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Michael Taft: Welcome to the podcast for meta-modern mutants involved in meditation, neuroscience, Mahamudra, Alastair Reynolds, tantra, Zen, nonduality, awakening, and far rather more. My name is Michael Taft, your host on the podcast, and on this episode, I’m glad to be speaking with Henry Shukman.
Henry Shukman is a teacher within the Sanbo Zen lineage and is the Guiding Teacher of Mountain Cloud Zen Center in Santa Fe, Recent Mexico. Henry is an award-winning poet and creator of several books, including , which details his spiritual journey and is superb, I would add. Henry’s struggles with traumatic experiences as a youth, combined with a spontaneous awakening experience at age 19, paved the way in which for him to develop a well-rounded approach to spirituality and meditation, one that features love for self and the world as its foundation. And now without further ado, I offer you the episode that I call, “Talking about Zen Koans, with Henry Shukman.”
Michael Taft: Henry, welcome to the podcast.
Henry Shukman: Thanks very much. It’s great to be with you.
MT: Yeah. Where are you situated at this moment?
HS: I’m in my little room where I meditate and do some writing and are inclined to emails and so forth like that in our house in Santa Fe, Recent Mexico.
MT: Ahhh, what a stupendous place
HS: Yeah, we’re getting some beautiful stormy rainy weather right away. It’s unbelievable.
MT: I used to live in Colorado and I’d go right down to Santa Fe quite a bit. A pair times I went to Upaya Zen Center there, but you’re at a distinct Zen center.
HS: Yeah, that’s right. I like Upaya actually. I used to do some teaching there and a whole lot of sitting there earlier in my life. But I got invited in as a teacher to a spot called Mountain Cloud Zen Center. It’s about three miles or less from where I live. Also not removed from Upaya. It’s an interesting place. It was in-built the mid-eighties. It claims to be the primary purpose-built zendo west of the Mississippi River. There are after all zendos that predate it but they weren’t’ purpose-built. That’s what they claim.
MT: They were like farmhouses or whatever.
HS: Exactly, conversions. It was built by a bunch of Philip Kapleau’s students. Kapleau moved out here within the early eighties and even the late seventies, exploring whether he desired to live here, considering he did. They usually built this beautiful adobe zendo with a couple of cabins and dining room and add-ons of varied kinds. After which he had to return to Rochester, his home base, up until then. And it got type of forged adrift for quite a lot of years from about ‘85 or ‘86, when it opened its doors until 2010, after I was invited in. It never quite had a gentle zen teacher, zen sangha presence. Teachers got here and went and other people would rent it for retreats and things. But since then, the last ten or eleven years it’s been a streadier thing and it’s grown quite a bit actually. It’s been great to see a community really coming alive across the place.
MT: And what tradition is it under, if any?
HS: Yeah. It’s essentially the one which I’m authorized in, which is a Zen school and lineage called Sanbo Zen, which suggests . It’s actually the identical one which Philip Kapleau trained in. Robert Aitken Roshi trained in it as well. It’s been quite well established, I believe you could possibly say, within the West, anyway within the US. Maezumi Roshi, a widely known Zen teacher, who lived within the US for greater than 20 years, I believe. He had trained in that college as well, amongst others. And so our method has been disseminated here to some extent. You might say there have been successive waves of its teaching coming here. I believe it will be fair to say I’m in the newest wave, because it were. The variety of us, my generation or a little bit older than myself, who’ve recently been authorized over the past decade or two to show. So, I do this and I’m a bit eclectic as well, I even have other things I’ve trained in over a few years. Yeah, I do the core zen stuff, but I do greater than that as well.
MT: Now, I’ve seen on the app, you’ve this whole series on Koans. I’ve listened to a few of it. There’s quite a lot of sessions in there, and it’s really cool. I very much enjoyed listening to it. Is that representative of the principal way you teach or is it a little bit narrower since it is just Koans?
HS: Yeah, it’s each/and. In a way, it’s not the traditional way we work with koans, actually.
