okay recording
all right and uh so today welcome to the
uh cyphercon podcast
and today whether you're watching the
podcast
in audio form or video form we
have the video link if you're listening
to it
in audio form check out the video link
to the youtube
and we have some visuals but you'll be
able to just listen to the podcast if
you want to do it that way as well
and today we have uh sudesh
kanan or dr k as we most call him
and he's been training people in
mindfulness since 2007
he's been practicing mindfulness and
meditation for 30 plus years and is the
author of more than 25 publications
and co-author of the book how to beat
the heart
disease epidemic during among south
asians
what is most amazing about dr k is his
energetic and generous spirit
he meets you where you're at and he
helps the students through their pain
and anxiety
through love and kindness and i got to
know dr k
over the last couple weeks in
preparation for this and uh
he's he's really been uh wonderful to um
to work with and he's got just such a a
deep knowledge
in meditation and he really does treat
it with love and kindness so
um you know many of us think about
meditation as a new age way to relax
but it's it's way more than that it goes
a lot deeper and uh meditation
helps change the way you think and
transforms your mind
into a more positive calm and resilient
version of yourself and today on the
podcast
we'll we'll talk about how each of us
have experienced that for ourselves and
how you can do it as well
and uh dr k is a cyber security
professional interested
in social psychology neuroscience of
cyber security he's an adjunct professor
at graduate
cyber studies program at university of
maryland global campus
and welcome to the podcast dr k hey
thank you kyle thank you for that kind
introduction
so i thought maybe a good place to start
um you know you you had a
plan on doing a presentation at
cyphercon
called uh brain hacking train your brain
for
love joy and peace and i thought maybe
that'd be a good place to start
and talk about you know what you were
going to talk about in that presentation
before we
you know it got canceled did covet and
everything and i was wondering if you
could talk about it in the context
of what we're seeing in the world right
now i mean obviously
we've kind of been uh hit with
a lot of unprecedented unprecedented
things right now
um covet obviously uh for one
um you know we are changing the way that
we live every single day because
of the pandemic and also
the um what we're seeing right now
worldwide
as far as protests and inequality and
i'm wondering if
you could talk about you know training
your brain for love in in
in what we're seeing right now so um
yeah can you just tell us a little bit
about what your talk is and in the
context of what we're seeing in the
world today
excellent thanks kyle and so yeah
let's first talk about what uh jen
darren and i
jen darren and i we are cyber security
analysts and
you know cyber security professionals
and we have a deep interest in
understanding the human psyche and we
had a whole bunch of tools that we were
going to demonstrate
so the thing is you know meditation is
is shown like this exotic thing right
where
it's an exotic art from asia or
something like that
the basic meditation skills are are very
aminable every any we can we can train
anybody on that so
you know think of the human brain like a
super computer and i'll talk more about
that
but it's love joy and peace we can train
our mind to get there
and the reality of life is it is a very
hard life
okay a lot of the challenges that we
face
are difficult problems to solve they're
not easy
and sure enough you can't just meditate
these problems away
but here's what meditation does for us
it
helps us reach in a state where we
can realize how we
are unique in our abilities
but we are very very similar right the
heart that beats in you
is very identical to the heart that
beats inside me
your brain is very similar to my brain
you
have a lot of challenges in your life
and the way you react and respond may be
slightly different from the way i would
respond and react
but we are all in it together does that
make sense
yeah absolutely so that's where we are
so
today what i wanted to do is i wanted to
show how
the brain right the brain has evolved
the human brain has evolved
over 1.5 million years the
from the ape brain to the human brain
right
and the past 300 000 years we've been
homo sapiens right
our brain has developed uniquely
and till 10 000 years ago
we were hunters and gatherers so brain
is designed for that it's designed for
survival it is designed for
thinking and all that and so we have a
lot of programs
in our brain that are related to
anger fear etc
and the thing is we have to be careful
to realize that
that's not that's not we don't
necessarily have to be in that default
state all the time
and so that's we're going to talk about
that
and we're going to show some simple
devices
how to get to that state and so today i
wanted to give you some
samples of that demonstration without
the devices of course
and and give some exercises
and hopefully if you are listening to
this podcast while you are driving
uh don't do the exercises uh while
driving
my request is that sort of safe thing to
do even if you keep your eyes open
because it will take you to a different
state
but definitely listen to those exercises
uh when you
pull your car in a parking lot in a safe
place or
at home does that make sense kyle yes
and yeah
very important disclaimer do not
meditate while driving
excellent so what i'm going to do is i
want to show
you know how the brain is so
uh would you mind doing an experiment
with me sure let's do it
okay so sit comfortably feet flat on the
ground
and keep your eyes open and
describe to the people who are listening
to us on the radio what you see on the
screen
so we have a solar system um we see
you know we have the sun way on the left
and then we have
mercury venus earth mars relatively
close
close to the sun then you have the
asteroid belt jupiter saturn
and uranus neptune pluto all spread out
quite a bit more with pluto being way on
the right
side of the screen excellent so until
unless you're an astronomy buff right
most of us are used to these almost cons
concentric circles of all the planets
right yep and i'm going to show you two
things right i'm going to show you
focus and awareness
right so you're going to be focused on
this so
imagine you're going to sit on the sun
and then be aware of that breath right
as you're breathing
you're standing on the sun okay
and the first jump you're going to make
is one astronomical unit
that means you will get to earth from
the sun
and that's about 150 million kilometers
okay
approximately and so it will take you
eight minutes to go from the sun to the
earth
so visualize you making that jump in
eight minutes
and then coming back
are you back in the sun yes okay
