Secular Buddhism Podcast

Episode 177: Interview on 10,000 Heroes

Introduction

Hello and welcome to the Secular Buddhism Podcast, a podcast that presents Buddhist teachings, concepts, and ideas from a secular perspective. You don't need to use what you learn from Buddhism to be a Buddhist. You can use what you learn to simply be a better whatever you already are.

I'm your host, Noah Rasheta, and I want to share something a bit different with you today. This episode isn't one of my usual solo recordings about a specific topic. Instead, I've been invited to be a guest on another podcast called 10,000 Heroes, hosted by Ankur. I'm excited to share this raw audio from their show so you can get to know both the podcast and hear more of my personal story around how I encountered Buddhism.

About 10,000 Heroes

10,000 Heroes is a show about purpose. They interview people they admire about their journey with purpose—a journey we're all on, whether we acknowledge it or not. They share their guests' insights, tools, and struggles with listeners, providing inspiration, intimacy, and guidance on what it means to live a truly purposeful life and how we can each get there in our own unique way.

You can find the 10,000 Heroes podcast on any of your favorite podcast apps by searching for "10,000 Heroes."

Quick Announcement

I want to let you know about something I've been working on. Many of you know I've done treks to Nepal in the past. I started with humanitarian trips, but I've transitioned to mindful trekking—a combination of a mindfulness retreat and trekking in the Himalayas.

Last November, I led my second trek with a group of 21 or 22 podcast listeners. It was an incredible experience, and I knew I had to go back. This time, I'm planning something bigger: the trek to Everest Base Camp. Standing at the foothills of the tallest peak on Earth was surprisingly spiritual—I was almost speechless. I want to go back and trek all the way there.

If you're interested, I still have a few spots left for November 2023. You can find all the details on secularbuddhism.com/nepal or mindfultrekking.com. Both links go to the same place.

Here's what we're doing: a 16-day trek in November where we fly by helicopter from Kathmandu to Lukla, trek from Lukla all the way to Everest Base Camp, and helicopter back to Kathmandu. It combines a mindfulness retreat with a trekking adventure, which I think are two really fun things to blend together.

We'll also be working through the new course I'm launching called the Inner Peace Roadmap in a personalized format with the trekking group during the months leading up to the trek. If that sounds appealing to you, reach out through the website—there's a form where you can ask questions.

Now, let's jump into the interview with Ankur from 10,000 Heroes. I hope this conversation gives you more insight into my journey into Buddhism and some of the things I find useful and interesting about practicing Buddhism as a philosophy of life and a way of living everyday life.

The Interview

Ankur's Introduction

Hey everybody, and welcome to the first interview of season five. My guest today is Noah Rasheta. This is a fantastic interview for me because Noah, in a sense, is a role model—he's really a hero. He has this podcast called Secular Buddhism. He's really steady, really gentle, and for seven years now, he's provided all these really practical, short episodes on how people can improve their experience of life through the lens of secular Buddhism. I really admire that. And he's grown quite an audience by being incredibly real, authentic, and passionate.

But what I love most is something that comes out in this interview: Noah used to be a Mormon missionary. And his perspective now, as someone expounding on secular Buddhism, is clearly very different from that ideological and philosophical framework. What strikes me is how gentle he is with his former self—so loving, compassionate, and kind. There's so much for all of us to learn about how we relate to others and to our current and former selves through that.

There's a lot more in this episode, and I'm really excited to bring it to you. Welcome to season five. Welcome to 2023, and enjoy.

Sponsor Message

Before we begin, I want to put in a quick word from our sponsor—me. We got the name for this podcast from the mission of Momentum Lab, our coaching program. We're both incubating the next generation of heroes and the next step in the evolution of consciousness. If you listen to the show, you're already a part of that process, and thank you for that.

If you haven't already, sign up for the newsletter to get insights, tools, and inspiration on living a purposeful, visionary, and impactful life. And if it ever dawns on you that that's easier to do with a community of excellence urging you on—that it can make a real difference in achieving your personal goals—check out Momentum Lab.

Okay, back to the show.

The Conversation Begins

Ankur: I'm really stoked to have this conversation. Dan talked about you a little bit in our previous chat, and then I listened to a bunch of your episodes this morning as I was doing my daily bread ritual. The one that really spoke to me was "Be Who You Are"—it's a recent episode. There were just so many things in there that hit home. I've been doing this personal growth and development thing for a long time, trying to combine mathematics and rationality with spirituality. But a lot of the voice in my head has been like, "You have this potential, you need to live up to it. You have to keep doing things." And what you were saying about that not being a helpful voice—I was like, "God, it's so true."

I was making bread while I listened, actually. I make bread every morning. It's a practice I started eight years ago when I got married. My wife is French and really into good quality bread, and since we live in the U.S., it's just not available the way she likes it. So I learned how to make bread. It's become this daily practice that I got really good at without having any ambition about it or wanting to be good at it. It's the exact opposite of my meditation practice, where I've been trying so hard for so many years and still feel like a total failure. It doesn't bring me a lot of joy.

