In this thirtieth installment of the ongoing live series with Wendy Nash inquiring into meditation practice on and off the cushion we explore the Eight Vicissitudes or Worldly Winds. I sometimes consider these as somewhat a psychology class crash course. While these don’t often seem to have a direct connection with formal meditation practices they are so interwoven into nearly every aspect of our lives in this world that their residues can easily carry over onto the cushion while the benefits from our practice naturally allow us to more skillfully navigate, meet and respond to gain and loss, pleasure and pain, praise and blame, fame and disrepute
vicissitude /vĭ-sĭs′ĭ-too͞d″, -tyoo͞d″/
noun
- A change or variation.”an economy vulnerable to the vicissitudes of the oil market.”
- A usually unforeseen change in circumstance or experience that affects one’s life, especially in a trying way: synonym: difficulty.”the vicissitudes of childhood.”Similar: difficulty
- The quality of being changeable; mutability.”the vicissitude of fortune.”
In pairs, along with some alternate translations, the Worldly Vicissitudes:
- Gain & Loss
- Profit & Deficit
- Acquisition & Deprivation
- Wealth & Poverty
2. Pleasure & Pain
- Happiness & Suffering
- Joy & Misery
- Delight & Discomfort
3. Praise & Blame
- Approval & Disapproval
- Compliments & Criticism
4. Fame & Disrepute
- Honor & Dishonor
- Recognition & Obscurity
- Renown & Defamation
- Fame & Infamy / Ill Repute
*There’s naturally an ongoing open call for meditation (related) questions for the (roughly) monthly “Meditation Q & A” either by the various social media means listed; integratingpresence[at]protonmail.com or just showing to type/ask live.*
Background
Regular, current and past visitors to Integrating Presence may recall the monthly series “Ask Us Anything” I did with Denny K Miu from August 2020 until January 2022 — partially including and continuing on with Lydia Grace as co-host for awhile until March 2022.
For a few months thereafter I did various Insight Timer live events exploring potential new directions and/or a continuation of the Ask Us Anything format while weaving in other related teachings to these events.
Then, after chats with meditation coach Wendy Nash, it became clear to start a new collaboration similar to “Ask Us Anything” simply and clearly called “Meditation Q & A” especially due to the original intent of the Ask Us Anything’s being “discussions about meditation and related topics.”
Past chats with Wendy:
Audio: The Eight Vicissitudes Or Worldly Winds | “Meditation Q & A With Wendy Nash” #30
Or listen via Insight Timer (app or website)
Unedited transcript via YouTube:
hey Hess Wendy what’s going on hello yeah running late running late no there
was a Miss communication about the time start sometimes when I send a reminder then it
just sends even more confusion so you probably would have been here either way it’s just a couple minutes so no big
deal I’m very grateful to have you here and um yeah today’s today’s title or
well so yeah I guess we’ll just jump into it huh let’s go okay this is called
um this is our 30th one that we’re doing today and it’s called the eight
vicissitudes or worldly winds and I know that’s a big word but I’ll just go ahead and read the little description I have
here in this 30th installment of the ongoing live series with Wendy Nash inquiring into meditation practice on
and off the cushion we plan to focus on the eight vicissitudes of worldly winds I sometimes consider these as somewhat a
psychology crash course while these don’t often seem to have a direct connection with formal meditation
practices they are so interwoven into nearly every aspect of our lives in this world that their re residues can easily
carry over onto the cushion while the benefits from our practice naturally allow us to more skillfully navigate
meet and respond to gain and loss Pleasure and Pain praise and blame Fame
and disrepute okay so I thought maybe we could mention men these kind of in
general um first uh or maybe real briefly what to say about them all then
just dive into them and then maybe at the end just then once we have dived into them what can we say about them in
general overall too so and if you’ll give me just one moment I forgot to turn on the lights here so I’m gon to make
Wendy’s screen maybe big when she talks no you’ve gone the other way
around I know what happened I don’t know I should get this flame Fame and
disgrace aren’t we just talking about the worldly winds we arriv here exactly exactly that’s what this is yeah that’s
what this is so you should have got it right Josh you should have got it right you know if only you had if only this
only that you know all these little ways we everything so let’s go into it so I
just want to bring up the vicissitudes here so let’s go into vicissitude I mean
for me a vicissitude is a sort of a minor turbulence that’s irritating or something thises the ups and downs of
life that’s what I remember from my life and and all the rest so um it’s a funny
word so many of the words that we have in in in Buddhism come from this
Victorian era and it I think this is the translations yes yes yeah the translations so I think the it’s like
life’s ups and downs basically and it can be divide sort of divided into four rough
pivots so gain and loss what did you get what did you lose Pleasure and Pain
what’s comfortable what’s Pleasant what’s unpleasant uh praise and blame oh I
think you’re amazing Josh in fact I did that once in a uh in know inside dialogue Retreat and I was going we had
to just go praise and blame and just he and I just went to my partner it’s a
diad and I said oh wow gee yeah that’s quite a nice t-shirt you’ve got going on you got great teeth and he was like I
could see him on breing and then he said oh you’re doing
praise um can I get your number and I was like no you have a
girlfriend no but he was like really hooked by all that praise I mean we were
doing praise actually in the class and then he was like oh wow she thinks I’m
hot let let’s catch up I was like no was really funny so that’s exactly what
happens with praise and then blame is exactly what before is like well Josh you know you should have got this
organized you should be better at this why don’t you know the tech by now and and then there’s Fame and disrepute
or fame and disgrace and that’s like I actually had this in my own little world
recently um a bit of a misunderstanding at the gym and now I am they don’t want
to talk to me they don’t have anything to do with me they’re like yep you can go I’m I’m done so it’s like w that’s I
was fine Fame like they were I was in the good books now it’s all over Red
Rover so and when I reached out to them to go can we talk about it radio silence
so this is a really sort of perfect example of Fame and disrepute in
ordinary life Fame and disgrace we’re not talking about you know crazy sort of situations or people you know famous
people we’re talking about boring people that we have to deal with on a daily basis so what do you reckon about that
