Venerable Thubten Damcho is a Buddhist nun residing at Sravasti Abbey, one of the first Tibetan Buddhist training monasteries in the United States. Born and raised in Singapore, she graduated from Princeton University in 2006 and worked as a high school teacher and public policy analyst in the Singapore government before returning to the U.S. to take novice ordination in 2013. She tells her story in The Straits Times Singapore.
Venerable Damcho’s monastic life is rich and varied. She serves as assistant to Sravasti Abbeyโs founder, author and well-known Buddhist teacher Venerable Thubten Chodron. Her other responsibilities range from translating Chinese texts into English to removing weeds from the Abbey’s 300-acre property. Venerable Damcho has given Dharma talks in Spokane, Idaho, California, India, and Singapore. She was the Chinese-English interpreter at a full ordination program in Taiwan in 2019, and has studied Tibetan through Maitripa College and with other teachers since 2017.
Transcript
[00:00:00] Kai Xin:
Hi everyone, it’s me again. Welcome to the Handful of Leaves podcast where we bring you practical Buddhist wisdom for a happier life. I’m Kai Xin. I started a business at the age of 19.
[00:00:12] Cheryl:
Hi, I am Cheryl. I started my anxiety, which is my best achievement from the age of 15.
[00:00:19] Venerable Damcho:
Hi, I’m Thubten Damcho and I graduated from Princeton on a Public Service Commission scholarship.
[00:00:27] Kai Xin:
And today we are gonna talk about the overachiever mindset, hence the introduction. We are gonna share more of our overachievements in this episode and how to balance that with our Buddhist practice. Venerable, for listeners who haven’t heard of you or listened to the previous episode, which was fantastic on sex and the Buddhist, can you share with our listeners a little bit of your background?
[00:00:53] Venerable Damcho:
So I was born and raised in Singapore. I went overseas on scholarship and I was on track to have a very good career in civil service. But along the way I met the Buddha Dhamma and that really got me questioning my priorities in life. And eventually, I ordained here at Shravasti Abbey.
I live in Newport, Washington, in the U.S. We’re on the West Coast and I’ve lived here for 10 years now. I received my novice ordination in 2013, and then I received higher ordination in Taiwan in 2016. So it’s always a delight to reconnect with everyone in Singapore. So thank you for having me here again.
[00:01:26] Kai Xin:
Thank you for being back. On the topic on overachievers, I just wanna ask all of you, do you consider yourself an overachiever?
[00:01:35] Cheryl:
I think so. From young, I’ve always had that mindset that I need to be the best at what I do. When I went to school, I got a scholarship to Singapore. I’m from Malaysia. And when I went to Singapore, I had to go to the best school, the most elite school. I won’t name it, but it’s one of the top elite schools. When I went to uni, it had to be the best in some sort of field. When I start work, it had to be the best in some industry. When I have my anxiety, I need to have the worst critic, the most overachieving critic to beat myself up. So yes, overachieving in all different senses. What about you, Venerable Damcho?
[00:02:09] Venerable Damcho:
I love this question because I’ve never thought of myself as an overachiever because I’m always number two. I’m just never good enough. So how could I be a real overachiever? I think for me, underneath that need to achieve is a strong sense of I’m just never good enough.
The first time I ever heard someone call me an overachiever was Brother PJ. He was actually my next-door neighbor, and we reconnected after I came back from the U.S. and so did he, and he was just casually saying, “This is how overachievers behave”. I was like, that’s not me. What are you talking about? So it’s actually been a slow revelation of what these behaviors mean because to me it seemed very normal or I guess I was placed into student groups where everybody behaved that way, so it seemed very normal.
And then your whole idea of what is success or failure is so skewed. I remember for the mock PSLE in my class, I got 91, which is still A* and I felt very proud of myself because my math is very poor and the class average I think was 94. So, 91 was below average. So because of that, I don’t see myself as an overachiever. And some of that is a lack of self-cognizance, self-awareness, I think.
[00:03:22] Kai Xin:
It’s interesting you say that because I can relate. I am also not number one, but somehow people call me an overachiever, so I scratch my head just like, yeah I’m quite average, right? I mean, I didn’t go to elite school. I didn’t even finish or pursue any further studies or get a degree. My highest education is a diploma in Business Studies. I think it’s maybe the accolades or track record that I’m associated with, that people say, “Kai Xin, you’re so smart, you’ve achieved so many things”. But deep down inside, I’m just struggling. If I were to look back, I did exhibit overachieving behaviors and mindsets. I have to study really hard, get good grades and just keep being very restless in striving and striving. So, I literally can’t sit still. I have to go for electives, CCA, partake in competition, win some medals. I have all these things on my shelf and I still don’t feel really good about myself. There’s still this imposter syndrome that’s like, am I really good?
There’s just never an end to the chase until I met the Dhamma, which brings us to another part of this conversation. I think the whole mode of striving, if it’s kind of misdirected, it can be unhealthy and not very conducive to the practice. So I’m actually quite curious to know, Venerable, when you became a nun, do you see any of these tendencies change?
[00:04:47] Venerable Damcho:
Yeah, slowly over time. I think first of all to even recognize the tendency. I moved here 10 years ago. The first time I sat a long three-month winter retreat, I had some goals. What are you gonna do with yourself if you don’t have goals to achieve? We’re talking about realistic goals, so Stream Entry, right? I wrote it out. So I was like, okay, let’s be real. Stream Entry can be done. Name what those things are. I actually really had a thought, maybe by the end of three months I will be able to walk through a wall. Yes, that’s how deluded I was. I was like, it’s possible. You just have to put the effort in. That’s how it’s been your whole life.
We have the Nine Stages of Sustained Attention or something like Nine Stages to Cultivating Serenity. Sometimes in the Tibetan Thangka’s you see a person with an elephant and a monkey. And it’s all symbolic of the stages of moving towards Samฤdhi. Then you have to combine that with insight. The first time I read this, I was like, oh, there are these nine steps. Now with clear instructions, sometimes you find the object, sometimes you are able to stay on it longer and longer and then you lose it.
Throughout the retreat, I was constantly asking what stage am I at? Is this stage one? Is this stage two? After a certain part I was like, oh, I think it’s really hard to even get to stage three, which is more sustained attention on the breath or whatever object it is. And I just really started to push. I would sit extra long sessions. I was so disappointed somewhere in the middle of the retreat, realizing I’m not gonna get past stage three or you’re gonna be stuck here. Even stage three itself is amazing to accomplish. But then I didn’t see that as an affliction at the time. It’s just how I’ve lived my whole life. So at the end of retreat, I realized, this is how I approach everything, with a lot of, let’s just push and make it through.
So just that slow recognition and then to see that repeat in so many areas of my life here at the monastery. I think it’s just having that space where I start to recognize these things. So, the next year I thought, okay, we’re not gonna push a retreat. Then I found myself distracted and I created some huge projects outside of the retreat. I’m sitting five sessions a day and then I’m gonna go and translate this very complex thing in all my breaks. I’m not gonna achieve it in the retreats, I’m gonna achieve it somewhere else, again, and again and again.
Venerable Chodron was instrumental in helping to point out these habits to me. She’s my teacher and the Abbess of the monastery. These are some habits and they don’t serve me. I really have to rethink how I approach my life. So, yeah, it’s been a slow process.
[00:07:17] Cheryl:
Two things that are particularly interesting to me. One is that you didn’t realize the afflictions that you were in. I think that’s the problem that a lot of us have. We just don’t know that we are in pain or we don’t know that we are suffering, and then we just continue with the same lifestyle until one day, either you have a terrible breakdown or your body just stops functioning. Then you’re like, I’ve been living life in a horrible way. I have inflicted so much pain on myself. That’s where you start to look for a way out and think, maybe I should change a little bit.
The second thing that was very interesting to me was the idea of how very strong habitual tendencies, if you don’t work with it, it can always change the object. First, it’s the meditation. Second, it could be some other project that you’re interested in. I thought that was very interesting and very relatable as well because I also never really understood my anxiety. Like I never really understood what is it for, what is it trying to protect? And it was kind of a pain. I was like, it’s good, if I’m not anxious, if I’m not critical of myself, I would just be a sloth and my whole life will just crumble. I never really saw how painful it really was to myself.
Just reflecting on my meditation practice as well, I realize I bring that into the cushion, the overachieving tendencies. It manifests in terms of so much tension because you must control how the sit is like. I need to experience that calm, and the calm cannot just be short, it must be long. It must be vision and brightness and everything like that. I just wanted to point out.
[00:08:42] Kai Xin:
Totally. There was once during Wesak Day, there were so many things going on. I was volunteering then I committed to sitting overnight and that was the worst overnight sit that I’ve ever experienced because I keep opening my eyes. It is starting at 9:00 PM then it ends at 4:00 AM where we do the morning chanting. Every single 10-minute block is just excruciating. And I keep telling myself, I’ve a lot of things that I need to do tomorrow. Am I able to do it? Here I am, having inner critics. I’m supposed to be peaceful, I’m not feeling peaceful. Why is everyone sitting so still? How long is this gonna last? I was so in pain that at 3:00 AM or so, close to 4:00 AM, I really just gave up. I went back, I took a cab and I was in tears.
The funny thing was, my mom knew about my intention to sit overnight and she discouraged me from doing so. I had this sense of ego, right? Ah, I’m gonna go back. My mom is gonna find out that I didn’t sit through the night, and she’s gonna say, “See lah, I told you already, don’t push yourself so hard”. I can’t stand that. So, my plan was to be very quiet, open the gate, and before she wakes up in the morning, I would wake up first and then go to the Wesak Day to volunteer. But lo and behold, I forgot to bring my house keys. And I tell you, I felt so lousy about myself. I really felt like a failure. I have no choice but to ring the doorbell and gonna get all these nagging.
At that point in time, it was quite an aha moment for me. I’m like, Hey, I’m suffering, you know? The practice is supposed to lead me out of suffering, but here I am clinging on to this idea of, I have to commit to my intention. I have to feel peaceful. Everybody else can’t know what’s going on inside me.
I was just wondering, from a Buddhist perspective, what do you think is the root cause of all this desire to achieve and how do we know when it is bringing us pain? How do we know when the pain of striving, which is sometimes good, can actually lead us to the end of pain? There are two parts, right? Pain leading to more pain. Pain leading to less pain.
[00:10:41] Venerable Damcho:
That’s a really powerful story actually. Your recognition of all those things going on in your mind, especially the I’ve gotta look like I have it together. I think that’s a really good clue.
From a Buddhist perspective, all our afflictions arise on the basis of ignorance functioning in many ways, right? First of all, thinking, here’s this real person in this body who has this mind, a possessor of it who is the mind, and so there’s someone here that achieves things that all these external things relate to. Here’s my achievement, my trophy, my accolades, and they reflect on me. Even just seeing ourselves in that way, seeing the external world as objective things separate from me and my mind that I have to obtain to be successful, or control. I want certain things. How am I gonna get them? Control the external world, which is very different from just creating the cause and seeing things in terms of dependent arising. On the basis of that, we get fixated on trying to organize everything.
And I think with achievement or this kind of painful striving, what’s at work is what we call the eight worldly concerns. That’s one of the teachings in the graduated stages of the Path to Awakening that we study in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. It’s craving for material success or material wealth and aversion for poverty or lack of wealth. Attachment to sense pleasure and strong aversion to unpleasant sensory experiences. Especially with the achievement piece, it’s attachment to your good reputation and complete aversion to having a bad one, and then attachment to praise, wanting people to say nice things about you and aversion to blame. It could vary for each person, which is the main driver. So sometimes we’ve had discussion groups here, look at which one is the main driver in your daily life behavior.
For me personally, it’s very much about attachment to praise or blame, especially from people I consider very important.
[00:12:41] Kai Xin:
You mentioned the root cause of the painful striving, is ignorance. Just to help our listeners here, you mentioned the Eight Worldly Winds, right? So there are four pairs. Praise and blame. Pain and pleasure. Gain and loss. Fame and disrepute. And because it comes in pairs, that means either side, we would suffer. Then how do we find the balance?
[00:13:03] Venerable Damcho:
I would say we have to step out of that framework completely. That’s the problem with these kinds of dichotomous frameworks. You get stuck in this, it’s either this or that. For a start, recognizing their disadvantages. Is this way of thinking serving me or not? Does it bring about benefits? Does it benefit other people? Does it benefit myself? And really making examples from our own experience.
Especially with the eight worldly concerns, what’s helped me so much is coming back to my motivation for what I’m doing, and focusing on what’s happening internally. With overachievement, it’s what am I getting outside? What’s this external thing? Whether it’s sense pleasure or some material thing. But now I come back to, why am I engaging in this activity? What kind of internal benefit is it going to bring for myself or for others?
If I’m very, very clear about my motivation for doing something and that it’s a long-term motivation, it brings benefits now and in the future. It might be painful in the short term, but I know it’s going to be beneficial in the long term, then it’s worthwhile. Then no matter what happens, people criticize me or whatever, I can come back to, wait a second, the starting point is good, my motivation is clear. That’s helped me a lot. Just coming back to that, taking time to really get clear about my motivation.
I’m thinking of when I used to teach. I really wanna benefit these students. But along the way, could this also be about my job performance? Because I’m a school teacher and how they do at school reflects on my teaching skills and the bonus I’m gonna get. Is that creeping in? I want this to be about the students. How do I make sure I pull that back? If it’s really genuinely about the students, then I always have the energy to keep going. It doesn’t fall into, you have to perform, everyone, on this test by the end of the year. I don’t care what you’re going through. I’m not looking at you as human beings. I wanna see those grades, which is really awful.
[00:14:54] Cheryl:
It’s so important to routinely check with yourself and remind yourself, what’s your motivation, what’s your intention? When we do that as well, it can help us to fixate less on the outcome goal and start to take note of the little progress throughout the journey as well, which can help us to take a more relaxed attitude and a more open and exploratory approach to wherever we want to get to.
[00:15:19] Kai Xin:
That’s interesting, and it almost seems like the achievement is the result of our good intention and effort, versus how originally if it’s misplaced, it would be the desire to overachieve driving us. We might not necessarily get the result that we want and that’s where our whole world crumbles because it comes from external sources, which is beyond our control. We can’t even control our own minds, what more what other people think of us or how other people would like to recognize us or reward us, et cetera. I find that to be very, very powerful.
I also wonder, because sometimes people might have this saying, don’t try so hard. I literally had Dhamma brothers and sisters come up to me and say, Kai Xin, I think you’re trying very hard. Maybe you should let go a little bit. But then I’m thinking, is it really about not trying hard or is it about trying hard the right way? If I were to recollect, the Buddha did try very hard. He touched the earth and he’s like, may the earth be my witness until I attain enlightenment. And he literally had to fight his defilements in order to realize what he realized and have the compassion to teach us. So it’s not dualistic per se. Then again, how do we reconcile? Are there certain signposts that you would look out for beyond the inner intention? How do you know you’re trying too hard, not trying so hard?
