The Buddhist Principle That Freed Me From Anxiety | Vinny Ferraro

Key Takeaway

Vinnie Ferraro shares profound tools for daily practice: alignment (choosing wise mind states), noting (creating distance from thoughts), and redirecting awareness (meeting difficult experiences). His core insight: each moment offers liberation when we stop postponing presence. As he says, 'I discovered a deep satisfaction in not actively seeking satisfaction.' The practice isn't about becoming a better meditator—it's about tending to this moment with compassion, recognizing that our basic goodness remains untarnishable despite our conditioning.

Episode Overview

Vinnie Ferraro, a dharma teacher who has worked in prisons since 1987, discusses practical meditation techniques for staying grounded. The conversation explores alignment (choosing which mental states to cultivate), the Brahma Viharas (loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, equanimity), noting practice, and redirecting awareness. Ferraro emphasizes that basic goodness is incorruptible, practice must be daily to stay connected to awareness deeper than thought, and that each moment contains the possibility of liberation. He shares personal stories about working with anxiety, his prison teaching, and learning to meet difficult experiences with compassion rather than self-judgment.

Full Transcript

Transcript of The Buddhist Principle That Freed Me From Anxiety | Vinny Ferraro from 10% Happier. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

because I'm not even supposed to be alive. There's nothing in my history that would lead you to believe that I would be alive at this age. I was really bred to take on that suffering, to make it my fault, to make it my problem, to figure out if you can't figure it out, then you failed. I know the subtle violence of self-improvement, right? I know about trying to hate myself into becoming a better person. Didn't really work. Vinnie Ferraro, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Death.

It's a pleasure. In preparation for this interview, um, my colleague, the mighty DJ Cashmere, who's a student of yours, um, uh, and who is has been arguing for a while that we should have you on the show. Um DJ got in touch with you and and asked a really smart question which is you know sort of what what are the tools and techniques that you as a dharma teacher are using in your life these days to keep it together and um he then DJ passed along a list of these tools and I thought I would just kind of march through them.

Um does that sound like a good agenda to you? Let's do it. All right. So the first is alignment. What what is alignment? Yeah. So when we start sitting we see how much is going on inside us right there's just so much to choose from right so many parts of our experience right there's our conditioning there's the thoughts there's hopes there's fears there the characteristics the defilements right everything is like one moment away and so we get to choose well what do I actually want to give life to what do I want to actually follow right if if the two components of mindfulness are seeing clearly and responding wisely, right?

So, am I seeing clearly all these different parts of me that are up for grabs in this moment? Then I say, okay, if I walk in this direction, where will that lead me? Right? Is this wise? Is this kind? Is it generous? Right? So, it can have all of these different flavors. So, are we aligning with that which is wise within us? That's that's the short answer. I want to encourage you to give long answers here. Um, this is a podcast, so you can you don't have to edit yourself, but I'm going to prod you here because I think this is fascinating.

We all have just tons of stuff going on internally. If you just turn the laser beam of your attention inward, you will see uh you'll see just you probably won't like what you see. Um there's just a lot of chaos and random thoughts and thoughts and thoughts and um and um homicidal urges and whatever or desires. There's just lots of stuff in there and and there's beautiful stuff in there too of course and you're saying you Vinnie are saying um I try to check in regularly and figure out of this this whole menu of mind states which one do I want to go with?

Am I restating you with some degree of accuracy? That's exactly right. Yeah. I mean we get to decide with some mindfulness with some practice we can decide what we align ourselves with right in the beginning in my life I was just um I received the thoughts as uh commandments right they had the power to animate me right my thoughts were my reality and they caused immense suffering right so then we get to decide with some practice like oh well what part of my personality is operating right now you throwing out these marching waters.

I don't know if you've ever seen the X-Men movies, you know those ones, of course. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So, you remember Magneto? Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Magneto. So, he has the uh power to completely control metal. So, he can walk off a roof and as he does, every one of his steps are supported, right? This is a perfect illustration of my understanding of the dharma, right? how each moment is conditioned by the next. And so, you know, if I walk in the direction of the shadow worlds, they open up before me, right?

And when I'm able to take refuge in maybe like more wholesome or more like the boundless qualities of uh the natural radiance of the unobscured heart is what the Buddha kind of called these uh Brahma viharas, right? When I walk in those beautiful directions, those energies inform the world I'm kind of inhabiting and in some way co-creating. way co-creating. way co-creating. So that's what I'm saying when I say, well, what do we align ourselves with? It's like, what do I want to give life to? Does that make sense?

It does. It makes complete sense. Just to, you know, if anybody's new to the dharma, when you talk about the Brahma viharas, I might might be worth spending some time there. This is, you know, for people like me who just kind of have a anti-scentimentalist conditioning. Um, you know, I'm a I think both of us are probably Gen Xers and that was like the age of irony and we're nihilistically sarcastic and all this stuff. So, when when our kind of well certainly for myself when my kind of mind encounters an idea like the Brahma Vihares, which translates I think into the divine abodess.

Um and I that I that kind of language often traditionally I found that a little repellent but it's really it's really interesting this idea these divine abodess there are four of them uh loving kindness or friendliness compassion um uh sympathetic joy which is like the opposite of shod and freudy just delighting in other people's happiness and then finally equinimity which is just the ability to stay cool no matter what's happening and what what the you know if you can set aside some of the sort of grand language what the Buddha is saying and what you're now saying uh more more recently uh is that these are skills that can be developed and I can see these capacities in my mind and like Magneto create a pathway a sturdy pathway to go in that direction instead of the more noxious alternatives alternatives alternatives Yeah.

Well, we we've seen the limitations of the mind, right? I mean, I certainly have. I've seen the limitations of uh uh taking my psychology to be a reality, right? Because even though a lot of my stories are based in fiction, right, in in this inner narrative, the suffering they deliver is real, right? So we have to take good care of like what we let the mind dwell on you know we have to have some kind of uh maybe we can call it like uh discipline or yeah u it's a better word for it uh like um taking when you brush your teeth every day right a habit a practice yeah yeah a habit or a practice right so we can see oh thoughts on this inner judgment, right?

