Views, interpretations and opinions expressed are not advice nor official positions presented on behalf of any organization or institution.
Peter:
They are for informational and entertainment purposes only.
Peter:
Now join Ryan and Peter for another episode of the Tracking Wisdom Podcast.
Ryan:
Welcome, everybody, to another episode of the Tracking Wisdom Podcast.
Ryan:
I'm Ryan.
Peter:
I'm Peter.
Ryan:
And good morning to you all.
Ryan:
This morning I wanted to bring to the discussion two things.
Ryan:
One is the idea of sort of a guided journey or being drawn on a journey, and including that with the concept of karma, and in specifically, karma as it relates to the idea of, like, the world as a reflection.
Ryan:
And I think in that conversation, it's going to align a bit with the Buddhist understanding of karma, at least, as I understand from Peter, what you have talked about.
Ryan:
So that's what we have on the conversation for this morning, and we'll get right into it.
Ryan:
So I've noticed recently, and I guess this isn't really recent, but I've definitely sensed the pull of a journey, spiritual and material, I suppose, as the show grows and as Peter and I continue to assess and evaluate kind of the future of this project and everything I've recognized, I've experienced sort of this tug almost from an external standpoint, or at least sort of the inner self guiding a journey.
Ryan:
And this ties into a bit the idea of allowing the process and not wrangling with the things that are occurring in your life, because it.
Ryan:
It seems that life or the journey itself unfolds as it needs to to get to the destination that you're looking to get to.
Ryan:
And so that's been something that's been a specific experiential thing for me recently.
Ryan:
Not specific, it's happened before, but recently I've noticed it pretty heavily where things fall into place.
Ryan:
And I guess this kind of goes to synchronicity and manifestation and those kinds of things, but it doesn't need to be discussed or even conceived of from that kind of perspective.
Ryan:
So I was raising that as an experience and then contemplating the idea of karma.
Ryan:
Well, actually, what I contemplated was the way that sometimes certain shifts in the path, so to speak, take a long time, and sometimes they don't.
Ryan:
And what came to mind on that was this idea of karma, which is a.
Ryan:
A Buddhist and a Hindu concept, although I believe they have different understandings of that.
Ryan:
Is that correct, Peter, from your understanding?
Peter:
I think so, yeah.
Ryan:
And I don't know if other spiritual or religious teachings discuss karma specifically in that term, although there may be other phrases used to discuss similar things.
Ryan:
And so I guess I'll preface my comment with my understanding from what I've learned from you, Peter, is that the Buddhist position on Karma is related to cause and effect, that the effects of Karma are.
Ryan:
Or that Karma is the effects of either previous lifetime actions or is that.
Ryan:
Am I in the ballpark?
Peter:
Yep, you're in the ballpark.
Peter:
Keep on going.
Peter:
Okay, I'll comment later.
Ryan:
Okay, that's fine.
Ryan:
So I wasn't thinking about Karma specifically from the.
Ryan:
From like, relating it to the Buddhist perspective.
Ryan:
It was really afterwards that I was.
Ryan:
I thought, oh, that actually kind of aligns with the Buddhist perspective on Karma.
Ryan:
What I was thinking was this idea of a reflected world where the world is reflecting our intentions and actions.
Ryan:
And that sometimes a shift in.
Ryan:
Or what may.
Ryan:
May be experienced as, or feel like a shift in your path or your journey, where you were on one trajectory and now a new branch or trajectory seems imminent, or at least that you're pointing towards that direction.
Ryan:
Sometimes that falls very proximal to an intention or a decision or a thought.
Ryan:
And sometimes we have those decisions and thoughts and intentions, and it takes a long time for that to sort of present itself in the experience.
Ryan:
I'm trying to avoid using manifestation and things because I don't think that that's important language to use, although I think anybody who's into that would recognize what I'm talking about in that scope.
Ryan:
And my thought about it is while some people will talk about the internal resistance that might be obstructing that change, which I'm open to that as a concept, I was also recognizing that there's going to be inherent solidification, so to speak, of a path, given the amount of time that you may have been walking that journey.
