Transcript:
[00:00:00] Okay, so I guess we'll just push through and then finish at this point.  
[00:00:12] The last couple of things would just be discussions on equanimity and compassion, which are framed  
[00:00:20] as two of the four immeasurables.  
[00:00:22] Okay, so the four immeasurables are the four yardsticks of Buddhist practice and Buddhist  
[00:00:28] psychology, Buddhist worldview.  
[00:00:32] They're like the frame that the Buddha gave for how well are you understanding, how well  
[00:00:37] are you practicing, and you can measure that by how much of these four qualities you have  
[00:00:45] present in your mind, in your experience, on a routine basis.  
[00:00:53] So equanimity and compassion are two of the central themes of Buddhist thought.  
[00:01:03] Equanimity is this idea of, so for compassion, so let's return back to a question that came  
[00:01:10] up earlier because it's an important question, it's like what's the difference between being  
[00:01:14] compassionate and being a doormat?  
[00:01:18] And so a useful place to start there would be to take a look at people that you consider  
[00:01:24] to have high levels of compassion, but also to be pretty effective human beings.  
[00:01:30] So maybe we could look at Martin Luther King, maybe we could look at Gandhi, maybe you could  
[00:01:36] look at the Dalai Lama, maybe you could look at St. Francis, maybe you could look at the  
[00:01:42] Buddha, or Christ, or any of these characters, these personalities that are present in our  
[00:01:51] lexicon.  
[00:01:53] And ask yourself if they were compassionate, ask yourself if they were doormats.  
[00:02:01] And so maybe the distinction would be, compassion sees clearly, like compassion doesn't let  
[00:02:09] someone who's doing destructive things off the hook.  
[00:02:15] That would be useless.  
[00:02:18] That would be not serving them, and not serving others, and not serving yourself.  
[00:02:23] Just to let someone off the hook, right?  
[00:02:26] That would be to enable them.  
[00:02:29] On the other hand, it doesn't condemn them either, and it doesn't frame them in extreme  
[00:02:35] negative terms, in some kind of judgmental way that places them over here in some kind  
[00:02:41] of state of exile or condemnation.  
[00:02:44] This would also be similarly useless, it doesn't accomplish anything.  
[00:02:50] So compassion would be like somewhere in the middle of those two, and maybe in the middle  
[00:02:54] of those two there's some sense of understanding, some sense of clarity, and some sense of maybe  
[00:03:02] being able to help even the person that is currently engaged in destructive behaviors,  
[00:03:09] destructive words, destructive speech and behavior.  
[00:03:16] I tried to learn something of that balance in my own story, I spent my first year internship  
[00:03:23] in my doctoral program, it might have been my second, but I spent that with sexually  
[00:03:29] abused girls, children, doing therapy with that population.  
[00:03:36] And I found myself at the end of a year with that, of being very hard and armored up and  
[00:03:46] kind of closed down about the perpetrators of those crimes.  
[00:03:53] And it felt stuck and kind of claustrophobic to me, and I didn't want to leave it there.  
[00:04:02] I knew there's got to be something I can learn from this, because I'd become kind of like  
[00:04:07] polarized and stuck around my thinking about the perpetrators of sex crimes.  
[00:04:14] And so I spent my fourth year working with men convicted of sex offenses, and I ended  
[00:04:21] up doing my post-doc there as well, I did my residency there.  
[00:04:26] And that was useful, it showed me that these situations in life, this kind of pain, violation,  
[00:04:38] it doesn't exist the way I thought it did, it doesn't really work like that.  
[00:04:43] Like when you're in the room with those men, they're really not evil, they're really not  
[00:04:49] inherently bad from their own side.  
[00:04:53] It doesn't look like that.  
[00:04:57] And so I placed myself in a clinical situation where I had to make a connection, I had to  
[00:05:03] find some way to be effective, they're my patients.  
[00:05:07] And so I had to, I put myself there, and I found ways.  
[00:05:13] And slowly my polarization and stuckness started freeing up a little bit, and I was actually  
[00:05:21] able to be effective there.  
[00:05:25] That doesn't mean I thought everything that they did to little girls was perfectly fine.  
[00:05:31] It doesn't need to become stupid, there's no need to become ridiculous about it.  
[00:05:37] It just meant I didn't have to condemn them.  
