The Bachelor

A talk based around the television show "The Bachelor". Looking deeper into the human condition, emotions, projections, and how by looking deeper into ourselves we can both develop understanding and compassion. This talk bridges our modern world with important spiritual insights. It's a great talk.

Please note: This track was recorded live and may contain background noises.

Transcript

So, The Bachelor. Who's your favorite? I can't remember. Who's watching? I don't actually remember. Just bring them home tonight. Okay, So I promise you, Even though the talk is starting here, By the end of it you're going to be happy I said this all. Okay, So the Bachelor. First of all, I do feel called to mention, And this is serious though, About the judgments that come up right when I say that. This is not new. So I've been smilingly telling people, I watch the Bachelor, And everybody looks at me with the same thing. What? That garbage? You? What? Right? Total, Like, Their brain, Like, Short circuits. You know? So, I think that's awesome to look at, First of all, For everybody. Just want to say that. Okay, So something that I've been enjoying about watching the Bachelor is that I've been seeing this interesting interpersonal play. And that interpersonal play has to do with, So for those of you that don't know, There's one man and like, Thirty women. And they're all kind of like, Dating him at once, But they all kind of like, Live together. And they're trying to see, Like, Who's the one that gets to be with him, And each week some get, Like, Eliminated, And there's this whole kind of process. So, What you're doing is that you're creating a situation where everybody has their needs of feeling significant, Their needs of feeling valuable, Their vulnerability, The possibilities, The fear of rejection, Of being made to seem, Like, Worthless or not desirable, Especially broadcast on live TV. Not to mention that, Like, You're in this competitive kind of thing. And we were watching it, Me and my friend Derek, Who's like a life coach, And we were just talking about what's going on. And it's really fascinating because of the amount of projections that are happening, The amount of, For instance, Like, One girl will take the bachelor and go off, And the other girls, They feel like, Oh no, I'm going to lose him. Or like, Oh no, He likes her better, Like, Jealous, Afraid. And then it turns to negativity, Like, That tramp, She steals him, Like, That they get angry and jealous and blamey and negative. Yeah? And these are all things that as you watch that, You're like, You know what, I do that too sometimes. I sometimes, Instead of saying I feel hurt or afraid or, Like, Not good enough, I start blaming somebody else and becoming angry and negative. I project my feelings out onto that person or that situation. Now, You're the enemy because I felt this way. Versus saying, Which would be like maybe something called clear communication or emotional intelligence, You say, Wow, That really made me feel alone. I suddenly felt rejected. Oh my god, I was afraid that nobody will love me in that situation. So, Really starting to understand, And in that atmosphere it happens so fast, But the unconscious reaction to our emotions and projecting things outwardly, Versus owning how we feel about them and not blaming them on people or situations. When we're talking about the shutdown, Right, And then we saw, Like, That the football team or whatever, The basketball team went to the White House and they gave them, Like, McDonald's. And then he stood there in front of everyone and he's like, Well, You know, The shutdown, So that's, You know, But, You know, They probably like, You know, And everyone's, Like, Angry on Facebook, They gave them McDonald's when they were visiting the White House, You know. And it's kind of like, Well, In a way, Yeah, That was a dick move, And also in a way, Who cares? Actually, That's kind of between them, I don't know. There's something about it that we are living in a time where there's a lot of triggering going on, That we, That new cells now, Used to be like sex cells, We said. And it still does, But now it's more like things sell if they trigger you. The new cells if it can make you react. Yeah, And the president specifically knows that in his cabinet, There's people that know that, That they do and they say things specifically to trigger you. Specifically to, Again, Make themselves significant, Like the girls on The Bachelor. Specifically, They do things to make themselves important in your lives, To make themselves the talking piece around the office, Around the home. That there's a lot of things that people, Some say these are narcissists, But people that want to be in the center of attention, If they can't create a positive connection, Then they'll create negative connections. Because that still gives them power, That still gives them significance. And again, That's something that we all do sometimes as well. You know, I've seen in my past that there's been people that I've wanted to be meaningful towards, And they haven't really cared about me, So instead I get angry at them, Because if I'm angry at you, Then I'm giving myself significance in a negative way, But I'm still becoming significant to that person in a new way. And that's a really interesting dynamic to also look at, How we play with those things. So, One of the other things I was watching in The Bachelor is that people can take him and go and talk with him, And then somebody else will come and say, Like, Excuse me, But can I talk to him now? And then they go, And it's the same kind of thing that, Like, I will go