Meditation Expert: Combine Therapy & Meditation To Progress Faster - Henry Shukman

So I was doing the meditation and the therapy kind of in parallel. So I think if I hadn't been, the inner chaos would have been harder to handle in the meditation. And to this day, I think for a lot of people, it's quite a healthy combination. If we're meditating, be open to some kind of therapeutic or emotional development. And if we're doing some therapy, for most people, it's probably really helpful to do some meditation, which kind of balances the nervous system. You'll go further in the therapy quicker.

All right, Henry, welcome back to the Man Talk Show. How have you been?

I've been pretty good. Very busy and I'm really excited to be back chatting with you again. Connor, thanks for having me.

Yeah, of course, of course. I mean, you. Your episode, our conversation was very, very popular. People loved it. I loved it personally. So selfishly, I wanted to have you back on. And my producer very much loved it. He's a big fan of your work. And we were talking about 2024 and he said, you know, we should have Henry Shipman back on. I said, yeah, absolutely. Let's make. Let's make that happen. And so because we were. We were sort of talking about some of the interesting people that I've had on over the years. We've had Rupert Spira on, or Spirak, I never get his name right. And. And a number of other wonderful meditation and just sort of like mindfulness teachers. And so I thought this was going to be the year of bringing back some people that I wanted to go deeper in with. So I think we're going to do that today.

I think where we are going to start, we're going to talk a little bit about Koan's. We're going to talk about meditation. We're going to talk a number of things. I am curious to start this conversation with a question that I'm interested to see what your your answer is. Do men and women experience different resistance and challenges when it comes to meditation? Because I've worked with men for a decade and I have found that we as men have very fast minds. And there's just constantly stuff. It's like the analogy I'll use is I rode motorcycles for a period of time in my life and I had a. Not obsession, but a curiosity for seeing how fast the motorcycle could go most of the time.

And so I kind of equate the male mind. Like, it's like, how fast can my mind actually go? But I'm curious, from your experience as a teacher, do men and women Face different or similar problems and challenges when it comes to meditation?

Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I think it would perhaps begin with certain sort of archetypes of people with certain kinds of, you know, inclinations and motivations. And then on the basis of that there might be certain consequent challenges and obstacles and things. So like, one archetype definitely is the young male who's just determined to get. Once they get the idea that there's a real adventure involved in, in spiritual seeking that is actually, you know, once, once a young man gets the idea that actually it's kind of cool that you can go on this journey that takes you to mind blowing revelations about the nature of your mind, about the nature of experience and of being, of being human that you might otherwise not have thought of at all. So when a young man gets that idea on board, like maybe they've read something like Siddhartha by Herman Hess, which is this short, fantastic novel about a very deep spiritual quest. So if a young man gets that idea, that man, I can go on this mind blowing journey to a totally different experience of being alive, then probably. I mean, that is one of the archetypes that we see in, you know, meditation gatherings is young guys who are hell bent on enlightenment, hell bent on awakening. You know, they want to, they've heard that, yeah, there's this thing called mindfulness which is all about stress reduction and calming down. They're not really interested in that. They're much more interested in this adventure of self discovery. You know, that is sort of a mind blowing change in experience and, and the challenges there are that it's one of those strange paradoxes in the spiritual life that the more we seek something, I mean, it can be good to have the motivation and the aspiration and the kind of almost sort of ambition that will drive us. But actually the more we're seeking some kind of other state, it can be we're just going to push it away. So it's one of the challenges of that kind of male energy is to, yeah, okay, I have an aspiration. I know there's something real here, which there is, by the way, but I'm not gonna, I'm gonna temper my gusto and I'm gonna kind of more gently allow myself to be present and sort of trust that the journey will unfold by itself, you know, as long as I keep going and showing up daily and all the rest of it. And that can be a bit boring for a guy, especially a young guy. I want to go fast, you Know, I don't want to. I don't want to be that patient person. So that's the challenge with women. I mean.

I don't know whether this is just too much of a generalization, but maybe there's something in the, you know, female psyche that's a bit more kind of cyclically minded, thinks in cycles more easily as opposed to the male linear thing. I gotta go from A to B, you know, or A to Z, you know, the guy. And women, maybe there's a little bit more of a patience and a sort of a kind of wisdom that's. Yeah. More somehow. I think of it as more cyclical, but I don't know. You know, I could say that like with my wife, who's fairly regular meditator, actually, but she's. She's not. She has her important sort of shifts happen to her through her practice, but she definitely doesn't. It's more of a settling deeper and deeper rather than. Let me see if I can get over there, you know, and I don't know whether I've seen. Of course, I've had loads of students, probably, maybe even more who are women. I'm not sure, just because the world of meditation probably draws it somewhat more women than men, you know, maybe 60, 40 or something. I don't exactly know, you know.

So why, why is that? Just from your. I'm sorry to interrupt, but I like to tell my guests I reserve the right to interrupt during this conversation.

Why, why do you think that? Is that meditation and maybe just mindfulness and therapy in general, maybe that's too broad. But why meditation specifically tends to draw more women than men?

I mean, that's a big question, but I would say that isn't there some sort of cultural inheritance whereby.

You know, women have traditionally been more about relationships, therefore more about caring, more about well, being, and men have. I mean, I think actually this is culturally specific, so there have been certain historical societies where it was. It was almost flipped the other way, but. But in the predominant.

Modality of Western traditional culture, you know, there's been the archetype of men kind of going out and, you know, fighting their way in the world and coming back home and, you know, and women are taking care of the home more. So, I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I certainly wouldn't hazard a position that's in any way necessary or biological or anything. But.

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting, right, because I think when you look back at the lineage or the history of Zen and the practice of it. I mean, it's predominantly men.

There is a whole thing that. There is a great.

Number of female lineages that have been totally suppressed, and that's been a lot of work in the last two, three, four decades to revive that. There's some great books on that. The female lineages of Buddhism, of Zen and meditation, generally spiritual wisdom. You know, there's a whole. I mean, I think we have to acknowledge that spiritual wisdom is just absolutely upheld by both genders, all genders.