[00:05:41] I didn't have to bury myself with them.  
[00:05:45] I didn't have to do that.  
[00:05:49] It was more flexible than that, it was more plastic than that.  
[00:05:53] I could actually work with it.  
[00:05:57] And so at the end I could see the difference between victim and perpetrator.  
[00:06:01] And I could see maybe how some of it overlapped.  
[00:06:05] Maybe a lot of those men had at one time been a victim.  
[00:06:09] Maybe they had really unskillfully and compulsively just started like  
[00:06:13] packing that out. They identified the perpetrator.  
[00:06:17] They internalized the perpetrator as a way to feel better, to control, to feel powerful.  
[00:06:21] Still functioning from the place of that wounded little kid.  
[00:06:25] And they had made a serious mistake, and a costly one.  
[00:06:29] I mean legally certainly,  
[00:06:33] but spiritually, psychologically.  
[00:06:37] They crossed a line that was not going to be easy to figure out how to get back to the other side.  
[00:06:41] Nor should it be.  
[00:06:45] So, I mean in that way I thought  
[00:06:49] I felt like I learned how to be a little more skillful.  
[00:06:53] And to stop being so polarized in one way or the other.  
[00:06:57] Which made me kind of useless and stuck and  
[00:07:01] claustrophobic and kind of closed down and myopic.  
[00:07:05] So, maybe that reflects some idea  
[00:07:09] of compassion that might be present there.  
[00:07:13] Okay, so some idea  
[00:07:17] of equanimity. If we explore equanimity  
[00:07:21] and we'll get back to compassion in a second. But if we explore equanimity  
[00:07:25] and what that might be. Like what is psychological equanimity?  
[00:07:29] Many of us have never even heard that word before.  
[00:07:33] The concept  
[00:07:37] of it seems strange to us, seems foreign.  
[00:07:41] Because, you know, we're really just very well  
[00:07:45] attuned to seeing a certain small group of people  
[00:07:49] places and things as good. A certain small group of people places  
[00:07:53] and things as bad. And then the rest of all of the  
[00:07:57] people places and things as being neutral.  
[00:08:01] Disconnected.  
[00:08:05] That's kind of chronically just how we walk around seeing things.  
[00:08:09] And it makes sense to us, it makes so much sense to us we would never even think about  
[00:08:13] questioning. And someone who would question that perspective  
[00:08:17] might seem a little bit insane.  
[00:08:21] Seem a little weird, bizarre, out there.  
[00:08:25] Someone who would question that perspective might even seem dangerous.  
[00:08:29] Like you might even have to get rid  
[00:08:33] of that kind of person.  
[00:08:37] Who wants to like call attention to that new way of seeing things.  
[00:08:41] That would be bad for the power structure.  
[00:08:45] So, okay, so if we do  
[00:08:49] that, like if we can see, the usual way this is done  
[00:08:53] is around friend, foe, and stranger.  
[00:08:57] So loved one, this is like the Buddhist psychological approach to it.  
[00:09:01] You have your loved ones, you have your small group of loved ones,  
[00:09:05] you have your small group of disagreeable people or enemies,  
[00:09:09] however you want to frame it. Then you have the rest of humanity  
[00:09:13] that's just like neutral strangers.  
[00:09:17] One way or the other. And so you begin to think.  
[00:09:21] I have a meditation for this that I don't think  
[00:09:25] we'll get into, but it works kind of something like this.  
[00:09:29] The meditation itself is actually on my website.  
[00:09:33] One of the audio files, the free audio files.  
[00:09:37] So should you be so inclined you want to do the meditation, it's there.  
[00:09:41] But the logic of the meditation is you begin to like  
[00:09:45] see that friend, foe, and stranger  
[00:09:49] have no meaningful distinction between them.  
[00:09:53] Except what you give it.  
[00:09:57] You're giving it that distinction. You're giving it that reality.  
[00:10:01] And so it's this idea of like  
[00:10:05] the story that I usually tell around this  
[00:10:09] is I was in 6th grade, 7th grade, something like that.  
[00:10:13] And there was this bully at my school.  
[00:10:17] And he made my life a living hell.  
[00:10:21] Like every day riding home from school, this guy was just like  
[00:10:25] in my grill, just like making my whole  
[00:10:29] experience just awful. And I didn't like that.  
