An Interview with Shinzen Young

Shinzen Young is an American mindfulness teacher and neuroscience research consultant.
His systematic approach to categorizing, adapting and teaching meditation, known as Unified Mindfulness, has resulted in collaborations with Harvard Medical School, Carnegie-Mellon University and the University of Vermont in the burgeoning field of contemplative neuroscience.

Transcript

Hi,

I'm Bob O'Haver.

Welcome to the Why Meditate podcast.

I'm asking questions of teachers,

Scientists,

And religious leaders.

Thanks again.

Now on with our discussion.

Hello.

I'm here with Xinxin Yang,

An American mindfulness teacher and a neuroscience research consultant.

Welcome.

Thank you.

This is my favorite thing to do.

Talk about meditation,

Mindfulness,

And so forth.

So yes,

Feel free to ask whatever you would like to ask.

I appreciate it.

The first question is very basic.

Why meditate?

I have a set answer to that question,

Personally.

My favorite answer.

But then I think I would preface it by saying that the answer is technical and therefore requires some explication.

So in a word,

Why should someone meditate?

Or in a phrase,

The phrase would be in order to optimize happiness.

But we're going to be precise about what we mean by happiness.

I have developed something that I call the periodic table of happiness elements.

It looks a little bit like a periodic table of chemical elements,

Except it's only got 20 boxes instead of 118,

I think.

Anyway,

It's got 20 boxes and it cross classifies happiness along two dimensions.

The first is a qualitative dimension,

Different basic kinds of happiness.

And then the second is a depth.

Depth measures the degree to which that particular happiness element is obvious to the average person.

So the five basic kinds of happiness are relief,

Which means relief from physical suffering,

Mental suffering,

Emotional suffering,

Relief.

Next time you have any big or small physical,

Mental and or emotional suffering,

Would it be nice to not have to suffer?

Most people would say,

Yeah,

That would make me happy.

Now sort of,

And one of the reasons to meditate is that meditative attentional skills will allow not one,

But several different strategies for reducing suffering.

Now a second reason to meditate is to increase fulfillment.

So in addition to physical,

Mental and emotional discomforts,

We have physical,

Mental and emotional pleasures.

And to increase the degree of fulfillment that we derive from what is pleasurable sensorially,

That's a second basic type of happiness.

Then there's understanding yourself at all levels,

From the personal psychological level to the collective unconsciousness,

Unconscious,

Which is a deeper level of self,

To understanding yourself as a sensory system,

And finally understanding yourself as pure spirit.

Those last two are in a sense not that extraordinary because they're just examples of understanding yourself.

We all want to understand ourselves,

But the deeper levels of self understanding involve an experience of insight or liberation that is sometimes called enlightenment.

So to understand yourself at all the levels,

From the personal biographical level to the sort of collective unconscious that Jung or shamans would talk about,

The sampoga kaya,

As it's called in Buddhism.

And then to understand yourself as a sensory system,

The self arises through mind-body experience,

And when mind-body experience is complete,

Then we have an insight into the spiritual nature of mind and body.

So that's another aspect of happiness,

Self understanding at all levels,

Including the deepest level.

Then another aspect of happiness is to make positive behavior changes,

To be an admirable person,

To have good character.

So it turns out that meditative skills,

Concentration,

Power,

Sensory clarity,

Equanimity,

The attentional skills that get developed when you do a meditation practice,

Those skills can help you understand yourself psychologically,

So they're an adjunct to therapy,

But those skills can also help you understand yourself spiritually at the deepest level,

And that's where we get some of the classic goals that the traditions talk about,

Liberation,

Satori,

Kensho,

Enlightenment,

True self,

No self,

And so forth.

Well,

It turns out that these attentional skills that we develop systematically through meditation help us understand ourselves at a personal level,

But they can also take us down to the deepest level.

And then for behavior change,

Well,

Meditation skills allow you to deconstruct negative urges,

And they allow actually for a variety,

Once again,

Of strategies for sort of carrying oneself in a more admirable way in terms of positive behavior.

And then finally,

If you've been counting,

That's four sort of happiness columns,

Relief,

Fulfillment,

Insight into who you really are at the deepest level,

Mastery,

Which is mastering your actions and behaviors.

And then finally,

Although people don't really realize it in many cases,

Everyone is drawn to be of service to others in some way or another.

And that dimension of you improve yourself,

That's mastery,

And then you make the world around you,

Either locally or globally,

As wide as you choose,

You make the world a better place,

That's service.

So relief,

Fulfillment,

Understanding yourself at all levels,

Mastering how you carry yourself in the world,

And a call towards a life of service in some way or another,

Those are the five basic types of happiness,

And then there are different strategies for achieving these that represent more subtle levels of that particular kind of happiness.

