Full Transcript for Zen: Stop Trying to Quiet Your Mind | Henry Shukman

It's so funny, I had all my notes for our conversation on my phone that we're actually using to record, so I'm going in blind here. But Henry, it's good to see you! Yeah, it's great to see you, Kevin. Glad we're doing this again! Yeah, and it's nice to do it out here in New Mexico, in the desert. I know! Getting ready to head into a week retreat, which starts tonight, which I'm really excited about.

I'm really excited, actually, myself, that you're doing it. Yeah. It's really beautiful to see you just stepping in like that. Yeah. I know you've done several before, of course, but you know, just slightly upping the dosage, you know, like a couple more a year is such a powerful thing to do. What do you think is the big benefit in going to, you can call it just like a three -day, or something that's beyond just a normal average, you know, 10 -20 minutes sit per day? Yeah, oh my gosh, we just go so much deeper.

You know, it's like the, I think it's really valuable to have, I mean, the most valuable thing is the daily consistent practice. That's like a thread running through your life. But when you drop into a longer retreat, you just go much deeper, and it infuses your daily practice. I think, you know, it's not enough just to do long retreats or, you know, semi -long retreats, multi -day retreats.

Now and then, it's, the value of it is how it boosts what you're doing every day. You see what I mean? It's like, it's not like just lurch from big retreat to big retreat with nothing in between. No, the value is in infusing what you're doing in your daily life. There's no good everyday analogy that I can think of that kind of maps to this type of idea of intense thing and then lifts the boat kind of for every day.

Because if you think about it, I've always thought, okay, to me, at least the first two years of practicing Zen was, you know, monkey mind was off the charts. And so the daily practice was like, I almost considered it my gym workout is the mental workout for my mind. And that made sense to me because, of course, you go to the gym for the first time, you're going to suck, you're going to be in pain, it's not going to be comfortable.

And then, you know, months, years go by, and all of a sudden, you're like, ah, not only does it not hurt anymore, but I look forward to it. What is the depth of the multi -day, how does it infuse that everyday practice? Well, I would say if you use an analogy like this one that Suzuki Roshi, who wrote Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, he used to use, he said, you know, rather than trying to sort of stop or kind of, I don't know, imprison, you know, or grab hold of your monkey mind.

Instead, think of it as a young foal, like a young cult or something, you know, in a field with its mother, the mayor, watching it. And basically, as our practice deepens, you could think of it like this, that the meadow gets larger. In other words, the sort of field of our awareness grows. So we can let monkey mind skip about and do what it's doing, but we're actually staying present.

We're not caught by it. We're not so quickly getting captivated by it. It's like that image of the mayor is beautiful. It's not trying to stop, you know, the little beastie running around, you know. It's just lovingly becoming more aware of it. And I think that's just a perfect analogy for what happens in practice. So when we come to a longer, deeper retreat, the paddock, the meadow is getting bigger.

You know, in other words, really, the space of our awareness is growing. So there's more sort of real estate. So what monkey mind is doing becomes a smaller part of our overall experience. I see. And the monkey mind is interesting because when I think of it these days around, you know, I'll be sitting. And, of course, we all have these days more often than not where something will come up, a daily life activity, something that's top of mind for you that is just wants your attention, wants to jump in there and grab you for a second, right? Yes, yes.

If you can take a second and acknowledge it. I don't know that is the correct term. It's more like just let it be.

There's a disconnect in how much I care about the fact that it's happening. And then all of a sudden, it kind of dissipates not because I forgot about it, but more because I am fully allowing. Yeah, exactly. Is that… I totally agree. It's like our relationship with it changes. Right. Instead of being… I mean, essentially, what you're describing, you could talk about it in terms of reactivity.

Now, something's happened and we get very upset about it because it's triggered inbuilt reactivity that we have. And that reactivity is very sticky. You know, once we get really kind of involved and engaged by something and finding it difficult, it's the… Our reactivity, our emotional sort of imprints and conditioning make us really glom on to the thing.

And it's sticky. So, practice in time, it actually loosens, it starts to soften and break up the foundations of reactivity. So, then when something happens, yeah, we might get caught for a little bit. Our reactivity comes on. But, again, we've got this larger space of awareness that can be aware of the reactivity. And you put it really well, Kevin.

It learns to allow it. Actually, our awareness isn't bothered. So, when we tap into that larger awareness, the reactivity can happen and we don't mind so much. In other words, we've got a little bit of a space, a little bit of a gap between our awareness and the reactivity. Right. And when we allow the reactivity, it can gradually sort of… It can actually dissipate, sort of turn to dust and blow away.

And then whatever the trigger was, it's just a thing. Yes. You know, it may still be an issue we need to address, but it's not a kind of all -consuming problem. Yeah. You know, it changes from being this real sort of, man, this is difficult, to, oh, it's just a thing I've got to work on. Yes. You know, without the reactivity, it's not such a big deal.

It's interesting. In Japan, slurping your soup is considered like a show to the chef that like, oh, they must be enjoying the soup. And so, I'm sitting here at this little diner and everyone's like, just going whole hog on their soup. And as a Westerner, I'm like, this is like fingernails on a chalkboard, you know? But isn't that funny that that is just, you know, being raised that way with that conditioning, there's no negative reactivity to the same thing that's causing me fingernails on a chalkboard.

It's just a preference thing, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's a little preference that I created at a young age. And for one person can be, oh, thank you for enjoying my food. And another being like, how rude, this is disgusting. Exactly. Exactly. What are preferences? Well, let's just, I mean, we could just also stay with the lens of reactivity right there and the conditioning.

Because, you know, you would have had, you know, the whole social field around you sort of, you know, really condemning or really being down on noisy eating, mouth open slurping, you know? No, no, no, you don't do that at a table. So, that gets conditioned. So, when the code is broken, somebody is violating this, that reactivity is ready and waiting to say, oh my gosh, don't do that.

Again, it's just conditioning. And therefore, you get a strong reaction. And that's a great example, because you can see there how kind of arbitrary it is that actually our reactivity, it seems so kind of ingrained that we just, we believe it. Right. It's a story. But it's actually just a story, you know. And when we come to preferences, it's closely related.

