The Ancient Buddhist Practice That Could Save Your Marriage | Ajahn Kovilo & Ajahn Nisabho

Key Takeaway

Buddhist monks practice bi-weekly confession sessions called 'pavarana' (opening oneself) to maintain ethical conduct and mental clarity. Rather than religious absolution, it's a practical technique: confess mistakes to a trusted friend, acknowledge them ('Do you see?'), commit to improvement, and celebrate progress. This simple ritual of opening dark corners to light creates what the Buddha called 'the bliss of blamelessness'—a peaceful mind that naturally leads to deeper concentration and happiness.

Episode Overview

Two Buddhist monks, Ajahn Kovo and Ajahn Nisso, share practical wisdom from monastic life that anyone can apply. The episode focuses on two core practices: (1) regular confession/opening to maintain ethical conduct and mental clarity, and (2) skillful feedback grounded in loving-kindness. They explain how living in community with clear values creates the foundation for well-being through what the Buddha called the 'well-being cascade'—where ethical conduct naturally leads to joy, tranquility, happiness, and concentration. The monks emphasize that Buddhist ethics aren't commandments but training principles designed to increase happiness and mental peace.

Full Transcript

Transcript of The Ancient Buddhist Practice That Could Save Your Marriage | Ajahn Kovilo & Ajahn Nisabho from 10% Happier. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

Oftenimes Buddhism gets a bad rap in that we're only talking about suffering. Or maybe if you've ever met a monk, you think that a whole monastic life is one of total suffering all the time. We do no one any favors by being miserable and depressed about the state of the world. As practitioners, we really have a duty to keep our minds bright and loving. It's just recognizing that we're all placing the heart on something and just being more conscious of how we do that and what we're placing it upon.

Ajan Kovo and Ajan Nisso, welcome to the show. show. show. Thanks, Dan. It's good to meet you. Good to be here. How did How did I do with my pronunciations there? pronunciations there? pronunciations there? I thought it was great. I Yeah, better than uh some of my family members. I'm not sure how low or high a bar that is, but fine. All right. So, but I I have a million questions to ask you. Um, we've been behind the scenes calling this episode mug hacks, and I want to jump into those hacks.

But first, I I would love to briefly hear how you got into uh being monks. Um, so Ajan Kovo, let me start with you. What's your what's your background here? Yeah. So was in university uh studying world religions and studying to be an elementary school teacher and uh had a great teacher named Alan Hotter at Hampshire University who just taught um yes comparative religion and transcendentalist. So reading a lot of uh Emerson and thorough and uh of course the Walden Pond experiment was just very inspiring.

and then had a friend who recommended that I go to a Gowena retreat, one of these 10-day vapasa retreats and uh I went because it was free and that was really my first big dive into uh meditation. I tried a little bit before but as you probably know these Ginka retreats are 10 hours a day for 10 days straight and that was a lot but it was also very much a lifechanging life reorienting experience. the first two or three days basically hell. Uh a lot of you know it seems like such an easy uh task just watch the breath at the tip of your nose.

Uh but when I would sit down to do that, the mind would just be anywhere but at the tip of the nose and so totally frustrating for those first several days and then the third day mind kind of just settled into that that space of uh peace and it had some levels of happiness and contentment that I'd never experienced before. uh you know and I'd given up my phone, given up my uh entertainment, my relationships, being quiet and to have this totally other type of happiness, well-being, peace, to be able to experience that based on nothing and almost uh totally independent, it seemed uh type of happiness that I could create that seeing that that was possible and that I put in the causes to bring that about just very much shifted the course of my life.

And after that 10 days um sat religiously an hour in the morning hour in the evening but still it took me about 2 years to realize that those teachings were from a terra Buddhist um context and yeah after 3 years from that first retreat I was basically ready to move into the monastery and pretty much have been there ever since. It's it's amazing. It's incredible. And we uh it's so we we need in my view we need people making this level of commitment to the practice because it benefits everybody else because you can you can teach us.

So Ajan Nisso what's your deal dude? Um I suppose uh Ajin Kova is speaking in the language of happiness. Um maybe I'll shift to the language of purpose. Um, I grew up with somewhat Buddhist parents. They listened to Jack Kornfield and really gave me a good grounding. Um, but I always just felt I could never kind of give myself to the different hobbies and activities that my peers did. So um when I was 15 I started I read Sedartha like many a burgeoning hippie and was just very moved by the image of the Buddha and the idea of a monk like that you could dedicate your life in that way and started meditating um every day.

It just became a bigger and bigger part of my life until by the end of college uh which I went to uh college in Portland. It was really I'd seen that it was kind of the core of what I found most meaningful was those that center of getting to sit and find stillness. Um and also the sense that you could do you could I went to India and saw a doctor working in kind of the slums there and that was my goal actually was to work as a doctor.

Um but she was emotionally really a bit of a wreck. Um and very ragged and it was this very clear indication to me that there needs to be a spiritual kind of grounding in you know in align aligned with that external work and um and that was what I felt most drawn to. So I went to Thailand and there's a very pristine tradition um there that goes back to the time of the Buddha. Monastics in our tradition we don't touch money. we don't use money. Um we live you know really beautifully simple lives and it was and I felt like we met people there who were you know enlightened and that is something you don't get to see every day in in the west I feel so that was very special um and since then it's been time in monasteries and then with Ajin Kovilo in our little monastery here in Seattle.

All right I appreciate the background like I said I mean I I believe this is true for both of you. It's just incredible what you're doing. So let's get to the to the monk hacks. Um, and sorry for the uh flippant tone here, but so I have an outline in front of me that you that the two of you uh in in uh collaboration with uh our senior producer Marissa Schneiderman put together really talking about what uh we can what the rest of us can learn from those who are living a a monastic lifestyle.

And there really three uh three areas that we want to talk about. And the first is how to be in, you know, healthy relationship with other human beings, which is not easy. As I um often say in my perhaps overly glib style, you know, we we need other humans to flourish. An often overlooked fact. We need other humans and yet other humans are a Titanic pain in the ass. So, um how do we navigate this? Um and you have this practice that you recommend and it's essentially a practice of confession which which is a term that carries a lot of cultural baggage.

So Kovville I'll start with you again you know what do you mean by confession in this context? Yeah. So it's a integral part of a monastic life whether one's a monk or a nun. The Buddha stipulated that we have to uh go about that. It's useful to know the the poly word. The word that the the Buddha was using is aviaroti which literally means uh making open. So it's an opening oneself up and the Buddha framed this practice as being one of growth in the dharma.

you see a mistake and aspire or uh dedicate in in front of someone else who's keeping the same rules, keeping the same principles, the same uh integrity, uh then that's growth in his teaching and in his discipline. So what the Buddha stipulated for monastics is that every two weeks we come together and do this aviaroti opening ourselves up. We've got lots of rules and we got lots of sub rules. We just got rules on top of rules. And um I think the principle of discipline equals freedom is one which is uh paradoxical but is one which I think most monastics who kind of stick it out really are able to see.

