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Geoff Fitch on the Embodied Realization of Freedom
159 Plays1 day ago
In this expansive and humble dialogue, Scott Schwenk welcomes transformation facilitator Geoff Fitch for a luminous inquiry into awakening, embodiment, and the paradox of modern spiritual life. With humor and precision, Geoff explores how emptiness and form, compassion and clarity, self and culture all co-arise—and how awakening isn’t an escape from life but a deeper embrace of it. From dreamlike perception and financial stress to the grit of manifesting and the wisdom of community, this conversation is a treasure map for those choosing to grow with their whole being.
Geoff Fitch - Leadership Development, Late-Stage Guide, Master Coach
Geoff is a coach, trainer, and facilitator of growth in individuals and organizations, and a creator of transformative leadership education programs worldwide. He is a founder of Pacific Integral, where is was instrumental in the development of the internationally-acclaimed Generating Transformative Change program, now offered three continents and in it’s 24th cohort. Through these programs, he has researched and evolved novel approaches to individual and collective growth. He has been exploring diverse approaches to cultivating higher human potentials for over 25 years, including somatic and transpersonal psychology, mystical traditions, innovation and creativity, leadership, integral theory, and collective intelligence.
Scott Schwenk - Master Coach, Spiritual Teacher, Culture Architect
Scott’s teachings, courses and private mentoring guide leaders, seekers and creatives to explore their deepest selves in service of thriving on all levels of being, both individually and relationally.
Host and creator of the podcast The Choice To Grow, Scott is known for his hugely popular courses and workshops with OneCommune.com, Younity.com, Wanderlust Festivals, and Unplug Meditation, Scott has been catalyzing the inner evolution of others for decades: helping them to grow, transform obstacles into opportunities, and find Love within.
Scott spent several years living and studying in a meditation monastery which introduced him to the core body of Tantric meditation traditions which continue to flow through each of his teachings. Scott continues to study and teach from two key Tantric lineage streams.
Apprenticeships in leadership development, meditation and philosophy training, shadow work/shadow resolution and spiritual awakening are all part of Scott’s development into the thought-leader that he is today. He continues to refine his offerings studying and practicing with key innovators at the leading edges of human development.
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Transcript
Introduction and Breathing Exercise
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to The Choice to Grow. I'm Scott Schwenk. Through these dialogues, we'll explore fresh perspectives and discover practical tools for navigating a thriving life that adds value wherever we are.
00:00:14
Speaker
I'll introduce you to innovators and creators from across our world who embody what it means to cultivate growing as a way of life. Let's prepare together.
00:00:24
Speaker
Take a deep breath in.
00:00:28
Speaker
Hold the breath briefly as you soften your shoulders and soften the soles of your feet and palms of your hands. Then exhale like you're releasing tension and setting down a heavy burden from every cell.
00:00:41
Speaker
Ah. Now let's dive in.
Introducing Jeff Fitch
00:00:48
Speaker
Welcome everybody to The Choice to Grow. I've got another special guest for you today. I know I say that a lot, but you know the truth is with the exception of one person, I've known everybody who's been on the show so far and they're all special to me in their own way.
00:01:05
Speaker
So this guest is no none of an exception to that. Jeff Fitch is a teacher, a coach, a facilitator of development in individuals and collectives. He is a founder of Pacific Integral and a developer developer of the Generating Transformative Change Program.
00:01:23
Speaker
That's their key program, Pacific Integral, which has been delivered on three continents and is in its cohort. cohort He has been exploring, researching, and developing diverse approaches to cultivating higher human potentials for over 30 years, including meditation, spirituality, somatic and transpersonal psychology, transformative change, emergence, and collective intelligence.
00:01:49
Speaker
Jeff holds degrees in transpersonal psychology and computer science and has additional study in jazz music, philosophy, and business. I have had the good fortune to spend time with Jeff in person in Colorado.
00:02:04
Speaker
We both attended a couple of integral theory conferences and then some curated gatherings after that that were quite unique and special and where we really got to dive in with people who are really at the leading edges of consciousness and people who are choosing to grow as a way of life Some of the things I appreciate about Jeff is my experience and maybe cover your ears Jeff is Jeff has a very wide state of consciousness but it's hidden in plain sight and what emerges is this simplicity this deep listening this presence with whatever I've seen arising around him and his unshakable signature humor and laugh so
00:02:49
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Without further ado, Jeff, I'm so happy to be here together dialoguing and seeing what wants to emerge around the choice to grow. Yeah, thanks so much, Scott. Yeah, thanks. for Thanks for mentioning laughing.
00:03:03
Speaker
always it's like when I'm engaged with people, i'm often laughing. But when I'm talking about my work, I often sound so serious. I appreciate you putting that in there. Well, that's an interesting maybe starting point is, you know,
00:03:17
Speaker
I bet there's a lot of listeners. I'm definitely somebody who's had this experience where for sure when I'm in the seat of the teacher and there's a transmission of awareness happening, it even though I do bring or it emerges with a lot of humor often, there's a different tone. there's like a it's it's It's got this impersonal quality to it.
Seriousness vs. Humor in Teaching
00:03:38
Speaker
that it can seem serious in its focused nature. And then there's like the silly ska out and about you know just the rest of the day. And as I look at that with you, I'm like, okay, like this thing that so many of us have grappled with and continue to grapple with about relating to physical three dimensional reality friends colleagues business government social safety net finance all these things and then this unchanging dynamic field of aliveness that has no ending no end and no beginning from what I can tell and sometimes feeling like a ping pong ball
00:04:23
Speaker
and and almost feeling or actually feeling kind of bruised and beaten up sometimes by it yeah yeah well I I think at the like well maybe starting at a more superficial level you know um my uh my dad had a good sense of humor.
00:04:45
Speaker
I picked up, I think a lot of my humor from my dad and we have, my parents were both Canadian. And so this kind of British cultural heritage with its sarcastic humor and, and my dad's humor could be quite cutting too, you know, so oh yeah ah had, it had,
00:05:05
Speaker
both sides of the that coin, you know, so I, he was often loved for it because it could also be very, um self-effacing, which was a lovely quality.
00:05:16
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And, uh, so that humor has always been part of me and also part of my my, learning because I can, I can be funny and, um, also be hurtful, like you know, uh, inadvertently with it.
Exploring Emptiness and Compassion
00:05:33
Speaker
And even, you know, now it's just like, I'm constantly apologizing for the humor, you know, that comes out in odd ways. Well, maybe not constantly, but, um, but I think at at at a deeper level, you're kind of pointing to like, you know, kind of that paradox of, of emptiness and fullness, you could say like the humor in a sense is an expression of emptiness. It's an expression of freedom.
00:06:01
Speaker
You know, when some things, when we, When we're describing something and we're kind of laughing at what we're describing, there's a kind of distance from it that we're expressing. You know, we're not totally immersed in it. and And yet the paradox is that so there is that wide open freedom that that you're pointing to, that sort of boundless openness that we're in that space.
00:06:30
Speaker
aspect of our existence, we're free from all of this. And yet at the same time, that very same openness expresses itself as form.
00:06:44
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And there's even a further paradox in there. It expresses it itself as form.
00:06:50
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already perfect and sacred and and whole in its form, but also broken, suffering, disconnected in that very same form.
00:07:03
Speaker
And so... Yeah. I mean, ultimately the the paradox is that's all the same thing, you know, and you can get ping pong around it, but it's, but it's something that, you know, mind can't make sense of the ordinary mind, but it is, it is what is from a particular view.
