The Simile Of The Tornado

A live talk given to a group in Massachusetts. The simile of the tornado paints a pictures of us being inside of a tornado, watching our thoughts, feelings, and lives flying around us in circles as we try to sit and meditate. Not to despair, there is a way out!

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

Transcript

So as I was driving over here,

I started reflecting on this day-long retreat that I did yesterday.

And,

You know,

It was a whole day of interacting with people,

And they would,

Between the sittings,

They'd ask questions,

We'd do question and answer sessions,

And I'd give some talks.

And it started really spinning the gears of,

How do I talk about meditation in kind of the most comprehensive way that I can?

Because some people said,

Well,

Is meditation about being quiet while you're sitting in this room,

Or is it about making your daily life easier?

Is it about becoming more peaceful and happy,

Or is it about breaking through the fabric of reality?

Is it about understanding yourself,

Or is it about letting go of yourself?

And the difficult thing for me was that the answer to all of those questions was yes.

All of that is it.

And yet that also seems somehow contradictory or paradoxical.

So as I was driving over here,

I was like,

Okay,

Seth,

Like,

I need to kind of,

How do I talk about this in a different way?

And I came up with a simile,

And I'm not sure how good it is,

But I'm going to say it,

And we'll see what happens.

So this is going to be called the simile of the tornado.

So we are all inside of a tornado,

Individually,

Probably collectively as well,

But let's just say individually.

And there's a lot of stuff flying around in that tornado.

Some of that stuff is hard and sharp and bangs into us and ouch hurts.

There's a lot of dust in that tornado that's kind of blinding,

That's kind of stinging the eyes,

You can't really see past it.

You're only kind of able to see the stuff that's flying around in it.

You just know that you feel swirling and kind of blinded and kind of in pain and kind of confused.

Does that pretty much cover where everybody's at?

It's not that bad.

So slowly as we're in this tornado and we kind of start looking around in the tornado,

We'll start to see what are these big kind of chunks flying by.

And maybe it'll be big chunks of memories are flying by or maybe songs that we were listening to before or arguments we had or how am I going to be able to afford living in this home any longer and worries about the future.

And then there's also physical pains in the leg and things that are going on.

And then there's people in the room that you're looking at right now that are bringing up stuff and feelings and then the coldness or the hotness of the space and that our entire sensory world is flying around in there.

And then also all of our mental world is flying around in there.

And it's a lot.

And it's overwhelming and it's exhausting.

And there's some people that even end up killing themselves because it's so much.

So,

When we now say,

I want to do this thing called practice or meditation.

You're sitting down.

And you're looking at that tornado directly.

You're not trying to see the world through the tornado anymore.

You're saying,

I'm going to look at the tornado.

And as soon as you look at the tornado,

The first thing you see is this is pretty out of control.

This is moving pretty fast.

Why is there still chunks of my childhood flying around this tornado?

Why are there these issues that are going to happen in maybe 10 years that I have no control over flying around in this tornado?

And slowly,

As you're watching that stuff,

You first step one is you acknowledge it,

You accept it,

You actually see that it's there.

This is how it is.

This is what's going on.

And just that step,

It already starts to kind of center you and put things a little bit more focused,

But also,

Interestingly enough,

The tornado almost seems to start whirling just a little bit slower.

And then maybe something flies by and you go,

You know what?

I actually don't think that that needs to be here anymore.

And then you grab it and it's maybe the situation that happened,

Again,

With your parents so many years ago,

And you kind of realize,

Oh,

You know,

They were just overwhelmed and frustrated and they were doing the best they could.

Or they felt ashamed and they put that shame on me.

Or they felt they weren't good enough so they tried to push me to be better.

And actually,

That has nothing to do with me.

That was their stuff.

And you dissolve that and now that thing's not flying around anymore.

But then all of a sudden,

Boom,

You get hit from the side and oh my God,

What's that?

And then you look,

You know,

And it's this thing that just happened to you yesterday.

And you're like,

Oh God,

I don't even know what to do with that.

And it just kind of passes you,

Right?

But then something else comes and you're like,

Oh,

Wait,

I know how to deal with this one too.

And you take that one and you can kind of unpack it.

And then that kind of dissolves.

And then as these things are going on,

You say,

You know,

Can I also insert my own things into the tornado?

So then you say,

You know,

I'm going to wake up in the morning and say I'm thankful to be here.

So now you're injecting this kind of cloud of this like warm,

Fragrant,

Nice air.

So even though it's still kind of spinning,

At least there's some nice warm fragrant air spinning by you instead of this big sharp object hitting you every time it passes,

Right?

So you start injecting some nicer things into that tornado for yourself while also kind of dismantling some of the more painful,

More difficult things.

And you'll notice then that as you're doing this work,

Slowly also what's going on is that as these things are being dismantled,

You're starting now to have some more spaces between these objects that you can start to see the world past your own mind a little bit more clearly.

You're slowly able to start actually seeing the people around you in between the kind of spaces of these things because they haven't kind of obstructed your vision in such a rapid succession like they were before.

And you also start to notice that the more you're doing this work and the more that you're injecting,

You know,

Positivity into this tornado and also kind of slowly starting to deconstruct the difficulties,

That the tornado is also starting to slow down a little bit.

Slow down a little bit more.

And you're even starting to look down and you can start to even then see what is causing this tornado.

Why is there even a tornado to begin with?

What is this?

And you start to see that the only reason this tornado is there in the deeper levels is that the mind is moving.

That the mind feels discontent.

That the mind is stuck in a duality.

Self and other.

Separation.

And then fear.

And then wanting.

Not wanting.

And that's pushing this crank and it's spinning and spinning and spinning.

And slowly as you're dealing with all of these kind of objects flying by,

You're also starting to understand the mechanism of why this tornado has been flying and you're starting to even get to address the root of it directly.

And you start to become just more content with how things are.

You start to just breathe and accept things and be more peaceful.

And then the mechanism itself at the base of this tornado is starting to slowly open up and open up and open up.

And eventually the direction that we're moving towards is that the tornado pretty much subsides and,

You know,

Every now and then something will kind of be picked up and lift up and swirl around you.

And you'll know how to catch it and unpack it or you'll know just leave it alone and it'll fly off.

Or you'll know I need to talk to somebody about this because I don't know how to deal with this myself but I know that it can be dealt with.

And you've kind of cleaned out the space around you enough that even the way that you're living your daily life,

Every interaction,

You learn how to leave that interaction in a way that it's not adding more junk to your tornado.

That every interaction that you go through throughout your day,

You're able to leave it in a way that it's clear and you're not picking up more stuff.

You're not getting blinded again because you're on a path towards clarity,

Towards space,

And also towards more of a peacefulness.

And that's how this practice,

This meditation that we're practicing,

It's kind of all of it at once.

On one hand,

It is about learning how to be still and stopped and peaceful.

And simultaneously it also has to do with engaging with our mind and engaging with our past and all the stuff that we're still processing.

And how it also bleeds into the present moment and into our lives and how we should live our lives moving forward.

And it's all of these things together and when we practice a formal meditation like we'll do today,

I'll lead us into it and that would be like,

You know,

Seth Monk coming in and going to this mechanism at the base of your tornado and kind of just gently kind of grabbing it and slowing it down a little bit.

So it slowly starts to feel,

Oh,

This feels nice.

This is kind of relaxation.

This is peaceful.

This is what I was looking for.

And then we're going to walk out of this room and then that mechanism is going to start whirling back up again.

Right?

And then it's like,

Oh,

Gosh,

This is how it normally is,

I guess.

Did that meditation do nothing?

But then I would say to you,

Well,

First of all,

One of the most important things for you guys to acknowledge is that there is an end to it,

That it can get better,

That there is hope.

Yeah,

We would be kidding ourselves if we think that at the end of an hour and a half class,

We're going to walk out of here and be like,

Boom,

Ready to go crush life.

I get it now.

Yeah,

Not that easy.

But just to make the experience,

Just to have a meditation round where you make that experience of the mind becoming peaceful,

You go,

OK,

I guess I'm not such a hopeless case after all.

I guess it is possible for me to.

And then you go back out there and you see that your mind is spinning and then you can start to say,

OK,

What is this about?

What's going on?

Why?

And if you are somebody who likes to practice things maybe more often,

Who does this today and says that was cool.

I'm going to do this every day or every couple of days or once a week with a group or whatever.

You'll again and again and again and again,

Once a week,

Make the experience of that tornado getting slowed down.

And through familiarization,

You'll start to realize more and more that mechanism.

How do I keep that on a low throttle?

How do I keep it slow and how do I make it slower and how does it pick up and what's the kind of mechanics in the process behind that?

So it functions on all of these levels simultaneously,

All at once,

All connected.

And.

They're all equally relevant and important.

Because.

If we're not dealing with our pasts and our futures and our lives now.

I don't know what kind of meditation you expect to have.

Yeah,

If you just got in a big fight with somebody and then you come and sit in this room and you try to relax,

It's not going to work.

Let's be realistic.

You're going to be thinking about that fight.

That's the definition of karma,

Is that there's effects from our actions.

Yeah,

But things keep going,

They keep echoing and resonating and turning.

That movement that's called karma keeps going.

So we start to live our lives in a way that it's not creating this kind of karma,

This I don't use the words positive and negative,

Like good and bad,

Right and wrong.

It's not like a judgment.

But there's a kind of karma that we can create,

You know,

That feeling like when you give somebody a present or you're just kind to somebody for no reason other than it feels nice or you have a really deep talk with somebody and you kind of point out something really helpful to them.

You make someone a nice dinner.

This is really beautiful feeling you get when you do something nice.

And that feeling just kind of resonates resonates through your day,

It resonates through your relationship with that person.

It resonates in your story of who you are as a person.

And now think about the stupidest thing that you've ever done.

Go back in your mind and think about that one thing that you look at yourself and you're like,

What the hell was I thinking?

Yeah,

That still to this day I'm judging myself about that still to this day I feel like I'm a monster.

I'm a terrible person or I'm not good enough because of this thing.

Yeah.

And everybody has not just one everyone has a big backpack full of them.

That these actions now the karma we're still suffering from even something we did 10,

20 years ago,

We're still feeling like,

Oh,

Gosh.

Yeah.

And so slowly learning how do I change my relationship to those things?

How do I change my relationship to who I am now?

Yeah.

If I in the past,

You know,

Maybe I spoke harshly and unkindly and abusively towards people.

And I've realized I don't want to do that.

And now in my life,

I'm trying to be a better person,

But I'll catch that same kind of mechanism popping up when I feel frustrated or angry.

I'll just shoot out things.

Yeah.

In that moment,

Right after I've realized it,

As soon as I've realized I've done it again,

I can now say,

Gosh,

Actually,

I don't.

I'm sorry.

That's not what I wanted to say.

That's not who I want to be,

How I want to feel that in the moment.

Even if we make a mistake,

We can say,

Oops,

Oops,

Mistake.

And we can correct it and not make more karma that we're carrying.

And simultaneously that will help us understand and forgive our past because we say,

You know what,

That's all just a big lesson.

And I'm not going to do that anymore.

I'm going to change.

And even more so,

Right,

This whole positive psychology part,

Because the more that we are happy,

The more that we feel right.

The more that this is a feeling process,

The more that we feel good in our own skin,

In our own minds,

In our own lives,

The more that mechanism is kind of going slowly.

Because that spinning of the mind,

That's fueled again by discontentment,

By trying to escape,

Trying to get away from something,

Coping,

Not wanting to accept.

Yeah.

The more that we can feed positivity into that,

The more it's happy just to be where it is,

The more the mind happily just rests where it is.

So if you ever want to talk about meditation hacks,

Right,

Mind hacks,

Meditation shortcuts,

Tips,

Tricks.

This is something that I learned from the monks and this is also something that a lot of monks didn't even really figure out fully.

And it's that there's no way to get to peace.

You don't get there.

You have to create it here.

Yeah,

You have to make peace and then there is peace.

You have to relax and then there is relaxation.

You have to be still and then there is stillness.

You cannot try to meditate.

Yeah,

Because trying to meditate,

It's taking a future goal of a peaceful mind and trying to push that future goal and wish and expectation onto this moment.

And you're trying to shift this moment from that from something right now to something that's not here.

And that is the basis of stress.

The meaning of stress is wanting this moment to be different than it is.

That is it.

It's that simple.

Stress means wanting this moment to be different.

I'm in my car in traffic and I want to be at work and I'm not.

Yeah,

This person is yelling and I don't want them to be.

There's a large dog running at me with its teeth dripping,

Ready to bite me.

I really wish,

You know,

That was a really sweet child with a box of chocolates or something.

Yeah.

So learning to make peace with this moment,

Being peaceful with what's going on,

But simultaneously recognizing again this whole thing with the tornado,

That being peace and making peace also sometimes means being a little hard.

Also,

Sometimes it means setting boundaries,

Pointing things out in others and in yourself.

Sometimes it means going to places that are difficult because you want to be done with this.

Yeah.

If I,

As a child,

You know,

Had parents that were very busy and they were working and they were overwhelmed with their own lives and problems.

And then,

You know,

Little Seth comes in and wants love or attention and they're like,

Oh,

You're too busy or too busy.

You know,

So little Seth's like,

Oh,

Okay,

They're too busy.

Maybe I need to be louder.

Right.

So I do something loud and then I get yelled at,

Punished.

Oh,

Okay.

Not loud.

Maybe I need to make a really nice picture.

I make a nice picture.

Here,

What do you think of that?

Yeah,

Yeah,

That's nice.

We'll look at it later.

Okay.

So anything that I do to try to express myself is just shut down.

And slowly this feeling arises,

You know,

Actually,

Like I'm not really important.

I'm not loved.

I'm not as I am.

It's not really good enough.

And that becomes a new identification.

I'm not good enough.

So throughout the rest of my life,

Carrying around this identification,

I'm not good enough.

That's an unpleasant feeling to have.

And that's at the base of this tornado spinning my entire life.

Yeah,

That my entire life is just spinning around this feeling of not being good enough.

That everything I do is I'm trying to get better.

I'm trying to be better.

Or I'm trying to make people not see that I'm actually not good enough.

I'm trying to hide it,

Protect it.

Making really nice Instagram photos of myself,

You know,

So everyone sees the good part of me that I want them to see,

And they don't see that I'm actually not good enough.

Right?

This belief.

And that's what's spinning my tornado personally,

Down in the bottom.

And then I have to go into that and understand that mechanism and say,

My parents were overwhelmed.

That has nothing to do with me.

Yeah,

I'm fine.

I am projecting,

As they say,

I'm projecting God onto man.

Right?

I'm taking that my parents weren't able to give this thing to me,

And then I think,

Oh,

That means the universe can't give that to me.

And we need to start looking deeper into our own stories.

And we need to start deconstructing them and understanding them,

Opening them up,

Healing them,

Releasing them,

And freeing ourselves from them.

And that requires work.

We start to get more insight.

We start to get more understanding.

But ultimately,

Those pieces that are gone,

They're dispelled,

They're dispersed.

And then we just sit there,

And now I feel like I'm great.

Not only am I good enough,

I'm great,

I'm awesome.

Yeah?

And then,

Ah,

That's such a nice feeling,

Right?

It's like a little sun shining in my heart.

I'm awesome.

I'm great.

And then I sit to meditate.

Ah.

Just sit,

Glowing in my awesomeness.

My mind is relaxed all day long.

Whereas before I was depressed.

Right?

That's kind of what depression is.

It's that there's this pain that's been down there for so long,

And instead we can't feel it anymore,

So we cap it off and we numb ourselves to it.

People that are depressed,

That's why they say they don't have access to their feelings anymore.

A lot of people that are depressed,

If you kind of can get to their feelings,

What usually comes out,

It's a lot of anger.

It's a lot of anger,

A lot of rage even.

And then under that rage it's usually pain and sadness,

You know.

And then you start to get to the actual feelings underneath it.

If you're depressed,

You might be able to meditate,

You might be able to calm your mind a little bit,

But you're not really going to be able to get that deep experience because it doesn't feel good.

It's just kind of more numbness.

It's like shutting things out a little bit.

It feels safe maybe.

There's nobody around to hurt me,

But again,

I was a monk.

I was on retreat.

I lived in a cave.

It's easy and nice to sit and pray for the world and pray for everyone's happiness.

And then I left my retreat and within like 10 minutes I was almost in an argument with somebody already.

It's really easy to block out the world and feel all peaceful.

I just saw a bumper sticker and it was like a picture of the mountains and the forests and a stream,

And then the text next to it just said,

I don't like people.

You know,

And it's kind of like that.

It's,

You know,

Life's easy.

Yeah,

Life would be easy and hard,

But it would be easy if there was nobody you had to deal with.

By myself,

I'm fine.

It's just when I have to interact,

That's when I have problems.

But if we're talking about freedom,

Right,

We want freedom.

This practice is about freedom,

Liberation.

So that's not liberation.

If I have to stay in a cave to feel peaceful,

That's hiding from the world.

Yeah.

Peace only works.

Freedom only works if you can take it in all situations with you,

If it's a part of you.

So that's what we're working towards.

And what this round is,

What a guided meditation will be.

It's simply making that experience of slowing down.

It's just making that experience viscerally,

Feeling what that feels like to slow down,

To get a little bit peaceful.

I'm like kind of guiding you in the direction.

You know,

This is what it feels like.

This is where to go.

This is what it's like.

And doing that again and again and again and again and slowly,

Then you start to be able to do it yourself.

You know what that place feels like.

Even Herb Benson,

A Harvard psychologist,

He created this thing called the relaxation response,

Because people he was testing in the lab that were kind of hit with stimulation that would cause a fight or flight reaction.

If they were meditation practitioners,

They would instead respond with relaxation.

That they'd be hit with a stimulus and they'd go,

Oh,

And it would kind of get the shock and then they disperse it,

Because they were able to recognize in themselves,

Oh,

That's stress.

Oh,

Yeah,

I meditate.

I know how to get rid of stress.

Boom.

Gone.

So we start to be able to bring this practice into our daily life and slowly start to open up situations.

And we start to then be able to change the way we live our lives.

I think like in the Don Juan books,

Right?

I don't know,

Like Don Juan,

He was like peyote with this master in Mexico,

Whatever.

But he used to talk about his master was Carlos Castaneda was the guy.

So I guess Don Juan was the master.

And he said that everything he did was impeccable.

He kept using this word impeccability.

Right.

Because in every situation,

You slowly start to learn how to handle yourself,

That you're not carrying any residue,

That each situation you resolve it as you go.

So you're not taking stuff with you.

And that's a practice and it's not always easy.

And there's some situations you can't,

You know,

There's people that are mad at me.

They've been mad at me for,

You know,

10 years.

And I've tried to clear things up with them.

They don't want to hear it.

I,

You know,

Reach out to them.

It was a misunderstanding.

Actually,

I didn't even do anything.

Doesn't matter.

And then I say,

OK,

Then I need to just release you.

And you're going to sit there holding this anger.

But that's now yours and that's your journey.

And I'm not going to share that with you.

And it's all this big process of sorting out our lives like this.

It's very active,

Sorting out our lives,

Being on top of things,

Understanding things,

Communicating.

Yeah,

I was just telling a couple of people I led a trip to Sedona recently and some of us were more fit than some of the other ones.

So it kind of happened like on the first day that almost like two groups formed and there was one group that was more fit and they kind of ran up this mountain.

And there's one group that like weren't able to and they kind of stayed at the bottom.

And they had this feeling like they were abandoned.

Right.

That,

You know,

They paid for a group trip.

And it's like now this group went and they're not part of the group trip anymore.

But nobody communicated that to me as the group leader.

And only it was a week long trip,

Only on day four.

My mom was on the trip.

My mom finally,

Like I talked to her and she mentioned that people were complaining.

And I was like,

Why hasn't anybody said anything to me?

I'm the guy,

I'm the one that can make change in this trip.

And yet people feel disempowered or victims and they get mad and they feel almost like a resentment.

And it builds amongst themselves in a little group.

But why didn't anybody take that step to say,

I don't want to feel this anymore.

So I'm going to do something.

Taking that step,

You know,

Not to be the victim,

Take that step,

Help yourself.

What can you do to help yourself?

Yeah.

And often in lives that that little step is missing in this situation right now.

Right now,

What can I do to help myself in my life right now?

And I guarantee every single person in this room right now,

There's something probably pretty straightforward.

One little thing you could do to help yourself in your life that you're not doing that maybe you haven't done your entire life.

And that's a really good and important thing to look at.

What can I do to help myself?

Very basic,

Straightforward question.

Because otherwise we'll just be waiting in that tornado.

And I think the Sanskrit word for that is a shitstorm.

It just keeps spinning around and hurting and smelling and it doesn't get any better.

And you could be resentful towards life or you could say,

I want to do something about this.

So that's kind of the overview,

I guess.

Flushed it out a little more than I did in the car.

And for the meditation practice that we'll be doing today.

Again,

I'll be guiding it.

But I also want to give you the impulse for the meditation itself.

And I would say that that impulse,

This is the impulse I've actually been giving a lot lately to people.

And it's simply how can I soften my edges?

Right?

So really easy step one,

Acknowledging that you're in that tornado.

The first thing that we can start doing is just stop running away from things.

Stop pushing feelings away.

How can I just start to become more present in the places that I don't want to be present?

Which is just right here,

Right now.

Deeper and deeper.

How can I just make peace with this very moment regardless of what's happening?

And also starting to see what is it that's pushing me away from this moment?

Why when I drop in and I feel like some kind of a resistance or an anxiety or a boredom or I get tired or I get restless or I start fantasizing about eating ice cream later?

What is it that has this almost like a two positive magnets that kind of push away from each other?

What is it that's always pushing me away from just being here right now and starting just to soften into that?

Yeah.

And that's it.

That's my only impulse for the meditation.

How to just start softening into the present moment.

Allowing it.

Allowing yourself just to be here.

Feeling the parts of you that don't want to be here.

Breathing into those parts.

Softening.

How can I be here?

Okay.

Reviews

Seth: I notice that I feel grateful for that. All analogies are flawed in some way. However, I very much liked the tornado concept. Well done. Thank you. Neil 😃☯️

Seth presents a clear and understandable way to explain the power and importance of awareness and why we practice meditation. His visualizations are relatable. He explains beautifully that peace of mind isn’t a destination. It has to be created within us. When we give our attention to being at peace with this moment then we can get out of the shit storm and find freedom, clarity, space, peace, and healing in all facets of our lives. Very lovely 🙏🏼