Embark on a conversational journey about writing poetry, teaching yoga, friendship and parenting, with our host Derik Mills and his guest, longtime friend and colleague Elena Brower.
Derik Mills interviews longtime friend and colleague Elena Brower about writing poetry, teaching yoga, friendship, and podcasting. They discuss Elena’s debut collection of poetry, Softening Time: Collected Poems.
Elena shares an inspiring encounter she had a Glo student who had taken classes with her online. Derik and Elena also turn the conversation inward, discussing the therapeutic journey from poetry to prose as Elena shares about her book of poems and her upcoming book.
In a previous episode of The Glo Podcast, Elena took over the microphone to guest host. Her guest was Jeff Rosenthal, co-author of Make No Small Plans: Lessons on Thinking Big, Chasing Dreams, and Building Community. Listen to her episode, Community is a Powerful Human Technology, featuring Elena Brower and Jeff Rosenthal.
Closing the chapter on this heartfelt conversation, Derik and Elena speak about dreams, the practice of Buddhism, and how to persist in creative endeavors. Both share about their insights drawn from the lectures of professor Douglas Brooks. (A number of Dr. Brooks’s are available on The Glo Podcast as episodes.)
Elena recommends a few books as well. Find them on her Bookshop.org page, where she offers reading recommendations on poetry, Zen Buddhism, perceptive parenting, on death and dying, art and writing, inspiration for daily living, leadership, yoga, mental health, and essential oils.
Key Takeaways for this Episode
(0:00:01) - a journey of friendship and business
(0:06:32) - the impact of curiosity
(0:16:36) - exploring personal growth and healing
(0:34:38) - exploring dreams and Buddhism
(0:46:41) - the art of practice and compassion
(1:00:58) - book recommendations from Elena
Being You: A Journal by Elena Brower
Practice You: A Journal by Elena Brower
The Practice You Podcast with Elena Brower
Elena’s reading recommendations on bookshop.org.
Professor Douglas Brooks's New Winter Sessions for 2024
The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
COLD OPEN
00:00 - Elena Brower (Guest) As much as I do feel like I’m walking on a certain path, and I’m always choosing where the path is or what the path is. I really think all of this is just the art that we’re making in our lives, in our little houses, in our little spaces, and it’s not necessarily leading in any certain direction, except to make us more aware of the meaning and the beauty in our world.
INTRODUCTION
00:30 - Derik Mills (Host) Hi, I’m Derik Mills. Welcome to the Glo Podcast. Elena Brower is a dear friend of mine and of Glo. You may have already discovered her movement in meditation classes on Glo, since we’ve been working together since 2009. She is also a mentor, poet, artist and best-selling author. Her books include the Art of Attention, being you and Practice you. Her latest is a book of poetry called Softening Time Collected Poems. She also hosts a podcast, also called Practice you. We discuss her recent book, her newsletter, where she publishes personal stories and miniature memoirs. We discuss her hospice work, buddhism and long meditation sessions, why consistent practice is so helpful for a daily life. A lovely encounter with a Glo member and a brief note on parenting towards the end. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Elena.
BEGIN INTERVIEW
Derik Mills (Host) Elena, so great to be here with you.
01:47 - Elena Brower (Guest) What a treat, brother. It’s been so long.
01:51 - Derik Mills (Host) Since starting Glo back in 2008. This has been a journey of many twists and turns, as you know. I want to thank you for your friendship along the way. I also appreciate our business relationship that we’ve cultivated over all of these years. I know our Glo members and Glo team highly appreciate you as well in your teaching. So a huge, huge, many year. Thank you.
02:25 - Elena Brower (Guest) Bowing deeply, in case you can’t see me, listener. This has been one of the most consistently satisfying aspects of my professional life for all these years, and I think I started with you. It must have been 2009, 2010. Right at the beginning.
02:49 - Derik Mills (Host) It had to be 2009, because I remember telling you about Lisa when we first met, that’s right and I met Lisa in. February of 2010. Wow.
03:03 - Elena Brower (Guest) I remember our first conversation. Actually, I was in my apartment at the time in New York City and could not wrap my head around the fact that I was going to be teaching to a camera. I was very resistant and you were very persistent and it worked out, thank God.
03:20 - Derik Mills (Host) Yes, yes. If there’s one thing I am, it’s persistent.
03:24 - Elena Brower (Guest) Yes, you are sure, and your certainty really helped. It made a difference in mine.
03:33 - Derik Mills (Host) Well, thank you for believing in me and us through all the twists and turns, it means a lot. Thank you.
03:41 - Elena Brower (Guest) For sure, for sure, you’re welcome and thank you.
03:44 - Derik Mills (Host) We have a lot to get through. Today, I have more notes than will allow us in the time that we have. I’ll start off. You know you’re an incredible podcast host and I recommend everyone listen to your episodes. Your show practice you. I took one of your recent classes on glow this morning.
04:09 It was titled curious and creative flow and I’m going to quote you here, yeah Well, curiosity is going to be a theme of our discussion, and so I’m going to quote you here. I’m going to quote you a lot. Actually, today you said what is this day requesting of me? What can I be more curious about, perhaps less assuming or judgmental than later on? Towards the end, you ask can you stay in your curiosity and creativity around what this day is asking of you? Notice where your mind wanders? Also, what is beneath it, that steady presence, the source of your creative force?
