#103 Loch Kelly: Effortless Mindfulness
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So I felt kind of spacious and embodied, kind of in this timeless here, almost like a cat. So I said, okay, let me do this when I play sports. And so the next time I went and played goalie, I said, okay, here we go. And I intentionally did this way of getting into the flow or zone. And then I was, you know, felt good.

more capable and more like everything was enjoyable. I was interconnected with everything. Somebody would take a slap shot from the blue line and then all of a sudden I'd see it for the first five yards and then it would get lost in legs and sticks and then my hand would go out and the puck would be in there. And I'd be like, oh, cool. ♪

Welcome to The Knowledge Project. This is Shane Parrish. This podcast and our website, fs.blog, help sharpen your mind by mastering the best of what other people have already figured out.

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In many ways, life is full of change and uncertainty, and we're all doing the best we can. And yet most of us can't help but feel there's more, a deeper connection, some wisdom that just seems to elude us or something just out of reach. So we explore debugging our thoughts and we get lost in thinking. In this conversation, we transcend that. You'll walk away with practical tools like how not to let your emotions take over and quick ways to access your hidden awareness, but also a better appreciation for debugging your mind and effortless mindfulness.

It's time to listen and learn.

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Locke, how are you, man? Good, Shane. I'm so glad to be here. This should be fun. It should be. I must say, I've probably never spent so much time researching a podcast before, and I'm a little bit intimidated to start asking questions.

That's pretty funny for somebody like you to be intimidated. I think it's just new, right? Yeah, I want to get into the vocabulary, but before we sort of get there, and I think that'll help orient the conversation a little bit, what early experiences got you interested in mindfulness? Yeah, this initial experience may help people kind of get on board with a little bit about what this kind of effortless mindfulness is about.

which actually isn't traditional mindfulness. It's a little more like what people talk about, flow consciousness or being in the zone. So probably as I look back, one of my first experiences was living outside of New York City and playing a lot of different sports. I was playing ice hockey goalie and I was watching a football game on TV and

And the announcer said about the quarterback, he's got eyes in the back of his head. And I thought, oh, I know what that is like. It doesn't mean you can actually see back there, but you have this kind of peripheral awareness that isn't just visual, it isn't just sensing or informational. Let me see if I can do that. And I literally started playing with

my own consciousness and awareness. And I ended up finding a way to open my awareness around to the sides and my peripheral vision followed. And then I kind of

let this awareness move to the sides where sounds coming and going. And then somehow in kind of like, I'm not sure what I'm doing, but the awareness continued around in this kind of 360 degree panoramic feeling that then just dropped me into my body. So I felt kind of spacious and embodied, kind of in this timeless here, almost like a cat.

So I said, okay, let me do this when I play sports. And so the next time I went and played goalie, I said, okay, here we go. And I intentionally did this way of getting into the flow or zone. And then I was, you know, felt good.

more capable and more like everything was enjoyable. I was interconnected with everything. Somebody would take a slap shot from the blue line and then all of a sudden I'd see it for the first five yards and then it would get lost in legs and sticks. And then my hand would go out and the puck would be in there and I'd be like, Oh, cool.

So then the second part of the story is I was telling one of my friends after one of these games, he said, wow, man, that was so cool. You played so great. How did you do it? And I actually just went through what I just explained to you. And he kind of looked at me with his jaw dropped and went, oh, cool. And then walked away because it was like, what are you talking about? I have no idea what you're talking about.

And then, but one of the seniors on the team, I was like a sophomore, the next week came and just threw me this book, said, here, kid, read this. And it was Zen and the Art of Archery. I picked it up. So it was kind of a Zen explanation through kind of sport that led to this.

the sense that you know you and the target are connected and a little bit how to do it a little differently but it led me to say oh my god there's people who do this and value this and are interested in this and i think i'm going to check it out so i started my interest in uh

finding out what this was all about. And then how did you explore that interest? Yeah. So then I would do more reading of different books at that time that weren't a lot. And that's one of the amazing things today that a lot of these wisdom texts are just in the last really 20 years have become available. Um, and I've continued to kind of update my reading, but then I did, um,

you know, some sitting I studied with a guy, a Zen teacher, Philip Kaplu, who wrote The Three Pillars of Zen. Then I did some TM. And then I kind of started just mixing the principles of meditation with my own consciousness, with psychology, with neuroscience. So I never was like a true believer or going into the religious part of it, but I

felt like from the beginning, it was this natural part of human experience that was a potential. And so I would, you know, try to find anybody talking about it, you know, someone like Abraham Maslow was talking about peak experiences and

you know, different, oh, that's cool. That's, that's, that's similar, but different than I'd always do this kind of, well, that's similar. They've got that, but they're, how do they get from here to there? And so it's kind of a, almost like this scientific approach or curiosity, but always like then learning, how do you do it? How do you do that? And so I, you know, just continued through, through college. And then in graduate school, I actually went and studied

psychology and spirituality and did two master's degrees and went over to Sri Lanka, India, and Nepal and met some of these teachers and, you know, would put my hand up and ask these questions that they'd look at me like, you can't ask that question. It's like, how do you do this? What is this? Well, how is it different than this? And so it just started to become, you know, going more into depth, you know, through,

practicing and doing it experientially. I think the best place to start this is sort of to dive into some of the vocabulary around this, because that's where I think people get into a lot of trouble, myself included, which is, let's just start by defining some basic terms. What is consciousness? Yeah. So I'll play with, again, it's almost like there are these words that are used in

common culture, and then they're used in psychology, academic psychology, then they're used in psychotherapy, then they're

the translators from Tibetan Buddhism or Pali Buddhism translate words and start using similar words. So it's quite a bit of a variety, and I've kind of taken them and defined them in a way that's about usefulness, or sometimes I call it the power of how, rather than

