Fear, Existence, Loneliness And Belonging Along The Path With Michael Harbecke PhD

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Shortcut to this blog post: tinyurl.com/michaelharbecke

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Michael and I sat down at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery in June 2023 to chat a little about life while positioned between East and West Germany during the Cold War and how ensuing fear contributed to stress, an interest in existentialism and what to do and how to be. We also explore loneliness, rate of change over time, the three characteristics of existence, expatriatism, belonging, interconnectedness, ground (of being), groundedness, and trust.

We also touch on:

• Michael’s work in academia
• Disillusionment with alternative lifestyles and student activism in the 1970s
• Authenticity
• Carl Rodgers and counseling
• Purpose
• Meaning
• The nature of dukkha, suffering
• Operating on presumptions in life
• Three characteristics of existence
• Ultimate futility of looking for continuity, steadiness and predictability
• Wisdom, meditation and ethics
• Finding inspiration
• Learning plateaus
• Autobiography of Ajahn Dtun
• Refuge
• Awareness

• Rapid change (of social and economic conditions)
• Causes and conditioning factors of different types of kamma
• Optimism of the 1960s and 70s
• Rise and fall of dhamma in the world
• Interplay of trust
• faith in capacity (for equanimity)
• testing limits/boundaries
• learning from mistakes
• growing self-confidence
• hinderance of doubt
• Trusting the wisdom of the body

Perhaps I felt the general anticipation of the day’s meal quickly approaching and reverted to the habit pattern of a rapid fire jumping around and circling back on topics while oversteering and not providing adequate time for responses in our unplanned conversation. In short, rushing, and for that did a bit of a disservice.

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Michael’s book Milestones on the Path of Dhamma: Stages Of Inner Freedom is based on his own experience of 30 years of Vipassana meditation in the tradition of Sayagyi U Ba Khin. He describes 14 milestones of a progressive meditative development which leads to increasingly subtler stages of the body-mind process. It is probably the first independent comprehensive study by a long-term student of S.N. Goenka that clearly explains important psychological insights that are bound to arise in anybody who seriously walks on this path. These Stages Of Inner Freedom ensures us that even today we can still witness the same milestones that the ancient texts like the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta mention, one after another, provided we correctly understand and apply the teaching and continue our daily practice.’

(To reach out to Michael or) find out more about his interests, study, and work: https://independent.academia.edu/michaelharbecke

Milestones on the Path of Dhamma: Stages Of Inner Freedom is available at various places via AbeBooks and Amazon. Michael’s other book Reading Rogers as a Path of Learning with Awareness: Towards a Person-Centred Hermeneutic Approach can also be found on Amazon and AbeBooks

Also, please contact me to relay to Michael any and all questions about this podcast or anything else. The same goes if interested in (contributing to) publishing and offering Milestones on the Path of Dhamma: Stages Of Inner Freedom as a free, printed Dhamma book.

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The raw unedited YouTube transcription of this podcast:

homeless and welcome today I have Michael I’ll Becca with me so we’re here at amravati Monastery and it is just for

the sake of the recording it’s June 2023. and I’m going to do what I often

do is just throw it back to Michael here to have him introduce himself no that’s

a difficult question actually because I’ve been retired since August last year

I was a lecturer at Cardiff University for many years I’m teaching German

and then later I did a PhD in counseling at berardinia University in Sri Lanka

and I’ve been traveling a lot in Asia

and many of the business centers around the world and now I’m here in amravati and meeting

you it’s great to have you here as well Michael is very humble we’ve talked

about all kinds of things all over the world and especially in the Buddhist world too you have to say you have quite

a bit of familiarity I think it’s quite an understatement I mean we’ve talked about everybody from like biku and nalio

to um different um monasteries in Sri Lanka to the like

the different political situation relics we’ve we’ve talked about early Buddhist

text and preserving you know early Buddhist text and well I guess more of

the just everyday life you know what what got you into all this anyway as far as inspiration goes especially

