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Speaker 1: It's Night's Eyes with Dan Ray. I'm going busy Boston's.
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Speaker 2: News Radio's supposed to rain a bunch, particularly southern Massachusetts area for big time rain. I guess kind of moderate rain, mostly all rain tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it. I'm just gonna veg in the morning and then prepare the show in the afternoon. I'm looking forward to rain. This is Nightside with Dan Ray. Bradley j for Dan. Do you suffer from depression? How do you know it's depression? Well, we'll take a look at that. What is depression? Do you think? Well? Our next guest says that Buddhist practices can help with depression. So that brings up the next question. Buddhism. What's that? I mean, you've heard of it, but I bet you don't really know much about it. And if you do, love to hear from you, Love to hear from you in any case, any angle on this topic helping depression, mitigating depression with Buddhist practices. And our guest is Tim Desmond, Buddhist scholar, therapist, mindfulness trainer, and author of Wouldn't You Know It? Buddhist Practices for Overcoming Depression. Thanks for being with us.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, happy to be here.
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Speaker 2: So, Tim, what is depression as you see it? How do you define it?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, people who are depressed definitely describe it really differently. I think in mental health, you know, we talk about it as a type of low mood. Often it's about kind of a lack of hope, a lack of energy, like a lot of it is less about having a lot of sadness and more about this kind of feeling like nothing you do is going to help. And from that kind of place, just not having a lot of energy or motivation to do much of anything.
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Speaker 2: No real reason to get up in the morning.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, kind of like no reason to get up in the morning. Now, it shows up in a lot of different ways. But if you sort of think about do I feel like there's not really much that I could do that would make my life better, or then that we're starting to get closer to depression. If you feel like you've just been in a low mood sort of consistently for a long time, we might call that depression. But coming from a Buddhist perspective, it's just one form that human suffering can take. You know, we all suffer in different ways, and depression is one form.
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Speaker 2: I thought that to really be truly clinically depressed, it was a chemical thing that you really couldn't do anything about and you needed medication.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's funny they they sold that, especially in the nineties. That was a that was a big idea. So ultimately what happened was we people developed a medication that increased the serotonin in your brain, and some people, not not everybody, but who took it felt their depression improve. And so then the people who are selling that medication started to say, well, if increasing your serotonin or taking this medication makes people less depressed, then not enough serotonin must be the cause of depression. Well, it turns out we've actually disproven that pretty clearly, Like you can actually artificially lower somebody's serotonin. What you do is you if you give somebody a drink that has every amino acid except for trip to fan. Trip to fan is is the amino acid that makes serotonin? Do you give them everything except for trip to fan the serotonin levels and their blood drop. But if somebody doesn't have a reason for being depressed, then their brain will just basically rebalance itself using many of the other kind of neurotransmitters that we have, and people don't experience a low mood, So we know that just decreasing your serotonin doesn't make you depressed. However, when somebody is depressed that you know it, it affects lots of different chemicals in our brains, just like when somebody is in a good mood, it affects lots of different chemicals in our brains.
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Speaker 2: Efect.
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Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I think it's pretty clear that low serotonin is more isn't effective being depressed and not a cost?
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Speaker 2: All right? And are you telling me that modhus practices can raise serotonin or do they make you cheer up in without any without dealing with serotonin at all?
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Speaker 3: Yeah? Okay, So so what I can tell you is that anything that changes how you think, that changes how you feel. I mean that that's all having an impact on your brain. If if we put you in the smritube, whatever you did, whatever you talked about, it's your brain is always changing everything. Oh so if we put you I don't know if you've seen those, Like a friend of mine works at a neuroscience lab over at Haybrid and they they you know, they take people and it's a basically just like a scanning machine where while you're alive, they can go in and they can take pictures of all your internal organs. It's like a CT scan. But but the MRI is is particularly good for for your brain. But if we scan your brain and look at it, we can see that. You know, really, if somebody tells you a joke that changes your brain activity, if somebody shows you a really sad movie that changes your brain activity, it's it's okay.
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Speaker 2: So you can see what I get it.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, you can see it.
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Speaker 2: You can see what happens when you get different stimuli.
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Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. So so what I would say in terms of dealing with depression, Uh so my experience is just like dealing with any type of of suffering, we need to understand like what is causing it, where is it coming from, and and and for depression, it can come from a lot of different places. Yeah, we can. We can sort of talk through that. So I mean to sort of talk about different people who've suffered from depression and kind of different ways that it can show up. But we want to understand where it's coming from, and then we want to try to do something to change what's actually making somebody feel depressed.
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Speaker 2: Okay, great, So now we have a handle on how we're defining depression. After this quick break, we will get into talking about what Buddhism is and what it's not. By the way, after this on WBZ, you're.
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Speaker 1: On night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's news radio.
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Speaker 2: Bradley J for Dan on night Side tonight. By the way, if you find yourself hankering for Nightside during the daytime, you can always listen to Nightside on demand. It's Nightside on demand dot com. Also, if you find yourself anchoring for some talk radio on Saturday, I'll be doing so. Further notice live Jay talking here on WBZ from six to eight on Saturdays. And if you want to connect with me and see stuff I'm doing music videos that you can go to BRADLEYJ dot RG. That's b R A D L E Y JY dot RG. You feeling depressed, have you? We want to do something about it, looking for alternative medication if you will. We're talking about the possibility that Buddhist practices might help you. Our guest is Tim Desmond, Buddhist scholar, therapist, mindfulness trainer, and author of Buddhist practices for overcoming depression. Quick question, willis say you're a Christian, maybe you're kind of an active Christian or most will willis interfere with will you get in trouble with your God?
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Speaker 3: No? Okay, so yeah, I grew up in Boston, uh, going to a Unitarian church. I learned about Buddhism Buddhism in college. And basically, what makes Buddhism like kind of like the core of what Buddhist philosophy and Buddhist practices are about is just understanding human suffering, what creates human suffering, and how do we relieve human suffering? And in many ways, one of the reasons that many people talk about Buddhism as more of a philosophy or more of a psychology is that's really what's at its core. Now there are people, so obviously, since there are you know, around a billion people who identify as Buddhists in the world, the way that they hold that it can be really different. You know, some people, For some people it's much more about going to a temple, and for other people it can be about different kinds of things. But I guess what I want to say is for anybody who's listening to this. If you're interested in sort of a philosophy or a way of thinking that mainly is just about where does suffering come from? Right, and how can we suffer less? Then I think it's a good place to go.