now be aware of the breadth going in and
out and
be aware of the gap between you and the
screen
okay now
mars takes about 12 minutes so mars
venus works they're all in about 12
minutes right
the next jump to jupiter
is 43 minutes so visualize going from
the sun
to jupiter 43 minutes
and then coming back and jupiter i call
the godfather
or the bully of the solar system it's
one of the largest
it's all the planets put together twice
of that or something like that it's a
huge
uh planet so
that takes 43 minutes
now go go back from the sun now we're
going to jump into saturn
now it's nearly double the distance 1
hour and 20 minutes
9.6 a.u
are you able to visualize in your head
that the
vast distances between these planets
uh i'm able to extrapolate
and and think what it would be like but
i i don't know if i really have
a real grasp on what that means you know
okay
so so it literally means like right
if you were to just take you 43 minutes
to drive
from milwaukee to the border of
chicago right
uh the the border of wisconsin and
milwaukee was not about a 45 minute
drive right that's roughly 10 minutes
right
so to get to downtown it's probably
going to take you one and a half hours
from where you are
right so that's the distance of saturn
right then let's go to uranus you're
jumping from the sun to uranus
and that's double the distance 2.4 hours
right 2 hours and 40 minutes
then you go back to the sun and now you
make the next chance to neptune
and remember in your mind you can see
that your brain is making those
calculations
and you you see yourself visually going
do you see that
jump that you're making to neptune and
coming back visually in your my head yes
yes and i i'm passing all the other uh
planets planets as you're doing that
right yeah theoretically they'll not be
all of the straight line but
right and then look at the distance to
pluto
right it takes 5 hours and 20 minutes
so if you are in milwaukee imagine
driving driving and within like within 8
minutes you reached earth right
but it takes you 5 hours and 28 minutes
to reach pluto
and so there are two things i want to
show you one is i was focusing on the
planets right
but i hope you are also aware that your
brain is doing all these calculations
um and what about the feelings were you
relaxed when you were going through this
were you curious what were the feelings
that were going through when i did this
exercise
um yeah i mean i guess i was relaxed i
was um what's the right word for it um
maybe you know i was
trying to visualize and you know go
through and and listen to your
directions so i guess i was
um thinking about about the planets and
and trying to
do it and i'm trying to think about what
feeling is associated with that um
maybe a little bit of uh anxiety
because i'm not a great uh visualizer
so so i have i have that going for me
maybe
okay so yeah but very very able to
visualize driving to the border of
wisconsin
yeah yeah that's something that i can um
yeah i can
i i i've done that many times so i know
that one right
and so there also was a curiosity saying
where the hell is dr k going with that
yes there's this head here
so here's the thing we all are endowed
with a super brain
okay and here's what makes our brains so
amazing
right in the 1.5 million years of the
brain development
we have three skills that we developed
okay
one was the use of hands and make tools
because we were apes that could stand on
two feet right so we had two hands free
so we could throw objects and then we
could make tools with our hands
right the second thing was the social
brain
the fact that we deal with social people
and the third part of the brain is the
language skills
right so we have a super computer in our
head
and there's a part of the brain called
the prefrontal cortex that's
developed that's compared to all the
other apes ours is the largest
and what the prefrontal cortex does is
it kind of
figures out a lot of the planning for
the future etc happens
so here's the problem the default option
for our brain is
regrets and worries why because we
in the prefrontal cortex you know i can
ask you to say hey do you remember the
last time you goofed up
i'm willing to bet you your mind would
be able to remember
when you made a mistake last right and
that's the part of the brain that it
estimates that so we play a lot of time
regrets and worries those are the
default programs
hide and react to strong feelings
what do i mean by that let's assume you
have a boss or somebody who's very
important to you and you get very angry
with them
you don't yell back at them why don't
you yell back at them
kyle because you know it's inappropriate
you don't want to get fired
right you don't want to get fired right
so there's a brain part of your brain
that doesn't want to deal with that
but guess what those feelings are deep
inside then there's an overactive inner
critic
and these are the most common uh
programs that we keep running and they
are default they're basically default
and you can see where this is going now
i'm not saying these things are bad
right
sometimes you have to hide your strong
feelings sometimes you have to react to
your strong feelings
and whole idea about meditation and
mindfulness is
if you could start becoming aware of the
program that you're running
you're likely to respond better to it
yeah that makes sense yeah definitely
and that's something that i've noticed
you know with with my practice and yeah
so tell me tell me more i was curious
about that how did he get started
meditating and
tell us a little bit more about how that
came about
yeah i i i started probably about five
years ago
and i i was interested in it i started
hearing about it from
uh different people podcasts and stuff
like that and i thought
and i heard about um headspace and
headspace is an app that
got me into it and what got me into it
is it was this take
10 for 10 challenge and it was 10
minutes a day for 10 days
and if it didn't change your life
they're like well then don't buy the app
but if
you are finding a significant difference
like you can continue to do this and
really build on your practice and so i
did it for 10 days i'm like i might as
well just try this out i'll try this out
i'll try it
and uh so i did you know 10 minutes and
headspace does a really good job of
explaining meditation
and how to meditate and like kind of
basically watch your thoughts
um as you are focusing on your breath
but like don't try to interact with your
thoughts just notice some kind of a
thing and so
um so so i did that and what i noticed
uh
the biggest thing i noticed right away
is i was just a lot more calm
and i reacted to things a lot
differently um you know i wouldn't get
upset
as much if something if someone did
something that
you know normally would have triggered
me and i'd you know get upset with
someone for doing something stupid at
work or something like that and i was
just like
