Many people these days, Henry, feel lost and lacking in purpose. How do you see meditation as a practice that can help people find meaning?
Yeah, that's a great question. Here's my initial take on that. It's like the first thing we try to do with meaning is try to find it out in the world. It's out there somewhere. And actually, I don't know that that's the right place to look for it. I think it's within. And meditation is, you know, it's lots of things, and people understand it in lots of different ways, but fundamentally it's always coming back to what's already here within us. I think, you know, the deepest meaning of our lives is within. And when we connect with that, we also see it out in the world. It's like it comes from within. We find it within, and it reorients how we then live our outward lives.
So I think that's the first thing: to be still with ourselves, to come home to ourselves.
You're saying that many of us look outside for meaning, outside for purpose. And I guess many people have bought the myth that happiness also exists on the outside. I mean, these are just terms, right? You know, for some of us they could be interchangeable — meaning, purpose, happiness. But I think the truth within all of them is that they're really not found on the outside. They're all, I guess to me, games that are played on the inside.
Yes, I think that's right. I've heard someone say, or I think it's a common saying — maybe it's like, 'happiness is an inside job.' You know, I think it's really true. I remember there was a time that the Dalai Lama came to visit Santa Fe. I actually — I happened not to be there at the time, but it was actually after I'd moved there, some 30-odd years ago. And he was fascinated by skiing. You know, never done it, and he wanted to see what it was like. And there's a ski mountain half an hour outside Santa Fe, and he went up there, and afterwards — I mean, he didn't actually get put on a pair of skis, but he was just watching people doing it. And afterwards he went in, he wanted to go into the cafeteria and have a hot drink. And he was sitting there, and one of the servers, you know, working in the cafeteria, she sort of nervously came up to him and asked him, 'You know, you're — they call you Holiness.'
'I know you're a very wise man. I want to know, what's the meaning of life?' And he just burst out laughing, how he often does. Says, 'The meaning of life? The meaning of life is very simple. It's to be happy. It's to be happy. But not so simple is how to be happy. Not so simple.'
And you know, I think it's such a good reminder for all of us that when we're driven so much by our culture to try to live up to things, outward measures, and we're driven to — how do I measure up? How do I earn my place? How do I feel worthy? And there's a totally different path of non-accomplishment, non-achievement. It's the opposite.
But your meaning, your deepest meaning, and your deepest purpose, and your happiness are never going to be earned. You know, that's so radical. We still have that conditioning strongly, that I've got to do my projects, do them well, they've got to be helpful, I want to serve the best I can, and somehow my right to exist — you know, I can fall into this thinking — my right to exist is earned by how well I act and sort of perform. But that's the wrong path for true meaning and true happiness.
It's interesting, and I guess for many people perhaps reassuring, that you, as someone who is a certified Zen master and someone who I think has meditated for how many years now?
I'm a little embarrassed. I ought to be better by now. It's getting on for 40 years. Yeah.
Yeah. So let's say 40 years of meditation.
You're still susceptible to this external conditioning that many of us fall prey to in the modern world. And as you were talking just then, I thought back to the retreat that I came on that you were sort of co-hosting in Santa Fe earlier on this year. And this morning I was going through my journal, actually, of some of the notes I made afterwards. And I remember very clearly on the first day, because there was only about 10 of us there. And, you know, some of the people who were there were, I guess, relatively well-known people — not everyone, but some were. And I think you said something like, 'Sitting in this room, many of you are overachievers, and none of you ever needed to achieve anything.' Or something to that effect. And it stopped me in my tracks. I thought, yeah, there's a lot of us in here who by modern standards would be considered successful. And just that kind of almost contradiction. Like, 'Hey, you guys are all overachievers and none of you ever needed to achieve anything.'
I mean, what are we meant to do with that? Does that mean we're not meant to go out there in the world and do things? Or is it something different?