MT: Sure
HS: What I’m doing there was an attempt to provide people a flavor of sitting with a koan who had never done it. And I felt in a way it was analogous to what would occur live and in-person. Perhaps they’re coming to a Zen center they usually’re hearing a weekly talk for instance. And it may possibly be on a koan. So that they’re getting some familiarity or some flavor of quite a lot of different koans. So I try to provide people a flavor of that while also having some sense of; how do you really sit with this stuff, and what are they for anyway? And it was an exciting experiment to be invited to do. I shouldn’t overemphasize how experimental it’s. It’s probably not. But just doing it on an app was form of thrilling. (Laughter) Normally it’s been a lot an in-person thing.
MT: And would you say that the principal way that it’s different is there is no such thing as a dokusan or no interviews with a teacher? It’s just you’re putting it on the market. You’re describing the koan and putting the koan on the market and alluring people to analyze it, and giving them some idea of the best way to investigate it, but that back-and-forth interviewing process with the teacher is the principal missing element? Or are there other big things about it which are just very different?
HS: No, that might be the principal missing element, but let’s say for instance at Mountain Cloud Zen Center under pre-Covid conditions we’d have a weekly sit with a chat. And typically in any weekly sit there’s a hardcore group of die-hard practitioners who’re there, then there’s a broader circle that features people who find themselves in training, meaning; they meet with a teacher but not that always. After which there’s a wider group, a bigger group actually of parents who just want to return hear a chat. They usually may come every week or they might not come every week but they rarely, if ever, meet with a teacher.
MT: Is it almost like they wish to go to church?
HS: (Laughter) I believe they need their communal sitting they usually want their little hit of Zen Dharma, well, let’s hope something that might roughly be called wisdom, from a teacher. Just get a little bit hit of that. And that’s enough, though it’s different levels of engagement. So I used to be considering when it comes to the app, I used to be attempting to type of replicate for that group. So that they are getting this hit, they’re getting a taste. And that’s great if that infuses, inspires, encourages their practice not directly. Implausible. I assume it’s unlikely to do any great harm.
MT: No, they’re awesome, they’re really cool to hearken to. I enjoyed, at the least those I’ve heard, quite a bit. I’m involved in the length of them. They’re very short. Each of those little sessions. Were you encouraged to make these little bite-sized chunks? Or was that how you made the choice you desired to do it?
HS: The aim was around about ten minutes per session. I don’t really know but it surely seems to me from my sampling around from different apps. There may be type of the ten-minute meditation. It’s standard for novice meditators on apps.
MT: At most. That appears to be the upper limit. It’s interesting that you just are literally using each of those short sessions to guide people through an extended strategy of learning to work with koans and unpacking different koans. It’s an entire series that isn’t only a bunch of unconnected pieces. You’ve got all of them lined up in a logical order, or at the least an order that makes some form of sense.
HS: Yes, I hope that’s right, that was my aspiration. I can inform you that I’ve had incredible feedback on it. Tons of and tons of of individuals have written to say how much it’s meant to them and it’s extraordinary. I mean the ability of those strange little phrases amongst individuals who previously weren’t acquainted with them or could have heard of such a thing as a koan but no real idea of what it was, and finding that through sitting with them–the report I often hear is that one particular one form of stuck with it they usually may need listened to it repeatedly on the app, or they may need not been listening to it but had it at the back of their minds through the day or within the front of their minds. And folks get unexpected shifts occur, either while listening or not while listening, while reflecting later. It will probably occur. So I feel really thrilled that the experiment, so to talk, has been successful in that sense.
