Speaker 1: 0:14

Welcome back to the World Tres Un Eyes podcast. I'm Yonan Sinim here, not with crickets, but Hi, I'm Dr Ruben Lambert. Dr Ruben Lambert's good to be back here.

Speaker 1: 0:27

He's back, all is well. As I have mentioned in our last episode, I didn't want to worry a fan base, so sometimes things come up last minute and that was one of those. So I think sufficient satisfaction has been accomplished. In terms of the last episode, I did mention that if there were mumbles and grumbles, no, I took a listen and it was an enjoyable podcast, I must say all right. Well, you were here in spirit, I was here in spirit, you sure was here. So you were here in footwear yes, so almost so, almost there.

Speaker 2: 1:04

Almost the entirety. The footprint was always here.

Speaker 1: 1:06

Yes, almost the entirety of the person was available. Well, for those of you who didn't perhaps give it a listen, forgiveness was the topic of the last podcast. Podcast this time around worry, and, to quote what the question actually is, just wondering if you could do a talk about worry. What's the Zen take on that? By the way, we have really no way of knowing who the questions are from, so if you would like credit for your question, do include your name in the question.

Speaker 2: 1:54

Because we do appreciate the feedback from our fans and we do appreciate the questions. Yes, that really helps us to hone in on the needs of our listeners Right, absolutely. So we appreciate we appreciate you.

Speaker 1: 2:07

Yeah, it's fantastic that this idea of these questions coming up. The way they're coming up is, uh, really nice, and we have been kind of all over the map, not that it's a wrong thing or a bad thing. As we said, we meander, we're whirled through Zen eyes. It's kind of a big place and many topics are coming up. Having said that, one could suspect that at some point in time more nuance is going to be required.

Speaker 1: 2:44

We paint these topics in rather broad strokes, as is the need, at least the first time we're passing through them. So, who knows, maybe at some point in time we'll do a okay retake, yeah, of a deep dive, whatever episodes right, and really kind of try and hone in. We do try to highlight some nuance at least to be taking into account, or some perspective. That perhaps is not the usual perspective, but within the allotted time it really is impossible to get down into the details. Also, having said that, the details really are case-by-case basis.

Speaker 1: 3:36

So there's also this danger and I hope that our listeners understand also this point that the suggestions, if you will, that we make here are in fact broad and they are not always usable to as we, as we practice, whether it's whatever in a work that we take up, whatever self-inquiry that we're into, we begin to compile a toolbox yes, right of tools and ways of looking at things, and again, it's almost like this podcast. It's it's as if this podcast was a living being and it's experiencing life and comes upon these questions and these topics and arrives at some hopefully meaningful understanding of them, as we all do. They understand that sometimes one solution works in one case under a set of circumstances, and it doesn't necessarily work in other case, absolutely Because the other circumstances. And so this is also, by the way, those of you who gnashed your teeth to some degrees regarding the words and the seeming attack on academia, which it's such a misunderstanding of it. I keep on hankering back to that because we have to understand that element.

Speaker 1: 5:16

Yeah, Anyway, no digression, let's get on with it. Just just wondering, I was worried you weren't going to get to that. I was, I was gonna go I was gonna go. I, I saw the, I saw the parting, you know sea, and I said I shall cross it and uh, but no, we, we mustn't not always just wondering if you could do a talk about worry.

Speaker 1: 5:52

What does Zen take on that? Perhaps a good place to start is what worry is not there is. A worry is sort of an imposter. It's made its way. It cozied up to care as if they're best buddies, and so worries made this move. It's kind of shoulder up to the concept of care and concern and it almost sort of normalized itself in that environment, you know it's an imposter thing right and says, oh no, I belong here, naturally.

Speaker 1: 6:32

I mean, if you care about something or someone, you will worry about that, right, right, and it kind of puts that into the person's mind and then the person perhaps arrives at a conclusion I must worry, if I care. If I love, then I worry. If I care, then I worry. If the thing is of interest to me, that means worry. And so it's done, this magical thing where it's normalized itself and we have normalized it as a thing that is just necessary and required.

