130 - Three Approaches for Doubt and Mistrust

130 - Three Approaches for Doubt and Mistrust

In Buddhism, doubt is beneficial because it is the first step in weakening our wrong views. The wonderful thing about doubt is that it can propel us in the direction of more skillful views. There is a strong emphasis in Buddhism to avoid “believing in” Buddhist teachings, instead, we are encouraged to evaluate them and to understand them and ultimately, to test them against our own experience.

Koan Discussed: One day Chao-chou fell down in the snow, and called out, “Help me up! Help me up!” A monk came and lay down beside him. Chao-chou got up and went away.

Koan Shared: What is the sound of one hand clapping?

Book Mentioned: “Mind in Tibetan Buddhism” by Lati Rinbochay. Available at: amzn.to/3ezRfZa

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Transcript:

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Secular Buddhism Podcast. This is episode number 130. I am your host, Noah Rasheta, and today I’m going to talk about using doubt and mistrust and how essential these things are on the Buddhist path.

As always, keep in mind you don’t need to use what you learned from Buddhism to be a Buddhist. You can use what you learn to be a better whatever you already are. Quick announcement. I’m excited to announce that I will now have two additional perks for podcast supporters on the Patreon community who are looking for more live interactions on a weekly basis. As the community continues to grow, I want to offer value to podcast supporters beyond what you get from just listening to the podcast. So I have two new options that I’m going to start doing every week now.

The first one is using a platform called Crowdcast. I want to offer live Q and A and AMA, which is ask me anything, sessions. When I first started learning about Buddhism, I really wished I had access to a teacher, or a mentor, or someone who could help me navigate my way through all of the concepts, the teachings and the practices. I had a lot of questions, but I had to go searching for everything on my own. And I know that finding a Buddhist center or a teacher, is simply not an option for everyone based on where you live or how much time you have. And I wanted to make myself available every Sunday for a live Q and A session, where as podcast listeners and supporters, you can pick my brain about anything related to Buddhism, or related to the topics in the podcast, or really anything at all.

So who is this for? This is for anyone who is wanting to learn more about Buddhism, Buddhist teachings, concepts, practices, and who wants to work with a teacher to learn more. So this is something I’m going to be doing every Sunday from now on. And then the second thing is similar, but this is using zoom.

As you know, zoom is kind of the big rage right now. Zoom allows us to have live group discussions and interactions. So the second component to this is the sense of community. Community is an important part of the Buddhist path and having someone to talk to is extremely valuable. Patreon allows us to communicate with each other but it’s somewhat limited, and nothing compares to real life interactions. So I thought the next best step is to meet virtually online. So as of this week I’m going to start using zoom to allow podcast supporters to be able to have a greater sense of community. Where we can get to know each other and have discussions around the podcast episodes, and be able to break out into smaller groups, and have live discussions around the topics that we’re learning in the podcast. And discuss the koan, or anything else that needs to be discussed in a one-on-one live setting with other podcasts listeners.

And there will be the opportunity to practice meditation, awareness practice, and more. And these meetings are going to follow a structure to maintain an orderly discussion. So who is this for? This is also, this is for anyone who wants to meet and discuss Buddhist concepts, ideas and topics with real live people in a live setting. And that’s also going to be set up every week. So if you want to learn more, you can have access to either one of these or both of them simply by becoming a podcast supporter on Patreon. At the lowest tier, which is essentially the cost of a cheap cup of coffee every month. It’s $3 a month to have the community access and that would give you both of those options for the live settings. So if that sounds interesting to you, you can learn more about that by visiting secularbuddhism.com, and clicking the link on the top of the page that says Patreon.

So that’s all I have about that in terms of the announcement. And now let’s jump right into the discussion around the Zen koan that was shared in the last podcast episode. So this koan says one day Chao-chou fell in the snow and called out, “Help me up, help me up.” A monk came and lay down beside him, Chao-chou got up and went away. And that’s it. That’s the koan. And I want to share first of all, some of the thoughts that come from the Patreon community. Because as you know I’ve mentioned we have discussions around the podcast and around the koan, and I want to share some of these thoughts. So Ellen says, “This is what the koan makes me think of, when experiencing difficult emotions like grief or depression, and your loved ones want to help, but there’s no way to pull you out of those feelings or make them go away. So often the best way to help is just to be with you while you’re feeling them. The feelings can run their course with someone you love by your side, until you have the strength to get up on your own.”

