Transcript:
[00:00:00] OK, so we were talking about suffering last night as being, I think, the main touchstone  
[00:00:07] of Buddhist psychology, at least the beginning one, where most people usually start, and  
[00:00:14] how it's misunderstood and maybe more what the Buddha was trying to go after in creating  
[00:00:22] this psychology and this approach to understanding a little bit better life as we experience  
[00:00:33] it. I found this from Gunaratana, who's a pretty big author. He wrote a book called  
[00:00:41] Mindfulness in Plain English, which was a good book. It's a very useful book, and it  
[00:00:47] explains things rather clearly. His idea about suffering was this. He says,  
[00:00:52] Suffering is a big word in Buddhist thought. It is a key term. It should be thoroughly  
[00:00:56] understood. The Pali word is dukkha. It does not just mean the agony of the body. It means  
[00:01:02] that deep, subtle sense of unsatisfactoriness, which is a part of every mind's moment and  
[00:01:08] which results directly from the mental treadmill. The essence of life is suffering, said the  
[00:01:13] Buddha. At first glance, this seems exceedingly morbid and pessimistic. It even seems untrue.  
[00:01:20] After all, there are plenty of times when we are happy, aren't there? No, there are  
[00:01:25] not. It just seems that way. Take any moment when you feel really fulfilled and examine  
[00:01:30] it closely. Down under the joy, you will find that subtle, all-pervasive, undercurrent of  
[00:01:35] tension, that no matter how great this moment is, it is going to end. No matter how much  
[00:01:41] you just gained, you are either going to lose some of it or spend the rest of your  
[00:01:46] days guarding what you have got and scheming how to get more. In the end, you are going  
[00:01:52] to die. In the end, you lose everything. It is all transitory.  
[00:01:59] So that is one way to frame it. It kind of points to this idea that maybe if we weren't  
[00:02:05] doing so much of that, it would just be easier. It would be better somehow. It would be more  
[00:02:12] workable. It would be more relaxed. It would be more stable. You would see more clearly.  
[00:02:18] So Buddha's suffering, the way this is conceptualized, it has three different levels. There is the  
[00:02:26] suffering of suffering, as it is called. You have the suffering of suffering. All of these  
[00:02:34] three levels are contained in the things we went over last night. So birth, aging, sickness,  
[00:02:39] death, being unmet with unfortunate circumstances beyond your control, being separated from  
[00:02:45] some people, places and things that you want or desire or crave, impermanence and karma.  
[00:02:52] So these are the universal sufferings from the Buddhist perspective. And they have three  
[00:02:59] levels to them. So there is the suffering of suffering. That is overt suffering. It  
[00:03:06] is like the kind of suffering that everyone would identify as suffering. It is pretty  
[00:03:10] easily apprehendable. So say you are shot, or you are sick, or you fall down and cut  
[00:03:20] yourself. So really obvious suffering. There is gross pain, there is gross discomfort,  
[00:03:28] and everyone can kind of see it really clearly. So there is that. Then there is the suffering  
[00:03:34] of change. So one level down, a little bit subtler. A little bit subtler level of suffering.  
[00:03:42] This is where most in the West never really connect, are the next two levels. So you have  
[00:03:48] the suffering of change. Buddha's idea about this was that, you just take an example, say  
[00:03:58] you are really really hungry, and maybe you are even on the verge of starvation. And you  
[00:04:05] go to a restaurant and you sit down and you have your favorite meal, whatever that is.  
[00:04:13] Now the first few bites of this meal are going to be like ecstasy, perhaps. They are going  
[00:04:21] to be like pleasure, and just bliss, and it is going to be like that. You are going to  
[00:04:27] connect to it kind of viscerally on that level. Let's fast forward it 20 bites, 30 bites maybe.  
[00:04:38] Now you are maybe feeling kind of satiated. Somehow it has lost its kick. It is not a  
[00:04:46] big bliss out anymore. But it is still good. It is still good food. But it has just lost  
[00:04:55] that edge. So now fast forward maybe to the 120th bite. Now you have stuffed yourself  
[00:05:05] beyond its capacity, and you are feeling like there is indigestion, and you are actually  
[00:05:11] physically suffering now. Okay, so it is the same food. Nothing materially has really  
[00:05:22] changed around you in one way or the other. Same meal, same table, same restaurant. And  
[00:05:27] your experience of this, however, has gone from like the highest highs to really the  
[00:05:33] lowest lows, and everywhere in between. That is the suffering of change.  
