The Imperfect Buddhist

Matthew Hawk Mahoney
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  • BUDDHISM
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

The thick mud, the weaving road. Matthew Hawk Mahoney shares mindfulness exercises, Buddhist stories, and the struggles of incorporating Zen Buddhism into modern life.

  1. Buddhism & Worry

    12/13/2023

    Buddhism & Worry

    00:05 Welcome to the Imperfect Buddhist, where we discuss present moment awareness and incorporating Buddhist principles into modern life. My name is Matthew Hawk Mahoney, and today's episode is titled Buddhism and Warry. 00:37 I have a long history with Warri. I remember being on a road trip with my family during the summer. It must've been like five or six coming up with all of these Warri thoughts about if we had enough gas or how far it was gonna be to the next place that offered food. And my dad, who was great with nicknames, came up with a nickname for me. He called me the designated warrior. My family laughed about it, 01:06 Worried what he meant by that. 01:10 Through my early adolescence and teen years, I was prescribed anti-anxiety medication and I took that up until I was about 18 or 19. My early 20s, I came into contact with my worried thoughts again. And from my early 20s up until now, I've been practicing meditation as a way to find some grounding in the midst of worried thoughts. 01:39 I just got back from a week long work trip up in Cincinnati. We do this a couple times a year. There's a bunch of people in the office and new people that I'm meeting for my new position as a business development representative. During this work trip, I noticed that my anxiety or worry was turning up to a new level, getting home from socializing, I would think, oh no, did I make a bad impression? What if they didn't like me? What if they thought I was too quiet? 02:08 We all do it, some of us more than others. Maybe not everyone, but most people will have these what ifs and if we're not careful, they turn into habits of negative thinking. 02:22 Worry, like many other patterns of thinking, compounds on itself. So we may have a worried thought. In my instance, I'd have the worried thought, oh, did I make a bad impressions on my coworkers? Then I think maybe I was too quiet. And then if I go to try to fix it and act from that worry, I might say, oh, tomorrow I'm going to do a better job of shaking people's hands and looking them in the eyes and smiling at them as we talk. I'm going to do a better job of that. Oh, but then what if they sense that I'm being fake? 02:52 Oh man, this doesn't feel very mindful. I'm not being a very good Buddhist. In those moments we are completely in our heads and our bodies and it's hard to step outside of it because the what-ifs feel so real. I'll continue worrying if I don't decouple from the thought that worrying is keeping me safe. We don't worry for no reason and in some way there's some justification inside. Whether it's subconscious or conscious that 03:20 Boring will keep me safe. It'll keep me on the right path. It's gonna keep me going in the right direction or the direction that I desire. 03:28 We can slow down enough and step outside of the worried habits of thinking and negative desire. Desire that's based on external circumstances being a certain way. So as we slow down, we use techniques that are available to us to become more present, whether that be awareness of our breathing, awareness of the room we're in, the sounds in the room, whatever we can do to bring our attention back. As we slow down, we can start to 03:57 Find our own intentions and look at what our intentions are in life. How are we coming at life? Some of the good news about the mental energy of wari is that it's a pretty pronounced energy. It's not as subtle as some other things that we may work with in our meditative practices. Wari is pretty obvious, it's pretty flavorful, pretty strong. It's a good opportunity for us to tune in and become more aware, more present. 04:25 Warring may have kept us safe in the past. We may have had to worry or think ahead or plan our next move to survive. And there's nothing wrong with planning or thinking ahead. We can really look out for the energy or thought when we start to notice it saying what if. We know that it's usually unnecessary worry. The energy of fear and worry, also usually referenced as anxiety, is like a 10-headed 04:53 monster, ten-headed dragon, where you chop one off and then another ten can pop up elsewhere. I know that through personal practice where I might work through some area of fear that I'm having and feel good about that and then subconsciously a new worry starts to pop up and then takes me some time to realize what's going on and I say, oh yeah, this is the pattern, this is the energy of anxiety. And I start to see that this is the exact same thing but only presented as a new... 05:22 thought or image in my mind. 05:33 It may be hard for us to find an equilibrium in the midst of worry if our environment isn't really conducive to peace. And while we can be peaceful in any situation, when we are starting out and we're working with worry in our life, it's important to use set aside time and space to step away from the objects of our worry and to step away from people and distractions. We do this through regular practices. 06:02 In Zen Buddhism, they set aside time for a practice known as Zazen, or in more modern mindfulness practices, they set aside time for meditation. Setting aside time in your day for quiet reflection, for cultivating awareness through different awareness practices, allows us to slow down enough and tune into a knowing presence beyond thinking. Once we experience this knowing presence beyond thinking, 06:30 we gain access to a new dimension of being. 06:35 Once we experience being through our practice, it gives us something to hold against other experiences and ways of being in life. We recognize when we're worried and spinning worried thoughts in our minds, how groundless and unreal that state of being is compared to present moment being. In some traditions, they call it zero, coming back to zero, nothingness. And the object isn't to get rid of anything, we're simply 07:04 Watching what is and in the instance of worry What is is that our minds are racing usually off to the future or to the past? And asking what if what if my car breaks down on this trip down to visit my uncle? What if I made a bad impression with my girlfriend's family last weekend over Thanksgiving? What if I'm single for the rest of my life? What if I end up being a virgin for the rest of my life? 07:34 I know how tempting these what-if thoughts can be. As mentioned, some people are more prone to falling into the traps of what-if. Whether that be because of their wiring, being more prone to anxiety or anxious states of being or their past where they had to worry and think ahead to survive. I know that with my own worry, some of it comes from a sense of control or desire for a sense of control. I worry, hey. 08:03 I didn't do a good enough job of making sure everybody I came in contact with today liked me. Is that really up to me? Yes, I have influence. I can present myself in the best way I can, be kind, concerned, learn how to listen well, and maybe even, would you believe it, I actually developed some genuine care for the person I'm talking to. It's all fine. But do I really have control over how people perceive me? And... 08:32 What my worry is telling me is, what if every person you saw today didn't like you? Or what if this person didn't like you? It's asking, what if you don't have complete control of the world around you? News break, no one has control of everything. No one has control of most things. A lot of my worry comes from a desire to hold on to the status quo. I have a job that pays well and I'm moving into a position that's going to pay more. 09:00 I'm worried that I didn't make good impressions on some people that I'll be working with in this new position. The warrior says, okay, well, if he didn't do well there, they may not like you and man, you're gonna get fired. But it comes from a desire to hold on to what I have or a desire to keep things going in a certain way out of fear of loss. Buddhism talks about that a lot. Desirelessness is maksha liberation. That if we didn't... 09:27 desire anything other than what was, we would be perfectly content and at ease. 09:42 If you're looking for actionable steps when it comes to your own worry, here's some of the things that have worked for me. Cultivate awareness, whether that's through a daily meditation practice or through present moment awareness in your daily activities, whatever you're doing, trying to bring a sense of awareness to the moment. This leads to the ability to be aware of what's going on. 10:11 The options available to us become limited. But through meditation and mindfulness practices, we cultivate an awareness that allows us to witness our own state of being, state of mind, which then allows us to recognize when we're worrying. When you see the worry and you ask, what if? You see, oh, this is a what if thought. You can ask yourself, is there anything actionable that I can do in this moment that would be beneficial to avoid the circumstance or outcome that I don't want? 10:41 and see what you come up with. And then if there isn't, there's really nothing you can do that's actionable, then it's okay to just stay in that labeling, witnessing presence, labeling the thought as what if, recognizing the patterns of worry, metacognating on the thoughts that are floating by, and really just step back into your witnessing presence, watching things float by. As Pima Chodron says, I am the sky, everything else is the weather. 11:11 We come back to the truth that no matter what happens in our life, whether it be experiencing worry or the objects of our worry coming true. Everybody does hate me at my workplace. I'm fired because I just could not fit in. Come back to the reality of being that who we are, what we are made of, is not dependent on any external circumstance, positive or negative. 11:37 We are the being, the presence that witnesses and experiences life. You might say to yourself in those moments where it gets stressful and all the anxious thoughts

