Episode 33: The Spiritual Journey: Navigating the Cycle of Growth and Radical Acceptance

SUMMARY:
Morty and JD explore lessons 16 & 17.  It's understandable to want to constantly seek out new experiences and learning opportunities, but it's important to also make time for rest and reflection. 

TIME STAMPS:
00:01  Here we are, again. Still perplexed. I am at least.  How are you doing today?
04:18 Lesson 16 and 17, which are about neutral thoughts and neutral things. 
09:34  A neutral result is impossible because a neutral thought is impossible..
13:05 Now there's a good and bad...
16:34 In American Western culture, where it is so much of a focus on doing and achieving
21:52 That thought sparked another thought about like this, this book that I just finished yesterday called The Sympathizer
25:33 Just noticing the flavor of our thoughts
27:21 Yeah, I'll choose mint chocolate chip

Transcript

Mordecai Rosenberg: 0:01

JD Stanton. Here we are, again. Still perplexed. I am at least. How are you doing today?

JD Stettin: 0:09

I am perplexed very well, thank you, I think as the response.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 0:15

I don't know if you have this but I like audiobooks and podcasts. And as far as this spiritual journey, I feel like I always need to be like grasping after the next thing. So I'm so when I'm going through a book, like I just went through, I just listened to radical acceptance by Tara Brach,

JD Stettin: 0:34

Tara Brach,

Mordecai Rosenberg: 0:35

It's a good one. And it's been like, you know, when I'm going through an audio book I want to get, I want to get to the end of it. It's like, I just want to, you know, kind of deal to check the box. But then as soon as I'm done with that book, it's like, Okay, now, now, now I need something, something else. I feel like there's this, I don't know if you call it like spiritual materialism. Yeah, which is a term I've heard use, but it's like, I feel like I always need to be on to the next thing. And I don't know if you have that experience at all. Or if you can be at peace with having larger gaps.

JD Stettin: 1:06

Let's just because you're so spiritual Marty, you know, that you just need there, it needs more and more and more, I'm teashing and it totally resonates with me too. One of the many paradoxes of being and of anything that that we treat, or interact with, in some way. As a doing it's, it's hard to, I don't know, to not be caught in that cycle in some way. Start finish start again and it's almost like what else? What else is there? Right? Like, on the one hand, like, Oh, could I just be happy with the last spiritual book I read and be here on the other? Sure you finish one thing, it's time to start another whether that's with a book or I don't know, sometimes the the cyclic nature of you finish eating, and it's like, right away, it's like, there's a dirty plate I have to wash like, couldn't have just done or there's a minute so well, no, because that's not the way it's not quite the way it goes. So, like so much. I don't know that there's necessarily an answer or a change as much as like, trying to hold the paradox of like, on the one hand, all this spiritual stuff that I'm reading in Radical Acceptance, like, just radically accept everything. Now, I don't need to pick up a new spiritual book or start on a new course, on the other like, I'm a human whose mind works in time and in thought, and in future and in prepping and planning. And yeah, like, of course, I'm going to want to continue to deepen this practice or set myself up for more, more doing more, more learning. Like, we were talking earlier, this mini retreat I did yesterday, and like, I'm already like, yeah, how do I make this into a weekly practice? Do I start a course with these people? And it's just like, Yep, we're gonna

Mordecai Rosenberg: 2:57

Right? Yeah, I have that with like, with do that. physical fitness. Also, like I just did a training program on peloton, which was around like powers and I was like building your Power Zone. Instead, it was five weeks, and it was three times a week. It was great. And then I was looking forward to finishing the program and finishing it's like, okay, now I'm going to take a break. But then two days later, I was like, hmm, I need to have something the next thing so I started another program, like, which is now an eight week program. There's something about what we could say it's like high achieving people that were you always want to be like achieving and doing something which sounds high achieving would be a compliment in our culture, it probably also stems maybe feeling insufficient, like, or it just enough ourselves, that we have to be like doing something and accomplishing it feeling like we're accomplishing and like working towards something. Instead of just being there's probably some sort of part of that, which is also drive my age, like just be on to the next project or thing.