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Speaker 2: So you don't need to get into it enough so that it is butting up against your religion. You can just kind of steal, steal some of the practices to help yourself.
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Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, absolutely. And in fact, my teacher, so the teacher that I studied with for twenty five years, he really encouraged people. A lot of people who had left their church or left their tradition, he would really encourage them to go back and try to use some of the practices that they found to reconnect and actually kind of deepen with the religion that they grew up with.
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Speaker 2: Right now and a bit we'll find out about the practices, but a little more about Buddhism at its core, it says, this is how I understand it. This is the short Bradley Jay version. At the core of human life is suffering. This is caused by desire, and in order to remove suffering, you remove desire. But here's the thing, and this seems very similar to the Stoics like Epictetis Seneca and Marcus Relius. You have to basically you have to not care about anything that you have to just not care. And when they say to that, when they say this desire, they're not talking about I desire a piece of cake or I desire a new car. They're talking about caring about anything like, I can't. I can't. I have to give up my desire for a long life. I have to give up my desire for health. I have to give up my desire for everything, because these desires, the lot of these things, yeah, causes me suffering. So you get to the point where you can't care about anything. You can't even care about I desire that my wife remain healthy, you can't even desire that. So, yeah, if you're really going to get it, go all the way with Buddhism, or at least the desire part, it goes down a road that almost reduces it to absurdity.
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Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, yeah, But and I think that that's a really common way that people think about Buddhism. I think it's a misunderstanding. I think it's basically it's a it's a pretty accurate interpretation of what maybe like it kind of an intro text would would say in terms of, like, how is Buddhism different than other you know, sort of world traditions. Ultimately, what so the idea of everybody suffers, I think that you're You're right on there, as like kind of a core Buddhist teaching is like, okay, so every person who's ever lived knows what it's like to suffer, and that suffering has causes. Desire is an important one, and that also it's possible to suffer less, and many people would say that it's possible to really free yourself from suffering. And the interesting part though, is in terms of desire, just kind of one of the places that Buddhism ends up being kind of different than the Stoics is that the idea isn't that you're somehow making yourself feel less or kind of shutting off those parts of you. It's just kind of recognizing, like, for example, you know, in the same way that like you, if you smell some food, like some appetizing food, your body is going to react to that. You're just you're a living thing. Your body is going to react to that tasty food. And the question is not so much whether that comes up in you. It's more about are you caught by it? Is it? The key difference between whether or not that creates suffering for you is do you notice, like, oh, that's really appetizing and I'm just kind of and I'm aware of it, and I'm it's sort of like I'm I'm bigger than that feeling, Like I'm just like I'm, oh, yeah, I'm having that kind of feeling. Or are you caught by the feeling in the sense of like I need that food okay? And really what it comes down to is, yeah.
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Speaker 2: The thing to do is be aware of your desire and kind of understand that's happening and keep and control it or something like that.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, when I say there's like a combination, and I think this is a thing that I found kind of one of the things that I found the most helpful of But this practice is that there's this combination of discipline and compassion and that they're both seen as really important. The way that I grew up, I don't know about you, but discipline had nothing to do with compassion, and compassion was always normally had, you know, was like think something that that had very little discipline, but spending a lot of time in Buddhist monasteries and in Buddhist training centers, there's this idea that discipline and compassion go together. So how do you relate to your desire? How do you relate to that that want that you have? Well, first, it's having compassion for yourself. It's kind of like, Okay, well, I just like every other living thing, have desires like I'm going to That's just sort of what a body does. And yet there's also this discipline of like and the kindest thing that I can do for myself is to just kind of like to see them and not get not sort of get carried away by them.
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Speaker 2: Interesting, all right, now let's try to put the two together. And you're talking about how Buddhism works. How can we use what we've discussed here to reduce depression.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, So the first thing that I want to talk about is actually one of the ideas in Buddhism the word sada, which is normally translated as faith. And there's a handful of types of faith in Buddhism. Actually, in Buddhism, faith is never about accepting a thing that you can't prove. The sada. It basically means the first type of faith is called bright faith, which is basically, if you hear something and that sounds good to you, you've never tried it, but it seems like it makes sense, then you have something called bright faith. And then the second type of faith is called verifying faith, basically means like, I have enough belief in this that I'm willing to try it for myself. And then only after you've tried something and it's worked for you over time do you end up with abiding faith, which is sort of faith that's based in your own experience. And I think that one of the things that people who are depressed lose touch with is verifying faith. So many people have had the experience of I try this, and I try that, and nothing helps me, and so I'm just done. And when they're exposed to a new idea or a new way of doing things, or some other possibility or opportunity in their life, they're like, I've tried enough things, and it's the piece that's missing, is this verifying faith of just sort of like, Okay, can I believe in this just enough to see if it helps me, to see if it benefit to me in somewhere, so that I would say, that's the that's the first sort of Buddhist idea that I would want anybody who suffered from depression to come from, because so much of depression is about giving up.
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Speaker 2: So you wanted to say, hmm, let's give this a shot.
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Speaker 3: Yes, this seems believable enough. I don't. I don't. I'm not sure that it's going to work, but it's believable enough that I that I'm willing to try.
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Speaker 2: Okay, so we've established that, what's next.
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Speaker 3: Well, I think the in my life and in the my clinical work, I would say the most important idea in Buddhism I was actually not the sort of suffering and desire piece. The most important idea in Buddhism for me is the idea that compassion is the antidote to suffering, and the idea that being able to pay attention to your like to see your own suffering, your own struggles, and to have love and compassion and kindness, like not not to know that you're like a good enough person and that's why you have love for yourself, but actually to have love and kindness for the parts of you that struggle, for the parts of you that that that suffer that's transformative, and every sing yeah it's depression.
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Speaker 2: You acknowledge your depression and then you give you say I'm acknowledging that and I forgive myself for it.