[00:10:33] It was like the kind of thing, I'd be tormented  
[00:10:37] going home from school, and then I'd get home and I'd feel like such  
[00:10:41] a coward, and all this stuff, I'd have all this stuff swimming around.  
[00:10:45] I'd lay in my bed and fantasize about his death,  
[00:10:49] and how I should have killed him, and what I should have said, and all that stuff.  
[00:10:53] So I would do that, and then one day  
[00:10:57] that went on for like 2 or 3 weeks, and then one day  
[00:11:01] I decided it would be better just to get my ass kicked  
[00:11:05] than to continue living like this.  
[00:11:09] I just came to that point. So I turned around and just stood up to him.  
[00:11:13] And he ended up backing down.  
[00:11:17] So he didn't have the big fight that I was telling this big story about.  
[00:11:21] He ended up backing down.  
[00:11:25] So at that point, he's like a disagreeable person. He's an enemy of mine.  
[00:11:29] Now when he backed down,  
[00:11:33] what do you think happened between the two of us next, over the next few weeks?  
[00:11:37] We actually started to become friends.  
[00:11:41] Like he had gained some respect for me,  
[00:11:45] or whatever happened from his side.  
[00:11:49] And so he started to approach, and I was okay with that, and we started talking.  
[00:11:53] And the next thing you know, we're like hanging out.  
[00:11:57] And the next thing you know, we're like riding bikes together.  
[00:12:01] And the next thing you know, he's a friend of mine.  
[00:12:05] And the next thing you know, he's actually a best friend of mine.  
[00:12:09] We're like doing sleepovers, and all the stuff you do in 7th grade,  
[00:12:13] or whatever it is.  
[00:12:17] And when we got into high school, things started to  
[00:12:21] just fizzle out a little bit.  
[00:12:25] Kind of like there was really no more gas in that relationship, one way or the other.  
[00:12:29] And so he started going his way, and I started going mine.  
[00:12:33] And now, decades later, I don't even know where he is.  
[00:12:37] I don't really care,  
[00:12:41] one way or the other. It doesn't matter to me.  
[00:12:45] It's not really relevant to my day-to-day existence.  
[00:12:49] I have no big impetus to find him, and reconnect, and do a Facebook thing, or whatever.  
[00:12:53] I don't even care.  
[00:12:57] It doesn't matter.  
[00:13:01] And so we had that one little simple relationship across, say, 30 years.  
[00:13:05] So you can see, he went from being  
[00:13:09] a disagreeable person, enemy,  
[00:13:13] to being a friend, even someone I considered to be a loved one.  
[00:13:17] He was like a brother to me.  
[00:13:21] To being a stranger.  
[00:13:25] So the relationship took all of those turns.  
[00:13:29] But at the time, I never really thought  
[00:13:33] it would change. When he was my enemy,  
[00:13:37] it seemed like really permanent, right?  
[00:13:41] It seemed really concrete. It seemed like that was a stable thing.  
[00:13:45] It seemed like it existed outside of me. Like anybody looking in
[00:13:49] On the same data I was looking at, you would see the same thing.  
[00:13:53] This guy's your enemy. And when he was my friend,  
[00:13:57] it felt the same way. It felt really permanent.  
[00:14:01] It felt like we would always be friends. He would always be a loved one of mine.  
[00:14:05] And now that he's a stranger, if I stop and look  
[00:14:09] at it closely, it feels kind of permanent.  
[00:14:13] Like he'll always be a stranger to me. Like we're just done.  
[00:14:17] But in actuality,  
[00:14:21] it seems to be much more plastic than that.  
[00:14:25] It seems that we actually  
[00:14:29] one thing becomes another.  
[00:14:33] It's transitioned and transformed pretty routinely.  
[00:14:37] So that friends and loved ones  
[00:14:41] become enemies sometimes.  
[00:14:45] And that enemies become loved ones.  
[00:14:49] And that strangers become loved ones.  
[00:14:53] And that friends become strangers.  
[00:14:57] And all the permutations of this are present if we just slow down  
[00:15:01] and look at it closely enough.  
[00:15:05] So that there's no really inherent reason to grasp onto one  
[00:15:09] category or label and like push  
[00:15:13] the other category or label away and be averse to it.  
