How to Experience Sacred, Mystical Moments in Everyday Life | Mirabai Starr

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Episode Transcript:

Mirabai Starr: [00:00:00] You don’t have to be some special kind of person or a particularly trained or in any way qualified or to merit a mystical experience. It’s also bypassing that whole idea that you have to be pure and perfect, and have arrived at some state of awakening in order to be granted access to that numinous reality that that is yours for the receiving. We all have them. And I’m interested in how do we cultivate that garden so that we get to harvest more and more of them?

 

Jonathan Fields: [00:00:36] So, so many people walk through life just living in a state of perpetual grayness, kind of waiting for the big moments, the sacred, the mystical occasion to just magically appear and change everything. It turns out that those moments they’re actually and rarely ever big. Nor do we have to wait. They’re tiny, they’re ordinary, and they’re there for the taking all day, every day when we understand how to welcome moments of ordinary mysticism into our lives. Even if you’re a practical, non woo woo curmudgeon, you can connect with a deep sense of wonder. So the question is how? And that is where we’re headed with today’s guest Mirabai Starr, an award winning author, internationally acclaimed speaker and interspiritual teacher drawing from over 20 years teaching, being a professor of philosophy and world religions and a lifetime of contemplative practice, Mirabai shares wisdom on really living a spiritually awakened life grounded in the mystical traditions, and her latest book, titled Ordinary Mysticism Your Life as Sacred Ground, takes these moments into our everyday lives. In this conversation, Mirabai really demystifies the notion of mysticism, inviting us to recognize the mystical essence just pulsing through every aspect of our daily lives, and we explore how simple practices accessible to all can open us to profound experiences of interconnection and wonder.

 

Jonathan Fields: [00:02:01] Amir BAE shares how grief and suffering can become almost portals to an expanded capacity for love and radical amazement at the beauty embedded in our very existence. So whether you follow a spiritual or religious path, or simply seeking more presence and aliveness, this conversation will inspire you to embrace the sacred dimensions of our ordinary reality. So excited to share this conversation with you! I’m Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project.. One of my initial curiosities is really around the word mystic or mysticism. I feel like some people hear that word and they’re immediately drawn in. They want to know more and there’s something appealing about it. Other people hear that word and they’re kind of like, what? I’m not so sure. They may even be a little bit freaked out and say like, no, no, that’s not for me. Which is why I’m fascinated by the fact that the name of the new book, Ordinary Mysticism, is it seems like this is an invitation to say no. It’s actually for all of us. So I’m curious, you know, really, just as a starting point is, what are we actually talking about when we’re talking about mysticism?

 

Mirabai Starr: [00:03:16] Yeah, it’s it’s really about direct experience. It’s just so different from, I think, what you’re getting at, what people think of when they hear the word mystical or mysticism. They think of shadowy and magic and esoteric. And what I’m talking about is kind of the opposite. I’m talking about an embodied experience of the sacred in the middle of your everyday life. But even classically, it’s not. It doesn’t necessarily have to be connected to what I’m talking about, which is finding the presence of the sacred overflowing any ordinary, mundane Moment. But really, mysticism is about experiencing the sacred or the divine directly, that is, without asking permission from the authorities, from clergy people, or prescribed prayers, or even religious belief systems or or religious spaces like churches or mosques or temples. To have a mystical experience means, and this is our birthright. Everybody has them, is to have a direct sense of the presence of the Holy. It can be. It can be felt as wonder, as overflowing love, but something that penetrates through all the veils of your opinions on the matter and gets right into your bones.

 

Jonathan Fields: [00:04:42] Yeah, I love the way that you phrased that. You know, I feel like so many people now are really struggling with the notion of organized religion and in part the dogma. Or just like the traditions, the rules, some of which I think have tremendous value across many different traditions, but also in part the translation. And who is the translator and what filters are they using to bring this to us? So I love, if I’m understanding correctly, you’re saying that mysticism, in a way, is your window into bypassing that and just having direct experience?

 

Mirabai Starr: [00:05:19] Exactly, Jonathan. That’s it. You don’t have to be some special kind of person or a particularly trained or in any way qualified or to merit a mystical experience. It’s also bypassing that whole idea that you have to be pure and perfect, and have arrived at some state of awakening in order to be granted access to that numinous reality that that is yours for the receiving. We all have them. And I’m interested in how do we cultivate that garden so that we get to harvest more and more of them?

 

Jonathan Fields: [00:05:57] Mm. Yeah, I think so many of us are. One of my curiosities also. I’m so curious what your take is on this is you just used the phrase mystical experience. How do we know when we are in a mystical experience.

 

Mirabai Starr: [00:06:11] Mhm. It’s such a beautiful question. I sort of feel like one is starting right now because I’m sitting here with you. I’ve been following you for a while and some of your guests and your community, and any time I get to have a conversation that is deep and real, it opens the window to the mystical. Or maybe it’s more like a knock on the door. And as we continue over the next few minutes, my sense is that door is going to open and one or both of us is going to walk in and there we will be having one. Because what it is to have a mystical experience is to settle down or sift down through the layers of surface thoughts and beliefs and preconceived ideas, and arrive at a direct kind of naked intimacy. I don’t just mean with each other, although that is a way to a really reliable way to have a mystical experience is with another human being or animal, or in nature, in the presence of a loving other. But it’s much more about what happens to our own heart. It’s like a disarming. It’s like the armor starts to fall away. We have to have intentionality around it. We don’t have to, but it helps to decide I’m going to be as fully present as possible. And if the sacred reveals itself, I’ll be ready. I’ll be here.

