WEBVTT
00:00:01.600 --> 00:00:06.320
When you dream at night, you have a dream.
00:00:06.480 --> 00:00:10.560
Let's say somebody's in your dream and they're either a good person or bad person.
00:00:10.800 --> 00:00:17.039
In your dream, you don't identify with the other person in your dream, do you?
00:00:17.519 --> 00:00:18.480
They're scary.
00:00:18.559 --> 00:00:20.000
You're running from them.
00:00:20.399 --> 00:00:22.399
Holy shit, I had a dream about you last night.
00:00:22.480 --> 00:00:23.600
You were chasing me with an axe.
00:00:23.679 --> 00:00:25.280
It was terrifying.
00:00:26.320 --> 00:00:27.760
Wait a minute.
00:00:28.719 --> 00:00:31.679
That person chasing you with the axe in your dream?
00:00:31.920 --> 00:00:34.000
That was actually you, wasn't it?
00:00:34.560 --> 00:00:35.840
Well, yeah, I guess so.
00:00:36.000 --> 00:00:38.240
It was my dream, after all.
00:00:38.479 --> 00:00:38.960
Yeah.
00:00:39.200 --> 00:00:41.840
So in the dream, you were yourself?
00:00:42.640 --> 00:00:44.240
You were the other person?
00:00:45.359 --> 00:00:46.719
You were the environment.
00:00:46.880 --> 00:00:48.960
You were the room that you were inhabiting.
00:00:49.200 --> 00:00:51.840
You were the space between you and the other person.
00:00:52.000 --> 00:00:54.880
You were everything of the dream, weren't you?
00:00:55.119 --> 00:00:57.359
The whole thing top to bottom.
00:00:57.600 --> 00:01:03.280
But in the dream, you only felt like the person being chased.
00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:15.760
Now you see that right there, that is where the Zen tradition and the Advaita Vedanta tradition from Hinduism just merge.
00:01:16.319 --> 00:01:24.000
Because the experiencer and the experience are not two things.
00:01:41.519 --> 00:01:42.719
We're rolling.
00:01:43.280 --> 00:01:48.799
There's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.
00:01:49.840 --> 00:01:53.120
That was Morpheus speaking to Neo in the Matrix film.
00:01:55.439 --> 00:02:04.480
In that film, he understood that he was inside of a computer simulation and that as long as he had confidence, he could jump from a building to another building.
00:02:04.799 --> 00:02:05.439
No problem.
00:02:07.439 --> 00:02:09.280
He tries and he fails.
00:02:09.680 --> 00:02:16.879
And therein lies the difference between knowing and walking in a sci-fi action film.
00:02:17.120 --> 00:02:22.800
But that quote, there is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.
00:02:23.360 --> 00:02:28.560
Well, that is good advice, and that applies to us in real life.
00:02:31.599 --> 00:02:36.159
My name is Jacob, and I'm the host of Standing Nowhere, and I am pleased to be back with you.
00:02:36.400 --> 00:02:40.080
But if I'm really honest, I'm frustrated right now.
00:02:40.240 --> 00:02:43.439
I didn't know how to start this episode.
00:02:43.759 --> 00:02:51.199
And hand to God, this is I think my seventh time restarting this episode.
00:02:52.000 --> 00:02:53.280
Seven times.
00:02:54.240 --> 00:03:00.240
So what is the difference between knowing the path and walking the path?
00:03:02.319 --> 00:03:11.039
Well, knowing would be I love podcasting, I love recording, I love doing a podcast.
00:03:11.360 --> 00:03:17.360
But walking the path in this exact moment isn't easy.
00:03:17.599 --> 00:03:20.080
And I would call it frustrating.
00:03:20.479 --> 00:03:26.560
I've started this episode over seven times, three to four minutes on average each time.
00:03:26.879 --> 00:03:31.199
This recording right now may not ever see the light of day.
00:03:31.439 --> 00:03:37.599
I am talking into a microphone by myself in my bedroom, and this may never see the light of day.
00:03:37.680 --> 00:03:50.080
So imagine how frustrating it can be when you can't find the words, and yet the thing you love and you know and you understand that you love to do is podcast, but you can't find the words.
00:03:50.319 --> 00:03:52.479
So what is the experience right now?
00:03:52.639 --> 00:03:55.599
Well, the experience is frustration.
00:03:55.840 --> 00:03:57.199
That's reality.
00:04:00.080 --> 00:04:01.439
And yet here I am.
00:04:01.599 --> 00:04:05.840
I'm recording and I'm trying to find the words.
00:04:06.639 --> 00:04:09.360
Or let them flow out of me, if you will.
00:04:09.599 --> 00:04:11.680
It's like when you're taking a dump, right?
00:04:11.840 --> 00:04:14.479
If you try to push really hard, it just doesn't get anywhere.
00:04:14.560 --> 00:04:17.839
But if you relax, suddenly things start to flow.
00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:22.399
And if that's too vile of an example for you, I apologize.
00:04:22.639 --> 00:04:32.560
I do not mean to offend you, but sometimes humorous analogies can loosen us up a little bit to let things sink in, right?
00:04:33.120 --> 00:04:34.959
So why do I bring this up?
00:04:35.199 --> 00:04:40.720
Well, there's a big difference between hearing, understanding, and experiencing.
00:04:41.040 --> 00:04:47.360
Most of the time in life, we hear a lot from religious people about God.
00:04:48.480 --> 00:04:57.279
And we hear a lot of religious people talk about Krishna, and a lot of religious people talk about meditation if you're a Buddhist.
00:05:00.399 --> 00:05:01.839
Take your pick.
00:05:05.759 --> 00:05:10.560
There's a big problem with spirituality.
00:05:10.879 --> 00:05:14.639
You see, it's always pointing at the moon.
00:05:14.879 --> 00:05:17.120
It's always pointing to the moment, right?
00:05:17.600 --> 00:05:19.759
The indescribable, the unknowable.
00:05:19.839 --> 00:05:25.839
It's pointing to it, and it uses wonderful words, wonderful stories.
00:05:27.120 --> 00:05:28.160
Check this thing out.
00:05:28.319 --> 00:05:29.040
It's great.
00:05:29.199 --> 00:05:30.560
It's full of love.
00:05:31.279 --> 00:05:32.319
It's all you need.
00:05:32.399 --> 00:05:33.600
You can trust it.
00:05:35.839 --> 00:05:38.480
But ask someone to draw you a picture of it.
00:05:39.279 --> 00:05:40.399
Good luck.
00:05:42.319 --> 00:05:47.920
It's the tooth that can't bite itself, or the finger that it can't touch itself.
00:05:48.240 --> 00:05:51.839
It's the eye that can't see itself.
00:05:53.920 --> 00:05:58.560
And here I am starting a podcast about something that can't be put into words.
00:05:58.720 --> 00:06:00.959
So imagine my frustration, right?
00:06:04.240 --> 00:06:08.399
And what's the difference when it comes to spiritual traditions?
00:06:08.720 --> 00:06:21.759
Well, we we go to church or wherever you go or whatever you do to learn about your tradition, watch a YouTube video, listen to a podcast, read a book, and you conceptually understand it.
00:06:22.480 --> 00:06:27.519
The concepts are there and you understand them.
00:06:29.279 --> 00:06:35.040
But then when it comes to experience, that's a whole nother animal.
00:06:35.839 --> 00:06:37.759
Whole different animal.
00:06:40.560 --> 00:06:47.360
Just hearing about meditation can conjure up all sorts of different understandings for different people.
00:06:47.519 --> 00:06:57.040
If I describe my ZaZen practice to you, where I sit on a cushion in the morning and I let my thumbs rest together and I focus on my breath and my posture.
00:06:58.000 --> 00:07:06.480
Some people will think of a very Zen-like scenario, peace, and all that jazz, right?
00:07:06.560 --> 00:07:08.800
Whatever comes to mind when you think of meditation.
00:07:09.040 --> 00:07:15.040
Maybe a pompous asshole who thinks he's one-upping people because he meditates, right?
00:07:15.199 --> 00:07:15.920
Whatever.
00:07:16.240 --> 00:07:17.600
But what's the reality?
00:07:17.759 --> 00:07:18.959
What's the reality of it?
00:07:19.040 --> 00:07:31.680
What's the reality of hearing that the universe is all one and the more you practice being present, the more, you know, whatever, fill in the blank, right?
00:07:31.839 --> 00:07:34.319
But what's the actual experience?
00:07:35.360 --> 00:07:38.800
Well, for me, I roll out of bed at 6:30 in the morning.
00:07:39.199 --> 00:07:42.000
I drop a pretty considerably large deuce.
00:07:42.240 --> 00:07:47.759
Pardon my um disgusting uh revelation for you there.
00:07:48.000 --> 00:07:52.720
And then I grab my meditation cushion and I sit for 30 minutes.
00:07:53.600 --> 00:07:59.759
And when I sit, it is not unicorns and rainbows.
00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:02.639
Sometimes it's like a little bit of back pain.
00:08:02.800 --> 00:08:05.040
Sometimes it's a little bit of knee pain.
00:08:05.279 --> 00:08:12.160
Sometimes it's an overwhelming feeling that I don't want to sit today.
00:08:12.399 --> 00:08:13.839
I don't want to sit.
00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:15.680
I gotta get to work.
00:08:16.560 --> 00:08:17.199
And work.
00:08:18.160 --> 00:08:24.720
Here we are again, same old everyday thing over and over and over again.
00:08:25.439 --> 00:08:27.680
That is the experience.
00:08:27.839 --> 00:08:29.920
What is the practice though?
00:08:30.800 --> 00:08:41.600
The practice is being with those experiences exactly as they are in 4K detail.
00:08:45.519 --> 00:08:46.159
You see?
00:08:46.879 --> 00:08:48.960
Here's a little circle again.
00:08:49.279 --> 00:08:55.120
I'm talking to you, you're hearing me, you're understanding me conceptually, right?
00:08:55.440 --> 00:09:02.720
But tomorrow morning, I'm gonna sit on that cushion and I'm gonna experience all those things.
00:09:04.159 --> 00:09:07.759
Maybe while I'm sitting, I smell a little bit of body odor or something.
00:09:07.919 --> 00:09:09.919
Oh my gosh, time to take a shower.
00:09:10.480 --> 00:09:12.320
Oh my gosh, did I pay that bill?
00:09:12.480 --> 00:09:14.559
Oh my gosh, is this doing anything?
00:09:14.879 --> 00:09:17.519
That is the experience sometimes.
00:09:17.759 --> 00:09:22.240
On other days, my posture feels perfect.
00:09:22.399 --> 00:09:24.639
There is no pain whatsoever.
00:09:24.960 --> 00:09:29.200
I feel like I am floating, literally floating.
00:09:29.759 --> 00:09:31.919
That is another experience.
00:09:32.320 --> 00:09:36.720
And I notice that, and I come back to my breath.
00:09:38.399 --> 00:09:44.399
Happy brain, sad brain, confused brain, frustrated brain.
00:09:45.279 --> 00:09:50.320
The practice, the experience is being with what is.
00:09:50.480 --> 00:09:56.240
Now it's not glamorous for me to talk about those things, but that's the experience.
00:09:56.399 --> 00:09:59.679
And then what is the experience off the cushion?
00:10:00.799 --> 00:10:09.600
Taking a shower, seeing myself in the mirror, observing thoughts of self-judgment or self-aggrandizement.
00:10:09.759 --> 00:10:10.799
Oh, you look good today.
00:10:10.960 --> 00:10:12.720
Oh, you look terrible today.
00:10:13.039 --> 00:10:13.919
Whatever.
00:10:16.000 --> 00:10:18.080
That's the experience at that moment.
00:10:18.399 --> 00:10:25.120
Just off the cushion, back in motion, in the shower, on the road.
00:10:26.960 --> 00:10:31.200
My car, it's 207,000 miles on it.
00:10:31.360 --> 00:10:34.559
There's a thick coat of dust on the dashboard.
00:10:36.799 --> 00:10:42.960
The clutch is still going strong, but it's not as strong as when I first bought it, of course.
00:10:43.120 --> 00:10:46.159
It's showing signs of age.
00:10:46.799 --> 00:10:50.240
Creaks, cracks, clinks, clanks.
00:10:53.039 --> 00:10:54.559
That's the experience.
00:10:54.799 --> 00:10:57.039
That's the texture of life.
00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:04.799
My seat, my driver's seat, it's come off the rail on the right side.
00:11:04.879 --> 00:11:09.120
So my whole seat sits slightly angled up on the right side.
00:11:09.519 --> 00:11:12.879
So I have to lean to the right to get my seat to stay flat.
00:11:14.480 --> 00:11:16.879
Can I be with that experience?
00:11:17.360 --> 00:11:20.720
Just with that experience and nothing else.
00:11:20.960 --> 00:11:22.639
You see what I'm getting at here?
00:11:22.879 --> 00:11:26.240
There's hearing, there's understanding, and there's experience.
00:11:26.720 --> 00:11:30.480
In mysticism, we emphasize experience.
00:11:31.600 --> 00:11:50.159
But there's something curious that happens to you when you actively pursue experience and bringing your full awareness and your full being to whatever you're experiencing, regardless of if your brain labels them as good or bad.
00:11:54.799 --> 00:11:56.799
I've started this episode seven.
00:11:56.879 --> 00:12:00.480
This is my eighth attempt to do this episode.
00:12:01.120 --> 00:12:05.840
You bet your butt, my brain is thinking bad, frustrated.
00:12:06.799 --> 00:12:09.840
Pause, delete, stand up, walk around.
00:12:11.120 --> 00:12:12.960
That's an experience.
00:12:17.919 --> 00:12:29.519
Now when I when I open up the the book of the way, the Tao De Qing by Lao Tzu, and I read beautiful words that he wrote 2,500 years ago, that's amazing.
00:12:30.720 --> 00:12:32.639
I can recite some by memory.
00:12:32.799 --> 00:12:33.919
Let's see here.
00:12:34.240 --> 00:12:39.279
Every day in the pursuit of knowledge, something is added.
00:12:40.399 --> 00:12:45.840
Every day in the pursuit of the Tao, everything or something is dropped.
00:12:47.440 --> 00:12:48.960
I don't remember the rest.
00:12:49.360 --> 00:12:50.080
You get the point.
00:12:50.159 --> 00:12:51.440
It's beautiful.
00:12:52.080 --> 00:13:13.120
And then I close the book and I get in my car with 207,000 miles on it while I am doing delivery apps full time to support a family, knowing that my car could break down at any time, and I would be completely and utterly fucked.
