Zen Master: If Life Feels Off, DON’T Ignore It!— You Might Be Living the Wrong Life | Henry Shukman

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:00 The Dalai Lama says that if every eight-year-old on the planet were to learn meditation, then we would eliminate violence in a single generation. Do you agree with him?

Henry Shukman 0:13 Basically, yes, I do. I think if, if really everybody got this capacity to be still and quiet with themselves and be aware of what's going on within them and a-around them, it, it opens up a state of peace. It just does. That, that-- the awareness brings with it peace, calm, presence, and it makes a world of difference.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:44 Yeah, it's interesting. I've been thinking about that phrase quite a lot because, of course, we're living in a world where if you were to switch on the news and see what is happening around the world, you would hear a lot of negative stories. War, starvation, um, destruction of, of all kinds, and that's why I felt that quote from the Dalai Lama is so apt. You know, what would it mean to change that? What would it mean to have a kinder, more compassionate world? And in your book, Original Love, one of the things you say towards the end is that, in some ways, that is the point of meditation, to experience love more.

Henry Shukman 1:29 Yeah. Yeah, I know. It's not often said, actually. Most of the, the things said around meditation are about becoming more aware, becoming more mindful, and of course, that's great. But why become more w- more mindful? And my, my deep sense, uh, after having done it for, you know, these decades I've been doing it, is that it's, in a way, it's always about some kind of taste of love, and it can be self-love, having compassion for this, this being that I am who does suffer, and it can be, of course, love for others that, you know, appearing in my life. And it c- it can be more sort of almost, I'd say, universal or unconditional. Just a sense that to be here, to be existing is, is such a gift, you know?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:20 Yeah. It's interesting. This is the first podcast I'm recording after my summer break, and I was in Australia and had a few live shows. And at the Sydney show, at the end, someone asked me a question. They asked me, "If you could give one pill to everyone around the world to take, what would it be?" I had to think about it on stage and think, "Well, okay, what would it be?" And I said, "Some version of... It would be a kindness pill."

Henry Shukman 2:52 Wow.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:52 And I explained my rationale for that, and the other thing that came out on stage was that I realized that what I do, Henry, with my books, with this podcast, with, you know, my time with patients, on the surface it appears to be about health, but it isn't. It's actually about kindness and compassion because why do you want to be healthier? Why do you want to be happier? I think those things are downstream. I think the reason you want those things, or we as a species want those things, is so we can be kinder and more compassionate. D-Does that make sense to you?

Henry Shukman 3:34 Yeah, it, it totally does to me. I think deep down we, we really are. You know, there's a, there's a whole world of, of research now around what happened when humanity started farming and inequality started to come in in a much bigger way. And prior to farming, you know, ten thousand or so years ago, it was hunter-gatherer bands, and they relied on, um, caring and sharing. This is the theories that you'll hear from a lot of-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 4:03 Mm-hmm

Henry Shukman 4:03 ... uh, researchers on it, that caring and sharing, in other words, love and, and justice, you know, they're deep in our wiring. We were hunter-gatherers for, whatever, three hundred thousand years or something they're now think-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 4:18 Mm.

Henry Shukman 4:18 And that's not counting the, you know, the, the millions of prior times of e-e-evolution. But it's deep in us, I think, to know how to be fair and, and to know how to care. It's part of our makeup, and unfortunately, it's not all we've inherited. We've got, we've got wiring that can get really aggressive and do hate and fear and violence. But actually, it's not like we've got to get something new on board-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 4:48 Mm

Henry Shukman 4:48 ... to, to love. I think it's deep in us.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 4:51 Yeah. It's kind of super interesting, isn't it? You, you mentioned hunter-gatherers and our evolution, and I often wonder about traits like competitiveness and comparing. Um, some people say that's who we are. Others say no, love and kindness actually at its core is who we are.

Henry Shukman 5:12 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 5:13 And I, I guess one way of thinking about this for people who are stumbling across this conversation, Henry, is h-how might somebody know if they could benefit from a meditation practice? And might it potentially be that if we can see certain egoic traits in ourselves, so comparing ourselves with others, trying to compete with others, never feeling that what we've got is enough. Are those signs that we may benefit from a practice of meditation?

Henry Shukman 5:48 Yeah, a hundred percent. Absolutely. I mean, I think the m- the, the thing about meditation is that it can take us to marvelous new ways of experiencing the world. That's, I think, a given. It really can do that. There's-- Again, there's tons of research on that. It can be profoundly helpful that way. But it also helps us be with how we are rather than I might get this-You know, new way of being, a new kind of kindness and calm and clarity or whatever, energy. But actually, it also just helps me be with myself as I am. And so the first step is that it, it allows us to notice what's going on, to check in with ourselves. And once we're doing that, we're not so dominated by what's going on. You know, if there's-- if I'm feeling agitated and frustrated and irritated or something-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 6:46 Mm-hmm

Henry Shukman 6:46 ... I can actually recognize that rather than just acting it out. So to learn how to be still and aware and sort of come back to ourselves and just be with what we're experiencing, so that's, that's the sort of bedrock of meditation.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:03 Mm.

Henry Shukman 7:03 That's the foundation of it, is just to be with myself. And sometimes I'm restless, and I'm, I'm impatient, and I, I don't wanna be still. Okay, can I be with that? In other words, just expanding my capacity to be with what goes on in me, um, it's, it's a way of kind of defusing my potential for harm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:25 Yeah. Make the case, Henry, if you will, for meditation to the skeptic who's listening right now.

Henry Shukman 7:34 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:34 The skeptic who is like, "Henry, listen, you're a Zen master. Um, it's okay for you. I've got a busy life. I've got a partner. I've got some kids that need feeding and looking after. I've got an elderly parent to look after. I'm constantly rushing around. I never have enough time for myself. It's all very well you talking about these love and compassion benefits-

Henry Shukman 7:58 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:58 ... but that doesn't fit into my life at the moment." What would you say to that person?

Henry Shukman 8:04 [laughs] I meet, I meet them all the time, you know. [laughs] Yeah, I'd say, look, it's, it's not-- Don't think of it as another chore on the to-do list. Everybody can find five minutes. Everybody can. And just let it be five minutes of you being you, five minutes for you, not for, "I gotta do this thing called meditation." It's just for you, five minutes just being with yourself. Uh, everybody can do that. And in my own story, you know, I had, I had a really difficult, uh, skin condition from, from early childhood right into early adulthood, and it, it was very severe eczema. Sometimes I was hospitalized. But it made me really uncomfortable in my own skin, literally. You know, I, I couldn't sit still. It was a sort of family joke almost.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:55 Mm-hmm.

Henry Shukman 8:56 "Henry can't sit still." So I was, I was the worst possible candidate in a way for meditation, but I was also the best possible candidate in a certain sense 'cause I so needed it. But it was the last thing I wanted to do, was sit still. But actually, once I was given tools that would help me sit still, my eczema started to get better for the first time. It really started to... It was a long, gradual process, but it started to, to release. And I'm sure it was because I was intervening in the way that my nervous system was-- had been functioning much of my life, which was on a kind of hyperdrive, constantly-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 9:46 Mm-hmm

Henry Shukman 9:46 ... you know, overactivated nervous system.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 9:49 Yeah. You were intervening, as I hear that, really far upstream. One of the things I've realized in my career as a doctor is that a lot of what we do in medicine is downstream, okay? You had... Well, I mean, I've heard you describe your eczema. I mean, this isn't just a little bit of bad eczema. This was horrific. You know, you felt like you were burning up on the inside. You n- district nurse needs to come round and bathe you and put things around you, right? It, it, it's pretty incredible. But, you know, what do we do with eczema generally in medicine? There's multiple things we'll do, but in essence, we try and give you something like a steroid cream-

Henry Shukman 10:34 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:34 ... to get rid of the itching.

Henry Shukman 10:35 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:36 Right?

Henry Shukman 10:36 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:37 But that's downstream.

Henry Shukman 10:38 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:38 That's not the cause of your eczema. And of course, there are multiple causes.

Henry Shukman 10:43 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:43 There's multiple things that contributes. But there's something really quite profound in the, in the... I think it's the forward to Original Love where I think... Is it Rick Hanson who wrote the foreword?

Henry Shukman 10:55 It is, yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:55 He quotes Tara Brach saying, "All sickness is homesickness"-

Henry Shukman 11:02 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:02 ... which is just beautiful-

Henry Shukman 11:03 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:03 ... like this separation from who we are.

Henry Shukman 11:05 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:05 Or certainly, let me give you my interpretation-

Henry Shukman 11:07 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:07 ... when I read that, was like, once there's a separation in who we really are, who we are being in the world compared to who we actually are, it's in that void, it's, it's in that gap, where all our problems start, and that could be health problems as well.

Henry Shukman 11:28 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think that, I think that is right. I'd say there's sort of multiple levels of homecoming. You know, for me, when I started meditating, just to be sitting still and able to get these little moments of being aware, "Oh, I'm sitting still. It's okay. It's okay," you know. I was so used to being in this hyperactivated state where basically I was anxious almost all the time, you know, that, that it was, it was such a gift, this, this little instance of, "It's okay. Right now it's okay." And it was me finding it. It wasn't somebody telling me that.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:12 Mm.

Henry Shukman 12:12 That was critical. That... And, and all that I had to... This is the other side of meditation, is it's so insanely simple.You're just, you're just sitting here. There's nothing... There's kinda nothing to it. Yes, it helps to have a few little methods, and we, we can get those. But basically, we're just not doing anything.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:32 Mm-hmm.

Henry Shukman 12:32 And I started to find, in the midst of this sort of storm of itching and anxiety and, and stress and worry and, you know, that was kind of almost constant-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:43 Yeah

Henry Shukman 12:44 ... I started to find, it's okay. Right now, it's okay, and then I'd be back to the storm again.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:50 It, it reminds me a little bit of, um, Ellen Langer. Do you know Ellen, the mindfulness professor-

Henry Shukman 12:56 No, I don't know

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:57 ... from Harvard. I think you'd love her work. She, she wrote a book called The Mindful Body. She's written multiple books, and one of the things I think she writes about in that book is, let's say someone's in chronic pain. Okay, so you, you were... You, you, you had chronic itchiness, probably pain as well, having said that, right?

Henry Shukman 13:15 Yeah. Yes, yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:15 Um, "It's easy," she says, "for people with chronic pain to go, 'Ugh, you know, I'm always in pain.'" But one of the things I- I always remember from my conversation with her was this idea that you're not actually always in pain. It's there a lot of the time, but once you're really mindful and you notice that, oh, I'm not in pain at the moment, you create a separation. It's not you being all encompassed by pain. It's the awareness that, yes, sometimes I'm experiencing pain, and sometimes I'm not. And she has shown in- with her research, incredible benefits and improvements for people just when they start to notice that subtle difference.

Henry Shukman 13:54 That's, that's very interesting, and I totally agree, and I... It was the same for me with the itching. The... I started... I'd been so identified with it. I was just, who Henry was was he itched, and he couldn't sit still. That was who I was. And to start getting these gaps, in another sense, a little space where, oh my gosh, that's not who I am. The itch is arising, it's present, but I'm not it. I am... I have my own being, and somehow that was a- another key insight and help with dealing with my, my, uh, my, my skin affliction-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:37 Mm-hmm

Henry Shukman 14:37 ... as I started to meditate. It gave me that little gap, and I think that's exactly right that, um, mindfulness shows us that there's a, there's a quality of awareness that we can have that is its own thing. And so the difficulties we have are viewed from the... We can learn to view them from the perspective of that awareness, of mindfulness, rather than being totally tied up in them.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 15:09 Yeah, yeah. In your latest book, you write about these four inns on the path of awakening, and I think it's just such a beautiful way to lay out a path that one might wish to take if they choose to meditate. Before you actually articulate these four different inns, throughout the book, you wrote something which I've, I've been meditating on actually. Awakening, right? You say, "Awakening has a potential like nothing else to heal the destructive divisions of this world." And then you sort of say so how do we get there? Basically, we learn to meditate, and we learn to love meditating. Now, I'm fascinated, Henry, as to why people struggle to make changes that actually last, you know. People often listen to this show for guidance on how they can live healthier, happier, more compassionate lives, and people will follow something for a bit and then fall off track. Looking at that through the lens of meditation, I feel, and I used to have this as well myself, that people meditate to get something.

