Welcome to Living Dharma, a podcast from the Tergar Institute. I'm Tsunma Kunsang Palmo here with my co-host Justin Kelly, as we explore what it means to bring Buddhist wisdom into everyday life. Each episode features conversations with practitioners, teachers, and change makers who are living the path in real, grounded, and inspiring ways. We're so glad you're here.
Speaker 2Welcome back, everybody, for another episode of Living Dharma. Today we have the great pleasure of sitting down with Susan Kaiser Greenland, best-selling author, mindfulness teacher, mind and life fellow, and one of the most quietly revolutionary figures in contemporary contemplative life. Susan's story is in a straight line. It moves from law to Dharma, from courtrooms to classrooms, from her own personal practice to the bold and visionary work of asking, what if we gave children these tools from the very beginning? That question became the motivation for the inner kids model, one of the first mindfulness and meditation programs ever brought into schools, and it subsequently has sparked a movement that's since touched young lives around the world. In this conversation, we go beneath the surface of Susan's work to explore what's animated it all along. We look at her early encounters with the Dharma, the way practice has lived and breathed inside of her marriage and her family, and how her legal training gave her a particular kind of precision and fearlessness in navigating new territory. We also spend time with her newest book, Real World Enlightenment, exploring not just what's in it, but how it came to be and what it means to write from a place of genuine practice. This is a rich conversation with someone who's given a great deal to the world, quietly and consistently over many decades. We're honored to have Susan here with us. So without further ado, the conversation.
So welcome everyone to this edition of Living Dharma. We're so thrilled to have our uh guest with us today, Susan Kaiser Greenland, a friend, um, a Dharma sister, um, an expert in in so many ways about bringing Buddhism into the world. So we're just thrilled to have you with us, Susan. Thank you so much for taking the time.
Speaker 1I'm happy to be here and happy to see both of you.
Speaker 2Great. So we kick off uh
with the same question with all of our guests, Susan. So we'll dive right in and see where we go. Um, that question is what does applying the Dharma in our lives mean to you?
Speaker 1Wow, that's a great question. I that that's a really, really good question. Um for me, uh applying the Dharma in daily life is really the it's a process-oriented or an experiential-oriented approach to doing the best you can to embody what Mingyur Rinpoche would call awareness, love, compassion, wisdom, and joy in what we say and do. And of course, we'll never be perfect at it. And of course, we'll have our struggles with it, but uh we do the best we can.
Speaker 2Fantastic. Could you explain a little bit more? Because I love this emphasis you oftentimes put on the process-oriented and the experiential components as opposed to maybe what, like an abstract or intellectual understanding. Could you say a little bit more about that?
Speaker 1Well, it's it it that comes from my experience. And remember, I am punching 70 in the mouth at this point. I turned 70 in a couple of months, and so I've been in this world for a long time. And um my experience in this world is that there is some of this that we do need to learn conceptually, kind of like academically. There are some ideas that we do need to get in our head, but the kind of thing that we talk about, uh, especially through the teachings of Mingyur Rinpoche, who's our teacher, the experiential piece of it, that really requires a living, embodied presence, kind of a full-bodied presence. And sometimes, especially for those of us in the West, actually our thinking mind, our head, can get in the way. So part of what we really learn to do is in something that he very much uh emphasizes, is really lean into the experience.
SpeakerThat's
great. Susan, I'd I'd like to go a little bit um or sort of bring some ideas here together. You're talking about how we need to begin with learning conceptually, intellectually. Um, I know you from your background, you've really moved through many different worlds. Law, uh, you've done intensive meditation training, secular mindfulness education, working with school projects. Um, could you say a little bit about how this has shaped your understanding of the Dharma as opposed to, you know, the more experiential retreat or solitary practice? You're obviously a very gifted person in that conceptual realm. How does that how does that um influence or shape your understanding of the Dharma?
Speaker 1Well, it's a very different now than it was then. When I started out, there was one way that my um analytical part of me served me and what I was trying to do and further very well. The fact that I was a lawyer early on going into secular settings and a school, I was hyper-aware of all sorts of different issues so that we could be able to uh offer these experiences to children without offending anybody or going against any established rules. So I am just unbelievably grateful for that analytical part of my head. I will say with great confidence, it really got in the way of my practice. It really got in the way of my practice. And um the amount of early days on retreat that I sat, you know, just overwhelmed by this thinking mind, how difficult it was for me to just settle and ground myself and for that to quiet. Um, that thinking mind got an awful lot of exercise. And I'll tell you the classical instruction that one of my teachers gave me at the time, which is completely the opposite of what we tell beginners, or I think the opposite of the approach to that uh we believe is that classical instruction of crush the mind with the mind yourself itself. And I really needed to do things like counting breaths, anything that corralled the thinking mind into something so that it would stay in one place and steady until I could kind of relax.
SpeakerWonderful. I know Vajrayana practice in particular really does that, right? Doesn't it? It just uses all of the sense doors and hundred percent there's there's nothing nothing missing. You've just got to utilize everything and bring it onto the onto the birth.
Speaker 2I hear Susan,
let's dig in a little bit to that to those early days. Um, you know, I think it it's really nice to hear a little bit of our kind of our biographical background. So, you know, as I understand, you're born in Michigan, now live in California, started out counting breaths. Talk about that journey. What was that first exposure like for you?
Speaker 1Oh, my first exposure was in between those two things. Um, it's a funny story. Uh, the first exposure was we have two children now. I'm in a long marriage, everyone is healthy, so I need to start it that way. But um I was pregnant with my youngest, who's now 32, and my husband, who's just fine now, was uh diagnosed with stage four cancer with a terrible prognosis. And so, and I was working as a lawyer at the time, and we were living in New York, and so I didn't turn toward meditation, I turned toward food as a healing, you know, option, and I became just completely um compulsive around the food in our house. So at one in our apartment, so at one point, Justin, have I ever told you this story?
Speaker 2You haven't. So I'm waiting with dated breath. This is great.
