Three-Year Retreat & Tibetan Buddhism With Earle Birney

Earle Birney shares his journey into meditation and yoga, and his experiences leading up to a three-year retreat. He delves into the structure of Tibetan Buddhism, the importance of debate in understanding Buddhist teachings, and the significance of establishing a consistent meditation practice. Earle emphasizes the need for community and compassion in today's world, advocating for practices that help individuals unplug and connect with themselves. He also highlights the evolving nature of meditation and retreats in Western culture, encouraging listeners to find their paths in spiritual practice.

Transcript

Holiness,

Welcome.

This is Josh Dippold of InnerSkilled,

And today I've got,

It's Earl Bernie,

Right?

Is that how you say the last name?

Spelled B-I-R-N-E-Y,

So that's a cool spelling.

Ernie,

What's happening today?

Today in Brooklyn,

Gosh,

There's a lot going on in my life.

So it feels full.

I'm about to lead a retreat in Japan,

So prepping for that,

Trying to get everything done.

This is a big year for me.

I'm getting married later in the year,

Moving later in the year,

So it's all,

Life feels full.

Very cool.

So who is this guy named Earl?

What kind of work does he do?

Well,

The easy part is the work.

I work for an organization called the Yoga Studies Institute.

We lead retreats.

I do a lot of program planning and content development and curriculum development,

Yoga,

Meditation,

Philosophy,

Pretty Buddhist-based.

So that's the job thing.

I teach online meditation also,

Different organizations.

I do a lot of consulting,

Helping people get into retreat,

Helping people in their practice.

Other than that,

You know,

I really try to keep it simple in my life,

And I'm a big sports fan,

So I'm enmeshed in the Stanley Cup playoffs right now.

Yeah,

Trying to get the most out of New York City while I'm still here.

Like I said,

I'm moving later on in the years.

Lost your audio.

Sorry.

Yes,

You lost it because I had it paused.

I had it muted.

So yeah,

You know,

This is a common American thing I've noticed.

It's,

We tend to,

I don't know,

Have been programmed to identify with our work.

It's one of the first things I want to know with people,

But so I kind of get out of it by talking to people in the UK here and Denmark.

I say,

Well,

Here's a very American question.

What kind of work do you do,

You know?

So,

Or maybe it's just me,

I don't know,

But it is just kind of easier to defer these bigger questions of who am I,

You know,

To just the kind of things we do.

But luckily for us,

The kind of work we do is really supportive to penetrating into that question,

I'd say.

So when you reached out to me,

I was intrigued because I've only met a few people who have done a three-year retreat.

You've done,

What was it,

Three,

Was it three months and three weeks or three days?

There's a three,

Three,

Three in there.

You'll tell me about it.

But I think before we get into that,

Which I really want to dive into,

What kind of brought you up to that?

I mean,

If you want to tell a little life story here to give some context,

This isn't a common thing that most people just jump into a three-year retreat.

Maybe what do you think is relevant leading up to that to share with people?

Most relevant?

I would say,

I mean,

That's a huge question.

What led up to it?

I would say being young and being like,

What's the meaning of life was a big question for me.

Like,

You know,

That whole spiritual trip,

I think in some way started young and I would let forward just the question and a disillusionment probably with what I saw people doing,

You know,

Like the idea of graduating into it and then stepping into a career just felt overwhelmed.

Decide what I have to do for the rest of my life and then work 50 weeks a year at it and then get a mortgage and get tied to it.

It just was like,

No,

There's got to be something different.

And so I didn't know what I was looking for,

But I knew I was looking for something different.

And so I ended up,

I was four months away from my university degree and I took a student loan out and I went around the world,

Bought a ticket around to avoid graduating.

You know,

One thing led to another and I ended up in a prison in New Zealand and that's where I found meditation and yoga.

And yeah,

It just was like this gradual thing at first of like really studying hard to find the hole in Buddhism where I could just be like,

Okay,

That's just another philosophy,

Another made up thing that I don't believe in that I don't have to take on that.

But it just became the philosophy of Buddhism just fascinated me.

And I just studied more and more,

You know,

Eventually ended up starting a retreat center in Arizona and led to another.

That's the,

That's the framework.

Well,

Right on.

It's interesting that Buddhism is considered a religion.

I really don't consider it that way and there's,

There's nothing in it that is that one should believe or disbelieve.

You know,

As far as my understanding,

It's okay,

Here's what this historical Buddha found and he says,

Check it out for yourself,

You know,

See if it,

If it has any relevance and meaning in your own life,

You know,

And it's based on truth.

You know,

He was a seeker after truth,

Siddhartha Gautama.

