Students of Insight: A Modern Mindfulness Journey: Recent Episodes
Jackson and Sam
This podcast is a conversation between two young, deeply committed mindfulness practitioners under the guidance of esteemed teachers such as S.N Goenka and Joseph Goldstein on the path of liberation from suffering in the context of a busy Western lifestyle: a modern mindfulness journey. Through the lens of our own experience, join us as we strip off our masks and authentically share our struggles, triumphs and wisdom around issues such as anxiety, depression and delusion in day to day life using mindfulness as our primary tool of liberation. We aim to present weekly challenges and useful wisdom from wise teachers that relate to our experience for the strengthening of the practice to live a happier and more fulfilling life in the hectic world we find ourselves in. In sharing the truths of our own conditioned experience, we find commonality in our sufferings and aim to support each other in abandoning unskillful conditioned patterns of thought and behaviour and cultivate skilful ones. We hope you come along for the ride with us.
In this episode Sam puts Jackson on the hot seat, asking some powerful questions and illuminating Jackson's personal triumphs and pitfalls. We hope you find relate-ability in Jackson's authenticity as we delve into how Mindfulness has altered many facets of his life.
Questions explored in this episode:
How have your relationships with friends and family changed since beninning the practice of mindfulness?
In the past couple of years, how has your relationship with fear changed?
What are your three most influential books for you spirituality and growth that you've read?
Describing a recent 'Aha' or 'Insight' experience that you've had which has benefited your mindfulness practice.
What do you struggle most with in life at the moment and how does mindfulness help you deal with it?
How have your values changed since emphasizing a more spiritual approach to life?
MINDFULNESS CHALLENGE presented by Sam:
This week we're focusing in on Active listening. Often in conversation, we want to make the conversation about is. In doing so, we sacrifice being of service to listening to others and solidify a sense of self when we're constantly trying to have our say. In the following week, try to remain mindful enough in conversations to catch yourself wanting to speak in such a way and instead engage in listening as a priority.
In this episode Sam and Jackson delve into Truthful speech. They discuss why they believe truthful speech to be important, their difficulties and triumphs and how we can practice it more effectively in our lives. We hope you find relate-ability and inspiration.
TIMESTAMPS:
7:24: Sam’s take on why it’s important to tell the truth.
9:09: Jackson’s take on why it’s important to tell the truth.
9:43: How Jackson’s life has changed after committing to telling the truth 4 years ago.
15:22: How has telling the truth has been beneficial to Sam.
19:31: Which scenarios make telling the truth difficult for Sam.
20:22: Which scenarios make telling the truth difficult for Jackson.
21:16: The power of taking pauses and checking in with intention.
22:59: Brief episodic summary.
24:39: How we can exercise truthful speech in difficult moments.
27:01: Previous mindfulness challenge recap.
27:57: How Jackson went with the previous mindfulness challenge
28:28: How Sam went with the previous weeks mindfulness challenge
29:43: New Mindfulness challenge of the week presented by Jackson: Expressing loving kindness to someone whom you have difficulty with in your life.
Identify someone whom you have difficulty with (a good indication of this is when you think of them negative emotion such as anger or fear arise) and express feeling of good will toward them. One thing meditation teaches us is that our happiness is not dependent on external circumstances. We have the power to cultivate inward happiness that cannot be touched. Therefore, we can take full responsibility for the suffering caused by thinking about our 'enemies'. This is an incredibly difficult task.
Learn how to practice:
https://www.contemplativemind.org/practices/tree/loving-kindness
Meta,
Sam and Jackson.
In this episode Jackson puts Sam on the hot seat to answer some powerful questions about his mindfulness practice and life related to progression of practice over 2 years, anxiety, 10 day retreats and more. Please sit back and enjoy.
Timestamps:
01:43: Question 1: What allowed Sam to push through the woo-woo stereotype that Mindfulness/spirituality carries as a sceptic and engage with a committed practice?
05:36: Question 2: What part of my first 10 day Vipassana course did I struggle with the most?
09:23: Question 3: What is the biggest change you've witnessed since beginning mindfulness/self growth?
15:00: Question 4: What are five books that have been most influential on your mindfulness/growth journey?
