Buddhist Psychology - Ending the War with Addiction: Cultivating Generosity Towards Our Demons

0:22 My name is Dr. Eman Fallah and I didn't read what I'm supposed to, I think I'm talking about addiction, but they gave a little blurb and I didn't check the blurb. So if someone has what I'm supposed to talk about, this looks really, this must look weird. Report an error in the passage at 0:22 Highlight the passage at 0:22

0:49 So before I begin tonight, I'm wondering if there are any questions, any pieces around addiction, particularly people would like me to cover. Report an error in the passage at 0:49 Highlight the passage at 0:49

1:01 Since our time is short and the topic is very vast, and if there is, just raise your hand. Can you guys hear me okay? Okay. Report an error in the passage at 1:01 Highlight the passage at 1:01

1:18 So normally at a talk I'll ask the audience what brings them to the talk. Obviously I won't do that here because addiction is such a personal and prevalent issue. Report an error in the passage at 1:18 Highlight the passage at 1:18

1:36 But if anybody would like to share... Their own experiences with addiction, either yourself or someone you know, that would be really wonderful too. My own experience with this topic began when I was studying philosophy at university and Report an error in the passage at 1:36 Highlight the passage at 1:36

2:01 I was interested in understanding how do people change and how come Some people are able to change and some people are stuck and unable to change. So I was really interested in topics like free will and how to overcome desire, things like that. And I noticed that within the field of medicine, whether if the issue was, let's say, depression, Or if the issue was some sort of anxiety or phobia, they usually had a medicine for it. There would usually be some sort of psychiatric medication for almost every type of psychological issue, except for addiction. Report an error in the passage at 2:01 Highlight the passage at 2:01

3:02 With the exception of something like antabuse, which alcoholics take in order to get sick when they drink, there's really no medication. To reduce the urge to use. Report an error in the passage at 3:02 Highlight the passage at 3:02

3:18 So I was very, and as I got interested in psychology, I started getting more interested in that topic of addiction because it seemed particularly intractable to psychiatric medications and our normal way of treating mental issues. Report an error in the passage at 3:18 Highlight the passage at 3:18

3:42 It really didn't allow itself to be under the same kind of category of being some sort of molecule that was imbalanced in the brain. And if you just take this medicine, then things are okay. Report an error in the passage at 3:42 Highlight the passage at 3:42

4:00 So I think what would make sense to do is, since again I don't know what the particular interest of the audience is, To talk about addiction on an outer level, what we understand as addiction and the clinical understanding of addiction. And then on an inner level, some of the dynamics at work that everyone experiences. So the issue around the mind and desire and how we have a very difficult time getting out of what's familiar. Report an error in the passage at 4:00 Highlight the passage at 4:00

4:42 in our lives, how familiarity is a very powerful anchor. In Buddhism, Report an error in the passage at 4:42 Highlight the passage at 4:42

5:01 a lot of times there's understandings of things from an outer level, an inner level, and then they say secret level. And by secret... what I would like to call secret addictions. Secret addiction being element of very, very powerful habits that are deeply ingrained in all beings. So in Buddhism, Report an error in the passage at 5:01 Highlight the passage at 5:01

5:09 They are referring to it being very difficult to see. Report an error in the passage at 5:09 Highlight the passage at 5:09

5:20 So the word addiction comes from the Latin addictus, which means devoted. And it's an interesting term. The root word of addiction coming from this basic fundamental understanding of something that you're devoted to. Report an error in the passage at 5:20 Highlight the passage at 5:20

5:41 And our basic medical understanding of addiction has to do with seven These criteria involve basically developing a tolerance. In general here I'm talking about addiction to a particular drug or alcohol or it could even be in some cases food, but we'll just leave it with drugs and alcohol for now. This is the very kind of basic. Report an error in the passage at 5:41 Highlight the passage at 5:41

6:18 Outer level of our understanding in terms of the medical understanding of addiction. So if you've developed a tolerance, if you've developed withdrawal symptoms, so when you don't take the substance, you experience physical symptoms. You can have shaking, you can have lethargy. The withdrawal symptoms tend to be the opposite of whatever the drug was. So if you're into cocaine, the withdrawal symptom will be extreme fatigue. Report an error in the passage at 6:18 Highlight the passage at 6:18

6:48 The third criterion is that you had an intention, let's say, to have a couple drinks and then you ended up having a six-pack. So there's this disparity between what your intention was with the drug and then the actual result of how you used it. The fourth criterion involves a failed effort to control. Report an error in the passage at 6:48 Highlight the passage at 6:48

7:16 So despite your effort to cut down, You were unsuccessful. The fifth criterion has to do with that a lot of time has been spent on either getting the drug or using the drug or recovering from the effects of the drug or alcohol. Report an error in the passage at 7:16 Highlight the passage at 7:16

7:37 The sixth criterion has to do with whether the drug, and in this case it could be behavior, sex addiction, gambling addiction, shopping, whether this behavior... Has reduced the quality of your health or your ability to move forward in your career or whether it's compromised your relationships. So that's a very broad area of your social, your occupational or your health. And then finally the last criterion of the seven is that even though you know This behavior has been harmful, you continue doing it. So a typical example is I have a patient who has been hospitalized three times for pancreatitis from drinking. Report an error in the passage at 7:37 Highlight the passage at 7:37

8:35 He's an engineer. He's in his early 30s, very educated, but can't stop. Report an error in the passage at 8:35 Highlight the passage at 8:35

8:47 So among the seven, if you have three criterion, Of the seven that I just listed, if the person says, yeah, that's true for me, of the three, then you are diagnosed medically with a dependence. The word addiction is really loaded, so they tend not to use that word, but that's basically the same, what we understand of it. Six percent of the population, for example, meet this criterion for alcohol. Report an error in the passage at 8:47 Highlight the passage at 8:47

9:23 So it's a huge, huge... And it's related in terms of addiction as a disease. And by disease, they mean a chronic and progressive situation that leads to death. Report an error in the passage at 9:23 Highlight the passage at 9:23

9:43 So the chronic piece being that it's characterized by relapse, periods of abstinence that's characterized. One of the characteristics of addiction is relapse. So this is a pretty grim picture so far, I think. That I've been sketching. Report an error in the passage at 9:43 Highlight the passage at 9:43

10:07 But I think, like I said, it's important to speak to what we normally in a medical sense mean by addiction before going into more esoteric discussion. Report an error in the passage at 10:07 Highlight the passage at 10:07

10:23 A lot of it being because the medical understanding of addiction you can think about as being a very extreme manifestation of the more subtle addictions. That then we can relate to our day-to-day lives. Report an error in the passage at 10:23 Highlight the passage at 10:23

10:44 The general way it happens too is we look at basically addiction as being a result of habituation. So it begins with no kind of particular exposure to the behavior or the drug and then experimentation and then increased habituation. And then the habituation, it could be something like once a week. It could be getting into the habit of getting really loaded Christmas Eve once a year. Report an error in the passage at 10:44 Highlight the passage at 10:44

11:21 But there's this habit, there's this association that's associated with it. And then there's this very fine line between habit and abuse. And abuse basically, again, going back to what I was saying earlier, when finding that it was compromising your relationship. And you continue to use, compromising your health and you continue to use, compromising your work and you continue to use. That's where it becomes very interesting because when you enter that area of abuse, then things like trying to stop and trying to control become very important. Report an error in the passage at 11:21 Highlight the passage at 11:21

12:02 And the characteristic of the addiction process as I outlined before is the attempt to cut down The intention to, let's say, have a couple beers and having a six-pack becomes the norm. Report an error in the passage at 12:02 Highlight the passage at 12:02

