I would say that the functional definition of faith not faith in a system or religion, or a saint or a sage, but faith in life itself is that, Yeah, while I'm going through it, I'm going no, this is terrible, anything to stop. But faith is that I will be grateful for what will be revealed later.

I would say that the functional definition of faith not faith in a system or religion, or a saint or a sage, but faith in life itself is that, Yeah, while I'm going through it, I'm going no, this is terrible, anything to stop. But faith is that I will be grateful for what will be revealed later.

Welcome to the one you feed throughout time. Great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf.

Welcome to the one you feed throughout time. Great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf.

Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Mark Neppo, a poet and spiritual teacher who has taught in the fields of poetry and spirituality for over fifty years with over a million copies sold. Mark has moved in inspired readers and seekers all over the world with his number one New York Times bestseller, The Book of Awakening. In twenty fifteen, Mark was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by Age Nation. In twenty sixteen, he was named by Watkins Mind, Body, Spirit as one of the one hundred most spiritually Influential living people. He was also chosen as one of owns Super Soul one hundred, a group of inspired leaders using their gifts and voices to elevate humanity. Today, Mark and Eric discuss his new book, Falling Down and Getting Up, Discovering Your Inner Resilience and Strength.

Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Mark Neppo, a poet and spiritual teacher who has taught in the fields of poetry and spirituality for over fifty years with over a million copies sold. Mark has moved in inspired readers and seekers all over the world with his number one New York Times bestseller, The Book of Awakening. In twenty fifteen, Mark was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by Age Nation. In twenty sixteen, he was named by Watkins Mind, Body, Spirit as one of the one hundred most spiritually Influential living people. He was also chosen as one of owns Super Soul one hundred, a group of inspired leaders using their gifts and voices to elevate humanity. Today, Mark and Eric discuss his new book, Falling Down and Getting Up, Discovering Your Inner Resilience and Strength.

Hi, Mark, Welcome to the show.

Hi, Mark, Welcome to the show.

Oh, it's great to be back with you. Thanks for having me.

Oh, it's great to be back with you. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, it's always such a pleasure to have you on. I always find talking to you illuminating, and I find reading your work, as I said beforehand, inspiring and comforting. And today we're going to be discussing your book called Falling Down and Getting Up, Discovering your Inner Resilience and Strength. But before we get into that, let's start like we always do with the Parable. In the Parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild, and they say, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle.

Yeah, it's always such a pleasure to have you on. I always find talking to you illuminating, and I find reading your work, as I said beforehand, inspiring and comforting. And today we're going to be discussing your book called Falling Down and Getting Up, Discovering your Inner Resilience and Strength. But before we get into that, let's start like we always do with the Parable. In the Parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild, and they say, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle.

What is a good.

What is a good.

Wolf which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other's a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops. They think about it for a second and they look up their grand They say, well, which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do.

Wolf which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other's a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops. They think about it for a second and they look up their grand They say, well, which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do.

Yeah, I love that parable, and I think it speaks so much to the constant choice that is available to each of us and to each generation. I think it speaks in a lot of ways to where we are right now. Let's talk for a second in societally and then bring it down to the person. But you know, in our age, it's such a strident time. We have so many difficult polarizations, and I think that every generation is really given the chance to answer that question and to face these perennial choices between love and fear, between pushing each other away or welcoming each other, and when fear govern us, we're feeding the dark wolf, and we can see that today. And when love governs us, and great love and great suffering are the teachers that break us open to say, oh my god, yes, it's more than just me, help me, help me, Thank God, you're not me. And so you know, like I actually was thinking about this the other day, and your invitation here framed some of these reflections. So you know, William Blake, the wonderful mystic poet, in one of his famous you know poems, he says, some are born to sweet delight, some are born to endless night. You know, he says in another place, some are born to endless yes, and some are born to endless no. And once here, we always have this choice, and we have these particular challenges. But you know, in my parents' generation it was World War two. Every age has its challenges that present us with it's our turn. And so let me just finish this by referring to something. You know. Just the other night, Rachel Maddow had this wonderful juxtaposition which really speaks to this. She was saying that of comparing two former presidents and what they've done with their lives since leaving office, and she, of course in the dark Wolf was referring to Trump that all alone says everything, but she juxtaposed it with feeding the other wolf in our terms. You know, she didn't use that, but it fits here by referring to Jimmy Carter, who just turned ninety nine. And when he was ninety he was asked, do you have anything left on your to do list? And he said, well, one thing. He's been very involved with the CDC with Third World worm based diseases, and he said, well, I hope in my lifetime we can eradicate guinea disease. And when he was ninety nine years ago, there was the World Health Organization tracked three and a half million people who suffer from this disease, and when he turned ninety nine last Sunday, there were six cases left. Wow, which wolf do we feed? Just an amazing contemporary example.

Yeah, I love that parable, and I think it speaks so much to the constant choice that is available to each of us and to each generation. I think it speaks in a lot of ways to where we are right now. Let's talk for a second in societally and then bring it down to the person. But you know, in our age, it's such a strident time. We have so many difficult polarizations, and I think that every generation is really given the chance to answer that question and to face these perennial choices between love and fear, between pushing each other away or welcoming each other, and when fear govern us, we're feeding the dark wolf, and we can see that today. And when love governs us, and great love and great suffering are the teachers that break us open to say, oh my god, yes, it's more than just me, help me, help me, Thank God, you're not me. And so you know, like I actually was thinking about this the other day, and your invitation here framed some of these reflections. So you know, William Blake, the wonderful mystic poet, in one of his famous you know poems, he says, some are born to sweet delight, some are born to endless night. You know, he says in another place, some are born to endless yes, and some are born to endless no. And once here, we always have this choice, and we have these particular challenges. But you know, in my parents' generation it was World War two. Every age has its challenges that present us with it's our turn. And so let me just finish this by referring to something. You know. Just the other night, Rachel Maddow had this wonderful juxtaposition which really speaks to this. She was saying that of comparing two former presidents and what they've done with their lives since leaving office, and she, of course in the dark Wolf was referring to Trump that all alone says everything, but she juxtaposed it with feeding the other wolf in our terms. You know, she didn't use that, but it fits here by referring to Jimmy Carter, who just turned ninety nine. And when he was ninety he was asked, do you have anything left on your to do list? And he said, well, one thing. He's been very involved with the CDC with Third World worm based diseases, and he said, well, I hope in my lifetime we can eradicate guinea disease. And when he was ninety nine years ago, there was the World Health Organization tracked three and a half million people who suffer from this disease, and when he turned ninety nine last Sunday, there were six cases left. Wow, which wolf do we feed? Just an amazing contemporary example.

I love that. And you reference this idea of choice points, and you talk about them sort of throughout the new book, these ideas of choice points. You say that you know we're always faced with these choices. You frame this up from a big perspective, like a person in their life's work, there's a choice there, right, But we're all faced with countless choice points nearly every single day. How do you think about choice points? And perhaps more on the nose, how do you think about remembering that we are at choice points because a lot of us are not making a bad choice, because we compare two options and we go, oh, yes, well, I'm going to be selfish and unkind, right, we don't realize that we are necessarily facing a choice. We are potentially so self immersed or just immersed in the day to day business of life that we miss these choice points. And yet life is almost nothing except an accumulation of choices one direction or the other.

