Buddhist Meditation with Lobsang Chunzom

Unknown Speaker 0:00
Come on

Unknown Speaker 0:11
what Blippo This is George G. And the time is right, welcome today’s guest strong and powerful tunes on log sang tunes. Are you ready to do this? Yes, I am. All right, let’s go. Here. I’m excited to have you on today as a Buddhist nun, she’s worldwide teacher of meditation and philosophy in the sankalpa. Tibetan tradition. She’s the founder of the limitless Health Institute tunes, I’m excited to have you on tell us a little about your personal lives more about your work and why you do what you do?

Unknown Speaker 0:45
Oh, that’s a big question. Right out of the gate. Right out, you just go for it. That’s super, I think that’s

Unknown Speaker 0:54
where to begin, we’ve never worked for me. And I like to go from where I am now, let’s say, and I was thinking, you know, today,

Unknown Speaker 1:03
talking to you, at this time,

Unknown Speaker 1:07
kind of matches to will, where we are as an organization, limitless Health Institute. And there’s so much anxiety and uncertainty going on. So I’ve, I’ve managed to

Unknown Speaker 1:25
put together a lot of programs and organization that

Unknown Speaker 1:30
reflects how what we also will going through in our personal life during the 2020 2021 pandemic and all that,

Unknown Speaker 1:40
you know, and that had to come into our work. So our personal lives became a little bit more involved in our work, because we were all affected by the same things. And that brought a bit of a unity to our organization, and also to the programs that we were doing, because there was a certain equanimity in what people were experiencing at that time. And it’s still continuing with different events, obviously.

Unknown Speaker 2:10
So what I do is that is how much of what my knowledge is throughout my life that I’ve learned how to bring that my experiences into helping people to help other people.

Unknown Speaker 2:26
Because there’s nothing better than having a sense of empathy, when you are working to help others. And it’s not like we all have to go through the exact same experiences through life. But as long as there’s some understanding, for the

Unknown Speaker 2:48
same suffering different experience of it.

Unknown Speaker 2:52
And that must go back to some deep Buddhist trainings, which I’ve been studying for over 30 years. And then I also utilize that in my dance movement psychotherapy practice. And that’s when we created limitless Health Institute to bring those ideas together and those kinds of services.

Unknown Speaker 3:15
Very personal, creative services to people who needed help.

Unknown Speaker 3:21
Love it.

Unknown Speaker 3:25
Where did you grow up? And how does one become a Buddhist? Nun? Yeah, that’s so I have no idea how that happened. You know, because I am an American. I am a New Yorker, I grew up Lower East Side. You

Unknown Speaker 3:39
and

Unknown Speaker 3:40
how do you go from a Roman Catholic family?

Unknown Speaker 3:45
large family, of course, then

Unknown Speaker 3:49
seven kids. And

Unknown Speaker 3:52
and and, you know, we were good. You know, I did all the things at a young Catholic

Unknown Speaker 3:59
you know, childhood communion of the rich and are very rituals and we went to mass, we did things. So there was already a sense of practice of some kind of whatever your belief is, there’s a practice that goes with it, not just a belief in your mind just thinking about,

Unknown Speaker 4:16
you know, God, Mohammed, Jesus, whoever you’re focusing on. But there’s a principles and values that go along with it. But there’s also how do you this goes right into meditation? It is like, how do you then think that these things every day? How do they become active in your daily life? To me, that’s the link between all practices of different faiths and beliefs, this certain activities of kindness and compassion and love that we carry out throughout the day. That then brings the understandings of the different beliefs together. So that slid me right into Buddhist scriptures, because I had questions

Unknown Speaker 5:00
And I had questions about

Unknown Speaker 5:04
my, you know, growing up and what is who is who and who did what and what’s happening.

Unknown Speaker 5:10
And I found that the is an extraordinary amount of literature and commentary, commentaries on the few sutras that Lord Buddha had taught. And many of my questions were answered.

Unknown Speaker 5:29
And that just kept going.

Unknown Speaker 5:32
Still.

Unknown Speaker 5:35
We bring those teachings into the programs of LH I love it. So you’re curious person, you were trying to solve life trying to solve life’s mysteries, trying to trying to figure things out and came upon or across the chaos of crazy? Yeah, chaos is crazy growing up, right.

