Learning to see clearly through confusion

which I hope you will enjoy. In Season One, we looked a lot more at the connection between overall of nature and spirituality and then more in depth into the elements, the five elements and how we can work with the elements and how the elements relate to our life

in many different ways. But in season two, we're going to be looking more at challenging and changing our perceptions examining things like interconnection and oneness, the topic of non duality, and if and how these things are relevant to

our lives today. So the reason I really came to this topic for season two is that I've observed over the past couple of months, as I think most of the world has come out of lockdowns, and I'd say life is getting back to normal in inverted commas, whatever normal means there has been a lot of fuzziness, a lot of stress, and definitely a lot of noise. They are just so many polarised views on every single topic, it's actually hard to know where to turn and it does

feel quite overwhelming. And this feeling that time is speeding up. It's you know, this this kind of crazy world that we live in today. And I was recently back in a physical like in person meditation circle, which was really nice. And we went around the group and everybody shared how they've been feeling over the past kind

of year or couple of months. And it was interesting that in this group, there was this general sentiment that everybody's feeling this this overwhelm this information overload this these hugely contrary, you know, contradicting views on topics. And this has led to a lot of stress. And, you know, ultimately, I would say, for me, I sum that all up as noise as the best way for me to describe

it personally. And it definitely was echoed and reflected in the voices of the group that were there that day. So I think many of us also said that our reaction to that would be to shut off this feeling of wanting to run away or to retreat. And of course, that does all sound lovely. But you know, it's not realistic life does go on, we have to be here we've got responsibilities and families and jobs. And we have to be present for our lives.

No matter whether we like that or not, that's, you know, that's a challenge that all of us have to have to face. And, for me, personally, my number one go to in times of stress and overwhelm. And the thing I keep coming back to whenever I'm feeling like that is the simple simple practice of mindfulness. Because mindfulness seems so

accessible. It's something you can do in, in an everyday life that's completely, you know, it's not connected to any sort of dogma, you don't have to do a whole other spiritual practice with it. It's just really as simple as being

present in the moment. And when I really started to work with mindfulness for over 10 years ago now, but at the time, I'm a lawyer by profession, and I was working in one of these very large corporate law firms, and very long hours, huge amounts of stress, hectic deadlines and pressure. And when I was driving to work in the morning, in gridlock traffic, there was this time of the day, my commute was only about 20 to 30 minutes. But there was this short time in the day we had this break, or

pause before the day began. And that was sitting in the car on the way to work. And I started doing this mindfulness practice, turn off the radio. I would just focus on my breath and on the trees and on the experience of driving to work. And it was a really incredible practice. It obviously came with certain physical benefits. I would start off my whole day arrive at work feeling a lot calmer, less stressed. I felt

like I could cope better. But the interesting thing that came up with it as time went on is this joy of it felt like this entire Secret World was all around me without me being aware of it. I would notice this is incredible birds and trees and just so much around the incredible beauty of the natural environment of the way somebody had done, you know, garden garden garden, they get the pavement, or sidewalk. And it was just incredibly bought me so much

joy. So it wasn't just a necessary, like balm for my stress. But actually, it really boosted me with so so so much. And that's that's how I really came into mindfulness in a big way. And part of mindfulness as a teaches us a new way to see the world. Because when we really start to pay attention, there is just so much else out there, there's so much that we don't see we overlook because of our conditioning because of the

way we live our lives. There's literally an entirely different perspective and world all around us as we become aware of this. And this is why I'm super excited about this episode because a couple of weeks ago, I happened to walk into a bookstore, which I don't often do these days go into physical bookstores, I usually download books, and read off a Kindle.

But this particular day, I walked into a bookstore and they on the shelf was the small book, it's a little pocket size book by the Vietnamese monk, Thich Naht Hanh, called How to see. And if you're interested in mindfulness practices taken, attends books are all incredible, he is just got this beautiful, gentle, simple way of

teaching. And it was quite a coincidence because I then happen to see later that same day that it was his 95th birthday that we can, there were various celebrations going on around that. And I felt like it really was something that just found its way into my hands. So I will share some of the teaching from this little book today. It's it's really like spiritual

wisdom 101. And it's ultimately about training ourselves to see the world and ourselves as we truly are, instead of how we usually incorrectly perceive things to be. And it seems that his aim in writing the book is really about how to see our earth and our environment and other beings as all being interconnected and full of wisdom and deserving of of protection and respect and how