I love that. And you reference this idea of choice points, and you talk about them sort of throughout the new book, these ideas of choice points. You say that you know we're always faced with these choices. You frame this up from a big perspective, like a person in their life's work, there's a choice there, right, But we're all faced with countless choice points nearly every single day. How do you think about choice points? And perhaps more on the nose, how do you think about remembering that we are at choice points because a lot of us are not making a bad choice, because we compare two options and we go, oh, yes, well, I'm going to be selfish and unkind, right, we don't realize that we are necessarily facing a choice. We are potentially so self immersed or just immersed in the day to day business of life that we miss these choice points. And yet life is almost nothing except an accumulation of choices one direction or the other.

Yeah, let's talk about this in a way that gets down to how we face every day. But let me back up for a second and frame it with it would be nice if there were ABC and how to do, but there are, and being a human being, a spirit and a body and time on earth, every choice point is a practice, and so each of us is faced with these how to practice how to return to what I call the corridor of a liveness when the bumps and obstacles of life throw us left or right. So you know, when I was a boy, my father who was a master woodworker, and he loved the sea. And there was a boat he built, sailboat. And I spent a lot of my youth on when I was eight or nine. And this is one of these latent lessons years later. But he would when we'd be in a fog or something, he'd put me on the steering wheel the tiller, and he'd say, Okay, I want you to follow this thing on the compass, this direction. And I remember being a little boy, and you know, even when you're on course, that needle of the compass never stands still. And years later, decades later, this is a powerful metaphor for the practice of being authentically alive and facing these choice points, because even when you're quote on course, the work isn't over, because it's always a little to the left, a little to the right. Oh today I close myself off too much. Oh today I gave myself away. And how do we steer back to that corridor of aliveness? So all these choice points, and there are many more than what I share of these are just what I've been able to identify. Each invites a practice, and you're right, we don't sit down and go yes, today I'm going to be selfish. But we face these points and every day. This is why it's so important, I feel, to follow our heart and to be honest about our experience, because following our heart leads us to be present, and that helps us see things as they are, and then we make better choices. So let me offer a and then we'll get back down to what this looks like every day. There's a great parable about two monks who they're told if they studied long and hard, they'll be able to have an appointment one day with Buddha at the top of the mountain. So you know they want that, So they're studying. They work great, right, and they say to each other one day and I think we're ready. So they begin to climb up the mountain, and halfway up the mountain, one of them breaks his leg. So they spend the night and the one who's you know, okay, he helps him and he's totally intending in the morning to make him comfortable, but keep his appointment with Buddha at the top of the mountain. Well in the morning, the one who broke his leg isn't doing so well. He's got a fever. It's not so easy. It's not just as simple as leaving him, and the parable stops there and offers the question, which is a comparable to which one will you feed? Which woe will you feed? Is what would you do? And we all face this choice every day. So when we have more people who would leave their broken other to keep their appointment at the top of the mountain, we have an age that will engender cruelty. When we have more people who will discover that tending their broken other is the summit, we have an age that will engender compassion. And so every one of us faces this choice every single day, and what will we choose? And it doesn't matter what you put on top of the mountain. You could put wealth, security, safety, family, whatever you want, you enlightenment. When we insist on that above the gifts and challenges that life gives us, we're capable of cruelty, which raises a deeper One of the choice points that I've come to understand is do we work for what we want or do we work with what we're given? And I have found in my life at least there's nothing wrong with working for what you want. However, we tend to deify that and make it some kind of sacred thing when it's just what I saw and thought would be good to work toward. And often I've discovered that working for what I want becomes an apprenticeship for working with what I've been given.

Yeah, let's talk about this in a way that gets down to how we face every day. But let me back up for a second and frame it with it would be nice if there were ABC and how to do, but there are, and being a human being, a spirit and a body and time on earth, every choice point is a practice, and so each of us is faced with these how to practice how to return to what I call the corridor of a liveness when the bumps and obstacles of life throw us left or right. So you know, when I was a boy, my father who was a master woodworker, and he loved the sea. And there was a boat he built, sailboat. And I spent a lot of my youth on when I was eight or nine. And this is one of these latent lessons years later. But he would when we'd be in a fog or something, he'd put me on the steering wheel the tiller, and he'd say, Okay, I want you to follow this thing on the compass, this direction. And I remember being a little boy, and you know, even when you're on course, that needle of the compass never stands still. And years later, decades later, this is a powerful metaphor for the practice of being authentically alive and facing these choice points, because even when you're quote on course, the work isn't over, because it's always a little to the left, a little to the right. Oh today I close myself off too much. Oh today I gave myself away. And how do we steer back to that corridor of aliveness? So all these choice points, and there are many more than what I share of these are just what I've been able to identify. Each invites a practice, and you're right, we don't sit down and go yes, today I'm going to be selfish. But we face these points and every day. This is why it's so important, I feel, to follow our heart and to be honest about our experience, because following our heart leads us to be present, and that helps us see things as they are, and then we make better choices. So let me offer a and then we'll get back down to what this looks like every day. There's a great parable about two monks who they're told if they studied long and hard, they'll be able to have an appointment one day with Buddha at the top of the mountain. So you know they want that, So they're studying. They work great, right, and they say to each other one day and I think we're ready. So they begin to climb up the mountain, and halfway up the mountain, one of them breaks his leg. So they spend the night and the one who's you know, okay, he helps him and he's totally intending in the morning to make him comfortable, but keep his appointment with Buddha at the top of the mountain. Well in the morning, the one who broke his leg isn't doing so well. He's got a fever. It's not so easy. It's not just as simple as leaving him, and the parable stops there and offers the question, which is a comparable to which one will you feed? Which woe will you feed? Is what would you do? And we all face this choice every day. So when we have more people who would leave their broken other to keep their appointment at the top of the mountain, we have an age that will engender cruelty. When we have more people who will discover that tending their broken other is the summit, we have an age that will engender compassion. And so every one of us faces this choice every single day, and what will we choose? And it doesn't matter what you put on top of the mountain. You could put wealth, security, safety, family, whatever you want, you enlightenment. When we insist on that above the gifts and challenges that life gives us, we're capable of cruelty, which raises a deeper One of the choice points that I've come to understand is do we work for what we want or do we work with what we're given? And I have found in my life at least there's nothing wrong with working for what you want. However, we tend to deify that and make it some kind of sacred thing when it's just what I saw and thought would be good to work toward. And often I've discovered that working for what I want becomes an apprenticeship for working with what I've been given.

It's almost kind of both, and I'll talk about that in a little while. Throughout the book, there's this idea of a balance point or paradoxes, right, And I think what you're describing there is that it's probably reality is it's always a little bit of both.

It's almost kind of both, and I'll talk about that in a little while. Throughout the book, there's this idea of a balance point or paradoxes, right, And I think what you're describing there is that it's probably reality is it's always a little bit of both.

Right.

Right.

You can't work for what you want without dealing with the circumstances that you've been given. And often it's difficult to deal with the circumstances you've been given if you don't know what you want. And maybe i'll take the word one out, but what you value, what's important? Yeah, And so those things seem to be very, very correlated, and I love that parable. It's a really interesting idea because my guess is if somebody were to have played it out, you know, and the guy left his other and climbed up to the top of the mountain, the Buddha would have said, sorry, you had studied hard and you had an appointment with me, but you have just lost it because you missed the point of everything you just studied, you like, completely skipped it exactly exactly.

You can't work for what you want without dealing with the circumstances that you've been given. And often it's difficult to deal with the circumstances you've been given if you don't know what you want. And maybe i'll take the word one out, but what you value, what's important? Yeah, And so those things seem to be very, very correlated, and I love that parable. It's a really interesting idea because my guess is if somebody were to have played it out, you know, and the guy left his other and climbed up to the top of the mountain, the Buddha would have said, sorry, you had studied hard and you had an appointment with me, but you have just lost it because you missed the point of everything you just studied, you like, completely skipped it exactly exactly.