So it's,

It's not a belief based system.

It's not a disbelief based system,

You know,

It's a what is the truth of this,

This reality and what's the best way to go about doing it is how I kind of look at it.

And yeah,

I guess we can say it's a philosophy,

But it's,

The Buddha was a pragmatist too.

So it is things he said,

If it wasn't,

If it wasn't possible,

I wouldn't teach this,

You know,

So this,

This is something that's possible that each wise one has to see and know for themselves,

Not something to,

Yes,

Of course we take things on faith if we're not there yet,

But it needs,

It's faith that's verified by wisdom,

Not blind faith,

Right?

And so we can see and know these things in our,

In our daily lives,

In our daily practice,

You know,

Starting from the conceptual level with the possibility of going to ultimate reality,

You know?

So that's,

That's,

That's what's on the table with this,

I feel.

And yeah,

So what,

What kind of,

First off,

Where did you do three-year retreat?

How did you structure it?

Did you tell people,

You know,

Like all the ins and outs of the daily routine and stuff?

Did you have a support staff?

Were you cooking?

You mentioned noble silence.

So all the ins and outs of,

Not to mention long-term retreat,

Just any kind of retreat.

And then start to like give some highlights and high water marks on this thing,

You know,

Like the,

Maybe the ups and downs that came,

Like what was the,

Like the internal world like,

You know,

Going in into it,

Going through it,

Coming out of it.

Of course,

We'll get to the wisdom and things you gleaned from it and advice for people going into long-term retreat.

But this is one of the,

From what I understand,

Some of the Tibetan practitioners,

Monastics,

They do a three-year retreat,

Right?

And the only other one is the Shifu,

The master out at Mid-American Buddhist Association,

Where I've practiced and studied years ago.

He did a three-year retreat and it was said that they found him in the trailer and the wind had blown it over.

And they went in there and the thing was blown over.

He was still in there meditating when they found him blown,

When it was blown over.

So yeah,

I'm sure you have some pretty interesting things to say about it.

So please jump right in wherever you feel is guided to do so and how so.

Start and then redirect me,

Yeah,

Three-year retreat,

It was a group of 39 of us.

So we had,

Like I said,

We had started a Buddhist retreat center and we had done a seven-year program in the Tibetan lineage.

And so we would meet three times a year for five weeks.

We would study together,

Tibetan Sanskrit,

Yoga philosophy,

Buddhist philosophy,

Lots of translation,

Different texts.

So there was a big buildup,

You know,

To just learn the text and learn the practices and to build the center,

To build the cabin.

We were on a naked piece of land in Southeastern Arizona,

So we had to,

You know,

Build the water lines,

Build the roads,

Build the cabins.

So it was a year's project to get in.

So 39 of us went in and then the structure,

The group that I'm involved with,

The teacher,

His name is Geshe Michael Roach,

He had done a three-year retreat with four other people,

Five other people.

So we had,

There's just not a lot of information out there,

Kind of like you said,

It's pretty sparse,

Experience from other people to draw from,

But the structure is pretty traditional.

So we would do,

You know,

The daily schedule,

Four sessions a day was our pretty standard daily schedule.

But as far as the big picture,

We would do,

You know,

A month of deep retreat,

We called it deep retreat.

So in that deep retreat,

I wouldn't leave the direct vicinity of the cabin,

Really didn't see anybody,

Didn't interact with anybody at all.

And really practice like,

I don't know,

10,

12 hours a day.

And you can't,

You know,

You can only do that for so long.

And then,

So we would do a month deep retreat and then a month break,

Month deep retreat and a month break.

And then those deep retreats kind of got longer and longer and longer,

4,

6,

8,

10 weeks.

And then always that month-long break,

The breaks would be optional,

You could go see other people,

Have some group ceremony or fix the roads or the cabin or the water system or whatever broke.

But keeping silence,

Go on a hike,

Share dinner,

Talk,

Writing notes about practice,

Learn sign language.

So there was some,

You know,

You need some communication in a retreat like that,

How we did it.

So that was the general structure that carried us through.

We had great support,

It takes a lot of,

You know,

I feel incredibly lucky to have had the support of the organization financially and the caretakers for people to commit three years of their lives to support people doing something like that,

It's pretty special.

So that was the structure.

You know,

The practices,

Like I said,

We did four sessions a day.

That was the general structure,

So getting up,

Trying to do a session before sunrise starting,

Do recitation of texts,

Meditation,

Doing mantra,

That was kind of the format of each session.

Doing some,

I was doing a lot of yoga asana,

So I was doing,

You know,

A solid hour and a half.

