Improving Your Relationships, Buddhist Style | Martine Batchelor

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From ABC, this is the 10% Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris.
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visit 10% dot com slash August. That's 10% one word,
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all spelled out dot com slash August. Hello, this episode
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is a mix, a nice mix of the technical, the
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practical and the delightful. We're going to talk here about
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an aspect of mindfulness that can impact your relationships with
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other people, your biases, and how you handle everything from
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lying to sex to alcohol to social media. Specifically, we're
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talking about vedana. That is an ancient term often translated
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as feeling tone. Here's how it works, basically. Everything that
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comes up in your mind has one of at least
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three feeling tones, pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. When you're mindless,
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a pleasant feeling tone can lead to overindulgence or clinging.
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Unpleasant can lead to aversion, and neutral can lead to
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numbing out. Unchecked, this unfolding process can have disastrous results
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as it pertains to your reactions to food, other people,
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you name it. My guest today is going to tell
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us about how to bring mindfulness to this aspect of
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our experience. And her name is Martine Batchelor. She was
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a Buddhist nun in Korea for 10 years. She's written
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a number of books, including The Path to Compassion and
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Let Go, A Buddhist Guide to Breaking Free of Habits.
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She lives in France. You'll hear her lovely French accent,
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along with her husband, Stephen Batchelor, who was a guest
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on this show not long ago. So here we go.
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Martine Batchelor. All right, Martine, thanks for doing this.
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Thank you for asking me.
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We were talking before we started rolling that we had lunch,
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me and you and your husband, in the winter before
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the pandemic. And the world has changed quite a bit
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since then. So this conversation is happening in a radically
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different context than our last one.
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Indeed, indeed. And so sad. I mean, it's such a
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shock to the system. And it's so sad what is
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happening everywhere. Yes, it is.
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I think one of the things we're going to focus
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on today is a way to work with our minds
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so that we can really become like individual vectors of
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positivity and helpfulness. So we're doing our little part to
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make a dent in the universe in this conversation.
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Indeed. And to me, when the pandemic started, the COVID-19 started,
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actually four things came to mind. The first one was
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actually to see that the practice had really, in a way,
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prepared me for this, prepared me from this pandemic, like
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kind of bringing some stability, some ground, clarity. And that's
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what practice is about, to help us when we have difficulty.
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At the same time, I decided this is a pandemic
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and I am not going to stress about anything. My
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motto will be, why stress? Take your time. Take the
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time you can to do whatever is needed. Because if
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you stress, then you're going to be harmful to yourself,
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harmful to others. The third thing was to think that appreciation, mudita,
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rejoicing in all the people who helped us to survive,
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and to see what was still working, what were people
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still doing. And also so grateful that all these people
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in a way endangered themselves for our survival. And the
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fourth thing I took as a practice was how can
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I change my relationship? How can we use this opportunity
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to really see the other and try to see the
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other differently and our relationship to the other differently? because
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we're so used to go on automatic. I have that
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relationship with this person. I have this history with this person,
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and that's the way it is. And I thought, could
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we have a renewal in our relationship in this strange time?
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So I would say the pandemic, in a way, it's terrible.
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And at the same time, it can be an opportunity
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to really bring the practice back to the situation and
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of course, to help ourselves and of course, to help others.
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You said so much in there that's really.
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Deep.
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I'm going to unpack much of it, but I'm just,
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I'm a little bit hung up on one adorable superficial thing,
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which was that you called it COVID-19, which brings me
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back to my high school French class where I learned
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how to say 19 and in French. So that was awesome.
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But let's pick up on the fourth of the pillars there,
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the four things that came to your mind at the
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beginning of this pandemic, which is sort of using this
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as an opportunity to practice improving our relationships. Does that
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bring us to this notion of feeling tones or Vedanas?
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Exactly. Exactly. Because I think we kind of nearly get
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habituated in relationships to perceive the other. And often to
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perceive the other, is this person give me pleasant feeling tone?
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Or is this person giving me unpleasant feeling tone? Or
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is this person giving me neutral feeling tone? And then
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thinking that the tonality is in the other person. Because
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we have the impression that it's other person who gives
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it to me. And that's why I became very interested
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in mindfulness of feeling tone, because what is it? Mindfulness
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of feeling tone. Feeling tone, vedana, V-E-D-A-N-A, in the ancient
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Pali language, actually refer to the tonality upon contact through
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the senses. The simplest example is actually color, like wallpaper color.
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If we look around us, there is green, blue, red.
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And if we see green, ah, that gives us a
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certain tonality. If we see red, it gives us another tonality.
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If we see cream, it gives us another tonality. And
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so what is interesting is that colors, as far as
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I know, has not done anything to you. Green has
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not jumped at you. Red has not kind of given
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you a nice present. But why is it that we
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see green, red, or cream, or yellow, and suddenly it's like, ah,
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we feel something. So vedana tonality is when you have contact,
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then immediately you have this tonality. And what is very
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important is to see that the tonality is conditioned by
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the perceptions. And so this is kind of like what's
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called the five omnipresent mental factor. You have contact, tonality, perception, intention,
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and attention. And so today we could look mainly at
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the first three, which is contact, tonality, and perception, because
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that's really where bias will come in, how perception and
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tonality really, in a way, influence each other.
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Let me see if I can restate some of that. Vedana,
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often referred to in English as feeling tone. The concept,
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as I understand it, is that, you know, if you
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look at the mind, we're constantly knowing various objects, taking
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in sights, sounds, thoughts, physical sensations, etc., etc. And every
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time something arises in the mind, there are three ways
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to experience it. Is it pleasant? Is it unpleasant? Or
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is it neither, meaning is it neutral? And this can
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seem incredibly technical if you look at everything that's coming
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up in your mind because there's so much that comes
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up in the mind nanosecond to nanosecond. But it has
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profound ramifications for how we live because we act, if
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we're not mindful of the feeling tone of whatever we're experiencing,
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we just act it out. So we see green wallpaper.
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We don't like green. We yell at the painter or
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whoever painted the wall. So many ramifications come out of
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an unseen feeling tone. Is anything that I've just said accurate?
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You see, what is interesting is that the Buddha says
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in one text, there is 108 things vedanas so actually
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it's not and he said the first two are mental
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or physical and so we have to be careful to
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think that vedana is just about the mind of course
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it's about the mind But actually, it's also something we
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feel in the body. It's very strange that actually it
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affects kind of our whole body-mind complex. And sometimes it
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will be more mental. Sometimes it will be more physical, actually.
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And at the same time, it qualifies, influences the affective tool,
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which then, of course, is going to lead us to
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react in various ways. So you could say you see something,
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you hear something, and then it's pleasant or unpleasant, as
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you pointed out. But then that generally gives us a
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feeling sensation, which becomes an emotion, which then can become
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a disturbing emotion. And so often what we do is
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that we became aware too late of actually the Vedana,
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when things have already gone overwhelmingly. And then we might
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act out in a harmful way to ourself or to others.
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And so that's why, in a way, the idea with
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the mindfulness of feeling tone is to see it earlier.
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And nearly to say, kind of, how does it feel?
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Because often we'll go into the meaning of it. Oh,
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this is unpleasant. The person is unpleasant. But actually it's
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unpleasant because within us, myself and in meeting the other person,
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something has happened. Maybe they said something, maybe I did
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not do well. Often we assume, I think the first
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thing to be careful about is what I said before,
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that we assume that the pleasantness, the unpleasantness, the neutral
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is in the object. Like let's say, take mangoes. I
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like mangoes. And so I think mango by itself is pleasant.
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Then if somebody says to me, oh, I don't like mango,
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then I will tell them, but you're not at a
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good one. And then I might force them to try one.
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And then they say, okay, I'll try this one. And
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then they still say, I don't like it. Because the
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pleasantness is not in the mango, but it's in the
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person in a way liking it. So it's kind of like,
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and this can be, that's what is so interesting with
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the tonality, is that it's constructed, it's conditioned. It's not
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in the person or in the object, but it's how society, like,
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for example, if we take the French people, you refer,
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I said COVID-19, instead of COVID-19. And French people, they
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eat snails. Some of them eat snails. I don't. But
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then you think, oh, the snail is slimy, is unpleasant.
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So then the French people become unpleasant and slimy because
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they eat the snail. So in a way, we start
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to attribute things to other people. It's like when I
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used to live in England and they used to eat
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rhubarb every spring, rhubarb pie. And I think rhubarb pie
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is terrible. Rhubarb is awful. It's so sour. And then
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I used to think, but what's the matter with them?
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Rhubarb is unpleasant. They like it. There must be something
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unpleasant about them. Until I learned to like rhubarb. So
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the problem is not the thing kind of is pleasant
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or unpleasant according to conditions. But we then stick things
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in the thing itself or in the person, which is,
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I think, much more dangerous than in the thing. Saying,
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you know, the person is always like this, the person
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is always like that. Or how society decrees these people
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are pleasant people, are good people. These people are unpleasant people.
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They're bad people. But nobody is good and bad all
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the time. What are the conditions?
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Could the pernicious effects of being mindless of Vedana work
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in another way as well? If I experience an unpleasant
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feeling tone because of something you say or do or
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wear or whatever, and then I falsely assume that everything
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about you is negative, you know, impute some sort of
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essential unpleasantness to you. as opposed to seeing that it's
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happening in my mind based on the causes and conditions
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in my life. It could be like that, but couldn't
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it also just be something as simple as, I love
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my wife. I don't think she's essentially unpleasant in any way,
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but she might say something that rubs me the wrong way.
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It gives me an unpleasant feeling tone. And because I'm
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not seeing this unpleasant feeling tone arising in me, I
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then snap back at her and all of a sudden
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we're in a fight.
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Exactly. And this is a very good point because you
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see what is also interesting in the text is that
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the Buddha talks about what happens with change. Like it's
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very interesting to look at the changing nature of tonality
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and how we react to the changing nature of tonality.
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So would I first say there is underlying tendencies with
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tonality themselves? If it's pleasant, I want more. If it's unpleasant,
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I don't want it. If it's neutral, I'm confused. But then,
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as long as it's pleasant, it's pleasant. But once it stops,
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it can become unpleasant. As long as it's unpleasant, it's unpleasant.
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But when it stops, it can become pleasant. And with neutral,
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if you understand it, it can become pleasant. If you
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don't understand it, it can become unpleasant. So in a
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case with your wife, what is interesting is that at
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one level, there is this pleasant feeling told most of
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the time from her. So generally you feel comfortable because,
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oh yes, this is pleasant. But then she says something
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unpleasant and he's like, wait a minute. But you see,
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you might not see it straight away. So I'll just
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give an example why after that there is a strong reaction.
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Like I did something really pleasant and then I made
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a mistake, I misunderstood something and then it turned to unpleasant.
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But because there was an echo of the pleasant, then
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I did not see the unpleasant. And then I went
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upstairs in my flat and then an hour later, I
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was saying something unpleasant to my husband when not done anything.
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And I thought, wait a minute, what's going on? He's
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not done anything, but I am saying something unpleasant to him.
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And I realized it's just going upstairs because the pleasant stopped.
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It was replaced by the unpleasant. And then generally we
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spread it. So that's another thing that we do. We
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don't see it soon enough. And then because we feel unpleasant,
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then we have to share it to others. That's something
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we really easily do. But with the case with your wife,
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it was just a plain reaction. She says something unpleasant.