Yes, it's a bit of both. And I think, because it's great — for example, you offering this incredible podcast that is helping just millions and millions of people. There's no question in my mind, it's a really good thing. And, you know, you've done deep training in medicine, and you're very, very effective and have a beautiful skill as a healer and a doctor. That's all fantastic.
But there's still another path. There's still another reality about our lives that we can only find by being a kind of underachiever. It's really counterintuitive. But there's a way that even while we may be — you know, you're called to do the kinds of sort of big things that you're doing, and it's fantastic. Others are called to do smaller things, but they're still called to do stuff. But either way, the most beautiful thing of all is letting go of all of that and finding — I think it's like finding our true heart. Our true heart knows that it never needed to prove itself. And there's something about connecting with that in ourselves, for ourselves, to really coming back to this totally natural, spontaneous, sort of innocent, open heart that we all have. I think living with that and from that will be helpful, just by our interactions, and not in big ways. It might be in big ways if we have a large reach or something like as you do. But everybody, you know, it's something about the human race — when we come back into this sort of tender, open heart that we all have. I think that if that spreads, the whole human race gets this little magic sort of ripple of kindness and openness, and you know, our compassionate nature comes forth.
Yeah, I completely agree. The way I see it is, it's to do with the energy behind what you're doing. Right? So let's take this podcast for a moment. If I'm doing it in order to say something about who I am as a human being, and I judge my worth as a human on how many people have listened or not listened to an episode, I think that's very different from doing it with an open heart.
Doing it because you're interested in this topic and you want to explore it and express it, and
whether people listen or not.
Yeah, it was still worth having that conversation because I did it for me.
It's a subtly different flavor, isn't it?
That's right. It's like — I mean, I see it as a kind of gratitude for having this experience at all.
That we're able to sit here feasting on the visuals that are appearing before our eyes, hearing the soft quiet in the room, hearing our voices sharing — you know, just to be doing this is already such a gift.
And to feel — to be touched by that gift of being alive, you know, it's available to us in every moment. And if we do get it, then if we do sense that, it's like we sort of don't need anything else.
You see what I mean? It's like we're not doing it for some ulterior later purpose. It's just for serving the very gift of life. And I think when we've got that vibe going on, when we're feeling that ourselves, I think everybody recognizes it, or everybody knows that they too do sometimes feel like that. And our society, our culture, contemporary culture, so doesn't recognize the value of that. And it's such a relief when it is called out and recognized, and when we sense somebody else is just free. And I think it's a natural human thing to have that spontaneous warmth in our hearts. And, you know, when we're feeling it, it's its own reward. It's its own reason.
I think what meditation does for many of us is provides the kind of structure and container for us to experience these things. Because I think if you are left to the prevailing wind of society
in the modern world, you're going to end up being swept up in busyness, and emails, and things you have to do, and you never quite feel you're doing enough, and there's always something else you could be doing, and that to-do list just keeps growing even though you've made so many efforts to actually, you know, get through it. And I guess the sort of common tendency is to think that we need more productivity hacks. You know, how do I get through my to-do list faster? You know, many people, and people maybe right now are listening to this episode on 1.5 the speed, twice the speed, right? I love podcasts. I have never ever listened to a podcast at anything but the actual speed. Okay? And that's not to judge anyone who does it differently, right? Many people say, 'Yeah, I listen to things double the speed, and actually I really enjoy it and I get more information in quickly.' I just realized I actually want to experience it as it was. Like, I don't want it sped up. I, you know, and I think busyness is such an epidemic these days that any practice of solitude or silence, whether that be meditation or whether it be something else, I think has incredible hidden power, basically.
Yes, exactly. And it's not on the same register as like the metrics of getting more done. It's not at all. It's like — I actually, there's this, I'm trying to remember — there's a really funny song called 'The Sickest Buddhist,' I think it's called, or 'I'm the Best Buddhist,' or something like that. I forget who the comedian is doing it. And he says — there's a line in it like, 'That 25-minute meditation, I killed it in 10.' You know, it's exactly like that. Could you possibly speed up a meditation? You know, it's insane. The whole point is we're just joining the unfolding of the universe. We're just being still and joining what's actually happening. And, you know, it's such a different mindset from 'what can I get done.'
