The Art of Manliness - Ancient Buddhist Principles for Modern Life’s Dilemmas

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast

00:00:11.080 when you're feeling stressed burnt out and anxious when you're striving and achieving

00:00:15.720 but still finding yourself persistently dissatisfied with life you might start

00:00:19.140 looking for answers beyond what's offered by contemporary self-help one ancient philosophy

00:00:23.500 that can cast light on the sources of and solutions to our seemingly modern dilemmas

00:00:27.700 is buddhism if you've ever been intrigued by buddhism but admittedly only have a vague sense

00:00:31.980 of what it's all about brendan barka co-author of the daily buddhist 366 days of mindful living

00:00:37.440 will walk you through its foundational principles we begin our conversation with how buddhism is

00:00:41.920 similar to and different from other ancient philosophies like stoicism and brendan offers

00:00:45.880 an accessible introduction to the four noble truths and the eightfold path in the second half of our

00:00:50.060 conversation we explore our buddhist principles and practices can be applied to our everyday modern

00:00:54.280 lives and help you deal with the anxiety created by living in an impermanent world

00:00:57.940 shift your perspective on daily challenges and cultivate greater compassion and patience

00:01:02.540 we discuss different meditation methods the real purpose of meditation and how to get started with

00:01:07.660 it as a beginner we enter conversation with the buddha's final words and what it means to strive

00:01:12.840 with vigilance after the show is over check out our show notes at aom.is buddhism all right brendan

00:01:29.860 barka welcome to the show thanks so much for having me brett it's great to be here so you and your wife

00:01:34.320 have a new book out called the daily buddhist where you provide 366 daily devotionals based on buddhist

00:01:41.880 principles and philosophy let's start with your story how did you find your way into buddhism

00:01:47.100 yeah so my journey into buddhism really began in my mid-20s i was a sales professional in finance

00:01:55.580 up in boston and really grew up without like a concrete religion or philosophy to help guide me

00:02:01.140 and i was experiencing a lot of burnout you know i was like your typical i don't typical for at least

00:02:06.020 for me in my environment but type a person who's striving and trying to do and accomplish and try to

00:02:11.680 achieve and found that even after a few years of trying to just go too hard i was stressed i was

00:02:18.180 burnt out and i was anxious and so it led me to look for for answers and look for ways to help cope

00:02:24.180 with that and i remember actually to this day i was having brunch with a friend who was my age so

00:02:29.500 about 25 and she actually said that her psychic i didn't know she had a psychic had told her to try

00:02:34.760 meditation and that was actually the first person i knew personally who was going to try meditation on

00:02:39.600 their own and and to me it kind of jumped out as a as a cool idea and something that could help me

00:02:43.820 what i was going through in terms of that stress and so i went home that night and started meditating

00:02:48.340 for the first time and now 10 years later i've never stopped i don't know if she continued but i kept

00:02:54.080 going and that eventually led me to discovering different spiritual books uh read some books by

00:03:00.860 eckhart tolle and then started to read some books that were more traditional buddhists like pema

00:03:05.120 trojan's work or sharon salzberg and and then eventually i moved to brooklyn from boston i met my

00:03:10.980 wife randomly at a bar and one of the things we had in common was our meditation practice and she was

00:03:16.780 originally from nepal and she grew up traditionally tibetan buddhist and so that really carved the path for me to

00:03:22.780 really take my mindfulness and meditation into buddhist philosophy and practice and learn with her and now

00:03:30.400 seven and a half years later we have made this really our life's work and that's where the book

00:03:34.980 comes from so it started yeah about a decade ago as you learn more and more about actual buddhist

00:03:40.200 philosophy and principles did you have any misconceptions about buddhism that you later

00:03:45.300 learned were wrong or misguided yeah absolutely i mean i grew up in in massachusetts in the suburbs and

00:03:52.240 was raised loosely catholic there wasn't too much in terms of you know having to go to church on

00:03:58.280 sundays and all that but i i kind of when i heard about buddhism or anything of these eastern

00:04:04.640 philosophies i think one of the things that i had as a misconception was that to practice that you had

00:04:10.520 to like abandon your everyday life like let's say you have to leave your career move to the mountains

00:04:16.820 maybe in the extreme sense you know become a monk or something like that but one of the things i've

00:04:20.760 learned over time now as i've really started to ingrate it into my life is you know you don't have

00:04:25.520 to follow that path there's a way to still practice mindfulness practice meditation buddhist philosophy

00:04:31.780 while living and i do live right now in new york city so really you know in the heart of it and i

00:04:36.900 can use everyday's experiences to practices so i didn't know that back then and meditation can help

00:04:41.840 to kind of create insight into my life but it doesn't mean i have to abandon everything and then

00:04:45.880 move to like the mountains and practice there so that's definitely one thing i didn't get back then

00:04:50.360 one misconception that i had about buddhism i think a lot of westerners have about buddhism

00:04:55.020 is that we kind of think of buddhism as you know we think of someone sitting on a pillow and it's

00:05:00.480 just all about being relaxed and going with the flow and being calm but if you really look at the

00:05:07.220 philosophy and the different teachers of buddhism one of the things you take away is that buddhism and

00:05:12.700 we're going to talk about this in our conversation there's a discipline to it there's kind of a

00:05:16.720 hardness that's soft at the same time it can be very bracing which i think is interesting

00:05:21.700 yeah and that's definitely something i know as i reflect back i probably had too you kind of see

00:05:27.540 maybe people in the lotus position or sitting serenely on the mountaintop just in this tranquil

00:05:32.380 state and for anyone that's first ever meditated knows that that's not the case right when we sit

00:05:37.260 down with our own thoughts for as little as five or ten minutes it can be a whole whirlwind of things

00:05:41.720 happening within us that are probably pretty uncomfortable so there's that and then also when the

00:05:45.780 philosophy itself and maybe some of this we'll get into later you know a lot of buddhist principles

00:05:50.100 are are really trying to ground you in reality and reality is not necessarily all rainbows and

00:05:55.340 butterflies you know what they're trying to say you know life is suffering and then what do you do from

00:05:59.280 there well that's where the buddhist path comes in so there's so many elements that i think i didn't

00:06:03.620 understand back then that have now made the practice or the philosophy feel much more grounded in

