Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: If we could have a moment between event and reaction, if our mindfulness can give us a moment in between event and reaction, and we can just have those micro moments of being less reactive and more intentional in our reactions, I think what a huge, huge blessing. And if I can be more present with you in our conversation instead of ruminating about what I want to say and what I want to interject on the conversation.
[00:01:24] Speaker B: Welcome to Supernormalize, the podcast, where we challenge the conventional break boundaries and normalize the seemingly supernatural. Join me, CJ Barnaby, in the liminalist space to explore less charted realms of existence and to unravel the mysteries of life. Experience. Each episode I'm blessed with the opportunity to talk to regular people from across the world where they openly share their understanding and wisdom in service to others. If you're looking to upgrade your life, you've come to the right place.
Be sure to like and subscribe, and I'll bring you great transforming conversations each week. My treasured viewers and listeners. If you have a life story or healing modality or unique knowledge that you'd love to share, reach out to me at supernormalizedroton dot me. Let's together embrace acceptance of the supernatural and unusual. What it really is completely normal. Earl Binney is a man that's actually living a life testament when it comes to the understanding and living the truth of yogic practices in relation to meditation and buddhist understanding. Earl had a normal life developing in his younger days in Canada and got to a certain point where he was starting to feel stuck in the rat race and decided to leap away from that, bought himself around the world ticket, went to Australia, bounced off to New Zealand, and then suddenly found himself in incarcerated for his behavior in New Zealand for a period of 22 months. He was forced into a confinement situation and basically his first retreat, as he likes to see it, and it changed his life.
He discovered Buddhism and then Tibetan Buddhism, and then after his period of time, he actually was released and sent back home to Canada, where he then dived straight into Tibetan Buddhism in a deep way, which led to retreat eventually. That lasted three years, three months, and three days of silent meditation.
This changed him dramatically and enabled him to be able to help others with their understanding of yoga and meditation and how that can benefit them and the world. This is a part of his practice nowadays, and so his talk today is about that. Enjoy the show.
Welcome to super normalized Earl Binney. Earl, you were living a sort of normal life, you'd say, and then you got to a certain point you're like, well, wait a minute, this isn't. This isn't enough. This isn't what life is. And you decided to basically run around the world and discover yourself.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: What happened? Yeah, I mean, that's getting straight to the. Straight to the point, CJ. Appreciate that. Appreciate being here and the question. And, I don't know, it just felt like that when I was growing up, there was a.
It was like, there's got to be. What's the point? What's the. That question kind of rang in my head a lot. Like, what's the point of life? Is it all about a disillusionment with how I saw people living it or that that didn't seem like it was going to be satisfying for me. So, you know, going through high school, getting through high school and then being like, well, I guess I'll go to university. I don't really have anything better to do.
And then getting kind of close to being a university and just seeing what that looked like and seeing what my father had done and what my grandfather had done and what I. What I thought society was kind of forcing me into this path of, well, you know, a career, 50 weeks, a year of work for two weeks off and, you know, get a house and get a mortgage and, you know, relationship. And it all felt in, like an entrapment, and it just.
It didn't resonate, it didn't appeal. And so, yeah, I was four months from finishing my university degree and bought a ticket around the world. And sure, mom and dad weren't thrilled, but I hit the road.
[00:06:02] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I can understand that sort of tension that happens from being molded into this society. Basically, our minds are colonialized into the idea of what should be.
And then there's a massive friction for us, I think, as late teens, youth.
And it's like, well, what is this? And for me, I mean, you got the, you know, what is this about? What is. What am I here for? But for me, it was like, I've got to get out of this.
And my path was like, you know, I've got to escape this somehow. I don't know what. And my path, actually, because of all the tension in my system, I actually did self medication, and that wasn't so helpful in the end, but I did learn things and it did actually help me to escape in certain ways. So you decided to go on a round the world trip. Where did you go first?
[00:06:58] Speaker A: I actually went to Australia first. Oh, really?
[00:07:00] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:07:02] Speaker A: That was step one. And I was really on this kind of felt to me like a search for freedom in the sense of I felt like the world didn't have meaning, and that's why everyone was trying to give meaning to the world, to give meaning to life.
And what was really important to me was my time.
Like, I had 18. I just had the sense of, it's the only thing I can't replace.
Other things come and go, but my time is finite, and that clock is ticking.
[00:07:37] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:07:38] Speaker A: And so it just felt like my world was about having fun, and that just seemed like the most logical answer to me at that age. And so, yeah, I ended up in Australia, headed straight for Byron Bay and hung out there for a little bit and did the Byron Bay thing.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: Yeah, right, right. We probably crossed paths. I mean, I was living around there at that time, so.
[00:08:09] Speaker A: Uh huh. Yeah. And it was, you know, also very, you know, what actually happened was I was selling drugs to fund my travels.
