Unlock the power of your mind and explore inner peace with the life-changing benefits of mindfulness meditation. Join Dena Argyropoulou as she talks with Soren Gordhamer, exploring the wisdom of mindfulness. Soren is the founder and creator of Wisdom 2.0, a conference that combines mindfulness and technology. In this episode with Soren Gordhamer, you will learn: 1. How technology and mindfulness can be combined to promote inner growth. 2. How meditation can be used to recognize and heal our internal pain. 3. How meditation can be used as an equalizer, allowing us to forget our external circumstances and connect to the life force within us. Conversations about the power of mindfulness meditation for stress, anxiety, deepening awareness and living with ease. Listen as international teachers and practitioners share their insights on how meditation helped them find clarity, inspiration, creativity, wisdom, strength. Mindfulness is a powerful tool to manage stress, anxiety and the challenges in life with courage and compassion. Produced, created and hosted by Dena Argyropoulou. re/st your mind νιούζλετερ - διαλογισμός για να ξεκουράσεις το νου σου, ένα email που δεν θα σε αγχώνει. https://denaargyropoulou.substack.com/ GET DENA'S book "CLARITY OF MIND IS POWER: a 5-week journal to support your meditation practice and train your mind to see clearly." https://www.denaargyropoulou.com/book Produced, created and hosted by Dena Argyropoulou. Sound editing and mixing by Dimitris Misirlis at Matrix Recording Studio, Athens, Greece. Song "In a world" written and performed by Tiger Gang. Soren Gordhamer is a writer, adventurer and entrepreneur. He has led mindfulness programs for a variety of groups around the world, including youth in New York City’s juvenile halls, trauma workers in Rwanda, teachers in Nigeria – and even employees at Google. Gordhamer is the founder of Wisdom 2.0, an annual conference that brings tech leaders and wisdom teachers together to investigate the intersection between ancient wisdom and modern digital life. As part of the Global Walk for a Liveable World, Soren spent a year walking through parts of the United States, India, Pakistan and Japan. This led him to become the founder of The Lineage Project; a nonprofit that offers awareness-based practices to incarcerated and at-risk teens. More recently, Soren co-founded Wisdom Ventures, which seeks to support the next generation of companies focusing on mindfulness and human connection. Gordhamer focuses on the wisdom of the community, as he believes that the best answers spring from harnessing group intelligence.In each episode @dena.argyropoulou, a mindfulness meditation teacher discusses with other teachers how meditation has helped them find clarity, inspiration, creativity, wisdom, strength, and the ability to manage stress and challenges in life with courage and compassion. Meditation is a powerful tool that helps reconnect with ourselves and the world around us.
Unlock the power of your mind and explore inner peace with the life-changing benefits of mindfulness meditation. Join Dena Argyropoulou as she talks with Soren Gordhamer, exploring the wisdom of mindfulness. Soren is the founder and creator of Wisdom 2.0, a conference that combines mindfulness and technology.
In this episode with Soren Gordhamer, you will learn:
1. How technology and mindfulness can be combined to promote inner growth.
2. How meditation can be used to recognize and heal our internal pain.
3. How meditation can be used as an equalizer, allowing us to forget our external circumstances and connect to the life force within us.
Conversations about the power of mindfulness meditation for stress, anxiety, deepening awareness and living with ease. Listen as international teachers and practitioners share their insights on how meditation helped them find clarity, inspiration, creativity, wisdom, strength. Mindfulness is a powerful tool to manage stress, anxiety and the challenges in life with courage and compassion. Produced, created and hosted by Dena Argyropoulou.