I did a lot of memorization.

So I memorized the yoga sutra,

Took me two years like that.

Wow,

It's pretty incredible.

Can I ask the Tibetan lineage,

And then when you were doing sitting practice,

Was it just Samatha or what exactly were you doing during the sitting practice and what can you say about the mantra?

I'm usually not too familiar with the Tibetan lineages,

But yeah,

If you just a little more in detail,

That would be cool so I can learn.

Yeah,

There's four main Tibetan lineages.

One of them is called Galuk.

So Galuk is the lineage of the Dalai Lama.

So that's the specific lineage.

The direct lineage,

You know,

My teacher's teacher came from Tibet.

He was one of the last really highly educated people in Tibet before it kind of fell apart.

And so very traditional.

We learned the practices,

You know,

With a lot of the Tibetan and a lot of the,

Trying to learn it from the cultural perspective of Tibet or Tibetan people.

But then trying to,

You know,

It was such an interesting time where to take these practices from the East and then to see,

You know,

What's core to the philosophy and then what's kind of cultural and then how do we take what's cultural and make it relevant.

So I don't know if you've seen the,

You know,

There's like,

They're called a torma,

Like these,

There's like these dough offering things.

They're very elaborate,

There's cheese kind of decorations on it.

You know,

To learn what all that is and to make it and what they stand for and how they're used and then to see,

Okay,

Well that would be like a birthday cake for us,

You know,

Like what is that for our culture to try to keep the tradition,

But then to make it relevant in ways that we understand it.

So that's the lineage.

A lot of my practice was Samatha practice,

Mainly meditate,

Using breath as a,

As an object for attaining stillness.

So that was personally my main practice.

Everybody,

You know,

Did their own thing.

A lot of what we did was very,

It's very sadhana based in the sense of like a text,

Like a guided meditation text.

So be some recitation of that text within that is embedded in a mantra that would be related to a specific enlightened being.

Yes,

Because I,

There's,

I just have little splatterings in the Tibetan,

You know,

You've got butter lamps,

You've got so many ritual objects,

You've got deity practice,

Visualization practice,

There's certain types of yogas.

I don't know,

The six,

The ropa,

Or then you've got,

You know,

Guru practice,

Guru yoga,

You know,

You've got the tantra stuff.

Just these are just terms.

These are like me knowing programming languages without even knowing how to program in that language.

Right.

And I mean,

There's just so much in the Tibetan lineages.

And I guess it's basically based on your teacher.

Your teacher will let you know,

Like basically what to study and practice,

Right.

And how to go about it.

So it's not like you have to be all self-taught and just go and dabble.

It seems like,

Yeah,

You're,

It's laid out where that's,

It's handed down through a teacher in this very,

And if I may real quick,

The,

Yeah,

This is a really fascinating question too,

You know,

With all the things I mentioned,

You know,

How does that fit into Western life,

You know,

But does it even need to,

Can it be transplanted verbatim almost,

Which I don't think totally,

Of course,

But I mean,

Maybe a lot of it can,

Or maybe it can't,

Or maybe there's some middle ground,

Like you're saying,

You know,

So that's,

That's a really big question too,

I think.

And,

You know,

I always feel that we need to preserve these lineages because as purely as possible,

Because if they get so watered down,

Then there'll be,

It just becomes all homogenized,

And which is,

It's great for me to go and cherry pick what I want and try it out and,

You know,

See what,

See what works.

But the downside to that is like a spiritual buffetism.

And if it waters out the lineage and becomes all homogenized,

Then that might not be possible generations down the way,

Right?

So,

So we've got this kind of dichotomy or paradox here of wanting to have these lineages,

But then them not really fitting in or being limited in scope and,

You know,

Maybe just old fashioned too,

But we almost need these,

The preservation of them to have something to draw from,

I feel.

And we need,

Maybe we need new lineages too,

And maybe we do need some hybridization.

So yeah,

What are your thoughts and feelings on this?

I threw plenty out here.

I think you opened a huge can of worms that I think is super relevant for us.

So let me try to go back.

The specific lineage,

The Gluk lineage is very,

You know,

If I had to stereotype,

It's the monastic study lineage.

You know,

It really focuses on a 20 year Geshe program,

Lots of memorization,

Lots of debate,

Lots of scriptural study based on five main core books,

As opposed to some of the other lineage,

Maybe more I would stereotype as meditation based,

Less,

You know,

Spending time,

Memorize,

Memorize,

Memorize,

Memorize,

Debate,

Debate,

Debate.

So less intellectual,

The Gluk approach,

Very text driven intellectual.