 

Jonathan Fields: [00:07:40] Mhm. I love that phrase. If the sacred reveals itself in part also because it implies that this is something that’s not necessarily generated through force of will from us, but it’s more of a receptivity to something that almost moves into and through us. How does that land with you? Yeah.

 

Mirabai Starr: [00:08:01] That’s beautiful. I mean, I think that’s in some ways the Judeo-Christian mythology of grace. Grace is is not something we earn, but we can make ourselves available to it, and then it can come flowing in. And I think that’s for those of you who, who, for whom that framework of grace is helpful. You can think of it that way. You know, it’s I almost think of this whole mystical journey, you know, this journey of being a human being who is open to the to experiencing the presence of the sacred in any way, at any time is this co-creative dance with the Great spirit, with the mystery, with God, with the divine, where we do our work. I mean, there is some some intentionality, some decision to be present, to be a truth teller, to be to have your heart open. It’s not all just accidental, but it’s that beautiful combination, that synergy, that of being willing to sweep out the chamber of your heart, as the Sufis say, and then perhaps that grace will come. And if it does, you’re you’re ready to meet it.

 

Jonathan Fields: [00:09:14] What a beautiful phrase. Being willing to sweep out the chamber of your heart, which to me also implies that there’s a sense of creating space, which I feel like so many people these days feel like we don’t have space for not just for more things that we don’t want, but even for more things that we would want. And I feel like a lot of us struggle with this sense of just being packed to the gills that, you know, we don’t have room to allow something, even something magical, mystical into our experience.

 

Mirabai Starr: [00:09:46] Yeah, and I would be full of it if I claimed that I am beyond this.

 

Jonathan Fields: [00:09:52] Same here.

 

Mirabai Starr: [00:09:53] It’s the tyranny of tasks, man. It gets me every day. And this is where certain spiritual practices really do come in handy. From the different world religions and spiritual traditions. So when I speak about deconstructing religion, which I do a lot, you know, I’m really just not in the mood for religious language most of the time anymore. I’ve almost developed an allergy to religiosity and religious belief systems and codified ideas. However, there are certain jewels at the heart of all the world’s great wisdom traditions, and they are totally worth safeguarding. And one of them, I would say, are the contemplative practices in all the world’s great traditions in Hinduism and Buddhism as a simple sitting practice, a meditation practice. Even if it’s just ten minutes a day in the morning of just carving out a few minutes to take some deep breaths and just settle and become aware of your body and how you’re feeling. And, you know, or a yoga practice or a walk in the woods or on the beach, right? There are there are ways that we can purposely slow down and show up. And I do use the different contemplative practices from the world’s traditions chanting. I love chanting, and I have a string, many strings of prayer beads that I use to kind of help anchor my mind and heart. And then there are there are practices like the Sabbath practice in Judaism. So I was born into a completely non-religious Jewish family, in fact anti-religious.

 

Mirabai Starr: [00:11:37] I grew up with a total aversion to to organized religion. So over the years, I’ve reclaimed some of the beauty in my ancestral tradition because it’s there too. And one of the best things I’ve found in in the Jewish tradition is Shabbat. You know, on Friday night, lighting the candles, welcoming the Sabbath. Who in mystical Judaism, actually in Judaism, I think mainstream to is feminine. Is she? You welcome her as the beloved. Whatever your gender is, she’s the beloved. You like the candle and you welcome her home into your own soul, where she kind of resoles you, they say. And then for the next 24 hours, you just sort of back off of the to do list. The that tyranny of tasks. I mentioned that inner Pharaoh who bosses you around all the time. It’s never enough, you know that to do list is never complete. I say that it’s written in in fluorescent ink. It’s just to try to get your attention every moment screaming. And maybe not like that for all, all y’all. But it is sometimes that way for most of us. And on the Sabbath we just lay it down. I like to see it as laying down my burden at the feet of the Great Mother and saying, you take it, I’m going to just take a little rest now. And it’s so helpful. It’s kind of non-negotiable in our house. We just do it every week.

 

Jonathan Fields: [00:13:09] Yeah, I love that imagery. It sounds like we actually had, at least in part, similar upbringings where not too, too distant in age. And I grew up just outside of New York, in a Jewish family that was basically non-religious, at least that at our level, too. And later in life, my mother ended up remarrying into a family that actually celebrated the Sabbath every Friday night. Extended family, cousins who were all new to me and would come over and no matter who you were, if you were in your teens and your 20s and you had things to do and whatever it was, we didn’t celebrate the full 24 hours. But everybody came to Shabbat dinner, you know, and that night was sacred. And it was the first time in my life where I realized, like, oh, this is actually quite lovely.