Josh that’s a really good point with the fame and ill repute because a lot of people think well I can’t relate to that
because I’m not famous um that’s a beautiful example I if I may I might I just want to go in here this word
vicissitude I actually I was reflecting on this this morning how you know uh the
English language actually has way more possibility than than what we were used
to now in everyday life I mean I’m not advocating us going around uh talking like Shakespeare plays and getting in
Shakespeare dramas and comedies right here are living in a postmodern novel where everything’s all flower language
all the time and at the same time uh our vocabulary I mean you look at the the
western tv news and it’s on the level of like a fifth grader fourth grader you
know it’s really dumbed down so in a way yeah there’s a time in place for these things and then there’s there’s not but
anyway so vicissitude I’m just going to read the definition here a change or variation an e an economy vulnerable to
the vicissitudes of the oil Market that’s the example sentence a change of variation number two a uh usually
unforeseen change in circumstances or experience that affects one’s life especially in a trying way a difficulty
is a synonym the vicissitudes of childhood and number three the quality of being changeable mutability the
vicissitude of Fortune and I I I really resonate with this worldly winds too because what what
do we think of when we think of winds you know they just blow people around they blow things around we really it’s
hard to control them um we don’t a lot of people don’t know when they’re coming or how strong they’ll be how regular
they’ll be you know uh what kind of effect they’ll have although you know sailing some people take these and use
them to their advantage so that’s kind of an interesting metaphor too but as far as the specifics here or we start
with generalities I think these are what drives and motivates most people in the
world world if they especially if they don’t have a spiritual I mean we’re all subject to them of course but if we
don’t have any kind of spiritual practice or any kind of training that we’re doing Beyond just the ways of the
world then these are these pretty much dominate people’s behavior I would say
you know we just look at um the praise and blame the the nice colorful thing that Wendy talked about here and um yeah
for this one I can see the power of this you know and you me used to being a charmer I could get a lot of ways with
with just scanning people I mean this is bad this is almost sociopathic some people can use this as you can scan
people and you can look at their strengths and weaknesses and then you can tailor a compliment you know that’s
really kind of go go straight to their heart or maybe push their buttons and things especially on blame and then with
the intent oh how can I butter this person up to get what I want you know now that’s the UNH wholesome part of of
of of Praise now there can actually be compliments that can support wholesome qualities I I feel you know the the the
tricky thing with this one is that um people they can feel so good about it
when it’s really authentic that they start um start reinforcing habit patterns around it where they they they
don’t want to deal with anything other than that and and in fact they start seeking it out from outside themselves
they start doing things in order to to get praise from other people you know this is when it can kind of turn into an
a big issue um some people live to please others and some people live to to
to get praise you know these accolades and and awards and social standing which
goes into to to fame as well and um yeah
so that’s that’s what to say about that now the blame is a whole another one [Music]
um like what am I doing to avoid blame too you know instead of taking responsibility as well but the the
Buddha talked about the Bliss of blamelessness uh I don’t think I need to go into examples I want to touch on
Wendy’s other example here of the of the fame and ill-repute the yeah the these
are things where we we thought we had some kind of standing in people’s opinions of us and then something
happens and then no they they want to Outcast Outcast us and throw us out and
then what does that lead to you know um a lot of times it’s it’s bitterness um you I know when when people kind of shun
me like that sometimes it leads to bitterness which is not that helpful either or like um in worst cases uh
Revenge trying to to to kind of one up them or do whatever I can we see whole Industries now I mean this is where it’s
really apparent is in the social media space because anybody that’s just there there can be social media uh famous but
like in real life nobody really even knows them or pays attention to them that’s one one interesting phenomena
there’s whole Industries about reputation management going in and rebuilding people’s uh reputations after
you know a journalist or whatever and the social control of social social media shaming you know bullying online I
mean this is a kind of soft um control and credit scores are another one in the
west you know we don’t need this this hard lockdown like some of the Eastern countries do with uh making sure they
don’t say anything you know that’s against the stream or whatever against the the current
government policies it people can be taken out on social media these days if their finances in aren’t in order then
they’re very limited I I think in a lot of the things they can do but oh I think I’ve said enough on this um maybe we
should touch uh more in detail on let’s see I’m sure you have plenty to say on this too and one of the other ones as
well yeah jump in here all right so just a couple of things we have somebody listening Sago
uh and I don’t know it says sag or se s CN whatever that means hi nice and a
little clapping hands thank you very much nice to see you or see that you are here that’s lovely and I also regarding
the word vicissitude I’m a great believer in the atmology of a word because that really helps you drill down
to what does the word actually mean so it comes from um the old French
and it means change interchange or alternation so as in changeably on the
other hand in turns so there you are it’s a turn or a change so to
bend to I don’t know whether it’s to W it must be to wind so to bend or wind so
there you are so so to change from one state to another brilliant yes yeah so I
think that’s really useful to look at that and just looking through more of this um where I’m going through it
that’s basically it so I I think of a flag wrapped around a flag pole after it’s been blown around
our clothes in the clothes line can can be twist or turn from the wind yeah all
right something blowing around the wind yeah and we have the Fantastic Mrs Reed again so hi Josh hi Wendy this is very
nice and I wanted to apologize to Mrs raid because last time I was on the wrong Tab and I didn’t see your comments