But that doesn't mean that we couldn't maybe tease apart different flavors, you know, and say, yeah, most of the male spirituality is more like this or most of the females more like that. But it's a hazardous thing to do because it's so culturally specific. You know, I'm cautious to say too much on it, but. But I. You know, I think there is still a thing where, unfortunately, we live in a culture where there's just, you know, the glass ceiling for women in leadership and so on is. Is still there, and. And there are still stereotypes and. And. And male. I don't know. Yeah, leadership is just, you know, is. Is. Is this. This. There's more emphasis on that still than there shouldn't be. You know, we still got too many. There's too much bias still, clearly, you know, and a lot of it's unconscious as well.

It's like Christianity, right. Like the. The story of Mary is, you know, largely missed. Missed the mark. There's certain, you know, there's certain.

Lore.

I guess you could say, or. Or stories of, you know, Christ wanting to sort of have Mary be the. The primary disciple, that. That, you know, having the faith be sort of passed on through her, and that kind of got lost. And so I don't want to take us too far off into the weeds, but, you know, I think I was just curious about it because I only have my experience as a man who has tried to meditate and who have. Who has initially found it brutally frustrating, you know, and irritating to almost no end. Right. Like trying to get myself as a young man to sit down and to close my eyes and to just breathe was a gargantuan task. I remember. I remember when I was living in Vancouver and I started reading all these Zen books. You know, I was reading Alan Watts, the Way of Zen. I was reading Zen and the Artist Motorcycle Maintenance, which, you know, it's just sort of like a timeless one. Zen mind, Beginner's mind from Suzuki. And it's kind of like going through all these books and starting to try and practice. And I really liked the idea of having a meditative practice. And I really liked the idea of what, you know, all of these teachers were saying and talking about. But then when I had to sit with myself and just breathe for a few moments, what I became aware of was anarchy. You know, for lack of a better term, just internal chaos. Right? It was like, what's happening? And, you know, I think for me, when I've. When I've worked with men who are wanting to meditate, that's a very common experience. And so, I don't know, you know, what that's like for women. Maybe they have a very similar experience. And I like that notion of, like, that cyclical nature versus the linear nature. I think that's probably true in. As a general sense.

But what it was. What was it like for you? Did you sit down and reach enlightenment immediately or, you know, was there a sort of getting to know you process that you had to go through? Was it challenging in the beginning?

I came to it. I started meditating. I did a little bit in my teens by reading Ram Dass. I got into it, but I really started in my mid-20s. I was 24 when I started. And I started with Transcendental Meditation.

Which was the most popular kind in London at the time. And I did it really religiously, like you're supposed to do 20 minutes twice a day or don't bother was kind of how they taught it. And I did. I was desperate. I was really unhappy. And I had this really severe skin condition. And. And it. And it really. And I was, you know, depressed and anxious and. And really not enjoying life at all, you know, And. And it really, almost immediately, it helped me because first of all, I slept a ton. I hadn't realized how exhausted I was and how short asleep. I hadn't been doing it long, maybe even a few weeks at the most, a few months, when I started to realize, God, I had this painful feeling in my chest every time I sat down to do it. And I wondered, what's wrong with me? It's like a bar is in my chest or something. And.

I was talking with a friend who meditated.

Who was more experienced than me, and he introduced me to another friend who had been going to therapy. And she said.

Well, maybe you're talking about an emotion. Has that occurred to you? It's like, what? This is an emotion. And really, I was actually so emotionally illiterate that I didn't realize, you know, what this sensation in my chest was. And it was indeed an emotion. And Somehow, one way or another, I started on therapy fairly soon after starting to meditate. So I recognized, you know, it may be a slightly different form, but my own equivalent of inner anarchy, like you. And I really. I was desperate in those days, and. And so I didn't have. I was ready to try therapy as well. I think the meditation helped me get a little bit more. Just enough.

Kind of resting in the nervous system to at least recognize how freaked out the nervous system was, how dysregulated it was. And I kind of, you know, I was in a place where.

I was like, what the hell, I'll try it, you know, And I was lucky that actually I found this really nice therapy group of people my age with a really interesting, inventive therapist from California. Actually, an interesting guy had been barred from practicing in California, I think. And it was a very unusual guy. And anyway, he's living in London, and he had this Saturday morning group, and it was kind of cool, actually. There were great people doing it. There was a young racing driver. There were people in different careers, starting out in different careers and the arts. And it was kind of a interesting group of people that I felt quite comfortable with, you know, and it was an amazing education. So I was doing the meditation and the therapy kind of in parallel, you know. And so I think if I hadn't been. The inner chaos would have been harder to handle in the meditation. And to this day, I think for a lot of people, it's quite a healthy combination, you know, to have. If we're meditating, you know, at least it's good to be open to some kind of therapeutic or emotional development. And if we're doing some therapy, for most people, it's probably really helpful to do some meditation, which kind of balances the nervous system. You know, you'll go. You'll go further in the therapy, quicker kind of thing, you know, very lightly.

Yeah, we.

Whenever I work with clients, one on one, we will always start with breath work or meditation. At least. At least five to 10 minutes, beginning of everything. And when we do.

We have something called the alliance, and we have, you know, several hundred men that are in there. And at the beginning of any community call that we have breath work or meditation. And it's just kind of like anything that I do, we start with that. And for a number of reasons, as I think you're talking about.

But, you know, I think that for. For many men, it's one of those things where we all kind of conceptually know that there's benefits. It's Like, I know that this is good for me, but I'm not really too sure why. And I'm not too sure if the use case has fully sold me on it. You know, I think that's the. That's like the general consensus that I've pulled out from men. You know, like in the uk, I believe that doctors are. If I read the research correct, doctors are actually encouraged to prescribe meditation as a treatment for depression, which I love, because what they found is that meditation is as helpful, if not more helpful, than any of the medications that they can prescribe. And so that, to me, is quite fascinating. You know, I think sometimes, guys, we like data, we like research, and those things can be helpful. But when people start to meditate, what are some of the normal resistance pieces that they can start to or expect to bump up against? Like, what. What's normal? How contextualize this for us.

