Para normal Karen. She's so spooky. Para normal Karen. Funny too. Para normal Karen. She's so spooky. Oh, and then I mentioned she's funny too. Yeah. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Para normal Karen. I forgot where I was. Thanks for listening to the podcast really quick. I have the Patreon, I have the website. I have some comedy dates coming up. You know all the regular stuff. Check it out at Karen Rontowski.com or Para normal Karen dot com or psychic stand up dot com. I've all kinds of shows this summer sign up for my email list. I yet have yet to send out an email this year, but I think it's coming. So today, a fabulously interesting topic that I haven't really hit on, which is a Buddhism and the tenants of Buddhism. Oh, sorry. That's a motorcycle that would buy right away as soon as we started taping. I think motorcycle gangs follow me around. So today, my guest to talk about all this is my friend Nick Nicholson. How are you? Nicholas, I'm sorry. I'm doing very well. I'm sorry. I wrote it three times. Good. It's all right. Good to have you on my friend. How is your day going so far? So far, so good. That's my, it's a day off. I have. I think we're going to go to the springs daily on spring. So, it's going great. Good. We finally have son here where I am. So, I'm, I feel like I'm a native that's like, what is that red thing in the sky? I don't know what that is. So, now Nick, you are my Buddhism expert today. If that's a thing, right? Would a Buddhist not want you to say expert or they wouldn't care? I don't think they would. Buddhist does not, wouldn't get attached to, you know, any label. And as long as it was a working definition for something that was a benefit to someone, a Buddhist would be just fine with that. And the Buddhist is a, is a kind of a broad term. We can narrow it down. But I mean, for today, I mean, I guess we're going to just look at the four noble truths and kind of like how we can point those out in our lives and my life, in particular, my life path. And maybe it might be a little less traditional view of Buddhism, but we are in the West. So, I have to kind of. Yes. And I love this. Excuse me. I'm still a little coughing under the weather. You know, you are absolutely right, because I have a, I know a lot of people that are Buddhists, but I don't know what a that much about it. So, I love this. All right. Let's start out with the four, you said the four truths, right? Yeah, the four noble truths of Buddhism. And essentially, it is very practical. So, this is real, real kind of like, well, let's try it out. And it doesn't work. We'll test it like gold. And if the gold ain't good, we're not going to keep it and we'll move on from there. So, like a Buddhist quote, unquote, faith life might be like, okay, I'm going to implement this instruction. If it works, I'm going to implement the next instruction being built on that. And, and I kind of, I approached it to where I did things like that. If I would meditate and I would cultivate mindfulness awareness and compassion. Hold on one second and then go about my day and look for. Hey, everybody, I paused that for a second because like an idiot, I didn't have my cellular on I had on my Wi-Fi, which is terrible. And so, you got a little garbled there next. So, you said you would start your day meditating on compassion and. Well, yeah. And like, basically, when I started when I started my meditation practice, it was in a reaction to losing a lot of things in my life, losing people, losing ability to go places and losing a lot of things. And I thought, well, okay, what's the, what can't they, what can not be taken from me to best of my knowledge? And it was my mind. So, I started working with my mind. And how I did that was I engaged them some, some students of Buddhism, Chogam Chumper Rinpoche, and they taught me how to work with work by my breath. And so, I did that daily and I would engage mindfulness, expand that to kind of open awareness. And then, after I got that kind of stability down, I would cultivate compassion by doing different meditations on compassion, taking in the pain of others and giving, you know, giving health or giving back, you know, visualization, giving back, you know, compassion at the action and things like that. So, that's kind of how I approach life. Just like that, you know, kind of be in the present, be willing to help. Don't, don't bring any baggage to the present moment, the best on my ability and meet and meet everyone exactly where there are, you know. So, that's kind of been what, okay, yes, I, I kind of, so mindfulness, which is really that step of just being present, that's the biggest thing, right? Right. So, how I engage mindfulness is, okay, so we're, let's say we're doing breath work, a little bit of breath work. I take my seat and I try to do it with, you know, kind of some regalness and the ability, because I'm going to set my intention to cultivate mindfulness, let's say, and I'm going to take my seat. I'm going to focus my intention on my lower abdomen. I'm going to wash my, with my mind, wash my lower abdomen, go in and out. I'm going to count those breaths, you know, and then once I, once I can make it to 10, you know, and then I'll maybe add something up. Then I'll just only focus on the out breath. So, I'll focus my intention only on the out breath and, and then I go from, that's from mindfulness and the baby step towards awareness because mindfulness is being able to focus my attention on my breathing. And awareness is kind of exploring the gap. And when by exploring the gaps, I go from mindfulness to awareness. Myfulness is kind of, for me, it's kind of, it's like precision and awareness is panoramic. And with, when I bring the discipline of mindfulness in, then things can open up for me and my awareness. And when that happens, then I have engaged, I think the basic, the basic fundamentals of how I operate within a personal space of wisdom and a universal space of wisdom as well. And then after I do that, and then I throw compassion meditations on that, like Tom Glenn, some of your listeners probably familiar with, to my children, she teaches tunneling very well. It's a, it's a sinning receiving or giving and taking it. And like for, for my family, like when I lost my little brother, I knew that they were hurting and I wanted to take that pain away from them. I think, I think if we can really remember back for me anyway, I always, but I saw somebody in pain, I didn't want them to be in pain, you know, and what I did, I cultivated that. So when I wasn't pain, I would say, may I be the only one that has to feel this pain? And then I'd visualize some people that might be in some similar circumstance and breathe in that pain, you know, ventilated from a place of wisdom and compassion and send it back out as positive energy. Okay. So, so hold on one second. So you were sort of doing this almost like alchemy, like I'm changing that energy of pain into love and sending it back out to the universe. Absolutely. And take that a step further. Actually, it's all chemical alchemy. I mean, it's all spiritual alchemy, which affects