But I mean, there's a slight subtle, I put a little bit of a line between reactivity and preferences. I mean, they totally interact. But preferences are just a wish that something be different. You know, I want that, but I don't want that. I like that, but I don't like that. You know, I move towards that and push that away. That's basically, that's what preference is.

Now, when we can see preferences without reactivity, they're just preferences. We just get to see, oh, there's this thing in our solar plexus or heart area. And they're not bad. They're not good or bad. It's just a preference. When you can see it for just being a preference, no problem. The problem is that, again, it's about reactivity. They will have these foundations of reactivity that are really invested in preference.

It's got to be that way. I need that. It's, you know, threatening if I don't get that. And then we get the same thing. It gets activated. And it feels like a much bigger deal than it is. So I would say, actually, one of the values of deeper practice, like we get on retreats, is that the laboratory that we're setting up, which practice is in part, is a laboratory for studying how our body, mind, heart systems work.

You know, the laboratory gets more refined, gets more tooled up. Maybe it gets larger. We go deeper with it. The microscope gets more accurate. And we get to the point where we can see preferences at work, you know, rather than just, oh, shit, I don't like this. You know, now we can actually see, oh, wait a minute. The reactivity is subsiding.

Therefore, I can see, oh, look, there's a strong sort of resistance coming up to something, to X or Y. And you can start to learn it's just a sort of impulse. It's just a, it's actually just a sensation in my body, a sensation of, ooh, we don't like that. Fine, you know. But when you can really see it, it's just it goes this way, it goes that way, it becomes much easier to just be with it.

Do you ever sit with a preference and say, why do I have this preference?

I'm more interested in the phenomenon of the preference itself. I could explain that. What's the difference? Well, if I can understand, if I can see what is actually happening when I have a preference, that there's some, there's some sensation in my, you know, usually for me it's sort of solar plexus or diaphragm area that's, that's favoring something.

I want that. When I get to see that, I actually become free of it. I'm observing it, not caught up in it. And once that's happened, then I'm free to investigate. And I might well take a little look and say, yeah, where does, it might actually immediately show up. Why, where that comes from. Oh my gosh, it was when I was seven years old and that thing happened and I got very strongly kind of imprinted that that's bad or that's good, you know.

And fine, I mean, it's sweet in a way, you know, and I can be very compassionate towards it. But I feel that as long as, I mean, I gotta be, I wouldn't want to be trying to work out the origins while I was still in the grip of it. If that makes sense. I want to, I want to have loosened and softened around it. How would you deal with this? Let's just say with your wife, if your wife comes up with something or it comes at you or hits you with something in real time.

Yeah. You don't have a minute to be like, well, how did she say that? And what if I, you know, it's like, you want to, you want to just clap back or re -react and sometimes not from a good place. What's your coaching for people out there that tend to, you know, fly off the wire or get kind of like triggered quickly and respond quickly in a way that, that causes that conflict? Well, I've got to say, I mean, I think probably one of the hardest areas is close, you know, intimate relationships.

Yes. That's because there's, you know, that's where all our reactivity is sort of exposed, you know, and whatever I may have, my partner, you know, has their own as well. And people can get into relationships where these, you know, these reactivities are just responding to reacting to one another. And it can be, I mean, that's probably in a certain way you might consider that sort of the deepest sort of integration opportunity of practice is when we can be in an intimate relationship.

And, and it takes willing partners, I think, on both sides that we can really own our stuff because it's going to show up. And I mean, I think it's, as somebody, you know, I think I can sort of claim that I've done quite a lot of practice, you know, it's been four decades now. How has this changed for you over time personally? Like, obviously, you know, you're, everyone thinks of, they put Zen masters on a pedestal and they think, oh, they must just be the most chill people ever.

But of course, you know, you're human, you have reactions. How has this changed? And what were your tools like? Yeah. I mean, I could say from sort of, I mean, done a ton of therapy and a ton of couples therapy as well, you know, which has been all of it in different ways, very, very helpful. But I can say also that there was, I think there was a key moment, a key point in my practice when that really made a big difference.

I think, you know, for a lot of my practice, I was definitely sort of growing and getting a bit more expansive, a bit more compassionate and a bit more aware of the vastness of all of this. And, you know, and that was helpful. But it was only when something really, a particular moment in my practice was actually a bit of a game changer. And that was the loss of some, I don't know, great lump of reactivity that just fell away.

I mean, there's a whole long buildup to that happening for sure. But there was a key moment. And after it, there was just, I was just more open, you know, I mean, not way, way, way far from perfect. But some openness had arrived that made it somehow so much easier for me to just touch into compassion. And compassion for this being me and for my partner and for anybody else.

And that really cut down reactivity. I wish I could say all the way to zero. Right. No, it wasn't. But it was a massive shift. And, you know, that really stuck around for quite a long time. I actually had never believed I could see that something like that seemed to be possible. I could see it in my teachers and in senior practitioners I knew, but I didn't think it was possible for me.

I mean, quite a troubled guy. I had a lot of trauma, really complex trauma as a child and a lot of reactivity. And I could see I could get to these expansive places and then I'd kind of come back, you know, and it was a seesaw, you know, and I just thought I'll always be. Coming back to this troublesome, troublesome person, you know. And actually, you know, I was wrong that the practice, it really works.

It's not, you don't have to be some particular person. It works on human beings and enough of it with with good guidance. I think something can really shift.

And so since then, it's again, not perfect, but it's been on the whole, I've been better, quicker and easier access to a less reactive place, you know, where, yeah, I mean, you know, we still work on our relationship, my wife and I, you know, and I imagine we all always will. Yeah, I mean, we're all changing, right? Exactly. Esther Perel, like, you're going to be married four or five times, you hope it's to the same person, right? Because everyone changes and becomes different people over the decades.

Exactly. And I think that's one of the good things in a long relationship that's, it's a healthy long relationship, is that you allow for that. And the relationship allows you both to do that. Because then it's a new relationship. Yeah. And man, I didn't know that she could be like this. Right. With the extended depth of the previous, right? Exactly.

