Believe In Yourself, Get Uncomfortable & Find PEACE | Dr. Mark Epstein

There's something beneficial in allowing ourselves and in training ourselves to be with that which is difficult in ourselves, in our partners, in life, you you know, and that when we do that and I think that's the detachment part that you're keeping in your back pocket, you know, when when we do that, when we allow ourselves to be uncomfortable, when we recognize that we're clinging a little bit to the pleasures that can't be sustained, you know, when we face those issues, something settles down in us and we're able to actually deal more effectively with the life that we're living, with the hand that we've been dealt. Mark Epstein, welcome to the show. Thank you, Tom. Very excited to have you. As I was saying before we started, I read the Tao Te Ching when I was 16 and it was utterly transformational. I studied Buddhism in college but never really got into it as a part of my life, but find myself now that I'm in my mid-40s and I talk a lot about the pursuit of fulfillment, I find myself talking about detachment that people need to have, what I say, have in their back pocket, detachment. So, if you're ever being overwhelmed by your pursuits, that you remember that you don't have to strive or cling, as you might say. And I'd love to dive into, um, one, just quickly give people, uh, a thumbnail sketch of how you've used Buddhism in a traditional, um, therapy practice and then I want to get into the tenets of Buddhism. Okay. Well, Buddhism and Taoism, you know, have a lot in common and, uh, I read the Tao Te Ching when I was 18, uh, in the context of first learning about Buddhism, Eastern thought in general. So, um, that was like the first big philosophical, psychological, emotional, spiritual influence on me. I was In what way? So, you're 18, was freshman year in college. the first time you read anything to do with Eastern philosophy? to do with with Eastern philosophy, yeah. And why did it hit you? Um there was a passage in a Buddhist collection of verse called the Dhammapada that's just entitled mind. Uh so, and I orient. I I had some vague notion that maybe I could be a psychotherapist cuz it wasn't really work and I liked people and uh you know, I was attuned to uh what was going on emotionally. But anyway, I read this chapter called mind and it it had a description of the untrained mind as being like a fish thrown on dry ground, flapping all day long, quivering. And I was like, oh, that's like what my mind is. Maybe I should read on, you know. Um and then it started talking about how it was possible to do something for a mind like that. And so, I was immediately pulled in. And then you know, I was a good reader. So, uh uh every psychology course, every anthropology course, every trip to the spiritual bookstore, which was called the Sphinx in the basement of a building in Harvard Square, you know, would would churn something up for me. Um so, I started delving in just all by myself, you know, through the books. But then uh uh circumstances led me to meet various uh uh now important Buddhist teachers who became my friends and and uh really influenced me. Uh and so, I was like six or seven years like you know, Buddhism was the main thing I was interested in and then I decided to go to medical school and become a psychiatrist and really become the therapist that I had imagined maybe uh maybe that was some kind of work I could do. So. Going back to the fish flopping and then we'll dive into to Buddhism. I think that's part of why Taoism spoke to me. So, at 16 my mind is going a mile a minute. I am in the grips of inferiority complex in the extreme and there was something about the the concept of be like water, of letting go, of not holding on to things, of there's there's just a a serenity almost to the way that if Laozi was really a person, like the way that they convey these ideas. if Laozi was really a person. Yeah. And is that the thing that keyed you in was you could actually feel your mind calming down? Um I think the thing that keyed me in was was the beauty of the verse, you you know, that there was the possibility of my mind calming down or the possibility of being something other than my inferiority complex, you know? Uh I remember I went to a um uh psychotherapist in those days that they had at the university in the health service uh cuz I you know, inferiority complex is one way of describing, you know, how a young man might feel, you know? Uh uh in his first or second year of college. Um and I remember I unburdened myself to this guy who was a practitioner of short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy which was popular in those days in the '70s this was. Uh I unburdened myself. He was a very well put together guy, you know, beautiful suit, very really nice shoes I remember. Um and at the end of three sessions he said, "Oh, you know, your problems there it's um uh not that difficult, you know, it's like basically the Oedipus complex." And I and I was like, "Oedipus complex?" Like, "You but he didn't explain anything, you know, he was like and so so my condition had a name, you know, but there was nothing that I could do about it. Uh And then I met these Buddhist teachers who Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield, Ram Dass, Sharon Salzberg. I met this whole slew of Buddhist teachers who were like, "Stop trying to figure out what's wrong with you and just like pay attention to who you are, you know, be more in what's already there, you know." And they taught me the very beginning of how to meditate. And and then I was like, I can't really do this, that you know, like am I doing it right? Uh but I stayed with it and those questions are what everyone goes through, you know, am I doing am I doing it right? So gradually gradually, you know, the the Tao that can be named is not the real Tao, you know. So so I stopped trying to figure out what all this was about and just started to do it and that gave me great confidence, um or great faith, you might say. And and I've tried to bring that confidence or that faith into the practice of psychotherapy, you know, where somehow maybe I can infuse a little bit of that into other people's consciousness. And to help them settle their mind. To help them settle their mind or their heart, open their heart, settle their heart, you know, be in their body, connect their mind to their body, connect their heart to their mind. There are various ways to talk about it. It's really interesting that that ends up being sort of the core tenant of meditation is be here, be now. There's something about being grounded, not letting your mind be in the past or in the future that is it would be a little hyperbolic of me to say it saved my life, but wow, has it impacted the quality of my life and allowed me to and this is like the most un-Buddhist statement of all time, but it's allowed me to go harder and faster towards my dreams because I can carry a larger burden of stress, and I can deal with more things because I know how to reset. think that's un-Buddhist at all. I I I think the point The point of all of that is to be able to actualize your potential, your individual potential, you know, who you need to be. So, it it's to make you more you, you know, uh in your own particular incarnation, your own particular way. Um so, and then what, you know, watch out, world, here you come. 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Peace. So, let's get into the tenets of Buddhism cuz until I read your book and you introduced me to a new word, which I have no doubt will be where you start by explaining the Four Noble Truths, Mhm. um but my takeaway of the Buddhist um teachings and probably the reason that I didn't pursue it in the way that I pursued Taoism was it was a sense of like life is suffering, and you have to detach in order to navigate it well and I was like "Uh, to me Buddhism felt like the choice. In fact, I will say that Buddhism until I read your book, which was very recent, I would have described as detachment versus engagement. And so because I I liked, as I was saying before we started rolling, I keep detachment in my back pocket to make sure that I never get overwhelmed, but I want to engage and you have a very different way of explaining the Buddhist philosophy and I'd love to hear it. Well, before I explain it, you know, the point of detachment is engagement. So, that's the that's the you know, what are you detaching from? You're detaching from trying to control everything too much, you know, in this world that's filled with uncertainty. So, we try to control as much as we can, that's the job of the ego, and we can do a lot, but we can't do everything. So, then the detachment comes in, you know, not clinging to the pleasant, not pushing away the unpleasant, that's the training of the mind that you start to do in meditation. So, people often misunderstand the Buddha's teachings like oh it's just life is suffering, it's too depressing, the point is to you know, stop trying to be happy and accept the suffering. That's a misunderstanding in my view of what the Buddha taught. So, the Buddha laid out his psychological teachings the first time he decided to speak or the second time really, but very early in his teaching career, he laid out his psychological spiritual teachings in the form of the