Why Should I Explore My Own Consciousness? | Jeff Warren

1. 0:00 – 2:26

   Introduction

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      (wind blowing) Hello, hello, hello. It's time that we revisit the inside of our own minds. There are more connections in a single square centimeter of human brain tissue than there are stars in our galaxy. Our inner universe is infinitely more vast than we will ever notice, and yet our unexamined daily experience of life offers very little to suggest that this is the case. Today, I'm joined by someone who can hopefully help us map out exactly where we're going, why it is the case that we don't notice the nature of our own minds day-to-day, and how to work around it. Jeff Warren is a meditation teacher and a writer. He's the co-author of Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics with Dan Harris, who is an American news anchor that very famously broke down and had a panic attack live on air. Dan then went on a journey of meditation, and Jeff was a big part of that journey. (inhales deeply) Now, I've wanted to get Jeff on for as long as I can remember, and his schedule is absolutely manic. I first discovered him on Joe Rogan's podcast and then read his and Dan's book subsequently after that. I'm also now rereading Waking Up by Sam Harris, which is an absolutely fantastic exploration into the sense of self, the nature of our own consciousness, and meditation and spirituality without religion. So it was very timely for me to, uh, sit down with Jeff. He gives us a lovely breakdown of why we should be concerned about exploring our own consciousness, as he calls it, interpersonal hygiene, the meditation practice which everyone should be doing as often as they're washing themselves (laughs) . And, yeah, it- it- it was, um, it was really eye-opening. Jeff's obviously an incredibly experienced guy in this field, and I felt like I learned a lot as someone who's read into it quite a bit already, so hopefully you do as well. Enjoy.

2. 2:26 – 5:33

   Jeffs background

   1. CWChris Williamson2:26

      Mr. Jeff Warren, welcome to Modern Wisdom. How are you, sir?

   2. JWJeff Warren2:30

      (laughs) I'm good. Nice to ha- nice to be on, Chris.

   3. CWChris Williamson2:32

      Ah, fantastic to hear from you. So for the listeners at home who don't know who you are, could you give us a little bit of a background to yourself, please?

   4. JWJeff Warren2:42

      Yeah, sure. Well, I, uh, I started out as a journalist. I was working for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation writing, uh, scripts for a kind of big current affair show over in Canada, and I was, uh, you know, interested in ideas. I kinda became the ideas person for that, uh, show, where I was doing a lot of kind of big picture interviews. I was really interested in science in particular and neuroscience and I had a, a literature background, but got really into the brain stuff. My brother's a neuroscientist, so we have lots of talks, and I ended up getting into consciousness, the whole mystery of the mind and how the mind works. Uh, and I wrote a book called The Head Trip, which is sort of about, uh, the neuroscience, where the neuroscience meets our experience, like how and what these shifting states of consciousness mean for us, uh, you know, waking, sleeping, and dreaming, and the different variations and iterations. And through that, I got into meditation, and then that kinda ended up changing my life (laughs) . And I ended up really going kind of deep on the meditation path and just spending all my time, uh, practicing and going to as many retreats as I could and, uh, eventually found a really great teacher in this guy Shinzen Young, and he encouraged me to start teaching myself. I started a community of practitioners in Toronto called the Consciousness Explorers Club, uh, in 2011, and that grew really quickly. And it had sort of a unique way in which we approached the whole subject of exploring the mind and started teaching, and eventually just came out with a book with Dan Harris called Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics, which is sort of a, kind of no bullshit guide to what really goes on in a practice, why it's helpful, where it's maybe not helpful, what are the stumbling blocks that pre- prevent people from, um, getting into it, the common challenges that you hear and what are some of the best practices for addressing that, and it's sort of a road trip as well. And since that happened, it kinda just opened me up now to a larger demographic, so I'm doing lots of podcasts like these, and I have various, um, programs I'm starting to roll out around, around practice. That would be-

   5. CWChris Williamson4:46

      That's f-

   6. JWJeff Warren4:46

      ... a bit of an overview.

   7. CWChris Williamson4:46

      (laughs) That's fascinating. So it sounds like a real trajectory from where you started. I absolutely love the name Consciousness Explorers Club. Now, that is a, that's a fucking club-

   8. JWJeff Warren4:57

      (laughs)

   9. CWChris Williamson4:57

      ... that I want to be a part of (laughs) .

   10. JWJeff Warren4:59

       (laughs) . Just have to be conscious to be a member.

   11. CWChris Williamson5:02

       Nice. So very, very low requirements (laughs) for the members.

   12. JWJeff Warren5:05

       And not even, you can maybe expand it out to the non-human world too, throw a few cetaceans in there, some ravens. Ravens are very skillful at certain mind, um, moves, they say, so...

   13. CWChris Williamson5:16

       I would absolutely go to a Consciousness Explorers Club for dogs.

   14. JWJeff Warren5:20

       (laughs) . You know that.

   15. CWChris Williamson5:21

       That sounds, in fact, that sounds not far off my Valhalla. So yeah, that would be a, that would be a good way to spend an afternoon. Um, so you've, you've touched upon one of the words that I really want to focus in on today.

3. 5:33 – 8:46

   Why should people explore their own consciousness

   1. CWChris Williamson5:33

      It's a big question, but can you try and explain why people should explore their own consciousness? Why should they be bothered?

   2. JWJeff Warren5:42

      Uh, yeah. I mean, there (laughs) are so many responses to that. Uh, I guess the, maybe the most, uh, obvious one is you're already doing it anyway. You know, being human means that you are living in a particular way. You're creating certain habits of mind. Um, most of us just do this unconsciously, and whatever habits emerge are the habits we're living with, and often some of those habits can be very...... you know, unhelpful to us and cause a lot of challenges. Um, you're exploring your consciousness means basically just beginning to be deliberate about how you're living your days, about the way you're existing, about the habits of mind and body and heart that you're reinforcing. So, I would say it's the beginning of living a more awake and intentional and deliberate life, and that it's a path that leads unquestionably to, uh, more of a centered life, more less suffering, more meaning and fulfillment. I mean, doesn't mean it's an easy road, but that, that cert- certainly therein lies sanity, connection, all these things. And, and even to say, even in a bigger picture than that, what I'm really talking about is practice, and practice is about, at a, at a very fundamental level, choosing how you in particular want to live this life. What are the qualities that are important to you? What are the things that you want out of your life? You can choose practices and explorations, if you will, that help you make these things happen. And, I mean, I think that's ... I can't imagine what else you would want to do. (laughs)

   3. CWChris Williamson7:20

      That's a, it's such a good point. There's a, a couple of Sam Harris quotes that I'm going to smatter throughout this and try and get some of your feedback on, but in something that he's very recently released, he actually says that most of us spend our lives learning to live. And I think that it would appear that this introspective work is discovering your own path of how to live. Would you say that's fair?

   4. JWJeff Warren7:45

      I would say that's absolutely fair. I mean, we say at The Consciousness Explorers Club, or one of the taglines I like is, "Being human takes practice."

   5. CWChris Williamson7:53

      (laughs)

   6. JWJeff Warren7:53

      So it's like, it absolutely takes practice. And-

   7. CWChris Williamson7:56

      Yeah.

   8. JWJeff Warren7:57

      ... you know, you can just go on autopilot and go totally unconscious, but where do you end up? You know, maybe some of us with the absolute, where our decks are stacked, we had phenomenal genes, we had an incredibly healthy, secure upbringing, we have all the, uh, circumstances in the world have unfolded for us in an external way perfectly. Maybe then you can go on autopilot and you can just... everything will just sort of work out. I don't-

   9. CWChris Williamson8:19

      Perfect, perfect storm sort of thing.

