This podcast episode features an enlightening discussion with Lee Carlson, a distinguished Zen practitioner, author, and sea captain. We delve into the profound implications of mindfulness in tumultuous times, particularly in the context of contemporary sociopolitical challenges. Carlson elucidates the necessity of embracing compassion, even towards contentious figures, as a means to cultivate inner peace amidst external chaos. The conversation further explores the metaphorical resonance of the ocean in relation to the mind, emphasizing the importance of remaining grounded and present. As we navigate this complex landscape, we invite our listeners to reflect on their own practices and the transformative power of compassion and mindfulness. The dialogue unfolds with Anthony Wright and co-host Adam Dietz engaging in a profound discourse with their guest, Lee Carlson, an individual whose multifaceted identity encompasses that of a Zen practitioner, sea captain, soccer coach, and author. The conversation delves into the depths of Carlson's experiences, particularly highlighting his recent literary endeavor titled 'A Single Excellent Night', wherein he articulates insights drawn from his life, notably his journey as a survivor of a traumatic brain injury. This episode intricately explores the interrelation between mindfulness and the tumultuous landscape of contemporary society, as Carlson reflects on the necessity of compassion amidst adversity. The discussion further probes the existential question of whether even contentious figures possess Buddha nature, symbolizing a broader inquiry into human potential and the innate capacity for goodness that exists within us all. Through Carlson's narrative, listeners are invited to contemplate the significance of accepting uncertainty and the importance of maintaining a compassionate outlook, even towards those with whom we may fundamentally disagree. In a furtherance of the dialogue, Carlson elucidates the metaphorical significance of the ocean in Zen practice, likening the vastness of the sea to the expansiveness of the mind. As a seasoned sailor, he shares how the ocean serves as a backdrop for introspection and tranquility, contrasting the chaotic nature of urban life. This thematic exploration underscores the relationship between nature and mindfulness, suggesting that the serene environments foster a conducive atmosphere for spiritual awakening. Moreover, Carlson reflects on the teachings of his mentors, such as Peter Mathiason and Joanna Macy, who advocate for the 'Shambhala warrior' ethos—engaging actively in the world while embodying compassion and love as the primary tools for effecting change. The episode culminates in a resonant call to embrace both the light and dark aspects of our nature, fostering a sense of unity and understanding in an increasingly polarized world. As the conversation progresses, the hosts and Carlson engage in a reflective examination of the challenges facing contemporary spiritual seekers, particularly the youth, who find themselves navigating a landscape inundated with distractions and anxieties, exacerbated by the prevalence of technology. The discussion pivots towards practical approaches for instilling mindfulness in younger generations, emphasizing the importance of leading by example and actively engaging in educational outreach. Carlson recounts a personal anecdote involving his own sons, illustrating the potential for positive influence through a commitment to mindfulness practices. The episode not only serves as a platform for sharing Carlson's insights but also as a clarion call for collective engagement in promoting compassion and understanding in society. Ultimately, listeners are encouraged to reflect on their own practices and the transformative potential of mindfulness in their lives.

Takeaways:

• In this episode, Lee Carlson discusses the importance of mindfulness and compassion during turbulent times, emphasizing the necessity of accepting uncertainty in our lives.
• Carlson reflects on his experiences as a Zen practitioner and how being on the ocean serves as a metaphor for the vastness of the human mind and the complexities of life.
• The conversation addresses the duality of human nature, acknowledging both light and darkness within individuals, and the importance of cultivating compassion for all, including those we may disagree with.
• Carlson shares insights from his book, 'A Single Excellent Night', highlighting the significance of living in the present moment rather than dwelling on the past or future.
• The hosts explore the role of spiritual leaders in contemporary society and how they can engage with pressing social issues while maintaining a compassionate approach.
• The episode concludes with a discussion on how personal experiences, such as parenting and teaching, can influence one's mindfulness practice and the importance of leading by example.

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

Welcome to the conversation.

And we are here with our guest, Lee Carlson.

And Lee is a Zen practitioner, a sea captain, a soccer coach, an author.

Welcome, Lee.

Thank you.

Great to be here.

Yeah.

And I found very interesting that you have a passion for the ocean and your recent book is called A Single Excellent Night.

But I want to start about.

And you're also a survivor of a traumatic brain injury, but you're also a student of Peter Mathiasson, who was a Dharma heir of Myzumi Roshi.

And I think my, my and as I recall, my Zumi Roshi combined Soto then and Rinzai.

And so I think the first koan that I want to ask is, does Trump have Buddha nature?

The answer, I'm sure, is moo.