your physical environment, which then I think it turns from spiritual into material in a way, you know, and it moves on down the line like that. But yeah, even, even like with anger, jealousy, pride, anything like say, a real thick emotion, depression, right? But everything has worked, especially children in front book and his students, but everything is workable. So if I'm depressed, I don't want to feel that, but counterintuitively, I lean into it. I drop the narrative, the stories I tell myself of past, you know, probably half truths in the future that's not just fancy and lean into that emotion and drop the narrative. I feel it. Don't feed it. Unhook the storyline and experience directly the emotional tone, where it's at my body. Don't make any stories about it and rest there as long as I can with bare attention. And when that starts to dissolve, then I look at that too. And I realize that as thick as this depression or is, or as thick as this jealousy is, or anger is, it's not solid. And it is impermanent. And the very impermanence that caused me grief and the idea of life and suffering is also the impermanence that brings me into a state of awareness that it's all for the good, not good versus bad, but good and, you know, perfect as it is. There's nothing I can do to any of these moments to make them, you know, I mean, from a non-dualistic you, it's all, and when you can look at things, not from state are good or bad necessarily, but if you can look at it from an apex and you can embrace the extremes without swinging back and forth between them, I think you stand in a place with them ready to engage your environment with me. Yes, and that sort of moderation that is, yeah, the tarot is really about, because we're going to talk about tarot too in this. Yeah, you know what you're talking about, because the, it's very interesting, like in tarot, when two, it's all about finding balance. So when two feet are equally on the ground, that is out of balance when we see like the temperance card or the justice card has one foot where balance is about being almost uneven. Does that make sense how I said that? Oh, yeah, absolutely. And here's a, here's a difficulty because it's, the view is a little bit transcendent. It's at least eastern. So what I've been blessed with is going real deep into the eastern view to then bring on that back to the west and it opens up a lot. So, but yeah, the idea though is not to like, you don't balance a pencil on your finger. That's not the point of balance we're looking at. We want you to be, we want, I want the cat bird to seat a little bit. To be moving a little bit, right? Just, yeah, I want, yeah, yeah, right, right. It's just, it's a spectrum thing. It's not a good, bad thing. It's a spectrum thing. But once you can. Oops, hold on, folks. Hey, folks, we're back. We're, I'm trying to work this stupid discord server. I shouldn't say stupid. See, that's a, that's giving it, not, it's giving it power. So we're having a few technical difficulties, but I'm going to tell you this week I'm having is one huge technical difficulty. So, in fact, and this is a really good place. I want to go back for a second because I loved what you were saying. I have all these notes about the alchemy. So, I'm going to tell me if I have this right. So, I'm having a depression and I, I kind of do some breathwork and I feel like it feels like it's all in my chest. It's like grief and depression and it's in my chest. So, I have to realize this is a temporary thing. And then instead of like being a positive thinker, I'm doing great instead of masking it, sit in it for a second and then tell me if that's right, kind of see it as a cloud that's dispersing and turning into something good or is that too simplistic? Well, actually, I'll take you from the beginning. How I do is I look at it direct. I'm like, first of all, two dynones self be true is Shakespeare and AA say. So, I look inward and I see what's there. Okay. It doesn't matter. It's because I'm not coming with a good or bad judgment. I'm just discerning what is there, right? And a good doctor will, they will say, okay, what's the cause of what is, you know, it's kind of like the suffering and what's the cause of suffering. What's there? All right. So, when I'm honest about that, now I can work with it. Like, I can't, I can't say that, oh, I'm not depressed. It's just a little sadness and it's probably because I had too much coffee and all that shit. That's, that's, you're not trying to, you're not trying to explain it away. We're just gonna, we're just gonna look at it, see if it's, if it's worms, you know, I just want to say I love that the way you said it because don't explain it because there's so much in manifesting and positive thought, there is such a wrong road to go down. That is just like, yeah. So go ahead. Okay. So you don't explain it. You just look at it. Right. The idea, you're not a narrator. You're not even trying to listen to the narrator. You're trying to say, hey, when thoughts come, label it as stinking and as neutral as you can and return your attention at first to the breathing, right? But then to the emotion or the feeling of depression or whatever emotion you're working with and you label the thoughts thinking as they come, it doesn't matter what they are about the past or about the laundry list. It doesn't matter. It's all neutral. Label it thinking, return your attention to the depression. Now, what's likely to happen is your ego, my ego is going to fight the separation between narrator or narrative and underlying energy. Well, that energy, like your mind tries to place a definition or get itself around what that energy might be. And my goal is to just rest in that energy. And there's where the alchemy comes in. That's when I can do that. And it is work because like, what's the heavy emotion, you got to disconnect and come back, disconnect, it's work. Yeah. And you're always trying to escape these emotions. So to sit in it is hard. Right. It's very difficult. And pen my children would call it the wisdom of no escape. You know, you can't kick the can down the road. If I'm being a certain way and it's probably a certain kind of pain, and I keep getting that can down the road, nothing's going to change, you know, nothing changes, nothing changes as old saying goes. But, but really all that's, even all that's kind of high minded, all I'm doing is looking at looking at the pain. And then I'm not going to take it personally. When I start, when I start looking at it as a function of, of being a human, it's not a part. I don't have to take that personally. Okay. You know, it's pain or suffering is not in the front to my being. It's part of me. It's not separate than me. So it's, I have to, I have to work with it just like I do my joy, you know. And another, another way of a quick way to alchemy is something called sympathetic joy. Right. It's, it's really, you know, we can kind of like, maybe we can relate to a best in sports if anybody, you know, like their team wins, and they're happy with the whole city of, you know, Kansas City or whatever. You know, it's a sympathetic