Ryan:
That will take a significant time to kind of unravel that before the new path might be able to come to fruition.
Ryan:
And when I was thinking about that, that reminded me of Karma and then also reminded me of the Buddhist perspective of Karma as cause and effect.
Ryan:
Where, taking my personal example, you know, I've been in my current life path and trajectory, I don't want to overuse that word, but for so long and had solidified so many intentions and values around that, that even though, you know, within the past few years I made strong intentions and choices and decisions, at least outwardly, to move in a different direction, it seems reasonable that for life to kind of reorient itself to these new intentions and these new decisions, it's going to take some time to unravel the connection and the momentum that the original path kind of had.
Ryan:
And I'll open the floor to you, Peter, to see how, how you feel about that statement.
Peter:
Completely agree.
Peter:
It's very interesting, kind of a meta experience of a karma, because as you, as you put it up on, on screen, talking about journey and karma, I immediately was like, oh, it's totally where I am.
Peter:
I could totally talk about this and completely relate to everything you just said.
Ryan:
Yeah.
Peter:
And I, I would just, you know, from my background, use slightly different language, but it's exactly the same feeling.
Peter:
And, and so, yeah, I agree with you that the Buddhist version of karma is, is cause and effect.
Peter:
I think the Hindu one is more of like there are deities that handle karma.
Peter:
Like there's a karmic judge or a number of deities that it's kind of like the, the, the fates.
Ryan:
Right.
Peter:
You know, of classical mythology.
Peter:
Whereas Buddhism views it more as cause and effect.
Peter:
And the way I express it now is conditions and outcomes.
Peter:
Right.
Peter:
And so as you were saying, I mean, I think it relates directly to your description of unraveling the momentum is that we're carrying conditions and even when we change our intention, the conditions remain.
Peter:
And the conditions could change suddenly or they can change gradually.
Peter:
And so that's actually a lot of what I feel like I've been experiencing recently.
Peter:
So a one note I mo made was intention versus ego.
Peter:
And so I think that's the caveat is just because the ego says it wants a thing doesn't mean that that's going to happen.
Ryan:
Right.
Peter:
Because.
Peter:
And I'm not sure why.
Peter:
I'm not sure why.
Peter:
I think because the ego doesn't understand conditions.
Peter:
I think the ego doesn't understand how to work with conditions.
Peter:
And it tends to get stuck in conditions and basically create its own roadblocks.
Peter:
Like, I want this, but I'm going to keep on doing this thing that I'm used to doing, which is going to prevent the conditions from changing to where I want to go.
Peter:
And honestly, this is exactly what I just experienced.
Peter:
And it was very interesting because Diane actually pointed it out to me.
Peter:
Well, I feel like Diane actually pointed out to me.
Peter:
I'm not, I'm not sure that she literally did, but I definitely feel that way.
Peter:
And this, of course.
Peter:
So this is what I want to talk to you about, what I mentioned earlier about happening, but I really feel like it relates to what you're saying.
Peter:
So my example is my conflict with my daughter and this, you know, as I've said before, I have all this conditioning around that interaction from my childhood.
Peter:
And then I have, you know, conditioned her by the way I've behaved up till now and continue to behave as I.
Peter:
As I gradually, as you say, unravel the momentum of that.
Peter:
Of those conditions.
Peter:
The thing that happened was, you know, I having this expectation of her behavior to be different, and I want her behavior to be different now.
Peter:
Like, I'm going to explain something to you, and then I want your behavior to be different as opposed to, it will change when it's ready to change.
Peter:
It will change when the conditions around her behavior permit that outcome.
Peter:
It's the cause and effect, but not recognizing that I am meanwhile maintaining the conditions, the very conditions that result in that behavior.
Peter:
I mean, it's not just my input, but it's, you know, all of the inputs impinging on this.
Peter:
And Diane said.
Peter:
Diane said about a conversation that she had with a friend about her daughter, who's a friend of my daughter, and how, like, these behaviors are like, oh, she.
