Mindfulness for High Performance with George Mumford: The 5 Superpowers of a Mindful Athlete

Speaker 1 · 0:05Welcome everyone.

Speaker 2 · 0:11People are gonna be trickling in for a while. Sorry we're a few minutes late, but I'm glad that uh you all are here. See some familiar faces and some new faces. So I'm just gonna mute everybody except for George right now. So today's an exciting day. We have George Mumford here joining us and his assistant Rocky as well. But very excited about welcoming George to speak with us, to answer questions, to share about his mindfulness practice and some pieces about his own mindfulness teaching journey. He's been around for a while. He's been teaching since I think the early 90s, if I'm not mistaken.

Speaker 3 · 1:1780s. 80s. Yeah. Or the 80s. 85, 86.

Speaker 2 · 1:23Yeah. So he's definitely a teacher of teachers. So for those of you who may not know, George Mumford wrote the book The Mindful Athlete, which he details how mindfulness can be supportive of athletes. He's taught mindfulness and meditation to Phil Jackson's sports teams of the Chicago Bulls with Michael Jordan and the LA Lakers, Kobe Bryant. But his his background is pretty deep and pretty rich. He's been a longtime student of teachers like Ajan Cha, Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzburg, Jack Cornfield. He was at UMass practicing and teaching MBSR, mindfulness-based stress reduction. He has worked with a lot of inmates in prisons. He's sort of integrated mindfulness for chronic pain, if I'm not mistaken. I believe some work with addiction. He's worked with executives from a lot of the world's top brands like Nike, Google, YouTube, American Express, Lululemon, AT ⁇ T, etc. He has a course out right now called the Mindful Athlete Course with an online community. But it looks like a really fascinating structure of a course that I want to kind of dig into at some point during our conversation around bringing mindfulness for peak performance and integrating it into our lives for a greater sense of peace, clarity, self-expression, leadership. And speaking of leadership, he has a new book coming out next year called The Flow of Leadership. And you know, he and I both agree that teaching mindfulness is a form of leadership. And so looking forward to hearing more thoughts around mindfulness and how it correlates with leadership. So really excited about George being here. Like most of our guest teachers, he really walks the talk. You know, I think he's a dedicated practitioner. Just reading his book called The Mindful Athlete gives you a sense of his heart, his courage to become intimate with what's unpleasant and with what's difficult, sitting in the fire, you know, finding the eye in the center of the hurricane, and being with what's here, including our stories of who we think we are and difficulty of just being human, as well as the joy of being human as well. So he's a dedicated practitioner. He's been teaching to all sorts of different people. I thought he would be a great guest because we have a lot of people in this program with diverse backgrounds. And I think that we'll all kind of get something out of this experience together, no matter what our situation is, no matter who we're teaching, no matter where we are on our mindfulness teaching journey. So, George, deep bows to you for your work in the world. And thank you for joining us today.

Speaker 3 · 5:10Thanks, Sean. So amazing that you folks are on the call. I'm excited to be here. And it's interesting, my my first teacher, Larry Rosenberg, he had a few sort of, I don't know what I would call them, I guess premises, maybe. He said that if somebody asked me to teach, that I was supposed to say yes. And he also, not that I do that all the time now, and I'd be overwhelmed if I did, but starting off, I would say yes. And he also said that if nobody showed up, I was still supposed to teach. So it wasn't about who was here, or it wasn't so much about how many were here, it was about just making the commitment, the informing the intention to teach, and then to teach, even if nobody showed up or if it was just one person. So I'm excited about being here. But what I'd like to do is just engage in what I call arriving, because a bunch of you folks, I'm pretty sure were coming from some place or some activity. And if anything like Rocky and myself, you are you're, you know, I I talked to Athease Rocky about having a full catastrophe, you know, about you know, the whole, you know, and Zoba de Greek, the movie, they asked him, they said, you know, are you married? He said, Yeah, I'm married with kids, the full catastrophe. So that's another way, even if you're not married with kids, you have the full catastrophe in the sense that we have a full plate and there's a lot going on. And I I believe the model that I learned a long time ago, and that was if you wanted something done, give it to a busy person. So I wouldn't be surprised if a bunch of us on this call are probably in that category.

Speaker 3 · 7:01So let's just take a few minutes of just sitting and breathing, what I call arriving, but it's also very powerful because it's it's the beginning of uh this idea of spending time together, being present with each other. And to do that, we have to be here. And so just tuning into your body, you don't have to get into a cross-legged position, you could just be sitting, just having your sternum open, lightly shutting the eyes, tuning into the body and the breath, to the extent that we know that there is a body, so you can feel the body because it's making contact with surfaces and just breathing, noticing that you're sitting and breathing, and distinguishing between sitting and breathing in and sitting and breathing out. And the idea is, and they talk about this in uh Satipattana Sutta, that all we're doing is being aware of the body to the extent that we have a body, to the extent that there is a body, and that we can have the continuity of mindfulness or bare awareness, of just feeling the body in a seated posture while breathing in and breathing out. So we can focus on the body as a whole, from the bottoms of our feet out to the fingertips and thumbs, the top of the head. We're just sitting and breathing and knowing it. So when thoughts come, we get distracted just by thinking about the body, thinking about the breath. The attention goes there, and then it's just a matter of sustaining it or just being aware of the sensations of sitting and breathing and knowing it. And it's possible as we are sitting and breathing and knowing it, that we can rest in the breath. We can rest in the body. So, what I mean by rest is just settling back is this alert, relaxation, alert, you know, being relaxed and alert at the same time, and being uh like a silent witness, just observing our experience in a way where we're allowing the body and the breath to speak to us in its own language without interpreting, without interacting, in terms of interpret in terms of pushing away or pulling something towards us in terms of trying to make something happen or to achieve some state, universe, or optimal state of mind. It's really more about just sitting and breathing and knowing it. No agenda with no activity other than just observing ourselves as we sit and breathe, observing the body while sitting on the important to once in a while to tune in and to notice what the mind is involved in. So is it with the body and the breath, or is it involved in thoughts, images? Maybe we have to shift position for whatever reason or just the screen. Just being mindful, being present to what is happening as it is happening. And then returning to the body and the breath. Simplicity of just thinking about the body, and then the attention goes there. Then it's just a matter of just noticing what's there and allowing it to be as it is. And so to continue to be resting in the body, resting in the breath, and allowing the sound to just come and go, arise and fade. And as you breathe out, letting go of the body, letting go of the breath, just opening your eyes. So thank you for indulging me with that. I don't know about you, but I definitely needed that. Felt good. It's really good. And so we did a little bit longer than I would normally do because we have some time. But just taking a few minutes, even two minutes, three minutes, four minutes, five minutes, just sitting and breathing and knowing it is really powerful, it's really important. Just have to get a sense of what I call being in the body and anchoring and resting. Because we can actually be engaged in activities like sitting and breathing and actually resting it. We don't have to use forceful energy, we can just figure out how to titrate our energy. So it's just an ease of being and just sitting and just collecting ourselves and really feeling like we have arrived. So I'd like to share with you or talk to you about how we spend the time together. I think it's really important. I can talk about the story, my stories. There's a lot of things I can talk about. I've been around a little bit, around for several decades doing this stuff. So I have a lot of stories and a lot to share. But I'm really interested in well, what do you want? Or how can I serve, how can I be helpful today? And I know you're teachers, or you're you want to be become teachers or be better at what you're doing in terms of teaching. So we can go with that. But it's be curious for me to if we could spend a few minutes just for me to get a sense of who's on the call and what you all are interested in. I know Sean didn't know I was going to do this. I didn't even know I was gonna do this. This is kind of something that's just I just I'm very curious about who are you? I mean, I look at you, and from my vantage point, depending on your denomination or how you look at things, I see masterpieces, I see a lot of Buddha nature, a lot of Christ consciousness, a lot of divine sparks on this call. And I see that. I don't know what you see, but that's what I see. That's what I feel,