so I like oh she’s gone I’m really sorry so I felt really bad about that see there you are I have my loss of
reputation at stake here with M re might think I’m really really a rude person so
this is disgrace and then I have internalized that now you might make light of that but I was going no I don’t
want to do that I don’t want to be held in her bad book she might never come back might be like the gym where I’m
cast out and into the ubet you know so yeah so I just put in that about
the vicissitudes so is there a particular one that can I tell you my great story
about ah I think it was praise and blame is
the most this is this is a really really good example so I’m glad you’re M Mrs
Reed that you’re okay with us great so I was uh my French is a little bit Rusty
but it’s it’s um but I was helped I was in France a few years ago and there was
an Australian monk there called um B saato who I know and I was on a retreat
with him prolific Translator by the way prolific and so yeah he’s very very uh
translator but I was going from English into French and so I was helping him out
and then he left and a nun came and so I was um helping with
that and at the end of The Retreat this woman came up to me in French and she said ah
you were amazing you were so wonderful and helpful and supportive and and you
were like the White Queen of Spain and I’m going White Queen of Spain who is this person and I was really quau who is
this white queen of Spain Spain I’ve never heard of the White Queen of Spain and I don’t know if there’s a white queen of Spain and whether I’ve
misunderstood but there you go and then I was sort of still there and she was very effusive and I was just just
amazing like she was a very exuberant car just beautiful like exuberant person
and then she left and I was just standing there going who is the White Queen of Spain and somebody comes up to
me and she goes oh didn’t you think you own the place you were here you were there you were everywhere oh my goodness
you just absolutely took over the place it was so interesting because those two
people said exactly the same thing but one said I was really helpful and
supportive and the other one said I just own the place like it was mine exactly the same
behaviors and and a really good example of praise and blame yeah that’s that’s amazing you
know how yeah it’s how the interpretation of that you know and I think it comes down to people’s
preferences a lot of times if they see something if they they’re like maybe like me that was more
anti-authoritarian at some point they might look at that and say well that’s oppressive you know why didn’t you share more responsibility and power but the
other person is like wow now someone else can take care of this so I didn’t have to worry about that and I can so
this is why I find it so important to to kind of weigh the pros and cons and and and look at things as objectively as we
can and be honest and kind about it you know and really look at my own preference es and and of course how
pleasant or unpleasant I’m viewing things because when that comes up you know how how we interpret things as or
how things land as pleasant or unpleasant are going to have a lot to do with this uh as well and I I just want
to mention about the and Mrs Reed too and another thing we do sometimes is we
have something happens and then because we don’t have all the information we start filling in the gaps right I saw
this so well on my retreat and I talked about this but with Miss Reed um she
oftentimes she just she listens to everything even if she doesn’t show up live and then comments on the YouTube
comments so she’s really really engaged and yeah has been continuously so uh
pretty much and I really appreciate that and so then but where Wendy’s coming is
you know is is that she wants to you know be there and we don’t want to be interpreted in
in a wrong way we want to be understood right and so when there’s kind of a either a miscommunication or a um um
what’s be perceived as maybe falling short then we want to go and correct that and you know like Wendy and I we we
do that a lot and some people might think oh that’s you know that’s too much or maybe going overbo it really wasn’t
that big a deal and so these are kind of personality traits that some people have you know and again all these have pros
and cons too you know we could easily just blow it off uh or something like
that but uh to to actually care to take the extra step to start you know
investigating of you know what may have happened or you know what didn’t happen
and so these are these interesting things too to deal with in Internet land when we’re not really face Toof face
with someone when we can ask and and fill in the gaps with what’s going on so we do we do our best sometimes to to you
know to have this and and I could be totally wrong too with my assessment of what’s going on there as well so yeah to
at the end of the day it’s and even when we’re in the same room with someone or face to face or whatever we still can’t
control how they interpret what we say you know um I’m responsible for what I
say and the intent I have it but I can’t control how the other person takes it
and make sure they get it exactly how I want it to say too so yeah we’ve talked about this as well yeah so I just want
to do a couple of things one is Mrs Reed said yeah being authentic is our greatest tool and a little is that thank
you that I think that’s that symbol I’m never quite sure what that means but I think that’s what that means the prey
the prey right yeah un Jolly mudra or yeah appreciation yes I guess the other
thing I want to talk about is the environment is a mirror for us too she says it’s true it’s true now I also want
to put some caveats in here so my husband goes into work and he’s having a
really bad bad time he’s being bullied at work and one of the one of his colleagues is casually
cruel he just sort of goes oh yeah I’ll just be cruel like he he’s just like
that and another of his colleagues is actually quite malicious and
intentionally malicious so I I think it’s really
important to put into place that just because
if when somebody is being mean when some there is there is something about the
constancy and the vindictiveness and you can feel that quality of difference and I think when you’re
enlightened you might be able to take it all with a bit of a grain of salt but
I’m not there my husband’s not there and I I think it’s really important to
recognize that we are limited that we are not enlightened at this point
and I spent a long time trying to appease a relative of mine because I was
often on the receiving end of unkind comments and a lot of criticism
blame excuse me and then I realized actually I I actually couldn’t do that
so so I I I just want to say that it’s true that it’s important it to say I
have responsibility but we also have a responsibility to remove ourselves when our body mind is
overwhelmed by the harm that comes our way if we can you know if you are a
black person an African-American or a colored person in I use that term like