Unknown Speaker 5:57
And, and, and those really resonated with you. And now obviously, you’ve been taking and applying these and putting the beliefs to work in your life for for ever sets. And that’s led you to, to found the limitless Health Institute and to, to have a focus on meditation and dance and helping people to manage and deal with the anxiety of stress. And that’s always been there, and then really exacerbated by the last several years. So as you look at society, and what are what are some of those? How, how our stress and anxiety really manifesting in the world today? Oh, I don’t know, that would have to be up to the individual.

Unknown Speaker 6:48
Yeah, I mean, if you how do you want to phrase the question? How do we see it in the environment? How do we see it in ourselves, we’d have to be up to the individual stresses, so super individual

Unknown Speaker 7:03
words?

Unknown Speaker 7:05
Well, can we say that every

Unknown Speaker 7:08
situation that occurs

Unknown Speaker 7:12
must include a stress, it would be impossible to say that when something happens that every single person would react the same. So stress is a very individual. And it has a lot to do with the stresses we grew up with, you know, like how we will coping, and able to manage, as we were very young, very young, because that’s kind of when our a lot of our developmental coping mechanisms come, you know, develop is, you know, we took them 1234 very young age. And so it depends on a person like that, how they’re going to,

Unknown Speaker 7:53
when they’re in an environment that

Unknown Speaker 7:59
you know, how do you want to define an explosive, you know, like a war zone? Or are they in a

Unknown Speaker 8:07
pandemic?

Unknown Speaker 8:10
Got about the pandemic, right?

Unknown Speaker 8:13
Almost.

Unknown Speaker 8:15
We’re all we’re all having these these individual experiences. And, yeah,

Unknown Speaker 8:23
life is full of, of pain and suffering in one form or another. And we develop ways to deal with it as little kids or, you know,

Unknown Speaker 8:35
tangibly and continually because we could go back and re rebuild to, you know, if you get super messed up young, we could help.

Unknown Speaker 8:44
We can all you know, we have mechanisms and within us that could also rebuild many

Unknown Speaker 8:51
from traumas things. Yeah. That’s, that’s, that’s, that’s what a big opportunity is, is the opportunity to recognize where it is that I am individually experiencing stress and anxiety, how it is that I’m coping with that, and then potentially replace negative or not beneficial coping mechanisms was something that is better.

Unknown Speaker 9:15
That’s one way to look at it. Super.

Unknown Speaker 9:19
You could say that, what is a better way to say it?

Unknown Speaker 9:23
More, I know, I would just add more to bring it back to the more personal as well. So

Unknown Speaker 9:31
let’s say an example of

Unknown Speaker 9:37
someone who just

Unknown Speaker 9:41
gets stressed in a crowd anxiety in a crowd, especially now. I just did a program people you know, it’s a choice now whether some people are super stressed, they’ll wear the mask and attract

Unknown Speaker 9:54
and some won’t, but they’re stressed in different ways.

Unknown Speaker 9:58
So really, it’s it’s it does

Unknown Speaker 10:00
To enter into how do we interact with others? And that’s what’s really important. So if we’re in a situation that might be a little bit stressful brings up some anxiety, identify, of course, because it is, this is what

Unknown Speaker 10:15
this is when I feel anxiety, is it a crowd, so you could then prepare one is with a mask, which then helped that person to get through the crowd? Because that was the anxiety was the COVID. Another person, it’s just crowds in general.

Unknown Speaker 10:32
So what did they do, they don’t have that mechanism maybe to pull up like just a mask. So then for that person, it’s probably something a little bit deeper for all crowds. So, so already, we have to look at that. So one thing is, what is it they might need that would give them comfort in a crowd.

Unknown Speaker 10:51
And then that would be part of the work that you would do at them to uncover that they may know they may not know, they may again, like you said us things that temporarily give or maybe aren’t so good, as well, they give us comfort, not everything that gives us comfort is so super good for us after the comfort is

Unknown Speaker 11:13
Addiction Addictions,

Unknown Speaker 11:15
etc. So, like that.