[00:05:42] And so that in and of itself, the fact that it is like that, isn't the problem. It is  
[00:05:47] the fact that when we are blissed out, we project the bliss onto the food, like the  
[00:05:53] food is the source of it. And when we are suffering, and kind of miserable, we project  
[00:05:59] the misery onto the food, like the food is the source of it. That is the problem with  
[00:06:06] our psychology. It is that glitch in our psychology that has us project outside of  
[00:06:11] ourselves all the time. Everything that is good and bad and neutral. All of our perceptions,  
[00:06:19] all of our internal realities, we walk around believing or actually live outside of us in  
[00:06:25] some substantial way, in a very meaningful way. And so the way we treat this person compared  
[00:06:31] to this one, is based on what they are the source of for us. And so we create all of  
[00:06:37] this misery, and we feel very justified in having this small group of people that we  
[00:06:43] love that are loved ones, and this small group of people that we hate, and we can't stand  
[00:06:47] these people and their enemies. And then the rest of the 7 billion people on the planet,  
[00:06:51] we don't really give a crap, really, one way or the other. Because they are not some source  
[00:06:57] of something for us. He said the fact that your mind works like this, that you think  
[00:07:04] it works like this, is the problem. It doesn't work like that. It would feel so much better  
[00:07:11] if you could just transcend this rather immature, dysfunctional perspective. It would just feel  
[00:07:20] so much better if you could do it. So that's kind of the suffering of change. So to take  
[00:07:26] things like sex, right? Orgasms feel really great, but then they go. This is like the  
[00:07:34] sensory experience of things. Everything kind of rises and falls all the time. Even our  
[00:07:41] life is like that. We're born, we start to peak physically, and then the physical peak  
[00:07:48] starts to descend and decline, all the way into death. The seasons come and go. Everything  
[00:07:54] is transitory and impermanent. Rising and falling all the time. But we don't want it  
[00:08:00] to be, right? We get kind of addicted to that high state, and we want to keep that. And  
[00:08:05] then we desperately do not want one to avoid it at all costs. We descend. We get very attached,  
[00:08:14] which we'll talk about in some more depth. So he said this in and of itself is the problem.  
[00:08:20] Pure psychology is the problem. There's nothing wrong with the world. It's like when he went  
[00:08:26] to Nirvana, right? Whatever the hell that means. Most of the time we think it's like  
[00:08:31] he went to some ethereal place, some kind of paradise or something. Well, of course  
[00:08:37] that didn't happen. It doesn't look like that. Right? Like the Buddha didn't go anywhere  
[00:08:42] when he became enlightened. He kind of exploded everywhere. It's kind of like this is Nirvana,  
[00:08:48] what you have right now. This is it. Nirvana and samsara are the same thing. It's just  
[00:08:55] a question of your perspective. It's just a question of how you're relating to it. Are  
[00:09:00] you seeing it correctly? Or are you seeing it through distortion and delusion? And so  
[00:09:05] for you it becomes a hell. Right? Because for the moment what you attend to becomes  
[00:09:11] a reality. Kind of like that. So that was like the Buddha's idea about the suffering  
[00:09:18] of change. Then there's pervasive suffering. This is kind of like we've touched on it a  
[00:09:24] little bit. The fact that your mind is like so habituated and to some extent rooted in  
[00:09:29] our genetics, right? The neurology, the destruction of our neurology. We're so habituated to conceptualize  
[00:09:36] everything. And all of our meaning comes in through sensory stimuli. All of it, right?  
