1 00:00:03,319 --> 00:00:03,600 Speaker 1: Hello. 2 00:00:03,759 --> 00:00:06,960 Speaker 2: I'm Josh Crockett from Oregon City, Oregon, and I play 3 00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:08,839 at Stone Creek Golf Course. 4 00:00:09,080 --> 00:00:10,880 Speaker 1: Welcome to Golf Smarter. Hi. 5 00:00:11,160 --> 00:00:14,359 Speaker 2: This is Bob Lawiki from Westernville, Ohio, and I play 6 00:00:14,400 --> 00:00:17,879 at Darby Creek Golf Course. This is Golf Smarter number 7 00:00:17,920 --> 00:00:19,839 one thousand and twenty seven. 8 00:00:20,359 --> 00:00:24,120 Speaker 1: The essential difference between a mindful state of mind and 9 00:00:24,160 --> 00:00:27,800 a chaotic state of mind is called meta awareness. Meta 10 00:00:27,839 --> 00:00:31,440 awareness would be imagine that your normal consciousness is the 11 00:00:31,480 --> 00:00:35,159 flashlight beam. Imagine there's a smaller flashlight bolted to the 12 00:00:35,200 --> 00:00:37,719 big flashlight, and the purpose of the beam of light 13 00:00:37,799 --> 00:00:40,640 coming from the small flashlight is to always focus on 14 00:00:40,679 --> 00:00:43,079 where the big flashlight beam of light is focusing. So 15 00:00:43,159 --> 00:00:45,920 you always know where am I paying attention right now 16 00:00:45,960 --> 00:00:47,880 in this moment, And if it turns out you're paying 17 00:00:47,920 --> 00:00:50,560 attentions in a bad place, a place that could trigger 18 00:00:50,840 --> 00:00:53,560 a yet for example, or a flinch or just a 19 00:00:53,640 --> 00:00:57,039 poorly time release. If you recognize my mind goes to 20 00:00:57,119 --> 00:00:59,840 a place that then triggers a breakdown in the mind body, 21 00:01:00,679 --> 00:01:03,000 or just a bad swing is a result when my 22 00:01:03,079 --> 00:01:06,640 mind wanders off, knowing that that mind wandering off is 23 00:01:06,680 --> 00:01:08,719 the main cause or even the only cause of a 24 00:01:08,760 --> 00:01:11,159 bad swing can be of great help because now you 25 00:01:11,200 --> 00:01:23,280 have the opportunity to learn from your mistakes. 26 00:01:18,400 --> 00:01:21,560 Speaker 2: Rules of the road to understanding how consciousness works in 27 00:01:21,680 --> 00:01:23,519 creating a better mental game. 28 00:01:23,840 --> 00:01:29,319 Speaker 1: With Jim Waldron. This is Golf Smarter, sharing stories, tips 29 00:01:29,319 --> 00:01:32,519 and insights from great golf minds to help you lower 30 00:01:32,560 --> 00:01:36,480 your score and raise your golf IQ. Here's your host, 31 00:01:36,799 --> 00:01:37,439 Fred Green. 32 00:01:38,400 --> 00:01:40,359 Speaker 2: Welcome back to the Golf Smarter podcast. 33 00:01:40,439 --> 00:01:44,760 Speaker 1: Jim, thanks man, really appreciate being here for my one 34 00:01:44,799 --> 00:01:45,879 million appearance. 35 00:01:47,640 --> 00:01:50,920 Speaker 2: That's always the beginning of these episodes, like figuring out 36 00:01:51,000 --> 00:01:54,439 how many times Jim Waldron has been. It's probably in 37 00:01:54,480 --> 00:01:57,359 the thirty something range. I think we discussed the last time. 38 00:01:57,760 --> 00:01:59,079 Speaker 1: Somebody's going to remember. 39 00:02:00,799 --> 00:02:03,840 Speaker 2: That's the number of the tounds familiar to me. Yeah, 40 00:02:03,840 --> 00:02:06,359 it's interesting. We didn't do thirty six holes. But you know, 41 00:02:08,680 --> 00:02:15,479 but but since the beginning of our podcast time, you've 42 00:02:15,479 --> 00:02:19,639 become quite prolific, and you've done more than thirty seven 43 00:02:19,680 --> 00:02:22,599 podcast episodes with a lot of people, haven't you. 44 00:02:22,960 --> 00:02:25,159 Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm getting invited pretty much. I get at least 45 00:02:25,199 --> 00:02:28,960 about one invitation a week the last year, from some 46 00:02:29,000 --> 00:02:32,520 really interesting ones, including kind of what we're going to 47 00:02:32,560 --> 00:02:36,080 talk about today. There's a whole other sub genre in 48 00:02:36,120 --> 00:02:38,520 the podcast world that you may not be familiar with, 49 00:02:38,560 --> 00:02:41,240 but has to do with people who are interested in 50 00:02:41,280 --> 00:02:45,759 the nature of human consciousness. So there's a consciousness community 51 00:02:46,000 --> 00:02:46,719 on the Internet. 52 00:02:47,960 --> 00:02:50,599 Speaker 2: And then there's golf consciousness community. 53 00:02:51,360 --> 00:02:53,879 Speaker 1: No, there's not really a golf conscious there's more what 54 00:02:53,919 --> 00:02:56,280 you've been doing. There's a golf mental game community. But 55 00:02:57,319 --> 00:02:59,199 what I wanted to talk about this is kind of 56 00:02:59,240 --> 00:03:01,120 this is kind of a main thing that I've been 57 00:03:01,120 --> 00:03:03,759 interested in, not just as a golf coach for the 58 00:03:03,800 --> 00:03:06,080 last forty years I've been doing it, but even since 59 00:03:06,080 --> 00:03:09,360 I was a very young child, I was always fascinated 60 00:03:09,400 --> 00:03:12,919 by the nature of consciousness, and I want to go 61 00:03:13,000 --> 00:03:15,280 in I think that would be a good topic today 62 00:03:15,319 --> 00:03:18,800 because I think the big critique I have of traditional 63 00:03:18,960 --> 00:03:24,319 mental game instruction in sports psychologies particular even just general 64 00:03:24,479 --> 00:03:27,520 you know, Western psychotherapy, is it's too much based on 65 00:03:28,159 --> 00:03:31,400 what I call Shuldhism, which is the story we tell 66 00:03:31,439 --> 00:03:33,800 ourselves to get ourselves sort of what to get our 67 00:03:33,840 --> 00:03:39,439 mind wrapped around, you know, the nature of improved psychological performance. 68 00:03:40,159 --> 00:03:43,439 But the big missing link historically has been lack of 69 00:03:43,840 --> 00:03:49,719 actual pragmatic execution. Yeah. Do that makes sense? Yeah? Yeah? 70 00:03:49,919 --> 00:03:52,919 And you know the word should have could it right? Yeah? Yeah. 71 00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:55,639 I mean everybody kind of knows. If anybody who's been 72 00:03:55,680 --> 00:03:59,639 a golf mental game podcast junkie like you and me, 73 00:04:00,759 --> 00:04:03,479 we're all kind of saying the same thing. You know. 74 00:04:03,520 --> 00:04:06,080 The experts are pretty much in agreement on the major 75 00:04:06,199 --> 00:04:11,400 points about what the ideal psychological state is. Right. The 76 00:04:11,520 --> 00:04:15,039 question is how do you go from a very anxious, nervous, 77 00:04:15,080 --> 00:04:20,519 stressed out, neurotic psychological state to a calm, emotionally stable, 78 00:04:20,639 --> 00:04:24,800 confident state of mind. And that's the part where I 79 00:04:24,839 --> 00:04:29,639 think traditional approaches are sorely lacking because they don't understand 80 00:04:29,639 --> 00:04:34,399 that the essential nature of consciousness and good for us, 81 00:04:34,439 --> 00:04:36,759 there is a body of knowledge that's been around for 82 00:04:36,800 --> 00:04:39,839 twenty five hundred years, which is the Buddhist tradition. The 83 00:04:39,839 --> 00:04:45,399 Buddhists were the original, were the world's original psychotherapists, and 84 00:04:45,759 --> 00:04:50,279 it's the entire Buddhist tradition when it comes to trying 85 00:04:50,319 --> 00:04:53,000 to understand or explain the nature of the human mind, 86 00:04:53,160 --> 00:04:56,759 is based on empirical observation. It's not based on theory, 87 00:04:56,879 --> 00:05:02,279 meaning Buddhist monks spend sixteen hours a day in the 88 00:05:02,360 --> 00:05:05,240 meditative state of mind, and when they're dreaming, a lot 89 00:05:05,319 --> 00:05:08,079 of them practice something in the West is called lucid dreaming. 90 00:05:08,480 --> 00:05:10,959 They're meditating when they're dreaming. So these are people who 91 00:05:11,079 --> 00:05:17,120 spend the bulk of their day observing how the mind works. Right, 92 00:05:17,839 --> 00:05:20,480 So we can learn a lot from that tradition, especially 93 00:05:20,480 --> 00:05:21,920 the mindfulness aspect of it. 94 00:05:24,519 --> 00:05:29,839 Speaker 2: You know, I'm distracted in the sense that you know, 95 00:05:30,079 --> 00:05:34,920 the Buddhist monks don't play golf. That it's easier, I 96 00:05:35,079 --> 00:05:37,920 have found for me. And this has been a tough 97 00:05:38,000 --> 00:05:39,759 year for me for golf because I've not played as 98 00:05:39,800 --> 00:05:42,399 much as I like to play, because we've just been 99 00:05:42,439 --> 00:05:46,000 busy with family and travel and blah blah blah. And 100 00:05:46,199 --> 00:05:50,319 so I have found for me that when things aren't 101 00:05:50,399 --> 00:05:54,959 going well on the golf course. But let's put it 102 00:05:55,000 --> 00:05:57,480 this way, when things are going well on the golf course, 103 00:05:57,519 --> 00:06:03,399 it's very easy to get into a positive, flowing state. 104 00:06:04,360 --> 00:06:09,759 But when you know, as the round progresses and you 105 00:06:09,959 --> 00:06:16,600 have an issue that becomes reoccurring, whether it be missing 106 00:06:16,639 --> 00:06:20,720 three foot putts multiple times, whether it be chunking off 107 00:06:20,879 --> 00:06:25,839 around the fringes of the green, which is my issue. 108 00:06:26,279 --> 00:06:27,120 Speaker 1: And I work on it. 109 00:06:27,199 --> 00:06:28,519 Speaker 2: I work on it, and I work on it, and 110 00:06:28,519 --> 00:06:30,959 I feel really good and confident and positive, and I 111 00:06:31,000 --> 00:06:34,399 go to the golf course and I hit it eight inches. 