with The Bachelor, And oh, He's talking to me, And then another girl comes, And excuse me, I would like to talk to him. And I say, Oh, Okay, And I get up, And then I'm angry. That bitch, She took The Bachelor away from me, I was still talking to him and getting angry. What you, I only saw once the whole time, Was one person that said, No, I'm actually not done talking to him right now. And it's this amazing thing that I see all the time in people, Is the inability to set boundaries. The inability to say what you want, What you don't want, To not be a people pleaser, To not think you have to be polite and nice and do whatever, To say, No, I don't want, No, This is my time right now. Yeah, How many of us are sitting there, And we get a phone call, A text, And we feel obligated to answer it, That somebody in our family, In our house, Comes and they have a question, They want us to do something, We feel obligated to do. Yeah, How often can we actually say, No, You know, Not now. Right now, This is, I need to do this for myself, I need this time for myself. This gets also very, Very interesting when you dig deeper in your own psyche, And we see how we need to actually learn to set boundaries with ourselves. That there's times that we will be in a situation, And we will have a thought come in, And instead of ruminating on it and going with it, We have to say, No, Not now. Yeah, Or no, That kind of thinking is only, If I'm sitting here and something happens and I start getting angry, I have to say to myself, No, Stop. Stop, Seth. Look, What's really going on? You're angry, Why are you angry? What's going on actually? We have to also learn to set boundaries with ourselves. There's been times where I've broken up with girlfriends and I'm like, For weeks or months kind of in these places of depression and I don't want to do anything, I don't care about anything, Nothing matters anymore, Right, And all this stuff. And then there comes a point where I have to say, No, I'm not going to do that to myself, I am now just hurting myself. And this comes also in ties with what you're saying about forgiveness, Is that sometimes people do things to us, Right, Or we've done things to ourselves, And we have a problem forgiving those things. I saw when I was in the monastery, I would be on a meditation retreat and I would start getting angry because in the first grade, One of the boys punched me in the stomach and laughed about it. And I was sitting there, 31 years old, In my meditation retreat, Getting angry at this, What, Five year old? Five maybe? Five year old, I don't know, Six year old, That punched me in the stomach when I was six and I was like, That kid's such a jerk, I hated that kid, What a… And I was getting angry and angry and I was sitting there and I suddenly had to say, Seth, Stop, What are you doing? This is insane. You're angry about a five year old from 26 years ago. What's going on? And I had to track the whole emotional energy back and say in that moment, I felt ashamed, I felt small, I felt not loved or accepted in a group or in a community. And actually I felt angry at myself for not standing up for myself because I just let him punch me and fight back or say anything or do anything. So actually I created a trauma in myself because I didn't stand up and protect myself and that planted a little seed in the back of my mind somewhere that said, I don't know if I'm able to protect myself or I'm angry at myself for not protecting myself more. So then when I left my room and somebody asked me to clean, I started yelling at them, You don't even care, I don't want to clean. Because I was so unsure about my ability to protect myself that I overcompensated with anger and protection that was actually destructive versus dealing with the fact that I felt ashamed, That I felt unsure. And these are reasons why we have trouble setting healthy boundaries is because a lot of people, We don't understand the balance. When you're driving on a road and are on the highway and you accidentally kind of cut in front of somebody, We've all had it done to us and we've all accidentally done it to other people. Everyone's done it, Everyone's had it done to them. There's two kinds of honks when that happens. There's a kind of honk that goes, Beep, And you go, Oops, Sorry. And then there's a kind of honk that goes, Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep. And then the person yelling in the window, Right? Excuse me, Mr. Perfect, Right? Excuse me, Person who's never made a mistake in their entire life that can yell at me for making a mistake. Yeah? Oh, You're the Mr. Perfect. I was looking for you. That's where Mr. Perfect is. He's in that car right there. He's never done anything wrong. And he thinks he's allowed to judge me and call me an idiot and put all of his anger on me because I made a mistake. Oh, Isn't that interesting? Oh, How many of us have done that to other people? We've seen someone do something stupid and we think that then we're better than them and we can yell at them and call them names. Yeah? Who here has played Mr. And Mrs. Perfect? Yeah? Everybody, Almost. Right? And then now we're living in a world that we're afraid if I make a mistake, People are allowed, Allowed to yell at me. People are allowed to make me feel small. I don't have the right to stand up to myself, To stand up for myself, To protect myself. I don't have the right to self-worth and dignity if I've made a mistake. Because that's how we treat other people as well. So all of these fascinating, Important social, Emotional, Interpersonal and internal dynamics that are all so, So, So important for our lives. For