Untangled: Suffering & The 8-Fold Path with Koshin Paley Ellison

If you look at social media with its reliance on meme-based psychology, you’d think that the Buddhist approach to life is to not let things get to you - that the true spiritual path helps you rise above such limited, unenlightened human feelings like grief, greed, and resentment. Zen teacher Koshin Paley Ellison is here to tell you that your suffering deserves your attention. 

In this episode we cover: 

 

• How an experience of targeted violence shaped Koshin’s childhood, and what it’s taught him about the suffering of others
• Why it’s healthier to spend time in the “life is suffering” part of the 4 Noble Truths, rather than rushing to the other 3 as solutions
• How to work with the pain and the suffering in your own life, so that it doesn't fester and cause more harm
• Why going to the furniture store looking for milk is only going to lead to disappointment
• Koshin’s new book, Untangled: Walking the Eightfold Path to Clarity, Courage, and Compassion

 

Notable quotes: 

“That's why those very powerful giants of greed and resentment and delusion are so important. Tell me about how those things affect you, and I’ll tell you how they affect

"Only then can we get really real.” - Koshin Paley Ellison

 

“You'll never be free until you can be still with your pain.” - Koshin Paley Ellison

 

“We're in such a habit of managing the feelings instead of naming the experience.” - Megan Devine

About our guest:

 

Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison is an author, Zen teacher, and Jungian psychotherapist who has devoted his life to the study and application of psychotherapy and Buddhism. Koshin co-founded the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care, with his husband Chodo Robert Campbell, to transform the culture of care through contemplative practice by meeting illness, aging, and death with compassion and wisdom.

Koshin’s work has been featured in the New York Times, PBS, and CBS Sunday Morning among other media outlets. His newest book is Untangled: Walking the Eightfold Path to Clarity, Courage, and Compassion.

Additional resources:

Chodo and Koshin joined us in season one of Here After. Listen to that episode here. 

 

Learn about the New York Zen Center’s contemplative care program at zencare.org

 

Announcement: want to become a grief-informed therapist? Registration is open now for Megan Devine’s 6 month grief care professional program. Details at this link. 

Get in touch:

Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of Here After with Megan Devine. Tune in, subscribe, leave a review, send in your questions, and share the show with everyone you know. Together, we can make things better, even when they can’t be made right. 

Follow Here After with Megan Devine on TikTok @hereafterpod 

 

Have a question, comment, or a topic you’d like us to cover? call us at [phone] or visit megandevine.co

 

For more information, including clinical training and consulting, visit us at www.Megandevine.co

 

For grief support & education, follow us at @refugeingrief on IG, FB, TW, and @hereafterpod on TT

 

Check out Megan’s best-selling books - It’s Okay That

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The first nobility is that there is suffering. And I
remember as a young kid feeling so grateful for someone
acknowledging that things are hard, that they're suffering in life,
that it's real, because I grew up in a space
where most people were telling me what I was thinking

(00:23):
was happening wasn't happening, and everything was just fine, and
it wasn't fine. This is Hereafter, and I'm your host,
Megan Divine, author of the best selling book It's Okay
that You're Not Okay. This week on Here After, Zen
teacher Cotion Paley Ellison joins me to talk about his
new book Untangled and how the real work of spiritual

(00:44):
practice is turning to face what hurts, not trying to
rise above it. No spiritual bypassing in this episode, Friends,
stay tuned. We'll be right back after this first break.
Before we get started, one quick note. While we cover

(01:06):
a lot of relational emotional territory in each at every episode,
this show is not a substitute for skilled support with
a license mental health provider, or for professional supervision related
to your work. Today's guest is an old friend of mine,
an old friend from way back in season one of

(01:26):
the podcast. He's back because he's got a new book
out tomorrow called Untangled Walking The Eightfold Path to Clarity,
Courage and Compassion. But I'll tell you the truth, a
little secret. I have him back on the show because
his presence is like medicine for me personally, his words,

(01:49):
his way of looking at the world, and his silliness,
especially his silliness. I always feel somehow both calm and
joyful after spending time with him, even when we talk
about difficult or painful things. Coach and Paley Ellison is
an author, a Zen teacher, and a Youngian psychotherapist who
has devoted his life to the study and application of
psychotherapy and Buddhism. Coach and co founded the New York

(02:13):
Zen Center for Contemplative Care with his husband Chodo. Robert
Campbell and Kain's newest book is Untangled Walking, The Eightfold
Path to Clarity, Courage and Compassion. As I mentioned earlier, now,
it is not important that you know what the eight
Fold Path is or what the foreign noble truths are
in order to get something beautiful and useful out of
today's episode. But in a very brief nutshell, in case

(02:36):
you want to know, think of the foreign noble truths,
like a concise description of the human condition, Suffering exists.
It has a cause, it has an end, and there
is a path or a practice that will help you
find the end to suffering. That path is called the
middle Way. Now, side note here. If you have read
my book It's Okay that You're not okay, you might

(02:57):
remember that there's a short little section on the Chinks
of the Buddha in my book where I talk about
the middle Way. So if you're like, I've heard this before,
that might be it. The middle Way introduces us to
the noble eightfold path, which is what helps us find
the cessation of suffering. It is not an eight step
plan to pretending that things don't suck. The point of practice,

(03:21):
and the point of Quen's new book, is that if
you can find your own roots, your own center inside
difficult times, you can tend to your pain in ways
that make it a lot less likely your pain will
fester and cause more harm, a k A suffering. That's
going to all make a lot more sense when you
listen to this week's show. So for now, just let