The answer is moo.

Absolutely, yes.

So I guess for those of us and many of our listeners are familiar with Zen, how do we, how do we proceed in this time?

It's a really difficult time and it's a very difficult question to answer.

You know, if you go back to the traditional way, it's you sit, you be mindful, and you have compassion.

And you have compassion, believe it or not, even for someone like Donald Trump.

And you pray, you know, and you pray for him and you pray that somehow, some way, this will all shake out and you just don't know.

You have to be comfortable with not knowing.

This is a very, very much a time about not knowing, not knowing what's going to happen next, not knowing what the outcome's going to be and being okay with that instead of getting really anxious and getting really, know, provoked by a lot of this stuff.

So that's what you do on yourself, on your own.

It's, it's a big struggle for me.

And I think a lot of other spiritual people I hear, hear all the way back to, like the Baran brothers and the Vietnam War.

And you know, how, how do spiritual people, people of the cloth, so to speak, in their case, you know, do we really forcefully come out against some of these things?

Do we, are we activists?

Are we pacifists?

You know what, who are we?

My other teacher, who was also my aunt, actually my first cousin, but she was so close.

We called her, yeah.

Joanna Macy.

And Joanna, who is from the Bay Area.

Well, she was originally from New York, but she lived for many years in Berkeley.

And, and she studied under Tibetan masters.

And so she was a big believer in the Shambhala warrior story, which is you know, that there will come a time when things are looking really bad and there's a lot of stuff going on, and the Shambhala warrior has to be a warrior and has to come forth, but with heart and compassion and love, and those are the tools that we use to fight.

And.

And that's.

So it's not that we don't fight.

It's not that we just, you know, are completely passive.

We.

We engage.

And I believe, you know, from her standpoint, I believe that.

And she was very much an activist.

And so, you know, we engage hearts and minds.

We engage using the tools that we have, as opposed to guns and bullets and shields and clubs.

You know, our tools are love and compassion and patience and not knowing and all those wonderful tools.

Yeah.

And I have to say that, man, you know, I don't hate anyone.

And I do have tremendous compassion to think about these guys in Minneapolis that are so kitted up like they're in Iran or Afghanistan so that they can face church ladies offering them hot chocolate.

Yeah.

You know, and.

And the demons are thick on the ground, you know, and, you know, a lot of.

A lot of people are trying to place demons on other people, and none for me, thanks to quote Mr. Natural.

But what are your initial thoughts here, Adam?

I think to go really, then with it.

There's no Trump in my room right now.

There's no trump here, so I am free.

I. I know that that's a little esoteric, and I don't want to be glib about it, but I do think we've all experienced in our spiritual seeking how important it is to be present and mindful.

And.

And there's no Trump here.

So that's my initial thought, to really go fully Zen on it in my.

In my.

In my.

In my estimation of what that feels like.

And it's.

You have a concerned mind.

There's a lot going on.

You feel your heart goes out for people who are struggling.

It's just.

It's.

It's so sad.

But at the same time, you have to take care of yourself, take care of your mental health.

And right now, in my room, there's no Trump.

There's no Trump.

That's well said.

And I think that Trump want.

Wants to be in this room.

He wants to be in your room.

He wants to be.

He wants to suck all the oxygen out of everything.

And sometimes you just say, no, you're not here.

I'm not going to let you be here.

You can't let him into your head.

Your room, your head Your space, everything.

It just.

It's not.

It's not good.

I will say one thing that.

And to get back to my book a little bit.

So the.

The middle of the book details a really intense opening experience that I had, and when I was studying with Peter, and.

And it's an opening experience where I literally saw what teachers try to teach you as far as the dark and the light and the yin and the yang and the people.

And I was at a. I was at an event that was being given.

It was a public talk being given by Sharon Salzberg, who many people know.

And she was up on stage, and it was in the Hamptons.

And so there were maybe, I don't know, 60, 80 people in the audience.

And towards the end of her talk, she said, now, let's turn the lights down low.

And so there were some people that were, like me, who were very serious and practitioners, and we were sitting on our cushions on the floor, but there were plenty of other people who were just curious, who had read her books or whatever, and.

And were sitting in chairs and.

And were there.

And so she said she gave sort of beginning loving kindness meditation instruction for five or 10 minutes and said, okay, now turn the lights down, everybody close your eyes or leave them half open, whatever.

And.

And a.

A switch flipped in my brain.

Literally, it just.

All of a sudden, I saw the world in a very different way.

The entire world was just energy.

It was no longer mass, although you could sort of see the outlines of people in mass.