    13 min
  2. Buddhism & Masturbation

    12/06/2023

    Buddhism & Masturbation

    00:00 Hey, so before we start this episode, I do want to give you a heads up that we will be talking about some adult subjects. So if you have any people in your life that you're listening to this podcast with, or you yourself are somebody that feels like you don't want to hear about some very personal subjects, then you might want to listen to one of the other episodes or put on a different podcast. You've been warned. 00:27 Aware of the suffering caused by sexual misconduct, I undertake to cultivate responsibility and learn ways to protect the safety and integrity of individuals, couples, families, and society. I am determined not to engage in sexual relations without love and long-term commitment. To preserve the happiness of myself and others, I am determined to respect my commitments 00:57 and the commitments of others. I will do everything in my power to protect children from sexual abuse and to prevent couples and families from being broken by sexual misconduct. That's out of Thich Nhat Hanh's 5 mindfulness trainings. 01:25 I want to welcome you to the Imperfect Buddhist, where we discuss mindfulness and incorporating Zen principles into modern life. My name is Matthew Hawk Mahoney, and today's episode is titled Buddhism and Masturbation. 01:44 Bye! 01:59 First, I want to say thank you so much for joining me on this path together as we learn about and share experiences of incorporating mindfulness, Buddhist or Zen teachings into our modern lives. Thanks for choosing this podcast out of all the other Buddhist podcasts and mindfulness podcasts that are out there. It really means a lot. 02:23 Understanding Buddhism, Zen, and Sexuality. Anybody familiar with Zen or Buddhism will be familiar with the concept of mindfulness, which is the teaching that one can train themselves to place their awareness in the present moment and through this awareness one can come into contact with truth or the way things are with the Dharma. 02:50 If you were to look at old school Buddhism, old school Buddhist teachings, the Dhammapada, a lot of these teachings seem to be aimed at monks, people living in a community where practice was at the forefront of their life day in, day out, when they would eat, there was a ceremony, a practice that they would do, when they would sweep the floor, when they would meditate, when they would sleep, all these things were regimented and they were not allowed to. 03:18 have any type of sexual relations with other people in the organization or outside the organization, strictly forbidden. And in some Buddhist teachings, it was taught that sexuality or sex lust were a defilement of the mind, that they led to endless suffering and rebirth and negative karma. 03:47 self-pleasure. Sure, some people within monasteries or even lay practitioners view sexuality or sex in the same way that it's a defilement and a distraction from the path of liberation. But then in modern times you also have the Thich Nhat Hanh flavor, which I read that at the beginning there that it's not saying that there's anything inherently wrong with sexuality. It's as natural as eating. However, just like with eating, 04:15 they recommend a mindful approach, being present, being aware in sexual activity, being present and aware with whom you have sexual relations with, what are the impacts, what is the karma related to these sexual relations. 04:32 Zen Buddhism has an emphasis on direct experience and awakening through the present moment. Through our meditative practices, whether that's zazen, walking meditation, which is known as kinnhin, or other different various awareness training techniques like oriochi, which is a ceremony, a formal way of eating that's there to cultivate awareness. The core aim is this direct experience. 05:01 of reality in Zen. And so it's never really been a contradiction in my mind when it comes to base sexuality, meaning not using porn to stimulate the mind or live in some type of fantasy and not projecting a bunch of lust on men or women or people around you if you are present in that sexual act. It's a consenting person, of course. 05:27 and you can be present and mindful and not lose yourself in some type of daydreaming or projection, then it could become a mindfulness practice. There was a time where I thought, okay, my sexuality or masturbation, self-pleasure, sex, are not in alignment with the teachings of Zen Buddhism or these awareness trainings. But then I also adopted this other viewpoint where I said, okay, maybe I can treat it as a mindfulness training. 06:00 So that said, where am I at with it now? There was a time for the last couple years that I really didn't put much thought into my use of porn, when or how often I masturbated or had sex or lusted. There was not much emphasis or awareness around those things until I started thinking within the last couple weeks about that. About... 06:26 Where does my practice begin and where does it end when it comes to my own sexuality? And what is healthy? What is in alignment with the path to awakening as I see it? And it's been a challenge. It's been this last week. I've really put an emphasis on it as I've been preparing to talk about this on this episode. I've asked myself, can I not use porn? Can I not fictionalize or... 06:55 fantasize in my mind when I m********e. Can I masturbate less? This is maybe TMI, but this is something that needs to be talked about. I think that a lot of people are ashamed to talk about it. It's not normalized in a lot of spiritual communities. And I think that there is, in our current culture and society, I think that there's like this sex positive culture, which can have a lot of benefits. 07:21 There's a lot of room for interpretation when we talk about like, all sex is good. Embrace your sexuality. That can leave a lot of room for like, what is healthy? What is good for my mind? What will lead me on a path to awareness towards awakening if that's the path that I'm endeavoring to walk down? This last week, I've kind of put some question marks around those questions. 07:47 When I got that sexual urge, when I have that feeling, it's kind of like being hungry. You can sense it, you can feel it, and there's a desire and a need there. I've experimented with this idea of being present while I did my masturbatory practices and tried to bring my awareness to the sensations that were present. To be quite frank with you, it was pretty unenjoyable. There wasn't a whole lot 08:17 pleasant about it other than the physical sensations that I created without any type of imagination or fantasy in my mind. Not holding those images in mind or fantasies and just really being present with the act of jerking off. There wasn't a whole lot that was really exciting about it. This experiment left me with a lot of insight. Wow, how much of... 08:44 this pleasure that I'm getting, how much of it is what they call in Buddhism attachment, fantasy, and illusion? How much of this pleasure I'm deriving is it from some type of imaginary fulfillment of a fantasy I have in my mind? Since doing that, I've had less desire to m********e. 09:08 Through our normal meditative practices, like sitting or walking meditation, we cultivate our ability to hold things without judgment. And in this case, I was holding the thing. Wow. We developed that compassion to hold things without judgment. And while I was holding my thing, I was also holding the desires of my mind with compassion and holding it with an element of letting go. Our 09:37 Culture promotes the idea of these strong sexual attachments and normalizing, in a sense, really strong lust. It's used in ads to sell things. We're using sexuality and sexual desire to sell things, as the saying goes, sex sells. 09:58 It's good that we are developing a sex positive culture. We're not shaming people for their sexuality, whether that's gay, trans, straight, non-binary, or not interested in sex at all. 10:14 Catholic Church or other organized religions where sex is prohibited, where sexuality is closeted, and we've seen the horrific things that can happen when someone is in complete denial of their own sexuality, of their own sexual needs and desires. It does seem like in environments where sexuality is swept under the rug, not talked about, act like it doesn't exist, or where it's said that it's just evil, some really terrible sad things happen. 11:00 Some of the negative effects of mindless masturbation. Don't you like that? That just rolls off the tongue. Mindless masturbation. I've noticed when I use porn, there's a sense of shame and it's interesting, like I won't be very aware while I'm using it and fantasizing and doing the act, but afterwards I noticed there's like kind of this feeling of being grossed out and be like, ugh, what did I just do? 11:30 shame can come from a lot of places. Porn use and mindless masturbation can have some negative effects. There is the movement of nofap which is about no masturbation essentially and that it has all these benefits of boosting productivity, creativity, self-confidence. Some books mention the negative effects of masturbation on creativity. Think and Grow Rich where he talks about a controlled sexual 11:59 a huge asset to success that some of the greatest and richest people, greatest creators, channeled and harnessed their sexuality for things other than sexual acts and channeled those into creative works and business. So some people would say that an effect of porn would be a lack of ambition, a lack of genius creativity. And I don't know if that's fact, but that's what some people say. 12:29 using porn or sexual fantasizing in one's mind is that we can strengthen this pathway of sexualizing individuals. Looking at someone like a piece of meat, that it does strengthen that pathway. Say I've been in a period of really engaging with porn and sexual fantasy and masturbation for a period of time and I get into a conversation with a woman

