How to Cultivate Lovingkindness with Sharon Salzberg

You can learn how to start over. You can learn how to begin again, and that's the most important thing. Welcome to the one you feed throughout time. Great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think they us

that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest today is Sharon Salzburg, one of the world's best known Buddhist teachers and a

leader in meditation retreats worldwide since nineteen seventy four. She teaches both intensive awareness practice papasta or insight meditation, and the profound cultivation of loving, kindness and compassion. She is a co founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Bar, Massachusetts, and the Bar Center for Buddhist Studies. Sharon's latest book is Real Happiness at Work Meditations or Accomplishment, Achievement and Peace. Hi Sharon, Welcome to the show. Thank you so much.

I'm very happy to have you on. I have read your books for a number of years now and and visited the Meditation center that you were a co founder of, so this is exciting for me to get you on. Um. We'll start the show like we always do, with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that

are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second. Then he looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work

that you do. I think I have a somewhat unusual take on it, as well as maybe a more common source of stress, length and inspiration from it. The unusual take is the so called bad wolf, you know, where um, rather than feeling hatred or disdain or kind of incredible dislike for that aspect those qualities, learning a kind of compassionate awareness, so that that wolf may not be overpowering, it may not take over, but it can sort of a company one in a gentle way throughout one's journey,

you know. So there's that part, which I think is is somewhat more unusual. The the more usual one which does give me a source of inspiration and strength is the concept of choice. You know that so many forces may arise in our minds, and so many different kinds of conditioning and habit and so on. But we really do have a choice, and we have a tremendous amount of power because of how we might relate to those

different forces. Some we we do want to nourish and nurture and strengthen than others we want to more gently let go of and and not have them be so strong. So you have written a lot of books about a lot of things and given countless talks really across the spectrum of Buddhist ideas, But one of the things you're probably most known for is the idea of loving kindness. Can you just share briefly what that means to you? Now?

You've been talking about and writing about it for a long time, So what does it mean to you now after all these years. That's an interesting question. My first book was called Loving Kindness, and it came out twenty years ago, and I'm working on a book now called Real Love. So it's almost like that very question is

is permeating my day. Um. I think of loving kindness most profoundly is a sense of connection, And I think about all the ways we are connected in that I or we experience connection in life, which you know, isn't necessarily something mystical or spiritual, but just through it economic understanding or environmental understanding, or are the ways we see our lives really have something to do with one another.

And uh, I try every day to with that sense, see how I act with people one on one or collectively. How much attention am I paying? How much am I recognizing? Yeah, we we do have something to do with one another. And because my work is so centered around loving kindness, a lot of what I try to emphasize is loving kindness is not a weakness. It doesn't make us silly, it doesn't make us give in to things, but it's its own kind of strength to to recognize connection and

to respond from that place. Now, loving kindness is often, you know, it's it's used synonymously with compassion often, and um, you know, there's there's been teachers in the Buddhist school who have referred to something called idiot compassion. Help me understand the difference between loving kindness and idiot compassion. Okay, Well, first, there's actually a distinction between loving kindness and compassion, although

they're very close and they certainly support one another. Um, loving kindness is that fundamental sense of connectedness with ourselves and with others ultimately with all beings. And it's often based on the recognition that everybody actually wants to be happy. We make incredible mistakes because of the force of ignorance, like we forget where happiness is to be found er, we can't figure it out to begin with. But everybody

actually wants to be happy. That we all share this UM And compassion is considered the trembling or the quivering of the heart in response to seeing pain or suffering. So it's a movement of the heart, and it's a movement toward to see if we can be of help. And that's based not so much on seeing everybody wants to be happy, but on recognizing our universal vulnerability. How everybody is vulnerable to change, to loss. We don't all share the same measure of grief or unhappiness, that's clear,

but everybody is vulnerable. So compassion is not like a top down experience. UM. It's an equalizing experience. And so compassion has a kind of tenderness around the sense of seeing suffering or the possibility of suffering. And that's one of the distinctions between loving kindness and compassion. UH somebody once said, compassion is love, that experience is suffering, that opens to suffering. Idiot compassion was a phrase of Trump or impechase um st Betan Lama really talking about when