Speaker 3 · 21:30and that's what I'm speaking. That's what I'm speaking to and speaking from my dad. So we can have a lot of fun with this. I know what I'm asking you to do. It's a little challenging, but at the same time, this is our meeting, your meeting, and I'm gonna we're gonna spend two hours or hour and a half more. And I want it to be meaningful and I want it to be practical and something that's gonna help you. My intention is to share my experience, strength, and hope, and to inspire you to be yourself, to really do what you're doing wholeheartedly, so that that ripple was gonna ripple out to all the folks that need it. I don't know if you noticed that, but there's a lot of healing that needs to happen for a number of reasons, and that I like to think about it as letting it begin with me, which is another way of saying letting it begin with us. So let's just connect, because connection is really important. Uh, there's a there's a reflection that I that I refer to, and it talks about in the tr in this tradition of uh insight meditation that I come from the Theravadan tradition, but I I I can't really fit in one box because I use a lot of them. But it's really about teachers are looked at as good friends. And so we talk about good friends, suitable conversation, which is about the teachings and how do we implement the teachings in our daily life. And so this is what I would call a suitable conversation or an apparent of athletics. This is what I call a championship conversation. Because everything begins with the word. And in this tradition, if your mind is right, everything else is right. So having the right view, having the right intention, having clarity of what it is we're doing and and and what what we want to achieve, and then then the process that gets us there. That's really important. And so, and if you want to talk or ask questions or want more information about the meditation I did with you, that's fine too. But if you're like I mean, I'm a recovering perfectionist, so I kind of do a lot of things. I'm like a scholar and a practitioner at the same time. I study a lot. Maybe we read the same things. I mean, I wrote my book and I read it 42 times, and it's and I'm just getting started. So there's something about the idea of what we were doing is was part of the Satipattana Sutta, mindfulness of postures. A little bit of Anapanasati, mindfulness of breathing in and out. Breathing in, I experience the whole body, breathing out, I experience the whole body. And if you talk about it, it talks about establishing mindfulness to the extent or establishing awareness to the extent that there is a body and there's an opportunity for the continuity of awareness or mindfulness. So it's a real simple thing. We do it all the time. But now, how how you investigate it, that's an awakening quality, investigation, investigation adamas. Okay, this is what George says. Come on, have an experience of being in my body, being present. So that's what I'm thinking, because I could talk about it, but I want this to be really meaningful. And also, I'm asking you to step up. Because a lot of us like to be served. This is not like what's the name of that survivor on TV where we get to very vicariously sit back and watch somebody, you know, make a fool of themselves or survive. You know, this is more about a Socratic, that's how I roll Socratic style back and forth. Everybody has something to say, and I and what you think and how you're seeing things is really important. Really important. It's not just my work, it's all you know, it's us being together.

Speaker 2 · 25:50Absolutely. Thank you, George. Uh, we do have uh uh Chris here, who is a yoga breathwork and meditation teacher using these modalities to help isolated elderly population and also teens struggling with mental health. Yeah, would anyone else like to share a bit about maybe what they hope for from this session, anything that they would like George to speak to? Uh Zoe.

Speaker 4 · 26:21Thanks, George, for being here and talking with us and making it conversational. You say you have lots of decades of experience doing this. I come from insight practice, insight tradition a little bit as well. And I'm an acupuncturist and have been doing meditation in all of my treatments for many years.

Speaker 1 · 26:41Yeah.

Speaker 4 · 26:42And I've been teaching it as well. And as I get more into teaching, I'm just curious from about the teaching piece for you through the years, like how how it has changed for you and how it's been shaped. And I'm also hope happy to listen to whatever.

Speaker 3 · 26:58Yes, yes. So how has it changed? That's interesting. Well, when I think about it, I've changed, you know, I don't have as much care as I used to. I don't have my jerry curl like I used to have. And before that, my big fro. And before that, I don't remember. But the first thing we have to understand is impermanence. So things are changing, we are changing, we are evolving. Of course, it's it's known that we are born, we're gonna we're gonna die, but in in the interim, we're gonna get old and we're gonna get we're gonna have illness. So, how how my teaching have has changed is as I change and as everything else has changed, how how can I sustain the essence of the teachings and and this ever-changing, I'd say we're changing at an accelerated rate right now. And you know that's verified by Thomas Friedman in his book, Thank You for Being Lady, talks about Mother Nature, globalization, and technological, technological change, and that is accelerating things at exponential speeds, not to mention global warming and the whole injustice, racial injustice. There's a lot going on. So, how my teachings have changed is they've evolved to meet things. So, this is the amazing thing about the practice, especially uh I talk about the five superpowers because I I feel like people put a lot of burden on mindfulness. The mindfulness is this cure, you just need mindfulness. Mindfulness is the heart of Buddhist meditation, but it's supported by right effort, it's supported by, you know, obviously right view of insight, it's supported by right concentration. And so there's effort and concentration, there's this insight and trust or faith, confidence. So those five superpowers, you might say, that's what I talk about in my book. They're operating all the time. And so the idea is what to actually understand that when we are reactive and we don't we don't have a practice, we're we're reacting to things. And so this process that we're engaged in creates space between stillness and response. And in that space, we get to pick and choose. But in this tradition, we talk about right speech, right action, right livelihood, right intention, right view, right intention, all of those things. So in that space, can we live according to that? So my teachings uh have evolved because if I'm practicing properly, then I'm creating this mirror mind that just observes what's in front of it. And based on what I observe, how do I make wise choices that lean more towards peace and understanding? And love versus making choices that are the opposite. So when I when I go into a place like a prison, I have to just be present and be able to be with what is, know the truth, and the truth shall make me free, and then decide how I'm gonna respond to that given the situation. So my teachings have changed, and a lot of it has to do with me changing because who I am or how I am being as a teacher is going to affect my teachings. And so it's my understanding and my belief that if you want to learn something, you teach it. And so you're teaching and learning. So even though I'm giving, then the other thing is all that I give is given to me. So if I'm if I'm giving them bad dharma, I'm getting bad dharma back. If I'm giving them a clear clarity, compassion, love, understanding, then I'm getting that back. So my teaching is evolving to keep up with how I am changing, my body, my age, the situations that I'm in. So it's changed to the degree that before I think I was teaching, and I even though I would say, you know, I'm teaching something because I want to learn it, as I get more and more into this, what has changed is those five factors, those five spiritual uh powers of, or what I call the superpowers, they have changed. So as they change, my meditation has changed. So this is my my teacher, my first teacher, Larry Rosenberg, said that you can you can really notice whether your practice is getting better or not by the growth of those five superpowers. So I'm having more confidence. My confidence in some areas becomes conviction, getting more wisdom, more understanding about, especially about myself first and then how I interact. You know, just like the Satavattana Sutta talks about internally and externally. So that's the teaching, is how am I observing my own experience and others' experience? And then understanding that as I continue to apply these spiritual principles in all my affairs, not just when I'm teaching, but all the time, full-time, 24-7, that they're gonna grow. So right now, I mean, I've been doing this practice, especially because I was in recovery. I got into it because it was in recovery and I got clean and I had chronic pain. So I came, by the way, of chronic pain. And so I got into it, and 36 years and almost five months later, I have more enthusiasm and excitement about life than I ever had. So that's how my teaching has changed because as I change, that's going to be reflected in my teaching, and it's a continuous process of evolution and getting deeper and deeper in terms of more concentration, more uh right effort, more insight about myself and about the universe, how things work. You know, and I talked about obviously mindfulness. So the mindfulness is something that what does it do? It cultivates trust, insight, effort, concentration, but it also balances them. So it's about not only growing in those, because if I grow too much in insight and not enough in faith, then I'm going to be cynical. So my teaching has changed as I continue to evolve and change. And what's what's been exciting about the change also is that the media or the access to teachings is like never before. You have access to everything. Now the challenge becomes how do you distinguish or discern what is appropriate and what's not, what's right effort versus effort, what's right mindfulness versus this mindfulness and understanding that stuff. So my teaching has changed because I've I have to understand who the audience is and meet them where they are. So, similar to what we're doing here, my teaching has changed based on who I'm teaching and how my own personal practice is going. And I would say the biggest thing is for me to keep the focus on myself. As I develop, so goes my teaching. So my teaching has changed from when I first started teaching when I lived in a meditation center in Cambridge. I would get all of all the requests from folks who would call a meditation center that wanted to learn about mindfulness or meditation. And I would go out and make, like a doctor, make house calls. I would go to, could be to a school, could be at a youth center, could be to a house of corrections, it could be anywhere. And I would go and I had to figure out how I could relate to them as they are and use a language where they could understand what I, the essence of what I was teaching without them thinking that they were joining a cult or that I was swearing at them, because they don't know poly. If I use poly with them, they don't know if I'm swearing at them or blessing them. So I had to learn all of that. So my teaching has changed because, and the other thing is I read a lot. So I read over a book a week for over those 36 years. So I have to read about things, I have to understand. Well, if I'm going into prison, you know, what do I need to learn? Now, part of it is I learned just by observing. Like Yogi Berra said, you can see a lot just by observing, right? A lot part of it is that, but it's also this idea of wise reflection, reflection, reflecting on, okay, how did that go? You know, what, you know, if I had to do it over again, how would how can I make it better? Or what worked and how do I sustain that? So my teaching has changed because I have changed, and the whole thing is about me continuing to grow spiritually, mentally and emotionally, as well as, well, physically. I don't have much control over that. But but you understand, I still have the ability to, you know, strengthen conditioning, balance, you know, rest, sleep, nutrition, those sorts of things. But it's it's taking care of myself and then being the message, I would just say. So being the teaching rather than kind of teaching. So it's changed quite a bit. And it also changed because of who I'm working with. So when we're working with athletes, when I'm working with inmates, you don't have a lot of time. And you can't go in there and teach inside the prison like I would do at the meditation center or at the YMCA. It's just different. So I have to get it real clarity about, you know, what am I doing, who am I working with, and and and what's my intention. So it's, it's, it's all, it's, it's the right, it's right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right concentration, right mindfulness. They're all sort of in the mix. And so, depending on what you want to teach, for me, I teach the threefold training, which means it's not just mental development, but effort and mindfulness and concentration. It's also integrity and morality. Not to kill, not to steal, not to lie, not to take intoxicants, not to engage in sexual misconduct or misconduct that's going to hurt others, non-harming. And then the right and right view, which, you know, there's a lawfulness to the universe, and and that, you know, I have Buddha nature. And it's up to me to cultivate that, whether I call it Buddha nature or the masterpiece within. And there's a teachings and there's good friends and community of like-minded people where we could talk about, have appropriate conversations about how do we do this thing? How do we can we be more present? How do we make sure that our teaching is evolving with how we evolve and how our students or how our community that we live in is evolving. We have to keep up with that. I can't keep teaching what I was teaching in 1986. It's a totally different universe. So I have to keep evolving, but this the thing is the same. The Buddha talks about do good, avoid evil, and purify the mind. Of course, I changed the mind to talk about the chitta, the heart and the mind. Being connected, not being one or separate, but being one. So purify the mind. That's what I'm saying. That makes sense? Yes, okay. Great question.

