Finding Common Ground: Overcoming Fear in Honest Discussions

Peter: 00:00:00

Views, interpretations, and opinions expressed are not advice nor official positions presented on behalf of any organization or institution. They are for informational and entertainment purposes only.

This episode continues to set the stage for the show as the guys examine some moments of fear and apprehension and orient us to their spiritual beliefs and perspectives. Now join Ryan and Peter for the Tracking Wisdom podcast.

Ryan: 00:00:32

So, in listening to our discussion, I think possibly walking back my initial instinct of avoidance to some cultural things. And I think that part of that was that the idea of creating your own suffering and that it can be, like you said, you have control over it.

And I think that I fear that that's where that's, like my trigger spot. I'm trying to balance entertainment and information with not perpetuating this negativity and division and frustration. Right, right.

So when I was thinking about it was.

I think it's actually probably valuable for us to take into some context some of these things from the perspective of creating your own suffering so that we can. Because these are areas that are relevant to. I mean, we're all going through the same kind of. We're all existing in the same space. So it's.

The context is there for everyone, and it would give us an opportunity both to practice in our own right and to demonstrate what that looks like.

Peter: 00:01:54

Yeah, I mean, I agree. I. So I agree with your resistance of, like, not wanting to have cultural conflict with each other. Right, right. And.

But conversely, I think you're right that it's a great opportunity to potentially demonstrate how we can do this. I mean, it's our own exploration. Because I think. I think both of us resist getting into.

I mean, if you're not talking to me about those things, I assume you're not coming into conflict with other people about those things either.

Ryan: 00:02:32

Okay, here's my issue. I've actually found it very difficult to find people in which to have good, honest discussion from a place of mutual respect.

And because of that, I end up falling victim to the same kind of behavior.

Peter: 00:02:52

Right.

Ryan: 00:02:52

Which is a lot of.

Sometimes it's putting words in people's mouths, you know, that's not what I'm saying, but that just gets antagonistic, and that's not the type of person you are. So I think we could have good conversation about.

It may be very healthy for me, because I've been actually looking for somebody who has intellect and is willing to come to the table with an open mind and actually discuss things.

Peter: 00:03:22

So. So, I mean, I find that I don't have opportunity to have discussion with an opposing view. And because I'm talking to, and primarily my wife.

People who agree with me just becomes an echo chamber. Right. And we're just. Which, you know, is fine for a little bit, but not productive. It's not productive growth.

And mainly I just don't have the contact. But I mean. I mean, probably the, the only opportunity I have is. Is in family. Yeah. And in family you're dealing with so much other context.

So it makes it extremely difficult to have. To even want to have a difficult conversation or a challenging conversation. But I think it's interesting because we have.

We've never talked about these things, so I don't really know what you think. I mean, we're not. We're not talking about talking politics per se.

Ryan: 00:04:35

That seems like everything in culture right now has some sort of.

Peter: 00:04:38

Well, that's true. Political undertone. Yeah.

Ryan: 00:04:40

And that's a big part of what I am concerned about. And I think what I get wrapped up in isn't that people make a choice, but that they are influenced strongly by the voices around them to do that.

And they take. They take it wholesale, essentially.

You know, like, instead of exploring it internally, introspectively about how they actually feel about this, they're being heavily influenced to feel a certain way. And that is kind of where we landed. So what would you like to talk about?

Peter: 00:05:16

So kind of along the same lines about your questioning, your resistance to. To an area. I was, I had a moment the other day when I was kind of.

Basically, some fear came up out of doing this discussion and, and I was questioning, like, oh, am I really that open minded? Like, maybe, you know, maybe I'm really not that open minded. I think part of it was kind of.

I guess I had a concern about having an agenda, being like, really having a Buddhist perspective and really like wanting to talk about that. And then also, like being concerned about actively engaging in other practices, because how is that distracting from my practice?

Ryan: 00:06:15

Sure.

