Speaker 1: 0:13

Hello, welcome back to yet another episode of the World Through Zen Eyes podcast. I am Jan Ansonim here with Dr Ruben Lambert. Pleasure having you back, right, so we do have some topics that are down the pipe. I guess it's the expression. I guess it's the expression Today. I wanted to inflate some concepts. Maybe the idea of a true nature, if you will, is thrown around Again, one of those what I call the bumper sticker slogans True nature, buddha self, whatever, every kind of combination of the expression suggesting something at the root of us, something that we're interested in.

Speaker 2: 1:29

Everybody wants it. I think it's a common concern, right, or a common question that people ponder what is human nature?

Speaker 1: 1:36

Right. And so there's the human nature, again, right. That's why we're doing this, because are we talking sociology? Are we talking psychology? Are we talking, you know, sort of observations by the various philosophers, or at least the ones that have stuck around? So, this idea of finding out who we are, they're fantastic things, things to be pursued through meditation, through suheng, through practice, but we need a little something, something to kind of sink your teeth into, to make sense out of the thing, because then it becomes such a ephemeral thing, such a broad nothing, right?

Speaker 2: 2:38

it becomes like cotton candy. Yeah, you bite down on it. You're like I'm biting down on something and a split second later, it just becomes air. We want something with a little bit like a mochi donut. It's got to have a little bit of chew, something you can really sink your teeth into, like you said.

Speaker 1: 2:54

A cotton candy at least gives you some sweetness. This here gives you nothing. It's a hollowed, empty thing. We are trying to find out our true nature, or find out who you are, and whatever, and and um.

Speaker 1: 3:08

So I wanted to kind of put a little meat on the bone here, yeah, um, if you will, or a mochi donut as you say it's got a good shoe, that mochi donut, to say and um, yeah, so this idea of a thing and and simultaneously, on one hand, it is left in the script, because this is one other problematic thing that the moment we begin to describe it and assign qualities and and characteristics to the thing I mean, we do this with, uh, you know, with the kind of judeo-christian god principles right his omniscient, omnipresent.

Speaker 1: 3:52

All this, all that white beard, probably in a, in the cloud, which cloud? On the theater. So so it. And what comes to mind is that fantastic, fantastic saying by the road manager of ACDC who, after his work with the band, I think, went and became a preacher or something. But he's got this fantastic, fantastic line. I'm sure his preachings were electrical. Ha, it says, god is the blanket we put over the mystery to give it shape.

Speaker 2: 4:40

That's an inspired. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 4:43

That's an inspired yeah, that's an inspired uh statement. It's fantastic, fantastic, fantastic, because that's exactly it. We need some kind of a shape to the thing in a sense, but we forget and mistaken the shape for the thing itself. You know, the blanket for that which it covers, but without that, without some kind of a shape-giving, it's very tricky to find a thing. How can you look for a thing that you don't know what it is or how it looks like, et cetera, et cetera, and so the thing, that is not a.

Speaker 2: 5:19

Thing leaves us perplexed and we don't really have anything to hold on to or grasp onto, or, and it doesn't give you any direction, because where?

Speaker 2: 5:29

is it, it's everywhere. So what direction do I go in then? Human beings, we need at least in the, in the initial onset of any journey. This could be the meditative journey, or it could be the whatever task you're about to embark on, whether it's filling out a college application. You can't just say to some people or most people, just do it. We need some step-by-step, tangible markers. Or for anyone who's been on a long road trip, let's say to Florida, you can't just say go that way and then hit your destination. If anyone's ever done that, you need those mile markers to kind of reinvigorate your, you know, your, your driving force along the way. You can't just be like a thousand miles of nothingness.

Speaker 2: 6:10

People can endure some, some general direction, or or yeah, to end, a feeling also of accomplishment that I'm moving towards a goal. Otherwise people very easily give up and feel like they're doing nothing.

Speaker 1: 6:27

Well, that's the martial arts thing right, what belt are you.

