CIIS Public Programs Podcast

TRANSCRIPT

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This is the CIIS Public Programs Podcast, featuring talks and conversations recorded live by the Public Programs department of California Institute of Integral Studies, a non-profit university located in San Francisco on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Land. Through our programming, we strive to amplify the voices of those who have historically been under-represented. To find out more about CIIS and public programs like this one, visit our website ciis.edu and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms. 

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Deanna Jimenez: Hello. 

Pamela Ayo Yetunde: Hello.  

Deanna: How are you? 

Ayo: I'm good, and I'm glad to be here with you, with you all. 

Deanna: It's really good to be here with you. We are here to connect and explore your newest book, Casting Indra's Net, Fostering Spiritual Kinship and Community. 

Ayo: Thank you. Well, I want to ask you, how are you? 

Deanna: Oh, thank you. I have been awaiting this time to connect with you. I really appreciated our brief talk last week. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and so many questions and curiosities and like, how do I embody what you even more? So, I appreciate you asking and yeah, I'm shifting back to this text right here. It feels really powerful. Maybe, I guess what comes up for me is that so much of this book is about practicing ways to show up even more fully for ourselves and community, even as it is in the title. And that feels so important, especially in this day and age. And to really start us in the preface, you said, I am concerned that humanity's greatest threat is this distortion of our humanity. And when I say humanity, I mean you, me, and us. I'm writing this book for all of us. There's like a taking it in accountability that I do when listening to that. And I wonder if you can briefly begin us by speaking more to this concern or maybe this plea. 

Ayo: Yeah, thank you. Well, I feel like we all are survivors of some very serious existential threats and realities. One is we have survived the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic. At least we believe it's the worst. The worst has passed. We don't know how many more variations of the virus there are and will be, but we're alive right now, which means we have survived something that millions of people worldwide and over a million people in the United States did not survive. 

And also, countless numbers of people are living with long COVID and other chronic illnesses related to COVID may be unnamed. So, if we have survived that doesn't mean that we have survived intact, if you will.  

We have also survived a coup attempt and are living in the aftermath of a traumatized Congress that is focused on revenge and the agenda of revenge in the reality of climate catastrophe and other global issues that need attention. So, I guess the other thing I'll just say is that it seems that many of our leaders and their followers are bent on distorting who we are. Are seeking power and privilege based on lies and distortions of who we are and consequently, we are being destroyed. And so, we have to be very careful and consequently, we are turning towards violence to eliminate one another.  

And so that's my plea, is that we recognize that these things are happening, that we come out of denial about it, and that we begin to tell the truth about who we are and what we are capable of. And we are still capable of love and affection and embracing one another. And so, I want to do my little, little part to encourage us to do that, to be about that.  

Deanna: And this is that book, huh? 

Ayo: That's what Casting Indra's Net is about. 

Deanna: What I feel coming on is an unfolding of how am I in this moment to hear those words, like there's an honesty and being honest with where we are just really gives me chills. And there's a vulnerability to that. And you also speak to vulnerability in the book. There's a vulnerability to being in this tension and being in action, still doing our little things.  

Ayo: Yes. Being vulnerable doesn't mean that we are powerless. Right? It just means that we feel more deeply or we're more tender or more sensitive, more empathetic and compassionate. (Deanna: Right.) But it doesn't mean that we are less powerful. 

Deanna: Right. And in the beginning part of your book, when you're really like putting context, I just really want to bring out even more of that context. And you're putting context to use very powerful words, brutality, mobbery. There's something around if we continue to dance around and soften words or language, then maybe the bigness of what's really happening in this moment and our opportunity for change might pass.  

Ayo: Right. Not only our opportunity for change. Well, I'm optimistic in that there are always opportunities for change, always. [Deanna: Yeah.] However, I think what we've seen recently is if we don't call something what it is when it needs to be called that, then that will be taken and used against us. And I want to be very specific about this.  