Okay, so, you know, first of all, we gotta. We gotta just sort of clarify that there's. There's really different ways of meditating. And the two. Probably the biggest division is whether you're. You're sitting unguided. So you may have a bit of instruction on how do you do this? Okay, so you follow your breath or you count your breaths or something like that, but you're kind of doing it on your own versus guided meditations. Guided meditations. You know, these days, you know, millions of people use apps, so you switch on your app, hit a meditation, and you get guided. So that means that you don't have to go through. I mean, it's much, much easier to learn to meditate with guided meditation because you, you know, you. You're constantly being brought back to the present moment.

By the teacher. Simply, they're saying, hey, focus on your hands or focus on your breath. And just the fact that you're hearing a voice will interrupt whatever stream of thinking you're otherwise possibly caught in. On the other hand, if you've been told, follow your breath and count your breaths in some pattern, which is, you know, that's what I was taught when I started doing Zen meditation, and many are. You know, it's common thing in any sort of basic mindfulness meditation might. Might be breath like that. And so if you're not being actively being guided, you have to do that yourself. And everybody who tries to do it themselves will find, I'm off. I got to. If you're counting to 10, I got to three, and I don't know what happened then, you know, and I don't know where I've been or how long I've been away. But now I'm back, I've realized I'm back and I just don't know what happened. So as we do it more, and, you know, actually there's advantages both ways. You know, of course, it's great if you're getting the guided because it's easier and you're kind of picking up the skills, maybe quicker, getting a sense of what it can be like. Quick, quicker. On the other hand, if you're kind of going cold turkey, you're thrown in, you're on your own, it's much harder. But you are developing the skills yourself sooner. At least, hopefully you are. It's also possible, actually to get set in certain habits.

And hardly even realize it. So there's a risk both ways. They both got pluses and minuses. But if you. If you're doing it on your own, the biggest thing to learn is to recognize that, yeah, we sort of have a outward system of sense experience where that would include being aware of the breath, because that's a body thing, and feeling the body in various ways, and hearing sounds and seeing sights. Even if our eyes are closed, we still see, kind of see the grayscale with closed eyes. We have that system, but we also have an inner system which consists of thoughts and feelings. And, you know, we hear talk in the mind, voices in the mind, we see images in the mind, movies play in the mind, we have emotions, and often all three come together and we get totally transfixed by an inner movie with emotions keeping us really locked in. And then, you know, minutes can go on and Even, you know, five, 10 minutes might go on. And then suddenly, oh, wait a minute, Whoa, where have I just been? You know, well, I've been off in some imagining or some memory or whatever, or some planning, you know, so learning how to catch that a bit sooner, you know, learning how to actually be aware of what thinking is, to start knowing the actual phenomenology or what the phenomenon of thinking truly is, that's a big learning experience. And to realize, wow, this happens more than I realized, this thinking thing and not being present is really quite common, you know, and.

Starting to catch it so that we are aware of being alive, you know, more, which is just cool to actually recognize, oh, yeah, I'm alive right now.

Yeah, there's. I've been over here smiling and sort of like almost giggling to myself, recalling as you were talking, my. My experience with meditation. Because I. I started meditation with Zen. That was my entry point. And there was no Teacher. And, you know, I'd read the books, and I was sort of sitting. And as I was telling you, before we actually started recording, I was very consumed with the postures, you know, Like, I had read the books, and so I was like, well, I have to. In order to, like, get the full benefit of Zen meditation, I have to be in full lotus. And I have years of playing hockey. And so my hips are very tight. My hip flexors. My hips are very tight. And so I spent weeks and months stretching, you know, trying to get myself into this position. My knees were hurting, you know, and I'm like, how the hell do people sit here in this. In this pretzel position? You know? And finally, I finally. I gave. You know, it humbled my ego, which I am sure it's supposed to do in some way. And I gave up on the posture that I was trying to form into and just let myself sit on a meditation cushion in whatever way I needed to. And then I started the counting, right? Each inhale, one, and then the exhale, and then inhale again, two, and all the way up to ten, and then back down and all the way up to 10 and back down. And it was a very interesting process because.

My mind was so active. And I think one of the things that I found myself. What maybe deterred me in the beginning was just this natural frustration with, why can't I hold my mind on just counting to 10 and watching the inhale? Like, this is absurd.

So I think this kind of comes back to something that you. You sort of floated out there. That, I think is a wonderful question, which is, what is thinking? What is it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I. I reckon if. If each of us studies it, we'll come to a similar conclusion, I hope, was that thinking primarily consists of two things. Either talk in the mind, literally hearing little radio broadcasts in the mind and. Or little movies, little image sequences playing in the mind. And quite often they do come together, but they don't have to. Sometimes we can be sitting and gazing out the window and realizing, oh, I've just been thinking, and then dial back in, you know, retroactively. What was actually happening When I was, quote, unquote, thinking, oh, yeah, I was running through that thought about X or Y, and it was speech. It was like hearing a voice in my mind. That's what it actually was. And I mean, it can be. Of course, if someone's a musician, they might hear tunes, they might hear instruments, sure. But 99% of the time, for 99% of us it's talk in the mind and, or images in the mind. And what can make it harder to be aware of that is that very often they bring up some degree of emotion. It doesn't have to be negative emotion. It often is actually for some evolutionary reasons, but it doesn't have to be. But just some emotional engagement with the subject matter that the speech is about will make. It will make us kind of lock in all the more to it and be even less aware that we've been kind of drawn into a virtual experience. And it's very convincing and holds us. And you know, one change and we realize, oh yeah, I was just thinking, but when we're in it, it's really hard to recognize, oh, I'm in it, I'm hearing a voice, I'm seeing more than one even, and I'm seeing images.

But we can become able to do that.

So now here's the thing. Traditional meditation.

Methodologies like Zen, well, it's got several methodologies, but they're not because they've got a long range goal. We want to Zen. It's like we know that somebody can actually go through a major shift whereby they're not so convinced that they are the person they think they are and they're freed up into a much bigger sense of who they are that can even somehow include all things. And really it's not them, it's some greater reality that they never knew they were or something like that. You know, that's a pretty big possibility that's offered there. So they kind of don't bother too much with the low level, entry level, nitty gritty of practice. But it's, it's, it's kind of a shame because it's really important and really helpful to get that stuff down. So.