The inner narrative is strong, right? The and it comes factory stock, you know, in with this biology that we've inherited, right? And if we look closely at that judgment, it doesn't really lead anywhere. And sometimes even as our awareness grows, we start to practice, the judgment grows. judgment grows. judgment grows. So it's like, wow, hold on a second. Okay. So, I've really done my best to, you know, you know, you know, I know the subtle violence of self-improvement, right? I know about trying to hate myself into becoming a better person didn't really work.

And maybe the problem wasn't like a lack of sincerity, but the limitations of anger, fear, or shame as far as like transformative, right? Um so the Buddha was I believe asserting that the no that comes from love that comes from care is way more transformative than the no that comes from those other afflictive energies. energies. energies. So So So with that in mind, we we kind of offer ourselves a pardon, you know, that that we we say, okay, however I I am, I've come by it honestly, right?

And that conditioning is actually not who I am. So the Buddha kept coming back over and over to this what is I, me, or mine? What is I, me or mine? And he was like, not this, not this, not this, not this. But he did say and I like you used the word earlier sturdy in terms of the refuges that these heart qualities the reliable refuge that they are a reliable way to receive experience experience experience that even if it's painful I can meet that with compassion right it's not some just pseudo spiritual bypass like oh yeah it's all love it's all good it's How would that ever contribute to wholeness?

Which is what I think the dharma um invites us into is wholeness. So it has to hold all of it. The difficulty, the beauty, the generous uh you know and and the equinimity that holds the whole thing in gear. Say more about that. The equinimity holds the whole thing in gear. Well, you know, without equinimity, uh love and kindness can become very saccharine, right? that over sweetness, it's not actually authentic. It's not real, right? Or the compassion can just be kind of like uh, you know, over sentimentality, sentimentality, sentimentality, right?

So, equinimity is, you know, near to all things. So, I like that cuz it's like um it gives us that balancing quality so that we're not overly anything. near to all things. Meaning it allows you to be up close with stuff that normally you'd armor yourself against. against. against. That's right. That's right. I mean, in in the prison we talk about it as being, you know, you know, you know, un unfuckable with, you know, unshakable, unshakable, unshakable, right? Like you remember who you are, right? So you don't you don't have to engage in every fight.

You don't have to um you know defend your honor in all these different cases. You remember who you are, right? So we talk about flashing our basic goodness because that's the real danger when we forget our own goodness. At least it was for me. Flashing your basic goodness. What does that mean? Well, you know, in in the in prisons or in even in schools, um you know, they talk about flashing on people and that means you're going to flash some anger, right? So, we talk about flashing our basic goodness.

So, that means that I remember there's goodness in here and that that I'm not I'm not determined by your thoughts of me. Actually, your thoughts of me, Dan, are none of my business. You know what I mean? So we we stay rooted in that there's goodness here. That these these four heart qualities that the Buddha laid out, they're immeasurable and they're boundless and they're incorruptible incorruptible incorruptible and untarnishable and it doesn't matter what happened to us or what we done that those things are still there.

And so I really like that as somebody that's gone through a lot in my life and really lost that my own goodness, lost connection to it. it. it. And then well, you know, all kinds of things come out of that desperation. That's the real danger. Even after everything you've been through, you believe, and this is interesting to me, and I like asking people about this, do you believe that we all have the capacity for goodness or do you take it a step further to say that at that foundationally we are all basically good?

good? good? Yeah, that's a very difficult question. I could only answer from my experience of myself which which believes that there is no part of me that's beyond redemption. You know that no matter how lost I get and that's all I'm doing when I go to the prisons, right? I've been going into prison since ' 87 and as a visitor and um yeah, that was something different earlier on. Um but it's like all I'm doing is reflecting value. I don't give a [ __ ] whether they know what meditation is.

I want to go there and remind them remind them remind them of their value because um I feel like that's the most uh important thing and it's a very dehumanizing system. So it's meant to squash that out. And so when I go there, that's all I'm reflecting back. You know, I'm teaching. Well, you know, we're it's always everything is an excuse to connect. Right now we're connecting. Oh, the premise is uh we're going to talk about mindfulness or Buddhism. Cool. Kill her. Doesn't really matter, right?

So, when I go there, that's what's on the forefront of my mind is can I be in relationship with these fellas and can I reflect their goodness back to them? Let me go back to alignment. Um, so this is again just to reset. you know, you DJ reached out and said, "Hey, Vinnie, what what do you use to, you know, move through the world with some degree of sanity and you listed a bunch of techniques that are important to you right now?" One of them was alignment, which is basically having the discernment to see what mind states are wisest wisest wisest the wisest offerings on your inner menu and go in that direction instead of the the temptations of uh greed or hatred or something like that.

And you said something you use the phrase the subtle aggression of of or the subtle violence of self-improvement which I I love. I think about a lot. And there is a way in which we can learn something like the dharma and immediately turn it into a weapon that we use on ourselves for failing to be perfect at it. But I think at the root of what you're talking about here is something very empowering which is even though it is guaranteed we're going to [ __ ] this up on the regular in every moment there is the option to make a choice that will condition the next moment in a way like Magneto that will be sturdy.

Um, at least for some period of time. Totally. And all we can do is take care of this moment. You know what I mean? That's all we're doing with the practice. You know, everybody I just got off a teaching a retreat, you know, and everybody's like, "All right, man. Well, how do we take this into the real world?" Like, "Well, what have we been doing? What have we been doing?" Like, we've been tending to each moment. Yeah, we're meditating, walking, sitting 16 hours a day, but we're just tending to each moment.

And right now you're asking me how to get the drop on next Thursday, right? Because you don't trust that you'll be able to do it, right? But really, you got a bottom line. What is it that we're doing? We're tending to each moment as it arises cuz it's pregnant with liberation every freaking moment. I mean, we don't experience it like that, right? We experience it the mind, like I said, factory stock to turn the miraculous into the mundane, you know? Same old [ __ ] you know? And it's like, oh wow, I can see with the noting practice in particular, particular, particular, what I'm under the influence of, right?