112 00:06:34,519 --> 00:06:36,879 I mean it's like I just chunk behind it. So 113 00:06:37,079 --> 00:06:41,439 when that happens multiple times, it's very difficult to calm 114 00:06:41,480 --> 00:06:46,720 yourself down, to get into a like, oh, just like, 115 00:06:46,879 --> 00:06:50,399 look at the trees, appreciate where you are, feel grateful, 116 00:06:51,120 --> 00:06:53,920 just breathe, I mean, all those things I do. 117 00:06:54,079 --> 00:06:57,560 Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, In fact, it actually makes it worse because 118 00:06:57,560 --> 00:06:59,720 now you have a set of behaviors you're supposed to 119 00:06:59,800 --> 00:07:03,839 be expressing right, and you're utterly failing to do all 120 00:07:03,879 --> 00:07:07,519 that sports psychology recommended stuff. So that makes you feel 121 00:07:07,560 --> 00:07:11,240 even worse. Yes, that's the essential dilemma from a Buddhists 122 00:07:11,240 --> 00:07:14,519 point of view. To keep it real simple, a there's 123 00:07:14,560 --> 00:07:18,600 a type of suffering that human beings experience, which is 124 00:07:18,639 --> 00:07:22,839 sometimes called in the Buddhist tradition secondary suffering or reactive suffering, 125 00:07:22,879 --> 00:07:27,040 which basically means when life presents a problem to you 126 00:07:27,120 --> 00:07:30,319 in the external world, how do you react to that 127 00:07:30,439 --> 00:07:36,160 external world situation can create unnecessary suffering sow is, there's 128 00:07:36,199 --> 00:07:39,199 sort of required or necessary suffering because of the nature 129 00:07:39,199 --> 00:07:41,759 of human existence, right that we don't get our way 130 00:07:41,800 --> 00:07:43,360 all the time, and we don't we don't have one 131 00:07:43,399 --> 00:07:45,920 hundred percent freedom, and we don't have you know, we're 132 00:07:45,920 --> 00:07:49,879 not God's We have limitations that the physical world presents 133 00:07:49,920 --> 00:07:52,120 to us. But then there's how we react to that 134 00:07:52,199 --> 00:07:56,240 type of suffering. The original suffering become turns into reactive suffering, 135 00:07:57,040 --> 00:07:59,439 and then that begs a question, well, is there anything 136 00:07:59,480 --> 00:08:03,000 you can do to lower that reactive suffering? And the 137 00:08:03,000 --> 00:08:05,519 answer is absolutely, from a Buddhist point of view, absolutely 138 00:08:05,560 --> 00:08:07,360 yes there is, which but it means you have to 139 00:08:07,399 --> 00:08:09,759 do the work. You have to do some type of 140 00:08:09,800 --> 00:08:14,279 psychological hygiene practice the way you do physical hygiene terms 141 00:08:14,279 --> 00:08:18,199 of working out or dental hygiene, brushing your teeth. I 142 00:08:18,279 --> 00:08:21,040 believe everybody should be doing at least one form of 143 00:08:21,480 --> 00:08:27,199 daily mindfulness practice just to maintain basic psychological health. Yeah, 144 00:08:27,360 --> 00:08:28,040 pretty important. 145 00:08:28,680 --> 00:08:33,000 Speaker 2: I would think that reactive suffering is just a euphemism 146 00:08:33,080 --> 00:08:43,240 for golf. Yeah, what are you gonna do today? Hey babe, 147 00:08:43,279 --> 00:08:45,000 I'll be back in a couple hours. I'm gonna go 148 00:08:45,039 --> 00:08:46,360 do reactive suffering. 149 00:08:47,159 --> 00:08:51,159 Speaker 1: Yeah, what tells that a lot of money to do it. 150 00:08:53,200 --> 00:08:57,279 Speaker 2: Yeah, and you choose to do this, yes, yes, as 151 00:08:57,320 --> 00:08:58,799 often as I possibly can. 152 00:09:00,320 --> 00:09:03,000 Speaker 1: So I've developed a system that's kind of a step 153 00:09:03,039 --> 00:09:06,399 by step series of principles about the nature of consciousness. 154 00:09:06,440 --> 00:09:09,600 And when people understand that and start to do the work, 155 00:09:10,200 --> 00:09:13,279 that's when I start to see a pretty rapid and 156 00:09:13,480 --> 00:09:17,320 big increase in their psychological performance, whether it's on or 157 00:09:17,360 --> 00:09:20,919 off the golf course. Yeah. And the first one is 158 00:09:21,039 --> 00:09:23,639 the first step, or the first stage, is to understand 159 00:09:23,679 --> 00:09:28,039 the nature of normal consciousness, meaning normal consciousness would be 160 00:09:28,120 --> 00:09:31,240 someone who's never done any type of mindfulness practice, right. 161 00:09:32,039 --> 00:09:36,600 And there's various aspects of normal consciousness, but I'm just 162 00:09:36,600 --> 00:09:38,279 going to go over a couple of the really big ones. 163 00:09:38,320 --> 00:09:42,679 One is random chaos. In Buddhism, that's called monkey mind, 164 00:09:42,759 --> 00:09:46,240 meaning your mind is constantly churning. It doesn't like to 165 00:09:46,279 --> 00:09:48,879 be at rest, it doesn't like to be stable. It 166 00:09:48,960 --> 00:09:52,240 always wants to be moving at pretty high rates of 167 00:09:52,320 --> 00:09:58,399 speak thoughts, entering, leaving judgments, conclusions. There's this constant churning mass. 168 00:09:58,399 --> 00:10:03,240 It's sometimes described as a in Buddhist philosophy, right, like 169 00:10:03,000 --> 00:10:05,799 a like a like a class three rapid river with 170 00:10:06,080 --> 00:10:10,039 different abjects floating in the surface, and you're in the 171 00:10:10,120 --> 00:10:12,000 river and you don't know how to swim. This is 172 00:10:12,159 --> 00:10:15,919 the basic depiction of sort of you know, baseline human suffering, 173 00:10:16,679 --> 00:10:18,840 and you're trying to keep your head above water, and 174 00:10:18,879 --> 00:10:21,080 what do you do to to not drown in the 175 00:10:21,159 --> 00:10:25,240 in the river of suffering and mental chaos? Right, And 176 00:10:25,320 --> 00:10:31,679 so the idea is, uh, there's a way to basically 177 00:10:32,120 --> 00:10:37,240 find a way to basically keep your head above water 178 00:10:37,879 --> 00:10:40,600 so you don't drown, and then eventually learn how to 179 00:10:40,639 --> 00:10:43,120 swim a little bit and then eventually swim over to 180 00:10:43,200 --> 00:10:45,399 the bank of the river, climb climb up on the 181 00:10:45,440 --> 00:10:49,000 bank and sit and watch the river go by. That's 182 00:10:49,279 --> 00:10:50,840 that would be more of a more of an advanced 183 00:10:50,840 --> 00:10:54,799 state of mindfulness practice. You got to start somewhere, and 184 00:10:54,840 --> 00:10:57,240 so that that type of practice in the Buddhist tradition 185 00:10:57,399 --> 00:11:01,360 is called samata or translating from power or censort to English, 186 00:11:01,399 --> 00:11:07,240 that means concentration or narrow focus. Yeah. Okay, So if 187 00:11:07,240 --> 00:11:10,240 you think of if you think of awareness or consciousness, 188 00:11:10,240 --> 00:11:13,159 which is often described not just Buddhist tradition, but most 189 00:11:13,240 --> 00:11:17,840 major religions and systems of psychotherapy will will describe consciousness 190 00:11:17,919 --> 00:11:21,440 as a beam of light. Yeah. And the beam of 191 00:11:21,519 --> 00:11:24,679 light has three sizes or modes, which are a search 192 00:11:24,799 --> 00:11:29,039 light super wide, yeah, and then a medium wide, and 193 00:11:29,080 --> 00:11:31,519 then very narrow. So narrow would be like a like 194 00:11:31,559 --> 00:11:34,519 a quarter inch diameter laser beam. Think of it like 195 00:11:34,559 --> 00:11:37,080 that versus the big mind that super wide would be 196 00:11:37,120 --> 00:11:39,440 like a search light. And so what you're doing in 197 00:11:39,559 --> 00:11:44,600 early stages and mindfulness practices, you switch on narrow mode 198 00:11:45,279 --> 00:11:49,320 by focusing intensely on just one small thing, which we 199 00:11:49,360 --> 00:11:52,600 call the focal point. And there could be any number 200 00:11:52,639 --> 00:11:54,559 of things and golf, it could be the target picture, 201 00:11:54,600 --> 00:11:57,240 for example, or it could be the feeling of grip pressure. Yeah. 202 00:11:58,039 --> 00:12:01,240 In sittying meditation, it's usually feeling your belly move in 203 00:12:01,279 --> 00:12:05,480 and out with your breath. Yeah. The exercise I start 204 00:12:05,519 --> 00:12:08,399 all my students with is a real simple one called 205 00:12:08,440 --> 00:12:12,120 candle flame concentration. So you when you're not stressed and 206 00:12:12,159 --> 00:12:14,639 when you're not tired, you sit in a dimly lit room. 207 00:12:14,720 --> 00:12:17,559 You light a candle, put it on your coffee table, 208 00:12:17,600 --> 00:12:20,279 sit on the couch or the chair, set your phone 209 00:12:20,279 --> 00:12:24,679 alarm for two minutes, and the goal is to simply 210 00:12:24,720 --> 00:12:28,200 pay attention to the flickering candle. Flame without having any 211 00:12:28,360 --> 00:12:32,080 internal psychological reaction to it, and without your mind wandering 212 00:12:32,120 --> 00:12:35,879 off going somewhere else, which you know sounds easy fread, 213 00:12:35,919 --> 00:12:37,320 but it's really really difficult. 214 00:12:37,519 --> 00:12:39,600 Speaker 2: God, God, it would be painful for me. 215 00:12:41,879 --> 00:12:44,879 Speaker 1: Yeah, because again, the essential nature of the monkey mind 216 00:12:44,919 --> 00:12:46,840 is it doesn't like to stay on one thing. It 217 00:12:46,919 --> 00:12:49,519 likes to flip back and forth from one one focus 218 00:12:49,519 --> 00:12:50,639 of attention to another. 