MT: It doesn’t surprise me. I believe the principal thing that’s so interesting, and it was surprising after I first began listening to the series, was just the short length. Now I’ve been involved in a lot of app projects. A few of them from the start and a few of them well-known apps. And over time a very predictable sequence occurs with the content. After I began doing this it was not predictable to me but now I see that many apps are inclined to go within the direction of getting many short sessions but most of them unconnected to one another. So as a substitute of individuals learning to meditate or learning the best way to work with koans, it’s what I call “my dog barfed on the rug” meditation. Meaning there’s a special meditation for each situation that might possibly occur in life. (Laughter) And it’s like there appears to be no sense that you could possibly learn a more general strategy to work, . So it’s like, Oh, here’s all of the sessions for anxiety or break-up grief. Or here’s all these sessions for this other very specific thing that might occur in your life.
I understand the form of market logic of it that individuals just want pain relief they don’t necessarily wish to learn to meditate. And that’s where it tends to go. It’s something I like on the app normally but any app where there’s long series which are unpacking an actual way of working is just wonderful. That’s a rather more powerful direction. And so I used to be very very happy that, again I haven’t listened to the entire thing, but that’s teaching people the best way to use this manner of working or the best way to learn to sit down in a koan style, or nevertheless you may say that. Reasonably than, here’s fifty individual koans, go for it.
HS: Yeah, well I’m really satisfied to listen to you say that. And I get it too. Yeah, we’ve got to acknowledge that as meditation practice is proliferating through, broadly speaking, Western or Westernized populations, it’s not surprising to me that the bottom common denominator of use could be getting most airplay. That meditation as low cost therapy, as quick strategy to down-regulate the nervous system, as an intervention when stress is simply too much. And I believe it’s a great thing.
MT: Nothing mistaken with that.
HS: Nothing mistaken with that in any way. The one issue may very well be if that occludes the deeper possibilities inside meditation. And I’d say, I’m sure on the entire it doesn’t. If people stick around, they get the thought, oh wait a minute, this doesn’t need to just be a band-aid, actually, you may retrain your mind, your brain, your nervous system. And never only that but you may start a journey, you may embark on a most remarkable journey. Reasonably than patches to assist us when our well-being is thoroughly disturbed, towards cultivating a steadier well-being after which even steadier after which moving toward unconditional well-being, which is a most remarkable thing. And meditation is a premiere strategy to access that. I believe the proven fact that that’s a possibility is becoming an increasing number of well known.
I believe an app like deserves credit for putting some sense of the experience of awakening, or the potential for awakening, and what that’s, right at the middle of the project of the app. It’s really remarkable. I don’t know that one other one goes anywhere near that. It’s right out front. The aim of this app is to show you how to taste a most remarkable thing that’s going to be a discovery in regards to the sense of self you assume you’ve been all these many years. That’s pretty radical.
MT: It’s pretty radical, yeah.
HS: Right. And it’s finding its audience. I find that just superb, really.
MT: Me too, and I believe that the proven fact that it is largely curated by one one who doesn’t need to make use of it necessarily to generate income or to make an IPO occur, or whatever, has quite a bit to do with why the content is in a position to be focused in that direction quite than the relief-of-the-moment thing. But again, I agree that an enormous number of individuals getting some pain relief within the moment goes to steer to numerous people engaging more deeply over time. And so, even that’s a great thing.
HS: Yeah, exactly.
MT: Now, there’s also the opposite side which is that some people report having a difficult time arising, apparently, out of their meditation practice. There was an enormous article recently on Substack a couple of guy who had a really, very, very hard time at a meditation retreat which then lasted for years afterwards. And his only recourse appeared to be to stop meditating entirely, to go on psych meds, and so forth. And I’m just curious, are you seeing any of any such thing at your zendo? It seems very rare to me but it surely gets a whole lot of attention, after all, for a great reason.
HS: Yeah, a part of me desires to say, I mean, what’s the massive surprise? I personally have–I believe it is a component of the trail of growth that we’d undergo difficult things. I don’t see how we hope to be growing in any significant way without having difficult experiences. It seems to me that it’s built into any serious spiritual training, that you just would need to have difficult times. Otherwise, you may’t grow.
