Stop Chasing Happiness | Buddhist Wisdom For True Freedom

Most of us spend our lives chasing happiness - fixing, planning, achieving, always trying to get to that next moment when everything will finally feel right. And yet, we've never found the lasting happiness we've been looking for.

In this Dharma talk, we explore Zen Master Dōgen’s teaching: To study the self is to forget the self. You’ll learn why chasing happiness for the “me” you think you are can never work - and why that’s good news. By losing interest in the story of “me,” we open to a natural joy, ease, and connection that has always been here.

Discover how mindfulness, self-inquiry, and dropping the self-centered story reveal a happiness that isn’t fleeting - because it doesn’t depend on getting somewhere else, it only depends on dropping the story of me.

Transcript

And I want to start with a quote from the Zen master Dogen. Oh, Hi Emma, Good to see you. Good to see you. I'm glad you're here. And the quote goes, To study Buddhism is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to actualize the myriad of things. And what this means, What he's pointing to here is that to understand who we take ourselves to be, Who we believe that we are, To understand the self, That we start to lose interest in the self, We forget the self. And when we forget the self, We open up to the nature of reality, To the interconnectedness of all things, Including us, Seeing that we are not a thing, That we are fluid and flowing and free. And so to see this, To see this, We have to lose interest in the self. And that is a pretty tall order because we are very enamored with ourselves. And we are obsessed with ourselves, About thinking about ourselves, Our stories, Our dramas, Our desires, Our fears. It is our favorite topic. And so much of the hook in all of this thinking about ourselves is that it's about my happiness. All of this planning and strategizing and rehashing old conversations, It's all about my happiness. If I can just resolve this argument in my head, If I can just get over there, If I can just get this next object, If I can just solve some imaginary problem, If I can just get something, Then I'll be happy. And yet we've never found it. We've never found a lasting happiness in this model. And we've all, At one time or another, Had good conditions. Not continuously, That's not the way the world is. But we've all had the conditions where we did resolve the argument, Where we did get the good conditions of praise or some recognition, Where we got the bonus, We got a little extra money, We got the promotion, We got the holiday, Maybe we got upgraded to first class on our holiday, Or we got the new purse, We got the new wallet, We got the new suitcase, We got the new iPhone, We got the new laptop. We've gotten all of these things. And still, We are looking for happiness. So, In mindfulness, We study our experience. We study this feeling that arises inside of us, This feeling that something's not quite right. I'm somehow lacking, I'm somehow missing something, I need something. And in our thoughts, We go out looking for something to fill ourselves up with. An idea, A story, A solution, Just how can I get over there and somehow find happiness? Even just rehashing some old conversation, I can just rehash this conversation and find, I find a moment there where I've rehashed it in a way that I feel happiness for a moment. But it's so fleeting, It's like sand falling through our fingertips. It's like, I had it for a moment, But it's gone again. And now I'm left with that feeling of something's empty here, Something's not right. And then we go out looking again, And we go out looking again, And we get it, And it's the sand that falls through. We can't hold on to it. And yet, We keep going out and we keep looking for it. So, With mindfulness, We see this. We see this pattern playing out again and again and again, And we see the futility of this pattern. All day long, I got to get over there. We rush over there, I'll be happy when I get over there. Nope, Now it's the next thing. I'll be happy when I get over there. Nope, Now it's the next thing. I'll be happy when I get over there. We see the futility in it until we finally realize, Oh, Self can never be happy. Meredith, What I take Meredith to be as the separate self will never find lasting happiness. Never. And that is good news. Because in that realizing that Meredith will never find lasting happiness, What I take myself to be is the separate self, This kind of imagined I can be happy out there in the future. When I realize that Meredith can never find happiness, The grasping falls away. And all the fear, And all the anxiety, And all the stress of trying to chase happiness falls away. And the interest in Meredith starts to fall away. It's no longer so interesting anymore. And then the world, Which was once the backdrop to my story, To my dramas, To my quest, That was once the backdrop, Suddenly becomes the foreground. And there's a seeing, And a hearing, And a feeling, And a tasting, And a smelling of like this whole new world, Because it is a whole new world. Because we forgot the self, Right? We forgot, We lost interest in the self. When we realized we could never make it happy, It's gone. The appearance of it is gone. And all of a sudden, There is this whole new world that we never took notice of before, Because we were so lost, All of our attention was caught up in the drama of me. And there was a felt sense of richness, Of aliveness, Of feeling whole, Of feeling complete, Of feeling connected, Of feeling this sense of spaciousness, Of openness, Of ease, Of peace. Many of the words we would use to describe happiness, That didn't come from chasing the happiness, It came from seeing the futility, That self can never find happiness, The separate self, The ego, The Meredith that I take myself to be, The imagined Meredith, Can never find lasting happiness. And in losing interest in it, Ironically, We find the happiness that we were looking for, Not in an excited way, But in that steadiness of reality, Of the nature of reality. And Viktor Frankl said the same thing as Dogen. Happiness is not something you pursue, It is something that ensues when you forget yourself. And we hear the same meaning of this quote over and over, Hundreds of times, It's, You got to get out of your own way, You're the obstacle, Forget yourself, Right? We hear it again and again, And we'll see it on the Facebook, Or on Instagram, And we give it the like, Or we give it the hundred percent, Oh, Absolutely, We're so agreed to it, Right? We so believe that, Yes, That's absolutely true. And 30 seconds later, We turn around, And all of our focus goes into me. But no, I need to get that one thing resolved. I just need that resolved first. I need to think this through a little bit more. I need to rehash that conversation a little bit more. I need to get over there. And with all that focus on the me, All the suffering, All the dissatisfaction, All of the stress, All of the anxiety, Because the more that we focus on me, The more that we suffer. I mean, How much more evidence do we need? We have seen this over and over and over again. The separate self, The ego, The little me, The finite self, Meredith, Who I take Meredith to be in a thought, Will never find lasting happiness. And realizing this is good news, It's a good thing. But it is not the whole picture. Because while much of the hook of this is about finding happiness, Is about me finding happiness, It's not the whole hook. Because we have wrapped ourselves up in this identity, Right? That if I were to forget the self, Which is my whole identity, Who would I be? Who would I be in that moment? What would happen to my personality, My sense of humor, My preferences? What would happen to my career, My work ethic? How would I earn a living anymore? There is such a fear in disappearing and a fear in what will happen to me. And it suddenly doesn't seem practical any longer. I don't know about this. This doesn't sound so wise. But all that disappears is the story of me. And the stress and the anxiety and the unworthiness and the guilt and the shame, That's what disappears. If you, Your preferences will stay the same, Largely the same. If you are in a prison, And in this prison, They give you, It's a good prison, They give you the choice between Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi. If your preference is Diet Coke, You're going to say, I'll take a Diet Coke. If you are then out of that prison, And then you're in some restaurant and they say, You can have a Diet Coke or a Diet Pepsi, That preference for Diet Coke is still going to be there. It didn't go away. Just the story that I'll be so happy when I get the Diet Coke, That's all that's gone away. So now you can taste and enjoy the Diet Coke. Or if in the prison, You have a certain sense of humor, And you like certain jokes, Right? And you like certain jokes, And you hear the jokes and you laugh in the prison. And then when you're out of the prison, Someone tells that same kind of joke, And you still laugh, Because that preference didn't change. It's just the story of me that falls away. The stress and the anxiety, The identity of me, Your personality, Your likes and your dislikes, The uniqueness of you is still you. That doesn't change. What changes is you stop defending yourself, And you stop feeling bad about who you are. Because you see the reality that you are the result, You are the appearance of trillions of causes and conditions. You didn't make you. None of us made ourselves. None of us made our preferences. And as Brad points out about the Coke Zero, Because he knows, In fact, I used to like Diet Coke, Now I like Coke Zero. I didn't make that preference, But that's what I like. Right? So we still, You know, The food that you like, The drinks that you like, The TV shows that you like, The movies that you like, The types of books that you like, The types of activities that you like, These things all largely stay the same. It's just, And in fact, What we're not doing any longer is we're not suppressing any part of us, Because there's a lot of suppressing that goes on in our identities as well. Right? Because of who we think we need to be. Right? And I know just even in my own experience, I know that for the last 12 years, I thought I'm not supposed to like watching TV, Because I'm a serious spiritual practitioner. Right? Probably for the last 26 years, I probably still, When I was still kind of living more of a traditional householder's life, I would do it, But I kind of felt some guilt with it. And I would still kind of do it over the years, Like on my laptop or something, But I would feel guilt about it because I thought, No, I'm serious. I'm a serious practitioner. There was so much identity wrapped up in that, Which is why I keep trying to impress this upon you. Please get rid of that spiritual identity. It's not helping. It's just another way that the ego shows up. And now it's like, Yeah, Okay, I've finally realized, Yes, There is a liking of watching TV. Not