Love In The Light

UNKNOWN: Hey

Luke: Daniel, how's it going?

Daniel: Hi Luke,

Luke: it's going great. So we're gonna chat for just a little bit, like a half an hour about how the three-month retreat that we went on was. How was it for you? I know you were there for just under two months.

UNKNOWN: That's

Daniel: right. It was a lot of meditating. We were meditating all day, you might recall.

Luke: Yeah, I do. Early in the morning and late into the night.

Daniel: Yep.

Luke: Yeah. Yep. Yeah, we started, let's see, the morning bell rang at 4.15 and then we were usually done by like 9.45 or 10 p.m.

Daniel: Yep. Yeah,

Luke: although I usually, I woke up at like 3.30 in the morning and so I would sit in the hall from 4 until the 4.45 walking started.

UNKNOWN: Yeah,

Daniel: you mentioned this to me and I recall we had a little, maybe a week or two ago and I was astounded to hear this.

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: have, I have, I have low sleep demands, much, much lower than most people it seems.

Daniel: Interesting.

Luke: Interesting. Yeah. So how did you feel about it? How do you feel about it now?

Daniel: I, let's see,

UNKNOWN: I

Daniel: mean, I felt all kinds of ways about it while I was going through it. I was, it was very challenging a lot of the time,

UNKNOWN: but

Daniel: also very kind of precious and especially as I was in my last week or so, in my last day or two, knowing that the rest of the sangha was still had another month to sit, I was really feeling like, I mean, I was excited to be done and if you had told me like good news, you can say for a month I would have been like, Oh, no. But at the same time, I was like really feeling the preciousness and the beauty, the beauty of it as

Luke: well. So what was it that was so challenging for you in particular?

UNKNOWN: There's

Daniel: a few ways that could answer that question. I mean, one of them would be to say it was a it was a challenging retreat container, I think we were just talking about how the schedule was very long and it was also fairly strict schedule in comparison to say the IMS retreat where there is a schedule all day, but it's entirely optional. And your the the approach at that the IMS retreat is that you can kind of customize how much sitting versus walking versus lying down you do

UNKNOWN: in

Daniel: order to

UNKNOWN: kind

Daniel: of suit your energy and practice. But this is a different approach where as much as possible, one is invited to

UNKNOWN: follow

Daniel: the form and just work with whatever arises. Yeah.

UNKNOWN: And

Daniel: oh, and how it arose? I mean, for me anyway. Yeah, yeah, for me to and another thing from a call we had a couple weeks ago is you you told me that after I left the hall got a lot quieter from all of my shifting around in my seat and sighing was no longer part of the meditation hall experience.

Luke: It's true. It's true. Honestly, it's funny because the next interview I had with North after you left, I was like, Yeah, man. It's so much quieter in there. And so much so that like there was this whole thought pattern that had been on really heavy repeat in my mind thinking about like,

UNKNOWN: my

Luke: life going forward with my relationship and the things I wanted to do, the conversations I wanted to have with my partner. And most of that had really kind of died down by the time you left. But then in the immediate wake of you leaving, I think because I had more mental runtime because I was less distracted by the sound of you, all of that stuff came back really strong for like a day day and a half. It was a really fascinating thing to see how my own mental energy shifted just with the reduction of like immediate distraction.

UNKNOWN: That

Daniel: is really interesting. I

UNKNOWN: don't

Luke: mean to call you out.

UNKNOWN: I

Daniel: was just gonna say I'm hoping that maybe you were more distracted because I was sitting right next to you towards the end of your retreats. Maybe I didn't bother everyone so much.

Luke: Well, there was definitely there was also definitely an element of like, I think, you know, so you know, you were to the depending on what hour of the day it was, you were you were sitting to the right or the left of you were sitting to one side of me and it was right or left depending on whether or not I was facing the wall, or facing the middle. But on the other side of you from me was arvid. And I think that, you know, partially because of your

UNKNOWN: your

Luke: your noise level, like it it made it like a more comfortable container for him to be noisier as well. And so like as as the overall noise level dropped, the individual noise levels dropped as well. And so it just got it like the quiet the quiet really amplified. Yeah. So anyway, yeah, I and I don't maybe I told you this, but regardless of whether I told you this or not, it's relevant to the larger conversation for the listener. Around the time that you left, I was,

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: was,

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: was ready to leave with you. I was, I really, you know, and we tried, we tried to record this earlier, the conditions were much less amenable than they are now. And so I'll repeat myself to you, not to the listener, just to say that, you know, so for me, the retreat was very different than any other retreat that I've done before, because the only retreats that I've done in the past have either been going to retreats or self retreats. And so in that way, you know, it's very, very isolated, very private. You know, with the going to retreat, you only talk to the teacher if you ask to, aside from the very brief and communal check ins that they do like twice during the 10 days with the retreat that we did, we were meeting with the teacher, especially during the first half of the retreat, we were we were meeting with the teacher, basically every single day. And then in the in the last half, we were meeting with the teacher maybe like twice a week. And so for me,

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: know, I spent a lot of time thinking about what I was going to say to the teacher. And I also spent a lot of time frustrated about the fact that I was thinking those thoughts, because I'd rather just be, I'd rather just be meditating and not have anything to think about. And so between that and like the actual contents of the conversations and the emotional interactions that were playing out between me and the teacher and me and my imagination about other people in the room. You know, there was just so much more like resistance around around the intimacy of other human beings that you don't that I did that I haven't really had to deal with as much on the retreats that I've done in the past.

UNKNOWN: Yeah. Yeah,

Daniel: I'm glad you brought this up again, because it's a really interesting topic, I think.

UNKNOWN: For

Daniel: again, you know, my other long retreat experience is the IMS retreat. So that retreat, we had

UNKNOWN: an

Daniel: interview with the teacher like every third day. And they were they were like scheduled. So they were 15 minutes no longer. Whereas our interviews with North were sometimes around that length or shorter, but every once in a while, he would give you like a 35 minute, you know, or something.

Luke: Yeah, I mean, I there was one time I went in there and he said to me, we can't do another 20 minute retreat. And I'm like, but dude, you were just talking to Daniel for like 45 minutes.

Daniel: Yeah, he totally I noticed this too, with like my mind wanting to like track like fairness in terms of like time and like, that's just not how he operated, you know, it was just very

UNKNOWN: yeah,

Luke: fairness, fairness was not really a concern that he had at all.

UNKNOWN: And

Luke: I mean that in several different respects. To my lights, you know, and, you know, I'm gonna just, you know, I'm gonna for anybody who's listening, I'm gonna cut to the punch.

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: think that I think that North is a good teacher. And I think that as he continues to teach and and refine his methods and to grow as a person, he's going to become a really excellent teacher. In the meantime, like, there is a lot of grist that can go into that mill that really honestly, like for me was really beneficial for my practice because, you know, in in the past, I've done like, like really deep solo retreats. And then the fallout of like my unresolved emotional issues spilling over into the world around me was really actually quite damaging to some of the friendships that I had at that time. And so this this retreat really forced the emotional garbage to the front of my practice. And and and for that, I really am grateful because that's the stuff I need to work on much more than like deep genres and stuff.

Daniel: Yeah. Yeah. And I can't speak for North, but I have a feeling that the kind of slightly chaotic nature of it's like the retreat has so much structure, but also like he introduced all this chaos and ways like that. And like, I feel like that's kind of

UNKNOWN: understood

Daniel: and and somewhat intentional. Like I think he's aware and I think he thinks it's good for practice.

Luke: Yeah, I mean, he definitely I don't know if you were if you were still there when he spoke to this, but he did definitely speak to the fact that that his practice, like not just his practice as a teacher, I think, but even just his practice as as a as a person and as his own practitioner is really pretty chaotic. And and I think that there is an element of him seeing how that is beneficial and

UNKNOWN: leaning

Luke: into it in a way that it's like, in my opinion, it's like, hey, you know,

UNKNOWN: there's

Luke: enough spontaneity just in in living as people close to each other that you don't really need to like, like surf that wave quite so hard as you do.

Daniel: That's funny. That's I can prescribe what direction he he should go in. Yeah, sure. But well, I'm very opinionated. I could I could see

UNKNOWN: and

Daniel: I and I'm a very retreats into don't know mind all the time. I try to see a lot of different views. But yeah. Yeah, yeah,

Luke: let's I think to like a really cool thing to speak about would be, you know, a side front. So okay, you talked about like the long day and a lot of practice. So for anybody who's listening, anybody curious what that day looked like, I mentioned, you know, like the morning bell would ring at 415. The first practice period was at 445. And we would do like Zen style, Kenhen walking in the great hall downstairs. And that would go until 515. And we would start sitting, not going to bore everybody with the full day's schedule. But in summary, we were basically, we were sitting for eight hours a day. And we were walking for like three hours a day, assuming that you used your open time for the like, suggested practices. Otherwise, you would have from like 330 to 530. That was much more malleable. You could really kind of pick your own thing if that looked like taking a nap or going for a walk or, or, or anything else really. And so yeah, so there was a lot of practice there. I know I was going somewhere with all of that. And I kind of lost it. So if you want to pick up the thread for me, please do. Was

Daniel: it something about the you're saying something about the difficulty of the retreat or?

Luke: Well, yeah, I mean, it was difficult. And but for me, you know, and again, like circling back to my, what I already kind of said, you know, for me, the interesting thing was is that sitting wasn't really hard for me. Like I wasn't, my issues weren't really arising from within the stuff, even the stuff that I was thinking about like being heavily distracted, thinking about like my future plans for after the retreat, all of that. Like I was really able to like hold all of that with the kind of equanimous awareness of like, yeah, I'm thinking and that's not, that's not breath, that's not body, but that's okay. Yeah, I like, I really, I really didn't have any issues with myself as a practitioner. Really, the issues for me were

UNKNOWN: in

Luke: the,

UNKNOWN: in

Luke: the tension between how the retreat was and how I thought the retreat should be.

Daniel: Yeah, yeah. Which what does what does that remind you of? Like samsara, right? Yeah, yeah, there is that. So yeah, it was

Luke: it was kind of like really at like that meta level. And then also, and honestly, like for me, like the issues, you know, that I've already kind of hinted around, like with North as a teacher directly, it was just, it was really about trust and oh, okay, so what I was going to, okay, I remember exactly where I was going now, I was going to talk about intention. So because intention was something that was coming up all the time. But before we dive into intention, I will just speak to my own trust issues that were arising because no, no, no, no, we'll talk about intention and it'll circle back around. So yeah, so every every morning before we would break to do our little chores before breakfast, the last thing that we would do after our chanting was we would really kind of like tap into the spirit of our intention. And it wasn't even like the intention that we brought with us for the retreat itself. It was really this question about like, what is your personal intention with your life? Like what what are you what are you here on the earth right now for what are you doing with your life? And and it seems like to, you know, from what he was saying, some people came to the retreat, they didn't have that answer, like ready to go. And we spent like the first half of the retreat really with a lot of people kind of like exploring that question. How how did that? How did that play out for you?

Daniel: Yeah, it ended up being important for me, even though there were a lot of mornings when I kind of like,

UNKNOWN: yeah,

Daniel: I'm not sensing anything in particular, I don't know, you know,

UNKNOWN: but but

Daniel: I think there there is something about just spending a few minutes to kind of

UNKNOWN: sit

Daniel: with the not knowing around that. And then as as you know, there was a day, maybe six weeks in or so I think, where

UNKNOWN: he

Daniel: let us know in the morning that

UNKNOWN: we

Daniel: instead of the Dharma talk that evening, we were just going to all go around one by one and speak to our deepest intention a little bit.

UNKNOWN: And

Daniel: so that kind of

UNKNOWN: put

Daniel: a different kind of inquiry on it because it's like, okay, there's something I'm going to speak. And I didn't really know exactly what I was going to say, you know, I didn't like have anything planned. But what I felt in that space, it was it was nice that I didn't go first because other people sharing helped kind of bring me into the kind of inquiry space that was helpful. And then as I shared

UNKNOWN: it

Daniel: was on your share was really helpful to me because I stopped me if I don't want me to share this, but I assume it's fine. No,

Luke: no. Yeah, I mean, I'm going to share mine as well. In fact, here, I'll do that real quick. So the thing is, is that morning, like, I think I think he even mentioned it the night before, like tomorrow night, we're going to share our intentions. And then in the morning before we did, he kind of pointed to like, try to encapsulate your intention down to like a word or a phrase. Now, for me, you know, like at the beginning of the retreat, when he first started talking about intention, within three hours, I was, I was sitting on my cushion crying because I already like, I, I, I already knew my intention. And I felt it really, really deeply. And so when he said, you know, find your word or your phrase, again, in relatively short order, I was, I was doing a little bit more weeping because I found my phrase and just just really connecting with it, you know, brought up some, I'm going to call them beautiful emotions. And so my phrase was to truly embody the spirit of friendship. And once, once we did all start sharing, you know, Kyle, who is sitting on the other side of me, he, you know, he checked in before we started and said, you know, like, how long can we go? Like, how much, how much room do we have around this? And it, for most everyone, it really kind of turned into a much longer share than just a word or a phrase. But I already had my phrase like dialed in, and I wanted to just stick with it. And I didn't want to like expand on it, because the way that I was feeling at the time, I genuinely felt like if you let me expand on this, I could, I could go on for much too long. And so I kind of let the room like speak for itself. But so my intention was

UNKNOWN: to

Luke: truly embody the spirit of friendship. And what I didn't say in that sharing was really like, and everything that I've heard everyone here say so far to my lights, like, is an aspect of friendship, you know, like I see friendship as like this beautiful gem that's been cut with all of these different faces. You know, and so goodness and kindness and charity and front, you know, like joyfulness and, you know, just like, there's so many things that go into being like a really excellent friend. And then also, you know, if you want to get scriptural about it, the Buddha, you know, when Ananda was asked about friendship, he said, Well, you know, friendship is like 50% of the path. And then the Buddha said, Hey, Ananda, what were you talking about? And I said, Oh, friendship, 50% of the path and the Buddha said, Not so Ananda, friendship is 100% of the path. And so for me, like when I when I at the very beginning of the retreat touched into like my aspiration, my intention is friendship, like it has that deep, profound meaning to me, like I I want to be a friend in body. And I also like I aspire to be

UNKNOWN: a

Luke: spiritual friend in in like a really, really meaningful way. And so I'll hand it back to you, because you had mentioned that my share was helpful for you as well.

Daniel: Yeah. And, and

UNKNOWN: it was

Daniel: actually even before you spoke, it was the fact that the, you know, the flashlight of our attention arrived on you. And the implicit question put to you, what is your deepest intention? And then you just,

UNKNOWN: you

Daniel: let out a great big sob, you know, or I don't know what word to just, but you know, no, yeah, it

Luke: was it was a sob. Yeah.

Daniel: Yeah. Yeah. And, and,

UNKNOWN: and

Daniel: I just had this feeling like that's my friend. My friend is the guy who you say what's your deepest intention? And he just becomes overcome with emotion and love. I just I just loved that. And then right after you shared Leonardo

UNKNOWN: gave

Daniel: his share, which was nonverbal, it was kind of a sort of like a dance almost or it was he was kind of doing like energy work almost just kind of like expressing his heart forward. And

UNKNOWN: so

Daniel: feeling into those I had a sense of like, like that kind of like depth. But the, the word that

UNKNOWN: came

Daniel: to be more meaningful to me was the word authenticity. And that's one of the words I shared. Authenticity or sincerity. Something about those words for me points at something

UNKNOWN: in in

Daniel: a way that feels very

UNKNOWN: like

Daniel: orienting or like a North Star for my Dharma practice. And

UNKNOWN: in

Daniel: the and

UNKNOWN: like

Daniel: in a way I can see that as as just different words for the same thing as saying the end of suffering. But it's but it's somehow it feels like a more

UNKNOWN: visible,

Daniel: tangible direction for me. And

UNKNOWN: and

Daniel: so that was I was then only on retreat for a couple more weeks, but it continued to be helpful there and also circling back to the interviews, which we didn't get back to. But I found bringing that intention of like real authenticity and sincerity as I show up and and meet with my teacher to be very helpful too. And I also actually I you probably saw I think this was after you were out. I'm not sure now. I was reading this Adyashanti book recently and he has this phrase that's been like crystallized this idea for me even more where the first half of the sentence I don't remember it's like spiritual

UNKNOWN: progress

Daniel: or liberation or something is not about exalted states, but is about the rabid dissatisfaction with living anything less than a fully authentic life. Oh, that's beautiful. Yes. Yes. The rabid dissatisfaction with inauthenticity, anything less than full all full authenticity. So that that's so do you do

Luke: you personally do you feel like you are the more authentic Daniel now in the wake of that practice period that we shared?

UNKNOWN: I

Daniel: think I'm becoming more authentic. I think I'm what's that's might be quite the right way to say it. But I yeah, I feel like layers layers of of Tanja basically that get in the way of authenticity are some of them are peeled away. Some of them are weaker. Some of them are just more visible. Yeah, I do feel like that.

Luke: So I'm going to I'm going to do the circling around that I pointed to earlier because for me, you know, the friendship piece

UNKNOWN: was

Luke: my my deepest intention coming into it and going through it. But, you know, every morning when you're asked about, you know, like checking in with your intention, you know, every morning, a different a different facet of friendship was arising for me. And I got to a point in the meetings with North, where I realized that the the emotional issues, the like, that a lot of the stuff that was coming up for me had to do with respect. And it had to do with like the way that sometimes I felt disrespected by North or or imagined being disrespected by others and coming to realize that

UNKNOWN: a

Luke: big part of that for me is actually really it's actually has a lot to do with the way that I respect myself, you know, like if I had if I had enough self respect, when someone else treats me with this respect, it wouldn't really shake me, you know, like I would have my bar would be higher than my threshold. But most of the time, you know, the way I had been living, you know, my my bar was like at my threshold and really just any little any little jab I would I would, you know, it would like cause me to get into like a provoked state of agitation. And then with that respect, you know, and I think North had already spoken to this during one of the talks or whatever, you know, like taking it and, you know, I love this because I'm very I'm a big word nerd, but taking respect as the way the re and the spect like spectacles or specter likes what you're seeing, you know, like really taking respect as not as the concept of honor, which is I think how most people think of it, but taking respect as the concept of

UNKNOWN: of

Luke: looking again, you know, and and in the in the meta-suitre that we would chant every day, you know, what is pointed to is by not holding to fixed views. And so that really, you know, like that indicates like,

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: know Daniel, I see Daniel a certain way because of the way that Daniel and I have interacted. But let me let me blink and let me see Daniel as he is now, not how he was five minutes ago or how he was five months ago. Like if I can drop all of my preconceptions and receive everything in my life with that beginner's mind with those fresh eyes on like the moment to moment basis, then that I think, you know, that's the that's the respect that I put in bold capital letters on our like intentions map that we were like sharing because, you know, like that was that was that was that was one of the bigger that was like that was like the big insight for me in this retreat is really like, yeah, like respect, like self respect in the same way of like respect for all beings, all experiences, all moments, because they are, you know, they are so

UNKNOWN: ephemeral,

Luke: passing arising and passing away, you know, just like moment to moment and being able to, you know, just like keep that keep that open view, keep that fresh mind was really powerful.

UNKNOWN: That's

Daniel: really beautifully said. Very poetic, say let me let me blink. Let me. Yeah. Let me make a like, you know, blinking as a metaphor for letting go of the past or letting go of the concept of the last moment.

Luke: Thank you. So we could sit here and talk literally for days about just all of the different experiences and all the different things that arose, but we don't have that much time. So just do you have any final thoughts that you'd like to share before we say goodbye?

Daniel: Um,

UNKNOWN: long

Daniel: retreat is difficult, but it has been worthwhile for me. Well, let me restate that again slightly. I almost always believe it is worthwhile for me. Sometimes I get in the mood where I'm like, if I'm really honest, I don't know anything.

UNKNOWN: But

Daniel: I'm pretty sure it's been very worthwhile to me. And if anyone hearing this wants to is thinking about long retreat and wants to talk with me more about my experiences on long retreats. And I'm really happy to do that. And

UNKNOWN: and

Daniel: that said, I also know some very deep practitioners who haven't sat months long retreats and seem to nonetheless be finding great development in the Dharma great orders of more freedom than they used to have. So it's one of the ways out there. And I think it's a good way for those who want to do it.

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: think that, you know, like what that brings up for me is just the way that

UNKNOWN: like

Luke: a long retreat, like a really good long retreat, like what we just went through really is like it's an eyeopening invitation to bring your practice really into like the moment to moment daily life. Yeah. And so yeah. So there are people out there who like they have that kind of awareness, they may not need a long retreat to dial into like mindful living. But for a lot of people who really, you know, they they want to they want to work hard, they want to face the challenge, you know, any any retreat, any any time that you can dedicate to really, you know, focusing on mindful awareness is appreciated by all of us. And we love you very much. And thank you so much for your time and attention today.

SPEAKER_02: Hi everybody, I'm Luke and with me today we have Daniel Brotman.

Luke: Hello.

SPEAKER_02: So Daniel, we talked, gosh, what was it? We talked at the beginning of 2023 and the end of 2022 before you went off on a three-month retreat to IMS, right? We did. Is that where you first met North?

Luke: It is, yeah. North was sitting in the hall actually, just one row in front of me and one call to the right. So I sat next to him.

SPEAKER_02: So just in front of you and to your right, there he was. And was teaching this retreat that we are now going to? So it is, I guess, from conversations that you guys had at the end of the last retreat is how you got to know him and how eventually you came to find out that

UNKNOWN: he

SPEAKER_02: also teaches retreats?

Luke: Yeah. I'm laughing because I'm remembering. One of the conversations we had, I just had a really wonderful,

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: know, vibe read more than anything, but I also just really liked how he talked about practice and the kind of brightness in his demeanor. I just remembered a very funny moment where

UNKNOWN: he, gosh,

Luke: I won't tell the story. He said something like,

UNKNOWN: yeah,

Luke: I just enjoyed sitting and

UNKNOWN: at

Luke: one point I just had the thought like, oh, I'm just like a snail and just smiled and it was so goofy. But somehow it made sense to me.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah. Well, I imagine,

UNKNOWN: and

SPEAKER_02: I have experienced it to some extent on much shorter retreats. There are times where just like everything, like your nervous system, your body, you do kind of just slow down. Yeah. So I guess he had kind of gotten to that place where he was just crawling at a snail's pace.

Luke: Sitting at a

UNKNOWN: snail's

Luke: sit.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah. So how long did you learn that he leads his own retreats in that conversation then? Or was that something that came out of later conversations or what?

UNKNOWN: Yeah,

Luke: sometime in those last few days at the end of the

UNKNOWN: IMS

Luke: retreat, I

UNKNOWN: learned

Luke: about that and

UNKNOWN: he

Luke: posted a notice about it on the bulletin board. And

UNKNOWN: at

Luke: the time, I wasn't really thinking about the next retreat at all. Yeah. But I kept talking with him over the course of the last year and a half. He talked to

UNKNOWN: me. I'm

Luke: not sure how many times, six or seven times maybe.

UNKNOWN: Cool.

SPEAKER_02: And you have, you've also kind of been helping him with recruiting a little bit because it was because of you and because you shared like a little flyer picture about the retreat on your timeline on Twitter that I found out about it. And you've also been

UNKNOWN: creating

SPEAKER_02: some interest on Reddit as well.

UNKNOWN: Yeah,

Luke: I'm really delighted to have been able to help in that way and delighted that you're coming and

UNKNOWN: that

Luke: you found out about it from me. Yeah, just posting about it on Twitter. I think there's maybe as many as three people from Twitter who are coming

UNKNOWN: who

Luke: heard about it from my Twitter. And then yeah, North wrote up a kind of a short advertisement to post on a few Reddit subreddits and we contacted the moderators that stream entry were very kind and let us post it every week in their weekly. They like a weekly thread and so they were happy to let us post it every week so I don't remember how many people have come from that but North told me there was a lot of interest that came from there as well.

UNKNOWN: That's

SPEAKER_02: awesome. This time around though you'll be you'll be arriving once the silence has already started and leaving before the silence ends so you won't be having those conversations with anybody this time. I

Luke: know I know I'm so sad about that. Yeah,

UNKNOWN: yeah,

SPEAKER_02: in fact, yeah, we haven't even actually met in person. And so we'll we'll be missing each other in that way as well.

UNKNOWN: Yeah,

Luke: it's really funny, but

UNKNOWN: hopefully

Luke: the combination of our our many conversations on the phone with our embody the presence and silence together will add up to something. Yeah,

SPEAKER_02: yeah, yeah, absolutely. And then and then afterwards you're,

UNKNOWN: you're

SPEAKER_02: going to become something of a wanderer yourself, huh?

UNKNOWN: Yes.

Luke: You've

UNKNOWN: got

Luke: me on record now. No

UNKNOWN: firm

SPEAKER_02: commitments as far as what you'll be doing necessarily but I know that you will be going to vibe camp in.

UNKNOWN: Is

SPEAKER_02: that late May?

Luke: June.

SPEAKER_02: Oh, it's in June. Okay.

UNKNOWN: Yes.

Luke: And then I'll be home for a little bit and then in August is when I'm planning to leave my apartment and leave my job and go stay at monasteries and visit friends. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: So for context for anyone who may be listening, we are going to the guy we've been talking about North is North Burns and he I think this is his third time doing this leading a three months retreat. Yeah. So he's he's this is his third time teaching a three month silent meditation retreat and we're going to be out in Willets, California, which is a couple hours north of San Francisco.

UNKNOWN: I

SPEAKER_02: only looked at I think I saw a couple of pictures on the website or somewhere about where we're going to be. It looks absolutely gorgeous.

Luke: Yeah, it really does.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah. So what

UNKNOWN: what

SPEAKER_02: did you learn from your last time sitting a retreat this long that you feel like is going to prepare you more for for this retreat?

Luke: Good question.

UNKNOWN: One

Luke: thing that's coming to mind is something a teacher of mine said actually about the next time I go to a long retreat, which is,

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: know, that

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: can do it, you know, just knowing that there's is doable and that there is a different side and that,

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: know, obviously, I,

UNKNOWN: it's

Luke: not like I didn't know I would eventually not be on retreat, but when you're on retreat for three months it does sort of start to feel endless. Like, just unimaginably long. But there's a cycle, you know, and, and now it's, I've been out of that retreat for a long time. So,

UNKNOWN: there's

Luke: something about that it's it being not the first time for me doing an extended retreat.

UNKNOWN: It makes

Luke: it, you know, I'm sure there'll still be difficulties like on any retreat, but I'm not feeling the same kind of like

UNKNOWN: it's

Luke: not stepping into the unknown in the same way as it was for me before. So there's a little bit more comfort. And then there's also just a sense of like,

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: think there's a little bit more trust

UNKNOWN: in

Luke: knowing that it's a day by day thing it's a breath by breath thing and there's no

UNKNOWN: it's

Luke: like I'm not going to

UNKNOWN: go

Luke: accomplish something and go

UNKNOWN: put

Luke: forth a great effort like I'm just going to go live, I'm just going to go live there. Right.

UNKNOWN: And, and

Luke: just enjoy this moment again and again.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah. Yeah. And, and it won't actually be three months for you it's going to be like a month and a half or something right.

Luke: Yeah, it's going to be about eight weeks. Okay.

SPEAKER_02: It's like two months. So

UNKNOWN: yeah,

Luke: there is that for sure. It's going to be a little bit shorter than the one I did before. Yeah. But you're going to be there for over 12 weeks. So it's actually three full calendar months. So I think it's like 13 weeks or something. Yeah,

SPEAKER_02: it's yeah, it's three full calendar months. Plus I'm going to be arriving the week before it begins to help set up and I'm going to stay for another five days afterwards to help put everything away. So I'm going to be so lovely. Yeah. So I'm, I'm, I'm in it for like three and a half months almost. Yeah.

Luke: Oh, it's beautiful.

UNKNOWN: Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'll, I'll admit like there, there is for me having never done a retreat this long. Like I think, you know, I've done, I've done multiple 10 days and I've done some solo retreating and the longest one of my solo retreats was maybe 18 days. So this is going to be

UNKNOWN: very

SPEAKER_02: next level for me. And, and, and, and I know that, yeah, like right now, you know, looking at it from, from, from a distance on, on the approach, like,

UNKNOWN: who

SPEAKER_02: am I going to be able to like, how deep am I going to go? How weird is it going to get? And am I going to be able to stay with it?

UNKNOWN: Yeah.