219 00:12:57,559 --> 00:13:00,960 Speaker 2: I am very familiar with monkey mind. I live it, 220 00:13:01,879 --> 00:13:05,879 and I'm very familiar with the term because it's very 221 00:13:05,919 --> 00:13:11,039 hard for me to stay focused on anyone, especially you know, 222 00:13:11,080 --> 00:13:13,519 in a short period of time, an intense period of time. 223 00:13:14,399 --> 00:13:19,679 Speaker 1: Yeah. Another aspect of it is when you start to meditate, 224 00:13:19,759 --> 00:13:21,960 not only do you realize you actually have a much 225 00:13:22,279 --> 00:13:25,759 Everybody experiences this, It's universal. Everybody who meditates for the 226 00:13:25,759 --> 00:13:28,600 first week of doing it properly, by the end of 227 00:13:28,600 --> 00:13:31,200 the week they're like stunned at how out of control 228 00:13:31,240 --> 00:13:33,159 their mind is. So I call that your mind has 229 00:13:33,200 --> 00:13:37,080 a mind of its own. It doesn't want to stay focused. Right. 230 00:13:37,759 --> 00:13:41,600 But there's another aspect of normal human consciousness, which is 231 00:13:41,639 --> 00:13:45,759 that we have way less free will or choice than 232 00:13:45,799 --> 00:13:49,240 we think we do. In other words, again, there's an 233 00:13:49,320 --> 00:13:52,120 involunte even though we call it conscious mind, because what 234 00:13:52,120 --> 00:13:55,320 we're talking about is amenable, it's accessible to consciousness, right, 235 00:13:55,360 --> 00:13:58,399 So you can be aware of your thought patterns, for example. 236 00:13:59,120 --> 00:14:01,399 But the fact that you can be aware of what's 237 00:14:01,440 --> 00:14:04,759 going on in your conscious mind sort of mental space, 238 00:14:05,559 --> 00:14:08,559 doesn't mean that you have a high degree of control 239 00:14:08,600 --> 00:14:13,159 over it so very much. So we're human beings. Are 240 00:14:13,200 --> 00:14:18,200 not too dissimilar to the famous Pavlovs dogs experiment where 241 00:14:18,240 --> 00:14:21,080 the dogs were trained, through what's called operate conditioning, to 242 00:14:21,279 --> 00:14:24,240 salivate when they hear a bell ring. Have we heard 243 00:14:24,240 --> 00:14:26,919 of that? So there was real reactive creatures. We're not 244 00:14:27,200 --> 00:14:30,519 primarily rational creatures, which is the big mistake of the 245 00:14:30,559 --> 00:14:34,679 European Enlightenment philosophers who thought we were primarily rational. We're 246 00:14:34,720 --> 00:14:40,360 primarily emotional creatures, and we're primarily storytelling or myth creating creatures. 247 00:14:40,720 --> 00:14:45,799 We're not primarily logical, irrational creatures. So that's the second 248 00:14:45,840 --> 00:14:48,440 thing you realize when you do early stages of mindfulness 249 00:14:48,519 --> 00:14:51,320 practice that you're kind of like the dog. When the 250 00:14:51,320 --> 00:14:55,200 bell rings, you react. So when you triple bogie your 251 00:14:55,200 --> 00:14:57,919 first hole and around the golf and you got about 252 00:14:57,960 --> 00:15:00,240 a one or two minute walk to the next tee. 253 00:15:00,799 --> 00:15:05,360 That's your opportunity to start to start salivating, so to speak, 254 00:15:05,840 --> 00:15:08,240 because you just messed up the first hole, right, So 255 00:15:08,320 --> 00:15:10,600 now you start going to the reactive suffering where you 256 00:15:10,600 --> 00:15:14,399 beat yourself up. You have this intense conversation with yourself 257 00:15:14,440 --> 00:15:16,919 while you're walking to the second tee, right, and that 258 00:15:17,240 --> 00:15:19,720 all that does is make the likelihood of your second 259 00:15:19,960 --> 00:15:22,559 of your key shot on the second hole being as 260 00:15:22,600 --> 00:15:24,879 bad as the first hole that you messed up. Right. 261 00:15:25,159 --> 00:15:27,080 Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, for me, it's like when I when I 262 00:15:27,120 --> 00:15:29,480 have that triple bogie on the front where you watching 263 00:15:29,559 --> 00:15:33,440 me play yesterday, It's like, Okay, that's out of my system. 264 00:15:33,519 --> 00:15:36,399 Speaker 1: Now let's move on. Well, that's the right way to 265 00:15:36,440 --> 00:15:39,120 frame it, correct, That's that's how a Buddhist monkly frame it. 266 00:15:39,159 --> 00:15:41,200 But most people don't do that. They go into what 267 00:15:41,240 --> 00:15:43,240 we call the ego drama and they feed it. 268 00:15:43,519 --> 00:15:45,480 Speaker 2: Right, it's like, oh, this is gonna be a really 269 00:15:45,559 --> 00:15:46,120 long day. 270 00:15:46,200 --> 00:15:47,919 Speaker 1: Oh my god, I can't believe you know. 271 00:15:48,039 --> 00:15:49,960 Speaker 2: It's like they think that that's going to dictate the 272 00:15:50,240 --> 00:15:52,720 rest of the round. 273 00:15:52,080 --> 00:15:54,759 Speaker 1: You could burn you the next five hole. Nobody knows 274 00:15:54,799 --> 00:15:57,679 what's going to happen. Everything. The nature of physical reality, 275 00:15:57,759 --> 00:16:01,399 in fact, it's called the fourth dimension is time. We 276 00:16:01,440 --> 00:16:04,440 live in a three dimensional universe spatially, and then time 277 00:16:04,519 --> 00:16:07,639 is the fourth and the essential nature of time is 278 00:16:08,159 --> 00:16:10,919 this moment has never happened before, it will never happen 279 00:16:10,960 --> 00:16:15,519 in the future. The present moment is completely unique and 280 00:16:15,600 --> 00:16:18,679 at the level of human psychology, the past has no 281 00:16:18,879 --> 00:16:21,879 influence over your ability to perform this shot. 282 00:16:22,159 --> 00:16:24,759 Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I was telling somebody that this week I 283 00:16:24,840 --> 00:16:27,159 was playing and he hit a ball left and he goes, 284 00:16:27,399 --> 00:16:29,759 I do that every time on this whole I'm like, 285 00:16:29,879 --> 00:16:33,440 oh boy, do we have to talk like it has 286 00:16:33,559 --> 00:16:36,960 nothing to do with this shot? Your history has nothing 287 00:16:37,080 --> 00:16:38,559 to do with your next shot. 288 00:16:39,200 --> 00:16:42,000 Speaker 1: Yeah, we call that the myth of psychological momentum. The 289 00:16:42,039 --> 00:16:45,279 physical momentum is real the level of the body, clearly, 290 00:16:45,320 --> 00:16:47,960 the past influence is the present. Be injured yourself, like 291 00:16:48,519 --> 00:16:50,879 I always use. Tony Finow a few years ago to Augusta, 292 00:16:50,919 --> 00:16:53,639 he sprained his ankle in the Wednesday Part three contests. 293 00:16:53,879 --> 00:16:55,759 Somehow he was still able to play and he actually 294 00:16:55,759 --> 00:16:58,159 made the cut, but obviously he didn't play as well 295 00:16:58,159 --> 00:17:00,960 as he could have. So past loses the body, but 296 00:17:01,000 --> 00:17:04,720 it doesn't influence the mind ironically, Fred, unless you believe 297 00:17:04,759 --> 00:17:07,039 it does due to the power of what we call 298 00:17:07,119 --> 00:17:10,680 in psychotherapy the as if principle, or the power of belief. 299 00:17:10,720 --> 00:17:15,039 So if you believe the past has some external, actual, 300 00:17:15,119 --> 00:17:19,440 objective force that's affecting you your ability to perform mentally now, 301 00:17:19,960 --> 00:17:25,000 then ironically it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Yeah, but 302 00:17:25,079 --> 00:17:30,079 objectively it doesn't have an influence at all. And yeah, 303 00:17:30,160 --> 00:17:32,119 so those first two steps to read. By the way, 304 00:17:32,119 --> 00:17:34,640 did you know that close to ninety five percent of 305 00:17:34,720 --> 00:17:38,160 people who learn at least classical beginner level Buddhist meditation 306 00:17:38,359 --> 00:17:40,400 quit by the end of thirty days. They don't stay 307 00:17:40,400 --> 00:17:42,960 with it. It has a worse track record than weight 308 00:17:43,000 --> 00:17:43,920 loss programs. 309 00:17:44,160 --> 00:17:46,640 Speaker 2: Wow, from what meditation does. 310 00:17:47,160 --> 00:17:50,279 Speaker 1: Yeah, most people will not get to most average people 311 00:17:50,319 --> 00:17:52,079 will not even make it to thirty days. But the 312 00:17:52,160 --> 00:17:55,920 problem is you don't get the benefit. Generally speaking, you 313 00:17:55,960 --> 00:17:59,039 get almost no benefit until you reach the thirty day mark. 314 00:17:59,279 --> 00:18:03,160 Speaker 2: Well then then doesn't that make sense and why people 315 00:18:03,160 --> 00:18:06,119 believe it's like working for me? 316 00:18:06,920 --> 00:18:10,319 Speaker 1: Yeah? Well no, only that. Again, it's painful to realize 317 00:18:10,440 --> 00:18:13,000 I'm more like a dog reacting to a bell that 318 00:18:13,160 --> 00:18:16,440 tinkling more reactive than I thought I was. I have 319 00:18:16,680 --> 00:18:19,880 less free will, less personal autonomy than I used to think, 320 00:18:20,240 --> 00:18:23,559 and my mind is like, it's like, you know, it's 321 00:18:24,160 --> 00:18:25,880 like the monkey mind thing. I got this out of 322 00:18:25,880 --> 00:18:28,519 control mind. And so it's painful to have those two 323 00:18:28,559 --> 00:18:32,240 insights about the nature of normal consciousness. But it's also 324 00:18:32,279 --> 00:18:34,799 a mistake, obviously in my view, to quit. I think 325 00:18:34,839 --> 00:18:36,559 if you could stick it out and get through the 326 00:18:36,599 --> 00:18:40,200 beginning of the second month, particularly if you're doing sitting meditation, 327 00:18:40,279 --> 00:18:43,640 which is designed to be insanely boring on purpose, if 328 00:18:43,640 --> 00:18:45,839 you can get over that first thirty days, that's when 329 00:18:45,920 --> 00:18:48,400 the magic starts to happen. You get the benefits. Yeah, 330 00:18:49,599 --> 00:18:52,200 and again the main benefit is you start to create 331 00:18:52,400 --> 00:18:56,839 much more mental clarity and much more emotional stability, so 332 00:18:56,920 --> 00:19:01,680 less negativity, less negative emotions, more positive emotions, less stress. 