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I reply with something unpleasant. But what then is interesting,
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if we become of mindfulness, of tonality, your wife says
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something and then you can stop and just observe. Oh,
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This is unpleasant. And then the question is, how long
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is this going to last? And to me, this is
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something I do a lot in meditation and daily life. Oh,
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I feel a different feeling tone. Okay. The tonality has changed.
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And then how long is this new tonality going to last?
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And then you have three levels. If you don't do
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anything with it, it actually passes. Once, some time ago,
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I was with my husband in a car, and we
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had difficulty kind of driving out of the parking lot,
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so we were a little tense, and then he said
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something unpleasant. And of course, my first reaction would be
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to say something unpleasant too. But then I thought, no,
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I feel a little unpleasant in the body, in the heart.
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How long is this going to last? So I just
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did not say anything back. And I just, we were thriving,
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we continued. And actually the tonality itself lasted only two
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red lights. And then it was really gone because I
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had not done anything with it. I had not said,
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this is me, this is mine. And I have to
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kind of like, in a way, react immediately because that's
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what the Buddha says. The underlying tendency to unpleasant is
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to push away or to attack. So in a way,
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we feel unpleasant. Either we go into this is terrible
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this is terrible this is awful poor me poor me
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or we go into i am going to attack you
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because you attacked me you hurt me i'm going to
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hurt you back and in a way this is a
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beauty one could say of uh kind of when we protest,
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but in a peaceful way, peaceful kind of demonstration. It's
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like there is a lot of very difficult tonality. And
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then like Gandhi saying, I will be not causing harm.
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I will demonstrate. I will kind of stand firm for something.
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But I will not give back that anger. I will
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not give back that hatred. I will act. more out
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of sense, of fairness, of justice. So that's what is
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interesting with unpleasant feeling tone. What do you do? I mean,
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once I heard I was at a peace conference and
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lots of great people talking about peace. Everybody was falling asleep.
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And then you have this fellow who comes on, a
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little guy, and he said, I am angry. He was
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one of my hero. I am angry. And he was
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L'Abbé Pierre, and he was the first person long ago
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in the 1960s, or the first person who really did
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something about homelessness in France, and even become a member
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of parliament to do something about it. And so he
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had unpleasant feeling tone, because tonality is human. It's a function.
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It's a survival mechanism. It's an evolution mechanism to feel
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upon contact. So it was unpleasant for him that people
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suffered and went homeless. So he was angry at it
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because it was unfair and it was harmful. And he
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went to do something about it. So, you know, he
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acted upon the unpleasant feeling tone, but in a creative way,
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in an insightful way. So the point is not that
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there is no tonality. But the point is, do we
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creatively engage with the tonality or are we overwhelmed by
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the tonality?
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So let's talk about how we can start to practice
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this in our own lives. I would imagine, you'll correct
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me if I'm wrong here, that the beginning of this
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process is to get really intimately familiar with these feeling
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tones as they arise in meditations. So we use that
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as our gym so that we can then apply it
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out in the real world.
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Yes, indeed. Because, I mean, it took me a long
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time to understand, to really actually see the feeling taught.
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Because I became aware of mindfulness. I practiced it. And
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then somebody gave a talk about it. And I thought, yeah,
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feeling taught. And my first experience really was with cherries.
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Because I love cherries and the person talk about tonality,
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pleasant tonality. So I said, okay, I'm going to eat
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these cherries because I love cherries and then see what happens.
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So I eat the cherry. And then if you continue
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to chew, to chew, that change, the tonality change. So
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I think what we have to be aware is that
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it's easier in a way to see tonality in daily
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life because there will be more distinctions. Well, if you
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sit in meditation, and that's why I could not find
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tonality for so many years, because what I was finding,
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I was like looking for it, and it was neutral.
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A lot of the time when we sit in meditation,
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the tonality will be fairly in the neutral range, we
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could say. Not much is happening. You just sit there.
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But then what you can do is it's in three
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different ways. If you pay attention to the breath and
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you pay attention to the air coming in the nostril,
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coming out of the nostril, what you can see there
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is just kind of like a little bit of change
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in air, a little cooler, a little warmer, and it's
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fairly neutral, the breath. But if you look at sensation,
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you have two ways of looking at sensation. You have
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sensation in terms of contact, so you can feel the breath,
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the clothes on the body, you can feel the hand
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on the legs, you can feel the buttock on the cushion.
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And again, that's fairly neutral. Or you can go into sensations.
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And then you might have a sensation in the knee,
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or you might have a sensation in the shoulders. And
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then there you start to see more, in a way, definition,
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you could say. The sensation could be a little relaxed
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and pleasant, or the sensation could be a little tight
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and unpleasant. Then the place you can really see the
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mindfulness of Vedana, I would say, is with the sound.
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So again, if you sit in a silent place, then again,
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it will be fairly neutral. But if you listen to sound,
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what I call listening to the music of life, then there,
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it can become really interesting in terms of You hear
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a sound and generally immediately, I like this. Like if
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you hear a little bird, and it's very pleasant. But
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then what is interesting with that sound, so you hear
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the sound of the bird, then it stops. Does the
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tonality continues? Is there an echo? Or as soon as
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the sound stops, does the tonality go? That's something we
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can really look into. Another thing is if you're sitting
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there and then you hear kind of like a mechanical sound,
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a loud mechanical sound, then generally it can feel unpleasant.
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And then if it continues, what happens to the tonality?
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Are you getting more and more upset about it? Or
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does it become a little neutralized? Or then you can
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play with perception. So you're kind of sitting in meditation,
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then you hear a mechanical noise, and then you realize, oh,
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they're repairing the pipe which burst. And then actually, although
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the sound could be a little unpleasant, it could become
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pleasant due to the change in perception. Oh, they're repairing
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the road. Great. The water is going to work better.
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So in a way, what is interesting is if there
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is not much happening, then you'll be more in the neutral.
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But personally, I think the neutral can be also interesting
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in terms of what is our relationship to neither. When
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nothing is going on, a lot of the time we'll
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think of it as boring. This is boring. I am boring.
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My life is boring. This is terrible. So actually, it's interesting.
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Nothing is going on. But we could have a strong
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reaction to nothing going on. Or you can have a
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different perception. Oh, nothing is going on. Ah, at least
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nothing bad is going on. Or this is restful. There
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was this lady. She had dreamt of going to live
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in England. She arrived in London. And she had such
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expectation that she thought London actually was really drab and
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gray and dirty. And she actually, it gave her an
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unpleasant feeling tone because beforehand she had a very pleasant
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feeling tone in terms of perception, going to London and
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everything you get there. Often that's what happened on holiday.
394
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The dreaming of it is so much more pleasant than
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the being there. And then, so she was kind of thinking,
396
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I'm in London, it's not that great. And then she
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had a toothache. And then she thought, oh, before I
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did not have a toothache and actually it was okay.
399
00:28:20.289 --> 00:28:24.089
It was much better neutral and being in London and
400
00:28:24.170 --> 00:28:27.789
it's not much happening than having a toothache. And then
401
00:28:27.809 --> 00:28:31.910
she could see the difference between the unpleasantness of having
402
00:28:31.950 --> 00:28:36.309
a toothache and a little bit the unpleasantness because of
403
00:28:36.349 --> 00:28:39.980
the comparison. of just being in a kind of a
404
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gray London.
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Much more of my conversation with Martine Batchelor right after this.
406
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I want to go back to perception, because I think
407
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that ties back to something you said at the beginning
408
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of our chat, which is very technical from a meditation standpoint,
409
00:29:01.069 --> 00:29:03.839
but I just want to assure listeners, this can be technical,
410
00:29:04.119 --> 00:29:09.670
but it scales up to very practical things. So we're
411
00:29:09.710 --> 00:29:12.950
talking about technical meditation techniques that then scale up to
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00:29:13.569 --> 00:29:16.710
ways that really have an impact on your mind as
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00:29:16.750 --> 00:29:19.500
you go through life and on your relationships, which, of course,
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then continue to have knock on impacts on your mind.
415
00:29:24.279 --> 00:29:29.420
So you talked about Vedana, the feeling tone of things
416
00:29:29.460 --> 00:29:32.210
that come up while we're meditating. And then you talked
417
00:29:32.230 --> 00:29:35.730
about perception. And I think it all starts with something
418
00:29:35.789 --> 00:29:38.779
called contact. So I think you talked about this chain
419
00:29:38.819 --> 00:29:42.599
before of contact. vedana, perception. Do I have that right?
420
00:29:43.160 --> 00:29:46.440
Yeah, actually, but what you have to be careful, as
421
00:29:46.500 --> 00:29:50.440
I talk about it, it seems to be linear. First contact,
422
00:29:50.839 --> 00:29:55.890
then tonality, then perception. Actually not. It all happen at once.
423
00:29:56.819 --> 00:30:00.039
So at the same time we have contact, we experience
424
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tonality and we experience perception. So in a way, you
425
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can be mindful of there was a contact because sometimes
426
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we don't know why we feel what we feel. And
427
00:30:12.039 --> 00:30:16.359
then you realize, oh, I heard somebody say that. You know,
428
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and I think this is what a lot of this
429
00:30:19.019 --> 00:30:24.809
is happening with microaggression. People don't get it. Like, You know,
430
00:30:25.049 --> 00:30:27.869
a lot of black people, people of color in America
431
00:30:28.210 --> 00:30:32.069
keep saying, but microaggression. And people say, white people say,
432
00:30:32.109 --> 00:30:36.789
but I don't see the point. It's so minor. But actually,
433
00:30:37.109 --> 00:30:42.009
every time, every day, six times a day, six times
434
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a year, you get this which nobody else gets. The
435
00:30:45.630 --> 00:30:49.990
white people don't get people making remarks. And each time
436
00:30:50.059 --> 00:30:53.319
you feel, oh. So at one level, it's not much.
437
00:30:54.470 --> 00:30:58.099
but it gives you this contact. So, and it could
438
00:30:58.190 --> 00:31:02.359
ruin your life. Like even with autistic people, when something,
439
00:31:02.480 --> 00:31:06.859
one little thing is difficult, suddenly, ah, it's kind of
440
00:31:06.880 --> 00:31:11.359
the contact gives the tonality and that, ah, it kind of,
441
00:31:11.700 --> 00:31:14.930
and so if you get lots of these, then of course,
442
00:31:15.630 --> 00:31:19.170
one is not much, but again and again, you have
443
00:31:19.210 --> 00:31:24.170
that contact and it just kind of reinforce the unpleasantness.
444
00:31:24.789 --> 00:31:26.869
So I think first we have to see, oh, I
445
00:31:26.930 --> 00:31:30.190
don't feel this because I am like that. I feel
446
00:31:30.230 --> 00:31:33.609
this because again and again I get this contact. I
447
00:31:33.650 --> 00:31:36.049
think it's very important. I'm not feeling this out of
448
00:31:36.089 --> 00:31:40.079
the blue because I see something that is not there. No, no, no.
449
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You see something you are in contact with, however tiny.
450
00:31:44.799 --> 00:31:47.319
I think that's one thing to really be aware of. Contact.
