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The World Through Zen Eyes Podcast
What we do?
Once a week we take a look at the going-ons of the world and say something about ‘em.
The goal?
None, really. Just trying to make heads and tails of the great world roar of Ooommmmmm.
Why?
To try ‘n keep a modicum of personal sanity. And stay off both the meds and the cool aid.
The point?
Points are sharp and therefore violent. We just go around, and round….and round.
Disclaimer:
The views, perspectives, and humor of the speakers and guests of this podcast do not necessarily represent the those of any associated organizations, businesses, or groups, social, religious,cultural or otherwise. The entirety of the podcast is for entertainment purposes only. Topics discussed and views expressed do not constitute medical advice. As the saying goes “Opinions are like bellybuttons, everybody’s got one”.
The World Through Zen Eyes Podcast
Ep. 30 - Practice For The Small Losses So You’re Ready For The Big One
FAN MAIL - Send us a comment or a topic suggestion
Grief can make the world feel smaller, louder, and strangely unreal. We open that tight space with a clear, compassionate tour of how Zen teachings and modern psychology help us face loss without sliding into nihilism. Rather than treating death as an ending, we talk about change as the constant of life, and how that perspective—grounded in the three seals and the four noble truths—can make love and presence more vivid, not less.
We dig into the Kubler-Ross stages to show how movement, not mastery, matters. Then we get practical: element meditation as an antidote to denial, not a shortcut to “nothing matters”; the second arrow and how to step out of it; and why broken plans, traffic jams, and even a snapped hair clip are small rehearsals for adaptability. If we can practice unhooking in the little moments, we become steadier when the big moments arrive. Along the way, we tackle common misreads of “no-self,” explain why context and teachers matter, and share the mustard seed lesson that proves no house is untouched by loss.
This conversation isn’t a command to care less; it’s a toolkit for caring better. Timing and tact matter when someone is raw, and philosophy without heart can wound. So we advocate for gentle exposure, daily practice, and using Buddhist insights to prepare the mind rather than trying to bend the world. The goal is simple and demanding: feel fully, avoid getting stuck, and let acceptance deepen love instead of erasing it. If this resonates, follow the show, share it with someone who needs it, and leave a review so others can find these tools. What small practice will you try today?
Dr. Ruben Lambert can be found at wisdomspring.com
Ven. MyongAhn Sunim can be found at soshimsa.org
Welcome back to another episode of the World Through the Nice podcast. I'm Young Ansing. I'm here with Dr. Ruben Lambert. And we are back. A little bit off schedule. Many things going on, so we haven't been putting out the podcast as uh initially we started on Fridays, but we're trying to make it work and get it out. Uh right about the time of the last podcast, we received some fan mail, and we'll address one of the suggestions. I miss y'all. Can you do an episode about grief and loss when you're back? So today's episode is on grief and loss. Recently you did a whole thing, didn't you, for uh yes.
SPEAKER_05:For JFK Hospital. They had contacted uh Sociam Sazen Center for one of the monks to do a uh presentation to their staff on uh grief and loss from the Buddhist perspective. So I did a workshop with them and I went over the beliefs that are associated uh with loss from the Buddhist perspective, and then the rituals that take place afterwards, like Sashikuje, which are the 49 days, and then Chesa.
SPEAKER_02:Alright, so I'm gonna take a nap. I'm gonna take a nap for this episode, then you have at it. Give our audience.
SPEAKER_05:Well, there's a there's a there's a wide array of of things that we can talk about and and different perspectives that we can uh hone in on. There are different stories, there are the actual principles and beliefs, which we have gone over some of them. But there are also the psychological perspectives, which I think the uh psychological guru regarding grief is uh Dr. Kubler Ross, and she starts off with uh the stages of loss. Okay, she starts off with denial, right? And then which denials associated with the shock of losing someone that you love. Yeah, and that ties into so many different aspects. I was also thinking about different meditations that we do to work on the reality of impermanence, right? Right? The one where we have Jisubapon, and then you can literally do like a body dissection. That was one of the early meditations that I did with Unsanim, where it's almost like you make four buckets or however you want to, and then you go through your body and then you take it apart, literally piece by piece, and then you divide it by earth, wind, water, and fire. So I think you and then you basically it's it and I what I was thinking real fast, and then I'll pass the torch on to you is what what I was thinking when I thought about that meditation exercise is that's almost combating denial, bringing you face to face with reality there. Because then what do you learn at the end of that separation?