So if someone says,

Why meditate?

Well,

First of all,

What do we mean by meditation?

I would say it's the systematic cultivation of a well-defined set of attentional skills.

So why develop these attentional skills?

Well,

Because they're central to all aspects of human happiness.

They either are directly related or they're indirectly related to every single thing that any individual or culture has ever said,

This is an aspect of flourishing or human well-being.

Now when I say that meditative skills or attentional skills are central,

It doesn't mean that they represent the whole picture of human happiness.

There are limitations as to what they can deliver,

But I would say that meditative skills are relevant,

Either directly or indirectly,

To every issue of happiness,

Relief,

Fulfillment,

Insight,

Mastery,

Service.

At any level,

We can show that the attentional skills that we elevate through systematic meditation,

Those attentional skills are either directly or indirectly relevant to optimizing that particular element of happiness.

So quick answer,

Why meditate,

Optimize happiness,

But notice that our definition of happiness is quite broad.

It's not just a subjective experience of being in a good mood.

It's the ability to deconstruct physical pain.

It's the ability to understand your spiritual essence.

It's the ability to be a nicer person.

And ultimately it's a natural pull toward happiness is very associated with a life of helping to make the world a better place.

So our definition of happiness is much broader and much deeper than what is normally connoted by the English word happy,

Which just sort of means you're in a good mood or you have good luck.

Originally it just meant good luck,

Happenstance.

So yeah,

Hap came from.

Yeah,

The words change,

You know,

Semantically they develop.

So originally it just meant lucky and then it meant fortunate and then it meant other things.

But I use happy in a very broad and very deep way.

And I would claim that meditative attention skills are directly or indirectly related to every aspect of that happiness issue.

Do you find that a teacher is important to this process?

I think having at least one competent coach that you are in personal contact with,

Say once or twice a year at least,

To give a check in on the big picture of your practice,

That's highly desirable.

So the answer is yes.

If you want a high probability of achieving the classical results,

Then you do best to have at least one competent coach that you're working with.

Notice I didn't say that it has to be an exclusive.

Neither did I say that it has to be someone that makes claims about being some I don't know,

World guru or something like that.

A competent mindfulness coach is something,

A modern mindfulness coach is actually a new profession in this world.

And it's an interesting profession.

We train them at,

Well many teachers do.

I have a training program run by one of my senior facilitators,

Juliana Ray at unifiedmindfulness.

Com where we teach you how to do the techniques and how to teach the techniques at the same time.

Things are really evolving in the West here.

So anyway,

Great questions.

Fire away with your next question.

The next one is,

What is your definition of mindfulness and what does it look like to live a mindful life?

So I would say that different people are going to give different definitions of mindfulness.

I wrote a long essay,

Like an 80 page essay called What is Mindfulness that sits on the internet.

That is sort of,

Haha.

Well we'll link to that.

So that's 80 pages and it's loaded with technical Asian terms in Sanskrit and Pali and Tibetan and so forth.

So clearly there is a lot that we can say about how to define mindfulness.

So the most important thing is there is no definition of mindfulness.

There's just mindfulness as this particular person or organization has chosen to define it.

So I use the word personally.

This is just my choice and there are reasons why I made this choice.

But I would use the word mindfulness as a synonym for contemplative practice.

So for me it's very very broad.

It's basically synonymous with meditation.

Now you would say,

Well why define it that way?

The reason is practical.

Mindfulness is an acceptable word all around the world now.

And it means in the sense of contemplative practice co-evolving with science.

So we have a cooperation going on between contemplative practice and science that lends credibility to the contemplative practice.

Anywhere in the world you can give a mindfulness course without the government or individuals being upset by the word mindfulness.

On the other hand if you were to use the word meditation that has more loading.

It implies,

Although it could be used synonymously.

When you say meditation most people first of all don't think of something linked to science or that has a lot of empirical evidence.

Whereas when you say mindfulness we're talking about something,

Here we're going to show you the brain scans,

We're going to show you how it works for clinical applications like pain management,

Addiction recovery.

You're coming at it in a more secular,

Scientific fact-based way?

I would say I'm justifying why I choose to define mindfulness very broadly.

Because it's an acceptable word for meditation or contemplative practice in all cultures.

You can have mindfulness in a school system in the U.

S.

Whereas a board of education might have some resistance to having meditation in a school system.

Also meditation has a strong visual connotation of someone sitting on the floor mellowing out with their eyes closed.

Whereas mindfulness should not have that connotation.

Now of course in theory meditation can be done while you're working and so forth,

That's well known.