[00:09:43] And the fact that that kind of overlaps into the suffering of change and we create these  
[00:09:48] distorted, kind of dysfunctional stories about these sensory stimuli that we get. And the  
[00:09:55] fact that we think like this solution is outside of us to some extent. This is what happens  
[00:09:59] like pervasive suffering. Why is it true if you put an astronaut into a sensory deprivation  
[00:10:05] tank they begin to go insane? So that eight hours later they exhibit symptoms that start  
[00:10:11] looking like schizophrenia. They're quasi-psychotic by the time you pull them out of that. Why  
[00:10:20] is it, Pascal would say, like man's fundamental problem is his inability to be still in his  
[00:10:27] own chambers? Why is it that when we're going to drive home tonight we'll probably have  
[00:10:34] the radio on? We'll probably have some kind of distractor thing going on there. Like  
[00:10:41] why? Why is it like that? Is it really sensory deprivation that creates the problem? Is the  
[00:10:51] astronaut, like the sensory deprivation chamber, created the quasi-psychosis in him? Or does  
[00:10:58] sensory deprivation really reveal the problem that was always there? Like the chaos and  
[00:11:06] fragmentation underneath the surface of all of our perceptions. Maybe there's like no  
[00:11:12] distractions anymore for the astronaut in that tank. And so now he's just like completely  
[00:11:18] present with the fragmented chaos of his most gross mind. And he starts to go insane.  
[00:11:32] So that basic idea is like pervasive suffering. It's like there for all of us. So this is  
[00:11:37] like the human condition.  
[00:11:39] Is it like he's identifying who he is while he's in control?  
[00:11:45] Yeah. I mean to explain why we have such this primordial, primal fear of death. Like we  
[00:11:53] believe, I believe this body is who I am. I identify with it. I believe like the car  
[00:12:02] I own and the wife I have and the place where I live and like all of this stuff is who I  
[00:12:08] am. I identify with it. What I do for a living is grease on my wall, right? All of this stuff.  
[00:12:14] This is me. And the problem with doing that is all of that stuff is totally transitory.  
[00:12:20] It is dependent on conditions. And when those conditions shift and change, so do those things.  
[00:12:30] I'm identifying in a very permanent way with stuff that is inherently impermanent. And  
[00:12:35] so I suffer. And I do this down to my bone marrow. You understand? This is deep. This  
[00:12:44] is how I see it. This is how I've always seen it. To some extent this is how I'm like wired  
[00:12:50] to see it physiologically. So to some extent if you're going to practice like Buddhist  
[00:12:55] psychology, you're actually going against the inclination of your own genetic structure.  
[00:13:00] To some extent. Like retraining it. Which isn't in and of itself unusual, right? The  
[00:13:08] idea of neuroplasticity. You can just see there are like really obvious structures and  
[00:13:13] differences in the brain structure of meditators and non-meditators. In and of itself this  
[00:13:19] idea is not revolutionary or anything. You actually have to change your physiology to
[00:13:25] Become more enlightened. So it's kind of like that. So you have the suffering of suffering,  
[00:13:34] suffering of change, and pervasive suffering in and of itself. Freud made this observation,  
[00:13:40] right? He had this thing called the pleasure principle. He noticed that human beings function  
[00:13:46] along these lines: that we tend to habitually and compulsively go after things that we think  
[00:13:53] are pleasurable, that we see as being sources of pleasure. And we habitually and compulsively  
[00:14:00] avoid and deny and try to get out of things that we label unpleasant, and that  
[00:14:08] we believe are sources of dissatisfaction and discomfort. He saw this as like the primary  
[00:14:17] mechanism of neurosis. This is how people become mentally sick. This is how people become  
[00:14:26] depressed and anxious chronically, to the point where Freud would diagnose it as  
[00:14:32] a pathology. They become stuck and identified with it to such an extent that it starts to  
[00:14:39] just erode the very fabric of their lives. I mean, he saw it basically as being a mechanism.  
[00:14:46] Somebody asked him one time, they said, what's the point of psychoanalysis, right? Which  
[00:14:53] we're actually asked to determine usually in graduate school, why do people come to  
[00:14:58] psychotherapy? So he was asked that question by a reporter. He was on a lecture tour.  
[00:15:05] And his answer was very interesting. He said, so what's the point of coming to psychoanalysis?  
[00:15:12] And at that time, he came five times a week and it was like 300 bucks an hour, because  
[00:15:18] he was a high-profile doctor in Vienna. And he charged like that. He said it was expensive.  
