In this discussion, we examine the profound influence of mindfulness and meditation on personal and communal well-being, featuring insights from our esteemed guest, Gayathri Narayanan. At the forefront of our dialogue is the transformative journey of Gayathri, who transitioned from a career in information technology to founding www.myndtree.org, a platform dedicated to sharing meditation practices rooted in ancient wisdom, including Advaita Vedanta and Buddhism. We delve into the importance of integrating spirituality into everyday life, particularly in parenting and professional environments, underscoring the necessity of self-compassion and awareness as foundational elements for fostering deeper connections with oneself and others. Throughout our conversation, we explore the challenges posed by modern distractions, such as technology, and propose practical approaches for cultivating mindfulness in daily routines. Ultimately, we aim to inspire listeners to embark on their own paths of mindfulness, recognizing that the practice is not merely an isolated activity but a holistic approach to living with intention and compassion.

Takeaways:

• The journey of Gayathri Narayanan from the IT sector to founding Myndtree illustrates a profound personal transformation towards spirituality and meditation.
• Mindfulness is not merely a practice of stillness but an active cultivation of awareness in everyday life, enhancing our connection to the present moment.
• The importance of self-compassion and forgiveness cannot be overstated, particularly in light of societal pressures that may hinder our growth and happiness.
• Creating a dedicated physical space for meditation can significantly enhance one's practice, making it a more integral part of daily life.
• Mindfulness can be applied in parenting, helping to navigate the challenges of raising children with empathy and understanding in today's complex world.
• The interconnectedness of all beings is a central theme in mindfulness, urging us to recognize our shared humanity and the impact of our actions on each other.

I'm Anthony Wright, and I'm your host today on the Living Conversation with Adam Dietz.

Welcome.

And our guest, Gayatri Narayana.

Okay.

And Adam, you would begin with Gayathri.

Yeah.

Gayathri, thanks for coming on today.

Hi.

Really appreciate you being here.

And I think one of the coolest things that we're really happy to have you on is that we've had many different guests, and we've probably all of us been deeply influenced by meditation, but very few of our guests, we really focus on it.

So I'm really happy to have you on today.

And I know that you have founded the Mind Tree website, and it seems like a really interesting website for meditation practice.

Can you tell us more about it?

Yeah.

So I started Mindtree in 20.

So my previous avatar in my previous career, I was in information technology.

I was working at a hospital in Los Angeles and doing IT stuff and leading teams there and so on.

And then I quit my job and started investigating ways to share what was really close to my heart, which was my spiritual practice and the spiritual teachings and meditation and so on.

And so, you know, long and winding road kind of took me to this.

When I started sharing, I started teaching classes.

I initially started teaching parenting classes, which, you know, mindful parenting classes.

And then from there, it became more sort of community meditations.

I was teaching classes from my guru's teachings, Advaita Vedanta, you know, from the Indian non dual philosophy.

So I was teaching classes on those themes as well as yoga.

Now I'm teaching some classes on Buddhism.

So, you know, so it's kind of, you know, it's been a sort of a wide and wide ranging, you know, path.

And it's been wonderful.

And I've built several communities because of this work that I've been doing with mindtree.

You know, different groups and sanghas that have formed around these teachings.

And it's wonderful.

It's just been a really unpredictably wonderful, you know, path, you know, career change, I should say.

You know, that sounds wonderful.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I really appreciate you.

I think we all appreciate you making that switch and going from it to establishing all of this.

It's so.

It seems so fruitful.

And.

And it also seems like you said you have developed different sanghas or communities and your practice is grounded in Vedanta.

Could you tell us, is that something that you.

How did you first begin exploring Vedanta?

Like maybe two questions.

One, do you remember any spiritual experiences in your Youth as a child, and then as an adult, when do you feel like you really kind of broke through and doubled down on your spirituality and decided to really reinforce it and make it a big part of your life?

Yeah, So I was very, very blessed to meet my teacher, my guru, when I was around 11 years old in my.

In my grandfather's house, actually.

And, you know, it was a chance meeting.

Well, you know, I don't think anything is a chance at this point.

Like, everything is kind of.

But.

But it was.

And so at the time, you know, I was, of course, very young.

And, you know, he asked me when.

When I.

When he first.

When we first met, you know, I was running around playing with my cousins and.

And he called me and he said, hey, do you know the meaning of your name Gayatri?

And I said, no, you know, I didn't.

And it's a very ancient name.

It comes from the Rig Veda.

You know, it's.

It's.

It's from one of the.

From the Brihadaranek Upanishad.

And.

And it's a mantra.

And so he chanted the mantra for me and explained it to me.

And of course, at the time, I just thought he was a really lovely, wonderful grandpa kind of figure.

Right?

Like, he just exuded this love and compassion, and he had this sort of presence around him.

And so I would just kind of hang out with him like a grandpa.

And then sometimes when he visited Bangalore, which is where we live, my parents and my siblings and I, you know, he would come stay with us, and then, you know, we'd go for walks.

I would watch him interact with others, and he would teach classes.

I didn't understand any of it, but I would just sort of want to be in his presence.

It was just like he was kind of like a, you know, like a bee to, you know, honey.

Like a warm presence.

A warm presence.

I just wanted to be around him.