00:06:09.220 in everyday life versus kind of this uh this element where it's like really fantasy world which

00:06:15.880 it's not so you just referred to buddhism as a philosophy sometimes it's also considered a religion

00:06:20.880 depending on how it's approached and practiced either way i think a lot of people particularly in the

00:06:26.600 west just have kind of like a vague idea of what it's all about so let's start off by making

00:06:31.720 things a bit more concrete here what's the origin story of buddhism so buddhism really began with one

00:06:38.760 person's journey and that is the person we now call today as the buddha his name was actually

00:06:45.440 siddhartha gutama and the story goes that he was a prince in what we now call india and he had all

00:06:52.760 the things that we would want as people right he had wealth he was young he was handsome and he was

00:06:57.920 very privileged and yet as he reflected on this and he was that curious individual he felt and

00:07:03.080 realized that even though he had everything one could wish for he still suffered he had negative

00:07:07.460 emotions he had discontentment persistent dissatisfaction with life and he also saw other

00:07:12.280 people in his community suffering whether it was becoming old or getting sick or people dying and so he set

00:07:17.980 off and left his life as a prince and at first became an ascetic so he wandered and he fasted and meditated

00:07:24.880 like that but he found that even as he deprived himself of those things food clothing and money

00:07:28.920 he continued to suffer and i think you know i can understand that that sounds pretty difficult

00:07:33.140 and so he decided to try something different which we now call the middle way so it's a path that steers

00:07:38.600 clear of extremes and from this new perspective he began experimenting with his mind and examining it

00:07:45.200 peeling back its layers investigating both his inner reality and also his outer reality and then the story

00:07:51.580 goes that one day while meditating under what we today call the bodhi tree he unearthed the cause

00:07:57.240 of his suffering so his attachments his ignorance and then discovered a path out and achieved enlightenment

00:08:02.960 and this enlightenment or this moment led to his four noble truths which is his foundational teaching

00:08:09.220 and that's now today really the core of buddhism and buddhist philosophy what are those four noble truths

00:08:15.380 of buddhism so the four noble truths are first we all experience suffering and that suffering is woven

00:08:23.280 into our existence and there's all different types of suffering like we can think of it as the suffering

00:08:27.220 of change so whether that's having a breakup in our relationships or the suffering of a layoff if we

00:08:32.180 lose our job or as we get older and our skin starts to age suffering of conditionality is another one

00:08:38.240 where let's say you go on a fun vacation with your family maybe you're in costa rica which we were there

00:08:42.420 a couple years ago then after it's over you're back in the u.s back your job doing emails and

00:08:47.400 you're dissatisfied with daily life because your condition shifted and there's also just simple

00:08:52.460 suffering like your ankle hurts or you have a backache or you have a heartache because someone

00:08:56.600 offended you these are all things that we all experience so that's the first noble truth and the

00:09:01.880 second noble truth is about the cause of our suffering and so it's caused by our attachment to the

00:09:09.880 different things in our lives and even our attachment to ourselves and this attachment stems

00:09:13.560 to our ignorance of reality and our ignorance in reality and misunderstanding is we think that

00:09:19.940 things are going to be permanent things are going to be satisfying yet things are impermanent right

00:09:25.440 they're always changing they're not always satisfying us and so we struggle from that breakup not only

00:09:30.340 because the person leaves us but because of the suffering and the pain we add on top of that we even suffer in

00:09:36.000 our healthy relationships because the person who we thought would make us happy forever maybe

00:09:40.340 disappoints us here or there so that's the second noble truth is about the cause which is really our

00:09:45.520 attachment which is rooted in our misunderstanding of reality then the third is really where it starts

00:09:51.240 to get positive and this is where we can end our suffering so since there's a cause there's also a

00:09:56.880 possible solution which brings us to the fourth which is the path to end our suffering otherwise known in

00:10:02.280 buddhism as the eightfold path all right that leads to my next question i think people might have heard

00:10:06.820 of the eightfold path what is the eightfold path so the eightfold path is a practical set of guidelines

00:10:13.640 to achieve inner freedom or happiness right so if we are suffering maybe a grasp on our own careers

00:10:21.460 our relationships our own emotions is out of control and we're failing to find happiness in that

00:10:26.480 the path is going to help us to be able to achieve that so yes there's eight different elements of it

00:10:32.560 so just to kind of list them out there's one right view two right intention three right speech four right

00:10:40.220 action five right livelihood six right effort seven right mindfulness and eight right concentration

00:10:46.600 and within the eight parts of the path there are three sort of core components so a couple of them

00:10:54.140 pertain to developing wisdom which would be otherwise known in sanskrit as prajna and so that would be

00:10:59.680 the right view and right intention where we're trying to understand reality with right view but also with

00:11:04.680 right intention try to let go of our attachments and cultivate compassion and then there's also

00:11:09.860 ethical livelihood which is the second of the third key elements and that's in sanskrit known as shila

00:11:14.920 and that has to do with right speech right action right livelihood so how we talk to people how we act in the

00:11:20.780 community even what our work is as we try to make a living and then finally the third element is mental

00:11:26.960 discipline otherwise known as samadhi and that has to do with right effort right mindfulness and right

00:11:31.620 concentration so how we're disciplined and taming our mind awareness of our body and mind and feelings

00:11:37.160 and then concentration has to do with meditation so that that's the high level version of the eightfold path

00:11:43.820 that's really good i think in our conversation we'll hit on some of these principles

00:11:47.020 but as you were kind of listing the the different parts of the eightfold path off and discussing the

00:11:51.840 four noble truths i mean it is surprising or maybe i shouldn't be surprised you can find commonalities

00:11:57.340 in buddhism and other western philosophies you know for example i'm a big fan of aristotle people

00:12:02.120 listen to the podcast know that i love aristotle but aristotle has something kind of similar to the

00:12:06.860 eightfold path i mean his goal in life is not enlightenment but it's human flourishing eudaimonia

00:12:12.500 and he says you can achieve that by first getting your metaphysics right like understanding what

00:12:17.920 the world is like so that's very similar to the idea of wisdom and then once you understand the

00:12:23.340 metaphysics like what the social world looks like what reality is like then from that you can derive

00:12:28.620 ethical principles and that's where his virtue ethics come from and then he also provides practices

