If you're in the river, you cannot see river. But when you see river but weaver still there, you don't have to block the river. 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 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 m Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Minor Ren Poche is a much loved
accomplished Tibetan Buddhist meditation teacher. When not attending the monasteries under his care in India and Nepal, n Poche spends time each year traveling and teaching worldwide. Today, him and Eric discuss his new book in Love with the World Amongst Journey through the Bards of Living and Dying. Hello, Minor in Poche, thank you for being on the show. I'm really excited to have you and welcome. Thank you, thank you. But I much very happy to be here.
It is a real pleasure to have you on. You are a very esteemed figure in Tibetan Buddhism, and I'm excited to get to talk with you. We will talk about lots of different things. One of the main things that I want to talk about is your book, Love with the World Amongst Journey through the Bards of Living and Dying. But before we do that, let's start like we always do with the parable. In 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, and 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. Yeah. So for me, since childhood, I learned meditation. So according to our meditative teaching, we all have fundamentally wonderful nature sometime what we call basic in it goodness or the original purity or the inner well being. So there's many names. But then at the same time, what we call because we are not recognize our fundamental qualities.
Sometimes what we call if we have ten qualities with us, nine is positive one negative. So normally what we see is only one negative one, and maybe we lost with that negative one. We exaggerate that, and even though we have nine good qualities within us, we don't see and we ignore that. So that is what we call ignorance. So therefore from the ignorance, then there's a lot of mental disturbance what we call clacies and the suffering like all the not pleasant and the difficult things may arises.
But we have wonderful, great wonderful nature what we call we have skills, love and compassion, awareness, But ten shaal wiscom all this are there? So yeah, we can say they're trutings within us. But the important is. First important is how you recognize these qualities within you, and second
important how you act on it. I want to talk a little bit more about what you said there, because I'm going to just read a line of yours that I read that I think is really important, And you say, if you're determined to think of yourself as limited, fearful, vulnerable, or scarred by past experience, I know only that you have chosen to do so. The opportunity to experience yourself differently is always available. And I think that's what you're
speaking to here. It's not that those things aren't true, not that there's not some Yes, maybe I have been damaged by past experiences. Maybe I do have, as you said, the negative quality, but it's where I'm putting my attention, and that I can learn to experience myself very differently if I stopped sort of hanging on to these fixed qualities. Yeah, yeah, totally true. So I had panic attacks when I was seven eight years old, and then I learned meditation when
I was nine years old. So normally, my father said, our init quality it's always calm, free, pure, just like sky. So in my hometown we have wonderful sky, but our ignorant and glacious and all this ups and down, and for me the panic at that time, panic is like storm in the sky. Although we might have very stone and very turbulents of weather and storm, but the nature of sky is still free, still present, still always there. The storm cannot change the nature of sky. So of
course we all have problems, We all do mistakes. Everybody has some events in the past, some encounter with problems, obstacle in our life. That's normal. But the very important is sometimes what we call obstacle is the opportunity. Actually we learn from problem, we learn from mistakes, we learn from suffering obstacle. So you know, one time my father said, if you're going somewhere and if you reach the dead end,
there's huge wall in front of you. What you should do first, check out your backpack and throw the other side of the wall. So once you pay is the other side of the wall. Now what you will do. You will cross them this huge world. But you may not cross like that. It like that way, maybe that that way is impossible, but we have to accept that also. But there's the witch and ways you can cross the wall,
So that is really important. We all have capacity, we all have potential, we all have wisdom, love and compassion within us. So it's really important that where which side of us we should look and discover and nurture and be with that. I think this is a very important. Staying on the same topic, you say that we often talk about ourselves and static mental postures such as I am an angry person, and there are attachment to these things.
Narrows are experience and it induces them to repeat themselves. Yes, so I think very important that normally we have to make different between me and my emotion, me and my mistake, me and my panic. So my mother, you know, when I was young, when I did something mistake and my mother said, oh, you're this action is not good. But she never say you is not good. So I think this is a really important that we need to learn that.
