Loch Kelly || Living an Awakened Life

as the next natural stage of human development. He offers in person retreats, workshops, and online video and audio courses, and he has served on the New York Insight Teachers Council. I'm so glad we can finally make time to chat today. Yeah, thanks, Scott. This is really fun. Look, yeah there's yeah, me too.

There's lots of different avenues to go this, but I thought we could start if you could just offer our listeners a little bit about your own background and some of your maybe most seminal teachers in this path that you've been on. Yeah. Well, in some ways, I'm, you know, really similar to Maslow. I been trying to put together the science and the psychology and then wondering what these peak experiences are, what these spiritual experiences are? They spiritual

are they consciousness experience? So early on from childhood, I would have these what I call glimpses or I would, you know, start by saying maybe what I call now peak experiences, I call them pe e K. So they're actually peaks into what's already here and what's already awake and already who I've always had. Yeah, I really like that. So so you know, I would have them in sports, I would have them in nature. I would have them, you know, after kind of an intense emotional experience of loss.

And so it just led me to feel like, Okay, so this is so interesting. Why isn't everyone talking about this? You know? So I thought, well, I guess I can find out more. And it led me after going and teaching. I taught high school for a couple of years after college, and then went to graduate school at Columbia University with a joint degree program in clinical social work and comparative religion.

And I went off on a fellowship to Sri Lanka, India, Nepal and did a long period of study at a university there and then up in the monasteries, and then sat you know, a bunch of ten day retreats and twenty one day retreat and five day retreats, and uh, you know, really got a got a good in depth experience of kind of the Terravada insight meditation vipassuna tradition.

And then I went up north and ended up with a teacher in the Tibetan tradition whose name was toku Ergen Rimpochet and going up to his hut in the Himalias, and then you know, giving a little talk, and then within three minutes of his pointing out instruction, I felt the same day, same way I did at the end of a ten day retreat. Wow, that's exciting. Yeah, and the same the same teacher. Sam Harris studied with him

as well. You know, having had this experience of meditation and studying the tradition and and then getting this immediate shift, you know what could be called is it a peak experience or is it a peak experience or is it a peek And they were saying, this is already here. You're not creating it. It's not a meditation state. You're actually walking around in a hypnotic state and you're dehypnotizing yourself back to your natural condition, to the nature of

mind and the nature of your identity. So with that as the kind of hypothesis, I continue to try these practices there, and that second day, I just had this experience where I was crying and laughing and just feeling like, oh my god, could it be this simple? Could it be this close? Could it be this just awesome and connected? And not only am I calm, but I'm you know, feel creative and connected to everyone else in the world. It's not just the absence, it's the present and the

fullness of being a full human being. Even if I'm having emotions or thoughts, there's just this greater capacity of identity and mind that just made me feel like, Okay, whatever this is, this is what I'm going to do with my life is figure out how to how to experience this. And then immediately I felt like, and I want to share it with people if I can figure

it out, So I yes, yes, go ahead. Yeah. So I went back and instead of like joining a monastery there, you know, which was the thought, Okay, well, should I do this in depth, but it just felt like, oh, I can do this within minutes anywhere, So let me

go back and finish this joint degree. And at that time in New York City, there's a lot of homelessness, and so I started soup kitchens and shelters and worked in psychiatry as a psychiatric social worker inpatient and then psych emergency room and then five years outpatient psych So I got both the kind of wisdom traditions consciousness, and then I worked with people who were ACXIS one diagnosis clients and started to adapt a kind of what I

call effortless mindfulness or non dual mindfulness version of therapy with all people. Yeah, well that is really cool. There is a dearth of integration between the psychological literature and the I don't even know what to call that other world, you know, the the mindful. Some people would say the woo woo world, but I don't I don't want to be disrespectful. That would be the scientist or the psychology. Yeah,

so I would say the meditative or the medical. I think the word I would use is consciousness, because, as we'll see when we discuss some of your work and my work, that it's not just about the emotion or the personality or the attitude that we're adjusting, but there were adjusting the consciousness to which it's all appearing well, this is the thing that's so interesting because in this like, I mean, I'm a cognitive scientist, so I'm fascinated with

the mind, brain consciousness. But if you read those journal articles and then you put that down and you go and listen to even people like you, you know, there's a different lexicon, there's a different language being used, and and what I lived, I want to map it all. There must be the same phenomenon. It's not like we're talking about different it's humans or humans, that's right, So

we could play with that. I mean, I'm glad. One of the words to play with is you know, the whole realm of self, self and ego, selflessness, self transcendence, you know, so you know at some point we you and I can go through that and they're very distinct

and it all actually works together. You know. That's one of my you know, interest, was to bring them together and to show that it is human experience and that when you make those fine distinctions, you're freed of this kind of being caught in a dualistic like I've got to get rid of myself, you know, I've got to transcend my ego. You know, that's what transcendence means I'm beyond it, you know, and you realize, oh, no, that's a part of me, that's an ego function, that thought