00:12:33.840 on how to become more virtuous i think another thing people see similarities to in western philosophy

00:12:39.320 and buddhism a stoicism i think has a lot of similarities have you noticed the similarities

00:12:44.560 between stoicism and buddhism yeah and i've actually i haven't studied stoicism like i have buddhism but

00:12:50.360 i've read marcus aurelius's meditations for example and i'm familiar with a lot of ryan holiday's work

00:12:55.600 and a couple of things that i've learned over time as i've gone deeper into my buddhist practice is there

00:13:01.020 are some similarities but also some key differences for people to be aware of so some of the things that are

00:13:06.380 are similar and you touched on some of these is definitely ethics you know we mentioned ethical

00:13:09.780 livelihood and buddhism and there's definitely some things that are similar there they're also

00:13:14.120 both very practical designed to help us with our daily lives not just some abstract philosophy the

00:13:20.640 other two main things that i've noticed that are similar is they both have a lot of focus on

00:13:24.280 impermanence so really trying to internalize the fact not only that we're going to die but also the

00:13:29.060 fact that everything changes and i'm sure you're know the stoic term memento mori which is basically

00:13:34.700 remember death the buddhists would definitely think that's a good exercise so those are some 1.00

00:13:39.700 of the similarities that i've witnessed and some of the differences that i've seen one thing is about

00:13:45.800 self so in in buddhist philosophy there's a big emphasis on what we can call no self which is the

00:13:53.940 idea that there's no permanent self for us to cling on to whereas in stoicism at least the way i

00:13:59.160 understand it they do affirm a rational self or a soul so for example in a buddhist context or from

00:14:06.520 buddhist philosophy understanding we can maybe think of an example with our physical bodies and in

00:14:12.140 fact there's been studies done that cells in our bodies are actually regenerating every seven years

00:14:18.040 so actually the person who you were 10 years ago even from a cellular level from a physical level

00:14:23.900 is completely different than the person you are today and so a buddhist philosopher would argue 0.78

00:14:29.240 it's the same thing with our mind with our feelings with our bodies is that we're changing all the time

00:14:34.420 there's no one part of us that we could label as the self whereas i think maybe the stoics would 0.62

00:14:39.340 disagree with that the other main thing that i've seen is the goal so in buddhism the goal would be

00:14:44.120 enlightenment or to be able to see through the illusion of the self and end our suffering whereas in

00:14:48.160 stoicism my understanding and maybe you can help me clarify is just is to live a life well lived

00:14:53.720 throughout logic and virtue so those are some of the things i've noticed i don't know what else

00:14:57.040 you've seen no i think those i think it's those are the two big differences i think you hit the nail

00:15:00.940 on the head with that well let's dig into some of these principles that you discuss in the daily

00:15:05.320 buddhist and what's great about this book it's like a devotional book you each day you just highlight

00:15:09.840 a short little devotional that hits on a principle so you don't have to read this all in one setting

00:15:13.980 i did read the entire thing but you have a schedule like february 13th has something you're going to read

00:15:19.560 may 8th you're going to have something to read uh it's a really great way to get introduced to

00:15:24.560 buddhist principles let's discuss some of them let's talk about wisdom we're going to get a right

00:15:28.820 we're going to work on that first path of the eightfold path which is getting a right view of

00:15:34.020 the world and so in the first part of the book you talk a lot about the impermanence of the world

00:15:40.660 why start there yes we modeled the book uh first of all over how traditional buddhist masters would

00:15:46.940 almost train their students and so from a specifically a tibetan buddhist perspective

00:15:53.440 where you would begin if you were a monk or even a lay person who is just trying to learn about

00:15:59.200 buddhism it's really important to start by trying to ground ourselves in the nature of reality and

00:16:05.040 that has to do with right view as you mentioned the eightfold path so a big element of that is

00:16:10.300 reflecting on and really trying to internalize not just intellectually but emotionally that life

00:16:16.620 and we are impermanent so the problem is and why we start there and why buddhism starts there is that

00:16:22.280 we know you know intellectually that things change right that we will lose our job or that you know

00:16:29.540 our family will eventually pass away or that even our skin will age but the thing is we don't really

00:16:35.120 live our lives with that understanding so we might you know work in a career for 50 years and spend our

00:16:41.260 time there even though it doesn't fulfill us we might you know believe that our relationship is going

00:16:46.240 to last forever when in reality it doesn't and this denial of impermanence leads to a lot of our suffering

00:16:52.380 and that's part of the reason why it's so important to begin there is by accepting and internalizing

00:16:56.700 impermanence when things do inevitably change let's say our kids go off to college or you know we're

00:17:02.180 retiring and our life is moving on well we're going to be able to meet that with more acceptance

00:17:06.180 and more grace and let go of our attachment to those things rather than cling too tightly and let

00:17:11.200 ourselves suffer so that's why we begin the book with impermanence yeah that's it's a foundational

00:17:15.560 principle and i love that section you have about you have to understand things not just intellectually

00:17:21.080 but emotionally and i actually made a note as i was reading it reminded me of kierkegaard

00:17:25.560 the existential philosopher he had this famous phrase truth is subjective and people are like what does

00:17:31.000 that mean does that mean that truth is just whatever you want it to mean it's relative and he was like

00:17:35.560 no what i mean by that is he's coming out from a christian perspective and he's saying okay you can

00:17:40.640 intellectually know that god is love so it's like an objective fact for you it's like yeah god is love

00:17:45.380 but if you don't emotionally like if you don't subjectively know it then it's not going to

00:17:49.640 transform you and i think the same thing you quote a buddhist philosopher there you have to like

00:17:54.440 internalize that truth in order for it to have an effect on how you behave and interact with the world

00:17:59.700 yeah and that's one of the things with with impermanence like we we might know this right but if we

00:18:05.240 don't think about it every day or maybe integrate it into our meditation or even the way we live then

00:18:10.020 we're not going to live our life in a way that reflects and i think that if we do keep impermanence

00:18:14.240 top of mind then it'll help us in those moments to be more present with our loved ones like maybe we

00:18:19.380 won't be on our phones so much or it's going to help us to be able to be kinder to maybe a relative

00:18:24.300 who's not so kind to us because we can realize that these relationships will change our life is not