What part of my personality is this? Oh, this is the east coast. Okay. All right. I remember that conditioning. Does that seem like a direction I want to walk in? Maybe, maybe not. Right. So we have to it's the only way we break the trance and not mistaking it for reality is by seeing it right it creates a little bit of a distance denoting practice right as long as I the only way illusion works is if I mistake it for reality right so again this is not I me or mine this is just one of the menu options okay and what sees all of This what sees mara?

You know these afflictive energies that are very naturally occurring for all of us. Well, that awake part of me sees it. And we call that Buddha. Yeah, you can. So, a lot of people are are real in the habit of saying, "I see you, Mara." Mara." Mara." But what the hell sees Mara? It's Buddha. So, you should be saying, "I see you Buddha. I see that awake. I see that awake quality in me, you know. I see it even when I'm off. It's like, well, what part of me knows I'm off?

The part that's never been off, right? Do you mind if I go back and just define some terms for folks? Sure. Sure. Sure. This I I I I'm enjoying this immensely just to say. Cool. Cool. Cool. Um, so the we all have our demons. Um, and it's actually in in certain schools of psychology, they can they like IFS, internal family systems, they will encourage you to name different parts of your personality. Um, that's right. that's right. that's right. And the Buddha had his own demon. Um, he called him Mara.

And Mara was is basically the in the Buddhist view, the the the the inner embodiment, if that's even a correct uh pairing of words, uh, inner manifestation. Yeah. Yes, thank you. inner manifestation of of our more toxic qualities and uh including greed and hatred, confusion. Um and uh the Buddha would say he actually you can in the scriptures the Buddha will occasionally even after enlightenment will Mara is still hanging around the Buddha will say I see you Mara Mara Mara and what Vinnie is pointing out is that many of us get into meditation and we get better and better at seeing our demons.

Mara and and his uh uh various subcommittees. Um and uh we get focused on the seeing of the demons, but I think what you're saying, Vinnie, is we should focus on that which perceives the demons because that is that's really interesting. What is you in you that is awake enough? awake enough? awake enough? That's right. That's right. That's right. To discern. To discern. To discern. That's exactly right, man. And it gets it becomes very exciting to me that there's an awake part of me that's just watching this whole saga of Vinnie Ferrara play out and and there's some discernment there.

discernment there. discernment there. I don't know man. For me it's like you know you you got to ask yourself who do you take yourself to be right over and over. It's like who is this character Dan Harris? Dan Harris? Dan Harris? You know what I mean? Like what the [ __ ] his problem? You know what I mean? This is mean? You know what I mean? This is like, you know, the Buddha asked us to really ask oursel that question like, you know, where is the real eye here?

Who's making these decisions? Who is awake? Who do you take yourself to be? Cuz you know, for decades, I took myself to be this, you know, this cloud of ailments, right? this um you know a lot of self-pity, a lot of uh frustration at the world that they could they didn't see me and it's just like man you know that's why so many of us have this impostor syndrome. It's like that part of you is an impostor. That ego part of you is an impostor. But where is there some real wisdom?

Where is the real knowing? And so when we start practicing part of my teachers, you know, part of the teaching was can you step back enough and be the awareness and not what is passing through it. through it. through it. You know what I mean? If you're always, oh, this thought, this hope, this fear, this memory, this plan, it's just like, yo, but how about the awareness itself? How about that you're the presence that's present here? You know what I mean? Like when you can back up enough to see that that there's enough room for all this [ __ ] doesn't land like ah man this is a a problem I got to solve.

It's like we think the things are the problem you know I have thoughts. I I have a 40ft rope swing right here and uh my son just turned seven and it was a birthday party and somebody pulled it down. Somebody pulled the swing down trying to hang a piñata. A couple days later, I was sitting here in my little office writing my little dharma talk and a thought occurred. That's really peaceful. There's not a bunch of kids in my yard, which there generally is cuz it's the best swing in the neighborhood.

the neighborhood. the neighborhood. And the thought occurred that maybe I don't have to put that back up. You know, I deserve a place, you know, to write. You know what I mean? I'm doing good things in the world, Dan. Don't I deserve a quiet place? And I got up and I hung the [ __ ] swing cuz that thought just reminded me of who I don't want to be. You're right. right. right. That was a selfish thought. It kind of caught me by surprise. I was like, oh [ __ ] Now I could have gone into like, well, I've been practicing 25 years.

How am I still having these thoughts just by taking them personally? Right? It's not personal. The the Buddha never said I had a thought. He used to say a thought occurred. Oh, is is could that be in the service of an awakening in some way? It was for me. We think the thought is the problem. We think what's passing through is a problem, but it's really just because we're taking it so freaking personally. personally. personally. everything all all of this that's happening internally can be taken so personally that you don't see the value in it.

You're just trying to get away from these things. I just want I just want to have better thoughts and have good thoughts of all-encompassing loving thoughts. It's like well they're not the only thing that's happening. They're just the only thing you're paying attention to. attention to. attention to. So what else is on offer here? And when we open that space up, we see all kinds of stuff is on offer. Yeah. 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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Uh but how do I remember to do it? Um and how do I actually do it once even if I do remember you you referenced and I didn't give you a chance yet to explain it. explain it. explain it. Noting practice and I suspect that may be one good answer to the question. some people are might be having right now. Yeah. Yeah. The noting practice is uh it's been from the beginning very helpful to me cuz I my therapist after 35 years of seeing people he was just like you might be the most psychologically psychologically minded person I've ever met.

I was like well what does that mean? He was like that's what it means bro like you live in a very rich internal world you know for in my case very povertystricken internally right that's how I uh oriented toward my life and myself but the noting practice and we talked about these two components of practice right seeing clearly responding wisely so part of that is just noting what is floating through this awareness of ours. Okay. I can see thoughts, memories, plans. I can feel sensations. There's there's sounds, right?