four noble truths. And he did it in the way that medical practitioners of of his time talked about illness and suffering. So, he he first uh the diagnosis of the condition, then he gave the cause, then he gave the treatment. Um and in between he said there's a a solution, you know? So, uh when he gave the cause, uh when when when he named sorry, when he named the um the condition, he just used a single word, and the word he used was dukkha, which I think is what you were referencing before. So, uh he just said dukkha, and that's been translated as suffering, but a better translation would be uh a kind of sense of unsatisfactoriness that permeates our experience. He didn't deny pleasure. He didn't He didn't deny happiness, but he said that even with pleasurable experiences, you know, they always end at some point. So, there's always a kind of leftover, you you know, uh bittersweetness even to intense pleasure because there's something in us that doesn't let go easily, that wants more, that gets a little bit uncomfortable, you know, when it ebbs out. So, uh that sense of unsatisfactoriness he called dukkha. Um but if you take the word apart, the word dukkha, it actually means hard to face. So, kha means face, dukkha duh is like difficult. There's another word sukha, which means sweet to face, which is the pleasure of life, you know? But the Buddha said there's this quality of dukkha. There's this quality of experience that's hard to face. And our instinctual tendency, this gets to the second noble truth, our instinctual tendency is to turn away from that which is hard to face, you know? And the Buddha said, "Actually, the reason I'm teaching meditation and so on is because that's training in facing that which is hard to face." And that there's something beneficial, and so this is what I've tried to bring into the practice of psychotherapy. There's something beneficial in allowing ourselves and in training ourselves to be with that which is difficult in ourselves, in our partners, in life, you you know. And that when we do that, and I think that's the detachment part that you're keeping in your back pocket, you know. When when we do that, when we allow ourselves to be uncomfortable, when we recognize that we're clinging a little bit to the pleasures that can't be sustained, you know, when we face those issues, something settles down in us, and we're able to actually deal more effectively with the life that we're living, with the hand that we've been dealt. Okay, that is that was really revolutionary for me. The idea that this was not about detachment and moving into the mountains and being completely removed, which was a thing that never sat well. It felt like I was going to miss out on something. in the mountains here. Yeah, that I I found something so pleasurable about going after something, but that the pursuit was incredibly dangerous emotionally. Unfortunately, I learned this firsthand, but it was incredibly dangerous emotionally if I was valuing myself based on whether I achieved the thing. And it was dangerous emotionally not because I wasn't even necessarily going to achieve it, but that even in achievement, I couldn't stand in that achievement, that it was temporary by its nature, it was fleeting, and I became obsessed with this idea of you're having a biological experience. And what I mean by that is your neurochemistry is going to change, and it could change because we have this sort of lingering sense of unease that I know that this is going to pass. Or just that that's the way the world works, and you can never eat a meal so grand that you're never hungry again. You can never drink a glass of water that's so thirst-quenching that you never get thirsty again. And so I was like, "Hmm, okay, this doesn't make sense. So, I need to change how I think about it, but I it's really a puzzle piece coming together for me to think of it as these are things that are difficult to face. That is the nature of being human. And, most importantly, if you're trying to not face them, it becomes more problematic Yeah. not less. Why though? Well, there's something in in the way you're describing your own experience that speaks to a kind of perfectionism, I think, that uh a lot of ambitious, talented people uh have to deal with. Uh where there's there's um you know, striving and success, but the success is never enough because there's always somebody else who's more successful, you know, or you've reached this plateau and then, as you said, you've you did it and then what's the next thing? And often there's a lot of insecurity underneath the perfectionistic striving. So, the the Buddhist thing comes in, you you know, to help with that. The the Buddha himself was one of these perfectionists, you you know, before he got enlightened, he was trying all the spiritual practices of his day, you know, that were like ascetic practices, not eating all you know, he was into fasting, he he was into yoga, he was into all kinds of meditation that took him out of his body rather than keeping him connected to the earth, you know. Um and he kept getting as far as you could go, you know, he was like the the best yoga student, the best faster, he would the best anorectic, you know, like uh uh only eating like the purest foods that that that no one had ever touched, you know? And none of them were working, you know? None of them were working. And that's the kind of thing that in in in our world where so much success is possible, so much achievement really is achievable, you you know? But people still are coming up against the limits of their own minds. And that happened to the Buddha. That's why it's so touching, you know, his own story, his own teachings. And it wasn't until he had a childhood memory, the Buddha. It wasn't until he remembered himself as a young boy sitting under a rose apple tree, like sort of blissing out under the tree while his father was in the distance plowing in the fields. And at the height of his perfectionistic striving, his ascetic practices, he remembered himself as a young boy under the tree. And And I always think that's the first kind of self-analysis that ever happened historically, although maybe Socrates, you know? Um but he said to himself, "Why am I thinking of this now? Like what is this trying to tell me? You know, maybe my all my striving is like the wrong way to the awakening, to the enlightenment that I'm seeking. Maybe I should listen to this feeling of being a young boy under the tree feeling joyful, you know? Maybe there's some kind of joyfulness that's intrinsic to who I am that I'm not paying attention to, that I should learn how to uh incorporate into, you know, my regular life." And uh uh he he he remembered that feeling, and then he said to himself, "Yes, I think I'm going to try that direction." And then what right away a young woman appears, you know, bearing a bowl of rice porridge, you know, to feed the the hungry Buddha because he thinks to himself, you know, "With a body so emaciated, I'll never be able to uh sustain this joyful feeling that I'm remembering. So, there's something about allowing the actually the joy, you know, not the suffering that is deep in the Buddhist teachings that I think we need in today's psychotherapy, you know, just the the analyst telling me that I was suffering from my Oedipus complex wasn't going to help me, you know, the way finding finding that joy in my own in my own heart has helped me. All right. At some point we need to come back to the other three Noble Truths, but in in the do it quickly for you. Um let's come back because you just said something that I think is really interesting. So, in the book you talk about some pretty difficult cases, people that really had some profound childhood trauma, and how do they find their joy? Like, what is that unwinding? I have a lot of people ask me about childhood trauma. I've had childhood trauma experts on. Childhood trauma freaks me out. It's one of the reasons that I don't have children. Is that Oh god, I don't remember who said it, Plato, Aristotle, maybe the only impossible job is raising children, and that strikes me as absolutely true. How, if you have gone through a significant childhood trauma, and you're in your 40s or whatever, like, how do you begin to unwind that and let that joy express itself? Well, that's where that's where the Buddha's first teachings are really helpful. That there's an aspect to experience that's hard to face. So, that could be deep childhood trauma, it often is, you know, or it could be something much more subtle, like in childhood where parents are too busy, too depressed, too drunk, too involved in their own careers, to give the kind of attention that every child deserves and every child needs. So, more of an absence instead of a presence. That's a kind of trauma also. But, what many of us are carrying some kind of trauma. And the the tendency with all trauma is to try to look away, to try to be normal. So, people spend a lot of energy tensing their emotional bodies up to avoid what they actually have already experienced. And then, unfortunately, the tendency is to project, we say, to project those um traumatic elements onto the present or onto the future. So, to be afraid that, you know, their grown-up partner is going to hurt them the way their father hurt them, that kind of thing. Or that the world is