12:22 And this can be very, very debilitating for someone who has an ability to feel like they can control their life, that they're able to control all these other areas of their life except this one area. Report an error in the passage at 12:22 Highlight the passage at 12:22

12:39 It can seem very frustrating and it can really... Be a source of almost obsessing with trying to control it. Because we normally don't like to think about ourselves as people who don't have control over our behavior. The issue, though, is that the criterion that I listed is a medical diagnosis, which means it's like diabetes. Your body and your physiology have been geared, have been rewired, if you will. Report an error in the passage at 12:39 Highlight the passage at 12:39

13:12 so to have someone... Who's developed the physical dependence, let's say, on alcohol. And to ask them to just have one drink is like asking someone who's diabetic to have a chocolate cake and not have an insulin crash. So there's a whole physical component to addiction that I'm wanting to outline as being different than the more subtle addictions that I'll get into. Report an error in the passage at 13:12 Highlight the passage at 13:12

13:45 Again, the physical... The physical piece is what I said was a rewiring, a rewiring being the, and I don't want to, I don't know to what extent you guys are interested in this, but it has to do with the brain chemistry, especially dopamine. Our brain chemistry gets very sensitive so that with one drink, an alcoholic will have an avalanche of different chemicals in their brain and will experience a very different thing than someone who doesn't have... Report an error in the passage at 13:45 Highlight the passage at 13:45

14:15 A dependence on that particular drug. And then trying to go back is like trying to unlearn something, like trying to unlearn how to brush your teeth. Once you've learned the behavior and once the physical association is made, years can pass and still just that first drink will trigger a massive physical reaction. Report an error in the passage at 14:15 Highlight the passage at 14:15

14:37 Similar again to the issue like the diabetic, who despite their best efforts, they can try to will their way. But just having sugar is going to create that insulin crash. Only about 3-5 % of people who meet the medical diagnosis of dependence are able to moderately drink or moderately use whatever particular drug it was. Report an error in the passage at 14:37 Highlight the passage at 14:37

15:03 So 95 % do not succeed. Within one year, they go back to their old pattern of using. Report an error in the passage at 15:03 Highlight the passage at 15:03

15:22 And then I think the last thing I'll say about... The medical piece around addiction is that it's based on something called, it has three major components to it, biological, psychological and social. Whenever we talk about addiction from the point of view of psychology or medicine, then we're talking about three major factors that are at play. Report an error in the passage at 15:22 Highlight the passage at 15:22

15:48 The biological being the piece that I just mentioned around the brain chemistry, the rewiring of the physical circuit of dopamine. the The psychological piece I'll get into. And then there's a social piece. And the social piece being whether you've been exposed to drugs at an early age, whether your environment's stressful to the point where you need to self-medicate, the anxiety and trauma of being in a very violent environment and a very dangerous environment. Report an error in the passage at 15:48 Highlight the passage at 15:48

16:24 One of the most interesting experiments, I think, in the field of addiction is something called the Rat Park. I'm assuming no one's heard of it. The Rat Park was done in the 70s, and the person was Bruce Alexander, a researcher, and he basically took rats who were addicted to morphine. They would take rats that would be given morphine. Report an error in the passage at 16:24 Highlight the passage at 16:24

16:55 And that's mixed in water. And then he also made what he called a rat park. So it would be a room a little bit bigger than this room with maybe only 10 rats. So they had a lot of space. They had a place to play. They had a place to mate. They had a place to kind of sleep. It was just a kind of a very ideal environment as much as possible for a rat. Report an error in the passage at 16:55 Highlight the passage at 16:55

17:18 Sort of like a rat amusement park. And he took the morphine-addicted rats that were in these cages, put them in the rat park, and he gave the choice to all the rats in the rat park between morphine and regular water. Report an error in the passage at 17:18 Highlight the passage at 17:18

17:35 And not only did the rats that were living in the rat park not choose to take of the morphine, but the morphine-addicted rats also chose to not take the morphine. They chose to drink the water. And they even went through physical withdrawals of twitching. But they chose the water over the morphine because they would have rather played and been in the environment they were in. That speaks a lot to the social element of addiction, how the epidemic of addiction, if you take, for example, in Report an error in the passage at 17:35 Highlight the passage at 17:35

18:12 Britain in the turn of the century, 19th century, there was more heroin users in terms of for medical purposes. So there was more people per capita in Britain taking heroin. Report an error in the passage at 18:12 Highlight the passage at 18:12

18:25 But only there was less than a 1 % rate of addiction. Again, because there's a social element that completely creates whether you're self-medicating to check out, to deal with trauma, to just deal with psychological distress. So the Rat Park was a very provocative study because it really spoke to the social element of addiction. Report an error in the passage at 18:25 Highlight the passage at 18:25

18:52 But that's only, like I said, one part. There's a biological part and then there's a psychological part. The psychological part has a very powerful overlap with the inner addiction. So the outer addiction is sort of what we understand as addiction medically. And then there's inner addiction, what I call inner addiction, which is kind of more prevalent. Report an error in the passage at 18:52 Highlight the passage at 18:52

19:14 And that's what I'll begin talking about. Is there any questions so far on what I just said? Report an error in the passage at 19:14 Highlight the passage at 19:14

19:27 Did you guys raise your hand? Okay. So the... The psychological element of addiction could be illustrated with, like if you take, you know, one example would be like a four or five year old child. Report an error in the passage at 19:27 Highlight the passage at 19:27

19:44 And their mom, let's say, comes home four or five times a week at like 10 p.m. and brings home a lollipop for the child. And the child has not been given dinner, has not been put to bed. Has not had their parent, let's say, home. And yet the child will remember that they had a wonderful mom. Every night that the mom came home, she brought home a lollipop. Report an error in the passage at 19:44 Highlight the passage at 19:44

20:12 The child will remember the lollipop and ignore their own need around what was going on around dinner, around being put to bed. Report an error in the passage at 20:12 Highlight the passage at 20:12

20:22 The idea of this is that developing, growing up, what's more important for a child is contact. Then to have no contact. Even if the contact is poor, the child would rather have that contact than no contact. So what ends up happening is in an environment that is psychologically not providing the child what they need, they become very good at ignoring their own needs. Report an error in the passage at 20:22 Highlight the passage at 20:22

20:54 They become very good at ignoring what their needs are. In order to maintain that alliance with the primary caretaker, this creates, you could say, a schism in the personality where the real self, the part of you that you're able to have as the good, the bad and the ugly and this is like who you are, the foundation of that gets very insecure, is not really established because the child had to... Report an error in the passage at 20:54 Highlight the passage at 20:54

21:29 Again, because they have to ignore their needs, have to kind of develop an ability to not think of themselves as inadequate, there's a split that occurs in what's considered the ideal self and the false self. The child will begin having a pendulum swing in their experience of themselves. They'll begin feeling like on top of the world and also really, really low. Report an error in the passage at 21:29 Highlight the passage at 21:29

21:56 There's an instability of... How one experiences oneself in an environment that's unstable and that's not healthy. This has to do with wanting to meet the expectations of their primary caretaker, wanting the primary caretaker to have positive regard and to basically conform their needs to what the needs of the primary caretaker is. Report an error in the passage at 21:56 Highlight the passage at 21:56

22:27 So what then happens is their own real genuine needs gets ignored. And they end up distorting what their needs are in order to conform with what their parent or primary caretaker wants. And again, this is because it's so essential for the child to feel contact, that they're willing to distort their own experience. Report an error in the passage at 22:27 Highlight the passage at 22:27

22:55 Is this making sense? Report an error in the passage at 22:55 Highlight the passage at 22:55

22:59 What ends up happening is a kind of a Jekyll and Hyde situation of, again, either overestimating yourself or underestimating yourself, but basically not being able to move through life with this balanced view of gray. Things are either black or white. Things are either, you know, you're either successful or you're a failure. Things are either all great or all bad. Report an error in the passage at 22:59 Highlight the passage at 22:59