Peter:
This is the way what she does.
Peter:
Blah, blah, blah.
Peter:
And Diane said to me, if you complained that this wasn't changing to anyone else, they would laugh in your face.
Peter:
And that suddenly it was like a.
Peter:
Like a Ken show.
Peter:
It was like, oh, like, I mean, like, they would laugh your face.
Peter:
I'd be like, yeah, the behavior is what it is right now.
Peter:
This is the way it is right now.
Peter:
And expecting it not to be the way it is right now is that egoic opposition to reality.
Peter:
Right.
Peter:
That creates suffering and creates conflict.
Peter:
I mean, creates internal suffering, and it creates interpersonal conflict.
Ryan:
Right.
Peter:
And so I had the realization that, yeah, just because.
Peter:
So the egoic assumption is.
Peter:
Or the parental assumption is the fear that because she's doing this right now, and because I'm unable to teach her not to do this right now, that means she's not going to.
Peter:
She's incapable of learning it.
Peter:
So she's always going to be that way.
Peter:
Which, you know, I see you smiling and it's like, yeah, of course.
Peter:
And to be fair, I did have a very pleasant experience with her a few weeks ago where she just come out and said something about getting better at change, which is something that has been a deep concern of mine.
Peter:
I'm like, oh, my gosh, she's really bad at handling change.
Peter:
It's just not a good way to be.
Peter:
Blah, blah, blah.
Peter:
And I was kind of worried, like, oh, this is the kind of person she is.
Peter:
And suddenly she was like, yeah, I noticed that it's not so difficult ending the summer, and I'm looking forward to the fall.
Peter:
And that's very different from.
Peter:
And she commented like, oh, this is different for me.
Peter:
Like, I'm suddenly feeling better about change.
Peter:
And I was like, oh, my God.
Peter:
And so connecting that to the current conflict of wanting her to be different.
Peter:
And then Diane's comment, I realized, yeah, it's going to happen.
Peter:
It's not never going to happen just because I don't see it happen.
Ryan:
Right.
Peter:
And it just won't necessarily happen when I want it to happen or even when I can see it happen.
Peter:
It might happen when I can't see it and then it'll just be there.
Ryan:
Right.
Peter:
Hopefully not after I die.
Peter:
But.
Peter:
But, you know, and, and so since then, I've had a lot more spaciousness around this.
Peter:
Air quotes, unacceptable behavior.
Peter:
And just remind myself, well, that's the way it is right now.
Peter:
And knowing that by creating that spaciousness, I'm changing the conditions, and so I'm enabling the change that I'm egoically struggling for.
Peter:
So egoically struggling for the change is actually preventing the change and kind of having some karmic insight, applying some wisdom to it and seeing the thing the way things really are and accepting the way things are right now, right now, then that's unblocking, that's unraveling the momentum, as you say, that is removing some of the conditions that are preventing the change that I want to see.
Peter:
And in a way, it's that kind of paradoxical, don't do anything and then things will happen, kind of.
Peter:
That kind of sense.
Peter:
And it's hard to.
Peter:
It's.
Peter:
It's not saying, just sit in your room and don't do anything and everything will come to you.
Peter:
It's not that.
Peter:
It's more.
Peter:
And it's not, don't make any effort at all.
Peter:
And don't do any.
Peter:
Don't take any actions that are directed towards what you want.
Peter:
It's not saying that it's.
Peter:
Boy, I really have to think about what it is, what it is.
Peter:
It's.
Peter:
It's a sense of not struggling with it.
Ryan:
Ah.
Peter:
It's not grasping the intention.
Peter:
And okay, so that was something else that you said, intention.
Peter:
So one of the lessons that I have from this year is the pen of intention.
Peter:
And the idea is you have your open palm up and you place a pen on it just by will of illustration.
Peter:
It's the pen.
Peter:
And that if you grasp it in your fist tightly, you lose.
Peter:
It's not exactly a metaphor, it's just a sense of how to be.