00:18:29.760 forever and then hopefully act accordingly which i think is one of the best things about buddhism and

00:18:34.760 also stoicism about why we reflect on impermanence so often are there any practices you recommend

00:18:40.280 to help people truly understand and keep that idea of impermanence of life top of mind well one thing

00:18:46.720 to do and it's part of the reason why we structured the book like that with 31 straight days on reflecting

00:18:51.320 on impermanence is start to just notice the changes that are happening all around you you know you could

00:18:57.120 use the seasons or you can see this with you know looking in the mirror and seeing how your face has changed

00:19:02.460 from an old photograph and and then even just in a subtle day-to-day changes like some clients come

00:19:08.000 some clients go you know there's there's all these subtle things happening that we can start to notice

00:19:13.360 and if we can notice this both on like a mini level but also you know understand like the big picture

00:19:18.700 that this means that our life isn't forever then we can start to hopefully change our our thought

00:19:24.460 and our action around how we behave given these truths and in fact there's like a tibetan tradition

00:19:30.160 where people try to treat each day as an entire life of its own so they visualize when they wake up

00:19:35.920 you know here i am waking up to my new life and then they go through their day which you can think

00:19:40.620 of as a microcosm of your life and then at night as they're lying down they're they're visualizing

00:19:46.240 themselves dying to that day so that's another helpful practical reflection that i try to do quite

00:19:52.200 often yeah i love that i mean something that i do is i just think about something that i was upset

00:19:56.980 about that maybe happened you know a few weeks ago and then thinking about it now and thinking

00:20:03.020 well am i still upset about that thing and the answer is probably not i'm usually not upset about

00:20:09.260 it i mean i was upset about it then but now it's not a big deal and that just kind of puts things

00:20:14.120 in perspective for me yeah i like to think you know will this affect me a week from now will it affect

00:20:19.140 me a month from now will it affect me a year from now what affect me five years from now and then

00:20:22.400 the answer keeps getting more and more like absolutely not so then the challenge of course

00:20:26.780 or the practice is okay how can i not let affect me so much now related to the idea that all life

00:20:33.300 is impermanent it's constantly changing is that all life is interrelated why is that an important

00:20:38.320 concept in buddhism so one of the things that we learn in buddhism as we reflect on the nature of

00:20:44.600 reality and try to continue to cultivate as the eightfold path would say that right view

00:20:48.540 is since all things are impermanent and so they're always changing all things are also what we would

00:20:55.740 say is interdependent or as you mentioned interrelated which is that everything is constantly

00:21:00.800 in flux but also arises from various causes and conditions so we are now you know you're a

00:21:08.080 podcaster and you have your own business and i'm i'm this author because of who we were before so

00:21:13.720 each step that preceded us has made us who we are now so you can think of it as links on the same

00:21:18.960 chain and like where we'll go next has to do with who we are now what we're doing now so buddhism

00:21:24.460 really develops that you can think of that as like cause and effect in a way which is a term we're used

00:21:29.000 to talking about in the west but this not only has to do with like our lives in our careers is what

00:21:33.060 i was just saying as an analogy but also has to do with our mental state or our emotions or our

00:21:37.560 relationships or even our body right our backache might be there because we've been hunched over our

00:21:42.580 computer for 10 years or our relationship with our spouse might be falling apart because we

00:21:46.860 haven't been listening to them for five years so it helps us to keep ourselves accountable because if

00:21:51.920 we realize that everything's interdependent we can try to live in that ethical way which is one of

00:21:57.620 those elements of the eightfold path that's one part of it and why it's helpful for us to reflect on

00:22:02.000 interrelatedness or interdependence we're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors

00:22:06.700 and now back to the show let's talk about the buddhist understanding of how the mind works we're

00:22:15.320 still trying to get an understanding of reality a right view of reality so what is the buddhist 0.92

00:22:20.380 understanding of the mind so in buddhism they talk about mind nature of mind is how they talk about it

00:22:26.760 and really you can think about although it's not this simple you can think about your mind with two

00:22:33.360 we'll call them parts even though it gets a little bit dicey when you start to even label these things

00:22:38.620 but in a tibetan terms there's two terms that maybe might be helpful to familiarize yourself with which

00:22:44.820 is rigpa and sem and rigpa is what the buddhist philosophers would call the true nature of your

00:22:52.600 mind you can think of this as your true essence it's clear it's spacious it's free it's light it's free

00:22:58.760 from labeling dualistic thinking free from negative emotions it's you know maybe you can think of it

00:23:04.320 like the feeling you might have after a really long run and you just finished and you're just feeling

00:23:08.520 so clear and all your problems have kind of fallen to the wayside like so that's what the nature of

00:23:14.680 mind is what we are kind of aiming for and someone who's living in that all the time would be considered

00:23:19.780 enlightened which for most of us we can say okay i probably either haven't seen that lately or maybe

00:23:24.620 just once in a while whereas sem is what you can also translate as the ordinary mind and so the

00:23:31.780 ordinary mind is the one that we know very well it's like kind of our own internal enemy it is the

00:23:37.820 one that will plot and scheme and worry and overthink and overanalyze and it's the part of us that gets us

00:23:44.240 into fights with our partner or our friends because it's oftentimes confused and you can think of it

00:23:50.400 almost like our lesser selves so from a buddhist perspective we're constantly dealing with kind of 0.88

00:23:55.780 those two major elements and working towards uncovering more and more of our nature nature of

00:24:01.300 mind and the buddha would say that we all have that pure essence in us just waiting to be uncovered

00:24:07.360 and so our goal working towards enlightenment and working down the path is to get more and more of

00:24:12.720 that so that we can live in that state of rigpa i mean it's definitely aspirational for most of us but

00:24:18.120 it's a good way to strive to get towards and meditation is part of the way you get there correct

00:24:24.700 yeah so in in buddhist context one of the most important things that we can do is to study our

00:24:31.780 mind and a lot of this when we're talking about nature of mind or interdependence impermanence not

00:24:36.700 only should we be thinking about these you know with our own minds like journaling or just thinking

00:24:41.920 about these when we're on a walk but we also would want to practice that in a more formal meditation

00:24:48.620 and you know meditation there's a lot of different meanings and definitions out there depending on