[00:15:17] There's no real necessity to like  
[00:15:22] distance like that, per se.  
[00:15:26] Given how plastic things are.  
[00:15:30] Maybe it's really our way of looking at  
[00:15:34] that divvies it up and that keeps us feeling  
[00:15:38] like so concretized and rigid about it.  
[00:15:42] Like it's hard for most people to believe, right?  
[00:15:46] That the person that they have loved so much and like stood up at an altar  
[00:15:50] with and taken vows with and that they have  
[00:15:54] this intense like love, right?  
[00:15:58] And they're going to get married and they're going to do this thing.  
[00:16:02] And like ten years later they can't stand each other, right?  
[00:16:06] It's totally gone the other direction.  
[00:16:10] And that's really disorienting for most of us.  
[00:16:14] Because it wasn't supposed to be like that, right? That's not the story we had about it.  
[00:16:18] Our story was very firm, it was very concrete.  
[00:16:22] But the reality is like  
[00:16:26] really rather fluid, maybe.  
[00:16:30] And to the extent that we're not in tune with that reality, we suffer.  
[00:16:38] So like this brings an attachment again, right? We have attachment  
[00:16:42] to these little classifications that we have.  
[00:16:46] And we rarely ever like step outside of that comfort zone.  
[00:16:50] We rarely ever do that.  
[00:16:54] I mean, what would happen if we did do that?  
[00:16:58] If we could step outside of that comfort zone, what we think of  
[00:17:02] as a comfort zone is actually a cage that you're locked in  
[00:17:06] from the Buddhist perspective.  
[00:17:10] If we could step outside of that and begin to see it differently,  
[00:17:14] how would that change it?  
[00:17:18] Would that be useful to do for you?  
[00:17:22] So asking questions like that  
[00:17:26] is important, right? And being able to have enough concentration  
[00:17:30] and enough ability to become relaxed, to become  
[00:17:34] stable, to become vivid in your concentration.  
[00:17:38] The ability to apprehend very subtle objects  
[00:17:42] would serve you quite well in asking such a question, wouldn't it?  
[00:17:46] Like you might be able to see through things.  
[00:17:50] You might be able to apprehend very subtle levels of things.  
[00:17:54] So you wouldn't be functioning from this gross  
[00:17:58] kind of concretized schema that you're projecting onto  
[00:18:02] the world all the time, then believing in its reality.  
[00:18:06] So this was Buddha's basic idea, right?  
[00:18:10] And that was Buddha's fundamental insight, really,  
[00:18:14] was as long as he was Siddhartha, and as long as he was the son  
[00:18:18] of a king, and his dad expected him to be a king, and all these  
[00:18:22] people were looking to him, and he was responsible, and as long as he was that guy,  
[00:18:26] he was never happy, he was never getting enough.  
[00:18:30] He always seemed to be dissatisfied.  
[00:18:34] And as soon as he learned how to drop all that,  
[00:18:38] he died. And then he became happy.  
[00:18:42] I mean, that's basically the story  
[00:18:46] of the Buddha, in a nutshell.  
[00:18:50] So, you know,  
[00:18:54] to ask yourself, who do you currently view  
[00:18:58] as a loved one? Who do you currently view as an enemy?  
[00:19:02] Who do you currently view as a stranger? And so the meditation  
[00:19:06] kind of progresses on those lines. Take a loved one, and actually  
[00:19:10] imagine them sitting before you, okay? You're sitting here,  
[00:19:14] and then before you would be a loved one,  
[00:19:18] someone that, it's best to use like someone  
[00:19:22] who just kind of spontaneously brings out in you  
[00:19:26] loving feelings, like you  
[00:19:30] want happiness for them. You're upset when they're upset.  
[00:19:34] Okay? And you don't want them to be upset.  
[00:19:38] You don't want them to suffer. You want them to be happy. So for most people,  
[00:19:42] this is usually a child, right? For some people, it's a parent.  
[00:19:46] For some people, like, the parents would be the enemy one, right?  
[00:19:50] It just depends on your childhood.  
[00:19:54] But you've got a loved one, then you've got a parent, or an enemy, rather,  
[00:19:58] and you think of someone who's just disagreeable to you.  
[00:20:02] It's just thinking about this person, it's like,  
[00:20:06] I don't like him. It's that kind of feel.  