Speaker 2: 7:20

The other side of the coin, and if that coin on one side is care, then the other side it absolutely must be worry it's like a teenager trying to sneak its way into a club with a fake id fake id, it does not belong there, but it wants to slip its way in there that's right and try to look and act, you know, like a teenager that uh keeps his mustache there because he wants to look like he's older, slips its way in, tries to imitate the others that are around them. But when you take a deep dive and you look inside, the brain just doesn't have the same level of development that a mature adult has.

Speaker 2: 7:57

And so this, what you pointed out, is so important. People oftentimes have this wrong association that worry means that I care, and that oftentimes makes it very difficult for people to let go of the worry, because they think if they drop the worry then it means that I don't care. So I oftentimes try to differentiate for people an emotion at its best and an emotion at its worst. So concern, a thousand percent, absolutely show concern, worry that gets into the realm of excess, excess for no reason, it doesn't match, it doesn't fit in, it doesn't serve any purpose or function other than to cause the detriment of your mental, emotional and physical health. And we'll get into all of that stuff.

Speaker 1: 8:44

Yeah, the dictionary definition that I just pulled up To give way to anxiety or unease, allow one's mind to dwell on difficulty or troubles. Another definition is cause, annoyance, to cause, to feel anxiety or concern. The interesting thing is the Old English definition is sort of the strangle and apparently there's a sort of sense of the verb, gives rise to the meaning seize by the throat and tear or harass, cause anxiety, etc. So these are some things to consider that this worry is give way to anxiety or unease, to anxiety or unease, this element and we could play with the wording here, but somebody came up with it but it tracks for me To give way to anxiety, interesting way to put it right.

Speaker 1: 9:57

Right, so it's not a thing to do, but it's a thing that happens. And then we surrender to it. And we surrender to it on the account of, like we said that we've come to believe that worry is a Siamese twin of care and concern, of care and concern. Worry is not. So we're talking about what it's not and what it's not it's not care and worry is not problem solving, nor is it thinking, not problem solving, nor is it thinking of a solution. So all that it does none of it. That it does brings one to removal of what, the worry or the cause that worries one is.

Speaker 2: 11:09

Yet people don't know how to get out of that vicious cycle of worry. Sometimes I even wonder if people are addicted to this because it's been such a long-time habit they don't know any other way of confronting a situation.

Speaker 1: 11:26

I was, I was, they just resort right.

Speaker 2: 11:28

They give way or they resort on on worry to get them through.

Speaker 1: 11:32

I was giving a talk um some years ago at a senior center and and a question of worry came up and a woman spoke up and she said well, I have a daughter and I worry about her how come you say that worry is you know?

Speaker 1: 11:52

so yeah, it's. It's this imposter element that worry has done. It presents itself as an expression of care. To me, a a good example of war is, let's say, we're sitting here, as we are in this studio, sitting here in the studio, with the various electrical wires and cables and lights, and cameras and microphones and the likes, and a pipe bursts and starts dumping water into the space, and you and I are sitting here going, oh no, look at the water coming in, and you say yeah. And we could go back and forth. Well, my socks are getting wet, oh, mine are too, and now my pant leg is getting wet minus two. Oh, what are we to do? What was? Oh, my goodness. Then it's electrical wires and things are sparking and, and you know, catching a blaze and and cameras are twitching and perhaps somebody's getting electrocuted, you know.

Speaker 1: 13:01

so, all this ongoing thing, while we are sitting here looking around at it, going oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no. That to me is what worry does Nothing.

Speaker 2: 13:15

Ultimately just consuming all of you.

Speaker 1: 13:19

Nothing as the water rises it just takes you under. Oh no, oh no, and then you start blowing bubbles.

Speaker 2: 13:26

You end up drowning Still going, still worrying.

Speaker 1: 13:30

You're still in the worry state, having done zero to come up with a solution to the problem, to look to, even to have a thought like, oh, war is coming. What ought to be done, you know? Should we? Should we get out of here? Should we unplug the thing? Should we call somebody? Should we something? You know, none of the thought seems to be usually the kind of thought oh, I should do this. So it's, instead of spending the energy searching for a solution to the problem, what worry does is it just kind of collapses onto itself and it's just this revolution of constant same, same same same.

Speaker 1: 14:15

And then how can we honestly say that that is an expression of a care?

