The Ten Thousand Things

Sam and Joe discuss listener Kate's question about "radical honesty". They also get into rigorous honesty, brutal honesty and kind honesty. 

Links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_honesty

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a26792/honesty0707/

Image: Giorgio Trovato

Sam and Joe discuss this quote:

Behind the sometimes seemingly random or even chaotic succession of events in our lives as well as in the world lies concealed the unfolding of a higher order and purpose.

This is beautifully expressed in the Zen saying "The snow falls, each flake in its appropriate place." We can never understand this higher order through thinking about it because whatever we think about is content; whereas, the higher order emanates from the formless realm of consciousness, from universal intelligence. But we can glimpse it, and more than that, align ourselves with it, which means be conscious participants in the unfolding of that higher purpose.

Eckhart Tolle - A New Earth 

This episode includes a personal reference to AA. I fully respect the tradition of anonymity and am speaking only from my own experience, not on behalf of AA. - Joe

Image: Kirill Pershin

Sam and Joe answer listener Lou's question which is:

"How do you talk about mental health or neurodiversity with people who don’t get it?"

Image: Noah Buscher

Sam and Joe take on listener Liv’s topic about reaction, reactivity and being “triggered”. This leads to personal reflections on responses to geopolitical events and other things in life that lead them to react strongly. Some big world problems get a thorough going over and some interpersonal beefs get ironed out. 

Image: Johannes Plenio

Sam and Joe reunite to tackle Verse Two of the Tao Te Ching:

Everybody on earth knowing
that beauty is beautiful
makes ugliness.

Everybody knowing
that goodness is good
makes wickedness.
 
For being and nonbeing
arise together;
hard and easy
complete each other;
long and short
shape each other;
note and voice
make the music together;
before and after
follow each other.
 
That’s why the wise soul
does without doing,
teaches without talking.
The things of this world
exist, they are;
you can’t refuse them.
 
To bear and not to own;
to act and not lay claim;
to do the work and let it go:
for just letting it go
is what makes it stay.

Sam and Joe discuss Verse One of the Tao Te Ching and how it relates to their own experience of reality. 

TAO called TAO is not TAO.

Names can name no lasting name.

Nameless: the origin of heaven and earth.

Naming: the mother of ten thousand things.

Empty of desire, perceive mystery.

Filled with desire, perceive manifestations.

These have the same source, but different names.

Call them both deep-

Deep and deep again deep:

The gateway to all mystery.

76 translations of Chapter 1 - https://www.taoistic.com/taoteching/taoteching-chapter1-versions.htm
Thank you to Kate for asking about a refeeence, which reminded me to add this! You are an inspiration as a listener and correspondent.

Characters: https://www.taoistic.com/images/taoteching-verse1.png

Creators & Guests

Sam and Joe discuss the poem Desiderata and how it relates to their experience of life on earth.

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

by Max Ehrmann ©1927

Sam and Joe are back after a long break with a juicy quote from their old friend Carl Jung. Myths, archetypes, figures of light, dark caves with dragons and treasure, it's a wild ride. Enjoy! 

This realization that the separate self is an illusion must be one of the most useful things I've ever learned. I spent most of my life assuming that I was a separate self-contained unit and I felt disconnected from those around me. From the universe as a whole.

But where exactly is this seat of the self? Where's the little Joe who's up there in my head, directing everything? Where is the seat of attention? If I look for myself, where do I find myself? I find a constant flow of sense data, sights, sounds, smells, temperature. I find thoughts. But who are these thoughts occurring to?

As Jack Kornfield says, identification and clinging harden the water into ice. The closest thing I can find to a separate self is this contraction in my chest that seems to create some kind of locus in time and space.

But actually I am in no way separate from the flow. This has been seen through for me in meditation. What I find in meditation, if I have a good session, is I drop into a much larger, possibly infinite, ocean of awake awareness. Which mostly has a fairly neutral quality, but there's actually a lovingness there. A gentle sense of support. And I find this encouraging to say the least.

Of course, I have a social self and I need to function. And go to work and perform my roles in society. But there's no need to constantly reify the separate self, this particle, somehow split off from the rest of the universe.