Okay. So, when we begin noting, well, what sense doors, what sense gate are they coming through? Then we can see can this be in the service of awakening this this phenomena that I'm in contact with? Right? I'm having a a a memory, a plan, a thought occurred, whatever it is. Right? So, the noting practice creates a little bit of distance cuz the moment that I can note something, I'm not lost in it, right? I'm no longer Jason Bourne running through the the the airport. There's a there's that there's that distance that I've woken up out of the dream and I'm noting oh right thriller, intrigue, espionage, whatever it is, right?

So, we can we can note what's arising what's arising what's arising and um and it breaks some of the identification with it so we're not lost in the dream as as long. Yeah. I want to know as early as possible what I'm under the influence of. of. of. Right. So staying close to practice they people always wonder like well I mean you've you've uh interviewed a lot of luminaries and some of them are just like yeah well you know I don't really do formal practice. It's more like my whole life is a practice now.

It's just like oh my god what [ __ ] is that? I have never seen the fruit of that practice. I've never seen the fruit of that practice, not once, not in any of my teachers. my teachers. my teachers. Because it's really important to to maintain that connection every day to the dimension that's deeper than thought, how else are we going to remember? Right? If I'm taking myself to be my thoughts six days a week, how am I going to remember on Sunday or Tuesday or whatever day that oh wow, I'm not that.

So the only way that I have seen it work for me anyway is to make time every day that I sit in a um I rest in a dimension deeper than thought. Right? That's the only way we can really have that connection to our goodness, the connection to something deeper, that primordial awareness, whatever you want to call it, right? That that awake quality that's not becoming, right? This whole world is just about becoming. My first instruction every time we sit is don't meditate. Please just don't turn this into the next becoming.

Now I'm become a meditator. Okay. Is this position spiritual enough? You know what I mean? It's like this is the next game, next thing to get good at. You know, it's the next electric guitar. Wait till my exes see me. It's like, oh my god, dude. Okay. So, in answer to the question of how do we do this? I think what I heard you say was uh noting practice is really helpful and and I'll reflect a little bit more about that in a second. But the the key is to actually get your ass on the cushion and meditate with some regularity so that you can really get it into your molecules that you don't have to take your thoughts, urges, and emotions personally.

And within that rubric under that eegis noting it's just like dropping a as Joseph Goldstein likes to say like a a soft mental whisper into the mind of okay anger planning planning planning hunger fatigue and you don't have to get pnicity about you know like thumbming through your mental thesaurus for the right word. It's just like make a little note if it's close enough, move on. And I think what you're I think what you're pointing to is it's helpful to have a consistent practice of, you know, whatever duration and then you can take that noting out with you into the world as you're doing this alignment on the regular dayto-day.

regular dayto-day. regular dayto-day. That's right. That's right. Listen, as long as it's an idea, as long as it's like a, you know, the kind of a philosophy that's at an arms length away, it's not doesn't have the power to transform our lives. We're still uh getting our sense of reality derived from a compulsive movement of thought. We have to break that. We have to challenge that and say, "Okay, this is one reality." one reality." one reality." For me, it's like catch and release just many, many times a day.

And the only reason I even agreed to come on here is cuz I know you have a a versive mind just like I do, right? You know, it's clear it's clear that that it's really easy to believe that there's something wrong with this moment like many many times a day. Mhm. And I can feel my resistance. I can feel it. You know, somebody doesn't use their freaking blinker or somebody cuts, you know, thousand imaginary slits, right? You know, and there's stuff in the world as well, right?

It's not like it's all just in my mind, but I can feel resistance arise in my experience many times a day. Okay. Okay. Okay. What happens when I do that? Oh, well, one thing that happens is we get a lot more sensitive to pain. With practice, we don't become these bulletproof Buddhas that are just like walking around unfazed. It's like, oh no, wow, that resistance hurts. This kind of sucks. sucks. sucks. And so then you you kind of turn toward it and you release it. It's like, is there anything actually wrong right now?

You know, like can I check in with like a fundamental okayness? Can I feel my feet on the floor? Yeah. You okay? Actually, I am. Despite my thoughts, despite my fears and hopes and everything else that's uh running through, are you actually okay? And it's just like, holy [ __ ] I am. So weird. So, you know, you know, Aan Armor, one of my first teachers, he said it so clearly. He said, "You know, I discovered a deep satisfaction and not actively seeking satisfaction." It's like, "Oh, dude, it's been here the whole time.

I just I was so busy arguing, closing arguments that I I missed it. missed it. missed it. You know, the thousand masks of Mara of like, you know, what's wrong?" Well, everything. everything. everything. Okay. But really, what's wrong? You know, Joseph actually said it so clearly. He goes, "Every time I look for a problem, I can't find one." Reminds me of something that Echarolei, who I've made fun of with Gusto. Um uh but nonetheless, I think he's actually he's on to many things. Um he has this little question he asks people.

It's like, "What is preventing you from being in this moment?" And that just came to mind as I was listening to you talk. Yeah, there is. There is a kind of satisfaction. It might not be conventional satisfaction, right? The way the world defines it, that's available pretty much whatever is going on. on. on. Yeah. And that's what I meant by saying that each moment is pregnant with liberation, right? That's a very poetic way to say it, right? From a thousand years ago. I I think a w man may have said that.

But it's like do we trust that what's found in presence can't be found anywhere else? You know what I mean? Like mean? Like mean? Like where h where else might satisfaction or contentment or peace arise? Does it matter if I'm peaceful or content next week? week? week? You know what I mean? This whole the whole movement of life is leaning towards some other moment. So, it's just like, of course, we're going to do that in our practice, too. It's like, oh no, this is like a Rocky montage and I'm getting better at this every day.