(03:42):
that part wash over you. Now, a couple of content
notes for today's episode, the real power of Caution's work
is that it's rooted in intense pain and suffering. He
really knows intimately and personally the power of the tools
heat eaches. You'll hear him tell a very intense story
of anti Semitism in his childhood and how that experience

(04:05):
affects him to this day. He does that so they
can talk about the ways that Buddhism has helped him
engage with what happened to him in ways that make
that memory easier to endure. So one content note there
is a graphic description of anti Semitism in this episode,
and to a reminder that anti Semitism is not a
thing of the distant past. It is here, now, present,

(04:30):
and growing. I shall hear Cohen say in this episode,
all violence has suffering at its root. All right, that's
enough prep out of me. I hope you find so
much to carry with you in this episode. Friends, Cotion's
joy shines through everything he does, and I'm so happy
to share his wisdom and his presence with you here again. Hello,

(04:53):
my friend. I am so glad to be back together
with you for season two, and of course we have
been chatting, but for this and I feel like we
could get together for this show once a season for
years and years and years and years and just sort
of vaguely chat about everything forever. But this time, this time,

(05:13):
we are here to talk about your new book and
why it matters in this moment, individually and collectively. So
I want to hear about two things before we really
get rolling. And I'm doing this because I know how
conversations with you go. You say something and it reminds
me of something else, and then we're before we know it,
those horses have not only left the barn, but they

(05:35):
are in Arkansas and we started in California. So two
things that I want to know from you before we
get rolling. First, can you tell us about your new book?
And second, can you give a little primer on the
Buddhist eight Fold path so that people know what we're
referring to as we talk about it. So, first of all,

(05:55):
it's really sweet to see you, and thank you. The
new book, Untangled, is really a book that I've been
in some ways living for the last a couple of
decades and really looking at how we can actually address

(06:18):
the gap between what we all kind of know. If
we pause for a second, and you say, what do
I really value? What do I really care about? What
are the things I care about? What are the activities
that are nourishing to me? The people and actually what
we're doing with our time. And so for me, the

(06:38):
four Noble truths and they both have are exactly the
medicine to address that gap that we kind of all know.
And I think it's a gap of anxiety. It's a
gap of a version from our discomfort for what feels hard.

(06:58):
We don't want to do with some and that's hard,
and to be with our grief, to be with our sadness,
to be with our anger, to be with our greed,
you know, we just fill in, you know, and cover
over what is most important, and then we end up
living our lives where we can end up living our

(07:19):
lives actually just always far away from what we most
care about. And so, you know, the historical Buddha was
so smart and often he's a thought of it as
the great position and as the great position. One of
the reasons why he's known as that is because he

(07:40):
diagnosed the problem, which is that they're suffering, that there
is tangled, that there's you know, as my grandmother would say,
Yiddish tourists, you know, like basically, it hurts, and we
feel confused and overwhelmed and all of this stuff. And
the first nobilities that there is suffering. And I remember

(08:03):
as a young kid feeling so grateful for someone acknowledging
that things are hard, that they're suffering in life, that
that it's real because I grew up in a space
where most people were telling me what I was thinking
was happening wasn't happening, and everything was just fine, and

(08:26):
it wasn't fine. So hearing that first nobility, in the
nobility of suffering, that that it's noble, you know, that
we can actually sit in nobility and realize that yes,
I feel tangled up and that there is something about
honoring that that I feel like a mess or I

(08:48):
feel terrible. And the second nobility are these giants of
what I think of as giants, because the giants existed
pretty much any culture or where they're kind of like
the giant size of what is normally you know, smaller,
which is greed and resentment and delusion and oh boy,

(09:14):
and to really jump into that, these are what caused
the suffering, caused the tangle and to me, there to
really honor, you know, to really see clearly with acuity,
with a loving acuity of attention. And I feel like
that's probably the most important, is to really look at

(09:37):
really carefully in a loving tender way, like, oh, I'm
so greedy, I you know, I know for much of
my life, you know, it's holding onto this feeling of victimization.
I was really sure because of you know, the different
kinds of abuse that I experienced, that it made me

(09:59):
a victim, which on one hand, I was, you know,
those things happened, and what was extra is my greed
of holding onto like that's who I was when I realized,
like I had terrible things happened to me and many
wonderful things, but I was kind of holding on to

(10:22):
one side of that as an identity. So it's kind
of a different way of understanding greed. You know, sometimes
we understand greed which is also a cause of suffering,
which is trying to get stuff in the world. You know,
if my teacher thought I was a good person, or
if I got a car or an iPhone or whatever

(10:43):
that is, you know, or people like me that can
be agreed to, like the desire to be liked and
all those different ways, and so so greed is one
of them the causes of our suffering. And then there's
and holding on, holding onto like that kind of anger

(11:06):
that where we just like hold and hold it and
hold it, it just corrodes, corrodes away. And I know
for me, you know too, and in my own experience,
And this is one of the things that was really
important for me and in writing this, is to really
get into that spaces myself so that I could walk

(11:30):
with you the reader, to really say, like, I have
my experience and what is yours? And you know, that
feeling of resentment towards the people who had perpetrated against me,
Like I really held onto this, like and it became
like a black bial, you know, like just like look

(11:52):
and really seeing that, just seeing like how we hold
onto resentment and what it does to us, What does
the greed due to us? You know, in the last
one's delusion where we kind of separate, we are delusive
because we think that we're alone. To me, that's the
fundamental delusion, is that we're alone. And you know, for

(12:16):
one of my favorite antidotes to that is just to
look up and look around and realize that We're just
part of the world, and it's our delusion that we're
not to me. The fundamental delusion of separateness is really
like when we have the feeling of being alone and
then turning it into a truth. You know, and how