   10. JWJeff Warren8:21

       Perfect storm. I don't doubt that happens for some people, you know, and I, I... those people, wow, they're lucky as hell.

   11. CWChris Williamson8:27

       (laughs)

   12. JWJeff Warren8:27

       But for a lot of us... for me, I had to do some major course correction, and it wasn't, it wasn't optional, you know, it was sort of like do or die.

   13. CWChris Williamson8:34

       Mandatory.

   14. JWJeff Warren8:36

       It was mandatory. Exactly.

   15. CWChris Williamson8:37

       (laughs) So moving on from that, I wanted to give you a quote, and I wanted to hear what your interpretation of it would be, because it's one that's very meaningful to me.

4. 8:46 – 12:31

   You are not your thoughts

   1. CWChris Williamson8:46

      "The quality of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts, but you are not your thoughts." What would you say that means to you?

   2. JWJeff Warren8:55

      Uh, well, I completely agree with it. Um, and, uh, what it means for me is... well, it points basically to... I mean, you're going right here, I guess. It points to the heart of the contemplative mystery. So the, the mystery that's at the heart of the world's contemplative and mystical traditions, and these traditions are as hold as- as old as humankind, and what they pretty much all say, if you're gonna subscribe to what they call the perennialist perspective, which believes that there is a kind of convergence, and that is only one perspective, there are other, uh, pers-

   3. CWChris Williamson9:28

      The per- perennialist perspective.

   4. JWJeff Warren9:30

      Perennialist, perennialism basically believes that there are, is a kind of unifying principle or set of principles that are there underneath all the world's practices and traditions, and that they're all trying to sort of point us there, and what they're all trying to point us to, in different ways, is that the limited way in which we experience ourselves as a kind of mind/body separate from the rest of the world, uh, isolated in this little container, is actually unnecessary. Uh, it's real, it's real as an experience, but there are practices that can begin to, uh, open up the bandwidth a little bit, to allow you to feel yourself in relationship with a larger whole. And they... so they talk... I'm not saying that all these prac- that the experience of that is the same in all these traditions or indeed in all people, it's not. I think how it's experienced within a more Abrahamic context is that-

   5. CWChris Williamson10:23

      Mm.

   6. JWJeff Warren10:24

      ... you feel that reality itself, you're in relationship with reality, you're in tune with that, it's a god to you or whatever you want to... you, whatever language you want to use.

   7. CWChris Williamson10:33

      Personal god.

   8. JWJeff Warren10:34

      That's not... the, a personal god. That's not the language that, say, a Buddhist or i- is used in Indian philosophy. They would say that's your true self. That, that you are not your thoughts. In fact, what you are, uh, from an Indian perspective of an Indian philosophy, is the kind of empty knower of those thoughts, of sounds, of all sensations. That the, there's a process, a personality that is you, a mind/body process that's unfolding. It has a history, it has, uh, preferences, and that's fine. Part of, uh, path of practice is owning that and creating the best possible mind/body process you can, if you, if you want to think of it that way. But that it's the awareness of that whole process that is you, the thing that feels like the center of you, the place you're knowing from, is actually empty.

   9. CWChris Williamson11:20

      (laughs)

   10. JWJeff Warren11:20

       It's the same empty awareness in every single human being.

   11. CWChris Williamson11:23

       Yeah.

   12. JWJeff Warren11:23

       You know? So-

   13. CWChris Williamson11:23

       That's-

   14. JWJeff Warren11:24

       ... it's sort of like an octopus with six billion arms.

   15. CWChris Williamson11:26

       (laughs)

   16. JWJeff Warren11:27

       You know, and each, at the end of each arm is an eyeball that's looking out at the world, and then we're... each of one of us is one of those arms.

   17. CWChris Williamson11:33

       Yeah.

   18. JWJeff Warren11:33

       But there's only one awareness in that octopus, and that's, that... I'm, I'm giving you kind of like a boilerplate summary of how contemplative, you know, how, how I kind of think about it and, and how a, a mystic might describe it, and I actually think it's true, insofar as my own experience has begun to point me in that direction. And if it is true, it's fucking mind-blowing.

   19. CWChris Williamson11:52

       (laughs)

   20. JWJeff Warren11:52

       (laughs) That, that is true. And it should be out there talked about by everyone, not just by unhinged mystics, because-

   21. CWChris Williamson11:58

       Yeah.

   22. JWJeff Warren11:59

       ... I, I think it's as true a description of human, uh, experience and consciousness as any you'll find in the psychology or neuroscience literature, so.

   23. CWChris Williamson12:08

       I'd agree. Yeah, I mean, the fact that w-... a- the vast majority of humans on the planet believe that they are n- they are their thoughts as opposed to the watcher of their thoughts, that there is no distinction between them and their thoughts is for neuroscientists, contemplatives, and anyone who's done a

5. 12:31 – 15:41

   They are their thoughts

   1. CWChris Williamson12:31

      modicum of introspective work. It- it's so far off the mark.

   2. JWJeff Warren12:35

      Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson12:36

      It-

   4. JWJeff Warren12:36

      And you know, I- I ʼ, uh, sorry, I just should say, um, you know, I think that, uh, as something we could d- a- as a claim of something that's objectively true about how humans are, I think you can argue with that. Um-

   5. CWChris Williamson12:50

      Okay.

   6. JWJeff Warren12:50

      ... in s- in, in so far as you could say, okay, it, what, what you can't argue with is the experience of suddenly coming out of a thought stream and being able to notice it. So there's, you can't argue with that. There's a real human experience of being able to pan back the camera and disembedding from a particular trance of thinking.

   7. CWChris Williamson13:08

      Mm-hmm.

   8. JWJeff Warren13:09

      What you could say is, okay, but are you disembedding from that trance into just a broader trance?

   9. CWChris Williamson13:13

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   10. JWJeff Warren13:14

       Uh, and so a broader view, and so in other words, it's thoughts all the way down.

   11. CWChris Williamson13:17

       (laughs) Yeah. Yeah. (laughs)

   12. JWJeff Warren13:18

       Uh, you know, which is perfectly legitimate. It, uh, actually that has partly been my experience as an insight practice is you, you think you're free and then you realize after a while that actually you're trapped in another kind of layer and then you pop out again and pop out again.

   13. CWChris Williamson13:29

       Yeah.

   14. JWJeff Warren13:30

       But what, but what's important to me is not to make any kind of claim about, uh, a- any kind of objectively cool true claim of how this works. My only interest in saying it's true as an experience and as an experience that has great value. It- it can really help us with our suffering. It can really help us, uh, get out of habits of mind that are very, you know, destructive. And so I- I am interested in what's gonna help people. I've, I'm much more interested in that than I'm interested in what's true about reality. So I kinda have to make that, you know, you kinda have to say that in the world of consciousness studies because it's, you're e- you're operating in a very weird and interesting medium. You know, it's not quite like other mediums. It- it's a medium where, you know, the- the subjectivity itself is kinda changing what it's learning and what it's understanding, so you have to be kind of humble about how you talk about that space 'cause it's all very (laughs) mysterious. So, it helps, I guess.

   15. CWChris Williamson14:21

       The pa- the paradigm and the, the framework that you're, um, understanding is within, is constantly shifting, and the meta fact that-

   16. JWJeff Warren14:31

       Absolutely.

   17. CWChris Williamson14:32

       ... the only way, the only way that you can appreciate my subjective experience is by me telling you, which th- you then subjectively interpret. It's (laughs) like-

   18. JWJeff Warren14:40

       Exactly.