[00:20:10] So if you just imagine his or her face,  
[00:20:14] you get kind of like, you know, you've got that person,  
[00:20:18] so you've got a loved one, an enemy, and then a stranger, it's usually  
[00:20:22] like someone you just saw. Like when you went out to get your lunch,  
[00:20:26] you saw how many other sentient beings just walking around,  
[00:20:30] you just pick one of those.  
[00:20:34] And then he or she is the last person.  
[00:20:38] And then you just kind of like systematically walk through a meditative exercise.  
[00:20:42] This is done like seated, closed eyes,  
[00:20:46] you would do some shamatha before, just still and quiet the mind, become concentrated.  
[00:20:50] And then you would visualize this, and then you start walking through it.  
[00:20:54] It's like this person who's your loved one,  
[00:20:58] invariably,  
[00:21:02] there are some people on the planet  
[00:21:06] who think of your loved one as being disagreeable.  
[00:21:10] Invariably. There's somebody  
[00:21:14] who doesn't like your loved one.  
[00:21:18] Maybe a small group of people who don't like your loved one.  
[00:21:22] And then there's a much larger group of people  
[00:21:26] for whom your loved one is a total stranger.  
[00:21:30] And like the day of their birth and the day of their death  
[00:21:34] will just be like another death.  
[00:21:38] They'll be completely disconnected from this person's existence.  
[00:21:42] And then you would move to your enemy  
[00:21:46] and think there's got to be a small group of people  
[00:21:50] for whom your enemy is actually a loved one.  
[00:21:54] And like from their side of it, they view this person as being a loved one,  
[00:21:58] a friend, a brother, a son, whatever.  
[00:22:02] And that's strong for them,  
[00:22:06] the way they see it. There's got to be a group like that  
[00:22:10] for your enemy. And then there's like  
[00:22:14] a much larger group of people for whom  
[00:22:18] your enemy, this person you have such a powerful feeling for,  
[00:22:22] is a total stranger.  
[00:22:26] So again, like the day of their birth and the day of their death are just another death.  
[00:22:30] And then you move to the stranger.  
[00:22:34] And so for your stranger, someone for whom  
[00:22:38] from your perspective, from your side of it,  
[00:22:42] there's a stranger, right? Not really connected to them one way or the other.  
[00:22:46] But there's got to be a group of people  
[00:22:50] for whom your stranger is a loved one.  
[00:22:54] They're somebody's son, or daughter, or brother,  
[00:22:58] or sister, or husband, or wife, or whatever.  
[00:23:02] They have a group of friends.  
[00:23:06] Like for them, their life is important, right?  
[00:23:10] And then there's a group that probably find  
[00:23:14] your stranger to be disagreeable.  
[00:23:18] They might even consider him to be an enemy.  
[00:23:22] And they have like very strong feelings about your stranger.  
[00:23:26] And they categorize him enemy, right?  
[00:23:30] And they label it and believe very strongly in the reality of that label.  
[00:23:34] And then you would look at yourself.  
[00:23:38] And you would imagine the group of people  
[00:23:42] that currently consider you to be a loved one.  
[00:23:46] And how do they see you from their perspective?  
[00:23:50] You would imagine the group of people that currently  
[00:23:54] consider you to be like minorly irritating  
[00:23:58] all the way to disagreeable.  
[00:24:02] Maybe you even have some people who might consider you to be an enemy.  
[00:24:06] And you would try and connect to that.  
[00:24:10] And then for the larger world at hand, right?  
[00:24:14] For the 7 billion people on the planet, the vast, vast majority.  
[00:24:18] You are a complete stranger.  
[00:24:22] They will never meet you. They'll never know your name.  
[00:24:26] The day of your birth and the day of your death will just be another day for them.  
[00:24:30] And not out of any kind of malice, just because they simply don't know you.  
[00:24:38] And on that basis, you can see how this would equal out.  
[00:24:42] You would start becoming equal.  
[00:24:46] You might even run through the universal sufferings there.  
[00:24:50] Is your loved one subject to  
[00:24:54] birth, aging, sickness, and death?  
[00:24:58] Are they subject to unfortunate circumstances beyond their control?  
[00:25:02] Are they subject to being  
[00:25:06] separated from some people, places, and things that they want?  
