Turning: Everyday Buddhism

Welcome to the first episode of the re-launch of my podcast, now called "Turning" (although still under an Everyday Buddhism subhead). In this first episode, "Why Turning" I explain a bit about how "Everyday Buddhism" shifted into "Turning."

I'm still Wendy Haylett and I'm still talking to you about Buddhism, but also about a personal transformation in my spiritual journey.

You'll hear what can happen if you "keep going", a mantra from my teacher, Rev. Koyo Kubose that you've heard me talk about many times in this podcast. You'll hear what happens when you allow yourself to sit in the the questions and to live in the mystery and gradual revelation of what life is. All of this is part of journey I find myself on.

I invite you to come along and explore with me as I take the first steps into my new transformed reality while looking back to see how I got here. I hope you join me on this road and explore the turning with me.

It's a pleasure to share a conversation with Ani Lodro Palmo, an ordained Tibetan Buddhist nun and Director of the Vajra Vidya Monastery in Crestone, Colorado; and a spiritual teacher and author with more than three decades of monastic experience.

Ani has devoted her life to spiritual practice and shares her understanding of the Dharma as an author of the books, All That Appears & Exists: The Buddha's Teachings to Awaken the Heart and Turn Suffering Into Joy and her most recent, The End of Suffering: Finding Love, Self-Compassion, and Awakening in a Chaotic World.

As a recognized teacher of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and meditation, Ani Lodro's insights are deeply rooted in the unbroken lineage of Buddhist wisdom, through the Karma Kagyu lineage of The Venerable Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche.

Although Ani has decades of monastic experience within Tibetan Buddhism, she teaches how the frustrations and dissatisfaction of our everyday lives can be understood and transcended through wisdom and compassion. She writes and speaks in an accessible way, with the gentle encouragement of a friend that is helpful to both new seekers and seasoned practitioners alike.

Her teachings are available through retreats, online sessions, and publications.

In the conversation we talked about a wide range things, including:

• How we tend to misunderstanding what suffering is.
  
  
• Gurus and reincarnation as a part of Tibetan Buddhism, but not a necessary part.
  
  
• The Four Noble Truths as a path to awakening.
  
  
• Taking the mystique from karma, as Ani writes: "transforming [it] from an enigmatic doctrine into a practical guide for conscious existence…. rooted in intention and behavior."
  
  
• Her teaching of the "7 Simple Truths to End Suffering":
  (1) Thoughts are nothing, they are no things;
  (2) Labels and thoughts create our reality;
  (3) When we look for our thoughts, they aren't there;
  (4) Your beliefs are not truth;
  (5) Dropping attachments is the fastest way to end suffering;
  (6)You can't focus on helping others and be miserable at the same time;
  (7) You don't need your mind (as much as you think).

... And much more.

I know you will enjoy Ani Lodro's easy and relatable style of teaching and be inspired by what she has to say.

I am excited to share this conversation with Henry Shukman, a Zen master in the Sanbo Zen lineage and spiritual director emeritus at Mountain Cloud Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Henry is the co-founder of The Way meditation app and founder of the Original Love meditation program.

He is the author of the books, Original Love: The Four Inns on the Path of Awakening and One Blade of Grass: A Zen Memoir, among other award-winning and bestselling books of poetry and fiction.

He has taught meditation at Google and Harvard Business School and taught poetry at the Institute of American Indian Arts. His poetry has appeared in the New Yorker and the Guardian and his essays in the New York Times, Outside, and Tricycle. Henry has a master's degree from Cambridge and a master of letters degree from St. Andrews.

As this biographical summary makes obvious, it's not like Henry hasn't been quite "discoverable", as a writer and meditation teacher but I only recently "discovered" him. And once I did, he has had a profound influence on me, as both a teacher and writer. In my conversation with him, I'll talk more about how I discovered him on Sam Harris' Waking Up app and how he became a primary teacher to me—even though we've never met—so stay tuned.

In the conversation we talked about a wide range things, including:

• The "Four Inns on the Path of Awakening", the subtitle of his book Original Love (that is "Inns", as in lodging, or in this case, a refuge or shelter on the path of meditation): Mindfulness, support, absorption, and awakening.
  
  
• Meditation as a journey, or path, rather than an intervention—as Henry said, "a journey of a lifetime."
  
  
• Kensho or seeing the timeless, primordial or non-dual awareness that is the core of our very being.
  
  
• The importance of support in your practice, whether it is a teacher, community, or friend.
  
  
• Absorption or flow states in meditation.
   
• And the "love" Henry refers to as something "endemic to our existence" … A great sense of belonging or union with everything.

… And much more

I know you will enjoy this conversation and Henry's clear, authentic, and gentle teaching style that I suspect will influence you, too, to bring more of Henry's guidance into your Dharma and meditation practice.