So the meditation, we could say, is a refinement of the perception of impermits. From that, the whole world of dharma opens up. We begin to see that nothing in and of itself will be ultimately satisfying because nothing less.
Hello and welcome to the Psychology Podcast. Today's episode is sponsored by Unlikely Collaborators. Their mission is to entangle the stories that hold us back as individuals, communities, nations, and humanity at large using the Perception Box lens. They do this through storytelling, experiences, impact investments, and scientific research. Unlikely
Collaborators the only way forward is inward. Later on in this episode, I'll talk a lot more about the perception box and how it relates to this episode, but right now, let me tell you about today's guest. Today we welcome Joseph Goldstein to the show. Joseph is a co founder and the guide being teacher of the Insight Meditation Society, along with Jack Cornfield and Sharon Salzberg. He is one of the first American Vispasuna teachers and has been teaching
Buddhist meditation worldwide since nineteen seventy four. A contemporary author of numerous popular books on Buddhism, His publications include Mindfulness, A Practical Guide to Awakening, One Dharma, Insight, Meditation, and others. In this episode, I talked to Joseph Goldstein about Buddhism and the impermanence of life. Being too attached to the self can bring suffering. However, this doesn't mean that we
need to forego our identities or self care. Joseph explains that enlightenment can be achieved when the mind is free from clinging. He talks about the different states that can help us realize the insight of impermanence and selflessness. We also touch on the topics of mindfulness, compassion, creativity, and wisdom.
This discussion was really rich and involved a lot of mutual areas of interest and a lot of translation going back and forth between the kind of phrases and terms used in my field of psychology and the terms and phrases that are used in Buddhism. So this was a really exciting discussion for many reasons. So, without further ado, I bring you Joseph Goldstein. Joseph Goldstein's so great to have you on the Psychology Podcast. Finally, go ahead to
be here. We're laughing for our audience because we had some technical difficulties, but I tried to throughout the whole process. I tried to apply the things I've learned from you to not get get caught in the story. You've said something really interesting one point about I'm trying to paraphrase it, but we are completely lost in the movie, but nothing substantial is really happening. That's I think how you described our consciousness. And often a lot of the time we
got so caught up in it. And you know, ten minutes from now, you know, is it really going to matter that much?
Exactly? That's a good perspective to keep.
For sure. For sure. So anyway, we're making this work. So you are co founder of the Insight Meditation Society, and you founded that many years ago.
Is that right in the eighties? Was that in the eighties? Is that eighty nine, seventy six? Oh my gosh, so it's almost fifty years. Wow.
Well, well congratulations, that's I mean, that's incredible, it's incredible. Did to do anything that long? You know, is anything anything you know that long?
Is?
Is really marriage?
Business?
Really anything?
So?
How old were you? And I asked that is inappropriateness that how old were you in seventy six.
I was thirty two.
Okay, so you were thirty two years old. Kid, you were a kid, you were I am forty four.
Forty four, Well, I was no longer a kid.
I looked like a kid, though I still look still look like a kid, especially when I shave. So my question is like, how did you get interested in Buddhism? You know what, what age did you really start to get into what? And what I really want to grasp here with you is what really resonated the most with your soul back then? You know what was it? What was it about it about the principles that that most resonated with your soul?
First, just to say, within the context of Buddhism, soul is not really one of the words we use so funny, But leaving that inside, we can use it for a convention.
Fair enough, and well, I mean we can go further. We can say when I say what resonated most with you, you'd say, well, technically there is no meed I don't know, I don't even identify with me. So okay, there's there's so many things wrong with my question there. But you know, interpreting it however, you will as a layperson, you know, as a civilian.
Now I got the meaning of it. No, it's true. It's true. First was introduced to me in the Peace Corps. After college, I went into the Piscaus send me to Thailand. And I had studied philosophy at college, so my mind was kind of interested. Although I didn't really know anything about Buddhism at the time. But I started going to these discussion groups that some Buddhist monks were holding four Westerners in Bangkok, and so I would go to these
meetings and really interesting to me. But having studied philosophy and given the quality of my mind, I was asking endless questions just in these small groups. People stopped coming to the group because I was going because I was being so annoying with all my questions. So one of the monks finally said, Joseph, you know, you might want to try meditating. And of course I was young at that time. I was like twenty one years old. You know, I didn't know anything about meditation, so it was all
very exotic. It was my first time in the Far East, so oh that sounds great. Get my paraffinalite to get at the sit, I set my alarm clock for five minutes, said, want to sit too much. But something really happened in that five minutes, and it wasn't that it was any great enlightenment experience. Rather just in that five minutes, I saw that there was a way to look into my mind instead of simply looking out through it. And so it was like a turning in place and seeing that
there was a methodology for looking into the mind. So that was incredibly exciting for me. It was just like a revelation, you know, that I could systematically watch my own mind. I got so excited that I started inviting my friends over to watch me medicine. Of course they didn't come back. Yeah, so that was that was really
what captured my interest. And then gradually he started to sit for longer than five minutes, and by the end of my time in the Peace Corps, I realized that I wanted to pursue it, but that I really needed a teacher. So I had gone back to the States after my peace cost State realized I wanted to teacher, and then went back to the East to look for meditation teacher, and I ended up in India in Bogaya, where that's the place where the Buddha was enlightened and I met my first teacher there.
