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This episode covers the Wisdom Aggregate which contains 2 components: Integral View and Integral Intention. We discuss how to have a complete view of life, self, and circumstance. Oftentimes we suffer because we are viewing life with a limited view, and having an Integral View solves this.
You are here because you believe that it is better to be a warrior in a garden, than a gardener in a war.
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Welcome to the Zen Stoic path. And this episode, we are going to be continuing from what we were discussing on the last episode, which we left off on the four noble truths of Buddhism and how they go into the noble eightfold path, which is the Buddhist way of transcending suffering of ending suffering in one's own life.
So in today's episode, we're going to begin with a recap of the four noble truths just to get us started. And we want to look at this [00:01:00] practice specifically because. With Zen Stoic. We believe that it is better to be a warrior in a garden than a garden, a war. And by understanding these four noble truths, as well as the eightfold path, we're able to cultivate a life that allows us to be that warrior in the garden to be prepared for anything that life can throw at us while simultaneously being able to enjoy.
The beauty of life to be present in it and to experience all that we get to be blessed with and the things that we really enjoy about life, our passions, the fun that we have, the connections, the laughter that we have with other people. And that is why we want to pursue this type of a path. So in this episode, we're going to be going through.
The noble eightfold path, except we're going to be doing the Zen Stoic version, which is slightly different than nothing too crazy. But we have a little bit of a difference in terms of our wording. Now the eightfold path is broken into three aggregates and the three aggregates our wisdom or understanding, which is basically looking at what we're looking at today, which is integral.
And integral [00:02:00] intention now, integral view and integral attention. Those are the more so the Zen Stoic translations where we use the word integral. The reason being is because the traditional or at least the westernized translation of the eightfold path uses the word right view, right. And we use the word integral because it is a word that in essence points to more so what the original Sanskrit translation was pointing to.
So the Sanskrit translation, for example, for right view, was som Jaak Darshawn, which means a total view or a complete view, not necessarily a singular view. So we're going to be going through the aggregate of wisdom and understanding today in our next episode, we're going to be going through the aggregate of conduct or virtue as it is.
Or even morality is another translation of that. And then in the following episode, we're going to be going through the aggregate of meditation and constantly. So in starting with today, we're going to really quickly recap on the four noble truths as it is a basis of understanding for this eightfold path.
So the first [00:03:00] noble truth like we reviewed in the last episode is the truth of unsatisfactoriness or the truth of suffering. In essence, what this is saying is that there will be suffering in life. Life contains suffering, and the suffering comes based on. Trying to solve insoluble problems, trying to solve problems that either don't need to be solved or things that we're trying to make permanent that are not permanent being that the nature of life is ever changing or in the attempt to attach to things.
It's attach our identity to things, to link ourselves to certain things. There is a concept in Zen called non self. And non-self is the way that we move away from this attachment of our identity to either our career, our roles in life, the people that we know, and by removing our identity by removing that attachment or these limitations of our identity, we're able to detach a little bit more and not have to be consumed in the.
[00:04:00] That would come from the second old truth, being that the root of suffering is attachment or clinging when we cling to things because they're impermanent, we try to make them permanent. We try to make them our own. The problem with that becomes is that the world is ever changing. So we're not actually able to fully experience.
Life as it is, if we're continuously trying to attach to things, if we're continuously trying to bring our identity to whatever it is that we own or whoever it is that we're associated with or whatever role we seem to be playing at that period of time in our lives. Now, the interesting thing about this as we were talking about this concept of limited identity in the previous episode and limited identity comes from a limiting set of beliefs about yourself and about the world.
And one thing that starts to create limited identity is this idea that. We can accumulate resources. We can accumulate material goods and wealth. And when we start to attach ourselves or try to define ourselves by that material gain or the things [00:05:00] that we've accumulated, we start to limit our identity.
And this is a really important concept because as we limit our identity, we're attaching identity to things that are impermanent, fragile, or things that can be taken away from us. And that is one of the problems of clinging to identity. I remember once when. 18 years old. I had been spending a lot of time with my family because I had moved to Canada and they have done very well for themselves in a material sense.
Right. They've done very well with their business. They had built some wealth and I was part of this, but I always remember myself never being able to fully feel me around them. And one of the reasons why. Is a lot of the validation that they would give themselves, like the self validating principles that they would hold for themselves were based on their material wealth and their accomplishments and their success.
So I remember when I was 18 years old, I had watched the movie fight club for the first time in my life. And you know, one of my, my best friend, he actually showed me the [00:06:00] movie. And he's, he's actually here on the podcast. He's doing the behind the scenes, little edited. But he had showed me the movie. And one of the lines in the movie that riveted me was this idea of the things you own end up owning you.
And so when I had heard that and I'd been around my family who basically linked their own intelligence to their material success at the time I remember for myself, I felt so strongly to never be that way to never be caught in that. And I didn't know anything about Zen or about Buddhism or stoicism for that matter, at that point in my life.
But what I did know is that I could see. What it turned people into to start to attach themselves in that way. So I'd gotten a tattoo that I have on my ribs that says the things you own do not define who you are. And one of the reasons I get that is because no matter what you accumulate in your life, you can have things that are yours, but none of those things could ever be you.
And so removing yourself and not clinging to that, not attaching to that will really. With the whole idea of suffering and help with the [00:07:00] ever-changing terrain of life, the ever-changing circumstances, and putting your focus into things that you can control rather than the things that you can't. We can't control.
What's going to happen to our personal property day-to-day and sometimes that even includes our body. We can't control what's going to happen in our body. Sometimes we can get sick, we can get hurt. So the less we identify with the things that we own, the. The easier time we're going to have with kind of allowing ourselves to embrace life as it is to view life as it is to have the experience of life without trying to grab onto things.
