SUMMARY KEYWORDS
buddhism, love, elephant journal, years, meditation, boulder, buddhist, question, meditating, day, buddha, started, realise, elephant, writing, point, happy, dog, work, book
SPEAKERS
Mangku Ketut, Waylon Lewis, Julia Malcolmson, Martin O'Toole
Martin O'Toole 00:27
Hi, Jules.
Julia Malcolmson 00:28
Hi, Martin.
Martin O'Toole 00:30
How are you?
Julia Malcolmson 00:31
I am pretty good actually. I've been in. I've been enjoying this week. I'm enjoying getting involved in the podcast more.
Martin O'Toole 00:39
Yeah, it's been a roller coaster, hasn't it?
Julia Malcolmson 00:42
It has it has been a roller coaster. But with this way round. I actually I get to see a little bit more of you.
Martin O'Toole 00:49
That's a very good point. Yes, I have been an absentee partner of late. So yes, well, I've been super busy. I've been educating myself more about production and post production on the in the podcast sphere.
Julia Malcolmson 01:05
And how's it been going
Martin O'Toole 01:06
been epic? Actually, now I'm just vibing with it. It's a wonderful thing. I just love the challenge.
Julia Malcolmson 01:13
Well, then also, when we're learning something that we want to learn that we're choosing to learn, you know, that's where the fun begins. And that's what your passion steps in.
Martin O'Toole 01:21
Yeah, true that and we are inherently creative beings. So I suppose of all the things that one might learn learning how to make a podcast. It's pretty, it's pretty cool. It's
Julia Malcolmson 01:32
pretty cool. And you do love your equipment.
Martin O'Toole 01:36
Love, I love this new mixer.
Julia Malcolmson 01:39
All I see is colourful lights. I've got no idea what you're doing over there. Me neither. It doesn't show.
Martin O'Toole 01:46
So who are we talking to you this week?
Julia Malcolmson 01:49
This week, we are talking to Waylon Lewis, and he was in Boulder, Colorado when we got to chat with him. And he's the founder of elephant journal.
Martin O'Toole 02:00
And what's elephant journal? Elephant journal
Julia Malcolmson 02:03
is a is an online magazine. And it's set up so that everybody anybody whether you're just starting out as a writer, whether you're a professional writer, you get to have your articles published and have them read by people from all walks of life
Martin O'Toole 02:20
by millions of people, millions. Yeah. And the general theme of elephant journal is I guess from a territorial perspective, it's a mindful website, isn't it? Yeah, I
Julia Malcolmson 02:31
would say mindfulness, I think when I first found elephant journal, it was very Yogi based. A lot of my friends, a lot of yoga teacher friends had articles. And as with anything, it's evolved.
Martin O'Toole 02:43
Yeah. And as I said, it got millions of people reading it, you introduced me to elephant journal. A couple of years ago, I started writing for them. And I've had some incredibly successful articles on there. And some really wonderful interaction with the elephant journal audience a what Wayland and his team have done, I think is created a wonderful conscious media business there. And I know it's more than just one website. I think there are various websites. And they also he's an author, obviously. So they also have writing workshops, and retreats, and so on and so forth. And essentially, it's all about encouraging the writing community to produce something that people actually want to read. Yeah, they're
Julia Malcolmson 03:27
very supportive. I know you had a lot of a lot of great help with with your work that you submitted to elephant journal. And you, you know, worked alongside an editor.
Martin O'Toole 03:36
Yeah, he's a lovely guy. So what did we talk about them was is we talked about a lot of things with Waylon,
Julia Malcolmson 03:41
we did. He was a really lovely guy. I really enjoyed chatting with him. We started off talking a lot about his his growing growing up with Buddhism. And boulder. Yeah. Which sounds like a very interesting place. I'd like to go
Martin O'Toole 03:53
I've he's really sold me on Volvo. I didn't say that. In the interview, actually. But he just totally sold me on boulder. I want to go. Yeah, although he Well, as you'll hear in the interview, he feels like boulders changing. But yeah, by all accounts, it's this strange, energetic connective space, or at least was very much more anyway, where we just kept calling a weird Disney for the strange people, but in a good way. It's a really weird place. So. So yeah, we were talking to him about Buddhism because he grew up as a Buddhist. Whelan is definitely not your typical bullish, right. Not the stereotypical Buddhist.
Julia Malcolmson 04:33
Yeah, well, no, not at all. I think, you know, for him, it's very much a, what I got the impression of is he's working with the practical tools to to live a mindful life. And, yeah, some of his perspectives were really refreshing.
Martin O'Toole 04:48
Yeah, yeah. So I think for him, it's Buddhism as a way of life rather than a religion, which, if I'm honest, is my perspective of Buddhism. Anyway.
Julia Malcolmson 04:59
Yeah. And you start to see how a lot of these, the tools within Buddhism are spread across all all religions. And we can if we wish to cherry pick what works for us.
Martin O'Toole 05:11
Yeah, well, I think we should cherry pick. I think that keeps us ahead of the curve. Well, do you think we should just dive into it then?
Julia Malcolmson 05:20
I think we should dive in then. Listen to this wonderful man's words.
Martin O'Toole 05:24
Okey dokey. Well, this is Waylon Lewis. Have you ever been bitten by a dog Waylon?
Waylon Lewis 05:34
Yes. Quite recently, actually. Yeah.
Martin O'Toole 05:38
No way. Okay. Yeah, I'd like to hear that story.
Waylon Lewis 05:42
Well, I have a very dear dog buddy in my life. Redford. And he's 14 years old now. And we have a beautiful fenced in yard here in Boulder, Colorado. And we I'm quite social, and Redford is quite social. So we are hosting some dog friends over and one of them is this crazy puppy from next door, who has enough energy to power a small city, and they're running around in reference 14, so he's not really doing his part to tire him out. So I started playing with the dogs throwing a stick around, here's Redford actually. And one of the dogs clamped down on the sticks that I was holding. And didn't get all stick, got my finger and part of my hand, and the teeth just went straight through my flesh. Like my flesh was butter. Yeah, and the dog who loves me, I still have some scars here, the dog who's very sweet, really didn't understand that it had clamped down on my hand. So luckily, I was pretty experienced in getting a dog to unclamp you just kind of take their jaw and you fold their mouth slightly around you don't hurt them, but you just make it so that they release and I did it all very quickly and cleaned it and very thoroughly because it went straight to the bone and tied it up and and you know the dog was super sweet and honestly never even understood anything had happened. And the neighbours were super apologetic. It wasn't their fault at all. And my hand healed up.
Martin O'Toole 07:17
Okay, maybe that's maybe that beats the story from yesterday then because
Waylon Lewis 07:21
it sounds more painful. Yeah, not try to be your story. No.
Martin O'Toole 07:24
Well, you you inadvertently did but so Jules was bitten by a dog yesterday. Why don't you just tell that story?
Julia Malcolmson 07:31
Yeah, so we were taking our little pups Ati and muda for a walk in the fields. And we stopped to chat to some friends as we always ended up doing on dog walks. And this suddenly we turned around and there was this awful noise coming from Ati and she really screams and there was a dog attacking her had a pin down by the throat and so Martin steps in and separates them and gets the other dog away and I instantly have that like mum, MUM instinct kicks in and I pick up Ati and I'm holding her because she's screaming and then the next thing I know my bum is on fire and I turn around and there's a dog clamped on my left butt cheek yeah so much
Waylon Lewis 08:15
I'm pretty sure your story is way out here on fire Trump's yeah bomb on fire Trump's whatever I had
Martin O'Toole 08:22
well the reason why it was why it was more amusing was because it turned out the dog was called karma. And I know wow, I
Waylon Lewis 08:29
Karma bit you in the, only in Bali that's like an only we say only in Boulder all the time. Boulder is one of those towns but that's definitely an only in barley.