Luke: Yeah.

UNKNOWN: Yeah. But

SPEAKER_02: I like that. I like the, the,

UNKNOWN: the kind

SPEAKER_02: of, you know, what you were saying that,

UNKNOWN: you know,

SPEAKER_02: I don't need to be trying so hard. I feel ideal. I definitely feel like for me in my own practice, you know, in comparison to what it felt like when I was meditating, you know, eight or nine years ago, when I first started doing retreat, I'd been meditating for a little bit longer than that. But, but when I first started doing, you know, like there, there was,

UNKNOWN: there,

SPEAKER_02: there definitely for, for however long, you know, there was a lot of time where, you know, like I felt like I was under pressure while I was sitting. I felt like, you know, I need to be strengthening my concentration more. I need to be

UNKNOWN: working

SPEAKER_02: harder or whatever. And now, you know, my, my sitting, like it does feel a lot less pressured, a lot more

UNKNOWN: like

SPEAKER_02: I can kind of relax with it. And so, so yeah. And, and, and, and like you said too, you know, North does have just like a really good vibe. You know, I've only actually talked to him twice. The first time was kind of like the screening interview for him to decide whether or not I was a good candidate to include in the retreat.

UNKNOWN: And

SPEAKER_02: then the second time was around the time that I realized that I was going to need to be

UNKNOWN: leaving

SPEAKER_02: Montana earlier than I had anticipated. And he, he shared an abundance of resources with me about different places I could go and stay and retreat centers and things. And while I didn't wind up doing any of that, it's, it's, you know, just talking to him.

UNKNOWN: No,

SPEAKER_02: actually, I talked to him a third time.

UNKNOWN: But

SPEAKER_02: anyway, but yeah, just knowing that he's so well resourced and so experienced. And also, yeah, just like the vibe that I get from him is like, yeah, this is, this is someone that I can trust to,

UNKNOWN: you

SPEAKER_02: know, to create a good container and be a good guide while I'm going through the process.

UNKNOWN: Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.

UNKNOWN: I

SPEAKER_02: don't know what, what, what other thoughts come to mind for you? What, what, what, what are you anticipating or what questions would you have for me being that you're the experienced one here and I'm, I'm, I'm the beginner.

UNKNOWN: Well,

Luke: you have a lot of experience too. Well,

SPEAKER_02: I just mean as far as, you know, like something, yeah, like a long retreat like this.

UNKNOWN: Although

Luke: I think the, so the longest retreat I had done before the three month was three weeks 21 days. So hearing about your 18 day retreat, you know, you're in a very similar position. I think that was for me doing a three week retreat was a nice kind of bridge. I mean, there are people that have only done 10 days and then go into a multi month retreat for sure. But

UNKNOWN: the

Luke: three week retreat felt like a, like the shortest long retreat or something like that.

UNKNOWN: Yeah,

Luke: I don't know. I mean, I'm,

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: am really excited about hearing North's Dharma talks and having practice interviews with him.

UNKNOWN: And I

Luke: feel like he's going to be very available since there's so few people there. It's going to be 10 or 15 people practicing there, I think. So it feels like there's going to be plenty of support if and when it's needed.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah. And I mean, we're going to be, we're going to be having like personal interviews once every other day and those will be 15 minutes long. And then also, you know, I was reading and every fifth day is going to be complete silence, which,

Luke: which

SPEAKER_02: I guess means no interviews. And also no Dharma talks. It's just going to be just no

Luke: chanting, I think too.

SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: think I read correctly. Yeah. But yeah, just practice. No. Right. That'll be interesting every fifth day. It'll make an interesting rhythm. What comes to mind is I got into a rhythm at parts of the three month retreat where it was every

UNKNOWN: third

Luke: day. I would do a little workout

SPEAKER_02: and

Luke: I started to like intuitively just know where I was in the cycle. Like, oh, yesterday was a workout day or, you know, tomorrow's going to be a workout day. Right. So I think after, you know, 70 days of this, you might, you know, even for me when I'm there too, we might start to develop a sense of like, you know, where we are in the cycle of the silent day. Yeah, that's very interesting.

SPEAKER_02: Right. Yeah, we'll probably get a reminder like the night before each of those silent days just like, yeah, and tomorrow's going to be another silent day.

Luke: Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

UNKNOWN: And

SPEAKER_02: so with the, with the working out thing too. So now in the, in the schedule, I don't see where it is exactly in the daily schedule, but you could share the link of like some yoga practices that we're going to be doing and had mentioned. And I think I saw in the information as well that there will be some breath work. So what, what more do you know about that?

UNKNOWN: Yeah,

Luke: the practices I shared, I think are not.

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: don't think there's any group movement stuff other than walking meditation at the retreat. That's he shared that with us in case we wanted to do some, you know, some stretching to kind of get the hips a little bit open before doing all this sitting, which I am planning to do this month. But I think the

UNKNOWN: breath

Luke: work, if we do that is going to be, I think it's in the morning period, like after the chanting, maybe something like that. Right.

UNKNOWN: There's

SPEAKER_02: a lot of walking meditation in the schedule. Like, I don't know what it was like at IMS, but you know, the, the, the organized retreats that I've ever done have been going to retreats, which is so focused on sitting that like you, you really have to kind of like have your own discipline to do the walking. But here it's quite the opposite.

Luke: Yeah. Well, I've even heard at the one going to retreat I did, I was doing some walking and someone told me not to. Really? Which really bothered me. That's

SPEAKER_02: weird.

Luke: I was trying to just ground myself because I had had a difficult experience and I was finding the slow walking in the sunshine very

UNKNOWN: pleasant

Luke: and grounding. And someone was like, oh, I know that this is a thing at other centers, but going because he doesn't like that. And then just walked away from me and I was like, what on earth, man?

SPEAKER_02: The bizarre experiences you'll have at a going to retreat.

Luke: Yeah. Yeah. But this is a bit more similar to how is that IMS to were used alternating periods of sitting and walking practice.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah. I mean, so much so that it seems like the, the, the amount of sitting, I think I tried to figure it out. It's, it's only like six or seven hours a day of actual like scheduled sitting meditation and, you know, maybe like five or six hours of walking meditation each day.

UNKNOWN: It

Luke: seems like enough to me.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, but for me, like the thing about that is that I think, you know, like that's really cool is just, you know, like sitting for long periods of time, like the intensity of energy that builds up can, can be really strong. And so having more movement so that your body is able to kind of flow that energy through the body instead of it all just resting in one place. I think like, yeah, between that and also the fact that like, yeah, like breathwork and things like that are more, more kind of like brought into focus. It does feel comforting to know that, okay, there's going to be some balance to this. And, and, and it's not, and it's not going to be 11 hours of sitting every day, which is kind of what you get. If you, like if you, if you, if you, you know, if you sat every hour of the schedule at the going retreats, you're sitting like 11 and a half hours a day

UNKNOWN: and talking

SPEAKER_02: about like the whole no pressure kind of thing. I feel like,

UNKNOWN: you

SPEAKER_02: know, the intensity that can build up in a person is a lot higher if you're, if you're kind of dosing it like that.

UNKNOWN: Yeah,

Luke: I can't imagine

UNKNOWN: wanting

Luke: to be on a retreat without doing a healthy amount of walking practice along all the sitting practice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: Well, so earlier when I had kind of thrown the mic to you, I had asked and we didn't get to it yet, you know, is there, you know, you be the interviewer for a minute and ask me some questions. If anything comes to mind. I didn't prepare. That's okay. I never like to prepare for podcasts.

UNKNOWN: Yeah,

Luke: let's see. What was it like for you to come to the decision to do this retreat and you've been practicing a long time and you have a deep committed practice and you've explored many different spiritual traditions to it seems to me and

UNKNOWN: Is

Luke: this something you've been wanting to do or is it like you heard about it and then it seems like that was interesting or

SPEAKER_02: Yes. So for me,

UNKNOWN: so

SPEAKER_02: the in 2015 was the first time that I ever, you know, was was was kind of my my dive into into meditation retreats when I went to the going to center in

UNKNOWN: Texas

SPEAKER_02: and during the first couple of months that I was there because I went and I sat for 10 days and

UNKNOWN: and

SPEAKER_02: I had talked to this guy, Brian, who was like the server in residence at the time. And before the retreat had even started, I was like, Hey,

UNKNOWN: you

SPEAKER_02: know, can I

UNKNOWN: can

SPEAKER_02: I stay and serve after this. And he said, Well,

UNKNOWN: how

SPEAKER_02: about you get through the retreat first and then we'll talk. So at the end of the on the on day 10 I walked up to him like so. He's like,

UNKNOWN: so

SPEAKER_02: he's like, Okay, you leave today. We have another retreat that starts on Wednesday. So come back on Wednesday and

UNKNOWN: you

SPEAKER_02: can serve that retreat. And if you want to, if you want to stay, you can like serve two retreats and then sit the one after that. And so that's exactly what I did.

UNKNOWN: It

SPEAKER_02: was actually kind of funny because when I came back on Wednesday, he's like,

UNKNOWN: you're

SPEAKER_02: the third person that I've said that to and you're the first person who ever came back.

Daniel: That's funny.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah. So during that period of serving those two retreats, there was this guy that I met named Chi. And Chi turned me on to Daniel Ingram and mastering the core teachings of the Buddha. And so it was actually during that, that self retreat of like 18 days where I spent part of my time while I was like walking and struggling and everything where actually I listened to the

UNKNOWN: audio

SPEAKER_02: version of the first version of the mastering the core teachings of the Buddha. And, you know, and in, I don't know if you've read that book or how familiar you are with its contents.

UNKNOWN: But

SPEAKER_02: in it, he makes a point of saying, you know, talking about his first three month retreat and also saying that, you know, like basically,

UNKNOWN: you

SPEAKER_02: know, for a lot of people,

UNKNOWN: you know,

SPEAKER_02: like, yeah, just kind of put it in my mind that sitting a three month retreat is a pivotal life goal. It's something that anyone who's serious about meditation should

UNKNOWN: try

SPEAKER_02: to plan for. And so ever since then, and that was, oh gosh, that was,

UNKNOWN: that

SPEAKER_02: was early 20, like the beginning of 2017 when that first came into my mind. Ever since then, I've had it as a goal in the future of like, yeah, I want to do that. And, you know, even with my marriage, you know, before we were together, I had told her like, yeah, at some point, I want to go do this three month retreat. And so

UNKNOWN: the

SPEAKER_02: timing just worked out such that, you know, our relationship came to an end. And right around the time that I was

UNKNOWN: transitioning

SPEAKER_02: out of living with her and all of that, that was when I saw you posting about the three month retreat. And I was like, okay, this is,

UNKNOWN: this

SPEAKER_02: is it. I've been wanting this for a long time and here it is. So let's, let's, let's do it, you know. And so yeah, so that's, that's kind of the why and the how has been,

UNKNOWN: the

SPEAKER_02: how has been complicated because fortunately, you know, fortunately the, the retreat that we're attending is entirely Donna based, which means, you know, like for anybody who, you know, may have looked at retreats before there are a lot of places that will charge you a

UNKNOWN: healthy

SPEAKER_02: price for the opportunity to come and practice. But, but, but that's not really a thing with North's, with North's retreat. And so just like, just like for me with the first time, you know, I ever went to a go anchor retreat. The price is right as far as, you know, give what you can. And I wish I had more to give, but, but I, but I'm so grateful for the opportunity to get to practice. And so, yeah, so, you know, I've been, and as you know, you know, much better than most people, you know, I've been,

UNKNOWN: I've

SPEAKER_02: been struggling financially with the, with the job and the divorce and moving. And then, and then once I got down here to New Mexico, the job that I wanted to get that would have been lucrative didn't pan out. And so,

UNKNOWN: and

SPEAKER_02: also

UNKNOWN: the

SPEAKER_02: scholarship that North had pointed me to also didn't work out.

UNKNOWN: You

SPEAKER_02: know,

UNKNOWN: yeah,

SPEAKER_02: it's, I'm going to have enough money to get there. And I think I'm going to have enough money to keep the, keep the account in the positive while I'm on the retreat. But, but, but yeah, you know, just having the opportunity to come practice and not have a, you know, 5,000, whatever, however big of a bill it is just to get in the door. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's the perfect opportunity for me. And, you know, when I was talking to North about it, you know, one of the things that, yeah, it was the second time we talked on the phone. When, when I, when I was like, yeah, you know, I, I do, I have, you know, some debts to, to some people. And, and, and part of me is thinking, maybe, you know, maybe I should wait another year until I get all of that figured out first. And, and North was like, well, you know, I understand that and I respect that, but also, you know, like the opportunity to practice is precious. And, you know, don't, don't look that, you know, don't, don't take that for granted. And so, you know, it very much felt like he was like, yeah, you know, like, at least as far as he's concerned, you know, like, don't, don't let the money keep you from the practice. And so I've really been holding on to that

UNKNOWN: as,

SPEAKER_02: as an anchor to,

UNKNOWN: to,

SPEAKER_02: to keep me focused on this goal

UNKNOWN: and

SPEAKER_02: not let it just become something that, oh, maybe next year. Oh, maybe the year after that. Yeah. Yeah, thanks

UNKNOWN: for

Luke: sharing all that. Yeah.

UNKNOWN: Yeah,

Luke: I had a few thoughts. It reminded me of similar in a way, because it was the first retreat I ever went to, which was in 2017. One of my teachers, I think, mentioned at the end of that retreat, these three month retreats, and it was so mind blowing, because I just done my first five days ever of silent retreat and it was like, you know, just absolutely world upturning my first retreat experience.

UNKNOWN: In

Luke: a lot of ways.

UNKNOWN: And, and

Luke: I didn't feel like I was anywhere near ready for that experience of a three month retreat. It seems, you know, like, barely conceivable, but, but I really did like the idea. I had the sense that like,

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: know, because one of the things I feel like I really saw on that first retreat of mine was how, you know, getting a glimpse of how, how this is a lifelong practice, you know, how there's, there's so much practice to do. And, and it just made sense to me that like, okay, well, if I'm going to practice this my whole life, you know, why not like, get some investment in early, like do a three month retreat and like, let that, you know, then keep practicing from there. It's like, you know, get some good seed experience in there to have compound interest on or whatever. That always made sense to me. And another thing my teacher told me once was,

UNKNOWN: he

Luke: said, if you have the inclination to go do a long retreat to, to act on that because it's the circumstances don't always line up. And he said, while it, it is

UNKNOWN: possible

Luke: to have a life that keeps deepening in the Dharma without long retreat. It's, it's also very possible to get a bit stagnant. Whereas, if you can get it to a long retreat, even once it tends to plant a seed that that keeps developing.

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: thought that was interesting. And I do feel like since I've come home, it's been

SPEAKER_02: 16

Luke: months or so since I came home from three months retreat.

UNKNOWN: There is

Luke: a certain confidence I have now, because like, I have taken, you know, not the biggest dose, like there are people that do longer retreats, there's a traditional three year retreat, I think in some Tibetan tradition, right. But, you know, more or less, as big of a dose as anyone can expect to, you know, wish to take. Sure. Yeah.

UNKNOWN: You

Luke: know, and, and there's also, there's also a, you know, traditional

UNKNOWN: significance

Luke: to the three month retreats. It's an idea that goes, it's a practice that goes back to the time of the Buddha, as you know. Right. So there's that conceptual thing, but there's also just having had the experience of like,

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: have just been so deep in meditation land, you know, it's like when you sit for four months, 45 minutes, you're practicing, but your mind knows that after this, this bell is about to ring and I'm going to get up and I'm going to get back on my computer or whatever I'm going to do. And, you know, when you have

UNKNOWN: thoughts

Luke: about

UNKNOWN: that,

Luke: if you're getting lost in thoughts about the future, you know, 10 minutes from now, you can let go of them and return to whatever you're, however you're practicing. But, but there's still an overarching kind of view of like, yeah, this I'm just kind

UNKNOWN: of, you

Luke: know, part of the mind think like, I'm kind of getting through this and getting through this practice, even if you're really enjoying the practice, which I tend to at home. Yeah, there's still a sense of like, yeah, I'm doing this practice and then I'm going to be done.

UNKNOWN: And

Luke: that's really different even on a week long retreat because you're just practicing all day and all day and all day. But after having done, you know, four or five week long retreats,

UNKNOWN: there's

Luke: even then still a sense of like, well, yeah, I'm on this retreat and I do really have to be here, you know, I really can't run.

UNKNOWN: And

Luke: next Tuesday,

UNKNOWN: that's

Luke: it. Yeah, I'm done. And

UNKNOWN: it's

Luke: just a different thing when you're there for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks.

SPEAKER_02: Right. Yeah, with this, you know, it'll be like, I'm going to have to mark the wall so I know which month it is.

UNKNOWN: You know,

Luke: I had a notebook with me at IMS and

UNKNOWN: I,

Luke: you know, do a little diary entry, not like a whole lot of journaling, but just sometimes a paragraph here and there. Or, you know, I would use my diary to keep track of like when I showered so I didn't forget or like when I had a haircut or something. But I also would track like, okay, this is the beginning of week four. We're in the second quarter now, you know, and

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: don't know if that was a good idea actually because I think it might have over-reified a sense of like, you know.

SPEAKER_02: How long have I got?

Luke: Yeah, and like, and the thing is too, it's like, it made it seem like this whole big chunk, like this is one big thing. So of course, it seems so big. And in a way, this is the whole practice is like, we don't see things as their, you know, momentary blips of energy, nists happening just boom, boom, boom, boom. When we solidify things, we think they're real, and then we're able to suffer over them, you know, the self or, you know, this horrible situation I'm in. And so I was kind of doing that on accident to myself. I was making the retreat into more of like a, this is this big three month period and here's where I am in three month period. And I think it would be wiser to just, this is just today. And you know, I don't go through, I'm not right now, it's March 6, then I'm not like, okay, I'm towards the end of the first quarter of the year. Like I'm not thinking about life that way out here. I'm just thinking about today and maybe tomorrow, and you know, I'm planning for the future and things. But in terms of my day-to-day mindset, I'm not carrying around this heavy concept all the time of like this huge chunk of time. So I think this time I'm going to try to let that go and maybe it'll be some awareness of the date, but

UNKNOWN: try

Luke: not to,

UNKNOWN: maybe

Luke: not, maybe just drop it. Yeah,

SPEAKER_02: I mean,

UNKNOWN: for

SPEAKER_02: me, one of the things that I've noticed is kind of a pattern that I have with retreats is, and, you know, often it's maybe in part because I am, you know, I've driven some distance to get there or whatever. But, you know, for me, like usually the first few days of any retreat, you know, I'm just exhausted. I just, every chance I get, I sleep. And actually, and maybe this is part of the reason why I didn't get the scholarship, because, you know, one of the questions they ask is, you know, like, have you ever left a retreat early? And back in 2022, I did leave a retreat early for the first time, because I drove from Montana to Missouri to go to the twin retreat, and I just could not stop sleeping. And I was just, you know, this was in the first six months of my terrible relationship, and that was really depressing. And so, you know, after four or five days, I was just like, I got to get out of here, man, you know, and I went over to a friend's place in Arkansas and hung out with her for a week or two. But one of the things that I was actually just kind of realizing and reflecting on this in the past day or two is that

UNKNOWN: because

SPEAKER_02: I am arriving a week early, hopefully I'll be able to catch up on my rest some more. And also, you know, as long as it's not needed for, you know, logistical purposes, setting up, communicating, whatever. And I doubt it will be, you know, hopefully, you know, right at the beginning, you know, like a week before the retreat, I can like turn my phone off, hand it to north. And that way I have a full week of like no Twitter brain, no mass distraction, getting some more rest, you know, getting into the vibe of the place. Really kind of starting to settle in even before the retreat even begins so that I won't have as much of that like extreme torpor to kind of like overcome at the very beginning of the retreat, because that's always like that's that's one of the big killers for me is like, oh, I've got this precious opportunity to meditate that all I want to do is sleep.

UNKNOWN: Yeah,

Luke: yeah, yeah. Oh, wow, I'm so happy for how it's how it's going to be set up for you.

UNKNOWN: Yeah,

Luke: it's very common for people that feel sleepy, especially at the beginning of retreat, I think, even if you haven't done a big road trip, I think so many of us are just so used to

UNKNOWN: being

Luke: kept up

UNKNOWN: being

Luke: being stimulated by our electronics and by our stress and by our work and everything. So

UNKNOWN: when

Luke: we not only no longer have our phones keeping us up literally in the evening, but just all day, we're not

UNKNOWN: being

Luke: bombarded with stimuli. Right. The body really takes the time to take the opportunity to rest again.

UNKNOWN: And

Luke: I think it's such a cool idea that you'll be able to maybe turn your phone in a week or some days early and

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: acclimate to the the no phone life, but still be being nourished by talking to people and being in this place and it's going to be so gentle. Yeah. I, I, it hasn't hit me yet, but I will maybe it won't happen this time. I don't know. I have a pattern though of often feeling like a lot of sadness before retreat, excuse me at the thought of

UNKNOWN: letting

Luke: go of my contacts with the outside world and friends and family and, you know, my electronic comforts and things like that. So yeah, I tend to have like some grief to work through in the first few days of retreat.

SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.

UNKNOWN: I

SPEAKER_02: don't, I don't have that's not, that's not my experience as far as, you know, I don't know. I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't grieve the phone in any way and honestly, you know, once, especially after, yeah, exactly. It's a huge relief, you know, just like, and so many times after retreats or after, you know, serving at a retreat where I have to give my phone away or, you know, or whatever. Just like,

UNKNOWN: there

SPEAKER_02: is that part of me. It's like, my God, I wish I, I wish I just didn't have to have a phone at all. I wish, you know, I wish, I wish we lived in like the pre digital era where you're not constantly tethered to the stimulus, you know.

UNKNOWN: Yeah,

Luke: I mean, we, we do both love the Internet. We do. We do know

SPEAKER_02: I absolutely do. I love just being able to make new friends and have meaningful conversations and stuff with people. And, and I, and I think and I hope, you know, that it's to the benefit of myself and to others that that I, that I do participate in the world in that way. But, but also, man, just like

UNKNOWN: being,

SPEAKER_02: being a human on a, on a planet named after dirt, like it's, it's nice to reconnect to a

UNKNOWN: more

SPEAKER_02: natural kind of lifestyle, you know.

UNKNOWN: Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: So one of the things I was thinking about too is, you know, and talking about, you know, you mentioned, you know, feeling like, okay, there's nothing I need to accomplish, you know, whatever. I mean, I'll, I'll be honest for me. Like I, I, if it doesn't happen, I won't,

UNKNOWN: I

SPEAKER_02: don't think I'll be disappointed in myself. But I don't know, man, I really feel like maybe this will be the time where, you know, like maybe this will, maybe this, maybe I'll take a dip,

UNKNOWN: you

SPEAKER_02: know, maybe, maybe I will, maybe I'll release some fetters and really become that much clearer of a person. And in the, in the conversation that I had with, with North, you know, one of the things that I had mentioned to him was that, you know, it is, for me, it is a, an aspiration of this lifetime to,

Luke: to

SPEAKER_02: become at least a, a once-returner, which for anybody who's unfamiliar basically means like you, so in, in, in the Buddhist system of understanding of things, there are kind of like four gradations of awakening or enlightenment or whatever. And so that would be reaching the second path of, of awakening. And for me, honestly, because, you know, we've had conversations about, you know,

UNKNOWN: talking

SPEAKER_02: with other people and teaching meditation to others. One of the, one of the other things that, that, that I have kind of taken a hold of is from, from, from Mastering the Core Teachings of Zabuda. You know, Daniel says that, you know, if you're going to find a teacher, your teacher should be at least second path and preferably fourth. And so for me, it's like, yeah, I'd love to teach meditation, but I would also feel a lot more confident in my abilities to do so if I, if I do at least have second path. And, and when I told North that my,

UNKNOWN: my

SPEAKER_02: life, my life's aspiration is to reach at least second path, he was like, well, why not all the way? And I said, and I'm like, I said at least, I did say at least. So I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not saying I don't want to go further. I'm just saying I want to get that far. And so,

UNKNOWN: you

SPEAKER_02: know, you know, obviously I, I don't, I don't think for Daniel, I don't think the, the, the, not you Daniel, obviously the Daniel Ingram. I don't think, I don't think his first three months retreat was what kicked his bucket over for him. It might have been his second one. I'm not sure. But, but at least, you know, like you said as well, you know, just like, having a long retreat like this, it really, you know, plants and nourishes a deeper seat of practice that you wouldn't get otherwise.

Luke: Yeah. Yeah. And there's the, in terms of teaching, which I, as you know, I've been doing a lot more offering coaching to people one on one and sometimes in groups in this last year. And

UNKNOWN: there's

Luke: still so much I don't know. But

UNKNOWN: it's

Luke: like, I have my own experience that I can really draw on now. And because like, I have seen this for myself, I had to figure it out. You know, even though I don't think I'm a stream mentor either. But I, but I,

UNKNOWN: but

Luke: I know that I just have enough experience looking around, you know, that I absolutely share. And, yeah, you know, every retreat, there's always an aspiration. Maybe this will be, maybe there'll be some big important openings. I feel a little funny at times. I just always want to caveat the four path model or whatever model would like, like,

UNKNOWN: it

Luke: feels like it gets so reified, like this is, you know, a definite thing and, and

UNKNOWN: maybe

Luke: it maybe it is but people I've talked to in different books I've read and things there's

UNKNOWN: a

Luke: lot of people do seem to agree that there is like a pretty definite shift. That might variously be called stream entry or initial awakening or Kensho and Zen or

UNKNOWN: but

Luke: it's it's so mysterious to me and and we've talked about this to our whole conversation is just qualifying we've talked about this we've talked about you talk a lot. But there's a lot of opinions and, you know,

UNKNOWN: about

Luke: ways to have these insights, you know,

UNKNOWN: more

Luke: quickly or not and there's people that seem to have had a lot of freedom without having even done much or any retreat practice and there's also people who have this these spontaneous awakenings without even meditating, you know, it just happens sometimes. I talked about this to north once and having a sense of like, when I was in a mood of like, Oh, do I really want to do this whole thing again? It's like, it's really a lot to go meditate for such a long time. And, and you know, some people seem to do it without retreat. So is it necessary? Like, are we fooling ourselves? Like, I don't know. And,

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: know, even though there is the confidence, there's also the doubt. And he said a quote from I forget who said this actually, but it's what I've heard before is like, Well, waking up is an accident. And the more practice you do, the more accident prone you are. And, and even aside from that too, it's like, somehow I kind of feel like I learned so much from the three month retreat I went on

UNKNOWN: that, you

Luke: know, even if all I just needed to

UNKNOWN: question

Luke: no self in the right way tomorrow. And then I would boom be a stream mentor, which maybe that's still wouldn't mean there's not value in going to meditate for a long time. There's so much goodness to cultivate. It's not just this one little shift in view. It's like there's there's so many good, good karma to work through and to see and to let go of. So I trust that.

UNKNOWN: Yeah,

SPEAKER_02: definitely. I mean, I know that in my own practice, you know, as over the years as things have developed, you know, I have,

UNKNOWN: I

SPEAKER_02: have definitely learned that, you know, it just it really everything in life, you know, whether it's your behavior, your speech, whatever, you know, everything just becomes more and more fine grained. Like it's not it's not like there is an end to which you're like, Okay, well now I've got everything figured out. It's like, No, oh shit, now everything that I knew is still true, but it's true in an even more deep and subtle way than I had anticipated. And it means that I have to, you know, be that much more aware of myself and my actions because I see, I see, I see it, I see it more clearly now. And, and there's there's even more detail that was that, you know, that had been kind of obscured for me before. And, and then and also, you know, like, yeah, I definitely I definitely don't think that, you know,

UNKNOWN: just

SPEAKER_02: awakening whether it's, you know, first or fourth or no path or what, you know, whatever, you know, and again, you know, I keep, I keep bringing up Daniel Ingram, but

UNKNOWN: I

SPEAKER_02: learned I learned a lot from his book and, and,

UNKNOWN: you

SPEAKER_02: know, and, and, and he makes it pretty clear that, you know, like, even if you, you know, consider yourself, you know, an Arahant. One who has, you know, gone forth and defeated all of the inner enemies and all of those things, like, in a way, and this isn't like this is me kind of like reframing what he was saying, but it's kind of like with World of Warcraft, you know, or any other video game where, you know, you grind in, you grind in, you grind, so you can get to the top level. Because once you get to the top level, that's when like all of the really like that's when that's when all the doors really open and, and, and you realize like, oh, wow, like there is, there is so much more to explore. There is so much more to to understand. There's so much more to see. There's so much more to learn than I'll ever be able to do in this lifetime.