re/st your mind νιούζλετερ - διαλογισμός για να ξεκουράσεις το νου σου, ένα email που δεν θα σε αγχώνει. https://denaargyropoulou.substack.com/
GET DENA'S book "CLARITY OF MIND IS POWER: a 5-week journal to support your meditation practice and train your mind to see clearly." https://www.denaargyropoulou.com/book
Soren Gordhamer is a writer, adventurer and entrepreneur. He has led mindfulness programs for a variety of groups around the world, including youth in New York City’s juvenile halls, trauma workers in Rwanda, teachers in Nigeria – and even employees at Google. Gordhamer is the founder of Wisdom 2.0, an annual conference that brings tech leaders and wisdom teachers together to investigate the intersection between ancient wisdom and modern digital life. As part of the Global Walk for a Liveable World, Soren spent a year walking through parts of the United States, India, Pakistan and Japan. This led him to become the founder of The Lineage Project; a nonprofit that offers awareness-based practices to incarcerated and at-risk teens. More recently, Soren co-founded Wisdom Ventures, which seeks to support the next generation of companies focusing on mindfulness and human connection. Gordhamer focuses on the wisdom of the community, as he believes that the best answers spring from harnessing group intelligence.In each episode @dena.argyropoulou, a mindfulness meditation teacher discusses with other teachers how meditation has helped them find clarity, inspiration, creativity, wisdom, strength, and the ability to manage stress and challenges in life with courage and compassion. Meditation is a powerful tool that helps reconnect with ourselves and the world around us.
Produced, created and hosted by Dena Argyropoulou. Sound editing and mixing by Dimitris Misirlis at Matrix Recording Studio, Athens, Greece. Song "In a world" written and performed by Tiger Gang.
Opening Credits: Meditation is not what you think. You don't have to stop your mind from thinking. Sit in any weird postures or make any bizarre sounds. All you need is a little guidance. And after that, the practice will show you the way. I'm Dena Argyropoulou a meditation instructor and creator of the One Fierce Heart podcast. And in each episode, I talk with experienced teachers and practitioners to demystify meditation, giving you practical tips on how to start ways to face the challenges, while also acknowledging the transformative power and clarity that come with meditation. So please join us as we dove deeper into this mysterious, yet ridiculously simple practice that's been around for over two and a half thousand years. So take a deep breath. Let it go and let's begin.
Dena Argyropoulou: Soren, thank you so much for being here on the One Fierce Heart podcast. I'm so excited and grateful to you.
Soren Gordhamer: It is such a pleasure and so fun to meet you first in person and well, first digitally, then in person and doing the podcast with you.
Dena Argyropoulou: I was actually going to ask you like let's talk a little bit about how we met so people can have a little bit of context. I'm part of the TEDx acceptance team here in Greece, and I invited you to be a speaker, which you so graciously and gratefully did. Υou got that email from me and everything, you know, led us to here.
Soren: Yes, it was an easy yes. So I flew to Athens from where I live in California and just had a wonderful time. And I don't know if you had mentioned the original inquiry about also being a meditation practitioner, but it made a lot of sense when I met you.
Dena: Yeah, it did, definitely. So you are, among other things, the founder and creator of Wisdom 2.0, which is a conference that combines mindfulness and technology together. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?
Soren: Wisdom 2.0 you know, really tries to explore this whole question of how do we develop our inner skills or our inner technologies. So when I got the idea for it, there was like, no question to me whether the external technologies were going to get cooler, nifty, more and more fancier, and all that was going to really grow. The question was, was the internal technologies of awareness, compassion, wisdom, were those going to grow as well, or would we as a society get increasingly depressed, increasingly unfocused, increasingly just have negative states as the technology kind of took over? Like we really need to grow in mindfulness and wisdom as technology grows otherwise they’ll just suck us all in. And so I wrote a book on it called Wisdom 2.0 and I put out the book and I thought, “Wow, this book is going to just do it.” And I put the book out and just like nothing happened over it, nothing emerged. And I was like, you know, maybe it's not a book as much as it is a conference. So 15 years ago now, in 2009, we did our first event in the Bay Area and it's been a wonderful ride. We've had all kinds of meditation teachers like Eckhart Tolle, and Sharon Salzberg and John Kabat Zinn, and then founders of Twitter and Facebook and eBay and things, because I really wanted to involve the tech community in the conversations and it continues. Let's see this next 2023 it looks like it'll be in April and we gather and then we've been doing one in New York City Mindfulness in America. So super, super, super fun. I get you to do what you love to do too, interview people.
Dena: Isn't it great? It's so wonderful.
