Wild Souls

56. Embracing the Ever-Present Now: Zen, Meditation, + Emotional Fulfillment w/ David Rynick

• Cat Mansfield • Episode 56

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Can understanding the chaotic nature of the mind lead to a more peaceful existence? Join us for an eye-opening conversation with David Rynick, an esteemed Zen teacher with deep knowledge of both Korean Rinzai + Japanese Soto traditions. We'll explore the nuanced differences between Zen & mindfulness, shedding light on how Zen rituals and practices operate without a fixed belief system. David offers profound insights on managing the "monkey mind" during meditation, highlighting that the journey isn't about erasing thoughts but embracing their presence as part of our human experience.

David and I delve into the essence of acknowledging feelings like shame, guilt, & loneliness as opportunities for spiritual growth and discuss living a fulfilled life by aligning with what truly brings joy and meaning - emphasizing that fulfillment is a present-moment experience rather than a distant goal.

Join us in this enlightening conversation that encourages grounding yourself in the now, embracing your emotions, + taking intentional steps towards an authentic, joyful life.

Connect with David
Boundless Way
David's book:Wandering Close to Home: A Year of Zen Reflections, Consolations, and Reveries is available on Amazon & other online sellers and can be ordered from your local bookstore
David's Website
David reads & talks about the second chapter in Wandering Close to Home and answers questions from the listeners. Listen Here.

Interested in being a guest on the podcast? Send me a DM :)

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Holistic Hotties podcast. I'm your host, kat Mansfield. I'm a yoga and meditation teacher who's traveled around the world in search of all things healing and true. In searching for healing, in searching for truth, I uncovered the answers to all my ponderings. I grounded into peace amidst the chaos, I found myself. This podcast is about breathing life into who you already are. It's about remembering the truth of your power, the truth of your perfection. In each episode, we'll talk about the beliefs, the self-imposed limitations and the mindsets that are keeping us small, and how to cultivate safety in our bodies so that we can feel safe enough to be bigger, to take up more space and to truly and deeply love ourselves. On this journey together, day after day, we're choosing intention, we're choosing growth. We're choosing to dissolve our veils and breathe into our most authentic and thus most radiant selves. We're choosing to feel good naked. Let's dive in. To feel good naked, let's dive in. Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Holistic Hotties.

Speaker 1:

Today I'm talking to David Reinick. He is a Zen teacher authorized in both the Korean Rinzai and the Japanese Soto lineages. He's a founding teacher of the Boundless Way Zen Temple. Since 2003, reinick has worked as a life and leadership coach, certified through the International Coaching Federation and the Coaches Training Institute. A lifelong teacher, he has also been a professional potter and improvisational dancer. He holds a black belt in judo and has taught dance and qigong, as well as organizational leadership, and has taught dance and qigong, as well as organizational leadership, systems, thinking and creative process.

Speaker 1:

David and I have such a beautiful conversation today. It is a conversation that you know was exactly what I needed for what I'm going through in this moment, and so I hope it resonates with you. We talk about really living in the place of being the observer. We differentiate between Zen and mindfulness, and then talk about how to live a life as the observer, despite having to move through difficult emotions, difficult experiences that are this human experience. We talk about how to exist in such a divided and separated climate right now and, finally, we talk about how to manifest from a place of peace, calmness and a grounded trust in the universe. I really hope you enjoy this conversation. Let's dive in. Hello, david, I'm so happy to have you on the podcast today. How are you doing?

Speaker 2:

I'm doing great Nice to be talking here this afternoon.

Speaker 1:

It is so we'll go ahead and jump right in. I want to start for my audience. I want to help them differentiate between Zen and mindfulness.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that'll take just a little while.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, just a quick answer.