Speaker 1Okay, so at one point, I'm I'm really pregnant. I have a toddler, I'm standing on a step stool or a chair or something in a small apartment kitchen in New York with a big black garbage bag. And I'm pulling out absolutely anything that has anything written on it about processed food. And my husband walks into this kitchen and says, Honey, I got a babysitter. We're going to learn to meditate. And I said to him, Well, I can't possibly go with you. I'm in the middle of this project. And then the look on his face, I said, Oh, of course. And here I'm thinking, oh, wow, you know, he's got cancer. He wants to meditate. The least I can do is go and support him. And I basically told him that because I was not very skillful at that point in my um in that moment. And he turned to me and says, No, no, no, no, I don't need to meditate. You need to meditate. So we go to the Zen Center in New York, old fashioned. You know, this was now 30, 30, almost 35 years ago. 33 years ago, because I was pregnant with Gabe. And um, we're sitting there cross-legged, looking at a white wall. And, you know, they ring the bell, and we had a little bit of instruction, but then we they ring the bell, and my husband is sitting there, and uh bell rings again. It's over. He's very good. I mean, he's he's excellent at just focusing and settling. He's very good at that. Bell rings and he looks over, and I'm not there. And he goes outside, he said, What happened to you? And then he says, I want to tell you this funny story. I heard somebody running out of the room, and that was me. I lasted on that cushion two minutes. Literally two minutes, maybe three minutes. And all of these thoughts, all these feelings that I had been pushing down, you know, started to come up. So we ended up moving to uh upstate New York. Um I I don't remember if I was still pregnant or if I had had Gabe at the time, but I started to listen to tapes, and they were very early tapes: Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzburg, and um, and Jack Kornfeld. And honestly, I think they were bootleg tapes of Joseph, uh, because I don't think he had tapes out at the time. And I started listening to those meditations and that often like lying in bed or you know, lounging. And that's got me a little more receptive. Uh, but I wouldn't really call myself meditating yet. I was more listening. And then when we moved to Los Angeles a couple years later, um, I met Ken McLeod, who is uh in the Tibetan tradition, and I was unbelievably fortunate because at that time he actually did meet with individuals. And so I met with him once a week over a period of decade or more, um, and then attended his groups and things. And so that's where I got my early Buddhist training. And then I have stayed with the Tibetan tradition since then.
Wow, quite a story. It's wonderful to hear. And first off, so happy that your husband's healthy. Um, he's someone that I adore as well. Um, so it sounds like it was kind of a combination, maybe, of like, or I it sounds incremental or iterative, step by step, would you say?
Speaker 1Oh, yeah. Yeah. And while I was studying with Ken, I still I would sit retreat with Sharon and Joseph. I I took MBSR training. Um, you know, I I have I every time I have an opportunity to see Sharon, I I see her. Uh so you know, I continued to uh receive, you know, teachings from all sorts of uh wonderful teachers from wonderful traditions.
Speaker 2And in that iterative step-by-step path, were there moments um like we oftentimes talk about gradual cultivation and then sudden awakening. Were there the uh epiphanies you might call them or intuitions? Were there kind of bigger, more impactful moments? And if so, would you say a little bit about that?
Speaker 1Well, I've always found myself very lucky because even as a young child, I would get these kind of moments of feeling connected to something far greater than myself. I remember long drives in the backseat of my family's car. I remember with my dad out in the woods in the upper peninsula. I just have been very fortunate to just be able to have those out-of-the-blue experiences where concept drops and you know, you just feel connected. It took me quite a while to have to realize that that kind of an experience could actually come through practice. That took quite a while. And honestly, it was it took, it was only on retreat that I would have that experience, even though, you know, with Ken Ken and and his team were very serious. I mean, there was a period of time of two hours in the morning, two hours in the evening, you know, very serious practice if you wanted to have um a close practice relationship with him. But I never in those situations was able to have the same kind of relaxed experience that I would have, like out in the UP on a on a starry night.
SpeakerYeah. It's amazing how those experiences can really um just land us in the practice, give us such an experiential understanding. I remember when my my father passed, uh he he died at home. Um he'd been given a a diagnosis of three weeks to live with cancer. And the morning that he died, um after he'd he'd stopped breathing, I went through to the living room just to sit and just look out at the garden. And it's so it was so powerful. Like I I really felt that non-conceptual. I was just looking up at the sky, and the sky was just so vast and so spacious, and it was it was so visible. I really I can remember it clearly to this day. And it was before I'd met the Dharma. Um, but it was really that that just open, spacious, very peaceful, actually. And and now having met the Dharma and looking back on that experience, it's it's interesting to think of you know my father's my mind, he'd left his body, and um I I really strongly believe I was tuning into that now, picking up on that.
Speaker 1Now, after that, did you have before the Dharma, did you have a yearning? I always felt like kind of a yearning to figure out how how do I have that experience, those experiences, how can I how can I have them again?
SpeakerYeah, I think I was always yearning. It's interesting as as a secondary school student, I remember um yeah, uh we would watch a Woodstock video, and I remember seeing um the meditators in the Woodstock video, and they'd be getting really high to all this breathing and stuff. And I was always really intrigued and wanted to know more about that, but I never I never found it. I never stumbled across it. If if there'd been a book at my school library, for sure I would have read it from start to finish. And it wasn't until decades later that I actually met the Buddha Dharma, but I was always searching for sure in um in all the wrong places, but but it got me there in the end. And uh yeah, yeah.
So Susan, we we we know I know of you uh um your work with children and uh the the books that you've that you've written, which I think we'll we'll go into like to ask more later. But could you say a little bit about when this spark to teach children uh arose in you?
Speaker 1Yeah, well part of it um it it came apart and it came up in two different places. One is I was uh my son was um wow, he must have been like a toddler of some sort. And uh I I would have because because I as I mentioned, you know, I in order to keep the work I was doing, I had to sit two hours in the morning, and I also was working as a lawyer and getting kids ready for school. So I and I would get up like at five or so, or maybe even earlier, and go in and sit in the room next to where Gabe was and his sister were sleeping, and then do the my morning practice. And uh Gabe kind of must have heard me or figured it out. And so he would kind of toddle in and then sit down next to me and then usually just fall over and fall asleep. But I think in retrospect, and knowing more about attachment theory and all, he just wanted to be near his mom at the time. I thought, oh, he's a Buddha, he's he's got this meditation thing down. Um but that was one way it started. And one was honestly, it was a retreat experience that I had uh sitting a retreat up at Mont Boldy with Ken and um in his his group. I had uh some insight, uh, not specifically about kids, but some insight that happened and led me to thinking, oh, so this is what I'm supposed to be doing.