[00:08:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:23] Speaker A: You know, not having big aspirations. But I remember going up to outside of Brisbane, and I was picking apples.
And, you know, at the end of ten days of picking apples every day, we all got paid, and I made more in the next hour selling acid than I did in ten days of hard labor. And I just, like, this is just. This isn't worth it. It's just not worth my time, not spending picking apples. Yeah. And I split.
[00:08:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I can understand that. I mean, I. I've had times when I'm sitting there doing something, I'm like, do I want to have this as a part of my life review?
You know what I mean? It's like, the impact of that is like, I don't know if I remember doing this garbage forever.
Yeah.
[00:09:16] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, I think there was a certain naivety to it at that time, but I didn't see the value in it, so I split. I ended up. Went from there. I went to New Zealand, and it was wild. I was at a festival in Sydney, and I was sitting on the grass and counting some money at the end of the festival, and this guy came up and he's like, what were you selling? And I was like, oh, I was selling acid. And he's like, you know, a, you should be more careful, and b, where are you going next? I was like, I'm going to New Zealand. He's like, you should be more careful there.
And I wasn't. And getting arrested, and that was, you know, and then that was super wild, that, like, day one of being in jail and just kind of reflecting on how that search for freedom had led me to where I was. Yeah, right.
[00:10:20] Speaker B: So you were incarcerated for a period of time, and it gave you a chance for self reflection.
[00:10:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Really time to slow down, for sure. Not, you know, in gradual stages, you know, a lot of anger at first. Someone. Someone ratted me out. So, you know, sold my time for their time. So there was a lot of anger. Anger at police, anger at my lawyer, the system.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. But it did allow me to slow down a little bit and to meet some amazing people.
And really probably it's where I kind of started my spiritual journey. Really?
[00:11:04] Speaker B: Okay, well, that's curious in itself, like, how prison can lead to a spiritual journey.
[00:11:12] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it. It was probably my first retreat, you know, my first of a captive retreat, a life of. A life of retreat. I've probably done, I don't know, 30, 40 retreats in my life. So in some ways, that was the first.
[00:11:30] Speaker B: So what was the catalyst for that when you were behind bars, to actually start on that journey? I mean, you were. Would you say you were like a normal sort of person, but you had no idea about any of the spiritual aspects that came to be a part of your later life?
[00:11:46] Speaker A: Yeah, I think I had that bent towards philosophy.
I was overtly not interested in religion, but I was very interested in philosophy. I just didn't have a lot of framework for it. And in prison, there was very, very few books to choose from. So there was like an Alan Watts book, I remember, or, I don't know, just some kind of old generic spiritual books. And I ended up, remember somebody gave me some books that were kind of modern spirituality, and I didn't click, and I gave him back, and he said, you should go down the way and talk to this guy named Michael. He's buddhist, and see what he's got.
And that sounded weird. Buddhism sounded extremely weird to me. But it's like, okay.
And he gave me some books that I found incredibly interesting. Actually, the first two books he gave me, I remember going back and saying, that's not for me. And he's like, just read this one more book. And he gave me a philosophical book on ideas about emptiness. And I was fascinated. And that really, that was my door into buddhist philosophy, that I just dove in deeply. I really dove in to find the hole in it where I could be like, okay, it's another religion that I don't need to believe in another religion trying to force a morality on me.
And instead of falling apart, it just fell together more and more. Wild. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:13:19] Speaker B: I was touched by Zen Buddhism around about the age of 20, with the help of a friend, he pointed me out some really good books. And for me, that made so much sense. You know, the. The space between spaces that came from. That was like, wow, this is it. You know? Actually, you're. You're fully centered by the way it's expressed and the way it's understood. Or at least it was for me. And that changed everything for me at the time.
[00:13:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't. I don't know how it went for you, but that was my entry into meditating, and that became a big focus for me, too.
[00:13:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, it was for me too, with the meditation. Meditation. Like, I was already meditating, but this actually gave it a different sort of depth. So it was different the way it worked.
So you finished your time behind bars and you were back in Canada after that?
[00:14:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
The government of New Zealand was kind enough to buy me a plane ticket home and escorted me to the airport and see you later.
I went back home and I had this guy, his name was Michael.
Kind of the last four months, he's like, let's get this course by this american teacher named Michael Roche.
And Michael Roach had designed this curriculum that reflected the traditional geshe studies of a tibetan buddhist monastic system. And so we had taken two of those courses on the old cassette tapes. They would mail out ten cassette tapes per course.
I went back to Canada and I kind of was a closet Buddhist. Kind of got back into the same scene and the same routines a little bit. But what was really inspiring to me was becoming more and more my meditation and spiritual study and Tibetan Buddhism.
[00:15:27] Speaker B: So you had that anchor of meditation and Buddhism running as a theme from that point onwards, and it actually was a great catalyst for your personal change.