00:13:15.840 --> 00:13:22.639
Do you see the gap between understanding concepts and experience?
00:13:26.720 --> 00:13:38.000
The difference between me and someone who doesn't practice is that my experiences do not overwhelm me anymore.
00:13:39.679 --> 00:13:45.279
I embrace them and I hold them fully in awareness as often as I can.
00:13:45.519 --> 00:13:53.440
I am not a fully realized being like the Buddha or Jesus walking around with complete awareness at all times.
00:13:53.600 --> 00:13:54.720
Of course not.
00:13:56.240 --> 00:13:58.480
I fail constantly.
00:13:58.879 --> 00:14:01.200
That is why it's called a practice.
00:14:11.440 --> 00:14:36.720
But it's important to understand that when you are either at church hearing your pastor tell you to love everyone and do better, and then you go to work, and your coworker Bob, who is just the worst kind of asshole you've ever seen in your life and just does unbelievable things to you to go out of their way to make your life miserable.
00:14:36.960 --> 00:14:47.600
It's a little different to love that person in that moment, as opposed to when you were in church and you got the guy on the keyboard in the background playing all those chords that make you feel good.
00:14:48.399 --> 00:14:50.000
There's a big difference.
00:14:50.159 --> 00:14:51.919
And it doesn't matter what tradition.
00:14:52.000 --> 00:14:54.799
I'm not here to bash on one in particular.
00:14:54.960 --> 00:14:57.360
And words, we give them meaning.
00:14:57.519 --> 00:15:02.559
Words change in their meaning throughout time and history, right?
00:15:03.519 --> 00:15:18.320
See, today, when you read the Bible, anytime you see faith, at least the New Testament, faith or belief or trust, all three of those words can be derived from whatever word is in written.
00:15:18.399 --> 00:15:26.480
I don't have the exact word memorized that's written in Greek, but that word can be translated into faith, belief, or trust.
00:15:26.639 --> 00:15:34.480
And all three of those words are a little bit different in English in 2026 in today.
00:15:35.440 --> 00:15:50.000
You see, belief today, that strikes to mind more of a really intense hoping or wishing that something is true.
00:15:50.799 --> 00:16:10.320
And I'm not here to say this is what belief means, but you know, generally speaking, when someone says, I believe in X, what we hear is, well, I really, really think that this is true, or I really hope it's true.
00:16:10.559 --> 00:16:15.279
Oh if it's not true, I don't know what I'm gonna do.
00:16:15.519 --> 00:16:17.840
You know, it's something that you can argue.
00:16:19.120 --> 00:16:27.360
It's a prop it's propositional, it's fragile, and it won't keep you warm at night on a cold night.
00:16:28.879 --> 00:16:35.840
Belief is what Alan Watts says is a fervent wishing that something were true.
00:16:39.120 --> 00:16:49.039
And faith gets lumped in with that, which is where I'm trying to like claw the word faith back from going down with the ship with belief.
00:16:49.679 --> 00:16:56.159
Faith is more akin to trust, that other that third possible word.
00:16:57.679 --> 00:17:13.680
A trust, an openness, not a faith or a trust in a certain concept, but trust in whatever arises.
00:17:14.559 --> 00:17:21.039
Essentially, you're saying to yourself, I don't know, but I trust it.
00:17:21.599 --> 00:17:25.119
I don't know how this universe exists.
00:17:25.440 --> 00:17:27.039
It's weird, right?
00:17:27.359 --> 00:17:31.759
It's weird that there's anything at all versus nothing at all.
00:17:32.000 --> 00:17:33.680
Have you ever thought about that?
00:17:34.799 --> 00:17:37.599
Why is there anything versus nothing?
00:17:37.759 --> 00:17:39.359
Why is there anything at all?
00:17:41.920 --> 00:17:43.279
It's a mystery.
00:17:50.319 --> 00:17:57.920
Take take Nathan, a Zen monk who I've quoted many times in this podcast, who's a wonderful human being.
00:17:58.880 --> 00:18:00.400
He was in exile.
00:18:01.039 --> 00:18:03.359
Imagine being exiled.
00:18:04.720 --> 00:18:06.400
We hear that, we go, whoa.
00:18:06.640 --> 00:18:07.920
But imagine it.
00:18:08.480 --> 00:18:12.480
You go to work every day, you do your thing every day, and then one day you're exiled.
00:18:12.559 --> 00:18:14.319
Imagine the government knocking on your door.
00:18:14.480 --> 00:18:15.680
You're exiled.
00:18:16.319 --> 00:18:17.519
Don't come back.
00:18:20.880 --> 00:18:23.599
Well, that might shake your belief a little bit.
00:18:24.720 --> 00:18:29.119
There's a quote that says, the mind creates the abyss, the heart crosses it.
00:18:33.920 --> 00:18:42.880
I think one of the biggest problems that I've noticed in my practice is identifying with thoughts.
00:18:45.200 --> 00:18:47.279
And I've spoken about this before.
00:18:47.519 --> 00:18:58.240
If you observe in awareness, if you observe your mind in awareness, you will see that thoughts arise of themselves.
00:18:58.480 --> 00:18:59.839
I've talked about this before.
00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:02.480
Many of you who listen to this podcast understand this.
00:19:02.720 --> 00:19:06.400
Many of you who have never heard this podcast, I'm sure you've heard this concept.
00:19:06.720 --> 00:19:09.039
Thoughts arise by themselves.
00:19:09.200 --> 00:19:10.480
You don't think them.
00:19:12.640 --> 00:19:15.839
But most people, they never think this through.
00:19:16.559 --> 00:19:21.839
Like when I tell you that right now, there's going to be people who listen and say, that's true, that's true.
00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:26.240
There are some that I do think, though, or there's some that I shouldn't think.
00:19:26.400 --> 00:19:32.240
You know, you don't think any thoughts.
00:19:32.559 --> 00:19:32.880
Okay?
00:19:33.039 --> 00:19:34.559
And this is really important.
00:19:36.319 --> 00:19:39.359
Thoughts arise by themselves.
00:19:40.799 --> 00:19:42.240
You are not your thought.
00:19:42.400 --> 00:19:44.319
You are not doing your thoughts.
00:19:44.480 --> 00:19:46.799
They're just happening to you.
00:19:47.359 --> 00:19:53.440
The problem is you identify with your thoughts.
00:19:54.559 --> 00:20:02.799
And the ego is really slippery because our language that we've been taught since birth creates this illusion, illusory effect.
00:20:03.759 --> 00:20:07.440
For example, we always try to put a noun into things, right?
00:20:07.519 --> 00:20:14.640
Like when we say it is raining, what is the it that is raining?
00:20:14.960 --> 00:20:23.119
Or when we say I am angry versus observing anger arise.
00:20:24.319 --> 00:20:25.359
Did you ever notice that?
00:20:25.519 --> 00:20:28.079
That you are the one observing everything?
00:20:28.319 --> 00:20:32.880
It's like if I if I say, look at your hand right now, is your hand you?
00:20:33.359 --> 00:20:37.359
Well, no, because I can cut my hand off and I'm still me, right?
00:20:37.680 --> 00:20:38.319
Yeah.
00:20:39.759 --> 00:20:45.839
But you'll notice that you could go limb by limb removing limbs from your body and you'd still be you.
00:20:45.920 --> 00:20:48.480
So you know you're not your arms or your legs.
00:20:49.440 --> 00:20:57.440
And if we skip to the end, you can remove everything from your material body and you'd still be you.
00:20:57.839 --> 00:21:03.039
Which means you're not anything material.
00:21:03.200 --> 00:21:10.400
You are not your thoughts either, because your thought is something that is being witnessed.
00:21:12.160 --> 00:21:15.839
Like if I say think of the word elephant right now.
00:21:17.839 --> 00:21:21.039
Okay, we all heard elephant in our head, right?
00:21:22.000 --> 00:21:33.920
But you're watching that when you hear elephant in your head, you're watching that thought.
00:21:34.079 --> 00:21:35.279
You see what I'm saying?
00:21:35.759 --> 00:21:39.200
You stand behind the thought.
00:21:40.960 --> 00:21:46.400
When you feel pain, you're watching the pain.
00:21:47.599 --> 00:21:57.519
It's the same you, it's the same awareness as when you were an infant, as you were a five year old, as a twenty year old, as a forty year old.
00:21:58.559 --> 00:21:59.519
That awareness.
00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:01.519
Never changes.
00:22:01.839 --> 00:22:02.480
Ever.
00:22:02.880 --> 00:22:04.480
It is static.
00:22:05.599 --> 00:22:08.960
It is always there and it's always in the background.
00:22:10.799 --> 00:22:12.640
It's very peaceful.
00:22:16.720 --> 00:22:29.440
Notice the words that I'm saying to you that you're hearing right now are inside the same awareness that your thoughts are.
00:22:31.119 --> 00:22:41.839
So every thought that I'm articulating to you is just as much you as your own thoughts are.
00:22:43.519 --> 00:22:45.279
Is this making sense?
00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:47.279
I hope it is.
00:22:47.920 --> 00:22:49.759
I I really hope it is.
00:22:50.559 --> 00:22:55.759
But even then, you're still in the understanding phase.
00:22:57.599 --> 00:23:16.480
When you practice actively with interest and and um energy, when you start really getting interested in it in watching, you will rest in that awareness.
00:23:18.559 --> 00:23:21.119
But you're gonna start to notice a tug of war.
00:23:21.359 --> 00:23:30.720
When you stop identifying with tr with thoughts, they're really gonna try to bring you back in and get you to identify with them again.
00:23:32.799 --> 00:23:39.599
Well, if I just rest in awareness, oh my gosh, well then my life will fall apart.
00:23:41.599 --> 00:23:44.160
I've gotta think, I've gotta do something.
00:23:44.480 --> 00:23:45.359
Do you see?
00:23:46.160 --> 00:23:53.359
We just established earlier that your thoughts do themselves.
00:23:55.599 --> 00:24:07.119
And already we're identifying with them by saying, Well, I can't not think, I've got to keep thinking, I've got to keep planning, I don't want to be a pacifist.
00:24:08.559 --> 00:24:11.119
Do you see the identification trap?
00:24:11.920 --> 00:24:13.519
It's real easy to miss.
00:24:13.680 --> 00:24:17.440
If some of you right now are saying, I don't understand what you're saying, that's okay.
00:24:17.920 --> 00:24:19.759
Let me try it another way.
00:24:21.839 --> 00:24:34.160
If you're having the thought or can of a confusing thought right now saying, I don't understand what he's saying, that thought appeared by itself.
00:24:35.119 --> 00:24:35.920
Slow down.
00:24:36.079 --> 00:24:51.839
Look at this, understand this, really understand this, because then you'll move to experience every single thought it does itself.
00:24:52.400 --> 00:24:58.400
You have just as much control over your thoughts as you do the weather.
00:25:04.720 --> 00:25:15.119
If you think I'm wrong, please experiment for yourself.
00:25:15.519 --> 00:25:17.759
There's a couple experiments you can do.
00:25:18.079 --> 00:25:32.160
The first experiment, you can set a timer on your phone, say sixty seconds, and watch the timer tick down and say to yourself, I will not think a single thought for 60 seconds.
00:25:36.319 --> 00:25:42.640
You don't even have to do that experiment because you and I both know you won't make it two seconds.
00:25:43.680 --> 00:25:47.759
Try to make it, try to make it three seconds without thinking.
00:25:48.160 --> 00:25:52.480
And you'll start to notice that it's just something that happens.
00:25:52.960 --> 00:25:54.880
And you'll catch yourself.
00:25:56.880 --> 00:26:00.960
Notice when you're completely lost in thoughts.
00:26:01.200 --> 00:26:08.480
And see, the only quote unquote lost part of it is identifying with it.
00:26:10.799 --> 00:26:20.400
It's really hard to articulate this stuff, which is why some teachers are famous because they're just so good at articulating this stuff.
00:26:20.480 --> 00:26:32.400
Um, like Lao Tzu, you know, when he wrote the Tao De Ching 2,500 years ago, the very first thing he said is that the Tao that can be named or explained is not the Tao.
00:26:33.839 --> 00:26:56.400
Because understand this a concept is like a still frame, it's like a picture of the present moment that, of course, is instantly the past because the present is eternal and it's always now, and you can't ever catch it with a net, you can't ever um preserve it.
00:26:56.720 --> 00:26:58.880
It's always changing.
00:26:59.759 --> 00:27:07.839
There is constantly something new arising in the present moment, and there's constantly something fading away from the present moment.
00:27:08.000 --> 00:27:13.440
So if we take a snapshot of the present moment, it's like collecting dead butterflies.
00:27:20.640 --> 00:27:28.400
But real life is the laboratory where you can experiment and experience this for yourself.
00:27:28.960 --> 00:27:31.279
This is where mysticism lives.
00:27:31.519 --> 00:27:38.960
It's not in doctrines, it's in the sit, it's in the walk, it's in what you're doing.
00:27:40.079 --> 00:27:54.079
And a flip happens when you take an active interest in sitting and practicing on a consistent basis, you will start to notice an inversion of your identification.
00:27:55.920 --> 00:28:01.440
You will start to see that thoughts are not you.
00:28:02.000 --> 00:28:08.480
Emotions are not you, but you are that awareness containing them.
00:28:09.279 --> 00:28:19.759
The thoughts, the emotions, the everyday activities of life, they will still continue as they always have and as they always will.
00:28:21.440 --> 00:28:26.400
But a massive cataclysmic shift has taken place here.
00:28:26.799 --> 00:28:29.599
Suddenly, you're not the thought.
00:28:29.759 --> 00:28:32.319
You're not the little you that you thought you were.
00:28:32.559 --> 00:28:38.799
You're the big awareness that you always were that you forgot about.
00:28:42.880 --> 00:28:50.720
Now right now, some people hearing that will go two directions.
00:28:51.200 --> 00:28:54.799
Some will nod their heads saying, Yep, yep, that's right, absolutely.
00:28:55.119 --> 00:29:01.200
And some will say, Well, that sounds like bullshit to me.
00:29:02.160 --> 00:29:13.119
But those people haven't taken the time to realize that the bullshit thought just appeared on its own just now.
00:29:13.279 --> 00:29:13.839
You see?
00:29:14.000 --> 00:29:16.480
It snuck in real quick, didn't it?
00:29:18.960 --> 00:29:20.400
Did you notice it?
00:29:22.559 --> 00:29:33.279
The more you start noticing the thoughts automatically doing themselves, the more you realize, holy crap, I'm not doing anything on those thoughts.