Speaker 2And
I want to, I don't think we can overstate this, Susan, just how pioneering you were in that field um in bringing mindfulness to children. And so you have this moment in this retreat, it sounds like a series of moments, experiences that this is what you want to do. How did that transfer into this brilliant project, Inner Kids? Your first book, Mindful Child, which is uh is still deeply pioneering and so impactful for so many people. What was that process like for you?
Speaker 1Well, first I wasn't gonna do it myself. I mean, I, you know, uh Gabe was interested, um, his sister less so. Um, and he also uh was somebody who, I mean, now he's a very successful grown man. But at that point, his sister was very academic, Gabe was less so, all of that stuff. And um there was a lot of talk around attention, even in these preschool years. And I thought, you know, this is crazy. All these, we did take him to all sorts of different therapists and that kind of stuff. But I, you know, what I was mostly learning at that time in these practices, there were concentration practices, were attention. So I thought, how can I, you know, why can't we do this with kids, help them with concentration practices? So I looked all over for things, and the only thing I could find were uh Buddhist, uh, sometimes family Buddhist programs. Um and so I did take the kids uh and Seth to one, and it was literally, you know, with all the best intentions, you know, they wanted the children to sit still cross-legged on cushions quietly. And um Gabe actually leaned over to Seth, my husband, and said, When can I stop pretending I don't have a brain? At which point Seth said, okay. And he got up and took them out. And, you know, and so that was the last of our being able to go to Buddhist retreats at that time. And so I just thought, well, let me see what I can do to try to make these into, you know, something more secular. So the first thing I did, because like I mentioned, I was doing a concentration practice at the time, uh, there were no cushions, there were no nothing meditation for kids. So I got a little special pillow for Gabe, and I got a rubber duck, and I got a rubber frog. And um, I was working with an icon at the time, and I would set it the whole thing up at that early morning session. Before Gabe came in. And then if he toddled in, then that would be I'd say try this. And um, and then he would do it for a second and go back to sleep. But that's how that's how we started. I did things then that I would not do now, but they were effective. Um, like when I was working at the Boys and Girls Club, uh, I would get, you know, very inexpensive little stopwatches for kids and have them work with a stopwatch so that they could see how much time and also could, you know, build on that. Um, I wouldn't do that now because uh for a lot of reasons. But those were the kind of things I did then.
SpeakerI love that, Susan. I'm just thinking of what you said earlier, you know, when your husband got you to meditate the first time in two minutes and you were out the door. Yeah. And uh, yeah. I love your son's comment. When when should we get to stop pretending that I've got a brain? It would have been interesting for him to have sat down with Ming Yurin Boucher as a as a child and meditator. I wonder they'd have had a lot of giggles, a lot of fun.
Speaker 1Oh, it would have been wonderful because Gabe now, I I think is probably one of the strongest. We all meditate, is one of the strongest meditators in our family. Um, yeah, he's he's a very strong meditator, but um yeah, I I wish that uh that had been possible then.
unknownYeah.
Susan, I've told you this story, but just to juxtapose it, you know, we as a family, and and for the listeners just to know, I have two children as well, much younger, four and eight, and we take them to Nepal frequently. And the first time that they met Ninger Rimbache, I was quite nervous. I'm a nervous type and anxious about how they'd behave. And you know, he and he he ushered us into his house, and um, or it wasn't his house, it was in the monastery at a greeting room. And he had a little throne, very humble, but a little throne, kind of distinguishing where he sat. We sat on the rug in front of him, and the kids lasted about two minutes sitting still, and then they started to kind of chase each other, crawling at first around us, and I started sweating, which is my MO. So nervous. And then they got up and they started running, and they started running circles around the room, and actually it culminated with them jumping up onto the throne, so running and jumping up onto the throne and then running behind him. And he just he he looked at me in his immense wisdom and was like, it's okay. Like for this like motherly energy of like just rest, okay. So this juxtaposition, though. Yeah, so we've come a long way.
SpeakerYeah, yeah, that's beautiful. That's great. I bet they were the first people, Justin, apart from Rimsei, to go up on that throne.
Speaker 2It was, it was, yeah. Good point.
Susan, could we uh talk more about um those early first steps you took with what became inner kids and mindful child? Because I think, as you know, one of the real uh core pieces of our program at the Turger Institute is what we call our social impact project program. And what that is, is is each student chooses a unique chooses a unique area of focus where they can, you know, hopefully express themselves most completely in and through the Dharma in a different field. So education, um, counseling, end of life care, so on and so forth. So walk us through what that process was like for you, right? Especially with your law background. I I wonder how that evolution unfolded.