That does open it up beautifully as to what we value, and so working for what we want can really be seen as what are we aiming for? Realizing that what we aim for is just kindling for what will come into view, and we're true when we follow what is true. So this is a historical story that's that exemplifies this so powerfully. There was a monk by the name of ted Sugan in Japan in the seventeen hundreds. Up till that time, the talks of Buddha had not yet been translated into Japanese, and he thought, as a young man, man, I think this is what I was supposed to do. And he had a friend who was an artist who did woodblocks, and he said, look, I'm going to translate the Dharma talks into Japanese and you can illustrate them with your beautiful woodblock prints, and well along the way, we'll beg alms in order to have enough money to publish the holy text. So they started working. Took years, and after eight or nine years, there was a flood in northwest Japan where Tedsukin had grown up like you know, like Katrina or something. So he gave all the money away and they went back. They kept translating and working on the woodblocks, and they saved money for another eight, nine, ten years, and then there was a famine in another part of Japan, and his heart had been broken open. So he said, well, I didn't grow up there, but what's the difference, gave all the money away, and after twenty five years they finally did it. They published the Dharma Talks in Japanese and today in Kyoto there is one of those original texts underglass and the plaque reads. In his lifetime, Tedsugan published three versions of the Holy Text, only one is visible. Oh yeah, and so just like you were saying about that parable, he got to do both. He did eventually do what he quote aimed for or wanted. But along the way, just like you imagined, if Buddha had seen this guy at the top of the mountain, no to translate Buddha's talks, he was supposed to live with them, which he did by giving the money quwack twice.

That does open it up beautifully as to what we value, and so working for what we want can really be seen as what are we aiming for? Realizing that what we aim for is just kindling for what will come into view, and we're true when we follow what is true. So this is a historical story that's that exemplifies this so powerfully. There was a monk by the name of ted Sugan in Japan in the seventeen hundreds. Up till that time, the talks of Buddha had not yet been translated into Japanese, and he thought, as a young man, man, I think this is what I was supposed to do. And he had a friend who was an artist who did woodblocks, and he said, look, I'm going to translate the Dharma talks into Japanese and you can illustrate them with your beautiful woodblock prints, and well along the way, we'll beg alms in order to have enough money to publish the holy text. So they started working. Took years, and after eight or nine years, there was a flood in northwest Japan where Tedsukin had grown up like you know, like Katrina or something. So he gave all the money away and they went back. They kept translating and working on the woodblocks, and they saved money for another eight, nine, ten years, and then there was a famine in another part of Japan, and his heart had been broken open. So he said, well, I didn't grow up there, but what's the difference, gave all the money away, and after twenty five years they finally did it. They published the Dharma Talks in Japanese and today in Kyoto there is one of those original texts underglass and the plaque reads. In his lifetime, Tedsugan published three versions of the Holy Text, only one is visible. Oh yeah, and so just like you were saying about that parable, he got to do both. He did eventually do what he quote aimed for or wanted. But along the way, just like you imagined, if Buddha had seen this guy at the top of the mountain, no to translate Buddha's talks, he was supposed to live with them, which he did by giving the money quwack twice.

That's a really beautiful story. I'd like to transition now into more specifically the title of your book and the main idea, which is falling down and getting up. You know, I have had over the last several months probably more emotional challenge and difficulty than I've had in easily a decade, if not twenty years.

That's a really beautiful story. I'd like to transition now into more specifically the title of your book and the main idea, which is falling down and getting up. You know, I have had over the last several months probably more emotional challenge and difficulty than I've had in easily a decade, if not twenty years.

Maybe. Wow.

Maybe. Wow.

And it's so interesting because I've recorded five hundred these interviews and we talk about this idea, pain is a great teacher and suffering is the past, right, And yet when you are deep in it, wow, is it really something else? All these ideas about pain being a good teacher, sometimes in my mind got swept away by anything to make it stop, right, which luckily, my skills for dealing with it are way different than I used to be, because I mean, I used to be a heroin addict, right, which is a pretty unskillful way to deal with pain. But I just wanted to raise that to sort of start with this idea. And as listeners hear this and we go through it, and I think you would be the first to say this. This is not a prescriptive book like, oh well, okay, here's your four steps and you won't feel pain. It really is about that part of the process is having to go through the pain and that that by its very nature is deeply, deeply unpleasant.

And it's so interesting because I've recorded five hundred these interviews and we talk about this idea, pain is a great teacher and suffering is the past, right, And yet when you are deep in it, wow, is it really something else? All these ideas about pain being a good teacher, sometimes in my mind got swept away by anything to make it stop, right, which luckily, my skills for dealing with it are way different than I used to be, because I mean, I used to be a heroin addict, right, which is a pretty unskillful way to deal with pain. But I just wanted to raise that to sort of start with this idea. And as listeners hear this and we go through it, and I think you would be the first to say this. This is not a prescriptive book like, oh well, okay, here's your four steps and you won't feel pain. It really is about that part of the process is having to go through the pain and that that by its very nature is deeply, deeply unpleasant.

Yeah, so this opens up a whole, amazing and very important terrain. So thank you. Before I get to the title, let me speak to what you'd so beautifully open. And yes, this is you know, none of my books and none of my teaching are not prescriptive in any way. You know. I like to say that when I share our examples, not instructions. I'm just trying to figure it out like everybody else. And wisdom is a support, not a shortcut. You know, we can have this wonderful conversation. We'll get off, I will go to take the garbage out trip at the curb, forget everything we've talked about and have to relearn it all again. And what else would we do? So let's talk about you know, yes, while we're in it, it's very difficult to be grateful for the teaching of pain while you're in it, and that reality. We have to feel the reality of what we go through. And I would say that the functional definition of faith, not faith in a system or religion or a saint or a sage, but faith in life itself is that. Yeah, while I'm going through it, I'm going, no, this is terrible, anything to stop. But faith is that I will be grateful for what will be revealed later. And you know, so a couple of things to support that truth, that very deep and harsh truth. And you know one is and that'll lead me later I'll read a poem about that. But you know one is that black Club. Hobvel he was the first president of the Czech Republic when communism fell, and he was a poet and a playwright, so he was actually a poet president, a rare thing. And he had this wonderful definition of hope. He said, Hope is not the optimism that things will turn out well, but the belief that no matter what happens, there will be meaning. That's very helpful. That's very helpful. And so yes, pain and fear, these things have to be moved through but not obeyed. So one more thing to support this is the great poet Rilka. He said, let everything happen, beauty and terror, No one feeling is final. Keep going. And it's very human our struggle. It's very understandable that we can get stuck in pain, grief, sadness, confusion, but no one feeling is final. Keep going, yeah, keep going.