Speaker 2: 14:21

Right. What you're saying also reminds me of the worry tombstone. I don't know if you've seen that. Here lies a man who died today worrying about tomorrow okay, yes worried so much he killed himself. Tomorrow never came. Whatever it was that tomorrow was going to bring, where there was like monsters and goblins and ghouls, it never came because the person worried themselves to death today.

Speaker 1: 14:47

Yeah, there was a saying. I think today is the tomorrow that you were worried about yesterday, yesterday, yeah Right, and it is that, and I can't quite crystallize it. But there's another one that says something to the X amount. Most of the things that I was worried about never came to be, and I think a number of fame time and a number of people have said things like that right like time and time again.

Speaker 2: 15:12

I've watched countless horrific things happening, all to never experience any of them right yet then we can argue what is an experience? Right, because in the external world those things never, never came to you.

Speaker 2: 15:27

But you experienced it in your mind, which is true suffering, and oftentimes, people who have severe worry that becomes anxiety. It is almost like those that suffer silently. It is almost like those that suffer silently. There is an external expression of anxiety, but this could be the person that you're coming across in the hallway at work and they smile at you. You smile back at them. This could be a family member and you might have no idea because they're not externally showing it on their face or using any emotional language to let you know how they're feeling.

Speaker 2: 16:04

Yet externally, showing it on their face or using any emotional language to let you know how they're feeling, yet that person is like laying in bed on a thousand knives. They can't get to sleep, they can't get their mind off of whatever it is that they're being consumed by, and they just go through life like a zombie. Sometimes I use the metaphor, too, of of a tv channel. I feel as though people with worry land on a channel that is like a horror movie and they hate horror movies and the remote control breaks at that instant. They don't know how to change the channel. They just stuck and they don't turn their head either. They're just stuck thereated, looking at that over and over again.

Speaker 1: 16:47

It's the Plato's cave, sort of thing.

Speaker 2: 16:49

It's sort of like Plato's cave You're chained and you're forced to watch it. And they believe that those shadows that are moving on the wall is reality. There's so many layers to Plato's cave. Right they're chained, there's a shadow of the self, and then there's the whole world outside of the cave that they're not privy to any of those things.

Speaker 1: 17:10

Also if there were no light, right? So yeah, but it is, I think, creating a separation in one's mind that teases apart this connotation that care equals worry. Consider, if you will, years ago I used to watch this Dr Paul. I think it was a show about a veterinarian, you know, kind of a reality, they think, and, and at that time I was seeing him, him, him, do you know, do the procedures, do those things, and it was sort of he would, he, would you know, help an animal and then okay, what's next? And sort of on to the next thing.

Speaker 1: 18:29

And there was this almost element of, as if the requirement was like a fuzzy expression of compassion and this idea of like, oh, you know, you have to be externally kind of, oh, you know, and you know, there's that fluff, and I'm not downplaying anything to that element, but there's that kind of fluff. And then there's the urgency of well, there's another patient that I have to tend to, so let me get to it. So the expression of care there is is almost, you know it, it felt a little cold, but it's not because it's the urgency, you know. So the, the action of, of tending and and and and caring for that animal, is care, right, the standing looking at it, oh my, oh my, oh my is worry. You can't heal with worry. You can't heal another person with worry and you absolutely can't heal yourself with worry. In fact, worry is damaging and we've talked about this, that there is a it completely goes against all logic.

Speaker 2: 19:54

Technical issue.

Speaker 1: 19:56

Technical issues go on.

Speaker 2: 19:57

It completely defies all human logic, because if you think about the state of mind of a person who's worrying about another individual this oftentimes happens to parents you hear this saying oh, I have to worry, I'm a parent, and I myself am a parent of two boys and I can completely empathize and understand that perspective. But let's break that down and apply a little bit of analytical logic to that statement. So I want to worry about my child because I care about them and I love them. So let's say that child is now currently undergoing, let's say, a fever and, as a, if you have a child, there are many sleepless nights that you have when your child gets sick and you always worry about things taking a turn for the worse. However, if a person constantly worries about that person because they're sick, ultimately, instead of having one person who's sick, we end up having two people who are sick. So now you want to worry about that person, your child, so that they can get better.