[00:16:46] Venerable Damcho:
Yeah. But before that, to really look at what is this drive to overachieve before we get into the setting a good intention part. When we start to recognize some of these behaviors are perhaps perceived as excessive by other people. True or not true? What is my motivation behind this? Sometimes people come to tell us these things because they are our friends and they’re concerned.
When I first moved to the Abbey, people are like, you should take a break. I’m like, what are you talking about? Or you’re not getting enough sleep. I’m like, sleep is for the weak. I heard that as judgment. Like you said, you don’t like people to tell you, just relax. I’m like, leave me alone, I run my own life.
It took me a long time to even hear, okay, there’s some concern there. People are perceiving that I’m not balanced. You’re so fixated on the external achievement, you don’t see, oh, maybe I’m neglecting my relationships. Maybe that’s what my friends are saying. Or I’m losing my temper with them. The people who care about us are seeing something out of whack. Yeah. I will say that was the chief motivator in me, pausing and rethinking all these behaviors.
We had a community workshop here where we wrote feedback for each other. And mine was around, people are just concerned that you spend so much time working. This is taking you away from the community. I thought, wow. And that was the first time I actually started to listen to feedback and really look inside and see, yeah, what is driving that need to overachieve?
Because like you said, if the need is to feel better about ourselves, no external thing is gonna accomplish that. And that’s the painful setup, right? No matter how many trophies you have, I still feel lousy. Yeah. So if the striving is to heal some kind of internal sense of lack, make sure you’re not barking up the wrong tree. That’s right striving, right? It’s first of all, checking up on what is driving the striving, what are you actually trying to accomplish.
There was a young woman who came to the Abbey, who grew up with a lot of trauma. She was abused but externally presented as so incredibly successful, making tons of money in Silicon Valley and all that. And it was very interesting for me to watch her journey here. Letting go of the career was terrifying, right? She saw that the whole overachievement was like a shield. To protect her from a world that was abusing her, right? It’s like, if I have this career, if I have the money, if I’m independent, nobody can trap me. Nobody can bully me. This is my defense.
So, you know, I don’t come from a background of abuse, so it was interesting to see that’s one thing that can drive the overachieving. What is it for me? So for me, a lot of it was hoping to have love. Thinking having all these external things is going to bring love. And the moment I recognized that, it was like, oh, I don’t need it from outside. I can love myself.
So, yeah. I don’t know. Your thoughts? What’s driving that need to achieve?
[00:19:34] Cheryl:
I have so many thoughts on this. Is it true that it’s completely internal? Only we can give ourselves a reliable sense of happiness and love. Is it bad if we outsource it on external? What’s the balance? 50% external, 50% internal?
Because I was having a conversation with a friend who’s not Buddhist, I was like, you know, I’m camp internal. It’s all inside you. You can control that, you can generate it, you can train that right, purify your mind. And they were like, oh my God, you Buddhists are horrible. We need validation. We need people to love us and let us know we are worthy. That’s nice. That’s pleasant. That’s fun. So what is the balance that we should be ideally striving for in a healthy way?
[00:20:15] Venerable Damcho:
My goodness. I love our overachiever vocabulary. I just need to step back and say, is it right, is it wrong? Should I be doing this? What is the percentage? We need data.
[00:20:25] Kai Xin:
Oh yeah, that’s so true.
[00:20:28] Venerable Damcho:
This invisible world of standards that is shaping you that you don’t even know.
Yeah. It was a counselor who pointed that out to me. You might wanna look at some of the standards you have. And I looked at her like, what do you mean standards I hold, this is the way, the truth, the life. The world’s like this. I’m like this. You are like this.
Anyway. I think we come back to the principle of dependent arising, right? Multiple causes and conditions. In Buddhist practice, a lot of the emphasis is on what we can cultivate internally. But of course, yeah, you’re influenced by your peer groups, right? So sensibly, if your practice is not very strong, don’t hang out with people who are going to make you commit non-virtue, support you in committing non-virtue. It’s a balance of both, I would think.
Listening to advice from wise people. It’s who you trust to help you understand who you are. Do I trust the friends who are encouraging me to do things that are not beneficial or do I listen to my teacher, whom I trust is wise? If my teacher is disapproving, I will think carefully, not necessarily judge myself or feel poorly, but think, okay, something’s up here that I really need to look at.
[00:21:35] Kai Xin:
Yeah. It seems like there’s no black and white, like 50-50, 80-20. And it’s just about sitting with the uncertainty that maybe there is no right answer.
I think for my personal experience to answer Cheryl’s question is to also have the discernment to understand, okay, at this point in life, do I have the capacity to accept myself? And if I’m honest and truthful, I know, maybe I need to lean on somebody to offer me strength first before I can then offer strength within for myself. But to eventually realize that we can only rely on ourselves till the end, but we need somebody to walk the journey with us.
[00:22:15] Venerable Damcho:
From a Buddhist perspective, what can be shocking to your friend who’s non-Buddhist, is that refuge is the Dhamma. It’s not a human being. The refuge is in our realizations. It’s in the compassion and the wisdom that we’re realizing in our own mindstream, and it’s the compassion and wisdom that’s in someone else’s mindstream.
Like right now, what’s very big in our community is that a major teacher just passed away. Lama Zopa Rinpoche passed away suddenly, and people are shocked, or grieving. Venerable Chodron has been giving talk after talk about how the physical manifestation of your teacher passes away but what he has left with you is the teaching that you have every single day. That’s what this person was trying to impart to you. Same with the Buddha, right? He’s like, don’t cry or grieve. The Vinaya is your teacher. You’ll always have the Dhamma with you. The most important thing is to actualize it in your own mindstream. I think what I respect in my teacher is recognizing, they have certain ways of thinking that I want to emulate. They have behaviors that I think are really admirable, but I can cultivate them too. They do not rest in that person. They’re teaching me how to do it for myself and then I have to do that for other people.
[00:23:30] Cheryl:
It’s so beautiful.
We will go back to the question, what are the drivers for our overachieving tendencies? For me, it comes from a place of lack and unworthiness and it’s because growing up I was surrounded by relatives who basically did really well, and had full scholarships. And in terms of the family tree as well, my father was always the odd one out. And within my family, I was the smarter one compared to my sister. But at the same time, seeing all my relatives who were better, I always had that sense of lack. And I always had to prove that my family was not that weird. So I had to overachieve in that sense.
But because it comes from this place of lack, it is a very, very painful striving cause the whole insecurity, and uncertainty about myself, the doubt is always there as I tried to head towards a place of worthiness through external achievements.
[00:24:24] Kai Xin:
I think for me subconsciously, it’s about the proving part as well. I grew up never really wanting explicit external validation from people. In fact, I do feel quite lousy since young, because I’m a bench player in basketball. I feel like, okay, I have all these medals, but I don’t really contribute to them. So it’s a part of me that says, I need something that I can call my own that I have achieved for myself to prove to myself and also to other people that I can do it. I’m independent. I don’t need to rely on anybody. This is something that is mine, not shared.
And I think it comes very subconsciously. Also, the restless mind wants to just fill my mind with things so that I don’t really have to sit still and address the inner critic and the voice. So it’s about doing, doing, doing. And it comes off as overachieving, right?
But when I started learning the Dhamma, then really looking within, Hey, what’s the driving factor? I realized, okay, I don’t need to prove to anybody. But do I also have to prove to myself? What is it that I can really call my own?
So when I had a long retreat, one and a half months in Amaravati in the UK, I was kind of searching and also asking myself about the identity. So if I were to forgo the business, do I still call myself an entrepreneur? Because that was the identity that I was tied to for two, three years. It was very, very prominent. And I feel a sense of pride and people are like, how do you achieve so much?
Then having to let go of that thought was interesting because what do I call myself then? Who am I? Then, I realized it’s really the fundamental things about my virtue that are what I’m gonna take with me when I die. The memories of the good that I’ve done. It’s really not so much about the act of doing or the act of achieving anymore. So there’s a little bit of recalibration there. Again, outwardly it might seem like the same thing, but then inside, there is a shift in how I show up to day-to-day life and the driving force, which is much healthier.
I wouldn’t say that it’s always on point. Sometimes I still lose my way and I have to have friends to call me out to say, Hey, I think you’re working too hard. What’s your priority? What’s driving you then? I take a step back, recalibrate, and it’s a constant process.
[00:26:47] Venerable Damcho:
Yeah. I just remember Venerable Chodron telling us, balance is like walking. You’re just constantly shifting your weight. It’s not some kind of magic steady state and it will forever be the same. Impermanence, remember?
What you both shared reminded me of two teachings I received from Venerable. Earlier on, she told this story about how her brother is a doctor and so she also had this whole high-achieving life. She went to college early and she’s on track to be a school teacher and has a good husband and so forth.
And then she becomes a nun and her whole family’s like, what? So she met up with her brother and he was just like, what do you want to do with yourself in the next five years? Have you just lost all goals and direction in life? And she said to him, I want to be a kinder person.
I was just blown away by that answer. I just sat there with that for a long time, and there’s a part of me that’s like, that’s all? That’s all you wanna be? But Venerable Chodron, you’re like super successful in my mind. It’s like, no, she just wants to be a kinder person, and that’s what matter. So yeah, just convincing myself or coming to it on my own terms, right? Actually, what genuinely matters is our virtuous attitudes towards ourselves and other people.
[00:27:59] Kai Xin:
I’m wondering whether it’s realistic for us to have this balance of sorts, whatever we perceive of it. Cause there are so many external forces, especially from society, right? In the capitalistic and materialistic world, you must strive hard, to get an A. And then we have tiger moms and parents. Then our academic system kind of only rewards those who are at the end of the bell curve. How do we then live in this world where we have this balance and say, yeah, I’m content. It’s good enough. I don’t really have to strive so much. Is it really realistic?
[00:28:33] Venerable Damcho:
There are two things. One instruction Venerable Chodron gave me very early on drove me almost insane. Because we were talking about a high achiever, you want some specifics, right? Like 50% or whatever. She kept telling me, you have to find your own center. I was like, what kind of new age nonsense is that? What do you mean find my own center? Like where is it? Can you be more specific? So I thought about it for a long time now, what is this center?
Maybe if I retranslated her instruction, it’s how do we learn to evaluate ourselves? And that’s really hard. You are conditioned from a young age. Cheryl, you had a great example of how your family conditioning shapes so much of how you see yourself. My family is seen like this. I am this person in my family. This is how we relate. So based on all this storytelling from other people, you can decide whether you accept the story or not. As a responsible family member, I must prove that we are not weird.
Or Kai Xin, then you’ve made your own story. What is an entrepreneur and what does that mean in society? I didn’t follow the conventional route of getting a degree, but you know what? I know better than you college people and I’m succeeding. There’s that whole story based on what other people tell us, how we wanna accept it, and to know that we can undo that as we get older.
Maybe as a kid, there’s a lot less agency, right? You’re dependent on your parents for survival. You live in that house. It feels like life and death at that age. Then you get older, it’s like, I don’t have to follow everything my parents taught me. I can be an adult and look back and see what is useful, what is not, what’s true, what’s not.
I always think of those Chinese fighting serials. You are from the Pan family. Then the Lee family disgraced us, so I must now kill everybody who is Lee. That’s the purpose of my life. I spent my whole life training in sword fighting. Then I go and kill all the Lee’s. Then I write poems in Chinese, why did I do this? I don’t want my life to be like that.
[00:30:31] Cheryl:
Especially in Chinese New Year, right? Where everyone compares who does what?
[00:30:35] Venerable Damcho:
Yeah. But I don’t wanna spend my life living out my parents’ expectations. Thank you. That’s your idea of happiness, but that’s not mine. So that’s one piece. And then like you said, looking at what society expects. Is it true that getting good grades is the ticket to success? Maybe you challenge that strongly. What are you telling me about conventional education? Why do I have to believe this?
But I found that maybe the last piece I wanna add is just, if I’m driven by anger, when I need to prove myself, I need to fight you, fight your expectations, fight to show you who I really am, underneath that there’s a lot of anger and it’s exhausting. As opposed to being centered, I know who I am, a genuine sense of self-confidence, these are my values, these are my motivations and that’s what drives my life. I don’t need to prove myself to anyone. You can have your story about who you think I need to be and I don’t need to buy into it. I can give it back.
[00:31:31] Kai Xin:
There’s a tipping point also, right? Sometimes tip into the aspect of I’m more superior, I know what I want, I’m gonna challenge your assumption. Society doesn’t know what it’s doing. Then again, I know it’s overachiever to have signposts and frameworks, but how do we know that we have tipped over to the other side?
[00:31:50] Venerable Damcho:
So it’s learning your own internal signposts maybe. So that’s the internal achiever, maybe. That’s just learning to evaluate yourself. Only you know your own mind. I think that’s what our meditation practice helps us with. It’s just learning how every single affliction manifests in my own experience.
In Buddhism we have all these lists, right? Attachment, anger, and you spend time with that. So how do I know when I’m being driven by anger? Whether it’s physical, taking the time to see what kinds of thoughts are running in the mind and driving my behavior. And that’s how I find my internal signpost.
And so you’re right, the external behavior can be totally the same, but I’m, as you said, learning to calibrate internally. For me, some of the signs are that I’m actually happy doing what I’m doing. I don’t get burned out. I don’t get frustrated. There’s a lot of joy. And that’s when I know, okay, we’re going on a good path.
[00:32:43] Kai Xin:
So it’s less greed, less hatred, and delusion, the reduction of the three poisons, right?
[00:32:49] Venerable Damcho:
Yeah. Guess what? That actually frees up a lot of energy.
[00:32:52] Kai Xin:
It does, it does. Cheryl, do you have any thoughts on that?
[00:32:56] Cheryl:
I’m just thinking it’s very hard because at the start where you mentioned that we always see things as like my achievements, my accolades. So that sense of self is very strong. It’s also very easy to fall into the whole conceit of feeling superior, feeling inferior, and feeling neutral. It’s almost like a very strong, automatic narrative in your mind.
Can you speak a little bit more about that comparison in relation to overachieving?
[00:33:24] Venerable Damcho:
It’s such a painful state of mind. It’s so encouraged in society. I remember when I first decided to move to a monastery, one of my old friends from JC called me up and said, we need to talk. She was very concerned about my life choices and when we sat down for lunch, she was like, how can you live without competition? I mean, she was working for Lehman Brothers, and then Lehman Brothers collapsed. But she’s like, no, it’s cool, I’ll find another job for sure. She’s working 12, 16-hour days in a fancy apartment with no time to do anything except eat, sleep, and exercise and go to work. And she’s telling me that competition’s very important, that if I don’t have competition in my life, I will not improve myself.