Yeah, so this opens up a whole, amazing and very important terrain. So thank you. Before I get to the title, let me speak to what you'd so beautifully open. And yes, this is you know, none of my books and none of my teaching are not prescriptive in any way. You know. I like to say that when I share our examples, not instructions. I'm just trying to figure it out like everybody else. And wisdom is a support, not a shortcut. You know, we can have this wonderful conversation. We'll get off, I will go to take the garbage out trip at the curb, forget everything we've talked about and have to relearn it all again. And what else would we do? So let's talk about you know, yes, while we're in it, it's very difficult to be grateful for the teaching of pain while you're in it, and that reality. We have to feel the reality of what we go through. And I would say that the functional definition of faith, not faith in a system or religion or a saint or a sage, but faith in life itself is that. Yeah, while I'm going through it, I'm going, no, this is terrible, anything to stop. But faith is that I will be grateful for what will be revealed later. And you know, so a couple of things to support that truth, that very deep and harsh truth. And you know one is and that'll lead me later I'll read a poem about that. But you know one is that black Club. Hobvel he was the first president of the Czech Republic when communism fell, and he was a poet and a playwright, so he was actually a poet president, a rare thing. And he had this wonderful definition of hope. He said, Hope is not the optimism that things will turn out well, but the belief that no matter what happens, there will be meaning. That's very helpful. That's very helpful. And so yes, pain and fear, these things have to be moved through but not obeyed. So one more thing to support this is the great poet Rilka. He said, let everything happen, beauty and terror, No one feeling is final. Keep going. And it's very human our struggle. It's very understandable that we can get stuck in pain, grief, sadness, confusion, but no one feeling is final. Keep going, yeah, keep going.

As you were saying that, I had a little bit of a thought, which is that it is that ability to see that there's a different future that could arrive. That is part of what we're talking about here. And my experience of pain is that it shuts down consciousness and it shrinks consciousness, meaning that I notice almost always with pain, and I've noticed this about my depression. It tells me this is the way things are, this is the way things are going to be. But there's this shrinking down and it's that ability to expand back out a little bit, to see like no feeling is final.

As you were saying that, I had a little bit of a thought, which is that it is that ability to see that there's a different future that could arrive. That is part of what we're talking about here. And my experience of pain is that it shuts down consciousness and it shrinks consciousness, meaning that I notice almost always with pain, and I've noticed this about my depression. It tells me this is the way things are, this is the way things are going to be. But there's this shrinking down and it's that ability to expand back out a little bit, to see like no feeling is final.

So this begs a story that an ancient Hindu story, that that's the whole wisdom in it is the insight you've just offered us. So let me tell that, and we wear way to the title Falling Down and getting Up. So this is an old Hindus teaching story, anonymous teaching story, just about that very thing about contraction and expansion. And this is a story about how we can meet fear and pain. So there's a master and an apprentice always and the truth is that the master finds this particular apprentice very annoying because all he does is complain about life, complain, play complain. So he says to the apprentice, get a handful of salt, put it in a glass of water, and bring it to me quietly. So he does. He says to the apprentice, will drink. He drinks from the glass where he spits it out. The Master says, what's the matter. He says, it's bitter. He says, bring me the same exact amount of salt and follow me quietly. So the apprentice cuts a handful of salt. He follows him quietly to a late The Master says, put it in the lake. He does, He says, drink. He kneels down, He scoops the water dribbles down his chin, and he says well. Then the apprentice says it's fresh, and the Master looks at him. He says, stop being a glass, become a And so that story tells us just that constriction you were talking about, that pain and fear, This is how they say hello. They make us tighten, they make us shrink. But just as we've talked about from the very beginning, about which wolf do you feed, we don't have to stay there. And so what's the difference between being able to glass and being a lake. Well, when we are faced with pain and fear, the practice question is what practice is? Experiences and relationships help you enlarge your sense of things when pain and fear make you small. And so we will always be initially small, because that's how pain and fear say hello. But it's our job, and that's why conversations like we're having and efforts to create our own personal practice so that the next time we're not surprised by pain and fear, we can say, Okay, what's in my toolbox? I call you up because you're my friend. Do I listen to that one piece of music that relaxes my art? Do I just put my hands in the earth and garden? Do I dance? What do I do that helps? Do I read that one poem or passage that always returns me to a deeper center? What are the things we can turn to than enlarge our sense of things? So let me share one other thing about this paradox of pain. Then to the title, and that is you probably know about the lettered Collen's wonderful song Hallelujah, And you know he talks in there about the broken Hallelujah. And I think This is profound that he's speaking to what we're exploring here, and that is and the way that I would understand this is to offer this image. If you're on a raft at sea and a big wave comes and smashes your raft and you're hanging on to the remnants in the water. That's real, that's different, that's even possibly tragic for you in that moment, and it doesn't diminish the majesty of the sea and the broken Hallelujah is how do we accept and work through the truth of our situation without diminishing the miraculous resources of the mystery of life, which is what's going to help us get through that moment. And this actually speaks all the way back. This is what the story of Job in the Old Testament is about. A lot of modern religious traditions kind of co opt his Hallelujah and say, oh, praise God, everything's cool. No, that's not that's not what he's saying. He's saying, Yeah, it does hurt, and life is still magnificent, and he's going to throw you a rope to get out of this. Both are true. Both are true, and that's at the heart of the falling down and getting up. So we're finally to the title. But ye, well, the title actually comes from medieval monks. When I asked how they practiced their faith, said by falling down and getting up. I understand that I relate to that, because you know, I don't believe in an arrived state of enlightenment. And I'm not saying that's not possible. Maybe Buddha or the Dalai Lama or somebody you know was capable of that, but that's not been my experience on earth. And that's why we need this practice of return. When we fall down, we get up. And when I learned about this, so there are other traditions speak about this. In Japanese, there's a proverb that says fall down seven, get up eight. And then it made me think of my cancer journey, you know, and what part of my cancer I had to remove from my back.

So this begs a story that an ancient Hindu story, that that's the whole wisdom in it is the insight you've just offered us. So let me tell that, and we wear way to the title Falling Down and getting Up. So this is an old Hindus teaching story, anonymous teaching story, just about that very thing about contraction and expansion. And this is a story about how we can meet fear and pain. So there's a master and an apprentice always and the truth is that the master finds this particular apprentice very annoying because all he does is complain about life, complain, play complain. So he says to the apprentice, get a handful of salt, put it in a glass of water, and bring it to me quietly. So he does. He says to the apprentice, will drink. He drinks from the glass where he spits it out. The Master says, what's the matter. He says, it's bitter. He says, bring me the same exact amount of salt and follow me quietly. So the apprentice cuts a handful of salt. He follows him quietly to a late The Master says, put it in the lake. He does, He says, drink. He kneels down, He scoops the water dribbles down his chin, and he says well. Then the apprentice says it's fresh, and the Master looks at him. He says, stop being a glass, become a And so that story tells us just that constriction you were talking about, that pain and fear, This is how they say hello. They make us tighten, they make us shrink. But just as we've talked about from the very beginning, about which wolf do you feed, we don't have to stay there. And so what's the difference between being able to glass and being a lake. Well, when we are faced with pain and fear, the practice question is what practice is? Experiences and relationships help you enlarge your sense of things when pain and fear make you small. And so we will always be initially small, because that's how pain and fear say hello. But it's our job, and that's why conversations like we're having and efforts to create our own personal practice so that the next time we're not surprised by pain and fear, we can say, Okay, what's in my toolbox? I call you up because you're my friend. Do I listen to that one piece of music that relaxes my art? Do I just put my hands in the earth and garden? Do I dance? What do I do that helps? Do I read that one poem or passage that always returns me to a deeper center? What are the things we can turn to than enlarge our sense of things? So let me share one other thing about this paradox of pain. Then to the title, and that is you probably know about the lettered Collen's wonderful song Hallelujah, And you know he talks in there about the broken Hallelujah. And I think This is profound that he's speaking to what we're exploring here, and that is and the way that I would understand this is to offer this image. If you're on a raft at sea and a big wave comes and smashes your raft and you're hanging on to the remnants in the water. That's real, that's different, that's even possibly tragic for you in that moment, and it doesn't diminish the majesty of the sea and the broken Hallelujah is how do we accept and work through the truth of our situation without diminishing the miraculous resources of the mystery of life, which is what's going to help us get through that moment. And this actually speaks all the way back. This is what the story of Job in the Old Testament is about. A lot of modern religious traditions kind of co opt his Hallelujah and say, oh, praise God, everything's cool. No, that's not that's not what he's saying. He's saying, Yeah, it does hurt, and life is still magnificent, and he's going to throw you a rope to get out of this. Both are true. Both are true, and that's at the heart of the falling down and getting up. So we're finally to the title. But ye, well, the title actually comes from medieval monks. When I asked how they practiced their faith, said by falling down and getting up. I understand that I relate to that, because you know, I don't believe in an arrived state of enlightenment. And I'm not saying that's not possible. Maybe Buddha or the Dalai Lama or somebody you know was capable of that, but that's not been my experience on earth. And that's why we need this practice of return. When we fall down, we get up. And when I learned about this, so there are other traditions speak about this. In Japanese, there's a proverb that says fall down seven, get up eight. And then it made me think of my cancer journey, you know, and what part of my cancer I had to remove from my back.