451
00:31:47.440 --> 00:31:51.859
Something happened. I heard something. I saw something. However small
452
00:31:51.920 --> 00:31:54.859
it was. And if it's big, then it's more obvious,
453
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of course. Then at the same time, it gives you
454
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a tonality. And again, if it's a small tonality, it
455
00:32:02.779 --> 00:32:06.559
might not be so obvious. If it's a bigger tonality,
456
00:32:06.680 --> 00:32:10.519
it will become more obvious. But we have an asymmetry
457
00:32:11.319 --> 00:32:15.740
in the sense that it's nearly take us plus five pleasant.
458
00:32:15.859 --> 00:32:18.539
Like if you have a kind of a scale of
459
00:32:18.579 --> 00:32:22.730
zero to 10 pleasant, For pleasant, it takes us five,
460
00:32:22.809 --> 00:32:27.750
plus five to say, oh yes, this is nice. And
461
00:32:27.789 --> 00:32:33.410
then unpleasant, it takes you minus one, minus 0.5 for you, ah,
462
00:32:34.049 --> 00:32:38.960
I don't want it. So actually, being mindful of tonality
463
00:32:39.039 --> 00:32:43.480
help us to increase the pleasant tonality, to be aware
464
00:32:43.539 --> 00:32:47.289
of zero to five, not just plus five. And then
465
00:32:47.390 --> 00:32:51.049
in term of unpleasant, again, it gives a greater range.
466
00:32:51.150 --> 00:32:55.740
Minus one is not minus five, is not minus 10.
467
00:32:55.740 --> 00:32:59.680
But if you get a lot of minus one, then
468
00:32:59.759 --> 00:33:06.200
they can agglomerate. And then they become minus five, minus 10.
469
00:33:06.200 --> 00:33:10.579
So in a way, the tonality, we can see the range.
470
00:33:10.660 --> 00:33:13.660
That's what is interesting with tonality, the range of it.
471
00:33:14.740 --> 00:33:19.309
And then perceptions. it's kind of like shifted so much.
472
00:33:20.470 --> 00:33:23.170
Kind of, you know, if we see somebody and we
473
00:33:23.190 --> 00:33:25.910
accuse them of something and they said, I did not
474
00:33:25.950 --> 00:33:30.599
do it. Oh, okay. You did not do it. But
475
00:33:30.740 --> 00:33:33.900
if we take an over, that's what is interesting. If
476
00:33:33.940 --> 00:33:38.640
we take an over by they did this unpleasant thing,
477
00:33:38.799 --> 00:33:41.000
they tell us they did not do it, but we
478
00:33:41.069 --> 00:33:45.009
take an over by the unpleasant and we still think,
479
00:33:46.380 --> 00:33:50.900
they're unpleasant and they did it. That's what is very problematic.
480
00:33:50.920 --> 00:33:56.119
Can we just say, oh, it's not there. And it goes.
481
00:33:57.180 --> 00:34:01.809
But often it's really kind of, it amplifies. Negative tonality
482
00:34:01.900 --> 00:34:06.970
really amplifies, especially with perception because of our association. We
483
00:34:07.009 --> 00:34:10.369
associate it with pain of the past and pain of
484
00:34:10.409 --> 00:34:13.530
the future. Because that's also something in the text. The
485
00:34:13.550 --> 00:34:18.190
Buddha talk about tonality from the past, tonality from the present,
486
00:34:18.230 --> 00:34:19.769
tonality from the future.
487
00:34:24.750 --> 00:34:27.150
That was all incredibly interesting. And just so that I
488
00:34:27.170 --> 00:34:32.210
make sure that I understand the terms correctly, contact in
489
00:34:32.250 --> 00:34:36.360
a technical meditative sense means just simply something has happened,
490
00:34:36.409 --> 00:34:40.340
something has arisen in the mind. Vedana or tonality is
491
00:34:41.150 --> 00:34:44.789
The feeling tone is it's either pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral.
492
00:34:45.090 --> 00:34:49.289
And the perception is just the mind's capacity to know
493
00:34:49.349 --> 00:34:53.269
what it is. You're flipping through the, I've heard it described,
494
00:34:53.510 --> 00:34:56.139
perception is like the mind is flipping through its past
495
00:34:56.179 --> 00:34:58.639
experiences to figure out, oh yeah, that's a fire engine.
496
00:34:59.619 --> 00:35:01.780
That's the sound of a bird. So it is simply
497
00:35:01.820 --> 00:35:04.519
just knowing what something is. And we can be mindful
498
00:35:04.679 --> 00:35:09.090
of each of these as they happen. in meditation, which
499
00:35:09.130 --> 00:35:11.110
then of course has consequences for how we act in
500
00:35:11.130 --> 00:35:12.670
the world. Is all of that correct?
501
00:35:13.070 --> 00:35:15.250
Up to a point, up to a point. Personally, I
502
00:35:15.289 --> 00:35:19.760
think due to possibly to your training, you seem to
503
00:35:19.820 --> 00:35:23.059
put a lot of emphasis on the mind, which is
504
00:35:23.139 --> 00:35:27.639
fair enough. But personally, I would say contact is not
505
00:35:27.699 --> 00:35:33.630
just about the mind. Contact is really about the whole organism.
506
00:35:34.289 --> 00:35:40.039
So the body-mind complex is being in contact, what we see,
507
00:35:40.159 --> 00:35:43.590
what we hear, what we feel in the body, all
508
00:35:43.630 --> 00:35:45.949
of that. I think it's very important to see that
509
00:35:46.090 --> 00:35:50.429
actually it's quite body. The contact for me is very bodily,
510
00:35:50.809 --> 00:35:53.170
but of course it includes the mind and the thought
511
00:35:53.230 --> 00:35:56.929
that arise in the mind. So personally for me, contact
512
00:35:57.030 --> 00:36:01.639
is actually this organism in the world and how it
513
00:36:01.739 --> 00:36:07.699
is impacted by the world. then the tonality, exactly what
514
00:36:07.739 --> 00:36:11.250
you said, perception, I would say, is a little more
515
00:36:11.329 --> 00:36:17.449
complicated than that. Because perception is what you describe is
516
00:36:17.489 --> 00:36:23.420
like basic, mini-making, mini-making machine. Things make sense to me.
517
00:36:23.719 --> 00:36:29.599
So that's just consciousness. But perception actually can be biased.
518
00:36:30.360 --> 00:36:34.480
To me, perception is bias is how you perceive So
519
00:36:34.519 --> 00:36:37.800
in a way, it's not just conscious. Perception is like
520
00:36:37.960 --> 00:36:41.159
how you make sense of it, but how you make
521
00:36:41.219 --> 00:36:44.760
sense of it is going to be impacted in a
522
00:36:44.800 --> 00:36:52.179
way by your culture, socialization, education, things in your life,
523
00:36:52.199 --> 00:36:55.280
things that happen to you. So it's not just about
524
00:36:55.320 --> 00:36:58.550
kind of, in a way, being conscious of something, but
525
00:36:58.869 --> 00:37:04.610
it's kind of like the consciousness will be conditioned by
526
00:37:05.570 --> 00:37:11.550
previous causes and big causes and small causes. So, but yes,
527
00:37:11.610 --> 00:37:15.280
that's kind of the description, but a little wider, I
528
00:37:15.320 --> 00:37:15.800
would say.
529
00:37:17.739 --> 00:37:21.940
Yeah, I'm the student lurching his way toward an understanding here.
530
00:37:21.980 --> 00:37:24.550
So I invite you to correct me at every turn.
531
00:37:25.030 --> 00:37:27.989
You referenced race. We are now in this sort of
532
00:37:28.070 --> 00:37:33.090
international racial reckoning, particularly dramatic here in the United States.
533
00:37:33.880 --> 00:37:35.900
I think most of the listeners of the show are,
534
00:37:36.019 --> 00:37:38.019
we have an international audience, but I think the big
535
00:37:38.079 --> 00:37:41.500
bulk are here in the States. How can we use
536
00:37:42.780 --> 00:37:50.800
this practice to better navigate this very sensitive and important moment?
537
00:37:52.460 --> 00:37:56.849
I think it's in a way to just see. I mean,
538
00:37:56.869 --> 00:38:01.570
the tonality work at many different level. I think it's
539
00:38:01.769 --> 00:38:05.880
so important. I think that's what everybody says, and I
540
00:38:05.909 --> 00:38:09.199
don't know if it's possible, but can we get to
541
00:38:09.340 --> 00:38:14.159
know each other so that in a way all the
542
00:38:14.199 --> 00:38:19.469
different races or different cultures really meet each other? But unfortunately,
543
00:38:19.550 --> 00:38:22.969
due to the way society is constructed in many different ways,
544
00:38:23.010 --> 00:38:25.170
that it be in France, that it be in America,
545
00:38:25.610 --> 00:38:29.429
that often people don't meet each other, are not in
546
00:38:29.469 --> 00:38:32.360
the same area, are not in the same culture. And
547
00:38:32.420 --> 00:38:34.880
also there is a little bit of, I mean, little bit,
548
00:38:34.940 --> 00:38:38.179
lots of discrimination in terms of school and in terms
549
00:38:38.219 --> 00:38:42.539
of this. They did a very interesting experiment in one town.
550
00:38:42.800 --> 00:38:46.489
I can't remember the state now, but where they brought
551
00:38:46.679 --> 00:38:52.429
kind of black people with white people, with people from
552
00:38:52.909 --> 00:38:55.630
Latin America and things like that who lived in America,
553
00:38:56.289 --> 00:38:59.949
were all born in the United States. And then they
554
00:38:59.989 --> 00:39:03.130
got them to talk to each other. And what was
555
00:39:03.190 --> 00:39:07.159
very interesting for them was to see at what level
556
00:39:07.340 --> 00:39:11.739
are they equal in being human and at what level
557
00:39:11.920 --> 00:39:17.059
are they treated differently. Because you had one lady, when
558
00:39:17.099 --> 00:39:21.030
she was young, she used to deal drugs. She was
559
00:39:21.050 --> 00:39:25.889
arrested in time and never went to jail, never went
560
00:39:25.909 --> 00:39:29.969
to court because she was white and she was from Africa.
561
00:39:30.340 --> 00:39:35.039
affluent part. Another person in the group when he was
562
00:39:35.079 --> 00:39:39.280
young also was dealing with some drugs, but he was black,
563
00:39:39.719 --> 00:39:43.269
was arrested and went to jail for a year. And
564
00:39:43.309 --> 00:39:45.969
when they talked about their experience, they were like, oh,
565
00:39:46.510 --> 00:39:49.710
we did exactly the same thing. I might even have
566
00:39:49.750 --> 00:39:52.929
done it more than you, but you went to jail.
567
00:39:53.530 --> 00:39:57.269
I did not. And then for the first time, she realized, oh,
568
00:39:57.510 --> 00:40:04.969
I am white privilege in a way. But her first
569
00:40:05.090 --> 00:40:08.389
assumption would be, oh, we would not be treated differently
570
00:40:09.329 --> 00:40:13.150
because we are all human. All humans are normally treated
571
00:40:13.210 --> 00:40:16.639
the same. But when we think we are the norm,
572
00:40:17.280 --> 00:40:19.780
If white people think they are the norm, then they think, oh,
573
00:40:19.840 --> 00:40:24.710
everybody is treated the same. But it's obvious that people
574
00:40:24.789 --> 00:40:28.530
are not treated the same. So then the question becomes,
575
00:40:29.570 --> 00:40:33.829
why do we treat people differently? So we can treat
576
00:40:33.869 --> 00:40:38.010
people differently in terms of class. We can treat people
577
00:40:38.090 --> 00:40:41.949
differently in terms of culture. We can treat people differently
578
00:40:42.070 --> 00:40:45.179
in terms of race. I mean, and then you kind
579
00:40:45.219 --> 00:40:51.840
of wonder why. Why? So is it because of self-interest?