a lot of it, But yeah, There's a liking of watching it, And it's okay. The only thing that's changed is the guilt has gone away from it. That's what's dropped away. And so I think that that, You know, The more that we can recognize that we start to accept who it is that we are, Because we are the result of these trillions of causes and conditions, That, You know, If you like romance novels, Read romance novels. If you like getting dressed up and going to Comic Con, Do that, Right? If you like going to Civil War reenactments or medieval reenactments, Like do that. No problem. It's not a problem to like these things, Right? It's an accepting that this is who you are, And there's an enjoyment in doing these things, And every one of us has our own uniqueness in this respect, Our own enjoying of certain things. If they're not causing any harm to anyone, If they're not causing any harm to you, It's all that leaves is the guilt about it, The shame about it, That I shouldn't be this way, Because there's no longer an identity telling us, No, You should be like this. And all of the, You know, Before, You know, If you're intelligent, If you have a high IQ, If you're a good problem solver, If you're good at the big picture, If you're good at details, If you're good with numbers, If you're good with creative, Being creative, None of that changes very much, Right? Forgetting the self isn't a lobotomy. It doesn't mean that you turn into a slug, Right? You're still able to function. It's just without the story. You're still able to go to work every day. You're still able to function. And in fact, I would even argue function much better, Because let's say, I mean, Even if you love your job, Right, Even if you love your job, Every one of us has parts of our job that we don't enjoy. It's impossible to love every aspect of our job. And usually, When we come to those parts of the job that we don't like, We tell ourselves this big story, And I hate this, And why do I have to do this part, And this sucks, And someone else should be doing this, And this is such a terrible part of the job. Like, I'm the only one having to do something over here that I don't particularly like to do. But instead, There's a recognizing the self isn't making anything better here. It's not improving the situation. It's the recognizing the task, Whatever it is you're doing, The spreadsheet that you're filling out, The, You know, Digging the ditches, Doing the dishes, Whatever it is that you're doing, That you just, You're focusing on, You're doing your best on it. And in that moment, It's not unpleasant at all. The dishes, When we're not pushing back on them, Not unpleasant. Even the digging of the ditches, When we're not pushing back on it, It's no longer unpleasant. It's the story of me. That's what we get so caught up in, In this, The story of me that makes everything so difficult. So in forgetting the self, You don't all of a sudden shirk all your responsibilities and run off to a monastery, Right? Because in fact, The one that would want to run off to the monastery is the ego. And I know that because my ego, We ran off to a monastery and that wasn't it. And then we ran off doing other things. It's typically the ego that wants to go off and run off to the monastery. You don't, In realizing that you, That you are not the self, In losing interest in the self, That it is not making you safer. It is not making you more responsible. It is not, It's not making you who you are, Your uniqueness. It's definitely not making you happy. In the realizing of all that, It is not improving your life in any way. That whatever it is that you're doing, Right, You're doing it because you're going to be doing something in this moment and you just do it for the joy of doing it. There's just no story layered on top of it anymore. And I remember this story from Ajahn Brahm. Some of you might know Ajahn Brahm. He's an English monk that lives in Australia. And he comes from Ajahn Chah's monastery in Thailand, Which probably a lot more of you know of. And when he was a young monk and he was living in Thailand, One day the Ajahn Chah had said to him and a couple of other monks, Ajahn Chah was getting ready to go away for a few days to go do some teachings and travel. And he said, Hey, There's this big massive pile of dirt over there. I want you to take that pile of dirt and I want you to move it about 100, 200 feet away. And, And the first day they go about doing it, They're happy, No problem. They're just moving the dirt, Right? There was a lot of work going on in the monastery. It was really building. It was growing. So there was a lot of work going on. No problem. They're just filling up their wheelbarrows, Going over, Dumping it, Going back and forth. And then the next day, The senior monk that was in charge of the monastery when Ajahn Chah was gone, He comes over to the monks that are there maybe finishing up moving the dirt. And he said, Why did you move the dirt over here? Ajahn Chah said just before he left, No, No, No, He changed his mind to put it back over there. And the monks were like, What? So, You know, They start moving it back. They're not quite so, You know, They're not too irritated at this point, But they're a little bit, A little bit unhappy about this. They move it all back to the other side. And then when Ajahn Chah comes back a few days later, He goes, Why is the dirt still there? I told you to move it over there. So by this point, Ajahn Brahm is just, He's losing it. He's so frustrated. He's so irritated. He's in his thoughts like, I came here to be enlightened. I didn't come here to move dirt back and forth. And these senior monks really need to get their act together. They really need to figure out what's going on instead of sending us all over the place. And then, Of course, One of the senior monks that was there noticed what was going on, Noticed that Ajahn Brahm's happy face had changed. He was miserable. Everything was, You know, Dropped the wheelbarrow down. Everything was done with just greater drama, A greater emphasis on him and his suffering. And he said to him, He's like, You know, The other day you were doing this, You were totally fine. You know, What's changed? The story in your head about it has changed. You're carrying this around with you. You're making this harder than it needs to be. This is the lesson that Ajahn Chah was trying to give you. Look at how you've wound yourself all up around this story, Around yourself. Let it go. And notice how much easier it is to carry the wheelbarrow back and forth. It's so much lighter. You're moving so much more easily when you forget the story of yourself. And this is what we do. So in our practice, Where Dogen says, Study the self, Study the self. So we use all the tools that we have, Mindfulness, Meditation, Compassion practices, Self-inquiry. We use all the tools that we have to investigate the self. We get lost in something and oh, My happiness is over there, Right? And we question it. Whose happiness is over there? Or we feel it, You know, If it's particularly strong emotion, Or we bring some self-compassion. We use all of the tools that we have. I'm not explaining them in great detail here. I'm just referencing the examples, Because we've got plenty of time talking about how to use these tools. But these tools are to help us see, To lose interest in the self. The stories, The drama that it's telling you, It's so boring. It's so repetitive. I mean, It's just, If you had a friend that came over, And just the same stories every day, There are dramas every single day, You would eventually say, Like, This friendship, Like, Isn't working out. I can't do this anymore. It's so boring. And so it's in the seeing in this, The seeing, Ah, You know, We ask, Who is it that is going to be happy when you get over there, Right? Using self-inquiry, And you realize there's nothing that's going to be happy when it gets over there, The grasping falls away. And you're present again, And you start going about what it is that you were doing. You were rushing at one moment out the door, Because you gotta, You had to get to the store immediately, Your happiness was going to be there. And you slow down, And it's like, It's okay. And you realize, Oh, I feel okay. I feel a sense of ease. Oh, Look what's going on. Look at the butterfly. Oh, Look at this, What's happening over there. There's so much happening, Right? And you realize you didn't fall apart. You didn't fall apart. You just felt a greater sense of ease, And connection, And peace. That everything you were struggling for to get there, All of a sudden that struggle fell away, And you were here. And you felt okay again. And we keep doing this again, And again, And again, Until we really get the evidence. Oh, First of all, The evidence. Whatever, Whatever story you're going on about, Whatever conversation you're rehashing, Whatever fantasy you're having about where you're going to be happy in the future, Whatever it is, To keep investigating that to see, Oh, That self is never going to find happiness, Never going to find happiness, Never will. And in doing that, Right, In doing that and letting go again, And again, And again, Basically reprogramming, Because we have been so brainwashed into believing this little separate self is me, That this is my identity, That this is someday it's going to find this lasting eternal happiness. So we're basically reprogramming the operating software. And we do it bit by bit by bit. We keep looking, And we keep investigating and going, Oh, There was no self there, There was no self there. And every time we come back into the present moment, We realize, Oh, I'm still here. I didn't lose my brain. I didn't even lose my capacity to think or to plan. It's just in thinking and the planning, No thinker, No planner. In the doing, No doer. I'm still here, Just not the way that I thought. I'm still here, Just not under the stress and the anxiety of this belief that there's a better me over there, That there's going to be a happier me over there, That there's somehow an unworthy me here. I'm still me. I'm still here. I didn't fall apart. And as we keep doing this over time, Forgetting the self, Forgetting the self, Losing interest in the self. This is what Dogen's saying. Study the self to forget the self, Forget the self, And open up to the myriad of things, The myriad of things opening up to the reality, The nature of reality, That you are an interdependent, Interconnected arising, Changing moment by moment. There's nothing to hold on to. There's nothing here that could possibly hold on to anything out there. And there's nothing to hold on to out there. But in that pursuit of that is where I find the unhappiness. It's where I find the unhappiness. And we start to trust more. Even the thoughts that we're having, The quality of the thoughts are much better when there's not a me in it that's going to get something at the other end. If I'm at my job, And I'm doing something, And I'm in my corporate job, Let's say, I don't have a corporate job anymore, But let's say I was in my corporate