going to collapse the way uh a a child's world seemed to collapse. So, uh the psychotherapeutic approach, in my view, to dealing with trauma is to help a person very, very gradually to begin to experience the traumatic remnant of what did or did not happen to them, you know, to sort of lower them in very, very slowly, the way you would go into very cold water, you know, like like an an inch at a time kind of thing. But, if you've ever done that, it becomes tolerable you know, if you go slowly enough. So, once the emotional stuff gets metabolized or digested, I I try to say, um then we're not the only the traumatized person, you you know, like um I spent a lot of time when I was younger with with Ram Dass, uh the former Richard Alpert, who became a friend and a teacher. And what I always remember from him saying to me was you're not who you think you are. Mark. You're not who you think you are. It's like I'm not who I think I am, you know. But I think that applies even to people who have been really badly traumatized, you know, they're not only the trauma. You you know, and so once they it it um once they start relating to their traumatic history in a different way, then then the potential exists for them to experience themselves as not only the trauma. Like my one of my good meditation teachers, Joseph Goldstein, always says it's not what you're experiencing or what you've experienced that matters, it's how you relate to it. So so that's become like a mantra for me, you know, it's not what you've experienced that matters, it's how you relate to it. That we actually have the capacity to change how we relate to experience. That's fundamental to the Buddhist teachings. And that's what's healing. Okay, that's that is such an important concept and so big and so hard to convey. Mhm. So I just wrote this saying that I called the life map and it's trying to get across that concept, what I call frame of reference. Your frame of reference is to you what water is to a fish. They don't realize that they're in it or that there is any sense of not being in it. It just is. And finding something to peel away so that you can get under it and realize, oh my god, like this is a construct of my own making. I have built a relationship to this trauma which does not strike me as a constructed relationship. It strikes me as merely recognizing the fundamental truth of the matter. How do you help people, other than slowly getting them into the emotion? How do you get them to see that like you you have constructed something that the trauma yes is real it happened but you've created a way of looking at it thinking about it whatever that's now marring your present and thusly your future. Yeah. Well, that question like how do I actually help people? Um is is why I wrote the book um because the book describes the Zen of Therapy Uncovering a Hidden Kindness in Life. It's why I wrote it cuz the the the book is basically centered on a year's worth of psychotherapy sessions that I picked randomly so not following the same patients but um sessions where I felt oh maybe I helped this person a little bit in this session like like how did I help them? Cuz it cuz I think psychotherapy really it's such an act of faith like you know like two people sitting and talking and you're supposed to feel better out of this conversation and what am I what am I doing anything really? Like that's always in the same way I was questioning when I first started to meditate am I doing it right you know? Like as a therapist it's such a like I trust I trust that I'm people keep coming back so and they say I'm helping them but how am I helping them and how is the Buddhist thing involved in that? Uh I'm never uh I'm never totally sure. Um but cuz all I'm doing is engaging in the conversation you know? Uh I want to know what's going on inside of them but I can usually sense or feel how or where they're shutting down around themselves you know? Where they have decided this is who I am I'm this kind of person this is what happened to me this is my limitation this is all I can do and there's something in me as a therapist that's always pushing against that you know like like I think it's like a martial arts sort of thing you you know but gentler but in getting them to reframe it's like I'm joking I'm I'm trying to it's getting them to reframe yes but but I'm trying to insinuate myself into their mind in a in some way that they then start questioning what they're saying like this isn't the only way to see like maybe you're misconstruing like what about this you know so I'm playing with them in a certain mental way but but I can only do that if they're really trusting if they like me if they're really trusting me you know I'd love to give people an example so there's one in the book that's profound which is the child of the two Holocaust survivors Mhm. That was a pretty magical reframe do you mind walking people through that No I'd be happy to that's the first one in the book so a patient named Jack who I've seen for a long time son of two Holocaust survivors grew up poor in Brooklyn both his parents parents each had children before the war who got stripped away when they got taken to the concentration camps and killed the the the father got swept up right when the war began and ended up in Auschwitz and then on a death march etc the mother was from Vilnius educated family two children lost the children anyway the The met in a displaced person camp after the war. They walked to France. They uh came to Brooklyn. And they had my patient. And he's a brilliant you know he went to uh City University. He's a brilliant guy. Ended up in therapy with me. Um and he would always come into the session like Mark, when will when will I ever be healed? When will I ever be healed? And it was a refrain. And when he was younger the refrain to his parents were uh was uh it was I a good boy today? Uh because my sense was he felt his parents suffering, but they never talked about it. You know once he overheard you not once probably more than once he overheard them with other Holocaust survivors. They would have conversations, you know, like do you remember the dogs kind of those kind of conversations, but but um uh they couldn't talk about the the uh uh previous children or any so so my patient Jack he would feel the parents pain pain as children do he would take responsibility for it. So if he was a better boy, if he was a better student, you you know, maybe they would smile, you know. Um so uh they're now deceased. They he's now my age. Um he's in the office with me when will I ever be healed? And I had this like sudden flash. Like you don't need to be healed. You were the healer. You you know, like imagine your parents losing those children and then they come to this country and they have you. You know, they like the as difficult as it might have been for them to show you, you know, imagine how incredible that was for them, you know, you and your sister You know, and and then I thought of um there's a Buddhist um saint basically, a Buddhist Bodhisattva in China and Japan and Tibet. In in China and Japan she is called Kuan Yin or Kannon. And then in Tibet somehow she became a man and he is called Avalokiteshvara. But Kuan Yin, the Chinese or Japanese version, Kuan Yin means the word the name translates as she who hears our cries. So I asked Jack, you know, have you ever heard of this? No. Let me tell you about Kuan Yin, you know, she who hears our cries. You were like you were like Kuan Yin, you heard their cries, you came down, you you let yourself incarnate, you know, you're the healer. And he heard me. You know? He heard me. And for a moment he felt it, you know? So instead of when will he ever be healed, which is sort of what I was saying before, like the old trauma being perpetuated and projected onto the present and the future, you know, like there was something wrong, he didn't know what it was, there's still something wrong, he's incorporated it into himself, there's something wrong with me, you know? So for a moment I got him out of that. You know? By talking this Buddhist stuff. Um and he you know, I sent him with all the patients in the book when I wrote the session up, I sent it to him to review and so the these sessions that were momentary and fleeting got kind of locked down in an anti-Buddhist way, you know, preserved. But so it's become a really nice touchstone um us and he said he's got lots of statues of Kuan Yin now in his in his home. So The idea of a Bodhisattva is really interesting. Somebody that is enlightened but instead of going do they transcend in Nirvana? Is that the idea? Well, they it's like what is Nirvana? You know, that's a basic Buddhist in some views of Nirvana, Nirvana is like over there somewhere like like outside the universe like the Buddha checks out, you know? But after a couple of hundred years, the people who were actually experiencing Nirvana started to question that whole view and they were like Samsara which is this world, Samsara is Nirvana, you know, there's nowhere to go. It's just we're misperceiving what this world is all about. So when we get enlightened, we start to see that oh Nirvana is it's it's right here right now. It's all around us. There's nothing there's nowhere else to go. There's nothing to do but to stay here and help other, you know, unfortunate people who