https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=ZjEAgCMQGTY
Welcome everyone to another episode of Voices with Raveki. I’m really looking forward to this, uh, uh, dialogos. Uh, so I want to introduce, um, a friend of mine, uh, Seishun, and I’d like her to introduce herself and talk a little bit, uh, about how we know each other. And then, uh, I think she has a lot to share with us, uh, about, uh, things that I’m directly, uh, concerned with. So welcome. Thank you. It’s so good to be here. It’s really nice to, uh, to see you again. Uh, so the way that you and I know each other, of course, is, uh, I suppose it was more than a year ago, almost two, maybe a year and a half ago that we started, uh, being in a circling group together. We met through Peter, uh, Peter Lindbergh. Uh, and that was, from what I remember, that was kind of when you became interested in circling type things. And so we formed this, uh, really beautiful private circling group, uh, in Toronto, which we did every two weeks. Uh, I really missed that. Um, and a lot of really, really interesting and beautiful, beautiful explorations there. Um, and then I actually left the group because I was leaving for some intensive training. I’m part of a network of systems called the monastic academies. And so I had to leave that group because I was, um, going to Vermont to do some very intensive Buddhist training. And then very shortly after that, the pandemic happened. And I think the group had to kind of disband, which is sort of a shame. Um, I’m hoping that once the pandemic goes over, we can have a bit of a reunion or something. I think that would be really nice. I’d like that too. I’d like that very much. So tell us more about the monastic academy and how does it sit vis-a-vis like the traditional religions or traditional monasteries? How does it relate to things like the mindfulness movement, circling practices, things like that? Yeah. Yeah. So there’s, um, there’s a lot that I can say on that. And I think I’ll kind of, I’ll just talk for a little while. Um, please, please. And yeah. And then I think from that we’ll have, there’s going to be a lot of threads and we can just see where it takes us. Yeah. Um, so like I said, I’m part of a network of organizations called the monastic academies. And, uh, you could say that we’re kind of modern monasteries. So historically monasteries have been institutions where, uh, where people would go to have kind of some seclusion from the modern world and to rigorously hone the kinds of skills that are actually quite difficult to hone when you’re entangled in modern society. So skills like wisdom, self-knowledge, compassion, clarity of mind, um, skills that expand our, as you call it, our salience landscape, um, and, and make us more empowered, that make us less confused, less susceptible to deception, uh, both from the world outside and from our own internal workings. And of course that’s the dichotomy of the outer world and the inner world isn’t exactly true. Um, and I’ll go a little bit more into that in a little bit, but, uh, the point is that these are places where we train things that are otherwise quite difficult to train when we’re entangled with our modern ways of life. So already we can kind of see how incredibly important that kind of institution is, having access to something like that. We don’t learn things like this in school. We don’t learn things like this in our families in general. Um, and this is the kind of knowledge that’s been historically sort of lost to us, at least here in the West. Uh, and you’ve talked in your series about, um, the four ways of knowing, which I love looking at it through that frame. So I’ll just quickly go into that. I imagine people who are listening to this are familiar with that, but, uh, please, please. Yeah. So there’s, uh, there’s propositional knowing, which is, you know, the intellectual knowing, knowing that something is true, having beliefs and so on. Uh, there’s procedural knowing, which is knowing how to do something, how to speak, how to, you know, throw a ball so that it lands in a particular place. Right. Um, there’s perspectival knowing, which is, uh, situational awareness, um, or again, salience landscape, knowing through your particular state of consciousness. Right. And then there’s participatory knowing, which is, uh, a little bit of what I mentioned before about there’s us and there’s the world and we’re kind of fitted to each other in a particular way. Um, the agent, agent arena relationship. Right. Um, so the way that we participate in creating that world, the way that that world creates us, um, and in general, our society privileges, propositional knowing, intellectual knowing, and to some extent procedural knowing as well. Um, but we don’t really understand how to hone perspectival knowing, participatory knowing. These are things that are just kind of, you know, in the background is just how things are. And we don’t realize that these are actually skills that we can work on skills that we can wield to become more capable agents in the world. Right. Um, and I think part of becoming more mature human beings is actually learning how to grow our agency in these ways. So I would argue that monasteries are actually institutions that allow us to do exactly this, to connect with and hone the ways of knowing that have largely been lost to us over the years. And this is, I think, precisely what we’re trying to do within the Manas Academy system. So historically, uh, monasteries have adapted to serve the culture that they’re in. So in the case of Buddhism, for example, the Buddhism that you’ll find in Japan is different from what you’ll find in Tibet, which is different from China and so on. Um, so it’s really important for a monastic institution to be relevant to the culture that it’s in. And so what we’re trying to do is create monasteries, monastic institutions that are relevant for our modern Western world. So you know, modern minds have modern problems taking what existed 2600 years ago in the time of the Buddha, trying to do the exact same thing is unlikely to be effective. So we kind of have to be agile and adaptable. So I’m so excited about this. Um, by the way, just drawing very quick interruption, your explication of the four kinds of knowing was beautiful. It was excellent. So thank you for that. Please continue. Thank you. Yeah. So if a monastery isn’t relevant to the world that it’s in, then it doesn’t actually have much of a point. So we have to figure out how to make this more relevant in our current Western world. So we draw in various practices, some from ancient Buddhism, monasticism, some from modern therapeutic learnings, some emerging experimental modalities, uh, you know, like circling, like what you and I have done. Um, and we bring this together into one curriculum, which people can take part in and which kind of aims to create a well-rounded, healthy, powerful, loving, compassionate, clear minded people who can become the kinds of leaders that our current world desperately needs. And so we have various programs that are, you know, it can be a week or three months or a year or more. And there’s people who have been in the system for five years and counting. And the intention is to provide this way of learning, um, to have them train for some time, some period of time, and then to go back out and to serve the world in the way there is with clarity, with compassion, with agency. Um, so there’s a lot, there’s a lot more that I can say about all that, but I’ll kind of finish off with one, uh, one more important thing. Um, so currently we have three centers. Uh, there is the main center, which is in Vermont, which is called the monastic, that is the monastic academy. Uh, the full name