Welcome everybody to the Denver's Ocean podcast.
I'm here once again with Joseph Wagner and today we are going to
have a little discussion about the state of our world and the
difficult times we're in and how as a practitioner we can really
work with all this because it's really overwhelming.
I know we're all stressed out. It's, it's just seems like we've
crossed some thresholds that we can't really go back from.
And, and so it's a lot to deal with.
And I think that Joe and I have had some discussion around this
and we've come to some good ways of really managing this and how
to see it. So Joe, welcome.
Let us know a little bit about how you've been dealing with all
this craziness. Thanks for having me, and I'm so
glad we're here together and welcome to everyone.
I haven't been dealing with it so well, to tell you the truth.
I mean, it's this is a complicated time and and we're
speaking, we're probably more on the liberal side.
But whatever side you find yourself on, yeah, I think it's
easy. If you're watching this podcast,
you must be open to things. And one of the things to be open
to is how chaotic everything feels.
So I think, you know, before we start talking about how to
acknow or how to deal with it, first we have to acknowledge
that this is very complicated times.
It's not easy to know what to do or know even how to respond to
such what looked to me to be really sweeping changes in our,
in our democracy and what it means to be in America and so
forth. And I have my own, you know,
opinions about that. We'll try to stay away from
those and just talk about how to deal with difficult times when
it's outside of your personal life.
You know, here we have something of a choice.
And I think that's the first thing to acknowledge.
Not only is it hard, it is hard and it's complicated and it's
upsetting, but unlike if it's happening in your immediate
household, let's say, where you cannot ignore it to some degree,
we can to some degree, we can mitigate how much we let through
our fence. And I think that's, you know,
the the primary thing that as practitioners we have to
acknowledge and, and recognize we have some power in this
situation about how we deal with it.
Yeah, I think it's important. I have to remind myself all the
time that never before in history have people had so much
access to so much information about so much of the world.
I don't really know that we're built for all this.
This information, you know, our our body minds have have evolved
with the intention of threat detection and protection for a
small area through word of mouth and direct contact.
That's probably what we're really like set up for.
So when we hear every day something terrible and
dangerous, it keeps our body mind in a state of constant
agitation, fight or flight mode. And I don't think that it's
healthy or helpful to stay in that state all the time.
And of course, there's some kind of like negotiation we have to
do here with like, how much do I need to be aware of what's going
on in the world and how much do I need to filter that out so
that I'm not, you know, being thrown off?
Because really the aim of this human life is to attain
enlightenment. And if it's not helping towards
that, then it's hindering that, right?
And then so I think that's really what it comes down to,
what helps and what hinders. And so everybody's going to be
different. You know, this, this is part of
it too. Like some people might be able
to use more of this as part of their path.
They can, you know, mind training, pure vision, whatever
they're capable of dealing with more of it.
And some people are going to be more sensitive and have to pay
attention to it a little less. So I think part of it is that
personal, you know, really figuring out what's personally
best for you. I think that's nicely said and
that's something that each each of us can make up our own minds.
I'm very careful about my news intake, my media.
I'm not on any social media stuff.
I don't have Facebook and never look at Instagram or any of that
kind of stuff, which I strongly recommend any kind of these
methods they have for training you not to be able to let go.
That's a different topic and we can talk about that, but you got
to be very careful as a practitioner with that.
That can take over your life and and you start to live other
people's lives here. We're just talking specifically
about media outlets that carry the news.
And I don't watch a lot of those and but I am, you know,
subscribe to Democracy Now and I get their updates seven days a
week, 2 times a day. You know, in the morning it's
like, here's the news and then the afternoon or evening or
something, there's another thing saying sort of their opinion
about something that's going on. And I've been, you know,
following that. And I like those guys and I
think they're doing amazing work.
Been part of that for years. And I personally, I had to
unsubscribe and I wrote him a note saying, I really apologize,
but I can't take it. That's the fact the the they,
what I realized and what pushed me over the edge with this is
that all the media outlets have only one purpose.
And that purpose is to get you to keep watching in return.
That is the only goal. And that's because they need
money. And I it's not bad in the case
of democracy now, I think they're, they're real Bois Afa's
on some level, you know, they're really trying to see things in a
more even way. They're left-leaning, but still.
But the effect on the consumer is, Oh my God.
And that to me right now, I mean, I looked at it took me
several days to make that decision.
It was based on seeing that there wasn't one piece of good
news in like 20 little articles they had.
