How a Group of Broke 20-Somethings Accidentally Launched the Mindfulness Movement | Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg

31:19No, like tag, okay, Jacqueline, now you're it. But it was also immensely exciting in some way. Exciting may be a little too strong where Buddhists don't get that excited, right? But there is something about like being together in an amazing challenge and not because we wanted to spread the Dharma or be famous or anything, but it had changed us so much. We needed that. And people were really interested in how do we do this? So, and the use of it, Also, I think built off the 60s, honestly, I was a hippie. Most of us had done psychedelics along with meditation. And that actually changed our consciousness in some way.

32:05But we needed to find a way to actually embody it and live it. So we're also living in a cultural stream or countercultural stream that brought other young people in, especially. And it was, again, both in tune with the times and how do we change ourselves and maybe how do we change the world around us? Yeah. Just picking up on your comment about the, you know, being part of the cultural stream or countercultural stream of the 60s leading up into the founding of IMS in the mid 70s. I sometimes think about, and I don't have any math on this, but I think the vast majority of the people who were part of the counterculture then got absorbed into the mainstream culture and became normies or straights or whatever you called them back then, got regular jobs, shaved their beards.

32:58But you guys didn't. And in some ways, you're still living the norms and ethos, whatever the plural of that is, of the 60s. We're not normies and never will.

33:13You know, I just also want to highlight one aspect of IMS's founding, which I think is somewhat unique, not completely, but somewhat different than the establishment of other centers in this country, starting back then and since. Many other centers start and are founded by an Asian teacher who has come to live in the States, and they become the main teacher of that center and really imbue it a lot with the cultural norms, to some extent, of their Asian background. At IMS, it was not an Asian teacher who founded it, right? Once we established it, then we would invite our teachers. And so we have this very strong connection to the lineages, but they weren't involved in the establishment of the center, which in a way gave us a lot of freedom to just experiment and explore and see what would be appropriate in this culture, what's not appropriate, what's helpful, what not.

34:28So that, I think, was just kind of a unique situation, you know, and all of us coming back from Asia and setting it up first and then inviting our teachers to come and visit rather than to run the place. And so it's given IMS, I think, a unique flavor in that way. One of the things we had to decide in line with that was I was put in charge of incorporating the organization. And under the Internal Revenue Cup, there's a section for charitable organizations that many other nonprofits have. But within that, there's a special preference for a religious organization. And within that, there's a special preference for something called the church.

35:15but to be a church, to be organized and incorporated as a church, you get a number of privileges and immunities from federal government oversight. So that was ideal. But the problem was that the rules of the IRS was in order to be a church, you had to demonstrate a tight connection to a lineage and the actual practice of what was called sacrodotal functions. I had no idea what sacrodotal functions are, but they basically mean practices. And so I thought this was a great idea, but I had no idea how to implement it. So I spoke with Jack Joseph, Sharon, and Jacqueline, and we came up with this idea that we didn't want to be tied to a particular lineage, as Joseph said, because he didn't want to be associated with one teacher.

36:17But many of us, but especially Jack Joseph, Sharon, and Jacqueline, were connected to three teachers, Menindraji's teacher in Burma, Mahasi Sayadol, Goenka's teacher, Uba Khin, from Burma and Jack's teacher from Thailand. So we decided to have three lineages and three sacrodotal functions tied to three different people and their teachers, which would simultaneously achieve my little tiny legal goal of getting us organized as a church. But Joseph Sharon, Jack's, Jacqueline's larger practice goal of being what we called at that point a teacherless center. Not having a specific Asian personality or practice or even lineage that dominated and controls how everything would be.

37:17I remember there were moments when we had a conversation, should there be robes for our teachers, right? What should they wear? It was really, you know, an unknown palette. But a few of the things that were really important are to IMS and Spirag as it's grown. The first is that we did team teaching, which was pretty much unknown in Asia. And both, it had a beautiful Dharma effect because people could hear the Dharma from different voices and languages, and it would strike people in different ways. So it was very healthy for the students to hear that. And it was also great for us because we didn't know what we were doing.

