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Really special episode this, with one of our favorite meditation teachers. Lorin is something of a ‘meditator whisperer’ – having spent much of his life being an unorthodox counsellor to meditators who were having trouble in their practice. Lorin casts aside monasticism, ascetism, and puritanical thinking for a clear-eyed and honest look at what it means to meditate as someone ‘in the World’: Someone with family, responsibilities, a career – and all the other things that exist outside the Ashram. We hope you enjoy this as much as we did – please let us know your thoughts! NB. A problem with the stream meant we couldn’t capture Jasmine’s video. Audio Version Subscribe in your favorite podcast app: Subscribe Links Sites Lorin’s main site – https://lorinroche.com/Lorin & Camille’s teacher training – https://www.meditationtt.com Books Meditation made easyThe radiance sutrasMeditation secrets for women Transcript (First 40 minutes only – that’s all we could get for free from Otter app 🤷‍♂️) Bill 0:09Lauren, thanks so much for joining us. Lorin Roche 0:12Oh, it’s delightful. I miss England so much. I love London. And it’s fun to be a California in like a beach person. Good. I’ve lived most most of my life within a mile of the Pacific Ocean. Yeah, I like to live right? right near the shore. And once I was in London, and I was like, looking around, like, Where am I? Where’s the where’s the tube? So this guy comes walking along on the street, and I go, he looks like he knows his way around. It was wearing his bespoke suit, this fantastic looking guy. And I said, Can you tell me where’s the subway or the tube? And, and like for half a second. He goes like, it was like, you don’t talk to me? Do you understand? Like, I’m a high class person. You don’t just speak to me without being introduced? for about half a second. And then you saw I could see him process my accent. And then go, he’s an American, and then shift to being friendly. And then like, he’s probably a California and he could tell and that he just dropped the whole thing. And all of a sudden, I was his friend. And he just like took me under his wing and was showing me a we don’t have that. That same. Like, same structure. Yeah, like yeah, here. Camille and I were both born, right, right here at the beach near the beach in LA, and our mothers were. But in Los Angeles. If you’re here for a week, you’re an old timer. It’s like if you’re here. You’re a Dennison. Do you own it? If you hear your inhabitant? It’s a totally different, different attitude. Bill 2:23Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there’s a constant class war on the streets of Britain. I thought when I, I lived in Japan for a couple of years. And when I got back to London, I was just in shock. at the striation level, the barriers in the streets. Lorin Roche 2:43Yeah, wow. Bill 2:46Cool. Well, Lorin Roche 2:47to me, it’s kind of like exotic Lorin Roche 2:50 — to see that kind of order. Bill 2:55Awesome. Lorin Roche 3:00And, but, you know, that brings up the point, that the meditation traditions come from these intense caste system. Yeah. And the people who wound up in the monasteries might have been just the debris. The people who couldn’t fit in, yeah. broken. And, and weird and transgender, like, they didn’t talk about there’s very few notes. But in, in the monasteries, people who like why would somebody join a monastery when when everybody’s supposed to get married and have kids? Is it people who, when they hit puberty, whatever age, that would be 10, or 11, or 12, or 13, just freaked out and said, I’m out of here. Or their parents sold them to the monastery. Because there was no food, they couldn’t feed them, from much of from much of human civilization time, from much of time. There. There were the famines and times when there’s no food. And literally, people were starving, even if they were farmers. And so they would give one of their kids to the monastery. So it’s a motley crew. Bill 4:26Yeah. Wow. I love that we’ve dive straight in but lines for a minute. Could you introduce yourself to our listeners? I think some of them may not have heard of you. And it’d be. I’ve watched like nearly every interview, I can find a viewers on YouTube or whatever. Yeah, be great to get an intro. So welcome to the show. Lauren, how are you? Lorin Roche 4:50Thank you, Bill. Thank you, Jasmine. So my name is Lauren Roche and I grew up at the beach in Southern California. Surfing Sailing, skiing, body surfing, diving for fish in abalone. And hunting. My dad had read Hemingway. And so men hug. So from the time I was seven, I would go on hunting expeditions with my father to deer hunting, and we’d eat the deer. And we go to Africa and hunt. And by the time I was 10, I was like a really good shot. So I could wander around Africa alone, while my dad was off on Think big game. And this hunting and fishing and feeding the tribe Oh, and also cars, you it’s important to have a sports car. So I drove all kinds of, of race cars on these, the 60s, era American sports cars. And when I was 18, I was working my way through college at the University of California, at Irvine, this new campus that’s in Orange County, just south of Los Angeles, about 100 kilometres. And we had to be in experiments as part of being a student, we had to be an experiment every quarter, which is about 10 weeks. So I signed up to be an interesting sounding experiment on brainwave biofeedback. And they had a physiology lab and in one of the new buildings, and it’s wasn’t even occupied yet. So there’s a physiology lab inside this brand new huge building, and there’s no one else in the building. And, or at least on those two floors, so it’s just ultra quiet. And the physiology lab was the several rooms and there is a room that was completely black, out completely dark and completely soundproof. And it was inside what’s called a Faraday cage, which is like a copper, think of a screen door with copper to block out electronic signals. And I came in and they put wires all over my head and my my hands and my body. Lorin Roche 7:33And I was a control subject. So I got no brainwave biofeedback, they just said, don’t move too much. You’ll rip off the wires. And we’ll be back in a few hours. they close the door, and I’m there. And they’re in this pitch black room, utterly silent, but utterly about as silent as you could get without going to extreme measures. On this, though, one of those Barcalounger type chairs, it’s really super comfortable. And just no instructions whatsoever. Now, it was 1968. And I hadn’t heard of meditation. So there’s like no information about what you’re supposed to do. So I was just there. Sort of like you are in the ocean when you’re surfing, surfing, you know, most of the time, if you describe surfing, it’s paddling, which is maybe 20% of the time waiting with just maybe 40 or 50 or 60% of the time. And then you get a ride for 30 seconds. That’s like mostly what Surfing is. So I was used to just being in nature, where you just like, you just be there and you perceive with your senses, the seat they’re seeing there’s vastness all around their hearing, so I would just okay, Wackness in silence. And I fell into a level of relaxation. That was beyond anything I had experienced. And athletes experience intense relaxation, if you’ve ever run a marathon or swamp swam a long ways when you stop and if you just lie down, your whole body’s vibrating with fatigue. And it’s an incredible experience. Well, this was falling into relaxation, the way that athletes will fall into restfulness after long exertion like if you go for six hours, there’s this state you enter where your your whole body is just a hum like a motor. Hmm. Well, what this was, I say fell into just the primordial experience of What a body is this? The life of the cells, this the hum, the hum of life, itself. So there is the breathing. Yeah, that’s interesting. There’s a heartbeat. And then underneath the breath, and the heartbeat was just this sense of quiet, ready, a lightness. just completely alert with all senses, but alert to nothing. Because there was nothing, there’s nothing to see at all. There’s like not one pinpoint of like, there wasn’t one sound. And so in a certain way, it was like falling asleep. Like, we fall asleep every night, but I fell awake. So I fell into the state Lorin Roche 10:53of intense alive enough. Lorin Roche 10:57Way beyond anything I ever knew. Now in a perfect day of sailing, it’s, it’s incredible. If you ever, I used to sail catamaran, so you’re out in the ocean, I love big sailing and storms. And you’re just with the waves. And after that, there’s an incredible feeling you know of a lightness and surfing diving under waves skiing, this was more intense, in terms of being physically present, alive and vital. Way more than I had ever experienced. It was just a relaxation. So total, that it there’s this sown of utter fearlessness, there’s like zero fear. And I’m always a little afraid when I go into the ocean, like there’s, you know, there’s sharks and creatures. And, and I’ve been in the ocean my whole life. So there’s a, there’s a little bit of fear as far as a tangle, like what’s at where the currents where the riptides where the waves where the creatures? How far am I from shore is that within my swimming capacity. Because there’s a certain kind of, like a light level of fear being in nature. This was no fear. So I dropped into a zone, where there’s not one particle of fear in my body, this utter relaxation, and space itself seem to become friendly, again, made out of some sort of texture, if the universe itself is this friendly place. And after, I think it was about two and a half hours, the the research assistant came on, the speaker said, Okay, we have enough data. And I said, I think you better give me a while. Because when he said that, I, I felt my body, I felt like I need a while to like rev up the neurons from this day of total, timeless absorption. And just being when I walked out of the lab, I was in the state of a lightness that is like the state after incredible day of surfing or sailing. But many times more intense, like, colours were incredibly vivid. And when I would look at somebody, like I could see the life force in them. And when I look at plants, there was like a life force in them. So I went to the lab as part of the experiment every day, for several weeks. And I got used to functioning in this state of total relaxation. And Lorin Roche 14:12I sort of got addicted to it. Lorin Roche 14:15That’s the story of my life. Like taking calculus tests, I would I would be in the taking a test. And my mind was so clear that I would go Oh yeah, I saw that formula last night when I glanced at the textbook. And I could just in my mind, see the formula and see the hints from the textbook. And then during the test to solve it. And then an English class. I would just sit down like give you if to write an essay. I would just go Okay, here’s my outline, write the essay and turn it in early. And it almost never functioned that well in my life. So I was functioning. Like in every level, I was functioning way better than I had ever function. Taking calculus tests, writing, talking to people, and just moving around the world. So I thought this is great. So the lab experiment had me there for a couple hours a day, every day. And then this experience of being just completely clear, all my senses functioning superbly. It lasted full on for a month. And then it started to fade away. And that’s, that’s when I started to study yoga, and meditation. Bill 15:40So I wanted to ask, I love this story, by the way, I’ve heard you, you mentioned in other interviews that you went through a period of really intense practice doing Asana and meditation, I can enter in a repeat, and I wanted to dig in a little bit to what what I saw that you were doing, what kind of practice were you part of in those days? Lorin Roche 16:07Yeah, well, the we learn the 14, like a 14 basic awesomeness, okay. And it was a flow. So it’s like easy flow, where you don’t hold the asanas for a long time. It’s, it’s about moving every joint of the body move, moving, moving in all dimensions. Lorin Roche 16:35And, Lorin Roche 16:39and it was remark, I was so lucky. Because just the year before they had the attitude in my school was will just meditate all day, get as many hours of meditation as you can. And they would do these long sets where they would sit for hours