RockneCAST

Listen Like Kwan Lin - The Transformative Power of Deep Listening (#261, 23 Oct. 2024)

This is our second episode on Deep Listening. I absolutely love this topic, especially as an untapped, yet readily available resource to us all. So much bitterness occurs because we do not listen. Listen deeply, pay attention to the roots of suffering, and let understanding grow bringing the true source of healing: compassion.

To fully appreciate the fruits of this episode, you should buy Thich Nhat Hanh's book,The Heart of Buddha's Teaching.

Summary

In this episode, Rockne Cole explores the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh, focusing on the transformative power of listening and the concept of Right Speech. He discusses the importance of deep listening as a superpower that can heal relationships and foster understanding. The conversation also introduces the Bodhisattvas Kwan Lin and Wondrous Sound, emphasizing their roles in compassionate listening and communication. Finally, the episode concludes with the significance of embracing silence to enhance mindfulness and communication skills.

Chapters

00:00 - The Power of Listening and Right Speech

12:10 - Deep Listening: The Superpower of Compassion

23:56 - The Bodhisattvas: Kwan Lin and Wondrous Sound

37:47 - The Thundering Silence: Embracing Mindfulness and Communication

Duration:: 45m
Broadcast on:: 23 Oct 2024
Audio Format:: other

What is going on guys, I just read lore work of tiknokhan in the heart of Buddhist teaching. And I hope I'm able to share these thrills of wisdom in such a way that your mind will be as blown as my mind is. Guys, for this episode, we're going to talk again about the power of listening to transform not only your life, but the lives of people around you that you love and care about. For this episode, I'm going to cover right speech as it's set forth by the great Buddhist teacher, tiknokhan. We're going to cover what it means to engage in right speech, why it is so important. We're going to explore the world area to right speech, which is even more important. Deep listening, the ability to listen to those that you love, especially those that you love who are suffering. We're going to talk about the super hero, you know, in Marvel, there's these superheroes. Do you know that listening can be a superpower? And there is a boat in the Buddhist tradition. That is a great listener, her name is Juan Lin, a time where she is, why she's so important. We're going to explore this wondrous sound, this, this, this bodhisattva that can listen and understand in any language they speak your old language. And finally, we're going to explore the power of wondrous silence, how this can allow you to paint and shed to the things that matter, not only in your own life, but in the lives of other people. Guys, during kind of my morning practice that I've kind of developed over the course of these last several years. I like to kind of nourish the spirit with these sort of classic texts that can teach me something. And I read, I'm learning devotional group at Young Tall because my mom got me on that and it kind of reaffirms my Christianity and there are so many good hurdles of wisdom in that. And I love Christianity, I go to church, I'm a good card-carrying Lutheran. But I've always found that something is a little bit wanting in the tradition tradition at least as I've experienced, it's kind of abstract, it's kind of, it's not very prescriptive as to how you're to achieve the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Yeah, there's some, there's some guidance there. But in terms of a level of detail where you can actually pay attention that, you know, in terms of fire actually can experience all of these gifts that you get through the Holy Spirit, I find it kind of wanting. And so what I think, and I've really found myself that if you can integrate these carnal of wisdom from the Buddhist tradition into the Christian tradition, you can kind of get the best of both worlds. And I hope that I can convey to you why this is so important in connection with the work of Teknathan. He may be one of the gentlest, most abundant, most rewarding authors I have ever read. He's a pillar for a reason. He is so good every time you read his work, your mind is blown. So let's talk about this concept of right speech. And for those of you, if this is your first introduction to the Buddhist tradition, I'll just give you a short review. If not, you can listen to some of my other episodes on the four noble truths of Buddhism. But the basic essence of Buddhism is that life involves a certain amount of suffering. That is life. We all suffer and the Buddhist tradition defines it as bitterness. But it doesn't end there. It's not just that life sucks. It's that life can be incredibly beautiful and it allows this kind of approach to deal with this then, this universal to all of us, which is suffering. The Buddhist tradition describes as bitterness. The second part of the four noble truths of Buddhism is to sit and think about and pay attention to the rut of what's causing you to suffer. One of the origins of it, the most obvious example to this is, is