And so every two weeks we come together and we uh open our our hearts to our trusted um brothers or or sisters in in robes. And it's a humbling practice. Um, and it makes us just have a level of meta cognition about what we're doing. And yeah, a lot of us, especially western monks, we're we're making a very clear choice to uh become Buddhist. Most of us weren't born into Buddhist families. Often times the mono of monasticism does mean singular one. And so a lot of us go into monastic life thinking that we're just going to be by ourselves all the time.

Whereas SA is this group of people with a a bunch of adult human dudes, men living in sometimes very close quarters. And we didn't choose the individuals who we'll be living with. Um so we've got the whole range you know not we've got extrovert monks introvert monks uh monks who really uh bear their hearts in a very open way in this confession practice and others who are um yeah just do more of a formulaic version of it. Uh but I've personally just found it a great practice of keeping track and an eye um a one level remove of watching my actions of speech and and actions of speech and actions of body and am I transgressing by doing things that I don't a better part of myself wouldn't want to be doing and I can uh lay myself out there for the friends who I trust.

That's that's a beautiful kind of description of of much of it. um you know and it kind of echoes this opening term like so much of the language we have to speak about these practices are loaded with enormous cultural baggage for people which is problematic but it's the language we have. Um so confession might be a bit heavy but opening is a really good one and it speaks to the power of living in community. People have this idea of monastics as kind of living off in these little huts.

And honestly, I've rarely seen that work for most monastics, at least for the first five, six or seven years. Like living in community, we live, you know, our great uh malady in modern life right now, I think, is this siloed alienated existence from that sanctity of communion and relationship either with some higher ideal or with each other. And so a really key quality of the lineage we're part of the Ajin Cha lineage um is living in community with a bunch of adult people. And uh you know I've heard one teacher say look you can either have the suffering of living alone or the suffering of living in community but it's much better that suffering of living in community because it it it's the mirror like it's you opening yourself day after day.

And if you don't have that, I've really seen people get really strange. And I think a really good metric for modern practitioners is flourishing normaly and warmth. And if you're cold, weird and not flourishing like people around you will point it out. And uh so it's a really good metric and and the confession is just a way of you know ritual has a lot of baggage in our society but um it's a way of framing up these moments in a meaningful way. So every two weeks we get together with a companion and this is how you do it with with someone in your life a spiritual friend is every week or two weeks someone you trust or if it's too much even just a Buddha image or some image you respect and just kind of lay open the things that you wish you could have done a bit better um those things you appreciated and it's not like some you know uh kind of commandment from on high that you've you're trying to purify yourself against.

It's just you're opening you're opening the dark corners to the light of day and letting kind of the eye of awareness uh clean it. So that's what the practice is essentially. I like the way you said that the eye of awareness cleaning it or as my favorite indie rock band of the '90s uh pavement uh put it brightening the corners. I'd be curious to hear a little bit more though about for those of us who are not monks and are new to this, how could we you what are the practical you what are the practical steps?

steps? steps? Yeah. So what we do is uh every two weeks as we mentioned uh we get together to recite all of our rules. to recite all of our rules. And before we do that is when we pair off uh monk with monk or none with none to uh yeah open open our ourselves and show those those corners to to one another. And I think this is something people can do. One of our teachers, Ajan Jasaro in Thailand will suggest that families actually have a very clear clear contract, you know, that they write up, you know, actually talking with your family members about what the expectations and the rules and uh certain things are within the family.

And um I haven't known too many people who've tried to do a confession. I haven't known anybody who's tried to do it with a child, but certainly with a spouse. I mean, Anjan Nisbo and I uh right now in in Seattle, it's just he and I. So, we're usually confessing to each other. Uh, one principle is that we if we have the same offense, uh, you can't confess that rule to someone else. So, um, we'll often times contact one of our monk brothers at a different monastery.

Um, say if we've, uh, broken some minor rule, we'll contact them to let them, you know, open ourselves up to them. So we come together and we as Alan Niso said you know bow to the a Buddha statue as our highest kind of goal as our um as our role model in life and then we open ourselves up with a poly formula where you say um first we praise the Buddha you know homage to the blessed one the noble one the perfectly enlightened one and then we will uh say okay in the last two weeks I ended up I had to run a little bit to catch the bus and monks aren't supposed to run in public cuz it doesn't unless we're being chased and we're allowed to unless we're being if we're being chased.

We can climb trees even if we're being chased. But um whatever whatever rule we we break, we confess that in the last two weeks I I did this and would like to show restraint in the future and our monk brother will say do you see and we'll say uh it is a bit formulaic but we also do try to live this uh yeah I do see actually that uh it is a little bit unbecoming to to do this or it is inappropriate to transgress that rule that we had agreed upon.

Uh, and then the other monk says, "Will you show restraint in the future?" And, uh, we say, "Yes, we will try." And the other monk says, "Uh," and we both say, "Sadu, sadu, sadu, it's great. It's wonderful that you're trying to practice this." So, that's a little bit of the formula. It's a useful formula because often when you're confessing, the other person wants to respond somehow and either that can take the form of putting a little too much weight on what you're saying or trying to say, "Oh, it's no big thing." And often they're just supposed to be there as a bit of a mirror and a caring mirror.

So that's where the formula can be useful. Like you say something that came up in your heart. Do you see? I see. Will you be restrained in the future? I will. Saw do. It's simple. And then you can go a little deeper if you want. Um but that that basic formula allows a back and forth and it's supposed to be held confidentially. You should do it with someone you trust. Um and and then we usually follow with gratitudes, things we think we did well. And often, you know, it's just aligning with our our higher ideals.

Like it's not explicitly against um our monastic rules for us to speak a bit too hurriedly sometimes. Um well, way too fast maybe, but like you know, it's it's those little things where you're like, I wish I'd been a little more beautiful there. And that's that polishing. Like after a time the language of right and wrong stops holding as much power in our practice as the language of beautiful and un beautiful or trivial and non-trivial like there comes a point where practice is operating at that different strata of language and and that's what you're really looking at like what could I have done a little more beautifully and it's just yeah it's not supposed to be held too heavily not with any self-inccrimination it's just a chance to open your cila which is the poly or the ancient word for ethical conduct is, I would imagine, quite refined, more refined than, for example, mine.

Um, so I've got stuff that I could confess that might qualify as straight up wrong as uh not just not beautiful. I think it gets probably this practice might get a little bit more complex for quote unquote regular people. Yeah, I I think it can, but it really is just um a matter of having an accountability buddying, you know, someone who maybe especially someone you admire. Like at the monastery, we have, as I mentioned, a whole, you know, cast of characters and but I've got certain monk brothers who I really look up to the way that they speak and like someone who's always honest um or is always very careful with his speech.

And if I've been a little bit loose with my speech, I might go up to him. He's someone who I uh admire and um then there might be someone else who's just very refined in their the way they move through the world like physically. So I might confess other things with them and that's here in Seattle. This has been a practice that a lot of um lay members or non-monastic community members of the clear mountain uh broader SA have taken on and they do they'll have peers not necessarily a spouse but somebody who they look up to and who they trust and it's like get together and maybe have uh go out for tea, go out for a meal and then do this and it doesn't have to be heavy.