00:07:26
Speaker
I was recommended ah an incredible book that have a feeling you already own and have sat with, um, by the third comfortable Rinpoche. and believe it was like, He composed it, i don't know, couple hundred years ago or something like this, the Royal Seal of Mahamudra.
00:07:43
Speaker
And I've really just been poking around in book one of it. And ah the first day I opened it, when it arrived, this quote jumped out such that I had to write it down. And I've just been being with that quote predominantly as my entry into the book, which he says, the antidote for attachment is emptiness.
00:08:03
Speaker
The remedy for emptiness is compassion. Mm-hmm. how might you and unpack that yeah yeah well you know like thanks for pointing that out because you know what I was speaking is drawing on that on that amazing tradition and but I just want to say first of all I love that you're like reading that book and you're mainly just sitting with that quote because that's that's often the way I'll read a book too I'll I'll open it up and I'll get to the first sentence and and that'll do me for you know three years or something yeah i can't keep reading it like it would almost feel like a headache if i tried to keep reading more content it's like no i this is it i'm in yeah exactly yeah did you say the quote again yeah the antidote for attachment is emptiness the remedy for emptiness is compassion yeah
00:09:00
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Yeah, it's, it's, um, well it's an interesting way to put it, you know, cause it's, it's that quote is like addressing the extremes that we can get into, you know, we can get into the extreme of, of emptiness or, or fullness.
Perception and Reality
00:09:16
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And, and so when we're, when we're immersed in everything and, and troubled or, you know, uh,
00:09:30
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disturbed positively or negatively by our experience, you know, wrapped up in it, like as if, as if we're, as if all of this is, you know, solid and real and we're at the effect of it moment to moment.
00:09:46
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Um, and of course that's an ordinary human experience, you know, it's just like we're built to, you know, to immerse ourselves in our view of the world and,
00:09:58
Speaker
It's not bad, but if we were merely immersed and you know, that the word attachment, you know, it was kind of like being grabbed by all of that. It's Dan Brown used to say, and particularly grabbed by ourselves, know, by Jeff and Scott.
00:10:16
Speaker
You know, all of those things. And so the ah emptiness is, is the antidote is the, the seeing through that to the deeper ground. You know, it's a seeing that, that what we're experiencing is our own awareness and that awareness has an open quality to it.
00:10:40
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It's, boundless, timeless.
00:10:49
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There's no inside or outside. There's there's nothing to do to manifest it. There's no center to it, no edge, no form to it. it's just this boundless field of openness.
00:11:04
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And when you see what arises as an expression of that, you see the qualities, emptiness qualities of at least what arises little bit more dreamlike, more insubstantial.
00:11:16
Speaker
And this is an ordinary human experience. You know, we, all the all of the time, like, have a thought that we think this is the way it is, and then we realize that's not the way it is, you know? It's like, I left my car keys on the dining room table, you know?
00:11:34
Speaker
I can see them in my mind right where I put them and they're not there. you know It's like that that's just like a simple, ordinary human example. Yeah, I lost my AirPods out of my gym bag somehow mysteriously and I'm not a person who loses things. And but interestingly enough- They're right there, Scott. just These are the new ones. These are the replacement ones. And they're very different and they don't seem to like to stay in my ears. and But I was literally rummaging through my bag when I was looking for them at the gym in the locker room next to another fellow who was literally doing the same exact thing. His disappeared from his bag.
00:12:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's just but the point there is that like we imagine a world into existence and and experience it as real, even if it's something as simple as I put my keys there.
00:12:23
Speaker
And then we realize, oh, no, they're in my pocket or something like that. And, and But then we realize, then we make that real that they're actually in my pocket.
00:12:37
Speaker
And the, and the, and the, the practice of realizing emptiness is seeing all of that, everything is in through its stream like quality.
00:12:47
Speaker
And that's a, that's a ah path of freedom. You know, it's a path of freedom from conditions, conditions arise, but we're not grabbed by them. And, and so that,
00:13:03
Speaker
You emptiness is, uh, is the antidote to attachment in that way. The disturbance of, of being caught by by, the reification of things that aren't really like, they aren't really solid.
00:13:23
Speaker
So another way to put this is that we're seeking own existence and things that aren't reliable.
00:13:35
Speaker
So that's like me dating somebody and hoping to fill in the chinks in my own armor of my sense of self through what you he does or does not do, or says, does not say.
00:13:49
Speaker
and then if that goes away, um messed up. Yeah, yeah, or even seeking, yeah and ultimately it's seeking ground in a sense of that isn't your ultimate self.
00:14:07
Speaker
yeah like That person might fill in those chinks that you're seeking. but if you look closely the the the sense of self there isn't even as solid you know it's changing day to day it's it's a process that that is ultimately empty too that And from this point of view, I'm speaking from this point of view of the Mahamudra practice that you referenced is like the ultimate ground of awareness itself is, is our, it's just our direct experience, you know, prior to making a story about it.
00:14:51
Speaker
And that's, what's been there your whole life is that open field of experience. Who you take yourself to be is something that's like changed throughout all of that.
00:15:05
Speaker
But the real, you know, experience that you're having is that open ground of the direct experience. This right here.
00:15:17
Speaker
ah So that's half of the quote that you gave. The other half is compassion, right? so So as we open into that awareness, it's easy to go too far into emptiness.
00:15:29
Speaker
Well, I won't say it's easy, but one can go, you can say too far into emptiness, which is to kind of go halfway into emptiness and another perspective and to think that you're detached from the world.
00:15:44
Speaker
you know, that you're free of it, that you're, you're not part of it or you're not, you know, it can kind of go into something like nihilism, but either that's a kind of misunderstanding of emptiness or a impartial emptiness, because actually any separation from the world, the world is also and substantial.
00:16:08
Speaker
So when you fully realize this view, you're, you're not separate from anything. You know, so, so you're free of it, but you're feeling everything. You're experiencing everything.
00:16:20
Speaker
You're intimate with everything. And that openness, you realize, yeah, other, other people don't experience that same freedom, that same openness.
00:16:33
Speaker
And it draws you into life and into care and into connection with others.
00:16:42
Speaker
And it's a further realization that wants to happen, not just in yourself, in this so-called separate self, but in, in every everyone through you.
00:16:57
Speaker
I noticed where I find myself or seem to find myself in my own development, um, lately
00:17:07
Speaker
that this, boundless, timeless awareness and this this capacity to see through things seems to be shining more and more. And yet there's all these remaining whatever imprints, memories, understandings of what I should be doing to pay the bills, to return phone calls to handle projects and all this. And there's this this in between space.
00:17:33
Speaker
I was explaining to Vanita who I work with, who's been on a different episode I feel like I have a foot in two different personas or two different senses of self.
00:17:46
Speaker
And at the moment, for the last few weeks, even it's felt like being seasick in a certain regard. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
00:17:59
Speaker
she's sick. exactly can Can you just say a word about those two senses? Yeah. just to So one is the this this sense that has been training since you know childhood, had a mother who was a corporate trainer and executive coach, and has read so much and had so many long mentorships and has learned how to do things with more effectiveness and specificity and like that. And it's very,
00:18:29
Speaker
kind of created something like that. I can't even notice my body kind of feeling like the molecules get a little closer together when they talk about it. Yeah. and And then there's this emergent experience
00:18:45
Speaker
that everything is sort of like a dream, like objects, ideas, projects and people and doesn't ultimately matter.
00:18:55
Speaker
all the while experiencing this intense empathy for the world situation. yeah concern for my own financial survival. you know, I've got a payroll, I don't have a lot of additional things coming in, the podcast has its own expense and things like that. So I'll notice that like checking in with a bit of so called news about what's happening in some world situation that's percolating in a big way.