   19. CWChris Williamson14:40

       ... it's like Inception.

   20. JWJeff Warren14:42

       It is like Inception, I mean, which is actually a fine film. (laughs) It does-

   21. CWChris Williamson14:46

       It is a fantastic-

   22. JWJeff Warren14:47

       ... give us paradoxes.

   23. CWChris Williamson14:47

       ... motion picture.

   24. JWJeff Warren14:48

       Yeah, I would say the, probably this, I mean, there's so many paradoxes in this work, but one of the central paradoxes, if not the central, is that exploring consciousness is both a discovery and a training. So you're both discovering things that are true in your mind, like true dynamics that you're discovering and saying, "Hey, this is the thing I'm seeing," but in the act of seeing it, you are changing what you find.

   25. CWChris Williamson15:15

       (laughs)

   26. JWJeff Warren15:15

       So you, you can never entirely say are you discovering something or are you creating it. You know, you, you can, you, there's no place that you can stand in that has but absolute confidence that could say it's one or the other and it's probably both in some way. So, which I think is good news for this whole, for, for, for us in terms of how, uh, in terms of our health, in terms of our happiness, 'cause it means that we can change what we find. Um, it just might-

   27. CWChris Williamson15:39

       Well, it allows you-

   28. JWJeff Warren15:40

       Yeah.

6. 15:41 – 19:06

   Building the road

   1. JWJeff Warren15:41

   2. CWChris Williamson15:41

      It allows you, it allows you to build a road towards a destination which you want to get to, and as you're building the road, you learn how to build the road better, and as the road continues along, you can then move forward and back down it. You've seen where you've been. You've laid it and you get a better image of where you're going in the future. You're totally right that as you do your training, the capacity that you have to move on and your direction becomes more zeroed in hopefully towards whatever it is that you're aiming for, enlightenment or (laughs) self-actualization or a better understanding of the self or wherever it's heading.

   3. JWJeff Warren16:21

      Absolutely. That, that's true, and then and it's also true that there's the whole thing is still really shot through with mystery and surprises in that you can have an intention, you can have an idea of what you hope will happen, you can be going in a particular direction, but life isn't gonna confirm itself according to your biases. (laughs) You know?

   4. CWChris Williamson16:41

      No, no, no.

   5. JWJeff Warren16:41

      Y- you may have an, you may have an idea or an agenda what's gonna happen, but there, it can still go in a different way. So there's a continual dialectic between you have an intention and that you're clear about and you, and you move forward and it helps build up a particular kind of road, but you're also open to the unexpected, um, and, you know, and that's what creates, actually, that's what creates a lot of wisdom is in that capacity to kind of hold that, that those two things at once where you're m- you're moving forward, you're, you're deliberate, you know, you're building your own reality in a certain way, but you're also humble enough to know that, uh, the thing you're building is only a small sliver and that reality itself will have much to say about it. (laughs)

   6. CWChris Williamson17:24

      (laughs) Yeah, that's a lovely way to put it.

   7. JWJeff Warren17:27

      (laughs)

   8. CWChris Williamson17:27

      So you've touched on the external world there, and I wanted to move onto that as well. So bad things will happen to you, and good things also will inevitably happen to you. How does meditation change how you're going to feel about them?

   9. JWJeff Warren17:44

      Yeah, well, again, I would say it depends a little bit on the kind of meditation that you're doing, but m- the technique that I'm really sort of most passionate about, I guess, or at least I had the most experience in is a mindfulness technique. And the essence of mindfulness as I see it is it's really about disembedding from trance. It's about, um, coming back to your own awareness and using that awareness to notice how you were, uh, operating according to a more limited set of principles, and suddenly you can see a p- a particular thought pattern, a particular way of relating to the world that you were previously and unconsciously...... as you get more experienced with mindfulness, you start to see that that's happening. And in the act of seeing, you're no longer in that pattern. So there's a freedom to potentially then begin to change it. So that is unquestionably, enormously, (laughs) uh, a valuable piece of information to know if you wanna live-

   10. CWChris Williamson18:42

       It's super liberating, right? It's, it's l-

   11. JWJeff Warren18:44

       Very much. Yeah.

   12. CWChris Williamson18:44

       ... liberating you from the inputs of the external world, to one degree or another. This is not us saying that you're no longer going to be subject to the forces of gravity or a car hitting you. But that-

   13. JWJeff Warren18:56

       Yeah.

   14. CWChris Williamson18:56

       ... that your, uh, ability to be able to... Corey Allen, who I did a podcast with a few months ago referred to it as the mindfulness gap, which I think is a lovely way to put it. It

7. 19:06 – 21:48

   The Mindfulness Gap

   1. CWChris Williamson19:06

      is, it is-

   2. JWJeff Warren19:06

      Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson19:06

      ... that gap. It's that breath between something occurs and your reaction to it, or your thoughts about it. Or a thought occurs and your capacity to not allow the next thought that comes careering into view to be what you think about, that you can simply observe it and watch it go by like cars on a road or birds in the sky.

   4. JWJeff Warren19:29

      Absolutely. Uh, that's super well-said. I mean, the, let's just unpack that for a second because it is really, really deep and really interesting. What we're talking about here is you start to learn to live in that gap. So you start to learn to spend, get more and more space around what's going on in your experience. And then at a certain point you start to realize or feel that that more spacious place is more of a, a truer description of who you are. And, and the, the trajectory in a mindfulness practice, I mean we can be really clear about this, the trajectory in a classic Buddhist mindfulness practice is happiness independent of conditions. So independent of whatever is going on in your life, whatever horrible external circumstance is happening, if you can get enough space around it, then you can experience that circumstance not as a hardship but as what they would describe, uh, as a purification, as another opening to go deeper into your life. And that's boggling to try to consider what that would look like-

   5. CWChris Williamson20:30

      (laughs) Yeah.

   6. JWJeff Warren20:30

      ... but that is what the... You know, I've done a lot of interviews with lots of very, very, very senior teachers, and that more or less is a version of what they describe. Um, and so that's really interesting, and that for me brings up a lot of questions around, first of all, do I want that for myself? Isn't part of being in the human experience to be, to be identified, to be... Would that affect that at all? And what they tend to say is no, that you, as you get more and more space around your experience, you develop the option to kind of ride with the energies of your life in a new way. So there's a kind of bouncy spontaneity and playfulness-

   7. CWChris Williamson21:07

      Mm-hmm.

   8. JWJeff Warren21:07

      ... that can emerge. Um, and it doesn't say take away from... It's not like you're dissociated when you're dealing with a tragedy in your life. It's more like the tragedy, instead of being something that's purely causing suffering, is experienced with a much deeper and rawer sort of poignancy-

   9. CWChris Williamson21:23

      I thi-

   10. JWJeff Warren21:24

       ... that is very deep and meaningful. So-

   11. CWChris Williamson21:26

       Yeah.

   12. JWJeff Warren21:26

       ... that's what I'm saying.

   13. CWChris Williamson21:27

       Totally. I think the, an ana- a nice analogy there would be the equivalent of you being in the swell of a wave and it carrying you into shore as you're sucked underneath, or you surfing the wave and allowing the bounce playfulness, as you say, the control. You are using the waves of your life but you are in control of them and

8. 21:48 – 24:01

   Surfing the Wave

   1. CWChris Williamson21:48

      you're riding them, as opposed to being carried along at their will.

