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Welcome to Destiny. Now here's your
host, Cliff Dunning. All right,

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so quick take on meditation. Meditation
is becoming the most widely used and accepted

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complementary practice. It's not new,
it's thousands of years old, but we

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have good research. Neuroimaging does show
changes in the brain when we meditate.

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Research shows that are telemres those little
caps, those little legs on the DNA,

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and actually get healthier when we meditate, when we do longer term meditation.

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So there's a lot of benefits that
are measurable, which I think is

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helping make it acceptable to the medical
profession. But it's also transformative. I

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meditate almost every day and I'm a
better person for it. Years ago,

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I had a friend who was a
horrible person. He was hard to be

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around. After his midday meditation,
he was a much nicer person. So

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meditation is powerful. That's a neurobiologist
from the say Brook Institute here in California

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who studies people who have been meditating
for short, medium, and long periods

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of time and suggests different types of
meditations to consider. Hey, how you

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doing this is Cliff. We're talking
about tools for transformation. One of the

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themes that we concentrate on with Desk
to Need the podcast. And today we

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have a expert who teaches form of
meditation in the Buddhist tradition, very very

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ancient, very easy to learn,
and he has written a new book called

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How to Train a Happy Mind,
A Skeptics Path to Enlightenment, And I'll

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tell you it's a real easy book
to read and to work with. We'll

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talk a little bit later when we
get him on the program exactly how to

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go about thinking about meditation if you
want to try it. And he has

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an audible book where he actually takes
people through guided meditations, and that's really

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the way to go because if you
have not done any form of meditation,

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when you have somebody guiding you,
leading you along, it really makes it

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a lot easier. Now, why
bother with meditation? Why even consider it

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with our fast paid society. Well, meditation goes back thousands and thousands of

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years. It's very likely that the
earlier epoch was working with it to stabilize

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this frustrations. The challenges of the
day. Also to link and be in

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harmony with nature, with the universe, with body, mind and spirit,

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which is one of the big access
points when you meditate. And remember I've

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been meditating for about thirty years,
and I remember my teacher was and this

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is years ago. He was talking
about the importance of quieting the mind,

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kind of leaving entity of our fast
paced society, the stresses and the strains,

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the conditioning, closing the eyes.
And in my form of meditation,

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which is transcendental Meditation Team, it
was brought over from India by Maharishi Mahyogi,

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who actually downstepped the long process,
which can be up to an hour

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or more, into twenty minute segments, so you can do it in the

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morning when you wake up, and
you do it in the evening, right

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after dinner or before dinner to prepare
and have a more harmonious evening. Some

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people even do it just before they
go to bed. So we meditate to

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link the left and right hemisphere because
remember your brain, although it's one mass,

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it's divided into left and right.
And when you when you synchronize the

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two hemispheres, you have better cognition, you have better processing data information,

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what people are saying to you,
whatever, and you're more creative. But

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that's a tip of the ice.
They're now finding that when you have a

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brain that is harmonized. It also
links to better physical physiological changes, physiological

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wellness, and you're just you're just
better off physically, mentally, and of

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course spiritually so and when I say
spiritually, it's not it's not a casual

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like oh yeah, it's spiritual like
religion. No. Remember, in the

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metaphysics of spirituality, we can be
connected to our muse. If you're a

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creative person that's tapping into the Akashik
records, tapping into these other dimensional areas

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where there's information. Uh, if
you're a scientist, you're you're tapping in

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You're you're feeling better, you're more
positive, even in the face of adversity.

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And that can be you know,
stress of the job, stress of

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relationships, stress of just doing things. It can be stressful, you know,

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getting prepared to go somewhere on vacation
to visit somebody, that can be

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stressed inducing. So when you have
this harmonized brain. And I believe the

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ancestors knew about this, I believe
they. I think they've found some passages

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in some of the dynastic hieroglyphs that
describe meditative states. We do know that

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there is some basic descriptions in the
Sumerian cuneiforms on the techniques of meditation and

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the benefits. But and tell modern
science to tell our science began studying people

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who do meditate on a regular basis, It was all hearsay. We do

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now know and we've had people on
Destiny talking about it that scientifically we know

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that the brain is much more balanced
when it is in harmony with the two

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hemispheres. We know that again,
wellness is easier to maintain. Also,

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very of great interest is the fact
that you're not as sick as often.

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You don't get colds, you don't
get flus. So there's something that's we

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don't quite know. Because the brain
is very, very complex, we only

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know a percentage of what is going
on. But when you have a harmonized

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brain, it actually helps the body
and it helps the mind and the spirit

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obviously, so it's a body minded
spirit harmonization that is that is going on.

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So today we're going to learn about
probably one of the oldest forms of

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meditation, which is Tibetan Buddhist techniques. And my guest today is Scott snib

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and the program is how to Train
a Happy Mind A skeptics Path to Enlightenment

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the Earth Ancient's Grand Egyptian Tour.
I thought it was fantastic. I think

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it was one of the best traveling
experience I've ever had, not just from

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being in Egypt and get into see
all these sites and they Certainly going on

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a tour made it easy, you
know, because I didn't have to plan

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anything. It was all taken care
of for me. But even more so,

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I think traveling with a group of
people, having that opportunity to make

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a bunch of new friends, I
think I think that was pretty pretty special

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part of it as well. That
was a recent guest to our Earth Ancients

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Grand Egyptian Tour last year. This
year, our tour is April twenty eighth

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through May ninth, twenty twenty four. We all meet in Cairo. This

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is a fabulous tour, twelve days
of intimate interactions with some of the most

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iconic sites in Egypt, including pyramids, temples, museums, and course,

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the last day of the tour,
we have a private visit to the Cufu

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Pyramid and we actually go inside without
the general public. Hi, this is

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Cliff and we are at a halfway
point. We're almost full. This is

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your chance to join a private tour
at half the normal price charge for similar

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types of itinerary. For more information, go to Earthancients dot com forward slash

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tours, see the entire itinerary and
get your registration in. We're just about

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at our limit. If you have
any questions whatsoever, go to Earth Ancients

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for you the number four the letter
you at gmail dot com and I'll get

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right back to you. The Earth
Ancients Grand Egyptian Tour hosted by Mohammad Imbrahem

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and Yours truly April twenty eighth through
May ninth, twenty twenty four. For

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more information, Earth Ancients dot com
forward slash to I'm always looking for people

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who are talking about meditation and the
roots of their practice. As most of

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you know, I believe, as
a meditator for over thirty years, I

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believe that meditation, if you can
understand it, if you can include it

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in your life, is a huge
benefit, not only physiologically, which is

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the function of your body. There's
reports and and evidence scientifically that it helps

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body, mind, and spirit,
but also simply because I feel amazing after

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I meditate, and I've gotten to
the point now if I may, if

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I miss a meditative session. It
really affects me. So my guest today

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is Scott snib who is a Buddhist
who has just released a new book,

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or I should say he's going to
be releasing a new book called How to

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Train a Happy Mind, a skeptics
Path to Enlightenment. And Scott's a Buddhist

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and he has been a longtime Buddhist. He's also a new media artist.

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He's an entrepreneur, and he's here
in northern California, which I find fascinating

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and it's so rare that I talk
to people who are in my area.

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So we're going to talk about this
book, and I'm going to ask Scott

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a lot of fundamental questions because I
want you to hear how his life life

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unfolds as a Buddhist, but also
this new book which is coming out soon,

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which is all about meditating in a
specific style with specific techniques. So

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Scott, welcome to Destiny. Great
to have you, Thanks, Cliff,

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I'm really happy to be here.
I have to mention and I want you

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to talk a little bit about getting
the Dalai Lama his holiness to write the

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forward of your book, because I
as a past producer, we had the

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Dali Lama like twenty five years ago. He came to the Bay Area to

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do the new At that time,
it was the Whole Life Expo in San

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Francisco, and the challenge of even
contacting him then was huge because he's just

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very much in demand. So how
did you do it? Got so?

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I? First of all, I
was shocked to an amazed when it came

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through. But this entire project in
the book is inspired by his holiness,

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the Di Lama. You know,
I'm a Tibetan Buddhist practitioner and the Dialama

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is one of my teachers, obviously
the main teacher in my lineage, and

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he wrote a book called Beyond Religion
in particular, also one called Ethics for

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a New Millennium. Both of them
talked about the urgency and importance of adapting

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these ancient Tibetan Buddhist practices, meditative
practices to make people, allow people to

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have happy minds, live meaningful lives, and even build a better world.

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You know, there's a very big
impact of these meditations. So I began

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this program a long time ago.
But you know, as we finished the

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book, it was actually my brother
who suggested reaching out to the dial Lama.

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My brother's also Tibetan Buddhist, which
is a very long story how we

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both became Buddhists. But yeah,
I got the instructions from some people.

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Even if you have inside connections,
you have to go through a formal channel.

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Soeh, the editor sends the book
and we waited and waited and didn't

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hear anything back, didn't respond.
The book was about to go to press.

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It was going to come out last
year actually, and then all of

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a sudden we got an email two
days before it the book was supposed to

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go to press that said, oh, we think this book is very beneficial.

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His Holiness would like to write the
forward and we have a few corrections

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for you. Oh my god,
that is so amazing. So you must

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have been shocked. Yeah, I
was very happy because I'm a bit of

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an outlier in my life. I'm
usually I've had some wonderful success, but

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i always feel like it never quite
reached, you know, the highest echelong,

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because I'm a little too weird and
I've a little bit of an outlier.

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So to get his Holiness, you
know, his translator is a person

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who read it very closely and gave
me feedback and then you know, the

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letter was prepared that his holiness ended
up, you know, changing a little

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and signing. But yes, it
was really overwhelming. I asked my wife,

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like, how did this happen?
And she said, Guru devotion,

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you know, our in our tradition, there's a very powerful part of the

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path that's I don't talk about in
the book because it's not relevant to a

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non Buddhist. Is your devotion to
your teacher and your wish to you know,

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critically look at anything that seems odd
that they say, but everything,

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everything that resonates with you to really
follow it as authentically as you can.

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So that was our explanation, is
that I was a good student. I'm

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not sure how great of a student
I was, but it came together and

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we made the corrections too, which
is good. So I feel like now

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a Buddhist can also Tibetan Buddhist,
even a scholar can read this book and

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see that even though it doesn't acknowledge, it doesn't it doesn't require people to

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take on some of the beliefs that
you know, these things that can't be

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proven through science about Buddhism, like
karma, rebirth, other realms but still

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practice as authentically as possible and be
authentic to the tradition. Do you think

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that His Holiness recognized you from a
past life? And I kind of joke

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a little bit, but I'm kind
of serious too, because this is something

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that very little, very few people
talk about, is which incarnation are you

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dealing with? Over the multiple can
incarnations. You know, we deal with

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karma. You come into a physical
body and you're dealing with specific karma from

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previous lives and what you're generating and
so forth and so on. Would you

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say that as he was looking at
your material you felt, oh, he

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liked me, he liked what I
had to write, or what did he

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Do you think he recognized something?
Obviously I can't speak to the mind of

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His Holiness the Dialamma, but many
many people see him as a Buddha,

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as a highly realized being. Recently
he said he's not. Though he said

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he reached a certain stage of the
past. It's very technical in Tibetan Buddhism,

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all the different stages, and he
said he reached the stage where he

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has unconditional content, newest love and
compassion for all beings. But he said

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he hasn't reached the stage of like
full enlightenment or even complete mastery of concentration.

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So I don't know about the dialama's
mind. From a traditional Buddhist worldview,

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they would say, all of us
have Everyone has known everybody like you,

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Cliff, have been my wife,
my child, you know, my

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enemy, my friend, like all
of us. So from the Tibetan Buddhist

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worldview, everybody has known everybody through
limitless time. It's actually something one of

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my teachers said, once you know
about attachment to relationships and you know,

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sex and things like that, He's
like, you've already had sex with everyone

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in the world already. But yeah, I don't you know, this book

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isn't really about it's for people who
don't believe in reincarnation and so on.