it was an ego identity. And now there's something greater than that that's aware of that. And then you aren't. You know, it's not an either or Well this is great. Let's let's let's build up. Let's build up to it. Then let's let's take this piece by piece or us all get overwhelmed. I don't know, you probably won't, but I will. Let's let's let's take it. Let's take it piecemeal. So you use phrases. Let's even just start with the phrase awake awareness, right, what does that mean? Okay, so

that's now. So we've jumped. We've jumped all the way to the to the biggest Oh did we? Oh? Maybe we should start there that what should we start with? Local? Local awareness? What what do you think we should start with? Well, so so I can start there. So a wake awareness is a word that's translated from Tibetan word rigpa, which means nature of mind. And there's a word in uh Sanskrit called turia and it means is translated often as pure awareness. So it means the consciousness prior to a

child learning to use words and concepts. So there's a so it has a primordial and then a pre verbal just consciousness, and then it has a wisdom dimension that's beyond thought and that is aware of thought. So when you're identified with thought and then you step back to

a mindful witness, you're in kind of mindful awareness. But then if you do this nondual practice, what you do is you actually look to see who's behind that mindful witness, who's behind the camera, and you can open to this feeling of this more spacious, vast awareness that in itself feels alert, but isn't orienting to thought to know, so that in Buddhism, thinking is considered the sixth sense. So

we have our five senses. Input. Thought is a rising like sound, but it's an internal experience arising to who or to what. So arises to this non conceptual alert feeling of just being aware, and you could use you could move your hand from here, or you could use thought, but you don't need to think about it. So this is really interesting. I want to wrap my head fully

around this. It's like meditation without a meditator is what it sounds like you're saying and and this is something that's a little bit different than the the kind of meditation I learned in like an eight week NBSR course. You know, so let's let's let's compare and contrast. I'm such a nerd, but let's let's between kind of in the nbs R practice, I've done it twice. Now I've taken the nbs HARD course. It's significantly helped my anxiety.

I can definitely say that. And in that kind of practice, we we were very much focused on returning to the breath and and uh. And also there was a bit of open, open monitoring meditation, which I'd love to see how that maps on to what you're talking about, where this kind of open uh awareness of sort of whatever arises without trying to grasp for or hold on to it,

just like being really just aware of it. But I feel like what you're describing is something, it's even it's different than than all of that, and I really want to wrap my head around that. It's kind of like like tapping into a certain force field of consciousness that's lacking content and concepts and and and and you're tapping into it in a way that is effortless, and you're not you're not even like a tempting to shine your spotlight of attention on it. That you're not even trying

to do that. So I really want to get into this. I want to get in it. I want to get in it. Yeah, so let me use a few a few concepts from psychology and also people's experience who may be listening that in some ways it's what people do in their free time as something they love. They do it to get out of the thought based knowing and into a more awareness based, interconnected, embodied a type of flow consciousness. So I actually divide flow state into two types,

which are is kind of my own thing. One I call absorbed flow, where you enter into a very concentrated place or you're involved in a task and you look up in two hours have gone by, so I'd call that absorbed and then the second is panoramic flow. So like a musician playing could be an absorbed flow. But if they're in an orchestra, they are aware of everyone in the orchestra that they're totally in tune with. They're aware of the audience. They're not self referencing, they're not

they're using implicit memory rather than self reference. They're in the now, which means time isn't being referenced. There's a sense of flow, and there's an ecstasy or bliss in the activity itself, and they're not you know, just like if you're typing, you don't think about typing, You just type. You're not using thought to remember the keys. You're in

a kind of trusting, awareness based mode. So this kind of awareness is available and people know it, but they don't know they know it because it's not on our psychological map. Wow, so you're not even aware of the process that you're going through to produce something. Yeah, what you're saying, you're actually so in it that you're not even aware of what you're doing and you're looking from it is why you can't see it. But you mean, wow, is this related to because because you could take this

to the extreme and it starts sounding crazy. Like this woman who came up to you and said that she went to the supermarket and and and she doesn't remember shopping at all, but she just saw the basket and and you asked, well, do you like the stuff that you picked? So is it like how far can how far would you take it that far? No, because that I think I even used as an example of somebody

who's who's more spaced out than in way consciousness. Yeah, those things that people come to me thinking they're in this, but they're not. No, it's more it's more like you know, so somebody like, let's say, I'll give a couple examples. So let's say if anyone just just you can use your imagination or memory. You just step out of your car and you're going to take a nice walk in the woods. Step out of your car, your activity, you close the car, you walk a couple of feet, then

you walk into the woods. As soon as you walk in, you drop. So your consciousness drops and opens and connects, and you just now are in this feeling that everyone knows when they're in nature of you know what. That you could call a peak experience, but I would call it an actual, more natural state of consciousness rather than self referencing or self consciousness, where you're thinking about what

am I doing next, where am I going? Where you're identified thought, You're in a spacious and pervasive, interconnected but you don't know, you're just like, oh, the woods made me do it, you know, or you go on a walk with a friend and your laugh, Oh it's the friends. So what I'm saying is that this is an you can be happy for no reason without cause, that this awareness is here and can be intentionally accessed without a trigger or without a person, place or thing that most

people use as their doorway. Can you access it on demand? Can have you gotten on demand? Yeah? I mean how? So how long? How many years do I have to practice this before I can accessit on demand? Okay, well, let's let's be ready to try it now. I listen to your I did all your I did all your guided meditations that are on your website and trying to really understand the like what the experiences and how different from like other kind of meditations I've done. So I'm

really excited to do this with you right now. So I'm ready. I'll say a little bit I'll give I'll give the second part of the answer, which is that you know that this teacher who I met, tolki Ergen said there's two kinds of mindfulness, deliberate mindfulness and effortless mindfulness.