Yeah, it brings me back to that retreat. Okay, so it was something like a 3-day retreat that I did with you earlier on in the year. And one of the things I wrote down in my journal that I saw today, because I hadn't looked at it for a while, was that I felt as if my internal momentum had changed. Which is really beautiful, because I think when we're in this sort of routine of daily life, that kind of internal pacemaker, as it were, runs at a certain speed. Right? We don't realize it, that we're sort of being — it's like a thermostat in the house. Like, it's always bringing us back to that speed. And I felt because of the container you provided during that retreat, everything within me started to slow down. There's something about internal momentum that I think many of us don't realize until we slow down. Until we have that practice of solitude, we just don't know how fast we're moving through life.
I totally agree. Very often, as we start to settle through doing regular daily meditation, we start to feel, 'Oh my gosh, there's a kind of flywheel constantly turning inside me. It's got this momentum. Even though I'm still now, this thing is still spinning that's trying to make me do stuff.' And so it takes a while for that momentum to sort of bleed off, as it were. It just gradually slows down, and we get into the pace of actual living. You know, I mean, I totally relate to it myself. I've done it a lot in my life, just trying to drive myself faster. Actually, I'm wondering — I've got a poem about this, about this very problem. Yeah. Shall I?
Okay. Well, it's called 'The Slow One.' And I'm going to — I just need to give a little bit of a setup.
Yeah, amazing. It's a time in my life, relatively recently actually, when we had had to move to California, Southern California, to support a loved one who was having a very hard time. And we were living in, you know, the suburban spread of Southern California, which was not somewhere I'd ever really wanted to live, to be honest. I, you know, LA area — I'm blessed to live in a beautiful city, Santa Fe, where you came from earlier this year. And I grew up in a beautiful city, Oxford, and so on. And I was really not comfortable going there, but we had to. But the good thing I discovered soon was we were only 10 minutes from the ocean. It's like a drive down to the ocean, and I started going every morning at dawn
or just before, and I'd see the sun coming up, and I'd get in it. It's quite chilly actually down there, the ocean, but really, really beautiful. And I started to notice that I'd get this expansive, beautiful experience at dawn, and then, already before I knew it, I'd be wanting to get back, to get onto my computer, to get working. And I suddenly realized how sad that was, and this poem is about that. It's called 'The Slow One.'
The real me moves slowly. He looks at things a long time until he understands what he's looking at. Like this morning in the sea down by the broad beach, early, when the sun had just risen and was bright like oil on the water, and the water itself was dark purple, almost black, and it was the sea's surface, the seeming thickness of it like animal hide, but moving, breathing in its big slow rhythm, that caught his attention. It seemed heavy, like a blanket being shaken in slow motion, its colors and folds lit by the morning sun. He was studying it. He was studying it, enjoying it, learning about it. When already we were showering off the salt at the public showers, toweling dry, getting in the car, into the traffic, and he was still staring back trying to see the sea with the great light risen across it, which wanted to show him his true place in the world — something he was happy to learn again and again, but someone else, someone thoughtless, heedless, busy, had already taken him away.
I mean, how many people are going to resonate with that straight away, Henry?
It's like, you know, there's something so beautiful inside us that loves this world and loves being alive. And how often am I really connected with it? You know, my practice is to be connected with it. And I have long spells when I'm really lucky, I just do feel more connected with it. But it's not constant. I can get taken out.
What would you say to someone who resonated with that beautiful poem but doesn't feel it's relevant for them? They're like, 'Okay, yeah, Henry, you're a meditation teacher. You live in the mountains of Santa Fe. I live in inner-city London. My life is busy. I've got a job to go to. I've got errands to run.'
'What's the relevance of that for me?' What would you say to that person?
