Buddhist Monks On: Letting Go of Shame, The Opposite of Depression, and Dealing With Criticism | Ajahn Kovilo and Ajahn Nisabho

26:02You can test it out day to day. So I think that is a good rundown. Ajahn, do you have anything to add? Yeah, just you were pointing to it a bit is that oftentimes Buddhism gets a bad rap in that we're only talking about suffering. Or maybe if you've ever met a monk and they're repressed internally and you think that a whole monastic life is one of total suffering all the time. And the Buddha did talk about sufferings, the Four Noble Truths, but he also talked about the conditionality of happiness. There's a framework which he uses again and again and again that we call the well-being cascade. And he gives this image of just as there's a cloud, a rain cloud that's filled with rain, and then it rains down on the top of a mountain, and then the pools at the top of the mountain collect and fill, and they overflow into the pools below them.

26:51Those overflow and fill in the rivulets, which then overflow into the streams, which go to the rivers, which go out to the great ocean eventually. By practicing, this is just one instance of it, by keeping precepts, this sense of integrity, of morality, of inner virtue, it fills up. The first pool is called pamoja, or well-being. and that fills up and it fills up the pool of piti or rapture or joy, which fills up to bodily tranquility, which leads to sukha or happiness, which then fills up and leads to samadhi. So a lot of people think once I get my samadhi together, once I can meditate, then I'll be happy.

27:30Whereas in this framework of the well-being cascade, the Buddha is saying it's actually the other way around. Once I'm happy, then my concentration, my meditation can come together and Selah can be that rain cloud. That's really cool. So just a few practical questions here about this confessional practice. Would you recommend we do this with a friend rather than our spouse?

27:57I guess you're the wrong guys to ask this given that you don't have spouses. I don't know on that one actually. Yeah, it depends on your spouse and depends on your friend. You really want to have someone who you can speak very openly to about this kind of thing. Like it's possible that we married our spouse for all sorts of other things, whereas this aspect of our lives of revealing our things that we don't feel good about, for whatever reason, they're not into that. Whereas maybe a friend is, or maybe vice versa. So I think it really depends. Do you have any thoughts? No, I just, even if we have the main practice with a Kali and a Mitta, what we call a beautiful spiritual friend, and that's a different sort of relationship than worldly friendships that are predicated on how much pleasure you get from each other's company.

28:41Like a spiritual friend, the foundation of that relationship is supporting each other's values and deeper aspirations. And it's meaningful to have it instead of like entwined strings, it's like sympathetic resonance where you pluck a string and the others that are tuned the same all resonate at the same time. It's gentler, but quite profound. I think you definitely want a friend like that and as many as you can. But even if your spouse isn't quite as interested in these spiritual practices as you are, there's something very powerful about at least asking forgiveness from them for what you have done in the relationship at a regular basis, which wasn't perfect.

29:21And that is its own sort of confession or opening. But that's another thing monastics do is whenever we leave a monastery, we'll always ask forgiveness because there's always something we've done that could have been a little more beautiful. So I'd say even if your spouse isn't your prime spiritual companion in this sense, there's still something about opening yourself on a regular basis because of the beauty of that act in the relationship. And so again, I just want to make sure that I understand, and by extension that the listener understands, that the way this goes is you say to your conversation partner, confession partner, what you did.

30:01And then the other person says, do you see, I guess you could language it how you want, but something to the effect of, do you see? The person who's confessing says, yeah, I do. I see. And then the other person says, so will you be restrained in the future? and the other person says, I'll try. And then at the end, it's like, high five. Good job, homie. Totally fist bump if you want. Yeah. You can use the same formula for gratitude afterwards or things you've done correctly. I found I was able to navigate this. I gave at a time when I think two years ago, I wouldn't have even thought to give. Do you see?

30:37I see. You know, will you encourage that sort of behavior in the future? Will you rejoice in that? I will. And high five after if you want. coming up ajan kovalo and ajan nisabo talk about the buddha's guidelines for giving feedback and other ways of building skillful relationships

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33:41Okay, so the next practice that you're recommending, I don't think this one requires the other person to be fully bought in. I believe what we're about to talk about, which is how to give feedback, only one person could be following your advice here. The other person doesn't have to be participating in the exercise so robustly. Am I right about that before we dive in? Yeah, definitely. So the Buddha himself actually gave instructions on how to give feedback? He did. Yeah. And he pointed out the drawbacks of not giving feedback very well. Like if you are someone who just jumps in at the wrong time and you are angry yourself and you're actually, you do the same thing that you're trying to call somebody else out on.