I’m like, oh, okay. At least I could sit there and be like, I hear that you’re very concerned for me, but that’s just not what I feel is helpful in my life. But I think you’ve nailed it. Just even naming the thought, I’m better in whatever way. So you don’t actually have any realistic sense of how you are in relation to others. Yeah. That’s the definition of arrogance, thinking you’re better than someone who is actually better than you, thinking you’re better than someone who is not as good as you, thinking you’re better than someone who is equal to you.
When I looked at that, I was like, oh okay. It’s just that thought, I am better. It doesn’t matter externally what the actual situation is. And what’s helped me a lot is just looking at how that has damaged a lot of my personal relationships. It sounds like this is resonating, but it’s only something that became very clear to me when I moved to a monastery. Maybe cause in the monastery we’re all supposed to be equals on the path, just driving together and supporting each other. I can’t stand you because I think you are better or I should be better. Like, wow, this is how I relate to people my age. I don’t compete with the older nuns because they’re older, they’re seniors, and I have my own story about them. It’s like, oh, I’ve related all my friends like this. Oh, so painful. So just seeing that and really rethinking, how do I relate to people in a way that’s kind, that’s not based on measuring.
It just comes back to a sense of lack I think. You have something I don’t, I better have something you don’t.
[00:35:37] Cheryl:
I noticed that in a 10-day retreat in Thailand, my mind was having a lot of fun judging everybody. But the thing that I noticed was that it is a complete seesaw. So one day I will walk around, be like, oh, I’m sitting the straightest. I’m sitting there longest. I’m better than all of you. Then the next day when I’m feeling sleepy or when the mind is just not getting together, I’ll be like, I’m the worst here, I’m never getting enlightened. It’s really torture because when I’m down then all the critical thoughts and the anxiety, everyone must be looking at me knowing I thought that bad thought. But then when I’m feeling good, that whole narrative of, everyone should be looking at me, look at how I sit, look at how I walk. The aha moment really came in, I realized this up and down is really stupid. What am I doing? If I feel great and I hold onto it the next moment I’m gonna feel shitty. It was very helpful when I just realized that it’s so pointless to cling on either of that good or bad, because it’s gonna change anyway.
[00:36:32] Kai Xin:
I think it requires a lot of introspection to even see that. But most of us don’t get to even quiet our mind for just one minute and we don’t have the opportunity to see what exactly is insight. When I’m hearing both of you, it seemed to me that it’s not so much about not having standards because the Vinaya is a form of standard, right? We have certain guidelines to uphold in order to support us in our practice. So it’s not so much about forgoing the standards, but it’s about clinging to the standards. Then it becomes a fetter, where we cling to rites and rituals. We cling to a specific framework or how things should be done, or should not be done. Then when it causes us suffering, that’s when we have to let it go.
Similarly, it’s also not so much about not having competition at all, but perhaps it’s okay to have healthy comparisons. We rejoice in other people’s good effort, right? If friends share with me about their amazing meditation experience, I shouldn’t be like, how come I don’t have?
Cultivate sympathetic joy, Mudita, to say, wow, good for you and use them as a source of inspiration. So then that’s where healthy comparison comes into the picture rather than oh, I’m not good enough. You’re better, or I’m better. You’re not good enough. It’s very interesting because when we stop looking at things from a dualistic perspective, not clinging on to, it has to be this way or that way, then a lot of all this affliction would just fall away. Like there’s really nothing to cause us suffering anymore.
[00:37:57] Venerable Damcho:
Yeah. Like you said, rejoicing is a very powerful antidote to the competitive jealous mind. I think a lot of it’s just recognizing the affliction to begin with, what we’re describing. Yeah. I definitely got to see my inner critic very clean, clear at the first retreat I sat. Then years later, you read these texts that have these definitions of mental states, right? It’s like, oh, that’s arrogance. Duh. That is the different types of arrogance. Yeah. I think I’m better, but “I think I’m the worst” is also arrogance. It’s the flip side, right? Everybody’s so good. I’m so special. I’m worse than the worst everybody can attain. It just comes back to that. Anytime you’re thinking I’m special or I’m better, that’s you, arrogance. You’re not realistic. Go away. Doesn’t help.
[00:38:41] Kai Xin:
I’m worst of the worst reminds you of, you know, how we have a culture of who sleeps later at night because they’re working. It’s a form of ego and conceit, I suppose.
[00:38:52] Venerable Damcho:
No, it’s amazing. You can get arrogant about everything. We’re the Overachiever Club. You should have the podcast for the Underachiever Club. Who’s worse and who’s more gangster, who has served longer in jail or whatever. You can get arrogant about that too. That’s very nice.
[00:39:07] Kai Xin:
All right, we’ve covered a lot. Unfortunately, everything has to come to an end, but we hope this is just the beginning of our practice in terms of introspecting. Cheryl, any salient points that you took away from our chat?
[00:39:22] Cheryl:
Yeah, definitely. I think it’s really about going back into our drivers, our motivation and our intention. Especially when we are feeling kind of out of whack. That’s a clear signpost for you to just really check what’s going on. Am I moving away from the reason why I started?
[00:39:40] Kai Xin:
For me, what stood out most is about catching myself when I need certainty. It was an aha moment when you say, all these vocabularies that we are using, the frameworks, the percentage, and just learning to sit with, what if I don’t have the answer? How does that feel like? Yeah, I think that that’s my greatest takeaway. How about Venerable?
[00:40:02] Venerable Damcho:
Yeah. I love that you said this is just the beginning of our introspective journey, cause you touched on some really important things that really are at the heart of our suffering situation. Anytime our sense of self gets overly puffed up or we are holding onto some identity or story too tightly, that’s really causing us a lot of pain. And it’s very empowering to recognize that, oh, hang on, it’s actually just thinking about things in an unrealistic or inaccurate way, and I can take time to shift the way I think. And that’s what changes everything. It’s not about having to get something outside, or even go for some multimillion-dollar workshop. It’s really just how am I thinking about this and how do I slowly train myself to shift how I’m thinking about it?
Yeah. In the definition of joyous effort, I guess skillful striving might be another way to put it. It might be Venerable Chodron’s translation of Viriya, I’m not sure. But it has four aspects. There’s aspiration, right? So that comes from you already doing that inner work and reflecting, okay, what are the benefits of this? Why do I want to accomplish this? And then that very naturally drives your behavior. You don’t have to push, you don’t have to like must wake up at X time. It’s like, oh, I’ve thought about the benefits so it’s naturally going to arise and then keeping it stable over time. There’s joy in the mind.
But most important, the last piece there’s rest. I was so shocked when I received that teaching. It’s like, ah, part of joyous effort is rest? But that’s for lazy people. No, it’s knowing, this is my capacity and I need time to recuperate. I’m an ordinary being with body and mind. I want to keep going so I rest with good motivation and then I come back when I can. And that’s it. Yeah. It’s not that you become a slob. That’s two extremes. Either you’re the rabbit or the turtle.
That’s my sense of recognizing my limitations and I have aspirations and how to keep going and a steady, sustainable way.
[00:42:03] Kai Xin:
Thanks. Very beautiful way to wrap up. And I think it also ties back to how we started that it’s really gradual how we let go and shed all these habitual tendencies of over-striving or unskillful striving. So thank you once again, Venerable, for being on the show. And to all our listeners, if you like this episode, please do share it with a friend. Hit the five-star button on the review section and till the next episode, may you stay happy and wise.
Special thanks to our sponsors:
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Editor and transcriber of this episode: Tee Ke Hui, Cheryl Cheah, Koh Kai Xin
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About Our Guest
Anthea Ong served as a Nominated Member of Parliament from 2018โ2020 in the 13th Parliament of Singapore. As a self-described โfull-time human being, part-time everything elseโ, she is a mental health advocate, social entrepreneur and impact investor, life and leadership coach, strategy consultant, yoga and wellness instructor and author, amongst many other roles. She is never seen without headgear to match her multiple hats.
She divides her time, energy and love across many different communities and has founded or co-founded several initiatives in her main focus areas of migrant rights, mental health, environmentalism and social impact, including SG Mental Health Matters, WorkWell Leaders, A Good Space Co-operative, Hush TeaBar and Welcome In My Backyard. She also served and serves on several boards and committees in these fields, including Unifem (now UN Women), Society for WINGS, Daughters of Tomorrow, Social Service Institute, National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre and the Tripartite Oversight Committee for Workplace Safety & Health. Prior to devoting herself to civil society and social impact work full-time, she spent over 25 years in the corporate world as a C-suite leader. Her new mantra, as a former banker and reformed business leader, is โwhy start a business when you can start a movement, or two?โ
Hi, it’s me again, Kai Xin, joined by my cohost Cheryl, and today we have a very special guest, Anthea Ong. So welcome to the Handful Of Leaves podcast where we bring you practical Buddhist wisdom for a happier life.
So today we are gonna talk about a really special topic on vulnerabiliy, and we can’t think of anyone better than Anthea Ong because she has quite a huge track record. At first, she would introduce herself as a full-time human and part-time everything else, which is very humble. I think this entire conversation is gonna help us unveil what the human behind Anthea Ong is because her long track record involves nominated member of Parliament, social entrepreneur, impact investor.
She’s the founder and co-founder of many different companies. One of the really special one, it’s called Hush TeaBar, where she provides space and opportunity for people who are deaf in order to make a living. And a very special concept around how people who are deaf can help to lead silent tea appreciation and tasting. And they are also people who have lived through mental health issues. Perfect for today’s topic on vulnerability. So, Anthea, thank you so much for coming on this show.
[00:01:18] Anthea:
Thank you, Kai Xin.
[00:01:19] Kai Xin:
And being open to share. I think both Cheryl and myself, when we look at your track record, it’s like, you’re so successful. But before we hit record, you were sharing a little bit about the challenges that you’ve been through. I think you can share more with our listeners. It’s so important for us to talk about vulnerability and to also destigmatize it, especially in the Asian context. So really looking forward to this conversation.
[00:01:44] Anthea:
Thank you for having me. I’m looking forward to this chat. Let’s just see how it flows.
Amazing. So just to kick things off. Vulnerability is a very big word. Everyone will have different interpretations and different definitions of it. Can you share with us what does the word vulnerability mean to you and how has it evolved?
[00:02:02] Anthea:
I think what comes up for me immediately would be that vulnerability actually means love. Love is not romantic love only. It’s love that comes from within yourself. Therefore, you’re willing to be vulnerable to the other because clearly there is a piece of yourself that you’re putting forward.
Usually, it’s when there is love that you are willing to do that. You’re also willing to do that when the other person has in some way demonstrated or earned even trust, and therefore there’s love there for you to feel safe enough. Kai Xin started this conversation talking about a topic needs to be destigmatized and it’s true.
We think of vulnerability as a lot of things, but one that we clearly associate vulnerability with is pain and suffering. I think it’s true that if you don’t have vulnerability or you don’t wanna show vulnerability, either we are avoiding or not talking about pain or not wanting to bring ourselves forward with the pain we have. But I’m pretty sure that that would mean we’ll also get a lot less love.
And so for me, vulnerability, I think it’s very intertwined with the concept of love. I wanna emphasize again and repeat myself that when I talk about love here, I’m talking about love in the broadest concept. It could be compassion, it is kindness, it is empathy. It is not just romantic love or the kind of love that we feel for family members. I think Sigmund Freud was the one who said something like, we are never so vulnerable as when we love.
I think vulnerability also calls up the emotion and the experience of relief for me. If you are a leader, then vulnerability has in some ways been so associated with weakness. And on the positive side it means that if you’re not vulnerable, you’re strong, you’re resilient, you’re stoic, you have it all together.
And the reason why I say relief is that when I went through my colossal collapse of a broken heart, a broken marriage, a broken business, a broken bank account 17 years ago now along with a lot of pain and suffering, because I was vulnerable, a lot of people come forward to show love for me.
I have to also say that I felt a deep sense of relief that now I don’t have to be seen as this person that is never going to be in a challenging situation or has all the answers. So, I think two big words, love and relief, based on my own experience.
Thanks so much for sharing, and I think it’s almost as though vulnerability is the ability to love yourself enough to let love come to you. When you were sharing on that sense of relief that you were experiencing as you allow people to come shower love and you don’t have to feel so alone. I was thinking probably the opposite of vulnerability is a sense of shame. And that’s why when you’re feeling that shame. You’re holding everything in, and then you’re burying yourself under all of that. And the moment when you’re able to let that go and just show the world. I’m imperfect! That’s it! Then, you get that sense of relief.
It’s relief. It’s liberating. It’s freeing. But most of all, it was very human. I think for the first time in the long time, because of the way my life trajectory was going up to that point of my colossal collapse, it would be seen as almost picture-perfect. It followed a very conventional trajectory of what success looked like. But of course, through that seemingly successful trajectory that was such a Midas touch at every point of my life, there were lots and lots of vulnerabilities. Just that I’d never showed them, because I never felt faith, I never felt like I should because I had a completely different notion of what being human was about. Along the way you held imposter syndrome, particularly as a woman leader in the 90’s. You also held shame when you did not do something well. But all of these are just kind of swept under the carpet and that make you then put on a veneer.
Because there is a public identity that we have to uphold and that really doesn’t allow us to be human. We go around living life feeling rather unsafe, almost as if we are constantly towing because we don’t wanna be vulnerable. We keep towing all the time. It can’t be good for anyone’s mental wellbeing or mental health, but to your point about the opposite of vulnerability, it’s likely shame.
I think absolutely. And actually one of the world’s most well-known vulnerability experts who would also call herself the shame expert is Brenรฉ Brown. When I went into the deep dark place 17 years ago, what actually propelled me on this really dangerous very scary downward slippery slope into that deep, deep, dark place was shame.
I actually hid it from family in terms of what was going on with my marriage and all of that for a good year. And that whole year was when things just progressively went down the slippery slope. And I think it’s because of shame that I could not allow myself to be vulnerable, to share, even to my nearest and dearest.
Well, we’re kind of living in a society where blaming and shaming, the cancel culture and all of that. It’s really making it so unsafe to be vulnerable. But yet, if are not vulnerable, then how can we ever really build real connections? How can we truly be human and to truly love and receive love? Therefore, how can we be well? Mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
I think the biggest irony that everyone, or at least we humans face, is that our deepest desire is almost to be seen, to connect deeply with another person. But at the same time, we are so afraid to be vulnerable, to do the exact thing that gives us that sense of wellbeing and connection.
[00:09:10] Anthea:
You just said about this paradox, right? We are biologically, emotionally built to wanna connect. But yet in the way we live, especially when we lived intellectually. And allowing ourselves also to just go along in a sort of autopilot mode without that sense of awareness of who we are, what’s around us. We then hold back our vulnerability and our humanness and therefore that actually doesn’t let us connect. And so we are constantly in this tension all the time. And you can understand why there is suffering. There will be suffering until we actually find a way to see this paradox.
That’s so beautiful. And the word that came out is authentic. Like what Cheryl has mentioned, we don’t necessarily have to feel the pressure to be perfect all the time. We don’t have to figure out everything in life. And sometimes that’s okay. We are all work in progress.