But what was really, as I said to Peter afterwards, what really freaked me out was that I saw the darkness inside, literally everybody in that room, including Sharon Salzberg, you know, who you would think she's this very enlightened person.

She's loving kindness.

And yet even in her, you saw this sort of dark energy, this kernel of dark energy.

So, you know, you see that, and then you think about people like Trump or like the ice agents, and you realize that we have the capacity to develop both the light and the dark within us.

And as a loving kindness practitioner, she'd obviously developed the light in her much, much more than the dark, but the dark was still there.

And then you look at people like Donald Trump, who, I hate to say it, if he could sit in front of me and I could have that experience again, I am sure that I would see much more dark energy than light energy.

You know, he's developed it, but people can change.

They can.

You know, it's so.

So you see that, and that's how you have Compassion for somebody because he's like, all of us, we're all the same.

We all have the yin and yang inside of us.

We all have these two sides to us.

It's just which side we get in touch with.

I mean, that's why Star wars was such a hit.

You know, the dark side versus.

It's like people intuitively know that there's a dark side with, you know, Darth Vader and there's a light side with, you know, Yoda and Obi Wan.

And so the.

So you.

Once you really, really see that.

And it's more than just a.

A philosophy once, you know, it's a reality.

Yeah.

It enables you to really have compassion and to look at what's going on and go, okay, well, I think.

And also I. I do this in my teaching, and I think Adam does too.

It.

I hold space for the light to show up.

Yes.

You know, and just.

I don't ask for it.

I don't say, oh, you should do the light.

No, no, I, I just, by my presence, hold space.

And I, I really find that to be.

I was in at a lecture that the, that his Holiness the Dalai Lama gave, and I, I felt it was so interesting about when he got on the Lotus Throne and assumed the affect of Abba.

Could you.

It was so interesting about how that presence was so palpable.

So anyway, and we're coming up on a bit of a break here.

You've written two books.

One of them is called Passage Turn of Verna, and the other one is a Single Excellent Night.

What was the Single Excellent Night?

So it comes from a saying attributed to the Buddha.

I'll actually read it.

Sorry, I should have reached down and grabbed my book.

So it's.

I'll read it to you because it's a very beautiful passage.

I have it sort of memorized, but just in case.

So the passage is, let not a person run back to the past or on the future build their hopes, for the past has been left behind and the future has not yet been reached.

Instead, with insight, let them see each present moment.

It is this person who has had a single excellent night.

And I just think that that really sums it all up.

It's, you know, that idea of don't live in the past, don't live in the future.

Just live right here in this moment, and you will have a singular excellent moment.

Well, this is really fun.

I'm glad that you're our guest today.

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

Thanks for joining.

We're on the Living Conversation and we are talking with our guest, also fellow sun practitioner Lee Carlson.

And where are you located, Lee?

And how could people contact you?

So people can contact me.

I have a website which is Lee Carlson Life, not Lee Carlson.com but Lee Carlson Life.

And all my contact info is on there.

You can send me an email at Lee Lee Carlson Life.

My phone number is on there.

I always happy to communicate with people.

I also am on Facebook and Instagram and, and threads and X, much as I hate to be on X.

But all those links are on my website.

So, you know, I, I'm a bit of a teacher, although I'm peripatetic.

When you ask where I'm located, I always chuckle because I'd been living on my boat for the last 20 years and I was going up and down the east coast and to the Bahamas.

And so I led a very peripatetic lifestyle.

I recently sold my boat this spring and I'm from Buffalo, New York, originally.

And so I'm very fortunate.

I'm back in Buffalo with family and friends and I'm not really sure how much longer that is.

I haven't decided yet where or if I'm going to settle.

I have, part of me thinks I may just hop in my van and start driving around and visiting Zen centers and bookstores and giving talks and be sort of a Johnny Appleseed of Zen.

I don't know.

We'll see what happens.

It's a little up in the air at the moment.

Oh, no, that's great.

But you're going to keep your, your website alive, so.

Oh, absolutely.

Yes.

All right.

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

So stay tuned.

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

Welcome back.

And we are talking with our guest 10 practitioner Lee Carlson.

And Lee, you are a student of Peter Mathiason, who was a Dharma heir of Maizumi Roshi who first came to Los Angeles.

And you've written two books.

I really appreciated what the quote was from a single excellent night.

But let's start.

You're a sea captain, a certified sea captain.

And you were born in California on a naval base, is that right?

Correct.

Yes, I, I, and I'm a Pisces with Aquarius.

So I'm like, I'm totally water.

Okay.

I'm a Pisan as well.

So.

But we can talk about that.