haven't yet realized that we're in a beautiful place. We're not in a hell zone, you know, despite what's going on around us. So the Bodhisattva is committed to helping others cuz there's nothing else to do. They're already enlightened. They see it. You know, it's like they've taken the ayahuasca or whatever. They but but it's not a fleeting experience. They know it and so then they become committed to helping others. So in Tibet when when Kuan Yin became a male figure and became Avalokiteshvara, they portray him with a thousand arms. So why does he have a thousand arms? Because he's reaching down for to all the drowning people to like pull them up out of their own ignorance, you know, out of their own suffering, out of their own tears. So he's got a thousand arms cuz he's doing it for everybody, you know. It's so interesting. That always I I remember learning about that very early on in my exploration of Buddhism and I thought, "Oh, that's a really cool idea of somebody sticking around." The way that I had heard it was maybe um my misunderstanding, but that they could be, you know, um go up and become a god, but instead they go around on the wheel of um reincarnation and they just keep coming back over and over and over to help people. Uh I always found that a a heartwarming idea. Definitely heartwarming. Yeah, it's really cool. All right, what are the other three noble truths? The first noble truth is dukkha. There is this unsatisfactoriness that we um uh uh um ordinarily can't escape from. The second noble truth is the cause of the unsatisfactoriness is clinging or craving or ignorance or delusion, you know, that we uh misperceive reality. Uh and in so doing, we hold on to the pleasant, push away the unpleasant, or if there's something perverse in us, we hold on to the unpleasant and push away the pleasant, but whatever we're doing, we're relating in a strange way to reality. That's the second noble truth, the cause. The third noble truth is nirvana. You know, there is escape. There is a way out. And the way out is to change how we relate, how we think, how we perceive. And the fourth noble truth is the path. You know, how do we change our view of reality? And it has to do with uh right thought, right motivation, right energy, right effort, right concentration, right mindfulness. There's a slew of uh the eightfold path, it's called, but it's basically a way of of training the mind and body. And and meditation is only, you know, uh a couple of limbs of the eightfold path. People tend to think that it's all about meditation, but meditation is one tool that the Buddha talked about. Another very important one is right speech. Uh and right speech in its lowest form, people say, "Oh, don't gossip, you know." But right speech has a lot to do with how we talk to ourselves. So, uh the the uh eightfold path is a way of introducing us to our own inner experience and making us conscious of all the ways that we're telling stories to ourselves that aren't necessarily true. Okay, the eightfold path is going to be really important, but first I want to talk about clinging. So, you've given us a definition that we're misunderstanding the nature of the world, but it does feel quite wise to me to pursue pleasure and to a shoe pain. Certainly from um how do we get here? So, I'm taking a very um evolutionary approach to saying, "Okay, this is what kept us alive this long. Maybe in a modern context it has some pathology or maybe always it had some pathology, but at least it kept us alive long enough to have kids that have kids." Um why would it be uh an improper understanding of the world to try to cling to pleasure and push away pain? Um it it's not an improper understanding. It's an instinctual thing. So, you're absolutely right. Biologically and so on, it it's gotten us very far. It's just it has limits, you know? So, we always come up against it. So, even, you know, driving in Los Angeles when there's a lot of traffic, you know? Like you're stuck in the traffic. So, what can you do? You know? Uh you can make yourself as comfortable as possible in the car. You can listen to a podcast. You can put on the air conditioning, you know? But if you have to get somewhere and you're stuck, what can you do? So, that um that aspect of life is present incontrovertibly, you know, COVID. You like, where did that come from? Why won't it go away? What how are we going to deal with this, you know? We do our best, you know? We work from home, we we stop going out, we do you know, then it's like years later, what do we what do we do? Something has to change in the way that we're relating to the world, you know, cuz there's an unpleasant thing going on, you know, and that's just COVID. You know, so um you could look at it from that perspective. The other way that I talk about it a lot is around having children. Uh is with young babies, you know, when you're a parent of a young child, it is not an entirely pleasant experience, you know, and and the child is not an entirely pleasant being as cute as they are. They're they're a ruthless ball of every emotion that humans are capable of all fused into one thing and they're throwing that at you and as the parent, you have to deal with it, you know? So, if you get offended because your child is uh is exploding with anger or need at you, if you get if if you um uh push away, if you if you push the child away or if you yourself pull away, then what kind of parent are you being? So, being being a good enough parent requires staying with the unpleasant aspects of having children, you you know, and that's a huge task that so many of us really really struggle with and the but the Buddhist teaching is such a help because it's what it's saying is, this aspect of experience is unavoidable and we can find our best selves by staying with it. It, you know, rather than trying to get away from it. And as a therapist I can I can assert how important that is for people, you know, cuz the child, like my patient I told you about, the child feels the parent's pain and assumes that they are the cause and sometimes they are. That's interesting. In that example. Yes, but then they become, you know, it's not just, oh, I was hungry and and my mom couldn't find the milk, you you know. It was like there's something fundamentally wrong with me. You know, that children begin to take that in and then then that becomes such a source of identity and shame that people are struggling with long into adulthood. Yeah, it's interesting that feels like that brings us back to this idea of reframing. That really what you do, okay, I'm stuck in traffic. I have there's nothing for me to do and if there is by all means do it, but if there's no way for me to not be stuck in traffic, I can either sit here and be wound up and be angry and wind myself up and make it worse or I can reframe it and would the Buddhist encouragement be to find something beautiful in that moment or to just accept, like what's the take? No, the well, the Buddhist thing would be, you will always have your breath. You know, the breath grateful or you have your breath to sort of modulate your neurochemistry. The the the Buddha didn't know about the neurochemistry in those words, but he knew about the breath. So you you always have the breath. The breath is like the often the central object of meditation. So it's like the place of refuge for for many people. It doesn't work for everybody. Some some traumatized people have the breath is too fraught, but for many people the breath is like Because their mind is just going to be replete with negative memories? Because they were hiding in a closet while their parents were screaming at each other and they were holding their breath. You know, basically. Some version of that. So the So the ease with the breath that we look for in meditation is hard to find for some people. And for those people there are other objects like just the the sounds that are ever present even within silence that can become a central object of meditation instead. Um but but for for many people the breath works. It's a neutral It's a neutral object. It connects us to the outside world. You know, is the breath in me or is it out there? So when you're sitting in traffic, if you're not just listening to the radio or whatever, but you're starting to get frustrated you can bring your attention just to the actual physical sensation of the breath as it enters and leaves the nostrils. And just that is like a a cue into the a possibility of of inner peace that is always with you, you know, lurking in the background even on the highway, you know, even when your child is uh screaming at you. You know, even when you're frustrated, it's possible to turn away from the frustration to the object of meditation. Okay, and the purpose of that would be to again calm the mind. Yeah. To not cling to the emotion cuz your book has a really interesting relationship to anger and aggression. Now might be the time. So we have we can try to suppress our anger, which a lot of people do, and they develop a very unhealthy relationship which you catalog in the book really extraordinary. I remember at one point stopping going, "What's the title of this section?" cuz I was listening to it. Uh aggression, and I was like, "It's interesting you're talking about kids a lot and aggression." And I was like, "This is not what I