But when you use the English word meditation people first think of someone sitting on the floor,

Maybe they're oming,

They're in a certain posture,

Their eyes are closed,

They're withdrawing,

They're trying to cool out,

Mellow out.

A common connotation and a common visual image of that M word.

I think that that's not going to fly in all human cultures.

But if we had a different metaphor that we're doing exercises that elevate certain attentional skills and those exercises could be done seated but they could be done while you're driving the car,

You can mindfully drive your car.

So to get away from the notion that we're withdrawing and sitting in a certain posture and to strengthen the connection with logic and evidence,

I would use the word mindfulness to broadly mean contemplative practice.

And I would claim that there are three core skills that are either explicitly or implicitly involved in all meditation practices around the world.

And those three skills are concentration,

Power,

Sensory clarity and equanimity.

Each of these is a technical term.

Concentration is the ability to focus on what you deem relevant.

You can think of it as that.

You can think of sensory clarity as the ability to untangle the sensory strands.

What part of self is mental image?

What part of self is mental talk?

What part of self is emotional body sensation?

What part of self is physical body sensation?

When those get tangled together,

They produce the impression that the mind and body are a thing and a prison that limits your identity.

When you untangle those strands,

Then the prison bars go away and you're set free.

Sensory clarity,

The ability to divide and conquer,

Break a complex phenomenon into its sensory atoms is very central to the Buddha's discovery of.

.

.

Yeah,

I like that description.

I have never heard that particular definition of or that phrase and it makes a lot of sense.

Yeah.

And then equanimity,

You can think of it as non-grasping or a relationship to sensory experience,

Which is the ability to allow sensory experience to come and go without push and pull.

So either explicitly or implicitly,

These three attentional skills make up the contemplative practice of human history,

East,

West,

Ancient and modern.

Now,

What characterizes the modern mindfulness movement is two things.

One,

It explicitly talks about all three of these skills,

Explicitly.

If someone does a program with me and I'm guiding them in meditation,

I'm going to give them a technique and as I'm guiding them in the technique,

I'm going to say something like,

By bringing your attention back to mental talk space,

You're developing concentration.

By noticing the presence or absence of mental talk,

You're developing sensory clarity.

By having no preference with regards to the content of mental talk or even its presence or absence,

You're developing equanimity.

So I'll actually point out how this particular mindfulness technique that I'm teaching you is developing the three core skills.

And I would claim that I can show you how concentration,

Clarity and equanimity are an explanatory mechanism for relief,

Fulfillment,

Insight,

Mastery and service,

These basic aspects of happiness.

So I choose to define mindfulness as the development and application of those three skills.

And they are attentional skills.

Or another way to put it is,

They represent a relationship to sensory experience.

Most people do not have the ability to focus on one thing,

Even if they want to.

Most people do not have the ability to parse the somethingness of self into mind-body elements.

Most people do not have the ability to experience physical,

Emotional or mental discomfort as a flow of spacious energy.

There's almost inevitably a coagulation around discomfort that causes it to become suffering.

If you have equanimity,

Your discomfort is flowing,

Which causes less suffering.

And your pleasure is also flowing,

Which causes more fulfillment.

And your sense of self is flowing,

Which causes you to have a liberated sense of self,

And so forth.

So I would say,

I would define mindfulness as mindful awareness as concentration,

Clarity and equanimity working together.

Mindfulness practice is the development and application of those skills,

The development of those skills and the application of those skills to all dimensions of happiness that I mentioned.

Now when you say,

Just going to the second part of my question about what does it look like to live a mindful life,

You're not talking about going through life very slowly and paying 100% attention to every single thing you do,

Or are you?

That is a great question.

And that might be an interesting,

I would almost be tempted to make that question be a litmus test for mindfulness teacher.

How they answer that question might indicate the depth of their understanding and the subtlety of the understanding,

Because it's a very interesting way to formulate a question.

So here's how I would put it.

We do,

So you said,

You know,

How important is a teacher?

Well,

I'm not a believer in like gurus,

But I do believe in coach,

And I believe in competency.

So you can be a competent modern mindfulness coach.

So what you need to be successful with mindfulness is you need to do some retreat practice,

You need to practice in life between retreats,

You need to get support from at least one coach,

And ultimately it's good to learn to give support,

To teach it,

Because you discover that by teaching it you really understand.

Yeah,

I've always found that to be exciting.

Those are the pillars.

Retreat practice,

Life practice,

Get support,

Give support.

Once those pillars are in place,

What happens?

Well,

As time moves on,

Your base level of concentration,

Clarity,

And equanimity becomes elevated.