type of joy, but it's harder like when we're in a work environment, somebody that we don't really like or don't know, and they have a good thing happen to them. If I can connect to that joy and, and reflect that joy, you know, it kind of like expands it because it's very easier to be, and it's a way to be positive and keep it to yourself a little bit. You know what I mean? Yes. And also I just want to, that stuff in the beginning is really, it's all about not being a victim, right? That's like, that is blasted at us so much about being a victim. And I buy into it all the time. And that's one of the 55th, Jessa sent me the 55 keys where we're going to, to ascension and being a victim is the worst. So seeing it, not taking it personally, beautiful. And then like you're saying, take joy or instead of being jealous or being like, oh, that person gets it, try and connect with them. Yes, absolutely. Because you're certainly connecting with the other side of that man, that dude won 2500 bucks. I was next to the line, I could have had that ticket. Well, that's a bunch of what they call it, you know, hating, right? Or whatever. But if, you know, he, if I can express approach that with, oh man, he won his life's going to change for the better. I really do care about, you know, the random human being and the great things that could happen. What can they do with that money? I don't know that person. If I'm going to create stories, all I don't, you know, then why do they have to be silly ones? You know, first of all, and second of all, I don't have to create any stories because the joy they're experiencing in my present is real authentic on the spot and in the moment. I can work with that from a real authentic on the spot in the moment, place. So after I get my fundamentals down, discipline, compassion, you know, and then bringing that to the world is kind of how I operate. So, so also you, so you're creating more joy by tapping into, I have to tell you this really quick. I watched a really great near death experience video. And what the woman, I liked it because it had something different added in. And the woman saw her life in front of her. And she thought she was doing the right thing by not saying it when there was this other co-worker that wasn't really doing her job. And she thought she was better than everyone else because she didn't gossip and she kept it to herself. And she realized that even the bad thoughts she was harboring were not only doing the same amount of damage, but then she was kind of shown where this woman came from and why she was like that. And she started to think, wow, I can't believe this woman shows up for work at all after how hard her life was. So it's kind of the same thing, like you want to make sure you're tapping into that positive thing. Awesome. Okay, let's take a break. We'll be right back in one second. Hi, I'm Becca. I'm an energy healer. In a session, I use intuition and conversation to help people remove blocks and allow healing of all kinds to happen. I help people with things like relationships, making sense of their awakening process or beginning to heal a chronic illness. My favorite thing to do is help people remember who they are. I also do intuitive nutritional counseling, which combines my experience as a nutritional therapy practitioner with my intuition to help you heal your energy related to food. I do sessions over the phone or on Zoom. If you go to my website and feel a little buzz of resonance, I know a session will be beneficial. Check it out by going to regenerativelifefarm.com and click on the energy healing tab because I'm also a regenerative farmer. That's regenerativelifefarm.com/energy-healing. Remember who you are. Okay, so excuse me with the coughing, folks. I think I'm almost over this whatever the heck I have. I was never sick in California. Oh my God, New York, you're killing me. So, as we kind of get in and break this down, the four truths of Buddhism, the first truth is of suffering. Go ahead, explain this and how it showed up in your life. Yeah, so do it. Yeah, I will. When I was born, my parents didn't think they could have another baby. I was adopted, my parents didn't think they could have another baby. And three years later, my little brother was born, their miracle baby, right? Well, as we were growing up, about three years later, tragedy struck and they lost him. You know, he died. And from that moment on, I saw a lot of rock solid adults kind of crumble a little bit. And I was only, you know, I was only six, you know, so, or I was nine, I was nine. And so I was like taking all this and all the big questions started coming at a very early age about what is this, you know, and I started having, you know, what the Zen guys call can show or openings. I was started like meditating. I didn't know that's what it was called. I started meditating and I would come to the points to where there were no, there were no real thoughts and there was just direct experience of something and it would, I would get a little slashes of insight. I mean, I didn't know what that was at the time, but it was definitely, it was definitely meditation. And what's weird about kind of some forms of meditations, they feel like dissociative. And I think in the East, in the East, they are definitely not. They're seeing it. They're seen as a way of perception that's beneficial to the being and the person at the time. And then they go, you know, they go back and look at those openings again. Well, anyway, after that, I started having outer body experiences. And these, and these things, I didn't know anything about psychology or psychiatry, but I didn't know a lot about, you know, Southern Indiana spirituality. And this stuff was scary. So I had to take an alternate approach. And what that approach just seemed to be was, was avoid suffering, escape from suffering, you know, after that. And so I took a misguided view of that. But yeah, the idea of life is suffering, it really comes from the idea of impermanence or, you know, or, you know, cling to desires. Or these two shall pass. Yeah, well, this two shall pass is definitely impermanence, but we have to remember to stay balanced as we talked about this two shall pass also includes the happiest day of your life, their first kiss, when the day you get married, the day you're first to all that passes to. And so the idea is not to cling on to it like it's solid, but to be there fully present for it, open up to it as Trunkar and Bache would say it was an open broken heart. And miracles happened, you know, so. In other words, not trying not to be happy all the time. Yeah, man, it's, it's, um, contentment's really like the word, right? Anyway, happy, happy is an elusive tricky and means something different to everybody. However, it is the one thing that every single human being has in common on this earth that desire to be happy. Now, how I approach that, how I go about that is might be completely misguided and that creates more suffering for me. But I'm, you know, I'm ignorant to that. There's all sorts of, there's all sorts of reasons, but everybody wants to be happy. And, and that's how I connected another human being on a very basic level. Whatever you're doing in front of me, I know it's out of the desire to be happy to find satisfaction. And that's not how this thing works. You have to, you have, you know, the satisfaction is just a song by the Rolling Stones. It's not a state of being very often, you know? Yes. And even, and I mean this in a, not a facetious way, even if someone is trying to do something mean to you or get back at you, they're, they are kind of doing it from a place of thinking that will make them happy even though it won't make. Is that how you go? Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. And then it's, the Tibetans would say this dude that's coming at me with some ill intent is my perfect guru, because the, the, the adversary, the quote unquote obstacles on the path or the path without there's obstacles with no such thing as path. And, and, and, and I hate the perfect guru. I hate those people. I know, right? And that's, that's funny. That's the trickster energy. That's that trickster energy. That's the, you know, the thing that, of course, we don't like that. But we also don't want to polyanish guru, because that's really not going to get you anywhere, you know? And, but our environment, and this is, I just read, I kind of like brought this teaching into full effect for me. The idea of the age of no guru and the idea of they're not me, they're not being the hero fan, as we talked about it, like talk about in churro. That kind of breaking down that kind of meaning something different, you know? And, and I took me a long time because of my Tibetan leaning backgrounds or even Zen backgrounds that because you have a lot of interaction with that teacher, but they all have been pointing to the same thing, which is, I'm just pointing you, I'm just pointing at the moon. Don't look at my finger. Look at the moon. Right? And we can all share a view of the moon from completely different places on Earth, right? And both feel the reality of how that moon touches, you know, on a very human level. Will you know? Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, that's all right. I'm good. It's funny because I do believe we are in the falling of the, whatever the spiritual person is that is supposed to be quote unquote above us. Like, I just, it always made me uncomfortable. And, and I know even talking the Dalai Lama, like what he did wasn't, it was an Indian tradition, but something about being worshiped, it really bugs me because really you can learn from anyone, right? A little kid can say the right thing and you can learn from them. Oh, absolutely. But see, that's, that creates, that takes a person that have, first of all, you have to remain teachable. That's a big leap for a lot of people to actually, and being honest about whether you're remaining teachable or not, you have to be open to that. Of course, the child out of the mouth of the maid, right? But you have that here. So if I don't have eyes to see here, the here, et cetera, it doesn't matter. I could have, I could have the Dalai Lama over here, and I could have a toddler over here, and I'm not going to get anything from either one of them. Yeah, that's like comedy. Yes. If people walk in, like, uh, women aren't funny, then they're not going to, you're not going to win them over. They've already, they can't, they're not open to comedy, like not open to learning. Yeah. And, and actually, I was thinking about the Dalai Lama situation before, before we got just called it. I'm just going to hang out for the Dalai Lama being me, too, because it's a slow news day on the internet. It's not not, isn't attention, I promise you, was counter to anything anybody's trying to accuse them of, you know, or whatever. Yeah, I don't think that was a kid thing. I do think he's been really kind, well, anyway, he's been really misogynistic to women. He said they're, oh, he probably, yeah, he's a jerk. But anyways, but he did, you know, yeah. Well, I, I, I developed, um, my, uh, approach from the Kagu lineage. But anyway, I think that as far as the patriarchal stuff goes, obviously the systematic issues in all the systems we're dealing with. And it takes, and I think that how we're going to be able to deal with those things is, um, on a, on a personal and local level. I hate to sound too, uh, like libertarian here, but if I can engage my surroundings to the best of my ability, you know, and stay on that, I, I, everything kind of will happen and the way in a way that it's, it's not supposed to happen, but in a way that's going to be interesting and beneficial to more people than had ideas to, you know, take in a party line and done this or that because I think that, um, it really, because consensus reality breaks down quite a bit with the more, you know, kind of, um, fractured society is with, with different sorts of media. Um, we're going to be left to our own devices. I'm figuring out what, what are these losses? What is the spiritual thing I'm going through? What is this? What is that on our own? There's not going to be kind of an overreaching overview of this is what my father believes, my name, they believe and that's why I believe it. That's kind of going away now. Yes. And, and with, and you're right about that about, uh, I'm just going to reinforce something you just said with it, and then we'll get over the Dalai Lama, but you were right. I bet that thing that is an old Indian tradition that he did, probably he had done a million times and somebody said, let's get him today. All right, maybe. Yeah, maybe. I think, um, first of all, yeah, yeah, maybe I'm, I'm gonna, you know what, um, you're okay. I disagree with that. I just feel like, you know, I know you're right. It came out of nowhere. You know, yeah, right. It's kind of just weird here. I'm gonna, I'm gonna revert back to an old teaching of the Zen teaching I learned. Only don't know. I don't know. I don't know either side of it. I wasn't, I don't know. Now, you know, and that's the only truth. I, that's the real truth of the situation is we don't know. I don't really know. Right. And if I can accept that about like very, very basic things, it opens up a lot for me. That opens up gas. And, and I'm not, I'm not, that's called a pivoting away from the Dalai Lama conversation. I just, I just didn't, but yeah, yeah. And I don't trust, I don't trust anything. Um, maybe I'm, maybe it's a little paranoid, but I'll trust most authority, like, whether it be, uh, you know, Tibet, um, China, uh, you know, whatever. I don't, I don't trust any media or a assault. Yes. Right. Being misguided. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I've been misguided by myself. I don't need your help. You know, I can misdide myself. Yeah. I can make my own mistakes. You don't have to make them for me. Tell me which ones to do. But, but I think if we take, um, kind of take care of our own backyard and we have, and we develop, if I develop my values, you know, and I was raised by some really great people from really, really solid folks. And I can develop those same values, cultivate them, and, um, bring some discipline in with it, and, and, uh, um, then I'm, I got a pretty good head start on things. I can, I can learn, I can learn how to be a good person without any of the, any of the people on TV, you know, helping me out. Right. I don't think we need, I don't think we need a book. I don't think we need a TV. Only we need an internet figure out how to be a good human being. None of that shit up. Okay. So, uh, number two, the cause of suffering. Okay. Uh, yeah, the cause of suffering is, is desire, right? Or cling. Actually, it's clean. Desire just means clean or asking on something. And, um, as you go cultural, remember, Chase said something one time when I asked about addiction and he, and he said, well, addiction is anything that sticks to the mind. So anything that I can't let go of when it doesn't serve me in that moment, you know, now I'm not talking about be a traitor on, on your, you know, everything, but if I can't, if I can't let go of something, you know, um, then it's probably going to be an issue when I have to work through it. You know, there's some debt to be paid there. Some charming debts they say. Yes, I have to work through that situation. And, um, and, uh, so, and, and, and, and, and, um, kind of like a sentence, speak, you know, if I'm, or, or what have your simulation, if I'm clicking on something a lot, it's going to get fed back to me now to rhythm, right? And, and even the misery should obviously, if they say, uh, having his evidence of wanting, right? So if I'm in a bad situation and, and I continue to like find myself in that situation, what's my desire loop there? What am I desiring? What am I grasping or holding onto? Then I need to let go of now when I let go of something, you know, and I have an epiphany and profound moment that creates a gap that gives me a, that gives me an insight, which is there is into suffering. And when I'm not making shit, I'm not creating something, a story around tragedy, like we talked about the narrator being the victim, um, uh, uh, a gimpo rush. You might as then get, my dentist, he just said, uh, listen to the voice who speaks the most and there you will find the victim. All right. The victim likes to be the narrator. So if I have a lot of inner dialogue, I have to be really careful not to buy into a voice that's really that, you know, a voice is trying to creep in there, you know, the victim voice. And, and, um, now obviously things, bad things happen to great people and all that. And I'm not talking about anything like that necessarily, but, um, I become a victim of shit that I'm not a victim to is what I'm talking about, you know, just kind of like first world problems. I call them, you know, stuff that I'm lying about that I'm a victim of that, you know, uh, just, you know, a few hundred miles south of here, they, they, those problems don't exist because those are problems. My problems are not real problems. And yeah, as someone else, now I'm not like saying my feelings aren't valid, et cetera. And I am where I am, but I have to, I have to be put that into perspective. And, and I have to be able to release things, um, uh, readily and get a gap in the Japanese, or the Zen guys call that skin show that first, that first gap. Now, if I, if I cultivate that gap and the gap can be just an experience of the space between breasts, there was a gap there, right? And, and when that gap expands with a little bit of thinking of those clouds, like you said, dissolve and you get some clear air, that is, that is where that's the sweet spot. That's the glimpse of the kin show that you can look into and say, Hey, that's a place of equanimity. That's a direct experience of something that is truly a unification. I truly have, like, uh, uh, uh, uh, interbeing, you know, when you enter into, and those gaps get big and they become expansive, and you have an enlightenment experience. It's called die can show. So if I, if you and I are talking and one of us had, um, one of us has an epiphany or eureka moment, but that eureka moment changes our life and we go about being, uh, being and doing things differently. Um, based off that, that's probably a die can show. That's a great opening, right? And, um, you know, so I think most people have openings and most people don't realize they have opening. I'm going to go. I'm going to try, trace back on that when you're saying openings and gaps because I want to recap something right here. So I can say I am depressed because I'm not where I want to be. And then I can have, feel the depression, separate it from the desire of wanting to be somewhere else. And at the same time, be aware that for an awful way of saying it, people have bigger problems than you do, Karen. Does that sound right? All of that? That, you know, that part right there, I would probably put it the first, you know, the walking into it. Like talk, I would say, okay, I would put everything into perspective coming into my depressive state. Now the depression is still there. And okay, now it, even though I gave myself some self talk there now, and now I'm going to say, okay, I want, I want to get rid of this depression. And in the past, what I would have done would have drank a bottle, you know what I mean? But because of the wisdom in another state, that's not how I deal with it. I just connect the narrative the best I can and look directly at what's going on with my body emotionally, physically, you know, et cetera, without judgment. And those thoughts are going to come back and try to stick to that emotional or that feeling state. And I just noticed that and label it. And the more I can work with that, the bigger the gap between the emotional state and the thought coming back to it will be. And then I'll start to notice it and then I'll start to experience it. And it's hard. I can't really talk to this two months. But when the gas between thoughts and feelings gets pretty big or thought to thought gets big, that space right there is special. That space right there, it assures me that there's something beyond a small self. Okay. And then and so when you're saying the space, it's almost like a disassociation. It's, it's, I don't want to, I don't want to, yeah, I, I, yes, you're not, you're not, no, it's not a person, you're not taking anything personal. No, you're the, you're watching it from, I always say watching it out of your body. So you're, you can. Right. And then, and right. And that's, and those gaps turn into something that's called maybe drop off body and mind or the one taste or, or a direct experience of equanimity or emptiness, which is the idea that you can't say there's no way you can take this shit personally because there's no self to take it personally. And that's really where you start to look at the question, what is this? You know, you start to look at the Zen Cohen, a life coin, what, what is it, what's sitting here and why is it like the way it is? And you take that backwards step and you look inward. And then based on those kinsho, those smaller openings, basic, bigger questions like that, where the backwards step and you start looking at it more directly, you can make your, you can make the