In maybe 2018, 2019, I was writing something about, sorry, yeah, it was 2017. I was talking about fascism in the United States. I was writing about it in one of my other books. And one of the readers for the book said, I think that maybe you shouldn't use the word fascism because by using that you run the risk of closing down a bridge that you might be able to cross. And so, I thought about that, and I thought, okay, I do want to reach across the aisle, so to speak. I'll make a compromise. I will use the word fascist fewer times, but I'm going to continue to use it. Right. Because we need to call things what they are. And that is what has been happening in the United States, an appetite for authoritarianism. And because those of us in leadership, political leadership, refuse to call fascism what it is, then the fascists began to use it and label non-fascists and anti-fascists as the fascists and the Nazis. Because we have also survived the intensity of gaslighting from the highest levels of government. But as we continue, it will come back. And hopefully this time we will be able to see it for what it is.  

Deanna: Right. Right. And we can directly, I'm hearing in even what you're saying, there's a directness, a honesty, and a compassion. This connects me to something that was also really standing out in just your weaving of words, the word usage in your book that I really heard and experienced you as a powerful integrator of spiritual texts. It felt so embracing to hear you bring in so many spiritual lineages and still show the interconnectedness in moments where they can often be siloed. And I'm curious in what we're saying around vulnerability and this honesty and also word around mutuality. So, what do you find as a common message across these ancient texts to support us as we are moving towards mutuality, as we are engaging in this vulnerability, this call for vulnerability?  

Ayo: Well, you know, there's so many traditions, countless traditions. And so, I don't want to lead anyone in the direction of thinking that I think I understand them all, I don’t, only a few, only a few. The ones that I focused on in the book, I would say that what's common is that there is an embrace and a love for wisdom, applied wisdom, paradox, compassion, empathy, justice, [Deanna: Yeah.] connection with source, [Deanna: Connection with source, yeah.] creator, creativity, the creative process. Some might call it process theology. There's so many words for these things. But to know that we are capable of thinking, being, and acting in ways that are not just about serving our own interests. [Deanna: Right.] But being a part of the cosmic community, that is also not just about being part of the human community, but all beings. So, I try to lift that up in these texts. 

Deanna:  Right, right. All these words and what I also heard in some of the, correct me, the koans? 

Ayo: Koans, yeah. 

Deanna: Koans, in some of the koans that you shared in the book. I'd love for you to speak more before I ask questions about that, if you can maybe contextualize that for our audience, anyone who is not familiar with koans. 

Ayo: Right. So, right. So, I grew up in the United Methodist Church. I practiced Buddhism. I have for the last 21 years. koans, K-O-A-N, is a, it's a way of, basically it comes out of Zen Buddhism, Rinzai Zen Buddhism. And these tend to be short stories or short phrases that when offered by the Zen master to the student, when the student is deeply immersed in a discursiveness that is going nowhere, the Zen master will offer this perplexing short story or perplexing phrase that when the student hears it, begins to try to answer the question and either exhausts themselves because they can't answer it or immediately they realize, I can't, that's unanswerable. And then theoretically they experience an awakening, right? It's like that pause from discursiveness, that openness, open-mindedness, beginner's mind. And then they move into a different way of being. That's the purpose of a koan. And so, what I try to do is recognize the koans, if you will, in different traditions, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Daoism, and other traditions.  

Deanna: Right. I appreciate that. When I was reading the verse, the various koans, there was something around, the way I experience is when, if I am stuck in something and a teacher, the way they speak into my listening, kind of scratch the record of where I am is to be able to use a metaphor, use something not related to what I'm speaking to pull me out of my circular thinking or where I am. So standing perception. [Pamela: Right.]  And I was really struck by how, yes, a lot of these references to the spiritual texts really show that very familiar way of a grace and gentleness to be able to teach a lesson, teach, impart wisdom. 

Ayo: It's interesting, it’s interesting Deanna, that you talk about gentleness because I think from a Zen perspective, they wouldn't consider it gentle. Yeah, maybe, maybe it's like harsh. I'm trying to ask you a question and then you pose some non-related nonsense. Do you hear me? Do you hear what I'm trying to get at? And it's like, yes. And what I'm suggesting to you is that it's not helpful. And for some people, that's disappointing, right? Because they're looking for something else. They have an expectation that their need is going to be met. They don't know that from the teacher's perspective, what they need is to stop thinking about that. [laughs] 

Deanna: Right, right. Their need and beyond is met in that pulling out of that space. I think that's why for me, it feels gentle instead of being like direct on to what I'm saying. It's like, give some space to give some space to what I'm grappling with.  