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So I don't really know. I
don't remember any past lives, and his

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Holiness hasn't mentioned anything about our prior
lives together. No, I you know,

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it's funny because you said that he
his trans later is the one who

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you were communicating with, and so
it's funny if you had like a note

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that said something like the Dalai Lama
really liked what you had to say,

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and it's in line with this year's
theme or something like that, you know

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what I mean. So, yeah, well you'll see if you read the

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forward. I mean, what the
forward in a book is is someone recommending

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that you're reading exactly the book is
worthwhile. So what his Holiness says in

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the forward is that Tibetan culture isn't
just about religion. It also has a

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scientific aspect to it, and it
has these mental tools that can be applied

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without belief, analytical meditation, what's
called analytical meditation. And so that's what

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his Holiness writes in the forward,
is that this book makes a contribution towards

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sharing these aspects of Tibetan culture for
people who don't share the worldview that Tibetan's

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developed over the years. Real quickly, how long have you been a Buddhist?

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Twenty five years. I've been practicing
Tibetan Buddhism and that's a long time.

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Would you say that you were inspired
to look into it. Was it

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a sudden lifestyle change that you wanted
to make or talk a little bit about

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your Uh So what happened was my
brother became a Buddhist. My brother married

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a Chinese woman and they went to
China and Tibet for their honeymoon. And

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when he was in Tibet he got
very sick. He had some bad yak

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butter tea. Some people might say, all yak butter tea is bad if

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you aren't used to it. It's
kind of like ocean water with milk,

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you know. But he came back, he became a Buddhist. And my

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brother was a skate punk, like
a punk rocker, skate punk. He's

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a photojournalist. And I was really
worried when he became a Buddhist that he

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was going to lose his personality.
But what I saw over years was that

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he didn't. It actually just it
kind of brought out a color, like

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a warmth and a color and a
kindness, and he still had his punk

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rock and his skateboarding and you know, all his personality I learned later.

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You know, the Dialama once said
people, you don't lose your personality when

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you become enlightened. It's possible to
become a have a huge personality and no

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ego, which the dial Lama demonstrates. So the way I became Buddhists was

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after four years I saw that my
brother. I invited my brother to come

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and see his holiness in Los Angeles
because I couldn't get into Buddhism. He

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sent me all kinds of books,
and I found it very complicated and difficult

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to understand. To be honest,
and it is complicated and diff which is

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part of why I wanted to write
this book to share some aspects of it

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in a simpler way. But I
wasn't planning to become a Buddhist. I

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actually just thought, it's a nice
week for my brother and I to hang

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out in Los Angeles. We can
have fun and I can sit through anything.

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But the instant I saw his only
Sa Dali Lama, I said,

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I want what he's having because I
knew what he went through in life.

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They went through a genocide, you
know, in Tibet. His people are

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a million out of six killed through
the Chinese invasion, and yet is so

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compassionate. He'd say, like,
we don't want to kill even one Chinese

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person that will create one hundred enemies. And so when I compared that to

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some of the other responses to violence
and oppression in the world, I was

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just so moved and also just moved
by his presence, like his sincere the

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energy you know, honestly that came
out of him of like pure love,

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pure kindness, pure compassionate and so
much intelligence, wisdom, insights. So

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I said, I want what he's
having. I don't care how long it

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takes. I don't get these things
about reincarnation, other lives, other realms,

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but I want exactly what he's studied
to get like that. I want

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to study that myself and get as
far as I can in this life.

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So when you adopted Buddhism twenty five
years ago, you wanted to learn more

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about it. You wanted to learn
the philosophy. Obviously, When did you

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begin integrating meditative technique? Because that's
when for me, I've been meditating over

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thirty years. It was life changing
for me simply because I could calm the

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mind. I came out of meditation
and saw things much much differently, And

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not only was I more calm,
less aggressive, you know what I'm talking

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about. So I'm curious because you've
written this interesting book about your meditative history,

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and also you teach meditation correct,
so talk a little bit about that.

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So I started meditating immediately. And
there's a saying in Tibetan Buddhism they

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say that you can study Buddhism your
whole life, you can become like an

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academic master. But if you don't
meditate, is very little benefit. So

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it's very very strong guidance. And
so my teacher I started with Tibetan teacher

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Geshe Nawang Dakpa in San Francisco,
and he is very compassionate kind. He

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said, start with like five minutes
a day, you know, and he

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gave me very simple like it kind
of outline analytical meditation though which we'll talk

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about, you know a little bit
further meditations where you cultivate certain constructive thoughts,

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you know, not just breathing meditation, which is important to stabilize your

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mind, but this other form of
meditation that I focus on in the book,

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which is analytical meditation, where you
deliberately cultivate certain thoughts, feelings,

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emotions. It also look critically at
your mind and other ideas. And so

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I started with five minutes, and
really there were some quick benefits after like

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three six months, especially the things
people talk about with meditation, Like I

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used to have a kind of anxiety, you know, like why do I

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feel a just for no reason feeling
anxiety? You used to feel a bit

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I think judgmental about people when I'd
see them like immediately see personally, like,

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oh, what's their problem? You
know. So some of those surface

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things happened immediately, just a greater
sense of openness to people, less anxiety,

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and then much deeper things happen later. But it's very slow, like

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in our tradition. They say it's
good to make very slow progress. I

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meditated like five minutes today for I
think a couple of years. Then my

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teacher said go up to fifteen minutes, and it's not the time. They

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actually say quit while you're ahead with
meditation, because you don't want to hate

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meditation or develop some aversion to it. So it's way better to stop while

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it still feels great doing your meditation
and develop, you know, a good

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habit you keep for your whole life. I want to get into more specifics

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that you list in your book,
but talk a little bit about the previous

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epoch. We have another podcast most
of my listeners follow, which is Earth

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Ancients, and we have been focusing
on some of the latest research in the

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discovery that the pre obvious civilizations,
and we're talking prior to the dynastic Egyptians

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and the Sumerians and people like that. Perhaps even the ancient Mahaya seemed to

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be a different kind of Homo sapien
sapient and they we don't know if they

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meditated, but there's a lot of
belief that they had a level of consciousness

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that was much more calm, much
more collective, very sophisticated. And we're

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The question I'm asking is, do
as meditators, do we look for that

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earlier consciousness, that higher level of
being that we suppose the previous civilization had,

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or does it matter? Wow,
there's a lot to say there,

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and it's really I know you can
break it up. I just want to

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do that. Let me say,
there's a wonderful book called Humankind, a

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Hopeful History by Rutger Braman's and in
that I learned a lot about like pre

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agricultural civilizations. And I wouldn't say
like an ancient civilization has something we don't

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have. It's just like something we
have repressed in our current society. Like

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there's a lot of evidence that pre
agricultural civilizations, you know, hunting gather

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civilizations, were likely yes, more
at peace, more in harmony with nature,

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just like indigenous cultures today you know, still are and that they didn't

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allow some of the problems we see
in our current society where people get people

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with very negative psychological traits like you
know, sociopathy, narcissism and so on.

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That wouldn't allow people like that to
rise to power. They would There's

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there's some good stories about it,
Like at first they would just talk to

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the person because there wasn't a strong
hierarchy. You just kind of you have

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kind of shifting hierarchies based on you
know, the needs of the hunter gallery

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group. But if someone did start
to act like that kind of mean,

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power hungry leader, they talk to
the If that didn't work after a while,

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they go kill them in the middle
of the night. So yeah,

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and there is this actually comes from
you know, anthropological scientific studies. So

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but I do think like the sense
of separateness is the problem. Like this,

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this is the fundamental delusion from like
a Buddhist perspective, is a sense

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of separateness that I'm separate from you, that a leader separate from the people

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that they follow them, or that
he's responded he or she is responsible for,

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and that were separate from nature,
which is the total nightmare. You

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know that we're in with climate change
the sense that so it's that sense of

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separateness. It does seem quite likely
that pre agriculture there was much and again

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still an indigenous cultures. Today there's
much more of a sense of interconnectedness and

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that lack of a boundary, which
is in Buddhism, the fundamental delusion you

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call it, you know, selfishness, separateness. I use the term in

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the book selfness. Sometimes just that
illusion that you're you're separate from other peop

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people is awfully harmful to ourselves,
our happiness, and to society. In

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your learning the Buddhist technique, and
we'll get into your book in a minute.

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Here, is there any books that
talk about the origins of meditative technique?

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And I asked that because for me
and I am was taught by a

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teacher of Maharishi mesh Yogi, which
is the translittle meditation technique, and it

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served me well. But is there
writings Buddhist writings that say, perhaps the

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Buddha so Dartha was the one who
originated this technique for humankind or does it

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gold for him? And he adopted
it because of how it transforms biology and

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the troubles that a physical being deals
with as being a physical being and allows

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him to have more harmony in his
life or her life. Yeah, so

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it's quite you know, humans have
humans have been around for I don't know,

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two hundred thousand years something like that, so it's quite likely like before

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the history that we have recorded,
that other people discovered and mastered meditation.

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So let's and we can talk about
that more if you want to. In

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terms of recorded history, like you're
talking about at the time of the Buddha,

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the Buddha was building on an Indian
tradition of meditation like what today I

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guess we call like the Veda Vedic
tradition, and it was very it was

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very very advanced, like and this
is from a Buddhist perspective. Other other

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like the Indian perspective might be different, but from the Buddhist perspective, it

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went very very far. And the
Buddha, you know, gave up his

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life, like he left his family, he realized he went out for a

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walk and finally saw like sickness,
aging and death and he's like, oh

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my goodness, I didn't know about
these things. And then see he quit

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the householder life, and he went
and studied with the advanced meditators of his

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time, which came from the Indian
ancient Indian tradition. So they actually were

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very very advanced already in his meditation
techniques, and we even can name them

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in Tibetan booze like what the techniques
are. But they did have a couple

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of shortcomings that he realized and eventually
abandoned. One of them was asceticism.

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You know that he was with a
group of meditators yogis, and they were

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eating. He was eating like one
grain of rice a day. You know,

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it was very he was getting very
emaciated and sick, and all of

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a sudden he had this realization,
you know, he had actually a woman

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came by with some milk and he's
like, wait a minute, this is

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a really bad idea. I need
to take care of my body in order

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to attain enlightenment, in order to
advance. And so he left that group

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and they were really thought he was
misguided. And so so that's one way

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that you know, Buddhist Buddhism has
a number of other innovations in meditation,

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but that was one of the most
straightforward ones. Was was that that abandoning

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asceticism and realizing you need like what
they call a middle way, that it's

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like a way between extremes. But
it's likely that there were others, I

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can you know, I know some
of the things you're interested in. So

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there are some things like they don't
say this was not the first Buddha,

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Like there's there were supposed to be
other Buddhas from others in the way that

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Buddhism talks about, you know,
the evolution of the universe and societies.

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There's one thing I heard about recently
that you know, you and your listeners

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may be interested in, is that
in the Bond tradition in Tibet, there's

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another tradition related to Buddhism called Bond, which is more the like indigenous religion,

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and they talk about a Buddha that
existed sixteen thousand years ago and that

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that is like the founder of their
lineage. Now, in terms of the

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geological record, there were things that
happened on Earth about twelve thousand years ago

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that basically just erased any possible yeah, that erased any possible evidence of other

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of human activities. So I was
fascinated though because I heard this from a

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teacher I really respect, and a
course that I was taken and made me

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think, Oh, because I've heard
some of these things like that you talk

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about on your podcast, I haven't
seen, you know, the like really

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strong scientific evidence. But it is
absolutely possible that there were other kind of

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Greek level civilizations, certainly groups of
yogis and meditators for you know, a

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couple hundred thousand years. Discovering the
same you have to assume like people's intelligence.

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In fact, the Neanderthals were more
intelligent than humans, yes, in

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general, but they say that they
had they didn't have that social aspect,

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that they lacked the ability to communicate
socially as well as Homo sapiens, and

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that was our advantage. So talk
a little bit about the technique of meditation

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and the goals and in a minute
here I want to get your impression of

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self realization, which is the ultimate
goal at least for the Hindu type of

386
00:33:16.279 --> 00:33:22.880
meditation that I do. But what
is the purpose of a meditative technique?

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And without getting into too much detail, because we're going to get into that

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with your book the Benefits. Yeah, this is a very good question.