(12:39):
often instead of feeling our feelings and letting the feelings
just flow like a river and we can sit on
the bank and just watched all those thoughts and feelings
flow around and learning how to see that instead of
identifying that's who I am, I am that feeling. I

(13:03):
love that you started all of this with the acknowledgment
of suffering. I also like, we're probably going to pull
out what you said about that first truth of the
nobility of suffering, being able to look at the world
and say ouch. Right. One of the things that irritates
me about spiritual bypassing is that we take these intensely

(13:26):
deep and beautiful and useful, single, simple, simple in air
quotes here, simple teachings and twist them to our own
nefarious devices. Right, like to be able to say, like, yeah, yeah,
life is pain. You have to get over it, you
have to move on. Um that happened to you, but
you can't let it define you. That is not what

(13:51):
the Buddha taught, and that is not what the evil
path is about. It is not about saying, yeah, yeah, yeah,
this terrible stuff happened to you, but you have to
not hold onto it. You have to let go of
your feelings about what happened to you. I feel like
we could spend an entire lifetime just studying thing one,

(14:13):
which is ouch and giving space to letting things hurt
and seeing our hurt in ourselves and seeing the hurt
in the people around us, and seeing the things that
hurt in the world, and giving that breathing space. And
if we can't do that, it makes it really difficult

(14:33):
to go into all of the things that you just
described about noticing your feelings and getting untangled and working
with resentment and looking at the ways that in a way,
painful things get weaponized, whether by the world outside not
seeing you and not recognizing the truth of what you're living,

(14:57):
and therefore we get sort of resentful of like if
you're not going to see me, then I'm going to
make sure you see me. Right, pain passed to the
outside world or that sort of spiritual bypassing of it's
not quote unquote enlightened to be in pain, you're supposed
to use these tools to free yourself of it. And

(15:18):
I am very Buddhist light in my understanding of the teachings.
This is something that that I hear a lot from
people that they move away from anything spiritual or religious,
or meditation can cure cancer, all of these things because

(15:38):
we don't do that step number one, you're in pain,
and I see it is to me the most important.
It was also so interesting because when I was preparing
to write this book, I started reading on their texts
about the four normal truths, and usually the first three,

(15:58):
you know, so you're saying now, or the tangle and
the causes of suffering. You know, people tend to write
like one chapter about that and then they move into
the rest of it is the full path, which is
kind of the prescription to heal. And for me, like no, no, no, no,
like just slow it down, yeah it for it to

(16:21):
be real. You know, I thought, actually, what you were
going to say about the challenge of spiritual bypassing, I
would that you're going to say the challenge of spiritual
bypassing is spiritual bypassing, that is that is accurate bypassing
is bad because it's bipassing. Yes, yeah, And I think

(16:44):
that it's so important to honor what's hard. It's just
critical because the reality is that life is sour and
sweet and savory and everything. So how do we appreciate
what's hard because we all know that life's hard, and
that's it's also so interesting and so that another reason

(17:07):
we need each other is to remind each other, Oh,
it's hard, all right, Yeah, you're in that hard spot.
I feel like you can watch somebody, if somebody is
in pain, and instead of cheering them up, telling them
to look on the bright side, telling them that maybe
they should get on their map and meditate, like all
of these things, if you do what you just described,

(17:29):
which is mirror that back. Yeah, this sucks, this is hard.
What happened to you was not okay? Right, you can
watch their physical being relax in a way. Right, Like
there is such powerful medicine and acknowledgement. What I hear
you saying is like, we only get to use the

(17:51):
tools to come to our own aid and our own
assistance when we tell the truth, and its super helps
to have that truth reflected and validated by the world
around you, and then we can jump into all of
these beautiful tools that you're talking about in Untangling, then

(18:11):
we can talk about how do you how do you
work with the pain and the suffering in your own
life so that it doesn't fester and cause more harm.
You've been listening to here after and I'm your host,

(18:32):
Bagan Divine. We're talking with Cohen Paley Ellison, author of
the new book Untangled. Let's get back to it. You know,
I was thinking about we have this contemplative Medicine fellowship
for our physicians, and there's practitioners, and it's a year
long training because we're really just worried about doctors. And

(18:53):
there's practitioners because like the highest rates of suicide, the
highest rates are divorce, drug and alcohol abuse. I'm leaving
the profession. It's actually often thought of as the most
unhealthy profession. And we realized that in order to engage
them in a loving way, we had to start with

(19:15):
the truth of suffering, right And so we start right there,
and it's like, okay, so let's talk about what's hard
and what you're carrying inside of yourself in your interpersonal
relationships and your life out in the world. And I
think that it's such a beautiful model for all of

(19:35):
us to think about. Okay, what hurts, what's tangled up
inside of me, what's tangled up in my interpersonal relationships,
and what's tangled up in my relationship of the world,
and what's topsy turkey, you know what is kind of
a little cuckoo here. And to me, when we start

(19:57):
to do that, you know, I was thinking about my
teacher and you, and he was talking about the most
important thing is to suffer together first, So let's suffer together.
And so to me, that's why those very powerful giants
of greed and resentment and delusion are so important. Is like,

(20:19):
oh you too, you too. Tell me about how those
things affect you, and I'll tell you how they affect me,
And so we can get really real, yeah, real, and
curious about each other, right, curious about pain in our
own lives and the pain in others, so that we
can suffer together. Right. You only get that kind of