34:27If you do any of these, then the other person just isn't going to listen to you. So it's not for any kind of mystical reason that the Buddha gave these principles to consider when giving feedback. It's just very practical. It's people won't listen to you, or even if they do listen to you because you've got some kind of power or authority over them, they're going to resent you for it. So these principles are really helpful for allaying that. And some of them are to just examine oneself before giving feedback. Okay, what is my mind state? And then to try to first to look, okay, what is my mind state?

35:00Why am I wanting to give this feedback? Is it out of hatred? Is it out of envy? Or is it because I want them to improve? Is it because I care about them? And then if it's for any of those less than beautiful reasons, like I'm just angry at them, or I'm in a bad mood, or I'm hangry, or whatever it is, just trying to establish the heart and, you know, kind of even prompting oneself. If I am going to mention this to the person, then I want to establish a heart of love and kindness, of friendliness. I want the best for this person. And then looking for the right time. So time and place is important.

35:34If you get that wrong, they're not going to be able to hear you and it can go wrong in all sorts of ways. So those are a few principles, looking at your own conduct. Am I actually doing or refraining from doing the thing that I want the other person to not do? So am I pure in this action of body or speech. Because if you're not, then they'll see the hypocrisy in that and only follow with resentment. Quite a few lists, actually. Buddha loves lists. A lot of lists, Dan. And one of them, no hangry feedback. That's good. I mean, the ones Ajin Covilo pointed to, especially noticing what your intention is, I think are just so key.

36:12And usually we single out three or four or five of these to really check. And honestly, so much of our karma of the damage and the good we do in the modern era is all through speech. And I really feel like if people took on this principle of giving admonishment or feedback, it would be a pretty holistic spiritual path in and of itself. So some of the key points are, like Ajinkovilo said, only speaking from a mind of loving kindness. So if there's any other intention, even kind of a splinter of annoyance, you don't give feedback from that spot. You can just say, oh, it's just a little bit of annoyance, but people can sense that sliver of contempt or exasperation.

36:54It changes everything. And often all you have to do is wait 15 minutes or an hour, although I do know one monk who had to wait a whole year before he could fulfill that one. So speaking from a mind of loving kindness, right time, like Ajin said, speaking truthfully, speaking to the matter at hand. And this is a big one is asking and receiving permission. So I really like to single those two out, the speaking from a mind of love and kindness and asking and receiving permission. And I feel like honestly, if people took on this principle around giving feedback in their relationships, that firewall, it just gives you so much to work with because often 15 minutes later, 20 minutes later, things are so different.

37:38I think they did studies on married couples in the midst of arguments, and they'd be filming it. And then sometimes they'd tell the married couple that the cameras had broken and they had to take a 15-minute break. And then after they reconvene 15 minutes later, the argument was easily resolved because the adrenaline had dropped, all the activation had gone away. And so I think these principles are actually really quite important for people's relationships. One good way to remember some of those, it's a slightly different list, but the acronym or memory aid is, the Buddha didn't give this, but it's a modern memory aid, is BAGEL.

38:15So before you open your mouth, you think BAGEL. And so B, is this going to be beneficial for the other person? A, is this accurate? G, am I speaking gently? E, as in expedient? And by that, I mean timely. Is this the right time? And am I saying it in a timely way. And then L is with the mind of loving kindness. So you want to, before you open your mouth, just check the bagel. And if it's all bagel, then it's all good. And what is the other option, Anjan, if it's not a bagel? Yeah, this one isn't as good, but the other option is a donut, which is basically all the opposites of those. Yeah, it's not beneficial, but for a deleterious reason, if it's obviously untrue, you're speaking from a noxious mind versus a loving mind.

38:59If it's untimely and from a treacherous space. So donut acronym, not so good. Bagel. I love everything you're saying. I would just add one other thing that I learned from the communication coaches. Joseph Goldstein, who I'm sure you've heard of, I think he's been on your show, has these friends he introduced me to many years ago, Dan Klarman and Mudita Nisker. They're Buddhist practitioners and they teach communication skills. And one of the things that they've taught me to do that I found very helpful is once I've established my wholesome intentions for giving somebody feedback, I also repeat those intentions to the recipient of the feedback.

39:41Hey, I'm telling you this because this relationship matters to me, or you're a star and I think you can flourish even more. This is why I'm telling you. And then you say it. That's beautiful. And what Ajinkovilo was pointing to about the preciousness of feedback, what the Buddha called the Brahmadanda, the sort of ultimate punishment was telling the community to not speak to another monk because they'd just gone off the rails and hadn't been open to feedback. And he spoke a lot about how, you know, if someone points out your flaws, it's a treasure. It's like they're pointing out treasure to you.

