Sebene Selassie On How To Be "Non-Attached" When the Stakes Are High

21:30How do I, instead of hold like this, attached, how do I hold like this? And I think what we're saying here is reflecting upon the truth of impermanence can help you understand that it's okay to care, but it's also important not to care simultaneously, not in a nihilistic way, but in a helpfully paradoxical way. And that fourth remembrance, all that is mine, beloved and pleasing, will become otherwise, will become separated from me. The truth, whether we go to someone else does, it's the truth of existence. And so having that, it actually allows for more affection and care. Yes. everything's shot through with a kind of poignancy yes exactly just to shout out a couple people in the comments gail wrote that this is her first day as a paying subscriber welcome to you gail thank you for joining up douglas asked a question hearkening back to your or made a point hearkening back to your meditation seb around you know like what's happening and can i be with it and just pointing out that sleepiness is another thing that we you know so often have to learn how to be with And I'll just say for myself, one of the things that I've learned, because I deal with a lot of both restlessness and sleepiness, is, well, Joseph has sometimes encouraged me to try to be mindful of the sleepiness.

22:59And he says that's possible. I have not reached that attainment yet. But what I have learned how to do is just give myself permission to be sleepy. And honestly, it's tough. Sometimes I'm meditating in public, like in a situation like this, or I was at an event, the meditation party event we're going to do in a couple of weeks. I will have flown back from somewhere the day before and or actually that morning. And so I will have had to have taken a Klonopin, unfortunately, probably. And so I'll be sleepy while we're meditating. And I'll just have to give myself permission to be that my torso cantilevered over my lap midway.

23:35And it's just like that kind of okayness scales, actually. It's like I can apply that in other aspects of my life. Again, back to Christine's question, like that's not attachment to me. It's like okayness with whatever's happening right now. This idea that things should be a particular way, either inside of us or outside of us, is really that contention with what is. And that's, to me, the heart, heart, heart of the practice. Yes. I guess there was some Zen master who was asked by a student, the student said something to the effect, I've been listening to all your talks for years. Can you just whittle it down, please?

24:20Like, what is the Dharma all about? And the Zen teacher thought for a second and said, everything changes. That's right. Yep. Mike has a question on the subject. To what degree does responsibility relate to attachment? How to be responsible without being attached to an idea slash task slash person slash thought. I'm not quite sure if I understand the question because it might be attached to a particular situation. I don't necessarily see like an issue there, but. I'm guessing that what he's asking is like, if I'm too non-attached, am I totally irresponsible as I move through life? I see. Yeah, well, that's what we were talking about.

25:02Like we're not denying our love and care and affection. We aren't sort of indifferent. That's the near enemy of equanimity, right? It can look like we have perspective and non-attachment, but we're actually indifferent to things. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about a way of being that's recognizing the truth of human existence and then still showing up with a lot of love and care. Yes. Kelly Rowland in the comments points out that not only is Rob Bass, one of our great modern philosophers, but also the 70s soft rock band REO Speedwagon, who have a line in one of their songs, Hold On Loosely, which I would a million percent agree with.

25:44Hi, Kelly. Nice to have you here. There are some questions around practicing with health challenges. I think everybody knows Seb is too familiar with this. That's my editorializing. I am an overachiever. You are an overachiever on this score. Okay, so Mary asks, I would love to hear detailed discussions slash teachings around working with pain and chronic illness, as well as ongoing fear around illness. I know the last talk touched into this. I'm living proof that whatever doesn't kill you will make you slightly anxious for the rest of your life. I also have some difficulty feeling sympathetic joy for those who are having wonderful health and instead feel envy and some resentment or just like a victim.

26:24have been working hard with the Dharma to make a better relationship with physical hardship, but comparing mind and resistance often prevail. Any leads for other sources such as books or teachings would be appreciated. Thank you so much. Seb, that's a pretty rich question. There's a lot of ways in which you could tackle it. What comes to mind for you as you hear me read it? I appreciate the question, Mary, and I'm sorry that you're challenged with that. I know it well, being challenged with pain and chronic illness. And last time we spoke more about how to deal with it physically and maybe the release of emotions, which is still relevant here.

27:00But I'm hearing in Mary's question more like a question of an attitude towards it. And here I think there's a lot of space for, as Pema Chodron said, feel your feelings, drop the story. I know for me, I can go straight into fix-it mode. Like I don't want to feel this judgment or envy or victimhood. And I haven't even really felt my feeling of grief a lot of times or upset or sadness. So I think that is my go-to first step is like really feel my feelings without getting lost in like that person didn't have that or this person only eats McDonald's and they don't have cancer or like whatever, you know, whatever stories we may have about it.

27:46to really allow yourself to know what you're feeling. Not the thoughts, but really your emotions. I think that's really important. And then I had a teacher, I think you've heard me talk about this before, Dan, who early in my cancer life assigned me self-meta only. I think it was six months. Yeah, sometimes I think it was a year, but I think it was six months. And it was so hard and so powerful. and that level of, okay, feeling your feelings and then really tending to them. Having a lot of care and love for yourself and this can lead into the self-compassion practices. Mariette asked for resources of, if you're not aware of, Kristen Neff, N-E-F-F.

28:34I think her website is selfcompassion.org. There are so many resources there in meditations and it's a really powerful, She has a sort of three-step process of mindfulness, of really being aware of what's coming without judgment, what's there for you. And it sounds like Mary's aware of what's there. Recognizing the human condition of it all, the common humanity of suffering. Many people, millions of people are diagnosed with cancer every year, so you're not alone in whatever you're experiencing. And then that self-kindness of really being kind to yourselves with whatever is coming up for you. And that's such a powerful practice.

29:15And it is a meditation that you can practice. I like to add a fourth step, which is the system stink. Because our world is not set up for many of the challenges that we have, especially pain and chronic illness. really is hard to work. The ways we need to move through the world, the ways we need to when we're ill, and I'm dealing with like a lot of bureaucracy right now with stuff that's up for me medically, and insurance, I mean, it's like a ring of hell. So to just really extend that self-compassion out to the context that you're in and what you're up against every day. That's great. So there's a question in the comments and a question that was pre-submitted that both seem of a piece.

30:05So I'm going to read them both and then get your take said. In the comments in this live stream, Carrie says, I found myself consuming a lot of information about mindfulness, meditation, Buddhism, wellness, but find it hard to walk the walk. I'm feeling a little analysis paralysis. Can you speak to motivation or action to do this daily and incorporate it more into my life? And then Mary Ellen wrote something similar. She wrote, I'm relatively new to meditation. My thoughts are that I really believe in it. I went on a 10-day silent retreat in the Goenka tradition and loved it and learned from it.

30:40And yet, I can hardly get myself to sit ever in regular life. What's wrong with me? I felt the benefits during and immediately after my retreat. Why am I not embracing this? Yeah, such a good question. Both of them really good questions. And Mary Ellen, congratulations on doing a Goenka retreat. they're not easy. That was my very first retreat in 1997, and it's quite intense. So the fact that you did that is already a testament to your commitment to exploring this. Actually, my response to this comes from something I learned from one of your podcasts, Dan, with forgetting her last name, Gretchen Rubin.

31:21Gretchen Rubin has a book called The Four Tendencies. And that book blew my mind because she's basically talking about how we're motivated, whether we're internally motivated, externally motivated, internally and externally motivated, or neither. And the majority of people are externally motivated, which means that we won't do something unless there's sort of a responsibility to it. So we're not going to go to the gym unless there's a class that we show up and people are expecting us there and, you know, know we've made friends and so it becomes sort of a community thing or she describes two guys who go to the gym and at the end of every workout they exchange sneakers they have to show up and stay for the other one and that's most of us that's definitely me if i have a responsibility or an obligation i'm way more likely to do it than if it's just on me i think you dan i suspect that you're internally and externally motivated it's the least common type and it's the people who are very disciplined and whether the demand is coming from outside or inside they do things i call those people annoying well i just want to i want to cop to being annoying in more ways than just that but i definitely am that yeah and so to not beat yourself up about the fact that when you were in a context with all these other meditators at a schedule and bells and all of these markers for how to practice instruction that it was easy for you and then now you're home and I don't know if Mary Ellen is internally motivated or externally motivated but it's something to consider when we in this culture of individualism and pull yourself up by your bootstraps and that kind of like self-made mythology relying or taking refuge in community may seem like the weaker choice, but it's really all of these types, and I love that about the book, The Four Tendencies, have their pluses and minuses, their benefits, and their drawbacks.

33:32And so to really acknowledge that it's a beautiful thing to also show up for other people as they show up for you, and that can create a really powerful sense of community and can deepen your practice, actually. I posted a solo podcast at some point within the last year where I summed up everything I've learned about the science of motivation and habit formation based on the dozens of interviews I've done on my podcast on this subject. and maybe we can post it somewhere for people, but it's like a pretty succinct summary of the various strategies that I've encountered in doing this podcast for nine years or whatever around the gnarly topic of habit formation.

34:16But just a couple of things to say off the top of my dome here. One thing is if you're struggling with this, you're not alone and it's not your fault. What's the matter with me is a very common question, but actually it's not you, it's evolution. We are not wired for the easy adoption of habits. We're wired for short-term wins, like finding food, finding mates, avoiding danger. But creating a habit is a long-term game. It's like an extended marshmallow test. And this is not how we're wired. Just let that sink in before you get into kicking your own ass. Another thing to say is, practically speaking, given that we're wired for short-term wins, starting small is incredibly helpful.