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well, so mindfulness is not a new invention. It's recently resurfaced in the culture with Jon Kabat-Zinn and other people who have all, most of them, studied Buddhism. Mindfulness is one of the things that the Buddha taught this paying attention. Zen is part of the Buddhist stream. Zen is what happened when Buddhism went from India to China and mixed with Taoism and Confucianism. So Zen is a religion in that we have rituals and practices that we do, but it's not a religion in terms of having any belief system or any deities or anything like that. So our main practice in Zen is sitting meditation and the instruction is, when you're meditating, to pay attention. So a big overlap, but different components add into it.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So if somebody is sitting in meditation, or to somebody who has tried over and over again to sit in meditation and they keep coming up to the same monkey mind that so many of us come up against when we sit down to meditate, how does one move past that or meet that in Zen?

Speaker 2:

Well, I think I love the or in that because we don't move past monkey mind, that because we don't move past monkey mind. This is the human mind and people, when they start meditating, almost always say you know, it's worse than it was before. But the truth is we're rarely aware of what's going on in our mind. But when we sit still or slow down and pay attention, we begin to notice and the mind is just a wild place. It's not a problem, that's just how minds are.

Speaker 2:

And what we're practicing in Zen meditation in particular is that we're not trying to be calm, we're not trying to achieve certain state, but we are learning to be present with ourselves as we are. So if you're sitting and your mind is on fire, with thoughts of what happened or what's going to happen, then you are the Buddha whose mind is on fire. And as we meet that, as we meet what's arising without trying to fix it and also with not getting swept away by it, oftentimes the thoughts come in our mind and we believe the thoughts and we think another thought and then we get all tangled up. So Zen meditation and I think in some ways mindfulness is about beginning to see how we get caught up and then observing that If you try to stop thoughts, that's just another thought. If you try to stop thoughts, that's just another thought.

Speaker 1:

But it is possible to be present and bring your attention back again and again to this breath, to this sensation, to this moment. I love that idea of even when we're in the monkey mind, we're the Buddha with the monkey mind. At the end of the day, our essence is always the Buddha. It's always the peaceful aspect, the observer of that monkey mind. Instead of identifying with the overactivity or the chaos, we're coming back to the truth of we are the observer, the calmness.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and that as we meditate and as we pay attention, we actually find out that life is a roller coaster, that the shape of life is, you know, up and down and up and down, that the shape of life is up and down and up and down. And some people have the misconception that meditation or Zen is about some kind of flatline state. We will all go flatline at some point, but there's no rush to get there. So what we're learning to do and I think in mindfulness too, the truth about human beings is that sometimes we feel crappy and you can wish you didn't feel crappy and you could imagine there's some other life. But every human being I know goes through different moods and different feeling states, through different moods and different feeling states, and so we're increasing our capacity to be with the ups and downs in life, and so when we're sad we can really be sad, and this is how it is for human beings. It's not a problem.

Speaker 1:

And how does one trust that, when we're in the sadness, for example, it won't last forever? I think that's something that you know. When we give ourselves permission to go fully into any emotion, any valley or pit that we might be feeling, we feel like we're going to live there forever. Feel like we're going to live there forever and then you know, in some regards it can almost it can extend that time. If we think that you know, and it can extend that period the longer we think this is forever, it's all it's going to be, it creates that cyclical effect.

Speaker 1:

So how do we, how do we, trust that there is a, you know, a dance to the ups and downs of life?

Speaker 2:

Well, this is where practice is so important.

Speaker 2:

As a yoga teacher, you know this and I'm sure as a mindfulness teacher too that don't start out with the biggest problem of your life and say, okay, now I know what to do, I'm just going to be with it, and that, indeed, when things are really intense, sometimes we talk about pendulating, about moving toward it as much as you can, and then the value of moving away, swinging away because some things are overwhelming. But we can practice. When we practice meditation, what we're practicing is noticing what's here and experimenting. Meditation is a kind of experiment.

Speaker 1:

What if I?

Speaker 2:

let myself just be here, right. And you know, on a day-to-day basis it's not usually that wild, sometimes it is. But if you meditate every day, you'll notice that, oh, every day I'm slightly different, and beginning, middle and end slightly different. And so we begin to know for ourself, begin to notice huh, things come and go right. So some of the Buddha's main teaching one is that discomfort and suffering are unavoidable. He called this the first noble truth. So this is not the first problem with life. This is something of how it is for all human beings and actually is what allows us to come into the moment. Through the difficulty, through when we don't get what we want, we begin to learn that indeed, neither you nor I is the ruler of the universe. And while this is very disappointing for me, sometimes it's also a great relief.

