Lodro Rinzler- The One You Feed

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 things 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 Lodro Wrinsler, practitioner and teacher in the Shambala Buddhist lineage. He's the best selling author of The Buddha Walks into a Bar and the new book Walk Like a Buddha. Over the last decade, he's taught numerous workshops at meditation

centers and college campuses throughout the United States. Loadro's columns also appear in The Huffington Post and Marie Claire Online. You can find out more about Lodro in our show notes at one you Feed dot net slash Lodro. Hi, Lodro, Welcome to the show. Oh, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks, thanks for joining us. So our podcast is based on the parable of two Wolves, which I know that you know because you included it

in your most recent book. And the parable goes something like, there's a grandfather who is talking with his grandson and he says, in life, there's a great battle, uh, inside both of us between two wolves. One is a good wolf, which represents kindness and love and joy, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents greed and fear and hate. And the grandson thinks for a second and looks at his grandfather and says, which one wins, And the grandfather says,

the one you feed. So our podcast is, uh, you know what we try and really at least start off focusing on is what does that parable mean to you in your life and in your work? You know, it's so interesting. So I was, you know, as raised Buddhist and I've been practicing meditation all my life and I've been teaching meditation for about the last twelve years, and it was I just heard that parable maybe a year and a half ago, and it really spoke to me.

And it's one of those things. I'm sure you guys have had these sorts of moments too, where you hear something and say, oh, I've been trying to say that for so long, and um, for me, yeah, it was really you know, the statement of purpose. And you know, I think a lot of what I my work revolves around is not necessarily the esoteric aspects of Buddhism, but

it's about making it accessible. And you know, with the introduction of meditation practice and really trying to get people to do that regularly is basically me saying, can we actually evolve and be kind of, you know, more compassionate human beings? Can we start feeding that as supposed to the habitual way that we've always been, um, you know, trying to put ourselves before others, the ways that we've been trying to be aggressive to ourselves and others all

of that. So it really did speak to me because I think that's the bottom line when I think about my own spiritual life and my own meditation practice, it comes down to am I actually becoming a kind of person out of this? And if not, what am I doing here? Excellent? Yeah, one of the things you start your book off by saying, and I'm going to read you a quote, which I think is a really um it's a very um sort of startling way to start a book, but I thought it was I thought it

was worth talking through here. And you say, straight off the bat, I should mention that I'm sort of a mess, and also, okay, sometimes I'm sad or angry, and yet I'm also confident that at m core I'm a Buddha. Could you elaborate a little bit on on what you mean by that. Yeah, thanks for asking that, because that was a very intentional way for me to lead. And

as you mentioned, this is my second book. My first book was called The Buddha Walks into a Bar And I mean, at this point, you know, I'm thirty one years old. I'm not the learned monk at your local monastery that's been you know, you climbed the mountain to go see. I'm a person. I'm a guy, you know, just a regular guy that's been meditating for a long time. And I try and make that very clear, particularly coming off of the I think people actually skip over that,

but particularly coming off the first book. You know, there's a lot of people coming to me and saying, you know, I look up to what you're saying. Here, can you give me x Y and Z advice? And I'm always have me to discuss people's situations with them. But I don't think of myself as some sort of great expert. It's not like I'm the guru that people should go to it by any means. I'm a person who contemplates these things a lot and likes to be in discussion

with people about it. So there are moments where I still feed the wrong wolf, and I'm very straightforward about that, that I make mistakes and that I'm not you know, some um, some you know, wonderful figure that that is done with that path of mistakes. It's something I actively engage and learn from. But um at the same time, I do have this deep experience and belief in what within the Buddhist tradition we call what a nature, or within the Shimba Labou tradition we call basic goodness, This

idea that you know, inherently we're not basically messed up. Inherently, we're actually basically good, that we're actually you know, nice, kind, changing people, and that's our birthright. And it's just that we get confused at times, were habituated defeating the wrong wolf, and then as a result, we end up perpetuating more confusion.