You know, it's going to be more and more and it's just going to continue. continue. continue. It's like, what leads you to believe that? Like, what would it be like to push all in like right here, right now? As I listen to you speak, it strikes me and maybe there's some projection going on because, on because, on because, you know, I've sat through not a few meditation retreats myself and try to apply it on the daily, but what you're describing as your approach to life sounds deeply sane and like a lot of work.

work. work. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What else is there to do, Dan? I mean, every time I look at my suffering, most of it has my fingerprints all over it. So, it's like, "Okay, dude. Uh, we get it, bro." Like, um, you know, it's really, really hard to have a mind and to have these nervous systems and systems and systems and I made my life so much harder than it needed to be, bro. you know, losing people. Uh, we're not we're not taught how to tend to that which is difficult to bear.

You know, you just get over it, man. Keep moving. You know, next thing you know, you're strung out because, you know, basically all drugs are painkillers, right? We're all running from something and it, you know, it can be shopping or eating or sex. You know, it has a thousand faces, right? The avoidance And I just haven't seen it bear the fruit. Right. When I see Joseph, bro, I'm like, that's a cat that's been sitting sitting sitting for, you know, over five decades. Is there fruit on that tree?

Goddamn right. That's a that's a pretty free character, man. That that dude, you know what I mean? So, when I see somebody like that, I'm like, that's where I want to go. That's where I believe. And and how do we do that day by day and stop postponing awareness or arrival for some time where the party's going to get better? It's going to be killer. I think we might have touched on this a little bit, but I'll um emphasize it here and make and and hang a lantern on it.

Um the second of the three techniques that you have said that you've been using for yourself in your practice, you know, to to keep it together generally to do life better. The first was alignment. The second is something you call redirecting awareness. awareness. awareness. Um what do you mean by that? Um what do you mean by that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Well, Well, I I I suffer sometimes uh my whole life with anxiety. It's what really brought me to the dharma. Um you know uh a a real difficulty sometimes accommodating that energy, that energy, that energy, right?

So when it you know it can come in the form of self-inccrimination. It can come in many forms but it's like uh gets kind of scary to be inside here. So it's like it's like it's like okay okay okay how can I accommodate this experience? How can I meet that experience? And so through some trauma training they really teach you right that you can direct awareness to you know especially if the mind is not offering up anything helpful can you redirect it to a different part of your experience it's like oh yeah okay like I mentioned earlier the fundamental okayess I feel in my feet right touching the ground it's not a story it's a direct experience it's like okay all right um Most of the time when I feeling anxious, I feel it in my trunk, sometimes in my throat, you know, but it's generally a contracted feeling of my trunk, my belly.

belly. belly. Is it in my feet? Not so much. Oh, okay. So, that means that I can titrate my awareness a bit. I can locate awareness very specifically anywhere I want. And not through the mind, not through thinking about it, not imagining my feet, but actually, oh, I can direct awareness and it kind of turns on awareness in my feet where the where my feet are touching the rug. It's like, okay, like, okay, like, okay, okay, so anxiety is not the only thing happening right now.

Well, that's that's good news. Okay, are you okay down here? It's like, yeah, okay. Do do you want to dip back into the anxiety to see if you can tend to it to see if what what we can discover about this thing I'm calling anxiety right so is there a center is it throbbing what are its characteristics are there edges right and are there places that it's not right that way I can tend to it with care I'm not we're not being asked to cannonball into these overwhelming uh experiences is we're asked to to tend to them with some care and so I can do that if I redirect my awareness um where it's not overwhelmed.

Does that make sense? make sense? make sense? Yeah. I mean this seems like a pretty deeply complimentary practice to alignment. Um, alignment. Um, alignment. Um, totally, totally. totally, totally. totally, totally. With with alignment, you're looking at the full menu of options and then picking the healthiest option and using using your commitment to it to condition future moments. with redirecting awareness, it seems like maybe a different take on the same idea, which is, okay, I have these unpleasant um sensations in my trunk and my throat that I'm calling anxiety, but I'm going to pick something else to focus on right now.

Maybe it's the feeling in my feet. Uh, and is that okay? Is that better? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, let me go with that. Do Am I Am I restating this correctly? I yeah I think it's a it's a good way to put it. I mean basically we're trying to figure out how to open the closed fist of the mind right when I am uh activated let's say right with the anger or anxiety or something that's hard to bear I've lost access to my clearest thinking. thinking.

thinking. I'm gone dude you know I'm in that fight flight freeze fawn right? So, so the animal the animal body that I I'm in I don't have access to that clear thinking cuz I'm you know afraid whatever is happening an anxious angry I mean you you have a kid you know when my son is like wilding out reason and logic ain't going to reach him him him I can't you know just reassure him again that there's nothing under the bed that there's You know what I mean?

Like, bro, bro, bro, you can't. This is nothing in the nothing in this room wants to hurt you, bro. There's nothing, you know, it's it's this is going to fall on deaf ears. What does he want to know? Oh, he wants to know that uh he's not alone, right? He wants to be held. It's like, okay, I can do that. Okay, they say the experts at trauma say that trauma happens in the with the absence of an empathetic witness, right? So we can be that empathetic witness even to ourselves.

So it's like, okay, I'm having anxiety. I have a place. I lay down. I wrap myself up with warmth and affection, same as I would anybody I love. And I say, all right, I'm I'm right here. Now, I kind of go through M yeah I have my own way of dealing with that right so first it's like I I stop taking it very personally right that's the first part of it because it it it manifests as something that's wrong with me but I hear the Buddha's voice 2600 years echoing through time and space what if it wasn't about you like just for a second.

I know that it's hard to imagine, but what if it wasn't just for a second, right? And so, when I'm not taking it personally, when I'm not making it my fault, that eases up some of the blame and some of the loneliness that suffering often comes accompanied by. Right now, like, okay, is this mine? Is this I, me, or mine? or mine? or mine? No, I'm not the origin story of anxiety. I didn't give birth to it on this planet. It's like, okay, do other beings know this?

How many other beings know this feeling? this feeling? this feeling? Countless. Countless. Countless. Oh, okay. So, now I'm in the presence of SA, right? Now I'm in the presence of community, right? And how many of my ancestors may have struggled with these energies, energies, energies, you know, stress, anxiety, self forgiveness, or just buckling under the pressure of trying to meet their family's needs, right? I mean, both of my grandfathers were dead before 45 of heart disease, right? They didn't have access to these healing modalities that we do.