38:00And so we could turn to one another and support each other in some way. That was fabulous. Also, what happened, remember from the first three-month retreat, Joseph was, you know, maybe reading some passage from our patriarchal Buddhist text. and some feminists at that time, there was a lot of the beginning of widespread feminists was saying, what's with all these men? And we started to realize we're not in Kansas or Asia or wherever anymore. We really have to change the culture, the language that we use to not only include women as teachers more and lay people, which was unknown in Asia to have very rare, Goenka it was an exception to have a major center that wasn't founded by a monastic also.

38:55So all these kind of big cultural changes as lay teachers trying to integrate it into a different culture and have multi-traditions, which was really healthy for people. Because there were some people where, you know, body scanning and sweeping was the perfect practice and for others, noting and for some, metta. And there are ways that we carry that multiple tradition we do still at IMS that make us both unique and really quite healthy and in some way inspiring for each of the different people that come. multi-tradition multi-lineage but really focused i think in one of the many schools of buddhism the old school theravada was that was that a deliberate i'll throw this to you sharon was that a deliberate decision and did it create any controversy or turmoil over the years everything creates controversy and turmoil.

39:59It's like, you're talking about 50 years of not knowing what we're doing and trying the best we can. It was a conscious decision, even though in our personal lives, many of us, maybe even all of us have studied and benefited from teachers in other Buddhist traditions or other traditions. Altogether, we did make a decision that there was a kind of power for the programs offered through the center that it would be there would be some boundaries and that it would be from the terremoto tradition and there was enough variety and richness within the tradition to have many many aspects but yeah even though you know I might study with a Tibetan teacher or any of us you know I remember the wave of people doing sashins, you know, with Zen teachers and things like that.

40:54We did make a decision that we're the center. You know, it was one thing in our personal lives and our personal transformation, which is the way it would be brought back would be through our own understanding, you know, if that was changed or tempered in some way, but we were going to just keep things simpler and just have people within that tradition. I asked Sharon a little while ago, what were the biggest challenges over the years. Jacqueline, let me bring you back in. From your POV, in those early days or beyond, what were some of the biggest hurdles? Well, for me, and I think for some of us, you know, my first teacher was Esen Goenka.

41:40As Sharon mentioned, that was her first retreat. It's also where I met Sharon. It's also where I met Joseph. And, you know, coming to Buddhism was, it was like stepping into another world that was so extraordinary. And there was so much love and so much reverence. and then coming to IMS and realizing that, you know, I would not always be following the exact way that Gawenka wanted us to follow as a student. It took me a while to really, actually, Jack actually had to do a guided imagery with me and I was sitting on the floor and he was pretending he's Goenka and I'm telling Goenka that I'm going to study with other Theravada teachers and I was absolutely it's a guided imagery and I'm like nervous and because I just respected Goenka so much and he gave me everything.

42:54You know, I mean, Sharon and I sat with him all night under the Bodhi tree, you know, after we got invited to his only self-retreat of the year and only old, very mature students, you know, were 20 years old, could do that. And then we walked up in silence to the Bodhi tree and sat there in the different parts. You could go in and we sat on the upper level and we meditated with him until early morning when he started chanting. And to think that I was going to be leaving this person who gave me everything, it was really hard. And when he came to visit in Massachusetts after I'd already been a nun with Mohasi Saida and Tangpulu Saida, and Tangpulu Saida was visiting and I went to say to him, you know, my first teacher is up the road, what should I do?

43:49And he said, go see him. And that was a big deal for me. And I went, and they put me in the front row, which is, you know, where the old students sit. And, you know, I went up to him, and I said, you know, I ordained with Mahasi Sayadaw, and he was so kind. I was so grateful because I had been, I don't know, he expected so much. So it was a huge hurdle. And I think as all of us went through that with Goenka, but especially for myself, it was my first teacher, it was my heart. Let me just give you an example, because something Jacqueline said, not really on the topic she was talking about, which is very true, not just for her, but when she mentioned Tampulu Sayada, I remember the time when we, Tampulu Sayada was a very great Burmese meditation master, and we invited him to come to IMS, he was in the States, you know, and he said yes.