    20 min
  3. Buddhism & The Sacred Power of the Present Moment

    11/29/2023

    Buddhism & The Sacred Power of the Present Moment

    00:07 Welcome to the Imperfect Buddhist, where we discuss present moment awareness and incorporating Buddhism into modern life. My name is Matthew Hawk Mahoney, and today's episode is titled, Buddhism and the Sacred Power of the Present Moment. 00:54 What is the present moment? It's this very instance, this little sliver of experience where everything's happening. 01:05 Living in our fast paced world, we're told we need to think about what we want to become when we get older. Most of us never really feel like we ever get older. We're always waiting for that big moment to come. The raise, the promotion, the perfect person to come into our life. That moment when we'll feel happy, completed, and everything will be just the way it should be. Our fast paced society doesn't leave a lot of room for the present moment. If someone's caught staring outside the window, 01:35 at wind rustling the leaves outside on a fall day? They might be asked, what are you looking at out there? Oh, you're daydreaming. 01:49 I was out to lunch with a friend. A couple weeks ago, Chris and I were sitting down to enjoy an Italian sub. We were talking about religion. Him and his partner are Christians and they've been practicing for a long time. I said, I really don't feel like what the heart of Zen Buddhism talks about is very religious. And I looked at him and I was like, where else do you think God is going to contact you? 02:17 Can God contact you in the future, worrying about the future, dreaming of the future? Is he going to contact you somewhere in the past in your mind? Or is God going to contact you now in this very moment, this present moment? 02:31 The heart of Zen Buddhism is cultivating and polishing our awareness and connection to what's happening around us and becoming more and more aware of the subtleties that exist on multiple levels beyond just the surface. The present moment holds huge transformational potential when we start to bring our attention to what is happening in our bodies, minds. 02:58 experiences, we start to see them as phenomenon. We start to see that thoughts come and go. We start to see that emotions come and go. We start to see the people come and go. We start to see that life conditions come and go. Rich, poor, sick, healthy, young, old. We come in contact with the transitory nature of life. 03:30 And so then we start to recognize that those things cannot be counted on for any type of security or self. Because if these things are all changing, then who are we? 03:43 Our sense of self begins to change and what we are is more and more revealed. We are the presence that is experiencing life, experiencing all these changes. We start to identify with the presence that witnesses all of phenomenon. 04:02 I read on a YouTube quote, one guy left a comment and he says, the longer I continue to do my spiritual practice, the more that I realize that true spirituality is not about becoming something you're not, but it's about letting go of what you're not until the true you is revealed. So that's why Zen Buddhism, it doesn't really force a whole lot down your throat. Yes, there's some precepts and there's some different teachings that you can read, but the real emphasis is on Zazen. 04:32 practice. The real emphasis is on sitting and being present. Because when you do that, all this stuff that's talked about by the Buddha, you start to experience it yourself. So there is no real need for someone to shove anything down your throat if you are experiencing it in your own practice. But where else can we connect with the sacred other than this present moment, this very instance? When we call it this instance, we lost it. 05:01 as James Brown would say, in the cut. I'm in the cut. You're in that very instant. 05:08 I remember early on in my practice, just noticing how my mind wanted to go off so much into the future, into the past, and daydream or complain. And I was really bringing my attention and my awareness into the sensations of the present, whether that was my breath or the sounds around me. I didn't have any significant experiences until one day I was in my sister's backyard in Lake Oswego, Oregon, walking around doing what I understand now was walking meditation. 05:38 And I remember my eyes catching this redwood tree and this sense of presence being there. I saw the tree as I normally would, but there was an extra depth, an extra layer to it that I connected with. When we try to put words to these experiences, sometimes we lose the significance of the experience. But the best way I can put it is that there was an extra dimension between me and the tree. And maybe it was just the opposite of that, that there was no me and the tree, that I was feeling a connection. 06:08 a oneness while looking at the tree. And there was not so much an observer and observed, but a connection with. In that moment, the tree seemed to breathe that there was a sense of liveness to this, what I would normally look at as like an inanimate object. That was my first lived experience of this new level of life that was around me and always happening that I hadn't been in contact with since childhood. 06:42 So when you think about whether you're Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, when have those real special spiritual impactful moments happened to you? Were they somewhere while you were dreaming about the future or caught up in your past? Those significant lived moments where you felt a deep connection with the divine, where did that happen? You experienced them in the present. The gift of... 07:08 Present moment awareness is that it allows us to tap into and align ourselves with living a more sacred life. We open the possibility to have those experiences more often. We have to play to win. The main practice is zazen, where very little instruction is given. Most teachers will tell you as beginner to focus on your breath, the sensation of the in-breath, the space between the in-breath and the out-breath, and then the out-breath, the space between the out-breath and the in-breath. 07:38 and trying to continuously bring your attention back to just the sensations of breathing, the sound, and watching that breath. 07:47 There's another form of Zen meditation called Shikantaza, which is just sitting. And this is fully taking your open, spacious mind and receiving what is present. You're not focusing on any particular object of concentration, but you notice. With a wide sphere of receptivity, you notice and you hold your attention in that space for as long as possible. 08:12 So these are just a couple of examples of how Zen Buddhism has this focus on helping people cultivate a present moment awareness, where they can connect with the sacred. And the only place that it exists is now. Or as Thich Nhat Hanh would say, life is available only in the present moment. 08:31 Maybe you're saying to yourself, why would I want to go sit in silence in this Zazen thing? Why would I do that for hours or potentially days on a retreat? I want to read something from Dainin Katagiri. Hopefully I'm pronouncing his name right. I've been reading his book, Returning to Silence. He says, when you sit down in Zazen, you don't know why. If you think about it, you can come up with many reasons. But the reasons don't hit the mark exactly. You cannot ignore the reasons you have thought of because they are part of the truth, but not the complete truth. 09:01 What you want is just to be present, right in the middle of true reality, where you and Zazen exactly merge, nothing else. To sit Zazen is to call upon something, and to sit Zazen is exactly the something you are calling upon. You sit exactly in the middle of something you are always looking for and calling upon. We don't know what it is, but it is always there. If you sit down, you feel something, you taste it, by virtue of deeply seeing the human world. 09:30 of hearing the sound of the world, immediately we manifest ourselves with wholeheartedness. Whoever we are, whatever reason we have to decide to sit down, immediately we sit with our whole mind, our whole heart. Even for a moment, that's pretty good. Very naturally, all we can do is constantly return to the source of Zazen, which means Zazen based on casting off body and mind. 10:11 The key to awakening and connecting with the divine is the present moment. But you might say, man, there's nothing in my present moment other than stressful situations, mean people, bad food, messy home. But we learn in our spiritual lives that it is all usable and all workable. And if you have some struggle, you might be better off than someone that has a really perfect life because they're less pushed and less likely to seek. 10:45 Sometimes the present moment hurts. Sometimes the present moment isn't very fun, isn't very comfortable. Lately my wife and I have been cutting back on our TV usage as we've become aware that we've used it as a form of escapism. So a lot lately I've been confronted with myself more than normal outside of my normal meditation practices. And there's a feeling of fear inside. I'm recognizing that 11:13 because of past traumas and experiences that I've had, that there's a fear that I could lose it all, that this house that we bought and this marriage and love that we've built, our savings, all that stuff, it's just gonna be taken from me. It's just gonna be gone one day. And while that could be true, that insecurity, that fear is not really that fun to be with. There's a part of me that wants to run from it, that wants to distract myself, put my mind in some type of... 11:41 simulated reality with TV or my phone or whatever. And this is a little bit different than my early practice where the present moment was like a refuge from all the stuff going on in my mind. And now it almost feels like the present moment is putting me in contact with something I would rather avoid. And Scott Peck talks about in his book, The Roadless Travel, t

