Book Study – Start Here Now – by Susan Piver
Hello Friends,
This month, we continue our three-part series exploring Mindfulness Routines. This month, we sought outside wisdom by reading Start Here Now: An Open-Hearted Guide to the Path and Practice of Meditation by Susan Piver. We both appreciated the accessibility of this book and recommend it to aspiring and experienced mediators alike. Enjoy!
Until next time, Be well friends!
Video:
Audio only:
Assignment For This Month
We encourage you to pick up this book by Susan Piver (don’t forget you can check in your local library) and use the seven-day meditation challenge in the back as homework.
We’re challenging you to meditate every day, or seven days, as it says in the book. But we would like to extend it to the month until our next podcast. Begin practicing every day and see how it goes.
We think it’s approachable, and this book helps a lot if you don’t know where to start or if that sounds overwhelming. Start where you are, and start where you can. Find something sustainable for you, and start meditating.
Show Notes & Links
- Related Episode: S2E01-Mindfulness Routines Pt 1: Meditation Every Day
- Book: Start Here Now – Susan Piver
- Find out more about Susan Piver on her website: The Open Heart Project
Transcript
S2 E02 Mindfulness Routines Part 2: Book Study – Start Here Now
Maria: Hello and welcome to the becoming mindful podcast. In this episode, we’re bringing in some outside wisdom by reviewing Susan Piper’s book Start Here Now. I am Maria.
Jackie: And I am Jackie, and we are Becoming Mindful.
Well, welcome back, everyone. We’d like to start our episode again with a short practice. I thought today we could just do some centering breath work. It’s some really quick, short thing that I think you can take away from this podcast and use as a resource anytime in your day.
So find a comfortable seat wherever you are. You can do this almost anywhere, but if you sit, get your feet flat on the ground. Sit comfortably in your chair, give your weight to your chair, and let your shoulders draw down your back, and if it’s comfortable, you can close your eyes. If not, you can leave your eyes open, take a soft gaze, and just let yourself settle here.
Take a few natural breaths and start to feel your breath.
Notice where you feel your breath the most. Maybe you feel it in your belly expanding. Maybe you feel the breath coming in and exiting your nostrils.
Maybe you feel it in your spine lengthening. Take a minute to tune in.
Allow everything else to melt away. If any other thoughts come up, just simply gently let them go and return back to your breath.
Just notice the quality of your breathing.
On your next inhale, take a deep inhale as big as you can. Really fill up your lungs and expand your belly 360 degrees. And at the top of this breath, open your mouth and exhale it all out. Let it go. Let yourself fall all the way to the bottom of that exhale. And then repeat this. Take a deep inhale. Full big inhale.
Open mouth. Exhale, let it go.
Do this one more time. Big inhale. Expanding your lungs, bringing in as much air as you can. And at the top, open your mouth, maybe even sigh as you exhale, let it all go,
and then allow yourself to rest at the bottom of this exhale for a moment,
Then, let your inhalation naturally happen, and as it does, just return to natural breathing.
Take a couple of breaths here, place your mind on the breath, and just notice any changes.
Has the quality of your breath changed? Has the quality of your thoughts changed?
An invitation here to repeat those big, deep breaths as much as you need.
Otherwise, just notice any calmness or clarity or peace that it creates,
and try not to fill it back up.
Take a couple more breaths here.
Allow yourself to be in the stillness.
When you’re ready, you can gently open your eyes and return back to the present. Welcome back. Thank you for sharing that short practice with us.
And with that clarity and little moment of peace that we’ve created, let’s dive into Start Here Now by Susan Piper.
Maria: Yes, let’s do that. Yeah.
Yeah, I think to start out, I wanted to just mention how I was really touched by the book. I think she did a really wonderful job connecting, and I also like the flow of the conversation. The structure is a nice curve of how to lead you through all this, starting with the benefits, what meditation is, we’ve discussed this before, too, what it is not, and what some misconceptions are, and then she goes into the kinds of meditations, talking a little bit about her practice, how to choose meditations. Then, I will end it with really practical questions, such as how you meditate, tips, going into the posture, and setting up your space. And going through obstacles when they get hard, which resonated a lot with me. Yeah.