Henry Shukman 16:33 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 16:33 Right? So, oh, I, I... Oh, I read this study that meditation could help with anxiety. I should meditate.

Henry Shukman 16:40 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 16:41 So they're meditating because they feel they should. Oh, at some point, am I gonna get something out of this practice? That's very different from the second part of that phrase, which is to learn to love to meditate, and I think I really wanted to explore that because there's a different energy behind that. If you'll meditate because, oh, you know, I know this is gonna help me. God, I tried it last year. Couldn't make it stick. Oh, man, I'm gonna try and do it this year. It feels like a struggle, and that struggle means at some point, I would imagine, they're gonna fall away from it. So what's the difference, and how do you go from that-

Henry Shukman 17:19 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 17:20 ... to learning to love to meditate?

Henry Shukman 17:23 Yeah, that's, that's a really great... I'd forgotten I'd written that actually, so [laughs] thanks for reminding me, and it's a really great question. And it's critical actually because I think our general orientation in life that we've been conditioned to have, and it's, it seems very natural that we would have it, is sort of trying to get what we want and avoid what we don't want, and of course, that makes total sense, and that's, that's, that's fine and good that we do that. But when it comes to meditation, we're, we're actually opening up the possibility of simply being. It's like a shift from wanting to get X, Y, and Z, well and good. Fine. But what if there's something already here that we just need to s- to sort of fall into the arms of kind of thing? It's already here, and when we get even a little taste of it, it feels good already.And it makes us realize that, yes, I'm, I'm absolutely right in having these goals and these things that I want to, I want to e-either achieve and accomplish, and also simply acquire, and also things that I really want to avoid and be free of, and, and perhaps get over. And I've heard that meditation may help with all that, so in other words, bringing the same mindset that I've got for everything else to meditation. It's, it's very natural, and it's okay. But there's something else each of us can find for ourselves which is really different, where it-- we, we actually drop the search and, and quest, and struggle to get what we want. We drop that. And, you know, it's, it's a little shift. It's, uh... There's maybe a little-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:16 Mm-hmm

Henry Shukman 19:16 ... knack to it, a little something, and we'll get it more and more the more we meditate. Because when, when... What happens in that shift is that we find there's something already here that-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:29 Yeah

Henry Shukman 19:30 ... that we love.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:31 Yeah, I love that. I mean, you've already said in this conversation that even five minutes a day can have a profound effect. And there's a section in the book where you talk about tips for practice. You say, number one, not too long, so consistency is more important than duration. So five minutes a day-

Henry Shukman 19:51 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:51 ... is better than twenty minutes once a month kind of thing.

Henry Shukman 19:54 Way better. Way better.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:55 Right?

Henry Shukman 19:55 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:56 And I think we've all got five minutes a day. And you also talk about establishing a regular time. You say, yeah, for many people, for most people, dare I say it, the morning is the best time. But you also spoke about things like straight after a shower, or when it gets to dusk, or before bed.

Henry Shukman 20:11 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:12 Can you talk to us a little bit about the more practical nature of how we can actually, you know, implement this practice into our daily lives?

Henry Shukman 20:21 Yeah. I'd say the, the biggest thing is to make the decision, "I'm doing it every day for a month," or something like that. Put a time limit on it and decide that you've made the decision, so you don't have to make the decision each time.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:35 Mm-hmm.

Henry Shukman 20:36 "Shall I do it or not?" You've already made that decision. I remember hearing two economists wrote a book about dieting. They'd been having a lot of big lunches, and they wanted to do something about it, and they said the same point. They said, "Just decide no dessert." It's just off the table, so you don't have to keep remaking the decision.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:54 Yeah.

Henry Shukman 20:54 It's like, it's like brushing the teeth. We don't really make a decision about it or about showering.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:59 Yeah.

Henry Shukman 20:59 We just do it, you know, 'cause it's the... Actually, we made the decision long ago-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:04 Mm

Henry Shukman 21:04 ... and we're just stuck with it. So i-if it can be like that, and then you stack it with some other activity, that makes it a bit easier, you know, like a shower after you've been working out or something or, uh, you know, just before a morning walk, or just before breakfast, or-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:18 Mm

Henry Shukman 21:18 ... just before the first cup of coffee, you know.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:20 Mm.

Henry Shukman 21:20 Stacking it while the kettle's boiling if it's just five minutes-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:23 Mm

Henry Shukman 21:23 ... and let the kettle sit. You know? So you stack it with something else. And, and... But again, the, the why, yeah, that... of course, that can help if you've got a strong reason. And I, I mean, for me, the biggest reason is to be alive, you know. It... And that may sound a bit crazy, but we're so busy doing from... You know, we get up, and we just do, do, do, that we don't get a moment to recognize, "I'm actually alive."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:52 [chuckles]

Henry Shukman 21:53 "I'm, I'm, I'm being given the gift of being alive and, and aware, aware of being alive." And somehow I think that's the biggest thing about meditation, it gives us a chance to actually know that we're alive.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:09 Is there something unique about meditation? And the reason that I, I ask that question, Henry, is because I will often talk about the benefits of solitude.

Henry Shukman 22:19 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:20 And I do strongly believe that in twenty twenty-five, for most people, a daily practice of solitude is probably the most important thing they can do for their health, wellbeing, their happiness. Because we're living in a world where there's so much noise, we can constantly consume from the outside, so it gets very hard for us to actually listen to what's going on on the inside. But solitude, of course, comes in a variety of different forms. You can practice solitude by sitting in meditation, but you can also practice solitude by journaling, or by doing some breathwork, or by going for a walk in nature. So if we think about solitude as a practice, do you feel that there's something unique that meditation offers that those other practices potentially don't offer?

Henry Shukman 23:13 I love all the ones you mentioned. I do them myself, actually, and I think they're, they're very... they've been critical for my-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 23:20 Mm

Henry Shukman 23:20 ... my development, my wellbeing. The difference with meditation is that we're not really doing anything. I, I would say stack it with one of those. If you're doing one of those solitude practices, walking in the woods, yeah, journaling, lovely. Just add five minutes. Put in five minutes somewhere-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 23:42 Mm-hmm

Henry Shukman 23:42 ... where you lay down the pen, you sit on a log, on a branch, on a bench, and y-you're just still, and you just let yourself be. 'Cause, 'cause the, the, the big thing about it is not doing.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 23:58 Mm.

Henry Shukman 23:58 If we didn't think of it as meditation, we just call it not doing.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:02 Mm.

Henry Shukman 24:03 That's all we'd need to say. We're not moving. We're not walking. We're breathing-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:09 Yeah

Henry Shukman 24:09 ... and we're aware. And gradually the... in time, it's like this tide of commotion within us, it just starts to settle. It, it won't-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:19 Mm.

Henry Shukman 24:19 It's not that it does it within every meditation session. But if we're doing it every day, over time-Over a month, two months, three months, you'll start to feel it. The tide of commotion-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:32 Yeah

Henry Shukman 24:32 ... just recedes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:34 The, the sense that I, I got from reading Original Love is, well, [laughs] many things, but one of the senses I got was this idea that it's about the practice of meditation, not necessarily the outcome of the meditation. Some days you'll experience calm and presence. Other days it'll be a busy, hectic mind-

Henry Shukman 24:57 That's it

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:57 ... but that's all okay. So i- instead of judging on the outcome... I mean, don't judge it at all, but if you're gonna judge it on anything, judge it on whether you're actually sitting down and practicing every day. Do the five minute. I mean, you're-

Henry Shukman 25:10 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 25:10 ... the Zen master, so tell me if I've got-

Henry Shukman 25:11 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 25:11 ... this right, but that's my sense.

Henry Shukman 25:13 That's exactly right, and actually we say on our, on our app, The Way, we say, "There's no bad meditation," or, "The only bad medita- meditation is the one you didn't do."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 25:25 Yeah.

Henry Shukman 25:25 Just the very fact of sitting down with the intention of being still and quiet, that's it. It's absolutely true. Because here's the thing, it's like with the, again, with that outcome focus, it- we're back to that frame of mind where I've gotta try to get what I want in life.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 25:43 [laughs]

Henry Shukman 25:43 I've gotta try to get what I want, and it's very understandable, but meditation really isn't about that. And for most people, when we start, it is, and that's okay. It was for me. I'd... I didn't know what I needed, I just desperately needed something different when I was anxious and-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:00 Yeah

Henry Shukman 26:00 ... you know, really uncomfortable.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:02 You know, one of the things I've been thinking about on my summer break is this idea of things that we want. How do we even know that what we want is what we truly want anyway?

Henry Shukman 26:15 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:15 Right? 'Cause that's the truth. It's like we think we want things-

Henry Shukman 26:18 Exactly

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:19 ... yeah, but where's that even come from? And how do you even know that getting what you think that you want is what you really want or, or what you need, right?

Henry Shukman 26:28 That's exactly right. It's like that's part of a system.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:31 Yeah.

Henry Shukman 26:31 It's just one system of there's, there's me in here seeking things out there that a- that me in here thinks he wants. But if I can see that as a system, that's just a kind of... It's almost like it's a game going on.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:46 Mm-hmm.

Henry Shukman 26:47 But there's a, there's a wider view, there's a larger perspective where I can see Henry's been trying to get this, Henry's been trying to get that, Henry's been trying to avoid that. But who is it that's seeing-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:00 Yeah

Henry Shukman 27:00 ... that Henry's doing all that? Isn't that Henry, too? And i- it's such a different perspective.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:05 Yeah.

Henry Shukman 27:06 So, so the thing with the, with the, with the, with the getting from meditation is exact- We, we, we can start to get more calm. We totally can, but we get it not just by getting, creating more calm through the meditation. We get it through patience.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:20 Mm.

Henry Shukman 27:21 Patience starts to grow. We start to let ourselves be as we are.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:26 Yeah.

Henry Shukman 27:26 And so it's, it's, it's kind of a little bit paradoxical.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:30 It is.

Henry Shukman 27:31 We, we get what we want because we're okay not getting it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:34 Yeah.

Henry Shukman 27:35 [laughs] You see what I mean?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:36 Uh, yeah, a- and, and that sort of highlights another theme throughout your book, throughout what I've been thinking about recently, which is I- why I think the timing of this conversation is perfect. And I have, I think I've posted about this before, this idea that the most important things in life we gain through experience. Right? You, you-

Henry Shukman 28:02 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 28:02 ... there's this, yes, you can learn things. You can read a book about something. You can get guidance on the importance of meditation. But you only really get it when you experience it for yourself. And then when you've-

Henry Shukman 28:15 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 28:15 ... experienced it for yourself, in some ways it doesn't matter what the people around you are saying 'cause you know that truth.

Henry Shukman 28:21 That's... I couldn't agree more, and that's what I'm always trying to convey with the meditation, you know, is like I can say, "Feel this, feel that," and, you know, "Find, find deep states of absorption and flow that feels so good." It's meaningless unless you're getting it yourself.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 28:38 Yeah.

Henry Shukman 28:38 And when it's your own, it doesn't matter what I'm saying-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 28:41 Yeah

Henry Shukman 28:41 ... you know, 'cause you've got it. That's what I'm trying to, you know, help people with.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 28:45 Well, you are. You, you really are. I mean, you mentioned your app, The Way. It is bloody fantastic, honestly. It's such a beautiful app, and the way you've curated a journey, a meditation journey for people, is phenomenal. I've been using it myself, uh, for the past week, and I'm looking forward to continuing that journey with it.