    19 min
  4. Buddhism & Intrusive Thoughts

    11/22/2023

    Buddhism & Intrusive Thoughts

    00:06 Welcome to the Imperfect Buddhist, where we discuss mindfulness and incorporating Zen principles into modern life. My name is Matthew Hawk Mahoney and today's episode is titled, Buddhism and Intrusive Thoughts. 00:51 It really doesn't surprise me that I was drawn to Zen Buddhism. And this is an important episode for me because as some of the most listened imperfect Buddhists out there might know, I've struggled with intrusive thoughts or impulsive thoughts for about the last 14 years. And it really was probably the reason I got into meditation at all. The message of Zen Buddhism that we aren't our thoughts. 01:21 that we are the awareness around and experiencing our thoughts was very helpful to me in those early days and still is. To be able to see our minds as passing clouds, we practice what's known in Buddhism or even now some hippie culture, something called mindfulness. Mindfulness is the deliberate turning of our attention to the present moment and whatever we are doing in that moment. 01:50 Mindfulness can be emboldened and strengthened through a practice known as Zazen, which is meditation in Zen Buddhism. We do these practices to help us be mindful in our daily lives. And intrusive thoughts or impulsive thoughts, they happen in our daily life while we're feeding the cat or driving the car. Before we delve deeper into the topic of intrusive thoughts and 02:20 Buddhist philosophy. I want to take a moment to understand a little bit more about what these terms mean and how they impact people's lives. Intrusive thoughts can be described as reoccurring, unwanted, or usually distressing thoughts, images or urges that pop into your mind. They're usually intrusive, hence the name, in nature, and they appear and disrupt 02:50 well-being. Some people would say that impulsive thoughts are more characterized by sudden urges or impulses to act and usually without consideration for the outcome and these impulses can arise seemingly out of nowhere. They compel people to engage in certain behaviors and as the name suggests, they're hasty or impulsive. In my practice, I've dealt more with intrusive thoughts than impulsive thoughts. 03:18 Intrusive thoughts and impulsive thoughts can create intense anxiety, turmoil, and they can create a feeling of being out of control. If we don't have a way to deal with them or work on them and they're left unchecked, of course it's going to affect our relationships, our work, and overall quality of life. Throughout this episode, we're going to explore practical approaches to working with one's intrusive thoughts. And I'm going to share some of my personal experiences of 03:47 the start of these intrusive thoughts along with some of the success that I've had along the way. 04:15 Zen Buddhism is a storehouse of antidote for this type of affliction, namely intrusive thoughts and impulsive thoughts. Shunryo Suzuki said that to follow the path of Zen is to realize that your thoughts come and go of their own accord. You need not serve them tea. And in Buddhism there's this character known as Mara. Mara is the affliction of the world, suffering. 04:45 and essential what he's saying is that Mara may come into your house. As long as you don't serve Mara tea, he won't stick or she won't stick around. Dogen Zenji said, in the landscape of silence, thoughts appear like passing clouds. They come and go, but the sky remains unchanged. How does one develop a state of being where the last little quotes I read 05:13 become something that one experiences. One can begin to experience their own thoughts and emotions through the practice of mindfulness, through the practice of developing present moment awareness. And so hence we have the importance of mindfulness in one's daily life. Zen Buddhism offers various practices for cultivating awareness so that when that image pops into one's mind. 05:39 eventually you can see it as phenomenon. You can see it as static electricity, if you will, the phenomenon of life. 05:49 I personally deal with intrusive thoughts, intrusive images. The first time it had a significant impact on my emotional health and mental well-being was when I was staying with my sister and her husband and a couple roommates up in Portland, Oregon. My nephew was about a year old at that time. I remember we were sitting in the living room and there was imagery of 06:16 me doing something to hurt him, I don't remember specifically what it was, or maybe like this underlying fear that somehow that could be something that I would do, and it set off this chain of events. At that point I was not acquainted with any type of meditative training or Buddhist practice. I had no grounding in mindfulness. I was fully identified with my mind and actually to strengthen the 06:43 The trouble here was I was very into the whole idea of manifestation of the secret, which if you're not familiar with it, it pretty much means thoughts are things and when we think about something or we hope for something, we really can imagine that it's real, it will manifest itself in our life. So on top of having these fears and compulsive images and worries, I'm now thinking, uh oh, I'm creating it. Like this is gonna, this is gonna happen. Oh, I can't think that. This whole. 07:11 back and forth mental struggle. I had no grounding in it. Of course the wheels kept going and I was pushing it away and acting like it wasn't real and then arguing with myself. That was really a hard place to be. The anxiety got worse and worse. The depression sets in because I'm so anxious. People are like, why aren't you talking? I would have this internal dialogue that's going a million miles a minute. I'm ashamed, so I can't tell anybody what's going on. I can't tell my father or my mom or... 07:40 my best friend or my girlfriend. What would they think if they knew that these images were popping into my mind? Would they also think that I was going down this path of becoming a murderer? 07:56 So what arose out of that experience was a deep need for refuge in a place of safety and healing, but I didn't know how or what or when that would happen. 08:14 What does Buddhism have to say about intrusive thoughts? What can it offer when it comes to the affliction of intrusive thinking? In Buddhism, there's an emphasis on non-attachment. Non-attachment goes further than our own thoughts and emotions. It also plays a part in how we interact with the world and ourselves as a whole. But nonetheless, it still pertains to our thoughts. And becoming non-attached means that we don't 08:43 Place any identity in our own thoughts. It means that we don't place any identity in the images that pop into our minds. This means that we don't have a sense of self there. So the image of dropping the heavy bag of cat food onto my cat, there's no sense of self there. We see it as a flash in the pan as a phenomenon. Just like we might see a shooting star across the night sky, we have this sense of non-attachment. 09:12 We can see potentially the causes and conditions that led to the imagery or the thought, and we can let go of any dialogue that goes too far into identifying with these intrusive thoughts. 09:27 Sometimes with intrusive thinking, it can really f**k with our internal dialogue because I'm a good person. I am not supposed to have images or thoughts like this that pop into my head. Non-attachment, non-self allows us to become fluid as beings on this planet, that we are allowed to experience the phenomenon of life, thoughts, emotions, experiences without placing ourself in them. 09:58 That's a little bit of the catch-22 with Zen practice. Not only do we let go of identification with the negative thoughts or so-and-so quote negative thoughts, what we label as such, but we also let go of our positive versions of ourselves. The good teacher, the kind mother, the famous musician, the infamous Karen, the poor grocery store worker, the rich real estate agent. 10:28 The creative younger brother. We let go of all these identities along with the impulsive thoughts, intrusive thoughts. We no longer identify with any of them as who we truly are. 10:44 The best technique for working with intrusive thoughts is having a regular meditation practice. It helps to enter your day with the intention of awareness. Without a regular meditation or zazen practice in the mornings, you can bring mindfulness and the intention of mindfulness. But in my own experience, in many practitioners' experiences, having a practice in the morning set aside specifically for cultivating awareness. 11:13 makes the effort of mindful awareness during your day much easier. Having that mindful awareness will serve you in helping to alleviate the karmic wheel of intrusive thinking in your mind. God, do I know how cheesy that sounds, but the wheel of thought in your mind, if you want to put it that way. A little bit of how we can apply this in practice, in applying Zen principles to this. If we start our day with awareness through a 11:43 meditation or zazen practice, whether that's five, ten, or 20 minutes in the mornings. We start out on the right foot. When we're working and all of a sudden an image or fear of an image coming up, because sometimes I know how it goes, you're afraid that you might have that image. See if you can step into that witnessing presence of what's arising and see if you can sense the emotion in your body. Tap into the emotion. 12:09 Sometimes grounding your awareness in the feeling in your body can really help ground that experience because then you're not feeding into the mind. And it's good because usually the emotion is strong. That feeling of fear, disgust, embarrassment, it's going to be pretty pertinent. It's going to be pretty there. So it's a good thing to tap into. Be cautious of witnessing that and letting it turn back into thinking in your mind. Bring that witnessing presence. 12:38 The same thing that you develop in zazen, when you're witn