They were all terrible. And when I looked at it, I
thought, like, what what 1 can I actually have an effect on?
Where is my, you know, where, where can I have an effect?
I couldn't figure out even 1. You know, I can't do anything
about Palestine. I can't do anything about the
stuff going on, you know, in Russia.
I cannot do anything about the Chinese invading Taiwan or
whatever the next thing is, or us in Greenland.
I I can't do anything. And that feeling of
powerlessness is the exact opposite of what we want to try
to inculcate as practitioners. I think that's the primary thing
we the goal of a practitioner lifestyle is to go from Shen
Wong being under the power of other, you know, our
circumstances, whatever they are, to being wrong, Wong being
having autonomy. If you don't do that, then you
can't do anything. And, and I was finding that I
just was freaking out. I'm here, I am in my on my
cushion in the morning, sometimes for as much as three
hours. And I'm like ice, ice, ice, ice.
It's not helping me. It is not helping the people
suffering from this stuff that's going on it.
It has no value. And yet I am freaking out and
literally freaking out all the time.
And I had to, you know, take a break from that.
So that was the way I'm, I'm dealing with it.
I'm not sure that's the right way, but it's what I'm doing.
Yeah, well, I, I think what you said about social media is
important too, because I think most people get their news from
social media at this point. You know, for me, it's YouTube.
I also stay off Instagram and Facebook and all that.
But again, same thing. Everything is designed to keep
you on, to keep you clicking, to keep you engaged.
And this kind of news is extremely addictive.
It's so engaging, it's so stimulated, stimulating.
And even though it feels bad, it's very easy to get hooked
into anger, aggression, fear, like all of this.
And you know, and so I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up
protesting, right? This is like, you know, a lot of
people, the first thing you should I be out protesting?
Well, and all I can say is, again, this is a personal
decision that you have to know based on is it helpful for your
path? I mean, as a Buddhist, that's
the question we always come down to because really the
fundamental position is that you can't really help until you're
enlightened. That's the bottom line.
And anything that we do is really temporary and often times
comes with negative consequences in addition to anything positive
we're trying to do. And Trump over Shave had a
similar experience. You know, his students were in
part of the Vietnam War protests, and they asked him
about this too. And he said, I think you should
focus on the aggression inside of you first.
And, and in general, I think that that is the way to go in
the from the Buddhist perspective now.
And of course, I think that people who do protesting and,
and you know, resistance in any form that these things are
important roles. They've they've changed and
brought about positive things in our country.
They have, but you have to ask yourself, is this, are you going
from a position of anger or are you going from a position of
love? Are you able to integrate what
you're doing or is it really just a reactionary frustrating
position that's enhancing your negative emotions?
So, so it depends on your capacity, right?
And your your activities what's appropriate?
For people, when they see these things, they feel empowered to
do something. And my eye freaking bow at those
people's feet. I feel freaked out and powerless
and I I find myself being angry in my own personal life and, and
that doesn't have a lot of value.
That's where I'm looking at it. But I will tell a short story
that is based on what you said about Riboche, Someone I know is
that a talk that Riboche was giving in Boulder at some
Unitarian church. This is in the 70s.
And, and, you know, it was the end of the talk and he said, are
there any questions? And someone stood up and said,
Riboche, will you address that level of aggression in our
world? And, and to you know, it's
reiterating what you said. He said, first I would like to
address the aggression in this room or just the kids are
hilarious and awesome. But as practitioners, that is
truly what we are called to do. And as you said very
beautifully, different people have different capacities.
Some people there, they can handle that and they can be
positive in their own lives and they can make a difference.
My hat's off to them. Make sure you can do that.
If you're a practitioner, you're in kind of a small class, right?
You, you're one of the only people who's like meditating to
work for the good of all beings at the deepest possible level.
As long as you can keep doing that, then I say, yeah, I was
yesterday. I was in Fort Collins, Co for a
meeting and as I left, I turned the corner and there was a huge
protest, probably at least 1000 people, all these college kids
and people with signs and people honking.
And I felt I was so moved by that.
I actually got tears in my eyes. I was like, wow, that's awesome.
So I think going to something like that is excellent.
At the same time, you know, being angry in your room because
this is happening might not be valuable, you know, So we have
to find a balance. And I personally think we have
to narrow down. We have to tighten the screen
through which this stuff is coming because all the media
outlets have the same method, which is to make you upset and
they all have the same means, which is to hook you with every
kind of thing. It's not only YouTube, those
shorts on YouTube or Instagram that does it.