00:24:54.360 how you practice or which tradition you follow from buddhist perspective there's a couple different

00:25:01.080 styles so like one thing that is a good starting place for many people is what's called shamatha

00:25:06.280 meditation and that really translates as calm abiding and the point of that is to focus on a

00:25:12.740 single point like the breath for example and to start to calm the mind and what happens when we

00:25:17.780 start to calm the mind is we start to remove those different parts of the ordinary mind or the sem or

00:25:24.080 not remove them but see them for what they are and they start to kind of dissolve a little bit like

00:25:27.700 more than usual and then that's where we can maybe start to peek into the nature of our mind and start

00:25:32.960 to live both insider meditation and the ideas for it to spill over into real life too with that more

00:25:38.360 calmness with that more ease in lightness and so meditation is definitely a big key to working towards

00:25:45.240 the path there's also vipassana what is that what kind of meditation is that so that would be called

00:25:52.660 insight meditation and you can practice these separately but i would say is that for a beginner

00:25:59.100 we'd want to start with shamatha and then you could always transition into vipassana so let me explain

00:26:03.780 the two so if shamatha is the calm abiding meditation which is you know focusing on the breath and

00:26:09.420 basically working to calm the mind the idea is that if you do that for a couple minutes like let's say

00:26:14.840 five minutes and you notice that your mind starts to settle it stops jumping around from thought to

00:26:20.040 feeling to um to prediction right it stops doing that at least quiets down then there may be

00:26:26.760 opportunity to transition to what they would call uh in sanskrit vipassana which is insight and the

00:26:33.940 idea with insight meditation is to start to perceive things more clearly so it's not to say you'll have

00:26:41.200 an insight in terms of a big idea that you're gonna i don't know use for your career endeavors but

00:26:46.740 more of like insight into the true nature of reality so the fact that um our mind is always having

00:26:53.000 fleeting thoughts the fact that things are always changing the facts that things are interrelated

00:26:58.020 these are all things not necessarily you'll have these in the meditation itself but we've kind of

00:27:01.740 work towards by giving ourselves the space in a vipassana meditation so instead of focusing on

00:27:08.020 the breath we would try to not focus on anything which is quite challenging but that's how we would

00:27:13.960 transition from one to the other for someone who's never meditated before can you kind of give

00:27:20.000 us a sample practice that they could start doing today to get a taste of what buddhist meditation is

00:27:25.680 like yeah and i think it's important also to provide another definition in terms of how we can think

00:27:31.920 about meditation the tibetan word for meditation is gom so gom actually translates to being familiar with

00:27:39.940 so when we are sitting down to meditate our goal although it's kind of a slippery slope to say goal when it

00:27:46.980 comes to meditation would be to be more familiar with ourselves and that starts by studying and

00:27:52.580 watching and sitting with our own mind and so for a beginner and you know i i was a beginner only

00:27:59.940 nine or ten years ago i think the most helpful thing we can do is first carve out the space for us to be

00:28:07.300 able to meditate on our own so if you have kids like i do and like uh you do brett you know what that might

00:28:14.900 mean is before they anyone wakes up in the morning or before they come home from school or at night when

00:28:19.800 everyone's in bed and then when you have that space on your own then to simply set like a you can use an

00:28:27.340 app the calm app or insight timer those are great free apps out there and simply set like a bell uh that

00:28:34.020 would go off for and i would think five minutes is a great starting point for most people and then within

00:28:38.660 that time work on focusing on your breath you don't have to try to make the breath do any you know

00:28:46.040 tricks you don't have to try to slow it down or speed it up but just notice its natural rhythm and

00:28:51.300 watch how your mind responds to this and at first when you're new to this if you've never meditated

00:28:56.520 before it's gonna feel maybe a little bit overwhelming like all these ping pong balls are bouncing around in

00:29:01.980 your mind you might want to even get up but i would encourage you to to sit with it and just see that

00:29:07.900 and notice things as they are and even that awareness is going to be a really beneficial

00:29:11.920 practice and then you know after a few minutes you will notice a little bit of a shift and that's the

00:29:17.360 practice so you might want to start there and then think of it just like something that has to be

00:29:22.320 practiced repetitively just like we might exercise we want to meditate consistently otherwise if we do it

00:29:28.520 once and wait a year then the benefits aren't going to be there so it's going to be consistent

00:29:33.180 practice how long does a session need to be so it varies but i would think for most people the most

00:29:39.740 practical thing we can do is is make it short three to five minutes would probably be where i would

00:29:45.640 suggest people to start uh it's long enough for the mind to start to settle for us to also watch it

00:29:51.020 but if we aim for 10 or 20 minutes like there's some practices that require like a 20 minute session in

00:29:56.700 the morning in the afternoon well then the risk is that we don't actually follow through and we drop

00:30:02.220 the ball so if we can integrate this into our busy lives with a short five minute session then it

00:30:07.420 becomes not only attainable but it's also beneficial there's been studies out there that just five

00:30:12.800 minutes a day of meditation can reduce stress significantly so i think that's a good amount of

00:30:17.580 time for people to aim for all right so the trick is just be consistent with this figure out a way to be

00:30:21.440 consistent with it um how do you know if you've had a good meditation session or is that a bad

00:30:26.200 question to ask so it is a bit of a yeah a bit of a tricky question because one of the things that

00:30:31.940 we learn in meditation over time is that it's not always going to be fun and actually oftentimes it

00:30:37.940 isn't even after meditating now for 10 years almost every single day oftentimes i sit down and my mind

00:30:43.560 continues to race and it doesn't slow down it doesn't feel calm like i i wish it would be but i think

00:30:50.240 one of the things that we can do to make it quote unquote successful is use it as an opportunity to

00:30:57.200 one familiarize ourself with our mind as we go back to that tibetan word gom but also to be able to

00:31:03.160 create more awareness around our thoughts create awareness around our emotions because if we're

00:31:07.480 aware of these things in our meditation then we're outside of it you know the next day or that afternoon

00:31:13.380 well then we'll have a little bit more insight into our mind and a little bit more control over our

00:31:18.140 emotions so if we start seeing for example that our calmness or our patience or our compassion in

00:31:26.620 meditation starts to bleed into other parts of our lives and that's a sign that we're progressing

00:31:31.380 so that would be i guess a long-term success but we can't expect results right away something i've