JD Stettin: 4:03

Yeah, I can move on on to the next next project or thing. You know, this course also works that way, the Course in Miracles. Right, right. And when we say sort of progressive, there's, there's always something next to read.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 4:17

I thought we talk this week about lesson 16 and 17, which are about neutral thoughts and neutral things. There's a concept that they propose, which is that we have no neutral thoughts. And it says right that this idea is a beginning step and dispelling the belief that your thoughts have no effect. Everything you see is the result of your thoughts. There is no exception to this facts. Thoughts are not big or little powerful a week. They're merely true or false. Those that are true, create their own likeness, those that are false, make bears, and then it talks about how there's no such thing as idle thoughts of just, you know, thoughts that you just have. They're either they're either good or they're the other. They're not neutral. That's kind of interesting. thing, that's an interesting idea that if we observe our thoughts that we'll see that they're not actually it's not actually neutral. It's not just, Oh, the sky is, the skies blue. It's either. Wow, the sky is so beautiful, or it's the sky is gray. And I hope there are going to be, you know, the weather, I think, can I mess up my plans? What did you think when you read that about that there are no neutral thoughts, anything that brought up for you?

JD Stettin: 5:28

Well, that's because I have no neutral thoughts. I had actions, her responses to it? Well, I think you know, this this line, in particular, and hearing you read it that just now everything you see is the result of your thoughts. I think we have there's, there's research that shows very clearly that there are more, I guess directionally, more neurons going from our brain to our eyes and the other way around. So we are actively creating our world, probably even more than we are perceiving it. And our minds are predictive in nature. And then obviously, it's the kind of feedback loop where we see things, we take it in some processing happens, and then we push it back out, you know, it's an interesting thought, or perception to sit with, that everything we see is really the result of our thoughts. And in that way, our thoughts really are shaping our realities. That yeah, that alone feels like an interesting reminder or perspective, to kind of hang on to, and just think about how much we are creating our realities, because we are pushing from our brain to our sensory organs in a lot of ways. So that that's a trippy thought. And then this idea that none of them are neutral. Also, kind of trip and thinking and some evolutionary terms. One of the chief jobs of our minds in our systems is not the chief job, maybe is to keep us safe to keep us safe from harm to identify threats, that kind of radar function of the mind of scanning, scanning, scanning and looking. So in a lot of ways, like yeah, there are neutral thoughts, our minds are really built to find like, is this life threatening or life saving? In any given scenario, a change of the wind, a scent, water, when it comes to food? Is it poison? Is it not? Is someone threatening us? So really leaning into that part of ourselves that is just constantly evaluating good, bad, good, bad, dangerous, safe, pull, push?

Mordecai Rosenberg: 8:03

One thought that came to mind you with all this talking about good and bad is the Genesis story, right? There are two trees that are mentioned, in the Garden of Eden. Right? And one is, we call it the tree of knowledge. But it's actually that's not really what it's said, actually, what the Bible says, the Bible says, it's the tree of knowledge of good and bad, right? Or good and evil. You know, when Adam and Eve or even then Adam, like the eight from from that tree. It was all of a sudden, why was the for the first thing they realize is all of a sudden they realize that they're naked? Right? And that that might be like wrong. What does that mean? Wrong? It means that there's now all of a sudden, there's like, there's something there's a right and there's a wrong in some ways, like man's fall from grace is defined as the, I guess, the not ability, but maybe the nature to define things as good and bad. You know, and animals don't, don't do that. They don't have something as good or bad. It's like either there's, for my dog, like there's either food in the bowl, there's not food in the bowl. That's it. Right. So it's kind of so that's kind of interesting that this idea of like that this good, bad thing is what happened was part of you know, the evolution of man. And now the restoration of man is comes from somehow giving up that notion of good and bad.

JD Stettin: 9:34

Yeah, giving up the notion of good and bad and she says a little bit later on in this chapter. A neutral result is impossible because a neutral thought is impossible, that in some way, we're not able to have we're not capable of thinking or pushing out thoughts that have a neutral charge. How does that strike you?