04:49 I, speaking of themes, I want to touch on curiosity, creativity, steady presence and the source of your creative force Before you comment on that. Speaking of curiosity, when I think about you, when I think about the many aspects I appreciate about you, is that you are an educator, but you’re insatiably curious. You’re a fellow learner, you are constantly making art from your teaching, your wonder, curiosity and your continuous learning. And, as with any great art, you take us, the listener, the reader, the viewer, through a process that feels as though we’re on this journey with you and we’re learning and exploring together. And, instead of telling us, your art ultimately is inviting us to engage our inner lives. And let’s not forget the hidden parts, too, that are hard to face often, and in so doing you invite us to explore in expanded possibilities of ourselves, and I know it’s a mouthful, but it’s something that I truly feel and appreciate about what you create.
06:18 - Elena Brower (Guest) Thank you so much for noticing that, and it is definitely what I aim to do, which is I don’t really know all that much. What I know is that I’m constantly learning and if I can bring my reader, listener, practitioner along on my path to understanding, you know, in some illustrative fashion, then I’ve done my job.
06:49 - Derik Mills (Host) In terms of what that job is. One of the questions I love asking glow teachers on the podcast is do you have a favorite story of a glow member approaching you in person like someone that you never met before? I know you have hundreds, if not thousands, but in terms of what that job is, that you’re accomplishing or producing, or that creative work that is having an impact on people, I wonder if you could share a story that also maybe includes or unpacks that a little bit.
07:27 - Elena Brower (Guest) Yeah, I actually have a few of those, but there’s one that stands out, gal, that I met we’ll call her be I think her first name started with be in a very distant airport somewhere in Europe and she literally just came barreling up to me in this sweetest way and told me that my classes on glow had changed the way she looks at her parents, by some miracle, and her family in general, but her parents specifically. I don’t know that I’ve ever mentioned anything about parents in a class. I’m sure that I haven’t, in fact. But I think what she’s picking up on when she was picking up on when she approached me, was my intent to sort of get everything and everyone into one human container and not forsake each other, to keep ourselves together, to always, at the end of practice, dedicate the merits to someone else who might be in the suffering, struggling, and sort of keep our awareness on all the parts of our lives without getting too sucked in. You know, sort of my teacher wrote a book called standing at the edge, and sort of standing always at the edge of all of the qualities, these pro social qualities that you want to cultivate. One wants to always standing right at the edge and keeping your practice close so that you never go over the edge and you’re always at your kind of high edge of these qualities and I think that’s what she was sort of effusing when she came up to me.
09:20 It was just the sweetest thing and she ended up being on my flight and we ended up chatting and the landscape of her life was such that she had no local teacher and you know, in essence glow is her studio and that was a great gift to her that we gave to her collectively. There are many sweet stories like that and most of them weirdly take place in airports or in shops like shop, random shops. I’ll be in a shop somewhere and somebody will come up to me and say, hey, are you a Lena Brower? I’ll be like, how are you doing? You know, give me a hug, how are you? What’s your name? So sweet.
You know you could look at it as all that so special, whatever, it’s actually very ordinary, you know. It’s just like seeing your teacher out and about, and very sweet to say hello and instead of to just gloss over it. I appreciate it.
10:24 - Derik Mills (Host) Yeah, those are some of my favorite stories, the stories where there’s an expression of not just the evolution or the exploration within oneself, but then how that follows on to one’s immediate surroundings. And I’ve always wondered if we could come up with a way to measure, you know, not just the impact on an individual’s evolution but then also on those around them, because I’m sure whatever it is that she was experiencing or working with was likely influencing the behavior of her parents in some way, and we hear that often. I just I love that it’s. If I were to look back at all the sort of naive dreams I had for Glow on day one, that would be up there, probably in a top three for sure. Like what? Knowing that when spending some time with people like you, it can’t help but influence the world around you.
11:26 - Elena Brower (Guest) It’s very sweet. I pass that off to my teachers too, because their you know, their only mission is to help us create this sort of one body and, you know, hopefully I’m passing that along. I can’t really take credit for what happens in there and I’m sitting, by the way, on purpose, right in front of where I record, so that you can see it’s right there and nobody messes with it. Now James leaves it alone. We got rid of our sofa. We might get another one, but one that we can move easily, because we kind of like having that there as kind of a focal point in the living room. Slash my office. That’s really funny.
12:13 - Derik Mills (Host) It is funny. I think the words used exactly was people leave it alone. I the behaviors or the routines that I want to maintain consistently. I need to make it as easy as possible, so like I leave a mat out in a spot. I’m fortunate and privileged enough to have a little area where I can just leave that mat and almost never roll it up unless I’m cleaning. So I get that.
12:42 - Elena Brower (Guest) Yeah, it’s very sweet, don’t touch my stuff. Don’t touch my stuff, leave my stuff alone.
12:51 - Derik Mills (Host) You know you were mentioning earlier pro-social behavior and practicing at the edge.
12:55 It made me think of a few lines and a few of the poems that you wrote in your most recent book, and I was going to save your book for the end, but I think maybe now is a good time to go there. As a lead in this concept of practicing at the edge, I wrote down a few examples that I’d love to read back to you. Sure, do you want to tee off what the book is and why you wrote it before I do that or after I do that?
13:31 - Elena Brower (Guest) I’m happy to. Yeah, I’m happy to. It’s a collection of poetry called softening time. There’s no telling if anything like this is ever going to happen again.