Um it can be as light as you want and you really want it to be something which does feel sustainable, which doesn't feel like a a crunch. It's not something that um yeah, you're you're dreading every two weeks, but even something that you're looking forward to. I I want to improve in this realm of my life, and this is a buddy. This is a friend who I can kind of make that more explicit with and iterate with and reaffirming our values every regularly is really important.

They did a study where they had people report for their car insurance claim the amount of miles they'd driven in the past year. and they had half of the people sign their name saying I will report honestly at the top of the document and half at the bottom um after they'd written the number in and those who wrote their name as kind of a signature of truth at the top they reported uh a much uh higher amount of miles like they reported more honestly because they'd affirmed their identity as someone who told truth at the very beginning of that moment.

So this is why it's actually it might seem like we don't really need to reaffirm our values and kind of um goals and the way we want to live. But there's real power psychologically to this like every one or two weeks kind of saying this is how I want to live. This is how I want to steer my life. Um so that's that's much of what this is about is is saying what we're aiming at. I want to say something and see if you how it lands for you.

Um and feel free to disagree or correct me but in my understanding this word sila which is in the ancient language of pi which is the language in which the Buddhist teachings the Buddha's teaching was were written down it translates it as ethical conduct one translation it's such a freighted term in the west because we have lived through enormous amounts of hypocrisy uh from the paragonss of uh and the public faces of organized religion thundering from the pulpit about this or that and then doing the opposite in their private lives.

And also, you know, these these often male-dominated uh structures have set out uh ethical um guidelines that were designed to uh repress people or often specific groups of people. So, it's we don't, you know, we don't love uh I think we're conditioned not to love this whole idea of ethics and ethical conduct. But in a Buddhist context, to the extent that I understand it, it's not really about, especially for non- monks and non- nuns, it's not really about policing every aspect of your behavior because we want to control you.

It's about h helping you to be happier. There's this term, the bliss of blamelessness. the the idea that if you're living according to your values, you're you're living, you know, the the the corners of your psyche aren't dark, they're brightened through regular unbburdening unbburdening unbburdening um and uh and a real uh focus on uh keeping your ethics game as tight as possible. You're you're just going to be happier if you're not spending so much time keeping your lies straight or feeling guilty, etc., etc. Your meditation practice will be more focused.

It's um there's there are just many benefits that you could characterize and I use this term not in the pjorative as selfish, you know, self um gratifying. Um so I said a lot there, but how does all of that sound to the two of you? I think it's right on the mark. um that blamelessness of that bless bliss of being blameless is in poly anavacha suka the bliss of blamelessness and it gets to the core of well first there's a teacher who said the sign of virtue is peace of mind or concentration the nima of sila is samadei and why that seems relevant is when our virtues kind of really feels clean when we're living in line with our values at different strata of patterning of our being to action to deepest values.

Um there is a sense of the mind is able to calm down and it relates to the concept of sada or faith in Buddhism. Faith is a term that's not totally appropriate to the Buddhist concept because there's an epistemological humility in Buddhism where the Buddha is not saying you have to take this binary of faith and jump into this wholeheartedly and take on these commandments. The starting point of a Buddhist sadd uh kind of confidence or faith is taking on enough of these teachings with enough confidence to take them on as working hypotheses.

And because the practice can reveal the truth or not of them, you can really test them out at every level of of your path. And the same goes for virtue. Um the Buddha didn't give commandments. He gave uh things to be trained in. And um if then statements if you want to get a calm mind. You're probably going to have to stop lying. And you don't have to just believe that. Like that's one of the beautiful aspects of meditation practice is if you start sitting half an hour a day, you'll notice if you uh expressed anger, if you lied, if you kind of transgressed um this deepest values of your of your own how you want to live your life, you'll notice the mind does not settle and it just becomes a very clear vision of why virtue is key to uni unity of mind and happiness.

But it's not something that you have to take on faith. Um you can test it out dayto day. So I think that is a good uh rundown. Ajin, do you have anything to to add? to add? to add? Um yeah, just you were pointing to it a bit is that often times Buddhism gets a bad rap and that we're only talking about suffering or maybe if you've ever met a monk and they're, you know, repressed internally and you think that a whole monastic life is one of total suffering all the time.

Whereas and the Buddha did talk about suffering. It's the four noble truths. But he also talked about the conditionality of happiness. There's a framework which he uses again and again and again uh that we call the well-being cascade. And he gives this image of just as there's a a cloud a rain cloud that's filled with rain and then it rains down on the top of a mountain and then the pools at the top of the mountain collect and fill and they overflow into the pools below them.

those overflow and fill in the rivullets which then overflow into the uh the streams which go to the rivers which go out to the great ocean eventually. So too uh by practicing this is just one instance of it by keeping precepts these this sense of integrity of morality of of inner virtue it fills up the first pool is called pomoia or well-being and that fills up and it fills up the pool of pi or rapture or joy which fills up to bodily tranquility which leads to suka or happiness which then fills up and leads to samadei.

So a lot of people think once I get my samadei together, once I can meditate, then I'll be happy. Whereas in this framework of the well-being cascade, the Buddha is saying it's actually the other way around. Once I'm happy, then my concentration, my meditation can come together and sila can be that raincloud. So that's really cool. The best B2B marketing often gets wasted on the wrong people. I can't tell you how often I'm scrolling and I get served ads for stuff I have no interest in.

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Use happier to save today. Offer is valid for a limited time. Terms and conditions may apply. So just a few practical questions here about this confessional practice. Um, would you recommend we do this with a friend rather than our spouse? Huh? Huh? Huh? I guess you're the wrong guys to ask this given that you don't have spouses. I don't know on that one actually. Yeah, it depends on your spouse, depends on your friend. Uh, you really want to have someone who you can speak very openly to and about this kind of thing.

Like it's possible that we married our spouse uh for all sorts of other things. Whereas this uh aspect of our lives of revealing our things that we don't feel good about for whatever reason they're not into that whereas maybe a friend is or maybe vice versa. So I think it really depends. Do you have any thoughts? thoughts? thoughts? No. But just even if we have the main practice with a a cali what we call a beautiful spiritual friend and and that's a different sort of relationship than worldly friendships where that are predicated on how much you know pleasure you get from each other's company like a spiritual friend the the foundation of that relationship is supporting each other's values and deeper aspirations and it's meaningful to have it's a bit instead of like in time entwined strings it's like sympathetic resonance where you pluck a string and the others that are tuned the same all resonate at the same time.

It's gentler but but quite profound. So I think you definitely want a friend like that and as many as you can but even if your spouse isn't quite as interested in in these spiritual practices as you are. There's something very powerful about at least asking forgiveness from them for what you have done in the relationship at a regular basis which hasn't gone you know wasn't perfect and that is its own sort of confession um or opening but like in that's another thing monastics do is whenever we leave a monastery we'll always ask forgiveness because there's always something we've done that could have been a little more beautiful.