There's a great Zen proverb that says, let go or be dragged. And I believe it was loud. Sue that said that and let go, or be dragged, really speaks to the impermanence of life and how every time we attached to it. Creating more suffering for ourselves. Now the third, the third noble truth is the truth that suffering can be let go.
And it is the truth of Nirvana. Now Nirvana, the literal translation of Nirvana is to exhale, [00:08:00] to blow out. And when we think about this, if you try to hold your breath without exhaling, you end up losing your breath. If you take nothing in you also don't bring. As a human being, you need to breathe in order to live for.
It's pretty obvious concept, but the truth of Nirvana is this idea of letting go of these attachments, letting go of all the things that are not you. And in stoicism, what's talked about by the philosopher Seneca is to allow philosophy to scrape off your faults rather than rail against the faults of others.
So in using the, your philosophy to scrape off the parts of your. That are not you, the things that you have maybe previously cling to the things that you can't control or the things that are don't actually belong to you, that allows us to break away from this attachment, which is a really key idea when it comes to practicing your philosophy.
So we use that truth of Nirvana to blow out, to let go of the things that are not ourselves. And this is key because. We want to make sure that every time we [00:09:00] start to attach ourselves to things, it is part of the human experience. It's not about beating yourself up for attaching to something, but it's realizing when you do have an attachment and allowing your philosophy, your sense of self-reflection or even your meditation, to help you to scrape that off of yourself, to realize that it's not you and to not lose your breath by trying to hold onto it and cling to it.
And then the fourth noble truth is the path to. Cessation of suffering, which is the noble eightfold path. This is a method that the Buddha created in order to, for someone to create a life of liberation, to, for it, to be a way of liberation. And there are eight parts of the eightfold path like we were discussing before.
However, they're not necessarily needing to be done sequentially. It's not that you have to follow like one through eight in order. These are all things that you can practice all simultaneous. And again, there are no prerequisites to each one. These are things that you just simply get into because they help you to create this life of liberation.
They help you to create your own sense of [00:10:00] enlightenment. And they're not necessarily things that you need to attach to even the eightfold path being the Buddha's way was not even a method or a doctrine to be attached to. You. See the interesting thing about the philosophies of the east is that they don't require you to believe in anything they don't require you to.
I have to do something a certain way, which is why the translation, right. It doesn't really work well for the full path. So without further ado, we're going to jump into it. The first part of the eightfold path that we're going to get into is the integral view. Now the integral view is about having a complete view of life.
A total. And to have a total view, it's really important to acknowledge a few things. Number one is the truth of karma and karma, as it's talked about by a lot of people, we seem to talk about it as though it's this kind of cosmic judicial system like there's punishments and rewards for the things that we do for the actions that we [00:11:00] take and the reality of what karma is.
Karma is our own doing our actions. In other words, there's not some external. Controlling our karma karma is our own doing the cycle that we are creating. It is the whole idea of cause and effect. And going into that principle of causality, we realized that everything we say and do, and even what we think has an effect.
We start at cause we are the point of convergence. The moment of now is the point of convergence where you are able to redefine your past and even redefine what you're capable of in the future. And you do that through the present moment. So your karma is your own doing and the things that essentially you have created for yourself, and maybe even forgot that you created this actually reminds me of a concept.
NLP, which is neuro-linguistic programming. And NLP is part of the coaching practice that I use. It's it was a big part of developing the liberation coaching. [00:12:00] And in NLP, they talk about this idea of being at cause or being at the effect. And in order to have an integral view, it's very important to realize your responsibility in your role, in all things, because to be at cause is essentially to be in the driver's seat.
It's essentially, it's really in truly recognizing. What you are in control of what you're responsible for and recognizing the difference between fault and responsibility. This is something that I always talk about weather when it comes to my clients, because not everything that happens in your life is your fault.
And people often will make that mistake between fault and responsibility and take extreme ownership because it's this trendy book title by Jocko, Willink, and I love jockowillink, but at the same time, we sometimes. Defaults and generalize to the extreme we'll swing the pendulum and think, okay, extreme ownership, everything is my fault.
I'm responsible, everything. So everything that happens is my fault. And then we end up taking on way more [00:13:00] responsibility and attempt to control way more than we actually are responsible for, or that we're even capable of controlling. So in order to be at, cause it is to recognize this difference between fault and responsibility, you don't control everything that happens in your life or things that have happened to you in your life.
What you do control is how you're going to respond to it, which is a key tenant of stoicism. And when you think about being at cause recognizing that difference between fault and responsibility is the key. If somebody does something bad to you or they say something mean to you, or they come into your house while you're throwing a house party and they break, you know, a potted plant or something, and you have dirt, everything all over.
That is not necessarily your fault. And I'm sure there's going to be people who subjectively would argue that, yes, it's your fault. You invited that person and they were a jerk, but it's not really your fault that they broke the plant. However, it happened in your house, in your space. So it is your responsibility to clean it [00:14:00] up.
And this is a simple and silly example of it. But recognizing this difference is going to be really, really important because when you recognize that, okay, not my fault was not in my control. Now, how I respond is in my control and is my responsibility. Then you can just. There's, you know, it's, it may sound cheesy, but I always look at the word responsibility as the ability to respond.
And when you look at it, as the ability to respond, what you're doing is you're putting yourself at, cause you're allowing yourself to respond to the situations in your life to respond to this present moment. So in order to have an integral view in a whole view of life, it's important to recognize when something is and isn't your fault, and to recognize where your responsibility exists in that.
Now the other thing that's interesting about having an integral viewer, a total view. Another example of how we might look at this, um, is looking at it in the sense that depending on what frame of reference or vantage point you look at this from [00:15:00] you look at any situation from it will change how you look at it.
If you're going to be at the effect instead of the cause for instance, the effect has a lot to do with your own frame of reference, how you're actually looking at it and where you're looking at it from what is the vantage point or what is the perspective that you're framing the particular situation or problem in.