But the bread thing? It's just this infinite fountain of joy with no expectations. And as I was listening to you, it was like a real, concrete lesson of what you were saying. I was like, "Damn."

Noah: Yeah, that's the big difference, isn't it? It's between the feeling that I should or I have to do this versus I get to, or I'm doing it just because I enjoy it. There's no compelling reason to do it. There's no belief behind it that's influencing the decision-making and saying you have to do this. Then it becomes a more playful thing. You do it because you can, because why not? Rather than because you feel like you should. I think there's a big difference there.

Ankur: And did you learn that through your study of Buddhism, or did you have some kind of visceral experience of that and then go and learn the theory afterwards?

Noah: I'd say it was a little bit of both. It was through learning various concepts and ideas in Buddhism, particularly the teachings around non-attachment and holding loosely to views. I recognized that holding too tightly to anything—even the view that these teachings are beneficial or that I should be meditating—kept me stuck in that same cycle of holding too tightly. So I asked myself, "Why do I want to meditate?" And when that transitioned to "not because I feel like I should, but because why not?"—if I enjoy going out for a walk, I go out and I enjoy the walk. I don't feel I have to be out there walking. The same thing happened with meditation. It became a much more enjoyable experience because there's no pressure anymore. There's no end result, no benefit I'm trying to extract from it. The process itself is the enjoyable part.

On Co-Emergent Wisdom and Working with Emotions

Noah: I'm reading a book right now called How We Live is How We Die by Pema Chödrön. There's a concept in Tibetan Buddhism—well, in Buddhism in general, but especially in Tibetan Buddhism—called co-emergent wisdom. The idea is that the thing we see as a fault, let's say anger as an example, also comes with the wisdom of anger. If I understand my anger, if I sit with it and befriend the emotion, then I obtain the wisdom that arises from it.

This is true for all the things we view as weaknesses. We all have them. We think, "Oh, I'm really disorganized," or "I'm really lazy." But co-emerging with that thing we label as something we don't want is the thing we actually do want. We can't have one without the other.

We go through our days feeling aversion for these things. In the case of anger, I might say, "Now I'm angry, and I'm angry that I'm angry. So I'm going to really try to not be an angry person." But what happens is that the aversion to the anger makes you miss the wisdom that co-emerges with it.

The Buddhist approach would say: okay, I can identify anger as something I experience or have the propensity for. When it does arise, I'm going to sit with it. Where is this coming from? Why am I feeling this anger? What does anger actually feel like? Where am I feeling it in my body? You sit with it, and what happens is you don't get rid of it, but you change the relationship you have with it.

Visualize your anger as a character sitting in front of you. It's ugly. You don't like it. You don't want it there. You've been poking at it with spears, which only makes it more mad. What if we drop the fight and say, "I am so sorry I've been pushing you away so long. Sit with me. Tell me. Welcome back. Why are you here? Why have I seen you as my enemy? Let's actually talk."

You befriend it. The wisdom of anger is what co-arises with it. And with that understanding and the new relationship you have with your anger, a new form of wisdom co-arises. I really like that view of all the emotions we tend to put in baskets. This basket has the pleasant emotions—I want more of them. That basket has the unpleasant emotions—I want less of them. And then we play the game of doing everything we can to get more of what we like and everything we can to get less of what we don't like.

But equanimity is balancing those out and saying, "You know, they're all welcome at the table. All of you come here and sit. Who's here now? Oh, it's anger. Hi, anger. Let's talk. What brings you here today?"

A beautiful thing happens in that process. The relationship with anger changes. A new form of wisdom arises with it because you actually listened and learned from it. And the intensity of it when it's there is less because it's not this enemy pounding at the gates—it's actually an old friend. It's still unpleasant, but it's like: "Come on in, old friend."

And I think there's a lot of wisdom to be gained when we change the relationship we have with our emotions, especially the strong ones like anger.

Ankur: Yeah, I mean, it's my sense these days. I think I was really in that camp for a long time—like, "Oh, I'm this guy who's trying to be enlightened. I'm not going to try and have emotions." It doesn't really work that well. So I've moved to a philosophy of: "What is the information here? What happened? What was the belief I had? What was the action? What was the line that was crossed?" There's some information coming with this anger. If I can receive that and learn from it, then I'm getting the juice of the moment.

Noah: Yeah, exactly.

Ankur: Thank you so much, Noah. This has been great. I would love to talk to you for hours more, and I just hope we could hang out at some point. I've really enjoyed this.

Noah: Yeah, that would be great. I'd be happy to do this again. If you want to find another time, we could chat more.

Closing

Thank you for listening to the Secular Buddhism Podcast. If you enjoyed today's topic and you want to learn more, visit secularbuddhism.com, where I have links to my books, courses, podcast episodes, and information on how to join the Secular Buddhism podcast community.

Until next time.

For more about the Secular Buddhism podcast and Noah Rasheta's work, visit SecularBuddhism.com