compassion is not accompanied by wisdom. And I think one of the things to understand with loving, kindness or compassion is that they're not meant to define what action will take to something some provocation or or some situation. They're talking about the heart space that we're coming from, the motivation or the intentions. So you might be coming from a genuinely compassionate place, and your discernment, your understanding, your best guess of the most skillful way to act in

that context in that moment's really fierce, really strong. Saying no, having a boundary doesn't mean you're not coming from a compassionate place. It just means that's what wisdom is, is telling you to to act, you know, with And so the idea of idiot compassion is more like you think you always have to say yes, and you have to be kind of you know, squashy, and you have to just give in all the time or give them all

your money or whatever it might be. That idea that everybody wants to be happy and that everybody suffers was one of those teachings that I think changed me on a pretty profound level when I really got it, and I go back to it all the time, as you know, just looking at people and going well underneath, if you if you strip everything else away, that's the fundamental truth of all of us, and we can all relate with that, and it's it's a really powerful teaching. Yeah, I think

it is very powerful. It's very it's very interesting just to use it. You know, you're in a meeting or something and you look around the table, you look at the people in the room and you think, well, you want to be happy too, and you want to be happy too, and you know what does that change? What does that do? Yep? It certainly helps us, uh not

not feel so isolated or different. I'm going to read a couple of lines from one of your writings that we talk on this show a lot about changing habits and you know, the voices in our head, the things that we say to ourselves over and over, and I just found this a really moving things. So I'll just read it to you and then maybe you can elaborate upon it. It is never too late to turn on the light. Your ability to break an unhealthy habit or and off an old tape doesn't depend on how long

it has been running. A shift in perspective doesn't depend on how long you've held onto the old view. When you flip the switch in that attict, it doesn't matter whether it's been dark for ten minutes, ten years, or ten decades. The light still illuminates the room and banishes the murkiness, letting you see the things you couldn't see before. It is never too late to take a moment to look. Wow.

I said that that's great. Yeah, it's just I love that idea of it doesn't matter how long it's been happening, it's always worth trying to make a change. I think it's really true. And one of the things I've loved about meditation practice is how sometimes the really big life

lessons manifest in meditation and these itty bitty little packages. So, for example, in meditation practice, if you're practicing in a way where say you're trying to arrest your attention on a certain object, like the feeling of the breath, it's usually not nine thousand breaths before your mind wanders. It's usually like to write and then you're just gone, your way gone, and then comes this magic moment when you realize, oh,

I haven't really been with the breath. And that's considered the crucial moment because that's the moment we have the chance to first of all, forgive ourselves gently, let go and come back to start over. It's a sense of renewal, it's a sense of resilience, and you have to do it billion times. You just do it over and over and over again. And I think that's one of the most important things we ever do in meditation practice, because that's the kind of thing we take right into our life.

You know, you have an aspiration, you blow it, you have to start over, you have to begin again. Um something happens and you fall down and you have to pick yourself up. You have to begin again. I think the way I say it now in life is that I don't really believe anything in life is a straight shot. You know, we're always having to start over and start over and start over. So in some ways meditation practice something for me and for many people I've witnessed, really

it forms the training ground for that ability. And that's why it's never too late. Um. Coming back is coming back. It doesn't matter if you've been gone for an hour or or ten weeks. You know you're back. Yep. I think that's so powerful and we One of the things I notice in a lot of people that I work within and myself is is this sort of all or

nothing mindset. When we make a mistake, it's like you just oh, screw it, right, I you know, I blew, you know I messed up, and you just drop everything and walk away, versus recognizing that's just part of the path. It's going to happen, it's normal, and you know, just keep keep moving forward, which I think I think that's the essential lesson. UM. And it's interesting I think even the way we frame things like in language, because and

I too do it. But you know, I hear people say they ask questions like, um, how can I keep this level of mindfulness or how can I maintain this kind of concentration after the retreat? And I always say, it's not going to happen, you know, don't. I don't even think that way. It's not going to happen. But you can learn how to start over, you can learn

how to begin again. And that's the most important thing you talk about, the idea that and it's it's the it's the basic Buddhist concept that our our minds are naturally radiant, but that we have I've heard you refer to them as visitors who come and sort of obscure that view, and you talk about how A it's really natural that those visitors come and and be not fighting

them so much. Can you talk a little bit about what those visitors that obscure our mind are in A in A your your thoughts on the best way to handle them. Is a beautiful quotation from the Buddha. I've always liked where he said, the mind is naturally radiant and pure, the mind is shining. It's because of visiting forces that we suffer. Um. I just loved it because as soon as I heard it, I have this image of myself sitting happily at home, minding my own business,

and then there's a knock at the door. So I get up and I opened the door, and there's greed, hatred, jealousy, Um, all those kinds of visitors that, uh, we are so tempted first of all to fling open the door and

say welcome home. It's all yours, like forgetting who actually lives here, or as I've certainly seen many times, were attempted to shut the door desperately in their face, trying to pretend we never heard the knock, only to find that the visitor then comes in through the window or down through the chimney, or somehow makes its presence known.