job, And I'm doing something, It's not because, Oh, I want to impress the boss, Or I want to get some recognition, I want to get some praise. So now I'm not really enjoying what I'm doing, Because there's a lot of stress, There's a lot of attachment to how it's going to be perceived. I'm not really doing my best. But now I'm just doing my best because I realized there is no self to get anything from this at the end. There's just the enjoyment of doing it, Just the enjoyment of doing a good job. Yeah, It feels good to do a good job. You know, Maybe you're in a job and you have a responsibility to a family. And maybe it's not the job that you would ideally like. But the conditions are that this is the job you have, And you have the responsibility of the kids and the wife or the husband, Right? And it's like, Okay, Yeah. So instead of going every day to this job, And we're starting to resent my family and starting to resent everyone at my job, Because why do I have to do this? This is so unfair, Because that's the way it always, The separate self always frames it. It's so unfair, I'm such a victim. I would be so happy if I were doing something else, If I could just run off to that monastery. And now I resent my family, Because they're stopping me from doing that. So instead of seeing that, Instead of creating a prison for ourselves, There's the recognition. Yeah. Okay, There's a job, There's a job here, Something to be done. And even in thinking in the job, You're kind of framing, It's like, Yeah, I'm doing this so that I can provide for my family, My family that I love, My family that I want to care for. And it's not about resenting what you're doing, Or doing it for the recognition, It's just, You're going to be doing something. And so do your best. Do your best in this moment. And noticing every time the story wants to present itself, The story arises, And you just notice it, And you're like, Ah, You're never going to be happy, Because that little self, That imagined self that wants to be somewhere else other than where it is, The moment you get there, It's just going to want to be somewhere else again. You're never going to find it. You're never going to find the happiness that you're looking for. Because the happiness, And what we talked about last week, What it is that we're searching for has never left us. We left it. We gave all of our attention to the separate self, To this idea of me, The little me, The ego. This is who I am. This is my reality. This is my, You know, It's eventually going to get happiness. I know all of the millions of things in the past, It never worked, But it's going to, The next time it's going to work. And we keep staying on that pursuit. So that's all that's happened, Is our attention has gone to something else. But in the forgetting the self, And again what Viktor Frankl says, What we hear again and again and again, It is in forgetting the self, In realizing what is already here, What opening up to what is already here, You find ironically the happiness that you are looking for. You find the connection, You find the meaning, You don't put meaning into something, You don't pursue, I need meaning in my life, The meaning is there without having to impute it. There's a way of moving through the world with greater ease, Because you're realizing this is all happening, You are a happening arising in each moment. And nobody has the perfect conditions, Where they never experience discomfort, Where they never experience criticism, Or they don't experience disappointment, Where their life is statically that kind of excitement, Happiness, Nobody has that, Right? Life is filled with a lot of mundane moments, But we impute on the mundane moments, I shouldn't be doing this, The self, It's so irritated, It wants to get over there. And so it's the seeing that like, We're not adding to it, We're taking away from it. So in studying the self, We learn to forget the self, We lose interest in the self, Wasn't bringing us happiness, It's not making us smarter, It's not making us more responsible, It's not making us more reliable, It's not who we are, It's not taking away our preferences, It's taking away a lot of the bad preferences, Right? A lot of the bad habits do tend to fall away. Because a lot of the bad habits were about doing things to try and suppress the feelings of unworthiness, Of loneliness, Of guilt, Of shame, Like a lot of things that we're doing are covering up if we're drinking, Or drugs, Or shopping, Or you know, Overly shopping, Gambling, Like a lot of these things are to cover something up. And then there's there's nothing to cover up. There's nothing to cover up anymore. So yeah, Those things fall away. Those things for sure fall away. But there's just an acceptance of yes, You are this arising of trillions of causes and conditions. You didn't make you. So there's such an accepting and who you are. And we have such resistance to who we are, Such loathing for who we are, Trying to suppress parts of us, Trying to be something. It's never worked. It's never worked. So study the self, Forget the self, And open up to the nature of reality, That all things including you are this interdependent, Interconnected arising, Nothing solid, You're still here, I'm still here, You can all still think we can all still do things. We just don't do it with the burden of this belief that there's something solid and separate and independent here because there isn't. When we investigate, When we truly study the self, This is what we see and we do lose interest and we do forget it. And in forgetting it, You are here. You are here, Life is so much better. So much better when we forget the self. When we lose interest in it. We'll never find happiness in the separate self. You're never going to find it. You're never going to find security in it. You're never going to find safety in it. There's never going to be enough of anything for it. So study it, Recognize this, Start practicing, You know, Notice when you're living in the present moment more, When there's not that sense of self around, You didn't fall apart, You were still here. Don't turn this into something so foreign. You were still here, You're still here the whole time, You're still here the whole time. You're just not suffering anymore. You're just not suffering. So, Okay, I know we have a lot of questions I see coming up in the in the comments. And we'll go through, I know this, I know, I'll just say, I know I have been seriously pushing the envelope on the Dharma Talks. You know, So for anyone here that's brand new, Okay, Just I'm planting a seed still, Just go with this as best you can. But really, I am talking, I think, I think a lot of the Dharma Talks here are really coming to the people that have been practicing this for five or more years. So, I'm trying to point you more clearly into seeing what it is that's going on here. And to avoid all of the traps, To avoid all the traps. Probably you've fallen into most of them already too, Right? But just maybe I can let you know a little sooner. I wish someone had told me a little sooner, You know? So, I feel like that's the thing here to do, Is to tell, Tell us all a I did see that earlier. Thank you. And Julie, Thank you for the donation. And Rasha, This is recorded. I will put this up on my teacher's page. I put all these talks up on my teacher's page. So, Chris, I'm going to get back to, Well, So is this Chris from Australia? Oh, No, From Greece. Okay. So, I did a talk the other week on this. Did we do the retreat on this? I can't remember or not. It's not that we can't have goals. What I would say is self-improvement, Is try and stay away from self-improvement. This is where I feel like we have conflated spirituality with our self-improvement culture. We don't end up getting improved. That's the thing. We don't end up getting improved. And we never find a place that we get to because if I can all, If, If there's something wrong with me now, I will always find something wrong with me. It's like the people that get all the plastic surgery, Right? It's like maybe they just had the bad nose and they got the nose job. And then once they get the nose job and they're like, Oh yeah, That does look much better. And they're like, Oh, His lips are awfully thin. Maybe I should get some filler here. Oh, His cheeks are, Oh, Look at that jowl there. You know, When we start kind of picking apart and then you see like it kind of becomes this obsession, You can always find something, Right? And so this idea of, I'm going to stay on the self-improvement side first. This idea that there is something here to improve just creates more grasping, More self, Right? And, And ironically, Again, This is so ironic, In the stopping to try to improve myself, We end up just doing a lot of the behaviors that we were struggling to do before, Going to the gym, Eating better, Meditating, You know, Just, You know, Even just in the activities in the way that where we focus a lot of our attention. Like, Again, I'm not saying like, Read, Read a fun book, Read a fun book, Read, Watch a TV show, But we don't tend to sit around all day and binge watch something either, Right? Because in not needing to improve ourselves, That grasping being gone, There's such a sense of freedom, There's such a sense of openness, Of spaciousness in there, Right? That all of a sudden, The things that we're doing, They're not this kind of, Oh, I'm going to be so happy when I get that done. I'm going to be so happy when I lose that five pounds. And then of course, Now I'm not happy because I didn't lose the five pounds. In fact, Not only did I not lose the five pounds, I gained a pound. Now I'm furious, Right? Or I was going to become a kinder self, Right? And I talk about this a lot. And I've done this in the kindness course that we've, I've got all the classes on my Insight timer page. It's not as a course, But the kindness, We did a series of seven weeks of kindness. And I kept saying it continuously, Don't make an image out of being kind, Don't make an image out of it. It is simply kindness is the, There's an, If kindness is arising and we're doing it because we're having more of this intention of kindness, This, This shared recognition of this experience, Of the shared experience, Right? Stay focused on that, The shared connection of kindness, Because anytime we turn an image into me as a kind person, I'm trying to be a kinder person. But you can't sustain that 24 seven, Right? We all have moments, We just have moments, We're tired. And, And we don't feel like helping, Right? Like we just, We're, We're spent, We're done, Right? And it's like, I don't feel particularly kind right now. I mean, I don't have to be a horrible person either, But I don't feel particularly generous maybe in that moment. And then all of a sudden, Because I made this image, I'm this kind person. Now it's like, See, I'm not a kind person. Darn it. I knew I wasn't really a kind person. I tried so hard to be a kind person, But in not making an image out of kindness, Right? Or anything else of generosity, Of compassion, Of, Of