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_02:It's interesting because when when this is years and years ago, and uh yeah, you imagine a container into which you separate, let's say, all of the water elements from the body. And uh There's part of the impermanence is in there. The part of the makeup of the body and the physical self is in there. But even more so, this is this is paralleling the time when the Buddha left the kingdom, when Siddharth left the kingdom and he studied with several yogis. And so one of the aspects of learning early on in his life was sinyamcho. And then later he he organized that. So is the understanding of the physical self. And it's frequently presented from what I have seen as exactly this kind of taking apart to expose the nothingness type of thing. But I think that's a I think more accurately, you know, the there's a Western take on all things zen. And it aligns itself so heavily with the anatman, with the no-self.
SPEAKER_05:I was gonna ask you, so when you see that that that the when you meditate and you reach the point where a person feels like there's nothing here, then how does that, especially with the Western mind, trip you up or jam you up? Right. Like what problem does that now create?
SPEAKER_02:It's it's a it's a whole new problem. And and you know, but it like I said, it's a fixation of the Western way of interpretation of the Buddhist teachings. Uh it it's it's got some leftover elements that are then perhaps accidentally imbued into the Buddhist philosophy. Because what it forgets is that the Buddha is not not an extremist.
SPEAKER_05:Right. Doesn't it get start to get into this constant this tip choke or this obsession or attachment to nihilism?
SPEAKER_02:Right. I am nothing or whatever, and and the result is this is I mean, we've seen uh early on when when meditation was being exposed to research and you know, people having sort of schizophrenic crack ups on the account of this uh largely, I think, this particular um point. Because what it leaves you with is if that's in fact the pursuit, then it leaves you with well what nothing. Right? It's it's it sort of hollows out the the self in a way that it's an unhealthy thing and leaves in it in its wake a void. And so those are just ripe for uh depressive, uh nihilistic, sort of jaded perspective on life.
SPEAKER_05:Wouldn't you say this is why it's so crucial and so important to have a guide, yeah, a teacher, an unta?
SPEAKER_00:Right?
SPEAKER_02:It's dangerous on account of self-interpretation of the things.
SPEAKER_05:You think you you understand something now when you really haven't even touched the tip of the iceberg? Doesn't the Buddha place rail guards though to kind of like guide us and not allow us to, let's say, go off the edge of into the abyss of lunacy, where he did also say, but this body is the storage house of the storehouse of the Dharma or or the natural yeah, right?
SPEAKER_02:Because then but you know, that's the thing, right? The breadth of the Buddhist teachings with the Paraman Satan Dajang, the 84,000 sutras, it's so broad and so wide that really, you know, when we end up because there's a problem of cherry picking. Yeah. And so anyone looking into anything, I mean, you go to a supermarket or you go to a store, uh, and when you come out of it, you could be asked, well, did they have kukumin? And it's uh I don't look. Why I didn't look because I don't need it, it's not for me. Essentially, I don't care. And and one could have looked at it and not seen it. And so it's the same idea here. People look at the sutras, they read the sutras, they read the teachings, they interpret the teachings. But what they see is largely as as as is the case with human processing, is a confirmation bias. They've arrived, and this is where ability to to have a truly virgin approach to something is so difficult because the the quotient quanum, the fixed perspectives, the point of views slip into our our psyche, into our day-to-day existence so undetected that we have no idea. And so this uh this um this is a bit of a digression because uh the taking apart the sinyomcho practice, the knowing of the body is the more um intended goal of the separation of the elements, the chisu happen the elements that make up the body, the water, the air, the heat, the the soil, the earth element. Um while looking for those things. Because if you consider okay, let's say water element. All right, now take out the water element and list all the water elements in your body. And and people are done at five.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:You know, urine, tears, water, you know, phlegm, and then that's it. But you know, the eye has like three different kinds, you know, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Spinal fluid, yeah, cerebral spinal fluid is different.
SPEAKER_02:And sure. So there's so many of these things that are that that while we're inspecting the body, we're we're we're sort of meant to travel into these corners and these regions and the recesses of the body to to, and in a process we get to know and think and and kind of visit them. And so the even though it's a separation of these elements, the fixation seems to be that once you've separated all of the elements, you arrive at nothing. And I would question a person who says that to say, Well, okay, can I have the list of the elements you have separated? Right? Because it's very easy to say, Well, yeah, well, if you take out all these elements and put them over there and over there and over there, you could very quickly jump to the conclusion that the self that one imagines one is isn't among them. And you know, but have you done the actual work of doing it? Of how many fluid things in the body have you made a list of? And the chances are they haven't. They've they've done a few, they get the general idea, and then jump on to the jumping to conclusions and the final, you know, final answer. Meanwhile, missing the entirety of the exercise. The whole practice of it. And and the potentially hidden within it experiences. So uh, but yeah, that was the the the separation, and you know, you you tease the the the body uh apart and then you know the jump to conclusion is you find no self. You know, that thing. Right.