Ayo: Mhm, mhm. If you can receive it.  

Deanna: Yeah. And I can receive it. Right, right. Oh, well, thank you for that. I'm going to come back to, there's just so much that I was holding in this book that I'm wanting to come back to my notes that we can utilize this time. I wonder if, we maybe back up a bit and just, if you could share, like if you were to speak to defining what is Indra’s net, you share a little about that?  

Ayo: Right. Yeah. So, I'll just say that it's my understanding. I'm not a religion scholar. But my understanding is that the concept of Indra’s Net is as old as 1000 BCE coming out of Vedic traditions, Hindu tradition. In the worldview or the belief system that there was a God named Indra who created a net in order to capture his foes. And then once his foes were captured, then Indra could punish them. And they had absolutely no way of getting out of the net. So then fast forward about 500 years. This concept of interest net finds its way in to Buddhism in the Mahayana tradition, but conceived completely differently.  

First of all, there is no Indra per se. There's no God. But there is the interconnection between all of us. [Deanna: Right.] And that each one of us is a node, if you will, in the net. Each one of us is a gem, a jewel, a diamond, a pearl, a mirror that has the innate capacity and quality of reflecting. And so, our pureness gets reflected by the other nodes, other jewels, pearls within the net and so on and so forth. And that is how our cosmology is illuminated through the basic goodness of us reflecting that to one another. [Deanna: Right.] That's the Indra’s Net that I'm using in this book.  

Deanna: That is the visual, the experience of your Indra’s Net or how you're holding Indra’s Net that as we are all in this cosmology, in this net, that we are reflecting others and reflecting ourselves. And from that, we're able to improve, grow, be even more than what we currently are. Yeah? 

Ayo: See, feel, relate. Now, of course, we have distortions, right? [Deanna: Right.] Just like going into a house of mirrors, you know, some of the mirrors are distorted. And so, the objective in spiritual practice then is to buff our jewels and shine our mirrors so that we are not reflecting our aspects of our distorted selves onto others. That's the goal. [Deanna: Right.] And also so that we can, I'm sorry. And so that when we are reflecting others, that we are not reflecting distortion. [Deanna: Right.] Clarity. 

Deanna: Right. We're not reflecting distortion and that distortion being the parts, the not yet 

resolved or healed parts of ourselves [Ayo: Mhm, righ.] in that net that we are shining our mirror. So, there's something as I'm sitting, there's something around like being in my, it's like something around my personal work, my inner work, moving to the interpersonal work, the shining of the jewel. And then from that, you moved into then from that, the fostering the fostering spiritual kinship and community. So, the individual to the interpersonal then to the communal.  

Ayo: Right. There, there can, that's one, one direction. Another direction might be we're 

motivated and inspired by what we experienced in others. Right. For example, you know, we've seen this and neuroscientists have demonstrated that when we see someone engaged in an act of compassion, we want, we want to do that. Something about seeing that encourages us to do things that we didn't think we could do before. So, it may start externally. Like when I learned that people did hospice work and I said to myself, I want to be able to do that, but I'm not able to do it. At least I didn't think I was able. Then 10 years later, I decided through a series of events that I would become a hospice volunteer, but that I started that that started the motivation for that started upon hearing about other people doing it.  

Deanna: A version of the Indra’s Net that the reflection of others doing this noble or this, this beautiful act of service, you were able to see that reflection and want to move towards it or grow into it.  

Ayo: Well, in my imagination. 

Deanna: In your imagination.  

Ayo: That was, that was enough, but it took me a while. 

Deanna: As you were saying that it brought up something like I was really noticing in multiple areas of your writing, like this experience of tension, like feeling the polarity of stories and the example you just gave of when we see others doing, we want to do better. We want to grow in to improve our way. And one of those tensions was like moving, like how, and you also named it as a spirit a spiritual path. So, like for me, sometimes holding that tension of expanding to that level of feeling the interconnectedness and doing my work and shining and feeling like in some ways, like the systems of oppression or the systems that kind of contract that. So, there's something around this expansion and then feeling the weight of systems. And I guess I, I wanted to just name that and see your thoughts on that. Like, how do we hold this tension while staying on course? 