Now, when did you come across Jack?
That wasn't many years later when I came back for the last time from India. That was in nineteen seventy four, and it was just that was the year that Trumpempache was setting the Europa Institute up, you know, kind of Buddhist Buddhist College university in Boulder. In those years, it was just summer sessions. But Jack and I both ended up at the Rope in that summer and that's where we really became friends and finally collaborators.
And then where did when did Sharon pop up on the scene in this movie?
Well, Sharon I knew from my time in India.
Oh wow, you did you meet her in India?
Yeah? Wow, So I met her in nineteen I think it was nineteen seventy, In nineteen seventy when she came to bud Guy to sit one of the first Goanka courses. Yes, so that's when we met.
You guys were kids.
Absolutely. Do you have any.
Pictures from that time? Do you have any pictures from that time?
Probably someplace you have some early pictures there. Yeah.
Well, Sharon's a dear friend of mine, and.
Yeah, she said, and she said to say hello, by the way, thank you. Cool.
Cool, And it's just it's so cool to hear this origin story. Yeah, you know, of all three of you in a way, you know, real pioneers in I know modesty is all important everything in Buddhism, but you all are pioneers on bringing a lot of these ideas to the West. So there's so much to discuss today. It's so much I really want to like, so much nuance in this.
You know.
One thing is this idea of enlightenment. And depending on your school of thought, your philosophy of Buddhism, there's there are very different metaphysical systems of what enlightenment means. But I read that you you argued, well roughly there, you know, there's a thread that seems to run through all of them, and that's enlightenment is when the mind is free of clinging.
Do you still stand by that statement? And then can you unpack from a little more what it means to be free of clinging to your thoughts?
So before getting into that, I have a new favorite definition of enlightenment.
Excellent'm glad I asked this.
Then, yes, it'll be worth elaborating where you just say, my new favorite definition is lightening up. That is really a process of just lightening up. I really like that, and unpacking that a little bit more, which which dovetails into the more classical Buddhist definitions of it. It really becomes means becoming less and less self centered, you know, less self referential. And for most of us in our lives,
we are the center of our lives. There's this sense of self, so that that in a way, self centered can have a kind of more superficial psychological meaning. You know, we say somebody is really self centered, so we know what that means conventionally, but we drill down a little deeper self centered that is centered around a self, and the whole Buddhist path is really seeing the selfless nature
of this whole mind body process. So in that sense, lightening up means weakening the sense of self center and finally uprooting, which is in classical terms, the first stage of enlightenment with a view where we're seen beyond the view of self, and that that belief that view is actually uprooted at that point, and so in classical terms, that's what it's called stream entry, entering the stream to enlightenment.
I love all these visuals as well. They're all very like ocean. I love it.
No, I love it.
Can you be self focused at times without being selfish? I think a lot about this, you know?
What?
Is it always bad? Being self referential?
Is that not?
Again?
Bad?
Is a judgment, a judgment called it's not very Buddhist to me either? But but leading to can you still be leading to enlightenment and and be self focused?
Yes? So there are a couple of things here. Even though the kind of essence, really the core of the Buddhist teachings is understanding and realizing selflessness, still we use that word in a conventional way just for purposes of communication, you know. So that's fine. I'm not suggesting we give
up the idea, you know, just using common language. So in this sense, and I'll give you an example of it, when one is doing the love and kindness practice, you know, in Polg's called meta, we direct loving wishes to a sequence of categories of beings, starting with oneself, then a factor frame, neutral person, difficult person, and then all beings.
And the idea is to equalize the quality of our love and kindness and love and care among all of those categories, including what we conventionally call self right, so very that's part of the well wishing and the caring for all beings. So all beings include ourselves. So there's no so taking care in a skillful way, and it doesn't have to be in what conventionally we would call a selfish mode. It really can come out of a wisdom. It's like we take care of our health, you know.
That's not being selfish, it's being wise. So there's no problem with that. But it's to understand that we're using the term self there conventionally. It would be very awkward to say, oh, I'm going to take care of this mind body process constituted with the five aggregates. My self is just assured it. Yeah, yeah, So we use it conventionally and it's helpful.
I really appreciate that clarification, you know. I I've been obsessed with a certain paradox I noticed in my psychology research, and that's that it seems like the most psychologically healthy people have the strongest sense of self, you know, And so just let that sit there a moment, what I just said, because it's very very interesting I'm trying to integrate this with with Buddhist philosophy because we find over and over again, those who are you can even say
the inverse, those who have the high levels of anxiety, stress, depression, and even what we call vulnerable narcissism, tend to report there are actually scales on the extent to which you have a sense of self, report feeling like they're constantly shape shifting depending on right. They don't feel like they know who they are at all, feel any sense of self. So is this compatible? Can we can we integrate these literatures in a way because on first past they seem incompatible,
But I bet they're not. I bet they're not at all.
They're not because again, different systems of understanding often use the same word meaning different things. So when you're comparing the different systems, thinking that they're referring to the same thing because the word they're using, like self or ego is the same in psychological in this psychological paradigm and the Buddhist paradigm, they are using those terms very differently.
So my understanding and I'm not a therapist, I'm not a trained psychologist, but you know from what I've learned over all these.
Years, we neither by the way, Okay, so I didn't say anything.