25:27: Question 5: What’s something you’re trying to change in yourself and are you going about that change?
29:10: Question 6: Are there any powerful Mindfulness tricks you use in every day life that have help you gain a more consistent state of awareness:?
36:00: Previous Mindfulness challenge recap.
36:43: How Sam went with the Mindfulness challenge.
38:43: How Jackson went with the Mindfulness challenge.
40:37: New mindfulness challenge presented by Sam: The bathroom is an area in which we are often not mindful and are subject to getting lost in thought. Therefore, pay attention to every facet of sensory experience (Sight, Sound, Taste, Smell and Physical sensation) in the bathroom exclusively to train the mind to be continually aware moment to moment in day to day life.
In this episode we discuss compassion, the stigma of it sometimes being perceived as 'weakness' particularly for young men and the power it has in our own lives but also on a global scale. We hope you enjoy.
TIMESTAMPS:
2:29: Quote of the week and how it’s important to us. We discuss impermanence and death contemplation. We also our perception of the differences between Buddhism and other religions.
17:12: How do we bring compassion out in others?
25:25: When compassion may not be useful.
26:00: What might happen if everyone cultivated a compassionate mind state.
28:43: Is the cultivation of universal compassion realistic?
30:50: What are the struggles we have with practicing compassion meditation in our own lives.
37:24: How you can go about practicing Compassion (Meta) meditation.
42:45: Mindfulness challenge recap.
44:11: Jackson’s experience with the mindfulness challenge
47:32: Sam’s experience with the mindfulness challenge
52:19: New mindfulness challenge presented by Jackson: The brushing teeth exercise. The goal of this challenge is to pay closer attention to sensory experience to cultivate a stronger continuity of awareness. To do this, brush you teeth for slightly longer (Jackson recommends 5 minutes) and to observe things such as the temperature of the water, the taste of toothpaste, the vibration of the bristles on your gums, the sound of the brush - whatever it is. We use this as an object of meditation as it is often where we are most lost in thought. To assess your performance, a good question to ask is whether you were able to identify a new sensory experience you were previously unaware of.
Meta, Sam and Jackson.
Join us on this episode where we talk about the foundations of Vipassana Meditation. We discuss what the practice means to us and how it has helped change the way we live our lives in a more mindful way.
Jackson and Sam also discuss last week's challenge and Jackson presents a new challenge for the coming week!
We wish you metta.
In this episode, Jackson and Sam delve deep into their struggle with workplace anxiety, finding commonality in its genesis between one another. The episode then finishes up with a dialogue around mindful strategies they have implemented that have served them well in overcoming and unravelling this conditioning, using examples from their own experience - drawing upon wisdom from respected mindfulness teachers.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Introduction and some statistics around workplace stress.
02:46: Jacksons quote of the week and what it means for him.
05:49: Sams quote of the week and what it means for him.
09:40: Jackson outlines why a discussion around workplace fear is important.
16:40: Sam outlines why he believes a discussion around workplace fear is important.
19:50: Sam outlines where his fear conditioning in the workplace may have arisen.
30:40: Jackson outlines where his fear conditioning in the workplace may have arisen.
49:26: Sam and Jackson make a critical disclaimer around implementation of mindfulness techniques.
56:53: Sam and Jackson discuss powerful mindful strategies they have implemented and have reaped tremendous benefit from in reducing suffering.
1:26:23: Sam Recaps the previous weeks mindfulness integration challenge.
1:28:40: Jackson recounts his experience with the mindfulness integration challenge.
1:33:14: Sam recounts his experience with the mindfulness integration challenge.
1:35:39: New Mindfulness challenge presented by Jackson:
Assessing our values. We want to ensure that the things we say and do align with our life values. This ensures that we can live more authentically and meaningful lives, a critical aspect to healthy wellbeing. From the following values list (https://management30.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/big-value-list-management30.pdf), highlight the ten most important values to you. From this top ten list, we then want to further refine this down to the top five values in our lives. Then, number these from one to five from highest value to lowest.
These are the values you want to live by - the extremely important framework that govern your actions in the world. This is a cognitively demanding task, and will require your upmost attention.