Peter:
And that when we grasp something tightly in our fist as an intention, it becomes, I guess, constrained by conditions in terms of what we are currently saying, it becomes kind of karmically inhibited.
Peter:
Oh God, I'm using such crazy language nowadays.
Peter:
But if you open your hand and let it rest there, you know, you have the feeling of, well, it's less secure and it could fall off.
Peter:
And it's like, yeah, it could fall off.
Peter:
Then you can pick it up again and you place it back in your hand.
Peter:
And that's kind of the way to hold intention skillfully.
Peter:
That it's not that you don't have an intention, it's not that you don't take any action, is that you take action and you have your intention for the result just being sitting there.
Peter:
And if it falls off, you pick it up and you put it back.
Peter:
But you don't grasp and say it must be this way because then that creates your suffering.
Peter:
And also what I'm realizing in the context of this current conversation, I would describe it as creates karmic blockage.
Peter:
And I don't know if that's a particularly helpful thing to say given that we really haven't talked about karma that much.
Peter:
Like, what does it really mean?
Peter:
I know what it means.
Peter:
Like I have a very saying that feels right to me, but that doesn't mean it's going to mean something to someone else.
Peter:
Hearing me say that, that's what I'm.
Peter:
That that's what I'm a little hesitant about.
Peter:
But I think you did touch on intention and manifestation.
Peter:
And I think the distinction is that clenched fist of ego versus the open hand of wise spaciousness, of being open to karmic flow as opposed to demanding egoic outcome.
Peter:
And the reason for that is because the ego wants to reinforce existing conditions.
Peter:
It says that I want to change these conditions and I'm going to change them, but it doesn't see that by doing that.
Peter:
And it is taking actions that are working towards this different outcome.
Peter:
But at the same time, and probably or often more importantly, it's imposing these old patterns that lock in that inertia so that you can't, as you said, unravel the momentum.
Peter:
You just, you're putting more inertia on the process and slowing change by being over attached to outcome.
Peter:
Okay, I'm gonna pause.
Ryan:
So how does that land the first?
Ryan:
I have a couple of things, but I agree and I appreciate the anecdote as well as the insight.
Ryan:
What I was just thinking was how the momentum is continued through fear.
Ryan:
I mean, we've talked about fear frequently and the dichotomy of ego, both grasping for change and vehemently fearing that same change, or fearing the change in conditions to which it senses there's an unknown, even though there's an intention to make those changes.
Ryan:
Is that the illustration or the outward expression of the ego grasp that you're grasping onto conditions, that it feels comforted by what is currently known and knows what to expect, and so it fears the change in what is potentially unknown or the infinite variables of things that could happen, even though there is a direct intention to exit the current conditions.
Peter:
So I think on a superficial level, we can talk about fear of the unknown on a psychological level, but I don't think that's really the operative.
Peter:
The operative principle.
Peter:
I think the issue is that the ego doesn't understand.
Peter:
So I use the word condition, the words conditions and conditioning.
Peter:
And, you know, people have said, oh, so when you say conditioning, you really mean the ego.
Peter:
And I'm like, yeah.
Peter:
And that what the ego really is fearing is its own dissolution.
Peter:
Because the opening to karma, the.
Peter:
The shift from being tight and constrained in progress, I just have this image of like, restricted flow.
Peter:
Okay?
Peter:
There's a shift from that way of being to being accepting of the way things are and opens to the way things can change.
Peter:
And that opening, that shift is a dissolution of ego.
Peter:
And so in reality, the way for the ego to get what it wants is to stop being an ego.
Peter:
Like, ultimately, you're.
Peter:
Exactly, and I think we've talked about this before, that the ego actually seeks its own death and fears its own death at the same time.
Peter:
Like, the only way it knows that the only way it can stop suffering is to let go of itself, right?
Peter:
And that's what it fears.
Peter:
And so I would describe it more as that than as fear of change.
Peter:
Now, I think that's completely true.
Peter:
On superficial level, there's a fear of change, but I don't think that that's as significant to the nature change that we're talking about.