Soren: Yeah, it really is fantastic.
Dena: So let's go back maybe a little bit to how you got into mindfulness and meditation, why you started, and how did that evolve?
Soren: Sure. So I grew up in a town called Lubbock, Texas, which is way off kind of in the nowhere to Texas, like is a six hour drive to the next biggest city. So it's very kind of isolated there. And it was mainly Christian town. Our family did not go to church and so that always made us a little weird. My dad had a strong interest in Buddhism and would like to listen to Ram Dass and things. And my mom had an interest in yoga and they divorced when I was about 14. It was really hard on me and I was living with my father and it was just hard. And part of it was I felt a lot of shame because we were the non in that community and our family was kind of falling apart and I just didn't know what to do. And I remember my dad would leave me kind of books and back then there were cassette tapes that you would listen to and leave me books and cassette tapes outside my door on meditation and Buddhism and stuff. And because I was suffering so much, I just wanted to help. And so I would listen to those. And some of those teachers like Jack Kornfield and Ram Dass was one of the things and something resonated. I just felt at home and I felt like, wow, this is suffering. Like I had a name for the experience that I was going through and that there was a path through suffering, and that meditation was just really important. And so I would start, a minute here or 2 minutes there. And I noticed that I could actually go to bed, Dena that was one of the big things, like my mind is just racing and all these feelings are going around. And when I would do the meditations, I'd have these little glimpses of peace, I just kind of kept trusting those and following those and listening to those. So we're a big family. Five kids. Small house and so I couldn't really find a very comfortable way to meditate. So I would often go to my parents' back bathroom and I'd light a candle and meditate in there because that was kind of the quietest room in the house so I was a bathroom meditator for years. That's kind of how I got started.
Dena: Wow. That's really a really powerful experience. It sounds like that it was for you and to realize that there was suffering, because my experience was that I was shielded from suffering from my environment. And then when like shit happened, I didn't know how to deal with it. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if we all know, you know, maybe some of us are more equipped, better equipped than others. But I didn't know how to deal with it. And that's how I started meditating as well, like trying to find some comfort and relief. So it's always interesting that it's usually something we're looking for.
Soren: We don't go into meditation because everything's just going so great and wonderful, right? I do this retreat with John Kabat-Zinn each year and John said this last year, it's like if everything in your life went as planned you would probably not be there right now.
Dena: Yeah. You would not like to seek out meditation or anything.
Soren: There was this one meditation teacher, I can't remember his name, but he would say, “try as best you can to not get a spiritual practice, like do everything possible, like just do all this sensual desire, pleasure, material things. And then once you have to, when you find no other choice, then do it. But don't, don't force it. Like go do everything you need to do first. But I think, you know, whether it's growing up poor, growing up wealthy or whatever our situation is, eventually change happens, life happens, pain happens. And we have a choice, right? Do we fight the world and or do we kind of go inside and see what can our inner life look like? And maybe that the challenges are more inner. And, you know, I've had great, great fortune. I used to teach meditation to kids in New York City, like some of the poorest, destitute kids around. And then I've also gotten to know a lot of the tech elite, I guess, if you call them, founders of all these different companies and billionaires and everybody suffers, everybody. Yeah, it's just different forms of suffering. And sure, the wealthy suffer and they have all kinds of money and all kinds of things and their kids grow up, you know, they don't know how to raise their kids they get everything they want and they know that that's never really going to be the world. And so they get like not caring young people. Echkart Tolle sais no matter what our life situation, all life situations are problematic to some degree, right? There's no perfect life situation. You have success and money. They want to borrow your money or they do articles about you, whatever. And if you're poor, it's hard to make ends meet. And so every life situation is problematic. And the real question is, are we connected to life, the life force, energy of life, the movement of life? And I resonate along with that, which is just like I want a really good life situation too, as best I can, preferably. But it's not the full answer.
Dena: Yeah, it's not. Definitely. There's challenges either way. Either way. So how has practice helped you through these challenges, if anything specific comes to mind?