44:57So we put out all these announcements, like special appearance, and, you know, great master and rarely seen. And, you know, so all these people came to hear him give a talk. And in the tradition, really old style tradition, when a monk is speaking, you know, they have these big sort of round fans that they carry around with them. They put the fan in front of their face because it's not a person speaking, it's the Dharma. And so you have like zero glimpse of their face, their eyes, their smile, if they're smiling. And so he sat there in front of all these people who came for our very puffed up announcement, great master coming, holding that fan in front of his face.

45:42And there was a lot of distress in the room because there was no sense of the human being who was making this offering to you. And it's meant to not be a sense of the human being making the offering, but just this all pervasive truth. And that would just be an example of, you know, East and West. And, you know, what do you do here? And this is the tradition. You have to respect it. And at the same time, it's not really working necessarily in the way that it was meant to be working. So hearing Jacqueline talk about Tungfulu Sayada brought that back. There's another Tungfulu story from the other side.

46:26this involves Jack, we were both visiting Tungpulisaito in California at the monastery that was set up for him there. And we had been teaching, I don't know, a couple of years by then, and it was very busy, full schedules. We were really working quite hard and maybe experiencing a little burnout, energetic burnout. And I remember Jack and I went to see him, and Jack was describing, is there some way to protect ourselves energetically in meeting all of these people and absorbing all of their energy day after day? And it took a certain toll, especially in those early years as we were just learning about teaching.

47:16And I think Jack had in mind something like, this great master will give us some meditative technique of setting up an energetic shield of light or something to protect us. And Tungpulu listened to the lament of being really tired and burned out a little bit. And he thought for a moment and he said, just take more vacations. That was the great wisdom from... Shorter retreats and more vacations. We should have followed that as much. And one of the beautiful things at IMS, even though we were quite deeply committed, are to the Theravada tradition, we have been able to host this wide range of teachers, both within the Theravada tradition, like Tungpulu and Vasi Sayadaw, Ajahn Shah and Upandita Sayadaw and many others.

48:16but we also have been able to host, at least as visitors, the 16th Karmapa, you know, and Sung San Sanim, the Korean Zen master and others. And somehow our openness and the fact that we needed that in some way to learn in these different ways, also, I think, fostered an open-mindedness in our community where people really learn. They learn from other traditions or psychological ways and so forth, not in conflict, but in a way that we now know can deepen their presence and mindfulness and understanding. And I'm really pleased about this for our community, because some communities still are very bounded in a way, and you can't deviate from that.

49:04And we're deviators, so we just owned it. And also on that list is the Dalai Lama, of course, when he came to visit in 1979. And I recall him, this could be my hallucination, I recall him going bowling in the one lane bowling alleys. He did. He threw the ball. I don't think he got a strike, but he threw a ball down there. There was a reference a while ago to showing one of the great teachers to his room and he laughed at the bed because he was undergoing the aesthetic practice of not lying down. But it brought to mind the conditions for yogis. Right now, it's pretty nice. What was it like back then?

49:43Yeah. The foamies on the floor, basically. A little foam mat. That's it. Some places in Asia that we slept. Also, even though we're dedicated to peace in the early years, there were the window wars. because the way we were trying to create different single rooms, we just made partitions in the rooms. And sometimes the partitions landed in the middle of the one window and people on either side, one would want the window open, one would want the window closed. And so the window wars emerged in those early years. Happily, everybody has their own room, their own windows. So peace reigns once again.

50:31Well, and there was also among the staff in the early years, I can't say it was exactly a hookup culture, but we were young and single and there were people who were getting engaged, but we had properly decided that IMS was celibate ground. So that would be, so you wouldn't be in your room and there'd be somebody making love in the room next door that you'd hear through the sand walls or whatever. So then some staff member discovered the Moss Garden, that if you walk back with IMS and follow the wall on the southern side, on the other side of the property, there's this beautiful garden of thick moss.