And I woke up feeling like I was thrown out of a plane, and this kind but gruff nurse was like hovering over me, like honestly, like within minutes when I woke up and she said, we're gonna walk, get up, and I was like, we're gonna walk.

And I woke up feeling like I was thrown out of a plane, and this kind but gruff nurse was like hovering over me, like honestly, like within minutes when I woke up and she said, we're gonna walk, get up, and I was like, we're gonna walk.

You know, like the bathroom might as well have been China. But then she tenderly said to me, two steps forward, one step back, two steps forward, which is that same falling down and getting up. And then I discovered when I was working on this book, in the Hindu Upanishads, which are the anonymous holy texts in Hindu literature and worldview, there's this wonderful image they use of a caterpillar. And now a caterpillar moves, It stretches out, and then it goes back a little bit, bunches up, and then it inches forward, and then it bunches up back, and then it inches forward. And they say, this is what spiritual growth is like, two steps forward, one step back, falling down and getting up. And so no one signs up for falling down, just like no one signs up for suffering. But if we back up enough, you know, it's like gravity. You can't escape gravity. You have to live with it, live through it. And so when we back up enough, falling down and getting up as a dance across our lifetime, and we have to learn what that dance is for each of us.

You know, like the bathroom might as well have been China. But then she tenderly said to me, two steps forward, one step back, two steps forward, which is that same falling down and getting up. And then I discovered when I was working on this book, in the Hindu Upanishads, which are the anonymous holy texts in Hindu literature and worldview, there's this wonderful image they use of a caterpillar. And now a caterpillar moves, It stretches out, and then it goes back a little bit, bunches up, and then it inches forward, and then it bunches up back, and then it inches forward. And they say, this is what spiritual growth is like, two steps forward, one step back, falling down and getting up. And so no one signs up for falling down, just like no one signs up for suffering. But if we back up enough, you know, it's like gravity. You can't escape gravity. You have to live with it, live through it. And so when we back up enough, falling down and getting up as a dance across our lifetime, and we have to learn what that dance is for each of us.

I wanted to talk about an idea that weaves its way through a lot of what you just said. And it's this idea of I don't know if I'll call it balance or both, and thinking or paradoxes. They're all similar ways of talking about the same thing, but throughout the book you are contrasting that our job is to not do either or I'm just going to read like four or five that I came across as I was going, right, we want to be grounded but not buried, lifted but not removed. We don't want to resist or collude with our pain. We don't want to drown in our grief, but we also don't want to run from it, you know, we want to see what's possible while accepting what is right. There's all of this sort of doing both, And as I was saying earlier about like when you're in pain, you know, there is a big part of you that just says, make it go away. But my experience has been that there's also it, and it may only be a teensy little bit of me and other moments, it's a bigger part of me that can look to the future, that can understand that all the most difficult times in my life have led to greater wisdom and a more open heart and that doing that, you know, finding that balance. And my experience is when I and a lot of pain, that my balance is not to drown in the pain. It's not to lose sight of the fact that better things can come. But I think this is always our challenge, is trying to sort of thread that needle between those two different things. And I just as I was reading your book, I just kept seeing it kind of again, yeah again.

I wanted to talk about an idea that weaves its way through a lot of what you just said. And it's this idea of I don't know if I'll call it balance or both, and thinking or paradoxes. They're all similar ways of talking about the same thing, but throughout the book you are contrasting that our job is to not do either or I'm just going to read like four or five that I came across as I was going, right, we want to be grounded but not buried, lifted but not removed. We don't want to resist or collude with our pain. We don't want to drown in our grief, but we also don't want to run from it, you know, we want to see what's possible while accepting what is right. There's all of this sort of doing both, And as I was saying earlier about like when you're in pain, you know, there is a big part of you that just says, make it go away. But my experience has been that there's also it, and it may only be a teensy little bit of me and other moments, it's a bigger part of me that can look to the future, that can understand that all the most difficult times in my life have led to greater wisdom and a more open heart and that doing that, you know, finding that balance. And my experience is when I and a lot of pain, that my balance is not to drown in the pain. It's not to lose sight of the fact that better things can come. But I think this is always our challenge, is trying to sort of thread that needle between those two different things. And I just as I was reading your book, I just kept seeing it kind of again, yeah again.

Yeah, that's absolutely that. That has been one of the great lessons in the book for me. And you know, these books are for me at this but there I listen and take notes, and the book is the trail of that inquiry, and what surfaces if I'm true becomes my teacher that I keep learning with. And this is definitely one of the central lessons here which invites practice all the time. Practice. And it's not the sense of, oh, avoid the extremes, to stay in the middle. Now, No, we're human, we will bouce, we will become a glass, and then we have to become a lake. We will, you know, fall too far to one side. That's the course correction of the compass, you know. And the practice is living and the work of self awareness is recognizing when we're a little too far this way and a little too far that way, without judgment, but with discernment, so we can get back in that corridor of aliveness. This, I think is the ongoing practice of being awake and alive with an open heart. And there's probably more choice points than what you know I've discovered, and one you know, one relational one that's always there. You know, we all work hard to open our heart so that we can speak in authentic relationship with life and each other. And then when we get there, nobody knows how to do this. This is the art of being sensitive. And all we can do with all of these choice points is compare notes, compare notes. And so one of the perennial kind of choice points is so you and I are friends and you're going through a hard time, and I'm there for you, and because my heart's open, I can easily become your pain. And then I go, that's the one extreme, and I lose myself in your pain, okay, And then I go, WHOA, I didn't know what it was going to be like that. Well, I don't I need to sign up for this. And now we go to the other extreme, and now we build a wall and we say no, I'm not going there, and neither extreme. These are just like working for what we want as an apprenticeship for what we're given. Falling into either extreme is an apprenticeship for what I would say is mature compassion. How do I learn, and I'm learning this, I don't know how to do it. How do I learn to have porest boundaries to be who I am and to stay in it with you without losing who I am and without creating a wall, without cutting it all. And this is the work and the art of being sensitive. This is what we sorely need in our time.