Speaker 2: 6:32

Right. Ultimately what belt is there? But if you don't have belts, how many people can you teach?

Speaker 1: 6:38

It's not what. So you know, I used to make this point what belt are you? And somebody would say I have a blue belt. I'm not asking what belt you have. You could buy a black belt today. You certainly can. You know anybody, in fact, those of you listening. If you look under your seat, there's a black belt. There's a black belt right there. There's a black belt there for you. You look under your seat, there's a black belt.

Speaker 2: 7:05

There's a black belt right there. There's a black belt there for you.

Speaker 1: 7:07

So, yeah, you could buy a black belt. That's why I will always say what belt are you, in a sense right Meaning what is the content of your knowledge, what do you know and what training? And I don't know if you remember, but I was a yellow high belt for far, far too long because I just simply refused to take a belt promotion test. And so, you know, is every yellow belt the same? No of course not.

Speaker 1: 7:34

You know how much you practice, how much thing. But we need, like you said, we need those markers, we need that sense of accomplishment and that kind of a, some kind of a tangible something, and this is kind of what we are after today. So what I want to talk about is Ogun. Ogun means root, o means five, so the five roots Aptly name. Root is unseen, it's in the dirt, it's in the ground. Root is unseen, it's in the dirt, it's in the ground, it's unseen and, if we want to take the psychological approach to it, it's in the unconscious or the subconscious or the whichever basement, right which.

Speaker 2: 8:16

Freud uses the iceberg for that example. The iceberg there's the tip of the iceberg that you see, and then the unseen is underneath the water, right.

Speaker 1: 8:27

So that's the unseen bit. That's why they're called all gun, five roots. And roots make for a sprout, a leaf, a flower, that the whole plant, the whole sequoia tree grows from the seed roots and then up, so that which is seen in a sense and expressed. We call that, or we want it to be. Actually it's a transformative thing conscious, intentional, purposeful. We want that to become oriyok, which is five powers. Purposeful, we want that to become Oryok, which is five powers. The difference between the power and the naturally sprouting roots of the Ogun is that the power is something that we know how to wield, how to use. If we don't know how to wield, how to use, we are then governed by these things without our knowing.

Speaker 1: 9:28

We are governed by those things and so first and and we've talked, I think, to some degree about this is which is the root of belief, or faith, if you will, and anytime. And, like I said, we've talked about this, so I'm not really going to dive into it, but this idea of of belief as a secluded concept reserved only to the religious domain is absolutely not the right way to look at it. Belief and faith is you've drove here in your car because you have faith that wheels are not going to come off, and you drove through green lights because you have faith that the other drivers are going to stop as per promise, societal promise of don't go unread, et cetera, et cetera. You eat at a restaurant and you have faith that food isn't poisoned, and you sleep at night because you have faith that the roof is not going to collapse.

Speaker 1: 10:30

Every forward-facing element of our lives, until we open another eye, every forward-facing element of our lives is unknown to us. Facing element of our lives is unknown to us. All of the planning, all of the planning that we do on a daily basis, all of the preoccupations of the minds with what I'm going to do next, tomorrow, the week, the resume, filling of where do you see yourself in five years. All those things are complete fantasy, but we operate based on it, we make the plans, and a big why? Because we have faith that that day is going to come, that the five years are going to be here, or even tomorrow, or even the next moment, and so I have some belief stories that I really love.

Speaker 2: 11:22

They're anecdotal, but I love sharing them.

Speaker 2: 11:24

They're actually from the scientific perspective. We talk about it as placebo, and then there's the nocebo. Placebo is the belief that something will go right, and then nocebo is the belief that something will go wrong, and both of them have been studied by science. There's one story that was told about a. So anytime you're gonna do medical research, you have the control group and the experimental group, and it's the platinum standard, is the double blind, meaning the people that receive the medicine don't know if they're receiving medicine or the placebo. And the people that are actually administering the medicine and taking all the data, they don't know it either. Right, because they don't wanna have any influence, because everything seeps through from the unconscious. All the data, they don't know it either. Right, because they don't want to have any influence, because everything seeps through from the unconscious to the conscious right, If you know you're kind of giving the fake one to someone, you might treat them a little different.