 

Mirabai Starr: [00:13:53] Yeah.

 

Jonathan Fields: [00:13:54] You know, this is just a time for everyone to exhale and to be together. And we would all go off and do our own things. But it was this window where there were it was almost like expectation left the house.

 

Mirabai Starr: [00:14:07] Right. How beautiful. You totally get it. Yeah. And you don’t have to be Jewish to engage this practice, whatever your tradition or lack thereof. And it doesn’t even have to start with the lighting of the candles. It doesn’t have to be Friday night to Saturday, you know, Friday at sunset. That’s what it is in Judaism. Sunset, sunset. Although that sunset to sunset windows is beautiful and sacred. And it is, I don’t know, stamped by thousands of years of, of practice and also the candle lighting. You know, there’s something about lighting a candle across the the spiritual traditions of the world that signifies to our souls that we’re entering sacred space. Sacred time.

 

Jonathan Fields: [00:14:53] It is fascinating that some version of these rituals exist in nearly every tradition in some way, shape or form. Because we realized whether you believe that it was, you know, um, endowed or passed on to us through some sort of spiritual knowledge or just over a period of thousands of years, people realizing we actually need a break. You know, it serves a purpose. It’s very incredibly practical at the same time, you know, so it’s sort of like this beautiful overlap of the practical and the mystical, all in this one just very doable thing that we’ve kind of obliterated from our lives when you decided to sit down. I’m so curious. You’ve studied different faith traditions. You taught for many years, and when you decide to sit down and sort of like, say, you know, I want to actually write about this notion of demystifying this, of taking mysticism and bringing it into everyday life. Why now? Because I would imagine that these ideas have been with you for a long time.

 

Mirabai Starr: [00:15:54] Yeah, they sure have. And I kind of thought everybody was this way, you know, interspiritual one of each and not bound by any particular religious membership or identification, because I grew up that way. I grew up in a very kind of interspiritual, very spiritually free and curious space. And I can say more about that whenever you like. But I have discovered that there are still people who identify as Christian or Muslim or Hindu, to the exclusion of any other, any other way of seeing or being. And so I’ve always felt open and and connected, even not just curious about, but connected to multiple spiritual traditions. But as time goes on, even though I have taught both in the academic arena, world religions, comparative religions, but I’ve also practiced deeply in many different spiritual traditions. It’s I realized I was not interested so much anymore. In fact, less and less was I drawn to the sort of institutionalized versions of spirituality that I had always loved and cherished. I’ve always been interested in excavating the jewels at the heart of all the world’s religious traditions, mystical traditions, you know, the mystical traditions, meaning the ones that emphasized direct experience. But even those were starting to get on my nerves. And I looked around to me and I realized because a lot of people are drawn to me through my work, that a lot of people were in that same mood.

 

Mirabai Starr: [00:17:36] And then, of course, the largest growing religious demographic is what’s called the nones, or n o n e s, or the spiritual, but not religious. The world is more globalized. We’re seeing and experiencing. We have access to more different ways of seeing, of being in the world. And and it doesn’t make so much sense to just have some tribal membership. I don’t mean that in the in the indigenous sense, tribal membership and indigenous sense is more important than ever. But I mean, in a philosophical or religious belief system that excludes everybody else or other-izes, that’s what I’m talking about. It just doesn’t make sense to our, our, um, collectively Evolving minds, hearts and souls anymore. So I’m finding a lot of people who are mostly deconstructing a particular religion. They’re very busy becoming not a Christian anymore or not a Jew anymore. Not only a Buddhist, but there are also people like me who’ve experienced multiple spaces of spiritual and religious belonging, who are letting it go and letting it go. But not all of it. Not all of it.

 

Jonathan Fields: [00:18:54] Yeah, it is interesting what we hold on to and I, I do feel like a lot of maybe not a lot of and I’m speaking as a bit of a religious Luddite here. Like, not that I reject it, but that I’m just not deeply versed in, sort of like the details of the practices of many different traditions. But I do feel like those that I am aware of through my own tradition, through friends or colleagues that have shared that there are some very just there are there’s a lot of value in some of what comes to us as we talked about, Shabbat is a perfect example. So people want to hold on to the the traditions, but they often dissociate them. They’re like, I see how this just makes me feel better, but they almost don’t view it as religious anymore. It’s just something that helps me, you know? It feels good. They don’t understand exactly why. So let me just keep saying yes to it, you know, and we’ll be right back after a word from our sponsors. A big part of what you explore, especially early on in this newest book around this notion of bringing a sense of mysticism, a sense of connection to the present, to everyone is almost like a starting point of intentionality. But you also tether that to a lens of love, which I thought was a really interesting connection.