Speaker 2: 21:09

Yet now you become a burden. You end up becoming a burden. So now you render all of your power and all of your capacity to heal, because worry will end up draining and causing excessive fatigue. So you're literally draining, sucking all of the energy out of your body. Your emotional resources become drained, your cognitive resources will become drained and then, ultimately, your physical resources become drained, because you pumped all of this energy into essentially just something that really doesn't serve a purpose or a function.

Speaker 2: 21:59

Because what is the ultimate goal? To heal or to provide support, to be a good listener, to make good decisions. Yes, in a moment of crisis, actually making a good decision is vital. That's why people who are first responders policemen, firemen, emts, paramedics, emts, paramedics they're trained to be able to have strong emotional intelligence to manage their anxiety and their worry, because in a state of crisis, people get something called attentional narrowing, so then their ability to see the big picture, they get this tunnel vision, they lose their ability to see the big picture and then what ends up happening is they're not able to make a good, appropriate decision. I've seen that.

Speaker 1: 22:59

So caregivers don't care if they're not worried. They're not providing care Essentially. Yes, you nullify that.

Speaker 2: 23:09

You should be concerned, and this reminds me of actually a story where our unsanim had fallen you can debate whether it was by accident or on purpose into a. There was some construction going on in a house in edison. Uh, his son was building a new, a new home and he had fallen into, I guess, an area that had, if we could discuss purposely or not.

Speaker 1: 23:39

Firstly, then fallen doesn't apply.

Speaker 2: 23:42

But but the point is that you know you arrived, you told me the story, you arrived and you're seeing your teacher, someone that you love very dearly in a like a lake of water and then immediately, I guess, you were trying to help and you weren't thinking and you wanted to like jump in, I think, and it sounded like it would have caused a disaster.

Speaker 1: 24:05

Yeah, the basement of the house was flooded. And we're talking feet of rain. This is wintertime and it flooded step by step. So there were these sheets of ice and then it flooded again a sheet of ice. So when the story is, he put the ladder in and he stepped on it.

Speaker 1: 24:28

The ladder broke through that and he had fallen into this, you know, and and these sheets of ice are just like knives, you know. So his, I get in there and I hear the splashing around and I look into this gaping hole in the floor. That's where the staircase will eventually go and there's unsung him.

Speaker 2: 24:45

What did you eventually? What did you originally think at first? Because then I think he. That's why I want to talk about what he said to you after.

Speaker 1: 24:51

Right, but initially you came in with some panic oh yeah, what I, what I, you know, I'm like, oh okay, I was ready to jump me too, because I'm gonna. I'm gonna say like first of all and this connects to what I was saying earlier.

Speaker 1: 25:04

Yeah, yes, you know. So that's void that. But also and I remember him looking up at me with a smile on his face and this is the thing and he smiles and he says what are you doing, in the most calm of voices, right While treading this ice water? And he says what are you doing? So I'm going to go in there? And he looks at me like you wanna take a pause, take a moment and just hear what your thoughts?

Speaker 1: 25:34

you know, he didn't say that, but essentially that's what it was. So I was about to make one problem into two problems. Why? Because I'm helpful.

Speaker 2: 25:45

Right, but you were blinded yeah, by panic and worry, panic and and it usually puts those uh horse blinders on a person and you get that tunnel vision and you just don't see 360 right and you people make poor decisions.

Speaker 1: 26:00

In that moment it fight, it finds no real solution to the problem at hand and then to to the main point.

Speaker 2: 26:06

You have one person that's drowning and then, when you act, coming out of a place of panic, now you have two people drowning. Now you have two people drowning.

Speaker 1: 26:16

Yeah, it absolutely is. Worry really is it is useless. I know this is not pleasant for people to hear.

Speaker 2: 26:27

Well, you know we're impacting. That statement is impacting 99.9% of society, because we're literally living in the. There's a funny phrase it's almost, it's an oxymoron. Actually, by definition it's an oxymoron. It's called the worried. Well, it's almost like the functional alcoholic and it's referring to just the average person that has kids, that has a job, that is in school. We're almost been conditioned to be plagued by worry. It's almost been like the norm. Oh, this is the worried. Well, they get up and do everything they need to do, they fulfill their responsibilities, but inside there's a lot of yes, they're emotionally crippled.