00:29:33.359 --> 00:29:34.400
They're just happening.
00:29:34.640 --> 00:29:57.519
And then you'll start to realize that the motivation to move your body, even as simple as scratching an itch, first begins with a thought, a thought of volition, which is to say, a thought of desire to move my limb to do something.
00:29:59.119 --> 00:30:05.519
Watch your body sometimes, just for fun, and see if you notice anything interesting.
00:30:05.680 --> 00:30:14.160
Like right now, I'm recording this episode and I have two of my nails interlocked as like I guess you could call it a nervous habit.
00:30:14.400 --> 00:30:19.680
But did I choose with willpower to do that?
00:30:21.519 --> 00:30:24.400
Or did it just start happening on its own?
00:30:24.640 --> 00:30:32.799
Have you ever seen someone tap their their leg repeatedly and quickly, and then you notice it and you point it out to them?
00:30:33.039 --> 00:30:35.119
Hey, your leg's tapping.
00:30:35.519 --> 00:30:36.400
Whoa.
00:30:38.319 --> 00:30:46.240
If I have free will and I didn't choose to tap my leg nervously, what the hell?
00:30:46.799 --> 00:30:47.440
You see?
00:30:49.599 --> 00:30:59.519
Now this is where some people who are really identified with thoughts in their body will have more thoughts that say, Well, some thoughts you can't control, but some you can.
00:30:59.759 --> 00:31:01.279
That's another thought.
00:31:01.599 --> 00:31:03.599
And it's bullshit, by the way.
00:31:03.920 --> 00:31:08.400
100% of thoughts are outside of your control.
00:31:08.720 --> 00:31:14.400
Not ninety-nine percent, not ninety-five percent, not fifty percent.
00:31:14.799 --> 00:31:20.880
One hundred percent of thoughts are outside of your control.
00:31:26.960 --> 00:31:32.960
Now here's another way I can flip it again, so I can keep you confused.
00:31:34.640 --> 00:31:40.960
I've said you're not your hand, you're not your limbs, you're not your thoughts, you're not anything material, right?
00:31:44.480 --> 00:31:46.559
But at the same time, you are.
00:31:49.599 --> 00:31:53.839
I'm not gonna sit here and create a duality in your mind, because that's another concept.
00:31:54.000 --> 00:32:02.000
If I say you are the empty awareness, you're not the thing that you are aware of, that creates a duality.
00:32:02.319 --> 00:32:30.799
You're over here, invisible, undefinable, eternal awareness, and over there is nasty material stuff that arises and ends and stinks and hurts, and it's itchy and frustrating, or it's addictive and pleasant and pleasurable and um consuming, and it's either good or bad, and I hate it, and I'm just this pleasant awareness over here.
00:32:31.039 --> 00:32:42.400
Well, I hate to tell you, but in the realm of spiritual conceptualizing, you are actually also everything that you see.
00:32:45.119 --> 00:33:00.720
Like I said earlier, the things that I'm saying to you and articulating to you right now, you have just as much control over as the thoughts you have in response to the things I'm saying to you.
00:33:00.960 --> 00:33:13.599
So, right now, my articulated thought and your response to my articulated thought are both equally something that you are observing and have control over.
00:33:14.559 --> 00:33:16.480
So, what does that tell you about you?
00:33:18.640 --> 00:33:20.480
Are you catching on to that?
00:33:21.359 --> 00:33:22.799
There's an old Buddhist quote.
00:33:22.960 --> 00:33:28.880
It says, Um, I'm doing it by memory here because I don't have it in my outline, but it just popped in my head.
00:33:28.960 --> 00:33:35.119
It says, um, we live in the illusion and the appearance of things.
00:33:38.400 --> 00:33:40.640
There is a reality.
00:33:41.440 --> 00:33:43.920
We are that reality.
00:33:46.559 --> 00:33:51.200
When you understand this, you see that you are no thing.
00:33:52.000 --> 00:33:57.680
And being no thing, you are everything.
00:34:02.160 --> 00:34:10.480
Boy, I can slip into um philosophical territory here, but I'm just pointing out things that you can independently verify right now.
00:34:10.639 --> 00:34:17.039
That's the my goal on this podcast is to share things with you that you can experience for yourself.
00:34:17.199 --> 00:34:19.519
I don't want you to take my word for it.
00:34:21.119 --> 00:34:38.880
Because if you're a fundamentalist Christian and you take my word for it and um you become a mystic, a Christian mystic, well, you've traded one set of concepts for another, unless you appreciate the mystic teachings, like Meister Eckhart, St.
00:34:39.039 --> 00:34:44.559
John of the Cross, Teresa Vavila, and you experience the teachings.
00:34:44.880 --> 00:34:50.480
And it's so sad because you've got to drop it all.
00:34:50.639 --> 00:34:51.920
You've got to drop everything.
00:34:52.079 --> 00:35:03.360
You've got to drop everything that I've said to you in this episode thus far, and just come to whatever your experience is, which is not initially going to be as exciting to your brain.
00:35:04.000 --> 00:35:20.400
Me quoting wise scripture from Lao Tzu is so cool, and it's so cool to think about, but it ultimately falls far short of whatever experience you are having at exactly this moment.
00:35:24.159 --> 00:35:26.480
My experience yesterday.
00:35:28.320 --> 00:35:32.800
I went to the store to buy some soda because I was tired of drinking water.
00:35:33.039 --> 00:35:34.159
Just water.
00:35:34.480 --> 00:35:37.199
Saving money, being responsible, being healthy.
00:35:37.440 --> 00:35:39.039
I want something sweet on my tongue.
00:35:39.199 --> 00:35:41.360
So I go to the store, I buy some soda.
00:35:41.519 --> 00:35:45.760
As I'm selecting the soda in the aisle, I've got to let one rip.
00:35:47.440 --> 00:35:48.719
So I fart.
00:35:50.320 --> 00:35:53.119
And then I've got another fart lined up right behind it.
00:35:53.280 --> 00:35:55.199
I'm like, whoa, that's crazy.
00:35:55.440 --> 00:35:57.039
So I fart again.
00:35:58.719 --> 00:36:03.280
But at that fart, I didn't feel the bubble at the end of it.
00:36:03.440 --> 00:36:07.280
And you know what happens when you don't feel the bubble at the end of your fart.
00:36:08.719 --> 00:36:13.519
When you're in your 40s, you can't trust the fart anymore.
00:36:13.679 --> 00:36:17.519
So I waddled my way to the bathroom really quickly.
00:36:17.920 --> 00:36:25.360
After that failed second fart, it felt like something was gonna leak.
00:36:25.519 --> 00:36:27.119
Something was coming loose.
00:36:27.360 --> 00:36:30.239
So I'm waddling my way to the bathroom.
00:36:33.599 --> 00:36:38.559
I had to use the bathroom for like 10-15 minutes, kept my wife waiting, finally made it out.
00:36:38.880 --> 00:36:42.480
But I didn't make it to the bathroom, truth be told.
00:36:43.280 --> 00:36:51.519
There was a little bit of uh biological matter that escaped the uh musculature of my structure.
00:36:51.679 --> 00:36:52.719
Let's just say that.
00:36:52.960 --> 00:36:53.280
Okay.
00:36:54.320 --> 00:36:58.639
Hope you're not eating while you're listening to this podcast.
00:36:58.880 --> 00:37:10.880
Now, some of you might be laughing, some of you might be grossed out right now, but I assure you, whatever you're experiencing is exactly the desired effect that I had bringing this up.
00:37:11.119 --> 00:37:16.239
And that's because that was my experience yesterday.
00:37:16.400 --> 00:37:18.559
Now, was I fighting the experience?
00:37:18.800 --> 00:37:21.199
Well, certainly there was some tension, right?
00:37:21.440 --> 00:37:26.000
Literally, keeping the gap closed, try to try to make it to the bathroom.
00:37:27.280 --> 00:37:29.519
Was I present during that experience?
00:37:29.760 --> 00:37:31.119
I was actually.
00:37:32.239 --> 00:37:41.599
I've been practicing three years now, so weird oddity moments like that I use as little cues or identifiers to come back to presence.
00:37:46.159 --> 00:37:50.639
So I'm mindfully walking back to the bathroom, waddling.
00:37:51.280 --> 00:38:00.239
And then the experience of leaving the bathroom, and it's like, I've got to, you know, get home, shower, burn my clothes?
00:38:01.679 --> 00:38:05.199
Have you ever put on underwear that is compromised?
00:38:05.679 --> 00:38:06.639
It doesn't feel good.
00:38:06.719 --> 00:38:09.920
It's cold and it's it doesn't feel good.
00:38:10.239 --> 00:38:13.920
And what is that feeling inside when something gross touches you?
00:38:14.079 --> 00:38:15.440
Don't put it into words.
00:38:15.679 --> 00:38:17.440
What's that experience like?
00:38:18.639 --> 00:38:30.239
You see, I just described an incredibly humiliating and disgusting and gross experience.
00:38:30.880 --> 00:38:33.280
But it's a human experience.
00:38:36.480 --> 00:38:39.119
Did I identify with it the whole way?
00:38:39.360 --> 00:38:42.480
See, the ego can flip the script and say, Well, I'm awareness.
00:38:42.559 --> 00:38:48.800
I'm not actually shitty underwear, I'm just awareness, holding the shitty underwear in awareness.
00:38:48.960 --> 00:38:49.760
I'm good.
00:38:49.920 --> 00:38:52.320
But you see, that's called spiritual bypassing.
00:38:52.480 --> 00:38:58.079
That's where the ego dresses itself up as awareness and says, This is me.
00:38:58.960 --> 00:39:00.239
This is me.
00:39:00.400 --> 00:39:02.159
I'm not that thing.
00:39:04.159 --> 00:39:06.000
That's also escapism.
00:39:08.320 --> 00:39:27.119
When the point I'm trying to make here is when you come keep coming back to the experience, it's almost like you have, like, I can describe it when I sit in meditation and I am very successful at focusing on my breath.
00:39:27.360 --> 00:39:38.960
Because in a meditation, we practice concentration, which is just like the word suggests, you're concentrating something into a single point instead of having it spread out.
00:39:39.679 --> 00:39:46.000
Now, concentration is not the same thing as meditation, and concentration is not the same thing as mindfulness.
00:39:46.320 --> 00:39:57.519
But concentration is a tool in the toolkit that helps us along because it reduces and calms the monkey mind down.
00:39:58.719 --> 00:40:02.320
I used an analogy on the last episode, it calms the lake.
00:40:02.559 --> 00:40:04.079
So there's no more splashing.
00:40:04.159 --> 00:40:07.039
So you can see the reflection of the moon in the lake.
00:40:09.199 --> 00:40:28.639
And me describing this to you right now, it might ring a bell of truth in you, but until you've experienced it, there's no words that I can say to you right now that will come close to the experience of you staying with an object long enough for your mind to calm down, for you to actually experience your true nature.
00:40:29.760 --> 00:40:35.440
Many people, when they first start meditating and experiencing this, they they laugh.
00:40:36.079 --> 00:40:39.679
They just can't stop laughing, or they just feel so good.
00:40:41.920 --> 00:40:43.760
And there's a reason behind that.
00:40:44.000 --> 00:40:47.840
But then the ego will come in and say, Oh, this is what meditation is.
00:40:48.079 --> 00:40:50.320
It's feeling good, feeling calm, yes.
00:40:50.480 --> 00:40:55.119
But then you have a meditation where you're not calm or feeling good, and you think the whole thing's done.
00:40:55.679 --> 00:41:05.360
But here I am, three years experienced meditator, walking home in shitty underwear, completely with it.
00:41:07.360 --> 00:41:10.239
Not fighting it, just laughing about it.
00:41:14.320 --> 00:41:16.960
Because that's my present experience at that moment.
00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:23.119
It is becoming interested in the moment.
00:41:23.840 --> 00:41:38.320
Now, when you when I say to you that you are not your hand and you are just as much your thought as you are my words coming at you right now, you might say to yourself, well, that that just sounds really stupid.
00:41:38.400 --> 00:41:39.760
How is that possible?
00:41:40.719 --> 00:41:42.239
Let me ask you this.
00:41:43.519 --> 00:41:50.079
When you dream at night, you have a dream.
00:41:50.159 --> 00:41:54.239
Let's say somebody's in your dream and they're either a good person or bad person.
00:41:54.639 --> 00:42:00.800
In your dream, you don't identify with the other person in your dream, do you?
00:42:01.280 --> 00:42:02.239
They're scary.
00:42:02.320 --> 00:42:03.760
You're running from them.
00:42:04.159 --> 00:42:06.159
Holy shit, I had a dream about you last night.
00:42:06.239 --> 00:42:07.360
You were chasing me with an axe.
00:42:07.440 --> 00:42:08.800
It was terrifying.
00:42:10.159 --> 00:42:11.519
Wait a minute.
00:42:12.559 --> 00:42:15.440
That person chasing you with the axe in your dream?
00:42:15.679 --> 00:42:17.760
That was actually you, wasn't it?
00:42:18.320 --> 00:42:19.599
Well, yeah, I guess so.
00:42:19.760 --> 00:42:21.920
It was my dream, after all.
00:42:22.159 --> 00:42:22.639
Yeah.
00:42:22.960 --> 00:42:35.599
So in the dream, you were yourself, you were the other person, you were the environment, you were the room that you were inhabiting, you were the space between you and the other person.
00:42:35.760 --> 00:42:38.639
You were everything of the dream, weren't you?
00:42:38.880 --> 00:42:41.119
The whole thing top to bottom.
00:42:41.360 --> 00:42:47.039
But in the dream, you only felt like the person being chased.
00:42:47.760 --> 00:42:59.519
Now you see that right there, that is where the Zen tradition and the Advaita Vedanta tradition from Hinduism just merge.
00:43:00.079 --> 00:43:07.760
Because the experiencer and the experience are not two things.
00:43:30.559 --> 00:43:39.840
But if you don't practice what I'm telling you, and try practice, just try it.
00:43:40.880 --> 00:43:43.599
You'll never experience it.
00:43:44.320 --> 00:43:47.519
And once you experience it, there's no doubt in your mind.
00:43:47.679 --> 00:43:52.719
This is why the Buddha said doubt is a good thing.
00:43:52.960 --> 00:43:55.199
Because, well, it can be a good thing.
00:43:55.360 --> 00:43:59.519
If if you use doubt as motivation to investigate.
00:44:00.559 --> 00:44:02.800
You will see for yourself.