   2. JWJeff Warren21:52

      I think it's a p- like a perfect metaphor, and as someone who surfs (laughs) a lot, (laughs) I love it-

   3. CWChris Williamson21:57

      (laughs)

   4. JWJeff Warren21:57

      ... you know? 'Cause it's true. And, and actually it's interesting 'cause it, it sort of says... You know, in initial early Buddhism it was, I mean some people describe early Buddhism as more about, okay, transcending suffering, you, you know getting into this place of true freedom and enlightenment, uh, so that you're, you're happy independent of conditions but then you're also just kind of chilling out and not really doing much with those conditions. So-

   5. CWChris Williamson22:19

      Mm-hmm.

   6. JWJeff Warren22:19

      ... within Buddhism they started saying, "Hey, no, w- what's the point of that? We should really be all about coming back and to try to help other people." And so that became sort of second-wave Buddhism. But then you had sort of third-wave Buddhism within Tibetan Buddhism that was, that was saying, "Yeah, that's true too, and let's make it about energy and play and riding that life." You know?

   7. CWChris Williamson22:38

      Mm-hmm.

   8. JWJeff Warren22:38

      And much more of a joyful kind of take on it, that's more of a tantric take on it.

   9. CWChris Williamson22:42

      Yep.

   10. JWJeff Warren22:42

       And so I think that's a really, I think that's a really wonderful... When we get to that stuff then it kind of meets the kind of self-actualization movements that came out of the West and these kinds of ideas, that there is something about just, you know, playing with our lives and creating the most beautiful life that we can in addition to finding that freedom, that it's both of those things.

   11. CWChris Williamson23:00

       You're totally right. The, um, I, I use this analogy with Corey Allen, I'm gonna use it again with yourself. So do you watch Game of Thrones?

   12. JWJeff Warren23:06

       Oh yeah, I watched the first few seasons and loved it and I keep meaning to try to download it and get the rest.

   13. CWChris Williamson23:12

       Okay.

   14. JWJeff Warren23:12

       But I haven't seen the last few seasons.

   15. CWChris Williamson23:13

       That's fine. So Bran, who's the young Stark, um, he becomes the three-eyed raven, uh, partway through one of the seasons. I haven't spoiled it for you, I promise.

   16. JWJeff Warren23:24

       Okay.

   17. CWChris Williamson23:24

       And when that happens, he essentially becomes almost completely detached from all emotion, and he's just like this, this zen master that's sat in a corner. But I think that a lot of people presume if they were to take mindfulness practice and meditation to its end point, that that's what they would become, this kind of turnip that's just so sad. (laughs)

   18. JWJeff Warren23:47

       (laughs) A root vegetable.

   19. CWChris Williamson23:48

       Yeah. Do you know what I mean? That's completely-

   20. JWJeff Warren23:51

       Oh, yeah, totally.

   21. CWChris Williamson23:51

       ... completely detached from what's going on around them. And I think what's interesting, I can't remember who it was and I'm gonna butcher the quote so I'll try and get i- get as close to it as I can.

9. 24:01 – 26:31

   Mindfulness and the Ego

   1. CWChris Williamson24:01

      That they, they said that they understood that a mindfulness practice combined with a retention of the ego is important because the ego is what gives you the get-up-and-go, but it's not being at the mercy of it that was important. And I think that it's interesting the dynamic between the ego still being there and still allowing you to go and do the things that you want, but you being the, the person who chooses as opposed to being at the whim, being sucked under the swell again.

   2. JWJeff Warren24:28

      Yeah, I think, I just think that's a useful w- way to think of it. I mean, I certainly try to find that balance in my own life. Um, I, I, I do want to say something though about, you know, I actually do think that, you know, no practice can go unmonitored. Um, and there's no such thing as a practice that you can just implement the technique and then just be unconscious in the technique and kind of hope for the best. You continually need to be checking in with ways in which a technique might need to be corrected.

   3. CWChris Williamson24:57

      Mm-hmm.

   4. JWJeff Warren24:58

      And I think, uh, in a mindfulness practice, there is definitely a trajectory within a practice that can happen where people do get kind of dissociated. They do kind of just get... they kind of... e- eh... they become the kind of witness and everything else is just passing through them, and there's sort of... there is an indifference that can potentially arise there. It's one of the traps within a practice that a good teacher should be looking out for and to help them work through that, you know. So it doesn't... there... it is possible to do, uh, uh, a practice and to be... uh, to... eh... for it to kind of imbalance you in a, in a new way. So you'll have to... you don't ever get to kind of, uh, lose the respon- the sense of responsibility. You have to continually be responsible for where it's taking you.

   5. CWChris Williamson25:36

      Yeah. Right.

   6. JWJeff Warren25:36

      So that I think that's important to say, you know, 'cause I think people have idealizations around practices, and that you definitely hear that a lot with mindfulness. But mindfulness can lead into some very troubling and challenging areas. Uh, so you need to be kind of watching, is this... you know, you need to always have a kind of lit- litmus test. "Is this practice leading me..." eh, you know... "am I... is my life better? Is it leading me... is my life better in the ways that-"

   7. CWChris Williamson25:59

      Mm-hmm.

   8. JWJeff Warren25:59

      "... are meaningful for me to be better?" You know. "Am I more connected to my family and friends? Am I more creative? Do I feel like I have more vitality?" If it's not doing that, then you may need to make... uh, uh... uh, you may need to change the way you do the practice. So-

   9. CWChris Williamson26:11

      Yeah, I get that totally.

   10. JWJeff Warren26:12

       ... um,

   11. CWChris Williamson26:12

       Are you saying, are you saying that you need to be mindful about your mindfulness practice? (laughs)

   12. JWJeff Warren26:16

       Absolutely. (laughs) You do. Yeah. It just keeps going on and on, bro.

   13. CWChris Williamson26:21

       Yeah. I get that.

   14. JWJeff Warren26:21

       You just keep popping out, having to be mindful at the next level-

   15. CWChris Williamson26:23

       You just-

   16. JWJeff Warren26:23

       ... and then you're mindful the next level, and...

   17. CWChris Williamson26:25

       Like, like a game of Whac-A-Mole, right?

   18. JWJeff Warren26:28

       (laughs) Exactly.

   19. CWChris Williamson26:29

       Right. So, um, you touched on something earlier

10. 26:31 – 29:01

    Solitary Confinement

    1. CWChris Williamson26:31

       on about happiness not being contingent on external factors, and there's a lovely quote from Sam Harris, again, that I'm going to use now, which is that he talks about solitary confinement being considered as the worst form of punishment, that given the choice between spending their time with murderers and rapists or their time on their own, most people would choose the former, but yet, solitary confinement and silent meditation retreats have been used by contem- contemplatives for thousands of years to give themselves an insight into the mind that most normal people can't get. I think that i- it's... that is a perfect identifier of the fact that it is so contrary to most people to think that sitting alone with your thoughts would be beneficial. It sounds like a punishment, right?

    2. JWJeff Warren27:18

       Absolutely. And, uh, I... I mean, I think a lot of people, i- it sounds like a punishment because, for a lot of people, it's experienced that way. You know, when I first started meditating, it was like, "Are you kidding me? I gotta spend all this time with this guy?" (laughs)

    3. CWChris Williamson27:30

       (laughs)

    4. JWJeff Warren27:31

       There was a lot of really neurotic patterns and suffering, and it was just like being in a hell spiral. So, uh, I had... you very quickly run in... and, but so, we're pointing, we're talking about something really deep here, which is that, you know, a practice points us to basically freedom. Because if, if it... if... what... if you learn that you can't actually just sit and be with yourself, that is a huge thing to learn about yourself.

    5. CWChris Williamson27:56

       Yeah.