is the monastic academy for the preservation of life on earth or maple. Um, and I didn’t, I haven’t gone into this very much, but the preservation of life on earth is actually precisely what the larger point of these organizations is. The way that we humans currently live is not at all in accord with preserving life. It’s in fact, destroying life at tremendous scales. And I would argue as we get more in touch with these other ways of knowing, we begin to see how actually painfully true this is and how important it is to learn to live differently. And so the hope is to create actually many of these centers, um, these communities around the world, both as training centers, but also as demonstrations that it’s possible to live differently, that it’s possible to be more caring stewards of our beautiful planet. Um, and that it’s in fact a more pleasant way to live and that more and more people will be attracted to it simply because it actually feels better, feels better to do that. Yeah. Um, so as part of that demonstration, we have, like I said, three centers and plans for many more. So we have the first one is Maple in Vermont, which has been around for nine years. That’s kind of the main, the headquarters, the parent organization. Then we have a branch in California, which has been around for two or three years called Oak. And then in Canada, we very recently, uh, which is where I am, we launched Willow, um, the teacher and the executive director at Willow. We just opened last year and so we’re in the early stages of creating a monastic institution for Canadians to come and do this very important training. And so sometimes when I say we, I’m going to be talking about Willow. Sometimes I’m going to be talking about Maple, sometimes the entire system. Uh, so if it’s ever unclear what I’m talking about, just, uh, you can ask me to clarify. Um, yeah, this is something that is extremely near and dear to my heart, something that I’m so excited to, to be a part of. And, you know, really extremely glad to be talking with you and also to be, uh, you know, having become more and more familiar with your work over the years, seeing what you’re talking about, what we’re doing, seeing that reflected in what you’re talking about and vice versa. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I’m very excited for that. Yeah. That the resonance is just palpable to me, just palpable to me. Uh, so I have so many things I want to ask. Uh, first, a rather innocent question. Uh, so Maple is an acronym. Are Oak and Willow also acronyms or are they just other tree names or, um? Uh, they’re sort of acronyms. Uh, Oak is the organization for awakening and kindness. Oh. Um, Willow. It’s so funny that you’re asking this. So I don’t, I don’t like acronyms. I don’t, or I don’t like acronyms. So for a while I just refused to make one and then I said, okay, I’ll just like do a silly one and I’ll just never tell, I’ll never actually publicly use it, but here this is what it is. So I can tell you what it is, but it’s not official. Uh, it’s weirdos intentionally living lives of wisdom. Oh, I think you should make that popular. I think that’s excellent. I love that. I love that. That’s excellent. I love that. Yeah. I told my teacher and he said, you know, that’s actually not bad. Yeah, pretty good. So just some, like, uh, you know, questions about, you know, maybe, you know, the, obviously there’s an ecology of practices going on, but, um, I noticed that you’ve drawn two, two different terms together. Uh, and I wonder if that, if there’s an intention there, obviously there’s the monastic tradition and like you, and I agree with you, we have a wisdom famine in our culture. We have no place where people can go to get the education or even the adduction of wisdom. Um, and, and so, and you, and there’s both Buddhist and obviously, you know, ancient Christian associations with that, but you’ve also got Academy and Academy goes back like to the Platonic tradition and Socrates and know thyself. And I’m wondering, um, like, what was the intent of putting those two? Is there, what is there an intent and what was the intent of putting those two together? Because they’ve often been, like, they’ve often even seen, like, when you got into medieval Europe, the Academy was the university and the wisdom institution was the monastery, right? And they were in a complimentary relationship. Was there some intent for putting those two names together? Were you trying to designate or signify something with doing that? Right, right. And so, um, I’ll give you my answer to that, but I’ll say I wasn’t there when the name was created, so I’ll give you sort of my, my impression of it, but I wasn’t part of, of creating that. Um, and we are actually really trying to put two things together. There’s, uh, within the system, we talk about awakening and responsibility and, you know, awakening is this like wisdom going deep into, uh, into meditation, um, becoming awakened people. And there’s the responsibility side of like, what is the impact that we’re doing in the world? How are we actually engaging with the world? What does it mean? You know, you could be awakened and do nothing with it, or you can actually serve the world in some way. Um, so it isn’t just, uh, only focusing on the wisdom side of it. It really is pulling in a lot of different things. Um, as far as what Academy means, I’ll be honest that I don’t have, uh, I don’t have a philosophy background. So a lot of the time those conversations are actually a little bit harder for me to engage with, um, just because I don’t know, uh, the exact terms and stuff. Um, so I think that’s the best answer that I personally can give, but, um, I believe that there is a much, much broader answer that probably our, our founder could give. Well, but that sounds like it sounds already rich from what you’ve said, right? So you have the monastic side during the cultivation of wisdom. Uh, and then, um, you know, the, the Academy, at least the platonic Socratic Academy was ultimately about the, you know, the cultivation of virtue, which is the power to act responsibly on the basis of your wisdom in the world. Um, and that’s how it was always understood. The, the, the platonic Academy wasn’t, wasn’t like what the ivory tower of academia is today. Uh, the platonic Academy where it was where people ultimately trained so that they could go back into the world and live more virtuous, uh, lives. Um, so that sounds to me like it does actually, yeah, that sounds exactly right. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds precisely like what we’re doing. I just didn’t have that, that language for it. Yeah. Oh, cause I’m very interested in you. You’ve seen some of my series and I’m working on a new one called after Socrates, where I’m really interested in, um, the Socratic foundations for these dialogical practices that are emerging now, like circling and insight dialogue and inquiry and, you know, empathy circling and like all of these. And they all, the seeds for them, I understand there’s influence from Buddhism, but the seeds for them were sown very deeply by the Socratic tradition of dialectic and transformation through dialogos. Uh, and so I’m really interested in, uh, the degree to which we might be able to, uh, marry, uh, these things together. So, so that leads me to a question. Um, how, sorry, you take this with kindness, sort of how Buddhist do you have to be to, uh, to practice in the, in the, in the monastic academy? Yeah. So a couple of different answers to that. So we are a Buddhist organization. Um, but more broadly speaking, as new centers open up, they do not, they absolutely do not have to be Buddhist. The intention isn’t that all of them are going to be Buddhist. It’s going