PNTV: Silence by Thich Nhat Hanh (#197)

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to Philosopher's Notes tv. Today, another great book, Silence, Silence by Thich Nhat Hanh. The power of quiet in a world full of noise. Thich Nhat Hanh is extraordinary. Get enlightened just by looking at his picture. Seriously remarkable presence. His writing is incredibly clear, simple, concise, and he's just a great human being. He's a Vietnamese Buddhist Zen master who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King back in the Vietnam War era. Just a wonderful teacher. Philosopher's Note with a bunch of big ideas and five of my favorites now. So let's jump in. If you haven't noticed, there's a lot of noise in our world. And if we want to connect to something bigger than ourselves, we need to find silence. And the first idea we're going to talk about right now, the four nutriments. So in Buddhism, they tell us there are four nutriments. And the idea here is that we're not just consuming edible food. That's one of four different things that we consume. The we eat, that we chew on, that we digest. The other three include our sensory perceptions, so the things we take in via our senses. Number two. Number three is our volition. We're chewing on consuming, our volition, our purpose in life. And the fourth one is our consciousness. In the collective consciousness of those around us, our friends, our family, our colleagues, our community, our world. We're chewing on those four things, and those are often noisy. If we want to find silence, we've got to find ways to more effectively deal with each of those four nutrients. That's our first big idea, which sets the stage for the rest. So after edible food, we had sensory food. So all the things that you are bringing in through your senses think about what you've consumed over the last 72 hours in the form of conversations with friends and family, magazines you might have read, websites you might have visited, TV shows or movies you might have watched, games you might have played. All of these are sensory food, and we want to become more mindful of the fact that we're consuming this food. Most of us aren't even aware. It's like we're just stuffing Twinkies into our face and check in and see, is this stuff helping? Is it nourishing your soul, or is it depleting or enervating your soul? We want to bring more mindfulness, more attention to that, pay attention. And the reality is that we're not just eating it once it comes in. But if you haven't noticed you're thinking about those things after the fact. The little thoughts will pop up from a conversation you had that might have been a little intense, or from a movie show or TV show or a movie that you watched that might have been intense. Your mind's chewing on this sensory food a lot. And if you want to create silence in order to connect to something bigger than yourself more consistently, you want to more consciously consume those sensory foods. It's a huge idea. I jokingly say we haven't had a TV in forever. I can't remember, 15 years maybe. But we'll watch movies on occasion. And back in the day, we got the series for Hero, the TV show back then. And I remember we started dreaming. Both Alexander and I started dreaming about the characters in this show. And we realized, that's enough. We were chewing on this food. That's not what I want going through my consciousness. I got more important things, more interesting things that I want to be chewing on. So we want to become more mindful about that. Check in, see what you can do to optimize your intake. More whole foods, sensory whole foods, less refined foods. See if you're consuming a diet full of Twinkies. Not helpful. Third big idea is radio. Nst. This is a fun one. Radion. What is that? Short for? Non stop thinking. This is the consciousness that we're consuming. We are constantly chewing on our own thoughts. And he talks about the fact that we have this radio station we're tuned into, non stop thinking. He compares it to ruminating. Cows, goats, buffalo ruminate. They chew food, they swallow it, they regurgitate it, chew it some more, swallow it, regurgitate it, chew it some more. And they keep on doing that, ruminating. It's what we do with our thoughts. We don't do that with the positive thoughts. We do that with the things that are stressing us out. The fear, the anxiety, the worry, et cetera. Positive psychologists like Sonia Lyubomirsky tell us when you combine ruminating with a bad mood, that's toxic. You're basically just brewing a recipe for stress, anxiety, depression, etc. We need to notice that we're consuming one of those nutrients and we're chewing our own consciousness. We want to make sure we're tending to the good stuff, not having the non stop crazy talk going on in our heads. The fourth big idea he talks about, well, how do you do this? There's a lot of ways to do it, obviously. And he talks about practices and mindfulness and breathing. One of his best ideas, so simple, we Talk about with the peak performance teachers. Well, all the Buddhist teachers talk about it as well. Your breath simply bring awareness to this breath. He says breathing in. I am aware that I am breathing in, breathing out. I am aware that I'm breathing out. Simply doing that. A few seconds into doing that and you've tuned out of and turned off that non stop thinking. It's really powerful practice. Another way we can go about doing it is to fast. So we know that there's a, you know all the religious traditions and a lot of the modern nutrition experts talk about the value of, of fasting dietarily, right? Not eating. We talked about this and power up your brain. Fasting is one of the best ways to epigenetically influence your DNA for the good. Talk about that another time some more. But how can you fast from all of your media? Can you take a day off of email? Can you take a day off of being off online? Can you not read? That's a hard one for me. Can you not read for a day? Can you just let your mind settle down? Just like when we fast nutritionally, we give our digestive system and our bodies, our immune system a chance to catch up and to digest and to process and to get rid of some of the toxins that might be hanging out there residually. If you don't do that, then you're going to suffer a little bit and your health isn't going to be optimal. Same thing with our consciousness. We're constantly taking and ingesting all this external stimuli. We need to give our minds a chance to rest and kind of clean up that fear and anxiety. So see if you can go a day, maybe a Saturday or Sunday, completely offline. It's one of our big practices. Saturday, Sunday, not every weekend, but most. After reading this and going to become more consistent, unplug. Don't even turn on the Internet. Keep your wi fi off. So if you really feel tempted and you actually need to go online, you got to deliberately turn it back on to to do so. But give yourself a chance to fast from the refined sensory foods just aren't serving you. That's our fourth big idea. The fifth big idea is two minds. Thich Nhat Hanh tells us that in Buddhist psychology, the idea is there are two minds, what they call a store mind and your mind consciousness. So your store mind conscious, store consciousness and your mind consciousness. Your store consciousness is where all the seeds of different thoughts exist. He says it's kind of like your basement. You've got everything in there. The good Thoughts of love and compassion and joy and the less healthy thoughts of anger and fear and anxiety. Now those are hanging out. They're always there in potential seeds, right? But when you pay attention to them and you water them by letting them come up into your mind consciousness, it's as if those thoughts move from your basement into your living room. Now, if it's positive thoughts, you can have good company in your living room. You'll enjoy their company. If it's negative thoughts, it's like someone who's unwelcome moves into your living room and takes over your life. That's not fun. That's called depression and all the other unpleasantness that we can experience. The key is to practice diligently not watering the negative stuff, letting those seeds come to life and focusing on the positive. Very straightforward. But we want to make that a deliberate practice. That's how they one way they conceptualize the two minds. Restore consciousness. It's all there. The question is what are you giving attention to? What are you watering and being diligent about that? What are you chewing on? Pay attention to your sensory foods. Not just edible foods, but the things we're bringing into our lives via media and entertainment. Turn off radio. Non stop thinking nst. Quit ruminating. Think about a fast. Create fast. Not just for a day, but micro fasts. I'm creating this at late morning. I haven't turned on the Internet to go explore yet. I went on to check out a couple of things, but not to actually be on. How do you create micro fasts throughout your day? Time blocking. We're giving yourself a chance to oscillate down. You're not constantly being bombarded by text Messages and emails, etc. Don't turn on your phone first thing in the morning. You don't need more of that fast from that for even just 15 minutes. While you meditate and kind of get yourself oriented. The day creates more silence in your life and enjoy it. Alright. Hope you enjoyed. Look forward to sharing more with you soon. Have another awesome day. See you.