anything that you could make an image out of, In not making it an image. In fact, What I find is we are kinder and we're more compassionate because we're living more out of wisdom instead of needing to be seen as something, Right? And needing to be seen as this new improved person. Because if, If, If I am feeling tired and I'm not feeling, You know, I feel like the wisest thing to do would be to stay home and rest and, And maybe I can't go volunteer or do something that I was going to do before. In the wisdom of that, There's kindness for myself because there's an understanding, There's a certain amount of capacity here. And if I just push and push and push myself, Because I've got to be this kind person, Eventually the whole thing's going to backfire. And then I'm going to go, Yeah, See, That didn't work out. That didn't work out at all. So, You know, In, In the self-improvement, In the self-improvement, You know, It's endless, It's endless, You know, It's endless striving for something. And inevitably I find we don't really improve, We just become more attached, We become more rigid, You know, We become more unpleasant to be around. But in the letting go of that, I find that the wiser choicing and decisioning is happening. And there is just this natural sense of where we, It is more pleasant to be around us, There's more patience, There's more ease, There's more forgiveness, There's more kindness, Because we're offering that here, And so we can offer it to others as well. And then in, Uh, And Julie, I want to acknowledge, Thank you, I think, Was that, Okay, Yeah, Sorry, Yes, You donated twice, Thank, Oh, No, No, No, Sorry, It just got moved up. Okay, So, Um, Oh, Chris, Sorry, So you're talking about learning, Gaining skills, For example. Um, Yeah, No problem, No problem learning, Gaining new skills, No problem on that whatsoever. Yeah, Learn for the sake of learning. Yeah, Learn for the, Gaining some new skills, No problem in that, No problem in that. Don't make a self out of it. Don't make a, Oh, I'm going to be so smart when I learn this new language, And I'm going to impress everyone when I know this, Because that's, You know, Self-improving. But, Um, Yeah, Learning, Gaining new skills, For example, Yeah, Not a problem at all, Not a problem. Sorry, So I kind of went off a little bit long there on the self-improvement. And goals, What I would say for goals is, Um, Yeah, It's fine to have goals, Just don't get attached to them, And don't think that there's something that you're going to become on the other side of those goals. Don't think you're going to become happier, Don't think you're going to become, Feel, You're going to suddenly feel safer, You're suddenly going to feel more secure, You're not, You're not. Don't attach anything to the goals, Don't attach anything. Hi, Rohit. Okay, So let me go back a little bit further, I will get to all the questions, But I know there was some early on. Oh, And Lynn, When you're just saying, Yeah, When you're sick of yourself, You're happiest when you're volunteering, Yeah. Yeah, Volunteering and giving, Being of service is super helpful, Super helpful. But we can't always do it, We also have to understand, So you've got to be careful to not make any image out of it, And to be careful to say, The only way I can feel good is in helping others, Because we can burn ourselves out. So, But I absolutely agree, I think in service of others is huge, Is so helpful, So, So helpful. Just be careful, Don't make an image out of it, And know your limitations, Know when it's okay to say, Hey, I also need to take care of myself. So Chris, Like what you're saying, Self-care when all you do is look after others, Absolutely, This is not saying no wisdom, There's wisdom and compassion. When the grasping falls away, The grasping itself, Wisdom and compassion arises, Right? And so we do understand when it's time, To say, Yeah, I've been looking after others a lot here now, And I need some time on my own, I understand I'm at capacity. And I find way too often people that are caring for others start to get resentful, Start to burn out, They don't know how to speak up for themselves. And so I think that there's such a sense of, In the wisdom and compassion of that, And not making a self, Well now, Oh, I saw myself as the caregiver, So now if I'm not the caregiver, If I feel I need to take care of myself, Oh my God, Who am I? So absolutely, You know, It is about understanding the balance. The self is not helping you find the balance, It will tilt you one way or the other. I've got to look after everyone else, And I can't take care of myself, Or it'll go to the other extreme. I can't look after everyone anymore, This is too much. And it becomes this total pushback on everything. But instead, Because thinking's still happening, Just no self-thinking, No thinker. We don't turn it into something. So when we're, The thoughts are arising, There's a lot of tiredness arising, There's been a lot of eight hours of looking after someone else, Yeah, I think the wise thing, The compassionate thing for myself, Would be to take a little time here to myself, And to say to everyone, Hey, I need to take a little break, Can everyone be okay on their own for a little bit? Or can I call someone into help, Can I have someone else take over, So that I can take a little bit of time for myself? And not with the fear, Well now, What will they think of me? No, What do I think of myself now? I wasn't superwoman, Yeah, It's okay. And you just go and you take care of yourself, And then you feel more relaxed, You feel more at ease, You did what you needed to do, And then you start fresh again. There's no resentment, There's no image, There's no suffering. And Pete, I thought you, Oh, You were saying good point too, About the self-care. And hi, Alice, Good to see you. Yes, And Alice, You're right, So the ego is saying, What will be left of me if I drop all these things, Right? Yes, The ego that's, Oh, You know, You need me, You need me, You would not be able to survive without me, Right? And we go, Oh yeah, You're right, You're right, This is why we study the self, We study it. We keep analyzing it day after day, Moment after moment, We analyze it and we see, Like a good scientist would do, Man, You know, If you were studying, Maybe your hypothesis is that, I think mice could dance. I think if you gave them the right music, You put them in the right type of cage, The right type of lighting, They could dance. And day after day, You change up the music, And you put a disco ball one day, And you put little hats on them another day, You do all these little things. And eventually you go, Man, Like, These mice aren't going to dance, Like, That is just the reality, They are not going to dance. And this is what we do when we're studying the self, Because it's telling me, You know, You need me to be safe, You need me to be secure, You need me to be happy. And yet, All it's doing is constantly saying your happiness is over there, You're not happy now, All it's constantly saying is you're not safe and secure now. It's constantly saying that. If, When we have the conditions right now where you've got food in the fridge, You've got a roof over your head, You've got clothing, You've got maybe a little bit of money in the bank, If you cannot feel secure now, Then there is no way an extra thousand dollars in your bank account is going to make you feel any more secure. And yet, That's what the ego is saying. So we question it. It's like, It doesn't matter what my conditions are, It's never enough. So I keep thinking that I need this self in order to be safe, In order to be secure. But in fact, It's the one that keeps me in this state of lack, The state of insecurity, Of scarcity, Of unhappiness. It's what's ruining my relationships, It's what's causing, You know, Making me hate my job. This voice, This constant narrating, Commenting on my life, Of what's going to happen to me, What do they think about me, What do I think about me, Right? This is what's causing all the suffering. And every time that you recognize it, And you realize, Like there is a realization like, It's never going to find happiness, Safety, Security, Never going to happen. And in the letting go, And maybe it's just the letting go of it for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, Maybe it's three days, Four days, Five days, And you realize, I didn't fall apart. Still showed up at work, Still showed up at what time I said I was going to be here. Still made sure I had a talk prepared, Set up the recording, Still was able to do everything, Still was able to do it all. Just no suffering. And when it's over, It's over. No thinking back. Did I say the right thing there? What did they think about this? Did I answer that correctly? Because I've done that a million times too. And there's no sense, I will never find resolution in that. So there is this recognition in studying the self, You lose interest in it, You forget it, And you start trusting the peace that is always here. You start trusting this more, Trusting the thoughts less. Okay, So we're giving a shout out to your amazing granddaughter Layla, Pete, Is that right? You had enough shitting in organized religion. Yeah, Lynn, Yeah, Great. So Pete, When you're asking, You know, How do you get rid of the guilt? The guilt is a byproduct of the separate self, Or not even a byproduct, It's embedded in the separate self. You're never going to not have guilt with the separate self, Right? So we're always focused on how do I get rid of the guilt, Right? And to some degree, To some degree, And I was noticing Lynn, I think the advice you were giving here, And I talk about this too, Like mindfulness, Coming in, Breathing, Feeling it, Ah, Guilt's here, Okay, Guilt's here, Right, Feel it. And I bring lots of self-compassion, Lots of kindness to it, Oh guilt, It's okay that you're here, It's okay. And you breathe, And you feel it. And in doing that, In labeling what is here, You dial back the fear centers in your brain, In moving closer to what it is that's here, And breathing more mindfully, Opening up to it, The feelings, Not the story, But the feelings, Right? Again, It dials back the stress, The intensity, The believability about what you were feeling guilty about, Right? And then to question it, Who felt guilty? It was just a thought, A thought that was implying there was something here to feel guilty. And so it's the studying it, It's the investigating it, The guilt, The shame, The regret, The resentment, It all falls away. Not because, You know, We haven't done things that weren't kind. Yeah, I've done a lot of things that in my past weren't particularly kind. There was a lot of suffering happening, And in suffering, People that are suffering, You know, Not saying I was a horrible person, Because for the most part I came across as a people pleaser probably, But there would be some things that, Yeah, I wish I hadn't done. Yeah, Or sorry, I wish I hadn't hurt anyone. Yeah, But I can't change that, And I can't take on the guilt of that, Because that was the