So I can make an analogy here.

If we do physical exercise,

If you work out on a regular basis and you keep it up week after week,

Month after month,

Year after year,

Let's say that you do a very rounded cross training kind of exercise.

So we could say that your base level of strength,

Physical strength,

Is going to increase.

We can also say that your endurance,

Your cardiovascular,

Is going to increase.

We can also say that your flexibility will increase because you're stretching.

So three features of the fabric of your body,

The physical fabric of your body,

Three features will be sort of permanently changed,

Maybe not permanent permanent because we get old,

We die,

We get sick,

But effectively we're elevating your base level of strength,

Flexibility,

And cardiovascular endurance.

Now what that means is that that strength is with you all day.

You don't have to be pumping iron in order for that strength to be there.

The strength is always there.

The exercise elevated the base level of the strength.

Whether you're exercising or not at a given moment,

The strength is there.

Likewise,

The flexibility is there,

Whether you're stretching or not,

And the cardio is there whether you're on a treadmill or not.

So in the same way,

By doing systematic practice,

You elevate your base level of concentration,

Clarity,

And equanimity.

And we're going to define your base level of CC and E to be how concentrated,

Clear,

And equanimous you are as you go about ordinary life activities without particularly trying to be concentrated,

Clear,

Or equanimous.

So that's the measure,

That's the way you can kind of look at yourself and see how you're moving through your world on whether you're doing mindfulness or not.

So the answer to your question is,

A mindful life does not necessarily mean all day you're going around trying to be mindful.

Not necessarily.

Now when you're on a retreat,

You'll be doing that.

But ordinary life,

Not necessarily.

However,

Your base level of mindful awareness elevates.

So even though you're not making an effort to,

Necessarily,

To be mindful,

You are very,

Very,

Very mindful because it's on autopilot.

It's second nature.

So I'm standing here talking to you,

Okay?

I'm just standing by a space heater in my house in northern New England,

And we're having a conversation.

My bandwidth is going into organizing this conversation.

And I'm also sort of warming my buns here and looking at the,

You know that we have leaf peeping in New England.

I'm looking at a postcard of Vermont right now.

I'm looking at the oak trees and the maples,

Etc.

,

Etc.

So this is very ordinary.

I would say that my quote state,

As I'm standing here flailing my arms,

Looking out the window,

Using my mind to organize words,

My state of consciousness is incomparably deeper right now than it was in the middle of my deepest retreat 20 years ago.

So without particularly trying,

You actually are going around 24-7 because it also affects your dreaming life.

You start to meditate in your dreams,

Even meditate in dreamless sleep.

So we're talking about,

We're talking about elevating your base level,

And because we're elevating the base level,

You are in fact stunningly,

Dramatically mindful every single second,

But without necessarily having to make an effort to do that.

In LA especially,

Everybody wants everything immediately right now.

When I talk to them about meditation is that it's not a quick fix.

What does it take to get to that point?

Is that a consistent practice over a period of time?

Yes,

Yeah,

It's a consistent practice over a period of time.

So what do you need?

You need at least one technique.

Some people have a set of techniques.

It could be like an open presence,

Or it could be breath counting,

It could be whatever you want,

But you need at least one technique.

Maybe you have a whole set of techniques that you organize into a little workout routine,

But you need at least one technique and any focused technique has two sides.

On one hand,

There's sort of what you focus on.

We'll call that the focus range.

It could be broad or narrow,

And then there's sort of how you focus on it.

We'll call that the instruction set or the focus method.

So you need at least one technique.

Maybe you have three or four techniques,

And then you need to do retreat practice,

Life practice,

Get support,

Give support,

And all of this I describe in the literature on my website.

Sure,

Which I'll be linking to also.

Yeah,

So most people can't get away to residential retreats.

That's why we created the home practice program where we pipe micro retreats into your home so you don't even have to travel,

And they're four-hour,

Very tight modules.

So that's the minimal case of retreat practice.

Most people around the world are not in a situation where they can get away to a residential retreat,

But they could do the home practice program.

Then there's systematically organizing your mindfulness practice each day between retreats.

I call that life practice,

And I've got a life practice program where we talk about a systematic way to do that.

Then there's getting support.

You have at least one competent coach you work with,

And then there's giving support,

Which is at some point you learn how to teach yourself.

So if you have these pillars in place and the months and years pass,

Then what happens is your base level of concentration,

Clarity,

And equanimity become elevated.

As a consequence of that,

Your base level of happiness becomes elevated.

That's the final criterion for is the practice working.

Am I improving?

Is my happiness improving in enough ways,

Fast enough,

As a result of this practice?