So what you learned in MBSR and most types of mindfulness are deliberate so use your attentional system to focus on your breath and then you open to a mindful witness and then you can look at contents of consciousness. But you're focused, you're pulling back the camera. You're focusing the camera of the small self, which actually, in terms of neuroscience, the research shows that what you're doing is you're putting on your task mode network of your brain

and you're repressing your default mode network. And the reason you get calm is because they're no longer alternating, but only one is on. So as soon as you get up, you're a little calmer, but then it just comes back again. And this research, same research. I give you the study that studied this non dual meditation. I was one of the subjects with this guy, Joseph Povic at n y U. I know him. I was at ny He was a colleague of mine. I was He was a colleague of

mine when I was at NYU. Yeah yeah, yeah. So he did the study and I was in the fMRI and did this kind of balanced awareness. What happens is the task mode network which looks out and the default mode network which looks in and can go to daydream if if it's not looking in balance. So there's a feeling that you're seamless and you're equally aware inside and out. Sense. Yeah, and when you're were inside out, there's no problem. Everything

is literally because you're aware. It feels like you're aware from you know, almost a field of awareness, the way that Andrew Neuberg, you know, talked about the paridal lobe being less active, and you feel this sense of spaciousness. Then you're aware from that spaciousness of your body inside out.

Rather than just looking in at your thoughts from a detached, mindful witness, you're actually opening and including in a more flow consciousness, which is the way a musician or an athlete, you know, a point guard on a basketball team is in the flow. He's equally aware inside and out looking at the audience. The timing knows, the clock knows where everyone's moving, looks one way and throws it the other way, and it goes, you know, perfectly. So it's highly functional,

but relaxed and joyful. I really like that. We're we're gonna, you're gonna t you're gonna do something live with me, right practice. So before we do that, though, let's nerd out a little bit about the neuroscience work, because uh, there's a lot of nuance there in the literature that I think doesn't get discussed in the popular treatments of

the neuroscience of meditation. So Andrew Neuberg happens to be a friend and colleague of mine, and we have published papers together on the neuroscience of the creative brain, like like creative geniuses. I I rat you. This is when I worked at Penn with the Imagination Scientific Director of the Imagination Institute, and we did all these We scanned

the brains of all these like really imaginative people. And what's really interesting is that when you when you do that, when you look at the brains of really really creative people when they're doing like creative tasks and even at rest, their default mode network is on call. I mean, it's it's it's you know, the kinds of cognitions that come from the default bone network can can be the greatest source of imagination and creativity. So so what I really

like the way you framed it. I like the way you framed it as this this wonderful calm accessing and flow of the default network as opposed to I've seen some other narratives put forward in saying that it's all about getting rid of it, like cutting it out, cutting it out of the brain, and it's a lot of problems. Yeah. Yeah, Like that's like the like the arch nemesis of meditation is the default mode network. Exactly got to get rid

of them. And I've been really trying to argue that's a really shortsighted way of viewing the reality of the situation. And you know, so anyway, I'm really glad, I really liked I just wanted to double cook. And I really like the way you fra the way you phrased that, and and and and just you know, just to point out that research I did with Andrew, you know, showing that or Andy as we call that, that that actually

really creative people. They they have their they have great attentional flexibility, so they can they can be so flexible in knowing when it's task appropriate to activate it and when it's uh task appropriate to to maybe inhibit the activity of the default Does that make sense? Yeah? Absolutely? And And the other interesting thing is that that Shamata, that way of creating calm abiding by doing one pointed meditation.

It seems the research shows that it does repress the default mode network and just have so it creates calm. So my one of the sons of my teacher, Sophie Riberschet, came to the United States and said, why is everyone doing stupid meditation because everyone was doing one point in meditation calling it mindfulness and meditation. And what they're doing is they just you calm by repressing and then you're very calm and it lasts a while, and you know, it's like a nap or a sauna or a you know,

it's good, it's not bad, but it doesn't. So then the other most recent study is the EEG where mindfulness and one pointedness you go from beta to alpha. So you go from you know, beta's kind of everyday mind, chattery mind, and you go to alpha, which is a calmer, quiet state. And then when you do this non dual meditation similar to what I'm doing, you actually get synchronized gamma, so synchronized gamma so gamma, each blip of gamma is like an AHA moment, and this is synchronized, so you

get that creative mind, you get the calm. So the the beta goes to alpha and then the s and ized gamma comes on, so you're joyous and alert and creative and related. And that's that's so, that's the the differences in in you know, kind of the neuroscience studies that you know, deliberate mindfulness or basic mindless has very good, you know, qualities and effects, but it is it's traditionally a preliminary practice leading to effortless mindfulness, which is more