23:25 It's difficult to move through life with the sense of, you know, Some things are good, some things are bad and I'm able to hold both. Report an error in the passage at 23:25 Highlight the passage at 23:25

23:43 So the experience then that ensues is a familiar pattern of this pendulum swing. That becomes what's familiar. And what oftentimes occurs in that kind of setup is when things start going well, then... That person will sabotage. They'll sabotage something that's going well, they'll sabotage it and they will then experience a crash. Report an error in the passage at 23:43 Highlight the passage at 23:43

24:27 And then a lot of times when there's that crash, then we call it acting in. So then acting in is scrambling to tie up the loose ends that you allow to have unraveled. And then when you finally get things a little bit going in the right direction, Again, there's an acting out and acting out is the sabotage piece. So there's this kind of dance of acting in and acting out in one's life. Report an error in the passage at 24:27 Highlight the passage at 24:27

24:57 The extent to which one does that is reflective of the extent to which there was that unstable sense of self while growing up. Report an error in the passage at 24:57 Highlight the passage at 24:57

25:08 So the first sort of important piece about that is if we... If we look at the human organism, if you look at our bodies, our nervous system is actually much more powerful than our thinking, rational brain. The brain, if you consider it, there's the frontal cortex, which is kind of the decision-making process, which tells you what the best route is to take, what the five-year plan should be, whether your budget's balanced. Report an error in the passage at 25:08 Highlight the passage at 25:08

25:49 It's kind of the rational, logical piece. And then there's what's considered the more primitive brain. And that's what's involved with the nervous system. And the nervous system is much more powerful than the logic center, the rational center. The reason I bring this up is because the nervous system in general of mammals It is extremely invested in familiarity. We don't like surprises. Our nervous system does not like surprises. Report an error in the passage at 25:49 Highlight the passage at 25:49

26:28 When there are surprises, it stops digesting. It stops working on the immune system. The basic functions of our body go offline when we have stress. So what then happens is there's an investment for familiarity. Familiarity becomes more... More important than necessarily acting with more wisdom or doing something different. We may think we want to do something different. Report an error in the passage at 26:28 Highlight the passage at 26:28

27:02 We may think this is not the right way. I should really change this or change that. But it's a different matter when the idea of going from the head to the heart. And that has to do with really being able to process emotionally. The changes that you're asking yourself to make. In the case of addiction, we see that more than probably any other phenomenon. Report an error in the passage at 27:02 Highlight the passage at 27:02

27:36 The example of that engineer that I mentioned earlier, low 30s, up and coming future, making good money and with the rate he's going. Three hospitalizations in one year, drinking a six-pack at least every night, can't stop. There's too much of an ingrained power to that habit pattern. Report an error in the passage at 27:36 Highlight the passage at 27:36

28:17 And despite his best efforts at trying to be logical, he doesn't want to stop drinking. He wants to figure out a solution. To his problem, like he's figured out the other solutions to his problem. And there's this kind of investment to continue with the familiar pattern, even though he doesn't want to. Report an error in the passage at 28:17 Highlight the passage at 28:17

28:41 And then we see even more severe cases of people actually losing their jobs, actually losing their homes, losing their relationships. And again, there's a familiarity to that set up. That sabotage is familiar. So the high of addiction and then the low of addiction very much mirrors powerfully that pendulum swing that I was speaking about. Report an error in the passage at 28:41 Highlight the passage at 28:41

29:10 The pendulum swing around an unstable sense of self, developing an ideal self where you're on top of the world and then feeling like you're the lowest life form on earth, so to speak. Report an error in the passage at 29:10 Highlight the passage at 29:10

29:27 Kind of overestimation, underestimation is very much powerfully reenacted in addiction where the person will sabotage what's happening by acting out. Then things will start going downhill. They'll rein it in and they'll act in. They'll go twice the speed as they would normally go to kind of make up for the chaos. Report an error in the passage at 29:27 Highlight the passage at 29:27

29:51 And so there's that dynamic psychologically happening. Report an error in the passage at 29:51 Highlight the passage at 29:51

30:11 And then I think the other important piece for the psychology is there's stages to change and this doesn't have to just do with addiction. One of the things that in general can be seen as a pattern of change is that there are stages to change. Because change is so difficult to do in some ways for us, what's been sort of observed Report an error in the passage at 30:11 Highlight the passage at 30:11

30:43 Changes go through certain stages. The actual psychologist who came up with this theory, his father died of alcoholism. He was interested in knowing how come some people are able to change and some can't. He really began examining what are the stages to change. Report an error in the passage at 30:43 Highlight the passage at 30:43

31:04 For whatever behavior one is trying to engage, whether it's deciding to go to graduate school, Or whether it's to deciding to stop using cocaine or whether it's deciding to build a house. Any type of change one wants to bring into action in their lives always involves with what's considered these five stages. Report an error in the passage at 31:04 Highlight the passage at 31:04

31:31 The first stage is called pre-contemplation. So this is before the question of even deciding to change comes up. So in the case of an alcoholic, there was a time when they didn't even drink. There may have been a time when they were drinking very casually, once or twice a week. So the idea of having a problem wasn't even on the radar. And then what occurs is then the question comes up, you know, maybe I should change. Report an error in the passage at 31:31 Highlight the passage at 31:31

32:03 Maybe I should go to graduate school. Maybe I should go buy some new clothes. Maybe I should stop drinking. The question comes up. That's called contemplation. You begin contemplating the actual possibility. In the case of an addict, it can often happen where people might bring it up. People might say, you know, I think you're drinking too much. Report an error in the passage at 32:03 Highlight the passage at 32:03

32:39 And then for addiction as well, this stage can often last years. People often describe it as being among the most painful. Period. Because it's when they are on the fence about what's happening. They're getting these messages from loved ones, from co-workers. They might be realizing it themselves, feeling like they have a problem one day and then the next day not feel like they have a problem. And so this can be an especially difficult period where the person is confused and torn up. Report an error in the passage at 32:39 Highlight the passage at 32:39

33:17 During this stage as well, defense mechanisms are very powerful. Does anybody here not know what defense mechanisms are? Everybody knows what defense mechanisms are? The defense mechanisms, especially involved in dragging us back from changing, are denial, which everyone I'm assuming knows what that is most popular one. Report an error in the passage at 33:17 Highlight the passage at 33:17

33:43 Rationalization, so basically coming up with really great reasons that are not true to explain what's happening. Like going to work with a big hangover and not being able to get your work done and having the boss yell at you or something. And then you just thinking to yourself, wow, he's really having a hard time with his divorce. He's been on edge ever since or something. Kind of just basically making what seems like reasonable excuses. Report an error in the passage at 33:43 Highlight the passage at 33:43

34:18 Blame is another defense mechanism. Blaming what's happening on... this. Report an error in the passage at 34:18 Highlight the passage at 34:18

34:23 the outside. I can't think of what other ones would really be prominent. Denial, blame, rationalization. So those are also very much what they have in common is the problem is outside. So whatever reason you can find to put the problem outside of what's going on, if your drinking is going out of control. Report an error in the passage at 34:23 Highlight the passage at 34:23

34:56 If you're flying off the handle all the time, if you're stepping on everybody's toes because you have so much anxiety, basically the stage before a lot of time people come in for therapy or the stage before people decide to start something new like meditation. There's a lot of chaos and they don't want to kind of... Report an error in the passage at 34:56 Highlight the passage at 34:56

35:25 Fully experience themselves as inadequate or as being somehow needing help and reaching out. So they try to find some other reason. Report an error in the passage at 35:25 Highlight the passage at 35:25