Anyone that can answer yes to that question,

Then I say their practice is well structured,

And they're making progress.

It's true what you say.

It's not necessarily a quick fix,

But it compensates for that by being a deep fix.

About half of the different elements of happiness that I document are impossible without mindfulness skills.

Those are the elements of happiness that are independent of conditions.

We can't always know or control conditions.

It's very important if we want to live our life fully,

That we have a resource that we know if we encounter physical,

Mental,

Emotional discomfort,

Even in severe form,

That we know that we have a way of still being in contact with primordial perfection for real.

Yes,

It may not be a quick fix,

But it is a deep fix,

And it may be the only fix.

Many human beings will find themselves at some point in their life in a situation where they will either discover the power of mindfulness or they will have to suffer horribly.

The next question is,

What is your difference between meditation,

Contemplation,

And prayer?

Because I am talking to a lot of different religious leaders with different backgrounds,

So there's a variety of answers.

Well,

That's right.

You're gonna get a lot of different answers on this,

And once again,

It's just sort of how do you want to think of it.

So,

I use the word meditation pretty much synonymously with mindfulness,

And as you know,

I use mindful awareness to be those attentional skills,

Concentration,

Clarity,

And equanimity.

So,

I would say that meditation practice and mindfulness practice,

To me,

Are pretty synonymous.

As far as now,

Just to get a little bit of background though,

Meditation,

Well,

It's English,

But what language does it come from?

It comes from Latin,

Meditatio.

Contemplation,

Well,

It's English,

But it comes from Latin,

Contemplatio.

In traditional Christianity,

Sometimes meditation and contemplation are distinguished.

In fact,

Sometimes there's a fourfold distinction.

Lectio,

Meditatio,

Ruminatio,

Contemplatio.

This is a traditional Christian terminology,

I believe,

Associated with Saint Benedict.

At least a Benedictine nun told me this.

Lectio is you read the scriptures,

The Psalms or whatever,

A passage.

You just read it,

Maybe out loud.

Lectio,

Right,

Is Latin for reading.

Then,

In this case,

Meditatio which literally would be meditation,

It just means you think about the passage that you just read.

You intellectually think about it.

They use sometimes meditation means just think about it.

Then ruminatio,

Which gives us the English word rumination,

Like chewing your cud,

You bring it back up.

Ruminatio is you're not thinking about it anymore,

But you're embodying the impact of the scripture reading in the substance of the felt substance of your soul.

That's called ruminatio.

Then,

In a very technical sense,

Contemplatio or contemplation,

In this framework means you completely go beyond form.

Time,

Space,

Self,

And world disappear.

This is technically called infused contemplation.

So,

Sometimes in Christianity,

Meditation is just a certain level of practice,

A depth,

And contemplation refers to an incomparably deeper level.

Also known as infused contemplation,

Like Saint John of the Cross,

San Juan de la Cruz,

Ceso todo y dejeme dejando mi cuidado entre las asucenas olvidado.

That's a poem in Spanish called The Dark Night of the Soul,

Where he describes infused contemplation.

Ceso todo,

Everything stopped.

Y dejeme,

And I was set free.

Dejando mi cuidado,

Relieved of all concern.

Entre las asucenas olvidado,

My worries forgotten among the lilies.

That's a poetic description of formlessness,

Infused contemplation,

Or what we would call emptiness in Buddhism.

Sometimes contemplation means that,

But sometimes contemplation just means a lifestyle.

You were either in an active lifestyle,

Meaning you were in service,

Or you were in a contemplative lifestyle,

Meaning you're cloistered and mostly pray and meditate,

Or you're in a mixed lifestyle,

And these are for the different Christian orders,

Like the Carmelites,

The Benedictines,

Dominicans,

Franciscans,

And so forth.

So anyway,

These are some of the ways that those terms are used within Christianity.

So it's quite complex really.

There really is no,

Hey,

There's no way that meditation means,

This is what contemplation means.

There's no,

It's not like,

This is what energy means,

This is what power means,

This is what action means.

It's not physics.

In physics,

We know what these words mean.

But so far in world meditation,

We're not at a common vocabulary yet,

Although I suspect we'll be there within a century or two,

The way the dialoguing is taking place now.

So as far as prayer goes,

Well,

Once again,

Whose definition?

The Catholic Church says there's two kinds of prayer.

Discursive prayer that involves words and images,

And non-discursive prayer that involves something beyond words and images.

Both of those are considered forms of prayer.

So from that point of view,

Infused contemplation is the highest form of prayer,

According to traditional Christianity.

Right.

So I don't myself have my own definitions.

You can read T.

S.

Eliot,

Read his poem,

Little Gidding,

Where he talks about the essence of prayer.