How do I, how do you do this? So I would start with a definition of kind of different types of awareness and, you know, start with what we know as attention. So attention is like a one pointed attention using your frontal lobe of your brain, bring your attention to your breath and then move to, uh,

step up to mindful awareness, which is kind of the ability to not look from thought, but look at thought. And the great revelation of the first kind of insight of mindfulness is, oh, I'm not my thoughts. Oh, my thoughts, even when they start with, I am thinking this thought are coming and going, and there's some

awareness that's observing it. So mindful awareness is like debugging your brain almost. You're watching the instructions go by. You're aware of what's happening and you see it. Yes. And so that really challenges what we've taken for granted. I think, therefore I am.

So here's the am, the awareness, that is watching thought come and go and is actually, as we start looking at that awareness, that's where effortless mindfulness starts. So in deliberate mindfulness or traditional mindfulness, you step up and look at the contents. Oh, I'm not my thoughts. And then...

In effortless mindfulness, which is kind of the next stage, which is what I share with people, say, now let's look back at what's aware, where is it aware from, who's aware. And then you realize there's an alert awareness that's not made of thought looking to thought, that's aware of thought. It's a kind of a contentless awareness. It's conscious, meaning using the word conscious to mean

It is alert and conscious of the room and conscious of, but it's conscious from not a thinker. It's conscious from what I eventually call awake awareness, which is kind of a pure contentless, timeless awareness that then as that awareness comes into the

relationship, almost like the quantum field arising as waves and particles. It arrives into hearing consciousness and thinking consciousness as aspects of it, or kind of like an ocean of awareness arising as experience. And then you can get caught back in a thinker or a judger or a sad part of you that you then identify with and take to be you,

But the usefulness of, you know, separating out awareness that's alert and clear and not orienting consciously to thought and then opening it up. So is what happens to people naturally when they're in a flow state, which is kind of the optimally functioning way that musicians, athletes, people at work, scientists operate, but they only can find it

during the activity they're good at. And so when you're in a flow state, is that sort of effortless mindfulness? When they talk about flow state, I distinguish two kinds of flow state. One's an absorbed flow state where you're so interested in an activity and you're focused, one-pointed attention, and you kind of go into it and then time, you look up and an hour's gone by.

So you kind of enter that world and everything else is gone. And they call that a flow state. But that's not as interesting to me as what I call a panoramic flow state, which is when similar to that initial exercise of opening your awareness around and feeling embodied, you're in the world connected to everybody and everything.

You're aware of being able to do kind of optimal functioning of complex tasks without thinking about thinking. And then you feel in the now, you feel selfless, a kind of sense of joy or well-being or ecstasy. Your implicit memory is your thinking, so you know how to do whatever you're doing. And you're just operating from that.

an awake awareness consciousness that's organizing your thought in a way that's effortlessly mindful. And is this sort of available to all people or is this something that only a select few can have access to? I mean, that was my question. So it's a great question. You know, I heard these different answers. No, it's all you have to go through. If you go to any of the

you know, the religious institutions that teach this, no, you have to do it my way, you know, is usually the response like Zen or Tibetan Buddhism or Theravada insight meditation. Well, you have to go through training or join a monastery or become an Olympic athlete of meditation or spend 30,000 hours. And yet there's always these what called direct path traditions that say this is

consciousness, this awareness-based flow is already installed and it's available to each of us, as each of us. And we just, it's like a figure ground shift. So there's like a, it's in the background, in the foreground is organizing around thinking parts and judging parts and emotional parts that are in like a little cloud of our mind.

And if we just literally, this is kind of one of the pointers and actually a little experience that you can have. If you feel like you're trying to figure out your life in this cloud, either of your head or your body, and then you just shift out of that cloud and become aware of the sky or the space. And then you just curiously wonder whether you're aware from that open mind and that open heart.

and then feel like you include what's in the cloud. So you're spacious and pervasive in a way that's calm and alert. Then there's this possibility to begin to optimally function from there. And so we can flip this on almost on demand. We're going to get into glimpses a little bit later and maybe walk people through some of that. What is the most common reason people do this?

So, I mean, the amazing thing is, you know, the history of this is, this is, you know, perhaps the most valued developmental stage of human beings throughout history and throughout cultures, you know, what's called awakening or enlightenment or a sense of full, being able to be fully human and particularly to relieve suffering. So that's the first half of it is,

this access to this greater capacity, this felt sense, open mind, open heart dimension, that's awareness-based and embodied, has the capacity and the space to be with and to see thoughts, feelings, sensations, and parts of us that are anxious, sad. So we end up feeling, you know, I

I'm sad or I am angry. And then you step into this and you realize, oh, there's a part of me that's sad. Oh, there's a part of me that's angry. Who's aware of those two parts? And then you realize the parts are smaller, but those, if we're operating from kind of an ego center, emotions are bigger than the ego center. So it's really upgrading the

the operating system from a small sense of self to this transitional selflessness or no self. But then the key is, in this particular method, is not just deconstructing and waiting after you let go of or realize there isn't a self in the middle of your head that's you, but literally letting the awareness discover an already awake self.

consciousness that's installed, that's able to relieve suffering. And it also has kind of embodied positive qualities that people will report. Like if I just walk into a room and say, okay, check this out. And I just start with a glimpse. Okay, do this, you know, just try this, try that, try this. What's here? People go, love, peace, relief, joy,

freedom. And I'm like, how long did that take? You know, what is it you've been looking for in your life the whole time? And could it really be like this far away? So then the practices are these glimpses. So, you know, it's not instant enlightenment, but it's not long periods of sitting still that actually

because of the flow kind of research and consciousness, it's just as easy with these glimpses to do them with your eyes open, moving, as it is with your eyes closed, sitting.