[00:25:10] Are they subject to impermanence  
[00:25:14] and karma?  
[00:25:18] And then you could go to your enemy and run through the same thing.  
[00:25:22] In actual meditation, you wouldn't just do like the dot, dot, dot.  
[00:25:26] You'd actually sit and do it. You would run through it.  
[00:25:30] And then you'd do the same thing for the stranger.  
[00:25:34] And then you'd do the same thing for you.  
[00:25:38] In what ways are you subject to birth, aging,  
[00:25:42] sickness, and death, unfortunate circumstances,  
[00:25:46] separations, impermanence, and karma?  
[00:25:50] In what way are you running afoul of reality, which is not  
[00:25:54] connecting to the way things might actually be?  
[00:25:58] How are you creating your own sense of suffering?  
[00:26:02] And in that way, it would be  
[00:26:06] like another layer of equalization, like more data  
[00:26:10] by which you could cease to draw so many  
[00:26:14] boundaries around people in the way you conceptualize  
[00:26:18] them, and keeping everything so compartmentalized.  
[00:26:26] So doing such a meditation over and over  
[00:26:30] and over and over again, switching the people in it,  
[00:26:34] so like maybe the loved one is just someone you kind of like  
[00:26:38] and maybe the enemy is someone you can't stand.  
[00:26:42] You switch the charge of it a lot.  
[00:26:46] And you do the same, you equalize it over and over and over and over and over again.  
[00:26:52] If you were a monk, you would do that for thousands of hours.  
[00:26:58] Like that would be your full-time job.  
[00:27:03] Just to train your mind like that.  
[00:27:07] And what effect would that have?  
[00:27:11] On you, what effect would it have on the way that you see  
[00:27:15] the world, on the way that you understand the world?  
[00:27:19] What would it be like to just permanently transcend  
[00:27:23] all the ways you see things now, and to see things very  
[00:27:27] vividly and clearly along these lines?  
[00:27:33] Maybe then you could
[00:27:37] Start to imagine the mind of a Buddha.  
[00:27:41] Something like that. Someone who sees no distinction  
[00:27:45] between someone hurting him and someone praising him.  
[00:27:49] And he would be able to have equal  
[00:27:53] compassion for all of them.  
[00:27:57] Because at the end he's done away with all of his preconceptions,  
[00:28:01] and all of the ways that he divvies up reality,  
[00:28:05] and all of the blind spots, and all of the neurotic  
[00:28:09] stuffness, and all of the fear, all of that is gone.  
[00:28:13] It's wiped away. And like he's seen through himself.  
[00:28:17] If you could see through yourself  
[00:28:21] like, it's an interesting question, if you could see through yourself,  
[00:28:25] like if the ignorance of self was no longer there, if I could just pull it out of you,  
[00:28:29] some kind of like psycho-spiritual  
[00:28:33] magnet or something. I could just like draw all of that out of you.  
[00:28:37] And you could see through yourself,  
[00:28:41] what you imagined you would see.  
[00:28:45] And one answer might be you would see everyone else.  
[00:28:49] And you would see them very clearly.  
[00:28:53] And you would not be caught up in withdrawing distinctions and boundaries around them.  
[00:28:57] And you would not be invested in seeing them one way or another.  
[00:29:01] You would actually just see them.  
[00:29:05] And maybe you would love them.  
[00:29:09] Maybe you would want their happiness.  
[00:29:13] Want them not to suffer.  
[00:29:17] And maybe from that  
[00:29:21] perspective we could understand guys like Jesus,  
[00:29:25] who thought of all of us as being his children.  
[00:29:29] Like there's really no difference there.  
[00:29:33] He actually relates to you  
[00:29:37] like you are his son or his daughter.  
[00:29:41] Like that's the level of his connection to you.  
[00:29:45] So,  
[00:29:49] that's equanimity.  
[00:29:53] The idea of equanimity.  
[00:29:57] So if you cultivate that, it kind of leads rather naturally  
[00:30:01] into compassion.  
[00:30:05] So compassion, again being  
[00:30:09] this idea of not really seeing it from up here  
[00:30:13] and looking down on people,  
[00:30:17] not really being down here and looking up at people,  
[00:30:21] it's really very equal.  
[00:30:25] It's really very equal.  
[00:30:29] You have to have that sense of equanimity  
[00:30:33] for true compassion to be present.  