333 00:19:01,680 --> 00:19:05,440 You become less reactive to stressful situations, and you become 334 00:19:05,519 --> 00:19:08,680 much better at the ability to focus your attention. And 335 00:19:08,720 --> 00:19:10,640 that's when the goods things start to happen. In terms 336 00:19:10,680 --> 00:19:12,319 of golf performance. 337 00:19:12,400 --> 00:19:20,160 Speaker 2: Well, and I see that personally. I consider golf and 338 00:19:20,400 --> 00:19:24,559 my swimming, which is my exercise besides walking. Golf courses 339 00:19:25,759 --> 00:19:27,559 is a moving, moving, meditation. 340 00:19:28,559 --> 00:19:31,279 Speaker 1: M yeah, that's right, me too, That's what I do. 341 00:19:31,319 --> 00:19:34,119 Speaker 2: And yeah, and to me, that's the preference I can. 342 00:19:34,240 --> 00:19:39,079 I can move and focus and do that versus just 343 00:19:39,240 --> 00:19:42,039 sitting and staring at a candle right. 344 00:19:42,200 --> 00:19:45,119 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Well candle flame is actually easier than sitting 345 00:19:45,440 --> 00:19:47,559 because the reason why the candle flame is easier for 346 00:19:47,640 --> 00:19:51,119 people is because it's always it's it never flickers the 347 00:19:51,160 --> 00:19:53,880 same way. There's a newness, there's a novelty to the 348 00:19:53,920 --> 00:19:58,279 movement of the candle flame, right yeah, yeah, meditation, And 349 00:19:58,839 --> 00:20:01,440 once you start to focus the sensations coming from your 350 00:20:01,519 --> 00:20:03,559 belly as it moves in and out with your breath, 351 00:20:04,400 --> 00:20:06,519 after you kind of lock in on it, maybe five 352 00:20:06,599 --> 00:20:09,519 or six seconds later, you suddenly realize, well, this is 353 00:20:09,519 --> 00:20:13,359 the same sensation pretty much every time. It's not fundamentally different, 354 00:20:13,920 --> 00:20:16,599 and your mind goes, this is insanely boring. I'm going 355 00:20:16,680 --> 00:20:18,799 to go I'm going to leave my belly and go 356 00:20:18,880 --> 00:20:21,079 up into my head space where the thoughts stream is 357 00:20:21,400 --> 00:20:25,119 and entertain myself by thinking about something pleasant that happened 358 00:20:25,200 --> 00:20:28,759 yesterday or that might happen a week from now. And 359 00:20:28,799 --> 00:20:31,160 the problem with that is then you then you start daydreaming, 360 00:20:31,200 --> 00:20:33,160 you get lost in the thoughsterream, You get lost in 361 00:20:33,160 --> 00:20:35,119 your thoughts, and now you're doing the opposite of what 362 00:20:35,160 --> 00:20:38,839 you should be doing when you're meditating, right, You're you're 363 00:20:38,839 --> 00:20:41,440 feeding the thoughtstream. You're feeding the monkey might when you 364 00:20:41,480 --> 00:20:43,359 do that. So the whole point of it is to 365 00:20:43,400 --> 00:20:46,319 get out of your head, get out of your headspace, 366 00:20:46,359 --> 00:20:49,519 and into your physical body by focusing on the sensations 367 00:20:50,640 --> 00:20:55,240 coming from your body when you're inhaling and exhaling. Right, 368 00:20:55,319 --> 00:20:58,960 But how to learning how to accept boredom and overcoming it, 369 00:20:59,079 --> 00:21:02,160 seeing boredom as it interesting challenge that should be overcome 370 00:21:02,559 --> 00:21:05,519 and not run away from. You know, this constant need 371 00:21:05,559 --> 00:21:09,680 to entertain ourselves is in itself a form of neurosis. Right, 372 00:21:11,000 --> 00:21:15,599 There's never been a more entertainment entertainment industrial complex society 373 00:21:16,359 --> 00:21:19,640 than modern America in the twenty first century. We've we've 374 00:21:19,640 --> 00:21:21,920 got it. We've got a movie theater in our back pocket, 375 00:21:22,000 --> 00:21:25,839 your phone. We can constantly, we can constantly distract ourselves 376 00:21:25,920 --> 00:21:29,519 using the internet, right, yeah, Yeah. 377 00:21:29,200 --> 00:21:32,680 Speaker 2: And And the other thing that I find absolutely fascinating, 378 00:21:32,720 --> 00:21:34,920 since we're very good at bouncing all over the place 379 00:21:34,960 --> 00:21:38,960 on these conversations, the thing that I find really fascinating 380 00:21:39,240 --> 00:21:45,880 is that because of that library movie theater in your 381 00:21:45,920 --> 00:21:51,839 back pocket. Younger generation, I've noticed people I interact with 382 00:21:52,640 --> 00:21:59,599 don't value the elder's experience and wisdom that we've gathered 383 00:21:59,720 --> 00:22:04,960 over decades of life. Yeah, because they're like, well, I 384 00:22:05,000 --> 00:22:07,880 don't need to ask you. I'll just ask Google, or 385 00:22:07,920 --> 00:22:10,160 I'll go on Chad GPT and have a conversation and 386 00:22:10,200 --> 00:22:14,359 get all the wisdom of the world ever recorded in 387 00:22:15,039 --> 00:22:15,599 my answer. 388 00:22:15,839 --> 00:22:16,279 Speaker 1: I won't. 389 00:22:16,359 --> 00:22:18,559 Speaker 2: I don't need your your thoughts anymore. 390 00:22:19,440 --> 00:22:22,720 Speaker 1: Yeah, No, that's a bit. It's a problem socially, it's 391 00:22:22,720 --> 00:22:24,960 a big cultural and social problem. I think we're going 392 00:22:25,039 --> 00:22:27,599 to start to see I think it's already starting to happen. 393 00:22:27,640 --> 00:22:29,680 We're starting to see a little bit of a movement 394 00:22:30,680 --> 00:22:35,279 away from the more toxic aspects of the Internet. Yeah. 395 00:22:36,400 --> 00:22:38,440 I think it's going to keep growing with with AI 396 00:22:38,880 --> 00:22:41,039 coming on strong. But we're gonna see more and more 397 00:22:41,039 --> 00:22:43,759 of a reaction to I hope, maybe not full on 398 00:22:43,839 --> 00:22:48,160 ludite like I've been most you know, but maybe semi ludite. 399 00:22:48,240 --> 00:22:49,880 We'll see, we'll see how it goes. 400 00:22:56,240 --> 00:23:00,480 Speaker 2: Okay, Jim, you allow me always to get to tracted 401 00:23:00,599 --> 00:23:04,880 in topics, which kind of shows you how good I 402 00:23:04,920 --> 00:23:08,839 meditation stuff. So I can't even keep a conversation going 403 00:23:08,880 --> 00:23:10,960 without changing the topic more than once. 404 00:23:11,359 --> 00:23:15,599 Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but we need to make this relate. 405 00:23:15,400 --> 00:23:19,200 Speaker 2: To golfers who are frustrated and struggling. 406 00:23:20,160 --> 00:23:26,640 Speaker 1: Yeah, which is golfers. Yeah, no doubt, yeah and yeah. 407 00:23:26,680 --> 00:23:29,640 So my point of all this is that there's in 408 00:23:29,680 --> 00:23:33,960 a really baseline simple way, when I work with a 409 00:23:34,039 --> 00:23:36,559 new student on some of this mental game and mindful 410 00:23:36,559 --> 00:23:40,200 of stuff, it comes down to do they understand the 411 00:23:40,240 --> 00:23:45,160 difference between the internal world versus the external world? So 412 00:23:45,279 --> 00:23:47,519 this is called I've came up with this theory forty 413 00:23:47,599 --> 00:23:50,920 years ago I called the two worlds theory, which is that, again, 414 00:23:50,960 --> 00:23:55,680 a big part of Buddhism is that we coexist, not 415 00:23:55,880 --> 00:23:59,839 literally simultaneously, but pretty much potentially simultaneously. We live in 416 00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:03,000 two different worlds at the same time. There's the physical 417 00:24:03,079 --> 00:24:06,559 world that science studies, also known as the external world 418 00:24:06,680 --> 00:24:11,000 or also known as reality. Right. Your body is part 419 00:24:11,039 --> 00:24:13,440 of that world, although most people don't think of their 420 00:24:13,440 --> 00:24:15,519 body as part of it. It is that your body 421 00:24:15,559 --> 00:24:19,200 exists in the physical world. Right. Then you have a 422 00:24:19,319 --> 00:24:23,880 private psychological space, sometimes referred to in philosophy as subjective 423 00:24:23,920 --> 00:24:28,759 world or internal world, right, And one of the principles 424 00:24:28,799 --> 00:24:32,240 of the two world theory is that there's a massive 425 00:24:32,359 --> 00:24:36,480 wall of separation between those two worlds. They're literally like 426 00:24:36,559 --> 00:24:40,559 oil and water. They do not mix in reality. Now 427 00:24:40,680 --> 00:24:45,559 there's a subjective belief that they kind of intermingle, but 428 00:24:45,640 --> 00:24:48,680 that's because people who have that belief just aren't paying 429 00:24:48,680 --> 00:24:50,880 attention because they don't meditate. Right. But when you start 430 00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:54,359 to meditate, you realize I can't be in my internal, 431 00:24:54,400 --> 00:24:59,559 private psychological headspace and paying attention to the external world 432 00:24:59,640 --> 00:25:02,319 which flutes my body at the same time. I can 433 00:25:02,359 --> 00:25:04,319 only be one of those two worlds in terms of 434 00:25:04,319 --> 00:25:07,039 my flashlight being, so to speak. Again, if you think 435 00:25:07,039 --> 00:25:09,640 of consciousness as a beam of light coming from a flashlight, 436 00:25:10,000 --> 00:25:14,079 