Right

... and then we'll get into the premise of the whole book is not really about words, but what they point to.

So one is that when we look back, and I've been interested throughout my whole teaching life, which is where this book came out of, with the origin of words because I have found more often than not that they're more whole the farther back we go.

And words over time erode like pieces of nature, so they're fragmented.

So one such is that there's a wonderful scholar named Neil Douglas-Klotz, who wrote a book, The Prayer for the Cosmos, and he was fluent in ancient Aramaic, which is the language that it's believed Jesus spoke.

This book, The Prayer of the Cosmos, which he also did as an audiobook for Sounds True, he went through and took a whole constellation of phrases and words that it's believed Jesus spoke and translated them back to their original Aramaic.

So where Jesus is translated in the New Testament as saying, "Be thou perfect," well, that word in Aramaic didn't mean perfect.

Yeah.

So I'm curious what brings you to this topic at this moment in time.

Yeah.

So, you know, a couple of things are constellated here.

And so, you know, it goes back to my previous book just before Falling Down and Getting Up, which was Surviving Storms.

And, you know, Right out of the pandemic, I mean, I think the doorway to all of this, both books, was a moment that I think a lot of people who've been through things had.

But all of a sudden, you know, in the pandemic, my own cancer journey was coming back vividly.

And one moment in particular was the moment I was diagnosed.

But I know that's not how, like for, so expand the frame on this for me, because I think it's a really fascinating exploration.

That's what they're all telling me now, which is proof positive that I'm old.

Well, for me at this point, what does it mean to live well? And I agree.

It's an ongoing, shifting, evolving lens and question.

And, you know, it all goes back to me so much, all goes back to I have learned through all that I've been through and through my cancer journeys and my other difficult journeys that the heart is our strongest and most sensitive instrument and our strongest muscle and our greatest teacher.

I keep discovering I feel like the heart is the inlet between the mystery and the world.

And, you know, it's always going both ways.

You know, where do I find my heart in the world? And where do I find the world in my heart? And, and so, you know, a paradox and a mystery that is, you know, in my life, like everybody's, there's been a constellation of times when I've been shattered.

So I'm just curious, as Parker spoke, and I offer this bit about Jacob Hom, if there's anything that's stirring in you.

These are all just fingers pointing to the moon.

Yeah, so this is attributed to Buddha, where he was talking one night after dinner under a full moon, and his students, he felt, he sensed they were too enwrapped with his words, and he stopped and said, my words are only fingers pointing to the moon.

Make sure you look at the moon.

And while this book, and what the book is, as you know, but we'll share for our listeners, is This really came out of years of teaching where I would stumble on word origins.

And I've always been interested, not just because I'm a word geek, but because I've noticed over time that the further we go back, the more whole and profound these meanings are.

Because words like...

And more often than not, that wholeness just emanates so much more.

How do we, if people have heard this episode and they want a copy of the book, but they also just want to move into their lives and families and businesses in a more non-dualistic way, in a more connected way, how do we move into that place? What type of posture, what does it look like to have a lighter and brighter way of being in the world?

How do you become one of those who gets the benefit of the change?

Well, one thing I would offer, too, is that change has its own timeline with every person.

So it could be like a revelation for one person, and it may unfold over years for another.

So if we don't experience it the same way, I think it's still happening.

I think, to back up, I think that, and all the traditions speak about this in different ways, everyone is given the chance to be dropped into the depth of life.

Now, obviously, difficult things and life-threatening things throw us into that.

But it's not just suffering.

And they did not come back.

Meeting the world.

I'm in the backseat of our Ford Valiant, driving down Sunrise Highway to Seaford, a small town close to the bay on Long Island, New York.

I can smell the water nearby as we pull into an unfamiliar backyard.

I'm seven years old, tall enough to peer out the window at this large wooden boat seemingly asleep on concrete blocks surrounded by weeds.

"This is it," Dad says as he gets out of the car.

He has that glint in his eye.

My brother and I throw open the doors and run to the old double-ended hull that waits in the back of the yard.

Sensations of pleasure and sensations of being at home, of feeling at homeTaking as much time as you need, notice whatever pleasant feelings are here for you right now and let your whole mind be guided into them.

What do you mean by that?

So what I mean by that is, and this is what all the traditions speak about as the journey of transformation, of individuation, of becoming whole, is when we stop running from here to there and we live from in to out.

When we start to realize, well, there are many things to do, there's nothing to do.

And while there's many places to go, there's nowhere to go.

And so the center of gravity in our life shifts.

And for me, that speaks to the heavenly pivot as I experience it.

You know, I'll give you an example just in my own teaching.

But I'm sharing all of this at this moment to say that breaking through to joy is something I want to know more about.

Can you

get into that line? When I was undergraduate, actually just to back up a bit.

So when I was in high school, I first started writing because my first love was a year ahead of me and she went to college and fell in love with someone else.

And so it was my first heartache and I was devastated and I wasn't a loner, but I hadn't experienced a real friend yet until I got to college.

And so I started writing as a way to deal with the heartache.

And I realized pretty quickly, I wasn't just talking to myself.

I had begun a conversation with life and with the mysteries of life and the difficulties of life and the wonders.

How can more of us shift our horizons?

... to give the person a sense ...

So yeah, so this is one of my favorite passages.

It's June 6th, and it, it's called Two Monkeys Sleeping.

"We wandered into a corner of the Central Park Zoo, and there, despite the dozens of tourists pointing and tapping the glass, two monkeys were squinting on a perched stone.

To our surprise, they were both in deep sleep, their dark heads bowed to each other, their f- small frames limp.

What was amazing was that their delicate hands were touching, their monkey fingers leaning into each other.

It was clear that it was this small, sustained touch that allowed them to sleep.

Hmm.