Radio Interview with Carl Wolfson
This radio interview was done on Monday morning, August 2nd, at 7:45 at the KPOJ studio in Portland, Oregon. Carl Wolfson has been sitting with Nelly Kaufer for a few years and invited me to talk about "Unlearning Meditation" on his morning radio show.
Played: 134 | Download | Duration: 00:07:55
Jason left the Portland area a couple of days ago after almost two weeks of teaching engagements, ranging from a reading and discussion about his book at Powell’s bookstore to a one-day meditation workshop at Portland Insight Meditation Community, ending with a five-day retreat at Cloud Mountain, a Buddhist retreat center. I assisted his teaching or accompanied him in these varied venues. Many questions were asked and answered; many experiences were traversed and recollected. Following these events several participants contacted me letting me know that they were now meditating; and had previously considered themselves incapable of meditating. They reached out to me to support their meditation; they were already sensing ways that meditation was having a positive impact on their life.
As I reflect on this I am left with strong impressions. First of all, how freeing it is to honestly sit with our actual experience. To be still and touch our inner world without the imperative to fix it or fix us can be quite a relief. The impact this has on us is as varied as of our inner worlds and seems related to where were we are stuck and the unique ways that our minds loosen in meditation. The diversity of how this unfolds continues to amaze me.
Also to sit alone with our experience without being told how to fix or improve our self can be disconcerting… terrifying at times. With freedom comes uncertainty and choice. Although we often tell students that there is no wrong way to meditate, there seems to be a common compulsion to find the “right way”. And it seems like the only way to erode the view that our minds are dangerous or untrustworthy is by letting our minds be free in meditation and seeing what develops. But where do we find the confidence to take this risk and see how our mind actually operates in meditation? It seems to me that this is where hearing other people’s meditative experiences can really help.
Words that Carl Wolfsohn, a student of mine, said in this interview with Jason also reverberate. “I am OCD but I get into meditation experiences where I am not OCD, in fact these experiences are the opposite of OCD. So it has taught me that my mind is capable in the meditative state of a lot to things I did not think I was capable of in a non-meditative state of mind.” His words give me a handle on part of what we become free of … these limited views of who we are and what we are capable of.
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