how do we live a healthy and happy life. And meditation is really, I often say it's like if you lived in a room all day long but it was in pitch black. And when you sit down to meditate, It's like you're turning on the light in that room and you're getting to actually look around and see how much of a mess you've created. Some of us, When we turn on the light to that room, We'll see, Oh, Everything's like pretty organized. There's some clothes on the ground, Maybe smells a little bit, So I'll just open the window and clear it out. But it's okay. Some of us turn on the light and look at our room and it's a mess and it's on fire. Yeah? Some of us turn on the lights and we're like, Oh shit, I don't have a bed in this room. And I have bars on the walls. And I have hate notes scribbled all over the, Oh my god, What have I been doing? Where am I? What is this? Yeah? That we need to take an active, Responsible, Proactive consequence role with our own minds, With what's going on inside of us. Yeah? We have to hold ourselves accountable because if we don't, Who else will? If you have a really great friend or a really great partner that doesn't mind calling you out, But how often do we even allow other people to call us out versus just defending and trying to be perfect and no, That's not, No, You're doing that or just never talk to them again versus just looking at ourselves. Right? We just get one little scratch on our ego and it's like the end of the world for a lot of us, Not all of us, A lot of us. Something that I've been doing lately, Which I found fascinating, Which my mother suggested, Which is weird, But she heard it from a therapist. Not her therapist, But is that I've been starting a work of integration where I've realized that, And I talked about this last week a little bit in a way, That I realized for myself that I've learned so much and I've gone through a lot of really intense, Amazing processes and all the stuff. But there's still parts of me that are not developed emotionally or otherwise as with all of us, Right? We all have our places that could use a little work, Our blind spots that maybe everybody else in this room can see very clearly, But for us we don't see it. We're blind to it. We could probably do a round where we go around and we take turns, Everyone just staring at one person and we could just list off what's wrong with you. And then we get a look at what's wrong with you. And everybody would be able to say to everyone else what's wrong with them, But when it's our turn and people say it, We say, No that's not, You guys are jerks, I'm out of here, What are you talking about? Right? We'd be right when we tell you all what's wrong with you, But no, What are you talking about? That's not my problem, It's your problem, You're projecting. Yeah, So that's something that we all have to look at and work on, But what my mom suggested for me for one of my parts, Which was I was trying to get in touch with some parts of myself, Is that she said you take a piece of paper and you take a pen in each hand, And with my right hand, My dominant hand, That's me now. And with my left hand in the pen, I'm writing from my emotional body, Which kind of feels more like childlike. So one could call it your inner child if one wanted. And I would sit there and write, You know, Hi Seth, And then with the left hand I'd say hi, And it's, Because it's not my writing hand, It looks like a child's handwriting, So it fits, You know. Hi, How are you doing? Sad, Why? And kind of do this back and forth, And I feel a little bit like a crazy person, Like how are you Seth? Sad, Oh what happened? And it was this back and forth that I kind of judged, Like I feel like I'm insane doing this, But simultaneously I felt like an integration starting to happen, That I started to feel loved and seen and heard and acknowledged and cared about within myself. Things that I would often go to the outside for, I would try to get that from my girlfriend, From my mom, From my friends, From Facebook, I want to be seen and acknowledged in her, Right? And kind of like, Versus saying like, Oh there's that way that actually I can start to get that in myself and develop that in myself to a place where the emotional body starts to feel like it matches up with who and how I am right now. Yeah, That there are these growing processes that we all need to go through, This learning processes, Emotional development. So some people might not understand the connection between emotional development and meditation. Yeah, Is there anybody that's like not exactly sure how those things connect, Just out of curiosity? Yeah, Okay, Get almost everybody. So for meditation to work, For meditation to work, You have to feel happy. Meditation helps you feel happier, But also you need to feel happy for meditation to work. It is essential from the Buddha himself that meditation helps you feel happier and also you need to be working towards happiness. If you have unclear emotional boundaries, You're going to be sitting in meditation and you're going to be just angry and thinking about things. Your mind is going to be running all over the place. You're going to feel unsafe. You're not going to feel good within yourself. You're not going to feel comfortable in your own skin. So your mind is going to try to escape. Yeah, Or it'll be always spinning around. If you have unprocessed stuff that's painful, Your mind will be constantly trying to get out of the room. When you practice as a monk, The first practice you do is not sitting in meditation all day. You start by sweeping the floors. You start by preparing meals. You start from making offerings