um I guess the way to get into dhamma is usually the classical way is just

experience or the conscious awareness of having um you know in one’s life the experience

of things not being the way one would ideally wish them to be

um and it’s basically the search for some solution to the existential questions in

life and yeah I was quite political as a student I was kind of interested in all kinds of

alternative Lifestyles and even marxists programs and I was very active in all

the the marches in the 70s but eventually it made me even more

depressed because like what adona used to say you know there’s no right life in the wrong

one so then I kind of understood this to be um like when you’re swimming in a

polluted Pond you know like a fish in a political Pond you cannot be healthy how do you find a way out of that so that

became a kind of eccentric question for me and eventually I moved to Britain and

through the English language I could start in a way a new life had a new identity

having been brought up in a Catholic small village in Germany and um in a

post-warf time it was so yeah my first conditioning in that time

you know I was very um I would say quite quite challenging for

me and but now I’m in a situation where in a way I’ve lost my connection with

Germany I have been abroad so many years it’s been yeah Germany has become a kind of

strange country for me now so when you talk about existentialism

what area is it just like existing not existing or is it just kind of the the

slog of everyday life and existence and how it’s just not satisfying I mean what

what really Drew you towards that area yeah I guess it was the time of uh Jean-Paul Sartor and kamu I read quite a

little bit about you know existential philosophy but apart from that it’s the actual

direct experience of being exposed to political situations you know the ex the

time of the arms race between east and west and I was just at the center of

that at Castle University for example you know we’re Pershing the Pershing program under Ronald Reagan was

targeting exactly that strip between East and West Germany when my University was right in the center of that

and so they were always expecting the Russians to come in and then they would sacrifice a holes in this whole strip

wow um so we could not be completely blase about that situation so I felt

somehow and I also you know I remember the time when we when I had the first one we had the first TV at home I was

12. black and white TV two programs and then the first input I had was the

Russians coming into Prague in the Sprague praying time with doom check the Duke check era wow and then also then

the bombing in Vietnam you know I saw that every day that was my first input

so on the floor there was a kind of the third world war already starting so this is I mean this is a real

immediate uh concern about existence like life and death situations at least the way it was portrayed in the media

right I mean they would leave people to believe that you know at any moment it

could be all over for almost everybody even who knows you know so it is kind of

like this existential dread around every corner it seems like I mean maybe I’m exaggerating a little bit here but yeah

I can imagine uh it would draw one’s attention to growing up in that time and

place in the world and every September or in Autumn there was this big maneuver in uh with the NATO troops in our area

so I saw these tanks miles and miles of Tanks almost uh you know every year we

had these kind of Maneuvers and it was like a normal you know normal environment for me

apart from the fact that you know was brought up in a very straight Catholic family a small village working class no

education and yeah my first kind of Desire was to

become a Catholic priest because it was the only way for me to kind of trying to

go deeper into the underlying philosophies and so on

it’s a whole different ball game in the states as far as Warfare right because it’s the the Patriot programming and the

waving the flag but nobody’s ever really attacked that land it’s always the theater they call it right is in Europe

a lot of times more so than not so it’s I’ve had this degree of removal from all

that and you know it’s just so it’s it’s it’s not really that fathomable for me speaking of getting deeper into this

though you know as the the it wasn’t it uh I forgot the the name of whoever asked the Buddha right you know after

Enlightenment will I exist won’t I exist well I both exist and not exist well I

neither exist nor not exist and the Buddha basically says none of that even applies and to me that was just it’s

just blew my mind you know it’s an unfathomable and but in a way that is

kind of the the an aspect of the Buddha’s teaching that I like very much because it it

throws me back onto this life that’s right that’s right and so you have to um kind of make sense of this particular

life you are given now you know from you know birth to death in this life and

I think if we can find some kind of solution for that that it’s you know

good enough isn’t it so we don’t need to worry about what’s happening after that so much as uh you

know how are we living today absolutely so yeah the most of the

existential writings and philosophies I’m not too familiar but it seems like a philosophical exercise and if if on the