Martin O'Toole 08:44
Bali. So speaking of speaking of Boulder, one of the photos I've seen of you is as a make boulder weird again. So for those of us who've never been to Boulder, do you want to tell us a little bit about boulder in Boulder, Colorado, right?
Waylon Lewis 08:59
Yeah, that's right. It's in the kind of formerly Wild West. Now suburb filled suburb and fracking filled Great Plains and the Great Plains which are beautiful and vast and used to be populated by buffalo bison. Native Americans. And you know, we're just vast and endless now are, you know, quite developed and millions of people are moving into Colorado, it's very popular area, boulders, this little kind of football shaped Valley, nestled right up into the gorgeous, flat ours the the mountains here, the Rocky Mountains. And it's this idyllic little town. It's been named happiest in the United States many times best educated, best place to retire, worst fashion, all these kinds of things. And yeah, everyone here is the home of crocs, which are awesome. nation. Yeah, and tie dye and some other things that we might love a little more. And it's a small town and it's always been kind of hippie and liberal and Buddhist and Yogi and runner and cyclist and climber and scientist. And there's tonnes of science labs here. But lately, it's just become more yuppie it's always been a little expensive, but big tech has moved in venture capital funds have moved in. And the average house price doubled in only five years about 10 years ago. And is basically now I always had been to to house warmings in the last 10 years, no one can afford to buy a home here anymore, unless you know, they're moving from California or New York, and it's already very well off. Yeah, so it's changed very quickly. It's been a very weird fun town. And now it's a very kind of normal Instagrammy you know, over this painting their houses white and black, and it's just getting very muddied and not very environmental or weird.
Martin O'Toole 11:04
So, and there's a history with boulder in the Buddhists, of course, which are big history, which, which I'd like to ask you vote in a second. So how's that affected? How's this new gentrification of Boulder affected? The previously more Zen community?
Waylon Lewis 11:24
I mean, like a lot of places where any kind of gentrification happens. It's it, it's kind of rubbed off all the rough edges. You know, it's just becoming like The Truman Show a little bit. One of my favourite movies. It's just becoming very pretty and Q and Instagrammable, but not a lot of not nearly as much as community of community and just weirdos as we used to have used to be a very strange town.
Julia Malcolmson 11:55
Sounded good. I liked the sound of it.
Martin O'Toole 11:57
Yeah. Strange. Strange in a good way, though, I'm assuming.
Waylon Lewis 12:01
Well, both. I mean, you love to kind of complain about it when it's in its weird heyday. But yeah, I would at the climbing gym. I'm climbing with world famous climbers. You know, if I'm biking, I don't even own a car. You don't need to in Boulder. I'm biking around. And there's world famous cyclists. You know, if you run you're running slower than world famous world famous runners. There's amazing culinary scene here. Just brilliant restaurants. And yeah, the Buddha scene in the yoga scene. I mean, it's just, it's an incredible place to be. But a lot of that, you know, the artists, the folks who aren't as well off, I mean, they've pretty much all moved away if they hadn't already bought a home.
Martin O'Toole 12:43
Okay, so let's backtrack to this. The history of Boulder Buddhism, and Waylon, were you born into a into a Buddhist family? Are you are you You happened upon Buddhism as at a young age?
Waylon Lewis 13:00
No, yeah, I'm much to sort of. I never really credited myself with being that imaginative or creative in terms, I don't know that I would have sought out any kind of religion, if I had grown up, not within the Buddhist tradition. So even within Buddhism, I loved the people and I loved the kind of culture that I grew up in. But it took me until I was about 16, until I experienced a little confusion and heartbreak and you know, the growing pains of growing up or not growing up for me to really jump into the teachings of Buddhism and meditation myself. And at that point, I realised very quickly that it was really easy to connect with Buddhism, Buddhism, even growing up and it seemed very strange and a little embarrassing to me. You know,
Martin O'Toole 13:53
we you practising with the same people regularly. It was, was it a community that you were hanging?
Waylon Lewis 13:58
Yeah. Yeah. So this fellow Trungpa Rinpoche, very controversial teacher in good ways and bad ways, started this big community here. And it was full of artists and poets, you know, Allen Ginsberg and Eropa University, if you've heard of that, and yes, all kinds of entrepreneurs were attracted to it and started restaurants and businesses and publishing Shambala publications, which you may know and and it was an amazing time and my mom single mom for most of those years raised me and yeah, I knew and practice meditation all the time. I went to a Buddhist school that they had found it. But, and I loved a lot of it. I went to a Buddhist kind of summer camp, which was brilliant. You would have loved it.
Martin O'Toole 14:43
Well, yeah, what happens it but it's summer camp. Sounds like my kind of camp.
Waylon Lewis 14:48
Yeah, anything you might think happens at a Buddhist summer camp, other than meditation, which certainly happened, and dishes which certainly happen didn't happen at this point. If it was like, basically like Boy Scouts, I mean we one day we'd be practising Japanese Zen style kind of samurai style, archery or flower arranging with world famous, I mean, literally the Imperial bowmaker to the Emperor of Japan was there teaching us. And then other days, you know, you're in a sort of Boy Scout uniform running around playing Capture the Flag and singing Buddhist T sort of marching songs. I mean, it was very strange and very, but on a on a, you know, as a kid, you don't know what's strange and not you're experiencing life for the first time. So it sounds from our point of view. Exactly the coolest thing when I was a kid, as I was very nerdy for a while growing up, I grew out of that at some point, and my grades went down, my popularity went up. But growing up, I was very nerdy. And it was the one week a year where I could go and just relax and be myself and everyone who was cool. Everyone who was uncool. Everyone was in one community and liked each other. It was kind. So that was, that was a relief.
Martin O'Toole 16:10
sounds incredibly wholesome. And I suppose it's, it's funny if you think about how our childhoods have evolved, certainly in the West, and how we'll fast forward to 2021 the way to keep a child quiet these days. I sense is to hand them a tablet said without judgement, but it's certainly something I see. I see happening an awful lot these days. So it sounds like you've had a pretty cool time. So So you're 16 you're, you're doing you're practising Buddhism, you were practising regularly. So maintaining a regular practice of meditation and presumably yoga, and so on and so forth. Fast forward to 2004. Then, when you started the elephant journal, now I'm I'm, I'm aware, you've probably been asked these questions a million times, but I want to play catch up for our listeners. So just wondering if you could give us a quick two minutes on how you found it. Elephant journal.
Waylon Lewis 17:13
Yeah, thank you. So yeah, it was actually 2002. And I had apologies, like, No, you're good. And I had grown up really poor with my single mom. And I wanted to do so I loved writing. Kerouac was one of my idols, you know, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Mark Twain. And as I got older, my authorial inspirations have diversified somewhat, but I wanted to be a writer, but I wanted to somehow make sure that I can make a living I had seen how, how, how intense and painful. My mom's life was sometimes around not having any money, we had lost our house and never really had a car or TV or normal food or presents often. And it was still a great life. My mom was an amazing mom. But so I wanted to start a company is basically my point. And this fellow was starting a yoga magazine. And I had actually never done yoga, the Buddhist world in the yoga world, really, and never the twain shall meet. Back in the day in Boulder, the Buddhists were sort of starting businesses and wearing suits and partying. And the Yoga people were very serious and kind of doing their own thing. There were different worlds. So I jumped into this yoga publication with this fellow, and he wound up quitting, he wasn't a journalist, I'd trained in journalism. And so I just turned it into elephants. And basically I turned it from being about yoga, to being about anything that Yoga people might be interested in. Meaning it could be yoga, but it could be organic food, it could be mindful relationships. It could be eco, eco responsible travel, it could be anything, politics, cycling, anything. And so I renamed it elephant. Because you know, elephants were sacred. Ganache was one of my favourites when I was a kid, sacred in the yoga tradition, sacred in the Buddhist tradition. In real life. They're an example of mankind's lack of relationship to nature. And I say mankind because largely, men right now are responsible for the destruction of habitat for the elephants. And they're this huge, beautiful creature, but because they're so huge, they're so vulnerable. They're going extinct within our lifetimes at the current rate, so matriarchal, they're, they're vegan, they're sentient, they can look in a mirror they grieve they're young. looking in a mirror is one of the tests for doesn't animal and yet they exist. Yeah, exactly. You know?