13:38 although I will continue writing poetry, it’s indicative of the season I’m in which is softening, and softening with regards to my own mistakes and failures, softening with regards to everyone around me, softening with regards to reality as it presents itself to me when it’s difficult, especially and this several of the poems are actually quite old and they were started 10, 20 years ago and then finished over the last few years, and several of them are brand new, and there’s a whole section in the back that is dedicated to certain people. Each one of those pieces is an homage to a friend or a relative or someone who’s influenced me, so it’s very sweet to get to talk about it. It’s not very often that I do, and it’s very sweet to get to talk about it because I really love the process of writing it and delivering it to the world.
14:42 - Derik Mills (Host) Why won’t it ever happen again?
14:44 - Elena Brower (Guest) I don’t know, unknown. The next book I’m writing is much more personal. Being on Substack has sort of loosened up my writing a little bit so that I’m more willing to be more personal. The poems are so very vague in certain regards, and certain regards are, they’re really not. But writing more literally, prose, along with paintings, prompts. That’s where I’m going. Next, the book is the working title is coming home or come home to yourself, and it will be published by Shambhala, probably 2025. So that’s what I’m working on now. So I don’t know. I mean, maybe maybe another poetry book, let’s see.
15:35 - Derik Mills (Host) I love how it goes forwards and backwards in time and it interweaves. You don’t specifically call out or mention the subject, the person that you’re referring to or that it’s about, but you tend to get a sense and you see them entering, leaving and then reemerging. And there’s some that I won’t even refer to because I’ll start crying. They were just so beautiful and we could spend the rest of this time together that are psychoanalyzing. Why, for me, they’re so powerful?
16:14 - Elena Brower (Guest) I’d be into that.
16:15 - Derik Mills (Host) Yeah, I would be too. I’ll just give you one taste, like the dear seven year old self.
16:24 - Elena Brower (Guest) Oh God, hiding under the bed. I can’t even.
16:32 - Derik Mills (Host) I’m getting tears just thinking about it. I need to write that. I want to write that for myself.
16:38 - Elena Brower (Guest) You know, when I teach writing, I always go to situations like that where I’ll say, okay, that’s my seven year old self, where is yours, and people do that. You might as well do that as a matter of course. Send it to me, because it will serve you. It will be very healing to find out where that seven year old boy is, where is he hiding, no question.
16:59 - Derik Mills (Host) What’s he doing? Well, after many years of therapy, I have a much better sense of where he’s at, what he did and why.
17:09 - Elena Brower (Guest) Yes, yes, yes.
17:12 - Derik Mills (Host) And what he’s continuing to do.
17:16 - Elena Brower (Guest) And I’m assuming that you’ve sort of welcomed him and all of his being back into your life in some way in a supportive way.
17:26 - Derik Mills (Host) No, not enough. That’s why it’s so emotional for me. There are ways in which that he and I also think of him as a plural, he not just a singular. He was stunted and maybe lost some innocence little, too early, and so, yeah, there definitely is a creative force there that is wanting to be expressed.
17:59 - Elena Brower (Guest) Yeah, I think there’s a lot of wisdom and I’ve heard this a lot from many different teachers and traditions and schools parts work with Richard. But welcoming that human like this visually and energetically into your own arms, as you are now knowing what you know, now, having been through all this work on yourself now, is such a healing and you could even just do it in a yoga ninja or do it in a seated meditation where you can just see yourself at seven walking toward yourself. What would you do? Like I would take that little girl and I would put her into my arms like this. She would be way too big for my lap. Her legs would be trailing off to the side. I’ve pictured this many, many times, just holding her, kind of rocking her a little bit like a baby. Now you know what that’s like. We’re stroking her little hair, little side part that she had. That feels so good to me and it is sad and tears do fall and that’s part of the process, I think yeah.
19:13 - Derik Mills (Host) Thank you. Like you said, we could spend this whole next 30 minutes just on that. But to my point at the top.
19:24 I wanna make sure we get in a few more nuggets of genius from you and with you. You said earlier the softening went difficult. It struck me that that is probably what that young woman who approached you was expressing. It is in difficult moments with parents. What are the ways in which we can soften and look at ourselves when we’re sort of reflexively judging or assuming? And there’s something that I wanna get to. You mentioned your substack earlier. We’ll link to that as well, because I highly recommend everyone jump into that. Everyone jump into that. It will be time very well invested, I guarantee it.
20:20 I don’t know where this is going exactly, but so I mentioned I was gonna quote a few lines from your book. So in the poem currently there’s a line where you say, resting my exhausted certainties, oh God, yes. And then in faith, the strongest force is not gravity, it is curiosity, a holy map to that which you are healing within yourself. What if you are just here to develop faith in yourself and then in you are all women. You are all women when you listen to yourself in new ways and your reality unswervingly changes.
21:06 So I wonder if we can hold those concepts and transition into a very recent Substack post where you say I’m here to cultivate a mind of safety, a mind I can trust when my heart aches. All I have to do is commit to practice. I still have no idea what I’m doing, but I’m starting to see what it means to trust my inner life, to build a sheltering mind. And all of that refers to the lines I read earlier this idea of resting exhausted certainties, the strongest force being curiosity, and that you know, really, we’re all women when we listen to ourselves in new ways and our reality becomes unswervingly changed. I love that. Like change is to change is to swerve, but yet we’re unswervingly changing, staying on the path of continuous change. I’m assuming that’s what you meant by that.