[00:30:37] Like that's got to be there.  
[00:30:41] If it's not there, it's not compassion.  
[00:30:45] It's some form of attachment.  
[00:30:49] Which is really confusing for people in our basic position.  
[00:30:53] Like what's the difference between love and attachment?  
[00:30:57] I don't really know. I've got some kind of mixture of both  
[00:31:01] going on most of the time.  
[00:31:05] It's kind of hard to pull that apart some days.  
[00:31:09] It's difficult.  
[00:31:13] But to have like real genuine true compassion,  
[00:31:17] like it's just right on the same level, exactly on the same level  
[00:31:21] with the person that you're looking at.  
[00:31:25] It's not greater than, it's not less than.  
[00:31:29] And you would actually be invested in their happiness.  
[00:31:33] You would want them not to suffer.  
[00:31:37] Most of us, it's easier for us  
[00:31:41] to experience true compassion  
[00:31:45] if we think about an animal, especially a cute animal.  
[00:31:49] You think about an animal suffering.  
[00:31:53] What would be your response to that?  
[00:31:57] Think of an animal you love and they're suffering.  
[00:32:01] What's your heart response to that?  
[00:32:05] It's like in a way it breaks your heart.  
[00:32:09] And you would do anything in your power  
[00:32:13] to stop that from happening.  
[00:32:17] And then what if we change the story a little bit  
[00:32:21] to make it so that the animal is actually suffering  
[00:32:25] from its own hand.  
[00:32:29] Like it's totally an inside job.  
[00:32:33] They just can't see it that way.  
[00:32:37] They don't understand that that's what's happening.  
[00:32:41] They think it's something outside of them that's making them suffer so much.  
[00:32:45] And like again, your heart is kind of breaking  
[00:32:49] and you are strongly, deeply motivated to help.  
[00:32:53] So just do whatever you can  
[00:32:57] to relieve that suffering.  
[00:33:01] Then maybe again, you're kind of in the position of a Buddha  
[00:33:05] or a Christ,  
[00:33:09] like looking at all of us.  
[00:33:13] And from that position you would never stop.  
[00:33:17] You would never stop trying. There's nothing to stop and there's nowhere to go.  
[00:33:21] Like you would always be there.  
[00:33:25] You would be there until everyone  
[00:33:29] had stopped suffering.  
[00:33:33] You would attend to it as long as it was needed.  
[00:33:37] Like there's nothing else to do but that.  
[00:33:41] What could be more important?  
[00:33:45] And you would be like very skeptical  
[00:33:49] in the ways that you could approach each individual person  
[00:33:53] who's like locked in this delusion  
[00:33:57] and like helping them try to find a way out of it.  
[00:34:01] And what if they don't want to find a way out of it?  
[00:34:05] Yeah, what if? Like what would you do then?  
[00:34:09] I mean, you can still have compassion but at some point in time you can have compassion  
[00:34:13] but you can't do anything.  
[00:34:17] What do you imagine would be the real wise response there?  
[00:34:21] Not do anything.  
[00:34:25] Be patient.  
[00:34:29] Right, but I mean, I would think at that point if you tried  
[00:34:33] to do something, it would push that person to do  
[00:34:37] more harm to themselves still.  
[00:34:41] Yeah, so you would have to be like very wise.  
[00:34:45] You would need to have a lot of discernment. A lot of ability  
[00:34:49] to see very clearly what's happening with that person.  
[00:34:53] And to move in and to know when to pull back.  
[00:34:57] Which, you know, if you could see that clearly it would be  
[00:35:01] pretty easy.  
[00:35:05] So one of the confusing things  
[00:35:09] about the Buddha historically is  
[00:35:13] unlike Christ, he actually became enlightened at 35  
[00:35:17] and lived to be 80 years old.  
[00:35:21] Christ, of course, was  
[00:35:25] murdered very young, so we know  
[00:35:29] very little about him and his teachings are really very succinct.  
[00:35:33] Like he didn't have 45 years to unpack  
[00:35:37] it, right? But the Buddha did.  
[00:35:41] And some of the things that's confusing about  
[00:35:45] reading some of the Dhammapada, which is the Sanskrit name  
[00:35:49] for the teachings of the Buddha, is it appears  
[00:35:53] to contradict itself in places.  