    18 min
  5. Buddhism & Relationships

    11/15/2023

    Buddhism & Relationships

    00:00 To love is to recognize. To be loved is to be recognized by the other. Thich Nhat Hanh 00:20 Welcome my friends and fellow travelers to the imperfect Buddhist, where we get annoyed when our kitties walk all over our recording equipment when we're trying to record a very serious podcast. I'm your host Matthew Hockmahoney, and in today's episode, we're talking about relationships. This episode is titled Buddhism and Relationships. 01:08 I remember I told my coworker Christy that I was Buddhist, and shortly after she said something along the lines of, Buddhists don't believe in relationships. Sorry Christy if you're listening to this if I completely butchered what you said, but it was pretty much that sentiment. I guess some people outside of Buddhism, or maybe even in certain sects of Buddhism, 01:29 don't believe in relationships or perhaps in the past in the monastic days they didn't believe in relationships. I know they definitely didn't allow them in most monasteries. There appears to be a wide spectrum of people's interpretation when you say Buddhism and relationships. You have people say that Buddhists don't believe in relationships and then you have like a self-help book on dating written from the perspective of the Buddha. 01:56 In a more general sense, we have the central idea in Zen of cultivating awakening through present moment awareness. And I think this is a great way to enter into the conversation of Buddhism and relationships. As we grow in our capability of being present with ourselves through meditation or meditative practices, we develop an open, embracing awareness. 02:25 We practice that on ourselves in silent meditation and our various other ways of practicing. We can extend that same loving, open awareness that we cultivate in meditation to people in our lives, including significant others. 02:45 When we cultivate that present moment awareness, we also get to experience more of the best things in life because the best things in life are happening in the present moment, including our relationships, our interactions with our partners, our interactions with everybody in our life. It happens right now. 03:06 you 03:16 A more generalist view of how things are going in the relationships department in society right now. Relationships seem a lot more complicated than they did back when our parents or grandparents dated. Why is that? I think it's pretty obvious. If you start to look at modern dating, you see some pretty obvious things that stick out as far as dating apps, social media, but then there's some other things that seem like they're maybe not as obvious. 03:45 A lot of people lack communication skills or the ability to connect to others through conversation, holding a conversation. I know personally, in my early 20s when I left the house, I found it hard to hold conversations with anyone, let alone a woman I found attractive. That kind of put a damper on my romantic life. Not really being able to hold a conversation with someone I felt was attractive because I didn't know how to navigate it. I didn't know how to 04:17 The way relationships start these days is pretty different. We talked about social media and dating apps, people connecting more on a surface level, obviously looking at somebody liking the way that they look, you can swipe right or left. Also connecting more surface level with what they decide to tell you about themselves in their description. So we have a veneer that we interact with in the dating world. A lot of people 04:45 We're very self-preoccupied and part of that comes with our culture and social media and the self-preoccupation that our culture pushes through advertising and through media. There's a hero in almost every movie or show that you watch and it's all about that character. And so in a way that starts to form the mind in a way that it's like you're the main character in your movie. So you start to look at your world in that way. 05:16 I'll read something from If the Buddha Dated, which I've not read the whole book, but this is a nice quote. It says, our refuge is being exactly where we are, not dramatizing problems by replaying them in our heads, telling stories to our friends, eliciting sympathy, and convincing ourselves that this is a very big deal. Our refuge is in the stillness of being the compassionate witness to our panic and fear, not judging it as good or bad. 05:44 just accepting the what is of the moment. 05:48 this open awareness that we cultivate in meditation. Usually with our own minds, thoughts and emotions, we carry that into our relationships with our partners. We can hold them in that same open loving awareness, recognizing our true self, it's a funny way of saying it, but our unitedness, our oneness in that relationship, and we can move towards unity. And it's a beautiful thing to be able to share that with a partner. 06:17 with somebody that you can spend your life with. But we can also experience that unity outside of romantic relationships. So if you're somebody that is not particularly interested in romantic relationships or haven't had very good luck with them, you're not excluded from that experience of unity. 06:45 the idea that you can just simply meditate and bring the awareness of meditation to your relationships. It's a bigger task than what it looks like on face value. I've been meditating off and on, mostly on for the last 10 years, and it's only more recently that I'm finding I'm able to bring this presence and love to people around me in a more consistent basis. If you are somebody that is 07:11 practicing and doing your daily meditation in the morning and the evening. Whether it's five, ten, twenty minutes each session, it may take a little bit of time. And I think it does start with yourself. Starts with self-love. Kind of love yourself before you can love other people. But cheesy? It is. It's very true. So, starts with loving yourself. 07:35 Recording this episode has helped me reflect a little bit on where I'm at in my relationship and how some of the stuff I've learned from the Zen temple and various self-help books has impacted my relationship. And it makes me thankful that I've had the influence of this in my life. Our relationship would be in a very different place, if at all, existing without some of this stuff. My practice moving forward, the way that I plan on approaching relationships, 08:05 will be mostly the same. I'm continuing though to develop the perspective of other as self, trying to move closer to unity, viewing my partner's needs the same as my own. It is a moment-to-moment practice. We are perfect the way we are, but there's always room for improvement in that this path of awareness and awakening is something that is continually walked and it's never really completed. 08:35 I'd really appreciate it if you could rate and review my show in your podcast. Service of choice, for instance, if you're in Spotify clicking the stars. Give me a lot of stars. And maybe leaving a couple thoughts on the podcast. I really appreciate your support. It encourages me to keep going. I look forward to talking to you next time. Alright, bye-bye. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-imperfect-buddhist/donations