path to Enlightenment right if none of that even really applies then then then it throws it back like you’re saying to

this very life you know can get out of the the philosophical aspect of it all the time perhaps and like how does it

how does things in our lives stir the heart right you know what touches the heart it teaches you a way of inquiring

of looking deeper into you know what your situation is right now and this

particular moment in time especially when you think about all the social

programs that have been kind of set up in the 60s and 70s which were very

optimistic at the time or maybe or we could say from today’s perspective looking back in hindsight it’s it was

over optimistic and then you’re left to your own devices

ultimately you know so every day you are kind of thinking where is my refuge or

where do I feel where do I belong and um

you cannot find an ultimate answer for that so ultimately you have to kind of

uh confront your own existential existence as being kind of on your own

and this feeling can lead to some kind of loneliness if you don’t have any

refuge in yourself so how do you deal with that

yeah and it’s it’s a really important question I hear more and more of teachers and and just folks in general

talk about belonging you know and this is on the external I feel it’s really important you know through

times where if we don’t didn’t belong then we’re kind of on the outskirts and in tribalisms and it’s it’s hard to

survive or you know these type of things but going deeper inward you know um I I

see this more and more what the kind of the Insight that came to me is where do I belong in my own heart especially for

those identifying with others and trying so hard to fit in and where do I fit but

where where do we fit in in our own Hearts too we care deeply about all kinds of different things and and people

and even ideas and action but you know yeah that question came to me you know

where do I belong in my own art yeah yeah I think we have to be very honest

with ourselves it’s so easy to the mind is very cunning it’s very easy to play

games and think oh you know I just go to all these meditation centers and

monasteries and I feel at home there um you get you know very peaceful

environment and it’s very easy to to live in these places in a way but in the

on the other hand you know you’re kind of karma is always catching up with you

it’s like a shadow you cannot escape from so it doesn’t really matter ultimately

Where You Are the question is how can you confront

your deeper truth and try to live an authentic life

for me someone like Carl Rogers in the counseling world was very important

there in a way you had this cool conditions of leading an authentic life

being empathic of yourself having a less conditional way of

accepting yourself and others so that was for me very compatible a very

amazing you know compatibility with the Buddha’s teaching for example the Kalama Sutter if you

think about the Kalama Center which is not very kind of much promoted these days you know making

your own independent inquiries and not settling for kind of you know first

answers but always looking deeper and looking deeper it’s a great guideline

that’s it for you know what what we should be paying attention to and how we should be paying attention to it yeah

yeah and um it’s so easy for I mean I remember times when friends of mine that

um kind of became very religious after

having been disillusioned with political programs and suddenly they go inwards

and are kind of turn away from the actual from the outside world but I

could never really settle for this kind of conversion programs he often had you

know in the Christian churches or something like that you get the group high and then everyone seems to be

really on the ball but for me it was something I always missed I could not

really you know kind of surrender to these kind of conversion programs

and then when you go home and you’re on your own again then you’re even more lonely

yeah and then on the other hand you know it went through years of that too

these days I would like where do I find peace and quiet somewhere even in a

monastery right there’s always people around there’s chores you know that there’s internal chatter too but even if

we’re living in the wilderness we’re still in some kind of community with with nature and whatnot and there really is no

Escape no refuge like you’re talking about you know and I think the loneliness is is an existential kind of

dilemma it’s it because we’re so interconnected with everything right we can’t live in a vacuum you know we’re

dependent on so many different things or interdependent on so many different things for for a way of life but it is

kind of a more of a psychological thing why does there feel so much loneliness in today’s society is there some kind of