that if you have emphysema and you're smoking cigarettes, three packs a day, probably the root of your suffering is the fact that you smoke three packs a day. That's the most obvious example, but anxiety, stress, this approach can be applied to almost anything that's causing you troubles in your life. Think about the roots. And the third thing is, is this thing then stop doing those things. Stop giving your attention, your time, and your energy and planting seeds that are causing all of these negative things to arise into your life and manifest in the form of suffering. But it doesn't end there. This is a constant process that you're always engaging in. Tick not on frequently refers to this as practice. It's not something that just you reach. It's something you have to practice every day. Just like being a good football player or a good writer, a good musician, it constantly requires practice. But then once you kind of understood those three central aspects of life, the Buddhist tradition then offers something called the Noble Eightfold Path. Now I've never done any reading beyond tick, but I'm telling you what, tick not on. If you want to understand this, or if you've never had a class on Buddhism in college, buy the book, The Heart of Buddha's Teaching, I'll include copies of this in the show notes, but it is so good and rich and transformative, not only for you, but for those of the people in your life that you love. There's eight different things in the Noble Eightfold Path, and one of them is right speech. And right speech is so important because if we speak with bitterness, we get bitterness. If we speak with anger, it's reflected back into us. The wrong speech that's infused with bitterness and blame can inflict so much suffering on those around you. But the underlying thing is, is that if you're not practicing deep listening and right listening, you're not engaging with right speech, and this is right, just absolutely loved it. So here, Tic talks about, first of all, in terms of the aspects of right speech, and then he gets into how you can actually do this deep listening. So what Tic says is the right speech has several components, to speak truthfully, to say it as you see it, to not speak with a forked poem. Don't say one thing to one person, and then say something to everyone else. Be clear and consistent in terms of what you're saying. Don't embellish, and don't speak with bitterness. Now this is one of the things that's key because so frequently in our speech, we have so much desire to express our own suffering, our own sense of wrong, our own sense of how we've been wrong, that we inject bitterness into those other people. So here, Tic encourages us to, before we're engaging speech, which he describes as the manifestation of our thoughts, that we need to have these walking, sitting exercise meditations, where we're paying attention, giving attention to the thoughts that we're having, both the good thoughts, as well as the bad thoughts, and to think about what are those thoughts that could be toxic or hurtful to someone else, and the best way to do that is through the power of silence. But for the most part, in his section on right speech, he focuses mostly on the power of deep listening, and guys, I know this is my second episode on deep listening, but this is so important. This is so important to be able to heal relationships in your own life and to heal yourself. And here's what Tic says, he said, so many relationships have issues because they people lose their ability to listen. And so what he says is, if you really love someone, train yourself to be a good listener. This is not easy to do, especially if the person that you're listening to has beefs for grievances with you, and you really object, for example, if you're a mom, or your sister, your father, has an issue with you, and you've agreed to listen to them. So there's a certain amount of bitterness or suffering that's arising in them, because of you, that is extremely difficult. And so what Tic encourages you to do to allow that person to express, to discharge, to release their suffering, is to practice the art of mindful breathing when you go into it, and be ready to go into this process that you are aware that you yourself could get negative feedback about what you're doing. This is not easy, but resist the urge to respond. Don't respond with bitterness. Don't plead your case instead. Just listen so that you can pay attention and understand what that person is saying. You know, I've seen a counselor for three and a half years. He's extremely gifted. But one of the things that is so good, and I know I'll see him hopefully my whole life, is that he is such a good listener, pays attention to what I'm saying. And he gives me context-appropriate feedback based upon the expression of what I'm saying. Friends, this is 95% of what counselors do is they just listen compassionately. Which is not an easy thing to do. Like anything else, it requires skill. It requires patience. It requires intention. It is not something where you can just sit and look at someone without truly being in the moment and paying attention, and in fact, if you're not