about plateau living a plateau experience. Well, I wonder if if we've we both have been kind of working on a very similar state of consciousness without you just calling it different, having different terms, in a different tradition, with different teachers, et cetera, et cetera. But I don't know if I ever sent you my raticle for Scientific American on my Skeptical Scientist Mindfulness Journey. Did I ever send

that article? The thing? The thing is that that that that that may be very skeptical of the at least the kind of in the NBSR course, that kind of mind the controlled form of meditation, is that like my whole gradual work was well, a big chunk of it was with Dromel Singer, the father of daydreaming. Uh, he was my one of my advisors and UH and and our work together was to show the benefits of of

of daydreaming, that the creative benefits of mind wandering. We distinguished between positive constructive daydreaming and inattentional control UH, which is a different you know it. You know, you can have great executive control resources and still have positive constructive daydreaming. They're not at odds with each other. So you know, as we as I say, you can be deeply focused

on your daydreams, why not so? Uh? So I I the thing that you know, when I would go to this uh, this meditation you know, NBSR, and they would say when you mind, if your mind want, if you're d dreaming, go back to your breath. And that the rebel in me wanted to be like, you know, come on, like sometimes my dadreams are good, you know, like, don't tell me to ignore them. So that was like, anyway, I just bring this up. Is it just give you

a context? You know, and you can see that it literally shows that you're putting on the task mode and you're repressing by doing that practice, which gives you an effect, But is it really an effect that is functionally helpful? I think it's RESTful, but ultimately it doesn't actually help

you even go to the next level of mindfulness. And there's many other ways that I use now where I use the polyvagel theory of working more with the nervous system taking breath, breathing in and then breathing out slower through the mouth, longer and slower. So you take the sympathetic nervous system and move to the power sympathetic, so you're calming the animal body and then you you let the mind kind of calm down and then you shift to this awareness, so you know, so it's it's just

a it's a different animal. And one of the meditations I actually do is, okay, when your mind wanders, focus on your wandering mind and follow that as your object of meditation and just stay with that, just as you did your breath. That's it. Just stay with it, don't

stop it. Just follow that wandering mind and just be attentive or just be you know, focused or curious about what's going on with that without analyzing or you know, getting involved with the story, and then come back to your breath whenever the journey switches, so you follow it, and that is the alternate you know what's happening. You know in this cycle of neuroscience is the brain is alternate hitting these two systems of going task mode looking out,

then it looks in. So if you're trying to watch your breath, it will go in, and your mind will wonder because it's going to default mode. So follow it there and then follow it back. It's really interesting. It seems to me like what you're teaching is actually very

very conducive to creativity and creative flow. I feel like I want to, like now, I want to like collaborate with you on like a like like linking explicitly your work to the work of doing creative flow, because it seems now I can see it much more clearer now. So I'm really glad that we're having this conversation. Yeah, and then one of the you know, Jud Brewers, Jud Brewers research paper on this gamma synchrony, So that's that will show that it's more creative. I'll send you that,

please do Jud. I just spoke with Jud for the PO podcast and I actually back channel. I brought together a zoom call with Jud and my creativity of neuroscience researchers to kind of talk about get a conversation started on how we can integrate all these different findings in these different fields like the creativity field and the mindfulness field. So I'm really I'm really interested in building those bridges. Yeah,

that's great. Good. So so let me give a little prep for this, this little practice and you may have done it in so the sense of what you know, a wake awareness or awareness based knowing rather than thought based knowing, which is both prior in a child. You know, it's even it's not exactly primary process versus secondary process, but it's even just the consciousness of a child prior

to developing conceptual thinking. And then so it's something that's awake and aware without using thought to have it to be alert. So what happens then when secondary process thinking happens, we develop thoughts, and then at one and a half to three years old, we develop what's called self awareness in psychology, which is interesting because what that is is the ability to look in a mirror when you have a mark on your nose and realize, oh, that's me.

I'm aware of me. And that's the external version of it. But the internal version is something we all know well but we're not aware of, you know, you better not say that, what are you going to do? Are you going to do this? Are you going to do that? So who's the you that's talking to you? That's self awareness, that's aware of your thoughts. It's not mindfully so yet,

but it's it's the way we operate. So that self referencing that shows up in the PCC of the brain ends up creating this small, separate sense of self that feels like it's in our head looking out of our eyes. So it's one kind of constellation of consciousness. And when that ego function that's supposed to function by saying, you know, what's going on out there? What's going on out here? Is there some danger? There? Is there some thing I need to be aware of here? So it's trying to

problem solve all the time. So the function is problem solving. We identify with it, and we're always looking for a problem. So if that constellation of consciousness would relax, we might be able to almost have our awareness open the way Andrew Neuberg longtime meditators open to this more spacious alert, awake awareness. So that simple inquiry to understand with your mind and then to let your awareness feel is what's

here now when there's no problem to solve. They're just understanding the words, letting the problem solver, relax and then let your awareness be aware of what's here, and then just curious. What's it like to rest as that which is here when there's no problem to solve. I think I'm resting in that space right now. Yeah, as you went through that, and it's very interesting because it's a I feel a little bit dumb. It's it's the it's