Luke: Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

UNKNOWN: Yeah.

Luke: And, you know, North just did a month of practice at the Forest Refuge and Joseph Goldstein is still doing two or three months of retreat every year.

UNKNOWN: Right.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

UNKNOWN: Oh,

SPEAKER_02: I had something. Oh, I was going to, I was going to, I was going to, I was going to cover myself a little bit when we were talking about teaching. Because, you know, as much as I, although, you know, here recently I did, I did, I did share on Twitter that I'm willing to have these conversations and talk to people about meditation and stuff that I actually, you know, I did spend last year teaching meditation, even though it was only like, you know, it was like a couple hours once a month through. So I was, I, I found myself presented with the opportunity to help an organization that goes into the prisons in Montana in the county where I lived and to work with the prisoners and to teach mindfulness there. And so I have done, I have done that, I have done that kind of teaching already.

UNKNOWN: And,

SPEAKER_02: yeah, so, but, but, but, but as far as like, you know, presenting myself to the world as someone who can teach meditation, I've been, I've been hesitant to do that because,

UNKNOWN: yeah,

SPEAKER_02: like, like you and I have talked about in the past just I,

UNKNOWN: I,

SPEAKER_02: and actually, and this happened in the prison thing too, you know, just sometimes, you know, and kind of like you mentioned as well, you know, sometimes people just have kind of like a spontaneous awakening. Or some people, you know, they may go on their first retreat and boom, you know, like they're, they're off to the races. And for me, it's like, okay, well, you know, how can I,

UNKNOWN: I

SPEAKER_02: mean, I know that I know the basics. I know I have a lot of things to share. But also, you know, like if somebody finds himself in a sticky situation, emotionally or existentially or whatever, because of their practice, and I haven't traversed that territory myself, like I wouldn't, I wouldn't feel like I was a very confident guide. If, if, you know, I'm trying to explain somebody, you know, explain to someone, you know, how to move through territory that I have not yet traveled. And when I mentioned, so yeah, in, in, in the prison thing, there was, there was one night where a guy who I had seen a few times before,

UNKNOWN: you

SPEAKER_02: know, he, he's like, well,

UNKNOWN: I

SPEAKER_02: keep having, you know, he basically, he's like, I keep having these like white, light kind of things that are passing in my field of vision. He's like, what do I do next? And I had, you know, I had read at least the first couple chapters of Lee Brazington's book about right concentration. And so I just told him, I'm like, okay, well, you know, just

UNKNOWN: kind

SPEAKER_02: of just gently smile inside a little bit and just, and shift your focus to the pleasant sensation. And within seconds, he just like erupted in laughter and started talking about how it felt like God was tickling him and all of this stuff. And I'm like, okay, well, you know, like, you got to, you've got to, you've got to be able to like, you know, don't, don't, don't, don't let this, don't let the pleasure of this crack you up. You've got to, you've got to stay stable. And then I never saw him again. And, you know, there is a part of me that's kind of like, it's like, oh no, like, should I have kept my mouth shut? Like, I didn't give him a lot of background on the genre is I didn't tell him what I was introducing him to. And I never saw him again. And so it's just like, oh gosh, I hope, I hope that that wasn't like a destabilizing event in his life that I led him into, you know, poof. Yeah, like, after that, it's like, wow, yeah, like there is a responsibility to this that, you know, like, maybe I shouldn't have said that or I don't know. Yeah.

Luke: Yeah, there's interest. That's an interesting story.

UNKNOWN: I,

Luke: I tend to think he's probably fine. And I, you know, I don't think that

UNKNOWN: because

Luke: even

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: mean, my experience with genre practice is there's, it's possible for that chain reaction to kind of pop off. Yeah, and it doesn't even necessarily mean there's like a huge amount of deep Samadhi.

Daniel: And

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: really think it's the deep Samadhi that is what surfaces things that were deep down in the psyche that that might be difficult for some people, depending on what's what's there. I'm certainly very alive to your concern. And it's a unique situation, you know, going to teach in a prison because you can't redirect them to a lot of other resources. I mean, maybe I don't know how much access to anything else they have, but you can't tell them to hop on a zoom call with someone who might know more.

SPEAKER_02: Right. Yeah. I even tried to I tried to see if I could get a copy of the book to him. Oh, nice. And they were like, yeah, no, we can't like, you know, like the best you could do is maybe try to like get the book into the library and then get him to get his hands on it in the library. But,

UNKNOWN: but,

SPEAKER_02: but, but, you know, they're like, we, you know, it would look preferential, blah, blah, blah kind of thing. And,

UNKNOWN: and

SPEAKER_02: then so and I didn't I didn't get the book into the library and and I never saw him again. So even if I had gotten the book into the library, if he never, you know, never seeing him again, it's like, well, like, I can't tell him that it's there if I don't see him to tell him. Yeah. Yeah.

Luke: Probably being tickled by God was okay for him.

UNKNOWN: It

Luke: doesn't sound like a bad thing.

SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean, the experience itself is okay. But the thing is, is that, you know, for, for someone who has no, no, no, no context, no frame of reference for like what the genres are, what pity is. Any of that kind of thing. And especially, you know, I mean, because we did have some conversations. And this was a guy who, you know, like his, I wouldn't say he was mentally ill or anything, but you know, like his, his understanding of the world and my understanding of the world, you know, they're not everything was in sync. And so,

UNKNOWN: yeah,

SPEAKER_02: so, so yeah, I am there is there, you know, there is that that lingering sense of like, oh gosh, I hope he didn't like misunderstand. And

UNKNOWN: he

SPEAKER_02: probably, you know, because he didn't understand what was going on, you know, like

UNKNOWN: any,

SPEAKER_02: any, any conclusions that he came to, or probably false conclusions. And so just, you know, like what, what, what does that make him believe or whatever. Yeah, I don't know. That's, that's, that's going to be one that I'm not going to, I'm never going to know what happened. But yeah.

Luke: In that way, he's no different than the rest of us. We're always coming to false conclusions and operating on them until we see better. And, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: But, but, you know, yeah, at the same time, like, you know, obviously he had been, you know, he had been like, you know, he saw the value in meditation and was doing it right. And I don't know if that's regularly enough that he was in a place where he was able to, you know, just kind of like

UNKNOWN: jump

SPEAKER_02: right in with, with that kind of shift in focus. And so, so yeah, hopefully, yeah, hopefully he just kind of kept it up, and hopefully that has just deepened for him. So, you know, I haven't had a lot of conversations with North because I just, you know, I got a good vibe from him right away and I'm not, oftentimes I'm not one to ask a lot of questions because I've already done, you know, like you said, you know, we all come to our false police. I've come to my own conclusions about certain things or whatever that, you know, I tend to just kind of trust the process and I know that it's off there in the dark and I don't know what it's going to be, but what I do know is that from what I read, you know, North is going to kind of be being like tailoring the practice for each of us

UNKNOWN: based

SPEAKER_02: on, I guess, you know, his read of our nature or whatever and, you know, like, we're not all going to be doing the same exact thing. Have you talked to him about what that's going to look like as far as, like, different objects of meditation or what he might have you working on or anything of that nature?

Luke: Not much. I spoke with him right after I came back from the journey retreat and I was, I still am, but I was particularly excited about the style of Meta-jana practice. I had just been practicing and learning and

UNKNOWN: he

Luke: was open to me doing that kind of practice on retreat, but

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: get the sense,

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: don't even get the sense he's going to be like telling us what to do. I think it's going to be more, you know, just a process of collaboration and, yeah, yeah, it's one of the, you know, I have a hunch my practice is going to end up being pretty similar to how it's been, but maybe not because North also has a lot of background in Soto Zen, which I don't have experienced with. I haven't had teachers in before,

UNKNOWN: but

Luke: my hunch is that, like, I've never had anyone instruct me specifically in like Shikantaza or I haven't read a book about Shikantaza practice, which is for anyone who doesn't know is a kind of do nothing type of practice. I mean, silence elimination, but I just have a hunch that it's pretty much what I've been doing, like it's not that different. I don't know, it's all the same mind. Like I know how to sit, I don't know, you know, I mean, there are a million techniques that I could learn. And someone could teach me, like I've never done any work with, like, koan practice or, like, or, like deity yoga, or, I don't know, there's all kinds of different things you could do. But in terms of, like, just sitting and just recognizing the wakefulness of this moment and noticing when the mind, body, heart has become contracted and is grasping at something and letting go and, and cultivating patience and kindness and, and not needing to change things.

UNKNOWN: Um,

Luke: I have a hunch it's going to be pretty similar to what I'm already doing,

SPEAKER_02: but

Luke: I, but I, um, but yeah, we'll see.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah. Yeah, I don't, for me, I don't know if it's, um,

UNKNOWN: I

SPEAKER_02: don't know if it's wishful thinking or, or, or what, but, you know, like there's, um, there's a story that I read at some point. I don't know if this was something that

UNKNOWN: was

SPEAKER_02: mentioned in the master and the court teaching the Buddha or if it was something that I read somewhere else at the same time, but it was also during that, that, that, that, like 18 day solo retreat that I did

UNKNOWN: where,

SPEAKER_02: uh, you know, I, I heard this story where, you know, so I think it was like, sorry, Puta, uh, one of the chief disciples of the Buddha, hold on a second.

UNKNOWN: Had

SPEAKER_02: to clear my throat. Um, so sorry, Puta was, uh, you know, taking a new, a new student and he was about to like take him to the charnel grounds or whatever and give him the object of, um, well, I mean, back then, yeah, or, or over there, right? Um, uh, the, you know, he was going to have him, you know, meditate with the direct experience of death and dying and decay and all of that. And, and the Buddha stopped him and he said, actually, wait, you know, like, uh, he said, you know, this, this guy here, you know, like, you know, I can see with my divine eye that, you know, in a past life, like he was a jeweler and so what we need to do is we need to actually sit him with the red, the red casino, um, because his mind is going to just like latch on to that much more rapidly and it's going to, it's going to like just deepen and intensify him, you know, much more effectively than it would to, you know, like, yeah, the charnel grounds are great and they're an all-purpose tool, kind of like now, you know, nowadays in mindfulness practice, you know, like the breath is kind of the thing that everybody kind of goes to first, but, um, you know, the Buddha, like, he specifically, like, he tailor taught each person knowing, knowing, knowing exactly what would be the best object for that mind, um, and the Vishuddhi Maga is also kind of, you know, it's written in this way where, where, where it's like, okay, you know, you've got, you've got these different kinds of minds and once you, once you know how to, you know, read or see the mind of your, of your student, you know, you really, it's, it's kind of, you know, it's, it's, it's on the teacher to, to understand, uh, how to best point each, each different practitioner, uh, in a way that's going to speed them along most effectively. And so for me, I don't know if it's, you know, I don't know if it's wishful thinking or hopeful thinking or, or whatever, but, but there is, there is that desire in me of like, oh gosh, you know, like, I hope North has enough sight that he can see, like, exactly what, exactly what the right thing to like, you know, help me go as quick as I, you know, safely can, um, to, to deepen my practice because I, you know, yeah, just, I'm so excited to have this opportunity for a long retreat that I really, you know, um, having done so much of the Gowinko one size fits all kind of practice. It's like, oh yeah, like I, I, I really want a good teacher who can really tailor, you know, my experience to the greatest benefit for me. Yeah. Yeah.

UNKNOWN: Yeah. Yeah.

Luke: Yeah. I'm really curious on what his teaching style would be like. I don't know if his divine eye is developed enough to just pick it out of the blue or not. But, but, um, you know, at least from the, because even at IMS, um, you know, they, they did offer, you know, in the first couple of weeks of the retreat and the morning practices, they laid out instructions in line with the Mahasi noting style. And I did end up doing a lot of that practice. But many people were doing all kinds of different practices there. And I did a lot of different kinds of practice while I was there. And there was a kind of,

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: know, show up to the interview and talk about how practices going and asking some questions, got some suggestions, you know, sometimes there's bigger decisions like, well, should I switch from doing Mehta all day and start doing something else? So there are some, some like object level kind of decisions like that.

UNKNOWN: And, and

Luke: that's interesting. But I think also I expected to just kind of develop over the course of time. Right. Just through conversation and intuition. Yeah.

UNKNOWN: Yeah,

SPEAKER_02: that was in the,

UNKNOWN: I

SPEAKER_02: think it was, yeah, back in November, I was serving for like a week and a half or so at a, at a going to retreat. And I was as a server, you know, you get access to the library. And so I was reading the Great Disciples of the Buddha. And I think somewhere in there, it quoted the Buddha saying, you know, like,

UNKNOWN: the

SPEAKER_02: things that a good teacher should be able to do or they should be able to help the student find the right object. And also, you know, know how to guide the student through overcoming of hindrances. And so I think, yeah, obviously, you know, like on those, on those, you know, every other day, those, those interviews. Yeah, you know, like being able to talk about like, oh, this is what's coming up. This is what's holding you back. This is what I'm struggling with. This is what's challenging or whatever. And, and having someone who has the experience to, to be like, okay, well, you know, this is, you know, this is, this is what we're going to shift, or this is what you can think about, or this is how you can practice to kind of like work through that work through those challenges as they arise.

UNKNOWN: Well,

SPEAKER_02: there are a great many unknowns, and we will know much more about it in a few months.

UNKNOWN: Stay

Luke: tuned for the exciting conclusion.

Daniel: Stay tuned for the next episode of two weird guys who go off and sit in silence for very long times.

UNKNOWN: Yeah,

Luke: I do think it's going to be really fun to have another conversation. Oh yeah, I'm so,

SPEAKER_02: I'm so looking forward to the afterwards to be able to like break down like what my experience is like, find out what your experience is like, talk about the differences in practice and just our, just our shared experience of being in the environment and everything. Yeah, it's going to be really cool. I'm looking forward to hopefully sometime in July, you know, having another chat and kind of doing a, doing an after

UNKNOWN: kind

SPEAKER_02: of just like we did, you know, like I did with you before doing, doing kind of an after analysis of what it was like to go on along the treat.

Luke: Yeah. Yeah. And we will be in different places though because I'll have been to my sister's wedding and been to vibe camp and all over the place. Yeah. You'll be more fresh off the boat. Well,

SPEAKER_02: I mean, the thing is, is that in July, once I'm done with the retreat, like, so I'm going to I'm going to stay for the like four or five days afterwards to help put everything away and clean everything up. And then, and then, you know, my girlfriend she's flying into San Francisco and we're going to go camping in the Redwoods and the Oregon coast and then she's flying home from Portland. And then I'm going to drive up to Washington and see friends and stop by Montana and see friends and then

UNKNOWN: go

SPEAKER_02: Sundance probably in Wyoming. So I'm I've already got a really kind of busy July in front of me. So it might not be until August. I know, I mean, it's to have, you know, to have a conversation like this over the internet is very easy. So we might have to have a conversation, you know, Sunday in July. But but yeah, with all of that, you know, like I won't even be settling back into normal life again until August is earliest. And then and then in August is when you

UNKNOWN: are

SPEAKER_02: going to are going to go is like stepping into the unknown

UNKNOWN: a

SPEAKER_02: bit.

UNKNOWN: Very

SPEAKER_02: cool. Well, I look forward to our next recording. And of course, we'll be talking all of the time until we're not. But but and for anyone who, you know, has has has listened to us for the past hour or so. Thank you. And I hope that

UNKNOWN: everyone

SPEAKER_02: has a wonderful day and be able to find some happiness and join their lives and share that with others.

Luke: Amen, maybe so.

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: was this morning that it,

UNKNOWN: you know,

Luke: and I know we're going to talk about meditation and I was actually I had the thought this morning because I didn't feel like sitting

UNKNOWN: this

Luke: morning

UNKNOWN: when

Luke: I have to. I've said I will for five minutes every morning and I just I just like

UNKNOWN: didn't

Luke: want to but then

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: kind of just looked at everything I was doing all morning as a meditation. And

UNKNOWN: there

Luke: was this moment I sat down to put my shoes on and I'm usually kind of rushing and I didn't rush. I just very slowly untied

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: I looked up

UNKNOWN: at

Luke: the television that's right there and it's off. And I just kind of looked at my reflection in the black television and thought I wonder how often people stop and

UNKNOWN: look

Luke: at their reflection in the TV that's off.

UNKNOWN: It's

Luke: got a very particular silhouettey spooky feel to it and I just sort of sat looking and I'm like,

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: think I'm just going to relate to everything I do today as a meditation. So when I drove to my office and didn't have my keys and

UNKNOWN: the

Luke: parking app didn't work and all the things I'm just like, I just laughing

UNKNOWN: through

Luke: the whole thing. This is really funny.

UNKNOWN: Yeah, yeah,

Guest: well that reflection and actually because like right now I'm looking at a TV screen that is turned off and I can see that hazy outline of myself in the distance.

UNKNOWN: And

Guest: it is that black mirror, right?

Luke: Yes, that's I thought of black mirror also I'm like, oh, yeah, there's a lot going on there. If you kind of slow down life is very interesting without a lot of external stimulants if you just kind of pay attention to what's in front of you.

Guest: I'm assuming that that that bat is is also a mutual of yours.

UNKNOWN: Do

Guest: you know

UNKNOWN: that

Guest: you bat me? Yeah, because I was having a conversation with her a couple of days ago where she was she was feeling a lot of frustration, you know, because she was supposed to catch a bus to go to this game night thing. And the bus wasn't showing up. And then the next morning I sent her a text and I'm like, well, you know. And I know that you know that like all of this timing is actually divine. You know, I just didn't want to say it to you while you were frustrated and she's like, oh no, totally like as soon as I got as soon as the bus finally showed up and I was sitting on it just like this calm fell over her. And then she started seeing all of these, you know, like interesting numerical combinations kind of like signs of things. And and there's that whole there's a

UNKNOWN: I

Guest: don't know how much you how much familiarity you have with Daniel Ingram. He's a he's one of the meditation heads in in he's not in teapot, but a lot of teapotters have like read his book and that kind of thing. And so there was a podcast that I heard him on back in like 2020 where he was he was talking about how he had had this like

UNKNOWN: profound

Guest: visionary experience of himself as like some kind of a karmic wizard from five thousand years. Years ago, who was like tracing this intricate pathway of like all of the experiences that would happen to him throughout time. And ever since then he has this, you know, like, Oh, I lost my keys or Oh, I'm stuck in traffic or whatever. And this just like this sense of like, but this is exactly what's supposed to be how like as much as I'm frustrated with all of those little things like

UNKNOWN: there

Guest: is where I'm meant to

Luke: be.

Guest: Right. Yeah, there's a reason to play.

UNKNOWN: It's

Luke: an orientation toward life that if you if you practice it enough, it

UNKNOWN: can

Luke: lower your stress and that that's what I'm most interested in. I mean, I was just, my mom was always stressed, just always stressed about something worth going to be late or what, you know,

UNKNOWN: she

Luke: would just worry herself into a tizzy. And it was like, I learned that I learned to be stressed out about every little thing that happens. And it's really challenging not to be when you've been wired

UNKNOWN: that

Luke: way. And that's all you've ever known. You know, I'll tell you that.

UNKNOWN: We

Luke: just get wired and unwiring yourself is

UNKNOWN: tricky.

Luke: But you know what one of the things lately my husband and I have been on is

UNKNOWN: he

Luke: sent me

UNKNOWN: he

Luke: sent me a Jaco willing clip. Have you do you have any experience of Jaco?

UNKNOWN: The

Guest: name Jaco sounds familiar. I don't know.

Luke: He's a former Navy SEAL. Okay.

Guest: Oh, yeah.

Luke: Yeah, he's got a lot of personal development stuff out there and it's all very like hard hitting, which I like I tend to really like kind of harsher people like Goggins. And I don't know, I appreciate their even if I think they're a little crazy. I'm just like, yeah, but there's something core to what you're saying that's actually really useful. Right.

Guest: Yeah, okay.

UNKNOWN: You

Luke: know, I will wallow I will I will ruminate I will sit in my crap and just be sad and not do things and it's like,

UNKNOWN: yeah,

Luke: there's there's something about the kick your ass mentality that yeah, you can overuse it and hurt yourself. You can. And there's still some truth. So there's a Jaco clip where he he says that every time something goes quote wrong. Immediately say good. Good. Okay. So that's happening for some for something else. So now I need to pay attention to what for

UNKNOWN: what

Luke: was it for? And what if this what if I just stepped in gum and got delayed and that helped me not be in a car crash today? You know, you don't know me and my husband whenever either of us gets upset about little things. We've agreed that we'll say good.

UNKNOWN: Yeah,

Luke: first just to remind each other and it always works because we made the agreement so he'll say it.

UNKNOWN: And

Luke: I just start laughing or I say it to him and he's like, okay, yeah, you know, smiling and we and we help each other with those little things because our parents were very similar and we just we both get into that swirl.

UNKNOWN: Right.

Guest: I think one thing that kind of came to mind for me was, you know, talking about like always having that stressor always having something to worry about kind of thing. And like yesterday when you when you when you you posted about like drama addiction, you know, in in 2020 I had a very close friend who you know like very active on Facebook. And of course, because it was 2020, like every day there was something brand new to be thoroughly outraged about. And after a while I was like, Hey, are you aware that like,

UNKNOWN: you're

Guest: just having an outrage addiction here, you're literally like every day you're like looking for the new spicy thing in the news to get really upset about. And it's like, I understand there are important things but also like what you're doing to your nervous system here is like, you know,

Luke: it's a misguided

UNKNOWN: attempt

Luke: to get some need met. It's

UNKNOWN: because

Luke: I was just texting in my in my group chat with a bunch of coaches that I'm friends with. One of them said, Wow, I'm really like, I'm really in it this morning I just I noticed I want to argue on social media and I don't ever do that but I really want to get in there and

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: just had to shut the apps and be like, Okay, I'm not going to engage. And I said to her yeah I get like that sometimes and I, I honestly I usually screenshot send things to you guys and rant with you.

UNKNOWN: And

Luke: then we get it out, shake it off and then we're fine and I don't need to go back later and look at things I said and be like, Why did I say that. I didn't want to say that, you know.

Guest: So, so let's dive into the

UNKNOWN: end

Guest: of the juicy stuff here so you know this podcast it's titled it's titled love in the light. So it's very kind of woo adjacent and when I mentioned that I talked a lot about like metaphysics and meditation and stuff. You, you jumped in and said well I've got an amazing story about how you did like self hypnosis through childbirth. So, do you already did you already have experience with self hypnosis or what's the story behind all of this.

Luke: So self hypnosis is very adjacent to meditation. It's essentially is meditation it's just with a pointed purpose. So I had a bunch of different experiences with meditation already. I mean, I literally got eat pray love piled back in the day and then

UNKNOWN: we

Luke: wanted to

UNKNOWN: go

Luke: to India and

UNKNOWN: have

Luke: a bunch of mosquitoes bite me and say still the whole time and things that Elizabeth Gilbert did. But I could not so instead I looked up meditation centers in New York because I just moved to Brooklyn and I found one. Literally their website was meditation in New York calm they're probably still around that's cool.

UNKNOWN: And

Luke: I started going to classes and I started meditating and I really had so much resistance. It was maybe 12 minutes that we would sit at the start of class and I was jumping out of my skin. Could not and hated everyone there was like look at all you

UNKNOWN: righteous

Luke: pieces of shit. I was just so cynical then and I was

UNKNOWN: very

Luke: yeah and really not okay with being still I was always known as the fidgeter. If I went to get my hair cut as a kid or whatever I just could never sit still undiagnosed ADHD. What's up,

UNKNOWN: but

Luke: like I had a lot of trouble in that class and I went all the time though because I could tell intuitively that it was good for me. I meditated at home

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: I just got really into a lot of different teachers back then and listen to audio books and things. And then I found this other community

UNKNOWN: that

Luke: my friends a new set of friends that I found

UNKNOWN: who

Luke: did things like eat vegetables. They were just so weird and I started hanging out with them and they would cook around me and I'd watch them cook and go oh I guess I could do that.

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: could make like a chicken with a bunch of vegetables around the outside and roast it in the oven that looks really

UNKNOWN: they

Luke: would they would put things in front of me eat

UNKNOWN: like

Luke: okay.

UNKNOWN: So

Luke: I started hanging out with that crew and and they were very there was a lot of like different woo and healing modalities and stuff that I in my head was very opposed to but my body responded my body was the one responding to everything and so I was like okay. They dragged me

UNKNOWN: to

Luke: this meditation

UNKNOWN: this

Luke: group called or key

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: I

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: basically it's these two brothers and one of them is the one that speaks at the meditation and he channels a light spirit

UNKNOWN: named

Luke: or key. So I'm like this sounds so

UNKNOWN: ridiculous.

Luke: Are you kidding

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: they're all telling me about it all the time you got to come you got to come so we go and it's like north or it's in like the Bronx or you know it's just in the northern part of Manhattan. And

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: and they're like it's an hour long and you have to sit still

UNKNOWN: the

Luke: whole time and just sit there and I was like there's no fucking way you don't know

UNKNOWN: how.

Luke: I'm a fit it or

UNKNOWN: there's

Luke: no way right and yet I sat down and they they began

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: it was like I went into a trance I just the man started speaking and I went like.

UNKNOWN: And

Luke: I had I had my hands on my lap and I'm sitting up in a chair and I my body did not move

UNKNOWN: once

Luke: for the entire hour I did it was not willpowering it

UNKNOWN: was

Luke: not fighting it just something about the

UNKNOWN: the

Luke: tonality and what was being said and I just

UNKNOWN: tuned

Luke: in and

UNKNOWN: it

Luke: felt like 10 minutes.

UNKNOWN: Yeah. But

Luke: it was one hour I couldn't believe it I was staring at the clock after like there's no way.

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: just not here for an hour. So I've been I then started going to that a lot I also started going to private sessions with the one man who leads it. He does what he calls vibrational harmonic healing. And it's a mixture of sometimes he channels that light spirit sometimes. Sometimes my

UNKNOWN: my

Luke: mom would come in and he'd have to be a medium for a second and tell me something she's saying because she'd be very insistent knocking on his door and he's like OK your mom's here she wants to say some stuff to you. Okay. But then it was just almost like talk therapy mixed with coaching it was weird it's like and I he's still kind of my secret weapon that it's been 12 years and I

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: used to go to him regularly and now it's like if my life is really starting to fall the shit that's when I call Peter.

UNKNOWN: Right.

Luke: And it's usually about the same cycle that has recurred and I need to talk to him again and he's like once again here we are. It's so embarrassing Luke like

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: I'll like go to reach out to him and I'm like do I have to. Oh God I don't want to tell him it's happening again. Have

Guest: you ever recorded one of your sessions with him so that when you're like right at the cusp of having to call him you could just play it. Oh

Luke: my God I have some on an old hard drive. I'm so scared to listen to any of them because I was just like such an idiot but probably I'm not as big of an idiot as I think it if I listen to it it would like take that fear away from me but I don't even know what hard drive at this point.

UNKNOWN: You

Luke: know there was a time though that I didn't reach out to him recently and I just thought let me just tap into his energy and I could probably channel what he would say to me and kind of be in it and I did that and it really helped.

UNKNOWN: So I

Luke: have I feel like I have direct access to him.

UNKNOWN: He

Luke: comes mostly when I'm on the acupuncture table

UNKNOWN: every

Luke: week. Like

UNKNOWN: his

Luke: voice will fit in

UNKNOWN: about

Luke: something and I'm like hey Peter what's up I need free session.

Guest: Right yeah so

Luke: so anyway that was mostly that was my experience the Buddha Center or key it did a bunch of retreats with them.

UNKNOWN: How

Luke: long like

UNKNOWN: a

Luke: day.

Guest: Okay. Yeah.

Luke: Yeah like day retreats he doesn't he doesn't twice a year.

UNKNOWN: Yeah.

Luke: So I try to go when I can and otherwise I download the recordings and it's not

UNKNOWN: just

Luke: a passive download because you need to pay for it.

UNKNOWN: So

Luke: it's like

UNKNOWN: if

Luke: I'm going to download

UNKNOWN: an

Luke: orc recording I'm going to spend $20 or I think it's like 16 now actually they reduced it because now they do stuff online to

UNKNOWN: back

Luke: then it was all in person or

UNKNOWN: or

Luke: just recordings.