expected." Like there was such a level of honesty and um sort of forthrightness about how to have a relationship with anger. I was like, "In a book called The Zen of Therapy?" I was just so pleasantly surprised. Um so we have what you just described, which is you can sort of turn away to the breath, so that the anger dissipates, I would assume. Hopefully, yeah, a little bit. But how do we What kind of relationship should we have to anger? Um the relationship that I'm uh reaching for uh that we uh maybe could have to anger. Uh Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Buddhist teacher who died not that long ago, used to say, "Hold anger like a baby." Okay. Hold anger like a baby. So what does that mean? Does that mean hold anger the way, you know, rock it like you rock a baby? Or does it mean hold anger the way a baby holds anger? You you know? So I think he probably meant the former, but in but but there's some way to think about it as the latter also uh because in meditation, yes, the first thing we do is use the breath as a kind of neutral object to quiet the mind, calm the body down, turn away from the frustration. But where meditation goes when you practice it for a while, is that everything becomes an object of meditation. So uh the anger itself becomes an object of meditation. The burglar alarm going off becomes an object of meditation. The flat tire that I had the first day I rented car uh a couple of weeks ago had to become an object of meditation, you know, your own emotional experience, your own thoughts become objects of meditation because you're changing the way that you're relating to them. That's that fundamental thing. it's an object of meditation, what do you mean exactly? Well, as human beings we're capable of being both the thinker and the observer of the thought. You know, we're both subject and object. We have this self-reflective capacity, you know, where we look in the mirror and we know that's us or we're thinking our thoughts and we know we're thinking our thoughts. So it's a very weird thing evolutionarily where we've become capable of this. So um you can be angry and then there's somewhere in you like in Buddhism they call it a spy consciousness that's like off to the side that knows that you're angry and can see can feel the anger bubbling and can can witness the angry thoughts. So what we're doing in meditation is we're reinforcing that observational capacity. Uh that that is inherent in all of us. So we're moving from figure to ground would be another way to of saying it, you know. Figure to ground. Figure to ground like like figure the the cup, you know, and ground is the space around the cup. So we think we're the cup like I'm just this angry person, you know, or you're or you're pissed at me and I you know, but there's all this space around the anger, you know. That's the observational capacity of the mind. So we're we're training ourselves to be able to be in both places at once, you know, or to oscillate back and forth between this is me and then oh, you know, and I think that's the relaxation that you felt in the Daoist way of thinking right from from the beginning, you know, that you were talking. So, um so once you once you realize that that's a possibility, then that possibility is with you all the time. So, then So, then when that you aren't the anger itself. Yeah, you're not just the difficulty that you're that you're facing, the immediate difficulty, you know, that you have to deal with. But and you could be involved in dealing with it, but you also can be like sort of watching it from the side. And that ability to be also watching it from the side gives you a lot more choice in how you're dealing with the situation. So, instead of just like, oh, so we're talking about about children and you know, young raising infants and so on. So, um the the infant is having a hard time uh and you don't know what to do and the impulse comes to like just shut up or you know, but most mothers won't resort to that could because there's some kind of inherent maternal understanding. In In Buddhist meditation, we're reinforcing that kind of inherent maternal understanding, you know, like we still see, oh, shut up comes up in our minds, you know, but it's just a thought. Like we can just witness it as a thought instead of being propelled by it, you you know. So, that's what the Buddha in in the Eightfold Path called right action, you know, instead of taking the bait, our own bait. It you know, instead of taking our own bait and then acting destructively, which we're all capable of doing, we learn to recognize the destructive impulse and that's what a lot of that last section of the book is about about aggression and so on. We learn to recognize the destructive impulse, not to judge it, you know, uh to to recognize that yes, we're feeling that way because we wish that things weren't the way that they are. Um or interpersonally, like this happens in intimate relationships uh a lot, you know, I I wish that you were more uh what I need you to be. You know, and you're not. You know, and what where where are you? You know, and that pisses me off, you know, the way you're talking to me and so on. But then if I can work with my own anger in this way that we're talking, somewhere along the way I recognize that oh, you're actually a separate person who I don't have control over, you know, who I have to figure out how to relate to kindly, you you know. So, uh working with my own anger ultimately leads me to a place of empathy, uh to a place of kindness to the other person that I'm involved with. It can be a long process, but that but that's the um that's the trajectory. The idea of the ego you've sort of danced with it a little bit here. You go into more detail and I can't remember if it's in the book or just talks I've heard you give, but um are we trying to get rid of the ego? Is that a thrust of Buddhism or is it just a changing relationship to the ego? How would you define the ego? The The it's not trying to get rid of the ego cuz we need the ego. For what? Um we need the ego for for dealing with the immediate problems that we face. That That's what the the ego is all about, dealing with the immediate. It It's a mediator, in fact, you you know, the the the ego is like, you know, on the iPhone, the thing that counts your steps that people are so into. The ego is like counting your steps, you know? It's like this is what you have to do today. You know, this is in order to satisfy the demands of the environment, you know, be a good person. Uh you need the ego to like put the garbage out on the right nights and separate the recyclables from from the rest. You need the ego to do your homework, you know, to do And to recognize that my wife is a separate person from me and is an autonomous being. Yeah. Is that true? Uh you need the ego even to meditate, you know, to to sit down on the cushion and watch your breath. That's an ego function, you know? So, the ego is like moving us around in the world, you know? That's how And the ego develops in the um the first couple of years of life as the child realizes that oh, they have a mind and that they're separate from their mother, from their father. They have to deal with them, you know? And the ego recognizes that oh, I'm just this little person in this in this world that's full of big people and there's so many more of them and what And I have to go to school and what learn to read and what how to go to the bathroom and wipe myself, you know? That's all ego stuff. Um and the ego wants to be in control uh and thinks it should be able to be in control of everything. Uh but you and we all know people who are so into their egos that they're impossible to be around cuz they're trying to control everything including you, you you know? So, um the Buddha recognized and Western psychotherapists also recognized that the ego's not everything, that one of the things the ego has to learn to do is to relax itself, to unburden itself. Um that we don't have to be integrated all the time as I'm Mark and I know who I am and so on that there's something called unintegration that happens when I'm reading a book or taking a walk in the woods or uh after sex or making art or you know all listening to music so much cultural activity is about allowing yourself to settle into an unintegrated state that which is different from disintegrating the way a crazy person Yeah. would be. Define the difference. Um uh in unintegration the ego is like safely put aside. So it's like the zone? Uh it could be like the zone. It could be like the zone. It When the Buddha remembered himself sitting under the rose apple tree with a joyful feeling it's kind of blessing out under the tree knowing that his father was there in the distance that was a state of unintegration. Okay. When you're in church and people are singing together you know and you're caught up in the swell of the group activity. That that's a state of unintegration. When you're playing basketball and you're you know you're sinking the baskets and getting you can feel the ball coming before you know the zone. That's a state of unintegration. It's there it it comes you know there's so many different uh ways that it can manifest itself but the that's very enriching for the ego. That's very sustained The ego doesn't need or doesn't want uh actually to be in control