And you could start either one, but you can begin to familiarize yourself with this installed operating system. And then like a developmental stage, it just takes like, you know, like a developmental stage from preschool to learning,

to read and write. So it just takes a little small glimpses many times, and then you develop and all of a sudden, you can read, you just pick up a book and you can read. Just walk out the door, and you're living from this open hearted, awake consciousness, and you're responding rather than reacting. I want to come back to something you said earlier about ego.

What is ego and what does it mean to be egocentric? Like when you said egocentric view, what does that mean? Yeah. So again, here we go with these multi-defined terms, right? From 15 wise traditions and people, ego is this, ego is that, small self is this, self is this, you know? So it's a fascinating play, right?

And where I am now is that ego is kind of a function, kind of managing parts of us. So there isn't one ego. There's a number of these parts of us. Like if you were to have one part of you say, well, I'm going to do it this way. And then another part of you would say, well, do you sure you have to do it that way?

Is one of them your ego or are they two parts of this kind of managing system or identified? So in terms of psychology, many of the current psychological psychotherapy healing models that seem to work are these parts-based systems. So rather than saying you're just, you need to get yourself together and become strong and healthy and

competent, you realize, oh, there's parts of me, there's a sad part, there's an angry part, there's a hurt part, there's a judging part, there's a, and who, and then the key is who's aware of those parts. And that first step is kind of basic mindfulness. And then the next step is this spacious and pervasive, open hearted awareness from effortless mindfulness.

And then you realize, well, what has been called ego doesn't need to be killed or fought or gotten rid of, or it's not who the little ego doesn't grow up to be the awakened sense of self either. So it's a kind of a personality part thing.

a functional part that has an opinion, and usually it forms around thoughts, feelings, sensations, and views. So by stepping out, you can also see that many people are caught in this kind of like, especially when they're very smart, like, well, this is the way it is, and I'm just going to do it this way, and that's the way it's worked for me, and I'm just going to keep doing it this way, and then, you know, and that can be seen. So the what was the observer becomes observed, and

and then can be dialogued with or seen as one perspective. So the ego is a function of the human psyche, consciousness, and the key is it's not the center. It's one of the organizing principles of your body, kind of like your...

blood system is organizing of your body. It's not the driver of the car and it doesn't need to be the driver. And once you kind of dialogue with it and let it know that literally the ego or these ego managers that are kind of this round table of this committee, usually rather than one, will go like, oh good, we can take a vacation. Oh, we can be part of the team. Oh good, we don't have to like

be anxious and feel worthless and not feel like we can't do everything perfectly. No, you don't, you never did. And then there's this kind of dimension of being that becomes primary that can be with your whole personality in a way that's so freeing and loving and optimally balanced.

functional. So it's not, it doesn't lead you to join a monastery or sit on a couch. It actually brings forth this creativity and

and joy and interest. So often we're taught to suppress those feelings or avoid them, the anxiety, the stress, with distractions, we sort of like seek happiness outside of ourselves. Can you expand on that? Yeah. So, I mean, a couple of the ways of dealing with them are, you know, from a strong ego, if you develop a strong ego and many smart people who are good at life can for a while develop

ego strengths and ego defenses and kind of chug along and become successful. But usually they'll hit a wall at some point, whether it's in another area like a relationship or become over, like get the motor running too fast. It's almost seeing it in the frame of there's a developmental stage. So there's different ways of thinking about it, but there's children or babies are talked about having primary process development.

And then the next stage is you develop secondary process thinking, which is conceptual thinking, comparing, contrasting. And then we stop there with the ego function and the smart parts of us. And so this is, you know, the tertiary or the third level of both knowing and identity.

that what has the capacity to bear what seemed to be unbearable and wants to do it and can do it. And that this no small ego can live a fully intimate, happy life because it will always be dualistically comparing, contrasting, striving, feeling not good enough, or can get into a kind of a role like I'm doing well, I'm positive thinking, but

There's a feeling of being that we've all felt when we're relaxed and at ease. And what if that wasn't related to the conditions like, oh, I'm on vacation. Oh, I'm climbed up this, you know, beautiful hill with my friends. And now I'm at the top and I'm looking over this beautiful space and this view. And I'm feeling that I can let go of seeking and be connected to nature and people and

and this sense of well-being and freedom. And then you go back to work and say, oh my God, I don't have a vacation for six months to be able to go back to that place because that's where it is. So what if that were actually just a background foreground shift that was done through external events, people, places, and things? What if it didn't have to do with people, places, and things, that that same thing

sense of wellbeing was our central nature in this next phase of development. So maybe walk me through what that looks like. Like if I, if I come to you and maybe let's do some common scenarios, right? Like I'm, I'm anxious, I'm feeling super anxious. What, what would you advise me to do? Yeah. So there's, there's two, two approaches. One is one is the, the basic training. So