Soren: It gave me a little bit of a direction, you know, because I think it's one thing to orient and think the problem is out there, all these people just didn't do this or all those people did do this I would be happy. And oriented towards that. The problem is somebody else. And if you look at the political situation in the United States, Democrats and Republicans all agree on one thing. The problem is not them, the problem is somebody else. We all agree. And so meditation kind of gives us, gives me anyway a direction that's like, well, maybe it's my state of consciousness that I actually can impact and can control. And the more I bring a calm, focused, healthy state of mind into the world, the world often responds to me differently and that I need to focus more internally, than I need externally. It doesn't mean that there aren't actions to take and things to do in the world. But we can come from a place of real care and compassion and ease and still take action. That way action is usually actually more effective than where we're just kind of reactive. So I think meditation just kind of gave me like a North Star, if you will, to life. That's like if somebody is upsetting me, yeah, I need to talk to them but I also need to look at what my own triggers are and what's actually happening to me. And often there's some self, there's some egoic part of me that wants this or doesn't want that or thinks they're stupid or thinks they should be this way, or I'm better, right? I'm right and they're wrong. And the invitation to inquire into that, I think, is really, really healthy and helpful.
Dena: I like how you said it looks like the North Star, right? Because it is, it guides you towards, you know, something. And I also, like how you said, it's both because it's not just my fault, for example, that, you know, the world sucks, the world does suck, and other people need to be held responsible. But also at some point, I need to look inside as well and see what that world looks like and what I can do with that.
Soren: Katie Byron says something. I don't know if I can get it quite directly. She's a spiritual teacher. I was interviewing her once. As your view of the world changes, the world changes as we change. We are the world. The world is out there, you know, like…I don't know if you've ever seen that bumper sticker that says "You're not caught in traffic. You are the traffic." So, yeah, that's true. Like we are yet and people are like we are nature. We are the remnants of the Big Bang is us Big Bang. If you believe that like something happened, we are the evolution of that big bang in a weird, crazy, bizarre way. And so there there isn't this external world necessarily that's other than how we think. And I think if we can realize that it's people like it's really our state. And if we're in a different state, a different reality appears that the external is a reflection of the internal and then we see that the inner work as Rumi says, work in the inner world just as hard as you work in the outer world. And I think that's a great goal to have.
Dena: I wonder if that's, you know, like what happens and we think that it's all out there and then like, where does that disconnect come from? Is it just the human experience? Is it you know, when we talk about consciousness and the ego like Eckhart Tolle says, for example, like we just forget we're asleep. And then I don't know, for me, my experience was that meditation really woke me up. You know, it's a wakefulness practice for me and it's taught me how my mind works so I can see what we're talking about. So I can see that, oh, I'm not separate from what's happening in the world. So it's a powerful practice, which is ridiculously simple, as my teacher Susan Piver says too, but it's so powerful at the same time. So it's mind boggling how we’re just sitting there doing nothing.
Soren: Non doing looks the most ridiculous thing from the outside. And if you try to explain it to somebody, it's just like you just sit like just sit there and just like non-do. And, you know, there's nothing. I you know, one of the things I love about it, it's an equalizer. Like when we all sit together, it doesn't matter what our stock price is that day or what we have in the bank or what we did in the past or how many failures we had. It's like we're just in our own experience of life and we can see that the stories that we create are our own creation. If we're suffering when we're meditating, who's to blame for that suffering? Oh, well, this person was angry at me. Okay, well, that you can't like you're with yourself. And I do think it's like a mirror. And I think in order to find the healing potential, just the way that life, life doesn't allow us to have certain states of ease and peace without going through our own pain. I don't know why the rules are like this. I wish it were different. Sometimes I feel our own pain and to feel our own feelings and to not hide and to not push away that when we kind of sit with a willingness to receive whatever we need to receive, there's a clearing and a healing and the freedom that happens, but we don't get it without going through also, you know, the pain. So if you've had grief, like I've had to grief and pain in my life and if we're just medicating to try to get rid of that, we're always going to be running from something. And I think that orientation towards there's nothing to run from. And I kind of create a space so that I can be the sky and not get caught in the clouds. That's what I think meditation offers. But for people who think it's easy or always calm or you're just visualizing nice things, it's not my experience, it’s all of it.