    10 min
  6. Buddhism & Inspiration In Nature

    11/08/2023

    Buddhism & Inspiration In Nature

    00:00 Who will master this world and the realms of Yama and the gods? Who will select a well-taught Dharma teaching as a skilled person selects a flower? 00:21 Welcome to The Imperfect Buddhist, where we discuss mindfulness and applying Zen principles to modern life. My name is Matthew Hawk Mahoney and today's episode is titled Buddhism and the Mexican Petunia. 00:46 Lately, my wife and I have been trying to cut back on our use of the TV as a distraction device. We've experimented with taking the plug out of the TV or taking the batteries out of the remote, and it's never really stuck. This time, we've made it about three days. I've been trying to take more inspiration from nature. I've been trying to take more walks outside along our 1950s neighborhood streets. I've got these brick houses. They all look pretty much the same. 01:15 This morning I went for a walk at about 6.30 a.m. as the sun was rising. I've been trying to pay attention to the natural world around me and notice things and try to look at the trees and the flowers and the plants without labels, looking to see what this being is in front of me. It's a lot easier for me to do that than it is with human beings. Human beings, we have all of our emotions and projections and wants and desires and all that stuff. So it can be easier for me to start with 01:45 tree beings and plant beings and bug beings. 01:50 The name of this episode's an interesting one, Buddhism and the Mexican Petunia. You might be wondering where I'm going with this. But today's episode, we're gonna talk about this Mexican Petunia that's growing outside of my window and the little lessons that I've learned from it over the two years that I've been living in this house. We're gonna learn from this unassuming flower, resilience, embracing impermanence, finding beauty and simplicity, growth and transformation. 02:19 and non-identification with labels. That's a lot for a little plant that most people consider to be a weed to teach us. 02:38 We bought our house about two years ago. When we moved in, there really wasn't a whole lot of landscape and we have the classic front and backyard grass. We have a magnolia tree that's beautiful in the spring that has beautiful white flowers. We have various other plants and shrubs. My wife pulled up some and I remember distinctly when we first moved in, there was this one plant that was growing near my office window down the ground, scrubby looking little thing. It looked different than a lot of the other plants around. 03:08 mowing the yard. I was wondering should I mow it down? And my wife said, oh no don't do that. That's a Mexican petunia. Some people think it's a weed, but it's actually a really pretty flower. So we can just leave it. And the plant wasn't anything special. It has these long spear-like leaves to it. It's got a really dark green, pretty skinny small stem. And so some time went by and I think one or two little purple flowers popped up on it and I just 03:37 was so blown away that a lot of people would consider this flower to be a weed or a pest. I was really surprised when I saw how beautiful the purple flowers were. Over time, we left it, we let it grow, and a couple small offshoots turned into a whole bush. After being here for a year, springtime rolled around again, and all of a sudden we got all of these beautiful purple flowers, and they're blooming right below my office window, so... 04:05 I'm sitting at work and I look out the window and this purple flower will catch my eye. I noticed a heavy rainstorm would come and all the flowers would drop. And I was like, oh man, I really like to look at those. And the next morning there'd be brand new flowers. I remember telling my wife, holy crap, like this is an amazing plant. It drops its flowers and it has brand new flowers the next day. 04:31 The Mexican petunia is very resilient too, with all the really strong storms we get here with wind and heavy rain, or when it gets really hot and humid, or even when it gets really cold too during the winter. It seems like the Mexican petunia just stands there. It's never looked like it's been that surprised by any of the weather. It may not have flowers year round, but I've never really felt like it died back severely or anything when some plants, man, it gets cold for a while and they're just... 04:59 dead, you have to baby him and cover him and all this stuff. But the Mexican Petunia, it's just made it through. 05:17 drawing some inspiration from the Mexican petunia and its ability to withstand so many conditions. Not only is it dealing with extreme heat and cold and wind and rain, but also the glaring eye of gardeners who look at it as like a pest. I'm not a plant, but I don't think it's aware of those distasteful glares that it's getting every now and then from our neighbors. 05:45 reminds me of this section out of Returning to Silence by Katagiri. He says, human beings are apt to attach to the aspect of life called pleasure. This is why we often say enjoy life. Why then does Buddhism say look at suffering? Because suffering is the one aspect of human life that people don't want to see. We try to close our eyes to suffering but we cannot do it. It is because we can't close our eyes to suffering that the Buddha has to say. 06:13 Look at this other aspect of human life that you don't see. Suffering is a holy truth. So to say that life is characterized by suffering is not a pessimistic teaching. And reading that and looking at the petunia, I see that it can withstand all of these adverse situations. It doesn't even label them as adverse. It's completely with whatever the environment is doing. And it's just saving up its energy for spring to put out flowers and to drop them and create new flowers. 06:44 We can learn from this Mexican petunia selflessness. The Mexican petunia doesn't sit there and think, oh, poor me, it's so hot out right now, oh my God. And oh, Matt's neighbor across the street just keeps looking at me with his little trowel that he wants to dig me out. Oh, it's so cold. Oh, nobody even stops and notices my flowers. It keeps making its flowers and it drops them. It doesn't hold on to those old flowers or think how hard it worked on those flowers. 07:14 budding of the flowers, the letting go of those flowers so that new ones can be made with new pollen so it can spread its sweetness throughout the land. 07:26 Learning from this giving and dropping away and giving, I'm learning that we may have a great meditation. Things may be flowing really well and it's this flower blooming and it's gorgeous and you're experiencing it and you're one with it. The bell rings or somebody knocks at the door. We start to think how good we are at meditating, how great it's going, and we start to hold on to that. Letting that fall away and allowing the new bloom to come up, whatever that next experience is. 07:56 This is from the Dhammapada. It says, the mindful apply themselves. They don't amuse themselves in any abode. Like swans flying from a lake, they abandon home after home. 08:10 One other thing I want to mention is the simplicity and elegance of this flower. It's very unassuming in non-blooming times with spear-shaped leaves and a dark green. Now that I know that it creates such beautiful flowers, I appreciate its simplicity and elegance in non-blooming times. It's a very unassuming plant and we can draw that parallel to our own practices, especially in zazen. 08:39 And some people, especially if you're practicing at a Zen temple, would be like, what? This is not what I would expect when it comes to a spiritual practice. Everybody's in these black robes and bells ring and you go sit down and it's pretty plain and it's not over the top. There's something to learn about that in our own spiritual lives about not being extravagant or over the top, that we can be simple and natural and plain and produce these beautiful ways of being. 09:08 these beautiful experiences that we can share with people. We can be an example of simplicity, yet brilliance. Simple brilliance. 09:22 Bye! 09:33 This is a study in how much one plant could symbolize for one person, if they really took the time to look at it. Concepts of simplicity, renewal, letting go and endurance. All things that I found symbolized in a plant, most people would consider a weed in my front yard. 09:54 If we're looking for it in our own practices, our own lives, we can find inspiration. We can find symbolism for resilience, growth, simplicity, and embracing imperfection. I would encourage you, in your own life, taking a look at the world around you. Hopefully you have some type of nature. Maybe it's just a small bush out in front of your house, but take some time to look at it. Pay attention to it with the passing of the seasons. Try not to label it. 10:24 or come up with a bunch of stories in your mind about what it is to pay attention to as the months and the seasons go by. When we start to get to that place where everything is usable, we start to see teachers all around us. We have flower teachers, tree teachers, bug teachers, and bitchy Karen teachers. Those ones are harder to learn from, but they definitely have a lesson to teach. I'm still trying to learn the lesson there. 11:04 inspired to honor this beautiful simple plant in front of my house. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week. I look forward to talking to you next time. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-imperfect-buddhist/donations