Ryan:
I also.
Ryan:
When you started.
Ryan:
So you started out describing egoic intention or intention from what the ego.
Ryan:
And I have a sense, and I'm interested in your perspective of.
Ryan:
So certainly there are things that ego wants and then the sense that there's an inner, higher wisdom, inner self, soul, whatever we want to describe it as, that there's intentions that come from deeper within the spiritual self.
Ryan:
And so I guess my question to you is, do you think that there is a distinction in source of intention?
Ryan:
And does that have any bearing on the efficacy of the path and the change itself?
Ryan:
You know, is it that there are things that Ego wants.
Ryan:
But then deep down inside our higher self actually is rejecting that is part of what is making the change to that or making the block to that change.
Ryan:
Which then leads to frustration of the ego and grasping and trying to stick the, you know, square peg in a round hole kind of thing.
Ryan:
Square peg, not pig.
Ryan:
And.
Ryan:
Or are we proposing that kind of all intention has root in an egoic source?
Ryan:
I guess that's my question.
Peter:
Yeah.
Peter:
I think this is really interesting because I had a conversation recently about desire.
Peter:
And to be honest, it was a topic in the course in the certification program recently.
Peter:
We talked about desire and I had a personal conversation about it.
Peter:
And so I think what this conversation is bringing me to is that we can equate intention with desire.
Peter:
Okay.
Peter:
And I'm not sure that's always thing, but in the context of what we're talking about, I'm going to equate, it's telling me to equate intention with desire.
Peter:
And so, you know, the common, the common concept of spiritual teaching, right, is that desire is bad.
Peter:
We have to get rid of desire.
Peter:
But I think really the distinction is between wholesome or wise desire and egoic desire, which is the same as that you just said intention, egoic intention versus wise intention or inner, you know, intention from inner wisdom.
Peter:
So for instance, desiring world world peace is not necessarily can be an egoic desire, but by itself it's.
Peter:
Wanting to be happy is not unwholesome.
Peter:
Wanting to be happy is what consciousness wants.
Peter:
And so, you know, there can be specific desires that are egoic.
Peter:
And the example that I was using was fountain pens.
Peter:
I've taken up my fountain pen hobby again and I suddenly found that I had ordered like, oh my God, I didn't realize I have five fountain pens on the way.
Peter:
Like, that's crazy.
Peter:
Just to say these are not expensive high end pads.
Peter:
They're pretty inexpensive, but still, 5 is quite a few.
Peter:
Like, I just kind of like, oh, I like that one.
Peter:
No, let me get this one.
Peter:
Now there's a couple of aspects to that.
Peter:
There is this superficial egoic desire of like I just described.
Peter:
Ooh, I like that.
Peter:
I want, I want, right?
Peter:
Which is absolutely the result of all kinds of conditioning.
Peter:
I mean, literally, I'm looking online at pictures of nice looking things.
Peter:
I'm reading about them and it's like, oh, it's exciting.
Peter:
I like this feature.
Peter:
Or this is such a great bargain.
Peter:
Two of them were buy one, get one off.
Peter:
You know, buy one, get one free.
Peter:
So it was like, oh, it's such a Great bargain.
Peter:
I can't not buy it.
Peter:
This is all condition desire.
Peter:
Right.
Peter:
But why did I really want these?
Peter:
I mean, the reason I started getting them was because I made a commitment to start journaling.
Peter:
And I thought that paper journaling would be more productive for me right now than digital journaling.
Peter:
So I'm making a shift and having pens that I enjoy using are going to support.
Peter:
They're going to encourage me to make that shift and develop this wholesome habit and practice.
Peter:
And I am actually finding that to be true, that it's not like, oh, I'll buy a lot of pens.
Peter:
And, you know, and then it's like, oh, now I have all these pens, now I can go do something else.
Peter:
It's like, no, actually, I.
Peter:
Because of the nature of my intention, I'm actually.
Peter:
The pens are actually supporting the wholesome habit.