Henry Shukman 29:06 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 29:06 It's, it's really, really great. What you just said about it's the act of sitting there and, and in many ways doing nothing, reminds me of something you wrote in your book where you say, "Meditation is the great adventure of a lifetime, even if all we do is sit still for a few minutes a day." I mean, it's a beautifully evocative statement, that, and in so many ways it is the polar opposite of how we've all been brought up, particularly in the West, right? And I see it in my children. From the minute they start school, it's about do, do, do. Um, some of the kids at, at schools are so over-committed and over-busy. And, you know, I respect everyone's right to their opinion-

Henry Shukman 29:55 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 29:55 ... and maybe for certain outcomes it is a good thing, but to me I'm thinking all we're doing is training children from a young age that they can't just sit and be. You have to constantly be doing something-

Henry Shukman 30:06 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 30:06 ... and moving on to that and doing this task and this activity. I think that's a problem, right? Yeah, you might achieve success in, um, in societal's definition of success, but in terms of the success I think we all want, which is that inner peace and contentment, I'm not convinced that that's the right approach.

Henry Shukman 30:27 Th- th- that's why I call the book Original Love.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 30:30 Because originally there's love, and it's here right now, and if you have a concept like original sin, the Western foundation of its, of its Judeo-Christian spiritual system, you're wrong. You start bad. You start-

Henry Shukman 30:45 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 30:45 ... needing to prove yourself, needing to become worthy-

Henry Shukman 30:49 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 30:49 ... needing to, you know, it, it... And then, and you add that, the, the whole industrial and post-industrial work ethic, work, work, work. It's all y- you're not okay until you've achieved and accomplished whatever it might be. I don't agree.

Henry Shukman 31:06 Yeah. Mm-hmm, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 31:07 I, I, I think we start okay. We're built in already okay. Wanted, belonging, beloved even, you know, just by the, by the fact of existing. The, the universe wants us here, or we wouldn't be here-

Henry Shukman 31:21 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 31:21 ... in some sense, you know? And so original love is what we can come back to, not, not having to escape some shame state, original sin-

Henry Shukman 31:35 Mm. Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 31:35 ... not having to escape that and prove that we, we deserve our place on this earth.

Henry Shukman 31:41 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 31:41 No.

Henry Shukman 31:41 No.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 31:42 We... It's, it's, it's the opposite of that. It's just by being. You know, we can, we can break the... Again, I'm not saying don't do anything, you know, but have space in your day when you're not doing a thing-

Henry Shukman 31:57 Yeah

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Henry Shukman 33:46 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 33:46 But if we think about what you're saying at its very core, yes, you have an app which is very reasonably priced, so people wanna, you know, engage in it, okay? At the same time, what you're simply saying is sit for five minutes a day and essentially do nothing. That is accessible to every single person. It doesn't matter your income level, you know, where you grow up in the world. So, like, everyone has access to that, but you almost have to stop the doing, and I think this is one of the reasons why people in the West struggle with meditation. It's like, "Okay, I'm gonna do it to get this."

Henry Shukman 34:31 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:31 But... And I think I used to do that, but I... The, the truth is, Henry, I love meditating. I didn't at first.

Henry Shukman 34:38 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:39 It was a struggle. But there is just this luxurious feeling of bliss and calm sometimes when I sit in meditation. That's not a chore. That's like-

Henry Shukman 34:50 No

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:51 ... this feels amazing.

Henry Shukman 34:54 E- exactly. Exactly.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:55 And, and I think everyone has the opportunity to experience that.

Henry Shukman 34:58 I, I, I do too. Just by virtue of being a human being, we already have access to it. The problem is just we're so conditioned in not knowing that we have access to it. It's just like a faulty imprinting on our consciousness that our, our society has given us, our culture has given us. You must be doing, you must be achieving, you must be avoiding what a-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:24 Yeah

Henry Shukman 35:24 ... what you don't wanna face and, you know... And, and actually it's really sad in a way.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:30 It is sad.

Henry Shukman 35:31 I, I mean, it's beautiful in that, oh, my gosh, we've all got it. We just gotta, we just gotta learn to sit.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:37 It's sad to see children being conditioned out of it.

Henry Shukman 35:39 It is. It is.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:40 That's what w- w-

Henry Shukman 35:41 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:41 ... that's something I find deeply sad because it's like no, no, you know, they've already got it.

Henry Shukman 35:46 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:46 They're born with it.

Henry Shukman 35:47 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:48 You know, I'd love to know your views on happiness, actually. I believe happiness is our default state, and one of the bits of evidence, as it were, that I would use to, um, support my case is just look at children. Look at a two-year-old-

Henry Shukman 36:01 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:01 ... a three-year-old.

Henry Shukman 36:02 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:02 Look how present-

Henry Shukman 36:03 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:04 ... calm in the moment they are.

Henry Shukman 36:06 Exactly.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:07 You know?

Henry Shukman 36:07 Exactly.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:07 We-

Henry Shukman 36:07 And they're exploring-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:09 They have a-

Henry Shukman 36:09 ... and creating and-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:09 Yeah.

Henry Shukman 36:10 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:10 That's who we are before societal conditioning.

Henry Shukman 36:13 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:14 Um, so on the subjects of happiness-

Henry Shukman 36:16 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:16 ... I mean, what's the relationship between meditation and happiness, and is happiness our default state?

Henry Shukman 36:21 I believe it is. Again, original love. It's like coming back to a profound wellbeing that's, that's really always here.It's like-- And I, I honestly can even in difficult situations, you know, when we've got something complex, challenging going on, and we're stressed around it, even then, I believe, actually, there's a, there's a, an unconditional well-being that's actually present even then.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:48 Mm.

Henry Shukman 36:48 And I've known it myself. I've found that in times of difficulty, when suddenly it flips, and suddenly I can see Henry's in this difficult situation.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:59 Yeah.

Henry Shukman 36:59 But there's a larger perspective that, that I, I sense, you know, that is at peace-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:05 Yeah

Henry Shukman 37:05 ... and is already well, even while there's a challenge going on.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:10 Yeah.

Henry Shukman 37:10 So I, I do think it... I think it's like, um, I'd say it's, it's... Is it a, is it a default setting, or is it that there's just this slightly wider perspective? There's-- I feel there's always a bigger picture.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:26 Mm.

Henry Shukman 37:26 You know? And in the slightly wider perspective, that's where we see, wow, yeah, there's a lot of turmoil and difficulty and trouble, and still there's an okayness-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:39 Yeah

Henry Shukman 37:39 ... that, that's able to, to see from, from that larger perspective.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:44 Yeah. Let's get into these four inns in the path of awakening: mindfulness, support, absorption, and awakening. It's one of the first times I've actually seen a roadmap laid out on the kind of journey one could take if they participate in meditation. And it's a journey that I'm thinking, "Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm ready for this journey." I, I kind of-- The truth is, I'm al- I'm already on this journey-

Henry Shukman 38:13 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:13 ... you know, because I've been meditating on and off for years.

Henry Shukman 38:15 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:16 Um, I particularly probably want to focus on the, the, the final two, absorption and awakening, but if you wouldn't mind just giving a brief overview of each one, what they are-

Henry Shukman 38:29 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:29 ... just so people can follow along, that would be super helpful. So, you know, what are these four inns, and why did you choose them?

Henry Shukman 38:36 Yeah, okay. Well, I think these are the primary dimensions that meditation practice can open up for us, that, that they deal with. And it's-- I, I wanted to write this and lay it out like this because there's a lot of confusion around it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:50 Mm.

Henry Shukman 38:51 Meditation has grown exponentially in, in the globalized Western world over the last twenty years. And-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:57 That's a good thing?

Henry Shukman 38:58 It's a very good thing.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:59 Okay.

Henry Shukman 39:00 But it's all new here, and there's still confusion around it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:03 Mm-hmm.

Henry Shukman 39:03 So people hear the term awakening, and they hear mindfulness. Are they the same thing? They might think, "Well, this teacher said they are. This one said they're not. I don't know. I'm confused." So here's... This... I want to... This is a basic map of the-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:16 Yeah

Henry Shukman 39:16 ... of the ground, of the territory, and I'm not sure it's entirely comprehensive, but it's pretty good. It covers, it covers all, pretty much all the basics. So the first, mindfulness. Yes, about becoming more aware, able to recognize what's going on inside me, thoughts and feelings, emotions, moods. Can be very happy, can be not so happy. And, um, and talk in the mind, images in the mind, you know, the experience of thinking, very common for all of us. Um, energies in the body. Being more aware of that, and also being aware of, of hearing, hearing the sounds. Seeing sights and colors and shapes and faces and everything. And, um, body sensation, physical body sensation.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:01 Mm.

Henry Shukman 40:01 Being more aware in all those ways, uh, that's mindfulness, and it can help to dial down our nervous system. It can really help to interrupt when our nervous system is on overdrive, when the sympathetic nervous system is firing up, we're in subtle stress or strong stress. It can dial it down, and we come back to a baseline. We open up the parasympathetic nervous system. More rest, rest and digest, coming into a calmer state. And so it really helps to kind of tone and balance the nervous system.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:35 And, and before you go into the second inn, just on that first set of mindfulness, if that's the only one that we ever focused on, th- those things you're talking about are pretty incredible. Like-

Henry Shukman 40:45 They're enormous. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:46 ... moving your system from-

Henry Shukman 40:48 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:48 ... the stressed out, burnt out, chronically exhausted state that many people find themselves in into that more peaceful, relaxed state, which is also gonna impact your sleep, how calm you feel, your gut. All these things are gonna improve. Even that alone, that first inn-

Henry Shukman 41:06 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:06 ... has huge benefits, doesn't it?

Henry Shukman 41:07 It totally does. I mean, I'd say most of the first few years of my meditation practice was all about that. I mean, one of the things that happened to me when I started to meditate and, and, you know, I really, really seriously started, I, um, I did twice a day, every day, you know, without fail, 'cause I was desperate enough that I needed to.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:24 Because of your skin.

Henry Shukman 41:25 Because of my skin and the anxiety with it, that came with it. I slept insanely. The first week, I was sleeping eighteen hours a night, twenty hours a night, literally.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:36 Like a lion.

Henry Shukman 41:37 Yeah, [laughs] exactly.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:38 Literally.

Henry Shukman 41:39 I was so exhausted, and I, I didn't, I hadn't realized I was. And then, and then I, I, I paid off my sleep debt, as some people called it, and I suddenly was awake.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:51 I love the fact that you shared that. One, one thing I've noticed, um, people will contact me or if I'm doing a live event and we do a breathwork practice together or a certain... You know, we, we go through something, and often people will yawn.

Henry Shukman 42:06 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:07 And there's often confusion, you know. They say, "Oh, it's making me tired." It's like, no, no, it's not making you tired. It's just you're stuck in a stressed out, adrenaline-driven nervous system the whole time. When you actually relax, your body is realizing how tired and chronically exhausted it is. So the-

Henry Shukman 42:24 Yes. Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:24 ... practice isn't-

Henry Shukman 42:25 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:26 ... making you tired.

Henry Shukman 42:26 No.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:26 It's just uncovering what is actually there within already.

Henry Shukman 42:30 Exactly, exactly. And I always say, like, b- it's a barometer, meditation.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:34 Yeah.

Henry Shukman 42:34 It shows us how we're doing, and sometimes we're just exhausted, and we need to sleep. I always tell people, "If you start meditating and you get really sleepy, lie down and sleep. Count the nap."If you need a nap, count it as meditation

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:47 So even, even, that, that's kind of interesting. Even if the meditation teaches you that you're chronically exhausted and need to rest, and instead of completing the meditation, you nap, that's still a benefit because had you not done that, you probably would've kept doing, doing, doing and pushing through and kicking the can down the road-

Henry Shukman 43:08 That's exactly right

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 43:09 ... which just gives you the opportunity to go, "Oh, I need to rest."

Henry Shukman 43:12 Exactly. It's that, it's checking in with ourselves, coming back-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 43:15 Mm

Henry Shukman 43:15 ... to ourselves, seeing how we're doing. It's critical.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 43:19 Okay. I think you mentioned this in the book, but again, is it are we looking for that path up to the top of the mountain, and along the way on this path of meditation, we pass these inns? I mean, that-

Henry Shukman 43:30 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 43:30 ... sort of makes it feel as though it's a linear journey, which-

Henry Shukman 43:33 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 43:33 ... of course I don't think it is a linear journey, but is that useful for us to look at it like that?