Man, When psychologists use the term self or ego, my understanding is translating that into Buddhist terms would be a healthy balance of mind. Good. I like that when the when the term self or ego is used, just in the Buddhist sense, that's referring to the idea that there
is some unchanging entity residing within us. And that was what I was referring to at the very beginning of our conversation with respect to the word soul, you know, as if there's some unchanging core being hiding out, you know. So that's what the buddhas said, is not that's a mistaken view of what this mind body trucess is all about. So just using the terms differently, and I think the Buddhists would agree that. And part of the path is to have a healthy sense of self in a psychological
sense is essential, you know. We and a lot of the practice is accomplishing that balance of the mind, you know. So again they complement one another really well.
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Go to sacoaching dot org. That's sacoaching dot org. I look forward to welcoming you into I find the Buddhist perspective so beautiful and it has impacted me personally so much. As I was writing my book transcend I came across some writings from the humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow where he put it this way, and I want to see how this resonates with you, because it really resonated with my
not not s word, but my being. Or what he said is that the purpose of self actualization is to erase itself.
He said that was so beautiful, Absolutely love it.
And then he said, I mean he had such a way with words, you know, Maslow. And then he also said, if done right, self actualization really just allows you to walk the bridge to transcendence. And that's that's how I view it, you know, when I yeah, yeah, when I talk about self actualization, and I really my whole research program is about self actualization. I don't mean it as as an individualistic pursuit context of the world, but I actually do you think that self actualization, though, is a
really important step on the paths of transcendence. And I don't think the Buddhist would ever say that, you know, we shouldn't have self actualization. We should only you know, I don't know, we should have no sense of self. I mean, that's just such a mischaracterization of Boo the way the Buddha thought about this, right, Yes.
Yes, Again, it just points so that they're using the word self in two different ways. So in the way that Maslow is using it, as I said, it fits in perfectly. And I love the quotes you said. Because in self actualization, the self disappears and comes the way to transcendence. That that could be enough in a Buddhist perspective, that could be saying, yeah, when all the factors of enlightenment are in balance, it leads to transcendence.
Yes, But if you do it too quickly, like if you just lose some one day you wake up and you've lost all sense of self, that's a very jarring situation for a human. That's that that'll put you in a mental institution, Like that'll that I mean, that's that's can be scary, you know, if you devoid from the self actualization journey.
You know. Yeah, but in the way you express that, yes, using the term self in the psychological yeah sense, Yeah, it doesn't make sense to say somebody who realizes that
that the non self too early, they go off of business. Yes, because using that term in the psychological sense it's like saying losing the sense of balance of mind is a good thing, because in the way you frame the question, it is like, if you lose the sense of self too early, that's like saying losing the sense of balance too early.
It can't be good psychologically.
Exactly, and so it's a false It's like a red herot, you know, to say losing the sense of self too early. Self in the psychological meaning, yeah, really means just a healthy balance of mind. And of course one doesn't want to lose lose that healthy balance.
Yeah, one doesn't want to lose that. Yet that's great, that's a great sort of reframing of it.
Yeah, I think it's clearer because, as I say, clear the word itself because it has different meanings in psychology and Buddhism. Unless you're very precise in how you're using the term, it gets confusing.
Definitely, definitely. I mean there's like four hundred different definitions of the word self in psychology, we want to ask in Buddhism. But it is interesting, like what do we even mean by the self? You know, Mark Leary, the social psychologist tends to view the self as just the apparatus that allows for self representations. It can get so complicated, I mean.
Exactly, really complication, I mean, and that's my way. That's why the meditation is so such a powerful force, because we begin to let go of a lot of the descriptions and which can get really elaborate, and we just come into the simplicity of the moment to moment experience and it becomes much easier to understand.
It's funny, my friend Sam Harris, and I believe you knew Sam maybe when he was younger. Yeah, he was probably very young, you know, and when you first met him, but when we became friends, he was quite a bit older. But his response to like a lot of arguments, you know, especially about free will, you know, his answer is just just meditate more, Scott. And you'll see that I'm right, just like, like, okay, all arguments and logic and reason
and science, just Scott, you need to meditate more. I believe that's how you responded me on Twitter ones And then we obviously have in personal conversations about this all the time. But anyway, this is funny. So there's a lot of insight that can be gained from this first person experience of meditation and mindfulness. Can you just give me a little bit of a list of some of the potential forms of insight that are available to us through a regular mindfulness practice.