    6. JWJeff Warren27:56

       If you can't actually just sit and be okay with yourself, you need to always be changing the external conditions to be okay, that's a deep, unsettled pain or a hole in the middle of your life. So that-

    7. CWChris Williamson28:05

       Very unnatural as well from an evolutionary perspective.

    8. JWJeff Warren28:08

       It is very... it, it absolutely is very unnatural. So the, the practice is about you learn to sit alone so you can actually be okay with just being with yourself.

    9. CWChris Williamson28:17

       (laughs)

    10. JWJeff Warren28:17

        And as that happens, you increase the... exponentially the range of possible conditions in which you can be free in.

    11. CWChris Williamson28:24

        I totally get it.

    12. JWJeff Warren28:24

        You see what I mean?

    13. CWChris Williamson28:25

        I totally get it.

    14. JWJeff Warren28:25

        Because if you're not, if you're not free in that situation, you're constantly gonna be s- grasping at the next thing. You're just racing from one thing to another because you don't want to spend one second alone with yourself because it's a horror show. But that is a nightmare to be living inside. And at some point, your capacity to outrace your own aversion to yourself is gonna fall apart, you know. You won't physically be able to do it. You won't find a new nov-... and that's what happens when you're always trying to up the novelty. At a certain point, there's no greater novelty. You can't find... you know, once you've done all the stuff, once you've done your Richard Branson and done all the extreme experiences of reality-

    15. CWChris Williamson28:58

        (laughs)

    16. JWJeff Warren28:58

        ... and had all the privileges, you know, at some- you're

11. 29:01 – 32:16

    We come into this world alone

    1. JWJeff Warren29:01

       gonna be left with yourself.

    2. CWChris Williamson29:02

       Yeah.

    3. JWJeff Warren29:02

       So you better come to peace with it at some point.

    4. CWChris Williamson29:04

       Well, we come, we come into this world alone and we leave this world alone, right? There's, there's a, a lovely, a lovely little quote as well that talks about there's more connections in a single square centimeter of human brain tissue than there are stars in the galaxy, and you think-

    5. JWJeff Warren29:18

       Mm-hmm.

    6. CWChris Williamson29:19

       ... that, that is a physical manifestation of the depth of our experience or the capacity for depth of our experience. And yet, you're totally right that so many people lead a hedonic life where they're looking for the next thing that is going to make them happy, they're... even when they think that they're experiencing the present moment, they're, in very subtle ways, they're looking over its shoulder. They're, they're eyeing up what's coming next, even if they think that they're being present. Now, you mentioned Shinzen Young, who I know... I, I really want to get onto, who is one of your meditation teachers, and he talks in The Science of Enlightenment, his book, he likens meditation to a magic trick that can double your life by increasing the depth of experience. I wondered if-

    7. JWJeff Warren30:01

       Mm-hmm.

    8. CWChris Williamson30:01

       ... you would be able to explain to people what that actually means and, uh, and how that kind of manifests itself, especially moving on from what we've just talked about there to do with the, the novelty and the chasing the next thing.

    9. JWJeff Warren30:13

       Yeah. Oh, I'm happy to talk about it. I, I've, I've found that to also be true, um, not as, uh... I don't experience it in the way Shinzen does 'cause he's such a more advanced practitioner than me-

    10. CWChris Williamson30:24

        Because he's an absolute mon- monster. That's why. (laughs)

    11. JWJeff Warren30:27

        Oh, yeah. He's, he's next level. I mean, he's... first of all, he's in his mid-70s and he's been a hardcore practitioner for-... 50 plus years and, you know, so he's, the way he experiences reality is, it's fascinating actually. I've had hundreds of hours of talks with him about how it is. So I, I maybe I'll say something-

    12. CWChris Williamson30:45

        Have you got an idea, sorry, sorry to interject, have you got an idea of, an any idea of how many hours of practice it's likely that Shinzen Young has done during his life?

    13. JWJeff Warren30:54

        Um, that's a great question, I'd have to ask him. I would guess, I would guess probably upwards of 60,000 hours.

    14. CWChris Williamson31:04

        Oh my God.

    15. JWJeff Warren31:05

        You know-

    16. CWChris Williamson31:06

        (laughs)

    17. JWJeff Warren31:06

        ... I mean, I remember hearing once about this particular Tibetan, this Tibetan ... I'll actually, I, I would guess probably more like 80,000 because there's a, I remember hearing about this Tibetan teacher who figured out, he figured he was maybe doing, had done 65,000 hours of practice and this guy was my age, so he was in his 40s.

    18. CWChris Williamson31:19

        Oh my days.

    19. JWJeff Warren31:20

        Shinzen's in his 70s. So you're, if people say 100 hou- thousand hours of practice is what makes you, you know, uh, gives you a certain amount of mastery, you can ima- you can then compare that. So it definitely is a numbers game.

    20. CWChris Williamson31:30

        Yeah.

    21. JWJeff Warren31:30

        The more time you spend doing it, the more time you spend in awareness, the more awareness erodes everything in your experience. Everything just turns into basically pixelated dust.

    22. CWChris Williamson31:39

        I totally get that.

    23. JWJeff Warren31:39

        It all just gets emptied out and turned into energy, so he lives ... So to go to your question to why it's deeper, I can talk about it in a general way that is accessible to everyone about, that speaks to my experience and then I can talk about it in a weird, cool, fucked up mystical way that is true of the Shinzen experience and it's-

    24. CWChris Williamson31:57

        Throw it, throw it both at us.

    25. JWJeff Warren31:58

        ... they're the same thing.

    26. CWChris Williamson31:58

        Throw it both at us. It's a, it's a-

    27. JWJeff Warren31:59

        Okay.

    28. CWChris Williamson32:00

        ... it's a mindfulness spit roasting. It's fine. (laughs)

    29. JWJeff Warren32:02

        Okay. So we're, since we're in the spit roast, so we'll start with the, uh, we'll start with the, the, the, the dark meat, uh, that everyone can get.

    30. CWChris Williamson32:11

        (laughs)
12. 32:16 – 34:46

    You begin to feel more space

    1. JWJeff Warren32:16

       yeah, what happens is, it's like I said, you begin to feel like you have more space. So you start to see how previously you were always inside this sense of urgency, sense of urgency, sense of urgency and you were an- and the sense of urgency just begets more urgency and it begets in turn more work and more complexity. And it seems like you're constantly running out of time because you're constantly running around this hamster wheel. And it's not even that it stays the same. The more you repeat a loop, the deeper it gets, therefore the more it grows exponentially.

    2. CWChris Williamson32:45

       Mm-hmm.

    3. JWJeff Warren32:45

       So you're in, we're in these doomed sort of feedback loops of urgency and limit sense of often of limitation. So as we get into practice, we learn we don't need to feed those loops and that our s- the space just starts to open up. We realize that actually lots of things we thought were priorities or were important or we had to do can just drop away. And the things that remain we start to be able to do them with more intelligence and care and there's just a sense of, uh, overall of like that you just have more time and space available in your life. And there's a depth of appreciation that comes from this too. So I often think it's like we move out of the, of a paradigm where we're trying to, uh, you know, we're kind of in this up and down paradigm where we're trying to keep the ups and get rid of the downs.

    4. CWChris Williamson33:31

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    5. JWJeff Warren33:32

       But as you get deeper into practice, like I think I s- I talk about this in the veg- Vegey Skeptics book, there's a depth dimension that comes in. So y- you, you don't, you can't get rid of the ups and downs in life entirely, although they may start to round off a little bit with the practice. But what happens is both the ups and the downs start to be experienced with more poignancy, more fullness. And this is where language runs out. This is where, uh, contemplatives have always said that they can't explain it. You can't explain what this means, but just that there is a way, there are certain moments that are more poignant and full and spacious and meaningful.