I think fundamentally everybody wanted to do good. Sometimes what we call the nature of tree and the habit of tree. So the tree, the nature of tree straightforward and the balancing the branches. But because of the wind, because of other situations, tree may have got this way or that way. But that is the not our true nature. So it is a really important that two gratitude, appreciate, recognize about our fundamental qualities. M I love that. I've never heard
that habit of tree and nature of tree. It speaks to this idea that sort of what you're saying, this underlying goodness. You used a lot of different terms for it. The one I've heard in my Zen tradition is Buddha nature. Right, we all have Buddha nature, right, similar idea, But then we have all this conditioning that comes from the world. We are conditioned this way, we have this experience, and
we're treated that way, and we have this fear. And so you're talking about dropping back into that underlying reality. How do you do that? Because that sounds great, but it's very difficult to do. So we can do a few things with that. One one of the easier is if we are not familiar with the meditation, then we learn to appreciate and gratitude. So maybe in the engine time what we call counting stone, so we have bright stone and duck stone, and then we count whatever we see.
Try to observe, try to see the good things within yourself. Actually, there are so many good things there. But what happened at the beginning, we see negative part. So whatever we see negative, but we don't judge. Dug store and positive heart bright stone. But nowadays something not easy to find stone. So you get right now. So let me tell you a story. One time a couple came to me, and this couple is really struggle and they are having kind
of like argument and fighting every day. The husband is always want to control, control everything, and why we is a worried. She's always worried. And then the both of them came to me and asked me, please pray for us. They're expecting some magic, you know, power of blessing that I give them, then the problem will solve. But Aciel I told them I don't have that capacity of power. Sorry, I cannot help, but I can guide you something. And
the boat said, whatever from you, it's okay. So that I told them, okay, from today on, every day, you both, you know, dedicate thirty minutes of time to talk about positive things each other. And they both said, oh yeah, yeah, that's good idea and they went back. After a few weeks later, they both came and they said, how our
is too long? You know, they try to discuss positive things each other than yeah, when I've first time met you and you are really look kind bad, you know now, but that was twenty years ago, so then they cannot discuss and become quite so. Then they asked me what should I do? And I told them, okay, okay, I will give you a discount. So now just five minutes, and they both are very happy. Five minutes we can do that. They're gone and I haven't met them for
one year. And after one year they both came and they said these five years changed. They lie. Actually now even thirty minutes not enough. I was nice, who what happened? You know? I asked them, and they said because they just discussed over five minutes and they kind of like lost stress and they found actually a lot of good things within each other. Actually they really deeper level. They kind each other. But they also know they both had personality.
One is the one to control, one is you know what he and they give humor about sense of humor about each personality. When the husband go out come back, he knocked the door and he said the most the you know, powerful person is coming. And the wife open and the door and said, welcome, the most warrious person in the world is welcomes you. So he sends humor about their own personality, but they never give up continue transform.
I think this is really important. Yeah, it's interesting because Skier in the West, there's a number of scholars of relationships. They study relationships and they found that, you know, it really takes like five positive remarks to make up for like one negative remark. And so you've got to make an effort. What can I see in this other person that's positive? And I think we'd apply this right back
to ourselves looking inside. And I heard you say once talking about your panic attacks, and you said that your father said to you, even in your panic attacks, underneath it is love and compassion. Explain that, because I think that's a really important point that even in what we consider something negative about ourselves, if we go deep enough, we find something else. Yeah. Actually we find what we call awareness, love and compassion and wisdom. And this tree
is the actually fundamental call it or panic. Why pannis exists because of awareness, love and compassion and wisdom. Actually, without that, panic cannot exist. So what we call ocean and wave, the wave is panic. But what is ocean is the water, sky and cloud, cloud, is panic. But without sky we cannot have cloud. So actually, of course there's a step by step practice. Normally I teach this as course. I do level one, never two. So of course is take some time. Maybe I will say okay, now,
maybe I focus on the love and compassion. So when we really look at the word is love and compassion. Love meaning looking for something nice, looking for happiness, looking for virtue, looking for meaning for you, for others, for everybody. So there's a seeking, there's a longing, there's a motivation. So that is the love to have this to you and everybody. Compassion is wanting to free from problems, obstacles, mistakes, uneasiness. So that is the fundamental essence of love and compassion.