And so.

And then it was only in my.

But at that time, you know, that first meeting that I had with him, I mean, I don't know if I would call it a spiritual experience, but I definitely think of it as a spiritual initiation of some kind, which wasn't formal in any way, but it was something.

He had planted some seed in me at that point, which, of course, started taking root and flowering later on in my life.

But it was only in my teen years that I started really kind of like, okay, you know, he's got something here.

Like, what is he saying?

And I want to know more of it.

And I want to.

I want to learn it.

I want to study it, right?

So then I. I spent three weeks at his.

At his gurukula.

It's like, you know, like an ashram, you know, like up in the hills.

And I went and spent.

This was in my early 20s or maybe late teens actually.

And.

And that was when I started to really sort of become interested.

And then, you know, the curiosity changed to interest and then going even deeper then.

Then I started owning it a little bit more because I was, you know, like I say, I was always in the closet about my spiritual life because, you know, I didn't.

It wasn't cool, you know, with my friends and all, you know, So I. I didn't really talk too much about it then.

But then as I grew older, I started.

I started seeing that part of my life and cultivating it and nourishing it.

And then he passed.

My guru passed when I was 29.

So.

But since then, you know, I. I mean, he's always guiding me.

I feel like, you know, so he's led me to different teachers and teachings and.

And, you know, I wandered into Buddhism, which is now where, you know, I've been practicing with a Tibetan teacher recently, before that in Theravada Zen.

So I've kind of explored some.

Many of these.

These paths and.

Yeah, and it continues and it delights me every time.

I just love.

I just love studying, practicing, you know, And.

And just reaping the fruits of.

Of.

Of this path, you know.

Really wonderful.

Yeah, that does sound wonderful.

And I think that, you know, it must be really also equally wonderful, right, to have the.

Had this grounding your whole life, going through your teenage years, because for so many of us, for all of us, probably our teenage years are so tumultuous.

So to have kind of a guiding light through that would be so fruitful and wonderful.

We said use the word wonderful often now because I'm getting that feeling.

But I also want.

You mentioned that you have.

You had a parenting class to begin this.

So what that reminds me of is that, you know, the two things, one, going through your teenage years and two, ending up in.

In parenting.

Could you say something about how, like, spirituality is embodied, right?

How you live it, how you.

How you.

How it helped you get through the teenage years, how it helped you get through your IT career, how it helped you inform your parenting teaching.

You know, that is.

That is such a wonderful question, and I really appreciate that you bring up this point because, you know, often many people think of spirituality as somehow detached from Life.

Right.

Like, it's kind of like, okay, there's my spiritual life and then there's life.

You know, it's like, no, you know, it's still.

It's.

And my guru always emphasized that.

He said, you know, he always talked about, how do you bring this to an inform.

Inform your life, you know, and with these teachings and express.

Express it in your life.

Right.

It's not something you just do on the cushion and then forget about for the rest of your day.

Right.

So, yeah, and I.

And in my teenage years were kind of wild too.

Like, I was kind of, you know, pubs and, you know, parties and boyfriends and all, you know, all of that was happening.

Sure.

Right.

And.

But there was something.

And you're right, you know, it was kind of like there was something about this thread that was sort of running through my life that.

And I really considered it a great blessing that I didn't go, you know, I didn't push the boundaries to a point where.

Of no return, you know, like where I got into some kind of addiction or, you know, some kind of toxic relationship or, you know, there was always something in me that sort of knew how to discern and know when to stop.

And like, you know, what.

You know, and I.

And I really.

I never thought about it before you asked this question, but I really do think that having that sort of spiritual undercurrent, at the time, it was an undercurrent, I would say, and now it's kind of more on the surface, but.

But saved me, I would say, you know, because I did have a really wild streak, I wanted to push boundaries.

Right.

So.

And then, of course, afterwards, when I met my husband, you know, we.

We met in grad school and got married and children and all of that.

And I've been really, really blessed to have a partner, a husband who has supported this.

This part of my life.

Like, he.

Even though he's not doing the things I do and he's not, you know, and I don't.

I don't think we need to, you know, we can be husband and wife and have our own version of spirituality, which is.

Which is fine.

But he's never stopped me from.

From my interests in this, you know, And.

And so.

So I continued.

Like, it was not.

Like, I continued to practice.

I continued to study.

And then the parenting part of it was really wonderful because it.

Yeah, it became a spiritual practice because, you know, every time I found myself getting, you know, overwhelmed or agitated or irritated when the kids were having a meltdown or whatever, you Know, I could draw on something that allowed me to kind of say, okay, how can I lead with love?

How can I, how can I bring more empathy or compassion?

And the training I got with the parenting thing was through.

They were called Echo Parenting in Los Angeles.

At the time we were living in la and they called it non violent parenting, which of course I don't like to use because, I mean, it just has such a bad marketing.

Nobody is going to want to sign up for a non violence violent parenting class.

They're like, what is that?

Like, you know, I'm, you know what?

Because if you.

And, and the way they defined violence was ahimsa, you know, like the idea.

Right.

Which is no harm.

Right?

No harming, you know, and, and that includes the heart, mind, spirit, not just the body.

Right.

It's all of that.