(20:44):
companionship and connection when you can tell the truth about
what it's like to be you, and the you that
we don't often share with most people because we want
to appear like we're Okay. M reminds me of a
book that a brother, Yes, it's okay that you're not
okay exactly. Yeah, I mean this is this is such

(21:06):
a challenge, right, it's sort of chicken in the egg
type thing. We pretend to be okay when we're not
because we've internalized all of that messaging that says that
happiness is the only true marker of health and if
you're suffering, you're doing it wrong. And also behavioral conditioning. Right,
if I come to the people in my life and

(21:27):
I say, hey, this is really hard right now, and
what I get back is not validation or acknowledgement, it's
spiritual bypassing. It's you think you have it bad, My
life is worse. One of the things that I say
often is like, if you keep going to the grocery
store looking for milk and they insist on selling you furniture,

(21:48):
you're going to stop going to that store because you're
not going to get what you need. Right. So it's
tricky because I think, I think, because we have such
a backlog of being able to name the truth of suffering,
it almost fuels the resentment that we're trying to untangle
by using the tools of untangling resentment. Because it's like,

(22:10):
oh great, now I'm just supposed to like start being
open and honest and start dealing with my resentment. I mean,
I can feel myself getting tangled up even just trying
to express it right, like right, because of what we
think that there is it's linear, right, The reality is
not linear. Our brain sometimes wants to create a linear story.

(22:35):
First do this, then do that, and then do that.
Like many of us, you know, look for self help
books or different things where tell me what to do
to not feel often what I'm feeling. And to me,
the courage comes from that clarity of oh, right, like

(22:56):
I'm in a hard moment right now, and to realize
we're just in that moment that's challenging, not in a
reality that we can turn it into like that's my reality.
Everything's hard, life sucks, and sometimes life does't suck. But

(23:17):
I think that the key part is sometimes sometimes yeah,
it's it's interesting and this is this is the effect
that you have in the world. I will just say this,
like I just mentioned that, like even talking about validation
and resentment and all of these things, I could feel
myself getting tangled and in my head I went go

(23:38):
back to step one go back to step one, which
is all right, this is hard, and that did something right.
I mean, it's amazing. Just telling the truth seems like
it's too simple to be of any kind of use
at all. But I feel like we're in such a
habit of managing the feelings instead of name the experience,

(24:01):
and that that really is what this book is about,
right when you're noticing that tangle, that anxiety, that resentment,
that frustration and going back to step one. Oh, I mean,
the nobility of things get tangled up. I'm just I'm

(24:23):
back here, Okay, okay, okay, okay. Yeah. I want to
talk a little bit about you as a younger person,
because I think that these conversations can get philosophical and
esoteric really quickly. So there's a story in the book

(24:44):
where you talk about being chased through the woods as
a child. Are you okay if we talk about that story?
Do you want to share that story? Yeah? So, I
think what's important about list story, too, is that what
happened before the story, and what happened is that there

(25:07):
were these pictures that maybe some of us all remember,
of those refugees being kind of lassoed at the border
and kind of hunted at the border, like on horseback,
and the images were so haunting and so disturbing to
me that I just felt such tenderness and such sorrow

(25:30):
and fear just seeing these images. And there was something
about it. I was like, what is it about that
image that is so scary to me? And I was
biking home on you know, I live in little island
called Manhattan and has these beautiful rivers all around it,

(25:51):
and I like to buy home at night, and and
I was biking home and you kind of have to
go off into the wooded area and it was getting dark,
and I suddenly this memory just like shot through me,
and I literally fell off my bike, Like it just
like literally hit me, and I just like fell off

(26:15):
the bike. And what happened was that my mother and
my stepfather had this kind of idea of a romantic idea,
kind of a beautiful utopian idea of homesteading and living
off the land and moving into a rural place and
won't that be great and we'll raise her own food
and whatever that is. So we moved to this tiny

(26:38):
little town in the upstate New York. And clearly they
had never had Jews there, and you know, the first
night that kind of circled our house and the four
wheelers and we're shooting at the house and painted jew
on the mailbox and and I actually I was I

(26:59):
think ten years old, and I had never been so
terrified in my life. And actually I didn't even know
that I was. I didn't really even understand that I
was Jewish, like even what that meant, because I felt
like I looked like everybody else, but it was clear
I was not like everybody else. So we lived in
this kind of town where actually, even in the public school,

(27:23):
it's so horrific, you know, and I think it's important,
you know that this is in New York state, upstate
New York, and the teacher lifting me up by my
hair and saying, show us your horns, jew and somehow,
and I still can feel the pain of that, like
the physical pain and the kind of humiliation of that.

(27:44):
And I remember still feeling a sense of agency somehow
going to the principal's office and saying, you know, this
is what happens, and he's like, well, where are your horns?
You know. So it's that kind of town, deeply racist place,
and one of the places where I found a lot
of solace. As a young person. We had a lot

(28:08):
of woods, and so I go off into the woods
and find these big boulders that lay on the boulders
that just tried to you know, often the boulders were
covered in moss, and just to be able to feel
the ground and feel supported and comforted by the world,
and just looking up at the canopy of trees and

(28:30):
the light coming through the trees has always been so
magical to me and continues to be just the kind
of depemorable, ephemeral beauty of the world. One afternoon, late afternoon,
I've gotten really far away from the house and pretty
deep in the woods where there were these trails that

(28:52):
I heard the four wheelers coming and they saw me
and they're like, you know, died, you died, And they
had guns and they were shooting at me. So it's
like being I was actually being hunted, and even now,
like it's hard to even touch the feeling of it,
you know, And so I'm even noticing while I'm saying

(29:13):
it now it's so hard to touch the depth of
that terror. So it was getting dark into the lights
on their four wheelers and there the gunshots, and I
just remember like jumping into like the side of the trail.