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It's one of the reasons I wrote
the book because most people think meditation is

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to relax, to distress, to
deal with anxiety, like that, meditation

391
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is a kind of therapy that it's
used a therapy used to treat problems,

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and that does work. But that's
kind of a very early side effect of

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meditation. So in the Buddhist tradition, the purpose of meditation is to bring

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out your best qualities. That's what
it is. It's to bring out your

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kindness, your love, your generosity, your contentment, and your understanding of

396
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the interdependence with all other beings and
you know, the world in the universe

397
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around you. So it's big and
you could call it character like bringing out

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bringing out great character traits. That's
why I wanted to write this book is

399
00:34:24.239 --> 00:34:29.119
to share that very clearly, that
that's the It's kind of like there's some

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yoga classes where they don't do like
chanting or meditation. It's just like exercise,

401
00:34:34.599 --> 00:34:36.719
and I start out with yoga like
that. It's similar to that,

402
00:34:36.840 --> 00:34:39.159
like and there's nothing wrong with that, But my book is kind of for

403
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that step for somebody who has tried
meditation and it worked to help them therapeutically,

404
00:34:44.639 --> 00:34:46.719
like to sleep better, to be
a little less stressed, less reactive,

405
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and then realize, oh, there's
an ancient tradition to this, isn't

406
00:34:52.239 --> 00:34:54.559
there? What is that all about? What is You can use the word

407
00:34:54.599 --> 00:34:59.000
spiritual, you know, which is
a little scary for people. I use

408
00:34:59.039 --> 00:35:05.000
spiritual to just the immaterial things in
life, like love and kindness and maybe

409
00:35:05.039 --> 00:35:19.559
even math. So when we meditate, let's get into some metaphysics. I

410
00:35:19.719 --> 00:35:28.639
believe that we are opening ourselves and
connecting with source. And depending on what

411
00:35:28.679 --> 00:35:35.960
your teachings are of a meditator,
sometimes it's opening to the wisdom of ourselves,

412
00:35:36.079 --> 00:35:39.400
to the wisdom, the universal wisdom, all kinds of different languages,

413
00:35:39.400 --> 00:35:45.360
depending on what part of the world
you're from. But you said it succinctly.

414
00:35:45.559 --> 00:35:50.800
But when you said that, you
know, opening to our better selves.

415
00:35:51.280 --> 00:35:55.400
So if we're having problems, but
this is prior to meditating, if

416
00:35:55.400 --> 00:36:05.760
we've had depression, if we've had
a problem madic lifestyle, describe what eventually

417
00:36:07.039 --> 00:36:13.840
happens as a person continues to meditate. Yeah, so, I mean that's

418
00:36:13.920 --> 00:36:19.119
and I'm glad you bring up problematic
lifestyle because there's the perspective of meditation is

419
00:36:19.119 --> 00:36:24.239
that everybody wants to be happy.
Nobody wants to suffer. Sianti Davo,

420
00:36:24.320 --> 00:36:29.440
one of my heroes, you know, he said, if suffering came about

421
00:36:29.480 --> 00:36:34.920
by choice, then nobody would suffer. So so we're just mistaken. We're

422
00:36:35.320 --> 00:36:39.760
totally confused about the causes of happiness
and the cause of suffering, and basically

423
00:36:40.840 --> 00:36:46.119
almost all of us we were pursuing
things that aren't actually the cause of happening,

424
00:36:46.239 --> 00:36:52.079
like material accumulation is a good example, reputation, personal gain, things

425
00:36:52.119 --> 00:36:54.760
like that. You get some of
them in life and then you see,

426
00:36:54.800 --> 00:36:58.840
oh, you know I actually didn't
didn't make me happy, or you know,

427
00:36:58.880 --> 00:37:06.559
being competitive. So it's these type
of things that meditation helps you with.

428
00:37:06.719 --> 00:37:08.880
There's something extraordinary, you know.
I use the word enlightenment in the

429
00:37:09.719 --> 00:37:14.239
in the book in the subtitle A
Skeptics Path to Enlightenment. What's enlightenment?

430
00:37:14.360 --> 00:37:20.000
Right? So this sounds really crazy, but enlightenment is like the baseline,

431
00:37:20.039 --> 00:37:23.159
like what you called universal consciousness.
You can call that enlightenment. There's a

432
00:37:23.719 --> 00:37:30.480
word called dharmakaya in Tibetan Buddhism.
But it sounds crazy, but that's like

433
00:37:30.519 --> 00:37:36.320
the baseline, like that is said
to be our fundamental nature is fundamentally kind,

434
00:37:36.480 --> 00:37:42.800
loving, generous, open, compassionate, and free from unhealthy ways of

435
00:37:42.840 --> 00:37:49.159
living anger, craving, jealousy,
pride, selfishness, self centeredness. And

436
00:37:49.239 --> 00:37:52.320
so it's very, very beautiful because
a lot of people think Buddhism is quite

437
00:37:52.360 --> 00:37:58.000
negative because we're always thinking about suffering
death, things like that, but actually

438
00:37:58.400 --> 00:38:02.519
it's so extraordinarily optimistic because it says, at the root of every single person's

439
00:38:02.559 --> 00:38:09.719
mind is absolute perfection, just a
absolute kindness, love, generosity, patience,

440
00:38:10.119 --> 00:38:15.960
contentment, and it's a total misunderstanding
at a shallow upper level of our

441
00:38:16.000 --> 00:38:21.000
consciousness that's just keeping us from that. So a lot of meditation just about

442
00:38:21.320 --> 00:38:24.039
getting letting those things go, finding
ways to let go of those things and

443
00:38:24.159 --> 00:38:30.800
just let those natural good qualities of
ourselves emerge. They call it Buddha nature

444
00:38:30.960 --> 00:38:35.199
in Buddhism, where you could say
fundamental goodness, and it's it's quite a

445
00:38:35.239 --> 00:38:37.639
different concept also than other religions.
You know, Yeah, I like that

446
00:38:38.519 --> 00:38:46.199
description, just kind of allowing the
pure self to unfold. When a non

447
00:38:46.280 --> 00:38:54.000
meditator, here's the technique and the
whole theme of meditation. What's the difference

448
00:38:54.039 --> 00:39:04.199
between a meditator and someone who uses
prayer as a form of perhaps not self

449
00:39:04.239 --> 00:39:08.679
realization, but relief from the human
condition. I mean it would just me.

450
00:39:09.159 --> 00:39:12.400
You know, I was actually raised, you know, in a Christian

451
00:39:12.440 --> 00:39:15.840
tradition, I form a Jewish background. I was raised Christian, Jewish ethnically

452
00:39:16.239 --> 00:39:20.880
raised Christian and then became Buddhists.
I think it would depend what a person

453
00:39:21.000 --> 00:39:23.199
meant by prayer. I certainly know
a lot of Christians and I was,

454
00:39:23.760 --> 00:39:27.880
you know, a Christian. So
certain types of prayer I think are the

455
00:39:27.880 --> 00:39:31.400
same as meditation, like but it's
different, you know in a Christian perspective,

456
00:39:31.519 --> 00:39:37.719
Like the thing we talk about like
a fundamental goodness would be your connection

457
00:39:37.800 --> 00:39:40.239
to God, you know, when
you believe in a creator or a higher

458
00:39:40.239 --> 00:39:50.760
power than I think that people who
feel that sincere respect and also like I

459
00:39:50.800 --> 00:39:55.079
don't know what sort of supplication or
giving yourself entirely to like God's will,

460
00:39:57.280 --> 00:40:02.119
if you're a Christian or Jewish,
I think that if you really, if

461
00:40:02.159 --> 00:40:06.679
you do that in your prayer,
I think it's it's a similar experience for

462
00:40:06.760 --> 00:40:08.920
sure, but it's different. You
know, there's there's I do think you

463
00:40:08.960 --> 00:40:13.679
can have the same experience. The
problem is that meditation got shoved out of

464
00:40:13.760 --> 00:40:16.880
Christianity in certain there were certain like
meetings, big meetings they had in the

465
00:40:16.920 --> 00:40:22.679
history of Christianity, and they eliminated, like the mystical aspect of Christianity was

466
00:40:22.719 --> 00:40:28.840
eliminated from like say the Catholic strain
of Christianity, although it still exists in

467
00:40:28.880 --> 00:40:34.199
like the Eastern Orthodox strain. So
Christians who want to meditate often go back

468
00:40:34.599 --> 00:40:37.960
go to the Buddhist tradition to add
that, because Buddhism is just very generous.

469
00:40:37.960 --> 00:40:39.000
It's just like try this, you
know, you don't you don't need

470
00:40:39.039 --> 00:40:43.840
to become Buddhist. When the dialogua
talks, he always says he's even says,

471
00:40:43.840 --> 00:40:45.960
don't become a Buddhist, which was
totally amazing to me. It made

472
00:40:46.000 --> 00:40:50.559
me want to become a Buddhist.
So, but he's talked. There's a

473
00:40:50.679 --> 00:40:53.800
there's a book he called I Think
a Good Heart where the dialogic gave a

474
00:40:53.840 --> 00:41:00.760
talk. They was invited to a
Franciscan Uh what a friar order, what

475
00:41:00.760 --> 00:41:04.880
do they call it? And he
was supposed to talk about God, you

476
00:41:04.920 --> 00:41:07.880
know, your relationship to God,
and he did. He gave an amazing

477
00:41:07.960 --> 00:41:10.800
talk about God. And afterwards all
of the monks came and said, wow,

478
00:41:10.840 --> 00:41:15.320
You've greatly increased our faith in God
after your talk. So if you

479
00:41:15.360 --> 00:41:19.760
see the parallels, if you can
see the parallels in language, even between

480
00:41:19.800 --> 00:41:24.679
Buddhism, which does not believe in
an omnipotent God like that, and Christianity

481
00:41:24.719 --> 00:41:29.880
that does, if you use the
right language and communicate well, both can

482
00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:35.880
enhance each other's faith without you know, poaching. Yeah, exactly. So

483
00:41:36.119 --> 00:41:42.920
would you say that a Buddhist life
style is a religious lifestyle, I don't

484
00:41:42.960 --> 00:41:45.400
think that can be. They're not
the same, I don't think. But

485
00:41:45.440 --> 00:41:49.920
I'm curious about you. Yeah,
there's different ways. There's different ways that

486
00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:53.000
people talk about it. The Buddhist
himself didn't call his religion Buddhism, like

487
00:41:53.000 --> 00:41:57.800
that would have been kind of egotistic. So he called it the dharma,

488
00:41:58.159 --> 00:42:02.159
which is like the truth. It's
like the truth about reality. So it's

489
00:42:02.239 --> 00:42:08.920
quite it's quite radical, and also
it doesn't really force you to follow any

490
00:42:08.960 --> 00:42:13.280
any anyone's instructions. The Buddha even
said, don't even listen to what I

491
00:42:13.320 --> 00:42:16.760
say. He said, test it. Test everything I said, like gold,

492
00:42:16.760 --> 00:42:20.400
like you test a piece of gold
before you accept it from somebody.

493
00:42:20.679 --> 00:42:22.719
And if it doesn't seem to work
for you then you know, set it

494
00:42:22.760 --> 00:42:31.280
aside. So I think that is
it a religion. There's there's different ways

495
00:42:31.280 --> 00:42:37.400
of talking about that, because there
there are aspects of Buddhism that seem for

496
00:42:37.559 --> 00:42:40.719
a Westerner to move into the area
of belief, like believing in karma that

497
00:42:40.800 --> 00:42:45.119
everything you do is going to cause
something else to happen later to you,

498
00:42:45.800 --> 00:42:49.000
or other realms like in Buddhism they
believe in hells and into met Buddism,

499
00:42:49.000 --> 00:42:52.480
at least we believe in hells and
upper realms like god realms and things like

500
00:42:52.519 --> 00:42:58.840
that, and pasting future lives.
So there's not scientific evidence for those things

501
00:42:58.920 --> 00:43:01.559
right now, like from a West
turned scientific views. So I think when

502
00:43:01.599 --> 00:43:06.039
you practice without those things, it's
it's more like it's not a religion.

503
00:43:06.079 --> 00:43:10.480
It's like a it's like a philosophy
and a set of psychological tools. It's

504
00:43:10.519 --> 00:43:15.440
an in Some people say Buddhism is
like an invitation. You know, it

505
00:43:15.519 --> 00:43:20.400
offers you these tools. Try them
for yourself and see if it works.