[00:15:26] It was expensive in money and time and so on and so forth. And so he said the point  
[00:15:31] of psychoanalysis is to help the person tolerate what was previously intolerable in their own  
[00:15:38] mind. So that's akin to some Buddhist psychology. Like whatever you cannot tolerate totally  
[00:15:49] owns you. Because for the moment, what you attend to is reality. And whether you absolutely  
[00:15:59] have to have something and need to consume it, usually we call that love, right? But  
[00:16:04] it's really just attachment. Or if you absolutely cannot stand it, it cannot be near it, I hate  
[00:16:11] this. Either way, you're paying attention. You're paying attention to it, whatever it  
[00:16:18] is. And it gets bigger either way. So, how do we get this life? Well, that's another  
[00:16:39] question. Yeah. I mean, like the Buddhist answer would be, there are seven questions  
[00:16:49] the Buddha would never really answer. And one of them was like, where did the universe  
[00:16:54] come from? And another one was, how do we get like this? They thought we would become  
[00:16:59] too lost in the answers. But I mean, the basic answer is, like I've been doing this, this  
[00:17:07] thing here, I've been doing this, the pleasure principle thing, and the attachment thing,  
[00:17:12] and the suffering thing, and projecting everything outside of me as being real, and inherently  
[00:17:17] existing from its own side. And believing, therefore, that my satisfaction and well-being  
[00:17:22] are outside of me. And my dissatisfaction and discomfort are also outside of me. And  
[00:17:27] I've been like grasping and eating and doing the compulsive thing. It's like I was doing  
[00:17:32] that in the pre-Cambrian slime, when I was like some kind of Snuffleupagus. I've been  
[00:17:39] doing that for eons, right? Over and over and over and over and over and over and over  
[00:17:46] and over again. Lifetime after lifetime after lifetime. Yeah, it's happened. Like basic  
[00:17:55] law of psychology, like you learn this in Psych 101. Everything gets easier with repetition.  
[00:18:01] Everything. Being a serial killer gets easier with repetition. Becoming a saint, patience,  
[00:18:11] generosity, compassion, gets easier with repetition. Everything gets easier with repetition. So  
[00:18:18] it's just a matter of what you're cultivating. So you do that over and over and over again,  
[00:18:25] this extended period of time, you develop this tremendous inertia, right? There's like  
[00:18:30] this momentum, it's a psychology. Because for the moment, what you attend to becomes  
[00:18:36] reality. And so now I'm like born into this life in 1969, as a human being this time.  
[00:18:43] This is all from a Buddhist perspective, of course, right? And I'm born with this momentum,  
[00:18:48] this energy, right? That's like a part of my essence. It's a part of what is happening  
[00:18:55] in this body. And so I just kind of like play that out one more time, right? But now you  
[00:19:03] actually have this chance to like slow that down a little bit, to begin to like ask questions,  
[00:19:11] to begin to become mindful, to begin to wake up, right? The Buddha saw all of us as sleepwalking.  
[00:19:19] Like we're just kind of mindlessly going through the motions of this lifetime, depending on  
[00:19:24] our gender and culture and sexual orientation, the country that we're born in, right? We  
[00:19:29] just kind of like go through the motions. Why do most people really get married when  
[00:19:34] you break it down to what was really going on? Because it was the next thing to do, right?  
[00:19:41] And the usual list of stuff that we do when we're adults, that we get from our parents  
[00:19:46] and movies and the culture and all that stuff. It's just a habit. It's compulsive, right?  
[00:19:54] It's reflexive. It's mindless. We don't really think it through. We don't really connect  
[00:20:01] in a genuine way to much of anything in this life. Because we're just moving so fast, right?  