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Speaker 3: Or I what yeah, okay, So I mean listen, like, okay, just think about a day that you've been in a terrible mood, okay, and the way that you talk about yourself and the way that you talk about other people, there's no patience, there's no kindness, there's no forgiveness. And so what we're doing is we're recognizing on a day like that, when just everything feels like it's going wrong, it's just kind of stopping to say, Okay, I'm suffering today, and what suffering needs is love and compassion, and I'm going to try to treat myself and the other people in my life with compassion. And this is compassion becomes then a muscle that we learn how to that we learn how to train where we can go into sort of specific practices, but ultimately, sort of like the fear or the philosophy, is learning how to take instead of just being like I'm such a I'm such an idiot, nothing ever goes right for me, You know, I should just give up and just be like, Okay, I'm in pain today and really what I need is kindness.
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Speaker 2: So how do you give yourself kindness? By the way, I think probably that when people are depressed and in pain, they lash out at others and they're mean to others, and that probably makes it worse. So one thing you have to acknowledge and you have to notice that you're what's going on and realize that you might have a tendency to lash out at others and be extra compassionate to others that day, because that would help heal you. He will exacerbate, will not exacerbate your problem.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, So the training and learning how to be more compassionate to yourself and to others is really the same training. And what it comes down to is just like a simple principle of what we call mental training. And so the idea is on any quality that.
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Speaker 2: You want, I need to bring now. So this is a good place to put a pin in it. We're going to find out the next step here after this on WBC.
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Speaker 1: It's Night Side with Dany Boston's news Radio.
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Speaker 2: We continue on night Side with Buddhist scholar and therapist, mindfullest trainer, trying to see how you might apply some Buddhist practices to help with depression and to recap if you just joined us. It involves a first recognizing that being a mindful that you are depressed and you're having a bad day, say, and then using compassion compassion for others and self compassion to mitigate it. There's something about compassion that makes you feel better, which is the short version. How does it work? And what is it about compassion that tends to ease the suffering?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, So one of my favorite neuroscientists is a man named Jack conceipt Poncep discovered the seven what he called the basic emotional circuits that all mammals share. So basically from humans, monkeys, dogs, mice, every mammal, there are these seven what he calls primary emotional circuits. There are there are two that he would call positive, there are three that he would call negative or threat based, and there are two that are kind of neutral. I'll just spat on them all because I think you might find them interesting. So the three that are we might call negative or threat based, are three different ways to deal with a threat. So you have a rage circuit. You have a fear circuit, and you have a panic or grief circuit. And so basically with any mammal, if you see a threat and you feel like and your your brain does a calculation, if the best way to do that is to try to sort of scare the thread or confront it, then your rage circuit will activate. If your brain feels like the best way the best path for you is to avoid the threat, then your fear circuit will activate and you'll try to you'll get quiet, or you'll freeze, or you'll run away. And if your brain does a calculation and believes that the best path for you is to try to get help from other members of your species, then you will cry or whimper. Your grief circuit will turn on. And that these are things that dogs do, that monkeys do, that people do. We all have these kind of basic responses to threats. The two positive circuits are the care circuit and the play circuit, and every mammal has these sort of like a similar circuits when they're playing or when they're giving or receiving care, and those are two ways that not only create positive emotions, but they also there are brains most basic sick tool to reduce the threat based emotions care and play. So when I say the play based circuit, I mean you probably know a lot of people when something bad's happening or something you know, whatever, you know, something goes wrong, they make a joke. What possible would say is that they're using the play circuit in their brains to reduce distress. And the other thing that people do when they're when they're feeling bad is you try to comfort them or you try to be kind to them, and that's utilizing the care circuit in your brain to regulate distress. The thing about the care circuit in your brain is that just like any you know, brain circuit, it's something that you can get stronger, just like a muscle over time. And so what we do, the kinds of practices that we that that we look at are practices that are about a debating the care circuit in your brain. It releases oxytocin, it releases natural opiates that give you that warm, fuzzy feeling that you feel when you're giving or receiving care, and it reduces any type of distress that you might be feeling. We use different kinds of visualizations or other practices to turn on the care circuit in your brain and to just get better at that so that it can get stronger and that it becomes easier to access in your life.
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Speaker 2: Did you say the care circuit together with the play circuit?
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Speaker 3: Is that? Yeah? So the other side that they call it the play circuit. In humans, it's a lot more about humor, but in you know, dogs and monkeys and other mammals, it's really just about play and it's just another way to reduce distress.
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Speaker 2: So those were related, right, with those the two, Yeah.
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Speaker 3: Those are or to ponset, those are the two the basic tools that your brain has for creating positive emotions and reducing distress.
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Speaker 2: By creating serotonin, by.
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Speaker 3: Creating by creating serotonin, by creating natural opiates, by creating oxytocin, all these different kind of feel good chemicals.
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Speaker 2: So with that knowledge, when you realize you're down, you need to either yeah, either received care or give care or or.
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Speaker 3: Play yeah yeah we'll play, yeah, I mean, and in terms of giving or receiving care, it's possible to kind of do both. In the depression research, volunteering is actually has like one of the strongest outcomes in terms of reducing us reducing depression, so just being able to do something. One of the things that I'll often do with people who've been suffering with depression for a long time is I'll talk with them about uh, you know, meals on wheels or going walking dogs at a at a dog shelter, and just you know, having some sort of place where they feel like really clear that they're contributing to somebody's life or you know, persons or an animals and and how how how quickly that can bring somebody out of depression. But there's also these kind of meditation or sort of mental training practices that we can do to strengthen that as well.
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Speaker 2: If what you say is true, then if you're able to get a pet and take care of a dog or a cat, that seems like going to be a a serotonin creator.
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Speaker 3: Absolutely, Yeah, I mean especially the more the more that you're you know, providing care and and in a way that's not you know, like too stressful for you. But yeah, actually that there was a there was a study about people living in like an assisted living facility and just giving people a place to take care of reduced a huge amount of chronic health complaints.
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Speaker 2: You know, one thing I do, and maybe this is kind of an example. I agreed to be a partner in taking care of a pollinator garden and ten trees. So part of my job is to water that garden and what are those trees? And I actually do like the experience. It's funny, I like it quite a lot. I put on music I like and do feel like I'm contributing. And then when I go look at the bees too, I think, you know, I'm actually doing something positive and it does make me feel good. So you spell this out more in your book. Right in the book is Buddhist Practices Forcoming Depression. Wow, I'm really pleased that you're so specific. You have very actionable information and I like that a lot.
