Daniel Goleman and Tsoknyi Rinpoche Discuss Their Book “Why We Meditate”

4:48PM Sep 12, 2022

Speakers:

Andrew Holecek

Daniel Goleman

Tsoknyi Rinpoche

Keywords:

rinpoche

book

anger

world

essence

people

beautiful

meditation

emptiness

monster

bit

feeling

teachings

practice

reification

healthy

languaging

west

call

cognitive

Welcome, everybody to this Edge of Mind podcast where my guests today are true luminaries. And I am beyond excited to share the opportunity to talk to Daniel Goleman and Tsoknyi Rinpoche for an hour or so I wanted to read a biography of both of these are remarkable individuals. And then jump in to discuss a really wonderful book that they have just penned that I have to say when I read it, I can hardly put it down. It was so well written and so informative, so I can't wait to share my enthusiasm around this but Tsoknyi Rinpoche is one of the most renowned teachers of Tibetan Buddhism trained outside of Tibet. Deeply versed in both the practical and philosophical disciplines of Tibetan Buddhism. He is beloved by students around the world for his accessible style, his generous and self deprecating humor and his deeply personal compassion and insight into human nature. The father of two daughters, Rinpoche nevertheless manages to balance family life with the demanding schedule of teaching around the world and overseeing two nunneries in Nepal, one of the largest nunneries in Tibet and more than 50 practice centers in hermitage is in the eastern region of Tibet. And I have to say a little I'm not sure if disclaimer is the right word, but I consider Rinpoche one of my teachers. And so it's a great honor to spend this time with him. Daniel Goleman is a psychologist and science journalist. He was with the New York Times for 12 years. He is best known for his really remarkable book "Emotional Intelligence", which would be published with a new introduction this fall for its 25th anniversary. Daniel is co founder of the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning. Its mission centers on bringing evidence based programs and emotional literacy to schools worldwide with Richie Davidson. Goleman wrote "Altered Traits Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body" review the best studies of meditation. And his most recent book, The one we're going to be talking about is "Why We Meditate" and so again, deep our gratitude to both of you and I wanted to just say to our listeners a little bit about some of the things that really struck me about this book before I sent some questions your way and one was just the genius of the structuring of the book that is a wonderful demonstration of this east west, gentle bridging that's taking place the cross pollination of the ancient wisdom of the East and the modern knowledge of the West. And the way the book is structured is Rinpoche does really wonderful teaching at the beginning of each chapter. And then Dan comes in and does this amazing kind of scientific backing and Western approach. Kind of elaborating on what Rinpoche is talking about. And so not only did I very much appreciate the bridging between East and West, even though the globalization those parameters are changing, but I also really deeply appreciated the way this book, integrated the dance between didactic material, the teachings, and then a host of very skillful practices meditations to embody to incorporate the teachings, which is of incredible importance because if we can't bring these teachings, of course into our bodies, and really live them, what fundamental value are they? But I wanted to start by sending this question to either one of you. There's so much in this book, and I want to have a ping some very specific questions for some areas that I really want to unfold with you. But because there's so much in here, maybe we can start at the outset about what your aspirations are. What do you want readers to walk away with after having worked with this book because there's just so much rich material there, so perhaps we could start with that.

Let me jump in and give you kind of zoom out to the background of how the book even happened. I was at a retreat with shea at the garrison Institute, and he asked me to give a talk I just finished the book altered traits, looking at all of the hard evidence on how good meditation is for you. And it turns out to be very, very good. Ultimately, there's a dose response relationship, the more you do it, the better it gets. And Rinpoche said, Would you give a talk to the people at the retreat, which I did, and then after that, he said, you know, my students in Asia would be really interested in this because of the scientific base, because there's a strange phenomenon, where new generations of Asian students look to the west for affirmation for what's true, what's real, so to speak. And so the science has particular weight there. So we decided to book that in mind and this is the book that we ended up with. So it integrates as you said, Andrew, Rinpoche is approach and his methods which are very powerful, I think. And then I would look at the Western science, or I should say science, not necessarily Western, and see you know, how do the two fit together? They're beautiful turned out.