to cherish life. And in these times in the world that that is such an urgent, urgent message, we each need to take responsibility for our own growth and awareness in that space. And the more of us that become aware of these great issues that are pressing our entire planet and other species, the more we can create a more collective conscious awareness of these things. So in a nutshell, the book is all about perception. And that we've we've usually have

incorrect perception. But if we use the tools of deeply looking and mindfulness we can truly see things close it the truth, as opposed to what we think they are. And I know there's a quite a well known, saying that goes around that says we don't see with our eyes we see with our brains, because we filter everything through our brains, we filter everything through the

concepts that we have. And as adults, we can almost think of ourselves as a collection of ideas on legs, we develop our personalities based on these preferences, our conditioning, and all of us can come from our parents, from our culture, from our education, from our various experiences through our life. And these perceptions, some of which are, are not truthful. And some of which are obviously closer to who we truly are authentically in the authentic truth. And it's pretty easy to see incorrect

perception around us. I mean, the obvious example is how humans for so many years believed the earth was flat. And I think there's still a small group that do believe that today but there are many more quite sinister examples you know, belief that people of colour are less than less than non non coloured people or, or unworthy that Jews are bad that women are inferior to men that homosexuality is wrong.

And but also extends to things like belief in animals or other species are stupid or less important or worthy of protection than humans. And then even other less sinister things, but equally encouraged. You know, there was a campaign that went around a couple decades ago that smoking can actually be healthy for your lungs. There's there was an advertising campaign that sugar can be healthy. There's there's a lot of misinformation that that we

do believe. And even within a lot within our relationships with other people and within ourselves, we also have these beliefs, that we're stupid or unworthy, that we don't belong to a particular group that we are unlovable, and these core incorrect beliefs about ourselves, then go in and form our relationships, and even our

lives. If you've been brought up to believe, maybe being told that you're stupid and lovable, their entire life will have been manifested with that belief, which probably leads to circumstances that then reinforce these incorrect beliefs. So if we can truly get down to understanding and seeing things as they truly are, it's an opportunity for us to reassess, reevaluate, and then take action based on a correct perception, or a broader, more expansive view.

And to take that further, he says in this book, that the basis of all suffering stems from this one key incorrect perception, and that is that we are all separate. If we weren't separate, we wouldn't if we weren't, or we didn't believe we were separate, we wouldn't harm at the species or the environmental one another. So this idea of separateness completely changes, or that the fact that we're not separate can completely change the way that we operate, and relate to the world.

Now, if you like me, I'd question things a lot, and like to play devil's advocate, and try and really understand these things. So I read something around separateness, and these wonderful teachings that say, well, we're not separate but our question and say, well, we appear separate, you know, we are individuals, we've got our own challenges, our own personalities, abilities,

preferences. And also, I don't necessarily want to be the same as everybody else, you know, if you can imagine a world of the homogenous human, it would be really boring and dull. So there's beauty in our differences. And this is how creativity comes into play in. And this world is fibrin because we are all different. And to take the questioning further, is there a way to prove this that we're not separate? So the answer, I'll give you the

answer to both now. So firstly, the proof of it, there is scientific proof around from quantum physics and so forth around our separateness and the fact that actually, we really, really are not separate, as we perceive ourselves to be. But today, in today's talk, I'm not going to go into that I'm actually busy preparing for a two part live workshop I'll be giving on this later in the

month. And it's quite mind blowing that, you know, these the studies that are being done, it really challenges everything that we think we know. But what I'll do is I'll, I'll record those talks, and I will load them up onto onto the podcast under season two. So if you're interested in that, then don't forget to subscribe. And they should be loaded within the next next couple of weeks. But really how we start looking at separateness is he starts the book by talking about the

example of a piece of paper. And he said, when we look at a piece of paper, we can see a cloud. And by this, he explains that the cloud is necessary to bring the rain which is necessary to for the tree to grow. And the tree is obviously necessary for the paper to be manufactured. So without the cloud, the paper is impossible. And therefore this is a deep relationship between a cloud and a piece of paper. And there's many many examples

of this. There's, if you actually stop and think about it in your own life, there's not one thing you can find or relate to that doesn't have all these intricate relationships with with everything else. Absolutely nothing exists independently. And taking the time calls this into being. Everything has this nature of interviewing. Often in Buddhist and other Eastern teachings, you hear the concept of emptiness, everything is

emptiness. It's quite a strange concept at first when especially if you are from a Western culture and you hear these terms emptiness, it sounds quite nihilistic, but in fact, emptiness means empty of a separate existence. Nothing exists as a separate self, everything has this inter being interconnection. And part of this belief that we are separate stems from the fact that we use language and, and our intellect to label things. So we come up with names and science for absolutely