Speaker 1Well, you know, one of the things that happened to me is that once I really started working with Gabe and coming up with these different fun ways to practice with him, I got for the first time a sense, you know, I I enjoyed being a lawyer. I liked it. I liked the puzzle making aspect of it. There were a lot of things I liked about it. But it was never any sense of meaning or purpose or, you know, the whole Joseph Campbell thing, finding your bliss. But when I started practicing, creating programs, uh, coming up with activities for kids, I did feel that spark. I did feel like, oh, I really enjoy this. I really want to do it. So what I did is instead of uh doing volunteer work, you know, as a lawyer, they they like you to uh do volunteer work. And instead of doing law-related volunteer work, I started volunteering at a public school and at a boys and girls club. Neither of these places had meditation programs, but one of them was a teacher who was a friend of mine who, which often happens with teachers, uh song you might relate to this. Um, he got there, he had his first year, he had a very successful year, he got his second year, and they literally put in all the problematic students in his class. So he had a class with a lot of people who young children who um had a hard time sitting still. And so he asked me to go, and so I started going there. And then the Boys and Girls Club was pretty near where my office was. So I walked in and I said, Hey, this is what I'm doing. Would you mind if I just set up in a corner here and did something with the kids, you know, once a week? And they said, fine. So that's how I started, just for the fun of it. And um, and also because I enjoyed it and I thought it was important. Um, I truly believed then and I believe now that that type of training where children learn to embody attention, balance, compassion in a playful way, or awareness, love, compassion, wisdom, joy, really does change lives and could really create some sort of social change. So I thought it was important and I did it for a while. And then, you know, just as um as life would have it, uh, there was a researcher at UCLA who heard about what I was doing, and then she contacted me about whether I would be willing to do this work with school, with children in preschool. And at this point, I was working with elementary school kids. And she said, Do you think that preschoolers can meditate? And I said, No, I don't think preschoolers can meditate. And she said, Well, I think preschoolers can meditate. She was actually a scientist and knew more about this stuff than I did about the science part of it. And she said, and I would like you to come in and give it a try with these preschoolers. And I said, Okay. So then I went to UCLA and we started this research project and we adapted the games that already were there, but we simplified them even further. And sure enough, these preschoolers were showing that they really were able to stop and feel their breathing and that they were not just learning how that helped them feel differently, uh, but how they could apply it in real life. So they were seeing application on the playground, application in the backseat of the car while the parents were stuck in traffic or arguing, that kind of thing. And so that's really how I got started. And it took me a long time. That it took me about 10 years to write The Mindful Child. So that was like from 2000 to 2010. Um, and then we started, Seth and I started a little foundation, and we uh everybody did the teaching. I had some other friends, some other people who I were who meditated, uh, I knew from meditation. And uh we always volunteered put our time, but uh we needed to raise money for insurance and for cushions and for that kind of stuff. And so uh we had a little foundation that actually brought these kinds of activities into schools for we did that for about 10 years.
SpeakerThat's amazing.
Speaker 1It must have been such a huge shift to have gone from uh law to to children and yeah, and I was doing both of it at the same time for about 10 years. I it took quite a while before I could it made sense to leave the law entirely. Um but you know, I do think that you know, if if you're talking to the students at the institute, it's hard to imagine this if you don't have that spark we're talking about. But with some, you know, with some faith and you know, relaxation, that spark tends to show up. And then once that happens, it's amazing what we can do.
SpeakerSusan, can I ask you in your experience of
working with children? A good friend of mine has a a son who was diagnosed uh as autistic and uh growing up, he loved to do things like yoga and meditation. He's quite uh gifted and special in that way. Very, very deep um person. Now he's in his uh late late teens. Um but the uh Could you say a little bit about the tension between presenting mindfulness um as a practice that really supports children in a way that can help them come home to who they are and really embody these qualities and where its its limitations are. I do do you meet many children that have kind of these kind of diagnosis?
Speaker 1I have, I have, and I I I wrote something about it in a in a as the as a foreword for a book, uh the autism playbook for kids. Um I think there's two things that come to mind. The first thing that comes to mind is um, and this was also something that I I by the time I really started doing this work, I was not just working with Ken, I was also working with one of his teachers. And because of the way I was being trained, it would not have been cool if I had gone out and tried to teach anything publicly, but I got out getting permission. That's just not how that system worked. So I did ask um the woman who I was working with at the time, along with Ken uh for permission for for lack of a better word. And she said yes. But um what she said is she said, what I want you to hold in mind is just serve the child in front of you now, which actually is advice for anyone teaching meditation to anybody. And you know, the idea there was uh don't think about what has helped somebody else. Don't think about what you think the person should be doing, don't think of what the wide-scale impact could be. Don't look back, just stay right there and in service of the person, the child in front of you now. And I wrote that on an index uh card. And at the time I was taking a dulcimer, which I can no longer play, by the way, um, around with me to these classes because we would sing songs. And uh I put it in my dulcimer case so that I always saw serve the child in front of you now. And there's nowhere that that is more applicable than with a child who is has some sort of learning um learning difference. Although, frankly, every child has a learning difference, but you know, one that is more noticeable perhaps than others, or one that has been labeled by some medical professional. Uh so that's the first thing is all of the every single principle and how we teach and share mindfulness with kids is applicable to absolutely every child. It doesn't matter what their diagnosis is. What matters is that you know how to apply it and that you can attune to who where the child is. And so perhaps a a game or an activity that works well with the child who is uh, you know, is very restless is not going to work very well with another child. It's also where Mingir Rinpoche's uh teachings on personality type. I mean, Justin and I have talked about this many times. I really look forward to the day that we have the bandwidth to work with Mingyu Rinpoche's teachings on personality types and apply them to children because you have to just kind of sense that. Okay, so is this a child who's going to be better, uh more receptive or more engaged with a more active practice or more sedentary? Something that's louder or something that's softer, something that's longer or something that's shorter. So as long as you're attuned in that way, um, I think that you're you're starting from a very uh very solid spot. Um, you know, and also with respect to uh autistic kids in general, it's rare that somebody will be asked to work with someone who has a diagnosis if you're talking with children, uh, without you talking to first a clinician or the parent. So before you get started, get as much information as you can. Um, you know, really go on a listening tour of what are the parents telling you, what is the clinician telling you, and then use that information to help you adjust whatever game and activity that um you want to you want to introduce.
Speaker 2What a profound principle, Susan. And and I think we lose sight of that as educators often. Kind of maybe we could say it's constantly, and then we just kind of remind ourselves, right? Because you move beyond that. So so then so you know, address the child in front of you, teach the child in front of you, get all that context. Serve the child in front of you. Sorry, thank you. Serve the child in front of you. Yeah. So how do we take it
from that? Because you've done a lot of work with this. How do we take it from serving the child in front of us in front of us to serving a broader community? Or maybe we could say systematizing it and bringing it to uh yeah, reshaping it in that way. Um, or is it simply serving the child in front of you and just adding more children? But there's a question of sustainability.