I do have this thought about the balance. Because I think a lot of people might associate vulnerability to sharing your fears, your deepest, darkest anxiety, the thoughts, et cetera. But how much is too much and what is considered a safe context and space in order to share that?
The reason why I ask is also because I have my own fair share of going through all these difficult emotions and sometimes it’s quite tempting to indulge in them, which is not healthy. So maybe you can share some experience in terms of how you draw the line.
[00:10:56] Anthea:
It is a great question. But I would say that in terms of my own experience, being vulnerable is not without boundaries, that’s not being vulnerable. That’s just being foolish. In fact, I’ve just had an experience with a teammate who was going through a challenging time and because there was no boundaries and self-restraint – it can become self-centered because you’re downloading on someone else, all of what you’re feeling. This is too much for the other person. Especially when the other person in this case is actually going through so much as well himself. And yet because he was kind and he wanted to be a listening ear, he then lets this completely unrestrained, unfiltered download to happen. And when I heard about it and I had to step in.
I shared very gently that when we are being vulnerable, we also have to be kind and being kind is not just saying, “Hey, I wanna be self-compassionate, and therefore I’m gonna just not stop myself from sharing what I’m going through, just let myself indulge, embrace these emotions.”
But what are you doing with those emotions? Saying you’re being vulnerable, embracing these emotions, but you are actually just projecting and transferring all of that to another person. And so outwardly it might seem like, “Oh, this person is being very vulnerable and sharing all that he’s going through. But if you look at the content of the sharing there’s actually a lot of shadows, projection of his own challenges that he’s not able to deal with.” And that’s giving him a lot of suffering, that he’s then transferring to this other person and actually even making this other person feel terrible about himself, in addition to having to be there to hold the space for the first person.
So I don’t think it’s vulnerability if there’s no boundaries. I don’t think it is vulnerability if you are not continuing to be kind to others and the people around you. I also don’t think it’s very kind to yourself if your vulnerability means you’re just beating yourself up in your own self narrative. I don’t think that’s vulnerability. I think that’s why, for me, vulnerability has to come from a place of love. Otherwise, it’s actually emotional vomiting as well.
You are complaining, you’re whining, you are also self-victimizing. You are getting yourself into a victimized mode to allow yourself to not be confronting what you really need to confront with yourself too. It’s not to say that you can’t feel bad about what you’re going through, but I think it is, “Are you ready (for change)?” Because I think vulnerability is the greatest measure of change. Brene Brown said this about vulnerability as the truest gauge of courage. And so it’s the greatest measure of courage and change.
Being vulnerable is such an opportunity to come so close to yourself and I speak from my experience. If I was not broken into a million pieces 17 years ago, I don’t think I would have confronted and given myself the biggest act of kindness of actually connecting with myself. My truest self and my true nature. The million pieces I thought was me broken became a million pieces, a million seeds of love that I could now spread.
That’s powerful. It almost feels like what you’re saying is to allow your emotions to come up to face them, but it’s also not to indulge them. I mean, in Buddhism we have the 4 Noble Truths, right? So it doesn’t just stop at, okay, there’s suffering and then keep saying, life is terrible, it’s unfair, et cetera.
But what is beyond that?
And I think the first step, of course, it’s not to push away just because the feelings are unpleasant, but to allow yourself to say, Hey, this is difficult, it’s a little bit shitty, et cetera. But also having boundaries.
[00:15:43] Anthea:
You have to see what is. You’ve gotta feel what it is. And that’s suddenly a big part of the Buddhist practice as well. What is the point of awareness? If you don’t go to the next step of knowing why this exists, right?
It’s for you to then put in the effort to move yourself along the path and actually in doing so, you are able to then see what the pain was for. It wasn’t for us to indulge and self victimize. That was not the purpose of the pain.
The pain was for you to see, this is always gonna be part of what life is. I mean, we cannot learn about life and this human experience if we don’t feel life. But then when you feel what life is, what do you do about it? I think this is the part of becoming a better human. And I believe this is also a part of the Dhamma.
Definitely. It’s like a purposeful use of pain or like vulnerability with purpose. Otherwise, it can just spiral into complaining. Actually, I was thinking also about personality. So for me, I’m quite the opposite instead of sharing everything in the open to say, Hey, you know, these are some of the fears, these are what’s bothering me. Because there need to be boundaries, right? So at the back of my head, I would think that I should be kind and compassionate to my friends. They are already dealing with a lot of their own struggles, so I shouldn’t burden them with my own challenges and problems.
So I would suck it in and try to solve them myself, but that’s also not very possible because I need to lean on somebody when my capacity is limited. Do you have advice as to how people of my personality or character can be vulnerable with purpose.
[00:17:39] Anthea:
My goddaughter, she’s 27 and a beautiful, beautiful human being. And that’s exactly what she said. She was sharing a little bit of the challenges she was going through and how she was feeling. And then she said, it’s fine. Compared to so many people, I’m in a so much better position and situation and I certainly don’t wanna download and make them feel even more challenged because I have to share my issues with them.
So this is what I would say: I’ve got so many resources. I’m actually in a very privileged position. So there shouldn’t really be a need for me to either transfer, download, or share this with people around me when they are seemingly in a more challenging set of circumstances.
But, suffering for the person who’s experiencing it is absolute. It’s not relative. It’s only relative when we bring in all of this social conditioning and intellectual abstraction of it all. Then we start to have a comparison and relativity to it. To say that I don’t think I should be sharing because I don’t wanna burden them, especially if they’re also going through challenges themselves. But then we all know that everyone has a story.
Everyone is struggling. First and foremost for me, the suffering of the person experiencing it is absolute to the person and anyone who’s going through suffering deserves compassion, including from ourselves.
And secondly, I don’t think we are allowing ourselves to explore the richness and the depth of our relationships with people around us if we hold back our troubles from them because then they only know you at a certain level. They’ll never know all of you. And even if it comes from a place of kindness or your personality type where you try to keep this to yourself and try to work things through on your own, the other way to reframe it and to look at it is, Hey, do these people mean enough for me to want them to know more of who I am, the layers, the texture, the richness of who I am, which comes from my own experiences. We do think that they mean enough to us that we want to let them in so they know all of us in all our richness as a human.
The other question to ask would also be, Have I given them opportunities to show and demonstrate their love for me? Because if I’m constantly being okay. And this is what was said to me, Kai Xin, when I was going through the colossal collapse, a couple of my friends actually came out to me to say, Oh, now I can finally come forward and say, Hey, this is where I can support you. This is how I can help you.
Because you were always able to solve every problem of yours and on top of everyone else’s problems as well. So there’s just no way in to you so that I feel I have contributed, to having supported you, to being part of your life. In a most authentic, vulnerable, very beautiful, very human way.
So I think that would be the two parts to look at it actually. I hope that was helpful. But that was what happened with me.
Side trivia, I remember there was someone without meaning to, after I shared my story of what happened she said something like, “But Anthea, of course, you’re gonna always be able to come out of it. I’m sure it was painful, but I’m sure you’re gonna come out of it. I mean, look at you, you were a CEO before the collapse. Your family’s very supportive and all of that.”
I had to turn around gently said to her. I thank you for having such an amazing impression of me, (even though she didn’t truly know me, but just cause of my CV maybe), I said, but can I just share with you that I didn’t feel that way? I actually did not think I was gonna come out of it. Because the suffering at that point in time for me was excruciating and was absolute.
“But I must say it was because I was willing to allow myself to be human. That’s one part. Because of that coming out and reaching out for help. That actually allowed me to start to climb out of that deep, dark hole.”
Initially, I felt a bit affronted. What do you mean? I shouldn’t be allowed to feel terrible because of my background?
[00:22:51] Kai Xin:
Or you have to quicken the process and come out faster.
[00:22:56] Anthea:
But your pain cannot be so… because I mean, look at you. What you were before? I think we sometimes forget that. We think that just because you are CEO, you don’t have a dysfunctional family, then whatever life gets at you, you can just sort of shield it off. That’s not what the human experience is.
[00:23:17] Kai Xin:
Even spiritual practitioners. You meditate, you can do it. You feel bad, but I thought you meditate.
[00:23:25] Anthea:
Exactly! Oh, it has happened to me when I do some posting and I talk about, feeling a bit spent, very challenged by this and all of that. And people would be also wondering, well if you do this, you meditate so much, every day for the last 16, 17 years, and you still can’t feel at ease. Then the rest of us have no chance.
And I would always turn around and say that, imagine where I would be if I haven’t meditated. It’s not as if I’m meditating to get some sort of results from it. Not at all, right? I mean, that’s not what it is. Every time I meditate, it’s that moment’s experience rather than think I’m meditating so that I will, I will not (achieve something.) It’s not a means to an end, it’s an end in itself for me. But when I was asked that question, I then said, imagine what could have happened to me. The same thing with, oh, you’re vegan. How come you can get sick? Imagine if I wasn’t taking care of health. So I think, some of these are just very normal because of the social conditioning and certain intellectual ideas we have.
I just love the discussion that we were all having just now. It’s like peeling the layers of the onion. At first, we come with, okay, vulnerability is this, vulnerability is that. Now I realize vulnerability is so many things.
Just to summarize, firstly, it’s about understanding that vulnerability is inclusion as well as exclusion. You’re setting the boundaries in terms of what to share, what to not share, and who to share with as well.
And then secondly, vulnerability is not throwing the responsibility to others, but you owning it. But at the same time also allowing yourself to feel the shit that you’re feeling. And the last thing is that, vulnerability as we often forget, could also be a gift to other people, to love us and to let us lean on them as well.
Just to move the conversation forward as well, I’m just curious, how can we help people to feel comfortable in sharing their vulnerable side?
I think it’s a great question and actually this is a big part of the work that I also do with Hush Tea Bar, but also with Workwell Leaders. How do you create that space? To help people feel comfortable in sharing their vulnerable side, there has to be a safe space. And what do I mean? I mean, a lot of people talk about safe spaces. Actually, the most important descriptor of a safe space is trust.
So first it has to be earned. So that space is not automatic. It has to be earned. And it doesn’t mean that it’s only with friends you have known for a very long time. And when I say earn, I mean that if we truly wanna hold a space of trust for another to share, then I think it’s really important for us to not expect them to be vulnerable with us if we are ourselves not vulnerable.
So I feel like to create and to earn that trust, it’s so important for us to disarm ourselves first. So that another person, as you talked about Cheryl, how do we help people feel more comfortable? How do we go to all the communities, all the spaces we are in, all the relationships we have. What do we do to help people around us feel comfortable to share their vulnerability. It’s not about what we can give to them, but it’s how do you show up? Do you show up armed? Because if you show up armed emotionally, then it’s very difficult. You have not earned the trust of the other to be vulnerable.
And this is especially important for leaders, which is the work at Workwell Leaders. It is to bring together CEO’s of largest employers in Singapore together to look at how do we become more human-centered leaders. And to do that, especially when it comes to championing mental wellbeing at the workplace. You have to walk the talk first as a leader, you cannot just say, Hey, just talk, tell me what’s going on. If you have not created a space of safety and trust because you haven’t even put yourself forward yet. You haven’t given a piece of yourself in this space yet. The moment a leader can be vulnerable, to say that, Hey you know, I just went through a really difficult challenge, I needed help, and all of that, even just something like that would already change the energy and the kind of narrative within the workplace or the team.
I don’t have to feel ashamed that I’m feeling so down because my grandma just passed on, right? Because my C.E.O. Just talked about how he lost his loved one, and he’s also struggled. I think that’s really important. I mean, Gandhi said this, right? We have to be the change we want to see in the world. We can’t just go and tell people, Hey, be vulnerable, tell me. But it’s not gonna work. What are you bringing to the space? And so I think this is really important. We have to earn their trust so they can be vulnerable. That goes to the same thing, right?
Don’t just share with everyone. There’s also a need to say, is this a safe space for me to be vulnerable too? And we often say that it’s not vulnerability if you don’t have boundaries. Those boundaries very often is along the values of trust and respect. And empathy and compassion. And if you feel that, then I think you are more likely to feel comfortable with being vulnerable to your question.
But also at the same time, I feel that it can be quite challenging to be vulnerable in the corporate setting because you don’t know what this information that you are divulging might be perceived.
[00:29:53] Anthea:
And the reason I initiated Workwell Leaders back in May, 2018 is that it then has to come from the top right, unless you have a cultural shift. Unless it’s a workplace culture that from the very top is encouraging this kind of conversations to be had. And because it’s actually directly gonna be affecting business outcomes and business performance. It’s directly gonna affect the employee’s mental health.
If we don’t have this kind of conversations, we don’t have this kind of culture that we built that’s inclusive, that is creating psychological safety, at some point, entire world economy is gonna hit the ground. Even with the whole AI thing, we’re not gonna be able to survive because the culture has become so toxic that you are just constantly just dealing with all of this. I don’t wanna say what I wanna say. Therefore, there’s no creativity or innovation and no new ideas.
You feel like if you say this, you don’t get promoted. Then that’s silly because then you might leave and then the company is actually losing good talent. So all around it’s just not a very smart thing to do, that we continue to sweep these conversations under the carpet or saying that in the corporate world, this is really not the place. But it’s not easy for employees to just say, Hey, I wanna talk about this. It needs to come the top to say that this is the safe place and then it has to be demonstrated. They must walk the talk. It must go all the way down to team managers to say that, Hey, you must intentionally create spaces for this kind of conversations. Make sure you talk with your team members and ask, how are they doing? Hey, I understand you just lost a family member. How are you doing? Is there anything I can support with? So, it’s very hard from the ground up to change the culture.
When you don’t have the power, of course you’re always gonna not risk it. At the same time, I must say though, Cheryl, that it’s important to also bring the awareness into your workplace, right? And so the practice of mindfulness is helpful to let you know that, I am aware that this person I can share with, this team manager I can share with, right?
So there’s also the need to be looking at context, people and not just say, oh, as long as it’s the workplace, I’m not sharing anything, it’s also not gonna be helpful because then you are not also living intentionally. It needs to be a cultural change. It’s also why with Hush Tea Bar, when we bring the experience into workplaces, cause we are a mobile tea bar.
The idea is that then we will create that space amongst all of the colleagues, including their bosses and their managers, come together to go through a silent experience, get them to learn how to sign emotions. To acknowledge emotions have a place. And emotions include negative emotions that we get them to sign, and then they have to go back and sign with each other. And then they go through the silent experience, and then they actually share. Going back to what Kai Xin said, then there’s the authentic conversations that you have as humans and not just as colleagues. After such a profound experience. The workplace is always gonna be a bit more challenging for sure.
[00:33:40] Cheryl:
And thanks for giving us hope that as long as we still look for the people who we can feel safe, we still can embody that side of vulnerability. And I think little seeds, that we plant can hopefully create a ripple of change.