Mordecai Rosenberg: 9:58

Yeah, I mean, I guess I don't know what to do with that, because I think the answer is okay, well, anytime we're having a thought, it's good. It's either. It's not neutral, right? It's creating some illusion for you. And so therefore what, therefore, I shouldn't think I can do that, right? That is like maybe this idea of like, in a deep meditative state or enlightened and like, yeah, you can just, I don't know, not be thinking and just be experiencing things in real time. But it's, I feel like at this point, it's, like you said before it, this is a, it's a stairway, right? So this isn't leading you on a in a direction. Right? And at this point, maybe all you're asked to do is just become aware of the fact that your thoughts are not neutral, right? And just as you're aware of some things like well, I'm not just looking at it at a table, like I'm either thinking about how do I like the grain? Or maybe I see a scratch, nothing like a scratch? And how did that happen? Or, you know, I guess my brain because we have to refill thoughts is craving like more, you know, from this idea, like, what do I do with that, but there's no good or bad, but I think I'm kind of okay with this idea. Like, well, let me just note, yeah, as big as my thoughts come up to feel like, Oh, is that good? Or, or am I thinking something positive about that? Or am I think negative and noticing that every thought is that is a judgment,

JD Stettin: 11:24

That leads me to the end of this chapter, it's something I don't remember, this is the first time she applies this. But she every so often says, if you if strain is experienced three practice periods is enough, the length of the exercise period should also be reduced if there is discomfort. And I think that's just kind of an interesting note. Right? Like, I don't know, you've trained with personal trainers at different points. Could you imagine if one of them was like, Oh, and if there's ever you know, if there's any discomfort, just stop? What kind of personal training, you know, like, you wouldn't gain or grow. And mind you, I'm not the same as as a challenge. I really appreciate what she's doing. And I'm highlighting it because it seems like an interesting didactic tool and a way of taking on new ideas, perhaps and that, again, speaking from one kind of achiever type to another, people who like to work for their, whatever it is that we do. There's something a little bit radical even about being told, like, Oh, if there's any strain, just stop. If you feel any discomfort, I mean, strain feels like okay, maybe don't strain, but discomfort. If there's no discomfort in weightlifting, you're not gaining to my knowledge. And I'm not saying spiritual work is is a perfect comparison to weightlifting. But it's just, it feels like such an interest. I don't know, how does. How do you feel about this direction of like, if there's any discomfort, stop.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 13:03

Well, again, mine goes to the Genesis story. Because the punishment for eating from this tree of good and bad of not knowing strain? Yeah, it's like, right, that now you're going to have to strain. Right. And I also wonder if, if you have to strain or is it because you think you had you think in terms of good and bad? You think you have to strain? Yeah, now it becomes about like, well, now there's a good and bad. So now there's like, there's an efficient way that I could be using my days or not, you know, again, like you're a shark, I think, I mean, they only eat they don't eat like that many times. I feel like in the course of the year maybe it's a whale. There's like there's but there's some like there are creatures that go six months without eating? Right. No, I think I think you're right. I think you're right. So they they eat and they feed, right. And now it's a week later, and they're just swimming around thinking so lazy. I should be like doing something more? Or is it just, I'm fed? I don't have to do it. You know, I'm okay. Yeah, when when my body needs it, then I'll do the next day. But I feel like with us, not another thing and this is definitely more so in you know, in our time when I think there probably it's more freedom. Right then you had an 1000 years ago when you actually did have to make sure that you're doing something to get food for that day. That yeah, there's this maybe that's also this illusion of we need to we need to strain. We feel that we need to strain in order to eat our bread, so to speak.

JD Stettin: 14:52

Yeah, that definitely feels like among the legacy burdens of Judæo Christianity and all that it this notion that we have to we have to earn it, somehow we have to sweat for it. And yeah, maybe, maybe not, at the very least it's a it's a nice call. And in a program where it really feels like it's designed to, in a lot of ways, retrain our brains and our habits. And thinking about doing that in this way that feels very gentle and forgiving of the human animal. It's kind of a nice balm to that, that like constant work motion.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 15:41

Yeah, and this is different, right, that this, it could be that building physical muscle is not the same thing as building spiritual muscle. I mean, in some ways, the task of virtual growth is breaking down muscle to know that we've strengthened over the course of our lives, right? Ultimately, it's, it's, you know, Tara Brach was saying in Radical Acceptance that, you know, when she also lived in an Ashram after college for 10-15 years, and she would meet with these masters and say, like, how do I choose how I, what can I do? What else can I do to achieve enlightenment? And they would say, just relax. Like, okay, yeah, but

JD Stettin: 16:33

do what can I do?