at our monastery anyway. You start by working, By serving the community, By being helpful, By practicing not lying, By not taking anything that's not given, By not eating at certain times of the day, By not killing anything, Even a fly, A spider, Or a mosquito, Having no sex or sexual contact or sexual innuendos or anything like that, No drugs, No alcohol, By abstaining from things, Following certain rules, Training rules that start to bring your mind into a place where you start to feel good about yourself. You start to feel kind of virtuous. I went from not killing things to trying to save little ants on the ground and stuff. I went from not stealing and then also not taking what's not given to also learning how to be content with simplicity in the little bit that I had. I changed from speaking out lies and half-truths and trying to manipulate situations to allowing myself to be open and honest and vulnerable and share my truth. That each of these trainings has not only the thing that you're abstaining from, But it has the thing that grows out of it. Right? So not killing turns into compassion. Yet, Not taking things ends in renunciation, Leaving things. Cleaning the floor, Humbleness, Patience, Building up these positive qualities. The Buddha said that everything in this world is conditional. Do you guys know what that means when I say that? It's conditioned. Right? So it mentioned that briefly in this book. Everything is made up of other things and it's all moving and flowing through each other. For example, Thich Nhat Hanh says it very easily. He says if you think about a flower, What is a flower? A flower is a seed and its soil and its water and its sunlight and its time and its space and its temperature. And when all of these conditions come together, That thing called a flower, That manifestation of a flower can arise because all of the conditions are there for this thing to arise. If you take out the sun, You take out the flower. If you take out the rain, You take out the flower. Everything is this way. Your human body needs air, Water, Food, Gravity, I guess. The right temperature balance. Anything you can look at that quote-unquote exists is actually just existing because the balance of conditions around it are just so that that thing can survive, It can maintain, It can be there in that way. But everything, If you look then, It's like a rainbow. What is a rainbow? There's the sun just in the right place, There's the rain just in the right place, You're in the right place, Everything's just in the right place for this kind of thing to be seen very briefly. And then the conditions shift and that thing disappears. Like in this book, We are all going to die, We are all moving through a process that has an end, Like that flower. Everything is moving, Everything is conditioned. As soon as one of those conditions ends, The process is over. The whole thing falls apart. So knowing this now, If you look at nature, Everything is made of conditions, Everything is made up of other things. And we see that in our body. Look inside, You'll see that your personality, Made up of things you've learned, Made up of experiences you've had, Things people have told you, Things you've watched on TV, Things you've felt, Who you are, Your behaviors, The way that your mind works and functions, It is based on conditions that you fed the mind. If you have fed the mind heavy, Sad, Angry, Blamey, Victimized, Negative conditions, What kind of a mind do you think you're going to have? If you have a child in the middle of the room and everyone's sitting there scolding the child and telling that child that it's worthless, How do you think that child's going to feel? What if you have a child in the middle of the room and everyone's sitting around that child saying, You're so beautiful, You're so great, We're so happy you're here, We love you so much, How do you think that child's going to feel? How are they going to perceive themselves? Who we are, How we think, What we believe, What we perceive, Conditional. So now we're talking about this thing called meditation. This thing called having a peaceful, Silent, Still, Stable, Happy mind. We want to have a meditative mind. Imagine that a meditative mind, It's just like a flower, It's this thing that we're trying to create. Everything is made of conditions. So what are the conditions for having a meditative mind? The mind has to be cleaning the floors, Humble, Patient, Renunciation, Letting things go, Kind, Compassionate, Open, Soft. All of these conditions, The positive psychology of the mind, All of these things that the spiritual teachers are telling us to practice, It's not like because then you're a good boy or a bad girl if you don't do or do these things. It's because that when you live and behave in a positive way, You are actually creating a mind that feels happy, A mind that becomes buoyant, A mind that wants to be here, That's open, That's soft. That where you put your focus, Where you put your attention, That's what you will get. My teacher Achyam Brahm said it's like the farmer going into the chicken coop at night and he comes in with his basket and he dumps it on the table for his wife and she looks down and the entire table is just covered in chicken shit. And she shakes her head and she said, You collected the wrong thing. And she goes with the basket and she gets the eggs and she's like, This is what you want to bring in the house. How many of us are chicken shit farmers? How many of us go around and we collect baskets full of shit and we just store it in our minds? And that's what we live with. Yeah? They both come out of the chicken, The