How to Transform Suffering Into Freedom | Spotlight Convo | Good Life Project

The work is really just about transforming our relationship to theworld.

When we transform ourrelationship, it's not that the world just instantlychanges.

It means that I have an agency and how I'm choosing to react to theworld, to the forces aroundme, your concern forothers,deepens, because you begin to realize that not a lot of people have reached this level that you'vereached.

I choose to return back to places to help people come out of the same kinds of suffering that I was able to come outof.

I only did that because there are people who came back from thatme.

And because I realized what has been done forme, then I also am ethically mandated to offer that same help toothers.

So, have you ever felt trapped by the way of your own thoughts and the beliefs or maybe struggle to find freedom from difficult emotions likeanger, grief orheartbreak?

In today's deep diveconversation, we explore two powerful practices for untangling the roots of our suffering and unlocking ourtruest, most liberatedselves.

So my guests today are Byron Katie and Lama RodOwens, two deeply inspiring teachers who have walked the path of radical self inquiry andtransformation.

Byron Katie's profound awakening in 1986 sparked the development of thework, her simple yet life changing method that really helps question the thoughts that cause oursuffering, that I often turn to myself andreference.

Lama Rod Owens is a Buddhist teacher who we used together his experiences as a black queer man with Buddhist teachings on spiritualliberation.

So from the intersection ofidentities, he's created this approach called radical dharma that shows how to tenderly hold our anger and heartbreak as fuel forawakening.

In the powerful and contrastingjourneys, both Byron Katie and Lama Rod have discovered how to radically question the beliefs and narratives that keep us trapped in cycles of pain and their sharing insights and practices and deeply personal stories to help you find clarity amidst life's confusions and choose freedom in every presentmoment.

So excited to share this conversation withyou.

Iron Jonathan Fields and this is Good LifeProject.

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Hey, our first guest today is ByronKatie, who's profound awakening in1986.

She showed her a way to liberate herself from the suffering caused by herthoughts.

At the bottom of a decade long spiral into depression andself-loathing, Byron woke up one morning in a state of profound joy and clarity and she realized that when she believed her stressfulthoughts, shesuffered.

But when she quested them in a very particularway, the sufferingdissolved.

This realization sparked the development of her simply yet powerful process of self-engrry called thework, which consists of four questions and a technique called the turnaround that allows us to experience the opposite of what webelieve.

For over 30 years Byron has been sharing the work with millionsworldwide, empowering them to question the thoughts that caused their suffering and find freedom in the presentmoment.

Her best-sellingbooks, including Love and What is and a Mind at Home withitself, have introduced countless readers to this transformativepractice.

In thisconversation, we dive deep into Byron's personal journey and explore the life changing insights at the heart of thework.

Here'sByron. Let's dip a little bit back into your personalstory.

And I think it probably makes sense to go all the way back to86.

And maybe if you could paint a bit of a picture of what life was like before 86 foryou?

It was a world full ofdepression, youknow, my owndepression.

The depression was sodeep, it was more than adecade.

And it was so deep I didn't believe I could even live verysuicidal.

And then one morning as I lay sleeping on the floor because I didn't believe I was worth even a bed to sleepin, that'sdepressed.

A very paranoid aswell.

Just blindfear. And three children that I was trying to raise at the same time and make the housepayment,etc.

And youknow, a life ended and I was stillbreathing.

But one day as I lay sleeping on thefloor,actually, a car crotch called over my foot and I opened myeyes.

And it's as though I was justwitnessing, youknow, I was justwitnessing.

I wasjust, youknow, I don't have a description for thatyet.

I don't know how to speak ofit.

Maybe I'll never understand how to speak ofit.

But what I did see is that when I believed mythoughts, Isuffered.

And when I didn't believe mythoughts, I didn'tsuffer.

And I saw that on thefloor.

I more than thought I experienced it because it's like thiswitness, this unspeakablewitness, was justseen.

And itwas, it was like a birth into the world of just consciousness and just pureconsciousness.

And then I saw that as thoughts begin to hit myhead, everything began to have a name like window and sky and ceiling and floor and and evenKatie.

Itwas, itwas, youknow, everything had an end at thatpoint.

I began tolaugh. And it's like Ijust, I just got some kindof, of great joke that had been played on all ofus.