00:44:03.119 --> 00:44:16.559
But if you're a person who says meditation is bullshit, enlightenment is bullshit, heaven is bullshit, hell is bullshit, God is bullshit, everything is bullshit, this whole thing sucks.
00:44:16.800 --> 00:44:22.480
When I die, it's a black box forever, the end, goodbye.
00:44:22.719 --> 00:44:24.079
That's a thought.
00:44:24.320 --> 00:44:29.119
And that thought is the prevailing thought of 2026.
00:44:29.280 --> 00:44:32.000
And it has been for about 200 years now.
00:44:32.320 --> 00:44:39.760
And I won't digress into why, church, but a lot of people think this way.
00:44:39.920 --> 00:44:41.440
It's called nihilism.
00:44:42.079 --> 00:44:52.559
I won't say it's called atheism, but the general accepted, agreed upon conceptual model of the universe is that everything is random.
00:44:52.800 --> 00:44:57.599
That I am little old me, and the universe is so big and huge.
00:44:57.760 --> 00:44:59.039
I'm just a little dot.
00:44:59.199 --> 00:45:02.320
I'm going to die someday, and none of it matters.
00:45:02.639 --> 00:45:09.519
Or worse, you get some people that say, well, you just got to make your own meaning of life, and uh that's just how it is, and then you're dead.
00:45:09.840 --> 00:45:10.480
You know?
00:45:11.599 --> 00:45:16.159
But understand, you are not separate from the whole thing.
00:45:16.480 --> 00:45:19.199
You are the whole thing.
00:45:23.199 --> 00:45:25.519
Uh there's a quote from Meister Eckhart.
00:45:25.760 --> 00:45:32.159
He was a Christian mystic from I get the date wrong so often.
00:45:32.239 --> 00:45:33.760
I think it's 400 years ago.
00:45:34.000 --> 00:45:35.599
Four or five hundred years ago.
00:45:35.840 --> 00:45:44.159
Four or five hundred years ago, okay, half a millennia ago, this man wrote the following words.
00:45:45.760 --> 00:45:54.639
The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me.
00:45:55.440 --> 00:46:05.920
My eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.
00:46:09.599 --> 00:46:11.360
Do you see what he's saying here?
00:46:12.159 --> 00:46:16.960
He's saying that there is one eye, one awareness.
00:46:17.280 --> 00:46:22.320
There is one seeing, there's one knowing, one love.
00:46:23.679 --> 00:46:34.320
He's saying that the knowing that is saying these words to you, and the knowing that is hearing these words is the same knowing.
00:46:36.239 --> 00:46:38.239
Read through the New Testament.
00:46:39.199 --> 00:46:41.280
Read the words of Jesus.
00:46:41.679 --> 00:47:04.079
Even if you hate modern churches because they're so easy to hate, because a lot of them represent everything that's just nasty in the world, and there's a lot of good ones, but read the New Testament where Jesus says I and the Father are one, or where he prays over his disciples.
00:47:05.599 --> 00:47:09.599
May they be completely one in us.
00:47:13.119 --> 00:47:31.199
But no matter if you think the universe is random and cold and unfeeling, and that you are separate from it, or if you think that you are one with it, both of those are thoughts.
00:47:32.400 --> 00:47:36.320
Both of those are in awareness.
00:47:37.199 --> 00:47:41.519
The difference is, do you identify with the thought?
00:47:41.840 --> 00:47:43.920
And this is where this is where I stand.
00:47:44.079 --> 00:47:47.280
Because this podcast is called Standing Nowhere.
00:47:47.440 --> 00:47:51.920
I'm not standing on any concept whatsoever, except the present moment.
00:47:52.159 --> 00:47:59.760
It's better to stand on the firm ground of nothingness than the quick stand of somethingness, right?
00:48:00.079 --> 00:48:01.519
But here's the thing.
00:48:02.320 --> 00:48:04.320
I will not stand on any concept.
00:48:04.480 --> 00:48:07.920
I will always choose experience and I will always trust it.
00:48:08.000 --> 00:48:12.480
But if you are going to talk about the universe, there's two types of people.
00:48:12.639 --> 00:48:21.840
There's those who say that the universe is hostile and separate and other, and there's some who say it's alive and caring and loving.
00:48:22.400 --> 00:48:25.760
Neither of them can be proven objectively.
00:48:26.000 --> 00:48:28.960
Both are a choice of orientation.
00:48:30.960 --> 00:48:35.519
I say hold all beliefs loosely, use them as pointers.
00:48:37.519 --> 00:48:42.159
But why talk the universe down?
00:48:42.880 --> 00:48:43.519
You know?
00:48:44.719 --> 00:48:51.039
Whether you think the universe is random or love and that it's all one?
00:48:52.559 --> 00:48:57.440
Why uh you know why why put it down?
00:49:02.719 --> 00:49:07.119
Why not lean towards the one that says, hooray, what a great show.
00:49:08.159 --> 00:49:11.119
There's something to this, you know?
00:49:13.280 --> 00:49:30.159
It's real easy for the um the collective ego, the collective mindset of people, especially in a materialist consumerist age like we are, to get down on their luck and down on their on themselves and think that this is just a mess.
00:49:34.159 --> 00:49:37.199
William James says, be not afraid of life.
00:49:37.440 --> 00:49:43.199
Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.
00:49:45.039 --> 00:49:56.000
So if you are going to have some beliefs or hold some concepts, why not pick the one that is an upper, you know?
00:49:56.719 --> 00:49:58.400
You are the universe.
00:49:58.639 --> 00:50:07.039
Whether you believe it's random as AF or uh, you know, actually love and it's all one.
00:50:07.280 --> 00:50:19.679
It's it's like I it's just it doesn't make sense to me how you can be the universe and and and speak ill of it.
00:50:22.800 --> 00:50:24.079
Why do that?
00:50:26.880 --> 00:50:29.760
That it's a mindset that I've never understood.
00:50:33.360 --> 00:50:37.840
It's it's not toxic positivity and it's not being naive, it's faith.
00:50:38.159 --> 00:50:39.519
It's trust.
00:50:41.760 --> 00:50:44.639
You came out of this mystery.
00:50:44.960 --> 00:50:48.159
You are this mystery.
00:50:48.719 --> 00:50:57.760
Jesus even said in the Bible, is it not written in your law that you are Elohim?
00:50:59.199 --> 00:51:01.119
That is the word he used.
00:51:01.440 --> 00:51:05.280
Elohim of divine nature.
00:51:13.280 --> 00:51:15.599
There's another quote in the Matrix that I love.
00:51:15.840 --> 00:51:22.239
Um The Oracle, she says to Neo, you didn't come here to make the choice.
00:51:22.480 --> 00:51:23.760
You have already made it.
00:51:23.840 --> 00:51:26.400
You're here to understand why.
00:51:28.000 --> 00:51:38.480
Now, some of you might be asking, and rightfully so, okay, Jake, you're saying that I'm God or I'm the universe and I'm I'm love and I'm everything.
00:51:38.719 --> 00:51:39.760
So why?
00:51:40.159 --> 00:51:42.719
Why would I do this to myself?
00:51:42.960 --> 00:51:53.760
Why would I split myself into a million different pieces and willfully forget who I am and what I am?
00:51:54.000 --> 00:51:58.320
Why would I put myself through this torturous nightmare?
00:51:59.679 --> 00:52:01.519
Why would I do that?
00:52:02.719 --> 00:52:03.679
There's the question.
00:52:03.840 --> 00:52:05.360
We're going to answer that question next week.
00:52:05.519 --> 00:52:06.320
You have a good night.
00:52:06.480 --> 00:52:07.760
No, I'm just joking.
00:52:08.239 --> 00:52:17.599
My best attempt at answering that question is well, for one, it's happening, which means it's our nature.
00:52:18.400 --> 00:52:20.000
It's our nature too.
00:52:20.320 --> 00:52:25.920
But for me, that for my mind, that doesn't really do it justice, right?
00:52:26.159 --> 00:52:28.239
So I ask myself to look closer.
00:52:28.320 --> 00:52:30.559
And I look close and close and close.
00:52:30.639 --> 00:52:32.000
And what do I see?
00:52:32.559 --> 00:52:38.400
I look at people that are the least polluted by concepts and ideas.
00:52:38.800 --> 00:52:41.199
These people are called children.
00:52:41.760 --> 00:52:47.039
Children come unpackaged with concepts.
00:52:47.199 --> 00:52:52.400
They come into this world concept-free, pure loving awareness.
00:52:52.639 --> 00:53:03.519
You ever notice when you see a child and they just look at you with no thoughts, concepts, or judgments, just pure honesty and truth, it makes you smile, doesn't it?
00:53:03.760 --> 00:53:05.280
Because they're present.
00:53:05.519 --> 00:53:08.639
They don't know how to be anything but present.
00:53:08.960 --> 00:53:11.119
Children are like little Buddhas.
00:53:11.440 --> 00:53:20.000
Even Jesus said, unless you convert and become as a child again, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
00:53:20.320 --> 00:53:24.960
Which, the kingdom of heaven, he said, by the way, is here now.
00:53:25.440 --> 00:53:29.760
It is not in the future to be perceived with signs.
00:53:30.000 --> 00:53:31.599
It's already here.
00:53:32.480 --> 00:53:38.719
So in the Christian tradition, according to Jesus Christ, heaven is here.
00:53:39.199 --> 00:53:43.280
And if you look at the world through a child's eyes, you will see it.
00:53:43.679 --> 00:53:48.239
And back to my point as to why, why would God do this?
00:53:50.320 --> 00:53:54.239
Again, I look at children and I see playfulness.
00:53:54.480 --> 00:53:55.440
I see fun.
00:53:57.599 --> 00:53:59.519
Children like to play and have fun.
00:53:59.679 --> 00:54:04.719
If you were God, you would be bored.
00:54:06.639 --> 00:54:09.119
Good Lord, can you imagine being God?
00:54:09.440 --> 00:54:15.360
Anything you want can happen at any time, and you're the only one that there is.
00:54:15.599 --> 00:54:17.280
There's no one else but you.
00:54:17.440 --> 00:54:18.239
You're God.
00:54:18.320 --> 00:54:19.840
You can do anything.
00:54:21.199 --> 00:54:22.400
How boring.
00:54:22.880 --> 00:54:27.599
It's like I remember as a kid, um, we had this thing called the game genie.
00:54:27.760 --> 00:54:33.039
We could cheat at video games, but cheating at video games, it's no fun, is it?
00:54:33.440 --> 00:54:37.360
Why does the fun go out of the game when there's no challenge anymore?
00:54:37.679 --> 00:54:38.320
You see?
00:54:38.800 --> 00:54:45.920
My last episode in a morata, I talked about how we fall in love with our suffering and our misery.
00:54:46.400 --> 00:54:47.840
And it's true.
00:54:49.760 --> 00:54:52.000
So this is nature.
00:54:53.280 --> 00:54:54.639
This is our nature.
00:54:54.800 --> 00:55:00.480
Not that we love suffering, but you might say that we enjoy the challenge.
00:55:01.920 --> 00:55:06.559
Because if you were God, there's nothing to do.
00:55:08.239 --> 00:55:11.519
Everything obeys your every command.
00:55:13.920 --> 00:55:18.079
So you would want more than anything to forget yourself, wouldn't you?
00:55:24.320 --> 00:55:27.280
And you'd go through all sorts of horrors.
00:55:32.159 --> 00:55:46.400
For those of you familiar with the Hindu tradition, this is exactly the cosmological, um, I guess you would say the cosmology of the Hindu tradition.
00:55:46.880 --> 00:55:49.679
God, their word for God is Brahman.
00:55:50.000 --> 00:55:52.320
Brahman is the ultimate reality.
00:55:52.480 --> 00:55:57.920
It encompasses everything, it is everything, and it is inconceivable, the para Brahman.
00:55:58.719 --> 00:56:04.159
And Brahman enjoys dreaming, falling asleep and dreaming a dream.
00:56:04.320 --> 00:56:10.719
And it's just one conceptual way of understanding the mystery.
00:56:11.599 --> 00:56:19.599
And even that has to be abandoned for the present moment.
00:56:19.840 --> 00:56:40.400
Whether it's being uncomfortable on a cushion in the morning and not wanting to do it, observing the not wanting to do it, or whether it's your boss yelling at you and you remember in that moment to come back to the moment, to be present, or shitting your pants in a grocery store.
00:56:41.119 --> 00:56:43.679
Life has many experiences.
00:56:44.320 --> 00:56:55.199
Some of them are funny and humorous, like a fart that went too far, and some of them are truly horrifying.
00:56:57.760 --> 00:57:04.880
And all of them are in this dream, you could call it, of life.
00:57:09.440 --> 00:57:17.440
The goal is to practice coming back to whatever is and trusting it.
00:57:18.480 --> 00:57:19.920
Trusting it.
00:57:24.880 --> 00:57:33.440
Not defaulting to the doomer mindset that it's all random and cold, and I'm just little old me separate from the whole thing.
00:57:35.840 --> 00:57:40.880
You can break out of that if you truly are ready.
00:57:41.119 --> 00:57:44.960
And the way you can do it is by practicing awareness.
00:57:46.159 --> 00:57:47.599
There's many ways to do it.
00:57:47.679 --> 00:57:49.840
It doesn't have to be sitting on a cushion.
00:57:50.159 --> 00:57:53.039
You can practice karma yoga on the go.
00:57:53.599 --> 00:58:03.519
There's so many ways, different forms of practice, different traditions that have popped up throughout millennia.
00:58:04.320 --> 00:58:12.639
The Buddhists, the Taoists, the Eastern Orthodox Christians.
00:58:19.440 --> 00:58:28.639
There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.
00:58:33.840 --> 00:58:45.599
Well, I've talked your ear off long enough today, and it has been a pleasure, and I will close this episode out with a wisdom reading from Thomas Merton, who was a Christian mystic.
00:58:48.719 --> 00:58:53.519
Someone who emphasized the present experience.
00:58:53.760 --> 00:58:55.280
Listen to his words.
00:58:55.519 --> 00:58:58.800
This is from his book, New Seeds of Contemplation.
00:59:02.559 --> 00:59:13.679
He says, To enter into the realm of contemplation, one must, in a certain sense, die.
00:59:15.519 --> 00:59:21.840
But this death is in fact the entrance into a higher life.
00:59:22.480 --> 00:59:40.320
It is a death for the sake of life, which leaves behind all that we can know or treasure as life, as thought, as experience, as joy, as being.
00:59:42.079 --> 00:59:52.159
Every form of intuition and experience die to be born again on a higher level of life.