arising of those conditions in that moment. Those were the arising. It's like saying, I do use this example, I don't know if it really hits or not, So tell me if it does, But it's like saying, It's like complaining to the clouds about the way the rain's coming down. Oh, I can't believe you, I can't believe you're coming in sideways, And now you're coming through the window, Or I can't believe you're not raining enough, Or the raindrops are too big, Or they're too small, Right? And this kind of, You should feel guilty, You're such a lousy cloud with that rain, Or the rain, Right? It makes no sense, You wouldn't do that, Because the conditions are, Whatever those clouds, How they came together, And whatever the humidity in the air is, And whatever the temperature is, All those conditions happen, And then the rain comes down in a particular way, And what's happening with the wind. We are no different, We are no different than that, We're sentient, We're sentient, That's different. We're aware of the experience, We are aware of it, Of ourselves, We are aware of awareness, But we are still, What we're seeing here is that I'm the result of trillions of causes and conditions arising. Who is there to feel guilty? There is no one to feel guilty, There is no one to feel guilty, Right? And in that, There can be forgiveness, There can be forgiveness, And I do find, So I, There's two levels on what I'm really teaching in here, There's a level of where we're in the beginning, We're dealing with these emotions, We're dealing with a lot of guilt, A lot of shame, A lot of hurt that we've done, And mindfulness, Fantastic. Meditation, Self-compassion, Fantastic. The Buddhist forgiveness prayer, Which I've said so many times, But I'll say it again, Matt, Because you're talking there about it as well. For anyone that I've harmed, Either knowingly or unknowingly, Through my own confusions, Fears, And desires, I ask for your forgiveness. For anyone that has harmed me, Or to anyone that has harmed me, Either knowingly or unknowingly, Through their own fears, Desires, And confusion, I forgive them. If there is anything I'm not yet ready to forgive, I forgive myself for that. And for all the little ways I harm myself, Negate, Doubt, Belittle, Judge, And criticize, I forgive myself for that too. And saying words like that, The conditioning of saying those words over and over, What we're saying is, Inevitably, Almost always when we're causing harm, Not always, But most of the time when we're causing harm, Because sometimes there can be collateral damage even from a good deed, But most of the time when we're causing harm, It's coming from fear and desire and confusion, The ego. It wasn't me. That was the conditions and the ego arising. And in that same vein, When we can see that it wasn't me, We can also see that when someone hurt me, There was no one there to be angry at. There was no one there that was acting independently. There was no one acting independently that was trying to harm me. It was just their causes and conditions coming up against the causes and conditions here, And something happened. And so the wisdom and the compassion that arises out of that is enormous. Why would I hate myself for this? Why would I have guilt towards myself for this? But also, Why would I have it towards someone else? And so we use, Again, I feel like I'm kind of teaching it, Kind of trying to straddle the fence here. I get where we're coming from, That there's more practical things for us to be doing in the beginning. And use all of those tools. Use the Buddhist forgiveness prayer. And I've got it as a meditation on my teacher's page. And I can put it again in the group, In our group sangha page on my teacher's page there. You know, Say the prayer, Say it every day. I said it for years, Every single day. It was helpful. It was a condition that kept going in and going in and going in. Say nice words like that. Practice self-compassion. Practice forgiving yourself. Practice mindfulness, Being with what's here, Feeling the emotions, Seeing the pattern of thoughts, How they're kind of creating this angst of suffering and anxiety and disappointment and guilt and shame, And seeing how you can be with it in a way that is kinder and more accepting, Right? Just guilt's here, Jealousy here, Fear is here. No problem. No problem. And I still will use those practices, Right? When the conditions are right, Right? At night, You know, I find it particularly helpful if the fear is coming. Oh, Here you are, Fear. Oh, Sweetheart. Sweetheart, What's going on? Yeah, Yeah, Something's going on. Okay. Okay, A little fear here. Let me breathe. Let me give you some space. Yeah, It's okay. It's okay that you're here, Right? So we move closer. We don't fear the emotions that are arising because even in the recognition of this, And this is what happens on a gradual path, Right? There's still old things that are kind of just working their way out, Just working their way out. And so, You know, There's this kind of, We think, I should realize no separate self. And again, We're kind of, It should be done, Right? It happens. It happens rarely. Eckhart Tolle, It happened to, But it's very rare for most of us on a gradual path. And I'm just teaching from the experience here, Right? It's gradual. There's seeing it, Realizing that the self is dropping away, And you can spend days, You can spend weeks, You can spend months, Right? And then all of a sudden the conditions will arise and there's a little like, A little something that's got to work its way out, But it's working its way out under new conditions as well, Right? And so there is just, There's a kindness, There's a compassion to what's here. And it's like, Yeah, You just got to work yourself out fear. It's okay. Because you were trying to work yourself out before, But now we can work it out with a lot more kindness, A lot more understanding. It's not me, But there's something here that's been conditioned and it needs to be felt. It needs to be experienced. It needs to be welcomed. And so we use all of the practices that we have, But I do find there is a point, There is a point where we have to be able to look and see, Or not, Sorry, So Lynn, I don't want to give you a shooting there, Sorry. But if what you truly want is freedom, If what you truly want is freedom, To see that the separate self is not you, It's an appearance, It's not you. Study the self, Forget the self. And you'll find awakening in that moment. You'll find awakening. Don't get attached to how long it lasts. Don't make a thing out of it. Don't, I'm awake. No, Now that's back to the ego. Just, Oh, You feel pretty free. You feel pretty present, You know, Pretty present, Present. There's a sense of ease. There's a sense of peace. Don't grasp at it. But there's evidence in that, In seeing again and again, I didn't fall apart. I was working on this spreadsheet. I was editing this video. I was fixing the audio or something. I'm uploading to insight timer, Right? Still able to do all these things. It's a miracle. We still function without it. And that gives us more evidence to trust it less. So we use all of the practices. We use all of the practices. But what I will tell you is that mindfulness is not enough if you want absolute freedom. It gets us so far. It gets us so far. Eventually we need to, You know, Mindfulness kind of shining a spotlight on our experience, Teaching us how to be with it, To nurture what's here, Right? To allow those emotions to kind of, The angst of them to settle down so we're not so caught up in it. But eventually we want to go around behind who's holding the spotlight, Who's looking through the spotlight, Who's looking through the camera, Right? Eventually you want to go back and see that, Because that is where the true freedom is. And I just know in my own experience, So it's where I teach from, That it's self-inquiry in the end that uproots it. To keep investigating, Who is it that's anxious? Who is it that feels guilt? Who is it that feels afraid? Who is it that's making this decision? Who is it that's doing the dishes? Who is it that's thinking? Who is the owner of this thought? To keep questioning in that way, Because there's always an implied something there. And we just go along with it. We just go, Oh yeah, There's something there. There's nothing there. It's just a thought. The thought that's giving rise to this illusion of a me that's going to be happier on the other side of the dishes, Of a me that's going to be happier when she's doing x or doing y or doing z, Even though whenever she gets there to x, Y, Or z, All that happens is she wants to get to the next thing. Never gets there. Never gets there. And Louisa, Thank you for the donation. And good to see you. I feel like I haven't seen you for a while. And Alice, Thank you for the donation. And Randolph. And Matt, So I hope that helped a little bit, The forgive, You know, The hurting yourself, The Buddhist forgiveness prayer. Yeah, Use all the tools that we have. Use all the tools that we have. Okay, I want to go now to Rohit. And I'm sorry, It took me a while to get here. Let me see. Sorry, Rohit. When someone else comes in the chat, It throws it all the way back up again. So, Oh, Good. I'm glad that was a helpful reminder, Matt. Okay. Sorry. Suffering, Severe anxiety, And cardiophobia. I don't know what cardiophobia is. It does not get out of my head. I'm so much worried all of the time. If it's something, Again, I would still say, Like, The practices that I've said about feeling the anxiety, I mean, It might just be too much. Even mindfulness might be too, It might be just too hard. You're just so lost in it. And my heart goes out to you, Rohit, Because I know how difficult that can be. I know, Like, The worrying. I know when my worrying got too much, And I remember I was in college, And I remember talking to my mom and saying, I worry so much, I'm now worried about how much I'm worrying. Like, That's how much my worrying was getting out of control. And that's when I started going to therapy for it, Because there was some stuff going on. And I felt like the therapy was helpful. The therapy was helpful, But in the end, It didn't quite, Didn't take away the shame, Didn't take the feeling of unworthiness, The separateness. That's when I started practicing Buddhism and meditating, You know, And then it was like, Kind of, Oh, That really helped. But having that understanding of what it was that was going on. And so, Rohit, I, You know, If you can, I'll try and just give you something that might be helpful, Just maybe a little self-compassion here. Maybe just one little thing that you could do is just to say, Oh, Rohit, This is really tough, And pet yourself. And just acknowledging this is really tough, This is really hard, Right? And just trying your best to stay with it and to breathe. This is hard. You can stay with this, Even talk yourself through it. So perhaps what might be a helpful tool for you is just some kind self-talk to allow yourself to be with what's here. Yeah, As Alice is saying, Like radical self-compassion, You