Yeah, there's beauty all around us, even in inner cities. I spent a lot of time in New York and then in London, actually, as well. And there's beauty sort of everywhere, you know? And I would say, 'Just see what it's like to allow yourself 5 minutes of sitting on a bench and just watching the world go by.' The shift from being caught by our own inner momentum that society kind of approves of us having and has conditioned us to have, the switch between that and just disengaging from it for even a little bit. Just watching — people watching, watching the world go by. Just a moment of it. We get the flavor. All of us can get the flavor. And the question then is, when you get the flavor of slower, of coming back to a slower version of you that you've always had, that you had as a kid, and you still have today — when we get that flavor, you know, how do you feel? When we really get it, do we sense there's another way of being alive? It doesn't mean you have to abandon the other one.
What I've experienced myself is that if you can taste slowness in the morning, okay?
It's not just about that luxurious feeling that you have. You almost remind yourself what slowness feels like. And so this is why I personally am a fan of morning routines or rituals, just some sort of morning practice of stillness.
Because I think it just grounds you a little bit, it reminds you what it can feel like, and even if you then get caught up in the busyness of the day, I think you're much more likely to slow down at some point if you've tasted it, right? And I think unfortunately so many of us don't feel we've got time for even 5 or 10 minutes of slowness or stillness or meditation, and therefore we've forgotten what it feels like. We're just used to our thermometer or our internal momentum running at a fast speed, and we think that's our natural speed, but it isn't.
It's your conditioned speed.
And you can actually uncondition it
without needing to go to, you know, a wonderful retreat. You can start to do that with 5 or 10 minutes a day, can't you?
You totally can. And I would say the thing is, it's actually not just about momentum and speed. It's like if we get that little space, yes, in time we'll learn to disengage. And it's like unplugging, disconnecting, and you suddenly feel alive in a different way. And I feel that once we've got that sense more consistently, touching into it more consistently each day, we can then throw ourselves into the busyness of life. It's fine. But there's a bit of another dimension that we start to sense that's with us all the time. And, you know, we'll remember it, we'll forget it, we'll remember it, we'll taste it, we'll forget it again. But we're starting to get the sense of a slightly larger life that's with us all the time. It's not only when we slow down that we start to get the sense. And it doesn't mean we shouldn't have our busy lives. It doesn't mean that. It's just that there's a larger life with us even while we're doing our busy thing. And that's just such a treasure to discover that.
Yeah, that topic of another dimension I want to get to very shortly. Before I do that though, I just wanted to, if I may, read a section from I think my favorite book of yours, 'Original Love,' entitled 'An Invitation' at the start.
It speaks to what we're talking about. 'Imagine you're alone in a quiet room. No one can disturb you. You're comfortable, you're still, and gradually you're getting the sense that a greater quiet surrounds you and holds you. The more you feel this quiet, the more you know in your bones that you can trust it. It's beautiful and precious, and you find yourself letting go of your plans. Your to-do list evaporates. Your agenda disappears like vanishing ink. Now there's only the quiet, which feels almost like a presence, and it brings on a deep sense of well-being.' And then, Henry, you continue with another paragraph, but then I'm just going to pick it up one paragraph later. 'In a while, you take a deeper breath and end the period of meditation. You go downstairs, make coffee, and enter your day feeling not just replenished, but as if you have just touched something wider, an unnameable mystery, a secret side to your life that has reset your priorities.'
Yeah, I'm glad I wrote that, actually.
I'm not always that keen on what I wrote before, but actually that, yeah, I sort of — I think that's right. I stand by it. I think that's the big point, that once we do the disconnecting, the slowing down a little bit, it's not just that we go slower and we're more appreciative. We touch the mystery, the mystery of being. And that's the big kahuna. That's the thing that really matters.