all the time you know we just need it for certain things and then we have to learn to let it go. That can be scary for people they feel especially people who uh were traumatized when they were young and not didn't have the ego support that a parents who are present but not too present give to a young child, you know, that's why the Buddhist father plowing in the fields is like one of our parents like making dinner in the kitchen and we're on the floor in the living room like playing our games and imagining playing out stories, you know, imagination is all so where we go when we're in a state of unintegration. So, that's all pleasurable really and tolerable. Disintegration is what you see in a schizophrenic person or in someone who's going through a manic episode where they can't control all the stuff that's coming in inner and outer has become one and there's no processing function that's left inside the brain, you know, that's a dysfunctional kind of time. Or someone with a panic attack, you know, where the anxiety has just taken over. That's a like a state of disintegration that's very unpleasant. Um but so so we need the ego but we don't need it all the time. Right. Okay, eightfold path. So, one is there I don't know if you have them memorized but if you do just a quick run through at a high level of what they are and then I'm I know I'm super interested in in learning more about meditation and how to leverage that but there might be more on the eightfold path that we should talk about. Um the eightfold path is basically just a way of cataloging that we can learn to apply this basic teaching of not clinging in every aspect of life. So, Uh the first couple of limbs of the eightfold path are about uh right understanding, about right thought. Uh so it's like how we're thinking about things. Do we think that this reality where our impulses are uh driving us, you know, is this the right way to be living or the wrong way to be living? You know you know. So with right with right thought, with right understanding, we start to question the way Ram Dass has uh questioned to me, you know, like you're not who you think you are, you know. That's right thought. You're not who you think you are. You you know, rather than buying into everything that your thoughts are telling you. And so is that the idea of recognizing you're not who you think you are just so you don't over invest in the the story that you're replaying in your mind? So is that to give you flexibility so that you can You talked earlier about realizing your potential, which I was not expecting you to say, but a super encouraging. Um is that the idea that if I if I'm too fixated on who I think I am, then I don't open myself up to what else could be? Absolutely. Okay. Absolutely. And that, you know, uncertainty is such a fact of life. You you know you know. So how do we navigate uncertainty? You know. Do we Do we navigate it by trying to be certain all the time? You you know, that gets us, you know, partway there. But the Daoist thing is, you know, like flexibility, like you're saying. How do we How do we work with uh that we don't know what's coming in the next moment, you know. We What's death going to be like, you know, like let alone life. Uh so yes, that's what that's what all that is about. Okay. And then um the next the next three aspects of the eightfold path are all about being in the world. They're all about relationship to the world. It's like right livelihood, right speech, those kinds of right action. I think those are the three. So, um and you can think about them in a sort of superficial way or you can kind of probe into them and try to get a little deeper with them. So, so right speech as I mentioned before can just be about like not idly gossiping, but it can also be about, you know, like how are we talking to ourselves? Um right livelihood can be about like not trading in arms, you know. Um but it can also be about, no matter what you're doing, working for the benefit of others, which would be, you know, sort of where the Buddhist thing is leading. Um and then the last uh chunk of the eightfold path is about meditation. It's about how important it is to train the mind. Uh and so there's right concentration and right mindfulness. And what are we training the mind to do exactly? Uh we're training the mind uh to uh know itself um fully. Uh and therefore to be able to be in the world uh uh uh as uh I like to say partners with the capacities that constitute us. So, uh that what that's another way of saying realizing your full potential. Mhm. Partners with our capacity. With the capacities that constitute us. Is that is that talking about the malleability of that and that okay, I have my potential, but I actually have to go acquire skills. So, that that sequence is how I think through life, but I think it's more you you having your potential, but you have to find it. You know, cuz we don't we I mean certainly my experience was like I don't know who I am. You you know, like like here I am, you know, I like went to school, I was good in school, but I don't, you know, but inside, like, what, what? You, you know, so, so, I mean, I'm just talking super personally, but that process of actually being okay with not being sure about who or what I was, you, you know, the the Buddhist thing gave me permission to not be sure, you, you know, cuz it talks so much about non-self, you know, and emptiness of self, you, you know. You've talked about that though as like a womb versus a void, which I found really interesting. Yeah. So, well, cuz that's what it became, you, you know, so, so, I was troubled you, cuz I don't know, I don't know who I am, you, you know, and what am I supposed to be, what am I doing here, and and what am I capable of, you know, all that sort of insecurity. Um, and what the normal way of dealing with that, uh, you know, would be, okay, I'm going to go to medical school and become a doctor, and now I'm a doctor, and you know, like, so you have to listen to me, cuz I know what's best for you, or whatever. Uh, and my father was a doctor, so that, so that was sort of obvious, and I did become a doctor. Um, but what the what the Buddhist, uh, approach gave me was, and meeting those first meditation teachers and what they were saying to me was, you know, you don't really have to know the way you think you have to know. Like, why don't you just relax and feel yourself, you know, like, why don't you just leave yourself alone and be, and and I and I tried to go there in the book, like, what what is all this about being, being rather than doing, you know, cuz I think it was so important for me. So, so, why don't you leave yourself alone, why don't you just like let yourself be, why don't you see who you are that way, why don't you discover who you are by relating, you know, naturally to the world, to other people, to yourself, you know? Okay, how? You you know? Well, I'll give you some teachings about that. This is what right concentration is, this is what right mindfulness is. Why don't you go sit on that cushion over there and practice with yourself, you know? And just just sit there and try being with yourself, you know, in an open, non-judgmental uh kind way and see what you become. What do you do if you do that and you don't like what you see? Fine. You You That's a lot of the experience. That you know, that's why so much of the book ends up talking about anger and aggression and frustration and so on. That's, you know, there's a whole aspect to life that we want to look away from. That's Dukkha, you know? That's going to be there. So, that's to be expected. So, then you have to learn to, you know, okay, how how can I be with that which I don't want to see about myself, you know, my own inner violence, for instance, you know? So, I can come to terms with that and then, oh, those are just thoughts, you know? That's just a feeling, you know? Okay, so this gets to one of the reasons that I think people struggle with meditation is a Cuz it's so unpleasant. Yeah, they sit down and suddenly their thoughts are unfettered. So, you either are dealing with the monkey mind and your mind is just racing like crazy and you're thinking about your grocery list and all the things you have to get done and oh god, the kids are freaking out or they have a dental appointment or I have a dentist appointment, whatever. And you've got that side, but then you've also got what might be worse, but takes time to get to, which is maybe even more terrifying, which is all of the trifling things fall away and you get to some deep wound that you're worrying over or Or you get to all the people you've hurt. You know, I think that might be even more painful. You know, we we think about the deep wounds and that does come up for people, but there are these other kind of wounds like all the all the people that we've hurt. Like in AA, what what where people go when they get sober, you know, and they have to make amends. Uh or they want to make amends. Um that that kind of stuff comes up too and that's very hard to look at, very painful. You know, people you've lost or people you've hurt or your own destructive actions, you know. Let's take a really gnarly one. You've hurt somebody that has since passed away. Yeah. And now there's no making it right. Right. Now what? Yeah, you you you um instead of looking away