51:12and that became the trysting place. And there was even a thing in the kitchen where you could sign up for who got the mosque. The garden's face, which couple could go enjoy a tryst in the mosque. When we started, Dan, we had a business plan that two or three of the people who were managing and myself and others developed a business plan because we decided that, well, we needed a plan. And we had to figure out how to charge. And we had come, as Sharon said, Jacqueline said, we had come from a practice where no one ever paid. You didn't pay to do a retreat with Goenken or Mahasi Sayadop. So our first inclination was to see if we could actually offer this free.

52:02But the mortgage and the food and the heating costs and everything else like that made that really not sustainable. So we came up with a budget. The budget was, as we said at the outset,$6.50 a day. We got that number by adding up all the costs that were mandatory, like heat and food, divided by the number of projected yogi days and hope for the best. We hoped that there'd be that many yogis who would come to that many retreats, so the budget would not be a major shortfall. As Meninga had taught us, we trusted the Dharma. The numbers turned out to be in the ballpark until the course went out. And so one of the most ongoing challenges of IMS has been what should the daily rate be?

52:56Taking into consideration our commitment, everyone's commitment to offering the Dharma for free. dealing with realities like maybe we should buy beds instead of having everyone sleep on full mattresses and wanting to make the dharma available to people who were less privileged and of different cultures and and communities so that we could have scholarships and so on so that's been an evolution that actually has been quite exquisite because it started with an intention to never take money except as a pass-through to someone else and to enlarge the community who could participate without a barrier of cost.

53:43Just to highlight the commitment to that from early on, the first staff, I think there were 10, eight or 10 people on the first staff. And their monthly stipend was$25,$25 a month. So a lot of people contributed to the founding and the development of IMS because of their passion for the Dharma. And at that time, people were willing to do that. Of course, things have changed since then, but it was inspiring in those beginning years. We were all young and we were able to do that, but it was really inspiring that people joined together to create this place. Which leads me to the state of IMS today.

54:43It's really changed. It's not just IMS. In Barrie, there is what I sometimes refer to in ways that I'm sure you guys will dislike, a kind of Dharma Disneyland where you've got IMS, you've got the Barrie Center for Buddhist Studies, you've got the Forest Refuge, soon a new retreat center as yet unnamed across the street from the former novitiate. And so Sharon, let me go back to you, just your thoughts on what has grown out of that initial seed planted 50 years ago right there in Barrie. Well, a huge amount has grown out of it. And, you know, I can't speak for all of us at the very beginning, but for me, I had no clue that what happened was about to happen.

55:37You know, like we really went through, you know, this place sleeps 100 people. You know, there'll never be 100 people who want to come meditate. It was before the research, before the science, before Jon Kabat-Zinn had his big thought sitting at IMS where he had the thought, you know, you could take all this, relinquish it in terms of science instead of Buddhism and bring it to health and then bring it to education and call it mindfulness-based stress reduction. And he said he got up, it's just like his 20-year plan came up in his head in his meditation. He got up, he wrote it down, and then he did it, which obviously had huge influence.

56:14So I never could have imagined what has happened. I go to places sometimes, a university or a business, and I think, wow, I never would have guessed these people would be interested in bringing a meditation teacher in. or I mean you Dan have said to me you people think you're so mainstream you're not so mainstream which I think there's also truth to that but given where we started which was you're a meditation teacher that's kind of weird you know it's come a long long way and a lot I could never name because I'm not on the receiving end of all this communication you know but every once in a while somebody who's very accomplished in their own field will say to me, oh, I sat 10 years ago at IMS and it really changed my life.

57:05And I had no idea, you know, that that was the case. And it's beautiful, both the unknowing of it and just the immensity of it. I mean, look what has happened to mindfulness practice for one thing and now loving kindness practice, you know, coming up behind it in terms of research and interest and applications. And it's remarkable. roll. I made a new friend recently and he was telling me that his wife is an avid listener to the show. She's so loyal, in fact, that she's now wearing quince on the regular and she wanted me to know that. I, too, wear a lot of quince, not only because they're a sponsor of the show, but also because they make really good stuff.