Speaker 1:

Yes, it really is. Yes, it really is. And I think when you've had practice, as you're talking about something, I've felt lost, I felt uncertain, I felt, you know, discomfort. I remember that, okay, and then after that, I found myself in the most aligned chapter I'd ever been in. You know you start to.

Speaker 2:

I'd ever been in, you know you start to accumulate all this data and create this trust muscle with the universe. Yeah, yeah, so it's not that because you can't do it just by believing in something.

Speaker 1:

But I think.

Speaker 2:

Through this lived experience we can begin to have more trust, and I was reading some of the things on your website before this and I love this idea. What if it's okay to be who we are, just as we are, this mind, this body, this, you know, psychological makeup? What a radical idea this is.

Speaker 1:

Totally. What if it's all perfect exactly as it is, even in all the things that we're trying to manipulate and shift and change? And it's all of the mistakes. There's no such thing, because it's all a part of the evolution Right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and, as I mentioned before, I've just come out with a new book called Wandering Close to Home A Year of Zen Reflections, consolations and Reveries, and the initial quote on this book I think is relevant. I put in from a Chinese Zen teacher. He said a three-year-old child may be able to say it, but an 80-year-old can't put it into practice. So these things we're talking about, you know, we can all say, oh yeah, be in the moment and it'll change. But as you say, and it's still my experience, sometimes it's really hard, it's dark and I know, but it's really really difficult.

Speaker 1:

It can be very difficult. That's why I think it's so important to be having these conversations, to remind ourselves over and over again and hear that other people are also in it at times, really in it, and having a hard time as well, and remembering that we're all on this human journey together.

Speaker 2:

Well, and in my book I tried to write a book of instructions for people, but it was too boring there's so many good instructions, so I tried to write about my own experience and the ups and downs of it. So they're very short chapters, just a couple pages, and some are about me waking up in a bad mood. And I'm a Zen teacher. I've been practicing Zen for 40 years and still sometimes I practice then and it really calls all of us. I don't care how long you've been meditating or teaching, we all meet that edge and have to work and if this little bit of faith, or maybe a lot of faith that you're talking about, creates some slight change and that slight change can be so important- in terms of the quality of our life.

Speaker 1:

But in your story. I'm curious as to how meditation found you, how you started to begin a practice.

Speaker 2:

Was it a rock bottom or how did you find it?

Speaker 2:

Well, it actually was the rock bottom led to it. So my rock bottom was in college. I went to a big name college and I was very college. I went to a big name college and I was very successful and did well and was on the university senate and I was miserably unhappy. I felt like everybody else wanted to be like me but I felt lonely and cut off and I began to realize that I'd spent my life trying to please other people, spent my life trying to make other people happy and manage that. And in the middle of that really dark period I had this experience of oneness. I had this experience that we are never separate, that we are part of this vast universe. And it was a life-changing experience for me because it never occurred to me that my life had to do with me. It was always about other people had to do with me. It was always about other people. So I had that experience. But then that experience faded. It got kind of like just a distant memory.

Speaker 1:

And what?

Speaker 2:

had been so clear, became like, well you know, it just tangled me up and I tried to talk to people about it. Nobody quite understood, but I heard a Zen teacher talk. Actually, my wife and I went to talk to people about it. Nobody quite understood, but I heard a Zen teacher talk. Actually, my wife and I went to an introductory lecture by the Zen teacher, who I expected to be Japanese or Chinese. He was a Canadian guy, six foot two with a blonde beard blonde beard, but he spoke of this place of oneness. He spoke of this quality of life, that's both the particularness and the beauty of things right here and the fact that everything appears and disappears as part of this greater whole. And I knew that he knew what I knew. And he said there's a way you can move toward this, and this way is by sit down, be still and shut up.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Every day.