That's beautiful. Yeah. There is a saying, help me fix this, because I'm horrible at paraphrasing things. The great way is not difficult, it's picking and choosing. Oh, it just dislikes picking and choosing. It dislikes picking and choosing. Who said that? Yeah, that was said by Seng Tan or Sozan, who is known as the third ancestor in Chinese Chan or Zen Buddhism.

And he was, yeah, he was a great man. He was a great figure. And he wrote this poem called the Shin Shin Ming or the Shin Jin Mei in Japanese, which is, I actually forget how many verses it is, but it's about kind of three pages long. And it starts with this line. The great way is not difficult. It just dislikes choosing. And people have poured over that line for millennia in Zen.

Yeah. Like, what exactly did he mean, you know? And what's your take on that? Yeah. I mean, I think it's really beautiful. And it actually touches in on exactly what we've been talking about. Preferences and reactivity. I mean, first of all, what does he mean by the great way? Well, the great way is the great reality. It's the reality that excludes nothing.

That is one single, whole, vast reality. Maybe it's not even vast. It has no size. It doesn't do time. It isn't time. It doesn't. It's free of time, but it allows time to happen. It allows everything to unfold. And so, you know, you're talking about this idea of non -dual reality. Yeah. You can't really get to what the great way is without talking a little bit about the non -dual.

That it's not something that, you know, I see out there. It's something that I actually am and all of us are. It's a thing that transcends, you know, self and other, self and world. It includes self and world.

Absolutely. So you can be yourself totally. And but at the same time, in the great way, you know, you're part of everything and everything is part of everything. So is it truly non -dual then? Because it includes dual. That you see, if it didn't include dual, it wouldn't be truly non -dual. See what I mean? Because then there'd be like, this is a place that I don't know how do you want to go? Let's go for defense.

I love it. Well, let me talk about this in phases of practice, because, you know, typically we start we start practice and it's very clear. I am me in here. Right. With all these reactivities and preferences trying to navigate this life. Day one on the cushion. This is what we're all everyone's going through. Exactly. My mind is all over the place.

And I'm starting to see in phase one that my mind, man, my mind is busy and it's constantly preferring this and preferring that and hating on that, loving that, craving this and resisting. And it's doing it with memories. It's doing it with planning. It's doing it with fantasies and imaginings. And it's doing it with body sensations. Oh, I don't like that feeling.

I want more of that feeling. You know, and we start to see that this this maelstrom of inward sort of life that's that's that's that's kind of torn apart by craving and resisting is going on. And gradually we start to as we start to see it and be able to identify it, to name it, you know, to name it is to tame it. It will start settling down a little bit and we start to get moments of clarity or just calm, calm and clarity.

We're going to see it's possible to exist without that, you know, where there's actually there's not an inner turmoil and not an inner stream of talk and comment and commentary going on. You can get moments where that just isn't happening. And then you can you notice how weirdly peaceful that can be. All that's happened is your mind's gone quiet for a little bit and you start to get these little hits.

So sort of maybe that it's not so problematic somehow or there's a some kind of space I can find that isn't filled with problems and problem solving and fixing. And, you know, that just settles and maybe just a moment here and there practice fosters that, you know, so call that phase one. And then, you know, which is if if that's all we got in practice, it's tremendous.

It's vast, hugely life changing. But it's possible usually when, you know, we're more settled to get sudden shifts in the way we experience this very moment. And and, you know, that it can come in various complexions, various shades of this can happen, various degrees of it can happen. But one way or another, all all of these shifts into what we call non -dual experience, they're all about some sense, some discovery, even however fleeting, however slight.

There's a way in which I am not separate from what I experience. You know, there's such a fundamental assumption that I'm this little person in here, big person, whatever, experiencing everything else as an object that is not me. And non -dual experience is somehow that separation, the membrane between me and everything else is just briefly gone.

So I is gone as well. I is gone and world as not me. It's not like that. It's one fact, one reality. And it's non -dual, which is a slightly abstract technical term that doesn't capture what this is like at all. But it's non -dual because it hasn't got the duality of me and it, of me and world. That that's two. That's gone. And when we get ahead of that, you know, it may be very slight.

It's just, wow, that was, that's weird. Or that was beautiful. What was that? You know, and it can be, it can be a deep thing as well. We really plunged into this other way of being. And, you know, it usually it doesn't last very long, but it can still have a deep impact on us that we suddenly realize that our ordinary way of constructing relative understanding of experiencing.

It's not the only way. We suddenly seen, oh my gosh, there's been another order of what's real here all the time. And I've just been exposed to it. I've just dropped into it. And it's who knows which is more real. But the important thing is that we've seen our ordinary way of knowing reality is not the only way. And that's a tremendous explosion in our life.

Because we suddenly, the great assumptions we've lived by, and the most fundamental of all, is that I am this person in here. And, and suddenly we've seen that's not the whole story. That's, that's a huge thing. Yeah. How do you, you've said before, this is a, an experience where the mind isn't invited to the party. That, that, so everything that you're giving me right now then would just be considered lightweight pointers, right? Like there's no way to thoroughly describe what this is.

Why is that? Yeah. I mean, one, one, one, one easy way to try to talk about it is to say that language is built on the dualistic view. Right. That you can't, you just, nobody's yet created language that expresses that reality.

I mean, I, I, I, we all try, you know, like Zen is full of language that is trying to point people to it. Language will never be able to do it because it's thought. And that's a division of, a division of things. That's, that's basically it. Exactly. Okay. So that's why the silence is so valuable. You know, the silence, you know, first of all, there's the physical, the sort of physical silence.

Like you go on a retreat and it's largely silent. No words are being spoken. Occasionally. Yes. You have an interview. Somebody gives a talk, maybe a bit of guidance, but largely it's silent. And gradually, gradually over time, that helps the mind to start to say, Oh, okay. This silence thing is okay. There's a way of being silence.

I think it's deep listening. Who's listening. Well, at first, we just have to accept, I think I am at first, at first, but gradually, the more we listen, the more we discover in a certain way, there's just listening. Listening. And it's almost, we could say, listening is listening.