and hours. When when I was in my teacher training, I was 19 and 20. And they had come up with this programme, or this sequence, where you do you do some easy pranayama called suka pranayama, just just in and then out, then you do this full set of Asana. So you might be 20 minutes. And, and then you do pranayama again for a couple minutes, and then meditate. And we all meditated about 45 minutes, like we were supposed to meditate for 25 minutes, because we’re all in our early 20s. But we all would meditate for 45 minutes, which must be some kind of body cycle. And, and then do pranayama again, and then the full fit of Asana. Right. And this is so brilliant. I’m so lucky that I arrived at a time where they had figured that out, because it absolutely brilliant. When Lorin Roche 18:15because after months of this Lorin Roche 18:20I was still no just in a room all day. I was just in in great shape. I could go run on the beach, it felt physically fantastic. So it helps you to integrate what meditation does. Yeah, yes, meditation can be dangerous, and that it opens up your senses so much that you can’t cope. You’re not ready to be a different person. Jasmine 18:48What’s interesting, what’s really interesting about it come after it my first Vipassana meditation retreat. I hadn’t spoken to many people about this or told them, but for the next two weeks after, I was almost crying every single day. And it and I lived on the fourth floor of off of Wimbledon High Street. Prior to that I didn’t hear like any buses, you know, you get you habituate to all the noises. But every single time a bus or even a car went past it felt like I was getting hit in my body. Yes. And it was so funny because it wasn’t even that I could really hear it so much. I could just feel it. Lorin Roche 19:38Yeah, yes. That’s called the dilation syndrome. And you tell your senses wake up so much. And it says you haven’t developed calluses sort of to do with it. So everything is shocking. So people that meditate a little bit too much for their bodies capacity, say, over a period of months, can develop that semi permanently. And then they become artificial introverts sort of afraid of the world. There’s a lot of people that have had this go on for years. And their whole life becomes about that sort of cringe. Yeah, yeah. And then and then they try to adapt. There’s various things that people do to adapt to when that happens, you want to do off complimentary meditation. So sort of build up boundaries, do things like I’m like Tai Chi and Qi Gong and I Kido. Where you create, you cultivate the sense of boundaries around you. And you and you meditate on that, instead of noticing so simple, a simple way of looking at what happened is that you were practising mindfulness, which is it to great extent sense fullness, noticing teeny sensations. And so it turned up the dial on your kinesthetic senses, just like if we turned up some dials on this computer recording, we get all kinds of feedback. How would you turn up the dial? The the amplitude, the volume, on synesthesia, hearing and kinesthesia, and then creating feedback loops. That’s solvable, by the way. Jasmine 21:38Yeah, it totally solved I didn’t need to be I didn’t experience it after but every other person who I’d spoken to later on, they hadn’t mentioned anything like that. So I thought something was wrong with Well, not wrong with me. But maybe I was just more sensitive than others. Bill 21:53I have had very similar experiences after retreats as well. The world can be feel like a bit of a brutal place after you’ve spent 10 days kind of playing your nasal. Lorin Roche 22:08Yes, yes. And that’s to be avoided. That’s from lack of boundaries, dial up your sensitivity, you also need to dial in strength boundaries. And one of the problems in meditation is denial. Lorin Roche 22:27Is that Lorin Roche 22:29the meditation world tend to deny that there’s negative side effects where there’s lots of negative side effects to meditation. And any any real sport. Everybody knows if there’s anything tennis, there, people playing tennis over there? Well, there’s lots, there’s lots of different tennis injuries. There’s minor ones, like getting blisters on your feet to getting sunburned to do overusing your tendons, singer singers, injured their voices. Adele had to cancel these huge concerts in England, because she, she loves making those huge sounds and she blew out her voice, every sport and meditation, there’s a sense of denial, so they don’t notice they’re not recording, the negative side effects. And, and the other is not listening. You if you really listen to students, you’ll find out it’s incredible. Like when I’m I trained meditation teachers, and one of the things that we do so simple, is when people come to learn to meditate, just listen to sessions. Just tell me about your natural meditative experiences. Lorin Roche 23:51And when do you feel most at home in the world? When do you feel thrilled to be alive? Lorin Roche 24:00What are your natural doorways in to where you just feel like you’re in, I’m in me and being me. Okay, well, let’s build your meditation practice. To be that is and that’s actually what meditation is. meditation practices in general. It’s how did the at home in yourself and thrilled to be alive? That’s what meditation is. That’s what Ohm means. It’s at home, I’m at home in the universe. And I’m, I’m ecstatic to be it’s a privilege every moment to participate in creation. It’s a thrill to privilege. And, and, and we find that if you didn’t listen to people have a couple of sessions where like an hour and a half. He just will tell me about your net win. And you’ll and you’ll find the most amazing thing Almost everybody has had profound meditative experiences. They don’t know that that’s meditation, it’s not categorised as meditation. And, and as you listen to people, they’ll teach you how to teach them. And also, it feels like such an honour. When people are talking about their, there’s moments when they experience the magic of life, it feels, it feels like a privilege to be there. Listening, it’s almost like you’d pay them. When a teacher is in this position, it’s like you will almost want to pay the student because they’re teaching you something that’s infinitely precious. That’s just extraordinary. I mean, meditation is a natural human experience. And it’s instinctive, it’s built into our bodies. And and the more natural you are in your approach to yourself, the better. Lorin Roche 26:10The end of the lab, Lorin Roche 26:13you at the University of California at Irvine, after a while, they developed UC Irvine Medical School, and they were doing physiological research on meditation, they had people I would go in, they would stick needles in my arms and take blood samples, every couple of minutes. UCLA was doing really good research, and Harvard Medical School was doing. So these three centres of research. were focusing on the physiology of meditation. And it turns out that with, even with the beginner, someone who’s had just a couple of weeks to get used to the idea of meditating. With the simplest meditation instruction, it’s like, hey, okay, just pick something you want to think about. Okay? Go ahead and hang out with it. And but don’t make any effort, don’t block out thoughts, just welcome everything. Even even in a lab, which is weird, it’s weird to go into a lab to meditate. Maybe measuring a physiological baseline, and then say, okay, meditate. And three minutes, the person, people would drop into a state of rest deeper than deep sleep, to the set. And this is what I experienced spontaneously, when in the lab that I was in, in 1968. You drop into the state of relaxation, deeper than deep sleep. That’s so refreshing. So this is a major scientific finding. And, and although it was replicated, over and over and over again in the 70s, and 80s, still not what people are thinking about when I think about meditation. I think I think this is this is the best vacation I’ve ever been on. I don’t need any tools. I don’t need to interfere with my mind. I don’t need to work at it. I can just give over to this innate instinctive rhythm. Jasmine 28:20I love how in your book, meditation made easy, you emphasise this a lot. And Bill actually, what the book for me, which was a lovely gift. And when, when you like, I find it so rare that other teachers really emphasise the human experience just naturally. And how do you see meditation being spread in this way like that this is actually how you would say, you know, it’s easier than you know, just even having to sit down and, like, follow some formulaic structure of an exercise. How do you see this being spread? And like, what are the barriers to it? Do it Lorin Roche 29:11give me say that again, but it’s give me a specific, get Jasmine 29:16more specific. And so in terms of like, the mainstream apps and places that are taught even in schools, it’s all based around, I think, the more formal meditation styles, but it’s so rare to find someone who is advocating that style of meditation that you would say like you’d be speaking about yoga. Yeah. And how can we you know, allow others to know more about it in such a way, but when the main offering is what has always been offered. Lorin Roche 29:54That is, that is the challenge and Lorin Roche 30:00Things that are far more formal. Lorin Roche 30:03They sound appealing to people people really want to know, like people, they really want something that helps them. Now part of what’s going on is that the people who are meditating to great extent many of them, they don’t go to church anymore. And so, what it’s what’s happening is that the, the meditation teachers take on the role of being a priest, Lorin Roche 30:37and teaching religion. Lorin Roche 30:41And so like, if you think about like, a white people’s church, it’s all you go, any new set, you sit still, and you try to act spiritual, and be all respectful. Like you’re, you’re kind of sitting there. And so, Westerners who approach meditation or sense being blindsided, and there’s the meditation, what is coming at us through our neglected religious yearning. So, meditation is sitting, it’s actually just sitting in church trying to be good, trying to be observant. And there’s a lot of value to that. However, if you want to just be able to, like every day, week, after week, year after year, be able to walk on the door, and say, instead of saying, like, God, I need a beer right now. Or, oh, I need a glass of wine or I such a day, I need to smoke something, if you want meditation to be so it works so well. That it’s instinctively satisfying, then you need to construct your practice so that you’re utterly natural with yourself. And it doesn’t work to be reverent or mindful, if you people are mindful all day at work, people are concentrating all day at work. If you make meditation into being work, then you’ll have to go somewhere else to cut loose. So this approach that I’m describing here, is the technology of meditation. That’s for people who live in the world. Meditation for people who have jobs, a home of a love life is very different technically, than meditation for professional monks who their job is to act holy obey. When when we come home from work, when we get up in the morning, we need to be so free with ourselves that it’s like, Bring it on, bring on the thoughts, bring on my to do list, bring on the tears bring on the laughter. So we need to be so free that in a space of a couple of minutes of meditation, we can be like crying, we can get mad, we can feel turned on sexually, we can start laughing again. Then we can get okay my to do list or we can be absorbed in our to do list and endorse ourselves actually rejoiced how great that I have a couple minutes to sit here. I’ve got had some peace of mind. And now I can like feel into my to do list and all the people I’m going to see today. That’s what meditation is like for somebody who’s responsible. And who has things to do. There’s, it’s a very dynamic state. And while you’re deeply relaxed, deeper than sleep, you still think a lot. Because what what the body does when in a state of relaxation, is that it tunes itself up and heals. It does repair work like during sleep. Lorin Roche 34:13And so Lorin Roche 34:16this just full rotations very much like a movie where you’re like, Okay, now I’m sexually turned on now and falling. Now I’m falling asleep annotation. Now I’m mad at my boss or I’m mad at this. Now I’m worried about this. I don’t want my to