Speaker 2: 27:11

There's a lot of loud noise. And they don't know how they want to run. This is the thing. They want to run away from it, they want to escape it. But you can't jump out of your. The same way you can't jump out of your skin, you can't jump out of your mind, right, right. So, people, they really. This is a great topic because I think society as a whole needs to find a better way to manage this, or to even view it.

Speaker 1: 27:37

To view it.

Speaker 2: 27:37

I think that's why we gotta start with that how to view it.

Speaker 1: 27:40

It's what it's not. There's a power in understanding, and if we understand that, what? What worry is not? It empowers us to want to leave it alone or leave it behind or do something about it. But so long as we are of the mind that it is the other side of of care, we won't be able to unbind ourselves from it. Right, we have to divorce that concept.

Speaker 2: 28:08

We have to really take a saw and move the tethers that bind those two things together, those two concepts.

Speaker 1: 28:19

As you know, like you said, it obstructs clarity, etc. Etc. I frequently make references to one of my favorite books. I I think some people had fallen off the chair as they heard me say books and favorite in the same sentence and my favorite books. That's it. We, we might. We might have called some hemorrhaging in some minds. Of course I don't even have to name the title. Those of our listeners who participated at any point in time in our meditation classes and specifically in the bonus track which is the thing that happens after the meditation class, which is its own entity.

Speaker 1: 29:07

Of course, I'm talking about the Grapes of Wrath. Oh, yes, yes yes, yes, ma, I've been using that more. Yeah, ma is a Zen master. She really is, and this is not solely a bit of writing, a bit of writing. I have seen this play out in real life, and it's you know what we perhaps would call simple folk. I don't mean that by a derogatory term. Simply, you know people.

Speaker 2: 29:51

I think simplicity is something that we need to really highlight and value.

Speaker 1: 29:54

Right, and you know.

Speaker 2: 29:55

Simplify things, we make them complex and we get lost. We complicate things. We complicate things Absolutely. We do.

Speaker 1: 30:01

And you know so here we're talking about these farmers, these you know poultry conditions, talking about these, these farmers, this, this you know poultry conditions, etc. Etc. They anyway the. The idea is that it seems almost the simpler the outlook frequently on life and farmers and people who seem to live close to the earth, where there isn't so much in between me and, let's say, my food or me and and let's say my food, mm-hmm. Ryan or me, and my, my warmth, mm-hmm.

Speaker 1: 30:45

I'm talking about people who heat up their houses with, you know, with wood, that kind of thing.

Speaker 1: 30:55

There is a sort of simplicity in that right and and and we see that actually in society too there's there's a pull towards the homesteading and towards the off, off grid type of thing yeah anyway, it's a bit of a digression, but but this is not only because it's in the writing, in in case, here in the grapes of wrath, but I've seen this in people and a kind of people Anyway. So the family, well, the family has been uprooted. They have to. They've taken everything, they loaded up the whole family on a jalopy and they're kind of percolating up the road towards California the promised land and in one of these instances they've been on a road.

Speaker 1: 31:51

They're still new to the travel, but Al Al is the younger of the children, so Al's driving and next to us sitting grandma, who's nodding off, and next to grandma is sitting ma, and ma is my favorite zen master and I'll you know they're talking about other things and and I'll wait, and and. And he mouths the question before he speaks the words and he says something to the effect of Ma, aren't you afraid, aren't you worried of how it's going to be when we get to California? Aren't you worried and afraid that it's not going to be how we imagined it to be? And Ma very quickly says no, it's a definitive no, right, it's not a no.

Speaker 1: 32:51

It's a no, so she cuts it. There's a saying in Zen where you strike the thing out with a long sword, uh, in in zen, where you, you strike the thing out with a long sword, right and, and the idea is, long swords are powerful, and it's a and it's a kind of strike down the thing. So she says no, and and it's, there's a energy behind that. No, it's a single word. No, she said up ahead, there's a thousand lives to live yes and and I.