I mean, sometimes I'm just trying to touch into the to just trying to touch into the compassion to the one who's being judged so harshly, right? But there's a compassionate response compassionate response compassionate response and this can be a way that we can break the cycle. So in, you know, things tend to get bigger the more I run from them. So when we turn and say, okay, anxiety is here, is here, is here, difficulties here, grief is here, it's like, okay, what is this thing? And so by directing our awareness toward it and if we feel too overwhelmed away from it, we can even look at the validity of a path.

We can say by well what delivers me to a moment. What delivers me from it? Right? it? Right? it? Right? You know sometimes I need to be delivered from it. Right? Sometimes redirecting awareness is like you know what I'm going to take a walk. I'm going to distract myself. I'm going to just kind of let this pass man. you know, I don't actually have the inner resources right now to to meet it. You know what I mean? We have to be honest about ourselves because there has to be that willingness.

If there's not willingness, we're just, you know, trying to trying to trying to It's like the get out of jail free card we're looking for. We're going to outmaneuver it. You know what I mean? Through meditation, we're going to, you know, uh somehow uh outsmart suffering. So silly. So silly. So silly. I mean even when the Buddha right so so we don't need these energies whatever it is to just uh dis somehow disappear right that's not what happened to the Buddha when the Buddha became enlightened Mara continued to arise but he just wasn't a he wasn't perceived as a problem right cuz it's not the thought it's not the afflictive states that are the problem it's our relationship to them It's taking them for who we think we really are.

I am this problem. I am this anxiety. I've always been like this. I'm always going to be like this. Right? So, in some way, redirecting awareness for me has become a superpower of of being able to tend to this and not not even be afraid. And then 10 15 minutes I can usually feel that kind of golden honey sunset light you know because we can imbue awareness with qualities just like we imbue it with fear or anger or frustration we can imbue it with this I don't know wish for all beings to be free and I get to be included in that right every time we sit it's not just for Vinnie for not just for Vinnie you know that would be like some sis you know, over and over and over.

But when we're able to hold it that these energies are not me, they're not I, they're not mine. Even the precepts, right? You you familiar with the precepts, Dan? Yeah. Um just for folks who may not be it's basically these promises that we make to ourselves and others um in a Buddhist context um to behave in a certain way. It what I like about Buddhist ethics you know the precepts maybe may be like not taking other people's stuff not killing or not harming not you know those kinds of things.

What I like about the Buddhist version of the commandments is um there's more elasticity and um and and no promises of eternal dam damnation. That's right. Yeah. I mean the second one is the one that really moves me. You know the second precept is uh not taking what's not ours. Well, we can think about that quite literally, right? In terms of property, right? Not stealing. Okay. But we can also in expand that to include how do we not take things personally? How do we not take um the suffering of our families on that are not ours?

Right? When I see the cycles of intergenerational trauma, right, in my family of addiction, incarceration, and violence, I've been conditioned to take that on. How do I keep this precept in mind? you know, is it okay to to be free when somebody uh is suffering in my family? It's like I don't know. Am I am I taking what's not mine? Am I taking, you know, like I said, taking things personally? There's a lot of ways that that particular precept um delivers freedom. delivers freedom. delivers freedom.

Just to say that's the third of the techniques uh that we were going to talk about today. The first being alignment, the second being redirecting awareness, and the third not taking what's not mine. C mine. C mine. C can you just elaborate on that a little bit? Like especially as it pertains to and I know you you've gotten more interested in ancestor practices, ancestor worship even. So h how does that connect to not taking what's not yours and not taking things personally? personally? personally? You can see how they roll into each other.

Yeah. other. Yeah. other. Yeah. Yeah. these these these uh topics, you know, they they they kind of arise pretty seamlessly, you know, um with some with even a little bit of practice. But the ancestor practice for me, it's like I I really felt alone in the world, you know, like uh you know, I was a homeless teen, you know, strung out, locked up, you know, all that stuff. I didn't feel like there was anybody pulling for me, you know, at a certain point in my life.

Like I I turned my back to the world and kind of lost my sense of belonging. You know, I felt very exiled. very exiled. very exiled. That led me to some very scary places that sense because the thing is Dan, belonging is not enough. You have to know it. you know the the bond is as important the knowing of it is as important as the bond bond bond cuz you know when did I really not belong belong belong you know I it's so strange I found myself in 95 you know I had made some really big commitments to go to India to meet the Daly Lama to see to see if this was ill or if this was just another hustle.

You know, my whole life was a hustle, bro. You know, the family, the neighborhood, the drugs. It was just like, "Oh, another another thing." And so, I made that commitment and I was like, "Okay, I'm going to go look in this guy's eyes and if I see some side eye, you know what I mean? If I see some slickness, I'mma snap this dude's elbow. I can get close enough to him. I'm nice with the hands. I I could do this. This is how afraid I was, bro.

This is how afraid I was that there wasn't anything in this world worth living for. H, H, H, right? This is what was at stake. And so I uh, you know, I I got a chance to meet him and I just wailed and oh my god, an ocean of tears cuz of the love he looked at me with. Right. A week later, I'm sitting in a cave in Nepal. his hermit m been there and he's doing his puja and I've been staying there for two three days just sleeping on the floor he's giving me a little bit of food I didn't I don't understand any Tibetan he spoke even less English so it wasn't in his words but there was something about it bro he's he's up there praying for all beings and beings and beings and and there was some admittance back into the garden for H H H there was just tears falling down my face and I realized I never been alone.

This guy been up here for 2600 years. You know what I mean? That lineage. So when I talk about ancestry, I look back on this like this idea that like all my ancestors are behind me, right? I'm at the tip of the spear shooting through time and space. Yeah, cuz I'm alive right now. They're all pulling for me, but it's my time to see if I can break some of these cycles that my family in the world has been lost in, you know, and so there's something about that that gives me strength, you know, that's like I'm not just doing this for me.