What happened after that?
[00:15:42] Speaker A: Well, eventually I went to.
Well, I finished my university degree and then I went to see this teacher, Michael Roach teach, and he was starting a spiritual center in Arizona.
And I just dropped everything and left. There was something in me that felt like my life was really great. I had a beautiful, beautiful house, beautiful job, beautiful partner, and I left. I just felt like there's something more that I need to do. And I could see the trajectory of life was going to be fine, great. And I wanted a vision of something more. And so I left and went to help start a retreat center in middle of nowhere, Arizona, a little town called Buoy, Arizona. And we started a retreat center there and did a seven year advanced study program in Buddhism. And I started teaching yoga, philosophy and yoga and meditation, studying Tibetan, studying Sanskrit, studying the buddhist teachings more in depth with an amazing group of people. That was what really was inspiring, for the first time in my life, to have people my age, we were all. Now I was sober, the group was sober.
But to have people so alive in sobriety and in the liveliness, in the teachings of.
It was a time I really flourished. It was really special time for me.
[00:17:26] Speaker B: So it's good to have a peer group around you that actually shares the same.
Just say, like, aim.
[00:17:32] Speaker A: In that case, essential. I think for me it was, yeah, teacher in a group was just perfect for me.
[00:17:43] Speaker B: So you got into advanced Tibetan Buddhism for a period of seven years in total, is that right?
[00:17:48] Speaker A: I. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We did a seven year program, and then at the end of that, we did a three year retreat, three year silent retreat. There's about 37 of us that went into retreat and had to build a cabin, had to, you know, get all of, you know, as a group, we had to get the logistics together of supporting 37 people in silence for three years.
[00:18:12] Speaker B: That's wild.
[00:18:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
Amazing opportunity.
[00:18:17] Speaker B: And did everyone last that full time?
[00:18:20] Speaker A: No, about a good percentage. I think we started with 37 and ended with 32.
[00:18:26] Speaker B: That's great.
[00:18:27] Speaker A: So there's not a lot of data, but I think that's a pretty reasonable percentage.
[00:18:35] Speaker B: And for that, many people would be able to do that for that long. I mean, the. That the center must have been very supportive to be able to facilitate that in a western sort of culture.
[00:18:44] Speaker A: Really?
Yeah, yeah. I think we were a huge pain in the ass for everyone that had to run the show, but they managed to do it, so I felt unbelievably grateful.
[00:18:56] Speaker B: Yay.
[00:18:57] Speaker A: They strung it together and pieced it together in a lot of small donations and a few really dedicated volunteers during that silent retreat.
[00:19:08] Speaker B: I mean, you're living in a cabin, you're alone pretty much all the time, and living in a very sort of rustic sort of way. I mean, how was that for you?
[00:19:21] Speaker A: Yeah, it's very well, it was beautifully simple. The rustic simplicity in the desert is just perfect for that.
You know, on a lot of levels.
It was amazing to be on one piece of land for three years and to, you know, we're constantly traveling out and looking for experiences outside. And, you know, I just got back last night from the west coast, and to not leave somewhere for three years and to get so intimate with the land and the nature and the animals bad in us and the stars was amazing. But also just to have a time to, you know, we're so tuned into these electronic devices now to have a three year break from no newspapers or tvs or Spotify or Netflix or messages or apps, and to stop that.
That constant input of data, in a sense, but also, like, the reinforcement of a person. Like, traveling is really good that way, too. I can go travel and kind of be anonymous or. No one's reinforcing the earl that I think I am or need to be in social situations.
And retreat was removing any sort of earl, the brother, or earl, the youth worker, or the meditator or the yoga teacher or the sun, you know, all of those.
All of those reinforcements for who I think I am. Like that box that we tend to be in, which isn't necessarily bad, but a box nonetheless.
It was an opportunity to do a lot of. For me, one of the things that happened right away was a lot of guilt that came up everything that I'd swept under the carpet for 38 years.
I sit down and meditate, and it's like, well, you want to look at me now. You want to look at me now?
And for the first time, I really didn't have any excuse to put anything off. I got nothing to do for three and a half years.
Nothing. And to start to really look at the things that were coming up in my meditations and consciousness.
And the first, it was a lot of kind of guilt, and it was great to process that and to take ownership of the things that I had done in my life that were kind of weighing me down subconsciously that I wasn't so aware of. And so that process and then the lack of kind of reinforcing that old image of who earl is, it felt like that box just kind of opened up into more of a vast landscape of potential.
And then all of the practices kind of. It was like the picture of real could kind of get erased a little bit.
And from that blank canvas. Now, that an amazing opportunity to start painting that picture of who I wanted to be and retreats, an unbelievable opportunity to do that.
[00:22:41] Speaker B: Wow, it sounds like we all should have a retreat.