Yes. So there's one insight which is really the doorway to all the others, right so, and it's a very easy insight to relate to, and that is through the meditation we get a very direct, immediate experience of the changing nature everything. And in the Buddhist classic phrases, whatever has the nature to arise will also pass away. And
this happens on every timescale. So you can look out on a macro level, you know, clusters of galaxies, you know, on their own timescale, they come into being and eventually they die down to the sub atomic particle level, it's in constant movement, constant change, and everything in between. So what's interesting to me is that we could go up to anybody on the street and ask them to things change,
and I think everybody would say yes. And yet we don't live that understanding, right so we it's not difficult to grasp conceptually, but meditation gives us a certain immediacy of experience of that and on increasingly refined levels. So there's something I call in meditation, I call np ms, which are noticings per minute. So when we first begin our practice, the npms are not very high, I mean maybe ten noticings a minute, but as the practice goes on, those npms go way way up. Sorry, just a very
simple example. People will often begin meditation maybe filling their breath. You know, at the beginning they experience are you it's the in breath and the out breath. But as the mind gets clearer, more concentrated, and steadier, begin to see that the ing breath is a flow of innumerable more microscopic sensations. It's not one thing within one ingreath. There is so much going on in terms of what can
be felt. So the meditation, we could say, is a refinement of the perception of self, of refinement of the perception of impermanence. From that, the whole world of dorma opens up. Because when we've really seen that not only with the breath, but with every aspect of our experience, you know, just the momentariness of the flow of sights and sounds and smells and sensations of the body and thoughts to the emotions, the whole world we begin to see that nothing in and of itself will be ultimately
satisfying because nothing less. So it may be satisfying in the moment, that it might be pleasant in the moment and happiness inducing in the moment. But because of this universal truth of everything continually changing in motion and flow, there's nothing which is going to provide lesting satisfaction because
nothing is lesting, And that just becomes increasingly obvious. And a corollaria of that is that if we're attached to that which is changing, to that which in its very nature is to change, we'll suffer because like somebody used the example of it being like rope burned. You know, somebody's pulling a rope through our hands and we're holding on to it titlely. Yeah, we get roper. Well, that's
what we're doing in our lives. Very often, we're holding on tightly to different aspects, and of course when they change, we suffer, you know. And this is where it comes back to what you said in the beginning kind of one of the essence teachings is that clinging is the course of suffering. Yeah, and that freedom is in letting go of the grisk So you can see perhaps how all of the dorma can unfold from the experience, from the refined experience of their permanence.
Yeah, that's beautiful. And the more I practice that, I clearly I'm okay with the everyday new ones, every day annoyances, but there's something I want to really dive really deep into. And in the psychology field, there's great debate and discussion around the difference between mindfulness and flow. It seems like when you're in the flow state of consciousness at least is defined by ME High chicks at ME High, you're not constantly checking in and watching your thoughts. You're you're
you're just in it. And so you know, a liberation doesn't always require every moment you're the meda cognition, right, the metacognition, the thinking about thinking does it. Because when you're in the flow state.
Well, we'll unpack this a little bit.
Unpack it.
I think that's confusing two different mental qualities, mindfulness and concentration. So these two have different functions in the mind.
Okay, So in.
The flow state. Another another word for concentration is undistractedness. So when you're in a flow state, the mind is not distracted, right, right, You're just in the flow. So that's that really describes a state of concentration rather than the quality of mindfulness, because we could be in a flow state, a concentrated state without learning anything from it. It feels good, I mean, and it's it's a powerful state. I don't want to undervalue that aspect because it is
actually part of the whole path. But it's not mindfulness, right, and it's not it's not necessarily connected with wisdom. It does have the attributes of effortless, effortless flow, you know, with the mind it's not distracted, it's just completely in the flow of whatever the activity is, and there's something very fulfilling about that. But that's that's different than developing insight with developing wisdom. So it's just two different things.
Yeah, and I think that's pretty much the consensus, and a lot of people do agree on that in the field, that there are different constructs.
Yeah.
Today's podcast is sponsored by Unlikely Collaborators. Their mission is to untangle the stories that hold us back as individuals, communities, nations, and humanity at large using the perception box lens. They do this through storytelling, experiences, impact investments, and scientific research. Today's Conversation with Joseph really illustrates the importance of expanding
the walls of our perception box. The perception box is the invisible mental box that we all live inside, and it can seriously hinder our ability to understand one another and to understand ourselves. In this episode, Joseph points out that a major insight of Buddhism is that whatever arises can pass away. Joseph Astutey notes that we can refine our perception of impermanence so that we aren't so attached
or clinging to the thing which is changing. From a perception box perspective, when we are caught in our story tangles, we can have difficulty seeing anything but the things we should do or become. Using the tools of meditation, self reflection, breathwork, somatic experiences, and other modalities helps you get a distance from the stories you tell yourselves so that you can
have more equanimity about how to move forward. What's beautiful about impermanence is that no matter how permanent something feels, there is an equanimity in perceiving that it too shall pass. Even though you will never get out of your perception box, you do have agency where its walls are and what stories you believe about whatever you are experiencing and the impermanence about it. To find out more about unlikely collaborators and the perception box, go to Unlikely Collaborators dot com.
You know, if the flow state is so conducive to creativity and to you know, when when jazz improvisers are doing their thing, they're you know, they're all they're kind of in the post and when you're jamming, when you're really jamming, only that can be a path to wisdom, right, I mean, do you always have to have metacognition to lead to wisdom?
Well, again, so this this will depend on your definition of wisdom. You know, people could use that word in a lot of different ways.
How do you define wisdom?
Well, if we were going to define it in the context of Buddhism, you know, so it's a very specific parameters. Wisdom really has to do with insight into what I'll called the three characteristics of impermanence, unsatisfactories, and selflessness. So those are the insights which lead to non grasping. Now, it's interesting about concentration. Concentration state is and this is true of just medicative concentration as well as kind of a flow state. At that time the Buddhist language, the
hindrances are suppressed. So in the flow state that could well be non clinging because we're just in the flow of the changing phenomena. Yeah, but without the meta cognition. So the non clinging is suppressed during that time, but then when we're out of it, it just comes up again, right and is reactivated because we haven't really brought our
investigation to the experience of the flow. So in that time the minds the mind is in a very good place, but it's not necessarily developing the wisdom that will purify the mind. Wow. And that's why in Buddhism, like constant, the developm of concentration is an important part of the path.