So why we have panic, Actually we don't like something or we are craving something. We are looking for happiness may not happening and we don't like that. So everybody looking for happiness. Actually, maybe you are now listening to this broadcast. Why you are looking for happiness? And why are you're listening now? Maybe you're drinking coffee or tea looking for happiness. And each movement of your body, each glimpse of your eyes is looking for happiness, So that
is actually love and compassion. But then normally we don't go deber level into panic. We start on the service level. So service level, there's a panic, there's a concept, there's some depression, could be hatred, so many different things of blah blah blah blah blaha ya ya yarra. But then when we got debt and devor actually there's a genuine love, compassion of wisdom. Can you share briefly the difference between those three, So love and compassion, awareness and wisdom. We've
talked about love and compassion. Let's talk about awareness and wisdom briefly and how those are used in the terminology you're using. So awen is the mean annoying our mind the fundamental quality what we call clear and annoying. So mind actually is and another word for the mind sometimes what we call clarity luminosity. Normally when we think of
a mind is thought, emotions, feeling, memory. But these are what we call function of mind or mental factors, or the sometimes what we call ready and of the mind, not the extra mind. So what is the extra mind? Clear and annoying? But that is not easy to find because it cannot be grabbed by conceptual mind. You need to find when you know how to be with it. So rather than looking or controlling, just be and that luminosity or clarity or awareness. It's the fundamental of panic,
essence of depression, essence of thought, essence of memory. Like ocean and the wave, the wave is ocean. Actually without water, how you can have wave. So awareness is basically the space that everything is happening in. Would that be another way of describing it? Yes? Yes, great, So the awareness, love and compassion are one actually, and that is the basis of whatever happening in our mind, the basis of
the all this thought than wisdom wisdom? Yes, so wisdom is I think, although recognizing all these are wisdoms, so wisdom is quite difficult to understand. So you need to prout to step by step. Got it? So you do talk a lot about this ocean and wave idea, and I like it. And you say that when most beginners start with the idea that meditation is supposed to be peaceful, right, if they feel peaceful, they conclude they're doing it right. If we're not, then we conclude we're doing it wrong.
And when the waves come, we say we cannot meditate or we assume the presence of waves means we're not meditating correctly, say a little bit more about that. So there are two types of meditation, I think in the world. So for my lineage is what we call object oriented meditation and subject oriented meditation. The object oriented meditation and meaning whatever kind of meditation, you have to have objects, objects important, breath, body, feeling, taught, emotion, whatever, objects important.
But my lineage is subject subject meaning the awareness. So awareness is with us all the time. Actually, and you don't have to really not need to even meditate normally, what we can just be let it be as it is. But you can use object of course, but object is to support awareness, to recognize the awareness. So for that case, when we begin to learn meditation, for my lineage is
even when you watch your breath, the awareness important. Then there's a thought, emotion, feeling, whatever, let them come, let them go. You can even aware of dull, even full, you can aware of panic, depression, hate it. Then everything becomes support for awareness. So what we call when you see the river, you're out of river. So if you're in the river, you cannot see river. But when you see river, that means you're out of river, but river still there. You don't have to bullo up the river.
Maybe you can enjoy the river, you know, do some exercise, walk along the river while watching the river. And if the river become waterful, even better, you know. But normally what happened we are fall in the river, lost in the river. Then if river become waterfall dangerous, you know, a big problems. So sometimes I make a little bit funny name for this horizontal liberation and vertical liberation. So
most people expecting horizontal meaning the gap. If I meditate in my mind, there's no blahlahlalah, no ya, I need to have peace, empty, specious, think of nothing. But that is the horizontal, the gap between pass and the future. But the vertical meaning you can have thought. You can help emotion everything, but you are baby with that, so a VanNess it become bigger than taught because than panic, becaut than emotion, and you are not the emotion, you
are not the talk. Actually we can have both. Of course, we don't need to choose whatever it comes to us. But eventually, by practicing like this awareness, then we will free ourselves, not by controlling, not by creating, just being assid is right because you describe the fact that no matter what happens, these waves are going to keep coming. That's the nature of mind. You know. The nature of mind is it's going to think, it's going to have thoughts,
it's going to have emotions. So even if we were to take your horizontal you know, I want this gap between things. Those gaps are by the very nature of the way the mind works somewhat limited. You just we don't sit down and shut it off. I'd like to think of it from a neuroscience perspective. It's not like you can sit down and start meditating and just power down all the neurons in your brain. They don't have an off switch. Yeah, I love this concept of horizontal
versus vertical. Vertical says I don't have to have space between thoughts. I need to have space around thoughts. And so one way I've heard this described is so you start with an object, like you're saying, okay, paying attention to my breath. That's the content of awareness. But then I turned my attention to what is the content arising within, which is the awareness. So then we don't need to look for peace, come joy or dull confusion, because all
these are just cloud anyway eventually. So the most important is the awareness become more silients, love and compassion to become more vivid. So once we found the space, we can have clouded. Actually we can have taught an emotion. Nothing wrong to have taught any emotion. In fact, it's good. You know if by a mint attention then thought the emotion all are gone. Then if we are becoming a
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dot com slash wolf. You say, I finally discovered the only reliable liberation from suffering, not trying to get rid of the problem. Say more about that. Yeah, so that is the really fundamental teaching that I've been practicing. So once we've discovered this basic innate goodness, the awareness, the clarity, love and compassion and wisdom no matter what happened in your mind is always there, then no need to do anything. Just be who you are and you are perfect from beginning.