[00:35:57] It would appear to go against itself when you're reading  
[00:36:01] something he did when he was 60, or something he said when he was 60, or something he did when he was 50.  
[00:36:05] It appears to not make sense.  
[00:36:09] It's inconsistent in some sense.  
[00:36:13] But then you have to remember who he was talking to when he said that.  
[00:36:17] And maybe it's possible  
[00:36:21] that he was a skillful enough teacher that he  
[00:36:25] would shape the message in different ways,  
[00:36:29] frame things a little bit differently, depending on who he was talking to,  
[00:36:33] and maybe what they needed to hear.  
[00:36:37] And maybe this documentation of all the things  
[00:36:41] he taught is not really some linear progression that's supposed to  
[00:36:45] make sense in some concrete way. Maybe if you try and understand  
[00:36:49] it like that, you're missing the point.  
[00:36:53] That's why it's so difficult to do something  
[00:36:57] like psychotherapy, or it's even harder to teach  
[00:37:01] psychotherapy. How do you teach that?  
[00:37:05] How do you teach that idea of needing to be  
[00:37:09] skillful from one situation to the next?  
[00:37:13] Like on a day when you may see six or eight  
[00:37:17] individuals, and all of them are walking in the door  
[00:37:21] with totally separate realities, right?  
[00:37:25] Presenting problems, and issues, and stories, and circumstances,  
[00:37:29] and all of their own kind of unique ways of responding to that,  
[00:37:33] and being reactive to that, and creating the stuff that's going on inside of them.  
[00:37:37] You have to be  
[00:37:41] pretty good at shifting realities  
[00:37:45] pretty easily, and being able to skillfully  
[00:37:49] respond, no matter what context you were looking at.  
[00:37:53] And how do you teach that?  
[00:37:57] It's pretty hard to do.  
[00:38:01] It's not really as straightforward as  
[00:38:05] engineering, or chemistry, or something.  
[00:38:09] It's so much more plastic than that, so much more  
[00:38:13] subjective. It's difficult.  
[00:38:17] The idea would be like you're training your mind along those  
[00:38:21] lines, to become that flexible, to become that  
[00:38:25] plastic, to become that skillful.  
[00:38:29] That's hard to do.  
[00:38:33] And it's hard for most of us to even approach it.  
[00:38:37] It's hard for most of us to step outside the box that we live in,  
[00:38:41] most of the time, to even ask uncomfortable questions.  
[00:38:45] Questions that there's a part of us we don't really know  
[00:38:49] if we want the answer to them.  
[00:38:53] It was an amazing thing. I started doing couples therapy  
[00:38:57] years ago.  
[00:39:02] I started doing it in a serious way maybe 8 years ago.  
[00:39:06] And I've seen them over and over and over and over again.  
[00:39:10] Couples will come in, they'll be married like 10, 15, 20, 25,  
[00:39:14] 30 years, right? And they just  
[00:39:18] chronically, habitually, don't go to scary places  
[00:39:22] together. They've just created this whole  
[00:39:26] mechanism in their relationship, where they just  
[00:39:30] habitually avoid uncomfortable conversations.  
[00:39:34] It's the strangest thing.  
[00:39:38] It shocked me. And you just see it over and over and over again.  
[00:39:42] And so the idea of therapy would be like,  
[00:39:46] we're not going to avoid that stuff anymore, right? We're going to talk about this.  
[00:39:50] We're going to go there together, and we're going to talk  
[00:39:54] about this and see what happens.  
[00:39:58] But that's kind of how we do it. We create blind spots.  
[00:40:02] We create taboos. We create no man's lands.  
[00:40:06] Where it's like, no one's allowed to talk about that.  
[00:40:10] It exists in families, in family systems, and it exists  
[00:40:14] in our individual minds.  
[00:40:18] These are our comfort zones. These are the places we don't go.  
[00:40:23] And what happens when you're just  
[00:40:27] fundamentally split off from your own experience of life?  
[00:40:31] And you're just so controlled by fear, so identified  
[00:40:35] with fear, that you just never go  
[00:40:39] to whole sections of your own experience of things.  
[00:40:43] I mean,  
[00:40:47] you don't need a doctor to see how that's going to end, right?  
[00:40:51] It's not going to be a great ending, psychologically.