So then,

So we had a pretty clear educational program and learned the practices really in depth,

A lot of,

You know,

Direct translation from the Tibet.

That was great.

So then,

Yeah,

All of,

So how do we carry all of that Tibetan lineage in a way that keeps the authenticity,

But then becomes relevant to our culture?

And I think,

You know,

Can we do it a hundred percent?

I agree with you.

No,

How much can we do or how's that going?

I think in a lot of ways,

It's been in some aspects,

Hugely problematic,

Like the whole deity worship and guru worship and the blending of those two in a Tibetan culture.

Extremely problematic.

And that'll be really interesting to see how it evolves.

I think the other part that's very interesting is a whole monastic aspect.

There was a huge part of Buddhism in Tibet.

And what does that look like in the West?

What does that monasticism look like in the West?

Because it's probably going to be different.

And can you keep a traditional monastic culture?

Like how much can you change before?

Like you said,

You've lost the essence of it.

And I'm sure of people walking around in robes and going begging with begging bowls,

Like I suspect you've seen in Thailand or in those countries.

So how do we keep the essence of that practice?

You know,

Like could be part of like the bi-weekly confession sojong practice.

You know,

Like we can integrate that committing to a lifetime of celibacy.

You know,

Like how much can we look at the vows of the monastic systems and integrate that?

Because a lot of those are based on how to live in a monastery.

So what does that mean in a family structure?

So how do we keep the wisdom and apply it?

I think it's going to take a long time and hopefully we can do that before those lineages.

And then also,

So then that's a whole question.

But then how do we take it,

The wisdom of those traditions and then make them relevant in our culture in a different way,

I think is super fascinating.

I had a friend that has taught.

She was ordained for a long time in the same lineage.

And she was at,

There was a hurricane or something went through.

This was 10 years ago or something,

Florida or Haiti or somewhere.

And a lot of people had died.

And she was with her teacher and they were doing these prayers to the water spirits to help out the people.

It was like two days of prayer to the waters,

To the nuggets.

And she said,

You know,

She was in her mid-50s and she's like,

I was the youngest person there.

If we don't change,

This is done.

You know,

We're dinosaurs.

Like there's just no one under,

I'm the youngest at 55,

Whatever.

And so when she was teaching at her center,

She said,

You know,

If I teach a traditional course on the long rim in Buddhism,

You know,

Introductory to Buddhism,

I'll get 15,

20 people.

If I advertise a course and relate it to social justice,

I have a waiting list and I'm teaching the same stuff.

It's the same course,

But that's,

And it was so interesting.

She was like,

When I was young,

It was so counter-cultural to be lighting incense and ringing the bell.

Like when I shaved my head,

It was like,

She's like,

That was the biggest fuck you to society I could give.

You know,

I'm like as counter-cultural as I can be.

And she's like,

Now the kids are like,

Yeah,

That's what my mom and dad did.

That's not cool.

I don't want to do that.

You know,

Like that's not,

That's not interesting anymore.

So take the wisdom and speak it in a way that allows that lineage to live in it.

It has to change.

The wisdom has to stay the same,

But I think the form has to change.

And that's a very interesting problem because you have traditionalists that have a hard time wanting to let go of the form.

Well,

Totally.

You know,

This is,

And I wonder how likely it will be to go back into Tibet because it is Tibetan Buddhism.

And so I think that's where Tibetan Buddhism is,

But it doesn't see.

I don't know the state of the current political situation there,

But,

You know,

As far as I know,

The Dalai Lama is still in exile.

So that says something right there,

Right?

So with that said,

We look at Buddhism and it has had to adapt to wherever it goes,

Right?

Chinese Buddhism,

Tibetan Buddhism with the,

With the Bon tradition there,

I guess.

We look in Japan,

Right?

How it's changed there in Korea.

And in the States,

I don't think it's really found its footing in the States yet.

What is American Buddhism?

You know,

We have a little bit here and there,

But I don't think it's as,

Can really talk about it in the same way we can in these other regions.

I don't know what it's like in India being kind of covered up and reintroduced or there.

Cause I haven't been there.

And just for the record,

I haven't been to Thailand,

But I have met a lot of Thai people at this Thai Forest Monastery in England,

Which is an interesting hybrid too,

Because a lot of the monastics there are young white males.

And,

You know,

It's really interesting to see them,

You know,

Keeping all these precepts and then doing the stuttanga practices,

These ascetic practice.

Some of them will walk,

You know,

In pairs and walk all over the country and yeah,

With their bowls and a lot,

You know,

You would,

It's,

I think it's a little bit harder for them to get alms rounds in England.

And I've heard stories too.