Hmm. Or we could say, awareness is listening. Hmm. Or we could say,

being is listening. In other words, the more we just listen, the smaller and smaller the sense of a me who's doing the listening, the smaller it can become. Right. But there's no thought there. Exactly. Because that's a division. Exactly. So, oneness cannot ever be, ever explained through the mind because it is indivisible. Yes. I think that's right.

It's not analyzable. You can't break it down into parts. Well, if you break it, then you're trying to, you're already separating it. Exactly. Exactly. Which is the mind's disease. It also says in that same poem that you were just quoting from, a little further down. What does it say? It says to like and dislike is nothing but the mind's disease.

Hmm. And like and dislike is separating.

I want that. I don't want this. Right. It's separating. So, it's very hard for us because we're so habituated to, you know, using the mind to improve our lives and our world. And it's very hard to disengage from that conditioning, the idea that actually you can improve things vastly if you just set the mind down and just be. I sometimes think it's like we're so habituated to sort of working on stuff.

Hmm. And we work on it physically. We work on it mentally. We work on it in our thoughts. And it's all kind of in front of us. And, you know, in a certain sense, you know, we're sort of pouring all our attention and energy into sort of the life in front of us. Hmm.

And when somebody says, how about we just disengage from all that? Hmm. First of all, we disengage physically, you know, manually almost. We just let our hands do nothing. Then let's see if we can just be aware of where our hearts are at because there's going to be some turmoil in here from all the activity we've been in. And suddenly we're loosening and foregoing all that outward activity.

And then see, well, what's going on here? Ooh, there's stuff here. So let me just be with that. Yeah. And then gradually the mind gets to disengage. And we're kind of coming backwards. There's a line in saying take the backward step. Hmm. And that's that backward step is sort of disengaging. It's how we release ourselves from activity. Hmm.

And we come back into a kind of space. It's that actually is very active. It's the space of being. Hmm. You know, is this why it's often they always say like a childlike mind? Oh, is that is that in the same vein of this like returning to that type of state? Yeah, because it's a sort of innocence. We come back. I mean, really, the being that we come back to is actually timeless.

So it's therefore always new, always fresh. You know, Zen talks about beginner's mind. Mm -hmm. Because this empty being is always new, fresh, innocent. How is it new if it's timeless? Because it hasn't got a great big history it's dragging around. It's not dragging around a sack. Because there's nothing, there's no history attached to it.

Yeah. Huh. Huh. So it's truly at the edge of unfolding. Exactly. Exactly. And actually, that's where you live is at the edge of unfolding. Well, I aspire to.

I sometimes can claim it. That's amazing. So you try to live there, but you do have it more often. Honestly, I don't try to. Right. Because trying would be a preference. Exactly. It would push it away. Forget about these things. I find it, you know, it happens more. I mean, over the years, it's happened more and more. And, you know, since that sort of decisive event thing that was now 18 years ago, it's happened spontaneously a lot more.

Yeah. You know, but when, you know, I'm a human being and I don't want to not be a human being. I actually cherish my emotions and feelings. I don't want to be a heartless sort of Zen robot, you know. Yeah, yeah. I feel and I aspire to be a creative guy. And that must have. I'm a poet, you know. I had so many good questions about poetry actually for you.

What's your favorite poem? Oh my gosh. I mean I have different ways. Every day I have a different one. I'll tell you, I've memorized quite a few poems by great poets that I admire.

So I've got a bunch of favorites. I've got my own private anthology of favorite poems. I feel really like, I really cherish them. And I'm so glad that I do take the time to memorize poems because... What's the one that's hit you the hardest? Where when you heard it you were like, Wow! This is kind of like, ah, this one just really took me back a little bit.

It just kind of gave me a moment to pause and... I'd have to say all of the ones that I've memorized have done that. But how about this short one by Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks? You know, it's very well known, but it really still speaks to me. I say, come back, come back, whoever you are. Come back, come back, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leavings.

It doesn't matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Even if you've broken your vows a thousand times, return, yet again, return. Come back. Come back. I love that. Can you break that down for a minute? Well, Yeah, coming back to now. Wherever you've gone off in this mind road, there's many, many mind parts, you know, reactivity, whatever's taken you away from now, it's okay.

Don't worry about it. It's not a, we don't live in a caravan of despair. Like a caravan actually is a sort of dual meaning, you know, one meaning is like the train of caravan, of camels crossing the desert, you know. But a caravan, I think really is the sort of lodges where those camel trains would come and rest in at night, you know, or every few days, you know, crossing the great desert, coming to a resting place, a caravan, Caravanserai, they were called them, caravan for short.

And, you know, ours is not a caravan of despair, like, come here, doesn't matter what you've been going through, you're welcome here. There's always hope here, no matter how desperate you feel. It's okay to come back. You must come back. We want you back, you know. And this is what practice is about. That, you know, again and again, as we practice more, we'll see how far away we go from just being, from just the being here now, you know.

And instead of despairing about it, it's okay. It's the way we are. Come back. There's something so good, so nourishing, so compassionate in the heart of every moment, just waiting for us to come back to it. I mean, I love that. Yeah. Has that been a personal kind of growth edge for you over time? Did you find that when you were younger, you fell off and then needed to come back? Oh, my gosh.

So badly. I mean, I've done it in big ways and small ways. You know, I had, you know, I mean, just getting a little bit biographical, you know, I mean, just in a major way. I had an awakening experience when I was a youth, you know. I don't need to go into details, but it was a most beautiful, amazing thing, and I felt I'd discovered who I really was so fully that I could die that night.

Like, my life had been fulfilled by that awakening. And lo and behold, six weeks later, you know, it happened far from home. I went home, and six weeks later, I just, I collapsed in despair. I had a breakdown. And I felt I'd lost it, you know. And for several years, I lived with this sense of deep shame and despair and having lost this priceless treasure and truth that I'd somehow accidentally found.

And you hadn't been meditating at this point, right? This was just an accidental thing that kind of just out of nowhere. Yeah, it came out of nowhere. And, you know, that's a mystery that, I mean, I can point to some factors, maybe.

What are the factors? Well, I think one would, you know, I had really difficult eczema from a very young age. And I think it was, I don't know, I don't know how to look at it. But for one thing, it was just an incredibly difficult thing to live with. It was all over my body for periods of time. It was never gone. Sometimes it receded. And there was always this hope, oh, maybe it's getting better.