Speaker 1: 33:23

I just love this right ahead, there's a thousand lives to live. Yes, and I just love this Up ahead, there's a thousand lives to live. There's too many lives to have a go at. If I gave it a go now, it would be too much, I couldn't do it. So there's an acknowledgement on her account that life is toilsome, life requires energy or whatever, and if you have a thousand of these lives that you have to spread yourself across, she says I couldn't do it, so there are too many lives to live. When we get there, there'll be a single life to live. When we get there, there'll be a single life to live. And then, whatever comes, I'll do it Right. The simplicity of it right.

Speaker 1: 34:11

This brilliance of it. It's just beautiful.

Speaker 2: 34:16

It really is.

Speaker 1: 34:17

Because this is what worry is essentially right, and anxieties, and it's inventions of the mind. And the worried mind will you know, right now be like hmm, it's not. It's you know, it's all logical and all you know, it's foresight and whatever, and it will make a slew of excuses for itself. But what it is is the mind invents a thousand lives and because the mechanism of preparation and kind of essentially it's a survival element, right, so it's natural in a sense, but it does, is it?

Speaker 1: 35:01

it catastrophizes everything, all of the thousand possibilities are one thing, are, but they're terrible ones yeah, the outcomes are always horrid, always problematic, always disastrous, always whatever, right. So the mind invents all of the possible scenarios which then it will have to navigate, whatever. And so, again, another element of worry is that on one hand, it's either pitched as care or on another hand, it's either pitched as proper, you know, sort of preparedness, right, being prepared and ready. So a readiness is if I didn't have the worry, I wouldn't be ready for the situations.

Speaker 2: 35:47

Again, but that aspect too can lead to excess energy or unnecessary spending. Sure, All you have to do is take a look at a news forecast of snow in the state of New Jersey so you can see how quickly eggs and milk get taken off the shelves. And then, time and time again, the weather forecast gets it wrong.

Speaker 1: 36:16

You'll have a vegan buying eggs and milk in a panic state Seriously.

Speaker 2: 36:20

you wasted your summer vacations, money on eggs and milk for a storm that only gave you one or two inches of snow. Right.

Speaker 1: 36:29

It's happened countless times and you bought perishables If the storm hit and you lose power and your refrigerator is not going and whatever it's it's um, and so you here.

Speaker 2: 36:39

You have another situation where you have this emotional hijacking that consumes the individual, causes them to respond with panic, to now create so much waste waste of, again, like I said, physical resources, mental resources and emotional resources. And it doesn't end there, because this type of this is this is like the opposite of the smile that is contagious. Anxiety is contagious too, so it has an impact on whoever is in your immediate circle and in your vicinity. I'm sure we all know if you were raised in a household with a parent who's worried. We also see that that has impacted the children's a static transmission.

Speaker 1: 37:23

There's a static almost as if in the air.

Speaker 2: 37:26

That takes place and if you have and at work you could say colleagues too that are always in a state of panic, they oftentimes are more sick, calling out more, and then somebody else unfortunately has to pull their weight because they can't manage or hack the tasks in front of them, because by the time they get to work they already created a thousand negative catastrophes and and there's no energy left for whatever tasks, that one life to live that's right in front of them there's no energy left for whatever task, that one life to live.

Speaker 1: 38:01

That's right in front of them there's no energy left for that. On the way to work.

Speaker 2: 38:06

They already wasted all of it.

Speaker 1: 38:07

So, by the way, we are by no means suggesting sort of a pathological states of a psychopath. So what do we do then you don't worry, right. And if you have that correlation, if you don't worry, then you don't care. So you take that emotional state off the table, right? If you're not planning. And if you're planning and there isn't an element of worry that you're not planning, that's a recipe for a psychopath, right? There's no emotional kind of, it's just flatlined. But that's not what we're suggesting.

Speaker 1: 38:43

No, we're not suggesting that these emotions don't arise in a person no what we're suggesting is when they do, how do you you know, we there are there.