Some of the most fascinating stories comes from these wanderings that they do.

But in Thailand,

It's so culturally,

From what I hear,

So culturally ingrained in just the fabric of society.

It's not as big a deal.

Everybody is clamoring to go give them offerings and things.

So it's a little bit different how it's,

And they still do alms rounds every once in a where they will go away from the monastery and walk into a neighboring town and,

You know,

Sit outside the grocery store and all the different rules that come with what they can do and what they can't do around that.

There's so many rules around just eating as a monastic.

So,

Yeah,

So I got a little bit in the weeds there,

But these are really good points.

You know,

Maybe I'll shift just a little bit.

Since you take advantage of your study and practice here,

Let's just jump into some of the,

I don't know if you would call it doctrine,

But like what are the considered maybe some of the weak points when it comes to debate?

Because I want to hear some of these things.

I'm trying to think.

Yeah,

That's a pretty broad question.

You know,

Some of the standard ones in all Buddhist traditions are things like,

Well,

If there's not a self,

What gets enlightened?

You know,

Standard questions like this.

But as far as your lineage goes,

If you want to give me a couple examples of,

And then did you do debating too?

I mean,

Is this the thing where they go and they go like this right up next to the face?

And yeah,

I'm sure it has a name and things like this.

I find the discussions,

I mean,

Fascinating.

And I love talking Dhamma.

I just never thought of it as like,

You know,

In the Zen,

Maybe call it Dhamma sparring.

But I have really no interest in debating.

I just,

I like to cooperate to get at the truth.

And sometimes that takes a heated discussion every once in a while.

But at the end of the day,

I just want everyone to get closer to the truth,

Whatever container you use,

I guess.

It's a little bit more dramatic when you're throwing,

Slapping hands around.

But yeah.

I mean,

That is the whole idea of debate is exactly that,

Is explicitly to get at truth.

And it's a beautiful,

It's hard.

It's a very formal logic system.

And then there's a very formal debate protocol and structure of the debates and the logical syllogisms.

But yeah,

The whole idea is to,

The whole idea is to,

If you're,

The idea is if your logic is good,

You must arrive at truth.

And so you're trying to help people,

Each other out to arrive at truth and debate the things that are,

That are difficult and that are challenging or that you don't understand.

Not everyone,

That wasn't for everybody,

But I think the people that spent time on the debate ground learned deeply that really had to hash out their,

Their hard problems,

Really difficult,

But incredibly rewarding.

I mean,

Did you go into Abhidharma?

Do they have their own system of Abhidharma?

It see,

It's one thing from,

To me,

It's from a scholarly perspective,

But some of the people I practice with,

They're actually seeing and knowing this stuff in their own practice,

Like these kalapas,

You know,

That's supposed to be the ultimate materiality.

It's not just some theory and Abhidharma,

They're,

They're seeing and knowing this directly for themselves,

You know?

And so it's a whole different dimension than just kind of memorizing text and knowing the logic game and things like that,

Which from,

From what I understand from the suttas that,

You know,

The,

The Buddha said,

This is,

This is what he realized was so vast,

So profound.

And it's not the subject to just mere reasoning alone,

Of course,

Reasoning and logic comes into it.

But,

And then you look at some of the Nagarjuna stuff and,

You know,

That is such a different,

Such a vastly different logic than most Westerners,

Even really highly accomplished Western philosophers are,

Are accustomed to,

To dealing with in,

In moving in,

You know,

It's,

So,

Yeah,

It's,

It's really fascinating stuff when you get to the level of like Abhidharma,

When you're,

You're kind of all these mind moments and all the,

All the different possibilities and things that are possible with like within one mind moment to another,

It's just so profound,

You know?

Yeah,

Yeah.

So we,

We kind of,

When you look at the structure of Buddhism in the,

As it came through Tibet,

You know,

There's the sutras,

Suttas,

Abhidharma.

So we didn't study the sutras that much.

And we didn't study even,

You know,

We did study a lot of Abhidharma,

But it's more like the commentaries on the Abhidharma.

So there's these waves of translation that kind of occur.

And the monastic texts that we studied from were more 200,

300 years old,

Based on commentaries that are 500 years old.

You know,

Like the commentarial lineage kind of expands and expands and expands and expands.

And they're very compact and,

What's the word,

Like pithy.

And so it's very hard to know,

Like,

You'll find sutras like the one relate to the three that relate to the seven to the eight.

And like,

I don't know what the hell any of that means.

So you need a commentary.

So,

You know,

As people unpack the meaning,

So we,

We studied more the Tibetan commentaries to the original scriptures.

What are some of the debates that I think are interesting?