Dena: It is. And it's true. You know, if you use meditation as a tool to get somewhere, even though it's funny because that’s how we started. In the beginning, we needed something to comfort us. Right. So it's great that we just, you know, meet people where they're at if you want to use meditation to help you with something, of course. But then as you give it a chance to unfold, you see that it's just something way bigger than just another, you know, stress reducing tool.
Soren: I remember when I first started doing meditation practice, I thought there's these like secret teachings somewhere, but I'm just going to be with what is. And then once I get to know all these teachers, they'll tell me, like the secret meaning, the magic that here’s what it’s really about like this whole thing about being in the moment, yea that’s not it, here’s what it’s really about that there's this other thing. And then I got to know the teachers and I was like, All right, so what's the real secret here? There is no secret, are you present in this moment? Can you feel what is true here right now and identify yourself as something bigger than your thought and what you are, who you think you are, and what you think the world is. And it's a deeper level of consciousness that we can tap into. And it's like this. That's the secret. If there is a secret, that's the thing. Or at least from what I can tell, there might be more secrets that nobody tells me well at all. And it's a beautiful practice because it's continually humbling as we begin to see how often we're not in the present moment. Often our attention is somewhere we're content, some story. And I think it's really good to be very loving and forgiving to ourselves. I was in a conversation the other day with a group of employees from a company, and some of them were like, Well, it's just so hard. I don't, you know, I don't know if I can do meditation. The thing you need to realize about mindfulness is you don't need to be mindful all the time. You don't. You just need to be mindful right now and right now and right now. And so if we can take the pressure off of it and be light with it, just like there's a moment we're living and to what extent can we show up for that moment?
Dena: And also it's like what meditation has given me among a zillion other things, like how quickly can I come back to this moment and how quickly can I come back to being myself? Like, instead of being caught up in the story that my mind creates and like this person this and this, and then like, you know, I'm off. And all of a sudden, like, an hour has gone by, right? And I'm in this whole scenario. Well, now I can come back. It doesn't mean that I don't get angry or, you know, I don't get pissed off. It just means that I'm more aware of, like, okay, well, I'm pissed off and I'm angry. So let me come back to what's happening right now.
Soren: And being with anger is presence, right? Yeah, this is what's true right here. The cloud. This is the weather right now. If you like, want sunny weather. That's your suffering. The suffering isn't that It's right. It's the suffering. The suffering isn’t that there’s anger, the suffering is that we're resistant to it and that we're not creating a spaciousness around it to see it more like if we expect the sun always every day to be sunny and warm, it's just, that it's not life. And you know, I have a son who's now well, he's 20 now. He just turned 20. But like, there are so many days, I'm just like, I want you to be grateful. I want you to be thankful. It's like, yeah, he's not that's or any of that right now. He’s irritable and blaming me or whatever. It's like, Yeah, that's can I be with the fact that this is what this moment is? Or don't try to shame him or change him or criticize him. And ironically, now he meditates every day because I told him they were just because he's feeling he finds it useful.
Dena: That's so awesome.
Soren: But people don't change because you tell them to.
SorenL You're in a spaciousness that they are drawn to somehow. And I think that’s something to explore.
Dena: It is. And it's interesting because I remember in the past before meditating, I would always say, okay, this is the right way. I was like, really? Really? I had this, like, restrictive type of view in life, and I was like, you know, this is the right way. Or like, you need to do things this way. And now, after meditation, I realized that that's really aggressive, right? And there was a form of self aggression that I didn't even know was happening. But once I gave myself the space through practice and this wasn't easy and, you know, this doesn't come overnight, you know, it takes a lot of time and practice. But I realized, like this self aggression, where is this coming from? You know? And I just let it come through and realize that I need to allow the space for compassion and self-compassion. That's when that came up, you know. So when you tell people this is the way it doesn't work, that's what I love about this practice, too, is like, here, here's an instruction, right? And try it out, see if it works, see what you discover like the freedom of it, see what you discover. Come up with your own insights and wisdom.