00:19:20
Speaker
um
00:19:23
Speaker
can stimulate the feeling of grab.
00:19:28
Speaker
And so I can tell that it's the feeling of grab that has me feeling like a ping pong ball between senses of self. Nobody's doing it to me. Yeah.
Somatic Awareness and Emotional Challenges
00:19:40
Speaker
Yeah, that's really clear. Yeah, thank you.
00:19:48
Speaker
Well,
00:19:54
Speaker
You could probably like taking your, your mortgage payment and just writing on the bill. This is just an empty dream I'm having and mailing it in. see how that works for you Yeah. I'd go over like a lead balloon.
00:20:13
Speaker
Good for you, Mr. Schwenk. We're foreclosing in a matter of days. No, it's, um,
00:20:22
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, there's a couple of things that you're pointing to. one is like, I'm, I'll come back to the grab, but, but the, but, but like we, we are talking about an aspect of ourselves, which you could say is our deeper nature
00:20:42
Speaker
true self, although even calling it a self is kind of construct. Our deepest nature, our wakened awareness at the heart of who we are is one thing that you're pointing to.
00:20:56
Speaker
And And yet we also incarnate, we also embody as a relative self. You're still Scott, you know? And <unk> so what it says on the screen here, yeah it doesn't say timeless, boundless, awakened awareness. It says Scott. Yeah, that guy.
00:21:19
Speaker
And that's useful, right? Because, you know, like we started this, you know, call a half an hour ago and And that's, you know, we have to have time and space and each other and all of that. So it's, you, you show up as this, right? This is, this, and, and there's a whole, you know, we've been kind of talking about the path of awaken, but there's a whole, there's a whole territory of,
00:21:47
Speaker
growth for this, which is really important, which is, which includes, you know, our own, you could say shadow work or integration or, or wholeness includes our, our self development, our ego development, the way our, the way the relative self gains a kind of more and more kind of complex and holistic view of reality includes our embodiment, you know, and our, our, uh, sense of our own integrity and truth that includes our.
00:22:22
Speaker
ethical conduct in the world, our self-expression, our sense of purpose, includes our are ability to have relationships and be in intimacy and have to collaborate. It includes our ability to create culture together and to engage in collective life together.
00:22:44
Speaker
all of that stuff It's all a dream, but, but, but it's a sophisticated dream that we're participating in. And we, and, you know, we, all of that is part of, you know, the, the growth dimension too.
Relationships and Spiritual Growth
00:23:00
Speaker
And so So I just want to say all of that to honor that. and And in our work, I just kind of went through kind of seven different dimensions of, you know, that aspect of growth, which is something that we pay attention to.
00:23:15
Speaker
And so, yeah, we still like have to get up in the morning and, um, have a challenging conversation with our partner or a colleague.
00:23:29
Speaker
we have to pay attention handling, know, the concrete things that life gives us to handle. We have a world that's in many ways in crisis that we care about.
00:23:43
Speaker
We, there's a lot in this relative life to care about and to make sense of. so Yeah. And empty, the, eminess that you you know, when you mentioned grab that is pointing back to the emptiness, right? Which is like, that that is a practice in itself to, to deepen, to, to integrate both that view that this is and open, boundless field of free awareness, unimplicated.
00:24:21
Speaker
in what's happening from a aspect of it. And then there's the work to, to stabilize that in all situ situations and times and difficult times when we're gauged in tasks with each other thinking, doing, dealing with something that's disturbing.
00:24:44
Speaker
And that's, that's the, the, the, the work to fully integrate that into life to where, you know, in the Tibetan practice, it's ultimately getting you ready to go through the dying process and staying awake.
00:25:00
Speaker
Oh, more about that. This, that just really lit up. Well, you know, it's, it's, um,
00:25:10
Speaker
I don't, I'm not an expert in that aspect of the practice, but I know that ah ultimately it's it's seen as, you know an opportunity for awakening.
00:25:21
Speaker
You go, you die and you go through a kind of Bardo process where you're going through the dissolution. It's like being in a dream, being in a lucid dream and having the dream dissolve and staying awake in that.
00:25:36
Speaker
So that when the dream dissolves, you see formless absorption and this timeless, boundless awareness and, and waken to that during the dying process.
00:25:50
Speaker
So. I'm just giving that an example is a challenging human situation. not be ping ponged in and not be grabbed by.
00:26:01
Speaker
ah or Or dream yoga is another example you know that you're able to stay awake as you sleep and dream. but But we have plenty of waking experiences that are challenging to to practice with.
00:26:15
Speaker
That's the ordinary human thing. you know What stands out at the moment is you're pointing at a context for for perceiving and experiencing ordinary life moments a context of choosing to grow is how I hear it oh this could be something that I could react to and be mad about or sad about or you know shut down or contract about and yet if I have access to some tools some awareness know wait a minute
00:26:47
Speaker
what if I just see this as path like this is part of my path, not just my path to get through the day, but my path to be of benefit to more beings by transforming my relationship to experiencing seeing wanting meeting.
00:27:06
Speaker
Yeah,
00:27:09
Speaker
it's ah It's a really good pointing out that you're giving Scott. ah kind of Any level of practice to welcome your experience ah is a really powerful starting point.
00:27:28
Speaker
Cause it allows us to relax our, a little bit, you know, that sort of reaction to the reaction, you know, and just allow ourselves to have whatever's going on.
00:27:40
Speaker
And then you can work with that and you can work with it relatively. You know, if there's something that you're struggling with, you can work with that. Um, through mind, emotions, the somatics, maybe it's a relational issue. you need to have a conversation with someone.
00:28:04
Speaker
Or from this kind of perspective awakening that we're talking about, you can bring that onto the path of emptiness so that you can see, oh, I'm grabbed by this situation.
00:28:17
Speaker
You know, like, like who's grabbed by it?
00:28:25
Speaker
like Where's the self that's being, that's frustrated
00:28:31
Speaker
and explore that until you see the emptiness of the self, see the emptiness of the sensations, the thoughts and find, but that's a path, you know, you still like, it's important to do the relational work and the shadow work.
00:28:46
Speaker
because those patterns, you know, re reanimate in life over and over again. So we want to work with them in that way to see what's hidden. Relationships seem to be like truth serum in that regard.
00:28:59
Speaker
Like to show me where there's room to grow. Yeah. and In our work, this has been one of the deep learnings for me and for those of us that have been involved in it, is because we most of the work that we do is taken in the form of sort of smaller, intimate communities.
00:29:21
Speaker
And in the GTC program, in cohorts of people who work intimately together for over the course of most of a year and, and continue to work together beyond, beyond that.
00:29:35
Speaker
And, um
00:29:39
Speaker
you know, in many ways you could say that relationship is the, is the area where kind of most of the knots are, you could say, know, most, most of our own shadows we're, you know, it's it's sort of obvious that but we're always in relationship, we're always in the context, and most of our shadows have to do with something involving other people, and that's always the context we're in.
00:30:02
Speaker
But that field of relationship is is really where a lot of our work is, but also it's where our liberation is, you know, it's it's where we are we are we awaken each other, you know?
00:30:18
Speaker
Yeah, we awaken each other. From the boot Buddhist perspective, the Sangha is one of the things that the ah teacher in the Sangha you rest in um take refuge in.
Community and Collective Consciousness
00:30:32
Speaker
You know, there's the passage from the Bible, wherever two or more gathered in my name, I am there. You know, there's it's part of the human history, part of our indigenous history that we awaken each other.
00:30:46
Speaker
And so we are collective. There's a paradox in this, which is our relationships, or our collective environment, our tribe, our we space, however you want to put that can be limiting to us, but also liberating to us.