to be wonderful if we can pull, pull from a lot of different traditions. As far as what people need to, you know, believe in order to engage with the system. Uh, I think one of the ways that my teacher put it is that, and he put it in terms of God, he said, if you have a belief in God, it will be stripped away from you if you don’t have a belief in God, it will be stripped away from you. That’s well put. Whatever it is that you come in, come in believing, uh, you will find ways to shift your perspectives to have other, other ways of seeing other ways of being other ways of believing. Um, but we are very much, uh, steeped in ancient Buddhist traditions. So we do things like chanting. We care about the, you know, the eightfold path and all of that. Um, we use that kind of as a, it’s a very helpful framework for everything that we do, but there’s no requirement to, you know, be a Buddhist. Right. So, so fill me in a little bit more on like what the ecology of your practice looked like, like it sounds like you’re doing some meditative practices, some chanting, are there any mindful movement practices like, you know, like Tai Chi or yoga or something like that? I know you’re doing circling it. So that’s a discourse practice. You have other discourse practices. You mentioned there’s psychotherapeutic are things going from the therapeutic world. Now, what are those practices look like? Are they things like, you know, things from, you know, CBT or EFT or things like that. So what, what, like, what does the ecology of practices look like? And like, what, what are the design principles? Like I imagine it’s not just a hodgepodge. There’s reasons why certain practices are selected and how they relate and cohere with each other. Right. Yeah. And so this is something that is, you know, always, I don’t want to say always changing, but it is always kind of open to new things and we’re always kind of seeing what is it that’s missing, what is it that can be brought in? So I’ll just go through some of them. So meditation is the obvious one. We meditate for different centers do it different amounts, but in general, at least two hours per day. That’s just on normal days. And then we also, once a month, we have a seven day retreat where we’re just in silence in meditation the entire time. We have chanting, as you mentioned, we have circling, which is kind of. I mean, I know you’re familiar with it, but there’s that quote. Oh, I think it’s Ram Dass that says, if you think you’re enlightened, go spend a week with your family. Um, which is basically, you know, in relationship is really where our practice is tested and where it comes to life. And, and so we use these interpersonal modalities like circling to see the ways that we exist in a relationship to each other, the way that we affect each other, um, the kind of mental formations that we have about people and the projections that we have and the traumas that might emerge as a result of our various interactions. Um, and these are all things that also emerge in meditation. There’s a lot of, you know, roadblocks to wisdom, hindrances to wisdom. And what we’re doing is actually trying to find a set of practices that can help us clear these roadblocks in various ways. Right. Um, so in terms of the therapeutic side of it, um, this is something that we’ve been experimenting with more and more. Uh, we’ve been doing, uh, Gendlin folk focusing and internal family systems. And, uh, right. Biomotive Nadera. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with that one, but kind of emotional trauma, healing, trauma processing. Um, so things that can kind of let us understand our psyche a little bit better, let us clear out all of the, uh, you know, years and decades of conditioning that we have and seeing the ways that we are, um, and this directly comes back into our meditation practice. It’s like I said, it’s easier to go deeper as these things kind of get more and more cleared out and get more, uh, harmonious within ourselves, within each other. Um, and so these things are actually the, the, the therapeutic ones, especially are kind of new. They’re being brought in more recently. Uh, and I know, you know, Daniel Thorson, I think you’ve spoken on his podcast. Yeah. So he’s, uh, he’s kind of the main curriculum developer in, uh, well, one of the main ones in the maple system. And so he’s really been looking at how we can bring these things in more in particular, IFS, my internal family systems. Um, and he’s also learning about, I’ve just been learning. Oh, great. Yeah. Oh, it’s lovely. I’ve been, uh, I’ve been doing it over, you know, on and off for the past year and really getting much more into it. Now it’s really quite powerful and really interesting way of like relating to myself and to others. Um, I taught the focusing technique and the online meditation and wisdom cultivation courses that I taught last year, uh, during sort of the first half of COVID, I did a daily stream where I was teaching people meditation, contemplation practices from, uh, both Eastern and Western wisdom traditions. So, uh, some of the people watching this might have some familiarity also with focusing as a technique. Yeah. I’ve been really amazed at focusing. That was something that, um, we actually brought that into Willow specifically. Uh, and it’s just amazing how much it, it shifted things for people. We just, even we had a few days of just doing intensive Gendlin focusing. And since then, everything, well, not everything, but things really significantly changed for everyone in their practice and in the way that we relate to each other. It’s just, uh, one of, one of the people said, you know, I always kind of thought of myself as this like collection of thoughts, and I just realized I have a nervous system. Right. Right. Right. Right. Spent 30 years, not really connected to his nervous system. Yeah. Um, so focusing has been amazing for that. Um, and you asked about movement practices as well. We have every day, we have a peer, um, an hour long period of movement, right, but it’s not, uh, uh, it’s not defined what you have to do. It’s just, everyone can kind of choose for themselves. Some people do Qigong. Some people will go for a run or something like that, but it’s just a silent period to just be in the body, to try to work as vigorously as possible and just get into the body and away from this space for a little bit. Yeah. I think that’s very important for participatory knowing to get very deeply into the body and let that bottom up stuff happen rather than everything always being top down. Yeah. And that’s something I’m really interested in exploring more because right now it’s kind of, everyone can do their own thing, which is lovely. And that kind of lets people, uh, have a lot of, um, a lot of choice, but also a lot of people kind of don’t know what to do with it. Um, so I’m really curious to see over the next while, whether we might want to actually put in very specific things like Qigong for everyone or yoga for everyone or something like that. I don’t know. That’s just something that’s kind of on my mind. One of the advantages of things like, uh, Tai Chi Chuan, um, is that of course you can do the individual form and it has, uh, a lot of benefits to it. Flow induction, but then you can also do things like together, like martial arts. I don’t mean like you’re necessarily like the spar, but you can do, it’s also called circling, which was very confusing. There’s circling practices in Tai Chi Chuan that you do with a partner and other things. Um, and that’s very interesting because it brings in some of the, uh, of the embodied aspects of interpersonal contact and makes you aware of like how you carry yourself in your body when you make contact with