i can't control that but i can control
the way that i react to that
and that was a big aha moment for me is
getting that awareness and being able to
be aware in in all
aspects of you know my life and uh
so yeah that's that's what really worked
great for me um
what about what about you how did you
get into it so that's a good
question so when i was uh 16 years old i
was in high school
and we had mandatory yoga and you know
mandatory yoga
for a teenager anything mandatory for a
teenager
means we are not going to follow it
right and when we started doing the yoga
i saw all my friends could sit
cross-legged and they could turn
themselves into pretzels and i could
barely
sit properly right so i hated the yoga
class i hated the yoga teacher
one fine day at the end of the yoga
class he did something called shavasana
shavasana is basically literally the
dead body post
so the instructor made us uh
lie down flat on the ground
and then he made us imagine
you know he walked us through the basic
stuff right
focus on your breath focus on your body
relax the body
all that then he took us to a
visualization exercise
he made us imagine that we were in a
valley
with a river running through it very
calm very relaxing
and here's what he did that was crazy at
that moment
right he imagined that there's a funeral
pyre
you know in india we don't bury bodies
right we cremate bodies
so imagine a funeral pyre and he put our
bodies there
and said your physical body no longer
exists there's only spirit
and that spirit fills the entire valley
and kyle that really i can still i get
goosebumps even now
that it's been 30 40 years since i did
that and i still get the goosebumps in
my in my
body and it was the sense of peace
and relaxation and like any teenager
right i thought that was a cool
experience filed it
and forgot about it and then 15 20 years
later i was in
university of virginia doing my phd as
you know phds can be
a doctorate can be very very stressful
and i was in a stage where i was totally
stressed out about it
and at that time john kabadzin this is
the guy is the
god of mindfulness and i read his book
um and i i'll put that book in the
reference section
and literally changed my life i started
practicing meditation again
um i finished my phd within you know a
few months and i'm not saying
the meditation was the only thing that
helped me but you know
it helped me put in a resourceful state
right and i did
the phd and then um then you know it
became a regular part of my life
does that answer your question yeah no
that's that's interesting about the
visualization uh
meditation that you went through and it
had that profound
effect on you you know and was that your
first time experimenting with meditation
that was really the first time i had no
clue what meditation was and then of
course you know when i was in my mid-20s
then
i went back to the practice and of
course there's so many
techniques now you know there's so many
tools but visualization is definitely
one powerful tool where you can you know
and i liked what you mentioned earlier
you mentioned that you know you can't
meditate your problems away
and i was wondering if you could speak a
little bit more to that because i think
people think that okay i'm gonna
meditate and and
and things are gonna go away i'm gonna
feel way better
and it's it's not been my experience
that that's the case but through this
practice
i'm able to uh be more aware
of what i'm feeling in this moment and
then
be better able to react and i'm not
perfect by any means i
actually i remember i just had a i
remember
we were talking a couple weeks ago and
like soon after that my wife and i got
in a fight and i'm like
i'm not like because i was telling you
i'm like yeah this has really changed my
life and i'm just like
you know i don't want to feel this way
and so
we were able to talk it out but you know
it was it's
um it's it's a practice right so it's
like a constant
it's it's a wise man who says hey listen
you know i may be at fault here let me
take that step back
right that's definitely a challenge
that's definitely a challenge
well i think it's great so let me let me
share my model right my favorite model
uh can you see my screen yeah okay
so for those people who are uh
not watching that i'm basically
comparing ethical hacking
with brain hacking 101 right
so what is ethical hacking for those of
you i'm sure there's going to be some of
my students who listen to this and who
may not know cyber security
but ethical hacking is when you as the
good guy
hack a system to find the flaws right
and there are four or five steps the
reconnaissance where
uh you go ahead and check out the system
right you walk around the building um
you know you check the website there a
lot of tools available
that you check out for some areas where
there are vulnerabilities
right for example in a window you're
going around
the window and you see you're going
around the building and you see some
open windows or open doors unlocked
doors right that's a typical thing
scanning is very specific that means you
are now
trying to get into the system right and
so there are a lot of tools available
we look for open ports and there are a
whole bunch of tools available there
and then once and we gain access right
gaining access
is very straightforward at all it's not
straightforward but there are many ways
to get into it
in some cases you send us
you send a email and then somebody
clicks on the wrong link and then they
give you access to it
or you find the username and password
and things like that so a number of ways
maintaining access is different you once
you get in there you get in as a user
you escalate privileges or you
go into multiple accounts and then
you've got free access to the system and
the
last part of it is reporting so then you
write a formal report saying hey these
are the common flaws i found
and then we talk about mitigation and
transformation so any organization
a good that has a good cyber security
program
has a good ethical hacking that means
these are the good guys
uh kyle is that a good explanation of
ethical hacking
yeah i really yeah yeah and i like this
analogy between ethical hacking and
brain hacking
yeah right so in brain hacking right the
first part of it is awareness
right so for example you were able to
see that you were thinking that right
and then you are aware
of the visualization and things like
that right you are
most of the time we are totally we mix
up our awareness and thinking
and we need to be able to separate that
so when you are having
a fight with your spouse you know you
are able to take that step back and said
hey
you know i'm losing my control there
does that make sense
and i tell the difference right when
people say i'm sad
i say take a step back and say
i'm feeling sad right so there's a
difference between
i'm sad as the identity is sadness but
i'm feeling sad is that awareness that