That was actually the next the next question I had for you was to talk a little bit more about that that concept of basic goodness, which is really sort of within uh Shambala and a lot of other areas, and it's sort of it's pretty contradictory towards what we see here in the West normally, right, the concept of original sin. It's almost the exact opposite of that. And um in your book you talk a little bit about how you can apply that idea of basic goodness to

absolutely anyone. So if you could maybe talk a minute about how applying that concept of basic goodness to yourself is helpful, and then also how applying it to people

who are difficult in your life, is helpful? Sure, happy to so, as you said, I mean, you know, there's a I wouldn't even necessarily called a Christian point of view, almost consumer point of view, that we're never quite good enough, that we're always basically flawed and we need another product, or another relationship or another job to actually make us whole.

And the Buddha's point of view is that that's not necessarily true, that we're actually already a whole, and that if we could just get to become more familiar with ourselves and we would really experience that more deeply. Um. So that's the practice of meditation that's discussed within both of my books. The Budda walks into a bar and walk like a Buddha where we go into one of the tebend words of meditation, which is gone g O M,

and it becomes translates more directly. Has become familiar with our familiarity, i e. We're starting to become more familiar with our own mind, the ways that we actually act out that to continue to go with the parable, the ways that we feed the wrong wolf, all of the habitual stuff that sort of gets that sort of allows us to get in our own way. And if we could actually start to discern what those are, then we could start to um not necessarily buy into that same

habitual framework. We can actually create new patterns that might actually be a little bit more helpful for us. We can actually learn to feed the right wolf sometimes. Um. So this is in addition to just sort of becoming familiar with our our neurosis, we also become more familiar

with this concept of basic goodness. It doesn't become a concept, it becomes an experience where we actually start to say, oh, you know what this is underneath all these layers of confusion, I actually feel somewhat peaceful, like maybe that's really who I am. So that's um, that's the concept of basic goodness for ourselves. And then the interesting thing is we have this moment where we look out and we say, gosh,

I guess everyone else has this too. It's not just me that is basically good or you know, have the ability to wake up or this the innately kind, good, worthy individual is everyone. So um, you know there's I talk about you know, your jerk of a boss, that that person really ultimately is basically good and ultimately confused just like we are, or all the way up to there's a section in there on psychopaths and sociopaths people that you know, I've gotten a lot of flat for

saying this, but you know, these are human beings. From the boost point of view, they possessed basic goodness. And people say, you know, they're not even real because they don't possessed empathy. I think, um, it becomes very theoretical, very uh philosophical. And I was having one of those

discussions while I was on book tour. I was in North Carolina and I was being driven back to where I was staying by this woman and she said, you know, I was actually sort of moved by what happened there today. I said, oh, you know what, I sort of it was getting a little old hat talking about this whole like this Hitler possessed basic goodness thing. And she said, you know, I'm I'm married. Both me and my husband have children from previous marriages. We raised them together from

middle school. One of them started spinning out a little bit in his early twenties. People, and there's the story progressed to the point where she revealed that this her stepchild um ended up joining with his friends in the murder of a young boy. And he isn't jail. And she said that she you know, she had been practicing meditation before that happened, And when this happened, it sort

of shook her faith in basic goodness. Now, how could this individual that she had raised could how is how could he possess the ability to do what he had done? And Um, she started visiting him after a period of time when she felt like she could, And after a period of time she actually started to see him reveal who he previously was a little bit. Once he had sort of relaxed into the environment, he started asking about the household animals, He started actually requesting art supplies because

he wanted to paint again. Things like that, where all of a sudden he wasn't as hardened criminal. He was her child again. He was, um, this being who really did have that capacity to love and be loved, which she hadn't seen in many years. So I was deeply touched by that story, um, And it made it less theoretical for me, at least, the fact that even evil who are able to commit atrocious crimes ultimately do have

the ability to review their own basicalness. Do you think does does Buddhism posit any of the reasons that people can go so far from um basic goodness into sort of such an extreme as as you were just talking about, Because if you start from a concept of original sin, it's not that far to to do in something uh necessarily bad. Whereas you know, it seems like a pretty long journey if you start out start out basically good. What do you think are some of the things that

that happened to us along the way. Yeah, I mean, it's it's tricky because I mean, even in that story I just told, you know, this woman basically what sounded like is that this her son started hanging out with the wrong crowd, and it's like, well, you know, is that all it takes? Sometimes I don't, I don't know.