[00:20:08] Especially our culture. We've just got like in our house, we've got like two TVs, three  
[00:20:15] computers, right? I've got a cell phone, you've got a cell phone, and everybody's got all  
[00:20:22] this stuff going on, right? All the time. I've got to go to work, I've got to go to  
[00:20:27] school, I've got to get all this stuff done, right? It's just like the treadmill of all  
[00:20:32] the stuff, right? When do you ever like slow down to actually start to examine what this  
[00:20:39] life really is? What does it mean to be alive? And it might begin with like what does it  
[00:20:45] feel like to wash the dishes, right? Just like slow down and adopt one. What does it  
[00:20:51] feel like to just be standing here in this moment washing dishes at the sink? I mean,  
[00:20:58] if I don't deliberately go out of my way to do that, what am I doing instead? I'm telling  
[00:21:02] stories about what I've got to do in an hour, right? And how big of an inconvenience that  
[00:21:06] is usually, right? I've got all kinds of feelings about the stories, about the future. I'm telling  
[00:21:11] stories about the past, right? I'm projecting my reality, my internal stuff onto someone  
[00:21:17] else, people placing things around me and believing that it exists there. And then scheming  
[00:21:22] ways to get it or to avoid it or whatever, right? That's just kind of how I spend my  
[00:21:27] life. And so like one morning I wake up and I'm 75 years old and I wonder where the time  
[00:21:35] went and what's happened. And the dissatisfaction and the depression and the difficulty and  
[00:21:41] the bitterness and the disconnection and the isolation are just at big levels now. And  
[00:21:46] I just feel so exhausted and tired of the whole thing. Maybe I'll blame life, right?  
[00:21:54] Life is the thing that sucks. Like one more time, project my reality outside of me. So  
[00:22:04] that's, Buddha called that sleepwalking. We're just, we're not seeing it clearly. He called  
[00:22:12] it a fundamental misapprehension of reality. You're just not getting it. You're not connecting  
[00:22:19] to it in any way that's meaningful, right? Okay, so the usual way this works is like  
[00:22:27] if you've got afflictive emotion, and this is what I see all the time. I teach this pretty  
[00:22:31] regularly in graduate school. And I talk to my patients when I'm in this kind of language.  
[00:22:39] It's like you've got stuff that you experience inside your head, emotions usually, okay?  
[00:22:47] So this core group of emotions that I cannot call away. And so it's helplessness, powerlessness,  
[00:22:54] fear, it's anxiety, it's frustration, irritation, loneliness is a very big one. I've got this  
[00:23:04] core group of experiences. Boredom is a very big one. We get so reactive to boredom, right?  
[00:23:11] Without ever really asking what boredom is. And it's so reactive to it. So I've got all  
[00:23:16] this core group of emotional experiences I get very reactive to. And so the usual thing  
[00:23:22] I'll do is like try to get out of it. Sometimes I'll try and kill it. And when I figure out  
[00:23:28] that can't work, I'll just try and escape. So I'm very antagonistic, I'm very adversarial  
[00:23:35] with my emotions. I want to kill it, I want to conquer it, I want to defeat it, it's an  
[00:23:41] enemy. Okay, so if I can't do that with loneliness or boredom or depression, then the next strategy  
[00:23:48] is like if you can't beat it, you just get the hell out of there. You've got to get away  
[00:23:52] from it somehow. So how do we usually do that? How do we exit our own experience of  
[00:23:58] life in a very practical kind of way? The first big exit door that we use is to numb  
[00:24:06] out. So maybe I'll have a couple of drinks. Maybe I'll do a line of cocaine. Cocaine is  
[00:24:15] like a big one. Why is cocaine so addictive? I mean beyond a chemical, biochemical and  
[00:24:20] physiological sense, which it is intensely addictive. So it's so psychologically addictive.  
[00:24:26] Any addict will tell you getting off of drugs physically is the easiest part. The body is  
[00:24:34] kind of done with being addicted to things in a matter of days usually. It's the mind  
[00:24:40] however that's the thing. It's so psychologically addictive because it creates a sense of euphoria  
[00:24:47] for us. Like a bliss almost. Everything is okay just as it is kind of feeling. And which  
[00:24:54] is like so on the other end of the spectrum from the depression or the loneliness or the  
[00:25:00] chronic dissatisfaction, I just become like addicted to that. To just feeling that for  
[00:25:06] a while. So I'll numb out. I can do that with drugs, alcohol. I can do that with sex. I  
[00:25:13] can do that with TV. I can do that with video games. I can do that with romance novels.  