the flashlight beam is either pointed externally on the physical world, 437 00:25:14,440 --> 00:25:19,319 including your body at the level of kinesthetic or feel awareness, 438 00:25:20,039 --> 00:25:23,640 or it's inward and you're paying attention, you're paying to 439 00:25:23,720 --> 00:25:28,559 your private subjective psychological space. Another principle of this, which 440 00:25:28,599 --> 00:25:30,759 is really a big one from the Buddhist perspective is 441 00:25:31,680 --> 00:25:33,480 this might be the biggest one, I think in the 442 00:25:33,519 --> 00:25:39,839 history of Buddhists thought what Buddhism, what the the experience 443 00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:42,039 of Buddhist monks who spend a lot of time what's 444 00:25:42,079 --> 00:25:45,880 studying their mind is is that when you're in your 445 00:25:45,920 --> 00:25:51,640 psychological headspace, paying attentions to thoughts, memories, hopes, fears, fantasies 446 00:25:51,640 --> 00:25:56,279 of the future, forming beliefs, conclusions, mental pictures, all of 447 00:25:56,279 --> 00:26:01,440 that stuff fundamentally that state that psychologie logical stake. Functionally, 448 00:26:01,839 --> 00:26:04,960 this is equivalent to dreaming at night, meaning there's a 449 00:26:05,039 --> 00:26:07,839 made up aspect to it. It's kind of like we 450 00:26:07,839 --> 00:26:12,240 don't need to put a headset on, like the oculus 451 00:26:12,319 --> 00:26:15,200 set set that Microsoft has to go into a digital 452 00:26:15,200 --> 00:26:19,319 simulation world. We have a biological capability to create a 453 00:26:19,400 --> 00:26:22,519 digital so to speak, simulation world, and it's the private 454 00:26:22,519 --> 00:26:26,440 psychological space we're talking about. We already have that. But 455 00:26:26,599 --> 00:26:30,480 from a psychological suffering standpoint, one of the primary reasons 456 00:26:30,480 --> 00:26:35,160 why we suffer psychologically, the secondary, the reactive suffering, is 457 00:26:35,839 --> 00:26:40,279 we take everything that takes place in our private psychological space, 458 00:26:40,880 --> 00:26:43,759 we give it as much credibility as we do the 459 00:26:43,759 --> 00:26:47,000 physical world, and in most people today, they give it 460 00:26:47,079 --> 00:26:50,839 more credibility than the physical world, which is stunning when 461 00:26:50,839 --> 00:26:53,759 you think about it because again, everything that takes place 462 00:26:53,799 --> 00:26:57,559 in that private psychological space has an aspect of what 463 00:26:57,759 --> 00:27:02,799 is called symbolic consciousness. If you think of do you 464 00:27:02,839 --> 00:27:04,839 know anything about art history? Have you ever studied any 465 00:27:04,880 --> 00:27:08,640 art history? No? Okay, So there was a movement in 466 00:27:08,680 --> 00:27:12,160 the early twentieth century. There was a Dadaist movement and 467 00:27:12,640 --> 00:27:18,759 a Surrealist movement in art, and like the famous Salvator Dahali, 468 00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:24,000 you know, the Spanish painter, it looked like dreamscapes. Right. 469 00:27:24,599 --> 00:27:30,960 So the purpose of sort of the social purpose, the 470 00:27:31,039 --> 00:27:34,640 underlying meaning to both the dataists and the surrealistic movement 471 00:27:34,680 --> 00:27:37,839 in art history was to help people wake up, to 472 00:27:37,920 --> 00:27:42,279 differentiate the clear distinction between a symbol compared to the 473 00:27:42,319 --> 00:27:45,279 reality that the symbol points to. And when you're in 474 00:27:45,519 --> 00:27:50,480 symbolic consciousness, there's a conflation between the symbol and the reality. 475 00:27:50,559 --> 00:27:52,920 So you know the old phrase, this was a big 476 00:27:53,000 --> 00:27:58,240 slogan back in the sixties, the map is not the territory. Yeah, 477 00:27:58,359 --> 00:28:00,200 a map is a map. A map is not the 478 00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:03,920 same thing as the actual physical landscape that the map represents, 479 00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:07,599 right right, And a word is not the same thing 480 00:28:07,799 --> 00:28:10,119 as the object in the physical universe. So if I 481 00:28:10,160 --> 00:28:15,039 say the word flower, right, And after I say the 482 00:28:15,039 --> 00:28:18,559 word in my private headspace, I then go into internal 483 00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:21,680 visual mode and I picture a flower. So the word 484 00:28:21,720 --> 00:28:24,400 flower is not the same thing as an actual flower, 485 00:28:24,640 --> 00:28:28,240 and a visual image of a flower in my head 486 00:28:28,319 --> 00:28:30,920 space is not the same thing as an actual flower. 487 00:28:31,240 --> 00:28:35,680 There's there's a fundamental difference between the word flower or 488 00:28:35,759 --> 00:28:40,559 picturing flower and an actual flower. Right. So, anytime you're 489 00:28:40,599 --> 00:28:43,640 talking to yourself, if you're doing what's called verbal thinking, 490 00:28:44,200 --> 00:28:46,920 where you hear your own voice in your head using language, 491 00:28:47,200 --> 00:28:51,599 or anytime you're picturing something in your mind's eye visually functionally, 492 00:28:52,599 --> 00:28:55,000 that's the same thing that happens when you're asleep at night, 493 00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:58,319 when you're dreaming, you're engaging in symbolic consciousness. And in 494 00:28:58,359 --> 00:29:01,400 both cases, when you're dreaming until you finally wake up 495 00:29:01,480 --> 00:29:03,160 and go, oh, I must be having a nightmare, and 496 00:29:03,160 --> 00:29:05,359 then you wake up. But until the moment you sort 497 00:29:05,359 --> 00:29:08,440 of realize I must be dreaming, people don't think of 498 00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:10,240 it as a dream. They think of it as being real, 499 00:29:10,519 --> 00:29:14,559 right when you're in normal dreaming, right and in normal consciousness. 500 00:29:14,559 --> 00:29:17,799 People take everything that takes place in their private psychological 501 00:29:17,799 --> 00:29:23,240 space way too seriously, way too credibly. So Therefore, if 502 00:29:23,279 --> 00:29:26,839 an average person suddenly had a series of very negative 503 00:29:27,839 --> 00:29:32,920 thoughts come into consciousness, like disturbing, highly negative thoughts, they 504 00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:37,160 will react to those thoughts as if the situation the 505 00:29:37,240 --> 00:29:41,400 thoughts are depicting was actually happening right now, when in 506 00:29:41,519 --> 00:29:44,359 the point of fact, they might have happened twenty years ago, 507 00:29:45,160 --> 00:29:48,319 but you'll experience it as being almost as real as 508 00:29:48,359 --> 00:29:51,279 the original of that twenty years ago. But if a 509 00:29:51,319 --> 00:29:53,839 Buddhist monk had a thought of something that happened twenty 510 00:29:53,920 --> 00:29:56,960 years enter his mind, he would think, oh, that's interesting, 511 00:29:56,960 --> 00:29:58,519 I wonder why I'm thinking about that, and then he 512 00:29:58,519 --> 00:30:00,799 would let it go. He wouldn't have any emotional or 513 00:30:00,839 --> 00:30:06,079 psychological reaction to that shain of thought. Zero. Yeah, So 514 00:30:06,200 --> 00:30:08,319 that's kind of where we're going, where we should be going. 515 00:30:08,359 --> 00:30:11,359 I think as metal game coach is more about get 516 00:30:11,359 --> 00:30:14,400 down to the nitty gritty the application, less about the ideal, 517 00:30:14,480 --> 00:30:18,000 more about how do I actually do something pragmatic to 518 00:30:18,079 --> 00:30:21,559 get to the ideal state? Right right? 519 00:30:21,640 --> 00:30:24,559 Speaker 2: I mean, you know, the whole point here, and the 520 00:30:24,559 --> 00:30:30,680 theme of your conversation is understanding how consciousness works to 521 00:30:30,759 --> 00:30:33,160 improve the golf mental game. 522 00:30:33,279 --> 00:30:34,759 Speaker 1: So how do we. 523 00:30:36,119 --> 00:30:39,440 Speaker 2: Reel it back in to our golf game. 524 00:30:40,279 --> 00:30:44,880 Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, Well again, it comes down to when you 525 00:30:44,920 --> 00:30:48,400 start to start, when you get your sort of foothold 526 00:30:48,559 --> 00:30:52,039 through some type of daily meditation practice. There's many different 527 00:30:52,160 --> 00:30:54,599 forms of meditation, but as long as you're doing something daily, 528 00:30:55,759 --> 00:31:00,440 you'll start to notice what's called detachment or non attachment 529 00:31:00,480 --> 00:31:03,880 and Buddhist philosophy, which means in the past, when a 530 00:31:03,920 --> 00:31:06,759 negative thought chain would enter your head or a negative 531 00:31:06,759 --> 00:31:10,160 emotion would enter your body, you would start reacting to 532 00:31:10,279 --> 00:31:12,319 it like, oh, I don't like this feeling. I wish 533 00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:14,640 I wasn't feeling scared now on the first ted because 534 00:31:14,680 --> 00:31:18,960 people are watching me, right. But when you meditate on 535 00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:23,160 a regular basis, you may notice those feelings of nervousness 536 00:31:23,279 --> 00:31:28,359 or performance anxiety. But because there's less attachment to the 537 00:31:29,240 --> 00:31:32,079 negative thoughts and the negative emotion, the emotion of fear, 538 00:31:32,359 --> 00:31:37,119 Because you're less absorbed into the negativity, there's a sense 539 00:31:37,160 --> 00:31:41,480 of what is called psychological space between the negative thought 540 00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:44,720 or the negative emotion and your sense of personal identity. 