from that, instead of tensing up or feeling ashamed, you know, in a self-destructive way, uh you acknowledge and you feel the pain of that. And uh in the Buddhist psychology, they they divide um emotional and cognitive experiences up into helpful and unhelpful, you know, wholesome and unwholesome categories. And they have one that's called remorse, you know, which is a wholesome, helpful, healthy uh feeling, mental feeling. Uh so I think uh remorse that would come up in that kind of situation. You fill your mind with it, you know, you let it you let it get as big as it could be, you know, sitting on a meditation retreat, you know, for as long as it you know, and you breathe in and out with the feelings of remorse. Now, is there some sense of like that is the therapy where I'm going to sit with it, I'm not fighting it. I'm not clinging to it. I'm letting it be. It's getting big. I'm like just letting it go as much as it needs to. I don't see why somebody would do that if that isn't ultimately going to be therapeutic. It's therapeutic in the sense that it's supporting that aspect of the eightfold path. You know, right action in this case where it's going to guard you against doing it again. You know, because you've really felt you know, there's a story in the Buddha's time of a murderer named Angulimala. And Angulimala means like something like a mandala of fingers. He had the or thumbs. He had the severed thumbs of all the people he had murdered in a necklace around his neck. And yeah, and he comes to the Buddha and he becomes a a great student of the Buddha's, a great enlightened being. But in order to get there, he had to you know, feel the destruction that he had wrought upon the world, you know. And so by allowing that to happen, he's able to somehow transcend it? Because when I think about and I mean look, you know better than I as a therapist, but when I think about people that are really struggling with something, they often struggle forever. Like they never find resolution. There are people in my life who I love very much and they are still struggling with things that happened to them or that they did and it's like yo, we're talking about things that are 50, 60 years old. Like what is happening? So certainly the default answer for a non-meditator is not that you can obsessively think about it and it will get better. So what are we doing in meditation that gives us that chance? Well, here's what we're doing. The the the unenlightened view, I think it is we should be able to finish this thing once and for all and be free of it, you know? Uh and I think the enlightened view is going back to it's not what you've experienced that matters, it's how you relate to it. So that how you're relating to either the pain you've caused or the trauma that you that was inflicted upon you changes. So it still going to be there, it's part of your history, you know? We like we until we get Alzheimer's, we're not forgetting our history, you know? Uh so we're carrying it all with us. But how we're carrying it, you know, holding it like a baby, you know, or you know, really encumbered by it. Like um Ram Dass used to say that uh after all his spiritual work, psychedelic work, you know, uh therapy work, uh he what he was carrying, which had seemed like these huge gigantic monsters, you know, hovering over him, had become like delightful little shmoos, with his language, you know? So but they but they're still all him, you know? So but I think it's more like that. It's very interesting. Um Yeah, I mean, meditation is is really fascinating. There's multiple kinds of meditation. I'll I do what I call just breathe. It's not really mindfulness cuz I'm not in there dealing with demons or anything like that. I'm just coming back to the be a mindful quality to just breathing. If you're if you're attending uh uh dispassionately to the breath, that you're being mindful of the breath. But how do how would it ever get to uh that next level of like And I mean, look, I there are enough things that bother me. I certainly don't think that I um don't have things, but when I meditate, that isn't what I struggle with. What I struggle with in meditation is not that I struggle with it. The reason I meditate is that I can feel what I call background radiation. It's building. It's stress. It's anxiety. The anxiety for sure is tied to insecurities and am I going to be able to do what I'm trying to do? What are the implications of doing it or not doing it? Knowing that achieving is never going to work, but like it's still fun, but it's this weird balance. So, these are all the things that like I'm trying to release is probably the right word, but I think of it as just releasing it in the moment to not let it like build up and create this using my words obviously, but not creating this neurochemical overwhelm. So, something is happening. It's causing me to to really get clinical to secrete um cortisol. And so, you know, maybe my heart rate is racing, my blood pressure is going up. I feel completely uneasy and I just really want to get back to neutral. Man, meditation works and I mean works every time. It is crazy. It is I was actually a little sad because there is an ongoing debate between my wife and myself because I want her to meditate. She hates it. And you said, "Yeah, meditation is just not for everybody." But man, from the first breath I took from my diaphragm, I was like, "Hold on. Like this is regardless of what I'm thinking about, physiologically, this is moving me into a different state and it feels awesome." Like I love it. I just feel relaxed. And because of my work, I go through things at times where there's just so much money on the line. It's very stressful. And even in those times, I have found that I'm never more than 45 minutes away from equanimity. And but it isn't it's not a thinking through tragedy or anything like that. Well, not everyone has the tragedy to to think through. So, you don't have to go searching for it. So, that's that seems just fine. The what you described as the background radiation, like I think there's a way that you might be being more mindful of of the background radiation not just the breath than you think. In terms of a reframe? In terms of allowing that which has accumulated and bothering you to settle down under the umbrella of your awareness, you know, which it which it will do if you leave it alone. Why does it settle? And and I think we have to define settle. So, when you say that, I interpreted that to mean that I'm coming to a peaceful acceptance that it is. But, is that what you mean by settle? Yeah, you're you're not exacerbating it. You're not in a tense relationship with it. Ordinarily, I would guess if you're anything like me, in your regular day you'll be wrestling with it. You know, like there'll be something in there that's bothering you, you know. And your mind will be going there. But, what you're describing by centering yourself on the breath, which you love, and which you have a lot of confidence about, but you're aware of the background radiation, you know, but you're leaving it alone. You know, you're leaving it alone, but you're not ignoring it. You know, you're So, you're in that kind of middle zone that I think meditation brings you to, even if you're not deliberately telling yourself that that's what you're doing, you're doing it. So, you know, seems to be seems to be a helpful thing. It's definitely a helpful thing. And I have found there's a one-two punch for me. So, meditation is is the way that I deal with the background radiation. And beliefs are how I make sure that not too much background radiation builds up. So, um for instance, if you think that your value is determined by your success, your accolades, your acquisitions, whatever, um I I have experienced firsthand that that just is a horrible way to live because it all feels so fragile and so tenuous. And I'm just like, I've got it, but I could lose it. And so, it's like, okay, well, that just feels like it's raising my background radiation, so I don't want to do that. So, what's another frame of reference? And I do wonder sometimes, for a long time I was like, you know, I don't know how I got on the path of what I'll call um pursuing a growth mindset. And then as I kept like trying to figure out like what was that first moment, I realized it was reading the Tao Te Ching. And going back to it, it it plants the seeds like obviously Laozi never would have used those words, but it plants the seeds for reframing, for recognizing that you can improve, even if all you're doing is improving at living and not being stressed out and grasping and clinging and all that. And so, that began to open my mind of, oh, okay, well, I suck at this now, but I could actually get better. And so, then it became easier to apply that to other things. So, through beliefs about how I view the world and the thing that I encourage myself and others to do is look for the true and optimistic interpretation cuz you don't want to divorce yourself from reality, it won't lead you anywhere useful. Um but at the same time, there's always an optimistic like the the the Holocaust survivor, the child of the Holocaust um parents. That was the one where I was like, yes, exactly. Like even in a situation like that, your parents are already gone. There's nothing more to do. They lived through the