liberation from suffering be an experience you have in your life that you can cultivate and then share with others via your practice of compassion. And that's when you come to the noble eightfold path, right? That's the path. So you got, you have life is suffering or there is suffering, right? There's a and then there, there's this, it will cease. Now, how does it cease? And then the warth double truth is a noble eightfold path, which, which, you know, it can be approached in a few different ways. The Tibetan kind of approach that path is as something called the the Indiana, the Mahayana and the Vajrayana, which is the fundamental teachings, the teaching on compassion and the teachings of direct realization of Buddha hood in this lifetime, which be the Vajrayana or the indestructible vehicle, you know, and so then that's a whole can of worms, but, you know, I can. That is all right. That is all right. We, it's a perfect place for a break. We will be back with three and four ladies and gentlemen, hold on. Discover moon mama shop, an inspiring metaphysical enterprise rooted in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Founded by Kenzie, a gifted five one projector in human design, this burgeoning business is a testament to her innate ability to read people. Specializing in Reiki, Carol and Oracle readings, Kenzie brings profound insight and healing to her clients. Certified in holy fire, Reiki one and two, Kenzie is on her journey towards mastering this transformative practice. Whether you're in Grand Rapids or beyond, experience the soothing energy of her home studio for in-person sessions or opt for virtual sessions for the same immersive experience from the comfort of your own home, Kenzie's approach is deeply trauma-informed, drawing from her own healing journey to create a safe space for others to release energy blockages and realign their chakras. Each session includes a personalized written report detailing her findings and intuitive messages received. For those seeking guidance through tarot or Oracle readings, Kenzie offers convenient email consultations allowing you to revisit the messages over time. Explore her offerings and pricing at moonmama shop.com and stay connected on Instagram and TikTok at moonmama shop. We are back and we're ready for number three, glimpse of liberation via opening and clarity of meditation. And I wanted to tell you, when I first learned a very way to meditate that was very directional, do this, open your chakras, blah, blah, blah, close them back up and assemble, da, da, da, da. And then I eventually just went to sitting and putting is what I called it because I would see myself just suspended in black nothingness. And there's some people that was like, oh, black isn't good, but it's just about nothingness, right? Yeah, there's that. There's, okay, so that's a great, that's a great place to kind of enter this because that, yeah, that's definitely an aspect of emptiness or selflessness. Now, the idea of clear light, not a lot light like you, the golden light of, you know, this or that, but clear light, clear light is what is a light kind of like Tibetan Buddhist or myself I'm interested in, which is that darkness infused with clear light, the emptiness infused with my basisness, spontaneous love and compassion, the plenty, the plenum that exists in a void. There's, there's, a void is a million, a million times more potent than you might think. It's, it's, it's absolutely potential. And so, and so when you sit there, you might experience something called hot boredom when you're meditating. That's, you're wiggling around that experience is not what you think it is, but you settle in your breath and you get into that posture and then you hit cool boredom. And that's still boredom, but you're not trying to make anything happen anymore. Now you're just observing and that, that expansiveness, it might be what you're calling that, that blackness, that expansiveness. Now, now it's, it's easy to get, that's the absolute, right? It's easy to get stuck there once you feel it, because that's that cat bird's feet. That's that, that's that, um, knowing the associative state. And I, I guess this is a Western plan. I'm saying you, you're transcendent, you're from an apex, you are looking down on left and right and not from the middle, from nowhere. You know, that's the thing. And these things, the more you speak to these gaps, the, this, you know, the smaller the opportunity to communicate becomes. So what I would say is, um, you can meditate, count your breath, do your breath work, go online, sign just any, any basic, then meditation or, or, um, the positive meditation instruction and work with it. And you will experience a place to where thinking is light at the very, at the very most, as you work with it. Okay. And those gaps come there. And, and, um, those gaps come there. And, and if you can take those and expand those and they become, they become wisdom, you cultivate wisdom, you know, so that's how it kind of happened. Okay. So, uh, so when you say go online and get a meditation, is that a, uh, uh, a, a statement to ponder? Um, I don't, I don't know if that it actually, you don't have to, I mean, you don't have to go online to meditate at all. Oh, no, I thought you said, uh, go online and choose a meditation. You didn't say that alone. Okay. Yeah, I did. I've been saying, um, for somebody who wants to engage the practice of meditation, they could, they could kick, you know, their particular style of Buddhism and, and, but just engage the practice. And the more engaged the practice, the more that's going to open up and, um, more you'll experience that in between state, that luminous, I mean, that's, um, liminal space. This is, Buddhism's all about, is greatly about liminal spaces and finding, finding, emptying, finding that place in the liminal space that opens it up to being whatever it needs to be. That's the beauty of liminal space. It's an always transition. And a lot of us, like in the paranormal community or the spiritual, the operative spiritual community, whether it be Ascension or an alien school or, you know, a conspiracy social club, whatever, um, we, we have a different way of looking at this stuff. And, um, and, uh, I think that, uh, I, uh, I know, that's right, it happens to me every five minutes. Um, yeah. Yes. Okay. So that's how that three is liberating yourself like that. Now, um, which is the sun card. I don't know why I feel the need to connect all these two, uh, to the tarot, but the, uh, fool is the journey, like you had texted me this early. Yes. The fool is the journey of the yogi. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's why I'm stoked. Like I didn't know anything about disagreements until I started dating, um, your, you and Jessa together, you know, and, and then going from there and Jessa's, it's Jessa stuff and then over your stuff. So now I'm, now I'm kind of fat. Now I'm fascinated by it because I live near a spiritual you know, you know, trade, trade secrets, et cetera, but, um, the fool's journey through the tarot. I was like, okay. So that's exactly Siddhartha. That's Siddhartha. That's, go, um, engaging the truths of, you know, the truths of suffering, you know, what's, what's the cause? Um, so, uh, is there an end to it? Yes, there is. And how do I go about doing this? Well, I go from, I go full circle. All right. I go, I go full circle and the fool's journey tosses the heroes journey, you know, and what's cool, what's cool about the tarot is it's, um, uh, yeah, it's kind of, it's enough steeped in symbolism from various different cultures that it doesn't really matter. Well, I can get something out of those, out of those cards, other readings based on energy and, and, and also my own symbolism, my own mythologies. And that's another thing that's going to, I think going to be rising to the service coming soon is our personal mythologies are going to play a lot heavier part in our lives on a daily basis. Uh, and anybody else's mythology, when you say that, what do you mean, like we're living our dream or we're, um, um, I think, um, I think as we, as we, as we journey, you know, that, uh, this, um, this path, I guess, uh, we're gonna, we're gonna take life lessons and, and incorporate them into our lives because we're, we're, I think as by and large, we don't trust the authorities. We don't trust like, like, with the cards, we don't trust a hair offense anymore. When that court turns up, I don't like the card. I don't, you know, there, you know, I always say it's the C word. It's conformity. And I can't stand that. And I know it has a place. But yeah, it's so funny because, I have to tell you this, because I was, uh, talking to my teacher who is the most yogi, Buddha lifetime. I don't think I've ever heard her say a bad thing. Like she is the walking, talking what we're all trying to be. And the here came up and she loves tarot more than anyone I know, even me, which is crazy. And the hair effect comes up and she goes, well, I have a little problem with this card. And I was like, yes. And it's funny because one of the things that she was talking about is the hair of fan has his feet on a box. And it's like that box is sort of honesty and truth and spirituality. And he has his feet on top of it as though you don't get to this. I get to this. I'm the mediator. You get to get to this truth through me. Whereas as I go on later, you realize you get the truth is available to you. You don't need him anymore. But anyway, we all hate to hear how I would address. Yeah. How would I would address that directly with the hair fit and would be tried to try to take all this all or whatever I am and run it through the filter, the hair fancy, what came out the other end. Now, could this big jumbo mess of spirituality and positivity run through that archetype come out in some systematic fashion and beneficial? Yeah, that's the best I can do for him. And I should have said this for people that don't do tarot, the hair of that hair is a pope. He is the church. He is constructs. And in a good way, he is that we have the construct that we all stop at a red light unless you live in Utica, you're on your own. But that's our construct, is that we all agree to these driving rules so that we try not to kill each other. But then you get your bigger constructs, which is you believe what I tell you. So that's what Nick and I are going off on the hair of fat form. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And my favorite though is the chariot. Yes. That is that is where you want that's the catbird seat I've been talking about the whole time. No hands, you know, the chariot, the chariot run by itself based on my mastery of discipline, like compassion, you know, expansiveness, you know, practice, et cetera, discipline brings joy. And the discipline of, you know, yeah, when you when you when you when you when you get the fundamentals down, it allows you to play, you know, that's how it works. It's like, once I get the lines or my script down, now I can go play. So discipline brings me the opportunity to, you know, get loose with it, so to speak, to bring, you know, yes. And now you got me stuck on my terror. But yes, the chariot is the power of the body through the mind. And he has the square on his chest. So he has the truth, his own, he has the truth in his heart. Sorry, I get excited. I get excited. I don't know if people don't like to like, a lot of people don't like to just sit and meditate. I'm on, I wouldn't have said this a few couple years back, but I'm gonna say it now, harmonic journey work is amazing. And if you can't, if you can't sit and do zalvin or any sort of Tibetan style meditation, if you want to experience something that's really cool, I know that Peter Matucci, he, I work with him on a dramatic journey stuff. And it really has opened my eyes to how archetypes will function as part of my spirit and part of my vision. And they don't always mean the same things that they're supposed to mean. That's why I say personal mythologies, you know, and personal revelation. And not necessarily has to be shared with others, others are monetized or promoted or even talked about, but it's going to play a big part in my life, because it seems to be what I can trust. The revelation of others doesn't do me a whole line of good. I'm not gonna feel the zeal. I might believe that they believe it. But, and I'm not, I'm not even that rigid. I just want to, I just want to have an understanding of what I'm engaging and that, you know, that I can, that I can trust in my heart. If I can trust my gut, my heart, you know, my intuition, better I get with that. The more I'm gonna open up in general, but the shamanic journey work band really blew my head right out my shoulders. Can you tell me a little bit more about the shamanic journey work? What is that like? I'm not sure if I'm picturing it correctly. Yeah, well, I didn't know what to expect either because, you know, growing up, I would say, hey, yeah, go do Mescalin with some, you know, shaman down in Aztec, Mexico, and, you know, but, you know, Don Carlos Constanada type stuff, but it's not, it doesn't have to be that at all. Right. It doesn't have to be, it can be mushrooms or ayahuasca, but it, but you're talking about something else, right? Yeah. Right, right, right. We're talking about, yeah, when shamanic journey, we're considered, you alter your state of conscience with drums and rattles, you know, usually, or, like, if you do it online, there's some binaural beat type stuff, some of my guys that do drumming with binaural beats, which gets you into different states of mine more quickly. And, and then, like, how I was introduced to it was like, they start to drum, they tell me to visualize a doorway or an archway up, up in the sky, which is the first time, and it'll go through it. And that's it. And just watch. And, and then from that point, you know, I started interacting with my, like, spirit guides or, or what the, yeah, and the Tibetans look at this, like, they call it Drala or Warma, which is the energy of life, life force energy, you know, that, and, and Drala, it's kind of like the juices and everything in a Warma, it's kind of like what manifested like maybe a spirit guide, or