SPEAKER_05:From the Zen perspective, death is not the end. So aren't some of these trainings designed to alter your perspective on the way you view something? Because all chungseng fear death.
SPEAKER_02:Right. It it again, all chung sang, meaning all sentient beings fear death, could very well be said all sentient beings fear the unknown. And that's more accurately so. You know, Yukto Henung in the Yukto Tangyong Sutra, when he announces I will be departing from this world at such and such time, and you know, the monks start beating their chests and weeping, and and you know, so he says, What do you what have you all been doing up on this mountain this whole time? You're all crying. Why? Because you care for me and you don't know where I'm going, Ergo, you're crying. I know where I'm going. You don't see me crying. In fact, there's only one of you and points to one of this, you know, that is not crying. If you know where you're going, then you know it's a travel plant, it's an itinerary of the of the travel plants. And so it's that, it's the unknown that is feared. And you know, that expresses itself in in very fundamental survival, you know, sort of amphibian brain kind of things, that which we don't know. Uh, and out of that comes the, you know, the devil known is better than the devil unknown kind of thing. And you know, no matter how horrid the thing may be, so long as I know it, I could endure it. But here, the unknown leaves you with no ability to prepare for what is, and that's the fear.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:It's very interesting because I guess this highlights the point of impermanence. Right. Right? Everything is changing, everything is in influx. But our body since our birth has been changing. Yet there comes a point where we can't see past that and then it's very fearful. But essentially it's another type of change. Right. Yet we've endured changes throughout our whole lifetimes. Throughout our whole lifetime, many of us resistant to change, hence the billion-dollar anti-wrinkle industry and so forth and so forth. But here we are faced with another change. We've been facing change throughout our whole life, but this one in particular is one that people have a very hard time, both for ourselves and actually for our loved ones too. Losing our loved ones can really be a moment of shock, a moment of overwhelming emotion that some people just have a very difficult time shaking off. Sure.
SPEAKER_02:And this is where this is where, you know, the Zen Zen is a strange animal because it points to things that are so ridiculously obvious. So obvious that are never inspected by our minds. It's the the most ridiculously obvious things are simultaneously the most profound frequently, and they're most missed frequently because we've subscribed to a position where that which is interesting, uh, you know, there's intricacy in the interesting and manufactured and externally, you know, etcetera etc. etc. So outward focused are all the infatuations of life, and the most simplest of things with which one ought to be infatuated, um if one had a choice, are missed. And this is one of those. Everybody intellectually knows that people around us come and go. Everything around us is always subject to the results of impermanence. The inyon, the thing, the fact that it was brought together, it's a compounded thing. And the the ego's rigidness is then imposed on the world around us to say, no, no, no, no. It's it's the tip tuk, right? The fixations and attachments of the mind and the ego, the ones that are perpetuated by the ego, are then magically imagined that they could be superimposed onto the external world and and reality around us and say, no, that's not gonna change. Um it's it's um yeah, human beings have this magic ignorance.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, magical thinking.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Right, where they certain things in their lives that come into their lives that they perceive to be good, they're happy. But then when it goes, they're unhappy. Right. And I think they apply this magical thinking to life and death also. When life happens, you know, we rejoice. When when death comes, we get upset, we get angry, we get scared, we get hurt. All those negative feelings overwhelm us. But in life, also there are some things that are negative that come, and then we don't want that. We want that to go. Then we want the paradox. Well, and if someone is bothering me or some burden gets imposed on my life, we want that to die. Right. Right. And also, you know, life has death. If you didn't have death, then it would be like a cancer. It would be endless.
SPEAKER_02:Because and that's the thing. So the like you said, in in Zen, uh, what did you say? There's something beyond death.
SPEAKER_05:Right. And Zen, from the Zen perspective, we don't really think of death as an end, do we?
SPEAKER_02:We it's it's almost you know, purely speaking, there is no death. Right. It's an evolutionary process, and everything it's the the it's the change, and account of that, the observation of the world around us, where everything is, in fact, in constant state of change and flux and evolution. I mean, mountains were at one point in time sand, and then sand was mud, and mud was rock, and rock was mountain, and then at some point in time they're gonna be reduced back to their you know cyclical thing. And so these terms are are uh they punctuate something that is that is uh ongoing, that's a cyclical thing, right? It's it's uh it's the fixation on these things, and of course everybody intellectually knows that everything around them is changing. And like you said, the wanting for the wanting to change us per prescription of our ego's liking, exactly, and wanting another thing.