Speaker 1Well, a couple of things, and I'm not exactly sure who the audience is that we're talking to. Uh, but if we're talking to people at the institute who are just starting out, I think serving one child in front of you is plenty. You know, stay there. Don't worry about scale, don't worry about system-wide, just let it all go and just, you know, really, really lower your shoulders and just try to, you know, pray for humility and you know, approach it with tremendous humility because it takes quite a while to be able to be present and attuned and open and manage your own reactivity. Um, so so if we're starting out really keeping it small, I like to compare it to being a watchmaker. You know, the best watches, there's some brilliant person who is sitting quietly in a room building that watch. And I relate more to that person than the person who's able to bring it out at scale. But you can take you can have the best person in the world who's good at scaling things. If they don't have a really high-quality watch, you know, what do you got? And so really start by being the watchmaker, really start by fine-tuning it and just patience and humility and um and you know, and just finding the joy in
that. As far as scaling, um, you know, we've had a lot of problems scaling mindfulness and with all the best intentions. What happens in this area is that do you remember when I was talking about how my lawyer brain was just so incredibly helpful at the beginning? But and it helped me like make plans and it helped me build websites and it helped me do all sorts of things. It helped me be able to navigate school boards, it helped me be able to talk to parents, it helped me be able to have conversations when people would stop me in the hall and talk about the Eightfold Path. And, you know, these things actually did happen, like in real time, you know, in those early days. Perhaps they're still happening now for people. Um, that lawyer brain was so helpful, and I could not have been able to make the inroads that I made were it not for that lawyer brain. Part of that lawyer brain is I had no idea what I hadn't experienced in practice. I knew what I had experienced in practice, and it had been very helpful with, you know, my meditation had been very helpful with stress reduction and with all sorts of different things. I was less reactive, all sorts of different things, but I really could not have imagined what I had, what I was missing. So that's the thing for people to remember. And I will tell you right now, after 35, whatever many years practice I've had, I still can't imagine what I'm missing. I know I am, you know, and I'm cool with it. But I, you know, there's plenty out there, so that I uh that I have not yet experienced. Um, so I think that that nice healthy dose of humility is extremely good. Now, I think that wasn't the question. The question was what kind of trouble we got into. But the trouble we've gotten into is by people with all the best intentions not knowing what they don't know. And so they are moving things forward with all the best intentions. And as a result, um that kind of forward momentum tends to have a sense of wanting to fix things, wanting to accomplish things, wanting to uh see results and being sure what those results are that they're looking for. I mean, the one thing that working with kids will teach you really, really quickly is that the kind of um evolution that happens, it happens over time. It tends to seem, it it sometimes seems like, oh, this just happened in an instant, but it is likely it didn't. It probably happened over time, over a course of time, and then you see the fruition of it in just a moment, and then maybe that will stick. So that's I think where we have gotten in problem. And as a result, we've got a lot of problems with language. Mindfulness is a great example. What what when I talk about mindfulness in different, I mean, I was just writing an article today, and I'm like, you're finishing it up, and it's difficult because they want me to write about mindfulness in kids, but what I'm writing about is a different, if you call it mindfulness, it's not consistent with what the actual definition of the term is. That secularized mindfulness actually does include attention, balance, compassion, playfulness, that sort of thing, in the way the term is being used there. But that causes tremendous confusion. Um, different different meditation traditions have different practices and different ways of doing things and little different ways of looking at things. Uh, but it's all getting lumped together, and the effect of that is confusion. Uh, so those are the kind of things that I have seen.
Susan, I I loved what you said earlier. Serve the child in front of you now. And I'm just thinking that must be what Mingur Rimpachet does, you know, each time we sit in front of him. I'm sure. And it seems very appropriate to use those languages there when we think of Rinpoche, you know, and we are very much just a child sitting in front of uh him. Um I loved what you said about praying for humility and um uh watching your own reactivity when you're working with children. Um, because I think that's that's true for all of us moment by moment in life. And I was wondering why that is particularly important when you're working with children, and I think maybe you just answered that that we come with the best intention, but we have this um objective, we want to fix something, we wanna uh we have a goal in mind, just by default, being the adult working with the child as opposed to adult to adult.
Speaker 1Um I don't really have a question in there, but I was just yeah, just it's it's a combination of things because if you're a young, uh well-meaning meditation teacher, you're not and you're and a parent or a clinician is asking you to uh work with children or in a classroom. You're not the only one with a goal in mind. You know, whoever is bringing you in has a goal in mind and has an idea of what you're gonna do and has an idea of how long it's gonna take and has an idea of what the outcome is gonna look like. And so there is this thing when you're working with children that is this delicate dance because you're not just teaching the children, you are teaching the system around the child. And so that's really an important piece of it. Uh, so you have to really hold in mind that the system around Child is with all the best of intention not necessarily supporting what the practice is. They're supporting what they think the practice is or what they've seen on their meditation app about what the practice will do. And so it's it's a, you know, it's a it's a it's a dance between being able to be available and help and listen and at the same time be confident in your own practice enough to recognize um, you know, where there might be some misunderstanding on what what the process really um tends to look like in real life.
I was I was listening to uh Court and Richie's podcast, Dharma Lab. Shout out to Dharma Lab today, and there was this term that their guests used. I can't remember his name off the top of my head, but groan splain, which is like mansplain, but grown up explaining to children. So you groan splain things. And I do that all the time. It's like, and it's kind of analogous to what you're saying, Susan, right? But you just have these we just think we know it, I think by and large, right? And you start to work with children. And when you can flip the script, when you cannot believe you know it, and really because and you do this better than anybody I've ever seen, going in with a level of curiosity. I remember the first time that I saw you walk into a classroom. Um, you you go into it and and you cut it's not that you tiptoe, you're still yourself, you still have your life of experience, written books, a pioneer in this movement, and you're listening really deeply. So I just I I think that's a that's another angle to look at it and that level of curiosity that you bring. I think is admirable.