Fantastic. And Rinpoche, I'm curious from your end. What do you hope your readers will take away from this book?

Thank you first. My hope is to find connect with the basic well being or okayness. I call essence love. Just the beautiful of the heat of the love was not really discipline, not based on object, just the source of the love. Or sometimes we can call inner joy. Basic well being and somehow we lost that connection in the modern world because of so many things happening. And we value our love or happiness or joy with external things, which is fine for me. We should be that way. But time to time. Come back to the source of your own well being, which is I call unconditional happiness. Enjoy Allah. Okay, there's so there's a lot of names I put together. So the main thing is that love so and then on the way to connect to that basic well being, we might meet some obstacles I call leftover imprints. Summer. All the imprints are not healthy, many healthy and not healthy. So if you can transform those unhealthy I call distorted imprints which quite often activated and then we experienced that and this distorted unhealthy imprints we start to believe it. So there's a way that you can try to de solidify it with a identification of yourself. So there are some few mantras like I made it up more or less with the based on the Buddha's teaching that I call is like a beautiful monsters. But if you transformed that it can be very beautiful, a beautiful view that you understand your state. It is very beautiful. You understand other people's suffering and understanding. So if you don't transform that it could be difficult to yourself to others. So there's a way I develop handshake practice. The cognitive mind and feeling based body with the emotion, basic well being somehow meet together and not to disturb and the beautiful monster eventually start to open by itself. And then there is a communication so that I say it is real, but not true. The leftover residue of distorted imprints feels very real, but it carries around messages. So I say it is real but not true. So it's called I called communication with a bit of a monster. Then you open up when you open up then is I call open heart. You're not rigid or not affected by the beautiful monster. In fact, you can be a friend of that you can be a good friend, and then you become very healthy. And then you can connect with the essence of love and eventually essence love start to express very healthy love. There was so essence Love is like a hollow inside of you. You might have so many things. You might have so many friends. When deep down you will feel lonely and hollow alone. So this is my one oh my hope to find that wellbeing and then transform the beautiful monster. Then the essence lifestyle to shine into the loving kindness practice and compassion practice and with love and loving kindness and compassion, then you can connect to the larger world. And then I think there's a small contribution that you can make as some kind of world peace through individual.

We're MPJ I didn't think it was possible, but I think you just elegantly summarize the essence of the entire book. Really beautiful. There's so much to unpack here. But I do want to say I want to ask you this question. Rinpoche because, again, amazingly rich material. This notion of essence love, which is you know, Trump admits he used his languaging was basic goodness. It runs against the grain of the Western inculturation Judeo Abrahamic traditions that you had the notion of original sin. And maybe Daniel, you can say something about I know your dear friend, Richie Davidson has actually done some studies that that tend to suggest the veracity of this proclamation of basic goodness with children. Maybe you can speak to that. But Rinpoche I'm wondering, have you have these teachings been received warmly in the Western world? In your experience? Are you finding a real resistance in Rob to the somewhat radical proclamation that will what what do you mean when you mean are you saying that deep within my heart, and basically Okay, are you are you really saying the deep within I'm maybe even divine? I'm curious how how this has played out in your teaching experience? Are people receptive to it? Are they relieved when they hear these teachings or are you finding some resistance to it and then maybe, Daniel, if you could run a little commentary on that? Sure. You know, that would be really rich.

I think in deep down, they received very well. And I think we human beings are longing for that. Because that essence Love is a birthright. I call is our innate, one of our innate nature. And you can see the young children that quite often carry that this kind of joyful without any other reason. And I call that as a spark, we possess that. But due to the conditions, the fires face world, objective, you know, get something from outside and of course that is also a wonderful, I'm not denying that. We need that. I think my point is we need both the inner one and the external one. I've sometimes I call happy without reason and happy either reason. But if you keep Hall our life with a happy with the reason, and then making ourselves more vulnerable and hollow and lonely. So yeah. No,

Go ahead. Rinpoche This is great.

Okay, I thought you're doing you're saying something.