Peter:
So there's that kind of an intention where if I don't get caught up in the buying and the marketing and the, you know, all the aspects of kind of the conditioned aspects of the thing, if I don't get caught up in that and I just take the pen and I use the pen and I let go of the other stuff, then it actually works.
Peter:
Like, now the pen is actually supporting my journaling, and my journaling is actually supporting my insight.
Peter:
And, you know, like the story I told about my daughter, this is stuff that I wrote out and I like.
Peter:
By writing it, I kind of reinforced the learning of it and I reinforced my ability to come into the next day and say, oh, yes, this is the way things are right now.
Peter:
And so, boy, I feel like I digress quite a bit there.
Peter:
So the question.
Peter:
What was the original question about whether.
Ryan:
There is the inner intention versus the go.
Peter:
Right, Right.
Peter:
And so, yes, so.
Peter:
So here I.
Peter:
I think.
Peter:
I think this is an example of two kinds of desire in the same thing.
Peter:
Literally in the same object.
Ryan:
Right?
Peter:
Right.
Peter:
I have the desire.
Peter:
I have the grasping, egoic desire around the pen as material, something I saw marketed to me.
Peter:
Right.
Peter:
And it's designed in a, you know, attractive way and all this stuff.
Peter:
And then at the same time, there's a desire to have a tool that encourages my work.
Peter:
Right.
Peter:
And my desire to do the work is wholesome, and my desire to support my work is wholesome.
Peter:
And so as long as I don't get caught up and I literally stop and say, okay, I am not going to buy, I'm not going to do.
Peter:
Well, I can't say, I'm not going to do any more shopping because I.
Peter:
I Am still window shopping, but it's like, I'm not going to buy another one, you know, until sometime that seems appropriate, whatever that means.
Peter:
And so I intentionally separated from that egoic involvement, and yet I'm maintaining this, like, kind of a skillful engagement with the ego, which is to say, I like this pen.
Peter:
I admire it.
Peter:
I like the way it feels.
Peter:
I like using it.
Peter:
Like I have enjoyment out of that which is part of my ego.
Peter:
But by feeding my ego a little bit, you know, giving the ego a healthy snack, then I can meet my wholesome.
Peter:
I can move towards my wholesome goal of journaling and insight.
Ryan:
So, yes, go ahead.
Ryan:
I guess that kind of speaks to.
Ryan:
I'm drawing a blank on the word.
Ryan:
Like religious people and spiritual people hold.
Ryan:
Renounce.
Ryan:
Renunciation.
Peter:
Renunciation, yes.
Ryan:
That's the word I was thinking of.
Ryan:
And it seems like what you're describing and what may be a very productive way in moving forward in the greater path, greater meaning, the higher path, not necessarily of more value, is to not fight the ego.
Ryan:
Give.
Ryan:
You know, b.
Ryan:
I guess this also touches on the Master and his emissary, right?
Ryan:
Where we're allowing a partnership between the material ego and the higher self to coexist, but the higher self isn't letting go of the leash, per se.
Ryan:
Right.
Ryan:
There's.
Ryan:
There's a.
Ryan:
And I guess leash is probably a harsher term or illustration, but the idea that through so.
Ryan:
So renunciation means kind of starving the ego, which can create further egoic obstructions and challenges.
Ryan:
And that may be a skillful way to move forward with the least amount of friction is to actually cooperate to some degree with the egoic mind.
Peter:
So great.
Peter:
Yes.
Peter:
And I love the tie into master and Emissary.
Peter:
And I think the leash is.
Peter:
I mean, the point in terms of.
Peter:
In terms of mastering Emissary.
Peter:
Right.
Peter:
The right.
Peter:
We're.
Peter:
We're talking right brain, left brain.
Peter:
And the idea is that the Master is actually the right brain.
Peter:
The right brain, which has no language, sees the whole picture and has the plan.
Peter:
But because the Emissary has the voice, the left brain, it takes over and it pretends.
Peter:
It actually deludes itself into thinking it's the Master.