So I've often thought of that skill of what happens just as we opened the door and we see something like greed or fear, or rage or hostility jealousy they're visiting. Can we remember who actually lives here, and remember who we are in effect, in a deeper way, stay centered recognized. This is what I meant about the so called bad wolf. You know, not freak out and not be afraid of the visitor, and not hate them, but realize, I'm not

gonna let you take over. You know you can, you can just go and their whole schools of Buddhist methodology, which to vastly oversimplify it, would basically say, invite the visitor in for meal, just be an eye on them so they don't take over. But you don't have to be so afraid. And I was once teaching actually here the Insite Meditation Society, and I said that someone in the room didn't like that, so I said, I have

about invite them in for a cup of tea. And I didn't like that either, and they said, how about a cup of tea to go? So I said, that's okay. Have you just give him a cup of tea to go. The idea is that our own resistance and resentment and fear actually makes that visitors stronger, and it's better to have a calmer, more balanced, compassionate relationship. Right that saying you know what you resist persists, you know, seems to

really be true. You talk about an essential question to ask ourselves, and this is not one that I have done a whole lot. So I find it really um intriguing to think about. But the question is what do I really need right now, in this moment to be happy. I know you were going to say that, then you started. I thought, what is that essential question? Um? Yes, I used that question a lot, and I find it very profound, partly because I think we have so many kind of

manufactured desires. In a way, we're told by society or other people or the culture that we need certain things in order to be happy, and we don't necessarily question that, And so much of our life can be in the pursuit of those very things. You know. We need a certain level of fame, we need a certain kind of stature, we need success as packaged in a certain way. We

need this many objects. And I just had to move a physical move from one apartment which I sometimes sublit, an apartment in New York City even though I live in Massachusetts, and I had to leave it to them, and everything had to leave. So I was just opt and I made all those determinations, like I'm gonna give away half those books. You know, it's ridiculous, And but we're taught, you know, you need this much accumulation, you need these many things, and then you'll be perfectly happy.

And it takes, first of all, kind of courage and great strength. And it's so liberating to step back from that and say, what do I really need in order to be happy? And uh, you know, and we take that to psychological and emotional realms, to like, you know, maybe we've been taught that vengeance is strength and endless competition is happiness. But let's take a look how happy doesn't make me? Actually, yeah, I love that idea, particularly two of you know, what do I need in this moment?

Because if I stop and I think about life, that's such a grand thing, and it's easy to think, well, I could need that and that would be good. And but if I stop and go right now, right where I sit, what do I need to be happy? And I realized that in the moment, if I if I were you know, if I were to if the visitors weren't maybe so present, I would have everything I would need. It's right here, there's nothing. You know, the moment can

be enough if we allow it. Well, the visitors may be present, but if they weren't so overpowering, you know that that's another way of finding that kind of happiness. There's a couple of questions that come up on this show over and over again that I asked because I'm

particularly intrigued by them or I wrestle with them. One is, there's this idea of of dealing with emotions, and on one hand, there is sort of the idea of repressing the emotions, you know, pretending they're not they're ignoring them, um, you know, making them go away via alcohol whatever. And then on the far other extreme, is this idea of sort of indulging in them, wallowing in them. How do you find the middle ground between those two areas. I

think that any training and mindfulness is precisely that. Actually, we sometimes calm mindfulness the place in the middle, and it's practice. We practice and practice and practice. And you know, craving for alcohol is a harder place to practice. We start with, you know, um, whatever is happening right now, and work towards the harder places as well. But um,

that's the precise practice. Something comes up, we have the habit either diving into it, getting overwhelmed by it, especially having to guide our choices and our actions, or we hate it, we fear it, we can't stand it. And to find that place in the middle where we can say, there's a visitor. I remember who lives here, but something is visiting, or um, this is what's happening right now, this is just the truth of the present moment. Look at that. I can be aware of it. I don't