40:16And I think we've all seen like that humility of someone who can receive feedback well. And people often ask, how do we model spiritual practice to our children? How do you teach them to be whatever? I think one of the most powerful things a parent can do is have the humility to apologize to their child when they do something wrong. It's such a powerful act of receiving feedback for what you're accountable for, acknowledging that. Yeah, so I really appreciate this practice a lot. You've brought me exactly where I wanted to go, which is the next item in this outline that I'm looking at that you and Marissa put together, which is how to receive feedback, which I think is even harder than giving feedback.

40:58How do you deal with criticism? Because often it's not delivered skillfully. The Buddha apparently had a lot to say about how to be open to feedback. What was it? What did he say? He's got a lot to say. The whole thing centers around one particular virtue, which is highlighted by the Buddha in And Pali is called Suvacca, which literally means being easy to speak to. Sometimes it's translated as being easy to admonish or easy to give feedback to. And it's kind of a shame there isn't a better English word for that because it's so important. As Ajahnispo said, if you're really taking to heart that feedback from another person can be like someone pointing out hidden treasure, then you want to be able to receive that well.

41:38There's a discourse of the Buddha called On Inference. in the Middle-length Discourses number 15, which has got this whole long list of ways to make oneself easy to speak to. And the Buddha says, someone might think, oh, I want to be easy to speak to and to make myself easy to speak to, but they might do the things which make themselves hard to speak to. Like you're getting feedback and you counter-reprove the reprover, or you respond with stubbornness, or you respond with entrenchedness, or you totally change the topic, or you get angry, or you speak words bordering on anger, which is fascinating.

42:19That even if you were to write out the things that I'm saying, it would seem totally innocuous, but I'm speaking with such venom that they're words bordering on anger. So the Buddha gives an amazing list of about 16 or 20 of these ways to poorly receive feedback. And that one does the opposite, actually. Rather than responding with obstinacy, or to change the subject, or responding with anger, to speak words bordering on anger, or to counter-reprove the reprover, I'm actually going to value this quality of being subaccha, easy to speak to. And he gives a beautiful simile, which is actually practical.

42:56Oftentimes the Buddha would give similes not just because they're interesting, but because when you bring them to mind, it can change the heart. So he gives just as a young man, a young woman, a young person fond of adornment might look in a mirror. And if there was a smudge on their face or some dirt, they would wipe it off, being conscious of their own beauty. So too, someone who cares about their character development, cares about being a good person, cares about being a minch. They'll see these smudges, these things of responding to feedback with obstinacy or aversion, that's a taint. That's a non-booty.

43:35It's a smudge on the face of someone who's really wanting to receive feedback well. So it's a really fantastic, beautiful list that I really appreciate. And that virtue in general is one which it's hard, as you know, Dan. It's hard. And why the list is fascinating is because although the Buddha gave it 2 ,600 years ago, So I see myself almost check, check. Okay, I'm being bad to give feedback to in this way, this way, this way. But leaning in a different direction because I want to be easy to speak to.

44:07Okay, so let's get super practical. I mean, you've given some overarching themes from the Buddha. What can we actually do in our minds, in our mouths, in our bodies, in order to be easy to speak to in this regard? Yeah, I appreciate how you continually kind of bring things down to what we can actually act out after speaking to this or listening. So in our bodies, the motion of Anjali, it might seem foreign, but it is really hard to be stubborn and recalcitrant when you're holding your hands like this. Prayer hands. Yeah, prayer hands, exactly. The emoji prayer hand. It's a very powerful symbol, and it might be strange in some contexts, but it's also a very powerful one, and it opens up the heart in a way, and it kind of makes you for a time take a certain receptive stance internally as well as externally.

45:01In terms of mouth, I would say not really taking seriously those principles of admonishment in terms of counter admonishment. So if you're not able to speak from a place of non-ill will, if you're speaking from reactivity, just not speaking from that. And you can kind of respond to the feedback after that initial impulse towards defensiveness has faded away and you've really gotten a chance to sit with it. And so I think there's something very powerful about that, about just saying to someone who's giving you feedback, thank you for what you said. I don't know if I can agree with all of it, but I'm going to take this and think about it for about 15 minutes and I'll get right back to you.

45:43That motion is very meaningful and you won't lose anything through 15 minutes probably. The other thing you can do with the mouth is use Marshall Rosenberg's nonviolent communication framework. We use this a ton. This might be harder to remember another, it's not really an acronym. Well, it is, but it's not a fun one like donut. But stating your observation, I noticed you seemed angry in this way. Feeling, it just made me feel worried, afraid, need. When I'm with you, I need to feel like I can speak to these things. Request, tell me how that lands, what's coming up for you. We use this framework consistently, observation, feeling, need, request.