Yeah, that's absolutely that. That has been one of the great lessons in the book for me. And you know, these books are for me at this but there I listen and take notes, and the book is the trail of that inquiry, and what surfaces if I'm true becomes my teacher that I keep learning with. And this is definitely one of the central lessons here which invites practice all the time. Practice. And it's not the sense of, oh, avoid the extremes, to stay in the middle. Now, No, we're human, we will bouce, we will become a glass, and then we have to become a lake. We will, you know, fall too far to one side. That's the course correction of the compass, you know. And the practice is living and the work of self awareness is recognizing when we're a little too far this way and a little too far that way, without judgment, but with discernment, so we can get back in that corridor of aliveness. This, I think is the ongoing practice of being awake and alive with an open heart. And there's probably more choice points than what you know I've discovered, and one you know, one relational one that's always there. You know, we all work hard to open our heart so that we can speak in authentic relationship with life and each other. And then when we get there, nobody knows how to do this. This is the art of being sensitive. And all we can do with all of these choice points is compare notes, compare notes. And so one of the perennial kind of choice points is so you and I are friends and you're going through a hard time, and I'm there for you, and because my heart's open, I can easily become your pain. And then I go, that's the one extreme, and I lose myself in your pain, okay, And then I go, WHOA, I didn't know what it was going to be like that. Well, I don't I need to sign up for this. And now we go to the other extreme, and now we build a wall and we say no, I'm not going there, and neither extreme. These are just like working for what we want as an apprenticeship for what we're given. Falling into either extreme is an apprenticeship for what I would say is mature compassion. How do I learn, and I'm learning this, I don't know how to do it. How do I learn to have porest boundaries to be who I am and to stay in it with you without losing who I am and without creating a wall, without cutting it all. And this is the work and the art of being sensitive. This is what we sorely need in our time.

I love that phrase porous boundaries because it does speak to yeah, that boundaries do need to be set, but it can't become a wall. And as you were talking, I was also thinking about the fluid nature of boundaries. As we've sort of talked about the fact that we're going to move from here to there, from here to there in all these things, our boundaries need to be able to move also, right, if they get fixed in place, then we're unable to make that shift from being grounded but not buried, or pick any of those examples I gave. Right, there's flexibility that we always need. And I often think when we talk about boundaries in the psychological world, we often don't talk about that fact that a boundary needs to be probably reconsidered sem I frequently to see does it still serve me?

I love that phrase porous boundaries because it does speak to yeah, that boundaries do need to be set, but it can't become a wall. And as you were talking, I was also thinking about the fluid nature of boundaries. As we've sort of talked about the fact that we're going to move from here to there, from here to there in all these things, our boundaries need to be able to move also, right, if they get fixed in place, then we're unable to make that shift from being grounded but not buried, or pick any of those examples I gave. Right, there's flexibility that we always need. And I often think when we talk about boundaries in the psychological world, we often don't talk about that fact that a boundary needs to be probably reconsidered sem I frequently to see does it still serve me?

And so there's a couple of things about that that's so true and so important, which is again, it shows us that while we'd like to arrive at something that can be instructive, that we can turn and say, okay, it's this, No, it needs to be reassessed and reinhabited every day, every day. And this speaks to the real work of intimacy. You know my wife, Susan, she's a potter. We've been together twenty nine years, and you know I know her so well that I could finish her sentences. You know I don't, not for the obvious reasons, but because after all this time, we both need to stay in waking up every day and going who are you today? You're a constantly evolving being and while I know you so well, do you still believe in what you believe in? Has it changed? What matters to you now? And that's the question or the invitation that allows the boundaries to be remade every day, and in nature, there's a great example of this, and this is birds. We all know that birds sing at the first sign of light. Well, that's individually, and that's a great metaphor for in order to be who you are in the world, you have to sing at your first contact with light every day. But what I learned later, which is so powerful and what we're talking about, is the birds as a community, they remap their territories every day based on hearing each other sing at the first side of light. So if you don't voice your individuality, your soul, if you don't show up every day, well then it's like you're not there and the rest of the birds go, oh, I guess that space is up prograbs. So based on hearing you be you and you're hearing me be me, then you know, the birds remap their territories and their community every single day. The map stays current. That's a great metaphor for what we're talking about and how voicing the truth of our experience allows each of us to show up and now every day we go, oh, this is the terrain of our relationship.

And so there's a couple of things about that that's so true and so important, which is again, it shows us that while we'd like to arrive at something that can be instructive, that we can turn and say, okay, it's this, No, it needs to be reassessed and reinhabited every day, every day. And this speaks to the real work of intimacy. You know my wife, Susan, she's a potter. We've been together twenty nine years, and you know I know her so well that I could finish her sentences. You know I don't, not for the obvious reasons, but because after all this time, we both need to stay in waking up every day and going who are you today? You're a constantly evolving being and while I know you so well, do you still believe in what you believe in? Has it changed? What matters to you now? And that's the question or the invitation that allows the boundaries to be remade every day, and in nature, there's a great example of this, and this is birds. We all know that birds sing at the first sign of light. Well, that's individually, and that's a great metaphor for in order to be who you are in the world, you have to sing at your first contact with light every day. But what I learned later, which is so powerful and what we're talking about, is the birds as a community, they remap their territories every day based on hearing each other sing at the first side of light. So if you don't voice your individuality, your soul, if you don't show up every day, well then it's like you're not there and the rest of the birds go, oh, I guess that space is up prograbs. So based on hearing you be you and you're hearing me be me, then you know, the birds remap their territories and their community every single day. The map stays current. That's a great metaphor for what we're talking about and how voicing the truth of our experience allows each of us to show up and now every day we go, oh, this is the terrain of our relationship.

Yeah, that makes me think of something I'm working on a project to reinterpret the Dowday Ching and create a bunch of tutorials and questions, sort of a guided journey through it.

Yeah, that makes me think of something I'm working on a project to reinterpret the Dowday Ching and create a bunch of tutorials and questions, sort of a guided journey through it.

Oh, it's wonderful.

Oh, it's wonderful.

I have an enormous number of translations of the Dowdy Ching in the other room. I joke that I may may be like the fifth largest collection of Dowdy Ching translations in the US at this point. But one of them I'm reading and it's called a philosophical interpretation, and they talk about something that I really love, And they talk about how every moment is a combination of the possibility for novelty with a significant continuation of what came before.

I have an enormous number of translations of the Dowdy Ching in the other room. I joke that I may may be like the fifth largest collection of Dowdy Ching translations in the US at this point. But one of them I'm reading and it's called a philosophical interpretation, and they talk about something that I really love, And they talk about how every moment is a combination of the possibility for novelty with a significant continuation of what came before.

Right.

Right.

You sometimes hear people be like, every moment is brand new, and I'm like, well, not exactly. I mean, it's not exactly brand new, because a lot of what came before carries into the moment. But on the other hand, to say that, like, this moment is only a feature of what came before, it is reductive. Well yeah, And I love the way they thought of that, how it's really that every moment has both those things in it. And I think that speaks to what you're talking about with your wife. There is a significant portion of view and her relationship. That tells you you know what she thinks, you know what she believes. There's support and intimacy in that, and there's an opportunity for freshness, and you have to turn your eye to that.

You sometimes hear people be like, every moment is brand new, and I'm like, well, not exactly. I mean, it's not exactly brand new, because a lot of what came before carries into the moment. But on the other hand, to say that, like, this moment is only a feature of what came before, it is reductive. Well yeah, And I love the way they thought of that, how it's really that every moment has both those things in it. And I think that speaks to what you're talking about with your wife. There is a significant portion of view and her relationship. That tells you you know what she thinks, you know what she believes. There's support and intimacy in that, and there's an opportunity for freshness, and you have to turn your eye to that.