And I agree with Ellen’s assessment here. I think oftentimes we try to help someone, and our way of helping isn’t helpful. And other times all we really need to do is be with someone and just by being with them, like in this case, the monk lays down beside him and that’s all he needed. Chao-chou got up and went away is what it says.

Okay. Matt says, “I think it is an example of reactivity. Chao-chou falls and his initial reaction is to panic. He fears he cannot free himself from the situation. The monk comes and lives beside him to show him that the situation is not a crisis. He too is lying in the snow and did so voluntarily. In doing so, one can see that there is no emergency. This is an interesting take on it. I hadn’t thought about it from that perspective, but I think again with these koans, this is an invitation for you to extract meaning, or whatever you’re going to get out of it for you. And it’s kind of cool that Matt saw this. This is kind of a different angle to it that I think is accurate in a lot of instances in life, where we are in a situation and we’re thinking how am I going to do this? But it’s helpful to know that somebody else has been in this situation, and if they were able to find a way to cope with it or deal with it, then I can too.

And I know I’ve felt that before and honestly I think a lot of us are feeling this now, with everything that we’re going through with the lockdowns and with the COVID-19. I was telling my wife this the other day, how much more difficult it would be to face these uncertainties in terms of jobs and the potential financial repercussions if I knew this was just happening to me, but somehow by knowing that the whole world is trying to figure out what to do about work and about income, and things like that, somehow makes it so much less stressful because I know it’s not just me.

We’re all trying to figure it out. And that’s kind of what Matt is talking about here, so I like that thought. I think there’s something there to it. Suzanne says, “This koan really resonated with me. And I was reminded of the key idea of Montessori education, help me to do it on my own. Chao-chou asks for someone to help him up, which would be quite a passive way of reacting to the present situation. Like a child asking their parents to do something for them. Instead the monk lies down and shows Chao-chou the passively of his response. Once having realized this Chao-chou able to act for himself, get up under his own steam and walk away.” And then she says, “It also reminds me of the raft analogy. The monk and his compassion are the raft which enables Chao-chou to get up and leave behind the monk, which is the raft.

It’s always fascinating to hear other people’s perspectives on these stories because we’re all in different places in life. We’ve had different experiences in life and we see things from a unique vantage point. And that’s what I thought of when I was reading Suzanne’s take on this. What a cool way to see that. Again, from a perspective that hadn’t crossed my mind and the correlations that she’s drawing that hadn’t crossed my mind, and I like them. They make a lot of sense to me. And then I want to finish with one more with Nancy’s thoughts.

So Nancy says, “This koan makes me think about when I have a problem or a situation that is troubling me, and I turn to a friend or a loved one for help. The best help I have received is when that person simply sits with me and listens.” And that’s getting back to kind of the way Ellen talked about it and what I kind of took from it, which is that sometimes the best help is the help that’s just being with someone and not actually trying to help. That was certainly a lesson I took away from it.

And I think sometimes we see this in our own lives that the best way to help someone is to just sit and be with them, and to not try to help. In fact, oftentimes the trying to help makes the problem worse. I know I’ve experienced that, both as the receiving, on the receiving end of that, but also on the other end where I’m the one who’s trying to help, and I’m catching myself that my health is not helping. I don’t know if you’ve experienced that. I would assume some of you have. You can kind of correlate this also with the concept of teaching people to fish instead of giving fish.

I’ve correlated this a little bit with the thought of, with my kids, teaching them how to think rather than what to think. So yeah, my mind has gone to a lot of different places with this koan, but at the end of the day I like visualizing Chao-chou falling in the snow and calling, “Help me up, help me up.” And then monk laying there next to him and Chao-chou just gets up and walks away. These little stories can always be unpacked to gain a lot of perspectives and thoughts and teachings. And again, there’s never a right answer. The point wasn’t the answer. The point was what did it make you think of? And in the process of thinking, maybe you learned something about yourself. I think that’s what’s cool about these koans.

All right. Moving over to the topic that I wanted to discuss in today’s podcast episode, the concept of the three stages of doubt. So first, let me set you up with what prompted this. Like me, many of you are probably seeing all kinds of crazy stuff on Facebook these days, right? Stories about this and conspiracies about that. And there’s a part of us that’s like, well, which views are right? How could we possibly know? How can I take what I’m experiencing right now into my own personal practice? And the amount of healthy skepticism and doubt that has gone into my analysis of the various news sources, and crazy stories, and videos that I’ve watched, is what inspired this topic. I thought in Buddhism the concept of mistrust or the concept of doubt is very important. There’s the expression in Zen Buddhism that says, Big doubt, big enlightenment. Small doubt, small enlightenment. No doubt, no enlightenment.”