able to do that, you're not in an emotional headspace to be able to do that. Tic encourages you not to listen to that person during that time to see if there's another time that would work when you're spiritually, mentally, and physically ready to listen. And here he gets into this and introduces us to this superhero, you know, like in marbles, there are superheroes. He talks about this superhero in the Buddhist tradition. She's a superhero. And what's her super talent? Her super talent is the ability to listen with compassion and true presence. Her name is Juan Lin. She is the person who can listen, and here's how Tic describes her. Juan Yen means the one who can listen and understand the sound of the world, the cries of suffering. She's a bodhisattva. I'm just, I'm just aware of this. Bodhisattva is this person who delays nirvana, the experience of ultimate bliss and happiness out of compassion for you so that they can save suffering beings. You know, I think of Jesus Christ. He literally was sitting at the right end of the Father. He came down to dwell among us out of great compassion and love for us so that he could redeem and forgive the suffering beings that we have through the expression of old sins. He is a bodhisattva. Yes, that's who he is. Bodhisattva, just learning this stuff. It's so awesome. Is your mind appropriately blown? Is your, are you kind of blown away that there is a super skill and there's an actual superhero within the tradition called Juan Lin, who is a person who can listen at the high level? Juan Lin. Isn't that cool? What I love about this is this is a superpower that as far as I can tell. Every one has the capacity to do. You don't need to run a four, three, forty or have a thirty five inch vertical jump. Sometimes I dream about being able to dunk a basketball. When I was younger, the best I could do, I could dunk a posi ball that I could pull, but I could not dunk a regular basketball. It was kind of embarrassing that I couldn't do it. I literally would dream about it. I suppose if I worked hard enough, you know, when I was younger, I probably could have added I was probably about five inches short of being able to do it in terms of my jumping ability, but ultimately, there was a physical limitation there. Football, say the NFL, you have to have a certain size, strength and speed and where we fall to do it, but this ability to listen and to be present as far as I can tell, virtually anyone can do this through sitting in silence and paying attention to the person who's talking to you. And I think so often that the people that we struggle with in our own lives, we've lost our ability to listen, we've lost our ability to communicate. And when we lost our ability to communicate, so many bad things happen. What Tech says is, when the communication is cut off, we all suffer. So not only are the one who is suffering sufferers, but if that person's suffering, we all suffer, they suffer, and there's a way there's a path to healing. And how do you truly develop the healing? Well, here, Tech says that it's the process of listening that allows you to pay attention to the various things, the various sources of bitterness that are causing that person to suffer. Now, in a lot of people, if people aren't truly heard, if people truly don't feel they are listened to and it's all bottled up, they experience bitterness. That's essentially the feeling of suffering. And there may be things if you're truly listening, after you've listened to them, maybe you can help them identify if they're willing to listen to you, the ruts, maybe some things that are causing them to suffer, if they're in the space where they want your feedback. But this is incredibly important. And I think of all the conflicts that I ever had in my life, that almost all were avoidable, that almost all occurred because there was a fear to express the thought in the first place, number one, and number two, there wasn't a corresponding ability to actually listen. And when you're not able to listen with intention, you're not able to pay attention to the details of what the other person is actually trying to see. Tech writes here that the boat Hisattva, Juan Lin, is the one who hears the cries of the world. She has the quality, according to Tech, of listening deeply, without judging or reacting. When we listen with our whole being, we can diffuse a lot of bows. If the other person feels that we are critical of what they're saying, their suffering will not be relieved. When the psychotherapist practice write listening, their patients have the courage to say things that they've never been able to tell anyone before. Deep listening nourishes speaker and listener listening. And here, what happens if we don't? Well, almost everything happens if we don't listen. Tech writes that many of us have lost our component, our capacity to listen, and using loving speech in our families. If no one is capable of listening, then how can you possibly heal? Most of the time when people go to a therapist, it's because either party, and it's in a couple's context, hasn't lost the ability to let them. That is the skill, that is the prescription, that is the