So it's really an essential aspect. It's necessary but not sufficient. Yeah, So it's that state is very much appreciated from many qualities that brings, but there are certain qualities it doesn't bring, right, and that's really the the investigation quality of mind.
Yeah, I hear you, and I can see clearly how that fits onto some of the primary creativity frameworks in the field of psychology, where you distinguish between the insight phase, the incubation phase, the evaluation phase, I mean creativity. The whole creative process involves different states of consciousness at different times.
And yeah, absolutely, valuation.
Stage is an important part of the creative process, which is often separate from the flow state, often separate from the idea generation stage.
Right.
And I've been really interested in different forms of meditation influencing those different stages of creativity. Researchers I found that open monitoring meditation is correlated with divergent thinking, whereas more return of the breath meditation is correlated with convergent thinking in the creativity framework.
I know what those terms oka creativity.
Yeah, so in the in the creativity field, divergent thinking is thinking as many possible ideas as possible. You're not evalue ating any of them, You're just letting your just generating association, generating new ideas. Conversion thinking is you're trying to figure out, well, what is what are the best ones? You know? What? What what is what is the one best answer?
You know?
When you take a SAT, the SAT is not about generating possibilities, is about giving what was the answer?
Right?
So, so I have found that interesting that different forms of meditation, jog or stimulate different stages of the creative process.
Yeah, you know, just interesting. So in terms of my on playing with creativity in recent years, maybe in the last five years or so, I started writing poetry, which I did in my twenties but have not really since then. So it's kind of a new thing, and it's kind of the evolution of it has been really interesting because in the first excitement of doing it, I had this rather sophomore idea that the first things out of my
mind on paper were brilliant. Yeah, and that in a way that was that was kind of the divergent Yeah, whatever comes up, you know.
Yeah.
But then I was getting some advice from a very well established poet friend, and her the best piece of advice she gave me in the creative process was that it's all about revision, you know, And I just found that to be so true because Okay, you know, the initial creative you know, you're playing just with different ideas and you get something down, but then that's just the beginning and the crafting of it is cutting away everything that's extra and you know, finding just the right word.
So it feels like it's connected a little bit to what you just said.
Oh very much, so very much. So yeah, I mean show me the person who's happy with their first draft of a book. Yeah, no, that's that's right. So but yeah, just just recognizing their different states of consciousness. I guess it doesn't seem very Buddhist. I'm gonna be critical for one moment. I want to see how you respond to this.
It just doesn't seem very Buddhist part of the philosophy to label certain states of consciousness as the liberating states and others is not liberating or not leading to enlightenment. Kind of making that pre judgment call. I feel like the Buddha made that judgment call. So tell me if I'm wrong.
But no, I definitely did he did, right, it's so much Okay, this question can lead to kind of an elaborate, an elaborate discussion on the first level.
I like that. I like elaborate discussions.
Yeah, on the first level of the Buddha was really clear. He kind of divided mind states into those which are wholesome, unwholesome, and neither. And basically, the wholesome means conducive to different kinds of happiness. Unwholesome the causes of suffering. So in a very simple way in the Buddhen he laid out really clearly the three wholesome men on the wholesome roots of all the other mind states. So for example, greed
and hatred and delusion, they are unwholesome mind states. They do not lead to liberation, They lead to suffering, and there are many Those are the roots, and then there are many other unwholesome states based in those three. The three roots of wholesome mind states on non greed or generosity, non hate or loving kindness, and non delusion, which is wisdom, those are the stakes that do lead to happiness into awakening. So on this level, and as we're walking the path,
that discernment is really important. You know, are we cultivating more greed in what we do or more anger, more hatred? Are we cultivating more generosity, more love, more understanding? And to be able to see you know, true meditation to real we get a very clear visual experience of the effect of these different mind states. So this is basically
essential to all the schools of Buddhism. However, or in addition, at a certain level of meditative practice, we also see that all mind states, you know, in Buddhism that we use the word empty emptiness, and it really and that can have a lot of different meanings. But some of the meanings are insubstantial or no inherent self existence to them, and so on another level, for example, the different contents
of our thoughts. On this level, it doesn't really matter whether it's a greedy thought or loving thought if we're in that place of seeing the momentary, the momentary insubstantial nature of all thought. So then it's then it's just authorizing in the mind. The content really doesn't matter because we're not identified with it and it's just coming and going. And because we're not identified with it or clinging to it, the content is less important.
Mm hmm.
It's just so there's a There was a Korean sent teacher som sn sansanin it started the Providence and Center and a lot, you know, it was very popular and have lots of French monasteries. He had He had an interesting phrase expressing these two levels what I just mentioned. He said, there's no right and no wrong right, but right is right and wrong is wrong, so we have to hold both.
That's what I'm trying to get at, is it somewhat contradictory.