Speaker 2 · 38:56Beautiful. Thank you for that question, Zoe. Yeah, I I really appreciate the different facets that you bring to your teachings around morality, effort, trust, concentration. You know, we can talk about Sila Samadhi Panya, you know, importance of community. One thing that I noticed and that I appreciate about some of your teachings is that at least with the mindful athlete course, you start with a sense of urgency, the sense of you know, having to have have your ass on fire to practice. And you know, in Buddhist terms, we can talk about samvega, this like spiritual urgency to practice. And you know, mindfulness of death is classically known as the most powerful mindfulness practice in the sense that you know, if we if we really sense into this very inhale as possibly being my last, it really helps us to appreciate that we could go at any time. So you know, every moment that we're not developing virtue or mindfulness or concentration may be a wasted moment. And so I really appreciate the sense of urgency that you bring to your teachings and trying to cultivate that sense of urgency in your students. And so, as mindfulness teachers, I think a lot of us will agree that it's it can be difficult to engage students over the long term or to find out how to create that sense of urgency in our students to practice more. Because a lot of people will practice for a week and then drop off. Or we ourselves as teachers, you know, I'm guilty of this too from time to time. I'll I will lose my routine or I'll stop formal practice for a few days, right? I might not quite have that sense of urgency to practice. And so I'm just curious how you help people to find that sense of engagement, that sustained engagement, that sense of urgency to practice, how to, you know, light someone's ass on fire to practice in a skillful, wholesome way. So do you have any thoughts on that?

Speaker 3 · 41:35Yeah, it sounds like you're asking me how do you motivate people? There you go. And and the response to that is you don't. You can't motivate somebody. They have to want it. I got exposed to this stuff in in college. And uh, you know, I would I was at I was at UMass from 69 to 73. And when they approached me on all of these modalities like meditation, yoga, tai chi, uh, my response was give me a brew and get the F out of my face. You know, I don't have time for that lame that lame stuff, you know. That's that's that's that's that's that woo-woo stuff. I don't want to deal with that. So I wasn't into it. And it wasn't until my butt was on fire where I had chronic pain and I had to just figure out how to manage it. And so there's a sense of urgency. So I would say what got me here was what I call the AOF method of motivation, ass on fire. And now I don't have to have my butt on fire. I can get a little heat on one cheek without change. But even more than that, pursuing excellence and wisdom with grace and ease. So I'm not in survival mode where I'm trying to get out of survival mode. I'm in growth mode and I'm I'm I'm seeking excellence. Okay, I have wellness, but there's way more wellness that I can get. So there's a, and then when you realize that this is a wonderful way to live, then the joy that you cultivate, like I said, when you grow in confidence, but you grow in joy, you grow in happiness, then then that will be the motivation. But initially, uh you have to talk to, you know, it's important to meet people where they are, but to ask them what's going on. So for me, especially working with the dudes when I'm just thinking about working at Boston College, and I'll be talking and say, What's up, dude? What's going on? He said, I'm chilling. I said, Chilling ain't gonna make it. You know, chilling ain't gonna make it. You keep telling me you wanna be like Mike, but you chilling, you ain't willing. You ain't willing. You gotta be willing. So, what do you want? So if you tell me you want to win a championship, then you gotta be a champion. You gotta shift from doing to being, and then you gotta be interested. But if I can share my experience and strength and hope with them or talk about, well, here's how so-and-so got

Speaker 3 · 44:00over it, because I would tell you, I didn't think it was possible for me to get off of drugs and alcohol to my to a friend that I used to get high with showed up at my house sober, said, Let's go to AA meeting. But it was the right time because my ass was on fire when he came by. I I just was sick and tired of being sick and tired. It just nothing was working. I couldn't stop and I couldn't, I couldn't stop, and I couldn't keep going. So that's what I call everybody has their spiritual bottom. I call it the elevator strategy. It's like, okay, so you're on the penthouse, but now and you're on the 10th floor. Last week, you were on the 12th floor, so you ain't gotta go all the way down to the basement. You gotta all you have to do is understand you're going in the direction you don't want to go, and you can just get off at any floor. But when you get off, you have to really commit to it, but you gotta take personal responsibility and you have to get to a place where you understand that the quality of your life is your responsibility and you have a you have Buddha nature. So I try to create a vision of possibility for them. They want to do it, but the reality is some people are not ready. And so we got to allow them to not be ready. And I and I remember when I used to go to A meetings, sometimes you have a, you might have a friend or somebody, you encourage them to get as drunk as high as they can, because at some point they're gonna realize it ain't gonna work. Because the more you tell them not to drink, they're gonna drink. So you but you just so we have to fill out is what Coach Tex Winner called the readiness principle. Some people are not ready. They'll tell you that they're ready, but they're not. And so you focus on the ones that are ready or create a space. It's like, so maybe to answer your question, answer it this way. How many of you folks know of Johnny Appleseed? The legend of Johnny Appleseed. There's this guy who walked around and he just threw appleseeds all over the place, and wherever they took root, they took root. That's what I do. That's what I've been doing. I plant seeds, and if they get the nourishment, the sun, and the and the moisture, you'll grow. My job is not to kind of wait or to dig up to see if something's happening. I'm just planting the seeds, and if you want to, if you if you if they take root, they take root. So it's like I set the table, invite you to sit down. If you sit down, you do. If you don't, you don't. But you just never know. So that is where we have to start evaluating. And I get this a lot in my course, and because I get a lot of folks like yourself who are the teachers or their sports psychologists or their teachers, or, you know, they're just working with their kids. And it comes up like, well, I think they would be, you know, I think they need mindfulness, or I think they need to do this, or I want them to do that. And I say, good luck with that, because now you're already telling them that there's something wrong with them and you can fix them. And so good intentions is, you know, as they say, it's not enough. You gotta have the wisdom, you gotta have the understanding of what you're doing and what impact it's having. And so to say, well, I think you need this, it's like you saying, Well, you know, something wrong with you, I'm gonna fix you. Instead of really understanding that nobody's broke, they're just lost. They got ignorance, or they're being driven by greed or hatred. And so the idea is to help them get back to themselves. And the best way to do that is to be the message and to talk about things. And so you have no idea the impact you will have on people just by your being, and you're just putting it out there. Well, you know, if like somebody they planted seeds, they say, okay, well, this could be helpful. So obviously, they planted seeds even when I was in college, and when I was ready, I was ready. And so when I deal with the young men, like the one I said, you know, you know, chilling ain't gonna get it. It's more like if you keep doing what you're doing, you're gonna get what you're getting. So the status quo gotta go. So what do you say you want? That's why I begin with what do you want? Then who do you need to be to get what you want? Really simple. If they get it like I did, oh, this is the way there. I need to do this to be this or to get to where I want to go. Then now it's it's interesting because I go through periods like you talked about, there's times when you feel like sitting, sometimes you don't. Well, to me, you can practice mindfulness and wisdom from the time you wake up to the time you go to sleep. So the informal practice, informal practice, those are just labels. So there's no difference when you, the master of life, you can't tell if they're working or they're playing. If it's their love or their leisure, because to them, they're always doing both. So the idea is be present for whatever you do. So even though you're not sitting and being in silence, that's one part of it. The other part of it is more, you know, is right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood. So you can look at, okay, how am I feeling? How am I being? You know, how's my self-talk? You know, am I creating, you know, am I creating more greed, hatred, and delusion, or am I moving towards peace and compassion and love and understanding? So it's that kind of a thing. So we get these ways of thinking that that says, okay, I need to practice when I'm sitting or when I'm in a class like this, but then when I'm not here, I can be something else. Well, I will say who you are as a person is going to show up who you are as a meditator or whatever. And so if you start understanding your mind from the time you wake up to the time you go to sleep, you have a rough estimation of whether it's positive or negative, whether it's external or external, whether it's focused on self or other, you can do that all day. And then your, you know, right speech, that means your self-talk too. Because we be talking to ourselves. And let me just ask a question. How many of y'all have had arguments with folks and they're not even here? We all do. You know, we you know, especially with the significant other. I I say at home, I'm that's the, you know, in martial arts, you say the dojo is a place of enlightenment. Well, I'm here to tell you as a householder, your family is a is a place of enlightenment. They're the place of enlightenment. Because they push your buttons and they do stuff. And and actually, and it's interesting, especially if there's a sibling or whatever, you didn't choose them. Your teammates and your family, you don't choose them. So you got a choice. Are you gonna be with them or are you gonna, you know, so we have this idea of how do we? So it's like getting a practice that's both formal and informal, but from moment to moment, you can have mindfulness and insight. Insight to the degree that we call it the clear clear comprehension, mindfulness and clear comprehension. What's my intention? Purpose, suitability, what's the best way to do it? Domain of practice all day long. Don't forget your meditation object, or or maybe you're working on compassion or or just, you know, loving kindness. And then there's the what we call the realities, impermanence. This idea of self. I don't call it no self, I call it the illusion of separateness. And then the suffering, it's just it's gonna be there. So impermanent suffering, no self, or the illusion of separateness. And so those are the things we can observe every day. So when I ring the bell, that's practice impermanence. It rises and it fades away. So we too arise and phase away. We are not beyond death, uh, old age or illness. That's a that's a reflection. Some some practices. So we get to understand that, that, and then you can you can make it joyful. That's why appreciative joy is one of the Brahma Biharas or the bind of bodes. You know, loving kindness, compassion, practice, and appreciative joy. Well, what does appreciative joy do? It says that, okay, so uh uh, you know, I'm a Buffalo Bill, uh I'm a Dallas Cowboy fan, and the Buffalo Bills just kicked my butt last night. So can I can I appreciate the fact that the Buffalo Bills deserve the win? They're not my team. So instead of hating on them, I'm saying, okay, Josh, you know, Josh Allen had a great game, and and you know, more power to them. So it's an antidote to jealousy or envy. So we don't make other the enemy, and you know, we can't, whatever. Being a Red Sox fan for a long time, I could tell you at the meditation center, I'd get people there say, you know, I'm a Red Sox fan, but they're wearing me out. And I said, it was funny, it was interesting because I said, dude, it's about being a fan and not about whether they win or not. But, you know, you can choose that, or you can choose to just be a fan whether they win or not and just support them. And then, of course, the next year they won the championship. He probably thought I was prophetic, but I wasn't. I was just being real with it. So you all understand what I'm saying? So there's so many opportunities for practice. And the thing about it is the more you practice and the more you get the benefit of it, then that motivates you to continue to do it because it's a great way to live. And there's so much joy when we can help somebody find themselves or get an aha moment, or just the idea of we're we're planting seeds, and we can't judge our performance on whether or not there's fruit that we can see right away. That fruit might not ripen for years. But I, you know, I could tell you that I was teaching at the Insight Meditation Center in Cambridge. This guy came up to me after, you know, at the end and said, hey, George, remember me? And he was a guy that I taught in prison, and he had an odd exhibit. So he was out doing his art. That was 20 years later. I had no idea. I just went in and just worked with dude, and here he is out here and doing his art and being. And, you know, showing up at the meditation center. I always think, well, we may need a center for those cats, because, you know, they show up to the meditation center and they go into the hall and they see, you know, I'm just gonna say it, when I did the three-month course in Barry, and of course I was a wise guy, so I was laughing. So you go and then you put up, take off your shoes when you go into the meditation hall. There's a hundred yogis, and I guarantee you there were 93 pairs of Bergen stocks.