The issue is that there was a lot marketing of mindfulness which has turn into commercialized and sold as a universal panacea. Yeah, if people have paid good money for this thing, after which they’re having a lousy time, they understandably feel short-changed or consternation that it’s not delivering as promised. Whether it is being presented as this quick-fix then fair enough, there’s a pretext for disappointment. But whether it is being presented, because it traditionally has been, which is as a path of growth, of development, of change, of transformation. Our experience of being human isn’t fixed. We may, broadly speaking, have some personality traits that we are available with, or we develop early, but man, quite a bit can change and the trail of meditation practice is a well-trodden path of change for us humans.
No one actually within the old days pretended it was easy. And why wouldn’t it be, really? If we’re serious about it as a path of growth we’ve got to deal with the stuff that is tough to face. It’s about coping with the hard stuff. In some traditions that’s it’s, you simply deal together with your difficult patterns and straighten them out and release them and . In some traditions, there’s more emphasis on the wonderful possibilities, that you just expand into, and so forth. Probably in most traditions, there’s a balance of each. You possibly can see if you happen to just extract one little tiny piece of the practice that makes up your complete path of growth and say, Hey, this will make you are feeling so good and it doesn’t take long and it’s low cost and it’s easy. Actually, it so happens that if any individual is doing a retreat for the primary time after which hits something difficult and it doesn’t feel easy after which the retreat is over they usually are still carrying this thing. In fact, that’s difficult but it surely also doesn’t surprise me that it will occur.
The answer is within the old way, where you’re engaged in a community that’s following this practice. You’ve probably got some reference to a guide, or multiple guide, who know the territory, and also you’re not a lot in a industrial transaction.
MT: Yes.
HS: You might be a part of something really and so firstly, what happened to you wouldn’t be so remarkable or surprising. It could be to you, but to not the others. They’ve seen all of it before. And that alone is perhaps very reassuring and there can be steps to follow up with. But if you happen to’ve just paid your money, done your retreat, and gone home, with none follow-up, with none connection to a guide or the community then it’s possible you’ll feel on your individual and “what am I imagined to do now,” type of thing.
I can relate to that really, because early on in my training I did do a session with a specific teacher where something very beautiful and powerful happened to me on that retreat. You recognize, a fantastic existential discovery. And it was blissful for some time period, so months after no problem. But then it began to get kind of adverse, how am I imagined to incorporate this weird discovery in my life? And truly, it took a while. The one solution, ultimately, was to have interaction with a teacher who’d been there and knew the landscape.
MT: Yeah. I believe that all of us expect to unearth some difficult material and need to have the opportunity to work with that and actually, within the traditions there’s a lot material about that being the richest a part of the experience that results in a few of the deepest stuff.
However, a few of what individuals are reporting something I might classify more like psychiatric distress.
HS: Right.
MT: And again, it’s not an enormous number but it surely makes me think that perhaps our modern way of delivering the fabric through books and apps, and infrequently with out a guide, and infrequently with out a sangha, and all that, is resulting in some more of this experience than we’d otherwise see.
HS: I believe it is sensible that that might be the case. As numbers increase, simply, the numbers of practitioners increase the probabilities of this sort of thing go up. They usually’re increasing, in a way, because we’re moving beyond the model of one-to-one training.
MT: Yep.
HS: So an app could be a first-rate example of that. As you say, books too, not to say YouTube. I do know that there are measures in place already like Willoughby Britton’s got this place, Cheetah House at Brown University, that’s type of fielding casualties of mindfulness retreats.
MT: That’s the premiere place within the States.
HS: Right, so I’m afraid to say we’re probably going to wish an app similar to that. (Laughter) But I mean really it’s a hazard of the scaling-it-all-up, isn’t it?
MT: Yeah, what is perhaps a minute percentage overall finally ends up being a big number of individuals in absolute numbers, because the variety of practitioners go up.
HS: I’ve been excited about having some form of way of fielding anybody who feels they need some input and guidance that I’d call So for anybody who’s having any form of need for guidance, for coaching, that they’d have a simple place to go–Mindfulness Beyond the App. Just go there and we can have some type of system for farming people out to coaches and guides.