know. But I would also invest, I would look into some, If you can afford it, If it's available to you in your area, If you can look into some therapy that might be helpful as well, Or maybe some groups of where people, Maybe there's some online groups that people just get together to talk about to kind of feel like you're not alone with this, Because you're not alone with it. I mean, Again, Another kind of self-compassion talk, A phrase that I like is, You know, Just like me, Millions of people are feeling severe anxiety right now. Millions of people. Just like me, Millions of people are feeling fear, Right? Whatever it is that you're feeling is a normal human experience, And millions of people are feeling it. But it becomes more stressful because we think it's just me. I'm the only one that's going through this. And just in that kind of feeling, You're just like me. Millions of people are going through this. And so you can also maybe look for some groups online that maybe they meet. And I think, Were you saying about the AA, Or was that, Oh, Randolph was saying about that. Like, You know, It's such a huge thing in AA, And I've never been to AA, But I know I've got people that I've worked with that have gone through it. And just that going to a meeting and having other people say just like, Oh my God, I thought I was the only one, You know? And it's like, No, You're not. Whatever you're going through is a normal part of the human, Is a normal human emotion, Is a common human emotion, Maybe I'll say a common human emotion. And there can be a feeling, A sense of just relief in that, In knowing I'm not alone. So where you're recognizing there's a lot of anxiety and cardiophobia. Someone tell me what that is. Alice, Tell me what that is, When you look that up. Because I'm trying to think what it could be, Of movement, Like a fear of movement. But it sounds like it's something I think you should investigate. Well, The heart cardio, Yes. So fear of the heart, Fear of the heart, Is that right? And if it's just coming on talks like this, And just hearing, If it provides you some comfort just in being here with us, Like, Yeah, Then also to do that. And just, You know, My heart does go out to you, Rohit, Because I do know what that's like. I know what the severe anxiety is. I mean, I used to take anti-anxiety meds. And this can be a hard practice. Sometimes we need other tools. And it's very appropriate for us to recognize our situation and not be afraid to say, You know what, I need some other tools, Maybe as well as doing this. But I can also, You know, Access some other tools as well that would be appropriate. Okay, So I hope that's okay. Oh, Mary, Thank you. Fear of heart attacks, Fear of heart attacks. Ah, Okay. And thank you for the donation, Mary. Thank you so much. Okay, So, And Deb, You have this too. I've never heard of this, Of a fear of heart attacks. Yeah, Philippe, Exactly what you're saying. So again, With the self-compassion, Because even that just to kind of bring you a little bit like, Okay, It's okay to feel this. And just some slow belly breathing, Because that'll start to bring the heart rate down. Right, Really opening. Or in fact, What would even be more, In fact, What I think might even be more helpful is breathing in and out of the heart. Because that starts to bring your, Improve your heart rate variability. So breathing into the heart really energizes the heart in a good way, In a calming way. But the breath in any way, In any way that you can access your breath, Some self-compassion, Some kindness. Yeah. And Alice, I agree with what you're saying. I mean, The anxiety, Everything about this voice, The ego, Everything about this is about trying to keep us safe. It's just missed the mark, Unfortunately. So just doing your best. Maybe you find a meditation that you particularly like on Insight Timer. And I think there's probably some great meditations on here about bringing you into the body, Feeling the body, Some slow breathing, Being with the anxiety, Because there's a lot of therapists that are teachers on here. So, You know, Explore that and find the tool set that you need. Find the tool set that you need that's going to be most appropriate. Okay? I hope that helps. I hope that helps, Rohit. And Randolph, Did I thank you as well for the donation? I hope so. Okay, So let me go. And just, Again, I'll reiterate, Randolph, I agree, Like the service and AA, You know, Helps your sobriety, Helping others, Helps absolutely helping others. Just don't make an image out of it. Like Lynn's saying, She's become great at saying no as well. You need that balance. Oh, Petra, So I'm so glad you're here for this talk. And just so your horse's autoimmune has flared up. And just to remember too, With this, That just to be with the fear of that, Right? Right? To be with it. Like if something's happening with one of my animals, One of my dogs, You know, It's about, Like you said, Not getting attached to any outcome, Not catastrophizing this, But being with that fear. Yeah. Oh, There's some fear here of what's going to happen. Right? Okay. Be with it. Just be with it. Like that's the appropriate thing to do in that moment. Right? I wouldn't in that moment go, Who's hurt? Who's feeling? Oh, What's appropriate there, The wisdom, The compassion would be feel that. Just feel the fear. Right? Because we're still going to feel things. We're still going to feel things. And we want to feel things. We don't want to turn into robots. We want to feel things. So, But feeling and feeling what's here and acknowledging what's here and bringing compassion to ourselves, Then we're not getting attached to the outcome because we don't know how many times if you have a horse or other animals that we know, You know, Things happen and then they're okay. And then things happen and they're okay, Or we, Something happens to us and then we're okay. And so just be with what's here. Be with the fear. Be with the feeling of uncertainty. It's okay. It's okay to feel. It's okay to feel whatever it is that's arising. And this is where we get better practiced at it as well. Like not getting lost in the story that's amping up the feeling, Right? And amping up the emotion, But recognizing what's happening and coming into the body and feeling. Yeah. Whatever it is, It's okay to feel. It's okay to feel. It's when we start getting into, Oh, What does this mean? And how is this going to affect me? And if I lose this animal, I'm going to, I'm going to lose it. Right? That's the attachment, Right? Right. And that we could say, Who's freaking out? Oh, It's no one they're freaking out, But come back and be with the feelings. Okay. And my, And I hope your horse is okay. Oh, Rohit, You were telling me that, Or I guess, Is this the cardio phobia is how to get over the fear of death and losing consciousness. Um, Because you're labeling this as a, As a phobia, I am going to put that more in the category. I would, I would investigate those things with a therapist. Well, I've, I've talked about, Um, Oh, I love Cynthia Bourgeois. I love her. Alice, You and I like so many of the same people. We have such an overlap. Um, And she does have some wonderful, You know, It's very Christian based. So just to make sure that you'd be okay with that Rohit, But I find her, She's kind of more in the Christian mystics, I think. Um, I really like her stuff. So, Um, But because of the phobia, I would, I would probably say I I'd like you to explore that more deeply, I think with a therapist or within a group that's going through that. Uh, But in general for us, You know, Not going through something, Uh, To where it's not reached that phobia level or, Or, Um, It has a huge grip on us. And you do have a fear of death. I think death meditations are great. And I have a death meditation on my page. I have talks on death. I actually have a couple of death meditations. Um, No, Tracy, It's on my teacher's page. Um, Yeah, On my teacher's page. Yeah. And in fact, I'll put, I think I can put the, There we go. I can put there that you can, Um, So yeah, I mean, You know, For, For us, If anyone else, Like I think death meditations are great in your situation, Rohit, I am going to suggest, I think the appropriate professional for that. Okay. Let me go back here. Okay. Um, Oh, Philippe, I wanted to get to your thing. So 10 years ago, You were a huge gamer, Did not know this, Played World of Warcraft nearly 24 seven. You were in a raiding guild and you raided twice a week. I don't know what that is, But there was a lot of pressure, Pressure to show up and participate. It was super important to you. Uh, Hang on. Sorry. I just lost the thread here. Um, Hang on. I'm going to take this down because I'm losing. Oh, I can't. Gradually, As you let go of the self, The me, You relaxed, You could see how imbalanced the gaming was getting, The detriment of others, Slowly letting go and peace came. Still enjoy playing the game, But it has become a lot more or less frequent and there is space to enjoy other things, But you also enjoy the game more. So you can go on when you feel like it, No pressure. Sometimes you go days without going on. So giving up the self, A little me doesn't mean your taste disappear. Thank you for sharing that. But it means you open up to different possibilities while still enjoying what you liked. You don't lose yourself. You don't become non-existent. Exactly, Exactly. But I think that's a really important thing that you brought up as well there, Philippa, Like there becomes balance in it, Right? Like it's, Um, It's okay to do, You know, It's okay to do the gaming. It's okay to, Um, Uh, You know, Have the occasional piece of chocolate cake. It's okay to have the occasional Coke Zero. Um, You know, That's my little, My little, Um, Bad, Well, Not good for you, But in generally pretty healthy, But it's okay to have these things in balance. So yeah, And again, Your preference for them isn't going to go away, But there is a recognition like balance, Just balance with it. And I do find, I agree with you, Like you enjoy it more because it's, It's not all consuming. It's just, Oh yay, Coke Zero today. That's fun. You know, It tastes better than, Than drinking it all the time, You know, Or playing all the time, Playing the game all the time. So thank you for sharing that, Philippa. Oh, Alison, I'm glad you're glad that I'm recording the talk. It is working. Yeah, I'm checking everything. Every now and then at the end, What happened one day, Just the recording didn't go, The audio, You know, And it's like, Well, Can't get too attached. Um, Okay. Just trying to get to the end. Oh, And just so Philippa was also sharing for Rohit that there are some beautiful music tracks on here and Yoga Nidra too. And Yoga Nidra is really beautiful. Yeah. So, Uh, Shaki, Shaki, Shake, Or I'm not sure if I'm saying your name right, Where you're saying you're an angry person with CPTSD. What's CPTSD? What is that? I'm not sure what CPTSD is. Complex PTSD. Oh, Thank you. Okay. Okay. Then I'm going to say the same thing. If it's something really, You