And then it would get bad again. I was hospitalized a number of times for it. And, you know, it was very traumatic, you know. And I think in some way, maybe that was some kind of training. You know, I mean, I wouldn't wish it on anyone. And it was very traumatic. But somehow, maybe to learn to live with that and to have to live with that was some kind of training.

I don't know if you see what I mean. I don't really know. I do know that at times I would pop into a certain sort of state of mind that was beautiful. Usually at night when I couldn't get to sleep, I'd go into this really different place that was incredibly peaceful and alive and sort of glowing. And years, years later, when I did Janna practice training, this is absorption training.

We could talk about that a little bit if we want. But when I started doing that, you know, I mean, as an adult decades later, the first time I popped into a Janna state, it was like, oh, my gosh, this is what I did as a kid. And so I was actually somehow spontaneously doing this deep meditation thing spontaneously as a kid. I mean, it wasn't that often.

I couldn't control it. But I knew it very well. So I don't know. Gosh, was that some kind of, I don't know, weird accidental practice? I don't know. It's just a, you know, it's a head scratcher in terms of the stew, the mental stew that has to come together to create these kind of awakening moments. Because, you know, it'd be really fascinating if someone did this research.

I mean, you've seen this happen, I'm sure, dozens of times now with your students. Yes. And it'd be really interesting to do a deep dive on their backgrounds and understand, you know, psychologically, what was their upbringing like? What were their challenges like? You know, I've heard musicians, a pianist, and, you know, of course, Valerie, like these who study this, like this perfection and this focus and energy on that focus, that that can sometimes, it looks like, be a factor in having these awakens.

Very difficult emotional upbringing seemed to be. You know, Eckhart Tolle almost committed suicide. Yeah. He's very famous for laying there. Yeah. He's asking himself, well, who's the one that wants to die? Who is the, and then boom, pop, right? Yes, yes, yes, yes. Do you see any themes here? Yeah, I would see, in what you just said, I think two very important ones highlighted.

One is actually flow states might be some kind of preparatory training. And so a musician, for example, they're practicing. They know how to practice. They know how to do the same thing again and again and slowly, gradually make it second nature. Yeah. You know, and I think that's really important. And you're starting to, because they then get to know this thing, flow, where you're doing exactly the same thing you've done every day for 10 years and suddenly it's easy.

Suddenly it's become second nature and you're on a kind of autopilot doing it better than ever with a clarity of mind and a richness in your own experience. And, you know, baseball players, basketball players, you know, football players, all these great athletes and things know it. And you don't have to be doing something special like music or athletics.

It could be in any kind of habitual task. As you get better at it and you're accomplishing, you know, your practice skills, you'll hit these moments of when you're on cruise, you know, and you're in the zone. And that's special because suddenly your sense of self is, so you're not self -conscious. Time goes quiet, you know, it's effortless.

All those things I think are glimpses or foreshadowings, let's say, of what awakening is. So that might be one key element. And the same applies, of course, to meditators. Gradually you sort of get freer and looser and easier. And, you know, it becomes easier for you. And you're getting into flow. More often, I mean, it's not an absolute thing.

Of course, it's not a straight line graph, but it just pops up a little bit more. So that's one possibility. The other is the possibility that that helps a loosening of the need for control and the defendedness. That we realize something almost larger than me can sort of take over because Awakening is letting something much larger completely take over, you know? And so it's, you know what I mean? It's a sort of, you're getting a bit more used to that feeling of like, oh, I can release my control.

Yeah. You once had a podcast where you talked about it's less about trying to obtain a thing than it is about kind of, you call it the finger by finger letting go of control, which is so counterintuitive to what we would think. We'd be like, oh, this is something to obtain. Yes. But really it's the process of release that lets you to the, lets you obtain.

Yes. That's why it's such a fabulous thing to, to have as a human aspiration because you're not going to get it through your own trying. You have to do the practice without trying to get it. And that's just a huge lesson. It's, it's, it's a lesson in patience. It's a really deep patience and a lesson in constancy. Again, it's like, don't give up.

Come back, come back. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come back again and again. It doesn't matter how heartbroken and how distressed and how despairing you get, you still come back. Is it a lesson, lesson in patience or no? Because in some sense it's letting go of even having to be patient about something. You see what I'm saying? Yes.

Yes. Because I, I, I fell into this trap because when I first started doing Zen with you during COVID, I was like, okay, well, I just have to sit with my con and I have to be patient and I'm not, there's patience. And I realized, oh, I'm trying to be patient. You're trying to be patient in order to get something. In order to get something.

Yeah, exactly. No, it's, it's truly releasing. Right. The aspiration. So it's almost like you, you, you have to not even, they have to let go of this idea of being patient. Okay. If you're being patient for something to come, then you're still, you're still, you're still, you're still, you're still, you're still anticipating. Right. Isn't that funny? Well, it is.

It's so many layers to this. I know what, that's why it's such a deep thing. And so, so good for us humans, because it, it's working on all these different layers of our personality, you know? So yeah, you know, initially or in time learning to be patient and then just checking, is there still an anticipation?

And then don't try to get rid of that anticipation. If it's there, let it be there. Right. Because it's really just another preference. Right. It's really just another preference. Let it be there. Because the reality that we're seeking is always already here. Right. So to be seeking it cannot be right. Right. Because it's already here. Again, it's the backward step.

You see, if you're seeking, it's kind of a forward step. Right. Trying to go forwards. No. The very seeking is actually it. Right. And so, so the, so the same, see with anticipation, it's the same thing. Right. But just let it be there. Anticipation is awakening, manifesting itself beautifully as anticipation. Exactly. No, I get that. Because I've had, you know, I've shared with you a couple of these hits that I've had.

Yeah. And, and a couple of them have been around this idea that there's nothing to do. Not even meditate. When you get a hit, you realize that. Right. Would that be true? Would you agree with that? Like when you've had a hit, what it reveals, oh my gosh, what have I been doing? What have I been doing? Yeah. Because everything, it's not that everything is here.