00:31:37.340 noticed when i've done meditative practices i'll do really well for like a month because when i start

00:31:43.780 meditating i'm like oh wow i'm feeling calmer this is great i'm noticing these benefits and then after

00:31:49.200 a month of meditating you don't get the same sort of you don't notice it as much um and then you're

00:31:54.480 like wow man i'm not noticing any change and i don't feel any calmer this is dumb i'm just gonna

00:31:58.360 stop doing this but i'm wondering if i should just stick with it and like you said you had to be

00:32:02.240 disciplined uh with your meditative practice even if you don't feel as calm as you did when you first

00:32:08.900 started yeah meditation is one of those things that even if you're not feeling like in the session

00:32:14.280 itself that calmness or that benefit whatever it is that you're looking for we don't want to let

00:32:19.840 ourselves give up and think that it isn't working one of the studies we point to in the introduction

00:32:24.220 of our book is they were putting an fmri machine around some of these uh prolific buddhist monks who

00:32:30.540 have meditated for you know tens of thousands of hours and one of the things that they found from

00:32:35.240 that level of practice and that commitment was that they were from a scientific perspective and

00:32:41.220 psychological perspective they were less stressed more happy than the average human they had ways of

00:32:45.900 measuring that so if we want to experience these things and we want to use meditation as one of the

00:32:50.940 vehicles to get us there then we can't necessarily rely on our experience in meditation because as you

00:32:55.660 mentioned that's when we give up but rather think of it as like just something that we need to do to be

00:33:02.020 able to keep our mind stable be able to progress on the path as they would say in buddhism and treat

00:33:07.200 it like a ritual that's needed not always fun but something that's necessary for our well-being

00:33:12.000 it's like brushing your teeth yeah yeah and not even as fun as that yeah brushing your mind that's

00:33:17.820 what you're doing yeah you're meditating and so that leads me to my next question i want to discuss

00:33:22.080 because you have this section there's just filled with reflections on patience and diligence

00:33:25.800 what insights from buddhism can help us cultivate more patience with others with ourselves with our

00:33:33.320 goals to to be better so let's stick on the topic of meditation as being one of the important tools

00:33:40.280 in buddhism and one of the benefits of meditation although it might not be calming and peaceful all

00:33:45.560 the time is that by understanding our own mind and we we can inevitably do that if we sit with it for

00:33:52.900 long enough then it's going to help us to better understand both ourselves and others so when we

00:33:58.120 sit with ourselves and we start seeing oh wow i just had this distracted thought oh wow i just thought

00:34:03.080 about some random high school memory oh i just thought about something that's going to happen or not

00:34:07.180 happen in 10 years or i just noticed the thought of agitation or anger or or envy whatever it is then

00:34:13.340 we not only understand that we experience these things but we look out the window and we know oh wow

00:34:19.000 there's eight billion or so other people out there that are going through these things too so when we

00:34:24.960 start to have that right view then we can start to the ideas and the practices start to develop patience

00:34:31.920 for both ourselves and others because if we see that our mind is really this crazy and it doesn't mean

00:34:38.480 all these thoughts are necessarily ours in fact buddhists would argue that they're not oftentimes thoughts

00:34:44.180 are just kind of coming into our minds versus actually being things that we're originating that's

00:34:49.040 another important point we can be more patient with ourselves but also other people who are going to

00:34:53.180 have their own afflictive emotions or as they say in buddhism defilements that are hurting them so

00:34:59.280 them aware for example in line at the coffee shop and someone's taking forever to pay we can be a little

00:35:04.840 bit more patient with them because we can understand okay maybe they're having a rough day or they can't find

00:35:09.400 their wallet or whatever it is so that's one of the ideas of where we can develop patience for others and i think

00:35:13.980 for ourselves being in meditation helps us to hopefully develop more self-compassion and that's

00:35:19.620 going to help us to be more patient when we make mistakes when we fall on our face and help us to be

00:35:24.860 able to pick ourselves up again so i think those are some things that can help with patience specifically

00:35:29.480 one of the things i love about buddhism and you do a good job in the book with this is highlighting

00:35:35.780 all the different ways buddhism talks about dealing with negative emotions so anger frustration sadness

00:35:43.800 anxiety even envy what does buddhism say about how we can better manage these what you said buddhism

00:35:50.680 calls defilements so one of the things that we can first start to understand that these are emotions

00:35:57.500 and feelings that are are happening across all of humanity so everyone out there ourselves included

00:36:06.240 are dealing with negative emotions like anger anxiety and envy and so this is part of the human

00:36:12.240 condition and part of the condition of suffering which goes back to the first noble truth but what

00:36:17.620 the buddhist perspective that would help us to kind of start to deal with these is if we can not only 0.81

00:36:22.660 through meditation but also through what you would think of as mindfulness which is watching our mind

00:36:27.920 let's say when our partner says something that triggers us and we get angry and we start to react in a

00:36:34.660 negative way if we have started to cultivate some mindfulness which means being alert which means

00:36:40.440 being aware then we can begin to instead of just react haphazardly or react too quickly we can start to

00:36:47.720 respond in a more intentional manner so think of meditation mindfulness as a way to almost create a gap

00:36:55.180 a gap or a space between our emotion and our reaction to it and that could be outwardly towards

00:37:02.320 someone else or even internal self-loathing so when we get angry or we get anxious or we get sad you know

00:37:08.340 we can start to almost create a space between us and those feelings and one of the things that i like to

00:37:13.940 think about and i use this all the time is you know we tend to label ourselves as our feelings right how

00:37:19.240 often do you hear someone say i am anxious or i am sad or i am angry so we're literally saying i am this

00:37:26.060 but the truth is we aren't those emotions those emotions are things that are passing through us

00:37:30.780 those are things we are dealing with at a practical level but they aren't us so one thing we could do to

00:37:36.700 reframe that is think i am feeling anxious i am feeling sad i am feeling angry and it already creates a

00:37:43.740 little bit of space between us and the emotions themselves i love that and also think too just

00:37:48.580 thinking about those noble truths about the cause of suffering that where life is impermanent and we

00:37:55.260 get attached to things really coming to understand that emotionally not just intellectually can go a

00:38:00.680 long way to staving off those negative emotions because you're like wow why am i getting angry about