I'm doing this for all my ancestors that couldn't do it. and I'm doing it for my kid. So I don't pass on anything that's not helpful, not helpful, not helpful, right? Yeah. So that's how the ancestor um kind of worship or actually you just you know I burn stuff every day and I just try to keep it in mind that like okay I'm at the tip of the spear they're pulling for me and that can be kind of like a a resource. Yeah. a reflection and a question.

The thought that I had as in listening to you is that um you know I kind of glibly said at the beginning we're going to talk about these three practices you use to keep your [ __ ] together but really it's three practices. I mean, it's that and then on a on a bigger note, it's these three practices you use to break cultural, evolutionary, cultural, evolutionary, cultural, evolutionary, familial patterns that have not worked well for your forebears and might not work well for your kid if you weren't in the middle there trying to show a different way of being.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I didn't want to have a kid, bro. bro. bro. You know, I wasn't raised in a conventional sense, conventional sense, conventional sense, you know, so I didn't want to pass on things that were not helpful, and I didn't feel like I had anything to offer. I was just going to do my best to be a good godfather, good uncle. And then I met a woman that I uh knew I needed to be with. And she was just like, "This is what I'm doing, so I better get get on board or or bounce, you know?" And I, you know, there was a lot of grief there, you know, a lifetime of never allowing myself to feel that feeling, feeling, feeling, you know, that excitement of like, well, maybe that could be maybe it's something I could allow myself to um to just consider.

I had never let that happen. And and then once you do it, you realize, oh my god, this was a such an act of generosity. Oh my god. Like thankless, you know what I mean? Some ways, you know what I mean? Like it has its own gifts obviously, but it would call on me. And I I I thought I was much further along on the path to be quite honest. quite honest. quite honest. Real talk, man. I mean, talk, you know, I'm back in therapy. That cat got me on the cushion every day.

You know, talk of the cruel toutelage of Valentino. You know what I mean? He's a, you know, the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, you know, and uh, you know, he he really calls forth in me the the most generous part of me, of me, of me, you know, and you realize that the barrel that you're surrounded around, you know, you and your wife or you and your partner, your partner, your partner, that barrel is not you, right? This life is not your own anymore. So I had to sell my chopper.

I had to, you know, sell the low riders. I had to do the things that I could do to to make that decision to that commitment. commitment. commitment. Yeah. To uh something bigger than me, you know, something more important than me, you know, because you know what it's like. You have a child. The moment that they're birthed into this world, this world, this world, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would die for him. Wasn't that he was funny. He didn't have a, you know, Gucci diaper.

He, you know, just you're just like, "Oh [ __ ] wow." wow." wow." And then that's where we can get in touch with like or at least what comes to mind for me talks about, you know, the beauty of kids. kids. kids. It's like It's like It's like I don't think babies are beautiful. I just think that the eyes that we look at are so blameless, it makes them beautiful. You know what I mean? And it's like, okay, if we're talking if we go to if we bookend this thing and say, one of the first things we talked about, it's like, is there any part of us that's beyond redemption?

We know that we can see through those eyes. Now, whether we think we got that coming, that's another story, right? But we know beyond the shadow of a doubt that baby's got it coming. So, that's something they give us. They offer us that that blameless, blameless, blameless, unconditional love that's just like I didn't know it was possible. You know, there was always a reason. You know, I loved my friends cuz he was funny. I loved her cuz she was beautiful. She was smart. She you know all these there was always reasons to love and then then there was the unconditioned that that they bring into our lives into our then knowing in our hearts.

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I don't know how Buddhist he considers himself these days, but um and he said I told him I had a kid and he said, "Oh yeah, the Daly Lama just moved into your house." That's right. That's right. Yeah. So what is the connection between seeing our family patterns and not taking what is not ours? You know, know, know, it's so much of my life has been very intense and you know, dramatic, very traumatic. traumatic. traumatic. You know, I came home and found my mom passed away when I was a teenager.

That was very traumatic. traumatic. traumatic. One of my family members uh had to take her life. her life. her life. Very dramatic. Until I got to be there. You had to take her life? No. Um, well, we had to pull the plug on my mom, but one of my family members, you know, um, she tried to take her own life. life. life. Oh, okay. Okay. I'm sorry. So, I was, um, you know, in the emergency room emergency room emergency room again again again and standing over her and realizing like, oh, wow.

Okay. And I talked her into, into, into, you know, you know, you know, letting them take her in like for real, right? not just saying what you need to be said, they'll get out. And uh she was like, "Okay." And they started wheeling her away. And I was like, "Oh, wow. I remember this moment from my teenage years." And I was part of the problem, but now I'm like the helpful uncle. Okay. How real do you take these roles? You know what I mean? Like that you're being cast into like just okay, I was the pain in the ass teenager.

Now I'm the helpful other. It's just like wow. You start seeing the intergenerational trauma and then you start you're able to start questioning start questioning start questioning how loyal I've been to my suffering, right? What am I pledging allegiance to here? here? here? Is this I, me, or mine? You know, and it's not just some spiritual bypass. It's a real question. I'm like, okay, what do I take myself to be? Well, obviously I care about this person deeply. deeply. deeply. Okay, Okay, Okay, there's compassion there, you know.

Okay, but how do I not take on more than uh than is helpful, right? What's helpful and what's personal? What's the added layer, right? Sometimes we call the second arrow. It's just like, "Oh my god, what? When is this person ever going to figure it out? Now I got to figure out how to remind them of who they are." It's like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa." So, in a way, I guess it's like not making things harder than they need to be. There's already enough real suffering going on.

We don't need the additional that comes with taking things very personally. very personally. very personally. Let me see. Let me test my own comprehension there and and say it back to you that So, as a teenager, you had this horrible thing happen to you where you found you found you found your mother deceased or near deceased and and then had to bring her to the hospital and make a painful decision. Fast forward several decades, another really hard situation where a member of your family has tried to take her own life and you're um trying to play as positive a role as possible.