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Speaker 3: Thanks.
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Speaker 2: Is there anything else along those lines?
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Speaker 3: The yeah, yeah, I mean yeah. I think the last thing that I would do is so one thing that I can do right now and we can actually test it. So right now, if you were, if you were to kind of give you your current mood state, just like paying attention to yourself from like a zero zero is the worst you've ever felt. Ten is like you know, your kid just got married, the best you ever felt? What number would you give yourself right now?
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Speaker 2: You know I'm pretty man, so I would say four and three quarters.
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Speaker 3: Four and three quarters. So what I want you to do is just take a second, and I want you to close your eyes and I want you to picture those bees that you're taking care of, and I want you to let me know when you can kind of see him there.
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Speaker 2: I can see him. I watched them carefully today.
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Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, So picture the bees and just notice how how that feels for just a second. And then what I want you to try to eat silently or out loud. I want you to try to say to the bees.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I will say it.
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Speaker 3: May you be well? Yeah, yeah, totally, just saying silently to those bees, may you be well, May you be healthy, May you be safe. I'll just take a take a second, and then just checking in with yourself. How's your how does your move feel?
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Speaker 2: Now? I can see what you say, and I think that's actually pretty pretty good. I would say I ratchet it up to a maybe even a six.
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Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, So what we do and if we and I can guarantee if me and you spend and we're not going to do this for your listeners, but if we spent fifteen minutes just going like okay, no, no, no, keep the bees there. Just say it over and over again. We take you up to like an eight eight and a half and it's just this say of like finding something. So for you, it's the bees. For everybody, it's something where you can where that care response feels natural and you just let it go and you let it build. And the more you do that, if you spend thirty minutes a day for two weeks just focused on how much you care about your dog or your cat, or those bees, or your grandkid or whoever it is. If you spend thirty minutes a day for two weeks, I guarantee a good mood will be something that comes to you more easily.
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Speaker 2: You know, I actually believe it. I'm quite I'm quite stunned. Actually, maybe stunt's too ard surprise that how specific and how noticeable the change is. Yeah, quite great. So can we do one more segment where we just talk about learn a little bit about Buddhism and maybe dispel a myth or two.
00:33:08
Speaker 3: Sure?
00:33:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, good, So that was great. More on this after this on WBZ.
00:33:14
Speaker 1: It's Nightside with Ray on WBZ Foston's News radio.
00:33:21
Speaker 2: Talking about Buddhism and how do you some of the Buddhism practices to help with depression? And it makes sense and it's very actionable. If you missed any part of this, you can always access this hour or any nightside hour on Nightside on demand dot com. That's where you go nightside on demand dot com. And if you know somebody who might be helped by this, share it of course. Jim Desmond wonderful guests, Buddhist scholar, talked about, as I mentioned, how to use Buddhist practices to help with depression. Now, I just like to kind of get some broad strokes outlined about what Buddhism is and what it isn't and maybe just spout some myths. There's the eightfold Path and the four Noble truths, and there's the notion of reincarnation or something else. Maybe that's not there, not the correct word, maybe it's a misnomer, maybe it's misleading. But I'll just pretty much give you, like well the rest of the time, which is about seven actually five minutes to explain that stuff.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, so in the same way that that we that if we're going to try to talk about Western philosophy and what's included in Western philosophy, Well, we could say you can find almost any kind of idea in Western philosophy. You can certainly find ideas that are very religious, and ideas that are very secular, ideas that are, you know, very logical, and other ideas that are more like artistic or sort of emotional. And it's the same. The Buddhist tradition is enormous and comprises a lot. So what I want to say there is just to say that anything anything quick like this is more you want to think of it as just kind of a quick overview of Western philosophy. It's it's, it's. It certainly isn't going to speak to everything. But what I will say that I found that's pretty core to most Buddhism. The four noble truths now, which we started with the first one. The way that I like to translate them is the first noble truth is that everybody suffers. The second is that suffering has causes. The third is that freedom from suffering or reducing your suffering is possible. And the fourth is that there's a path that leads to less suffering. It leads to freedom from suffering, and so what is that path. Well, that path is normally made up. We call it the eightfold path. The eightfold path that is basically starts with right view, which is basically being able to look at the world in a way that's you know, that that we're not being trapped by misunderstandings. So I don't want to say right view, like there's a particular philosophy that you need to adhere to in order to have right view and you're going to be judged on it. But it's more that just when you're looking at your life, a lot of time suffering comes from misunderstanding things, from having wrong view, from from ignorance, and then once you see things clearly, then that leads to a whole kind of cascade of right view leading to right action, right livelihood that you're you know that you that you speak and you act and you live in accordance with kind of a clear understanding. So that's really what the afold path is all about. I think that one of the other kind of core ideas in Buddhism is the idea that sometimes the right way of understanding something is really hard to explain philosophically and that's where when you get you know, a lot of these things in schools like Zen where they're kind of you know, more like riddles or or different or paradoxes that people think about. And the one paradox that I'll share here that I think is really hopeful is sometimes there'll be a type of training just like what we did a little while ago, which is you know, looking at myself for another person and sort of saying like, may you be healthy, may you be safe. And there's another kind of training that's called the remembrances where we where we actually go through and make sure that we remember that everybody grows old, everybody gets sick, and everybody dies. And how does it how could it possibly make sense to just in one moment, in one moment just kind of be remembering you know, like you know, get like old age, sickness and death are just like an inevitable part of life. And at the same time, there's this feeling of like, may you be healthy, may you be safe, may you be well. Well, the reality is that that's just what it is to be Yeah seconds tell me, Okay, that's just that's just what it is to be a human being, is uh, We wish that we could always be healthy, but we know that we won't be, and if we can find a way to be okay with that reality, then we have a lot more freedom.
00:38:58
Speaker 2: You're a great guest. I thank you your time and your wonderful actionable stuff. It's w b Z
Speaker 1: It's Night's Eyes with Dan Ray. I'm going busy Boston's.