[00:22:43] Speaker A: Well, I think it's going to be a big thing. I think yoga has had its heyday and very influential in the culture. I think meditation is kind of becoming the new. It's infiltrated all aspects, education, the workplace, and people's personal lives. And I think retreat will, you know, we'll have detox from technology, and I think retreat will become more and more a part of our normal yearly routine.
My bold prediction here on the super normal podcast.
We can reconvene in a couple years and see how much has impacted our culture or not. But it's, to me, it's like an opportunity to step back and recharge so that we can, there's a time to retreat, and there's a time to go forward. And having that time to retreat and to get some real, I think it's a great opportunity to get some clarity of mind and ideas that can spring forth from a more pure place that allows us to get some inspiration, get feeling recharged, and then to go back in and go forward in a hopefully more intentional, faster or wiser way, a little more vision or something like that.
[00:24:11] Speaker B: It sounds like when you're in your retreat there, I mean, you've gone through the process of seeing through all the guilt and all of the attachments of society and then releasing those, um, it puts you into another space. Did all of your prior tibetan learnings come into play then and allowed you to deal with a phenomena in such a way as to ground it all?
[00:24:34] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. That was the, the eyes that I see the world through are now, you know, through the teachings of yoga and buddhist philosophy.
And a lot of the practices, purification practices allowed me to kind of deal with the Seen and unseen, like the guilt or the anger or the negative emotions in general.
And it also allowed me to paint the picture. You know, a lot of the meditations on compassion or lovingkindness and or visioning, you know, who I can become, were all deeply rooted in yoga and meditation.
And then there's the, you know, I feel like the yogic practices themselves, the physical practices of yoga were very important. And then, you know, there's certain internal cleansing practices in the yoga tradition I did and all of that. And just eating healthy for three years, oh, my God, what a, what a fantastic blessing. You know, like, to have unhealthy food. There's enough really tangible steps that you have to take to really end up with a plate of cookies. That didn't happen very often. So to get proper sleep and to get proper, the more I look into it, the components of health, of sleep, proper sleep, proper eating, proper exercise, getting some sunlight, you know, to have those foundations were, we just set the great foundation for what was to come.
[00:26:21] Speaker B: How did the retreat change your perspective on personal growth and spirituality?
[00:26:28] Speaker A: What part of that process of allowing me to become somebody different, that was a huge part of that much time practicing meditation and, you know, the mind gets more clear.
Absolutely. The body felt very, it was the healthiest I've ever been. It was the happiest I've ever been.
And then kind of getting out and seeing the frenetic pace of life was kind of eye opening and seeing, wow, people are addicted to these and people are addicted to their cell phones, and people are addicted to busyness, and it's making us unhappy. And we have this kind of, I don't know about Australia, but in the, in Canada, in the states, you know, how are you doing? Oh, I'm so busy.
But it's kind of like a source of pride, you know, like I'm important if I'm busy.
And just seeing people living a pace that was making them unhappy, that was, those were a couple things.
Seeing how we would do a period of deep retreat. So started out as a 30 days.
So one month, one and a half months, two months, two and a half months where we never left my cabin, 12 hours of practice a day.
And then you kind of need a break. You can't do that for three years. So we would then take a break and have the option to see other people still in silence, do cabin repairs, go on a hike, do some ceremony.
And then from that place, the first day of seeing other people was very beautiful and very joyful.
And then maybe the next day something would filter in that was painful. Someone left or someone was sick or something had happened.
The suffering of the world kind of opens up a little bit. Even in three retreat course.
And feeling that very deeply after months of meditating, it feels like you kind of take the bricks down from around your heart and open up to a place of more compassion. But then when you feel that suffering, it felt to me very tender.
And the tendency is to build that wall up a little bit more.
It always reminds me of this great movie. It was a terrible movie, in my opinion. You can say that. It's called Crash.
[00:29:20] Speaker B: I like Crash.
[00:29:21] Speaker A: It wasn't my style of movie, is what I should say. But the opening monologue is fantastic and it's like this gang situation in LA and these guys are, look, everybody wants something from you. Everybody's trying to get a piece of you. Everyone wants something from you. So you have to put this wall around you to protect yourself. Everyone wants something from you and. And that's why we have to crash into each other just to feel.
[00:29:46] Speaker B: Yeah, but that was the point of the movie, right?
[00:29:48] Speaker A: Yeah. And then it's just as, you know.
[00:29:50] Speaker B: It'S a total scene, you know, oh, it's awful. But that's that. I think that's the director's whole point of that whole movie is to actually make people wake up to that. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very cool.
[00:30:03] Speaker A: So then the tendency when we do feel is then to put that, those bricks back up again, and then you kind of fail and go back into retreat and start to disassemble the walls again and then try again and come back a little more open hearted. And that process I learned a lot from just trying to be who I wanted to be. And.