00:31:03
Speaker
And the the paradox is that we're the ones that are creating that. so So, the thing that wants to be liberated is creating the thing liberates us or limits us so there's a kind of paradox in the i and the we there i' got and we wait we can construct cultures like liberating cultures and and that supports to be supportive for each other but we're looking at the world right now and there's like
00:31:36
Speaker
There's no one in charge. And so from another perspective, we can't stand outside of our culture and remake it because we are our culture. And so part of the work that we do is to go deep into that paradox and explore what, how can the I and the we co-emerge, co-awaken, co-evolve?
00:32:01
Speaker
How can we fully engage in our own individual growth? but do that in community and have, and together engage in how the community can grow to how the community can become self-aware, how it can work with its own collective shadow and so on.
00:32:18
Speaker
And that's just been an animating question for us and something that we work with in our programs. It's so evocative to listen to it from your point of view, you know, for me,
00:32:32
Speaker
one of the things I want to point out for the listeners is we're coming from we're coming or informed by this understanding and some degree of experience in each of us that there's nothing that's not connected to everything else so we are intimate with everything in existence, even though it may not yet seem like it to you as a listener, it may not yet be your experience, your worldview, um except maybe you had a psychedelic journey one time and you realized you were one with the trees, but didn't stick. It just became a memory to talk about over you know the turmeric locker or something like that, like matcha.
00:33:14
Speaker
So this underlying assumption that for many of us is like I remember I forget I remember forget that I'm one with the 10,000 things as the Dallas would say yeah yeah and the community functions like okay if there's all these different varieties of plants animals insects beings people and thoughts and awareness that can be reflected in a community Whereas if I'm just doing my kind of practices in a cave by myself for 10, 15 years, how do I know how embodied my awakenings or realizations are if it hasn't been tested by being involved in culture, being involved with other people?
Manifestation Practices and Natural Flow
00:34:06
Speaker
Yeah. I want to share a quote from Karen Barad that has always been meaningful to me. it says, we are not outside observers of the world, neither are we simply located in a particular place in the world.
00:34:26
Speaker
Rather, we are part of the world in its ongoing interactivity, knowing as a matter of the part of the world, making itself intelligible to another part. And what she uses, she coined this term intra activity. It's not interactivity, but it's intra activity.
00:34:45
Speaker
And it kind of points to like interactivity is like, we're, we're two separate things that we come together and we interact. And interactivity is that we actually, through our interactions, we're creating each other.
00:34:58
Speaker
So it's a kind of deeper participatory perspective and. So I love that you mentioned this sort of going off into the cave and and practicing, right? Because it's like, who goes off into a cave?
00:35:13
Speaker
i mean, sometimes people do that a little bit. But it's ah it's a kind of image or metaphor for something that we imagine. But you know ah practice you you go into a cave, the practice of going into a cave is is a cultural construction.
00:35:33
Speaker
The practices that you're you're doing in the cave come from centuries of history. The cave itself is part of the world.
00:35:45
Speaker
It's your part of your community. You go into that cave. You're in a community of beings that form. All of a sudden, you're shaped by your community. Wow. We're in never apart from the world, from this alive universe that we're embedded in. it We are it.
00:36:08
Speaker
We are that. That just brought me to my knees, and my eyes are tearing up. um you know, I was thinking of a particular person who is alive.
00:36:20
Speaker
um To some she's known Jitsun Maopalmo, who's a Buddhist nun and incredibly awake, powerful teacher, very humble, who went to cave for something like 13 years of practice, refusing to come down until she felt like an accomplishment had been embodied beyond return.
00:36:41
Speaker
And as you're talking about like, wow, how did I not see that? And I'm not self recriminating. Like, how did I not see that everything is a relationship, whether it's with humans or animals, or where am I going to get some kindling for the fire tonight? So I don't freeze.
00:36:57
Speaker
Like there's all these relationships and didn't recognize that I was projecting ah lack of consciousness on things that um don't look human.
00:37:09
Speaker
like the rock wall or the fire itself or the moon or the blades of grass. And it's like, if I, as I start to open my heart, open my breath and being to the possibility of sensing the aliveness in all of life, then I sense that there's nowhere that there's not sangham the gathering of.
00:37:28
Speaker
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. All of manifest reality is ultimately the teacher and the sangha.
00:37:37
Speaker
You're not alone now. Now we can, we can with as part of like, part of our movement in life, you know, engagement and detachment is a kind of, it's like breath, you know, there are times that doesn't mean, you know, like,
00:37:58
Speaker
always practice, you know, in the busiest part of town, you know, or you know, that you're always engaged, you know, there's, there is that you don't take a vacation because there's no difference, you know, that, that there is a kind of, yeah, there's a kind of relative, like, you know, like retreat is helpful.
00:38:19
Speaker
You know, we do a lot of retreats yeah and get get away and, um,
00:38:26
Speaker
But when we're in retreat or in culture,
00:38:32
Speaker
even solo so-called solo retreat, I mean, I've done yeah several solo retreats and like, wow, you're right. Yeah. tech in culture Even in your own mind, you take the entire world with you into retreat, you know, and all those stuff personalities. That's a call. yeah Yeah, exactly. With a point of view. I want to know we're on retreat. Exactly.
00:38:53
Speaker
So it's important. Yeah. I mean, that you just pointed to like the inner like system of parts of our mind and and self. And this is a, this is the relational domain and it's really important.
00:39:08
Speaker
It's important to be in a, to cultivate qualities of intimacy and relationship with with that culture, with those parts in yourself, with you know the birds outside of your cave.
00:39:23
Speaker
And also that we learn to cultivate healthy he culture together from the inside out. Cause you know, following that quote from Karen broad, we're, we're never anywhere, but the inside of our culture.
00:39:38
Speaker
So of our world of reality of the universe, there's no, there's no way to pop out of it, you know, and remake it. We got to do it with each other from the inside. That's a view that we explore.
00:39:55
Speaker
One of the um through lines throughout culture, some culture, and development systems that I keep studying, learning about, bumping into in different ways over long periods of time,
00:40:12
Speaker
are the teachings that show how to transform relative reality as well as transform consciousness, even though most people seem to at first blush use them to try and transform relative reality.
00:40:25
Speaker
And I'm talking about whether we call it the Hermetic Alchemy Principles, whether we call it the laws of attraction, repulsion, etc., or what some people commonly refer to as manifestation work.
00:40:39
Speaker
I continue to I'm actually giving a course that I'm only a month into the three months of and I'm really grappling with how I'm unpacking this for people so that I don't set up a culture of people just trying to get stuff.
00:40:51
Speaker
Yeah, keep covering up um awareness, but also not to avoid engaging with culture engaging with relative reality.
00:41:02
Speaker
What's your take on these principles of like what I think I get more of? If I don't like what I'm seeing, I need to relentlessly practice the feeling of what I wish is already so how to use that skillfully if there is a skillful use of that so that it doesn't reify all the grab and constantly having to rearrange reality with my so called practices.
00:41:25
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good one.
00:41:33
Speaker
No, it's like, yeah, know you like you've zeroed in on something, um about that whole kind of realm of practice that's that's a kind of a contradiction at the end inside of it i would say you know and this is um one of my teachers is philosopher philip gallabuck really um really ran this to ground at one point in his teaching and practice but you know the the contradiction is somehow
00:42:08
Speaker
If I can, if I can,
00:42:13
Speaker
suppose I can kind of shift my own consciousness or my own mind in order to tim to manifest something that I want. The contradiction is that in order to do that, I need to take a construct of lack, that somehow I need to do that in order to be fulfilled.