541 00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:48,680 Once you have that sense of space, the intensity level 542 00:31:48,759 --> 00:31:51,519 of the negative thoughts and the negative emotion goes way 543 00:31:51,559 --> 00:32:01,680 down to a more manageable level. Jim, you lost me. 544 00:32:03,319 --> 00:32:05,279 I'm sorry. I don't know where you're going. 545 00:32:05,440 --> 00:32:08,119 Speaker 2: And I and I'm struggling to figure out how to 546 00:32:08,160 --> 00:32:12,079 make this relevant to what I'm struggling with when I'm 547 00:32:12,160 --> 00:32:12,799 playing golf. 548 00:32:13,720 --> 00:32:16,640 Speaker 1: Yeah, I got you. Well, Because again, this is something 549 00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:20,000 you have to experience because otherwise it's just more symbols 550 00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:22,680 that are going in people's ears. Okay, yeah, yeah, okay. 551 00:32:22,720 --> 00:32:26,279 It has to be a lived experience. So when you meditate, right. 552 00:32:26,559 --> 00:32:33,240 Speaker 2: So you're so you're advocating medicaid, medication, meditation and medication maybe, 553 00:32:33,279 --> 00:32:36,519 but you're advocating. 554 00:32:41,319 --> 00:32:43,880 Speaker 1: Meditation. Just take the drugs, need to mas. There we go, 555 00:32:43,960 --> 00:32:45,240 Let's get back to the sixties. 556 00:32:45,880 --> 00:32:47,119 Speaker 2: We had it right the first time. 557 00:32:47,240 --> 00:32:51,359 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it so lives experience. So what I can 558 00:32:51,440 --> 00:32:54,000 just tell you what I can talk about my personal experience, 559 00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:57,200 but I can also many thousands of people I've taught 560 00:32:57,200 --> 00:33:00,279 how to meditate over the last four years. This is 561 00:33:00,279 --> 00:33:02,839 a known thing in the meditation sort of the mindfulness 562 00:33:02,839 --> 00:33:05,880 community that after about a month of doing some form 563 00:33:05,920 --> 00:33:10,599 of daily mindfulness practice, everybody reports this. This is a 564 00:33:10,680 --> 00:33:14,880 universal experience. I feel less wrapped up in my neurosis. 565 00:33:15,039 --> 00:33:18,400 I feel less captured by You know, when people have 566 00:33:18,440 --> 00:33:22,519 a really neurotic mindset, they often describe it as I'm 567 00:33:22,559 --> 00:33:24,839 walking down the street and it's a beautiful sunny day 568 00:33:24,880 --> 00:33:27,039 and next thing I know, a dark cloud passes over, 569 00:33:27,119 --> 00:33:30,200 and the next thing I know, I'm inside a tornado 570 00:33:30,240 --> 00:33:32,759 and there's powerful winds sucking me up into the sky. 571 00:33:32,839 --> 00:33:38,079 With someone's having a very powerful negative psychological experience, both 572 00:33:38,119 --> 00:33:41,160 mentally and emotionally. That's people often describe it as like 573 00:33:41,200 --> 00:33:45,880 being stuck inside a tornado, where the fear, the stress, 574 00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:48,960 the anxiety, the depression, the anger, and all the mental 575 00:33:49,039 --> 00:33:52,519 chaos that surrounds it is so overwhelming that you feel 576 00:33:52,559 --> 00:33:56,599 that you're it's like consuming you, that you're inside of it. Right, 577 00:33:57,039 --> 00:33:59,920 But when you meditate, it's like the tornadoes a mile 578 00:34:00,160 --> 00:34:02,200 away and you're here safe on the side of the road, 579 00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:04,839 and you're noticing the dark clouds and the tornado, but 580 00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:07,480 it's so far away you don't feel threatened by it 581 00:34:07,519 --> 00:34:10,159 because you're not actually threatened by it. That's what happens. 582 00:34:10,199 --> 00:34:12,280 That's called detachment or non attachment. 583 00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:17,360 Speaker 2: Okay, I'm assuming you meditate regularly. 584 00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:19,840 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I've been doing it since I was ten 585 00:34:19,920 --> 00:34:21,559 years old. I'm seventy four and now I've been doing 586 00:34:21,559 --> 00:34:26,280 it for sixty four years. Daily different daily, Yeah, yeah, 587 00:34:26,519 --> 00:34:30,480 not just daily. I do it all the time. For it. Yeah, 588 00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:33,679 I'll just tell you a story about it. But here's 589 00:34:33,719 --> 00:34:34,360 my question. 590 00:34:35,360 --> 00:34:38,599 Speaker 2: And you're gonna plow, You're gonna floor on this one. 591 00:34:38,960 --> 00:34:39,320 Speaker 1: Okay. 592 00:34:39,360 --> 00:34:45,519 Speaker 2: So you're talking about how come all these you're talking about, 593 00:34:45,559 --> 00:34:48,360 how meditation can really help you get through all these 594 00:34:48,880 --> 00:34:53,320 challenging elements of your life and carry you through it. 595 00:34:53,840 --> 00:34:57,000 How come you're you do the exact thing you're saying 596 00:34:57,079 --> 00:34:59,440 not to do whenever you get near your computer. 597 00:35:02,119 --> 00:35:05,599 Speaker 1: Gotcha, Jimmy, that's the game polling effect, right. 598 00:35:06,960 --> 00:35:09,679 Speaker 2: It's like we every time we want to record, it's 599 00:35:09,719 --> 00:35:12,039 like forty five minutes of trying to get you online, 600 00:35:12,039 --> 00:35:13,440 and we just like, forget it. We'll just do this 601 00:35:13,519 --> 00:35:15,719 on the phone like we're doing today. We're just we'll 602 00:35:15,760 --> 00:35:20,239 just make it easy. But you know, you're you're talking 603 00:35:20,239 --> 00:35:21,599 a good game, and then you do this. 604 00:35:22,400 --> 00:35:24,840 Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, No, that's a whole other, that's a whole 605 00:35:24,880 --> 00:35:27,920 that's an apple. That's what's the great the monual compon 606 00:35:28,079 --> 00:35:33,559 call it categorical error. Those are apples and oranges. Okay, totally. 607 00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:37,239 Speaker 2: So I've now, you know, like I've been doing morning 608 00:35:37,400 --> 00:35:42,000 stretch morning yoga for for decades myself, and now just 609 00:35:42,119 --> 00:35:45,800 recently I've started doing this at night before I go 610 00:35:45,840 --> 00:35:49,199 to sleep. I'll do twenty ten to twenty minutes of 611 00:35:49,360 --> 00:35:52,199 yoga just to see if I can fall asleep faster 612 00:35:52,320 --> 00:35:53,320 and stay asleep. 613 00:35:53,400 --> 00:35:56,000 Speaker 1: And it's been helping me a lot. Cool. 614 00:35:56,199 --> 00:35:59,039 Speaker 2: But this is we're not that's not meditation. This is 615 00:35:59,079 --> 00:36:01,800 completely different then it can be. 616 00:36:02,800 --> 00:36:08,920 Speaker 1: Basically, meditation has two main aspects. These are most Buddhist 617 00:36:09,159 --> 00:36:10,880 scholars would agree with you, and we want to say 618 00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:14,079 that and there and they're developmental and their sequential. There's 619 00:36:14,079 --> 00:36:17,000 a sequence to it, which is a get back to 620 00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:19,719 the analogy of the raging river that you're trying not 621 00:36:19,760 --> 00:36:22,280 to drown in. Right, that's the normal state of conscious 622 00:36:22,519 --> 00:36:27,440 So samata practice means narrow focus on one thing or concentration. 623 00:36:27,719 --> 00:36:32,559 The positive practice means your mind's in big mode, super 624 00:36:32,599 --> 00:36:36,079 wide modes. It means it basically means the positive means 625 00:36:36,159 --> 00:36:40,400 big empty mind, but it also means the insights that 626 00:36:40,480 --> 00:36:44,360 you can gain about the nature of consciousness and the 627 00:36:44,440 --> 00:36:47,000 nature of the physical world when you're in that big 628 00:36:47,039 --> 00:36:51,559 empty mind. But my view, and again most scholars would 629 00:36:51,559 --> 00:36:53,679 agree with this, is that you can't learn and you're 630 00:36:53,719 --> 00:36:56,800 kind of wasting your time doing the possitive practice until 631 00:36:56,840 --> 00:37:01,119 you do samata practice first, which narrow focus will eventually 632 00:37:01,239 --> 00:37:04,880 lead to the ability to have a bigger focus, you know, 633 00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:10,119 a wider awareness, but without having chaos, whereas again a 634 00:37:10,199 --> 00:37:13,079 normal consciousness where you haven't done any practice. Most people 635 00:37:13,159 --> 00:37:15,800 most of the time are in medium wide or even 636 00:37:15,840 --> 00:37:18,199 super wide mode, and their mind is full of all 637 00:37:18,280 --> 00:37:22,119 kinds of thoughts and emotions. It's just a casual chaos. 