So sometimes what we call um sas liberation liberate by itself, not by blocking changing or fighting with the thought any emotions. The problem becomes solution extra day. You say elsewhere that it's our preoccupation with the problem that nails it in place. So I think this is a similar idea that we're saying here. It's by trying to get rid of the problem or our preoccupation with the problem, we basically are grabbing onto it and we're not allowing the nature of
impermanence of change to have and because we're grasping at it. Right, So when I was young, I had panic attacks. But what is the most problem during those days? The panic or panic is worse than panic. Fear or panic a version of panic, so that makes panic longer. That is the feeding food for the panic. So you can try maybe sometimes I make one funny meditation called pizza meditation. Maybe we can try piece of meditation for the pizza meditation.
For a few seconds, you're not allowed to think of pizza, okay, now not I cannot think pizza even one second. What happened, Pizza comes. So when we say no pizza, actually more pizza will come. So that is what we call the service level of mine. The monkey mind does, so monkey mine always does the opposite. When we say no, monkey mind say yes. When we say yes, monkey mind said no. So then actually you don't have to do anything with the monkey mind because essence of monkey mind is awareness,
love and compassion and visdom. So be with that. My producer Chris is finally interested in meditation, though he has listened to hundreds of these episodes not cared about meditation. But now that you've mentioned pizza meditation, I think we finally have him on board. He has been doing pizza meditation for years. He's a meditation master of pizza. Apparently you have a phrase that you used in the book that is used in your lineage, which is adding wood
to the fire. Describe a little bit about what adding wood to the fire is and why on earth would we want to do this. So, although my lineage of meditation, awareness is important, so awareness, love and compassion vista with us all the time. But then in order to discover that it is quite tyfficult at the beginning, sometimes it's difficult because too easy and too close to us so become difficult. So first we need to learn a step
by step practice of meditation. Meditation with objects then let go of object what we call object less meditation or open awareness meditation. Then eventually make what we call transform clacious ignoring, a support for meditation, hated, craving, pride, jealousy. So CLASSI has transformed into meditation, becomes support for meditation, and then they lose the power, but we don't need to block them. Subliberate poison become medicine. Then suffering, so
eventually panic, depression, stress or physical illness, whatever. But of course we have to balance. If you seek, you have to check with the doctor. Of course it's very important for the relative level. But just checking may not solve the problem. So the problem might be there. Maybe we transformed the suffering and support for meditation. Eventually, you know, whatever problem comes in the life, then all this has
become adding wood to the fire. So fire is the recognition of awareness, love and compassion, of wisdom, whatever comes in our lives. So at the beginning, we have to make fire with tiny wood with the position of the wind. Once the fire become bigger, let wind come and we can add various would even b would the fire become bigger.