Yeah. I'll say after you're done. Thank you.

So, but that they're valid, and there's like it, but when coming towards to that there's some challenging because I drop the rigid, overthinking, and then aware of your awareness, awareness, aware of your body, and then come back to your natural feeling and in that feeling time and easy there. Because of many people have carry different imprints. So it might come in imprint at the beginning a little bit uneasy. But if they practice again again, then eventually the beautiful monster start to relax and no need to afraid of it. And then when they start to transform, or they enjoy very much, and they're looking forward to have more beautiful monsters

So Andrew, let me pick up on your earlier point. Richard Davidson, the neuroscientist at University of Wisconsin, with whom I wrote Altered Traits, has a program to actually an app to facilitate the sense of well being from a completely different angle, very complementary to what Rinpoche is talking about, but his research on children is very important. He's found he started a program for pre K and kindergarteners, of the kindness program. Think about this when your kids come home from school. Do you ask them how did you do on the test, or who was coming to you today? Those are two very different lenses on the day. And unfortunately, as Rinpoche points out, in the West, particularly, children experience a kind of conditional love if you do well, then I love you. It's not who you Who were you kind to it's Did you get a 97 on the test. And that shapes us in many, many ways. One of which is to develop over a lifetime kind of driven Rinpoche talks about a sense of you know, ambition that could never met. You just going on the treadmill and the beautiful monster idea, represent knowledge is nicely in his book, in part came from a congress conversations with my wife, Tara Bennett, Goldman, integrated mindfulness and cognitive kind of psychodynamic cognitive therapy, to look at the emotional patterns that don't serve us that start in childhood and bring us through life and the approach that Rinpoche has taken which I think rubbish it it does come from Tibetan practice, your your approach to beautiful monster, but it turns out to be supported heavily by good reason. Stanford on the power of acceptance of na way utterings in your societies and your troubles, but being with them, accepting them, and as, as represented shows in the book, this has real real power in terms of getting beyond them to get to this deep sense of well being.

So one thing I would love to hear both of your responses to this because I think the following is an important question. On one level, what Rinpoche is is professing is the essential nature of the human spirit that fundamentally this really is what we're made of. And so I'm wondering how you balance or reconcile the two vectors of psychological and spiritual development because in the book repeatedly, and I think very authentically, you talk about the importance of training and practice. And you know, just more traditional approaches to spiritual path. But on another level, that whole notion of essence, love seems to invite the alternative approach of discovery. And so I'm wondering how you work with those on one level, yes, we need to practice the more you do this, like any other venture, the better you get at it. But on another level, this also seems to imply a more absolute irreducible instruction, which is just open and relaxed, and then the inherent qualities naturally flower. So I'm curious for both of us, maybe starting with Rinpoche How do you balance how do you work with those two vectors, those two, you could say paths.

The whole thing is to coming back in the sense of a reconnecting is not that we are building or making the essence love, more or less our attention. Our focus is when out and trying to get something from outside and instead of love or well being happy. So now, of course you can set a change, a little focus. And the way you come back is the path where you're connecting to the essence Love is the practice is not that you are creating new thing in you because the essence Love is the birth right is coming from your birth, but we are disconnected from that. So where are you coming back? There's a way start from dropping being meeting, communication. And then hello, essence, this is not that you're making less insulin. It is there. So now we have a more available and connecting with that essence lab and make sure we have that connection whenever we need. In fact, we should have all the time and with that, and that is opposite of Hello. Then you can have whatever you do it become very healthy. Not self centered, cherishing only because you're okay here and you don't need to eat all the plastic to make to feel that Hello. And then that could good for environment also. Many things you don't need to like you know, sometimes I call that hello is hungry ghosts. eating all the plastics. So you feel okay. You feel okay within the knot. Okay. The main point is the life has ups and balanced within that you have some source that you can be and then you have ability to deal with your difficulties problems, sufferings, whatever. There is a strength and that is not that whole path of dealing will not become a self center. nourishing. In fact, it will shine more love and compassion to the others and to the situation.