SPEAKER_05:I don't want the thing that I like or I love to change.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Which is which is which is uh on a on a very surface, that's a that's a valid statement. But if you take a moment to think about it, that's not the fact because inspect it, right, with more detail. Right. Because you have children when they were when they were born, they're cute, they're lovely, whatever. Do you want them to be that?
SPEAKER_05:I tell the parents all the time, be careful.
SPEAKER_02:Pooping and peeing whenever they want, crying, never.
SPEAKER_05:I wish they would never grow. So be careful. There are afflictions, there are afflictions that lead the people to children to not develop, and then that's not a wish. That's a nightmare. Right. Right? So Yeah, I just want them to stay to stay little all the time. Right. I can understand the sentiment and the feeling, but ins exactly. Inspect that a little bit further. Right. And examine what you're actually saying there. You don't truly wish that.
SPEAKER_02:No, you'll miss everything.
SPEAKER_05:It's just you want your feeling to never end. Right. This feeling of like warm, cozy blankets surrounding me, drinking hot cocoa. Right. You want it to never end. Or you want this eternal safety to right, to cover your children.
SPEAKER_02:But you never see your daughter get married, you know, or whatever. Not that everyone should get married, but you know, that whole thing, right? It's you never see the development, the stages, each stage, uh, you know, I mean that first poop, you know, when the parents celebrate, oh my goodness, look at the poopsy poops, you know, they celebrate the poop of the child. The child went to the bathroom and it's a celebratory thing. But it wouldn't be a celebratory thing if for next 50 years you you you had to change the diaper of this child, and and then you wouldn't they would never say their first word, they would never take their first step, they would never there would be never a first of any of these things. Um and so the the reality of the fact is that as much as one loves a fixed state, or one imagines actually that they love the fixed state, when that state indeed becomes fixed, that is growth. There's no suffering. The joy is out.
SPEAKER_05:Because when the child didn't talk and then they learned to talk, there was almost like the death of the non-speaking and the birth of this new development. Right. Right. And so we welcome that into our lives. We wish for that to occur. Yeah, we want our child to not be able to walk and then be able to walk to to work through those different stages. I like how it's in one time.
SPEAKER_01:Sorry, and then and then you want them to stop walking and go lay down and go to sleep by the end of the day. Right.
SPEAKER_05:So it's not an okay fix and go lay down.
SPEAKER_04:The truth is, yeah, it's time to it's it's I love your walking, but you just cut it out now. And in bed, the kid's walking on the bed, and then he thinks it's uh roly-poly time and just rolling and rolling. You're like, no, it's not time for that. Do they make these kids with a switch anywhere? Yes. Why couldn't they just put batteries where I could just unplug, right?
SPEAKER_02:Right. That's why these wheels of change are going, absolutely.
SPEAKER_05:We have to learn and understand in Zen practice, we try to teach people through meditation, through practice, through chanting, through prayer, through uh learning how to properly navigate and and manage these things, because it there is no fixed prescription for for these things.
SPEAKER_02:And that's the thing. So if the fearful is the unknown, right? Uh and the scary and the unpleasant and the the unknown element, then the solution is to know. Right? So if what I'm afraid of, I'm afraid of the unknowing. And then if I know, no matter what the coming is, I I can then prepare in whatever means whatever ways. And so the Buddhist teachings, uh I was just speaking to somebody, and and pardon if you're a fan of uh and and you all for each to each their own, as they say, right? But the um the mindfulness or what became of the mindfulness bit. There is a necessary philosophy that buttresses and shores up and scaffolds the the principles, and when they're sort of plucked out of their home, the roots die eventually, and and this is where the dangers of uh transplanting something completely out of place, out of its contextual homeland uh becomes problematic. Sure. Because there is you know and and and you know, sambopin, for example. Sambopin are the the three uh what do they translate it as three truth, three um universal. The real meaning or the translations of the of the words is the three natural in is uh like a stamp, like a seal, the seals of existence. And the seals of existence are sort of like a period on the end of sense, like dot period right and soangin, period mua, period, yolban chok sanguin, period Those are like tuk right, and so the the fact that all things are impermanent um period End of podcast, end of podcasts, and and you know we people study these things and we learn these things and we memorize these things, but are we trying to uh juxtapose these things against the life as it unfolds? This is what the use of that's why it's not in how many you know hundreds or thousands of sutras one has read. You know, it Popko Gung Sutra itself says that you know reading so many words or whatever, whatever is you know, understanding one is better than reading them, you know, all of them, and putting one principle into practice is better than you know, having the knowledge of all the other practices, etc. etc. Because that's what they are, they're they're practices. So we study the philosophy and the teachings not as a sort of exercise of memorization, not as an exercise of uh being able to recite a litany of principles. Who cares? Who cares that somebody can remember all of the stages leading to enlightenment? You know, or or Popkugyong, I mean uh Huanggyong Sutra so many places there are tens of this and ten of this and ten of this, and these lists upon lists upon lists upon lists. If you haven't done one, all of these lists, if you continue practice, all of these lists can potentially be useful to navigate, or they could become ponne fixations and become just another set of problematic uh things in your life that you then have to dig yourself from underneath their their their weight. And so everybody knows oh, Buddhism and impermanent, okay.