Speaker 2:

What? And so I did. But it made so much sense to me that I decided to meditate every day. And um, originally I thought, well, I should do it for two hours a day because you know that would really be good. But then I thought I bet I won't be able to keep that up. So I settled on three minutes a day, because and that's as long as I could sit still you know, some people when they talk about meditation they say, oh, it's so lovely when I learn to meditate Not me, I'm like those people we were talking about before.

Speaker 2:

I sat down, my mind is on fire and so I would set my little timer for three minutes and at the end of that, you know know it'd be like I'd be jumping out of my skin. But I committed. I said I've got to face this somehow. And so doing that and then also attending becoming part of a Zen community, a meditation community I think community is so important, where there's both a teacher and teaching someone who's been down the road and can remind us of what we know. And then the most surprising thing about Zen for me is what a communal activity it is. Interesting.

Speaker 2:

The first silent retreat I went on. There are all these rules. You aren't supposed to look at people, you weren't supposed to talk and I'm like, why are we coming together if we're not supposed to do that? But then when you sit in silence with other people, you can feel that we are mammals, we are pack animals and your heart touches my heart and my heart touches my heart and my heart touches your heart. And when everybody in the room, or now even on the Zen screen, is doing this, it allows me to do what I could not do on my own.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's I mean. That's really beautiful to think about. I actually have never been on the silent retreat it's very high on my list of things to do but I can imagine how beautiful that connection would be, despite there not being any of the conventional ways of connecting the speaking and the touching and the looking in the eyes.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes.

Speaker 1:

All wonderful ways.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm actually curious, Given our current world that we're in, even it being an election year, and just what's happened in the last 10 years or so. I just think about that vision where you're together, you're in the same space, despite not speaking or knowing anything about each other, you feel that connection, that kinship to someone else who's sitting right next to you. You don't know their name, you don't know anything, you don't know why they're on that silent retreat with you, but there's still that connection, that feeling of even protecting the other or, you know, having compassion for the other, because we're here to work and grow and evolve together. So, given that we're in such a divisive you know climate in our country, how can we access that underlying connection to others?

Speaker 2:

Well, you know, such a wonderful question, and I think people wonder why it's so difficult to meditate, and so part of it is that we begin to see the wildness of our mind. But there is a momentum, a societal momentum, a cultural momentum that is fierce. I mean, it's like this current, this raging torrent, that unless we intend something else, unless we clarify what, is it?

Speaker 2:

I really want, right, what do I really really want? And it can't be just willpower. So I say willpower is a very weak force in the universe. Right, because we all know what we should do. Right, I should meditate, I should do it. So we have to touch something deeper. In Buddhism we call it Bodhicitta the heart mind, the awakened heart mind, human being that longs to wake up, that wants to be free, that knows there's something else beyond the rushing and the striving and the getting and the losing. So to touch that desire, that longing, is so important, because my wife and I we moved.

Speaker 2:

I live in Worcester Massachusetts, near Boston Massachusetts, and we moved here in 1991. And there was no community of meditation practice at that point. So my wife and I got two friends and said you want to come over to our house on Sunday evenings and the four of us will sit quietly together for 20 minutes. So that's how. And now my wife and I are the founding teachers of Boundless Way Zen Temple here in Worcester Massachusetts, a big building on an acre of land. We've got 150 people in our community do daily Zen practices.

Speaker 2:

But it grew out of our intention to do exactly what you said. How do we create the community, so it doesn't have to be finding a Zen community or a mindfulness community. So it doesn't have to be finding a Zen community or a mindfulness community. It can be finding one or two other people. And the thing is, since it was happening at our house, we had to be there. So we kind of backed ourselves into a corner and then we invited other people to come. Come if you want to. This is what we're going to be doing, and we continued our training with Zen teachers and doing silent retreats as we were doing this communal practice in our house.

Speaker 1:

That's beautiful. It's beautiful, you think, if you build it they will come. If you build it, they will come. And so, in that initial question of how we move past the illusion of separation that it feels like is kind of just the norm of existence at the moment and, as you were saying, it's really being intentional. It's moving into the world with intention and so is it choosing to move into the world with. I'm choosing to see the similarity person, for example, may believe what they believe or may behave the way they behave, because you know of their own suffering or their own desire to protect their identity or their ego. But just choosing that compassion. Is that how we do it?