00:00:01.600 --> 00:00:06.320
When you dream at night, you have a dream.
00:00:06.480 --> 00:00:10.560
Let's say somebody's in your dream and they're either a good person or bad person.
00:00:10.800 --> 00:00:17.039
In your dream, you don't identify with the other person in your dream, do you?
00:00:17.519 --> 00:00:18.480
They're scary.
00:00:18.559 --> 00:00:20.000
You're running from them.
00:00:20.399 --> 00:00:22.399
Holy shit, I had a dream about you last night.
00:00:22.480 --> 00:00:23.600
You were chasing me with an axe.
00:00:23.679 --> 00:00:25.280
It was terrifying.
00:00:26.320 --> 00:00:27.760
Wait a minute.
00:00:28.719 --> 00:00:31.679
That person chasing you with the axe in your dream?
00:00:31.920 --> 00:00:34.000
That was actually you, wasn't it?
00:00:34.560 --> 00:00:35.840
Well, yeah, I guess so.
00:00:36.000 --> 00:00:38.240
It was my dream, after all.
00:00:38.479 --> 00:00:38.960
Yeah.
00:00:39.200 --> 00:00:41.840
So in the dream, you were yourself?
00:00:42.640 --> 00:00:44.240
You were the other person?
00:00:45.359 --> 00:00:46.719
You were the environment.
00:00:46.880 --> 00:00:48.960
You were the room that you were inhabiting.
00:00:49.200 --> 00:00:51.840
You were the space between you and the other person.
00:00:52.000 --> 00:00:54.880
You were everything of the dream, weren't you?
00:00:55.119 --> 00:00:57.359
The whole thing top to bottom.
00:00:57.600 --> 00:01:03.280
But in the dream, you only felt like the person being chased.
00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:15.760
Now you see that right there, that is where the Zen tradition and the Advaita Vedanta tradition from Hinduism just merge.
00:01:16.319 --> 00:01:24.000
Because the experiencer and the experience are not two things.
00:01:41.519 --> 00:01:42.719
We're rolling.
00:01:43.280 --> 00:01:48.799
There's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.
00:01:49.840 --> 00:01:53.120
That was Morpheus speaking to Neo in the Matrix film.
00:01:55.439 --> 00:02:04.480
In that film, he understood that he was inside of a computer simulation and that as long as he had confidence, he could jump from a building to another building.
00:02:04.799 --> 00:02:05.439
No problem.
00:02:07.439 --> 00:02:09.280
He tries and he fails.
00:02:09.680 --> 00:02:16.879
And therein lies the difference between knowing and walking in a sci-fi action film.
00:02:17.120 --> 00:02:22.800
But that quote, there is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.
00:02:23.360 --> 00:02:28.560
Well, that is good advice, and that applies to us in real life.
00:02:31.599 --> 00:02:36.159
My name is Jacob, and I'm the host of Standing Nowhere, and I am pleased to be back with you.
00:02:36.400 --> 00:02:40.080
But if I'm really honest, I'm frustrated right now.
00:02:40.240 --> 00:02:43.439
I didn't know how to start this episode.
00:02:43.759 --> 00:02:51.199
And hand to God, this is I think my seventh time restarting this episode.
00:02:52.000 --> 00:02:53.280
Seven times.
00:02:54.240 --> 00:03:00.240
So what is the difference between knowing the path and walking the path?
00:03:02.319 --> 00:03:11.039
Well, knowing would be I love podcasting, I love recording, I love doing a podcast.
00:03:11.360 --> 00:03:17.360
But walking the path in this exact moment isn't easy.
00:03:17.599 --> 00:03:20.080
And I would call it frustrating.
00:03:20.479 --> 00:03:26.560
I've started this episode over seven times, three to four minutes on average each time.
00:03:26.879 --> 00:03:31.199
This recording right now may not ever see the light of day.
00:03:31.439 --> 00:03:37.599
I am talking into a microphone by myself in my bedroom, and this may never see the light of day.
00:03:37.680 --> 00:03:50.080
So imagine how frustrating it can be when you can't find the words, and yet the thing you love and you know and you understand that you love to do is podcast, but you can't find the words.
00:03:50.319 --> 00:03:52.479
So what is the experience right now?
00:03:52.639 --> 00:03:55.599
Well, the experience is frustration.
00:03:55.840 --> 00:03:57.199
That's reality.
00:04:00.080 --> 00:04:01.439
And yet here I am.
00:04:01.599 --> 00:04:05.840
I'm recording and I'm trying to find the words.
00:04:06.639 --> 00:04:09.360
Or let them flow out of me, if you will.
00:04:09.599 --> 00:04:11.680
It's like when you're taking a dump, right?
00:04:11.840 --> 00:04:14.479
If you try to push really hard, it just doesn't get anywhere.
00:04:14.560 --> 00:04:17.839
But if you relax, suddenly things start to flow.
00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:22.399
And if that's too vile of an example for you, I apologize.
00:04:22.639 --> 00:04:32.560
I do not mean to offend you, but sometimes humorous analogies can loosen us up a little bit to let things sink in, right?
00:04:33.120 --> 00:04:34.959
So why do I bring this up?
00:04:35.199 --> 00:04:40.720
Well, there's a big difference between hearing, understanding, and experiencing.
00:04:41.040 --> 00:04:47.360
Most of the time in life, we hear a lot from religious people about God.
00:04:48.480 --> 00:04:57.279
And we hear a lot of religious people talk about Krishna, and a lot of religious people talk about meditation if you're a Buddhist.
00:05:00.399 --> 00:05:01.839
Take your pick.
00:05:05.759 --> 00:05:10.560
There's a big problem with spirituality.
00:05:10.879 --> 00:05:14.639
You see, it's always pointing at the moon.
00:05:14.879 --> 00:05:17.120
It's always pointing to the moment, right?
00:05:17.600 --> 00:05:19.759
The indescribable, the unknowable.
00:05:19.839 --> 00:05:25.839
It's pointing to it, and it uses wonderful words, wonderful stories.
00:05:27.120 --> 00:05:28.160
Check this thing out.
00:05:28.319 --> 00:05:29.040
It's great.
00:05:29.199 --> 00:05:30.560
It's full of love.
00:05:31.279 --> 00:05:32.319
It's all you need.
00:05:32.399 --> 00:05:33.600
You can trust it.
00:05:35.839 --> 00:05:38.480
But ask someone to draw you a picture of it.
00:05:39.279 --> 00:05:40.399
Good luck.
00:05:42.319 --> 00:05:47.920
It's the tooth that can't bite itself, or the finger that it can't touch itself.
00:05:48.240 --> 00:05:51.839
It's the eye that can't see itself.
00:05:53.920 --> 00:05:58.560
And here I am starting a podcast about something that can't be put into words.
00:05:58.720 --> 00:06:00.959
So imagine my frustration, right?
00:06:04.240 --> 00:06:08.399
And what's the difference when it comes to spiritual traditions?
00:06:08.720 --> 00:06:21.759
Well, we we go to church or wherever you go or whatever you do to learn about your tradition, watch a YouTube video, listen to a podcast, read a book, and you conceptually understand it.
00:06:22.480 --> 00:06:27.519
The concepts are there and you understand them.
00:06:29.279 --> 00:06:35.040
But then when it comes to experience, that's a whole nother animal.
00:06:35.839 --> 00:06:37.759
Whole different animal.
00:06:40.560 --> 00:06:47.360
Just hearing about meditation can conjure up all sorts of different understandings for different people.
00:06:47.519 --> 00:06:57.040
If I describe my ZaZen practice to you, where I sit on a cushion in the morning and I let my thumbs rest together and I focus on my breath and my posture.
00:06:58.000 --> 00:07:06.480
Some people will think of a very Zen-like scenario, peace, and all that jazz, right?
00:07:06.560 --> 00:07:08.800
Whatever comes to mind when you think of meditation.
00:07:09.040 --> 00:07:15.040
Maybe a pompous asshole who thinks he's one-upping people because he meditates, right?
00:07:15.199 --> 00:07:15.920
Whatever.
00:07:16.240 --> 00:07:17.600
But what's the reality?
00:07:17.759 --> 00:07:18.959
What's the reality of it?
00:07:19.040 --> 00:07:31.680
What's the reality of hearing that the universe is all one and the more you practice being present, the more, you know, whatever, fill in the blank, right?
00:07:31.839 --> 00:07:34.319
But what's the actual experience?
00:07:35.360 --> 00:07:38.800
Well, for me, I roll out of bed at 6:30 in the morning.
00:07:39.199 --> 00:07:42.000
I drop a pretty considerably large deuce.
00:07:42.240 --> 00:07:47.759
Pardon my um disgusting uh revelation for you there.
00:07:48.000 --> 00:07:52.720
And then I grab my meditation cushion and I sit for 30 minutes.
00:07:53.600 --> 00:07:59.759
And when I sit, it is not unicorns and rainbows.
00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:02.639
Sometimes it's like a little bit of back pain.
00:08:02.800 --> 00:08:05.040
Sometimes it's a little bit of knee pain.
00:08:05.279 --> 00:08:12.160
Sometimes it's an overwhelming feeling that I don't want to sit today.
00:08:12.399 --> 00:08:13.839
I don't want to sit.
00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:15.680
I gotta get to work.
00:08:16.560 --> 00:08:17.199
And work.
00:08:18.160 --> 00:08:24.720
Here we are again, same old everyday thing over and over and over again.
00:08:25.439 --> 00:08:27.680
That is the experience.
00:08:27.839 --> 00:08:29.920
What is the practice though?
00:08:30.800 --> 00:08:41.600
The practice is being with those experiences exactly as they are in 4K detail.
00:08:45.519 --> 00:08:46.159
You see?
00:08:46.879 --> 00:08:48.960
Here's a little circle again.
00:08:49.279 --> 00:08:55.120
I'm talking to you, you're hearing me, you're understanding me conceptually, right?
00:08:55.440 --> 00:09:02.720
But tomorrow morning, I'm gonna sit on that cushion and I'm gonna experience all those things.
00:09:04.159 --> 00:09:07.759
Maybe while I'm sitting, I smell a little bit of body odor or something.
00:09:07.919 --> 00:09:09.919
Oh my gosh, time to take a shower.
00:09:10.480 --> 00:09:12.320
Oh my gosh, did I pay that bill?
00:09:12.480 --> 00:09:14.559
Oh my gosh, is this doing anything?
00:09:14.879 --> 00:09:17.519
That is the experience sometimes.
00:09:17.759 --> 00:09:22.240
On other days, my posture feels perfect.
00:09:22.399 --> 00:09:24.639
There is no pain whatsoever.
00:09:24.960 --> 00:09:29.200
I feel like I am floating, literally floating.
00:09:29.759 --> 00:09:31.919
That is another experience.
00:09:32.320 --> 00:09:36.720
And I notice that, and I come back to my breath.
00:09:38.399 --> 00:09:44.399
Happy brain, sad brain, confused brain, frustrated brain.
00:09:45.279 --> 00:09:50.320
The practice, the experience is being with what is.
00:09:50.480 --> 00:09:56.240
Now it's not glamorous for me to talk about those things, but that's the experience.
00:09:56.399 --> 00:09:59.679
And then what is the experience off the cushion?
00:10:00.799 --> 00:10:09.600
Taking a shower, seeing myself in the mirror, observing thoughts of self-judgment or self-aggrandizement.
00:10:09.759 --> 00:10:10.799
Oh, you look good today.
00:10:10.960 --> 00:10:12.720
Oh, you look terrible today.
00:10:13.039 --> 00:10:13.919
Whatever.
00:10:16.000 --> 00:10:18.080
That's the experience at that moment.
00:10:18.399 --> 00:10:25.120
Just off the cushion, back in motion, in the shower, on the road.
00:10:26.960 --> 00:10:31.200
My car, it's 207,000 miles on it.
00:10:31.360 --> 00:10:34.559
There's a thick coat of dust on the dashboard.
00:10:36.799 --> 00:10:42.960
The clutch is still going strong, but it's not as strong as when I first bought it, of course.
00:10:43.120 --> 00:10:46.159
It's showing signs of age.
00:10:46.799 --> 00:10:50.240
Creaks, cracks, clinks, clanks.
00:10:53.039 --> 00:10:54.559
That's the experience.
00:10:54.799 --> 00:10:57.039
That's the texture of life.
00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:04.799
My seat, my driver's seat, it's come off the rail on the right side.
00:11:04.879 --> 00:11:09.120
So my whole seat sits slightly angled up on the right side.
00:11:09.519 --> 00:11:12.879
So I have to lean to the right to get my seat to stay flat.
00:11:14.480 --> 00:11:16.879
Can I be with that experience?
00:11:17.360 --> 00:11:20.720
Just with that experience and nothing else.
00:11:20.960 --> 00:11:22.639
You see what I'm getting at here?
00:11:22.879 --> 00:11:26.240
There's hearing, there's understanding, and there's experience.
00:11:26.720 --> 00:11:30.480
In mysticism, we emphasize experience.
00:11:31.600 --> 00:11:50.159
But there's something curious that happens to you when you actively pursue experience and bringing your full awareness and your full being to whatever you're experiencing, regardless of if your brain labels them as good or bad.
00:11:54.799 --> 00:11:56.799
I've started this episode seven.
00:11:56.879 --> 00:12:00.480
This is my eighth attempt to do this episode.
00:12:01.120 --> 00:12:05.840
You bet your butt, my brain is thinking bad, frustrated.
00:12:06.799 --> 00:12:09.840
Pause, delete, stand up, walk around.
00:12:11.120 --> 00:12:12.960
That's an experience.
00:12:17.919 --> 00:12:29.519
Now when I when I open up the the book of the way, the Tao De Qing by Lao Tzu, and I read beautiful words that he wrote 2,500 years ago, that's amazing.
00:12:30.720 --> 00:12:32.639
I can recite some by memory.
00:12:32.799 --> 00:12:33.919
Let's see here.
00:12:34.240 --> 00:12:39.279
Every day in the pursuit of knowledge, something is added.
00:12:40.399 --> 00:12:45.840
Every day in the pursuit of the Tao, everything or something is dropped.
00:12:47.440 --> 00:12:48.960
I don't remember the rest.
00:12:49.360 --> 00:12:50.080
You get the point.
00:12:50.159 --> 00:12:51.440
It's beautiful.
00:12:52.080 --> 00:13:13.120
And then I close the book and I get in my car with 207,000 miles on it while I am doing delivery apps full time to support a family, knowing that my car could break down at any time, and I would be completely and utterly fucked.