SPEAKER_05:Right, yeah, but how exactly, how do you use that to better your life to eradicate your suffering, right? To make your life more fruitful, right? Just knowing it, okay.
SPEAKER_02:Right, and so knowing it, and then taking the effort to notice how your mind and its and its habituated, conditioned way of responding to the world is responding to the world, and and the wakefulness to be present uh in the mind enough to say, whoa, I see what happened here. I had a thought, but the thought was this automated way of responding to the thing. You know, my my silly whatever fixation, my silly hair clip broke, you know, but it was my favorite because X, Y, and Z. Right. There's death or or or the change. Right there. There's the proof of that which is compounded will uh uh decompose. That which had come together will fall apart. There. Don't wait, don't wait for your loved ones to pass away. Don't wait for the big element, don't fail wait for for you know Atlantis and and volcanoes to wash away the you know the things. Don't wait for you know the meteor strike. You you practice the things in that in those seemingly silly moments of life when the the tiniest of things slip out from our kind of fixed grip, and to say, ah, there is, there is, there is, and you do enough of those there is, and it becomes a normalized state of viewing uh reality, a lens through which you look at life, right?
SPEAKER_05:That almost reminds me of the point of Senghualpulgyo, everyday Buddhism, the world is your training ground. And I oftentimes think if you get entangled with that hair clip, and that's not to say to not have a reaction, right? You're gonna have a reaction, but if that reaction just becomes An octopus where the eight limbs completely surround you, and you don't do anything to unentangle yourself from that, then how are you going to unentangle yourself in that moment where something that you've more impactful to be yeah, to be you your whole life when you have to leave from this burning house? And that's something that you value. I can't put a number on it, but just to make the point, to stress the point, a gazillion times more than the hair clip. If you can't walk away from the hair clip, how are you going to walk away from the burning house known as your body? Yeah. These are moments, training moments, to prepare you. It's the preparation for that moment in time. But you have to see number one, those moments. Maybe this is a legitimate place for mindfulness to take root, let's say. You have to see, be wakeful. Surely you misspelled. Be wakeful. You meant to say, you misspelled.
SPEAKER_01:You misspelled wakefulness.
SPEAKER_05:Yes. Because if you have you haven't been giving this lesson and you're not paying attention to these, these things pass you by no different than you know looking at cars passing in a in a highway as they speed by. You're just seeing cars speed by.
SPEAKER_02:You know, I like to think of this uh this uh marriage of meditation practice and it's training of the mind, uh allowing one to shift away from the fixed sorrowful thinking patterns, the hurt, the pain, the the suffering, the sadness, the whatever, right? The ability to shift away, to move the mind off of that thing onto something else, that is to say, to unbind oneself from the second arrow of suffering. Right. And so we have that. So it's the ability to um deal with the upheaval, the the inner turmoil. On the other hand, then we have these principles like let's just take this very prominent Buddhist principle of impermanence. And how things will come and go. And the things we like will go. And I like to think of those two things as sort of as a exposure therapy type of thing. You're given a technique with with which you could you could uh pacify your mind, right? To to lessen the the panicky response to it, to lessen the suffering to hyperventilation and whatever. Alright, you do your meditation. Do your brain.
SPEAKER_05:You just stress this point as you continue down this path. This is an important path to go down, but I can hear a question from the audience as we speak, or someone might say, Sunim. So you're telling me, because this is an often time misinterpretation of these types of teachings, you're telling me not to care, not to feel. Oh, absolutely. That's not so. Right.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So it is I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that.
SPEAKER_05:Of course, we tend to it this is the And if there's anything as then we could talk about that a little bit further down the road. Right. We tend. We continue to tend even after death. We're not saying in any way, shape, or form it's to not care.
SPEAKER_02:The irony of the irony of this is that these principles make you care more or make you care truly. Not this makeup facade of care. And and and I don't mean to be disparaging or anything, but there is a sort of presentation of care. That's kind of plastic in certain cases, right? It's the sort of, oh, I care, but really, right? And there are frequently these sort of flights of fancy of our thoughts. Oh, I care about the thing. But when the opportunity comes to do something about the thing, uh it's it's not taken. So the care is, you know, there's a there's uh some element of self, the promotion of self as a caring person. Sometimes that's a trapping, you know.