General way to look at it I mean does it really uh differ

uniquely from Individual to individual is it cultural you know what are the different aspects of it and and in in

also in today’s society is it any more prominent in today’s society versus you

know others other times yeah so yeah and today especially when you have been uh testing

so many different things let’s say you had everything in terms of Financial

Security and you could buy any kind of things that would give you comfort so

and then ultimate view realize it is just a short moment you know where you have this kind of kick or a moment of

happiness and then the next day it’s already becoming stale so this whole material

lifestyle has eventually kind of faded and become rather you know just a

distraction of course we need food we need to have shelter we need to have friends and you

know the just the basic conditions that we you know could see on the muscle pyramid for example the you know the

hierarchy of needs yeah you know the foundation for a kind of existential and

social needs and individual needs but then we always left with our own kind of

deeper longings of making sense of this life and trying to have a purpose why we

are here so these questions will always be there the background you know and what would

you say the Buddhist purpose is for this existence is it I guess my answer to that would be is to no suffering and

then know the end of suffering and that is in a kind of simplified nutshell right

or I should say duka in the end of doing yeah yeah but how do you define suffering I mean

suffering is not just physical it is mental and even

the the pain that you experience of not being you know this in

unsatisfactoriness of uh not having a kind of stable situation that is

um kind of malleable in in on the daily basis but

being exposed to so many variables that are constantly changing and outside as

well as inside inside one’s body then um it’s like walking on quicksand

so where where do you find the kind of solid kind of foundation yeah that is

reliable for you know the future so and once you have been this

constantly this uh disillusioned with that kind of questioning then

what do you do at the end of that yeah and you know my answer to that just to

to Riff on this you know well first off I was went to the monastery today you know to meditate I just presumed that it

would just be like any other day right and I can just go in there and sit and and quiet and there’s a school group in

there oh yeah okay now my practice is really being tested right so it was lovely too but it’s just all these uh

presumptions that are operating that I take for granted that it just these they’re not really expectations but we

just feel certain things will be this way and yeah the biggest thing for me is the version of a Nietzsche I like is

that arranging conditions just the way I want them is not a long-term success for

happiness because eventually in the long term I won’t be able to control all the external conditions the way I would and

whereas there’s that false um operating procedure of doing that and then all of a sudden we can’t control the external

especially the external conditions the way we want or even the internal condition well then then there’s a disappointment

that’s stress and one of the other and then we get helpless I mean that’s the

kind of the the anata is that we don’t know if we don’t have any other strategies well then we’re taught that’s

the way we do it in life you do this this and this they’ll be happy and that’s what you’re supposed to do and if

that doesn’t work then I was like what do I do now I this doesn’t work this helplessness yeah in a way we want to

have a continuity we want to have steadiness and some kind of um stability

a predictable kind of life and in some ways we are always trying

that despite knowing that this may not work out in the end but this is our kind

of you know the continuity of our mom-to-mom existence otherwise you will go mad

exactly and this is where wisdom steps in and wisdom I think is is more

reliable you know and then the the ethics the the an ethical lifestyle helps build

up to them support it so does the meditation practices yeah um yeah that’s of course very important

as well you know we need that Foundation of an ethical framework absolutely not

just in counseling or in any professional field but it’s a general way of life otherwise if there is no

kind of trust which arises from this kind of ethical Foundation then we

there may not be much point in communicating at all so these are big things you talked earlier about uh

refuge and I was also thinking about ground you know and trust these are huge things so you know and traditionally in

Buddhism it’s a Buddha Dharma Sangha but the refugees is uh the internal part of

this for me is the Buddha’s awareness you know this this knowing identifying with what knows uh that does that is not

subject to you know um defilement or purification you know that this this

awareness this awake awareness this heart-centered awareness and then that’s a big one and then the the

um but like even even those yeah I mean the Buddha’s final words right he talked

about right what is your take on hit his uh as far as you know

somebody to these last words means you have to take

um refuge in yourself and be making effort

despite all kinds of situations that are you know to the contrary that are kind

of uh questioning or undermining these efforts so um that is a real challenge especially

when you’ve been doing this kind of work for many years now many of the people that I see

um they eventually stop doing making these efforts and then they kind of um in a way give up you know because you

just get tired the Buddha was so inspiring Ardent diligent Resolute you

know just that was his what he was known for just Relentless but patient and wise

just keeping at it it just it seems like nothing is impossible with the right instruction and persistence patient