And that's going to make a huge difference to, uh, one example that I really love is when professor Jordan, Peter. Talks about this idea of people who, who ended up delving into nihilism. In other words, they start to think that life is meaningless and they'll say something like, well, life is meaningless because it ends because in a hundred years, this isn't going to matter.
Or in a million years, this isn't gonna matter. And what he says. You know, that's a really shitty frame of reference. And of course that frame of reference is going to put you into the effect and feeling like a victim and feeling like life is meaningless because you're using a frame of reference that makes it meaningless.[00:16:00]
In other words, the choice that we make when we say stuff like that is we are making a choice to have a frame of reference that is inherently limiting, and that will trap us in our own perspective. So, and it's something that. Again, I believe I mentioned this on the last episode, but whenever I hear stuff like that, I always ask myself, well, is a song pointless because it ends.
It's like, no, it's not. The meaning is tied into the fact that the song is a limited amount of time. There is a fixed amount of time. There's a start and a finish. And what happens in the middle of that is where all the meaning is. And it's very similar. Uh, to our own lives. So your frame of reference in how you're looking at something is going to make a big difference.
If I look at a situation or a problem in my life, from the perspective of I'm the victim. Then the frame of reference that I'm choosing is going to give me a very limited view. It's not going to give me a very integral view. So even in the situation where maybe you have been victimized or something [00:17:00] really is not your fault, the fact that it's not your fault is not something that you necessarily want to throw out the window.
It's important to acknowledge like, Hey, this really wasn't my fault. Like this person did me wrong, or this situation was very unfair and that's okay. But it's also okay to simultaneously hold the view. What is my responsibility in this situation, so that you have the ability and the power to actually do something about it, to change it.
It's not necessarily something that needs to be binary. You can be a person who has wronged and a person. Who's going to be the one to fix your situation at the same time. And it's okay to hold that, that view. It's okay to live in that paradox. In fact, that is where a lot of life happens that happens in these paradoxes.
With that being said, when we think about this idea of integral view, we're at the effect it's because we're trying to live on one side of the spectrum. We're not really putting ourselves in the paradox of being able to see something from all angles or being able to be the [00:18:00] ones in control of changing the frame of reference, which we are.
We can always change the frame of reference. We can always ask it in a different way. Uh, one question that I mentioned on the last episode is this question that I'd love to ask when something shitty happens, which is what is the gift of. Or what can I learn from this? Or what is this situation trying to tell me, how can this situation help me grow or help me become a better person?
Those frames of references are totally different than why is this person such a piece of shit for saying the thing that they said to me, or why is this person a piece of shit for scamming me out of, you know, whatever amount of money. So these are all, again, fair questions, but remember you can live in the paradox and when you're at the effect, it's basically waiting for permission to make the changes.
When you're at the effect, it is pretty much life happening to you. And when you're at, cause it is more life happening for you or with you. You're moving with it. You're not attaching to impermanence. You're not attaching to identity, but you're allowing yourself to have a total view. [00:19:00] One example of how we can look at integral view is having the full picture and.
An example that I really love from Alan Watts where, you know, I learned a lot of this from is that he talks about how, when we look in the sky, we look at the constellations of the stars from our position in the universe, from earth. We look at the big dipper. It looks like the big dipper from here, but if we are to look at it from a different point in the universe, It would look like a totally different set of stars.
It would look like a different constellation. It might not look like the shape of the big dipper, but because we have this limited frame of reference from our perspective in the universe, that's what it looks like. So to have an integral view, really, and truly comes down to a new concept of Zen Stoicism that we call the dichotomy of knowing.
So the dichotomy of control is a concept of stoicism. That is really, really powerful. Yeah. Looking at what you can control and what you can't control, embracing what you can't control and letting it go, and then putting your [00:20:00] focus into what you can control. Now, the interesting thing about that is that there is very little you can control, but the reality is that that's all you need in order to actually make progress in your life, to make progress in your growth, to have a meaningful life, to focus on what you can control and really, and truly the real, the only things that we can control.
Our perspective. So how we might choose to look at something and what action we take or what we say, right? These are the things that are in our control. Everything else for the most part is outside of our direct control. We might be able to influence things, but we can't necessarily control them. So the dichotomy of knowing works very well.
Now the dichotomy of knowing was inspired from the concept of sod that we discussed in the last episode called limited identity. Now limited identity comes from a limiting set of beliefs. So before we get into the economy of control, we're going to break down. What does it mean to have a belief? A belief is nothing but a [00:21:00] feeling of certainty about something that you don't actually know.
Now most of the time people treat their beliefs as something that they know. And the reason why they treat it as something that they know is because there is this really strong sense of conviction and certainty. There is a lot of emotion tied around it, and a lot of attachment in terms of identity. To it.
And that is why when we think about our beliefs, we hold them so strongly. And when people poke at our beliefs, so they attempt to try to violate our beliefs. We get up in arms about it and having a limited identity comes with a limiting set of beliefs. If I believe, for instance, that I am a lazy person.
If I believe that my identity as a lazy person, there are a set of beliefs that come with that PR for instance, it could mean. I also believe that I'm a procrastinator. It could be, I don't like to work hard. It could be, I don't have the energy to work hard or I don't have the creativity. And these are all beliefs that would come [00:22:00] with the territory of that limited identity.
However, I can look at things like I'm a very organized or productive. Now, while that sounds good, that can have its own limitations as well, because the person who assumes themselves to be a productive person might also throw in the beliefs. Like I don't do things like go out and party with my friends.
And then that might divulge into like, well, I don't like to do things fun because I need to be productive all the time. So that could have its own limitations as well. So the point of why we're discussing this and why we're even bringing this up is because. Uh, belief again, is a feeling of certainty about something that you don't actually know.