I think that when we talked about what you,

What you shared about the Buddha saying,

Hey,

Look,

You know,

This,

We can't all do this through logic.

You know,

We looked at the,

You know,

Three ways we can know something.

We can know something directly.

I can see it.

I can hear it.

I can taste it.

I can touch it.

And that conforms to the obvious reality.

Like,

How do I know a cup exists?

Well,

I can see it.

Right.

So through our direct perception,

We can,

We can understand reality.

And then the second level would be like,

Is there still a cup in my hand?

So how do we see things that we,

How do we know things are true that we can't see?

And that is where logic comes in.

You know,

Like,

I didn't see you throw it away.

You're probably not going to spill your coffee on your carpet.

If I can use,

And this was the thing,

If I can use proper logic,

That's just as good as if I can see it with my eyes.

It comes to a second level,

Which would be things like ultimate reality.

We can logically establish that things lack an inherent existence.

Could we establish that things lack an inherent existence through logic?

That would be a classical example.

We can't see that with our eyes.

I think one of the most introvert,

Interesting,

It's somewhat controversial,

Not accepted by everybody is what about things that we can't logically figure out,

Like the laws of karma.

And then we have to take that on face.

So that third level is taking things on faith.

So faith in scripture or faith in a teacher.

And that's a fascinating idea of,

Well,

Can we,

Can I,

Can I accept karma just because it's written in a book or because some guy told me it was true 2,

500 years ago?

And so I think it's just a,

It's a wild thing that the,

One of the most formal or essential ingredients of Buddhism,

According to the Buddha is something you'll never see directly.

Then you'll never be able to logic it out.

You have to take it on.

Well,

Starting off,

I would say,

I would say there's some practitioners who can have a type of seeing and knowing for themselves.

You know,

I think one of the imponderables is trying to figure out all this inner workings of karma and all the vast profundity of it.

One could go insane doing that.

That's why that only a Samasambuddha can fully know all the ins and outs of karma.

However,

There are plenty of teachings that we can,

You know,

I think maybe layers and levels where we can see and know this for ourselves and certain practitioners can,

You know,

But it's not the standard straightforward seeing and knowing.

I think that we think of when we,

You know,

Look at a cup or we know that Wi-Fi is there,

Even though I can't see it.

You know,

It's,

It's,

It's really more subtle and profound than that,

I think.

But yeah,

That absolutely has to be,

Has to be done on faith starting off with,

But it doesn't end at faith.

I don't think maybe the highest,

Most profound levels,

Unless you're a Samasambuddha,

Maybe yes,

You'll still have to take some of it on faith,

But it does seem like some of it is verifiable with the eye of wisdom,

Dhamma eye,

You know,

These type of things.

Yeah,

I,

You know,

The faith in the law of intentionality,

Cause and effect,

It's,

It's,

It's really important to,

You know,

To have that because it's one of these laws of the universe.

And I think,

What is it,

The Niyamas,

There's not everything is subject to Kama either,

Which makes it a little bit more complicated even,

You know,

Not everything is subject to the law of Kama or not everything is due to Kama either.

And I will just say this one thing about existence that just completely blew my mind when I heard it from the Suttas.

I think someone asked the Buddha,

You know,

After enlightenment,

The Tetralemma,

Will I exist?

Won't I exist?

Will I both exist and not exist?

Or will I neither exist nor not exist?

And he said,

It doesn't fit the case,

Doesn't even apply.

And it's just like,

You know,

It's so unfathomable.

Because we're kind of conditioned in the world to think,

Oh,

Something exists or it doesn't exist.

Maybe,

You know,

If you get really far into it,

Oh,

Maybe it's both or neither.

But if that doesn't even apply,

Then,

You know,

It just,

It's kind of just cuts everything in a way.

Right.

Well,

This has been,

This has been really cool.

I want to know more about your retreat center before we wrap up.

And yeah,

Is it,

I mean,

Is there a huge,

Yeah,

Just tell me more about it.

Do people have to really be in Tibetan lineage to go there?

And then tell me more about your work with yoga.

And I guess anything else you want to talk about with what you're teaching and involved in before we start wrapping up and you tell people how they can get in touch with you and,

And,

You know,

Anything else you want to promote?

Yeah,

The retreat center is,

It's called Diamond Mountain Retreat Center.

It's in Southeast Arizona.

It's,

It's beautifully remote,

You know,

Billion stars and it's quiet.

And so it's a great place to do personal retreat.

And they do rent out the cabins for people to do personal retreat.