00:38:06.360 this there's no reason to get angry about this like of course the vacation got canceled that's just part

00:38:11.960 of life and then you just learn how to roll with the punches yeah the buddhist monk and and great

00:38:17.360 teacher tic not han once said when someone makes you angry picture them in 300 years and then picture

00:38:24.880 yourself what will become of them what will become of you ash the idea is that that's gonna help to

00:38:30.880 dissolve your anger because you know we all have the same end so it's it's a little bit humorous but

00:38:35.100 also true and every time i think about that it it kind of zooms out because we're always too zoomed in

00:38:39.920 to like our own lives our own problems thinking that all these things are gonna get fixed one day and all of a

00:38:44.180 sudden we'll wake up happy but in reality if we don't work on our own minds first of all if we

00:38:48.460 don't try to have more patience to ourselves and others then we're to continue to be upset or be

00:38:53.500 suffering no matter what we're going through you mentioned that compassion developing compassion

00:38:58.720 for others and for ourselves can be an antidote to a lot of these negative emotions how is compassion

00:39:04.660 defined in buddhist philosophy so the word for compassion in sanskrit is karuna and the definition

00:39:13.120 for that is having a genuine wish to alleviate the suffering of others so we can think of that and i

00:39:20.980 would also expand the definition you know when we say others it can also and it should also include

00:39:26.200 ourselves but we're pretty good most of us are pretty good at giving ourselves a break being compassionate

00:39:30.780 hurts towards ourselves being generous towards ourselves i think there's some exceptions to that

00:39:34.060 but one of the things that we're not so good at doing is extending that not only to our loved ones

00:39:38.420 who we do have some attachment towards who we do want to help we do want them to succeed but then

00:39:43.140 layers or steps beyond that so to our friends to our neighbors to our colleagues to strangers and

00:39:50.160 the idea with compassion with karuna is to be able to have a genuine heartfelt compassion

00:39:56.380 for other people and that is one of the pathways or one of the the things we can use the more we

00:40:03.360 cultivate compassion the more we mature our mind and and start to see that first of all we are all

00:40:09.080 struggling so all of us deserve that compassion but then also help to change our action so that we

00:40:14.180 actually do want to help other people not just necessarily being altruistic although that's one

00:40:19.420 forms of compassion but even by let's say our partner or our friend gets angry with us and gets us

00:40:26.340 upset well how can we we could be compassionate in that moment um and be there for the other person

00:40:31.660 because we can see or we should start to see that they're suffering and they actually need us now in

00:40:36.080 that moment more than ever so they need compassion they don't need us to get angry too and there's

00:40:40.960 actually you highlight this in the book there's like a meditation you can do to help develop compassion

00:40:46.560 yeah so one of the meditations you can practice is called tonglen meditation and that's a

00:40:53.040 tibetan buddhist idea and exercise and and how to tonglen meditation would work or when you could use

00:41:00.060 it is first you could use it when someone you know is suffering so actually the first time i was

00:41:05.760 introduced to this i didn't know buddhism well at all at the time i had kind of stumbled across this

00:41:10.460 it was one of my friends was dealing with a gambling problem and was an addicted gambler and

00:41:17.720 and i remember when i heard about tonglen which is trying to wish for the other person's suffering

00:41:23.980 to end was a helpful meditation to try and so you can use it when a friend is is suffering or

00:41:29.360 when you're when you're suffering let's say you get sick or you know you're dealing with something

00:41:33.500 difficult you can use it for yourself and how it would work is basically you would do like a seated

00:41:38.540 meditation and you would still want to be doing your breathing which obviously we're doing all the

00:41:44.800 time but more intentional breathing and what you want to practice is when you're breathing in

00:41:50.300 visualize taking in the other person's suffering the other person's pain and then as you breathe out

00:41:56.340 visualize breathing out that purified air so to send them relief to send them comfort and so what

00:42:02.960 we're doing is we're not taking in their pain and feeling it ourselves we're almost purifying it and

00:42:06.880 sending it back to them and what you find through this this meditation practice is that yes it can

00:42:11.860 actually help the other person but the other thing too and you'll notice this if you try it

00:42:15.880 is it also boosts you up because in that moment you're acting out of pure compassion and you're at

00:42:22.080 kind of a new heightened level in your mind so that's called tonglen and you know encourage people

00:42:27.280 to try it if either they're in pain or someone they know is one compassion meditation that i've done

00:42:32.540 and maybe it's related to this but i got this from rick hansen we've had him on the podcast before

00:42:37.780 he's a psychologist written a couple books about meditation particularly buddhist meditation and he

00:42:42.920 suggests a meditation where you wish someone well with a mantra like you know may you be safe may you

00:42:49.920 be happy may you feel strong and he says when you're starting off with this meditation to kind of

00:42:54.020 get a toehold into it is you want to start off with someone who you naturally feel warm towards

00:43:00.580 so like your wife your kids of course you're just going to naturally have compassion for them so it's

00:43:05.900 kind of easy to do that and then he says once you've done that for a bit then you move on to a

00:43:10.080 more neutral person someone you neither really like or dislike and then to really challenge yourself

00:43:16.120 you pick someone you don't like and then try that same compassion meditation where you wish them well

00:43:21.200 so you repeat the mantra may you be safe may you be happy and that's hard to do so you do that for a

00:43:27.620 while and then once you've done that you direct the meditation toward yourself and i found that really

00:43:33.180 useful and i actually still do that occasionally okay yeah so actually now i know what you're

00:43:37.540 referring to that's like the loving kindness meditation yeah loving kindness okay yeah so maybe

00:43:42.660 that's what rick was referring to we do have that in the book too so another great practice and you

00:43:46.740 definitely walk people through the steps uh very clearly so that's another great one to cultivate

00:43:52.180 compassion for yourself and others so we started our conversation talking about how people in the west we

00:43:57.220 typically think of buddhism as a contemplative philosophy which it is there's the meditative

00:44:00.640 practices that you're doing to help you understand reality but it's also it's very action oriented and

00:44:07.760 you have a whole section of reflections about how to put into action these buddhist principles so what

00:44:14.300 role does action play in buddhism and like what does buddhist action look like so one of the key parts of