And I really like that because without questioning our views, we can’t possibly see new things. Or we cannot experience a new way of seeing things. And when I used to go around and teach the workshops, the Introduction to Buddhism and the Introduction to Mindfulness workshops, there was an analogy that I used often about the tinted glasses. And how we’re going through life wearing these tinted glasses. And if you’ve ever worn glasses that have a tint like red or green or blue, it affects everything that you look at.

Everything is tinted by the color of the glasses that you’re wearing. And if I were to be born with those glasses and I’ve never taken them off, and I’ve only ever seen life through the tint of the lenses that I’m looking through, I wouldn’t know to even mistrust that what I’m seeing is tinted.

I would think what I’m seeing is reality. This is how things are. Everything’s slightly green and I may never know that there’s a tint there, if I’m not willing to at least entertain first, the idea that maybe the way I see is not correct. So that’s where this concept of mistrust and doubt comes in. I think one way to almost invoke this sense of mistrust is to just consider the views of whatever your opposing political views are.

If you’re a Democrat, look at the news that’s coming from the Republicans. If you’re a Republican, look at the news that’s coming from Democrats. And you’re going to have almost a natural sense of mistrust that arises just naturally. And you don’t have to be American with Republicans and Democrats, this is happening all over the world. Whatever your views are, look at the opposing party’s views and notice what arises in you.

What you should be experiencing most likely is an instant sense of mistrust. If so and so said it, I don’t know about that. If my team said that, okay, I trust that, I’m not even going to question it. And this is where we have a neat opportunity to take some of that same mistrust and that same skepticism that is so easily flung to the other side and apply it to your own views. That’s essentially what we’re practicing in Buddhism. I just want to emphasize here, this isn’t meant to leave us crippled with indecisiveness. It isn’t meant to paralyze us with fear and say, “Oh, well now I don’t know true.” This is meant to liberate us from the attachment to our views. We talk about this often and Buddhism. That the good concepts or bad concepts, good ideas or bad ideas, good beliefs or bad beliefs. They’re like chains that bind us. And that’s not necessarily a problem. We’re all bound by our ideas.

What it means though is when I am attached to a view, I’m not completely open to the possibilities of changing that view. And if I can learn to develop what we call the beginner’s mind and Buddhism, it’s like the mind of a child. It’s always curious. It’s always learning and it’s always adapting to whatever’s being thrown at it. That is the mind that we’re after in our practice. And if you think about it, we are always doubting. What is it that we’re doubting? Well, we doubt whatever contradicts what we already think we know. We all do it. Everybody does it. That’s why it’s so easy to question what somebody is saying if I don’t agree with them. And that’s also why it’s so easy to overlook what might be poor quality news, if it’s coming from my team. Because there’s this already, this assumption well if it’s my team saying it, I don’t even need a question it, it’s good.

And one Buddhist way of doubting is to be a knower that is mistrusting of both directions. So I want to talk about this a little bit. It’s a neat concept, the three stages of doubt. I first heard of this idea in the book called Mind in Tibetan Buddhism and the author’s name is Lati Rinpochay. And I’m going to post a link to this in the show notes where you can, if you want to look up that book, it’s on Amazon. But there he talks about this concept of the three stages of doubt and the idea is that you can take a statement of fact, like as an example, the universe is infinite. That’s the statement. And then you have the three stages, stage one… or three levels. I’m not sure if stages is the right word, but you’ve got these three ways to approach doubt.

One is where you tend towards the fact, the other is where you tend towards the distortion. And then the third one is where you tend equally towards both. So here’s the example. If we were to say the universe is infinite, if I’m going to lean towards that fact, I might be thinking, the universe is probably infinite. I’m leaning towards the fact. If I’m leaning towards the distortion, which is essentially I’m leaning towards the other side of the argument. I might be thinking the universe is probably not infinite. And then there’s this middle ground. Because we’re talking Buddhism. There’s always in the middle ground, where you tend towards both equally, where here you might not be able to make up your mind and you’re just going to be left with wondering whether the universe is infinite or finite. Is it finite or infinite?