35:00So aiming for just a couple of minutes or one minute and being flexible about it, like doing one or two minutes daily-ish can be really helpful. And then finally, another strategy that can really help, and Seb alluded to this, is doing things as a group, the carpool lane effect, as I often refer to it. And that is the idea behind these weekly sits. And it's why we're toying with the idea. I'm not committing to anything yet. Anybody on my team who's listening or watching this, don't strangle me. But there is a vision potentially in the future of having many more of these as a way to help people actually get over the hump and do the thing.

35:40Because for many of us, doing it in a group is a really powerful mechanism. I do want to just respond to some questions that I'm seeing in the Q &A here. Being human, that's the handle of somebody who asked a question in reference to Seb's reference to self-meta. N-E-T-T-A is loving kindness or friendliness. That's a style of meditation taught by the Buddha 2 ,600 years ago and practiced by Buddhists to this day, practicing our innate capacity for benevolence, friendliness, good vibes. And one of the directions toward which you can apply metta is toward yourself. So self-metta. So that's what Seb was told to do for six months to generate warmth and benevolence toward herself, especially in the middle of this health crisis.

36:28Okay, let's do one last question. Okay, this one's from Shelly. It says, I love Seb. Thank you for, quote unquote, introducing her to me. I so appreciate you, Seb. I've learned a lot from you and find your influence to be grounding, inspiring, and comforting. Question for Seb. I've really enjoyed hearing your thoughts on other lives and mystics, etc. I've begun to delve into this territory, which I find utterly fascinating and sometimes confusing. I wonder if you would comment on how past and future ancestral generations fit with past and future lives. These two things seem potentially at tension with one another in the sense that our own karmic journey through time seems to suggest independence from ancestral linkages over generations.

37:12Can you help me to understand their connection? And then as an added layer, can you further help me to understand how not self or non self works alongside all of this? I know these are probably very hard questions, and I'd be appreciative of any insight at all, however tentative it may be. I'm realizing as I read this question that you are going to have to give us a 75-minute answer. 24-hour lives. We're not going to take any breaks. Yeah, that's a really big question. There's so many layers to it. And I don't think, I'm sorry. Shelly, thank you for your very kind words about me. First of all, that's very generous of you.

37:52I will say, I wrote about this recently in my sub stack, that there's so much, there's almost like a rabid rationalism in our world today in terms of unless things are scientifically verified and there's evidence and proof, like we're not going to believe it. And the truth is there's so much we don't understand. There's contemporary science that really can point to that, especially physics. And so the truth of things like rebirth or reincarnation, which are central to the Buddhist teachings, are being studied. The University of Virginia, I think it's the department of, I can't remember what their title is.

38:32Perceptual something? Yeah. Perceptual studies. Department of Perception or something, yeah. Yeah. But Jim B. Tucker is the main scholar who's written a number of books researching past lives of children, because children are often ones who remember it. And it's fascinating. It's dry as dust because it's really scientific research, but it's very interesting in terms of delving into the possibility that there's more to this life thing and how consciousness works and how it might pass through different lives or bodies. and then how then that relates to the fact that we're embodied people and again scientific research into intergenerational trauma or intergenerational resilience like the not just physical dna material that's passed down or genetic material let's say that's passed down as lived experience in our lives and so we can sometimes be resistant to like this sounds weird i don't know about this but there's actually a lot of growing evidence to the truth of these things.

39:36Now, how that breaks down in terms of how it relates to the Buddhist teachings and how it relates to not-self, we're going to have to save that for the marathon live. I think I've heard the answer as to the question, if there's no self, if the self is fundamentally an illusion. Who gets reborn? I think what I've heard is it's the mind stream or the karmic stream that gets reborn, not some sort of little homunculus, little nugget of Seb that gets transmitted into the next life. And I'm not saying, hey, this is true, but this is just the Buddhist view on it. Am I in the neighborhood of accuracy here?

40:16Yeah. You know, I think that fifth remembrance kind of points to that too, that I am the heir of my kama, that I will be the heir of that, is hinting towards that, right? That we have this karmic stream that comes with us. And that is unfathomable because if this is true, it precedes our physical life. Many causes and conditions for our existence. Seb, thank you for doing this. I love you. Appreciate you. Thanks for having me. It was so fun. I love it. Thanks to all of you for watching and joining us. Really appreciate all of you. Thanks again to Seb. Awesome to see her. Don't forget, if you sign up at danharris.com, you get guided meditations that come with all of our Monday, Wednesday episodes.

41:04They're crafted to help you pound the wisdom of those episodes into your neurons. And then you get invited to all of these weekly live meditation and Q &A sessions. The next one's coming up on the 18th at 4 Eastern with our current Teacher of the Month, Christiana Wolfe. Also, just a plug for two live events. I've got coming up one on the 18th in NYC with a great comedian, Pete Holmes. Another on the 23rd up in the Hudson Valley at a hotel called Troutback. There are links in the show notes. Finally, thank you to everybody who worked so hard to make this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vasili.

41:38Our 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.