What's, what is it?

That is.

What, what could you offer our audience to know about what it is to be a boat and sailing in terms of 10 practice?

Sure.

So to get back to Peter Matheson for a second, his zendo, he had his little, what he called a little country zendo, which was a, it was an old two stall horse barn out by his house that he had converted into a zendo.

So it was really a very, it had this great vibe to it.

It was all these old wooden, you know, worm eaten boards.

But they had he.

And before I met him, before I joined with him, his people that he was teaching got together.

They put in new floors, they put in some insulation, they put into tommy mats and made it into a very little Japanese zendo.

And he called it the ocean zendo because it was only about, oh, half a mile from the ocean, from the beaches in the Hamptons.

And it was also, if people know Zen, there's a lot of use of metaphors in Zen of the ocean.

The ocean is a metaphor for mind, the vastness of mind.

And so it had a, you know, it was a double entendre.

It was partly the place that it was, but it was also that.

And I would say, you know, I've spent a good part of my life on the ocean, you know, I was born on a navy base, you said, and I grew up sailing and my, since my dad, when he got out of the navy, you know, he still was a sailor and we know, took family sailing trips and had a little sailboat and, and I, so I've spent a lot of time and, and then my first captain's gig, I was only 19 years old and, and so I captained for a while in my twenties, but then I, I decided to, quote, get serious about life and I became a journalist in New York.

And so, but I, yeah, I've been, you know, living on my boat for the last 20 years and working as a.

So not only living my boat, but working as a private yacht captain.

So I would have like six months on, you know, working and then six months off when I would live on my own boat.

And it being on the ocean, first of all, if you go out and you go beyond sight of land, I mean, talk about the vastness of the world and a lot of people get freaked out by it because they just, they've never experienced that before.

But if you're out and, and the ocean can be beautiful and calm or it can be nasty and rough and Everything in between.

And it's really a metaphor for life in that way.

You know, our minds are not always calm.

Sometimes our minds are riled up and.

And, you know, even the greatest masters sometimes get.

You know, I mean, Peter said to me, he's like, yeah, sometimes, you know, I. I get angry or I get riled.

Thich Nhat Hanh used to say, you know, embrace your anger.

Like, give it a big hug.

Yeah.

So.

So the ocean, for me is.

Is very much a metaphor for mind, a metaphor for life.

And it's.

And it's incredibly beautiful, and it does give you lots of quiet time that we don't get when we live in cities.

You know, I lived in Manhattan when I was a journalist, and I can tell you that's.

That's very different than living on a boat on the ocean.

And it just gives you the opportunity to really calm and get rid of distractions and cell phones ringing and emails going off and.

And all that sort of stuff.

So it's.

It's a.

And it puts you in touch with nature.

Much of Zen is about nature.

You know, I mean, probably that's because a thousand years ago, that's what you had.

You didn't have computers and technology, so they used nature as metaphor and as a teaching aid.

But it's also.

Our connection with nature is really important.

It's who we are as humans.

And our humanness, you know, is really.

That connection is really deep.

Yeah.

Our kindness toward ourself.

So.

Yeah.

So your thoughts, Adam?

I do remember a couple times where, you know, either through personal tragedy or global tragedy, going out to the ocean just felt so therapeutic, I think, recently, you know, with kind of national and global events, you know, around.

Around about six months ago or so, kicking up.

I remember going to the ocean and being like, you know, what's going to happen here?

And just, okay, this.

This.

This place has been around for a long time.

This place has seen a lot of different stuff come and go.

So, you know, we.

We're gonna be okay, you know, And.

And we.

I think you have a sense of this lead through the tradition.

Because, Anthony, I've talked a few times on this show about how in Chinese philosophy, they've seen this all before.

They've had terrible tyrants.

They've seen the ups and downs of society.

So could you say a little more about how your.

I want to call it your lineage and the tradition, maybe that.

Does that give you a sense of vastness as well, going back in time?

Yeah, absolutely.

That idea of lineage is so key.

To Zen and many Zen centers, you chant the lineage during service and you go on and on.

You chant, you know, a lot of names in different zone centers, chant more names than others.

And you know, some truncate a little bit because it could go on forever.

But that idea.

Yeah, that idea that you're part of something ancient and something bigger than yourself and something that's, that's withstood the test of time.

I, you know, there's a lot of fads out there and there have been fads for thousands of years.

Right.

And, and so for something to withstand the test of time and to be useful to that many people really is important to me.

Absolutely.

I think that's key.

That's really nice.