MT: Yeah, I’m hearing a whole lot of this type of thing being talked about. I believe some apps want to include it as type of an in-app purchase, like, okay, you would like a coach to show you how to with this, or you wish a guide, here you go. Other people, as you were saying, could also be providing a click-here and sign-up system, or something. But it surely does look like that’s becoming more obligatory. Yeah.
HS: By the way in which that may occur for the difficult reasons we’ve been discussing, but in addition for excellent reasons, because if any individual has an earth-shaking awakening, they may possibly feel a bit unsteady and a helping hand may very well be just as necessary then.
MT: Absolutely. And for the whole lot in between. People have questions, people have misunderstandings in regards to the practice, or just wish to have a guide. All of that makes perfect sense. I’m an enormous proponent of the one-on-one model and have seen how helpful that has been for me and for others. It’s really form of traditional, even when we’re doing it over the phone. It’s still got the intimacy, to not be too grandiose but a few of the facets of the mind-to-mind transmission, nevertheless we would say that.
HS: Yes, exactly. Yeah, actually in Zen they are saying– this notion of the three treasures; the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.
MT: The three jewels.
HS: Yes. Triratna, I suppose. Sanbo in Japanese. The second, the Dharma is framed as being primarily of two kinds–perhaps there are more, but it surely’s often spoken of this manner–one kind is generic, that might be listening to talks and reading books, and that type of thing. After which there’s a more personal kind where the “physician of the Dharma” needs to deal with your particular issues. So that is type of analogous to health, having general medicine and medical approaches and health approaches which are good for everyone but everybody individually needs a tailored approach as well.
MT: Yeah, I’m reminded of my friend, Daniel Ingram, who calls that . He’s an MD by trade and it’s definitely an interesting and delightful a part of working with folks.
Now when someone takes up the koan path is that the form of thing where a protracted, long commitment is the true strategy to actually get what that is attempting to teach you? Or is even just engagement with MU, like an easy koan and one retreat, is that also helpful? In fact, it’s helpful a little bit bit, but is koan study something that basically gives you its best results with this really long-term engagement?
HS: (Laughter) Yeah, that may be a nice query. I mean somewhat analogously to the way in which I did earlier about any Zen center, I believe any meditation center, goes to have these concentric circles of engagement. Some real die-hards, to the hardcore center who’re really in there for the long haul and the deep possibilities, and a wider group who’re form of performing some of it, but they may do other practices. They usually are a little bit bit eclectic and moving out and in. Some who just want a success from time to time. I believe it’s the identical with koan training, there are some people who find themselves in for a few years and it really helps them after which they’re gone. And there are others who’re similar to, Wow, that is my way, they usually dig right in. And others who may not even know what they’re getting from hearing about koans, but they still come to listen from time to time.
I might say, probably like with other deep types of practice, yeah, if you happen to want the most important possibilities of it, it’s prone to be a longish engagement. And the entire entire map would appear like any individual sitting with certainly one of the early koans resembling MU, it may very well be Who Am I? Or What Is This? There are a few others as well. After which once they’ve some form of breakthrough experience that is obvious enough–and it needs to be a very strong experience to be clear enough to actually start working with a teacher on the koans. But when that happens then they’ll get into the trail of coaching with a teacher. In the event that they actually need to maintain going all the way in which, so to talk, yeah, it’s a protracted time.
In the standard path, we progressively work our way through several classic collections of koans. So, it’s quite a whole lot of koans, and it takes some time, but for some, it’s the journey of a lifetime. It will probably be really, really very profound in its effects. Really living in quite a recent way.
MT: Something that I discovered interesting in your book, , in talking about your individual koan training, you mention that the koans are grouped and every group and even each individual koan is working on certain facets, or working on the person in a certain way, or teaching a certain thing. So do you are feeling that when someone has undergone all these different koans, they’ve worked through, for instance, quite a little bit of not only Dharma-type material, but in addition psychological material? Are all these koans doing the and a part of spirituality also in helping us with our emotional difficulties and our childhood difficulties, and all that? Or is it really all affecting us on one other plane or intentionally nearly prajnya and just the wisdom insight facets?