506
00:43:22.039 --> 00:43:28.719
Take a short commercial break to allow
our sponsors to identify themselves, and we

507
00:43:28.760 --> 00:43:35.039
will be back shortly with my guest
today, Scott snib discussing his latest book

508
00:43:35.320 --> 00:44:25.960
How to Train a Happy Mind.
We'll be right back. My guest today

509
00:44:27.039 --> 00:44:30.719
is Scott snib He has written a
new book called How to Train a Happy

510
00:44:30.760 --> 00:44:37.239
Mind, A skeptics Path to Enlightenment. This is some very basic Buddhist techniques

511
00:44:37.280 --> 00:44:44.719
of meditation that start at five minutes
can extend beyond one hour, depending on

512
00:44:44.840 --> 00:44:50.639
what you want to focus on.
I love the title, how to Train

513
00:44:50.719 --> 00:44:53.800
a Happy Mind. It's simple.
You have a really simple but very cool

514
00:44:53.840 --> 00:44:59.239
looking cover, which I liked.
I don't know if you had anything to

515
00:44:59.239 --> 00:45:02.719
do with your came I have one. Okay, So you know, my

516
00:45:02.880 --> 00:45:09.000
main job in life has generally been
to be an artist. So the book

517
00:45:09.039 --> 00:45:15.000
company was very kind in allowing me
to provide input on the cover, and

518
00:45:15.320 --> 00:45:17.679
the designer is amazing. I hope
they applied for some book cover awards because

519
00:45:17.679 --> 00:45:22.199
it's a really good cover. But
the first designs that came through were more

520
00:45:22.239 --> 00:45:24.079
traditional kind of brushstrokes, people,
yeah, you know, things like that.

521
00:45:24.199 --> 00:45:27.840
I said, no, we want
a book that feels like enlightenment.

522
00:45:27.920 --> 00:45:31.320
I said, make a cover that
feels like what you would feel like if

523
00:45:31.360 --> 00:45:37.840
the meditation worked. And then the
designer was so happy and she came up

524
00:45:37.880 --> 00:45:40.079
with many great ideas and this was
like the one. But you can see

525
00:45:40.079 --> 00:45:45.239
there's certain sum symbolism, like oh
maybe that's like the skeptic and that's enlightenment.

526
00:45:45.400 --> 00:45:53.559
I don't know. Yeah, I
like it because the book is helping

527
00:45:53.599 --> 00:46:04.719
people understand Buddhism but also breaking down
it's very, very complex. The whole

528
00:46:04.800 --> 00:46:12.039
Buddhist tradition is deep and goes on
and on and on. And you I

529
00:46:12.079 --> 00:46:15.559
want you to talk a little bit
about why you wrote this book. Number

530
00:46:15.599 --> 00:46:22.280
one and number two get into and
we're going to talk about the fundamentals of

531
00:46:22.559 --> 00:46:29.000
the book here in a second,
but why you felt the need to break

532
00:46:29.039 --> 00:46:31.800
it down to its essence, which
I really like and that's really the beauty

533
00:46:31.800 --> 00:46:35.800
of the work. Yeah, well, it's similar to reasons you said.

534
00:46:36.440 --> 00:46:38.840
I've been studying this for a long
you know, I don't know, like

535
00:46:38.880 --> 00:46:42.480
tens of thousands of hours, you
know, and a lot of retreat and

536
00:46:42.519 --> 00:46:46.760
which is not that much compared to
my master's actually, but I got so

537
00:46:46.840 --> 00:46:51.639
much benefit out of it. And
also my friends saw that I got a

538
00:46:51.679 --> 00:46:53.000
lot of benefit out of it,
and they kept asking me, you know,

539
00:46:53.039 --> 00:46:55.159
how do I get started with Buddhism? But you know, I'm never

540
00:46:55.199 --> 00:47:00.119
going to believe anything like karma,
and I never had a good book to

541
00:47:00.159 --> 00:47:04.039
point them to. And then a
bigger reason was that I was invited to

542
00:47:04.199 --> 00:47:09.320
teach meditation starting about eighteen years ago, and they asked me to teach the

543
00:47:09.400 --> 00:47:13.400
sequence that the book is based on
is called the lamb Rim, which means

544
00:47:13.480 --> 00:47:17.920
the stages of the Path. It's
a thousand year old condensation of the Buddhast

545
00:47:17.960 --> 00:47:23.840
teachings into a specific order that is
particularly effective and powerful. And so I

546
00:47:23.880 --> 00:47:29.079
was invited to teach these analytical meditations
at my Buddhist center, se chen Ling.

547
00:47:29.679 --> 00:47:34.880
But I got really felt really uncomfortable
because we'd advertise the classes as open

548
00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:37.559
to anybody. You don't have to
be a Buddhist, everyone welcome. And

549
00:47:37.599 --> 00:47:40.760
then in the first topic of the
lom Rim, which is how precious life

550
00:47:40.800 --> 00:47:45.239
is, in the first sentence of
the meditation, you know, it would

551
00:47:45.280 --> 00:47:50.519
say life is so precious because you
had infinite past lives. Finally you're born

552
00:47:50.599 --> 00:47:55.119
human and you have great karma,
but it could be exhausted. So you

553
00:47:55.239 --> 00:48:00.599
really want to use this life as
much as possible to attain enlightenment, because

554
00:48:00.679 --> 00:48:02.840
otherwise you might come back as a
turtle or a ghost or something, so

555
00:48:04.239 --> 00:48:07.400
like, these are the things.
And by the way, I actually personally

556
00:48:07.440 --> 00:48:09.840
believe a lot of those things.
It took me a long time, but

557
00:48:09.920 --> 00:48:14.679
I don't think that's the right way
to teach it for a newcomer, especially

558
00:48:14.760 --> 00:48:16.559
a non Buddhist. And so then
I, you know, based on His

559
00:48:16.639 --> 00:48:20.440
Holiness's books and talking to my teachers, they said, yes, you know,

560
00:48:20.480 --> 00:48:24.079
it's beneficial to try to adapt these
meditations so that it doesn't require belief.

561
00:48:24.119 --> 00:48:25.960
And now, you know, like
at my Buddhist center, both of

562
00:48:27.039 --> 00:48:30.320
us, you know, they specifically
invite us try to find a way to

563
00:48:30.360 --> 00:48:35.440
be as authentic as possible to these
teachings without requiring people to believe things that

564
00:48:35.480 --> 00:48:39.519
aren't part of their culture that science
hasn't established to be true yet. That's

565
00:48:39.559 --> 00:48:44.000
the motivation. And you know,
it was a long journey, and I

566
00:48:44.039 --> 00:48:45.360
tried to be very careful, you
know, because they don't want to like

567
00:48:45.440 --> 00:48:51.400
pollute or distort such authentic teachings.
But now that I've had so many different

568
00:48:51.440 --> 00:48:54.039
people read it and go over this
and you know, great advice, and

569
00:48:54.079 --> 00:48:58.920
also His Holiness and other of my
teachers like Lama Yeshi, who is a

570
00:48:58.960 --> 00:49:04.800
great founded organization I'm I've studied Buddhism
most. He also said, you know,

571
00:49:04.880 --> 00:49:08.280
put this, put this teachings into
scientific language that everyone can understand and

572
00:49:08.360 --> 00:49:14.239
practice. That's the motivation. Okay, wonderful. You mentioned a long rim.

573
00:49:14.400 --> 00:49:15.800
You you talk about it in the
beginning of the book, and of

574
00:49:15.840 --> 00:49:22.320
course the book has uh uses that
fundamental as a guidance. I guess,

575
00:49:22.039 --> 00:49:30.679
uh you give us a highlight of
the lomrim. How is it integrated into

576
00:49:30.679 --> 00:49:35.639
your teachings? Is it Is it
like the foundation for the teachings in the

577
00:49:35.639 --> 00:49:38.960
book? Yeah, oh yeah,
absolutely. Each Each of the chapters is

578
00:49:38.960 --> 00:49:43.760
basically one of the lom room.
We'reund long room stages. So like at

579
00:49:43.760 --> 00:49:45.840
first you learn about the mind,
like if you're going to make your mind

580
00:49:45.880 --> 00:49:49.920
happier, you need to know what
your mind is. And that's we don't

581
00:49:49.960 --> 00:49:52.239
know. We can go there if
you want. That's that is a deep

582
00:49:52.400 --> 00:49:54.920
topic on its own, but that
the mind is fundamentally good is one of

583
00:49:54.920 --> 00:50:00.679
the best key points. Then how
precious life is To do that without thinking

584
00:50:00.679 --> 00:50:05.719
about karma and turtles and all these
things. Life's precious because I woke up

585
00:50:05.760 --> 00:50:09.159
and I'm still alive, you know, Like that's that's one of the most

586
00:50:09.159 --> 00:50:13.880
basic analytical meditations in Buddhism. A
lot of people you wake up, You're

587
00:50:13.880 --> 00:50:15.039
like, oh God, I don't
want to get out of bed? What's

588
00:50:15.119 --> 00:50:20.159
this? Let me get my phone? Where are the stocks? What's what?

589
00:50:20.199 --> 00:50:23.559
Does my boss want? Who liked
my post? This is the way

590
00:50:23.559 --> 00:50:25.760
a lot of people wake up.
I know, I definitely know, and

591
00:50:25.840 --> 00:50:30.519
every once in a while I do
that too. So this is the first

592
00:50:30.639 --> 00:50:31.760
lesson, is like, what to
think when you first wake up in the

593
00:50:31.800 --> 00:50:35.440
morning that will make your life,
your day good, and your life meaningful?

594
00:50:35.559 --> 00:50:39.199
Is Wow, I'm still alive.
Like a lot of people died.

595
00:50:39.519 --> 00:50:43.800
You and I both know lots of
people in our lives that died at every

596
00:50:43.840 --> 00:50:45.800
stage, as teenagers, as twenty
year olds, as thirty year olds,

597
00:50:45.800 --> 00:50:51.119
forty, et cetera. So to
remind yourself that's a healthy way to think

598
00:50:51.119 --> 00:50:53.440
about death. It's like, I'm
still alive. What do I want to

599
00:50:53.440 --> 00:50:55.800
do with this day? Am I
gonna? You know? Binge? Watch

600
00:50:57.199 --> 00:51:01.679
eight episodes of you know this show? Am I gonna make meaningful? Go

601
00:51:01.760 --> 00:51:06.280
listen to somebody who really needs to
be heard? Do you know? Make

602
00:51:07.199 --> 00:51:10.360
It makes you think meaningfully about your
life. We also think about but another

603
00:51:10.360 --> 00:51:13.559
way of thinking about it. That's
a little bit more of a kind of

604
00:51:13.559 --> 00:51:17.360
innovation in this book because Buddhists do
believe in this vast cosmic scale of infinite

605
00:51:17.400 --> 00:51:21.679
passing future life. So I thought, how do you reproduce that? And

606
00:51:21.719 --> 00:51:24.480
that I do through science actually the
awe of science. Some of the things

607
00:51:24.519 --> 00:51:30.000
you talk about, you know with
your work in like there's been four billion

608
00:51:30.039 --> 00:51:35.679
years of life on Earth and two
hundred thousand years of humans. Like what

609
00:51:35.840 --> 00:51:42.800
if we are really the only life
capable of understanding itself? Like Carl Sagan

610
00:51:42.840 --> 00:51:45.559
says, we are the way for
the cosmos to know itself, you know,

611
00:51:45.719 --> 00:51:50.239
like what if we are kind of
like the universe's mind that we are

612
00:51:50.280 --> 00:51:53.880
the most highly evolved civilization and one
of the most What responsibility do you have

613
00:51:53.920 --> 00:51:59.599
waking up in the morning as this
extraordinary pinnacle of evolution? What do you

614
00:51:59.639 --> 00:52:01.639
want to do with your day?
That's just the first topic. So we

615
00:52:02.159 --> 00:52:06.199
could go on and on, but
these are but I have to tell the

616
00:52:06.280 --> 00:52:12.880
listener you don't get into heaviness.
It's very you explain it very well,

617
00:52:13.400 --> 00:52:16.519
You give a few examples, and
then you get into some of the techniques.

618
00:52:19.239 --> 00:52:23.800
Let's talk about the meditative the fundamentals, and I want to get into

619
00:52:23.960 --> 00:52:32.840
the analytical meditation. In my meditative
technique, I use a mantra, and

620
00:52:35.320 --> 00:52:42.960
for me, the mantra is a
tool that I focus on so that I

621
00:52:43.000 --> 00:52:47.800
can relieve myself of the daily activities, the daily thoughts and move into this

622
00:52:49.519 --> 00:52:53.880
deep state. Not always and not
every meditation is the same, and that's

623
00:52:53.960 --> 00:53:00.639
kind of the beauty of meditating.
But in that state, I get as

624
00:53:00.679 --> 00:53:06.360
deep as I can until there's a
certain plateau, and in that plateau,

625
00:53:06.599 --> 00:53:13.960
I am calm, collective, aware
of my environment, but still in this

626
00:53:14.119 --> 00:53:19.239
state which has been shown to be
the benefit of beneficial state. And I

627
00:53:19.239 --> 00:53:21.719
don't want to we don't have time
to get into the science of that.