You know, I just want to say one thing put it to put an exclamation mark on one thing you said Rinpoche before I turned it over to Dan, and that is you know, very often people look at these spiritual principles. And they think oh, what do they have to do with a real world kind of thing, but I think if people really grasp the type of this is my languaging the type of spiritual reductionism in the best sense that what these teachings do is they really drive the complexity of the modern life and two very simple fundamental spiritual principles. And one that you touched on that is so critical, is that if we continue to maintain the sense of lack or deficient emptiness, then what what are the statistics Daniel, the average American consumes like 200 times the world's average of natural resources. And so this very simple principle has colossal implications to what we're doing to the planet, to what we're doing, bringing about global warming, the ecological crisis. So it's just a way to reinstate that these these teachings have vast applicability, immediacy and profundity to everything that's happening in the world today. But then I'll be curious to see what your how you'd like to run with this. So what are the two.

Well, uh you know what occurred to me listening to Rinpoche is the importance of understanding. The negative results what his late students John Wellwood called spiritual life, are beautiful. We use practice to avoid facing these realities. You know, you can get into a nice blissful state, but a What are you doing to the planet? What are you doing to your family? What are you doing yourself? You don't see it. And and that's reason I appreciate some Rinpoche is doing because he's helping us look directly what we're doing in all those domains to ourselves. You know, the people around us to the planet, it's because we don't want to see it. And he helps us see it. And go beyond

Beautiful. And Rinpoche before we move to a topic I really want to explore with you, if you don't mind. Could you give us a little specific example about I really love the notion even the image of a beautiful monster, it's a classic. One wonderful way to bring in two seemingly contradictory phenomena together. Perhaps Can you give us an example of how to do this let's take for instance, anger. There's so much anger in the world today. How can we use this very common beautiful monster that many of us are experiencing now, especially with the upcoming midterms? How can if somebody came to you, that that'd be me, I'm coming to you saying Rinpoche I have a real problem with anger. I don't see a lot of beauty in my anger. I just see the monster. So can you talk to us a little bit about how to actually implement like handshake practice in relationship to anger to transform the monster into something beautiful.

Of course, we have to have always backup of a cognitive clarity and understanding and but anger is not only in the cognitive mind, it has a physical implement, and is connected with your beautiful monster also. So I think we understand the whole thing. And then anger is a special energy. And if we can use that energy in the right direction, it can be very useful and then we can solve problems with that strength. But if we don't see it, and with that anger, there is a nasty headed and the blocks all our clarity and it's just make everything very dark, but full of energy. So how do you know?

Monday you know in a cognitive, but you still react like that from the feeling all the way is? I asked. Drop that the reactive, reactive thinking, come back to the body. You see the elements in the body and then relax that little bit and more relax with a handshake practice and then you will see there is emotion. And then that emotion is connected with the beautiful monster of anger. And then you stay with that or stay nearby. Just I call. Meeting being is kindness. And listen, the energy of the anger, not react, stay close. If you stay very close, cannot react. I have a very funny example the boxers when they do on the stage. After fourth fifth round, and one will have others is the love is there loving each other? I don't know. But because becoming too close, cannot react if you stay lit a fire away then you can punch each other or you can pay close. So the mind and awareness and compared to the body and stay with the anger itself and that intensity of the anger are slowly reduced. And then the you invite the strength of the anger with the wisdom of the mind. And then you can solve the problem is the anger will not solve the problem. The strength will solve the problem. The anger will cloud your mind. So the issue in that anger these few things are the hatred and the body element. Emotional lemon cognitive run thinking so all lump up one thing then it clouds our mind and the feeling. So how do we know we don't know at the beginning. So give some time and then it becomes very clear. Because a Buddhist we believe everything is impermanent it will not last forever. But you have to be a little patient. If you can stay with anger is the best. If you cannot stay anger stay nearby. Don't stay in the next room. Stay in one room and relax the mind relax. feeling relaxed anger is still the beautiful monster is still like a banking on you. You don't bend this way. Normally, angle come you you follow I called intelligent or you suppress or you ignore or you're trying to put us method trying to transform change you keep hitting finding that does not help boost the more your relaxation is important. Awareness and relaxation together. The everyday become very clear. Then you use whatever you need to use in a positive way with the essence of love. Then you can change the world without clouded mind and uptight at