[00:25:20] I can do that with anything. Food, gambling. You can numb out on whatever. Work, money.  
[00:25:31] That's a big one for our culture. I like to have more money. What's the basis of greed?  
[00:25:39] It's just like a numb out for afflictive stuff going on in your own head. Like what's  
[00:25:46] the basic justification for like me having a hundred million dollars while like you're  
[00:25:52] starving? It makes me feel better. Makes me feel safer. Makes me feel disconnected from  
[00:26:00] that feeling of helplessness maybe. Groundlessness. Makes me feel a little more powerful.  
[00:26:08] More fear of dying.  
[00:26:11] So you can numb all that stuff out. So you've got to numb out. Then the second big exit  
[00:26:17] door that we usually do is anger and aggression. I can just take whatever is afflicted about  
[00:26:22] what I'm feeling, something I don't like, and I label it an affliction or I think it  
[00:26:28] shouldn't be there, whatever it is, and I'll just take that and project it onto you. And  
[00:26:35] now you're the source of my bad feeling. You're the source of my bad feeling now. And  
[00:26:43] then from that position it's really quite easy to make you my object of blame. And once  
[00:26:50] I've done that, once I've blamed you, now my anger can kind of freely flow to you and  
[00:26:56] it's really quite easy to become aggressive with you. To hurt you and to punish you for
[00:27:03] Making me feel this way, which is like our common language. Think about it. Why did you  
[00:27:09] make me feel that way? In actuality, no one really makes me feel anything. That exists  
[00:27:19] inside of me. And there's no inherent emotional reaction to anything outside of me. It doesn't  
[00:27:27] really live like that. We'll dissect that a little bit more later around attachment.  
[00:27:34] So, I can project it onto you and make you the problem and then punish you for being  
[00:27:39] the problem. That's very easy to do. How does that look? It can look very overt. Maybe I'll  
[00:27:45] smack you in your face. It can be that overt. I'll assault you. Maybe I'll yell and scream.  
[00:27:53] Maybe I'll threaten you and intimidate you. Maybe I'll do some passive-aggressive stuff.  
[00:27:59] Maybe I'll withdraw and become silently scornful and need you to come after me. And when you  
[00:28:09] come after me, then I'm going to attack you. Maybe I'll do that game. Maybe I'll just become  
[00:28:16] weepy and make you feel like you really hurt me, so that you feel bad and you try  
[00:28:22] to make me feel better. And that alleviates my sense of powerlessness. Maybe I'll play  
[00:28:29] all kinds of games with the anger and aggression thing. But fundamentally, I'm projecting my  
[00:28:35] reality onto you and making you the source of it. And then I'm punishing you, one way  
[00:28:41] or the other. So if you do couples counseling, that walks through the door every time. Every  
[00:28:50] time. And it's just a dynamic. This is why, from the Buddhist perspective, relationship  
[00:28:58] is spiritual practice. It invariably will rub your nose in whatever you're uncomfortable  
[00:29:05] with. It will invariably rub your nose in that stuff until you decide to either bail  
[00:29:14] and leave the relationship and do the mindless thing where you find the same person again,  
[00:29:19] it's just a different body and a different name. And you play it out one more time. Or  
[00:29:24] you decide to stay and do the work. That's the basic choice, pretty much.  
[00:29:33] So you do the anger and aggression thing. And the last major exit door for us, in particular,  
[00:29:39] is materialism. Just trying to buy your way out of it. In an overt way with money. Just  
[00:29:48] buy a sports car. What's the thing with the midlife crisis with guys around my age? Half  
[00:29:54] is behind me, half is ahead of me now. And I'm just fundamentally dissatisfied and uncomfortable  
[00:29:59] with the first half. And plus, now that I get to this point, it's not what I thought  
[00:30:04] it would be. It's kind of disappointing in some subtle way. And so, what do I do with  
[00:30:11] that? Well, maybe I'll buy a Porsche. I'll buy something shiny and pretty and new. Maybe  
[00:30:20] I'll project that dissatisfaction onto my wife. And I'll blame her for it being there.  