 

Mirabai Starr: [00:20:09] Mhm. Yeah. You just read my mind because because I would say that of all the spiritual treasures that I do safeguard that I’m not letting go of, They’re all connected to love either love of the beloved as another beautiful Sufi term. It’s also in mystical Judaism. You know, God has, beloved, that deep, intimate connection that’s rooted in longing. You know, the longing of the heart for some kind of loving connection with the beloved, with love itself. But it’s also love for beloved community, the world and the earth herself. And so the two things I look for when I’m winnowing out the treasures of the world’s religions and letting go of the divisive, toxic elements, is the messages of love. Do they awaken love in my heart for the divine, whatever that may be, which I don’t even believe in half the time. But it’s not a matter of belief. It’s a matter of experience. And does it quicken my love for the human family, the animals, the earth who is in peril. When I see through my smartphone or other other media the suffering in the world. It breaks my heart and it breaks my heart open. I don’t stop with the despair. There is a cracking open of my capacity for more love. When I allow myself to feel the suffering in the world. To me, that’s a mystical experience, even when it’s heart wrenching.

 

Jonathan Fields: [00:21:56] It’s so powerful. As you were describing that, it brought to mind a conversation I had years ago with Tererai Trent, who I asked, how do you know what to devote yourself to? This was in the context largely of activism. And she basically said, ask what breaks your heart?

 

Mirabai Starr: [00:22:13] Andrew Harvey says that too.

 

Jonathan Fields: [00:22:15] Mhm.

 

Mirabai Starr: [00:22:15] Yeah

 

Jonathan Fields: [00:22:16] It’s a powerful guide and we often don’t want to go there because we don’t want to feel that feeling. And yet there’s so much wisdom contained within it.

 

Mirabai Starr: [00:22:24] There’s so much wisdom. And it’s I really believe in what I said a minute ago, which is that when we do allow ourselves to feel it, when we don’t turn away from the suffering of the world or from our own grief and loss, that breaking does expand our capacity to hold what is to hold reality, so that even though it’s hard, it it gets bigger and our heart muscles get stronger and it doesn’t kill us. Or if it kills us, it kills that in us that is most limited by unhelpful beliefs that that no longer apply, which is that I can love some people, but not everybody. Or I can tell the truth, sort of, but need to really couch it in some kind of protective language makes us wild. This mystical love intention makes takes the shackles off like we have nothing to lose.

 

Jonathan Fields: [00:23:28] Yeah, I mean, it’s powerful also, you know, I know you had the great loss of a daughter who was fairly young in her life a number of years back, and it would be completely understandable for anyone, any parent who lived through that, to close their heart to a certain extent, because the idea of, well, there are others that I could lose, or maybe there are new relationships that actually don’t want to form because those can be left and and tear me apart as well. Completely understandable. And yet you seem to have gone in the exact opposite direction. And I’m assuming that wasn’t overnight, that this has been a process. But it’s interesting to just sort of see how you’ve integrated this and how it informs the way that you step into the world.

 

Mirabai Starr: [00:24:14] Well, I’m so glad that you said you know, that. That it would be completely understandable for people to close down their hearts when they’ve experienced a harrowing, shattering loss. Like like I did of the death of a child. And many of you who are listening have experienced shattering losses and have shut down. And there’s nothing wrong with you if you have. And there are periods where we just must, or at least turn inward and and make the world go away so we can kind of take stock. My daughter died in a car accident, so there was no preparation for like ten years. Every time my husband left the house and got in his car, I was. It was a foregone conclusion in my reptilian mind anyway, that he wasn’t going to come back. But that was it. You know that the people you love most drive away and die and don’t come back. This is instinctive to protect ourselves against more loss. And you’re right that what happened to me probably was a result of years of of contemplative practices of different kinds, different heart practices. But none of my spiritual practices worked when Jenny died. In fact, they all pissed me off and made me want to rebel totally and want to rebel. Some of them came back. A lot of them didn’t. But there was this moment I remember very clearly that relates to what you’re referring to when I was trying to use mindfulness practice to deal with my grief like I’m going to be present.

 

Mirabai Starr: [00:25:43] I know how to do this. I’ve spent thousands of hours on the cushion. I know how to be mindful and present and lean into the experience and explore it with with curiosity. And then it was like, fuck that. This doesn’t make any sense to my shattered heart that I’m going to be, you know, cultivate curiosity and be present with this experience. I mean, I want to do anything other than feel this unbearable anguish, but right behind that was this sense of. But I don’t want to turn away from Jenny. I want to stay right here as an act of love. There we come back to love again. Jonathan. It’s. It’s the only thing that does make sense is that turning away from the experience of my own broken heart felt like betraying Jenny or something. Like leaving her behind. I wanted to stay with her. I wanted to keep loving her through the experience of losing her. And it just changed everything. Then it wasn’t a spiritual exercise like, I can prove how spiritual I am. I flexed my spiritual muscles. Look at me. I’ve done all these years of practice. I know how to do this. I can do this. It was much more about I love you, honey, and I’m not going anywhere.

 

Jonathan Fields: [00:27:02] I mean, it’s so powerful. It also speaks to something else. Um, you speak about. And in fact, this is in that you write about this notion of surrender, of surrendering control, but also in the context of, I think the phrasing was something like embracing radical amazement. You know, in these moments of just profound surrender and whether it’s just a tremendous loss or whatever it is, or just the sense of a profound lack of control over the circumstances of your life and the world, which I think a lot of people are feeling right now. This notion of saying when you’re there, it’s not about giving up your humanity or, you know, like stepping into some professed practices or spiritual thing where like, oh, this is just what you do in these moments. It’s like, if you can truly surrender to what’s going on around you, but then like that next thing, like embracing this, this notion of radical amazement, it’s not just surrender. It feels like it’s a combination of surrender and open hearted inquiry blended into one.