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59:27Jacqueline, is it head spinning for you to consider the true, my word, I don't know if you'll co-sign on it, but the really momentous implications of what you all launched 50 years ago? I think it's actually like Sharon pointed out, it's the word. I mean, mindfulness now, I mean, there was some kind of food that said it was mindful. And, you know, I was like, really? Mayonnaise. Mindful mayo. Mindful mayo. And then somebody sent me an article and you can have micro mindfulness. You don't have time. Oh, my. So the way that it has, I think because it's practical, you know, just the way that it has made sense to people really.

1:00:21And it's exactly the way it was for us. it made sense. That's really the basis. Mindfulness makes sense. Being in the present makes sense. And somewhere we all know that. So it's really quite beautiful to see that this has been a connector. Well, it's very much, as Sharon and Jacqueline said, I share those same kind of amazement of the unfolding. And my mind also looks ahead, not only back over the past 50 years. And I've told this story actually in the Sangha News announcement about the new center. Some years ago, I was teaching in Italy at a Catholic monastery in the mountains of Tuscany. Catholic monastery was a thousand years old.

1:01:17And that was unbelievable to me, you know, and we think 50 years is a long time, or even the duration of our country of 250 years is a long time, a thousand years. And so I get inspired from seeing, looking back to where we started from to where we are now. And then I just love to imagine the possibility of IMS still existing in a thousand years and people having come to practice over all that time. So it's kind of a fantastic revision and who knows how things will unfold but the fact that it has already happened in history why not you know and so if we can be the stewards of this time leading to that kind of unfolding it's tremendously inspiring to me as we've explained um because we had no idea what we were doing, and we undertook a mammoth project, at least as measured by square feet and concrete and acres and so on, and merging traditions and practices and so on.

1:02:46There were so many times where there were challenges or doubts about what to do, and every single time it's worked out. not always the way we expected, but it's worked out. And so I think what, for me, who had a lot of doubt, starting with the boiler, has really happened, is Meninja G's little phrase is no longer a phrase. It's the way we live. it's the way that we think about the next center think about the next generation the next group of teachers our next incarnation or everything else like that is that as long as we are trusting it will take care of itself so for me going forward is actually a lot easier than it was before because my face in the practice is unshakable.

1:03:54Jack, let me bring you in on this. You have gone on to start a center on the left coast, the magnificent Spirit Rock Meditation Center where I did my first retreat many years ago. But when you think about the future of IMS, what comes to mind for you in terms of your hopes and dreams? Well, what I see is that mindfulness has also shifted from being an individual focus, which is very much when we started. It was your old personal retreat and personal transformation. And we spoke about bodhisattva and so forth. But then as it grew, as we know through Jon Kabat-Zinn and lots of people's work, it became really important in education, in child rearing, in health care, in a lot of other ways.

1:04:52And now it feels like we're in a global cultural moment where it's very obvious that no amount of new technology, not AI and computers and space technology and nanotechnology, is going to stop continuing warfare and racism and climate change because all those are resulted from the human heart. That's really where it all starts. And so I see IMS as not only being a luminous place where people learn ways to live from their hearts, from their deepest values, but also that it's sending transcendent rays, which we can't quite measure yet, out across the society. because those people now realize and understand that this is the medicine that's needed more collectively, especially in this time of such a great transformation.

1:05:57So if anything, I think IMS not only will continue to be kind of a strong place for people to come and transform themselves, but it also will be sending out the medicine, if you will, that the culture and society needs. And that, who would have thought? It's a fabulous thing. And it happened. We didn't do it. It did it itself. We just practiced. And then we talked to people and said, yeah, okay, I know you're a restless woman. You're sitting, it's okay, you could be mindful of it. And I go, oh, thank you. Right. Well said. Jacqueline, your hopes and dreams as it pertains to the future of IMS? everything began you know in the meditation halls in asia and in our own individual huts and in our shared rooms and in the balcony on at the burmese vahara and you know my sleeping pad with my mosquito net next to sharon's sleeping pad and her mosquito net and my being inspired by Sharon sitting up all night and then I sat up all night.