So, I'd say even if your spouse isn't your prime spiritual companion in in in this sense, there's still something about opening yourself on a regular basis because of the beauty of that act and the relationship. the relationship. the relationship. And so, again, I just want to make sure Oh, please. Oh, please. Oh, please. Well, I'm sorry. Did I I interrupted you? What were you saying? No, no, it's okay. Okay. Uh, I was just going to just make sure that I understand and and by extension that the listener understands that the way this goes is um you say to your your conversation partner, confession partner what you did and then the other person says, "Do you see?" see?" see?" I guess you could use it in in the I guess you could language it how you want, but something to the effect of, "Do you see?" The person who's confessing says, "Yeah, I do.

I see." Uh, and then the other person says, "So, you know, will you be restrained in the future?" And the other person says, "I'll try." Uh, and then at the end it's like, "High five. Good job, homie." Totally fist bump if you want. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you can use the same formula for gratitude afterwards or things you've done correctly. You know, I found I was able to navigate this. You know, I I gave at a time when I think 2 years ago I wouldn't have even thought to give.

Do you see? I see. You know, will you encourage that sort of behavior in the future? Will you will you rejoice in that? I will and high five after if you want. Okay. So, the next practice that you're recommending, I don't think this one requires the other person to be fully bought in. This I I believe what we're about to talk about, which is how to give feedback. Um, only one person could be following your advice here. the other person doesn't have to be, you know, participating in the in the exercise so robustly.

Am I am I am I right about that before we dive in? Yeah, definitely. Um Okay. Okay. Okay. Yep. Yep. Yep. So, the Buddha himself actually gave instructions on how to give feedback. He did. Yeah. And he pointed out the drawbacks of not giving feedback uh very well. Like if you are someone who just jumps in at the wrong time and you are angry yourself and you're actually you do the same thing that you're trying to call somebody else out on. If you do any of these then the other person just isn't going to listen to you.

So it's not for any kind of esoteric or mystical reason that the Buddha gave these principles to consider when giving feedback. It's just very practical. people won't listen to you or even if they do listen to you because you've got some kind of power or authority over them, they're going to resent you for it. So these principles are really helpful for allaying that. And some of them are to just examine oneself um before giving feedback. Okay, what is my uh what is my mind state? And then to try to so first to look okay what is my mind state?

Why am I wanting to give this feedback? Is it out of hatred? Is it out of envy? or is it because I want them to improve? It's because I care about them. And then if it's for any of those less than beautiful reasons like I'm just angry at them or I'm in a bad mood or I'm hangry or whatever it is. Um just trying to establish the heart and you know kind of even prompting oneself okay I I would like to if I if I am going to mention this to the person then I want to establish a heart of love and kindness of of friendliness.

I want the best for this person. Uh and then looking for the right time. So time and place is important. If you get that wrong, they're not going to be able to hear you and um it can go wrong in all sorts of ways. So those are a few principles looking at your own conduct. Am I actually doing or refraining from doing the thing that I want the other person to not do? Um so am I pure in this action of body or speech? Because if you're not then they'll see the hypocrisy in that and only follow with resentment.

So are there other there's quite a few lists actually that the Buddha loves lists. A lot of lists Dan and one of them no hangry feedback. That's good. Um one of the uh I mean the ones pointed to um especially noticing what your intention is I think are just so key. And usually we single out um three or four or five of these to really check. And I honestly so much of our karma um of the damage and the good we do in the modern era is all through speech.

And I really feel like if people took on these this principle of giving admonishment or feedback, it it would be an a pretty holistic spiritual path in and of itself. Um so some of the key points are like Ajin Kova said um not giving uh only giving speaking from a mind of loving kindness. So if there's any other intention even kind of a splinter of annoyance just you you don't give feedback from that spot. Um and you know because people you can just say oh it's just a little bit of annoyance but people can sense that sliver of contempt or exasperation.

It changes everything. And often all you have to do is wait 15 minutes or an hour. Although I do know one monk who had to wait a whole year before he could fulfill that one. Um so but so um uh speaking from a mind of loving kindness right time like Ajin said uh speaking truthfully speaking to the matter at hand and this is a big one is asking and receiving permission. permission. permission. So I I really like to single those two out. um be speaking from a mind of loving kindness and asking and receiving permission.

And I feel like honestly if people took on this principle around giving feedback in their relationships, that firewall, um it just gives you so much to work with because often 15 minutes later, 20 minutes later, things are so different. Um, I think they did studies on married couples in the midst of arguments and they'd be filming it and then sometimes they'd uh tell the married couple that the cameras had broken and they had to take a 15-minute break and then after they reconvene 15 minutes later, like the argument was easily resolved because the adrenaline had dropped, all this, you know, all the activation had gone away.

And so, I think these principles are actually really quite quite important for people's relationships. people's relationships. people's relationships. One one good way to remember some of those, it's a slightly different list, but the acronym or memory aid is the Buddha didn't give this, but uh it's a modern memory aid foroism that the Buddha did put out. Yeah. Is bagel. So before you open your mouth, you think bagel. And so B is this going to be beneficial for the other person? A is this accurate? G am I speaking gently?

E as in expedient, and by that I mean timely. Is this the right time? And am I saying it uh in a timely way? And then L is with a mind of loving kindness. So you want to before you open your mouth, just check the bagel. And yeah, and if it's all bagel, then it's all good. And what is the other option, Han? If it's not a bagel. Yeah, this one isn't as good, but the other option is donut, which is basically all the opposites of those.

So it's a if um yeah it's not beneficial but for a delletterious reason if it's uh yeah obviously untrue if it's you're speaking from a noxious mind versus a loving mind if it's untimely and from a treacherous space. So donut acronym not so good but uh bagel bagel bagel I love everything you're saying. I would just add one other thing that I learned from the the communication coaches that I I've been work Joseph Goldstein who I'm sure you've heard of. I think he's been on your show has um these friends uh that he introduced me to many years ago um Dan Clerman and Muda Nisker and they teach they're Buddhist practitioners and they teach communication skills.

And one of the things that they've taught me to do that I found very helpful is once I've established established established my wholesome intentions for giving somebody feedback, I also repeat those intentions to the recipient of the feedback. Hey, I'm telling you this because this relationship matters to me or you're a star and I think you can do you can flourish even more. This is why I'm telling you and then then you say it. say it. say it. That's that's beautiful. And you know it what Ajin Kov was pointing to about the preciousness of feedback.

The what the Buddha called the uh brahadandanda the the sort of ultimate punishment was telling the community to not speak to another monk because they' just gone off the rails and hadn't been open to feedback. And so just and he spoke a lot about how you know if someone points out your flaws um it's a treasure. It's like they're pointing out treasure to you. And I think we've all seen like that humility of someone who can receive feedback well. And people often ask like how do we model spiritual practice to our children?

You know, how do you kind of teach them to be whatever? Um I think one of the most powerful things a parent can do is have the humility to apologize to their child when they do something wrong. And like it's such a powerful act of receiving feedback, feedback, feedback, you know, for what you're accountable for. kind of, you know, acknowledging that and uh yeah, so I I really appreciate appreciate this practice a lot. lot. lot. So So you've brought me exactly where I wanted to go, which is uh the next uh item in in this outline that I'm looking at that you and Marissa put together, which is how to receive feedback, which I think is I think harder than even harder than giving feedback.