46:23And it's just an extremely powerful way to receive and give communication, even on very difficult subjects. Because often one person will be operating on the level of observation, and another person is completely in the level of feeling. And if those two are misaligned, you're having two very different conversations that are orthogonal and do not intersect. So that's very useful. And then in terms of mind, I would just say noticing your breathing. This is where meditation and a meditative practice is meaningful. Notice your breathing, slow it down, come into your feet if you feel that kind of tensing up of anger.

46:59And then just spread loving kindness. And true metta practice, loving kindness requires a certain agility because the temptation is to spread it towards the person you're angry at. Whereas often, it's a much more humble and human motion of spreading it to yourself and just feeling how much it hurts to be angry. Like it really hurts. Often a hand over the heart can help that. So if you're receiving feedback and just feeling a lot of pain, vibration, you want to lash out, whatever it is, just bringing a gentle glow of loving kindness directed at oneself and letting that kind of hold you through the period where you're just vibrating like a wound.

47:38And then once the vibration has died down, then you can actually decide what to do from there, whether it be to respond or accept or apologize, whatever it is. one tiny list the Buddha gave when you're on the receiving end of feedback is just two things. Keep two things in mind. One of them is truth. Is this true? Is this really true? That's the first one. And then the second one is not being provoked. So, okay, I'm on the receiving end. I didn't ask for this. Maybe they didn't get the right time. And regardless of all of that, maybe they spoke with the mind of inner hate and it was the wrong time and it's unbeneficial and it's even untrue, but still, I'm not going to be provoked.

48:20So those two things, this is true and I'm not going to be provoked. He also said, if you're being sawed limb by limb by a band of bandits, you should not give rise to even one thought of ill will. So speaking of not being provoked. Yeah. If one does, then they're not practicing the Buddhist teaching. So high bar. If your spouse is not on your limb by limb, limb from limb, you're doing all right. But you say high bar and your voice is light, you know you're laughing about it but like that's a ridiculously high bar like yeah how do we think about that a huge part of the path is noticing how to put forth right effort and if you notice that you aren't able to achieve that absurd amazingly high bar obviously the right motion of the heart is not self-recrimination oh like look at i'm supposed to be a practitioner and here this anger is coming up that's more aversion and just acknowledging we have our conditioning our patterns and we're working with them as best we can.

49:16But I think the Buddha sometimes gave those similes just for a clarity of, you know, there's so many ways we justify our anger. Well, I deserve to be a little angry. I mean, how could that person do that? I think this is the Buddha's way of just cutting all that off. And there's a real compassion to that action of just being like, there's so many times where I feel like my anger or annoyance was at least slightly justified. And I'll just be proliferating around it. And I realize it's because I'm trying to justify intellectually something that my heart knows was actually not beautiful in the way I want to be.

49:48And there's such a humility to just being like, you know, I wasn't actually perfect there. And I can acknowledge that. For me, the Buddha's simile is just a way of kind of cutting off that unwholesome negotiating. Anger is never useful, and it's never part of this path in terms of expressing it. It can be a messenger, but it's not something you want to lay on another person, basically. In that same discourse where the Buddha is talking about this simile of the saw, and the name of the discourse is the simile of the saw, he actually gives three or four other really striking similes, which might be more approachable.

50:22He says, if someone is coming at you with feedback, again, whether it's good or bad or true or false, or they're angry or whatever it is, still you can prepare the heart to be like the great earth, just as if someone would come along with a shovel and start thinking, okay, I'm going to totally dig up the whole earth. There's no way they could do that because the earth is huge. So too, you should make your mind abundant like the great earth, just as someone might come with a torch and think, I'm going to burn down the Ganges River. So too, you can make your heart as cool and broad and vast and flowing as the Ganges River.

50:58Or someone might come up with a paintbrush and think, I'm going to paint in the sky. and so too you can make your heart as open and spacious as the sky because the sky just doesn't receive paint it doesn't receive all these marks it's signless so some other beautiful similes of that kind of extreme one that's the one the buddha ends with a simile of being sawed limb from limb but these other ones are also and you can feel that you can kind of ground into yourself when you're on the receiving end of things like the earth like water like space that's very helpful I feel a little better.

51:36Coming up, Ajahn Kovilo and Ajahn Nisabo talk about some practical ways to handle the dumpster fire of modern life.

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54:40Okay, just to reset, we've been talking about, there were kind of three areas of, again, I'm using this term respectfully, I hope you receive it as such, of monk hacks that we're going to cover in this episode. I don't know if we'll get to all three areas that you and Marissa talked about, but the first big area, we've just spent a huge chunk of time talking about skillful relationship. We've talked about confession. We've talked about how to give feedback and how to receive feedback. The second area that you two wanted to talk about is how to handle the dumpster fire of modern life, how to navigate skillfully in troubled times.