Henry Shukman 43:37 I think early on it's, it is useful.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 43:40 Right.

Henry Shukman 43:40 It's good to feel that we're on a journey.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 43:43 Got it.

Henry Shukman 43:43 And, and that, we build this into the app, by the way-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 43:45 Yeah

Henry Shukman 43:45 ... so that people... Because it's a single no-choice pathway we have on the app, which moves through these Four Inns, but it does it cyclically. So but it helps us to know that we sort of feel like we're going somewhere.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 43:58 Yeah.

Henry Shukman 43:58 And in some ways we are. But on the other hand, as I think you're, you're, you're suggesting really, these are more like dimensions of, of, of our being.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 44:07 Mm.

Henry Shukman 44:07 They're not, they're not exactly sequential. They may be somewhat, but they totally don't have to be.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 44:14 Okay.

Henry Shukman 44:14 You know?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 44:14 But I guess for the purpose of this conversation, to really land the concepts, let's... I guess we can think of it-

Henry Shukman 44:21 Let's-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 44:21 ... a little bit linear, right?

Henry Shukman 44:22 Yes, we can do that

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 44:23 So the first inn we pass-

Henry Shukman 44:25 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 44:25 ... on the way to the top of the mountain is mindfulness, and, um, you just covered that.

Henry Shukman 44:30 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 44:30 The next inn is that of support.

Henry Shukman 44:32 Yeah. Support, connection, connectedness. So this is critical because, you know, now there, there's millions of people now doing mindfulness, and just like we've already said in this conversation, they very often feel kind of, "I've got to do my mindfulness. It's, it's like going to the gym and doing my reps. I've got to do my, my work with the mindfulness." That misses a critical point from, from, from my point of view, which is that actually, as we settle, we get more connected. We f- we're more open to relating. We're more open. We become more receptive. We're ready to receive connection and support. And this, the way this can happen is, in the world of meditation, for example, simply having guidance can be really helpful early on on the meditation journey. I mean, meditation guidance, having-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 45:34 Right

Henry Shukman 45:34 ... having somebody actually guide your sitting, you know?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 45:38 So from a teacher-

Henry Shukman 45:39 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 45:39 ... from a class that you attend, from an app like your app, for example-

Henry Shukman 45:44 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 45:44 ... where you're giving us the guidance-

Henry Shukman 45:46 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 45:46 ... and there's obviously I don't know how many a- meditation apps out there-

Henry Shukman 45:49 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 45:49 ... but this all counts as, as sort of guidance and support, does it?

Henry Shukman 45:54 It totally does. Yeah. So don't feel that you've... it's just down to you on your own. Just reaching out for a little bit of support in any of those ways, or with a friend who's trying to meditate.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 46:08 Is, is this potentially one of the reasons why we fall off these practices? Because let's say someone hears this podcast and goes, "Yeah, you know, all those benefits of mindfulness, I, I quite fancy that."

Henry Shukman 46:19 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 46:19 And so they, they start meditating, or they download your app and start using The Way, and, um, is the risk that you'll do it for a little while as a solo pursuit, but at some point it will just get too much 'cause it's always down to you and your motivation and your discipline and your desire? H- H-

Henry Shukman 46:42 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 46:42 ... help me understand support, right? Because-

Henry Shukman 46:44 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 46:44 ... fundamentally, unless someone has access to a class nearby, they kind of are doing it themselves in their living room or in their bedroom, aren't they? So, so what does support mean in that context?

Henry Shukman 46:58 Yeah. Well, I mean, that's exact- You've, you've, you've laid out the problem exactly, that people, if they're falling off, they'll think, "I must push myself harder," or-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 47:09 Yeah

Henry Shukman 47:09 ... "It's down to me." One phone call to a friend who's also trying to meditate will do far more. It's like suddenly you're not alone in it, and that makes so much difference. And, or one yoga class where there's meditation at the end, just being in a context of other, other human beings.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 47:31 Even if it's remotely?

Henry Shukman 47:33 Yeah, even if it's remotely. Totally. Yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 47:35 So don't do this by yourself.

Henry Shukman 47:38 Have a little bit of a connection with some community or some person that is, that is already doing it. We typically think it's down to me to make something happen, especially with a new habit formation, something like that. But actually... A- and it is. It is. But one little sense of connection to somebody else who's also trying to do it will make often far more difference than me trying to push myself. Is that-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 48:07 Yeah

Henry Shukman 48:07 ... is that... It's, it's surprising how that works. You know, I think... I mean, I used to find this as a writer. I was a, I started writing very young and, and, you know, it was how I made my living for a long time and, and I'd get stuck and I'd be trying to work it out, trying to work it out. Then I happen to run into a friend who's an artist or, or another writer, and we just chat for 10 minutes, or we go and have a cup of coffee-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 48:30 Yeah

Henry Shukman 48:30 ... chat for an hour, and suddenly I've got a whole new orientation.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 48:34 Yeah.

Henry Shukman 48:35 And my, the problemsDifferent and I can handle it

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 48:37 And you know you're not alone, or the struggles you're having are the same struggles they're having and-

Henry Shukman 48:41 Exactly

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 48:41 ... you just feel this connection to what it means to be human. When you talk to other people, you go, "Oh, you're str- oh, you're struggling with that as well. Yeah, so am I." You, suddenly you, you have this new energy and enthusiasm just when you know you're not alone.

Henry Shukman 48:55 That's exactly right. That's, that's precisely it, and that's really important on this journey of meditation. Just also to say that there's ways in which we're just totally supported already, and meditation, I believe, is about finding some of those. You know, we, we wouldn't be here without breathing. The atmosphere is, is every breath, every moment we're being supported by the atmosphere. We wouldn't be here without fluids. We need to drink. We're made of, you know, s- whatever it is, 70% seawater or whatever we are. You know, we're, we're... We need... We're totally dependent. You know, we think we're independent and isolated, but we're not actually. And, you know, this, the flesh of my body is everything I eat has made it, and I'm made of this earth. And so, and the water, the sun keeps me alive. And so the, the, the-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:46 Yeah

Henry Shukman 49:46 ... the point is just rediscovering, you know, that we're, we're kind of embedded in this world.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:52 Mm.

Henry Shukman 49:52 We're not, we're not isolated. That's another aspect of this second inn of support. It's rediscovering that I'm not actually totally independent, isolated. You can't be.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:05 Yeah.

Henry Shukman 50:05 You know, we're, we're made of this planet.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:07 Yeah. You know, this table in front of us is made of wood. Someb- someone would've had to chop the wood down, carve it, varnish it, put it here in-

Henry Shukman 50:17 Exactly

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:17 ... front of us so that we can now have this conversation.

Henry Shukman 50:19 Exactly.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:20 You know?

Henry Shukman 50:20 And, and they themselves had to eat, and that came from the wheat fields-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:23 Yeah

Henry Shukman 50:24 ... and the, and, you know, and the, the fruit and the vegetables.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:26 Can, can we think of support also in terms of our ancestors?

Henry Shukman 50:30 100%. I, I write about that in the book. You know, w- w- we, what we are has come down from these millions of generations of, of living beings, of different kinds.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:40 Yeah, it's, it's kind of interesting. One, one of the things, uh, I've been talking about in my sort of recent live shows is about my relationship with my dad, and Dad's life a little bit, um, and what's happened since my dad died, and how although it was over 12 years ago now, I think about my dad probably now more than ever, and I still feel that he's here. And actually, I now see my dad's death as a gift to me in the sense that the things that I've learnt through my dad's death, I don't think I would've learnt if my dad was still alive. And again, just to be clear, I'm not expecting anyone else to reframe their parent's death in that way. I certainly wasn't doing that in the first year or two after Dad died. But now I'm choosing to look at that through this lens, and I kind of feel it speaks to the second inn of support because, you know, and I could bring my mum into this as well, I guess, but I'm only here because of what my parents have done and the sacrifices they made and the things that they did for me to enable me to do what I do today.

Henry Shukman 52:04 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:05 I remember at my dad's funeral, after the cremation, there was a religious ceremony. It was conducted by a Hindu priest, and a big part of it is acknowledging your ancestors and praying to ancestors.

Henry Shukman 52:21 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:22 I don't think I quite realized the importance of that until quite recently, but I think it speaks to support this idea that, you know, we're, we're not just here in isolation by ourselves. There's so many different things that are necessary in order for us to be here, and I, I kind of feel a lot of people come to, um, meditation because they want help with their depression or their anxiety, right?

Henry Shukman 52:48 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:49 But one thing I've noticed in my clinical career, Henry, is that many people, let's say, with depression or with a diagnosis of depression, are very isolated, right? They're, they're living for a variety of reasons in a very me world.

Henry Shukman 53:06 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:06 And if you can help people get out of that I world and me world and volunteer and connect with others and feel that actually you're part of this kind of rich tapestry of human experience-

Henry Shukman 53:19 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:19 ... everything starts to change.

Henry Shukman 53:21 Yes, 100% does. Exactly. I think, um, and I think the point about ancestors is, is absolutely right, that we're not... It's not just a sort of horizontal, our connectedness in the world.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:33 Mm.

Henry Shukman 53:33 It's vertical. It's across time. And to feel, you know, I, I have this... I've, I've sometimes on meditation retreats, I've, I've felt like I've seen all, many, many ancestors, you know, standing-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:46 Mm

Henry Shukman 53:46 ... behind me. Like, and, and their, their lives are what have enabled me to have this life and this very moment.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:53 Mm-hmm.

Henry Shukman 53:54 And my mother and my father, without them, I wouldn't be here.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:57 Mm.

Henry Shukman 53:58 And to, to feel that, just as you say, it brings on a kind of humility that is, that is sweet, you know-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 54:06 Mm

Henry Shukman 54:06 ... and ma- and can make us grateful for every moment. And I totally agree with you about the, the isolation that, uh, is a very common thing these days, actually, and how to cut through it. And again, it's like this support, this inn of support, is a sort of corrective for the mindfulness I've gotta do. I've heard that mindfulness can help with depression.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 54:31 Mm.

Henry Shukman 54:31 Indeed it can, and, uh, you know, but with, with caution and with careful use and guidance of mindfulness with depression. But not-To the exclusion of being open to others

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 54:46 Yeah

Henry Shukman 54:47 You know? And how do I... What is the vulnerability I need to feel-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 54:51 Mm

Henry Shukman 54:52 ... in order to be able to open to others? And what's the vulnerability I need to feel in order to say, "I need help"? You know, that's, that's very scary-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 55:03 Mm

Henry Shukman 55:03 ... for a lot of us. Please help me. Reaching out.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 55:07 Yeah

Henry Shukman 55:08 You know, many of us don't really wanna do that. We've been ingrained in this culture of I've gotta manage and cope myself, and there's a resistance we have, I think. I, I'm speaking for myself. I s- had a lot of resistance to being able to reach out and ask for help when I most needed it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 55:31 Why?

Henry Shukman 55:32 I, I think in my case there was a lot of shame. I grew up with a lot of shame about the way I looked with my skin condition. People don't want, people don't wanna hear from me. You know, it was kind of the, the mindset I had. And it was... And depression brings shame. I, I was depressed when I was a young man, as well as anxious. You know, depression brings shame, stigma. I, I, I felt so bad that my mental health wasn't good. You know, it's not only did I have, you know, feel, really feeling bad, bad, not, not good, I was ashamed of feeling bad. And, um-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 56:15 You thought you should be able to feel good.

Henry Shukman 56:17 Yeah. It was a, it was a sign of my total incompetence as a human being, and my failure as a human being that I wasn't feeling good. I wasn't feeling alive. I knew I could, and I wasn't. I was feeling down and, uh, unmotivated and-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 56:34 Mm

Henry Shukman 56:34 ... you know, I was kinda going through the motions of a, of a postgraduate degree actually at the time and, um... But I wasn't, my heart wasn't in it, and I felt bad about that. And I didn't... In some way I felt unworthy. You know, not good enough. And so again, it was when I started to meditate that I just began to find little cracks in that mindset-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:04 [laughs]

Henry Shukman 57:04 ... starting to happen. Little, here and there, a little ray of light would come in just for a moment.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:10 A lot of cracks in the story, the story you're telling yourself that you believe to be real. It's like we said before about when you're in chronic pain, you're not in chronic pain 100% of the time.