[00:33:56] Anthea:
Yes, absolutely. Also, rest in the hope that there’s a lot of effort to try to make this change happen at workplaces from the top. Workwell Leaders is not the only one, but because we are targeting the CEO’s at the very, very top. But there are also many efforts trying to look into how HR policies can change how team management practices should embrace diversity and inclusion and stuff like that. And you are right Cheryl, it’s just different seeds that we plant with what we have, where we can. Never lose hope.
Perhaps, beyond just getting the leaders to set the tone, employees also have control in terms of asking their bosses how they are and making the effort to see their bosses beyond just performance and how they show up at work. One specific incident, which touched me very much. One of my colleague, usually we do quarterly reviews and I would ask what else can I do to support you in both your personal life as well as at work?
And then we went off the conversation. And then, the colleague asked. Boss, you always ask how you can support us, but how can we support you? I mean, even as I’m saying this right now. I feel so teary-eyed. Finally, people actually do see the human side and they care.
It’s kind of linking back to how we started a conversation about being vulnerable, sharing openly with love. I think it goes both ways. So if the employee can also disarm themselves a little bit, but of course with boundaries and lean in with curiosity, then the connection can happen.
[00:35:41] Anthea:
That is so beautifully said. I’ve had those experiences too. Many a time. And I join you in being teary-eyed when this happens. But it also speaks volume of how often we also think of our leaders and our bosses as superhumans. But actually they’re just humans, like all of us. And especially through COVID everyone goes to them, right? The workers go to them, they ask them how to deal with all of these challenges. The suppliers, the clients. And so in fact, studies are showing that there’s a significant level of burnout at the leaders’ level.
If we are always anchoring ourselves in love and compassion, then it’s never about how change should be made for me, but I should be part of that change as well. And if all of us think about it that way, then there’s no reason we shouldn’t show up with compassion for people who traditionally, we think they will always be fine. I mean, like the story I said about earlier, right? I think all we’re saying is, bring our humanness to every relationship, every space that we are in, because at work it’s actually a collective of humans coming together, right?
So that shouldn’t be any different to any community that we’re in. And if we can change the way we see workplaces where most of us spend most of our waking hours, it’s gonna have such a direct impact on who we are in our family and community lives as well.
[00:37:27] Cheryl:
That’s so beautiful. Thanks for sharing, Kai Xin. And thanks Anthea, for chiming in. Really helped me change my perspective as well. Because I guess I always feel intimidated if they’re the Senior Director or Senior VP or whoever, and I forget to see their humanness behind their titles, and their roles and all that.
Cool. So we’ve chatted a lot, I wish we could go on, but if we were to wrap up this episode and chat, I have a question for you because you have two books actually. One is “50 Shades of Love”, and another one.
[00:38:06] Anthea:
It’s “The Nominated Member of Parliament Scheme: Are Unelected Voices Still Necessary in Parliament?”
[00:38:15] Kai Xin:
And if you were to write a new book, hypothetically, on vulnerability, what would the title of the book be?
[00:38:24] Anthea:
It’s a good question. I sort of feel though Kai Xin and Cheryl, that “50 Shades of Love”, it’s so much about my vulnerability because I shared so much of when I was the most challenged in so many of the shades, the chapters. This is a great question. So if you’ll indulge me, I think one would be “Lost and Found”.
I was certainly in some way lost in the social conditioning of that trajectory I talked about. But also I was suddenly very lost when I was dealing with the collapse in the first instance. I felt lost because, who am I now if I’m not a C.E.O., I’m not a wife. And interestingly, my vulnerabilities across the decades of my life, especially the last colossal collapse has allowed me to find my “why”. Who I’m not and who I am or what I am? It’s not about the public identity anymore, but just allowing me to go back to, that I am a human being above everything else. So that’s one that just came up. I have always been very taken. I don’t know whether you both know about the Japanese art of Kintsugi.
[00:39:49] Cheryl:
Kintsugi.
[00:39:51] Anthea:
And I actually have a cup behind, which is a Hush tea cup that was broken, and then it’s patched obviously with the golden thread, and the golden paint. That image has always been one that I associated a lot of what I went through. And now I feel like my heart is definitely scarred. But now it’s enriched because of the scarring, which is vulnerability with so much more light and awareness and love.
I don’t know what I would call it. Maybe “My Kintsugi Journey” or something, “My Kintsugi Life”. The last one I’d like to bring up, because I know your project, it’s called a Handful of Leaves. What just came up to me is, we talked about vulnerability as being so important in that connection that we long for as human beings. So maybe it could be saying that I’m giving a hand of connection, I talked about my vulnerabilities.
And that I think can only come in the truest way and the most authentic way if we are actually able to sort of feel safe, included, belong enough to want to share our vulnerabilities and then therefore get the connections that come with it.
[00:41:15] Kai Xin:
Beautiful way to wrap up the episode. So we have three book titles in the making. Yes. And thank you so much Anthea for this chat. I’ve learnt so much from you. So I think at the end of the day, it’s really about being true to oneself, having love, and it goes both ways. And to all our listeners, hopefully you can take this all in and learn to be a little bit stronger by showing your vulnerability. Until we meet again the next episode, may you stay happy and wise. Thank you so much, Anthea.
Hush TeaBar – HUSH started in 2014 as a volunteer-run groundup initiative before becoming a social enterprise in 2016 where we have mostly given employment and empowerment opportunities to Deaf persons and Hearing persons in recovery from mental health conditions.
Special thanks to our sponsors:
Buddhist Youth Network, Lim Soon Kiat, Alvin Chan, Tan Key Seng, Soh Hwee Hoon, Geraldine Tay, Venerable You Guang, Wilson Ng, Diga, Joyce, Tan Jia Yee, Joanne, Suรฑรฑa, Shuo Mei, Arif, Bernice, Wee Teck, Andrew Yam, Kan Rong Hui, Wei Li Quek, Shirley Shen, Ezra, Joanne Chan, Hsien Li Siaw, Gillian Ang
Editor and transcriber of this episode: Tee Ke Hui, Cheryl Cheah, Koh Kai Xin
Mr. Ng Yi-Xian oversees the operations of the EtonHouse International Education Group which runs schools from infant care to high school in 11 countries across 120 campuses. As a second-generation entrepreneur and son of founder Ng Gim Choo, he is driven to take the group to the next level โ he has been instrumental in the creation of new brands such as the Middleton International School, a revolutionary niche of affordable international schools in Singapore and The Eton Academy, that provides inquiry-led academic enrichment programmes from Nursery to Primary 6.
Prior to joining EtonHouse, Mr. Ng worked in a Hedge Fund in the United States. In his free time, he enjoys the outdoors, adventure sports, and pursuing mindfulness as he leads the culture of mindfulness and well-being in the organisation. A father of twin boys and a girl, Yi-Xian is experiencing the joys and challenges of parenthood while he also oversees the education and well-being of more than 20,000 students in the EtonHouse schools.
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[00:00:00] Kai Xin:
Hi there. Welcome to another episode of the Handful of Leaves podcast where we bring you practical Buddhist wisdom for a happier life. Today we have the CEO of EtonHouse, Ng Yi-Xian, and my cohost, Cheryl. We are gonna ask a lot of questions regarding how mindfulness can influence leadership behavior. And if you haven’t heard of EtonHouse, it is an international institution with 120 schools worldwide headquarted in Singapore and specifically their aim is to provide high quality international education for K-12 students. As of today, there are about 20,000 children globally, it’s a very, very big portfolio that you’re handling and we are curious about how you manage that and how mindfulness kicks in. So perhaps you can share a little bit more about how long you’ve been practicing mindfulness and what’s your relationship with it and how does it affect your leadership style?
[00:00:59] Yi-xian:
Thanks, Kai Xin, and hi, Cheryl. So I discovered meditation about eight or nine years ago, right when I stepped into the portfolio of EtonHouse, prior to this I was an investment banking analyst and a hedge fund analyst. I stumbled into a meditation center in Boston, my roommates asked me to go. I meditated for the first time there. And I remember asking the most bizarre questions to the facilitator. I think I asked him, when I meditate, do I go to enlightenment, or like why do people do this? I was probably 27 or 26 years old then, and I probably walked out even with more questions than I did have answers. When I came back to Singapore about eight years, nine years ago, I stumbled upon meditation because a friend sent me a YouTube link.
It was a mantra-based meditation, and I did it and I found myself in Samฤdhi. So I’m blessed to be able to fall into very deep states naturally. I would confess to say that when I first started without proper instructions, I would fall into deeper states easier than I did with proper instructions. So I experienced a world where there was a void. Honestly, it was an altered state. First time I meditated and I experienced this feeling. I kind of realized like, oh, that’s why everyone’s talking about this whole mindfulness thing. Then when I discovered that that was the exception and not the norm, and I myself began to discover what so-called normal meditation is, I realized that, oh gee, how do I get more of what I used to have this deeper state?
So, I ended up discovering craving and suffering for better meditation through meditation. That led me to a multi -year adventure with discovering more about meditation and I say religion. So I started, I started on a whim and it also helped me deal with the day-to-day struggles of leading an organisation.
Being CEO is quite a tough job. In fact, a good friend of mine, a mutual friend of ours actually discovered what I did for, he kinda looked at me and said, well, you have a really tough job. And I remember I had a good laugh at that and he said you know, a CEO’s job is to handle the poop that no one else wants to deal with. In a healthy, so-called healthy organisation where people make decisions below you, only the real poop comes to the top. If you get good news or easy decision, that means that people didn’t bother to make the right decision below you. And I would say that as a young man taking over an education group with so many students and feeling very awkward because I wasn’t the founder myself.
And 100 of these schools are preschools. I think I definitely felt all kinds of feelings from imposter syndrome to “I don’t really know what I’m doing here.” And I would definitely say that mindfulness and having meditation practice really helped get to grips with my reality and how to actually look at it very impartially as an observer and really helped me grow.
[00:04:05] Kai Xin:
Yeah, I think it’s a really big shoe for you to fill right? Because your mother is quite a legend. I’ve read her profile, mad respect for how a single woman can build up this entire, I would say, almost an empire of sorts and benefit so many kids. So I am quite curious, was there a particular instance where you felt like, “wow, this is the most challenging period of my career in EtonHouse?”
How has your mindfulness practice kicked in to help you with that?
[00:04:31] Yi-xian:
So, well, my mother is quite literally The Woman of The Year in 2022. The joke was that when she was given the award, my father made a quip cause there’s a Young Woman of The Year and there’s the Woman of The Year. So my father said, “Well there’s a young woman of the year. You must be the good woman of the year. And my mother, to her credit, actually said, “You know, I’m 70 years old. I waited 70 years for this honour. so if I’m the old woman of the year, so be it, which I thought was really cool. So yes, my mom’s a pretty cool lady.
And I, for better or for worse very soon after I joined the organization. I was pretty much left with Singapore schools and we weren’t doing very well cause we had overexpanded at that point. So I walked into a situation where I thought that I could take several years to learn the ropes, to understand what we do.
I previously worked in an investment bank, a hedge fund, which is an institution and the other is a bunch of people trying to make sense of the world on their laptops. I think I really expected what you would call a training period, I guess onboarding and I didn’t really get that.
And I was thrown to the fire and in a way that was very difficult for me cause I had never fired anyone before. I had made tough decisions that impact not just one person’s life but many people’s lives. The responsibilities I had after the Army and before coming to Etonhouse really revolved around spreadsheets, numbers and concepts not real people.
So it was very daunting to me. And I would say that what helped me is you know, I mean now that I have children, I understand the concept of the red zone. So when you are, you’re in that red zone, your anger really flares up and you, you say things that you wish you never said. And I think I mean I personally can say that probably the worst things I’ve said in my life have been in that zone.
Luckily I don’t go to that place very often. I probably have gone to that place less than a couple of times. I would say that I, I’d have to thank mindfulness and my meditation practice for this. The vast majority of our team members are women. So big emotions are a commonplace in schools, and also commonplace with our team.
And as a male leader, I think yes, I had to figure that out very quickly and, and now I’ve got to a point where it’s the norm. Recently I hosted a session where people were trying to understand what’s it like to lead an education organization, and they kept saying, “What’s it like to work with so many women?”
I said, I don’t know. Haven’t worked in the world. unlike this for a long time.
[00:07:17] Kai Xin:
And just now you mentioned when you first started out meditation, it’s like, oh, you know, is it for enlightenment, what it is? So if now you were to look back at that time again, how would you have answered your own question?
[00:07:30] Yi-xian:
Well, I think like most experiences in life, it’s really what you make out of it.
And like anything else, I would say that experientially meditation has so much to offer. I like the analogy where oftentimes our minds are muddy water that’s in a glass that’s shaken. And over time the mud and the dirt kind of settles down, and then we begin to actually see your clear mind.
I think that’s a pretty accurate description. I will say that that’s just the beginning and you can experience infinite space. I’ve heard of people who have experienced the infinite consciousness. I have not. But I would say that it’s, it’s a very fascinating experience.
I personally felt intense emotions of love towards the entire world and towards all beings. It was very brief and very fleeting. And I got into an argument with my sister right after that and it went poof, it disappeared. But I, I have felt all these sensations with great intensity.
I think on some layer we’re all searching for the answers to the mysteries of life, and I feel like meditation kind helps speak just a little bit about what’s behind that cover. So it’s something that I wish I had more time to do. I now have three young children under age of three, it is not advisable for your health or career to do this.
Sad to say, you know, on a good day I only do about 15 minutes in the morning. Once in a while I can squeeze in a longer block of half an hour here and there. But yes, yes it’s a lifetime adventure for me, and I do hope that with my dying breath I do hope to be in a state of meditation when I go.
[00:09:16] Kai Xin:
I hope so. For you too.
[00:09:17] Yi-xian:
Well, unfortunately, yeah. I also have a passion for extreme sports. So, a year ago I found myself in a cave. I’m a cave diver and I was exiting the cave and Long story short, I felt an intense sensation of pain and I, and it grew to a point that was so extreme that I actually thought that I, might die of some kinda gas poisoning cause it picked up so quickly and I can confess to you that I was not anywhere near the meditative state and what I felt was eventually a ‘poof’ and then something in my ear coughed out some blood underwater and then realized like, “Oh, I’m ok!” Well, no lasting damage. I think just a blood vessel somewhere that wasn’t working right. But yes, I, I, thanks to my extreme sports, I have come close and this wasn’t even that close. And I think I know how hard it’s to say actually to really endeavor to to be in a clear, a clear mind when you go.
[00:10:11] Cheryl:
Yeah. I think that’s why a consistent practice is so important, because at that moment where you revert back to autopilot. All the habital tendencies of fear, anxiety can just overwhelm your mind. And if that is the last mindstate that you have, it could be quite an unfortunate cause that could also lead to your next rebirth.
[00:10:29] Yi-xian:
Well I just think it’s a very bad way to go. When I was traveling around the world, I had a misfortune to actually be a first responder to a fatal car accident. There was a man that I was giving First Aid to that passed away, right front me.