Um how do you deal with criticism? Because often it's not delivered skillfully. Um so um the Buddha apparently had a lot to say about how to be open to feedback. Uh what what was it? What did he say? He's got a lot to say and uh the whole thing centers around one particular virtue which is highlighted in by the Buddha um in Pali. It's called suva which literally means being easy to speak to. Sometimes is translated as being easy to admonish or easy to give feedback to.

And it's kind of a shame there isn't a better English word for that because it's so important as Ajan Nispo said if you're really taking to heart that um feedback from another person can be like someone pointing out hidden treasure uh then you want to be able to receive that well there's a discourse of the Buddha called on inference uh in the middle length discourses number 15 which has got this whole long list of ways to make oneself easy to speak do. And the Buddha says someone might think, "Oh, I want to be easy to speak to um and to make myself easy to speak to, but they might do the things which make themselves hard to speak to." Like you're getting feedback and you counterprove the reproverness or you respond with entrenchedness or you totally change the topic or you get angry or you speak words bordering on anger.

Which is fascinating. uh that even if you were to write out the things that I'm saying, it would seem totally innocuous, but I'm speaking with such venom that uh their words bordering on anger. So the Buddha gives it in its amazing list of about 16 or 20 of these ways to poorly receive feedback and that one does the opposite actually train I won't rather than responding with obstinency or to change the subject or responding with anger to speak words bordering on anger or to counter reprove the reprover I'm actually going to value this quality of of being suva easy to speak to and he gives a beautiful simile which is uh actually practical You know, often times the Buddha would give simileies not just because they're uh interesting, but because when you bring them to mind, it can change the heart.

So he gives just as a young man, a young woman, a young person fond of a dormant might look in a mirror and if there was a smudge on their face or some dirt, they would wipe it off. You being conscious of their their own beauty. Uh so too someone who cares about their character development, cares about being a a good person, cares about being a mch, you know, they'll see these smudges, these things of responding to feedback with obstinency or um aversion. That's a taint.

That's a uh it's non beauty. It's a smudge on the face of someone who's really wanting to receive feedback. Well, so it's really fantastic, beautiful list that I I really appreciate and that virtue in general is one which um it's hard as you as you note Dan, it's uh it's it's hard and why the list is fascinating cuz although the Buddha was gave it 2600 years ago, I see myself almost, you know, check check, okay, I'm being, you know, bad to give feedback to in this way, this way, this way.

Um but leaning in a different direction cuz I want I want to be easy to speak to. So you already know what they do. I'd say I just So let's get super practical. I mean you've given some uh some overarching themes from the Buddha. What What What what can we actually do in our minds, in our mouths, in our bodies in order to um be easy to speak to in this regard? Yeah, I appreciate how you continually kind of bring things down to what we can actually act out, you know, after speaking to this or listening.

So, in our bodies, um, the motion of analy might seem foreign, but it is really hard to be stubborn and recal recalcitrant when you're holding your hands like this. And if it's a very Yeah. Prayer hands. Exactly. The emoji prayer hand. And uh, it's just it it's a very powerful symbol. And it might be strange in some contexts, but if there's um it's also a very powerful one and it opens up the heart in a way and it it kind of makes you for a time take a certain receptive stance uh internally as well as externally.

Uh in terms of mouth, I would say not, you know, really taking seriously those principles of admonishment admonishment admonishment in terms of counter admonishment. So if you're not able to speak from a place of non-illwill, if you're speaking from reactivity, just not speaking from that and you can kind of respond to the feedback after that initial impulse towards defensiveness has faded away and you've really gotten a chance to sit with it. And so I think there's something very powerful about that, about just saying to someone who's giving you feedback, thank you for what you said.

I don't know if I can agree with all of it, but I'm gonna take this and think about it for about 15 minutes and I'll get right back to you. And that that motion is very meaningful and you won't lose anything through 15 minutes probably. Um, the other thing you can do with the mouth is uh use Marshall Rosenberg's non-violent communication framework. We use this a ton and it's just this might be harder to remember. Another it's not really an acronym. Well, it is, but uh it's not a fun one like donut.

But stating your observation, I noticed you were, you know, you seemed angry in this way. Feeling uh it just made me feel worried, afraid. Um need I need to feel safe with when I'm with you. I need to feel like I can speak to these things. Request tell me how that lands. What's coming up for you? We use this framework consistently. Observation, feeling, need, request. And it's just an extremely powerful kind of way to receive and give communication even on very difficult subjects because often one person will be operating on the level of observation and another person's completely in the level of feeling and if those two are misaligned you're having two very different conversations that are orthogonal and do not intersect.

Um so that's very useful. And then in terms of mind, I would just say, you know, noticing your breathing. Um, this is where meditation and a meditative practice comes into a lot of is meaningful. Notice your breathing. Slow it down. Come into your feet if you feel that kind of tensing up of anger. And then just spread loving kindness. And true meta practice, loving kindness, requires a certain agility because the temptation is to spread it towards the person you're angry at. ways. Often it's a much more humble and human motion of spreading it to yourself and just feeling how much it hurts to be angry.

Like it really hurts. And so like often a hand over the heart can help that. So if you're receiving feedback and just feeling a lot of pain vibration, you want to lash out, whatever it is, just bringing a gentle glow of loving kindness directed at oneself and letting that kind of hold you through the period where you're just vibrating like a wound. And then once the vibration has died down then you can actually you know decide what to do from there whether it be to respond or you know accept or apologize or whatever it is.

So please one tiny um tiny list the Buddha gave when you're on the receiving end of feedback is just two things. Keep two things in mind. One of them is truth and really is this true? Is this really true? That's the first one. And then the second one is not being provoked. So, okay, I'm on the receiving end. I didn't ask for this. Maybe they didn't get the right time. And regardless of all of that, maybe they spoke with the mind of inner hate and it was the wrong time and it's unbeneficial and it's even untrue.

But still, I'm not going to be provoked. So, those two things, is this true? And I'm not going to be provoked. He also said if you're being sawed limb by limb by a band of bandits, you should not give rise to even one thought of ill will. So speaking of not being provoked. Yeah. If if one does, then they're not practicing the Buddhist teachings. So high bar. High bar. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If your spouse is not you limp by limb, limb from limb. You're doing all right.

So, So, So, but I mean you say high bar and your your your voice is light and and you know you're laughing about it but like that's a ridiculously high bar like um so you know how do we think about that? A huge part of the path is noticing how to put forth right effort. And if you notice that you aren't able to achieve that absurd, you know, amazingly high bar. Um, obviously the right motion of the heart is not self-inccrimination. Oh, like look, it I'm supposed to be a practitioner and here this anger's coming up.

Like that's more aversion and just acknowledging we have our conditioning, our patterns, and we're working with them as best we can. Um, but I think the Buddha sometimes gave those simileies just for a clarity of, you know, there's so many ways we justify our anger. Oh, well, I deserve to be a little angry. I mean, how could that person do that? And I think this is the Buddhist way of just cutting all that off. And there's a real compassion to that action of of just being like there's so many times where I feel like my anger or annoyance was at least slightly justified and I'll just be proliferating around it.