Unknown Speaker 11:20
Bad relationships, bad relationships, prescription drugs.

Unknown Speaker 11:27
Yeah, yeah.

Unknown Speaker 11:30
So what we would recommend for that person, once they can identify what they need, they help somebody else in an anxious situation. And between that really in that kind of a relationship is how you build your own

Unknown Speaker 11:45
what you need.

Unknown Speaker 11:47
So, whenever we can find what we need, in this particular stressful situation, like the crowd,

Unknown Speaker 11:57
we help others also, in whatever way we can, could be just talking to them listening to them, problem solving with them, or sharing experiences, you just help them with that and continually do it and your experience will change because you perceive now getting some help, because you have seen yourself give help. So the mind now has the capacity to perceive support coming to someone which is now you

Unknown Speaker 12:31
in a crowd, because you now see it, you now have it within your database

Unknown Speaker 12:39
that you can now see help coming to you because you have done the action yourself. This is this is a very big, big

Unknown Speaker 12:48
thing to understand. Yeah, yeah, that certainly does make sense how my brain will then connect it and says, Oh, look at that. George is capable of, of, of, of, of helping somebody else, and therefore he’s obviously capable of helping himself so can move on in a more beneficial way. How does meditation fit in, if, if at all.

Unknown Speaker 13:13
So meditation in that, within that context, meditation gives you the opportunity to review that and that understanding and then go deeper than what you said, there’s different types of meditation, you know, there’s

Unknown Speaker 13:31
a type of meditation where you just fix your mind on one single point,

Unknown Speaker 13:36
a type of meditation where you might review like,

Unknown Speaker 13:40
like studying something reviewing a list, like just memorizing some people reviews, also sometimes chanting

Unknown Speaker 13:48
although they don’t call it reviewing, but it’s like repeating something over and over in your mind. So that also could come to some people do meditations and then also when is to analyze something.

Unknown Speaker 14:00
And there’s a structure in which you can go into something to analyze

Unknown Speaker 14:06
certain debate in like a certain way that the mind can be

Unknown Speaker 14:11
about what they are proceeding or what they are trying to understand.

Unknown Speaker 14:18
And

Unknown Speaker 14:20
now I’ve got your question, but

Unknown Speaker 14:23
so so can you share an example of how I might analyze something and how that would be meditative?

Unknown Speaker 14:32
See?

Unknown Speaker 14:35
First

Unknown Speaker 14:37
it’s an interesting thing because

Unknown Speaker 14:42
first react

Unknown Speaker 14:48
it’s kind of like we’re some of those meditations will overlap within within, okay. So those ideas would overlap within so there has to be this focus on a single point you have to be

Unknown Speaker 15:00
be able to get to that focus point. So there’s so many things that come before you’re able to even focus.

Unknown Speaker 15:09
So you can’t just like jump into analyzing otherwise,

Unknown Speaker 15:13
you’re just you might as well do that with your eyes open, and debate it and study something. And that’s, that’s valid.

Unknown Speaker 15:21
But once you go into a deeper state of meditation, there’s

Unknown Speaker 15:28
to get to that single pointed concentration is is.

Unknown Speaker 15:39
The analyzation of of a topic would turn into a conversation in your head, without that single pointed concentration.

Unknown Speaker 15:53
I don’t know how else to say that I’m not really meditating that exactly, you just just sort of thinking about something,

Unknown Speaker 16:00
which again, is the valid if you could find five, you know, 10, quiet minutes in your time to sit and contemplate this is, this is extraordinary. So it wouldn’t be beneficial to do that.

Unknown Speaker 16:13
And then

Unknown Speaker 16:15
I could,

Unknown Speaker 16:18
I’m so focused on somebody that I, I really want to help them, right. So I’m really focused on the kind of help that I want to give them.

Unknown Speaker 16:30
And I now want to make a plan about how to help them, I can close my eyes and meditate, and go through a nice little story of what I might want to do to help that.

Unknown Speaker 16:44
I’m going to come to your house.