And that’s the third stage. Now why is this helpful? How could this be practical in day to day life? Well, in Buddhism, like I mentioned before, doubt is beneficial, because it is the first step in weakening the possibility of having a wrong view. Now that to me is fascinating. I want to repeat that, because doubt in Buddhism is beneficial because it is the first step in weakening wrong view. And as you know, in the eightfold path, right view or skillful view, is the view that we’re after. But how do we know which view is skillful in which one is not skillful? We don’t. So we have to operate under the assumption that what we think may not be true. It may not be the most skillful way of viewing something. Well, how could we possibly know if we have the wrong view, if we’re never willing to doubt our view?

So that’s the first thing that I want to mention here in Buddhism, you’re encouraged to carry a healthy amount of skepticism and doubt towards your own views. And this is where the story of the monk emptying the teacup. If by emptying the teacup, you can fill it up with whatever new knowledge, whatever new view you’re going to have. But you cannot physically do that. You cannot fill a tea cup that’s already full. It cannot be done. And it’s the same with our views. We cannot have a new view if we’re not first willing to accept that we might have an incorrect view, or at least question the view that we have. So in that sense, we must have an open mind willing to accept that we may have an incorrect view, in order to start the process of arriving at the correct view, whatever the correct view may be.

So if I were to tell you, hey, you’re seeing things through tinted glasses and that’s affecting what you see. The green tint that you happen to see on everything, is not an accurate depiction of the world. It’s caused by the green tint of your glasses. Well, at that point you’re left with the option of believing me and saying, “Maybe the way I view things is off.” Or you could think I’m absolutely nuts and crazy and that’s it. You don’t want to hear anything else from me. You could be angry at me because you’re upset that I’m assuming that you don’t see things correctly. And that’s just one example. But that’s what we do. We all go around thinking that the way that we view things now, that is the right way, but the way you view things no, that’s not the right way.

And we think that if I can shame you enough about your view, then maybe you’ll adopt my view, and that absolutely does not work. Anyone who’s been on Facebook knows that’s just not how it works. So rather than focusing all of our energy on trying to correct everyone else’s way of viewing things, what we’re doing in this practice is we’re just trying to understand how do I see things. And the example I gave, that’s a over-simplified example. Because first of all, it’s not very easy to identify any tint in your way of viewing that you have. I mean, it’s hard enough to identify the tint that I may have in my own views. So much less am I going to be able to confidently point out what kind of tint you’re distorting in the way that you view? I don’t know. I’m just trying to figure out my own life here.

So I think it starts with the recognition of the mere possibility that my view might be wrong. That’s where I start. If I want to make a big change in the world, I’ve got to start with at least recognizing that maybe the way that I’m viewing it, is not the most skillful way. And again, there’s a strong emphasis in Buddhism to avoid believing in Buddhist teachings. Instead, we’re encouraged to evaluate them, to understand these teachings, and ultimately to test them against our own experience. So how do we avoid getting stuck in doubt and getting paralyzed with fear? I think to me, uncertainty is the important thing here. Because when we are no longer attached to the need to be right, or to have a sense of certainty in our view, then we can move more comfortably between each view that we hold. And to me, this is the space of suchness, what we call suchness in Buddhism.

This is the beginner’s mind. This is the unknowing mind. There are a lot of ways that this is talked about. And some Buddhist literature even equates enlightenment itself with this idea of suchness, which to me is the tending towards both equally. Where I may not be able to make up my mind whether this is this or that is that. Now you have to pause here for a minute and just recognize that this is probably running contrary to almost anything you’ve ever been taught in terms of our Western way of thinking in our society. We do not like to not know things. In fact, we’re so uncomfortable with the uncertainty of something that we would rather believe that even if we’re wrong, but have the certainty that no it’s this. Because the answer I don’t know, is not acceptable in our society. We do not like to not know.

I think it’ll be really helpful if we think about this in terms of skillful versus unskillful. And there are some things that we will simply never know, because they’re just unknowable. And I’m not referring to the big existential questions, like is the universe finite or is it infinite? I’m referring to smaller things like the concern I have, will my kids turn out to be the way that I hope that they will? Or will my spouse always love me? Or will I remain satisfied in the current job I’m in? Those are equally troubling questions that we want to feel a sense of certainty. We’re not okay with the answer of, I don’t know. We want to know, so we’ll stick with either yes or no, but at least it’s certain. And with suchness we allow both perceptions to coexist. One possibility on one end of the spectrum and the other possibility on the other end of the spectrum, and we find comfort in the uncertainty.