That's what I want to focus on in today's conversation, because you've been on the show twice before, and, you know, we've covered all kinds of practical things to do with meditation and some of its benefits, and it would be very easy to talk about the science of how meditation can help us with depression, anxiety, burnout, increase or change the structure of your brain, improve focus, all these things, which it does. But I think there's something much deeper that it does that probably underpins all of that. And again, you touch on it there — you know, a secret side to your life that has reset your priorities. That's what's happened to me. Maybe 6 weeks ago? Something like that.
I think we need to hear about it, because it's really important. And because, you know, this is what really matters — is that we think we sort of know what life is. We know it in a certain way. We have a consensus about it, you know, and we're conditioned to go with that consensus. But there's a totally different way of knowing this life where we
where it's about — it's more about not knowing.
We sense in a different way. We experience in a different way. And we actually get closer to the mystery of being. So, please share what you shared with me, and we'll unpack it. Yeah.
Okay, so, a friend of mine was having a birthday celebration. This friend has been doing a lot of what would be called men's work for the past few years. Okay? So, you know, he's found that incredibly helpful to help him understand himself, to become a better man, a better father, a better husband. He's just found it incredible. So, my friend invited a few people for this weekend away. I was the only one who was invited who had not done, you know, men's work before. Okay? But my friend thought that because of the things I'm interested in and the sort of things that I have done, that I would fit right in. Now, I didn't know much about what was going to happen. And on the first day, on the Friday, they have something from their men's work, I think called a circle.
And basically, you know, a fire is lit and we are sitting around the circle, and they have a process for everyone to go and share something about themselves. It was incredible because I tell you, at the end of that hour, I felt I knew all of these guys really well. Right? Because there was real honesty and vulnerability. And you realize we've all got a narrative and a story behind us actually being there, right?
And just to be clear, this is very different from the sort of birthday celebrations that I used to do with this guy maybe 20 years ago, okay? So there's been some evolution, let's put it like that. But on the Saturday, we sat rounds, and this is something one of his friends and his wife had actually set up, where we were going to go around and express gratitude for who this friend of ours was, what he's meant to us, what we're grateful for about who he has been and the person he is about to become. And it was just so beautiful, just hearing all these people express from their hearts in a way that men often don't. It was so powerful, right? People were tearing up. It was just absolutely beautiful. We're out in nature, there's a fire there.
It was just incredible. I'm just sitting there and feeling amazing. I close my eyes, and at some point it just feels different. Like at some point, Henry, I no longer could feel where I ended and the world began. I think I could feel my bum on my seat and my bare foot on the grass, I think. But I couldn't feel anything else. Like I almost lost my sense of who I was and where my body ended. It felt amazing. It felt like bliss. And just to be clear, I hadn't meditated beforehand. I wasn't expecting anything. I was just sitting there. I was just down to see my buddy, and I didn't know what to expect that weekend. And when I was feeling this, Henry, at one point I became aware that this was just an incredible feeling that I'd never experienced before. And I was tempted, and I stopped myself from opening my eyes, because what I thought — and maybe I'd come out of this, I don't really know, Henry — but as I think back, it felt so good, I thought, if you open your eyes, you may never feel this again. So I didn't want to open my eyes. All right? And so I didn't. I just kept them shut and I sort of bathed in the luxurious bliss that I was feeling. So that's kind of what happened, right?
All I know is that when I finally came out of it, and when this whole kind of ritual had finished, I just felt different. I felt I'd experienced something I'd never ever experienced before, and I loved it.
Yeah. So I could say more, Henry, but I'll just stop there for a moment.
If you have any questions.
Yeah, no, that's fantastic. Just to recap a tiny bit on a couple of points. So there's a moment, and then it extends, when you suddenly cannot tell where you end and the world begins.