628
00:53:21.760 --> 00:53:30.119
But talk about the technique, the
Buddhist meditation and specifically analytical meditation and why

629
00:53:30.480 --> 00:53:34.519
it's important in the fundamentals of your
technique. Yeah, well, there's a

630
00:53:34.559 --> 00:53:37.360
couple of things. So one thing
that can happen, as in meditation,

631
00:53:37.480 --> 00:53:42.519
is you can have like cool experiences, you know, like you can feel

632
00:53:42.559 --> 00:53:46.280
your your sense of self dissolve,
or you can see like cool lights,

633
00:53:46.440 --> 00:53:50.440
or or maybe even have like a
vision like almost like like you're talking to

634
00:53:50.599 --> 00:53:54.559
wherever. That comes from a sense
like you're getting answers. In our tradition,

635
00:53:54.719 --> 00:53:59.679
whenever I've asked my teachers about things
like that, a teacher always said,

636
00:53:59.719 --> 00:54:01.639
like, Okay, that's good,
but like how are you getting along

637
00:54:01.679 --> 00:54:07.559
with your wife? You know,
how's how's your relationships at work? So

638
00:54:07.360 --> 00:54:10.880
this is this, and this is
kind of a distinguishing factor of like Mahayana

639
00:54:10.880 --> 00:54:14.559
Buddhism, you know, which is
the strain of Buddhism, is like this

640
00:54:14.840 --> 00:54:21.840
undercurrent of love, compassion, respect
for others. Lama yeshe who founded our

641
00:54:21.920 --> 00:54:24.159
organization. I actually heard this from
Venerable Sangay Cadro, who's one of my

642
00:54:24.280 --> 00:54:30.280
teachers, extraordinary nun author teacher,
and you know, she was the one

643
00:54:30.320 --> 00:54:34.239
I heard this from first. She
said, the sign of your meditation working

644
00:54:34.400 --> 00:54:38.079
is that your relationships get better.
Really, and so I really like that,

645
00:54:38.159 --> 00:54:43.960
Like it's not the measure of meditation
success is not like athletic, like

646
00:54:44.599 --> 00:54:47.880
my concentration stronger, or I'm having
cool visions or whatever, which you definitely

647
00:54:49.280 --> 00:54:53.199
can have those things, but it's
that effect on your personality. And so

648
00:54:53.679 --> 00:54:58.519
I think it's very important to hear
because as as Westerners like we can be

649
00:54:58.599 --> 00:55:01.320
kind of achievement oriented like that,
even like we are with you know,

650
00:55:01.400 --> 00:55:07.079
running a marathon or but yeah,
even with meditation is like I meditated for

651
00:55:07.239 --> 00:55:10.039
an hour, or I had a
I was in stable concentration for five minutes.

652
00:55:10.920 --> 00:55:14.880
None of that really matters. If
you aren't getting along with your wife

653
00:55:14.920 --> 00:55:21.320
and your partner, being nice to
the people around you, that's really important.

654
00:55:21.320 --> 00:55:24.840
So there's a in Buddhism, there's
there's they call us the three higher

655
00:55:24.880 --> 00:55:30.480
training. This is recommended for lay
people. Is this the stacked the stack

656
00:55:30.519 --> 00:55:35.880
of ethics, concentration, and wisdom. So they say you cannot concentrate if

657
00:55:35.880 --> 00:55:37.920
you don't have ethical behavior. And
I talk about this at the very beginning

658
00:55:37.920 --> 00:55:43.079
of the book. What is Buddhist
ethics. Ethics is fundamentally non violence,

659
00:55:43.920 --> 00:55:47.880
you know, not harming, and
then kindness, you know, being kind

660
00:55:49.480 --> 00:55:53.079
and then understanding your mind. So
believe it's kind of an odd combination when

661
00:55:53.239 --> 00:55:58.000
ordinary people think, like, wow, that's that's Buddhist ethics. Non violence,

662
00:55:58.519 --> 00:56:02.440
kindness, and understanding your mind.
That's the foundation of like what would

663
00:56:02.440 --> 00:56:09.320
say, being a good person.
As a teacher. You just described how

664
00:56:09.400 --> 00:56:13.559
you began, you started five minutes, and then fifteen minutes, and then

665
00:56:14.199 --> 00:56:19.000
I don't know what's what's a typical
length of as a longtime meditator. What's

666
00:56:19.000 --> 00:56:25.400
the length of meditation that you will
participate in on a daily routine for me

667
00:56:25.480 --> 00:56:30.440
personally, Yeah, I mean I
meditated for a couple hours a day now,

668
00:56:30.480 --> 00:56:34.679
but it took a long time to
get there. Like it's I mean,

669
00:56:34.719 --> 00:56:36.880
the thing is, you want to
go slowly and you want to do

670
00:56:36.920 --> 00:56:40.480
what's right for your mind and your
body. When you can get to that

671
00:56:40.639 --> 00:56:44.480
point, see, then it becomes
a big part of your life. Because

672
00:56:44.480 --> 00:56:46.480
that's if you're awake for sixteen hours, that's like one eighth of your day.

673
00:56:46.599 --> 00:56:51.639
Yeah, too hot, So that's
a really good impact on your life.

674
00:56:51.679 --> 00:56:53.079
I'm not saying I recommend that.
I'm just answering your question. I'm

675
00:56:53.119 --> 00:56:57.159
not saying I recommend that for anybody. But I'll, you know, always

676
00:56:57.199 --> 00:57:00.840
answer a sincerely asked question. Yeah, so I meditate for a couple hours,

677
00:57:00.880 --> 00:57:04.519
and but the thing is you have
to enjoy it, Like like I

678
00:57:04.599 --> 00:57:07.840
actually end up a lot of time. I would meditate for more, but

679
00:57:07.920 --> 00:57:12.239
I need to get on and go
have breakfast and see my daughter and things.

680
00:57:12.280 --> 00:57:16.199
But you start to you start to
really it's so nice to know yourself.

681
00:57:16.199 --> 00:57:20.960
It's like becoming your own best friend, you know, and being really

682
00:57:21.000 --> 00:57:24.400
satisfied just its being alive, like
with nothing, just being satisfied to be

683
00:57:24.440 --> 00:57:29.559
alive and aware and present, and
you feel the presence of other people.

684
00:57:29.599 --> 00:57:32.119
You know, you can imagine other
people, and that's what you do in

685
00:57:32.199 --> 00:57:36.320
meditation a lot. You think about
all the people suffering and also all the

686
00:57:36.360 --> 00:57:38.639
good that everybody does every day and
the fundamental goods, and you just start

687
00:57:38.679 --> 00:57:43.880
to feel really really good in a
way that kind of transcends concepts, and

688
00:57:43.920 --> 00:57:46.719
then that carries into your day.
Like you do that so that you meet

689
00:57:46.719 --> 00:57:51.199
people with a smile. It's such
a big deal that you can have a

690
00:57:51.280 --> 00:57:54.199
huge impact on someone just by smiling
at them. Or like when I call

691
00:57:54.280 --> 00:57:59.039
tech support, you know, I
always before anything, I say what are

692
00:57:59.039 --> 00:58:02.880
you doing? And like often the
person's in shock, they're like, WHOA,

693
00:58:02.960 --> 00:58:07.840
thanks for asking, Yeah, I'm
doing okay. You know. I

694
00:58:07.880 --> 00:58:10.800
really like that relational focus that you're
presenting, and you've been talking about it

695
00:58:10.800 --> 00:58:19.559
since we started this interview, which
is harmony, harmony in your relationships and

696
00:58:19.639 --> 00:58:23.239
really working on that. That's a
big it's a big part of being a

697
00:58:23.320 --> 00:58:29.719
human. I guess is that what
you're suggestingsolutely it's fundamental is how you treat

698
00:58:29.719 --> 00:58:35.039
others. And that's the interesting thing
about the Dialoma actually says this is like

699
00:58:35.159 --> 00:58:37.000
he says, oh, you know, if you want to be selfish,

700
00:58:37.079 --> 00:58:40.960
go ahead, but the selfish way
to be happy. If you just want

701
00:58:42.000 --> 00:58:45.159
your own happiness, it turns out
the way to do that is to care

702
00:58:45.199 --> 00:58:47.360
for others and be kind, to
be kind to others. So he says,

703
00:58:47.400 --> 00:58:50.920
if you want to be happy,
cherish others. Like it's logic,

704
00:58:50.960 --> 00:58:52.840
and you can test test it.
See how good you feel after being a

705
00:58:52.920 --> 00:58:59.679
jerk all day, and then make
your absolute greatest effort to be totally kind

706
00:59:00.000 --> 00:59:01.519
actually the people close to you in
life, because sometimes people are like,

707
00:59:01.559 --> 00:59:05.159
oh, I'm such a good person, But then when it comes to like

708
00:59:05.199 --> 00:59:07.079
the people really close to them,
obviously, that's where we have the most

709
00:59:07.079 --> 00:59:10.920
friction because we can't hide. So
just try your best, even just for

710
00:59:12.000 --> 00:59:15.760
one day, to be totally kind
and patient and give everyone the benefit of

711
00:59:15.800 --> 00:59:20.119
the doubt. See how good you
feel about yourself at the end of the

712
00:59:20.199 --> 00:59:23.400
day. You'll also see your meditation
goes better because it's hard to meditate with

713
00:59:23.400 --> 00:59:28.280
without a good ethical fund. You
can't really medicate that effectively if you haven't

714
00:59:28.320 --> 00:59:32.840
been nice during the day. You
need a way to process those things.

715
00:59:32.880 --> 00:59:36.440
There I talk about in the book, there's ways to actually let go of

716
00:59:36.920 --> 00:59:38.719
you know, the ways that we
cause conflict frustration. But yeah, go

717
00:59:38.760 --> 00:59:44.159
on, so talk about how how
to As I'm reading the book, somebody

718
00:59:44.199 --> 00:59:50.360
who has never meditated before, what
is your suggestion for length and process?

719
00:59:52.079 --> 00:59:53.920
So I would say I start out, I have this right at the beginning

720
00:59:53.920 --> 00:59:57.880
of the book, is to just
start out with something that's quite close to

721
00:59:57.920 --> 01:00:04.599
mindfulness meditation. But and there's parts
of a meditation session, right, So

722
01:00:05.119 --> 01:00:09.239
this is what transforms meditation from something
just relaxing into something that transforms your mind

723
01:00:09.719 --> 01:00:15.199
is at the beginning to have a
motivation, so to think, I'm meditating

724
01:00:15.400 --> 01:00:21.440
so that I can be kinder and
happier and have better relationships and even make

725
01:00:21.480 --> 01:00:27.880
a better world. And then whatever
you do after that is going to have

726
01:00:27.960 --> 01:00:31.599
that effect. So like the motivation
in Buddhism, motivation is actually even more

727
01:00:31.639 --> 01:00:36.280
important than action because of course we're
confused and you try to do something good

728
01:00:36.280 --> 01:00:38.599
and ends up causing problems. But
if you do it with a good motivation,

729
01:00:39.079 --> 01:00:43.519
then like your heart is good and
the way that you interact with people

730
01:00:43.559 --> 01:00:45.760
will be good. So that's like
number one with meditation, to start with

731
01:00:45.800 --> 01:00:51.440
that positive motivation and do a little
bit of stabilizing meditation that is essential,

732
01:00:51.440 --> 01:00:54.639
focus on the breath, you know, even for a minute. And then

733
01:00:54.719 --> 01:00:59.800
one way to do analytical meditation is
just to look at your thoughts. But

734
01:01:00.320 --> 01:01:05.000
in mindfulness meditation you just kind of
uncritically let them go pass by and try

735
01:01:05.039 --> 01:01:07.320
not to react. So let me
stop you real quickly on that gone mindfulness

736
01:01:07.400 --> 01:01:14.920
is something that I meant to ask
you before the student is closing their eyes.

737
01:01:15.079 --> 01:01:21.119
Are you asking them to clear their
mind of thinking, thoughts, whatever

738
01:01:21.480 --> 01:01:27.000
and allow whatever comes through to come
through? Or are you saying you need

739
01:01:27.039 --> 01:01:32.280
to be more intentional in your meditative
practice. Yeah, so there's two ways.