Speaker 1: 38:56

There are various, but there's one particular list of ways to deal with ponne, with worries, with excise, whatever, and the first on the list is kwanchal. And kwanchal means to look into it, to inspect it, right. There are other ones that are avoidance and discipline, and being patient with, etc. Etc. But this first one of sort of inspection and dissection for the sake of understanding it, so that we are not in fact duped by the imposter element of it, right? So if we understand that care does not require worry, to be care, that tenderness does not require it's not that they are sort of Siamese you could be tender, you could be caring, you could be compassionate. In fact, compassion why compassion is such a big word in Zen is because it almost fits here perfectly. It's a care or love that has a different Siamese twin and it's wisdom. So, knowing how to navigate that inner landscape of emotional states, how to navigate that inner landscape of emotional states, worry arises in the mind and, like you said, if we get hijacked by it, we loop into. I mean, this is, this is almost the the mechanism of a panic attack. Right, it's a fixation on one thing, hyper fixation. You know. Now I'm panting because I'm anxious or whatever, and now I hyperfixate on my heart rate, and the more I fixate on it, the harder it beats. And then you just spin out and then you're in the back of an ambulance.

Speaker 1: 40:50

So worry is not care, and worry is not a requirement for being ready or being prepared. And that doesn't leave you as an emotional kind of emotionally castrated, just blah table. It doesn't suggest that these things don't arise in you. What we're suggesting is, when they do, what do you do with them? How do you look at them? And this is how you look at them that they are not prerequisites, they are not requirements, that they are not in fact a necessity for all those other states of being to exist. And so the sooner we recognize worry for what it is, as it's arising in the mind, the quicker we can tend to it, you know, and strip it of its own power. Because there is an element where we become so tangled up in it that you can't come out. You get so entangled in the worry that you've lost sight of where the exit is or where the beginning and the end, and it just becomes one. How?

Speaker 2: 42:03

do we get?

Speaker 1: 42:03

here Right how do I get here and there's a level at which a person is convinced so thoroughly and so entirely that their state of being is the necessary state to be Right. Because I'm just beseeched by such, you know, grief and worry, and I'm so in it, it can only be the right place to be, it can only be the right expression of my care for this person or for that situation, or for this thing, it is not.

Speaker 1: 42:38

What do we say then of any logic? You know, emotion and logic are kind of we need the magic potion between those. So, an emotion arising and this emotion of worry, and so long as we keep it connected to those false faces that it puts on, we find that acceptable and unnecessary and we won't be able to come out.

Speaker 2: 43:14

Let me give a quick metaphor example to be able to differentiate between concern and worry, because, yes, these things arrive in the mind. We're not suggesting for people to be emotionally castrated and, like you said, to just be like a dead piece of wood. Let me make this very clear Emotions are real and emotions all have their purpose and value. They inform us and we have to use them.

Speaker 2: 43:44

but there's a difference between feeling an emotion and becoming drunk and intoxicated by the emotion using and being used, then the emotion is using you and then that leads to countless things that we have already spoken about that become just detrimental in your life for your physical, emotional, health, for your relationships and for your goals, etc. Etc. So let's say you're working, let's say like at a UPS facility and there's a conveyor belt, and then on that conveyor belt there are boxes that arrive and you have to sort it and put it into the proper zip code so that that can then be dispersed by the drivers and the packages can be delivered. That conveyor belt almost can represent the things that come into your senses or the things that come up as memories or the things that you encounter in your mind. And let's say, one of the boxes you notice it's missing a label and you can be dismissive and just pick that box up and then randomly throw it into any kind of box without any understanding or dissection or analysis of that box, and then now this poor package never gets to the right place or right destination. Somebody is missing whatever it is that they ordered. So, being dismissive and not caring, not concerned, we don't suggest that.

Speaker 2: 45:09

Also, once you notice it, do something about it. You can have an emotional response. Oh, I don't want this to become a tragedy. I don't want this plan not to play itself out. I don't want the person to be feeling like their package never got to them and then now they're sad, that's okay, do something. You can do something about it. You can pick it up. You can then contact a supervisor, you can figure out what label goes there, and then you put the label back on and then guess what. You have to sort it and put it in the box.

Speaker 2: 45:44

But if you, if you take that box and you and you cannot figure out what label goes on it and you just hold on to it, hold on to it and hold on to it and you don't put it down until the opportunity arises for you to figure that out, how many boxes pass you by and then end up not getting sorted?