And you know, going back to one Zen piece, one Zen work, the record of transmission of the lamp and going all the way back to Buddha and talking about how the, the enlightenment has passed from generation to generation, I think also enlivens what you're mentioning there.

I wonder if some of the Zen centers even go back that far with their enchanting.

I remember when I first started studying being amazed that there were previous Buddhas.

Oh yeah.

Like, you know, like I thought it would go back to the Buddha and stop.

And then I learned like, oh, the Buddha said there were people before him.

Yeah, he's the, he's the main one we talk about and study now.

But you know, it goes back even, even farther.

So.

Right, good point.

Yeah.

One of the things that I've studied Alan Watts quite a lot and am actually still broadcasting Alan Watts on kwmr.

And Alan would, would talk about how different gurus would come up to him and, and ask him, you know, say that oh, you should study with me, you know.

And he, his reply was who was Buddhist teacher.

So you know, it's this idea of the awakening.

And you know, I think also about it, it's been really actually since COVID how the metal affect of many of my students, the 18, 19 year old, 20 year old people are.

It's really low.

And part of it is because they get stuck in the phone and it's, it's a.

And I have such great compassion.

And one of the things is again, I, and I know you do this and I've been to your classes, Adam.

You hold space for these people to come out.

How do we invite young people to mindfulness?

So I think there are a number of ways.

First, we lead by example.

And I will tell you so I'm divorced and it was not an easy divorce.

I always Envy these people that I hear have good divorces.

I'm like, okay, but so my kids and I have two sons who are now 32 and 28.

And throughout that whole process, and that is, this was 25 years ago now, but it's a process that's detailed in my first book, Passage to Nirvana.

And, and I just always, I was studying with Peter at that time and I just, you know, took the high road and, and was the best person I could be.

And led by example and led, you know, my mindfulness, figuring that my kids would pick up on it without trying to, you know, pound it into them or say, you gotta do this or whatever.

It's just like, and really funny.

My son is right now In Thailand, my 32 year old son, he's a, he's a CAHAMERAMAN on the TV show Survivor.

And so he gets the winner off because he works like crazy on that show and then he gets some months off.

So he's traveling in Thailand.

And to my amazement, he sent me a, he sent me a text that he was going into a monastery for a week in Thailand.

And I was like, cool.

Oh, okay, cool.

I mean, he, you know, he'd always acknowledged my practice and, and he'd given me some little Buddhas, you know, his presence sometimes and stuff.

So.

But he'd never expressed like an interest and he loved the fact that they made him give up his cell phone for a week.

So, you know, you just never know what your own, you know, practice, how it will rub off on other people.

So that's one thing you could do and the second thing you could do.

You can be more active.

I am, I am giving a talk in March, middle of March, at a very prestigious private school where they have recently banned cell phones from the campus.

I have to find out more about that.

I'm not sure if it's classes or the whole campus or what.

And there's a lot of uproar over that, as you can imagine.

Sure.

But I'm giving a talk on mindfulness and humanness and what it's like to, to use our ancient selves and our ancient wisdom and, and how that's very different than, you know, how we use cell phones.

And, and I'm not a Luddite, I'm not against technology.

I used to be editor in chief of a physics magazine.

Editor chief of a computer magazine.

I mean, I think, you know, I think technology can do some good things.

So, so I'm not going in to go.

Oh yeah, you know, get rid of those cell Phones, they're terrible.

But I am going in there to teach in a way that, you know, I'm speaking to the whole school in an auditorium setting and, and I'm going to talk for an hour about Zen and about mindfulness.

I'm not going to try to make it too Zen, too woo woo, because, you know, but it's more like so, so that's another thing we can do.

We can teach our children.

You know, we can teach our children, we can teach other people's children.

We can, we.

And, and this almost goes back to what we were talking about in the beginning about what do we do in the face of, of difficult times.

We teach.

You know, we, we don't, we don't retreat into our, I mean, some people, that's fine.

You want to retreat onto your black cushion.

I do it every day.

But I also think that besides retreating my black cushion, I can get out and have some influence, hopefully in the world and, and help teach people, whether they're kids or adults, just that there's a, another way besides just staring your cell phone all the time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we have to take a short break.

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

And we're here with our guest, Lee Carlson.

And how can people contact you, Lee?

So best way is to go to my website, which is Lee Carlson Life, not Lee Carlson.com but Lee Carlson Life, because that's what this is all about.

Absolutely.

And on my website you can find my phone number, you can find my email address, which is Lee, Lee Carlson Life.

You can find my Facebook, you know, you can contact me that way, Instagram, all those, all those good things.

So using technology in a positive way.

Great.

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