Mordecai Rosenberg: 16:34

What can I do? What can I do? That conflict is just very difficult for us to relate to in general, especially in American Western culture, where it is so much of a focus on doing and achieving, it's like, it's hard for me to even like wrap my brain around that the way you need to achieve this is by relaxing.

JD Stettin: 16:58

Or right. Like, there isn't anything to achieve, you know, like another another formula, right? And it's like, anything like,

Mordecai Rosenberg: 17:05

yeah, what are you achieving? Right, the right thing of achieving is not.

JD Stettin: 17:09

Not even. Yeah, I was, as you know, I was in or on, as they say, on Long Island last week, with family. And, my first second cousin, got a adopted a dog a few years ago, I haven't seen him since my first time seeing him in a while in meeting the dog. And she's an Australian cattle dog terrier mix. And this dog, I only spent like two or three days with her, but you do not see this dog without a tennis ball in her mouth. And I've worked like on farms with cattle dogs who like to work. But it's, I mean, it's compulsive, she just walks around the house, like dropping the ball at people's feet, nudging their hands and knees to play and throw it and she will go until she's so exhausted, she can't play anymore, but she still holds the ball in her mouth and pants. And if she's holding the ball, and you throw another ball, she'll chase the other ball, but can't release the ball in her mouth and she barks at this other ball and then comes back and watching it and just thinking of that or as like a metaphor for this kind of restless mind. That to me, like I see my mind in that way. Sometimes like like a border collie or a cattle dog have just this like compulsion like it has to be working it has to be improving and I think very much in this chapter of there are no neutral thoughts like Damn straight there are no neutral thoughts. I am like I am either like doing and getting and if I'm not then I'm slipping or falling or receding So and, and just seeing this dog and being like, oh my god, like Celine, can you just want to like chill out and I'll pet you for a minute. Do you? Do you want to drink a water? Or do you just want to nap? Like, give it up? It's it must be exhausting. It's exhausting for everyone else to be around you like you must be wiped. And this family is happy to feed and cuddle and love you if you if you didn't do a stitch of work like you don't need to chase this stupid ball all day and yet she like is so set on it. And and yeah, just feeling feeling that my own. Yeah. And restlessness. Yeah. And it's so easy to see from the outside of how ridiculous it is. Right? Like you would look at this dog and you'd be like, Dude, chill out dog like great. You've fetched a few times you gotten a good run. Super now like I don't know, be a dog get pets. take naps, go smell things pee on things like live your life. Right? But how for her I'm sure in whatever way dog cognition is, it's just like must chase ball. Yeah. And that's what we're doing must chase whatever spirituality success. Yeah, happiness? I don't know.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 20:16

Yeah, I think we also have that thing about the doing. Right. So it's because in some ways, so let's let's start with this idea that there's no such thing as neutral thoughts, right? Like my thoughts about myself if I'm honest, like they're rarely positive, right? Like they're but usually it's like from the moment I wake up it's like, okay, here are the things that I need to do, right so let's say exercise, right? So instead of thinking that I'm lazy or I'm gonna, you know, like my, or whatever, I can achieve my fitness goals like, Okay, I need to work out, right, we think that the doing is a path out of the negative thoughts negative thinking, right? But at the end of the doing, it's not that you now like thought that yes, they have a positive thought. It's like that's what you doing just gets you to break even. It's like, okay, now I can now I can check the box on alright, I worked out, you know, I my ordering tells me burning enough calories, you know, today, right? So now I can give up on the debt particular guilt for today. But how long does that last? It lasts until I wake up tomorrow morning. Yeah, and then it's all the same, same stuff. So I wonder if like that doing also it's not directly related to your example of the dog. But I feel like lots of times we think, rather than we think that doing is a solution to thinking into a thought, you know, that

JD Stettin: 21:51

Yeah, I mean, I totally I totally like it I just we're having. like thought sparked another thought about like this, this book that I just finished yesterday called The Sympathizer about a piece of fiction I think it won the Pulitzer and something else like super well, you know, highly acclaimed about an agent for the Vietnamese communists, you know, Spy embedded in sort of the American Vietnamese faction and brilliant book, tons of great social, cultural, political credit in there. And in one of the ending scenes, he's, he's being sort of like reeducated, tortured by his communist overlords. And they asked him this kind of trick question of what's greater than freedom? And the answer and I think it's like a quote from Ho Chi Minh or something is like, nothing is greater than freedom, what she says. And they say like, yes, but you're still missing something and long story, but they go on torturing him for quite a while, until he realizes that nothing is greater then, that it's not nothing is greater, it's nothing, nothing as an entity, and he has this like break and the way they torture him. It's, I mean, it's brutal, but it's passive. They basically just keep him awake for days indefinitely. And when he nods off, they wake him right out and that really breaks down the mind and spirit in a lot till he gets this and he as he says that he's like crying and laughing and they free him and they embrace and he's just ball like tears of joy that he had this nothing, so I mentioned that in response to what you just said because of how I think hard it is for a mind that so hardwired to something or some things or things act you know activities doing to like let go or shift into this like being or nothingness I'm not recommending anyone torture anyone or sleep deprivation just to be it'd be clear, but just really how a kind of tough of a nut that that is to crack for this. This border collie mind, this doing mind, this sweat of the brow mind and mindset that we have. And maybe all the more interesting she doesn't recommend torture or sleep deprivation she recommends taking it easy and if you feel discomfort, dropping it as another as another inroad.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 24:39

Right, I like it. Well, I think for now I mean maybe for exercise and for if you that for people homework is just maybe just to note the flavor of our thoughts. You know, it's said that everything is either good or bad and flavors probably a good analogy for describing it because everything you take, there's I mean water, I guess water is neutral. You know and interesting that that the goal of karate would be mind like water, but even water, right? It's like, is it really neutral? Or if it's cold? It's good. If it's room time, if it's like lukewarm, yeah, not so good. Right? There still is.

JD Stettin: 25:22

Yeah, it's tough. It's a tap water in Austin. It's hard to drink the tap water in New York or? Yeah,

Mordecai Rosenberg: 25:33

Just noticing the flavor of our thoughts. And maybe that's a good yeah, good task for for this week.

JD Stettin: 25:44

Yeah, I really, I think these lessons 16 and 17 very much remind me of the Anthony Demello story, which I'm sure at some point, one of our episodes we've quoted with the guru. And some guy comes to him for you know, life advice and the guru strikes on paper awareness. And the guy's like, or is it Anthony? Maybe something to mellow? Yeah, it isn't mellow. Anyway, the guy says, Well, can you elaborate and the gorgeous writes awareness, awareness, awareness. And, and there's a power, there's a power to that to just noticing like Marty said, what's, what's the flavor? What notice that there is a flavor noticing that like, Oh, my thought about this is charged, I walked outside and said, What a beautiful day or if it's cold, like you, and the flavor is something that we impart to it. It's not it's not necessarily I mean, there are many because there are many, there are many flavors in the water. There are many truths. When I walk outside today, I could npte the sun or the smell, or the air quality, or the weather, whatever. And the thing I choose to say it's something that I picked, and it's a flavor that I gave to it as much as it sort of had inherently and just yeah, just trying to catch that. Notice that when we can, yeah, just an interesting game to play.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 27:08

Yeah. All right. Well, we will watch our flavorful thoughts.

JD Stettin: 27:15

Right. That's right. Until next time, enjoy your flavored thoughts and your flavored sparkling water.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 27:21

Yeah, I'll choose mint chocolate chip. All right. I'll talk to you

JD Stettin: 27:27

Alright, see you Morty.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 27:29

Yeah, bye