the alternative to chattering mind. So it's you know, the chattering mind or the ego is going to say, that's called dumb. Don't go there. That was obviously a conceptual label I put on that, but I did that. I did that after when I was trying to reflect on it, if you know what I mean. Yeah, and it can't so so there is some kind of So it's almost like you're moving from trying to clean up the cloud of your identity and you just let the problem solve, a relax and then open to the day sky what's

here now when there's no problem to solve. So it's RESTful, that's the calm. It's non thought based, so it's not chattery or smart in the usual sense, but it is alert, right, and you could respond. But that's the question. What's it like to not orient to thought and yet be here? What's it like to not be? I think? Therefore I

am what's it like to go into be? You know being? Yeah, it seems like you associate well, love, you know, an open heartedness to this kind of vast, expansive form of consciousness. And do you think that's going to be the case for everyone? Like I'm so, I'm so curious with like, like psych if you had psychopaths, do this practice? Like, I mean, it's it's this is These are obvious questions,

I think, but I think they're important questions. You know, are there people who in their ordinary consciousness don't access the love state of quite frequently at all that you can do some practices with them that they can start to be like, Oh that's what that's what that feels like. I mean, I haven't had psychopaths, but I have had schizophrenic, bipolar, and interestingly, with people with complex trauma, you know something

I've you know, explored with them. So these are people who really have not bonded and you know, have a lot of lot of early trauma and I'll ask them, Okay, is there a part of you some they'll even be have suicidal thoughts, you know, is there part of you that wants to hurt yourself? And they go, yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying. I said, well, where is that? Well, it's like right here in my throat, like choking me.

And is there part of you that would like he has come here to kind of feel better or hope that there's some Well I'm not sure. Yeah, I guess there's a little bit, you know, a little lower than that in my body. And then I'll ask, well, who's aware of those two parts? And they'll go, well, I am. And I'll say, well where are you? Well, I'm the one that's aware of the other two parts of me, and I'm I'm here, I'm like everywhere, I'm I'm the real me, you know. So they'll open to this spacious,

pervasive kind of and it has this welcoming quality. So it's not like necessarily bliss love, but it's it's not a neutral. It can start neutral in the practices like what's here now and there's no problem to solve. That can be kind of an alert awareness. It's awake, but then if you ask, well, then what does it feel like to be aware from the air of your body in the world, You'll start to kind of drop and

feel this safety and connection. And once you feel the connection from the awareness base knowing so that it feels almost like an ocean and wave rather than a small, separate self looking out of your eyes from the middle of your head that's constantly worried, you feel this non fear, non worry. So it's really what a peak experience is like.

But you can when you intentionally do it. Through these this non dual meditation you start to learn what the consciousness constructs are or what the station you're tuning into. So you tune out of that chattering mind or that emotional contraction into this more spacious and then embracing or pervasive you know, open mind or open heart, and you just feel like you're something greater than yourself, that is yourself.

And so this can be done intentionally and people are you know, both in therapy and in meditation or in flow consciousness. While you're walking or just doing an activity. Here, I hear you and it just makes me think that and this might sound a bit cheeky, but I think you'll really really resonate with it. You know. It's funny we use the word transcendence, but this feels like the opposite of transcendence. This feels and there's no word for that, Like,

what is the what is the exact d descendants? Anyway? Maybe maybe that is what it is, descendants. You're descending. I'm just I'm trying to grasp for a lexicon to describe this what this is, because it's not like you're, you know, transcending the ego. That's not the right narrative here. It's it's like you're descending into your being. It's like you're getting so much in touch with your your being

itself like pure like mas Well called it pure pure being. Yeah, yeah, so so, I mean there there are some terms of of the you know, transcend and include or fully divine and fully human or you know, and I say, the inseparable pair of awareness and aliveness. So there's you know, that's the magic move of this non dual practice. That isn't so even a mindful witness, you know, that's just an open uh awareness. That's why things come and go. Is a detached observer. It's not embodied. It's a separate

witness consciousness, whereas this is embodied and interconnected. So that's the move. So I call it waking up from the ego, waking to the wake awareness, waking as the awareness and aliveness, and then waking in and then waking out to create and relate. So it's a multiple And if you only stop halfway, if you just transcend and stop at selflessness

or no self, you may stumble into this. But you also like Willoughby Britain's studies at Brown with people who are doing five day retreats that she said something like thirty to forty percent of them will get flooded by their unconscious because if you deconstruct without finding this, which is the awareness, embodied true nature, so you know, self with a capital S, then you you've just taken away

not only the ego but the ego defenses. Yeah, this is this is quite quite different than uh yeah, like witness consciousness, which is what like which is all the rage in in in a lot of these mindfulness training, you know, sessions. And I think the point here is not that like we're hating on that, it's that's not the point at all. It's that there's there's a step further that people might not be aware of. You know, that's funny to even say that it might not be

aware of. But there's this, but there's that there's a step or a few steps further that can take you more into the uh I think really where you can really tap into your creative juices that are that are just so naturally there already. I really like this, I really do. Have you worked with people who who suffer from a d D, you know, in the sense that they feel like they cannot you know, they can't make decisions.