Martin O'Toole 19:59
That strikes me is really Elvis anyway.
Waylon Lewis 20:01
Yeah, it's an interesting one. Dolphins are in that class. I don't know how they got a mirror in. Yeah, but yes, certain animals, not Redford, not my dog looked at a mirror and will recognise that if the then yeah. Oh, there there I am. So anyway, elephants are beautiful. And so from an environmental angle, it also met
Martin O'Toole 20:24
it title nicely. Yeah. And of course, Ganesh, for those who don't know, is an elephant God the mover of objects and has and a character we see a lot in barley, right?
Julia Malcolmson 20:37
Yeah. And in Bali, we actually, we both had Ganesh on our water bottles, didn't we, when we first met and still do actually. Yeah, ganesh to me has always been been a big part of my life. And whenever actually, when I think of elephant journal, for me, it brings me back to memories of India. And actually, not necessarily because of the elephant, but I came across elephant journal when I was in India, in in India, and a lot of my Yogi friends put me on to elephant journal, and they were all travelling around the world. And, you know, a lot of them had articles within within the magazine, and I think that was maybe six or seven years ago. And it was, it was really, I remember them all loving that they could get their writings in into these into the space. And they always mentioned the ecosystem. And I wondered like how the ecosystem came about, because I I really love how accessible elephant journal is, for people to come in and have their articles published,
Martin O'Toole 21:37
we should explain what the ecosystem is also, if you wouldn't mind.
Waylon Lewis 21:41
Sure, so the ecosystem is, you know, I borrowed that term from nature, obviously, where everything is interconnected, and feeds are leads to the next step in that ecosystem. So, you know, for example, the clouds produce rain, and the rain produces, you know, with the sunshine produces crops, and the crops can feed animals, or humans and etc. So the ecosystem at elephant is basically that any writer can write that we then share those articles, the author can share them with their community, we share them with our, you know, 13 million Facebook fans on 60 pages, and nearly a million on Instagram on various accounts and law law or newsletter, huge, then your front page itself. And then readers kind of take control the readers based on the number of reads or number of shares, or number of hearts or number of comments, determine the so called ecosystem score, and the ecosystem scores say 3.8, or 8.2 is out of 10. Kind of like the Olympics where you hold up a placard. The top ecosystem scores of any given week are the people we pay. So it's very important to us, to me as a writer, to create a platform that has two contradictory functions. One is to accept anyone who wants to write. And that's, that's anyone other than trolls, like it needs to be something constructive or helpful for the universe or society. And number two, the contradictory goal is to pay writers, we can't pay 1000s of writers a month, which we we have 1000s of writers month, but we can let the readers decide which ones are most valuable. Like say you wrote about your journey, your you're meeting each other with the ganache, water bottles, or your journey with wellness and addiction or whatever, you know, we have so many wonderful, helpful articles, hopefully on elephant, and then the top ones get, yeah, get voted on by the readers and and then we pay 10 to 15 riders a week. So that's like 40 to 60 a month. And then our goal is to expand that. Yeah. As elephant grows, we want to pay 1000 Right riders a week, maybe not 4000. Yeah, we want it to be a platform where anyone can write for fun, kind of like on Reddit or Facebook or Instagram, you just write something. But then if it gets kind of cherry picked out by the readers, and they say, wow, I've been through that that was helpful, then they get paid in a very automated way. And the point of the ecosystem was that it took that payment out of say, my hands, the subjective hands of one person, and it gave it to the community, which is the whole point, our whole mission.
Martin O'Toole 24:39
Well, actually, it was Jules who told me about elephant journal in the first place a couple of years ago and that's what attracted me to walking ambassador for. Actually, I am inadvertently because I've mentioned a few of the articles that that I've had as editors picks on elephant journal in various episodes of How to die happy. So ya know, and I've been one of those lucky writers who received a payment from your company. So it's always look good when you get that recognition and you get the you get some eyes on your articles,
Julia Malcolmson 25:13
and you had great fun with the ecosystem. He'd always be running in good saying, Oh, I've got more likes and why my number has gone up
Martin O'Toole 25:19
to nine, I need to get to 10. Yeah, the frustrating thing is when you get downgraded from a 10 to a nine again, you're like, Oh, my God, I can't believe it. I got to do it again.
Waylon Lewis 25:29
Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's a little complex, but it's pretty intelligent, meaning, you know, it's not, I didn't want to make it a popularity contest merely. So there's five different categories. So it's not just likes, you know, that we see this sort of unhealthy behaviour on Instagram or wherever, but that it's, you know, there's some sense of quality, does it get an editor's pick? Or comments or interaction? So we really tried to say, How does quality get measured when people bothering to heart it or bothering to share it? So we put in all these different factors, and hopefully that equals quality? Not just like, you know, a funny, kitten video being cute, or a sexy blog, attracting eyeballs but not depth? Well, I
Martin O'Toole 26:15
think I think it does, because of the nature of how it works. So essentially, you've created this, this giant mindfulness portal, which, from my perspective, as a writer on it, I can see it's accessible to people. There various points in their journey. I've I've certainly had lots and lots of interaction and messages with people who are either new to there. I don't like to use the word spirituality too much, but new to their journey of awakening, versus people who are actually they've been happy practitioners, Zen practitioners, for example, for a long time. Actually, that leads us on to this week's question from our manku, priest Ketut. So we asked kids a question, what was the question,
Julia Malcolmson 27:06
we asked Ketut? What advice would you give to someone who is just starting to explore mindfulness meditation or spirituality, and the theme is mindfulness for all.
Martin O'Toole 27:19
So let's now hear from Ketut.
Mangku Ketut 27:24
Thoughts from Ketut Yes, if you give that title on it. And I mean, it's more confusing, you know, if you really like, if I drink the water, we don't name it the water. So it's just this data, you know, mine, spiritual, this is just the word. What is more important is how you feel it, that's a more important, but when you put in title and then get stuck with it, and then you make it that image happened. And and also is, you lost it, you lost the point, what is about this journey is like, you be with it, you feel it, I think it's more important to be with that. Be with that. And then from that is come from your action. If you say about spirits, well, your accent will prove it though. So you don't have to get attachment with that word, first. Be an action. Because for the viewer, be whatever you give titled spiritual, and then your extra will follow. That's how I think leaving in the balance.
Martin O'Toole 28:46
Thank you, Ketut. Wisdom, as always. And of course, he's talking about attachment to, to form and, and to ideas into words and to identity. So instead of talking about instead of just being mindful, a lot of us are talking about mindfulness or doing it. That makes sense. What do you think?
Julia Malcolmson 29:10
Oh, yeah, I mean, in my world, as a yoga teacher, I find there's a lot of labels about it. And then people talk much more about the kind of the idea of what they're doing, rather than actually delving into the practices for themselves. It's much more it can be much more of a show.
Martin O'Toole 29:27
Yeah, but I remember when I first started meditating, I was telling everybody you know, I wanted everyone to know that I had that I was making these changes. It's it's all part of the journey, isn't it? I think it's part of that. It's part of the the ego death process, which can take years for some people.