Modern mindful, the modern mindfulness movement, you know, which is, which is in a way what most people engage with when they start meditating today. You know, the 90 million or whatever it is that has tried meditation, mostly it's some kind of form of modern mindfulness. Mostly it can mean a lot of different things, but it tends to be a bit more careful about the experience of emotion and stress and a little bit of parsing out what thinking is. And they may not get to the point of is it talk, is it image? They may not go there, but let's say at least recognize, oh yeah, I've been thinking in a.

So are you saying that it's beneficial as you start to meditate, as you start to develop some type of practice to differentiate between oh, that was just chatter versus I was caught in a movie. Like, is that. Is there. Is there a benefit to that at some point?

Yeah, yeah, I think there probably is. Because the more you can.

Sort of understand the different strands involved in being caught up in internal experience like that, rather than aware of what's happening here and now, the more we understand the different strands of it, the easier it is to unpick it. And really, it's only three strands. It's talk, it's image, and it's emotion, sensation. But when they braid together, it's pretty powerful. And it's really easy to get caught in the vortex and quite hard to get out of it, you know, so. But I wouldn't. So I. You know, the thing is, I wouldn't. You just said something like knowing when. It's just chatter. But to me, see, I wouldn't say. I think chatter is kind of beautiful. I think the fact that our minds have the capacity to come up with internal talk, I think it's amazing, you know, So I. I don't disparage it. It's at all. It's just as we grow in mindfulness, we get more able to see it, you know, and appreciate it, you know?

Yeah, I think I'm.

I'm always conscious of the listener, you know, because I got people writing in all the time and. And, yeah, I want to make this practical and tactical in some ways, because I agree with what you're saying.

Right.

I think I had this moment. My wife and I were talking the other day, and I don't necessarily exactly know where it came from, but I said, isn't it a wondrous, awe, invoking and beautiful thing that we are, as far as we can tell, the only creature on the planet that can doubt itself? Like, what an interesting experience that. That we are one of the only creatures that can doubt ourselves, you know, and have doubt in who we are and. And the choices that we should make and what action we should take and.

What we should say.

And it's like, you know, when normally that. That element or that that aspect of the human experience is something that, you know, most of the time we just want to run away from. It's like, I don't want to deal with that. I doubted myself.

Why can't I just stop doing that? And. And I just thought, like, what an interesting thing. And she was like, yes. You know, I think we. I think we were actually eating dinner. She looked at me like, yeah, you know, like, what. Like, what's going on in your head? Over there.

So I agree. I think that the chatter is. The chatter can be this wondrous gift that can lead us back to. Back to something special.

I would be remiss because I know after having worked with so many men that I can hear the guys being like, okay, but what do I do? What do. Like when, when I become present to that voice is there, the chatter is there, or the imagery is there, or the emotion is there? Yeah, like what do I do? And do I handle those things differently? Is how I handled the chatter different from the image or the emotion? So let's just piece this apart. I'm really going to go in on this, Henry, I apologize in advance.

No, I love it. I love it. It's my bread and butter. You know, I would say, you know, the. Where we want to get to is where, you know, mindfulness is a beautiful state of mind that is a. It's got a flavor of love and it's a deep awareness, it's a very patient awareness and an appreciative awareness. So where we want to get to is being in that state of appreciative awareness and welcoming whatever is arising and appreciating it. So that means that if it's talk in the mind arising, no problem. If it's images in the mind arising, no problem. If it's emotion in the sort of roughly heart area, arising, no problem. And so we've got. So there's a kind of built in compassion that comes with it that allows us to.

Yeah, I think the right word is appreciate or even cherish experience, you know, so then, yes, sometimes the mind's blissfully quiet and there's this broad peace and we're just resting and it's silent and it's beautiful. That's wonderful. But I think kind of a true mindfulness will enjoy that and will also appreciate when the mind's busy. Because this is how it is. Because that's how it is right now, you know, and to be able to.

Appreciate it. So I'm this, if, if that's the end point kind of thing, how do we get there? Right? So, so the. What we. What the first step for most sort of novice meditators is that they started to be aware that there is. There is all this stuff going on in their minds and maybe their heart area as well, and they don't want it because I'm supposed to feel good meditating, aren't I supposed to feel good? Kind of thing. And this is getting in the way and it's, you know, it's frustrating me because it's not the way I think it should be. I should be doing this practice that gets it all quiet and gets rid of all that. So then it's a double frustration. And, you know, obviously that's not the way to go, you know, so there's a. I mean, one of my teachers, actually a Zen teacher, funnily enough, it was a bit unusual among Zen teachers. He said the three most important things in practice. Henry. Allow, Allow, allow. And, ah, man. It sank in with me because that was so kind of counter to the kind of schooling I'd had, by the way. I did maybe five years of the Transcendental Meditation, and I switched to Zen for various reasons. But. But, you know, some of the training I got in Zen was pretty kind of brutal. It's like, you know, stop thinking, well, how do I do that? You know, it doesn't work. That instruction, you know, don't move at all, you know, but my knee's crazy. I gotta. I've gotta unbend my leg. No, you can't move. You know, it's silly. I think now, you know, as a young man, I kind of liked it. I wanted to measure up to that. But really.

I don't know. I think it just slows things up in the long run, probably. But that aside.

The methodology that I like to use one of them, because there's a lot, you know, is simply labeling is like using a little label in the mind to let me know what's going on. So if there's talk in the mind, I might use the label talk. In other words, I just say to myself in my mind, talk.

Talk. If there's a lot of imagery, I'll say to myself in the mind, images, images. Because that way I just. It just helps me. Sorry. It just helps me be aware, you know, by the way, that that's basically a methodology from Shinzen Young, who's a great meditation teacher. He's a little bit of a sort of hybrid guy, bit of a person, a bit of Zen, bit of other stuff, and the interesting guy. But it also goes back in the tradition to just label what's going on. So it helps us.

It helps support.

Our coming to a place of mindful awareness.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's. That's very helpful. I know for myself, when I started meditating, there was.