Henry Shukman 57:22 No, no. Exactly.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:22 And as soon as you understand that and can see, "Oh, oh, I wasn't in pain there, I wasn't in pain there," it starts to break through the cracks, right?

Henry Shukman 57:30 Yes. Exactly.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:30 In a, in a probably very similar way.

Henry Shukman 57:32 Exactly. Exactly. The light just a little bit started to come in, and I could reach out for help, and it, and it was what I-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:39 Yeah

Henry Shukman 57:39 ... needed to do. And, and you know, so I, I mean, personally my journey's been very much about I, I sort of do my part, and for... The keystone habit of my life has been meditation. But I also learned to reach out, especially when I-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:58 Mm

Henry Shukman 57:58 ... least want to.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:59 Yeah.

Henry Shukman 58:00 You know?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:03 How much do you meditate these days?

Henry Shukman 58:07 Well, I... It's daily, you know, and it's, uh... It varies. Sometimes, you know, if I'm on retreat, it's, it's quite a lot. I don't wanna scare anybody. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:17 Yeah.

Henry Shukman 58:17 You don't, you don't have to do 10 hours a day, but I have done 10 hours a day at times for, for quite, quite, quite a lot at certain times in my life. But my average is about an hour a day.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:29 Mm.

Henry Shukman 58:29 You know? And part-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:29 In one go?

Henry Shukman 58:31 Uh, might be or-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:32 Mm

Henry Shukman 58:32 ... it might be half an hour in the morning, half an hour later on.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:35 So you're quite fluid and flexible, but you will do it.

Henry Shukman 58:38 Yeah. I'll always do it. Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:40 And, and what about s-something I wanted to ask you about. We'll, we'll get back to the ends in a minute. We've covered the first two, mindfulness and support, and you know, there's plenty more [laughs] in Original Love about those two ends, right? We're just covering the surface here. Um, but one of the things I think people struggle with these days, they're kinda stuck in a loop where they're stressed out, they're busy, they've got too many things to do. They don't feel they've got time to meditate. They hear about the importance of sleep, right? And therefore

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:10 it's like, "Yeah, hold on a minute, but how am I gonna fit this in to an already busy life?" Okay? And I was thinking about this idea that if you... It rem- I think it was when I spoke to Sadhguru on this podcast a few years ago, the Indian-

Henry Shukman 59:27 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:27 ... mystic.

Henry Shukman 59:28 Amazing guy. Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:29 I think he was talking about this idea, well, if you're not creating a load of stress-

Henry Shukman 59:32 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:32 ... anyway, you need less sleep, right?

Henry Shukman 59:35 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:35 So if you're living a calm existence-

Henry Shukman 59:38 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:39 ... there's less to recover from when you sleep, right? So it... But I was thinking, well, hold on a minute. Maybe if we all meditated more and were less stressed and calmer, well, maybe a lot of us would get by with six hours of sleep a night.

Henry Shukman 59:58 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:59 Maybe we can't look at how much sleep we need without looking at the context of our entire life. So do you feel sometimes that if you meditate regularly, you perhaps can get away with less sleep?

Henry Shukman 1:00:13 I do believe it can be a deep form of rest.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00:15 Mm.

Henry Shukman 1:00:16 You know, they talk about non-sleep deep rest.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00:18 Yeah.

Henry Shukman 1:00:18 NSDR. And meditation definitely is a, is a, is one way that we can bring on that deep rest. And in some meditation traditions, they, they would claim that-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00:31 Yeah

Henry Shukman 1:00:31 ... in meditation it's a deeper rest.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00:33 Yeah. I've seen that.

Henry Shukman 1:00:34 More restorative than sleep. And so, yeah, there's some schools that say, "Hey, if you're doing-In TM, for example, transcendental meditation, wh-which was a, a popular form years back and is what I did at first. They'll say, "If you're doing your, your daily dose, twenty minutes twice a day, uh, you need less sleep." And I think it's, I think it's true once you've paid off a sleep debt, you know. And if you, if you've got a sleep debt, you'll need... You'll, you'll know and, uh, y- 'cause it'll show up as, as fatigue-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:01:04 Yeah

Henry Shukman 1:01:04 ... and, and then you gotta pay it off but with rest. But, but once we're in a steady habit with meditating, I do think it's actually true that we need a bit less sleep. Certainly, if we're... I mean, people on a, on a, on a, on a, an intensive meditation retreat where you are meditating, let's say, 10 hours a day, you need, you need much less sleep. And we're, we're actually creeping into the third inn.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:01:27 Let's do that. Let's, let's creep in. [laughs]

Henry Shukman 1:01:30 So the third inn is, is flow in meditation or samadhi it's called or absorption. It's where, it's where we get into, uh, these beautiful states of mind and, uh, they call it... The traditional name is samadhi in the meditation world.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:01:46 Sanskrit word?

Henry Shukman 1:01:47 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:01:48 Yeah.

Henry Shukman 1:01:48 And it's something about whole- everything held together, everything unified. It's very... And it's, it's energized, and it's peaceful, and it's calm, and it's clear, and it's effortless. The most common way people find it is in activities actually 'cause it's not exclusive to meditation this, is this flow states have been really thoroughly researched since... There was a guy called Csikszentmihalyi back in the '70s and '80s who s- began pioneering research on flow states.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:02:17 Yeah.

Henry Shukman 1:02:18 And, you know, people, athletes will get into it, musicians. Actually, anybody will get into flow now and then while engaged in some kind of activity and, and it, it can be from a very challenging activity like, you know, basketball or, y- you know, or getting in the zone, painting or something, you know, a, an artist or a musician. But it can also be just simple repetitive tasks will get into a flow state.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:02:45 Is that different from getting into a flow state whilst meditating? Because it-

Henry Shukman 1:02:51 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:02:52 ... you know, the things you mentioned are about doing something, right?

Henry Shukman 1:02:58 Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:02:59 And we spoke about doing already, so we're-

Henry Shukman 1:03:01 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:01 ... you know, yeah, surfing, mountain biking, playing guitar, you know-

Henry Shukman 1:03:06 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:06 ... painting, right?

Henry Shukman 1:03:07 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:07 So we're doing an activity where we switch off. Well, it feels as though, you know, time stands still. We're fully immersed.

Henry Shukman 1:03:15 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:15 Body and mind, there's no separation. That feels as though it's different though from reaching that state by just sitting there-

Henry Shukman 1:03:25 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:25 ... or, or is it different?

Henry Shukman 1:03:25 Well, I... It's a great question and it's... I, I've thought, I've wondered about this a lot. When flow comes on in an activity, um, because it becomes effortless and time stands still, exactly as you said, and there's se- much less sense of self, you know, we're not so self-conscious-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:44 Mm.

Henry Shukman 1:03:45 It's, it's almost like we're not doing for some other purpose. We're just doing the thing we're doing, and that's enough. It's for its own-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:57 Yeah.

Henry Shukman 1:03:58 We're doing it for the sake of doing it, you know, and it's fulfilling. So in meditation, just transferring all of that to meditation, the great difference is that we're not doing an outward activity. That is the big difference in meditation. So we're getting into similar states with our own being, with our own being, you know. And, and, and it's, it's where meditation really is starting to kick in and show us what it's been about all along, which is not for other purposes, just for its own sake.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:35 Mm.

Henry Shukman 1:04:36 We're doing it without a kind of ulterior motive, you know. And, and but it is similar to flow in other, in other areas-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:44 Yeah

Henry Shukman 1:04:44 ... because the... it's got the same sort of characteristics. It's, it's effortless.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:48 I, I would say for me, if I think about my own experience, I can experience, you know, traditional flow as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi would, would, would describe it-

Henry Shukman 1:04:59 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:59 ... in all kinds of activities. If I'm playing my guitar and I've got an idea for a new song and I'm sort of lost in that, I could be there for 90 minutes and-

Henry Shukman 1:05:08 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:05:08 ... I'm like, "Oh, wow," you know. I didn't realize. You know, it was wonderful. But I, I feel when I get it or when I have experienced it in meditation, it feels quite different. And I imagine they're both things that we want ideally.

Henry Shukman 1:05:25 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:05:25 I think about life a lot through the lens of dependencies. How dependent am I on externalities in order to feel a certain way, right?

Henry Shukman 1:05:37 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:05:37 The words of other people, acquiring things, the weather to be right, whatever it might be, and I used to be very dependent. I would say these days, not so much. But you can almost argue that flow from an external source also has a dependency attached to it. I need to be playing my guitar in order to get the flow. I need to be-

Henry Shukman 1:06:02 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:06:02 ... on my mountain bike in order to access that flow. Which is all fine-

Henry Shukman 1:06:06 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:06:06 ... right?

Henry Shukman 1:06:07 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:06:07 Nothing wrong with that at all.

Henry Shukman 1:06:08 Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:06:09 But it feels really quite, um, empowering to know that, yeah, but I can also do that with nothing.

Henry Shukman 1:06:18 That's exactly right. That is... I find it just amazing how fulfilled we can be by not doing anything, by just sitting still. That, that's the beauty of the, of flow in meditation, is that we're finding that instead of needing stuff, needing anything external-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:06:39 Mm

Henry Shukman 1:06:40 ... just in our own being, we can be completely fulfilled.At peace, alive, energized, clear, calm, but not, not docile. We're sort of really awake-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:06:55 Mm-hmm

Henry Shukman 1:06:55 ... and totally fulfilled without anything. I, I find that just so beautiful.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:01 Yeah. In that, in that section, you write, "We never knew we needed so little to be happy."

Henry Shukman 1:07:08 Exactly.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:09 Beautiful.

Henry Shukman 1:07:10 Exactly.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:11 Because again-

Henry Shukman 1:07:11 Exactly

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:11 ... going back to cultural conditioning-

Henry Shukman 1:07:13 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:13 ... that is not what most people believe.

Henry Shukman 1:07:16 No.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:16 They believe they need things.

Henry Shukman 1:07:18 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:18 Right? They, they need a certain job title-

Henry Shukman 1:07:22 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:22 ... a certain office-

Henry Shukman 1:07:23 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:24 ... a certain salary.

Henry Shukman 1:07:25 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:26 And listen, I, I, I'm, I'm saying this with compassion and sensitivity 'cause I understand that there are people who are struggling to buy food to feed themselves, okay? So-

Henry Shukman 1:07:36 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:36 ... that I also recognize at the same time. But I think for many people, let, let's say you've got enough to feed yourself and pay your mortgage and, you know-

Henry Shukman 1:07:47 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:47 ... whatever that number is. Um, I think a lot of people still think that happiness comes from something outside of themselves, whereas this state of absorption or samadhi or flow, I guess it teaches us that the happiness is already there.

Henry Shukman 1:08:04 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:08:04 It's inside of us.

Henry Shukman 1:08:06 Exactly. Yeah, and I'm realizing, I mean, I was really lucky. When I was 12 years old, I met this tramp, an old kind of hobo type of person. He used to come through the valley where we lived in north of Oxford.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:08:20 Mm.