Soren: Yeah, when I taught meditation mindfulness in juvenile hall was interesting rather than teaching it as something that was foreign. I would talk about when were you really, really present in your life? You all know this. I would speak to it as something that they already know and experience, not like. I have this new, weird thing to teach you. It's like, no, you know what it's like to be fully present? Maybe it's playing basketball. Maybe it's running from the cops. Maybe. And that was one of the examples of, like, when I run from the cops, I am so present. Right there in the moment and they love that high. And I was like, All right, totally cool. Awesome. We just need to find some healthier ways to live in the moment. But I agree with you. It's something that you don't have to become Buddhist. You don't have to have even a certain mantra or anything or believe this person died for your sins or whatever the thing is. Have to see for yourself what's true. I love that invitation.
Dena: Yeah, it is. It's powerful to make your own discoveries. That’s true freedom.
Soren: Yeah. And if you notice yourself telling somebody else that they should do something that's. That's on us. I always love the idea that you can never know the truth. You can only be the truth. Never know stuff. Here, let me tell you how much I know about the truth. It's like knowing has a place, but the same feeling, sensing. And when I first got into meditation, it was actually the sound of the voices of the teachers that connected me the most. I remember hearing there was a tone or a way that I heard that made me feel comfortable. And it wasn't actually the content of what they said initially. I was like, wow, there's a kindness in their tone that kind of drew me in. And so, I think that was one of my biggest draws. Jack Kornfield has become a friend and we work on a project together. And he was actually being interviewed by Tim Ferriss recently, and he had said that he had had these construction people working on one of their homes, and he was asking them very nicely to do something and they weren't doing it. And he kept asking nicely and finally got really pissed off at them and he threatened them. He was like, this is bullshit. I'm going to sue you and all this energy. And then the contractor is like, Oh, shit. Sure. Yeah, we'll take care of it. And so I do think sometimes of meditation as knowing what to access at any given moment, but we're doing it consciously. You know, we're responding consciously, then reactively. So it’s not about being nice all the time, but it's about being genuine and channeling what's true for that moment. And I know there's a lot going on in the world now that people who have a lot of energy for it, I do have a lot energy for it. I think the challenge or the opportunity is to respond sometimes forcibly, but we're doing it from a conscious place.
Dena: And that's, I think, compassion, right? Compassion is knowing what to do in each moment; being awake doesn't mean being nice. It means like, I know that this situation right now requires me to be, you know, soft or at ease or back off or, you know, fight.
Soren: I know that the people that I'm fighting, if we use that phrase, also probably have loved ones. They're not all evil. They have kids that they care for, parents that they care for, friends that they care for, like they aren't all one thing that we might want to put them into. So as we act, we act with the knowledge that. We are more alike than we are different. And hopefully that allows our action and our compassion to both be present.
Dena: Absolutely. It's hard to do that.
Soren: I mean, you look at the people that we love, Nelson Mandela or whoever these people aer. That was their path, right? I mean, they were subject to so much suffering and pain from people and they somehow found that they somehow found a way to do it compassionately. And I think that's the invitation of our world at least in the US where I live, like there's such division between Democrats and Republicans and conservatives and liberals. And it's just like hatred that was not there was growing up. Like when I was growing up, we'd go to a basketball game or sports game, it didn't matter who it was. Nobody wore it on their sleeve. And now it's just such a strong identity. And I worry sometimes about where the world is going and how we can come to some sense of “we” it there any possible road through. And I think there's a phrase but somebody said we have the choice in our time is clear, we either evolve or we perish. And that feels true to me.
Dena: You know, it's like it does feel true. I have this sense that there's going to be this big explosion. Like, I feel like things are just going to reach a peak. But I don't know, maybe we've reached the peak. Is this the explosion? You know, but there's a lot of things that are getting stirred.