I mean, I think, you know, I can talk into a broad brush strokes where I do feel like people are are certainly products of their of their environments, and I do feel like, you know, within systems, we actually have systems that are reify certain values, and some systems reify the values of m making a lot of money. In some systems reify values of you know, trying to be tough or trying to make a name for yourself

in other ways. And you know, I think the one of the more interesting things for me is not necessarily to sit there and say, Okay, here's why people get to the point where they can create you know, atrocities, or you know, here's that line between mental illness and people not being able to help themselves or people who are just um, you know, products of society and video game violence. It's it's more interesting for me personally to start to dive into those communities and um and start

to work with individuals on on the ground. So one of the things that I've been trying to emphasize is doing more and more volunteer work myself. I work with the rest of Frosty Foundation, which is a homeless aid organization here in New York that takes something of a holistic approach to homeless youth. And and you know, I've definitely been trying to encourage other people to do similar things.

I also started and then called the Institute for Compassionate Leadership, which is sort of like my my idea of an incubator for young people in particular, but anyone really who wants to create social change, they're not exactly sure what they want to do. So they come through our training program that's part community organizing, part meditation, part traditional leadership skills, and and actually started to get focused on how they want to create change in the world and volunteering and

then ultimately getting meaningful work in that field. Um so it's for me personally, I've start tried to step a little away from the how could this possibly happen and and get more into the how could we treat it a little bit more? Yeah, trying to figure out how things happened is often a there's there's no real point

to it. I think the Buddha himself right said something like if you and shot with an arrow, it doesn't make sense to sit around and think about who shot the arrow and what was on the arrow, and you know what their family was like you pull out the arrow. I completely agree with that. I you know, I'm sure that there's gonna be some listeners out there saying, well, if you don't understand the system, how could we create change?

And I am happy to admit that. I'm sure there are smarter people in higher positions who help really start to shape the system. And um, you know, I'm happy to know some of those people. But I personally, my my view my role as on the ground, and I feel like I'm more of on the ground foot soldiers put some great philosopher. So speaking of you just touched a little bit on community organizing and on the ground

a little bit. Uh. I realized in your reading your book that you spent a fair amount of time in our hometown here. We're from Columbus, Ohio. Yeah. Yeah, share a little bit about your time here and maybe what you were doing and what you think about Columbus. Sure.

I mean, um, the end it up in Columbus in something of a circuitous way, in that I lost a friend in July and that person had been a long time Obama staff are starting in the in the Senate race of two thousand four and um, in my own complete, you know, valley of grief, not knowing exactly what I should do, some of his colleagues pushed me to go where I can make a difference and carry on his work,

and I ended up in Columbus, Ohio. So I mean, honestly, if you put a gun to my head and said white Columbus, I would have said Because people said go to Columbus, uh, and you know I was very influent, Yeah, Swing State, And I mean, you know, I once I got there and actually realized the work that my friend had been doing for so many years, and just you know,

you could love Obama, you can hate o bomb. The actual tactics that were employed, you know, they're developed by a professor at Harvard known as Marshal Gas And it was really in that first week. What they asked me to do is to go into the neighborhoods within which I was I was supposed to be organizing and meet with ten people in an authentic way. And that was my homework assignment. That was all. That was my whole job.

That was my paycheck. Go meet with people in your community and just listen to their stories, get to know them, tell them why you're there. And then at the end of it all, maybe they'll say, how do I get involved this whole BOMBA thing? It seems like you're passionate about it. I'm passionate about it. What can I do

to help? And more often than not they would. So, you know, you do enough of those over time, and you start to build out this small army of people who really want to do good work, and you can actually empower them in certain ways to phone bank or knock doors or whatever it might be in a given case based on the capabilities and interests, and over time you would build a whole network within communities that I'm happy to say it's still there in many situations, groups

that still get together to do community change, um, even after the the situation of the election. So you know, it's actually doing this great work where you, uh, you meet with people authentically, you listen deeply, you get to know them an authentic way, and then you get to work with them in a way that both of you feel good about. So it was a wonderful experience. I mean, it was a great way for me personally to transfer to sort of transform my my grief in some small way.