Jackie: Yeah. I agree. I agree. I really love how accessible the book is. And full disclosure, I’ve said this before, but I learned meditation from Susan Piver and went through her meditation instructor training as well. Her style resonated with me a lot. But I really appreciated this book because it wasn’t just centered on her style of meditation.
It was really this broad picture about meditation. And when you’re starting a practice, the things to consider and how to find your approach to it. And it’s really very open to help anyone get a feel for it. Okay, what really is meditation, and how do I get started? And maybe you want to go down the route of her lineage and training and style.
But if you don’t, there are resources in there, too, to find what works for you, why hers might not, and what might be better for you. I like that it wasn’t just; this is the style to do, and this is how you do it. Because it worked for me, it should work for you. It wasn’t like that at all.
So I really appreciate that about her style.
Maria: Yeah. I have to agree. And I really liked the approachableness. It’s easy to relate to her. You know, sometimes when you read mindfulness or meditation instructions or books about it, it comes off a little bit removed, like the person is almost hard to relate to. That wasn’t the case with her at all. She’s still very, very real. She’s keeping it real. Which I really loved. Because it resonated, although I love hearing all kinds of different experiences, her being a woman and just talking about her experience in the West made it a lot more relatable to me personally.
Jackie: That’s a good point. Yeah. A lot of the meditation instruction that you find is from men and not so much from a Western perspective. And she really does a nice job finding a bridge there,
Maria: Yeah. Yeah.
We also approach it from the way of some of the hurdles and obstacles that might be specific to that path. Because of all the books we’ve read so far, I really loved them. But some of them, if they come from a different culture or are men, for example, it is just a little bit harder not to get this feeling of, yeah, but you had a different experience, right?
Jackie: Right.
Maria: Not get this voice that is saying, yeah, but they didn’t have to deal with X or whatever. I think that helped a lot.
Jackie: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And just from an everyday person perspective, I really love the kinds of questions that she answers because, when you’re meditating, things come up, that, what do I do if my leg itches and for me, when I was starting out like that feels like a dumb question to ask.
What do I do if my leg itches? But I think everyone goes through that. Everyone’s like, well, what do I do if this weird thing happens or, well, I shouldn’t say weird, like a normal thing. I have an itch, or I get distracted. What happens? And those are the real questions about meditation.
How do I actually put this into practice in a normal everyday life where I have discomforts that come up, or I have distractions that come up, or there’s a life going on around me? What do I do? And to your point, she’s a real person with a regular life, and that’s how she approaches it.
And this is a path that I can actually see myself taking.
Maria: Yeah. Agreed. Yeah. Because, again, she addresses many things that keep you from meditating, she is very approachable.
Jackie: Mm
Maria: like I felt, in the chapter about obstacles and the antidotes for obstacles, which I
really loved. She goes through all of that so wonderfully, and maybe this is something that I felt was a little bit missing from some of the other resources that I’ve read in the past.
Jackie: Mm hmm. And she comes at it with Buddhist wisdom and Buddhist philosophy, which is her lineage and her training. But in a way that you don’t have to be Buddhist. It’s just talking about humans and what humans go through. With that caveat where, yes, she learned it through her Buddhist teachings, but this is how it applies to just people.
Maria: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that brought up one of the misconceptions about Buddhism too. It lends itself to be, to work, cross religion. Let’s say it this way. I think she put it even Buddhism is not as theism. It’s more of a philosophy.
Jackie: Yeah.
It was nice to kind of reflect on that a little bit, too, because I think that’s one of the hesitations people might feel when listening to some of this wisdom. That they’re worried that they’re somehow indoctrinated or led away from their own religious path, from their own faith, which is not the case.
I think she might say something like this in the book, but there’s nothing religious about, sitting and paying attention to your breath. It can span across any number of beliefs. It’s not in conflict.