And I think when, when you see life disappear like this, I, I think it’s, it’s something which you know, if it’s so hard to meditate on a good day or a bad day, And most of us don’t meditate when we’re sick. You can only imagine what it feels like on probably the last moment in our life, so lifelong practice maybe a fraction of us succeed. But it’s ok, you can try again the next round.
[00:11:11] Cheryl:
The journey continues. Also you mentioned sometimes you try to cut out, 15 minutes or 30 minutes in your day. I guess it’s extremely difficult with three kids under the age of three and 20,000 other children under your care. How are you being intentional with it? Do you set it as a daily routine?
[00:11:27] Yi-xian:
Yeah, so for me I wake up and it’s probably one of the first things I do.
I have my cushion in my study next to my bed. And I go to my cushion and it’s quite funny when your children barge open the door and then they kinda like swandive into your lap, but I feel like it’s important to make a routine. As much as you love something like this, it’s just so difficult to keep things up if you don’t make it a process that you follow every day. And I’m lucky that I fell into it this way.
I think another practice that I tried to do, I did it before I had children, is to go to annual meditation retreat. And you know, the, the Tibetans and Theravadans do this a very different way. So you compare the Vipassana style retreat where there’s noble silence and then compare it to a Tibetan style retreat where everyone’s talking all time.
And you know, I guess you can just choose your own fancy, whatever works for you. But I do feel like a good friend of mine gave me this advice very early on. He said, put this on your calendar one year in advance and so you have no way of getting out of it, and so you can just block them. When the time comes, you just go.
And I give this advice to people very often and I personally try to do it. But when you have young children, you have to seek clearance from multiple parties in order to go. So yes, I just returned from one and it’s probably my second one since I’ve become a father. And I’m very thankful to my wife for actually giving me the time to do it.
[00:12:59] Kai Xin:
Sadhu, I’m very curious, how do you convince multiple stakeholders to let you go on the retreat?
[00:13:08] Yi-xian:
Well, the story of how I went to my very first one was because of burnout., So I had set up two schools back to back in Singapore. The last school I did without power and water in 55 days, and it’s a large school with more than a thousand students.
And it really took a lot outta me. And after it was done, I couldn’t feel joy. So I had parents coming up to me thanking me for setting up the school. And it, it is probably one of the schools I’ve set up that I know have really made a big impact on society. And to me, I just couldn’t take in any more joy.
I was just out. So a good friend of mine, he had sent me this link to this, retreat in the US and said, “Hey, by the way, there’s this guy doing this retreat next week, you can consider it. And I booked it, flew off, did it, came back, and then when I met up with this friend after that, I said, “Hey, remember that thing you shared?
Yeah. I actually went for it. He said, really? I hadn’t expected you to.
So I fell into this cadence that way. With regards to stakeholders, I think the first time you do it, the people around you have this whole myriad of, of emotions, right? I think some of them think that like your boss is weird. Some of them think boss is running away. I’m sure alot of them think thank God, boss is not in my face.
When I came back from my first one. So I actually got to a place where I could hear my heartbeat at every moment, which was fascinating. I haven’t been able to hear that ever since. And to my team members I seemed Very out of it in a way, in reality, I had discovered what it feels like to experience everyday mindfulness. So they actually said, I felt lost and different, because I came back so different from what I was used to, and as time goes by, you revert back to your usual self. It is the way of the world.
The second one I went to was on a concentration meditation. One of the insights I had from it was the realization that it’s my life’s purpose to run Etonhouse, to run this international education group, and that’s why I’m in this world. So that realization came to me, and like all good realizations it’s, it’s very tiny part cognitive and it’s a much larger proportion knowing with your whole being.
And so when I came back, actually I had a lot of thoughts and ideas and the team came back very surprised. Cause, you know, the first time boss comes back very Zonked out, and second time the boss comes back fired up and actually a few came up to ask what exactly were you doing over there?
They’ve come to realize that it’s an important part of me and the first time I went, everyone felt I needed a vacation.
The second time I went, they realized that it was almost like it was gonna be good for the business. I think that’s the way how my boss, my mother, looked at it. Maybe. I think for my team members, they realized that it was my way to get greater clarity on what we were doing.
[00:16:17] Kai Xin:
Hmm. So they saw your transformation and they felt like it’s not so much of an obstacle for the business, but you going and coming back actually brings great benefit.
[00:16:28] Yi-xian:
Well, I can’t speak for what they say, but I mean, I do believe that, you know, it’s important for us to rest and recharge. We’re not machines and you know, this is important and relevant and it’s important for at least once a year we go for a longer break. How long is relative to everyone and it’s something I do encourage in my team, for my direct team members.
So yes, actually they do do that.
But I think what different about this is that you go alone and I haven’t actually spoken to them about being in noble silence. Cause one particular team member she’s incredibly talkative , and I’ve often joked to her. I mean, I thought to myself like, yeah, maybe you should go a meditation retreat cause you experienced the opposite.
So sometimes people ask me about this and I tell them that, you know, who are you when you strip everything away, where you can’t even express anything verbally. And who is this person left behind? And I get very weird looks when I, I say that to people, but I think for those of us that have retreats, I think we all understand.
[00:17:36] Cheryl:
That’s two very, very powerful questions. Who are you when you strip everything away? And who is this person left behind? And do you think you are close to finding the answer for those two questions?
[00:17:47] Yi-xian:
Well, I think in another world I would probably be a very happy monastic, but I also feel like I’ll be a very impatient monastic. I think there’s a side of me that does wanna get stuff done and sometimes I’ve heard before, that the greatest suffering is actually in the walls of a monastery, so far yet so close. But to me, yes, I, I think I’m generally a very happy person. After passing the first four days.
[00:18:16] Cheryl:
Your mind takes that time to settle down..
[00:18:21] Yi-xian:
Yeah.
[00:18:21] Kai Xin:
For me, I think day one is the most peaceful, cuz like, oh, finally I got a break. And then the last day is usually the most frustrating for me. Cuz like, it’s a form of escape, right? So I think it’s so important to be able to integrate that to the day-to-day life. And I wonder how do you do that?
Cause you run a school, a lot of people are under you. I think it’s good that you have the 15 minute a day practice. How else do you integrate mindfulness into your, your work or the way you lead?
[00:18:49] Yi-xian:
Well, I don’t do this. I mean when I first met Chade-Meng Tan, he introduced the concept of the one minute meditation.
And I really wish I could tell you that A, I did this in my team very often, and b, that I do this very often myself. But both of these are lies, I don’t do that very often. I have that you can say grounding exercises that are secular at work and in these small groups that I’m part of. And I think personally, I believe that I have very secular beliefs in terms of religion and I think even today I would, I’m not entirely sure if I would call myself Buddhist.
And also there are very many forms of Buddhist, so I can’t actually pinpoint if I am Buddhist what exactly I am. But when it comes down to what I would call secular practices, I mean just breathing exercises, body scans, and you can say, call it positive psychology or whatever you want, just telling yourself that you’re safe, that you have everything that you need and that you’re loved. I think all these things are secular. So I do do these things in public settings.
In my own wedding actually. I led a loving kindness meditation it was my wife’s idea. Yeah, it was pretty cool. And I think I wish I did it more and I’ve actually been told that I should, and I do feel like there’s this side of me that I don’t want to intrude on other people’s religious beliefs or as a bit of like an imposter syndrome of like, who are you doing these things?
But yes, I, I do know that I should do this more. And that when a leader does this, it shows to everyone that, look, I care about your wellbeing and that we want everyone to be space. So it’s something which I think is important for me to role model. And I’m doing more and more of every year, but I do still feel very important.
And perhaps it’s because. What I do for a living influences directly the lives of young children, that it might have a very strong impact to them their whole lives. I think the secular part of this is still very strong in me.
I’ve been called a hypocrite about this because people have said like, look if Christian schools have chapel, and if you consider yourself Buddhist then why do you feel awkward doing this?
And I think for me maybe it’s because I know I’m not Christian and I went to Methodist College and I really didn’t like being a chapel and I couldn’t get outta it. So perhaps that’s why I feel very strongly about their respecting peoples boundaries.
[00:21:22] Kai Xin:
How do you integrate that to your work culture too, because I mean, people usually also would associate mindfulness meditation with religion and I think some is like, oh, you know, is, is this the back door or to Buddhism? And do you face any resistance when you’re trying to, you know, ground people through all this practices at work?
[00:21:44] Yi-xian:
Oh, sorry Cheryl.
[00:21:45] Cheryl:
Oh, sorry. Just to add on, I think specifically also, cause I think you partner with Contentment Foundation to offer mindfulness, like formal programs. And with that context also, are there any resistance there?
[00:21:59] Yi-xian:
Yeah, actually both your questions implementing something like this in the organisation.
There are many mindfulness programs out there for schools, most of which are completely secular, which was important to me. And when I was exploring the implementation of this in schools, I began to actually realize what some people’s boundaries are.
I would say that well for most people when they experience the practices themselves, and I always invite people like, look, if you feel that intrudes upon your boundaries, stop. You can stand up, you can walk away. I wouldn’t take offense at all. And it’s your decision, but I always preface this very clearly. I give them a bit of a mini briefing about what I’m going to do, and my practices aren’t very long. The maximum I would do at work is five minutes. And maybe I have a very sensitive hearing. You know, when people aren’t really involved, when you start hearing very long sighs. I, try to read the room while leading it.
I’ve had people come up to me saying they’re not comfortable and I say, look, it’s okay, you can step out.
And for this particular person, what happened is, she spoke to her pastor and she did a lot of research online and the answer that came back with her was, I’m OK with a guided meditation to do with my body or to do with instructions that would make me feel happier and better.
I’m not okay with sitting down and having a blank space because, it’s my relationship with God, and I don’t want you to be part of that. And I really appreciated her actually telling me that this is her boundary and I respected that. So yeah, we were able to cross that hurdle.
And for our schools, for the Contentment Foundation, it’s very clearly secular.
Mindfulness is just the first pillar of four. Community is the second one. The third one is I believe self-actualization and the fourth one is very, it gets increasingly complex and I’ve always appreciated that cause Yes, mindfulness is a very internal journey, but there’s obviously a part to do with interpersonal relations, especially loving kindness.
I think the challenge is really living this and implementing this. There are plenty of people who meditate a lot of hours in a day, but then, you know, they might not be very nice people to be around, and then I would say it’s a failure, and so I think it’s important for us to be able to do the practices, but also be able to have a healthy culture within the organization.
I don’t do the Contentment Foundations program in every school. I do it for schools which I believe are open to this in Singapore, I believe four schools doing it right now. And it’s something that I hope to progressively roll out.
[00:24:50] Kai Xin:
Yeah, that’s very skillful because I think personally, I feel like breath, you know, everyone has it, it’s secular, and Buddhism is not really a religion also, but that’s my perception. So it’s very skillful for you to open the conversation with people to step out and say, “Hey, I don’t feel very comfortable with this. Can we switch it to something else?”
And also going back to the intent: why do we want to bring such activities or practices in the school is really to benefit people. So if they feel uncomfortable, then perhaps it’s further away from a calm mind, they’ll get more agitated, maybe don’t feel so good at work also, and it can backfire.
So thanks. Thanks for sharing that piece. I’m wondering if you don’t have this mindfulness practice, who do you think you will be today?
[00:25:43] Yi-xian:
I think anyone who’s been in a senior position and anyone who’s worked in a family business has thought about leaving. In family business, we have a joke about hotel California: you can check in but you can’t check out. and I, I don’t know if I would be doing what I’m doing now, and I think that might have taken me away from my life. So who knows? We just don’t know that it’s one of those unknown unknowns. I do think that I probably would’ve a more challenging relationship with my wife and I do think that I’m quite hard on myself to begin with and I think I might have be even harder on myself.
[00:26:26] Kai Xin:
Yeah. And I think people can be hard on you also. And it’s good that you do the loving-kindness thing. I think the, the wedding idea, it’s fantastic. Yeah. I would like to ask this question to Cheryl also, cuz Cheryl also guides meditation at work in different contexts. Who will you be, Cheryl if you don’t have mindfulness?
[00:26:51] Cheryl:
It’s a very interesting question, I think, cause I started meditation and mindfulness on the wrong foot actually. It started from a place of insecurity. So I was bullied and then it was kind of, I didn’t, I feel like I didn’t have any worth. Because being bullied. Yeah, isolated. Isolated, you’re different from everyone else.
So meditation, mindfulness was kind of an identity that I took on to protect myself. You know, I’m cool. I have something, this is my shield. So for many years I struggled with that until maybe like one, two years ago I realised that it was a form of escapism. And meditation is really not about that.
It’s about embracing the discomfort, embracing the unglam parts of yourself. And I think without mindfulness, I will probably be stuck in a very dark place uh not being able to become friends with myself, so just forever at loggerheads with my inner critic. But with mindfulness now, I think, I can put the inner critic aside and say, “Hey, thanks, thanks for your concern, but you know, you’re not exactly helping me out right now, so let’s change the narrative a little bit.”
So I wouldn’t want to imagine my life without mindfulness. I think it’s kind of part of my DNA now but not, not in the unhealthy way of it being a mask protection, but rather just a, I guess, a soft landing when life gets tough. So hope that answers the question
[00:28:21] Kai Xin:
Yeah, I loved it and I, I can relate to both because I am very hard on myself.
And also I think to some extent in the past without meditation, I’m just so busy and occupied with life and I thought that I’m living life purposefully, but I was just running away from my own thoughts. And when I finally was able to sit down, like, wow, you know, it’s so amplified, it’s so loud. I didn’t know I had all this maybe insecurities these worries and it really took a while for me to be courageous enough to look inwards and now even though outwardly I might be doing the same thing, but it comes from a very different place. And it is also my wish that I can die peacefully with the calm mind. Recently, I had a health scare and I thought I was gonna die.
And then it was quite interesting because that’s where the push comes to shove, and I know, okay, my mindfulness practice is not as good as I thought it is because I still had a fear and anxiety. And also like the how fleeting life is because I went to AnE and then I was asking the doctor how’s my organs?
And the moment the doctor said that, oh, your, your kidney is fine. Wow. I just went back to autopilot mode and started planning my week, my month, when’s my next appointment to rescheduling. And then when I look back in hindsight, it’s quite funny because the mind plays trick and there’s a lot of unconditioning that we have to do.
So yeah, mindfulness practice I think it’s definitely essential. It’s not really a good to have, but a must-have. And I’ve learned that if it is, like we see it as an essential part of life, we would find time to meditate.
[00:29:58] Yi-xian:
Actually, I, I like to build up on that cause
I began to explore this element. I experienced this myself where there’s a criticism, especially in some schools of Tibetan Buddhism that like generic mindfulness makes people more compliant. And in a way I kind of understand what they mean because I went to a particular workshop, I don’t how to describe this workshop.