00:13:15.840 --> 00:13:22.639
Do you see the gap between understanding concepts and experience?
00:13:26.720 --> 00:13:38.000
The difference between me and someone who doesn't practice is that my experiences do not overwhelm me anymore.
00:13:39.679 --> 00:13:45.279
I embrace them and I hold them fully in awareness as often as I can.
00:13:45.519 --> 00:13:53.440
I am not a fully realized being like the Buddha or Jesus walking around with complete awareness at all times.
00:13:53.600 --> 00:13:54.720
Of course not.
00:13:56.240 --> 00:13:58.480
I fail constantly.
00:13:58.879 --> 00:14:01.200
That is why it's called a practice.
00:14:11.440 --> 00:14:36.720
But it's important to understand that when you are either at church hearing your pastor tell you to love everyone and do better, and then you go to work, and your coworker Bob, who is just the worst kind of asshole you've ever seen in your life and just does unbelievable things to you to go out of their way to make your life miserable.
00:14:36.960 --> 00:14:47.600
It's a little different to love that person in that moment, as opposed to when you were in church and you got the guy on the keyboard in the background playing all those chords that make you feel good.
00:14:48.399 --> 00:14:50.000
There's a big difference.
00:14:50.159 --> 00:14:51.919
And it doesn't matter what tradition.
00:14:52.000 --> 00:14:54.799
I'm not here to bash on one in particular.
00:14:54.960 --> 00:14:57.360
And words, we give them meaning.
00:14:57.519 --> 00:15:02.559
Words change in their meaning throughout time and history, right?
00:15:03.519 --> 00:15:18.320
See, today, when you read the Bible, anytime you see faith, at least the New Testament, faith or belief or trust, all three of those words can be derived from whatever word is in written.
00:15:18.399 --> 00:15:26.480
I don't have the exact word memorized that's written in Greek, but that word can be translated into faith, belief, or trust.
00:15:26.639 --> 00:15:34.480
And all three of those words are a little bit different in English in 2026 in today.
00:15:35.440 --> 00:15:50.000
You see, belief today, that strikes to mind more of a really intense hoping or wishing that something is true.
00:15:50.799 --> 00:16:10.320
And I'm not here to say this is what belief means, but you know, generally speaking, when someone says, I believe in X, what we hear is, well, I really, really think that this is true, or I really hope it's true.
00:16:10.559 --> 00:16:15.279
Oh if it's not true, I don't know what I'm gonna do.
00:16:15.519 --> 00:16:17.840
You know, it's something that you can argue.
00:16:19.120 --> 00:16:27.360
It's a prop it's propositional, it's fragile, and it won't keep you warm at night on a cold night.
00:16:28.879 --> 00:16:35.840
Belief is what Alan Watts says is a fervent wishing that something were true.
00:16:39.120 --> 00:16:49.039
And faith gets lumped in with that, which is where I'm trying to like claw the word faith back from going down with the ship with belief.
00:16:49.679 --> 00:16:56.159
Faith is more akin to trust, that other that third possible word.
00:16:57.679 --> 00:17:13.680
A trust, an openness, not a faith or a trust in a certain concept, but trust in whatever arises.
00:17:14.559 --> 00:17:21.039
Essentially, you're saying to yourself, I don't know, but I trust it.
00:17:21.599 --> 00:17:25.119
I don't know how this universe exists.
00:17:25.440 --> 00:17:27.039
It's weird, right?
00:17:27.359 --> 00:17:31.759
It's weird that there's anything at all versus nothing at all.
00:17:32.000 --> 00:17:33.680
Have you ever thought about that?
00:17:34.799 --> 00:17:37.599
Why is there anything versus nothing?
00:17:37.759 --> 00:17:39.359
Why is there anything at all?
00:17:41.920 --> 00:17:43.279
It's a mystery.
00:17:50.319 --> 00:17:57.920
Take take Nathan, a Zen monk who I've quoted many times in this podcast, who's a wonderful human being.
00:17:58.880 --> 00:18:00.400
He was in exile.
00:18:01.039 --> 00:18:03.359
Imagine being exiled.
00:18:04.720 --> 00:18:06.400
We hear that, we go, whoa.
00:18:06.640 --> 00:18:07.920
But imagine it.
00:18:08.480 --> 00:18:12.480
You go to work every day, you do your thing every day, and then one day you're exiled.
00:18:12.559 --> 00:18:14.319
Imagine the government knocking on your door.
00:18:14.480 --> 00:18:15.680
You're exiled.
00:18:16.319 --> 00:18:17.519
Don't come back.
00:18:20.880 --> 00:18:23.599
Well, that might shake your belief a little bit.
00:18:24.720 --> 00:18:29.119
There's a quote that says, the mind creates the abyss, the heart crosses it.
00:18:33.920 --> 00:18:42.880
I think one of the biggest problems that I've noticed in my practice is identifying with thoughts.
00:18:45.200 --> 00:18:47.279
And I've spoken about this before.
00:18:47.519 --> 00:18:58.240
If you observe in awareness, if you observe your mind in awareness, you will see that thoughts arise of themselves.
00:18:58.480 --> 00:18:59.839
I've talked about this before.
00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:02.480
Many of you who listen to this podcast understand this.
00:19:02.720 --> 00:19:06.400
Many of you who have never heard this podcast, I'm sure you've heard this concept.
00:19:06.720 --> 00:19:09.039
Thoughts arise by themselves.
00:19:09.200 --> 00:19:10.480
You don't think them.
00:19:12.640 --> 00:19:15.839
But most people, they never think this through.
00:19:16.559 --> 00:19:21.839
Like when I tell you that right now, there's going to be people who listen and say, that's true, that's true.
00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:26.240
There are some that I do think, though, or there's some that I shouldn't think.
00:19:26.400 --> 00:19:32.240
You know, you don't think any thoughts.
00:19:32.559 --> 00:19:32.880
Okay?
00:19:33.039 --> 00:19:34.559
And this is really important.
00:19:36.319 --> 00:19:39.359
Thoughts arise by themselves.
00:19:40.799 --> 00:19:42.240
You are not your thought.
00:19:42.400 --> 00:19:44.319
You are not doing your thoughts.
00:19:44.480 --> 00:19:46.799
They're just happening to you.
00:19:47.359 --> 00:19:53.440
The problem is you identify with your thoughts.
00:19:54.559 --> 00:20:02.799
And the ego is really slippery because our language that we've been taught since birth creates this illusion, illusory effect.
00:20:03.759 --> 00:20:07.440
For example, we always try to put a noun into things, right?
00:20:07.519 --> 00:20:14.640
Like when we say it is raining, what is the it that is raining?
00:20:14.960 --> 00:20:23.119
Or when we say I am angry versus observing anger arise.
00:20:24.319 --> 00:20:25.359
Did you ever notice that?
00:20:25.519 --> 00:20:28.079
That you are the one observing everything?
00:20:28.319 --> 00:20:32.880
It's like if I if I say, look at your hand right now, is your hand you?
00:20:33.359 --> 00:20:37.359
Well, no, because I can cut my hand off and I'm still me, right?
00:20:37.680 --> 00:20:38.319
Yeah.
00:20:39.759 --> 00:20:45.839
But you'll notice that you could go limb by limb removing limbs from your body and you'd still be you.
00:20:45.920 --> 00:20:48.480
So you know you're not your arms or your legs.
00:20:49.440 --> 00:20:57.440
And if we skip to the end, you can remove everything from your material body and you'd still be you.
00:20:57.839 --> 00:21:03.039
Which means you're not anything material.
00:21:03.200 --> 00:21:10.400
You are not your thoughts either, because your thought is something that is being witnessed.
00:21:12.160 --> 00:21:15.839
Like if I say think of the word elephant right now.
00:21:17.839 --> 00:21:21.039
Okay, we all heard elephant in our head, right?
00:21:22.000 --> 00:21:33.920
But you're watching that when you hear elephant in your head, you're watching that thought.
00:21:34.079 --> 00:21:35.279
You see what I'm saying?
00:21:35.759 --> 00:21:39.200
You stand behind the thought.
00:21:40.960 --> 00:21:46.400
When you feel pain, you're watching the pain.
00:21:47.599 --> 00:21:57.519
It's the same you, it's the same awareness as when you were an infant, as you were a five year old, as a twenty year old, as a forty year old.
00:21:58.559 --> 00:21:59.519
That awareness.
00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:01.519
Never changes.
00:22:01.839 --> 00:22:02.480
Ever.
00:22:02.880 --> 00:22:04.480
It is static.
00:22:05.599 --> 00:22:08.960
It is always there and it's always in the background.
00:22:10.799 --> 00:22:12.640
It's very peaceful.
00:22:16.720 --> 00:22:29.440
Notice the words that I'm saying to you that you're hearing right now are inside the same awareness that your thoughts are.
00:22:31.119 --> 00:22:41.839
So every thought that I'm articulating to you is just as much you as your own thoughts are.
00:22:43.519 --> 00:22:45.279
Is this making sense?
00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:47.279
I hope it is.
00:22:47.920 --> 00:22:49.759
I I really hope it is.
00:22:50.559 --> 00:22:55.759
But even then, you're still in the understanding phase.
00:22:57.599 --> 00:23:16.480
When you practice actively with interest and and um energy, when you start really getting interested in it in watching, you will rest in that awareness.
00:23:18.559 --> 00:23:21.119
But you're gonna start to notice a tug of war.
00:23:21.359 --> 00:23:30.720
When you stop identifying with tr with thoughts, they're really gonna try to bring you back in and get you to identify with them again.
00:23:32.799 --> 00:23:39.599
Well, if I just rest in awareness, oh my gosh, well then my life will fall apart.
00:23:41.599 --> 00:23:44.160
I've gotta think, I've gotta do something.
00:23:44.480 --> 00:23:45.359
Do you see?
00:23:46.160 --> 00:23:53.359
We just established earlier that your thoughts do themselves.
00:23:55.599 --> 00:24:07.119
And already we're identifying with them by saying, Well, I can't not think, I've got to keep thinking, I've got to keep planning, I don't want to be a pacifist.
00:24:08.559 --> 00:24:11.119
Do you see the identification trap?
00:24:11.920 --> 00:24:13.519
It's real easy to miss.
00:24:13.680 --> 00:24:17.440
If some of you right now are saying, I don't understand what you're saying, that's okay.
00:24:17.920 --> 00:24:19.759
Let me try it another way.
00:24:21.839 --> 00:24:34.160
If you're having the thought or can of a confusing thought right now saying, I don't understand what he's saying, that thought appeared by itself.
00:24:35.119 --> 00:24:35.920
Slow down.
00:24:36.079 --> 00:24:51.839
Look at this, understand this, really understand this, because then you'll move to experience every single thought it does itself.
00:24:52.400 --> 00:24:58.400
You have just as much control over your thoughts as you do the weather.
00:25:04.720 --> 00:25:15.119
If you think I'm wrong, please experiment for yourself.
00:25:15.519 --> 00:25:17.759
There's a couple experiments you can do.
00:25:18.079 --> 00:25:32.160
The first experiment, you can set a timer on your phone, say sixty seconds, and watch the timer tick down and say to yourself, I will not think a single thought for 60 seconds.
00:25:36.319 --> 00:25:42.640
You don't even have to do that experiment because you and I both know you won't make it two seconds.
00:25:43.680 --> 00:25:47.759
Try to make it, try to make it three seconds without thinking.
00:25:48.160 --> 00:25:52.480
And you'll start to notice that it's just something that happens.
00:25:52.960 --> 00:25:54.880
And you'll catch yourself.
00:25:56.880 --> 00:26:00.960
Notice when you're completely lost in thoughts.
00:26:01.200 --> 00:26:08.480
And see, the only quote unquote lost part of it is identifying with it.
00:26:10.799 --> 00:26:20.400
It's really hard to articulate this stuff, which is why some teachers are famous because they're just so good at articulating this stuff.
00:26:20.480 --> 00:26:32.400
Um, like Lao Tzu, you know, when he wrote the Tao De Ching 2,500 years ago, the very first thing he said is that the Tao that can be named or explained is not the Tao.
00:26:33.839 --> 00:26:56.400
Because understand this a concept is like a still frame, it's like a picture of the present moment that, of course, is instantly the past because the present is eternal and it's always now, and you can't ever catch it with a net, you can't ever um preserve it.
00:26:56.720 --> 00:26:58.880
It's always changing.
00:26:59.759 --> 00:27:07.839
There is constantly something new arising in the present moment, and there's constantly something fading away from the present moment.
00:27:08.000 --> 00:27:13.440
So if we take a snapshot of the present moment, it's like collecting dead butterflies.
00:27:20.640 --> 00:27:28.400
But real life is the laboratory where you can experiment and experience this for yourself.
00:27:28.960 --> 00:27:31.279
This is where mysticism lives.
00:27:31.519 --> 00:27:38.960
It's not in doctrines, it's in the sit, it's in the walk, it's in what you're doing.
00:27:40.079 --> 00:27:54.079
And a flip happens when you take an active interest in sitting and practicing on a consistent basis, you will start to notice an inversion of your identification.
00:27:55.920 --> 00:28:01.440
You will start to see that thoughts are not you.
00:28:02.000 --> 00:28:08.480
Emotions are not you, but you are that awareness containing them.
00:28:09.279 --> 00:28:19.759
The thoughts, the emotions, the everyday activities of life, they will still continue as they always have and as they always will.
00:28:21.440 --> 00:28:26.400
But a massive cataclysmic shift has taken place here.
00:28:26.799 --> 00:28:29.599
Suddenly, you're not the thought.
00:28:29.759 --> 00:28:32.319
You're not the little you that you thought you were.
00:28:32.559 --> 00:28:38.799
You're the big awareness that you always were that you forgot about.
00:28:42.880 --> 00:28:50.720
Now right now, some people hearing that will go two directions.
00:28:51.200 --> 00:28:54.799
Some will nod their heads saying, Yep, yep, that's right, absolutely.
00:28:55.119 --> 00:29:01.200
And some will say, Well, that sounds like bullshit to me.
00:29:02.160 --> 00:29:13.119
But those people haven't taken the time to realize that the bullshit thought just appeared on its own just now.
00:29:13.279 --> 00:29:13.839
You see?
00:29:14.000 --> 00:29:16.480
It snuck in real quick, didn't it?
00:29:18.960 --> 00:29:20.400
Did you notice it?
00:29:22.559 --> 00:29:33.279
The more you start noticing the thoughts automatically doing themselves, the more you realize, holy crap, I'm not doing anything on those thoughts.
