Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche on Find Your Innate Basic Goodness | EP 601

0:00Coming up next on PassionStruck. At a certain level, I discovered that I have the panic or panic, what I call that aversion to panic, resist, feeling of resistance to the panic attacks. I'm fighting with my panic, actually. And my father said, don't fight, welcome the panic. Then I begin to welcome a little bit. It helps a little bit. And I thought, oh, now I know the new strategy. So if I say welcome, then panic will not come back. It's become a little bit like dog chasing tail, but even that fake welcome helps for me. Welcome to PassionStruck. Hi, I'm your host, John R. Miles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you.

0:53Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become PassionStruck. Welcome to Episode 601 of PassionStruck. I'm your host, John Miles, and whether you're joining us for the first time where you've been with us on this journey, I am so glad you're here.

1:32This is not just a podcast. It's a movement. One that's redefining how we live, love, lead, and grow. Here we explore what it means to live intentionally, to flourish fully, and to make what truly matters matter most. And now we're creating a space to go even deeper. It's called the Ignition Room, a new community designed to help you put these ideas into action. It's where insights become daily practices and where people come together to build lives of meaning, courage, and contribution, which brings me to today's conversation. Let me start with a few questions. What if the feeling of emptiness you carry isn't a flaw, but a signpost?

2:09What if pain and panic aren't obstacles to peace, but invitations? And what if everything you've been searching for is already within you? Today's guest is one of the most revered meditation masters, Yangai Mingyur Rinpoche, a bestselling author, global spiritual teacher, and the embodiment of joyful presence. In this profound conversation, we explore how suffering can become wisdom, how awareness is always with us even when we forget, and why mattering isn't something we earn, but something we uncover. In our conversation, we explore how panic became Rinpoche's greatest teacher, why awe, appreciation, and compassion are portals to our true nature.

2:47We go into the difference between feeling like you matter and truly knowing you do. We discuss how to heal the wounds of anti-mattering and restore connection in divided communities. And why spiritual awakening doesn't require becoming someone new. It requires remembering who you are. If you're struggling with identity, loss, or simply trying to feel whole, this episode is for you. And last week I released a solo episode on serendipity and how chance encounters and unexpected turns often hold the deepest clues to our own sense of mattering. It's part of a larger conversation I'm bringing in the Ignition Room, how we can reawaken our sense of purpose through small moments that shift everything.

3:22I also sat down with Laura and Isabel Hoff, daughters of the Iceman, Wim Hof, to explore the intersection of trauma, cold therapy, and transformation. And then we also unpacked the gut-brain paradox with Dr. Stephen Gundry, who eliminated how what we consume can shape our clarity, mood, and resilience. And if you're just discovering us, check out our episode starter packs at Spotify or passionstruck.com slash starter packs. Curated playlists that make it easy to dive into topics like personal growth, emotional mastery, and leadership. And if this work speaks to you, come join us inside the Ignition Room.

3:56Links are in the show notes because transformation happens faster and more meaningfully when we do it together. Now let's dive into this extraordinary conversation with Yangi Mingor and Rinpoche. Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin.

4:19I am absolutely thrilled and honored to have Yangai Mingur Rinpoche on PassionStruck. Welcome, Rinpoche. Thank you. I'm very happy to be here. I am very happy you're here from Nepal as well. And I actually interact with people in Nepal all the time because my whole web development team is based in Nepal. Yes. And some of the most passionate people I have worked with and dedicated. So I'm very happy to call them to be part of what we do here at PassionStruck. Thank you. So I thought I would open with this question. You often say the world is your meditation teacher. In this time of so much division and disconnection, what is the world trying to teach us?

5:07So in my tradition, we believe that everybody has wonderful nature. So what we call basic innate goodness. So this basic innate goodness is the fundamental quality of our own mind. normally what we call the unity of awareness, love and compassion and wisdom. For example, when I was young, I had panic attacks. So when we experience panic attacks, not happy at all. So we think world is a danger, not safe. And I have special anxiety for strangers and the weather. And I began to learn meditation with my father when I was nine years old. And my father said, yes, I understand you have this panic attacks, but at the same time, you have wonderful nature.