22:05 - Elena Brower (Guest) Yes, that is what I meant. Yeah, the only constant is change. The only thing that doesn’t change is the fact that everything is changing.
22:14 - Derik Mills (Host) Right.
22:15 - Elena Brower (Guest) It’s so Buddhist that you know it’s really funny.
22:21 - Derik Mills (Host) It’s like it’s like almost a caricature in a way, right it’s a little too on the nose, I guess, is what you mean by that. Do that? Can you talk to us about that? Because that if you look at your recent subject post, that there’s a lot that you’re sharing about that whole journey. You know the extended sitting periods and the service, and, yeah, I would love to know more about all that.
22:47 - Elena Brower (Guest) You know, it’s hard to really pinpoint when it became a definite situation, but when we moved here in 2020 to New Mexico and I saw, the second day we moved here, the sign for Upaya Zen Center, I had a very visceral reaction. Tears were falling, my heart was blasted open. I couldn’t go in because of COVID. There was a sign, you know, please look us up online and I instantly started studying there. One of the sub-stacks I wrote, called Silent Illumination, is a really good sort of summation of that process. I think I’ve taken over 200 online programs at Upaya and no stopping there. I think what really helps the most is this point that everything is always changing, that I have to get comfortable with it, that I can also, in my leveling up of comfort with change, can also share that without words with my kid, who’s now 17 and going to college next year. By the way, remember that little nugget running around Glo Studio.
24:03 - Derik Mills (Host) Yes, a sweet heart.
24:14 - Elena Brower (Guest) Yeah, you know what’s interesting, Slight tangent, one of his friends was really injured, a acquaintance of his was really injured yesterday on the ski slope and I thought you know, everything is always changing, this could just flip in an instant and I, you never know, and the whole sort of impetus toward Buddhism for me, towards Zen in particular, is that preparedness for the inevitability of change and that feels really important to me and I feel you know.
24:49 I’ve gotten out very close to death. I’m working in hospice, I’m working with grieving kids. There’s no limit to the suffering in the world and I used to look at Buddhism and the Four Noble Truths and go God, it’s so dark.
25:02 I don’t want anything to do with that. And now I’m like, of course I resisted it. That’s exactly where I needed to go. There is no escape from suffering, there is no escape from old age, there is no escape from illness, there is no escape from death. So how am I going to sort of stand on that threshold between what is true suffering and total freedom from my crazy mind and the creation of a sheltering mind, as you quoted? And I think that’s why I’m studying in this tradition, and I’m actually going on a pilgrimage this year with my teacher in April to Japan for multiple weeks. I’m so excited I could burst.
25:51 - Derik Mills (Host) Love Japan.
25:52 - Elena Brower (Guest) Yeah, oh my God, what a place. I took Jonah last year and we just about died. We were both just floored by how comfortable and at home we felt there.
26:07 - Derik Mills (Host) I understand that.
26:09 - Elena Brower (Guest) But yeah, to answer your question, this just makes every bit of sense to me, this idea that you could, as a matter of course. In this tradition, my job is to stay awake, to release all of the ambition and specialness and success and instead just focus on service and what I can do to really make a difference in my community, quietly.
26:41 - Derik Mills (Host) I too, when I first saw that all life is suffering is being a bit dark and pessimistic and cynical, and as the years go by and I can see potentially fewer years ahead of me than were behind me, depending on how science and AI evolves, that’s debatable, potentially Totally For the first time in human history. I remarked to Lisa when we left my parents last. I said it’s just, it’s never enough. Like the people you love, the people you know, whether it be family, friends or an environment, a place, it’s never enough. You can never get enough of it and that’s just suffering.
27:34 - Elena Brower (Guest) Totally. There are so many more ways to look at suffering than the way that we were raised to look at suffering In this society. We were raised to think of suffering as a failure Right, that’s some fault of yours and in fact, suffering is like just a fact. There’s no escaping those, those, those truths, and so you know. How are you gonna? How are you gonna work with it? How are you gonna flourish in the face of that? How are you gonna keep your mind safe?
28:06 - Derik Mills (Host) Right, hey, I was brought up in a culture where suffering was to be avoided, glossed over, numbed, scoffed at. Only people who are having quote unquote issues are suffering, and so on and so on. Yeah, all of which wasn’t helpful.
28:26 - Elena Brower (Guest) No, and also just created for us, within us, this like dark divide where there’s the bad part and then there’s the good part, and that walking along the hallway in school with both feels like a terrible, fraudulent existence. Walking along in any, in any place and until you realize that actually there is no. You know, this is all one organism and there are parts that need to be looked at. There are parts that are wonderful in the eyes of your teachers and your parents, and then these other parts that are actually totally natural, human feelings, truths. Don’t run away from those. Keep those close. Those are your, those are your strengths and your allies and the way forward.
29:20 Really, I was listening to a talk recently and my teacher was referencing the Blue Cliff Record, which is a book of koans or sort of stories that were copied down by our Zen ancestor, a Hedogan, right before he left China to go to Japan to bring the teachings home.1
She gave a whole talk on it and it’s called an appropriate response and the koan goes. A monk asked. I don’t remember the names of the characters. There are always two characters and it’s always a wonderful thing to look into the characters and see who’s who and what relationship they had. Teacher, student, brother, whatever. A monk asked what are the teachings of a lifetime? What is the most important teaching? It’s translated in many different ways and the answer an appropriate response and sometimes an appropriate response is like how are you, how are you doing today? And sometimes an appropriate response is some sort of like let me send you this podcast, let me give you this book, let me tell you about this thing that I learned, and sometimes it’s just silence and presence.