um black and brown skin I meant in not that way ter terminology um then and you
are often on the receiving end of unkind comments that’s not to say you have to
rethink how you understand that that is a systemic issue that needs change so I
just wanted to put that within that caveat that that there
is if there you’re on the receiving end of sexism or racism or classism or agism
these things are true and then what do you do with that is
another thing but I I really didn’t want to kind of go well if you feel bad then
that’s your problem and you can change it I I just wanted to put that in the place what would you like to add Josh no
these are really important points um as far as the workplace bullying and things
go um yeah it’s easy for me to say this in hindsight because I’m not dealing with this anymore every day um so I just
want to the most important thing here that Wendy mention mentioned is the boundaries if they’re possible you know
so setting these clear boundaries and enforcing them um now when it comes
there’s some other approaches that I’ve learned around this too uh but they’re not always accessible and that’s okay um
so and they have to deal more with perception and and their considerations
here so when some the casually cruel I mean that that’s this is it reminds me
of passive aggressiveness which I have ins still every once in a while of
course it are it’s challenged with this you know when I feel hurt and wanted to do a defensive thing then sometimes I’ll
respond passive aggressively and it’s it’s really not okay you know that and sometimes I don’t even real realize I’m
doing it until later it was it had been become a habit and but if we’re looking
at someone that’s casually cruel or just downright what was the other term you use for the the bully of the other one U
vindictive vindictive yeah that’s that’s serious so so this is um you know of
course the boundaries are the most important thing and it might not apply in a workplace position where you can’t
really set up so many boundaries and get it so in that case sometimes I feel that
um uh to to use maybe like an a keto move the same that type of energy coming
at you now I don’t know how to do this I have to be an examp example you kind of turn it back and disarm arm them so you
know that’s that’s one thing that people do right without trying to hurt them so meeting the same type of energy with the
same type of energy but not harming it so it’s easier said than done right
that’s one way the the the other way is to another solution or try thing that
I’ve tried out too is it’s an energy uh kind of a war of energy so they’re coming at that you or me with that
certain energy they have okay so usually the tendency then is either to match that which I don’t want to do because
that’s not helpful and then it just adds more of the same type of energy but that’s kind of what most of us naturally do we meet people where they’re at and
our energy just kind of matches theirs automatically for not especially we not being mindful um if I’m not being
mindful so so then I can I can go into that with this interaction with okay
what energy do I want to bring here and I’m going to have to amp that up Rev that up so then it becomes like okay
then it’s a game of energy and I’m going to have to really amp up like the love and kindness or Compassion or whatever I
want to bring to it because they’re coming at that it’s it’s a really kind of dangerous um energy that’s very
habitual and very ingrained more than likely right so I have to keep building that up and using that and and get in
that Groove too so that’s challenging as well to do that’s another option the the other option I see is is um actually on
the perceptual this is what I want to start with is that whatever they’re saying about me it actually has little
to nothing whatsoever to do with me it shows me where they’re at on their path
and actually what’s been done to them you know so in that way it it can’t it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t approve of
what they’re doing and the harm that they’re causing in the the hurtful words that they’re saying in their behavior
not at all not none whatsoever it can instead of me feeling completely uh
maybe victimized by it or maybe not then I can have some kind of different perspective shift and say okay this
isn’t about me at all you know um this is this is what’s been done to them you
know um so it may or may not help it so these are just some slight strategies
that may or may not apply because it really have to go into the details of what’s happening and of course uh yeah
so yeah those are some things that come up around it now yeah so just thinking
about a few years ago I was working in a place on a temporary assignment and
somebody uh the person who I was replacing didn’t think I was any good and just um talked about me and I never
got a job ever again after that so I think there are things like you know now
you have five stars and you have comments and all this side of things and
it can really shift how how how your
your livelihood in a real in a very real way
so yeah I’ve never really worked since that time because that person that
person did that and I think I felt so under you know undermined in that
process and uh yeah so it was it had real world consequences for me
personally and a lot yeah yeah so I think these are larger things than we’re
talking about with Fame and disg Grace and yes so all this is true so I wanted to put that as a caveat that there are
real world consequences and that people are nasty some people are really nasty and this is
true so with that caveat in place a little bit of a container there let’s
talk about the rest so we’ve got gain and loss profit and deficit acquis I and
deprivation wealth and poverty so would you like to say anything about that I
would and I just pick up here the this we look at Yelp reviews there’s some people that won’t even unless a place
has a great rating or praise they won’t even consider it anymore you know and it
really affects people’s views and things now I will say though that this is these
are temporary right we can hit the lowest of the lows we we hear so many stories about that and then they rise
way to the top and vice versa ver so just because we’ve been defamed doesn’t
mean that we’re going to not necessarily be able to to to rise even way above where before and and vice versa somebody
could could be at the very top and just crash and completely be done the rest of their life when it comes to worldly
things so I think it’s important that these things fluct can fluctuate they could stay so we don’t really know the
Winds of these things um so the I think the point of going into these and pointing these out too is to what is the
alternative and to go beyond these and how much are we valuing things in the
world worldly ways and how much are we valuing things that go beyond worldly
ways and it doesn’t necessarily mean we have to shun all things of the world either right it’s just what um kind of