Every kind of media outlet is using these techniques and
that's very dangerous and not good for us.
So we have to, as practitioner, we have to 1st protect ourself
because we have this precious human birth and only one goal as
you said. And then based on our capacity,
we can do what we, whatever we can do within that without
losing our seat, so to speak. Another trimperim Shay ISM.
Yeah. And to me, it really comes down
to something that I think is really important, how much faith
we really have in the Dharma. Because materialism seeps in
here, right? If you're not on the street,
you're not doing something. That's a materialist point of
view. We really have to have
confidence that our practice on the cushion is liberating the
negativity on the streets that the whole collective sentient
beings suffering is being reduced when we do our practice
because we're interconnected. And so that I think we have to
have that kind of faith. And and there will always be
those voices that say if you're not doing something in the world
physically, then it doesn't count.
And this comes to so many things, right?
Like what job you have, what you spend your time doing, you know,
do something constructive, you know, like that's like the
mantra of the West, right? You know, you're just staring at
your navel or whatever that this kind of assumption that there's
a laziness in working with our own interior mind.
But really it's the thing where we have the most agency and have
the most ability to really make change.
And if we truly change, attain perfect Buddhahood, then we'd
really be able to help so. It doesn't even have to go that
bar. Not to cut you off but don't
think well I can only help if I can attain Buddhahood.
Anytime you meditate and you feel peace, there is a general
benefit to the world. This is Garchner Bache.
We've talked about this. You know his secret oral
instructions from Kempo Munsell on tonglen, on giving and taking
were to recognize other people's mind.
And my mind are the same. And when my thoughts are
liberated on my side, thoughts are also liberated to some
degree on their side. So today the the subject is
known the giving and giving and taking, giving happiness and you
know taking the suffering practice and generally they are
different kind of practice. It's called outer practice,
inner practice and very cigarette practice.
They are kind of like three kind of levels of practice, which he
said himself, he's not really an expert on that in the philosophy
called, you know, sense of that. So anyway, the main point, this
is very simple. There's it's like, you know,
giving means you give all of your happiness to all decision
things, and taking means you take all the suffering of you
know other, you know, towards yourself.
So and then in order to practice that you must have have a kind
of, you know, confidence ourselves that there is a
possibility to give happiness to all the single beings and to
take the suffering of others towards 1 you know oneself.
So this is like it happens and one must have a kind of
confidence in order to practice that.
Degree on their side. And that works whether you're a
beginner, middling practitioner or an advanced practitioner.
Not only for Buddhist, you know, we, we have our field of
influence and the more open and relaxed and full of love we are,
the more people around us benefit.
Plus you got to keep in mind if you are a Buddhist practitioner,
other people are, they know you as that Buddhist because there
aren't that many, right? There's only 6.
Something like 6% of the world is Buddhist.
There's not that many. And in America, you know, it's
rare to be a practitioner. So people aren't checking you
out, right? I just came from the pickleball
court. I like to play pickleball on
Saturday morning. My dad's out there.
I got some friends. We were playing awesome today
and I went to pick up the ball because we hit it over to the
other court and the other, there were some girls playing there
and they, they said, you guys are playing so well.
We were checking you out and I thought, oh, I didn't even know
that right. They were watching us.
All of your friends who know you're a meditator, they're all
watching you. So how if you're all freaking
out about the world, they're also like, well, that doesn't
work. I guess I need to find something
else. I think this is an important
point. Yeah, And what you said about
Garcher's method, we really can do this with, we can just think
of the suffering going on in all these situations and then
liberate it instantly with one moment of recognition.
And really it, I know it's painful to say it's for myself,
but we have to remember our only enemies are the three poisons,
not people, right? These people on every side of
this situation are suffering, period.
And and as a Buddhist practitioner, we always remember
that it's the three poisons inside them is the only enemy,
not the person. You know, these people are
suffering underneath their aggression, their greed, their
fear, their all those things, right?
So that's the hardest thing to do.
But the, you know, the way the bodhisattva and the low junk
teachings that they're always all about that, right?
Like there's no enemy on the outside.
And so we really just can keep working with the one on the
inside and bring some energy of peace into this whole situation.
And, and I have to say, this is the best thing you could do, the
most important, the most helpful thing you could.
Do to play sad, beautifully sad. That was terrific.
Thank you. I'm taking that to heart.
I love that to give people something like that they can
actually do what I would consider doing is a news fast,
an entire news fast because you don't realize how much this is
affecting you until it's not. I noticed this because it just,
I just did this. We're talking two weeks ago.