Speaker 2: 12:16

So they want everything to be even and equal right, and so it's very interesting, though they do have to go over the side effects of the medications, because that's just general practice.

Speaker 2: 12:26

You have to inform everyone. And what's interesting is that one of the people in the study ended up in the emergency room experiencing the side effects of the medication, which I think was something along the lines of heart palpitations, high blood pressure, the nervous system feeling like electrical and hot flashes and things of that nature, and uh yeah. So they were treated and all that in the hospital. But what was very interesting afterwards and they were blaming the medication for that they were saying they were experiencing the side effects. And then what was very interesting is that later on they came to find out is that that person was receiving the sugar pill. So this was like a pure case of they were told that these are the things that can happen and they there was no biological mechanism that caused that. It was pure belief, right, I believed what they were telling me, and then they literally experienced it. It was almost like a hypochondriac moment at that state in their life.

Speaker 1: 13:29

And so I have you know, because there's no biological element, right Meaning there is, but there isn't one of those, it's just what the biology was involved.

Speaker 2: 13:40

It's been triggered.

Speaker 1: 13:41

It's been triggered by belief. Right, that's the principle.

Speaker 2: 13:44

Ordering the cells in the nervous system to activate in that manner?

Speaker 1: 13:48

Yeah, so it is unseen. So we could say kind of, yeah, it's a rude thing because they don't know that this is, they don't know how to trigger belief. I mean, if it says, go ahead, have a heart palpitation right now, can you do it? You can just conjure up a heart palpitation, but you can. You literally can. You know how to, not that you should or want to, but if you know how to, you know how to, but we know how to because we do it.

Speaker 1: 14:23

When you get heart palpitations, barring any sort of external substance being injected or ingested or whatever, so in-house director ordering a thing to take place, it happens all the time. We don't know how to do it, then it's not a power, and so that's the transformation of root to power. So, yeah, we have xingun, we have the root of faith and the root of belief, and these roots this is true for all of them why they are significant in a sense is that if we didn't have it, we couldn't use it right, just like, just like with the, with the concept of of heart palpitation if you couldn't trigger heart palpitations, then you couldn't trigger heart palpitations. And so we have the same thing the use of these powers. We have it in us being utilized, actually, but they're being utilized unbeknownst to us and so they're not within our control. We want to make them control, we want to give them direction, and that's where that, that idea of faith and belief, how do I use that?

Speaker 2: 15:50

And so, I had a kid who he saw a dead bug on a rug right and he made that association, I tell you right.

Speaker 2: 16:04

And then. So that is like an experience that he saw right, and he made that association where there's a dead bug on the rug. But then the next time he encountered the same rug, the rug was clean, right, and so I noticed that he wasn't stepping on the rug, he was stepping over the rug, and when I further, you know, inquired it was, he still believed there was a bug on the on the rug. Where was it, though? There was no, his eyes didn't see it right, so there was nothing there saying to him look it's there, be careful. Yet he still believed, and his body followed that belief. Right, he took a precaution as if the rug was hot coal, right. So these things actively work in our lives and impact the things that we do, whether we are aware of it or not.

Speaker 1: 17:00

And I have the idea of when we hear that sometimes parents say it like, oh, I don't want my child to practice any religion whatever. I want them to be pragmatic and, you know, practical, and I don't believe in believing and all of this thing. And then later we are then asked to believe in ourselves in our day-to-day endeavors, and so we have the, the root of belief, unexercised as anything is. How can one then use that to one's advantage? Because, like I said, the problem is our belief. That means we only imagine belief in God or some deities or something to that nature. But belief is also I do not see the thing yet manifest, but I pursue it. You graduate from school on account of belief.