Speaker 3 · 55:21So I'm just saying, you know, so I just laughed at it. I said, Oh, that's this is interesting. Now I could have said, well, you know, I don't belong here because I don't have any Bergen stocks. I didn't say that at all. I just said, oh, that's interesting. You know, and I just it was funny. You know, I just laughed. So you get what I'm saying? So it's it's like it's just really about just being alive and just just do good, avoid evil, and purify the mind. Really that simple. But it's simple, it's not easy. But that's how simple it is. It's how do I train my mind or transform my mind so that it becomes my best friend and it can see clearly, it can both see and know what is happening.

Speaker 2 · 56:05Absolutely. There's a lot of nuggets of wisdom in there. So I'm curious what's coming up for some people here. What do you all think? Yeah, what do you think about that?

Speaker 5 · 56:27I think I think it's all like stuff that resonates and I I find myself you know, like, yeah, everything makes sense that you're saying. And then sometimes like, you know, and and maybe you could speak to this, like the I think for me right now in my practice is the emotions seem to like get in the way, or I feel I'm feeling at too attached to my emotions, and then they're so it's it's it's kind of like kind of like blocks to you know, to to embody all of these, you know, the the super the superpowers, to embody them out in the world, not just you know, in inwardly during my practice.

Speaker 3 · 57:24Well, can you give me an example of the emotion? I know you say emotion, but can you give me one? What what is the emotion? Or is it this, you know, because I I would say I'll ask you that, but I would say the emotion is not the issue. The issue is the unpleasantness of it.

Speaker 5 · 57:39I guess maybe it's maybe it's the the limiting thoughts and beliefs that then become emotions, like um, you know, I might get angry because of how things are right now, or because of maybe you know, I'm I'm cynical because of things I'm learning that other people haven't, or or my perspective is very different from most people nowadays, and and I um so those emotions come up and while I'm out in you know in the community and not that I'm yelling at anyone, of course, but they just it's it's hard to for me in this example to just be more accepting of wherever anyone is at.