Youknow, I've seenthat, that all of us in theworld, we believe our thoughts wesuffer.

But to questionthem, youknow, that's the way out of this maze forme.

Andso, ofcourse, I invite people to identify their judgments and assumptions when they're hurt and or suffering in any way that they just identify those judgments and assumptions and questionthem.

And Ialso,Jay, love to say that the way toquestion, there are only four questions and the work I call it thework.

It's always free atthework.com.

Everything I have that has any value is free there and how to doit.

And it's anyone with an open mind can dothis.

I think about the people sufferingunnecessarily,which, youknow, was mycase.

And I think anyone thatsuffers, once we learn how to question the cause ofsuffering, we began to experience a life worthliving.

It was speaking with a friend in a while that it was interesting because hewas, his lens on depression was so many people think would say the opposite of depression ishappiness.

He had an interestinglens, which I'm curious what your thoughtsare, which is that he felt the opposite of depression wascuriosity.

Exactly.So, and I think a questioned mind and inquiring mind is a curious mind because without what we'rebelieving, youknow, everything opensup.

So it really is that I lovethat.

When you were in your darkest time and you mentioned your threekids, have you talked with them over the years about how they were experiencing you during that window and then and then upon thisawakening, how that shifted forthem?

Just over and over and over andover.

Youknow, anytime we'retogether, this showsup.

And, youknow, in one way oranother, even in just very small minor waysnow.

Butactually, every year on mybirthday, we all gettogether.

My three children and Imean, we spend three days together andoh, it ismarvelous.

And now there's just not a lot to talkabout.

Everyone's so respectful and understanding andkind.

It's, it's as though one person gets free and it changes the entire familydynamic.

Butoriginally, as you asked thequestion, where my mind alsowent, was my daughter for onething, said she had so much fear that the old mother would returnagain, that it took her quite awhile, all three of them to to adjust that I wasn't going to flip intothis, this world of depression that they were so used to andrage, youknow, confusion is it's not afriendly,it's, it's not a friendlyworld.

When you started to sort of live this newlife,essentially, how did others around you receive that and receiveyou?

Well, distrustful at first forsure.

And then youknow, I've been sharing thislately, Iwas, I noticed one day I was sitting on a park bench andthen, youknow, people would come sitdown, ofcourse.

And then the nextday, I noticed sitting on that park bench that maybe one or two of the same people would show upagain.

And then I noticed one day sitting on the park bench that there was aqueue, a line of people standing up to wait tosit, to sit there withme.

So it was for onething, I became a listener because when you really haveno, as wesay,no, no life sounds a bitstrange, but noself, we might say like noself, it'slike, I don't have a self I'm interestedin.

So that leaves me just fascinated by other people and connected to otherpeople.

It's such a beautiful thing to be connected to the world when I was distant from it for so manyyears.

It took me wild tobalance, youknow, to not to be more orless, but just in thecenter, youknow, that balance and unrecognizablebalance, even though after seeing what Isaid, we sound a littlestrange.

But at first it was quite anadjustment, as word began to pass around from one to theother, then people were calling me from literally all over theworld.

And I had no idea what theywanted, but I did know what peaceis.

AndI, youknow, I do know what suffering is and I know what peaceis.

And it'sreally, it's really difficult forpeople, we'll saysuffering, people that are confused in theirlives.

It's really difficult to have a goodlife.

It's really difficultto, evendecisions, as a simplest decision sometimes are just can bedifficult.

Do you have a sense for people who are coming to you because there was something about you that they wanted or they wanted tofeel?

Do you have a sense for what thatwas?

What thatwas?Well, I'm immuvable and what Irecognize.

And so I can't be swayed and that may sound like astubbornness.

And yet it's the extremeopposite.

But I guess you can say that people trustthat.

I trustit. And I think thatis, youknow, I don't have a mind that anticipates orremembers.

I have a mind that'spresent.

And I can talk out of the past andfuture, but I don't have a way of attaching to it because I can see that that's notreality.

That'simaging. That's not really a past like we drove over here in acar.

You were driven over here in acar.

And I see thatclearly, but I can see me in thatcar, but that's notmyself.

And then Stephen and I talked about getting a coffee after our time with youtogether.