Waylon Lewis 29:47
Yeah. Yeah, what do you should I offer my thoughts. What
Martin O'Toole 29:51
are you feeling yesterday? Yeah,
Waylon Lewis 29:54
I mean, Cateura is right on. I mean, he was basically saying, like in Zen, they say the second you to say something that's no longer true. So, trunk room shade, my parents teacher would say, he would talk about Dharma like Buddha Dharma or truth, Dharma, Dharma without credentials. That was a whole kind of seminar he did. So the point of Dharma without credentials is Yeah, exactly what both of you said, you know, there's nothing wrong with being all giddy and excited that you're meditating and talking about it, or yoga or, or your adventure to Machu Picchu, or Bali or, you know, but at the same time, like trumpet, I'm sure we'll talk about the tiger, the tiger is powerful. And it goes through the jungle very quietly, when it's huge, but it moves almost silently. And there's this quality in the Buddha's teachings called meek, me, K, where, if you got it, kind of opposite of Twitter, culture, Instagram culture, if you got it, you don't actually have to flaunt it. There's nothing wrong with flossing it, you can be joyful. You don't need to make yourself small. But if you got it, you can just be kind of relaxed, you can breathe. And I think, you know, Trump himself has a whole book called spiritual materialism, cutting through spiritual materialism, that so many of us enter into the spiritual path with a mix of good intentions. And maybe this will be the thing that makes me completely happy and powerful and never feel suffering, which is a little mixed up. And then what we find is, like many beginning meditators say, this isn't working, I'm feeling more confused than I was before I started meditating. And meditation teachers love that, of course, they say, No, no, no, you were this confused before you started meditating. But you basically opened the closet door and saw this hoarding, like all these toys and things fell out from your whole life. So just keep with it, just stay steady. I have this beautiful poem by Gary Snyder, somewhere around here stays steady. So you just keep meditating. And then pretty soon, you've gone through all the hoarding, you've donated it to Goodwill or, you know, cleaned it up and put it up on your mantel. And does that make sense? And there's some sense of, you can relax and you can appreciate what you do keep and you can give away, or part let go of that which is no longer of service to your life or to service to the world. So,
Martin O'Toole 32:32
which is you nicely put very much so. And it's but it's a process, isn't it? And I suppose as as the founder of elephant journal, you are interacting on a daily basis with many, many, many people, somewhere in their journey. How do you what advice do you give to people who are who are just just trying to find their way toward? Well, I'm going to use the word mindfulness, even though kids told me not to. But so how do you how do you help people along to get started on that journey?
Waylon Lewis 33:05
Yeah, so I mean, meditation in Buddhism, Buddha Dharma is described as a self cutting sword or a self burning flame. So there's no problem with using the word mindfulness or talking about meditating, as long as you keep practising mindfulness. And you keep practising meditation, because the process of meditation itself will kind of cut or help you let go of attachment to that meditation. I remember when I was young, I said, when I was young, and really in the meditation, because I was like, confused, and I was exploring this Buddhist stuff. And it was like, Finally all connecting, I was kind of sad. You what you said about yourself reminded me of me. I was like, I'm really getting it. I'm meditating. So amazingly, right now, I'm probably going to attain enlightenment,
Martin O'Toole 33:54
and so enlightened,
Waylon Lewis 33:56
like when? Yeah, well, I wasn't quite yet, but I thought I might become it. I was like, close. And I went to my meditation instructor the next day after this session, I'm like, you would not believe it. Everything looked golden. And I was like, so present and, and he just looked at me. And I'm so grateful for this moment with with him because he didn't condemn me. He didn't try to make me small. But at the same time, he didn't buy into any of my silliness. He just said, you're very dramatic, aren't you? Complete, just totally deflated me. But he wasn't mean about it. Because the tendency is to and we do it with ourselves is to get overly excited about what we're good at or what we think we're good at. Or to be overly harsh with the parts of ourselves that we're ashamed about, or, or insecure about. Yeah, and we can just chill out meditation helps us, the Buddha talks. About the middle way where we can, we can take responsibility for ourselves. A lot of people in popular spiritual culture say Don't shame me, shaming is a big bad word now. And coming from the Buddhist tradition, I'm always like, Well, yeah, you don't want people to shame you. And you don't want to shame others, that's a bit heavy. But it's actually a part of the growing up process to take some responsibility. And to have a moment, three seconds of shame. In Buddhism, they talk about three seconds of regret. So you, you eff up, right. And you go, Huh, I was a jerk there. I didn't like seeing the hurt on my friend's face. Yeah. And you sit with that. And then you say, Okay, I'm going to move forward, I'm going to go apologise, I'm going to do it differently, you know. So it's not that you get attached to your own shame, but you feel a moment of it, and then you go forward, and you try to do better, or be more empathetic or work with your temper or whatever the EFF up was. So anyway, there's a quality of like, we can be critical with ourselves, but not too critical. And we can be honest with ourselves, but don't be too harsh, and we can like ourselves, but don't get high on yourself, and you can have a good time, but maybe don't overdo it, like people just we love to take ourselves too seriously. And Buddhism, fundamentally is like, like, lighten up, you know, it's the next moment.
Martin O'Toole 36:33
Yeah, it's very pragmatic, is Buddhism, something I something I was attracted to rather instantly when I happened upon it, I can't really think when I did happen upon it, I wouldn't. I'm not a I'm not a practising Buddhist. But I have, I have adopted many of the Buddhist principles. And I was, I think it was probably in learning the concept of impermanence, that then led me to start read, to read into Buddhism. And then I discovered the three marks of existence in Nietzsche, dukkha, and a natter. And for our listeners, and Nietzsche is impermanence. Dukkha is suffering and a natur is, I'm just going to say no self, just to keep it simple. You might want to elaborate on that, actually, for me, right?
Waylon Lewis 37:27
Yeah, I think Well, two points. One, one, I would say. And I should almost like apologise for my enthusiasm about Buddhism, because Buddhists are very clear. Like we're not trying to convert anyone. No one on this podcast, in any way, should feel pressured to read Pema children, or walk around with a mala or whatever, you know, dharma at its best is the exact same good stuff fundamentally, as in any other mystic tradition, or in any non theistic tradition. Yeah. So and then number two, yeah, egolessness. I mean, so a lot of the teachings of Buddhism, sound like a total bummer coming from the capitalistic mindset. The capitalist mindset is, I'm going to drive into the McDonald's drive in, I'm going to get my burger quickly, and it better be perfect. And I'm going to give them my money, and boom, I'm off. I'm going to eat my thing while multitasking, and then mindlessly get on with my day. Right? So there's a sort of like, the customer's always right kind of thing. But outside of capitalism, the customer is almost never right. And so the Buddhists, you know, the Buddha, like one of his first teachings is, you know, was the Four Noble Truths and it literally begins with life is suffering, you know, advertisement. Buddha was it the Buddha wasn't a very good marketer, marketer, you know, he would never get hired at Crispin Porter Bogusky. No, no, but so egolessness is literally half the teachings of Buddhism are like, anything you feel proud about or attached to, it's time to let that go. But then the good news of Buddhism comes in the second part, which is once you let it go, you're actually you have Buddha nature, you're fundamentally a okay. And you just merge with the whole universe. And yet, you're still separate. And you can celebrate life and be kind to others. So it's not, it's not a bummer, but it's kind of a bummer in the beginning.
Julia Malcolmson 39:40
Yeah.
Martin O'Toole 39:41
Sorry. Yeah, I'd
Julia Malcolmson 39:42
say yeah. I think when people first come across that bit, it does seem a bit of a bummer. But once you work through it, and you start in, embodying the rest and letting go you open up space.
Waylon Lewis 39:55
It's also just like, you're finally talking like I don't know how much you talk about your experience, but you're finally talking with someone who's being frank with you. So the idea that someone would be like, okay, the three marks of existence, or there's this, like, literally, there's lists, like, you know, the suffering of suffering, the suffering of change, there's, there's so many lists that are just not good marketing for Buddhism. And yet you're like, Okay, I, if you digest it, you're like, I can connect with this. Yeah, this makes sense. I'm not being deceived. Well, Trump, Rinpoche said, Just one final note, Trungpa Rinpoche said, The Ultimate Enemy of everything, life, truth, love, is self deception. So we can spend our entire lives kind of selling ourselves down one river or another. And Buddhism is kind of like, you know, you finally given up the Buddha himself had to give up right beneath the tree, to, uh, to wake up and when he woke up things were actually really sweet and kind and peaceful.