00:29:33.359 --> 00:29:34.400
They're just happening.
00:29:34.640 --> 00:29:57.519
And then you'll start to realize that the motivation to move your body, even as simple as scratching an itch, first begins with a thought, a thought of volition, which is to say, a thought of desire to move my limb to do something.
00:29:59.119 --> 00:30:05.519
Watch your body sometimes, just for fun, and see if you notice anything interesting.
00:30:05.680 --> 00:30:14.160
Like right now, I'm recording this episode and I have two of my nails interlocked as like I guess you could call it a nervous habit.
00:30:14.400 --> 00:30:19.680
But did I choose with willpower to do that?
00:30:21.519 --> 00:30:24.400
Or did it just start happening on its own?
00:30:24.640 --> 00:30:32.799
Have you ever seen someone tap their their leg repeatedly and quickly, and then you notice it and you point it out to them?
00:30:33.039 --> 00:30:35.119
Hey, your leg's tapping.
00:30:35.519 --> 00:30:36.400
Whoa.
00:30:38.319 --> 00:30:46.240
If I have free will and I didn't choose to tap my leg nervously, what the hell?
00:30:46.799 --> 00:30:47.440
You see?
00:30:49.599 --> 00:30:59.519
Now this is where some people who are really identified with thoughts in their body will have more thoughts that say, Well, some thoughts you can't control, but some you can.
00:30:59.759 --> 00:31:01.279
That's another thought.
00:31:01.599 --> 00:31:03.599
And it's bullshit, by the way.
00:31:03.920 --> 00:31:08.400
100% of thoughts are outside of your control.
00:31:08.720 --> 00:31:14.400
Not ninety-nine percent, not ninety-five percent, not fifty percent.
00:31:14.799 --> 00:31:20.880
One hundred percent of thoughts are outside of your control.
00:31:26.960 --> 00:31:32.960
Now here's another way I can flip it again, so I can keep you confused.
00:31:34.640 --> 00:31:40.960
I've said you're not your hand, you're not your limbs, you're not your thoughts, you're not anything material, right?
00:31:44.480 --> 00:31:46.559
But at the same time, you are.
00:31:49.599 --> 00:31:53.839
I'm not gonna sit here and create a duality in your mind, because that's another concept.
00:31:54.000 --> 00:32:02.000
If I say you are the empty awareness, you're not the thing that you are aware of, that creates a duality.
00:32:02.319 --> 00:32:30.799
You're over here, invisible, undefinable, eternal awareness, and over there is nasty material stuff that arises and ends and stinks and hurts, and it's itchy and frustrating, or it's addictive and pleasant and pleasurable and um consuming, and it's either good or bad, and I hate it, and I'm just this pleasant awareness over here.
00:32:31.039 --> 00:32:42.400
Well, I hate to tell you, but in the realm of spiritual conceptualizing, you are actually also everything that you see.
00:32:45.119 --> 00:33:00.720
Like I said earlier, the things that I'm saying to you and articulating to you right now, you have just as much control over as the thoughts you have in response to the things I'm saying to you.
00:33:00.960 --> 00:33:13.599
So, right now, my articulated thought and your response to my articulated thought are both equally something that you are observing and have control over.
00:33:14.559 --> 00:33:16.480
So, what does that tell you about you?
00:33:18.640 --> 00:33:20.480
Are you catching on to that?
00:33:21.359 --> 00:33:22.799
There's an old Buddhist quote.
00:33:22.960 --> 00:33:28.880
It says, Um, I'm doing it by memory here because I don't have it in my outline, but it just popped in my head.
00:33:28.960 --> 00:33:35.119
It says, um, we live in the illusion and the appearance of things.
00:33:38.400 --> 00:33:40.640
There is a reality.
00:33:41.440 --> 00:33:43.920
We are that reality.
00:33:46.559 --> 00:33:51.200
When you understand this, you see that you are no thing.
00:33:52.000 --> 00:33:57.680
And being no thing, you are everything.
00:34:02.160 --> 00:34:10.480
Boy, I can slip into um philosophical territory here, but I'm just pointing out things that you can independently verify right now.
00:34:10.639 --> 00:34:17.039
That's the my goal on this podcast is to share things with you that you can experience for yourself.
00:34:17.199 --> 00:34:19.519
I don't want you to take my word for it.
00:34:21.119 --> 00:34:38.880
Because if you're a fundamentalist Christian and you take my word for it and um you become a mystic, a Christian mystic, well, you've traded one set of concepts for another, unless you appreciate the mystic teachings, like Meister Eckhart, St.
00:34:39.039 --> 00:34:44.559
John of the Cross, Teresa Vavila, and you experience the teachings.
00:34:44.880 --> 00:34:50.480
And it's so sad because you've got to drop it all.
00:34:50.639 --> 00:34:51.920
You've got to drop everything.
00:34:52.079 --> 00:35:03.360
You've got to drop everything that I've said to you in this episode thus far, and just come to whatever your experience is, which is not initially going to be as exciting to your brain.
00:35:04.000 --> 00:35:20.400
Me quoting wise scripture from Lao Tzu is so cool, and it's so cool to think about, but it ultimately falls far short of whatever experience you are having at exactly this moment.
00:35:24.159 --> 00:35:26.480
My experience yesterday.
00:35:28.320 --> 00:35:32.800
I went to the store to buy some soda because I was tired of drinking water.
00:35:33.039 --> 00:35:34.159
Just water.
00:35:34.480 --> 00:35:37.199
Saving money, being responsible, being healthy.
00:35:37.440 --> 00:35:39.039
I want something sweet on my tongue.
00:35:39.199 --> 00:35:41.360
So I go to the store, I buy some soda.
00:35:41.519 --> 00:35:45.760
As I'm selecting the soda in the aisle, I've got to let one rip.
00:35:47.440 --> 00:35:48.719
So I fart.
00:35:50.320 --> 00:35:53.119
And then I've got another fart lined up right behind it.
00:35:53.280 --> 00:35:55.199
I'm like, whoa, that's crazy.
00:35:55.440 --> 00:35:57.039
So I fart again.
00:35:58.719 --> 00:36:03.280
But at that fart, I didn't feel the bubble at the end of it.
00:36:03.440 --> 00:36:07.280
And you know what happens when you don't feel the bubble at the end of your fart.
00:36:08.719 --> 00:36:13.519
When you're in your 40s, you can't trust the fart anymore.
00:36:13.679 --> 00:36:17.519
So I waddled my way to the bathroom really quickly.
00:36:17.920 --> 00:36:25.360
After that failed second fart, it felt like something was gonna leak.
00:36:25.519 --> 00:36:27.119
Something was coming loose.
00:36:27.360 --> 00:36:30.239
So I'm waddling my way to the bathroom.
00:36:33.599 --> 00:36:38.559
I had to use the bathroom for like 10-15 minutes, kept my wife waiting, finally made it out.
00:36:38.880 --> 00:36:42.480
But I didn't make it to the bathroom, truth be told.
00:36:43.280 --> 00:36:51.519
There was a little bit of uh biological matter that escaped the uh musculature of my structure.
00:36:51.679 --> 00:36:52.719
Let's just say that.
00:36:52.960 --> 00:36:53.280
Okay.
00:36:54.320 --> 00:36:58.639
Hope you're not eating while you're listening to this podcast.
00:36:58.880 --> 00:37:10.880
Now, some of you might be laughing, some of you might be grossed out right now, but I assure you, whatever you're experiencing is exactly the desired effect that I had bringing this up.
00:37:11.119 --> 00:37:16.239
And that's because that was my experience yesterday.
00:37:16.400 --> 00:37:18.559
Now, was I fighting the experience?
00:37:18.800 --> 00:37:21.199
Well, certainly there was some tension, right?
00:37:21.440 --> 00:37:26.000
Literally, keeping the gap closed, try to try to make it to the bathroom.
00:37:27.280 --> 00:37:29.519
Was I present during that experience?
00:37:29.760 --> 00:37:31.119
I was actually.
00:37:32.239 --> 00:37:41.599
I've been practicing three years now, so weird oddity moments like that I use as little cues or identifiers to come back to presence.
00:37:46.159 --> 00:37:50.639
So I'm mindfully walking back to the bathroom, waddling.
00:37:51.280 --> 00:38:00.239
And then the experience of leaving the bathroom, and it's like, I've got to, you know, get home, shower, burn my clothes?
00:38:01.679 --> 00:38:05.199
Have you ever put on underwear that is compromised?
00:38:05.679 --> 00:38:06.639
It doesn't feel good.
00:38:06.719 --> 00:38:09.920
It's cold and it's it doesn't feel good.
00:38:10.239 --> 00:38:13.920
And what is that feeling inside when something gross touches you?
00:38:14.079 --> 00:38:15.440
Don't put it into words.
00:38:15.679 --> 00:38:17.440
What's that experience like?
00:38:18.639 --> 00:38:30.239
You see, I just described an incredibly humiliating and disgusting and gross experience.
00:38:30.880 --> 00:38:33.280
But it's a human experience.
00:38:36.480 --> 00:38:39.119
Did I identify with it the whole way?
00:38:39.360 --> 00:38:42.480
See, the ego can flip the script and say, Well, I'm awareness.
00:38:42.559 --> 00:38:48.800
I'm not actually shitty underwear, I'm just awareness, holding the shitty underwear in awareness.
00:38:48.960 --> 00:38:49.760
I'm good.
00:38:49.920 --> 00:38:52.320
But you see, that's called spiritual bypassing.
00:38:52.480 --> 00:38:58.079
That's where the ego dresses itself up as awareness and says, This is me.
00:38:58.960 --> 00:39:00.239
This is me.
00:39:00.400 --> 00:39:02.159
I'm not that thing.
00:39:04.159 --> 00:39:06.000
That's also escapism.
00:39:08.320 --> 00:39:27.119
When the point I'm trying to make here is when you come keep coming back to the experience, it's almost like you have, like, I can describe it when I sit in meditation and I am very successful at focusing on my breath.
00:39:27.360 --> 00:39:38.960
Because in a meditation, we practice concentration, which is just like the word suggests, you're concentrating something into a single point instead of having it spread out.
00:39:39.679 --> 00:39:46.000
Now, concentration is not the same thing as meditation, and concentration is not the same thing as mindfulness.
00:39:46.320 --> 00:39:57.519
But concentration is a tool in the toolkit that helps us along because it reduces and calms the monkey mind down.
00:39:58.719 --> 00:40:02.320
I used an analogy on the last episode, it calms the lake.
00:40:02.559 --> 00:40:04.079
So there's no more splashing.
00:40:04.159 --> 00:40:07.039
So you can see the reflection of the moon in the lake.
00:40:09.199 --> 00:40:28.639
And me describing this to you right now, it might ring a bell of truth in you, but until you've experienced it, there's no words that I can say to you right now that will come close to the experience of you staying with an object long enough for your mind to calm down, for you to actually experience your true nature.
00:40:29.760 --> 00:40:35.440
Many people, when they first start meditating and experiencing this, they they laugh.
00:40:36.079 --> 00:40:39.679
They just can't stop laughing, or they just feel so good.
00:40:41.920 --> 00:40:43.760
And there's a reason behind that.
00:40:44.000 --> 00:40:47.840
But then the ego will come in and say, Oh, this is what meditation is.
00:40:48.079 --> 00:40:50.320
It's feeling good, feeling calm, yes.
00:40:50.480 --> 00:40:55.119
But then you have a meditation where you're not calm or feeling good, and you think the whole thing's done.
00:40:55.679 --> 00:41:05.360
But here I am, three years experienced meditator, walking home in shitty underwear, completely with it.
00:41:07.360 --> 00:41:10.239
Not fighting it, just laughing about it.
00:41:14.320 --> 00:41:16.960
Because that's my present experience at that moment.
00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:23.119
It is becoming interested in the moment.
00:41:23.840 --> 00:41:38.320
Now, when you when I say to you that you are not your hand and you are just as much your thought as you are my words coming at you right now, you might say to yourself, well, that that just sounds really stupid.
00:41:38.400 --> 00:41:39.760
How is that possible?
00:41:40.719 --> 00:41:42.239
Let me ask you this.
00:41:43.519 --> 00:41:50.079
When you dream at night, you have a dream.
00:41:50.159 --> 00:41:54.239
Let's say somebody's in your dream and they're either a good person or bad person.
00:41:54.639 --> 00:42:00.800
In your dream, you don't identify with the other person in your dream, do you?
00:42:01.280 --> 00:42:02.239
They're scary.
00:42:02.320 --> 00:42:03.760
You're running from them.
00:42:04.159 --> 00:42:06.159
Holy shit, I had a dream about you last night.
00:42:06.239 --> 00:42:07.360
You were chasing me with an axe.
00:42:07.440 --> 00:42:08.800
It was terrifying.
00:42:10.159 --> 00:42:11.519
Wait a minute.
00:42:12.559 --> 00:42:15.440
That person chasing you with the axe in your dream?
00:42:15.679 --> 00:42:17.760
That was actually you, wasn't it?
00:42:18.320 --> 00:42:19.599
Well, yeah, I guess so.
00:42:19.760 --> 00:42:21.920
It was my dream, after all.
00:42:22.159 --> 00:42:22.639
Yeah.
00:42:22.960 --> 00:42:35.599
So in the dream, you were yourself, you were the other person, you were the environment, you were the room that you were inhabiting, you were the space between you and the other person.
00:42:35.760 --> 00:42:38.639
You were everything of the dream, weren't you?
00:42:38.880 --> 00:42:41.119
The whole thing top to bottom.
00:42:41.360 --> 00:42:47.039
But in the dream, you only felt like the person being chased.
00:42:47.760 --> 00:42:59.519
Now you see that right there, that is where the Zen tradition and the Advaita Vedanta tradition from Hinduism just merge.
00:43:00.079 --> 00:43:07.760
Because the experiencer and the experience are not two things.
00:43:30.559 --> 00:43:39.840
But if you don't practice what I'm telling you, and try practice, just try it.
00:43:40.880 --> 00:43:43.599
You'll never experience it.
00:43:44.320 --> 00:43:47.519
And once you experience it, there's no doubt in your mind.
00:43:47.679 --> 00:43:52.719
This is why the Buddha said doubt is a good thing.
00:43:52.960 --> 00:43:55.199
Because, well, it can be a good thing.
00:43:55.360 --> 00:43:59.519
If if you use doubt as motivation to investigate.
00:44:00.559 --> 00:44:02.800
You will see for yourself.