what kind of stability can we have in these winds okay so now profit uh gain and loss now this is one that um the
Buddha said to you know reflect on every day is everything that I hold dear and
pleasing to me I will be separated from you know this is everything in our lives
even our loved ones at least temporarily if we we think about maybe you know
those are into you know maybe we’ll be reunited reunited after this body sheds off somehow some way and U but at least
it will when it comes to the end of life at least temporarily everything we hold dear in love will be taken from us and
so reflecting on that I think brings us into alignment with the truth that loss is an inevitable part of life and so
when I uh when I reflect on that and really let that deep truth sink in then
when we do uh face an evitable loss in our lives VI it minor or major the pain
and the grief is not as um devastating in a way right because we already in
alignment with this deep truth that sometimes devastation can actually help bring out deep inner truths within us
that’s kind of the silver lming of De Devastation um if if we really reflect on that yeah uh so but we we if we’re in
alignment with that already then I know in in my practice I haven’t been uh some
of the loss were just in my life were completely devastating you know and but
reflecting on that really helps um now it doesn’t have to get all bummed and party pooper gain we’re going to
experience gain whether we want to or not and it’s not just monetary gain either you know it could be gain of
friendships gain of influence um gain of certain uh Properties or objects you
know possessions gain of Good Fortune um um yeah so we can gain all kinds of
things and lose all kinds of things it doesn’t necessarily have to be physical or monetary as well and yeah whether we
want to or not um so yeah I guess the the part is what do we do with our gains
and how do we view our gains and losses and what do we do with our gains and losses and how do we respond to these
things and I think one of the things is being generous with our gains right and
maybe going to friends and uh uh other support mechanisms with losses and in
reflecting that this is inevitable just like gains are so so a couple of things
one is a few years ago um I was thinking
I I had actually had my heartbroken quite a lot of times in my life and I was really tired of it and I thought I
just don’t want to meet anyone ever again and and then I thought
well I will meet somebody and there will be that will be painful if I don’t meet
somebody well actually I am inst quite lonely and I and I that is painful so
whether that person comes into my life or not it is painful so whether I gain
and then lose or now I am just in a place of loss that’s what I was thinking at the
time that that has that made me go okay so this is going to be it’s true chances
are I’ll outlive him and I think that’s still true that I mean who knows I ride
a bicycle so I might be splattered who knows um
but that just that is really really really true that actually knowing that
you everything has a loss and maybe even you’re experiencing loss at the time is
helpful so I I just but that doesn’t mean to say that when my husband dies you know it won’t be completely
awful it will be absolutely truly abominable I fully anticipate that and
that’s just how it is because when you love someone body that is the nature of that when you are close and emotional
that is just the nature of it so that is the loss that is that is and
we cannot avoid that these are really important points especially when it comes to relationship with loss and I
was in a similar position you know and U the the pain of the one was it was it
was I think it was so great that this the kind of unconscious strategy was I’m G to stay in loss so I never have to
experience the pain of losing again so if I just stay here then I’m not going to have to go through that again you
know and so that’s that’s not very helpful either and and on the other hand just like Wendy so beautifully said I
mean we’re thinking about if we the if we do wedding vows I’ve heard these Buddhist wedding vows that um just like
any other relationship this relationship will come will come to an end either in
in um death or estrangement and that’s that’s how all of our relationships end
and it’s it’s inevitable whether we want it to or not every relationship we have will end in death or arangement so
that’s that’s just the honest truth and when I don’t try to sugarcoat that or pretend I me don’t have to uh dwell in
the the how horrible the loss is going to be when it happens I mean that’s not the point of what I said it’s to be okay
this is the this is the truth of the matter as far as I can see that’s how it’s going to happen and so when I don’t
pretend to deceive myself and and deny the truth then then I can be I can go
and live my life a little bit happier and and and more straightforward as well
yeah yeah yeah so I just wanted to say I haven’t said to Mrs Reed I just say
alloud her little comment here which is I say it in gratitude thanks the pray hands means that for me gratitude so
that was a little bit of a reference because I wanted to know what the exact that was so the hands coming
together yeah so today I led a mindfulness class and we had a big class
as as it happens and there bunch of seniors and there was a lot of there were a lot
of people who were lonely who’ had difficult uh childhoods who’ done a lot of personal
work who were interested in knowing more but there was this overall sense
of they had gained they had worked in their life and they were you know they have children but there is a loss there
they’re in their seniors their family are further away they may or may not be
married or if they were in marriages they you know I heard stories that they that was not a great situation either so
there can be a a thing about loss and not loss there’s something called
ambiguous loss I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of this well it makes sense right away I’m just thinking of my folks
and family how far away they are right now you know in a way it’s it’s not a loss because I could go there anytime
and visit them or call them anytime but you know a lot of people never leave the area where they grew up because they
don’t want to leave their friends and family they grew up with so in a sense it’s a loss and in a sense it’s not a
loss or it kind of seems like a loss but it’s not really clear if it is or not yeah it’s ambiguous so this was uh
somebody called Pauline boss in the 1970s they were Vietnam Vets so all
these American soldiers were in Vietnam all were in Vietnam and the wives uh
would go well he’s missing in action so is he alive is he dead can I move on so
this was this real deep deep ambiguous loss because that was in the 70s you
couldn’t just remarry but then the women had to like they the people so what do
you do and then what do you say to the children and all this very complicated stuff and it’s increasingly being used