Martin O'Toole 41:03
Yeah, whilst people might think Buddhism is, is an extreme religion, perhaps because of the the dogma and the doctrines, and everyone's shaving their head and the red and yellow outfits, it's when you get down, when you get to the nuts and bolts as we've just been discussing, it makes real sense. And certainly from a personal perspective, it just resonated with me, it's, it seems, it makes my heart sing when when, when I when I learned something from the Buddhist practices or read something that, that the Buddha said, and, and I realise it's talking to me, and I realised it's talking to all of us. So in that regard, there's a real simple, simple resonance to it all. I met, I'm just in the process of reading the way of Zen by Alan Watts, I don't know if you've read that.
Waylon Lewis 41:59
He was, I haven't. I love Alan Watts, was just an
Martin O'Toole 42:03
amazing, incredible mind and writer and orator. But he spent a great deal of time getting involved in Zen Buddhism, particularly the Japanese practices, but actually, he says in his book that a lot of these lists and I can't remember the name for the other lists, but of course, in Buddhist scriptures are a list upon list upon list down there. And he was quite keen to point out in his book that is entirely unlikely that the Buddha actually said a lot of that stuff that was put in that list, it was more likely the priests and the, the devotees, who, who took took on the mindset of it, and started to try and roll it out. And they felt that they wanted, they needed to have this structure, hence all the lists. So okay, right. So we were talking about Buddhism, but I was particularly interested in talking about your book, you have a new book coming out, right? It's never too late to fall in love with your life, everyday tips for a mindful life.
Waylon Lewis 43:12
Yeah, so my first book was called things I would like to do with you, I have a habit of overly long titles. And the second one, which you just mentioned, it's never too late to fall in love with your life. And I felt quite seriously about that title. Because I feel like for all of us, we get into this place. Whether we're young or old or middle aged, where we feel like we're kind of effing it up. Like everyone out there at the park, you know, all the beautiful couples and everyone on Instagram, everyone's having a good time. And we know maybe their life is imperfect, but people seem to be doing some cool stuff. You know, you two are in Bali with your Ganesh mugs walking around on the butt by karma. That's pretty amazing. And you have a podcast. Yeah, it's, it's incredible. And instead of appreciating everyone else, like I could appreciate your life, there's some part of us or insecurity or ego, which is sort of saying the same thing sometimes. That says, YOLO, right, I'm missing out. So it's never too late to fall in love with your life is a compilation of kind of some of the lists that you just mentioned in Buddhism that were most helpful to me. So David White, I don't know if you know him, the poet has this beautiful poem house of belonging and one of the lines in that poem is, this home is a place for all the things that has taken me so long to learn to love. And that line knocks me out of the out of the park. It was he shared that poem at the very beginning of the quarantine with this pandemic, and it has taken me so long all the things is taken me so long to learn to love. So I basically put this book together, we were already working on it, that poem wasn't the inspiration for the book. But it captures what I'm trying to do with this book, which is share everything that has been helpful to me from my teachers that I'm so grateful for, and that it took me so long to understand. And, and everything I learned the hard way, or that took me forever to learn. I'm just putting into like, a really simple format in this book. So I basically feel like as soon as the book is out, if I get run over by a Mack truck, and I'm like a cartoon pancake, and we all say bye, bye, Whalen, I've left behind the stuff that was most helpful to me. And I'm putting it in that way, because it's not my brilliant teachings is has nothing to do with like, these are the things I want to leave behind in this world. Like, I didn't come up with any of this stuff in Buddhism. And you mentioned, you know, the students and students of the students of the students of the Buddha put together to these lists. In Buddhism, we call that lineage, and lineage, you know, my teachers, my mentors, pass this stuff down to me, and I just want to pass it on, keep the baton going. So I basically took everything that was most helpful to me, and not all of its Buddhism. Some of its like activism, or some of its environmentalism, or some of its veganism, or some of its, you know, relationship stuff. Everything that like made sense to me, that really helped me be of some benefit, which is our mission in life that elephant in Buddhism is, and hopefully all of us just to be a benefit to others. So I put all that together. And it's 108 of these things with a little commentary on each one. And in Buddhism, we have these cards, and you read one card a day, and there might be commentary, it's called lo Jong or training the mind. So it's basically in that format, it's one thing a day, or maybe it's 365, I'm in the middle of editing, I should know, you know, it means destroying my brain. I have no brain left, I just got out of hours of editing. So I think it's only one 108. And then we're going to do two more books to get to anyway, whatever. It's a whole bunch of them. And once it's on the page, I clearly have no brain left.
Martin O'Toole 47:25
Because it'll all be in writing. Yeah, exactly what exactly what a beautiful project. And sounds like a life's work to, to a great extent.
Julia Malcolmson 47:36
It's also a great product. I mean, just to go back over everything you've learned, you know, sometimes we kind of put it on a shelf and we forget these things when you start researching back through all these wonderful things you've been taught.
Martin O'Toole 47:48
It's a refresher for all of us, isn't it? I often do that, because I'm a big pros fan. And I certainly love sharing pros from well, from the Buddha from young pueblo. He's a favourite Alan Watts. Eckhart Tolle, for example. Yeah, I just I love to, I love to find these little pearls of wisdom that says that a writer, or a thinker has just taken that extra time just to crack craft into a few words for us all to remember. And I think that's, I think that's a it's a beautiful thing, because you're doing it in the book, aren't you? So are they? Are they quotes? Or pros? Yeah,
Waylon Lewis 48:27
it's two things. So one, its quotes, but I wanted all so with low Jiang mind training. They're called slogans, and you read one, and it's just a quote. And it might say, be grateful to everyone. And that's the quote for the day. And you contemplate that for the day, or always trust the principle one, and you read that and you contemplate it for the day, but always trust the principle and you're like, what does that mean? So then you read the commentary, and the commentary is usually about maybe 400 words. And then you have a Dharma teaching there. So it's twofold. Its pros. And just a quote, because I think in today's Instagram, Twitter culture, quotes are have never been more popular. And yet, it's not enough is too much of a soundbite. We're too speedy
Martin O'Toole 49:14
is skin deep, isn't it? Yeah.
Waylon Lewis 49:16
Yeah. It's that McDonald's mentality. Again, it's like, oh, I got a quote from Pema children. I got a quote from Eckhart Tolle, or Brene Brown or whomever it is, and then you roll on with your life. And the quote helps, but it's just a little road bump in our speediness. We need to sometimes if we're up for it, just read a little bit 400 words isn't long, read a little bit and just actually process our hearts and our karma a little bit. And then we actually become slightly different people because we've connected with some Dharma, some teaching, some truth. And so these are the things that affected me in that way,
Martin O'Toole 49:52
actually settles in because it resonated with me so much because there are some similarities, I think with your intentions for the book. And our intentions for the how to die happy podcast. The our slogan is stories and practical utilities for the Art of Living and Dying well. Well, the thread, of course, is the top 10 Common deathbed regrets and these deathbed regrets or when you read them, when you read them as a as a complete list, it's actually pretty sad. Because you hear that people wish that they'd said, I love you more I wish I'd followed, I wish I'd had the courage to follow my dreams. I wish I'd known that happiness was closer. I wish I'd had the courage, courage to express my true self. And you sort of get this sense of this collective of people who, who didn't actually, for whatever reason, have the best of lives, they didn't live, they were human doings, not human beings. So that's the whole idea of what we're trying to do with the show and getting wonderful minds like yourself on is to share those stories, but also be able to share some practical utilities because it I think, I completely agree with you these days, there are a lot of people using sound bites, I am one of them. But but then you must then support that with with with, I think a practical utility. And that way, anyone on the spectrum, regardless of whether or not you've ever even thought about reading a Buddhist quote, or, or whether or not you, you believe in reincarnation or life after death, or you just think you're gonna die. And when you die, you're dead there within this, and I think, by the sounds a bit also in your book, these practical utilities that anybody can take away, to just refresh up, they're invited to refresh how they live their life today. Because I think that's the important thing, isn't it? And that's certainly something where it's in your title, isn't it? It's never too late to fall in love with your life. There is no, there's no age, or particular time when this should happen. Yeah, I
Waylon Lewis 52:15
mean, obviously, on a simple level, we want that moment to happen from the get go from when we're zero. When we're a baby, we want to be encouraged. We want to create even bigger than that. We want to create a society where everyone is encouraged to, you know, you could die or right livelihood, there's different words for it, but follow their dreams, but also have those dreams be a benefit. But also have those dreams, be able to pay the bills, but also have those dreams be something that they're trained in properly and thoroughly and are good at? Those are the different qualities of Right Livelihood. Meaning if I want to be a ballerina, that could be beautiful, but I need to train in it because I'm not any good at that yet. Or ever, in my case.