6:05And I never believed that at the beginning. And he tried to give me a lot of examples. So one example is in my hometown, I was born in the middle of Himalaya mountain in Nepal. So we have very nice environment, but not always like that there's storms thunderstorm snowstorm in the winter sometime crazy, and he said, though there's a lot of storm here. You can watch will this storms can change in nature of cloud or not, and I look at some comes they pass sky never change. So, of course, we have this lot of clashes, what we call suffering clashes and in our mind, in our life, in the world. But at the same time, we have this wonderful quality within ourselves.

7:02And eventually, I learned a lot from my panic attacks. So now I'm considered my panic attacks is my teacher and best friend. I'm I wrote many books. I'm here now talking about this topic because of panic attacks. So what we call obstacle may become opportunity problem may become solution if we take it as learning process to grow to transform. So although we said accept it let it go but letting go is not the giving up. Don't give up. Transform. Learn. Thank you for sharing that. And I myself have experienced my own set of anxiety and trauma. So I understand how difficult it can be to overcome those things.

7:56When you look at the growing sense of the loneliness epidemics and the hopelessness that's happening globally, what do you believe is at the root of it? I think the route is now the world is really become very fast and one thing is comparative. So we are comparing all the time, compared with our neighbors, our brothers and sisters, colleagues and company at our work. then we feel like maybe I'm not enough and then we feel like maybe even though we are in the middle of full of people but we feel like there's not really connecting and one way maybe the social the gadgets might interfere and also that when we have a lot of competition we look at the negative aspect.

8:55And when we look at a negative aspect, then we feel like, oh, I have this problem. I'm alone. We never appreciate. How can someone who might be listening or watching this sit with the pain of feeling that they don't belong without collapsing into despair? So for me, one of the very effective practice for me is the appreciation. So, sometimes we feel like I'm alone. There's no friends, no family, nobody understand me, nobody support me. But what normally what we call when we look at the glass half empty, half full. So which aspect we look at so one of the important i write like almost literally doing journal gratitude journal appreciation journal maybe write down just three things oh even though i lost everything but i still have my life i still senses i have eyes here whatever we have.

10:04There's a roof above me. There's now I have this chair below me and even we drink the water there's so many cause condition. This water on my table is kind, care, so many people involved. So when we begin to appreciate that at a certain level, then we feel like some kind of warm and connection. That really helps me. Yes, I know. Unfortunately, this year, exactly what you mean by having to go through these periods in life. We were hit hard here by a natural disaster in the form of a hurricane and had three feet of water in our house. So we lost everything we owned. And it's amazing that in the face of that adversity, what showed up more than anything were the family and friends who came to our aid to help us through.

11:04And so even in periods of grief, like you're saying, it does open up so many other areas that you sometimes don't think about that are truly special elements of your life, like you were just talking about, that we take for granted. normally i talk about sometime i keep teaching for a long time and then i drink a lot of water then after two hours almost this end i really want to go to the restroom so sometime i said oh now almost finished if we have any questions no question okay then we stop and suddenly people ask questions what is the meaning of life so then i try to answer very simple and quickly sometimes simple answer may lead more questions but i really want to go to the restroom so i feel like life is miserable oh i really i cannot stand even one minute then i finish my talk and i sat right away go to the use restroom after using restroom i feel like life is wonderful and like rebirth and everything is whatever even the restroom become very nice the air when i come out from the restroom so normally we all have we don't have emergency like that once in a while but we have that wonderful life always there with us but we don't see we are taking for granted and then we look at the only things that we which we don't have i think to frame this discussion today it's important to get your definition of mattering what does it mean for you ronpoche to matter in a community not as a role but as a human being?

13:07For me, one is this wonderful teaching that I learned from when I was nine years old, the teaching of discovering the basic goodness within myself, not only me, I always see this with everybody. And that is really helped my life. Like I'm now leader i have more than 30 different projects and i will not have so much problem with the people normally 99 of the time even the difficult people comes up a certain level i like them and they like me and i see the good things within them so for me this wonderful teaching of of discovering awareness, love and compassion within myself is like my journey. I never feel bored.

14:00It's like every day something new, aha, or learning more. Sometimes what we call discovering unlimited treasure within myself. So this is really matter for me. And second important thing is I love teaching. I share this practice. Now my schedule is very crazy, but I really feel happy when I teach, I feel relaxed. And, and many people get benefit by this. So I'm very happy to see that many people get benefit. So sometime I have problem that how much should I teach and how much should I do my own personal retreat? Yes. But that sometimes struggle still I have to find the balance. I know you love to use metaphors, so I wanted to ask you about this in a metaphorical way.