1:07:09That is my hope and dream for everyone to know that level of commitment, of practice, and where it leads. And even now, you know, I wake up at, this morning I woke up at three and I'm inspired by that level of practice because I know the result, I totally know all the results, and that's my hope and dream for IMS and for as many people who are interested.

1:07:48Karen? It was very beautiful, Jacqueline. Well, I remember in 2020 when IMS had to shut down because of the pandemic, And my fervent wish, spoken and unspoken at that time, was I just want to make it to 50 years. I just want to make it to 50. We're so close. So it's a little bit like now we're about to hit 50 years, just in a few weeks, actually. And it's like when you've fulfilled something on your bucket list and you think, well, now what? But part of what happened for me when the retreat center had to shut down was that IMS went online. which that was also something we didn't have to do but we did it you know how do you do that and even though online dharma is available in so many places now i still think it has a vital role in ims because it represents accessibility and real openness i had an unforgettable moment when i was teaching online in in that era when everything was shut down when somebody put in the chat, I'm a resident of a nursing home and I haven't had a visitor in a year.

1:09:03And I thought, oh, this is how she's finding community. You know, this is how people can find one another when they can't afford to come or they are taking care of someone else at home or they're in some restricted circumstance. And so both online and in person, I think that is one of my strongest values is accessibility and availability and openness. And so I really hope that just continues and grows and develops through time, you know, and that it's really like a cardinal value that we bring forth into all of these decisions. And Sharon, from the beginning, when we walked into those columns and above them was Fathers of the Blessed Sacrament and this beautiful black script, She said, oh, we can rearrange those letters and have it say metta.

1:09:58And now that becomes as much as mindfulness has grown. And you hinted at it, Sharon, what we were talking earlier, that that actually also becomes a really important way of understanding across the culture and the possibility of living a life that's grounded in metta and compassion. So that's also apparently part of what we get to do. Just in closing here, let, let, can we just do one last loop? I would like to hear your funniest memory or memories from 50 years at IMS. I have one that I heard secondhand that I can throw out there, but only if nobody says it organically. Joseph, I'll start with you.

1:10:47Don't start with me. Yeah, the man with the worst memory.

1:10:55I'll start before Jack tells my story because I've often heard him tell my story, which was we were doing a, like a go around at the end of a three month retreat. And one of the participants said, the thing that astonishes me about IMS is that it was founded, has grown and is flourishing without any adult supervision whatsoever. ever. So that was both accurate and pretty funny. Well, but wait, Sharon, your other memory, I know because you sent me a coffee mug that has the words on it. The Hindsight Meditation Society? Oh, yes. Since we were called the Insight Meditation Society, within a month, we received two letters that were back in the day that were remarkable for how they were addressed.

1:11:42The first, instead of being addressed to the Insight Meditation Society, was addressed to the Instant Meditation Society. So that was pretty funny. And the second was addressed to the Hindsight Meditation Society, which I really loved. So all these years when IMS has had a significant anniversary and we've had a party and they make mugs and t-shirts, I've always said, how about one that says Hindsight Meditation Society? And they always say no. And then I think for our 40th anniversary, separately, some friends made me like 10 or 20 mugs It's a hindsight meditation society. But now I'm moving on to I'm not normal.

1:12:21You know, so. So just to build, a memory came back. Just to build on what Sharon said about us starting without any adult supervision. In the early years of the three-month course, so people would be calm and practicing in silence and very intensively. And then for some crazy reason, we had the idea that the best way to end the three-month course of silence and intensive meditation would be to have a dance party in the lower walking room with music and strobe lights. and people are coming just out of silence into this crazy energy and looking back now one can only laugh i didn't find that much fun

1:13:25but lots of things i did find but it wasn't a place where i did a lot of giggling I thought one time that I do remember Gatorling is back to the story that Jacqueline was telling about Tangpula side door. I was staying in one of the large rooms in the older building and that's the room that he was going to have. And the room had a beautiful walk-in closet, which I used to make. I had a little heating coil so I could make chai and not have to leave the room. Anyway, Tung Pula came in and he knocked on the door. They brought him in and I was moving my stuff out. And he looked at the bed where I had been staying.

1:14:04And that's where he said, like, I don't need that. And then he went over to the closet and he walked into the closet and he just said, I'm here. And that's where he stayed. That's where he stayed for the entire retreat that he taught, except when he was down in the hole. He just moved into the closet. That was his cave. Yeah. So that was also an inspiration. I thought someday I'll move into a cave. It's not a closet. It would be enough for me. And we had a number of esteemed elders come to IMS, and one of them was the 16th Karmapa, who was revered doing the black hat ceremony and being a transmitter of Dharma in remarkable ways.

1:14:53and we set up a throne for him in the meditation hall. And he was sitting there. We were all receiving teachings. And in the front row was also Manindra, who had been there at that time, and Deepa Ma. And so some of our teachers from India and so forth. And the Karmapa gave a talk on the Four Noble Truths. I think knowing it was a Theravada center, but also knowing that that's kind of the essence of Buddhist teaching. And then it was getting translated from his Tibetan into English. And then sitting next to Deepama was her daughter, I think, who was translating the English into Bengali. And at some point, partway into his teaching, Deepama, who'd been in Bodhgaya with the Tibetan temples and all the Tibetan lamas under the Bodhi tree chanting and so forth.

1:15:51She turned and she said, he's a Buddhist. Because she'd actually never heard the teachings translated. She didn't know what they were doing. There was something beautiful about that, that we actually became a place that connected these thousand-year-old tradition together in Barrie, Massachusetts. I am going to go to an extension of Yucca Valley. because we taught actually many years in Yucca Valley. And so one year, we all had invited Mahasi Sayadaw to IMS, and he was going to be coming first to Yucca Valley. And I don't even know if Joseph knows this story, but Joseph and I were teaching in Hawaii, and all of the planes went on strike.

1:16:41And Joseph and I had to talk about how we were going to get out because we needed to meet Mahasi Sayadaw. And we decided, well, Joseph should leave first. So somehow a travel agent got Joseph a flight and he got out and I was left in Honolulu. And then the travel agent called me and said, oh, we have a flight for you. It's an international flight. And they've decided they can stop here and pick up one person. So they stop and I get on the plane and there's one seat. and it's next to Mahasi Sayadaw.

1:17:20And so then we fly together to Los Angeles and Mahasi Sayadaw is getting off the plane. I'm getting off the plane. And I had gotten to know his translator. So we all kind of got to know each other on this flight. And when we arrived in Yucca Valley, somehow within our conversation, we decided myself and a few other people would be a cultural attendant of Mahazi Saida, which meant I sat in on everything. So we asked Mahazi Saida, how long would you like for your interviews? And he said, three minutes. And there were lines of people outside of the door because no one could keep their interview for three minutes.

1:18:06And then we decided, okay, we'll have a group interview for him. So then I'm sitting there with the translator in a group interview, and somebody starts telling, which happened all the time, their life story and some drama that took place in family. And I'm cringing, this would never happen in Burma. So I turned to the translator and I said, does Mahasi Sayedal understand? And so he translated that. And then what came back was, yes, Mahasi Sayedal understands and suffering. That's a beautiful story, Jacqueline. Well, before I let you all go, anybody have anything else they want to get off their chest?

1:18:51Those of you who are listening to this to feel the level of devotion and love that's behind everything that happened for 50 years. The people, you who are listening among them, have brought such good hearts and such deep interest in the possibility of learning and awakening. And that beautiful energy of devotion and love is really what made it happen and what makes going to IMS for everybody a field of profound transformation. Well said. Jack Stephen, Joseph Sharon, Jacqueline pleasure to be with all of you and genuinely as a yogi thank you thank you so much to everybody who worked so hard to make this show 10 % Happier is produced by 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 great indie rock band Islands wrote our theme.

1:20:03One last thing I want to say before you go, if you enjoy this show, please do me slash us a solid. Follow the show and leave a rating and a review on whatever platform you watch or listen to us on. It only takes a minute. It's free and it really helps new people find us and spread the good news that the mind is trainable. Thank you. Sincerely, I mean it. Thank you.

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