how another person is carrying themselves in their body. And that can often really sort of open people’s awareness to levels of how they’re identifying with their body that they’re, they’re typically not paying much attention to. So that, that, that I found like there’s sticky hands and circling. You don’t have to fight with each other. Um, cause that can, that’s going to wreck your insurance, uh, premiums for your, for your monastery. But, uh, but doing, doing those, to some of like those things where people that can do the, and that the thing about Tai Chi too is also, it has a similar thing. Cause you do it individually and then you also, part of the practice is to try and stay in sync with other people. And we’ve already got experimental evidence that moving in synchrony with other people tends to synchronize the nervous systems between people and open them up, uh, to each other at deeper levels. So I’m just suggesting that might be something you want to, uh, think about as, um, valuable and I’m really interested. Like it sounds like a lot of these practices sort of reinforce each other and mutually afford each other and unfold each other. And so the whole thing, my intuition is the whole thing starts to take on a life of its own. Like initially, I mean, this is what I find with the college of practice. Initially, if you put an effort to get this going and this going and then make the connect, but at some point, instead of pushing, you’re being drawn along because the thing starts to take on a life of its own. Are, are people finding that with the ecology of practices that you’re, you’re, you’re doing? Oh yeah, definitely. Um, and I think this is especially true at Maple because like I said, they’ve been around for nine years, so they’ve been, they’ve had quite a while for, um, trying these different things and seeing how they impact, uh, everyone. And they’re also a larger community. We at Willow are, you know, four people at Maple. There’s somewhere between 15 and 30 people at any given time. Right. Um, and so actually being in community is part of what affords seeing the effects of certain things because you can’t actually get away. I’ve talked about in the past, one of the benefits of monastic systems is that they’re kind of inescapable, you’re there and you can’t escape. Um, and of course, in the literal sense, you can, you can just up and leave. But, um, if you have committed yourself to that system, it actually allows you to like really stay with the effects of your actions. Um, and so that also lets us see from these different practices, uh, kind of the, the way that they impact both like on the individual level, but also on the community level, so we can see like, this is something a lot of us with a lot of these practices, you’re kind of doing it on your own, but you can very quickly see how that impacts your relationships with other people and you can see, you know, I find with. So the way that these different practices relate, I find with, uh, emotional clearing, especially sometimes I’ll have a really hard meditation and then I do an emotional clearing session and then I can just kind of just go into my meditation, just so much more fully. Right. That makes perfect sense to me. Perfect sense. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, in a sort of, on a slightly simple level, you know, a lot of the things that distract us in meditation are like relational things of like, Oh, I shouldn’t have said that, that I feel bad about this or whatever. And then through circling, you can actually work those things out and learn how to like relate to people more, more effectively. And then there’s just less stuff to like be taking over your mind during meditation. Yeah. And vice versa, the mindfulness that you cultivate in the meditation helps you step back and look at these things rather than being sort of automatically immersed in them, uh, in a sort of unconscious fashion. So that makes a lot of sense. Right. And there’s like a, sorry, I’m so excited. No, no, please, please, please. This is really good. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, and I’ve seen this within the Willow community, this really lovely thing of like people in the past, you know, people will clash and stuff and they still do, but you start clashing and you just kind of go into that. You’re just looking at the world through that lens. Um, and then we introduced focusing and then suddenly there’s this thing that happens where someone will be like, Oh, like a clash is maybe about to happen. And then one person will go, Oh, I’m noticing like a lot of just rising energy right here. And it’s so different to say that than to say, I am angry with you. Not that it’s saying I’m angry with you is bad, but just being able to step back in that way and say like, Oh, this is happening. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Expressing it as a process rather than a predicate. I am angry. Instead of that predicate and say, I’m feeling like really tight in my chest in the end and I can feel my, my, yeah, I I’m trying in trying to bring more of that, um, um, into my interpersonal relationships, that way of trying to relate to people and, and, uh, talk more from what’s happening in me rather than, you know, saying making attributions directly and asking questions more often than making statements. It’s hard. It’s hard to change these habits. Um, and, and, and I think you’re totally right. Uh, you need, maybe this isn’t the right word, but I, maybe it is. You need the safety of what you like the monastic academy. Like you say, you need to be disentangled. So like, you don’t, you don’t run an experiment where you try to manipulate all the variables at the same time. Cause you just can’t, it’s too complex. And so you like, if you’ll, I hope this isn’t an insulting analogy, but it’s like, uh, it’s like what you’re doing in lab. You try and get rid of a lot of the extraneous variables. So you can focus on the ones to see which ones, if I change this one, does this actually bring about the desired change and you can’t tell when you’re, when all of this is happening, you can’t tell, well, is mindfulness making a difference? I don’t know because of all of this kind of thing. I think, am I reading you correctly in saying that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I actually, I do personally think of it as kind of a laboratory condition type of thing, because every day is actually, you know, in some ways they’re different, but in some ways they’re very much the same. We’re on a strict schedule. Every morning we get up at this time, we chant and then we meditate, then we exercise, then we eat, then we work. Then we do chores, then we have free time and then we have an evening activity. Then we meditate, then we chant, then we go to bed. Right. Right. And it’s always kind of the same thing. And, um, I mean, it’s helpful in kind of even mundane things when I notice like, Oh, if I eat at this later time of the day, I actually feel this particular way. I can like, right. Right. Even to that level. Yeah. Um, there’s, uh, there’s an analogy that I think it only slightly, slightly fits to what you’re talking about. For some reason it’s coming up for me. Um, that, uh, I don’t know what this thing would be, but someone who was recently at Willow said that he was noticing like the interpersonal relationships between people and how sometimes people clash and stuff. And he said, you know, it’s kind of, and the way that they deal with those clashes, the way that they talk about them. And he said, you know, it’s like, he took a bunch of rocks and he put them in a, I imagine this is a real machine, some sort of tumbler or something. And they’re just tumbling together and hitting