I have, you know, kind of bunch of hats that, you know, I'm interested in as a psychotherapist, kind of a awakening teacher or meditation teacher, neuroscience, bringing in neuroscience. And from the meditation awakening, it's really about, okay, let's not deal with the symptom. Let's train you over time to not focus on what's arising, but who or what is it arising to. That's

that's the key. We're not going to focus on changing your thoughts or trying to mitigate primarily. I mean, you would always start with things that are basic calming and soothing practices. So there's ways to just, I work with kind of a simple set of practices where you do kind of a three-part breath and then breathe out a little slower. And what that does is it addresses the

autonomic nervous system and your polyvagal nerves. And it also gives you one pointed attention and it oxygenates your system, you know, so there's certain preparations to get you out of that initial state.

anxiety, but primarily it's finding that which is already here that isn't anxious. And then as that, go back and check out what that part of you that's anxious is worried about. So it's upgrading. And then, you know, there's a psychotherapy version of that, that I could go through as well, which is starting, starting with the

the anxiety and locating it, physicalizing it and saying, where in or around your body are you anxious? And then rather than saying, what are you anxious about? Because some people are like, I don't know. I think it's maybe this, maybe that, maybe this. Soothing, calming the body, nervous system, chattering mind, relax. Then finding this. So someone might say their throat. I'm anxious where you feel it. It's in my throat right here. What's its shape size?

color? What is it communicating to you? So you really like give it a voice, give it a felt sense, a location, because you're developing it as a part of you and noticing, oh, it's somebody might say the cortisol and adrenaline is running through their whole body. So when my whole body is anxious, and you could find a center of that, or sometimes I'll use the whole body. Okay. So is it is it outside your body? No, I guess it's not. So okay, so then your body is a part

of you, can you ask that part to give you some space? And then can you open into that space and be aware of that part from this? And then how do you feel toward that part from this more spacious, awake consciousness? Not from just your head, but from kind of an open heartedness. And then if I say, who's aware of that part? People will often say, well, I am.

What do you mean? I mean, the ego? No, like the real me, like, like the me, like the me that I knew when I was four, you know, like, like, or when I'm me, really me or something. So that feeling of being is here, we've all tasted it. So that starting with that feeling that, and then feeling like, oh, there's a part of me that's anxious. I'm with it. Is there anything that needs to be known? So then the, you know, the in, in

intelligence can then be specific. Oh, I'm afraid of what might happen with the situation at work. Okay. So then you start working with it, both in terms of intelligence and flow and kind of open-hearted presence. And it starts to be part of this bigger team that has some help

rather than one part that's anxious and the other part that says, don't be so anxious. And another part says, well, I'll tell you how not to be anxious. Just be positive. Another part that says, well, you know, you know, you have a right to be anxious. Let's, you know, prepare by staying up all night and writing the report. You know, it's like all those parts from this bigger no self self or open hearted awareness or,

awake consciousness, whichever you want to call that, but you'll feel it. You feel that is not a part of you. It's this, you know, some people call it consciousness itself. It isn't a new location, even when it's called self with a big S. It feels like me, but it's also, if you look at it, it's like, is there a location?

No, it's everywhere, nowhere, and here. And that's the, but that feels safe because you're interconnected and kind of there's a new ground there.

feeling that isn't in thought and it isn't just in your body. So it sounds like the levels to sort of exploring that are, you know, the first level is recognizing that it's happening. Most of us sort of suppress at that level, I would imagine. The second one is this sort of like effortful brain debugging where you're sort of like exploring it a little bit and you're reasoning with yourself and

and thinking through the problem in a very logical structural manner. And then the third sort of level, if I'm understanding correctly, is more of a, you're letting all of that go and you're, you're trying to see everything almost as a 3d hologram, if you will, and feel everything at once. And by doing that, it becomes something that you can explore without consciously exploring it. I mean, the, the thing about kind of, it's almost like a,

It's another level of knowing. It's like that paradox makes sense in some ways because it kind of feels like that when you say that. Consciously without words or consciously without concepts. It's almost more, it's not intuition. It's almost something different than intuition itself.

Everyone's experienced it, but it's not on any map in the West. That's why the language is so hard. But those kinds of paradoxes are almost show that that's, yeah, that's right. You're in the right territory consciously, but not conceptually or something. Okay. So I would say maybe if I were to put a third one there that you're saying, I'd make that more mindful awareness. So

from mindfulness-based psychotherapy or mindfulness-based insight. You've kind of established this mindful witness and now you realize, oh, that's a thought, a feeling, sensation. It's coming and going. It's not me. But you're still in a detached, disembodied witness position. So what effortless mindfulness does is it actually opens up and looks through the meditator who's behind the camera of the person

the looker who's detached and mindfully witnessing so that we don't get caught in what I call the mind, the witness protection program. So then open to what seems to feel like a kind of awareness that's always already been aware without our help. So that's kind of this move that you're like, what, wait a minute. It's like,

There's kind of an effortless, and that's what the word effortless is pointing to. It's like, it seems like, oh, behind all this, without concentrating and trying, there's a kind of a natural alertness that has a softness and a wisdom to it that is already aware. And when the awareness rests into that, it actually isn't spaced out. It actually exists.