[00:30:26] And then I'll need to upgrade my model of life. Because she's the problem. I'll need  
[00:30:35] to get something shiny and new and pretty. I'll need that again.  
[00:30:44] Do you ever just have a really bad day and you go buy a new pair of shoes? Or a new suit  
[00:30:50] or something? Or a dress or whatever? You're just kind of buying your way out of it with  
[00:30:55] this thing that's outside of you. Which in and of itself, there's nothing wrong with  
[00:31:01] having a bad day and going to buy a pair of shoes. It's the meaning that we give it. It's  
[00:31:06] the mindlessness of it that becomes problematic. You can do this with spirituality and religious  
[00:31:15] practice. If you're fundamentally feeling helpless and powerless in life, maybe you'll  
[00:31:22] use the religion that you practice to put yourself a little up here from everyone else,  
[00:31:29] kind of looking down on people. And if you don't believe what I believe, you're not just  
[00:31:35] wrong. I can't make room for divergent beliefs. I have to kill you.  
[00:31:43] You're just too stupid to live. You just don't get it.  
[00:31:51] So I can get materialistic about whatever. So, nana, anger, aggression, and materialism.  
[00:31:59] Those are the three basic exit doors that we see typically from an existential Buddhist  
[00:32:07] psychological perspective. You see this over and over and over again. It's the afflictive  
[00:32:12] way that we cope with emotions that feel overwhelming to us and are very uncomfortable for us.  
[00:32:19] So the question then arises, what's the alternative to that?  
[00:32:25] If you're not going to just habitually leave, if you're not going to just habitually exit  
[00:32:30] your own experience of life, well, then what are you going to do?  
[00:32:37] If you determine that's a bad idea, and you determine it again from the Buddhist perspective,  
[00:32:44] which is like, you analyze your own experience. You come to your own conclusions about it.  
[00:32:51] I mean, that's the only way people really change. You've got this model from clinical  
[00:32:57] psychology, Prochaska and DiClemente, stages of change. How does it happen?  
[00:33:03] You go from pre-contemplation to contemplation. Pre-contemplation to contemplation.  
[00:33:09] And then to planning. How do I actually create this change?  
[00:33:14] Then to action. And then to a maintenance of the action. It's a standard model of change  
[00:33:19] from a clinical psychological perspective. How do you go from pre-contemplation to contemplation?  
[00:33:25] You analyze your own experience. I mean, if it were that easy just to come to some shrink  
[00:33:31] like me and sit in my office and have me tell you what was right, and then you would just  
[00:33:36] buy into that and change, then it would be really straightforward.  
[00:33:40] But it's just not like that. You have to actually see it from your own side, analyzing  
[00:33:46] your own experience of it. So what do you do?  
[00:33:51] If you're not going to habitually exit and run away from something, what do you do instead?  
[00:34:00] Experience it.  
[00:34:09] Okay. Well, I mean, if you're not going to leave, it seems like the only other alternative  
[00:34:15] is to stay. Then the question would be, like, how do you stay? And maybe why would you stay?  
[00:34:22] And then just even being willing to give that a chance. The way that you've given a chance  
[00:34:28] to exiting habitually your experience of life over and over again. If you see what that's  
[00:34:33] brought to you in some relatively clear way, you can see there are disadvantages to that.  