So, there's already a lot of sort of non-negotiable suffering that's happening in both of these situations, specifically in the latter situation where you're you've at this point been practicing meditation for a while. Um uh but you declined to add on the level of oh I'm part of this messed up family and these people can't get their stuff together and together and together and uh I'm never going to get out of these patterns and I'm you know I me all of this. So, you're not taking all of that for as yours anymore.

Um, as one great monk said, you're not misappropriating public property. public property. public property. That's right. That's right. That's right. Um, you're just focusing on what is actually here now instead of adding on a bunch of voluntary pain. Yeah. And what was there was incredible heart, a lot of compassion, just not that added layers. And that's just like, okay, is this how we break the cycle? By seeing through that I wasn't the pain in the ass teenager and I'm not the helpful brother. It's like, you know what I mean?

Like I that was never me. That's just like the role. Okay, now I'll be this. It's like, how wholeheartedly can you hold these roles when you see that you weren't the first one, you're not the second one, you're not going to be the third one, you're just a being here that cares deeply about this person. You know, I don't know. I don't know what it's like to be you. But I was really bred to take on that suffering, to make it my fault, to make it my problem, to figure out if you can't figure it out, then you failed, right?

And maybe it's different in all kinds of different families. But it but that's what I kind of grew up with. And so the the deep failure of losing my mom, it was just like, hold on, it's already hard to lose your mom. She was like my best friend. But then there's like the it was your fault. You should have been there. She died alone. It was just like whoa. Decades of, you know, trying to run from that. The, you know, a path, a life of destructive relationships based on those beliefs.

You know, kids make everything their fault, right? So, you know, I kind of saw through that in this instance. You know, the the the the details were dramatic enough to wake me up out of that and see like, oh my god, it's just happening again. H wow. Okay. What am I in choice about here? How can this be in the service of awakening this very confusing moment? What am I awakening to? I don't know if this is a fair or useful question. I'll throw it out there and maybe maybe we'll answer a different question.

But how how much confidence do you have after all of these years of practice that practice that practice that you're making progress on on breaking the cycle? the cycle? the cycle? You know, it is a hard question to answer. I feel a lot less suffering. So that that's that's some kind of measurement. measurement. measurement. I tend to stay um to not stay in story as long. So that's another measurement, right? Cuz these stories can often be not generous, right? Internally or externally. So it's like, okay, I can, you know, that catch and release that I talked about, right?

It's like, oh, I can feel the resistance. we become a lot more sensitive. So when I wake up to that that resistance that hurts every time, I'm usually able to release it um fairly quickly. So there are some uh some measurements that u lead me to believe that there's uh progress being made. Certainly not perfection, but I can I can wholeheartedly say that there's just so much less suffering that I'm I'm creating for myself, you know. you know. you know. I believe it. I do. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I feel very lucky to have found a I feel like the luckiest person I know that I because I'm not even supposed to be alive. alive. alive. Like there's nothing in my uh history that would lead you to believe that I would be alive at this age. you know, just uh you know, yeah. And so the fact that I get to go into prisons, work with death and dying, do all this beautiful work in the world. Um I just I just never thought I had anything to offer, you know?

I didn't know I could be a part of something good cuz of the world I was born into. was always uh that that hustle, that street uh that survival mentality and then, you know, growing up and coming into these more wholesome qualities. It was like, "Oh my god, oh man, I'm so glad that I survived the first part so that I have something to offer in the second part and really find out more of who I was and not just uh, you know, be lost, you know, to the world.

I I sincerely believe we are all lucky that you are alive. That's sweet, man. Thank you, bro. Yeah, man. You feel pretty lucky. I feel extreme about my life. My life has been has been has been charmed charmed charmed from the jump. So, I had every advantage. And so, yeah, I feel very lucky at baseline and then extremely lucky that even though I have attempted to sabotage all of my uh uh unearned advantages, um I found the dharma, you know, 14 years ago and and have been have been have been awkwardly and um unevenly applying it into my to my life uh ever since.

So I feel lucky in on in several ways. That brings that brings up something so tender for me because what is the dharma? dharma? dharma? You know what's the main premise here, Dan? Dan? Dan? Is it that conditions don't lead to suffering? suffering? suffering? Cuz that's a really big question for me. cuz you talk about the difficulties in your life, right? As I just have what sent me running into the arms of the dharma, but my difficulties, you know, I think it was Frankle that said, you know, conditions don't lead to suffering or bondage.

That it's only the being, the attitude of the being that determine which way these things flow. What a radical proposition, proposition, proposition, you know, radical invitation that it's not conditions don't lead to suffering. My conditions were so intense at the beginning of my life. I couldn't imagine a happiness, couldn't imagine a freedom. Now I can see like, oh, you're standing in an emergency room. Okay. Which direction direction direction do these conditions lead? Throw it on your back. Throw it in the backpack. Sis a fish back up the hill.

Or is it or is this how we break a cycle here? And it's an interesting conversation to have with people that are incarcerated. are incarcerated. are incarcerated. You know, there's a lot of kinds of incarceration, incarceration, incarceration, right? right? right? I am straight. Vinnie, before I let you go, is there do you have a website? Well, if people want to learn more about you, how can they do that? Yeah, I do. A friend of mine built me a website. It's vinnieforrar.org. Yeah. And uh you know, it's sparssely populated.

I'm not so good at mar marketing and all these other aspects of teaching you know but I do feel lucky to uh have a sana in San Francisco um that I've been the guiding teacher of for about 20 years now and so just to be witnessed right just to see you know they've seen me through so many of uh the chapters yeah and that's something the community really provides us right it's not just a place to compare hallucinations but it's also this other part that's like, oh wow, I'll remind you, you remind me when I lose my way.

And so I've been really really lucky to to have a community Yeah. that does that for me and with me. Thank you for doing this. This was an absolute pleasure. Um I think it's going to help everybody who hears it. So thank you again. you again. you again. Thank thanks for having me, Dan. I hope to see you again, bro. I I I'm You may regret saying that because I'm going to ensure that you see me again. Maybe. Yo, bro.