    6. CWChris Williamson34:08

       Mm-hmm.

    7. JWJeff Warren34:08

       And most of your listeners will know what I'm talking about, though at some time spontaneously in their life on a nature hike with a lover, uh, who knows what, they entered into a space like that. And that's the space that, uh, uh, a deep practice, a meditation practice with many other kinds of practices can begin to bring us to.

    8. CWChris Williamson34:27

       I totally-

    9. JWJeff Warren34:27

       So that's what I think-

    10. CWChris Williamson34:28

        ... totally get that.

    11. JWJeff Warren34:30

        Yeah.

    12. CWChris Williamson34:30

        Totally, totally, totally get that.

    13. JWJeff Warren34:31

        Yeah. So that's what he means in a general way. What, I figured you'd get it. I mean, it seems like you, first of all, different property, it seems like you do. And if you're talking about modern wisdom, I mean, it seems that that-

    14. CWChris Williamson34:42

        (laughs)

    15. JWJeff Warren34:42

        ... and somehow I understand that's, that's essentially what-

    16. CWChris Williamson34:43

        It fits, it fits the name, right? Fits the name. I think-

13. 34:46 – 38:51

    More novel experiences more mindful

    1. CWChris Williamson34:46

    2. JWJeff Warren34:46

       It fits the name.

    3. CWChris Williamson34:46

       ... a really good way, so one of the typical co-hosts on the show is a guy called Yousef and he gave me this fantastic insight and I'd be interested to share it with you and then we'll move on to the weird quirky, uh, insight that you've got coming up for us. What he said was that the more novel an experience is, the more mindful that we are of it. So I think everyone who's listening will be able to, uh, will be familiar with their days appearing to go very quickly. When you look back at the last year and you think, "Well, what did I do with my year?" As every subsequent year occurs, that speed, it, it appears like you're accelerating, right? Like you can remember less. And one of the few times where there appears to be a little bit of a mindfulness gap is when you do something that's out of the norm. So if the listeners at home can think about the last time that they went somewhere new or the last time that they were driving somewhere and hit a roadworks and had to be diverted. So the more novel an experience is, the more mindful that we are of it. So what that means is that the mindfulness and the understanding of that, uh, people can, uh, for instance, looking back over my last year, I couldn't really tell you an awful lot of what occurred during my days when I went to the office, but I went to LA for 10 days, then Hawaii for five, Austin for one, and Virginia for six this year. And I can tell you without looking at notes or a diary every single thing I did on every single day because the level of novelty was so high, which meant that my level of mindfulness was so high. So we've shown that in particular situations, we can be significantly more mindful than we already are. But the, uh, beginner's mind or the learned mind means that w- when we see things that we are already familiar with, we tend to allow them to rush past us and we allow ourselves to be carried off in thought and not experience the present moment anymore. And I thought that that-... that, um, example of what happens when you do something new and novel was a really good, uh, like, it's like taking a quick holiday to mindfulness land, and you go, "Oh, that's what it, that's what it feels like." That, that level of remembered self and that depth of understanding and depth of experience and, you know, that's, that's what it feels like. And I think going to the doubling your life as, uh, Shinzen, uh, cites it, if I look back at how s- how fast my holiday went, I think, "Well, yeah, like, I was away for 30 days but it feels like I was away for 60 days 'cause look at all of the things that my remembered self can actually bring into view." Whereas when I look at a couple of months stretch where I'm in the office all the time, I think, "Oh, well, my, my God, that feels like it's gone by in a week."

    4. JWJeff Warren37:30

       Absolutely. I could not agree more. Yeah, that's, uh, that's ... And people describe that interestingly, y- almost, that's almost a universal description that comes from practitioners over time of exactly that kind of an insight. Um, yeah, and it's, and it's very liberating, you know, to, to begin to realize that you can spend more time in that space, in that mindfulness gap as you call it. I mean, I would say that it's also ... partly it happens because, uh, you know, when we're just stuck in our thoughts, we're in a much narrower place. As opposed to when we're actually popped out of that and really paying attention to the richness of what's going on all around us, and that's kind of the, the orientation. And from that place, there's so much more details to soak in. It's just like when you're having a, uh ... someone's in front of you and they're kind of, you're, you're half paying attention but you're mostly listening to your own thoughts of what they're saying-

    5. CWChris Williamson38:21

       Mm-hmm.

    6. JWJeff Warren38:22

       ... you're not taking in what they're saying, you're not taking in the character in their faces. You're not ... There's so much information that's not there. So that's why it makes more space 'cause it brings attention out into the world-

    7. CWChris Williamson38:32

       Mm-hmm.

    8. JWJeff Warren38:33

       ... where ... And it's not to say that it's not important to be able to f- to sometimes be in your thinking process. Of course. It's, it's like they s- you know, thinking is a wonderful tool, it's, uh, just a terrible master. You know, it's great to be able to go in there-

    9. CWChris Williamson38:42

       (laughs) That's such a, such a lovely way to put it. A, a, it's a-

    10. JWJeff Warren38:46

        You just want to be able to have the option to come out.

    11. CWChris Williamson38:46

        ... wonderful tool but a terrible master. Yeah. Fantastic.

    12. JWJeff Warren38:50

        Yeah.

    13. CWChris Williamson38:50

        So, um,

14. 38:51 – 43:56

    Shape your consciousness

    1. CWChris Williamson38:51

       you were saying-

    2. JWJeff Warren38:51

       Um-

    3. CWChris Williamson38:51

       ... that there's a slightly more spooky version, a slightly more-

    4. JWJeff Warren38:54

       Yeah. So-

    5. CWChris Williamson38:54

       ... outer version.

    6. JWJeff Warren38:55

       Well, so, so sh- so this is where, this is something I'm very interested in which is that the kind of practice you do shapes your consciousness in very particular ways. So Shinzen is a classic Vipassana nerd. I mean, he's deep, he's deeply shaped by hardcore Vipassana practice from within both, uh, Goenka and, uh, the Mahasi tradition and hardcore Zen practice within, from his teacher, and with more of a Renzai practice. So, and his main training that he has done for himself, it's in concentration, clarity and equanimity. But I would say in particular, in the equanimity and in the clarity, so ... and in all of them together. But the clarity means that he spends every moment, he's trying to notice the beginning of each moment. He's trying to hear the very beginning of each sound. He's trying to hear, feel the very beginning of the sensation of breathing. So he has zoomed up the resolution of his consciousness now so that he's able to notice the moment s- sensory experience begins to emerge into consciousness. Most of us, there's a kind of delay, but for h- and, and there's, 'cause there's this unconscious processing that happens where underneath the threshold of consciousness where something, uh, a stimuli comes into awareness and then it gets sort of moved up into the higher levels of processing and it pops out into, uh, into actual conscious awareness. But it entered the brain earlier.

    7. CWChris Williamson40:12

       Mm.

    8. JWJeff Warren40:12

       And so what, what some meditation research is showing, and what med- what Shinzen believes and what his experience describes, is that he's slowly lowered the threshold of his conscious awareness down into the, the area where the old turbines are. The kind of under-

    9. CWChris Williamson40:26

       (laughs)

    10. JWJeff Warren40:26

        ... the basement of the mind. The stuff that's normally unconscious.

    11. CWChris Williamson40:28

        He's in the belly of the beast, is he?