Our facebook page: Facebook.com/Studentsofinsight
This week Sam and Jackson delve into the topic of body image. They discuss the various issues they have each had with their own bodies and how they have used mindfulness, and other changes in their thinking and perception, to improve the way they see the physical body. This also leads to conversations about impermanence and detachment. Sam ends the podcast this week with a mindfulness challenge that relates to the topic of body image.
Timestamps:
03:19: Sam’s quote of the week and what it means to him.
06:32: Jackson’s quote for the week and what it means for him.
10:27: Sam discusses why he believes it is important to detach from body image. He talks about the constant changes in the body and how we look to remedy these changes by altering the physical body rather than deal with the route issues.
13:22: Jackson adds onto Sam's answer by talking about the allocation of time and effort. One can choose to put their effort into bettering their physical body, or they can choose to put the effort into bettering themselves internally, with the latter being a more long term investment into one's self.
17:48: Jackson discusses his main issues with body image. He talks about his ongoing struggle between being anxious about eating, and then feeling as though he doesn't match the image society has of the attractive man.
22:53: Sam talks about the issues he has faced with regards to body image throughout his life. These started with a medical condition he was self conscious about and evolved into a very strict and regimented fitness and weight-lifting routine.
36:47: Sam goes into the mindfulness techniques and changes in thinking that have helped him detach from the idea of having a specific looking body.
54:44: Jackson discusses his change in thinking and perception of the world and how that has helped in his struggle with body image.
01:12:28: Sam talks about where he is now with his ideas about his body and progressing through ideas of impermanence and detachment.
01:24:48: Jackson goes into his current way of thinking towards body image and the ways he has changed his perspectives, as well as discussing the small struggles he still has with his physical body.
01:40:01: Describing the previous mindfulness integration challenge.
01:41:47: Jackson recaps his experience with the previous mindfulness challenge.
01:47:37: Sam recaps his experience with the previous mindfulness challenge.
01:55:55: New mindfulness integration challenge of the week presented by Sam:
When looking at a mirror, or when eating, contemplate the non-beautiful aspects of the body. Imagine your skin taken away and you can observe the inner workings of the body. For example see your liver existing and doing what it does, and realise that the liver is a part of who you really are.
Meta, Sam and Jackson.
Our eternal gratitude to Alexander Nakarada and Kevin MacLeod for the music used in this episode.
Sam and Jackson delve straight into various physical and psychological struggles they have been through that resulted in their discovery and avid practice of mindfulness meditation, with the latter portion of the podcast presenting a mindfulness challenge to integrate into practice for the week ahead.
Timestamps:
02:58: Sam’s quote of the week and what it means for him
05:18: Jackson’s quote for the week and what it means for him.
13:40: Sam discusses his history of anxiety and addictions to gaming, youtube and aesthetic weightlifting for external approval which culminated in a call to action of self discovery resulting in rigorous commitment to personal growth with an emphasis on mindfulness practice.
31:25: Jackson discusses his struggles with depression, anxiety, panic attacks, physical illness and psychotherapy which ultimately resulted in his discovery of mindfulness practice.
54:00: Describing the previous mindfulness integration challenge.
58:50: Jackson recaps his experience with the previous mindfulness challenge.
1:00:22: Sam recaps his experience with the previous mindfulness challenge.
1:03:53: Jackson recounts what content of thought arose for him in the the previous mindfulness challenge.
1:08:12: New mindfulness integration challenge of the week presented by Jackson:
Take a certain time of the day (for example 10 minutes at 12pm every day). Take this time to pay close attention to thoughts arising, making it the primary object of mindfulness. Write down the two most prevalent thoughts that come up again and again throughout the day, recording them in dot points (using an app such as Evernote or whatever is most convenient). Look back on the thoughts at the end of the week (whether good or bad) and reflect with ruthless objectivity on what is the origin of where that thought originated from in effort to bring more awareness to unconscious behavioural patterns. Do the thoughts condition a sense of self? Are most thoughts judgemental? Or are they more skilful such as thoughts grounded in gratitude and focusing on good qualities in others? Having an understanding of what unconscious hardware is operating in the enigma of the mind allows us to change our conditioning and cultivate skilful states of mind that result in less suffering for ourselves and others.
Meta, Sam and Jackson.