We're not talking six years ago. I just said like, OK, no.
And I found almost an instant I was able to catch my breath.
And then you can reintroduce 10 minutes of news, one hour of
news, one conversation with your well plugged in friend,
whatever, one protest, whatever, one visit to Facebook or
whatever and see how much am I able to keep my seat.
If you can keep your seat through that, you got your
compassion and intact. You're not like those people.
I want them to die. Whatever horrible things we tend
to think, then hey, maybe you can move up another notch
because it's good to be engaged to the degree that you can
handle. I just realized that my capacity
for that was lower than I thought.
You know, if I'm just all angry and upset, not the way to do it.
Yeah, and, and I don't know about anybody else, but for me,
I just be like a crackhead with my phone, you know, like just,
it's, it's so addictive. Just get right into it and then
you're waiting. And this is like I have to say.
The the, the big guy, he feeds on being in the news and in your
face and making something happen every single day.
And so we're all like, what's gonna happen now?
What's gonna happen next? What's gonna happen?
You know, like, have you not noticed how well everything is
orchestrated to keep you hooked to what's going on every day?
And you can't tell me this isn't part of somebody else's plan,
right? And there's big part of this
going on this like, watch this while I do this, right?
So we're falling for it, so we're clearer, not so focused on
the whatever the chaos of the day is.
I think you got it. So three things I want to say,
1, taking news fast, could be 3 days, could be two days, could
be one hour, not one hour. It's got to be a whole day or
else you won't notice the effect.
One week, whatever. The world's not going to suffer
when you're not watching the news for one week.
And then you see, at first you aren't, you realize how addicted
you are. The second point I want to make,
and then you can reintroduce it. But the second point is it's
involuntary. Our addiction to samsara is
involuntary. Our karmic, the Press of the
karmic wins at our backs that keep us in samsara is
involuntary. It is not a choice.
So you have to take strong action to stop that and then
recapitulate to see what you can actually do.
It's involuntary, right? And those apps, no one can
resist it. You cannot resist it.
It's impossible. They have got you figured out.
So you have to say no mostly. And then the third thing, I
don't remember, but I love these two things.
Take a news fast and then reintroduce to the degree you
can handle it. You might be surprised how much
of your anxiety is about things that you don't even know if
they're real. We have no idea what the news
is, right? We what the real truth is, we're
just not in a position to know. We got these people shouting
this. We got these people shouting
this we got and there are a lot of people behind this.
I know what third one was Terence McKenna, the psychedelic
philosopher. He was famous for saying that
the mushrooms told him you got to have a plan.
If you don't have a plan, you become part of somebody else's
plan. So you must recognize as a
practitioner you only have one goal and one plan.
But if you're not, if that's not in the center of your life, then
you are being manipulated by your karma and the world.
And that is not the place for a practitioner.
You got to maintain your somaya and your somayas to the practice
that once that's intact, then you can spread out to the degree
that your capacity can handle. That's I don't think 3 things
are important. Yeah, angry, fearful, addicted
people are easy to manipulate, easy to control and easy to rob,
right. And and you can't tell me that's
not what's going on. So remember that also that this
isn't just about your path and practice, but also recognize
what's the real motivation between everybody being hooked
to their screen all the time. Like what?
Who's benefiting from that? Because somebody is, I guarantee
it. And a lot of people are right
and and they don't always have your interest in heart or rarely
have your interest. Right, so.
This is our our thoughts about this.
And I know these are difficult times and we're with you and
we're praying and practicing with all of you in mind.
And you know, we're thinking about hoping this podcast can
bring some benefit to the, this community because being Buddhist
in this world is hard. Like you said, it's tiny, tiny
percentage. The stream against the stream.
Yeah, my wife and I were just talking about this.
Like, I have no friends. Where would I even meet
somebody? I wanna hang out with all my
friends live off like thousands of miles from me and have to
talk on WhatsApp, right? Like I can't even find somebody
really, like locally. They don't exist.
That's like that's hard, you know, so we have to have these
kind of virtual that's the benefit of these things.
We do have that like virtual Sanga and that's amazing.
That's that's definitely camera Z Tara in action, right, that
we're able to connect. So thank you for connecting with
us. Thank you for watching our show
on the platform. We just told you to not watch.
I hope you enjoy it and we'll see you on the next feast day.
Thank you so much. Please like, share and
subscribe. We appreciate you so much.
Bye bye.