580
00:40:53.340 --> 00:40:58.489
You know, that's something for myself. I am a white person.
581
00:40:59.170 --> 00:41:02.949
But the one thing which happened to me and to
582
00:41:02.989 --> 00:41:05.429
my husband at the beginning was that we were totally
583
00:41:05.489 --> 00:41:10.210
unknown in the meditation world. So when we were totally
584
00:41:10.269 --> 00:41:13.510
unknown in the meditation world, nobody would talk to us
585
00:41:14.090 --> 00:41:18.380
when we were at meetings. And then as we slowly
586
00:41:18.460 --> 00:41:22.000
rose up for whatever reason in the rank, then now
587
00:41:22.079 --> 00:41:24.760
everybody wants to talk to us. And to me, this
588
00:41:24.840 --> 00:41:29.159
is something which I found weird. Why do we treat
589
00:41:29.219 --> 00:41:36.179
people differently? Because of hierarchical level, because of class. This
590
00:41:36.260 --> 00:41:41.900
is something my father always taught us. Treat everybody equally.
591
00:41:43.179 --> 00:41:47.440
And there is an interesting point. in Buddhism, which is equanimity.
592
00:41:48.440 --> 00:41:54.570
And often equanimity is seen as being equanimous, as being serene,
593
00:41:54.780 --> 00:41:58.050
as being calm. But actually one of the idea of
594
00:41:58.119 --> 00:42:04.889
equanimity is actually treating people equally. And I think this
595
00:42:04.969 --> 00:42:09.489
is a great challenge to treat people equally because we're
596
00:42:09.550 --> 00:42:13.269
not going to treat equally if people give us a
597
00:42:13.329 --> 00:42:17.369
different feeling to it. I mean, your wife, if she
598
00:42:17.409 --> 00:42:21.750
doesn't say something unpleasant, she gives you a pleasant feeling too.
599
00:42:22.530 --> 00:42:28.710
But a stranger, you might think, hmm, neutral. Some person
600
00:42:28.750 --> 00:42:34.110
you see on TV, you don't approve of, oh, immediately unpleasant.
601
00:42:35.250 --> 00:42:38.309
So in a way, often we don't treat people equally
602
00:42:39.010 --> 00:42:42.909
because of the tonality they give us or because of
603
00:42:42.969 --> 00:42:51.059
the tonality society decided that they have. So, I mean,
604
00:42:51.099 --> 00:42:54.639
it's something to do that personally because somebody hurt me,
605
00:42:55.539 --> 00:42:59.139
then I'm going to kind of treat them differently. Fair enough.
606
00:43:00.610 --> 00:43:03.309
I mean, if somebody attacks you and it's, of course,
607
00:43:03.389 --> 00:43:05.769
of course, you have to kind of, you know, not
608
00:43:05.909 --> 00:43:10.750
go back there, of course. But it's interesting society deciding
609
00:43:10.789 --> 00:43:15.309
a group of people must be treated differently. because they
610
00:43:15.349 --> 00:43:20.070
like this, because they like that. That is interesting. In France,
611
00:43:21.159 --> 00:43:27.440
long ago, and it only stopped at the revolution, 1780,
612
00:43:27.440 --> 00:43:31.579
from the 1100 to 1780, you had a group of
613
00:43:31.659 --> 00:43:36.739
people who were untouchable in France. And to me, I
614
00:43:36.800 --> 00:43:41.820
only discovered this recently. So for 800 years, these people
615
00:43:41.880 --> 00:43:46.690
were discriminated against. They could not live in the town.
616
00:43:46.730 --> 00:43:49.449
They could not marry. They could not have family, et cetera,
617
00:43:49.469 --> 00:43:52.949
et cetera. They were really untouchable. And nobody know why,
618
00:43:53.010 --> 00:43:57.460
because it's so long ago, 1100. Maybe the, I don't know,
619
00:43:57.500 --> 00:44:02.559
the plague or whatever. And it's only a group of
620
00:44:02.619 --> 00:44:07.840
people decided, for whatever reason, these people, we're going to
621
00:44:07.960 --> 00:44:11.630
treat them differently. And as soon as you treat a
622
00:44:11.690 --> 00:44:16.489
group of people differently, You do it on the function
623
00:44:16.630 --> 00:44:22.670
of tonality. It's tonality which these people are unpleasant. The
624
00:44:22.750 --> 00:44:26.710
whole group is unpleasant no matter what they do. Same
625
00:44:26.750 --> 00:44:30.690
with the untouchable in India. They're all impure. No matter
626
00:44:30.750 --> 00:44:34.070
what they do, they're all impure. So you're born and
627
00:44:34.090 --> 00:44:36.989
you're already impure and you already give an unpleasant feeling
628
00:44:37.050 --> 00:44:42.769
to the pure one. This is so strange. But society...
629
00:44:42.449 --> 00:44:49.590
create tonality within the population. And then, of course, Twitter, Facebook,
630
00:44:49.679 --> 00:44:53.760
all these places are going to reinforce the tonality, which
631
00:44:53.800 --> 00:44:57.019
I think is extremely dangerous because that's the way they work,
632
00:44:57.679 --> 00:44:59.360
reinforcing tonality.
633
00:45:02.659 --> 00:45:06.420
Say more about that. How does social media reinforce tonality?
634
00:45:06.659 --> 00:45:12.610
Well, because it's all about tonality. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok,
635
00:45:12.690 --> 00:45:16.800
whatever you are. I mean, they so understand tonality without
636
00:45:16.889 --> 00:45:20.880
doing it. It's so interesting. I mean, the advertisement industry
637
00:45:20.920 --> 00:45:26.639
also totally understand tonality. So, I mean, Facebook, it's all
638
00:45:26.679 --> 00:45:30.929
about you like, you dislike. Instagram, you like, you dislike.
639
00:45:31.550 --> 00:45:34.849
I mean, it's just like, you know, what image gives
640
00:45:34.889 --> 00:45:38.329
you pleasant feeling tone, what image gives you unpleasant feeling tone.
641
00:45:39.809 --> 00:45:42.989
So that's why lots of people get a lot out
642
00:45:43.050 --> 00:45:47.030
of watching cat video. They come back home, they have
643
00:45:47.050 --> 00:45:50.630
an unpleasant feeling tone, you see a few lovely cats,
644
00:45:52.360 --> 00:45:55.460
and you feel a pleasant feeling tone. So at that level,
645
00:45:55.519 --> 00:45:59.219
I think it's very good for people. But at the
646
00:45:59.300 --> 00:46:03.260
same time, if you want to reinforce unpleasant feeling tone,
647
00:46:03.619 --> 00:46:06.000
you say lots of nasty things about somebody who has
648
00:46:06.039 --> 00:46:09.480
not done anything. I mean, you have so many kind of,
649
00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:12.099
I don't know how you call it, the false facts.
650
00:46:13.139 --> 00:46:15.429
So that, you know, if you say enough bad thing
651
00:46:15.469 --> 00:46:19.150
about somebody, even if they don't do it, that it
652
00:46:19.190 --> 00:46:23.250
reinforces the unpleasant tonality in terms of the story. Because
653
00:46:23.309 --> 00:46:26.260
in order for you to make yourself feel better, you
654
00:46:26.300 --> 00:46:30.820
need to have somebody who is unpleasant. I mean, if
655
00:46:30.840 --> 00:46:34.929
you are in any group, generally you have somebody who,
656
00:46:35.550 --> 00:46:39.750
where you're going to direct the unpleasantness to. I lived
657
00:46:39.769 --> 00:46:44.010
a long time in community. And this is something I observed,
658
00:46:45.010 --> 00:46:48.829
that time to time, one would have problem with one person.
659
00:46:49.349 --> 00:46:52.670
And then one would be like a radar, looking for
660
00:46:53.170 --> 00:46:56.070
all the bad thing they did. Not seeing the good
661
00:46:56.110 --> 00:46:58.179
thing they did, but just the bad thing they did.
662
00:46:58.239 --> 00:47:00.619
So you look all the time for the bad thing
663
00:47:00.659 --> 00:47:03.190
they did. But when you had that problem with that
664
00:47:03.269 --> 00:47:07.610
person looking for all the bad things they did, you
665
00:47:07.630 --> 00:47:12.079
had no problem with anybody else because all your unpleasant
666
00:47:12.139 --> 00:47:16.739
tonality was fixated that way. And then when that went,
667
00:47:18.039 --> 00:47:22.679
because everything is impermanent, hopefully, then suddenly you had little
668
00:47:22.719 --> 00:47:26.469
things unpleasant with other people. And it was not just
669
00:47:26.530 --> 00:47:30.230
targeted to one person. And as a society, you can
670
00:47:30.289 --> 00:47:32.949
target it to a group And so you have lots
671
00:47:32.969 --> 00:47:37.849
of pleasant feeling tone heightened because everybody is saying, aren't
672
00:47:37.909 --> 00:47:40.690
we great? Aren't we great? They're so terrible over there.
673
00:47:40.809 --> 00:47:44.889
Aren't we great? Aren't we great? And I think, unfortunately,
674
00:47:45.510 --> 00:47:48.760
Facebook and Twitter, they're really using that. People are really
675
00:47:49.679 --> 00:47:53.099
using it to, in a way, give unpleasant feeling tone
676
00:47:53.139 --> 00:47:56.699
about certain people and then pleasant feeling tone in terms
677
00:47:56.739 --> 00:47:59.739
of group strategy, in a way.
678
00:48:03.460 --> 00:48:06.070
Let me go back to the practical application here. So
679
00:48:06.489 --> 00:48:11.130
we've talked about how one can explore and see and
680
00:48:12.309 --> 00:48:16.429
become more familiar with how feeling tones operate in the
681
00:48:16.489 --> 00:48:20.210
mind at a very micro level in meditation. And then
682
00:48:20.230 --> 00:48:22.630
we've talked a lot about sort of scaling that up
683
00:48:22.730 --> 00:48:26.840
to our day-to-day life. Can you say more about exactly
684
00:48:27.019 --> 00:48:32.239
how in our mind we can catch feelings the feeling
685
00:48:32.300 --> 00:48:34.489
tones before we act on them blindly?
686
00:48:35.710 --> 00:48:38.710
Actually, I would say not so much in the mind,
687
00:48:39.429 --> 00:48:40.909
but actually in the body.
688
00:48:41.630 --> 00:48:43.730
For me, I think what I mean when I say
689
00:48:43.750 --> 00:48:46.750
the mind is all of it. In other words, that
690
00:48:47.170 --> 00:48:50.230
I don't think I mean just like thinking. I mean,
691
00:48:50.750 --> 00:48:52.409
when I say the mind, I think I mean the
692
00:48:52.449 --> 00:48:54.730
mind and body, but you can maybe tell me that
693
00:48:54.769 --> 00:48:55.630
I'm fooling myself.
694
00:48:56.239 --> 00:48:58.880
So what I mean in terms of practice, like let's
695
00:48:58.960 --> 00:49:02.360
talk about practice and then how we scale it in
696
00:49:02.420 --> 00:49:07.619
daily life. So in terms of practice, you sit in
697
00:49:07.679 --> 00:49:12.039
meditation and you do the same thing you do, but
698
00:49:12.079 --> 00:49:15.260
you try to become aware of, can I become aware
699
00:49:15.360 --> 00:49:19.550
of the tonality of this contact, contact with the breath,
700
00:49:20.119 --> 00:49:25.539
contact with the sensation, contact with the sound. And then
701
00:49:25.780 --> 00:49:29.210
you go out in daily life. So first you have
702
00:49:29.250 --> 00:49:34.469
to be aware of that quality of our experience. Oh yeah,
703
00:49:35.030 --> 00:49:37.769
there is a little difference. There is a little difference.
704
00:49:37.889 --> 00:49:42.590
What is interesting is, to notice a difference in tonality,
705
00:49:42.630 --> 00:49:46.710
you could say, difference in mood. Then you go in
706
00:49:46.750 --> 00:49:50.610
daily life. And in daily life, suddenly you feel, ah,
707
00:49:51.429 --> 00:49:55.610
it's like you have a little unpleasant tonality. I think
708
00:49:55.650 --> 00:50:00.719
you notice the unpleasant more than the pleasant. But personally,
709
00:50:00.739 --> 00:50:03.380
I think it's a good practice to also be aware
710
00:50:03.440 --> 00:50:06.760
of the pleasant. But let's look at the unpleasant. So
711
00:50:07.429 --> 00:50:10.489
You're out about your day and you feel relatively fine.
712
00:50:11.489 --> 00:50:16.480
And then you suddenly, within often the heart area or
713
00:50:16.519 --> 00:50:21.219
the belly area, you feel a little, hmm. And then generally,
714
00:50:21.840 --> 00:50:25.510
we are perception, meaning-making machine. Why do I feel this?
715
00:50:25.750 --> 00:50:28.730
Is it sadness? Is it anger? Is it this? Is
716
00:50:28.789 --> 00:50:32.789
it that? And so in a way, here, unless somebody
717
00:50:32.829 --> 00:50:35.869
is attacking you and then you have to really creatively
718
00:50:35.929 --> 00:50:40.900
engage fast, Noticing, oh, there is a little difference. I
719
00:50:41.079 --> 00:50:45.539
feel something. How does it feel? And then noticing what's
720
00:50:45.579 --> 00:50:50.599
the contact? Is it somebody, somebody said, is it something
721
00:50:50.760 --> 00:50:53.690
I saw? And so in a way to see the shift,
722
00:50:54.349 --> 00:50:56.769
that I think first to be aware is a shift.
723
00:50:57.829 --> 00:50:59.889
Or when you see somebody, I mean, if you want
724
00:50:59.989 --> 00:51:03.590
a good example in terms of being in the street,
725
00:51:04.489 --> 00:51:08.440
I mean, so interesting. You go in the street, And basically,
726
00:51:08.539 --> 00:51:11.420
if you are a person who look at people, you
727
00:51:11.480 --> 00:51:16.719
see people and immediately, oh, I like that one. I
728
00:51:16.780 --> 00:51:20.710
don't like that one. I like their dress. I don't
729
00:51:20.769 --> 00:51:24.389
like their dress. So just to be aware that actually
730
00:51:24.409 --> 00:51:29.619
I look at different people. And actually, because of the perception,
731
00:51:29.679 --> 00:51:32.519
I'm going to have different tonality, even though I don't
732
00:51:32.579 --> 00:51:35.699
know them. This is what is interesting in terms of
733
00:51:36.300 --> 00:51:41.300
the strangers. You don't know them, and you have that tonality.
734
00:51:42.300 --> 00:51:45.099
What is interesting at the moment is that possibly, I
735
00:51:45.179 --> 00:51:48.719
hope so, especially in America, is that because of all
736
00:51:48.739 --> 00:51:52.570
what's happening about Black Lives Matter, is that hopefully people
737
00:51:52.650 --> 00:51:59.070
are nicer to Black people, for example. And then to us,
738
00:52:00.630 --> 00:52:05.110
the perception is, oh, my intention is to be kind.
739
00:52:05.829 --> 00:52:09.329
And that would change the tonality. Instead of seeing somebody
740
00:52:09.730 --> 00:52:12.550
with a little, I don't know the person. And then
741
00:52:12.940 --> 00:52:15.800
I see the person and think, oh, is a neutral
742
00:52:16.019 --> 00:52:20.079
or unpleasant. Can actually see the person and I don't
743
00:52:20.139 --> 00:52:25.559
know them. So looking at, I see different race. I
744
00:52:25.619 --> 00:52:28.840
see different people. What's my tonality with all these people?
745
00:52:29.000 --> 00:52:33.010
You are in central station. So many different people. What's
746
00:52:33.070 --> 00:52:37.929
my tonality when I see them? Or when you hear somebody,
747
00:52:39.349 --> 00:52:43.190
what's the tonality? Just to the sound of what they say.
748
00:52:43.329 --> 00:52:46.449
You hear somebody. I mean, you have a beautiful voice.
749
00:52:46.489 --> 00:52:50.530
So people hear you. I like that. But if somebody
750
00:52:50.570 --> 00:52:55.369
had a different voice, people might say, I don't like
751
00:52:55.409 --> 00:52:57.809
the voice. And because I don't like the voice, I'm
752
00:52:57.829 --> 00:53:01.309
not going to listen to them. I mean, this is interesting.
753
00:53:02.289 --> 00:53:05.789
What happened? What is it? that make us in a
754
00:53:05.829 --> 00:53:10.050
way creatively engage or react, who makes us kind of
755
00:53:10.159 --> 00:53:14.219
appreciate or make us dismiss or make us push away.
756
00:53:15.019 --> 00:53:17.280
Of course, we have to be kind of aware of
757
00:53:17.360 --> 00:53:20.679
ourselves and kind of what is harmful, not harmful, but
758
00:53:20.719 --> 00:53:27.809
within that. Or an excellent place is, personally, I do
759
00:53:27.829 --> 00:53:31.409
a lot of meditation when I drive. You know, you drive,
760
00:53:31.909 --> 00:53:36.840
what's the tonality? Neutral, you think about something else. You're
761
00:53:36.860 --> 00:53:40.300
stuck in a traffic jam. What do you do? What
762
00:53:40.340 --> 00:53:43.150
do you do? What's the tonality when you are stuck
763
00:53:43.190 --> 00:53:45.730
in a traffic jam? Let's say you are with your
764
00:53:45.769 --> 00:53:48.849
wife and you are in a traffic jam. Do you
765
00:53:48.889 --> 00:53:53.010
keep pleasant feeling tone or because it's unpleasant, then suddenly
766
00:53:53.090 --> 00:53:56.829
you start to be unpleasant to the person next to you?
767
00:53:57.769 --> 00:54:01.610
What happens? How do I transmit it? The unpleasant or
768
00:54:01.659 --> 00:54:05.239
the pleasant? This is what is interesting, that we can
769
00:54:05.300 --> 00:54:09.679
also act on the pleasant and we can make it conscious.
770
00:54:10.860 --> 00:54:13.480
Do I want to continue this to be unpleasant or
771
00:54:13.559 --> 00:54:17.260
can I shift it in some way? Or when you
772
00:54:17.280 --> 00:54:22.230
look at all the shops, I mean, the shop window,
773
00:54:22.369 --> 00:54:24.250
I mean, you know, you see something and it's like
774
00:54:24.650 --> 00:54:28.329
the fin is calling out to you. I want this.
775
00:54:29.210 --> 00:54:32.829
I don't know, iPhone 73 and a half. Hmm. I
776
00:54:32.889 --> 00:54:36.070
want this. Or if you're in Times Square, I love
777
00:54:36.150 --> 00:54:39.550
Times Square. When I am in New York, you have
778
00:54:39.699 --> 00:54:43.260
all these big things and, you know, they kind of like,
779
00:54:44.239 --> 00:54:48.179
everything is done so that it creates a pleasant feeling.
780
00:54:48.260 --> 00:54:52.030
So you want it. And just to see that, I'm
781
00:54:52.130 --> 00:54:56.469
looking at this. What's my tonality in connection to that?
782
00:54:59.530 --> 00:55:04.150
So in this exploration that you described so well, because
783
00:55:04.170 --> 00:55:06.110
what I'm hearing you say is, you know, this is
784
00:55:06.150 --> 00:55:09.309
like an experiment you can run in your own mind
785
00:55:09.349 --> 00:55:12.170
and body. See what I did there all the time.
786
00:55:13.030 --> 00:55:17.300
And what I'm hearing from you in particular, as it
787
00:55:17.340 --> 00:55:22.360
relates to race is, and again, maybe I'm projecting here,
788
00:55:22.400 --> 00:55:24.599
but what I'm hearing is that we can approach it.
789
00:55:26.219 --> 00:55:29.769
It can be very embarrassing to, and humiliating to notice
790
00:55:29.809 --> 00:55:34.070
that maybe some people, for no reason other than our
791
00:55:34.130 --> 00:55:38.760
own conditioning, some people who look a certain way can
792
00:55:38.889 --> 00:55:42.719
provoke a negative feeling tone in us. And some of
793
00:55:42.760 --> 00:55:44.360
us don't want to look at that. But what I'm
794
00:55:44.400 --> 00:55:46.960
hearing from you is that if we approach this as
795
00:55:47.019 --> 00:55:50.559
an experiment with some curiosity and with a sense that
796
00:55:50.619 --> 00:55:55.659
these feeling tones are impersonal, the result of conditioning, that
797
00:55:56.239 --> 00:55:59.610
This can be a really healthy and helpful way to
798
00:55:59.670 --> 00:56:03.130
approach it so that we can interact creatively with these
799
00:56:03.190 --> 00:56:04.690
feeling tones as they arise.
800
00:56:05.210 --> 00:56:09.360
Exactly. I think because then you can really look at
801
00:56:09.389 --> 00:56:11.920
the perception. I think it's kind of, you know, why
802
00:56:11.940 --> 00:56:15.440
am I perceiving this person that way? What's going on here?
803
00:56:16.139 --> 00:56:20.659
Can I perceive the person differently? This is a kind
804
00:56:20.699 --> 00:56:23.469
of a literal story. I don't want to equate it
805
00:56:23.489 --> 00:56:28.230
with race. But I'm sorry, I hope it's okay. But
806
00:56:28.590 --> 00:56:32.090
I was in Korea. And I was 10 years in Korea.
807
00:56:33.139 --> 00:56:37.360
And the first time I ate rice cake, gooey rice cakes,
808
00:56:37.659 --> 00:56:40.480
I thought, what is this? You know, I mean, how
809
00:56:40.539 --> 00:56:44.269
can I eat this stuff? 10 years later, I loved it.
810
00:56:45.300 --> 00:56:48.300
I had a friend, a Korean monk, and he could
811
00:56:48.360 --> 00:56:52.079
see us enjoying cheese. And he could not understand that
812
00:56:52.119 --> 00:56:56.130
we could enjoy cheese in For him, it was stinking.
813
00:56:56.230 --> 00:56:59.329
It was terrible stuff. But then he saw us and
814
00:56:59.369 --> 00:57:04.039
he thought, okay, I'm going to taint cheese. And then
815
00:57:04.119 --> 00:57:07.519
every day, he ate a little square. And at the
816
00:57:07.619 --> 00:57:10.880
end of the week, it became neutral. You see, the
817
00:57:10.940 --> 00:57:15.460
problem is we think this is back to essential. This
818
00:57:15.559 --> 00:57:20.300
is my essential nature. I don't like this. Or this
819
00:57:20.400 --> 00:57:26.460
is their essential nature. They are unlikable. Instead of seeing, no,
820
00:57:26.539 --> 00:57:30.840
it's kind of all conditioned. My response is conditioned and
821
00:57:30.880 --> 00:57:34.639
the way I perceive them is conditioned and possibly the
822
00:57:34.679 --> 00:57:38.530
way they behave is conditioned. So in a way, how
823
00:57:38.650 --> 00:57:44.010
can I creatively engage with my condition or their condition?
824
00:57:44.929 --> 00:57:47.789
And so kind of like to see, can we bring
825
00:57:47.869 --> 00:57:52.969
some calmness into this? To me, it's kind of tonality
826
00:57:53.030 --> 00:57:57.400
is a given. And then can we creatively engage with it,
827
00:57:57.519 --> 00:58:01.579
but not in a way that we rather like checking ourselves.
828
00:58:01.659 --> 00:58:05.179
I should not have this tonality. I must have that tonality.
829
00:58:06.139 --> 00:58:10.989
But more, oh, how does it change? What makes it change?
830
00:58:11.070 --> 00:58:14.170
To me, that's one of the main things. How does
831
00:58:14.269 --> 00:58:21.789
it change? In terms of time or in terms of perceptions?
832
00:58:26.219 --> 00:58:29.219
Let's go back to neutral, because I promised to talk
833
00:58:29.269 --> 00:58:31.650
about this earlier. I said I wanted to talk about this.
834
00:58:33.429 --> 00:58:37.630
I believe you've spoken about, and you may have hit
835
00:58:37.670 --> 00:58:40.250
it a little bit in this interview, that we have
836
00:58:40.269 --> 00:58:45.199
a tendency to overlook the neutral, but there's a way
837
00:58:45.320 --> 00:58:49.719
actually to relate to it differently that can, we can
838
00:58:49.800 --> 00:58:53.829
make neutral a more positive experience and change sort of
839
00:58:53.889 --> 00:58:56.789
our baseline for being in the world. Can you say
840
00:58:56.829 --> 00:58:57.530
more about that?
841
00:58:58.199 --> 00:59:01.119
Yeah, to me, actually, I would look at... So there
842
00:59:01.179 --> 00:59:04.179
is a big kind of like a little discussion in
843
00:59:04.219 --> 00:59:08.309
terms of the Buddhist reference if neutral exists or does
844
00:59:08.329 --> 00:59:10.510
not exist. But even at the time of... the Buddha,
845
00:59:10.530 --> 00:59:13.219
they were discussing this. So I don't think we need
846
00:59:13.260 --> 00:59:15.599
to go there. But we could see it as a
847
00:59:15.719 --> 00:59:18.880
useful concept. And so for me, I can see it
848
00:59:19.000 --> 00:59:23.719
as a useful concept in two ways. One, if we
849
00:59:23.800 --> 00:59:28.440
could see neutral more as a baseline. So the way
850
00:59:28.460 --> 00:59:32.000
we go up, In pleasant, go down. In unpleasant, and
851
00:59:32.019 --> 00:59:36.579
then we come back to the baseline of neutral. So
852
00:59:36.619 --> 00:59:39.519
that in a way, we cannot feel all the time unpleasant,
853
00:59:39.860 --> 00:59:42.900
all the time pleasant. But a lot of the time,
854
00:59:43.159 --> 00:59:46.599
we're going to experience neutral because it's kind of like
855
00:59:46.619 --> 00:59:50.079
the way the system is resting. And it cannot all
856
00:59:50.139 --> 00:59:55.300
be excited or all be suffering in a way. So personally,
857
00:59:55.340 --> 00:59:58.840
I see it as a restful baseline for the organism.
858
00:59:59.889 --> 01:00:02.320
The second thing that can be useful in terms of
859
01:00:02.360 --> 01:00:07.119
the neutral is the fact that in a way, if you're,
860
01:00:07.139 --> 01:00:11.820
let's say you're depressed and everything is really unpleasant and
861
01:00:12.139 --> 01:00:16.530
you think, oh, I am like minus six unpleasant and
862
01:00:16.690 --> 01:00:22.130
I need to go back to plus five pleasant, then
863
01:00:22.230 --> 01:00:26.010
it's going to be like seem an impossible task. But
864
01:00:26.110 --> 01:00:29.849
actually you only have to go back to neutral. And
865
01:00:29.909 --> 01:00:32.869
that could be possible. So I think it's kind of
866
01:00:33.210 --> 01:00:36.210
a little bit because we have a strange benchmark for
867
01:00:36.269 --> 01:00:40.429
pleasant as plus five. I think it's increased the range
868
01:00:40.469 --> 01:00:43.949
of pleasant and give us more possibility in terms of
869
01:00:44.010 --> 01:00:47.480
unpleasant and pleasant, this neutral baseline.
870
01:00:47.920 --> 01:00:50.900
Just picking up on that, you can see why perhaps
871
01:00:50.960 --> 01:00:54.420
evolution would have created us to have a hair trigger
872
01:00:54.460 --> 01:00:58.780
reaction to the negative so that we survive. and to
873
01:00:58.840 --> 01:01:02.019
have a higher bar for the pleasant so that we're
874
01:01:02.079 --> 01:01:06.070
really motivated to look for food and other pleasant things
875
01:01:06.110 --> 01:01:08.750
that also help us survive. Does that make any sense?
876
01:01:08.829 --> 01:01:12.650
Oh, totally. No, no, I think tonality is evolution. This
877
01:01:12.730 --> 01:01:16.269
is the way you survive. Of course, of course. Totally, totally.
878
01:01:17.150 --> 01:01:20.269
And then with the neutral, so to see it more
879
01:01:20.289 --> 01:01:23.659
as a kind of a baseline, a resting place, but
880
01:01:23.719 --> 01:01:26.980
also to see that in the text, the Buddha saw
881
01:01:27.590 --> 01:01:31.980
that you could have ordinary tonality, or you could have
882
01:01:32.000 --> 01:01:37.239
what you could call insightful tonality, calm and clear tonality.
883
01:01:37.780 --> 01:01:40.900
And then the reaction to the two would be very different.
884
01:01:42.099 --> 01:01:45.210
So that in a way, if you had ordinary pleasant tonality,
885
01:01:45.250 --> 01:01:47.909
you would go into, I want more, I want to
886
01:01:47.949 --> 01:01:52.170
repeat it. If you have ordinary unpleasant tonality, oh, I
887
01:01:52.230 --> 01:01:55.010
can't stand it, I hate it. And then you would
888
01:01:55.150 --> 01:01:59.530
amplify it that way. If it's neutral or you get confused,
889
01:01:59.710 --> 01:02:03.829
not knowing what to do. But if you have tonality
890
01:02:03.869 --> 01:02:06.829
because you've done the mindfulness, which is more in a
891
01:02:06.869 --> 01:02:12.159
way wise, like a tonality which is perceived experience in
892
01:02:12.219 --> 01:02:15.780
a wise way, then actually it would be what he
893
01:02:15.820 --> 01:02:19.420
called kind of something which would be more insightful. So
894
01:02:19.440 --> 01:02:23.599
he made the difference, like he equated a lot neutrality
895
01:02:23.639 --> 01:02:27.480
with equanimity. And so he basically says you can have
896
01:02:27.500 --> 01:02:31.019
an equanimity, which is about, I don't care. It doesn't
897
01:02:31.099 --> 01:02:36.400
bother me. Who cares? But for him, that's not true equanimity.
898
01:02:37.219 --> 01:02:41.179
And he says you can have like insightful equanimity and
899
01:02:41.360 --> 01:02:45.619
actually equate it often with the luminous mind. So the
900
01:02:45.659 --> 01:02:48.920
luminous mind doesn't mean that the mind behind is luminous,
901
01:02:49.599 --> 01:02:54.309
but when it becomes equanimous and insightful, it becomes luminous.
902
01:02:55.010 --> 01:02:59.409
And so it equates that when you experience tonality, if
903
01:02:59.469 --> 01:03:03.650
it's insightful, actually you're going to feel this, you could
904
01:03:03.690 --> 01:03:09.789
say contented calm, contented clarity. So it has more to
905
01:03:09.829 --> 01:03:15.630
do in a way the neutrality as perceived as feeling grounded,
906
01:03:15.730 --> 01:03:19.699
feeling stable, in a way feeling calm and clear.
907
01:03:23.889 --> 01:03:25.500
I love this. It's a way, I mean, it's a
908
01:03:25.619 --> 01:03:31.380
really fundamental practice for hacking our habits, sort of not
909
01:03:31.420 --> 01:03:37.460
being so controlled by automaticity. And it has so many
910
01:03:37.519 --> 01:03:41.219
ramifications for, you know, our own inner weather moment to moment.
911
01:03:41.260 --> 01:03:43.659
And then, of course, for how we are in the
912
01:03:43.699 --> 01:03:45.219
world and how we're treating other people.
913
01:03:46.219 --> 01:03:50.179
Personally, I would also connect it into ethics, right? Because
914
01:03:50.219 --> 01:03:52.739
in a way, if you look at ethics, if you look,
915
01:03:52.780 --> 01:03:56.800
for example, at the five Buddhist precepts, the first one
916
01:03:56.929 --> 01:03:59.710
is do not kill. Or you could say do not
917
01:03:59.769 --> 01:04:04.570
cause harm. Why do we cause harm? Generally, we cause
918
01:04:04.650 --> 01:04:07.769
harm unless we are kind of a serial killer, which
919
01:04:07.829 --> 01:04:10.590
is something else, or sadistic, which is something else. But
920
01:04:10.630 --> 01:04:15.750
if we're an ordinary person, why do we harm? Often,
921
01:04:15.889 --> 01:04:20.349
like you said, with your wife, it's the same. unpleasant,
922
01:04:21.110 --> 01:04:26.110
then I'm going to retaliate, something is unpleasant, I'm going
923
01:04:26.170 --> 01:04:28.409
to get rid of it, I'm going to kill it.
924
01:04:29.610 --> 01:04:33.179
And so in a way, I mean, mosquitoes, you get
925
01:04:33.219 --> 01:04:36.500
the bite, you kill the mosquito immediately. So in a way,
926
01:04:36.559 --> 01:04:39.980
when something is unpleasant, we want to get rid of it.
927
01:04:41.219 --> 01:04:45.500
And so this first present is okay, how can I
928
01:04:45.539 --> 01:04:50.460
be harmless? which would mean how can I creatively engage
929
01:04:50.719 --> 01:04:56.139
with unpleasant tonality, especially given by the outside, which it's
930
01:04:56.179 --> 01:05:01.889
the same. You experience a very unpleasant tonality and actually
931
01:05:01.949 --> 01:05:05.469
you're going to harm yourself. So, you know, it's kind
932
01:05:05.510 --> 01:05:08.849
of how can I experience unpleasant tonality that it be
933
01:05:08.969 --> 01:05:14.320
inside or outside in a way that I can creatively engage.
934
01:05:15.599 --> 01:05:20.159
And then the, Second one is do not steal. Okay.
935
01:05:20.760 --> 01:05:23.000
Do not take what is not given. Why would we
936
01:05:23.119 --> 01:05:27.559
take something? Because it gives us pleasant feeling to it.
937
01:05:27.579 --> 01:05:32.269
So we think, I want this. I want this for myself.
938
01:05:33.150 --> 01:05:35.829
So in a way, if we take something which is
939
01:05:35.889 --> 01:05:39.769
not given to us, it's generally because of a pleasant
940
01:05:39.829 --> 01:05:44.289
feeling to it. And then we could question, okay, This
941
01:05:44.349 --> 01:05:47.050
thing is going to give me pleasant feeling tone, but
942
01:05:47.090 --> 01:05:50.969
for how long? This is interesting. You know, we think, oh,
943
01:05:51.010 --> 01:05:55.070
if we get this, then I'll be happy. Then I'll
944
01:05:55.090 --> 01:05:58.110
have unpleasant feeling tone. And then you steal it or
945
01:05:58.510 --> 01:06:01.969
you take advantage of somebody to get it. But how
946
01:06:02.030 --> 01:06:05.659
long does it last? You know, and nothing, I mean,
947
01:06:05.699 --> 01:06:09.340
that's what the Buddha said. Nothing can give you permanent satisfaction.
948
01:06:10.400 --> 01:06:15.539
But we could learn to be contented. contented possibly by
949
01:06:15.559 --> 01:06:18.900
a more simple life, so that we don't feel that
950
01:06:19.039 --> 01:06:22.280
we have to acquire things all the time, so that
951
01:06:22.320 --> 01:06:25.559
we have to ratchet up the pleasant feeling tone. I
952
01:06:25.579 --> 01:06:28.239
think that's the thing about that one. Then you have
953
01:06:28.280 --> 01:06:31.619
the third one, to be careful with our sexuality. And
954
01:06:31.659 --> 01:06:36.050
it's the same. Often with sexual pleasure, you kind of
955
01:06:36.510 --> 01:06:39.230
get lost in your own pleasure and don't think about
956
01:06:39.269 --> 01:06:43.610
the other person. It might sometimes harm them. So can
957
01:06:43.630 --> 01:06:46.809
you think about your own pleasure without being lost in it,
958
01:06:47.280 --> 01:06:51.559
without taking advantage, but also thinking about the other person's
959
01:06:51.579 --> 01:06:55.840
pleasure and also accepting it will not last. It will
960
01:06:55.860 --> 01:07:01.349
not last. Then you have lying. Lying is interesting. Why
961
01:07:01.389 --> 01:07:06.949
would we lie? Either you lie because of the unpleasant
962
01:07:06.989 --> 01:07:11.030
feeling too. I can think about children. They break something.
963
01:07:11.429 --> 01:07:13.739
You have the vials broken. And they say, I did
964
01:07:13.760 --> 01:07:15.739
not do it. I did not do it. So in
965
01:07:15.820 --> 01:07:19.679
a way, you have an unpleasant feeling told. And then
966
01:07:19.699 --> 01:07:25.739
you try to lie so that it goes. Or you
967
01:07:26.320 --> 01:07:30.389
lie because it's pleasant. Some people like to lie because
968
01:07:30.989 --> 01:07:33.849
it gives us a pleasant personality. Oh, I did this.
969
01:07:33.949 --> 01:07:36.750
I did that. When they know none of it. It's
970
01:07:36.789 --> 01:07:41.599
interesting lying. What's behind it? Sometimes it's because it's unpleasant.
971
01:07:41.679 --> 01:07:47.409
Sometimes because it's pleasant for the person to love. And
972
01:07:47.449 --> 01:07:53.150
then the fifth one, alcohol and drugs. Again, why do
973
01:07:53.190 --> 01:07:57.949
we take this thing? Often because it's pleasant, but a
974
01:07:58.010 --> 01:08:03.280
lot of the time because we have unpleasant feeling too. Recently,
975
01:08:03.360 --> 01:08:06.400
I read about a young woman who fell in love
976
01:08:06.760 --> 01:08:11.179
with alcohol when she was 15. Because her first glass
977
01:08:11.239 --> 01:08:20.930
of strong liquor gave her this amazing tonality. She felt lively, intelligent, fun. Before,
978
01:08:20.970 --> 01:08:24.010
she was very shy and anxious. And so she fell
979
01:08:24.029 --> 01:08:28.449
in love, she said, with alcohol. And then she drank
980
01:08:28.529 --> 01:08:31.600
and drank and drank, but still had her life. And
981
01:08:31.640 --> 01:08:35.460
then age 30, she had to stop because she used
982
01:08:35.500 --> 01:08:40.310
to have terrible blackouts. But she said she still fell
983
01:08:40.369 --> 01:08:43.310
in love in the fact she had such pleasant feeling
984
01:08:43.350 --> 01:08:45.600
tone at the beginning. And she was kind of in
985
01:08:45.640 --> 01:08:49.939
a way umpteen the same thing. But why? Because it
986
01:08:49.979 --> 01:08:56.069
replaced unpleasant tonality. Or because the thing gives you pleasant tonality,
987
01:08:56.109 --> 01:08:59.250
but then it could be harmful to others. In a way,
988
01:08:59.310 --> 01:09:02.100
most of the time. we are good, decent human beings.
989
01:09:03.159 --> 01:09:07.460
But then time to time, we're not. And then that's
990
01:09:07.500 --> 01:09:11.659
what I'm interested in. Why that? What happened? And a
991
01:09:11.779 --> 01:09:14.300
lot of the time, it has to do with tonality.
992
01:09:17.079 --> 01:09:18.619
Let me ask you a question that may seem like
993
01:09:18.659 --> 01:09:22.260
a non-sequitur. It may also seem like a gigantic question,
994
01:09:22.340 --> 01:09:26.119
but I'm curious to hear you talk about a question
995
01:09:26.140 --> 01:09:32.359
I've heard you pose publicly before, which is, what is love?
996
01:09:34.180 --> 01:09:38.000
What is love? That's so interesting. What is love? Because
997
01:09:38.079 --> 01:09:42.380
at one level, love is a pleasant tonality. And actually,
998
01:09:42.439 --> 01:09:47.539
the Buddha said pleasant tonality is very important. especially if
999
01:09:47.619 --> 01:09:52.630
it's insightful and wise and compassionate. And so what is interesting, again,
1000
01:09:52.670 --> 01:09:56.090
with love, I think love is an important quality, and
1001
01:09:56.170 --> 01:09:59.829
it's so vital to love, that it be your partner,
1002
01:09:59.890 --> 01:10:06.529
your children, animals, the earth, the planet, people, because it
1003
01:10:06.590 --> 01:10:12.199
gives us very healing tonality. But then the question is,
1004
01:10:12.300 --> 01:10:15.750
what do we grasp at when we love? Do we
1005
01:10:15.810 --> 01:10:19.369
grasp at the pleasant tonality we get when we are
1006
01:10:19.449 --> 01:10:22.310
next to the person? So then we want to be
1007
01:10:22.350 --> 01:10:25.189
with the person all the time because we think they
1008
01:10:25.229 --> 01:10:31.579
give us a pleasant tonality. Or do we grasp at
1009
01:10:31.640 --> 01:10:36.479
the idea of love? And actually we grasp here, what
1010
01:10:36.520 --> 01:10:39.800
I'm looking at is we grasp at the pleasant tonality
1011
01:10:40.359 --> 01:10:43.489
we're supposed to have with this person. And again, because
1012
01:10:43.529 --> 01:10:45.819
we think We need to have it all the time.
1013
01:10:46.880 --> 01:10:49.220
But in a way, you cannot have the same pleasant
1014
01:10:49.260 --> 01:10:52.699
tonality with a person all the time. Time to time,
1015
01:10:52.739 --> 01:10:55.520
you'll be in a bad mood, you'll be stressed, you'll
1016
01:10:55.539 --> 01:11:00.060
have difficulty. So then if you are stressed with difficulty,
1017
01:11:00.979 --> 01:11:03.899
then you're not going to experience the same pleasant feeling tone,
1018
01:11:03.960 --> 01:11:08.199
which you equate with love. So then when you don't
1019
01:11:08.239 --> 01:11:10.800
have that pleasant feeling tone, does it mean you don't
1020
01:11:10.880 --> 01:11:16.300
love the person or that they don't love you? Or
1021
01:11:16.800 --> 01:11:19.640
is it that in a way love is something which
1022
01:11:19.720 --> 01:11:24.800
is not just based on tonality here, but is something
1023
01:11:24.840 --> 01:11:29.149
we cultivate together? And so in a way, to me,
1024
01:11:29.229 --> 01:11:32.710
love is like two parallel lines. You have to cultivate
1025
01:11:32.890 --> 01:11:35.930
outside of the line with other friends and different things
1026
01:11:35.949 --> 01:11:38.609
like that, and you have to cultivate inside the line.
1027
01:11:39.350 --> 01:11:42.229
So it's not just a feeling. Because often we equate,
1028
01:11:42.810 --> 01:11:46.210
if I feel this feeling, I love the person. And
1029
01:11:46.270 --> 01:11:49.409
often I think if I feel an intense, pleasant feeling
1030
01:11:49.489 --> 01:11:52.640
toward I love this person, or if I feel a
1031
01:11:52.680 --> 01:11:56.399
pleasant feeling toward this person loves me enough, that's an
1032
01:11:56.460 --> 01:12:00.359
interesting one too. And then in a way, no, it's
1033
01:12:00.380 --> 01:12:07.060
this warm feeling, but it's kind of complex. It's appreciating, sharing,
1034
01:12:08.359 --> 01:12:12.489
growing together. There's so many things in love, so many
1035
01:12:12.529 --> 01:12:17.430
things in it. But one thing which is also important
1036
01:12:17.470 --> 01:12:21.960
with love is that we love each other. Because in
1037
01:12:22.000 --> 01:12:23.960
a way, if we don't love each other, this is
1038
01:12:24.000 --> 01:12:27.659
what is problematic. So in a way, you're stuck with yourself.
1039
01:12:29.060 --> 01:12:32.199
If you don't love yourself, you're stuck with an unpleasant
1040
01:12:32.260 --> 01:12:37.920
feeling tone. But if you love yourself, then it's very
1041
01:12:38.000 --> 01:12:40.909
easy to have a pleasant feeling tone because you are
1042
01:12:40.949 --> 01:12:44.829
with yourself. And then In a way, loving someone else
1043
01:12:45.250 --> 01:12:48.279
is an addition to that. And then you can bring
1044
01:12:48.359 --> 01:12:53.760
more people in your love, in this beautiful kind of love,
1045
01:12:54.079 --> 01:13:00.090
pleasant feeling tone, which is based on calm, clarity, friendliness, appreciation.
1046
01:13:07.310 --> 01:13:13.869
Still working on it. Let me ask you one other question,
1047
01:13:14.069 --> 01:13:19.909
and I think this is related. Marissa, the producer who
1048
01:13:19.949 --> 01:13:23.170
helped prepare me to do this interview, identified a nice
1049
01:13:23.229 --> 01:13:27.189
poem that you wrote called The Little Lazy Guide to Awakening.
1050
01:13:28.020 --> 01:13:32.340
And the first lines are, enlightenment, question mark, the light
1051
01:13:32.380 --> 01:13:35.699
is already on. What do you mean by that?
1052
01:13:36.470 --> 01:13:39.329
Well, I think this is something in the school I
1053
01:13:39.369 --> 01:13:42.289
was trained on, which is a Zen school, Sun School
1054
01:13:42.329 --> 01:13:46.979
in Korea. And for them, we are already enlightened. We
1055
01:13:47.020 --> 01:13:51.020
are already awakened. And I think what it means is
1056
01:13:51.039 --> 01:13:57.239
that our creative potential is always there. Our creative potential
1057
01:13:57.300 --> 01:14:02.949
for wisdom, for compassion, for love, for understanding is always there.
1058
01:14:03.109 --> 01:14:07.140
We have it. We have that possibility. At the same time,
1059
01:14:07.850 --> 01:14:12.199
it's not permanent in the fact that it will always manifest.
1060
01:14:13.119 --> 01:14:20.039
So that, yeah, enlightenment, awakening, wisdom, compassion is possible any moment.
1061
01:14:21.060 --> 01:14:25.680
But at the same time, over time, we have built
1062
01:14:25.739 --> 01:14:29.600
up a lot of automatic reaction. And I think actually
1063
01:14:29.720 --> 01:14:33.800
our automatic reaction was more in childhood in order to
1064
01:14:33.880 --> 01:14:38.659
protect ourselves. and also some influence from society, from culture.
1065
01:14:39.720 --> 01:14:43.319
And so I think that when we become adult, in
1066
01:14:43.359 --> 01:14:46.439
a way to see, oh, why do I need to
1067
01:14:46.520 --> 01:14:49.850
do this? Oh, why do I need to do that?
1068
01:14:50.270 --> 01:14:54.630
And so personally, I see the meditation, the practice of meditation,
1069
01:14:55.289 --> 01:14:59.050
the practice of anchoring, of looking deeply, as in a
1070
01:14:59.109 --> 01:15:07.229
way the dissolving of those harmful patterns survival mechanism, those habits,
1071
01:15:07.750 --> 01:15:14.319
mental habits, physical habits, relationship habits, emotional habits, who kind
1072
01:15:14.340 --> 01:15:17.060
of in a way limit us. And then in a
1073
01:15:17.100 --> 01:15:20.119
way to slowly, slowly dissolve those so that we can
1074
01:15:20.159 --> 01:15:23.380
come back to our creative functioning. And in a way,
1075
01:15:23.859 --> 01:15:28.550
the function is there. We are this creative functioning organism.
1076
01:15:29.369 --> 01:15:31.529
But over time, there have been a lot of kind
1077
01:15:31.569 --> 01:15:35.329
of a little fixed habits. And then it's kind of
1078
01:15:35.409 --> 01:15:40.529
really practicing to dissolve this habit so that our creative
1079
01:15:40.569 --> 01:15:45.439
potential can emerge, can manifest. And one way to really
1080
01:15:45.520 --> 01:15:51.720
experience this is doing what I call meditative listening. So
1081
01:15:51.760 --> 01:15:57.729
you listen to somebody. And generally, how do we listen? Often,
1082
01:15:58.310 --> 01:16:00.550
we wait for the person to stop so we can
1083
01:16:00.590 --> 01:16:03.819
say something much more interesting. Or we look in the
1084
01:16:03.880 --> 01:16:07.079
right direction, but we don't hear them. So when they say,
1085
01:16:07.119 --> 01:16:09.439
what do you think? We have no idea what they said.
1086
01:16:10.399 --> 01:16:14.550
Or we overreact and amplify, which is not helpful. But
1087
01:16:14.609 --> 01:16:18.329
if we really listen to the person, really listen to
1088
01:16:18.430 --> 01:16:24.109
what they say, totally, 100%, then at the moment they
1089
01:16:24.170 --> 01:16:27.779
stop and they turn to us, then a lot of
1090
01:16:27.840 --> 01:16:32.479
the time, We say something so creative, so clear, so compassionate,
1091
01:16:32.579 --> 01:16:37.689
so relevant, we've never thought before. So where does this
1092
01:16:37.739 --> 01:16:44.310
come from? It comes from meeting another person with that calmness,
1093
01:16:44.350 --> 01:16:50.010
that clarity, that friendliness, that stability, that balance. And then
1094
01:16:50.090 --> 01:16:53.409
within us, lots of creativity can come in.
1095
01:16:58.229 --> 01:17:04.029
This seems like the work of a lifetime, both this
1096
01:17:04.109 --> 01:17:07.710
getting out of your own way. And I hear a
1097
01:17:07.750 --> 01:17:11.710
paradox in there of, on the one hand, the capacity,
1098
01:17:12.810 --> 01:17:16.489
the light is already on always. So it's there and
1099
01:17:16.550 --> 01:17:21.529
we can access it in any moment using perhaps mindfulness
1100
01:17:21.590 --> 01:17:25.710
of Vedana or other Buddhist techniques or other techniques that
1101
01:17:25.750 --> 01:17:28.699
are even not Buddhist. And we can get better at
1102
01:17:28.739 --> 01:17:31.689
the skill of accessing it at any moment.
1103
01:17:32.229 --> 01:17:35.430
Exactly. I think you totally get it. That in a way,
1104
01:17:35.529 --> 01:17:39.050
at one level, it's what we call the sudden and gradual.
1105
01:17:39.789 --> 01:17:41.930
In the sound practice, you have in a way this
1106
01:17:42.010 --> 01:17:47.479
idea of sudden awakening, which is always a possibility. And
1107
01:17:47.539 --> 01:17:51.420
at the same time of gradual practice, because the sudden
1108
01:17:51.460 --> 01:17:56.520
awakening is not immediately going to stop the habits. So
1109
01:17:56.539 --> 01:18:00.729
at time, you have really this moment, great wisdom, great compassion.
1110
01:18:01.510 --> 01:18:04.430
And then at the same time, you have to work
1111
01:18:05.010 --> 01:18:08.430
on yourself. You have to cultivate. So in a way,
1112
01:18:08.470 --> 01:18:11.010
we can read a little bit at the crossroad of
1113
01:18:11.050 --> 01:18:14.409
what I would call the depth dimension and then the
1114
01:18:14.569 --> 01:18:15.529
width dimension.
1115
01:18:19.369 --> 01:18:20.430
Say that again, the depth?
1116
01:18:20.609 --> 01:18:23.600
So the depth dimension. So in a way, the depth dimension,
1117
01:18:23.609 --> 01:18:26.239
I would say, is generally a little bit limited in
1118
01:18:26.300 --> 01:18:30.439
terms of conditions. So in a way, you might practice
1119
01:18:30.579 --> 01:18:33.420
or you might reflect. And it's kind of like the
1120
01:18:33.460 --> 01:18:37.229
conditions are a little limited, like on retreat, for example,
1121
01:18:37.390 --> 01:18:39.909
or on a day of practice or when you meditate.
1122
01:18:40.329 --> 01:18:44.449
And then you're silent, you focus. And so in a way,
1123
01:18:44.470 --> 01:18:47.829
the conditions are limited. and then you can go into
1124
01:18:47.869 --> 01:18:51.069
the depths of the practice. But at the same time,
1125
01:18:51.130 --> 01:18:54.250
you have to cultivate in the width of the practice,
1126
01:18:54.310 --> 01:18:58.750
which is your daily life, your relationship, the way you
1127
01:18:58.890 --> 01:19:02.939
use resources, the way you treat people in your office,
1128
01:19:03.239 --> 01:19:05.359
et cetera, et cetera. So it seems to me we
1129
01:19:05.420 --> 01:19:10.380
always add that crossroad. of the depth dimension. Because sometimes
1130
01:19:10.399 --> 01:19:13.510
people think, oh, just the depth, just the depth. I
1131
01:19:13.550 --> 01:19:17.970
want to have amazing meditation experiences. But that doesn't deal
1132
01:19:18.090 --> 01:19:21.890
with the habits. So you need the depth with the width.
1133
01:19:22.289 --> 01:19:24.449
And so I think we are at the crossroad in
1134
01:19:24.489 --> 01:19:27.210
that level, in our practice at any given moment.
1135
01:19:31.210 --> 01:19:33.550
I think that is a great and inspiring place to
1136
01:19:33.609 --> 01:19:35.390
leave it. This has been.
1137
01:19:36.649 --> 01:19:36.800
To.
1138
01:19:37.489 --> 01:19:41.659
No surprise at all to me, an incredibly rewarding chat.
1139
01:19:41.920 --> 01:19:43.279
And I really appreciate your time.
1140
01:19:43.979 --> 01:19:46.939
Thank you very much. A pleasure to discuss things with you.
1141
01:19:46.960 --> 01:19:47.520
Thank you.
1142
01:19:51.079 --> 01:19:55.079
Big thanks to Martine. That was really fun to reconnect
1143
01:19:55.119 --> 01:19:57.939
with her. And to learn more about the practice of
1144
01:19:58.300 --> 01:20:02.720
feeling tones, check out Joseph's meditation on feeling tone in
1145
01:20:02.800 --> 01:20:04.739
the 10% Happier app. I'll put a link in the
1146
01:20:04.779 --> 01:20:07.609
show notes. And by the way, if you want to
1147
01:20:07.630 --> 01:20:09.770
learn more and hear more from Martine herself, she has
1148
01:20:10.130 --> 01:20:19.159
many of her talks up on DharmaSeed.org. That's D-H-A-R-M-A-S-E-E-D.org. I'll
1149
01:20:19.180 --> 01:20:20.880
put a link in the show notes. And you can
1150
01:20:20.920 --> 01:20:23.260
learn a lot more about her on her website, which
1151
01:20:23.319 --> 01:20:28.659
is MartineBachelor.org. Again, links in the show notes. As always,
1152
01:20:28.699 --> 01:20:31.520
big thanks to the team who helped put this show together.
1153
01:20:31.779 --> 01:20:35.220
Samuel Johns is our senior producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our producer.
1154
01:20:35.279 --> 01:20:38.159
Our sound designers are Matt Boynton and Anya Sheshik of
1155
01:20:38.239 --> 01:20:41.779
Ultraviolet Audio. Maria Wirtel is our production coordinator. We get
1156
01:20:41.810 --> 01:20:45.350
a ton of wisdom and guidance from TPH colleagues such
1157
01:20:45.390 --> 01:20:47.890
as Ben Rubin, Jen Point, Nate Tobey, and Liz Levin.
1158
01:20:48.489 --> 01:20:50.789
And finally, big thank you to Ryan Kessler and Josh
1159
01:20:50.829 --> 01:20:53.789
Kohan from ABC News. I'll see you all on Friday
1160
01:20:54.010 --> 01:20:54.970
with a bonus.