Almost like a. A desire to swipe those things away. You know, thoughts would come up in the mind, and my immediate response was like, well, how do I get rid of that? Or, you know, an Image would come up and okay, that shouldn't, that shouldn't be there. How do I, you know, how do I move that out of the way and get back to what I was? Or a frustration would then arise of, you know, how come I can't stick with the breath and the process that I'm working on here. And it is, you know, it is this sort of surprising practice in the allowing that I think you're talking about that is one of the most potent elements for me personally, has been one of the most potent elements for me personally as somebody who wants to drive at things very quickly, wants to get to the end destination very fast, wants to have mastered things, you know, like that and to really sort of like bask in the, in the sunlight of the process and of the happening. Right now I think one of the most beautiful meditations that I did and have done consistently was just this Alan Watts meditation where he, he talks about the happening and this sort of the dual nature of you're the one doing the breathing, but the breathing is happening to you, right? You're the one seeing the object, but the object is also happening to you, right? You're listening and the sound is happening to you. And like all that, you know, there's sort of like the collapsing of the, of the binary has been a very interesting practice, but none of that's possible without the allowing. And I find that it's, it's expanded out into my life. You know, I have a 3 year old now and so there's a lot of allowing.

There's a tremendous amount of like, let's surrender to this. You know, it's like I can't force him to not feel the way that he's feeling or I can't stop him from having the tantrum. And so there's, it's really like, I just, I mean, I think, you know, I, I'm just so thankful every day that I started this practice, you know, 12 years ago because I just think I would, I would have a lot harder time in life today. So I know I said a bunch of stuff. I would love for you to just comment on that because I'm sure that there's some follow up that you have.

Yeah, no, I totally agree with you. I mean, for one thing, you know, just on that last note, like what life might be without meditation, you know, I've been doing it since my mid-20s and my life has been, you know, totally transformed by it in very, of course I don't have the counterfactual, but I Know what it was like when I started meditating, you know, and there's. There's so many ways that it is just help me grow as a human being, you know, and to me, it makes complete sense that if every day there's a space where you're. You're devoting yourself to simply existing, you know, just really recognizing the fact that you exist, which you won't do forever. You know, just that alone is, like, it seems to me, wise to do that because it's so easy to never do that, to never actually recognize the bare fact of existing, which is kind of the most important thing of all.

And that brings this different perspective on life, which more and more it's possible to kind of embody where we can give our energies very thoroughly to something, but at the same time not be quite so totally caught up in it. We're deeply committed and right into a project. But also there's this slightly bigger picture where, wow, I'm a being alive in the universe, you know, and that just gives this wider perspective, bigger picture all the way through. So that. Just acknowledging what you said about the benefits of it.

But coming back to. Yeah, the why allowing is such a. Can be such a kind of potent tool. Actually, it's very interesting, isn't it? Because we're so used to sort of pushing to make things change, applying pressure in the desired direction to get them to change. And this is almost the opposite saying, no, we're going to just, hey, just pull back a little bit. And it's some weird law of the universe. I think that when things are left alone, they change.

The way we want them to. But when we're trying to change them, they might sometimes, but they might well, not. And it's a weird thing. Zen has got stories, lots of stories. Like, there's one guy as a young man who's very kind of gifted sort of Zen student. He awakened young, blinding revelation about the nature of things. And his teacher said, you got to go up and found a monastery on such and such a mountaintop. Somebody, a monastery is needed there kind of thing. So, yeah, he packs up his stuff, he goes off, he builds a little hut for himself, a thatch hut, starts living in it. He's got some seeds and knows how to forage and, you know, just supports himself. He lives there for seven years, waiting for people to come and to start building the monastery. Nobody comes, so he's okay, it's enough. Packs up, leaves as he's going down the mountain. This is the legend or folktale he runs into a tiger. And the tiger grabs the sleeve of his coat, pulls him back up the mountain. And so this. Okay, I won't leave yet. It unpacks and carries on living there. The next day, some wandering monk walks up the mountain, says, I'd heard there was an enlightened master up here. It must be you. And then the next day three.

Zen monks arrive. And the next day five, and the monastery starts to flourish. And so basically the day he gave up, he opened up, you know, the possibility for it to happen. That's kind of the moral. So it's a very Zen kind of a story.

I love that.

I love.

I kind of feel there's some truth to that, you know.

Yeah, yeah. I was going to say, I feel like I, I witnessed that in my, my toddler every day, you know, see that, see that in my three year old every day where I was, you know, he's, he's obsessed with Play DOH right now. And so he, you know, he wants to drive his train through the Play doh and he wants to, you know, throw the Play DOH at the wall. It means just testing it out. And I've noticed that when I get too into his play is when a lot of pushback happens, right? And, and you know, like, I didn't want like this morning as a perfect example. He was trying to drive his like little, he's got like a little Thomas the Tank Engine. He's trying to drive Thomas the Tank Engine through his purple Play doh. And I said, no, no, we don't do that. Right? We don't do that. You're gonna cog up his wheels. No, don't do that. And then, and then he catches on to that immediately. And immediately he's like, oh, I'm gonna play the game of now testing you. I'm gonna put Thomas, you know, an inch away from the play D'oh. And is this okay? And if Thomas is right beside the Play doh, is that okay? And, and I, you know, I just sort of, and then, but when I, when I allow and say, you know, he can watch and whatnot, like Thomas can watch you play with the Play doh, that's totally fine. And it's just kind of got me thinking about how that translates into, you know, when thoughts come up. I don't want you here. Don't do that. You know, don't, don't. This, you shouldn't be here. And that, that resistance to what is naturally emboldens it in a way. Is that accurate?

It is. It is. It Gives it strength, it gives it more power. You're trying to push a thought away, it'll just come back all the stronger. It's exactly right because we're actually feeding it by trying to get rid of it. And you can see on the converse, if we're allowing, actually allowing is a property of mindful awareness anyway. So if we're starting to allow, we're already without really maybe even recognizing it at first. We're actually stepping into one of the dimensions of mindful awareness, which is that it's really patient.

And it's that kind of the moment we allow. Another way to look at it, I think would be the moment we're allowing, we're actually getting a different affect.