ability to heal the relationship. Now, I do think, though, that requires that, that the other person also share a similar ability to be able to do that, but that is the essence of the beauty of the power of listening that you, as a stoic Buddhist, will at least focus on what you can control. And if during the course of listening, you're interrupting, you're in the interjecting, you're on, you're judging, you're blaming, you yourself may be the source of the cause of suffering, and I think you have to leave that possibility open when there's any time that there's a conflict that it may not be the other person, it may truly be you. You know, there was a time in my own life where I drank out of bottle of wine at the time that caused a lot of suffering in my life that I was totally unaware of. My mom kept on trying to tell me, maybe you're drinking too much. The reason why I rejected that is that I did that thing, that I was in Elsa's heart, why? Because I was not Nicholas Cage and leaving Las Vegas, so whenever that movie was called, because I was able to go to work because I never got an OTB UI, because I didn't drink much art stuff. So there was this thing that I was doing every single day, that I was totally unaware of the consequence of the effect it was having on my face, it made my face look really red, on my weight it gave me kind of a bloody of luck. On my sleep, it did my sleep, didn't nourish me in the same way, on my ability to get up and produce awesome content like the rock me cast freak you, on my stress levels jerked throughout the day in terms of the anxiety and the stress and the difficulty that I felt. In my relationships, it was this one thing that was the root of so much suffering. And what, why didn't I see it? Because I refused to really listen and explore to my, with my mother, to see whether in fact she was right. I discounted, but I refused to listen. And so we can, I think that's the key here. I think we all have to acknowledge that there are things that we are blind to. There are things that we can't see, you know, a month ago, I had a skin tag removed from my ass and that was something I could feel that I couldn't see. And so it's one of these, it literally was a blind spot. So I couldn't see it, but you know, obviously someone else could see it, I could feel it, but I couldn't see it. There are all these things that we can't see. They are literally blind spots that we need help and perspective from other people. The other thing is is that other people have areas of expertise that may allow us to see things more clearly. That's the essence of a teacher. A teacher is someone who shares principles and wisdom that you don't have. As the student, your role is to listen to what they're saying and to react to it and sift through it through the lens of your own experience. But this power to listen, this power to be like one, Lynn, is an absolute superpower. And it's something that we can all have the natural instincts to do, but we have to practice it. Now this is, you know, for a psychotherapist, think about psychotherapist, one of the advantages they have is that normally the patient isn't complaining about the particular psychotherapist unless something went wrong in the actual sessions. But when you are listening to someone with whom you're having a conflict, sometimes that can be really hard. And that is where the intention, the practice, the patients, has to be developed. You know, my sister had a kind of feedback on how she kind of deals with difficult situations if someone's giving some negative feedback. And it's about you, if you do choose to get, give them any feedback, you should say, hmm, that's interesting. Thank you for sharing, you know, kind of acknowledge it, but just to kind of say, oh, thank you. Thank for that feedback. Now, at some point, I do think if the relationship heals and gets healthy, this will allow a two way street, a dialogue, a communication. One of my best and dearest friends, the gift he has is that we can talk about all of these different issues. And yeah, I'm referring to you, Kevin, with it out being tense or emotional. He's not very good at listening. I think Kevin, you can work on your listening skills, but he doesn't get super angry and toxic in response to the expression of my idea. And that is something that we can all listen to, even when we have trains. I'm actually not going to push pause. I'm going to, if you're listening to the train right now, and if you can actually hear it, it's part of listening to the world itself. So this is a superpower. So read this section on deep listening with Tic Nacan. And the reason why I'm not, I don't know whether this is going to be screened out, but right now I'm listening to a train and I am listening to it. It's a little distracting, but I'm giving attention to you guys. And by the way, thank you so much, because you are listening to me. And that gives me such joy. But the other thing is, and this gets into what I'm trying to do with the Rocky cast. And I don't know if I am effectively doing this in my Rocky cast. To reach out to me, if I'm not, or ways that I can more effectively communicate to you at