55:20And once again, you have a bunch of really practical thoughts based in the Buddha's teaching. So I'll shut up and let you hold forth. Well, do feel free to chime in as well, Dan. You have navigated the fire, whether it be a dumpster fire or a beautiful fire around wood, whatever it is, for many years. So I'm sure you have wisdom to contribute as well. this just seems like a very, it's on people's hearts right now, whether it be the difficulties in navigating the current cultural landscape or political landscape or news landscape, or just the intimacy of relationship that's difficult. But to speak to that wider context of that landscape, one useful thing to know is the Buddha would sometimes divide the Noble Eightfold Path into three aspects or ways of approaching it.

56:12One is Sila. So I like to think of this as things we can do by body, what we can change in our life externally. The next is samadhi, so concentration, how we can cultivate wholesome emotional states to counteract the negative. And the third is panya, or wisdom. And that's how we can, with clear seeing, step into a place of greater equipoise and love. So just to lay that threefold approach on the current landscape, for example with news Hegel said that evil lies in the gaze that sees evil all around it there's a great deal wrong with the world and there's a great deal right with the world with the sila aspect what we can change externally I think there's very practical steps people can take about really checking how often do they need to check the news can you wait to check the news until after your morning practice session of meditation and can you put down the phone after 6pm at night can you take just one day a week to not look at news These are very small steps, but important resets.

57:14And it's astonishing how easily people forget the bright garden, their hands working for the faint whisper of a serpent. And that serpent is real. People need to take action. But how many times they need to step to look at their iPhone every day, to know things they can do is something that they really, I think, we need to take a careful look at. Because as practitioners, we really have a duty to keep our minds bright and loving. We do no one any favors by being miserable and depressed about the state of the world. With samadhi, cultivating wholesome emotional states, I'd just say really emphasizing loving kindness.

57:49And if someone only has a chance for 10 minutes of practice or meditation every day, I think spending them on loving kindness would be a good start. So at the very beginning of the day, right when you wake up, you'll notice the mind trying to crystallize around something. It'll usually crystallize around an argument or an obsession or a plan or desire. And so at the very beginning of the day, really being very guarded and making sure to crystallize the mind around loving kindness. So just right when you wake up, bring the attention to the heart, get a glow of loving kindness going. And for the first 15 minutes of the day, instead of like arguing with this imaginary person in the shower, you know, keep in mind a loving kindness mantra.

58:31May they be well, may they be happy, may they be filled with loving kindness. whatever it is. And that will pay dividends the rest of the day because you're orienting your trajectory along metta. And the third is with wisdom, Kanya. We call Upeka, equipoise, a bird's eye view. Joseph Goldstein says it's looking at the wild affairs of earth through the lens of Venus. And Venus is the goddess of love. I think actually I heard that on your podcast, Dan. But I think there's something about just noticing a wider view of like, things are difficult right now. And they were difficult in the Buddhist time.

59:06There was child mortality of 50%. There was famine and war. The world is difficult and it has been before. And still the saints and beautiful beings of the past navigated with equanimity and care. And that's what we can bring to this moment as well. And I think that wider context is significant in letting the mind constrict less around the moment. Ajahn, what would you bring up to this? And it's a beautiful way to break things down. But just on a level of things we can do with the body, this level of virtue or integrity, something else to be paying attention to is generosity in response to all the poverty and all of the trouble that you see around us, especially with input from all over the world.

59:50We're seeing images of the carnage and the poverty from everywhere in the world. And part of why it feels so overwhelming is because it is overwhelming and there's nothing that we can seemingly do about it, about so much of these things. But one really useful practice is what we call saraniya practice. Saraniya is a poly word that means either to be remembered or that which is endearing. It's a practice specifically of giving before consuming. So I first encountered this in a monastery in Sri Lanka, where as happens, monks would go down, there's a food line often pretty much every day after we go for alms, we give up all of our food to the communal table, and then we go through and then take food from the different dishes.

1:00:40And then at this particular monastery, after one has gotten the food, all of our food in one bowl, we eat our one meal a day in one bowl. Still, these monks there would take food before they ate out of their bowl and then put it into at least one other monk friend's bowl before they ate. This is based on a saying by the Buddha where he said, if beings knew, as I know, the power of giving and sharing, they wouldn't eat without first having given. And so Ajahn Nispa's birthday was last Wednesday and his parents, who, as you noted, were Buddhists, they asked, what can we get you? And he said, that's a very nice offer to make, but something I would like more than anything material, because honestly, it is hard to get a gift for a month.

1:01:26But he said, what can we get you in Ajahnis? I said, rather than anything material, actually, if you could take on this saraniya practice for any period of time is figure out some way to instantiate your desire to give every day, whether that's composting a bit of food before you eat or feeding the dog before you eat or taking, say, like power bars or protein bars, carry around like 10 of them every day and aspire to give one away before you eat or something like that. Just some way to instantiate your generosity and to make it real and to aspire to do that every day or once a week. I'm going to go soup kitchen every week.