do list. Now I’m crying. I’m laughing. And it’s like, who know I’m completely clear. If that dynamic and that works and millions of people have been taught that style of meditation. itself, um, the Buddhists and the mindfulness people. They’re like the best thinkers. There’s there’s like hundreds 10s of thousands of therapists and people with PhDs and researchers, it’s the best meditation community, the the Buddhist doing the best intellectual work. I mean, it’s just, it’s a fantastic community. They the tradition I’m coming from, it doesn’t really have a name. It’s, it’s in the realm of yoga. And you could call it Tantra. But we don’t know, in the West, we don’t know what Tantra means. It’s a contract text, and is engineered from the beginning to be for people who live in the world. Bill 35:48I wonder, I was hoping to ask you a bit more about the. So there’s, there’s a few topics that around, it isn’t interesting to explore. Perhaps the first would be, I wonder if you’ve dug into the Tera vaada, and maps of enlightenment. And just be interesting to hear your thoughts on. Lorin Roche 36:17It’s so sophisticated. I mean, I’ve, I could say I’ve only glanced at the literature. And a lot of my friends over the last 5050 5052 years are Buddhists. And I Tibetans, I love the Tibetan Buddhist, I just love them. And Camille, those two Camille and I met at Project Tibet and Santa Fe, where I was teaching. Lorin Roche 36:48But I’m, I’m interested in the maps. And I’m in a sense, starting at the beginning, I did. Lorin Roche 37:02I did my bachelor’s degree, and my masters and my PhD at the maps that meditators make to describe their internal experiences. And so the mouse, my, my engagement with mapmaking has been how do people make sense of their experience? And it’s just I’m interested in regular people, like people have babies, people who are entrepreneurs, people who who live alone, but they want to be in relationship, people who used to be married now the divorce and living alone. People who work in factories, soldiers, I’m interested in just regular people, what maps could they make? And there’s all these sensations that we feel during meditation, and afterward, we turn up the dial on sensations, there’s all these emotions. Like it’s, for example, with women, it’s very common for women to cry for months, when they begin meditating, there’s a cry, the whole meditation, just cry and cry and cry and cry and cry for months, sometimes six months. There’s all emotions, and then all manner of thoughts. So that’s, that’s the level of discourse that I’m engaged with. I don’t I don’t have a critique of the, the Theravada maps itself, that we’ve received this incredible gift from the monks and the Swamis and the Lamas, and the Yogi’s of this data from their exploration, so meditation, and our challenge is to take the gift of all these techniques, like Buddha, Buddha said, once monks, I’ve given you 84,000, different Dharma doors for all the different kinds of people out there are our challenges to accept the gift, and then reinvent meditation to be truly appropriate for all the kinds of people in the modern world that are wanting to meditate, which is lots. There’s lots of different kinds of people. And the last thing we want to do when someone comes to learn to meditate is imposed on them some creepy technique that’s just not native to them. Bill 39:37Nice. I wonder what your thoughts are on the concept of enlightenment. Awakening. Again, is Lorin Roche 39:49I didn’t – I banned the word starting in around 1975. Like I just stopped using it. Yeah. Because I in the people that I was around to ask Thoroughly 70s it was just blah, blah blah enlightenment, this blah, blah, blah. It’s a seat for him. It was just a garbage word. Yeah. Yeah. used to mean that you’re not okay the way you are. And there’s this higher state you’re supposed to get to. Yes, exactly like, exactly like saying, like to regular people, dude, your car is for shit. Got to buy a new car of this particular brand. Yeah. Otherwise, just to feel bad about yourself. Yeah. So I didn’t use the word for decades. And then about 10 years ago, I thought, but that’s a beautiful word. Like, let’s use enlightenment, lowercase and like an invisible air quotes. like to talk about? Let’s use it in a positive. Yeah. Like, I think that in the West, we have to reinvent the concept of enlightenment. And it’ll probably take a couple hundred years. I mean, as we all know, most of the time, when somebody says I’m enlightened, it means that they’re starting a deranged cult. And using their, their converting meditation into a mind control techniques. And then years later, you’ll hear the inside story. Yeah. Yeah. Incredible abuse and degradation. Yeah, it’s really like, if I’m a map, really, it’s like, if there’s a master, then there’s got to be a lot of slaves. Yeah. As we were talking about earlier, in the, in India, in these systems, there’s people at the top who are like reincarnating, they’re very privileged people. And there’s lots of slaves that are just live lives of degradation. So that goes on a lot in the meditation traditions. It’s shameful. It’s shameful. So I actually think we’re at the very beginning stages of figuring out how to make meditation truly beneficial, because when I would Camille and I spend every day we interview regular people who are learning to meditate and people have been meditating for years. And it’s like, a lot of times, it’s like, Why waste your time? meditating? You could, you could be taking a walk. The way people approach meditation, yeah, it’s not that healthy. When people want to just sit to meditate. They have all these voices in their heads, like, sit up straight, be mindful, don’t have those thoughts. Don’t feel sexual, don’t be angry, be compassionate. You’re not doing it right. And it’s a war, the way meditation is practised. It’s often as a war against the self as a war against also being a young person. And all these ideals, so it’s not that it’s not healthy. It’s um, meditation is more like dieting to at least it into Americans. As your your eyes reading something, okay, this is gonna work. You post some weird rules on yourself. You starve yourself, do practice denial for a while, maybe you lose a little bit of weight. But then you’ve taught your body that there’s a famine on, and it should, because whenever you die, it it makes your body feel like oh my god, there’s a shortage of food I’ve got accumulate some fat here, and then you wind up fatter. People are approaching meditation, just like dieting, they’re constantly failing. And with each failure, they’re damaged a little bit. (First 40min. Continues..)

A friend from Awakin Circle (no relation), James is a remarkable character, engaged in the social dimensions of awakening and community. Audio Version Subscribe in your favorite podcast app: Subscribe Links James’ Projects Find Enlight ProjectEnroll Yourself Learning Marathon (Creative & Analytic thinking )QT – Community Magazine During Lockdown Influences Creative Mornings (Creative Lecture series )Awakin London (Local Mindful community)Plant Environment (Local Growing Community)RSAKen Willber & Integral theory (Clean up, Wake up, grow up show up)Metacognition & Self Referential Thinking in arts & lifeNeuroplasticityPermaculture thinkingSystems Thinking Conduit Club has sadly closed! Bill’s work Endlesss – collaborative music appHopin – virtual events platform Transcript (First 40 minutes only – that’s all we could get for free from Otter app 🤷‍♂️) Jasmine 0:09Today on the show is the lovely James. And initially how we first came to know him myself and Bill was both, again through the awake in circles. And you do something special, I think, James, for your work, I think you’re probably on the side of – it’s more unusual, I guess. And even the theme that you proposed today was very interesting. And so maybe you can explain to others like what you do, and maybe where you are right now. James Kite 0:56Cool. Hello, both of you. Thanks for having me. So, being able to explain what I do is probably taken me more than 10 years, and I don’t know if I’m ever gonna get there. But the last out a six to seven years or so I’ve been in the fields of like social arts producing. And for me, that involves kind of jumping from different domains. It involves, like community development, it involves cognition, being understand being able to understand myself and the way I relate to other people. And I guess the framing of how I ended up in this space was, I was really introduced to polymathic thinkers very early on. And I saw the benefit of being in multiple disciplines. And I see the benefit for myself individually. But then the next step is being able to communicate to people that I’m just not in one domain, but I enjoy being in multiple domains. So in summary, I used the word social odds producing, but it’s probably a lot broader than that. And yeah, so that has, that kind of led me to running events with various themes, some mindfulness, some social, economic, some interpersonal, and I’ve been using event as like playgrounds to explore the multiple domains I’ve been running into. So I would say that’s a summary of it. I guess we could probably delve a bit deeper as, as the conversation proceeds. Bill 2:43It sounds fascinating. I still don’t quite understand, but I’ve got a slightly better idea now. What What would you say? What would you say? Your what, what what are your aims? And what what are you what? Like, obviously, real life events are kind of off the menu at the moment. But yeah, what have you been looking to achieve with with your work, I guess? James Kite 3:12I’ve been looking to kind of develop, like a fuller sense of myself, and feel a sense of the community around me. I think that, at the deepest core of what I’m trying to do is find the most conducive way for us to as a humanity and, and myself to, to kind of coexist and thrive. And, yes, so that’s led me into the like the field of creativity. I kind of come from a bit of music background, but I felt like the skills in music, or the things that you’re practising is actually applicable to so many different fields, the skills of like centering yourself, incenting, what you want to communicate to the world. And I’ve thought of that as just community building. So that’s the that’s the simple kind of answer community building that’s able to not just withstand the world we’re in but kind of build a new world based on the way we interact with each other based on the spaces we create, and how that creates new ways of engaging. Hmm, yeah, it’s kind of like, it’s like I pulled in a thread, and the thread just kept going. I can give you an example. It’s like so I would want people to be able to engage with each other a bit better in a space in a community space, right and get to the depth of what they’re feeling. But in order to do that, that you need to think of, what is the space? What’s like the condition of the space? What’s the kind of interpersonal psychological things going on? And then what’s the music thing in the background, etc, etc. So, um, and because I wasn’t doing it for, like a mark, so I’m not doing it in an academic setting, or I’m not doing it to have immediate financial benefit, I have the freedom to just keep pulling the thread. So I don’t I don’t have to contain it in a box. So I could go in many domain I wish and and yeah, I guess the something is always helpful to anchor people is if I drop a name in here, and the name would be Zack Stein, a guy I’m reading a lot. And he he’s also a multi disciplinary kind of thinker. And, and he talks about the the development of, of a human being in, in like these three domains of instalment development, and transcendence. So the kind of one the walk of awaken, and meditation is the transcendence, but they all interplay with each other. They all interrelate. So, you can’t just be focused on one domain, or else. It’s kind of at a disadvantage of the other domains. So it’s kind of like, I think, yeah, go on Jasmine. Jasmine 6:36So when you actually are talking about like, the two other domains, can you delve into deeper to what, what kind of practices might someone be looking into to develop these areas? And then also, also what what they are? Yeah. Bill 6:54Yeah. Sorry. James Kite 6:57So right. Okay, so, so I kind of figured I’ve been doing this intuitively, for the last few years. But I recently discovered Zack Stein, and it’s a bit more formalised, and it has a lot of research