35:38 One of the most famous books on psychology, Neurosis and Human Growth, the author talks about how in most fields of medicine, you have in the field of cardiology, Report an error in the passage at 35:38 Highlight the passage at 35:38

35:59 The main focus is the circulation and the heart. In the field of dermatology, the main focus is the skin. In the field of psychiatry, the main focus, the main problem, if you will, is pride. That pride is the poison of our psychological problems because it prevents us from reaching out. Report an error in the passage at 35:59 Highlight the passage at 35:59

36:28 And it also creates a situation of lying to ourselves. When we have too much pride to see our own stuff, that's when the dishonesty begins. Dishonesty with ourselves and the dishonesty with the world. Report an error in the passage at 36:28 Highlight the passage at 36:28

36:53 So the contemplation stage within these stages of change are replete with these defense mechanisms. Now I also want to add that defense mechanisms are very important. If we didn't have defense mechanisms, we would go crazy. So there is a very healthy element in defense mechanisms. In fact, they found people with more denial are better cancer survivors. Report an error in the passage at 36:53 Highlight the passage at 36:53

37:17 So I'm not to say that any kind of defense mechanism is bad, but like anything, it can get out of control, and then there's a very big distortion of what's going on. Report an error in the passage at 37:17 Highlight the passage at 37:17

37:38 So then the third stage is called the preparation stage. The preparation stage is coming to a conclusion. A lot of people, when they begin wondering whether they have a drinking problem or a drug problem, they begin trying to control the use. So they'll begin thinking, okay, I'll just drink on the weekend or something to that effect. And so then the preparation stage can last up to a month where the person is getting ready to instigate. Report an error in the passage at 37:38 Highlight the passage at 37:38

38:27 Then the fourth stage is the action stage. So that's when you decide to put into action whatever conclusion you made in the preparation stage. And then after six months to a year of maintaining that, it's the maintenance stage. Now these stages of change, the most important thing to understand about them is that they're a work in progress. Report an error in the passage at 38:27 Highlight the passage at 38:27

38:54 Constantly we're coming to conclusions, acting to bring that into action and then having to tweak it, having to kind of say, okay, well, I can't just drink on the weekends. I want to also drink on Friday or I can't just do this. I need to do that. It requires this element of making these changes. Report an error in the passage at 38:54 Highlight the passage at 38:54

39:19 It's a work in progress, these stages of change. And, um... Within the area of relapse, if the person has a, let's say, decides to not drink, so that's sort of a conclusion they made in the preparation stage, and then they decide, okay, I'm not going to drink, and they throw out their alcohol, action stage. Report an error in the passage at 39:19 Highlight the passage at 39:19

39:46 And then they go to a birthday party, and they have a slip, and they drink for a couple more days. That's not fully considered a relapse in the sense that they haven't backpedaled on their decision to stop drinking. What they backpedaled on was on their ability. So there's a difference between a lapse and a relapse. A lapse is when the person hasn't backpedaled on their decision, but basically failed at really maintaining the decision. Report an error in the passage at 39:46 Highlight the passage at 39:46

40:21 And a lapse usually lasts a couple days to maximum of a week. What then occurs is if the person continues drinking for several days, maybe on into seven, eight, nine days, what's usually occurred at that point is the person has backpedaled on their decision, the decision they made in the preparation stage. Report an error in the passage at 40:21 Highlight the passage at 40:21

40:46 And so that's a relapse. Report an error in the passage at 40:46 Highlight the passage at 40:46

40:51 And at that point, they either go back to contemplation, or they may quickly go to contemplation and then preparation. But they never go back to pre-contemplation, very rarely. Very rarely do you develop a problem, come to the decision, this is a problem, make an effort to deal with the problem, and then fail at dealing with the problem, and then go back to a stage where it was never a problem. Report an error in the passage at 40:51 Highlight the passage at 40:51

41:23 Pre-contemplation is usually, once you pass pre-contemplation, maybe it doesn't mean that you're not going to drink. Maybe you'll have a drink here and there. Maybe you'll decide, I'm just going to drink twice a week or three times a week. But that's still something that you've come to a decision to. Report an error in the passage at 41:23 Highlight the passage at 41:23

41:43 It's not a pre-contemplation issue anymore. It's a subtle point, but I think it just kind of speaks to... These stages of change are very fluid and dynamic and once you're trying to make a change, it doesn't go back to ground zero. It's a constant development of contemplating, preparing, putting into action and maintaining. It's a very dynamic, fluid, moving process. Report an error in the passage at 41:43 Highlight the passage at 41:43

42:12 One of the most difficult facets of this in all areas is areas around efficacy. Not just addiction, but whenever we want to make a change. If we are not able to make that change, it can undermine our sense of efficacy, our feeling that I can do this. Report an error in the passage at 42:12 Highlight the passage at 42:12

42:33 And going back to that idea around pride, the other element that's extremely powerful is judgment. So when someone is trying to make a change and they can't, again, it's very rare to... Try to make a change the first time and be successful. The whole point of me going through these stages of change is to really impress upon you the kind of work in progress element of it. Report an error in the passage at 42:33 Highlight the passage at 42:33

43:06 That it feedbacks on itself. You try to make the change and you learn from your mistake. You learn where... You didn't expect something and then you put that into consideration. Because basically when we're making a change, we're trying to go into a terrain that we haven't been to before. Report an error in the passage at 43:06 Highlight the passage at 43:06

43:32 Now, unfortunately, when there's judgment involved around not being able to do something, around feeling inadequate, around feeling just basically like you're a loser because you weren't successful at making the change, Report an error in the passage at 43:32 Highlight the passage at 43:32

43:53 That's something which has no purpose. And judgment in general, whether judging oneself and judging others. I'm not a big believer in black and white thinking and believing that something is all good or all bad. But from my experience, both personally and clinically, I don't see any use in judgment. It's one thing to be discerning. Report an error in the passage at 43:53 Highlight the passage at 43:53

44:17 It's one thing to have feedback that might be constructive. But judgment is a... It has a quality of it being very toxic and the language of judgment is very subtle and we're constantly doing it. There's a constant inner critic for most people and this mental gossip of, you know, oh, this person is this, that person's that, I'm like this, you know, that's constant. Report an error in the passage at 44:17 Highlight the passage at 44:17

44:43 And that is a very, very powerful stressor and that undermines efficacy and it undermines one's ability to... Feel that they can do it, that they can succeed. Report an error in the passage at 44:43 Highlight the passage at 44:43

45:03 Is there any questions so far? Report an error in the passage at 45:03 Highlight the passage at 45:03

· · · silence, 1 minute

45:35 Why people relapse before they really establish? Well, part of it has to do with what I was speaking about around the sense of self. Report an error in the passage at 45:35 Highlight the passage at 45:35

45:49 What's really at stake with addiction is coming Report an error in the passage at 45:49 Highlight the passage at 45:49

45:59 to a new sense of self. know Report an error in the passage at 45:59 Highlight the passage at 45:59

46:01 When you're involved in an addiction, there's a certain sense of self involved, of who you are as an addict. Me, the addict. Me, with the drug problem. And then when there's the attempt to enter recovery, that requires experiencing yourself in a whole new way. Report an error in the passage at 46:01 Highlight the passage at 46:01

46:33 So someone who's trying to enter recovery... The challenge is to stabilize a new sense of self. Now, among the habit patterns that I was speaking about, it's one thing to have the habit of biting your nails. It's another thing to have the habit of experiencing yourself in a certain way. That habit's way more powerful because that has to do with your sense of safety. Report an error in the passage at 46:33 Highlight the passage at 46:33

47:05 The sense of self is core. Is this making sense? And so when you're faced with the challenge of having to change that habit logically for the better, but your nervous system is not on board with the logic. Your nervous system is on board with what's familiar. And so what ends up happening is within the first year of recovery, really, it's terrifying. Report an error in the passage at 47:05 Highlight the passage at 47:05

47:39 And the person isn't fully able to even let in how terrifying it is. They have to go to new places. You know, the old places that they went to would be triggers. So they have to navigate where they're going. They have to navigate who they're with because the people that they used with can trigger them. Report an error in the passage at 47:39 Highlight the passage at 47:39

48:00 So that's a new thing too. They have to navigate new behaviors. You know, I have someone coming in, you know, 35. Meth addict, has no friends, has been doing meth for 12 years, and his task now is to find some hobbies. It's like, hello, that's a completely tall order for this person to have all these new behaviors. So if you think about what you have to change on an outer level, you have to change who you're with for the most part in general, the people. Report an error in the passage at 48:00 Highlight the passage at 48:00

48:37 At the very least, you can't hang out. In the same way with the people you used to hang out with. You have to change what you're doing. You have to begin engaging in different behaviors. And then you have to also change where you hang out. That's on an outer level. That alone is huge. And then on an inner level, you have to be able to tolerate the unfamiliarity. Report an error in the passage at 48:37 Highlight the passage at 48:37

49:03 So all that combined points in one direction, which is relapse. Which is why... Actually, I think I brought this somewhere. I brought the 12 steps. Report an error in the passage at 49:03 Highlight the passage at 49:03

49:18 The first three steps in the 12 steps is coming to terms with powerlessness, then coming to believe that there's a power greater than what you were experiencing as yourself, and the third is they stay turning it over. steps, um... Report an error in the passage at 49:18 Highlight the passage at 49:18

49:44 So it's an interesting dynamic of experiencing that you've hit the wall. That's the first step. Like the experience of I'm at the end of the rope. I'm at my wit's end. I don't know how to get a handle on this. The second is recognizing refuge. So like the saying of the Buddha, recognize that you're sick. Report an error in the passage at 49:44 Highlight the passage at 49:44

50:12 My teachings are medicine. I'm the physician is basically the first three steps of 12 steps. Recognize that you're not able to handle this on your own with your own devices. If you were, you wouldn't be in the situation. Recognize that there's help that you can avail yourself of. By that, the idea of power greater than yourself, you can think about it in terms of there's help. Report an error in the passage at 50:12 Highlight the passage at 50:12

50:49 There's help that's more knowledgeable, more skillful than what you have at your disposal. And then the third is basically being able to ask for that help. Report an error in the passage at 50:49 Highlight the passage at 50:49

51:11 This is really fundamentally a question of refuge. And the addict relapses because they take refuge. They've been taking refuge in one thing. And now they have to learn to take refuge in something else. And that's a very powerful and not an easy process. Within Buddhism they talk about three kinds of refuge. Even someone, let's say, without the normal addiction, who wants to learn how to take refuge in the Buddha, for example, in that sense. Report an error in the passage at 51:11 Highlight the passage at 51:11

51:55 Even in that case, it's crash and burn. The first refuge they talk about is eager faith. That you see the Dalai Lama and you get really excited and you're like, I want to be like him or something. There's a sense of inspiration. But then you walk out and you're in rush hour and you're flipping people off. There's an eager faith there. Report an error in the passage at 51:55 Highlight the passage at 51:55

52:22 That's the first faith. If there's sort of an ability to stick with it, then the faith moves to vivid faith. And that has to do with coming to a little bit more of an understanding, so it's not just like a feeling level, but coming to more of a real deeper understanding of why it makes sense to apply wisdom teachings to one's life. Report an error in the passage at 52:22 Highlight the passage at 52:22

52:52 And just coming to more of an intellectual understanding. Of, yeah, this makes sense. This corresponds with my experience. And then the third level of faith is confident faith. And that's like experience. You actually experience the benefit of the teaching and it gives you a sense of not only intellectual conviction but experiential. Report an error in the passage at 52:52 Highlight the passage at 52:52

53:23 They say that with confident faith, Even if all the Buddhas of the three times came to tell you you were wrong, you wouldn't believe them. It's like really just experiencing. And that can be true for any wisdom tradition, but the idea is refuge. What are we taking refuge in? So it's a big change that has to occur. Report an error in the passage at 53:23 Highlight the passage at 53:23

53:49 Does that answer your question? Report an error in the passage at 53:49 Highlight the passage at 53:49

· · · silence, 1 minute

54:22 I mean, if we're to really look at the effects of addiction, like I said before, only about 5 % manage to eliminate the harm of using in their life. Now, I have patients who, you know, for the past year, they've been quite happy with coming to the agreement with me that they'll have five drinks Saturday night and five drinks Friday night and two drinks every other night. Report an error in the passage at 54:22 Highlight the passage at 54:22

54:54 That, for them, is something they're happy with. The Food and Drug Administration recommends that if you have more than two drinks a night, you're risking your health. So the FDA guideline is two drinks. Now, in that instance where this patient, they're having ten drinks on the weekend, that's bad for them. Report an error in the passage at 54:54 Highlight the passage at 54:54

55:16 But given where they were, they're in a better situation than where they were. I wouldn't say that there's a very, you know, it's very rare to come to a place where it's not harming you because the addiction piece is so deeply ingrained that for the most part there is an element, there'll be an area of your life that's being compromised. Report an error in the passage at 55:16 Highlight the passage at 55:16

55:45 But I'm also a very big believer in harm reduction, which has to do with reducing the harm as opposed to... Believing that you're either completely eliminated the harm or you're a complete failure. So in harm reduction, what they try to do is reduce the harm and also extend the periods of abstinence. Report an error in the passage at 55:45 Highlight the passage at 55:45

56:10 So success is by how long you're able to go without using as opposed to, so if you've gone six months and haven't used and then you relapse, And that was the longest you've gone. Well, that's a success because that's the longest you've gone and haven't used. I'd like to think overall recovery is like a garden and you're planting seeds. Report an error in the passage at 56:10 Highlight the passage at 56:10

56:36 So if you think about it, a garden doesn't get destroyed if you don't water it for a week. You know, there is an element of people really feeling like their recovery was thrown away when they've had, let's say, 10 years of recovery and then they relapse. Report an error in the passage at 56:36 Highlight the passage at 56:36

56:54 The point is that the assumption is that during those 10 years they've been working on themselves. And so I think that in terms of it's not a black and white thing. I don't think of like either you're not an addict anymore and you're in recovery or you're a complete failure with this. The whole point is to come to a point of gray. Now for most people there is that element of not drinking. Report an error in the passage at 56:54 Highlight the passage at 56:54

57:24 And that's very important. But there's a lot of other elements that have to, I think, be considered with people who do still drink. And it doesn't mean necessarily that they're going to go completely crash and burn either. They can be reducing the harm. Report an error in the passage at 57:24 Highlight the passage at 57:24

57:53 Well, I don't know the name of the group. I know that the schools involve harm reduction and relapse prevention are the schools, but I don't know the name of the... Report an error in the passage at 57:53 Highlight the passage at 57:53

58:06 You mean like Rational Recovery? Life Ring and Rational Recovery are two major organizations that don't appeal to the theistic component of God. Report an error in the passage at 58:06 Highlight the passage at 58:06

58:22 There's lots of AA groups that don't either, but do have that element of a higher power. Report an error in the passage at 58:22 Highlight the passage at 58:22

58:37 It might be Rational Recovery. Report an error in the passage at 58:37 Highlight the passage at 58:37

58:48 Well, the idea of a functional... Report an error in the passage at 58:48 Highlight the passage at 58:48