1:02:04And so his parents took that on and we actually introduced it to our whole community. So now people are making these saraniya aspirations to, okay, from now into New Year's, every week I will go to the women's shelter and make a meal or every day I will serve my child before I eat or something like that. And it's a really creative and beautiful and real hands-on way to practice generosity, beautification of body, bodily acts. Ajinkovilo often will drop like little nuts into my bowl right before he eats. He does this all the time. That's because I'm stingy. Ajinkovilo is kindly pointing out this moment around the birthday, but it's an astounding practice.

1:02:46What happens to the heart when you start to give like that? I've seen teachers who I'd find them after the meal, like really possibly enlightened monastics who after the meal, I'd find them out back of the meditation hall feeding little bits of bread from their bowl to the line of ants. This aspect of giving is just so deeply instantiated. We have one community member who, whenever he would see someone on the street and give them food, and we have people who you can buy McDonald's gift certificates and other things to give away if you want, or protein bars, whatever it is to carry around with you.

1:03:21but he'd have three things he did when he gave something is he'd lower himself to their physical level on the street so crouch down or whatever it is he'd learn their name and he touched their hand and like that aspect of making sure there's connection along with a gift like what would it really mean in a life it would be transformative to really take that on day after day and in the west we conceive of this practice as just meditating and kind of achieving these deep states of wisdom but just the act of giving and relinquishing self in that way is the most, maybe one of those powerful acts I've ever seen in people.

1:03:59So I hope people can take that. Yeah, it's beautiful and it cuts right against the misery and overwhelm that many of us feel about the state of the world, because the expression that gets used a lot, which I like, is that action absorbs anxiety. It feels like you're doing your little piece to heal the world, even if you know it's not going to solve climate change or polarization or whatever. It's meaningful nonetheless. And so just to put the list together again, just to recapitulate it for people who heard all of that and want to just a brief summary. Again, what the Ajans are recommending here is a combination of sila or virtue, samadhi or concentration or meditation, and panya slash wisdom.

1:04:43So under virtue, it's like, can you renounce your phone a little bit? Like as my friend Sabine Selassie says, no news before noon. And also under virtue, you know, maybe having some sort of generosity practice that makes you feel a little bit better about the state of the world. Under concentration or meditation, can you start the day with meditation or right when you wake up, generating a sense of warmth, loving kindness for someone or for everyone? And then finally, under wisdom, can you develop some equanimity? Can you develop a bird's eye view on the noise and machinations and frequent developments and cruelty of the world by maybe, as Joseph recommends, viewing it through the lens of Venus?

1:05:30Just you see it in a different light. So how's that for a summary? It's good. And I think it circles around this one misconception in the West I think we often have that's to honor the suffering we see around the world, we need to be suffering ourselves. And that's a useless narrative in some extent, but at least it's not a helpful one all the time. Karuna, compassion in a Buddhist sense, that one of the Brahma Viharas, these boundless states of art, is a bright luminous state. And Domanasa is the Pali word for depressed mind, and that's never wholesome. And if you go doctor or the nurse or whatever, you want your doctor or nurse to be happy.

1:06:12You don't want them to be like, oh man, this looks really bad. I'm just going to give me five minutes to sort of collect myself before I even talk to you. If we're intent on helping the world and bringing brightness to it, we can keep our minds in a bright space even as we interact with the world. And that's one of the best gifts we can give it. So yeah, all these practices, they are about keeping the mind in a bright spot while doing something good in the world. But we have to dispel that insidious narrative that lies beneath the surface often of people's interaction with these situations, that they need to be depressed and suffering to honor the depression and suffering they see.

1:06:52The way you honor those things is by bringing brightness and healing to them. And you can have a bright heart to do that. You need to have a bright heart to do that. The quote that comes up not infrequently on the show, I think it's Joseph Campbell, talked about engaging joyfully in the sorrows of the world. And I just think about that a lot. And I love what you just said. Okay, so we've got a limited amount of time left. Let's see if we can hit the third area that you and Marissa were hoping we would get to, which is this concept that came up earlier of faith, which is another loaded term in the West, but in the Dharma has a different connotation.

1:07:33What is faith? Why should we develop it? And how should we develop it? Yeah, it's a great question. We were in our own minds conceiving of this conversation, something like Faith for Fidgety Skeptics. And I appreciate the shout out. Great book title. And I think I've tried to arrange to get that book for several family members. And I don't know how successful they've been at implementing the practices. But yeah, in terms of faith, I mean, it's good to note that the Pali word, again, going back to the Pali, literally means sad, means heart, and da means to place or to hold. So it's really a holding or placing of the heart.