638 00:37:22,719 --> 00:37:25,519 So the analogy in Buddhism again is to the beam 639 00:37:25,519 --> 00:37:27,599 of light. Right, So if you think of a flashlight being, 640 00:37:28,280 --> 00:37:32,280 so consciousness is the being. But imagine that the lens 641 00:37:32,440 --> 00:37:37,119 cover covering you know, where the bulb, where the actual 642 00:37:37,159 --> 00:37:40,880 flashlight bulb is, has got a lot of dirt on it, right, 643 00:37:41,480 --> 00:37:43,760 And so part of Buddhists practice is you're trying you're 644 00:37:43,800 --> 00:37:46,440 trying to make the beam of light brighter and clearer 645 00:37:46,480 --> 00:37:50,199 and stronger by removing the impediments that you know, the 646 00:37:50,280 --> 00:37:54,400 dirt that's covering the lens. Yeah, that's one aspect, and 647 00:37:54,400 --> 00:37:56,679 I'll give you an actual story. My son and I 648 00:37:56,719 --> 00:38:00,920 traveled to northern Burma in twenty twelve. We were doing 649 00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:03,840 a three month trip all throughout Southeast Asia, mainly hanging 650 00:38:03,920 --> 00:38:08,360 out with monasteries with monks, and there were three hermits 651 00:38:08,400 --> 00:38:10,679 living in a cave in the foothills of the Himalaya 652 00:38:10,679 --> 00:38:16,920 Mountains in northern Berner were borders Tibet and one. It 653 00:38:17,039 --> 00:38:18,719 was about an eight mile hike to get up there, 654 00:38:19,119 --> 00:38:20,880 up the mountain trail, but my son tie and we 655 00:38:20,920 --> 00:38:22,239 went up and we hiked up there. I wanted to 656 00:38:22,239 --> 00:38:23,880 talk to him, and I talked to the head guy, 657 00:38:23,880 --> 00:38:27,000 who spoke fluent English, and I said, well, tell me 658 00:38:27,039 --> 00:38:28,800 what the life of a cave monk is like. What 659 00:38:28,800 --> 00:38:30,079 do you guys do all day? And of course I 660 00:38:30,159 --> 00:38:32,880 knew what they do. They read Buddhist scriptures and they 661 00:38:32,960 --> 00:38:36,400 meditate all the time. And I said, well, what do 662 00:38:36,480 --> 00:38:38,519 you like about it? He goes, Jim, Here's the thing, 663 00:38:38,559 --> 00:38:41,239 he goes, I've been a Buddhist monk for fifteen years. 664 00:38:41,320 --> 00:38:44,519 I've been a cave monk for five and the main 665 00:38:44,559 --> 00:38:47,400 benefit of what I do here is I have a 666 00:38:47,519 --> 00:38:53,119 very clean mind. He used the word clean to describe 667 00:38:53,480 --> 00:38:55,480 his awareness, his beam of luck. I mean he's been 668 00:38:55,519 --> 00:39:00,239 working on removing the dirt that's blocking the light right. 669 00:39:01,519 --> 00:39:04,599 Another aspect of it is the ability to have a 670 00:39:04,639 --> 00:39:06,760 measure of control, and this is the most important one 671 00:39:06,800 --> 00:39:09,800 for golfers. You have to be if you want to 672 00:39:09,800 --> 00:39:11,519 play your best, if you want to be good at 673 00:39:11,519 --> 00:39:14,480 the mental game, you have to have the ability to 674 00:39:14,599 --> 00:39:17,159 direct the beam of light where you choose to direct 675 00:39:17,199 --> 00:39:19,960 it and hold it there at least for a few seconds. 676 00:39:21,039 --> 00:39:23,280 That's the skill of focused attention. You have talked to 677 00:39:23,360 --> 00:39:25,280 me and my buddy Carl Morris, we've talked about this 678 00:39:25,320 --> 00:39:28,800 on his podcast. He's been on your podcast talking about this. 679 00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:32,039 Oh yeah, the skill of focused attention. You have to 680 00:39:32,079 --> 00:39:34,840 be able to hold that flash flight in your hand, 681 00:39:34,920 --> 00:39:37,639 so to speak, and hold it on any object. You 682 00:39:37,679 --> 00:39:39,000 put it on a you know, you put it on 683 00:39:39,039 --> 00:39:41,159 target picture, for example, and you hold it there for 684 00:39:41,199 --> 00:39:44,960 a few seconds. And again, with normal consciousness, that's not 685 00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:46,280 a thing you're going to be able to do. With 686 00:39:46,360 --> 00:39:49,400 normal consciousness, You'll start out holding it there and half 687 00:39:49,440 --> 00:39:52,480 a second later, it'll instinctively the flashlight will move in 688 00:39:52,559 --> 00:39:54,960 your hand and go somewhere else, and you'll lose focus. 689 00:39:55,719 --> 00:39:57,920 And that's why the skill of focused attention is so 690 00:39:57,960 --> 00:40:01,960 important in the met game, you know, m So, what 691 00:40:02,079 --> 00:40:07,880 are the rules of the road we've been discussing. These 692 00:40:07,880 --> 00:40:09,679 are some of them. There's there's there's a whole bunch. 693 00:40:09,920 --> 00:40:14,199 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, can we build Is it possible to bullet 694 00:40:14,199 --> 00:40:16,360 point this or is it just the long conversation? 695 00:40:17,199 --> 00:40:19,239 Speaker 1: I mean, we started with the two worlds theory. I 696 00:40:19,280 --> 00:40:21,840 think that's probably the You need to be able to 697 00:40:21,920 --> 00:40:26,000 understand that you can't be in the external world. You 698 00:40:26,039 --> 00:40:28,280 can't be paying attention to the external world and your 699 00:40:28,280 --> 00:40:30,440 internal world at the same time. It's either it's one 700 00:40:30,480 --> 00:40:33,480 or the other. That you can't be both right on 701 00:40:34,400 --> 00:40:37,599 the holding the attention one is another big one. The 702 00:40:37,639 --> 00:40:40,280 three sizes, the super wide, the medium wide, the narrow 703 00:40:40,360 --> 00:40:44,199 is another another one which we should talk about. Is 704 00:40:45,079 --> 00:40:49,159 this might be the most important one. Uh. The essential difference, 705 00:40:49,840 --> 00:40:53,360 even more essential than what I already mentioned between a 706 00:40:53,400 --> 00:40:56,119 mindful state of mind and a chaotic state of mind, 707 00:40:56,920 --> 00:40:58,880 is that the modern term we've used that you and 708 00:40:58,880 --> 00:41:02,440 I have talked about this the podcasts called meta awareness. 709 00:41:03,480 --> 00:41:07,280 Meta awareness would be imagine that your normal consciousness is 710 00:41:07,280 --> 00:41:11,480 the flashlight beam. Imagine there's a smaller flashlight bolted to 711 00:41:11,559 --> 00:41:13,920 the big flashlight, and the purpose of the beam of 712 00:41:14,000 --> 00:41:17,199 light coming from a small flashlight is to always focus 713 00:41:17,320 --> 00:41:19,920 on where the big flashlight beam of light is focusing, 714 00:41:21,119 --> 00:41:23,440 so you always know where am I paying where am 715 00:41:23,440 --> 00:41:26,639 I actually paying attention right now in this moment. And 716 00:41:26,679 --> 00:41:29,280 if it turns out you're paying attentions in a bad place, 717 00:41:29,320 --> 00:41:32,559 a place that could trigger a yip for example, or 718 00:41:32,599 --> 00:41:35,840 a flinch, or just a you know, like a poorly 719 00:41:35,880 --> 00:41:41,079 timed tempo or a poorly time release. If you recognize 720 00:41:41,159 --> 00:41:43,960 my mind goes to a place that then triggers some 721 00:41:44,079 --> 00:41:47,159 type of a breakdown in the mind body connection, or 722 00:41:47,239 --> 00:41:49,920 just a bad swing is the result when my mind 723 00:41:49,960 --> 00:41:56,039 wanders off. Right, knowing that that mind wandering off is 724 00:41:56,079 --> 00:41:58,119 the main cause or even the only cause of the 725 00:41:58,159 --> 00:42:02,320 bad swing can be a great help because now you 726 00:42:02,880 --> 00:42:05,280 have the opportunity to learn from your mistakes. But when 727 00:42:05,320 --> 00:42:09,159 someone lacks meta like let's say, let's keep it real simple, 728 00:42:09,239 --> 00:42:12,360 let's someone's the typical golfer mid the high handicapper comes 729 00:42:12,400 --> 00:42:14,840 over the top generally speaking, right, most people do so 730 00:42:14,920 --> 00:42:17,119 that things their path is out to end, and if 731 00:42:17,159 --> 00:42:19,719 they don't compensate by changing the face angle, they hit 732 00:42:19,760 --> 00:42:23,599 the ball left right like a dead pull. If that's 733 00:42:23,639 --> 00:42:27,679 their flaw and they're trying to figure out how to 734 00:42:27,760 --> 00:42:31,840 fix it, but they're not actually aware in the moment 735 00:42:32,039 --> 00:42:35,280 of how it is that their body creates the over 736 00:42:35,320 --> 00:42:38,639 the top move. If they're not aware of it, even 737 00:42:38,679 --> 00:42:40,559 if I show them on video, if I say, Joe, 738 00:42:40,599 --> 00:42:42,920 here's you come on over the top, blah blah blah, 739 00:42:43,320 --> 00:42:45,000 it's just it's just a waste of time. They're not 740 00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:46,840 going to they're not going to learn anything. They're not 741 00:42:46,880 --> 00:42:48,440 going to be able to stop coming over the top. 742 00:42:48,519 --> 00:42:51,400 They have to be aware of how it is in 743 00:42:51,480 --> 00:42:54,440 the moment that the flaw is happening. How is this 744 00:42:54,559 --> 00:42:57,079 flaw manifesting in my body? When you can feel it, 745 00:42:57,119 --> 00:43:00,719 when you can experience the flaw happened with a with 746 00:43:00,800 --> 00:43:04,519 a measure of mental clarity, you know again the beam 747 00:43:04,559 --> 00:43:07,960 of light idea, and you know that you know that 748 00:43:08,039 --> 00:43:09,760 this is how you come over the top, then there's 749 00:43:09,760 --> 00:43:11,639 a chance you can start to break through and stop 750 00:43:11,679 --> 00:43:19,880 doing the flow. Can we talk about some other forms 751 00:43:19,880 --> 00:43:24,760 of practice besides the candlelight? Sure, Okay, you'll like this one. 752 00:43:24,800 --> 00:43:26,639 I think as you mentioned swimming, because I do the 753 00:43:26,639 --> 00:43:28,599 same thing when I every day and twice a day. 754 00:43:28,599 --> 00:43:30,480 When I'm in Hawaii in the winter, I swim in 755 00:43:30,559 --> 00:43:34,400 the Pacific Ocean, and you talk about so I focus 756 00:43:34,519 --> 00:43:37,280 on the feeling in my body of me doing the 757 00:43:37,320 --> 00:43:41,760 breaststroke as my preferred stroke. So I'm I'm literally my 758 00:43:41,880 --> 00:43:46,079 consciousness is feeling my muscles contract and move my arms 759 00:43:46,079 --> 00:43:49,239 and my legs as I'm swimming. I'm not thinking about anything. 