SPEAKER_05:So but this this this principle, this, this uh topic is certainly but the response to loss, the feeling that you have, we're not saying not to respond and not to feel. We're saying, okay. You know, practicing, inspect it. There's more. Don't let that moment become a prison. There's more to that.
SPEAKER_02:And you mentioned the the the the sort of usual stages of of loss and you know, right. It's not just one reaction to the right. So you're moving through. There's impermanence built into those stages. There is. And and and the they're not none of these stages are um permanent. They become problematic when you're locked into the denial stage. And so then as a therapist, then your job is to move them past out of the the denial stage into the next stage, and then into the next stage and move them at acceptance, right? Which is a right, which ends at acceptance, meaning it ends at understanding it and accepting it as a natural part of life, but that even is an oversimplification. Because what we what we're saying is, of course, you know how to navigate your loss. And this doesn't mean you won't have feelings, you won't have emotional responses to it, you will have all those things, but the fixation or the fixed uh position in those, or the continuous perpetuation of those and renewal, resubscribing to the grief, resubscribing to the loss, resubscribing. One is stuck in in one gear of existence, and and the sort of compartmentalization of life is lost because then that grief of loss of one thing is brought into every other facet of the person's life. Um you know, and and and it affects, you know, uh in a in a sort of cheesy perhaps way of looking at it, but you know, you a person had a bad day or or um at work, or maybe they got fired at work, and you bring that home, and then you're um taking out your frustration on your spouse or your children or whatever, whatever. Sure. So so it's the there are compartments in life that are created naturally, and and to know, yes, this is my grief, this is this is uh unbinding from some some suffering. So we have the the meditation practice and and the training in how to move past to the next stages of our thinking, of our you know, to to not be stuck in rigid and fixed. And then on the other hand, you have these truths that the Buddha points out as realities of life. Well, there is loss. Right. There's coming and going. When you look at the the four noble truths, right, right, and you look at the list of sources of suffering, right? Birth, age, or or aging, all you know, all uh sickness, death, uh not getting what you want, being with those who you don't like to or in situations you don't like to be, not being with those who you like to be, or or or in situations all of these things, there you know, there's a list, but they're one really one thing, and the one thing is attachment and fixation and the inability to be pliable in a face of life, right is the source of suffering. And when you don't practice your pliability, the your flexibility of mind, your ability to adapt and and change a perspective when needed, um you will suffer every step of the way because the reality of life is that the life is not this world was not designed, uh custom designed specifically for me. Right. It's not created in the way I would like it to be, how I want it to be, etc. etc. It's going to move, the gears are going to turn, and it's a cacophony of of noise and happenings.
SPEAKER_05:And literally, the world is spinning and moving, and the whole solar system, everything is down to your your heart is is beating, everything is based off of none of it is on the on the account of how I would like it to function. Absolutely not. I mean, just just go out into the world in any rush hour traffic on your way to work, and you can experience that firsthand that you might have an appointment, but the uh local construction company doesn't give a crap about your appointment. They have to do some road work and there's a detour there, whether you like it or not. They're not gonna be like, oh wait, Mrs.
SPEAKER_04:X, Y, and Z, we've been waiting for you here. Let me open the path for you to go since you have an appointment at nine o'clock.
SPEAKER_02:Because you wanted to go for a walk and you didn't like the rain, etc. etc.
SPEAKER_05:So it's saying prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child. If you if you do if you develop your mind thinking the world is just gonna bend for me, you're gonna be very unsuccessful really fast.
SPEAKER_02:Right. A lot of suffering coming out of it.
SPEAKER_05:A lot of suffering.