(29:34):
I went around a corner and I thought I'd kind
of be able to hide and landed in this BlackBerry
bramble which you got completely cut up, and just laid there,
you know, a breath and heart beating, and that's all
I really remember. And they passed and couldn't find me,
and but it was so so powerful, And that's what

(30:00):
I remember. The hunting, Like I remember the hair pulling.
I remembered, you know, being our house being circled, but
the hunting, being a human being hunted by other humans,
like I was a young boy, and what is that,
you know, So when I fell off my bike is

(30:20):
like that's what I remembered, the light kind of getting
dark in the forest and being terrified. And they were
my neighbors. I knew these people, so I really, you know,
brought me back to you know, I've come from a
family who were affected by the Holocaust, and we're actually

(30:41):
most of my family who were killed or killed by
their neighbors. And how easily that can happen, and how
that almost happened to me. Well it did happen, but
I didn't get killed, you know, And so I think
that there was also this like, wow, what is that
in someone that could do that? They were probably like,

(31:04):
I don't know, teenagers of some kind, you know. And
if we think about compassion, how does compassion include those
people and yet hold people responsible. So it makes me
really feel really deeply for the challenge that we're met with.

(31:26):
And and for me, what has been so important for
my own healing process is to really recognize and turn
the light to where it isn't and saying, oh, right,
this happened, it was real, It was terrifying, and in
some ways those wounds, my wounds, those wounds are exactly

(31:52):
what has propelled me into a life of healing and
intimacy and the most demand for that. And I learned
from early early age that my body didn't wouldn't necessarily continue,
that my body could get killed like that. I knew

(32:15):
that from a very young age. And so I think
this it has brought this like exquisite focus into the
beauty of the world. And so I think sometimes I
think the was the mythologists Michael Meade where he talks
about like these wounds and he's like kind of almost
like knife loves to your heart at an early age

(32:37):
can propel us into our life purpose. And so I'm
mostly so glad that I was able to, you know,
with lots of therapy, a lot, but really a lot
of therapy, and with really good people, having really meaningful
friends and you know, a steady that atation practice has

(33:01):
been completely that kind of that combination of three pigs
has been what has shifted things dramatically for me, and
really learning how to stay with what's hard and not
turn away. And you know, it was two years later

(33:22):
that I actually met my first teacher, who was this
guy since a White and since a white was you know,
I had seen these movies came out, which now there's
remakes and franchises about them, Star Wars and Karate Kid,
the original ones, and I would just love these two,

(33:43):
like the Karate Kid and Luke Skywalker were so whiny
and like name mean, you know, they were so whiny,
and it was so helpful to me because I realized,
like I felt so whiny, and there was something about
the hero being able to wind, which kind of gets
back to what you were saying before, or that like

(34:06):
incredible scene of when I don't know if you saw
this film called Spirited away where it's a genius and
there's this scene of this giant baby. I love the
giant baby so much, and it's just like this crazy
giant baby, and she's like, like, you have to attend

(34:29):
to that. You have to attend to our giant baby,
you know, and love that baby, you know. And so
I found this teacher since I went because I realized
how you can have a teacher who actually helps you
to not wind and never had registered to me. I
just felt like I was kind of stuck, and I

(34:49):
realized I have to find a teacher and how karate
so you can learn karate and find a teacher, And
so I went to the local strip mall. This is
when after we moved back from that mountain town, you
could say. And in the bottom of the drug store
was this karate school. Is like really gross, you know,

(35:10):
like really like definitely had a lot of fungus going
on there. But there was this teacher since say white,
and he used to have a sit and says that,
which is like when you have your legs underneath yourself,
you're sitting almost like on your knees. And it was
not like the kind of karate school where like there
was like kids classes. So I was like I was

(35:31):
kind of the real super htball at eleven years old,
which is another theme. But he used to walk around
us and say that we would sit there like that,
and it hurts so much because now these days, you know,
if you said meditation, you have a nice cushion, you
have a nice chair or whatever that is. We laid

(35:52):
down and this is like on a hardwood floor, and
he would would be sweating and sitting there, sweating, sweating, sweating,
and he said, you know, you'll never be free until
you can be still with your pain. And coming from
that town that also I began to see, how, you know,

(36:13):
people in my family, how those kids and the four wheelers,
that none of them knew how to be still with
their pain? Otherwise why would anyone cause so much harm?
Like I couldn't articulate at that time, but I remember
feeling like I understood them somehow, and not a very

(36:34):
sophisticated way, that I understood that they did not know
how that their values and their actions were together, because
as we were talking about earlier, they didn't know how
to be with their tangle and they didn't know how
to be with their pain or never mind the causes
of their pain. They just like you know, bounce, bounce

(36:56):
off their pain and just react, really act, react, react
for these days people as I get triggered, trigger, trigger, trigger,
you know, and as opposed to yes, I feel pain
and I can stay here with you. Yes it's true
and I'm here with you. To me, learning how to

(37:20):
be still with your pain is the beginning of intimacy,
and that makes not crazy, but for me it is
totally true. Okay, I've been just sitting here listening and
thank you for sharing all of that. I think what
you just said about learning to be silent with your

(37:44):
pain is I don't even remember what you said because
it was so perfect, but about intimacy starting there, right,
And this is something that we've been talking about from
various entry points this whole time. Is that it it
is not that horrendous things don't happen. It's also not