have to dive into it. I don't have to fight it. Look at that. Um, that's almost like the definition of mindfulness. And you know, rather thing of mindfulness is as kind of magical quality that some people have and other people don't. I just see it as a training and that uh, you know, we just practice and practice and practice. Yeah. I think that's certainly the case that it is a training. Um My ability to do it has has gotten a lot better simply by by doing it. I mean I've

been reading you know, mindfulness related things. You know, you wrote your first book twenty years ago. I probably started reading books like that about twenty years ago. And for years on and off, I had just had the most inconsistent meditation practice, you know, I'd meditate hard for a month and then not the rest of the year or and finally, over the last few years, I've just gotten to every day, I'm gonna sit down and do this for a little while. And it's amazing what that consistent

day after day practice does. It's not you know, it's not anything. Um it's not like a miracle. It's not like I'm always happy. It's just that kind of like you said, I can I can see more clearly what's happening in my brain. I can go, oh, this is what this is, and this is what that is, and and it doesn't make um. You know, I think one of the things that I thought was if I became mindful or meditated, I wouldn't feel bad once I recognize like, oh, I'm sad that I would no longer be said, And

that's not really the case. It's just that, like I like what you said, I'm better able to think about what my reaction my behavior is around those things. I think that's totally true, and it's so um. First of all, I think it's great that you've been practiced consistently, truly, because it's also not easy, you know, um, But I think it's the most important thing and also makes it the most inclusive thing, you know, because it's not up to you know, to succeed or to make progress in meditation.

Doesn't mean you have to be a certain kind of person or have a certain kind of life, a certain sort of situation. It means you have to do the practice, and anybody who practices can develop those strengths, and it's

within everyone's capacity to do that, and so um. Even though it can be incredibly hard to find the time, which is so ironic because we're not talking about eight hours a day, you know, you're talking like ten or twenty minutes a day, it can be very hard to find the time, or you might feel like you're too busy, there's too much else to do, or even some nice people say I felt selfish taking the time for myself.

It's it's really an incredibly important thing to do. So if I'm just having casual conversation and I sort of explained some of the concept of Buddhism and the for noble truths, one of the things that comes up a lot is this idea of well, am I just supposed to not want anything? Then? You know, if we say that, you know that it's this it's this craving that is at the root of our suffering. Um, people are am

I just not supposed to want anything? And and even myself, I look at the world and it looks to me like this idea of growing and striving and changing is fundamental. It seems like it's built into the fabric of the world of nature. And so how do you Um? I always say to people, Well, I'm sure a good Buddhist teacher could tell you why that's not exactly what it means better than I can. So now I'm going to ask you to tell me why that's not true. Uh, yeah,

you're right. It's all. Part of it is a confusion of language. You know, there are lots of words in Polly or Sanskrit that are very precise and maybe not so much in English. So the question of wanting or desire is I mean, that's a word that is used to translate lots of different words in Sanskrit or Polly. Polly is the language of the original Buddhist text, and

so um, a lot would depend on one's motivation. You could want and aspire and have tremendous intensity around something really positive, and you can want and aspire and a tremendous intensity about something that will really damage you or really harm others, and so um, the in intensity is itself kind of neutral. It depends on what's accompanying it,

you know. So like, uh, I'm actually looking at that beautiful painting behind your shoulders since we can see each other on Skype, and uh, you know, I could do a riff on. I really want that. Wow, that's kind of incredible. Wow, I have to have that. And you know, there's not really room in my apartment in New York City or my house in Massachusetts, So maybe I need

a new apartment in New York City. And you know, maybe I need a bigger apartment in New York City with more wall space I can hang more things, but that would be kind of expense. It doesn't matter, right, So that's the kind of wanting we get into because we're not thinking about what we might have to compromise in order to get what we want, or who we might hurt, or what we might be giving up to get what we want. But we can't think about that,

you know. And that doesn't mean you never buy the painting. It means that you do it in a climate of wisdom. Yeah. And I think the other thing that I've realized is I used to think that all striving an ambition came out of um, a place of deep dissatisfaction. And I think that I've found that striving and ambition and all that can come out of a place of the joy of creating, of making, of changing, not out of the I hate where I'm at place. I think that's very true.