Now that is a really fascinating thing to be able to do. But there’s a lot of skillfulness in here and I want to give an example of this in terms of skillful and unskillful. Because again, I’m not saying we need to be indecisive or wishy washy about our views. I think we can absolutely hold onto a view while practicing non-attachment. I’ll give you an example of what I’m talking about here. Let’s just say the example of a spouse. If I have a spouse and someone were to tell me, “Hey, I think your…” If I were to think my spouse is cheating on me, and I believe that they are, but really they’re not. Think of how unskillful that belief is in my relationship. Now, the only thing that gives it credibility is the importance that I have, in my need to be right. And unfortunately in this case I believe that they are. Well, what does that going to do to my relationship?

If knowing, in real life they’re not, but I think that they are. That would be very unskillful for me to continue to operate under the assumption that they are, simply because I believe it. Now, let’s flip the other side of this. Let’s say your spouse really is, in reality they are, but you believe that they’re not. It’s the same dilemma here. How unskillful is it to continue operating under that set of circumstances where the only thing making me continue to behave the way that I am is I cannot let go of my belief, and my belief says that they’re not. And there may be all these clear red flags that say, yeah, they probably are. But I can’t see them because I’m blinded by my belief. So you can see the dilemma here. It’s not about whether they are or they aren’t.

It’s about, am I willing to entertain the opposite of what I believe? Am I willing to at least take my belief and say maybe I’m wrong? And then at that moment I’m a little bit more free to look at other potential evidence or red flags, that would be contrary to the belief that I already formulated. So that’s one example. Another one that I think of often, is in terms of a religion. I’ve talked about this with my wife where I’ve said, the problem with our beliefs is that once we formulate a belief, you can be presented with evidence that runs contrary to it. And you will not see it. You cannot see it. And the example that I’ve talked about, if I was a devout Christian, and I believed that Jesus is coming. The second coming, what would I do if he appeared with one of my competitors?

That’s not the right word. Not competitors, but let’s just say I’m a devout Catholic and Jesus shows up with the head of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Would I just instantly be like, “Oh yep, I guess they were right.” Or would I be like, “Nah, there’s a conspiracy here. That’s not the real Jesus. They’re just trying to trick us.” I think that’s what most of us would do. And put yourselves in this position, whatever your view is. What if the thing you’re expecting didn’t happen that way? Would you find reasons to, to explore at that point, oh okay, well let me look into this. Or are you going to be like, “No way, no way. That’s not what’s really happening.”

I think most of us would do exactly that. We would say, “Nope, that’s not what’s happening. This is a conspiracy.” What would the average Christian think if they look up into the heavens and it’s not Jesus who’s coming, it’s Krishna. Do you really think that most Christians would just be like, “Oh, okay, yep. I guess it was the Hindus. They were the right ones. Let’s all switch.”

No way. They’d say, that’s the devil, the devil’s impersonating and trying to fool us and blah, blah, blah. Or if it was Jesus, what are the Hindus going to think? And that’s just a fun mental experiment because that’s… Or what is the atheist going to think? There’s Jesus in the sky. Do you think the atheist is going to be like, “Oh I was wrong. Okay, back to Christianity.” Or are they most likely going to be like, “Okay, who’s pulling the strings here? This is an elaborate prank.” Because they’ve already decided there is no Jesus. And that’s what I’m trying to get at with this. Again, I use that as an example because I think a lot of us can kind of understand how strong beliefs are very difficult to look past.

And that’s why I brought up that as the example. You could be a believer and there’s nothing that could be presented to you that’s going to make you not believe, and vice versa. You can be a nonbeliever. What are you going to present to the non-believer that’s going to make them be like, “Oh okay, now I believe.” And granted I’m recognizing that people shift from one view to another. Believers become nonbelievers, and nonbelievers become believers. And believers become believers of other beliefs. That happens all the time, but I don’t think it happens willfully. Like, hey, I just don’t want to believe this anymore. And I know that because I’ve gone through that myself. I’ve transitioned from one belief system to non-belief, and it was not intentional like, hey, I’m just not going to believe one day. It doesn’t work that way. It was a series of events that makes you think a certain way that makes you question the way that you think. And before you know it, you’re like, “I don’t know what I think.” And then I stopped believing.