 

Mirabai Starr: [00:28:06] Mhm. That’s so beautiful I love that insight. This combination is braiding of surrender, of allowing but also staying curious open hearted inquiry. I love that. Yeah. So it’s not blind faith. Like I’m just going to let myself down into the arms of the unknown and see what happens. There is an element of that that’s actually quite wondrous when you. It’s almost like falling backwards into the dark, the womb of darkness and saying, I the outcome is none of my business. There are times when that’s a really powerful act. But what we’re talking about here is that we’re staying awake. We’re showing up. It’s that co-creative dance again with the divine, like, I’m going to allow and surrender, but I’m also going to stay present to see what my part is in this dance, what what might be to make it as beautiful and vital and vibrant as possible. And I will say that my greatest losses have awakened my most childlike wonder. My ability to marvel at like the simplest things has increased so much over years of sorrow and loss. My joy, my childlike wonder and joy is has grown in in proportion. I don’t get it. I mean, I didn’t design it this way, but it does seem to be working that way.

 

Mirabai Starr: [00:29:42] Not all the time. I mean, I wake up in bad moods and I, you know, break something and get mad and whatever. All the things say unskillful things to people all the time. And that’s something I do. And, um, I try really hard not to. And I’m getting better. But it’s not about getting better. It’s about being as true as you can and as real as you can about who you are and loving your way through what is. I mean, I was listening to your your conversation with Elizabeth Gilbert and that letter to love and that’s, you know, maybe it’s not a formal practice of mine, but it is the underlying energy of my life. How do I come back to just gently, tenderly, often with a big dash of humor, loving myself through whatever perceived mistakes I’m making, disassembling all these ideas of purification and perfection that the patriarchal religious systems have handed us, and just being true to what is and and allowing ourselves to be messy and gloriously complicated, beautiful beings doing the best we can to show up with love.

 

Jonathan Fields: [00:31:07] Yeah, it’s such an interesting concept. It’s also complicated for me. I look at the phrase and I hear the phrase and I’ve heard it. I’ve heard variations of the phrase like to love what is, which often includes you like, love yourself as you are. And on the one hand, I’m like, yes, wouldn’t that be amazing if I could wake up and just ah, but on the other hand, and I hear versions of this in different spiritual traditions also, and part of me says, is this just rationalization for complacency? Because there are things about myself that I feel are important to me to be different. There are things about the community around me. The world in which we live in that I feel are important, you know, so the notion of loving what is and I guess this goes to Thich Nhat Hanh and his whole approach of engaged Buddhism. Right. It’s like, yeah, no, we can actually be in this space of of acknowledging this is our reality and embracing it as real and true. And at the same time, that doesn’t mean that we just sit there and say like, it is what it is, and I have no role in making it different. You know, like that there is suffering that’s being caused by the way that it is both internally and me and in the people around me. And there is some sense of responsibility to take action on that, to become involved in change. I think it’s a tension that I’ve always felt with the sort of like the the notion of loving what is, including ourselves, and also having this really deep felt sense that but it’s actually not okay. Not in a judgmental, shameful and broken kind of way. But just no, really. Like actually there are like, I would be a lot better if there were some things that were different and the world would be a lot better if there were some things that were different. So how do I love that current state but also make, you know, like feel like it needs to change?

 

Mirabai Starr: [00:33:05] Yeah. Beautiful. And I agree with you a gazillion percent. Maybe it’s more like how do I not hate on it? I look at my thighs at age 63 and I can say, oh, I don’t want that. I don’t want it to be that way. But I don’t just say, oh, well, just love yourself through it. I go hiking and I lift weights and and suddenly I’m stronger and I’m more energized and I feel better and I’m able to do the things that I want to do with much more ease because I’ve attempted to, you know, engage in fitness. In fact, that’s actually a good example because I personally I get up every morning. I do yoga. I meditate, and then I happen to live on the boundary of National Forest. I’m looking out my window at it right now. I get my dogs, Lola and Ruby, and off we go into the mountains for at least a three mile hike. I would say every day this is when I’m home. Do I have enough time to do that? No. I have way too much to do. I have way too much to do to afford doing Shabbat for 24 hours every week. But what happens is that when I do show up for my body and for my nervous system, and do all of those practices and exercise and eat well, it expands my ability to show up for what is in the world. So it’s better to not hate myself. And if I can, if I can lean toward love, that’s even better. And if I can engage in the effort required to maximize my ability to be present, then that’s it’s all the same. None of these things are mutually exclusive, is what I’m saying. So I’m an activist. I pray with my feet too, and I never neglect the invitation. Looks up. Sometimes I’m really tired and burned out, and then I do. And then I refill. But the invitation to do what I can to make things better, to alleviate suffering, either right in my direct sphere or even far away if it’s possible they’re not mutually exclusive.