And it was a great little microcosm or a great little test, what do you call it? Like a test capsule. You know, it was pretty controlled environment and nothing too hard. Nothing.
Maybe that's not true, but, you know, nothing too bad was going on and allowed for that, you know, and just like so many.
So many opportunities to see, well, what food really works for me, how much sleep do I need, and then to experiment with all of those practices that I've been studying for so long.
[00:31:12] Speaker B: Hey, everyone, I'm excited to share that you can now support the show on Patreon. Go to patreon.com supernormalized. Your contributions help me to create even more amazing content. Please check out the link below in the show notes and join our community and unlock exclusive perks. Thank you so much for your support.
[00:31:34] Speaker A: Those were two of the things I would say. A third is just getting a taste of what a really queer state of mind feels like and having the opportunity to taste some states of mind that I aspire to get to and be able to maintain.
So some, you know, some. Some peak moments that give me faith in the path and faith in, oh, that's. That's where I'm going. That's what I want. That's what I aspire towards, trying to maintain that.
[00:32:15] Speaker B: So you've come out of a retreat, a change, man.
Build, like, a better understanding of compassion and empathy. That was probably even more resilient than it used to be.
What happened to your life then?
[00:32:33] Speaker A: Well, I came out.
It wasn't easy.
There's a lot of. There's not a lot. There's very little. Excuse me.
There's very few texts about.
About three retreat.
There's some written about how to get into retreat or what to do during retreat.
Almost nothing written about how to come out of retreat.
And I think people struggled a little more than we were all expecting, like, how to reintegrate in the world and.
[00:33:07] Speaker B: Book to write there.
[00:33:09] Speaker A: Yeah, well, we did write a lot as a group. Okay. And I do teach it a little bit because I do have a community of people that are doing retreat, but even just cognitively of coming out and dealing with. If you and I were in a conversation at a restaurant, but there's music going on in the background and there's another table of people talking. And the capacity to deal with that, turns out, is a skill that we can lose. And wanting to be kind of single pointed on all of those different things because I've been training my mind so much on being single pointed on an object and then just kind of being a little dysfunctional out in the world and.
[00:33:57] Speaker B: How do you mean dysfunctional? Can you explain that?
[00:34:06] Speaker A: I felt it was easy to be stepped back and observe. It was hard to always interject, like, people kind of in conversations, they don't necessarily wait for someone to pause or stop. It became apparent that people converse by interrupting.
[00:34:28] Speaker B: Yeah. Word tennis.
[00:34:30] Speaker A: And.
And just kind of, I think being mindful of that process and just. I don't know, it just felt hard to engage in a way that normally I would have being overwhelmed by stimulation, especially initially.
It definitely got better quickly, but the remnants of that took a year.
So, like that. And then, you know, I had spent ten years of my life really devoted to that spiritual journey. And then, okay, what's next? So kind of floated around looking for what was next and did some.
Started teaching, did some trainings, got back into some youth work, traveled a lot, and, yeah, teaching more and more, that became the next focus, I guess.
[00:35:36] Speaker B: And you had a relationship running during all of this or how did that play out.
[00:35:43] Speaker A: After, I don't know, like two years after I was in a relationship for a little bit and that was hard to come out of retreat and to try to.
It felt, yeah, it was challenging. It was beautiful and challenging and, you know, that was a couple years. And ended up back in Canada and teaching a little bit more. Covid that weird thing happened, and I ended up in New York where I involved in another, you know, in the same bigger community and teaching for a place called the Yoga Studies Institute.
And now in an amazing, fantastic relationship. Happy to report.
[00:36:32] Speaker B: Nice.
What about your relationship with yourself? You find yourself in a completely centered place now?
[00:36:41] Speaker A: Oh, you know, it's interesting because I think change is so gradual that when we're in the middle of the hurricane, it's hard. You know, there's times when I remember in three retreat, we would.
Michael Roach would come in once a year and I'd get some time to sit with my teacher and I'd be like, God, nothing's working. Nothing's.
It's not working.
[00:37:10] Speaker B: He caused. He caused you to reflect upon yourself and see that you thought you had it together. He's like, I got nothing together by comparison to this guy?
[00:37:17] Speaker A: Well, no, he was like, keep going. You know, keep going. Don't give up. Keep going. And there was times when, you know, we think at the end, we were doing two and a half months of the deep retreat we called it, where it's really 12 hours a day of meditating and practice and just feeling like, ah, I'm not getting anywhere. But then at the end of that deep retreat and the break being like, oh, I was in a pretty deep place there. And it's harder to recognize also over 25 years now of that journey, of what was I like 25 years ago.
So am I more at peace with myself when I reflect back? Yeah.
The practices, I think, have made me much more aware of my thought process and aware of my emotional states and aware of having a goal of how I want to walk through the world and have influenced every aspect of how I see the world very much still on a journey and enjoying that process. Yeah.