Soren: Yeah, I don't know either. I know a lot of things that don't work and there's a lot of things that need to be rethought. And I don't know the process, but I know that the more that we're together and the more that we're building community and awareness it's the best shot and eventually humans will probably well, eventually humans probably won't survive and the sun will take the earth in. And so I think a lot of the challenge is just enjoying every moment and every generation has challenges. Every cycle of life has its challenges. And so how do we meet those challenges so how do we appreciate the fact that we have a day to live and time to live in moments with our loved ones and friends and new friends? And that's what I try to do is just realize like, yeah, there's all these challenges and there's also these enormous, beautiful people and beautiful things in the world to enjoy.
Dena: There are. There are. And what would you say to people that are just starting on their meditation journey?
Soren: I think if you're just starting a new meditation journey, it's really helpful to have something that you do daily, whether it's one minute, 2 minutes, 5 minutes, just something that kind of builds that muscle and harnesses that that skillset, if you will, because there's just so many things going on in life and it's so easy to think like, Oh, I have this intention but then life intervenes and we could all find like one minute or 5 minutes for the day and just to have that time so that my soul begins to build. So you get a taste of what it's like and let's see if we can slowly build over in that time because that one minute that can lead to 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes or whatever is true for you. And there were times where I was meditating like a lot more in time and meditating a lot less. But I think to really kind of feel it, just having some commitments like, you know, for the next three months I'm going to do 5 minutes a day and I'm going to do it in the morning. Some intention around that I think is good. So you just you get a feel of it. It's just like it's like, how are you going to know if you don't at least jump in at a certain bit and then after the 3 minutes is not for me or you like, oh, that's kind of cool. I'm going to keep that going. But I think that a commitment like that really helps.
Dena: It does. And just kind of staying in relationship with it, you know, and like you said, like there's periods where I won't meditate or then I come back to it and it's just being in relationship with it constantly and it's always there.
Soren: Yeah. And then always things. So there's a formal and informal practice of the formal practices of 5 minutes a day, let's say. And then the informal practice is just life itself.
Dena: Like life on cushion and off cushion.
Soren: A routine moment. It's a meditation, which is true, but it's also really both are true the formal and the informal. And so I think part of the dance is just making time for both. I mean, I always like to remind myself, like this moment right now, like right here with you, this is the only moment there is, you know, the future as this dream, the past is this memory. Like the story that I'm going to meditate that I meditated this morning even. It's just a story right now like, oh, I'm going to meditation tomorrow morning or whatever. And it's like, Oh, but there is a right here, it's an accessible moment. And so that's why I think like and that's kind of what Eckhart Tolle that I appreciate that it's like he came and he gave a meditation one time and he never, like the whole thing was the meditation and everything else is just like that and so I think we need both the balance like we need the formal and the informal which is reminding ourselves like, this is a moment right now. Am I here or am I thinking of some future moment that I think will be better than this moment? And one of the lessons I always like to live by is that no moment is more important than any other moment. Inherently right? Like when the party happens tonight or this thing tomorrow, or when this happens. It's like, what's wrong with this moment of total worthy, beautiful moment?
Dena: This is true. And it's like that's how our mind works, right? Like, I've noticed that during meditation, when I'm sitting there, my mind is like, okay, I'm sitting here, I just want to go. I want to get this over with and go to the next thing, because the next thing I think is going to be better than what is happening right now. And so it's like happening in these micro moments during practice. But that's really how it's, you know, what's happening all the time. It's like the next moment is going to be better than this one.
Soren: Yeah. Yes. It's a human condition. I think that's like and maybe there's some positive element to it in terms of getting motivated to do things to survive, there's a survival mechanism. But imagine living your life and then getting to your deathbed. And always thinking that there was something. Was it John Lennon said Life is what happens when we're busy making other plans, that there's always something that we're moving we never like landed. And I think that's hopefully what we learned and meditation helps support that learning. Like, what if what if we just land right now? And you see people are seeing people for most of their life with running either running away from something or running toward something. Right. Some running. I'm just I have in the past I'm just going to run from that or there's this thing in the future. I'm just going to run towards that. I mean, that is what it is. But I think life isn't very satisfying. Running away from or running towards.
Dena: And that's like the first principle in Buddhism, right? Like life is suffering because it's unsatisfactory. Like, that's mainly the translation that I guess is closest to Dukkha. Like it's like this thing that we're always running towards something else or running away from something. And there's, like, I can't get no satisfaction like the Rolling Stones say so wisely.