persistence you know so those two things we also always look for uh inspiration

from us absolutely yeah where do you find inspiration

as I said you know the um people have been in this kind of business let’s say

um it’s the only game in town as I call it these people are kind of very few far and few in between yes now when I look

back many people who started off with me um have gone or have passed away already

and and then you have all these newcomers new people and sometimes I get a lot of inspiration from you people

people in the early 20s or so they are so full of enthusiasm yes beginners for

me so inspiring to see that and I think that is a

this real skill in finding new ways of inspiring yourself because otherwise you

know you go through certain phases learning plateaus and you get stuck there very easy to get stuck there and

then when you get stuck you’re sliding back you’re already sliding back slowly so how do you keep your brains fresh so

let’s come well since we’re on that I want to come back to to ground and uh

that as well and trust but yeah so what inspires you lately besides the kind of

the 20 year old bright-eyed and bushy-tailed a little bit uh you know this yeah yeah in the moment I’m reading

uh the autobiography by biku argentan I think he’s still alive in Thailand and

um I can really relate to that how he was

inspiring himself every day through um this Guyana Persona that he did

working in the jungles and trying every opportunity to practice really

um and he had he had to go through so much hardship but he was relentless in his

efforts so and these kind of Masters so so rare and so rare these days I I don’t

know where they are now I wish I could meet him sometimes yeah if he’s still

alive I always wonder about who the modern day version of mogulana is because we have so many different wisdom

teachings and wisdom Masters but kind of nobody on the caliber of mogulana you

know he was known for psychic powers which are kind of get a bad rap in Academia and just kind of get written

off pretty quick uh and there’s really not much of a space in the western world for things like that I’d imagine but

maybe that’s for another time so sometimes we feel groundless right some people like talk about the ground of

being too and I and then being ungrounded I mean it’s just almost a cliche at this point but I know when I’m

don’t feel very stable or like physically grounded like bare feet on the earth too you know I don’t know if

it’s more metaphorical or or what we can say about this I mean does the Tibetan tradition talk about like a ground of

being and um working with this is a metaphor especially in in what we were

talking about earlier with with loneliness and um I think you said something earlier about being identified

with this awareness yeah passing the identification itself can already be a

trap yeah yeah because ultimately there is no self so we have

um if we have that understanding then um taking refuge in a way is a form of

taking Refuge itself on the other hand itself does not exist so

um it is the classic Refuge just in pure awareness without identifying with it

and this is what I mean that’s right yeah it’s not like I am awareness no that’s right it’s just like that seems a

little bit more of a decent Refuge than yeah it is a stepping stone I would say

yes of course yeah not as an ultimate yeah there is no ultimate of Refuge yeah

yeah that’s the thing you know you have to have a healthy sense of self first before you then absolutely

and as far as refuges with uh dhamma the internal one I like this notion of Truth

you know the the Buddha was a Seeker after truth when he won he went forth right and is it said that he the the one

thing he didn’t break was uh truthfulness you know throughout all his prior lifetimes and then for the Sangha

for me it also means this this heart connection that we have with others this this really heartfelt sense of uh of um

yeah connection and and care you know I think that could be a healthy

refuge in internally at least for part of it right yeah of course when you

think about the interconnectedness of your life not just human life forms or life forms

of course you know and then if you go deeper into patitas for example that you

can really understand this kind of um you know mutuality of courses and and

conditionals and how they create certain manifestations from home to moment and

the mental kind of conditioning process how it’s working

out and then if you’re going further deeper into for example the batana in the

abidamma you know the dicapatana for example where you have the 24 conditioning factors that in a way

influence all these 12 spokes of the tabati Transformer partner that is a

huge it is and if that’s not big enough yeah and even beyond that is all the

inner workings of comma which is one of the imponderables that said that only a Buddha can do that because it can it can

be maddening you know I mean but we have the these areas of comma that we can

study that are laid out but the the full scope of it is just it’s just beyond

also recently I’ve been kind of becoming more interested in the inter play between individual Karma family Karma