is interconnected and arises like a quantum field as thoughts, feelings, and sensations in a kind of embracing connection rather than detached. So it's with the part that's anxious and it's open and bigger. It hasn't created a new thinker, but it's like, and it's not just an emotional heart presence, it's what's called heart-mind. So it has this

intelligence available if needed, if there's a specific, but it's also kind of resting as this, I mean, I think what I'm emphasizing here is this interconnected feeling of rather than detached witness. It sounds like that would work for stress as well, right? Especially in a highly changing or uncertain environment. Yeah. As soon as you, I mean, the main thing is what you're doing is you're realizing, okay, I

There's this other operating system that I've been trying to work just with the interface here of the computer programs, but there's a whole nother new operating system that has a greater intelligence capacity and soothing, loving, and it isn't in its essential nature. It's never been anxious.

It's not afraid. It's got non-fear, non-worry, and non-shame in its essential nature. And then it comes into and arises as thoughts, feelings, sensations. So it can be with worry, shame, or fear from non-shame, non-fear. And it's so much bigger. It's like a deep ocean that's with these waves of anxiety coming.

But in being the ocean and the sky, it's like, all right, so what's up? You know, it's kind of like, let's, you know, stuff happens, you know, and I'm living a human life. So I guess that's going to happen. So to continue the operating system sort of theme, I guess,

How do we create an interrupt in the moment? Like somebody cuts us off and we're driving and we instantly get hijacked. Like our brains, there's some biological hierarchy thing going on and we lose control. What can we do in those moments to make better decisions and ground ourselves? Yeah. So now we're going to get into maybe a little of the unique glimpsing method, which you learn ahead of time and then...

you know, once you've learned it, and it, you know, takes, interestingly, the same amount of time having taught deliberate mindfulness or basic mindfulness, the same amount of time to learn this glimpsing practice or effortless mindfulness as it does deliberate mindfulness. But it is a unique way of finding the identification with the thinker or the worrier or the

part of us that's in fight or flight or freeze, and then unhooking the awareness and either having it drop from head to heart space and then open up and include, or move from thinking to seeing to hearing to open effortless awareness that's inclusive and operating from a bigger field of consciousness.

That method, once you learn it, I'm doing like a four-month course where now I'm meeting with longtime students who meet every other week with me, and then they have their own support groups in between. They're teaching each other. And the reports they're making are that they're stabilizing this. So they learn the basics of glimpsing, which is

Not like much else that there is in the world. So that's the unique thing. Let's go through the basics of glimpsing. I think that would be helpful for us to orient around this. You know, so just starting with going back to the first thing we talked about, which is the way I learned this without knowing what glimpsing was, was hearing he's got eyes in the back of his head. Oh, I know what that is. How do I do that?

And so one way I know some people are listening to this rather than watching it, but I have YouTubes of this too, but you can also just kind of let your eyes be soft and kind of take in the, not just pinpoint one thing, but kind of look at a little wider, like all the things on a table and then almost feel like you can feel like a circle of a soft lens of a camera.

and then feel like hearing, you're receiving hearing, and then just somehow actually realize that seeing is receiving. Light reflects off of objects and comes to your eyes. So just resting and receiving, and then you're going to have your awareness move itself. So you're not doing it, but awareness starts to move from something in front of you to the space itself,

little more to the sides, then you're going to feel your peripheral vision follow and open, but your eyes aren't opening. But this having awareness start to open to the sides, and then moving itself to the side of your head in which sound is coming and going, and then somehow letting your awareness open all the way around, just curiously wondering,

Feeling that open view and then just noticing, are you aware of that spacious awareness or what's it like when you're aware from that awareness that's equally inside and out, both open-minded, open-hearted and embodied and feeling kind of dropped down so you're aware of your body from within and you are able to respond from within.

a more open, non-thought-based alertness. So just noticing as you open and feel both embodied, what is it like to have the potential to move your hand or to use thought, but just rest without orienting to thought and without going to sleep to rest?

And just notice this kind of freeing. It's kind of like looking, standing on a beach, looking at the ocean. Or if you added activity, you could do stuff from here. So that glimpse is a way that you're not just using thought to do something, but you're actually starting to shift your consciousness by moving awareness. In this case, it's opening awareness around something.

which changes your perception, it changes your way of knowing, and it changes your center of identity. And it actually, when you're in an fMRI, which I've been, it balances, if you keep going, it'll balance your default mode network and your task mode network. It will open your parietal lobe. It'll not only calm you, moving you from,

beta to alpha, but it'll actually start putting the synchronized gamma creativity open up so that you're more creative and related. It'll kind of drop you into this compassionate, intelligent field. So for those of us who are more prone to instruction, I think in the book you lay out seven steps starting with unhook. Yes. Can you walk us through those? Yeah. So that one I just did is kind of a

you know, a quick way of starting from seeing. So the premise is that awareness is our primary way of knowing is like a feeling of open, spacious and pervasive. And it isn't, doesn't have to be identified with thought or creating a thinker. And we can see that when we do basic mindfulness, which is just step back,

and be aware of thoughts coming and going. So just that move, which many of us have done, just being aware of your thoughts is a way of unhooking or stepping back to another center or observing point of view that is not your thought-based self. So I think most people can feel that. So that's the