00:44:03.119 --> 00:44:16.559
But if you're a person who says meditation is bullshit, enlightenment is bullshit, heaven is bullshit, hell is bullshit, God is bullshit, everything is bullshit, this whole thing sucks.
00:44:16.800 --> 00:44:22.480
When I die, it's a black box forever, the end, goodbye.
00:44:22.719 --> 00:44:24.079
That's a thought.
00:44:24.320 --> 00:44:29.119
And that thought is the prevailing thought of 2026.
00:44:29.280 --> 00:44:32.000
And it has been for about 200 years now.
00:44:32.320 --> 00:44:39.760
And I won't digress into why, church, but a lot of people think this way.
00:44:39.920 --> 00:44:41.440
It's called nihilism.
00:44:42.079 --> 00:44:52.559
I won't say it's called atheism, but the general accepted, agreed upon conceptual model of the universe is that everything is random.
00:44:52.800 --> 00:44:57.599
That I am little old me, and the universe is so big and huge.
00:44:57.760 --> 00:44:59.039
I'm just a little dot.
00:44:59.199 --> 00:45:02.320
I'm going to die someday, and none of it matters.
00:45:02.639 --> 00:45:09.519
Or worse, you get some people that say, well, you just got to make your own meaning of life, and uh that's just how it is, and then you're dead.
00:45:09.840 --> 00:45:10.480
You know?
00:45:11.599 --> 00:45:16.159
But understand, you are not separate from the whole thing.
00:45:16.480 --> 00:45:19.199
You are the whole thing.
00:45:23.199 --> 00:45:25.519
Uh there's a quote from Meister Eckhart.
00:45:25.760 --> 00:45:32.159
He was a Christian mystic from I get the date wrong so often.
00:45:32.239 --> 00:45:33.760
I think it's 400 years ago.
00:45:34.000 --> 00:45:35.599
Four or five hundred years ago.
00:45:35.840 --> 00:45:44.159
Four or five hundred years ago, okay, half a millennia ago, this man wrote the following words.
00:45:45.760 --> 00:45:54.639
The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me.
00:45:55.440 --> 00:46:05.920
My eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.
00:46:09.599 --> 00:46:11.360
Do you see what he's saying here?
00:46:12.159 --> 00:46:16.960
He's saying that there is one eye, one awareness.
00:46:17.280 --> 00:46:22.320
There is one seeing, there's one knowing, one love.
00:46:23.679 --> 00:46:34.320
He's saying that the knowing that is saying these words to you, and the knowing that is hearing these words is the same knowing.
00:46:36.239 --> 00:46:38.239
Read through the New Testament.
00:46:39.199 --> 00:46:41.280
Read the words of Jesus.
00:46:41.679 --> 00:47:04.079
Even if you hate modern churches because they're so easy to hate, because a lot of them represent everything that's just nasty in the world, and there's a lot of good ones, but read the New Testament where Jesus says I and the Father are one, or where he prays over his disciples.
00:47:05.599 --> 00:47:09.599
May they be completely one in us.
00:47:13.119 --> 00:47:31.199
But no matter if you think the universe is random and cold and unfeeling, and that you are separate from it, or if you think that you are one with it, both of those are thoughts.
00:47:32.400 --> 00:47:36.320
Both of those are in awareness.
00:47:37.199 --> 00:47:41.519
The difference is, do you identify with the thought?
00:47:41.840 --> 00:47:43.920
And this is where this is where I stand.
00:47:44.079 --> 00:47:47.280
Because this podcast is called Standing Nowhere.
00:47:47.440 --> 00:47:51.920
I'm not standing on any concept whatsoever, except the present moment.
00:47:52.159 --> 00:47:59.760
It's better to stand on the firm ground of nothingness than the quick stand of somethingness, right?
00:48:00.079 --> 00:48:01.519
But here's the thing.
00:48:02.320 --> 00:48:04.320
I will not stand on any concept.
00:48:04.480 --> 00:48:07.920
I will always choose experience and I will always trust it.
00:48:08.000 --> 00:48:12.480
But if you are going to talk about the universe, there's two types of people.
00:48:12.639 --> 00:48:21.840
There's those who say that the universe is hostile and separate and other, and there's some who say it's alive and caring and loving.
00:48:22.400 --> 00:48:25.760
Neither of them can be proven objectively.
00:48:26.000 --> 00:48:28.960
Both are a choice of orientation.
00:48:30.960 --> 00:48:35.519
I say hold all beliefs loosely, use them as pointers.
00:48:37.519 --> 00:48:42.159
But why talk the universe down?
00:48:42.880 --> 00:48:43.519
You know?
00:48:44.719 --> 00:48:51.039
Whether you think the universe is random or love and that it's all one?
00:48:52.559 --> 00:48:57.440
Why uh you know why why put it down?
00:49:02.719 --> 00:49:07.119
Why not lean towards the one that says, hooray, what a great show.
00:49:08.159 --> 00:49:11.119
There's something to this, you know?
00:49:13.280 --> 00:49:30.159
It's real easy for the um the collective ego, the collective mindset of people, especially in a materialist consumerist age like we are, to get down on their luck and down on their on themselves and think that this is just a mess.
00:49:34.159 --> 00:49:37.199
William James says, be not afraid of life.
00:49:37.440 --> 00:49:43.199
Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.
00:49:45.039 --> 00:49:56.000
So if you are going to have some beliefs or hold some concepts, why not pick the one that is an upper, you know?
00:49:56.719 --> 00:49:58.400
You are the universe.
00:49:58.639 --> 00:50:07.039
Whether you believe it's random as AF or uh, you know, actually love and it's all one.
00:50:07.280 --> 00:50:19.679
It's it's like I it's just it doesn't make sense to me how you can be the universe and and and speak ill of it.
00:50:22.800 --> 00:50:24.079
Why do that?
00:50:26.880 --> 00:50:29.760
That it's a mindset that I've never understood.
00:50:33.360 --> 00:50:37.840
It's it's not toxic positivity and it's not being naive, it's faith.
00:50:38.159 --> 00:50:39.519
It's trust.
00:50:41.760 --> 00:50:44.639
You came out of this mystery.
00:50:44.960 --> 00:50:48.159
You are this mystery.
00:50:48.719 --> 00:50:57.760
Jesus even said in the Bible, is it not written in your law that you are Elohim?
00:50:59.199 --> 00:51:01.119
That is the word he used.
00:51:01.440 --> 00:51:05.280
Elohim of divine nature.
00:51:13.280 --> 00:51:15.599
There's another quote in the Matrix that I love.
00:51:15.840 --> 00:51:22.239
Um The Oracle, she says to Neo, you didn't come here to make the choice.
00:51:22.480 --> 00:51:23.760
You have already made it.
00:51:23.840 --> 00:51:26.400
You're here to understand why.
00:51:28.000 --> 00:51:38.480
Now, some of you might be asking, and rightfully so, okay, Jake, you're saying that I'm God or I'm the universe and I'm I'm love and I'm everything.
00:51:38.719 --> 00:51:39.760
So why?
00:51:40.159 --> 00:51:42.719
Why would I do this to myself?
00:51:42.960 --> 00:51:53.760
Why would I split myself into a million different pieces and willfully forget who I am and what I am?
00:51:54.000 --> 00:51:58.320
Why would I put myself through this torturous nightmare?
00:51:59.679 --> 00:52:01.519
Why would I do that?
00:52:02.719 --> 00:52:03.679
There's the question.
00:52:03.840 --> 00:52:05.360
We're going to answer that question next week.
00:52:05.519 --> 00:52:06.320
You have a good night.
00:52:06.480 --> 00:52:07.760
No, I'm just joking.
00:52:08.239 --> 00:52:17.599
My best attempt at answering that question is well, for one, it's happening, which means it's our nature.
00:52:18.400 --> 00:52:20.000
It's our nature too.
00:52:20.320 --> 00:52:25.920
But for me, that for my mind, that doesn't really do it justice, right?
00:52:26.159 --> 00:52:28.239
So I ask myself to look closer.
00:52:28.320 --> 00:52:30.559
And I look close and close and close.
00:52:30.639 --> 00:52:32.000
And what do I see?
00:52:32.559 --> 00:52:38.400
I look at people that are the least polluted by concepts and ideas.
00:52:38.800 --> 00:52:41.199
These people are called children.
00:52:41.760 --> 00:52:47.039
Children come unpackaged with concepts.
00:52:47.199 --> 00:52:52.400
They come into this world concept-free, pure loving awareness.
00:52:52.639 --> 00:53:03.519
You ever notice when you see a child and they just look at you with no thoughts, concepts, or judgments, just pure honesty and truth, it makes you smile, doesn't it?
00:53:03.760 --> 00:53:05.280
Because they're present.
00:53:05.519 --> 00:53:08.639
They don't know how to be anything but present.
00:53:08.960 --> 00:53:11.119
Children are like little Buddhas.
00:53:11.440 --> 00:53:20.000
Even Jesus said, unless you convert and become as a child again, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
00:53:20.320 --> 00:53:24.960
Which, the kingdom of heaven, he said, by the way, is here now.
00:53:25.440 --> 00:53:29.760
It is not in the future to be perceived with signs.
00:53:30.000 --> 00:53:31.599
It's already here.
00:53:32.480 --> 00:53:38.719
So in the Christian tradition, according to Jesus Christ, heaven is here.
00:53:39.199 --> 00:53:43.280
And if you look at the world through a child's eyes, you will see it.
00:53:43.679 --> 00:53:48.239
And back to my point as to why, why would God do this?
00:53:50.320 --> 00:53:54.239
Again, I look at children and I see playfulness.
00:53:54.480 --> 00:53:55.440
I see fun.
00:53:57.599 --> 00:53:59.519
Children like to play and have fun.
00:53:59.679 --> 00:54:04.719
If you were God, you would be bored.
00:54:06.639 --> 00:54:09.119
Good Lord, can you imagine being God?
00:54:09.440 --> 00:54:15.360
Anything you want can happen at any time, and you're the only one that there is.
00:54:15.599 --> 00:54:17.280
There's no one else but you.
00:54:17.440 --> 00:54:18.239
You're God.
00:54:18.320 --> 00:54:19.840
You can do anything.
00:54:21.199 --> 00:54:22.400
How boring.
00:54:22.880 --> 00:54:27.599
It's like I remember as a kid, um, we had this thing called the game genie.
00:54:27.760 --> 00:54:33.039
We could cheat at video games, but cheating at video games, it's no fun, is it?
00:54:33.440 --> 00:54:37.360
Why does the fun go out of the game when there's no challenge anymore?
00:54:37.679 --> 00:54:38.320
You see?
00:54:38.800 --> 00:54:45.920
My last episode in a morata, I talked about how we fall in love with our suffering and our misery.
00:54:46.400 --> 00:54:47.840
And it's true.
00:54:49.760 --> 00:54:52.000
So this is nature.
00:54:53.280 --> 00:54:54.639
This is our nature.
00:54:54.800 --> 00:55:00.480
Not that we love suffering, but you might say that we enjoy the challenge.
00:55:01.920 --> 00:55:06.559
Because if you were God, there's nothing to do.
00:55:08.239 --> 00:55:11.519
Everything obeys your every command.
00:55:13.920 --> 00:55:18.079
So you would want more than anything to forget yourself, wouldn't you?
00:55:24.320 --> 00:55:27.280
And you'd go through all sorts of horrors.
00:55:32.159 --> 00:55:46.400
For those of you familiar with the Hindu tradition, this is exactly the cosmological, um, I guess you would say the cosmology of the Hindu tradition.
00:55:46.880 --> 00:55:49.679
God, their word for God is Brahman.
00:55:50.000 --> 00:55:52.320
Brahman is the ultimate reality.
00:55:52.480 --> 00:55:57.920
It encompasses everything, it is everything, and it is inconceivable, the para Brahman.
00:55:58.719 --> 00:56:04.159
And Brahman enjoys dreaming, falling asleep and dreaming a dream.
00:56:04.320 --> 00:56:10.719
And it's just one conceptual way of understanding the mystery.
00:56:11.599 --> 00:56:19.599
And even that has to be abandoned for the present moment.
00:56:19.840 --> 00:56:40.400
Whether it's being uncomfortable on a cushion in the morning and not wanting to do it, observing the not wanting to do it, or whether it's your boss yelling at you and you remember in that moment to come back to the moment, to be present, or shitting your pants in a grocery store.
00:56:41.119 --> 00:56:43.679
Life has many experiences.
00:56:44.320 --> 00:56:55.199
Some of them are funny and humorous, like a fart that went too far, and some of them are truly horrifying.
00:56:57.760 --> 00:57:04.880
And all of them are in this dream, you could call it, of life.
00:57:09.440 --> 00:57:17.440
The goal is to practice coming back to whatever is and trusting it.
00:57:18.480 --> 00:57:19.920
Trusting it.
00:57:24.880 --> 00:57:33.440
Not defaulting to the doomer mindset that it's all random and cold, and I'm just little old me separate from the whole thing.
00:57:35.840 --> 00:57:40.880
You can break out of that if you truly are ready.
00:57:41.119 --> 00:57:44.960
And the way you can do it is by practicing awareness.
00:57:46.159 --> 00:57:47.599
There's many ways to do it.
00:57:47.679 --> 00:57:49.840
It doesn't have to be sitting on a cushion.
00:57:50.159 --> 00:57:53.039
You can practice karma yoga on the go.
00:57:53.599 --> 00:58:03.519
There's so many ways, different forms of practice, different traditions that have popped up throughout millennia.
00:58:04.320 --> 00:58:12.639
The Buddhists, the Taoists, the Eastern Orthodox Christians.
00:58:19.440 --> 00:58:28.639
There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.
00:58:33.840 --> 00:58:45.599
Well, I've talked your ear off long enough today, and it has been a pleasure, and I will close this episode out with a wisdom reading from Thomas Merton, who was a Christian mystic.
00:58:48.719 --> 00:58:53.519
Someone who emphasized the present experience.
00:58:53.760 --> 00:58:55.280
Listen to his words.
00:58:55.519 --> 00:58:58.800
This is from his book, New Seeds of Contemplation.
00:59:02.559 --> 00:59:13.679
He says, To enter into the realm of contemplation, one must, in a certain sense, die.
00:59:15.519 --> 00:59:21.840
But this death is in fact the entrance into a higher life.
00:59:22.480 --> 00:59:40.320
It is a death for the sake of life, which leaves behind all that we can know or treasure as life, as thought, as experience, as joy, as being.
00:59:42.079 --> 00:59:52.159
Every form of intuition and experience die to be born again on a higher level of life.