1:08:12And we just all have to acknowledge, as Bob Dylan's famous song says, you got to serve somebody. It may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you got to serve somebody. And whether we recognize it or not, or are conscious of it or not, we are operating from different presuppositions and we can't know. So different possibilities are that the universe is just totally by chance, or the universe is totally determined, or the universe is totally taken by fate or by some kind of divine being's will. Those are all possible, but the state of the world that the Buddha said, and this is really the foundation of Buddhist sadha or Buddhist faith, very, very simple, is that it is possible to abandon unwholesome mind states, that's a direct quote, and that it is possible to cultivate wholesome mind states, that's itself its own discourse in the Buddha's teaching.

1:09:09And that's the foundation. And you can believe that or not. And we are operating from that perception. Like if you're actively cultivating any positive habits or giving up any negative habit, you're operating from that underlying presupposition that it is possible to give up smoking or drinking or to take on that exercise habit. Whatever it is, that's a Buddhist right view. That is faith. and why it's important to actually make that conscious. And we do, we do a lot of bowing. So this is a way that we instantiate that faith. Every morning, first thing we do, as soon as we wake up, we bow three times to the Buddha, to the Dhamma, to the Sangha.

1:09:48And before we go to bed, we bow three more times. And before we eat, we bow three more times. And after we eat, we bow three more times. So much bowing. We bow a lot. We bow a lot, yeah. It's a good hamstring stretch. This is true, yeah. Buddhist burpees, good exercise. And it's meaningful. As Western convert Buddhists, we're not bowing to some deity because someone else is making us do it. It's because we've examined this, this principle of the Buddha as awakening, this principle as Dhamma, as the truth, the way things are, the Sangha as the principle of love. And these all have other meanings to them, which we might go into.

1:10:23But those are things which I want to bow to every morning. And I don't want to operate from some other underlying thought mechanism, pre-thought mechanism that it's not possible. This is actually the mechanics behind a depressive mind state is that it's not possible to abandon unwholesome mind states. It's not possible to cultivate mind states. So why even try? It seems like I'm just trapped in that. And it's very easy to fall in that. If the brain's chemistry tweaks in that direction, you can really fall into a really dark place very quickly. But if you've been actively nurturing this, placing the heart in this principle, it is possible, even though my heart feels very dark, it is possible to abandon this darkness for me to go out and speak with a friend or to exercise a little bit or to meditate for a little bit.

1:11:14So that, yeah, it's nothing super, it's not at all mystical thing. It's just recognizing that we're all placing the heart on something and just being more conscious of how we do that and what we're placing it upon. I've done many, many long or long for me, 10 day silent meditation retreats. And I do bow to the Buddha. At first, I was really skeptical about this, but you know, 15, 16 years ago. But now I see it the way you're describing it, which is just a physical tribute to what I believe in and find uncontroversial, which is that through, you said it before, the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.

1:11:54The Buddha is just an avatar of the potential for training the mind. The Dharma is his vast body of teachings for doing that, for training the mind. And the Sangha is other people who are interested in doing the same thing. So bowing to the Buddha in that way, it feels good. It's just kind of a, it's a great embodied reminder of the North Star for my life. It's a fascinating subject here. And it's beautiful to know that you appreciate that practice, Dan. We don't support blind faith. and there's a sutta called the Chanki Sutta, Majjimunakai 95, where a Brahmin asks the Buddha, how do you protect truth?

1:12:37And the Buddha says, if you have faith in something, you say, I have faith in this, but you don't come to the conclusion, only this is true, everything else is false. If you believe in something because of logical reasoning, you say, I believe in this because of logical reasoning, but you don't come to the conclusion, only this is true, everything else is false, etc. And just this humility. But then he says, you know, eventually you do realize a final arrival truth is just awakening because that cessation of greed, hatred, and delusion is something we can know for ourselves. And until then, it's a much gentler faith.

1:13:11It's not this intense binary at the heart or the foundation of the whole thing. It's a working hypothesis. Can we step into this practice and see if it works? It's nice to present it to people because it's a very easy on-ramp. But as you've noticed, something does happen over time where you keep practicing. And the Buddha gave us a map. You read there's trees there, and you look, and there's trees there. And there's a river there, and you look, and there's a river there. And after 10 or 15 years, you just begin to get the sense, this is a really good map. And maybe you see some things on the map that you can't yet believe.

1:13:47Like there's these mountains, and you've never seen mountains. This is Ajahn Jaya Sara's simile. But do you immediately dismiss the fact that there's no mountains? Or is there some kind of humility there of like, this map has been right about so many things. Maybe that is also true. Maybe I don't have to dismiss this out of hand. And then the final thing I'd say is like, we like to translate Sada as confidence because it's an easy kind of on-ramp. It's a very secular word. But there is a union substrate to the human psyche, which speaks in the language of embodiment of its story, of ritual. And that's where you see some practitioners only enter on the level of the logical side of Dharma and never get to the point where they can bow.