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Speaker 2: News Radio's supposed to rain a bunch, particularly southern Massachusetts area for big time rain. I guess kind of moderate rain, mostly all rain tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it. I'm just gonna veg in the morning and then prepare the show in the afternoon. I'm looking forward to rain. This is Nightside with Dan Ray. Bradley j for Dan. Do you suffer from depression? How do you know it's depression? Well, we'll take a look at that. What is depression? Do you think? Well? Our next guest says that Buddhist practices can help with depression. So that brings up the next question. Buddhism. What's that? I mean, you've heard of it, but I bet you don't really know much about it. And if you do, love to hear from you, Love to hear from you in any case, any angle on this topic helping depression, mitigating depression with Buddhist practices. And our guest is Tim Desmond, Buddhist scholar, therapist, mindfulness trainer, and author of Wouldn't You Know It? Buddhist Practices for Overcoming Depression. Thanks for being with us.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, happy to be here.
00:01:21
Speaker 2: So, Tim, what is depression as you see it? How do you define it?
00:01:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, people who are depressed definitely describe it really differently. I think in mental health, you know, we talk about it as a type of low mood. Often it's about kind of a lack of hope, a lack of energy, like a lot of it is less about having a lot of sadness and more about this kind of feeling like nothing you do is going to help. And from that kind of place, just not having a lot of energy or motivation to do much of anything.
00:02:06
Speaker 2: No real reason to get up in the morning.
00:02:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, kind of like no reason to get up in the morning. Now, it shows up in a lot of different ways. But if you sort of think about do I feel like there's not really much that I could do that would make my life better, or then that we're starting to get closer to depression. If you feel like you've just been in a low mood sort of consistently for a long time, we might call that depression. But coming from a Buddhist perspective, it's just one form that human suffering can take. You know, we all suffer in different ways, and depression is one form.
00:02:48
Speaker 2: I thought that to really be truly clinically depressed, it was a chemical thing that you really couldn't do anything about and you needed medication.
00:02:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's funny they they sold that, especially in the nineties. That was a that was a big idea. So ultimately what happened was we people developed a medication that increased the serotonin in your brain, and some people, not not everybody, but who took it felt their depression improve. And so then the people who are selling that medication started to say, well, if increasing your serotonin or taking this medication makes people less depressed, then not enough serotonin must be the cause of depression. Well, it turns out we've actually disproven that pretty clearly, Like you can actually artificially lower somebody's serotonin. What you do is you if you give somebody a drink that has every amino acid except for trip to fan. Trip to fan is is the amino acid that makes serotonin? Do you give them everything except for trip to fan the serotonin levels and their blood drop. But if somebody doesn't have a reason for being depressed, then their brain will just basically rebalance itself using many of the other kind of neurotransmitters that we have, and people don't experience a low mood, So we know that just decreasing your serotonin doesn't make you depressed. However, when somebody is depressed that you know it, it affects lots of different chemicals in our brains, just like when somebody is in a good mood, it affects lots of different chemicals in our brains.
00:04:47
Speaker 2: Efect.
00:04:49
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I think it's pretty clear that low serotonin is more isn't effective being depressed and not a cost?
00:05:00
Speaker 2: All right? And are you telling me that modhus practices can raise serotonin or do they make you cheer up in without any without dealing with serotonin at all?
00:05:13
Speaker 3: Yeah? Okay, So so what I can tell you is that anything that changes how you think, that changes how you feel. I mean that that's all having an impact on your brain. If if we put you in the smritube, whatever you did, whatever you talked about, it's your brain is always changing everything. Oh so if we put you I don't know if you've seen those, Like a friend of mine works at a neuroscience lab over at Haybrid and they they you know, they take people and it's a basically just like a scanning machine where while you're alive, they can go in and they can take pictures of all your internal organs. It's like a CT scan. But but the MRI is is particularly good for for your brain. But if we scan your brain and look at it, we can see that. You know, really, if somebody tells you a joke that changes your brain activity, if somebody shows you a really sad movie that changes your brain activity, it's it's okay.
00:06:26
Speaker 2: So you can see what I get it.
00:06:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can see it.
00:06:30
Speaker 2: You can see what happens when you get different stimuli.
00:06:34
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. So so what I would say in terms of dealing with depression, Uh so my experience is just like dealing with any type of of suffering, we need to understand like what is causing it, where is it coming from, and and and for depression, it can come from a lot of different places. Yeah, we can. We can sort of talk through that. So I mean to sort of talk about different people who've suffered from depression and kind of different ways that it can show up. But we want to understand where it's coming from, and then we want to try to do something to change what's actually making somebody feel depressed.
00:07:17
Speaker 2: Okay, great, So now we have a handle on how we're defining depression. After this quick break, we will get into talking about what Buddhism is and what it's not. By the way, after this on WBZ, you're.
00:07:33
Speaker 1: On night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's news radio.
00:07:38
Speaker 2: Bradley J for Dan on night Side tonight. By the way, if you find yourself hankering for Nightside during the daytime, you can always listen to Nightside on demand. It's Nightside on demand dot com. Also, if you find yourself anchoring for some talk radio on Saturday, I'll be doing so. Further notice live Jay talking here on WBZ from six to eight on Saturdays. And if you want to connect with me and see stuff I'm doing music videos that you can go to BRADLEYJ dot RG. That's b R A D L E Y JY dot RG. You feeling depressed, have you? We want to do something about it, looking for alternative medication if you will. We're talking about the possibility that Buddhist practices might help you. Our guest is Tim Desmond, Buddhist scholar, therapist, mindfulness trainer, and author of Buddhist practices for overcoming depression. Quick question, willis say you're a Christian, maybe you're kind of an active Christian or most will willis interfere with will you get in trouble with your God?
00:08:46
Speaker 3: No? Okay, so yeah, I grew up in Boston, uh, going to a Unitarian church. I learned about Buddhism Buddhism in college. And basically, what makes Buddhism like kind of like the core of what Buddhist philosophy and Buddhist practices are about is just understanding human suffering, what creates human suffering, and how do we relieve human suffering? And in many ways, one of the reasons that many people talk about Buddhism as more of a philosophy or more of a psychology is that's really what's at its core. Now there are people, so obviously, since there are you know, around a billion people who identify as Buddhists in the world, the way that they hold that it can be really different. You know, some people, For some people it's much more about going to a temple, and for other people it can be about different kinds of things. But I guess what I want to say is for anybody who's listening to this. If you're interested in sort of a philosophy or a way of thinking that mainly is just about where does suffering come from? Right, and how can we suffer less? Then I think it's a good place to go.