They're they're they're they're they're paralyzed by their ability, their inability to make a decision to concentrate on a task for more than a couple of minutes. You know, it's in the most extreme cases. You know, what do you how do you work with these kinds of individuals using these approaches? So so I call it instead of attention definit deficit disorder, I called it attention overload disorder. So in other words, they're trying so hard to use their

attention to do it that's overloaded. So yeah, yeah, so the thing is the attention can't do it. So this method of non dual mindfulness is upgrading to a spacious awareness. So you literally can feel like your awareness drops from thinking to seeing and then goes to hearing and then opens to this space in the room, and then the feeling is all right, and you're aware of the open view or you're aware from the open view, and now can you focus on your breath and can you focus

on the keyboard? So while you're kind of still open and embodied and connected versus from, Yeah, I understand the of, but okay, what's the from? What's the from? So that's you know, that is the peak. That's one of the

markers of a peak experience. That's Andrew Neubergh's marker for the Buddhists and the Christian is the bridal lobe relaxes from being aware from your body, and their feeling is that you're aware from an open mind or a flow consciousness, which is has no is interconnected or is aware from you know, a little more boundless feeling of where your mind is, so it just has a little more open mind, open heart, and you're aware from there. So you're not

aware from this point of view in your head. You're kind of dropped opened and then aware from this kind of field or feeling. And it's what you feel when you walk into the woods or you even when you drive a car. You can't drive from a pinpoint. I mean you can. You see people doing it. They're like looking over, but you have to do it. You have to do so one of my practices is is to

let your eyes rest and realize that hearing is receiving. Right, hearing, the sound comes from outside and comes to their ears, but seeing is also receiving light reflects off of objects and comes to your eyes. Is this so does this relate to that you talk about local awareness? Is this related to that? Yeah? So the A D D practice is what so that explains local awareness. So the spacious or wake awareness is when you shift the center from your your thoughts to your seeing, to your hearing to

more spacious awareness. And now when you focus on your breath or a task from a wake awareness, you're not using attention. In fact, in flow consciousness, they talk about hypo frontality, which means when you're in flow, you're not using your frontal attentional system, you're using your whole more of a whole brain. And it feels like what it feels like is you're aware from an open, interconnected space.

So what it is literally maybe just you know, the pride lobe is less intense or it feels more open. But whatever that is, you don't have to explain it or what you know. How can you be aware from an open It's like, what does it feel like? Oh it feels vast or open or connected? Okay, So then you've just shifted your consciousness and now focus from here on typing. Oh my god, people will say, so, I've worked with kids with add I have a little add I've had it, I played sports, and I did this.

So receiving light when your eyes now, so then just let your eyes rest and receive, and then just don't move your eyes, but begin to open awareness up so that your peripheral vision starts to follow. Don't strain, but take your time and breathe in and smile. Look up so you get a little endorphins and you get this safety, which is when you're looking up, your brain is saying

it's safe. Open your awareness up, and when it gets to the side, just let somehow your awareness continue around to the sides in which sound is coming going, and then just somehow it feels like awareness continues around three hundred and sixty degrees, So you feel like you've opened your view and then you're aware as this open field

of awareness that's equally inside and out. And from this open awareness, and now when you focus on something like your breath, you're not using attention, you're using local awareness, which just kind of makes it light up from the field you're aware. It feels like you're aware from this open field of awareness and bodied awareness. And then your breath just it's actually you almost feel like you're aware

from all around and from your stomach. When you're aware of your breath, you're not you don't have to establish this intentional, dualistic point of view. And that's kind of the mystical. It's what Maslow is called the peaks. Well he is, yeah, let's let's let's start. Let's start linking a bunch of this to Maslow, but not just Maslow, but also dare I say Kaufman, because I have I have new stuff? I have new stuff? No, but uh,

there's a quote from Maslow. He says, I think of the self actualizing man not as an ordinary man with something added, but rather as the ordinary man with nothing taken away, as you're talking. It seems like this is very much in line with his way of thinking about self actualization. As again, I keep going back to, it's like, not transcendence, It's like it's descendants, descendants, ascendants or inclusion or yeah, waking in rather than waking up. Waking in, Yeah, yeah,

at tuning in, tuning into it. But but also also unlearning. You know, it's like, yeah, I'm learning that secondary process thinking. Yeah, if that's you, well, even Freud would have liked this ship he had evenly hovering attention. H yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, primary secondary thought process thought thinking. This is tertiary process, is what I call so awake. Yeah, awareness is tertiary process. Knowing. That makes a lot of sense.