against each other and getting polished in the process. Yeah. And so like this, this environment, this kind of laboratory condition in which we’re together and just kind of like bumping into each other all the time in different ways, actually kind of polishes us. Which is, I think I really, I really lovely analogy. That’s a good, that that is, that’s a very good analogy, sort of mutual polishing. So, Platinus talked about the, the cultivation of wisdom and transcendence is, there’s a statue inside of you and you have to, you have to, you have to remove all of the pieces and reveal the statue that was in there. Right. Which is very, am I putting it? Yeah. So I want to, I want to push a little deeper if that’s okay, because I think you’ve really, really helped us set out the context here. So you probably know that I have this proposal that the West is suffering through a meaning crisis right now. And that’s, that is bound up with stuff we’ve already talked about. There’s sort of propositional tyranny. There’s the forgetting of the connections to body, to self and world, the other kinds of knowing. There’s a wisdom famine. We, people don’t know how to pursue self-transcendence. And it’s unclear how spirituality and the scientific worldview are supposed to sit together because science isn’t going to go away. That, that’s just a romantic fantasy. So I, I’m doing this really open-ended question and, you know, take as much time as you want, what do you think, if you do, what do you think the monastic academy system has to say, or can be a response to that sort of problematic that I’ve been discussing a lot, in a lot of my work? Yeah. I mean, I would say that as far as I can see, we are kind of perfectly positioned to be, we are the kind of institution that you’ve, you’ve been talking about, or at least in many ways, and then we’re kind of growing more and more to become that. Yeah. And the kind of the bringing in of spirituality is a really interesting thing for me, because I’ve, I was born and raised an atheist in many ways. I still, I still consider myself an atheist in many ways, and yet I am this, you know, spiritual teacher. I’m very much a Buddhist. And for some reason in my mind, there’s actually, it doesn’t feel like those are in competition with each other. Yeah. Yeah. It’s just that I’ve had this kind of dismissal of what spirituality is that kind of made me not even really look at it. Which is kind of funny. It’s like actually a very anti-intellectual thing of just like, Oh no, that thing is stupid and not for me without actually really like looking at what that thing is trying to do. Right. And then I’ve realized over time that, you know, I personally care a lot about mental health. And I realized that the thing that I was calling mental health is the same thing or very similar thing that other people mean when they’re talking about, you know, spiritual health or connecting to our souls or things like that. So I think personally that there’s actually a lot, a surprising amount of compatibility between spirituality and science. I don’t consider myself having like separated myself from caring about scientific principles. I have separated myself actually from some of the anti-intellectual ways that I viewed science where, you know, we trust quote unquote science. It’s like science says blah, blah, blah. What does that mean? Right. Right. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Or like this study showed this. Okay. That’s awesome. But like studies, it can be very flawed. Like, are we looking at how they’re conducting this? Or are we just kind of believing it? It’s like, well, the study showed it. Therefore it’s true. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. There’s this funny, funny way of, sorry. Oh, keep going. Keep going. Yeah. There’s this funny way of where at least in myself, and I think that I see this a lot in other people where like we think that the thing that we believe is very scientific and very valid and all of that, but actually there’s a lot of delusion in there in the way that we’re thinking about it. There’s actually a lot of faith in like kind of blind faith in, in something which has like at its core, this really beautiful scientific process, but the actual manifestation of it has, has a lot of flaws and we often don’t, aren’t as aware of that. And I think, so I think spirituality actually brings in a lot of really important things. And one of the things for me is there’s this drive, this need that we have to know things and it’s a beautiful drive. Of course, it’s great to know things and to understand things, but also what I found was that it would make me quicker to believe that I knew things or quicker to believe that I understood something. So now I have the answer. Now I know what the thing is and that is now my world. That is now truth. And somehow what spirituality has brought in is, is kind of this like, oh, I don’t know anything. I actually, there’s lots of things that I know, but also no. You sounded just like Socrates right then, right? And that’s the kind of spirituality, you know, you know, he claimed that his wisdom consisted in his capacity to know what he did not know, but nevertheless, to care about things in an appropriate manner. That that’s sort of the core of what he was trying to get at. So I think that’s a beautiful way of putting it. I am opposed to, I might put it slightly differently because I see, you know, I see a triad between sort of science, philosophy, not modern philosophy, which is has its own value. I mean, like what I was talking about with Socrates and Plato, the cultivation of wisdom, right? The love of wisdom and science. And I’m, I’m becoming increasingly critical, although I am a scientist and I love practicing science. I’m becoming increasingly critical of, of unphilosophical in both senses of the word science, people who practice science without a philosophical framework, without in both the modern sense of philosophy, the critical reflection on, and also the ancient sense. Well, what’s, where’s, how are you training wisdom? I mean, one of the things you, if you wanted to be a really good scientist, you know what you should be. You should not just have good training in your stats and your experimental design. You should also get this machinery really well trained. You should be a wise individual, a person that has, and science is done in community. You should have developed your interpersonal abilities. So, and there, and there’s, there’s this taps into a longer argument that people are making right now about what’s called epistemic responsibility, thinking of knowledge, not just as the possession of a thing, but how we are responsible and how we are virtuous to each other in the ways in which we know. And so for me, that’s something I’m going to bring that in again, into the, the next series, the after Socrates, but that, that just leads to the, then the, the question and, and I’m, I’m socratically open. I, and I, I’m not expecting an exhaustive, what do you mean when you say wisdom? And you’ve, you, and you’ve got attended things you say, you talk about, you know, a kind of clarity, a kind of connectedness and, you know, and tapping into the other kinds of knowing. So what does, what does that term, and it sounds to me like that’s right. That you said the two things are wisdom and responsibility. And that’s by the way, why that thing about epistemic responsibility is so it bridges between them, but what is, what is wisdom? Yeah. So, so the two things were actually awakening and responsibility. Oh, I’m sorry. Yeah. And then, and then we have this other thing that we talk about, which is the three facets, which are wisdom, love and power. They all interact with each other. And