14:58Is mattering a river we enter or something that we carry with us? It's with us all the time. We need to recognize it. We need to discover it. What we call, we all have this awareness, love and compassion, and the wisdom 24 hours with us. So actually it's there. Sometime I give examples, like, what is that? Can you see this one? Yes, watch. If you have the best watch in the world, if you are not recognize your own watch, can watch it tell us time? Normally not, right? watch cannot tell us time even though it's the best watch in the world so we still may lost time then may not be on time then we may lose our job if we lost our job we may lose our home all this because we don't know our own watch but if you recognize our own watch your own time maybe we got promotion good job good home good life so watch is same but what makes it different the recognition that when we recognize our own watch the quality of watch manifest for us when we not recognize our own watch the quality not manifest for us although this quality is there.

16:33I think that's a great example and it leads me down this track that I was trying to think of before I got on the interview with you and that is, do we need to feel like we matter in order to awaken spiritually or is it the awakening itself that helps us realize we always have the awakened nature is with us all the time and the calling us what we call we all have homesick what is homesick wanting to be happy don't want to suffer that with us all the time and that is calling from our true nature the awakened nature within us us, calling us come home or the feeling of hollowness, empty. Sometimes we feel that empty.

17:23Even the loneliness, even the feeling of dissatisfaction, incompleteness is also a kind of message, kind of wisdom that calling us come home. Why our true nature is what we call free from suffering. It is not incomplete. It is complete. So the awakened nature, what we call is with us all the time, we need to connect with that. We need to discover that. We need to recognize. So one of the things that's plaguing so many people, especially in the Western world, is that there's so many of us who feel like we only matter when we perform, when we produce, when we people please. What is your advice to break that conditioning?

18:21There are two matters. so what i call the innate purpose in it matters and the temporary with the cause and condition so the innate matter is that we have this our true nature always there calling us that is our true nature but then of course look for job good job we think is good good relationship is good fame power money also within good or whatever we want to do if we achieve that we think that's the matters for me the that is the outer circumstances temporary things but at a certain level if we go away from our true nature even Even though there's fame, power, money, whatever we achieve, we still feel the hollowness, incompleteness, something missing.

19:26But then what we call if you connect more with our innate quality, for example, if you do social work or if you have good time with your family or if you help somebody, you feel really happy. that hollowness go away feeling like you're coming home why because we are really connecting with the real matter within ourselves and also with the awareness like scientists saying that everybody has some kind of baseline that happy or not happy some kind of baseline and they said that this baseline is very difficult to change like even you win the lottery 80 million cus dollar you got it it's good for a few months only then it's come back to the baseline and the relationship very good marriage also few years and fame power money all this helps a little bit but then you come back to the baseline so the only two things help a little bit longer one is if you get the salary in your community you are the number one the amount doesn't matter but if you get the best salary you feel a little bit happy for a longer time another thing is plastic surgery it helps better but then there's this study about if somebody watch the breathing to be aware of the breath maybe every day five minutes for 30 days after 30 days then there's a enduring benefit so by this awareness looks like for me when i first time learned this awareness meditation watching my breath I feel like stupid and the boring so when we do that actually our baseline can change so even though when we are not meditating we feel happier why because awareness is our true nature when we connect with the more to the our heart feel more happy and of course learning If we really learn, we feel very happy.

21:57The wisdom comes. Education is very important. So therefore, the real matter is when we connect with our true nature. Thank you for sharing that, Rinpoche. And I'm going to share a personal story to give a little bit of my perspective on this. I told you before we came on that I was a senior executive for a while in my career. And I had reached what many people would have thought the apex. I was a chief information officer at Dell and had a large organization, the dream job I had always wanted. But underneath the surface, I could feel myself unraveling and slowly disappearing from my own life.

22:42And it's a really interesting and terrifying experience to go through. And I often say it's what I think Henry David Thoreau was trying to warn us about when he said the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation, because we keep searching in the wrong places. And the more I was concerned about the money, the accolades, the titles, the more I lived my life, even though outwardly it was successful, I was living it almost like I was a pinball, where I was bouncing off of things, the wrong things, instead of being intentionally committed to the right things. And so what ended up happening to me, you talked about being hollow, is I felt more hollow physically, emotionally, spiritually, relationship-wise than I ever had in my entire life.