00:10:18
Speaker 2: So you don't need to get into it enough so that it is butting up against your religion. You can just kind of steal, steal some of the practices to help yourself.
00:10:31
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, absolutely. And in fact, my teacher, so the teacher that I studied with for twenty five years, he really encouraged people. A lot of people who had left their church or left their tradition, he would really encourage them to go back and try to use some of the practices that they found to reconnect and actually kind of deepen with the religion that they grew up with.
00:10:55
Speaker 2: Right now and a bit we'll find out about the practices, but a little more about Buddhism at its core, it says, this is how I understand it. This is the short Bradley Jay version. At the core of human life is suffering. This is caused by desire, and in order to remove suffering, you remove desire. But here's the thing, and this seems very similar to the Stoics like Epictetis Seneca and Marcus Relius. You have to basically you have to not care about anything that you have to just not care. And when they say to that, when they say this desire, they're not talking about I desire a piece of cake or I desire a new car. They're talking about caring about anything like, I can't. I can't. I have to give up my desire for a long life. I have to give up my desire for health. I have to give up my desire for everything, because these desires, the lot of these things, yeah, causes me suffering. So you get to the point where you can't care about anything. You can't even care about I desire that my wife remain healthy, you can't even desire that. So, yeah, if you're really going to get it, go all the way with Buddhism, or at least the desire part, it goes down a road that almost reduces it to absurdity.
00:12:25
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, yeah, But and I think that that's a really common way that people think about Buddhism. I think it's a misunderstanding. I think it's basically it's a it's a pretty accurate interpretation of what maybe like it kind of an intro text would would say in terms of, like, how is Buddhism different than other you know, sort of world traditions. Ultimately, what so the idea of everybody suffers, I think that you're You're right on there, as like kind of a core Buddhist teaching is like, okay, so every person who's ever lived knows what it's like to suffer, and that suffering has causes. Desire is an important one, and that also it's possible to suffer less, and many people would say that it's possible to really free yourself from suffering. And the interesting part though, is in terms of desire, just kind of one of the places that Buddhism ends up being kind of different than the Stoics is that the idea isn't that you're somehow making yourself feel less or kind of shutting off those parts of you. It's just kind of recognizing, like, for example, you know, in the same way that like you, if you smell some food, like some appetizing food, your body is going to react to that. You're just you're a living thing. Your body is going to react to that tasty food. And the question is not so much whether that comes up in you. It's more about are you caught by it? Is it? The key difference between whether or not that creates suffering for you is do you notice, like, oh, that's really appetizing and I'm just kind of and I'm aware of it, and I'm it's sort of like I'm I'm bigger than that feeling, Like I'm just like I'm, oh, yeah, I'm having that kind of feeling. Or are you caught by the feeling in the sense of like I need that food okay? And really what it comes down to is, yeah.
00:14:40
Speaker 2: The thing to do is be aware of your desire and kind of understand that's happening and keep and control it or something like that.
00:14:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, when I say there's like a combination, and I think this is a thing that I found kind of one of the things that I found the most helpful of But this practice is that there's this combination of discipline and compassion and that they're both seen as really important. The way that I grew up, I don't know about you, but discipline had nothing to do with compassion, and compassion was always normally had, you know, was like think something that that had very little discipline, but spending a lot of time in Buddhist monasteries and in Buddhist training centers, there's this idea that discipline and compassion go together. So how do you relate to your desire? How do you relate to that that want that you have? Well, first, it's having compassion for yourself. It's kind of like, Okay, well, I just like every other living thing, have desires like I'm going to That's just sort of what a body does. And yet there's also this discipline of like and the kindest thing that I can do for myself is to just kind of like to see them and not get not sort of get carried away by them.
00:16:01
Speaker 2: Interesting, all right, now let's try to put the two together. And you're talking about how Buddhism works. How can we use what we've discussed here to reduce depression.
00:16:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the first thing that I want to talk about is actually one of the ideas in Buddhism the word sada, which is normally translated as faith. And there's a handful of types of faith in Buddhism. Actually, in Buddhism, faith is never about accepting a thing that you can't prove. The sada. It basically means the first type of faith is called bright faith, which is basically, if you hear something and that sounds good to you, you've never tried it, but it seems like it makes sense, then you have something called bright faith. And then the second type of faith is called verifying faith, basically means like, I have enough belief in this that I'm willing to try it for myself. And then only after you've tried something and it's worked for you over time do you end up with abiding faith, which is sort of faith that's based in your own experience. And I think that one of the things that people who are depressed lose touch with is verifying faith. So many people have had the experience of I try this, and I try that, and nothing helps me, and so I'm just done. And when they're exposed to a new idea or a new way of doing things, or some other possibility or opportunity in their life, they're like, I've tried enough things, and it's the piece that's missing, is this verifying faith of just sort of like, Okay, can I believe in this just enough to see if it helps me, to see if it benefit to me in somewhere, so that I would say, that's the that's the first sort of Buddhist idea that I would want anybody who suffered from depression to come from, because so much of depression is about giving up.
00:18:09
Speaker 2: So you wanted to say, hmm, let's give this a shot.
00:18:14
Speaker 3: Yes, this seems believable enough. I don't. I don't. I'm not sure that it's going to work, but it's believable enough that I that I'm willing to try.
00:18:24
Speaker 2: Okay, so we've established that, what's next.
00:18:30
Speaker 3: Well, I think the in my life and in the my clinical work, I would say the most important idea in Buddhism I was actually not the sort of suffering and desire piece. The most important idea in Buddhism for me is the idea that compassion is the antidote to suffering, and the idea that being able to pay attention to your like to see your own suffering, your own struggles, and to have love and compassion and kindness, like not not to know that you're like a good enough person and that's why you have love for yourself, but actually to have love and kindness for the parts of you that struggle, for the parts of you that that that suffer that's transformative, and every sing yeah it's depression.
00:19:28
Speaker 2: You acknowledge your depression and then you give you say I'm acknowledging that and I forgive myself for it.