What I actually find is an openness, a sort of infinite openness, where I used to imagine my separate self to be. Jack Kornfield talks about ice and water. I've heard it talked about in terms of a wave. A wave that somehow thinks it's separate from the ocean. Or a sunbeam that's forgotten it's part of the sun. I'm a part of something much bigger than I always took myself to be. But it's also something incredibly simple. It's just the present moment. I'm not separate to you who's reading this. I really am just part of this flow.

I only care about this because I guess I've always just wanted to know the truth. I guess I've always suffered feeling so separate from things around me. It's a great relief when I realize and drop into the fact that I'm this open, loving awareness. And I can then accept everything just exactly the way it is in the present moment. After all, what other choice, do I really have?

Creators & Guests

Image: courtesy of Craig over at https://wish-art.blog
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More about the author of today's quote:

Jack Kornfield (born 1945) is an American writer and teacher in the Vipassana movement in American Theravada Buddhism.[1] He trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, Burma and India,[2] first as a student of the Thai forest master Ajahn Chah and Mahasi Sayadaw of Burma. He has taught mindfulness meditation worldwide since 1974. In 1975, he co-founded the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, with Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein, and subsequently[clarification needed] in 1987, Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California. Kornfield has worked as a peacemaker and activist, organized teacher training, and led international gatherings of Buddhist teachers including the Dalai Lama. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kornfield

Website | jackkornfield.com

More about The Wise Heart

This is the fifth in a series of reflections by Joe on quotes he found helpful or striking. He has some good writing over at https://joeloh.substack.com/

Creators & Guests

Source:

About the author:

Tolle came to prominence as a self-help author in the U.S. and internationally beginning in 2000, after Oprah Winfrey promoted his books in 2000 and 2005 and created webinars for him in 2008. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eckhart_Tolle

A longer summary of the book here: https://medium.com/@saadwrkacnt/a-deep-dive-into-the-power-of-now-by-eckhart-tolle-ac6446b0aa7c

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That's from Eckhart Tolle from The Power of Now. I've always had the sense when it comes to sex, that it's more than just a couple of animals, rutting. There always seem to be a lot more going on in that realm for me and I do think it is a sense of oneness. The self dropping away. A merging with another person. A deep connection that I really haven't found in any other way. 

But also maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm putting too much on sex, and it is just a physical act with no meaning. But when I found this piece of writing, it really spoke to me about my experience of sex. But as he says, it's no more than a fleeting glimpse of wholeness. An instant of bliss. There's a much greater oneness, that's quite hard to talk about, that can be referred to as non-duality. A sense of nothing being separate. A sense of only the world, the entire world, existing in this present moment. Which is really what the book, The Power of Now is all about. And it is a book I've re-read about four times now. He does a good job of talking about something that's very hard to put into words. But I really believe from my own experience that it's duality that is the illusion and it's oneness that is the truth. So all the separateness and loneliness and apartness that I feel, it's actually an illusion. That brief glimpse of heaven that can happen during sex, it's actually a glimpse of reality. It's actually breaking out of the illusion. But I know for myself, it can become obsessive to pursue those moments. And then I head into something which is more like addiction. And at that point, I'm even further away from the oneness that I'm seeking than I ever was before. I think there's an incredible power around sex and love and I think that I'm someone who's been sold a crock in terms of romanticism and the idea that the right person will complete me, make me feel whole and resolve everything. 

So it's this tricky balance for me of. Seeing the spirituality in sex. But realizing that for me, It's my spiritual life that's going to give me that sense of wholeness and oneness and connection with the universe. And if I keep trying to find it in fleeting moments of peace I'm only gonna end up unsatisfied. I know what it is to go towards oneness but it's not something that’s easy for me to explain. But I know what it feels like. And for me, it's really about seeing through the illusions and seeing through 150 years of romanticism and seeing through Hollywood and advertising and everything that's led me to believe that the only way to find happiness and contentment is to find the one. But the reality is I'm the one I've always been looking for and home has always been right here. 

And when I've looked for it in other places, other than deep down within, it's caused me so much pain. Really the majority of pain I've had in my life has been in this area. But the high’s have been high too. I guess for me, developing a spiritual life is about reassessing everything. Starting from scratch. And a reading like this really makes me question a lot of things that I took for granted. But also explain some things to me. Like, why have always seen sex is so profound and meaningful. When I know to a lot of people, it's just a bit of fun. And it's really no big deal. For me, I have unconsciously seen it as a means of salvation and I really hope that I can start looking somewhere else. Probably deep down within, for that feeling of okayn...