I'm just giving kind of some references that some people may have done. The feeling, whatever it is biologically, you know, you can't exactly say. You can't say, oh, I thought we were aware from our brain. You mean that's not true? Are we aware from the universe or something like that? I kind of don't deal with those questions. However, these, you know, direct practice wisdom traditions are

When you open your awareness to what feels like a spacious view that's embodied, everyone reports that's true, and then your brain shows results. The ACC, the interior singular cortex, which is the self-referencing part of your brain, relaxes. So the results are clear,

And the felt sense is clear. So unhooking feels like you're unhooking into this open mind, open heart mind, which is spacious and pervasive. So we can try it here, if you're not driving, by feeling. So what we'll do is we'll drop, we'll unhook awareness and drop it down to feel our jaw from within, feel our throat from within.

feel our upper body from within and drop into what's called a heart space or heart mind as if that's the new open location from which we're aware. So this is just one way of kind of beginning to feel what that's like. So just feel this sense of your awareness, your

being identified with this location of where you're hearing from, where you're trying to understand what am I talking about from. So then not just what is he talking about, but where are you aware from? Where is the hearer? Where's the looker? Feel that and then just assume that awareness is actually the intelligence that can step above or drop down

And feel as if awareness somehow can unhook and kind of step back as if it's stepping out of the cloud into space. And it's as if you didn't do it, but awareness actually is moving itself. And then feel as if this awareness can move itself down to your smile and your jaw to feel your jaw directly from within and feel as if the awareness can drop down

into your throat and your neck and just check that the subject and the object are now located in the same place so you're not stretching attention down from its usual center behind your eyes and you don't have to go back to thought to check that you're knowing. So feel that the awareness, the space and kind of an effervescence, aliveness are directly perceiving from your throat.

And then notice that this kind of bubble of awareness can drop below your neck into your upper body. Just feel your upper body so it can get a little bigger directly from within. Feel that aliveness space and effervescence. And then feel as if you can drop kind of into the middle of your chest into kind of a heart space or a safe open space. Then you go deep into the space within the atoms

and feeling as if the subject and the object are now located in this open heart-mind, so that you're aware of the heart space, and somehow you're aware from this heart space. And just notice a quality that feels open, so it's as if once you go deep within, it feels like it opens to a more open mind, open heart, all around and within, and notice how you can be aware

from here without orienting to thought, as if you're located, as if the files in the office of your head could come down by Wi-Fi to this home in your heart space, if needed. And then just notice the location, just see where you feel your phone number arising, whether it can feel like it's arising to your heart space, and then let it go. And just notice a kind of alert,

potential to know or do. So spacious and embodied, alert, resting, deeper than sleep as that which is wide awake and safe, okay. So that's a sense of one little beginning method of unhooking. And you can do that once you learn to do that, something like that. That's just one door. So I have like 50 doors, right?

for different types of people and then different ways to continue. So you find your right glimpse door. Some people are more kinesthetic, some people more visual, some people more auditory. So I found that different learning styles, you know, did that one work? No, no, no. Oh, oh, whoa. So then just finding a glimpse practice and a kind of a,

way of shifting that works for you. Thank you for that. Yeah. What was your experience of that? Well, I'm simultaneously trying to keep track of sort of the conversation and also be in the moment with you. And those two things don't necessarily align super well. So I will go back and listen to this again. Can you talk to us about the three levels of mind? The three shifts are the shifts from small self,

to no self, to this kind of true nature operating system. So that's the shift of identity. Then there's a shift of knowing from thought-based knowing that creates a thinker to not knowing or non-conceptual knowing or don't know mind, and then to kind of a not knowing that knows, which is

the way that this awareness-based knowing that's arising as thought can know. So that's a shift of identity, shift of knowing, and then the shift of perception, which is moving from using attentional system and mindful witness to

perceiving from a spacious, pervasive, interconnected, awake consciousness that isn't just limited to your body or detached witness, but it's perceiving from this that has markers that most people have felt if they really, you know, have been in a flow consciousness or have been in the zone or have been just walking in nature.

you tend to feel the results. Oh, I feel good. I feel relaxed. But if you really felt into, well, what's your relationship? Where are you aware of the forest from? Well, from me. Well, but just look, feel back that way. And then people who I'm walking with will say, oh my God, I'm like connected to the trees and I'm not in my head. So that's what we're doing. We're looking

to the type of consciousness that is shift of perception, shift of knowing, and shift of identity. That's the three. And so then the five levels of mind is kind of where we go through. So the first level of mind is the everyday mind or thought-based mind or ego-centered mind or the thinker, the small self where most people live. And then the second level of mind is...

the mindful witness, what's called subtle mind or subtle body, which is dropping out of your everyday mind into more body-based hypo-frontality. When you go running or do yoga or do chanting or say Aum, you drop out of everyday thought-based mind and into this subtle body. Or if you step up

and watch your thoughts coming and going, you're in subtle mind. And most meditation systems stop there. So most meditation systems do, you know, move from everyday mind to either subtle body or subtle energy. You know, first levels of practice, dropping in exercise, yoga, or just basic mindfulness, detached witness. So then the third level of mind is this

unique, effortless, awake awareness. So this is called very subtle mind or nature of mind. In Tibetan, it's called Rigpa. It's called, you know, the Tao. It's called Turiya in Tibetan.