30:41 - Derik Mills (Host) I love that. I want to mention your Substack post. I forgot which one it was. You referred to a person who was experiencing something quite profound and transformative and she asked the teacher how do I hold on to this? And the teacher said by giving it away.
30:55 - Elena Brower (Guest) It was so sweet. I think that’s what you like.
30:57 - Derik Mills (Host) That was Fushin.
31:00 - Elena Brower (Guest) Yeah, totally, totally and actually, interestingly, that was done in a setting where Fushin was becoming the shuso and the shuso was sort of the head trainee for a certain period of practice and he had no prescribed notes or anything. 2 Every single person in the room had to ask him a question and that was what he said. You know, how do I? How do I hold on to this feeling? I’ve been meditating for two weeks straight. I feel so good, what do I do? And he was just like give that feeling away. And it was so beautiful. All of us were kind of like huh, Wow, pretty great, Good work, dude.
31:40 - Derik Mills (Host) Yes, yes.
31:42 - Elena Brower (Guest) Shuso indeed.
31:44 - Derik Mills (Host) Indeed, you’ve mentioned a few times parts work or different parts of self, and there’s a book that I read I think it came out in 2020 called your Symphony of Selves, by, I think, james Fadiman and Jordan Gruber, and they talk about what it, what it means to consider the self as a you know, not a unitary self, but a multiplicity of selves as actually being more healthy than a conceived unitary self, multiplicity of selves not being multiple personality disorder. There’s a very clear distinction between the two, the clinical scenario. So I’m all over that.
32:26 - Elena Brower (Guest) Yeah, an amalgam.
32:28 - Derik Mills (Host) Especially with dreaming. I’d love to ask you about dreaming.
32:33 - Elena Brower (Guest) That’s such a good one. I’ve only just now really started to pay attention and take notes on my dreams, and boy do I get some good information in those things, gosh, particularly the ones that are coming close to the morning.
32:47 - Derik Mills (Host) Is there anything you’d like to share about that, in terms of how dreams are informing the work that you’re currently doing?
32:55 - Elena Brower (Guest) You know, I find myself making lots of weird mistakes in my dreams and like doing strange things that I wouldn’t do in real life. I’m a person who has an IRL and I have come to understand that actually there is a part of me that is sort of it’s sort of like your mind and meditation, just secreting thoughts all the time, and really is that person who would do that crazy shit. And to relate to that as a part of me is exactly keeping with what you’re saying the amalgam of selves, and you know it leads only in one direction, which is toward acceptance. So that one who is, you know, sober from marijuana and alcohol for 10 years and then finds herself dreaming and smoking a joint, that’s an okay part, like don’t worry, it’s okay, Don’t worry.
33:57 Smoking cigarettes in my dreams Like it’s super satisfying Weird day I wake up and I’m like looking around to that really happened. I felt it in my lungs in my dream. I felt it. I was like celebrating the feeling.
34:11 - Derik Mills (Host) The burn in the inhale.
34:13 - Elena Brower (Guest) Yes, and but really you know that those substances, those two in particular, I’ve really no place in my life anymore. It’s like cheesecake or wheat bread or something you know. I just don’t, it’s not a part of my life. It doesn’t work and to yeah, to dream about it is to sort of allow the mind to just secrete the possibility and then release it and it’s gone.
34:40 - Derik Mills (Host) And what a safe and therapeutic way to do it.
34:44 - Elena Brower (Guest) Totally.
34:45 - Derik Mills (Host) And you could say that about many other experiences that occur in dreams that would not be healthy or functional to do in real life, as you said. That’s right, but these parts you know. Our mutual friend, professor Douglas Brooks, often refers to the demons and various mythologies, various traditions is like you don’t feed the demon, the demon will come for you and you will pay the price in some form.
35:13 - Elena Brower (Guest) It’s funny I’m taking with Douglas now online his history of Buddhism 12 week course.
35:19 - Derik Mills (Host) I just started it.
35:20 - Elena Brower (Guest) Amazing.
35:22 - Derik Mills (Host) Yeah, well, every course is amazing.
35:23 - Elena Brower (Guest) Back in.
35:25 - Derik Mills (Host) Yeah, right, yes.
35:27 - Elena Brower (Guest) But it’s so good to be back in with him and to be listening to him and taking notes, and I even bought one of those electronic notebooks specifically for this course. I’m really enjoying it, rather than carry around a big, heavy notebook like I used to. But I have to say, learning the history of Buddhism is helping me put my entire arc of learning together, because I started within 20. Oh my gosh, 22 years ago. Yeah, he was my first philosophy teacher and we started right in on the pot of shots and to to take the arc to go back and see where the upon shots predated Buddhism as we know it and see how all of those things fit together really perfectly the Vedas, the Brahmins into Buddhism. What Buddhism as a reaction to all of that in a way, is so cool Wow.