And I realize it's because I'm trying to justify intellectually something that my heart knows was actually not not beautiful in the way I want to be. And there's such a humility to just being like, you know, I wasn't actually perfect there. And I can acknowledge that. And for me, the Buddhist simile is just a way of kind of cutting off that um unh wholesome negotiating of like anger is never useful and it's never part of this this path if in in terms of expressing it. It can be a messenger, but it's not something you want to lay on another person.

Basically, person. Basically, person. Basically, in in that same discourse where the Buddha is talking about this simile of the saw, and the name of the discourse is the simile of the saw, he actually gives uh three or four other really striking simileies which might be more approachable. He says if someone is coming at you with feedback again whether it's good or bad or true or false or they're angry or whatever it is still you can prepare the heart to be like um the great earth just as if someone would come along with a shovel and start thinking okay I'm going to totally dig up the whole earth.

Uh there's no way they could do that because the earth is huge. So too you should make your mind abundant like the great earth. Just as someone might come with a torch and think I'm going to burn down the Ganges River. So too you can make your heart as cool and broad and vast and flowing as the Ganges River. Or someone might come up with a paintbrush and think I'm going to paint in the sky. And so too you can make your heart as open and spacious as the sky.

Uh because the sky just doesn't receive paint. it doesn't receive uh all these marks. It's it's signless. So some other beautiful simileies of that kind of extreme one that's the one the Buddha ends with the simile of being solid limb from limb. But these other ones are also Yeah. And you can feel that you can kind of ground into yourself when you're on the receiving end of things like the earth or like water, like space. So that's very helpful. I feel a little better. Um, Um, Um, okay.

Just to reset, we've been talking about there were kind of three areas of, again, I'm using this term respectfully. I I I hope you receive it as such of monk hacks that we we're going to cover in this episode. I don't know if we'll get to the all three areas uh that you and Marissa talked about. But the the first big area we've just spent a huge chunk of time talking about skillful relationship. We've talked about confession. We've talked about how to give feedback and how to receive feedback.

The second area uh that you that you folks want that you two wanted to talk about is how to handle the dumpster fire of modern life. How to How to How to navigate skillfully in troubled times. And And And once again, you have a bunch of really practical thoughts based in the Buddha's teaching. So, I I'll shut up and and let you hold forth. Well, do feel free to, you know, chime in as well, Dan. You have navigated um the the fire, whether it be a a dumpster fire or a beautiful, you know, fire around wood, whatever it is, for many years.

Um so, I'm sure you have wisdom to contribute as well. One, this just seems like a very, it's on people's hearts right now. um you know whether it be the difficulties in navigating the current cultural landscape or political landscape or news landscape or just the intimacy of relationship that's difficult but to speak to that wider context of um that landscape one useful thing to know is the Buddha would sometimes divide the noble eight-fold path into three aspects or ways of approaching it one is uh sila so I like to think of this as things we can do by body what we can change in our life externally.

Um the next is samadei so concentration how we can cultivate wholesome emotional states to counteract the negative. And the third is pa or wisdom. And that's how we can with clear seeing step into a place of greater equipoise and love. And so just to lay three that three-fold approach on the current landscape. Um for example with news um Hegel said that evil lies in the gaze that sees evil all around it and what we you know there's a there's a great deal wrong uh with the world um and there's a great deal right with the world and with the cila aspect what we can change externally I think there's very practical steps people can take about really checking how often do they need to check the news um can you wait to check the news until after your morning practice session of meditate And can you put down the phone after 6 p.m.

at night? Can you take just one day a week to not look at news? Like these are very small steps, but important resets and just it's astonishing how easily people forget the bright garden their hands work in for the faint whisper of a serpent. And that serpent is real. People need to take action. But how many times they need to step uh to look at their iPhone every day to know things they can do is another is is something that they really I think we need to take a careful look at because as practitioners we really have a duty to keep our minds bright and loving.

We do no one any favors by being miserable um and depressed about the state of the world with uh samadei. Um, so cultivating wholesome emotional states, I just say really emphasizing loving kindness. And if someone only has a chance for 10 minutes of practice or meditation every day, I think spending them on loving kindness would be a good start. So at the very beginning of the day, right when you wake up, you'll notice the mind trying to crystallize around something. It'll usually crystallize around an argument or an obsession or a plan or desire.

And so at the very beginning of the day, really being very guarded and making sure to crystallize the mind around loving kindness. So just right when you wake up, bring the attention to the heart, get a glow of loving kindness going. And for the first 15 minutes of the day, instead of like arguing with this imaginary person in the shower, you know, keep in mind a loving kindness uh mantra. May they be well, may they be happy, may they be filled with loving kindness, whatever it is.

And that will pay dividends the rest of the day because you're orienting your trajectory along Meta. And the third is with wisdom pa pa pa just you know we call up equipoise a bird's eye view and a Joseph Goldstein says it's looking at the wild the what is it the wild affairs of earth through the lens of Venus and Venus is the goddess of love but like but like but like just I think actually I heard that on your podcast Dan. Um, but I think there's something about just noticing a wider view of like things are difficult right now and they were difficult in the Buddhist time.

There was child mortality of 50%, there was famine and war. Um, the world is difficult and it has been before and still the saints and beautiful beings of the past navigated with equinimity and care and that's what we can bring to this moment as well. And I think that wider context is significant in letting the mind constrict less around the moment. So, what would you bring up to this? Um, just one thing on the on the level of uh that's a beautiful way to break things down.

Um, but just on the level of things we can do with the body, uh, this level of virtue or integrity. Uh, something else to be paying attention to is generosity. Yeah. in response to all the poverty and all of the yeah the the trouble that you see around us especially with um yeah input from all over the world. We're seeing images of the carnage and the um poverty from everywhere in the world. And part of why it feels so overwhelming is because it is overwhelming and there's nothing that we can seemingly do about it um about so much of these things.

Um but one really useful practice um is what we call Sarinia practice. Sarinia is a poly word. It means either to be remembered or that which is endearing. M um so it's a practice specifically of giving before consuming. Giving before consuming so first encountered this in a monastery in Sri Lanka where as happens monks we go down there's a food line often pretty much every day after we go for alms we give up all of our food to the communal uh table and then we go through and then take food from the different dishes.

Um and then at this particular monastery after one has gotten the food all of our food in one bowl. We eat our one meal a day in one bowl still these monks there would take food before they ate out of their bowl and then put it into you know at least one other monk friend's bowl before they eat before they ate. And the Buddha said, this is based on a saying by the Buddha where he said, "If beings knew, as I know, the power of giving and sharing, they wouldn't eat without first having given." And so on Janispo's birthday was last Wednesday, and his parents, who as you noted were Buddhist, they asked, "What can we get you?" And he said, "That's a very nice offer to make, but something I would like more than anything material." cuz honestly it is hard to get a gift for a monk a monk.