in terms of dementia so the body is there but the person is gone so that
that’s another aspect of loss there and gain I don’t know I’m always
I’m going to be honest I’m quite nervous about gain because I think if I
gain I’m so nervous about the loss you know and I’ve had money and
then I’ve lost it I’m not lost it but I’ve spent it you know it goes but I’m hopeless with money and and I don’t have
much money but I did want to tell you about the story today so I live in quite a low um socioeconomic area high level
of disadvantage and a couple of weeks ago there was a woman at the supermarket
next to me and she was on her phone and she was asking how to get the uh Internet working so she could get into
her bank and she was going I don’t have
enough money and I said s of breaks my heart and she had her little girl with
her and I and I said you know how much do you need and she said well it’s $13 and I’ve only got
five and I said hang it I’ll just pay that for you today like I really don’t
care and then I gave her some money as well just because I said you will need
this you know it’s not you’ve got a little girl I haven’t got much money but I’ve got a bit of cash here you go
and and I actually I did the same today this afternoon um I stopped in at the
supermarket and the guy in the till next to me he was buying lots of candies or whatever and he was 10 cents short so I
was like oh has 10 cents and then I gave him $10 as well so this’s a practice
about work because I grew up in a family where money is really tight and it means
a lot and it’s a power thing and it’s there’s a lot of angst about that and I
tend not to do do that and in my area you know there’s so many people who have
S I mean there’s a lot of homelessness in my area and people are hard it’s
people have hard bodies that’ lived you know so my $10 doesn’t mean anything
that I gave the fellow today but to him it’s like oh my gosh so so that’s a a
loss for me there’s no TOS about it I don’t have much money but it’s a game for him so so there’s that and then
there wasn’t a loss because it was a shared thing too you know so yeah but I
think it’s really important also to receive gracefully I’m big on that so
it’s not just about giving to others but it’s like for the sake of five buxs you
know like really so but then there are some people who are like well he deserves it she deserves deserves it
what have they done I you know I’m going to hold on to all my cash yeah these are these are so great points when it comes
to our monetary system which I think at the core is just some madeup thing you
know pieces of paper or digits in a computer so it’s so bizarre in that sense and then so many people tie their
worth and value and everything they do in life to these things so in that way it’s completely absurd right but at the
same time it’s very practical because we need this to operate in life otherwise we’re not being responsible we a weit
and a burden on others or can be potentially so and then there’s so many ideas and emotions around money so and I
don’t want to get new aging into the you know the law of attraction and abundance mindset which is all you know there’s
all pros and cons to all this stuff but what I like about the the the Buddhist teachings around this and and Wendy uh
you know this is It’s framed in the world around gain and loss right but the alternative to this I feel is generosity
and Wendy uh uh you know she Illustrated that so wonderfully here uh how this
actually a gift from the heart and you know it feels good when considering
being generous it feels uh good when giving uh generously and then afterwards
to to receive that it’s almost an immediate feedback and benefit of how it brightens and uplifts the heart now I’m
not saying here that everyone should go into poverty and give everything away immediately uh some people can and that
would be great but they have to have practical reasons of what they’re going to do afterwards or or maybe not or be
okay with living on the streets or whatever but you know U that aside how can we be generous and it doesn’t have
to be with money either you know it can be with our time just spending a couple extra seconds you know looking deeply
into somebody’s eyes or even giving a smile or just remembering okay what can
I contribute what can I be generous with my energy my time you know my attention
um are just even considering that is such an act of generosity that we would take the time to even just take a few
moments to to scan and think what can I contribute and even if I can’t contribute anything just the the mere
Act of being willing and able to do that you know it’s such a beautiful thing and I think another uh thing to keep in mind
here is yes we’re not going to get everything we want in life but we’re once we start getting more of a kind of
a trust that everything we need will be provided one way or another you know some things
that we need will come into our lives and we won’t even imagine how they they possibly were provided to us so I think
the more the the trust that we’re going to have what we need in this life no matter what takes a huge burden off of
this um hamster wheel of financialy you know so that with generosity and it it
it really starts to ease this notion of um of kind of of lack in things around
money now yeah what do we really need is the other thing when it comes to finance
that’s I think that’s that’s another thing um how willing are we to to to
just get our basic needs met or how much do we that’s not acceptable and so if that’s not acceptable then we’re going
to have to do certain things in life that maybe we don’t want to do in order to have what we we quote unquote want so
all these balancing acts I also want to say Wendy um hopefully I mean I you’re
please be safe on your bike and all the best safety I know we we make these kind of dark jokes but I just wanted to say
that in two because yeah it’s uh it kind of you know it’s true though we don’t know what we’re gonna I mean you know
driving in a car is probably just as dangerous if not more dangerous so many people die in car I know I don’t want to get you going on this stuff yes it’s not
it’s just it just hits up it’s the people driving cars who are the terrible on they’re the ones killing everybody
they’re the ones the on so you know don’t don’t say you I have to be Sav it’s like the drivers have to be safe
you don’t need to tell me but I want I I wanted to just be safe everyone however you’re propelling yourself forward in
space no matter your means or methods be safe be well so um all right I’m gonna
ask you a question Josh now are you in Denmark right now you’re in Denmark do you have a bank account in Denmark no I
don’t so I’m using this thing called revolute so it’s an international thing but I can easily trans for money convert
money with it but anyway so yes I have bank accounts so you have a bank account in the US yeah okay so that account that you
have in the US who owns the money yeah that’s that’s right so this is so watered down and ambiguous I the