So for example, I mean, here's another thing. We talked mostly about talk and image and working with them, not so much yet about feelings, emotions. So this is a really helpful thing for that. If there's a negative emotion, let's say anxiety, maybe just mild anxiety, some worry, not full blown anxiety, a panic attack or something, just mild anxiety. It's kind of uncomfortable. It's in my mid chest or something, you know, it's yucky, I don't want it. Mostly many of us would just immediately try to distract ourselves. Go to the fridge, go to the phone, go to the, you know, call a friend or whatever, social media, something just to distract ourselves from it. But if we stay with it, it's going to be uncomfortable and we're not going to like that. We're going to maybe try to suppress it some other way just by giving ourselves something that will give us a good feeling. Maybe listening to a piece of music or getting in a conversation or some piece of work. I'd rather not feel it. I'm going to quickly bury it by bringing in a different feeling. The meditative approach is okay. Mindfulness is a patient observer. How can I observe this and allow it? And so maybe this is a little technical, but I think it's quite interesting. See if we can allow it. What we're actually doing is we've got one level of emotion, which is the anxiety that's uncomfortable. But allowing is a kind of affect, you know, has an affective quantity. It has an emotional flavor, which is one of patience, welcome, a sort of gentle, mild form of kindness. It's letting something be and we're actually experiencing that as well as the anxiety. And what can happen is simply that the emotional flavor of allowing overtakes or becomes more prevalent than the emotional flavor of the worry. And when that happens, the worry remains without being a problem and it becomes a beautiful sensation. Not worry anymore, it becomes this, but it hasn't actually gone. We can still detect it as a sensory sort of flavor in the body. So I'm using language a bit loosely, but we might feel a kind of vibrational signature of the worry, but we've no longer got this difficult, negative emotion going on.

Yeah, no, I was gonna say, I mean, I love the way that you're describing this. And I think it's. It contextualizes and I think gives real, real guidance on like how we can approach that not just during meditation, but just in life in general. You know, hard conversations with the partner, hard feelings or experiences that are happening internally within us or the work environment or what have you. So I think that's very good. And I think it's hopefully that, you know, I think people that are listening can contextualize that and begin to practice that. And I think one of the things that I've learned over the years is like, it is. This is very practice oriented and that life is like one sort of big playing field for continual practice.

Of allowing. And uh, you know, I think that we can get caught in.

I think last time I said this, but we can get caught in this sort of like chasing satori, right? This like chasing kensho or like chasing enlightenment, basically, where we're continually trying to get to this place which, you know, is anxiety free and pain free and suffering free. And one of the things that I've always found fascinating about Buddhism and Zen and just the sort of general principle of it is like, the more feverishly you try and move in that direction, the further away it gets.

Yes.

And yes. And that, that caught me when I first, I remember I first started learning about that and I was like, ah, damn it.

You mean to tell me I can't just ride at 300km an hour towards enlightenment and that's not going to work? I thought for sure that was the answer. But does any of what we're talking about. I'm going to shift gears a little bit. Does any of what we're talking about connect to original nature? And can you just describe original nature for the listener and we'll enter into that conversation?

Yeah. Cool, cool, cool. I'm glad you bring that in.

So, yeah, so this term original nature that you hear in Zen and actually some other forms of Buddhism as well is getting to the heart of what is really sort of the heart of hearts of Buddhism, which is this experience called awakening. And we haven't really touched on it. Yet we've been talking about all these really good things that meditation offers. But there is a, dare I say, bigger thing, or maybe we just lightly touched on it. There's a major shift that we can go through where. And it may be a series of minor shifts that add up to, wow, my perspective's really changed. But it's basically. I mean, the classic case of it would be what Zen calls kensho, which you just mentioned. Exactly. It's a sudden experience where it can have. There's two or three or four ways it can show up. But it's a radical thing. It's like, it'll be. Man, I've never. This is totally new to me. This is not like an improvement in my state of mind. It's like what it is to have a mind and to be a person has been just turned on its head. It's like suddenly I found that I've never existed the way I thought I had. I'm something totally different from what I thought. And it's, you know, it's a really mind blowing thing and very, very beautiful. It can be quite destabilizing if somebody doesn't have. I mean, it happened to me when I was 19, out of the blue, without any context. I had no idea what it was. It was just that I knew somehow I suddenly totally fulfilled my life and I could die now because I discovered that I was not what I thought I was. I was somehow part of the whole universe. And not, not as an idea, but I was literally physically.

The whole universe was immediately present. You know, then they. Sometimes they call it oneness or unity because there's only one thing and we are part of that one thing, you know, and it's. It's incredibly beautiful and powerful. And sometimes we see that there's just nothing. It's. This is what Buddhism calls emptiness. And that also doesn't sound so nice, but actually it's indescribably beautiful. There's this scintillating void and it's just. It's so beautiful, you can't believe it. And you're part of it, you know. So it's amazing experiences to have. And they can be. I mean, in one sense they've got to be life changing because they show us such a different perspective. But usually they just fade. Sooner or later they kind of fade and you're back to actually your normal self with your normal neuroses. But you've also seen something really different. But just because you've seen it doesn't mean you're living It. But what can happen in time with continued practice and certain kinds of methodology can help. This one of those being koan training, which we mentioned earlier. It is possible actually to have that kind of world or worldview become more stably present, but without being so mind blowing that you can't function. If you see what I mean. That is a real possibility. That's what original nature means. It means discovering this sudden discovery that there's a sort of somehow within this very moment, there is a reality that is boundless. It's infinite, it's empty, it's all one. You know, somehow it's here right now actually. And it's original nature because.

I don't know how technical we want to get, but it's original in a sense because.