Speaker 2: 18:09

Dozen percent. This is a critical point right now being made for all parents out there. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 18:14

You know, I don't see it. Yeah, so it's not real. It's like God in a sense. Right, not that God is not real, I mean like you can't see it.

Speaker 2: 18:23

You can't see it at the moment.

Speaker 1: 18:24

It's a mystery, you know, but then I pursue it, and then, when I get there, ah, then is the knowing.

Speaker 2: 18:32

So Because even some of the this is why the belief is so important to train these things in our children. But even like the degree, right, you didn't graduate yet. You go through it at school because you believe that that is something that will bring value to your life. But even along the way, not only do you not see it, but the signs we'll say. The signs are telling you, and the signs could be things that people say, maybe the experiences that you have with the academics, maybe a reflection of your grades. There could be signs that tell you you can never get this.

Speaker 2: 19:05

Maybe your friends might say why would you waste your time with that? College is useless. You're better off doing X, y and Z. Maybe you didn't do well in one subject, which is one out of the God knows how many classes you have to take to graduate. Right, but you just grasp onto that one thing and it becomes the message that this isn't for me. So the only thing that pushes you through all of that is strong belief that at the end of all those efforts you can accomplish that goal.

Speaker 2: 19:37

If you don't have that and that's why, if we train our kids whatever, it is early on you when you, and Untanem has told us this so many times. When you constantly tell your kids no and you cut off their ideas, you cut off their confidence. You cut off their ideas. You cut off their confidence. You cut off their beliefs. It has such a harmful impact on their future. You know, a kid can draw my son can draw something and I let wonder and creativity take over. You know, when you're too logical and rational with a child, you, you destroy belief.

Speaker 1: 20:08

Right. Invention you destroy invention. Yeah, the flight of imagination, because everything that is new or invented doesn't exist.

Speaker 2: 20:18

It only exists in the realm of the mind, in the realm of belief.

Speaker 1: 20:21

Right, and that's the other element. It's this principle of existing or not existing. It's this principle of existing or not existing. And also the principle of this is a very similar mechanism and and and situation, as is the case with acceptance right, when we tell someone you know, oh, accept it right, and what happens is the person then stops and and just that step, I'll it. So then just lay down no, yeah, that's a good one.

Speaker 2: 20:51

That's step one.

Speaker 1: 20:53

Like when you learn your alphabet, it was A, and then like, okay, A and no one, walked away thinking there's only letter A in the entirety of the alphabet. Right and belief is the same thing, is the same thing. The use of belief is and within Zen in particular and Buddhist belief system, the possibility or the pursuit, or the goal, if you really want to go with that. The goal of belief is to give you that motivation to go with that. The goal of belief is to give you that motivation to make you search, to make you there's work to be done on account of belief. It's not just belief and lay down, it's belief and pursue, believe and pursue, pursue, pursue, pursue and then eventually the belief becomes knowing. When you arrive there, you believe that there's a, A beach at the end of the Right.

Speaker 1: 21:53

I mean do you believe in Poland?

Speaker 2: 21:57

I do because I've never been there. You've never been there? Yeah, I've never been there. So you believe in Poland Right now?

Speaker 1: 22:01

yes, you know, I mean they have flat earthers and people say, oh, the moon is fake. You know.

Speaker 2: 22:08

Yes.

Speaker 1: 22:09

Because if you can't touch it with your finger, then same thing. You believe in Poland. You believe that there's a town in Poland called Kielce.

Speaker 2: 22:18

In. Krakow, In Krakow yeah, and you got names. Even Look at that.

Speaker 1: 22:21

Look at you with names, knowing names of a place you believe in, right, you've never been. No, you've never been. No, you've never been to Krakow. I've been to Krakow. Right, you didn't get to this. As kids, they used to sell these little, not a bagel, but it's a tiny like a ring thing, it's like a snack and it's almost like a necklace thing.

Speaker 2: 22:45

Try us all else, but you know.