    12. JWJeff Warren40:30

        He's in the belly of the beast. So he experiences each moment as that, more and more as that moment begins. So his experience of reality is everything is a kind of gushing fountain of n- of, of, of energy that emerges before it crystallizes into anything. Before it gets tagged as tree, as person, as emotion, as thought. It's just this blooming openness of experience. And bl- and he's oriented himself to the empty space out of which that bloom arises. 'Cause if you think about it, like, what is the ground of consciousness? You know, what is ... Uh, if we're looking at, we're looking out at trees and everything but really, we're looking at a TV screen. You know, all this is built by our consciousness. It's a model of the world. And you can ... And what you can realize is that you can in a sense turn off the model, but there's still a screen.

    13. CWChris Williamson41:15

        Yeah.

    14. JWJeff Warren41:16

        And that's kind of like the empty ground or the emptiness or whatever you want to call it. And some people call ... The, the full version of that is awareness. When there's something in it, it's aware. When it, there's nothing in it, it's emptiness and there's no awareness. There's nothing.

    15. CWChris Williamson41:26

        Mm-hmm.

    16. JWJeff Warren41:26

        So he experiences reality as blooming out of emptiness at every moment. And he knows himself as that emptiness. And so therefore, he lives a deathless life.

    17. CWChris Williamson41:36

        Can, can you-

    18. JWJeff Warren41:37

        I me- what has been-

    19. CWChris Williamson41:38

        Can you even begin to imagine what it's like to experience Shinzen's life? What, what it would be like to be him for five minutes?

    20. JWJeff Warren41:47

        Uh, I've ha- uh, not really. (laughs)

    21. CWChris Williamson41:50

        (laughs)

    22. JWJeff Warren41:50

        But he ... I would, I would say yes and no. Like, I have had a taste of some of that 'cause I've done a lot of practice. So I've had experiences like that.

    23. CWChris Williamson41:58

        Mm-hmm.

    24. JWJeff Warren41:58

        Maybe not as ... I ... So this is the other thing you realize. Practice ... There's a depth dimension to insight. It's like an iceberg, you know? And it's always the same insight, it can just ever be deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper.

    25. CWChris Williamson42:09

        Yeah.

    26. JWJeff Warren42:09

        So I have many ... I've thousands, tens of thousands of times, I've had deep insights into impermanence. I've had insights into the liberating power of equanimity, of, of purification. I've experienced myself to be part of this larger process. I've-... felt myself emerging out of the zero. But the way in which I have experienced that is, is superficial compared to the way, say, someone like Shinzen does-

    27. CWChris Williamson42:31

        Mm-hmm.

    28. JWJeff Warren42:31

        ... because it only gets deeper with time. And, and I mean, it... Wisdom is learning from experience. So you're learning, you... Insight is learning from experience, so the longer you are in experience, the more you create that direction, that trajectory of more openness, of more, of being in relationship to the space, the more exponentially quick that grows, just like a bad habit grows. And eventually, you're inside something that's so foreign to where, what you were when you began, and yet you can see that it's the same principle operating all the way through. Does that, does that make sense?

    29. CWChris Williamson43:02

        Totally, totally get it. I think one thing that I'd love to get your thoughts on is the difference between state and trait changes that occur-

    30. JWJeff Warren43:10

        Mm-hmm.
15. 43:56 – 53:41

    State vs trait changes

    1. CWChris Williamson43:56

       about the state versus trait changes that occur during mindfulness.

    2. JWJeff Warren44:00

       Yeah. Yeah, no, I think a lot about it. I think, um... I mean, ultimately... So I, I think of it as three levels. I think of it as state, it starts as state, then it goes into trait, then it goes to state and trait. So and I... So I basically... I think of meditation as it's sort of... It's something that happens at three different times in, in the same moment, you could say. So there's the, there's the in-the-moment experience of meditation, where you sit down and you pay attention to your breath, and it can almost... Many techniques can create, start to create a temporary state change right there. You can start to feel more calm, your anger can start to be metabolized, you can go into states of bliss or whatever. You can take, create a state change. That's how... That's, that's practice as it unfolds in the moment.

    3. CWChris Williamson44:43

       Mm-hmm.

    4. JWJeff Warren44:44

       But then you have practice as it unfolds over months and years.

    5. CWChris Williamson44:48

       Mm-hmm.

    6. JWJeff Warren44:48

       And that's what's, that's what generates the trait change. So you do, you practice being more friendly, for example, and you can start to feel more friendly as a state change in the moment, and over time, doing that more and more, the default baseline of friendliness starts to increase. So the trait of friendliness starts to become easier and easier to get. And that's the second... So that's the... And that's really what we're looking at in a, in a meditation practice, is looking at the scale of months and years.

    7. CWChris Williamson45:14

       Mm-hmm.

    8. JWJeff Warren45:14

       There's a scale in the moment, that it makes you feel better in the moment, sure, that can do that. Or it can actually be... Make you feel worse in the moment sometimes, 'cause meditation doesn't always go easily. But over the long run, it, it begins to create those state changes. Now, there's also a third scale, and that's the scale of a lifetime, and that's really what, uh, the deep end of practice is about. The deep end of practice is pointing you towards the whole of your life, to beginning to experience yourself as a, a larger whole, beginning to feel yourself in relationship to the whole of your life. That's kind of the deep, meaningful stuff. And when that... As that starts to come really online, you have a combination of those, state and the trait, where this, the trait becomes so well-entrenched that you get... You're, you're more likely to be in that state all the time.

    9. CWChris Williamson46:00

       Yeah.

    10. JWJeff Warren46:01

        Maybe not a- not 24/7. As Shinzen would say, "The small self always comes back." You know, you still... There are always gonna be times when you're gonna fall out of that, when you're gonna get into, you know... You're gonna forget yourself and get into a more limited pattern of reactivity or whatever, but then you pop out of it again. And the, the time you spend in that more spacious place just gets bigger and longer over time. So there's, there's, does that, does that, is that helpful, that way of describing it?

    11. CWChris Williamson46:25

        Totally, totally get it, yeah. Um, so going back to the individual practices, what are your thoughts on guided versus unguided meditation practices?

    12. JWJeff Warren46:34

        Uh, I think it's really user's choice. So, um, some people... I think, especially for a beginner, it can be really helpful to have that orientation. I mean, mindfulness means remembering, sati. It's remembering to be aware of what's going on, and it's very easy. You start a meditation with the best of intentions, you start paying attention to your breath, and then, you know, five minutes later you're thinking about, you know, who knows what.

    13. CWChris Williamson46:58

        Yeah.

    14. JWJeff Warren46:58

        So having a guided, a structure where the, the guide is kinda bringing you back online is super helpful for a lot of people. But for other people, they find it distracting. They're able to generate enough of that mindfulness on their own or enough of whatever they need. So I would say, you know, I think there's a... There's definitely a place for both. For me, I still listen to guided practice sometimes 'cause I find it helpful.

    15. CWChris Williamson47:19

        Mm-hmm.

    16. JWJeff Warren47:19

        But I also really enjoy not listening to guided practices, so I would do both, so...

    17. CWChris Williamson47:25

        Is it... Does it feel a little bit like, um...

    18. JWJeff Warren47:28

        Training wheels?

    19. CWChris Williamson47:29

        Yeah, yeah, for sure, and then removing, removing the, the training r- removing one, removing two, sometimes putting them back on, et cetera, et cetera.