36:33 - Derik Mills (Host) So cool and so important to be exposed to historical perspective, to critical observation and analysis of the various claims traditions make, I decided no. That’s why I passionately wanted Professor Douglas Brooks, as well as Professor Christopher Chapel, lecturing and providing class content on glow. That’s philosophical in nature. But back to what I was saying.
37:07 You know, Douglas reminds us that this process of critical observation is referred to as explanatory reduction, and all of that is so helpful for me. It’s a process that helps me develop more of an understanding and appreciation for why traditions started and how they evolved, how they’ve influenced each other or, as Douglas often says and I’m roughly paraphrasing here how they stole and borrowed from each other and how they continue to do so. We humans love shortcuts and it’s so easy and tempting to reduce hundreds to thousands of years of very complex philosophy and practice into something that may not be as helpful or potentially even misleading. You know, without diving into the nuance, for example, he speaks to the rigor of Buddhist logic and its evolution over time, and I’m only on the first day of the course. I’m hoping he impacts that more. So we’ll link to that course in the show notes for anyone who’s interested in purchasing. That will also link to his episodes on mindfulness that he did on the Glo podcast.
38:27 - Elena Brower (Guest) Yes, it’s interesting how I’m looking at my notes right now and I’ll say this unrelenting.
I quoted him as saying that Buddhism is an unrelenting, rigorous system of logic, deeply intuitive, but it sees the world as how this, how I, you, the subject creates the world from how we see, whereas Hinduism is going the opposite direction the world creates the subject.
38:59 And having studied Hinduism all this time, that world out there and how it’s affecting me the fact that the Buddhist thinks less of the world out there and more about the creativity that spins the world into existence from my understanding, it’s very cool, very interesting and really I didn’t really grasp it before I started taking this particular course. And lastly, to sort of put a a coda and close that loop, an unrelenting seriousness to take up the suffering in the world and the seriousness of the world, and I really appreciate that I feel like, as I’m getting older, you know what that’s important. As important as it is to bring joy to everything that we do, to do our best to do that, to understand the nature of the suffering and the broad scope of the suffering, is equally as important To see what little things we can do about it and then go to sleep at night, knowing we tried.
40:18 - Derik Mills (Host) We’re going to touch upon your hospice journey before we get too far from the statement you made. You referred to your redefine, understand, your definition of success earlier, and there’s another recent stack post where you say there really is no need to know exactly what’s next, what I should do, how it will unfold. Finally after spending decades chasing after my misunderstood version of success, I’m folding myself into this simple practice to see where it leads, how it does this process of updating your models of success and form your creativity.
40:58 - Elena Brower (Guest) You know, the more I sit, the more I find ideas streamlining systems in my life, simple things. These are not grandiose creations that come through, although sometimes there are steps towards some creation that I’ve been thinking about for some time. What I found is that those quiet spaces of practice really lend themselves to my capacity to be a really good mom, to do my best and, when I screw up to apologize, a really good partner to do my best. When I screw up to apologize. A good kid. My dad’s still alive. You know, my mom died eight years ago. A good listener for my mom, she shows up often in the sits. These these are not especially interesting or important notions by any stretch of the imagination, but they are the way a day can proceed in a life that has meaning. And that is what the practice gives me. You know, the simple, simple pockets of meaning and value and creativity and whatever I’m doing.
42:25 - Derik Mills (Host) You mentioned people showing up in the sit, Do you? And earlier you mentioned how the the dreaming process, the nighttime dreaming process, can be therapeutic? And one of your poems titled Pig Tales, you say turning away and returning dream, and later on the poem dreamland forgiveness, the most unforgettable, true kind, Do you see, the more you focus on dreams and with these incredibly long sit sessions I think you’ve mentioned like five, eight hour range or realm of sitting duration, Is there some similarity between what happens in those long periods of being with yourself and what one might experience in the dream?
43:14 - Elena Brower (Guest) I would imagine yeah it’s just more truncated in a dream, but over the course of a day where there’s five different hour long pockets of sitting interspersed with walking, working, eating and no talking, no personality.
43:34 In fact, part of big part of those periods of practice are dropping the whole persona and it’s and it’s, it’s just like a vast sky, like, oh my god, anything is possible. There’s no phone here, there’s no work happening. You know what’s the appropriate response. It’s much more available because I am not colored by my phone or some thing that I have to do or remember, and life just keeps getting more simple. And the hope is that that sort of practice, that sort of intensity of practice, is setting me up for a level of acceptance as I approach the end of my life in a few years, and what that looks like and how comfortable I will be when I lose people that I love or I myself die. You know how is that going to go, and I think the practice really prepares us for that and gives us all of these sweet moments of presence prior to those endings, which are inevitable, and I appreciate that sort of most of all.
44:49 - Derik Mills (Host) I would say I think it was towards the beginning of your book. There’s a poem titled held, and different parts say you’re right. She tells me I’m never going to be a writer. Beautiful because of her giant mind. Words inhabit her with a fierce, mysterious majesty. Words are at home in her wise, confident body. You mentioned the concept and the experience of dropping a persona. I wonder and you referred to at the beginning how producing this work and putting it out there in the world is such a revealing, vulnerable experience.
45:33 I can imagine that sort of internal narrative arc of feeling, that of feeling someone that you, I’m assuming, held an incredible amount of respect for, in regard telling you, you’re never going to be a writer but yet here you are writing about that, experiencing and sharing this with the world and, in so doing, dropping or if not dropping her persona, holding that persona in your arms like you would hold your seven year old self.
46:06 - Elena Brower (Guest) You know what’s interesting. Your reading of it is a fascinating shift for me. The very beginning of the piece I’m talking about how it’s a professor at Cornell, my poetry professor, the first very small section that I had and she was actually telling me she made me realize that I can drop my own internal voice that was telling me that I would never be a writer. That’s what she showed me and it’s fascinating that you read it the way that you read it. That’s my projection Could be. It could also be that it’s unclear but the fact of what this woman did is unclear, but the fact of what this woman did, she didn’t even give me such a great grade I think I had an A minus or B plus or something but I’ve really tried my best and I still have the Northern Anthology of poetry that I bought that year, which was 1988. Oh my God, her belief and support and encouragement not dissimilar to a writer by the name of Nancy Arany, who’s still working and teaching today in the public domain. It was all about what is good about this piece, what is beautiful, what is meaningful, what touched you and all of us felt very held by this human. That was where, precisely when I started to drop the notion that I would never be a writer why would I even have that thought? What’s the point of that?
47:48 Of course, it didn’t really happen until many decades later, but I’ve always loved writing and I always think of this gal who she wasn’t much older than I, as I mentioned in the piece, but she was just such a force for belief in myself. It was a game changer and I’m glad you brought it up, because if anyone’s listened to this and you happen to be a teacher, professor some support to some young person or people. You just cannot measure the impact of a few words of encouragement and how that will carry forward many, many decades into the future. I’m glad you brought that up.
48:32 - Derik Mills (Host) Yeah, it can be everything.
48:34 - Elena Brower (Guest) Yeah, for sure.
48:37 - Derik Mills (Host) You’ve touched upon the concept of practice many times in our conversation and I wrote down three notes, three sections from three different poems. I think this might be the last of what I read from your book, that’s okay. The first one, abc. It takes 90 minutes by the time it’s over. We’ve released all haste, more light and slowness in our kinder faces. We remember now we’d forgotten again our practice, our medicine, and then, in a tribute to practice, holding no tension, expanding again, finally arriving at an agreement with myself what if your practice is an art form, not a path, but an expression? Then, in a tribute to practice, you said what if your practice is an art form, not a path, but an expansion?
49:34 - Elena Brower (Guest) Yes, yeah, that’s a question that I think we all need to be asking. I don’t think there’s, as much as I do feel like I’m walking on a certain path and I’m always choosing where the path is or what the path is. I really think all of this is just the art that we’re making in our lives, in our little houses and our little spaces. It’s not necessarily leading in any certain direction, except to make us more aware of the meaning and the beauty in our world. Even when things are really fucking hard I’ve had some really hard times recently yeah, I still feel full of hope and vigor and trust. That’s really a result of practice.
50:26 This morning I recorded because I’m going to be away on this pilgrimage aforementioned pilgrimage to Japan. I’m recording in advance all the classes that I’m going to be doing for that time period that are going to be released. I did a 45-minute level two, three, intensity three, flow class and it was major. I was out of breath and it was great. I’ve had this whole morning’s been a pretty packed morning and I feel so present for whatever art is being made here and in the previous appointments one more to come because of that practice. It leads me back to. I don’t think it’s a path. Even though it is a path, I think it’s an expression, I think it’s just a way forward. I think it’s simpler than we think. I think it’s more important than we think and I think it’s less special than we think. I think that’s where we can encourage people to do shorter practices five minutes, 10 minutes. My teacher put out a whole deck called In a Moment, in a Breath, with micro meditation practices. What if it was that easy?
51:48 - Derik Mills (Host) As you said earlier, that’s the streamlining of the simple things.
51:54 - Elena Brower (Guest) I boy, because you and I both smarty pants are us. We have made our lives very complicated at certain intervals. Now we know better and we’re trying our best to keep it really straightforward and simple.
52:08 - Derik Mills (Host) Yeah, at some point you bang your head against the wall. Enough, you realize that you either need to find another way of doing and living and existing and being with yourself, or it just doesn’t end well.
52:23 - Elena Brower (Guest) Exactly.
52:25 - Derik Mills (Host) You mentioned hospice and my wife’s father passed away In the last few days, a week when he was sent home from the hospital. This incredible, lovely woman joined us for hospice. Prior to that experience, I didn’t know even what hospice was. I didn’t know the definition of the word. Throughout that journey I then learned the definition of angel. When I read that you were doing this helping in this way, I just thought, wow, I have to ask her about her experience with that.
53:11 - Elena Brower (Guest) To be honest, I have no idea how it happened, but when I took the training that I took specifically for hospice, specifically in this state, specifically with this particular collective, to be a volunteer, I thought, oh my goodness, I have no idea how I got here, but there was no escaping this call. Now I’ve sat with a few folks notably James’s mom who recently passed, who chose medically assisted death, and it was absolutely exquisite, and not a lot is required. Hospice is a way for we’ll go sort of to the most external. It’s a way for all to save money, time, energy and pain. There’s no hospital. When you know that you’re within six months of your expiration date as aware of your death, Structures are put in place so that you are never put in an ambulance, you are never put in a hospital. You are just kept comfortable and safe, you are read to, you are cooked for whatever you need in your home.