59:00 Well, I mean, I think that's a situation of semantics. I mean, the idea of functional... What do we mean by functional? They can go to work? Yeah, there are lots of people like that. Are they growing spiritually and psychologically? Probably not. If you're medicating yourself, it's a question of self-medication. Report an error in the passage at 59:00 Highlight the passage at 59:00

59:23 Just being able to go to work or being in a loveless marriage doesn't require maybe that much. Being able to thrive in your life... It requires being able to process emotions, be in touch with emotions and be in touch with goals and have the energy to act out those goals. The functional alcoholic situation could mean many things, but it usually doesn't mean that this person is growing. It means this person is maintaining. Report an error in the passage at 59:23 Highlight the passage at 59:23

1:00:04 So going to, on a more subtle level, the idea of working Report an error in the passage at 1:00:04 Highlight the passage at 1:00:04

1:00:16 with our mind. Because fundamentally this topic of addiction has to do with working with how one is experiencing oneself. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:16 Highlight the passage at 1:00:16

1:00:31 And within Buddhist philosophy this has to do with the basic idea that on a fundamental level we're all addicts. And what we're addicted to is self-importance. It's one of the reasons I think... It was very insightful in that book that I mentioned earlier, Neurosis and Human Growth, that the main fundamental hang-up for human beings in terms of the field of psychology is pride. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:31 Highlight the passage at 1:00:31

1:01:08 Because it relates very much to this issue of self-importance. The self-importance basically being this agenda around who we think we are. An experience of ourselves as this unified, permanent thing called me. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:08 Highlight the passage at 1:01:08

1:01:35 And so that becomes the basis for what is considered the five poisons in Buddhism. I'm not sure, are people familiar with the five poisons? So desire, pride, jealousy, anger, ignorance. are the fruits of the experience of oneself in a way that one isn't. One is not a unified, permanent entity. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:35 Highlight the passage at 1:01:35

1:02:09 But we experience ourselves that way. The analogy often is like a snake when you walk into a room and you see what looks like a snake, but it's a colored rope. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:09 Highlight the passage at 1:02:09

1:02:26 And so it's not... Existing the way it appears. And the way we're experiencing ourselves, we don't exist the way we experience ourselves. We experience ourselves in a way that doesn't exist. And that is a very fundamental basis for the distress that occurs. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:26 Highlight the passage at 1:02:26

1:02:49 If we think about the idea around our desires and How oftentimes when we want something, everything else sort of fades to black and we begin just like a runaway train going right for that. Well, that's a real reflection of, again, how we're not really thinking about impermanence. And everyone here can agree that everything's impermanent. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:49 Highlight the passage at 1:02:49

1:03:28 The extent to which we can experience something like impermanence, to that extent... We're not as hooked into whatever it is that's hooking us. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:28 Highlight the passage at 1:03:28

1:03:45 To understand this Report an error in the passage at 1:03:45 Highlight the passage at 1:03:45

1:03:52 ability to reduce self-importance is the basis for being able to understand how someone else has needs and how we're stepping on their toes sometimes when we're trying to get something, when we're trying to move and attain what we want. So this issue of self-importance is related to not only Report an error in the passage at 1:03:52 Highlight the passage at 1:03:52

1:04:15 we can be seeing things inaccurately but also how we can be causing suffering can be compromising and stepping over others a way that's creating more suffering them for The basic principle here is understanding the cause of the suffering. When we're finding ourselves... Report an error in the passage at 1:04:15 Highlight the passage at 1:04:15

1:04:48 The question is, why? And when we look at it from a Buddhist framework, the cause of suffering has to do with this mistake, mistaken perception in how we're experiencing ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:48 Highlight the passage at 1:04:48

1:05:09 And then when Report an error in the passage at 1:05:09 Highlight the passage at 1:05:09

1:05:14 we have an understanding of that, then the question becomes, what do we do about it? In terms of the sitting practice of meditation, it's one of the most, it's in my opinion, the only way to fully address this mistake. Because the mistake that we're talking about has to do with experiencing ourselves in a certain way and then the sitting practice of meditation involves reversing that habit. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:14 Highlight the passage at 1:05:14

1:05:51 And the way you're reversing that habit... Is by not engaging in the thought process that is involved in creating that story and that sense of who we are. It's experiencing awareness. It's experiencing what's considered the nature of mind and not the thoughts. Because when we think about ourselves, we think about who we think we are. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:51 Highlight the passage at 1:05:51

1:06:23 The story that's related to who we are, the identity, the memory. I am such and such a person with such and such a partner and I drive such and such a car and I was born in such and such a country. And this sense of continuity is very much related to a thought process, mental process. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:23 Highlight the passage at 1:06:23

1:06:47 And I find it even more powerful than therapy because with therapy you're... There's a testimony, there's someone who's witnessing and there's a thought process involved that's being reaffirmed. Not to say that we can't have more functional thought processes, but at the very root of it, when you think about, from a Buddhist framework, what is the root cause of suffering? Report an error in the passage at 1:06:47 Highlight the passage at 1:06:47

1:07:12 The root cause of suffering involves, at the end of the day, a belief in a concrete... create self. So by being able to practice a way of not following the thoughts, but allowing the thoughts to come up, but also not following them, you're reducing that solid story. It's the sitting practice of meditation. I'm just wondering, can I see a raise of hands of people who don't meditate or have never meditated? Report an error in the passage at 1:07:12 Highlight the passage at 1:07:12

1:07:47 So you guys all meditate? Okay, good. Then I don't have to give a preface about meditation. So, I like Pema Chodron. She talks very nicely about this process of this sort of subtle addiction that we're involved with. She talks about it in terms of how this belief in this concrete self that's unchanging is very obvious when we get, she says, hooked. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:47 Highlight the passage at 1:07:47

1:08:24 And by hooked, there's a term there called shenpa. And by that it means... A very strong reaction to something. So it's one thing to kind of get distracted because you forgot to buy the milk at the grocery store. It's another thing to get distracted because you saw someone who took your job and you hate them. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:24 Highlight the passage at 1:08:24

1:08:49 And you get all this anger come up. Or you see someone who your wife cheated on you with. You get all this... You get all this emotion. The five poisons that I mentioned earlier, those are very much related to our style. So if our style is one of jealousy, then we tend to get especially hooked in those types of situations. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:49 Highlight the passage at 1:08:49

1:09:17 If our style is one of anger, then we get especially hooked in those situations. The hook has to do with this very strong reaction that occurs. And we each have a very different... Not a very different. We each have different hook points at different times. And those hook points can be categorized in one of those five elements. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:17 Highlight the passage at 1:09:17

1:09:39 Anger, pride, jealousy, desire. So this creates a reaction. And it's not just a thought. It's actually a thought that has a lot of emotional juice to it. And it's then that we can see how we're experiencing ourselves. We are experiencing ourselves at that moment as a unified, solid thing. It's very tangible. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:39 Highlight the passage at 1:09:39

1:10:09 You can really feel that self as the solid thing. It has an extremely powerful felt sense when you are angry and you want to scream at someone. You're experiencing yourself in a very powerful way that's inaccurate. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:09 Highlight the passage at 1:10:09

1:10:32 Um. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:32 Highlight the passage at 1:10:32

1:10:37 That oftentimes is related to, there's a very famous quotation, the Indian Saint Talopa, he said to his student Naropa, he said that perceptions don't harm you, it's your reaction to them that harm you. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:37 Highlight the passage at 1:10:37

1:10:57 So just seeing all these images and things and seeing the enemy and seeing the lover. That's all fine, but it's this reaction that we get hooked into that creates the problem. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:57 Highlight the passage at 1:10:57

1:11:13 So she talks about the four R's in terms of recognize what's happening first. And that's the first point of the mindfulness. Whether it's an addiction, whether it's an urge, or whether it's... Report an error in the passage at 1:11:13 Highlight the passage at 1:11:13