Maria: Yeah. Yeah. She also mentioned that when she’s talking about setting up your meditation space, you do it in the way that feels right to you. And if there’s some of your faith in there, then it’s there too.
Jackie: Right, right. Really about making it your own and making it, helping you take your path, whatever your individual path is. This is a tool that can help you to continue that path, not distract you from it.
Maria: Exactly. I think what also stood out to me is your own path. She does say that finding the right meditation practice is a very personal and intimate matter. But she also talks about, yes, try different things and find the one that you fall in love with, right? But then she also talks about how it’s very important to, even if you try out different things, not do them simultaneously or mix them, right? To do it consecutively. If you do this particular type or this particular philosophy or this particular lineage, do it fully; I like how she put it: the practice demands your respect, so you are respected back, right?
Jackie: Mm
Maria: and then, if you want to try other things, do them on a separate day, or what, do them fully, by themselves too. Follow all the steps in the instructions.
Don’t shortchange it, right? Because you’ll miss something there, and it’s not going to. Work out as well, as long as you follow the rules. And
I know that stuck out to me because I know myself; I want to adapt stuff all the time. And this is something that stopped me a little bit in my tracks because I’m like, yeah, you know what?
I’m doing that. I do that stuff. I do that. And I like to do that. I like to mix and match, but it is something that makes sense not to do.
Jackie: hmm. Mm
Maria: it’s like when I’m looking at my path of figuring out my ancestors and where I’m coming from, where my ancestors are from, and what their maybe traditions or beliefs were like, it doesn’t really make sense to mix, and match either.
You almost have to research each side individually. And then pick one because otherwise, you will lose the wholeness of the concept, right? You lose the,
Jackie: hmm.
Maria: the big picture.
Jackie: Yeah, that’s another point that she made that ties in really nicely here that choose a style that is thousands of years old, and I really appreciate that because, you know, over thousands of years, these styles have been pruned and honed to Really just get down to what works and what makes sense and what is tried and true through the ages.
And so that’s why mixing and matching, we don’t have thousands of years of wisdom to mix and match those that’s been done for us. We can look at these styles and say, okay, these people have been doing this this way for this long, and this is what’s working, and they’ve pruned what doesn’t work.
It’s about trusting ancestral knowledge, what has come out of it, and what they have learned because it’s not one individual person. There are individual figures that we can point to who have really honed different styles or different philosophies.
However, the practitioners, over time, are the ones who carry it and come to understand it. Susan Piper mentions in the book and from my own personal experience, too, there are things that, okay, I’m going to do this just because they say I should do it like this, and I don’t know why, but I’m going to try it.
And then it might take years. And then I’m like, Oh, that’s why they were like, I’m starting to embody that, or it’s starting to permeate me. And it can start to make sense. Maybe it does not make sense in the way that I wanted it to, maybe I can’t explain it still, but I can feel it in my bones, and I’m like, okay, when I don’t do it like this, it’s not working. It’s not flowing.
So there’s truth to it, but it’s deep. It’s in there somewhere.
Maria: Yeah, and I think it also gives the view on when you’re starting out, when you’re new to something, Mm hmm. You don’t have the clarity on this topic to decide what to cut out or not, right? You first have to experience it, and that’s what I liked she was talking about.
You have to experience it, and yes, there may come a point at some point where you figure out why this was done, right? It becomes clear to you. Or that you can eventually figure out, no, this is consistently not working for me,
Jackie: right?
You can’t do that right away because you just don’t know. I noticed that with me, too, is the intellectualizing. You think you know because you intellectually know.
Maria: But you don’t have the, let’s see it, the muscle memory for it, like you just don’t know it from your body. You haven’t internalized it yet, you don’t have to know and, and I know I’m definitely one for intellectualizing stuff, and I always have to remind myself of, no, this is an illusion of knowledge because you only have a slice, a part of the knowledge, like knowing stuff with your mind while it’s great and I love, knowing things and figuring
out things. And that’s why I love science so much, too, because it’s just fascinating learning new things. But a lot of it is, you learn it with your mind. You can learn a whole book full of all of the plants that are native in your region and know what they look like from the pictures, but unless you actually go out and forage, then you only have a part of the knowledge, right?
Jackie: Yeah. Yeah. There’s definitely a really big part of this, that is humility in that sense for those of us who like to intellectualize things because there’s part of it where I want to understand what I’m doing. Otherwise, I feel, I can feel foolish doing something that I don’t understand.
Like, why am I doing this? Someone told me to? There’s a part where you must say, okay, I don’t understand this enough, but I trust this practice. I trust it to reveal to me and be what it needs to be without being able to explain it to myself or explain it to other people.
There are many times in this book where Susan Piver says, this is how you do it, and I don’t know why, but this is how it’s done.
Maria: And it works.
Jackie: yeah, and it works. And I really appreciate that, but that’s a hard thing to do, to be like, I am doing this thing. I don’t know why, but I trust the practice. I trust the process and just be there for it, show up for it, and surrender to it. And I definitely have an intellectual resistance to that,
Maria: Absolutely. And I’ve come from a family where that’s also a big thing. It’s you trust in the science, you trust in the intellectual part, that’s where the trust lies, and everything outside of that, there’s no trust there, at all.
Jackie: It’s woo woo. Yeah.
Maria: it’s funny, I sometimes help myself by saying, okay, these, realistically, all these people that did it for all these thousands of years, it’s kind of a, there is a, an experimental process there too.
Yeah. You have data. You have data, and you’ve essentially created a very long field study.
Jackie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Maria: but you know, obviously, it’s not the same, and an intellectual person will argue against that as well. But it’s really this, yeah, you have to trust in just not knowing and doing something without intellectual knowledge and feeling things.
Yeah. Like the body, right? I think one of the things that’s also really hard for people like us who intellectualize is that the body connection is not very strong in the beginning. And,
Jackie: Yeah, proprioception.
Maria: Doing this meditation really strengthens that.
Jackie: Yeah. Mm hmm.
Maria: I remember in the beginning when I did exercises about thinking about your feelings or, like, even just feeling them in my body, I’m like, okay. What do they even feel like? I, I don’t know. I feel angry, sad, or whatever. So that’s interesting. But yeah, so she talks about that in her book. Especially when she talks about how to meditate, the process, and how important it is to continuously remind yourself of all the steps not to leave anything out.
Jackie: Yeah, I’ve read this book before. I’ve studied with Susan Pfeiffer before, but then returning to this book and reading it again with you, I am like, oh, that’s right. It’s crazy because it’s so simple. It’s so simple and so straightforward, and yet still, over time, without returning back to the teachers and the basics of the teaching, it’s, oh, yeah, I forgot about that part. And I’ve been slipping there, and I’ve gotten lazy there. I’m lax there. And, it’s just good to, again, draw a line in the sand and be like, no, this is the integrity of the practice here, and just reestablish that. Yeah, so I think I just need to schedule a reconnection with the basics of the practice once a year or maybe more than that, but yeah.
Maria: Right. Do all the details, but don’t makeup stuff, yeah.
One of the things I also liked, and which I hadn’t considered before as much, was the setting up of the space.
Jackie: Oh, yeah.
Maria: Because a lot of the times I’m like, okay, meditation, I get instructions, and then I do them, and, One of the things is, same time of the day, okay, that was one of the things I was battling with in the beginning, but then I never considered the space part of it, to create a space that you love where you do that. A space where you want to go back to. And yes, when you are experienced, you can plop down anywhere and meditate. Sure. That space component is a really strong help to keep you consistent or even bring you to the part of being a very experienced meditation practitioner. That was very eye-opening to me, too, because, yeah, it makes perfect sense.
Jackie: If you’re not experienced, and stuff gets hard, and you don’t always want to do it, just having that feeling of the space where you’re like, oh yeah, this is just a nice space. I can just sit there because it’s lovely. And then it makes it so much easier to start your meditation. Duh! Yeah.