Peter: 00:06:15

Like, well, if I'm going to put more time into practices, I should be putting more time into my practice. And, you know, achieving that enlightenment is. It was just a feeling that, you know, I was questioning and I was.

I was fearful, I was resistant and doubtful. And so I, I thought that was interesting that we both came away with some element of questioning ourselves, which I think is really good.

I think that's really what we were looking for.

That's the kind of discussion that we want to have, and that's the kind of intellects that we want to be where we can recognize or question ourselves and have a discussion about it and be thoughtful about it rather than just shutting it down saying, no, that's scary. So I thought that was interesting. So I think objectively land on, well, if I explore other practices, like, no practice is wasted, kind of.

And if I want to bring everything back to my core practice perspective and say, oh, well, how can I bring that to my chosen practice?

Because it's okay for me to have a chosen practice and have an affiliation, say, I'm Buddhist and I want to be Buddhist and I want to do Buddhist practice and still explore other practices and say, okay, I'm going to take that and supplement or use what I learned to add to my. My personal practice. So that's just something, you know, that I've been processing a little bit.

The other thing that I noticed was, you know, you're interested in what I have to say about Buddhism, and I'm really happy to answer your questions as best I can. But on the one hand, I'm not very scholarly in my understanding. And so my, my, my understanding is fairly casual.

I mean, I've done a lot of reading, but it's not the kind of reading where I know my sources. You know, that's. I guess that's really what comes down to. It's like, well, I think this is the case. This is what a bodhisattva is.

Well, why do you, why do you know that? Why do you think that? You know, it's like, oh, that's just what I, I've accumulated. Which kind of concerns me in the sense that we're, we're.

We want to talk at nuns target nuns. So I looked up nuns, and I found the Pew research on nuns. You know, I want to be responsible with the information providing.

So I feel like we have to have these huge disclaimers about all of our information. You know, if it sounds interesting, go look into it. If you hear something that you don't like, don't assume that that's what that thing is like.

If you don't like what I have to say about Buddhism, don't assume that that's what Buddhism is about.

Ryan: 00:09:05

Buddhism, from your individual understanding and perspective is just as important, if not more important to me than knowing what, you know, formal Buddhism is.

Peter: 00:09:16

So. Okay. So. Well, like I said, I'm, like, happy to talk about it.

And one of the comments I was thinking of is that if you just try to wrap my head around this. So you said, you know, from what you're hearing, you're.

Maybe you're more aligned with Buddhism than, Than you thought or maybe more aligned with Buddhism than other religions. And what I'm trying to get from Buddhism and so what, you know, this would be the perspective that you're hearing from me is the essential stuff.

What I think is, what I find so attractive about Buddhism in the way I'm studying it is that it's much more upfront and orderly in its ideas about the reality of things. But I think that that's because that's the way I choose to read it.

So there is Buddhism and there are Buddhists who practice because it's a family religion, right? And they don't care why they're doing certain things. It's just that's what we do. And that's not interesting to me.

And so I actually don't know much about, like, rituals and celebrations. I mean, there's this whole, again, cultural accretion around Buddhist, you know, all these holidays and things about which I know nothing at all.

And the reason is because I don't want to get caught up in that and not understand Nobody, nobody really joins religion for the holidays, right? It's. I'm starting to wonder, right? Well, I mean, that's the job. I mean, that's kind of the Seinfeld position, right?

Oh, we're going to join this religion because it has great holidays. So, so what I'm. What I'm saying about, you know, the sense of alignment, I think it's because that's what I'm trying to experience with it.

And my thesis and assumption is that if we went into any religion with the attitude of what is it really telling me about reality?

That we could probably find it if we didn't go in saying, tell me how to do this, tell me what holidays to celebrate, tell me what practices to use, tell me what to do, tell me what to believe. And instead we're focused on exploration of, I want to know how things work.