HS: That’s a fantastic query. I’m not necessarily the very best example because I needed to do quite a little bit of therapy and work, and I’m sure I’ll do again, having had quite a little bit of trauma in my childhood. So I think in multiple modalities as needed. And I wouldn’t say that each one people will be utterly woke up and cleaned up and learn to grow up just through koan training. I’m sure some those that could be true of. Just allowing for that if we’re going through a protracted koan training we’re doing a whole lot of sitting. You possibly can’t do without extensive sitting and extensive retreats and there can be loads of time for shadow material to surface. Now whether the sitting is enough, or the working with koans is enough to actually process that, or whether it’s actually we’re gonna need–a few of us–therapy as well, of whatever stripe, I don’t know obviously.
After I have a look at my very own teachers within the Zen world they appear remarkably grown up and cleaned up, in addition to woke up. In truth, there’s this concept in Zen that your awakening should get deep enough that you just begin to ignore it. They’re really after this ideal of any individual who has completely forgotten awakening and is just leading a traditional life. That’s the long-range aspiration. And there are notable examples within the Zen tradition of people who find themselves just leading these very, very, free, spontaneous, natural lives of kindness, compassion, and playfulness. You recognize in the event that they were asked in the event that they were woke up they’d not have a clue of what they were being asked.
This example that we appear to be in within the West with a whole lot of interest in awakening, and a whole lot of concern with awakening, and dialogue about it, and talking about it–it’s a very good thing. Because man, it wasn’t really on the cards 100 years ago, seventy years ago, sixty years ago. It was more of a rarity, at the same time as a notion, let alone actually being experienced by people. That’s unbelievable, it’s infiltrated our culture, that these remarkable possibilities for humans are known about now, what a unbelievable thing. However, we could also be culturally in a stage where we’re learning to mature to the purpose where we get it really thoroughly in order that we are able to start forgetting about it. (Laughter)
But so, putting that to at least one side. I don’t quite know what form of personality type it will be appropriate to only do koan training that is perhaps enough to actually clean up and grow up, as you set it, in addition to waking up. I think there’d be some temperaments and private histories for whom that is kind of plausible. And I believe there’d be others where some therapeutic intervention may additionally be called for, other practices too, perhaps.
MT: Yeah. Thanks for that. I’m curious if you happen to are doing any innovation in koan practice. I see some Japanese teachers making modern koans: How do you stop the Shinkansen? Things like that. (Laughter) I’m curious if you happen to’re doing any innovation either in koan practice or simply in your teaching normally?
HS: Within the koan realm, I’m in no way. How do you stop the Shinkansen? That’s very near traditional koan: How do you stop the boat sailing on the ocean? That’s almost more of a translation than an innovation, I might feel.
MT: Yeah.
HS: But there are more radical experiments being done with koans that don’t actually make any sense to me, which I don’t must go into now. By way of recent koans–there’s so many aged ones. My god, we don’t need any more. (Laughter) The train is long enough because it is. But I believe there’s an incredible value in putting ourselves under the eaves of this ancient tradition, putting ourselves involved with these touchstones of profound human revelation and growth, which are hundreds of years old. I don’t think there’s anything mystical and sacred about it. I just think there’s something really cool about feeling connected with hundreds of years of practice in a most direct way. I mean, it really astonishes me, in a certain sense, just how contemporary koans are. You don’t need to translate them or change them. It’s astounding how this Zen teaching has expressed itself and passed it on. One koan the master is asked, what’s the essence of Buddhism? What’s the essence of awakening? What’s the essence of who I actually am? And whatever big questions you desire to fold into that. And the master answers: What’s the worth of rice in Luling? That’s his response to the query. What’s the guts of woke up reality? What’s the worth of rice in Tokyo? I mean, how amazing.