eggs and the shit. They're both equally true and real. They both exist. The world will forever be shitty and beautiful. Forever. Forever. There is never going to be a perfect beautiful world ever. It will never happen. There will also never be an only shitty and horrible world. Yet they both will exist always. Look at a volcano. It's terrible. It's scary, Right? But it's gorgeous. It's amazing. Right? That all exists. What are we focusing on? What are we allowing to dominate our minds? If you create a happy mind, If you feed the mind the right conditions, Emotional conditions, Emotions. You feed the mind the right emotional conditions. When you sit to meditate, Your mind will be happy and it will want to be there. And that's how you know how you're doing. Because you'll sit in meditation and. . . And it just feels great and there's nowhere else to be. If you're sitting down to meditate and you're zoning out, Falling asleep, Daydreaming, Having fantasies, Getting angry, Being irritated by every little thing that's happening around you. That is a mirror showing you what you've been feeding. If you're falling asleep, That means you've been pushing yourself too hard. You're not taking care of them. If you're overthinking, You're overactive. It means you haven't been practicing presence, Contentment. If you're angry, You haven't been practicing understanding. If you're lost in desires and wanting things, You haven't been practicing appreciation for what's here. That you can literally watch what your mind is doing and know what you need to do. Know what the antidote, The remedy is, What you need. And for a lot of us, There's not one. There's a lot. Again, It's like a web. You need the sun, You need the earth, You need the water, You need the sea. It's a long road, Right? Like we said, We have a long way to go. But that's also how the way that you live your life and what you do with your life also helps to feed into your meditation. It also helps your mind grow in the way that you want it to. And again, Vice versa, Sitting in the meditation, Starting to breathe, Starting to relax, Even if you're sad, Even if you're angry, Even if something's going on, Learning how to just sit with it and breathe, Learning how to just be present, To accept, To open, To feel, To not run away, To try to allow things to be the way they are, Even if you wish they were different, To really just practice in that way, To let everything settle. That is the balance that you allow your mind in the meditation just to be, To soften, To relax. Then you go into the daily life and you do as much as you can for yourself. Come back in the meditation, Let your mind settle, Rest. Our mind rests in meditation, Not in sleep. In sleep we dream and we think. The only time the mind rests is when we can stop the mind. That's meditation. This is the time to take a break, To relax. But the mind can only take a break if you allow it to, If you tell the mind it's okay. You're allowed to stop, You're allowed to be here. Everything is fine. Don't try to figure anything out. Don't try to push anything away. It's very similar to what this book is talking about. This book also mentions the I don't know mind, Right? Because the mind is trying to tell you all the stuff. I don't know, I don't know. You've been meditating for years, Doesn't work. I don't know, Maybe not. This is your first time, These people have been meditating for years, You'll never make it. I don't know, Maybe not. Yeah, But I just had this horrible thing happen in my life, You'll never get peaceful. I don't know, Maybe. These are all just tools to let things go. These are all just tools to let things go. And some of us need one tool more than another tool. We all will find our tool. My favorite tool, I told you guys I think like some time ago, Is the mantra that again, Achyun Brahm, This teacher told me. This mantra called good enough. That I'd sit there in meditation, I would just say good enough. But I'm not getting that deep. Yeah, But it's good enough. Yeah, But like I feel uncomfortable. Yeah, But it's good enough. It's enough to sit. Yeah, But you know, I really need to retreat. Yeah, But you know, It's good enough. It's an hour, It's a half hour, It's good enough. That whatever my mind, But, But, But, But, Trying to create problems. And I'm just saying yeah, But it's good enough, It's fine. And just following that mantra, It took me really deep into meditation. Because I just disarmed my ego, There's nowhere for it to go. I was just like, Fuck. Lost its tools, You know. So that's why the Dalai Lama and like Desmond Tutu, He talks so much about love and compassion, He writes all these books. It's not just because he's a great person or because he's like the world needs love. It's not just because, But also because love and compassion and the heart, It's integral to the practice of meditation and peace. They have to go together. There's nobody that has amazing meditation and then they leave and then they're a dick to everybody. It doesn't work. It's the same mind. If your mind is happy and peaceful and content in meditation, You're carrying that energy wherever you go. It's the same stuff. Yeah, It's the same spectrum. One's projected outwards, One's projected inwards. Same dynamics. Okay? So if you don't want to watch The Bachelor, It's fine. But there's wisdom to be found everywhere, So don't judge. So we get ready for meditation. Sit in a way that feels comfortable.

Reviews

I really liked this talk. It gave me ideas on how I can take myself back to basics: clean, cook and be humble to help clear the mind for happiness. Quite the opposite to the Bachelor!