And, and, and so, and it was also rooted in Marshall Rosenberg's teachings on nonviolent communication.

NBC.

Yeah, yeah, we've, we've talked about that in other shows.

Yeah, so that's what I was trained in.

And then when I, when we moved to the Bay Area, that's when I started teaching other classes.

And then I started calling it mindful parenting because I, I kind of introduced some of the mindfulness practices into the curriculum, which is, which was essential because without the presence or without being able to sort of draw on your own sort of capacity to hold, you know, big feelings or whatever the children are having, it's very difficult to kind of put to, you know, actually what do you call practice.

Practice the language of nonviolent communication or to actually show empathy or compassion.

It's difficult to do that without first drawing or on your own inner presence.

Right.

So, so then I started calling it mindful parenting.

So it really was a practice throughout, throughout my parenting journey in my, in my relationship with my husband, with my friends, with my parents.

It kind of runs through all threads of our life really.

Right.

So it's not, it's not separate.

I don't, I don't see my spirituality as being something.

Right, right.

Excuse me.

We're coming up on a short break here.

I'm Anthony Wright and I'm your co host today with Adam Dietz.

Thanks for joining us.

And we are talking with our guest, Gayatri Narayanan.

And Gayatri, how can people contact you?

Yeah, thank you.

I have a website, mindtree.org it's not.com, it's my n d t r e e mindtree.org so, yeah, I'd love to hear from your listeners.

And yeah, thank you.

All right, well, I'm going to take a short break and be right back, so stay tuned.

I'm Anthony Wright and I'm your co host today on the Living Conversation with Adam Dietz.

Welcome back.

Yes, and we're talking with our guest, Gayathri Narayanan.

And Gayatri, before the break, you were talking about how the threads of your practice kind of go through your life.

And I was, I'd like to know.

Okay, first of all, this idea of mindfulness seems to be almost a catch all or, you know, everybody mindful this or mindful that.

What, what is really the experience as you practice it of mindfulness.

And then how did that also assist you in your work life with working with your teams?

Because in a manner of speaking, it just occurs to me that a meditative practice is its own information technology.

Would you say that spot on?

Yeah.

You know, I think what you were referring to in your, the first part of your question was, you know, what we called McMindfulness.

You know, it's like, you know, it's everywhere and people are using the term in so many different ways.

Right.

But if you trace it back to its original form, which is, you know, it's the word sati in Pali.

And sati, you know, is, you could think of it as just awareness.

It's just awareness.

And.

Another word for mindfulness in Tibetan is gom, you know, G O M or you know, which is, which just means becoming familiar with, you know.

And so this, this, this mindfulness, you know, or meditation, it's really just becoming familiar with your present moment experience and, and learning to become intimate with the life that's here, right here.

So it's a matter of cultivating an awareness, Is that what it's.

Yes, that's right.

Cultivating awareness.

I mean, of course we're always aware, right?

Like, I mean, if there's no point at which we're not aware, we're all aware all the time.

Right?

Just aware of what is the question.

And aware of what and how.

Right?

How are we, you know, it's like, are we here or are we, you know, at lunchtime or like, you know, or whatever.

30 Years ago or 30 years ago.

Right.

So, so it's really just being present with being aware of what's happening in the present moment and doing so with an open, with an openness and with, with what Ram Dass used to call loving awareness.

Right, right.

And loving awareness just means that there's no, no judgment and they're not trying to change anything.

You're not trying to push away anything.

You're not trying to grab on anything.

You're not trying to interfere, fear, or manipulate anything.

You're just here with the life that is.

And that.

That really is.

Is mindfulness.

And it sounds like a very simple thing.

You say, oh, just be present.

It's like, oh, yeah, that's easy.

Yeah, try it.

Right.

Well, I think parenting was the perfect example, right?

Because you.

You can.

You can say that you want to be aware and not try to manipulate anything, but at the same time, I always use the example like, you know, Confucius says a child should be a child, a father should be a father, so to speak.

Right?

And.

And the thing is, like, your child has to listen because, like, if they get a run in the street and you say, don't run the street, they have to listen or else that's big trouble.

Right?

So.

And in that case, like, you actually have to be proactive, be assertive, be, you know, you know, kind of outgoing and.

And, you know, really take energy and do something.

Right.

So would you say something about finding that balance?

Because, you know, parenting, I think, is a perfect example of.

Of we want to be mindful.

We want to allow.

When we're.

When we're mindful.

Would you also say, like, we are allowing things to pass.

Like, we're allowing sensations to pass by without judging or grasping, or we're allowing thoughts to pass by without judging or grasping.

But when you see your child about to go in the street, you judge and literally might grasp, Right?

Yeah.

No, I think that that's sort of a misunderstanding of mindfulness in the sense that, you know, people think that somehow spirituality or being present or meditating or whatever is some kind of, like a passive exercise, you know, that is kind of laissez faire.

It's like, oh, you know, anything goes.

You can run on the street if you want.

You can, you know, climb on the roof and jump if you want, you know.

No, it's not that.

Right?

It's definitely not.

It's not.

It's not.

Not no limits.

But in, you know, even.

It's kind of like, you know, as parents, we.

We create.

We create limits around, you know, so that the child can grow and.

And survive.