 

Jonathan Fields: [00:35:23] Yeah, no, that makes sense to me. Um, I am incredibly blessed as you are. And that, like, as as I literally have this conversation, there’s a window behind my computer that where I’m looking at the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, and I start my day these days the same way as you. It’s 7 a.m., I’m out the door and hiking, and I’ll sometimes there’s news going on or something like this. I’ll pop an earbud in my ear, and then five minutes in, I’ll be on the trail and like, what am I doing? It just just like take it out and take away the electronics and like, this is, you know, whether I believe in the divine or not. Are you thinking as a being, whatever, or just an ethereal energy? There’s something just profoundly sacred about just being. For me, at least in nature and often alone. Well, me and the bears.

 

Mirabai Starr: [00:36:11] Oh gosh.

 

Jonathan Fields: [00:36:13] It is. It’s sort of like a yes. And like, this is this is all part of the experience. And we’ll be right back after a word from our sponsors. What you’re talking about also brings up something else I’m curious about, and it’s something that you write about as well, is the notion of attention as a part of not just life, but also this notion of access to mysticism on a regular basis. And I’m curious about whether you see a connection between attention and love.

 

Mirabai Starr: [00:36:43] Mm. Yeah. Loving attention. Well, I’m now going to use your phrase of open hearted inquiry. My teacher, Ramdas. So Ramdas, who wrote Be Here Now, the iconic book that really introduced a lot of eastern concepts to the West, was my lifelong friend and mentor. And Rhonda’s, toward the end of his life, coined this this phrase. He had had a stroke and it had aphasia, and it was difficult for him to speak. This phrase really evoked everything that he was going through and that was loving awareness. Or I am loving awareness is what Ramdas would say. I am loving awareness. He just kind of tried it on. Let’s see what this how this fits, how this resonates. And the more he chanted it, almost like a mantra, the more he said it to himself, the more translucent he became. My friend Nina talks about him as he became more and more translucent, not transparent, but translucent. The light came through and Ramdas was always someone who was really good at admitting his foibles, in fact leading with them. Ramdas and Annie Lamott, you know, just let’s not try to pretend that things are all pretty and tucked in. But in fact, let’s use our our messiness as example for how to be truthful and loving in this world. The more Ramdas showed up for the possibility that he was is loving awareness and that all of us are too, the more kind of out of his own way he became. And this loving quality that you’re speaking of begins to pervade our gaze. You know, my friend Richard Rohr, another wonderful living mystic, speaks about gazing through the eyes of love. That’s what contemplative life is for, Richard. You know that word? Contemplative practice. Contemplative life is a kind of spiritual buzzword. But for Richard, it’s just about how can I look through the eyes of love and perceive more love? And that’s, I think, what you’re asking, Jonathan. And I think that’s what you’re doing in your life and in your community here, is gazing through the eyes of love. So you’re paying attention, but you’re paying attention to what kindles more love.

 

Jonathan Fields: [00:39:13] Part of my curiosity around that is for somebody listening to this who’s kind of nodding along and say, okay, I think I get it. Sounds pretty good to me. I’d like more of that. What’s sort of like an easy access point into this notion of developing this gaze?

 

Mirabai Starr: [00:39:28] For me, it’s like what’s hidden in plain sight. Your parenting, your children, you know, how do you pause? You were talking about how we just, like, rush through life so often, so many of us, so many of you who are listening, are going, yep, that’s me rushing through each day. So it’s like pause. I am going to have an exchange with my toddler right now, or I’m going to be as present as possible. I’m going to start with beginner’s mind and not think I have this all figured out and see what reveals itself in this moment, or I’m going to change this diaper with full, loving attention, even though it’s icky or my teenager is being a complete bitch to me. I am going to see what it feels like to not do my habitual reactive snapping back, but like, really become lovingly curious about this very moment. Or I walk into work. It’s like a grind. I really don’t want to be here. This is not the job I dreamed of having when I grew up, this corporate cubicle or whatever it might be. But how about I go to work today and see if I can perceive the face of the divine in the face of some person who I’ve deemed less than conscious or at least less conscious than I am. You know, it’s caught in the one of the Mughals or whatever they they call it, you know, see if we can let go of our judging, mind our otherizing impulses and reclaim some everyday experience of traffic or food or even sex or, you know, intimacy, love making that we have certain ideas about what that’s supposed to look like. How about if we just let it go and re-encounter the beloved as the beloved? It doesn’t have to be serious and solemn and, you know, some kind of ideas of tantric yoga or something to just simply be loving and present and curious. And that’s when the divine sneaks up on us.