Soren: Yeah. And. There as I see it, it's like with the things in life, the achievements in life are inherently unsatisfying, right? Like, I got this big thing, or I made this big. I've got this bestselling book, I have this great this. Or I see people who identify with their children and look at this. I have this grace, this amazing kid. And what happens when that kid has pain and suffering and goes through divorce or hardship or if you lose that then who are you then? That my identity is that I'm a successful entrepreneur or that I'm a loser. Like, I don't know, something that we kind of cling to and that we're so much more than that. Like who we are is so much more than that. And I think that's I hope that as a culture, we can start to see that we're not these limited selves. You know, we're not our bodies, we're not our accomplishments, we're not our failures, we're not our job titles. There's something bigger inside us that's accessible and that's kind of going to save us if we can decide, if we're going to move forward to some kind of sustainable world, it's going to be from that consciousness and not from the egoic or trauma based consciousness. And if you look at a lot of our leaders recently, you can just see how much unresolved trauma is playing out and never thinking they're enough or always wanting to be safe. Like with Trump he was like, I have to have the biggest crowds ever. Look at the pictures like, you’re the president of the United States, who cares about the size of the crowd? So I think what you're doing Dena is awesome, which is just talking about the inner journey, talking about the importance of what really, really, really, really matters and supporting people to, you know, have practices that help harness that. And I think, I think that's great. And it's incredibly humbling, as we know, and it's incredibly joyous. The Buddha talked about the path is glorious in the beginning, glorious in the middle and porous in the end like that.
Dena: That's wonderful. Thank you so much for saying that. And, you know, it doesn't mean like we don't have ambition, right? To create and to do big things and to help people. But it's remembering what you said. Like there's more that's more to us than just, you know.
Soren: Whatever that big thing that we create once we do, which will be beautiful and lovely, it'll just be another moment.
Dena: That's right. And then we're going to look for the next thing.
Soren: It’ll pass. It doesn't mean don't do it right. It'll be this other moment. Know? It’ll just go away. Whatever we think it will be, it'll be different, probably, than what we think it'll be. And it'll be that accomplishment, at least for me. It's like when I started I couldn't really find a job or do anything and I went to work in tech. I didn't have any background and I was like, Wow, I can do this. I can actually, like, create my own thing or. Me. I love it. I love doing that work. Super important and helpful and so much joy and friends. And it's also like it’s just another moment. And it will be time and time probably to let it all go right. Like everything. There's moments when we have things. And then a moment to let them go. And if we identified with that thing now it doesn't help or even to identify as being a meditator or like it could be helpful for a while, but at some point, like, I don't need to announce it to the world. I’m just going to be it.
Dena: So as we approach the end of our wonderful talk, we could be talking for hours about these things. Is there anything else you'd like the audience to know or any other thoughts you'd like to share about this inner exploration and journey with being and meditation?
Soren: Well, first, I'm just so glad you're doing this podcast and just a deep bow to you for a and your fierce heart and work and being willing to just invite other people to join the conversation with you. I really think there's a sweetness that you have that comes through, and I hope the listeners feel that sweetness as well because we need, you know, everyday people doing extraordinary things. It's, I think, how the world changes that just a deep bow to you for doing what you do.
Dena: Thank you. Thank you so much.
Soren: Yeah. So I hope people will feel that in your voice when they listen to the podcast. I think that's that's the best we can do is do our own work so that what we bring to the world just an ounce more love, an ounce, more presence and an ounce, more care, you know, than it did previously, because we were willing to kind of look inside ourselves and clear out whatever needed to be cleared out. And when you meet people like that, you know, like, oh, right there they saw something, right? Like they're not lost in the craziness of achieving or whatever it is. And so, yeah, that's what I'm feeling right now. Just a deep, deep thanks to you.
End Credits: This podcast is created for people like you who want to finally find out what this meditation hype is all about. The One Fierce Heart podcast is produced and hosted by Dena Argyropoulou. Some editing and mixing by Matrix Recording Studio in Athens, Greece.