roccon@gmail.com or rocconcast@gmail.com is I want to translate and offer these jewels, these hurdles of wisdom to you in such a way that you are absorbing the wonder that I am experiencing when I learn to this principle. So my deepest desire is that I'm translating and offering the gift of Tic Nacan to you in such a way that you will learn from it. And number two, that you can maybe buy it and use it and develop it. If you were within the Buddhist tradition, you're good to go. You already know about all this stuff. If you were raised in a Lutheran tradition like I was or a card-garing Christian, I'm about ready, yo, to be a card-garing member of another Lutheran congregation voluntarily. Thank you very much. But it's still important. And I think that a lot of times congregations or Christians, they can kind of get themselves in a difficult situation because they've lost their ability to listen to one another. And they've lost the ability to pay attention to the roots of suffering that are causing problems within the institution. And this gets into the third aspect that I learned this morning. There's this other Bodhisattva called wondrous sound. Okay, so what's wondrous sound ability? And this is what I've learned. Sound has the ability to communicate to a person in their own language. So in other words, it's not only the different language, like Spanish, German, or Ouija, although presumably wondrous sound has that ability. But wondrous sound, this Bodhisattva has the ability to communicate to another person. In the way and in the language that that person can actually understand. So here Tic writes that if someone who needs the language of music, wondrous sound uses music. Here he says, for someone who understood the language of drugs, he spoke in the term of drugs. Every word the Bodhisattva, wondrous sound, said, opened up communication and helped others transform. We can do the same, but it takes determination and skill and skillless is what he said. Skillfulness, that skillless, I was like, I didn't think skillless was a word of tech. It's skillfulness, and that is a word. What is the essence of a good teacher? I think it's the ability to speak in a language in which the recipient actually understands what the person is trying to convey and understands also that people have various ways of absorbing information. Some people are kinesthetic learners. Some people are visual learners. Some people are auditory learners. We all have different ways of communicating, and I don't know where I learned this, but I think I may have learned it, one of my trial ad courses or continuing legal educations, but you can't speak Greek to the Romans. This is where lawyers always threw up. We need to think about what is not only persuasive to us, but what is persuasive to the recipient, the judge, the juror, and so often we wanted to listen to ourselves speak, but we're not in the moment and listening to think about how is the juror perceiving what we do. There's a cross-examination that I did several weeks ago, and I look back on it, and I wonder whether I was kind of hard on the witness, and I thought I was scoring a lot of points. But I was really wondering, did I really have the impact of the juror, even though I was really kind of pointing out all the officers' previous mistakes? Did I help myself by advancing that level of hostility into the process to an officer that was just trying to do his job? Something I thought about. I found something that I found very persuasive to me, but how did I look in the moment? Was I paying attention with mindfulness to how that resonated with the juror? One of the key aspects of communication, whether you are a lawyer, a storyteller, or a professor, is to get people to lean in. If they turn away, they're definitely not listening, and a lot of times they're physically turning away, either with their eyes or their shoulders, they are turning away. But if they lean in and are focused and they're giving you your attention, they are listening. You are resonating with them. And I think that is the essence of wondrous sound, that you're constantly communicating in such a way in which the person who is actually listening is processing and is receding the gift that you are trying to share with that person. That's hard to do in a lot of cases, especially where you're entwined with the person with whom you're having this difficulty. And here, Ted talks about when two people are not getting along, they can speak positively about one another, and they go constructively. But then, if we actually know that the other person is suffering, it's a better chance of understanding and appreciating that suffering if you're really listening to the roots in terms of where that person is actually coming from so that you can begin a form of healing. And here, Ted offers a solution, sometimes you're in a situation where each party simply will not listen. They're incapable of listening and not interrupting, they're incapable of not truly giving attention to what you're trying to say, because ultimately, what it comes down to, it does require this kind of circle where the person is, yes, expressing their