23:44I felt like I was a shell of myself. And when you reach that point, it's very worrisome. I can't even tell you how painful it felt because you've gotten to this bottom of the abyss and you have no idea how to climb out of it. And so what I'm doing now with the podcast is maybe people haven't fallen that far and we can help them before they do. But I think what I am trying to bring is I have lived this. So for me, this is a really painful aspect of my life. and what I am trying to do is to help people, I think like you are, so that they don't have to suffer like I did. But it really means that you have to shift your whole life and your value system and what you hold sacred to a whole different element because all the things that I thought were going to bring me success, fulfillment, brought me emptiness.

24:46But now that I have really focused on impacting people, trying to end as much suffering as I can, trying to give myself to others, my sense of fulfillment has risen and the other areas of my life has as well. So I think that that is an example of what you were saying with your words. Exactly. I think you are such embody this journey that you go through all this. And now the problem, sometimes many people, they stuck there and some people not even realize that like in our tradition, what we call Dukkha, Dukkha meaning like we cannot find exact translation. So some people, they translate the suffering, sometimes dissatisfaction, but the real meaning, Dukkha meaning, the sense of hollow, incomplete, something missing, a little bit sad or insecurity.

25:47So that sometime what we call background noise, that Dukkha. And because of that feeling, then we look, we are very busy, entire life to fulfill that hollow or dissatisfaction or empty like when we go with many people we feel also noise they talk a lot i want to be alone when you come home up to two three minutes later oh i'm lonely i need somebody i need my smartphone but then when look at some of the other sudden level or something never satisfying so what we call if we recognize that feeling and then if we see what we call sometimes what we call the wisdom that's three things right awareness love and compassion wisdom so what we call wisdom is the biggest paradox.

26:50That very thing, that feeling of hollow, incomplete dissatisfaction is also wisdom. If you know how to work with that, if you know how to learn from that, if you know how to follow and then actually we will discover actually there's a awareness, love and compassion, wisdom, sometimes what I call inner sky. That we can discover within ourselves. So for me, when I have panic attacks, life feels terrible. And of course, I feel empty, meaningless. So then I learned meditation. But of course, I was young. I'm lazy boy. I love the idea of meditation, but I don't like the practice of meditation. I just mentioned you when I practice breathing meditation, I feel stupid and I feel boring.

27:49And I hear my friends are playing. I really want to go there. So it's on and off. So then at a certain level, I discover that I have the panic or panic, what I call that aversion to panic, resist, feeling of resistance to the panic attacks. I'm fighting with my panic, actually. And my father said, don't fight. Welcome the panic. Then I begin to welcome a little bit. It helps a little bit. And I thought, oh, now I know the new strategy. So if I say welcome, then panic will not come back. It's become a little bit like dog chasing tail. But even that fake welcome helps for me. So then in the end, it took me five years.

28:44So in the end, then panic become my friend in the end. So for me, it's like at a certain level, that panic of panic, aversion of panic is gone. Symptoms still there. Tight here, my heart speed up, sweating, all are there. But I feel exciting because we have this practice that I can use my panic as support for awareness and also love and compassion and the wisdom. So deeper level, excite this excitement. Okay, now panic comes. Okay, heartbeat. At the beginning, I thought the panic attacks like it's heart attack. So I checked with many doctors. I asked my mom to bring the best doctor and doctor said your heart is very good.

29:33I thought oh fake doctor don't understand me. But then later I know it's not really a heart problem. So that also helps. Then at a certain level all this feeling the symptoms not become painful for me. In fact it's exciting. So this is why what I'm saying, the panic becomes my friend and my teacher. Then after a few months, the panic is gone, totally gone. So I don't have the real panic attacks since then. But of course, I feel panic if the tiger comes. I want to switch directions a little bit. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Dacher Keltner. He's a professor at University of California, Berkeley.

30:21but he studies compassion, kindness, and awe. And I interviewed him a couple of years ago when his book on awe came out. And it was the first time I had heard the term moral beauty. And he was trying to figure out, normally we think of awe as something that we experience with the birth of a child, or we see the Mona Lisa, or maybe the Himalayas in your country. And that's what brings us awe. But he found that the number one source of awe across all cultures is the moral beauty of ordinary people. It's when we perform or witness acts of compassion, of love, of kindness onto another human being.