Because it's empty, it's possible to say it's always here and it's timeless, it has no time, it has no space. So therefore it's also original, always here. And this experience we have of this world of up and down and in and out and left and right and you know, colors and different people and different beings and different objects and all that different. This is an appearance, it's a form that that original nature is taking at this very instance. It's looking like this moment, you know, us talking microphones. I hope I'm not. I hope mine's sounding okay. It's not popping too much. I don't know. I hope not. And that's what original nature is. Is doing right now. It's doing Connor, it's doing Henry. But we're both actually inextricably part of original nature at the same time. So. Okay, now you might recognize some of this from Alan Watts because he talks about this kind of thing a lot, you know, and he's brilliant on explaining these basic. The basic worldview on an. On understanding what kensho experiences are and awakening experiences. He's. He's. He's as good as it gets. Still on explaining all of that. The only area where he's. And not so good is here and there in practice. I love what you. I'm not. I don't want to diss him. I worship him. But, but actually. And what you were saying, I love that. I've heard him talk about that. That duality of breathing in and breathing out, of bringing awareness to the breath. Breath is happening by itself. Coming to me, that duality you're talking about. Beautiful. But sometimes he says some things about practice that not really. They're not quite right, actually. Anyways, that's another matter but he's so this, the kind of thing I'm saying probably would be familiar to somebody who's listened to a fair bit of Alan Watts. That's what original nature is. So I think it's important to state it's okay to have that as a sort of compass heading. I'm sailing in my little ship of practice. I want to be doing my practice. I want to be getting more grounded and patient and open and appreciative and alive and aware. Great.

There's a possibility of some kind of weird change that some people talk about. And you know, maybe it's called awakening, enlightenment, I don't know. And I'm kind of curious about that. But I'm not going to get there by trying to make the wind blow faster. You know, I just stay on my course.

And it is in my compass heading. But I'm going to just be patient, trust the ships traveling that way.

You know, I love all of that description. I feel like I'm certainly going to go back and listen to some of that because it was. I really appreciate the way that you laid some of that out. And what came to my mind as you were talking about one of the last pieces was I wonder if.

People who have a psychedelic experience have a kind of contact with original nature or that that's a different experience. Because what people would describe is I experienced oneness, I experienced nothingness. You know, I experienced complete emptiness. And so I wonder if there's a, a connection. Maybe it's just a verbiage connection, maybe it's a language thing, that it's something similar. I don't know what the, you know, what the Zen sort of masters would say about that. I mean, Ram Dass talked about, you know, his master taking a monster dose of LSD and, and basically nothing happening. And sort of like this is power, right? Like it's, and, and sort of just sort of laughing it off.

But you know, I think that moment, they can be such potent moments because they can shake us loose from the myopic track oriented rut that our minds can get stuck in. You know, I remember years ago interviewing a neuroscientist and he said our brains are pattern recognition machines. And I think that that is beneficial in a lot of ways. But I think we can also get stuck in the same pattern, the same story. Right? In our marriage, in our relationship with our friends, in our work. And meditation can help us get out of those grooves.

Right?

Is that an accurate description? What would you add to that?

It's a hundred percent I think, I mean, that's part of why I still do it every day, is because every day I go to this fresh place that allows me to come back to this moment, meaning any moment in a fresh way. Like, I don't know what this moment, what it is, I don't know what it is. I don't know what's going to happen. I've never, like, I've never been here before. None of us have actually. It's always a new moment, you know, and so meditation long term can totally bring that. But the psychedelic question is really interesting to me. Like, here's a few reflections on it. Like, I think the vast majority of psychedelic experience is not like the kind of thing I've been talking about. Mostly it's full of.

All kinds of material. You know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of visuals. There can be, as we know, there can be, you know, distortions of the visual field. That can be auditory stuff, there can be sensory stuff. So there's a lot of material there within that, if the dose is right, meaning quite high, people can have sudden glimpses of what we might consider an awakening experience. I know of that happening for sure, you know, but the downside, I mean, the good side is it can happen, you know, and it's more reliable than hey, sit on the cushion for 15 years and it might happen, you know, so it's good in that sense. Take, you know, 3 grams of some really strong psilocybin and yeah, probably something's going to happen. Similar, maybe, maybe the downside is like, number one, it hasn't happened by studying your ordinary consciousness. I mean, the most mind blowing thing is that all that stuff I was just talking about is about ordinary consciousness. It's not about some weird altered state of mind. It's about the very nature of ordinary experience. That's the thing that's most important about it. We're actually not going to some weird place where it all looks like the way I said, with original nature and all that. No, it's about this ordinary experience right now sitting here. It's just started to rain outside, you know, it's beautiful here in Santa Fe. We're having our conversation and this very moment, all those things I said are true of this very moment right now. It's about ordinary experience. So that's the caveat. Now the other thing is.

God, you know, recently I tried. I haven't been a psychedelic user. I have a tiny bit, but the very first time I took a psychedelic, I'd already Had this explosive awakening experience back when I was 19. So a few years later, I tried acid LSD, and it was just like a waste of time. It was like. Yeah, it was sort of interesting in some ways. It was. It had none of the power and clarity and force and revelation that that moment had had. But recently, you know, I've been hearing a lot about five meo. You know. You heard about that. Yeah. And so actually I was in a context where suddenly I could try it. And I also have had a. I've had a. Anyway, I don't need to go there, but. So I thought, well, okay, I'll try it. And I did a hard hit on it. You know, I was with a little group who were using it, and in a fairly kind of deliberate, coordinated kind of way, they were. And I. It's. I'll tell you. I mean, really, I just went to where I often go, like everything fell away. There was just nothing.

Except an overwhelming feeling of love. It was like there was nothing at all. All phenomena gone. Just this overwhelming love, you know, And. But that actually wasn't. It wasn't unfamiliar to me. So to somebody who hadn't done the kind of exhaustive. Well, not exhausted, but a lot of meditation training that I've done, it would be great that they could get a taste of that if they did. But funny, most of the people there didn't. Didn't get that they were dealing with material that they needed to release and stuff, which is cool. I mean, I think it's all cool. All of it's cool. But I do think that the most important thing not to lose sight of with psychedelics is, is that awakening is about ordinary experience. It's discovering what ordinary experience actually is. That's the most important thing about it. It's not going to some weird place.

Yeah, yeah. I think that's a very important part of the conversation because I think for, you know, I think when people hear enlightenment and these types of things, there's like this special state that you're going to. And I don't know if we talked about it in the last conversation or not, but I think, you know, I've experimented extensively in some ways with psychedelics, but also with meditation. And. And what I've said to a lot of people is the experiences that I've had in everyday, normal life or through meditation have been equally as powerful as some of the greatest revelations from my psychedelic experiences. And.