00:44:20.200 the eightfold path as we were mentioning earlier has to do with ethics and with ethics when we talk about

00:44:26.500 it from a buddhist perspective has to do with a couple key elements such as right speech right action

00:44:33.900 and right livelihood and all of those are examples of action with speech it's are we speaking truthfully

00:44:41.120 are we speaking kindly are we avoiding lies and gossip with right action are we making sure that we're

00:44:46.700 not harming others through our actions are we are we trying to help people or at least if we're not

00:44:50.680 helping them let's make sure we don't harm them and then for like livelihoods more about are we earning

00:44:55.040 our living in an ethical way so you know while everything we do starts in our mind right and how

00:45:01.560 we perceive the world also how we determine what our actions are we have to make sure that we then

00:45:06.840 follow through because if we just like have a thought that let's say we want to donate to a really

00:45:13.820 great charity but then if we don't follow through on that and all of a sudden our life gets in the way

00:45:19.560 things get busy and we don't do it then our generosity even though we had the feeling in it

00:45:24.900 isn't complete so what we want to do is not only be able to like think compassionately think generously

00:45:32.000 think and also in accordance with a way that's true to the nature of reality but we also want to

00:45:36.640 make sure that we're following through and living in the way that aligns with our virtues and so in the

00:45:43.620 three doors that we can use for that is going to be our thoughts so what we think our speech and then

00:45:49.220 also what we do so those are some of the things that we can start to strive for in terms of buddhist

00:45:54.080 action and i mean you talk about this throughout the book any point in your life from the day where

00:45:58.880 you experience frustration anger things are just off kilter instead of seeing it as this uh just an

00:46:05.360 annoyance like see it as a chance i get to actually practice this buddhist stuff that i've been reading

00:46:10.380 about and put it into action yeah see life as practice basically yeah we can think of it like

00:46:16.900 everyday scenarios if uh you know one of your colleagues gets you angry you can think oh this

00:46:22.800 person i wish they weren't in my life or you can start to see them as your teacher see them as someone

00:46:28.980 that can help you to practice self-control and patience because if we didn't have difficult people

00:46:32.480 in our lives or difficult situations how would we ever practice these virtues our life would just be

00:46:37.100 so smooth we would never have self-control or patience so i think that's another way we can

00:46:41.280 think about it in our day-to-day lives as we come up across new obstacles another practice to help

00:46:47.240 people think about whether they're putting to action these things they're meditating on and reading about

00:46:51.780 you offer this nighttime reflection from a buddhist philosopher so i'll just kind of read it here

00:46:57.600 how do you say his name patrul rinpoche yeah patrul rinpoche this is what he said i like this

00:47:03.380 at night when you go to sleep do not just drop off into unconsciousness take the time to relax

00:47:09.200 in bed and examine yourself in this way so what use have i made of this day what have i done that

00:47:15.140 is positive yeah so it's a time to reflect like hey did i actually do the things i i i'm trying to

00:47:20.880 to live out um these principles and reminded me of benjamin franklin had a similar thing he had this

00:47:26.820 journal that he would keep and he'd ask himself what good have i done this day i mean it's just a time

00:47:31.640 to self-reflect and then if you didn't do as great well there's always tomorrow yeah i think

00:47:37.360 that there's two huge benefits of that practice one is that it's important to redefine our measurements

00:47:42.720 of success in that day like if i may speak for myself as someone who's like the kind of that type

00:47:47.500 a sort of career driven individual one of the things i'm trying to rewire in my own brain is that

00:47:52.280 like making that sale or you know finishing the book whatever it is aren't necessarily like yes

00:47:58.320 they're markers of some success but what's more success is if i can create harmony in my household

00:48:03.000 if i can be kind to my neighbor who's difficult with me if i can maybe text my parents uh not every

00:48:08.700 day but you know more often like these are markers of like true success and making sure i'm living

00:48:13.220 virtuously then the other major benefit of that reflection is that the idea is as you drop off to

00:48:17.780 sleep is that it's going to encourage more of that behavior the next day as it kind of bleeds into

00:48:22.140 i don't think your dreams but into the next day and then you can think okay how can i

00:48:26.100 continue to be that person or change into the person i want to be so listen with this the final

00:48:32.100 words of the buddha were supposedly strive with vigilance i really like that so what did he mean

00:48:37.760 by that so with strive with vigilance the word that we're translating from for vigilance is aprimata

00:48:45.080 that's the sanskrit or pali word and there's a couple of different variances to that word in english

00:48:52.220 so we can think of it yes as vigilance also you can think of it as carefulness alertness

00:48:58.280 mindfulness even diligence and what the buddha was saying or at least or we believe he meant by this

00:49:05.640 based on all of our research is that first of all our mind is the root of our suffering but it's also

00:49:12.800 the root of our freedom so what we need to do and he was saying this to his disciples at the time

00:49:18.440 our students is that we need to have absolute vigilance at every moment because if we don't

00:49:22.920 have vigilance over our minds then it's going to go back into poor behavior it's going to go

00:49:27.140 into reactive emotions it's going to lead us into a life of non-virtue so if we can remain vigilant

00:49:33.520 of our own minds then we can start to alleviate our suffering and work towards the inner freedom that

00:49:39.660 we want so if we want to practice compassion if we want to practice loving kindness whatever these

00:49:44.200 things aren't be there for ourselves and our family it all is held together by vigilance if we

00:49:49.900 don't have that then everything else falls apart well bernan this has been a great conversation where

00:49:54.880 can people go to learn more about the book and your work yeah thanks so much for having me so people can

00:49:59.960 catch us and it's me and my wife who wrote the book pema sherpa at the daily buddhist.net to learn

00:50:05.500 about the book and where to get it and then we're also on instagram these days at daily.buddhist and we post

00:50:12.120 every single day on there too fantastic well bernan barker thanks for your time it's been a pleasure

00:50:16.180 thanks so much brett thanks so much for having me my guest today was bernan barker he's the co-author

00:50:21.720 of the book the daily buddhist it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can find

00:50:25.860 more information about the book at the website thedailybuddhist.net also check out our show notes

00:50:30.300 at aom.is buddhism where you find links to resources we delve deeper into this topic

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The Art of Manliness - June 24, 2025

Ancient Buddhist Principles for Modern Life’s Dilemmas

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