Beautiful, beautiful. So Daniel yeah, run with that a little bit. You talk really beautifully and I can't remember I can't centrifuge every one of these statements who said what, but it may or may have been you the critical importance of relationship that there's fundamentally nothing problematic with the arising of the energy to which we append the label anger. What Rinpoche was actually talking about there maybe you can run off a little bit is a process of deconstruction, taking apart the narratives that impose and really pollute this basically pure energy. That's the beauty and the monster. So the issue is really isn't it that is relationship. So talk to us a little bit about that

Before I talk about relationship, let me talk about anger. about the difference between useful anger and useless anger which is important to understand number the Dalai Lama is saying like Rinpoche is saying anger is energy. And to make it effective, you need to put aside the hatred. This speaks to relationships, you need to see that them is us. But he said keep the energy of the anger. Keep the focus of the anger, keep the persistence that anger gives you and work toward a useful goal. The use of this anger leads you to do things that you regret later. Useful. Anger is one that can be skillful. And so for example, relationships are what our world is made of, you know, our personal world, and we want to preserve and enrich our relationships. We don't want to destroy them. Anger invariably harms a relationship, the useless anger, useful anger, people may come on board with you. So I think that the two really are related, if you understand that we need our relationships. And that anger is something that actually can mend them rather than destroy them. That's powerful.

Beautiful. Rinpoche, one of the most beautiful parts of the book, and I'd have to say, for me, the most impactful chapter was the last chapter. I just devoured that material. Can you talk to us a little bit about because I thought it was it was so skillful to talk to us a little bit about the four eyes. Now for our listeners, this is not EY e, this is the four eyes letter it is in me, because there's so much confusion in the spiritual business, about this notion of selflessness egolessness and your articulation of the four types of I, I found extremely insightful, impactful and very, very helpful. So talk to us a little bit about that because part of what we're kind of circumambulating here is again, this is my languaging there is no original sin in Buddhism, of course but if there was in my opinion, it would be reification. And so when when I heard you talking about reification and the first of the four eyes, reified I, I was 100% Behind you. So talk to us a little bit about the four eyes. Why they're so helpful and how to engage these principles.

In general, AI is very important is a source of identification. No I no source of identity to express. So bias has to have a healthy eye. So the first eye I called mir I m. m e r e is the healthy one, the functional eye because we have a body and all the scandalous Buddhist point of view and we have the external phenomena and the perceptions. So they with that there's something is called AI is that AI is really need to be like a solid like a rock or like tightness. No, it's just very functional. Healthy me in mind, and with this we call mir i and that has to have that even Buddha will say I will come tomorrow to your place. Please come to my place. So there's a sense of AI in the healthy relative truth that we are not denying but the problem is there is independent, almost singular, independent, permanent self logo based on mere eye and we make very tight like I call reify everything is like a solid. There is no room for impermanent to take place. There is no room for fluidity. There's no room for dance. There's no room for acceptance. It's just like a crust on me and mine and that is the source of suffering. Because it is not in the reality. The reality is the healthy eye. We should learn on that. We should respect that. And then because everything becomes so serious, so tight, and there's no room for expression, no room for art, no room for beauty. Everything has become dark, and then tight. And then black sort of like even you get angry is tied up like anger as like a rock. Or you'd maybe someday experienced love. But the U haul on love as a permanent thing. But the love can change. Anger can change. So wisdom with the changing is not allowed to because of reification i and this is the Sunday we call we don't believe original sin, but this temporarily mistaken element coming out of this reify so because of the impermanent teaching because of emptiness teaching because of space openness, we're trying to open up that reification and the land into the healthcare, but many people make mistake when we say emptiness, no, I know ego actually is focusing on reify not a mere eye. But if I may mistaken that like to destroy the mirror I also then you lost the point you lost the reference of relative truth. So we have to have a relative truth. And then the thing is like when you're already uptight. You lost joy you lost love. Everything becomes like a steal like iron in you. And everything become very serious unnecessarily. And then it creates a thing missing inside of you because you're screes all the natural well being with the reification then you start to have a second third eye is called self centered, cherishing I. Because you don't feel okay. And I want you to feel okay. What shall I do? Oh, get more things, do more things.