It was effectively systems theory in actions. And certain very provoking things occurred in the workshop where Yeah, so basically you could say that people were triggering each other’s poop that was triggering everyone’s poop. And they’re like, yeah, there’s a lot of poop. And my boundaries weren’t very strong then.
But I almost feel like, in a way, cause of my mindfulness practice, I was able to let a lot in and to let a lot sit with me. And I began to realise that actually, boundaries are incredibly important. And maybe it’s because of what I do, or maybe it’s because of the way I’m choosing to live my life, but I’m not a monastic who can care about every and all degrees of suffering all around me all the time. And with equal attention. And that sometimes I realise that, ‘look, this is your poop within you, it is not my poop’. And I think that’s actually, and that, you know, I know who I am and I am not that. And I, I think there was actually quite an important realization of me. So you could argue that maybe when you meditate a lot, and especially when you mix around the crowd of people who tend to meditate a lot, there’s a lot of love for everyone around you. I mean, no pressure for like, you know, love for all sentient beings, but then on the other side it’s just not really that possible. And you have to realize that if this is this person’s suffering, that person’s suffering shouldn’t become your suffering.
I mean, obviously we want the help, but it doesn’t mean that this burden is compounded on me.
So it was a realization that I’ve had and I feel like there’s something that it wasn’t easy for me to realize. It was actually my wife who pointed that out to me. Like, what’s wrong with you? because I went to this 5 day course I got a migraine for four days.
[00:32:17] Kai Xin:
Wow. It sounds really intense.
[00:32:19] Yi-xian:
Yeah, it was really intense. But I think I have that course to thank for me to actually realize that, and yeah, just trying to process all of that.
[00:32:28] Kai Xin:
It’s interesting you call it poop, I guess because of your line of work, you can’t swear, so you tone it down.
Cause we have other podcast guests, they curse on our podcast.
[00:32:38] Yi-xian:
Yeah. I guess there’s pg and there’s G.
[00:32:43] Kai Xin:
It’s interesting you say Buddhists are compliant, so are you suggesting that we comply for the sake of complying and sometimes don’t set boundaries? And that’s where we might get our internal emotions stirred up or not very beneficial. So that’s where mindfulness comes in to know, okay, when is the line to be drawn? Just so I interpret your sharing correctly.
[00:33:05] Yi-xian:
Actually, I wasn’t applying this to Buddhists as a whole. When you’re taught generic mindfulness you’re almost taught to deal with and sit with discomfort and to sit with all these thoughts that come and go.
And to just, to sit through it. I mean, power hour is power hour, right? And I think a lot of us realize that that yeah, you know, all these things pass. Yeah. I think it’s something that we all realise and that’s great, but it shouldn’t actually build up, what I can call it stupid grit. You know, grit is good, but the same time, Yeah.
Yeah. Wisdom is very important. That’s why we do all this to achieve it.
Yeah. So don’t lose yourself while doing it.
[00:33:53] Cheryl:
And I guess that’s why mindfulness is always complemented with wisdom and loving-kindness. And loving kindness always starts with ourselves, making sure that we are full, we’re feeling good, feeling safe as well, and our boundaries are not overstepped, before we can then take on other people’s poop and, and help to reduce that.
But if we are not taking care of ourselves, it’s almost impossible to do that.
[00:34:14] Kai Xin:
Yeah, that’s so true. And I think to some extent you packing a bag and flying for a retreat is also setting boundaries, right? There’s a threshold and maximum amount of capacity that you can intake all these things that’s happening and sometimes, you know, hitting the reset button is good and you come back stronger.
I feel this is particularly important as an advice to Buddhist practitioners. Cause in the past especially, I would feel so lousy. You know, shouldn’t I be more tolerant? You know, shouldn’t I be kinder? Why am I angry? And then I take it upon myself, which is also not very good because that’s also moving further away from lessening greed, hatred and delusion.
So thanks for that.
[00:34:54] Cheryl:
I have a super curious question, and this comes from my reflection, talking with a lot of Buddhist friends who meditate and experience sometimes profound deep states that is very unusual and you cannot find this kinda pleasure in the world. So as you meditate, do you feel that sometimes you would have a disconnect with the world in general where you find yourself like one feet into the spiritual realm and one fit in the material world and you find at any point the divide is getting a little bit bigger, if you get my question.
[00:35:27] Yi-xian:
Yeah. Actually, I get your question. And I think anyone who’s experienced states like this, the answer is obviously yes. I think the framework and I understand what I’ve experienced is I guess they call it the Jhanas.
The analogy I give people is You can use depth, ocean depth as an analogy here. So I guess the conventional mainstream Theravada as an institution, Theravada Buddhism would describe the Jhanas as like maybe 1000 meter version. I’ve, I’ve probably experienced maybe the 300-meter or the 500-meter version of that, and I’ve also experienced the 5-meter version of that.
I personally think it’s relative, and I think definitely when you experience the deeper depth I’m talking about, yes for sure It’s something that it’s totally unlike reality. It is a new reality or I dunno, really what to call it. And I think for me when I exit these states the real world actually feels, I hear a difference.
My emotions are different and it’s actually very strange because I almost feel like a robot for a little bit of time because emotions just hit very differently. And cause you’re so at peace and everything is like, oh, okay, it’s like this and you can deal with it like this. And I think you can rub people off the wrong way cause they assume that you’re angry cause you have no emotion in your body. And for me, I can’t sleep. I can’t sleep for hours after this. And, it’s very unfortunate whenever I encounter this in way, cause like I tend to do it at night and then like, then just ruins my sleep cycle.
Unfortunately, you can’t really watch this away, so you try to work like a good Singaporean and I was incredibly productive, and then I’ll play computer games and I’ll get all highest scores possible. So I play first-person shooter and then then this like challenge move and I’ll get this high score that I’ll never achieve in a non-Jhana state.
And so you know, when you discover this other sense of processing reality, there’s also this learning that you have to go, you have to learn that look, it’s not the real world. And from what I understand I think the first time I got there, I actually thought to myself, oh, this is what enlightenment feels like all the time.
But from what I understand, they don’t feel that way either. Like their sense of reality is not what I’ve experienced. So I’m sorry this is a great mystery. I still have, but I do feel like that yes, this is another box of suffering to open up and to explore.
[00:38:18] Kai Xin:
Cheryl is deep in thought. How many meters is your thought?
[00:38:26] Cheryl:
Do you feel like it’s something that you need to reconcile with? Because like Buddha, just ran off in the middle of the night to go and explore after seeing old age, sickness and death, he couldn’t unsee that. And, you know, he, he decided that, okay, I need to go off and find the answers.
But obviously we can’t just do that. Or I guess, you know, general people wouldn’t just throw everything away, especially in your case, family, business, three kids, your wife and, and all this stuff. So is it something where you just kinda accept that this is the state where, you know, it’s, it’s struggle, it’s where I would just have to be, stay in it for a while and then answers would just pop out on its own?
Or are you doing anything actively?
[00:39:13] Yi-xian:
Actually, for me, I feel like I found my answer. This life my purpose is to run this school group to make the biggest impact possible. It’s very clear for me. And once it landed, I knew it. So my path is not enlightenment, this life or, and, you know, maybe never, maybe never life.
So I, I know that this is what I’m here to do and whatever practices that I know that are important to me in, and in a certain way I accept.
[00:39:47] Kai Xin:
I guess you can plan the seeds of enlightenment in whatever you do. That’s actually very beautiful and I think it also nicely wraps up the episode. We’ve covered quite a lot. I think when you first started, you also mentioned that you have this thing in you that, hey, you know, Etonhouse you wanna make the greatest impact.
You’ve talked about how it’s actually not so rosy, you know, like, oh yeah, mindfulness is putting work. Then what? Suddenly you become a saint, but it’s a journey. Sometimes you don’t react and respond so well, and that’s also okay. And however you try to integrate a routine in your day-to-day.
I think that’s very helpful and being able to identify boundaries. I think that theme came out quite a lot, be it whether it is kind of introducing mindfulness practice to other people, you know, what their boundaries are and our own personal boundaries when it comes to our capacity to help, to tolerate poop and to tolerate our own poop as well.
Yeah. I would like to ask if there’s anything else that you’d like to share before we officially end the episode. And Cheryl, as well.
[00:40:14] Yi-xian:
No, I was just laughing to myself. Cause you know, when I share that philosophy that I know that like the enlightenment is not my path. Like, I guess I get very interesting responses from Buddhist and then they go like, No, no. You Go ahead, bro. It’s ok.
[00:40:34]Cheryl:
I mean, everyone’s journey, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I think for whatever way, shape, or form, like yeah, I know it’s not my yet.
[00:41:27] Kai Xin:
Yeah. Perhaps not this life. Maybe next, life you have a different, you know, intent and that’s also
[00:41:32] Cheryl:
or maybe next retreat.
[00:41:34] Yi-xian:
Oh, yes, yes. True. Yeah. We’ll see.
[00:41:41] Kai Xin:
All right. I would like to leave with one note. I just suddenly thought of it regarding mindfulness practice in day-to-day, cause I think you’re so busy. You have proven that it is possible to integrate in day-to-day life. And even if you can’t do even the one minute breath. I’ve learned this from one of the monk, I think it’s called the Luangpor Sumedho method whereby every door you walk past, you would just be aware of your breath. So you know how sometimes we enter a room without knowing that we enter a room or like we shampoo our head twice, things like that. So I found that to be very helpful. I mean, we don’t need extra time to be mindful, but just passing the door and that can be our sign post.
Thanks for listening to this episode. If you like it and benefited for me, please to share with a friend and give us a five star review on Spotify. It would help us a lot. And til the next episode, may you stay happy and wise!
Buddhist Youth Network, Lim Soon Kiat, Alvin Chan, Tan Key Seng, Soh Hwee Hoon, Geraldine Tay, Venerable You Guang, Wilson Ng, Diga, Joyce, Tan Jia Yee, Joanne, Suรฑรฑa, Shuo Mei, Arif, Bernice, Wee Teck, Andrew Yam, Kan Rong Hui, Wei Li Quek, Shirley Shen, Ezra, Joanne Chan, Hsien Li Siaw.
Editor and transcriber of this episode: Tee Ke Hui, Cheryl Cheah, Koh Kai Xin
Editorโs note: This article is adapted from PJโs website. Do check out his past articles on tackling the workplace over here, here, and here.
On 19th October 2022, I flew back to Singapore after spending three months at my teacher Ajahn Brahmโs retreat centre Jhana Grove and monastery in Serpentine, Western Australia.
Since then, Iโve been asked quite frequently about what I learned and โgainedโ, which Iโll attempt to summarize here. Below are the 11 things I’ve learnt.
(Graphic image warning: Please note that learning point 8 has a few graphic pictures of a decaying dead kangaroo. You may quickly jump to point 9 if you are easily affected.)
1. A much clearer & experiential understanding of how suffering works.
Expectations, wanting, hopes, plans, etc. are a huge barrier, because of the Second Noble Truth: wanting causes suffering. During this retreat, I think Iโve let go more of the expectations & wanting to re-experience the life-changing yo-yo-jhana in 2010, which Iโve written about here and here . And if I wanted anything, whether it was the beautiful breath, or silence in the mind, or nimittas, or jhanas, that wanting always led to suffering.
So towards the end, I was deliberately cultivating the mantra of โGood enoughโ. Heavy rain while walking to the monastery? Good enough. Restless mind while sitting in the morning cold? Thatโs more than good enough!
And that really helped and worked: there was a lot less suffering when I was developing this mindset of being โcontented and easily satisfiedโ, instead of striving with strong wants.
Itโs not all perfect: there were definitely days when it felt like walking into a perfect storm. The lowest point I experienced was towards the end, on a Monday. For the whole of Monday, I struggled with a very, very restless mind: I could barely sit. It was, as Ajahn Chah (Ajahn Brahm’s teacher) described, โyou canโt move forward, you canโt go backwards, you canโt stay where you areโ.
Iโm experienced enough to know that restlessness is the mind being discontented with the present moment experience. So I tried to make peace with the present moment experience and tried to be unconditionally kind and gentle to my own mind. That caused my mind to kinda go into a kind of split, where a less-critical, more-loving PJ was having a dialogue with a very fault-finding, very discontented PJ:
Loving PJ: There there! Itโs ok to be discontented. Youโre not enlightened yet!
Fault-Finding PJ: Of course itโs easy to say that!
Loving PJ: Remember Ajahn Brahmโs instructions? Just make peace with the suffering, be kind, be gentleโฆ
Fault-Finding PJ: Of course itโs easy for Ajahn to say that! Heโs the MOZART of meditation, whereas you are still playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars! You canโt even watch your stupid beautiful breath, for goodness sake!
It just spiralled downwards from there, into outright fear and despair. I was reminded of the episode in the Buddhaโs passing, when his attendant Ananda cried out of despair. I understood what he felt because I felt this deep fear of what will happen when Ajahn Brahm dies? Who else can I have as a teacher I am dependent on?
And there was despair because I was nowhere close to the jhanas, which are needed to really remove the defilements. And I had so many defilements โฆ it felt like I was tasked with using a single box of matchsticks to melt an entire iceberg or glacier.
The fear and despair was very, very real, and very, very bad: I sobbed and cried my eyes out in the shower. I donโt think I have cried like this ever since my colleague Parathy diedโฆ after I finished crying, I asked my mind what it wanted to do, and went to sit and meditate, before going to sleep. The next morning, I went to ask Ajahn for advice on how to deal with such days.
Ajahn was so kind and compassionateโฆ he kept saying โtrust. you are so closeโ, and also talked about how, often, progress on the Path isnโt about more effort, but about finding the right place to perpendicularly cross the river. โAnd when youโre over, youโll then realize how stupid youโve been all this while, because youโll look back and say โwait, that was it? Thatโs all it took?โ โ And that was all it took for me to gain back the trust, confidence, and patience to carry on.
2. A more experiential understanding of non-self”
The other learning is a more experiential understanding of non-self. Basically, I donโt really control my body or my mind: it is heavily influenced by the environment around me. The body is out of control, and the mind is out of control because they are all complex processes which have no single source of self, and where effects become causes for further effects. Itโs all about putting the right causes in place, I.e. Right Motivation (Samma sankappa). A few episodes really highlighted this to me.
No matter how much I tried, I could not change the fact that my body is made in Singapore, and that I struggle with the cold. Cold makes my mind restless, as I am really not made for this climate. Itโs quite funny because whenever itโs cold, there is automatically a soundtrack playing in my mind (for the first two months, it was the soundtrack of Crash Landing On You, because my wife and I re-watched it before I leftโฆ). But what was even more interesting was the short spell of warm weather in late September and early October: the soundtrack playing stopped in my mind, with no choice nor force at all! So it was really caused by the cold.