and cultural Collective common how they are kind of mutually

reinforcing each other and how you are entangled as an individual within this

whole web yeah that is a kind of this is dimension this is a fascinating question because I think one of these was put to

a nod John out it’s uh chinhurst and I can’t remember the the exact discussion but it fascinates me

too because this notion of collective comma you know on one one one level it seems like well that would be taking

responsibility for others actions right because I you know I’m responsible for

you know the the fifth the fifth reflection right I’m the owner of my karma heir of my comma that that whole

thing and then so how does that play out collectively you know what we and on the other hand we are interdependent right

you know where do you draw the line okay this is mine this is yours you know it’s it’s a fascinating question when it

starts digging into this yeah I think there are ripples that we create all the time and we don’t know where they end

so um unknowingly we may influence a lot of other people that are in our kind of

environment around us just by the way we are we are living you know without words

even silently how we are acting and how we are in the world it’s fascinating too

how our actions and fruit of actions and how these kind of match up around other with certain people right

maybe sometimes you get some feedback someone telling wow you know you really

had a big effect on me but uh that’s um very rare to hear that

but here to be also at the receiving end of collective Karma it’ll be born at a

certain time in a certain place and how these constellations shape your early

um education and the upbringing and your your conditioning

and you take that phone you know this is your normality I’m I feel very fortunate in a way to be

a little older now because I can compare what was normal for me in the 70s or 60s

and what is this kind of new normality now in the you know 19 in the 2020s

yeah it’s my grandmother before she passed it’s like the world when she died

was just about unrecognizable in a lot of ways it’s from when she was younger and with all this technology and they

you know didn’t have the running walk you know like all the stuff that we hear stories about but now expand that back

to the time of the Buddha I could imagine how a lot of the life is just on you know unfathomable for us if it’s

that foreign in just a hundred years you know yeah definitely

I mean I I was lucky because I in the 1670s where they’re very optimistic

Outlook in life we thought you know After experiencing the or having experienced my parents at least the

second world war and then the post-war time that uh we would have enough wisdom

Now to create uh living conditions that would always be kind of

um safe and uh that would you know we would create conditions where there’s

war wars would become kind of impossible and then since then what happened if you

look back well then acid got involved and it all went downhill right the hippies got uh they got they took acid

and their momentum went yeah everyone did not the only cause of

course turning points yeah that’s actually a better way to put it yeah in the early 80s already it started

or even no I mean the the 60s the hippies you know they had quite a bunch of social at least in the States you

know the civil rights movement and the really making progress and then acid was

introduced and it just kind of all went to pot and I don’t know I think that’s a simple overly simplistic economic

condition changed for example in the 70s I remember we had um I think it was in

73 where there was an oil crisis right yeah and I remember we were walking on

the motorways on a Sunday afternoon you know Germans going for a walk on a Sunday afternoon to the you know forests

and so on and then suddenly there everyone was walking on the motorway because there was no car going wow

um so that was the first shock we had that you know economic growth would not be permanent

um my father was always kind of happy to to say that you know he’s envying us because we are born in the time when

everything will become easier and we would have a wonderful life Notions of Utopia going on yeah exactly

um yeah it’s just uh but as we know you know even as good and as perfect as

conditions get even in the time of the Buddha or probably the best conditions ever to get enlightened in you know

recent history right that not everyone got enlightened during that time period

a lot of people did you know supposedly it’s what we’re told but yeah it’s it’s just these different degrees of

conditions right and it was also Collective era how are you coming to think about Collective Karma Collective

kind of um ideal almost ideal conditions for um

many many people between China and Greece at that time in ancient Greece

and the Buddha kind of seemed to have forecast that um you know the Dharma will decline you know in certain certain

stages so today we are experiencing a time where people they

are still give Donna they still give donations and they still practice Sheila

to some degree but then meditation is becoming very very

yeah yeah although we have all these social media programs that’s right you know it is a big thing on inside timer

and there’s a lot of people on that but the the depth of practice I I don’t see it either uh I know there are some

really in-depth practitioners but as far as on the a scale that I think is significant