simple answer I ially I really who literally owns the money if I had to
guess I’d say the bank does the bank doesn’t own the money well I the bank has the money yeah they have
the who owns the money yeah I don’t know who prints the money that needs to be considered you would think it would be
me you would think it would be me right you no it’s the government it’s I mean I
think I I can’t speak for the us but I mean I think it’s the US US Treasury I think that owns it well that’s right
austral in Australia it’s the Commonwealth of Australia whatever that ter but we also have the Federal Reserve
which is another huge ball of wax that people have to pay interest to and that’s that’s a whole another thing go
down but anyway yeah but but okay so whether it’s your Federal Reserve or I
mean I think that’s like the Reserve Bank of Australia that’s a different thing but you’ve got basically it’s the
the government the sort of institution of Government Federal Government whether that’s in the US or Australia that owns
that money now if we were like France or uh Greece or wherever where there were
French Franks and then you’ve now ENT Euros so the the Frank is no longer a
valid currency I don’t know whether Franks are still available but or you
know they still have value in them I do know that in the UK when you have old British notes they’re valid for a while
and then at some point they’re no longer valid like you can’t take they’re no longer tender you can’t take them to the
bank even I didn’t know that so yeah so so it’s an interesting inquiry and for
me who was very tight about owning money and poverty mind I was like well who owns the money well it’s the bank it’s
not it’s not the bank it’s the it’s the government and the bank is storing it and actually on my it’s money now it’s
often just pixels on a phone so and and that’s it or some bit of inside the chip
of a plastic you know card so that really helped me ease up about
my sense of that was my money I well I don’t really care now I’m aware Josh
that you and I have talked about gain and loss we’ve only done one maybe we should do one session on each of them
how about that well that’s it’s a possibility um but no we have talked about we have talked about Fame and ill
repute and what what’s what’s the what’s the other one um we have talked qu quite
a bit about Fame and ill repute too um pleasure and P praise and blame and we did go into praise and blame Wendy so
the one we haven’t done though is is the uh Pleasure and Pain you know all right
I think I think we could we could maybe do it um but I think we’ve covered pretty much all of them except for
Pleasure and Pain we have a little bit of uh this is a really interesting one because this is so ubiquitous um uh I
will just say you know every um every single experience we have is either Pleasant unpleasant uh or neither of
these and while something is unpleasant it doesn’t necessarily qualify as pain
but a lot of times it does um so the natural human uh tendency and there’s
nothing I don’t think Super wrong in and of itself is if something’s pleasant we want more of it and we don’t want it we
don’t want to let it go and if something is painful we don’t want it and we want to try to prevent it from happening so
these are these are okay strategies the only thing with these that comes up is that sometimes we’re not in a position
to do this uh where we can’t avoid pain and we you know and and and uh we can’t
hold on to pleasure so there needs to be other alternative strategies around pain and pleasure than simply um maximizing
pleasure minimizing pain because sometimes we can’t do that right and it a lot of times it takes a lot of energy
and time to do so and is that really the best use of our time is to to basically
uh Chase sense Pleasures all the time so I have some some there’s some alternatives to this but I want to maybe
just throw it back to Wendy here real quick about this and anything else with these other ones too if you want to say
anything about it yeah so there’s a a Buddhist teacher called VI Mala bir and
she’s been in a wheelchair since she was 15 I think she’s now 60 and she says it’s like having a toothache in the
middle of your in the middle of her back and it’s been like that for 45 5
what is that 45 years so she has she’s a
really really skilled practitioner and obviously a lot of love and kindness meditation because it was was actually a
surgeon who performed surgery that caused that pain so and she’s gorgeous like she’s
this lovely beautiful woman and she’s also had to deal with pain because she
lives with chronic pain you know for her to do a long haul flight so from New
Zealand she comes from New Zealand but she lives in the UK so long haul is um I
think for her it would be sort of 28 hours on a plane so you just stop once
for that so in Australia that’s what we call Long Haul is 2 * 12 or something
like that so she for her to get on that plane she’s on
opioids that’s how excruciating it is and it’s Bliss and then she comes off
the plane the opioids wear off and then she goes okay I’ve got to deal with this she says
when she goes in for surgery it’s like so oh lovely there’s no pain there’s no
pain and then she knows it’s going to wear off and she’s like excruciating pain that she lives
with and so she describes the difference between there is pain and then there is
suffering and she says you have the pain which is the physical pain and then the
suffering is when she goes oh my gosh here we go here we go here we go I know
this is going to be awful and that that’s the suffering and you can split
those two that’s what she encourages to do you can do this with emotional pain as well and I think that’s quite useful
to understand and to be with particularly as we age that that is a
big thing and as for pleasure I often think that pleasure is a bit of a
problem you know you you can have a chocolate biscuit and then you’ve got
there then there’s you got all that sort of sweet chocolate clawing thing it’s not very nice either it’s pain so
pleasure pain so I think often pleasure I actually I don’t know
there’s you can have something delicious and that it goes but it
doesn’t mean to say you have to have more of it or something there’s there’s a different quality I think about you
know if I have a rich chocolate cake or something like that now it happened to be my husband’s birthday yesterday so I
made a gluten-free dairyfree vegetarian cake and we we have pudding which is
tofu and chia seeds and fruit you know it’s like talking about wholesome anyway
but we had it and it was really delicious and then we get to the end I was like oh gee I have feel like I’ve eaten a lot but I didn’t feel that
awfulness so there is pleasure sometimes that feels good that leaves a nice
aftertaste and then there is pleasure which feels yucky
afterwards this real very good distinction and this is where the I think the some of the the classical
Buddhist teaching shine around these things like this because everybody knows is this is can be a potential problem