So what exactly does that mean? Well, the example that would talk about when he talked about this difference of belief and knowing when it came to limited identity, is that if you hold up both of your hands, you know that you have two hands, you don't believe that you have two hands. You know, you're having a direct experience where you have two hands [00:23:00] and the dichotomy of knowing is essentially capturing the essence of.
There is a difference between what you know and what you believe. And the fact is there is very, very little that we actually know about ourselves, about our lives, about reality itself. For instance, you inhabit this body or, I mean, you inhabit your own body. I inhabit this body, but in, in doing. We don't grow.
We don't choose to grow our hair, or we don't maybe unless you've study this, know how it, how it grows. We don't know how we pump blood through our body. We don't know how our thoughts come up, but they just happen. There's a happening, there's a rhythm to this whole thing. There's a rhythm to our biological existence.
We don't all know it unless you're of course a person who studies it, but at the same time, even that has its own limited view and vantage point of the knowing what we do now. Or what we might know about ourselves, at least what I've come down to is the only thing I really truly know. [00:24:00] And my, my good friend, Sean sessile, the Oculus Institute who has been interviewed on this podcast a couple of times is the one that gave me these words in this language.
But what I do know is that I'm a sentience being, having a subjective experience in this, in this moment here. And then now that's what I know. And so that caught me of knowing is recognizing what do you actually. And what do you not know? And this is a very liberating perspective to have, because once you can recognize what, you know, it allows you to let go and actually experience the present moment, experience this life of yours, rather than trying to put it into a box, rather than trying to put it into these categories, uh, you know, fighting the impermanence and fighting the lack of, uh, of an inherent or automatic identity that you were just born with.
Instead of doing that instead of attaching to the impermanence and the, you know, the things that we want to attach our identity to, we get to just be here by acknowledging what we know and what we don't know. [00:25:00] And I was on a, a call the other day, a mastermind call. And one of the questions that was asked is, you know, how to, how can I find peace and contentment in the ever growing and changing of life?
Like even when things are good, how do I find peace and good. And I remember the first thing that came up for me, my answer is I thought about the dichotomy of knowing and I realized to myself, well, the way that I find peace and contentment, a lot of the time is by not trying to have peace or contentment by not trying to conclude or box in the thing that I'm trying to give myself certainty or security with instead.
What I do is I recognize that I don't know. And I tell myself, like, I don't actually know. I don't know what's going to give me peace and contentment and security right now. And I find my reassurance in the very fact that I don't know, and the admission of not knowing and in that admission of not knowing, I find a sense of liberation in terms of my perspective.
[00:26:00] In other words, to have an integral view comes with this idea of realizing that we don't. It was, I believe it was Socrates that said I'm the wisest person in the world, because I know nothing, not knowing things or not believing as many things and allowing yourself to be more fluid, more open and receptive to life so that life is passing through you that you're not trying to cling on to.
It is what gives us that peace of mind. So ironically, by not chasing peace by not chasing some sense of reassurance for our existential burden. That is where we find that piece. That is why, where we find that integral view. The truth is to have that integral view begins with deciding, well, not even deciding, but almost admitting to yourself and embracing what you don't know.
I know, uh, Louis and I, we both posted a meme on our stories on Instagram. That was like the universe handing a little note to the ego and the ego pulled it out in front and [00:27:00] was upset reading it. And it said be comfortable and not. Or, you know, that it's okay not to know. And that's exactly it right. Being comfortable and being at peace with not knowing and not having to solve everything, not having to have a meaning for everything or, or a conclusion for everything is where that freedom exists.
I know Louis always gives me this advice every time, you know, I'm getting all philosophical about the problems I have in my own life. And, you know, he'll tell me. It doesn't have to be that deep. It doesn't not, everything needs to be solved or philosophized about, sometimes it can just be what it is and you can move on.
And that has helped me tremendously because there are some things that you really don't need to be digging into and that's okay. And then the time where you maybe want to dig into it and maybe want to reflect on it, are those moments. Continuously comes up as an unpleasant emotion as a recurring chronic thought as a compulsive thought, then it's a good time, good time to kind of dig into those.
Because once again, coming back to responsibility, maybe it's not your fault [00:28:00] that you're having these thoughts and these feelings, but if they're having them and they're disturbing you and they're creating compulsion, they're creating a limited view of life and it is your responsibility to make the choice.
To reflect upon them to dig into them. And that begins to bring us into our next topic for today. So that first topic is the integral view. Having a total or a complete view, it is embodying the Japanese concept or the Japanese word called Gigi Mogi, which means that the, that all things are interconnected.
All one thing implies all others and vice versa. That we all have this interconnection, having that complete view is realizing the causality of the cause and effect of our actions, our words, and what we experienced in our reality. And it's the understanding of karma and the causality and that karma is our own doing.
And it's the thing that we bring to each day, to each moment with the things that we say, the things that we do and the things that we think now, what we [00:29:00] say and do is going to. Be predicated on what we're intending and how, why we're doing the thing in the first place and what we experienced as karma, like the bad luck or the good luck that we have typically is coming from whether or not we're fully accepting ourselves wholeheartedly and to live as the warrior of the garden takes a practice of self-reflection and character examination.
And the reality is. When we talk about intentionality and the results of our karma, what we're talking about is first and foremost, do you fully accept yourself? Do you accept all of yourself? Because the reason why we start looking at intentionality when it comes to Zen, Stoic is because intentionality and what your intentions are.
The one thing that you can't hide from yourself. So before getting into integral, intense, We'll give a quick background on how this came to be. Because since Zen Stoic philosophy, we talk about this [00:30:00] idea of the four intentions and four delusions. And the way that this came together is this came together.
'cause one day, I was asking myself, you know, what is unique about Zen Stoic philosophy? What makes it its own? You know, where, where does it stop being a little bit of Zen and a little bit of stoicism and where does it actually become its own school of thought its own philosophy. And it comes with exactly this which combines the virtues and the essence of bolt Zen Stoicism.
So stoicism has four main virtues and stoicism to put it into a summarized version. It would be the realization that we can't control what happens, but we can't control how we respond. And we can always choose to respond with one or more of the four virtues of stoicism, which are wisdom, temperance, justice, and courage.
Now the virtues that we respond with virtue when stoicism was created, had a different meaning than it does today. Today you can say and do the [00:31:00] right things. You can be virtuous, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to experience inner peace and Zen Stoicism is the philosophy that points one who practices it to unshakable inner peace.
And the Zen idea of this is that when you engage in Zen, when you engage in that. That moment, that experience of Zen, you were being perfectly and simplyhuman wholeheartedly, sincerely, without having to keep an eye on yourself. So when I thought to myself, I'm like, okay, well you can do and say the right things, but you can still be without inner peace.
I asked myself, well, what's the one thing that you can't hide from yourself that even if you lie to the world, you'll always know. And that thing is your intention. You cannot hide your own intentions from yourself. Some people would argue that, yes, you can. You can lie to yourself and that's true, but what you can't hide are the emotions that come up when you're intending in a specific direction.
Now, what I've noticed is [00:32:00] that there are two directions that we can be intending or having intentions in. One of those directions is pointing back towards ourselves and our own human. Towards the experience of our universal consciousness of what it is to be human of our own nature. And the other intentions can be pointing away from it away from our nature away from ourselves.
And so the intention is break into what I call the intentions and the delusions. And when it comes to integral intention, it's about making sure that your intentions are pointing you back to yourself into your own humanity, rather than pointing you over. So there are for that breakdown. And if we're going to be able to create unshakable inner peace, if we're going to be able to have a sense of wisdom in our lives, a way of viewing the world and conducting ourselves in the world, it's important that we are very much mindful and aware of our own intentions in what we say and do and have the ability to reflect upon them, especially when we're [00:33:00] feeling unpleasant emotion cause unpleasant emotions.
Is not necessarily a literal indicator of meaning. It doesn't automatically give meaning to something which is a mistake that we've all made. I've certainly may have made it before. I still make it today where I take my emotion literally, but really what unpleasant emotion in that kind of ringing coming up is almost like a discussion with your consciousness or your conscience rather.
Um, there, the metaphor. That I'm familiar with, again, going back to one of the Jordan Peterson's lectures is where he talks about the movie Pinocchio and how Jimminy cricket represents the conscience of Pinocchio. And that conscience is a bug because your conscious, your conscience bugs you when things are off, when things aren't feeling.
And it's worth having a dialogue with that, which is where the intentions and delusions are able to help because they give us that set. Like when we have that unexpected, unpleasant emotion about something, we have an agitation or a discomfort, it gives us the [00:34:00] opportunity to have a dialogue with our own intentions.
So when we think about these intentions, they break down into four, four pair bonds. You could say, right, there's eight total technically, but you have four with their counterparts. So the first one. Is the intention of embrace when we embrace what we're doing is we're accepting life as it is. We're accepting the now and embracing what is a stoic concept that is discussed a lot today is the concept of a mode Fati, which was discussed by Frederick Nietzsche.
Now, mortified is really interesting because this concept is this idea of loving your face. Or as I like to say, loving your path, whatever it brings and to embrace this, to love the path it's to love your fate is to engage in a life where you're not wishing it were different. You're not trying to resist life.
You're not trying to resist your own feelings, but instead you're embracing all that comes [00:35:00] up. You're allowing yourself to be here in the now without trying to. Now the counter delusion to embrace is resistance and resistance is basically wishing it were different trying to fight life. It's resisting your own humanity.
It's resisting your own nature and resistance can come in many different forms. It can come in, you know, um, both active and passive forms, which by the way, for all the intentions and delusions, they can be expected ex uh, expressed in a passive or an active way. So when we think about. Active is an action that you could take.
So just going back to embrace for a second here, if we're going to actively express embrace what that might look like is maybe it is. You're feeling an emotion, you're feeling something going on, you're feeling a desire or a inspiration to go do something, maybe it's to, um, write a post on your Instagram or your Twitter, or maybe it's to go write a book or start a business, [00:36:00] or maybe it's to call somebody that you haven't spoken to in a while.
Just so like something simple like that. And it comes up within you instead of fighting it, you're taking the action to embrace what you're experienced to embrace, whatever that desire is to embrace whatever the feeling is. That's coming in. Uh, passive form of embrace, for instance, would be just simply not resisting life.
It could be just not having, uh, an opinion about something. It could be just not fighting something. It could be just accepting things as they are. So the passive form of embraces the inaction of embrace. It just, it's basically not engaging in resistance is how you could look at it. Now, resistance. On the other hand, you can express it in an active way by.
Actually suppressing what it is that you're feeling. And you can express it in a passive way, which is maybe just not acting on the things that come up for you. So when we think about embrace versus resistance, we can even look at it in terms of how we treat each other. If we're embracing another person, we're accepting them as the.
[00:37:00] We're accepting all of them. We're giving them empathy. We're treating them with them with kindness. Whereas if we're resisting them, maybe we're treating them poorly. Maybe we're being mean to them. Maybe we're insulting them. Maybe we're judging them. And these are forms of active resistance, right? If we're going to be mean and salt them.
In other words, you can look at it. Uh, I always like to go back to Marcus Aurelius. Cause I think about human nature. When I, when I think about embrace versus resistance and Marcus Aurelius would always say that human beings were made to cooperate with each other and to be hateful or to want to attack another person or to be unkind or rude to another person is going against.
The social nature of what it is to be human, which is to cooperate, right? If we're trying to intend malice upon somebody, we're trying to intent anger, we're doing something out of anger or insulting them or judging. We're trying to make them feel bad or trying to make their lives worse than we are resisting our own humanity.
So even engaging in unkindness is a form of resistance form of active resistance. Now the [00:38:00] next set of intentions and delusions is the intention of understanding versus the delusion of. So the intention of understanding is leading with a sense of curiosity. And this is very much related to how we interact with other people on, on their own paths and how we interact with our own path, our path, and the circumstances and situations that arise on it.
So we can lead with curiosity, or if we engage in the delusion, we lead with control. Now here's the difference, or like how these things come up, the way that you can look at it. Okay. Understanding is essentially a form of going into things with an uncompleted perspective. In other words, you're moving in with a question rather than an answer, whereas control is moving in with deductive reasoning coming in with a conclusion already set and then finding all the evidence to make your conclusion.
Correct. Right. That's one form of [00:39:00] control, but understanding on the other hand is asking a question. Versus having an answer. And what's really interesting about Zen is that Zen doesn't pride itself on having these really profound or cosmic answers. But Zen in essence, prides itself upon its ability to ask questions that help the person who's asking, reach their own conclusions, reach their own sense of understanding and experience.
So when we lead with understand. When it comes to our circumstances or our own path for that matter, what we're doing is going back to changing the frame of reference. We're asking different questions where, you know, getting curious and wanting to learn, we're intending to learn something rather than to conclude something.
That's the basis of understanding. Whereas control is attempting to put something in a box attempting to enforce the belief upon it, having an absolute conviction or a glorified assumption about something that you really don't know. And so something happens in your life. Something [00:40:00] happens on your path.
You know, somebody doesn't like your photo on Facebook that you thought they were going to like, and suddenly you start to believe this thing about yourself, because you would place your validation into that. Or maybe you don't get the job that you want. And so you now believe that, well, I'm unworthy to work in this, this type of environment.
Whatever that could be in any situation that comes up. If we're intending control upon our path. It's when we start to try to dry, we try, we try to draw conclusions as to what is going on on our path. Whereas understanding on the other hand is not drawing conclusions that doing the total opposite, it's asking.
What is, what might this be the beginning of, or how does this unfold? And it leads with a sense of curiosity and wonder, whereas control is trying to make everything rigid now active and passive forms of each of these active understanding is asking questions. It's seeking that knowledge. It's seeking the learnings that might help you to have a better.
Uh, view of the situation, a more integral view. It's, it's using the power of choice to [00:41:00] change your frame of reference rather than closing your frame of reference with belief. Whereas a passive form of understanding could be very simply like Marcus really. So would say you're not obligated to have an opinion on anything.
So sometimes understanding is not immediately forming an opinion on something that you don't know, anything. But rather choosing to explore it. So you go passive by not having the belief or the opinion, and then active, if you want to, by seeking the understanding and learning about whatever it is that you thought, or maybe were tempted to have an opinion on before active control.
On the other hand could be, again, trying to impose beliefs. You can try to control the situations on your path, or sometimes people might try to control other. As a form of control. So this could be engaging in false speech. This could be engaging in manipulation or, you know, doing, doing, and saying things that you know are going to make the person think a certain thing of you so that you are able to get what you want in the situation.
So control could be in that form of manipulation [00:42:00] control can be in it. It can be from lying control. Can also be again. Trying to consistently do the same things over and over and never leaving your comfort zone. Right. If we're going to take the focus off of people for a second and maybe put it on our own path, maybe we would just engage in the same habits over and over.
We never leave our comfort zone. We never seek to understand. Maybe we say things like, oh, I'm not good at this thing, so I'm not going to do it. Right. I'll give you an example from my. For awhile. I was engaged in this delusion of control specifically when it came to this podcast, because I believe that I had to do it all myself.
I believed that I had to make everything happen. And I also believe that, well, I'm not good at video editing. I'm not good at anything tech related. I'm just, I'm just good at delivering the content and just go to the philosophy. Those beliefs were all delusions of control that I had about this actual show that you're watching or listening to.
And instead of intending that control, I [00:43:00] pivoted that and started intending understanding and ask myself, well, who is good at this stuff? Who could I ask? Who could I hire? Who could I outsource some of this to that is. Uh, do I really have to be the one to do everything? And by asking those questions, it completely changed the way I viewed delivering this philosophy.
So sometimes even in business or any, any kind of creative endeavors, changing your position from control to understanding can open up your world completely, which is why it's so important to be able to make that switch. So active control is again, engaging those beliefs. Now passive controls and interests.
Passive control. I talked about this in one of my conversations with Sean sessile, that we had, uh, an interview here. And one thing that that passive control could be is either giving up your control to someone else voluntarily. So giving up your autonomy and letting someone else take the control, it's still a form of control, but you're just outsourcing it to somebody else.
Or it could be when somebody gives up their autonomy to you [00:44:00] and you just willingly accept that you allow them to do it. No. That their autonomy is better in their own hands. Now, there are situations like if your parents were, you know, yes, you gotta make some decisions for your kids, depending on what age your kids are and all that.
But generally speaking, if somebody is just willingly giving you their autonomy and you're just taking. What that ends up becoming, or one example of that, that we had discussed previously on this podcast is that that turns into that codependent relationship. You have one person imposing the control and the beliefs and everything, and then the other person willingly giving it up.
And that is where you get that codependency. And that's where passive and active control can start to feed off of each other and create this vicious cycle. So we want to keep in mind leading with understanding, leading with curiosity, this instead of imposing beliefs on somebody or trying to manipulate them when you're leading with.
You're leading with empathy. You're leading with curiosity about them and wanting to understand and appreciate them and where they're at, rather than try to take away their autonomy, rather than try to put [00:45:00] them in a box. It's actually having curiosity and wondering about that. Now the next set of intentions and delusions are a really interesting one.
So the next set is discipline versus expediency and disciplined versus expediency at its core. If we boil it down to its irreducible state, I would call it the relationship or it's related to the relationship that you have with your own emotions. Now, discipline is the prioritization of meaning over gratifying.
Whereas expediency is the prioritization of gratification over meaning. So going back to a Marcus Aurelius reference in book two of Marcus release meditations, he talks about the five ways that the soul degrades itself and way number three is to be overpowered by pain or. This is expediency at its core.
It is being overpowered by both pain or pleasure in trying to be gratified from either [00:46:00] pursuing the pain or sorry, pursuing the pleasure or avoiding the pain, avoiding the discomfort. So we're going to go into expediency first because this makes it a little bit easier to understand discipline. So with this set, expediency is pretty much, you can look at it like this.
I feel uncomfortable, or I feel a bad. And I want it to go away. So I'm going to build a bridge from my bad feeling to a good feeling. Now, where part of this is inspired by is in the precepts of Buddhism, which the third precept of Buddhism is not to exploit the passions, which basically means if you feel sad, don't go have a drink.
If you feel sad, don't go and start eating food or start engaging in sexual activity to make yourself feel. I think that's not the reason that you want to indulge in these passions, food, drinks, and sex are all great, beautiful, and enjoyable things about life. But if you're, if you're exploiting these things, if you're exploiting these passionate states [00:47:00] of being.
Because you don't feel good, that's when you're engaging in expediency. So when we engage in expediency, the problem is, is that we're not understanding the emotion. We're actually engaging in a form of resistance to the emotion that we're feeling. And then we're bridging ourselves over to the good feeling with any kind of bridge and that bridge can be made of literally anything you can build that bridge with food.
You can build it with alcohol, you can build it with sex. You can build that bridge with another emotion. One, just one example. Somebody might feel scared. And in that feeling of being scared, that like, I don't want to feel scared anymore. So what they do is instead of feeling scared, they turn on anger.
They say, well, if I'm angry, then I'll be in control. If I'm angry, then I'll be able to capture this moment and not let the uncertainties. And so they'll engage in anger so we can engage in literally anything for expediency, because expediency at the end of the day is all about the exploitation of the relationship that you have to your emotions.
[00:48:00] And if we're going to explore the relationship we have in our emotions, we're going to be moving away from the bad feelings in order to be gratified in that moment. Now, discipline on the other hand is about pursuing what's meaningful and realizing that when we have an uncomfortable feeling, when we have a bad feeling, that feeling is trying to tell us.
And there are some actions that we can take in response to that feeling that are not just to move us away from it. But to again, maybe intense some understanding to understand what that feeling is and determine the appropriate actions or things that we need to express in order to build more meaning there, discipline is about focusing on what's meaningful and choosing something in your life that's meaningful and pursuing that discipline is also.
Saying no. And having boundaries around what is meaningful so that you're able to protect it and not allow things that are not essential into your life. Now, where I really learned this intention of discipline was the book essential ism, and essentially. It's [00:49:00] all about focusing on what's most important so that you're able to operate at the highest level of your contribution.
And that's what discipline is about. It's about focusing on your highest level of contribution and the thing that brings you the most joy and the thing that you can give the most so that you live a life of fulfillment so that you're able to be present in your life and do what you're made for, do what you do best do what people need from you and do the things that really fill your soul and fill your heart.
That's what discipline is. And there can be joy experience and discipline. When we say discipline, we don't mean being rigid and being really serious about something. We mean simply protecting what matters most protecting what's important to you and not immediately resorting resorting to gratification or comfort, but instead of resorting to those things we aim at what's most important.
We aim at what's most meaningful for us. And that's that's, that's essentially what discipline is. Now there are active and passive forms of each of these, right. We can think about the active [00:50:00] form of discipline would be, which would be engaging in the activities that are most meaningful to you, engaging in the things that maybe are part of your purpose or mission.
Whereas passive discipline could be simply not exploiting the passion, simply not getting into things that are within your comfort zone or your bad habits. And that would be where discipline would fall. Now active expediency would be things like trying to rush to get something done, because you feel so uncomfortable with something being undone or trying to rush other people, or maybe rushing to a pleasure in life, rushing to one of the passions in order to not feel the bad.
Whereas passive expediency could literally be just avoidance, passive experience. You could take the form of procrastination and avoiding what's actually important because you perceive that there's going to be a discomfort along the way. So again, even, you know, discipline and expediency both have their active and passive forms.
Now the final set of intentions and illusions are the intention of [00:51:00] sincerity and the delusion of performance. Now, this is one that has. Been probably the biggest one for me in my life. And one of the hardest to overcome when I was able to do it. But basically sincerity is, has sincerity versus performance has everything to do.
And is related to your relationship to self-expression and sincerity is prioritizing yourself respect and your self-expression exactly as it is without apologizing for it without, you know, um, Second guessing yourself and performance instead is looking at the perspective or your perceived perspective of others and how they might be looking at you.
So performance prioritizing. The perspective of others or the admiration of others, or even the opinion of others as they have on you over your opinion or your view of yourself. So when it comes to sincerity, it's about being you wholeheartedly. It's about [00:52:00] speaking your truth. It's about expressing what is truly inside.
That if you're upset about something that you're not afraid to say that you're upset about it, you can be candid about these things. You can speak truth. You can say how you're feeling either to yourself or to other people. That's where sincerity falls. And it's taking actions that you truly want to do.
And when somebody is fully sincere, when they are, you know, embodying this intention, it really represents Zen style of action, which is the acting and deciding simultaneously it's a very present form of. You know, they teach this a lot when it comes to Zen and archery, which is the release of the bow and the decision to, to release the bow happened at the same time.