It's at all, It's not two different levels. But unfortunately, and many great masters have pointed this out, that the attachment to the notion of emptiness is much more dangerous than the attachment to things, because the attachment to things, you can work on it. If you're attached to the notion of emptiness at leads to that sense of, oh, it doesn't matter what I do because everything's empty, which
is a very dangerous state because for two reasons. One, that's really attachment to the idea of emptiness, not to the realization of it. If one had fully realized the emptiness, then there would be a great freedom in that. But until we are fully enlightened, we are living on that
more relative plane. We are right is right and wrong is wrong, and not to acknowledge that level leads to huge, huge amount of suffering, you know, And we say with a lot of Gooddhist teachers who get into big trouble, or teachers of every tradition really, you know, who may have had some realization or some understanding and then think that whatever they do is the perfect expression of enlightenment.
I call that spiritual narcissism.
Yeah, yeah, so it's very dangerous to just take one of those two levels and not integrate both of them.
Wow, you're a very wise man, Joseph Goldstein.
No, I wouldn't miss that list.
Yeah, I hope you heard that.
I hope you heard that.
You know, the context in which I was thinking about this was that the kind of difference between the mindful the neuroscience of mindfulness research literature, and the neuroscience of creativity research literature. I've been trying to really integrate those literatures because in the mindfulness literature, you know, researchers like Judson Brewer. Maybe you've encountered him, Yeah, great, great, great guy,
he was on my podcast. But his research is so focused on the neuroscience of the mindfulness mental state, and so therefore, within that context he shows a reduction in what's called the default mode brain network. But in the creativity literature, the activation of the default mode network is considered great. It's almost like in the different literatures, you know, the different states of consciousness are kind of championed in
different ways. Is like Judson Brewer, I feel like he gets really excited when he shows a reduction in the default bone network. He's like there. It means we're not so caught up in our in our self narratives. It means we're not so but in the creativity literature, to be caught up in the flow state and to be fully in line with your default mode network is a beautiful,
beautiful thing for for creative expression of your being. So anyway, I think there's a way to obviously integrate and to uh to to to be very contextual and nuanced about all of this. But what pains me is when I see it as either one or the other. That that's what pains me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There are two Greek myths which I think illustrates something which you can you can see what they illustrate, but I use that sometimes as examples. So you know, the myth of is, you know, pushing them rock up the hill endlessly and falls down. And Stephen Mitchell, he's a poet, a writer, translator, He's done a lot of he's done
a lot of very interesting work. So he wrote a poem about myths and he's said, basically, Sissphis is in love with his rock, you know, and really all he has to do is step aside, let it roll to the bottom, and go home. Okay, so just hold that for a moment. The other myth is of Icarus, you know, who got you don't want her to fly and created these wings of wax, and his father says, be careful, don't fly too close to the sun.
M m.
But he got so excited he flew close to the sun the max the wax melted, fell to the earth. Okay. So these two myths represent different ways we can apply or or misapply spiritual practice. So we're all we're all in a cisophine situation of dealing with suffering in our lives. Right of all, come, it's the first noble truth of teaching.
You know, that's good.
The question is, and it's possible. And we see this often. It's people come to meditate in a way, we can fall in love with our suffering. We just get so messed in our personal story, just entangled in our suffering.
I see that everywhere these days.
Yes, so some teaching which would point to the empty nature of it all, you know, the selfless nature of it all, could help free the mind from that entanglement with the suffering. You know, we begin to see the freedom in the midst of it. But sometimes people become like Icarus, and they hear it teaching about the ultimate emptiness of everything. We might call it sometimes it's phrase Cispis is building the practice from below, and Icarus is
swooping from above, you know. So there are a lot of teachings which swoop from above, you know, which go right to the empty nature of everything. But if they do that without having been grounded in working with the suffering that's there, that's like Icarus flying too close to the sun because they have not genuinely realized that emptiness. It's either partial or conceptual, but they're using it. And so in both ways, we can get caught to attached
to us suffering or to attach to emptiness. And so our path has to see the value of both and apply each of those at the appropriate times. So I don't see it as one or the other. It's like, these are complementary perspectives that can help to free us in different ways, and we have to be very skillful in how we're employing the various understandings.
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com slash Psych podcast slash Psych fifteen. I would argue sometimes it is very valuable and leading to less suffering to not you know, when a lion's come and running at you, to be able to thinking about your thoughts, well, let me enter a mindfulness practice, you know, as this lion's that's not going to lead to greater to less suffering. And then but I would also argue that the other hand, there are times where getting lost in your self narrative
can be beneficial. And can we either, I mean you can. I'm sure we can come up with examples where we want to, for instance, compassion. All the research I've seen shows that the default mode network is so important for perspective taking, because we have difficulty having compassion for another human if we don't relate ourselves in some way to the suffering we're seeing of someone else. Mary Hell and Immerdino Yang has showed that so beautifully in her neuroscience research.
So we want to make a connection between ourself and the world in moments and so anyway, I love that contextual. I love what you just said, and I guess it does irk me. And I just wanted to say that on the record. Sometimes when I see different silos getting a little too caught in their own the thing they study, do you know what I mean? That's all I'm saying.
I know you you came across. I mean, this was a burning issue for me within the context of different Buddhist traditions, which I wrote about in my book One Doma, because I was studying with different teatures of different traditions, both great masters, seemingly great in landin beings saying opposite things.
Right, right, what do you do with that?