It is just there waiting for you.
Maria: yeah, exactly. I love it.
Jackie: and it can be whatever you want. There are suggestions in the book, and I know other meditation instructors that we’ve followed suggest putting different offerings, such as sage or palo santo or incense or something. Also, you should put up pictures of teachers or people who inspire you or things from your lineage.
That’s one thing. This is a good place to bring that up. What is your lineage? She talks about her lineage, which is the Shambhala tradition. You know, we can talk about that in a minute. But beyond that, it doesn’t have to be, You know, even spiritual leaders.
She talks about it; maybe it’s your religious lineage, but maybe it’s here. I think I just wrote down a quote from here. It says maybe you’re in the lineage of poets or scientists, painters, mothers, CEOs, Crusaders, or lovers. Get a sense of your heart’s lineage and in whatever way that feels natural to you Use that . And I thought that was beautiful because, especially in the West, where I feel like we’re really disconnected from our lineage, from our ancestors, from the land, and from everything, it’s about finding yours and what makes you, you. It can be It should be very authentic and personal.
Maria: Right, agreed, exactly. Yeah, and there are things that are also universal. I think anything that’s connected to nature, we’re all connected to nature, no matter what lineage we are. Like, it all ends up back with nature, right? Um, every single religion, spirituality, philosophy, everyone. Even if you feel like you’re not spiritual or religious at all, nature is still something that you connect to. I feel
Jackie: It’s where we all come from. It’s where we all return to.
Maria: that’s where we are all part of, too.
Jackie: Yeah.
It sustains us every day.
Maria: exactly. Without it, you wouldn’t be here.
Jackie: Yeah. When I talk about something bigger than myself, I think that’s my connection. That’s where I go.
Maria: Mm.
Jackie: It’s very tangible to me.
Maria: Agreed.
Jackie: Getting this urge to reread Breeding Sweetgrass.
Maria: Oh yeah. It really touched me so much, but
Jackie: I digress.
Maria: but it’s okay. Yeah. But yeah, so set up the space, and it’s one of the things that helps a lot. And she talks about other things, such as meditation, which is not the whole thing, that there is no goal, that there is no goal, and that you’re going to be super blissful all the time. There is no, Oh, it’s just so hard. I can’t do it. Is it just Neutral? I don’t know if you know what I mean.
Jackie: Yeah, content. It’s content.
Maria: it’s like a neutral state. And it will get hard. That’s normal.
Like being uncomfortable, that happens. And being bored. That’s something she mentioned especially like being bored. I love the quote she mentioned right in the beginning. What did it say? Oh, yeah. “The bad news is you are falling through the air—nothing to hang on to. No parachute. The good news is there’s no ground.”
Jackie: There’s no ground.
I think about that all the time.
I love that.
Maria: Yeah. And it really brings out this notion that she mentions in her story as well, which kind of brought her into meditation or gave her this aha moment just to realize there’s nothing bad happening right now in this moment, right? And we’ve talked about this before with the letting go of future and past. It’s you’re okay. Right now.
Jackie: Yeah. In this moment, you’re breathing. You’re here. Yeah. The idea of no goal is, I think, a hard one to wrap yourself around because I entered the world of meditation with goals. Absolutely. That’s how I found myself there. But trying to accomplish something in meditation does not work.
It’s just that it negates it. It stops your process because you’re pushing somewhere. You’re trying to do something. And this is one of those parts of meditation that I can’t explain to people. And when people ask, why should I meditate? I’m like, I can’t tell you what meditation is going to do for you because it’s going to go into your mind and, You know, start to iron out the creases and start to reveal the friction that you personally have and start to reveal the beauty that’s in front of you.
It’s so personal, it’s so individualized, and it’s going to give you what you need. It’s Going to deliver a piece that only you will understand, I think.
Maria: Right.
Jackie: yeah.