1:11:39 Some other reaction we're having. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:39 Highlight the passage at 1:11:39

1:11:46 One of the things that they found interestingly in studies on depression and anxiety is they found that people who suffer from depression, it's not that they have more depressing thoughts or it's not that the amount of thoughts is more, that someone who's depressed has more depressing thoughts. They found that Someone with depression, it's just that the depressing thoughts snowball faster. So if you think about a mountain, it's sort of like an incline, and if you have a snowball, and it takes a while for that snowball to get big, and then if that same snowball is like on K2, like a really steep mountain, then it's going to get big very fast. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:46 Highlight the passage at 1:11:46

1:12:37 And when we think about things like compulsions, In addiction or anxiety or depression, that just means that with that particular situation, we have a very steep incline and we'll go from zero to 60 much faster. So if someone has a vulnerability to depression, they might pass someone and the person might look at them a weird way and they might get much more upset quickly. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:37 Highlight the passage at 1:12:37

1:13:11 There's sort of a tendency issue happening. So this first point of recognizing is especially critical because in that instance you're catching it and you're nipping it in the bud. You're nipping the energy in the bud. It's really critical. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:11 Highlight the passage at 1:13:11

1:13:33 And then the next R, you know, there are four R's. The next R is to relax. It's one of my favorite, you know. We don't hear that enough. Where you're kind of in the midst of a lot of suffering. You want to yell at someone. Or you're about to go for a run and buy whatever drug it is that you're addicted to. Or you're having a fit of jealousy. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:33 Highlight the passage at 1:13:33

1:14:05 Whatever it is, in that moment of recognizing the next instruction is to relax. And that has to do with how... Able we are in dropping the story. She oftentimes says, drop the story, stay with the experience, drop the storyline. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:05 Highlight the passage at 1:14:05

1:14:29 And that's a very powerful thing because one of my questions for many years was, if I'm going to be a good meditator and if I'm going to not follow these thoughts, how do I do that and not repress my emotions? Report an error in the passage at 1:14:29 Highlight the passage at 1:14:29

1:14:50 And it became more and more clear that I didn't have to repress the emotions. It was just a question of, like she was saying, you drop the mental gossip. You drop the story. You have the emotion, whether it's anger or desire. That's there. But we're sort of not feeding it. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:50 Highlight the passage at 1:14:50

1:15:18 And then as one of my meditation teachers once said, if you want something to die, don't feed it. So when you don't feed it, it doesn't continue. But a lot of times, going back to that idea of familiarity, we're really invested in that emotion. If we're someone who tends to be the jealous type, we, in a way, it's kind of more entertaining to be in that space. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:18 Highlight the passage at 1:15:18

1:15:45 It's what we know. It's what we're familiar with. And we just sort of like to, without really admitting it, feed it. Spend hours thinking about it. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:45 Highlight the passage at 1:15:45

1:15:56 If we're all about desire and greed, I mean thinking about all the financiers of the world, how much time they must spend thinking about gaining. So that mental habit is very powerful. And one of the surprises, I think, of meditation is how invested we are in the story. How invested we are in the gossip. We don't like to believe that we are. But for most people there's an extremely strong investment in that entertainment. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:56 Highlight the passage at 1:15:56

1:16:47 Then the next R is to refrain. So if you think about it as like an itch, you recognize the itch, you relax and then you refrain from itching. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:47 Highlight the passage at 1:16:47

1:17:03 It's very basic. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:03 Highlight the passage at 1:17:03

1:17:13 Just those three, they include, I mean if you think about the, there's a famous, famously all of the Buddha's teachings can be put into three phrases. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:13 Highlight the passage at 1:17:13

1:17:30 Cultivate a wealth of virtue, commit not a single unwholesome action, cultivate a wealth of virtue, tame this mind. And if we think about the three R's of recognize, Report an error in the passage at 1:17:30 Highlight the passage at 1:17:30

1:17:44 And relax and refrain. That's two of the three right there. Commit not a single unwholesome virtue. Tame this mind. That's two of the three in just those three R's. Of recognizing with mindfulness and relaxing so that you can refrain. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:44 Highlight the passage at 1:17:44

1:18:14 Now, there are thousands of skillful means in being able to do this. And that is, I find to be, particularly what for me is very important and significant as far as my own personal life, is whatever connection one has to whatever wisdom tradition, it has to make sense for them to be able to use the tools. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:14 Highlight the passage at 1:18:14

1:18:46 The tools involving being able to relax and refrain from continuing to harm oneself and others. When we think about in the case of the Buddhist teachings, they say there's 84,000 skillful means in being able to enact this ability to refrain from harm and to tame the mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:46 Highlight the passage at 1:18:46

1:19:15 The fourth R, so the first one, recognize, relax, refrain, and then the fourth R is repeat. Just do it over and over. There have been millions of moments of acting out negatively and those are purified by moments of refraining. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:15 Highlight the passage at 1:19:15

1:19:43 And then understanding why one is refraining is much more powerful karmically too. When we think about karma, what we're talking about is habit patterns that get more powerful. the habit patterns get so powerful that they That they force us to see reality in a certain way. And so that outer reality changes when those habit patterns also change. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:43 Highlight the passage at 1:19:43

1:20:13 But it's not, but it's much more a question, you know, it's not just a question of like wanting to believe that you're rich and then getting rich. You know, or wanting to believe that you don't have a problem and then you don't have a problem. You have to put, you have to place the causes. Okay, you have to have the cause. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:13 Highlight the passage at 1:20:13

1:20:32 So those causes, the cause for peace, the cause for happiness, the cause for wealth or contentment, those causes begin with over and over again planting the seeds. And each of those experiences have particular causes. So in being able to develop generosity as a way of counteracting selfishness. That's planting a seed. And whenever there's that ability to refrain, then what occurs a lot of times is an ability to act with more wisdom. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:32 Highlight the passage at 1:20:32

1:21:17 So the capacity to not yell back, to relax and to refrain from yelling creates the causes and conditions of patience, of forbearing. And that capacity to be patient, to actually being able to not yell back and to practice patience, will have two effects. Either the person you're angry at will disappear from your life or they'll become your friend. And that's within the teachings of the Buddha regarded as 100%. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:17 Highlight the passage at 1:21:17

1:21:54 In terms of karma, they say you can think about how things happen or you can think about why things happen. For the most part, we are very much wrapped up in why things happen. In terms of if I want to make money, which stock should I invest in or something. Now in terms of why things happen, that has to always be the case. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:54 Highlight the passage at 1:21:54

1:22:25 According to Buddhist logic, if I'm going to develop contentment and material wealth, The cause is generosity. That's why. And according to Buddhist logic, that has to always be the case. But if I'm going to invest my money in the stock market, sometimes I'm going to get money, sometimes I'm going to lose money. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:25 Highlight the passage at 1:22:25

1:22:47 According to Buddhist logic, that's not why, that's how. How something happens is not why it happens. And being able to understand that if I don't yell back, then this person will become my friend or they'll disappear. That's the Prajnaparamita piece. That's wisdom of patience. So it's more than just patience at that point. You guys heard of the Prajnaparamita? Report an error in the passage at 1:22:47 Highlight the passage at 1:22:47

1:23:14 That's practicing patience with wisdom. So when you practice patience with wisdom, when you practice generosity with wisdom, that makes the power of the karma much more powerful. And there is a result. There is a fruit. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:14 Highlight the passage at 1:23:14

1:23:34 And that becomes the third piece of the Buddha's teachings to cultivate a wealth of virtue. So the first piece being commit not a single unwholesome action, cultivate a wealth of virtue, tame this mind. Those three are involved in the four R's that Pema Chodron was talking about. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:34 Highlight the passage at 1:23:34