So that's the analogy. I think it's interesting because your book in love with the world, journey through the Bards of Living and dying, you actually leave your monastic living to go out into the world old and essentially add
wood to the fire. And what I think is interesting is that you sort of had to go out to find wood to put on the fire, whereas I think it's almost the opposite problem for a lot of people who live life outside of a monastery is it's almost as if when we start, there's too much wood in
the fire already. We didn't get to train with the little wood, right, it's been burning all along, and now at whatever age we get to sixty, we go, oh, I want to start to train in developing or I think the word you would use is not developing love and compassion awareness is discovering or recognizing because they're already there, right, so recognize and I want to start to recognize them. But boy, there's a lot of wood on the fire already.
So would it be safe to say that in to use your analogy of you know, you start by putting little pieces of wood on the fire. If we're gonna work with our afflictions, if going to work with our suffering, that maybe we work with some of the easier parts of it to start with versus the hardest parts. Yes,
that's correct, that's correct. So at the beginning we always need to start something easy, something say, something you can do, so transform small things for me, like although I learned meditation from my father and many great meditation teachers, and they always recommend that, don't work with the panic right away, even when you transform panic into awareness, compassion, whatever that
practice you're doing. If you feel the panics too strong, you cannot watch, you cannot find a love and compassion within that, then let go look for another emotion. So what I did is panic is quite strong with me, but I don't have so much anger normally, so I create anger and meditative with anger, I feel good. You know, I can find a VanNess with that English sometimes I cannot find an ventness with that panic, so I take time, step by step, step by step. I want to ask
you a question about sensation. You say, sensation is the link between the object and the mind. So we have an object in the outer world, it causes a sensation in us, and we register that in the mind, usually as I like it or I don't like it, good feeling bad, feeling in Buddhist psychology or analysis. I've I've heard that the first thing that arises is pleasure or pain or neutral. So I experience an object and immediately comes pleasure, pain or neutral. Is that somewhat accurate in
your understanding, Bud. The first appear as optic, so what we call let's say less we can talk through the ice. So we have the ice here, those tongue body, first what we call the organ, the object and the consciousness they meet first millisecond whatever when they meet. The eyes doesn't see the object yet, so like signs saying the light touched to the eyes. And then next whatever millisecond,
the image appeared on the ice. And that time, maybe for you, image appear as beautiful, not beautiful, nice image, not nice image, nootle image. Then after that sensation comes the image nice pleasant sensation, image not nice unpleasant, And from noodle that there is some neotle sensation normally not easy to recognize. Then what happened the conception mind grab that oh this is good, this is not good. I needed how I look for that in the future, I
mane it. So then the bla comes, but it's kindible. What we cause circle, the suffering is circle. So whether this object is a nice or not nice, it depends on your habit, your past mental like like trauma in a way, or kind of imprint. So for some people when they look at the pizza, nice image. For some people when they look at the pizza are not nice image? Or some people need to it depends on your habit,
depend on how the imprint comes to you. So the imprints again, go to this process and then make new imprint again, and we will see again that objects become like so object seeing. Then would you call that perception and then sensation? Yeah, So if the detail level object image, recognize sensation again, describe and become imprint and stay in the mental street. And so that sensation of pleasant, unpleasant, neutral is happening so quickly and so far below the
conscious level. Based on these imprints that you're describing, Can they change? Of course you can change. So how do you go about doing that? So I'll give you an example from my life here in the US. The people when they're doing outdoor work, they have these gas powered leaf blowers. They're really loud, and when I hear them, I instantly don't like it. I don't like it. I'm irritated by it. I don't want it, but I recognize that, like the gas powered leaf blower is just an object, right,
It's just a sound. Okay, So all right, I'm far enough along that I recognized. Okay, the problem isn't the sound. The problem is how I'm reacting to the sound and yet it's happening so split second. I can't seem to get in between those things. So how do you start to change that on something like that? So view meditation application we have to work with the three areas. So view starting from cognitive level. Meditation start with the feeling
or experiential level. Application start with the habitual level or the tendency level. So the view is you look for the reason. So maybe that noise it's just you're disturbing for some other people, maybe they hear unpleasant noise, or what is the cause and condition that really bothering you? So you can look for many different reasons that you can find, and you can you can start new believe. What we could view view is believe and then the
second meditation you're gonna work with that sensation. Normally, certainly an unpleasant sensation comes to the body without knowing that maybe some sometimes from heart, sometime from the head, sometimes from the gut, something from the shoulders. Certainly unpleasant like way we feel the entire body in one second. So what we can do be with that sense that you don't need to look for the reason, just accept and
the be the sensation. Sensation becomes support forul awareness or find the love and compassion within the sensation or wisdom. So from the feeling level experiential level, you can walk with that and that has automaric healing balls. And by these two the view and experiential level, the meditation together, try again again, can you have to build new habit? Ze comes, bring this two, noise comes, bring the two together. There's a lotalized, a lot of noise become. It doesn't
disturb to you, and it's okay and silalist. Let the noise comes, awareness comes, noise comes, love and compassion comes. And then that is become supportful love and compassion awareness. And it was are there any things that we encounter you can't make that change with? So for example, physical pain seems like as humans, we all react to physical pain with go away, right, that's our natural reaction. Can
we change that? Like the noise I'm describing. I can tell you that I don't know anybody who would be like, oh, that's a nice sound. Almost everybody be like, imagine a really loud, bad motor running in your ear. You'd be like, well, it would be sort of jarring, you know. So are there some things that as our nature we're going to never be able to relate to that way? Or is everything malleable in this fashion? In general? It checks some time.