I mean, you know, that's a big part of.

Of life, right?

Like, part of it is just learning how to survive.

But my guru used to talk about, you know, like, if you were.

If you plant like a tomato sapling or something, you know, you know, you put that.

What do you call those things?

Like, you know those metal things that you put around?

Yeah,.

Yeah.

There's little things that's like a scaffolding, you know, something that sort of keeps, that keeps the plant safe and supports the growth of the plant.

And then as, as the tendrils grow, you know, you kind of guide it in this direction and then you guide it in another direction and then, and at some point you can take it out.

Like, you don't need that, you know, so it's really like a scaffolding which you can, which is a flexible scaffolding.

It's not something like, oh, it's a rule.

And this rule is what I'm going to enforce.

And if you don't do what, as I say, then you're going to get some kind of punishment.

It's about kind of meeting the child in each of those moments of setting the limits, you know, when they break the limit.

Like, how do you then have a conversation again about it?

It's about teaching, teaching the values you want to share.

It's about keeping them safe.

But it's a constant conversation.

It's not like a top down thing of like, do it because I say so.

But of course, if you're, you know, your child is running, you grab the child and pull them back.

Right.

Like, of course, you know, there's a space, there's room for all of that, but it's all about like, you know, keeping that sort of continuity of the relationship.

Right.

Where there's not sort of this break in the relationship.

So even when the communication breaks down as to how do you come back, how do you heal, how do you teach the value.

Right.

So it's not you're doing it because I say so, but you give them the right information for why, why it makes sense for them not to do it.

Yeah.

And then you allow them to be mindful, Right?

Yeah.

And this is about modeling too.

Modeling.

And one of the things that it really occurs to me is this is about the management of our attention.

And one of the things that I have great concern about along with many of us, is how do you get teenagers noses out of their phones?

Because that's a real, that's a real draw and the attention has been monetized.

So this is a, a real.

What do you have as suggestions for our audience for people who know teenagers that, that are dopamine addicted?

It's very, very challenging.

I think parenting in, you know, in this day and age is like very, very difficult.

But part of it is also the adults are equally addicted.

Right.

So it's kind of like, you know, so it's not like, you know, so if you tell your child, put your phone away, they're like, but mommy, I see that you've got your phone.

I'm like, why should I do?

You know?

It's like, so it's become really, really challenging and it's very interesting.

I was actually the whole month of March, I was in a, a silent meditation retreat, you know, mindfulness meditation retreat.

Insight, they call it.

Insight meditation.

Anyway, so I was, I was in silence the whole month.

And of course the first day you, you give up your phone and so there's no phone, no media, no reading, you know, no talking, right.

It's the whole month and you go deep.

It's incredible like how, how the mind, or the capacity for the mind to really still and become clear and so you see things clearly.

You can feel that peaceful essence of your own inner being.

I mean, there's just so much that can happen when you drop away all this kind of sensory overload that we normally experience in our day to day life.

Right.

And one of the teachers in the retreat said something about a recent study that said that, and I have to verify this, but they said that a two week media diet, right?

Like, meaning like, you know, getting off devices and everything, it recuperates 10 years of, what do you call, cognitive decline or cognitive impairment or whatever, you know.

So I mean that's a pretty dramatic statement to say like if for two weeks you put aside your phone and you know, stop, like this thing, you can gain back like you know, 10 years of.

And I guess we're not even aware of the cognitive decline.

Like I don't even think we're aware because it's so slow, right?

Because if you look at the way attention is kind of going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, our capacity to concentrate, our memory, our retention, you know, all of those things are being impacted, which we might not even realize, we might not even know.

But it's only when you put.

And I could feel that like at the end of the one month I was like, wow, you know, my mind just feels so much better.

But I think from a parenting standpoint, it really has to be education, you know, sort of bringing your child onto the same team and modeling the same kinds of behaviors and educating them on the adverse effects of the technology, providing the right guardrails so that they're not going into the wrong sites or things like that.

So I think the idea that you're going to try to stop them.

I think that's.

I know that's a pipe dream.

It's not, it's not going to happen, you know, but it's just more about how you create a safety around media use and constant negotiation and constant education and modeling.

I think that's really all I can offer at this point because it's such a, it's such a, I mean, it's such a big force that it's very hard to kind of fight it at this point.

Like, you know, well, it's so pervasive, you know.

And one of the things.

Excuse me, we're coming up on a short break here, but one of the things that I had noticed in my classes when I was getting students to we do some improv theater exercises sometimes, and I was getting my students to be playful with one another and I got this selfie from the bowling alley where that they were hanging out together and they had discovered the joy of being 19 and hanging out together out of their phones.

It was, it was quite remarkable.

So, anyway, I'm Anthony Wright and I am your co host today on the Living Conversation with Adam Dietz.

And we are talking with our.

Yes.

Gayatri Narayanan.

And you are a mindfulness teacher.

And you have, you're located in the Bay Area, is that correct?

That's right.

And I'm in the Bay Area, but a lot of my classes are on Zoom.

And so, you know, so, so, you know, it doesn't matter where you're located.

You can join me anytime.

Okay.

And how can people contact you?

So you can visit my website.

It's mindtree.org M y n d t r e.org Great.