UNKNOWN: But

Luke: yeah I so by the time I got around to having a kid

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: had heard about hip no birthing from my midwife

UNKNOWN: the

Luke: decision to have a natural home birth.

UNKNOWN: Those

Luke: two things natural home birth two big decisions

UNKNOWN: for

Luke: some reason I was just already wanting to do that and I said that's my husband he was like oh yeah

UNKNOWN: awesome

Luke: and we were just

UNKNOWN: on

Luke: the same page about it

UNKNOWN: for

Luke: whatever reason I don't know why.

UNKNOWN: But

Luke: we had decided that and then when we found the we found this awesome midwife in in Brooklyn her name's Andrea diamond she's

UNKNOWN: the

Luke: best. And in our first session she said have you heard of hip no birthing and I was like no and then she explained a little bit and she recommended me this this French woman

UNKNOWN: who

Luke: is also in Brooklyn and does classes so I started going to those. I took her like eight week course on hip no birthing

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: I

UNKNOWN: was

Luke: like

UNKNOWN: just

Luke: a natural at it and I guess it was from all of the

UNKNOWN: classes.

Luke: Oh and also I've pretty much been meditating since I was like eight

UNKNOWN: but

Luke: I didn't know what I was doing.

Guest: Okay,

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: just decided and I have a tweet thread about this I decided at some point that every night I was going to try and think about nothing.

UNKNOWN: Okay, because

Luke: I got fascinated by that we're always thinking things and what if you just

UNKNOWN: think

Luke: about nothing and so I would meditate on

UNKNOWN: the

Luke: idea that the universe didn't exist so I would picture the earth in space and then try and then make it. I would say to myself what if there was just nothing

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: then I'd make it disappear into black and then try and sit in that and I just did it every single night.

UNKNOWN: So it

Luke: was part of how I fell asleep at night and in my adulthood I'm like I've been trading and doing meditation since I was really little without knowing

UNKNOWN: because

Luke: I was just sort of fascinated by things. Yeah,

Guest: yeah.

UNKNOWN: That's

Guest: cool I actually I haven't published my recording yet but in that same chat where

UNKNOWN: where

Guest: we talked about having this conversation you know I then was in there

UNKNOWN: and

Guest: then also started meditating when he was like eight.

Luke: Yeah,

UNKNOWN: just

Guest: kind of well when

Luke: I posted about it I found a lot of people in teapot who are like oh my god me too.

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: do that too as a kid and others who are like I didn't what's up like why

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: I still I don't quite understand that unless if I look at it through a reincarnation lens that there's you know whoever I was before just picked up

UNKNOWN: right

Luke: where I left off and that's how I was as a kid I don't know.

UNKNOWN: Yeah,

Guest: you probably yeah it probably was one of those things where you already had this practice

UNKNOWN: in

Guest: your

UNKNOWN: in

Guest: your pattern that just easily you kind of thing yeah for sure

UNKNOWN: yeah

Guest: I didn't

UNKNOWN: I

Guest: didn't actually start meditating

UNKNOWN: until.

Guest: Like 2011 I want to say but but the thing is is that after I did start meditating

UNKNOWN: then

Guest: you know like I spent some time a few years later with an ex girlfriend and she was like wow you're so much different blah blah blah blah blah and also when I was with her

UNKNOWN: like I

Guest: wouldn't be okay

UNKNOWN: on

Guest: any given day unless I had had my like hour of music. And and then then then later it's like oh okay like without even knowing it like I needed that time in my music zone just to kind of like stabilize my nervous system for the day yeah and so while it wasn't any kind of intentional meditation it had like a similar therapeutic effect

UNKNOWN: I

Guest: think

UNKNOWN: yeah

Guest: yeah

Luke: yeah. Any kind of intentional time.

Guest: Yeah,

Luke: any contemplative practice and it doesn't have to be sitting and trying not to think of anything.

UNKNOWN: So

Guest: kind of like with when you went to this first work session and you just dropped in. Yep, with the with the with the like self hypnosis in in preparing for birth that also just kind of like intuitively came to you huh.

UNKNOWN: It

Luke: did yeah and I,

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: didn't practice I didn't do the homework at all.

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: did not prep. I mean I did the bare minimum. I've heard about it remember there's some steps. Yeah, and I just don't like practicing and that's probably one it's one of the things holding me back in general because I just hate practice. I really like performance but I really hate practice and

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: the trouble is I can wing it pretty well. I mean,

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: was winging it at childbirth and I did like my my my midwife said that she tells my story first to every new new pregnant mom that she meets she tells my story first because she had she said afterwards. I've

UNKNOWN: I've

Luke: had a lot of hypno birthing moms home birthing natural birth at home I've never seen anyone drop into it

UNKNOWN: like

Luke: that

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: really stay that calm the whole time.

Guest: Yeah,

Luke: some of some of which at least at the beginning I attribute to

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: was performing it I was faking it till I make it I was I was like all these people are watching me let me act as then as possible and then

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: will show you what it looks like if I was hypnotized right and then and then you become hypnotized so it's like it's it really is a mind game

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: and yet also I felt very I felt a lot of partnership with my daughter because during the hypno birthing classes. There were things like where she would have us there was some really who shit where she would have us like talk to the baby and ask the baby not to be breach

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: ask the baby to be head down

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: I caused my daughter to turn.

UNKNOWN: By

Luke: talking to her. And I think that's all very real. And there were these other moms there that were like,

UNKNOWN: now I

Luke: don't get it and like got very frustrated by me because I was always I was always like, yeah, I got it. Okay, I'm good. And then the teacher would be like, wow, you've really never done this before. And they're all just staring at me like, fuck you. This bitch. Sorry. But this is also Luke white when people asked me about it. I'm like, I never tell anyone I think you should do this because it's not. I feel like those moms that were in class with me that were having trouble were coerced into being there did not want to do it. We're told it's the right thing you have to. And so that they were there so they had not actually chosen

UNKNOWN: to

Luke: be there.

UNKNOWN: Right.

Luke: And that right there is a huge impediment to having it work. Or maybe they even

Guest: have that persona of like, I'm this spiritual. So I have to do all of the things to go on that tier or whatever. Right. Yeah.

Luke: Yeah. Yeah.

Guest: Yeah. Yeah. So how long was your labor?

Luke: 11 and a half hours.

Guest: 11 and were you in that like trans hypnosis state like the whole time or what did that look like for you? Yeah.

Luke: So so

UNKNOWN: I'll

Luke: start at

UNKNOWN: the

Luke: beginning when I was

UNKNOWN: so

Luke: when you go into labor, it's not always like my water broke. I'm definitely in labor. It's sort of like

UNKNOWN: I'll

Luke: back up even further. My midwife had me take

UNKNOWN: Dr.

Luke: Christopher's herbs, which are these this particular blend of herbs that you probably won't get a doctor telling you to take

UNKNOWN: ever. Right.

Luke: Because what they do is they encourage Braxton Hicks contractions. Okay. So you start taking them X number of weeks out. I can't remember. Maybe it's a month out. And they they intensify

UNKNOWN: having

Luke: having little contractions every single day all day,

UNKNOWN: especially

Luke: right after you take them. So for many weeks leading up to this point, I'm just dealing with contractions every day. Right. And they're not the full blown. They're not full blown. Because once I had full blown, I was like, okay, I feel the difference. I mean, it's pretty intense, but it was almost like micro dosing contractions every day as a way to prep

UNKNOWN: for

Luke: the actual day. So I had been doing that for weeks and practicing my breathing and practicing my visualizations and listening to

UNKNOWN: the

Luke: fear release

UNKNOWN: hypno

Luke: birthing meditation, which if anyone's interested in hypno birthing Google

UNKNOWN: hypno

Luke: birthing fear release meditation and they have some really great

UNKNOWN: ones

Luke: also the rainbow meditation. There's a few different that are

UNKNOWN: the

Luke: stock hypno birthing meditations that you can listen to. And

UNKNOWN: they

Luke: talk directly about all your fears about

UNKNOWN: baby

Luke: and everything surrounding it the day the after you know what if something happens all of the things that go through your mind it kind of walks you through. And

UNKNOWN: so

Luke: I had been taking those things. So I knew what contractions felt like and

UNKNOWN: my

Luke: symptoms started to

UNKNOWN: just

Luke: intensify one night and I couldn't sleep. And that's not being able to sleep is a labor sign. Just your body won't let you sleep. I had also slept for almost 24 hours the day before, which is another thing that happens. Your body will be like, we're in preparation. So we're going to sleep extra. And and I had had fitful sleep before that. So I had this really long chunk of sleep.

UNKNOWN: And

Luke: then I had more intense. Yeah. So I was I remember it was the middle of the night. And I actually tweeted. I actually tweeted

UNKNOWN: there.

Luke: I found the tweet the other day of me being like, well, I might be in labor. I'm not sure. Yeah. So watch the space. And I didn't I'm like, pacing my apartment getting freaked out because it's so scary. I mean, it was probably the scariest night of my life because I didn't want to wake my husband,

UNKNOWN: because

Luke: I wanted him to be rusted if I actually do go into labor. So I'm like, let me not wake both of us up.

UNKNOWN: If

Luke: he's getting some rest, that's good. And I can ask him, I really needed like juice or I needed something from the bodega and I wanted to wake him up so he could go get it for me. But I'm like,

UNKNOWN: I'm

Luke: not going to go get it. That's really clear. And I'm not going to wake him up yet. I'll wake him up at 6am. So it was like 1230. And I texted my midway. Five

Guest: hours. You're like, I

Luke: want this juice. That's what happened. I spent five hours just kind of pacing and being really terrified.

UNKNOWN: And

Luke: then

UNKNOWN: when

Luke: she finally answered me and I think she answered me

UNKNOWN: at

Luke: like 430 or 5am because she was up for another mom. And she said, okay, we got to do she had this particular protocol and I mentioned this on the Twitter space. Yeah, yeah, the best way to tell if

UNKNOWN: you're

Luke: in labor is to try and make yourself fall asleep by taking some meds and having it one alcoholic beverage. Just to try and shut your system down. So I was to have something in the house, either a beer or a glass of wine or in my case, I got champagne because I really like champagne. So I opened this bottle of champagne, which I had been like, I'm going to be so excited to drink my champagne. No,

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: was not excited at all was very terrified. Really didn't even like it was hard to get down

UNKNOWN: because

Luke: of all the stuff happening. And then it's like Benadryl Tylenol. I don't know. She had some like,

UNKNOWN: take

Luke: these pills, take exactly this many milligrams of each of these things and drink that drink. And if that doesn't knock you out,

UNKNOWN: I'll

Luke: be over. So let me know if it doesn't knock you out. Indeed, it did not. I mean, I laid down, I shut my eyes. I think I put on one of the meditations and my body was like, no sleeping.

UNKNOWN: So

Luke: that was the point at which

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: told her. And then she said, okay,

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: have to do this and this and then I will be over. And then I also texted my doula

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: said, hey, and you know, I think I'm going into labor. My husband wakes up. He goes to the store. He gets me the shoes,

UNKNOWN: which

Luke: I probably didn't even want by then. And then he also started to set up the blowup pool that we had rented. So if you're going to do it at home birth and you want to have it in a tub, you can get this blowup pool. And

UNKNOWN: it

Luke: was like the liner for it was the wrong size. They sent us the wrong thing.

Guest: So

Luke: he was freaking the fuck out. And I was like, I need you

UNKNOWN: to

Luke: text Maggie, the doula

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: ask her if she can bring

UNKNOWN: one

Luke: or just figure this out. And I'm going to go in the bath now and listen to my meditations because I can't. And I just hear him running around and he's all stressed out. And I just, I've never been more scared in my life than when I was in that tub hearing that like the thing we planned is not working. And Maggie can't get here yet and

UNKNOWN: all

Luke: the things. And I just lit candles and I was like trying to force myself

UNKNOWN: to

Luke: just be calm, but it was not happening. I was really bad. And it wasn't until

UNKNOWN: my

Luke: midwife showed up and came into the bathroom and like knelt down on the floor next to me and was like,

UNKNOWN: how

Luke: you doing? Better now. Holy shit. And then she checked me and she's like,

UNKNOWN: wow,

Luke: you're already six centimeters dilated. Nice work. And I was like, I've been thinking about the Lotus. Like they had all these visualizations. You have to think about your vagina opening like a lotus flower and you're supposed to do it all the time and just like

UNKNOWN: whatever.

Luke: So I'm just sitting in there

UNKNOWN: waiting

Luke: for her to get there thinking about the Lotus opening. And she's like, well, you did it. Nice. And then they got they got everything fixed and I went into the bedroom and got in the tub and

UNKNOWN: they're

Luke: all helping.

UNKNOWN: Yeah.

Luke: Yeah. And they set up a little speaker and had my meditations playlists going

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: the lights are all off and there's candles and everyone's whispering.

UNKNOWN: And

Luke: at that, I was basically in that room with that state around me for the next 11 hours until I finally gave birth.

UNKNOWN: Wow. Did

Guest: you.

UNKNOWN: Did

Guest: you have any of those kind of kind of like where earlier you were talking about how, you know, like you can, you can tap into that. Tap into that teacher guy and like have that communication or he would hear from his mom or whatever. Did you have any of those sorts of like

UNKNOWN: interactions

Guest: with other beings? I mean, I guess you mentioned like, like you talked to your, you were, you were talking with your, your child, with your daughter about like, okay, over that kind of thing.

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: don't think I had a lot of access to, I don't remember, I think. I just don't remember because I'm listening to guided meditation. So I'm listening to this like lady with a beautiful New Zealand accent. I love it. We sometimes imitate her now and like, it's pretty funny. It's like, you'll baby just the way she said certain words and stuff. They're like running jokes with me and my husband

UNKNOWN: because

Luke: we listened to that shit for 11 hours.

UNKNOWN: Yeah.

Luke: But also I have my midway from my doula there talking to me and talking me through things. And I plastered a smile on my face because I know that

UNKNOWN: that

Luke: tells your body. Right. They're good. And so it sends endorphins. So I just like, I sat there. There's a few pictures of me not smiling. And I'm like, oh, well, maybe I thought I was smiling and I couldn't even muster it

UNKNOWN: because

Luke: your body is just in such a state. I mean,

UNKNOWN: the

Luke: way you're taken over by it, it's like just so much else gets shut

UNKNOWN: out

Luke: and you don't have any space for people or what they're saying to you. And

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: can think about when you've had a bad fever or when you've just been really sick and you're just like really low, low bandwidth for other people's

UNKNOWN: voices

Luke: even. And that's kind of how I was when my one dog walked in at one point.

UNKNOWN: And

Luke: one of the only things I said ever. I said very few things during this 11 and a half hours. But one of the things I said was,

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: can't with the dog. The dog needs to go. I couldn't even say his name. I can't with the dog because he was panting and his little nails were clicking on the floor and I was like, Right. And one of my friends was there just to be with the dogs. We had a friend that that was her. Her entire purpose was to come and be with the dogs during the home birth. Not your friend anymore.

Guest: She failed.

UNKNOWN: She

Luke: let him in. She was on a little break or she was in the bathroom. No, she's great. But yeah. So I had the birthing team and

UNKNOWN: a

Luke: few times I kind of lost it. Like I lost my

UNKNOWN: focus

Luke: and started out of

Guest: the hypnosis kind of thing. And I

Luke: started to get scared of the pain and I started going.

UNKNOWN: Which

Luke: was not, that's, you see that in movies, but that's not actually the way labor goes for everybody. And I think I started to get scared. So I started to act the way

UNKNOWN: that you

Luke: think you're supposed to act when you're scared. And my midwife just immediately it was like, no, no, no. Redirect it. You're going to, you're going to let all of your power out. You need to,

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: need to breathe it down.

UNKNOWN: Cause

Luke: that's

UNKNOWN: the

Luke: breathing is very like you take the breath

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: then you go. And

UNKNOWN: you, you push

Luke: it downward. And by the way,

UNKNOWN: really,

Luke: really great advice for getting a poop out. Okay. Ever on the toilet, anyone listening to this and you're like,

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: you're straining

UNKNOWN: that

Luke: you're wasting your power. You could, I know it's kind of gross cause maybe the bathroom doesn't smell so great in this moment. But you take a really deep breath

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: you just go.

Guest: And

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: kind of think about the breath going down

UNKNOWN: in

Luke: a curve, like in a J

UNKNOWN: through

Luke: your body and I swear this is magic. It's magic. You'll be sitting there straining and suddenly you start breathing this way and it's like

UNKNOWN: poop

Luke: out.

UNKNOWN: There

Guest: you go. I, I would, I would be lying if there wasn't a point earlier in this conversation where I was thinking about, well, I'll never, you know, I'll never be able to use this for childbirth because my body's not wired that way. But I wonder how it would help with constipation. Yes.

UNKNOWN: It

Luke: for real and especially cause during pregnancy constipation is, is an extremely common symptom. So they have you practice your J breathing every time that you poop. Every single time. That's one of the ways that you prepare for pregnancy or for giving birth. Cause it's, it's the same stuff. It's the same place. You know, it's obviously a different hole,

UNKNOWN: which

Luke: I continually need to keep explaining to my daughter cause she doesn't believe me that there's three holes.

UNKNOWN: But

Luke: where? She's like naked looking. She's like, where? Where? I'm like trying to explain it to her. It's like, but yeah. She's like the, the pee pee and the baby comes out the same homo. It, it doesn't, but I, okay.

UNKNOWN: You

Luke: know what? You're seven.

Guest: Do you have, do you have one of those old encyclopedias that has like layered, you know what I'm talking about? Like as a kid, you know, it's got like the multi transparency layers. So you can see different systems on each sheet.

UNKNOWN: One

Luke: day she's very interested in that kind of stuff. So at some, she loves X-rays. She's fascinated by X-rays. She always wants me to go on Google and show her X-rays of different parts of the body. So she could look at the bones. She's like, that's in me. That's right. I don't know.

Guest: I definitely think like one of the, one of the great things that we've lost as a society because of the internet

UNKNOWN: is

Guest: just having incredible reference books in the home.

Luke: I agree.

UNKNOWN: Where

Guest: kids, you know, like, you're not even in the, you have no idea that they're like studying anatomy or whatever because they just, they're like, I know that this book has knowledge in it and I'm going to flip through it until I find things, you know?

Luke: Yeah. I remember encyclopedias.

UNKNOWN: Yeah.

Luke: I remember looking stuff up based on the letter of the volume.

Guest: Right.

Luke: Yeah.

Guest: Yeah. And my dad, my dad very much, he raised me like anytime I was like, Hey dad, what does this mean? What does that mean? He'd be like, go to the dictionary. Look it up.

UNKNOWN: I

Guest: don't have time for you. You go find out for yourself. Yeah. Yeah.

UNKNOWN: So

Guest: during the, like, during, I guess

UNKNOWN: the, I'm

Guest: guessing that, you know, like the actual part where the child is coming out of your body, like that's probably one of the more intense parts of the labor process. Did you find that you stayed in that, in that hypnotized state throughout that? Or did you like

UNKNOWN: pop

Guest: in and out of it a few times? Or what was that like?

UNKNOWN: Well,

Luke: this is probably the best part of my story. Okay.

Guest: Okay.

Luke: So I was,

UNKNOWN: let's

Luke: see, I don't think I need to give all the details about how I got to the point of pushing, but once I started pushing, and just the first time she said, okay, push. So I started pushing

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: it felt so good.

Guest: Uh-huh.

Luke: I was like, I thought this was the part that was going to be horrible. And instead,

UNKNOWN: every

Luke: time I pushed,

UNKNOWN: it

Luke: was like having an orgasm.

Guest: Right.

Luke: So not the exact experience of

UNKNOWN: orgasm,

Luke: but like, just pleasure, just coursing through my entire body upon pushing. And, and I actually still have this connection is like, I guess neural connection down there that when I do certain exercises, it feels the same way.

UNKNOWN: Oh,

Guest: wow.

Luke: I feel like I'll be out like bar class. And I'm like, yeah, I like this.

UNKNOWN: And

Luke: I'm like, nobody knows. Nobody. I'm very much enjoying this particular exercise. Um, like fire hydrants and just different things that we have to move those,

UNKNOWN: those

Luke: parts. Um, yeah, it feels really good still, just like it did in labor. So I'm pushing and she says, stop. And they're like, are you okay? And I'm like, I am. Great.

UNKNOWN: I'm

Luke: fantastic. Wow. And I didn't have to. She completely

Guest: knew, right?

Luke: She, I told her after, and she was like, oh, because she kept going, how are you doing this? You're so strong, which may be something she just says to all women who are giving birth as like encouragement, but she doubled down on it a lot after the fact and was telling me like,

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: just haven't really seen that.

UNKNOWN: And,

Luke: uh, the way that like how calm or how whatever she, she was very, uh, adamant that it was unique or rare. Okay. Um, which is neat. Like, oh, dope. Cause I wasn't going for orgasmic birth,

UNKNOWN: but

Luke: then that's what happened.

UNKNOWN: Well,

Guest: I mean, for me, like, I obviously, for me, I just, from, from other stories I've heard other people, like my, my, my sister with, I think her second child, like the timing didn't work out. So she didn't get any painkillers and she just kind of wound up having a natural childbirth even though she hadn't planned for it. And afterwards, like

UNKNOWN: on

Guest: her reflection, she didn't say all of the words, but I'm very good at reading facial expressions where she was like, it was actually like a surprising experience. And I'm like, oh, you had, with your, with your childbirth and then, you know, and I've had other, uh, other friends who have told me, you know, she's like, you know, like this one woman who's like, she's had five kids. And she's like, I love giving birth. Like it's a great experience. And I'm like, okay. All right. Also,

Luke: uh, for most people gets easier.

Guest: Well, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Luke: Not everybody. The

Guest: first one's always the hardest, typically. Which,

Luke: honestly, for 11 and a half hours, I was pretty

UNKNOWN: happy

Luke: because homebirth, because you're not in a rush,

UNKNOWN: cause

Luke: hospitals will rush you. They want you. They want, they got into. Sure. Yeah. They've got, they've got a schedule.

Guest: They want to induce. They want to push things through. Right. Yeah.

Luke: So I, I did push a little bit because, uh, like I said, my water never broke. And, and so you get examined throughout the whole process. So she kept examining me and she's just like, it's basically got a slow leak.

UNKNOWN: The

Luke: sack. So it's going to take a really long time is what's going to happen. And I had a few complications. I couldn't pee at some point because my daughter's head was blocking it. Cause it's

Guest: just one hole, mom. Yeah, it's just one hole.

Luke: And I explained this to, I'm like, your head got,

UNKNOWN: it

Luke: pushed on it. I promise it's a real thing. Uh, and I was trying to pee for the longest time. And eventually they were like, okay, we got to do a catheter because,

UNKNOWN: um,

Luke: you need to pee

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: whatever. So then I got to experience the catheter, which was actually not painful and was very relieving. And I'm like, man,

UNKNOWN: wow.

Luke: And I don't have, it's, I went from having to pee really badly, to not having to pee at all. And I ain't do anything except lay here

UNKNOWN: and take

Luke: a deep breath and then let the breath out while you inserted this thing. Uh, 10 out of 10. Great. Great. It's catheter. I highly recommend it.

UNKNOWN: But

Luke: yeah, I like, I had that. And then she came over to me and she's like, okay, I want to be clear. I'm not rushing you. This was not part of your plan. What I'm about to suggest. And you can just say no. Uh, but

UNKNOWN: my

Luke: thought is we could burst the sack and she shows me this tool that she has. We could burst it. It won't hurt the baby. Um, and it'll just basically put you into the, the part where we need to start pushing right away. Right. And I was like, yeah, do it. Yeah. Go for it. And she's like, okay, are you sure? Cause it's not part of your plan. And I was like, I want to meet my kid.

UNKNOWN: It

Luke: was, I was totally willing in general to, to have a really long like days long labor. I, I was fine, but by that point, I just wanted to see my baby so badly.

UNKNOWN: Yeah.

Luke: And it was, I think it's

UNKNOWN: related

Luke: to my OCD. Sometimes I have this, uh, just compulsion to be able to see something that has been hidden from me. This is a very specific thing, but

UNKNOWN: it'll

Luke: be like

UNKNOWN: a

Luke: magician is holding the hat over this thing. And they're about to open it. And I get this like, Oh my God.

UNKNOWN: Let's

Luke: go. I just have no patience.

UNKNOWN: Yes.

Luke: Yeah. And I can't think of other examples of this, but it happens in my day to day where I get like intensely frustrated with something like that. And I have to breathe. But I was so fucking over it at that point. I was just like,

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: need to see my child. I need to hold my baby. This is bullshit.

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: don't want to be here anymore.

UNKNOWN: And

Luke: so I just said, yeah. And then we advanced to the labor part right away.

UNKNOWN: Yeah.

Guest: Cool.

UNKNOWN: Have

Guest: you, um, since then, have you had any other experiences with self hypnosis?

Luke: Hmm. Well, I kind of, uh, whenever I get sick.

Guest: Yeah.

Luke: I try and implement it because I do think

UNKNOWN: it

Luke: just like the pain of childbirth at the pain of anything you could, um, talk yourself out of to an extent, if not completely. And, um, and so one time I was about to throw up and I meditated and

UNKNOWN: it,

Luke: it calmed down. And this was when we all had a really bad stomach virus.

UNKNOWN: And

Luke: I managed to get through the virus without ever actually throwing up. And maybe I just had a pared down version of it. I don't know. But I was about to run to the bathroom

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: I just started

UNKNOWN: trying

Luke: to breathe and, and like

UNKNOWN: get,

Luke: and I basically, uh, fell asleep

UNKNOWN: while

Luke: doing the meditation and I woke up and,

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: the nausea had abated. So I do think

UNKNOWN: if

Luke: I'm in a good enough frame of mind, I can

UNKNOWN: utilize

Luke: those tools also every month when I get cramps.

UNKNOWN: Right.

Luke: It's always an opportunity for me to

UNKNOWN: sit

Luke: with the pain.

UNKNOWN: Um,

Luke: and there's a, it's interesting because if you really pay attention to that

UNKNOWN: menstrual

Luke: pain,

UNKNOWN: it

Luke: is a mixture.

UNKNOWN: And

Luke: I think this is this, I think it's probably the same for everybody, but it's very subtle. There's a subtle euphoria

UNKNOWN: that

Luke: accompanies the pain because

UNKNOWN: your

Luke: body is going, okay, we're in pain. Let me send you some endorphins. Let me like try and

UNKNOWN: help

Luke: you,

UNKNOWN: which

Luke: is basically how the natural birth process happens is that once you get over the hump of the pain, your body is sending you enough chemicals that it, uh, it's natural painkillers are just in your body. So whenever I get my period, I have mital. Um, it, I, it's always, I'll put it on my desk

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: I just, I'm like,

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: could.

Guest: Yeah.

UNKNOWN: Do

Luke: I want to? And so every once in a while, maybe like once or twice a year, I take mital during my period

UNKNOWN: and inevitably I

Luke: regret it.

UNKNOWN: And

Luke: it's weird. It's like, uh, I feel what it, I can really feel what it's doing. Right. And a lot of it's like caffeine. There's caffeine in there, but there's just, you know, I think it's like acetaminophen and a few other things. Um, I can feel the way it's dulling

UNKNOWN: the

Luke: sensation

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: then I get really sad.

Guest: Yeah.

Luke: And it's like, I can't feel the euphoria anymore either.

Guest: Right. Right. Yeah. Cause it blocks off certain receptor sites, right?

Luke: Yeah.

Guest: Yeah. Yeah. So

Luke: I just, I get sad now every time I take it and I, so I raw dog, um,

Guest: Yeah.

Luke: Every month. Have you read? I'll smoke weed, but like, I can't during the day when I'm working. So that's just a nighttime reprieve. But during the day, I need to like be able to stay focused. You know.

Guest: The, yeah, the thing, the thing that kind of came to mind for me with that is, so the other day I was interacting with somebody on Twitter who was talking about like, I don't get it with saunas, like what's the point getting all hot and sweaty or everything. And I was like, well, you know, when you overcome that resistance, like there's, there, there, there, they're actually, you know, like for my experience, like in sweat lodges, right? Like when you get over the resistance to the heat, when you get over the, the, the, the icky feeling about being uncomfortable. And once you're able to like drop all of the reactivity, like there's actually like an incredible bliss that's going on underneath that, right? And, and, you know, and like going back to, you know, like Socrates where he, he basically says like pleasure and pain share the same route. Like any pleasant experience, if you look at it closely enough, is also painful and vice versa. Any painful experience if you, if you get in there close enough, right? Like there is that, that pleasant, that pleasure is, have you read

UNKNOWN: the

Guest: red tent? I haven't actually read it, but I've had a conversation about it. And it kind of points to like, you know, like a different cultural experience where, you know, when women are in that

UNKNOWN: part

Guest: of the month, where they're going to have cramping and everything, they really like, they get to like, drop all of their social roles and just go into, just go into their like bodily experience and stuff. And that, like talking about like meditation and, and just being really in tune, like,

UNKNOWN: you

Guest: know, if you've got that like half of a week or whatever, where every month you just kind of like, okay, it's time for me to stop being social and just be in my process.