00:42:32
Speaker
You know, there's a there's a sort of, there's a presumption of lack, And even if I'm taking a presumption of abundance, if I'm doing it for that reason, then there's a subtle contradiction in it.
00:42:48
Speaker
and and And Philip used to have these kind of, um this is for he would call it the four noble truths of, in this case, I'm going to kind of re recontextualize them for this kind of come conversation, which is something like,
00:43:07
Speaker
Manifestation can happen. You can let manifestation, manifestation is possible. You can't make manifestation happen. You can let manifestation happen.
00:43:19
Speaker
But if you let manifestation happen in order to make it happen, it won't happen.
00:43:26
Speaker
So it's, it's sort of surfacing the contradiction in that. Um, And those weren't his words. I was kind of re paraphrasing it for the conversation we're having now. But but it's it's it's a kind of um like if we take an inner view of it, yeah the inner work is to recognize, is to really recognize the yeah the way in which you already have everything that you need.
00:43:59
Speaker
You don't need to, you don't need to get something more, you know, you, it's taking the inner stance of the, the self that is fulfilled. That's the inner work.
00:44:13
Speaker
Let's bring some grit into it though. Like, yeah like situation where, for example, for me, this is looking back, I go, wow, this is kind of a small situation from where I sit now, but 11 years ago, give or take, I was in a financial dire strait.
00:44:29
Speaker
And I didn't know what to do about it. And it was at the beginning of ride share. And I had this intuitive guidance to sign up as a Lyft driver. And it was double fisting for Uber and Lyft at a time when you could actually make money at it.
00:44:43
Speaker
And I had come across this little book called the abundance book by John Randolph Price. And I was working with these 10 affirmations as though they were already so in his list of, you know, practice in 10 states of love and joyful Thanksgiving and like this.
00:44:55
Speaker
yeah And I did see my world turn around. Yeah, my relative world did turn around. Yeah. But what I noticed when I reflect on it is I had gotten to a place where I realized I had to surrender my identity as a teacher, i had to surrender my identity as a healer, just surrender my identity as somebody who needs to certain have certain amount of money or house or whatever, in order to slip through this passageway, where this could work.
00:45:27
Speaker
This practice could work. yeah That's my example.
Embracing Challenges and Gratitude
00:45:30
Speaker
I'm thinking about somebody, for example, who's wrongly imprisoned, who hasn't done a thing and is being tortured. And they maybe have these awareness these principles from some other time or blessing stream in their life. They know these principles.
00:45:45
Speaker
In that kind of a dire circumstance, seemingly dire circumstance, you go, okay, I have everything that I need. How do I meet this? Do I meet this in just like go belly up? Do I meet this and somehow look to alchemically transmute the circumstance?
00:46:01
Speaker
Do I just work with my own awareness? Can I kind of ask you a question about your experience there? Please. Yeah, it's and what I thought I heard was that that you were in that situation.
00:46:14
Speaker
you you started working with the practices in that book, which, and I heard you both, tell me if I'm wrong.
00:46:25
Speaker
I heard you both say that you were like bringing in this more kind of abundant view or view of love, love and at the same time giving up any sense of needing to like accomplish something or your own self-identity yeah okay so that's a that that's a to me a beautiful example of sort of letting things unfold while also being you know uh
00:46:59
Speaker
choosing to have a friendly relationship to yourself and to the world is the way philip might put it i want to under click underscore bold having a friendly relationship to yourself right in the world right your own your own there's a contradiction where you feel like the sense of possibility of wholeness and abundance.
00:47:19
Speaker
Yeah. You should look out at the world and, and see it as full of scarcity and, and harm. Yeah. So, so when you come into alignment and you feel in, you, relax and you feel like oh like this is the right way this is the the true way to see the world you know it's it's not contrived it's like this like this world is unbelievably abundant you know you you are in this moment like there is countless like
00:47:52
Speaker
Countless processes that are contributing to you being alive and breathing and having the opportunity to experience this consciousness in embodied form. culture, physics, biology, you look at through any perspective and and your life is ah miracle that's been given to you every moment.
00:48:17
Speaker
I say that and i have issues to deal with in my life, okay? But if you view it through that lens, it changes everything.
00:48:29
Speaker
But what I heard in you is that also involved giving up your kind of willfulness about that. that's that's what we're talking about like and and that wasn't like that was something that you just had to do in that moment yeah so so it's you're the what's happening here in terms of manifestation is beyond your control right you're talking about about what the universe is doing
00:49:01
Speaker
so It involves both that view that you're talking about and also coming to it with an open hand, like, okay, you know, I give up, you know, I'll let things unfold, but I'm not gonna take the view that back time I'm living in and a scarce reality.
00:49:26
Speaker
So it's a little weird to talk about because it is a paradoxical thing that we're talking about. And so ah ah kind if I were were to reframe your experience if with as an example to of willfulness, it would be something like, oh, I have this book.
00:49:45
Speaker
Now I'm just going to do these practices and this is going to cure things. But there you know i'll I'll do them and shit, it's not working. You know, we've all had that experience too.
00:49:59
Speaker
And it's in the missing pieces that you're like, God, I'm still in charge here, but I got a book, you know,
00:50:08
Speaker
you know, I got some practices. No, it's like, you're not in charge of that ultimately, but there is something, something for you to do in it. And that's the exploration. That's kind of the way I would reflect on your question.
00:50:24
Speaker
yeah and then i'm reflecting on it freshly because i'm never without some some different circumstances that seem enervating and maybe difficult or troubling something something there may be 10 things that are just surging with beauty and then one or two things you're like god that one or two well okay okay okay fine fine fine you know i don't want to overwhelm us all at once let in all the things. But you know, the comforting, it's like, my, my, um one of my dear friends, and a colleagues is a teacher of tantra, Srivijaya tantra. And she, she says to her students, and talked about it that, you know, real inner work is a confrontation of your value system.
00:51:08
Speaker
What do you value? How do you prioritize? How do you what's the hierarchy of values, and these circumstances that seem to be like thwarting or difficult or unpleasant or downright shitty,
00:51:21
Speaker
When I'm able to use them to grow, they help me to see, wow, what was I, what am I prioritizing? What am I valuing? What am I energizing? And there's now there's a choice, you know, like when I was in that period of in the car, 15 hours a day to earn what I used to earn in one private session, I saw nobody except for the people getting in and out of my car, or if I had to go to the gas station or the grocery store, so i wasn't seeing my friends. I wasn't,
00:51:49
Speaker
receiving hugs, I was getting up very early as going to bed, you know, later, and just doing what I needed to do between my practices, a bit of yoga, and getting in the car and eating.
00:52:01
Speaker
And so I had to confront to I got to confront my story. Yeah, stories like, Oh, yeah, my lonely, am I like, where, where am I resting my attention?
00:52:15
Speaker
What's that creating is an experience? And are there other operator other choices? Are there other places to rest my attention that are not denying life, but like actually opening more widely to what's possible?
00:52:29
Speaker
Yeah. No, it's, it's beautiful what you're pointing to, Scott, you know, you're pointing to kind welcoming reality and experience, you know, and it's, and using it as a field of practice and growth.
00:52:47
Speaker
I bumped into a guy at the gym yesterday. ah sorry to cut you off. No, I was just to add that in my own experience, like those difficulties in life in, well, I'll put it the other way.
00:53:06
Speaker
The deepest learning and the deepest growth and awakening that I've had have been rooted in my own suffering and my own challenges. They've been the greatest teachers I've had.
00:53:19
Speaker
don't,
00:53:23
Speaker
and you can't say to another person, like when they're suffering, like, oh, what a great teacher you have, you know?
00:53:33
Speaker
Yeah. Because that's disrespectful to their experience. But I hear that in what you're saying. And, you know, not happy that you went through that period of your life.
00:53:45
Speaker
but I know that it it tremendous fruit and so you going to say yeah I feel like I'm going through a similar but very different period right now like it I was reflecting on it this morning as I was just doing my ablutions and making tea and whatnot and going there's a way that somatically this feels like one of the most challenging difficult periods of my life and somebody outside would go how is that possible like you have money to eat a roof over your head you know you have these little gadgets like red light therapy and things in your house and you know what what is it and I don't try and push back I'm like yeah I do have all those things and this is still one of the most difficult transition periods somatically like how my body feels there are chunks of the day where there's tension in the chest and belly
00:54:43
Speaker
The difference from 10 years ago, 20 years ago to today is like ah have the sense to pick it up and hold it rather than just be it and suffer like i'm like, oh, this this is uncomfortable. This is painful. This is a perspective. This maybe even has an age and a time to it in my life.
00:55:04
Speaker
It's coming forward for integration. and let this also give me compassion for anybody who's confused and and in some form of suffering so i'm not trying to push it away and i'm not by saying all this i don't want to make myself try to look good at all it's not about that but just noticing the process of being with challenge and discomfort and to kind of bring in something you started to touch on that like we can we can we can have experiences of timeless boundless awareness at anywhere in our development accidentally or on purpose but how we make meaning of what's arising is one of the biggest opportunities for us to grow individually and relationally like what you're doing with the generating transformative change cohorts it's like helping individuals and collectives and relationships
00:56:00
Speaker
to be able to access a wider view that's not about trying to force reality to change but it's also not hiding out in some pseudo state of consciousness and staying right there at the edge of awareness and discomfort
00:56:28
Speaker
yeah there's um
00:56:32
Speaker
There's a couple of things I just heard in what you said that I wanted to highlight or respond to one is like welcoming difficult experiences, you know, that kind of relationship to the challenges that you're describing, ah which is to me, like getting back to what we were talking at the beginning of the call about emptiness and fullness, that, that ultimately awareness is both totally open and free, but also connected feeling passionate.
00:57:06
Speaker
So it's, um, uh, loving so and those two in my experience blossom together like there's there's a way in which when you become more grounded in your awakened awareness scott you also can become more feeling Because there's you're just open to everything.
00:57:36
Speaker
And you know in some ways, like more difficult experiences can come up you know Pain, suffering, feeling of what's going on in the world. but as ken wilbur said there's like can be more pain but less suffering yeah so experience actuallyly it's actually actually yeah it's actually not but but for those listening it's not it's not exactly the same experience of pain that you might think it's actually it's actually just feeling and it kind opened compassion in the way that you said like
00:58:13
Speaker
From that awakening, every so-called difficult experience that you have personally is a doorway to compassion. Because you know, like, there's people everywhere in the world right now having a very similar experience.
00:58:30
Speaker
There's probably millions of people are having a pain in their chest and their belly right now.
00:58:36
Speaker
And that seems to be at the root of a lot of things that I'm experiencing is sensing that my circumstances are not problematic on the whole at all. It's really this feeling so opened up and
00:58:56
Speaker
vulnerable and raw to so many things, so many beings. Yeah.
00:59:06
Speaker
There's another thing in what you said that, that, um, struck me, which is, there's another, ah teaching in the Tibetan tradition about, it's called about view and conduct.
00:59:19
Speaker
And I heard
Balancing Expansive View and Grounded Conduct
00:59:20
Speaker
a little something on what you said that, that sparked that in me, which is, there's a, a great figure in Tibetan Buddhism, Padmasambhava, said that, that he would say to you, you should be as white as the sky.
00:59:37
Speaker
Your view is as white as the sky and your conduct is as fine as barley flour. And, um, And what this pointing to is like, you said something about like, you can get into an expanded state and you don't want to just kind of get hang out in that.
00:59:54
Speaker
And, and the, what he's pointing to is like your awakening is your view. And that's what that's referring to You can have this wide open, vast, expansive view, free, open,
01:00:12
Speaker
developmentally, it can be like very complex and nuanced, you know, grand view of the world. And he is saying that if you, if you try to express that through your conflict conduct, you can be arrogant, you know, like, let me help you with my vast expansive view.
01:00:30
Speaker
yeah Yeah. And, and if you, so if you, it's called getting the the conduct lot lost in the, in the view and, and that if you get the view lost in the conduct, that's like getting attached and, and, and lost in some sara. And you want the view to cultivate your freedom your, your compassion in the world to be specific, contextual, earthbound,
01:01:02
Speaker
fine, just what's needed. and maybe, you know, maybe you see it timeless boundless, but you just give somebody a glass of water who's thirsty. know, this is,
01:01:15
Speaker
kind of we, as we evolve, we can also kind of get stuck with this because we, we now see so much about the world and see so much about, you know, the meta crisis, the, the, the, the difficulties that are going on in the world.
01:01:29
Speaker
we We have a vast view into many things that are beyond our circle of influence, you could say. we get lost in all of this stuff that's going this vast view of what's potential and what's happening.
01:01:42
Speaker
you know, and then we, you know, forget to take the garbage out or to care for our partner or, know so so that's a teaching that i found really helpful really helpful you know cultivate your view and then be in the world you know and intentionally but in in a way that makes a difference to you and the people around you the people that touch you know your friends your community people you see in the store you know just moment to moment and the the only humble ways that we can
01:02:24
Speaker
Cultivate your view, refine your conduct. Yeah. My conduct. Yeah.
01:02:35
Speaker
Hmm.
01:02:38
Speaker
It brings so much stillness through my body just to be with what we're yeah feeling it together. Yeah. Hmm.
01:02:54
Speaker
And the stillness seems to be like right at the edge of
01:02:59
Speaker
form and formlessness.
01:03:03
Speaker
Are you aware of something in particular that, that released? Yeah. Into that still. Right through the center of my body that what felt like a ah degree of a knot.
01:03:16
Speaker
Yeah. Has opened kind of like a flower opens.
01:03:24
Speaker
yeah like almost so gradually is to only be noticed in retrospect oh the flowers open or more open um
01:03:38
Speaker
for me this is just it continues to point back at the ah importance and the value of engaging in coherent relationship I mean all relationship is a teaching but to have a place to touch into whether it's on the cushion but for me with others
01:04:08
Speaker
that re-presences how profoundly cared for everything is even when it looks like it's not
01:04:22
Speaker
and to wait in that weight to be receptive in that experiencing for intuitive guidance about anything practical or that needs to be done or ceased from being done and that does come through crystal clear in that in that cultivation of receptivity and softening
01:04:54
Speaker
what's your experience
01:05:01
Speaker
when you yeah when you began to speak to that um i was i was was connecting with know in this conversation about view and conduct i was connecting to the sort of uh aspect of our existence, which is, both kind of vast and humble, you know, like, and, and I just sort of relaxed a little bit more into that.
01:05:35
Speaker
Um, and I think, I think it's just a, something that, that I've reflected and worked with, you know, this,
01:05:50
Speaker
It was kind of like earlier you said, like, remember we were joking and you said like, oh, like I got eight things that are good and sometimes one or two that are bad. And I said, one it just one or two. you So I try not to overwhelm the system.
01:06:01
Speaker
You know, it's like, it's like, you know, there's something that we're grappling with here, which is, you know, sort of our vastness. And then what do you do with that? you know you At whatever level of practice or wherever you are in your life, there's always and like there's some imagination. like Ultimately, you know if you sort of go down the bottom of your to-do list and keep going, it just leads to the you know the transcendent creative impulse that just goes down forever.