of course, I mean, you know, wisdom is, there’s a lot of different definitions, I can give you some, but of course it’s all a little bit nebulous. But one of the ways that we define these three different things is in terms of perspectives. And so, love is the ability to see, to fully see from the perspective of another person. Ah, I see. Yeah. Power is the ability to hold to your own perspective and to, to have others kind of drawn to your perspective. Right. And then wisdom is the ability to drop all perspectives. And so by extension, that actually means being able to also pick up other perspectives. So we have these frames that we look at. Wisdom is the ability to put down the frames that allows you then to pick up another one and pick up another one and so on. So it’s like the field in which you can move frames around. Is that, is that a way of understanding it? I think, I think that’s a, that’s a good way of putting it. And I mean, we really do, we have like the Buddhist, the very strong Buddhist lean, so what we mean by wisdom and awakening is really the traditional Buddhist process of going towards enlightenment. And I don’t, don’t ask me what enlightenment is. I’m not, I don’t know. Yeah. That’s, that’s, that’s not. But I like this idea. I talk a lot from my cognitive science work about framing and the way we’re obviously framing. But I do talk also about that ability. I think there’s a continuum between insight, flow experiences, wisdom, and potentially something like enlightenment. We’re going to be releasing a book on that called Ecological Enlightenment soon. Um, with Daniel Craig, but that idea, like that insight is that ability to break a frame and put it and pick up an alternative frame. And you’re in a space that’s, yeah, that I like that idea of wisdom being that, that space, that, that field, I want to say field, not just space, cause space just seems sort of like there’s no, there’s no power to it, or a field to my mind is like, it’s, there’s a space with that, that guides you, right? It’s a guiding space. Maybe it’s what I’m trying to say. Um, kind of like what you get in Wu Wei with Tai Chi Chuan. So you can take, yeah, you can put down a frame, you can pick up frames, you can, you can go into a narrative, you can move out of a narrative. And it was interesting the way you also did it in terms of the perspectives. Um, so the word virtue actually originally meant power. Um, that’s why we say in virtue of doing something. Um, and so it was the ability to ex, it was the power to exercise appropriate agency. Um, and so that sounds like very similar. Um, that’s very cool. Um, so when people come in and they have, I know what your teacher said, you know, if you come in believing in God, you’ll lose that. And if you don’t believe in God, you’ll lose that. It sounds like a non-theism, which I think is really important right now. Um, I, I want to talk about that, but I want to talk about this. Is it also the case? Cause I’ve noticed when I’ve been teaching people in ecology of practices and they come in with, sometimes they, it happens, like you say, they come in with a particular religious tradition and it’ll be challenged for them. And, and, and, and, and they’re not typically hostile about that. They don’t like, there’s not resentment or something like that. But sometimes what people do is they’ll say, I did all of this and now I appreciate Christianity in a way I never did before. They, they, they, it’s like, they, just like we were talking about, they, they dropped a framing of Christianity. And when they picked up a new framing, they saw Christianity in a new way. And now it took to them much more deeply. Does that sometimes happen for people? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. And actually at Willow, there’s, um, that has happened to Willow. Certainly it’s happened at Maple, but I’ve seen it very clearly at Willow. Um, one of our, our residents is he was raised Catholic and kind of didn’t really engage with that as much anymore. And he has said, as he has been at Willow doing these practices, he has come to appreciate Catholicism, he has come to appreciate what it means to his family. He started going to church sometimes with his, with his family. This was pre COVID, obviously. Um, and so you kind of, and this actually brings, brings back into, uh, brings, uh, kind of the emotional healing and emotional processing stuff back because a lot of the, you know, we, we’ve looked at these frames and they’ve kind of maybe been forced on us, maybe we’re holding all sorts of bad, difficult things about them. And then as we learned to clear those out, we can actually engage with that frame much more lovingly and, uh, see, see the benefits of it. Yeah. That’s, that’s, that’s beautiful. I really like this idea. Um, so you said people like people can come in for different durations, a week or a month or longer there. So what, like, what, what, what do people say to you who have come in? Sorry for the hackneyed phrase. And then they go back into the world. You have to say that in a somewhat sonorous tone as if it’s really important or back into the world. So they come in, they do this, they go back into the world. And do they come back like, and tell you like, how does it transfer back? Is what I’m basically asking. How do people, what do people say about that? Like when they, so one of the things I emphasize when I’m teaching people is, you know, the most important moment, well, maybe not the, but one of the most important moments is the moment when you’re getting off your meditation pillow. Right. Because if you’re, if you’re thinking that I’m going to do stuff there and then leave it behind and you’re not, if you’re not paying attention to, to integrity, how do I integrate that into my life? How do I try? Then you’re just vacationing from your life. You’re not educating at all. So presumably, I mean, you’re, you’re emphasizing that too. I’m getting that sense. So presumably people are making the effort to find appropriate ways and effective ways of transferring. What are they, are they finding effective ways of doing that? Are they coming back? What, what kinds of things are they reporting back to you? Yeah. So of course it really differs by the person. Of course. And so certainly there are people who leave and, and this is actually a common thing that I’ve seen. They leave and they really want to spend more time with their families. That happened for me. I spent, I’ve been connected with Maple for about four years, but for a lot of that time I was just an occasional guest. And when I stayed there at one point for two months, a few years ago, I left. Uh, and I just wanted to spend time with my family because, you know, I cleared out all this stuff and I was like, Oh, this is actually really important. And, you know, my parents are getting older and it’s. It kind of helps me see the things that are more important to me. Um, and I think that’s been the case for a lot of people is they leave and then, um, you know, I mentioned the, the Buddhist eightfold path and I don’t have to get into it too much, but one of, one of those is right livelihood. Right. So how do you, how do you sustain yourself? How do you live? How do you engage with the economy in a way that isn’t causing a lot, at least isn’t causing harm and hopefully is doing good. Right. Um, so a lot of people kind of start to have that frame of like, what is the thing that I want to do next? And they sometimes take, take quite a bit of time to kind of decide rather than just, you know, jumping into some sort of job because you, you know, you need money. Um, I put that in quotes, of course you do need money to some extent, but, uh, one of the things that you can actually learn in a