How do you escape the rat race? You change your priorities, you let go of concepts. The
momentum of concepts and the environment which is conditioning and locking you in.
We could live a life where all the interactions with other people that we meet in our day-to-day
life are really meaningful and really profound. And that seems to be the opportunity that we have
in our existence. How do we want our life to be? Do we want it to be
wonderful? And then what are the conditions or defaults of what it becomes like to be us?
What does the rat race look like? It looks like someone waking up going to do a job they
don't really like to earn money to try and change circumstances of your life but they never really
get far. Whether it's the relationships or the family or it's how they spend their time or being
lost on social media. The ways this person who's lost in the rat race, who is going for it. They're
really trying to get somewhere, but they're not getting anywhere and for me this was a view of
life I naturally inherited. It seemed to be what everyone else around me was doing and I certainly
never, it was never pressed upon me that there was anything more worthwhile for me to do. I no
longer feel like I'm stuck in those patterns of behaviour. I feel very free from it. But my life
looks very different now and I want to share with you how I've attained the freedom that I do feel.
So I grew up I guess thinking that a job would fulfil me. So I was very much chasing this notion
of success. And that's all there was, this thing I was trying to attain. So I tried to pursue that.
And with my vision very tunneled towards that goal the other the, the bases of my life, the quality
of what I was experiencing... You know I just wasn't looking after myself. I was very
destructive. And I had so much of my self-worth tied up in this goal that I started to hate myself
and that looked like me not- you know, being unhealthy,
becoming depressed, essentially not you know, feeding myself properly, not exercising. Probably
being anti-social, very anxious around other people, eventually not getting out of bed.
And yeah, I became very depressed and I ended up having you know, some sort of psychotic
breakdowns effectively. Because of this boiler pot of tension trying to get somewhere and then
you know, just living the meaninglessness of life and the meaningless of a suffering life,
where there were no longer really peaks of good moments, it was just all a swath of,
of "not-funness" or "un-enjoyment." I did have- had some psychological breakdowns and then I
needed to just get some space, so I end up leaving behind a lot of the conditions of my life or,
I literally moved country you know, and moved away from all the people I was around with. I
stopped pursuing the career I was pursuing. I continued working a job because I needed to,
but just some job which was in a field I'd never considered before. Just to give me some space.
Upon ditching all these ideas I did immediately feel freer and I mean it wasn't, it wasn't so
simple. It was very- when it was tumultuous it was very tumultuous. But when I got some space I did,
you know it felt a little easier, it felt quieter, I felt freer. I felt happier, more peaceful.
And it was during this time that I sort of had my, well it was during this time that I had my first
meditative insights just randomly walking down a road one da. I had this experience of non-duality
or self-transcendence that meditation traditions will talk about. A bunch of religions are based
off them, awakening. I had a spiritual awakening. Where suddenly I realized there was this other
dimension or way of being me in the world. And it felt wonderful. I felt truly content
for the first time in my life where I knew things weren't matter of judgment.
A while after that time it became clear to me that
there was something that one could discover about the nature of their consciousness, which had very
important implications for them and not having to suffer again. But I also was aware that
I wasn't always sustaining that way of being so I had to learn more. And so I did start studying
and learning all the different meditation books. When I had that experience there was no context so
I had to figure out "okay wait, how do I access this very peaceful way of being?" And
I've spent a lot of my time trying to understand how to practice this insight. And then you know,
currently today I still practice trying to sustain it. It's possible to shift your experience of
life in which that concept, you see through it completely and you realize that someone trying
to get somewhere is entirely false, it's a false premise. And that's what the meditative insight
into selflessness or awakening is. You're- You are, you spend your- you embody a reality in which
there is nowhere to get to, everything is peaceful. So that's something that is uh, that
I want to share, and that's what we talk about on this channel. If you'd like to subscribe, *laughs*
that's something that we uh, talk about here and share. I think that's an essential part of how one
can escape their hamster cycle. And- and that's got it's very much its own approach.
Heaps of traditions talk about it, we're trying to make it accessible here. I don't think it's a huge
deal or like, I like to try to minimize it because I think it's a radical claim to say that you can
be completely peaceful and content and it's this very specific insight. That sounds radical but
I think as more time passes this will just be an accepted conversation. It takes some time,
but it's essential that we know that it's possible. And so that's something I pursue
but it's not the only thing, which has helped me get out of the pinball or the hamster wheel.
The other thing which has helped me, you know change the patterns of my life the most,
was when I met my partner overseas. I was working over there for a while in china.
And I met the love of my life and she really held me accountable to the remnants of my ego or self
I had less- left. She would just ask, and I, if I expressed any sort of a personal view
on something, or any, anything I had slight problems with, or things I felt challenging,
ideas I would have about the world. Oh here's one! When the idea of money comes up for me,
I close down and I can only behave in very certain and tense ways around the topic.
As opposed to just the default of being open about it. Being free to engage with it in any way,
just as an idea, just as an idea it makes me tense. And my partner just, has always seemed
to have this very instinctive relationship to love and compassion. So whenever one of these
things would naturally get expressed as they do when you're next to someone and moving
throughout the world. She would just always ask me, "Why?" And not give me any answers,
but ask me "Why I feel that way?" And then I would have to explain it. And then she'd continue asking
me "Why?" very lovingly though. And you know, not- it wasn't ever confrontational, always open
and loving until I could see that these ways I was expressing myself were just patterns of behaviour
which uh, I didn't need to express. I could just, it was actually safe to let go of those ideas,
these conditioned ideas I had. Because you know, little do you know my parents were very strict
about money and I could just ask my questions about why I was still behaving that way and then
let go of the idea and I'd find a bit of freedom there.
In buddhism the path you're practicing isn't just about meditation. It's as essentially
about uh, love and compassion. I didn't get it from the buddha, I got it from my partner. But
there's this instinctive you know, if we're if we're opening up to love and compassion every
moment when we're examining our lives... What does love and compassion mean? It just means
opening up to those wonderful ways that it can be. And so adopting a life where
I do actively examine every component of my life with love and compassion...
And where love is always the answer, like it's always the answer. That has really stopped this
pinball machine and wheel. Because now I don't do things for my ego, or for myself. I do things
as love or, out of love. And when one really makes that their anchor of being in the world,
one naturally starts to move to- step off the hamster wheel that they're running on, and to you
know, they leave the pinball machine of bouncing back between these emotions and feelings. Because
the- those things are all predicated on conditions which aren't loving. If we examine all those
conditions, move towards love, you know what is more loving? If I have insight and freedom and
experience a loving life, what's the next loving thing that comes to mind for me? It's helping
other people we can vary, and you know this is my own dharma now right, but we can very practically
examine our lives and that's all the question ever is. It's how do we move towards more love?
You place love as the highest value in your life, not arbitrary goals of trying to get someone.
Someone doesn't matter, somewhere doesn't matter. Freedom matters. Place freedom
as the highest value of that someone. So that someone is just freedom and somewhere is just
the story, or journey, or explanation of freedom spreading. There's been a lot of like- there has
been a lot, I can't understand how much examining of the way things are and who I take myself to be
has happened. Because I don't really experience samsara anymore. I experience quite meaningful
moments of my life, which are a bit of distraction, like I'm not necessarily in
that awakened mind all the time. But at least the moments where I'm not there it feels great, it
feels celebrative, enjoyment. But what I'm really saying there is, I think the model is quite clear.
Why be someone trying to get somewhere if it's just a pattern of negative emotions
with some little highlights. I think we'll leave- just to make improving your life- just
to make improving your life more practical, I want to leave you with one final idea.
Which would be, today as you go about your day, what's one thing you could just not do and
that would make your life better? Is there one thing that you could refrain from doing today?
It might actually just give you more space. It can be an easy way to get a little bit more- to
change your conditions for the better. I'm gonna leave you with that thought. Thanks everyone.