31:13What do you think that reveals about the human heart? Yes, that's exactly what we discussed in my tradition, that when we feel our aha inside, all these things that when we are more close to our true nature. So love and compassion is our innate quality. So when we connect with that, then it doesn't matter what kind of the manifestation through culture, through behave, through cultivating meditation practice, it doesn't matter. So, what we call deeper level, if something not really connect with our true nature, it will reject from inside. So, therefore, these moral ethics have become really important.

32:16Because when they connect with our true nature, then we feel like more happy. We feel like coming home. we are with ourself so therefore yes what you said and what the doctor mentioned yes of course that's the very important point so one of your teachings is that even a single breath can help awaken awareness using that analogy do you see the experience of awe as a doorway into presence or into something even deeper yes so now we discuss about the first quality of our mind awareness sometime what we call clarity sometime what we call luminosity lucidity knowingness conscious so we have so many names for that yes so basically it's very simple one way can you see my hand i can that's all awareness meaning that ability to see to hear to experience to think to feel so that ability is what we call like lamb the candle limb the phlegm is the light, sometimes what we call self luminosity.

33:50So if we want to see the flame, the candle flame, we don't need to use flashlight because it illuminates itself. But this pen, if you want to see this pen, then we need to use external light. So this luminous quality, the knowingness actually, the mind is self-illuminating. The problem is, is beyond concept. So we cannot really find when we look, we cannot really find through cognitive level, intellectual level, conceptual level. But the good news is what we call we can experience it. We are experiencing this all the time. So then the lamb has true clarity or true luminosity. Self luminosity illuminating others because self luminosity is very difficult to experience at the beginning, but we can connect with other luminosity, meaning breath could be anything.

35:01Being with the breath is connecting with the luminous aspect of the mind. could be sound could be smell could be taste could be thought and emotion so what we call in the end everything becomes support for meditation everything becomes support for lumin awareness luminosity so then what we call after certain level obstacle become opportunity suffering may become based for happiness when we look at that luminous aspect. So when I hear you talk about this concept, I have a concept to myself, and it seems the two dovetail pretty nicely. I believe that there are four different levels of mattering that we go through.

35:57There's a feeling that you have to have that you matter. So there's personal mattering. There's a feeling that others feel that you matter and make you feel like you matter. There's the light helping other people through your influence and your involvement feel like they matter. And then I believe that there's a ripple effect that happens when all those things come into place that all of a sudden you can start making community, society, the world matter more. Is that kind of a good way to think about it? Yes, of course. Why not? So what we call all this is what we call independent. Yes. So all of us connect each other.

36:48So sometimes what we call the other is half part of you. you is part of other so the connection is who we are so actually what we call when we really identified me or others or reality actually we cannot really find the one so it's always it's changing a little bit and then they are depending each other so what we call is the connection you is full of connection and you and other is also full of connection into the world to the society and these connection how this connection becomes the positive is based on the matter purpose, love, compassion. So when we follow that direction, then what we call human situation, you win, others win, everybody wins.

37:54So I wanted to get your perspective from your traditions and spiritual background of what happens within us when we witness someone's kindness, compassion, or courage? What opens? What heals? When we witness compassion from others or ourselves, then that, the holiness, incompleteness, dissatisfaction, or sometimes sad, lonely, it heals normally. So if we feel, so we feel more complete, we feel more secure, we feel more not hollow. That's what we call confidence. Competence is not based on pride but contentment. So when we experience this contentment, completeness, then there's a purpose, then there's a matter, Of course, as you mentioned, that comes and then we get energy actually.

39:01Then we feel happy. That happiness is what we call, what I call the real happiness. So if you drink coffee, we can feel happy, but that happy can be co-existed with the holo. If you win the lottery, it looks like happy, but that happiness also exists with the holo. the empty. But then now this happiness is the real happiness, the contentment, the joy, like coming back to home, being with who we are. The leading scientist in the world on the science of mattering is a gentleman named Dr. Gordon Flett from Canada, and he has coined this term anti-mattering. Do you think that the experience of anti-mattering is a delusion of the ego or a real wound that needs healing?