So it's a,

It's a very,

It's a very good place to go do a personal,

You know,

And I,

And I'm,

I'm so intrigued to see how this kind of becomes more and more,

You know,

When we were talking about like,

What's going to make it into the West?

I think,

You know,

Meditation is,

Yoga became very popular.

It got infiltrated into the schools,

Into the workplace a little bit.

Meditation even more so into the wellness communities,

Into the schools,

Into,

Into work.

But I think retreat will now be something that becomes a thing,

You know,

As we look to unplug,

Detox experiences and to,

You know,

Just find that slowing down and retreating allows us to kind of charge up and into the pace of this world that we live in.

It's phenomenal.

And so it's a,

It's a retreat center where you can rent out a cabin or hold a group retreat at.

There's no,

You know,

Ongoing structured three retreat or anything like that there.

So anybody can go,

They rent out to different groups.

It's a,

So yeah,

Amazing place to do retreat.

Cabins are fantastic.

They're all very individual and fun.

If I might,

Before you continue,

This just came up.

This is what I'm hearing more about now is dark retreat.

Is there anything you want to say about that as it's kind of really fledgling now and starting to come on people's radars?

I've never done that.

I don't think it's necessary.

It seems a little extreme.

That's not,

Certainly not where I would recommend.

You know,

I just saw an article too,

Like the tech,

Tech pro thing.

I don't know.

If someone wants to do it and try it,

God bless.

I don't think from my experience it's necessary.

You know,

There's enough going on to just try to,

What I think,

You know,

Is a more logical progression is to have a sustained daily practice or weekly practice.

Like what's,

You know,

Starting there with like getting on the cushion three times a week for 20 minutes and getting some really good instruction on how to meditate and what to do on the cushion.

You know,

For me right now,

I try to do a half day once a month or dedicate that half day to sitting and walking,

Sitting,

Walking,

Give a little talk.

So we have a group that does,

You know,

Half day sits,

Which is how I studied with my teacher for a long time,

Which was great.

And then,

You know,

Building up a little bit,

You know,

Three day retreat or seven day retreat,

10 day retreat,

Vipassana retreat,

Whatever.

But to start to incorporate,

You know,

A progression into that,

Just jumping into any retreat,

Dark retreat or not,

Dark retreat without a practice,

I don't think is.

I want to know where the light retreats are to be completely bathed and surrounded by light instead of darkness,

Too.

I know I haven't heard anybody talk about that yet.

No,

Yeah,

I tend to agree.

Anyway,

I'll hold my opinions for now,

But I appreciate that feedback.

Thank you.

So that that's the retreat center.

And then as far as,

Yeah,

As far as what else I'm doing,

I teach for an online yoga platform.

Like I said,

We organize retreats for different communities.

A lot of our stuff is in Asia.

I do a lot of work with people in China,

Malaysia,

Eastern Europe,

Russia.

That's through the Yoga Studies Institute.

I teach meditation weekly with that group.

And then I teach through an organization in New York called Three Jewels.

And that's a yoga meditation center in the city that has a ton of great programming,

Great teachers,

Strong lineage,

Good community.

And I teach twice a week with them,

You know,

And again,

Specifically that meditation about training our mind in single-pointed concentration.

Like what's the roadmap for this thing called meditation?

I really thought it was just,

You could progress by just sit down and shut up,

You know,

And if we just do it more,

We'll get better.

And that just wasn't my experience.

Well,

If you don't mind,

I'm sorry to take back my little line of projectory here.

Why don't you just throw us into some of the instructions or things you found with Samatha practice.

Do you call it Anapanasati,

Mindfulness of breathing?

Or how do you teach it?

Just the basics.

I don't think it needs to,

It's,

Yeah.

What can you say about it?

And kind of a shorter amount of time.

He lived a thousand years ago in India and healed.

And it comes from the Buddha.

It came from the Buddha through Atisha Kamalashiva.

But it's nine stages of meditation from the Anapanasati Sutra.

And each of those stages is outlined and it's got a specific problem.

It's got specific solutions to those problems and specific techniques to apply on each of those stages.

And it's a whole meditative framework.

And it was so helpful for me to understand that there is a roadmap to do this.

And again,

No,

I always,

I feel like it's like,

I'm in New York.

If I want to drive to Florida,

I just drive more.

It's not necessarily helpful.

I could be getting to,

You know,

Washington state,

You know,

And meditation kind of felt like that for me also.

I developed all sorts of bad habits by not having good instruction,

Really trained myself bad habits.

So,

For instance,

The first problem for meditation as outlined,

Perhaps everybody can relate is I don't want to do it.

You know,

It's like waking up one day and despite all of our best intentions,

It's like,

I do not want to do this.