00:19:40
Speaker 3: Or I what yeah, okay, So I mean listen, like, okay, just think about a day that you've been in a terrible mood, okay, and the way that you talk about yourself and the way that you talk about other people, there's no patience, there's no kindness, there's no forgiveness. And so what we're doing is we're recognizing on a day like that, when just everything feels like it's going wrong, it's just kind of stopping to say, Okay, I'm suffering today, and what suffering needs is love and compassion, and I'm going to try to treat myself and the other people in my life with compassion. And this is compassion becomes then a muscle that we learn how to that we learn how to train where we can go into sort of specific practices, but ultimately, sort of like the fear or the philosophy, is learning how to take instead of just being like I'm such a I'm such an idiot, nothing ever goes right for me, You know, I should just give up and just be like, Okay, I'm in pain today and really what I need is kindness.
00:20:52
Speaker 2: So how do you give yourself kindness? By the way, I think probably that when people are depressed and in pain, they lash out at others and they're mean to others, and that probably makes it worse. So one thing you have to acknowledge and you have to notice that you're what's going on and realize that you might have a tendency to lash out at others and be extra compassionate to others that day, because that would help heal you. He will exacerbate, will not exacerbate your problem.
00:21:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the training and learning how to be more compassionate to yourself and to others is really the same training. And what it comes down to is just like a simple principle of what we call mental training. And so the idea is on any quality that.
00:21:43
Speaker 2: You want, I need to bring now. So this is a good place to put a pin in it. We're going to find out the next step here after this on WBC.
00:21:52
Speaker 1: It's Night Side with Dany Boston's news Radio.
00:21:57
Speaker 2: We continue on night Side with Buddhist scholar and therapist, mindfullest trainer, trying to see how you might apply some Buddhist practices to help with depression and to recap if you just joined us. It involves a first recognizing that being a mindful that you are depressed and you're having a bad day, say, and then using compassion compassion for others and self compassion to mitigate it. There's something about compassion that makes you feel better, which is the short version. How does it work? And what is it about compassion that tends to ease the suffering?
00:22:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, So one of my favorite neuroscientists is a man named Jack conceipt Poncep discovered the seven what he called the basic emotional circuits that all mammals share. So basically from humans, monkeys, dogs, mice, every mammal, there are these seven what he calls primary emotional circuits. There are there are two that he would call positive, there are three that he would call negative or threat based, and there are two that are kind of neutral. I'll just spat on them all because I think you might find them interesting. So the three that are we might call negative or threat based, are three different ways to deal with a threat. So you have a rage circuit. You have a fear circuit, and you have a panic or grief circuit. And so basically with any mammal, if you see a threat and you feel like and your your brain does a calculation, if the best way to do that is to try to sort of scare the thread or confront it, then your rage circuit will activate. If your brain feels like the best way the best path for you is to avoid the threat, then your fear circuit will activate and you'll try to you'll get quiet, or you'll freeze, or you'll run away. And if your brain does a calculation and believes that the best path for you is to try to get help from other members of your species, then you will cry or whimper. Your grief circuit will turn on. And that these are things that dogs do, that monkeys do, that people do. We all have these kind of basic responses to threats. The two positive circuits are the care circuit and the play circuit, and every mammal has these sort of like a similar circuits when they're playing or when they're giving or receiving care, and those are two ways that not only create positive emotions, but they also there are brains most basic sick tool to reduce the threat based emotions care and play. So when I say the play based circuit, I mean you probably know a lot of people when something bad's happening or something you know, whatever, you know, something goes wrong, they make a joke. What possible would say is that they're using the play circuit in their brains to reduce distress. And the other thing that people do when they're when they're feeling bad is you try to comfort them or you try to be kind to them, and that's utilizing the care circuit in your brain to regulate distress. The thing about the care circuit in your brain is that just like any you know, brain circuit, it's something that you can get stronger, just like a muscle over time. And so what we do, the kinds of practices that we that that we look at are practices that are about a debating the care circuit in your brain. It releases oxytocin, it releases natural opiates that give you that warm, fuzzy feeling that you feel when you're giving or receiving care, and it reduces any type of distress that you might be feeling. We use different kinds of visualizations or other practices to turn on the care circuit in your brain and to just get better at that so that it can get stronger and that it becomes easier to access in your life.
00:26:34
Speaker 2: Did you say the care circuit together with the play circuit?
00:26:39
Speaker 3: Is that? Yeah? So the other side that they call it the play circuit. In humans, it's a lot more about humor, but in you know, dogs and monkeys and other mammals, it's really just about play and it's just another way to reduce distress.
00:26:54
Speaker 2: So those were related, right, with those the two, Yeah.
00:26:59
Speaker 3: Those are or to ponset, those are the two the basic tools that your brain has for creating positive emotions and reducing distress.
00:27:10
Speaker 2: By creating serotonin, by.
00:27:13
Speaker 3: Creating by creating serotonin, by creating natural opiates, by creating oxytocin, all these different kind of feel good chemicals.
00:27:22
Speaker 2: So with that knowledge, when you realize you're down, you need to either yeah, either received care or give care or or.
00:27:32
Speaker 3: Play yeah yeah we'll play, yeah, I mean, and in terms of giving or receiving care, it's possible to kind of do both. In the depression research, volunteering is actually has like one of the strongest outcomes in terms of reducing us reducing depression, so just being able to do something. One of the things that I'll often do with people who've been suffering with depression for a long time is I'll talk with them about uh, you know, meals on wheels or going walking dogs at a at a dog shelter, and just you know, having some sort of place where they feel like really clear that they're contributing to somebody's life or you know, persons or an animals and and how how how quickly that can bring somebody out of depression. But there's also these kind of meditation or sort of mental training practices that we can do to strengthen that as well.
00:28:28
Speaker 2: If what you say is true, then if you're able to get a pet and take care of a dog or a cat, that seems like going to be a a serotonin creator.
00:28:41
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Yeah, I mean especially the more the more that you're you know, providing care and and in a way that's not you know, like too stressful for you. But yeah, actually that there was a there was a study about people living in like an assisted living facility and just giving people a place to take care of reduced a huge amount of chronic health complaints.
00:29:07
Speaker 2: You know, one thing I do, and maybe this is kind of an example. I agreed to be a partner in taking care of a pollinator garden and ten trees. So part of my job is to water that garden and what are those trees? And I actually do like the experience. It's funny, I like it quite a lot. I put on music I like and do feel like I'm contributing. And then when I go look at the bees too, I think, you know, I'm actually doing something positive and it does make me feel good. So you spell this out more in your book. Right in the book is Buddhist Practices Forcoming Depression. Wow, I'm really pleased that you're so specific. You have very actionable information and I like that a lot.