[00:34:40] Then you might become willing to do the alternative, right? Which is just to stay with your own  
[00:34:46] experience. To be willing to connect to it. Even if it feels painful at first. Even if  
[00:34:51] it feels overwhelming at first. Which it frequently does. People start psychotherapy, and frequently  
[00:34:58] they just, they're starting to slow down and take a closer look, and all of a sudden, all  
[00:35:05] this stuff that they've been keeping the clamps down on, that they've compartmentalized  
[00:35:11] for so long, and geared their whole mind around keeping that crap at bay, they start to release  
[00:35:18] that a little bit, and it starts to come up. What happens to a junkie or a drunk when he  
[00:35:26] stops shooting smack, or using, or spiking up, or drinking? Now you have to actually  
[00:35:34] be present with all that stuff that you used to just be actively numbing out all the time,  
[00:35:39] right? And when you first start that, it feels kind of overwhelming. You get very disoriented  
[00:35:44] with it. The first time I went on a week-long retreat, I felt like I was going insane. The  
[00:35:52] first two or three days, where it's like all you're doing is meditating for eight hours  
[00:35:56] a day, getting Dharma teachings and meditating, there's no TVs, there's no phones, there's  
[00:36:00] no internet, there's no nothing. You get yourself still like that, and what do you  
[00:36:07] start to experience, really frequently, right off the bat, is like the chaos. All that stuff  
[00:36:14] starts filtering to the surface. Back to Pascal's observation, right? Our fundamental problem  
[00:36:21] is that we can't be still in our own chambers. So you'd be willing to stay, and you get  
[00:36:32] through the feeling of overwhelm, right? You get through the panic. Maybe you learn to  
[00:36:37] breathe into it a little bit. You learn to settle down. And then after the panic passes,  
[00:36:44] after you learn just to let it pass, right? You breathe into it, like a little Dhamma  
[00:36:50] realization from Zen or something, right? You breathe through it, like it's going through  
[00:36:54] you, right? Instead of like, holding it.  
[00:36:59] And that's why, like you said, on your retreat, when you go in and meditate and all this stuff  
[00:37:04] comes up, that's one of the reasons they have gurus, that's a teacher, that when you go  
[00:37:10] through, you can express, because it's almost like being on the side, you know, like you  
[00:37:13] are, in your depression. I got all this stuff, and now I need to explore it. The teacher  
[00:37:19] can guide you through that.  
[00:37:22] Carl Jung, who was actually a disciple of Freud. Freud, I think, actually did have disciples.  
[00:37:28] Freud had a huge ego, right? Freud did not like to be disagreed with. So when Jung disagreed  
[00:37:36] with him on some foundational issues, like he was cast out and exiled. And so Jung  
[00:37:44] kind of started his own thing. And his conception of the psychoanalyst or the psychologist was  
[00:37:49] that we were modern-day shamans, he said. So like, we were responsible. We were the  
[00:37:56] ones in, like, and in Western culture, like, we want our shamans to be like doctors, and  
[00:38:02] we want them to, like, wear doctor suits and to have like pigskin on the walls and stuff,  
[00:38:07] and we'll have a lot of alphabet after their name. But fundamentally, we perform the same  
[00:38:12] function that shamans did in a tribe, right? He thought. And I think there's some truth  
[00:38:19] to that. Like, if you look at it from a certain, like, yeah.  
[00:38:26] So maybe the alternative to like exiting and numbing out and getting angry and aggressive  
[00:38:31] and materialism is just to stay. And then just to be willing to see what arises, to  
[00:38:38] like get calm to the point where you cease to be so much like this with it. And at first  
[00:38:43] it feels like when you're first cultivating mindfulness, you get some space, and then  
[00:38:47] you're back. And then you get a little bit of this, and then you're back, right? And  
[00:38:52] it kind of goes like this pretty regularly. And it can be kind of frustrating and disorienting  
[00:38:58] if you want to get all reactive to this, right? And not be patient with yourself. And not  
[00:39:03] be generous with yourself and compassionate with yourself. But eventually you get to this  
[00:39:07] place where, like, you can sustain some space in between you and the afflictive stuff, and  
[00:39:12] you can begin to see it. Like you stop being so reactive to, like, getting closer to it,  
[00:39:17] it doesn't matter anymore. And you start to like watch it. You start to pay attention  
[00:39:21] to it closely. Maybe you begin to see into it, right? What Buddhist psychology would  
[00:39:29] call penetrative insight. You begin to understand the nature of your thinking and feeling, and  
[00:39:35] all the various subcategories of thinking and feeling. You begin to see what it's really  
[00:39:42] made of. And when you can do that, like there's no need to be afraid. If you understand the  
[00:39:49] nature of something, then there's no need to fear it. And then, you know, then you're  
[00:39:57] kind of like off to the races. Maybe in a good direction, you know. A direction that  
[00:40:02] would be healthy. More balanced, you know. Okay. This is probably a good place to take  
[00:40:13] a lunch. All right. So let's come back in an hour, and we'll continue.