right but they don’t really know what to do about it I think not I wouldn’t say everybody but the the let’s start with
the the well let’s just start with pleasure and I’ll go back to pain um so the the classic example that’s given is
ice cream right oh it’s great for a little bit and then how much are we just G to keep eating and then oh even it
feels horrible at a certain point but people well some people will still keep eating that you know and so that’s an
interesting thing that’s an interesting phenomena right and then we can have pleasure about wholesome things and
that’s kind of the the Buddhist teachings Alternatives when he was talking about actually wholesome food
actually kind of I wonder you know on a base psychology level is this is kind of
and we talked about value too and and money and another thing that goes around with Mone money just a quick aside is is
how what are we valuing you know and especially ourselves do we value
ourselves and not necessarily is tied to money but this internal valuing of ourselves it it kind of plays in a way
to in a way to that too Perhaps Perhaps not um so back to the the pleasure
though so what is a wholesome pleasure and the ultimate wholesome pleasure the Buddha recommended is is Janna is
concentration because it’s and there’s also the Bliss of blamelessness that ties into before
about blaming that you know it is quite Blissful not to assign blame to see things happening uh due to causes and
conditions but that’s that’s a little bit more complex so okay bring it keep bringing it back here
Josh so this this Bliss of uh meditative States um now there’s a potential danger
that people crave meditative States and it won’t want it and and don’t know how to function without it but this is when
when it’s not done with that when it’s done in service to the path then then it’s it’s a wholesome thing because it
it can’t be really blamed other than if I’m clinging to it like something else but still even if that it’s it’s I think
it’s way better than the dangers of of sense pleasure so we’re supposed to look at why am I doing this the benefits of
what I’m doing what is the danger in this and then what is the escape from it so this a great exercise to look at
where we’re um going after Pleasures you know why am I doing it what am I benefiting from it what actually the
danger in this and then how do I escape uh you know what’s the healthy way to to go about this and uh so that that’s the
pleasure and and I don’t think I love this saying that pleasure is not the problem it’s clinging clinging that’s
the problem right so we’re going to experience pleasure whether we want to or not there’s just certain things in
our life that are going to be pleasant regardless of whether we seek them out or not now I know at a certain point in
my practice that I was actually fearing pleasure like Wendy was saying too because I kind of knew that the opposite
would come at some point but the the problem with that is that then I can’t enjoy it because it’s going to happen
anyway but then I can’t get into it there was a fear of oh if I enjoy this I’m gonna be like a bad Buddhist or you
know uh I I’m I’m um I’m GNA it’s going to condition my clinging to Pleasant things and well I don’t know maybe maybe
not but the fact is that it wasn’t that helpful cuz I couldn’t even enjoy it it’s going to it’s going to pass anyway
um so it’s kind of like the inverted version of some people are like really want Pleasant things and they get upset when it when it goes away and they try
to cling as much as they can so long story short clinging is the problem not pleasure so how much am I clinging to
whatever it is however much I don’t want pleasure or however much I want to hold on to pleasure now pain this is where
it’s really helpful too I’ve been um fortunate enough not to experience a lot of physical pain in my life it’s been
more kind of emotional mental psychic pain that I’ve dealt with so I’ve been very grateful for that but like Wendy
said it also applies to that and this is a classic teaching of the two darts right um we’re going to get hit with the
dart of pain in life that’s just part of Being Human we’re all going to experience some kind of pain um at some
point in our lives probably quite a bit you know it’s just that’s part of the human gig here there’s no way out of
that now but we what we can’t avoid is shooting ourselves with a second Dart that’s the psychological pain on top of
it saying oh wo is me this shouldn’t happen to me maybe what did I do to
deserve this why why you know why why am I like
why is this happening it shouldn’t be this way what am I going to do to get rid of it and start strategizing to to
and micromanaging every little thing around it which maybe sometimes could be helpful or not but this is the
psychological pain that we can have a training um over that can um we it’s
optional right they they say um pain there’s a saying that says pain is inevitable suffering is optional meaning
the psychological suffering that we add on top of the pain that’s already going to be there from time to time that’s
unavoidable so yeah well we just uh we just got one minute left and I’m going to conclude
with a little story so I met somebody once and she sat down to meditate for the first time as a I don’t know in her
20s or 30s or something and she spent the next 6 months in pure Bliss and it
was an absolute nightmare so or tellum me more what’s what’s I don’t know
anything more than that she just said it was really difficult I wanted to be able to sort of have some sort of variability
but I didn’t even have the variability I was just in this total Bliss state for six months drove nuts so some people
will be like how do I get that I want that but I just think that it just goes
to show you know be like the ice but you know some of them aren’t more pleasant than others anyway so that’s a good note
to end on so it’s been really lovely having our people here we had a couple
of people today so that was very lovely and great having a chat with you and I’m here on Gabby Gabby country in
Queensland in kulture in Australia and from Viking Land here I
think maybe I don’t know if that’s appropriate to say or whatever or how accurate that actually is but as far as
I know there there were Vikings around here as well so very interesting um um
yeah and I would just end with the pleasure thing yes you know some people are actually un wholesomely trying to
get to that and some people like you said but uh I think the next stage will
be then be equinity and yeah maybe it’s a training the opposite it’s not all having to deal with pain all the time
how do we do with deal with extreme Bliss States for the very few of us that are there right but all right I’ll tell
you when I’m there all right well may you all face the worldly winds wisely and be well out
there absolutely have a good one see you next time bye-bye
Integrating Presence 
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