Speaker 2:

No, no, I really appreciate that and I think that is important. But I think there's something we have to choose, something deeper than that, and that's choosing to really look into what's going on here. To what's going on here. It's good to notice our prejudice and to be curious as we can and to be empathetic with other people, but I think that's limited in what it can do. But this choosing to be with what is here. So that means if I'm dealing with someone who's really pissing me off let's say, their political views are very different and they're spouting all this stuff so choosing to be here means one being aware of my own reactivity and how pissed off I am right or how deeply upsetting this is. I think there's sometimes a spiritual override that can happen, especially to people like you and me that care about this because we know what we're supposed to feel.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

Oh yes, this is a human being. I'm supposed to like this jerk.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you're supposed to have compassion for them. Damn it to like this jerk. Yeah, you're supposed to have compassion for them.

Speaker 2:

Damn it, yeah, exactly, exactly so this practice of Zen, and I think, the practice of mindfulness too is really opening wider than that, so that we begin to see that, oh, that you know, that jerk is me, you know, not separate from me. And in these high stakes situation, when emotions are high, it's really hard to do this. So, again going back to practice. So I practice. You know, sometimes sitting on retreat, little things really get to you. You can feel wonderful, but you can also feel, oh, that person next to me, the way they're breathing, is ruining my whole retreat.

Speaker 1:

Happens in yoga classes too. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2:

But the cure to that is not to try to be a better person, to that is not to try to be a better person Self-improvement.

Speaker 1:

I think implies some kind of non-acceptance.

Speaker 2:

So the first thing is noticing oh, I'm really pissed off, and then I can get curious about that. Well, what's this like and that's one of the aspects I think of true mindfulness is this kind of open-hearted curiosity, because usually we're sorting and judging, so I do it on myself, I do it on other people. Well, I shouldn't be feeling this, I'm just going to stop feeling this, and there's a violence to that and a kind of dissing oneself. What if sometimes I'm a really kind and Well, that, you know, that's how it is, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Well, I'm human.

Speaker 2:

That's right and in this practice. So if I'm willing to sit there and not act it out, you know, and not fix it, so not going forward, not going back, then I can see what we're talking about before that all of this stuff rises and then it falls away. So this is the Buddhist teaching of impermanence, and with impermanence we can all say, oh yeah, impermanence, I'm totally. But to really see that, as you say, in these places that get so solid, the opinion of the self or the world, I am the worst Zen teacher in the whole world and I can, you know, or the student comes up, I am the worst meditator and there's a real solidity in that belief and if we're willing to go, wow, that's really something. And then we can begin to see for ourselves. Oh yeah, I feel like this sometimes.

Speaker 1:

Thank you. I think that is so important for people to hear myself and my audience, especially if you've been on a self-improvement or spiritual journey for a while and you start to inhabit the seat of the observer for a while. So you start to notice that annoyance or that urge to be a jerk or whatever. It is the urge to say the thing.

Speaker 2:

The reactivity.

Speaker 1:

Right, the reactivity. You notice that and then, because we've been on this journey for a while, we do. We start to come in quickly and strong, arm it away and be like, no, that's not loving, that's not compassionate, that's not right, that's not who I am. And it's almost like an over identifying with self in that moment, because you're attaching the two, my reactivity is me, so you push it away because it's wrong, it's the wrong way of being, versus that's not me, I'm not. I'm back here still. I'm still observing that there's no wrong reaction, there's no wrong emotion, there's nothing that can be wrong. It's just an observing of all of the time.

Speaker 2:

Right, and one teacher said his phrase that I use all the time when difficult emotions or states come up is this is how human beings feel sometimes.

Speaker 1:

How human beings feel sometimes Because when I'm judging myself, then I can begin to judge myself for judging myself and then judge myself and the heads pop up on top, but with that, the kind of open heartedness you're talking about.