that, you know, and, and I've had some really interesting, like, interactions with a, with a spirit guide thing. I still have to use Pete to kind of, like, do you get me to understand how to kind of, who I'm, who I'm talking with, or who I'm interacting with, or who's helping, even though, like, I just don't have the language for it yet to sit down by myself and say, okay, that was, you know, that was this particular, be it your energy or a, and shell like being or alien, you know, that's interesting. You know, that for me will oftentimes, something very strange will show up in a terrible reading for the person I'm reading for. And it's sort of the same thing. Well, I guess that is sort of, I'm sorry, everyone. It's the first sunny day. So the motorcycles can't stop themselves if you can. But yeah, I, you know, that's funny because my meditation, I always used to stop and start in a hole. And then I was lifted out of the hole. So I guess it's like a weird version of the same thing. Well, that's, I mean, that yeah, yeah, that's definitely an initiate coming up out of the experience of Reber things. There's some themes in shamanistic journey work that are recurring. But interestingly enough, the Tibetan Buddhists, the gurus are shaman. I think there's a misconception of what a guru kind of means. The shaman is a healer. A shaman is, is like the wisdom, the wisdom mind of a community is also the wisdom protector of the community is the old oral tradition passes it off to somebody he deems, you know, quote unquote, worthy, but not worthy, like you can earn it. But worthy, like you're crazy enough to take this mantle and move on. And I say crazy, I mean, I mean, crazy wisdom, crazy in the, in the best possible way, you know, the crazy where you can swim in stuff that would drown other men or women, you know, and, and I think that definitely that Tibetans were that I think definitely the Zen people were that I think definitely Jessa Reed is that I think she's a type of shaman. I mean, I'm not trying to, I always try to pin an alarm, which is stupid. But anyway, she's been, she's been like that kind of influence on me. And I say the later stage awakening or 10 shows have all been a, as a result of like the podcast communities, whether they be same Tripoli, you, you know, Jessa Reed, Mark Marin, you know, a lot of people I didn't realize that I grabbed the higher side chats now. Yeah. Yeah. All those guys. And, and, and it's, it's really cool because I'm not like, you know, brutal right wing conspiracy guy, but I love listening to that stuff because I'm like, yeah, well, probably maybe and some of it's true. And it's kind of for me. It's a little bit like watching professional wrestling. Yes. And I, and also I just got to throw this in. So many of my guests are, you know, you can put, they have their own podcast and you can put them in that category. So many people, it's, it's interesting because so many people, including you, Nick, have so much to, to that's worth listening to that we can learn from that aren't, you know, I don't know, I'm a person with a microphone. You're a guy that learned from your troubles. That's that independent, no more gurus. Maybe the person next to you has a better story that will help you even more than the guy that's in front of the podium, right? Right. Yeah, absolutely. Now, yeah, absolutely. If we remain teachable, we cultivate, if we cultivate, we cultivate, like, cultivate discipline. Yeah, cultivate discipline, right? Cultivate compassion and cultivate the gas that openness, right? Then we, then that's all we need, really. I mean, to engage with one another in a way that's meaningful for not only me and you, but somebody outside of us. The best, the best compliments I've ever been given, I've been by people who I didn't really know or didn't really remember that contact me and say, hey, remember this time in like 11th grade when you did this or that? That really meant something to me. Yes, yes. You know, it's funny that that's the only thing that's the best possible compliment I could ever get. You know, this is a funny thing. Somebody at my, so my, what is it called? Human design. There's always a character in there and is the hermit. That's me. And also, because, and I am pretty solitary and I am pretty much like, this is the way I'm going. I'm going this way. I don't care where you're going. But it's funny because someone I ran into who knew me in high school described me. And I had a pretty, I just, I just remember hating everything so much. And just, I was like, I think I was out of the house at like 60, whatever. I was out of the house as fast as I could. I got to get out of here. And I, when I was done with college, I just flew off and went to Vegas. No idea what was there. Just went, had to give. But she said, you were the, she said, everyone knew you, but you were the most independent person I had ever seen in my life to this day. And the more I think about that, as I think, I was the hermit then too. Like, in a good way, I mean that. I mean, like, I was shut off. I don't know what I'm talking about, but you, you brought up that, that I thought she's subscribed. I'm still the hermit in that life in, in high school. Nick, this has been fantastic. Um, I know you don't, you don't really have the followers or Instagrams or anything like that. Um, but, uh, is there a place where people can find you if they want? Or you're kind of going to go under the current. No, yeah, I'm, I'm in, I'm in, um, alien school, um, discord. I'm on here on discord to be Nick, Nick Lee, I forgive my, uh, I can't, 1099, I think, Nick Lee, 1099 on all the discords. But I'm on this discord. I'm on, on, on just the discord. I'm on, um, uh, Sam Triple E's, um, uh, uh, telegram, you know, stuff like that. But I mean, I'm only down to, to speak, you know, to talk about anything to anybody and any time. Awesome. Uh, and I will hopefully right now, uh, you and Alyssa are my discord because I haven't opened it up and worked. Oh, no, no, no, thank you. No, no, no. Absolutely. I do want to open it up and let people do whatever they do on it. That's a great idea. I haven't opened it up yet, but I'm, that's the next plan. I should actually do that this afternoon and send out an email or something. Um, but this was great. Um, thank you so much, Nick. So it's Nick, Nicholas or Nick Lee is your, is your, and it's a, it's a king type Buddha. Yeah, that's palmed with some bother. There you go. I'm going to go with it. I see why you went with Nick Lee. Um, thank you very much, my friend. This has been awesome. Hang on a second. I'm going to talk after I end the podcast. Uh, all right. Thanks so much, everybody. I hope you've identified your feelings and the void and everything you need to know that the path is the goal, not the goal, the goal, the path is the goal. Um, thanks to Mike and Unarizing Media. Uh, we will see you all next week. Para, normal Karen. She's a spooky kind of queen. Para, normal Karen. She's an angel without wings. Comedian goes under conscious exploring. She's a funny gal and a real good pal. She's a paranormal Karen. Yeah. [BLANK_AUDIO]