1:14:29And it's like thin ice over roiling waters because that deeper strata of the psyche has not been settled and crystallized and consolidated. And these are technologies, like it's just a statue. But when you speak to it, embodiment, if you speak to it in ritual and mythology and archetype, something profound shifts at a subverbal level. And that is very distinct. And I think that is what is lacking in a lot of secular Dharma circles in the US right now is like, we need some way of remembering that deeper strata of being that is touched by beauty. And that's a growth point. How do we touch beauty and these deeper strata without asking of people more than they are interested in giving in terms of faith or a leap?

1:15:15It's an interesting moment we're at. And I think this is really important. A bowing practice can be hugely transformational for someone, and you definitely don't have to be Buddhist. It makes sense that Christian, certainly in the Catholic faith, there is the genuflection. In Islamic faith, there's the call to prayer and the bowing five times a day, and certainly in every Buddhist country. But it's kind of sad. I come from a secular family, humanist family, Unitarian family, and sometimes it can be confusing if you don't have as you said this embodied reminder of your your north star or you're afraid that you're being manipulated by you know some kind of monastic body or being influenced by some you know it could be a cult like thing but just having that daily reminder we had a good conversation with sam harris recently and uh we titled it the end of faith colon Buddhism realized.

1:16:15And this is kind of a reminder of this sutta where the Buddha asked his foremost disciple in wisdom named Sariputta, he says, oh, do you believe this particular teaching? And do you have faith in this particular teaching? And Sariputta, foremost in wisdom, says, no, I don't have faith. I've seen it for myself. He's realized it for oneself. And so, yeah, that's what we're inclining towards is an end of faith, a realization of faith. In other words, like the Buddha does want us to see these things clearly, but this act, and again, you know, bowing to your North Star and really being clear about that, starting your day off with it.

1:16:54First thing you wake up, you know, we sleep, all the huts we live in, we have a Buddha shrine or something, which is a symbol for what we care about most. First thing we wake up, bow, bow, bow. It's a great way to start the day. Just a good reminder and would love it if people could just spend two minutes, three minutes thinking about what's most important and is it worth bowing to. We're not asking you to, if you don't like Buddhism or it seems too religious to you, bow to something. Bow to something that's more than just your ego or your baser things that can take over if we're not more conscious about something higher.

1:17:32Yeah, I think you make a really strong case. Ajahn Kovulo, Ajahn Nisabo this has been a fantastic conversation before I let you go can you just it's a funny thing to ask para monks to do but can you please plug your podcast and also your monastic community so that if people want to spend more time with you virtually or otherwise they can do so yeah our monastery project aspiration is called Clear Mountain Monastery Project or Clear Mountain Monastery clearmountainmonastery.org and we're on YouTube, Clear Mountain Modestary Project as well. We have a lot of lovely teachings and teachers on. We did just interview Joseph Goldstein as well.

1:18:12And yeah, we're in Seattle. If people are nearby, we hope you stop in. Otherwise, we just have a lot of online chances to tap in and practice together. So yeah, thank you, Dan. Yeah, this has been fantastic. Thank you both. Really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you, Dan. Dan, we also asked Sam Harris if we got another person to convert to Buddhism and ordain, if he would ordain with us temporarily. If we got Sam Harris to ordain with us temporarily, would you ordain with us temporarily, Dan? Oh, a million percent. Shave my head, wear robes with my homie Sam Harris. Yes. All right. We're winding him up.

1:18:49All right. Dan, it's been great. Thank you so much for what you do, making these teachings accessible to so many who need them right now. We appreciate it a lot. Right back at you. Thank you for your work. Your level of commitment surpasses mine, clearly, so I'm impressed and grateful.

1:19:10Thanks again to Ajahn Kovilo and Ajahn Nisabo. Awesome to talk to them. They're really incredible, as you just heard. By the way, if hearing from them inspired you to meditate, let me just remind you that I've got a new app called 10 % with Dan Harris, And we've got a free meditation challenge we're running starting on March 23rd and running through the 27th. It's called Even You Can Meditate. That's the name of the challenge. And we're doing it in celebration of a new Audible book, an Audible original that I co-wrote and co-recorded with my great friend, Seben A. Selassie. That book is also called Even You Can Meditate.

1:19:44Join the party. Head on over to danharris.com to download the app or you can just get it wherever you get your apps. Finally, thank you so much to everybody who works so hard to make this show, and they really do work hard. Our producers are Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vasili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Kashmir is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.