One Heart One Mind

How do human beings transform and become what we’re meant to become? Thomas is taking this question to graduate school at Harvard University to ask some of the best minds in the world what practices can support us in living the good life.   Drawing from ancient understandings from the Wisdom traditions to modern insights in developmental psychology and neuroscience, Thomas will continue to offer intimate, guided tours of cosmos, soul and psyche from his new headquarters in Boston!    Want to practice with Thomas? Join on Zoom from anywhere in the world for a monthly mini-retreat. Feeling called to a really deep dive? Join his 7-day intensive training in Scholls, Oregon this August.

Kelly is a mindfulness trainer and author of The Blind Spot Effect: How to Stop Missing What’s Right in Front of You. She has developed mindfulness trainings in diverse places from the United Nations to San Quentin Prison. In this conversation, Kelly exudes dharma from every pore and offers a direct taste of the ancient practice of Yoga Nidra. This one is a special treat.   Want to leave a voicemail for the team? Ask Thomas a practice question? Request a special topic for a future episode? Click here.

In our season finale, Thomas pays tribute to the recently deceased dharma master, Dr. Daniel Brown. Brown’s work is a superb example of Eastern practice meeting the psychological sophistication of the West. In this episode, taste what it means to re-parent the self, what it means to become the Mother of all beings.

It’s common in the modern world to speak of the need to “return to nature.” But from a contemplative perspective, we are Nature. We cannot leave nature, but we can forget who we are. When we remember our nature, we naturally take better care of ourselves, and better care of the planet that sustains us all.

So often in life, we tell ourselves that fear is a problem—that fear stops us from doing the things we most want to do. What about the wisdom of fear, though? Thomas shares a story of his friend who has made a living of encountering his fear everyday for over 40 years now. The result? Not a lack of fear, but the courage to act with fear fully present. Fearlessness.

What did the early Buddhists of China mean when they said, “Be the host of every situation?” In this episode, Thomas explores a sutra that likens mindful awareness to a “host” allowing innumerable “guests” to come and go through the inn. The trick: to let the guests who want to stay, stay, and to let the guests who want to go, go.

The mind prefers to have answers. When we don’t have answers, we feel anything from low-grade anxiety to full-blown panic. If we pay close attention to life, we find that no sooner do we know one thing than we realize there are even more things we don’t know. In short, the experience of “unknowing” is inescapable. What if, instead of spending all our energy avoiding the discomfort of unknowing, we opened up to it? What if unknowing is a gateway leading us to a new way of being human?

From an ordinary point of view, giving and receiving are opposites. In the “real world,” you give a little in order to get a little. Not so on the path of transformation. From a deeper perspective, giving and receiving are one reality, one movement. Listen to a moving account of citizens of the world giving to Ukraine with no hope of receiving something in return. In the words of Jesus, “if you lend money only to those who can repay you, why should you get credit?”

“Overwhelm” is a technical term in mindfulness. It refers to the experience of not being able to mindfully process sensory experience moment to moment. When life gets too intense, our suffering multiplies. In this episode you can deepen your learning on the classic practice of “divide and conquer”: notice where the most overwhelm is occurring, make skillful adjustments, and you’re back in the game. For anyone serious about not suffering, this episode is a boon.

When we open up to the suffering on the planet, we soon realize that we, the “small self”, are not nearly big enough to contain it all. To really hold suffering in our heart and help to relieve it, we must get bigger—a move from the relative to the Absolute. In Buddhism, there is a Bodhisattva, or awakened being, who models just this: Kuan Yin (Chinese translation). Her name means “she who hears the cries of the world.” As a new war wages in Ukraine, it is an especially important moment to learn to get Big, to hold it together; to hear the cries of the world.