Of course, everything can be changed from the mental level, but you cannot change pain. Pen is there, but the reaction to the pain can be changed. Sometimes what we call getting old sick natural suffering, So sometimes we cannot change. But fear of getting old is worse than getting old, so that can be changed. Maybe we can set up your book here for a minute, because I found it really remarkable. Can you describe the basic premise of what you were trying to do in the book. So this
book is that my last book. And I went to wondering retreat actually just you know, leave my monastery everything and go on the street without much support by myself. So I have a lot of wonderful experience though they are very difficult, and I was kind of naive that just go on the street, then I will be fine. It's not like that, but actually I really learned a lot. One of the real lessons is what I call if
you love the world, the world loves your back. So then the title the book title name in Love with the world. Why, as we discussed here, awareness, love and comparaition, wisdom. It's the fundamentally essence of all of us. So when we more and more connect with those things and actually we find wonderful people, cause and conditions and the courage, and you will find a solution also if there's a problem. So first month was quite difficult. I was almost die
because of the I did foot poison. But then I didn't die. I come back. Then I have really great appreciation that just being alive and the street where I'm staying there street become like my home. Look at the trees. Trees become like what I call the tree made by love. So now the before what I feel is unsaved. Here there's the problem. Oh there's a danger, of course, now I know they're relatively as the danger, but still everything becomes like my home. So now that's the first one,
and after that I spent more than four years. Actually everything is quite good. So what I call this is really important part of the book transformation self transformation, obstacle become opportunity. So you describe in the book that you leave your monastic life. You are a highly revered figure in your monastic life, and and while you may not be considered wealthy, you live the life in which you
never really had to do things for yourself. You had people who took care of your basic needs so that you could focus on your meditation practice, deepen in your spirituality, all of that. So you had a tendency, had all this stuff, and you suddenly decide, I'm walking away from all of that and I'm just going to head out into the world and see what happens. It's a little bit like the Buddha leaving his the legend of the Buddhist, you know, had all his needs met and he decided
to wander out into the world. So similar thing. What I found so striking about the book, at least in the beginning, is how jarring this was for you. Like you went out and all of a sudden, you go from living in a monastery and being taken care of too basically being on a train in India and describe a little bit about how jarring these things were for you, because I think it's really powerful because it speaks to what we've just been talking about, which is your initial
reaction to all those things. You were able to overcome that and and now relate to those things totally differently. Yeah, So my name is the Rimpuches. So like intepretent tradition, the high title, wherever I go, I have these attendees and someone taking care of me so I can do study and teaching and learning all these things. And then I was teaching around the world since two thousand two tho and there's a lot of students, and I have a few monasteries. I become head of the monastery, and
I wrote the book. The first book is a Joy Living that's become bestseller. So normally what I describe myself as like Dharama prince, so everything is a wonderful condition everything then kind of pride comes or I'm the teacher Abbett writer and the teacher a lot of students, so we have this practice about the wandering retreat. I have this in my mind. So when I was young, my mother used to read The Great wondering. Many theaters in the past, like so it's kind of bad time story.