(38:07):
that horrendous things happen. Yeah, but let's move on and
not live there anymore. This is being here and being
human is impossible and it is and delicious. Yes, I'm
getting there, don't you worry. I'm coming. I'm coming for
the joy and the beauty. But I think there's so

(38:29):
much in what you just shared, and so much of
it is loss of intimacy, loss of connection, feeling like
you're the only one in the world, pain getting passed
down and passed down and passed down, and reactivity time
being so fast that you don't even recognize that you
are in pain, and that is driving your actions and

(38:50):
your reactions, and so much of our real spiritual traditions
are about slow the fuck down, m and say out
and sit with that and tell the truth about that,
and learn to be silent with that pain so that

(39:10):
you can wonder, how do I want to move in
this world living what I just lived? And so much
of your work and the Zen Center's work and all
of the things that you do in all of your books,
this one especially really dives right into it of ouch

(39:32):
and how will we live with that so that the
pain does not eclipse every other experience moving forward, the joy,
the beauty, and the intimacy. It's not about deal with
your pains that you can put it behind you. It

(39:52):
is listen to your pain so that you get to
have some agency and some choice in how that lives
in you. M Hm, Yes, you know, I think that
you know, I still have scars from that moment of
being hunted, and and I think I'm glad that I do,

(40:13):
you know, and that to me it is also part
of like I can see it in my body, you know,
like there it is, that it's real. And I think
that so much of our negation of what's happened is
what causes more suffering. And so to me it's like, yes,

(40:34):
that happened, and it is what's propelled me towards healing,
and so like that, I'm just loving this conversation, first
of all being with you. And that's why those first
two noble truths are they deserve that nobility of attention

(40:54):
and really feeling them so that we can go to
the actually ask about people. Bet For me, it's actually
the third one in nobility is that there's another way
to do it. You can pivot, but it's not to deny.
The pivot is not a denial or a turning away

(41:19):
from it's because you have suffered and know what it
is to feel almost impossible things. It's because of that
you can actually turn in a whole bodied way towards well,

(41:39):
what else is true? Because I know what's hard, I
can actually see you more clearly, and I can really
appreciate the preciousness of this moment, like I can see
your eyes right now, and how rarely we actually are

(42:00):
paying attention, and so like from there then we can
go into the nobility of yes, there are these practices,
Yes there are, and the full path is really built
on wisdom, compassion and ethics. Like yes, And because we're
not again turning away from anything, we're saying, what we

(42:25):
go through and live in this life is what makes
us wives, is what teaches us. Compassion is what teaches
us our own ethics, what our ethics actually are, how
to live an ethical life? You know. Recently we're with

(42:49):
with our friend Gernia, and she has this incredible ranch
and in New Mexico, and they just have these crazy
fires and eating up everything, but not everything, and part
of the land that she stewards there has this great,

(43:10):
great cedar tree. And the cedar tree is totally singed
by the fire and yet so alive and the top,
you know, and so alive throughout. And she was saying that,
you know, they the tree is so deep, its roots

(43:31):
are so deep that it stays moist and the fire
can't really burn it. And singe it. And so to me,
the April path are actually just living, you know, you
could say just living with wisdom, compassion ethics is allowing
that depth and that verticality where we can feel the

(43:55):
depth of the darkness and the height of spirit and
air and possibility. And so I think that that kind
of verticality is always available to all of us. And
so it's this such a gorgeous image of allowing ourselves

(44:18):
to go deep into what's hard, into what's confusing, into
what is inconceivable, so that we can actually grow strong.
And to me, that's what courage is, you know, to
feel like, oh, this is scary and let's go. Oh

(44:38):
this is hard, and let's go ideo yeah. Yeah, Okay,
So this phrase just popped into my head and you know,
like pop psychology memes sort of thing, but like the

(45:00):
life you long for is on the other side of fear. Now,
I am not a fan of lifestyle edicts by meme,
but that's what came up in my mind as you
were talking about that. And and again, it's not it's
not a binary and it's not linear, it's not you
dive into really witnessing and paying attention to your pain

(45:24):
or somebody else's pain, or the pain of the world,
so that you can live a great life like this.
That binary is trash, and that is not what we're
talking about. But what we're talking about is we all
intrinsically as social creatures, as mammals, we need each other
to survive and in order to feel companioned inside the

(45:48):
impossible things that we live and feel companioned. Enjoy this
practice that you talk about in the book, that you
live in your life, that you've created in the in
the world for the people who are fortunate to be
near you. This is one of the tools by which
you can build that kind of life where all is welcome,

(46:12):
and if not welcome, all is seen. Yeah, there's this
image to him when you're talking. It just really reminds
me of this other image I've always enjoyed so much.
There's this text called the load Is Sutra, which sounds
promising and and at the beginning of it it's this,
you know that this assembly, this great assembly where the

(46:35):
Buddha's you know, hanging out, they're about to give a talk,
and that the whole chapter of the whole first chapter
is describing all the people who are there and there's
demons and snakes and and you know months and the
usual suspects, you know months, nuns and gods and all
kinds of magical creatures. But there's also demons and snakes

(46:59):
and inviting people and all kinds of people. So it's
like that welcoming of this kind of canopy of reality.
And to me, like that's an easy thing to say,
and to me, that's why we need good spiritual friends.
Why we're living actually in a sort of extraordinary time

(47:21):
where we can actually being community virtually and online and
so like we can actually there's less barriers now than
ever before to actually connecting. And I know many people
who have you know, been part of the Zen Center
in the last couple of years or just become very connected,

(47:43):
and they live in the mountains of the Dominican Republic,
in South Africa and all these different places, and they
really feel a sense of belonging. So I think we
need to community in order to remind us. Yes, it's
about inviting it all in, which is an easy thing
to say, but it's like when it gets hard sometimes

(48:05):
having someone to call black who I'm having a really
hard moment, I'm all tangled, ouch and we can say,
come on, we can do this together. We can suffer
together and open it up again. Yeah, and this, this
sort of radical acknowledgment of reality is how we build connection,

(48:29):
and it is also how we build the world that
we want right where young people don't have to suffer
the things that you suffer. Anyone does. And also we
start you know that there's a there's another episode during
this season, and I don't remember which one, but there's

(48:49):
something where I say that heard people here people, which
is sort of a play on that hurt people, hurt people,
right Like in that practice of hearing and listening and
seeing it gives seeing our own our own pain and
saying ouch, and what do I need in this moment? Right?