Speaker 2:

oh, this is here, this is. I am the resentful Buddha. Now I am the reactive Buddha. And then, if we're able to hold some spaciousness around this one Zen teacher, her teaching was ABC, a bigger container. So, whatever you're feeling, I'm feeling bad and I'm feeling bad about feeling bad. Well, the bigger container is this is how it is for human beings sometimes.

Speaker 1:

It's beautiful, it's so helpful, I think, for so many people and including myself. It's beautiful, it's so helpful, I think, for so many people and including myself. We're human and I think choosing to celebrate that humanness is very important and in that celebration comes the knowing and the acceptance of there's no bad emotion, of the more difficult emotions, of the more accepted joy and you know, kindness, love, those, of course, but also the more difficult judgment, shame, guilt. The harder experiences are also part of the human experience and we need to be able to hold a bigger container for them.

Speaker 2:

And these the very things that we wish were not. There are doorways into these deeper energies that you know, the shame or the anger or whatever we can't be with. We kind of keep walled off and it takes a lot of energy to keep that in the back of the closet right, because it keeps climbing out. And the teaching of Zen and my experience is that these states like one of the things I've struggled with my life is this incredible feeling of loneliness, of loneliness that I remember from the time I was a little kid, feeling like I'm somehow separate and what do I need to do to get approval to do this and that? And for so long I just wanted that to go away.

Speaker 2:

But over time I see that's really the rocket fuel I've used for my spiritual life and that when I go into that place, if I can be still enough, if I don't totally fall in, totally falling in, then I swirl down the toilet and I'm gone for a while, but if I can meet it, there's such energy in those places and it's the last place we want to be Like, please, any place like this. So in Zen, and I think in some other practices, we're cultivating this being upright, and I guarantee whatever it is is not what you think it is. And I was once in a very difficult place and talking to my Zen teacher and I was in tears and he listened and then he said so I'm going to give you a practice. He said, in this place where you so don't want to be, what is there here you've never noticed before?

Speaker 2:

What is there here. You've never noticed before, Because I either want to get away from it or want to get through it. I either want to get away from it or want to get through it.

Speaker 1:

And he said and so that question brings just a little bit of curiosity.

Speaker 2:

And so when I work with people, if they're in that place, I might say what does it feel like in your body? You're really anxious and the mind goes well, I'm anxious about this, and I'm anxious about that. I say okay, but right here, in this moment, you are the Buddha of anxiety. What is it like? Well, I notice a kind of quivering, or I notice these rushes, or you know whatever it is, but in some ways it's decoupling the thought from the actual experience.

Speaker 1:

So I have these thoughts but if I come to my body and if I really pay attention, I'll notice. Well, the sensations are changing. It's actually getting. Now it's a pressure, or now it's easing, or now it's getting more intense, with that curiosity and even inviting ourselves to reorient around difficult chapters in our lives, with that knowing that it's an invitation to go deeper, it's an invitation to heal. And on the other side is more alignment. The more you know, curious, the more open and able to hold space for that emotion or experience on the other side is going to be a deeper understanding of this human experience, a deeper understanding of our own journey, a little bit more knowing of your journey, even of like. Oh, that makes sense why this happened. This happened. This happened because it led me here, to this person or to this opportunity, and reorienting around difficult times or difficult emotions, as if they were gifts and invitations for something greater on our journey.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I think again to hold that lightly, because sometimes, when we're going through a difficult time, someone will say, oh, this is really a gift and it's like no, no don't tell me that and you just want to be like shut up, yeah, and that in Zen we say that dying is required, right, that we have to in some ways die to who we were, moment after moment to be someone new, and that there really are losses, moment to be someone new.

Speaker 2:

And that there really are losses, you know, we lose precious things, that we had a relationship, a job, a friend. You know, and that this dying is part of being human and, of course, at the very end it will happen. But the possibility of dying early and often when we don't defend ourself and we let our broken heart be utterly broken and I think that's what you were talking about before when we go all the way in, then, when I die, I'm reborn as a slightly better version of myself, not because I'm such a wise and incredible person, but because life is healing and generous and generative, but not easy.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but not easy. Yeah. And something else I want I want to talk about is, as we're on this journey, as we're, you know, let's say we have a practice and at the same time, we're very much in, you know, the 3d we're, we're very much human and orienting towards goals and towards creating. We have visions that feel so real I mean they exist, they exist now, they feel real and acceptance and allowance of a universal divine timing and creating and the aligned action. But that balance can be very unsettling and also very triggering and can incite a lot of doubt in our practices or even in just the universe. So how do we, how do we navigate that dance?