But he said, "What can we get you an answer on this?" I said, "Rather than anything material um actually if you could take on this Sarnia practice for any period of time is figure out some way to instantiate your desire to give uh every day whether that's uh you know composting a bit of food before you eat or feeding the dog before you eat or taking you know um say like power bars or protein bars. carry around like 10 of them every day and you know uh aspire to give one away before you eat or something like that.

Just some way to instantiate your your generosity and to to make it real and to aspire to do that every day or once a week. Um I'm going to go to a soup kitchen every every week. And so his parents took that on and we actually introduced it to our whole community. So now people are making these Sarinia aspirations to okay from now until New Year's every week I will go to the women's shelter and make a meal or every day I will uh serve my child before I eat or something like that.

And it's a really creative and beautiful and real hands-on way to practice generosity, beautifification of of body bodily acts. I drink often will drop like little nuts into my bowl right before he eats. He does this all the time. That's cuz I'm stingy. Could have given more joy. None of the desserts. Um but I mean one Ajin Kovilo, you know, is kindly pointing out this uh this moment around the birthday, but it's it's an astounding practice. Um what happens to the heart when you start to give like that?

I've seen teachers who I'd find them after the meal like really possibly enlightened monastics who after the meal I'd find them out back of the meditation hall feeding little bits of bread from their bowl to the line of ants. Like this aspect of giving is just so deeply instantiated. And um we have one community member who whenever he would see someone on the street and give them food and um you know we have people who you can buy McDonald's gift certificates and other things to give away if you want or protein bars whatever it is to carry around with you.

But he'd have three things he did when he gave something is he'd lower himself to their physical level on the street. So crouch down or whatever it is. he'd learned their name and he touched their hand and like that aspect of making sure there's connection along with a gift like what would it really mean in a life to to actually it would be transformative to really take that on day after day and yeah I I mean often in the west we conceive of this practice as just meditating and kind of achieving these deep states of wisdom but just the act of giving and relinquishing self in that way is the most maybe one of the most powerful acts I've ever seen in people.

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you it feels like you're doing your little piece to heal the world even if you know it's not going to solve climate change or and um polarization or whatever it's it it's meaningful nonetheless and so just to just to put the list together again just to recapitulate it for people uh who heard all of that and want just a brief summary that the again uh uh what the Ajans are recommending here is a combination of cila or virtue samati or concentration or meditation and pa/wisdom. pa/wisdom.

pa/wisdom. So under virtue, it's like can you renounce your your phone uh a little bit like as my friend Sabin Salassi says no news before noon. Um and also under virtue um you know maybe getting having some sort of generosity practice that makes you feel a little bit better about the state of the world under concentration or meditation. Can you start the day with meditation or right when you wake up generating a sense of warmth, love and kindness for someone or for everyone? Um and then finally under wisdom you can you develop some equinimity.

equinimity. equinimity. Can you develop a bird's eyee view on the on the noise and machinations and um uh frequent developments and uh uh cruelty of the world by maybe as Joseph recommends viewing it through the lens of Venus, you know, like in that way it it just sort of takes on just you you see it in a different light. So, how's that for a summary? It it's good and I think you know it circles around this one misconception in the west I think we often have that's to honor the suffering we see around the world we need to be suffering ourselves and it's really important it's really that's a useless narrative in some extent cuz or at least it's not a helpful one all the time um karina compassion in a Buddhist sense that one of the brahmathihara these boundless states of heart is a bright luminous And doasa is the poly word for depressed mind.

And that's never wholesome. And you know, if you go to the doctor or the nurse or or whatever, you want your doctor or or nurse to be happy. You don't want them to be like, "Oh man, this is uh this looks really bad. I'm just going to, you know, give me 5 minutes to sort of collect myself before I even talk to you." Like you want if we're intent on helping the world and bringing brightness to it, we can keep our minds in a bright space even as we interact with the world and that's one of the best gifts we can give it.

So yeah, all these practices they are about keeping the mind in a bright spot while doing something good in the world. But we have to dispel that insidious narrative that lies beneath the surface often of people's interaction with these these situations that they need to be depressed and suffering to honor the depression and suffering they see. The way you honor those things is by bringing brightness and healing to them. And you can have a bright heart to do that. You need to have a bright heart to do that.

the the quote that comes up not infrequently on the show. I think it's Joseph Campbell that talked about engaging joyfully in the sorrows of the world. world. world. And you know, I I just think about that a lot and I love what you just said. Okay, so we've got a limited amount of time left. Let's see if we can hit the third area that you and Marissa were hoping we would get to, which is this concept that came up earlier of faith, which is another loaded term in the in the west, but in in the dharma has a has a a different connotation.

Um, so what what is faith and how do we devel why should we develop it and how should we develop it? Yeah, it's a great question and uh we were in our own minds conceiving of this conversation something like faith for fidgety skeptics. Um and u I appreciate the shout out. great great book title and uh I have I think I've tried to arrange to get that book for several family members and uh I don't know how successful they've been at at implementing the practices but um yeah in terms of faith I mean it's good to note that the the poly word again going back to the pi literally means sud means heart and ta means uh to place or to hold so it's really a holding or placing of the heart and we just all have to acknowledge you know As Bob Dylan's famous song says, you got to serve somebody.

It may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you got to serve somebody. And you know, whether we recognize it or not or are conscious of it or not, we are operating from different presuppositions and what the Buddha's we can't know. Um so different possibilities are that the universe is just totally by chance or the universe is totally determined or the universe is totally um taken by fate or by some kind of divine beings will those are all possible but the state of the world that the Buddha said and this is really the foundation of Buddhist sadha or Buddhist faith very very simple is that it is possible to abandon unh wholesome mind states That's a direct quote and that it is possible to cultivate wholesome mind states that's itself its own discourse in the in the Buddhist teaching and that's the foundation and you can believe that or not and we are operating from that perception like if you're actively cultivating any positive habit or giving up any negative habit you're operating from that underlying presupposition that it is possible to give up smoking or drinking or to take on that exercise habit.

uh whatever it is that's a Buddhist right view that is faith and why it's important to actually make that conscious and we do we do a lot of bowing so this is a way that we instantiate that faith every morning first thing we do as soon as we wake up we bow three times to the Buddha to the dhamma to the sa um and before we go to bed we bow three more times and before we eat we bow three more times and after we eat we bow three more times so much bowing we bow a lot we bow a It's a good hamstring stretch.

This is true. Yeah. Buddhist burpees like the uh Tibet prostrations. Tibet prostrations. Tibet prostrations. Um good good exercise. And uh it's meaningful. You know, we're not as western convert Buddhists. We're not bowing to some deity because someone else is making us do it. It's because we've examined this this principle of the Buddha as awakening. This principle is dharma as the truth, the way things are. the sa as the principle of love and um these all have other meanings then which we might go into but those are things which I want to bow to every morning and I don't want to operate from some other um underlying you know thought mechanism pre-thought mechanism that it's not possible this is actually the mechanics behind a depressive mind state is that it's not possible to abandon unh wholesome mind states it's not possible to cultivate mind states So why even try?