you're feeling sad does that
is that a good example of awareness kyle
yeah i think so yeah i think it's
yeah it's you know figuring out where
you're at and then finding it and i know
a lot
especially for uh you know for men it's
hard to
really like be able to like identify
those feelings sometimes right so it
takes practice
the second part is mindfulness right and
mindfulness
is this awareness but it comes
with no judgment you're aware of it
and you're saying oh there's this
acknowledgement
i'm going through a tough time or i'm
going through this feeling
right you're able to
uh not judge yourself you're not saying
i'm a stupid idiot for not being able to
control
my anger or i'm feeling angry and i
shouldn't feel angry that's not the deal
you're just
observing ah you know dr k is feeling
that pain or he is
feeling sad the next part is gaining
access
love joy and peace and hopefully right
today
today's session we will i'll show you
some examples of love joy and peace
we'll do some short meditation sessions
but the next level is the equivalent of
maintaining access right
is cultivating core and this is
connection optimism resilience
and i'll tell you talk to you more about
that but this is like
you there are number of tools that are
available right
so accessing log join piece there a lot
of you know your apps you can use your
apps
there are some feedback bio feedback
devices that you can use
that train you there but they themselves
won't
let you go to the next step their core
the core is connection
optimism resilience and energy and i'll
talk to you so when you practice
meditation regularly you are building
some of these characteristics
and then the next and the last step is
living a life with purpose and meaning
right a lot of the time
90 percent or 95 of the time we are all
obsessed with ourselves right
oh i got this problem i have right but
living a
life with purpose and meaning is living
beyond that
right so for example you're clearly
purpose druid and kyle with
the podcast tell me more what this
podcast means to you
because really you're putting all these
energies in this time you're not
making millions out of this right you're
doing a lot of love
yeah so the the biggest thing for me is
i have uh you know jumped into
the hacker community and i just love
to have conversations like this with
so many interesting and super smart
people
just just for the having the
conversation you know
uh in itself and i like to share that
with with others and whether or not they
listen to it or
like it or whatever at least i had that
conversation
from for myself and gain the knowledge
like that's that's the main driving for
me
is uh having really interesting
conversations with
super smart people like yourself dr k
that's that's that's
you thank you you're a kind man you're a
kind man
so here's the first one right my
mindfulness practice
is this relaxed focus um
engaged no judging and it's an active
process
relax focus is what i told you right
you're
can you see the screen now yes you're
seeing the screen if you're
you know watching an object and you're
just
you're aware of the gap between the
screen and you
okay and you're aware of the
surroundings
you're aware of the sound of my voice
and then there's no judging
right you're not saying hey that dr k's
indian accent is hard to follow
or he's speaking too fast right let go
that judgment
and then it's an active process that
means your mind drifts away
and then you bring it back now many
students will come say oh dr k
the whole class my mind was drifting
away i'm like
you are aware that your mind is drifting
away right
that's a big step most people are not
even aware of that right and then you
bring your mind back
and we'll do a exercise on that but
here's the next step
if you do this regularly what can you do
can you see the core slide yes
the core slide is connection the c
stands for connection
compassion courage right these are
things
it may not solve your problem but
regular meditation and mindfulness
will get you in a higher state for
ability to look through
the friends right so for example the
equality
right right i got friends who are
anti-police and they want
police defunding and all that stuff and
then i got other people who are
you know totally for the police and
saying hey we had to be compassionate to
the police
and here's the thing if you are in a
place of compassion right
you're able to see both sides right
you have to understand that 99.9 percent
of the policemen are doing the best they
are
and now it's a tough job for them to get
back to their home you know they had to
be safe right
i got friends who are policemen and
their wives
and their spouses worry about them are
they going to come back safely so we had
to have that compassion
i have african-american family friends
who advise their children you know 15
year olds 16 year old sons
hey if you get stopped by the policeman
these are the things you're supposed to
do
which many of us don't do right we take
it for granted
so you have to feel compassion for them
also it's a very small
person and that's what meditation does
is it helps us
make that connection and compassion
right
optimism right for example uh yes right
now code is pretty
the world is in a pretty scary situation
right but this is not the first time
we've gone through a thing like this in
the sense that
we have world war two right world war
two
extended for six seven six seven years
in some countries
right and it impacted the whole
part of the world and buildings were
destroyed i mean
i've gone to germany where buildings uh
towns were completely raised
by bombing right or in japan where you
know
two cities were completely eliminated
with the bomb right
but everything came back and that's the
point i'm trying to tell you is that we
have that resilience
right we we were we are
a stronger humanity for these challenges
and how we fight them and there's a lot
of optimism there
and energy the energy also right is it's
a mental state
oftentimes we come back right we are sad
we are
we are tired right my i'll come back
after a long day and my wife will say
can you do the dishes and i'll say
no honey i'm very tired i you know i
worked all day
and then my friend barry will call me
and say hey i got two tickets for the
star wars movie do you want to go with
me
and suddenly i'm energized and go right
where did the energy come from yeah can
you relate to that girl
yeah definitely yeah i mean yeah it's
it's
the things that you want to do light you
up right you know
right so oftentimes right when you say
you don't have energy
it's often it's a mental state and
that's why meditation helps you right
even do a five-minute meditation
so coming back to that right so this is
where i am like
you cultivate that core right and then
you transform yourself and there are
tools available
at every stage but the foundation is the
mindfulness
and today that's all we're going to do