Speaker 2:

Say a little bit more about what's the doubt that arises.

Speaker 1:

Well, I guess, in my experience, the doubt that arises is let's say, you're, you have a certain goal that you're working towards for a while and you've been in your practices, you feel like you've. Is it ever going to happen? Like I've been trusting, I trust, I trust you know when's it going to happen? You know and I guess that's a very human part of me and I think a lot of people probably feel similar because, because you, you're working towards something and you feel like you're doing all of the right things quote unquote you're taking all the steps here, you know, yeah, you're right.

Speaker 2:

And why isn't?

Speaker 1:

it right, and even in just your, your spiritual practice, let's say you're, you're remaining consistent and devoted in your spiritual practice and doing all of the 3d things as well. You know, your ego, or the mind, just starts to create that seed of doubt of like it's not working.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. Well, so from the intro you know that I'm also a life and leadership coach.

Speaker 2:

So I work with people around one, clarifying what your dream is and clarifying what is it that you really want, what brings you alive in the world. And I always ask people when I begin with them, and often you know what is your dream. If you had the job that you can't believe you get paid to do, what would it be? What would it look like? What would it be? What would it look like Right? And I think those dreams are so important and they're here in the moment, right, as we imagine what that might be, and it's different for every person. This is not what you should do. This is what calls to you. The other thing about coaching is that I say that fulfillment is not a destination.

Speaker 2:

So I may have an idea that after my second book gets published, it's going to be great. Or, you know, after my business starts or after I find the right partner, or you know all of these, or you know all of these and the things that I dream of sometimes happen and sometimes don't. But this, the dream, is some kind of expression of values, of who do you choose to be in the world, and we can't control the outcomes. This is the upsetting part about not being ruler of the universe. I do not believe that any of us can do that, but I can align my life with what I love, and so, you know, I want to interact with people in a certain way, or I want to offer my teachings.

Speaker 2:

I may have an idea of what that would look like, but my job is to do it now. So if I want to offer my teachings, how do I do that One for myself? How do I offer that one for myself? How do I offer my teachings for myself? And then, of course, so with this book, I've spent a lot of energy in promoting it as it goes on to Amazon, and I would like a lot of people to read this book and to be touched by it. Read this book and to be touched by it. But I can do what I can do, and so I've been having these podcast conversation. You're about the eighth I've had, and at first I thought the podcast conversations were for the book, but now I realized that our talking today, the book, has made me willing to come on here and have this wonderful conversation with you.

Speaker 2:

So I think, oh this is what I love.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, right, so what I'm hearing is to well, first of all, kind of step back from, because all of the, the doubt and the impatience, really it's, you know, it's fear, it's wanting to control, it's wanting to manipulate the outcome, it's wanting to know the how and the when and the exact way. You know, it's needing that illusion of certainty. So it's it's noticing, when we're there there, stepping back and reorienting around what it really is, that that sparks that aliveness within us, that makes us, makes our light turn on and makes our energy really radiate and know, essentially, what that's doing is raising our frequency, drawing the experience, drawing what is meant for us to us in a way that we can't even conceive of. Right, and I guess, for the person who's listening because I think this question can be difficult you know, when you think about what is it that is your dream job or your dream life, and somebody could be asked that and say I don't know. So where does somebody start in really discerning what is truth?

Speaker 2:

for them. Yeah, yeah, yeah well, um, yeah Well, to me, it has to do with what brings us alive, and that's where I would tell people to look Like over the course of your day tomorrow. Just notice what is it? That when you do it, you feel alive. And then so, noticing that, and maybe over a couple days, well, or you know. So, whatever your job is now, what are the parts of what you're doing now that bring you alive? And instead of trying to fix the other parts, what if you do then the next day? Your commitment is not to change career so that you're doing that, but, right where you are, do just a little more of that.