 

Jonathan Fields: [00:41:36] Which really also makes me wonder about awareness. And as as sort of a meta skill for all of this, it’s so hard to think about the notion of being present, of surrender, of love, of being intentional about what you’re doing. If we don’t have the capacity to actually, at any given moment in time, be aware of both what’s happening internally within us and externally around us and sort of like like between us. I was about to say, I feel like so many of us have lost that, but honestly, I think so many of us never had it that we sort of like, were born into a space where we’re almost in a state of perpetual distraction, at least from the moment that we really enter a sense of awareness of us as individual beings. And all of a sudden, I mean, especially people who are coming up now in the world, I think, you know, when you and I were kids, there were probably a lot more opportunities for just wandering and being and solitude. I don’t think that exists now unless you’re really, really intentional about making it exist and it doesn’t leave us the space to just be aware of, like what’s actually going on inside of me. Like, what am I hearing or feeling or thinking? And what about outside and around me? Um, you know, these things we’re talking about, none of it’s possible if we don’t have some developed sense of awareness. Does that land with you?

 

Mirabai Starr: [00:43:03] Yeah, it really does. Yeah. Some impulse toward introspection that we can’t get from the media and the soundbites that we consume for three seconds and then move on to the next one. It’s true. And yet I think that most people probably who are gathering in your community listening right now, maybe have always been inclined toward introspection and, and that wonder, that curiosity about both the, the inner life and the world around them. But I’m seeing more and more young people starting to intentionally disengage from that constant input that they grew up in, that it’s all they’ve ever known. You know, they live in cities or suburban areas, and that’s they’ve been consuming that kind of media their whole lives. But something in them knows that there is more and they’re and they’re hungry for it. That’s why I think that we’re all mystics, that inherently we all have this inner fire that drives us to encounter the presence of the sacred in the quiet of our own inner lives, in the cacophony of our relationships, in the middle of the most challenging things. And, you know, somehow I feel like old fashioned reading and looking at art and listening to music, making music, making art, Making writing is more important than ever to actually read books, to actually slow down enough to read a poem that’s part of my morning practice, by the way, is after I meditate, I always have a book of poetry next to me, either a collection of contemporary poets or something classical or something spiritual, like the Tao Te Ching.

 

Mirabai Starr: [00:44:55] Although, as I mentioned in my capacity for religious language is diminishing. But whatever it is, a poem makes you slow way down in order to really read a poem and take it in. And it’s so visceral, it’s so embodied, poetic language. And that becomes part of my invitation to enter the day with awareness and with love is to read a poem, read it a couple of times, slowly, and just eat it, savor it. And so that’s one of the things I recommend to people is reading beautifully, carefully crafted Language doesn’t have to be serious spiritual writing, but it needs to be intentional and it needs to be robust. Like, let’s do that again. Learn to play an instrument, sing, get art supplies. And when you’re in the middle of the craziness of your life, stop. Pull out the paper and the markers and just and blast some music and start to draw. You don’t have time for that shit, but do it anyway. There’s something about reclaiming that human capacity to make and appreciate art that I think is going to save us.

 

Jonathan Fields: [00:46:13] So agree with that. Years ago, I wrote something like this. As I come to the feeling of God is when I’m making not being God. But just like the experience of feeling some connection with something bigger than myself is that I just completely lose myself and have some sense that there’s something moving through me and I feel like it’s a beautiful invitation for anyone. I also want to not jump past what you said earlier, which is this notion that, you know, and really, this is where a lot of this conversation has been about. It’s this notion that mysticism is not this thing that is reserved for the, quote, anointed mystics that we’re talking about simply being the notion of being present in so many, in the nuances and details and beauty of ordinary experiences, that this is something that we all have access to. And I think that’s not necessarily the easiest thing for people to say yes to. And I wonder if part of that is if you say everybody has the capacity for mystical experience on the regular, that part of that also is we also have a certain and maybe you disagree with this. We also have a certain responsibility towards opening ourselves to that, and maybe that feels a little weird.

 

Mirabai Starr: [00:47:38] And when you say responsibility toward opening ourselves to it, you mean that if we have the ability to have a mystical experience and we don’t do it, we don’t open ourselves to it. In some ways, we’re betraying our gift.

 

Jonathan Fields: [00:47:55] It’s not even that. It’s sort of like it’s on us. Yeah. So if we don’t do it and we don’t feel it in our lives, that’s on us. So on the one hand, it’s like, yay! That’s on us. If anyone has access to this, then then anyone can sort of start to say, okay, let me actually do the little things all day, every day that let me feel this. And at the same time, if we don’t ever do those things and we don’t ever feel it and we’re already feeling like, oh, there are so many things about our lives that are sources of shame or upset or self-judgment that this becomes yet another one. Oh, I’m not doing all the things that would let me have access to this magical state that I really want to feel. That’s another reason to feel bad about myself. I feel like so many of us walk through life with so many versions of that layering on top of each other.