Henry Shukman 1:08:20 And he was so different from everybody else I know, I knew. My parents were both professors at Oxford, and I grew up in that very rational, privileged-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:08:30 Mm

Henry Shukman 1:08:30 ... middle-class world. And this guy, he was called Speedy, he'd wander into our valley every spring and sp- and put up in this ruined mill about a mile away from where our house was, and I got to know him. And he, he basically, he pretty much had nothing. He had two dogs, fishing, fishing lines, no rod, you know. And he lived off fishing and setting traps for rabbits, and he'd, he'd go door to door when he needed to. And, um, but he used to... He said... He, he taught me a lot, actually. It was over several summers, I-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:07 Mm

Henry Shukman 1:09:08 ... I, I guess I got to know him. But he would sit every day. He said he'd... He called it stopping still, and he would just sit, uh, you know, in the woods somewhere. He'd just sit and be still. And he, he said, "You know, people are running around like chickens with their heads cut off."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:24 [laughs]

Henry Shukman 1:09:24 "They, they don't, they don't realize, they don't learn what they would learn if they just sat still." And I, I s- some of that somehow landed in me-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:35 Yeah

Henry Shukman 1:09:35 ... that he was a person who was at home everywhere. He, he, he lived in the countryside. He didn't live in a house. But he had so little. And he was alive in a way that was unlike any- anybody else I knew. He was really alive.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:50 Yeah. I, I love hearing things like this, right? Because whenever you talk about things like this, there's, there's often, there's often the socioeconomic argument-

Henry Shukman 1:10:00 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:00 ... right? A- and you know, the... A- and yeah, if you look at the data, for sure, you know, people in certain areas of the UK, um, you know, you know, your life expectancy, for example, can be up to 10 years different if you're-

Henry Shukman 1:10:13 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:13 ... living in an area of low socioeconomic status compared to high.

Henry Shukman 1:10:17 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:17 Right? So this stuff is real, for sure. But when we think about happiness and wellbeing, there is still a view that your financials hugely matter, and I'm not saying they don't matter, right? Just to be clear.

Henry Shukman 1:10:32 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:33 But I've also had the experience of every other summer as a ch- as a child, we would go to India to, uh, Kolkata for six weeks, right? I have seen and been with people and chatted to them in India with very little, who seem to have a joyful essence, who are happy.

Henry Shukman 1:10:53 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:53 They sort of seem to get life. And I find that really inspiring to go, well, hold on, hold on a minute. We, we kind of, we've again been culturally conditioned to think that we're gonna get happiness when, when this happens, when we get the A-levels, when we get the job, when we get the promotion. When, oh, when that happens, when we get this amount of followers or this amount of downloads. Oh, yeah, there, there it is. It's like, well, hold on a minute. Um, some people I've spoken to in India, they, they don't have those things, yet I would argue some of them are happier than most of us are.

Henry Shukman 1:11:26 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:27 Right?

Henry Shukman 1:11:27 It's... They've found the unconditional wellbeing.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:30 Yeah.

Henry Shukman 1:11:31 And that is the key. That's what meditation is actually really for. So thank you for bringing that up. It's the... A- a- and I totally agree with you also, um, not to discount-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:43 Yeah

Henry Shukman 1:11:44 ... the difficulties of, of being underneath a certain poverty line. You know, it's incredibly hard, and we're not discounting that. But what if there's a wellbeing that we're missing in our pursuit of conditions, material conditions that we think we need?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:03 Mm-hmm.

Henry Shukman 1:12:03 All kinds of conditions that we think we need. What if there's actually an unconditional as well? You know, unconditional okayness, and that's, that's, that's the inspiration that, that, uh, I find in, in, you know, what are traditionally thought of as a spiritual life-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:24 Yeah

Henry Shukman 1:12:25 ... is that it's not based on the conditions of our lives.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:29 There, there's so much I wanna go deeper into there. Before I do, let me just put my head into the mind of some of the listeners who might be thinking this is all great, right?

Henry Shukman 1:12:42 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:42 But how the hell do I get there? Um, I think, you know, I've covered mindfulness on the show before. Um, you, you have your own unique way of describing it, to be fair, in Original Love, but I think-You know, there may be an understanding of the importance of mindfulness, the importance of, uh, support, those first two Ns. But this kind of flow state that we can experience in meditation, if someone has never experienced that before and are thinking, "Yeah, that sounds great. I want some of it," how do they get it?

Henry Shukman 1:13:16 Yeah. Well, [laughs] uh, you know, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd have to say, um, just keep doing your meditation, and it starts to come on.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:26 Yeah.

Henry Shukman 1:13:26 You know? And, like, you know, the... Our app is, is actually trying to help people find that, you know, the, the-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:32 It's, it's, it's very much trust the process, right?

Henry Shukman 1:13:35 It is. It is.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:36 It's show up for the daily meditation, and you will find at some point that these states start to appear.

Henry Shukman 1:13:43 Yeah, exactly. And, um, it's sort of like if, if so- I, I would say to somebody who's not quite sure what we're talking about, I would say think of a time when s- suddenly you just felt really good, and there was a shift, and you don't know why it happened, but it wasn't to do with accomplishment, or it wasn't to do with something you were actively doing. It just sort of came on by itself, and you felt sort of, uh, somehow life was smooth and easy-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:14 Mm

Henry Shukman 1:14:15 ... and, and rich and fulfilling, and time didn't seem to matter so much. If you think of a, something like those little magical moments that I think everybody will have had some taste of, even if it was only in childhood, there, you know, some sense of a kind of spell fell on you, and everything seemed okay. That's what this is like. And the, the, the, the activity of non-activity, the, the, the time set aside for meditation of just not doing will attract that.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:50 Mm.

Henry Shukman 1:14:51 It's almost more like a magnet. We're not, we're not, we're not trying to grab it. We're just by virtue of making space for just being in our lives, we attract it. It just, it just comes on un- unpredictably by itself at times. And, um, so, so it's, it's a fairly, I wanna say, you know, we can just about promise it, we can just about promise it-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:24 Mm

Henry Shukman 1:15:24 ... that if you do keep doing this thing regularly, consistently, you'll start to get tastes of it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:30 Yeah. And one of the things I believe happens with people is that because they're so busy doing all the time and not tending to their internal world, if they ever stop doing, all the stuff that they haven't processed starts to come out.

Henry Shukman 1:15:48 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:49 And so because they're scared of that, they just shut it down and stay busy again. So no, no, no. Do the practice. Meditate daily. Let it all come up. Let it all come up, and maybe once you've almost burnt it out-

Henry Shukman 1:16:01 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:16:01 ... you'll experience the calm and presence that was sitting there all along.

Henry Shukman 1:16:05 Yeah, I, I believe that's, that's a great way to look at it. And then if you're doing it regularly, you're processing the daily stuff-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:16:12 Yeah

Henry Shukman 1:16:12 ... that's come up. So you're sort of keeping ahead of it. And I think that's, that's why the consistency is so important. It... But I think that's ex- that's exactly how we are. We... You know, if you've done... Let's say you've been for a long drive, uh, you know, and you put your head on the pillow at night, close your eyes, you see how you see the road.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:16:30 Yeah.

Henry Shukman 1:16:30 You know? It's sort of like that. We're busy in our days, so of course when we stop, we, we, we're processing what we've been doing, you know? And when people come to a retreat-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:16:41 Mm

Henry Shukman 1:16:41 ... you go to a retreat, first day you're dealing with your life.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:16:44 [laughs] It's-

Henry Shukman 1:16:45 Recent life, and then sometimes old life stuff comes up as well. But you're letting... Actually, it's so healthy. You're just being, and you're letting this stuff un- You're sort of letting your mind digest your life. And it's, all this stuff comes up, and you just let it move on, and that's, that's how we settle down. That's what settling down actually means for me-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:17:07 Yeah

Henry Shukman 1:17:07 ... is letting all the stuff that's been going on in my life just process itself and-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:17:13 Yeah

Henry Shukman 1:17:13 ... release, you know? Then we find this deeper layers of calm and clarity and fulfillment.

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Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19:52 first order and enjoy a one-hundred-day money-back guarantee, visit vivobarefoot.com/livemore. Click on the link in the description box below or scan the QR code on screen. There's so much more about absorption I wanna talk to you about, Cohen's and the importance of beauty. Maybe I'll just park those for a moment because I wanna make sure we have time for the fourth inning-

Henry Shukman 1:20:19 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:19 ... uh, awakening. And what's really interesting to me, and I know you talk about it and you write about this in the book, is that these first three innings, mindfulness, support, and absorption, are still all done under the realm where we still have a self, right? And I guess, you know, for people who need some meditation, maybe just start there, right? Maybe you don't need to come to this point, right? But this is what I'm really, really interested in, so I wanna, I wanna go in here, if that's okay, into inn four.

Henry Shukman 1:20:56 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:56 This idea where the first three are great, but there's still this idea that we have an identity that is a self, whereas in inn four, there's a loss of self, isn't there? So I don't know how you wanna tackle this, but can you explain to us what is this fourth inn of awakening?

Henry Shukman 1:21:16 It's, [chuckles] it's a difficult thing to talk about actually, because it's a discovery that we can each make about who we really are, who we've been all along. And, um, it may sound weird, it may not make a lot of sense to hear about it. And on the other hand, there may be people who hear about it and think, "Oh my gosh, that's what that was, some moment I had as a kid that I've never forgotten."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:47 Mm-hmm.

Henry Shukman 1:21:47 "Some moment I had as a, as a, as a youth that I've never forgotten, when it was as if I discovered that I wasn't separate from the world I live in," that my sense of being me contained within my skin, that I, I inhabit this body that I think of as mine, and what I am is something within this body, some little core nugget or core that's me, that I know so well. I've, I've been with it as long as I can remember. But suddenly it was as if that wasn't there. That wasn't here, and instead I was part of everything. It's, it's a sudden glimpse of a different way of experiencing ourselves in this world.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:22:42 I don't think I've ever covered non-duality on the podcast to date. So perhaps-

Henry Shukman 1:22:51 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:22:51 ... perhaps the best way to start this is with you describing what happened to you when you were backpacking at nineteen.

Henry Shukman 1:22:56 [chuckles] Okay.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:22:58 I don't know. What do you think?

Henry Shukman 1:22:58 Yeah. Yeah, I think so too. I think it's, it's probably easier to get it if I, if I try to describe it-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:23:03 Yeah

Henry Shukman 1:23:04 ... you know. So, so I, you know, as I said, I'd grown up in Oxford. I had this terrible eczema. I went away when I was eighteen, nineteen on a gap year, and I worked, um, actually in South America. I worked on a ranch, um, for, for several months. That was, uh, through my dad. Somebody in his college was from Argentina, and I worked there and then I backpacked. And towards the end of the trip, um, I was alone on a beach and I was... It really was a... It was an empty, deserted beach, and I was just looking at the sun going down over the water. It was incredibly beautiful, you know, and I was studying the water and the light on the water, and I was, I was just standing there very absorbed in this beautiful scene with nobody around. Real profound solitude. A very... It was just so beautiful. And suddenly it was as if I wasn't looking at the scene in front of me, I was part of it. It was, it was as if the me that could look at the world and see it as separate just switched off, and somehow I discovered, it felt like a discovery, that I had always been part of everything. I wasn't a separate observer. The sense of being the separate me who is moving through the world as a separate entity, that separateness just switched off, and in its place was a sense of total belonging, just being part of everything without exception. And it, it felt like-In a certain way, really, it felt like I was part of the whole universe, and I'd never not been. And it wasn't an idea. It was a f- it was a palpable sensation. It was as if I could... It really felt for a moment as if my, my fingertips were reached to the end of the universe. My... The tip of my nose was pressing against the beginning of time and the end of time. It was as if what I really was and always had been was part of everything.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:25:47 I-is, is the term out of body experience relevant here or is it almost too reductionist? Just-

Henry Shukman 1:25:54 Yeah, I mean, to, to me, out of body suggests that, you know, when people describe NDEs, you know-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:26:00 Yeah. They, they-

Henry Shukman 1:26:01 ... where they're sort of up looking down, they could see their body. I think it was totally different actually, because it wasn't the, "Here's my body, I've left it." It was the, "Here's my body, it's everything," or that my true body is everything. That's, that's what it felt like. But the, the, the, the me, the, the... You know, when I say my true body, it didn't feel like mine in the way that I n-normally knew the sense of me. That felt like what I really was was everything, part of everything. And it was very... I mean, it's... I, I don't mean to say, like, I was huge or something. No, it, it wasn't, it wasn't sort of-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:26:47 Almost like... Was it almost like you just blended in with everything?

Henry Shukman 1:26:50 It's, it's more like-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:26:50 Like you were just-

Henry Shukman 1:26:53 Yes, it's more like that. It's more like... It's more like-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:26:56 Yeah

Henry Shukman 1:26:56 ... the, the, the boundary between me and the world was gone.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27:03 These non-dual experiences, okay? Are words inherently limiting in our [chuckles] attempt to describe it?