And that because of that tightness, create hollow inside. And in order to fulfill that hollow we get something from from wrong prompting. So there is a way I call the solidified eyes to solidify it, it goes so it's not a one like that. So open up then you see oh reification less respect mirror I within the mirror I then the you see oh, there's some self cherishing me me me I call it's all about me. Of course me need to be there with the mirror I is unhealthy, but not too much. Everything me me first. I that I want I happy I my unit do love me. You need to care me. I eat first one. Are you the best ones? Why? Because you you feel like that? Because there's a hello. So I said handshake those area and reconnect with the essence of love. Then you can shine to the world but on the way to that small things are not making you happy anymore. Like a food doesn't make sense. Because you will have food relationship upside down. not fulfilling your Hello. And now you want some big things and then it's all you are rubbish day. Then I give this job like when you smile on the street. Some people say oh don't say you have a so good smiling and then at the beginner you don't believe and not only one person five, six people are saying same thing. Eventually you start to believe I am a, I am a smiling person. I am the smiling Rinpoche. I am a smiling Rinpoche because that is projected by the others and you start to believe that as your identity, social I, social I and ethical social I. There could be a doctor there could be anything. Professor, teacher, Rinpoche, anything slowly you hold that as your own is me. And that is not me. It of course is part of me. But who you are real. Is this mirror I with the essence of love and with the insight as a simple, beautiful human being. And the social I is sometimes very helpful. Maybe it's like a so we should use with the essence of love and connect with a social I express as a compassionate social I to help others. His Holiness using this perfectly. He's good, but he has a dilemma social I and he used that social I not for him to cling and satisfied. But he know you don't need that because he is a simple Buddhist man with with his practice with his true nature with his essence lab, but he used that platform to have other but he don't live with that social I.

Beautiful, beautiful so Danny let's let's work on this a little bit further because oh my goodness this is have practical applications today with the pathology the shadow side of social media and the incredible pressures of identity structure based on the feedback that people get using the platform. So maybe talk to us a little bit about that and in some other science that supports this view.

You know from scientific point of view, we know that social media pushes young people particularly distort social I you know, some will will spend a long time getting ready to go on their tic-toc or whatever. So they look good. They inject this self which has little or nothing to do with who we are, but they identify with it more and more and we know from data that the longer someone spends doing this doom scrolling is one term sometimes used. depressed they get the more hollow they feel exactly what Rinpoche is saying.

One thing like social I is where I call very high maintenance.

High maintenance. Yeah.

What is not you is people project on you. And you take on and you start to believe is me. Is that misunderstanding? Yeah. And if you live with that, oh, it's a lot of suffering. Yeah, but it is very useful if you use openly, especially with a platform of compassion.

Yeah. Yeah. And along these lines, Rinpoche may or may actually Danny as well. There's often in the in the spiritual communities. This categorical dismissive approach to any sense of self and what you're talking about with the importance of the mirror I which might my teacher Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche talked about dependently arisen mere appearance. The notion of mirror doesn't merely apply to me it applies to reality to other thinking have this kind of healthy dismissiveness that is just mere appearance. But But talk to us a little bit further about the importance of having a baseline. healthy self sense. Jack angler, right Danny? What did he say you have to be somebody before you can be nobody famously.

So before you can give it up.

Exactly. So maybe talk to us Rinpoche a little bit more about the importance of of a healthy eye. That again, the relative sense of is not an issue the relationship is, in fact if we engage that properly, that creates a healthy platform for us to then engage in spiritual practice. So maybe it's the biggest people often categorically say, Oh, I just have to get I have to get rid of my ego. Well, it's like getting rid of age, too, right? You transcend but include age too. So can you say a little bit more about that? And then if you want to run with that a little bit, too, because I think this is important for people who just categorically think, Oh, I just need to annihilate my ego, when it's just a particular developmental way of looking at the world, right.