    20. JWJeff Warren47:37

        Yeah, I mean, it is a little bit like that. I- it's a structure, it's a support structure that's there for the, for you at the beginning, but it's no... There, there's nothing wrong with needing a support structure, you know, and some people may need that for a very long time. Others may feel like, okay, at a certain point I want to lose that support structure and see what happens. I would encourage people to try to do that, 'cause we are talking about trying to be, you know, good in all conditions. So if the condition of having a support structure is the only way you meditate, at some point you might want to experiment with losing it. But if doing that leads you into a storm of thinking, then put the, put the wheels back on. It's no shame, you know, it's just about what works.

    21. CWChris Williamson48:13

        I totally get that. There's a, an app that I know Yousef will be shouting at his, uh, earphones at the moment saying that I need to mention it called InsightTimer, and it's...... just a ... It's literally that, it's a, it's a timer that you use on your phone. However, one of the things that it can do is you can set it to have a little, the, a very quiet knock on wood at specific intervals throughout, so every-

    22. JWJeff Warren48:35

        Oh, I love that.

    23. CWChris Williamson48:36

        ... every minute, every two minutes, every five minutes. And that is what he uses to bring himself back to the breath and to just, it's just a little tap in the back of the head going, "Make sure that you're thinking about the right thing."

    24. JWJeff Warren48:49

        Excellent. That's funny. I do, I use Inside Timer (laughs) the exact same way. I know exactly that wooden block that Youssef uses. It's the best little, tock, a little toc sound. You're kind of like...

    25. CWChris Williamson48:58

        Yeah.

    26. JWJeff Warren48:58

        Brings you back.

    27. CWChris Williamson48:59

        Ah, yeah, I was thinking about my dinner again, or oh, I was thinking about work again, or I was lost in thought.

    28. JWJeff Warren49:05

        (laughs) .

    29. CWChris Williamson49:05

        Um, so would you advise people to get a meditation teacher? Um, y- you know, it's evident from hearing you speak today and also from reading your, uh, other bits online that Shinzen Young's had an incredibly profound effect on yourself. Is there a, a ... after a particular number of years of practice should someone look to get a teacher? Is it something that everybody could do with from the beginning? Can you talk us through what a meditation teacher does and, and how it can benefit people?

    30. JWJeff Warren49:38

        Yeah, sure. Um, well, I think, I ... What I would say is the most important thing is that occasionally having an ... being able to check in with somebody about your practice. So being able to get another perspective on what's happening. Even if you're the most resolutely independent person, we ... In a, a practice, a meditation practice is, is still another habit, and sometimes we can develop habits that are actually not serving us, or we can get stuck in a kind of cul-de-sac. So we might be in a state of kind of low-level, checked out, drooly bliss, and we think that that's what it's all about-
16. 53:41 – 1:14:24

    Think them over again

    1. CWChris Williamson53:41

       It's, um ... There's a, there's a, a cool quote-

    2. JWJeff Warren53:43

       (laughs) .

    3. CWChris Williamson53:43

       ... from, uh, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe that says, "All truly wise thoughts have already been thought a thousand times, but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly until they take root in our personal experience." And I think that's one of the reasons-

    4. JWJeff Warren53:59

       Oh, dude-

    5. CWChris Williamson53:59

       That's one of the re-

    6. JWJeff Warren54:00

       ... you gotta send me that quote.

    7. CWChris Williamson54:01

       (laughs) Oh, you like that one, yeah?

    8. JWJeff Warren54:03

       That was amazing.

    9. CWChris Williamson54:05

       Um, so I think that's one of the reasons why people's lives don't change when you see an inspirational quote on Instagram. If ... Without, without context or buy-in, even the most enlightening concepts don't resonate with us, and what we need is ... We need, we need that, that-... the experience, we need to, uh, to have that resonation between us and the concept. And that's wh- that's where it, like you say, it is, it's such a good analogy for it, that punching you in the stomach, and it, it, it sorta swells inside of you, and it's that f- fuck, like sh- like how didn't I see this before? And I think that's-

    10. JWJeff Warren54:44

        (laughs)

    11. CWChris Williamson54:44

        ... that, the, um, analogy that the, uh, guys from Headspace use. Andy Puddicombe talks about this a lot about the mind being like the sky, and I love this one. And he, he says that your mind is, you are the sky and everything else is the weather. That the weather can come and go, and that it can be cloudy, it can be rainy, but that above the clouds, the sun is always there, and all that needs to happen is that the clouds need to disperse and the sun comes back again. But the sun doesn't leave when the clouds are there. It's just the fact that you can't see it. And-

    12. JWJeff Warren55:18

        Exactly.

    13. CWChris Williamson55:19

        ... that was, that was a punch in the stomach moment for me for sure (laughs) when I heard that. And you-

    14. JWJeff Warren55:23

        Yeah, that's what, that's what Tibetans call natural mind, or that the, the, and the belief within Buddhism is that the natural state of the mind actually is a state of openness, of creativity, of peace, sent- it's just this broad, spacious, vibrant place that gets covered over with what they call the kleshas, or various, uh, pains and obsessions, and the ways in which we get caught up in the small trance of our life and not see that bigger fis- perspective. Um, but just to, can I just come back, comment on one, uh, uh, thing you said a moment ago-

    15. CWChris Williamson55:53

        Absolutely.

    16. JWJeff Warren55:53

        ... about, you know, people hear something that it's like they hear a bit of wisdom, they hear an insight, and it's a great quote, and it's like boom, there's this moment where it resonates and like, "Yeah, I feel that." And then of course you go back to your life, and they say, so that's why I say a, a quote most of the time, uh, uh, an, uh, uh, super insightful quote may not stay. And then, but the reason it doesn't stay is because you haven't made it your life yet.

    17. CWChris Williamson56:20

        Mm-hmm.

    18. JWJeff Warren56:20

        You know? And that's what... And there are times when we hear a phrase or a word, in Zen they call it, uh, turning words, where somebody, or, uh, uh, it's, uh, it's also described sometimes as pointing out destruct- instructions. Somebody describes something in a particular way and it is so, it just shoots through all your guards.

    19. CWChris Williamson56:40

        (laughs)

    20. JWJeff Warren56:40

        It is so totally, vividly true that it lands in your belly, and sometimes so deeply that it does create a, a, a permanent change right there. So-

    21. CWChris Williamson56:50

        To the, so to the listeners at home, I promise that we haven't actually rehearsed this, but Jeff, I'm looking at a quote in front of me from Jay Kristoff which says, "An avalanche starts with one pebble. All you need is the right one."

    22. JWJeff Warren57:01

        (laughs) Totally, man. Totally. It's so cool. I mean, this stuff, I just think it's fascinating. I love it. Like, I don't know, like, I feel like it's the biggest privilege in the world to be able to talk to you about it, to be able to see. I mean, you share a practice and you start to see people's lives change. But behind that is this fact that you're exploring this mystery of being a human being, and the mystery is way bigger than anything that we know in any one little domain or silo of knowledge-

    23. CWChris Williamson57:28

        Mm-hmm.

    24. JWJeff Warren57:28

        ... and that we can be participants in this mystery, you know? And we can, we can... It's not... 'Cause that's what happens in a practice. You, it, it starts as a bunch of ideas, but you start to live these truths.

    25. CWChris Williamson57:39

        Yeah.

    26. JWJeff Warren57:39

        You start to live this stuff, and then you just can't even believe-

    27. CWChris Williamson57:42

        (laughs)

    28. JWJeff Warren57:42

        ... that this is happening. So, so-

    29. CWChris Williamson57:44

        We're all explorers, right? We're all mapping the terrain together.

    30. JWJeff Warren57:47

        Man, that's how I feel.

Episode duration: 1:18:29