And I think it’s odd to me when people will question that and think, no, you just chose to not believe. And I’m like, I couldn’t do that. And the same way that you go up to Christian and say, “Okay, well if it really is that simple and it’s just about choosing, go ahead and become a Muslim now, why don’t you go ahead and just switch everything over and believe in Allah.” They can’t. I mean they can’t. You can fake it, but it’s not natural. And yet Christians convert to Islam, members of Islam will convert to Christianity. It can happen, but it’s not happening because someone just decided, I want this to happen. It happens because you go looking.

So this is where that concept of doubt comes in. If you’re not willing to doubt your own views, or if you can’t doubt your own views then you can’t see anything other than what you’re seeing. And this is where I think, this is the wonderful thing about doubt, is that it, it can propel us in the direction of a more skillful view. And I don’t think we have to think of this in terms of true false, right, wrong. I think, again, I always emphasize this, I like the idea of skillful versus unskillful.

And when it comes to big things like beliefs, I like what French writer Andre Gide once wrote, he said, “Believe those who are seeking truth, doubt those who find it.” And I really like that. I kind of want to wrap up my thoughts on this topic with that quote in mind, I want to invite you to stay open, stay curious to stay non-attached to the certainty that your views are right.

And I’m not talking religious views. I’m talking all your views, your political views, whether or not this coronavirus thing is a hoax, whether or not… I’m talking about any view, any single view that you have, maybe, just maybe things aren’t what we think they are. Just maybe the view that you have isn’t the most accurate or the most skillful and maybe with these three stages of doubt, you can start tending towards both extremes. Both ends equally to where you cannot make up your mind and you wonder whether or not it is or it isn’t. I think that’s a very skillful view to hold. And again, I’m not saying this because I want everyone to be out there thinking, well, I don’t have any opinion about that. I’m not saying that. I have strong opinions about things. I have strong political views on certain things this way or that way, but I’m not attached to it.

Meaning, I understand why I hold this view. Because I can’t help having been raised where I was raised. Having adopted the societal views that I have, and all these things that make me have an opinion, but that does not mean my opinion is right. So I’m always willing to entertain and to explore the view from the other side. I don’t care what belief it is that I have. I’m willing to entertain the view of the other side. And often I will, and I’ll be like, “Oh, after hearing the argument, yep, nope, I’m still leaning on this side.” But even then it’s not with a death grip. It’s like, well… I mean keep presenting, keep on presenting information. Maybe at some point something will click, I’ll be like, “Ah, okay, yeah, that does make sense.” But until then, this is what makes sense. And that’s how I view all of my beliefs, all of my views.

I hold them very lightly and that’s something I love about Buddhism. I feel like it gives me the permission to hold my views lightly even, and especially my views that I get through Buddhism. Because I’m not asked to believe any of this stuff. These are all concepts that I get to work with and test, and see how I feel about them and see if they work for me and they do. That’s why I’m teaching and sharing all these concepts and ideas because it has been a very liberating way of engaging with reality. A reality that I cannot completely understand, and that I cannot completely discern, if one thing is correct or not. But I get to try to understand it a little bit more and more every day. That’s what I love about science. It’s like the process of continually uncovering and learning new things, but it never has to be set in stone.

All right, so I kind of got a little off topic there, but that’s what I wanted to share with you. This concept of the three stages of doubt and how beneficial it might be if we were all willing to at least empty our cup a little bit, and especially if our intent is to fill our cup with more knowledge, well then you got to dump out what’s in there. You’re not going to ever have any change of views if you’re not even willing to entertain the possibility of maybe my view isn’t the most accurate or isn’t the most correct.

All right. That’s all I have for this podcast episode. As always, thank you for listening. If you want to support the work doing with the podcast, consider becoming a Patron and joining our online community where we discuss the koans and these podcast episodes. And as I mentioned before, the live interactions that are now taking place there every week. And if you want to learn more about that, you can visit secularbuddhism.com. If you enjoyed the podcast episode, please share it with others. Write a review, give it a rating in iTunes. And that’s all I have for now. I look forward to recording another podcast episode soon.

But before I go, here is the Zen koan to work with between now and the next podcast episode. This is a classic. It’s one that I have to mention if I’m doing all these podcasts, and this is, what is the sound of one hand clapping? That’s it. That’s your koan. Thank you for listening, until next time.

 

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Written by

Noah Rasheta

Noah Rasheta

Kamas, UT
Having fun living life. Podcast Host | Author | Paramotor Flight Instructor