Speaker 1: 22:48

So, yeah, I could tell you all the Krakow things, I could tell you all the Poland things, and you were like you could be like, well, I believe you because you've seen it. And then one day I was like, hey, listen, do you want to come with? Or at least I was like, all right, well, listen, if you go there and you go this way, and you go this way, and you go this way, you could get there right. And if you sit here it's like, oh, I believe in poland, I believe there's a poland, I believe in this is a poland. It for 5 000 lifetimes. And you still believe there's a poland. You've never tasted a single thing, you've never seen a single thing, your foot never touched the polish soil, or you could go and and I've been, I know what it is, it is, and so that's the belief You're describing my personal, the personal reasons for why I strongly practice Zen.

Speaker 2: 23:38

Because of that, you can go from ogun to olyok. I believe, and know, actually, that the practice of Zen can take you from belief to actual knowing, to experience, to knowing the thing you're pursuing. Right, you can transform the root into a flower and into a fruit.

Speaker 1: 24:00

Right, and that's the thing. Without belief, there's no pursuit Right, no one does anything, no, and it's so deeply rooted that it's almost absurd to even speak about it.

Speaker 2: 24:11

I know from a psychological perspective also like this, governs some of them. I say right now, eh, not in my life. But let me just give a really quick example of something completely outside of the realm of religion, which actually you weren't even talking about religion, you were just talking about going somewhere. But yes, so if someone has a fear, the fear isn't really rational, the fear isn't really real, because I have many people that have, like, a fear of crossing bridges.

Speaker 2: 24:38

You can stand there, look at the bridge, the bridge is intact. You could see a thousand cars go over the bridge, yet that person has the fear of the bridge, cannot cross that bridge. Why? Because they're just not operating on what they see, they're not taking in any of that data or they're dismissing all of the data, all of the facts, all that stuff that the outside observer might say. It's very simple, look at it and it's all logical. They can connect the dots, they can do it themselves in front of them, come back, show them a video, and that person still will not cross the bridge. Why they truly 1,000% believe in their mind that something will happen to them if they cross that bridge and their whole life is governed and functions based off of that one belief, it's as real as can be.

Speaker 1: 25:27

And that's exactly where the belief, the gun, the root and the power comes into play, because we have the root of belief. That is why they're imprisoned by their belief. If they knew how to control their belief and make it into a power right Sin-lok as opposed to sin-gun then they could direct their belief. Because then they could direct their belief, because then they could shift their belief. They sort of beam like a flashlight. Right what you're shining your flashlight of belief onto? They're shining the flashlight of belief out of irrational fear of crossing the bridge.

Speaker 1: 26:04

If they shined that same power power because this is a powerful power, because that power of their belief disregards scientific everything and anything, overrides at all nothing, right in.

Speaker 1: 26:23

In extreme cases, their loved one could cross the bridge and says if you don't come with me, I'm leaving you, and they're paralyzed by their belief. So if they shifted the flow and this is when we say kido, to pray right is to direct our energy in a specific way. So if they shifted their kido, if they shifted their power of belief to, let's say, believing in and this is critical believe in the competence of the architects and the engineers and the workers and the confidence of concrete and metal and steel, and you could pick any one of those things. Or simply you could turn and direct the power of belief to believe in yourself, that you are then able and capable to overcome that. Now, there is, of course, brain chemistry involved and all those kind of things, but, like you said earlier, right, there was no biological element, but there is a biological, but there isn't a biological but there is a biological.

Speaker 2: 27:34

You look and forth.

Speaker 1: 27:35

Yeah, and so absolutely.

Speaker 2: 27:46

And this is why Zen and religion is a form of training to be able to tap into that power of belief.

Speaker 2: 27:49

Because, if you arrive there with no training, you're literally a prisoner of these false, erroneous beliefs. Actually, you don't even know they're false. If you knew they were false, that would be wisdom, and then you'd be able to unbind yourself from them and redirect it towards what your better destination is. Like you're saying there, it's very sad. I even tell my, my, my own mother and many of my patients with anxiety. It's almost like they're being pulled into this negative cycle of thinking or a dark cloud, and and it's everything in reverse, it's like they're praying.