Ayo: Mhm, mhm. How do we do it? Well, some thoughts. I don't know for sure that this is the, would be the case for everyone in every system. But I think it's really important that we work on our imagination and what we're imagining for the future. Do we want to tear down a system without doing the work of imagining what would come after and committing ourselves to building that? Can we build as we're also deconstructing systems of oppression? Can we, do we have a plan for that? And do we trust each other to actually bring that into fruition?  

Deanna: That's a whole new question.  

Ayo: That's a whole ‘nother question, right? And I wonder about that. It's, it seems to me that it's a lot easier to tear things down than it is to trust one another to build something for the long term. And my hope is that as things are being torn down, because that's these, another thing that we've survived for the time being is this impulse to tear things down, just tear it down, just tear it down. Without thinking about the consequences of tearing things down and who has the power to name and define what that whole movement was about, and then tell a completely different story about what it's about. And what I mean by that, so that I'm not being so abstract.  

I live in Chicago. We just had a mayoral election. Many of the candidates ran on a, I can make this city safe agenda. And the question I have being relatively new to the city is, at what point did people start to think about this? And I think that's a really important question. I have, being relatively new though to the city is, at what point did people think that, generally speaking, this was just an unsafe city. It's just so unsafe. [Deanna: Right] Almost all of the candidates ran on, I can make this city safe. Was it because there was a response to the former president threatening that if Chicago didn't become safer, that the National Guard would be deployed here? Was it the reaction to George Floyd being tortured and murdered? Was it the longstanding gun violence in certain parts of the city?  

I say all this to say that we really need to be careful about the causes and conditions of our behavior and especially the consequences and who has the power to tell the story and then solve the problem as they see it. And if I can be more specific, what have been the consequences of so-called defund the police initiatives? We have to pay attention to that.  

Deanna: I'm taking in all that you said. And there's also something that stands out to me. We've been talking about language and word choice. And there's something around each of the examples you gave that are moving away from fear versus towards the mutuality, the interconnectedness, or something around language that really activates, you said around neuroscience, really activates our nervous systems to seek safety. And that is in those sometimes in those realms, it's not always the highest choice. So then in going back to the metaphor, the casting, the net that those reflections then like a domino effect, those reflections are based in fear. I was just feeling that viscerally in my body as you're giving the examples of the way that we're being treated. And I think that's a really important thing to say. Because you're giving the examples of making Chicago safe. 

Ayo: Yeah. Right. And I saw ads in other places too where you could see who they were casting, not using it the way I'm using in the book, but casting as the problem children in the country. These rampaging people of color, usually Black, rampaging on your porches, in your streets, so on and so forth. We need politicians who are law and order politicians to keep these people in check. [Deanna: Right.] Right. This was across the board, a sort of narrative. And as we think about defunding police, and I know that that means a lot of different things in different places, I would also ask people who are interested in spiritual practice to begin talking about what are the ways that we can divest from the need to be policed. 

Deanna: So again, scratching the narrative. 

Ayo: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. I always say, think about it. When you divest from something, eventually it will just go away. I'm not saying policing will go away, but I'm saying the investment in policing can be de-intensified when we begin to take care of ourselves and 

take care of each other. 

Deanna: That brings me back to then the vulnerability that I can feel when we're speaking to, there is one part when we speak around, you said compassionate risk taking. Compassionate risk-taking relationality is salvation, but we need to be religious leaders to do the work. The work usually comes from the most ordinary, even the most marginalized people in our society. Mutuality means casting Indra’s Net even and especially when social conventions tell us not to. And I connect that to what we're saying. It's like moving towards, what you say, imagining what we're wanting, creating new narratives. And there's a vulnerability, I feel, in stepping out in that way.  

Ayo: Yes. Well, aren't we vulnerable anyway? [Deanna: Yeah.] Anyway, I mean, the truth of the matter is, right? 

Deanna: I need the truth again. I need this truth again. [laughs] 

Ayo: The truth of the matter is we are vulnerable all the time. We just don't pay attention to it because we have other things to do. But just like that, we can go from being, or at least feeling completely in control of things to being hit with the reality that we don't control anything. So, since we are vulnerable all the time, let's not ego trip about it, accept it, recognize that everybody else is vulnerable all the time. And see what we can do to support one another in our vulnerability, in our perpetual vulnerability.  