Unknown Speaker 16:47
And you’ll open the door, and we’ll sit down or something like that you make the plan, and then I’ll help you do your bills. You know, that’s like a thinking thing. But what’s the feeling under that? What’s my motivation? These are the kinds of things where you can go deeper into analyzing, is that person? How is that person separate from me? How is that person connected to me?

Unknown Speaker 17:17
What? How will my how will that plant the seed for me to get help? Coming back to me? What does that do to my brainwaves, when I’m actually see myself sitting next to them, helping them with their bills,

Unknown Speaker 17:36
you know, their, you know, their monthly thing getting, you know, some elder person, you know, that maybe need some assistance organizing their life. And

Unknown Speaker 17:46
I have to think about how is that really going to change my life?

Unknown Speaker 17:52
Because you would know just thinking about it. So what are the things you would think about?

Unknown Speaker 17:59
Yeah, I can see how that goes considerably deeper than me, just consciously getting out of pen and paper saying, well, on Thursday, I’m going to go over to Janet’s house, and I’m going to bring over some food and I’m going to cut her grass. And that’s going to be it’s going to be very helpful.

Unknown Speaker 18:16
Which is very, very nice and great. But the the much the once you start going deeper and peeling back the layers.

Unknown Speaker 18:26
So how is that person? You know, like to the to the extent, you know, is that person in the room before I got there?

Unknown Speaker 18:38
Just for you for a second?

Unknown Speaker 18:41
Well, yeah, but let’s let’s let’s assume that Janet is just at home because she’s not able to leave her home. Let’s take let’s take

Unknown Speaker 18:50
you know, every time you walk into an empty room,

Unknown Speaker 18:55
right, let’s you walk into a room, and there’s this

Unknown Speaker 19:01
is a some flat surface. And there’s something on on top of the surface, right? You walk into the room, but you don’t quite identify yet what it is

Unknown Speaker 19:13
what you know, but there’s you just see the color and the shapes.

Unknown Speaker 19:20
And at what point do you identify that that’s a glass on the table.

Unknown Speaker 19:27
You might say, oh, when the lights came on?

Unknown Speaker 19:30
Or maybe you were standing in a corner and you couldn’t quite see, you know, you could just see the glimmer of the thing you didn’t know it was a glass on the table.

Unknown Speaker 19:39
And then is it a glass? So is it a glass on the table when you walked in the door? Or was it when you picked it up in your head? You say Oh, this is a glass of you know that I’m supposed to drink water. So when did it become a glass of water? I didn’t say water at the beginning a glass on the table, that’s for sure. Okay, and that’s

Unknown Speaker 20:00
The kind of thinking you would do in a deeper meditation.

Unknown Speaker 20:03
And might you might, you know, review an experience you had, when you make contact? Like, when is it that you make contact with the object? We make contact with people around us with our eyes fears, all our senses.

Unknown Speaker 20:19
And then, but the eyeballs just pick up the object they don’t think, oh, this, this is he’s wearing I don’t know, blue shirt. I just see shirt. Not even I just, you know, see, hey, actually because I you know, and then the next use each shirt, like what do you even see first?

Unknown Speaker 20:39
So that’s the kind of thinking you might do in a meditation

Unknown Speaker 20:43
interest.

Unknown Speaker 20:46
When whenever I contacted the water, or the glass,

Unknown Speaker 20:51
glass probably would have said, well, as soon as I can see it clearly, then I’d probably recognize that it’s a glass. And I would consider contacting it when I pick it up. But I wouldn’t also contact you, right? Yeah, yes. Sure. Yeah. But I just because I feel right, just because I see somebody on the street doesn’t mean a contact them. And just because they have conversation doesn’t necessarily mean that I contacted them. If we shook hands, maybe that means I contacted I don’t know, maybe let me, let me ask you a question.

Unknown Speaker 21:26
When the dog walks into the room, and runs over to the table,

Unknown Speaker 21:32
and the glass, uh, you know, let’s just say it’s, you know, it’s not a big accident or anything, but you know, like, when they make contact with the glass, we don’t know if it breaks or not. But what did they see?

Unknown Speaker 21:44
Do they see a table?

Unknown Speaker 21:47
A glass?

Unknown Speaker 21:52
What does the dog see? I don’t know.

Unknown Speaker 21:56
At that, but that’s, that’s a great question. Then the question goes, who’s right? Right? Yes. You know, we call it probably the dog.

Unknown Speaker 22:07
Yeah, have it? So is it blast before you walk into the room?

Unknown Speaker 22:12
I like it. So how does one

Unknown Speaker 22:17
enter into the world of meditation?

Unknown Speaker 22:21
Well, I think now, it’s such a, it’s kind of a

Unknown Speaker 22:26
it’s a word that has lost it. You know, like, it’s a word that’s used so often

Unknown Speaker 22:34
for different things. So I think everybody goes for it for different reasons. It depends on what the word means to them. And then I hope that they find what they seek upon that definition that they find for themselves. But I think meditation is used so often in in different situations that now people see it, you know, and think it is something what do you think meditation is?

Unknown Speaker 23:03
I, I am a person that I want to have a process that I can follow. And

Unknown Speaker 23:15
so when I wanted to learn about meditation, I went on YouTube, and I just started searching for how to meditate. And so that’s how I discovered meditation. And that’s essentially, that’s that that’s what sort of got me in the door.

Unknown Speaker 23:30
So what do I think it is that I don’t know that I can

Unknown Speaker 23:36
necessarily articulate that

Unknown Speaker 23:39
other than deep thinking and concentration? Perhaps is, is is probably what I would say. So then that means that that that’s what you would want from it, you know, like, so. I like the direction that YouTube got you in the door. That’s really a very common.

Unknown Speaker 23:56
And it’s cool. I think it’s great. We do some videos in our inner Essentials program, we did a lot of videos at the especially during the quarantine because, you know, in New York, it went a lot longer than it did in many places. So actually, our business increased at that time, we were able to serve people amazing, you know, like it more. And they were ready. So, anyway, essential. So they’re guided meditations with also visuals. And that will get you in the door, something like that. Like you said, on YouTube, you found something it’s not very instructional, it’s more guided meditation. And that’s a nice way to get yourself into the door of like, oh, I can sit for 10 minutes, six minutes. 12 minutes a day is very practical, even science, science. You know, research has shown how that can affect the brainwaves, different illnesses and stuff like that, but we even go beyond that. But and then if that gets you in the door, but one thing that’s super helpful and almost I would say

Unknown Speaker 25:01
You couldn’t do it without a live teacher

Unknown Speaker 25:07
a teacher

Unknown Speaker 25:10
maybe they change over to you know, it’s it’s like someone who has the experience themselves and you have a relationship with because then they can guide you really personally is because that kind of deep thinking is very deep personal process as we started with a conversation right before even our we experienced stress or something like that. So with the teacher and also, I would look for a teacher

Unknown Speaker 25:39
that gives me like you mentioned meditation for you is somewhere where you can contemplate and, and give that kind of time. So look for a teacher that is focused in the same way that you are.

Unknown Speaker 25:53
And then I think you know, that’s the best way to start.

Unknown Speaker 25:59
I love it.

Unknown Speaker 26:01
Thank you so much for coming on. Where can people learn more about you? How can they engage with you?

Unknown Speaker 26:06
We have limitless dot Health

Unknown Speaker 26:11
Institute is our Instagram

Unknown Speaker 26:15
and limitless health. institute.org is our website. We do lots of programs throughout New York. But of course, we now have increased we working online throughout the United States, even Europe. We bring programs to your organization, your family, your hospital, we come to you, we customize our programs to your knees. That’s how we are so very good at knowing what is it that you need if we could give you and our personnel it is we’re ready for your journey.

Unknown Speaker 26:47
Love it. If you enjoyed as much as I did show tunes on your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciates good ideas. Find the limitless Health Institute on Instagram, it’s limitless dot health dot Institute. And then find them online at limitless limit lists health institute.org I’ll link those in the notes of the show. And if you’ve been if you feel like you’re stressed out or experiencing anxiety, if you’ve been thinking about meditation, people meditating about getting into meditation, whatever, check it out and think that there is a program that will help you get to where you want to go. Thanks again chin zoom. Okay, thank you. It’s been lovely talking about these things. Likewise, and until next time, keep fighting the good fight. We’re all in this together.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai