someone who loves his job,

By the way.

And he's got an amazing job with millions of people listening to him.

It's not as if he's grinding away in something.

He's having fun.

So I have a feeling,

Although he didn't say this,

But I have a feeling he'll maybe lean that way more having made this experiment.

Now maybe you're not going to need to make that exact experiment,

But perhaps there could be just some intentionality in yourself that gives you permission to frequently,

As much as possible,

Turn your attention to the things that make you happy,

That make you deeply happy.

It's kind of still forming for me,

But it's around what you shared.

I noticed that,

Kind of had a realisation recently that my baseline level of happiness that I revert to when I'm not,

Say,

Doing the things I love,

Like that everyday kind of baseline hasn't really changed for me.

I don't really think.

Like I was trying to remember back to when I was a teenager and then I was about eight years old and it's like,

Hasn't really shifted.

I need to,

Despite lots and lots of different things that I've tried to do over the years,

You know,

And consciously choosing to do more of the things I love.

I'm just kind of,

Not disheartened,

I'm just kind of a bit confused by it.

What is that baseline?

Okay.

There's always a sense of slight dis-ease.

And then I guess my reflection with people outside of me is kind of similar that they,

And this is just my perception,

But say some people I work with who have a really significant trauma history,

Their baseline seems to be lower.

Be,

Yeah.

Yeah.

More.

Yeah.

Uneasy.

Yes.

And I have these people who seem to kind of run at this more at ease kind of space.

Lucky them.

Lucky them.

Yes.

And,

You know,

I have,

And I have these expensive experiences when I dance or something and,

But then if I'm not actually consciously deliberately.

Choosing it more.

Yeah.

Then I just revert back.

Yeah.

And so I'm just.

Okay,

Well,

I mean,

I think you're pointing to something very interesting,

Which is that there is sort of a base level of happiness for each of us or a base level of a sense of wellbeing.

And for some that may be much higher than others due to conditioning,

Due to lucky circumstances,

Right?

No need to have any quarrel with yourself about that,

Right?

To really deeply accept that your base level,

Your baseline is whatever it is through no directing of your own conditioning.

That just happened,

Right?

How to raise that a little bit is simply what we're speaking about is to keep choosing things that make you joyful,

Right?

To keep turning your attention to little joys,

Right?

And little moments that you know are lovely and to really let yourself kind of soak in that understanding of this is a lovely moment,

Right?

But for some of us,

And I would include myself in this,

I too have,

You used the word disease,

I would say in my case,

I always have a little sadness lurking about,

Yeah,

In that I can't turn away from what's going on in the world or with my loved ones or all the various losses that I am privy to and my own,

You know,

Whatever problems,

Physical,

That I might have.

And because I pay attention to world events a lot,

It's pretty heartbreaking.

So I sometimes used to say,

I maybe haven't said it in a long time,

But I have said many,

Many times in Dharma dialogues,

If you're not at least a little bit sad,

You're not paying attention,

Right?

Because no matter how nice your groove is,

There are a lot of people suffering and you know that well from the work you do.

So how do you not care about them,

Right?

So I think that inherent is the first noble truth of Buddhism,

Inherent in this situation we're in is suffering.

It's part of the show.

All the more reason though why we can really let ourselves indulge in the things that do make us happy and know that we can't expect a steady state of happiness,

Not here,

Not in this realm.

And I don't know of any others.

So you know,

We can't expect in this bloodbath that we're watching to,

You know,

I mean,

It's one of my issues with so many of the spiritual trips,

The promises,

Right?

It's just so immature.

And I understand people's attraction to hearing those kinds of things.

So a lot of another aspect of actually giving yourself more sense of well-being is accepting that there's a sadness,

That there's a tinge to it,

Right?

That there's a tinge to this experience of life,

Even with the incredible joys.

But why then not to have the joys,

Right?

And the moments of intense love and sometimes real abandonment,

You know,

Of like moments when maybe when you're dancing,

When you forget everything,

You know,

You're just that is all that's happening,

Right?

To really,

Really not fight with the program at all.

Now some people,

It's true,

Some people are very lucky in their conditioning and somehow maintain a kind of a very happy,

Joyous consistency.

And not necessarily in denial about what else is happening.

Some people have that.

But many of us don't.

I really don't.

Yeah.

I can,

The best I can say is that I don't wallow much.

But there's definitely a part of my awareness that is tracking,

You know,

The context.

I have another line that I've said a lot that I wrote many years ago is sometimes say it's,

It's like seeing the majesty with tears in your eyes,

You know.

So letting yourself be as you are and just using your attention wisely to really enjoy as much as possible here,

Right?

It would be a shame to have to go through all the suffering without the joy.

Thank you.

It's really heartening.

The other kind of thing that I'm kind of sitting with as a,

Just a,

Is my children's papa.

He,

I'm watching him at the moment and it's been a familiar pattern over the last few years.

He,

And he's going into this kind of depression at the moment,

Going through these really highs and lows of experience.

And you know,

Conceptually and,

You know,

Have all this understanding of brain chemistry and why this happens.

And that as an experience,

Like living so intimately close to someone going into this where nothing's actually changing on in the outside reality.

Imagine something around like,

What is the purpose of depression,

You know,

As a state that that,

What's happening?

Like what's,

What's that doing?

What's the,

What's life doing through that?

What's it wanting to do or move or be?

Well I'm having a hard time accepting the premise that there's some intentionality going on,

That life has some purpose,

It's figuring out through making some people depressed.

I would see it more as,

And as you say,

That brain chemistry is,

You know,

Some people cannot float above the sorrow,

Right?

They just can't.

And then the brain chemistry starts changing,

You know,

Perhaps they were happier at a different point,

But anyway,

They come to a point of experiencing depression and then the brain chemistry starts working against you in a way because,

You know,

Depression has a kind of,

It has a kind of roll out that keeps feeding on itself.

As the brain chemistry starts changing to accommodate it and keep,

Keep it going.

So it's another reason why it's really good to interrupt anything like that is if you can,

If you have the wherewithal to start choosing joy or just,

You know,

Even just in a moment,

Just say,

I've got to,

I've got to change this movie right now,

You know,

Because I can see it's going to get really dark.

All I can recommend in this case is compassion for him and not to burden him or you with a story about why is this happening?

How can we,

What is the purpose?

Is it going to have come to some resolution?

I would say for you in your case,

The other concern would be about the children and about the children being around someone depressed.

So that's another,

Another thing to,

To have in your awareness.

And it might mean as a counterbalance that you make sure the children are very,

Having a lot of joy around you.

So it might just mean that that puts a little bit more intentionality on you.

In one of my Buddhist teachers,

Whenever anybody would go to him in a kind of down mode,

Depressed,

He would simply say,

You're out of balance with the joy factor.

So,

Yeah,

To like realize you have to bump up the joy factor.

And so in your case,

As the other parent,

You have to bump up the joy factor for the children.

Kids are incredibly malleable.

And I think that when they have examples around them that,

You know,

Are different from each other,

They start to really twiggle on.

I mean,

This is a really not quite a perfect metaphor,

But someone I knew who had an American guy who had a Vietnamese wife.

And the Vietnamese wife's mother was living with them.

And from the time his little kids,

His kids were little,

They would speak Vietnamese to their grandmother,

But I mean,

Really little,

Like three.

They'd speak Vietnamese to their grandmother.

They'd speak kind of a mix of English and Vietnamese to their mother because she spoke both.

And they speak only English to their father.

Right?

So they were already picking up.

These people are all sort of different.

You know?

And they're speaking their own language,

Literally,

You know?

And I think that children have that capacity,

Right?

They're just,

They're sponges,

You know?

So they're gonna be soaking in,

If you're feeding joy and,

You know,

Think a message of okayness,

That's what they're getting from you.

They might be getting something else from their dad.

And we don't even know if that's such a bad thing.

You know,

We might in some very conventional way say,

Oh,

Isn't it terrible?

But maybe it's not.

Right?

As long as it's not hurting them or anything.

So you know,

They're getting another view of reality over there.

Yeah,

I think that's kind of part of my question because it's like that,

That expression of that state that happens for him,

It's like it's softening.

It's a softening and a vulnerability and it's definitely going inward.

But there's so much,

It's like anything extracurricular just gets stripped away.

And so he's totally devoted to the kids and being,

You know,

It's like what's most important becomes most important.

And so it's actually kind of beautiful to witness it.

That sounds very beautiful.

And so I guess that's part of what's the purpose or something because the states are so opposite in like how it feels and what is important.

And yeah,

It's quite beautiful.

Yeah,

It sounds okay.

From the outside,

That's not necessarily his experience from the inside.

Right.

But also,

I mean,

He's lucky that he has,

You know,

Loved ones around and has that responsibility to whatever degree he can manage it to show up somewhat,

You know,

At least in love and kind of deep vulnerability,

I should say.

Yeah.

It's a big show going on here,

You know,

And there's one of each of us playing in it and it's mysterious,

You know,

And there's so many drivers in our behavior and in our desires and it's just,

You know.

Big soup.

It's a big soup.

Yeah.

And compassion just kind of,

You know,

Is the most simple way to see it,

You know,

Just feeling compassion for the beings.

Yeah.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

I think one of the things that really bring me joy,

Like what makes me happy,

Is tuning in and expressing appreciation.

You know,

It's something that I really,

That actually is quite natural and effortless and I really enjoy connecting that way.

What's interesting is that I find it really hard to receive because,

I don't know,

I guess I know myself better,

But it's,

I'm putting out today,

Actually,

So this is a really big one for someone who shares more appreciation,

I think,

Than letting it in.

We started this conversation this morning,

Me and the kids,

About what we appreciate about ourselves and writing it down.

We have this like little gratitude jar.

There's the random one and then there's the one for each person.

Being able to really let that in and receive that,

That's a big one.

It's not easy though.

I don't really know what it is,

What those barriers are that make it so difficult to receive,

You know,

Like to really just let it in.

Because we're all surrounded by loved ones,

We're all surrounded by miracles,

We're all surrounded by the beauty of the world and the nature and all the things that are really incredible about this life.

And yet we're just kind of like zeroing in on what's wrong with it.

It's really bizarre.

I would really,

I think it's a lot to do with attention,

That shift in attention,

Like just like what frequency I'm tuning into,

What channel that I'm playing.

Because it is a different channel and they're running simultaneously and they're probably equally as valid.

Yes.

Right?

Yeah,

I think that's true.

Yeah,

I think both of the ends of the spectrum are real.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean,

I guess,

You know,

Of course you understand the personality types and some personality types are more comfortable giving than receiving.

Right?

So again,

A kind of gentleness around that fact in your case and to just know sometimes you might,

As you're receiving,

You might be sort of squirming inside.

But then to really see how it's also a gift to the other person,

Right?

To make me squirm.

Well,

Yeah.

Well,

To give.

Yeah.

Right?

They're having the pleasure to give that you have when you give.

Right?

So you're basically sometimes doing it for them.

You're receiving in order for them to have the opportunity to give.

I'm just having a memory.

I don't know if I've ever told you before,

But it's in my book,

Passionate Presence.

The first time I went to Burma was 1976 and Burma was another world.

I mean,

It was really back in time.

We'd gone to meet this teacher,

Mahasi Sayadaw,

The head of the whole mindfulness tradition.

But we got to Rangoon and in those days there was not much communication.

We had no way to know that he was not at his regular monastery in Rangoon.

He'd gone off to his home where he'd grown up,

Where there was a little forest monastery,

Which was a long way away.

And in those days you could only get a seven-day visa.

So this whole troop of friends,

15 of us,

Flew to Mandalay,

Somehow rented a truck.

I don't even remember how this part happened,

But we got a truck and we had to drive hours and hours and hours into the jungle and end up at this little forest monastery,

Which was incredibly basic.

And the young people at this monastery had never seen Westerners.

They were just fascinated with touching our skin.

And we had a little blond-haired child with us and they were like touching her hair.

Anyway,

They served us as though we were gods that had dropped in from the sky.

I mean,

It was just crazy how they were just so kind and generous.

On the day we were leaving,

The women who had been taking care of us in the women's section came running out to our truck and they had cotton balls that they had soaked in perfume that they were giving us.

Now perfume,

It would be like you giving me your car when I was leaving because perfume for them,

You couldn't even get perfume in Rangoon.

And we're in the middle of nowhere.

Maybe they had one bottle of perfume somewhere that was their treasure and that they had soaked all these cotton balls for each of the women and the joy that they had in their face giving this to us.

Now,

As you're saying,

What you were saying,

I was remembering in my own case,

A feeling of,

Oh my God,

They have no idea.

They have no idea that we can get perfume.

We can get gallons of perfume where I come from.

I felt funny about them giving me this treasure of theirs.

It was too much.

In my heart,

I'm thinking that.

But now in the fullness of time,

Of course,

I see it very differently.

I see that for them,

That was a joy.

That was like,

You know,

They were so happy.

And you could feel that they knew they were giving us a treasure.

So it's that kind of understanding where your empathy is such that you're going into an inter being.

It's not only the experience you're having receiving,

It's also the experience they're having in giving.

Now of course,

There can be situations where you might feel they're not really that happy about the giving.

And then that's another thing to work out in yourself.

But mostly it's not that way.

When someone's giving you something,

Feel into the place in them that's excited to do that.

When I go home to see my family,

I always make sure I've got a bunch of gifts because I don't have any opportunity to give to them the rest of the year.

And this has been going on for years when I used to live on the West Coast and only would get back to the East Coast now and again.

And I would have not gotten any of their birthday presents or this and that kind of present.

But I'll get presents for when I'm showing up so that I get the pleasure of being there when they're opening them.

And I can't wait.

It's like whenever I have presents to give them,

I can't wait to give them to them and be there as they're opening them.

It's just one of my great joys.

I think I just want to explore a thought that's a little bit different to that one.

Because I was thinking about it and there's the joy you have when something good is happening,

Which can also turn into something bad.

There's that sort of joy.

Do you know what I mean?

Like I love following my football team,

Right?

And I went down to see them on the weekend,

But it's a joy that can very quickly turn around into something else.

When they lose.

Yeah,

Yeah.

So it could be anything.

So tracking sort of to like another level of joy,

Like talking about joy at different levels.

Yeah.

But it almost requires,

You know,

That's why I'm exploring it because it doesn't sound,

It's not going to sound very good when I say it.

But it's like,

I have to forget about the world.

Yes,

Yes.

I have to push what's happening on the planet away.

I have to push Trump away.

I have to push Dutton away.

I have to push Abbott away.

Do you know what I mean?

I have to push a lot of things away.

You know what I mean?

And I have to push anyone that's angry at me away.

I have to push the things that I do.

So I have to like get very kind of in this little bubble.

Do you know what I mean?

I'm just,

I'm just liking reading the newspaper having breakfast.

Yes,

Yes.

I'm just liking walking on the beach.

Yeah.

But I've got to get quite,

I've got to sort of push a lot of things.

I've got to get,

Go get my circle quite tight to be able to enter that realm.

Yeah.

Which is not to say that the joy of,

You know,

Giving and receiving,

You know,

That's obvious,

You know,

That's there.

Yeah.

But there's something else that opens up.

It sort of feels,

As I'm saying it,

It feels quite selfish,

But the experience is not a selfish one when I'm there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well,

It's like what I said about abandonment,

You know,

That sometimes we allow ourselves to just be abandoned in our joy,

You know,

That you're really into the game or,

You know,

Or whatever it happens to be where you're kind of,

You get to be lost in it for a while,

Right?

And it will seep in in its own time.

But yes,

Of course,

That's what I'm saying about this seized joy where you can,

You know,

And in those moments of if you can be abandoned in it,

Then well and good,

You know,

And totally enjoy that,

You know.

This is another thing that I take issue with a lot of the sort of spiritual programs,

Which is sometimes they might denigrate the sort of ordinary stuff,

You know,

Like being into the game.

Poonjaji was totally into the games,

Cricket in particular.

Yeah.

He was really quite passionate and would sometimes cancel satsang on big cricket match days.

So,

You know,

And I loved that,

You know,

I loved that.

I love all the kind of ordinary expressions of what I consider a lot of wakefulness,

You know,

Understanding the humanness of this,

You know,

And not being trying to be some holy roller.

So,

Yes,

Be abandoned when you can enjoy.

Definitely.

Yeah.

I know when I'm walking to the game,

I have this little tradition when I go,

Because I go down maybe,

I don't know,

Been going down a bit lately,

But maybe four or five times a year I do this thing where I go to see my football team play and I've added on this walk through the botanical gardens to get to the game.

And so it's like I always try to really enjoy that walk.

Because anything can happen in the game.

I enjoy that walk.

That's beautiful.

That's really cool,

Actually.

It's a great metaphor for life,

Isn't it?

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

Enjoy the journey.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a different,

And I,

Look,

I agree with you.

I love the transient joys are still important.

You know what I mean?

Yes.

Yes.

They're all transient.

But you're talking about kind of the little joys and the little,

Right.

I know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The cup of coffee,

The good little swim,

You know,

Pretty walk on the beach,

All that.

Yeah.

Yeah,

Of course.

Yeah.

It's all just fleeting by.

Yeah.

That's what I mean.

And sometimes we grind along and almost as if we're saving for later,

Which doesn't make any sense because we don't have that guarantee of having a later.

But there's just all kinds of unconscious,

Irrational ways that we are living,

You know,

And not fully giving ourselves permission to just be abandoned.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I suppose,

You know,

Taking that the other way,

There is an abandonment too,

To shutting out the world.

Do you know,

There is also an abandonment of,

I don't know,

Attachment to outcomes or.

Yes.

Yes.

Preferences.

Yes,

Exactly.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That too has to be abandoned.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Or else one just suffers additionally,

You know.

Yeah.

So football,

Is it Australian football?

Australian rules.

Australian rules.

So the time when you order a coffee before the coffee arrives,

That's also a really pleasurable time.

It is.

Yes,

Yes,

Exactly.

It is.

There's a lot of those little things.

There are.

I love that you said that.

I love that.

Yes,

Exactly.

Yeah.

The anticipatory joy,

Which is very powerful.

Yeah.

Right.

In fact,

In neuroscience,

They show that the happiness chemicals that are arising in anticipatory joy are sometimes higher than the actual experience of the joy thing itself.

In this case,

It might be that the waiting for the coffee was higher than the actual drinking of the coffee.

That's just an example,

But it doesn't necessarily always go that way.

But it's not something to be scoffed at.

The anticipation.

It's one of the things I always say about retreat is that it basically begins when you sign up,

That there starts to be some kind of anticipation that also kind of is signaling your awareness to sort of tune in that direction.

It's very powerful.

Thanks.

Yeah.

I don't really have a lot to say except one thing that's sort of in my head,

Which is more about this opening to experience.

Obviously,

There's this abundance of happiness and all sorts of feelings really that you can have in life.

It's just when those barriers to experience are more within.

It's like,

Yeah,

I think that's how to be more open to things that are nourishing and bring well-being or bring joy.

That strange wiring that happens where instead of having a positive response to something positive,

It's more of a negative.

And the negative is because the interpretation about it or.

.

.

Or past experience could be even personality.

These sorts of barriers that get in the way,

And even when you're like,

It's weird,

I shouldn't have those barriers.

But how to be more open,

I suppose.

Yeah.

That's my question.

And I think it's just making the experiment in little ways and just kind of getting used to it just bit by bit.

And it can take some strong intention initially to start doing that,

Start a little bit out of your comfort zone of letting yourself indulge and kind of admitting that you're enjoying it.

And then see what kicks up in terms of the stories that are telling you that this isn't quite okay or don't get too comfortable with this,

It's probably going to leave.

Because actually all the joys do leave.

It's like Blake said,

Kiss the joy as it flies.

You expect that it's going to go,

But you might as well enjoy it while it's around.

And so you just start getting more used to letting yourself merge with experience in that way.

I've been using the word abandonment,

But also merging is another way to see it,

That you're giving your full attention to it.

Even if it's just a few moments here and there through the day,

And sometimes just stopping what you're doing.

I sometimes use the phrase,

And it's not accurate at all,

It just works for me,

But I let myself feel I'm having a perfect moment.

And sometimes it's literally just smelling the jasmine,

Right?

Or just the tiniest,

But there's little phrase will pop in my mind,

Perfect moment.

Reminds me of the Lily Reid song,

Perfect Day.

I love that song.

Which one?

Perfect Day.

Oh,

I don't know that one.

Yeah,

I love those moments.

And when I'm in a certain mind space,

I can have them,

And then I notice that there's this other mind space,

Which is really resistant.

And there's the perfect day or the perfect moment or a beautiful thing there.

And there's this inner resistance.

It's really strange.

And I can actually see myself making myself unhappy.

Yeah,

It's like I said at the beginning,

At the outset,

How it's interesting how we're sometimes more attracted to that,

Which is the opposite of what makes us happy.

And sometimes that attraction is quite embodied.

Like it's not even a story.

It's just that,

You know.

I recently had this really interesting and lovely experience with my mum.

I'd had this whole kind of push away from my mum for a very long time.

And then I saw someone who talked to me about my mum having always loved me.

And I thought,

That's actually true.

All the things she did wrong,

I know that that's true.

And that she really needs to hear that.

And then I met with her yesterday.

With your mother?

Yeah,

Yeah.

And then I was able to share that with her.

And it was a really nice experience of having a resistance towards our relationship.

We got quite stuck.

You know,

There's been lots of problems.

And just having reached this point of blockage.

And then having had this suggestion and then made this effort.

And you know,

Being able to kind of connect again.

You know,

So I think there's sort of a little learning in that for me.

Yeah,

Well that was a little experiment into taking the easier path.

Yeah,

When you said that experiment.

But it's just interesting how it can seem so hard to overcome those resistances sometimes.

Yeah,

I think fear operates a lot in these realms.

You know,

That there can be different types of fear.

I'm not proposing,

I would know what the one for you would be.

But I think some examples simply are that one is trying to have some sort of protective shield so that you can't really just give yourself away in the moment.

Or trust that this is going to be okay to let yourself have.

You know,

That there's going to be some negative blowback.

That sounds pretty accurate.

Yeah,

You know,

And so to really realize that,

Yeah,

Sometimes there is.

And then sometimes there isn't.

So that's the,

You know,

It's like Michael walking to the game.

They're going to either win or lose.

That equanimity,

You know,

Whatever happens,

It's okay.

Yeah,

Well,

Even that being willing to celebrate the win and suffer the loss.

That's the one,

Right?

So it's like you know that if you're going to play on the spectrum of joy,

You're going to hit the other end of the spectrum,

Right?

And that's the willingness.

It's better than not playing at all.

Exactly.

Because that's what I noticed when you said that with the resistance.

It's like I'm actually not really in the game of life.

I'm behind it,

You know,

Watching it over there.

Playing it safe in some sort of,

You know.

A removal somehow.

It somehow opted out of feeling any of those options.

Right,

Yeah.

That is where people use that word equanimity.

They're tightening it down so that they're not feeling too much on either end.

And you know,

I was in a system in Buddhism.

That was the name of the game.

What we were being taught was equanimity.

We were going for equanimity,

Not for passion.

And at some point I realized this is not for me.

I mean,

I was just temperamentally not designed for it.

And I kept trying,

You know.

But.

.

.

And so since that time,

And a lot of this is in honoring of Poonjaji's message.

And his message being his life,

How he played it,

Was very passionately.

And that gave me permission to realize,

You know,

OK,

I will suffer the losses.

Right.

And I will also let myself have the joys and the highs and the attachments.

Right.

That's really interesting,

You know,

Particularly from that Buddhist point of view of non-attachment.

And also just the awareness that I didn't even realize I'd stepped out of the game.

Yeah.

That's a good step.

Yeah,

Really interesting to notice where you step out of life and where you step in.

Where I'm prepared to feel.

Yeah.

Because,

You know,

The passion,

The joys,

The suffering,

Or where I'm not prepared to feel.

Right.

And what that actually means about being here or being present or not present.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Very interesting.

It's really interesting.

Yeah,

Yeah.

So that's great to see.

I mean,

A lot of people wouldn't even track that.

A lot of people are just very shut down,

Whether they're Buddhist or not.

They're playing it tight,

You know.

They're not letting much in because they're terrified,

So it ends up being a very small space in which one lives inside.

And very dead.

So I realized with my mum I'd stopped playing.

I'd stepped out of the relationship,

See.

Yeah.

And then I sort of stepped back in.

Yeah.

And that was really lovely,

But that happens with a lot of things,

I realize.

What a great insight to see that she loved you through all of it.

Yeah.

You know,

She was probably doing her best.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

With what she had to work with.

Yeah,

That's right.

Yeah.

Till next time.

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