And uh, as you started speaking, the word creation came into my mind, creativity and and uh, you know, so I would completely agree with you. I think that there is that creative impulse and even compassion, you know, And in many translations. It's described as compassionate energy. It's a manifesting energy. So you know, compassion doesn't mean you sit around and feel bad. It means you go to ward to see if you can be of help. And that doesn't mean you can go into in order to burn up,

you know, or um crash. But you go toward. It's it's got to manifestation of creativity to it. If it just meant sitting around feeling bad, then you're not helping anybody, including yourself. One of your recent books was written with Robert Thurman. It was called Love Your Enemies, How to Break the Anger habit and be a whole lot happier. And in that book, you guys define four types of enemies. I was wondering if you could walk us through those.

Sure that the structure of that book came actually from Bob, who's a Tibetan Buddhist scholar, So it's a system modeled within Tibetan Buddhism. The first kind of enemy is the outer enemy, which is the clear conventional enemy, someone's try to hurt you, or um feels like a threat to you or those you love. UM. The inner enemy is our own rage, our anger, our own fear. UM. The way is that we get overcome and that that doesn't mean the appearance of those states, right, those are just visitors.

But when we get overcome by, we get defined by They become chronic states. They affect our choices, they really define our lives. That's the problem. That becomes like an enemy because we've we've given over a lot of our life's energy to this one particular way of reacting. UM.

So that's like the inner enemy. The secret enemy within that formulation is the construct of a separate self that we live under the idea that we're independent rather than interdependent, that we should be in control of things, that there's something permanent um, and I'm yielding within us, that we can count on. UM. That's an enemy because it's all untrue. And so once we're living at variance to what's actually true, we suffer. That's what makes something an enemy. It produces suffering.

And then, as Bob described it, the most secret enemy, because that's a Tibetan system, it's the outer, the inner, the secret, the most secret. The most secret enemy is a kind of self loathing where we don't understand the actual capacity were said to have for change, for wisdom, for love, for growth, and um. So, of course that capacity isn't always realized, and it may be covered over, it may be hidden and maybe hard to find, it,

maybe hard to trust. But it said, it's always always there, no matter what we may go through, it's always there. And so when we don't appreciate that, then that's also a kind of enemy. And you guys say that regardless of what type of enemy it is. The method to overcome those is, you know, follows a similar format. Can you walk us through briefly what you know, what is

the right way to deal with those those enemies? Well, I would I would take us back to you know, sitting happily at home and you hear the knock at the door, like a visitor has appeared. So there are a couple of things in the Buddhist statement that are really remarkable. The mind is naturally radiant and pure, the mind is shining. It's because of visiting forces that we suffer. First of all, a remarkable thing is the appreciation that these forces are just visiting. They come and go, they

may visit a lot, but they're still just visiting. They're not who we essentially are. And so we see something at play and we remember, I don't have to fall into this, and I also don't have to fight it. I can find that middle way, that that way of awareness to be with it, to recognize it, not get lost in it, not hate it, and then I'm free even as it's going on. The other remarkable thing in that statement is that the Buddhist said it's because of

visiting forces that we suffer. He didn't say it's because of visiting forces that we're horrible people, or we're terrible or worthless or anything like that. He said it's because of visiting forces that we suffer. That means compassion is always relevant, it's always appropriate, including compassion for ourselves. Wonderful. So one of the things that you you talk a

lot about the idea of setting intentions. You say, each decision we make, each action we take, is borne out of an intention and that we and then you've kind of all of that with we learn and grow and or transformed not so much by what we do but why and how we do it. And I've just sort of started to be a little bit more exposed to

this idea of intentions. Can you elaborate on that It's kind of a subtle and crucial part of mindfulness training where uh, you just turn some of your attention to where you're coming from, what's motivating you, what you want? I say sometimes, like if I'm teaching in a company business, I say, you know, before you go into a major meeting or you have a big phone call, just ask yourself, what is it I want to see the most come from this encounter. Do I want to be seen as right?