Speaker 1Well, thank you. I love growing splain. I I think that that's a terrific term. I think also for those of those who are listening who are new and coming into this work, remember when you go in to work with teachers and parents to also go in first on the listening tour and with that level of curiosity and uh really fight against the um the expert mindset, the mindset that as an expert, I know uh this about my area of expertise. Um, you know, uh, because one is it's you know, it's it's not it's not really respectful for the people in front of you who you're serving. But two, you can really uh shut yourself down from your own learning. I mean, I feel I was not trained as a teacher, but because of the number of classrooms I worked with in and school um, you know, heads that I worked with, and then also the I think it was like three or four years I was teaching in the context of different research projects at UCLA, I feel like I was fortunate enough to be a student teacher in the classrooms of many, many expert teachers. And so by being able to drop the need to be the expert and being able to look at and say, okay, what is working here? And especially in that school context uh that you were talking about, Justin, I always go in instead of my idea that I'm gonna go in and teach them mindfulness, which of course when I started out is what I did, I go in thinking, okay, what and remember when I use the term mindfulness, I'm using the term in the kids' program, we always call it attention, balance, compassion. In Rinpochet's teaching is awareness, love, compassion, wisdom, the outcome of which is joy. So um, so in teaching awareness, love, compassion, wisdom, and joy, um, I always, instead of going in and saying, okay, I'm gonna teach this, and today I'm teaching awareness, I go in and want to see where is the awareness, love, compassion, wisdom, and joy already happening. Where is that student or where is that teacher actually embodying one of these innate human qualities? And then point to that. Oh, yeah, look at that. You know what that is? That's awareness. You know what that is? That's just a wonderful, wonderful display of love and compassion, that kind of stuff. You know, smart move. That sounds like wisdom to me. And so by doing it that way and reinforcing where it already is, already you're building success in the teaching experience. The learner, whether the learner is four or 40, is starting out from a place of success.
SpeakerI really like that. I mean, it weaves back to what you said at the beginning of you know, um, living the Dharma, you do your best to really embody these qualities, awareness, loving, kindness, compassion. And it sounds like a beautiful way of weaving in these sort of ethical questions or bringing in the heart of the practice without it coming across as a rule-based or a moralistic kind of thing that you're imposing and just picking up on what's already naturally there.
Speaker 1Yeah.
SpeakerSusan,
could you could you say a little bit about uh, you know, you've had decades now of working with young people. What have you learned about attention, curiosity, and emotional regulation that perhaps adults tend to overlook?
Speaker 1Well, I was really lucky because in those very early research projects, I was working with a researcher named Sue Smalley. Um, and she was uh she had a lab at UCLA on attention, and and her area of uh study was ADD. And very early on, she uh in a clear but gentle way uh made clear to me that we need to look at everything as a spectrum. It's not like somebody is, you name it, whatever you're gonna label it, it's just like today, Justin is on a little bit of the less regulated side of the spectrum. Or today, Justin is on the more regulated side of the spectrum and start looking at that and looking at it as if every single one of us is at some point or another on the less side regulated side of the spectrum. And when we start doing that, and then we also what I have always found, um, I've always found it helpful, but it can be tricky. So I'll tell you first what's helpful and what's tricky about it. I've always found it helpful to be able to, you know, work with all of these different practices and see what, where's the felt sense for me, what is landing for me, and then try to communicate it through that lens. That is that is very useful when you can do that. And so, what was more useful for me on the less, when I was less regulated, those were the practices I would lean into were the games or activities when I was working with a child like that. What I learned later, which also goes back to what we're talking about, the different types of ways that we are wired and Rinbochet's personality types, is that just because I find movement to be regulating when I am on a less regulated side and to be grounding, that doesn't mean everyone does. So then you need to play around. You you for work, I have when I'm training people now, work first with what works for you. Once you kind of get a sense of it, you know, play around with how that might work with someone else who's a little bit wired a little differently than you. But yeah, so you pretty soon, because there's not that many of these different methods, you know, and activities, pretty soon you get a sense of what are the ones that are the most useful if we're talking about ADD, for example, to help when somebody is feeling less regulated. Or also, as we know from uh people who have ADDs, part of the thing that happens with them is with and with many of us is that we get hyper-focused. So, how do we work with somebody when they're hyperfocused? And so, you know, it doesn't take long to know, okay, there's this few different methods that are useful there, and then, you know, just introduce them differently and see how they land. And remember that the same method that you're using uh may land differently with the same child on a different day because people feel differently when they're hungry, when they're tired, when they're upset, when they're happy.
Speaker 2Right, Susan. When you're with children, that becomes so apparent, right? That that that the same child goes through, just as we all do, storm clouds of emotion. And they go through times when there's something that they can't quite express and it causes them so much grief or whatever, whatever it is. So what a critical piece. Um I'd love to switch focus
a little bit while we still have you, um, to uh to your recent book. So I think it now it's been it was published in 2024, correct?
Speaker 1It's been a little over oh, like a year and a half now, I guess.
Speaker 2Year and a half now, yeah. Um so so before we talk about the content, because I think the content is brilliant, and so many of the things you're articulating in this conversation are are also articulated there. But I want to talk about the process a little bit. Because I like putting putting myself in in your shoes and and author's shoes in general. It's like the idea of writing a book can feel so overwhelming and can can prohibit people. And we've talked about it personally, but I'm wondering if you could articulate a little bit about that writing process for yourself, what it was like to compose that book and how it emerged.
Speaker 1Yeah, well, a couple of things. I think we go back to the same idea that we've talked about throughout, that everyone is a little bit different. We're wired differently, there's different personality types. And so my husband, for instance, is a writer, he's always been a writer, and his writing process couldn't be more different than mine. I don't, I have now written a number of books and I and articles and that sort of thing, but I do not identify with being a writer. So for me, it is more of a struggle. So what has what happened to me for the different books I've written or the programs that I've done is I will teach, I'll create manuals, and then I'll have a pile, pile of material, and then I will sit down and go through it and and put it into some kind of shape. And that's that's been my process. And the the last book, I mean, although I have worked with kids all of this time, uh, I've also worked with adults all the time because very early on, I was starting to be asked to train teachers. So this is again, you know, when you're talking, Justin, about what are some of the problems with um, you know, the popularization of mindfulness training. One of the problems is just the belief that uh you can teach mindfulness without practicing yourself. I don't think anybody would ever think you could teach piano without being able to play the piano, but maybe I'm wrong about that. But I think few people would think that. Somehow people think that you can teach, you know, meditation or mindfulness uh without actually practicing. So when schools want to bring in these programs and want them school-wide, they rarely think, oh, that means you have to train the whole staff. And honestly, it's always good if you also train everybody in the school because it's a whole system. So I have worked with parents and adults uh since the since 2000 since the first book came out, since 2010, because in the process of training them to be able to work with kids. Um, and that's what this last book was. The last book was the Inner Kids program, there's the games and the and the activities, there's the life skills that we teach, uh, which in inner kids, it's quieting, focusing, seeing, reframing, caring, and connecting. Those are the muscles that we build to help take our attention balance and compassion and playfulness out into the world. And then there's universal themes. And there's a uh, you know, probably a limitless number of universal themes that do come out of the Buddhist tradition, but they also cut across many, many wisdom traditions like discernment, like renunciation, like, you know, compassion, uh, you know, though interdependence as uh change, those kind of things. And so that is the other piece of this program. And the real world enlightenment uh is a book that you know, mindful games really does the games and the activities. Mindful Child sets the stage, and real world enlightenment's focus is these universal themes or what we call golden threads that are woven through universal or through all sorts of wisdom traditions that lead to a wise and compassionate way of being in the world.