It seems like I'm just trapped in that. And if you Yeah, it's very easy to fall in that. If the brain's chemistry tweaks in that direction, uh you can really fall into a really dark place very quickly. But if you've been actively nurturing this, placing the heart in this principle, it is possible. Even though my heart feels very dark, it is possible to abandon this darkness, for me to go out and speak with a friend or to exercise a little bit or to meditate for a little bit.

So that yeah, it's nothing super doesn't it's not at all mystical thing. It's just recognizing that we're all placing the heart on something and just being more conscious of how we do that and what we're placing it upon. it upon. it upon. It's interesting as I read uh Marissa's outline and she's talking about the case. She's talking about the fact that you're going to want to talk about the case for bowing practice and then it says Dan will definitely push back. Um I actually don't feel the need to push back.

back. back. Um I've done many many long uh or long for me 10 10day um silent meditation retreats and I do bow to the Buddha. At first, I was really skeptical about this, but you know, 15, 16 years ago, but now I see it the way you're describing it, which is just a physical tribute tribute to what I believe in and find uncontroversial, which is that through uh the Buddha as an the you said it before, the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sana, the Buddha is just the the an avatar of the potential potential for training the mind.

The dharma is his vast body of teachings for doing that for training the mind and the sana is other people who are interested in doing the same thing. Um so bowing to the Buddha in that way I don't know it it feels good. It's just kind of a it's a great embodied reminder of the north star for my life. I I think I mean it's it's a fascinating subject here and it's beautiful to know that you appreciate that practice Dan. um you know in that faith I think we don't support blind faith and there's a suta called the chanki suta majamakaya 95 where a brahman asks the Buddha how do you protect truth and the Buddha says if you have faith in something you say I have faith in this but you don't yet come to the conclusion only this is true everything else is false if you believe in something because of logical reasoning you say I believe in this because of logical reasoning but you don't get come to the conclusion clusion only this is true everything else is false etc and just this humility.

Um but then he says you know eventually you do realize a final arrival truth is just awakening cuz that sessation of greed hate and delusion is something we can know for ourselves and until then it's a much gentler faith. It's not this intense binary at the heart or the foundation of the whole thing. It's a working hypothesis. Can we step into this practice and see if it works? And you know it's nice to present it to people because it's a very easy on-ramp but as you've noticed like something does happen over time where you know you keep practicing and you know the Buddha gave us a map and he you you read there's trees there and you look and there's trees there and there's a river there and you look and there's a river there and after 10 or 15 years you just begin to get the sense this is a really good map and maybe you see some things on the map that you can't yet believe like there's these mountains and you've never seen mountains.

This is Ajin Jayasaro simile. But you know, do you immediately dismiss the fact that there's no mountains or is there some kind of humility there of like you know this map has been right about so many things. Maybe that is also true. Um or you know maybe I don't have to dismiss this out of hand. Um and then the final thing I'd say is like we like to translate sadai as confidence um because it's an easy kind of on-ramp. It's a very kind of a secular word but there are is a union substrate to the human psyche which speaks in the language of embodiment of story of ritual and that's where like you see some practitioners only enter on the level of uh the logical side of dharma and never get to the point where they can bow and it's like thin ice over roing waters because that deeper strata of the psyche has not been settled and crystallized and consolidated and these are technologies like it's just a statue.

But when you speak to it in embodiment, if you speak to it in ritual, in mythology, in archetype, something profound shifts at a subverbal level. And that is very distinct. And I think that is what is lacking in a lot of secular dharma circles in the US right now is like we need some way of remembering that deeper strata of being that is touched by beauty. And I'd say that that's a hard that's a growth point. How do we touch beauty and these deeper strata without asking of people more than they are interested in giving in terms of of faith or a leap?

You know, it's it's an interesting moment we're at. So yeah, no, I appreciate that and I think this is uh really important. And you know a bowing practice can be hugely transformational for someone. And you definitely don't have to be Buddhist. You know it makes sense that Christian certainly in the Catholic fake there is the genulection. In Islamic faith there's the call to prayer and the bowing you know five times a day and certainly in every Buddhist country but it's kind of you know sad. you know, I come from a a secular family, humanist family, unitarian family, and you know, sometimes it could be confusing if you don't have, as you said, this embodied reminder of your your north star, uh, or you're afraid that you're being manipulated by, you know, some kind of monastic body or you're being influenced by some, you know, it could be a cult like thing, but just having that daily reminder.

We had a a good conversation with um Sam Harris recently and uh we titled it the end of faith colon Buddhism realized Buddhism realized Buddhism realized and this is kind of a a reminder of this suta where the Buddha asked his foremost disciple in wisdom named Sar Puta he says oh do you believe this particular teaching and do you have faith in this particular teaching and saruta foremost in wisdom says no I I don't have faith I've seen it for myself. He's realized it from oneself.

And so, yeah, that's what we're inclining towards is an an end of faith, a realization of faith. In other words, like the Buddha does want us to see these things clearly. But this this act and again you know bowing to your north star uh and really being clear about that uh starting your day off with it. First thing you wake up you know we sleep all the huts we live in we have a Buddha shrine or something which is a symbol for what we care about most.

First thing we wake up, bow, bow, bow. And it's a great way to start the day. Just a good reminder and would love it if people could, you know, just spend 2 minutes, 3 minutes, uh, thinking about what's most important and is it worth bowing to. We're not asking you to, you know, if you don't like Buddhism or it seems too, you know, religious to you, bow to something. that is something that's more than just your your ego or your um yeah the baser things that can can take over if we're not more conscious about something higher.

I think you make a really strong case. Um, Ajan Kovilo, Ajan Nisso, this has been a fantastic conversation. Before I let you go, can you just, this is a funny thing to ask a pair of monks to do, but can you please plug your podcast and also um your um monastic community so that if people want to spend more time with you uh virtually or otherwise uh they can do so. so. so. Thank you, Dan. Um yeah, our monastery project aspiration is called Clear Mountain Monastery Project or Clear Mountain Monastery.

Clear Mountain Monastery.org. And we're on YouTube at that uh Clay Mountain Monastery Project as well. We have a lot of lovely teachings and teachers on. We did just um interview Joseph Goldstein as well. Um and yeah, it's uh we're in Seattle. If people are nearby, we hope you stop in. Otherwise, we just have a lot of online chances to to tap in and practice together. So, together. So, together. So, yeah, thank you, Dan. Yeah, this has been fantastic. Thank you both. Really appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah.

Thank you, Dan. It's been enjoyable, fun. It's been It's been nice. nice. nice. Dan, we we also asked um we asked Sam Harris if we got another person to convert to Buddhism and ordain, if he would ordain with us temporarily. If we got Sam Harris to ordain with us temporarily, would you ordain with us temporarily, Dan? temporarily, Dan? temporarily, Dan? Oh, a million%. Shave my head, wear robes with my homie Sam Harris. Yes. All right, we're riding him up. Dan, it's been it's been great to thank you so much for what you do making these teachings accessible to so many who need them right now.

We appreciate it a lot. Right back at you. Thank you for your work. your uh your uh I I your level of commitment surpasses mine clearly. So um I'm impressed and grateful.