But um, you know, I loved Columbus, actually I really did. I think of it often and and think of it fondly, despite the fact that I was in a lot of pain. Lot it's there. I want to change directions a little

bit and go back to you. You touched on it a little bit earlier that one of the things that I think you're known for is sort of dealing with um Buddhism and people kind of where they are, and and touching on a lot of subjects that are not typically covered in your in your usual Buddhist text, things like tattoos and going out on the town and drinking

and sex and um. In your book, there's a you start off the section on sex with a story about you given a teaching and there was a woman there who was fifty years old and can you pick up the story from there? Yeah? I mean I was funny. You know, when I go in these book toys, it's really like a city every other day, and I'm you know, I'm sort of on all the time. And I was exhausted at that point. But I flew into Seattle. I'm at a meditation center and uh, yeah, this woman in

her fifties. I said, what do you guys want to talk about? She raised her hand. She said, I you know, I'm going through divorce. I started dating again. I thought, I think you know approximately, I know, I know where this is going. And she said, you know, when I'm with a guy and he orgasms, Uh, and I haven't. And but we're laying there and he asked me if I did. He always wants me to say that I did,

even though I haven't. So I don't know if I should lie to him, you know, because honestly, like I don't. I don't want to like sit there and see this ego. But at the same time, like I didn't, I don't, you know, it's like I didn't, I didn't know, or I guess I'm so like, you know, I don't. I don't feel like it's a genuine communication for me to lie about anyway. What does Buddhism has to say about

all this? And I mean, you know, my friends like to joke that this is the only time that they've ever seen me speechless, which is probably probably true, but it was, you know, I thought this is amazing in some sense. I mean, my mind was blown, and I probably wasn't extremely helpful to her, but it was amazing that you know, this is definitely the first time that that sort of discussion had taken place in the hollow

walls of these meditation center. And why shouldn't we actually be able to talk about things like sex and dating and and work and how our boss isn't jerk, and how we're going through divorced at our spiritual center. Why shouldn't we be able to say, here's how I'm actually applying my meditation practice, my religious beliefs to any of these areas in my life. Um, why should I feel like I have to hide the fact that I go out to a bar on a Friday night with friends

and to break my world into two. So you know, I've I've been this big advocate for just saying, okay, let's practice meditation, but let's practice meditation so that we're practicing for being present with the rest of our lives, so that we could be present when our loved one is in the hospital, when we're holding their hand, or we're falling in love all over again, or you know, we've got to have a difficult conversation with this guy

that we're seeing because he didn't make us come. You know, it's like, why shouldn't we be able to talk about these things? Um? And you know, there's definitely traditional Buddhist out there that are like, how dare you, sir? And I'm okay with that. I mean, I think all I'm trying to do is is not I'm not trying to asset the Buddhist teaching, and I'm saying, can we really apply it to our modern world and what does that

look like for you personally? Great a question I had for you, And kind of going down that line a little bit further, you are sort of are you know, in addition to being known for those things, you know, the also sort of the drinking Buddhist right, and you know both your book titles sort of reference the concept of drinking, and um, you know also the lineage Shambala that you're from. You know the founder of that, you know,

Chogum Trunker rimpoche Um was was a known drinker. And I think a lot of accounts sort of say that that ended up what with being what killed him. And I'm curious how you how how that all fits together for you. It's and and it's clear in your books that it's a subject you give a lot of thought too, And so I'd just like to explore that a little bit more. And you know, one of the things that I think about is I look at all that is there's a lot of potential risk there. What do you

think the reward is? That's a great question. Um. You know, I'll be very very honest with you, and I'll share some stuff that I actually haven't in the books at all. All, but you know, so yes, to give a little bit of a history background children, Trump for Embiche was a brilliant Tibet and Buddhist teacher who drank heavily, and many people would say, you know that's you know, he drank himself to death in some ways. And I'm not going to excuse that or apologize for it in any way.