Deanna: See what we can do to support one another in our perpetual vulnerability. Wow. Yeah, this feels like a segue, but maybe not. But what you speak to in that vulnerability and supporting one another, the word that you use is relationality and you speak of the noble truth. So, you adopt the perspective of relationality with the four noble truths. I really appreciated that in order to take what is spiritual practice and bring it into what I experience as more like for me as a somatic psychotherapist, to be able to bring it into how I'm working with this on a daily basis. How can I be even more present in the moment with another and trusting that it is in the relationship, there is a healing. So even as I spoke to all of the tension I feel around being vulnerable and taking care of myself, which you're debunking at the moment, but that there is a that I hold that it is the embedding of trauma is in the aloneness and the experience. So how do we bring the relationships so that one, we're not alone. There's instead the relationality. And so I wonder if you could speak a little to this is taking these four noble truths and really moving them into like how we're doing that relationally.  

Ayo: Yeah. But you said something, Deanna, that I just wanted to clarify, seek clarification about. And it's what you said about trauma and aloneness. Would you mind making that clear?  

Deanna: Oh yeah. What I hold with trauma is that the experiencing trauma is being alone before, during and after the experience. So one is that we're constantly experiencing like using trauma in the broad sense of the word, like an experience where we weren't able to feel and deal with the experience simultaneously. I wasn't able to experience what happened and my nervous system couldn't take it all in and process and integrate into my nervous system. So with that definition of out of regulation or trauma that when there is something that is larger than the larger than what I can process in the moment and I experienced the aloneness, whether as a kid and parents aren't available to hold me when I fall and stub my, you know, hurt myself or I am in an experience of a difficult or a big experience and no one understands me, no one, like I'm alone in it. Does that answer your question?  

Ayo: Yes. Right. Yeah. So, I'm also thinking about, these words aren't necessarily synonymous, but when I think about aloneness as you described it, I'm also thinking about feelings of isolation as well as alienation. And feeling misunderstood. Nobody can understand this, because only I have experienced it in this particular way. It's within my being. [Deanna: Right.] I can't ever adequately explain it to anyone in a way that they would understand it completely because they didn't experience what I experienced, and my body is carrying this. Okay. Thank you.  

Deanna: Even in those experiences, if I can add that, you know, my body is carrying this in the therapeutic space. Yes, I am not in that experience with you, but I am right here. I am right here with you as you move through the experience. That makes a difference. Yeah.  

Ayo: Hey, if I didn't think it made a difference, I wouldn't be a pastoral counselor. [Deanna: Right!] I wouldn't be writing about the things I'm writing about. I wouldn't try to be a witness to the things that we have experienced, and I believe we will experience again. There's going to be a lot of hurt. It's been promised. And I think part of another thing that we have survived is bullying on a scale we have not been ever experienced before. Many of us have never felt this, right?  

So, the noble truths as it relates to relationality. So, the way I understand it is that many of these teachings out of Buddhism, like the four noble truths, basically from the beginning are based on the experience of one person. One person who happened to be a male bodied person, Siddhartha Gautama, known as the Buddha, the awakened one. And in the suttas or the sutras or people, if you're not familiar with those words, basically the short sermons that make up Buddhism, there is largely the experience of being in a family is not part of the tradition. It's not understood, right? What impact did the Buddha's mother have on him? What impact did his father have on him in his developmental years? What about his aunties, his uncles, the community of people who adored him, treated him as a prince, if that's what he actually was? What about his girlfriends and boyfriends and whatever, his romantic liaisons? What about all those people? What about the harems? All of this, right? We don't know what impact all these people had on the development of the Buddha, but we know if there was a historical Buddha, that there were people in his life who helped him be who he was.  