Yeah,

If someone says,

What's prayer?

I would have a tendency to give a poetic answer.

Let me just,

This is an incredible poem.

Little Gidding,

Eliot talks about prayer in its deepest sense.

How do we promote compassion in ourselves and in the world around us?

I would say a couple things come to mind.

One is,

Let's just sort of put it in a little more explicit terms.

So some people are unhappy about the political situation in the U.

S.

,

For example.

And so,

When that situation arose,

Of course,

Or when these situations arise,

People constantly come to me,

You know,

Do you have a suggestion,

What to do,

Etc.

I have a phrase that I like to use,

That sort of summarizes the whole thing,

Sort of an idiosyncratic way of talking and thinking.

So my phrase is,

Love deeply and act effectively.

That's good.

So you heard me before say,

You know,

Hey,

I'm giving technical terms.

To love deeply is a noble aspiration.

It is something that might take a while to develop,

But it's worth it.

It's worth devoting one's entire life,

Because in the end,

It's what everyone really wants.

So let's say that there's something in the world that is troublesome to you.

Someone or group of people that are doing things that are untenable,

Unacceptable in your way of thinking.

So acting effectively means taking measures that really work in the real world to improve that situation.

That's what acting effectively means.

Now,

Part of acting effectively means to understand how the world works.

You can't act effectively unless you understand deeply how the world works.

But another part of acting effectively is to not be distorted by suffering.

And you'll recall that I mentioned first off,

Relief from suffering is one of the major answers to the question,

Why meditate?

And suffering has two sides.

Subjectively,

It blocks the perfection of the moment,

But objectively,

It can drive and distort our behaviors.

So that even though you may understand how the world works,

You're unable to act effectively because of the distorting forces due to the suffering that you're going through.

Compassion,

Compasio,

In Latin means share the pain.

So you share the pain,

But I would encourage people not to share the suffering.

And that is the most important part of the question,

Why not share the suffering?

And that is a subtle but very important distinction.

Compassion or sympathy means you resonate with the pain,

You experience it fully,

As you would experience your own pain,

You experience the other person's pain.

Does that hurt?

Yes.

Does that block the primordial perfection?

No.

And therefore,

If you understand deeply how the world works,

And you're willing to let go of certain perhaps preconceptions about how you'd like it to work,

Or how it should work,

You understand deeply how the world works.

Now that's not a meditation thing,

That's an understand how the world works thing.

So you have to learn that.

But a meditation component is,

In addition to understanding how the world works,

You are not distorted in your perceptions or your actions due to suffering.

You just feel the pain,

It motivates and directs your actions,

But it doesn't drive and distort your actions as it tends to.

So acting effectively,

There's two parts.

One is understand how the world works,

And that may require a letting go of a certain preconception or wishful thinking about how the world works.

You have to understand how it works.

I don't.

That's not my specialty.

I can't tell you,

But I know I could make it my specialty.

I could study political science,

And if I studied it,

I would study it with a very open mind.

I have my own beliefs and prejudices for sure,

And I have candidates that I like and dislike intensely for sure.

But that's not based on a good knowledge of how the world works.

That's just based on my prejudices.

If I really wanted to know how the world works,

I would study political science,

Economics,

And I would study it from a very neutral point of view,

Not from my own prejudices.

But anyway,

I would try to find out how does it really work.

So two things.

The meditation can allow you not to suffer because of the way the world works,

And then if you understand how the world works,

Now you're in a position to act effectively.

You need those two things.

But then what about love deeply?

Let's say that there's a certain person that does things in the world,

And I disagree with what they're doing,

And I think that it hurts a lot of people.

How do I know this person exists and is doing what they're doing?

I don't ask this as a rhetorical question or even a philosophical kind of question.

I mean,

Literally,

How do I know?

The way I know is through my senses.

I turn on the internet.

I see this person.

I hear them.

If I was in their presence,

Maybe I'd shake their hand or something.

I'd have physical contact with them.

So that's outer see,

Hear,

Feel.

But if I'm not listening to them or looking at them or shaking their hand,

I could be thinking about them.

I have an inner see,

Hear,

Feel.

I have a mental image.

I hear what they say.

I hear what I would say in response,

In my talk space,

And I have emotions,

Maybe rage,

Terror,

Grief,

Shame,

And so forth in my emotional body.

So some combination of inner and or outer see,

Hear,

Feel in the moment arises that lets me know this person,

This situation exists in the world.

Now the question is,

What is your base level of concentration,

Clarity,

And equanimity?

Recall that your base level of mindful awareness is how mindful you are in ordinary life,

Doing ordinary things,

When you're not particularly trying to be mindful.