Speaker 2:

Right, and then that is fulfillment.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

This is not about waiting, putting your life on hold until there are other circumstances, because these are the circumstances you have, but I really find that one. All of us can begin to get a sense, many of us. I was not trained to pay any attention to that. I was trained to be a nice boy and to make people happy, so I'm fairly good about noticing what other people are feeling and when they're alive. But this idea of noticing what I love, what brings me alive, so that in itself is a kind of practice.

Speaker 1:

It is, and it's also a permission slip to be as valuable as anybody else. You know, I think, as you're describing your upbringing and your programming really of other people can be happy, other people can have and do what lights them up, but I am meant to play this role.

Speaker 2:

I'm meant to yeah, that's right, I have to Right.

Speaker 1:

And so giving yourself that permission slip of what brings me aliveness is just as important and as valuable to I mean even just the oneness, to the coherence of everything as anybody else doing it. There's no hierarchy of being. We're all here to be alive, to be fully invigorated.

Speaker 2:

And that this requires some intentional effort it does, yeah. Because we're all programmed to. Whatever our gender identification, all of us somehow have some version of you know, I don't count, or maybe only I count it, but anyway this idea that that we can and that it's your job. If you don't pay attention to what you love, no one else can do it for you Right, right it is, it's your responsibility really do it for you, right, right it is.

Speaker 2:

It's your responsibility, really, that's your job. And then the outcome Well, so, noticing that and then stepping in that direction, maybe just a tiny step. Maybe it's signing up for a retreat or a workshop, or maybe it's taking five minutes tomorrow to read books, if that's what you love or you know, whatever, that small step is the fulfillment of your life, and then, who knows what comes from?

Speaker 1:

that Beautiful. Well, david, I've really, really enjoyed this conversation. It's honestly exactly what I needed today and I'm sure as that typically goes and I'm sure we'll touch my audience I would love for you to tell us where we can find your book, a little bit more about your book and anywhere else that we can find you and your offerings.

Speaker 2:

Great. So, first thing, the book. Again, the name is Wandering Close to Home A Year of Zen Reflections, consolations and Reveries. It's a collection of short observations, some are about Zen, some about my garden, some about my grandson, but all designed to be kind of practicing this kind of fulfillment that I was talking about. And how do we meet things? So that's available on Amazon and online and can be ordered through bookstores. And my website is davidreinickcom R-Y-N-I-C-K dot com and there are links to the book and more information about the book. And there are links to the book and more information about the book and also the Zen community that my wife and I are the guiding teachers. We heard a Zen teacher together in 1990, no 1983, maybe and have walked this Zen path together.

Speaker 2:

So we are the two guiding teachers of Boundless Way Zen and the website is boundlesswayorg, and there is a whole collection of podcasts of either my wife or I talking about Zen, about how we do this. There's also a link, a schedule for daily sittings. They're free and open to anyone. We're happy to have anybody who's curious and a real resource there beautiful.

Speaker 1:

I will link all of that in the show notes. And I mean, it's even great to know that there are free offerings for daily sit-ins for anyone who's curious. Myself, ielf, I'm excited, I'm going to join one and yeah.

Speaker 2:

And, as I said, it's really surprising, even on Zoom, that we can be supported by each other.

Speaker 1:

I mean, it's that similar experiences in your silent retreat. I mean it's over devices, but we're still in that connected field when we're deciding to drop in together. Well, thank you so much for your time, david.

Speaker 2:

You're welcome. It's been a delight to talk with you. Thank you for your work, causing trouble here.

Speaker 1:

You're welcome. I hope you guys enjoyed that conversation. I really love dropping in with David. He is a wealth of knowledge and, you know, just a wise ass man. So hope you guys enjoyed that conversation as well, and I will be back next week with another episode. And if you're loving these episodes, please leave a review. It will really help this podcast grow and help this message spread to more people. All right, that's it for today.