Julia Malcolmson 53:02
Never know where you are. But yeah, you never know. It was about arena. Yeah, hello, we got arena for I think I started ballet when I was a toddler. And I left it left it behind when I was about 18. Yeah. I'm just at the point where I was in my life, you know, you've got to really commit to it. And as a younger child, there was a moment where I wanted to go to performing art school. I think I was 11. And I was climbing trees and having fun with my friends. So you know, there's these moments within that path where you've got to make that decision and really commit to it. And that's tough, especially when you're young. It's a
Martin O'Toole 53:36
rigid. I know a couple of professional ballet, ballet dancers actually in a super rigid process, and their training is absolutely hardcore. And they've all got really gnarly feet.
Julia Malcolmson 53:47
Well, yeah, my feet were pretty gnarly. And I'd say now as being you know, as a yoga teacher, I'm much more compassionate to my body than I probably was as a ballerina. Yes, a totally different art. It's very different. Yeah, for
Martin O'Toole 54:02
sure. So we have another segment on our show, Whelan, which is called Be my guest. So we always invite people to audience members to record little questions. If they if they so wish, and somebody does. Somebody has recorded one for you. So here we go.
54:24
Martin O'Toole 54:24
that's the wonderful singer. Dwayne Forrest. And here's our caller. So a chap called. Evan I think from Montreal is a Russian chapter.
Ev 54:50
I met a month ago. I got a question. What is the what is the end goal for us all? thanks very much.
Martin O'Toole 54:57
Wow, that's a good question. Did you hear that? What is is the end goal for our soul?
Waylon Lewis 55:04
Oh, yeah, not not a small question. Small, small and syllables but not not in scope.
Martin O'Toole 55:12
Yeah. What have you got for forever then Waylon?
Waylon Lewis 55:16
Well, I think, you know if I knew that, or if anyone knew that we would not be what we are, which is human. But I think we have a question fundamentally, as human beings, whether we want to be selfish, as I think, forget who put it this way, but said you can be selfish in us intelligent way, or you can be selfish in a stupid way. being selfish in a stupid way, means you only care about yourself. And there's a Buddhist expression that says, if you want to be happy, think first of others, not only of others, but first of others. If you want to be unhappy, think only of yourself. So being selfish in a dumb way, in or I should say, in a stupid way is thinking only have myself ultimately we invest a lot in mee, mee, mee, Mee Mee, but that doesn't actually make us happy or fulfilled. And then as a collective, and individually, if we want to invest in the other Wolf, you know, the, the notion that my selfish happiness is connected with your selfish happiness and your happiness. And if we all care about one another, and even about animals, and sentient beings and our planet, and it doesn't have to be utopic or socialist, you know, we very quickly get distracted by kind of philosophies or arguments. But if there's some general attitude of caring, as we most of us know, or have experience, so it's not even philosophy. When you care, you experienced two things. One, you experience a little bit of heartbreak, because you care about others, your heart is exposed. But secondly, you experience joy, joy, because you're connecting, because you can love your if your heart is open, you can love. So it's a little bit painful, but there's also a lot of love. And that pain, as you also know, as many know, can turn sort of like lead into gold, that pain, when we care about others becomes a thing called empathy, what I've been through, I now care about you, and when we can help one another, that pain or that suffering can turn into kind of joy, in that I'm Oh, I went through that, or I went through something like that, Oh, my God is a simple connection. And through that connection, we wake up a little bit, a little part corner of a dark corner of our heart wakes up. So I think we just have to decide as, as a collective, you know, the soul that is all of humanity, if we want to invest in one another, or we want to kind of go down in flames caring only about ourselves. And it's easy to say. And of course, we're going to make mistakes all along the way. We all care about ourselves all the time. But there's no problem with that. We just have to care about ourselves and right, not just ourselves, and nothing else.
Martin O'Toole 58:30
Yeah, absolutely.
Julia Malcolmson 58:32
And that's a really lovely way to put it, if we could all just take that little bit of time to think of others. And so we realise we're all in this together. We're a collective,
Martin O'Toole 58:45
but also remember our humanity. I was just thinking about ABS question as well, while you're answering that so eloquently. I wonder, I don't know. Whatever believes. So I don't know if a believes that the soul is in this body and then we die and it goes to heaven, hell or purgatory, if you follow the Christians, if he believes in reincarnation, in which case, the soul might have signed up to 1000 lifetimes on this planet. I certainly speaking from a personal experience, which is a little bit left field, but I'll share that the tale cuz it's a short one. I when I was in my early 20s, I had a guided meditation session, first time I'd ever done anything like this, and I was having acupuncture at the same time, and the lady who guided me to put me into a sort of a deep state of meditation, and ultimately, I met my higher self. And I asked my higher self, what am I here to do? What am I on this planet to do? And this character just replied with you're here to learn to love. Now, I was 24 and about to embark on 20 years of serious alcohol and drug addiction. So and the Wrong kind of selfishness. So I wasn't ready for that I wasn't ready for that lesson. Fast forward. Now I'm 46 Next week. And having had a fun old time of it, I now understand so certainly from my perspective is, I think we live in a in a realm of duality. That's what our that's what Earth school is. It's, it's a, it's all about duality. And I certainly feels to me like I'm here to learn to love in spite of duality. So if I can, if I can navigate the, the assault course of Earth school, and duality and judgement, of course, which we, which we just touched on, and still managed to be mindful and still managed to put myself in service to others, then that feels like kind of the right direction. I don't know what else happens after that, if none of us do. Well, some of us probably do. I don't know, there is some, some more awakened beings who were on the planet this time who seemed to have some access to some serious fact. I guess that's still a picture, isn't it?
Waylon Lewis 1:01:16
There's that great quote from Kurt Vonnegut, who kind of answered this question. He said, you know, and while we're here, I forget the exact quote, but it's something like and while we're here, we'll we'll do the work with or the only thing that matters or something is kindness. And I think the Buddha had a different teaching on that he had a teaching like the six things I've written about this on elephant. The six profound questions that don't matter. And it was just a really delightful like thing. And he said, There's six huge questions in life. And it's not that they don't matter, it's that the answers don't matter. And one of them is what happens after we die. So he said, basically, what matters is serving others is being kind is being kind to yourself. And when you hear that, it's sort of a relief. You're like, Okay, we don't know what happens. We'll find out. You know, maybe we won't, you know, maybe it'll be like turning the TV off and the TV doesn't know what happened to it. You're like, I don't know. But while we're here, we'll do the Oh, I'm getting the Kurt Vonnegut quote mixed up with Allen Ginsberg. Typical Whalen mix up. But Allen Ginsberg had this. Yeah. GINSBERG has this amazing quote, he says, and while we're here, I'm losing it, but it's something like, be kind everything else is the final line, drunken, dumb show. So other than being kind, it's all a drunken dumb show, you know, it's all just noises and farts, and fireworks and who cares? You know, just be kind.