People who wander, wandering retreat, Yeah, wondering retreat. And I have this idea that I really want to, you know, leave everything and do the one unity. I did that, but at the beginning I never went alone by myself anyway. So that time I have to buy a basic train ticket, and everybody's lying there that I'm in India, and everybody pushing each other. I was way the way. Many people come and I become always last, last, last, and someone pushed me behind. So finally I got the ticket. Then
we are waiting at the train station. Everybody pushed inside. When the train comes, the door is totally blowed by people and inside people push come out, and I was like push inside. So I don't have control, you know, I'm on the Eventually I cannot touch my feet to the ground. Then I lived inside the train. In the train, I was thinking I moved a little forward, but somehow I stuck. I look back. I have small backpack, you know,
that's true. Person between me and backpack, you know, And in the train, some of the goat comes, cow comes, very smalling. So then I was really shocked. You know, I never thought like that way. So there's a lot of emotion comes. Little fear or unsafe, unpleasant sensation come with this train lead and when arrived there, what should I do? So so many emotion comes? So meanwhile I try my best to practice practice. I did four and have year's retreat. The only thing that really protect me,
said me, It is my practice. Yeah, it's kind of amazing as you described the book, to see you sort of overwhelmed with these very human emotions. It would be the equivalent of a listener of the show me going from living a somewhat comfortable, upper middle class Western life to suddenly going and being homeless on the streets of Mexico. It would be about the equivalent, right, And that's what you did. And and like any of us, would you
have all the normal feelings. I'm afraid, I'm disgusted, I'm I'm being given food that I'm like, what is this? And what's so fascinating in the book to me is how as all that's happening, you're applying your practice to it, and you are in real time working to transform these emotions using these qualities we've been describing, using loving, kindness and compassion, using awareness, using wisdom, you're actually transforming these things.
And then you go on to get incredibly sick. I'm not sure if we describe it as a near death experience, but you were very close to death. You finally get so sick, so dehydrated, you lose consciousness and you wake up in a hospital. But that experience of that close to dying also was a deep awakening experience for you. Right, yeah, So, actually I don't have much money, A few thousand Indian rubies and that money gone within three weeks. Actually, so I I went from Bodgaya to Gara Nazi and Ani
to Kush past Nirvanaairvana die there. So first I rand a small kind of like gets us basically it's only a few too, that means three four dollars. And after finish my money, then I have to stay on the street. Then I move from a guest house on the street. Then I have to beg food. So first I never beg food in my life. I feel very shy and you know, nervous. And first I went to this street kind of like shop. Normally I buy food there. It's
very cheap. So I went there and tell them all my money is gone, can you give me some left left upper food? And that person knows me and tell me come in the evening. So I went there in the evening and got the food, and from the food, then I started diarrhea in the midnight. So four or five days diarrhea, no medicine for no money for the medicine. Drink the water only there's a no hand has to do like this. Then water comes and we have to drink. So then in the end, somehow I cannot even look
for water. My body become really failing. Actually I cannot really see. All the sense of gone, and my body began paralyzed. And what I did is normally what we call dying meditation. So there's a very cillier description when you die. What happens first stage, second stage, and all these stage are happening to me. There's a dissolution of element what we got falling, floating and then melting, and then in the end the blew away, like when all
this experience are there. But at the same time awareness become more clear, actually more vivid, deeper level. In the end, I cannot see, cannot think nothing, but a vent is so present and even there's no really thought there. So normally when we think about apple, so there's image of apple there that is also gone. So there's no time from no back, not up, not down, so peaceful joy and their sense of love and compassion without object what we call nonconceptual love and compassion. So I was in
that state for a few hours. Then after that I come back. So when I come back, then everything is become really wonderful, to street become like my home, and the wind blow to my face and the body before the wind is quite hot during that time, very unpleasant feeling, but now it's really unpleasant. So this is a really in my I described this very detail in my book. But normally I'm saying that don't try. Don't try at home,
you know, So if you want to really have this meditation. Now, when I think about this, it's kind of like it's like so as imission, So don't try that at home. But in our life, we have a lot of problems, as you mentioned before, So try to transform whatever problem comes to our mind and make friends of it. Debt, well, that is a great place for us to wrap up. Thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show. It is a real honor to have you on and I have really enjoyed this conversation and
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