UNKNOWN: It's

Guest: like, you know, that's where I think, you know, I,

UNKNOWN: I

Guest: think like where we still have that, that, that carryover where quite often women are much more sensitive to inter mysteries than men are, because there is so much more of that, that has just like been inherited through, through, you know, through, through female lines and what, whatever.

UNKNOWN: Yeah.

Guest: And

Luke: we just experience it every month. So like that's a lot to experience something every month from the time you're like

UNKNOWN: an

Luke: early teen.

Guest: Yeah.

UNKNOWN: Yeah.

Luke: Just that's wild that every single month we're dealing with that and dealing with

UNKNOWN: our

Luke: reproductive system and thinking about it and, and just having to,

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: don't know, tap in also the week before is, I'm just so, I have so much more testosterone. So I'm just like angry and want to fight everybody. And unless I remember to take my Chinese herbs, which I just re-upped, I just got a new bottle from my acupuncturist. These things, if I remember to take them and they're big, which I hate swelling pills and they're pretty big. And I, I'll like have this

UNKNOWN: inner

Luke: conflict about, I really want to take it, but I don't want to choke on it. And I often will choke on it because I'm just terrible at taking pills. I don't know. It's so mind over matter, but I had a bad experience once and ever since then. It's, it just sometimes it's really hard and sometimes it's easy. But if I remember to take those the week leading up, especially I'm way more balanced. My hormones are way more balanced and it's really nice. So I prefer something like that to,

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: don't know, just drinking a lot more coffee or

UNKNOWN: whatever

Luke: other ways we try and numb it is like, this is more like, I'm going to balance you

UNKNOWN: internally with

Luke: basically my, my acupuncturist is always like, this is food. These things are food. They're not, these are all

Guest: things you could just be having in a salad. Right. Yeah.

Luke: Right. But it's in pill form. So here you go.

Guest: Yeah.

Luke: Got it. What is in here? White peony, pariah, Dongkwai, ginger, mint, licorice, a few things I can't pronounce.

Guest: I guess the one other question I was going to ask was the, if you,

UNKNOWN: if

Guest: with hypnosis, have you ever had any kind of like a past life regression kind of experience

UNKNOWN: with

Guest: that? Yeah.

Luke: Yeah. Well, I did like a, I worked with someone on that and, and was able to really quickly go and

UNKNOWN: it

Luke: was like, I had a session with Shaman

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: we were trying to find the root of some like recurring relational issue that I always have and

UNKNOWN: went

Luke: back into a past life and

UNKNOWN: saw

Luke: myself as this like,

UNKNOWN: not

Luke: a farmhand. It was like, I was a girl in a village who got taken in by a family to help with their kids. And then

UNKNOWN: the

Luke: mom, I don't remember this whole thing, but like the father was abusive and the mom

UNKNOWN: died and

Luke: I was pretty sure the father killed her. And then I

UNKNOWN: took

Luke: the kids and ran away with them and then he hunted me.

Guest: Oh, wow. But

Luke: that was, yeah. And it was like, fuck.

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: mean,

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: know I'm just like, I'm just saying what's coming up and who knows how the validity of any of this, but it felt very real while I was in it and I like cried as her and it was wild. And stuff like that. I'm very, it's very easy for me to drop into. Not that I, maybe I don't do it all the time because it's so easy and I feel like I'll be disconnected from

UNKNOWN: here.

Guest: If I do that shit

Luke: too much, but like, but someone's like, Hey, want to do a shamanic journey? I'm like, yeah, let's go for it. And then I'm, I'm there. I can tap in really quickly. So.

Guest: Yeah. Cool.

UNKNOWN: Well,

Guest: that's a whole can of worms that maybe we could explore some other time. I know that, I know that you've got, you know, you've got a lot going on and your, your morning started a little jerky, but I really, I appreciate you, you know, like following through and just having this chat. It's been a lot of fun.

Luke: Yeah. Thanks for the great questions. And so I think that's the most in-depth. I've told that whole story. Ever.

Vynn: Vin is stating the obvious that's my name on Twitter then.

Luke: Oh, okay. Well fair enough Vin is stating the obvious So tell me about yourself.

Vynn: Mmm.

UNKNOWN: That's

Vynn: always a really interesting question to answer I guess it really depends what is most relevant for me to like bring out I guess I know you we know each other from Twitter specifically teapot So I'm gonna focus a lot more on that and like what I find interesting about that and hopefully people will okay Well actually

Luke: here. I'll jump in and I'll stop you because we were we were both in a Twitter space and

UNKNOWN: The

Luke: topic of podcasts came up and I mentioned that that I have one and that mine is sort of Metaphysically spiritual meditation Oriented and you were like hey, I want to I want to I want to come share So I'm guessing that that means that maybe you have some stories to tell about your own experience with Meditation or metaphysics or or spiritual encounters or mystical experiences. I looked yeah I looked I looked before we started talking at your bio And I was trying to make out the bit of Hindi and Greek that was in there

Vynn: Interesting

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: so I got I got a translation that you're pointing to Sumon and Dorothea As far as I can tell Sumon wrote An interesting yoga book and I don't I didn't get as far as Dorothea So what what do these things mean to you? What do these names mean to you?

Vynn: Okay, so long story short there. They're my parents. Oh

UNKNOWN: Okay, so

Vynn: nothing terribly symbolic about it, but So is your is your

Luke: father in Hindi and your mother Greek?

UNKNOWN: Well

Vynn: there He is of Indian origin and my mother is not Greek, but she is like Catholic so Dorothea just means Beloved a gift of God or God's gift and that's like a very common like Catholic Christian name I suppose So those are like my and that's why I'm like the scion of like Subhagan and Dorothea Because I'm literally a kid And that Yeah, I've tend to like be very wary of sharing information about like Ancestry or like anything that vaguely hints at race or like my religion Mainly because there's a lot of Discourse shall we say or authority disputes about who is allowed to say what about other people's religions or other people's race? And I try to like stay as chameleon like as possible Until someone like forces me to like use a car or something and I so far have been quite adept at that I've never had to like bring out my as a XXX or as a person of blah blah in words like bolster some Epistemic claim that pertains to religion or race or whatever identity you might have So that's yeah, just a short Introduction about look my bio As for like spiritual practices, yeah, I so just a little bit more background I currently live in Borneo. I grew up in Borneo. I study elsewhere in like, you know in the UK And I was traveling for a while for quite a bit in the last 12 months But I've now come back here Setting out furiously all my applications for like masterful programs and jobs But in the meantime, it's like relatively chill, you know, like I'm not doing anything I'm just like taking the dogs out meditating and having like Spiritual I've like that doing podcast and like spiritual practices and what have you and So there's a lot of time for me to reflect and that's kind of how I kind of stumbled into like the Twitter spaces that you and I were both in And we started talking about like spirituality and what was it homeless? And Yeah, so what else is there? I don't know. Would you like to like prop me and ask me more questions before I go off on the rails or something?

Luke: Yeah Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um, so Well, I mean maybe this will just take you where you were gonna go off the rails what What's your what's your what's your background as far as meditation goes like how long have you been meditating? What drew you to it? Did it come to you through your family? Or was it something that you discovered

UNKNOWN: more

Luke: kind of on your own in your in your in your in your University years or what does that look like?

UNKNOWN: definitely

Vynn: not for my family, but It was very early on that sometimes people might mistake it as coming from my family. So I started meditating when I was eight So I've had like literally decades almost like two decades now Under my belt of like just meditating, but it's been on and off as as of late like recently It's not been as quite as consistent But I started meditating when I was eight because I was reading a book and it was a children's book That was on the theme of like peace and they covered like it was a little anthology that like covered all these stories and moral Moral fables from all around the world and one of the stories was about the Buddha And there was like a picture of the Buddha in like lotus position And I don't even remember the story very well But I just remember seeing that picture with him cross-legged and I was like, huh, I want to do that

UNKNOWN: And

Vynn: it was funny because like the story went something along like oh Buddha with his prince and Gautama and like he Meditated on a Bodhi tree and then achieve enlightenment and I was like, I didn't know what enlightenment meant back then I was just eight after all, but I just thought like hey, that seems really cool. I want to achieve this like spiritual Buddhahood and like powers and all the things that come with it Obviously, I was thinking from like a very like eight-year-old ego perspective But I just started like meditating from then on and it did kind of like have a lot of benefits From the from the get-go because I started like having better attention and focus and I did much better in school because I was just like a better breather than like most of my friends and I think I kept that until like To today as well and that seems like a really weird thing to say like I'm a really good breather But it's true like no, not there's a lot of like my emotional regulation and Like a lot of the things that I take for granted It just happened to have like originated from this very Formative period in my life when I started breathing really well and to start taking it like seriously I mean,

Luke: I'll jump in and say, you know, I So I work now as a as a massage therapist and talk about like seeing some good breathers and seeing some bad breathers, you know one of the first things that I'll ask my clients to do is take a deep breath in through their nose and and Breathe out through their mouth and let out the tension in their body with a sigh and to try to maintain that kind of breath throughout and some people will take that first breath and then they will lay there for the next hour With their with their lips pursed Absolutely trying to breathe as little as possible Where as some people, you know, will be will be really into the breath the whole time and I can tell that they're really, you know Taking the work seriously. So I I see I see plenty of bad breathers. I can I can definitely relate to that. I I'm curious.

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: Mean so as starting starting out with this as an eight-year-old like

UNKNOWN: Was

Luke: there a moment where your mom or your dad walked into the room and saw you sitting there, you know Eyes closed legs crossed on the floor and did they have some kind of a reaction? I mean, how did that how did that play out for you? And and how and how long would you sit for when you would sit to meditate?

Vynn: Sometimes a bit too long for sure. Okay, so I Probably too long some of the time because I was supposed to like You know get up early and prepare for school and instead of and this is what I would normally like meditate instead of like Getting ready early and going through like my Preparation quickly. I sometimes just like sit on the other toilet seat and just While I was shitting just like meditate and like let the water like flow on me. It's sort of like a like I imagine myself in a Underwater fall or something. It was very peaceful. It was nice. I guess it was me procrastinating and my parents would they weren't like Shocked or like surprise. They would just be like really irritated that I was taking my own sweet time in the toilet

UNKNOWN: And

Vynn: like knock on the door like It was like, okay fine time to get out of my like my Buddhist like my my meditation mode I didn't really see it as a very Buddhist thing back then, but I guess now I Respectively I do look at anything. Yeah, that was I mean obviously was inspired by An image of the Buddha, but it wasn't like I wasn't taught. I just like looked at a picture like I'll do that So it was for the longest time I didn't even really know what I was doing until I realized that there are like proper meditation Guidebooks and I so slowly picked it up and added it to my like regimen,

Luke: right now. I mean I remember Years back there was a time where I was listening to some Vedanta podcasts and there were stories of

UNKNOWN: You

Luke: know some of these some of these guys, you know for like the 1800s where you know, like as a kid This this guy who you know later becomes a monk was like Meditating as a child and he and and he was like talking to someone who became his teacher anyway So basically talking about like how as a child like he would he would Before falling asleep He would like like this this this like light would appear in his mind's eye And he would kind of focus on it until he got drowsy and started falling asleep. Did you

UNKNOWN: in

Luke: your in your childhood? Did you did you have those sorts of like phenomenal experiences as well? Yes? Yeah,

UNKNOWN: so

Vynn: I so mine wasn't a light It was like a candle. Well, I guess that's a light Yeah, it's very specifically a flame that I control the intensity of with my breath So as I was exhaling it became more bright as I was inhaling it like subdued it And that was me like consciously focusing on a an object I think this is a form of meditation in some cases as well. Maybe I'm not exactly what What they they call it? I think I've heard heard it been called like fire casino I certainly didn't have a term for it I just kind of like imagine a candle while it's meditating and this is like one of my earliest forms of like meditation technique where it was like focused on an object. I don't do that as much anymore. I'm more geared towards like open and monitoring Meditation where I'm just like leaving my senses out in the open and seeing where it takes me and observing it without non-judgment I'll try to control anything. Yeah, and that's a much more. Yeah Relaxing way to meditate or like it suits my like purposes more so than the fire candle thing but Yeah, there's just so many ways to meditate and that's indeed one of the ways that I Lashed upon when I was younger.

Luke: So so how early on did that sort of phenomena start occurring for you? Or was that almost, you know, was that like did that come right along at at eight years old?

UNKNOWN: That's

Vynn: probably like maybe a few months or maybe a year after I started like Doing it while I was eight. I don't know why I started imagining it as a As a flame in my head. I think I Had different ideas of what the purpose of meditation was back then than I do now I think back then I just thought the point of meditation is for you to Improve your focus to have better concentration and what better way to do that then then trying to like force any distracting thoughts out of your head and focus only on like the one thing that you're imagining and the flame exercise just came quite naturally to me.

UNKNOWN: I

Vynn: Am Moved away towards that. Yeah.

Luke: Yeah, so so then if at the time you thought that you know developing focus building concentration was kind of the point of meditation what What then, you know, do you think is the point of meditation now?

UNKNOWN: Oh I

Vynn: think there is no point. I think they're right now. Like I think meditation is just being and Having the sensation of like existence. They're just like being in your body or being a mind Either way, you know an embodied mind or a mind in mind of body and feeling that like oneness with yourself and Realizing this oneness can also extend to like the universe around you and all of it is just like one Happening is like the whole point of it Which is to say that there is no point And I think this also shows up in like my life philosophy in my tour bio if you have you take a glance there It's kind of like the ethos of my life that I Picked up ever since this is like a direct result of like meditating which is that there is no point to life It's it's all quite pointless really but like in a fun way and Once you start to like view life through those lens it's less of a problem to be solved and more of an experience to be just like experience enjoyed Suffer to even and none of it is I like neither is I have a good or bad and that seems to like Give a lot more perspective and Calmness in like my life Not that it's like the point or anything. It's just like this is like my realization.

UNKNOWN: Yeah, yeah

Luke: I mean, I I will tend to tell people You know like when talking about the meaning of life that the meaning of life is the meaning that you give to your life, right? like objectively not everyone is going to think or feel that that the meaning of life is the same thing because we all You know, we all have an authorship or authority over our own Narrative and so that that kind of meaning or that that pointed miss is really ultimately kind of subjective. Yeah So what What's your you mentioned University and you mentioned that you're you're kind of in in the in the Steps towards working on your masters. What what is what's that look like? What what is what what's your trick trajectory there?

Vynn: right, so Masters that's a there's a whole can of worms, but I okay, so I've been like on the Trying to get on the masters bandwagon for quite a few like months if not years now and I Vastly quite a lot initially. I thought like yeah, I'll go into like this really cool masters call like cognitive science of religion That didn't end up happening and I thought like I need to do something more like General and I thought about doing a sociology degree and I did get in I did get an offer to do one But then I had to reject it for financial reasons and also because I thought my heart's just not going to be in it and now I'm currently in the process of like applying to my you know my Real masters or the one that I think I would do quite well in And that's a masters in like meta ethics or like just practical ethics, I suppose Which gives me like a strong foundation in So when people say like meta ethics Meta-meta ethics is like not a branch of ethics. It's actually a branch of like metaphysics and I think people Really underestimate the Importance of having like really strong metaphysical. Sorry, meta ethical slash metaphysical foundations And how that like relates to ethics, but that's like a whole, you know, very esoteric Aspect of like philosophy that I don't want to go into unnecessarily But that's currently what I'm what I'm interested in doing. I want to like go into like ethics practical ethics and study that and solve problems that are very Very academic, I suppose the one that I'm currently interested in is like the problem of natural agency But yeah, that's another story.

Luke: Well, let's I mean I'm into esoteric philosophies So tell me a little bit about that

UNKNOWN: Cool.

Vynn: Okay. Yeah, I'd love to Talk more about this. Yeah, so Natural agency or the problem of natural agency is basically the idea of like, how do we reconcile our scientific natural worldview? Which presupposes? We are objects governed by the laws of nature with the idea of ourselves as agents meaning we are responsible for our actions and we Act in ways that people act so we have we are capable of respond responsible action personal action and so Are capable of accruing blame or credit to our name? and Those two things are sometimes seen as very contradictory like this is most Familiarly like presented to us in the free will versus determinism debate where you know, if you're Scientifically determined by the laws of nature, etc Then how can you be responsible for anything that you do and yet? We still have legal systems that assign responsibility to like criminals for the crimes that they've committed So they're capable of action. So we have supposedly action according to the One worldview, which is the worldview of agency the worldview of laws and Responsibility Etc. But on the other worldview, which is the worldview of the scientific naturalist the scientific determinist everything is already pre-decided by like the laws of nature and The problem therefore of like pro natural agency is how can you? naturalize agency how can you realize responsibility for

UNKNOWN: us

Vynn: as agents while also fitting us in this scientific worldview

UNKNOWN: So

Vynn: that's yeah, basically what I'm interested in clarifying

UNKNOWN: so

Luke: Do you do you have a stake in in one camp for the other as far as determinism versus agency or free will

UNKNOWN: I

Vynn: Think I think both of them are correct and they're not contradictory in the ways that people Think it is okay like there are so many ways to like frame the determinism and the free will debate Yeah, and I won't go into that Which is why I don't Speak about my work in terms of like oh, I'm working on free will I don't do that I think a lot of people do that and kudos to them For like exploring the free will debate in that way, but I like to focus on agency, you know on its cousin Framework, which is the agency and naturalism debate and this is a like much easier It's a much simpler framework to work with because you're not distracted by that that objective of free or like freedom and that's like an artifact of like Prost of the Protestant Reformation to be honest and and so instead I get to like just focus on Agency and how we can naturalize it so rather than coming up with like Oh, can we make a will that is free from determinism? My question is can we make an agency or coming can come up with an agency that is Natural to the scientific worldview and that's a much more feasible way to like approach the problem from

Luke: That makes sense I don't I don't I'm not entirely sure I will say that You know for my for my own personal experience. I remember in like 11th grade in in an English class There was you know the topic of of free will Versus, you know predestination or whatever it came up and you know Some people were taking one side and some people were taking another side and in in my mind I just I like I intuitively knew that like

UNKNOWN: well

Luke: This is a silly argument because it is both at the same time But in a way that's impossible to explain almost

Vynn: Okay, I

Luke: could I could feel I could feel how it was a both and answer But I couldn't I couldn't verbalize it, you know in in the midst of the debate I was just like, huh This is obviously a silly argument because both of these things are like Simultaneously true and I do think that there's a lot of I do think there's a lot of life That really is kind of just on rails, but there are these there are these moments, you know, where Where where like for me personally, you know, like I'll have I'll have like an inner impulse to take an action and Sometimes I will follow that impulse and take that action and sometimes I will willfully ignore The desire to take that action and I feel like for me at least that's at least a reflection of what that kind of looks like

UNKNOWN: Yeah,

Vynn: I mean that that's certainly how a lot of people like frame the free will debate and I think

UNKNOWN: For

Vynn: me at least The question of whether you really chose to go with your impulse or not is Slightly beside the point not entirely, but we'll get it back to that Okay, what is more relevant to me is like are you responsible for the action that happens after that and for a lot of free will

UNKNOWN: How

Vynn: do I describe these people people who are on the free will end of things they say that well Freedom of will is like a precondition to be responsible and the determinist on the other side You've got determinists who are like well, you don't have free freedom of will, but you're still responsible And so I'm more interested in that the question of responsibility Regardless of whether someone is free or not free to make that choice Because that's really where like the crux of the debates and the stakes are especially when it comes to like legal cases, but also in like assigning like Understanding how that works in a scientific context. So for me, it's less so about freedom and more so about Responsible

UNKNOWN: will

Vynn: rather than freedom rather than free will

UNKNOWN: so Do you

Luke: think then like are there certain cases in which you would say well this person in this circumstance is not responsible and This other person in this different circumstance or the same person in this other different circumstance is responsible Like how do you how do you tease that out?

Vynn: Yes, so quite a lot of the time in at least in the free will framing That question of responsibility depends on like your degree of freedom So if you were free and how away you and I like to find that then then and only then are you responsible for it? But people can recognize that in situations where you're not free as in situations of coercion Someone's got your gun to your head is like the prototypical example Then you're clearly not free and therefore you should be absolved of any responsibility that occurs under those circumstances Now there are some like really strong Positions that like and that seems intuitive to us right because we have like this particular viewpoint that is a result of like liberal histories But there is a like strong viewpoint against that that says that no even if you had a gun to your head You would still be responsible. You're like and not completely absolved of the responsibility, but it is diminished to a certain extent and I think that

UNKNOWN: The

Vynn: position that I think that I begin from like if an action comes from you Even if it was coerced by someone else, you still have like a very small Responsibility, however, like mitigated that responsibility that might be even though you lack like freedom in a you know Common understanding of what freedom means in these situations. So Like working from there. I want to like understand like okay, what are like the levels that one can be Responsible for depending on like what abilities one has in Situations that you know has varying degrees of freedom Does that make sense?

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: think so. I mean so as as you were kind of describing that like the

UNKNOWN: The

Luke: particular

UNKNOWN: The

Luke: particular example that came to mind for me actually had to do with like prisoners of war in World War two, right? So you have these aviators who like, you know, they're doing bombing runs over Germany or whatever They're playing get shot down. They wind up parachuting. They wind up getting caught put in prison in a POW camp

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: now You know like the normal

UNKNOWN: the

Luke: normal human responses You just do whatever you have to do to survive Whereas, you know for these soldiers, you know, their responsibility was Like first and foremost always be trying to break out always be trying to undermine the enemy like You're even though you're a prisoner You're still a combatant and it's still you're like moral or military duty to be fighting the enemy Even if you're front, you know, even even if you are, you know, like imprisoned in that way I don't know if that is that is that is yeah. Yeah, go on

UNKNOWN: So

Vynn: I this is interesting because like I think it reflects a difference in like our intuition difference in intuitions of like responsibility or like responsibility attribution for a civilian it might be said that any form of like self-interested behavior where they cave into like the enemy's demands is Acceptable or excusable and so they're like off the hook so to speak. They're not responsible for protecting state secrets in the face of the enemy because their Responsibilities to themselves, but when you're like a non-civilian when you're like a member of the military you have different responsibilities and you're absolutely responsible for making sure that Important senses of information doesn't fall into it

UNKNOWN: So

Vynn: even if you are coerced to do all sorts of things and like our tortured You're still responsible for your actions in that situation and you're less excused if you do give into the self-interested motivations that Someone who is a civilian might not be like subject to and so I think this is like really interesting difference in like responsibility attribution where You are subject to the same level of constraints and Coercion but some people are considered to be more responsible in these situations than others and a perfect example That would be the civilian versus like military personnel case

UNKNOWN: So

Luke: earlier you mentioned how

UNKNOWN: like

Luke: These questions around and maybe around free will or whatever Or confusion on the topic or whatever it kind of like it came as an offshoot as a result of the the Protestant Reformation and While I've got a mini mini equiple with the Protestant Reformation at large Which is kind of a joke but also kind of serious. How how do you feel that that how did how did how did

UNKNOWN: What

Luke: do you mean when you say that?

UNKNOWN: Yes,

Vynn: okay. I love this because I was slightly flabbergasted as well when I first discovered this. I was like, oh my god. This is like Changing my entire like worldview and orientation because what does it mean that free will is like this Western concept or like not even a Western concept But like this early modern Protestant concept that comes specifically from Luther as far as I can As far as I'm aware at least according to like my studies because before Luther you have theologians such as Aquinas and Augusta St. Augustine and St. Augustine and Aquinas Although they're not like Catholic well They

UNKNOWN: are

Vynn: Catholic.

Luke: Yeah, I mean Thomas Aquinas was very Catholic, right? He was like praying not to become a Catholic, but

Vynn: like Exactly, but like Augustine as well Sorry like they are Catholic, but like it's slightly a slight bit of an anachronistic title to apply that to These early pre-Protestant theologians, especially Augustine because he could have been like orthodox and they could have easily acclaimed them Anyway, I

Luke: mean my understanding of Augustine is he was kind of a failed neoplatonist, right?

Vynn: Yeah. Yeah, very much So very much so but for simplicity's sake, let's just call them Catholics Okay, so these Catholics like pre-Protestant theologians Didn't have the same idea of freedom of will that like Luther had they had like liberum arbitrium which translates more correctly as freedom of choice which we've now like mistranslated in The

UNKNOWN: freedom

Vynn: of will but freedom of choice is slightly different from freedom of will because freedom of will and will is Voluntas in Latin wasn't described in terms of freedom or unfreedom It was described as like good will or bad will so you had bonavontas or mala voluntas And it was up to your free choice to choose to decide between The good will or the bad will so it wasn't your will that was free It was your choice that was free. It was your arbitrium your ability to judge and to adjudicate between Whether you went with the free will sorry with the good will or the bad will right

Luke: and so for me This this feels like it's kind of pointing back to that thing where like I might have that intuitive push that says okay You should get up and go do some exercise and I have the choice to to do that Which is good, you know because it helps build the strength in my body and blah blah blah Or I have the choice to ignore it and keep watching YouTube which is bad because I'm being slothful or whatever, right?

Vynn: Yeah Like it's the way I would phrase that in like Monday terms We've got like bad impulses and we've got good impulses and the bad impulses are not so overwhelming that you cannot

UNKNOWN: choose

Vynn: over them and opt for the good thing like putting down the Turning off like the YouTube tab and start doing exercise or whatever And the same thing is like true for like Aquinas and Augustine and they they think that you are responsible for that choice whether you choose like The good will the bad will now this all changes come the Protestant Reformation And this is part we do to like theological reasons because Luther was going up against the church And they wanted him to recant some of the statements. He made Against the church and for his like what would then be Lutheran? Denomination and new understanding of the faith and so he stands before them in the diet of I can't remember Which one we was the diet of worms or something anyway before the the pope

UNKNOWN: So

Vynn: and then he says it's out of my hands. I can do no other here I stand the spirit has compelled me and my will is not free and so he changes like the whole Emphasis on freedom of choice to freedom of will like his will is now So overwhelmed by the will of the spirit by the divine will that he cannot he just has no power to choose or resist the will of the Holy Spirit and so from then on the focus on free will becomes more apparent and And it's there that we have from Luther that we get the idea of like freedom of will and that becomes so central to Christian like Protestant Christian framings of responsibility and agency that completely Overwhelms even like the previous Discourse around responsibility by people like Aquinas Augustine

UNKNOWN: To

Luke: me like the kind of the kind of the thing that like jumped out to me from that is that

UNKNOWN: like

Luke: Theologically speaking alone, you know, just like to look at the Bible that seems kind of absurd right because Jonah Jonah is the perfect example of someone who like the Divine will has given him clear instructions and he has gone and made the very personal choice of ignoring them and running the other way Exactly, right?