Yeah. Absolutely, And I've come to believe that there isn't anything new, but what's new is how each individual soul. It's our turn to encounter it. I don't resonate so much when, oh, this is a new consciousness, this is a new No. You know, we tend to have this myth that because we're modern, we're at the top of the mountain, and I kind of think history is horizontal. We're all the same six inches from heaven in the gutter, you know, we just have more tools and toys, but that prehistoric people were just as deep and just as troubled and in wonder as we are. So I've come to believe more in incarnation rather than progress. Yeah, so focus on one of those choice points you lifted up about being grounded but not ground down. And so you know the wheel of life that never stops, and throughout history we have whole philosophies that freeze the wheel at a certain place. You know, if you're free on the top, we have idealism and everything's wonderful, and let's transcend out here and don't worry about the rest of it. And if you freeze it on the bottom, now you've got niolism. It all sucks and what are you talking about? It's terrible. And you know, one of the teachers in the last ten to fifteen years in my life has been the paradox that all things are true. All things are not fair or just, but all things are true. And the heart is asked to stay open enough to absorb that paradox until it becomes our teacher. And so this has led me to this notion that every life has the lift of the miracle of life, and every life has the gravity and possibility of tragedy in any given moment, and all of that is true. And we are challenged. If all we do is stay with being ground and we will be ground down.

Yeah. Absolutely, And I've come to believe that there isn't anything new, but what's new is how each individual soul. It's our turn to encounter it. I don't resonate so much when, oh, this is a new consciousness, this is a new No. You know, we tend to have this myth that because we're modern, we're at the top of the mountain, and I kind of think history is horizontal. We're all the same six inches from heaven in the gutter, you know, we just have more tools and toys, but that prehistoric people were just as deep and just as troubled and in wonder as we are. So I've come to believe more in incarnation rather than progress. Yeah, so focus on one of those choice points you lifted up about being grounded but not ground down. And so you know the wheel of life that never stops, and throughout history we have whole philosophies that freeze the wheel at a certain place. You know, if you're free on the top, we have idealism and everything's wonderful, and let's transcend out here and don't worry about the rest of it. And if you freeze it on the bottom, now you've got niolism. It all sucks and what are you talking about? It's terrible. And you know, one of the teachers in the last ten to fifteen years in my life has been the paradox that all things are true. All things are not fair or just, but all things are true. And the heart is asked to stay open enough to absorb that paradox until it becomes our teacher. And so this has led me to this notion that every life has the lift of the miracle of life, and every life has the gravity and possibility of tragedy in any given moment, and all of that is true. And we are challenged. If all we do is stay with being ground and we will be ground down.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But if all we do is turn away from the difficulty and the pain, then we're going to float. We will barely be tethered to life. And the challenge for each of us is how to let those two things walk in our heart so that we're grounded but not ground down and that we're lifted, but that we don't float away. And so this raises what I would say, which helped me understand that the real purpose of art, in any art form, is to marry what is with what can be. And then again, if all you do is see what is, then you're going to be lost, any one of us will be lost in the endless pain of being here. But if all you do is say, with what can be, you float away in endless possibility. That's not really relevant. And so you know, like the power of metaphor, the power of writing is twofold. One is just what we're saying to show what is possible and to bring what's invisible into view, and the other is to bear witness to what is. You know. Pablo Naruna, the great Chilean poet in the nineteen thirties, he was in Spain during the Civil War. There he saw a lot of horrible things, and he has a line in all of his he was one of the great makers of metaphor. Is a line one of his poems there where he says, the blood of children on the sidewalk is like the blood of children on a sidewalk. And with those two lines he's saying, Yeah, use metaphor to show things that can't be seen. But when you see what is, say what is? If you use metaphor, there you're distancing. No, the blood of children on a side walk is like just what it is, man, the blood of children on a sidewalk. Don't look away, don't look away. And the so there again where this mix of how do we not turn from life and not run from life?

But if all we do is turn away from the difficulty and the pain, then we're going to float. We will barely be tethered to life. And the challenge for each of us is how to let those two things walk in our heart so that we're grounded but not ground down and that we're lifted, but that we don't float away. And so this raises what I would say, which helped me understand that the real purpose of art, in any art form, is to marry what is with what can be. And then again, if all you do is see what is, then you're going to be lost, any one of us will be lost in the endless pain of being here. But if all you do is say, with what can be, you float away in endless possibility. That's not really relevant. And so you know, like the power of metaphor, the power of writing is twofold. One is just what we're saying to show what is possible and to bring what's invisible into view, and the other is to bear witness to what is. You know. Pablo Naruna, the great Chilean poet in the nineteen thirties, he was in Spain during the Civil War. There he saw a lot of horrible things, and he has a line in all of his he was one of the great makers of metaphor. Is a line one of his poems there where he says, the blood of children on the sidewalk is like the blood of children on a sidewalk. And with those two lines he's saying, Yeah, use metaphor to show things that can't be seen. But when you see what is, say what is? If you use metaphor, there you're distancing. No, the blood of children on a side walk is like just what it is, man, the blood of children on a sidewalk. Don't look away, don't look away. And the so there again where this mix of how do we not turn from life and not run from life?

Yeah, that line you know what is with what can be is a way of saying what I was pointing to in that philosophical interpretation of the dow Right. Yes, you know there is what is, and there is the possibility of something different, and those things coexist within each moment. And the Rudas story there is is heartbreaking. And because you're right, any metaphor there would be a diluting of a carrying you away from.

Yeah, that line you know what is with what can be is a way of saying what I was pointing to in that philosophical interpretation of the dow Right. Yes, you know there is what is, and there is the possibility of something different, and those things coexist within each moment. And the Rudas story there is is heartbreaking. And because you're right, any metaphor there would be a diluting of a carrying you away from.

Where I was a young man, and I was going to New York City and doing open mic readings, you know where all young poets they'll take five minutes or whatever. And I was in the village at the bar cafe where it was going to take place, and poets were winding up in it, and a guy came came in, running in saying, oh my god, I just saw a mugging, and I stopped and wrote a poem about it, and somewhat across the bar yelled out, yeah, sure beats stopping the mugging. And even then, like, what is the proper role of art? Is to help us be here now? As Robin Dass said, be here now, not to distance us from life, but to bring us closer to life. There's a wonderful story that very powerful about Nietzsche, the philosopher Nietzsche about this. So Nietzsche, as you know, I mean, I, like all of us. In college, I read a lot of Nietzsche, and I didn't resonate a lot with a lot of it, with all of his Superman and bending of the will and all this stuff. Well, later on in life, you know, I ran across a quote of his that was totally different from all of that. And it was this quote, which I think is an anthem of our day today. Actually, he said I want to see what is necessary as beautiful, so I can be one of those who makes things beautiful. I was very moved by that much, but then I thought, like, man, that's different for him, and then I realized, you know what, I don't really know anything about his life, and there's always a story behind the story. So I started looking, and sure enough it turned out that Nietzsche lived to be fifty five, and around the age of forty four he had this transformative experience, and everything he wrote afterwards was different. And this saying about that I just quoted came from after this. So this is the incident that happened. He was in an apartment off a piazza in tour in Italy, on the second floor, and one morning he heard somebody whipping a horse out in the piazza. So he leaned his head out the window and he said, hey, stop whipping that horse, what's the matter with you. Then, of course the guy said, hey, it's my horse. Who are you? I'll do what I want, you know, And it cracked Nietzsche and he ran down into the piazza, arguing with this guy who kept whipping the horse, And finally Nietzsche stepped between the whip and the whip and he threw his arms around the neck of the horn. And he was never the same. Now in the world of philosophy, all those people who invested in his early work, they literally write and say forget the guy had a breakdown, forget about it, disregard everything that came after. But the mystic Maya Baba, who was a contemporary hindiumistic, he wrote, no, no, no, no, no, forget everything that came before. That was his moment of transformation into a deeper understanding of the union deal life and that we are here in it. I feel like for all his brilliance of mind, which was not a wrong turn but an apprenticeship, for that moment when he threw his arms around the horse, that was the poem of his life. Wow.