I like that, I really do like that. So let's link this to the Plateau state of consciousness, because this is what Maso this was. This was an unfinished symphony. Yes, and that I've been trying to uh to, you know, take the baton and move forward. I love it. So you a as Ronnie talked a lot about this state of consciousness. Now many people have not heard of you a as Ronnie, but I think he's an East Indian mystic have you ever encountered him? Have you ever heard

of him? I've heard of him, I've I remember reading him at one point, but I don't never study them or Yeah, he's not as you know, as popular, as well known as but but Maslow was very captivated by his writings on the Plateau Experience, and so he co

opted he co opted that term. And I have I mean, I'd love to share the letters between the two where whereas he sends as Ronnie his papers on the Plateaux Experience, and I was rann to give him like forty point you know, point by point critique and and and and and and it's just beautif it's beautiful, uh, you know dialogue that they had about this that just in letters.

But this this state of consciousness is you know, being able to see the miraculous in the every day and to kind of he said, it's like lounging in heaven, not getting so excited about it. Right, that's right, it's heaving on earth. Yeah, as if having it, you know, it's it's as if you're you're with you're not getting rid of anything. So pleasant and unpleasant experiences are just the human experience. And it's it becomes not about what's here, but what it's arising to. So what it's arising too

is what's is what changes. So nothing needs to be gotten rid of or taken away, right, It's just you're shift shifting your view. And this ties in so much with you know, all my research on openness to experiences you know, and and the person you know. It's a personality trait, but it's also a state. And and this this notion of uh Masow called it newness of appreciation, right, being able to have gratitude for what you see it over and over again every single day, and constantly awakening

to the newness of that. It seems like all this is just so strongly tied to. Here might take on the plateau. How the peak and the plateau different are different because a peak experience is almost like it's happening to you, so it's almost like a high. It could be drug induced, it could be love induced through sex, or through intense state of nature. But the plateau means that the ground of being or you've discovered the essential self that has its own natural qualities that can't be perturbed.

So it's no longer it's not a state. It's not even a trait, it's a stage, or it's actually even more of an identity, like your essential identity that's been revealed that you're now awhere from. So first it would peak through pe e k as you know, as a kind of a moment, but then you realize, oh, it's just in the background, it's already installed, but it's covered over by this fast moving you know, constellation of consciousness,

ego centeredness, uh, secondary process functioning. And then as soon as that relaxes, nothing needs to be gotten rid of. It just comes forward and it's background becomes foreground and then becomes all ground. I love it, and it's the only thing that's tripping me up here is is you still you still use the word identity, like the identity What does a dentity mean in that context? Because Maslow

thought transcendence was a big part of transcending identity. You know, this is kind of one of the more important things where normal psychology Maslow, meditative consciousness, and nondual theory can

all meet. So you know, so the normal psychology is either that there's an ego or a small center of self and that you're trying to make it healthy, a healthy ego, and you know you're you're getting your you want work and love and functional, you know, good life that's not overwhelmed by emotion and that you know lives in society. And then but then the smarter you get, the more neurotic, or the more anxious or the more uptight, or you end up in a role, you end up

kind of shutting yourself. Well, hello, they're nice to see you. It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm very successful. You know, like you get caught in some either a tight role or too loose. You're either too much energy and you're anxious, or you've repressed too much and you're depressed. Because the small ego identity can't really handle a fully intimate human life. It's always kind of shutting the battery down or becoming a workaholic, or it can't it's self referencing so much.

It doesn't feel bliss or pleasure because it's you know, can't get what it wants because it thinks it's out there, so it goes to addiction or you know, something like that. So self transcendence is an attempt to say, okay, the problem is this limited sense of identity. Okay, it's not what you're feeling, it's who's feeling it. So whether it's

Maslow or Buddhism. So the first schools of Buddhism say, you know, we're going to deconstruct it, and we're going to look and see that it actually isn't there's no itself. There's just thoughts, feelings, sensations coming and going. But then they don't say what else there is, So you end up sitting in a monastery watching your thoughts because or your kid, yourself, because once you get off the cushion,

you have a calmer ego. But so that what Tibetan Buddhism and this North Indian Mahamudra says is Okay, there's the small self, then there's the no self, then there's the true nature. So there is an operating system that isn't the small self, but it's not just the absence that it has. Actually it relieves suffering and it reveals natural positive qualities. So that's the system that I'm working with.

So even the way I do it myself and the way I teach my students is let's not spend a lot of time deconstructing or in the transitional, no self or selflessness, step out and then into that which is, wakes back in and is interconnected and feel that now include your emotions or anything else or chattering mind, and what do you notice? And so the key, the key for me is in self transcendence or self inclusion is you've got to have definition of what there is besides

the small self. Otherwise you end up just making them qualities of the small self. Oh there's more joy, Oh, there's more awe, or there's more Oh, now I have more? Well who does Oh is it that small self? No, I've transcended that. Well, then who are you? Or where are you? Or what are you? Oh? Well, you know,

I transcend it. I don't know, you know. So the the Tibetan system is willing to say there is this nature of mind, this true nature that does have a feeling that's spacious, pervasive, interconnected, and when you feel like you feel like, oh this is me, this includes everything and nothing's threatening. And yet I'm in a unique individual and I'm connected to everyone and that's that's who I am.