we're going to try a couple of
things is that does that sound like a
good summary so far
yeah sounds great would you like to try
a meditation though
sure let's do the meditation and again
if you are
driving uh you can pause pause this and
come back to it when you're
pulled over somewhere or you're in a
quiet spot where you can
take the meditation okay excellent for
our uh
view for the people who are listening to
it can you read what's on the slide
and describe the slide to them so it
says
focus and awareness exercise uh
awareness so there's three bullet points
awareness relaxation and joy and you see
a path uh going through the woods on the
right side
beautiful right green and it's beautiful
so go ahead sit comfortably keep your
palms on the side
relax your shoulders keep your eyes open
and i'm going to teach you a very simple
three-step
relaxation process right this is
so say with me breath one is awareness
breath one is awareness
so what are you are you aware of the gap
between the slide
the screen and you yes what
sounds are you aware of around you i can
hear the
the motors of my computer
and i can hear i can hear the breeze
outside slightly excellent
can you feel where your hands are
touching your lap or wherever they are
the rest armrest yes
so this is the foundation right breath
one is awareness be aware of your breath
be aware of the sounds around
you so repeat after me breath one is
awareness
breath one is awareness
breath two is relaxation
repeat after me but two is relaxation
breath two is relaxation
you feel relaxation in any part of your
body
i i do but do you feel it and how do you
feel
i feel relaxed in my uh lower back
especially
okay so the lightness or the heaviness
what is it
it's like yeah i would say a lightness
and less tension
excellent excellent so repeat after me
breath two is relaxation
right two is relaxation
and that relaxation will kind of flow
through your body some people will feel
a lightness some people
feel heaviness it's different for
different people
now repeat after me breath three is joy
press three is joy
so do you feel joy anywhere at all
yeah i do i feel a joy in my heart
okay and how do you feel that i would
say like a
an expansive feeling and it
feels big and for most of the people
right
uh people who are trying this first time
kyle's been doing meditation for a long
time so he kind of feels the joy right
away
it's not necessarily for but most of you
right we'll
you'll get something by the end of this
session
so take it back to the top the first
breath
step one is awareness repeat after me
step one is awareness
step two is relaxation step two is
relaxation
step three is joy step three
is july so feel free to close your eyes
and then just be aware of the breath
coming in
coming out
can you visualize your breath coming
through your nostrils in and out
kyle uh i can't i can't
visualize it but i can feel it
so can you sense it coming from your
nostrils in and out
[Music]
can you hear yourself breathe yes okay
so for most people those are the three
modes some of them can visualize that
breath
some of them can hear the breath and
some of you
can feel the breath have a little smile
on your face
and the best way to do this grin first
like show me all your teeth ease
and then just bring it to a slight
relaxation
awesome and in your mind
keep going prep one is awareness
breath two is relaxation
for three is joy
zero to ten how how relaxed are you
i'd say an eight
and 0 to 10 how much joy do you feel
okay awesome that's pretty good yeah
yeah you'll be practicing your
meditation
for most of you if you're zero zero to
six that's fine
just allow it and you know every time
your mind drifts away
just bring it back that's the important
thing it's not that your mind never
loses it it's just saying ah my mind is
drifted away
be gentle be kind bring it back
step one is awareness
breath two is relaxation breath three is
joy
if you want to focus on joy that's fine
some people feel love
some people feel calmness it doesn't
matter it's
just being aware of that state
breathe in breathe out
zero to ten how relaxed are you kyle
nine hi
okay so gently open your eyes and look
at the screen
and read after me may i be
happy and peaceful may i be happy
and peaceful may i be free from fear
and suffering may i be free from fear
and suffering may i live with love and
compassion
may i live with love and compassion man
fully awaken
and be free may i fully awaken
and be free put your palms in your heart
both palms or one palm doesn't matter
or you can do a namaste putting your
palms either one works
then i want you to think of somebody you
love unconditionally it could be a
parent it could be a spouse
anybody you pick think of them
can you see that person in your mind's
eye yes
can you hear them say i love you or
anything like that
yes okay and in your mind's eye can you
hug them or touch them
or kiss them yes
so now bless that person may you be
happy
and peaceful may you be free from fear
and suffering
may you live with love and compassion
may you fully awaken and be free
feel the blessings go from you and to
that person
and feel that coming back
may you be happy and peaceful
may you be free from fear and suffering
may you live with love and compassion
may you fully awaken and be free
so tell me how that feels does that feel
a lightness
describe how those blessings are going
from you
to that person you're thinking about
yeah i would say a lightness
and i would say that the the
the joy is um
is getting bigger excellent excellent
so that is the that's the goal you're
getting me there
feel that joy okay feel that job now as
you send the blessings understand that
they love you too
right and they're sending you back
blessings
so maybe be happy and peaceful say that
with me
maybe be happy repeat after me maybe be
happy and peaceful
and be happy and peaceful maybe be
free from fear and suffering and we be
free from
fear and suffering maybe live with love
and compassion maybe live with love and
compassion
maybe fully awaken and be free maybe
fully awaken
and be free
and send those blessings now let's uh
pick uh
you know randomly let's pick up some
listeners who are listening to us and
we'll send blessings to them does that
make sense yes
maybe be happy and peaceful
maybe be free you don't have to repeat
after me you can just enjoy that
keep your eyes closed and you know
pretend that they're in front of you
and you're telling that to them does
that make sense
yes i'm imagining the audience of people
yep your audience and you can pick one
or two people or you can pick the whole
bunch of
you know 75 people who log on to this
i have a sense of fun and joy okay
meditation is not meant to be serious
it's said to be lighthearted
baby be happy and peaceful maybe be free
from fear and suffering
maybe live with love and compassion
may be fully awakened and be free
do you feel the joy that's coming out of
doing this meditation
yes and i i really like the exchange of
energy not only just giving it but
imagining it coming
back and it's exactly your enlightened
soul kyle
maybe be happy and peaceful maybe be
free from
fear and suffering maybe a little with
love
and compassion maybe fully awaken and be
free
so kyle since you're done meditation i'm
going gonna do a bonus round with you
okay i can imagine
imagine the whole world okay you're
sending it to the whole world
and then feel the whole world blessing
you back and accepting that
does that make sense yes may all beings
be
happy and peaceful may all beings be
free from
fear and suffering may all beings live
with love and compassion
may all beings fully awaken and be free
just allow the blessings to go all over
the world and then feel them coming back
may all beings be happy and peaceful
may all beings be free from fear and
suffering
may all beings live with love and
compassion
may all beings fully awaken and be free
go at your own pace you don't have to
follow this just
allow the blessings to go all over the
world and come back
maybe be may all beings be happy and
peaceful
may all beings be free from fear and
suffering
may all beings live with love and
compassion
may all beings fully awaken and be free
now can you feel that joy inside you is
that still a nine out of ten
kyle i had to give it a 10. oh wow
okay so now build that up right
so may i be happy and peaceful say after
me
may i be happy and peaceful
may be happy and peaceful may i be free
from fear and suffering
may i be free hearing feelings suffering
may i live with love and compassion may
i live with
love and compassion may i fully awaken
and be free may i fully awaken and be
free excellent rub your palms together
cover your eyes gently massage your eyes
and stretch your hands up like
yawning and then let go
how is that talk to us about it tell us
tell us a little bit about it that was
really great and then
and again i really like the uh yeah that
interaction of energy
feeling it going out but also feeling it
come
back i i feel like that's that's some a
powerful meditation that i haven't
experienced
before and i think it has some some real
kick
so that's the funny thing is when you
keep saying you're not good at
visualizing
you just did that visualizing that's
right so for example right uh
i'm going to ask you think of a red so
far
can you think of a red sofa yes okay now
close your eyes
can you see the what color is the sofa
it's red
do you understand somehow you're able to
visualize it
you may not see it like a red sofa but
the the visual context they say right
about
70 or 60 of the brain is dedicated to
visualization because they are hunters
and gatherers right
so we picked the fruit and we could tell
by the color whether it's a poisonous
fruit or not
correct so visualization and then
if you're seeing hunting for the prey
you're able to see the prey pretty well
right
so a lot of things that our brain is
designed you know the visual cortex is
an amazing
thing so anyway i interrupted you so
tell me more what
did did you feel that relaxation
turned to joy how was that for you
yeah i i think um
it it i i had a
like i said i kind of had this expansive
feeling in my heart
and a lighter a lightness feeling
um i also so back to the visualization
thing i did picture at the end when
when we were saying um imagine the whole
world
you know sending uh love and compassion
and
you know and all the all the things that
we said happy and peaceful and
and sending all that to the whole world
i pictured the whole world
and i pictured going around the whole
world and giving those
those blessings so i maybe i am a little
i
i am better at the visualization i think
i just don't have like a
vivid you know visual i'm not different
everybody's different right everybody's
different right
when i when i was a kid right out of
photographic memory so
in the notes i could even look at the
ink stains right i could remember the
ink stains on that
so everybody is different right
everybody is different
but hey the to the the people who are
listening to it
please what kyle experience is not
necessarily a typical response
he's already had many years of
meditation so he got to that state
pretty quickly
now not all of you would get to that
state but listen to this
podcast again and then i'll provide some
links
also uh separately you know so so that
you know what i've also noticed too
is is doing it making it a daily
practice is really important
um that you know if i did if i would go
you know three days in a row and then
i'd skip two days
and then i'd start i feel like i'm
starting over then on that next day it's
not like i
i i think keeping that practice allows
you to get into that state
quicker and and kind of hold it longer i
guess
um that's my experience anyway and uh
yeah absolutely right any any habit
right you practice it regularly
and that's what you know we can provide
these links i'll
i'll do a you know definitely go to my
website
meditationmagic.com and one of my and
you can search for these keywords in the
blog easy way to start daily
meditating daily and some misconceptions
about meditation there are lots of
courses and then
in vimeo i have that link called finding
joy in uncertain times
there are a lot of short meditations and
it's 20 minutes long
and then in terms of the books i you
know definitely check out john kabadzin
wherever you go there you are it's a
great book
i've heard of this one i haven't i
haven't read it yet but i've heard it's
a really great great book
he's i mean you know i i watch his
videos and also i listen to
you know i read the books and he's
definitely
you should check it out i will yeah
definitely
and then uh if you are the geek right if
you're like me you want to understand
the neuroscience
uh richie davidson richard davison is a
professor at
university of wisconsin-madison and and
you should make that trip kyle some time
to management they've got a very good
program there
i'm a total fan of richie davis and his
greatest book is altered traits
and see we've done a lot of study on
neuroscience right but
still brain is a complex thing we don't
have all the answers right we still but
that's a very good book
it's very practical in terms of the
studies
and sam harris i'm a big fan of sam
harris he's he's a controversial
character
um his podcasts and articles are kind of
funny but
he's very good on meditation he gets
meditation he understands
the power of it and uh right now if you
sign up
he's giving 30 days free and uh
or you can send me an email i'll make
sure you get the 30
30 day free uh very very good apps you
started trying that kyle right his
app sam addison's app yeah i i did
i uh i did his 30 days i
i saw him speak when he was in milwaukee
and he gave away like i think it was
right when he started his
it was right around the time he started
waking up at and the book waking up is a
really good book too on the subject that
kind of approaches mindfulness uh
without any kind of religious um
uh sort of basically just approaching
mindfulness from
taking the directions of of mindfulness
and and doing it without any kind of
religious connotation attached to it
and that's a very important thing right
uh we are not saying
you shouldn't use meditation for
religious and spiritual practices that's
not we're saying we're saying
at the fundamental level this is a very
basic meditation is a very basic
exercise
like you go walking and running and
things like that
if you want to reduce your stress eat
healthy
exercise right those are all givens
and then adding meditation on top of it
is a good thing
but we are here talking about it as a
very basic
uh um mindfulness exercise that means
focus and awareness that that's what
we're suggesting
any other questions kyle talk to me
uh yeah sure so let's see here i took
down a couple of notes
so you talked a little bit about how you
know we have this kind of we have the
default
network which is you know your
prefrontal cortex
and this is kind of way i think about it
is like there's like this
hamster wheel that's always going in my
mind and it's just like
it keeps running and running and running
and uh for me
it's you know the the
the mindfulness is is
getting that hamster to just kind of
chill out a little bit
just be you know just um
just relax you know and um i'm wondering
is
do do you know anything about like where
in the brain
that that it like what what's happening
you know
now you don't have any default mode
network work
what's what's going on there do you have
okay so let me do that so
can you see my go ahead and make a fist
like this make a fist put your thumbs
inside
make a fist there right okay this is
the size of your brain slightly more
than that but this is the
brain right okay so the lower part of
the brain right this is
called uh this is the oldest part of the
brain this is called the brain stem
this is what we share with the dinosaurs
right we have very basic functions there
autonomic functions or heart things
heart lungs all that operate
with the brain stem some very basic
violent tendencies you know
possessiveness all that comes at that
part of the brain
that's about 200 to 75 million years old
we share that with the dinosaurs
when you put that thumb inside there
right you put the thumbs inside
that is called the limbic system the
limbic system
or the paleo mammalian brain right this
goes to about 50 million years ago
this is the first mammals right these
first mammals started having emotions
love and things like that so when they
had kids
they knew to protect the kids that part
of the brain came in the limbic system
i'm over simplifying the brain function
right but
bear with me it's a good i mean this is
a good way to to visualize it i think
from
a lay person's terms right and then the
top part of the brain is the neocortex
the neocortex is the brand new part of
the brain
right so guess what
our primal functions right so now
the the part of the brain in the front
is the prefrontal cortex right the part
of the brain that's there
that's the executive functions that's
the part of the brain
that tells you hey i'm going to do
something
though my i'm afraid to do it
okay why because the part of the brain
says there's a benefit for that
that's the part of the brain that
worries about it so right so
we were talking about the visual cortex
right our
ancestors were hunters and gatherers
right some of our ancestors figured out
if they don't worry about the winter
they're going to die right in the summer
they start worrying about the winter and
they start
packing foods why because the prefrontal
cortex has this
ability to visualize and say hey in
winter there's going to be snow there's
going to be no food
and that so and again you know this is
these are hypothesis right but
we believe that the ancestors were
worried
were more likely to uh
to survive compared to people who said
ah i'll take care of winter when it
comes
and so that's part of the default
programming and there are two parts of
it there's a part of the brain called
the amygdala amygdala is the one that's
the danger part of it right
it predicts the danger it it gets scared
and all that stuff
so for example you're seeing uh you're
you're a hunter and you're seeing
a wine hang and the amygdala responds
saying hey that could be a snake right
so fear anger all those parts
are hardware not hardwired but they're
very important part of our brain
and so the prefrontal cortex right we
can get
practice to overcome that so
if you're afraid of snakes if you
practice again and again
and know how to handle snakes then
you're able to
bypass the default program that tells
you be scared of snakes
and that's why there are hepatologists
who know how to handle snakes
am i giving you a good feel of how the
brain is programmed and how we can
change the programming
yeah can you say that last part again so
so
you're when you're able to wait be aware
that you're
afraid of the snakes is when you can
sort of
i guess that's the first step to this so
let me give you another example so for
example right
airline pilots right so airline pilots
they are trained again and again
with the flight simulator of all the
things that can possibly go wrong
so when they find the fuel is gone right
fuel has leaked out or something like
that they've gone through training so
though there's a part of the brain
that's afraid of it
they're trained with the prefrontal
cortex that
they've done the training again and
again that it becomes automatic for them
to do the steps they need to do without
panicking
and that's the same thing with
meditation or mindfulness when you do
that practice again and again
you're able to step back in your
awareness and say hey
i don't have to react to this in this
way
i can respond to that catch it and the
brain is capable of
running those simulations for you till
it becomes second nature
not to react but respond
okay is that better is that a better
question i totally get that yeah so that
makes sense
um so it's basically like almost a
rewiring of your brain essentially
bingo that's what neuroplasticity is all
about right
that's one year so just because you have
lousy relationships in the past
doesn't mean your future relationships
have to be screwed up
right you can look back at yourself and
say even with
with your spouse right there there are
standard ways where you
can improve relationships with people
and mindfulness is a very good way
to take that step back and say
hey sometime and it's very easy to blame
the other person for it right if you
have anything
that goes wrong in a any relationship
right it's the boss's fault
right but taking that step back and
saying let's put ourselves in the place
of the boss
and do that now i'm not saying that's
appropriate for everything right
uh if you're in a relationship where
there's physical
or mental abuse you know don't try to
defend that other person right walk away
from that but 80 to 90
of the time right when we have
relationship challenges we are
contributing that to that
and taking that step back and being
aware of that
you know is going to be helpful does
that make sense
yeah it makes makes a lot of sense and
so that's what these
these all things regrets and worries
hide reacting right
these are all these things that this
core practice is doing
building connections building that
compassion for yourself and the other
person
being optimistic you know getting if you
feel tired
take the break but then at some point
you know recharge yourself and go back
to that problem
resilience all of us face you know
i'm here giving you this lecture why am
i giving you this lecture because i need
it myself right
i have challenges in my work i have
challenges in my relationships and
you know i have to go through this stuff
i'm not coming here it's like i've
figured it all out no
i'm working through that these are some
tools that i'm using
does that make sense yeah it makes it
makes a lot of sense
um i have a question about you know
what's this
uh you know um i guess in like in
buddhist teachings they talk
about enlightenment you know what what
what is enlightenment
what do you have any you know do you
have any thoughts
on this uh do you consider yourself an
enlightened
being what is what is life
so i i use the word translucence okay i
use the word translucent so
um um that means there have been times
when i have been in the state of
absolute bliss right and that has
happened to me
um um it does happen to me a couple of
times where i
i feel i'm part of the whole humanity
and there's no difference between kyle
and me
and everybody else right so but i i'm
telling you most of the time i'm
i'm the usual uh jackass who's going
through life right
i fought i am angry i'm pissed off i'm
like
you know sometimes it's everybody else's
fault is not my fault
but what i see right um
to me the the person who comes closest
to that is the dalai lama
right so there's one person who asked
him the question
you know uh dalai lama when
it was your life when you felt totally
happy
and content with your life and dalai
lama looked at him no
no hesitation at all right now right now
and you know so there are times when i'm
like that right
i'm feeling in that state and that's you
know you have felt that haven't you felt
that after a meditation session
where you feel at peace with the world
and calmness
right yeah until that somebody else
comes and pulls your sleeves
right right yeah i felt that and i felt
what you're talking about with the
did you call it translucence yeah
translucent and i felt that for just
like i feel like i've just kind of
brushed up against it for a very
momentary thing and i'm just like wow
this is what's
possible and and i think that's it you
know and i think that
uh you know i got into meditation trying
to
just kind of enhance um you know be more
control of my feelings and
being able to um react to situations and
have more control over that kind of
stuff but as i got more into it
i'm finding that that's it right there
is is having that
right now like being in this moment is
is the is the best thing that's the only
thing right and
and being able to to realize not even
not just on a conceptual level but like
living it and uh and and
that's what i strive for so i'm glad to
share that with you
and we will definitely you know we'll
work i'll start sending you my
newsletters
and people who want you know send me an
email put you in my newsletter right do
those things
and kyle that's the thing right it's not
only about me right
my passion comes out of teaching these
techniques to people
right and even the basic hacks right we
are talking about just the first few
hacks
that just feeling that loud joy and
peace and a regular thing
our students right who come just to the
first class and say
hey dr k i really slept
soundly for the first time in my life
and years together
right or they'll come and say you know i
did not resp
i did not react to my spouse i was kind
and compassionate
right things like that those are those
little things
that you don't have to be 100 percent
happy right there's a book also it's
called 10 percent happier yeah
that's the other harrison what is that
dan harris
the serious guy ten percent happier
right that that's all and that's a great
book that's another book that i
recommend to people uh that book is not
much on techniques but it's very good on
the story behind meditation yeah
so did i did i answer your question
there yeah definitely yeah thanks
thanks for for answering that so where
can people
find you you had some resources up
before uh you mentioned if people want
to email you
they can send you a note where how can
they get in touch with you if they want
the best one is go to
www.meditationmagic.com by the way
can you see my web web page below here
yes
and that's the best place to reach me
just go there and there'll be a box
with request form and if you want a copy
of my newsletter i want to be added to
my newsletter i know spam i promise you
that
but check that out you can reach out to
me there
also and i'm you know looking forward to
anybody who has questions and uh
you know hopefully uh i'm looking
forward uh um
darren jen and i are planning to do some
studies so
we'll put that in the website and uh you
know if you want to be part of our
guinea pigs
uh you're welcome to do that yeah i'd
love to sign up for that that'd be fun
definitely i'll i'll be coming to you on
that cool awesome and then uh
any other anything else you want to plug
or any
uh final words of wisdom you want to
pardon
thanks for your curiosity you know the
past two weeks has been fun
exchanging emails and talking about it
uh and i would personally recommend you
know keep doing the meditations and
we'll
we'll talk more you know with the
advanced topics we should maybe do a
201 brain hacking 201
but give us your feedback tell us you
know what you liked about this and what
you didn't like about it and we'll be
happy to you know share that um you know
yeah maybe we could do a question answer
session next time right
yeah that'd be great yeah but thanks
kyle
anyone that um and likewise i really
enjoyed
over the past two weeks exchanging
emails and getting to know you and
preparing for this and
um and if anyone else uh wants to hear
around two and you want uh if that you
have some specific questions you want
answered please
share them with me you can find me at
puckmine on twitter
and uh just uh feel free to dm me on
there
and uh let me know what you want to hear
and uh yeah thanks again for taking the
time dr k and this has been delightful
hey thanks for everybody who listened to
this hopefully there are more than 10
people who listen to it
but anyway it was fun thanks kyle i'm
stopping recording right now
perfect