Vynn: It's resistible like divine will is there, but it's like resistible by Jonah But here is like Luther being like no God's will is too powerful It's a resistible and for me to like state otherwise it'd be like blasphemy or something and this is like in the context It makes sense because he's literally being put on trial and he's being told like we can't And so if you have like a get out of jail free card by saying like oh, it's out of my hands God made me do it right. I couldn't possibly change my mind even if I wanted to that

UNKNOWN: Kind

Vynn: of like invoking a I was born this way kind of argument. I was like this is innate This is like natural. It's coming from a higher power than me. I can't change it So if you're not like taking me down, you're gonna take the big guy down with you as well So that's like a very clever thing that he did but at the same time it introduces like all this Mess about like can you be responsible for your beliefs now? I personally think that it's obvious and commonsensical that you can be responsible for your beliefs But a lot of people seem to like find this very abhorrent like no, of course, I cannot choose my beliefs I would grow I grew up in my environment and there was all these like factors like but you can always change your beliefs anytime you want That's what I think a lot of people seem to think that this is you know Beyond their scope of responsibility and I think this is like a very reassuring fable that they tell themselves not to Yeah change their beliefs

Luke: and I mean and I think this this actually could be a good point to kind of loop back on to the beginning Because you know for me in my own personal experience with meditation and particularly You know once you take meditation at the dosage of like a retreat kind of environment where you know what what I experienced and And and you know Anyone who's listened to enough conversations about meditation, you know I I distinctly experienced like a process of unlearning a process of like Dewiring certain Internal like in in in ways that I couldn't even describe what was happening because it was so subtle and so interior but you know like a resetting of certain priors such that like Belief systems that I had about how I should behave or or how I respond to different stimuli, you know Like it I kind of you know, like yeah that that like unlearning of of things really kind of comes into play there

UNKNOWN: Yeah,

Vynn: absolutely like this is exactly what I What I find very difficult to convey to people we're very strong priors it's like very solidified against Change and for like very good reasons as well because I think not all beliefs are made equal some beliefs are like very flimsy They pertain to like every day They pretend to like very Marginal aspects of your worldview say for example. Oh, I think it's gonna rain tomorrow Or like I think it's not gonna rain tomorrow either way. It's not gonna like shatter your worldview if you're wrong, but Core beliefs such as like oh people are fundamentally good or fun people are fundamentally bad or equal or Free will exist free will doesn't exist If you change that then a lot of things that happen downstream of that also have to change and it's very destabilizing for a worldview And that's why people who the older you get the harder it is to like change these core beliefs Whereas if you can do that while you're a child

UNKNOWN: Unless

Vynn: of course you get some kind of like Meditation slash like psychedelic experience which loosens all these your entire world view right down to like the core beliefs And then you're able to like tweak them and like dial them up or down depending on what you think is best without having to like cause a worldview shattering moment or destabilization so Yeah, it's all about like which how far how far down your priors you can affect Right, and some people find it very difficult to change our priors about God for instance because it's just so fundamental to a lot of things in their life like God is like the source of purpose and Meaning

UNKNOWN: as

Vynn: well as like the foundation for their morality And anyone who doesn't share in these like foundational beliefs about God will look at that and think like You know this doesn't make

UNKNOWN: a

Vynn: Superstitious how can you be so like irrationally dependent on God? But what these people don't realize is like God is a load bearing belief and it's so far down that you start shaking that load Everything that hangs on like is upheld by this pillar also has to come down and it's very yeah, it's very traumatic to do that

UNKNOWN: Carelessly, yeah,

Luke: yeah, and I mean and I think too like you know Some people you know even from like early childhood because of you know, but their parents or or or maybe their education or whatever You know like

UNKNOWN: they this

Luke: this this core belief Gets installed into them, you know before they're even at the at the driving wheel of decision-making That you know that like yes, this is your lot in life Your your your path is is is largely predetermined and you don't really have good choices and and so this

UNKNOWN: You

Luke: know so so the so the belief even that you can reset your priors is like to try to do so is actually You know an immediate challenge to a core belief about your own agency, right?

Vynn: Yeah, yeah, and that's partially because like There's the sphere of being responsible for your beliefs sometimes it can be very Overbearing to realize that you are responsible for a lot of the things in your life, right? especially when a lot of the things that happen to you happen without your consent and it's It's very difficult to Say to people that oh you might not be the cause of your trauma, but you're still responsible for making sure you don't behave from that state of mind and cause more trauma to other people and And I think this is where like the question of like are you responsible for the things that come before you? Not can be very

UNKNOWN: De

Vynn: -stabilizing for people's sense of self because either way you you answer that having to like think through that in a new light can Not only result in like changes in worldview, but also changes in like self view the way you like view yourself

UNKNOWN: Yeah,

Luke: yeah, and as long as you

UNKNOWN: As

Luke: long as you believe in your powerlessness Then you kind of you get like a get get free out of responsibility card, right?

Vynn: Yes. Yes. This is very true. It's a bit like how if you don't have certain knowledge about For example state secrets then no matter how much someone tortures you they're not gonna be able to get anything out of you And so and in a way, it's like pointless

UNKNOWN: For

Vynn: someone who doesn't have the knowledge likewise if you have certain beliefs about yourself There is an element of like get out of Jail, right card that comes with like not having not holding certain beliefs flash like knowledge about yourself and so I think there is like a subconscious Awareness of of this like greater responsibility if you do to hold on to certain beliefs And so people try to like avoid that in order to like not be accountable for For whatever it is that they might be made accountable for if they have these like beliefs

UNKNOWN: Yeah,

Luke: the other side of it too, or I don't even know if it's an other side, but it's another aspect maybe I don't know if you saw this it was going around a few months ago. There was a

UNKNOWN: There

Luke: was one day there was a post that I saw that

UNKNOWN: it

Luke: was like it was kind of a meme It was like oh my therapist told me that I should open up But I I told them that I couldn't and and here's and here's the illustration of why and it's it's it's a picture of like You know a Shelf unit with that's got like a glass door and you can see that the bowls on the shelf have tipped over and Yeah, are propping themselves against the door in such a way that all you have to do is open the door and You're basically guaranteed that the first three or four bowls are going to break and it's like, you know I can't I can't challenge I can't challenge or open up anything about my personality structure out of out of a fear be it Reasonable or unreasonable that doing so will cause immediate damage and I think I think I do think though that you know And because I've seen it, you know directly In some people where you're talking about like psychedelics and things like it it is very possible to push your To push your framework to a point where life simply becomes undoable afterwards at least until you know Maybe a very long deep period of healing and cleansing happens

UNKNOWN: And

Vynn: rebuilding yeah, right? One thing I want to say yeah really quickly on that like transparent cupboard metaphor I Yes, obviously if you open that door and the bowls are going to come out and some of they're going to break But if you don't open that door, you're never going to be able to use those bowls, right? So it's yeah, it's one of those things where you have to like Yeah, if you're skillful enough, you might be able to like save 90% of the bowls But it's better than like not being able to use the bulls at all second thing I want to mention is Yes, people are really afraid of like doing psychedelics for this reason because it has been reported at least at least I know of this like anecdotally where people Take psychedelics for the first time and they've never had any like spiritual practice or mindfulness meditation and They do it and they hack they come out of

UNKNOWN: And

Vynn: their entire world you have been like reset to like zero and and it's surprising how much of not only our thoughts and beliefs are contingent on like our beliefs but also like our abilities like feel emotions are also contingent on like our beliefs and our sense of identity and so not only do you

UNKNOWN: Feel

Vynn: like liberated from thought structures and how you can see the world and beliefs about the world you also start to like

UNKNOWN: Not

Vynn: feel the same emotions that

UNKNOWN: And

Vynn: one extreme example of this is where someone did this like psychedelic trip for the first time without any of the scaffolding And suddenly wasn't able to like look at their Romantic partner we and feel like the romantic feelings that they have felt towards them it was just like completely absent for the first few months of Being have after like doing their psychedelic experience and I just found that really fascinating because you know, I think when I first did my Psychedelic experience I had already been

UNKNOWN: We

Vynn: building the ego and like Reconstructing it and putting it back together where someone who has never done that before that's probably going to take A while for them to get back to like normal functioning and so whereas for people like me Having done a psychedelic trip that like eviscerates your ego

UNKNOWN: It

Vynn: only takes me like a few more seconds to get back and like put it all back together again

UNKNOWN: And

Vynn: I didn't realize this is why I tend to be very like apprehensive about The benefits of psychedelics because you know, it's been like on the whole very positive experience for me for some people who have never had the the what do you call this Religious scaffolding, I guess you want to say spiritual practice it can be a while before they're able to like rebuild their worldview and With that all the emotions that come with their sense of self And sometimes I can take weeks sometimes months. I don't know maybe even years Yeah,

Luke: well the the thing that kind of comes to mind for me there, too. Is it like not I? think maybe equally You know I Guess what I want to say is like so, you know, and I've I think I've heard this anecdote in in like podcasts or something where You know somebody you know they go and they sit in a circle and they and they they have the experience with ayahuasca and then Afterwards, you know, they might they might talk to their ayahuasca and say, you know, like well while I was in there You know, like I was talking to these serpent beings and the serpent beings told me that they're the ones who created this reality And the ayahuasca says yeah, those guys always say that right and it's like

UNKNOWN: if

Luke: if you if if you go into you know, if you go into this kind of experience and Especially if you're someone who's who's prone to you know Or finds themselves prone to you know, like communicating with with with other beings, you know

UNKNOWN: If

Luke: you put your faith in what those other beings are telling you then you you know instead of resetting your priors to zero You might just be resetting your priors from you know, like your own, you know, like culturally prescribed false value to now some like You know some some some some mystically influenced false value And so you can't you wind up you wind up with the with the belief structure that is like, you know And you know to use I guess, you know just the most derogatory terms, you know Like basically like if you're taking on the beliefs of demons, you know Then you're you're doing a whole new kind of damage to your psyche, right?

Vynn: Exactly exactly and this is why it's so dangerous if you go into it without at least some kind of I don't know introductory Chorus in like what reality is ie like some metaphysics or ontology Because otherwise you just like take on whatever Metaphysical structures that are pre-existing that are there while you are deconstructing your own and that can be very dangerous, especially if you were like starting to see like demons or Voices that tell you very harmful stuff because most of those most of the time these entities are just like Constructs of your mind and if you can recognize it as such that's fine like you can just be like, oh, that's just like That's my self

Luke: -destructive part. That's trying to get me to trying to get trying to get me to give it attention or whatever

UNKNOWN: Yeah,

Vynn: that's like just that's like you know Eve who Something to tell you to do stuff

UNKNOWN: and

Vynn: and sorry say that again That you said you know Eve

Luke: or what was it you said that I had a little break up there Yeah,

Vynn: it was a throwaway joke, but like I just said like oh, that's my inner Eve. That's like my inner serpentine or something and Telling me to like do stuff that might not be in my best interest And that's fine as long as you recognize that this inner Eve is like your it's your inner Eve And like it's real for you, but if you start to like pretend that other people all

UNKNOWN: I

Vynn: Collective subconscious then people are gonna start to think that no like you are being like weird and inconsistent like you don't make sense Which I'm sure from their perspective is true Even though like from your internals perspective that this makes this all makes perfect sense And it's just being able to like bracket that and realize like your internal reality. However real it is for you Doesn't scale or like does it doesn't apply to other people's subjective Well, well viewed and it shouldn't you shouldn't pretend like it is right now when

Luke: you and when you say inner Eve I'm guessing there that you're like pointing to the story in Genesis, right of like Eve's eating the apple or Yeah, yes, I

Vynn: don't actually have an inner Eve. I just want to like point that out I just like thought this is something. Yeah, but most people what do you mean? You don't have an inner Eve Well, I have like inner voices and characters and you know And I give them names, but I don't have like one that's called eat without make sense It was just like a throwaway name that I have.

Luke: Oh, okay. Oh, so you're so right. Yeah, you know I think I think it's really interesting too because I try to you know with with my priors with my understanding of things Which isn't all like this isn't all stuff that I was like This some of this is like stuff that I've come to you know later in life You know people talk about I talk about Genesis and they talk about the fall and and there's there's this sense that I you know has come come down through through the Christian Tradition of like this this sense of inherent sin or whatever But to me like as an adult in in reading this, you know like it's very clearly here where you know God has given them the agency to choose, you know Whether or not they they're they're going to partake in this fruit and the fruit is and like it's very clearly and directly described as the knowledge of good and evil which to to my understanding is basically like okay at some point, you know like Humanity basically got to choose duality, right? Like and so this whole dualistic framework that we live under of good and bad and and and and all of these things it's like, you know, I I'll describe it as you know like if If an eagle if an eagle, you know Catches a snake and and goes off to you know to eat it and feed it to its family or whatever Like is that good or is that bad? You know, it's good for the eagle. It's bad for the snake But in nature like it's it's not one or the other It's it's really natural. It's it's natural right and it's really just a matter of perspective as to you know Whether you're whether you're from the snake family or whether you're from the eagle family as to whether that was a good event or a bad event and And and and sort of you know like when when people talk about you know, like the pursuit and enlightenment or like You know non-dual Awareness like that to me that that's kind of like the the opportunity that we have To to go back to that like, you know that that that pre-fall Edenic state of you know being able to just take life as it is without ascribing You know these these these these these valences to it. Yeah, the goodness or badness to it. Yeah,

Vynn: yeah

UNKNOWN: Yeah,

Vynn: just this is where we have more metaphorical, but like I completely agree with you on this. This is Best expressed and like that Taoist Shakespearean quote of like there is nothing out of good or bad But thinking makes it so and so it kind of depends on the perspective of the thinker or the thought-haver And so if you're like the snake having your thoughts, it's like, oh fuck. This is pretty bad for me But if you're like the eagle, you're like, this is this is dinner. This is good This is good for my kids and like my entire line of like eagles, right and And in nature itself, there is no like that valence especially if you consider nature to be like Without a mind you're not like all these agents within it Have their own like perspective

UNKNOWN: Of

Vynn: these things doesn't have either good or bad. They're just like is Yeah Another way I try to describe it

Luke: at one point to somebody was like if you look at If you look at everything as a massive equation, right? Like we look at additive properties as good and we look at and we look at subtractive qualities as bad But but they're all just parts of the equation like they're not good or bad You just you can't get to the result if you don't add something some places and subtract some things elsewhere, right?

Vynn: Yeah, exactly. And the the equation is just it just has to be balanced, right on both sides. So That's um, that's kind of how I see it And what else is there?

UNKNOWN: Yeah,

Vynn: I guess, um, I guess this is the fundamental foundational story that we find in christian mythology and society where The foundation of like morality comes from like eating the apple. So apple eating is that first

UNKNOWN: Glen

Vynn: bad are distinguished from each other and that is a very nice way of like metaphorizing um Valences and and the question of good and evil and I'm interested in that but Maybe less so in like that storied way. I think it's very interesting to like Have it packaged in the story that um When you're doing like a deep philosophical Meta ethical analysis of these things

UNKNOWN: I

Vynn: Unless like plowry and so it does get tend to get quite dry when you get into like the the nitty-gritty of it But that's what I'm fundamentally interested in like what is like the foundations of good and evil And those are like meta ethical questions

Luke: so Let me ask you about the fun stuff Um

UNKNOWN: And

Luke: and also let me check in real quick because we're we're coming up on about an hour Are you still good to keep going or do you do you feel like you're running out of I don't

Vynn: have anything else to do after this. We can go for like another 30 minutes. Okay. Yeah

Luke: So, all right. So the fun stuff, um Be it well actually, okay So, you know, obviously, you know with whatever your psychedelic experience was like there are You know incredible, you know visual phenomena or or experiences that can occur Also with meditation these things can can occur as well. What are some of your wildest stories from the inner side?

Vynn: Okay, I've never had a visual hallucinatory

UNKNOWN: And

Vynn: I think it's just partially because whatever I'm like in that state Or maybe it's the type of substance I'm doing or maybe I do you definitely do have like More conscious control of it But anytime I sense myself going into like that visual Hallucinatory mode and start seeing like visions or hearing voices. I'm like, nope Let's not do that. I I've got some trauma to heal and I instead bring it back And so what I instead get instead of like hallucinations is like faster refresh speed if that makes sense So I'm like going into like my my beliefs and like core beliefs and I'm tweaking them from the inside Um in a much more controlled setting. Um, and so like a lot of subconscious Stuff that I cannot access while I'm in normal consciousness, normal conscious state I'm able to do that while I'm in my trip. But during that trip. I'm not like Letting my visual imagination go wild. I'm like, oh, I could I could but like usually when I start see Melt a little bit. I'm like, oh Let's not waste any like brain power on visual hallucinations and instead like focus on like the beliefs and like My desire states and see if we can tweak that according to like my higher order Values and desires. So that's what I I mean, it's not very like a wild or like frenetic as some people have but it this is how I've generally tended to use like Psychedelics and I've only ever done like four different kinds of psychedelics in Uh, and this has happened in like the last six months. So It's I'm very much like a new I'll probably come across the time where like my second up my trips will be more Hository in in uh in nature.

UNKNOWN: Yeah,

Luke: I mean part of what kind of uh, you know came to mind for me there was that

UNKNOWN: You

Luke: know, I don't I don't know. I think maybe and and and I will say, you know, like, uh,

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: know

UNKNOWN: Off

Luke: the bat as it were, uh, I I also am someone who, uh, you know, I have had my I have had my experiences with psychedelics, uh, which, you know, it hasn't been a ton, but it's been enough for me And and uh to paraphrase the hunter as Thompson quote, you know, uh drugs alcohol You know, would I recommend them? No, but they've served me well, you know, and and and and and I don't I don't recommend them to other people because I kind of see it as like if you know, if the mind You know, if the mind is like a combination locker or you know, or whatever whatever kind of lock system you want, right? Um, ideally you you want to be able to find the key that opens the lock properly instead of jamming a screwdriver into it And I think sometimes sometimes those kind of psychedelic states can be like, all right, fuck it We're not going to worry about

UNKNOWN: we're

Luke: not going to worry about doing this the right way We're just going to do it, you know, and and I think that that can I think that that can damage Um, you know, yeah, that can't that can damage the uh the the subtle the subtle systems of the mind, right?

Vynn: Yeah, alternatively you could like go all the way and just like jam the lock so much that you end up like breaking it and I know But like he like some some of these people which should not be named Um, have like Have access to like an almost unlimited supply of these things so they can just like afford to like try their raid and eventually reach enlightenment that way But like if you're not like going to be doing this, um, like sustainably like sustainably and like consistently enough that it's probably Best not to get it jammed locked.

Luke: Yeah, even even then I don't think that's the right I don't you know, and I guess there's that there's that dualistic, you know, right and wrong good and evil kind of thing to it But I don't yeah, I don't think that's the sustained like I think I think that you know on at the level of mind as far as like, uh, you know Reincarnation or whatever goes, you know, like I think I think there's I think there's a price You know that you might not see and I think there's a price to be paid for For for trying to you know break through the back door But uh, but but what I was going to say though as far as as far as like visual hallucinations and your resistance to them, um, is is that, you know

UNKNOWN: The

Luke: the potential there would be that, you know, like well, what if this hallucination is trying to show you something So that you can then like use the narrative of that visual as a reframing For whatever that other thing is that you're trying to get to You know, uh at at that at that deeper, uh deeper level as well

UNKNOWN: Yeah Yeah, I

Vynn: should have like more narrative like, um Psychedelic formats like a dream format, but I I don't tend to have that. Maybe I will one day, but Um, I really can't speak to that because it's just not out within my remit of experience as of yet

Luke: So so so taking taking taking psychedelics the other way as far as just meditation Meditation in and of itself. Have you done? Have you done high-dose meditation like Retreats of of varying lengths or anything like that?

Vynn: I have not. No, I have not I'd be really interested to do that though, especially like these like vipassana retreats, right and like Going entire week without speaking Having no access to like your phone. That seems like really intense, but also Everyone who I've spoken to about it has Really enjoyed like the purification that comes with it and I'm interested in like doing at some point, but Yeah, I mean currently I'm not in that economic situation to be able to pull off these kinds of things There's a lot of like my natural practicalities. I need to consider when thinking about it Well,

Luke: I mean the nice thing about like if you were going to do like a go inka retreat is there there is no fee You know, um, you can donate nothing or you can donate, you know, uh, Whatever you can afford the the only real cost to you is the opportunity cost of taking two weeks off to go there And not be, you know, generating income at that time

Vynn: Yeah,

Luke: so, you know, I don't I'm not saying you should but I'm saying, you know If you if you feel like the economic pressure is there like it's really only an opportunity cost thing It doesn't actually cost money, which is nice. Uh, it's it's a really huge benefit and the

Vynn: flight tickets as well

Luke: Well, right. I mean, I don't know, you know, I don't I don't know, you know from Borneo I don't know where the nearest vipassana center is. I I'm almost surprised. There isn't one somewhere in Borneo You know, just because they they seem to have them everywhere. Um, but Uh, but but yeah, regardless, um Yeah, I've I've I've attended a few of those a few of those 10 day retreats myself and I can I can I can I can attest that um one of some of the more profound experiences that I had really were during that first retreat and On on the 10th day of that retreat, you know that you get Like the the the the vow of silence is broken and you get to communicate with your peers and everything And one of the one of the really interesting things that I found was that on that 10th day, you know Like while I was talking to it's to some of the guys about, you know, just life and in our experiences and all of these things I found myself at the time, you know, I was I was Recurgitating one of those stories that I always tell And as I was telling that story, like I I felt myself starting to get dizzy I don't remember the details of what the story was or what it was that I said within the story But there was something in there that

UNKNOWN: that

Luke: like it was no longer like it was no longer true

UNKNOWN: um

Luke: Not that I was saying something false just that like be it from the retreat itself having reset some priors or whatever Just like some of what I was saying was no longer true for me In it in as much as it was at the time when I had like internally written that script and that That speaking of untrue things like it made me physically dizzy And so there's there's a that that was a really interesting phenomena that I experienced of of just like the the destabilizing power of Saying things that that are no longer true for oneself I Sorry say say that again

UNKNOWN: Hello,

Luke: hey, hey there you you're back. I just got

Vynn: cut off. Sorry about that

Luke: Yeah, I've I've there there have been there have been some jitters throughout I don't know if that is that something that you experience often or because I was starting to question whether or not this is a good Application to use because of

Vynn: no, I think this is like my end of things I think it's just like the internet and this part of the world is like really shitty Um, you have sounded like I have not had any disruptions from your side So I think genuinely it is because of me and not because of the app or okay. Yeah,

UNKNOWN: okay

Vynn: Are you are you are

Luke: you are you on are you on Starlink? Do you guys have Starlink in Borneo yet?

Vynn: No, we're not we don't

Luke: Well, I'm no, I mean, I mean, it's it's it's I don't it's not I well I don't think it's an absurd question in general because it is pretty It's I don't know. I don't know how globally ubiquitous it is But you know like right now I'm I'm in a place in New Mexico where I don't I don't get consistent cell service at all

Vynn: And

Luke: you know and and what internet you can get here is is really kind of bad Except for the fact that we do have the Starlink dish on the ceiling, you know up on the roof And that's that's what that's that's my tether to the internet here. So

UNKNOWN: Well,

Vynn: I should definitely like get into that and see what I can do especially But I don't know if I'm going to be in like Borneo for very much longer It's going to depend on like the job situation. Right. So Yeah, I don't know if it's going to be worth it So so thanks for the

Luke: heads up. Oh, yeah. Yeah, totally. So when you When you sit, uh, you know now as as an adult like, uh, do you how what what's your frequency? What are your intervals? What does that kind of look like for you?

Vynn: Um, I keep it really basic these days. So I and I'm using it very like instrumentally as I as opposed to Um, just using it for like pointless whatever Um, so very much like what I when I was like eight years old again Um, it's like 10 minutes 12 minutes sometimes Every day in the morning as soon as I get up. Yeah, and immediately I kind of use that like mind clearance state to then Plan the day or just like not worry about what it's going to come after and that kind of like resets the anxiety for background radiation to zero and

UNKNOWN: And

Vynn: then then I just go about my day. It becomes a lot easier for me to like hold on to Um, habits that I want to build And to like have stronger discipline if I have If I set aside 10 minutes of my morning to just like sharpening my mind or like focusing on like, um, Whatever is going on internally,

UNKNOWN: right?

Luke: Or even just clearing the table, right? Yeah, so you have a fresh workspace to kind of design your day from

Vynn: Exactly.

Luke: Yeah,

Vynn: so that's how I go about

Luke: so, um, do you

UNKNOWN: Do

Luke: you feel like there there's anything that we didn't discuss that you would have wanted to have discussed or or any any Any thoughts that you have that you want to share before we close?

Vynn: No, I can think of. I mean, I'm I'm sure if we do we'll probably be like, uh Connected enough to start a new episode or like chat about it in the DMs or something Yeah, but I really enjoyed this. I hope that We can like have more like random teapot conversations with people just like this And be able to like share experiences I've certainly I certainly enjoyed like doing this with my own like little project and podcasting On my own So it's always fun to like be the guest like have their favorite turn and be like the guest and someone else's like a show Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So do

Luke: you do you have any notes for me ways that I could have done done a better job here?

Vynn: Uh I am honestly like really new to this stuff as well. So Yeah, I'll I'll get back to you on this one. We've done like five more episodes.

Luke: Oh, goodness. Yeah

Vynn: All right, cool. I've been told that I've yeah I've been told that I tend to be a bit too academic-y when it comes to like podcasting but that's kind of like my general vibe anyway, so Um, I guess different people have different like like different strokes and yeah preferences

UNKNOWN: Cool.

Luke: Well, thanks a lot for your time ven. I really appreciate you coming on and and having a chat with me It's nice to get to make a little better.

Vynn: Yeah,

UNKNOWN: yeah,

Luke: it's great. Thanks.

Vynn: Yeah, right. See you. Take

Luke: care. All right. Bye.

Vynn: Bye.

Luke: Well, hey,

Toby: Toby, it's great

Luke: to have a chat with you. Nice to meet you too, Luke. It's good to be here.

Toby: Yeah, so mostly with my podcast feed, I just have conversation with people that I've met on Twitter that I know in real life or with family members or whatever. And you're kind of that for me because we're friends on Twitter. But beyond that, you're the CEO of Bright Mind, which is a meditation app. And I would just love to hear all about you and your story.

UNKNOWN: Sure.

Luke: So just you might have to edit this out later. But are we jumping into the recorded section? Oh, yeah, we're just

Toby: going. Yeah,

Luke: OK, we're just going to go. First of all, I'm just curious before we even go into that, where are you in the world?

Toby: I am in Missoula, Montana.

Luke: Whoa, cool. Yeah, that's really beautiful. Probably

UNKNOWN: it

Luke: is beautiful.

Toby: Yeah, absolutely.

Luke: I'm obsessed with mountains. So I'm jealous.

UNKNOWN: Do

Toby: you you're in

UNKNOWN: upstate

Toby: New York so you don't really have? I mean, the Catskills are up there somewhere, right?

UNKNOWN: Yep.

Luke: Yeah, it's funny. You mentioned the Catskills. The Catskills are actually pretty far away from where I am now. But my girlfriend and I are my fiance. I actually proposed to her last Saturday a week. Oh, wow.

Toby: Big news. Congratulations. How long have you been dating?

Luke: Like a little over two years.

Toby: OK. Well, that's a big that's a big step. That's awesome. I know. We're so excited.

Luke: She did. Thank goodness. Anyways, we're thinking of moving to the Catskills or outside of the Catskills, Kingston, specifically because they are pretty mountains. And right now where we are, we're I'm in like Rochester, New York, and it's all flat and there's no mountains. And I'm sad and I want mountains. Mountains are extremely. My girlfriend and I joke that like mountains are where the there was where God lives, you know, it's like,

UNKNOWN: you

Toby: know, I I can't disagree with that. Personally, I've been.

UNKNOWN: I've

Toby: I've spent some time in the Blue Ridge Mountains and like the western end of Virginia. So like East Tennessee up into the western part of Virginia, where like Floyd County, Floyd, Virginia is. And.

UNKNOWN: Yeah,

Toby: it's absolutely magical up in the mountains, for sure. Totally. Here in Missoula, we're kind of we're surrounded by mountains, but we're not

UNKNOWN: the

Toby: city itself is kind of in a valley between a couple of mountain ranges. Yeah.

Luke: Interesting.

Toby: Yeah. So we've got great views, for sure.

Luke: Yeah. So I guess to get to your question about Bright Mind and and the project.

UNKNOWN: So

Luke: Bright Mind's a meditation app. And as you know, there are a lot of meditation apps out there. There are. But I, you know, I was just talking to I talked to a lot of users. There's a lot of opportunities for users to hop on the phone with me at various points in the journey. So I talk to users all the time and I was talking to a user the other day and she was like, you know, I've used.

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: used Calm for like two years and it was all right. But I felt like my practice was kind of plateauing and I found Bright Mind and I was like, holy crap. I feel like I struck gold. Really excited about the approach and the impact that it's having on her life. And so I like I said, I talked to a lot of users and like I actually do a lot of qualitative data analysis on these types of conversations and 80 to 90 percent of users expressed this exact sentiment that they've used other meditation apps.

UNKNOWN: Their

Luke: practice was kind of plateauing and they were really excited of when they found Bright Mind. And so, you know, the question is why why are they so excited? And I think it mostly has to do with the approach simply just like the pedagogy, the way that we're presenting mindfulness and the way I like to frame that is in saying as simple as possible, but no simpler.