know, The, We have to be careful on a spiritual path or using spiritual practices where therapy might be more appropriate, Or at the very least, Complimenting each other, But letting therapy be in the driver's seat. Um, Because there can just be a lot to unpack there. And, And often I find in situations like that, You really need someone there with you to, To help you navigate some complex traumas and emotions. Um, But, Uh, But still I would just offer something for you to do. I mean, Definitely find, Again, If you can find therapists, Um, You know, Online or, Uh, In your community or a group that you can, Um, That specializes in this, I think that would be very helpful for you. But again, Just some self-compassion when the anger is arising. Sweetheart, This is tough. This is tough. Yeah. I mean, I just find, You know, The self-compassion like that was my go-to practice for the longest time. And not that I don't still use it. I do still, But just whatever was going on, It was just like, Oh, Sweetheart, This is tough. And it was Sylvia Boorstein who really got me onto these. Um, And I just, I find like, No matter what I'm doing, It's like, There was this recognition, Like, This is tough. This does suck. Like this does hurt. There was almost kind of a little laughing at it. Like, Yeah, It sucks. Um, It wasn't denying what it was that was going on, But it was, It was allowing me to move closer to what it is that I was feeling not to fear it. And I just found that to be very, Very helpful, You know, Or again, Just that just like me, Millions of people around the world are feeling anger. It, Um, It takes the, There's something wrong with me out of this, Right? Because that's how the self is always, Oh, You know, You're the only one going through this, Right? And we believe it. And it's like, No, You're not the only one going through this, But we do need to take, You know, We have lots of tools and we want to be using the appropriate tools for what it is that we are, Are, Are working with the causes and conditions of who we are, You know, Not to feel because, You know, I know the anger fee, The anger is real, The anger feels real, But the, The egging on of it, The ego, Right? That's just, That's become habit. And then this kind of, Oh, The way we, We turn that on ourselves. So there's something wrong with us when it's, It's causes and conditions. So, Sheikh, You're saying you have one weird thing, Like, If you have self-compassion towards yourself, I also show this to people that hurt others, Like how Norway rehabilitates their prisoners rather than punish and humiliate them. I saw a documentary on that, Um, What they do in Norway. I thought that was amazing what they do for prisoners there because they realize, I mean, You'd be surprised under the right conditions, What all of us are capable of doing. You would be surprised. And, Um, And yeah, So they, They, They don't punish them. They don't humiliate them. So I'm not getting what you're saying. If you show it to yourself, Then you show it to others. You show compassion to the others, Which I think if I hear you correctly, Yet when, When we can show compassion to ourselves, We are able to show compassion to others, True compassion, True compassion. And I think, I do think our view of the world, This materialistic individual self-centered view that we have of the world, Like the prison system that we have in the West and most of the West and most of the world, Sorry, Barring Norway, Maybe a few, Barring maybe a few other Scandinavian countries, Really shows how deluded we are that we, That we, Oh, Ellen, You're coming in from Norway. Hello. I mean, Norway is a good example for a lot of things. And, Um, You know, I think the way we punish people is so horrible. I mean, We really, I mean, Think about a kid. I haven't talked about Father Gregory Boyle in a while. If any of you have heard of him, He's from South Central LA, And he works mostly with, Uh, Almost exclusively with crime, With gang members, Hispanic gang members. Because when he got to the parish of where he was to work, They were, It was mostly Hispanic gang members. And, And he got tired of seeing them all go from juvenile detention into prison and then, You know, Adult prison and killed and just this kind of, It was like they were on a conveyor belt. It was like kind of inevitable. This is where you're going to end up either in jail or dead. And he really, I mean, He walks the walk on compassion. He realized like these kids, Like most of them are brought up in broken families or families that are struggling, Or maybe a single mom that's working three jobs, No one's around, All the role, There's no role models around for them. There's, Um, Uh, You know, And, And, And everything around them is this gang life, Right? That's kind of what everyone's looking up to. And it's, It's like, If you were in those, If those were your conditions, Likely you would end up in a gang, Because that's the world in which you're in. And, Um, And what he realized is that a lot of them needed a father figure and he needed, They needed, They needed jobs. In fact, This is where he started Homeboy Industries. And Michelle, You're referencing, So it was that book that, That turned me on to him, Tattoos on the Heart. And, Uh, Created, Created first Homeboy, I think it was Homeboy Cafe. And then from there, Just all these different industries or different businesses to give them jobs and to show them a path out of this life. But without him, Most of them either prison or dead. That would have been, That would have been their outcome. And so, You know, He came in with compassion and saw these are real human beings. They'd done horrible things. Like to join a gang, You got to do something really horrible. Um, They'd done horrible, Unspeakable things. And yet he saw these were human beings that there but go, You know, What's the saying? There but go I for the grace of God. Yeah. There but go I, There but go I for my causes and conditions could have been me. And so I, I find that the compassion is the understanding that, You know, Everything we're doing here with recognizing, Forgetting the self, There is no independent self here running this, Driving this Merida, Right? It's just trillions of causes and conditions. So why feel guilt? Why feel shame? Why, Why feel guilty because I like Coke Zero or want to watch a TV show? Like, Makes no sense. But also, Why feel guilty for the things that happen? Like, Of course, Go back and apologize, Go back and, You know, Apologize not for your ego to feel better, But because the recognition that you hurt someone like absolutely make amends, You know, As best you can. But, You know, When you truly understand that, And you can accept yourself that I am who I am, Because of all of the causes and conditions. And in many ways, I would say I wouldn't change a thing because all of that suffering, While I wish, Of course, Not hurting someone, There's no way you're going to go through life without hurting people. There's no way it doesn't matter who you are. But of course, I never feel good about anyone that I've hurt. You can kill anyone. There's no buried bodies anywhere. But, You know, It's the way that we distort kind of just things in our mind of things that we've done. But I wouldn't change any of it because the suffering became so great out of that. That's what pushed me on this path. That's what pushed me on this path. And the conditions that, That, You know, Of at the time, Living in San Diego, Deepak Chopra, Having his meditation center two blocks from my office, And then him moving the office. So then I'm like, Oh, Well, Now I'm going to find another group. And I came across a Buddhist group, Right? All these conditions, Right? All these conditions that led to this. And it's like, Wow, Wow, I guess this was the way it was supposed to happen. I wouldn't change. I wouldn't change any of it now because it's like, Well, Maybe it wouldn't turned out this way. So, You know, We look at the world from this view of I'm the center of the universe. And anything bad I did was me. And anything good I did was just, You know, Luck. And don't own any of it. You didn't do any of it. You know, Something good, You give a good talk, You did a good job at work, Something good like, Yeah, It's good to feel that sense of like, Yeah, It's nice to know that maybe this helped. It's nice to know that, Right? Don't make an image out of it. Don't make an image because everything coming out of this mouth is all of the suffering, All of the mindfulness moment, You know, Every moment of mindfulness, Every moment of self-inquiry, A million other teachers, All kind of coming through, Right? Nothing like, Nothing, Nothing I did, Right? Nothing I did. And in the recognition of that, There's always, There's such a sense of connection of like, Yeah, Yeah, Some great teachers. I have great teachers like, Yeah, And good friends and the good conditions to be able to, You know, To be able to do this. So, You know, The more that we recognize that, That I didn't do the good things, I didn't do the bad things, Right? The shame goes away, But the puffing up of ourselves goes away as well. And it's that recognition that like, Man, We're all interconnected, Interdependent. No one is here doing anything on their own. So, Yeah, Accepting, There's total acceptance of who you are, Total acceptance, No more pushing back. And acceptance of others, They're who they are, Right? Doesn't mean we can't set boundaries when we need to, Like, Yeah, That's fine. But there's just, It's true compassion because there's an understanding. If I had the causes and conditions of someone that was hurting me, I would be the one doing it. Yeah, There but go I for the grace of my causes and conditions, There but go I, I didn't do anything. So, Yeah. Oh, Alina, How did you help yourself in college? Oh, I started seeing a therapist. I started going to the, I think it was the, There must have been like a therapy on campus or something. Yeah. And then when I moved to California and I continued going to therapy and I got on all the anti-anxiety meds and the antidepressant meds and, You know, Kind of went that whole route for a while and it was helpful. It was helpful. It got me so far. It got me so far because remember, Therapy is about helping the self. And yeah, We need to understand the self and we need to have a somewhat intact self to be able to do this work. But it's, We're coming at it from different, You know, There's a lot of overlap, But there's also an ultimate goal in spirituality is the seeing that there is no self. Oh, In Nepal, I was at Kopan, Kopan Monastery. So, You probably know Kopan with Lama Zopa. Yeah, There you go. Yeah. Yeah. Heather, Yeah. Great book, Healing Your Inner Child. I don't know her particular, I mean, I know who she is. I haven't read that, But yeah. So, Michelle, For understanding intention and karma, This is a little bit, It's a little bit tricky with this because from a Buddhist perspective, And I do follow this as well. So, When I even say like a Buddhist perspective, I will