So, in my re-imagining these ancient teachings, I try to imagine them also in the context of family relationships, our primary relationships and beyond. And so that's why I re-imagined the Four Noble Truths as the Four Noble Truths of Relationality, because through our relationships, we suffer, right? That's part of it. Our relationships are also in part the causes of our suffering. And through relationships also, we can experience some healing as well. So, we are related to one another. That's another truth I want us to just accept. We're related to one another. Let's accept it. Let's go beyond accepting that. Let's go towards adopting one another as family. And maybe by doing that, we will not be as vulnerable to the many ways that people are trying to keep us separate from one another. [Deanna: Right.] Keep us separate from one another, turn us against each other, and have us annihilate one another.  

Deanna: Because it is then in the absence of those relationships that allows us to see the person as other and separate. When you just described it in that way of wanting to see the Buddha in relationship to community, it really, the image of how I'm imagining Indra's Net appeared again, right? Because who he is, was, became wasn't in a vacuum. There were relationships, there were reflections, harmful and good. There were all kinds of reflections that allowed, that shaped him to who he was. And I'm feeling that power. And so, coming back to well, how when we can be vulnerable and be shaped by others. You think that this protective part that does this with that vulnerability can open up a little more?  

Ayo: Right. Well, and that's part of the Buddhist story or the Buddha’s story is what, so he escapes. He sees the true nature of being human. And then just as your body was caving in, he goes into the forest. He caves into the forest, according to the story, according to lore, and stays there for six years and does everything that he can to be able to be like this, right? To be courageous [Deanna: Right.] and face life as it is. But it takes, it takes time. It takes a while. And it takes effort, right? But through effort, you can go from being, is the word concave? [Deanna: Yes.] Yeah.  

Deanna: My word is. [laughs]  

Ayo: Hunched over, right?  

Deanna: It's a movement. 

Ayo: Right, right. To being expansive [Deanna: Right.] in one's body.  

Deanna: That imagery, it's he, as you describe it, or as is described, goes into the forest. So that was his going in and six years. And I guess like looking like, you know, when am I finding myself in the forest? And am I being intentional in that forestry work? Am I being intentional when I'm in the forest in order to, like, is the forest the end result for me or the end? Or is there a pool to open back up and be back in connection?  

Ayo: Yes, hopefully that is the goal, right? Is to not stay in the forest, in the cave, in the house, in the room, in the closet, right? Is to come out. [Deanna: Right.] Diana Ross, you know, adopted, hey, I'm coming out, right? [Deanna: Right.] Let's have a theme song. I'm coming out is such an anthem still. It says so much about the human experience. That when we are able to come out, it is cause for celebration.  

Deanna: Oh, I appreciate you bridging with Diana Ross or more pop culture, because as we were talking, I was for any listeners who aren't seeped in or connected to a spiritual path and wanting to make that bridge, like what this like forest, like I'm thinking, hero's journey, like how are we making that connection for those that may not resonate with it being a spiritual path?  

Ayo: Right. You know, all of these words we're using, they're just words. [Deanna: Yeah.] That's why I use a lot of references to music and musicians in the book, because that is, that's it for a lot of people. You don't have to have the gospels. You don't have to have a Suta or Sutra. You don’t have to have symbols. Sometimes it is a sound. Sometimes, like, I think about the first time I heard Luciano Pavarotti. I was, I thought I didn't like opera, right? I don't like opera. [said in a mimicking style of voice] And then suddenly I heard his voice on TV, and I whipped my head around and I thought, I have never heard anything quite like that voice. And it just opened me up, opened me up to a whole new art form. Sometimes that's all you need is something like that. And you don't have to call it anything special. 

Deanna: Right. [Ayo: Just an experience.] Right. An experience that is able to cut through and open up, cut through. I don't know if it's necessarily cutting through but get to the heart of. Hm. That when you talk around like this, these noble truth, and one thing that you spoke to was changing or shifting the platinum rule back with language, shifting the platinum rule to the golden rule to the platinum rule. And I wonder if you could speak more to that because that feels aligned with this opening up and coming out of the forest.  

Ayo: Yeah. Well, we should have co-written this piece together. [Deanna laughs] I didn't know you then. Next time! Well, you know, I'm really concerned, right? I'm really concerned about where we're going, where we're going culturally. Some of us will not be going anywhere because I mean, it's just, it's just madness. Madness has taken hold in our culture when tens of thousands, if not more people believe that most, if not all of our elected officials in Congress are pedophiles and are organized around that. We're in trouble. We are in serious trouble. So, okay. My mind's gone all over the place.  