00:30:01
Speaker 3: Thanks.
00:30:01
Speaker 2: Is there anything else along those lines?
00:30:05
Speaker 3: The yeah, yeah, I mean yeah. I think the last thing that I would do is so one thing that I can do right now and we can actually test it. So right now, if you were, if you were to kind of give you your current mood state, just like paying attention to yourself from like a zero zero is the worst you've ever felt. Ten is like you know, your kid just got married, the best you ever felt? What number would you give yourself right now?
00:30:31
Speaker 2: You know I'm pretty man, so I would say four and three quarters.
00:30:38
Speaker 3: Four and three quarters. So what I want you to do is just take a second, and I want you to close your eyes and I want you to picture those bees that you're taking care of, and I want you to let me know when you can kind of see him there.
00:30:53
Speaker 2: I can see him. I watched them carefully today.
00:30:55
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, So picture the bees and just notice how how that feels for just a second. And then what I want you to try to eat silently or out loud. I want you to try to say to the bees.
00:31:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, I will say it.
00:31:13
Speaker 3: May you be well? Yeah, yeah, totally, just saying silently to those bees, may you be well, May you be healthy, May you be safe. I'll just take a take a second, and then just checking in with yourself. How's your how does your move feel?
00:31:32
Speaker 2: Now? I can see what you say, and I think that's actually pretty pretty good. I would say I ratchet it up to a maybe even a six.
00:31:42
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, So what we do and if we and I can guarantee if me and you spend and we're not going to do this for your listeners, but if we spent fifteen minutes just going like okay, no, no, no, keep the bees there. Just say it over and over again. We take you up to like an eight eight and a half and it's just this say of like finding something. So for you, it's the bees. For everybody, it's something where you can where that care response feels natural and you just let it go and you let it build. And the more you do that, if you spend thirty minutes a day for two weeks just focused on how much you care about your dog or your cat, or those bees, or your grandkid or whoever it is. If you spend thirty minutes a day for two weeks, I guarantee a good mood will be something that comes to you more easily.
00:32:40
Speaker 2: You know, I actually believe it. I'm quite I'm quite stunned. Actually, maybe stunt's too ard surprise that how specific and how noticeable the change is. Yeah, quite great. So can we do one more segment where we just talk about learn a little bit about Buddhism and maybe dispel a myth or two.
00:33:08
Speaker 3: Sure?
00:33:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, good, So that was great. More on this after this on WBZ.
00:33:14
Speaker 1: It's Nightside with Ray on WBZ Foston's News radio.
00:33:21
Speaker 2: Talking about Buddhism and how do you some of the Buddhism practices to help with depression? And it makes sense and it's very actionable. If you missed any part of this, you can always access this hour or any nightside hour on Nightside on demand dot com. That's where you go nightside on demand dot com. And if you know somebody who might be helped by this, share it of course. Jim Desmond wonderful guests, Buddhist scholar, talked about, as I mentioned, how to use Buddhist practices to help with depression. Now, I just like to kind of get some broad strokes outlined about what Buddhism is and what it isn't and maybe just spout some myths. There's the eightfold Path and the four Noble truths, and there's the notion of reincarnation or something else. Maybe that's not there, not the correct word, maybe it's a misnomer, maybe it's misleading. But I'll just pretty much give you, like well the rest of the time, which is about seven actually five minutes to explain that stuff.
00:34:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, so in the same way that that we that if we're going to try to talk about Western philosophy and what's included in Western philosophy, Well, we could say you can find almost any kind of idea in Western philosophy. You can certainly find ideas that are very religious, and ideas that are very secular, ideas that are, you know, very logical, and other ideas that are more like artistic or sort of emotional. And it's the same. The Buddhist tradition is enormous and comprises a lot. So what I want to say there is just to say that anything anything quick like this is more you want to think of it as just kind of a quick overview of Western philosophy. It's it's, it's. It certainly isn't going to speak to everything. But what I will say that I found that's pretty core to most Buddhism. The four noble truths now, which we started with the first one. The way that I like to translate them is the first noble truth is that everybody suffers. The second is that suffering has causes. The third is that freedom from suffering or reducing your suffering is possible. And the fourth is that there's a path that leads to less suffering. It leads to freedom from suffering, and so what is that path. Well, that path is normally made up. We call it the eightfold path. The eightfold path that is basically starts with right view, which is basically being able to look at the world in a way that's you know, that that we're not being trapped by misunderstandings. So I don't want to say right view, like there's a particular philosophy that you need to adhere to in order to have right view and you're going to be judged on it. But it's more that just when you're looking at your life, a lot of time suffering comes from misunderstanding things, from having wrong view, from from ignorance, and then once you see things clearly, then that leads to a whole kind of cascade of right view leading to right action, right livelihood that you're you know that you that you speak and you act and you live in accordance with kind of a clear understanding. So that's really what the afold path is all about. I think that one of the other kind of core ideas in Buddhism is the idea that sometimes the right way of understanding something is really hard to explain philosophically and that's where when you get you know, a lot of these things in schools like Zen where they're kind of you know, more like riddles or or different or paradoxes that people think about. And the one paradox that I'll share here that I think is really hopeful is sometimes there'll be a type of training just like what we did a little while ago, which is you know, looking at myself for another person and sort of saying like, may you be healthy, may you be safe. And there's another kind of training that's called the remembrances where we where we actually go through and make sure that we remember that everybody grows old, everybody gets sick, and everybody dies. And how does it how could it possibly make sense to just in one moment, in one moment just kind of be remembering you know, like you know, get like old age, sickness and death are just like an inevitable part of life. And at the same time, there's this feeling of like, may you be healthy, may you be safe, may you be well. Well, the reality is that that's just what it is to be Yeah seconds tell me, Okay, that's just that's just what it is to be a human being, is uh, We wish that we could always be healthy, but we know that we won't be, and if we can find a way to be okay with that reality, then we have a lot more freedom.
00:38:58
Speaker 2: You're a great guest. I thank you your time and your wonderful actionable stuff. It's w b Z