everything. And he shares in the book that the Chinese character for consciousness is the sign of, it's got a little, the top portion of the character is the Chinese character for sign. Everything is how we perceive, we perceive things with through signs. And if we can go beyond language and signs we can see this into being in play. Now, another book I've been reading, which is equally beautiful, profound, profound book by the ecologist and philosopher, David Avram. The books called becoming

animal. And in this book, he deeply explores the relationship between humans and nature, and especially in the world today. And he, he had taken out several weeks to go and live in the wilderness alone and explore this relationship. And the key learning from this was the fact that he stopped communicating verbally, he stopped communicating and even thinking with with words, while I'm sure he was thinking with words, but I suppose the thinking fell away

less and less. And he was able to get to a state of awareness or perception that transcended words and signs. And he says here now, quote, he found how startingly immense the land became when I encountered it without the steady filter of words, the discovery that I was palpably immersed in the field of unfoldings, so much wider than myself and my intentions.

It was not just the resident metaphors offered by the stones and grasses and muscle creatures, but also the rightness somehow of recognising the mind as a broad landscape, within which I was wondering, a deep field with its near aspects and its distances, its mood shifting, like the weather, for surely the mind has its depth. And he goes on in this exploration of the connection between the mind and the landscape, and ultimately bringing him to this question. What if mind is not ours, but is

the Earth's? What if mind, rightly understood, is not a special property of humankind, but rather a property of the Earth itself, a power in which we are constantly immersed? And that question is also very much answered in the very deep black Buddhist teachings, where they talk about the fact that everything has this awareness, it's like this impulse, awareness form and emptiness are interchangeable, everything is possible of being expressed

in form. And also form has this ability to have this this empty quality of not existing within itself. And so we really can start to see how language and signs which ultimately, our beliefs and ideas that humans have constructed is like a gate that is blocking us from perceiving, truly perceiving our true nature, and this broader field

of awareness. So it's quite exciting to me because if we can get beyond these concepts and ideas, if we can get beyond having to every time you go for a walk, labelling everything as there's a tree, there's a flower, there's, there's a mountain, just to rather experiencing the awareness. It's very exciting we start to that's how we really can start to shift our perception from being so narrow into something a lot more expensive and all encompassing. But how does this change in

perception really help us? How does it change our everyday life? And it's a bet saying everything's connected, that everything is one, these teachings on non duality, does it ignore marginalised people if we say we're all the same, but actually don't think that it does because it's by acknowledging our connection and knowing that someone else is suffering, we all suffer. There's this deeper

relationship. And when we start to see that connection, we can turn a blind eye to the suffering of others or inflict suffering on others. So, to answer the very first question, which is saying, Do we want to or be homogenous, it's, it's actually the opposite of saying we can, by being connected by recognising our connection, we can truly cherish and respect our differences. And rather

embrace it. It's It's that thing of you know, all the parts make a beautiful whole, the orchestra is a symphony of many instruments. So, interconnection, and oneness is actually really about embracing uniqueness and not by washing over everything and making everything this homogenous, homogenous Latin lover, sometimes she has spread around. So it also leads us to deeper tolerance and understanding of issues. And the true enemy, is our incorrect understanding, which leads us to develop this

sense of ego. And from that sense of self and IRI, we can then harm others, and even our self. And in this book, check in a tonne goes into how we can look at even our worst enemy and feel compassion for the ignorance. He says, if we see a lemon tree that is growing and covered with disease, we don't blame the lemon tree. We look at the environment, we look at the circumstances in which the lemon tree has been growing and we compassionately try to correct that.

So even if we look at people in the world right now that seem to be doing wrong, that seem to be perpetuating a lot of suffering on the planet, we can begin to look at them through the eyes of compassion, not not because we feel sorry for them, but rather because we understand that they are ignorant, that they have not yet learned how to see that they are have this very, very strong belief in separateness, and in

their own ego. And Jesus famously said, forgive them, for they do not know what they do. And it's through this eyes of understanding. And Thich Nhat Hanh really enforces this. In this book, he says if we can see with the eyes of understandin , we could see all the causes that lead another person's actio

s to be what they were. And wh n we truly have this understan ing, forgiveness arises natur lly, you cannot help but to for And I think this is quite a key point, that forgiveness is something that actually happens spontaneously, and naturally, you can't force yourself to forgive, you can't believe that you forget, if forgiven, somebody will, you can, but usually it will come up again, true forgiveness is only possible with this deeper

understanding. So with that, it's possible to love people just as they are seeing all those various causes and conditions and ourselves too. But it doesn't mean we have to not take action or accept everything that the person does just because, you know, they've perhaps had a certain conditioning that's caused them to act in that way.