I don’t think it’s there either it wasn’t one of the signs too the day out of the dhamma is about the lack of uh

summative practice lacka is is that right do you know some of the signs and what their signs associated with the

decline of the dhamma well there were external conditions so of course there were Wars and so on yeah

you know send um monasteries got destroyed or the scriptures got

destroyed and then later they were kind of free um electron they were translated then later

on and you know some remnants were kind of found I mean in in the poly Cannon

like did the Buddha give uh like if you see this then the Dom is on the decline or some other practitioners I thought

one of them was actually the lack of samuda practices concentration practices but I could be wrong about that I think

um the most difficult part goes first usually the wisdom practice navipasana

practice and then when that disappears then there’s only the concentration

practice and then when that disappears there’s only the Sheila practice and then it

disappears and there’s only donation and then there is only rights and rituals yeah and

um and if you don’t get the when you don’t practice with every passenger for

example you don’t get the benefits and then you have doubts and you know all the hindrances will

you know be nurtured so let’s Circle back to this um this notion of trust

which I think is really important and then we’ll start to wind down leave folks with anything you want to tell

them about and tell them about your book too any uh teachers or teachings or

events or anything you’d like to draw people’s attention to but this notion of trust I I find it quite important and if

I mean for me I found uh internal trust trusting myself is a huge part of it too

but what would you what would you say about the importance of this internal external yeah there’s no way it relates

to the doubt which is a 15 runs um having kind of um

faith in one’s own capability one’s own capacity to develop on this path

um I think when we are constantly testing our limits our boundaries and

we’re realizing that we are able to learn from our mistakes and expand our

kind of capacity for Equanimity in difficult situations then we our self confidence

grows through that as well and this is kind of um you know helping our taking

refuge in the Dharma qualities within ourselves rather than saying you know this is I or

me or mine it is actually the Mind itself the kind of um quality of

awareness that comes kind of established through that practice and that itself has a spin-off effect on

you know everything we are doing and I see it also as having that deeper trust

within is then it’s and then with a discernment then it can easily and more effortlessly know who to trust when to

trust how much to trust on the external instead of being like Oh you know um this fear of oh somebody’s gonna take

advantage of me or you know oh I should uh I should you know what degree of trust we should give out and win too

yeah I think I’ve become very what you’re saying kinesthetic through the practice so oh yeah it’s more trusting

in my body no yeah the body can discern it that’s right in situations so and

then the body gives you an instant feedback it’s how we have to know truth is through the body that’s right I think

so so in that sense um when you’re constantly in touch with

the sensations in the body you’re constantly getting that feedback and you always feel kind of um you know kind of

connected body and mind uh kind of and even relax such an expansive versus contracted and you know pulling away and

and then you can anticipate situations too easily as well

a thing that has saved me many times from getting accidents or uh even within

in the jungle with snakes and and animal wild animals in Sri Lanka

um and then the meta that comes through that so I think that is a very valuable

thing to have and I think it grows with practice all the time the body base couldn’t be a

night yeah yeah it couldn’t be stressed enough you know yeah so what would you like to leave folks

with yeah I wrote this book a Milestones on the path of dhamma the subtitles stages

of inner Freedom um as a summary of my practice um it started in Sri Lanka and over 20

years I’ve been working on that book now no I think it’s in the Third Edition by

now and I uploaded it at Amazon but I ideally I would like to find a publisher

where I could offer it for free so maybe eventually I will find a I

don’t know Buddhist publisher so that would make that possible so how if if a Buddhist publisher

happens to be listening how could they get in touch with you would you like I wouldn’t give you my email for example

sounds good we’ll do that then uh so if anybody’s interested in that just reach out to me at integrating Presence at

protonmail.com or contact me other ways on the website and I’ll pass along the

the message to Michael Michael thanks so much for sitting down chatting with me for this it’s been a pleasure lovely to

have you yeah thank you