Deanna: Where are you? [Ayo laughs] I want to know where you are.  

Ayo: I want to know where I am. [Deanna: I can ask the question again.] Yeah. Well, I want to go back to the question that you posed because truly my mind has gone all over the place. One of the things that I thought about is how are we going to get back to embracing the truth even when we don't like what we heard or what we saw? How can we learn in our bodies to tolerate not having things the way we want them? Right? So going back to the platinum rule and the golden rule.  

So, for years, for centuries maybe, we've talked about the golden rule, treating each other as we would like to be treated. But given the threats to existence now, I don't think that the old ways of being in friendship or the old ethos of treating others as we want to be treated, taking ourselves as the template for how other people should be treated is enough. If this is where we are now, then the old ways are not enough. So, what I tried to do in the book is to push us to use these, the alchemy, if you will, to push us beyond ourselves. Let's take ourselves out of the equation. Right? Treating other people for their benefit, for their well-being should not be first based on what I want but should be based on some curiosity about what's going on with them and seeing if there's something that we can do to support their need, not based on our template, but based on their real need. And what that requires then is for us to be, to not, to decenter ourselves. [Deanna: Okay.] Right. Decenter ourselves, be curious about another. [Deanna: Right.] Gain some confidence about our capacity, our ability to meet the needs of others. Take the risk of trying to meet that need. And if we can't do it, seeing if we can reach into our resources to find a way to meet that person's need. And that's why I'm calling the platinum rule. And I hope that I can encourage people to go beyond our self-template. 

Deanna: Treating others as they need to be treated versus how they want to be treated. And I'm, I guess, wanting to chew on this and say, like, is that because there is something of like, the reflections, if we're imagining that how they're wanting to be treated is coming from a not yet healed part or that we are, it's calling for me to reach out. Imagine with what is happening in this moment with this person, what am I imagining is their missing experience? Or what am I imagining is below the surface of what is happening? And then I can seek to meet that need, like kind of like ushering all of both of us or yeah, who was engaged to another level of presence or, and I kind of pause right there. Am I feeling that correctly? 

Ayo: Yes, you are. And I will say, I had a conversation yesterday with Resmaa Menakem. I don't- do you know who Resmaa is? [Deanna: Yeah.] Okay. So, we were talking about in the context of couples, how we help people within the couple context grow up. Right. So, right. It could be that a person knows what they need and can articulate that. And we can trust that inner wisdom and so on. But oftentimes people, we want what we want. We want to be soothed. We want more of something. We want our egos stroked. And as narcissism has been on display, right?  

Deanna: Dis-play. [Ayo: Dis-play!] We got to say that a few times. [both laugh] 

Ayo: Okay. Okay. Narcissism on display. Writ large. Because we are a species that mimics, we may want our narcissism to be fed. And so, we need to think about is that for that person's wellbeing and that we've, that we feed their narcissism in such a way that it's destructive.  

Deanna: I have one more question before we go into closing, but just on this thread, you know, again, through the theme, there is like these areas of tension and I just, how am I right now? There's like this tension of the awareness of the cultural narcissism and how that impacts individually. The curiosity or the tension that came up for me is one stepping in, stepping out of the forest in this way, in this opening, while also there's something, and maybe that's my narcissism, but there's also something around like, you know, the term thrown around, like the, doing the emotional labor, like how to be on the path and do that work and be open and oft times found that those that are more marginalized, those that are marginalized, see that perspective even more. And so, there is attending to that, that, that is like part of the definition of privilege, right? That we don't see all of that. So, there is something that feels tangled for me around like answering the call and feeling the impact. As I know that, you know, autoimmune disorders are on the rise, like that's like a stressor to our immune system. And so, I'm just, I don't know if there's an answer to that, but I'm just feeling wanting to name that tension and right here, like yeah, and all and.  

Ayo: Right. You, you reminded, you reminded me, Deanna, of a time when I was doing a chaplaincy residency. I can't remember what came up, but this actually came up a few times where someone would say to me, you really need to look at that. You really need to look at that. That would piss me off. I was like, I already looked at it, you know, but basically, they were right. What, what that means is there's emotional work that you need to do. Right? And so maybe we can become more skilled at inviting people to look at something when we, when we, in our wisdom, believe that they haven't looked deeply at it, but can we do it in a way that doesn't give rise to such defensiveness that it's counterproductive.  