I think you have to understand and separate this few types of identification, right? So everything put under one umbrella and the one thing and you get it up that that is not right. So instead of getting right get off instead of like, get it off. I will say this solidified first and then minimized misunderstanding of the reify and to myself centers cherishing and then you should we should learn on the relative I because I have a body, I have a perception. They are right now exist, but where there is a Buddhist point of view is a mere exist, because if you look into it, it's not there. But but it is there. So the dance between nothingness and thing has a relationship with independence. We call emptiness, appearance. And we cannot miss both we have to in order to understand the fullness of reality, we have to experience the appearance and its essence as a one unification that is healthy, not a negotiation or nihilists or an essence is not really something is that that does not mean a parents is also reject emptiness or openness is together with the appearance. So I think that you know to to emptiness appearance, like in separate inseparable. I think we are looking either the appearance size, or emptiness side, and then it's become, you know, problematic. So the truth if you want to know truth The appearance is one thing and is natural, emptiness is one thing, but you cannot seperate these two things. If you experience unification Where then is you know halting Yeah, so anyway, our, our, the ground of spiritual practice, or our life need to be healthy relative and with a mirror. I and when I would ask. Yeah.

Danny, as a psychologist, do you see, can you talk a little bit about the pathologies, when that isn't related to properly some of the things that you've seen, both in the literature and also in perhaps in clinical work or in real world? situations?

Well, I would look to mental science and what are called lines of development, which mean, you know, our by develops in one line, our ego which Rinpoche has been talking about in another line, spiritual life and still another line, and hopefully all come together. And I think that the pathology which is so common and so widespread that you know, there's a very thick book called The diagnostic NTSB manual of psychiatry, which lists like hundreds of psychiatric disorders which are always in which this can go wrong. And the you know, the too numerous to list, but each of us has something it's just what happens to growing up in modern culture. We get we get a distorted way of thinking about things of feeling about things. And those distortions become habit patterns that drive us through life and all the pathologies for there's a whole set of pathologies that have to do much anxiety. There's a set of pathologies that have to do with physiologically these may be overlapping. They may be different. But we triggered them ourselves very often by the way we think about the world. The thinking is modeled in exactly the same way we appreciate is talking about, in that we think something that will help us actually hurts us. We look to you know, people who have the same pattern of having lovers who that all end disastrously in the same way. That's a hint. That's a clue that we've got one of these patterns. And so there are many ways to clean it up. And I really respect Rinpoche saying there's a place for therapy too. Because you may need therapy in order to you know, get your ego together in the best way. So you can get up in the best way. And by the way, giving it up and here and you I really appreciate what you're saying doesn't mean denying it doesn't mean killing it means keeping the good part and leaving the part that is screwing you up.

Exactly. And Rinpoche is we start to close up because I know you have some time commitments. What Danny just paying down here, I think is so critically important in the West. And you're one of the rare Tibetan lamas that actually embraces this view. That I mean, this is my languaging the challenge I often get when I even broach the topic of integral approaches to spiritual development that why not engage the skill sets from the west and I sometimes say what my languaging you know, this notion of like Buddhism, Buddhism doesn't need therapy in double, double meaning intended, right Buddhism is, is complete and in and of itself, but I think one of the things that really attracts me to your work, Rinpoche is your acknowledgement of the skill sets of the West. The psychological disciplines the methods that are engaged, that sometimes yes, I think perhaps on an absolute level, the teachings on emptiness, for example, so called theoretically, they can handle anything, but practically they don't seem to work that way. And I share this from direct experience, and then I'll pause to let you talk about this is I will often go to a program where I've been I gave a presentation maybe 10-20 years ago, and the person will come up to me complaining about precisely exactly the same psychological issue they have 20 years ago, where their teacher their meditation instructor said your meditation, you need to meditate harder. There's something wrong with your meditation. So can you talk to us a little bit about what your embrace of the Western skill sets working with psychological approaches how that's enhanced your own understanding, not only of the Western mind as you work with Western students, but perhaps even more directly has it had some impact on you personally, as it brought insight into your own workings of your own mind and heart?