And so the first goal of meditation is to establish a consistent practice.

So the problem is,

I don't want to do it.

Well,

It's having a consistent practice.

And then what are the techniques that we can do to help us establish a consistent practice to overcome the problem of I don't want to do it so that we can then progress on to the following stages?

You know,

Things like creating a nice space in the house,

A consistent time,

Consistent place,

Being clear in our goal and intention,

Things that we can do to help us develop a consistent practice to overcome the goal of being able to build from there.

Yeah,

It's something that I have a hard time relating to,

Too,

Because I'm one of the few people that I know of that when I first started and did the first session seriously,

I had this huge like clearing and I was such a crappy place in my life that it was really dramatic how well I felt.

And I write it and just it's just my personality that when I commit to something,

I take it seriously.

I don't I don't commit to too many things,

You know,

But when I do,

I take it.

I mean,

There's just no nonsense kind of stuff.

And so I've had a daily sitting practice two hours a day since May 2012.

And I haven't missed a session yet.

So it's very rare.

So I am like completely unrelatable to people.

That's why I talk to so many teachers about this establishing a daily,

You know,

Because I am an outlier when it comes to that,

You know,

Just because of how I mean,

Maybe I'm a role model or something like that.

But that's also it's it's not really that important with me doing that either because a chicken can sit,

You know,

But we don't want to sit like a chicken and hatching eggs either.

Right.

That's not just a justice,

You know,

I mean,

Maybe some of those in traditions would would disagree and say,

Just just warm the cushion,

You know,

Just just do the practice.

You don't have to do anything in particular.

Just do it.

And I see there's some wisdom in that,

But it doesn't work for everybody.

Some people that works for,

You know,

And so I like,

You know,

Learning this or learning about this and how people have struggled with doing a meditation practice and yeah,

And how to to keep it.

Because I know for me,

The longer I go through the day without with,

You know,

Between like morning and evening sessions,

Like my body craves it,

Like when I used to smoke cigarettes,

Right?

It wasn't even pleasurable anymore with smoke a cigarette.

It was just to get this horrible feeling away.

But it's but it's not like that in meditation because it's not like an addiction.

It's just like my nervous system notices,

Especially when it gets really fragile,

Frazzled and then how restorative and kind of back to zero point or baseline because it's just a palpable,

Energetic reality of.

So it's so it's become so noticeable that it just seems almost absurd to think that,

You know,

That there's anything better for me anyway.

I'm just kind of preaching and preaching to the choir here.

And so I'm not really,

Really relatable on stuff like this.

So I appreciate the feedback on that.

Yeah.

Humble brag,

Right?

Yeah.

You know,

When you look at that paradigm,

There's that first step,

Four steps to that.

And the fourth one in Tibet is called Xinjiang.

And it's like that habit.

Like we've defeated that problem of laziness when we have that habit.

And that Xinjiang describes that energetic experience that you just described.

It's like the that's the goal.

And the kind of the final step of overcoming that I don't want to meditate is that thing that you described.

So that's that's cool.

Very good.

Yes.

Well,

Yeah.

All right.

Well,

Is there so I guess that well,

Well,

Is there any message you want to leave people on today,

Be it's kind of a more universal message,

Or maybe it's timely what's going on right now?

What do you want to take people out on?

I just appreciate the opportunity to come and talk about these things and for you to put it out there.

And,

You know,

I hope people can,

You know,

Find find that thing that interests them.

And I think it's an important time for community and for people to try to find practices that allow us to unplug a little bit and always needs more to see a platform and to see people promoting these practices.

I don't know.

There was it.

Who was there?

Like you've studied these things forever,

You know,

40 years of practice.

It's like,

What have you learned?

It's like,

Just be a little more kind.

I love that,

You know,

That's what Kurt Vonnegut's thing,

You know,

There's only one rule in life.

And that's kindness,

You know,

So I can't really go wrong with loving kindness,

For sure.

Earl,

It's been it's been really cool talking to you.

I appreciate the depth of your practice.

I mean,

It's not too many people I get to talk to have been in a three year serious retreat,

You know,

And doing all the things you do,

Study all the things you study and embody all the things you embody.

So not to build up an ego or anything,

It's just these are just qualities that are admirable,

You know,

And wise and helpful.

So any kind of an exemplification of these qualities that come across,

It's just they say sadhu,

Sadhu,

Sadhu,

You know,

I really appreciate it.

And so may all beings everywhere realize awakening and be free and do so with the most amazing,

Optimal,

Helpful,

Profound heart that that that is possible.

So until the next time you listen to this podcast,

Take good care.

Bye.