SPEAKER_02:And so, you know, there are all these things, yes. Uh you know, the famous story of of uh of a woman who's lost a child coming to the Buddha, and she says, I've heard you're a you know magician, you're you know, you're fantastic, something or other, and you know, all these uh things she's heard, and uh she says, uh, my child's past, and um bring him back to life. And the Buddha says, uh, all right, well, we need some uh equipment, you know, sort of potion, potion equipment, if you will, right? And he sends her out to find the seed, um, to procure a seed from a family that has not known loss. And um she goes and obviously knocks on the doors of house after house after house after house after house after house, and and finds no home where someone has not passed away in their family at some point in time. And so the this this realization it is that kind of almost like the exposure therapy. You're exposed to that which causes the panicked state, that causes their overreaction, etc. etc. And and you know, a kindness is to equip the person prior to with ability to deal with the upheavals of the mind and the suffering of the mind, and then incrementally introduce them to that sort of allergen. And we do this with with you know the the therapy uh for people who do suffer with allergies, right? There's that exposure kind of to introduce it in tiny increments in manageable increments, and this is the same thing. We are to view life and any displeasure we experience and any suffering we experience as these small doses, and if we when the when the small challenges to the immunoresponse come, if we practice with the sort of sort of suppression of that panicked state that that is a allergic reaction, we can then train ourselves eventually to be able to withstand the full dose. And this is kind of the the Zen way, the the the Buddha's intended thing when it comes to this uh idea of loss and things, fixations and attachments, we have to understand it as part of life. The big error that is frequently made is to think that you know, let's say on the deathbed. A person has never heard of any of these principles. You're like, well, you know, listen, you know, it it's there's a timing to it.
SPEAKER_05:We're going to the World Cup today, we need a player, and you go pick that person up at the at the local zoo. Right. You you wouldn't show up for a licensing exam for your for a medical doctor and just find someone at from the post office and say, hey, jump in there and take the test.
SPEAKER_02:You know when that happens.
SPEAKER_05:You never would expect that person to manage.
SPEAKER_02:But that happens. Sure. It happens when, and I say this frequently, when the there's no more dangerous an ego than the spiritual ego. Because uh there's and there are these stages where people tend to, you know, they get to some at least even cognitive understanding of it, and they say, well, you know, uh that's to, you know, and it's this dry, stale, dead philosophy force fed into a human being who in this very moment is profoundly impacted by some suffering, you know. So there's a disconnect, there's no heart in it where when when uh sometimes people uh you know, well, I see it as such, and you know, and then they try to force feed uh that to a person who who who's unable right now. They they they that's not the timing of it, and there's a cruelty in the application of these principles um as a as a as a sort of solve for the human suffering uh in that way. So they we have to have um a broader kind of sensitivity to know ah this is this is what this person needs. I mean with today we talked about and it's time now, but we've talked about some principles of it, but it as a sort of warning, um it's not as like, well, okay, I understand that as such. And then you go and you go find somebody who's you know who's stricken with grief and loss and suffering, and and and that's the time you want to introduce them to. That is a whole different level of cruelty, and it's on the account of even when it's well-meaning, it's on the account of an ego that thinks it grasped something, and it just wants to now super uh wants to impose that grasped thing and force-feed it into somebody who's who's not in the place. This is not the place or time. And so it's a combination. There's a finesse that is required in it. We can't just march into the sort of hearts of people with boots on and just trample of the you know, very kind of uh volatile moss and these little flowers that grow in the in the in the heart, and you know, you got your your your rigid military militia zen boots, and you just trample in. There's like, oh it's impermanence, there's no self, and job, you know. It's it's it's a cruelty. Sure.
SPEAKER_05:And and so because it's again, it's just half the story. You're cherry-picking, right? You're looking at the impermanence piece, you're not looking at the joby piece, you're not looking at a human person, right? Right? Trying to understand the person, understand what it is that's a dogmatic approach.
SPEAKER_02:I have a dogma that will solve all your problems, right? It's like you know, you show up to to a hungry person and you hand them uh you know a a cookbook. Cookbook, right? Yeah, and say, eat that. Right.
SPEAKER_05:It's it there's a I was gonna say cake for a diabetic. You did not even consider right the individual. I mean feed them cake just because I like cake that they can that you killed them. Yeah. Intention was good, but the action was right.
SPEAKER_02:And so that's the thing. Uh it's uh there is nuance to it in in in its sort of practical expression. But the place that we start is as we go through life, we learn these principles for the sake of implementation into day-to-day lives. To better your life, to to use these principles, to use them to learn for these, right?
SPEAKER_05:To look for these, put them into practice. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:You know, there are the small upheavals, emotional upheavals, where where you know we have to have a voice inside that says, you know, so come when you Buddha talked about that. You know, and you're not you're not gonna like it. I know that for a fact, because when Sim one time told me, so yeah, but Chanim said that. And and and you know, that's a saving grace. The hell we're hollering because I'm suffering right now, right?
SPEAKER_05:Right, that's a saving grace. It think of humans as as almost like children, and then children are naturally curious. Are you are you not going to tell a child that a plate is hot before they touch it? Then they understand then they can do something different, they can adapt to the situation. Putinim is is is forewarning us. Sure. You know, you could say, like, oh, you're a party pooper, you're just ruining, you're just ruining the day. No.
SPEAKER_02:No, and hence the quality of the thing.