Physically with my body, there were a few incidents (suspect Covid; my twitching eye; body pains from sitting meditation) which drove home the point of non-self. From the Buddhaโs second-ever discourse (Anattalakkhanasutta SN 22.59):
โ(this body is not) fit to be regarded thus: โThis is mine, this I am, this is my self’โ, because โโฆifโฆ(this body) were (my) self, this (body) would not lead to affliction, and it would be possible to have it of (this body): โlet my (body) be thus; let my (body) not be thusโ. But because (this body) is nonself, (this body) leads to affliction, and it is not possible to have it of (this body): โlet my (body) be thus; let my (body) not be thusโ. โ
Basically, if your body was you or your self, then you would be able to compel it and control it to be well, not be sick, and to take on any shape or form you wish. Which you canโt.
3. Reduce the drivers of negative emotions
Much of Ajahn Brahmโs teachings are really about undermining and reducing the drivers for negative emotions, especially the overthinking mind that tenses up, comments, interferes, fault-finds, strives and tries, is ruthless, and seeks to control everything (especially due to fear).
If we do the exact opposite to the above verbs, those are the causes for future deep meditation and eventual liberation. So we should:
Relax to the Max
Disengage from commentary
Donโt interfere or do anything, because it is all none-of-your-business
Let the mind decide what it wants to do, rather than tell and control it
Cultivate contentment: โgood enoughโ
Not try
And be kind, unconditionally.
4. Cultivating the opposite of fault-finding
Ajahn Brahm once wrote that โcultivating the opposite of fault-finding is 90% of the Buddhist practiceโ, and this was something I realised from the three months.
It is so easy to lapse into fault-finding and criticism of everything: I could be sitting for 45 mins, watching the breath for 44 mins, and daydreaming in the last minute, and that is often enough for me to say โthat was not peacefulโ! This is crazy, if you think about it, because I wasnโt really looking realistically at the whole session, but only picking out the bad parts to smear the whole thing.
I think this fault-finding is due to social conditioning: it seems โsmarterโ to seem pessimistic, cynical, and negative (as shared in Psychology of Money: see point 7 in the original article here). This mindset is especially prevalent in Singapore, I think.
5. Systems, Not Goals
Scott Adamsโ โsystem vs goalsโ came up in my mind during the retreat, and I started wondering what was my โsystemโ, vs the โgoalโ of enlightenment. My system is to keep precepts, learn Dhamma, create the supporting environment for practice around me, and meditate daily. Iโll let the results take care of themselves. Some specifics that I picked up during the Rains:
If the meditation was me largely โletting go, being kind and gentleโ, then the meditation was a success, regardless of the results!
I started debriefing myself after each meditation, as part of my โsystemโ. I ask myself these questions:
What suffering was absent? How much peace, calm & stillness was generated from the sit?
Was there letting go, kindness and gentleness in the meditation, between me and the meditation object?
Which defilements were gone? Usually for me, thereโs no ill will, sloth and torpor, and doubt. The usual suspects are Kama canda, and restlessness and remorse.
7. Meditation is like taking a shit
Meditation is a lot like taking a shit: there are a lot of parallels between the two.
Both are non-self: in both processes, there is no single part you can point to, and say thatโs me, mine, a self. There are also none of the accumulations of a self in any part of the processes e.g. ego, pride, expectations, will, etc.
Both are natural causal processes, where willpower & expectations are NOT necessary causal factors & are often counterproductive:
If youโre blocked in meditation, often you need more mindfulness and kindness, to unblock yourself. If youโre blocked in shitting, often you need more fibre and water to unblock yourself.
Using willpower in both cases causes haemorrhoids in your mind and in your a**
Expectations in both cases are major blockers.
Both processes are about clearing their โcontainersโ of defilements and debris: one is clearing the mind, the other is clearing the digestive system.
Last but not least, the best sits and the best shits are effortless and joyful, and very healthy.
7. Keeping Precepts is Critical
Keeping precepts is critical for progress on the Path. This is often overlooked, especially in western meditation instructions. But this importance becomes very clear when meditation deepens, and when your mind starts to reflect the spottiness of your ethical behaviour by body, speech and mind. Let me share a story about someone, whom Iโll call PJ2. Imagine that PJ2 is single, and that he once had a very, very deep meditation experience a few years ago.
At the start of the Rains Retreat, I was discussing nimittas and jhanas with PJ2. However, as the retreat progressed, PJ2โs past caught up with him: he had not kept his precepts fully, and that caused him to feel this overwhelming sense of guilt that triggered panic attacks.
This lasted until PJ2 left, and it was very eye-opening for everyone to see how important keeping precepts are, for deeper meditation and for oneโs practice.
8. Death is everywhere
Death and dying is everywhere, in the most unexpected places. In September, as a few of us returned from visiting Kusala Hermitage, it turned out that two kangaroos had been hit by vehicles just outside Jhana Grove. One of them was more decayed, while the other one was quite intact. It was very eye-opening to see the decaying and decomposition process over the weeks, which I captured by taking multiple videos and photos.
What videos and photos do not capture is the smell: that nauseating odour of death and decay, which reminds me of the very first time I smelled that odour, as a teenager helping my father clear the drowned rat stuck under our driveway.
But what the photos and videos do convey are the charnel ground descriptions in the suttas, especially the Satipatthana sutta (** CONTACT ALERT: Pics of dead things**)
The dead adult kangaroo just outside Jhana Grove
โฆAnd it had been dead for one, two, or three days, bloated, livid, and festering. Theyโd compare it with their own body: โThis body is also of that same nature, that same kind, and cannot go beyond that.โ 15.1
The dead adult kangaroo had moved due to heavy rain and had decayed
Then:
โฆa corpse discarded in a charnel ground being devoured by crows, hawks, vultures, herons, dogs, tigers, leopards, jackals, and many kinds of little creatures. 16.2Theyโd compare it with their own body: 16.3โThis body is also of that same nature, that same kind, and cannot go beyond that.โ 17.1
Same dead kangaroo, much more decayed. Note how the skull has gone missing, and the skeleton has changed color.
Then:
Bones rid of sinews scattered in every direction. Here a hand-bone, there a foot-bone, here a shin-bone, there a thigh-bone, here a hip-bone, there a rib-bone, here a back-bone, there an arm-bone, here a neck-bone, there a jaw-bone, here a tooth, there the skull โฆ
A finger fragment of the dead kangaroo by the roadside marking
Then:
Bones rotted and crumbled to powder. 30.2Theyโd compare it with their own body: 30.3โThis body is also of that same nature, that same kind, and cannot go beyond that.โ
It is extremely sobering, especially since an adult male kangaroo is about the same size as me, to reflect that my body is truly โof that same nature, that same kind, and cannot go beyond that.โ
The Sangha at Bodhinyana Monastery paying respects to the Triple Gem
9. The monastic practice is the Buddha’s Training Programme
The monastic practice set by the Buddha is THE way to get to Nibbana. Before this Rains, I had doubts about this: whatโs stopping me as a lay person from being able to practice towards liberation? But after three months, there is no longer any doubt in my mind that the Training Programme decided by the Buddha is the best bet to Enlightenment.
However, my conditions in life are such that, it has to be lay life for me, at least for a while: as a married man, I have to take care of my wife, but also have to take care of my parents and parents-in-law as they age.
10. Some observations of my fellow retreatants:
My โalms bowlโ for three months, filled with food generously given by lay supporters of the monastery. Those lay supporters drove 1 hr each way to feed the monks and lay retreatants every day, for 3 months!
The generosity of people is astounding. For three months, I was fed by other people. Also, this group of Rains Retreatants really were very generous with helping each other out. For example, Becky would serve Ajahn tea, but also do a lot of acts of loving kindness to others. And in turn, I saw others helping her: a number of retreatants were talking to her to give her an introduction to the suttas, just before her silent retreat. Everyone was helping each other out like one big family (e.g. Gayathri making soup for Piotr, our Polish retreatant, when he fell sick a second time), which the Jhana Grove staff observed was quite unusual to our group.
There seems to be a bit of PTSD from past experiences with SN Goenka vipassana meditation: a couple of retreatants mentioned to me something along the lines of โI canโt watch the breath, because I end up trying to control it from my vipassana experienceโ and โI canโt watch the breath with pleasure, because my vipassana conditioning kicks inโ. Which is a real pity, because the breath can be a lovely meditation object.
Dhamma vitakka (thoughts of the Dhamma) as a subtle hindrance was something that came up in a sutta class taught by Ajahn Brahm, but it seems to have been rejected by a number of retreatants. This hindrance was something I saw in my own mind: at some point, I realised that reading the suttas was actually complicating my own meditation practice, because I ended up generating a lot of questions (โAm I doing X right, like in the sutta?โ) which disturbed the peace of mind. So towards the end, I deliberately cut down on my reading of the suttas, and reduced my thinking on aspects of the Dhamma.
11. The Practice isn’t just about meditation
While on a day outing with Ajahn Santutthi, abbot of Kusala Hermitage, I asked Ajahn about advice on the practice, especially since I felt stuck and stagnating in my meditation depth. He gave very good advice: โthe practice doesnโt end after three monthsโ, โthe practice isnโt just about meditationโ, and โjust develop contentment and peace.โ Which is perhaps the main takeaway I got from my three months.
Monks from Kusala Hermitage walking in a botanical garden bed of tulips
Editor’s note: It is rare to share about porn addiction so openly, may this piece help those struggling out there. Due to the sensitive nature of the topic, Joshua is not the author’s real name.This is a two-part article. The second part is here.
TLDR: Joshua shares how his porn addiction brought him on the path of the Dhamma and how the four noble truths spoke to him as he began his Dhamma journey.
โโโโI have been a porn addict for most of my adult life. It started when I was a teenager, and I would spend hours on the internet watching adult videos. It was like a drug for me, and every time I binged on it, I felt a temporary sense of pleasure and satisfaction. But as soon as the pleasure was over, I was back to feeling empty and unsatisfied, and the cycle would begin again. I felt disgusted at myself after watching it.
Here is my story of how I struggled with porn, how the Dhamma helped me overcome the addiction.
This is not professional advice and is not meant to replace support/help for those who need professional help. Do seek it out if necessary.
When Porn becomes a daily habit
As I grew older, I found that I was spending more and more time watching porn and engaging less time in real-life activities. I would fight for time to be alone so that I could watch it.
I was subsconsciously objectifying my female friends especially if they wore tight fitting clothes. This was unnerving to me. I wasnโt looking at human beings anymore but rather potential mates. I was slowly spiralling out of control.
I tried to understand why I was developing such a crazy tendency for porn. I could not pinpoint any reason as to why I would be hooked on it other than the engulfing lust that hits me from time to time. The search to understand why led me to the Dhamma.
My arrival in Dhamma
I heard about how Buddhism could help people break free from addiction, so I decided to give it a try. At first, I was skeptical.
How could something so ancient and spiritual help me overcome something so modern and destructive? Anyway, I am an โeducatedโ Singaporean who rejects traditions and begrudgingly participates in customs. This was something foreign to me.
However, the paralysing hold porn had on me led me to surrender the prejudices I had against the Buddha/Buddhism. I was tired of the cycles of lust and guilt.
I started by listening to Buddhist talks and the suttas that covered the topics of lust and desire.
I found many parallels with what Addiction Psychologist Gabor Mate, talked about. Gabor shared that addiction is like a cycle where the person is simply trapped like a child that never grew up or matured. We need to ask the right questions, ‘It is not Why the addiction but rather Why the pain?โ.
Both the Buddha and modern addiction psychology pushed me to enquire deeper, what pain am I avoiding? My initial โfailureโ to uncover why I am addicted as mentioned above, was me just scratching the surface and not diving deeper.
The four noble truths and porn
I had to confess to myself that I had an addiction problem because I had a deep feeling of emptiness and dissatisfaction. I wanted to be loved. I was using pornography to fill a void, but it was never going to be enough.
Only by facing and transforming my suffering, could I then address the โsymptomโ of the problem. The Buddhaโs four noble truth stared me in the face.
1. There is suffering (I am suffering from this porn addiction)
2. The cause of suffering is desire (I cling to porn because I desire to be loved and fulfilled)
3. There is an end to suffering (My addiction to porn can end and I can break the cycle)
4. The way out of suffering is the noble 8 fold path (My desire for porn ends when I pursue a moral path capable of making me feel contented without the need for porn)
The realisation felt as if a rock that weighed me down had suddenly started to float. I could break free.
As I read, I started to understand the concept of the โthree poisonsโ – desire, aversion and ignorance. I realised that these were the same forces that kept me trapped in my addiction.
Desire makes you want more and more and like the Buddha said that ‘there is no ocean vast like tanha (craving)’. It is always never enough. Aversion makes you push away things you dislike. The frustration and unhappiness with my feelings of emptiness and not feeling loved, made me push them away by pursuing pleasure. Ignorance is the lacking wisdom and knowledge of the way out. Not being aware of the power one can have over the defilements instead of being led on by them.
Tackling the dangers of sensual desires
I started by tackling the desire and aversion portion of the problem, as I believed that ignorance would slowly fall away as I developed my wisdom. One sutta that really resonated with me was the Bhayasutta.
It states,
โSeeing the danger in grasping,
the origin of birth and death,
the unattached are freed
with the ending of birth and death.โ
The danger of grasping onto this habit of pornography to find pleasure in life would ultimately lead me to many rounds of suffering or birth and death.
I started to practice mindfulness and meditation to become more aware of these negative thoughts and feelings. Removing the triggers was key. I started to recognise them for what they were: empty, fleeting states of mind.
Outside of my mind, it also helped to change my environment to support my return to normalcy. I opened my roomโs doors at all times so that the fear of shame/being discovered was always there if I decide to surf porn.
In addition, I avoided placing myself in situations where I was exposed to attractive females in close contact. This included giving up drinking and avoiding nightclubs where dancing in close proximity could put my desires into overdrive.
The fifth precept, to not drink and participate in activities with intoxicants, was a struggle. However, I reflected that if mindfulness was already so hard to cultivate in meditation, why was I willingly impairing my mindfulness every Friday night?
Those friends who encouraged me to drink were not helping my recovery and I had to eventually let go of those social circles to build my mindfulness. It was not easy. But it had to be done.
Hanging out with Dhamma friends I made in Buddhist circles helped me transition out of my old friendship circles. Night chats revolved around tea and iced lemon tea, with deep reflections on life. I slowly uncovered that everyone has their own struggles.
Hearing a fellow Dhamma friend share his struggles with womanising made me realise how rare it was to have deep conversations without a need for social lubricants (alcohol or smoking). Being present is all you need. It is amazing how the Dhamma brought us together. Walking the path towards lesser defilements.
I am grateful for how the Dhamma showed me the way out of addiction and into a freer life.
Thanks for reading my story. I will share in the next story 5 practical ways that helped reduced my porn addiction.
Wise Steps:
If there is a bad habit that we wish to quit we need to find changes in the environment and the social circles we keep
Addiction is extremely tough, but with friends, loved ones, and the Dhamma, we can slowly break through our clinging
Seek professional help if your welfare is being compromised severely by addictions like pornography.