    12 min
  7. Buddhism & Leading by Example

    11/01/2023

    Buddhism & Leading by Example

    00:01 When you do something, you should burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself. Shunryu Suzuki 00:25 Welcome friends and travelers along the path. This is the imperfect Buddhist. I'm your host, Matthew Hock Mahoney, and today's episode is titled Buddhism and Leadership, leading by example and the ripple effect. 01:07 Leading by example can have profound impacts on our relationships, our spiritual development, and the world around us. In a time where so many people, including myself sometimes, want to inspire action in others around them through using force or coercion of some sort, or I guess telling other people how to think and act. I believe leading by example is the ultimate way to make change in the world. 01:36 This is something that I've been thinking about quite a bit lately, especially with all of the political unrest and people screaming at each other across the aisles on how we should think about gay rights or how we should deal with women's rights and their right to bodily autonomy with abortion. Bud Light in an attempt to appeal to a different demographic, adding certain controversial imagery. 02:06 and messaging to their cans and being ostracized by both sides of the argument. 02:15 with things like climate change and starting to think a little bit about how can I play a part in changing people's thoughts around me that don't agree with me. My uncle Tim, for instance, I visited with him on 4th of July and he has some very strong opinions about climate change, that it is a conspiracy, that all climate scientists or the ones that are reporting on this are actually funded by the government. And so how can I get him to see things the way that I see them? How can I get him to see? 02:44 The science that says, Uncle Tim, our oceans are hotter than they've ever been. Uncle Tim, we've never seen weather patterns like this ever. Uncle Tim, how are they keeping it quiet that certain scientists have been receiving this money? I wanna go into this argument and start to tell him how to think about the subject. So I started thinking more about what does leading by example mean in this situation? Segment one. 03:12 the desire to change others and leading by example. 03:22 It's pretty normal to wanna change others instead of leading by example. Maybe it takes less energy or we have the illusion that it takes less energy that if I could just lambast my Uncle Tim, bludgeon him to f*****g death with scientific data. The numbers, Uncle Tim's go to the beach, let's go to the water. Dip your toes in, how hot does it feel? Tim, I want you to see things the way that I see them. 03:49 Maybe it's for some fucked up reason of control. Maybe it's for some other daddy issue. Or maybe it's because I truly care about the environment and I'm freaked out by what's happening and someone I love, my uncle Tim, doesn't see it. And it scares me that he doesn't see it. And I want someone I love to see it and to work with me to make a better situation. Maybe it's easier for me to 04:18 Point out to Uncle Tim all this stuff and talk about the science, talk about the data, because it's really hard for me to look at my own life and see how am I playing a part in making the situation worse? How am I a contributor to climate change? What are the things that I'm doing or that I could change that would make the situation better? Why do I want to control? Why do I want to bludgeon with my ideas, convince, influence? What are these desires? 04:48 where actions come from. Looking inside, they come from a strongly held belief, one that I am certain is correct. So there might be the desire to have someone I love or care about see something the way that I see it. Why is that important? Because if they don't believe what I believe, maybe that means they're lower intelligence and I just can't stand for that. Or maybe it's some type of ego gratification where 05:14 If they're disagreeing with me, then maybe that means I'm wrong somehow and I can't stand for that. And it's also an attachment to a certain outcome. I want the earth to sustain life, human life. I want that. I desire that. I will fight for that. And it's not such a bad attachment, but in Buddhism it is an attachment. And maybe some would say it is a wish for well-being of others, a form of metta, form of love. And that could also be true. 05:43 But only we can know by seeing ourselves truly. Trying to change others through force has its limitations. How about you? Someone says, hey, Sarah, hey, Mike, hey, John, hey, Christy. Hey, Matt, you're doing that wrong. This is the way to do it. I can't believe you ever tried it that way. Let me show you the right way to do it. And I never want to see you do it that way ever again. You're an idiot for thinking that. What does that bring up for you? 06:13 And of course that's an extreme version, but of course it brings up resentment, brings up a pushback, and a lot of times it strengthens the behavior we wish to see changed, strengthens the ideas or beliefs in other people's that we wish to see changed, and it grains those things deeper in other people. So a lot of the times it has a counteractive effect. This idea that we're going to change them, make them better, make them believe what we believe doesn't seem to work. 06:44 Segment 2, the 100 year old man's unintentional inspiration, aka I want to pet dogs. 06:56 June 23rd, 2023, 8 a.m. He wanted to pet dogs for his 100th birthday, hundreds lined up. Allison Moore was stunned when more than 200 canines congregated waiting patiently for their turn to be petted by her father. When Allison Moore began brainstorming ideas for her father's 100th birthday celebration, there was a non-negotiable for the festivities. Dogs needed to be there, as many pooches as possible. 07:26 Quote, he just love, love, loves dogs, Alison Moore 60 said of her dad, Robert Moore, who turned 100 on June 14th. Quote, every dog he sees, he wants to pet. He has been like this his whole life, end quote. In addition to a big family dinner on his birthday, Alison Moore and her two siblings wanted to do something extra to mark the milestone. Sadly, a lot of his best friends aren't with us anymore, she said. So she decided dogs would have to do. 07:55 Six days before the celebration, Allison Moore posted on the Neighborhood Network site next door, as well as on Facebook, explaining her idea and asking for dogs in San Jose to stop by for a pet parade on June 17th. People started sharing her posts and other local groups on social media. Quote, We live in a nice little community and I thought I could get some of my neighbors and friends to come. 08:17 End quote, said Allison Moore, adding that she planned for her father to sit outside her home with a banner and assemble a small line of dogs for him to admire and cuddle. Human treats and dog treats would be served. Since the posts got some attraction, Allison Moore said she expected 20, maybe 30 dogs to show up. She was stunned when, shortly after the parade started at 11 a.m., more than 200 canines congregated, waiting patiently for their turn to be petted by her father. Quote, I was shocked, end quote. 08:46 said Allison Moore, explaining that some people drove more than 10 miles to attend the celebration. Her father, who was the Dean of Applied Sciences and Arts of San Jose State University for 25 years, was deeply touched by the turnout. Quote, he was so overwhelmed, end quote. His daughter said, he was just so sweet in talking to the kids and petting all the dogs and saying their names. It was so much fun, end quote. 09:10 Even though the event was intended to bring joy to Robert Moore, it ended up also being a delightful day for the people who attended, including Roger O'Brien, 88, who has Alzheimer's disease. His daughter, Denise O'Brien, brought him in his geriatric recliner, along with his dog Lucky, to the parade. Quote, it was the most beautiful thing, end quote, said Denise O'Brien, who owns a dog care company, Silicon Valley Watch Dogs. 09:37 and stumbled upon Alison Moore's post on Nextdoor. It's been a long time since I saw my dad smile for 90 minutes straight," end quote. Her father has been suffering from Alzheimer's for the last 11 years. Denise O'Brien said, adding that he only remembers his wife's name and his dog's name. He proudly introduced Lucky to everyone at the parade. This made not just my dad's day, but his whole year. TheWashingtonPost.com by Sydney Page, June 23rd, 2023. 10:07 Thank you. 10:13 This guy loved dogs. He found a lot of joy in petting dogs, seeing dogs, talking to dogs. Was he out to change the world or get in the news or convince other people that, hey, the present moment is worth enjoying? Hey, dogs are part of that present moment. Nope, he just enjoyed dogs. He enjoyed petting dogs. He enjoyed the simple things in life. And in turn, he values those simple things by valuing something simple and real. 10:42 He enjoyed it and through this big story that got out, now he's inspiring other people to enjoy the simple things in life like petting dogs. It's an unintentional ripple effect that can't help but have a subconscious impact on anybody that reads it. Maybe most people that read that story wouldn't think, hey, I should be more present and enjoy what's in front of me. This guy could have done anything. I don't know anything, but he decided on his 100th birthday to pet dogs. 11:12 Maybe this 100 year old knows something, I don't know. But it inspired me. Started to make me think a little bit about the climate change stuff. I started thinking to myself, maybe I'm coming at it backwards. 11:23 Friday morning, my wife and I, we started doing this early morning beach walk before we go to work. And I was grumpy this morning. I didn't want to get up. I was up late the night before playing Magic the Gathering Arena. We got to the beach and we were walking and I was watching my breath