SPEAKER_05:Because I now understand, you know, don't waste this time. Don't waste these moments. Right. Prepare yourself. There's a hurricane coming. Gather your supplies, board your windows.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_05:Attack those things that you value. But yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Right. So that that's that's it, that's exactly it, right? But we all the we how we look at it, right? Because it then it's oh, it's just you know, trumpeting uh, you know, some disastrous outcome of existence, and it's you know, like you said, you're you're a party pooper and it's so pessimistic and whatever. It's not. It's intended to that if the sooner you begin applying these principles, the more your life opens and unfolds in front of you, the more um enhanced your existence is, the more fulfilling it becomes, the more fruitful it becomes, the more joyous it becomes. This is not like, oh, you know, uh it's all gonna end anyway, so why bother? That's not it. It's in the very moment how to turn up the colors, how to how to enhance the experience, and and the dumbing down of our experience of life on the account of the unknown and the sort of visceral kind of uncertainty of the next moment, we live in a in a very oppressed state as human beings because we don't know. But these the Zen principles make us awaken to this very moment in existence. It's not sort of lowering the volume on existence, it's it's enhancing it. Uh it's it's making life more beautiful. And then the transcendence element, because at one point in time that comes up. Well, it's like, well, but this is a temporary existence. We're not necessarily uh very fond of this situation either, right? Everything's trying to kill me, and you know, the weather's out to get me, and the potato salad, you know, you know, send me to the bathroom 17 times, and this and that, you know, just uh the world is out to just devour me raw. And so I'm looking for how to transcend this, how to go beyond this. That is a truth. But it's the the balanced state is that it's not because uh this world is just a horrible crack and I should pursue something else. It's that we have to experience what is and its is-in-ess and then its momentary unfolding to even begin to try to transcend the thing. Because the the the irony and the the the juvenile spiritual uh stages call for runaway, run away from the world, transcend the world. This is all the minutia of existence, you know, it's just it's horrible and blah blah blah, and we have to transcend it. And the question could be asked, pardon me, what exactly are you transcending? Well, you know, the whatever, and and one question in deeper, and they don't have an answer of what they're trying to transcend. It's a it's a you have to really and as as viscerally and and and firsthand really experience life so that you know what you're trying to transcend. Because the first thing to transcend is the ignorance and the fixations and and the and the sort of uh uh these fixed states and and preconceived notions and and our greeds and angers and and and anxieties that that life uh kind of brings into us, those are the things to transcend first. But people's like, no, I want to transcend existence and I want to be, you know, I want to enter into Twishita Heaven on the first state. Get start where you are.
SPEAKER_05:Right, right. It's like I'm gonna be in the NBA and you didn't even sign up you don't yeah, you don't even have a basketball. You don't even have basketball, you don't have a basketball scene, you don't even sign up for basketball. Get a basketball, right? Like basketball. It's it's it again, these these points bounce the basketball once up to practical terms.
SPEAKER_02:People would never say it. Here's the philosophy you gotta bounce the philosophy against life.
SPEAKER_05:Bounce the philosophy, yeah, dribble it around.
SPEAKER_02:You gotta learn how to dribble this stuff, yeah. And there'll be someone getting in your way.
SPEAKER_05:You have to learn how to get around it.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Baskets, dunking, and flip dunking and all of those things later on. It'll be there if you if you do the the rudimentary work, fundamentals, yeah, the fundamentals. So yeah.
SPEAKER_05:So I guess that's our time. Yeah, maybe at a further episode uh we can explore um life after death from the Buddhist perspective, the rituals that we practice, Sashi Kmutra. What after what?
SPEAKER_02:Sasha. Why are you lying to the audience?
SPEAKER_05:Well, if you listen to our podcast today, as life goes on, we tend we still have things that we do to tend to our loved ones, and they are important practices.
SPEAKER_02:And we really so generally and broadly just touched on the topic today. So I I I hope that those uh who are listening um understand that that there's so much more to these principles and the topic of loss and grief, and and by no means uh have we tried to sort of belittle or or or kind of uh reduce the severity of the suffering that comes from these things. Uh it's real suffering, it's it's um not necessarily as simple as, oh well I know, right? But they're starting points and and uh some points, and there's so much more to this, but uh hopefully these principles at least that were highlighted today can then be uh bounce it around. You gotta dribble that, you gotta sort of try it in in in smaller increments um in all the facets of our life uh for for the sake of readiness or just simply for the sake of unbinding from the day-to-day suffering.
SPEAKER_05:So I'm Jung Ansen. I'm Dr. Ruben Lambert. If you like what you heard, subscribe and like, and pass it on to a friend so that their life can be also improved by this podcast. Take care of yourselves and each other.
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