behind it. So the domains that I intuitively went into was creativity, and then analytical thinking, and then kind of humour and play. Mm hmm. But in the, in the Zack Stein kind of model, which he’s gathered from loads of different people, his instalment, which is therapy, yourself, trauma, it’s quite unique to yourself. It’s about your soul, I guess. And it’s kind of what you mentioned in the previous episode with Liam, that a lot of meditators can transcend, but they may not be able to work in there, like the practical, what does it mean to them? Right. So that’s the instalment. As much as I understand it, I could begin this wrong disclaimer to anyone listening. And then development is cognition, your ability to acquire skills in might be being a beautiful writer, it’s like the skill domain. And its language, and you can zoom into that a bit more. And the transcendence is kind of like, being able to observe yourself, like from the third person, like the state that people get, after they’ve meditated for a long time, or, or not even in, in Buddhist traditions, you could even think of it in, in just the narratives of religion, the kind of place the human in a longer arc of history rather than just you specifically. And yeah, so you want to be able to, and there’s, there’s techniques in each of these domains, you can so in the transcendent, we may know, meditation, you may know, I guess, metacognition is probably another term I could throw in there. And then in the development category, I would in my head is probably along the lines of more discipline and skill, acquisition focus, and just doing things repeatedly to kind of develop that aspect. And then the instalment might be a little bit of self reflection. Where did you dream How can you interpretate that? How do you for me, it also involves kind of making music or art for yourself in the in some category, to kind of figure out yourself on a very unique basis, not as thing that you necessarily have to go and like, preach out to everyone, but everyone will have their own unique aspect, you know? So. And yeah, so that’s a that’s a slight summary. I think people can delve deeper into it. But intuitively you want to feel like you’re delving deep within yourself. And then you’re taking what you’ve delve deep within yourself and interacting with the world. And you want to have this kind of reciprocal cycle. Bill 10:32Hmm. Nice. It’s it sounds It reminds me of another kind of way of framing that I guess I had come into the speaker it might have been. Yeah, I’ll get back to that. But the, the idea was you’ve got these three, three kind of ways of, of developing, waking up, which would be the the Enlightenment thing. And meditation and growing up is actually sort of ethically becoming a bad person. And cleaning cleaning up which is dealing with your shadow side, and all the stuff that you Yeah, you’d rather not look at. James Kite 11:15I think that might be Ken Wilber perhaps like integral theory? kind of Bill 11:19think it could be? Yeah. James Kite 11:21And yet the guy’s Eckstein. I mentioned he’s, he’s like, heavily influenced by Ken Wilber. And they work together. So it probably overlap there. Yeah. Bill 11:32Nice. Yeah, well, so much to unpack here. How do you how do you approach these do? I mean? So you talked about building community? And then these three kind of aspects of human development? How did they? How do they relate? James Kite 11:52So So kind of, I do a lot of personal research. So online, like the academic stuff that I’m talking about? Jasmine 12:03You do? James Kite 12:06Yeah, a lot of Jasmine 12:07he’s always James Kite 12:09right, going down the rabbit hole. So yeah, I guess my ambition is kind of like, I can have a conversation with anyone and suggest them a book or a video or link. And just being able to conversate with anyone I run into in whichever domain. And so the way which so I did a lot of this research, and then I tried to think of Okay, so I read Daniel Pink, who’s a real author. And he talks about drive and what motivates people and I’m like, Okay, so how can I place this in, in a project with friends and people who are interested? And how can I use these theoretical kind of toolkits to, to kind of projects that actually have an impact in the way people and people don’t need to say, like, I used to go around a lot like saying, you should read this, you should do that. And then I started realising if I can embody it in some way, rather than if I can create the environment where people can learn without me having to tell them to read something. That’s the goal. Right? So some, yeah, I could go into the projects, but that’s, that’s the mindset behind behind the, the approach. Bill 13:31Yeah, yeah, dude, do tell us about the projects. Jasmine 13:34Okay, so maybe you can, like, take one of the things that you wanted to like unpack, like one of the disciplines or one of the theories and then say, like, how you may be formulated something like that? That’d be really cool. James Kite 13:50Sure. Okay. So I was really, like, so over the last year, I was running something called inperson, which is kind of like a community film night. And what I really wanted to do is communicate interesting concepts and theories of transformation. Kind of like the butterfly effect, loads of kind of concepts that are think very prescient at all times. It’s very relevant. And the way in which I kind of approach that was kind of everything I’ve learned throughout the years. I structured the event, it would like as a regular every two weeks, it would happen. And that went on for a year. So that every two weeks aspect was you want to create regularity, because that’s how kind of people cultivate community community doesn’t happen in a flash pan. So they need to have, they need to just be able to turn up and not have to think Or even check online. So that’s one element. And then the second element was, I kind of realised that there’s a lot of noise in the way in which we communicate. So there was like, very purposeful design of silence for the first for the first 10 minutes or so of arriving at the event. And there was food, which is just breaks down the ambitions and stuff and like self consciousness. So the event went like a moment of silence and introduction, we would watch kind of very creative, short films, very abstract, it could be interpreted in loads of different ways, sprinkled in with some more factual videos. And then, after the videos, instead of telling people what they should have got from the videos, and they were broken up into groups, and people discussed the themes that came up with them. And then after that, we kind of all got together and shared what we got from the videos. And so there is multiple layers going on here, which is the theme that’s been explored on the night. And then there is the just the act of watching something interpretating it for yourself and communicating it to people. So it doesn’t really matter what theme we’re doing. That is actually the the unspoken kind of lesson or the unspoken thing we’re digesting in the space. And we’ve I think we’ve been awakened. Right? So it’s Yeah, it’s like taking stuff that I’ve kind of learned and loved about or weakens our calls about other creative events I’ve been to and kind of synthesising that. I also have, I could go on because there’s quite a lot of projects, but there’s to do, there is there’s a project that I’m currently working on, which is with an organisation called enrol yourself. And enrol yourself is a peer learning kind of journey American, which I feel is is is where education will be going in the future. And it’s, it’s not hierarchically driven. It’s kind of giving people the toolkits to learn for themselves. So people who want to keep learning, but not necessarily in an institutional format, or by themselves, what you what will unfold is, I think, over the next year, I’m going to be hosting a learning marathon with enrol yourself. And the concept is, anyone can come along, and they may have a burning question or something they want to explore in their own personal lives. And they will have the space held for them with their fellow peers. And over six months, they will kind of refine what the question means to them. They will run workshops, and they will learn from each other. And an hour will have a container and I have a loose theme in mind and I’ll recruit the people that I feel could work well together. And so with that, what my question going into it and hosting is how can people have analytical mind, like analytically? analytically natured people, people may be like coders and people who are more analytical driven, how can they work with creative people? And have a mutual exchange? Like how can the creatives learn to be perhaps a bit more analytical and discipline? And how can analytically driven people learn how to be more kind of novel driven and like, generative in a creative way? So So yeah, that’s enrol yourself and that I’m going to Yeah, I’m going to be starting over the next few months. And yeah, mostly looking for people who want to be involved in that. And yeah, I think I’ll pause that. Jasmine 19:26And, and how do you step into the space of like, because it’s quite easy to say that someone might be more like an escort than the other or like the display their creativity via their like, unless for me, and, yeah, and just kind of that space, like how are you planning on navigating? The nuances? James Kite 19:53Yeah, great, great question. So I i intuitively feel way beyond Have analytical ways of thinking and creative ways of thinking, it’s just at a certain age, in the educational form, we’re kind of encouraged to pursue one avenue. So it’s just a muscle that we’ve trained more than the other muscle. So I think everyone has the capacity. So I would kind of invite people to, to tap into aspects of themselves, that is dormant within them. But with the assurance that they don’t have to do that by themselves, because they can be in a group with other people who may have the skills that they want to kind of develop a bit more. So kind of encouraging them to, to enquire the situation not as, like fixing yourself, but just like awakening a part of yourself that’s been dormant, that will complement each other, right? Because I think, like, exercising is a very good kind of analogy for me, because you kind of need the mindset to get up in the morning and work on your physical traits, right. But in you getting up and working on your physical trades, it allows your cognition to be able to perform better throughout the day. And that cycle kind of reinforces itself. Right? So, hmm. So yeah, that’s the kind of the way the model in which I’m looking at these kind of facets of development. Bill 21:30Nice, I Jasmine 21:32find that interesting. And I like how each of the different kind of events or ideas that you have are just, as you said, initially, just, you know, very eclectic, and wouldn’t necessarily be from the same person. Not necessarily anyway. So it’s, it’s very inspired. And I love the process that you take, for example, the breaking down, how am I going to create, you know, an event such as this, but thinking very creatively about it, too. So I feel like you embody that well, within the process in which you have intuitively found. And, yeah, Bill 22:21nice. Where are you? Where are you doing that? I mean, obviously, we’re, we’re now kind of a bit limited in physical space. But where are you? Where have you been running these these events. James Kite 22:38So historically, that in passing events have been in like, is LinkedIn, London. So that’s been in a physical space. But I’ve been able to kind of alter some aspects of it and do it remotely. So when kind of like the pandemic hit and the lockdown happened, instead of trying to kind of rush and just do it on zoom, I thought of what is the essence of what people got from the event. And I translated that into, just like calling each guest that comes and having a like a one hour two hour conversation, and finding out about what their experience has been in the lockdown of getting very quite personal. And talking, talking about everything from kind of just zooming into the quality of engagement, and then compiling a booklet of everyone’s stories, so people can read each other’s stories. So it’s a way of them were not feeling alienated. In they’re not feeling alienated in their kind of experience. And this was actually, the idea of a partner of mine with