Definitely. The beginning, like the years you know, I came to to the west, and I didn't know about so much about the culture, and I give a lot of teaching based on cognitive mind and focusing on meditation and relative truth and ultimate title unification teaching. Then eventually, you know, this when I give teaching is working very well. It's fantastic. But over the years, some area is not transforming. Understanding intellectual and that is great. And then meditation also become like a technique. Or it becomes like an antidote towards to the some other stuff, especially to the feeling world. So it's not quite right something in sometimes I use also meditation as the antidote to us to the you know, something you don't feel great. And if I hold on the meditation, and meditation should take care of all of that. And is not working sometime my in my myself and my students. So I was exploring here and then I met, of course, Denise, and also especially Tara Coleman, and we talk share more things. And also I met John Bobbitt. And, you know, then I learned so much beauty from the modern psychologists, world, explain very clearly, sometime more clear then Buddhist approach, spiritually, then I sort of know all of that. Very much connected in the failing world. Then, of course, in the Mahamudra teaching doctrine, teaching, there is a principle of handshake. But that handshake is more like a basic relative truth. We call afflictions anger attachment, jealousy, Prout, ignorance, some kind of, but that works quite well, by the same time the sum, which we call distorted relative truth not healthy relative truth, which is, I called a learn habitual imprint from this life. And in that imprint, some healthy some are not healthy. And Buddhists, we don't talk much about this unhealthy imprint. How to transform more or less like healthy in print together with the unhealthy syrup and then go beyond a wakeup from the Samsara so which is a great thing also, so that I put little emphasize help on my, you know, friends, and then I develop beautiful master means the Learn habitual pattern from this life. The healthy one I'm not calling beautiful master, the distorted relative and unhealthy and it disturb you and other and then that, bring in your practice together with that. And I do myself every day also. And then there is a, you know, a lot of things I think we don't need to mention all of that, like, top 10 Beautiful monsters. Top 20 Beautiful monsters. I think we all know. So somehow we're aware of that, fill that stay with that. Be kind to it. Listen is kindness no rejecting is kindness not suppressing is kindness and then towards to leaning is also in kindness. So then, one day the beautiful monster start to trust to the our cognitive mind, and that they're ready to get the knowledge from the mind and through the another special feeling and that feeling communicate with a beautiful masters feeling and then transform happens in our heart and feeling world. So then also, like in I discover when I come to the west, the speediness that distorted speed, because loom loom and if we don't take care of that, then I think that will destroy our joy. That emotional, subtle body I call restless feeling is banking, on our mind, banking on our physical and even you do 10 minutes to work, but you feel so so tired. So there's three kinds of speed limit body speed limit, and cognitive speed limit and the subtle body restlessness. So there's a way that you are aware of that and share with that and then find the right balance of speed, that and serve our life and no need to have extra suffering. The basic suffering is good enough is good enough.

Well, I have to say Rinpoche amazing. This is a fantastic summary. And for listeners, like I said at the outset, I can't recommend this book highly enough. And there's a couple things that Rinpoche did. Kind of see that he unpacks in great length on the book, the wonderful elegance of the handshake practice, which I think is just genius is really explored in the book. The notion of the three speed limits that working with a breath, extraordinarily skillful, so I highly recommend my listeners to purchase this particular tome because it has a wonderful east west. cross pollination, like I said at the outset, also the integration of the teachings with the practices and so Rinpoche, I know you're in the middle of two big retreats. Is there any final words either based on this book or just generally that you would like to share with my listeners based on the atmosphere of what we've talked about? This morning together any final words before you return to your program?

Kind to your beautiful monster? Beautiful.

Thank you, Tsoknyi Rinpoche. Big bow of gratitude on behalf of my community. I know Rinpoche you're so busy. I'm so honored to have spent this time with you all the best to you and your retreat. And I very much look forward to wide success with his amazing book. Thank you so much.

Thank you for inviting me here.