Speaker 1: 28:30

It is keto, it is a keto in reverse or something.

Speaker 2: 28:33

It's a keto for negativity, because there are some people.

Speaker 1: 28:36

Prayer is real. Prayer is real it really is.

Speaker 2: 28:41

I know this guy that always says in Spanish cuidado, be careful. All the time with his grandkids, with the kids, be careful for this, this, be careful for that. And the only person that gets hurt is him. It's too. It's the most odd thing in the world, I guess, to outsiders, but to, if you think about it, makes perfect sense. He's literally praying for the problems. Yeah, to come to him. He's saying be careful to everyone. And the only person that falls, gets hurt, gets bruised, is him, because nonstop the mind is just noticing and thinking some danger is coming or some danger will befall the other person.

Speaker 1: 29:21

It is. It is the root that exists within us all it, when undeveloped, it rears its head, because it's a equality of who we are, and so, if it's going to be there, period, and it behooves us to want to learn how to do something with it, it's a fantastic resource that we could either utilize to our betterment and to have more happiness and joy in life and less suffering and betterment of our general existence, or we could let it do what it does, and what it does is. It will then control us.

Speaker 2: 30:16

And drag you into places that you don't want to go.

Speaker 1: 30:19

Right, and so it will become imprisoning and it will become problematic. This isn't to say again that you know we're we're speaking in extremes, but you could use your power of the mind to do fantastic, unimaginable things, um, or you just screwed. That's not what we're saying. Yeah, because it's an ever-moving, it's a living thing. So it's evolving, it's moving, it's happening at so many facets and aspects of our lives. So, but it is certainly a player in our existence. Given the time, I think that what we could do is we could just maybe do an episode per route.

Speaker 2: 31:13

I was thinking that.

Speaker 1: 31:14

I was just thinking that, because belief is a very yeah, so we have so as the first one and the very first one, and it's first because there's a reason why it's first. I remember, Unsullied, one time he goes you know there's no steps to enlightenment, Despite of what the books will tell you, Right, Three minutes to enlightenment, yes, Six minutes abs, four minutes beach body and three minutes to enlightenment, and all that. So he opens up, he's like there's no steps to enlightenment. Because obviously I said, yes, of course he goes, but there are steps to enlightenment.

Speaker 2: 32:03

I said yes, of course he goes, but they're a step to enlightenment. I was like wait a minute.

Speaker 1: 32:07

You know and they're xin he, heng zhung why we've talked about this Right, and it's belief as the first thing. So this stripped down idea that Zen is because the word itself just means meditation, right, but sometimes it's viewed as the kind of belief-less thing and it's just self-empowerment. There's no inspection of life as is when that's presented in that way, or really insufficient depth of understanding of existence when those statements are made.

Speaker 2: 32:57

Then isn't that the Zen saying associated with the no steps? There are no steps in the sky, yet birds can.

Speaker 1: 33:06

Right, that's one hill, there's no roads on the ocean, and yet boats traverse it, that kind of thing. And so, yeah, the steps to enlightenment are xin he, heng zhung, and that's what it is. The first thing is that there's a belief and then there's, you know, you do something, you train, you pursue you, you know and then you arrive. So it's not this isolated thing when belief is frequently thought of like, oh, you just believe and and you know, blind belief, right there, or empty belief, or whatever you want to call it. That's like I just sit here and believe and that's it. And the exercise of belief power, because sometimes what the idea of belief is met with, again, it's apples and oranges, but it's met with. It's like I'm a person of action. You know, not believing, believing is an action I mean we're talking about. It's a power.

Speaker 2: 34:05

I would say there is no action without belief. You just, and itself is an action.