So let's say that I turn on the internet and I look at the political news and I start to think about politics.

I'm not particularly trying to be mindful,

But I'm seeing,

I'm hearing,

I'm feeling.

If my base level of mindful awareness is high enough,

In fact,

And now I have to pause for a moment and apologize.

Okay,

There's a big sharp turn ahead in the road.

Okay,

A big sharp turn warning,

Okay,

Hairpin turn in this conversation.

Okay,

I've warned everyone,

The next thing I say may be a little bit on the weird side.

Okay.

If there's enough concentration,

Clarity,

And equanimity in the inner and outer see,

Hear,

Feel,

Sight,

Sound,

Touch,

Sight,

Sound,

Touch,

Mental image,

Mental talk,

And body emotion.

That's what I mean by inner and outer see,

Hear,

Feel.

If your base level of mindfulness is high enough,

Okay,

So here's the weird Zen poetry.

Okay.

In fact,

You do not see,

Hear,

And feel the world.

You manifest the world.

You co-participate with consciousness in loving each person and each thing,

Literally loving them into existence from nothing,

And loving them back into nothing,

Moment by moment.

That is the activity of consciousness at the deepest level.

Remember,

When you understand yourself at the deepest level,

You understand that each of the 10 trillion somethings that constitutes an experience in a person's life,

Each of those arise from one nothing.

So all of our experiences are actually manifestations of a kind of cosmic love that you participate in.

And so the first thing that you experience when you think about a person that maybe is unacceptable in their actions,

The first thing that you experience before you act effectively,

Before,

At the instant of arising,

You experience consciousness,

Loving that person into existence in your inner and outer see,

Hear,

Feel,

In real time.

A more primero.

This perception that the universe is,

Or consciousness,

Or I,

Same thing,

Are loving each thing that I see,

Hear,

Feel into existence,

Moment by moment.

That participation with consciousness in the creation,

So instead of perceiving a world,

You manifest the world.

So a primordial love comes first,

And then effective actions can be based on that.

So that's when the first thing you experience is the universe loving each of its parts into existence as you perceive that part.

When that's the first thing,

And you don't have to work on it,

You can't avoid it.

Christians used to call it the practice of the presence of God.

You don't go to church,

You don't go to church,

You don't go to church.

You don't go to church anymore because you can't leave church.

Every place is church.

So that's what I mean by loving deeply.

It's a lifelong endeavor.

But what else are we going to do?

So love deeply,

And act effectively,

Is what I would recommend for more compassion in the world.

Do you see the act and practice of meditation and what we've been talking about as,

Do you see this as a result of that?

It isn't something that you actually have to go after because it just comes to you when you start to envision the world and bring the world into true love?

I would say that I just described a facet of the column of happiness called understanding yourself at the deepest level.

Okay.

So are we good?

Have we covered most of your questions?

I think we've covered them all and I just can't tell you how much I appreciate this and I'm honored by the time that you've spent with me.

So do we have another five minutes?

We certainly have another five minutes.

So I'm just going to read a poem,

Part of the four quartets by T.

S.

Eliot.

Okay.

This is Little Gidding and there's a lot that you can say about this.

There's a lot in the Cliff Notes.

Eliot once said that you don't necessarily have to understand a poem in order to feel it.

So those listening may not understand all the specifics of this Little Gidding poem because there's a lot of history and literary allusions and footnotes connections and so forth.

We're not going to go into that.

So you may not understand the details but you will be able to feel something.

It's a poem about the nature of prayer but it's also.

.

.

So one thing that you and I didn't get into is there's another way to define mindfulness which is presence-centered non-judgmental awareness.

You've probably heard that.

Now that's Jon Kabat-Zinn's phraseology.

I would say though that you could say that presence-centered is enough.

If you're in the absolute present you can't be judgmental.

There's no time or space to be judgmental.

So a case could be made that another definition of mindful awareness is absolute presence-centered.

Now what Eliot did is he wrote a poem.

You asked about prayer.

So for him prayer.

.

.

So Eliot was a conservative Christian who lived in the 20th century most of his life in England although he was born in the U.

S.

And he considered his profession to be a religious poet and he said the job of a religious poet is not to try to convince someone else of your religion but to give someone else the experience of what it is to be in your religion.

So Eliot was high church of England,

High church Anglican and so it's very similar to Catholicism really just the king instead of the pope running the church.

But the sacraments and the theology is pretty similar.

So he wrote this poem about Christian meditative practice but of course it's a poem about all meditative practice called the four quartets.

What's interesting is although he was primarily Christian he was very strongly influenced by Hinduism and Buddhism.