But it's that we remove our we remove our egoic attachment to it, we remove the anger, we rather replace the anger with action, we can see a clearer way in which to take action without the corresponding emotion being involved. So it's not to be not saying that there's no consequences for that person's

actions. That that can be a form of what's called spiritual bypassing when this is new age for Tarik, which I'm super, super against, in some ways that everything is one that everything is you know, 11 light and that leads to this attitude that ultimately nothing matters and we all love and light and therefore there's no consequences for those actions. So that that isn't that is the other side of the coin of materialism and dualism is complete now of our

differences. And so we have this path which is called the middle way That's quite a well known term and in Buddhism, and in the yogic schools, which is being able to hold everything that arises, it's not going from one extreme to the other. And knowing that everything is within everything else that's that Ying and Yang. So in the Heart Sutra, for instance, is the teaching that is form is emptiness and emptiness is form.

If you haven't contemplated that, then I really invite you and challenge you to contemplate that in your life and see what comes up for you. But ultimately, when we can be present in the now is where the magic happens. So the tools that he gives in the book, in order to challenge to change the way of seeing ourselves in the world, are very much they're very, very simple. So firstly, he says, Stop, stop what you're

doing. And to stop, you've got to have obviously some awareness there to actually do something. Because very often we continue, you know, hamsters on a wheel just going and going and going, and we don't even have the recognition or the ability to stop. So the first instruction is to stop. But stopping implies that there is some form of mindfulness that comes along

with that. So the practice of mindfulness is foundational, and it should be something you aim towards every single day, in every single moment in your life. I definitely notice I go through times where I'm not mindful. And it's like days, hours, weeks just seem to fly by. And time really slows down a lot. When when I'm more mindful in a way to wonderful sometimes a day can feel like a month for me, because there's just so many moments, so many moments, we in the present moment, to,

to embrace everything. So when we mindful, we really get into this ability to catch ourselves and to stop. And then he says, once you've stopped, he looked deeply at the issue. And it's not about looking at it just from one perspective, it's looking at, edit for how it truly is, and inviting yourself challenging yourself, even to see other perspectives, other

viewpoints. And looking deeply doesn't doesn't mean starting to now form opinions and attach to different different sides, it's just looking and noticing. And then is to truly let go. So letting go is not letting go of, of the reality, but rather, any other ideas or perceptions of that reality. So we might look at a situation that's arisen in our life, we are mindful enough to see it, we stop, we look at

it deeply. And then instead of getting too attached to different viewpoints, we simply let it go, we let them be related, everything exist in that path the middle way. And when we can be present, we can then accept what is because ultimately, all spiritual path or spiritual growth is about acceptance. It's about just accepting what arises. But with that very present awareness, acceptance,

we can then take action. So I believe that that is a key aspect that sometimes isn't spoken about a lot in these teachings is it's, we still have to take action, we're not just going to sit in a cave all day in meditate. And notice what arises, we living in a world that almost requires us needs us to take action, to protect, to fight to respect, and to help.

And when we can take action from this very present, clear, compassionate space, we can really make a difference and put new energy and change the consciousness in the world. But again, doing that not expecting an outcome, not going into expectation, not going into attachment, but rather, creating or sharing completely from that prison space awareness, out of compassion and understanding and forgiveness as opposed to ego. There's definitely a lot of wisdom to be found in this

little book. And I'll end off with one quote from the book, which is entitled The stream of life and here he is looking into your body, you will discover that you are not a separate self cut off from everything else, but that you are continuously flowing stream,

the stream of life itself. The one contains the all your body can tell you everything there is to know about the cosmos, boundless space and time without end, you will see that the here is also the day that the now carries within itself the span of eternity, including the past and the future. Eternity is there to be touched in each moment, both Sun and Moon, all the stars and all the black holes can Nestle comfortably inside a tiny grain of sand.

So there's a lot to be contemplated and meditated upon in this book. And I hope that this definitely inspires you. And now to truly end off the parade. William Blake once said, if the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is infinite, for man has closed himself up until he sees all things through narrow chunks of his Kevin. So wishing you lots of wide open perception. I will link the names to the books in the show

notes. And if you haven't done so already, please subscribe. And we'll go into this topic a lot more in depth and from a more scientific look. When I do further episodes in the second season, just for now. Bye