[00:38:30] Speaker B: Well, stays nice. Nice.
What sort of daily practices do you employ to help you to keep your centeredness? Now.
[00:38:42] Speaker A: There was a, there was a guy that he was, he was Jim Mukti teacher.
You know, he's been at the game of yoga for 40 years. I don't know, David life. And somebody, my teacher asked him, how do you know when you've been successful at yoga and his yoga practice? ASanA practice is amazing, that guys physically could do super normal things.
And he's like, I'll know I've accomplished something in yoga when I can walk through the room with love and grace.
And, you know, that really is my, my main practice is working on really establishing my core values and trying to track those core values and live those core values and walking through the fires of life with love and grace.
That's one of the main practices. Meditation being another one, you know, on the cushion and off the cushion.
I think teaching is a big part now of what I do. That leads me to a lot of my study, and I definitely keep up with my studies and try to deepen what I've depends, you know, I'll study a little bit more about what I'm teaching.
So that keeps me going, for sure. But it's mostly trying to make my practice 24/7 so getting away from thinking that my practice is when I'm on the yoga mat or on the meditation cushion or when I'm studying a book or when I'm in class and really trying to make, you know, walking down the street. And I.
One of my main practices is to recognize the goodness in the world. Like, can I stop at any point in my life and through any one of the senses find something that makes me happy?
And it was a meditation taught me.
He called it harvesting joyous. And it's from a program called cultivating emotional balance. And I've done that a lot. And I never came up in a situation where I couldn't find something through one of the senses. There's a couple New York subway moments that were close, but there's always, if I stop, is there something I can hear, smell, see, touch that just is pleasurable? That makes me happy? And then the game becomes about recognizing the happiness that is pervasive. Instead of constantly living my life, thinking I have to create it, what do I have to do to be happy?
So that's a big part of it. One of my other favorite daily practices is in Tibetan. It's called Pemba. Gitop Penba is like, if you were to pull back a bow and arrow and let go of the arrow, you're projecting the arrow, it's pemba, and tope is power. So what's the power projection. And it's a simple practice of projecting my day in a healthy way, in a way that's kind of smashing my self cherishing, getting away from thinking of me, me, me, me, me all the time. And I don't know if you know, there's a punk rock band called me first in the gimme gimmes.
[00:42:33] Speaker B: No, I haven't heard that one.
[00:42:36] Speaker A: It's kind of like, been the theme song of my life for too long. And so this practice is like, give me first to it. Give me gimmicks. It's like, can I start my day by thinking of three small things I can do for someone else? And then I write those in my journal and.
Or I'll forget and I won't do it.
And then that's just been like little practices like that, harvesting joy, projecting my day in a way that I'm trying to think of others instead of myself so much and letting that fill my life with meaning and joy. So my life has gone from a lot of study and esoteric practices and inner body practices and to simplification of a lot of ways, just a lot of simplification of how I walk through the world and making my practice 24/7 as much as I can.
[00:43:39] Speaker B: Based on your experience as an educator at the Diamond Mountain University, what do you find most challenging when teaching new students about these concepts?
[00:43:52] Speaker A: Wow, what a great question.
Diamond Mountain in particular was a very inspired place. It wasn't an easy place to be. So people that were there wanted to be there.
But one of the things I think is a lack of faith that we can achieve the goals we set out to do.
Like, there's a aspect of kind of playing the game, but can I really eliminate every negative thought and every negative emotion? Like, if we take Buddhism, for instance, or any sort of indic philosophy with the goal of getting beyond any sort of negative state of mind, that's a very lofty goal.
Can we get rid of all of our anger, jealousy, pride, ignorance, anger? Can we get to a state of mind that's free of any sort of negative thought or negative emotion, which is what those, they're called soteriological systems profess. That's the goal.
So it's easy to play the game and to enjoy being in community and enjoy, go to classes and enjoy my meditation and yoga sometimes, and especially when they're done and.
But I don't really believe I can do that. You know, maybe somebody else can. So I would say that's one thing.
I think the other thing is, you know, I know a lot of people that really enjoy the philosophy, but, you know, always trying to. How do we make this practical? How do we make this relevant? How do we implement it in our life?
The ideas we're supposed to change, change our heart, change our mind, and our spiritual practice isn't doing that. Either the practice is wrong or we're not doing it right.
We should be seeing change.
[00:45:59] Speaker B: Okay, so how do you address misconceptions, students that may have ABout YOGA and meditation?
[00:46:12] Speaker A: I think that there's. I mean, yoga is a good example. I think that people, we have a culture of yoga that has a very physical practice, which is great.
My love of Yoga is the bigger picture in the philosophy and the, the whole picture of yoga. You know, the morality aspects, the breath work aspects, the meditation aspects, the yoga on the mat is a beautiful small part of it. But so a lot of what I think we need in the west is a broader contextualization of what yoga is. There's a whole beautiful world of big picture yoga that I think retreat being another one. That's the, in the hatha yoga, Pridipika, one of the main yogic texts, that's how the text starts. It's like go and retreat meditation, a little bit the same. You know, my mom meditates, and it's a beautiful practice for her, and she just kind of enjoys relaxing and letting her mind float around and, and there's a lot of benefits of meditation that way, calmness, relaxation.
And then can we get beyond those kind of stereotypical ideas of what meditation is? And not that they're not important, but then, for me, like, looking at what's meditation? What's the goal? Or what's the bigger picture? Or where can meditation take us? What sort of transcendental state can we get to through meditation, not just as a relaxation practice. Sorry, mom, didn't mean to diss your practice.
[00:47:59] Speaker B: Do you ever have challenges with students that may be skeptical of these teachings? And how do you find ways to help them to engage?
[00:48:11] Speaker A: I think that everyone.
I think everyone's into what they're into, you know, like, karma is a very hard idea for some people, past and future lives, and I think, you know, engaging people with where they're at. I don't need to. I don't feel like the need to convince anybody of anything necessarily.
If I have something to offer somebody or somebody has something to offer to me, then that's. That's fantastic.
And then there's a whole world. You know, I've been very fortunate to have studied a lot in my life, and I can share teachings. And if someone's inspired by that and wants to keep studying, amazing and letting the process distill the doubts. I don't need to so much overtly convinced somebody that, you know, my way is the right way. There's a bunch of beautiful paradigms and programs and philosophies, and if I'm part of a community and can share experiences with somebody, you know, I really feel like, you know, I don't know, I don't have a. I've been around for a while. That's probably the most I can offer, is I've been around, seen a lot of people on their spiritual journey, and I've been through a lot of the common problems and doubt. And if I can share some experiences that help someone, great. If I can share some of the teachings, you know, a text or a poem or a insight, then great. If that brings someone deeper into their path, then amazing.
[00:49:58] Speaker B: Have you seen any memorable moments of breakthrough with some of your students that you could share?
[00:50:05] Speaker A: Oh, I'm teaching irregular meditation classes, and I'm seeing a progression of people gaining their capacity in the paradigm of Tibetan Buddhism. There's a teachings of a guy named Kamala Sheila that outlines. Wasn't him first, but he kind of really formally outlines nine stages of meditation that everyone goes through.
I don't know if you're familiar with that paradigm, but, you know, stage one is we all wake up one morning and don't want to meditate. I don't want to do it.
I want to meditate today. So stage one is how do we establish a practice and how do we create the habit and how do we get over that spiritual laziness? So there's very common stages that every mind goes through.
And seeing people progress along those. Along those stages, for sure.
In general, I think, you know, what are some of the other things?
I think there's.
I think it's a gradual progression of fulfillment, peak experiences like that. I wouldn't.
I think those are rare. I think those are beautiful when people have those. I wouldn't want to take credit for anyone's profound peak experiences like that. I just think the results come in for most people in a step by step, gradual way. I think there's some people that have experiences through whatever reason, through their, you know, if you. If karma is a concept someone believes in, you could say karma, you know, from their past lives or through psychedelics or through whatever. Whatever that thing is that creates that insight, a spontaneous insight, a spontaneous awakening.
I think that's rare and beautiful and profound and hard to teach.
You know, my teacher used to say his name was John Yates, a beautiful man. He used to say, you know, awakening is an accident, and what we're teaching is how to be accident prone.
That's all we can do.
When someone slips on the floor, that's kind of up to them. But we can, you know, throw water on the floor and throw some soap and make, make it accident prone.
So I think for most people, though, it's. It's a much more progressive, gradual thing. And then it's that thing of, can we look back in five years and be like, oh, yeah, I am definitely more in control of my mind.
I don't lose it on people like I used to, or I have more control of my jealousy or I have more control of my anger. I notice the beauty of the world more, even if it's ten times a day. I've stopped ten times today and noticed something cool and beautiful.
That's 70 times a week. That's amazing.
[00:53:15] Speaker B: Yeah. The world needs more of that, for sure.
How can someone cultivate patience and compassion for themselves during their meditation journeys?
[00:53:28] Speaker A: I think meditation is the tool to do that, you know, to be more aware of our thought processes in the mind.
It's a funny mix of, you know, a culture of being, like, wanting fast results.
And I don't think the spiritual world is like that often.
I think there can be a very immediate hit and, you know, some very steep insights or excitement seems to be common to have a plateau, and we don't like that. It's like, God, I want to have those, those moments. So I think, you know, there is a degree of patience needed.
You know, hopefully we can be around some other people in the community that have been around for a while, or teachers or.