All right, we're going to take a short break and be right back.

So stay tuned.

I'm Anthony Wright and I'm your co host today on the Living Conversation with Adam Gates.

And we're here with our guest, Gayatri Narayanan, who is a mindfulness meditation teacher.

And before the break, Gayatri, we were talking about the management of attention.

And Adam, I remember that you sometimes will tell a story about murky water and allowing that murkiness to just settle by quietness.

Could you tell us that story?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think also I want to say that I feel very fortunate.

Like, growing up, I maybe was screen addicted for tv, right.

And then when I became an adult, I said, okay, basically I cut out TV at some point when I started, you know, my studies and my spiritual practice.

And there was a gap there where I was able to really just Dive right in full force to my spiritual practice and my studies and my mindfulness practice.

And so I feel like I have the tools now because now I basically probably am screen addicted as well for the phone.

But now I have a sense of balance, right?

I can look at the phone, but I still get to do the dishes.

I could look at the phone and I'm still going to parent.

I could look at the phone.

I'm still going to always come back to my mind, refresh my mind.

And I guess that actually fits in.

I wanted to mention that because it fits into Anthony's point that in the Lao, in the Dao Ching, Taoism, Taoist philosophy.

And Alan Watts also uses this, takes this example from Lao Tzu, that the mind is like searching in muddy water.

And so I feel, well, I'll just say it very cleanly and then we could discuss it, that if you're going to have your hand searching in muddy water and you're grasping and moving and agitating and going all over the place, all you're going to do is increase the turbidity.

But as soon as you like in your retreat for a silent month or phone away, as soon as you stop and stop grasping in your still, then all the sediment gradually falls to the bottom and you can have clarity.

And in the clarity, I don't know if this is part of the story, if this is my ad lib, but once you have that clarity, then you can see spirituality.

Then you mentioned it.

Then you can see maybe true self or dao or your deepest inner self.

Right?

So that's, I think if people can just understand that, you know, okay, we have our screens, but if we take a moment to be still, then all of life opens up to us and we can actually see everything at a deeper level.

Would you say this, this syncs up with some of the things that you're studying and learning and teaching?

100%.

100%.

You know, in fact, in Buddhism, you know, they talk about what they.

The five hindrances, you know, you've heard of the five hindrances.

Hindrances, right.

Of desire, of, you know, aversion or hatred.

You've got a sloth and torpor like, you know, when you're, when you're kind of dull and sleepy, that.

And then you've got restlessness, regret, remorse.

You know, that's the fourth one.

And the fifth is doubt.

And, and these five hindrances are all compared to bodies of water.

So grasping is like, you know, it's compared to colored, you know, Water that's got all these colorful dyes, right?

And.

And then aversion or ill will or anger is like boiling water and.

And then sloth and torpor is like water that's compared to like, you know, algae or, you know, stagnant kind of.

And restlessness is like, you know, water that's been whipped up by the wind, you know, and doubt is like, you know, so each of these things, you know, and so it's a really a good example of like, how.

How these hindrances hinder the mind, right?

Like, they kind of.

They.

They cover.

They cover or veil what is.

What is.

What is there, you know, the.

The sort of.

The pure essence or the other or the pure awareness that.

That.

So it's.

It.

It just covers it.

So.

So our practice is really sort of a process of purification, right?

It's a process of clearing out, and it happens in its own way.

And what's really wonderful about the practice is, like, you do the practice, right?

Like, there's sort of, like, there's some kind of intentionality.

You've got to apply a certain amount of discipline.

You know, there's certain effort involved in kind of showing up for the practice and continuing and sustaining a practice.

But after a while, it's kind of.

It feels like the practice is doing you.

You know, it sort of starts to unfold in its own beautiful, organic way individually for each person.

And there's this kind of a purification process that's going on.

And then all of a sudden you start to notice, like, oh, you know, I'm not getting annoyed by the things I used to get annoyed two years ago.

Or, you know, I feel happier, I feel more joyful and compassion is.

Is more readily available to me.

Or I feel more gratitude.

And you say, oh, it's not that it wasn't.

It's there.

You know, all those are there love and joy.

And, you know, all of that is actually kind of sitting kind of veiled with all these obscurations, you could say.

So, yeah.

So water and murky water is a really good example of how.

How that is.

Yeah.

No, this is very striking to me about.

It seems to parallel the Buddha's own experience of sitting quietly.

He.

He studied so many different methodologies until he said, forget it.

I'm going to just sit here until I wake up and I tell my students.

Bud is the root word of waking up.

Yes.

And so it's waking up to our true nature.

True nature which is beyond individuality.

That's one of the things that I have Taken very deeply about.

About that there is no separate Anthony or Adam or Gayatri.

We are all one being.

And that's one of the things that is prominent that we seem to be missing in our Western culture.

So the other thing that comes to mind, and I don't know, Adam and I have talked about this a little bit, but in Chinese philosophy, and I'm actually coming across it in Islam with the.

Because Muhammad was a businessman.

Can you talk a little bit about mindfulness in business or competition?

Yeah, you know, I think, see, like you were saying, you know, that sort of insight into.

Under that understanding that we are not separate.

Yep.

Right.

We are not.

That we belong to this sort of web, a mutual interdependent web of life.