UNKNOWN: So and

Luke: I'll just kind of give you I could give you a lot of examples, but to give you one example, pretty much everything in Bright Mind you learn is summarized in just three words. What, why, how? So what mindfulness is, why would you practice mindfulness and how do you practice mindfulness? And we can drill into it kind of as much as you want. It's kind of fractal, but the answer to what mindfulness is is three mental muscles, concentration, clarity and balance. The answer to why practice mindfulness is the five facets of happiness, which is stress relief, be more fulfilled, understand yourself, sharpen your skills and improve the world.

UNKNOWN: And

Luke: the answer to how you as a bunch of really good answers to how you answer the question, how do you practice mindfulness? But I guess a pretty good one is the four elements of practice, which are official practice, integration practice, coaching and retreats. And Bright Mind supports you in all four of those elements of practice. And so, you know, I think you can maybe see how what I just said was it's pretty simple, you know, what, why, how, but you can also maybe get a sense that it packs a punch, that it's not so simple, that

UNKNOWN: it's

Luke: just not really going to be useful. Like we really try to distill transformational concepts and practices into really, really simple language and frameworks that really then has a big impact on people's lives.

UNKNOWN: Yeah,

Toby: I mean, definitely, you know, you start with the three simple questions, but there's there's a lot behind it that you're ready to start unpacking the more you get into it

UNKNOWN: with

Toby: your with your analysis after talking to lots of different, you know, customers and things, you know, when they're coming from, you know, column or some other app and then they're finding a new value in Bright Mind that they didn't find, you know, somewhere else. Is there is there like a certain point in the journey that's like kind of the turning point where they're like, oh, wow, like this has opened my eyes to practice in a new way that that's really made made made the value add so much different for me.

Luke: There's probably what comes to mind is when they learn integration practice. So this is about 20 meditations in. They've learned already a variety of techniques and they've actually already have.

UNKNOWN: They've

Luke: been introed to the what, why and how at least in an introductory way. So we basically start with this in the curriculum. But what's so the integration practice is well, actually, let me start with official practice. So official practice is

UNKNOWN: the

Luke: stuff that you do that you think of that you just like do every day or whatever. You're going to if you ask people if you have a daily meditation practice, that what that what that is is their official practice. Are you like setting aside 15 minutes to meditate a day integration? And so what what defines official practice is that you're in stillness. At least this is this is the way that I define it. You're in stillness. You're practicing for at least 10 minutes and your full attention is on the technique. Those are the three boxes that you have to check in order to make it official practice. If you break.

UNKNOWN: Well,

Luke: whenever you break one of those rules, you get the three types of integration practice. So if you meditate for less than 10 minutes, that's called a snack.

UNKNOWN: If

Luke: you meditate while you're moving, that's called movement practice. And if you split your attention between a meditation technique and doing another task like having a conversation

UNKNOWN: or

Luke: walking or responding to emails, then that's called Jedi practice.

Toby: For me, it's opening the door for my dog. If I'm in the room, he'll start pawing at the door to get it.

Luke: Uh huh. Uh huh. So so you're mindful as you open the door. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah.

Toby: Yeah. No, I'm just saying like I'll be sitting and then he'll start pawing at the door. So I have to mindfully,

UNKNOWN: you

Toby: know, go and reach over and open the door so he can come in and lay down.

Luke: Yeah, that's funny. Um, so usually when people,

UNKNOWN: the

Luke: reason that people are it kind of the coin falls into the slot when they learn integration practice is that I'm making it for the first time extremely practical and actually tangible of how this is going to impact your life and how it's going to be integrated into your life. Like you can see how, oh, if I just like meditated, if I sprinkled my day with snacks or I just meditated for like 30 seconds here, 30 seconds there,

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: can see how it starts to bleed into the rest of your day naturally. Um, the experience, we actually have the people get up and move while they're meditating and a very tightly controlled guidance. They start to see like, oh my God, I can meditate while I'm walking. Whoa. What stops me from meditating while I'm doing the dishes. And especially with Jedi practice, when you're learning how it's, it's tricky, it definitely takes some getting used to, but you can actually like put 80% of your mind on a task and 20% of your mind on a meditation technique. And you kind of split your attention like that. That really starts to open people up as to like, oh my God, this isn't just some kind of like quick fix stress relief experience. This is like a whole new way, a whole new perspective that I can come up, come at life at. And this is really going to impact my life and whoa, there's opportunities are endless and it's just really inspiring for people.

UNKNOWN: So I

Toby: think the, the initial question that I asked, which I'm still curious to learn a little bit more about is about your personal story, your journey of how you came to know about meditation, how you came to form Bright Mind and all of that.

Luke: Sure, sure. So, I mean,

UNKNOWN: there's

Luke: various lengths of this story, but I guess I'll give you like the medium length version. OK. Which is I grew up interested in meditation.

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: think one reason is that as I grew up rurally, I was in Vermont in the mountains. And I think as I started this conversation, saying like, God Liz is in the mountains. I, you know, I spent hours and hours wandering the woods with my dog. And I think that that naturally kind of induces mystical experiences, at least if you're open to it, if you, if you have a place for that in your worldview. So I had quite a few like significant, I would say spiritual experiences, meditative experiences as a kid. And I was very passionate about it. I even like I homeschooled myself for a year and a half in high school because I wanted to do more drumming and more wood wandering. Like this was really, I was really passionate about it just as a kid. Luckily, I had a neighbor who knew she basically taught me some basics more along the lines of Native American spirituality. So she got me, I had a mentor early on, basically.

UNKNOWN: Then

Luke: I got Lyme disease when I was like 17, which really messed up my physical body. I still have tons and tons and tons of chronic pain in my body. And that caused me.

UNKNOWN: To

Luke: like take time off of school. And it was a really difficult time for me. And at that point, I met Shenzhen Young, who. Did you meet him

Toby: like on a path in Vermont? Just wandering in the woods.

UNKNOWN: That

Luke: would be cool. He's kind of not really. No, I asked my I asked my aunt.

UNKNOWN: You

Luke: know, I want to get into meditation. Do you have any like resources? I want to get more into meditation. Do you have any resource suggestions? And she was like, oh, you got to check out Shenzhen. He holds at the time he was holding

UNKNOWN: free

Luke: day or like by donation day long retreats in Waterbury, Vermont. And so I just went and it was just totally blown away and inspired by his presentation. He I'm pretty sure actually this is kind of funny. I'm pretty sure that day at the retreat, he gave the what, why and how framework for mindfulness.

UNKNOWN: So

Toby: you just have like just this fantastic karmic seed that you were born into, right?

UNKNOWN: Basically,

Luke: yeah.

Toby: Because

Luke: you're at this point, you're what, like 17, 18 years old? Well, at that point, I'm 21, but 21, 21.

Toby: And you meet Shenzhen Young in Vermont. And he and he teaches you what, why, how on the first day.

Luke: Yeah. Wow. Wow. And I was like, oh, my God, that's such a good conceptual framework. I see how everything I've learned about spirituality so far fits into that. And I see how

UNKNOWN: it's

Luke: a very it there's it leaves a lot of like there's so much more to explore. You know, I was really excited. So meeting Shenzhen was incredibly inspiring. I practiced a lot. Yeah. Immediately. And I started teaching when I went back to college. I started teaching. I just started like a club. I did some like an independent research project in cognitive science, which was really cool. And that's kind of where I started really cutting my chops as like a teacher and experimenting with pedagogy. And then

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: joined a monastery with Toshin, who you may know. And I know a lot of Twitter people know. So Toshin and I basically like co-founded this cool monastery in Vermont. And is it the what's the name of it? The Monastic Academy or Maple.

Toby: Oh, wow. OK. I

UNKNOWN: didn't.

Toby: OK. Wow.

Luke: Yeah. Yeah. I've heard I've heard of it.

Toby: I didn't realize you were a co-founder. That's incredible.

UNKNOWN: Yeah.

Luke: Yeah.

UNKNOWN: And so

Luke: that was profound and really, really amazing in terms of deepening my practice. And then I was thinking of leaving the monastery partially because I was in Lerv. And basically, I got a call and my friend was like, hey, do you want me to introduce you to someone who's starting a meditation app? I think you'd I think you'd be really helpful for them. And I was like, yeah. And I just got a job offer to like help work on a meditation app based off of shins and stuff. And I was like, that's pretty much a dream job. So yes, I will do that. So that was like six or seven years ago now. And it's been a small, scrappy startup kind of ever since. But it's been really so fun. I've learned so much. And so I was originally kind of brought on to do the content. But then I very quickly took over kind of the product design and managing like I do a lot of product product management. So like communicating with the developers what we need to have happen. And

UNKNOWN: yeah.

Luke: And so fast forward to today. It's a pretty small team. There's just three of us basically as me and two developers. And I also have like a partner that does that helps with some marketing stuff. And I get to work on the product and develop content. And it's really it's really great. I mean, I always say that it's like an honor to get to support so many people's practice. And I don't know. People say a lot of nice things to me, which is nice. It's like, thank you so much for all the work you're doing. And it's just like really, really great to get that every day and to feel good about what I'm doing.

Toby: So and I want to ask a little bit about the app. I noticed that you guys have just done a new update and you've kind of rearranged your your guided medications. So tell me a little bit about your thinking behind doing that.

Luke: Oh, man, I'm so excited about this update. There is a central design question in at least in my mind in the context of meditation apps. And that question is, do you go with a quote library experience? Or do you go with a quote journey experience? Most meditation apps have gone with the library experience. So you open up the app and you get presented with hundreds, sometimes thousands of different options. It's a large library that you can explore as you wish.

UNKNOWN: As

Luke: you can see with bright mind while they're this transition that you just witnessed is kind of like the final. We're really committed fully to the journey experience before it was half and half where it started out with a journey and then we graduated you to a library. But with this recent update, what we basically decided was let's just go all in on the journey.

UNKNOWN: So

Luke: what we've done in this update is yeah, there used to be a library that opened up when you completed the journey. Now the journey just keeps going forever. And

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: can still access the library meditations at one point if you want, but it's pretty hidden. It's like in the menu and

UNKNOWN: mostly

Luke: the reason we did this, there's a bunch of different like confounding factors, but probably the biggest reason we did this is just people asked for and wanted it. Like I said, I talk with users all the time and

UNKNOWN: most

Luke: users that got through the old version of the journey were like, I just wish the journey would keep going forever. After the journey finished, I didn't know what to do. Like I could, I guess I could explore the library, but I didn't know what to do. It was hard to find good content. I really liked it when I opened the app and pressed play and that was all I had to do. I don't want to make another decision. And so,

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: know, I heard that for a while and I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, but we can't figure out how to make a journey that goes on forever. And at a certain point I was like, okay,

UNKNOWN: we're

Luke: going all in on the journey.

Toby: Yeah. So, I mean, so, and here's a question I have. You know, I was using this before, before this update. And for a while there was just like a, like, here's a random daily taste kind of thing that was up at the top. I'm guessing that's, that's just gone now, huh?

Luke: Completely gone. Completely. Meditation is gone and will never return.

Toby: It's interesting. I feel like I have to kind of start back from the beginning almost because, uh, yeah, it was.

Luke: Did you go through the whole journey before and then unlock the new meditation or did you, there's multiple journey paths depending on how old of a user you were.

Toby: I don't think I did because I had, okay. So you had on

Luke: a previous version of it.

Toby: I had, I got in earlier and I wasn't a paid member. And so I got through a few meditations and then, um, and then I, you know, and then I subscribed for the year back around like December. And, and at that point it was kind of in library mode. So I was just, I was honestly just kind of jumping around here and there.

Luke: Okay. Yeah. In that case, definitely just start at the beginning.

Toby: Yeah.

Luke: Seriously. So, and that kind of gets to what I was going to say, but I forgot to say is that

UNKNOWN: the

Luke: reason, whether you go with a library or a journey, one is not better than the other. They just each have their pros and cons, obviously. Um,

UNKNOWN: the

Luke: reason that we went with the journey full on is that

UNKNOWN: it's

Luke: essential. If you are going to teach someone something remotely sophisticated, you have to have a linear learning journey.

Toby: Right.

Luke: Like it's the same reason why you have to learn, we have to go to high school before you go to college. Like you have to have certain basic concepts and understandings before you build on them. Um, and so,

UNKNOWN: um,

Luke: in order to really deliver that

UNKNOWN: as

Luke: simple as possible, but no simpler approach that we're so excited about, we just realized that practically speaking, the only way we're going to deliver on that kind of brand promise is to have a linear learning journey where I can slowly, but surely build up a whole suite of concepts and practices. And as you'll see when you go through the journey, it's a really cool interweaving.

UNKNOWN: You

Luke: know, like you learn the what, why, and how in the first like 20 meditations. And then you continue interweaving them in these really interesting ways. I'm constantly referencing the concepts and practices that you learned earlier on and you're building on them. It's a really like organic learning journey experience.

Toby: Awesome. Does

UNKNOWN: it. So

Toby: I learned about bright mind in.

UNKNOWN: Let's

Toby: see. Time has gone funny on me because I've been in one place for a whole year now and I'm not used to doing that. I was in. So 20. Yeah. So in, in, in like the middle of 2021, like the second half of 2021, I started hearing more like Shenzhen showing up on the,

UNKNOWN: the

Toby: Guru Viking podcast in like group talks and stuff. And so I, so I, so then I listened to one of his audio books and then I started looking into, you know, his kind of school of, of, of, of practice. And then while looking around in that, that was how, that was how I personally found bright mind. And so Shenzhen for me was kind of the draw to bright mind. Does bright mind ever address in any kind of a direct way like genres or, or like actual like awakening or insight and that kind of thing.

Luke: We haven't done. We don't have any content right now about genres, although that's a possibility. One of the cool things about

UNKNOWN: the

Luke: future of bright mind is we run a four hour retreat once a month, which I think you joined the last one, right?

Toby: I did. Yeah, I was, I was able to join the last one. Yeah.

Luke: So every month I get to come up with a topic and then develop a sweet set of guided meditations around it. And so like we totally might do some stuff on the genres at some point.

UNKNOWN: But we

Luke: don't have anything there yet. In terms of awakening and maybe what you're asking there is like more of a spiritual perspective on meditation or.

Toby: Well, I guess I'm thinking about like pads and fruits kind of, you know, like, like,

UNKNOWN: yeah,

Toby: like enlightenment. I don't know if that's, to me, I don't know if it's spiritual as much as it's sort of like a phenomenological shift or something.

UNKNOWN: And

Toby: having not experienced it, I'm just just throwing words. It's something I can't describe.

Luke: Sure. So it depends on how you define that, obviously. I mean, I think that. So first of all, it's a it is a secular presentation. So it's not explicitly Buddhist. Right. And that's certainly on purpose. And, you know, like I say, it's as simple as possible, but no simpler. So it would be too simple if I threw the baby out with the bathwater. Meditation, as you say, leads to profound phenomenological shifts and perception. And so we're going to talk about that.

UNKNOWN: For

Luke: sure.

UNKNOWN: You

Toby: haven't you haven't gotten there yet. Well, journeys or I'm saying

Luke: I'm saying that more like. Abstractly. So one way to answer your question is to point you towards the expansion contraction pack.

Toby: Okay.

Luke: That was a retreat we did a few months ago. And it is one answer to the question phenomenologically, what is enlightenment like? One answer to that question is simultaneous and constant expansion and contraction of space. That is what it's like.

UNKNOWN: And

Luke: we can show you some practices that are going to help

UNKNOWN: take

Luke: advantage of any of that that's already happening in your experience and pursue that as an opportunity.

UNKNOWN: So

Luke: basically there's at a certain point in the journey,

UNKNOWN: there's

Luke: there's three packs and they go in a row. So listen to them in order. It'll take a while to get through all of them. The first pack is flow. The second pack is arising and passing. And the third pack is expansion contraction. So they build on each other. The first thing to do is develop a.

UNKNOWN: The

Luke: acquired taste of how to detect flow in your experience. Once you have that you can acquire the taste for arising and passing. Once you have acquired a taste for rising and passing, you can then develop the taste for expansion contraction.

UNKNOWN: So

Luke: that's kind of one very awakening focused. You could say phenomenological earth shattering types of practices that we explore.

UNKNOWN: But and

Luke: so I mean really enlightenment phenomenological shifts. There's

UNKNOWN: there's

Luke: there's a million different facets. There's a lot of different insights and to each of the techniques get at different facets. And so really with with all the techniques, you're kind of exploring. You're kind of exploring different different facets of it. And it's all pretty relevant. Yeah. I think I'll leave it there.

Toby: Okay. How.

UNKNOWN: So

Toby: like I mentioned, so I can I came to Bright Mind by way of Shenzhen. How how involved is he at this point or at the initial point when you were like crafting the path of the journey in kind of helping to

UNKNOWN: helping

Toby: to to navigate that that that or plot that course out.

UNKNOWN: Yeah.

Luke: So first of all, a lot of people do find Bright Mind through Shenzhen. It's probably the most common way that people find us. And he was more involved earlier on. He's a lot less involved now. But yeah, like basically early on I spent hours and hours with him trying to map out the flow chart that is his mind. And it was pretty cool. You know work flowy. No. It was like a it's a it still is a pretty cool web tool. It's kind of like a notion type.

Toby: Yeah.

Luke: Cool where you can create nodes and then you can create nodes inside of nodes and then you can create nodes inside of those nodes. And if you can go as deep, you just has unlimited no to no ability.

Toby: Like the set of all sets. Yeah.

Luke: So I spent hours and hours and months and months literally just mapping it all out. And

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: of course, you know, my I learned mostly from him. So his if you go through Bright Mind and then you join a Shenzhen retreat, it's like almost exactly the same material

UNKNOWN: pretty.

Luke: So pretty much the the the core approach to teaching meditation is 100% Shenzhen.

UNKNOWN: But I

Luke: basically spent like a year writing the scripts for the current journey meditations. And so there's a lot of my voice in there too. And I balance or I bring in some of my own perspectives, my own styles. I also bring in other teachers that I've been influenced by. So it is at the end of the day a mix. But the core real foundation of Bright Mind is But that's also not, now that

UNKNOWN: I've

Luke: kind of recorded a lot of his basic content at this point. And so now when I go to schedule and pick the topics for retreats, I'm having a lot of fun being a lot more creative and it's not, it's not Shenzhenian at all, actually. I'm bringing in all sorts of other stuff. Like we're going to be doing a retreat in April,

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: think April or it's just going to be all IFS, internal family systems. So cool. So and I've done a bunch on like a trustworthiness practice that I learned from another meditation teacher. So especially from now on, we're going to be bringing in a lot of all sorts of cool stuff, but still the backbone really is his stuff.

UNKNOWN: Right.

Toby: I've heard in the recordings, I've heard his voice. I've heard your voice and then I've heard some other voice or maybe voices. Probably Juliana.

Luke: So Juliana Ray is another teacher that was more involved in the early days and is less involved now. And I heard another

Toby: man's voice. It's yeah.

Luke: So we've we've also worked with a bunch of other teachers, like 20 or probably 20 other teachers also have recordings in Bright Mind.

Toby: Oh, wow.

Luke: But they are all in

UNKNOWN: what

Luke: used to be called the library and what is now called classic meditations. OK, so that all the other teachers are just housed in the more library interface, which is not really the center point of the of the interface at this point, but you can still access it if you want.

Toby: Oh, OK, I was about to ask you how to access it. You're right. It is it is kind of buried in there.

Luke: Yeah.

UNKNOWN: You

Luke: like those emojis, though? Yeah.

Toby: Yeah, I just

Luke: decked out the entire menu with emojis. I'm on an emoji. I love

UNKNOWN: picking

Luke: emojis.

Toby: How many how many hours of content have you got in the journey itself now? Because you said that basically like the journey is kind of a never ending process.

Luke: Yeah. So I don't know what the overall content is. And it also depends on one of the cool things you can do with Bright Mind is you can adjust the duration of the practices.

Toby: Yeah, I was going to ask you that. So you said anything less than 15 minutes is kind of in snack territory.

Luke: Well, technically, I say 10 minutes. And even though

UNKNOWN: a

Luke: lot of them had a lot of the minimum durations in Bright Mind are 12 or 13 or even 14 minutes. That's just because I like to let the content steer what I need to say on any given day. I do that is priority. So and there also needs to be enough silence to practice. So but basically. Technically speaking, a snack is less than 10 minutes. OK, official practice is more than 10 minutes separately. The minimum duration of a lot of Bright Mind sits are like 12 or 13 minutes. But that's just because there was a lot that I needed to say and I wanted to leave enough time to also to practice.

Toby: Right.

Luke: And what we've done there, by the way, in terms of the adjusting duration thing is we actually kind of created a cool back end that I

UNKNOWN: split

Luke: up the guidance into a number of audio files.

Toby: Right.

Luke: And then depending on the duration that you select, the app calculates how much silence to play in between the audio files. And so you can get the same learning, the same guidance, essentially,

UNKNOWN: at

Luke: different durations, which people really appreciate. That's another like huge theme in a lot of the customer correspondence that I get is like, it's so cool that I can do a 60 minute version of a meditation that I've done before at 20 minutes, right? You know, it's it's a little things. And so depending on how you adjust the durations, but I don't know, I've got to be upwards of a hundred guidances at this point and talk to me in a year. And I'll have I'll have there's usually like six guidances per retreat. So that's six times 12. And so, yeah, I'm just going to keep racking them up. And

UNKNOWN: create

Luke: an everlasting, fruitful, wondrous spiritual journey that is in your pocket and available 24 seven.

UNKNOWN: So

Toby: you you you you already kind of answered one of the questions I was going to ask you when you said that like a lot or even maybe most people come to Bright Mind, you know, after learning Shenzhen or Shenzhen's practices, because also you you mentioned, you know, like some people come over from other meditation apps. And I was kind of curious, like, how much of that do you find where people are, you know, like they may just be casual meditators that have been using calm for years. And they just decide to start looking in the app store for something different.

UNKNOWN: Well,

Luke: actually, it's a combination. So an extremely common pattern is calm user encounters Shenzhen on calm because he has like two practices on calm.

Toby: OK,

UNKNOWN: they

Luke: are really interested in that. And those just those two little meditations and they look up because of that they look up Shenzhen online

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: then they find Bright Mind and then they're super psyched.

Toby: OK,

Luke: so that's probably that's probably the most common way that people find us actually is calm users find Shenzhen, look Shenzhen up and then find Bright Mind. Isn't that bizarre?

UNKNOWN: Hey,

Toby: man, whatever works,

Luke: it's awesome. I know. I know.

Toby: So you've been you've been at Bright Mind for like six, seven years now.

Luke: Yeah, we started in 2016 and now 2023. Yeah. So freaking seven years.

Toby: Wow. Crazy.

Luke: Very

Toby: cool.

Luke: It's basically been like my only job.

Toby: Yeah.

UNKNOWN: I

Toby: mean,

Luke: if you're able, at least like adult job, I had a bunch of like high school jobs. But

UNKNOWN: I

Toby: mean, if you're able to make your livelihood out of this, this is this is definitely a right livelihood.

UNKNOWN: Yeah,

Luke: absolutely. It doesn't get much better. I love it.

Toby: Well, thank you for your time. I know you've got to go pretty soon, but I really appreciate you chatting with me for a while.

Luke: Yeah, of course. It was a pleasure.

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: am officially enlightened. I took a course. It's awesome. So the course actually worked and that's that's really neat. I am in Arizona. We go back and forth a little bit. I have 40 acres in the middle of nowhere and it's really in the middle of nowhere. It's 45 minutes to get to a paved road. So that's like the middle of nowhere. And then we also have a little place in Scottsdale where I'm trying to do actual

UNKNOWN: interact

Luke: with humans kind of stuff which is

UNKNOWN: it's

Luke: new to me again

UNKNOWN: because

Luke: I took a couple years off from that.

UNKNOWN: Yeah.

Luke: So

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: basically pulled like an Eckert Tolle kind of thing when I took the first class. It was an experimental cohort of they called it 45 days to awakening. Now I think it's the 45 days challenge. And it was this research project that had been going on for 10 years and he had this like six month program where he would take

UNKNOWN: research

Luke: subjects through all of these different exercises and

UNKNOWN: he

Luke: was getting like 73% of people into some form of fundamental well-being enlightenment persistent non symbolic experience whatever you want to call it.

UNKNOWN: And

Luke: so

UNKNOWN: when

Luke: coronavirus hit he,

UNKNOWN: Dr.

Luke: Martin, he took this thing

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: he tried to condense it down.

UNKNOWN: He

Luke: works with a couple of clinical psychologists and they tried to condense it down to like six weeks and it worked pretty well mostly seven weeks total. And I went completely out of my head about halfway through the course. I was quite literally in the clouds for about a day. That was what popped me out was clouds. So and then after that I spent

UNKNOWN: quite

Luke: a bit of time. So this was coronavirus pandemic time. I wasn't doing the mask thing. I wasn't doing the stay at home thing. This was right at the point in time. We were still in Nevada where the governor said that to get your outdoors exercise you should put a chair next to the window with the window closed and look out of the glass. That was the pandemic health response. Look out a closed window.

UNKNOWN: Yeah

Luke: so I wasn't doing that. Actually I did a lot of this course sitting in closed parks. Like we were sneaking into parks.

UNKNOWN: Two

Luke: and a half years ago we were sneaking into parks

UNKNOWN: or

Luke: yeah two years two and a half years ago and that's just crazy. So I went a little out of my head at the same time with the with the prepper background and being on a farm. We had a small farm ranch at the time

UNKNOWN: which

Luke: I was getting ready to get done with because 10 years is a long time for me to do a single thing and do ranching for 10 years was way too long. So all of that came together and I basically spent the next two years driving around camping and grabbing remote pieces of property in the middle of nowhere camping on them and figuring out the enlightenment thing.

UNKNOWN: And

Luke: then recently I've decided I have to come back and do some stuff but I couldn't figure out what to do and all I want to do is write and walk people through the processes. I love helping people in general and most of my pre-enlightenment life that was a sucker bet

UNKNOWN: like

Luke: it was a good way to get taken advantage of. It's like oh yeah I'll help you move.

UNKNOWN: But it

Luke: can also be really fulfilling like it depends on yeah reciprocity or just some kind of abundance and that's where the coaching thing comes in. I was thinking about that because there's a Zen school a lot of the Zen Buddhist stuff in the U.S. doesn't work the way it works in Asia. In Asia you're allowed to charge money for retreats and lessons but there's something about

UNKNOWN: particular

Luke: Buddhist cultures in the U.S. where you're supposed to rely on donations only

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: never charge for a retreat and stuff otherwise you're a grifter and I'm like

UNKNOWN: well

Luke: how much help am I supposed to be to you if half of my waking hours are trying to fight the electric company turning my power off?