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Where there's just one space or sensation or something that includes both you and the world in itself. It's just one. That's, you know, one of the central aspects of our deeper spiritual nature — of our, as you know, in Buddhism it's called Buddha nature. It means that we've habitually been in a condition where we believe that we're separate. That's the foundation of our egoic identity, is that it's separate. That we are alone in being ourself. You know, basically our fundamental nature is a separate entity. And what I would, you know, humbly offer that you got a taste of is when somehow a door opens, and that separateness is swept away, or is invaded by something larger that is not separate. Where we discover we're part — we are one with — you could say we're part of, but neither of those phrases are quite right. It's like the true nature of things steps in. Somehow something in us opens. And nobody — I have to say this with a little bit of trepidation, but I believe nobody knows how to control that. When and how and why something in us can open, and we just receive this true nature of things that's not separate. And when it happens, it's a dimensional shift. It's like we didn't know before that there's something about us that is very real, that is not about separateness — that it's a wholeness with everything. World and us as one.
And you to taste that — I mean, I want to say congratulations, because, you know, it's people seek it. People seek it for years.
Well, there's so much I want to say. Like, first thing I want to make clear is that there were no substances involved. I mean literally it was just a — well, I say a normal Saturday night. It was, I was at this thing with my mates. But I wasn't trying to get anything. Right? And I've read that before where you've spoken about that on The Way Up, which, you know, I use regularly, which I love. You know, you talk a lot about this idea, and many teachers do, that if you're seeking it, you can't really get it through seeking. But of course, to a western mind that's conditioned to saying, 'If you work harder, you know, you keep doing the reps, keep putting it in, and then at some point you'll be rewarded.' The great thing for me, Henry, because I've reflected a lot on this over the last few weeks, is that it's as you say in 'Original Love,' right? It happens to you. You spoke about your experience when you were 19, I think, on our first conversation on this podcast. It just happened.
Straight after it happened, I shared with the group. I basically said that something incredible just happened to me. I explained a few more things, but I said, 'I think I've just had what people call my first non-dual experience.' And then I left you a message. I think I left you a voice message to say, 'Hey, Henry, listen, this is what happened.' And you said, you know, 'Are you up for jumping on a call?' So we had a call about it. And one of the things I said to you was, does it really matter what we call it?
Right? Is that not — sometimes are we not at risk when we try and identify — I mean, we'll talk about this because I think people are very interested in what's called awakening.
But it feels to me as though you can read about it as much as you want. It's just not the same as experiencing something.
And then when you try and explain your experience, sometimes I think words are limiting. I'm trying to explain to you in words what happened, but it doesn't in any way capture what actually — it's a bit like, I don't know, if you go and see a beautiful sunset,
right? And then you pull out your phone and you try and take a picture of it. You look at it and you're like, 'Oh, well, I know what I experienced and what I saw, and I know what I'm looking at on my phone screen, and it ain't the same thing.' And what do you make of that?
Well, I think it's absolutely right. I mean, to me it's very beautiful that
There's a whole side of our life that we cannot get in words. That we cannot even get through thinking. That we cannot get through any amount of calculation, any amount of understanding. It just has to be experienced in order for us to know it. We kind of know it when it happens, but it's only a kind of knowing. It's not knowing the same way that other kinds of knowledge are. It's not like I know the train leaves at 14:18, you know, it's not that kind of knowledge. I think it's deeper. I believe it's a discovery about something of our real nature, because it has that authority about it — that this is somehow more real. And we could not get to it through words and language. Language doesn't know how to contain it. And what a mercy, what a wonderful thing that there's this whole other side to us, to each of us. And we could say to our life, but the important thing is it's about each of us. It's about what we actually are. There's this whole side to what we are that is a mystery. And we can encounter that mystery. We can meet it. It can come to us. We can receive it. And when we do, we're sort of invaded by this well-being, by peace, by love. Sometimes it's a quiet joy. You know, and we just know our life in a different way.
So actually, I wanted to ask you: when you're talking about it now and when you're sort of casting your mind back to it, how do you feel?
One of the things that has evolved with me in the last few weeks is my definition of success. I would say now my definition of success is literally: how much of my life am I living with an open heart?
It's literally: can you act with love in every situation?
Even when people perhaps are not being nice to you, can you still act with love?