suffering. And if they're not truly giving attention to you, well, then it's hard to kind of form and round that circle in terms of being able to have a healthy relationship. But if you're in that situation, Ted recommends a letter, write out a letter, review the letter, and make sure that you have removed all toxic aspects to this letter. And here, bitterness is your guy. Have you ever had something that's bitter, or have you ever liked bitter, no lemon that makes your nose French up? Go and look at and review and edit that letter so that you can assure that everything is removed that's bitterness in that letter, because then you'll find yourself in the same situation. And here, Ted has encouraged you to basically write out this letter. One of the interesting things about communication, and I don't know why this is, why is it that writing a physical letter rarely contains the toxicity that an email does, there's something about being on the keyboard that can really be more intense and bitter than the written page. I have no idea why that is other than that just appears to be the case. So here he's encouraging people to actually write a letter to the person with whom you're having a conflict and express where you're coming from. And then invite that other person to write their own letter so they can express where they are coming from, so that you can begin to pay attention to what the roots of that other person's suffering, especially if you were the cause of the roots of that suffering, which very well could be the case. And then once you're able to do that, you can understand, and here, Ted defines compassion is the only energy that can help us connect with another person. Notice what he's saying here, not one of the energies, not one of many possible solutions. What he is saying is, it is the only energy that can help us connect with another person. The person who has no compassion within him can never be happy. Then what he says is, when you practice looking at the person to whom you are going to write a letter, if you can begin to see his suffering, compassion will be born. In that moment, the compassion is born within you, you feel better already, even before you finish that letter. After you send a letter, you'll feel even better because you know the other person will feel better after reading your letter. Everyone needs accepting and unacceptance. And now you have understanding to offer by writing a letter like this, you restore communication. You know, when you think about our human body, in order for our human body to be nourished, we have blood vessels that convey all these nutrients to different parts of our body, to nourish, strengthen, and give life to the body. What happens when, for whatever reason, there's a cutoff of nutrients, somehow the blood vessel gets blocked. Not only does the body itself have trouble, but the rest of the downstream and aspects of the body that are getting that nourishment die and wither, they shrivel up. Communication is like vessels of vessels. It's the nourishment. It forms the cord between you and that other person. And if that communication isn't there, if that person is not receiving what you're having to say, you will not be able to have a healthy relationship. That's true with a client, that's true with a spouse, that's true with a student, that's true between a student and coach, communication. Without communication, the ability to actually function is not present. You know, I go back to the coach, Phil Jackson, and as far as I can tell, one of the things that Phil Jackson did, you know, people are like, "Oh, he would've, anyone could've won with Michael Jordan and Stanley Pepin." The reality is, is they didn't win without Phil Jackson. Phil Jackson went to Los Angeles Lakers, boom, then won three championships. But one of the things he was extraordinarily difficult, or good at doing, is to work with very, very difficult people who had never truly been listened to before. A guy like Dennis Rodman, who was kind of an eyeball. But in reading books, by Phil Jackson, and what he'd done to deal with Dennis Rodman, it's clear to me that for once he actually listened to Dennis Rodman, and he built trust. And there was one time like, right in the middle of the playoffs, Rodman told the coach, "Coach, I really need to go to Las Vegas to blow off some steam." Phil Jackson, a lot of do it. Now, I'm not sure that would work in every situation, but I think it worked really well in this particular concept because he was actually listening. So that's it. Listing is this kind of superpower, and it brings health, wealth, and understanding. And that is really kind of the key to healthy relationships. But where do we get this understanding? I think the other thing, too, is in terms of the roots of understanding, it's this ability to enjoy the power of silence. Like a lot of things, I don't think we're meant to be in total silence all the time. My partner and I went to a monastery, the new Mallory Abbey outside of Buke, and it was wonderful. But it's clear that I think a lot of the monks that had entered that wanted to silence. They're quite a great piece. It was wonderful. I don't