And I'm also going to say that, you know, I believe that both things could happen, That you could be a brilliant individual and not take care of your body. You know, I've seen it happen in many, many shapes and forms. And to say that spiritual teachers are not you know, are going to all of a sudden transcend that boundaries. It's not always true. Um you know his background, and you know some other backgrounds of teachers that I

love and respect. I struggle with I do, but I'm not going to throw the baby out with the bath water. Is actually reading something he wrote today about communication within romantic relationships, and I thought, you know, this is just so brilliant, and it's so sad to me that, um, you know, he he died so young, and it's I have a really difficult relationship with that with that push pull. Um but what I what I will say, you know,

that's my personal relationship with him. But um, you know he is brilliant or he was brilliant, and um, if he was still alive, I don't know what my relationship would be like with him if from a personal personal point of view. UM My, I have I on one side of my family come from a long lineage of alcoholics. So I, um, my father was not an act of alcoholic during my lifetime. He's in he's recovered before I was born. But um, there were many waves of destruction

that were left because he was an alcoholic. And I was very aware from a young age of what it meant to actually look at your relationship with alcohol, and that I was always I am always in danger of um, really alcohol alcoholic prone genes. So in addition to the whole Buddhist thing of like, you know, you know, what's what's the deal with lay practitioners versus monastics drinking? And you know, I could go on in a long tangent about uh, you know, the precepts and how they've been

interpreted in numerous cultures over time. I mean that's in the book and you can read about it. But for me personally, ever since I started drinking in my late late teens, um, you know, it's always been a I have to look at that relationship. It's not something I can take casually. So for me personally, it's always been, UM, it's been something that I've had to analyze pretty closely

to this time, you know. I mean now that I'm in my thirties and my relationship with alcohol is much different than it was when I was in me early twenties, and it's always is something that I look at and refine, and I mean, it's gets to that point of that I sort of emphasized repeatedly in both books, which is why do we do what we do? And and it doesn't necessarily have to just relate to alcohol, but could relate to sex, it could relate to online shopping. Online

shopping is not a bad thing. If we really need a new printer, we should buy a new printer. But if we are spending all of our time and all of our money in an addictive way and we're not exactly sure why we're buying all these things, then that's actually harming ourselves and others. Um. So when it comes to alcohol. If you're going to go out on a uh, you know, on a Friday night, why are you drinking?

You know, if someone hands you a shot of tequila and you're out with friends, are you drinking because you've had a hard week and you want to forget about it because that's going to take you down one road? Or are you drinking because your friends just kind of promotion and you're having a celebratory shot and then you know you'll probably call it early whatever, that will take you down a different road. So knowing why we do anything that we do is important. And I mean, like

you said, alcohol is an extremely dangerous thing. I think and walk like a would. I mentioned that. You know, it's like taking out a chainsaw. If you don't know what you're going to do with it, you're just gonna wave it around. You're gonna harm a lot of people, including yourself. But if you actually know what you're doing there, and you have a specific idea of what what you want to see happen, you're more likely to actually do

something that is not harmful, ideally something that's some productive. Yeah, it's clear you've you've spent a spent a lot of time there, and I think one of the most interesting responses to, you know, talking about sort of the tragedy of you know, of Trunk Parnpiche was Pemachodren just sort of saying, I don't know, you know, she had this, you know, I don't know what to say about it. And that's that's as far as I can get. And

I thought that was that was very interesting. UM. I want to there's another quote in your book that I'd like to to read and then ask you to give us, you know, a little bit more elaboration on it says, we spend so much of our time thinking through exactly what we want to see happen in the future. When we get to that point in time and everything is not exactly as we imagined it, we end up disappointed.

This is the nature of life. The more fixed expectations we care, the more we are likely to be let down. I mean, you know, there's so we spent so much of our time just lost in the future, where either reliving a conversation that we you know, took place earlier in the day, or we're planning out the rest of our lives and what should happen. Um. I've been particularly when it comes to romantic relationships, which it seems to

be like what people actually want to talk to me about. Um, it comes down to, you know, I have this fixed idea of who my partner is and what I think should be happening, and it's not happening. And the question

becomes like how did you get there? Because you spend so much time with your partner or your friend or your your parents or your kids, and you say, all right, that's who this person is, and you solidify it, you say, you know they are this hair or color, and they do these sorts of things, and they like this sort of ice cream, and then we forget that, as you know, we continue to age and grow and evolve, that these other people are doing the exact same thing in ways