740
01:01:32.280 --> 01:01:36.719
So one form of analytical meditation you
would just watch and that's the one

741
01:01:36.760 --> 01:01:39.199
I teach first, is just watching
your thoughts and thinking how does that one

742
01:01:39.239 --> 01:01:43.800
make me feel? You know,
like, obviously anger doesn't feel good,

743
01:01:44.239 --> 01:01:45.599
so you have an angry thought like, Okay, that doesn't feel good.

744
01:01:45.800 --> 01:01:51.679
Next, then the next one is
like oh, like I really want to,

745
01:01:52.400 --> 01:01:53.719
you know, go on and and
date with that person, or something

746
01:01:54.079 --> 01:01:58.440
like does that feel good? Like
no, actually, because now you're not

747
01:01:58.559 --> 01:02:00.840
satisfied with where you are right now. That doesn't feel good either. Then

748
01:02:00.880 --> 01:02:05.039
you think, oh, you know, I would like my daughter to have

749
01:02:05.079 --> 01:02:07.239
a good life for something like,
oh, that's nice. That's a nice

750
01:02:07.280 --> 01:02:10.360
thought actually kind of. So that's
one form. But the other form of

751
01:02:10.400 --> 01:02:15.519
analytical meditation that's most of the book
is deliberately cultivated thoughts and feelings. And

752
01:02:15.559 --> 01:02:20.320
the one meditation I would usually use
for a beginner is this meditation on impermanence,

753
01:02:20.639 --> 01:02:24.360
which somehow really really lands with people, and that is one you can

754
01:02:24.440 --> 01:02:29.599
just explain conversation. I was with
a friend, a very sophisticated professor,

755
01:02:29.920 --> 01:02:31.440
and he asked me about my book. So he's like, what's an example,

756
01:02:31.559 --> 01:02:34.719
And I said, well, here's
an example. We're out, we're

757
01:02:34.719 --> 01:02:36.800
looking out over some house. I
said, you see that house there?

758
01:02:37.639 --> 01:02:39.159
That house, to our mind,
it seems like it's always been there,

759
01:02:39.159 --> 01:02:45.280
but it was conceived by somebody.
Somebody cleared the land, raised the money.

760
01:02:45.320 --> 01:02:49.360
They were designers and so on,
like one hundred years ago, and

761
01:02:49.880 --> 01:02:52.760
it's going to be destroyed one day, it's going it might be tomorrow in

762
01:02:52.800 --> 01:02:55.800
an earthquake, it might be in
like the last house standing in two hundred

763
01:02:55.880 --> 01:03:00.639
years. And we're like that too, Like this is impermanence. I look

764
01:03:00.639 --> 01:03:01.960
at you, you look at me. It's like we've always been that way.

765
01:03:02.599 --> 01:03:06.960
But I was born, you were
born, right, Like I can

766
01:03:06.960 --> 01:03:08.920
look at you now and think of
the moment you were born out of your

767
01:03:08.920 --> 01:03:14.280
mother. You know, like,
wow, the most probably the most powerful

768
01:03:14.280 --> 01:03:16.760
moment in her life, and you're
the person she loves most in the world.

769
01:03:16.840 --> 01:03:20.320
And I know people have challenges with
their mother, including myself, but

770
01:03:20.480 --> 01:03:23.000
just just think about that in general, like that's a big deal that someone

771
01:03:23.039 --> 01:03:25.880
gave birth to you. And then
also that that person's going to die,

772
01:03:27.480 --> 01:03:30.039
and it could be soon, it
could be a long time. So when

773
01:03:30.079 --> 01:03:32.840
you look at life like that through
the lens of impermanence, it really changes

774
01:03:32.880 --> 01:03:37.119
how you interact with things you have, and it's realistic. Like that's the

775
01:03:37.159 --> 01:03:42.480
thing about analytical meditation is they say
it's just getting in touch with reality the

776
01:03:42.559 --> 01:03:46.280
way things really are, rather than
the illusion that a lot of evolution has

777
01:03:46.320 --> 01:03:52.360
imposed of us, these illusions of
permanence. It's very very painful, these

778
01:03:52.360 --> 01:03:54.880
illusions of permanence because they're not aligned
with reality, and they cause us to

779
01:03:54.920 --> 01:04:00.000
have a great suffering of anger and
attachment and so on. So are we

780
01:04:00.199 --> 01:04:08.119
looking at our life and our surroundings
in our environment as an observer, as

781
01:04:08.159 --> 01:04:13.679
a consciousness, or are we saying
this has influenced me, This is a

782
01:04:13.719 --> 01:04:17.280
person I love, I'm having trouble
with this person. I'm trying to get

783
01:04:17.320 --> 01:04:23.400
the sense of the basics of this
analytical meditation. Well, let's talk about

784
01:04:23.400 --> 01:04:27.599
that. So there's kind of two
things, because some people say like,

785
01:04:27.679 --> 01:04:30.000
oh, don't are you just you
know, sitting there accepting everything whatever.

786
01:04:30.239 --> 01:04:34.159
So there's an element to that.
So everything up to this at this instant,

787
01:04:34.760 --> 01:04:39.639
it couldn't have happened any other way, right, So that's a level

788
01:04:39.679 --> 01:04:43.559
of acceptance, is just like everything
up to this instant, it happened,

789
01:04:43.960 --> 01:04:45.719
and it had to happen that way, there's no way to change it.

790
01:04:46.239 --> 01:04:51.719
But then like the optimistic you know, that's like acceptance and then more optimistically

791
01:04:51.719 --> 01:04:58.239
though from this moment on almost anything
is possible, so much good as possible

792
01:04:58.400 --> 01:05:00.800
in the next ten minutes, you
know, is a day in my life,

793
01:05:00.880 --> 01:05:04.199
in the world, in my relationships, and I am a very strong

794
01:05:04.239 --> 01:05:08.400
agent. Like you know what it's
like when you when a certain person works

795
01:05:08.400 --> 01:05:10.840
in walks into the room. Certain
people walk into the room and they just

796
01:05:11.039 --> 01:05:15.559
radiate love and kindness, charisma.
You just love being around them. Like

797
01:05:15.920 --> 01:05:18.679
to aspire to be that kind of
person, you know, in a way

798
01:05:18.719 --> 01:05:24.440
that's authentic to yourself, a person
that walks into a situation and does some

799
01:05:24.559 --> 01:05:27.880
good in a in a gentle introverted
way, in an extroverted way, in

800
01:05:27.920 --> 01:05:32.400
whatever unique way your personality manifests.
That's what these meditations can do if you

801
01:05:32.400 --> 01:05:38.159
know, practice them effective. So
to follow up on that, if as

802
01:05:38.199 --> 01:05:43.039
a teacher, you're you have a
room full of new meditators that you're in

803
01:05:43.079 --> 01:05:47.519
you're working to train them to work
in this style, what is the goal?

804
01:05:48.840 --> 01:05:53.320
What is what should they do?
You say things like okay, you

805
01:05:53.320 --> 01:05:59.760
should be feeling this or open to
this, especially somebody who perhaps is having

806
01:06:00.400 --> 01:06:03.480
the life. Yeah, the goal
varies depending on your stage, and that's

807
01:06:03.480 --> 01:06:09.199
why the book is also broken into
stages. For many people. You know,

808
01:06:09.239 --> 01:06:14.199
at first it's just self acceptance.
Just people have a lot of negative,

809
01:06:14.239 --> 01:06:18.760
critical talk about themselves. So starting
there of seeing the best in yourself.

810
01:06:18.800 --> 01:06:21.880
You know, there's a technique called
rejoicing I write about in the book

811
01:06:21.920 --> 01:06:26.920
that's very very important of like at
the end of the day or when you

812
01:06:26.920 --> 01:06:30.000
come home from work or whatever,
sit down. You don't have to even

813
01:06:30.000 --> 01:06:32.280
sit on a cushion, kick back
on the couch, go through all the

814
01:06:32.320 --> 01:06:36.280
good that you did that day.
People just don't tend to do that,

815
01:06:38.280 --> 01:06:40.880
go through all the good that you
did. That's one Even if you take

816
01:06:40.920 --> 01:06:43.760
one thing away from this podcast,
try that you don't. You can do

817
01:06:43.800 --> 01:06:45.400
it on a walk, you can
kick back on the couch. It's easy.

818
01:06:46.079 --> 01:06:49.559
But try that every day for a
while and see how your life changes.

819
01:06:49.599 --> 01:06:54.639
You'll see you do so much more
good than bad. And your mind

820
01:06:54.760 --> 01:06:58.599
just fixates on the negative. And
it's natural. We kind of evolved to

821
01:06:58.599 --> 01:07:01.800
do that. So it takes a
conscious effort to start to think about the

822
01:07:01.880 --> 01:07:06.960
positive aspects of yourself. But that's
that's one example. The book's called how

823
01:07:08.000 --> 01:07:11.639
to Train Your excuse me, how
to Train a Happy Mind. My guest

824
01:07:11.679 --> 01:07:16.760
today has been Scott A. Snib. I want to mention that this book

825
01:07:16.800 --> 01:07:23.119
isn't very very I mean, it's
very simple, but it's also very deep

826
01:07:23.920 --> 01:07:29.599
and has some complexity to it.
What do we do as we're reading the

827
01:07:29.639 --> 01:07:33.159
book and we want to look at
a time frame? Does it matter if

828
01:07:33.199 --> 01:07:38.320
we are meditating, we're using the
techniques that you outline, and all of

829
01:07:38.360 --> 01:07:41.559
a sudden we realize we open our
eyes and it's been a half an hour

830
01:07:41.679 --> 01:07:48.000
or an hour of meditative practice or
is there a time limit that we should

831
01:07:48.039 --> 01:07:50.719
be thinking about. Oh, it's
just what works for you. But in

832
01:07:50.760 --> 01:07:56.800
general, you know you can do
five minute, ten minutes. I mean

833
01:07:56.800 --> 01:08:00.360
it's not you'll see for yourself.
You find a rhythm that work for you,

834
01:08:00.679 --> 01:08:01.880
but you really don't want to you
don't want to fall asleep, and

835
01:08:01.920 --> 01:08:05.199
you don't want to feel like I
hate being on my meditation cushion. So

836
01:08:05.559 --> 01:08:10.719
you know, with those guidelines like
do what's best for you and guided meditations,

837
01:08:10.800 --> 01:08:14.360
that's why like the audiobook, I
actually guide the meditations, and I

838
01:08:14.360 --> 01:08:17.279
think in general they're like, I
don't know, between ten and twenty five

839
01:08:17.279 --> 01:08:19.560
minutes or something like that. As
a tip, I mean, you know,

840
01:08:19.600 --> 01:08:23.359
this is what I do. I
run an organization called a Skeptics Path

841
01:08:23.399 --> 01:08:27.239
to Enlightenment and we have meditations in
our podcasts. So in general, like

842
01:08:27.279 --> 01:08:30.800
that duration of ten to twenty five
minutes can be very effective for people ten

843
01:08:30.920 --> 01:08:34.960
five or ten minutes seems really it's
more important to do it frequently. So

844
01:08:35.000 --> 01:08:38.720
if you can meditate three minutes,
because I have friends, is that Oh

845
01:08:38.760 --> 01:08:41.399
I stopped meditating? That was so
good. I told my friend, I'm

846
01:08:41.439 --> 01:08:45.479
like, meditate for one minute a
day. Meditate for see what that does

847
01:08:45.520 --> 01:08:47.920
to you. It's amazing. The
power of one minute a day is pretty

848
01:08:47.920 --> 01:08:53.479
phenomenal. So you just you know, this negative talk will creep in on

849
01:08:53.600 --> 01:08:57.359
everything, even your meditation practice.
So just chill out, you know,

850
01:08:57.399 --> 01:09:00.159
and meditate for what makes sense to
you. But try to do it every

851
01:09:00.239 --> 01:09:03.239
day if you can in a way
that's often, even if it's just sitting

852
01:09:03.279 --> 01:09:06.159
on the couch thinking about the good
that you did, or when you wake

853
01:09:06.239 --> 01:09:11.159
up, even for ten seconds,
just think, oh what can I do

854
01:09:11.199 --> 01:09:14.000
with this day? This is a
I'm lucky. I'm lucky to have a

855
01:09:14.079 --> 01:09:18.399
day and to have some amount of
privilege and wealth and so on. You

856
01:09:18.399 --> 01:09:23.119
know, people listen to a podcast
like this, we all were quite we

857
01:09:23.199 --> 01:09:26.359
have quite a lot of resources,
you know, especially for American listeners.