always, It's not like I'm just parroting what the Buddha said. I am saying what the Buddha said, But it's through also investigating, Realizing that what is most important in karma is intention. Because if I have the intention of going out and walking on the road and killing ants, I'm planting a seed in my mind that their lives don't matter. And I'm killing, I'm causing harm. And I'm okay with that because that's what I'm intending to do. And I'm doing that action. But if I go out walking on the road, And inevitably, I am killing some ants, There is just no getting around it, Right? But I'm not having the intention, I'm not planting any imprints in my mind that ants are less important than me. And in fact, If even I see a little stream of ants, And then I'll walk around or I'll hop over the ants, Right? There's a different imprint happening. And yet, On the walk, I am killing ants. There's no question, Right? I don't want to. But there's just it's impossible to avoid doing that. So intention is what really is what's affecting the later actions. Because if I keep doing something, And I'm, And I'm, Even though I'm just judging another person, I'm not, I'm not acting passively, Aggressively with them, Or in any way, I'm not saying this to them. But I'm judging, I'm judging, I'm judging. Eventually, It is going to come out in some action. Eventually, It is going to come out in some action. So but the imprint is happening with the intention. And that's what comes right. So if I'm judging, Judging, Judging, And then eventually it comes out, I say something, I do something, I act irrational in some way. Yeah, And I have to suffer the consequences of that, Right? So there's the karma right there. I would even argue, In the judging someone else, I feel terrible, Right? Because there's no way you feel good about judging someone else, Right? That feeling, Like I would say, It's instant karma, You're instantly feeling it. So this is what we mean by, You know, Intention and karma. And then, And I don't really hear, I've never heard anyone else talk about it this way. But this is the way that I see this. And just in my own experience, How I've worked with this. So what's tricky here is that our intention is really our thoughts, Right? If I have an intention, Or sorry, If the intention, If the judging thought is arising, I can't really control that first thought arising. None of us knows what our next thought is going to be. Now, The first thought arises, The judging, And then if there's mindfulness comes in, Again, I don't know, Sometimes it's going to come in, Sometimes it won't, Right? Particularly in the beginning, When we're practicing, We don't know, Right? If it arises, Then there's a practice of going through, You know, Feeling the judging, Recognizing it, Feeling it, Maybe some self-compassion, Maybe some self-inquiry, Who's judging, Right? And letting it go. And then really, I would say, No karma being generated in that sense. So I would say in that sense, There's no karma being generated. But what I do find helpful is that if I notice that, And again, So you need to have some kind of practice here, Mindfulness, Some kind of awareness of your experience. If I'm noticing that a lot of judging is arising, If I'm noticing a lot of resisting is arising, If I'm noticing a lot of resentment is arising, Right? And again, I can't stop that initial, I can't stop it. I don't know what the next thought is going to be. What I can do is recognize, Okay, I probably need to do some more compassion practices, I need to do some more tonglen, Maybe I need to do some sympathetic joy, Because these thoughts are coming out. And yes, They will lead to actions. If mindfulness isn't coming up there, They will lead to actions, And then there will be karma coming back from that, Right? So I find it can be very helpful to recognize, Yeah, If there's a lot of judging coming up, Not to judge myself for it, Just creating more karma, But instead to recognize, Wow, I need to do some compassion practices. Yeah, I would think tonglen would go a long way there. Because eventually these, Again, The first thought, You can never stop, The thought comes up. But the more conditioning that you have towards this path, Towards these practices, Reaching for these tools, The more it does become second nature, Just, Oh, Oh, I see the judging, Don't take any ownership of it, Right? Kind of just goes by, Maybe a little breathing, A little self-compassion, Maybe compassion for them, And nothing gets created out of that. So most of the intention and the action and the karma is really created, Well, It is all created from the ego. It's all coming out of the ego. So the more that you're practicing here, You're creating less and less karma, And you're also understanding. You're understanding where, Like, Oh, Yeah, A lot of jealousy keeps coming up. Man, I can't be happy for someone else getting something, Right? Wow. Wow, That's interesting to know. Yes, Be mindful in that moment, But also have the wisdom to go to do some practices, Like time for some sympathetic joy, Right? Learning how to, Remembering how to practice in the joy of others. Yeah, That feels a lot better, Right? So I think that what can be very helpful in understanding karma is understanding what's happening in the mind and then also adjusting our practice accordingly. Yeah, If that's what's coming up a lot, I need to, What practice should I be doing? Okay, I hope that helped, Michelle. And G, Absolutely, Boundaries are okay. Boundaries are great. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And I think I, Oh, Sorry, I am just going to go, We'll just do a couple more here. But I just want to address Alina's question. What would be my advice on chronic overwork with little room for rest and sometimes none, Like in medical school? Yeah, You become much more sensitive to time. Well, That would be tricky because being in medical school, I know the hours that you guys have to keep and the amount of pressure there is very difficult. You know, My advice would be to find some time for some meditation, To notice the grasping, The attachment at the results and trying to stay present as best you can, Just moment by moment, Trying to catch yourself, Right? Because we can have moments of overwhelm and everyone can experience it. It doesn't matter what kind of life you're living, Whether you're a medical student or whatever you're doing, There can always be moments where things kind of speed up a little bit more. And it's the recognizing like, Okay, Things are really speeding up, Not pushing back on it. I'd be really mindful of the resisting it, That you're just layering something on that's not necessary, That you're layering something on. Like don't resist, If they're studying to be done, They're studying to be done. Don't resist it. Don't tell yourself a story. Oh my God, How am I going to get through this? This is right. That's making it worse, Right? Instead, Like, Oh, Sweetheart, This is tough. There's a lot to do here. Yep. Yeah, There is. Keep bringing yourself back. Keep bringing yourself back. You know, As best you can to keep bringing yourself back. If you can, If you can get up in the morning a few minutes early and meditate, Fantastic. Fantastic. Because that will really set the tone for your nervous system to know what kind of that normal feeling is, That baseline feeling of peace again, So that you can be more mindful when the conditions start getting a little out of whack. And recognizing like, Yeah, I need rest. Okay, I need rest to to be able to pull yourself away from it. Because, You know, There's only so much the brain can take in. Rest, Sleeping, Taking a nap is so beneficial. And so I would imagine the mind state of most of the people in your, In your group, Other fellow students would be very grasping at, At the end result, Staying up as late as they possibly can, Drinking as much coffee as they possibly can. So trying to not get caught up in that. Try not get caught up in that and recognize when it's time to say, You know what, I'm pushing myself, I'm pushing myself, But I need to, I need to go rest for 20 minutes. Do some mindful breathing while I'm lying there. Do some mindful breathing while you're studying, Right? The best, The more that you can stay in the present moment, The better you're going to be. And the better doctor that you're going to be as well. That's, That's definitely a tough condition. I'm not going to say that that's an easy condition, But I would, I would not discourage you from, From just little moments wherever you can. Bring in that self-compassion, Keep bringing yourself back. If you can just get up five minutes early and get a five minute meditation in the morning, Even just to start as your day's already pretty packed. But just doing your best, Doing your best in each moment, Just doing your best and forgetting about the future, But doing your best, Just doing your best. You'll be a good doctor in that way. Okay. Okay. I think we will go ahead and end it here. So, So thank you all. Thank you all for the great questions, For all the great comments, For all the hearts. Thank you. Thank you all for the donations. Thank you guys so much. And it is recorded. I'll put this up on my teacher's page. They're all going up. I'm doing the whole talks now. I'm just putting them all up there. So just to take away as best you can from our talk today, You know, What we're doing here is studying the self. And we're trying to, In forgetting the self, It's the losing interest in the story, The losing interest in it. It's so boring. And it's not making us happier. It's not making us safer. It's not making us more secure. It's not making us study better. It's not, It's not improving us in any way. It's not helping. It's not helping. But each of us has to see that our, At our own, You know, The conditions will be there. Don't, You know, Don't get too caught up. And you can't make this happen. But it just, I mean, I find that kind of realization here was just, Oh, Meredith is never going to find lasting happiness. Never. And so I don't bother trying to make Meredith happy anymore. And in stopping trying to make Meredith happy, Guess what arises? Peace, Contentment, Ease, Happiness. Yeah. So it does work. It does work. So use your tools. And, Uh, And thank you, Michelle. Thank you, Julie. Thank you, Philippa and Alice and Randolph and Rohit and Heather and Alina and, Uh, Sheikh and Ellen from Norway and Libby, My sister. And who else is here? I'm just going through the comments to see who else was here. And Deb and Mary. Did I see Mary twice? I think I did say twice. And Matt, Good to see you. And Louisa. And I think that's as far as it's going to let me go back. Oh, No, It's going to let me, Kristen as well. Thank you. So thank you guys. And Lynn, Thank you guys so, So much. Thank you for the, Again, For just, Um, For being here. And, Uh, Yes. And thank you, Philippa. Yes. May everyone have peace and lots of love and gratitude to everyone. Thank you. And we will do this again next Sunday. So thank you so much, You guys.