It'S true, you know, I remember this one moment in Italy where I was standing.

Looking out over all of orchard fields as far as I could see. And I just remember sitting down on this wall because we were in this sort of, like, white stone house and there was just this wall around. I remember sitting there and having this moment where I just looked out and my gaze sort of.

You know, blurred for a moment, and all of a sudden it was like I was all of that. It was just all of it. And it was really. I mean, it freaked the crap out of me at first because I was like, what was that? You know, like, what was that? And. And it just. It took my breath away. It was awe inspiring. It was wondrous in a way that I'll never have the language to describe.

Beautiful. That's original nature, Connor. That is a glimpse of original nature. Yeah.

Yeah. And I mean, it was really wondrous. And so, yeah, I've always been an advocate of meditation, and maybe I should be more. So your app is called the Way, which I believe that's correct. Right? It's called the Way.

And from my understanding, I did a little bit of research on it as we were. As I was prepping for this, and from my understanding, because I haven't tried it yet, but I'm very excited to use it. You have one pathway.

Which is interesting because I've used Sam Harris's app, and there's so much content on there. It's like a lollapalooza of meditation content, which is cool. Uh, I've used a bunch of other apps where there's a lot of different teachers and whatnot. But how did you approach building a meditation app? Like, that's just a wild trek to. To go on. So let. Maybe let's just start there.

The invitation to start building it or to start pitching it came from a Zen, a guy who studies with me who's. Who's got a. A significant place in the tech world. And I realized that. That there was a lot of. There was a major gap because all the other major players, and there's a ton of them, and they're great and I love them. Actually, Sam Harris's app has just been fantastic for me personally, but they all have a kind of Netflix model, maximize choice. And I was hearing from a lot of people, and as we started researching, this was confirmed. This was. This was confirmed. You know, that people are actually overwhelmed by the choice. They've got decision fatigue. They want to be told what to do. And I have a kind of methodology that I've been leading people through right through the pandemic and the online trainings. I offer called Original Love. I've got a book coming out about it as well, actually, in July. But that process leads people through really developing their mindfulness carefully, then getting into more of a sense of connectedness and support, then starting to get into flow states through meditation and then coming to awakening. So it's a kind of sequential journey that is actually, I really think is kind of sensible because you're getting all these major building blocks in place. So you've got a balanced, integrated, wholesome practice that acknowledges all the major dimensions of practice, which are especially about mindfulness, but also about connecting more and definitely about finding flow states which are very rewarding and fulfilling in and of themselves. And they're a major part of meditation training. Traditionally they call it samadhi in the traditions. And then of course, the big kahuna awakening, breaking out of the sense of being separate. But if you've only got mindfulness, you're kind of missing out on all this good stuff. And on the other hand, if you're only shooting for awakening, you're actually missing out on a lot of really good, maybe more foundational stuff, I don't know. But really valuable stuff that's going to be so helpful in your life. And actually, should you start experiencing awakening, that earlier stuff is going to help you integrate it into your life. So the app, I just said, well, screw it, you know, I don't want to give people choice. I'm going to teach them the best way I know how. And some will hate it, but some will think, actually, you know what? I want that now. I've been doing two or three years jumping around and I don't know what to do next. Give me a course that I can follow for a year or longer and that will really take me in these very positive directions. So that was the thinking behind it. And my nephew Jack, also Shookman, you know, was. He's a really cool guy. He's had 10 years in corporate sector, you know, as a young man, and decided he was sick of it, Took a year off, surfed and traveled and started meditating. And he was looking for a new project and we were really lucky. We had some funding and thanks to Jack's efforts and mine to some extent too. And we. And we've built it now and we're in a beta version and launching soon, we hope. So, you know, it's looking good so.

Far, you know, very cool. Well, when it's, when it's live, we will be sure to, to share it out because I think, I mean, I love the concept, as soon as I read about it, I was like, well, that makes a ton of sense. Like, I like the notion of. Because it sort of follows a Zen methodology, right, of. You have to. You have to sort of achieve the step in order to move on to the next one, right? You have to have the. The foundation. Because there. There are stories of people, you know, even. Even in meditation having some type of experience that's, you know, sort of bigger than what they can hold or. Or sort of confront or deal with. And that can be not just disorienting, but, you know, it can be rough on the other side of that. There's no other way to say that it can just be rough. It can be brutal. So I really appreciate that. So we'll have the link. Can people check that out? If we link into the show notes right now for people to sign up for, like, a wait list or.

Yeah, they totally can.

Okay, great. And where can people learn about the book Original Love?

Oh, yeah, at my website, henryshookman.com.

All right, well, Henry, we'll have all the links for your stuff in the show notes and for everybody to share this episode with somebody that they know will enjoy it. I always find that these are the episodes that, like, you know, we send to our friends, we send to our loved ones, we listen to with our partner. You know, we give them a little nudge, and maybe. Maybe we start meditating in the living room. I've gotten in the habit of my. My son. Just on a final closing note, in the morning, I do stretches and incorporate, like, yoga stretching. And my son does it with me a whole bunch. He's three. And then I've gotten in the habit of doing breath work and meditation in the living room. I don't do my full meditation there because that would be impossible because he loves to come and climb on me. But he does sit with me now. He'll sit and he'll breathe, and so he knows the cue, right? He'll pull out the meditation cushions and we'll sit and we'll breathe, and he. He'll close the eyes for, you know, about 10 seconds, and then off he goes. But it's, you know, it's. It's a start. It's a start.

It's great. I have two sons who are now young adults, you know, and one of them in particular. No, actually both of them would at times come and I'd be doing my meditation, and then I'd become aware, hey, one of them is just sitting next to me in trying to be in the same posture and then sit there silently for a few minutes and then enough of that, run off.

That's awesome.

Well, it's very sweet.

It's been an honor to have you back on the show, and thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us. And we'll, like I said, we'll have the links to all your stuff in the show notes. And until next week, team, this is Connor Beaton signing off.