01:06:34
Speaker
you know Like if you solved everything in your life, you would start to solve things in the world. And when you solve that, you would solve things in other worlds. It just, it just goes on forever.
01:06:45
Speaker
And then human beings are like, we're humble, you know, that's that finest barley flour thing, you know? Yeah. You can see meta crisis and the potential for a collective awakening.
01:07:00
Speaker
And then you get up and you do your practice and you know, you have ah some phone calls and send some emails and then you go to bed, and yeah you know, like it's a humble life, right? You know, like, you know, like you do what you can in the time that you have.
01:07:16
Speaker
And there's something um, yeah, there's the teacher Samuel bonder. i don't know if you're familiar with him. we ever talked about saying, yeah, like the way he, the way he talks about.
01:07:30
Speaker
the sort of divine and human, um, you know, uh, confluence in us. There's something to reckon with. And so in that moment when you were speaking, I was just kind of relaxing into that, you know, like it's easy for the conduct to get lost into the view, you know, to say like, I have have to do greatness. I have to, you know, and then every day it's like, okay,
01:07:57
Speaker
Like I like to, I play jazz music and I have my guitars are sitting here next to me. And this is like a great practice field for this. You know, like I have a vision of greatness.
01:08:08
Speaker
And when it comes to and being a musician, you know, and then I'm like, okay, i practice for a little bit today. That's good. You know, that's all you can do. Yeah. and And, obviously there's parts of my life that I've really committed to. and And, and I feel happy with, um,
01:08:28
Speaker
you know, what I've done and can do.
Compassion and Freedom of Choice
01:08:32
Speaker
And really appreciate, you know, just being able to be of service to people and to be in this field of love and compassion. And there is a way that you connect into the larger flow when you offer anything to anyone.
01:08:46
Speaker
And there's a way that you can tap into that, that view, but at the same time, you know, humble. sure is humbling at certain moments to see how how it all works with or without my participation and yeah yeah hear you seeing that yeah right
01:09:13
Speaker
anyone who's ever left a job and then gone back and talked to your colleagues later you realize like Oh, like that had absolutely no impact by leaving this company. They're just doing absolutely fine with They just slipped another cog into the machine that's doing its fit.
01:09:30
Speaker
ah Totally. There is a question I mentioned to before we began that I ask every guest. And it stands in the field of a quote that I love from Suzuki Roshi, Shunryo Suzuki Roshi, who opened the Zen Center of San Francisco in 60s.
01:09:48
Speaker
and he would say death is certain the time is not what is the most important thing so i'll offer that to you what is the most important thing
01:10:03
Speaker
well i think in a kind of universal sense and very particular to this time in history the most important thing is is connection compassion mutual care
01:10:17
Speaker
we're
01:10:21
Speaker
in the best sense of the word, exercising our compassion both has us awaken and it also cares for others in the process.
01:10:34
Speaker
And it'll have you confront everything imaginable in yourself. And
01:10:47
Speaker
including you know waking up to the view that it also doesn't matter ultimately. it's So is this is an important thing.
01:11:04
Speaker
yeah i never I never speak in absolutes that much. So I don't know about the most important, but that's an important thing. And it's also really important to our time right now. It's important to us as human beings.
01:11:18
Speaker
We're living in a time where you know, where, we're where, where social systems and our relationship to information and our politics is, is just causing us to spin out and into degrees of separation are kind of unprecedented.
01:11:35
Speaker
And it's just important, I think, for everybody to be reminded you're a human being, we're part of the same family, know, you're my brother, we're in this together.
01:11:50
Speaker
what can I do
01:11:57
Speaker
when you hear the title of this show the choice to grow what does it evoke for you sitting here at this moment um I would say you know when you when you come to a point where you realized that that's a choice that's a that's a real like it's a real blessing know, it's a real, that's the doorway to everything, really.
01:12:26
Speaker
That moment where are you, choicefulness is a realization of freedom. Prior to having choice, there's no freedom. when you It's just a way that we talk we talk about.
01:12:39
Speaker
freedom. And so there's a freedom in that and also an intentionality to grow and, um, and that, and a realization that of that possibility that we can change, we can evolve, we can grow.
01:12:55
Speaker
ah certainly been my experience. So if you feel like you have the choice to grow, then that's beautiful. Get on with it.
01:13:08
Speaker
i if you If you don't feel like you have the choice to grow, then that's also a really valid human experience. And we all experience that in parts of ourselves too.
01:13:22
Speaker
So to, yeah, to not, you know, to be respectful and compassionate for those parts of us that don't feel free.
01:13:34
Speaker
And paradoxically, that's also growthful.
01:13:41
Speaker
and that's what comes up title of the episode choicefulness is the realization of freedom it's there's so much in that so much available in that
01:13:52
Speaker
like there's an awareness at least for me at this moment of incredible abundance reflecting on that wow wait I have an awareness of choice this is an abundant moment
01:14:10
Speaker
I have so many memories of not feeling like there was a choice in feeling stuck or forced or limited in some sort of a way without realizing it was just the view and where I was at in the in my view of life and sense of self that was yeah the only block yeah yeah and like your practice of cultivating that You know, we, we often kind of focus on the part of our life where we don't feel like we're free.
01:14:40
Speaker
But I think what I hear in you now is just sort of stepping back and seeing this wider expanse of choicefulness of freedom. And yeah, we can orient to that. Obviously there's even like you know, it's like Viktor Frankl, even in the worst circumstances, there are aspects of ourselves that are totally free to choose how we relate to the circumstance.
Generating Transformative Change Program
01:15:02
Speaker
So,
01:15:07
Speaker
and you can know start with that where you are free would you share a little bit more for the people who are listening that may be actually ready for or fit for something like GTC what who who is that for what is it about and what does it tend to um bring out of a person in their yeah participation.
01:15:31
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So um there's that particular program generating transformative change. The GTC program is our kind of core offering that we also kind of offer shorter programs and do coaching and do other stuff. But that's that's kind of the heart of our work in many ways. it's the deepest form of our work.
01:15:55
Speaker
And it's it's a pretty significant commitment to your own growth and your own process. It involves nine-month period with a small cohort group of people that you kind of get really deep and intimate with.
01:16:10
Speaker
And there's four residential retreats over that period, you know roughly week-long retreats. So it's a significant commitment of time and energy during a portion of your life.
01:16:22
Speaker
And often, you know, people come to that process when they're, um, like deeply engaged in their work, but feel that they're kind of at an edge, it could go deeper or they're in a transformative process. They've kind of, you know, uh,
01:16:41
Speaker
left the shore of their old ways and haven't arrived at and don't see land on the horizon, you know, and that in that liminal space. so part of what that, that does is really hold people through that transformative process, or there's a feeling of needing to let go old ways of being a,
01:17:02
Speaker
you know, a kind of intuition of some of the deeper ground of being that we're talking about, but not fully manifest in life. Uh, so it's, it's often attracts people are really kind of ready for a transformative work or in the midst of it and holds that in that container.
01:17:19
Speaker
And it's work grounded in this kind of what we call a awakened wholeness, which is this already present view of the world is already whole and awake.
01:17:36
Speaker
And we do deep work across these different dimensions of own unfolding during that process to cultivate qualities and relationship and collective life and in our own integration and our awakening and our development.
01:17:52
Speaker
and And it's done intimately in a group of people. so part of part of what we're part of what we're doing in this is we're really like listening deeply to each individual's unfolding.