UNKNOWN: Okay no

Luke: uh Jeffrey Martin

UNKNOWN: yeah so

Luke: the finder's course the finder's course was several years of stuff right before what I took. I took the very first shortened version he did the last

UNKNOWN: yeah

Luke: I think it's called the 45 day challenge yeah the first one was called 45 days to awakening I think and then it's it's now on the website it's called the 45 days challenge he's got a pretty streamlined he still has

UNKNOWN: the

Luke: main problem of delivery

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: he's trying he's trying to expand so

UNKNOWN: yeah

Luke: right at right at the beginning of lockdown he released late February early March 2020

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: think so somewhere around a year and a half

UNKNOWN: kind

Luke: of no but so I've never I've looked into I've dated a lot of Buddhists I've dated a lot of vegans I've done the whole thing I've been with the hippies off and on

UNKNOWN: um

Luke: I actually I used to run logistics for a music festival so I've been through I've been through the whole like I know the people but my actual exposure is mostly psychology in college alt psychology most mostly mid-century alternative psychology movements and western occultism

UNKNOWN: so

Luke: I never really got into buddhism like I I know some of the meditation some of the breathing some of the yogas

UNKNOWN: but

Luke: I never

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: I never could quite get my head around if you just spend 16 lifetimes following the eightfold path and doing the five things with the first 15 different spec specific it's all very mind system oriented and didn't seem to make sense to me it never made sense to me is like

UNKNOWN: like

Luke: the whole point is enlightenment but you're you're going through things in system system it's very good for the western mind like everybody wants a little list lots and lots of lists

UNKNOWN: so

Luke: I never I you know I never took um regular retreats in fact I've been to retreat centers but only to work

UNKNOWN: so

Luke: I always have to have something to do

UNKNOWN: so

Luke: you definitely can do it without while maintaining normal job and everything I think it's a little easier if you have some family buy-in

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: took it with one of my my um partners female companions whatever so that made it a little easier but the total commitment of time is supposed to be about an hour and a half every day it's closer to two hours if you're very social with it if you communicate more

UNKNOWN: there's

Luke: a one hour meditation block

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: that's specifically one hour all at once there's physiological changes this this is just basic known neuroscience after about 45 minutes when you're meditating stuff happens in your head like biological stuff happens in your head and things start to shift so part of the preparation that's not the enlightenment itself but part of the preparation the seeding is to have that one hour meditation every day that's the main time commitment

UNKNOWN: sit

Luke: down for one hour the other half hour is stuff like um there's exercises exercises to do in the morning and the evening honestly

UNKNOWN: now

Luke: mental stuff they positive psychology stuff it's good no and positive psychology it's it's all gold standard stuff but it's

UNKNOWN: it

Luke: did it never took me 15 minutes it takes me like three minutes but some people get gratitude exercise forgiveness exercise basic visualization and release um it changes no it changes every three or seven days nope there's a there's a setup there's a short video that tells you what you're going to be doing and it has some text um because people integrate knowledge different ways and it's just a set of instructions and then you go do it it's not

UNKNOWN: yeah and

Luke: then when something happens you kind of run with it um so i'm

UNKNOWN: for

Luke: me it was actually a practice it was during a shift going from

UNKNOWN: yeah

Luke: yeah and this shift was was shifting from just the solo meditation to a group exercise that you would do on zoom and that was that was not a daily thing that was a bonus thing that you would add that that's made up part of that 90 minute average is that one hour every week for the last couple of weeks you would do a group um awareness exercise

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: the preparation for that there were a couple little guided nine minute guided meditation on what it's about

UNKNOWN: how

Luke: how it works because it's really hard to uh mentally figure out how you talk about awareness when awareness isn't about talking like you have to translate into language and

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: kind of have to get over the hump that yeah your mind is going to be there because you can't communicate without it

UNKNOWN: like

Luke: there's no we don't have telepathy that's reliable yet so um so there's a guided practice meditation just nine minutes so of how the how it works and that's where i where i popped over the fence um it's not

UNKNOWN: common

Luke: but it's actually it's known they document everything everything is documented so it's there's a certain percentage of people that actually pop during this this particular phase um people have broad characteristics they're just everyone's individual but there's broad characteristics and so i popped right then and what you do if you have a major event like that is you sink into it

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: you work with that like

UNKNOWN: it's

Luke: not that you drop everything in the course

UNKNOWN: some

Luke: people do and they never get heard from again they're like oh hey bye

UNKNOWN: um but

Luke: you drop

UNKNOWN: the follow

Luke: the instructions part and work on sinking in or experiencing or broadening what you've what you've encountered because that's the enlightenment part

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: there's no reason to

UNKNOWN: mess

Luke: around with feeling your nostril breath for an hour after you've gotten the enlightenment part because that's

UNKNOWN: breathing

Luke: is not enlightenment you know so that's just a way to get ready for it so for me it's not it's not it's not big for everybody for some people it's really big for some people it's much bigger than i can still talk

UNKNOWN: there

Luke: are people who just don't talk for like two or three days until they come back enough to be able to actually handle speech

UNKNOWN: mine

Luke: was pretty dramatic but not that dramatic for some people

UNKNOWN: it

Luke: happens so slowly and subliminally

UNKNOWN: that

Luke: they're just walking around one day and they they're like oh hey

UNKNOWN: i

Luke: don't know the last time i had anxiety

UNKNOWN: something

Luke: changed like they don't even know

UNKNOWN: mine

Luke: was pretty dramatic like i went off and like like

UNKNOWN: everything

Luke: was very full the universe was full

UNKNOWN: full

Luke: of everything you say full of life full of love a lot of people would describe it as full of love full of joy

UNKNOWN: but

Luke: it was past love past joy like i can it's there all the time and it's really complete um but it's past love it's past joy it does change over time

UNKNOWN: so

Luke: everything got very vibrant out there my sense of self-awareness expanded

UNKNOWN: to

Luke: everything i could see

UNKNOWN: which

Luke: is very hard to describe it's not like i traveled out of my body or anything but my sense of of

UNKNOWN: my

Luke: sense of self my sense of space way way outside of my skin

UNKNOWN: yeah

Luke: um

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: it turned on it stayed on really heavy

UNKNOWN: so

Luke: that you know the volume knob can't stay at 11 all the time or you'll burn out

UNKNOWN: but

Luke: but i was at 11 for several hours and then it would continue every time i did the group awareness exercise or practice or talk to people about it it would turn back on for hours but

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: know usually you float around the volume knobs at three to five like you don't just sit there all the time at 11 or you can't like life you

UNKNOWN: could

Luke: you could think of it that way i think um

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: could think of it that way it's more

UNKNOWN: i

Luke: don't know it's not overwhelmed it's

UNKNOWN: definitely

Luke: well overwhelmed but it

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: you

UNKNOWN: might

Luke: lose you might lose touch with the necessary processes of your body and your mind

UNKNOWN: and that would

Luke: yeah um it's hard it's a little bit

UNKNOWN: it

Luke: was the it was the preparation for the group practice that's what's really funny is it was just a practice exercise um

UNKNOWN: clouds no

Luke: it was the preparation it was it was this little preparation exercise to get ready for doing the group exercises um clouds are a thing for me i guess um i've always been able to kind of lose myself in the clouds for some people it's there's stuff like soap bubbles or a guitar solo or

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: know blowing bubbles like that's a really big one for a lot of people bubbles are just magnificent and pretty and they fly around clouds um paintings rainbows like i know people for whom the the little uh diffraction glass and looking at rainbows on the wall

UNKNOWN: that

Luke: works for them

UNKNOWN: prisms

Luke: right diffraction glasses prisms um

UNKNOWN: so

Luke: different things for different people uh clouds just do it for me i just happen to be looking at clouds at the time and everything popped right and i was just um

UNKNOWN: i

Luke: can't say i was in the clouds because there wasn't so much i for a little while so but the clouds were definitely there clouds were definitely a big part of the experience

UNKNOWN: oh

Luke: yeah oh i was in that state for for

UNKNOWN: i'd

Luke: say a couple days like it kind of floated a little bit but i wasn't i wasn't out of it for a couple of days really hard to describe

UNKNOWN: oh

Luke: no no no there were that that too that two days i wasn't doing much of anything i could i could walk around and i could eat

UNKNOWN: um you

Luke: know but i wasn't

UNKNOWN: no

Luke: no i wasn't doing much there um but so the the that moment that that experience usually fades down a little bit and you come back to wherever your

UNKNOWN: core location

Luke: your your core place on the spectrum of enlightenment is because there's a whole bunch of different places you can be

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: you can shift you can move around i'm much closer to that day to day now than i was two and a half years ago

UNKNOWN: um

Luke: when it when it all settled down and came out i was me but without stimulation programs or dramatization habits

UNKNOWN: all

Luke: that stuff went went away really fast in fact it ended a relationship of mine because i could not be stimulated triggered

UNKNOWN: like

Luke: the buttons she'd try to push the buttons there there are drama buttons and i just kind of

UNKNOWN: i

Luke: just kind of didn't respond to them

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: know

UNKNOWN: where

Luke: i'd see weird humor in them or something and it was very disconcerting because now you don't have control over me a lot of times people see you they don't see you they see what's useful to them or what they're used to they have a they have a map um

UNKNOWN: i

Luke: wasn't responding according to that map

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: for some people that's very threatening so in that in that case it seemed very threatening

UNKNOWN: i

Luke: can make you worry

UNKNOWN: well

Luke: it's and it's usually stuff like i can make you worry i can make you feel in my importances i can make you cry anger

UNKNOWN: like all

Luke: of that was gone and that was pretty

UNKNOWN: it

Luke: was pretty dramatic

UNKNOWN: um very

Luke: dramatic and

UNKNOWN: so

Luke: that that that kind of programming went away but i was still me i was still you know responding to my name have my thoughts

UNKNOWN: um

Luke: they didn't have as

UNKNOWN: better okay

Luke: interesting okay no worries that's the battery charger which but the battery is fine um

UNKNOWN: so

Luke: at that point it was still very very much me not non-dual so i was still in my head a lot or in my body a lot there's there's there's a neurological shift that happens and you can do a lot of things out once you've got that neurological shift but the neurological shift is really hard to describe it's um

UNKNOWN: humans

Luke: are really unique we have an ability to do some crazy stuff

UNKNOWN: so well

Luke: so the most mundane example is um there's this guy you either love him hate him

UNKNOWN: or

Luke: whatever he's the lobster man Jordan Peterson

UNKNOWN: right he

Luke: talks about hierarchies

UNKNOWN: and you just

Luke: be aware of him

UNKNOWN: but

Luke: he talks he's as a clinical psychologist he's really good like he knows what he's talking about um and there's the these things called dominance hierarchies and you can track people's hormones like serotonin

UNKNOWN: levels

Luke: and stuff with where they are on it in a dominance hierarchy you walk up to another dude

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: you're like you either feel good or you feel tiny or whatever this it's very subtle here's the here's the thing

UNKNOWN: people

Luke: seem to always miss humans can create an infinite number of hierarchies

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: can be the winner it's something stamp collecting hot wheel racing

UNKNOWN: axe

Luke: throwing like we have this infinite ability so actually like I have a friend who makes avocado avocado toast like for a living so so everyone has the has the ability to program themselves to be successful in a hierarchy and that's a huge thing neurologically

UNKNOWN: well humans

Luke: and

UNKNOWN: no

Luke: other animal can do that no other creature can do that

UNKNOWN: dogs

Luke: come close because dogs can have a high status sub pack and a low status pet main pack and stuff that's because they're symbiotic with humans but nothing else can do that well humans have what appears to be another really crazy ability and that's we can rewire our neurology

UNKNOWN: so

Luke: roughly speaking and this isn't exactly right from

UNKNOWN: well

Luke: from scarcity to abundance from fight or flight to confidence and competence

UNKNOWN: so

Luke: you'll you'll see this with people people who get startled by a challenge you know someone comes up and just scares the shit out of them some people respond with that fight or flight tense and some people

UNKNOWN: create

Luke: something out of that they respond confidently

UNKNOWN: creatively

Luke: competently and there's that that's a huge

UNKNOWN: that's

Luke: not built into your amygdala like that's a shift that's something that only humans can actually change that's what happens when you when you do the enlightenment that there's a your whole neurology shifts it's like the opposite of PTSD

UNKNOWN: literally

Luke: it's an episodic shift in your neurology PTSD is a shift in your neurology your whole nervous system changes

UNKNOWN: it's

Luke: it's the opposite of that um

UNKNOWN: where

Luke: you how you experience it where you land on it whether you're dual or non-dual and all that that's all different stuff but that that's the shift that's the change

UNKNOWN: that

Luke: was that was

UNKNOWN: that

Luke: was my anti PTSD moment yeah

UNKNOWN: oh

Luke: yeah um

UNKNOWN: that's

Luke: actually that's kind of where I'm at most of the time right now um it's yeah yeah it's funny because people's people people make a big deal out of it and there's like this being has a part that wants to tell you and I'm like yeah whatever

UNKNOWN: I'm

Luke: gonna tell you stuff

UNKNOWN: the

Luke: the pronouns don't matter anymore

UNKNOWN: um because

Luke: I'm

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: know what's going on there's a mind minds are emergent from the body so there's this body which is

UNKNOWN: actually

Luke: an ecology because it's not just human cells and all that

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: the mind the mind is an emergent part of that and it has processes minds do what you tell them to

UNKNOWN: they

Luke: they always do what you tell them to most of the problems in the world are because people don't know what they're telling their minds to do like negativity really does actually have an effect positivity really has an effect minds to what they do but

UNKNOWN: non

Luke: -dual there's not a sense that I'm in my mind thinking the thoughts or anything

UNKNOWN: but

Luke: the mind is there it's part of the universe I can use it

UNKNOWN: like

Luke: it's still there so non-dual is it's easier

UNKNOWN: it's

Luke: easier than I ever thought it was I had so many hang-ups about it and then I just was there and it's like yeah sorry

UNKNOWN: I don't

Luke: know it

UNKNOWN: was

Luke: some time about two years after

UNKNOWN: that

Luke: I that I actually recognized we were talking about it in the alumni groups and stuff

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: I realized that we were we were

UNKNOWN: trying

Luke: to get through definitions um

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: one of the one of the research people was talking about it and like okay let's let's get some of the the weird woo around non-duality out of there

UNKNOWN: if

Luke: you look at the world do you sense that you are looking at the world or do you sense that the world is being experienced like is there a you looking at the wall

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: for most of the time now

UNKNOWN: there's

Luke: just there's a wall

UNKNOWN: there

Luke: but there's not a me looking at the wall

UNKNOWN: this

Luke: is really easy to get a glimpse of if you go with the

UNKNOWN: do

Luke: some stuff with the headless way people

UNKNOWN: headless

Luke: headless way is out there on the internet you can find it

UNKNOWN: yeah

Luke: headless ways they're neat people I go I go jump on some of the the events sometimes it used to do a lot more for me now it's just kind of like a uh it's like going to the coffee shop it's it's just a morning thing to do sometimes

UNKNOWN: they

Luke: used to blow my mind but

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: know now I'm kind of like I'm there all the time it's a it's a good it's a good way to remind me that there are

UNKNOWN: other people

Luke: doing it experiencing it it's a good way to avoid the uh going into the cave

UNKNOWN: path

Luke: so there's like two paths main paths of non-duality like going into the cave and being a hermit

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: forgetting that other people exist and then going out and being with people and maximizing you know

UNKNOWN: so

Luke: path of freedom and path of humanity stuff so mostly I don't even try to coach this

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: know I'll talk about it and I'll

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: if anyone really wants it I'll be like well there's some really good ways to get it headless way might work the 45 days challenge will probably work

UNKNOWN: 75

Luke: it'll probably work

UNKNOWN: or

Luke: you can go through you know 20 lifetimes of buddhism or whatever like

UNKNOWN: oh

Luke: yeah one of the so so the thing is I think

UNKNOWN: when

Luke: you talk about

UNKNOWN: buddha

Luke: you're talking about one thing and then when you talk about buddhism

UNKNOWN: most

Luke: of the time you're talking about

UNKNOWN: what

Luke: a bunch of people have added on to it so you know it's like like I often use the use the use the phrase right action but I don't mean right action the same way you know I'm not talking about the the five proper

UNKNOWN: act

Luke: goals or whatever I don't remember what they are

UNKNOWN: don't

Luke: kill don't lie use sex properly some other stuff

UNKNOWN: when

Luke: I talk about right action I mean being aligned with your intentions

UNKNOWN: if

Luke: you are in alignment with yourself then right action happens so the big realization for that was for me was

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: know so someone was talking this is way back in the google plus days every time I pick up a knife I wonder what it would be like to cut somebody or cut myself or something I'm like

UNKNOWN: so

Luke: that's the exact opposite of right action if you

UNKNOWN: if

Luke: you're engaged in right action if you're actually in in accordance with yourself and you're flowing with your intuition and everything's going right you pick up the knife and you do what you're doing

UNKNOWN: there's

Luke: no distraction there's no oh hey I could commit murder it's just I'm gonna slice the steak man that's all I'm doing so if you're in alignment with yourself

UNKNOWN: right

Luke: action just flows it happens but I can't talk about it with some Buddhists because they get very attached to

UNKNOWN: all

Luke: the laws and rules around what right action is supposed to be and you have to do these these prerequisite steps before you can do it I'm know you just like align yourself with yourself and it's so I think Buddha himself

UNKNOWN: has

Luke: some pretty clear it's it's the Jesus thing all over again

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: know Jesus can say two or three things that will throw people into there are lots of enlightened Christians

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: know surrender to me and feel love and boom

UNKNOWN: their

Luke: whole life is like love there there's a there's a love aspect of enlightenment that's usually not non-dual because it's you experiencing the love of the universe so it's actually there's a subtle dualistic aspect to that

UNKNOWN: but oh

Luke: I've I've done that

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: kind of go back and forth it's one of the it's one of the areas one of the spots in enlightenment is this massive love thing you can get there it's fun it's a really hard place to act from you don't want someone who's who's full of divine love to run a business because that's not going to work very well

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: mean well we talk about that was is

UNKNOWN: yeah well you

Luke: know society is this huge set of games and agreements of people doing stuff with other people

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: that perfect divine love

UNKNOWN: goes

Luke: outside the game

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: it's great and it's cool

UNKNOWN: but

Luke: you can't actually engage the game from there because

UNKNOWN: you're

Luke: not part of the game like like you're not on the playing field anymore so yeah the love thing is cool and it's really easy to get like you you can read like three lines from the new testament and there it is it's right there but then everything

UNKNOWN: about

Luke: the religion

UNKNOWN: built

Luke: up around that kind of hides it

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: think that Buddhism has a lot of the same

UNKNOWN: thousands

Luke: of years of religion on top of a truth so it's not that I'm anti-Buddhist it's just that I find I find the Buddhist

UNKNOWN: it's

Luke: it's like Talmudic scholars um but I find I find a lot of the Buddhist um

UNKNOWN: processes

Luke: rules explanations philosophies logical arguments um propositions positions to be

UNKNOWN: kind

Luke: of boring

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: and slowing you down but it also depends on on where you are like

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: think that Buddhism resulted in a lot of people getting enlightened a thousand years ago

UNKNOWN: um but people people

Luke: change with the times like your your whole psychology changes with the times

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: would love it if we were all hunter-gatherers but we're

UNKNOWN: so

Luke: our psychology is different

UNKNOWN: so okay

Luke: 14 14 um like two

UNKNOWN: actual

Luke: time consuming like really involved and then the others are more more of the

UNKNOWN: newsletter

Luke: type

UNKNOWN: like I

Luke: put stuff out there and they're like yay thanks but we don't actually interact

UNKNOWN: a whole

Luke: lot there's some tech support like some I'll send an email when they ask a question kind of thing but

UNKNOWN: there's

Luke: different levels to this

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: mean I know people who do

UNKNOWN: coaching

Luke: where they can only have like two clients because it's 15 hours a week for each of them

UNKNOWN: like get

Luke: up in the morning and deal with the crisis

UNKNOWN: kind

Luke: of stuff that's fine concierge level I guess so but so

UNKNOWN: so probably

Luke: just chat and see and see what's gonna happen I don't have an advertising thing yet I don't even have my my

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: have a second sub stack that I'm working on but I haven't done the I've got a whole bunch of stuff ready but I haven't started the scheduled releases that's where I'm probably going to focus is doing scheduled written and audio sub stack does audio now weekly releases and do the newsletter thing like regular marketing people I've been told that that works I have no

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: do it cool I have no idea what success looks like on that but it's cool

UNKNOWN: the

Luke: thing is that I can't so

UNKNOWN: I'm

Luke: not going to promise enlightenment to anyone

UNKNOWN: but

Luke: there are a lot of really

UNKNOWN: well

Luke: that's that's Jeff that's Jeffrey Martin stuff but

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: can you know there's a lot of simple things to talk about that will help most people really quick

UNKNOWN: like you

Luke: see it on Twitter all the time how many people have this thing that they have to earn their own self-love

UNKNOWN: that

Luke: there's something wrong or narcissistic about unconditional self-love and I'm like no no that's like it's the core of everything is unconditional self-love you should not have to earn

UNKNOWN: your

Luke: self-love you can you can still bitch yourself out for not working out but love yourself like you don't hate your kids if you have to say hey

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: forgot to do your chore

UNKNOWN: like

Luke: you don't stop loving them you need unconditional self-love and the number of people who resist that and think that that's evil is

UNKNOWN: astounding so

Luke: people don't get trained for that so that's one

UNKNOWN: helping

Luke: people give themselves permission to relax

UNKNOWN: like

Luke: people need to actually there's so little relaxation you have to give yourself permission to actually stop

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: have one person I talked to client ish client he's a doctor in an emergency room and

UNKNOWN: like

Luke: it changed his world I'm like yeah you're busy

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: literally have to lock yourself into a toilet stall and set a 96 90 second timer on your watch and stop

UNKNOWN: be

Luke: yourself for 90 seconds and he's like oh that changed my life and I'm like

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: have to give yourself permission to relax it doesn't take it doesn't have to be an hour

UNKNOWN: that's

Luke: great for changing brain chemistry but that's not what it

UNKNOWN: like 90

Luke: seconds is fine

UNKNOWN: three

Luke: breaths is fine

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: know one breath to

UNKNOWN: identify

Luke: it another breath to like conceptualize it and the third breath to release it that's great simple 15 seconds 20 seconds depends on how fast you breathe I guess like I can I can make that take 45 seconds

UNKNOWN: just

Luke: like

UNKNOWN: so but

Luke: a lot of it stuff like that just

UNKNOWN: so

Luke: much of coaching that I see is based on try harder do more

UNKNOWN: be

Luke: stronger be faster be like and I'm like okay that's all great

UNKNOWN: but

Luke: at some point in time you also have to like kind of acknowledge yourself and be yourself and

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: do a lot of that I'm constantly reminding my people to stop being what other people think you are

UNKNOWN: because

Luke: that's that is a huge one this isn't always the best thing for

UNKNOWN: like

Luke: if your goal is to be a salesman the best salesman ever and probably not your guy

UNKNOWN: my

Luke: goal is not to tell you to be what your customer wants you to be

UNKNOWN: you you just

Luke: have to know when to turn it off how is a big one that I'm still I'm still amazed at how many people don't know how to like themselves let's drop let's drop the love part for me and just like themselves like unconditional self-like

UNKNOWN: infinite

Luke: number of hierarchies

UNKNOWN: well

Luke: it or infinite number of situations you don't have to be with those judgy people you can out with these other judgy people who you like better

UNKNOWN: or

Luke: judge different things

UNKNOWN: like if

Luke: I have

UNKNOWN: those yeah

Luke: I definitely need to redo that book because there's so much more to it there's the the three rules and this is so core to everything do stuff don't stop and finish something every day

UNKNOWN: but

Luke: here's the thing do stuff because when you do stuff things happen

UNKNOWN: it's

Luke: very simple very simple

UNKNOWN: mechanical

Luke: rule if you do stuff

UNKNOWN: things

Luke: happen

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: we like it when things happen

UNKNOWN: so

Luke: just do stuff

UNKNOWN: well

Luke: you got to do stuff or nothing happened so

UNKNOWN: do

Luke: doing stuff you know the core there is that right action align yourself with yourself

UNKNOWN: so

Luke: that what you're doing is what you want to be doing need to be doing should be doing intuitively know you should be doing whatever so you're going to do the right stuff the don't stop part has two really big components a lot of times people stop doing stuff in a creative sense

UNKNOWN: because

Luke: they have what's called a lacka

UNKNOWN: they

Luke: lack a

UNKNOWN: something I

Luke: would be a sculptor but I lack a tool

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: know I would fix this car but I lack a tool there's there's a lacka problem so people will go on Amazon

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: spend eight hours dreaming about all the stuff that they could get that would enable them to do stuff

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: don't don't don't do that I I once made a a set of rooms rooms like for Oracle use out of a stick and a ballpoint pen that I found on the ground

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: had a pocket knife so I could cut the stick up

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: know I there's there's never a lack you always do the stuff so don't don't stop part one is don't let a lack of stuff stop you

UNKNOWN: keep

Luke: doing something the other part is

UNKNOWN: don't

Luke: let yourself stop yourself if you are in a massive state of depression and you just cannot handle doing all seven dishes all at once

UNKNOWN: wash

Luke: a dish

UNKNOWN: take

Luke: an hour break

UNKNOWN: wash

Luke: a dish just don't stop

UNKNOWN: if

Luke: you have to go that slow

UNKNOWN: you're

Luke: going to feel so much better just for doing it if you're that far down you're going to feel way better for doing it but don't you know if you're having a bad day and you don't feel motivated that's fine take a break but don't stop

UNKNOWN: just

Luke: don't stop

UNKNOWN: and

Luke: rule number three

UNKNOWN: isn't

Luke: finish something every day it's finish some

UNKNOWN: thing

Luke: every day there has to be something every day that you can finish and say I did that

UNKNOWN: because

Luke: you have to celebrate some kind of accomplishment

UNKNOWN: because

Luke: it gives you horsepower it gives you motivation it gives you that momentum it gives you the brain training

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: said earlier minds always do what we tell them

UNKNOWN: well

Luke: if you tell your mind that it's awesome that you finished something then your mind is going to want you to finish more stuff and work with you instead of against you

UNKNOWN: if

Luke: you celebrate

UNKNOWN: not

Luke: finishing stuff oh I could finish that but I'm not good enough so I'm going to eat ice cream

UNKNOWN: well you

Luke: just told your mind

UNKNOWN: to

Luke: feed you ice cream and not do stuff

UNKNOWN: so

Luke: if you finish if you finish some something every day and it doesn't matter what it is big small

UNKNOWN: you

Luke: know not all projects are one day of projects you know you have a two-year project someday it's going to get done

UNKNOWN: but

Luke: some

UNKNOWN: particular

Luke: discrete thing every day you need to finish and

UNKNOWN: recognize

Luke: that celebrate it it gives your mind that that training that doing finishing things is important

UNKNOWN: so

Luke: those are the three rules do stuff don't stop and finish something every day

UNKNOWN: come

Luke: on I'm bouncing off the walls like a squirrel already right I talk I talk like this I do I talk like this

UNKNOWN: um

Luke: my my friends will someone new will come up and they'll be like

UNKNOWN: so

Luke: tell me about the enlightenment thing and my friends are like oh no

UNKNOWN: here

Luke: it comes

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: saw a squirrel and he ran across the road and he didn't get hit by a car we yeah um

UNKNOWN: ferret

Luke: with pixie sticks

UNKNOWN: no there's

Luke: always stuff to add but

UNKNOWN: the

Luke: real I guess the core is

UNKNOWN: yeah

Luke: that's the other thing I want to add stop adding things stop adding things

UNKNOWN: yeah

Luke: that's one of the biggest problems people have when it comes to doing self-improvement work is adding things

UNKNOWN: sometimes

Luke: the simple simple stuff really is simple but

UNKNOWN: people

Luke: complexify it like have you see um

UNKNOWN: you've

Luke: seen this you saw this with the keto world now you're going to see it with the carnivore world

UNKNOWN: originally

Luke: the keto diet was really simple don't eat so many carbs

UNKNOWN: well

Luke: then it got all complex there's net carbs and there's ingredients and there's these recipes to make

UNKNOWN: chocolate

Luke: cake that's not really chocolate cake and it got all

UNKNOWN: stop

Luke: adding things just eat the steak and salad and you'll be fine it worked 50 years ago it still works

UNKNOWN: it's

Luke: like the carnivore thing now people go and they do carnivore for healing it's great

UNKNOWN: that's

Luke: fine

UNKNOWN: but

Luke: then people they're now adding snack there are snack companies for carnivore stuff

UNKNOWN: I'm

Luke: like

UNKNOWN: stop

Luke: adding things

UNKNOWN: you'd

Luke: think

UNKNOWN: but

Luke: there's there's stuff with like seven eight ingredients in it now

UNKNOWN: um and

Luke: then people are are adding things to carnivore like oh well technically honey's carnivore and I'm like yeah okay

UNKNOWN: but

Luke: carnivores can eat berries but that's actually a thing now eat fruit it's part of your carnivore diet and I'm like okay

UNKNOWN: well

Luke: but it goes into a lot of stuff if people add things we we always have a new um most people

UNKNOWN: yeah

Luke: stop adding if it works it works and people change over time so what works one day may not work the next but that doesn't mean like people just build layers and layers and layers if you see a new situation a brand new situation something you've never seen before the average human responses to say it's just like this but with this and this and this instead of directly experiencing they translate it into something they already know and then add five or six layers of stuff I'm like that's adding things just experience what's there

UNKNOWN: so

Luke: yeah that's what I know

UNKNOWN: so

Luke: sideways coyote is the same for substack and twitter and then there's a youtube where I say all the crazy stuff and that's 23 degrees sideways and I post the videos on twitter so that's easy to link

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: don't I don't know if my youtube is actually searchable I have like a hundred subscribers

UNKNOWN: so it's

Luke: very small okay I'll I can DM you some of that too

UNKNOWN: I

Luke: can I can DM you the channel link that makes it easy

UNKNOWN: that

Luke: way you can watch my videos on why consensus decision-making is emotional bullying so there

UNKNOWN: uh yeah thank

Luke: you that was awesome