Henry Shukman 1:27:12 Yes. It, it, it's an unfortunate thing. It, it can't do it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27:15 Because some people... I'm, I'm-

Henry Shukman 1:27:17 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27:17 ... they're just to sort of play, not devil's advocate-

Henry Shukman 1:27:19 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27:19 ... really, but for... I guess there'll be some people listening, Henry, who are on board with the benefits of meditation and totally get those first three N's because, of course, they're all predicated on this assumption that there is a self.

Henry Shukman 1:27:36 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27:36 Right? So how do I improve the self? How do I improve myself? Yeah, I get better at mindfulness and noticing my experiences and my feelings and my minds. I make sure I reach out for support, that it's not just me. Like, everything I do is dependent on other people and other things. And then can I reach flow state? Yeah, I can reach flow state on my favorite passion. But yeah, I can also, perhaps if I meditate enough without expectation and I follow the process, maybe at some point I'll start to experience this intrinsic flow state that doesn't need me to be doing anything. I reckon for those interested in meditation, they're naturally gonna be on board with that, right? I think now going into the fourth N, awakening. Now, I'm on board to be clear. [laughs]

Henry Shukman 1:28:32 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:33 I'm trying to put myself in the mind of someone who's going, "Well, what... Hold on a minute."

Henry Shukman 1:28:38 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:38 "I get the first three. I'm interested in those three. What the hell is this-"

Henry Shukman 1:28:43 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:43 "... that you're talking about, about awakening, that there's no boundary to my skin, that I'm part of everything?"

Henry Shukman 1:28:49 Yeah. I, I, I-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:50 And you must get this a lot, right?

Henry Shukman 1:28:51 Yeah, I do. I do, I do. I mean, I'm, I'm very... I, I feel, I feel the, the problem here is-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:56 [laughs]

Henry Shukman 1:28:56 ... is, is very real, that it, it, it doesn't make... It only makes sense once we've had a glimpse of it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:29:03 Yeah.

Henry Shukman 1:29:04 It's difficult to make it make sense through cognitively just thinking about it and conceptually, but there is a, there's a few ways we can, we can try a little bit conceptually. One is, I mean, just right now, you know, being aware that w- you know, w-wherever you happen to be, you know, we, we two, we're sitting in this room, we're seeing one another. There's the walls, there's, you know, lights, a mic stand, the, the, the, this beautiful, very beautiful actually, table between us. All of this is arising for each of us in an awareness, right? All of it is contents in an awareness. Now, maybe that can-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:29:47 Mm.

Henry Shukman 1:29:47 That makes a kind of sense, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:29:48 Mm.

Henry Shukman 1:29:48 You know? So, so, so what is that awareness? And how big is that awareness? And where does it end? Where does it begin? The, the awareness is actually really hard to put dimensions on. The awareness itself. We can put dimensions on the wall-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:30:09 Mm

Henry Shukman 1:30:09 ... on the space between us, but the awareness itself within which this whole experience of this room and this conversation, within which it's arising, the awareness that's hosting this, it, it's impossible-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:30:26 Yeah

Henry Shukman 1:30:27 ... to know how big it is. It's impossible to know where it begins and ends.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:30:31 Is, is this, you know, put through another lens, you know, who is the seer? Who is the person that's experiencing the table? Like, you know, when you get-

Henry Shukman 1:30:42 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:30:42 ... that separation in meditation, you know, and let's say, let's say you're feeling anxious, okay? And you think the entirety of you is anxiety.

Henry Shukman 1:30:51 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:30:53 But a meditation or some practice where you just separate and go, "No, no, but who is it that's experiencing the anxiety?"

Henry Shukman 1:31:00 Yes. Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:31:01 Right? You just start to open up a crack-

Henry Shukman 1:31:03 Exactly

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:31:04 ... of separation.

Henry Shukman 1:31:05 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:31:05 Something I think about a lot is, well, I don't know-How old I was, how many days old I was when my parents gave me the name Rangan. I, I don't... I can't remember. I know, um, in, you know, I know, for example, in, in some Indian cultures, there's a naming ceremony at day six, right? So day six is when you're given your name-

Henry Shukman 1:31:32 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:31:32 ... officially, right?

Henry Shukman 1:31:32 Yes. Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:31:33 So then it... Let's... If you just play this out-

Henry Shukman 1:31:35 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:31:36 ... let's say I was given the name Rangan at day six from my birth. Well, who the hell was I for the first six days? Right. 'Cause I wasn't-

Henry Shukman 1:31:46 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:31:46 ... Rangan then.

Henry Shukman 1:31:47 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:31:47 I hadn't been given that name.

Henry Shukman 1:31:48 Yes. Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:31:48 So there was an awareness-

Henry Shukman 1:31:50 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:31:50 ... there was a essence of who I was that existed before I was called Rangan.

Henry Shukman 1:31:57 Exactly.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:31:58 Is this in the same realm as non-duality, or is this something completely different?

Henry Shukman 1:32:02 No, it is. It is. I mean, and whoever that was those first five days-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:32:07 Yeah

Henry Shukman 1:32:07 ... what's happened to him? Is he still here? If it's he, even.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:32:14 [laughs]

Henry Shukman 1:32:15 Is that not still here somehow? You know, is there... Like, if I... If you think back to a childhood experience, being on the beach, age seven or something-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:32:26 Mm

Henry Shukman 1:32:26 ... you know, the water, the sounds, the smells, sun lotion, sand, you know, um, what was th- was... Is there something that was there then which is here right now? Is there some sort of essence of you, of awareness, of beingness, of aliveness that was absolutely present then and is exactly present also now?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:32:57 Mm.

Henry Shukman 1:32:58 Isn't there something, you know, that, that who you were before you had a name is still here now?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:33:06 Mm.

Henry Shukman 1:33:06 And what is that? Is it possible that it just doesn't do time-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:33:14 Yeah

Henry Shukman 1:33:14 ... and it doesn't even do space?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:33:18 Yeah.

Henry Shukman 1:33:18 It's, it's without dimension. It's without time. Isn't it possible-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:33:22 Yeah

Henry Shukman 1:33:22 ... that there's something already always here?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:33:27 Yeah. Of course.

Henry Shukman 1:33:29 Right. Okay. So that's, that's coming up. What we mean by this exactly, it's a very dry term, non-duality. It doesn't convey how, how heartwarming and beautiful-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:33:42 Yeah

Henry Shukman 1:33:42 ... and intimate and close this actually is.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:33:44 Who... Where did that term come from-

Henry Shukman 1:33:45 I don't-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:33:45 ... non-duality? [laughs]

Henry Shukman 1:33:46 Well, I think actually I think it might be India, 'cause there's a term-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:33:49 Really?

Henry Shukman 1:33:49 ... Advaita.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:33:50 Right.

Henry Shukman 1:33:51 Non, non two, non-dual, Advaita.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:33:54 Wow.

Henry Shukman 1:33:55 You know, and so there's Advaita Vedanta is a, is a ancient Hindu-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:33:59 Yeah

Henry Shukman 1:33:59 ... Hindu school of practice around this. And, and that's what... When... Like, the word Buddhism actually means awakening-ism. The word Buddha-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:34:10 Mm

Henry Shukman 1:34:10 ... means awakened, and it's the heart of what some say Buddhism is really about. Buddhism is not... Some would say it's not really a religion. They say it's a practice. But the heart of the term Buddha, awakened or awakening, is to wake up to... I'd say wake back up-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:34:30 To reality

Henry Shukman 1:34:31 ... to, to reality that's been here all along.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:34:33 Would you say that people who have experienced this non-dual state... L- And, and what's really interesting about your experience at 19 is that you weren't a meditator then. You weren't-

Henry Shukman 1:34:45 No

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:34:45 ... trying to attain inn number four on the path up the mountain. You were just on your gap year, having fun, traveling, backpacking around, watching a sunset, and then-

Henry Shukman 1:34:55 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:34:55 ... boom-

Henry Shukman 1:34:56 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:34:56 ... you've experienced something, right?

Henry Shukman 1:34:58 Yes. Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:34:59 Which I, I think is also quite interesting because you, on your app and in your book, offer a path that we can follow.

Henry Shukman 1:35:06 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:35:06 And if we follow that path, at some point, we may get an awakening. We may be more open to seeing an awakening.

Henry Shukman 1:35:12 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:35:14 But you got one without doing any of that.

Henry Shukman 1:35:16 Well, I know. But I then found... And then I was really unhappy afterwards. Like, a few weeks later-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:35:23 Right

Henry Shukman 1:35:23 ... I went back home and had a-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:35:24 'Cause you didn't understand it.

Henry Shukman 1:35:25 I didn't understand it. And also, when I went home, I was open for the first time in my life, wide open, and all the difficulty, challenges, unhappiness in my childhood, I couldn't help but feel them. In my childhood, I'd done my best not to feel the challenges of my childhood 'cause I felt they were overwhelming. And I-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:35:48 So it almost cracked you open.

Henry Shukman 1:35:49 It cracked me open. So when I went home, I was, I was swamped by childhood unhappiness that I-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:35:55 And you-

Henry Shukman 1:35:55 ... that I'd never really let myself feel before.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:35:57 And you needed therapy, didn't you, for that?

Henry Shukman 1:35:59 I did. I did.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:35:59 Or, or you-

Henry Shukman 1:36:00 Well, I would say-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:36:00 I shouldn't say you needed. You, you, you saw therapists who helped you.

Henry Shukman 1:36:03 Yeah. But later, I mean, I struggled for several years.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:36:06 Wow.

Henry Shukman 1:36:06 And then I started meditating and, and then I found a therapist, and I was very, very lucky to be able to do that. But, but the, the, the point, just to, you know, just coming back to, um, the... It's unconditional. That awakening, you can't, you can't create it through conditions, but you can make it more likely. And, and so any path of meditation that knows about that and acknowledges it and is open to it can create the condition where it's more likely to happen, but it can't make it happen. But, but at the same time, that's... The, the beauty of it is it's kind of a law unto itself. It doesn't... Like, in my case, as you say, I wasn't practicing, but it showed itself. But only when I started to practice was there any chance of learning to integrate it-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:37:03 Mm

Henry Shukman 1:37:03 ... into how I live. So it wasn't a flash in the pan. And what, what happened with me on my own meditation path, this is why I'm trying to share this with others, you know, is that I started out meditating, and it was incredibly therapeutic.And healing and so helpful for me. And at a certain point, I was like, "Well, what about that thing that happened-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:37:25 Mm

Henry Shukman 1:37:25 ... on the beach when I was nineteen?" It had seemed the most important moment of my life, 'cause I saw something about what my life really was that I'd never seen in any other way, in any other context, and nobody seemed to sort of talk about it. And then the reason I got into Zen is that, um, I recognized... I met somebody who did Zen, actually. It was quite popular, you know, in America, and I was working on my third book at the time, and I was in... I'd gone to New Mexico, and a new friend of mine, a great writer called Natalie Goldberg, she started reading some Zen stuff to me, and I just recognized, oh my gosh, these people know what happened to me on the beach.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:38:07 [laughs]

Henry Shukman 1:38:07 They know about it. And so I got into Zen-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:38:10 Mm

Henry Shukman 1:38:10 ... and sure enough, they totally knew about it, and they actually valued it. They recognized how important it was. And through training, you know, a lo- a long time in Zen, I actually met... Well, I was very lucky to meet some fantastic teachers who, who'd gone even beyond it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:38:33 Mm.

Henry Shukman 1:38:33 They knew about it and, and, and I, and I had a, I had some more experiences. Not the same, but same territory. Other kinds of non-dual experiences. I hadn't known it could show up in different ways.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:38:47 Mm-hmm.

Henry Shukman 1:38:47 It's not... Uh, w- the one that I had where everything's just one and I'm part of that oneness, that's one way it could show up.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:38:54 Yeah.