Deanna: So being able to name, like you started naming these truths while also staying in connection, the mutuality.  

Ayo: Yeah. Like oh, that's really interesting. Yeah. That's really interesting. Let's look at that together or, oh, that, you know, I heard in that: fill in the blank, I bet you there's something beneath that. What do you think that is, right. To be excited and curious at the same time. 

Deanna: Right. Excited and curious at the same time, which I'm imagining can lead to that imagination beyond what I thought was possible. Like I can't do this. My body says, no, I can't do the emotional labor, but like, where could there be an in between I'm going to have to take that down. You really need to look at that. I want to say, I want to think of my own first. Right. To find these little ways that when in those moments we have something to go to, to feel held, like to, this has been such a, again, check where I am. I'm really appreciating our talk and our time together. [Ayo: Yeah, so am I.] I'm feeling the bigness of what we've been exploring and I'm wanting to, what feels opening for me in doing this is asking a question of, in all that we've spoken of, and yeah, this engagement and being in this net, where do you experience pure intentional deliberate joy in this practice? I wonder if we can close with that. 

Ayo: Oh, man. So, I'm going to be honest with you. Okay. And everyone else, you asked me that question. And the first thing that came up for me is the fact that my dog died on Friday. And Kimba was his name. And he was with us for 12 years, 12 of his. And when I think of pure joy, that's what came up for me. Now, I also live with human beings, not just beings that we call canine. Right? [Deanna: Yeah.] It's the simple things. Joni Mitchell is known, the singer songwriter Joni Mitchell is known for this lyric, you don't know what you've got ‘til it's gone. [Deanna: Yeah.] Yeah.  

So, in the early days of the COVID lockdown, I was angry. Two or three reasons for the anger. One had to do with the loss of lifestyle, which I thought was pretty simple. That is the joy of just being with friends over tea or coffee, sitting in a plaza somewhere, watching the people go by and just loving on each other. That's it. Stripped of that, for months. What brings me joy are having conversations like these, like the one we're having right now, because I feel encouraged, inspired. I know that we can connect with people we don't know. I know that we can build bridges. Yeah, I used to live in the San Francisco Bay area. So, to be in conversation with someone, Deanna at CIIS, it's like, right? That's juicy. It's an honor. And for us to not talk about being alone, for us to not let that be our reality. Right? We are here. We have our loves and our concerns. We have the ability to connect, to be witnesses, one another's pain and joys, to embrace the truth, to tell it, and to organize for the wellbeing of countless others. [Deanna: Yeah.] So, let's do that. Let's do it. 

Deanna: Yeah. I'm sorry for your loss. Kimba. 

Ayo: Thank you. Thank you.  

Deanna: And I'm holding the joy of these little things. This might even be the thread of the net, right? These little things that we really...this is a reminder to be so intentional that when we have them, that's presence too, to be there and to really soak it up because nothing is permanent. These things aren't permanent. [Ayo: Right.] Thank you for sharing time with me today.  

Ayo: Thank you.  

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Thank you for listening to the CIIS Public Programs Podcast. Our talks and conversations are presented live in San Francisco, California. We recognize that our university’s building in San Francisco occupies traditional, unceded Ramaytush Ohlone lands. If you are interested in learning more about native lands, languages, and territories, the website native-land.ca is a helpful resource for you to learn about and acknowledge the Indigenous land where you live. 
 
Podcast production is supervised by Kirstin Van Cleef at CIIS Public Programs. Audio production is supervised by Lyle Barrere at Desired Effect. The CIIS Public Programs team includes Izzy Angus, Kyle DeMedio, Alex Elliott, Emlyn Guiney, Patty Pforte, and Nikki Roda. If you liked what you heard, please subscribe wherever you find podcasts, visit our website ciis.edu, and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms. 
 
CIIS Public Programs commits to use our in-person and online platforms to uplift the stories and teachings of Black, Indigenous, and other people of color; those in the LGBTQIA+ community; and all those whose lives emerge from the intersections of multiple identities.  

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