in Hinduism. So these are given names, but most of us haven't heard of them. But these are practices that have been done for thousands of years. And this is the model that says there is this nature of mind that doesn't deny thought, isn't anti-intellectual, but it is a flow consciousness that you can either train

in a progressive way, or there's these direct pathways to recognize this awake awareness which is contentless, timeless, boundless, equally inside and out. And then the fourth level of mind is the unity of awake awareness arising as sensation, thought, feeling, vibration, and the world. So this is where the word, this is the difference

between if you go into pure awareness or kind of a mindful witness, the experience is as if you're the screen of a movie and everything's coming and going within it, or you're the big sky mind and thoughts, feelings, and sensations are rising and passing. So that's the meditation state. But from awake awareness to this next unity of awareness and aliveness is what's

described as emptiness. So emptiness is a strange word for most of us in the West, but what it means is there's no thing in itself that has independent existence. So a flower, there's no such thing as a flower that can be referred to independent of sun, water, earth, and air. There's no thing in

that's a separate object and subject. Everything's connected. So this is the interesting thing. What are we using the word emptiness? We should use interconnected. So when I say that to people, because the word that's translated even in the Theravada tradition insight meditation is interdependent. And I'm like, interdependent, yeah, interconnected is what we use. More symbiotic, like we all... Yeah, so that everything...

So what if we were to use that, like, you know, or unity, you know, everything is interconnected. So when we go out to this awake awareness, and then the awareness is like the quantum field arising as particles and waves, and then we feel, oh my God, I'm being embodied, is connected, knowing my body from within and being connected to everybody. And then there's the safety. When you feel that,

Rather than sky with birds and clouds of thoughts, an ocean arising as interconnected feeling of flow, then you feel this sense of like everything's okay and well-being. And that's the magic move from awake awareness, which is a new concept, to what's called the inseparable pair. It's called simultaneous mind movement.

because it's simultaneously awareness and aliveness. And then there's one more level beyond that, right? That was level four. Yeah. And then the fifth level is true nature, often translated as bodhicitta, which is translated as heart-mind or open-hearted awareness. So this is the place where you start to feel not only is everything interconnected, but there's a little like positive qualities are flourishing.

And it's where your new operating system of flow feels like it's a compassionate flow. So there's like a compassionate wisdom, a kind of non-reactivity, a feeling of like safety and friendliness that even though stuff is happening in the world and you get triggered and everything, there's this greater, almost like something greater than yourself that's supporting you. And then you're kind of,

flowing out with more natural loving kindness that isn't something you're kind of thinking about, but is just like comes from that ease and well-being. So if I were to sum up our conversation so far, I think it would be that we try to change our thoughts and beliefs.

instead of trying to change the level at which we're accessing the mind. Is that correct? Yeah, that most people, you know, most philosophy, psychology, even, you know, meditation starts, you know, then we have meditation where you kind of go one level of consciousness and you get some relief and you go like, okay, that's enough. That's just stress management. I'll stop there. Whereas this is, there is, I mean, this is the...

thing that, you know, it's hard to say because it starts sounding like, but there is like an awake consciousness that is so freeing and so loving and so

And it's just beyond the point when most give up, right? Because that was level three. And level two, you said, is where most of us get to and then sort of like stop. We don't push through that. Yeah, we don't because there's some kind of letting go. And then the subtle, so all the strengths that we've used from our mind can get a little vacation in level two. But then we come back to functioning from a calmer ego. And then we're like, oh, that was good.

But the upgrade, you have to go from kind of the old orientation to a little disorientation. Like, where am I? I'm not a self. There's nothing here. And then the system one is saying, like, don't go out of your mind. Stay in control. Avoid the void. You know, it's like, no, you got to go. But in this method of glimpsing, it literally takes three seconds to three minutes to let go and then tune in.

to the already awake awareness that's timeless, boundless, contentless. And you feel almost like you're plugging in or handing off a baton. And then you're like, ah, like plugged in. And now like, okay, now include everything. And then it's like, whoa. So that's the amazing thing that I'm convinced that it is this amazing potential that's learnable and teachable and a developmental stage and

I'm just very much, you know, more of an educational approach, scientific approach than a teacher guru or something. I'm just like, okay, let's see. Let's get a group of people together. Let's test it out. Give me some feedback. Let's keep getting it changed. But I'm pretty like, what do you guys think? And so somebody like in my course that I'm doing said,

I just felt so stuck and couldn't do any of the spirituality. So I went down to South America and did ayahuasca. And it really changed my life. It's just been amazing for the last year. Everything's changed. And then it started to fade. And I was about to go back, but then I took your course. And it's like, now I can access the positive qualities of it. So I'm not going back. That's the potential of this is that it's like, this is crazy. This is like,

And I'm very, you know, kind of humbled by it all. I'm like, whoa, this is crazy. But I'm just doing the work of translating experientially and trying to get people on board to try it out and give me feedback and say, what's true? What's real? What's true? Is it working? Does it really work? Are we kidding ourselves? So, but it does seem remarkable. I know my life is

I wake up, my wife says, you have a smile on your face when you're sleeping. I'm like, yeah, well, it's just the background sense of freedom. And as you can see, I live in New York City and talk fast. Even for a meditation teacher, I'm very much involved and more flow optimal than passive and just...

escaping life. What is happiness to you? I mean, you know, there's like small H happiness, which is the attempt to find some kind of pleasure or satisfaction, right? So, you know, and that's good, but can become an addiction. And if we only know that level, you know, that happiness of some pleasure, having, you know, even just a basic,

good meal or something, and then the endorphins and then the filling up of a biological stomach that was craving something and then feeling okay. Then when that fades, whatever that is, whether it's food or drugs or sex or exercise or some pleasure, then what's revealed is what's the baseline?