the whole finding, like project is what I call that. He, he thought of the idea, and together, we kind of fleshed it out and called people. Yeah, I kind of paused for a while, because I’m thinking of like, I think it’s worth to zoom in a little bit with that project emerged from the idea of the partner of mine were heed, and he came to the event as a guest. So I think there’s something really interesting if you can create spaces where you like, there isn’t a clear line between a guest and someone who can be an active agent in creating something. So after a while, I’m getting as much from the participants and guests because they can come with ideas and that can grow into something else. And so I kind of that links in with the theme of the ecology of care that I kind of wanted to talk about, which is I think, I think it’s it’s kind of it’s just not an effective strategy to slowly develop yourself without having the ecology of like, friends, peers, families and people around you. Like, it’s kind of like a reciprocal act, if you if you want to grow a flower, you don’t just focus on the flower, you focus on the soil, the kind of the rain, the sun, there’s multiple factors around, right. So the ecology of care, for me is about caring for the components around you, in order for you to, to then flourish as well. And how, how that act kind of amplifies anything you could individually do. So, so yeah, I think that’s quite an important concept that I want to play with and like, invite people to, to think of themselves as part of an ecology of other people. And by helping the people around you helping your ecology to flourish. I mean, yeah, I Jasmine 26:05guess like, I, this is the same as what would be often, like inspiration golf, in the meditation context of everything is interconnected. And basically, the a lot of Zen teachings go around, and allowing ourselves to understand that we could not be who we are without the help of others, or just even environment and so on. And then I’m wondering, where you plan to, like, take that? And like, how do you think that it’s scalable? Because of course, you’re doing this on? You’ve been like heading these, but how do you think that like really unfolds? What do you think community often stays local and, and smaller and such as well. James Kite 26:57So I think the thing I really like to communicate, and the reason why I find it hard to sometimes communicate the ideas is because at times, I want to give the whole process of what I’m thinking when I’m doing something in order for people to replicate it. So instead of saying I did a, I want to say, this is how this is how I fished instead of talking about the fish, I want to talk about the process. And for me, it’s about self, I think, mindfulness meditation, and that whole world is good at being self reflective. And so that skill has allowed me to take into various domains of being always self reflective of what’s going on. So I kind of invite anyone who’s listening to, to delve into like, meta cognition, and if you enjoy anything, like a film, or kind of understand what are the parts, like you’ve got a director, you’ve got to produce a, you’ve got actors. So for me, I think things will, we’ll have, like a chance of reproducing itself, if I can share the tools of how I made something, and then others can go and make, like an event similar to this or, and, and that helps me because if other people are experimenting somewhere else with the tools, they can always feedback and, and like, let me know, ways it could be better. So, so yeah, that’s my, my idea is not to have everything nested under my projects, but to facilitate other people’s projects. So they could grow. And, like that feeds back, it goes back to the ecology of care, but on project levels. Um, so yeah, so that’s kind of the Yeah, the approach. Bill 28:49I love the way you frame that, it’s something that I think I’ve I’ve seen a lot of in the meditation world is a real focus on the self, perhaps too much focus on the self, because it is driven by a need to do that stages, you go on a retreat, and you have to work on yourself in that context. And, you know, Buddha said, no one can work out your problems for you, it’s all on you. And you know, you’ve kind of got to put the work in and, and, and, you know, blast through and transcend and that there’s so much of that dialogue in in Buddhism and, and the meditation and new age and yoga world, you know, that that, that the community gets lost, and it all becomes all about the individual and you know, attaining that perfect yoga pose or whatever stage of enlightenment you think you’ve reached. James Kite 29:53Yeah, I think I think it’s at least it’s kind of have been easy for me to be a bit forgiving in these contexts. Because once you understand the socio economic factors that are playing, like, economically, it’s better to be a guru than to give the tools out. Because economically, I can exploit people and they can pay me if I have all the answers. Or if I yeah, or even before that, right, in order to sell something to an organisation or corporate organisation, you have to speak in the terms of that’s going to yield return on investment. Right. So So all of that kind of work, where we’re in a context. So that context kind of shapes the ways in which we interpretate whatever tool we come across. So yeah. So it’s kind of, it’s kind of humorous to laugh at it, but it’s almost inevitable to see how, like, that’s going to be interpreted, you know? Yeah. And it’s Yeah, it’s a really fascinating game of how do we play within this context, but not succumb to the context? It’s that it? For me, it’s gonna go on? Oh, Bill 31:10yeah. Yeah, yeah. And even when there’s no money involved, I mean, I’m a kind of product of the going tradition in lots of ways in terms of my meditation background, and that there is basically no money in that they keep it clean. You know, it’s donation only you can only donate if you’ve done a course. And so they’ve really managed, they’ve been really successful. And that, that aspect of it. Yeah. That beds, still it kind of, to my mind really suffers from that. atomization of people into kind of meditation James Kite 31:48units. Yeah, I’d be interested to find out. How do you Why do you think why do you think it perpetuates itself? Even without like the explicit, like monetary exchange? Bill 32:01Why do I think the going for institution has been successful? Do you mean? James Kite 32:06Or like, the shortcomings as well? of like, yeah, how do we reproduce the same kind of traits of a monetary system, even when we’re not using money at times? that that kind of fascinates me? Huh? Bill 32:24Yeah, I mean, I think it’s been successful because it works. On a basic level, that kind of meditation done in a high dose in a short space of time, like that. has generally incredibly powerful positive effects. Yeah. And people come out of it, and they’re just like, wow, that was the most life changing thing I’ve ever experienced. Take my money. Yeah. on that level, you know, it works. It it still. Yeah, I mean, the downsides are, it’s it’s a huge institution with that gets very set in its ways. And that’s kind of the nature of big institutions. Jasmine 33:02I think what’s also like, as you said, though, like, if they didn’t give value, they know would come back, you know. And when someone has gifted you with a gift, it’s almost like, you just want to give them something back to like, just our search to show appreciation. So I think it just comes from that basic human fundamental of when we feel like we’ve been treated really well. We want to reciprocate in some way. Bill 33:35Yeah, and that was the basis for all human exchange until just a couple of thousand years ago, there was no money. Exactly. It was all based on gifts. And I owe us for millennia. Jasmine 33:47Yeah. And actually, more recently, I’ve been skill sharing with people. So I know that a lot of people have had changes in like circumstances, or their work situations that they might have a bit more time. And so I’ve been mentoring quite a few people in exchange for their maybe their skills in a particular area, which I can’t otherwise get. And that has been so wonderful how it’s happened organically. I think there’s been like, at least 10 different exchanges. And there’s also some of my friends, I have two friends who I know from good stead.com and it’s basically a volunteering platform where people can put up challenges. They’ve extended it now to just anyone. It used to be specifically for social enterprises to put up challenges. asking people for their help from like brainstorming to physical work or advisory related but They have been so successful actually during lockdown, because there are a lot of people who want to volunteer. And I’ve done a few myself, for example, one was writing a lesson to an elderly person, so they wouldn’t be lonely. And that really facilitates I think, community building as well. And I’ve got a few challenges for a new project that I’ve been working on. Which is like a self self love journey, in the process of love letters. And so many people have actually volunteered to help in specific realms that I’ve needed from video editing, to illustration to branding. It’s been incredible. James Kite 35:51Wow. Yeah, please share that. That organisation, I’ll, I’ll dig up the show notes as well. Yeah, cuz I think a big a big part of kind of like, the challenge that I’m finding is also developing kind of authentic, collaborative relations. Like they’re not too contrived, like being able to have people on similar wavelength who want to collaborate, and really delve into, like the projects, rather than, like someone being a guest, or me communicating something to someone like, I kind of love the idea of kind of getting allies, right. Like people who we can work together, develop things and then go out into the world and, like, yeah, kickstart projects. Yeah, I think, I know, it’s that like a podcast format. But I’d love to hear the projects that you and Jasmine, are exploring. And yeah, I mean, what are the Jasmine 36:56limited to it’s not limited this kind of like how we’ve structured the weekend. podcast, okay. We’ve just, it’s not so formal as it is just more conversational. But because he were, it was so interesting, some of the things you were saying. It became, I guess, more q&a. Do you want to go back? Bill 37:20Yeah, I mean, my I’m mostly awake in podcasts is the is the one kind of key project for me, I guess. Otherwise, I’m doing some collaborative music stuff online with last year, I worked on this amazing music app called Endlesss, which is kind of a collaborative platform. And I’m making music with with friends around the world on that. I’m putting an album together. I am learning. The moment I’ve got this ambition. I don’t know how far I’m going to realise it, but to learn like 3d stuff for the web, okay. I also pick up my keyboard skills. So you know, bits and bobs like that nice. Otherwise, my day job takes all my cognitive load. And by the end of the day sounds like a good healthy day job is an interesting once it’s kind of another collaborative platform. Okay, people used to put on virtual events. So I’m, I’m a designer working on that. And it’s great fun, there’s loads loads to do, but it’s a really, really cool platform to be working on. James Kite 38:34That sounds like a nice very, Jasmine 38:37actually, Bill, can you share a bit more about endler? I think actually, James would be interested in Bill 38:43Endlesss. Endlesss is amazing. It’s the brainchild of a guy called Tim Shaw – stage name Tim Exile, who had a kind of maybe a decade or so in the music industry as James Kite 39:00blue in exile is one of the album’s I think he’s done now. Is he like a music person? Bill 39:06Yeah, it could be he was a drum and bass guy back in okay. He was on leaving shadow records. Anyhow, he got into he got into live improv and he toured the world as a as a Yeah. Electronic improvising musician, with this incredible rig that he built. And the Endlesss platform is kind of his his him and friends and myself for a while work to kind of get this interface into iPhone screen and make it a kind of multiplayer collaborative thing. So Wow, is now available now in the App Store. Coming soon to desktop, they just had an amazing Kickstarter that smashed all their expectations. So yeah, That’s a really fun thing I recommend having a play. Well, we’ll stick a link in the show notes, folks.