Speaker 2So I just want to get uh highlight that book name so because I didn't do it earlier. Real world Real World Enlightenment, discovering ordinary magic in everyday life. I think that is brilliant of a title. Sorry, I couldn't say I'm gonna cut you off. Go ahead. Titles are important, right? As we know in our tradition, and it's about tradition. It's like you read the Bodharya Vatara, the way of the Bodhisattva, it means something. And I I really like the descriptive element and the word choice there. Yeah.
SpeakerThank you. I was just gonna say I I really wish I'd had access to that as a child growing up. It would have really inspired and brought about a sense of wonder and yeah. It seems so important, and it feels like this is a a gift to the world now, a real bridge of the tradition, the wisdom of the tradition, and how we can apply that in a very modern day setting. Very, very rich. You must have had a lot of fun writing it, Susan.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah. I mean, writing doesn't come easily to me, but there's a wonderful sense of coming together and um kind of completion. It felt great because then now I felt like all the different elements are out there and that that felt good.
Speaker 2You know, the word hearing you describe it, Susan, the word that came to mind from me was this idea of kind of curating. Because what it sounds like you did, you were looking at your life's work and looking at all the the ideas that you had had and then putting it together in a in a package almost, as opposed to this. I think oftentimes we can think, you know, writing is a productive enterprise, which in in it is, but it's also retrospective almost in a way, from what you've said.
Speaker 1It is, but remember all of those manuals that I wrote for the different trainings that I then you know drew from for the book, those I have never stopped going on retreat. I have never stopped taking, um, you know, since COVID, there's been so much available online. So Mingyu Rimpoche, Sony Rimpoche, so many of these wonderful teachers, their voices are in these books because uh, you know, that's that's where I learned it from.
Susan, we we know that you're very well, you're a core advisor for the Turker schools, and you really are a primary driver in shaping its model of learning. Can you say a bit about uh what makes this model distinct from other mindfulness-informed or social emotional learning approaches?
Speaker 1Well, it's a couple of things. I mean, one, the obvious one, we got Mingya Rimbochet. I mean, you know, anyone who has studied with him or been lucky enough to be in his presence understands what that what that brings to the um the the project. And not just as far as it gives it a certain amount of weight and a certain amount of respect, which of course it does, but also his innovative vision and the scope of his vision. You know, remember I talk about I'm more aligned with the watchmaker. Uh, he certainly does make the watch and he makes it beautifully, but he is one of the rare people who have the capacity to both make the watch and also, you know, take it out into the boundless space of the world. So, first and foremost, there is Mengi Rinpoche. The other piece that's really exciting about this project and why I've always been excited about it, is the opportunity of not to have to worry in the first instance about how are we going to walk on eggshells around the Buddhist piece. That's just gone. We don't have to worry about it at all. And so that is very liberating. Uh, at some point, there may be some um sometimes we have to think about it in the context, but we don't have to do that now in the context of that going broad piece. Uh, but it is an opportunity to take all of the different uh the practices and the knowledge from the tradition uh and to learn from, you know, we've got we've got Justin, who is like and who's, you know, brilliant, brilliant, you know, Buddhist scholar, uh, in addition to all of his other talents. And we also have access to, you know, the monastery and to the different monks and to the different uh ways of practice that we're able to try something out and actually go back and ask a question about what do we think about this, or how might that work, or do you have any other ideas? This is an opportunity that I don't think exists um anywhere else with this level of openness and and familiarity of the modern world. Because remember, you know, in in Mingya Rimpo Rinpoche Sangha, it's he has you know close, close students like a Mingya Rinpoche or like Cortland. So we have, you know, close advisors who are in the science world, close advisors who are, you know, in any world that we really would need, there would be somebody from Mingya Rinpoche Sangha that we could call upon. So it's really an exciting opportunity to be able to serve to serve the school in front of us right now. And right now, the school in front of us is in Kadmandu. And it's a wonderful school. It's been fabulous watching that grow and get stronger and get on firmer foundation, and um, and to be able to see how these kind of practices can be woven, not just into a separate standalone mindfulness or Buddhist studies uh curriculum, but woven across all the grades and across all of the subjects and really integrated into everything that is is done at the school. So the it's a it's a huge idea um right now being tested luckily at a small school, and um and with this amazing gift of time and space that Mengi Rinpochet has given us, uh, because that's another thing that's unusual. Usually people put an amazing uh time on you. You have to get this done in such and such of a time, but we have the the freedom to just work with what we're working with and see how it's flowing. So I guess that's it. I guess the last thing I'd say about the program that I really like, and I've been talking to Justin about this recently, is just that this model, I like to think of it as water. If people are familiar with the idea of the water element, and that what we're creating is something that hopefully, when it is complete, will be like water and it can really flow wherever it makes sense within the school. So it's not something that needs to be put here or put there, but it's something that can work with the obstacles, that can work with the current, that can work with what's working and with what's working against it, just like water, and be able to kind of beautifully um just weave its way through the school. That might have been a rambling guise. I don't know.