It's just that there's no, there's no place to go. Yeah. What am I, isn't that the same? What am I looking for? There's nothing to look for. It's all here. It's all already here. Exactly. Exactly.

It feels like a very freeing thing. But it's also laughably easy. It is. Exactly. We've been working so hard. We've been working so hard. But I, the way I think of it is that, you know, we need to do whatever we need to do. You know, and we can exhaust ourselves trying and trying. But maybe that's part of it. Yeah, maybe that's part of it.

We need to do that. Well, I mean, that's the whole, I mean, who is the monk that, that gave up and walked away and hit his foot? Oh, yeah. That's Gensher. Because he gave up. Can you tell that story real quick? He gave up. Yeah. He's been sitting for a long time, right? Yeah, he's been sitting and trying, trying to get clear. What is this great way thing? This was in the, you know, Chinese days in the, in the ninth century.

And he, he'd actually lost his father when he was young. And, and, and it really troubled about mortality and what is this life. And he went to a monastery, you know, I'm going to resolve all this. I'm going to find peace. I'm going to find the great way that resolves everything. And it just didn't happen. He's sitting there doing the practice, studying really hard, working really hard.

Nothing happened. And eventually he thought, well, I better try somewhere else or I'm just going to give up. And he packed up, said goodbye to his master,

walked up the valley side and into the next valley. And the story is that he stubbed his toe on a rock in his open sandals, straw sandals he used to wear. Apparently really bad. Really bad. Like blood. Yeah. Blood and, you know, it was sudden pain. And in that instant of the pain and hitting his toe, somehow the shock of it, it just went right through him.

And, you know, it seems like from what he said, everything just fell away. There's just one openness. And he said, there's no body. There's nobody and there's no body. He had a real experience of what we might call shunyata or emptiness. And then he said, so where does this pain come from? That was his question. There's nothing. And yet there's this pain.

And so all this reactivity of the pain had gone. He could just see the pain as an experience, as a sensory experience with nobody even having it. Just this vast emptiness with pain. And so he just immediately, I mean, he must have wrapped a handkerchief around his toe, went straight back to the monastery. And the master said, what are you doing? I thought you'd left.

And he said, I mean, I'm paraphrasing a little bit. He said, I never took a single step. And actually, what he really said, I'm simplifying it, was that Bodhidharma, the great master who is said to have brought Zen from India to China, Bodhidharma never took a step. And what he seems to be saying is that he's discovered this reality where there's nowhere to go, where you actually can't go anywhere.

Right. You can drive all over the place, fly all over the place, walk as much as you like. And in a certain sense, you're not going anywhere. Right. In one sense, you're going just like you think you are, but you're also not going anywhere. And he's discovered it. Right. And that's a deep awakening. Yeah. And it changed his life. You know, he stayed with that master.

He never went anywhere else and succeeded that master as his successor. Became a great teacher. It's such a great story. Absolutely. But look, let's just, if we may, let's just, we were talking about like the possible preparatory, you know, inputs on this. One was this flow business we talked about. Yes. But I think that you brought up the other emotional difficulty, emotional distress.

I think this is really important. I've known people, you know, going through immensely hard things. A parent losing her 21 -year -old son, you know, to addiction and suicide, you know. And I don't know what's harder really than parents losing their children. Yeah, I can imagine. And I've known others. Same thing. Yeah. You know, I also knew a guy who had very long, close partnership, no kids, and his wife died.

And he couldn't really bear the grief, understandably. He couldn't bear the loss. It was an unbearable loss. And somewhere, somehow in the middle of it, he felt he had just fallen into an abyss. And he let it happen. And it turned out that the abyss of grief was also a vast peace, a vast equanimity,

boundless peace at the same time. And I can really understand that, that in extremity of loss and emotion, emotional intensity, where there's just nowhere else to go. Basically, if we actually surrender to it, something shifts. And what had seemed such an enemy actually can become a great love, basically. I was going to say a great teacher that shows us a boundless love.

Isn't grief just love manifesting in a slightly different way? I believe that. I believe that. You wouldn't have grief without the love. You can't. Exactly. It is the hole or the gap that is just love lost, right? Exactly. So it is a byproduct of love. It is. I think it's two sides of one coin. Yes. Two sides of one coin. Because I had a dear friend pass away just a few weeks ago, O'Malic, a technologist and a good buddy of mine.

And there was grief there, because this is a good friend. And I was laying there. I was actually listening to some music, and one of these songs that I have, which is more of a chanting type thing, came on. And it has a little om to it. His name was Om. And he immediately hit me, and I had a little welling up of tears. And it just also hit me at the same time, oh, this is love.

Right. Right. Otherwise, it wouldn't be here. Right. If this was just some guy off the street I'd never met, it would never be here. The only reason it's here is because it's love. That's very beautiful. I totally agree. And that's why I think grief is so important. When we let our grief flow, you know, actually, we're letting our hearts open.

And we're letting our hearts expand. And, of course, that means more love. Yeah. And so the more we grieve when there's a reason to grieve, you know, when there's actually there are abundant reasons to grieve, I think all the time in our world, the more we open to love. Yeah. So one of the things that I want to touch on is around your healing, around your brain injury that you had.

Because I have to imagine that there was a bit of practice that you brought in to assist with this. It seemed like such a traumatic thing to have gone through. And, you know, you still seem to have told me there's little bits and pieces that are still kind of underway in terms of healing. Can you tell us about what the accident was and then how practice played a part in that healing process? Yeah, I'd love to.

I mean, essentially, I fell off my bike, you know, and luckily it wasn't on a road. It was on a paved path. And I was going fairly quickly, you know, maybe 20 miles an hour or something. And I was wearing a helmet, of course, and I hit the side of my head and I was very confused and had a concussion. And I did the protocol, you know, sort of semi -darkened room for a few days and I got better.

And I thought that was it. And actually, over the coming weeks, I started to realize that something was wrong. I mean, for about six weeks, it seemed fine. Then I started to get these weird things where I'd be driving and suddenly it'd be really, really hard to, my eyes would hurt and I just kind of couldn't, it almost felt like I just couldn't go on.

Or I'd be meeting with people, you know, for Zen interviews. And after two or three, after maybe 10, 15 minutes, I just, it was like my mind just sort of darkened and I couldn't, I just couldn't, I couldn't carry on. I was totally confused and I have to stop. And same thing riding my bike, you know, I'd wind up a hill, no problem. The moment I started coming down it, I'd be, I'd be totally confused and dizzy.

And, you know, basically I had, you know, cause there's a lot of, I have, I now know, you know, I had post -concussion syndrome as they call it. And there are different areas of symptoms that you can get. And I, I've spared the vestibular stuff mercifully, but I had quite a lot of optical, you know, optical stuff. I remember when we were talking on Zoom, sometimes you would have to put something over or not look at the camera back in those days because you were like, I can't take the intensity of this.

That's right. I would cover the screen. Yeah. And the camera could be that, I had a separate camera. Right, right. And cover the screen. That's right. Yeah, it was, it was, but what I, what I, you know, what I felt really was that, I mean, this is going to sound maybe a little strange, but I felt like I fairly quickly, I realized I didn't need my head as much as I thought I did.

Now, what I mean by that is that I, I just started living from my heart. And as long as I was actively engaged with this part of my body. What do you mean by engage? Like for me, I'm thinking about the crunches I'm going to do later at the gym by activating my core. What are you talking about here? Yeah. I would say what I mean by it is like, I'm aware of this feeling center of my being.

I'm just aware of it. I just, I literally just, I'm sensing it and I'm feeling what this part of my body is feeling. The, the, and it's emotion sensation. It's a kind of emotional awareness. And, you know, and I don't know how to put this exactly, but when I'm feeling that, when I'm feeling this heart, there's a quality of love and that quality of love is all I need.

And I just don't need the cognitive capacity of my brain in the same way that I used to imagine I did. As long as this is here, if this sense of love is here, then awareness comes with it. And, and yeah, sometimes I'm not as articulate as, as I might be. Um, and I don't mind. I don't mind at all because the real thing that I think we all want to communicate, you know, the real communication isn't up here anyway.

So, you know, when I'm, these days when I'm doing retreats, leading retreats, which I can no longer handle the, the full Zen schedule. So when I'm leading retreats, I do it a different, much more manageable schedule, but you know, I'm not, I'm not really trying to convey concepts. I'm just trying to communicate this, you know, and it is, it's something, it's about love and it's about being.

And the less that I'm giving all the priority and, and the sort of premium value to my conceptual cognitive capacity, the more I'm doing that, the less I'm living here. And the more I'm living here, the less I'm needing that. And somehow, usually, you know, the words and phrases that I hope are helpful, they come anyway. You know, and I feel sort of the right ones will come more if I'm living here in my heart.

And that's, I don't believe I could have made that migration without the years of practice. Yeah. You know, I think it was a practice accelerator. Yeah. Did it strengthen that piece for you? Because it caused you to kind of drop out of your head a bit more into the heart? Yeah, it made it more necessary. Yeah. You know, it was where I could actually live.

You know, so I'm very grateful to that head injury. Yeah, I've done a lot of stuff to try to ameliorate it. And it's got, it's actually, my symptomology has lessened a lot. Yeah. Through some great things. If anybody's curious about managing this stuff, you know, I've had some great resources that have helped me. Yeah. Yeah. It seems, when I think about what people are known for, you know, an athlete, you know, rips a ligament or something, or they have these life changing injuries.

And when your identity is wrapped up in that, where do you go from there? You know? And it's like, I've always seen you as this creative and this poet and this, you know, insanely articulate person and intellectual. And it's like, if, if that's, some of that is at least temporarily pulled back, that, that for most people would be just a huge egoic hit and something where you would fall into pretty deep despair around that.

Yeah. But you were able to pretty quickly shift to the heart. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, really, whether it's poetry or teaching, you know, some kind of spirituality, Zen, meditation, mindfulness, I don't, I think the, you know, maybe the head is a little bit overrated. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a conclusion I've come to. One of the things that I wanted to mention is, is your app and not in a promotional way, but more in a just curiosity way.

I mean, of course it'll be a promotional way because we're talking about it. But the way app is something that, you know, you and I talked about this way before you even started it. I was like, Henry, you got to do an app. And then finally got it off the ground and you and Jack have done a great job. But, um, one of the things I was really encouraged by that I didn't know was going to be a thing.

And that Jack told me is that people are having these experiences with the app as they get further in. Yeah. You've had a few people right in. Yeah. Yeah. We have tons. What's going on there? Well, I, the certain part of the app that is, is triggering them. Like, is there a certain session? And not that we obviously don't want to skip forward.

Yeah. No, no, no. I really think it's the journey because, you know, the sort of special thing about the app, if there is one, is that it's a journey and you're taken on a journey and you can't actually choose. You can choose how long you sit for each day. That's all. You follow the journey. Yeah. And, you know, when I look back on recording that whole thing, it was a major piece of work.

There's nearly a thousand sessions, you know. So I, I feel, I don't quite know where it came from, but all the serendipities of how it came to meeting you and, you know, us starting to do a little bit of Zen study together. And, and then you suggesting an app. And it was just at a time when I'd had some difficult things in my life. I had a head injury.

I had a very dear, close loved one going into a really, really difficult, dark place. Meanwhile, it was COVID. Our Zen center closed. And I was suddenly having to teach in a whole new way online. And it just so happened that, you know, right before COVID, I'd written the first draft of a book that was laying out the map of practice that I'd actually been teaching without very consciously knowing it.

And this book just laid it all out. I wrote it in a 12 day blitz, you know, just came as a kind of, you know, just sprint, writing sprint. And, and I had to do a ton of work on it, of course, but after that, but it, it's, it was all about these different dimensions of practice, four dimensions, I think. So, and I'd been teaching from that.

And then when this app idea came up, I started, at first, I don't know, I'm not sure I can do an app, you know, but I suddenly realized I've got this program that has come to me, you know, and I work quite for many decades of practice and therapeutic work as well. Of a way of leading people through these different areas of spiritual development, you know, including awakening and including all the other things we've been talking about.