Peter:
And so what we're talking about is returning control to the Master and removing power from the Emissary.
Peter:
So in that sense, yeah, the master has to keep the Emissary on leash.
Peter:
The Master has to constrain in some way the emissary, because left to itself, the Emissary takes everything for itself and denies the existence of the Master.
Ryan:
Right.
Peter:
So.
Peter:
So that's one thing, renunciation that I really like, I wanted.
Peter:
So I think like with desire, I think the you, the word is misapplied.
Peter:
I don't want to say it's misunderstood because I think a lot of people intend it this way and absolutely a lot of religious leaders intend it this way.
Peter:
So they're not being misunderstood.
Peter:
But I think they are misapplying the word that renunciation does not going back to the analogy of the pen of intention, right.
Peter:
It doesn't mean flinging the pen across the room because you can't have it.
Peter:
That's not what renunciation is.
Peter:
Renunciation is letting go of the grasping.
Peter:
So it's the, it's the movement from closed fist grasping to open handed resting.
Peter:
That is renunciation.
Peter:
Renunciation is the opening of the fist.
Peter:
It is saying, I am not clinging to this.
Peter:
It is here and I can use it while it's here and it's fine knowing that it will fall away.
Peter:
That's what renunciation is.
Peter:
It's the release of the grasp.
Peter:
Not I'm going to dump this, right?
Peter:
I'm going to turn my hand over so the pen falls to the floor because it's no good.
Peter:
I'm going to fling the pen across the room because I have to get rid of the pen.
Peter:
No, that's, that's my understanding is that renunciation is just the act of relaxing the grasp.
Peter:
So it's different from renouncing.
Peter:
I renounce you, I cast you out.
Peter:
You have no relationship to you.
Peter:
It's.
Peter:
And so I think in this context that's difference, or rather that's the real meaning of renunciation.
Ryan:
Interesting.
Peter:
And just to point to a teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh wrote about the Eightfold Path.
Peter:
And one of the steps of the Eightfold Path is right mind.
Peter:
And he defined it, or right thought.
Peter:
He defined right thought as renunciation.
Peter:
And the way I understand that now is why I'm describing is that it's not casting things away, but having the thought, the nature of mind that is not clinging.
Peter:
It's the mind of renunciation, the open handed mind.
Peter:
So I think that's where I started think your renunciation that way.
Peter:
When I read that originally, it was some years ago when I read that from Thich Nhat Hanh, I didn't really get it.
Peter:
You know, I really thought it was more about, oh, you know, avoid this and avoid that as renunciation.
Peter:
Like, I'm not going to do this anymore, I'm renouncing that.
Peter:
And now I think that this other understanding is more appropriate.
Ryan:
Avoidance in and of itself is a clinging of sort.
Ryan:
Right.
Ryan:
I mean, that's exactly an idea.
Peter:
That's, that's my point is that people interpret renunciation as aversion.
Ryan:
Right.
Peter:
And aversion is in reality a kind of clinging.
Ryan:
Right, right.
Ryan:
I, I found it interesting.
Ryan:
I'm going to switch gears just slightly and see if we can wrap this up here.
Ryan:
You had mentioned.
Ryan:
So in karma and the idea of karma and the definition of karma, of which there's many, and I'm not saying any of them is absolute or, you know, the right idea, but what I do appreciate about the, the sense that I got and the general principle or philosophy of the Buddha or Buddhist tradition around karma as effect to the cause is a.
Ryan:
I'm going to use value language, but I don't like using it.
Ryan:
But I think it's a better or more valuable way to, A valuable perspective to take because I feel like at least among, you know, the lay population, karma is interpreted as this punitive thing that there's retaliation.
Ryan:
And that's, I was bad and I did bad things, so now I have to pay my dues.
Ryan:
And I think this idea of the unraveling of momentum and the fact that karma isn't a punitive thing and it's not retaliatory, but is just, it just is a function of the effects to things that were causal and you need to slow the momentum over time working through the karma, which is working through the effects and bring, you know, slowing that train before changes can really be seen and experience.