Speaker 3 · 58:38Oh, so is that what you heard me say? No, I'm just speaking in generalities in terms of No, but I'm I'm I'm really really sure because your word you just said accepting things. And so acceptance isn't something that you just do, it's something that you work at to you, it's a point you get to. It's not something that's given. You got your work through it. So you're talking about your relationship to your emotions. Your emotions have a purpose, they emote us, they they move us towards life and away from suffering, whatever. And emotions is not the issue, it's your relationship to them, and it's not understanding. You know, there's a formula that Gandhi uses that I put in my book. Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values, and your values become your destiny. So when you have anger, it's telling you something. So you gotta listen to it. It's telling you something. But if you say, oh, I gotta get rid of it, and I've done this, and I call it the four A's awareness first, then the acceptance, which is the challenging part, then the compassionate action. What are you gonna do with the anger? And then the four One is assessment. What worked, what didn't work, what do I need to learn in practice? And so when anger comes up, you need that anger because that energy is going to help you move, push forward. But it's like mass to lots. You have to marshal it and not be identified with it. And that's the thing. What are emotions for? That's what I hear you asking. You know, how do I manage my emotions? You manage them by what I like to call, you embrace them, whether it's pain, whatever, and you investigate what is this? What are my thoughts? You you are getting at it. What was I thinking? What was my belief system that's causing these automatic negative thoughts? Or, oh, I'm cynical. Well, that's telling you, you need more faith. You need more faith. So we just look at it like we're cynical and we're always going to be that way and we're useless because mindfulness is too much, too much insight, not enough faith. And then sometimes we have too much faith where you're talking to somebody and they're they're not realistic. Everything they're saying is not verified. You get what I'm saying? So we can even say we can use today's like, okay, I won the election. Well, okay, verify it. It's polyanderish, it's not real. And we do it all the time. Oh, yeah, well, you know, they must have been this. No, it's investigate, see if it's true. That's what this is about. Investigate. So you got anger, you got fear, you got frustration. Great. Are you reacting to it or are you responding to it? Because it's telling you that you're seeing things in a certain way, or you have attachments, or there's something's not right, because you're angry because somebody disrespected you. You need to know that. Because a part of us is not honoring that. And then because we we ignore it, we're kind of saying we don't matter. You feel me? You get what I'm saying, Amy? So it's like, but it's all having the right view. You have the wrong view, which is you're coming from fear or coming from the fight, flight or freeze the sympathetic nervous system, not not seeing the whole thing. Yes, this is true. And I can, I could, I could generate hope, or there's a way out. Great. That was me. I was like, oh my goodness. But once my friend said, hey man, you get there's a way out of this. I'm okay. You know, let's go. Let me check it out. See if it's true. So emotional life or heart, so we were talking about, sometimes it has to break open. And sometimes, you know, we need to see that when we have emotions, we don't just have them, we identify with them. And they're just passing. This woman that wrote the book, My Stroke of Genius, she was saying it takes about 90 seconds for an emotion to process through. That's why we talk about bare awareness. Okay, I have the emotion, I'm talking to you, I can feel it in my chest, tight. Now I can call it fear, I can call it anger or whatever it is, anxiety. But all is necessary is for me to notice, oh, it's just this sensation of this tightness, and I can breathe with it and allow it to, just like the bell, to rise and fade away. But if I make space for it, then I'm gonna heal, you know, it's like stop, rest, and heal. Then we can heal from it, just letting it be there and not having to do anything with it, but just let it be. You get what I'm saying? But I know if so it's a process, but you figure it out because everybody has to figure out for themselves. Amy has to find out her way of doing it. I'll give you a teaching, but now you got to understand. Okay, so maybe I have to look at my beliefs. So I don't know what my beliefs are, but because behaving a certain way, then I have to work backwards according to how I'm behaving. The belief had to have been this. You understand? Or we call them hindrances. It had to be the hindrance, and that hindrance hinders our ability to be present and to see clearly. So, whatever the hindrance is, and right effort we use to release it. So you get hung up in the story, I get hung up in a story in actuality. I just gotta know, oh, there's anger in my mind. There's anger present. And how do I relate the anger in the way that I get purified? Or I, you know, I'm not reacting to it, I'm just noticing it. Then how do I want to deal with it? And sometimes you want to feel the anger and have use and use the anger, energy of the anger to tell somebody, you can't do this, you can't disrespect me, or whatever. But can you be, can you mean what you say without being mean when you say it? And we come up with the right speech. So they can probably hear you rather than, you know, making them wrong, even though they are wrong, but it's something about making them wrong and making myself wrong, or vice versa. You get what I'm saying? So it's really more about how do I handle the heart with care, with compassion, with affinity. That's what it comes down to. And I have to do that for myself. And then when I can do that for myself, now when Susie has it, okay, I can speak to Susie from my experience, strength, and hope. And even if I haven't gotten to it, I know, okay, this is a hindrance, and it's it's gonna prevent you from being present or prevent you from seeing clearly. So we abandon, how do you abandon the hindrance? You know, and that's the right eff that's the work of right effort. You know, you it has original how do you abandon it? But then once you abandon it, how do you prevent it from arising in the first place? And then you start getting into the teaching, you realize all of the suffering arises at one of the sense doors. Comes through one of the senses, through thought, through, through the eyes, ears, and nose of sensation that's gonna come through. And if we can just catch it when it comes through, it makes all the difference in the world. I'll give you an example. When I was teaching in prison, this one prison, and there was a prison where, because of Willie Horton, you heard of Willie Horton, they had all these guys that were in there for life, they were never getting it out. And we'd be meditating, and the intercom would come on, and it would be a correction officer. That's what they call him correction officers. His voice would be on the intercom and so-and-so go to the dispensary or whatever. And so I had inmates just sitting there and they hear dude's voice, and they hate dude. And so, and not only do I hate him, but he's messing up my meditation. And I'm thinking and I'm like, you know, that mopo, you know, I can't stay. And then you you're off to the races, right? With the anger. And so when he talked to me about it, I said, dude, I got a quick fix for you. Just notice that every time the intercon comes on, it's the mindfulness bell. Just be mindful, just be with your breath and just keep it at the bare at just contact. Okay, there's a sound, there's my ears working, and then consciousness goes out. Can I just keep it at hearing? Just okay, it's a sound. Or mindfulness, be mindful, okay? Breathing and out. Okay, I got this anger, you know, my jaws are tight, breathing out, and just notice it, okay. Then I then I start to get to the point where I'm not reacting to the anger, I'm just noticing it coming up. But if I can just catch it, and of course I'm not gonna catch it for the first thousand times, probably. But at some point, I'm gonna catch it. The mindfulness is gonna be quick enough to be able to notice. Oh, I'm just hearing. Just hearing, just sound. You get what I'm saying? So, this is the power of this practice, but we have to study and we have to understand how to. So, what you're going through, I guarantee that we all go through it, and the people you are teaching are going through it. So, when you master it or when you understand it, even if you don't really do it all the time, there'll be some times you can do it, and then as you evolve, there'll be times when you can do it more or catch it quicker, or there'll be some sign of progress. Because I like to use the definition of success as a progressive realization of worthy goal. So you don't have to wait till you can do it before you're happy. You can celebrate, okay, well, I caught that quicker. And then when you see that, now your confidence grows and the cynicism will abate because now you have proof positive. So it's not something that you heard or thought about, it's a direct experience or intuition. You intuit it, and you have a direct experience of it, which makes it powerful. And that's the whole goal is can you have a direct experience of the teaching? So you know you have a conviction about it. You have confidence, but you also have trust, but you have conviction because you have the experience of it and it works. And then that can that will grow. You get what I'm saying? So it's a matter of you having the right view. If you're in coming from fear or desire, and we have this spiritual greed, we all have it, right? If we understand it, if we can get the get into this just clear seeing or coming from a place of the opposite of greed, you know, generosity, compassion. Oh, this is gonna help me with my students. That's how I wrote the book. When I can think about helping other people, it's easier for me. Now, I don't know how it works for you, but saying, oh, I'm gonna do this because it's gonna help me help other people, it makes it easier. But you'll figure that out. It's what we call skillful means, and you'll start to figure out how you need to relate to your experience in a way where there's an openness to it, there's a willingness to just investigate and see what's here. But can you see just by you changing how you see it, everything changes? That's why we start off with right view. Right view, then you're gonna have right intention, you're gonna have right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right concentration, right mindfulness. And so this is too damn simple. It took me decades to figure this out. You feel me?

Speaker 5 · 1:10:24Thank you. That was great.

Speaker 3 · 1:10:26Yes. So I'm not just talking to you. Go ahead. I'm sorry.

Speaker 5 · 1:10:30Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. I just I I just feel like I resonate so much with what you're saying that I understand you're talking to everyone else, but I feel like Well, I'm talking to you, but I am also like, so I actually I I like just you know this day, everything that happened, the one thing I knew I had to do was come here. And I I just feel like there is a reason why I'm here and why, you know, there's I don't know. So thank you. Thank you.

Speaker 3 · 1:11:06Well, thank you. I really you have no idea how much I'm learning from you folks. That's what always cracks me up. People say, Oh man, we're teaching this so much. I said, There's one of me and four and 13 of you, I'll get more than you are. I'm just saying. That's a good one.

Speaker 2 · 1:11:26Absolutely. Yeah, I think as mindfulness teachers, we're just continually learning so much as teachers that we might not have learned if we hadn't started teaching. Amy, thank you so much for that great question and George for your answer. You know, and I think a lot of us as mindfulness teachers do have limiting beliefs about what we can do, who we are as teachers, you know, like who we can impact. There's all sorts of limiting beliefs that we have. And you know, I think one of George's first compliments was, you know, like can we be with the unpleasantness of that limiting belief? And oftentimes we might judge that limiting belief to be good or right, or sometimes we'll judge it to be wrong or bad. And so just kind of noticing what comes up in our response to the belief and whether it feels pleasant or unpleasant, and investigating, being curious,

Speaker 2 · 1:12:30sensing into it. And you know, not necessarily believing our assessment of that judgment of it being good or bad. But uh, you know, we're not alone. A lot of us have these limiting beliefs that come up from time to time when we might be in new situations. Maybe we start trying to teach things that we might not be that competent in, or somebody uh ask a question that we might not know an answer to. Or maybe we're just having a rough day and it's difficult to embody the practice. And so we all have these from time to time, and and so you know, when it does come up, sensing into it with you know, this caring, gentle curiosity, allowing it to be here, and then you know, going from there. George gave us a lot of great tools there on what we can do with that. So I think that's applicable to to most of us, if not all of us.

Speaker 3 · 1:13:38So where's all the guys? I know. Normally we have four guys tonight. I'm not saying on the call, I mean, uh you know, I'm I'm doing my Vend diesel, step up. You know, he said, well, what he really said was don't get up if you can't keep up. So but I know you can keep up, so I'm just saying, you know.

Speaker 2 · 1:13:59Well, we do got we do have a guy, uh Stefan here. Stefan, would you like to share something?

Speaker 6 · 1:14:05Yeah, I was gonna wait because I just got here, but you know, if someone says step up, I can't quite invitation.

Speaker 3 · 1:14:11We're waiting for you.

Speaker 6 · 1:14:15Yeah, I'm and please uh forgive me if this has been discussed. I couldn't get out of a commitment for the first hour, so I just got out here. But I I just really like looking forward to tapping into your wisdom on this. I'm looking to, you know, and already working with people that are more, you know, looking for high performance, you know, with companies and whatnot. And, you know, that's I think a real big focus of your career too, working with athletes. And they all want these like juicy states, right? They're looking for like the zone or like a high performer's looking for the flow state. Correct me, these sounds similar, probably are.

Speaker 1 · 1:14:46Yep, yep.

Speaker 6 · 1:14:46You know, mindfulness is is about not just seeking like this ideal state, but being with non-ideal states too, and and being accepting of them. But you know, people still want the goods in that regard. So, how do you balance kind of really giving people the tools to set up the right conditions for these like optimized performances? Yeah, yeah. Not teaching them to like be fine with like less, less desirable states. Does that make sense?

Speaker 3 · 1:15:11Yes. So first off, the best way to get in the flow is not to try to get in the flow, which you know that and you're trying to communicate that to them, but that's the real deal. But mindfulness and uh the superpowers that I talk about make you flow ready. So there's a science, there's actually a genome to flow. So the optimum conditions of flow is you know, having being clear about what it is you want. And then there's a graph that talks about so your challenges and your skills have to be high. And so you have to be in a high state of arousal. So you have to be uncomfortable. And and you're always looking to get better. It's continuous process improvement. And so there's conditions. So if they are working on their skills, knowledge, experience, and they continue to challenge themselves so that they're out of their comfort zone, they're gonna be all right. And they don't have to be a lot out of your comfort zone, according to what what what I read is 4%, up to 4% is probably okay. So over 4%, there's too much anxiety, then it becomes counterproductive. So there's this stuff. So once again, right view, getting the right, seeking to understand, oh, what is the what is what is the process of flow? What's the anatomy of flow? I talk about it in my book, and and what do I need to understand that that will help me? And so it's the same thing. I've been trying to write a book for 20 years. When I stopped trying to write a book, it wrote itself. Now I teach this stuff, and it still took me 20 years to get to get a book out. You know, so when I work with athletes, I say the best way to do something is not to try to do it. Just form the intention and then allow it to happen. So, like flow, you you have to be, you have to work, and and even Herbert Benson has another idea. He says you struggle, keep struggling, and then when you release, then you get into flow. Then when you're in flow, you have a new normal or you're leveling up. But after you have flow, you gotta rest. And so, unless you have the growth mindset versus a fixed mindset, uh, you won't continue to do it. But you are you need to have an activity that has complexity because you need complexity to keep having flow. So it's like a step function. So you go up, you have flow, then it plateaus, then you gotta go up and plateaus is like a step function. That's how we do it. So I talk about getting comfortable, being uncomfortable. You have to keep pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, but not but in a compassionate, incremental, it's like yoga, you know, it's like you get to your, as you've seen yoga teachers on on the call, you get to that limit and you hang out there. So you start a little bit below your limit, and then you just gradually move through it. And when you do it with compassion, with mindfulness, with with with a sensibility, then you expand because the opposite is true. If you don't honor your limit, then you stress you actually will end up having less flexibility because you you hurt yourself and then you you you know you just aggravate the tendons and everything because you're not listening, you're not going with what is. You're just trying to do something without being sensitive to it and then making the incremental step. So the whole idea is, yeah, you can get in the flow, but you have to work for it. So you're always working on skills, knowledge, and experience or your your capacity, and then you have to keep challenging yourself. So what got you in the flow today won't get you in the flow tomorrow. So you have to continue the flow, and then you don't look for flow, you just have to be present and keep keep on doing what you're doing with you know what we're talking about, and you'll you'll get in the flow. But you have to research, you know, what are the optimum conditions for flow state? And then you study that, and then then mindfulness is going to be there, but then you have to be aware of the fact that even though you say, well, I'm gonna let it happen, there's a body just like this. It's not letting it happen. That's where the wrong effort comes in. That's where the right effort and just, you know, I like to, when I talk about right effort, I like to use the old uh nursery tale about the the tortoise and the hair, you know, where the hair goes and rests, and the tortoise is just keeping slow. And so it's like a line from a Hokie Carl Michael song, slow motion gets you there quicker. Slow motion gets you there quicker. So you just keep on, so you intend, but then you have to allow it to happen. And of course, that's an advanced practice because even though we say we're allowing it, if you look at what we're doing, there's not the faith, there's not the confidence there sometimes. But when we start to understand it, and when we get, like I was talking about with Amy, when we get a direct experience of it, then there's a willingness, is what we call strong self-efficacy belief. When you really believe in your capacity and when you mastered situations, difficult situations, it's called mastery of difficulty. Then because you have strong self-efficacy, you have more persistence and you have more faith in things, and you'll set more challenging goals because you know that you have the capacity to meet the challenge. And so the rich get richer. Okay, cool. Great question.

Speaker 2 · 1:20:59George, you you mentioned something in there around four percent in relationship with to growth. It sounded like there's a you need something four percent more challenging. Can you explain? Well, yeah.

Speaker 3 · 1:21:13So let's say let's say you're you're you're you're using a certain energy or you're moving and you're you're at your limit. So you know you're at that, or just a little bit below your limit. You just have to get a little bit better each day. It's like increments, small increments, little chunks. That's all you need. And you get that progressive realization of a worthy goal. So, what we tend to do is we tend to do it without sensitivity. That's why when you're doing a yoga post, you have to ease into it and breathe into it and not push it. You have to ease into it. So that's what I'm saying. So, but if you keep easing into it, you keep getting to a point, at some point, you go, this is what the research says, if you go be beyond 4%, then there's too much anxiety for you to be able to function properly. So there's gonna be, there's a difference. You go from anxiety into a high state of arousal. And elite performers know that when they're in a high state of arousal, they're closer to flow. And that they'll still, because they have the strong self-efficacy belief, they'll continue to persist, even though there's no there's no feedback from the environment telling them that they're doing the right thing. They just trust and they just ease into it, then they get in the flow. Whereas the non-expert or the novice will actually lower their challenges or withdraw energy and focus when they're really close. But because they don't have the belief system that yes, I can, it's gonna be great, and they don't see it as a challenge, they see it as a curse or something, saying that they're they're not gonna be able to do it rather than seeing it. That's why coming from that basic goodness or greatness from the eye of the hurricane, and you can just say, yes, you know, I'm a bat Mofo. I can do this, it's gonna be great. You like that one, Stefan? Yeah, I watched Transformers, so what can I tell you? Yeah, I watch uh I watch all of that stuff, you know, Lord of the Wings, Star Wars. I was kind of, you know, I was watching a program one one day. It was on, I don't know what Discovery, but it was talking about how uh science fiction becomes science fact. And they were talking about Gandalf and Obi-Wan Kenobi and and who is the other one. And I was looking, I said, hey, that's me. I'm Obi-Wan Kenobi. I'm Yoda. That's what I do. You must have learned all that you have learned.

Speaker 2 · 1:24:02Right. That's why I became a monk was because of Yoda.

Speaker 3 · 1:24:06Yeah, there you go. Yeah, so you you should check out Man the Mandalorian. Yeah, yeah. That's that's the beginnings of Yoda, I believe. Oh, wow. It's on Disney, you gotta check it out.

Speaker 2 · 1:24:20Yeah, yeah, I I really like that four percent you know, rule of thumb. When you're teaching mindfulness, so you know, I think this premise of like taking baby steps is really helpful as a practitioner, and then as teachers, we need to keep growing as as teachers and uh practitioners. You know, you mentioned that you've done at least one three-month meditation retreat at IMS. You know, as mindfulness teachers, how do you or like what do you recommend teachers do to keep sort of building on that four percent? What what's what are your recommendations regarding silent retreats, hours of practice, types of practices, any thoughts on growth as mindfulness teachers to keep building that four percent?

Speaker 3 · 1:25:23Yeah, I think daily life, I think I did the three month retreat like uh 30 years ago. And it was a time when I when I was making a transition, I had two years where I just worked and I lived in a meditation center for six years. So, you know, that was then, and now it's like daily life and just reading, studying, you know, doing meditation retreats when I can. But the main thing is having a home practice, and it's not so much the length of time as it's the quality of the set. So, so it's just thinking. But like I said, it's like you can practice from the time you wake up to the time you go to sleep. That you gotta keep asking yourself, you know, I'm seeing something. Why, how why how am I seeing it? Is there is there is it is it right intention? You know, do I have the right view? Is my mind full of greed or hatred or confusion versus, you know, generosity, uh, you know, letting go, love and compassion, or I just use it too. Is it in fears or in love? Talk about, you know, is my mind full of fears or full of love? Really simple like that, and then starting to understand and think about things. But I also read a lot about psychology. I read a lot of books that have nothing to do with meditation. I read about quantum physics. I'm just curious. So I just read about stuff. And and I have uh I have one of my, you know, uh Rocky knows Steve. So Steve has been with me since I worked with him when he was a point guide at BC. He sent, you know, I usually send him books. He just sent me three books to read. And and I said, so we were talking today. And so I said, dude, man, I know you don't, what are you trying to tell me? So he sent me a book by Shalom, two by Charlamagne and one by 50 cents, or 50 cents, uh, they said. And I said, dude, what are you trying to tell me? And, you know, I said, okay, because Steve, he doesn't say too much. He just says a little bit. So sometimes I don't know if if I'm mentoring him or he's mentoring me. That's what I mean by the relationship. And he, and I, and so it's like reading a book, and it's like, okay, so I need to understand the hip-hop culture because I use the hip-hop culture. When I talk about meditation, I talk about this philosopher by the name of Dr. Dre. He says, I got my mind on money, money on my mind. That's meditation. To meditate is to contemplate, to contemplate is to look at repeatedly or closely. So, what are we meditating on? So we're meditating all day long. There's no neutral thoughts. So the opportunity for practice is vast. But you have to have the teachings, good friends, and then suitable conversation. Does that make sense? And so you do that. So the sitting in silence, that's helpful when it's good at a time when you can do it. But when you had a full catastrophe, you have kids and stuff, you don't have time for that. So you gotta you, so I I every other year I teach at IMS with Narayan, who's one of the main teachers there, who's been my teacher for years, but we teach together, and and the retreat is called Your Practice Is Your Life. And we have a meditation center in the center of Cambridge and in the city.

Speaker 3 · 1:28:50That's what it's for. It's like you gotta bring, you gotta have somewhere you can't go off, so maybe you can go for it, maybe for sitting or talk or workshop or ongoing class, but it's con it's the continuity of doing it in community and just figuring out what you need to do right now. So, do you need to go on a long retreat? No, I don't think so. I see some people that go on a long retreat. I'm just gonna be honest about it. They go on a long retreat for three months, then the other nine months, they're mindless and they leave the retreat with more energy than they were before, and they're still a knucklehead. They're not, they're just doing the mental thing. They're not doing the I'm just being honest. And it's like, so if your practice is not, I don't care what you're doing, if it's not working, then why do it? I don't want you to listen to me if it's not gonna help you, if I can't give you something accessible and practical, why do it? And so it's we get hung up on form, and the form is helpful, but it's the quality of mind you have when you're in the form that's gonna determine the. Quality of your experience. So I'm trying to make this as simple as possible. If your mind is right, everything else is right. So if your mind is wrong and you're on retreat, you're going to be practicing wrong mindfulness, wrong view, wrong intention. That's why we say right view, right intention. It's predicated on wisdom and integrity, morality. So that's it. So it's like, and then you figure it out for yourself, and sometimes you do a self-retreat. But it's really, to me, it's more about having, like Joseph Campbell says, you have to have a top holiday where you have your sacred space and you don't think about, you put everything aside. You don't know what the news is. You know, I know Johnny needs, you know, new pair of shoes or whatever, or whatever it is. You have to be able to just, you know, you know, I don't know how I'm going to pay rent. Whatever it is, you have to have that space where you're just being in that sacred space and just being with yourself. You have to do that. And so I got it's this woman, she has this column called Brain Pickings. Every Sunday I get it, and she has her 10-year lessons, and one of them is pockets of stillness. So you have to find so you don't have to have 20 minutes to sit. You can just sit for five minutes. Just be with yourself, especially when you're coming from one event to the other, especially if you're going home and you're driving, you're in the driveway and you're about to go into your house to do your most important work. It's really important either to sit in the car and relax a little bit or to say, honey, or kids, give me five minutes and go and recollect, arrive. And these are little things that we can do during the day and then read literature, listen to literature, listen to the teachings, understand, and keep, you know, you can have the one book and just could be Zen Mind, beginner's mind. You just keep reading it, you keep contemplating, reflecting on what the teachings are. You know, one of the lines in that Zen Mind Beginner's mind was huge for me. We find perfection through imperfection. And so you find the literature. It could be the Bible, don't care. Wisdom literature, whatever it is, we read it because what we ingest is what we become. So what we take in through the sense doors has an impact on who we are. But the main thing is the mind. If the mind is right, everything else is right. So if you go to meditate and your mind is funky, you have a funky meditation. I'm just saying. It's just the way it is. And then you're gonna say, Well, I ain't doing this shit. This shit is too hard. And you say, why do people quit? Well, you asked them. They say, Yeah, well, I was sitting there, my mind was all over the place. I can't do it. Well, no, dude, you were doing it. But you have these notions about what should be happening rather than, and so we have to make that clear. Say, hey, by the way, when you go in there, you're gonna see this crazy, crazy ass man, that's you or woman, that's you, but that's normal. That's normal. You know, you have to understand that you have to see your mind is out of control before you can start to control it. So we have to be really honest about what we're getting into. Don't, you know, when I first came around, it was Zen this, Zen that. Whoa, what the hell did that mean? It was a catchphrase. Well, you know that zen stuff. But it's being in the neighborhood is not good enough. You gotta be at the right house, on the right floor, in the right apartment. So we start to understand that. So we see that. But to me, you can see like Larry, my teacher, he's a funny dude. He laugh, you know, it's humor. I use humor, that's what I do, you know. So I tell people, you know, I laugh at my own joke, so don't get upset. You don't have to get the joke, I'm gonna laugh at anybody because it's funny. So you get what I'm saying? So it's it's really about to me, and that's the thing, because when I first came around, I thought you had to be like somber and you know, be, you know, pious, and you know, that's a bunch of bull. I ain't got nothing to do with me. Like me, man, I'm fired up ready to go. This is how I'm rolling. Let's go. I'm being real, I'm letting letting that letting that masterpiece speak for itself instead of coming in there, oh, indubitably, you know, interesting. I just say it, you know, and that's what it's about. It's like if it's not fun and if it's not something that's gonna grow, you know, because it's interesting. And maybe I'll just say this. So Eric Frome wrote a book called The Out of Loving. Some of you folks might know. And he talks about love is a verb. It ain't some feeling, oh yeah, and shit's gonna happen by itself. You have to be productive. So you have to, so self-love. I have to know myself, and then I have to care for myself, and I have to respect myself, and I have to respond to my needs. So if I don't have the knowledge, I don't know how to care or respond to myself, but respect myself as I am. So let myself express itself without me having to be what the world wants me to be or thinks I can be. And when I do that, whatever I love, it grows. So it's productive. So we start with the self and then we start with others. So we have a loved one, they have needs and they don't express it, but I I my brother one, or you know, I am my brother's keeper, if you come from the Bible. It's like so I I can respond to their needs. And hopefully they they can do, but I have to see them as they are, not as I want them to be. And if I am love them and if I'm helping them grow, if they grow away from me, then that's just the way it is. But for me to try to not respect who they are or see them for who they are and let them grow as they're supposed to be, and this is probably more applicable to kids. Because you all got kids, you know, it's like this one's different, that one. The power is like, well, that's a challenging job because how do I, I want to give them freedom, but I don't know if they can handle it. So it's this whole thing, you know, yeah, okay, I grew up in the suburbs. I want to take them to visit their cousins in the hood, but I don't know. I don't want to come back smoking weed. You know, or maybe they maybe they made the kids in the hood smoke weed because they smoke weed where they are, whatever it is. You get what I'm saying. But but it's it's it's like we had to figure that out. And so there's that that trust again, it's that being in discomfort again, but it's also about being real. It's also about know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. So it's inconvenient to know the truth, but without the truth, you're not gonna get to it. If I didn't say I got a problem with drugs and alcohol, I I can't get clean.

Speaker 2 · 1:37:01Absolutely. Yeah, I think a lot of us as mindfulness teachers also have these preconceived notions of what a mindfulness teacher is, and we try to be like, you know, the teachers we had, or you know, we try to fit the mold of you know who's famous or who has the mo biggest following, or you know, who has the best selling book. And yeah, and you know, and mindfulness increases self-awareness, and we you know, take inventory. Like what is challenging for us, what makes us alive, what brings us joy, what what's difficult for us? You know, who do we really wanna serve? How do I want to be as a mindfulness teacher? And so, you know, sometimes limiting beliefs are s sort of self-imposed based on these caricatures of you know who we think we need to be or who we think society wants us to be. And, you know, George, I just really appreciate your humor, you know, uh you know, a lot of your off-the-cuff reflections. You know, you certainly have a unique voice. And you know, we had Spring Washam here a few months ago on how to find your voice as a mindfulness teacher, and she gave some nuggets of wisdom too. I'm curious in your own experience, like how did you find like George Mumford? Did you maybe try to sound like someone else in the beginning? Did you feel more comfortable over time? Like what supported you and your self-expression of who you really are as a mindfulness teacher?

Speaker 3 · 1:38:55Yes. So it's interesting, I don't know. Back in, let me see, when I when I moved to Newton in 19, I think it was maybe it was 87 or 88, maybe it was 88, remember. But I moved into Newton and and Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth, was on. He kept talking about follow your bliss, follow your bliss. And I was watching his program, and I ended up quitting my job shortly after that. And so it was no coincidence. But it's a lot of the stuff I learned in Sunday school, and I'll I'm gonna be honest. I went to I had to go to summers Sunday school every Sunday until I was 14, because my family was Christian Baptist, and they thought I should go to church. But after that I stopped going. But there's a lot of stuff I learned when I was there, like be still and know, just sit and just observe, you know, like Yogi Barrett. You can see a lot just by observing and starting to Jack Quinnford talks about follow the path of heart. I start just listening to myself and letting myself speak and get clear about what my inclinations are, what's my most heartfelt desire or desires at that time and just really listening and just watching myself. And like you said, these people that I want to emulate. So even when you play music, like I played guitar, I played Jimi Hendrix, I play somebody else. But at some point, I'm gonna start playing my own music. But I have to emulate, that's what we do, trial and error. We emulate somebody, and or you know, I might, you know, if you look at my teachings, you'll see John Capazin, you'll see Larry Rosenberg, you'll see a little bit of Jack Cornfield, Joseph Goldstein, all of my teachers, you'll see a little bit of that. But then at some point, I just started being me. And so it's a process. I don't know how long it takes, and I'm still evolving, so I can't even really, really say that. But I do know that if I be still and know and listen to myself, and I read a book called Let Your Life Speak. And I think that's a big part of it, is just really getting my mind right or just aligning myself with divinity, like love. And then I start to notice more things and then observing myself, and I start to see, okay, I'm feel I'm feeling more like myself. I feel more alive, I feel more of this, but it's having the courage because when I was raised, if I spoke up, I got beat up. So it was a little bit more challenging for me. But at some point, I got to the point where I said, okay, yeah, this is what I want to do. So I was a financial analyst uh when I was in recovery. And then after two years of recovery, I left and went to another job. And then I started to realize that, well, you know, I'm analyzing things. I like working with people. I want to be able to use my meditation and my tai chi and my yoga practices, my spiritual life. I wanted that to be part of my work life. I didn't want to have this Monday to Friday doing things and then living for the weekend, you know, because, you know, five sevenths of my life was doing something that I wasn't really that interested in versus the weekend where I was really doing. Then when I went back to school after 13 years, I went back for something I wanted to do. And it totally was a tremendous experience doing what I love to do and seeking what I wanted to seek. And so, yeah, so it that's what I mean. We all have a masterpiece inside, we all have this uniqueness. And, you know, the idea is to help us find that and to start to tease out, you know, who we are. And sometimes we know who we are by what we're most interested in. And so, but that's uh, you know, but I think it's fascinating. And and when we can become, when I can become more myself, I have more excitement. I more, feel more alive. But there's a level, I just want to say something because I it sounds easy. So I want to show you this quarter. So that's heads. That's my potential. The other side is is tails, that's anxiety. This existential philosopher said that he calls it the the alarming possibility of being able. Because he says, freedom and anxiety are two is one coin, you know, each side of a coin. So to the degree that we we become ourselves and become more self-reliant or more self-expressive, there's gonna be some pushback, not just out there, but in here. And it's uncertainty because we've never been there before. So we have to live into it. We have to, you know, ease into it. And so that's a, you know, I feel like most of my transformation, I spend most of my time in the in the stages of grief because I'm I'm growing. I'm growing. I'm going through bargaining, anger, depression, all of those five stages. Because I'm I'm moving, I'm changing, I'm becoming something else. That's the thing people don't understand. When I stopped using drugs and started, I mean, you go through a you go through a grieving process. You know, it's painful. There's a lot of depression that comes up from letting go and and and just really, yeah. So it's like I guess a snake sheds a skin. I don't know what we do, but it is awful. It's not helpful. I mean, in the sense that it's unpleasant, but it's part of the process. Once I get comfortable with it, I say, oh, this is what happens. Okay, I'm cool. I'm good. But I read and read my journal and said, man, I'm going through another freaking growth spurt. I hated them damn growth spurts. On one level, on another level, I like it. But on another level, it's like, man, uh,

Speaker 3 · 1:45:00you know, can I do this without that? You know, I can we need the pain out of it. But that's the way it is. And then I get comfortable with it, get comfortable with it. Then it becomes okay. It's okay. This is just what it is, and it's my relationship to it. That's the issue, not it. And so just learning, having a little bit more freedom, but understanding I can get comfortable with not knowing. And just trusting that no matter what happens in that space between stomachs and response, I get to choose. And when I choose wrongly or unwisely, I can redo it. I can learn from it. Like I said, that's too damn simple. I was expecting something way more complicated. But no, dude, just just just show up and just do the best you can, and that's enough. Today, and you learn from it. But the growth mindset, this idea that I'm evolving and that I have a masterpiece within, that's huge. I have Buddha nature, Christ consciousness, Kwanyan energy, divine spark, whatever resonates with you, we have it. And it's but it's encrusted in a shell. We're hiding out. So how do we chip away just like the crystallist? And it's the chipping away, it's the breaking out that gives us the strength to fly. So I like to say, no struggle, no swag. And you all know what swag is. Swag is, but yeah, we're bad. It's like that movie with Richard Pryor and uh Gene Wilder. Yeah, we're bad. They're walking. That's swag. Or you see Michael Jordan walking down the court, you know, you see him walking, chewing gum. That's swag. Swag, no struggle, no swag. You don't just say, oh, I want some swag. No, you gotta earn that.

Speaker 2 · 1:46:54What was the other uh line you had? No, no chilling, no winning.

Speaker 3 · 1:46:59If you if if you're chilling, you ain't willing. You gotta be chilling and willing. But yeah, so that's what I mean. My student last week, they teach me a lot. My students I work with, if you want to learn something, you teach them. They teach me so much. You just gotta listen and watch them.

Speaker 2 · 1:47:20Yeah, you know, and and and being in prisons, you know, retreat centers, corporate boardrooms. You know I'm guessing you've had your fair share of fear of judgment from others. Maria has this comment of, you know, it's hard not to think of what others will think of you, especially as you're bringing your full self to the table. And I know we're coming close on time, and I want to make sure to let people know how they can find you and your courses and everything like that.

Speaker 3 · 1:47:57But yeah, so George at George, well, my website is georgeumumfitt.com, and I put it in there. If you want to contact me, you can you can email connect at george mumfit.com. And I mean, if you Google my name, a whole lot of free stuff will come up. And I have a I have a YouTube channel, George Mumfit, where I do what I call being at home with George during COVID. So there's a bunch of videos there. But the website, you can check our stuff, and we just open a cart for the mindful athlete course online. And what we tend to do there, we just finished in about three weeks ago. It was, was it November 19th, Rock? Was that the last class? I think so. And so we have these during the year, several times we have six-week study groups where for six weeks we get on the call once a week and we go over the home practice. But there's seven modules and six modules, seven modules, I think. And you go through the modules. Well, I forget how many modules we have. I think we have the five superpowers, then we have the intro and the, yeah, so we have seven modules. But now we have, we have, we've done that twice. So whoever joins the course, they'll get, they'll get those, you know, access to 12 weeks of the study group. And then I think we have, I believe we have every quarterly, I get on a call and we have a QA or whatever. And when's the next one, Rock? Is it December or did we say January? December 22nd. December 22nd. So if you join the course, you'll have access to that. But the modules are, you know, is videos and recordings, and and so you can do an independent study, but when we're doing it together, it's we'll do that a couple of times a year. And once you join your lifetime member, so you can, you know, so there's there's a bunch of that stuff. Yeah. So I think that's it.

Speaker 2 · 1:49:59Great. And I'll have a recording of this whole session in the members area, and I'll post links to all of your offerings, including your YouTube channel and course registration page for all the members and share that via email to all of our members as well.

Speaker 3 · 1:50:16Yeah, and I and I we can talk about it, but usually when I when I do something, if people from here would like to sign up for the course, we'll figure out how to give them a discount.

Speaker 2 · 1:50:26That's that's very generous of you. Thank you. And and you've already, you know, shared so much with us already. George, thank you so much for coming today. Rocky, thank you for helping to set that this up for us. But it was a real treat to get sort of an insider scoop on your practice, your some of your teachings, some of your thought processes behind yourself as a mindfulness teacher and trainer. Looking forward to seeing your new book come out next year. But thank you so much for your time today. I know you know, as mindfulness teachers were making an impact on the world and kind of having this ripple effect, consciousness in these widening circles, as Joanna Macy puts it. And I just really appreciate your intention for wanting to help people, you know, live with more mindfulness, more peace, more presence, more heart, follow the five superpowers, and you know, and I know you have a generous heart. I I uh you know, a few years ago I was speaking with the Golden State Warriors about possibly working with them. So I emailed George out of the blue, like, hey, George, could you help me? And George called me up five minutes later after my email saying, Yeah, I'd be happy to support you. And I just never forget that generous spirit that you have. Yeah. I I really feel you're you're the heart of your practice. So let us know how we can further support you. Uh but really appreciate your time today, George. Thank you so much.

Speaker 3 · 1:52:09Thank you. I want to thank you all for being here, and and I love you all. And we need, we need the world, it needs you to be you and and needs you to be able to create that ripple if that's what you want to do. So I'm I'm excited, had a lot of fun today. So this is this is awesome. And Sean, I mean, it's funny, Sean reminded me a lot of times I help people and I forget who I help. I mean, I had this young man that I was working with when he was in college, and now he's playing for NFL football team, and he reached out to me and I said, Don't I know that name? And I I had been kind of uh helping him along through when he was in college. So I kind of forget. So Sean had to remind me because I forget, because I just, I just I want to encourage, I want to support everybody. And so the idea is to be generous because in order to to keep something, you gotta give it away. That's not why I give it away, but it's amazing what happens when you are generous. It it comes back to you. So thank you all. Appreciate you all. And thanks, Sean, for inviting me. Absolutely. All right, man, we'll keep it going, man. You know I got your back, right? Absolutely.

Speaker 1 · 1:53:22Thank you so much, George. Thank you so much.

Speaker 3 · 1:53:25All right, thank you. Bye now.