(Gasps) One of the other things I've noticed is that my sense of my periphery has changed, right? So when I'm walking, I'm seeing more. I kind of feel there's an extra 10 or 20 degrees on each eye outwards that has now come into my awareness.
Now, what's interesting, of course, is that it was always there.
But I was probably not seeing it.
Right? I wasn't aware of it. So I would say that's another thing that I've noticed over the last few weeks is that I've just got a greater awareness field, I guess is how I would put it.
Yeah. Yeah, kind of capacity or sort of expanded awareness, we might call it. Yeah. Yeah. And how does it feel? What's the emotional tone of that, if there is one? Is it peaceful? Is it exciting in some quiet way, or joyful? Is there a well-being that comes with that of some kind?
Yeah, it's joyful. I think partially because I'm able to recognize that that was always there. I was just never looking at it.
And then you can extend that even further. I know at the end of Original Love there's a beautiful meditation you write about where you're imagining you're in a theater and the stage is illuminated, right? So maybe you might be on the stage. I can't remember how you wrote it, but essentially then you sort of move back, right? And you're sort of furthest back — you can see the stage still with the lights on it, but you can see the darkness around it.
And to me, it's just like life. That, you know, I'm looking at you.
If I really broaden out, I can see Gareth in the corner, she's saying. I can see the cameras. But of course, there's stuff behind me.
Right? Just because I'm not seeing it doesn't mean it's not there.
I know this sounds so obvious, right?
At the same time, it doesn't feel obvious. It feels really quite profound. It's like that's all going on.
But I'm just focused on this.
But it doesn't mean that isn't happening, because it is.
Exactly. And I think you're describing — I think that we can get this bigger awareness where although we're not seeing the objects behind us, we have a sense of space behind us, to the side, around the field of known experience. There's a larger presence, a larger space, a larger awareness that's wrapping around everything. So maybe you're getting some sense of that.
And it brings a bit of peace because, I mean, it brings a large dose of peace because it's like a bigger context in which life itself, as we know it, is happening. There is a larger context, if you see what I mean. And that's a lovely thing to sense.
If a student has an experience like this, are they meant to or are they recommended to talk about it with one of their teachers? Is that how it works in your tradition?
Yes, it is. Yes, it is. It can be very helpful and affirming, you know, to have a conversation about it, because nobody, you know — it's not easy to access a lot of information on this or to be met with. You know, as you mentioned, I had a random awakening experience of this sort of nature when I was 19 years old. And it took me about 10 years before I even began to know, or think, or recognize that it might have been something that other people had had some experience of. I just didn't know what category of experience it had been. I just knew that it was the truth of my life. But once I did get to meet with somebody and talk about it who understood it, it was an immense relief to know that this was a real thing that other human beings valued and were in a sense devoted to and could see the extraordinary value of it, because it's a real shift in the whole structure of how we understand life and self.
And now in your case, you know, I would think it's very likely that your heart is more open as a result, because you've clearly expressed how the boundary between me and the world just wasn't there. And that is an open heart in a deep way. You know, we can be open-hearted on different levels. But that's a level where there's just this whole border between me and the world has gone. Now, usually it will come back. It'll reconstitute sooner or later, and that's okay. But we've seen a reality without it, where we're just not separate from this world. And just to see that and to feel it and to have let it in, to have let it happen — it can be the start of a reorientation in our values, you know.
It's kind of interesting. If I think back over the last year, one of the things I was thinking about is that there comes a stage, right? Or that's certainly with me, where you can talk about gratitude, right? And you can look at the science of it, the literature, and what it says about a practice of gratitude, right? But at some point you stop practicing gratitude and you become gratitude. Like I really feel like over the last year I just feel naturally appreciative and grateful for everything.
Like even the most mundane, right? Or as you say, you know, beauty is around us everywhere.
If you look for it. So, I mean, one of the most incredible things on the retreat that you hosted was a walking meditation, right? I'd never really done a walking meditation before. And one of the things I noticed is how much surrounds us at all times that we miss.