And I know that in this doctrine there's a core of truth that is supposed to help us understand how things work, what life's about.

So if we approach religions that way, instead of approaching them as tell me how to be a Christian, tell me how to be a Muslim, it would be more productive.

Now, I don't know because I've only done that with Buddhism, but I've started to kind of apply what I've learned from Buddhism to what I remember from Christianity, and that supports my thesis. Like, oh, okay, I can see how, you know, this is what Jesus was actually teaching, but it's not what people focus on.

So if I Had approached Christianity this way, then maybe I'd still be a Christian. And then there's, I mean, there's that thing about, you know, the disillusionment of, oh, it didn't deliver on the promise that it made.

It was like, well, who made that promise? Right, right. And that's, that's our big, that's our central real issue of discussion, right.

Is how the churches do a disservice to the faith and to the faithful. Right. Because they obscure, potentially obscure the message and alienate the faithful.

So that's all by way of kind of a disclaimer that, you know, what we said at the beginning that I'm not saying my belief system is better than anyone else's. It's what I do because it's what works for me. And because it works for me, I really like it. Like, I'm very enthusiastic about it.

Ryan: 00:13:40

You know, I told you, I think before, but you know, I grew up, we didn't go to church. My family was raised Christian, but you know, we didn't, we were not practicing by any means.

And I always had this kind of core spirituality that I didn't even know existed until later.

In retrospect, I, I can identify that, but it's really, I don't know, five, six, seven years ago I had, I was exploring some of this stuff and, and really, I mean it's, it's the, it's the age old question, right? If you, if you could talk to God, what would you ask? And it's like, why are we here and what is the purpose of this?

And like, because I admittedly it's, it's hard to know from this vantage point what that is. So I would say that I've approached any religious activities from that space of trying.

And when I engaged with the denomination that I did of a Christianity, it was trying to understand the Bible and I was reading the Bible and trying to understand some of the stories and then I started exploring some of the non canonical texts and things like that.

But I did not find that I could glean that insight from this activity, even though I was coming from it from that perspective and hoping and really trying to understand it.

What was interesting about you and I think is, is where I was as well, is it took me coming across and exploring this other kind of explanation which I think aligns very closely with Buddhism and is probably not a singular.

You know, I don't think it's necessarily specific to Buddha Buddhism, but it was only when I came across that insight that I was then able to go back to Christianity and interpret Jesus in particular. Because what I think is being taught in all of.

Well, I don't want to say all in the denominations that I've had experience and exposure to is completely distracting from that core message. And I think it's really the,.

Peter: 00:15:51

It's.

Ryan: 00:15:51

Sad because I think that ultimately Jesus failed.

Peter: 00:15:56

Because that's not controversial. I mean, exactly.

Ryan: 00:16:01

And I've been wrestling with this one. But, but in that context, yeah. And it's not a fault of Jesus. It's because over time and people and institution, all this changed it.

And now you have institution that will stand up and dictate what is and is not, what is absolute and what isn't.

Peter: 00:16:20

Right.

Ryan: 00:16:20

And that's where I have problem with it.

Peter: 00:16:22

I feel like I was slightly denigrating people who are practicing something because it's what their family did. And you know, along the lines of disclaimer, I, I don't want to denigrate that and say it has no value because I think there's.

Now, it's not that there isn't a cost to every benefit, of course, but there is some value to having a family based religion, to having a tradition, all this kind of stuff to have a framework and context. Even if you didn't get that out of personal exploration or questioning. Right. I think it's.

But again, as we're talking about cost benefit, I think you get the benefit of stability and structure. But if you pursue conflicts through that, that's where the huge cost is.

So if you do that without ever questioning it, without ever learning the, the core teachings, then I think that's a huge cost for your benefit of having nice holidays and, and whatever it is that you're getting out of it. Your, your structure. Thank you for listening to the Tracking Wisdom podcast. Join us next time as we continue the discussion.

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