 

Mirabai Starr: [00:48:42] Yeah, that keep us from engaging in the depths of life that reveal the beauty in the middle of the messy. Yeah, I agree, and it is a decision. And it does require agency and a certain level of buy in. I’m thinking about a beloved relative of mine who suffers from depression. You know, it’s clinical. It’s it’s neurobiological. There’s not a lot he can do about it. And what he can do, he does, but he does spend a fair amount of time suffering. But this same person takes pictures of cats, of his cats and anybody’s cats and is just, like, wildly enthusiastic about the beauty of these creatures. This person calls me up because he lives nearby. When the full moon rises over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains where I live and says, Mirabai, go outside right now. The moon is rising. And there’s something about him that even though it would be really easy for him to feel victimized by life circumstances and neurochemistry, and sometimes he does. He also shows up in every way he can so that he might be overtaken by the presence of this sacred, wherever it might happen, in a bowl of ice cream, in a conversation with a child. It’s not like despite our life circumstances. I’m not saying that despite how difficult things can be, you should just, you know, muscle your way through to a mystical experience. It’s more like this human predicament, as Ramdas called it, is very humbling. Sometimes it’s humiliating. And if we can, through the portal of how hard it sometimes is to be a happy human being, to have a good life, to make a good life, but to actually walk through those painful realities into that bigger landscape of the soul that is beckoning, you know, right behind the I can’t do this. It’s too hard.

 

Jonathan Fields: [00:51:02] It reminds me that this the importance of the fact that we’re, you know, we’re born alone and we we go out alone. And yet while we’re here, we have this amazing opportunity to be together. Ramdas, in the end, we’re all just walking each other home.

 

Mirabai Starr: [00:51:18] Yes.

 

Jonathan Fields: [00:51:19] You know, and this is, again, something that you write about, this sense of interconnectedness, and that in my practice, in my own spiritual practice, in my practice of just life and my practice of opening to mystical experience, there is some collective aspect of it.

 

Mirabai Starr: [00:51:35] Yes, there absolutely is. That’s why, you know, one of the main chapters in the book is called Beloved Community. It’s about the fact that we can’t do this alone. Tick. Not Han, who I think you mentioned at one point today, beloved Zen teacher, recently gone from this world, said that the the new Buddha will be the Sangha and the technical terms Buddha and Sangha are simply, you know, most religions have some idea of of a second coming, some great being who’s going to show up and make everything right. And in my mind, that’s a patriarchal construct that doesn’t it’s not helpful. In fact, it’s anti helpful. It’s counterproductive to hold this notion of some perfected dude that’s going to come in and save the day. So rather, the word sangha in Buddhism is a community. It’s the interconnected web of what you might call it, the web of interbeing to which we all belong. And if we can wake up collectively right now and step up as beloved community, that that’s our only hope. I mean, I think even we’re still holding out. Many of us, or the Hopi prophecy that says we are the ones we’ve been waiting for. And so any work and again, coming back to Ramdas, if I work on myself, it is an offering to the world. It makes the world better when we can cultivate more self-awareness, more love, more equanimity, more joy, more rebellious aliveness. It’s subversive, but it mends the torn fabric of the world. Tikkun olam is the Hebrew phrase, right? In Judaism, Tikkun olam to repair the broken world. It’s every time we do anything loving and caring to ourselves or others, or mending a thread of that torn fabric.

 

Jonathan Fields: [00:53:40] Mhm. I love that thought. And that also feels like, I think, a good place for us to come full circle in our conversation. So in this container of Good Life Project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up?

 

Mirabai Starr: [00:53:53] Mhm. For me it’s to see and express beauty wherever I can. I’m an Enneagram four for those of you who are familiar with that system. So I come by this impulse honestly. But it’s really important to me in my life to surround myself with beautiful things. And it doesn’t mean expensive Inexpensive things. Often it’s it’s gathering dried grasses and sticking them in a handmade vase that my six-year-old grandchild me made for me. But I have beautiful. I have beauty around me. I read beautiful poetry. I try to write with beauty. You know, I’m not just writing spiritual self-help books. All of my books that are grounded in my love of language and the music of language and the visual richness of language. So for me, a good life is a life that is drenched in beauty and where beauty comes through me. When you describe Jonathan, that feeling of making things and being used by the divine as a conduit for me, it’s like, let me be an instrument of beauty in this world in whatever ways I can. That beauty might awaken the hearts of other people to their own beauty and to the interconnectedness that they will remember that we belong to each other. Beauty is the great awakener and quickener of that of that understanding.

 

Jonathan Fields: [00:55:25] Mhm. Thank you.

 

Mirabai Starr: [00:55:27] Thank you.

 

Jonathan Fields: [00:55:29] Hey, before you leave, if you loved this episode Safe bet, you’ll also love the conversation we had with Elizabeth Gilbert about being present to love’s wisdom in our lives. You’ll find a link to Liz’s episode in the show notes. This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers, Lindsey Fox and me, Jonathan Fields. Editing help by Alejandro Ramirez. Kristoffer Carter crafted our theme music and special thanks to Shelley Adelle for her research on this episode. And of course, if you haven’t already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project. in your favorite listening app. And if you found this conversation interesting or inspiring or valuable, and chances are you did. Since you’re still listening here, would you do me a personal favor? A seven-second favor and share it, maybe on social or by text or by email. Even just with one person. Just copy the link from the app you’re using and tell those you know, those you love, those you want to help navigate this thing called life a little better so we can all do it better together with more ease and more joy. Tell them to listen, then even invite them to talk about what you’ve both discovered. Because when podcasts become conversations and conversations become action, that’s how we all come alive together. Until next time, I’m Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project.