Speaker 2I love that. I love that metaphor of water though. And I think it's evidence, Susan. And you know, we spend, I'm very fortunate we spend quite a bit of time together, and I've gotten to know you over the years. Hearing you articulate more about your own journey, there's a water component to your journey too. There's a responsiveness, there's a as opposed to like a predetermined prescriptive approach. So I really want to uh just highlight that.
Speaker 1Um well, thank you, but it was not always that way. I that's that's how it started. And I don't know if I would have been able to keep going
and keep building if I hadn't at the beginning been more like a bulldozer. But, you know, one of the things we all know is that you know, you'd Sit on a cushion long enough, that's um yeah, that bulldozer approach luckily kind of fades away.
Speaker 2It does. For most, maybe not all, but for for
many, let's say. Susan, could you uh, you know, w I I we don't want to keep you too long, but I think it's it's important to kind of situate ourselves as well. And as I was sharing before the call, I I really felt quite inspired by some writing that you've been doing about our current predicament, you could say, what's happening in the United States and around the world, the suffering that people are facing. So I guess the question is could you say a little bit about the work that you've been doing, that you've dedicated your life to, the work with inner kids, the work with Turgh schools, um, and how it can help us cope with what we're facing now, which seems uh words are kind of at a loss for words. It just seems um untenable, it seems unfathomable, you know, insert whatever word makes sense.
Speaker 1But yeah, and what I'm finding among among young people, but also among people of all ages, uh is an overwhelming sense of hopelessness and helplessness, that there's nothing that we can do, that you know, nothing we can do is really gonna move the needle. And that leads to a sense of despair, a sense of being more ground guarded, and also a sense of of um breaking into camps, you
know, separating out into camps. So, and I can tell you for sure, I mean, I have this newsletter that I write and I've been writing for years. Uh, there are people who identify with both sides of the political spectrum on uh, you know, in this newsletter and in and who have come for trainings. And so I I was um I was cautious about what I was going to say, but especially I was also inspired by all the faith leaders who were uh, you know, doing peaceful protest in um in Minneapolis. I've been five, I've been inspired by our walking monks who are walking through the country for peace. And I did feel that uh a little bit without without seeming big headed, I felt a little bit of an obligation that, you know, if we hold ourselves out there as somebody who's talking about, you know, awareness, love, compassion, wisdom, you know, then not saying something is actually a choice. And that was a choice I didn't feel comfortable making. But I also didn't feel comfortable coming out and telling people exactly what my political beliefs are. Um, I didn't see that that would be useful.
Uh so what I did instead was I just started thinking about democracy. And democracy is not perfect, but democracy, like we've been talking about in this as far as meditation practice, it is a process, it is a practice, and it shows up in our relationships, it shows up in how we relate to one another.
And then I created a list of tips that I would create for uh almost any difficult situation, just more directed to this, starting with nervous system regulation. That is one major thing that um the uh the the science, modern science has brought into this tradition that is really invaluable is the recognition of our nervous system and uh awareness-based methods that help us settle and ground ourselves, and relationship-based methods that help us settle. So starting by taking care of yourself, and then really just reminders that democracy lives in daily life, democracy lives in relationship. And if you feel helpless or hopeless, it's not about affecting, you know, big picture change. I guess this is that watchmaker thing. It's just how my mind works. Stay local, stay when you're relationship in your area. Every one of us has a sphere of influence. So see where your sphere of influence is and how can you be helpful in that? And it could be something as simple as offering support, it could be something as simple as joining a school or a community project. And then also just the great new research coming out about habit formation. You don't have to be overwhelmed by this, something simple to move these intentions to actions just 10 minutes a day, that sort of thing. Um, and then, of course, for anybody who knows me, you know, try not to lose sight of the lightness and the beauty that's here, because that's another really important way of taking care of ourselves. And so that's what I did is I just kind of came up with those kind of tips and uh ideas about how to take the awareness, love, compassion, wisdom, and joy kind of off the cushion and out into real life.
SpeakerSusan,
thank you so much. You've given us so many real gems of wisdom. And um I like what you're saying, Hina, stay local and really first of all, supporting your own nervous system, uh taking care of that. And uh yeah, really not being so overwhelmed, feeling that we have to change the whole situation, which we uh can't possibly do in any case.
Speaker 2Uh yeah, serving the child in front of us comes to mind. Yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, we can serve our inner child too.
SpeakerYeah, yeah. Yeah. Once again, thank you immensely. You you bring uh a specialist knowledge um and not uh not just an intellectual knowledge, you know, very embodied and experienced three years of working with children. I'd love to go deeper into so many of the topics that we touched on here. It feels like we just touched the surface. But for anybody out there who's interested to know more about your work, um, where
where can they look, Susan, to to find out more? I'm sure there are many people.
Speaker 1I have a website and it's my name, Susan KaiserGreenland.com. And um what I really encourage people to do if they're curious would be to sign up for the newsletter because that is some place where I have found that this expansion of uh one of the places with the scaling of mindfulness and meditation has also hit uh how people are talking about it and the articles being published about it. And so in the newsletter, I try to write a little bit more detail uh to give people a little bit more uh background for those who are interested. So that's that's the best way to stay in touch, and then also follow Tergar schools because um there's a lot, there's a lot of interesting people and a lot of interesting ideas floating around there. And so I am as curious as as any listener on how that's all going to evolve.
Brilliant, brilliant. Well, again, just such a pleasure to have you, Susan. You are, as Kun Zhang said, really uh an embodiment of that expert in a very humble way. And um really appreciative that you took the time to hang out with us for a little while.
Speaker 1Thank you. It was my honor. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2Yeah. Well, take good care, and maybe we'll have you back on sometime to dig more into some of those topics, which would be just wonderful.
Speaker 1I'd be happy to. Thank you.
Speaker 2Yeah, take good care. Bye-bye.
Thanks for listening to this edition of Living Dharma. If you enjoyed this episode, we'd be grateful if you left a review, subscribed to the channel, or shared it with somebody that you love. As a 501c3, the Turga Institute relies on your generosity to continue offering transformational programs rooted in Vajrayana Buddhism. To support our work and explore our course offerings, visit us at turgarinstitute.org. Until next time, may your awareness be steady, may your heart be open, and may your wisdom be ever present.