(49:10):
That opens up the capacity and the ability to do
that for others, which is not the same as excusing
people for their crap behavior. But that's a conversation for
a different day. But really, you know, one of the
things that you talk about in the book that I
just want to touch on really briefly here is that
epidemic of loneliness, and so much of what you and
I have been talking about today, and so much of
what is in your new book is about the antidote

(49:33):
to that loneliness, and the antidote to loneliness this is
this is not the bumper sticker we want it to be.
But the antidote to loneliness is acknowledging the reality of pain, right, like, oh,
Megan is such a downer, but discarding all of those
things that we've internalized and learned and promoted to the

(49:57):
world that the only way you're going to be liked,
the only what you're going to be connected, is if
you're happy and you rise above anything bad has ever
happened to you. Like all of that resilience porn and
all of that stuff, but like, no, actually, real connection
is in the mess of life, the beauty, the joy,
the moments, the hardships, the suffering. That is where love

(50:19):
comes from. Totally. My greatest teacher about love is my grandmother.
And you know, she I can't remember if we shared
this story the last time we're together, but right before
she was dying, she said, you know, she woke me
up and the night I was sleeping with her in
the hospice, and she woke me up and she was crying, crying,
and she said, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. I

(50:41):
was like, what are you sorry about? Because I never
felt so loved by someone. She said, I just realized
that there's part of me that withdrew from you because
I didn't understand that whole zending. And I feel so
sorry about it because now I'm just realizing to love

(51:05):
someone is to love all the parts of them, not
just the parts that I understand, but it's their complexity
that makes them who they are. I love that. I
had to bite my tongue because you said that. She's like,
I didn't get the whole Zend thing. I'm like, wait
a minute, you totally get the whole Zend thing. I know,

(51:25):
of course she did, because the next morning is when
she said, often tell the story because it's just so amazing,
and she's like, you know, there is something to the
Zend thing. I never thought i'd say that. And she said,
you and Jeddah, who is my husband, You know, you
guys should start some kind of nonprofit organization teach people

(51:51):
about the Zen and teach people how to care for people.
And that's what we're doing. I did not know that
origin story. It was Mimi Schwartz, Hungarian immigrant. She's the
true founder. Yeah, that's really cool. I absolutely love that.

(52:11):
Thank you, Mimi Schwartz. Okay, I'm going to ask you
the question that I'm asking everybody during this season, knowing
that we're coming up on time, but you and I
do this and I'm here for it. Okay. So, knowing
what you know, knowing what you've lived through, what you've seen,
not just in your own personal history, but in the

(52:33):
work that you do with contemplative care and end of
life and working with medical providers and being a partner
and all of the things. Knowing what you know and
being who you are, what does hope look like for
you in this moment, at this time. For me, I
hope is actually not so great. And so actually write

(52:58):
about this in the book and we're I you know
Pandora's baskets, you know, we thought of it, think of
them now as Pandora's box. But back in the day,
there were baskets, and there was one about all the
blessings and almost all the courses on humankind. And like
most people, get curious, and she opened up the basket

(53:20):
and all green anchor and ignorance came out, jealousy and
envy and justice. She was put in the lid back,
got hope jumped down, And so I've always thought a
lot about that because I remember as a young person,
I was so into Greek the belote, and for me,
hope is kind of wishing that things were different, and

(53:45):
so I think it's so tricky and for me as
a human, I don't find it very helpful, like I
wished how it was different, you know. I hope it
will change. I hope still in the blank, and I'm
much more interested in how are things and what do

(54:05):
I care about and how do I nourish those things
so that they can move into a new life, you know,
And I'm I'm so much more interested in how you
know the great Tony Morrison I loved to Morrison said,
you know why it's too hard to take refuge and

(54:26):
how it's like I'm much more interested in how we
actually get really connected to our values and what we
care about and how we nourish them so that we
can be more ourselves and other people can be more
in themselves, and that we can do the healing work

(54:47):
that we can do in this life. That might be
my favorite definition of hope so far. I have grammatical
and and am atimal logical issues with the actual word hope.
But you know, you just brought up something that I
hadn't thought about before, is that hope is not now,

(55:08):
hope is future. Hope is for something. As you said,
that things are different, but that aspect of you're living
in the future when you're hoping and what is important
is right now. I really did that. I am definitely
taking that one with me forward from this conversation. I
know we were rocked. It's all your thank you taken away.