858
01:09:26.399 --> 01:09:30.439
So what do you doing? Glad
you mentioned that you had an audible version

859
01:09:30.479 --> 01:09:33.600
of the book because I never have
time to read, and many times I'll

860
01:09:33.600 --> 01:09:38.039
get a copy of the book as
an audible. In the narration, do

861
01:09:38.079 --> 01:09:40.880
you narrate your own book? Yeah, I narrate the book, and I

862
01:09:40.880 --> 01:09:44.960
did the meditations as meditations to just
inderprate it right in there. So at

863
01:09:44.960 --> 01:09:48.199
the end of almost every chapter there's
a guided meditation. So they're right,

864
01:09:48.239 --> 01:09:55.119
and I've made them very I stripped
everything downs as much as I could.

865
01:09:55.560 --> 01:09:58.119
You know, a lot of some
meditations there are just one page, two

866
01:09:58.159 --> 01:10:01.760
pages. Do them quickly if you
sit and just try to like read through

867
01:10:01.800 --> 01:10:04.840
it. I do them a little
bit more slowly, you know, in

868
01:10:04.920 --> 01:10:10.600
the audiobook to kind of because you
need things to sink into your consciousness.

869
01:10:10.600 --> 01:10:15.680
But you do what works for you. You mentioned, and I wanted to

870
01:10:15.720 --> 01:10:18.800
say this in the beginning, that
you have on your own podcast a skeptics

871
01:10:18.840 --> 01:10:25.279
Path to enlightenment. If they go
to the if people go to the podcast,

872
01:10:25.520 --> 01:10:29.760
can't you're saying that you actually have
full meditation. Yeah, yeah,

873
01:10:29.800 --> 01:10:31.399
I have some. That was kind
of like the first draft of the book.

874
01:10:31.439 --> 01:10:35.760
They're they're longer and rougher, but
that was how I because I wanted

875
01:10:35.800 --> 01:10:39.840
to test this first and see if
it was because I was teaching in Buddhist

876
01:10:39.840 --> 01:10:43.399
centers, so I wanted to see
how does this work for anybody all over

877
01:10:43.439 --> 01:10:47.479
the world. Do these techniques work? And the podcast was how I got

878
01:10:47.520 --> 01:10:50.680
the answer, Yes, you know, they are working. And then I

879
01:10:50.920 --> 01:10:57.199
greatly refined like they're greatly refined in
the book, and they had so many

880
01:10:57.199 --> 01:11:01.039
other eyes look at them, from
like young people to monastics to His Holiness's

881
01:11:01.399 --> 01:11:08.640
office, trying to make sure that
the content was authentic and accurate as as

882
01:11:08.720 --> 01:11:11.800
far as it could without you know, without taking on these these aspects we

883
01:11:11.840 --> 01:11:15.840
would call belief and as succinct as
possible. So just stripping it down.

884
01:11:16.439 --> 01:11:20.039
So I love that really easily practice
it every day. Yeah, that's fantastic.

885
01:11:21.319 --> 01:11:25.680
As we're meditating, what should we
be looking for? What what what

886
01:11:25.800 --> 01:11:31.680
kind of results, what kind of
benefits? What kind of outcome should we

887
01:11:31.720 --> 01:11:38.520
be looking for when we meditate?
Yeah, concentration is important, like to

888
01:11:38.600 --> 01:11:42.479
notice that your mind can stay on
an object like that. You do need

889
01:11:42.520 --> 01:11:45.399
concentration really to do, to do
your job, to do to talk like

890
01:11:45.439 --> 01:11:46.720
we are right now, Like if
we were distracted, we can't even have

891
01:11:46.760 --> 01:11:50.800
a conversation. So definitely paying attention
to your concentration that you can stay on

892
01:11:50.840 --> 01:11:55.600
an object and be very gentle with
yourself. It's totally natural to drift off,

893
01:11:55.600 --> 01:12:00.640
but just gently bring yourself back and
realize that things go on their own

894
01:12:00.920 --> 01:12:03.520
if you don't like pull them in
in your mind. And then like what

895
01:12:03.560 --> 01:12:09.439
you might call the color of your
mind, like the feeling of contentment,

896
01:12:10.199 --> 01:12:16.800
feelings of warmth and openness, patience
forgiveness, like all these like qualities universally

897
01:12:16.840 --> 01:12:21.640
regarded as positive, you know,
character traits of human beings. You start

898
01:12:21.680 --> 01:12:26.079
to feel those more, but especially
just contentment being present, like, that's

899
01:12:26.119 --> 01:12:30.760
the sign. They've studied happiness scientifically
now for about twenty five years, and

900
01:12:30.039 --> 01:12:34.520
that's the biggest corel It is that
you're focused on what you're doing. That

901
01:12:34.840 --> 01:12:38.560
if you're present with what you're doing, even if it's something difficult, like

902
01:12:38.720 --> 01:12:42.119
you know, an intense conversation,
but if you start to notice just being

903
01:12:42.239 --> 01:12:45.880
present and enjoying that presence with whatever
you're doing, those are some of the

904
01:12:45.920 --> 01:12:48.640
signs. And like I said,
the biggest one is that your relationships get

905
01:12:48.680 --> 01:12:54.000
better. So don't trick yourself that
you think you're an amazing meditator. Like

906
01:12:54.039 --> 01:12:57.159
I have with myself sometimes like wow, that was a great session, and

907
01:12:57.159 --> 01:13:00.720
then come down and have an argument
with your wife or you know, talk

908
01:13:00.880 --> 01:13:06.000
briefly as we are closing, Scott
on the interference that is run in our

909
01:13:06.079 --> 01:13:14.479
society. We have our iPhones that
we are constantly being bombarded. I personally

910
01:13:14.479 --> 01:13:17.359
am addicted to TikTok, which I
need to get away from because I'm losing

911
01:13:17.479 --> 01:13:28.880
losing critical sleep at night. We
have negativity in society and the interactions we

912
01:13:28.960 --> 01:13:33.720
have. Why does meditation help us? Why? Why? Why? How

913
01:13:33.760 --> 01:13:38.840
do we Because I sometimes have trouble
when people go, well, why do

914
01:13:38.880 --> 01:13:42.600
you meditate? Why? And if
I say to them, it helps me

915
01:13:43.119 --> 01:13:47.680
be a better human. That's very
simplistic. But as a teacher, I'm

916
01:13:47.720 --> 01:13:55.199
curious to know what you say to
somebody who's perhaps dealing with all the interactions

917
01:13:55.199 --> 01:14:00.720
and all the basically interference. Yeah, I mean, you know, one

918
01:14:00.720 --> 01:14:02.600
of the first things you try to
learn in meditation is just to look at

919
01:14:02.600 --> 01:14:08.079
your mind and you will see,
like is it making me happy to pull

920
01:14:08.119 --> 01:14:11.520
my phone out for the six now? The iPhone will tell you how many

921
01:14:11.520 --> 01:14:14.079
times you looked at it every day? Right? Yes, it's ours,

922
01:14:14.159 --> 01:14:19.159
Like just for people listening that try
like five times today when you pull your

923
01:14:19.199 --> 01:14:24.920
phone out of your pocket, how
do you feel? What are you feeling

924
01:14:25.199 --> 01:14:30.319
behind that? When I do that, it's usually like addiction or anxiety.

925
01:14:30.359 --> 01:14:35.039
It's just like or boredom. It's
like entertainment. It's just I want to

926
01:14:35.079 --> 01:14:41.359
be distracted or I'm bored, I'm
anxious. Like that's not a healthy state

927
01:14:41.359 --> 01:14:45.479
of mind. So leave your phone, go for a walk without your phone,

928
01:14:45.640 --> 01:14:47.520
you know, and don't look at
your phone until after you have breakfast,

929
01:14:47.680 --> 01:14:50.600
you know. Things things like that
that people talk about a little more

930
01:14:50.640 --> 01:14:57.159
behavioristically mechanistically, like a program meditation
is much more holistic because we also talk

931
01:14:57.199 --> 01:15:00.439
about not just what not to do, but then what to do instead,

932
01:15:00.640 --> 01:15:05.600
what thoughts to cultivate. But it's
a nightmare. It's preying on our mind's

933
01:15:06.159 --> 01:15:11.840
kind of worst instincts, you know, the ways we evolve to like run

934
01:15:11.880 --> 01:15:15.800
away from threats and to run towards
you know, juicy things that things that

935
01:15:15.840 --> 01:15:19.319
seem great like. I think one
of the big key insights of Buddhism,

936
01:15:19.359 --> 01:15:25.359
though, is that the things we
crave are also a great cause of dissatisfaction

937
01:15:26.199 --> 01:15:30.520
and to find a healthier relationship to
food, sex, entertainment. It doesn't

938
01:15:30.520 --> 01:15:34.079
mean you can't do those things,
but I'll tell you you actually will enjoy

939
01:15:34.119 --> 01:15:39.520
them all more if you have an
understanding of their impermanence. You know that

940
01:15:39.840 --> 01:15:44.760
they will never fully satisfy you,
and that true satisfaction comes from somewhere else.

941
01:15:45.000 --> 01:15:46.960
But there's a way to watch Netflix
for the benefit of all beings.

942
01:15:47.079 --> 01:15:50.560
There's a way to make love,
there's a way to have a meal that

943
01:15:50.600 --> 01:15:54.319
these are things we didn't have time
for but they're in the later chapters.

944
01:15:54.560 --> 01:16:00.520
Or how to transform any activity in
life into something that evolves your mind towards

945
01:16:00.560 --> 01:16:02.720
its best qualities. Tibetan Buddhen is
different than other types of Buddhism because it

946
01:16:02.720 --> 01:16:09.880
doesn't say abandon all sensual experiences.
It actually says, understand their limitations and

947
01:16:11.079 --> 01:16:15.560
enjoy them in a healthy way where
you don't you're not like neurotic and anxious

948
01:16:15.600 --> 01:16:17.800
and uh. One guy was telling
me about, you know, smoking a

949
01:16:17.800 --> 01:16:20.800
cigarette and he went and like lit
another one. You know. I think

950
01:16:20.840 --> 01:16:26.800
with dating apps, people like finish
their hooked up and they're right back on

951
01:16:26.840 --> 01:16:31.399
the app, like right after.
So those are the signs that you're on

952
01:16:31.439 --> 01:16:35.640
the wrong path and you know,
there's another way to really find satisfy.

953
01:16:35.680 --> 01:16:40.279
You won't find satisfaction by more and
more and more and more in your life

954
01:16:40.359 --> 01:16:45.560
like that. We don't have time
to go much deeper. But h I

955
01:16:45.720 --> 01:16:49.800
find what you're saying to be kind
of uh instructive in a way, because

956
01:16:49.840 --> 01:16:55.920
it's like when you meditate, there's
a natural guidance that evolves you your your

957
01:16:55.960 --> 01:17:00.680
your You're being the best almost safety
and sapien that you can be right.