Thinking about starting to meditate? The good news is you do already! Meditation is an innate ability we all share. We’re joined again by our friend Liam Chai for a philosophical, wide-ranging chat about the many ways people meditate, and the various ways you can learn to deepen your practice – everything from 2 minute breathing exercises from apps to week long silent retreats. Audio Version Subscribe in your favorite podcast app: Subscribe Links ⏳ Recommended app – Insight Timer☀️ Liam’s site – liamchai.com😉 ‘The Goenka gang’ – Silent vipassana meditation retreats somewhere near you- dhamma.org Books Lorin Roche – Meditation made easy We’re on Youtube too 😄 Transcript An experiment this episode – rather than type up timings and notes, we’ve run the audio through a transcriber app. It’s not entirely accurate, but hey you get the whole text and we were able to release the episode now rather than “when we have time to do the notes” What do you think? Also: any volunteers to do show notes for us? 😄 Bill 0:08So we’re here today to talk about getting started with meditation. Perhaps I could ask you to kick off live as a show guest today. Liam 0:26Okay. I was your show guest last week too! Bill 0:33Because we love you. Liam 0:37Yeah, I think it’s a it’s a relevant theme for me at the moment. I feel like I don’t know about the two of you. But I, I definitely come in. I think going in ways I think recently with my own practice. You know, there’s like, these periods of like, pretty intense, daily practice, especially on on retreat. But then I think after coming, I remember one time being on retreat. It was like a short weekend retreat. And someone was, yeah, he said, Oh, it was my first retreat that I went on. And, you know, I wasn’t, he was like, I wasn’t drinking alcohol. I wasn’t eating all this junk food. And I was meditating all the time on this retreat. And then he said, the first thing he did when he came back to is, you know, came off of retreat and back home. He said, he just he just binge on everything. He was like drinking, he was eating junk food. And he was like, just going in reverse. And, yeah, I feel like there’s this sort of similar cycle that plays out, you know, yeah, from like, really intense practice. And then after that, it’s kind of really, there’s not bothering and stepping away from the practice. And now, yeah, you know, so I feel like this podcast is. Yeah, it’s almost like a signal. Okay, it’s time to like, get back into the practice some more. So, it’s a good topic. I Jasmine 2:08actually thought about that. Exactly. today. I was thinking if we’re having on it on the, on the desk, we’re talking constantly about meditation, it’s absolutely vital that our practices solid. So I completely agree with Bill 2:25you. Yeah, I would add to that, that, it’s, I don’t know, formal practice is a thing, right. And we all get kind of a bit attached to it. I think that, oh, you know, I’ve done my meditation today, I’m fine. You know, everything’s cool. Or, like, Oh, I haven’t, you know, I’m a bad person. And I’m slacking on my journey. And I’m trying to make more space in life for just to acknowledge all the other kinds of meditation that I do as well, you know, like, just just sitting in a bath. And that’s, that’s been, I’m starting to sort of understand better how big a thing that is for me, that I can just sit in a sandbox with no, nothing, you know, that I sort of make a mini ritual out of it. And I will have nothing added to that I don’t bring a book. I mean, some people do, and that’s fine. But I just don’t bring a book, I just stare at the wall, basically. And sometimes I’ll change the lights and make it kind of real dark. And I just, and that’s, that’s my meditation. And, and that’s fine. Like, what, you know why devalue it, because I didn’t do like a formal practice. Jasmine 3:41So I think, you know, when you start doing a ritual like that, so ritual being something new take on quite regularly. That begins to open up the scope for it being a formal practice. And that sounds because, yeah, it takes on another element every time you do. And I think exactly that. How we see four practices only just setting but I was speaking to someone said the other day, where even just like movement based practices aren’t even acknowledged as much. So let’s say yoga or Tai Chi or even just walking, but we would say that would be like walking practice, you know, rather than like a sitting practice, which everyone thinks to be a bit more like for warm sometimes. So the more that we can expand the scope of what we allow ourselves and give ourselves permission to say, Okay, well, this is me still practising meditation, because I’m completely absorbed in the present here. I think that’s enough. And that in itself is a practice. For us to keep bringing home. Bill 5:06Yeah, yeah. I Liam 5:08mean, I think the whole point of formal practices, so that it just spews over naturally into informal practice. And I think, yeah, when Bill when you were saying about how you’re, when you’re just taking a bath, I feel like those are, those moments are almost like the fruits of meditation, where it’s, you know, you just have these, these moments of spaciousness, and you can kind of allow yourself to just be I, yeah, I hear a lot. Yeah, teachers kind of recommending when, when people will do their first like, solitary retreats, to, to not try to pack like, really pack the scheduled in with, like a routine or like, you know, saying, okay, nine to 10, I’m going to have meditation and then 10 to 1030, I’m going to be doing some reading, to just not really try to fill the schedule, but to just have a lot of this empty time where, you know, where you can just just be without any formal practice going. And then even that, in some ways, is a Yeah, I mean, it’s definitely a practice. Maybe it’s not formal, but it’s it’s still practice. Bill 6:24Yeah, yeah. Nice. That it’s interesting in it, the kind of attitude to meditation. And I mean, there’s a there’s a lovely book. Um, I think we mentioned Lauren Roche. Last time we talked. It’s called meditation made easy. So good. It’s a it’s a funny one, right? That title is really off putting, if you’ve done, you know, retreats and stuff, you’re like, Oh, yeah, whatever. It’s some sort of kiddie thing. But actually, like, a lot of the book is just about attitude towards it. And let me let me read a little bit here, because there’s a lovely passage that just sort of keep I keep coming back to recently. It he’s saying that, yeah, meditation is an activity of your total being, and you cooperate with it. Your contribution is to create conditions under which it can happen. You are inviting meditation to happen, by the way you pay attention. When you take this approach, not only is meditation easy, it is effortless. And I mean, that That, to me, just it’s a completely different perspective on how I learned meditation, because I learned it in a very formal way with the mostly via the Goenka. Let’s not call it a cult. Gang. You know, and it, I owe them everything on that level. It was it was very useful to me to learn via that route. But I’m, you know, I’m realising more and more that that’s not the only route. And there’s the Actually, it’s almost like that route is okay, now sit down and meditate, you know, do this, do that. Now you’re meditating, you know, and look at the fruits you have gained. But actually, there’s, there’s, you can’t really, like, do meditation. Meditation, does you? Yeah. Oh, you can actually do is kind of open the door to it make space for it? Liam 8:40Yeah, for sure. I, there’s actually I remembered hearing about these two umbrella terms for the different schools within, within Buddhism. Hmm, so one, one being like this, they call it the developmental approach to Buddhism. And then the other one being this more discovery approach. And I think that’s quite a nice because a lot of people will probably only ever come across this developmental approach where it’s okay. You have to really strive you have to really work hard and cultivate, cultivate, cultivate. But then the other side of the school is the other school is. Yeah, it’s about it’s just this deeper, deeper, deeper relaxation and kind of recognising that there’s nothing to do you know, that you can’t actually meditate. And so they practice non meditation, and there’s all these different kind of language that’s used. And I think according to people’s personalities, they might gravitate towards one or the other. Bill 9:45I love that. Wow, the discovery approach. Jasmine 9:48So if it’s not so much taught this kind of discomfort discovery approach, how earlier might you suggest if someone listening what you just Said piqued their interest, how would you? Why would you send them to go such? Oh, Liam 10:14yeah, I guess it depends how much they, yeah, how in depth they want to go? Because? Yeah, especially if this podcast is about getting started with meditation. I’m not exactly sure because I think a lot of the Yeah, I mean, so just within Buddhism, the schools generally that kind of favour the discovery approach would be like. So like within like, even like within Tibetan Buddhism, it’s kind of split between those two approaches. So like, the nygma School, when xop Chen, within Tibetan Buddhism are quite discovery approach, and in Zen is also pretty skewed towards more discovery rather than developmental, but probably that’s a big, you know, I don’t know if those just those topics in general are helpful. I find I think it’s just more of focus on relaxation, as opposed to I guess maybe this is wrong, wrong definition of concentration is having to really put effort in is probably the good place to start. Bill 11:38Hmm. Jasmine 11:40Do you have anything so not one? Bill 11:42Yeah, I mean, I think that perhaps the the, the sort of challenge with taking a discovery approach is that it’s it’s an intuitive kind of form that didn’t really suit monastic training much. And, and most of the sort of meditation traditions that we we get from the east that we we are learning today are you know, that there were basically designed to keep 18 year old boys in line. So they didn’t like, you know, cavort with the girls in the local village. So it was all about discipline, and, and, you know, hard training and you know, like this, this very, because you can’t have the boys cavort with the local girls, because then the villagers come and burn down your monastery when one of them gets pregnant. And yeah, you know, that that’s, that’s like 90%, of why the monastic trainings are like they are from, from what I’ve learned about it, that, you know, that there’s very strict rules, because you can’t have those young lads mucking about. And you have to train them, like, it’s a military school, basically, or you’ve got trouble everywhere, and your ministry gets burned down. Jasmine 13:15I think also, just in the same way, like, if there isn’t a set, like curriculum, it might be a bit more difficult to teach someone something. Especially if discovery is maybe a bit more like looser, maybe the approach to have something more rigid, is easier for just to contain, and a space to. Bill 13:45Yeah, I think that’s the kind of the classic thing of pedagogy or whatever, you know, this the traditions of teaching have generally been very sort of top down militaristic styles of training, because that’s, that’s the easiest thing to do. When you’ve got lots of young people you want to you want to keep in line and, and you know, train in a certain way. And most education was built to sort of provide useful clerks and soldiers for empires. That’s like that, you know, he was either keeping monasteries in line or later on, you know, this, this this sort of model of teaching that we got from from Prussia was all about building an empire and a military. So yeah, it’s obviously much harder to do individualised or at least it’s a completely different mindset. I don’t know if it’s much harder, really, because yeah, no one’s done it much in finances, and you. Sorry, go ahead Jasmine 14:42in Finland, in that educational system, so they allow the youth to choose what they want to learn. And it’s much more discovery based. Bill 14:56Yeah, I hear lots of great things about Scandinavian education. Much But yeah, yeah, so I don’t really know like, the only people I do know who are talking about this in my mind and my limited research so far people like Lauren Roche and he who just really stressed that it if you I mean, he came to this position over many many years of being a kind of counsellor for people who meditate and and he would sit and listen to them for that for hours and and help them understand what was working and what wasn’t in that current practice. And his take on it was well actually it’s, it’s the people who tend to do best are the ones who are not kind of following some rigid formula. Jasmine 15:51I also think, from who I know, Sarah Blondin, she’s probably not someone who would be mentioned very often in the meditation space. Not because she isn’t a great meditation teacher in her own right, she’s actually very famous on places like insight timer. But it’s just that the style in which she helps others learn is through almost poetic speech, and guiding one home to themselves. And then that’s where she