(55:35):
I'm taking it. I'm taking it. And you know, after
we come back from the last break, obviously, I'm going
to have some words to say about it, because that's
what we do here. I close up with my beloved guests,
and then we go to break and then I come
back and I talk about WHOA. That was amazing, wasn't it.
So that's what's going to happen next. And we're going
to link to you and the Zen Center and your

(55:56):
books and all of the things in the show notes
and as we close up here, what do you want
people to know? A sort of a parting message for
this episode, but also like where can we find you?
Where should they interact with you? All of those things,
so our center called is called the New York and
Center for Contemplative Care and the website is zen care

(56:20):
and dot org. So keeping with many shortz is memory
bringing those two things together. And my own instagram is
coach and Paley Allison, and we have lots of opportunities
for people to practice with us. We have a ninety
day practice period that begins actually in January, and that's

(56:44):
an opportunity to really dig into and build a practice
of meditation. And whether we have a sixteen beautiful teachers
and it's just really gorgeous. And two things that I
always like to share. One is called Foundations in Contemplative Care.
So it's a nine month training for anyone who's interested

(57:06):
in that gap and how do I bring my practice
my spiritual practice of some kind or build a spiritual
practice and learn how to serve and be intimate. And
so that's available for anybody and for nurse practitioners and
physician assistance and physicians. We have this gorgeous, a year

(57:29):
long contemplative Medicine fellowship that with some of the some
gorgeous faculty and really meaningful work to do. And so
those are some things that could be helpful and the
book again, and the new book is called Untangled Walking
the eight Fold Path to Clarity, Courage, and Compassion. Yes,

(57:53):
and get that book, everybody, find it wherever you get
your books. And I'm also going to link in the
show notes. During season one, Coation and Show Too came
on and talked about there. Oh my gosh, oh my god,
I just totally god a complete Yeah. They came on
and talked about love No, No, No, the the the

(58:13):
contemplative care training program for healthcare providers. We talked about
that at length during our season one episode, so we
will link to that. All right, everybody, I'm going to
close up our conversation here and we'll be right back
after this break. Obviously, you're going to hear about the
things I'm carrying with me and the things I would
love to hear that you took from this episode. Hey,

(58:45):
before we get to your questions to carry with you,
I want to tell you about a new clinical training
starting this December two two. If you've ever felt like
a deer in the headlights when a client or a
patient starts talking about grief or some other intense, immovable experience,
it's well one, you are definitely not alone. In feeling
like you have no idea how to respond and to

(59:08):
this intensive training will give you the skills you need
to support people when their life goes horribly wrong, whether
that's in big ways or in small, everyday difficulties. All
of the information is at Megan Divine dot c O.
Registration is open right now, and class size is limited
really for real, it's limited. That's not just like marketing talk.

(59:29):
If you want in check it out now, Megan Divine
dot c O. Each week I leave you with some
questions to carry with you until we meet again. Now.
This season has a running theme, and it's more obvious
in some episodes than others. This season is all about hope,
finding it, losing it, redefining it, and fighting for it
in these weird personal and collective times. So you know,

(59:52):
what really struck me in my talk with Cotion is
one like how often we look to spiritual tools to
somehow lift us out of pain we're in, and how
spiritual practices are often weaponized, right like, if you just
meditate more, everything will be fine. What I love about
Caution is that he does give you a way forward,
he does help you reduce your suffering, but he never

(01:00:16):
asks you to pretend that things don't hurt. I also
really really liked what he said about hope at the
end there that he he has an issue with hope.
I mean, first of all, there's a reason we're friends.
We both have issues with the word hope. But I
love that he said hope is always a future issue
and he's more interested in right now. I love that

(01:00:39):
what parts of the conversation today made you see things
in a different way or just feel a tiny bit
better in the moment that you're in. Everybody's going to
take something different from today's show, but I do hope
you found something to hold onto. There are lots of
ways to open these conversations on everyday grief and how
we survived the things that up in to us, and

(01:01:01):
we definitely want to hear from you on all of
these things. What are you holding onto right now? Check
out Refuge in Grief on Instagram or here after pod
on TikTok to see video clips from the show and
leave your thoughts in the comments on those posts. That's
a really great way to let me know what you're thinking. Also,
be sure to tag me in your conversation starting posts

(01:01:21):
on your own social accounts. Use the hashtag here after
pod on all the platforms. That's how we can find
you by using the search feature. We love to see
where the show takes you. If you want to tell
us how today's show felt for you, or you have
a request or a question for upcoming explorations of difficult things,
give us a call at three to three six four

(01:01:44):
three three seven six eight and leave a voicemail. If
you missed it, you can find the number in the
show notes or visit Megan divine dot c O. If
you'd rather send an email, you can do that too,
right from the website. Megan Divine dot c O. We
want to hear from you. I will to hear from
you this show, this world needs your voice. Together, we

(01:02:07):
can make things better even when they can't be made right.
If you like the show, please leave a review on
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and just don't always have the opportunity to have them.
Sharing the show makes it just that much easier to

(01:02:30):
have that kind of connection. Thanks. Friends, want more Hereafter
grief education doesn't just belong to end of life issues.
As my dad says, daily life is full of everyday
grief that we don't call grief. Learning how to talk
about all of that without cliches or platitudes or simplistic
dismissive statements is an important skill for everyone, especially if

(01:02:51):
you're in any of the helping professions. Helping profession providers,
I have got a six month intensive training program open
right now if you're feeling like you could use some
skills helping people with impossible things. The training begins in
December two, but we've only got room for forty eight
people this time, and I know that a lot of

(01:03:12):
those spots are already gone. So sign up now. You'll
find all of the information about that training, plus my
best selling book, It's Okay that You're Not Okay at
Megan Divine dot c O Hereafter with Megan Divine is
written and produced by me Megan Divine. Executive producer is
Amy Brown, co produced by Elizabeth Fossio. Logistical and social

(01:03:34):
media support by Micah, edited by Houston Tilly, and music
provided by Wave Crush. Background at Noise Today provided by
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