Speaker 1: 34:11

Blind to that and so really I hope that our listeners understand that again it's been hijacked the term and it seems to be isolated within a very specific and a very narrow um domain and and really is so much more so, and and really we do so much, uh, disservice to ourselves and and our children. I mean, the fairy tales are fairy tales, right and the people who believe fairies are real, but I mean like fairy tales.

Speaker 1: 34:51

I'm talking about fairy tales as in, tales that inspire and, like you said, hinge and and utilize the imaginative element of our brilliance and discovery and pursuit of discovery and invention, and et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 2: 35:12

So it's the belief itself as if it were a muscle.

Speaker 1: 35:19

Yeah, I would argue that the fairy tales are real, they absolutely are real. That's why you know the idea and actually calling into question whether a thing is real or not, like superman is not real or santa claus is not real type of thing, and and you know, we see this, I'm not going to tell my children there's a santa claus, and then you know, just, you know they need to know that mom and dad go to work and, and you know, work hard and then they make money and with the money they buy the thing that they could learn responsibilities and money management. And you know very kind of that, sure, sure, sure.

Speaker 2: 36:02

But adults going to work. When you say that to a five-year-old, it's the same thing as telling someone that the moon is made out of cheese. So go ahead, keep going. But the person that say, no, there's no Santa Claus, they think they're smart.

Speaker 2: 36:19

No there's no Santa Claus, son or daughter Dad goes to work. They're smart. No, there's no Santa Claus, son or daughter Dad goes to work. You're not putting yourself in that kid's shoes and taking into account the level of understanding of that kid. You just basically told them wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. Same thing as Charlie Brown's teacher. Really, you did not bring that person closer to the truth.

Speaker 1: 36:42

Right, and what are the other elements to it? Like you're going to work and making money and buying the thing and bringing it. Doesn't that, on one interpretation of it, doesn't that make you a Santa Claus? Because then also says well, listen, son, you were listening, so you're not getting the PS45 or whatever video games.

Speaker 2: 36:59

You're on the naughty list, yeah you're on the naughty list, right.

Speaker 1: 37:04

45 or whatever video you're on the naughty list? Yeah, you're not on my list, right, so it's it's. What I'm saying is that the exercise of the muscle of belief. I don't care in what squishy, squish, squish. If you don't want to do it, doesn. It doesn't matter what. It's the exercise of belief. We do drills in life all the time. In school, you do drills. At work, there's fire drills. There's this kind of drill Meaning we're practicing a thing before it happens. Hopefully you never have to evacuate in a real fire situation, but you practice the fire drill, there's a sort of muscle memory, there's a habit forming, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 1: 37:51

Why so that, when the moment of chaos happens, when the hardship happens, when the difficulty happens, you have exercised this skill set sufficiently enough to get you to safety?

Speaker 2: 38:06

Yes.

Speaker 1: 38:07

When you have, as we are exposed to the world around you and you have never exercised your power of belief like the person unable to cross the bridge, and you've never exercised the power of belief and your schoolmates, housemates, spouse, whatever, sometimes you know peer pressure comes in, bullying comes in, tearing down of people comes in. You know the social media and all of these things.

Speaker 1: 38:41

And if you don't know where your muscle of belief is and how to use it, if you've never did a belief drill, as you did a fire drill, et cetera, et cetera how, then, are you expected to believe in yourself more than you believe in some keyboard warrior across the world telling you that your hair looks terrible and you should hang yourself, and then you have people who hang themselves, that so the scales.

Speaker 2: 39:13

The power of belief doesn't outweigh this attack that's being imposed on you.

Speaker 1: 39:19

No power.

Speaker 2: 39:19

No power.

Speaker 1: 39:20

But no power, but belief is there and this is the function of the root.