Where I was a young man, and I was going to New York City and doing open mic readings, you know where all young poets they'll take five minutes or whatever. And I was in the village at the bar cafe where it was going to take place, and poets were winding up in it, and a guy came came in, running in saying, oh my god, I just saw a mugging, and I stopped and wrote a poem about it, and somewhat across the bar yelled out, yeah, sure beats stopping the mugging. And even then, like, what is the proper role of art? Is to help us be here now? As Robin Dass said, be here now, not to distance us from life, but to bring us closer to life. There's a wonderful story that very powerful about Nietzsche, the philosopher Nietzsche about this. So Nietzsche, as you know, I mean, I, like all of us. In college, I read a lot of Nietzsche, and I didn't resonate a lot with a lot of it, with all of his Superman and bending of the will and all this stuff. Well, later on in life, you know, I ran across a quote of his that was totally different from all of that. And it was this quote, which I think is an anthem of our day today. Actually, he said I want to see what is necessary as beautiful, so I can be one of those who makes things beautiful. I was very moved by that much, but then I thought, like, man, that's different for him, and then I realized, you know what, I don't really know anything about his life, and there's always a story behind the story. So I started looking, and sure enough it turned out that Nietzsche lived to be fifty five, and around the age of forty four he had this transformative experience, and everything he wrote afterwards was different. And this saying about that I just quoted came from after this. So this is the incident that happened. He was in an apartment off a piazza in tour in Italy, on the second floor, and one morning he heard somebody whipping a horse out in the piazza. So he leaned his head out the window and he said, hey, stop whipping that horse, what's the matter with you. Then, of course the guy said, hey, it's my horse. Who are you? I'll do what I want, you know, And it cracked Nietzsche and he ran down into the piazza, arguing with this guy who kept whipping the horse, And finally Nietzsche stepped between the whip and the whip and he threw his arms around the neck of the horn. And he was never the same. Now in the world of philosophy, all those people who invested in his early work, they literally write and say forget the guy had a breakdown, forget about it, disregard everything that came after. But the mystic Maya Baba, who was a contemporary hindiumistic, he wrote, no, no, no, no, no, forget everything that came before. That was his moment of transformation into a deeper understanding of the union deal life and that we are here in it. I feel like for all his brilliance of mind, which was not a wrong turn but an apprenticeship, for that moment when he threw his arms around the horse, that was the poem of his life. Wow.

Wow, Yeah, that's a really powerful story. That is a really powerful story, and it speaks to that we can be broken open by compassion.

Wow, Yeah, that's a really powerful story. That is a really powerful story, and it speaks to that we can be broken open by compassion.

Absolutely and that while we have to face everything we go through, we are more than what has done to us.

Absolutely and that while we have to face everything we go through, we are more than what has done to us.

Does meditating feel like a chore, another to do list, item to check off, or perhaps it's even fallen off the list entirely? If you sense that meditating regularly would benefit you, but you struggle to find a sustainable place for it in your schedule, I can help. There are reasons people struggle with creating and maintaining a meditation practice. And it isn't because meditation isn't right for them. In my free guide the top five reasons you can't seem to stick with a meditation practice and how to build one that lasts, I teach you why it can be a struggle to build a meditation practice that lasts, and the small fixes that can have a big impact when it comes to getting you where you want to be with meditating regularly. Go to oneufeed dot net and sign up for this free guide right on our homepage. So let's change a slightly different direction here. So we've talked about this idea of striking the balance or holding both extremes or paradoxes that we just talked about grounded but not buried. Another is this idea of waiting. It shows up again and again in the book. Also you say our challenge is to wait with courage until the aspects of life beyond our understanding come into view. The answer to perceive chaos is not to impose some form of order, but to wait long enough for the inherent order to show itself. One more time, I could pull up a few more, but in this falling down and getting back up, it appears that waiting in patience is a pretty key.

Does meditating feel like a chore, another to do list, item to check off, or perhaps it's even fallen off the list entirely? If you sense that meditating regularly would benefit you, but you struggle to find a sustainable place for it in your schedule, I can help. There are reasons people struggle with creating and maintaining a meditation practice. And it isn't because meditation isn't right for them. In my free guide the top five reasons you can't seem to stick with a meditation practice and how to build one that lasts, I teach you why it can be a struggle to build a meditation practice that lasts, and the small fixes that can have a big impact when it comes to getting you where you want to be with meditating regularly. Go to oneufeed dot net and sign up for this free guide right on our homepage. So let's change a slightly different direction here. So we've talked about this idea of striking the balance or holding both extremes or paradoxes that we just talked about grounded but not buried. Another is this idea of waiting. It shows up again and again in the book. Also you say our challenge is to wait with courage until the aspects of life beyond our understanding come into view. The answer to perceive chaos is not to impose some form of order, but to wait long enough for the inherent order to show itself. One more time, I could pull up a few more, but in this falling down and getting back up, it appears that waiting in patience is a pretty key.

Element, absolutely, and I think it's one of the things. You know, that there's a paradox here that we're a human being, and the human in us is terribly impatient, and the being in us is infinitely patient. And our challenge is to listen more to our being in that regard than our humanness, because you know, the world is so rapid, and with technology is amazingly more rapid, right, and yet things that matter still take time, and so we have to work extra hard to counter the speed of our age, to counter the speed of our age. And so you know, I mean, I remember before email, this is a journal in London, a Sufi journal that published my work for thirty years. And in the beginning, of course, you know, I was sending envelopes. Mailing it over across the Atlantic would take three weeks. Then it would take another few weeks to hear back from the editor. And then email came along. What's this thing? Email? And I hit a button and twenty minutes later I'm hearing from the editor in London. And now if I text you and you don't answer me in thirty seconds, I'm offended. And so you counter that with the fact that okay, with twenty four to seven news cycle, and that we're seeing things instantly, which has its merits, but also it doesn't give us time for reflection before we react. So you counter this with the fact that when Lincoln gave his second inaugural speech, and which had the phrase the better angels of our nature, which has become so prevalent and wonderfully so, he hand wrote that after he delivered it, it was hand copied by scribes in Washington, and the way it was shared it was sent out to the rest of the country by Pony expressed. It took three weeks after he read that for it to arrive in Sacramento, California. So even if you are upset with it and you didn't agree with it, built in time to reflect before you react, and we don't have that, you know, John Milton wonderfully said in Enlicitus, you know those who wait allso so serve. Those who wait also serve. And there is this for us to understand and to absorb and to integrate and to embody takes time. And so a great image or metaphor for this is before we had our cell phones and we could take twenty pictures in ten seconds and they'd all come out looking fantastic. Well, you know that early photographers Ansel Adams carried ten by twelve metal plates. Each one was a film, and then he would wait to get whatever if he could catch it. But then he'd go back down the mountain and he'd put that plate in chemicals in a dark room, and then you had to wait for the image to immerg Well, that's a great metaphor for the heart and the mind, and insights from our experience take time to emerge, and because of the speed of our age, we often impatiently. We leave the dark room of our mind and heart say well, I get there's nothing there. I guess I'm not. I gotta go, And then just as we close the door, the insight emerges as we've left. So it does beg us to have the courage to wait for order, for harmony, for things to start to make sense. That sense develops over time. There is revelation instantaneous, but things often take time to emerge and to make sense.