Speaker 2: 46:04

And then maybe things get jammed up and now you have this huge pile of boxes that are there that didn't get to the right receptacles, and then you have an even bigger problem. So pick it up, show concern, act on it, but you have to eventually put it down. Show concern, act on it, but you have to eventually put it down. You have to eventually put it down. There's a healthy time frame in which you can be involved with an emotion that means it informs you. And then, when you go into the excess now, you're becoming consumed by it and all the other pieces of your life will end up getting neglected and not being attended. And then now you have this huge pile that just creates this emotional avalanche that overwhelms you and consumes you, and now you are literally crippled.

Speaker 1: 46:56

Zen's concern is with freedom. Freedom, yes. So this doesn't mean absence of emotion. This doesn't mean absence of experience. This doesn't mean absence of sadness or concerns or happiness. It doesn't make you emotionally castrated kind of piece of wood. What we are after is, like you said, emotions and form. And when that information comes, what's the second step? And when there isn't a second step, we end up just sitting and feeling, if you will, it is not freedom. No, even with the positive experiences in life, yes, right. And this kind of brings me to.

Speaker 1: 47:53

We have a question, a suggestion of a topic for next podcast, and it's very appropriate to this topic. Thank you for the gift of this podcast. I'd like to suggest happiness as a topic. But what's? What's interesting here is, for example, in the context of the US.

Speaker 1: 48:17

The Declaration of Independence refers to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness as inalienable rights. However, by expecting or demanding happiness to be our default state of being, we can unintentionally increase our own suffering. What can we learn from Zen principles about developing a healthier perception of happiness? Does the alleviation of suffering mean happiness or something more like neutrality? Can we still pursue our own happiness and that of others without being attached or clinging to the idea of happiness. So this is a lovely topic to kind of follow this one Absolutely, because now we have worry, which is generally viewed as a negative don't do that.

Speaker 1: 49:04

And then we have happiness, and you must absolutely do it. And so, yes, the nuance of the terms and how to navigate these things, but generally the principle is that of freedom. Freedom, these emotions come up, they are present. We're not suggesting that they mustn't, we're suggesting understanding oneself sufficiently enough to know to use these things as tools. If they inform you, then the information then is to be gathered and used for something, not just sitting there being informed. Right, it's a little bit of a qualm of mind with certain way that mindfulness has been presented.

Speaker 1: 49:48

You just sit there and you're just informed by the thing, but it suggests almost nothing of the what's the next step to do?

Speaker 2: 49:57

I think from the Zen perspective, we'll say the Zen master. When the Zen master experiences an emotion, he knows he's experiencing the emotion and he also knows because he keeps wisdom very close to his heart he also knows that all things have a beginning, duration and an end. So he also knows that this which comes into being also has a dissolution. And this is where the freedom comes into play. Whether it's I have to apply pay, what tool do I pull out of my tool bag right now? Do I have to apply patience and just wait for this naturally to dissolve, or do I have to use my hammer and shatter this and shift my awareness to something else? All of this requires right view and right knowing. Or we could say Wisdom, or enlightenment.

Speaker 1: 50:51

If you want to get fancy about it, even better.

Speaker 2: 50:53

The knowledge of it.

Speaker 1: 50:55

But yes, so, as the song says, don't worry, be happy, be happy. So don't worry, be happy, be happy, so don't worry, be happy. Let's talk about what that is in the next episode. You do really compile and make a big, problematic situation from worry. Understand it when it arises, know what it is, know its true face. Don't be swayed by what it wants to tell you. It's not care and it's not a requisite for planning and preparation. It's not a requisite for planning and preparation. If there was a least economical use of our energies, worry is the first runner up. It's such a waste of resources, of mind and health, etc. Etc. And it's wasteful on account that it does not provide a solution, as we've mentioned. So, yes, know thyself. Yep, my name is Myo An Sin-yum. I'm here with Dr Ruben Lambert. Yes, until the next podcast, take care of yourselves and each other.

Speaker 2: 52:29

Thank you for listening From my heart to yours, and again I want to remind you to subscribe and like, and if you hear something today in this podcast that made your life better, that brought happiness into your life, that's a wonderful thing. That is what we want to do, but please share that joy and happiness with others. Tell other people about the World Through Zen Eyes podcast. Thank you very much, until next time.