That is a symbolism for what sincerity is. And this comes in the form of what you say, what you do, um, why you're taking certain actions. Like if you're wearing certain clothes, you're wearing them because this is what you feel expresses you. Not because you think that this is the trend, that's going to get other people to.
Whereas performance on the other hand [00:53:00] is trying to be someone that you're not so that other people would approve of you. It's doing things that you don't actually want to do, and you're disagreeing with them in your own head, but you're agreeing so that you get the approval, the love, the admiration, the respect of other people, but at the end of the day, none of that is real.
If you're not approving, loving and respecting yourself. And the way that you can look at this is that if you're going to say yes to something or something. Be sure that you're saying yes, internally first and then externally, if you're saying yes, externally and no internally, that's when you're setting yourself up for a world of suffering in a world of unnecessary friction in your own life, because you're not being true to you.
You're not allowing yourself to be you. You're not expressing what you're made to be. And the thing is one concept that I got when I read the book, the four agreements. Beyond the work that you do for this world beyond the people [00:54:00] that you're, you make connections with, or the things that you give in this life beyond your life purpose, as you know, so many people obsess about these days, the real message that you're delivering to this world, your real contribution is you exactly as you are, whatever that means.
It's not the work that you do. It's not what you give it's. Yeah, how you treat people necessarily, but it is you and by being you and the most sincere version of you, that is what you're here to contribute. Finding ways to execute that in a disciplined way, with a deeper understanding and embracing what it is about you embracing your quirks.
The weird things about you or your gifts are the things that you're able to really express and the things that you gravitate towards naturally, and the things that bring you joy. That is what it is to be intentional. That's where you bring that sincerity. So when it comes to sincerity versus performance, we want to speak what is actually on our minds and in our hearts, not what [00:55:00] is trending, not what's going to make us sound good to someone else.
If you, if there is a cause out there, there is a social injustice that you really believe. It's absolutely not only. Okay, but good to express that. But if you are expressing care for some kind of social cause or social injustice or something like that, just because it is now the trend on Instagram, that you need to do a certain thing with your pictures.
That's performance. That's not because you want to do it. Not because you really feel it and that's disingenuous, not just for you, but for the cause that you're supporting. So it's important that if you really feel it, then you express it. And if you don't. Right. Like passive sincerity could just be not expressing something.
That's not you, it's making that decision to just not express things that don't actually align with who you are and what you're trying to express in this world. Whereas active sincerity is like, you know, you have the ability to speak your truth and speak your mind. Um, I'll give you a silly little [00:56:00] example, something I've been doing lately.
It's like if a thought comes up in conversation, which it just came up now, which is why I'm sharing. I'll say it out loud, I'll just share it. And it came up because I'm trying to, like, I was last night, I was bringing a client after liberation session to this float tank place called true rest float spa.
And I was there and they have multiple locations here in Austin. They actually have locations all over the U S but I was there and my membership was originally at another one. I was trying to change it. So they told me. They said, you can change it to here, but you have to cancel it first and you need to write them an email.
And the girl at the front desk said, uh, you have to write them an email. It needs to be in your words. And the first thing that came up in my mind, it's like, it's not even that funny, but, but the first thing I thought of was. Like, oh, I can't cancel my membership through gifts. And like I said it out loud, like I didn't really think it was going to be funny.
It wasn't to make people laugh, but it was just what was on my mind. It's like when you practice sincerity, when you just use these [00:57:00] little like moments to speak your truth, the more you engage in sincerity, the more you end up trusting. A lot of advice out there in terms of personal development. It's like, you need to trust yourself.
You need to trust yourself. But the truth is it's not an intellectual exercise. You don't just decide one day like, okay, I trust myself. It comes from expressing yourself sincerely and not performing. Every time you perform, you are reinforcing to yourself that you do not trust. When you are sincere, you are reinforcing to yourself that you do trust yourself.
And each expression builds upon that. And it compounds in terms of the amount of faith and trust you have in yourself and to the point where you are acting and deciding simultaneously in that space of genuine, sincere action, that space of Zen style of action. So when we think about passive versus active on these two active performance, Could just be again, virtue signaling to acting like you care about something when you don't trying to say the right thing or do the right thing.
Just so people will think a certain [00:58:00] thing of you and passive performance could be that somebody says something about you. Maybe they praise you. And it's not really true. It's not really who you are and you just let them, you let them because Hey, they had. So I'm just going to allow that to keep going.
So those are the four intentions and four delusions. This is practicing this and reflecting on this, asking yourself what is really my intention here is how we're going to have that integral intention ensuring that you're doing your best. And you're making your best effort to point your intentions back to your own humanity rather than away from it.
And the way that you'll always be able to tell that you're pointing away from it is you will feel unpleasant feelings. Remember. And those are signals to you that it's worth, at least having a dialogue with yourself, it's worth at least having a discussion so that you can ask yourself. What's my intention here.
What's the intention that is causing me to feel this way. Okay. When it comes to your mind. Okay. It's it's control. It's expediency. Okay. What would it look like [00:59:00] if I use the opposing or the counter intention to this, if instead of trying to control, what, what would it look like? If I intended to understand.
Or what would it look like if I intended discipline in this moment, those are some questions that you can ask yourself in order to self-reflect. So that is integral view and integral intention. And in the next episode, we're going to be going into the next aggregate of the eightfold path, which the aggregate of conduct, this is right.
Action, right. Speech and right livelihood. Or as we say, with the Zen Stoic trends, Integral speech integral action and integral livelihood. So looking forward to seeing you on the next episode, if you have any questions that you would like us to cover on these episodes, feel free to send them for now to my email, Victor at Zen Stoic dot com.
I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to hear from the show and if this content is resonating with you, if it helps you please like and subscribe, and we look forward to seeing you on the journey of the Zen Stoic path.