Well? That was my co on for a couple of months, and it was burning, I mean, because it felt like the whole direction of my life depended on figuring out
who was right. And as I was burning with that question, I was on a two months retreat, it got resolved in a really interesting way, and I framed it kind of in a phrase metaphysics as skillful means rather than as statements of truth, because if we take metaphysical statements as being statements of truth, then if people are saying opposite things, one will be right and one will be wrong. If we take them as skillful means, and then we
could there skillful means for what. Well, in the Buddhist context, it could be skillful means for not clinging. Then it doesn't matter whether they're staying opposite things. If that metaphysical statement helps free people from clinging, great, If the other one helps people free themselves from thing great, And different
systems will attract or appeal to different people. But it's again, if the important point is seeing them as skillful means, then we can really embrace lots of different methods, lots of different metaphysics if we understand why they're leading or what the practice of them accomplishes.
Yeah, that's really good. It seems like so much of Buddhist principles are actually in line with the flow state of being, of being itself. You know, the idea that when you live your life with inner beauty, and I love that whole concept of inter beauty, and I think we need to value that a lot more in our society today. And you live with the life of where you're you're you're happy to look at yourself in the mirror.
You know, you're proud of yourself, you know, not you know, as pride as a non virtue, but healthy pride for for being moral, you know, for for making the right decisions. There's less of a friction, you know, there's a that's That's what I'm saying by flow of being, there's you know, you're not so unhindered by this, you know your guilt, and your guilt guilt can really get in the way of being in the flow state you know, of being itself.
So it just feels like a lot of what the Buddha is saying is not only in line with a mindfulness state of consciousness where you're always witnessing your you know, your thought, but also just a way of being that's very flow like.
Yeah, but again, what I do wrong? Well, I was close, I was close. I almost got it.
I almost got it.
I maybe misinterpreted like you said, but when I was hearing, it's almost like you were comparing the two states in a way instead of seeing that really were cultivating both simultaneously. They work together. Mindfulness and concentration can be there together, so that there's both the flow and the awareness or you could say met the cognition or whatever however you want to describe being aware of what's happening as well as being in what's happening.
Well, that's a great insight.
And you know, within the Buddhist framework, they talk about the qualities of mind. They talk about the factors of enlightenment. Basically there are different lists, but the shorter of the two lists are the seven factors of mind, which have to be cultivated and in balanced. So this is a whole combination of qualities that are integrated in I think you called it the inner beauty or.
The inner beauty. Yeah.
Yeah, So it's not that it's not either we're in the flow or we're mindful or with this, or that it's all of it together.
But is that always the case? I mean, can't you know not necessarily you can be in like if you are if you are just a moral human and that is like, you don't need to like make an effort to be moral, like you really you're you. You've gotten to a point in your life where you automatically start to make decisions in line with your deeper principles and values.
You're not.
It's not like every moment you're stopping and thinking yourself, oh, let me be mindful? Am I being more? I feel like there are moments where we can get into grooves or positive habits, positive habits right.
Yes, But so in the Buddhish psychology they talk about prompted and unprompted consciousness two different too different way. He's a moment of consciousness emerges. So when we're first practicing something, it's prompted, you know, and it's like, okay, we have to keep coming back and reminding ourselves. But at a certain point of development, it becomes untrumped. Yes, where it's happening spontaneously.
That's what I'm talking about.
Yes, Yes, but that doesn't mean that that quality is not there. It just means it doesn't mean that the mindfulness is not there. It means that the mindfulness then is untrumpted. It's just part of how we're living.
Oh, I see, I see, Okay, you know good.
Yeah, and it becomes I mean, when something is untrumpted. I'll give you an example, a really simple example. So you know, in our meditation practice, we do both sitting and walking as the primary So people often give to think that the sitting is the real stuff and the walking is just like a recess between incidents. That is to really miss. I love the walking practice. So many insights have come and walking and it's the way of really integrating mindfulness into one's daily life because we move
a lot. So in the beginning it really was prompted, you know, they had to do the formal walking meditation exercises, slowing down and really intentionally being mindful of each step. But at a certain point of development, it really becomes unfraumpted. So, for example, now after all these years of practice, when I walk, that's the default. It's just automatically the movements are being known, aware of them, and it doesn't take any prompting. It's just there. So that becomes in the flow state.
Yeah, is an ease of being exactly exactly which I love. I love that I love be having an ease of being. Now I'm not it's not the same thing, not to be confused as laziness. Though Let's be let's be clear that's that wasn't That wasn't an euphemism for I love it when I don't have to do anything hard. You get it, You get it. Joseph Goldstein, let me end this interview talking about a word that I am obsessed with. Equanimity.
It's a concept that I you know, there's a lot of talk about grit, and in my book Transcend, I argued, I really like the flavor of equanimity better than grit, sometimes the way, the way, at least the grit, the way it's it's applied. You know, grit has this kind of connotation that you just no matter the consequences on others, you're kind of just churning out and persevering, and you're climbing to the top of the mountain. And even if you climbed on top of other people on the way there,
you still score high on grit. But equanimity correct me if I'm wrong, But what I what I My understanding of the concept of equanimity is it is very much tied to having resiliency and being able to withstand life's challenges. But there's a sort of way of being baked into it of warmth and love, and my readings is there is some warmth there to a certain degree, and a sort of awareness of the impact of your being on others,
even as your surmounting the obstacles. So is any of that true what I just said?
Yeah, I think I think it is.
There's a large grain of truth.
Yeah, I'm just trying to let's let's just try this out. And I don't know whether this will reflect at least some aspect of what you just said.
But let's try.