1:24:03 Any questions? Report an error in the passage at 1:24:03 Highlight the passage at 1:24:03

1:24:11 So I thought I would end with a practice. Called Self Tonglen. Has anyone here not heard of Tonglen? You guys are all veteran Buddhists. You guys have heard everything I bring up. Has anyone here ever not done Self Tonglen? Have you heard of Self Tonglen? Do you know what that is? Report an error in the passage at 1:24:11 Highlight the passage at 1:24:11

1:24:35 Self Tonglen is a practice that Sogyo Rinpoche in his book, Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, wrote about. And, um... Report an error in the passage at 1:24:35 Highlight the passage at 1:24:35

1:24:53 I think it's a very powerful practice for this day and age because I think so much in our culture there's a lot of energy spent in beating ourselves up, judging ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:53 Highlight the passage at 1:24:53

1:25:10 I'm reminded of a conference with His Holiness the Dalai Lama when there were many Western teachers there and one of the Western teachers asked His Holiness about Low self-esteem. And the Dalai Lama asked his translator, what does he mean by low self-esteem? And there wasn't really a proper translation that was able to be had. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:10 Highlight the passage at 1:25:10

1:25:40 And that really spoke to, in some ways, why something like South Tonglen could be very powerful for Western practitioners in this day and age. The practice of the self-tongue lend is something which can be extremely beneficial in addiction because the addictive process is so much about not beating yourself up. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:40 Highlight the passage at 1:25:40

1:26:12 One of my teachers talked about the addiction process as the fallout as being part of the payoff. Going back to what I was saying before around that investment. Towards experiencing ourselves in a certain way, oftentimes compelled us to sabotage, to sabotage success, because we were so used to this roller coaster, this yo-yo of feeling great and feeling low. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:12 Highlight the passage at 1:26:12

1:26:44 And so he often talked about that using and then crashing is part of the payoff. And so the self-tongue Lens is extremely... useful working with that. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:44 Highlight the passage at 1:26:44

1:27:04 energy of wanting to judge ourselves beat ourselves up. Pema Chodron talks about it as ventilation, that you're kind of allowing some air to come in and ventilate the intensity of the emotion, the stressing emotion. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:04 Highlight the passage at 1:27:04

· · · silence, 1 minute

1:28:08 I hate putting this on. That's a really good question because that has to do with the, I mean there's a whole, there's a whole faction of 12 Steps devoted to family members who have people who are dealing with those issues. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:08 Highlight the passage at 1:28:08

1:28:33 I think I brought something for that. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:33 Highlight the passage at 1:28:33

1:28:42 There is, Report an error in the passage at 1:28:42 Highlight the passage at 1:28:42

1:28:52 these are all things I brought out for talking about Report an error in the passage at 1:28:52 Highlight the passage at 1:28:52

1:29:00 The issue of codependency. And I believe Robina is going to be giving a talk on codependency. Is that true? And I would really recommend going to that because that is a topic in and of itself. The basic challenge with what you're asking has to do with being able to really discern. Whether what you're doing has to do more for trying to alleviate your anxiety or whether it's more for genuinely wanting to give that person what they're able to receive. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:00 Highlight the passage at 1:29:00

1:29:49 When we talk about addiction, the person is often not in a place of being able to receive help. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:49 Highlight the passage at 1:29:49

1:30:00 And that's mainly because of those defense mechanisms. That I was talking about. So what often occurs is the family member will bend over backwards because they're feeling anxious, they're feeling upset. And because they're uncomfortable in that state, they are bending over backwards to have this person change what they're doing. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:00 Highlight the passage at 1:30:00

1:30:30 But if you really check... You'll notice that you're doing what you're doing a lot of the times because of your discomfort. So that's the itch for you, is recognizing your discomfort and then relaxing. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:30 Highlight the passage at 1:30:30

1:30:48 Does that make sense? Report an error in the passage at 1:30:48 Highlight the passage at 1:30:48

1:30:53 And then also, since we're doing self-Tonglen, what makes a lot of sense too in that situation is Tonglen. Are you familiar with Tonglen? Report an error in the passage at 1:30:53 Highlight the passage at 1:30:53

1:31:04 Okay. The lights dim? Report an error in the passage at 1:31:04 Highlight the passage at 1:31:04

1:31:13 That's fine. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:13 Highlight the passage at 1:31:13

1:31:31 Facilitating can be done for another, and that will make sense at the end of the medication. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:31 Highlight the passage at 1:31:31

1:31:43 To just begin with your body posture in a relaxed place, back straight, Report an error in the passage at 1:31:43 Highlight the passage at 1:31:43

1:32:00 kind of first being in touch with the body, Report an error in the passage at 1:32:00 Highlight the passage at 1:32:00

1:32:21 arrive at its own rhythm. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:21 Highlight the passage at 1:32:21

· · · silence, 1 minute

1:33:04 And then imagining that your left side, or an experience of one part of you, involves the part of you that is wise, Report an error in the passage at 1:33:04 Highlight the passage at 1:33:04

1:33:49 allowing that Report an error in the passage at 1:33:49 Highlight the passage at 1:33:49

1:33:53 The experience of those parts of you to come forward. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:53 Highlight the passage at 1:33:53

1:34:14 And then also, maybe perhaps on your right side, or however it is easy for you, to get in touch with the part of you that is scared, Report an error in the passage at 1:34:14 Highlight the passage at 1:34:14

1:34:39 is secure, Report an error in the passage at 1:34:39 Highlight the passage at 1:34:39

1:34:45 satisfied. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:45 Highlight the passage at 1:34:45

1:35:01 Basically the parts of you that you wish were not there. And Report an error in the passage at 1:35:01 Highlight the passage at 1:35:01

1:35:23 just noticing that. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:23 Highlight the passage at 1:35:23

1:35:45 Again, the part of you that's wide. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:45 Highlight the passage at 1:35:45

· · · silence, 1 minute

1:36:23 Breathe in. Breathe in, in the form of black smoke, the Report an error in the passage at 1:36:23 Highlight the passage at 1:36:23

1:36:31 powerful and wide part of you. Breathe in, in the form of black smoke, all the negativity and limitations of your scared parts and the parts that you wish were not there. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:31 Highlight the passage at 1:36:31

1:36:53 Breathe in this black smoke and it gets transformed, the black smoke, in white healing, powerfully bright light. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:53 Highlight the passage at 1:36:53

1:37:12 To the part of you that needs healing. Doing Report an error in the passage at 1:37:12 Highlight the passage at 1:37:12

1:37:21 exactly what that part of you needs. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:21 Highlight the passage at 1:37:21

1:37:49 Healing energy of whatever is needed. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:49 Highlight the passage at 1:37:49

1:37:55 And just doing that for a few minutes. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:55 Highlight the passage at 1:37:55

· · · silence, 8 minutes

1:45:42 Issues. Report an error in the passage at 1:45:42 Highlight the passage at 1:45:42

1:45:46 Basically the dangers to bypass difficult issues by using spirituality. It's called spiritual bypassing. There's Report an error in the passage at 1:45:46 Highlight the passage at 1:45:46

1:45:58 a psychological problem. I don't want to say that meditation is not. But there's a danger that it can be used. Eat frog. So Report an error in the passage at 1:45:58 Highlight the passage at 1:45:58

1:46:23 I think it's always a good thing and it can always improve whatever process one is involved in. Report an error in the passage at 1:46:23 Highlight the passage at 1:46:23

· · · silence, 1 minute

1:47:45 just started studying psychology because I was interested in combining it with you, you know. Report an error in the passage at 1:47:45 Highlight the passage at 1:47:45