But I think the meditation allows, hopefully allows us to be aware of the thoughts and the thought cycles. And impatience is another thought.
Let it come. Let it be. Let it go.
It's welcome, but I see it.
It's another thing that we can all expect to have come up.
[00:54:51] Speaker B: So part of the off the mat practices. How do you see the relevance of mindfulness in today's fast paced world?
[00:55:00] Speaker A: I think we've hit on a couple. I think that awareness of if we could have a moment between event and reaction, if our mindfulness can give us a moment in between event and reaction, and we can just have those micro moments of being less reactive and more intentional in our reactions to think what a huge, huge blessing. And if I can be more present with you in our conversation, instead of ruminating about what I want to say and what I want to interject on the conversation. I just went for a walk with somebody that her parents had died not that long ago, and I asked her about it. I expressed my condolences.
She started talking about it and asked her a few questions, and she started talking about how her mom had come to visit her for the month after her death. It was her dad.
Fascinating conversation. And a couple days later she wrote me and she said, you know, dozens of people have given condolences about my parents, but no one's really listened. That was the first time I felt seen and heard and just kind of, it was like this emotional breakthrough for her. It was just little simple things like that of just being present with somebody in a conversation that I think mindfulness allows us to have that little space.
And I found that to be huge in my life.
I think retreat is going to be another. I think retreat is another one.
And I think meditation leads to, you know, a state of love. And certainly the world could need, could use a little more of that.
[00:57:12] Speaker B: Definitely, definitely. I think we all need to find this centeredness in the, in the daily world, amongst all of the attachments, trying to pull our attention away from where we really are.
[00:57:26] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that. The name of the podcast is really so much of what kind of where I feel I'm at in my practice, like super normal, like, can we have just, like, a super. I've just be, like, on the outside normal in my life, walking through it, and on the inside, be, like, doing super things, you know, with my time and with my attention in a lot of just very practical, normal ways.
Being present with somebody, like, what if that was such a. What if we could make that a value that we really cherished and that that mindfulness allowed us to reach out to somebody with some love and compassion when they needed it, and we weren't so caught up in our own story that at that moment, we were available for it.
And I don't know, the name of the podcast really resonates with me in that way.
[00:58:19] Speaker B: Beautiful. I love that it resonates that way. That makes a lot of sense to me, too.
[00:58:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:58:25] Speaker B: Well, we're coming towards the end of the podcast. How would you like to engage with the audience and the listeners?
[00:58:32] Speaker A: I'm sorry, can you say it again?
[00:58:33] Speaker B: We're coming towards the end of the podcast. How would you like the audience to engage with you?
How can they find you?
[00:58:40] Speaker A: Yeah, I do have an Instagram site.
The handle that I wanted was, my name is Earl, but some tv show managed to grab.
[00:58:52] Speaker B: That's a tv show I used to, like.
[00:58:54] Speaker A: Haven't quite been able to buy my name back off them yet, but I should set up a gofundme to get my Instagram, but. So I made it my namo. Namo is Sanskrit for name. So my namo is Earl.
Kind of cheesy, but there it is. And so, I'm not a big instagrammer, but I do promote the teachings that I do do. So I teach twice a week through an organization called Three Jewels, which is a meditation yoga studio in New York. Beautiful programming, great community, great yoga teachers and meditation teachers, and a very full program of meditation yoga, donation based.
So I teach as part of their organization twice a week, and then my main job is the yoga Studies institute, and we have some online live programs, retreats, there's some pre recorded content, and then I teach weekly meditation program there, too. And both of the meditations I teach are really focused on developing single point of concentration.
Can we get better at this thing called. Called meditation? So that's the main things I'm doing right now. And if people want to reach out and see what it's all about, that'd be awesome.
[01:00:20] Speaker B: Excellent. Excellent. Thank you very much for coming on the show. I really appreciate all that you've shared and the depth of your understanding of meditation and yoga and how that can actually benefit ourselves and all of society.
[01:00:35] Speaker A: Cool. Yeah. Thanks, CJ. Appreciate it.
[01:00:38] Speaker B: Okay, I'll just say goodbye to listeners again. I feel lucky that I actually had a chance to talk to somebody of such depth as Earl, and it seemed like we ran out of time. It's like, with so many more questions I had. But there will be another episode in the future. We've already talked about circling back within a year. So if you've enjoyed today's show, please like and subscribe and reach out to Earl at his yoga Studies institute or on his instagram, which is my N A m O is E A R L E. My name is Earl. And say hello and that you heard him on the show, that'd be really good.
Now, if you've also liked today's show, and you can also, and you think somebody else could enjoy this show as well, please share it to them. And if you're on a podcast app and you're a really, really lovely person, I know you all are, please give me five stars and write something super nice about me and the episodes that you're listening to. That'd be really, really, really nice and cool. So thank you very much for listening. Until next episode, it's bye for now.