And I can see me at a coffeeshop, youknow, in my mind'seye, thatfuture.

But it doesn't mean that we're going to a coffeeshop.

It really doesn't meananything.

And I see me at the coffeeshop, but that's notme.

So when people are talking out of what I'm describingnow, but once we become aware of that is not self in the past and that is notself, I see in thefuture, then we're no longer confusedabout, youknow, falseidentity, falseworlds.

And it's so easy just to be just right here rightnow.

It's sosimple. I think the depression I came outof, I'm just so grateful that this is all thereis.

AndI, there's no worry in my life because I don'tanticipate, even though my mind can see what we would call pastfuture, there's nothing concrete aboutit.

So therefore nothing to worryover.

And so my life is about just saying yes and moving inquiry to as many people aspossible.

The end ofsuffering, the absence of suffering because we make better choices thatway.

We'rekinder, we'reconnected, we're wiser because we're in touch withwisdom.

And as you mentionedearlier, one of myfavorites, I'mcurious.

One of the things that came to me when I first heard your story and sort of like the moment and how it's changed you since then is that often when you hear a story of somebodywho's, who's awakened in some way and in some level there is along with that some sort of almost dissociativeexperience.

The sort of Westernworld, the modern lens and medicine wants to labelthat.

They want to label that as somethingwrong, asdisease, as acondition.

I'm curious whether that was part of your earlyjourney, sort of like whether those labels were sort of thrust upon your people wanting to say that this was something other than what you feel youexperienced.

Yeah, it seemed ongreat.

I can see how people can see it thatway, certainly in thebeginning.

So it was difficult to step into and and seemed I'm sure crazy to a lot ofpeople.

I'd learn all over again what we do here on earth was kind of myexperience.

Youknow, I'mnew. I'm new and now I'mnot.

Now I'm verycomfortable.

It was just a little a learning process along theway.

So I had this littlebook, this littlebook,yeah, 12page, very smallpamphlet, like a tiny littlebook.

And infact, I called it the littlebook, but it's still free on the work.comtoday.

And it's in 36 or 39 differentlanguages.

And it's pretty much guides people into their own suffering and then just a way to walk people out ofit.

It's just pureinquiry.

Forexample, let's say I'm a little four or five year oldchild.

I'mplaying. I'mhappy.

I have this amazinglife.

And my mothersays,Byron,Kathleen, you'reunlovable.

And I don't loveyou. And what I can see today is that is absolutely not aproblem.

There's no cruelty init.

There'sno, there's no way to blame her forit.

Because I've come to see that when we believe ourthoughts, we suffer and we say things that we are so sorry for and feel so guiltyover.

But when we believe ourthoughts, we live out of that thoughtprocess.

And so shesaid, I don't loveyou.

And so that iscomplete.

If I'm not experiencing compassion and connection withher, because it's painful to see someone thatway.

If I'm not seeingthat, then there's something way off inme.

So I'm just this littlegirl.

Shesays, I don't loveyou.

There is zero problem until the moment I believedit.

Now that's mypart. I believedit.

Just imagine she says that and I don't believeit.

So where was the damage done if we I'm using that wordloosely?

I believedit. So there are a lotof, and that became myidentification.

I'm the unlovableone. And so I have introducing topeople, youknow, as myjob, the simplicity of how to wake ourselves up from the dream of I am fatidentity.

I amunlovable. In otherwords, so a person might that feels that way might just askthemselves, is ittrue?

And then meditateon, I'munlovable.

Is ittrue? And just to develop apractice, let's say in themorning, to get up early and just sit in that practice and contemplatethat, that I'munlovable.

Is ittrue? And then to just witness in thatmeditation, how you react and what happens to your life when you believe the thought you're unlovable and just to witness what goes on whenyou, the moment I believedit, that became myidentification.

So it gives everyone opportunity to see that forthemselves.

And then that lastquestion, who would you be without thethought?

So I can go back and see my mother sayingthat, would I be without the thoughtI'm, who would I be without thethought?

I'munlovable. And there it is connected to mymother,compassionate, as opposed to living a life of trying to convince her all my life that I'mlovable.

And the torture ofthat, and not just mymother, but otherpeople.

So youknow, weare, we're all inthis, this world of seekinglove, approval and appreciation for what we alreadyare.