54:32 The process of sort of mapping out the end of one’s life, whether you’re in a state where you can choose to do medically assisted death or not, is so sacred, so beautiful. Let’s get all your fares in order. Let’s do this in a real sort of simple, orderly, loving fashion. Let’s make it easier the whole thing. I just want to make the whole walk easier for folks. And that’s all that hospice is.
55:01 It was the origin of, it was in the previous century in the UK. It started there. You know, speaking of angels, there are so many angels in this world who are choosing to sit at the bedside of the dying and just bear witness and it is daunting how beautiful and how inspired I am, how beautiful it is and how inspired I am to do this work. And you know, I don’t really have much else to say other than it’s a real honor to be with somebody as they’re dying. It’s an honor to be with them. They’re a month away or two months away. They’re observable patterns that you can pick up and you can lend a really beautiful presence and safety to the whole household, Including the family members.
56:02 - Derik Mills (Host) So beautiful, so needed. We don’t, as a macro culture, really know how to deal with death as it’s happening.
56:11 - Elena Brower (Guest) We don’t.
56:12 - Derik Mills (Host) Oh, wow. We need you and others. Thank you, elena. As we explore a topic that deals with the ending of a chapter and who knows what happens after this great chapter we call life, let’s bring this to a close. We didn’t get to parenting. You know what seems to be a lovely course on parenting, which I look forward to taking someday.
56:40 - Elena Brower (Guest) You don’t need it really until she’s like two, three, you can start to listen. Then I’ll send it over. What I think is really important for you is to keep in mind nothing is first for all of us. Nothing is personal. When your kid starts to individuate which is happening in these sort of layers of the onion, it keeps on happening. There are different iterations of it, different expressions of it. I’m having one right now at 17, but that is like the most normal possible sequence of events, and so you can celebrate it. Don’t take it personally. Nothing ever that is said is personal. Even the I hate you mom, which by some miracles never said to me, but I think it was felt Even that is not personal.
57:33 - Derik Mills (Host) Thank you.
57:34 - Elena Brower (Guest) And that’s an important distinction.
57:38 - Derik Mills (Host) We’ll be putting a bunch of links in the show notes. Is there anything you want to maybe share your website I know everything’s available on your website.
57:46 - Elena Brower (Guest) Site is perfect, just my name.
57:49 - Derik Mills (Host) Also, I’d love if you have any books that are helpful. In one of your recent podcasts you refer to you interview some people, that you refer to some books that deal with that whole journey and I’d like to read those. So maybe we’ll include those as well in the show notes.
58:07 - Elena Brower (Guest) Yeah, you know what I have. I started this a while ago. People are always asking me for books because I am like crazy, as you are. Remember how we’ve always connected on like the piles of books that both of us have on bookshoporg. I have a shop page and all of those funds. You know it’s like 15 bucks a month, whatever it all gets donated, and I have a list of Zen, of yoga, of parenting of my favorites for the last four years. So everything is there and I keep it updated. I’m very active there.
58:46 - Derik Mills (Host) Perfect. Well, we’ll link to that.
58:47 - Elena Brower (Guest) I’ll send over that link to you as well.
58:50 - Derik Mills (Host) Thank you, Elena. Thank you so much. This was lovely. Anytime I get to spend time with you is just a joy, so thank you.
58:59 - Elena Brower (Guest) Thank you so much. I really feel you got to start and I’ll finish by saying this is one of the most satisfying professional and personal relationships in my adult life with you and, of course, with Lisa. By Osmosis she’s become a very dear sister to me and you are forever a brother to me, and I really appreciate the fact that we get to work together on top of all of that. It’s amazing and very special indeed.
59:32 - Derik Mills (Host) Beautiful. Thank you, I feel the same. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you to our entire team behind the scenes at Glow. I’m so grateful for your care and commitment to serving our members around the world. Thank you to our teachers for so beautifully sharing your gifts and talents. I’m also grateful to our lovely community of Glow members. You’ve supported us since 2008 and because of you, we get to continue to do the work we love. It’s the combined support of our team, our teachers and our community that grants me the privilege to continue to bring you the Glow podcast. Thank you to Lee Schneider, our Red Cub Agency, for production support, and the beautiful music you’re hearing now is by Kari Rodriguez and her husband, Luke Jacobs. And remember, take care of yourself, because our world needs you. Thank you for coming on this journey with me. You can find the Glow podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or glo.com/podcast or wherever you listen to your podcasts. I’m Derik Mills.
1 The Blue Cliff Record: The Blue Cliff Record (Chinese: 碧巖錄; pinyin: Bìyán Lù; Japanese: 碧巌録; rōmaji: Hekiganroku; Korean: 벽암록; romaja: Byeokamrok; Vietnamese: Bích nham lục) is a collection of Chan Buddhist kōans originally compiled in Song China in 1125, during the reign of Emperor Huizong, and then expanded into its present form by Chan master Yuanwu Keqin (1063–1135; Japanese pronunciation: Engo). The book includes Yuanwu’s annotations and commentary on 100 Verses on Old Cases (頌古百則), a compilation of 100 kōans collected by Xuedou Chongxian (980–1052; 雪竇重顯, Setcho). Xuedou selected 82 of these from The Jingde Record of the Transmission of the Lamp, with the remainder selected from the Yunmen Guanglu (雲門廣録, Extensive Record of Yunmen Wenyan, 864–949). Wikipedia ↩︎2 The Role of Shuso (https://brightwayzen.org/role-shuso-chief-junior/) ↩︎