I think it might, think it might. So it's highlighting the difference between reactivity and responsibles. So in a situation where just in different life situations and normally people are just reactive based on their own personalities and conditioning, and in that reactive state, it can very often be born out of unwholesome mind states. You know, we're reacting either with anger or with fear, or with greed or whatever. There's a situation and there's that reactivity. So that's not equimic.
We could almost say reactivity is the opposite of equanimity. So equanimity in for the purpose of this little discussion, I think responsiveness captures it more because responsiveness, in my experience, the feeling of responsiveness comes when we're not being reactive and there's just an kind of an immediate in two. You might call it warmth or connectedness. You see somebody
who's hungry, you feed them. You you're just different situations and you're responsive to the situation, but not based on your reactive conditioning, but based on equanimity really means impartiality. You know, we're we're, we're. So it's often likened to space, but a responsive space, you know, it's a space that can hold everything, and so it sees all the sides of everything. Yeah, and I've just I've just really appreciated for myself the retranslation of compassion to to responsiveness. But
that compassion doesn't necessary zero. They have to be a particular feeling. It's like tech handset. Compassion is the verb, right, because it's that movement to help or to respond, you know, in the best way possible. So that does have that quality of warmth to it, and it really comes out of the ground of equanimity rather than the ground of reactivity. It's the reactivity really hinders that, but.
It can still lead to resilience and being able to requity equanimity.
Oh absolutely, it is completely resilient because it's like empty space that just is responding to whatever is horizon. So I think it's the essence of resiliency.
I do, true, I do true, But it just in a way that is aware, aware of your surroundings.
Yes, I like about it, Yes, yes, yes.
You've made a point in one of your interviews about the kind of wisdom that the society needs right now because we live in such a polarized country right now, put in so many different ways, and you argued we equanimity and compassion were the two biggies. So I was trying to get us there, you know, to end this interview.
But I love that. Do you want to expound it all on what a deep integration of those two look like and how it can help us listen more to each other's pain because I do feel like there's so much kind of siloed victimhood so to speak, right now, that we're not listening to other people's pains.
Oh so, kind of to simplify it, within the Buddhist teachings. It said that compassion arises when we're willing to come close to suffering, whether it's our own or somebody else's. And this is not a given because a very habituated response is we see suffering and we don't like it, you know, it's unpleasant. We want to get rid of it. We don't want to come close to it, right, But that closes off the wellspring of compassion. So compassion requires coming close to it or letting it in. That's made
possible by equanimity, by non reactivity. When the mind is in balance and open and spacious and space like, then we're not in a reactive, aversive or denial role with respect to suffering. We're just there and we are letting it in, coming close to it. And that's wee ically what gives your eyes to compassionate response, you know, So the two really work together. I'll just give you kind
of a personal example of this. This goes back many years, my days in India when I was practicing, and anybody who's been there, in those they're just a lot of wild dogs, im pitiable conditions, just starving and mange and just terrible, terrible conditions. So I'd be. I was there practicing and then in between retreats and go into the town, you know, and sitting a little chai shop, t shop and tease and sweet, just relaxing, and often it would be these wild, mangy, suffering dogs coming up. And I
saw two very different responses in my mind. Sometimes I just don't want to deal with it. I just want to have my team sweets. Yeah, And I could feel myself just trying to close it, close it off, you know, or shut it out. And so I got just into my contracted space, thinking that that's what would make me have it. I just want to enjoy my enjoy my team. And other times i'd be sitting there, i'd just be in a different space and really let it in so
I see the dogs and really take it in. And the response then was so I would just you know, to us with a little scalp of food. I would be responding to the suffering. It's not that it's solved the problem of you know, all these wild dogs in India, but in the moment, it was a compassionate response. And it all happened because I let the suffering in as opposed to keeping it out. That's good you know, and
so I think it's really interesting. You know, what do we do when we pass homeless people the street, or differences there are may be in different situations, suffering that we may not part of our minds, may not want to open. It's too much. I don't want to deal with this. Just let me, let me live my life. But that is a very contracted space, and when we're open to it, then there's a responsiveness whatever it may be, you know, and I mean it could be something really
small and very little. Maybe he's making eye contact with the homeless something. You know. It doesn't have to be solved with the whole problem, but there's a connection I love, and that connection is coming out of some sense of compassion. We'd let this suffering in and there's a responsiveness to it. So that's why equanimitating compassion really serve each other and support each other.
That makes a lot of sense. At the very beginning of this interview, you defined you revised your revised definition of enlightenment as lightening up. I've noticed, just a personal observation. I've noticed that profound narcissists very rarely laugh at themselves exactly. They're so serious. I mean, I mean they're they're very They might joke at the expense of someone else, but you very rarely see them lighten up their self.
Yes, exactly.
So look, I'm just bringing this whole interview full circle to end here. You know, I think that if everyone wiightened up a little bit in our society today, you know, we we could lower our ego and and let in the suffering of others and put that within our circle, you know, of what's valuable and what's in our attention that we want to pay attention to and to help,
and the world would probably be a better place. So absolutely, just to integrate everything that they're there to we talked about at the end of it, Thank you so much. You are so full wisdom, and I can say that I know you would never say that to me, but you know, you're so humble, but I really do think you are so full wisdom, and I consider it an absoute honor to be able to talk to you today. So thank you.
Oh it's a pleasure.
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