monastic institution is how to be happy with less, and so you actually have less of a need for lots of money. Um, so that’s a thing that kind of becomes a more gradual process for people of like, what is mine to give to the world and how can I best do that? And for some people that means staying at the monastery and, um, like proliferate proliferating this culture. Um, for some people, uh, I think Daniel Thorson is a good example of this. He was at the monastery for two years and then he left and he essentially had his perfect life. He, he had a beautiful relationship. He lived in the exact place where he wanted to live. He had a, an amazing job that he loved with people that he loved. And ultimately for him, it actually wasn’t fully satisfying. And what he was able to do with that is see that even if he gets the exact thing that he wants or that he thinks he wants, it isn’t actually leading to the kind of satisfaction that he’s hoping, uh, to find. And so he actually came back to the center and now he’s, he’s been back for several years as, as part of the Monastic Academy. Um, so I think that, uh, there’s a way in which once you’ve spent time there, it kind of shifts your way of seeing the world and seeing your own actions, um, in a way that you kind of can’t ignore anymore. A lot of us, it’s easy for us to kind of ignore because everyone is doing this thing where we just have jobs that are, you know, you just, you just have to have a job and you kind of find ways to justify why that job is good, why it’s doing good for the world. And maybe it is, I don’t know, but, um, it gets harder and harder and harder to lie to yourself. And so you begin just to live more in integrity. And what happened for me personally is basically, uh, so I’m a software developer and I’ve spent the last 10 years working for software startups. Um, and I was gradually getting more and more, uh, you know, I would go to Maple for a few days or for a week or a couple of weeks, month. Um, and just by being there, just by going through like the guest training, I was kind of able to more and more to see how much the way that I was living my life wasn’t actually satisfying that this wasn’t what I wanted to be putting out into the world. Right. Um, and I told people when I actually went back to live there, I told people I’m doing this so that I stopped lying to myself and so many people were like, what, what do you mean? It was just a very confused, very confusing thing. Um, so I think that’s one of the big things is that it, it makes it much, much, much harder to lie to yourself about your actions and their impacts. So I think reducing self deception in a systematic and systemic way, I think that’s central to any spiritual practice. Um, if you’re not doing that, I think you’re going to fall into spiritual bypassing almost inevitably. Yeah. Yeah. So I feel we’ve talked a lot about the awakening side and forgive me, I misquoted you last time. Um, and, and, but now we’re starting to move over into the responsibility. So what’s the training for the transfer? You said you stopped being self-deceived. You start talking about right livelihood. So what kind of training practices you do in order to, uh, you know, bring people into, I don’t know what to call it, a heightened sense of responsibility, the ability to respond to the world and its needs more appropriately. What kind of things do you do on that side? Yeah, I’m glad you asked that. Um, so one thing that we’re, this is a new thing that we’re bringing in kind of more explicitly is, um, an ethical program to, so a way to like explore our ethics, um, how they impact our experience, the kind of ethical significance of particular emotions, um, which really guides the way that we act in the world. But in, uh, on the side of responsibility specifically, um, we are, you know, we’re a nonprofit organization and it needs to be run in a particular way. We have just responsibilities that we have within the organization. We have to, um, you know, feed everyone. We have to keep the place clean. We have to do guest management. We have to do a whole bunch of different projects and, you know, accounting, things like that. And so people actually get placed in particular roles and they learn particular skills that are going to then be applicable to the sorts of things that you would actually be able to put on a resume, for example, like, you know, I was the accounting person for a year for like this big organization or whatever. Or I took on this project that, uh, I had to lead, you know, five people and I had to really see the way that, uh, my leadership impacts them or my lack of leadership impacts them or something like that. And so people are placed in situations where they just kind of have to take responsibility, they have to take leadership. They’re also placed in positions where they have to take followership. Right. Right. Right. And also, this is actually, sorry, what’s that? There’s leadership, followership and fellowship also working like upward to your boss, downward to if you were ever using hierarchical and then, but there’s also working with other people in fellowship, right? Yeah. Yes, exactly. And so this actually just like very purely, very easily comes out of the fact that we were just an organization that needs to run, run it. And so you just have to become that person who can do that. Um, and I think actually I’m sort of an interesting example of this where I was, I was just like, this needs to exist. I wanted to exist closer to my home in Canada because I live in Toronto and I don’t know how to run a monastic center, but this needs to exist and I’m the person who maybe can do it. So let’s try it. And so now I know how to be the executive director of a nonprofit. That’s not something that I ever had considered before. Thank you. Uh, but it’s exactly that sort of thing where like, you actually learn to have more confidence in your skills in yourself. You, you learn to have the confidence that like whatever you’re placed in, you can figure out how to be in that because it just needs to be done. That’s cool. Can I ask you a little bit more about the new ethical program? Cause that also sounds very Socratic to me. Uh, where you’re coming in and getting people to reflect on their states and the ethical implication and, and if that, you know, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, like I said, that sounds very, very Socratic to me. Um, so what, what does that look like? What kind of practice is it? Or is it a set of practices? Right. So the thing with that one actually is that this has been an exploration at the Oak location for the last few months. Um, Daniel, Daniel Thorson has been there working with them with that. And what’s going to happen is actually in the summer, he’s going to come to Willow and the two of us are going to be running. And I’ll want to say a little bit more about this in a bit. Um, the two of us are going to be running kind of an experimental program where we take all of these different, uh, ecologies of practice that have been in some ways explicit in some ways, less explicit ethics until now has been less explicitly something that’s been thing, um, practice. And so we’re going to run a three month program where we’re actually combining all of them together very explicitly. And seeing what happens. And so on the ethics side, I actually don’t know because he’s been running that. And I’m really curious to, to bring that in. Well, I’d love to, first of all, can I ask you to come back after that three months and we can talk about what that looked like and how that unfolded? I’m also like, again, I don’t want to, I don’t want to presume on your resources, but, you know, it might be, it might be valuable to have