that we often don't even realize because we see them every day. So um, we actually start to develop fixed expectations. You know, my partner always does the laundry and I always do the dishes, And then when your partner doesn't do the laundry, you get really disappointed your expectations are not being met. And I mean that's such a minor version, but um, you know you used to be such a

romantic in our relationship and now you're not. You always used to do X, Y Z, and now you do you know ABC instead, And because that's such a fixed thing in your mind, you are met with disappointment. So when I'm when I'm trying to encourage, and when I think meditation naturally encourages when people practice, it is this fresh start point of view where we actually reside with what's going on as opposed to what we think ought

to be going on. We actually start to just be with the people that were with and we can continue to be inquisitive about who they are, are inquisitive about our job situation, are a very Haitian or whatever it is. We're not necessarily saying here's how it's got to be. Otherwise I'm not going to be happy. The more you can relax with their situation as it is, the more we can actually enjoy it. So that's why I mean when I say that these fixed expectations start to drag

us down. It's that sense of, you know, I've built out this this house that I think I need to live in, and if the house looks different than I thought it was going to look, I'm miserable whereas if we just sort of gradually continue to build and sort of see it for what it is and you know, do what feels natural, then we're going to enjoy where

we where we are. So that's I mean, that's maybe a flawed analogy, but you know, I think that's the overarching beauty of the meditation practice, that it allows us to be with what is as opposed to what we think ought to what ought to happen, or what we quote unquote need to happen. Yeah, I think that's I really like that fresh would you call it fresh view? Yeah, the fresh start point of fresh start point of view

in a relationship. I think that's really point advice. And the other thing I think the real danger of sort of expectations in the future is this idea that this thing will make me happy and then, like you say, we get there and we're not happy, and instead of being able to question that and go, well, maybe it's the way I'm thinking it tends to be, Like, oh, I thought that the Honda accord would make me happy, but clearly it's probably a lexis that's going to be

needed because I don't feel happy and and you know, I've certainly been guilty of that in my life, of of getting towards something, not feeling any better and just thinking, well, okay, just keep going to the to the next thing. Um. So we're we're getting close to the time here. What I'd like to do is um, read you another quote from your book that I think really hits on the topic of feeding our good Wolf, and then allow you

to give any kind of closing comments after that. So, uh you say, in any moment, we have a choice. We can give into society's exhortations to be despondent because we will never be good enough to see succeed in love worker family, or we can listen to our own basic goodness, allowing that intuitive voice to guide us towards awaken into our full potential. We can hear that voice urging is to realize that we can accept ourselves exactly

as we are, that we are already complete. And I think that's a pretty good uh rehashing of feeding your good Wolf. Yeah. As I said at the beginning of this this time together, I I do feel like this good wolf analogy really encompass this we'ben trying to talk about for quite some time, because we always have the ability to relax with what is the ability to actually connect with our basic goodness and act from that point

of view. It's always there. The wolf is always there, and it's just that we're so habituated to actually um feeding our negative patterns that we don't even see that they're negative anymore. So, UM, you know, for for people listening, I do encourage you to try meditation and to try to become familiar with your mind so that you can connect more fully with this this wolf of kindness, this

wolf of goodness that we that we always have with us. Excellent, And we will have links out on our show notes to uh your site, and I know you have some basic teachings out there that people can view kind of right away in a YouTube channel, so will definitely link out to those things. UM. Is there anything you feel like you want to say that we we haven't covered. No, that's great. I mean I'm always happy to chat with

people after these sorts of things. And um, as you know, through both of my books, I may open the intro with saying I'm I'm sort of a mess but also okay, but I closed the intro with you know, when you're done with this thing reach out because I I love the dialogue aspect. As I mentioned before, I'm much more of a dialogue guy than a teacher guy, so I'm always happy to chat with people. Excellent. Well, thank you very much for joining us, and I enjoyed the conversation.

I enjoyed your books, and uh, you know, it's always great to have um people presenting different views of spirituality and life and making it more accessible to people. So thanks for all that you're doing there. Okay, sounds good. Thanks, all right, take care of a good evening. Alright bye. You can find out more about Lodro and the one you Feed podcast and our show notes at one you Feed dot net slash lodro