760 00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:52,760 I'm feeling the sensations coming from my body doing doing 761 00:43:52,760 --> 00:43:56,320 the swimming stroke. Right. There's some there's a similar one 762 00:43:56,320 --> 00:43:59,880 that's a little bit probably easier to understand, but it's 763 00:44:00,039 --> 00:44:05,039 phoned walking meditation, right, and walking meditation. I always console 764 00:44:05,079 --> 00:44:07,400 my students do like a fifteen minute walk or longer, 765 00:44:07,400 --> 00:44:11,159 but at least fifteen minutes daily around your neighborhood by yourself. 766 00:44:11,239 --> 00:44:13,239 You won't work if you're talking of somebody else, won't 767 00:44:13,239 --> 00:44:14,840 work if you if you have a dog on the leak. 768 00:44:14,880 --> 00:44:17,039 So it's got to be by yourself. But what you 769 00:44:17,079 --> 00:44:20,559 do is every you look at you look at an 770 00:44:20,559 --> 00:44:22,440 object in the fist. So you look at a tree 771 00:44:22,719 --> 00:44:24,400 and you look at it for about two to three 772 00:44:24,440 --> 00:44:28,840 seconds max. And you simply notice the size, tolerant shape 773 00:44:28,840 --> 00:44:31,599 of the object you're looking at. And when I say notice, 774 00:44:31,639 --> 00:44:33,920 I don't mean going internal and hearing a voice in 775 00:44:33,960 --> 00:44:37,599 your head say, oh, that's that's a point. That's a 776 00:44:37,679 --> 00:44:41,519 black trunked pine tree with green needles. That would be 777 00:44:41,559 --> 00:44:44,079 that would be going internal and having an internal reaction. 778 00:44:44,599 --> 00:44:47,639 I mean simply pay attention with your eyeballs, with external 779 00:44:47,719 --> 00:44:52,840 visual and notice into in two to three second time interval, 780 00:44:52,960 --> 00:44:55,880 notice something about the tree, then switch and look at 781 00:44:55,920 --> 00:44:57,880 the next object and look at a car parked down 782 00:44:57,920 --> 00:45:01,760 the street and notice that it's a red camry, and 783 00:45:01,800 --> 00:45:05,079 then look at someone walking towards you. So every two 784 00:45:05,119 --> 00:45:08,119 to three seconds, you're shifting your gaze with your eyeballs 785 00:45:08,159 --> 00:45:11,119 to a different physical object in the world. And the 786 00:45:11,159 --> 00:45:14,000 goal is to stay external the whole time. And this 787 00:45:14,039 --> 00:45:16,000 is why you don't want to look fred for more 788 00:45:16,039 --> 00:45:18,159 than about three seconds, because if you look at any 789 00:45:18,199 --> 00:45:22,320 object for more than three seconds, most people will automatically 790 00:45:22,320 --> 00:45:25,800 go internal and start thinking about the object. Wow, right, 791 00:45:26,360 --> 00:45:27,480 they get triggered by it. 792 00:45:28,440 --> 00:45:28,840 Speaker 2: Yeah. 793 00:45:28,920 --> 00:45:31,440 Speaker 1: Yeah. If you don't look for more than two to 794 00:45:31,519 --> 00:45:34,440 three seconds, you're less likely to go internal and start 795 00:45:34,440 --> 00:45:36,639 having a thought reaction to the thing you were looking at. 796 00:45:37,960 --> 00:45:39,880 So that's a powerful way to get to get to 797 00:45:39,960 --> 00:45:41,440 kind of get your foot in the door in terms 798 00:45:41,480 --> 00:45:48,400 of mindfulness practice. Yeah. Interesting. Another one is and you 799 00:45:48,480 --> 00:45:51,360 can well you can you can plan going to down 800 00:45:51,400 --> 00:45:53,440 to Baja this year. Are you going down there a 801 00:45:53,440 --> 00:45:56,679 couple of weeks? Oh? Perfect. So if you sit on 802 00:45:56,679 --> 00:46:00,480 this east you sit on the beach, and this is 803 00:46:00,639 --> 00:46:03,079 I call this wave meditation. So you listen to the 804 00:46:03,119 --> 00:46:07,400 sound of the wave breaking on the shoreline, and you're 805 00:46:07,519 --> 00:46:11,199 in this case, you're in one hundred percent external auditory channel, 806 00:46:11,239 --> 00:46:13,960 so you're you're only paying attention to the sound of 807 00:46:14,000 --> 00:46:17,920 the waves crashing with your ears. And of course there'll 808 00:46:17,960 --> 00:46:20,000 be a moment where there's no sound at all, There'll 809 00:46:20,000 --> 00:46:23,440 be an empty space in between the waves, right, so 810 00:46:23,480 --> 00:46:24,000 you'll hear like. 811 00:46:25,719 --> 00:46:29,960 Speaker 2: And then and then one of my all time favorite sounds. 812 00:46:30,039 --> 00:46:32,199 Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, me too. I go to sleep at 813 00:46:32,199 --> 00:46:34,400 it night because I'm where I live in Hawaii's right 814 00:46:34,440 --> 00:46:39,320 on the beach. Perfect. So that's that's that's using sound 815 00:46:39,400 --> 00:46:41,599 as a as an anchor for your mind. So you're 816 00:46:41,639 --> 00:46:44,440 in narrow focused mode, just paying attention to the sound 817 00:46:44,480 --> 00:46:46,639 of the wave and in the shore. That's another great one, 818 00:46:47,000 --> 00:46:52,480 sort of beginning level of meditation practice mhm uh as always. 819 00:46:52,639 --> 00:46:57,000 Speaker 2: It's balance Point golf dot Com with Jim Waldron and 820 00:46:57,239 --> 00:47:01,079 your website is you've definitely done some work on it. 821 00:47:01,239 --> 00:47:04,400 This is great. I can see that and it lists 822 00:47:04,599 --> 00:47:08,639 all the different podcasts you've been on and will we 823 00:47:08,800 --> 00:47:13,320 golf Sport gets mentioned in there too, you're yeah, but 824 00:47:13,480 --> 00:47:16,760 you also have in your little pro shop area. You've 825 00:47:16,760 --> 00:47:19,400 got a lot of new videos. This is all new 826 00:47:19,480 --> 00:47:20,760 for you. 827 00:47:20,760 --> 00:47:23,039 Speaker 1: No, it's not that new. Haven't talked about it before. 828 00:47:23,119 --> 00:47:25,360 Those have been around. Well, yeah, because you have a 829 00:47:25,400 --> 00:47:27,840 lot of work. The newest one is going to hopefully 830 00:47:27,880 --> 00:47:30,639 be out probably junior July. 831 00:47:31,440 --> 00:47:35,519 Speaker 2: Okay, that's twenty six, Yeah, next year. 832 00:47:35,639 --> 00:47:38,440 Speaker 1: I'm working on short game stuff. But it's I've been 833 00:47:38,440 --> 00:47:40,440 so busy teaching because I have to do some of 834 00:47:40,480 --> 00:47:44,159 the basic editing myself, and then I a student of 835 00:47:44,159 --> 00:47:46,320 mine from New Zealand does he does. He does the 836 00:47:46,320 --> 00:47:47,679 ball of the editing, but I have to kind of 837 00:47:47,679 --> 00:47:50,079 get it lined out for him. I've been so busy teaching, 838 00:47:50,800 --> 00:47:53,199 I had to put it on hold. But I think 839 00:47:53,239 --> 00:47:55,360 I'll have some time starting the spinner to work on it. 840 00:47:55,400 --> 00:47:58,920 So when are you going to retire? You know, I 841 00:47:58,960 --> 00:48:01,199 love what I do so much, Fred, I just the 842 00:48:01,199 --> 00:48:03,320 whole idea of retirement doesn't make sense to me. I 843 00:48:03,639 --> 00:48:06,599 love what I do, and I'm helping people anyway. For the YIPS, Yeah, 844 00:48:06,679 --> 00:48:09,079 I mean I'm getting more and more people with YIPS. 845 00:48:09,079 --> 00:48:12,199 In fact, I've had I've had three people so far 846 00:48:12,280 --> 00:48:16,559 this week contact me with YIPS. It's getting me be 847 00:48:17,440 --> 00:48:20,000 the global pandemics. So between the YIPS stuff and just 848 00:48:20,079 --> 00:48:21,800 general metal game, but I also do a lot of 849 00:48:21,800 --> 00:48:24,679 swing instruction. I do a ton of short game instruction, 850 00:48:24,920 --> 00:48:28,400 short game mechanics, so I've been it's been very, very 851 00:48:28,400 --> 00:48:29,199 busy for sure. 852 00:48:29,360 --> 00:48:32,599 Speaker 2: That's great, buddy, that's great. I'm so happy to hear it. Well, 853 00:48:32,599 --> 00:48:34,840 it's as always, it's great to talk to you. It's 854 00:48:34,960 --> 00:48:40,360 always an education that takes us to places we don't 855 00:48:40,639 --> 00:48:43,079 usually think about when we're playing golf, and I think 856 00:48:43,079 --> 00:48:45,079 this is really important information. 857 00:48:45,280 --> 00:48:48,480 Speaker 1: So thanks man. Yeah, great, Well, thanks for having me on, Fred, really, 858 00:48:48,800 --> 00:48:51,280 and thanks again for having me on for all these years. 859 00:48:51,360 --> 00:48:53,760 I think it was two thousand and five, so this 860 00:48:53,840 --> 00:48:57,800 is a twenty years we've been doing it. Yeah. Pretty cool, 861 00:48:57,840 --> 00:48:58,880 pretty cool journey with you. 862 00:48:59,239 --> 00:49:01,920 Speaker 2: Yeah, and of you as well, my friend yeah, thanks 863 00:49:01,880 --> 00:49:02,239 your friend. 864 00:49:08,840 --> 00:49:09,320 Speaker 1: Mm hmm