You know where.

And you know, Thich Nhat Hanh used to call it inter being, right?

I am.

Because you are.

I mean, the idea of Ubuntu and, you know, all of that.

Mutual arising.

Yeah, mutual arising.

Codependent.

Codependent arising.

And, and I think what happens in business and in competition is it's kind of.

It feels like a zero sum game.

It's like, oh, you know, if I have more, I mean, or if somebody else has more than I have less.

Right.

So I need to get as much of whatever it is, like, you know, money or power or, you know, all of that.

Right.

So it kind of, it's exactly in opposition to this idea that we are mutually together in this.

And that's part of the illusion, getting caught in that.

Caught in that.

So it's kind of like if you see business or anything that any of your endeavors as like, if you win, I win.

Right.

And if you lose, I lose.

Right.

And if you kind of approach it in that way, then I think our whole approach to all of this, you know, how we, how we build corporations, you know, how anything that we do is going to take on a different.

It's going to take on a different form.

It'll be, you know, it's kind of like looking out for each other and seeing how we can all kind of bring each other up.

And you see this in the way, what, you know, what's going on in the world right now.

It's like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, we want this resource, so let me just send a bunch of bombs your way and grab what I can get.

Right.

And the kind of harm that they're causing, it's not kind of an isolated thing.

You know, all of that has its karmic ripples across this web of life and it's going to come back, right?

It's not, you know, so it's not like a one way thing.

It's like we're all kind of, you know, we're going to reap the rewards and the, and the bad stuff that we're putting out there.

Right.

The karmic cycle.

So I think if we can approach it in that way of really seeing a mutuality, a mutual belonging and not zero sum and to lead with compassion, lead with understanding, I think the way we do business will change.

Did you have this experience?

Did you bring this awareness into your IT management teams?

You know, at the time when I was working and this was more than, I don't know, it's been more than 15 years now since I quit my job.

You know, I think overall I was, you know, I was mostly trying to be kind and do what I needed to do and be good to people.

And I think part of the reason I quit was kind of when I saw like, you know, I guess, okay, the way, the way I want to say this is, you know, there were, you know, I was also feeling like not happy doing what I was doing, which was one of the reasons I quit.

But, but it was also kind of like seeing into kind of the underbelly of the whole healthcare system.

You know, it's like, you know, because I was seeing the systems, I could see the algorithms of how insurance was being calculated and how patients were being charged and all of that.

Right.

And so at the one level I was like, okay, yeah, my work is contributing to the, to the clinicians and so they can take care of sick people and heal them.

And I felt like, you know, there was something worthy about what I was doing.

But then when I saw this kind of the business aspect of it and how patients were being fleeced and, and that whole, you know, part of it, I was like, you know, do I really want to be a part of this?

I don't know.

You know, so, so, so that did play into my consciousness.

And, and you know, the Buddha talks about right livelihood, right?

Like he talks about.

Yeah, and somehow at some, at some point it didn't fit in with my idea of right livelihood.

And I think that was also one of the reasons, I think when I quit, I felt a little bit more.

That's a very courageous thing to step away from a corporate engagement like that and to go out to your own.

But it seems also that you really trusted your path.

Oh, yeah.

You know, it was like jumping off the deep end and saying somebody Catch me, you know, because it was really scary.

Yeah.

And that's the thing, you know, and my guru actually said this.

He used to say, nature doesn't like a vacuum.

And because it'll fill it up with something, you know, and, and sometimes, you know, life or circumstances create that vacuum.

You know, like you can lose somebody you love or you can lose a job or, you know, different vacuums get created in your life or relationship or whatever.

But sometimes you have to kind of create the vacuum on your own, you know, by when you.

When you quit or leave something that's not working and trust and be intentional about how that vacuum gets filled.

And that's about, you know, and I think somehow I trusted that.

And at the time, it seemed kind of crazy that I was doing that.

But I'm so grateful that it sort of all, you know, worked out in a way that I am really happy and love what I'm doing now.

Well, it really, it really changes.

I know every, all of us have gone through these points almost.

It seems like a point of rupture, but if we can stay with the process.

And the mindfulness meditation is certainly an extraordinarily useful tool.

So we're coming up on a short break.

I'm Anthony Wright, and I am your co host today on the Living Conversation with Adam Dietz.

And we are here with our guest, Gayatri Narayanan.

And how can people contact you, Gayatri?

You can visit my [email protected].

It's spelled M Y N D T R E E dot org.

Great.

Well, we'll take a short break and be right back.

So stay tuned.

Well, we'll go right back into this.

I'm Anthony.

Right.

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

I'm just gonna tell you.

Could you do me a favor and pause a little bit in between?

It's easier for me to edit.

Oh, okay.

If you go too.

If you go too fast, like instantly, then I need at least like, one second.

It's harder to find the.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Okay.

Well, we'll get started again.

I'm Anthony Wright, and I am your co host today on a Living Conversation with Adam Dietz.

Welcome back.

And we are talking with our guest, Gayatri Narayanan.

And before the break, Gayatri, we were talking about mindfulness in business and non zero sum game.

And for our listeners and Adam, you may have some idea about this.

What would you.

What would you offer to our listeners?

To what are the beginning steps of, of taking this, this leap?

And off the deep End, as you said, you had said.

Well, you know, so I, I think as far as like, you know, the first steps into cultivating a sort of a mindfulness practice or a meditation practice is I would say, you know, just start, you know, just begin and set up.

I would say set.

Make a little corner, you know, a physical space in your room or somewhere in your home.

It can be really just a small place, a little altar, you know, maybe whatever with little objects that have meaning for you.

Photos of people, you know, who you look up to, people who loved you.

Maybe maybe a candle or a flower or something, you know, just create a little altar.

Make at your place.

Like, make that the place where you sit to connect to that deeper part of yourself.

And, and just, and, and if it's helpful, you know, you, you can use guided meditations, right?

There's so many resources out there on the web, including mine, you, my website, you can, you can join my.

I have a community meditation group that meets every morning from 7:30 to 8 where I lead them in a short meditation.

I offer 5 to 10 minute teaching and a 20 minute guided meditation.

It's a great way to start the day.

And I do it as a three week series, Monday through Friday, you know, so It's Pacific Time, 7:30 to 8:00am Pacific Time.

So, so just show up, you know, and start.

And, and of course it's going to be, you know, three steps forward, two steps back, right?

Like it's not going to be this kind of linear, you know, road to heaven or something.

You know, it's just, it's, you know, it's going to be.

But the more you show up, it's going to become a part of your life.

It's kind of like I always say, it's kind of like, you know, when I, when you don't do your practice, it feels like you forgot to brush your teeth or something.

You know, it's kind of like, you know, it feels that way.

It's just.

And it informs the rest of your day.

It kind of sets the tone for the rest of your day.

And what happens is over.

Even if you practice regularly for like say even a couple of weeks, say, you know, it doesn't have to be long, you'll start to see the benefits and then once you start to taste the benefits, then it becomes kind of self motivating, right?

Like you want to do it as opposed to feeling like, oh, I have to do this meditation thing and you know, another choke.

It can be even something as simple as just noticing your breathing right.

100%, Counting the breaths.

I mean, for like five minutes, you.

Know, or less even.

Like, so there's, you know, there's this acronym.

You know, there's a sort of a mindfulness thing called stop, S, T, O, P. Right.

So the S is for stop.

T is to take three breaths.

O is to observe.

Just observe what's happening.

Observe your body, observe your breath.

Observe your feet on the ground.

Observe what you can see, see and hear.

So do that for, like, just a few seconds.

Like even 20 seconds, 30 seconds, and then proceed.

So s. Stop.

Take three breaths, observe and proceed.

Right.

So it does.

It's kind of like dipping into that sort of mindful pause that you can do throughout the day.

And that's what we call an informal practice.

But there's.

It's always there.

It's always there.

You can always stop.

Yeah, you don't need any props.

You don't need a yoga mat.

You don't need, you know, some equipment.

You don't need anything.

You just need your body and mind and that which you have all the time.

So.

So I think that informal practice and doing that throughout the day is really helpful.

But there's also definitely a place for a formal practice, maybe even just starting with 10 minutes a day of sitting on a cushion or sitting on your, you know, in your little meditation space and.

And watching your breath, taking a few deep breaths, relaxing and being aware.

Being aware of what's happening in the mind, what's happening in your body.

And.

Yeah, so.

So definitely reach out if you think you can.

You know, you want to join my community, but there's thousands of resources out there now that you can tap into.

So.

Yeah, so one of the things that I have noticed, I was actually doing some work with a.

A transpersonal psychologist named John Wellwood, and he would ask us to inhabit our body, which I really appreciated.

So to inhabit each part.

The legs and the torso and the arms and the head.

And then to allow our awareness to expand outside the body just a bit, and then to expand the awareness into the room.

And there is a. I believe it's Dallas, maybe.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Adam called the great learning Confusion.

It's about expanding the awareness.

Well, to the building and to the community and expanding the awareness to the state, and why should you stop there?

And so I am contemplating the real flexibility that is developed and the incredible compassion that can be engaged with when you have the flexibility.

So in a situation, if there is some friction or conflict, to expand beyond that and kind of See, well, what's actually going on here without getting caught in that individual investment in.

Well, it's, you know, my point is, right and they're wrong or, you know, something like that.

Can you.

Can you talk about that kind of experience in your work?

Yeah.

You know, so this is beautiful because really, this is sort of touching into, sort of.

When you say expanding, it's kind of like dissolving the ego boundary.

Yes.

So.

So when we have a sense of a self or an ego, there's an I, there's a me.

And sometimes that.

That circle around the eye and the me can feel very, very tight, right?

And it feels tighter when you're in conflict with someone else, right?

The ego kind of gets really fluffed up.

Like, it's like, okay, I'm defending and I'm attacking, right?

And.

But so when you say, you know, expand and so kind of dissolve, it kind of like, okay, now you and I are in the same ego circle, right?

You know, and now everything.

Everybody in this house, I'm expanding now to everything.

Everything in here is now part of my ego boundary.

And now.

And then expand further.

The entire community of this, whatever, Northern California or in the California, and you can kind of keep.

Keep going.

So.

So awareness is boundless, right?

There's.

It has no edges, it has no boundary.

And so what you then start to feel is sort of like what they call the sky of your being.

It's like.

It's like the sky, you know, it's infinite, expansive, without end, without edges.

And everything that's happening, everything that you're aware of is kind of like clouds moving through that sky or like birds flying through that sky, right?

So.

So you can kind of just then hold that in that sort of a wider space.

And all of a sudden everything starts to relax.

It's kind of like, okay, now I can see beyond the I, me, mine of the situation, Right?

Because the I, me, mine is sort of what's making that constriction that's causing that suffering.

But when you said John Wellwood, Anthony.

I have one of his poems in my collection, and I just pulled it up.

And I don't know if it's the same John Wellwood, but can I read it?

It's really a beautiful poem.

So it's called Forget About Enlightenment.

It's by John Wellwood.

And he says, sit down wherever you are and listen to the wind singing in your veins.

Feel the love, the longing, the fear in your bones.

Open your heart to who you are right now, not who you would like to be not the saint you are striving to become, but the being right here, before you, inside you, around you, all of you is holy.

You are already more and less than whatever you can know.

Breathe out, touch in.

Let go.

That's beautiful.

Thank you for that.

I was, it was his recording Engineer for about 5 years and it was very much a privilege.

So, Adam, do you have some thoughts for Gayatri?

So many.

First, I want to say that what this is reminding me of is that everything in this universe is a microcosm of the universe.

And everything in this universe has being and non being.

So when we, when we can do your poem, like your poem, right?

And be in touch with our whole being, right?

Then we can experience something.

And I want to say, like there's.

I want to word this differently now.

I feel like there's a big three.

There's a big three, okay.

Confucius, Anthony says great learning.

The great learning, the first step, the smallest step is investigate things.

Socrates, big three.

What's important, examine the unexamined.

Life is not worth living.

And the big three, number three is science.

We have this, observe.

So representative of science will be, let's say, Carl Sagan, okay?

And Carl Sagan says we are all stardust.

Everything in this universe comes from the big Bang.

Everything in the universe has energy.

Everything has being and non being.

So when we experience this ourselves, then we experience confuse it, our humanity.

When we experience our humanity, we can have loyalty to our deepest self that comes from the universe, the beginning of time and space.

And then we have deep, deep empathy with all things.

So when we have this deep, deep empathy with all things, then our mind is correct.

Then Confucius talks about the steps going from inner to outer.

Our mind can be correct.

We feel very reverential to all things.

So we talk about business.

If we feel reverential to all things, we want them to flourish.

We don't want to take and cut and smash and grab, Right?

So I just had those thoughts as we were talking about and I'd love to hear how.

Most importantly, most importantly, I think I'm so happy that you're giving our listeners and our and our hosts more tools that we can always stop.

We can always stop.

But when we stop and we practice, it becomes more natural over time.

I think is another point that you are making.

So I just wanted to kind of resonate with what you were saying and go back and forth a little bit.

But I think what was.

Okay, the last thing was this though.

Sorry to take up so much Time.

But this is the one that really gets me.

I have empathy to everyone because we have all had difficult times and sometimes the systems are actually not helpful and we are stuck in a difficult job.

It's not fair.

Or we have a bad boss or the politicians are doing very stupid things and not helping people.

So I think we have to have forgiveness for ourselves.

Like we have to be kind to ourselves.

Even if we have this desire to be very good and spiritual, sometimes it's not easy.

Like even just the last few years, people take away very many good career paths and just smash them and take them away.

Right.

And maybe want you to work for some Gestapo or something like this.

Right.

So I think that we have to be kind to ourselves and understand this, that we are good enough.

We have all this inside of us and sometimes we're not put in very good situations.

I wonder if you could just speak to that, that challenge of sometimes when, when our leaders and our society is not allowing us to, to flourish.

We're just about out of time.

So sorry.

That's quite, that's quite all right.

So if there was one thing you'd like our listeners to know in response to Adam's question, what would that be?

You know, I think what I want is really say Adam, and everything you said, you know, resonated deeply with me.

But you know, we have to include ourselves in all of this, right?

So, you know, when we say there's suffering, you know, there is, you know, we're all included in that.

There's nobody who's exempt from it, right?

And in all the practices of compassion, loving kindness, equanimity, joy, you know, the practices, the Buddhist practices, we always begin with ourselves, you know, so starting with ourselves, self compassion, self forgiveness, right?

And it's something that develops naturally, right.

You know, the more present you become, the more you get in touch with the suffering, with the suffering that's caused by these systems that you're talking about, you know, our own suffering, suffering of others.

So compassion and loving, loving kindness is just a natural emanation from that practice.

So.

And our world needs it.

So that's all I'll have to say is like, please, you know, cultivate your inner life so that we can be there for the, for our own suffering and for the suffering of the world and meet it with love.

Yeah.

Well, I'm so sorry that we're out of time.

I'm Anthony Wright and I'm your co host today on the Living Conversation with Adam Dietz.

Be kind to ourselves, everyone.

Yeah.

Yes, we've been talking with our guest Gayatri Narayanan.

And how can people contact you, Gayatri?

Please visit my website.

It's mindtree.org It's M Y N D T R E E dot O R.

G. Well, thank you so much for listening and we'll see you next time.