MT: Yeah.
HS: No reference to grand states of mind, to levels of consciousness, to god-knows-what, but just, What’s the worth of rice? How much does gas cost in Albuquerque right away? (Laughter) That’s it! But, it’s for real. It’s amazing to me. And the koans are filled with examples like this, just abnormal life showing up, the wonder, the best reality, the last word awakening to nothing in any respect, or the whole lot, or whatever it’s. How do the koans present it? It’s all the time normal things. They don’t like grandiose language, they only discuss a dog, a flower, a cat, a hedge, a door, a gate, normal stuff, cleansing the bowls, all in the material of our abnormal life. The koans just keep bringing us back to that. I believe that’s just unbelievable.
In order that’s all by the use of why innovate with the koans. So nevertheless alternatively I’m actually personally teaching broader facets of meditation, as of late, like a buttress or a broader foundation for people’s practice. To begin with, for individuals who aren’t involved in koans, they’ll start entering into things like absorption states with more accurate training, and learning what Samadhi is a little more deeply. I actually think it’s necessary to speak in confidence to different levels and varieties of support and recognizing them in our sitting and in our path of growth. I believe it’s just salutary and in some strategy to counter the tendency that we’re seeing–I appear to be picking up, anyway–of individuals considering of meditation as simply a solitary undertaking that’s analogous to going to the gym, and never recognizing the role of community and support in that path of growth.
Truthfully, I believe the standard Zen training is unbelievable, but is it broad enough for those of us who need, or would profit from a wider basis of practice with mindfulness than simply breath awareness? It helps to at the least have some familiarity with the fore-foundations of mindfulness, not only breath but more of the body, and never just body but mind states and…
MT: Emotions and thoughts.
HS: Exactly. And having a little bit little bit of basic Dharma, the 4 Noble Truths, The Three Marks, The Five Hindrances. Knowing these sorts of early Buddhist tools is definitely invaluable. So I’m teaching this stuff as well as of late. In truth, I’ve got a recent program called Original Love, which sees 4 zones of growth that meditation is pertinent to; certainly one of them being awakening, and the opposite three being less rarified and more about cleansing up and growing up, I might say.
MT: Are you able to tell me more about what you’re doing with the Original Love?
HS: Yeah. Initially, it’s about essentially getting grounded within the 4 foundations of mindfulness, sinking our roots down into them–especially body–but more as well, and knowing some preliminary basic ways of categorizing experience from early Buddhist teachings. Then opening as much as different flavors of support, recognizing it, then entering into flow states, absorption states. And so we’re teaching this through retreats and thru courses. It’s quite a recent enterprise usually because we haven’t done courses before at Mountain Cloud. In a way, we’ve been doing one long course. But now we are literally doing–that is an eight-week course, a four-week course, a six-month course. We’re beginning to develop those. Sort of exciting actually.
MT: That’s exciting and dividing up training into these individual courses matches the way in which we’re used to learning more closely.
HS: Yes. Correct. And I believe there’s some wisdom in that, doing barely more intense periods, after which we back off a bit and absorb and integrate after which come back in. I believe it’s a great way of learning, actually.
MT: Is there already Original Love material available? Are these courses out already, any of them?
HS: Well, our first one is definitely just starting on this coming Monday. And that’s a three-week one, after which we’ve got a retreat mid-August, and there’s quite a bit on our YouTube, and there’s a specific amount on our website of preliminary material. There’s a book within the pipeline. So there’s quite a whole lot of material that I’ve personally created, and a specific amount of that’s currently available. And there’s gonna be an entire lot more.
MT: That’s really interesting, Henry. Good luck with that and thanks for coming on the show today.
HS: Well, thanks a lot for having me, Michael. It’s an actual honor to be with you. Although we could have trained in overlapping and different traditions, you simply feel a lot common ground with individuals who have devoted a whole lot of years to meditation.MT: It’s very palpable. Thanks.