So that's a very interesting combination.

He actually learned Sanskrit and Pali when he was at Harvard and this is still in the 1800s,

Late 1800s.

You had to really have an interest in Indic civilization to study those kinds of languages at that time.

Even now Sanskrit in college is relatively esoteric.

What to say of the 1890s.

But anyway he wrote this poem about the Christian experience of meditation entirely based on the notion of being in the present moment absolutely.

And also because it's a poem about the power and desirability of the absolute present,

It's also a poem about how miserable it is to not be in the present moment.

So like I say I'd like to give all the cliff notes on this but we don't have time.

But people should be able to feel it.

One last thing I'll say.

This poem was written at the height of World War II when England was being blitzed,

Fire bombed by Germany.

And Elliot wrote this as an inspiration to his fellow British subjects.

Anyone can write nationalistic,

Patriotic poetry.

Anyone can write that.

But only the greats can write a patriotic poem that transcends nationality at the same time.

It takes the like of an Elliot to do that.

And you'll see that he's pulled it off.

So it's a poem about surviving the war.

He was a fire marshal or fire warden.

So he had to deal with these buildings burning and whatever.

It was very real to him.

So it's about surviving the war but it's also about transcending time and space at the same time.

And it describes nature and the cycles of time and the transcendence of time in the cycles of nature.

So here we go.

Midwinter spring is its own season.

Sempiternal though sudden towards sundown.

Suspended in time between pole and tropic when the short day is brightest with frost and fire.

The brief sun flames the ice on pond and ditches.

In windless cold,

That is the heart's heat reflecting in a watery mirror a glare that is blindness in the early afternoon.

That glare that is blindness in the early afternoon,

That's the clear light of the void.

And a glow more intense than blaze of branch or brazier stirs,

Stirs the dumb spirit.

No wind but pentecostal fire in the dark time of the year.

Between melting and freezing,

The soul's sap quivers.

There is no earth smell or smell of living thing.

This is the springtime but not in time's covenant.

Now the hedge grow is blanched for an hour with transitory blossom of snow.

A bloom more sudden than that of summer,

Neither budding nor fading,

Not in the scheme of generation.

He's talking about what the Christians called the unborn,

The uncreated light of Mount Tabor and so forth.

So not in the scheme of generation,

The ungenerated light of the void.

Where is the summer?

The unabé?

Sorry,

I get a little verklempt,

You know,

Emotional when I read this.

Where is the summer?

The unimaginable zero summer.

Completed.

Complete enlightenment.

Okay.

This is intermediate enlightenment he's describing here.

Midwinter spring.

So he's now describing,

He's going to describe a place called Little Gidding.

Which had been a small Anglican contemplative community that got caught up in the politics of the English Civil War with Cromwell and the Puritans and what have you.

And the government destroyed the community,

But the remnants are there and it's called Little Gidding.

So he's describing this community that had been a contemplative community destroyed because they were loyal to the king as opposed to Cromwell.

So if you came this way,

Taking the route you would be likely to take from the place you would be likely to come from.

If you came this way in May time,

You would find the hedges white again in May with the luxury sweetness.

It would be the same at the end of the journey.

Sorry,

If you came at night like a broken king.

If you came by day not knowing what you came for,

It would be the same when you leave the rough road and turn behind the pigsty to the dull facade and the tombstone.

And what you thought you came for is only a shell,

A husk of meaning from which the purpose breaks forth only when it is fulfilled,

If at all.

Either you had no purpose or the purpose is beyond the end you figured and altered in fulfillment.

There are other places which are also the world's end.

Some in the sea jaws or over a dark lake or in a desert or a city.

But this is the nearest in time,

In place and time,

Now and in England.

If you came this way taking any route starting from anywhere at any time or any season,

It would always be the same.

You would have to put off sense and notion.

You are not here to verify,

Instruct yourself or inform curiosity or carry report.

You are here to kneel where prayer has been valid.

And prayer is more than an order of words,

The conscious occupation of the praying mind or the sound of the voice praying.

And what the dead had no speech for when living.

They can tell you being dead,

The communication of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.

Here,

The intersection of the timeless moment is England and nowhere,

Never and always.

That's what Elliot has to say about prayer.

Sorry,

I somewhat lose my composure when I read the greatest works of art.

So there you go.

Thank you so very,

Very much.

Thanks for listening today.

Now,

Take a minute or two to take it in.

Close your eyes and you can sit with what you just heard.

The music will continue for about three and a half minutes.

Have a beautiful day.

The the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the

Reviews

It was a good factual overview of what
Mediation can do. And reminds me of the different facets of meditation.