Henry Shukman 1:38:55 Another way it shows up is this, this, you know, in a way, there's, there's nobody here. It's all happening by itself.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:39:02 I w- I wonder if regularly spending time in nature and experiencing awe perhaps could help with this in the sense that, you know, if you are somewhere incredibly awe-inspiring in nature-

Henry Shukman 1:39:16 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:39:16 ... and you really, you know, you're not distracted and you're not sort of doing something else. If you actually think about it, and you know, it, it is a wonder that this sort of beauty exists and that we're even here on this vast, incredible planet. I mean, it's-

Henry Shukman 1:39:31 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:39:32 ... you know, it, it really is.

Henry Shukman 1:39:34 It is. I think beauty can be a way in, and actually that's why I believe the third inn-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:39:42 Mm

Henry Shukman 1:39:42 ... that we were just talking about, flow and absorption, uh, and this isn't always pointed out about it, but it's a lot of beauty we sense in the third inn. Somehow, you know, again, somebody on a mountain bike totally absorbed in it, suddenly getting into flow, it's beautiful.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:39:59 Mm-hmm.

Henry Shukman 1:39:59 It's really beautiful and, and that that beauty can actually serve as a gateway to non-dual experience where we're overwhelmed by the wonder.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:40:11 Yeah.

Henry Shukman 1:40:11 I, I agree with you. Awe-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:40:13 That, that was actually-

Henry Shukman 1:40:14 ... can be a gateway. Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:40:14 ... in, in that third inn section in the book, one of my favorite bits was the stuff about beauty. There was one section entitled Beauty In A Sick Room.

Henry Shukman 1:40:22 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:40:23 You say, "In any moment, we can find what we need." I thought, "That's lovely. In any moment." And you actually illustrated that point from recollection with a mum whose child was quite sick.

Henry Shukman 1:40:38 Yes. She's the... The child was in a lot of trouble with, you know, addiction issues and yeah, she was watching waves on a beach. She described this to me so beautifully-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:40:46 Yeah

Henry Shukman 1:40:47 ... I wanted to share that. You know, she was just watching these waves in the evening coming up the beach, withdrawing, coming up, withdrawing and, and suddenly she noticed how beautiful it was, and then she realized she could feel the beauty at the same time as feeling all her sorrow and worry about her child who was in such a hard, dark place. She could feel the, the, the tremendous parent's grief and caring for their child who's in trouble, and also the beauty of the scene before her. And then she suddenly realized that both the beauty and what she felt about the beauty she was seeing and the, the worry, they were like notes in a, in a single experience-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:41:46 [laughs]

Henry Shukman 1:41:46 ... and even the worry was beautiful.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:41:50 So this is really interesting.

Henry Shukman 1:41:51 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:41:51 Okay, so the appreciation of the deep beauty in the ocean and the waves, it didn't make her child not be struggling with addiction.

Henry Shukman 1:42:06 Correct.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:42:08 But it changed her experience of how she related to her child struggling with addiction.

Henry Shukman 1:42:15 Exactly. She, she could see that there was even a beauty in that.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:42:22 When you can't change a situation, you're forced to change yourself.

Henry Shukman 1:42:27 Exactly. Exactly. And she made that little shift that's so, that's so huge to a bigger perspective.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:42:38 Do you think sometimes, you know, surfers might experience these kind of states in the sense... I'm not talking about flow necessarily.

Henry Shukman 1:42:48 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:42:48 Surfing's front of mind 'cause I've just been in Australia, and I would just sit on the beach and watch these tribes of surfers just go-

Henry Shukman 1:42:55 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:42:55 ... and I, I thought it was the most beautiful thing. There must be some sort of deep connection, not just flow state, but that you're, you're, you're literally riding on this wave that-

Henry Shukman 1:43:10 Yeah, yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:43:10 ... has no end, that goes probably... You know, if you follow that body of water, it goes all the way around the world, doesn't it?

Henry Shukman 1:43:16 Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think... Actually, I used to, I used to teach, uh, Zen to a group of surfers in Southern California pre-COVID.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:43:23 Right.

Henry Shukman 1:43:23 And they were fantastic at meditating, and they were so into it because-They were that bit closer to getting this non-dual message

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:43:32 Mm-hmm

Henry Shukman 1:43:32 'cause I think exactly what you're describing, that you're riding this body of water that's doing this particular energetic thing of the wave, and it's... And that's your motion. Your motion is the wave's motion, you know. And actually, with just, with the, with the, with the wave thing, you know, one of the old metaphors in, in several spiritual traditions to get this non-duality idea is exactly a wave. A wave. If a wave, as it were, thought it was its own thing, this little shape of water, "This is me," and didn't recognize it's part of the whole ocean, that's very like non-duality. The, in other words, our sense of me, I think I'm just this body. I don't see that my little cup of consciousness here is part of the great ocean of consciousness. It's like that. It's a... So, so we're not denying this, this consciousness and- but the ego says, "It's mine," and it doesn't know how to recognize actually it's part of a vast, a vastness, a boundlessness. It's part of it, and yes, it's made this shape called Henry or Rangan, you know, each of us. It's made this being-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:45:01 Mm

Henry Shukman 1:45:02 ... that seems to be its own thing, but in non-duality we recognize the great ocean-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:45:12 Yeah

Henry Shukman 1:45:12 ... that has formed into this wave. We recognize the great ocean.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:45:15 Yeah.

Henry Shukman 1:45:16 So that's why the term non-duality does not convey how beautiful-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:45:21 Mm

Henry Shukman 1:45:21 ... how mind-blowingly beautiful it is 'cause wh- when we find that, you know, all our, maybe just for a moment, all our worries are gone-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:45:32 Yeah

Henry Shukman 1:45:33 ... 'cause they all came from the conviction that we were just the wave, not the whole ocean. And so that, that's why it's so important. I think it's the most important thing because when we find it, we find what our life has been all along. We actually find something that feels like the truth.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:45:59 Re- re- relating that to health for a moment or, you know, traditional health as it were, because, you know, it's kind of interesting we have this conversation. I, I've said for years this is not a health podcast. It may seem like a health podcast, but it isn't, because health is everything, you know. Health isn't just in the realms of health. Health is related to happiness. Health is related to your relationships. Health is related to how you feel about yourself and your ability to interact with the world in a loving and kind way. One of the problems I've always had with, uh, Western allopathic medicine, all the benefits, I would say it's way too reductionist. Everything is kept separate. Separate body parts, separate diseases. It literally makes no sense at all to me, and it actually makes no sense scientifically or physiologically. Everything in the body is connected. But bringing it back to you, and you had this chronic debilitating eczema, and not necessarily a non-dual experience, but meditating per se helped you to heal your eczema. Is that correct?

Henry Shukman 1:47:11 It is. I believe that really-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:47:13 Yeah. And I, and I've seen that and, and similar patterns before in patients, okay? So I'm really interested, yes, on the path to meditation, on those first three N's for sure, but let's just go that final step. For people who do experience a non... I, I just, I just don't like that term-

Henry Shukman 1:47:33 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:47:33 ... non-dual experience, right? But this k- this kind of awakening experience. I, I like awakening.

Henry Shukman 1:47:39 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:47:41 And if they have the tools to integrate it into their life as you did not when you were 19, but you do now, do you see that people often see an improvement in their health and their wellbeing as well?

Henry Shukman 1:47:58 I do, actually. I do, 'cause there's so much less stress.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:48:03 Mm-hmm.

Henry Shukman 1:48:04 And, and, and they've, they've learned, they've discovered an unconditional wellbeing, therefore, whatever they're doing is a choice. They're choosing to do it, and typically they reorient more to lives of service. You know, they, they, they want... It's more important to them that what they, what they be doing is of service to others, and that also brings fulfillment. So they're, they're just, they're just happier and, and yeah, of course they'll still get diseases as they get older, you know, and, and they'll still get flu now and then, but handling it in a way that's much easier, that doesn't put additional stress on the system make... I think it makes a big difference.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:49:00 Yeah.

Henry Shukman 1:49:01 One thing that going deeper into non-duality or allowing non-duality to be more part of our experience, it actually changes our relationship with death. We don't think about death in the same way. It's actually... It's, it's almost like it's part of life.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:49:27 Mm.

Henry Shukman 1:49:27 Death is part of life. It's not something to be afraid of.It's, it's, uh, it's already here. It's-- And, and this is the... Here we are. So it's-- I think that's one of its beautiful consequences.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:49:44 Mm.

Henry Shukman 1:49:44 We know when we've really sort of got it 'cause fear of death is gone.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:49:50 Yeah.

Henry Shukman 1:49:51 A fear of life is gone, and we, we can't, we can't be afraid of it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:49:57 Yeah.

Henry Shukman 1:49:57 Fear is gone. In fact, there's a, there's a zendo, a Zen center that I've sat in in Japan for retreats a number of times where one of my Zen masters lives, and it has this calligraphy a-above the altar at the end of the room which, which says... I, I asked, "What are those?" I don't read characters, you know. "What, what do they mean?" "Bringing no fear. Bringing no fear." And I find that a beautiful-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:50:28 Yeah

Henry Shukman 1:50:29 ... a beautiful kind of, um, motto for life. What if we could get to a place where we're, we're just not afraid? Fear has gone. And I think the most profound way for me for finding that has been this, this kind of opening more and more deeply to the reality of being not the wave, the ocean, or not just the wave, but the whole ocean, to being part of the whole ocean of existence and not separate 'cause if I'm not separate, there's, there's nobody to be afraid.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:51:12 Yeah. I love that, Henry. So beautiful, and I guess on my own inner journey, spiritual journey, if you will, probably since Dad died, I realized that somewhere along the way, my fear of death has evaporated. I can't pinpoint an exact moment.

Henry Shukman 1:51:30 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:51:31 There wasn't like, "Oh, this happened."

Henry Shukman 1:51:33 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:51:33 There, there wasn't this linear thing-

Henry Shukman 1:51:35 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:51:35 ... oh, I did this, and then the fear is gone. No, just as part of... It's a bit like this whole thing, right? You, you follow the process. Okay? You follow the daily practice of meditation, and you'll find there's a whole variety of different outcomes that will just happen as a consequence, not by focusing on the outcome-

Henry Shukman 1:51:54 That's right. Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:51:55 ... but by focusing on the process. Henry-

Henry Shukman 1:51:57 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:51:58 ... I think Original Love is just a beautiful book. It's so well-written. It does provide this lovely framework on what we might be able to experience as we meditate more and more. I think the Way app is brilliant. I can see why it's so popular. I'm enjoying it. I love the fact that there's no choice, that you just turn up, and it makes it easy. This is what you have to do today. It's, it's a fantastic idea. Uh, uh, I think it's brilliant. I've thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with you. I certainly hope we get the chance to do a part two at some point. Um, but just to finish off, for that, for that person who has made it this far-

Henry Shukman 1:52:43 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:52:43 ... who's listened to the conversation and feels that, "Yeah, you know what? Meditation I think is what I need right now," and perhaps the fourth stage of awakening feels too far just at the moment, but they're thinking, "Yeah, I want a bit of mindfulness. I want support. I want that flow state from meditation, but I don't know where to start," what would your final words be to them?

Henry Shukman 1:53:08 Yeah. Um, well, I don't wanna be self-serving, but the Way app, um, is a great way to get into it-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:53:17 Mm-hmm

Henry Shukman 1:53:17 ... 'cause it, it lays it out for you so you don't have to choose. So that's one option. And, um, there's a ton of other great apps. Headspace, Calm, you know, they'll help as well. And, um, uh, but the biggest thing is just give yourself five minutes alone with yourself, being still, being quiet. If you're not... If you don't even, you know, don't even wanna touch an app, fine. Just sit down alone for five minutes. Just see what it's like, you know. Can you let yourself be still and quiet? Just, just be. Just be you 'cause you're... All you're doing is coming home to you. It's not some grand thing that you gotta get, you gotta do really. It's coming home to you. Can you just give yourself that one minute a day? If you can't do five, do one.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:54:24 Henry Shukman, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

Henry Shukman 1:54:28 Thank you very, very much for having me. A delight and a real honor.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:54:32 If you enjoyed that conversation, then I think you are really going to enjoy this one.

Cameo 1:54:37 It's only when you learn what to do with your unhappiness that you can really break through and find stable happiness