Do I want to be helpful? Do I want to be harmful? Do I want a resolution? It's just one way of beginning to see that, Oh, there's there's a motivating element here that's going to contour everything I say and everything I refrain from saying. And we continually practice that way, like where am I coming from? What is it I want? Um? Because from the Buddhist point of view, the motivation behind an action is a crucial part of

the action. We don't think that weighs so much in the West, but um, if you just look at something like generosity, for example, we know we can be generous from a whole variety of different motives, and Buddhism would say that it's a different action depending on what's motivating it? Like I might give you a book. I might give you a book out of my tremendous pile of books, um because I like you, or maybe I'm giving it

too because I don't like you. And I think right in that first paragraph, isn be something that's going to upset you? Or maybe I can't bear the fact I have so many books and I've just got to give away it's kind of random. Or you know, maybe I just give a big lecture on generosity and all these people are looking at me, and I want to be thought of as a generous person. Or I see you have that painting and I want the painting, and I think we'll maybe thank you in the book you give

me the painting. You know, the physical act of my hand reaching down, picking up an object and moving it forward is identical, but the heart space that it's coming from could be a million different things. And and that really figures from the point of view Budhist psychology, that really figures in our assessment of the action. Yeah, and I really like that idea of just trying to be more intentional about like you said, what is it that I want out of this encounter? This moment this day.

You know, it's sometimes it's well, I don't even do a good enough job on on a broad scale, but I've just found it as I've gotten that idea lately is sort of going okay, well, what sort of what sort of attention do I want to bring to the world today? And yeah, it's great. You share an analogy that I don't quite remember where you heard it from, but I thought it was very um entertaining and insightful, which was, watch your thoughts like a very elderly person

watching little kids play at the park. Yeah, that's a that's actually a meditation instruction from Tibetan Buddhism uh which I usually use, actually not even um so exclusively is a meditation instruction. I use it as a description of the combination of balance and compassion that I think we're looking for an action. So let's say you're a really elderly person and you're sitting in a park, you're watching children play. You know, you've lived a life. That's what

being elderly implies in this example. You've lived a life. You've probably had to let go of a lot of things, You've earned some wisdom through life, and there you are. You're watching these children play and you see this little kid completely freaking out because they've broken a shovel. So you're not at all cold and me. You don't go over them and say, hey kid, it's just a shovel.

You know, wait till you have a real problem. You're kind, you're tender, you're present, you're caring, but you also don't fold and on the ground sobbing, because you know what shovels break, that's a part of life. You have perspective, you have spaciousness, you have wisdom. So I talked about that combination of spaciousness and kindness as certainly I as

a person, as an individual. If I were seeking help from somebody and I told them my very sad story, I wouldn't want them to say, hey, it's just a shovel. But I also would not want them to fall down on the ground sobbing that I'd really freak out. Um, I want that that sense of caring and tenderness and kindness, and also spaciousness and some glimpse of something beyond the

immediate situation I find myself in. And so UM, I think that in general is what we want as human beings when we seek help, and I think it's something I think that's something we can also remember we can offer as we offer help. You know, people really don't get served by our falling down on the ground and freaking out. Um, you know, but it's not coldness, it's

not icen, it's it's a real caring, but with perspective exactly. So, I think i'd like to end with uh, one of your statements again and ask you just to to go into a little bit more detail about it. But it says that the difference between misery and happiness depends on what we do with our attention. I think that's true.

Um we uh, you know, for example, something may arise in our minds, something uncomfortable, something distressing, one of those unpleasant visitors, and we may add so much shame and so much distress and feeling. I should have been able to stop it. We've been meditating for more than forty years, for God's sake. Wise it's still there that we've taken an uncomfortable situation and made it a million times worse. I'm all alone, I'm isolated, the only one who's ever

felt it. It's a million times worse. Whereas we can also have that uncomfortable thing arise, whatever it is, that distressing visitor, and we can envelop ourselves with a sense of presence and balance and kindness. Um, remember we're not all alone. That this is a part of the human condition.

We can have compassion for ourselves as well as for others, and it's a whole other world even though that same thing is arising, and so to a beautiful and wonderful and lovely things that arise, we can be so distracted we can hardly take them in or we can really honor that. Look at that, you know, that's the wolf to feed that. That's a capacity I have, And so everything really depends on what we do with our attention. Well, I think that is a great place to wrap up

this episode. Charon, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us, for all the writing and work that you do, and and uh it's a pleasure to have you. Thank you so much. All right, take care, bye bye bye. You can learn more about Sharon Salzburg and this podcast at one you feed dot net slash Sharon, and that's the name Sharon, not like hey, you sharing this pizza with me or doing I need to go get my own