leaves them. So she makes an environment which is conducive to be relaxed and be effortless, in and she’s like, a sister. I’ve never had, you know, she’s helped me through such difficult times. And it’s, yeah, it is difficult to say that it will definitely be meditation that four sets, but she does like we like, of course, though, set, but it’s just a completely different mindset was which we said. Bill 17:14Nice. Jasmine 17:15Yeah. So I would recommend her as someone if anyone’s listening. So we can post that are after? Bill 17:23Yeah. Liam 17:24Yeah, I, I think another another way, I’ve, I’ve seen that distinction between development when discover is, is usually people start with developmental get, because it kind of also makes sense. When you just think about any new skill, you’re kind of acquiring, whether it’s piano or, you know, another instrument, there’s this initial phase of, okay, you have to kind of be quite, you know, you have to put in quite a lot effort to, to really get going. But then once you’ve kind of got past that stage, then actually to continue progressing, you kind of actually want to just relax more, and let this sort of let all of that practice that you’ve done initially, kind of take over so that the practice starts to just have its own momentum, and it becomes more and more this effortless way of just being. And so I feel like there’s a similar progression in a lot of how these you know, traditional meditation schools would teach the practice where, yeah, in the beginning, say, okay, really strive diligently. And as you kind of get that discipline over and done with and they focus more on the Okay, now just drop everything and relax and Jasmine 18:45forget everything you learned. Bill 18:50There is no try. Jasmine 18:52Yeah, I think that it’s true for to say, this was anything as you said, like piano. But let’s take are all of the most famous artists had, generally, a really, really strong background in formal technique to take fun golf, or you take Picasso, each one of them in their earliest drawings, you see that they can depict real life. Exactly. But then after, what you want to do with it is completely up to you and your choice. So, yeah, for anyone who definitely learns a skill, you do make it your own. And, yeah, I think that’s very similar. Bill 19:52Liam, I’m curious to know, I mean, have you do people ask you how to get started? Meditation. What do you tell him? Um, Liam 20:08I think what we’ve been covering so far about, yeah, this more this folk, the attitudes are definitely important. And yeah, I mean, I guess general tips with that, that I, you know, I also tend to I definitely follow these in the beginning, and I still do for the most part would be things like, you know, yeah, like a 10 second formal practice is actually fine. And I sometimes do that where, okay, if I’ve had a really hectic day and I haven’t been able to sit like a fool, you know, whether it’s 20 minutes or four hours, something like that. I’ll just do I’ll just set a timer for like a minute. Or even less sometimes and, and that’s it like, and then I eat because I think it’s also important to to get that streak, I feel like there’s something about that continuous streak, even if it’s just a 10 second formal practice, that can be really helpful for maintaining that habit. And yeah, so that’s kind of what I like to do with keeping it just super minimal. Jasmine 21:21I actually love that. And I definitely stress to newer students that I teach that sometimes. So it’s from, I think I initially learned this one from charming tan, who was the original founder of Search Inside Yourself. And he said to his friend, he wants to learn how can I start, and he just said, just do it by taking one full present breath. And so his friend started doing this. But being an overachiever, he just started, you know, increasing that momentum. And I, I think, what you say them about having a streak or how I might put it as like, just being able to maintain this habit, in whatever sense, like however short it is, it doesn’t matter. So that as we build momentum, the time doesn’t really matter. And it’s much easier to increase time, after something has already become quite habitual. It’s really the same essence of like, when you first start teaching a child to brush their teeth, like they don’t like it, like, you know, sometimes they’ll just like run away and go to bed before but that daily, two minutes of brushing their teeth, twice a day accumulates is so much The difference being that if they, they, I think I’ve worked out the one the other weeks, that it’s about like 65 minutes or something a month. So if you went for like a regular teeth clean, that’s about a similar time, but your teeth would be absolutely ruined by them. Or if you look at it in another sense, how doing very little frequently makes a massive difference is how I like to see it. Yeah, and it’s the same, I think, for meditation practice. Liam 23:35Yeah, there’s a, there’s a great I think he has an email course now called tiny habits. I don’t know if the two of you have heard of that. But it’s just great. I mean, it’s not meditation specific, but just the Yeah, the the lessons on habit formation and actually how to form a habit through these like, yeah, these tiny behaviour changes. is gold. It’s Yeah, it’s a great, great resource. Jasmine 24:08I think that’s the number one question that I get, they say, Okay, well, now I know, like this plethora of different meditation techniques, I just find it very difficult now to remember to have to do it. So it’s often the, when you remember, then you can do your one minute, you know, like, but when you first start something, sometimes it needs that formality so that you can come back to it. And often they say with new habits, to link it on to something you already do as a habit, so that you can remember. So if it’s brushing your teeth, then you might just stand for a minute and you might just take a breath or If you come home and the first thing you do is put down your keys, you might just stand there a lesson longer to bring yourself back into a state where you like have put work away. So I think that habit attachment is very, very helpful. Bill 25:27Nice. Jasmine 25:29So maybe we can have a little brainstorm now, maybe coming up with a few of when you might do that to a habit. Anyone want to go? Bill 25:45Yeah, I mean, it could be as simple as, you know, having a lie down. Lie you say after work, just just low on the floor? And, you know, put your knees up, stare at the ceiling? Five minutes, that kind of thing? Yeah. Yeah, we’re off to a bath. You know, just just take a moment to breathe and let your thoughts run wild. Liam 26:13Yeah, in the tidy habits. course, they talk about recipes, that you can create these recipes. Where? Yeah, you find like, after I take my first bite of breakfast, I will take one mindful breath. So that’s like a tiny habit recipe. I think there’s Yeah, I mean, because there’s so many of these, some of them also quite unconscious habits that, that I you know, that I know, I have as well. That I can probably link with a new practice. And some of them like just super simple, like, when I leave the front door, you know, send loving thoughts to, to friends, you know, something like that. Jasmine 27:06Yes. Or as you end on the way to work, even though there’s lots and lots going all the way to work anymore. As soon as you see someone, the first person you see, you send them a warm wish. Or you can do it to your entire train or bus, whoever is on there. Bill 27:30Nice. So, I’m getting started with meditation helped me out here. Jasmine 27:46I often say, initially, actually, what is the function that you want to have, because there are so many different meditative practices, what is most important to you. So someone might come to me saying like, they’re often really stressed out. So they just want to calm down a bit more than they want to relax. Others might say they want to focus better. Others say they maybe want to be more skillful with other people. Others just might say, for general health or just for clarity. So I might push them into a direction to say, Okay, well, this exercise might be helpful for you to initially start exploring with and see how you go with that. And then often, just though, they might come back and then develop further on what they might have found difficult or what they, what other exercises might suit them to within this same sphere. Nice. So I think it really depends. And, and maybe we can either write out some later on or Yeah, so for example, for a concentration practice, you can just do simple breath work either counting to 10. Or you might be just noticing sensations within a particular part of the body. Or just feeling and recognising the flow of your breathing in the form of sensations, you know, something very, very simple, just to begin. If you might be doing clarity, I might even say, suggest a journaling practice. Just free flow of like a mind. Just allowing for five minutes, continuous writing. Don’t like, don’t stop at all. And if you have nothing to write, just keep racing. I didn’t know what to write. I don’t know what to write, I didn’t want to write, and then reading it over. And a lot of the time, when it’s on the page, you get a lot of a lot more distance and perspective from it. For what else is there? Well, as I mentioned, loving kindness if you want to have more skillful relations with others, so sending out warm wishes, also, just maybe bringing that within yourself as well. So even loving kindness to oneself first, before actually sending that out to others. And another practice, which is like seeing similarities in them. So Bill has a mind just like me. Or bill likes tennis just like me. Although, yeah, so the more that we see similarities, the more that we can start associating the other person as being like us, and when we put them in our in Group B can empathise with them better? So I think if anyone listening has a specific function or particularity as to why they might want to begin meditating, then I think send them in and we can post some stuff out. Bill 31:27Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that’s a great idea. Get do get in touch with, we’re happy to help we can cover in another episode. And all right, back to you. Sure. Liam 31:37Yeah. That’s great. I wanted to also add about the loving kindness practice. I, I, I, I believe there is actually there was a study it was trying to ask, it was asking what what was the, like, what practice would yield, you know, like, the fastest results. And I think one of them was was, was actually loving kindness in the sense of how quickly beginners would experience some benefit from the practice. And, and I’ve actually noticed this on like, just like beginner retreats that I’ve run, the the one that the practice that people seem to kind of just really have this like, like, Whoa, that was like, you know, something different that I really felt something change. This is usually the loving kindness or Yeah, the meta metta practice. And now it was funny that I ended up coming across that study that said, I I really, I can’t remember it off the top of my head. But it was something about change. I Jasmine 32:39think that’s under Tanya singer. Liam 32:43Possibly, I’ll have to dig it up. But you might know motors. Jasmine 32:48So actually, under her work, she is so like, her work is fascinating. And she basically did different studies on how, like, what do we notice, actually, different meditation practices give different results. And I think for compassion training, loving kindness actually had the most impact in developing compassion, but also sense of awareness, bodily and greater self awareness. And then also, I think, to overall, yes, so overall, long term health, it also had the most benefits. And they looked at, I think, just simple concentration practice. I think body scan and loving kindness. So compassion training actually has a lot of benefits within it. So it’s like three in one combo. Bill 33:56Leah, I’m curious to know, like, what, what stage of retreat? were you doing that practice on? Or was it was it a short thing? Like, how did that work? With the loving kindness? Liam 34:10Yeah, oh, the example I brought up was was with like, yeah, I organise a few of these beginner retreats for mainly just for friends. So there were like, 15 of us that would kind of get introduced to mindfulness and mindfulness related practices. And that was just the one night I noticed that people would comment and say, Wow, yeah, that loving kindness practice that really kind of shifted something in me. You know, after that one that first day and usually it was like complete beginners who would come across that practice. And so Bill 34:48right, so are we doing it like at the end of the first day, or I’m just trying to get this? Liam 34:53Yeah, usually at the end of Yeah, it’d be like, I’d usually teach something like mindfulness of breathing first, and then offer that loving kindness practice. Bill 35:05Nice. Yeah, yeah. I used to notice I’m going to retreats. I mean, it’s taught at the end of the course. But it’s such a kind of relief. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So practice Jasmine 35:18is actually interesting the different contacts with, in which this practice when it actually is taught in, for example, or corporate context. And for many different teachers that I know, people don’t actually want to go to that space, like, yeah, maybe in a retreat space, it’s different, like you’re more open to it, you know, that maybe something out of your comfort zone might come up, or maybe you’re just a little more willing. But in a corporate environment, they don’t actually like, oftentimes, Liam 35:53they just call it – love is always Bill 36:02a funny little thing on on this corporate office yesterday, this guy, Cory Doctorow, in the introduction to his his great book, called in real life, he describes the corporate office as, like a really boring role playing game, like cosplay. This sort of structure where you have to limit your, your speech, your feelings, your dress, all in all, in kind of line with some sort of mid 20th century ideal of what an office worker does and feels and thinks. Liam 36:42Yeah, but I think it’s a good point that you raise about people’s perception, especially corporate cultures perception on on Yeah, just the word love. You know, I wonder whether any, any mindfulness teachers have had success in maybe even renaming that practice to not include the word love. And, you know, because they’re just wait, I feel like, Maybe, yeah, Chad. Chad Ming had something like that, where he was like, just wish two people? Well, we’ll just have think, yeah, I think well, about two people. Right? Yes. 10 second purpose. Jasmine 37:17Yeah, wishing them well. Yeah. Liam 37:19And you don’t even have to use the word love. And yeah, so maybe that’s a way to kind of jump into the Yeah, job pass the corporate sort of filter. Jasmine 37:31Yeah. And also, when you name it, like compassion practice as well. At least it’s like a more for more time where you know that you’re just trying to help someone else out? It’s not like loving kindness, which maybe has, I don’t know, different connotations in people’s minds. Bill 37:49Yeah, it’s a tricky one, isn’t it? I mean, the language of these things matter doesn’t mean any of the things that we have in the West, exactly. As I understand that, it’s kind of like, yeah, it’s kind of like a universal love practice. But you know, it all of it just sounds like hippie nonsense, especially if you’re in the corporate world. Jasmine 38:12And as a last thing, I might say about someone developing a practice. So there are a huge range of apps out there. And in my opinion, some of acids and others. I would recommend for someone insight timer, before I recommend any others. And the reason being is that there are so many great meditation teachers out there freedy. And so you can really come to understand different types of four practices. And even just your connection to a teacher, I think, is really important. And just the perception of, if you like, their voice or not, you know, more superficial things that just can help if they have a nice voice and be like that. Yeah. And because they have like, 10s of thousands of meditations freely. There’s ever something for everyone from like kids to if you are looking at more spiritual based practices, to more like secular or even corporate practices, like the entire range is on there. And it’s well reviewed and rated. So it’s not as prescriptive as other apps where they have only one or two teachers. And you also have to pay. Bill 39:50Yeah, Liam 39:51yeah. Inside time is great. It’s also got the I just love the like the little bar charts, you get for tracking you can get definitely just that gamified aspect I find quite useful for Yeah, just whether it’s maintaining the streak or like, Oh, yeah, I gotta get another couple of like another hour this week to hit my talk. It’s kind of … this is all we got for free from Otter. You’ll have to listen to the episode for the last 20 minutes! 😄

Really enjoyed this conversation with ‘Awake In’ friend and marathon meditator Liam Chai. Be warned: The conversation is wide ranging and includes all kinds of risky subjects like: 🔥 Kundalini awakening on retreat, 🕊 spiritual bypassing, 🦖 and secret dinosaur civilizations. Audio Version Subscribe in your favorite podcast app: Subscribe Topics 1:00 Intro to Liam and going “off script”1:40 How me and Liam met via Jasmine & Awakin Circle4:30 How Liam began his road to spirituality6:03 Liam’s first meditation experiences8:00 Vipassana’s life changing experience for Liam (sexual ref)12:15 Did Liam tell the teachers about the occurrence?13:20 Daoist sexual practices13:45 Bill’s take on Liam’s experience – Arising & Passing (A&P)14:22 Kevin Rose interview with Zen Master Henry Shukman – Arising and Passing event16:20 Bill’s Arising & Passing experiences17:18 Universality of these types of experiences19:00 Liam’s first experiences with Goenka style Vipassana retreats22:30 Seeking meditation references – Alan Wallace – The Attention Revolution24:00 Phenomenon of extreme Jhanic states and how Liam understands the possibility in them28:00 Encounters with Allan Wallace, contemplative PhD, and his Attention revolution book31:00 Liam meeting Allan Wallace and reasons for seeking other teachers35:00 Liam’s 6 month meditation retreat and decisions why38:30 Funny experiences on retreat40:30 Kindness on Liam’s retreat41:00 What Liam practiced on his retreat46:00 Brasington’s different explanation of Jhanic states52:00 Bill on meditative attachment53:00 Liam on Shinzen Young’s meditative maximisation of life56:00 Spiritual bypassing59:00 Contemplating meditation for the masses1:01:00 MBSR’s powerful benefits1:03:00 Liam’s experiences teaching mindfulness to schoolkids1:04:00 Deep history, human records in the fossil record, dinosaur civilizations and moon visits Links Liam’s site – liamchai.com Books Daniel Ingram – Mastering the core teachings of the BuddhaAllan Wallace – Attention revolutionLeigh Brasington – Right Concentration We’re on Youtube too 😄

A fun chat that started with a regular call. We were meant to be talking about updating this website, but after “How are you doing? How’s your practice?” we got into an interesting discussion so began recording! We hope that you too, dear listener, will enjoy this. Audio version Topics 0:00 Intro and Mahasi Sayadaw style ‘noting’ practice3:00 On high-speed ‘noting’ meditation5:30 Do all types of meditation lead to the same place? Comparisons with yoga and other, Buddhist types of meditation. 7:00 Altered Traits book – studies of long-term, advanced meditators. Similarities and differences between veterans of different meditation traditions.9:00 Zen Masters in the early 20th Century – part of the II World war effort.12:00 Bill Hamilton – Saints & Psychopaths book. Can meditation touch or change extreme psychological conditions?14:00 Daniel Ingram & Kenneth Folk on the limits of ‘awakening’ – Can it save you from being a ‘total arsehole’?15:00 Can metta ‘loving kindness’ meditation make you a better person? Jasmine on her current practice and how empathy practices have shaped her personality.17:00 Emotional intelligence at work and on the career ladder. Chade-Meng Tang‘s Search Inside Yourself book on habit building18:40 Enlightenment doesn’t solve all your problems. While panna (wisdom) has an achievable goal, the trainings of sila (morality, virtue) and samadhi (concentration, ‘coming together’) are infinite.20:00 Bill & Jasmine‘s current focus in meditation21:00 Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (now the Triratna Buddhist Community) and ‘Pure Land’ Buddhist approaches to enlightenment.22:00 Jasmine‘s family’s take on enlightenment24:00 Bahia of the bark cloth! Buddha’s best ever student who reached full enlightenment in about 5 minutes after being given the instruction. Bill [I missed ‘smell’ from the list of sense 😄]27:00 Going meta on the podcast itself – thoughts on colours, the meditation podcast market, and the feedback we’ve received so far. Thanks for that, by the way! 😃 References Books Daniel Ingram – Mastering the Core Teachings of the BuddhaBill Hamilton – Saints & PsychopathsDaniel Goleman and Richard J Davidson – Altered TraitsChade-Meng Tang – Search Inside Yourself Other Bahia of the Bark Cloth Story! – Good article here: Take a Good Hard Look We’re on Youtube too 😄

An amazing interview with Daniel – really enjoyed this one! We were particularly blown away by his insights into the Goenka vipassana tradition, and why they don’t use the meditation maps. Goenka retreats were pivotal for both me and Jasmine, so it’s amazing to hear stories about his initial training, and why the retreats downplay or ignore ‘dark night’ or ‘dhukka nana’ phenomena (difficulties that can emerge during meditation). Audio-only version Audio version Subscribe in your favorite podcast app: Subscribe Topics 3:24 – Practice and framing. How one begins on the adventure of meditation. Starting a practice during COVID-19 lockdown?6:00 – Daniel Ingram’s practice day to day. Morality, concentration, wisdom10:50 – Fire Kasina technique & history13:30 – Meditation and scary events. Demons!19:00 – Magical practices, grimoires, entities in the practice and traditions20:15 – Loving kindness meditation (metta) origins22:00 Loving kindness towards entities23:00 Fire kasina & necessity for theory and roadmap24:00 Bill’s memories – encountering an entity in teenage years27:15 Bill reflecting on how this impacted practice29:50 Is any dose of meditation safe? Considering the Therevadan maps. Chapter 30 MCTB.38:00 Use of maps and how they’ve helped Ingram, benefits41:00 Daniel challenges others to bring forward insight on maps41:48 Why Therevadan maps are so useful. Possible drawbacks and why some people don’t like the insight maps44:42 Benefits of maps for meditation. 46:00 Why does the Goenka meditation tradition not use the maps technology that is available? Why do they keep their students in the dark about it? #dhamma #vipassana48:00 Maps and how they script meditation experiences and paths52:50 Sayadaw ‘Noting’ practice54:47 Inside story on Goenka’s training and practice with Sayagyi U Ba Khin – along with fellow students Ruth Dennison, and Robert Harry Hoover. All were taught from the Visuddhimagga in very individualised ways. Goenka went on to teach the version he learnt, without the differentiation he’d received. The Visuddhimagga has many techniques for different types of people. When the students went on to try and teach together, they rapidly clashed as they realised they were all teaching different things!56:48 Goenka did not have ‘dark night’ problems (dhukka nanas) – so never included warnings about them or help to navigate them in his teaching! With him around – and his warm, encouraging presence, his students didn’t run into so many problems.59:00 This difficulty of making any changes to the Goenka institution1:00:02 – The Fire Kasina – why did it get lost and why is it not more popular?1:10:10 Fire Kasina for beginners, and on retreat1:14:00 Bill & Jasmine’s ambitions for the podcast & current practice1:24:00 Scripting and the Jhanas1:29:50 Daniel’s thoughts on having a meditation teacher and how to find the right one. We’d love to hear your thoughts on this one so do please email or leave us a comment below! Links Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha (book / site)Fire KasinaDaniel Ingram’s siteDharma Overground ForumPath with Heart – Jack KornfieldMahasi Sayadaw – Practical Insight MeditationVisuddhimagga – classic meditation manual

We catch up on life in lockdown, Jasmine’s ongoing home retreat and practice in general. This is an experimental format – it’s a pretty loose conversation with minimal editing. Does it work? Let us know! We also announce our upcoming guest interview with (drum roll) … the one and only Daniel Ingram! Audio version Subscribe Video version

Video Audio version Subscribe Topics We cover all sorts but here are some highlights: Learnings from the amazing guests he’s interviewedSteve’s meditation practice explained 3 ways – To a childTo an adultTo an experienced meditatorHis summer ‘part-time retreat’ – 4 hours of meditation a dayBill’s experience of Jhānic meditationJasmine’s experience doing 3 hours a day of meditation for an entire yearThoughts on how to deal with the current COVID-19 crisis Books referenced: Daniel Ingram’s Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddhaand Fire KasinaLeigh Brasington’s Right ConcentrationAntonio Machado’s Last Night As I Was Sleeping Check out the amazing Guru Viking podcast and follow Steve’s other work at: https://www.guruviking.com/ Hope you enjoy! Please let us know your thoughts: us@nullawake-in.com For more from us check out: https://awake-in.com

Me and Jasmine kick things off. It’s a beta episode! We get into our ideas and ambitions for the podcast, and discuss a range of topics: Talking to regular people not just the ‘masters’Integrating insights from meditation into ‘real life’The limits of enlightenment – in terms of how it shapes personality and morality. The history of “enlightened master” scandals!Supernatural powers in the old scriptures (the Bible, the Buddhist suttas) Book mentioned: Lorin Roche’s “Meditation Made Easy” – Highly recommended! Hope you enjoy! Please get in touch if you do :) us@nullawake-in.com Audio Youtube version (audio only)