And it's just a matterof, of waking upto, up tothat.

Andinquiry, it does wake us up toit.

And then the next thing I invite people tois, is to take that assumption and judgment that we've beenbelieving.

And, and thento, to turn it around and try it on as though you were trying on a new pair of shoes orsomething.

But I'munlovable. The opposite of that is I'mlovable.

Now for some ofus, that's very difficult tohear, becauseit's, it'snew.

We've never even considered such athing.

So to get very still and close your eyes and just meditate onthose, thoseloving, caring acts of kindness that we have that are common for us that wedon't, we're not even aware of because we're holding this identity of I'munlovable.

Sotightly, forexample, but then when we get still and I'm lovable and I canjust, youknow, look backand, and where was I caring towardmyself?

Youknow, where was I caring towards someoneelse?

And youknow, where have I said and done things that Ifind, connect me to other humanbeings?

And in otherwords,loving, lovable things I do that I would love me forbasically.

So it is like coming out ofhell, youknow, just coming back into a world that we're really livingin, but because we're believing ourthoughts, we're unaware of that beautifulworld.

And I've come to seethat, youknow, beyond my own doubt that the universe is friendly and there is no opposite tothat.

But what I'm thinking and believing could lead me to believeotherwise.

And I have a word forthat.

It's called suffering and another wordconfusion, another wordwar.

So this new book combined at home withitself, it's the entirebook.

It's Stephen introduced me to thisbook.

I'd never heard of the Diamond Sutra and it's all aboutgratitude.

And when we are living out of our kindestnature, then that sense of gratitude comes with it and we wouldn't even name itgratitude.

It is just a sense of right living and joy and it's a fear that state of mind and life where we know what our talentsare.

They're clear to us and there's nothing to stop us because we're living out of what is right and a mind that is no longerconfused.

In otherwords, fearful to stopus.

No one and nothing can stop us from doing the right thing when our mind isclear.

And I really love that for people listening to this podcast to know that there is a way out ofsuffering, but the world can give that tome.

It's itreally. I don't call it the work fornothing.

Yeah. And just to sort of create a little bit of structure around what you justoffered, the work is you just navigated us through a really beautiful example of the process of inquiry that came toyou, which is this asking of these four questions and these things that you identify as turnarounds as a wayto, would it be accurate to say to develop the habit of testing the thoughts and assumptions that constantly come in and lead to suffering when you grasp onto them astruth.

Socrates said in unquestioned life isn't worth living and I am of thatschool.

It was interesting with the example that you justshared, which was that your experience as achild?

Yeah. When I thinkabout, youknow, as anadult,okay, so I can I can listen tothis.

I can I can receive the process of the work and it makes sense to me and Isay,okay, I'm open tothis.

Youknow, I'm they're suffering mylife.

Their thoughts that I have that I'm not okaywith.

Let me let me at least I'm open toit.

Let me try it for your old ByronKathleen.

In your mind is is there a gateway to introduce thisprocess, the work to somebody much younger in life to create that lens long before the depth of suffering builtup.

Yeah, it's justhappening.

It's happening allover.

Well, youknow, parents are they're doing this work and it's shifting their children's lives and I watch my grandchildren and it's it'sradical, a chain because my daughter has the work in herlife, witnessing mygrandchildren.

Yeah, the beauty of it is the simplicity of theprocess.

This is not a big heavycomplex, youknow, likedog, mydog, it's not layered with with things orideologies.

It's it's such a simple straightforward process that you can almost look at it andsay,well,yeah, it just kind of makessense.

What I love about it is there's no teacherinvolved.

It's just it's just me with myself or just anyone doing thework.

It's just that person with himself and the opportunity to just get still and be shown what meets those questions when we ask withsincerity.

I feel like this is actually a good place for us to come fullcircle.

So as we sithere, I always end with one final question with everyone and a simple question with maybe not so simpleanswer, which is in in yourexperience, what does it mean to live a goodlife?

To be present and recognize what is at hand to do and to do that without hesitation and to because it's just recognized as a good thing todo.

Thankyou. Thank you somuch.

And we'll be right back after a word from oursponsors.

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So I love how Byron really reminds us of the simplicity and power in questioning our thoughts that this act alone can liberate us from so muchsuffering.

And our next guest is Lama Rado is a spiritual teacher whose powerful approach called radical dorma really shows how to transform challenges like anger and grief and heartbreak into a path of healing and liberation from his intersecting identities as a black queer southernman.

Lama Rado creates an authentic inclusive platform that meets people where they are with a blend of directness and lightness with the masters from Harvard and over a decade of experience he has emerged as a leading voice for a new generation seeking personal and societaltransformation.

In this conversation we'll explore how Lama Rado integrated his upbringing in the black prophetic tradition with the Buddhist teachings on spiritual liberation and you'll gain insights into how we can tenderly hold our anger and heartbreak as we work to free ourselves from trauma and self-savotagingpatterns.

He shares practical guidance for choosing clarity over confusion light over darkness as we strive to live our most authentic liberatedlives.

Here's LamaRado. My relationships with the black radical prophetic tradition really began in my early teens because I was a reader and I was exposed to all kinds ofliterature.

Primarily, back then because of my dad who had also been exposed to that literature and wanted me to readit.

So I was reading WAB DeBoys and BookerT.

Washington. BookerT. Washington isn't necessarily an example of black radical prophetic but it was still a thoughtleader.

He was still someone who's of use or still helped in value even now but reading those two thinkers that moving into Malcolm X and into these black path removed and the black power movements and studying the Haitianrevolution.

And I had to do that study outside of school because we weren't being assigned Malcolm X and the path in our historyclass.

So I did that study on my own and that really began to form this belief that if I want to be free and happy but back then it was more aboutfree.

If I wanted to be free then I needed to do something to getfree.

And that wasn't necessarily about praying toGod.

It was about getting active andorganizing, takingstances, gettingeducated, joining others and working towards a goal associated with liberation andfreedom.

And that was my first Dharma if youwill.

In the black radicaltradition, black prophetictradition, it was something that helped me to channel myanger.

It gave my anger somewhere tolive.

And it was really because of my study in the black radical tradition that I began to understand the power of the black church aswell.

What I was given didn't really resonate with me but when I was able to step back and to apply this lens of blackagency.

Forinstance, I began tosay,oh, the black church was actually functioning in a certainway.

That was not able to identify moving through the church as apractitioner.

And then earlier you spoke of this kind of blackheartbreak.

The heartbreak is palpable and evident in the blackchurch.

And I sawit. Youknow, it was very present but it was so hard for us to talkabout.

And I knew that so much of my path as I got older was to talk about theheartbreak.

And to talk about the heartbreak in a way that I framed that narrative of the heartbreak aroundfreedom.

Not aroundoverwhelm, not around continued suffering but wouldn't meant to articulate theheartbreak.

And then that articulation actually opened the door to a kind of openness and deeper vulnerability and an experience of lettinggo.

Youknow, being through with certain heartbreaks and then just offering thisback.

Youknow, justsaying,yeah, I'm through withthis.

Now I'm going to choosehappiness.

That's more thanenough.

Yeah, whichis, youknow, onpaper, just it's time to choose happiness inreality.

Yeah, it is a much more complex and often long and deep and studied unfolding if we ever get to thatplace.

And ofcourse,it, youknow, that also depends on a certainlevel, how we even definehappiness.

Yeah. Youknow, we're not talking about just getting to a place where life isgood.

Everything'shappy, golucky.

But it's a differentcontext, youknow.

Yeah, youknow, choosing happiness means that at somepoint, I accept what'shappening.

Now, there'sa, Idon't, there'snot, when I sayaccept, it doesn't mean agreeing with orcondoning, I'm saying this ishappening.

But to make that step to take that step means that I have to to contend with the heartbreak that comes with theacceptance.

I can no longer live within a fantasy of what the worldis.

I can't continue to hang out in my hoping for things to bedifferent.

I hope is still very important forme.

But I have to be realistic and say at thismoment, rightnow, this is what'shappening.

And there's a kind of soberness that arises and that soberness comes again from having to hold space for the heartbreak that arisesthat,like, I haveto, I have to touch into thisreality.

Like, I have to touch theground.

Because I've been afraid of theground.

Like, we're afraid of touching the ground because the ground isdirty.

Youknow, when I touch theground, I'm touching intoreality.