And then it's like, almost like go up and then go down. And then it's like, oh my God, my anxiety or depression. So most people, because of the small ego center as the operating system, will either their energy and emotions, they either have to be anxious, which means too much going on to try to manage it, or they depress it. So most people are anxious or depressed or depressed.

They're like in a role of like, go, go, go, work, work, work, go to sleep, get up, do it again. So those are like the three modes that most, and then people, you know, get too anxious. All of a sudden something happens, then they get super anxious, then their body breaks down or their emotions break down or too depressed because overwhelmed or stressed out or worried. So happiness with a capital H is,

is our natural condition, which is this kind of okayness and well-being from this essential nature, which kind of feels like it's okay. I'm here, and someday I'm going to die, and I'm aware of the part that's afraid of death, and I'm aware of the part that feels like I'm not good enough, and I should do something to be okay. And there's an essential...

well-being, okayness, that comes into these positive qualities that arise, that has this low level of bliss and kind of friendliness toward people and things, even things seem like they're lit up from within. It's really this hidden jewel or this dimension of consciousness that's hidden in the background, but it's already installed.

And if we learn how to make this drop or openness or background-foreground shift so it becomes primary, as soon as it becomes 51% primary, it's like relief, joy, happiness, bubbling, freedom, because there's no fear. It can't be hurt. The image they use in the wisdom traditions is the awake awareness is like shooting arrows through the sky.

You just feel like, all right, everything's essentially okay. And there's a human being that's bumbling through life with pleasant and unpleasant experiences, trying to do the best we can with ups and downs. But the ups and downs are so small compared to the new baseline. How would you describe love? Yeah, so that's, again, it's like love...

is almost the fabric of this dimension of self that feels like the primary dimension. So the love that you feel isn't even just compassion, it's literally like unconditional love. So it feels like who I am is love, what everything is love, and unconditional means there's no conditions. It's literally something that is not gotten,

through something outside of myself or ourselves. And it's not a mental state. So that's the key to this also is this, what I'm describing is not a meditation state. That's a question I'll often ask people will say like, okay, shift, drop, open, include in these glimpses. Now what's here? And is this a meditation state? Or does this feel like essentially who you are

to which other states can come and go. And when you start to realize that this is your foundation or ground of being, and you start to be able to slowly optimally function from this in a way that you're more creative and related, there's a kind of love and a joy in

You know, Csikszentmihalyi, the guy who did the research on flow, called it ecstasy. You know, he said, you know, there's a quality and flow of ecstasy or bliss or love that feels like palpable, like what we've looked for. You know, there's still other lines and levels of love, you know, types of love. There's, you know, friendship love, romantic love, colleague love, you know, like that are different, almost like

lines, but this is the foundational, unconditional love that we are that isn't something that comes and goes. I appreciate that. Yeah. What do you think is the hardest skill about what you've learned to transfer to other people? Certainly the languaging of it is the first one, because as many smart maps as we have from psychology and even

Even reading the poetry and the wisdom traditions, it just seems like we're filtering it through our secondary process, thinking from a thinker in a subject-object way. And so we're taking in information and trying to understand it based on thoughts, concepts, and experiences that we've had, whereas moving from that knowing to not knowing is

to this new wordless awareness that could use words, that doesn't have a center in our head, but has a feeling of clarity and openness. So even people who experience that in flow haven't looked that way. They haven't looked at that to say, well, where are you aware from? No, I'm in flow. I'm so connected to everything. So they have the qualities that

but they can only get into it through, okay, well, I do it through playing the violin. So I haven't played the violin, so I'm miserable. I better go play the violin. So this is like, no, when you're there, look to see what is looking. Like, don't just feel the results and the expression and the symptoms of qualities. Look to the looker. Look to find that

where you're aware from. And so if we start with that, let's just unhook from the small self and have a little simple map. Okay, and then there's no self, and then there's consciousness itself, which is spacious, pervasive, interconnected, open-hearted, and can now begin to walk and talk and type and create and then lose it. And then I say, no big surprise, just re-recognize.

And then you just re-recognize and start again and bring it into action and activity. You know, getting that started and then being willing to stay with it so that it becomes the new operating system takes, it's more because the old operating system is so strong. It has such a

habitual, like pops you back in there. Like, well, you know, but don't you think I should be thinking about this? And from here, I've always thought about this way. And it's been presented in a way that it is this meditation state or it's this

you know, time apart or you go on a retreat. And so, so teaching that, no, no, do it for small times and then retrain your brain to remain. I like that. I think that's a great place to sort of end this conversation. I really appreciate you taking the time lock. Where can people find you online? My website is

www.lockkelly.org. That's L-O-C-H-K-E-L-L-Y.org. And then I have a bunch of good, you know, YouTubes that are available of doing some of these glimpses and then SoundCloud if you want to listen to them. So that's all free. And then you'll see my books and other things on

on my website and events. So a lot of online events where I go through glimpse after glimpse. Thank you so much. All right, Shane. Thank you. Appreciate it. Hey, one more thing before we say goodbye. The Knowledge Project is produced by the team at Farnham Street.

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