    20 min
  8. Buddhism & Love

    10/25/2023

    Buddhism & Love

    00:09 Welcome to the imperfect Buddhist, where we discuss mindfulness and incorporating Zen Buddhism into modern life. My name is Matthew Hawk Mahoney and today's episode is titled Buddhism and Love. 00:52 Thank you for stopping in and listening. Whether this is your first episode or I don't know what episode I'm on, maybe your 50th. I really appreciate you sticking with me and stopping in. It's been a while since I've shared with you. It's amazing how the days blend together. When I'm working from home, it seems like weeks can go by, months. And even the last couple years seems like they've gone by very fast. And I was looking at... 01:19 episodes and realized, wow, I haven't talked with you in a while, so I wanted to change that. 01:26 Love and Buddhism. I had a friend recently when we were talking about Buddhism bring up the idea that some Buddhists don't believe in relationships as far as sexual, physical relationships or marriage. I think I've heard that from other people before. When we're talking about love though, we're talking more about the concept of seeing yourself in someone else, seeing unity. I quote, 01:55 When you love someone, you have to offer the best you have. The best thing we can offer another person is our true presence. Thich Nhat Hanh. It's being present with somebody, seeking to understand, and eventually even seeing your true identity, which is the presence that witnesses, realizing that's in that other person. You recognize your oneness. Please know that I'm not there yet. This is the imperfect Buddhist. I didn't say I'm completely at this place yet. 02:24 But I have had visions or insight moments where I've felt that connectedness, oneness, and had moved from my head of thinking about this concept of oneness and actually experiencing it. 02:51 Love and our culture. How does this topic or concept of love relate to our culture? Love is a word often used in titles for Netflix shows, like Love is Blind. It's used a lot in songs, song lyrics. People say, hey, I love ice cream or I love pizza. I think a lot of people don't have a very deep definition of what love means. 03:20 We have a culture around love, which is this commercialized version. We have sayings about love, love your neighbor, or I love that pizza, but what does this really mean? 03:32 I've been married for almost... Oh my God, don't tell my wife I'm forgetting our anniversary, but I wanna say we've been married for six or seven years. At the time when we were dating, I was reading this book called The Road Less Traveled. It had a pretty profound impact on my life and the way that I look at reality. When I met Amanda, we both read that book together, and it has a really great definition of love. And so I'm gonna read that for you. M. Scott Peck, the author, defines love as... 04:00 The will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth. Actually, that was my first real definition of love. It gave new meaning to the word love. Before that, love was something that was thrown around in songs or in pop culture or something you'd say in a sentence, but it didn't really have any real meaning. 04:30 My own journey with the concept of love has been evolving quite a bit lately. I recently started the book A Course in Miracles, which is definitely not in Zen or Buddhist tradition, but it has a lot of powerful things to say about love, about human experience and what it means to be connected with other people. The author claims that they... 04:58 channeled this work and it seems to be written from the viewpoint of Jesus. I know that is enough to make most people's eyes roll and typically would make my eyes roll, but I gave it a try because somebody that I really respect in the mindfulness teachings mentioned it and said this is a really powerful book and make up your own mind. So I did and I have gotten a lot out of it, especially around the concept of love and action in 05:26 love's role in life. Through reading it I am starting to recognize love as an experience and a phenomenon rather than just a thought or an action. That there is this energy of love that we can experience. We can also be the transmitter of love. This is all sounding new agey but all that means is that we choose loving action. We choose to see people as ourselves and treat them accordingly. 05:56 quote from A Course in Miracles, teach only love for that is what you are. 06:04 The idea in A Course in Miracles is that there is only love, everything else is an illusion and a fiction created in the minds of men and women and that awakening is coming home to that reality that there is only love. In Buddhist texts, the Dhammapada says, hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love. This is the eternal rule. 06:49 I want to talk a little bit about the reality of applying some of these concepts in my own life. A lot of my practice comes up in work. That makes sense, right? I spend a lot of my time other than sleeping or at home at work. There's a person that, personality-wise, I actually, I don't really have much of a problem with them, but it seems that they really are not a fan of me. From the beginning, I remember my second day at this job. It's a remote job, but I had flown in to the location and had... 07:18 Just met everybody and I think it was like day two and I remember walking into the shared office space with a team and this person gave me this very, kind of like they're looking right through me, glaring. As time went on it became very apparent that this person just didn't like me, eventually resulting in me talking with my boss and saying, hey, do you think this person has it out for me? And he said, yeah, they do. It's not me projecting anymore. It's very obvious that this person doesn't like me. 07:49 I've had different reactions to this. There's been times where I felt very defensive. My boss would bring up to me something that this person had come to them with telling on me or finding a reason to point out a mistake that I made. I've did the defensive thing where I got brought up and I started going into being defensive and trying to point out this person's flaws and all that. Coming at it like this didn't feel good. At the end of the day, after 08:14 Going through the dramas of complaining to other people, feeling offended, or maybe even in some ways trying to suck up or be nicer to this person that doesn't like me. Trying to like, maybe influence this opinion they have of me. It just didn't feel good. It didn't feel right. Reading A Course in Miracles, it was starting to influence me to start to look at other people in a new way, including this person, from the perspective of, okay, I've made the mistake also where I just decided somebody was bad or negative, never even speaking to them. 08:45 So after spinning my wheels with all of the traditional routes, complaining, trying to coerce the situation, I started applying this idea of... I guess put it the simple way, treating other people the way I want to be treated. I would hope in a situation where I was misguided in my assumptions about someone, or projecting a lot on somebody else, I would hope that they would be able and willing to forgive me and to recognize the pain that I was in. 09:14 It's changed the dynamic between us, not necessarily that it's changed this person's mind about me, but it's changed the dynamic within myself where it really doesn't bother me much anymore. I'm doing what I can, doing my best, trying to treat the people around me with love, including this person. 09:33 Going back to that concept of acting for my own or another person's own spiritual growth in that moment where this person is projecting onto me or treating me unfairly, what is the best thing for my own and this other person's spiritual growth? 09:49 Not really being that offended or hurt by the projections that this person is pushing out because that would only strengthen the illusion in themselves and myself. I get offended or I start to want to change a course, the situation, it's strengthening that illusion, which has no reality. 10:15 Another breakthrough that's come from this embracing of love as a guide for my actions and thoughts is jealousy, especially in romantic relationships. 10:30 It started all the way back to when I was like really a little kid. I remember being worried that my mom or my dad were going to cheat on each other. I'd ask them, are you cheating on dad or are you cheating on mom? And then as the years went by, my parents got a divorce and I remember being jealous of my mom's time when she got remarried. I suddenly just felt like I wasn't getting the same attention. Got into my first relationship, one of those little teenage fights where you break up for a weekend. 10:58 And during one of these weekend breakups, she went on a date with another guy, ended up making out with him, who knows what happened. I'm questioning her for months about what really happened. It got ingrained at a young age, these patterns of jealousy, suspicion, and fear. In my marriage now, there are moments where I start to go down that path of imagining my wife doing something behind my back or going out with somebody or saying that she's... 11:24 going to the Goodwill to go shopping for used clothes or whatever, but really she's out with this guy. 11:32 I had a realization recently where I was like, okay, what is loving in this moment? So say my wife was in a situation where she really decided to do that. What kind of pain would she have to be in or confusion or illusion or whatever you want to call it? She'd have to be in a very dark, hurt place to be taking such actions. This consideration shifted things for me where suddenly I wasn't afraid, but I was feeling compassion. 12:01 It was a shift from fear into love and trying to see things through other people's eyes, but also seeing other people as myself. 12:11 It was a game changing shift. I

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About

The thick mud, the weaving road. Matthew Hawk Mahoney shares mindfulness exercises, Buddhist stories, and the struggles of incorporating Zen Buddhism into modern life.

Information

  • Creator
    Matthew Hawk Mahoney
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2023
  • Episodes
    41
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    The Imperfect Buddhist