And then I move into the heartbreak and I let the heartbreak bethere.

And the heartbreak doesn't have to be overwhelming because actually the nature of my mind is much greater than theheartbreak.

Right? And if I usemy, my touch-richlanguage, youknow, I wouldsay,yeah, and the heartbreak is actually just an expression of my minditself.

And if I can realizethat, then there's a freedom that begins toarise.

I'm no longer reacting to this energy because I realize that the essence of this is just this essence of spaciousness and emptiness and just like this energy that's moving and taking shape in differentways.

And I can just watch it and let it bethere.

Right? And my reality begins to shift tochanges.

Right? And then I'm sitting in areality.

And whenI, when I get through thatheartbreak, and I wantto, youknow, also say that heartbreak doesn't justdisappear.

It just staysthere. I'm still holdingit.

It's justthere,right?

And then there's asolverness.

And then the contentness thatarises.

Right? And when yousay,yeah, this is theworld.

Right? Andnow, how can I choose the best way to take care of myself and to do the work and get myself free and getting others around mefree?

Yeah, Imean,the,um, primarycuriosity, I have a lot of curiosities aroundthis.

And part of itis, youknow, when we aspire to step into thisstate, this place so often what leads to it is action fueled by as you've sharedanger,rage.

Youknow, and because there ispain, there'ssuffering, there's physical violence that has often led to this psychic and emotional violence that has led to a certainplace.

Youknow, so I'm fascinated by this notionof, I don't know if the right language is letting go of that or transmuting it or the process of moving from there andsaying, this still matters tome.

My external world is still largely thesame, but I need to change my internal world in a way and still take action and be in the world around me and be a part ofshifting.

The journey from that place where there is a certain anger and a certain rage to the place that you've just serveddescribed, it feels like a brutally hardtransition.

Well,yeah,well,absolutely.

It took me about 15 years to do that and that was heavy labor on mypart.

That was in casual and formal weekendwork.

It was every day and giving up a lot to go deeper into thoseexperiences, but the work is really just about transforming our relationship to theworld.

In theworld, when we transform ourrelationship, it's not theworld, it's not that the world just instantlychanges.

It means that I have an agency and how I'm choosing to react to theworld, to the forces aroundme.

And it feels natural to assume that if you get to thatspace, then you just stop giving aship.

But infact, I think that you're concerned forothers,deepens, because you begin to realize that not a lot of people have reached this level that you'vereached, and then it becomes an ethical mandate for you to help others because you know what the experience of beinglost, deeplyfixated, on thetrauma, feelslike.

And so we're not trying to bypassanything.

But thereis, when I think aboutBuddhism, there is this path of what we call solitaryrealizes, where it's like people getfree, and then they'relike,okay,great, I'm getting the hell out ofhere.

And I think that'slegit.

That's also a part of my beliefsystem.

It'slike,yeah, you getfree.

Youknow, I'm talking aboutawakening, like you awaken to the nature ofreality, and then you just headon, and you'relike, youknow, I think that'sfine.

But forme, I chooseto, with whatever realization Iexperience, I choose to return back to places to help people come out of the same kinds of suffering that I was able to come outof.

I only did that because there are people who came back and gotme.

Right. So I had teachers who did this forme.

They had teachers who did that forthem.

That's what's calledlineage.

Youknow, there are people who have come back over and over and overagain, and have sacrificedimmensely, and ordered to pull people out of thetrauma, of theviolence.

And because I realized what has been done forme, then I also am ethically mandated to offer that same help toothers.

Yeah.Interestingly, Imean, it's also you describe this impulse towards service and teaching from a very youngage.

And it's also returning to that impulse foryou.

It's sort of like if there's a script that has run in your head for as long as you can remember thatsays, this is part of why I'mhere.

That's sort of like it's part of thepath.

Foryou, the 15 years or so that you'vedescribed, and that you're stillwithin, it sounds like it really does begin with this introduction toBuddhism.

Youknow, you move through the traditional church upbringing to a certainextent, black radicalism and prophetic tradition becomes your church in a certain way for a certain window of yourlife.

But there's still a lot ofpain.

There's still a lot ofsuffering.

It's not processing thatthrough, and it sounds like Buddhism was the thing that allowed the kind of start to open the release of to a certainextent.

Well, Buddhism namedsuffering.

And that sold me off thebat.

It was the first teaching ofsuffering.

Right? Youknow,yeah, for a lot of people that's a turnoff.

Forme, I just think that's one of the kindest things that I'd ever encountered was for this profound path tosay,oh, you'resuffering.

Like you're not imaginingthis.

I willrelatively, and when I'm on the roads oflove, this ishappening.

Ultimately, not somuch, butrelatively, like you're definitely moving through a lot ofdiscomfort.

And you have to startthere.

Youknow, and I think there are certain paths who invite us to start with thehappiness.

Youknow, but I don't know how to dothat.

Youknow, but being encouraged to start where it hurts was thisprofound, profoundpermission.

Forme, that was the language that I was looking for that I waslike,oh, I am really on comfortablesuffering.

Right? And it's okay because everyone else is aswell, especially the ones who claim that they're notsuffering.

They're in the mostsuffering.

Right? Andso, and so that took me from that basic truth into a deep relationship with what this comfortwas, and how this comfortarose, youknow, and that the mind was the roots ofliberation.

And forme, youknow, coming up in this kind of black radical tradition by powerwork, I'd never come across any discourse around themind.

Youknow, that was so intricate and defined in detail as Darwin Buddhism offeredit, that the mind had to be awakened in order for social liberation tohappen.

Youknow, here's the pedagogy to dothat.

And that'swhat, youknow, that was the next thing that soldme.

Here's apedagogy, youknow, andjust, you're instructed to take these teachings and workthem, youknow, just work them out and working the teachings out produce moreinsight, morewisdom.

And you begin to feed off ofthat, that protection of wisdom ofclarity.

And it's quite interesting too to studysome, youknow, for me to study some of these greatleaders, youknow, that I analyze and how many of them had a secret practice ofmeditation, andprayer,yoga.

Youknow, Rosa Parks wasa, youknow, ayogi.

Oh, nokidding. I neverhad.

Yeah.Yeah, the morepictures, youknow, there are pictures of her doingyoga.

Actually, youknow, which waslike, it's soprofound,right?

When you think aboutthat.

Butlike,I, Ithought,okay, how can I do more work to bridge this liberatory mind teaching with these liberatory teachings of the relative worldtogether?

And that was just something that started naturally happeningwithout, Imean, I didn't sit down andsay, oneday,okay, I'm going to bring thistogether.

Butagain, it was thehunger, youknow, for me to bridge all these parts of who and what Iwas.

And that hasmade, youknow, forme, all thedifference.

Imean,that,well, that has shaped the way that I teach and offerinstruction.

Yeah, Imean, it sounds like that becomes really the foundation ofthis, the notion of radicaldharma,right?

Youknow, spiritual liberation is bound to socialliberation, to societalliberation.

Andthat, you can't just do the work outside with your externalcircumstances.

You've got to work on the outside world and also the insideworld.

Andthere,there, there's no way to unbindthem.

Absolutely. And I was kind of wondering for theworld, youknow,until, youknow, I met ReverendAjo, youknow, and we got together and we started like creating this kind of notion of radicaldharma.

And that for me was a way to ground all of these things I was thinking about that didn't really have a foundation atall, or a nor acontainer.

Youknow, it's a kind of place for them and that will go on to become that container forme.

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Yeah, you mentioned the pedagogy that is built into the Buddhistpath.

This effectively becomes yourpedagogy.

In terms of how do we relate these twothings, spiritual and social and ethicalliberation, youknow, it'sinteresting.

You pose the question in thework, how do we tend to the wound beneath theanger?

I think the word specifically youwrote, if we don't wrestle with theanger, we never get to the heartbreak and if we don't get to theheartbreak, we don't get to thehealing.

Yeah, so many people are so bypassing the heartbreak and youcan't, you have to go to thewound.

How do you heal if you're not dealing with the wounditself?

I know absolutely that it'sterrifying.

Absolutely. I go to these placesregularly,actually.

But I know that healing can only happen if I go and if I show up and offer a lot ofspace, thewoundiness.

Right, and that overtime, we begin to see that the woundiness is just a teacher forus.

But even the woundiness is trying to loveus.

Right, and it's loving us because it's showingus, youknow, where itis, youknow, and it's being vulnerable andopen.