958
01:17:02.159 --> 01:17:05.039
Yeah, And like the thing is, the wisdom is there for you to

959
01:17:05.079 --> 01:17:10.439
discover too, But it just helps
to cultivate that voice, like just to

960
01:17:10.479 --> 01:17:14.000
be aware, Like as I'm I
was talking to Dan Harris, you know

961
01:17:14.039 --> 01:17:15.880
he's like eating a sleeve of oreos, like was his example. I think

962
01:17:15.920 --> 01:17:19.079
he really likes, you know,
snacks and stuff. I have my issues,

963
01:17:19.119 --> 01:17:26.000
I mentioned, But to become aware
and think, wait a minute,

964
01:17:26.159 --> 01:17:30.760
what am I feeling right now?
What's a healthy thing to do in this

965
01:17:30.920 --> 01:17:35.000
moment? That's extraordinary if you can
get to that point and to live an

966
01:17:35.000 --> 01:17:40.000
intentional life. Like people think we
have free will, What freedom do you

967
01:17:40.079 --> 01:17:44.039
When were you free to to the
last time you get angry? Was that

968
01:17:44.119 --> 01:17:47.479
free will that caused you to be
angry or to you know, eat the

969
01:17:47.520 --> 01:17:50.920
third piece of cake or something like
that. No, we don't have freedom,

970
01:17:50.960 --> 01:17:56.159
and you have to gradually cultivate better
habits in your mind to bring out

971
01:17:56.159 --> 01:17:59.760
its natural best qualities. They're not
things that are added to you. They're

972
01:17:59.760 --> 01:18:03.600
actually are there already. They're just
pressed down under the layers that our culture,

973
01:18:03.680 --> 01:18:08.399
society, habits, some evolution have
kind of imposed on us. But

974
01:18:08.640 --> 01:18:14.279
underneath that's extraordinary goodness, kindness,
patients, love, just enjoying life as

975
01:18:14.439 --> 01:18:19.159
life is so beautiful, Like life
can be so beautiful even under difficult circumstances

976
01:18:19.199 --> 01:18:24.640
if you, you know, with
the right attitude. Yeah, it's almost

977
01:18:24.720 --> 01:18:27.640
like our ancestors are reaching out and
going, Okay, this is for you

978
01:18:27.800 --> 01:18:31.840
to use. Please use it no
matter what your society says, try it

979
01:18:32.000 --> 01:18:35.439
and work with it. Scott,
it's been a pleasure speaking with you How

980
01:18:35.479 --> 01:18:42.399
to Train a Happy Mind. The
books coming out mid March. But how

981
01:18:42.399 --> 01:18:45.159
can people get a hold of you? Give us your website and yeah,

982
01:18:45.439 --> 01:18:48.800
yeah, so the book you can
pre order everywhere now, all over the

983
01:18:48.840 --> 01:18:57.640
world. It's available for order.
And my organization is Skepticspath dot org and

984
01:18:57.880 --> 01:19:02.359
you can go there and find all
kinds of free cials to support. And

985
01:19:02.439 --> 01:19:06.119
I think you have a YouTube channel, don't you. Yeah, same things.

986
01:19:06.199 --> 01:19:10.880
Yeah, we're on you know,
YouTube, Instagram and so on.

987
01:19:10.920 --> 01:19:15.399
The podcast has me giving you know, lectures and meditations interspersed with interviews with

988
01:19:15.479 --> 01:19:20.000
extraordinary you know, Buddhist masters and
other people doing good in the world.

989
01:19:20.039 --> 01:19:25.520
It's really nice to recognize all the
because the normal news it mostly focuses on

990
01:19:25.680 --> 01:19:28.720
the worst things happening all over the
world, which is very important to call

991
01:19:28.760 --> 01:19:31.159
out and to change and to act
against. But we all need some like

992
01:19:31.399 --> 01:19:36.760
positive, positive news and positive influences
in our life, and like you yourself

993
01:19:38.159 --> 01:19:41.960
need to be a positive influence and
also find good streams of media that bring

994
01:19:42.000 --> 01:19:44.640
out the best in you in addition
to keeping up, you know, with

995
01:19:44.760 --> 01:19:47.319
news and politics and you know,
being an agent of change in the world.

996
01:19:47.520 --> 01:19:53.239
Scott, congratulations, much success on
this book, and I got to

997
01:19:53.319 --> 01:20:00.359
check out your audible version of the
book because I like this listening to meditations

998
01:20:00.359 --> 01:20:05.560
and you apparently do all the meditations
in there. So much success. Thank

999
01:20:05.600 --> 01:20:12.880
you, Cliff. I really enjoyed
talking to you. For the most part

1000
01:20:12.920 --> 01:20:17.319
we have been talking about self meditation. In other words, you close your

1001
01:20:17.319 --> 01:20:26.680
eyes and you open to the higher
realms. You condition yourself through either a

1002
01:20:26.720 --> 01:20:33.880
mantra or passive thinking and moving on. There's a whole other dimension of meditation

1003
01:20:34.119 --> 01:20:44.560
which is machine driven, and this
is a form of sound that has been

1004
01:20:44.840 --> 01:20:53.039
of meditation for probably a couple of
decades, where they introduce with headphones sound

1005
01:20:53.119 --> 01:21:01.319
frequencies or specific kinds of music that
have soothing qualities to them that actually drop

1006
01:21:01.399 --> 01:21:12.680
your brain down into theta waves or
levels of issue or consciousness that are very

1007
01:21:12.720 --> 01:21:17.279
relaxing, and in some cases you
can get very very good effects. I

1008
01:21:17.439 --> 01:21:24.039
was not really into that. I
remember years ago, years ago, the

1009
01:21:24.079 --> 01:21:30.560
brain tuning phenomenon was introduced and you
had different kinds of headphones, and then

1010
01:21:30.640 --> 01:21:36.800
they introduced lights that flickered and if
you close your eyes, the wholes was

1011
01:21:38.640 --> 01:21:44.960
able to take you into very very
deep levels of relaxation. And they still

1012
01:21:44.960 --> 01:21:48.640
have these. They're not as popular
as they were in the late nineteen nineties

1013
01:21:49.279 --> 01:21:55.800
into the early two thousands, but
they are out there, and we will

1014
01:21:55.840 --> 01:21:59.880
have a couple of people come on
the program to talk about them and the

1015
01:22:00.159 --> 01:22:05.479
new devices. Because the technology is
taken over and transformed to the point now

1016
01:22:05.479 --> 01:22:10.680
where you don't need the same length
of the sound frequency to take you into

1017
01:22:10.720 --> 01:22:15.039
the meditative states. It's much quicker. I again, I'm not an expert

1018
01:22:15.079 --> 01:22:18.359
on it, but I should at
least give you a chance to hear it

1019
01:22:18.399 --> 01:22:26.800
because it is around. It is
benefiting a lot of people, and it's

1020
01:22:26.840 --> 01:22:31.079
immediate. The effects are immediate,
so people don't want to wait around.

1021
01:22:31.600 --> 01:22:38.520
I have to say this though.
When I first learned meditation, you basically

1022
01:22:38.560 --> 01:22:44.039
I closed my eyes. I was
repeating this mantra which was designed for me.

1023
01:22:45.119 --> 01:22:49.359
And when after about five or ten
minutes I was repeating this in my

1024
01:22:49.439 --> 01:22:56.159
mind, I went into such a
deep level of relaxation, aware of my

1025
01:22:56.279 --> 01:23:00.359
surroundings, aware of the guide,
the teacher sitting next to me. But

1026
01:23:00.439 --> 01:23:04.359
I went into such a deep state
I'll never forget it. And I read

1027
01:23:04.399 --> 01:23:11.399
about people who are introduced to transcendental
meditation or other forms of meditation that are

1028
01:23:11.840 --> 01:23:18.680
self propelled, and they will many
times actually have the same effect, the

1029
01:23:18.760 --> 01:23:27.319
same sensation, and ultimately the same
benefits. So I'm a big proponent of

1030
01:23:28.520 --> 01:23:39.520
meditation for wellness as a way to
relax into and connecting with not only the

1031
01:23:39.560 --> 01:23:45.279
astral realm, these other levels of
consciousness, but also fine tuning and seeing

1032
01:23:45.319 --> 01:23:49.800
if you can connect with the Akashak
not We've had a lot of people talking

1033
01:23:49.800 --> 01:23:55.720
about the Acashak records, the Acachhk
fields, connecting the past, the president

1034
01:23:55.720 --> 01:24:00.520
of the future, it's all happening
at one time. That's kind of far

1035
01:24:00.600 --> 01:24:02.920
fetched for a lot of people,
and I have to admit it's a challenge

1036
01:24:02.920 --> 01:24:11.159
for me because how in the hell
do you access this huge cloud database.

1037
01:24:11.600 --> 01:24:16.960
I think it's more connected with the
unconscious and various techniques. You can access

1038
01:24:17.039 --> 01:24:25.039
the the realm cashing records. I
haven't gone there yet. I have a

1039
01:24:25.079 --> 01:24:30.600
lot of books that I could read
about it. I don't know. That's

1040
01:24:30.760 --> 01:24:35.479
us. Another story is accessing the
Akashak records. It's you know, You've

1041
01:24:35.520 --> 01:24:40.119
heard me speak to various authors who
are like, yeah, I'm connecting,

1042
01:24:40.199 --> 01:24:44.039
I'm in, I'm in, And
when they explain it, how do you

1043
01:24:44.079 --> 01:24:46.840
get in? What is the access, what is the code? What are

1044
01:24:46.840 --> 01:24:51.880
you looking for? It seems to
be very imaginary, you know, So

1045
01:24:53.039 --> 01:24:59.000
I don't know. I'm really at
an odds in on how to connect with

1046
01:24:59.159 --> 01:25:01.800
the Acashuk record. So anyhow,
I hope you got something out of that

1047
01:25:02.239 --> 01:25:10.239
meditation program with Scott snib and if
you're really interested in doing get the audio

1048
01:25:10.239 --> 01:25:15.079
book because then you can listen to
him talk, do the guided meditations.

1049
01:25:15.600 --> 01:25:18.079
And by the way, the book
will not be out for a couple more

1050
01:25:18.159 --> 01:25:23.359
weeks, so get the pre order. Do the pre order and you'll be

1051
01:25:23.439 --> 01:25:30.640
fine. And what I mention,
we do tours Earth Ancients, Destiny and

1052
01:25:30.760 --> 01:25:36.720
Earth Ancients. The special edition the
Archives is all part of annual tours.

1053
01:25:36.720 --> 01:25:42.520
We're doing a tour in Egypt April
twenty eight through May ninth. We do

1054
01:25:42.760 --> 01:25:47.079
a Turkey tour which is in August
August fourteenth to the twenty fourth, and

1055
01:25:47.119 --> 01:25:54.720
then we'll be in Mexico from the
eighth through the seventeenth of November. For

1056
01:25:54.800 --> 01:26:00.800
more information, go to Earth Ancients
dot com, forward slash Tours, download

1057
01:26:00.840 --> 01:26:03.600
it, take a look at it. If you have any questions whatsoever,

1058
01:26:03.960 --> 01:26:08.199
send me an email. Send it
to Earth Ancients the number four of the

1059
01:26:08.279 --> 01:26:13.279
letter you at gmail dot com.
Earth anchents for you at gmail dot com

1060
01:26:13.279 --> 01:26:16.760
and I'll get right back to you. These are fabulous tours and I gotta

1061
01:26:16.800 --> 01:26:20.199
say this, this is a great
year to do tours because a lot of

1062
01:26:20.199 --> 01:26:24.560
people were like I couldn't do it
during the pandemic. I didn't want to

1063
01:26:24.560 --> 01:26:28.680
get vaccinated because I didn't trust it. On and on, these tours are

1064
01:26:28.760 --> 01:26:33.399
made for you, the listener.
We have the top of the top guides,

1065
01:26:34.319 --> 01:26:40.680
tour itineraries, and best of all, most of the time, if

1066
01:26:40.720 --> 01:26:45.079
not all the time, half off
fifty percent less than what the general tours

1067
01:26:45.079 --> 01:26:50.399
are. And that's a really big
consideration because we do these intimate tours where

1068
01:26:50.399 --> 01:27:00.359
we are guided with private hosts into
temples, into pyramids, into sacred site

1069
01:27:00.840 --> 01:27:05.000
without the general public. That by
itself is worth the price of admission because

1070
01:27:05.159 --> 01:27:09.199
let me tell you, I've been
to different parts of the world and some

1071
01:27:09.319 --> 01:27:15.199
of the ancient sites, and if
they're of great interest to people, they

1072
01:27:15.239 --> 01:27:20.159
are crowded. I don't like that, especially when you're in a temple and

1073
01:27:20.199 --> 01:27:25.039
you want to take time and just
casualty look at things. That's what the

1074
01:27:25.119 --> 01:27:29.359
Earth Ancients Tours are all about.
For more information, go to Earthancients dot

1075
01:27:29.399 --> 01:27:33.880
com forward slash tours. All right, I want to thank my guest today,

1076
01:27:34.039 --> 01:27:40.279
Scott snib from Berkeley, California,
and as always, the team of

1077
01:27:40.479 --> 01:27:45.800
Gail Tour, Mark Foster and everyone
who makes this thing happen. You guys

1078
01:27:45.039 --> 01:27:48.960
rock all right, take care of
be well, and we will talk to

1079
01:27:48.960 --> 01:28:12.000
you next time. The acts of
the acts of the active episode as at

1080
01:28:14.800 --> 01:28:26.399
the tan of the OFT acts as