think that's the essence of life. You need to use silence as a source of nourishment and understanding so that you can go out in the world and be the best version of you. And this inner piece is something you need to practice and cultivate. How do you do that through silence itself? And here he describes this concept of thundering silence. This is how good this book is. This is how we conclude this section on right teeth. Depraxious mindfulness of speech. Sometimes we have to practice same silence. In other words, he's saying we have to practice same nothing. Then we have to look deeply to see what our views are and what our eternal knots get right to our thinking, silence is the time to look deeply. And you can do this through your walks, through your morning meditation practice, through anything that you do where you're completely unplugging. You're engaging in silence. You know, one of the things that people that are thinking about meditation is my mind can't not, well, don't, the only time you won't think is when you die, it's not meditation. Meditation is practicing silence so that you can pay attention to some of the innermost thoughts that you're having, the things as Tic says that are giving you knots. And then he ends with this concept of thundering silence, Confucius said, "The heavens do not say anything." And then Tic writes that also means the heavens tell us so much, but we don't know how to listen to them. If we listen out of the silence of our mind, every bird saw, every whistling of the pine trees in the wind will speak to us. In the Tukhavati sutra, it is said that every time the wind blows through the jeweled trees, a miracle is produced. If we listen carefully to that sound to the Buddha, teaching the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold past, right-find mindfulness helps us slow down and listen to each word from the birds, the trees, and their own mind and speech. And we say something kind of respond to hastily, we hear what we are saying. Listen thoughts can kill, we cannot support killing in or our speech. If you have a job which telling the truth is possible, you have to change jobs. If you have a job that allows you to speak the truth, be grateful. To practice social justice and unexploitation, we have to use right speech. And friends, this is another gift that we can all experience as far as I can tell, we all have the ability to practice shutting our mouths and engaging in silence. And when we engage in silence, we absorb the power of creation and what the heavens are telling us. And you know, when I think when we talk about prayer, prayer is the act of talking to God. But are you listening to what the heavens are telling you? And you can only truly listen when you're practicing that silence. And when he talked about the thundering silence of listening to the wind, whistling of the pine trees and the wind, literally at that moment, I had my windows open and I could hear the wind blowing through the actual corn field and the pine trees and the maple outside of my house. And it was just this magical experience and it was also coupled with the gentle roaring of the combines because the combines are like out 24 hours a day during harvest season around here. And it was just this incredibly beautiful moment. Tomorrow I'm going to go on a hike with my good friend heaven and we're going to yap our gums a lot. So I hope he listens to some of the good points that I have to say. I in turn will listen to him, but we're going to experience the power of creation and listen to our own selves in these moments walking meditation with a healthy relationship where we are listening to one another and savoring our friendship. I don't have to worry about bitterness with Kevin. He's a friend for life so grateful for him and so grateful for all of you who are listening to me friends. If you know someone in your life who is suffering, please give them the list. If you yourself are suffering, please open these pages. Now there's no magical solutions. There's no instant where you can totally change. It requires practice. In our Constitution, they talk about the pursuit of happiness. Well, they should say it's the this of happiness and awareness of it. That is the true essence. It is the quintessence of life. Please give them a story. Every age is chock full of things that you can put into practice. Not in a gauzy or abstract way, but in a concrete way. There are things that you can do to develop healthy mind, healthy body, healthy spirit. Hope I have conveyed these curls and wisdom to you and infinite gratitude to each one of you who has taken the time to listen to you. That's it for this episode of The Rocky Cast. It's going to just fresh to a really good book on the War of 1812, so we'll be sharing that with you, doing some good stuff in terms of exercise and fitness that I'm going to want to share with you. So please share this podcast with other people that you love so they can tune in and listen, spread the word we're trying to do and let's keep listening, let's keep growing, let's keep being the best version of ourselves. Until next time, you and I see each other on The Rocky Cast.