If we can just payattention.

Ofcourse, the wholeprocess, payingattention, holdingspace, letting go over and overagain, youknow, that's like a reallybasic, simple to practice over andover, but letting go is that's thetrick.

Well, Imean, Reverend Angel adds to I think the way that you phrased it and I think introduces the notion ofgrief, youknow, part of that letting go is also a process of grieving a certain state that has in no small way defined your dailydistance.

Yeah, youknow, and it's the ways in which wealso, we have used things to create a sense ofself.

And when those things aredisrupted, the sense of self is disrupted and that's where the lossarises, youknow, asin, youknow, steamingnecks, youknow, and says inlandslide, youknow, I've built my whole life aroundyou.

Youknow, I've been afraid ofchanging, youknow, and I just wanted my favoritesongs,actually, that's a song that I am often reflectingon, youknow, like because it's like a lot of us get stuck because we've used things around us in relationships and people to define a sense of who weare.

We don't want to disruptthat, but it will be disrupted because thingschange.

Thingsdie, things aredestroyed, thingsdissipate.

We're alwayschanging, even if we choose not to short to thatchange.

There's the grievingthere.

And we have to choose the grieving in order to negotiate the energy ofloss, the energy while the energy is specifically of long gain forpermanence.

Mm-hmm.Yeah, Imean, that makes a lot ofsense.

Part of what I'm wonderingalso, as Ihear, you share that is when on the one hand you feel the weight of current and presentharm.

You see the systems all around you that continue to createthat.

And there's a deep woundingunderneath, but also this rate and anger on thesurface.

And if you view the anger as the source fuel forchange, then choosing to step away from that can be conflated with choosing to step away from a commitment tochange.

And rather thansaying,well, is there another sourcefuel?

Well, that's the misconception anger isn't fueling our work ofliberation.

It's a lot of thefuels, the work ofliberation.

Tell memore. Youknow, love is something that many of us have been beat over the headwith.

Again, I grew up in thisstyle.

I live in Atlantanow, and I live like mile fromDr.

King's, theM.O.K. National Memorialsite.

So it'slike,oh, youknow, and growing up withDr.

King, my whole life in Georgia waslove,love,love,love,love,love,love.

Youknow, I just got sick ofthat.

Youknow, as I got older because I just I didn't see or I didn't understand how to connect actual examples oflove.

I was being loved and caredfor, I just didn't getthat.

Youknow, and I have I didn't understand love until I began this really intense work of lovingmyself.

And then that's where love actually came intofocus.

And Isaid,oh, this is not thisromantic, I deal withlove.

I justrealized, youknow, thing is just this is this hard work of learning how to accept myself into a full space for all of thegoodness.

And going through that andsaying, you knowwhat, it'sokay, and that's not the onlyone.

Youknow, over and overagain.

And so understanding that and coming back out into liberationstruggle, the struggle for me or my my work in the struggles fueled by my deep wish for people to be safe andhappy.

That's what fuel thework.

That's what makes the worksustainable.

Because I believe allbeings, regardless of who youare, regardless of how much you hurtme, you deserve to befree,safe, andhappy.

Right. And that's what motivates thework.

Now the anger is stillthere.

Right. And the anger actually helps me to understand what's wrong in how things arewrong.

It reminds me that I'm still connected to theworld, to the welfare ofbeings, to the welfare ofmyself.

It reminds me that there's hurt stillpresent.

And that I can use that energy of anger as I take care ofmyself, I can use that energy and channel it back into the work ofliberation, because it keeps me sensitive to the world aroundme.

It keeps me sensitive to the realities of others around me aswell,particularly.

Right. It always tells me that there's stillimbalance.

In the question of all kinds of differentEnglish, righteousanger, forinstance,right, which is stilllegitimate.

Right.Yeah. We've been to hurt and with this significantways, because ofinjustice, anger arises fromthat.

I have a right to be withthat.

Right. Now have a right to beheard.

Now have a right for my anger to be to be held andwitnessed.

And the wounding that comes from many of us comes from the ways in which our anger has beenerased,sidetracked,invalidated.

Your anger is animportance.

Whocares?Right.Right.

Right.Right.Right.Right.

RightRight.Right.Right.

Right.Right.Right.Right.