somebody in there as sort of a trained observer of that. Um, right. Somebody noting, I’m thinking of almost like an anthropologist doing participant observation, you know, and noting things down and making observations, um, and, and, you know, asking people questions periodically doing interviews, longitudinal like, you know, a little bit more, I guess, science into it, just because that might, I mean, you’re running and like, again, I don’t, I don’t want to trivialize it, but you’re running a really powerful experiment. Um, and keeping very careful track of it. Um, uh, because I mean, that’s one of the things you do science, you collect all this data and you think, and you’re paying attention to this and paying attention to this, and when you get all your data, you go, Oh, the thing I wasn’t paying much attention actually turned out to be the really important thing. Uh, that’s that frequently happens. Right. Um, um, so, yeah, no, that would be amazing. Yeah. Yeah. It’d be good, uh, to, to have somebody who could come in and observe and note and write things down, um, yeah, that, that, if you can get someone to do that, that’d be fantastic. Yeah. So maybe this might be a good time for me to say just a little bit more about that summer program, because I have the sense, I have the sense that people who are, you know, listening to this are probably going to be quite interested in these sorts of things. Um, I think so too. Yeah. And so basically this summer, we don’t know the exact dates yet, but it’ll probably be July to September. We’re going to be running this, this kind of experimental program and we’re looking for five people actually to join. Um, and so it’s going to be completely full-time on-site monastic, very intensive training, going through all of the different colleges of practice. Um, and ideally, uh, the kinds of people that we’re looking for are people who have, you know, done some amount of this work already and are kind of on that path very much, um, and may even be interested in helping to stay on at Willow for longer, for like a year or more to, to really hone, uh, hone our program and, and, uh, continue the organization thriving. So we’re actually, um, we haven’t opened applications yet, but we’re going to open them in a few weeks. Uh, and so if the people who are listening to this are interested actually in joining this program and maybe someone as a participant observer who can write these things, you know, track these things, um, they can go on growingwillow.org slash summer 2021. I actually wrote that down so that I can just put it up for people to see. Well, you can also send me all of this, uh, and I’ll put it in the notes for the video. I’ll also broadcast on all of my platforms so that you’ll be reaching around at least, you know, 50,000 people. This will get out. Right. Um, so, yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I’m very, very excited to see how that summer program goes. And, um, I’m excited to see the kinds of people we get, the kinds of applications we get. I’m also, and this is separate, but I’m just excited for it in a few weeks. I’m going into a solitary cabin retreat for about two and a half months. Um, so basically from now until that summer program starts, almost, I’m just going to be alone in a cabin, uh, talking only with Soryu, uh, every once in a while. Um, so you mentioned that maybe I should come back after the three months, uh, experiment, but also it’s like, I don’t know who I’m even going to be after these 10 weeks in a cabin. I’m really excited for that. Yeah. So, um, I guess what I w we’re coming towards sort of a close for now, but I want to give you, you know, in case there’s some threads that you feel have not been properly woven in, let’s give you an opportunity for anything more you’d like to say right now. Yeah. Thank you. Um, so of course the summer program is one, uh, important thing. And, uh, if people are interested just in what we’re doing in general, they should absolutely feel free to get in touch with me, ask any questions that they have, um, one thing that is, uh, of course, something that we have to contend with is the fact that in order to exist, we have to have money. And so we’re also looking for people who are able to support us in, in whatever way that can, um, we have a crowdfunding campaign right now on our website, growingwillow.org. Uh, and so if anyone is, is interested in supporting these types of institutions, it’s really, uh, that’s been, um, I don’t know if I would say a struggle that’s maybe slightly too strong of a word, but it’s, it’s a really hard thing to like be doing all of these things and also have to be like, okay, but do we have enough money to put food on the table for the next three months? Yeah. Um, yes. So that’s one thing that I kind of want to put a, put a call out for is, uh, for those who have the means and who really want to support these kinds of institutions, I would very much, uh, welcome any generosity that people are able to provide. Totally, totally. What you’re doing is absolutely important. And I encourage, I encourage anybody who wants to support, um, the monastic academy in a financial way, whatever, whatever way you want, you know, just please, um, please get in contact and, and make a donation. I think the work that Sashina is doing is really important. It’s really needed. And I think she’s correct. It’s so consonant with a lot of the stuff I’ve been talking about and searching about and writing about and also trying to practice. And, um, uh, so, uh, you know, I don’t know if this matters to you or not, but I’m fully endorsing what you’re doing. I think it’s, I think it’s excellent important work. Thank you so much. It does, it does matter. It matters a lot. I really appreciate it. Well, good. Well, like I said, um, I hope that you’ll come back and we’ll have, you know, maybe even more than one of these, maybe a couple more of these, at least be nice to have a trilogy trilogy seem nice for some reason. Um, I, I, I, I wish you the best for both, uh, for your period of solitude and for, um, the summer session. Um, and I really want to be kept in the loop about this stuff, please. Um, because I think it’s important and I’m really interested in like, I eventually want to get something like what you guys are doing with the monastic academy to talk to Rafe Kelly and what he’s doing with his movement practice, a community, uh, cause it’s very monastic and, uh, but also like an academy also. And just, you know, like it would be nice if we, if we could form sort of, uh, you know, um, a mutually supporting cooperative network where we could talk and compare and also, so we could give people a diverse, but potentially integrated curriculum, maybe they go to the master academy, do certain things. And then they realized that maybe they really need to get more into the body and then they can go work with Rafe. Um, things like that. So that is, that is such a beautiful future to envision. Yeah. Well, that’s, that’s, that’s what I mean when I talk about, you know, stealing the culture, uh, right. Not trying to go through the political machinery, but build up these communities bottom up so that people are living lives, right. And so, exactly. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much. It’s been such a great pleasure. And I really look forward. I know you’ll be in silent retreat, so I won’t be able to hear from you a while, but I, I ask you to please keep in touch. Um, it’s been nice to reconnect with you. Just on a personal level. Um, I miss the circling as I imagine you do too. So best of luck. You’re most welcome back and please keep in touch. And thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much. It’s been really, really wonderful.