Ryan:
So I found that to be an interesting, an interesting position that I resonate with and I think is a generally more positive experience of the idea of karma.
Peter:
Yeah, I mean, so I agree with you that, you know, the negative view of karma is definitely the popular culture view.
Peter:
And I think that's because it's very easy and satisfying.
Peter:
It's easy to see a negative outcome happening because of a negative behavior.
Peter:
Right.
Peter:
And then you're like, yeah, he deserved that.
Peter:
And so it's an easy but completely incomplete illustration of karmic effect.
Peter:
Right.
Peter:
And the, the other aspect of karma that I think is less part of popular culture but still part of it and definitely part of, I would say, maybe spiritual culture.
Peter:
Like people who talk about karma is the inevitability of it now, it's inevitable in the sense of conditions give rise to a reality and in the sense of, like what I was talking before, like the way it is right now is inevitable.
Peter:
There are conditionings leading to the way it is right now.
Peter:
And it is that way right now.
Peter:
It can't not be that way right now.
Peter:
That's the inevitability of it, Right.
Peter:
It doesn't mean that you can't now work on the conditions.
Peter:
As I was saying, right.
Peter:
We, if we get the ego out of the way, we can effectively work on changing the conditions that led to the thing that we don't want.
Peter:
And by changing those conditions in a non egoic way, or changing them without the interference, the active interference of the ego, we can then affect a different circumstance.
Peter:
And so in that sense it is inevitable.
Peter:
But it doesn't mean that's the way it always has to be.
Peter:
That's the thing, right.
Peter:
It's because things are impermanent.
Peter:
But I think that's another popular misunderstanding.
Peter:
Karma, right?
Peter:
Doom.
Peter:
You're doomed because of karma.
Peter:
It's like if, if you don't correct, then yes, you know, it is inevitable given the conditions.
Peter:
But now you can work on the conditions so that the future outcome is different.
Ryan:
I just had a geeky quality thing come to mind about the system produces what it was designed to produce.
Peter:
Yes, exactly.
Ryan:
You know, and so until you change the system, it will continue to produce all the errors or non errors that it was fully designed to create.
Ryan:
And that it's not the outcome that is the thing to be judged and not that we should judge, but it's not the outcome that needs to be fixed, but that the system, if revised appropriately, will lead to outcomes that are different.
Peter:
So to get a little geekier too, you kind of can't change the system from within the system.
Peter:
So it's like if you have a computer program that's not working the right way, you can't change some settings in the program and make it work.
Peter:
You can't do it from within.
Peter:
You have to get outside, go into the actual language of the program and change the program itself.
Peter:
Right, Right.
Peter:
And, and I think, you know, what the ego tries to do is oh, I have all the settings I need.
Peter:
Right, Right.
Peter:
I can just tweak.
Peter:
I just have to, you know, open another menu and tweak some more settings and it's going to work.
Peter:
It's like, no, there's something inherently like there is karmic cause that has to be addressed.
Ryan:
Right.
Peter:
And once you address that, then things can work better.
Ryan:
Well, hopefully that didn't drive off the rails too hard at the end there for people who may not be coming from that perspective, but it did come to mind for me.
Ryan:
I really enjoyed this conversation.
Ryan:
I think this is a cool topic and I think that we sussed out some interesting details around it.
Ryan:
I hope that the listener did as well.
Ryan:
And thank you Peter for engaging me.
Peter:
Thank you.
Ryan:
Very interesting conversation.
Peter:
Did you love it?
Peter:
Thanks.
Ryan:
Yeah, no problem.
Ryan:
If you have any comments off your own on this conversation, we welcome them in the comments.
Ryan:
Or you can email us at infotrackingwisdom.com follow us on social media and like our episodes.
Ryan:
The links for any resources that we have that were mentioned will be in description or show notes and we'll see you guys next time.
Peter:
Thank you for listening to the Tracking Wisdom podcast.
Peter:
Join us next time as we continue the discussion.
Peter:
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