Martin O'Toole 1:02:52
The rest is detail, I suppose. I think that's if you heard of the concept of organism is, I don't know how I came across it. But an honest is someone who believes that there is truth in all religion, but no one religion is truth. I suppose if I had to identify, I might identify as a bit of an ominous but the thing is that there are common threads of beliefs and practices for all of us out there. And exactly. There's also the law of the universe. And the golden rule isn't that the golden rule is I'm paraphrasing, treat others the way you want to be treated. So when when push comes to shove, it's the really simple stuff is Be nice, be kind, but be kind to yourself as well, which I think a lot of people forget. And I think yeah,
Waylon Lewis 1:03:46
that's what you talked about duality, we get so into, oh, Be of service and be kind but we forget that that has to start with something that isn't a simple sort of trite advice. It has to start with not just being kind to yourself, which in Buddhism, we call Maitri getting to know yourself making friends with yourself the parts you like and the parts you don't like. But actual meditation practice it comes back to actually doing the work of learning how to be present fully with yourself and with others, because we got to hang in there and relationships you know, we have conflict, we have conflict with ourselves. We all want to take the again the fast food easy exit. But real life isn't behind. You know, I actually kind of really dislike advice like that. Because it doesn't say how the question is what everyone knows of the kind that sounds cool, you know, like those signs people have in their kitchens live laugh, love, you're like, Okay, that sounds nice, but I bet you had a screaming fight with your partner in front of that sign. And that sign you just looked at it with irritation during that fight, or maybe a little plaintive, like how, you know, I agree, but how? Because I'm fighting with someone I love right now. So the question and is, this is actually from Oprah Winfrey, when I was doing interviews many years ago, I was starting to do interviews and I was really bad at them. You guys are much better than I ever
Martin O'Toole 1:05:20
was to kind.
Waylon Lewis 1:05:23
So I studied all these people are good at doing interviews, Oprah was one of them. And she said the best advice she ever got, and it was from this lady who actually died, who was on her show many times she was suffering from bulimia, bulimia, and, and Oprah was with her in the hospital bed. And she was saying, you have to eat, you have to just eat, you have to take care of yourself, you have to be kind to yourself. And the young woman she was practically a girl looked at Oprah, just brokenhearted and desperate and said, but how? That was the bet. And Oprah took that, like, stop telling people what to do or what to be, and help show them how and that's what, again, forget Buddhism forget any one religion, but that's what the Buddhist path is where the notion of path is, how do I get from here to there? In Buddhism, we call it Sugata. So you want to cross the river of confusion. So the river of confusion is a weird way of describing life. But that's what life is. So how do we get from here to there and here isn't a bad place here. It's just we're confused. We're, we have wonderful potential. We're sweethearts. We're nice children. We get into fights on the schoolyard, whatever, we're, we're a mixed bag, but we're kind of cute and wonderful. But how do we get from here to there where, you know, like you said, we can, I don't like the notion of living your best life. But you said, you said it really well, like live your life, live the life that you really want to live, which is, you know, being kind, travelling, not working all the time, you know, the things on that list before you die, that people have regrets around. And so Sugata is a term that says, you don't just grow up, you don't just go through the confusion, but you do it with joy. So we have to celebrate this very confusing, difficult journey we're on. Just because we're fundamentally good. And you know, in Zen Teachings, they say, when you finally get there, you do exactly what you did back in the day. Right, nothing changes the mountain. In Zen, they said in the beginning of your spiritual path, the mountain is a mountain you think it's solid and real and heavy. And you can define it. And then you go through your spiritual path and you realise the mountain is not a mountain you see through it. It's like, it's like a trip, bro. And then at the end, Yo, dude. And then at the end, when you actually attain enlightenment, you realise the mountain is a mountain again? Yeah, but it's not solid. So it's kind of both you end that you don't end the duality, the duality just becomes one again, I guess.
Martin O'Toole 1:08:09
Yeah. Well, that makes total sense to me. You just reminded me of a time when I was doing a silent meditation retreat in the jungle here in barley with a wonderful teacher called pack Mirta adder, and he is, is a Balinese healer, who has who is a Buddhist. So he's, he's created this wonderful smorgasbord of Hindu Balinese Hinduism, some more ancient sort of regional Balinese healing teachings and Buddhism and sort of thrown it on to this this wonderful practice called the tapper burrata, which is a seven day silent retreat, where you're just meditating all day, every day, not talking to anybody, not writing anything down or using computers or using phones or technology. And the core of the meditation he teaches you is the mantra May all beings be happy, which is look us some sick, you know, above and to always forget that bit. May all beings be happy, may all beings be happy. So he's encouraging you through his meditation to send the love out there, out to the universe. And then, on the very last day, I was very used to this practice, bye, bye bye now. But on the very last day, he suddenly invited us all to turn that love inward. And for the first time, say, May I be happy? And, you know, the moment I did that, my heart opened up, I burst into tears, and I sobbed silently, silently as I could. For all or 45 minutes through the whole meditation, I just sat there sobbing as my as my heart opened and I realised I had never had not loved myself and actually So I've been putting myself through samsara through the over or across the river of suffering, which has many burnt bridges and and it's full of Spilt Milk. And I'd been beating myself I suppose for many, many years. So to suddenly have that realisation and turn that love on myself was a was a wonderful thing indeed. Love that. And it was loud too, wasn't it? Who said the I'm now I'm budging quotes, as well as about the way to happiness. There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way which kind of resonated when, when you were talking about the main Yeah,
Waylon Lewis 1:10:46
well, it's both. It's a journey. Trungpa Rinpoche has a book that's titled, journey without a goal. So you are making a journey, there is a way. But the joke, the cosmic joke of it very Buddhist humour is that when you finally get there, you're just right back here, you're right here, you're present with your own basic, basic goodness, you're on Buddha nature, there was nowhere to go. And in fact, when we're leaving all the time, that's actually part of the issue part of the problem.
Martin O'Toole 1:11:18
And so have you got any questions for us Whelan? Because I'm always conscious that we hammer people with questions, and then I talk far too much in our podcasts. But is there anything that you'd like to talk about?
Waylon Lewis 1:11:30
Oh, yeah, well, I just I love the whole. I feel like, you know, in our culture, and particularly in spirituality, which is somewhat surprising, we love to avoid the notion of death. And I love you know, I have one chapter about death. And in my book, maybe there should be more, I definitely have some chapters about letting go. But I guess you know, I'd be curious for those who are listening, as well as myself just selfishly, hopefully, selfishly in a smart way. What has been most helpful in your various conversations and interviews, in terms of appreciating life, living life, for the benefit of others, and living life fully, and most precious sort of moments you've had, or or realisations you've had around death and living life fully.
Martin O'Toole 1:12:25
A great couple of questions. Well, one of the common themes that's come up in all of our interviews so far, and we've had a range of people from psychedelic trauma informed counsellors to tragedy, grief and loss counsellors suicide as soon as suicide mentor, specifically, we've had a we've had a Bitcoin consultant with a completely different mindset, not just talking about money, money being energy, the conversation isn't even about Bitcoin, when you really sort of dive into that. And we've had a an international best selling author called Carl Andre, who wrote a lot of books about slowness, slowing down and more and more. But the point is, the common theme that seems to be coming into plays is twofold first thing that all of these perspectives that all of these thought leaders are now sharing and so prevalently and are being more widely accepted. prevalently I think, actually, they're not new ideas. They might they're a new take on an old idea. They're an old term, they're a new take on ancient wisdom. For example, Buddhism, for example, Hinduism, Taoism. Confucianism, and that's a really key outtake for me, because what it what it made me start to think was, okay, and obviously, prior to the podcast, I'd already this has already occurred to me, we're all talking about these these ways to do things to slow down to meditate. An alternative approach to the way of living although and ultimately the way of dying, which I'll come on to, but actually, this this, this wisdom dates back 1000s of years. So this is why I'm, this is why I'm happy to proactively encourage people to actually I don't care if you've never thought about Buddhism, or Taoism, Confucianism. I do invite you wholeheartedly to maybe just go and have a look at it, because actually, there's some, there's some amazing clear and simple wisdom in all of this. So that's one of the that's one of the common themes that's come out of the show. We were talking to people who are essentially all aligned with the same concept and that is, if we can learn to live better if we can learn to live well. Ultimately, we are learning how to die? Well? If that makes sense, have you? Have you read The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying? Or The Tibetan Book of the Dead?