Speaker 1: 39:27

The root, the shingun, the root of belief is there, but it's unexercised. So what happens with the unexercised thing? It's willy-nilly. And so somebody says your hair looks terrible, you look ugly, you're disgusting, disgusting, you should kill yourself. And the person then believes in those words of that person, or the belief itself believes in those words, in a sense, as if it had its own mind, and the person, not having exercised their power of belief, doesn't know how to take that power away from this absurdity and direct it into something else. Right, and so no training, no fire drill, no belief drill, no practice, yes, and but we can't uproot the roots. These roots are not, they cannot be uprooted out of our existence. It is built into, woven into fabric of who we are, and so really tend to that, care to that, exercise it, make it yours so that you can use it. Or the option is you use it or you are being used by it. What?

Speaker 2: 40:47

happiness can overwhelm a person when they discover and learn that you don't have to just submit or be consumed by these attacks from the world, these attacks from the world where you, from within you, you have this. You know muscle, or we could say a jewel or a lamp, whatever it is, whatever metaphor you want to use, you rub your inner lamp or you flex your inner muscle or you let the inner jewel shine and you can counteract those forces with strong power and belief that, no, I can follow my way and I will not allow your words or your ideas to distract me and deter me from my path if you can just sit with that, my goodness that is.

Speaker 2: 41:37

there is great, awesome power in that, and I just want to say one more thing, and then you can go, because very recently one of my friends was crippled from this belief that in a few days a certain outcome was not going to manifest in her life. Crippled by it, and I always referred back to every single time, kido and belief and, let's say, the thing that she was expecting to happen was going to happen. Five days later I started speaking to her on day one. Every day I saw her crippled and riddled with disbelief, consumed by negativity and anger and anguish and pain and real suffering that didn't allow her to move from there, and I always stuck to the same thing. And the night before the event was supposed to occur, like magic, what she wished for manifested. And then now she was struck with awe that, my goodness, there is, there is some very powerful truth to the power of belief in Kido.

Speaker 2: 42:50

It is real.

Speaker 1: 42:53

The sutras you know. Time and time again the Buddha says a thing like as if a strong man were to simply bend his arm or straighten out his arm. It's as easy as that, in a sense, and it kind of echoes the Zen master's it's like touching your nose or like blinking, but it is, you know, eye contact, right?

Speaker 1: 43:20

Where do you direct your eyes? My eyes and I choose to direct them here and there, you would think right. But if something is much more, if there's a hierarchy of interest and the more shiny a thing comes up, as if the eyes had their own power and they just go there. It is the same principle the lamp or the direction of our belief can be guided and governed and directed if we exercise it. So Sure, so.

Speaker 2: 43:57

That's like almost what you're saying is like the algorithm of life. When people are only seeing like negative things and disasters in their life, I feel as though their eyes are just being guided to that, like the world is a vast place. If you're only noticing those things, you're completely blind to everything else.

Speaker 1: 44:13

They literally will just fire.

Speaker 2: 44:15

But behind those eyes, like you're saying, behind the movement of the eye, why do the eyes always go to that one specific thing? Yeah, right, so the person who's been robbed. When they approach a person I'm sorry, when a person approaches them their eyes don't always go to. Maybe their hands Is their hands balled up in a fist To a person that's anxious always goes to other people's eyes. Why are they looking at me? You know so? Yeah, you're right. Like eyes are governed by what they believe, right, you know so. Yeah, you're right, like eyes are governed by what they believe.

Speaker 1: 44:45

Right, so yeah, tend to the roots, for they cannot be uprooted.

Speaker 2: 44:53

Turn that into a power. And that's the practice that is magical, and that is mind blowing and that should leave you in that alone, should leave everyone in just awe.

Speaker 1: 45:05

Four more to go folks, do we have four? I think we have four.

Speaker 2: 45:12

Yeah, before I go, All right, all right all right.

Speaker 1: 45:15

Yeah, we'll see if we can get through. Well, until then, take care of yourselves and each other. I'm Myung Han Seung-im.

Speaker 2: 45:22

I'm Dr Revan Lambert. If you like what you hear, subscribe and like and then pass it on to someone else who can also benefit from our program.