Maria: Yeah, and it’s so paradoxical for us to understand because we do not have a goal, so why are we doing it? Also, holding on to not having a goal is a goal in a way. So it’s very, it’s very hard to wrap your mind around it.
Again, the mind, right? The intellectual part. That is the part, again, where you have to trust it because it’s not,
Jackie: Mm hmm.
Maria: it’s not something you can grasp with your mind. It’s bigger than your mind.
That concept. It also reminded me of this: why do we live our lives? Why are we even alive? What’s the purpose of life? It’s the same with meditation.
What’s the purpose of meditation? It is the purpose.
Jackie: Right.
Maria: You meditate, so you can meditate.
Jackie: Yeah, you’re learning just to be here. That idea of it’s practicing surrender and being open and pausing and being still. And none of those things have goals in them. It’s about letting go and being in the moment. And that’s where that content comes from. Before I started meditating, I didn’t appreciate content the way that I do now, and hopefully will in 10 years and so on, but just being okay in this present moment. This is the way things are, and accepting everything without a goal, without regret, is now the way things are. I think one thing about it is, we’re practicing that skill and practicing just being, but then you still are going to go out and live your life, and you’re going to accomplish things, and you’re going to, hopefully, review the past and not repeat mistakes.
It’s not about forgetting all that stuff and not living anymore. It’s about not being attached to all those things. Being okay with, what is right now while still wanting to accomplish things and move in a direction and do better than you did yesterday. But no matter what direction or fork in the road or distraction comes up, you’re still content.
You’re still okay. You weren’t attached to that path, but You know, you’re trying to go in a good direction, but you’re open to whatever comes up and wherever you need to go. So yeah, it’s a specific skill, but It’s not limiting in the way that at least I thought it was before I really started getting into it, I think.
Maria: Yeah, exactly. It’s experiencing life. Because that’s the only thing you can do. That’s the only thing what
we do is we experience right in the here and
now, in the current moment, this is what we’re experiencing.
And I think the, it’s like when we talked about radical acceptance, when we talked about that book, and Susan mentions this as well in her FAQ, inevitably, this question or fear comes up is okay, If I’m in the present moment and I’m accepting, then will I even be able to plan for my life? Will I accept everything and be a pushover or, like, not stand up for myself because I’m accepting everything? So I think there’s this fear that comes up for people. And I’ve had forms of that too, but you know, with the radical acceptance and some of the other books we’ve read, it becomes clearer and clearer that’s definitely not the case.
Because realistically, planning and standing up for yourself is an action you do in the now, too.
Jackie: Yeah. Yeah.
Maria: and the reflecting on the past. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t just accept that right now it’s like this, you know, okay, I broke my leg. Right now, my leg is broken, and that’s just how it is, right? I can be okay with that.
Jackie: And still want it to heal.
Maria: And I still want it to heal, and I’m still going to probably take pain medication so my body doesn’t put tons of cortisol in my body to counteract the pain or whatever. Yeah.
Jackie: Yeah.
Maria: yeah. So yeah, overall, absolutely. Lovely book.
Jackie: Yeah.
Maria: I put so many quotes in my notes.
If I read them all, I’d probably, but I wanted to pick out one that comes out of the FAQ, which I really loved, is; she’s quoting Rumi, the poet who said, “Out of Beyond the Ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there’s a field. I meet you there.” And I really love that because this is again this fear. When you start meditation, there’s always this question: Oh, I’m doing it right. I’m doing it wrong. Like I’m not sitting straight enough. I’m doing it wrong. I’m not following the directions. I’m doing it wrong. Or I followed all the directions, and I didn’t miss one step. I’m doing it right. No, there is no right or wrong. We have to divorce ourselves from that concept of right or wrong. There’s none of that there. It can also lead to rejection, or it can lead to extra struggles because you’re worried about doing something right or wrong.
Jackie: Yeah. Just adding in judgment there.
Maria: Judgment. That’s the non-judgment part again.
Jackie: Yeah.
Maria: But it’s really hard to get away from that.
Absolutely.
But, I love that quote so much from Rumi, and I just picture that field that he talks about as just this, as just this freedom, this, this place where we can be free. Yeah. In our minds in the world just live and be, and be together, as he mentions.
Jackie: that’s where we connect.
We connect when we let go of that judgment and just let things be as they are. Let each other be as we are.
And that’s where we’re going to find each other. That’s where we’re going to find ourselves.
Maria: Yeah. And that’s One of the things that is so beautiful to me, and it like always makes me feel so many things like just love but also grief and sadness because, you know, especially as a woman Not only, everyone probably through childhood has this, to a varying degree, depending on how your parents were, like this, doing something wrong and this wrongness and worrying about that.
But I think, as a woman, even more so because there are different expectations that are put on us. And if you fail them, if you fail the expectations, It’s not okay. I couldn’t do it. Why? Maybe I wasn’t capable or whatever, and that’s fine. It’s more of a moral failure there. You’re a bad person now. And this is, this is, I think this is the biggest one. I struggle with that so much. And this is something that reminds me of, no, we’re all valuable just because we are, and it comes back to feeling that. Intellectually, I know that very, very well, a hundred percent, but you know, that part feeling that,
Jackie: You make a really good point. That space that you create, that freedom that we’re talking about, that’s where you feel, that’s where you feel everything, you feel everything in the now. And when people say, you know, the truth is meditation makes you feel more or mindfulness makes you feel more because you’re there, you sit in it, you’re not pushing it away.
And, there is all of that that comes up and all those expectations and yeah, just a lot of weight.
Maria: Yeah. I just, I got this picture of There’s like water rushing in, and you’re trying, and you’re struggling, and you’re like swimming, and you’re coming up with all these lifeboats and whatever, right? And then, if you meditate and are mindful, there’s more water. Like it’s a big ocean suddenly, but you’re not struggling like you’re floating. Does that make sense?
Jackie: Yeah, I like it. Yeah.
There’s more space, but you’re still in it.
I definitely recommend that everyone read this book. It’s because it’s also short. Which is
It is. It’s a quick read.
Maria: It’s not overwhelming. It gives you a good starting point, I think.
Jackie: And also, like you mentioned before we started, its structure is really great. Even after you read it, you can easily jump back to wherever you need a refresher, or if you’ve got some questions, you can jump to the FAQs. So it’s really approachable and, a good reference book to just have around too.
Maria: Yeah.
Jackie: if you’re curious about meditation, it’s just a great introduction to the world of it and how to get started and how to find yourself in it, no matter what direction you end up going in in your practices.
Maria: Yeah. And it brought up something that has me thinking a little bit, and I haven’t come to the end of that yet, but she says, you know, people want to bring meditation to other people, like we, you know, trying to do with this podcast. And teaching. And she advises against teaching if you’re not a meditation teacher. So, if you haven’t been trained, and rather, if you want to share this with your friends, use resources from an actual meditation teacher who is trained in it. And as a reason, she says, everyone has only one first time of getting into meditation, which is wonderful.
I like that. But it brought up a few thoughts because of this podcast. I know you have obviously been trained as a meditation teacher. I haven’t. Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know. There’s no conclusion yet. That’s just something that stuck out to me when I was reading it.
Jackie: I wonder if anyone ever feels like they’re an expert or worthy of teaching others because you’re always a student. You’re always learning. You’re always ignorant in some way, always trying to grow, always on the path, I should say, and there should be some humility and some self-reflection on what you’re sharing and being careful about what you’re sharing. When you’re in it, and you’re really raw, I think that’s not a great time to share and be a teacher.
And there’s always an element of yourself that’s always raw when you’re practicing and becoming more mindful. I need to understand what part of that has not yet been processed. Once you can come to the other side and have some clarity on things, I think that’s a point when you can start to share and lead others and talk.
But that part of you that’s still raw, that’s still working, that’s still dark, kind of a shadow, is the part that you can share with people from a perspective of being open and sharing yourself and connecting with people, but not in the sense of leading.
There’s a responsibility behind that to allow people who respect and understand the integrity of the teaching and can share that, And I think the point is keeping that integrity, keeping the integrity of the practices, the integrity of what the teachings are, is a part You need to distinguish separate from your personal experience when you’re offering it to someone else when you’re sharing it because they need to absorb that in their own way and understand it from their own perspective on their own path.
And so I think that’s where the line is if that makes sense.
Maria: Yeah. And I also feel like we’ve touched on this before. It’s there’s a responsibility, if you’re teaching your students,
Jackie: Yeah, totally. Yeah, of course.
Maria: Talking about responsibility. I don’t know if you wanted to give a quick overview of the Shambhala.
Jackie: Yeah.Susan Piper, I think, another thing that I really respect about her is really drawing a line between her personal path and the lengthy lineage and millennia of teachings that she’s passing down, and really helps to separate those so that she’s sharing it, but also that you can see where that line is.
And it’s very clear. This book was written in 2015. At the time, she was part of the Shambhala lineage, and a few years after this book was written, During the Me Too movement that happened, some of the teachers and some of the lineage holders of Shambhala were implicated in having inappropriate relationships with their students.
There’s a lot of controversy around it and a lot of questions. Susan Piver came out, and you can look up her conversations. She had them very publicly about the struggles that she had with her participation in the Shambhala lineage. And you can look it up. It’s very on its face and very open, which I know we both appreciated a lot. Ultimately, Susan Piver ended up leaving the Shambhala lineage that she had been a part of, continuing her practice, and continuing her path in a slightly different direction.
And so it’s a beautiful example of how you can pivot and why you might pivot, and how to look at the people that you’re learning from and understand who they really are and how that might influence how they’re teaching and how they show up and how you might’ve found them.
It’s all really important. We’ve had some really great conversations about that on this podcast. And so it’s very upfront. You can Google it and take a look. Yeah, I appreciated that she was so upfront and public about it because it was a very personal thing, but she really put it out there.
Maria: Yeah. And open to having discussions about this as well. Yeah,
Jackie: Yeah. And be humble enough to reflect on that and question her own responses to it and the way she handled it as a teacher and as a practitioner. I’ll leave it up to the listeners to judge how that panned out, but I really respected how she handled it.
Maria: I agree. I think it’s just something to keep in mind when looking for a teacher or specific teachings that the teacher has a responsibility, but it does happen that they do not fulfill this responsibility, and they do because they’re human.
And at that point, you will have to decide, how to handle that. I think it’s more of a be wary of not putting teachers on a pedestal.
Also, trusting Is hard because you know when you want to trust the teachings, and you find out you can’t trust your teacher, it’s very hard to draw the line between the two, for sure.
And that’s where some people end up taking advantage of a position of power like that. Respect the teachings and the practice. No, like you said, the teachers that we interact with are human beings, and that’s what they are. They’re human beings. They have flaws.
Jackie: Yeah, they have flaws. Yeah, but with that said, there are some great suggestions on how to get started at the end of this book. And we’d like to include one of them as part of our homework this month. I hope you’ve picked up this book by Susan Piver, and you can use the seven-day meditation challenge in the back as our homework.
But essentially, we’re going to challenge you to meditate every day for seven days, it says in the book, but we would like to extend it to the month. So, until our next podcast, begin practicing every day and see how it goes.
I think it’s approachable. And this book helps a lot if you don’t know where to start or if that sounds overwhelming. But really just start where you are and start where you can, find something sustainable for you, and start meditating.
Maria: Absolutely. Next month, we will review how that went for us. And, with that, we want to thank you for tuning in again today and following along on our journey.
Jackie: As you begin this homework and you have any follow-ups or you have read the book, please reach out to us and start a conversation. You can find us at becomingmindfulpodcast.com or on socials at @becomingmindfulpodcast.yeah. Otherwise, we’ll see you in a month. Until then, be well.
Leave a Reply