01:18:06
Speaker
And so we're not kind of laying a trip on people like this is what the ideal is. We're kind of we have certain views and frameworks that we're holding that ah contain your growth, but we're also like really paying attention to where people are right now and what's what's unfolding, what's next for you and supporting that.
01:18:27
Speaker
And then one of the unique parts of the program is we also do that at the collective level. So we're actually working in the collective too and seeing what's the unfolding of the collective and teaching practices to cultivate awakening at the end and kind of consciousness at the collective level and and practice at the collective level.
01:18:48
Speaker
So that's a little bit about the details of the program and maybe a little bit of food comes into it. um You know, many people, you know, who take GTC and a market is one of the most meaningful experiences of their life.
01:19:04
Speaker
Often people find a deeper relaxation into themselves, a deeper openness to whatever's arising.
01:19:16
Speaker
And, that takes a practical form of being able to be in intensity and be in complexity and, and still stay connected and effective and contributing and,
01:19:35
Speaker
So it's it's also situated in our connection to what's of most importance to us, of being benefit in the world and this time. And so often people come into the program don't just come in for personal reasons, but see themselves as as part of this broader collective evolution and awakening and and want their lives to be an expression of that.
01:20:01
Speaker
So sometimes what's a person's journey is into a deeper a new form of work in the world. That's an expression of, of their deepest values.
01:20:15
Speaker
So there's a lot that people get out of it. Um, and it's very particular to, to the, to the person, know, what you come in with, what your edge is, where you unfold.
01:20:30
Speaker
I've known and do know so many graduates of that program. And even though I haven't personally participated in the program concretely, I would highly, highly recommend it to anybody who's feeling the calling, check it out. Where do people go to learn more about this?
01:20:47
Speaker
ah you go to pacific integral.com and you can just reach us there. You can get in touch with us and be happy to, you know, connect with anybody or connect with the the community here.
01:21:00
Speaker
Uh, we also, i don't know when this will be published, but we, we also have a, um, Uh, we do periodic open workshops and there's one on July 15th and 17th, uh, called the power of the disorienting dilemma.
01:21:14
Speaker
So this is really about this thing that was just talking about, about being in the midst of change and not seeing a way forward. What do you do when the pathway is not clear? How can you cultivate capacities to be with that and be creative in that space?
01:21:29
Speaker
I hope you're considering the possibility with the level of interest of turning that into a longer engagement for people like that's such a profound.
01:21:42
Speaker
Pointing out instruction in the title alone. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't think this will be published before then. i think we're already into later July with our publishing dates, but. Yeah, we'll do that. We'll do that again.
01:21:54
Speaker
But yeah, no, I mean, it's kind of one of the arts of our work, which is essentially, you know, being able to be deeply present in that kind of emergent complex space where you don't know how to move forward and you don't you how do you how can you be in a place of trust and openness and creativity in that space so that is kind of at the heart of GTC too but yeah maybe maybe one point we'll make it into it its own program yeah yeah I'm imagining it almost some like this is my projection if I did it like sort of hybridized thing where there's an in-person kind of series of like ropes courses and like you know collective endeavoring of
01:22:41
Speaker
Doing the impossible, so-called impossible, yeah but like including the concrete. you know like getting that person over that log that's way up there and seems impossible as yeah
01:22:57
Speaker
yeah it brings back some good memories of doing a rope scores same same yeah yeah I remember being in uh our school was incredible our public school where I grew up in Rochester New York Penfield High School there was a you had to apply but my senior year I was in this year-long leadership course i mean it was a whole year it might have been just a semester but you know butt ass cold in the middle of Rochester winter we're out there as a group in this doing this ropes course together and there were yeah so many challenges that looked impossible
01:23:33
Speaker
from various points of view that some of us carried. you know like I was the guy, I talk about this in a different episode, who each time, thank God they ended the presidential fitness test.
Healing, Love, and Connection
01:23:42
Speaker
But that was just like the worst thing in the whole effing world. It was like knowing I had to go in this thing, not be able to video do a pull up and be watched doing nothing.
01:23:51
Speaker
And failing. I'm with you. I totally forgot about that, but yeah. But then doing this roadblock transformed it. was not trauma-informed. Here were all the cool kids and the not cool kids, yeah said me, working together. And it completely changed my sense of self, one of many times, but completely changed my sense of self to come together with people that I didn't think I could be chosen by and people that I wouldn't choose and then some that were just you know cool and friends.
01:24:21
Speaker
and to And to see the transformation of that, everybody gave up their thing in order to help the person or the group accomplish this task amazing
01:24:38
Speaker
yeah we had uh in one of the GTC cohorts we had somebody who led high ropes courses and he took the cohort out on it one day and that was that was just very cool yeah yeah no it must have been really powerful as a kid to do that I would do it again Yeah. what What would you like to imagine everything that you've ever said or written has been erased, gone, dissolved, and you're about to take your last breath and you could leave a couple of key somethings in words for us, for the world.
01:25:10
Speaker
what What might you leave?
01:25:20
Speaker
Well, I don't know what I would actually leave, Scott, but what came to my mind was words of a teacher. And these were words of Dan Brown that he spoke to Dustin DiPerna when he was dying.
01:25:38
Speaker
Okay. I think I know where this is going. i'm already laughing. ah it's not It's not the one that you're thinking about. Oh, okay, okay. That's a good one, too.
01:25:50
Speaker
But this this was a, he he said had given to Dustin all of the teachings, you know, to empower him to carry on his work.
01:26:03
Speaker
And he said to him, make sure to tell them it doesn't take a long time.
01:26:14
Speaker
I also think of another teacher of mine who I, in training I had as a somatic therapist. She had she had a real
01:26:27
Speaker
stand for that we can heal. Like, like the, or, you know, sometimes it takes a long time. um, you know, we're going to be doing our own work forever. Right.
01:26:43
Speaker
And she said said, no, it's not about that. It's about healing. You actually, you actually heal. And i I saw that in both Dan and Haley, you know, their stand for realization. You can awaken,
01:26:57
Speaker
and Take this all the way to enlightenment. You can heal and it's possible. It doesn't take a long time. Maybe this is the lifetime.
01:27:11
Speaker
So those words came to me. But maybe if it's my own dying moment, I might just say this is all about love. Just love each other. That's another thing sometimes I say with the faculty team when we're and we're going into a GTC retreat.
01:27:29
Speaker
you know We've had meetings going over all sorts of things that we're going to do and all the details and complexity and what's going on with each participant. And I just will say, don't forget, this is just about loving each other.
01:27:43
Speaker
It's all it's about.
01:27:47
Speaker
so I'll offer that too thank you thank you for those incredibly simple and incredibly powerful and aspirational and reminding us that it doesn't have to take a long time the important things don't have to take a long time and that their support to learn how to not have to take a long time
01:28:12
Speaker
yeah yeah thank you Scott it's been great to great to have this conversation really appreciate it likewise it's a joy to be with you with all of my heart and on behalf of all the listeners thank you for everything you've lived and been through including the difficult moments we'll know nothing about where you chose to grow so you can be here today thank you yeah yeah thank you so we're gonna what we usually do we're going to end together listeners and us Just being together in this alive field of stillness and silence together for about 10 seconds or so.
01:28:47
Speaker
And you might want to soften the soles of your feet like you're opening fists with your mind, same with the palms of your hands like we did in the beginning of the show. Just slow the breath and experience your experience.
01:29:17
Speaker
so Click to follow, like, and share it as widely as possible. Want to go deeper with the choice to grow? Explore the show notes. You'll find links there for going deeper with our guests, as well as how to work with me in the work of waking up, growing up, cleaning up, and showing up.
01:29:37
Speaker
Thanks for listening. Can't wait to join you in the next episode.