And, and I suddenly realized I could, I could, I could, the app would actually be the best possible way because it'd be actually leading people through an experience. Right. It wasn't just a book telling them about it and it wasn't just courses, you know, trying to share it. A day by day experience of being taken through this process. And so I feel that, I mean, the responses, you know, it's, it's been really, I mean, I'm humbled by it really.

I've never seen an app with, I think you have a solid five -star review on the app store. Oh gosh. It's just been insane to witness, but yeah. Oh gosh. And, you know, and the, the feedback is so many people, you know, finding it just deeply helpful. And I think it's because it's this sequential training, you know, and not just, so I don't think it's particular parts because different people write in about different parts, you know, and I want people to be.

What are people saying when they write in? What are they experiencing? Oh gosh, it's things like, you know, they've been having such a hard time and it's been such a comfort and it's really helped them get back on their feet. People in recovery saying it's been critical for their recovery.

People, yeah, being curious about non -dual experience, having a glimpse, you know, and finding that they can take it into their life more, integrate it more. So it's a real range. It's people who've never practiced before and it's people who've actually done 30 years of sitting. And, and, but not a comprehensive view of the whole spectrum of what meditation could be.

That, you know, cause I can't provide a total, but I, total comprehensive, but it's, it's sort of more kind of, I really want people to get a taste of all the foundations of practice, you know, or all the primary foundations. Right. So I think that's really helpful for, even for some people out of a lot of practice. Cause you know, each tradition has its emphases that they're really strong on, but actually it's quite good to have a little bit of a broader base.

Yeah. I feel like it's, it's, it's a kind of a wider foundation to build upon versus just one sect and saying it's only Zen, you know? Exactly. Of course you have some, a lot of Zen concepts in there as well, which are great. Has anyone written in and said, I've had a falling away of mind and body and do you think they've had a real? Yes.

Yeah. Yes. Wow. Yes. I've had very deep experience, you know, and actually I'm quite happy now that we're, we're, we're starting to offer, I mean, it's, it's, it's coming soon. And we're just piloting it, offering, you know, uh, live group support meetups and even live one -on -one time with our TAs. So that's, we're starting to build that out because, you know, there are edge cases where something like a really deep experience happens.

And it's really good to be able to check in live with a human being on that. But there's also edge cases where people just having a really hard time and one 25 minute session with, with one of our trained TAs could just settle it. And a little bit of advice in vivo with a human being is actually really helpful. Yeah, I love that. I have one more personal question that I'm trying to wrap my head around.

I just haven't asked you. I figured I might as well ask it on camera.

I have noticed that even though my body has changed so much since I was a child, there's a constant in the awareness that has not changed. That I can see the through line from my earliest memories to where I am now.

Take away everything else, all the thoughts and everything else, but just the awareness piece is that thing. Even though our body, what they say, every nine to ten years, it completely regenerates itself, so our cells aren't even the same as they were a decade ago.

What is that through line that doesn't come from the world of thought or speech? Exactly, exactly. The awareness through line, what is that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, maybe it's not a through line. Maybe that's exactly the being that we've touched on, the being that's right here that's not about the content of experience. All the things, all the activities we give ourselves to, it's about a state of being, a reality of being that's timeless.

Timeless. So actually we could think back to when we were a kid and we were doing something, playing on a beach or something. The same being or awareness was present then and is present now. So is it the human wrapper that makes it me or I? The brains wrapping that awareness? Well, I don't think it's that way around. I think it's the wrapper.

And within it, there's this set of thoughts and stories saying, I am me. But actually, and we get very invested in that and sort of caught in that or caught up in that. But actually, just behind that, just around that. So that's what drops away and that's what creates that oneness. Yeah, I would say the attachment to all those stories of me drops away.

We don't actually need to banish this lovely person, you know, this lovely sense of me. We can love on it, but we're not attached to it. And therefore, when that attachment is released, we drop into the being, the universal being without time. You know, and it's right here now. And again, I think that backward step is a great pointer for it because we're so invested in what's in front of us, the self and the world.

Last random question. Artificial intelligence. Conscious? Not conscious? Will it have awareness? Well, from my perspective... It already does. Well, I would have to say that it's also arising within this greater awareness. It's already part of the whole. Right. That's wild. Because it was never not part of the whole. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. I think we've confused enough people.

So the Way app, people should go check that out. It's on the App Store. Fantastic. And Google Play. And Google Play. That's right. Yeah. And it's, I think right now there's like, is it, if not, we'll get a 30 day free trial link put up in the footer of this video. So people can go check it out. Highly recommend it. I've definitely, you know, I have my own Zen setting practice, but I also have been telling you I've been going back and using the Way.

Because also I can use it for an unguided timer as well, which is great. And you have the great little intros that just are enough on the unguided side. So if you're a serious practitioner, like even the unguided stuff, it's just a 30 seconds to help you just ease and drop in, which I found is quite nice. Yeah. But I'm in the Koan section now on the Way and it's, I didn't tell you this, but it actually cured my fear of flying.

This is a whole nother story. I would like to go down. Oh no, go down. Give us a little sketch of that. So I was in this, I'm in the not knowing is most intimate.

And I was sitting with it and it's, it's a beautiful thing to just drop this idea of having to know anything. Uh, and I was on the plane and I realized that when my anxiety comes up around flights, it's always around the not knowing, like the needing to know, right? The needing to know something, the needing to know, I would much rather be flying the plane as silly as it sounds than like be a passenger.

Right. And I'm like, wow, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a preference and a control right there. What if I can just let that be. And then also just kind of slowly let not knowing be okay. Right. And I looked at my heart rate on my Apple watch and it didn't even get climb above normal. And I had no anxiety the entire flight. Oh, that's.

And I was like, wow. Like that's, that's, that's pretty impressive. Well, that's now you're great. You're a great practitioner. You're great. Practice is growing. You know what? If that's the only benefit I ever get, that's my, that's, that's enough. But, um, anyway, Henry, thank you so much for being on the show. People should also check your Instagram as well, which is just Henry Schuchman, right? Yeah.

And there's a, there's a, the way Instagram. The way as one as well. And you link to those videos on there, but there's lots of good little short little snippets of content that people can pick up and, and pass along. But, uh, uh, so good to be here in person with you. Kevin, thank you so much. All right. See you soon.