That's essentially who I am. And then I have imperfect stuff that's still coming up from childhood or from you know, just not knowing stuff or whatever emotions you know are happening based on who you are. But there's a new operating system rather than just the absence of the old. But what's the identity there? What is the identity of that operating system. So one of the metaphors is you

are a wave in the ocean of reality. So there's a very unique individual here, but I'm connected through the ocean to everyone and everything, So I'm essentially it's like a sallable out of four. Perhaps yeah, but you're you're not an individual sailboat that can sing. You're But that's the key is that you feel like you're this unique creation that has an expression and a shine and a sparkle to it. But it's not either or that's the key. It's not it's like, oh, am I somebody? Or am

I nobody? It's like, no, you're You are an individual, but you're not separate. So the word, the word emptiness, which is often misunderstood or kind of defined in a limited way in Buddhism. People say, oh, emptiness means you're there's no self, so you're empty. So it's like a void. But what the word means is that you're empty of a separate self nature. So it means that a tree there's no such thing as a tree in itself without water, sun, earth, an air. So a tree is empty of being a

separate self. Therefore it's interdependent. Therefore emptiness means interconnected. Mm hmm, well this is well, this is this is this is this is very very very simp relevant to the way I even define self transcendence as more horizontal than vertical, you know, And that's definitely how I've been thinking about it. Well, that's what I call healthy transcendence at the very least. But there's a lot of spiritual narcissism going around these days.

I wrote an article about that as well. There's a lot of this I'm enlightened in You're not effect in psychology that can happen when Sullen has a certain amount of hours of practice, they start to think, well, well, I'm seeing I'm more awake than you are. You know. But first, the first premise is everyone's already awake, it's just we don't know it. So it's like a game of hide and seek. Yeah, so the awaken awakenesses are essential nature, and it's just covered over and so there's

you're not doing anything. If you happen to you know, the awakeness happens to peak through and become more essential. You didn't do anything, You're not as special, You're just you know, say come on, let's play hide and seek, come on out. So that's the feeling is like come on in the pool, the water's great, let's go. Yeah, there's there's there's so much part of uh, you know, I'm hearing you and I'm saying, uh, this makes complete sense.

But then there's also the individual difference. As psychologist in me that's trying to see how we can integrate the idea that people's essential nature do differ from one person to a next in terms of their genetic temperament, in terms of their talents, in terms of their back life background, their experiences, their memories. So you know, where does that come into the fold? You know, I do think there's

a domean generality, but also a demean specificity. There's there there are things that make us unique, there are things that we can tap into that uh, we tap into

universal nature for sure as well. I think there's perhaps both. Yeah, absolutely those It's not either or it's always both and you know, I mean so part of you know, that sense of what is the root of suffering, what's the existential root is is not realizing your plateau or your peak, or your sense of universal nature that's here, it's like here, not it's not universal like whoa you know, like right,

it's it's this, it's this this universal that's particular. And then and that's a particular person is just you know, they're just who they are. And and then there's you know, things you know to learn and to grow and and to develop that needs psychological help too, that can really be helpful. I gotcha, luck, I gotcha. I think we should end our conversation today on this note, but with a caveat of to be continued, because this is a

really elucidating for me. I I I really, I think I get it, and I see its relevance to a lot of things. I'm gonna my brain is going to be bringing. I know that I'm probably not going to sleep tonight because I'll be thinking about it, which which is the you know, which is not the state that you're referring to. So I need to maybe do your guided meditation to get to bed. But no, I get it.

I get it, but but I also am a nerd and I and I also do like to to to think deeply about things, even in an effort full way sometimes uh and uh. I think that the key here is is to be able to have the capacity to tap into those the beauty and riches of this, uh, of this pure being that we're talking about, and also know when maybe it's not the most appropriate time in one's life to tap into that, where to tap into being and then do from being. You know, Oh yeah,

that's good. You start to do from being and then everything you know becomes like that. And you know, when you bumble along at certain things, you're that's so good at it. But it's it's better than beating yourself up, you know. Yeah. I mean, like I said, my brain, my head really is brimming. I'm thinking about lots of things. I'm thinking about. Uh. You know, you said you apply this in your psychotherapy practice. And I'm trying to compare and contrast this versus like the c B the CBT approach.

I mean, maybe maybe maybe CBT is just going about it all wrong. It's like the opposite, It's it's going down a different alley. It's going down the Yeah. Yeah, different,

it's different. It's different, and it's in a lot of ways, I think it's more in line with Stephen Hayes and his approach and acceptance and commitment therapy and and and maybe even some of Steven's critiques, you know, if you ever get a chance to listen to him on my podcast, because he uh critiques CBT a little bit as a little too in your head, a little too cognitive and and saying like, well, why do you have to wait to change you know, your thoughts and all this when

you can just tap into what's already there. And I think that that's in a lot of a lot of ways similar to some of what you're saying. So look, look, I I just really appreciate you coming a podcast today, and like I said, to be continued, because you brought up a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff. Yeah. No, I think we're on the we're on the same you know, adventure together, and I think we can we can help each other and and bring a lot of this languaging

together of our different experiences. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Great, Thanks Lock, all right, thanks so much, Scott. Great to see you. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in some way to something you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion at the Psychology podcast dot com. That's the Psychology Podcast dot com. Also, if you'd prefer a completely ad free experience, you can join us at Patreon dot

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