Waylon Lewis 1:15:09
Yeah, I've read different translation on the first title you mentioned.
Martin O'Toole 1:15:13
Yeah, yeah. So you get the idea, essentially, that the and of course, this all comes back to Buddhism, the whole idea is, live in the present moment, every day, treat every day as though it might be your last but not like your 20. So you're just going to go out and get smashed. And party? Yeah, that's not the plan. The plan is to, to just, I suppose, ask yourself, if I died, and this is this is the question we pose in our trailer, if you had five minutes left to live, what would be on your list of your top list of regrets. And it's a, it's a, that's something I'm really keen that we we invite our listeners to, to do and do it now. I'll do it after this podcast, just write down the top 10 regrets that you have right now. And it doesn't matter what age you are, where you are, financially, where you are, socially, how many Instagram followers you got, how your career is doing, you now have a chance in the present moment with that list to do something about it. So that's really what we're trying to do with the show. And it's to it's to say, look, it doesn't matter whether or not you believe in life after death, we are going to get into that. Oh, yeah, we're gonna get into that we're gonna this show is got legs to run all around for years and years. So we're gonna dive into that with with theologians and, and religious leaders as well, no doubt. But I also want to talk to mediums I want to talk to people who have had near death experiences, I've had a near death experience. So we're going to dive into but isn't doesn't matter if you if you believe that you're going to die? And as you say, the switch is going off. Okay, let's say let's say that's the case. Well, if that is the case, wouldn't you want this time here then to be the best time it could be. And you said something earlier on, really resonated with me the idea that that whatever you do, whatever your actions are, actually, they bring joy. And I don't mean again, the same the sort of joy that we get from partying and staying up all night and general Hedden ism. I did that for 20 years, by the way, so I'm not judging anybody. Although I would happily invite people to cut that by half view, if you want any advice from the party for 10 years? Not not 20 years. So yeah, sorry, a very long answer to your question. But But this has come about for me in in realising the impermanence of all things, and in realising the the one universal constant is change. And of course, as the Buddha said, pain is inevitable suffering is optional. Yet we suffer so much, because we're attached to everything. And if we could just learn to not be attached to things, and certainly to reframe what it is in our lives that we're focusing on, and is and are they healthy? And are they are they helpful toward that end game, because we only got five minutes left to live. And I think that's really where we're going with it.
Julia Malcolmson 1:18:34
But also, as you mentioned, it's not just the theoretical, we want to give people the tools to, to work through these things. And for me, I feel like with so much sort of variety of guests to share, often they're sharing the same threads, you know, this beautiful golden threads that are coming down. But the different ways they're sharing it are going to resonate with different people. So we've all we can all then find what resonates with us in order to start working through these things. And
Martin O'Toole 1:19:02
that's spot on. Because as you know, well, and there are, there are so many different healing modalities and options for us. We could do Qigong, we could do Tai Chi, I could do sound healing, I can do yoga, I can do breath work, I can do plant medicine, I can meditate. Although I would add, meditation should be a staple diet for everybody on the planet. But that's just my own opinion. So we have all of these wonderful modalities and many more that I couldn't list just then. And of course, not all of them resonate with with everyone. So I think it's another part. Another idea for what we're trying to do here is is to to bring those people onto the show, and get their opinion. So you know you you're the first expert on Buddhism, we've had an expert on Buddhism because you're a Buddhist, right? So it's been wonderful to hear your perspective and for you to talk about Buddhism, not as a tourist like me, because it's, it's, it's been your way of life. So for that, I thank you.
Waylon Lewis 1:20:09
Yeah, thank you. It's been a pleasure. It's been fun. I look forward to hearing your adventures with all your other guests.
Martin O'Toole 1:20:17
It's gonna be wild. We got some we got some epic people lined up. And, and we're always on the lookout for more as well. And I think the the show is going down very well very quickly with a lot of people. We're getting some wonderful feedback. So I think the fundamental thing is for us to always remember it's it's about yes, we've got stories, but we all always want to do what Waylon says, and that is okay, you give me the pros, you give me the tail. But what's the how? How do I do it? So we've got to always remind people that there are practical utility. So I'm going to ask you one more question before we go if you had one practical utility to, to hand over to our audience members today. What would it be?
Waylon Lewis 1:20:59
It's a great question. I think. The you know, in the morning, when I'm meditating, when I'm done meditating, in the evening, when I'm meditating before bed, and after I'm done meditating, you begin an end with a bow. And that bow is some fancy little spiritual, flourish to be cool. The bow is about, you're basically saying, may I be of benefit. So my request for your show, wherever you, you know, you're going to be all over the place, interviewing all these different people, modalities, thought leaders, from all these different traditions and going in different directions, different galaxies, and my request to everyone listening would be, you know, begin and end. Everything you do with may I be of benefit may, you know, May all beings be happy, may I be happy. Because if it's not of benefit, you know, very quickly in the spiritual path, we can lose, you were talking about partying for 20 years, maybe cut it down to 10. Very quickly on the spiritual path, you can get lost in 20 years getting off on all these teachings and fun little adventures. And, you know, Trump shamed my parents, but his teacher was very critical. He said, You know, don't just make the spiritual path. Another kind of fun little like spiritual salad bar, like, don't just collect a blessing from here and a teaching from here and all the different things, really do it. Like if you get a blessing, or you get a teaching, do it follow that path. And if you if it's not for you, you can be discerning, that's fine, but really try to be of benefit because, gosh, life is precious. And while we're here, you never know how long you're going to be here while you're here. Really try to be a benefit because this world is on fire on some level, both with big time rancour with partisanship with you know, with people hating on one another, but also just physically we are drowning, we are destroying this planet exploiting it. And we don't have to, we can really heal. A lot of people say, Oh, the earth will be fine without us. You know, when we all go extinct? I find that like a real cop out. That's very nihilistic. We can't go extinct without taking billions of beings and trees and children and animals with us. We really have to heal ourselves, heal one another. Be kind, how do we be kind? So yes, the how, but also make sure anything anyone is talking about? How is it a benefit to all sentient beings? Because living in Boulder is probably similar to Bali in the sense, you can be around people who are tripping on their philosophical or spiritual ideas. And oh my god, there's nothing more boring than tripping out on your own fantasies about spirituality is like, how is it a benefit? There are people out there who are dying, to be helped, and dying to make friends with ourselves, you know, if someone if a wise woman or a man person could have come to you, you know, in year 10 of your head aneurysm and you're being lost in parting, and and helped you save 10 years, you know, you'd be so grateful for that. I would imagine. So how can we be of benefit?
Martin O'Toole 1:24:35
Yeah, that's a wonderful way to end this discussion. Thank you. Well, and I have to say I've been looking forward to speaking to you for a long time. So obviously I've been involved with your your your online publication for a couple of years now. And I think what you're doing is a wonderful thing and long may reign. And we certainly wish you the very best of luck with this new book and we look forward to reading it. Because once you finish editing it, so we were promoting it a little bit early, but I'm assuming it is it is available to preorder and you can find a link to wildlands profile on the website so it's how to die happy podcast.com forward slash on dash the dash shell you find Waylon Lewis we've linked to elephant journal. Whelan is all over that website, because it's his baby was probably not a baby anymore. gone to college and it by now.
Waylon Lewis 1:25:32
Yeah, it's 19 years old now. So definitely in college.
Martin O'Toole 1:25:37
Well, his is to some formative college years for elephant journal. And thank you very much. Well, I'm really appreciate your time. Thank you.
Waylon Lewis 1:25:45
Thank you both. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure and an honour