Holocaust. They lost their kids. Like, oh god. Like how is that not just generational trauma upon generational trauma? And yet you can believe there's always an optimistic and true frame in this, which you found for him. Obviously, it alleviated some of his pain. That's how I get to the don't make things worse than they need to be by laying down these what I'll call the the fundamental beliefs of how the world works. Mhm. Yeah, well, you're doing therapy for yourself. Very interesting. Very interesting. Therapy, man. That's That's really fascinating. How much in the book, it seems like you use Buddhism a lot in therapy, but you reference a lot that you don't. Mhm. Why don't you? Well, um why don't I use Buddhism in therapy? Yeah. Like why isn't it just straight up, hey, over the door it says Buddhist therapy? would be too um too alienating for too many people. And and I've I've never wanted to be like a you know, proselytizer, even though I I sort of see myself as a translator of Buddhist thought, you know, into Western psychological language kind of thing. But people come people come for all kinds of reasons and need all kind Everybody needs something different. So, where the Buddhist thing is helpful, you know, it's not always {quote} {unquote} Buddhist, you know? So, and I think that's part of the fun of being a therapist and of being inspired by these things is if I really understand them in any kind of way, how can I use them so that people might not even know that they're Buddhist, you know? Um so um so I'm sort of playing both sides, I think, and as you're I think rightfully recognizing from the book. And the idea there is just about alienating them. So, if they were open to it, you would lean more into it? Oh, if people are open to it, I lean into it. If people want to learn, you know, to meditate or go on a meditation retreat, or I help guide them to places and people that I think are good. Um so, I'm very encouraging if people want to be encouraged. You've talked about psychedelics. I'm curious, like so, I've never done them. Well, I've microdosed, but I found it meh. There was nothing that I'll call useful in that for me. Um which I was sad about, but I haven't yet macrodosed. Is it useful? What is it doing? It I think it's an open question. I think for a lot of people it um it it during the first wave, or the wave that I was aware of when I was um in college and so on, uh it gave people a a vision, you know, like it like the curtains parted for for a moment, and people saw that, oh, this wasn't the only way to look at reality, the conventional way, you know, that there's more here than we think, it you know, our minds are capable of more, and the the world is more alive, you know, that. Uh so, I think it was very inspiring for a lot of people. Um uh many people couldn't handle it, uh and it didn't help them at all, it probably hurt them, and um By what? Throwing something ugly in their face without the right frame? them out, making them just people getting super anxious, or some people actually getting psychotic on it, you know, anything can happen. Um uh I think it inspired a lot of people to try to uh uh bring that spiritual uh element that they that they glimpsed uh in their psychedelic journey to bring it more into their regular lives. So, so it's sort of interesting to me that it's cycling back again, you know? Um and mostly a dissolution of the ego and so you you're able to perceive the world from a radically different lens? Yeah, I think it's that that that's one way one good way of describing it. Yeah. Yeah, that's I I am interested and yet I never do anything to pursue it and I think part of it is if you told me guaranteed you're going to have a good trip, I'd be like, okay, I'm far more interested in that. Um but even that I know that there are some people that do MDMA with psilocybin, I think, and so it don't think anything will guarantee a good trip, but it certainly sets you up about as well as you can be set up for it. Uh it it's your own mind whatever you're doing. So, you we all know the um uh the infinite possibilities of our minds, you know, but for both good and bad. Yeah, I don't know if everybody knows that. I think that you probably have people that man, if they could just drown out their mind, they'd be a lot happier. Until I discovered meditation, that was very much my stance was like God, I just want to stop thinking about this. Like this is driving me crazy and yeah, the mind I think is you know, it's super interesting to me cuz you live in a nexus where people come to you because they want help. But watching people struggle that aren't like they don't seem to either know that help is possible, they don't want the help, maybe it makes them feel weird. Certainly, it's only really been recent that being able to say, oh, I struggle with anxiety or depression or whatever is like, oh man, like, you know, hopefully you get help." Before it was like, "Oh jeez, like that was talk about it. Yeah, it was like mental illness, like you're crazy. It was so uncomfortable. And I remember when I first started experiencing anxiety, it was before this whole revolution where I did not want I didn't even want my wife to know that I experience anxiety. For years I kept it from her until it was getting so bad. I was like, "I have to tell her just cuz she's got to be wondering like what is happening." And so finally I was like, "Look, I get really anxious, but I for sure thought she was going to think less of me." And so I did not want to tell her. It seemed so unmanly to be anxious. And yeah, because I spent so much time feeling like I was sort of in private fisticuffs with my own mind, I certainly didn't think of it as a an infinite place. I was just like, "Oh God, this is exhausting." again, that's like the the Buddhist Dukkha, you know, like like an aspect to life that you don't want to look at. That's unsatisfactory, you know, that even you even you didn't want your wife to say, you know, and so that's boxing you into yourself, you know, in an uncomfortable way. So, it's a good thing you didn't take psychedelics then, I would say. Oh, yeah. That that is very come bursting out of you. I can only imagine. Thankfully I've My mom somehow managed to instill an aversion to drugs and alcohol in me. And so I didn't even have my first drink of alcohol until I was 26. Uh and even at that was basically my wife was bribing me to try it. And so and I don't have an addictive personality, so I don't I don't find myself compelled to pursue that stuff. But yes, it is probably a very good idea that I did not at that time. Now, I assume you have tried psychedelics? You could assume that. I could assume that. Yeah, fair enough. If you had done them, is there any sort of revelatory insight? Um the the revelatory insights that I that I've had that have been sustaining for me have all come in on these meditation retreats. Is it the silence or just the amount of time you spend meditating? I don't know. I I think um the first the first retreat that I went to uh uh where I just did what they told me to do, you know, like watch the breath as it comes in the nostrils and goes out of the nostrils and you know, uh when you're walking pay attention to the sensation of your feet as they uh lifting, moving, placing and I just did it, you you know, um uh as best I could and after three or four days and it's not like continuous supposed to be continuous but it's never continuous because there's meals and you have, you know, take a walk and uh take a nap and whatever but basically I was doing a lot of meditation. And at some point out of nowhere I was just filled with uh you know, the most pleasurable, loving, uh blissful, joyful feelings that I'd ever, you know, had no idea I was capable of of uh experiencing such uh um uh what what adjective could we use? Not exactly transcendent cuz they were very yeah, grounded, you know, but uh out of this world kind of feelings only they were in me. Um And you weren't aiming for that, you were just No, what I I had no idea it was there, you know, zero idea that and that like there it was. So I was like, oh, this meditation thing is really really work, you know, it's really something. It's a real thing. Um uh so um you know, that uh uh just turned my my mind around in a certain way. Like, oh, there really is more to this more to me more to this more to the whole thing than I ever could have imagined. Mhm. So. And you elucidate it very well in the book, The Zen of Therapy. Oh, thank you. Where can people follow you? Where can they get the book? Uh, I think they can get the book most places. Um, and uh, I have a Facebook page if people want to look at the various posts that uh, that come up about uh, you know, about uh, things from the book or uh, talks that I've given or whatever. That's about it. And what's the Facebook page? Uh, it's Mark Epstein MD. There we go. Awesome. Boys and girls, I'm telling you meditation is one of those Mark will tell you that not everybody is not for everybody, but I think everybody should at least try it. It has changed my life in ways profound. Uh, The Zen of Therapy is a phenomenal book. I think you will enjoy it very much. I highly encourage you guys to give it a read. And speaking of things that I highly encourage you to do, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace.