Reframing Life and Death with Buddhist Meditation Practices
Episode Summary:
Episode 12 of Redesigning The Dharma by Sahaja Soma is features an insightful conversation with Jess McNally, an experienced Buddhist practitioner and facilitator in Minyak Rinpoche's Tergar Meditation Community. Jess shares her journey with Buddhism, from her academic beginnings at Stanford University to living and training at Zen Mountain Monastery, and eventually ordaining as a monastic in the Tibetan tradition. The conversation delves into the differences between secular meditation and traditional Buddhist practices, the significance of having a good meditation teacher, the value in contemplating life (and death), and the profound benefits of attending retreat.
Episode Highlights:
00:00 Guest Introduction
06:51 Transition to Monastic Life
13:59 The Importance of a Good Teacher
20:17 Secular vs. Traditional Buddhist Practices
27:00 Understanding Karma and Death
35:41 Upcoming Retreats and Final Thoughts
Guest Bio:
Jess McNally has devoted much of her adult life to practicing and studying Buddhism. After completing both a Bachelor and a Master of Science degree in Earth Systems at Stanford University, she moved to Zen Mountain Monastery near New York, where she lived and trained for over three years.
During that time she completed over forty week-long silent retreats (sesshins). In 2015, she decided to pursue Tibetan Buddhism and was ordained as a monastic by Thrangu Rinpoche. She met Mingyur Rinpoche shortly afterward at Tergar Monastery in Bodhgaya, India. Under his guidance, she completed a series of solitary retreats in Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo’s cave in the Himalayas, including a 5-month retreat over winter. Since 2016, Jess has also been a student of Tsoknyi Rinpoche.
In 2018, Jess chose to return to lay life and her hometown of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Jess serves as a Senior Tergar Facilitator and host for online Tergar retreats and workshops. She also runs her own web design business. In her downtime, she loves to go on adventures outside with her dog Pema, sing and cook.
Full Transcript:
Adrian: Welcome to Redesigning the Dharma. I'm your host, Adrian Baker. Today I'm speaking with Jess McNally.
I became aware of Jess because we have common teachers in Minyak Rinpoche and Tsoknyi Rinpoche, but Jess is very involved with the organization, not just a practitioner, but actually a facilitator in Minyak Rinpoche's Tergar organization helping to even lead retreats now. These Tergar retreats are relatively new and exciting opportunity for people studying with Minyak Rinpoche.
So I'm looking forward to sharing this conversation with Jess, with you all. And before I do that, I'm just going to briefly read her bio to give you some background.
Jess McNally has devoted much of her adult life to practicing and studying Buddhism. After completing both a bachelor's and a master of science degree in earth systems at Stanford University, she moved to Zen Mountain Monastery near New York, where she lived and trained for over three years. During that time, she completed over 40 week long silent retreats, shashins.
In 2015, she decided to pursue Tibetan Buddhism and was ordained as a monastic by Thrangu Rinpoche. She met Minyak Rinpoche shortly after afterward at Tergar Monastery in Bodhgaya, India.
Under his guidance, she completed a series of solitary retreats in Tenzin Palmo's Cave in the Himalayas, including a five month retreat over winter.
Since 2016, Jess has also been a student of Tsoknyi Rinpoche. In 2018, Jess chose to return to lay life in her hometown of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Jess serves as a senior Tergar facilitator and host for online Tergar retreats and workshops.
She also runs her own web design business. In her downtime. She loves to go on adventures outside with her dog, Pema, sing and cook.
And with that said, please enjoy my conversation with Jess McNally.
Well, thanks, Jess. Appreciate you making the time speak with me.
Jess: Yeah, glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
Adrian: So, um, I wanted to start by, you know, I will have read your bio for the audience, but if you want to start just giving a little bit of, you know, a brief context for who you are and what you do before we go into your journey and how you got there.
Jess: Yeah. so, I live in Canada in Calgary, Alberta.
I'm from here. I grew up here. I always like, there's so many different parts to my story. I never know where to start.
But basically in brief, I am a Buddhist practitioner of a long time and I teach meditation, within the Tergar Meditation Community, which is the students of Mingyur Rinpoche, in the West primarily.
And, I was ordained as a Buddhist nun for a long time. So I, I started in the Zen tradition after university and I lived at a Zen monastery in New York, called Zen Mountain Monastery.
I lived there for about three years. And then, I switched to the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, now about 10 years ago. And I got ordained, in the Tibetan tradition and, did a lot of solitary retreat when I was ordained.
And, yeah, I moved to Madison, Wisconsin. I was involved with the Center for Healthy Minds that's run by Richard Davidson for a year. And then I decided to just roll with it. Returned to lay life and I moved home to Canada and that was about six years ago now.
And so now I, I run my own website design business and I teach meditation really as a passion and I practice still quite a bit.
And outside of that I'm kind of a regular, I don't know, regular person. have a dog, and I love, I'm quite active. I really love sports, so I've always been an athlete. And, um, so, yeah, that's a little bit about me.
Adrian: Perfect. Thank you.
How about we start with, um, how'd you get interested in meditation in the first place
Jess: Well, somehow, very young, I was interested in meditation. And, uh, this is a Buddhist podcast, so I think I can say, like, I, I feel like I had some kind of ibirit or something because I was very interested in Buddhism from a young age for reasons that are kind of unexplainable.
Like nobody in my family is Buddhist and my family's kind of Christian slash like non practicing Christian.
But I always had this interest and I, I don't know exactly where it came from. I try and like pinpoint where, but, uh...
Then it grew, like I, I um, read certain books that really inspired me as a teenager, like Siddhartha, and this book about, uh, it was called A Fire in the Snow, and it was about a monk who had, who had lived in a prison camp in China and his life journey and that really inspired me.
And, I just kept sort of seeking things out, but it was like at the beginning, it was very kind of vague, like I'm interested and then it, I was sort of looking and trying to find something.
And, it took a long time between being interested and then finally, like establishing a meditation practice and feeling like I'm really have a kind of identifying as a Buddhist outwardly like...
I don't know what sort of all of my teen years was like, I was interested and dabbling, but hadn't quite found anything yet.
And, um, then finally in university was when I really got into it. Um, the Dalai Lama came to visit my university and I was quite inspired by him.
And then I found a Zen center that was close to Stanford and started going there. And I had a boyfriend who meditated and like, it just sort of built from there.
And, that's, um, how got going and I started a meditation group on Wednesdays that was like, meditation and soup on Wednesday nights. And so in college people would come over on Wednesdays and me and my boyfriend would make a big pot of soup and we'd meditate for 15 minutes and then we'd have soup and it became really popular. There was like 30 or 40 people would come every week for soup and meditation.
And uh, So that was my first sort of meditation community but I look back and I didn't really know what I was doing. Like, I was just counting the breath because I'd read about how to do that in a book and, slowly, slowly, they finally, um, went to Zen Mountain Monastery and that's where I really felt like, oh, this is my, this is, this is my teacher, this is my community.
And I, I moved in and, that was about a year after I graduated from, I did an undergrad, a master's, and then about, a year after I finished my degree, I moved into the monastery. And that's when I was really like, became quite deeply involved. But it was like a slow journey of, of finding my way, my way there.
Adrian: And how did you go from, you just finished this graduate program, um, And then you're like, you know what, though I know I went back to grad school for this degree and perhaps a particular vocation, I actually want to be in a monastery. I'm asking this because though I wasn't a monastery, I've got, you know, had my own version of this.
And I'm, you know, I'm sure a lot of other people do when they're kind of at that inflection point in their own practice in life.
So I'm curious, what kind of really tipped you in that direction. And then once you got there, you know, what you just alluded to, like what really felt right about the Zen Center?
Jess: You know, there were lots of things happening simultaneously in university and grad school and I was studying environmental science and climate change. And, my very first semester at university, I was at Stanford in California, and my very first semester, Al Gore came and gave his talk on an inconvenient truth, which hadn't been made into a movie yet.
And I remember just being like, blown away by that talk and feeling like climate change is the most important issue of our time. And so kind of all my university studies were like, around that topic somehow.
Like I basically went to the student advisor and said, I want to be involved in studying climate change or making a difference in this area.
And so I studied climate change through the lens of ocean sciences, because at the time, climate change, a lot of the science was really about how will the ocean absorb the heat, and how will the ocean react to climate change.
I got to my, the end of my undergraduate studies, and I thought I would keep studying oceanography, but I got a bit disillusioned.
I felt like there's lots of science out there now that climate change is real, and this is like 2009. And I think, the vast majority of Americans still thought that climate change didn't exist.
And so I felt like that wasn't a failure of science, but a failure of communication. And so I went into science communication. I designed my own masters around that topic. And so that's what I was doing my master's degree in. And I graduated and got a job at Wired Magazine for their science section and thought, this is the greatest.
I've got, this perfect job and I can do this perfect thing. And, I had so much optimism and so much, like, I don't know, a bit of naivete, I think, coming out of university, which I loved, and, being sort of in the real world of journalism. And, I think I was really disillusioned by how, news and it was just about views and popularity and, kind of churning out this short form journalism.
And I think simultaneously through my studies in school, I, I've become more and more, I don't know, I think I had like eco depression. Just this sense of like total overwhelm and despair about our world and where it was going and how to change behavior. How we can collectively actually do something positive.
And simultaneously, like, around that same topic, I've become very interested in community living, in part because I think one of the problems of our ecological consumption, overconsumption, is that we're all living alone.
We all have our own car, our own laundry machine, our own everything, right? and we're also not very happy, living alone. it's like a loneliness epidemic.
We're learning more and more about this, but I was thinking about that, in university, like, about, and I wasn't the only one, about how our modern lifestyle is not really that satisfying.
And so community life, there's a lot of great things about it. You can share resources. You have a lot of social support and social structure that is very nourishing and, I felt like actually community life could do a lot to solve our ecological problems and our, and our psychological, emotional problems.
And so, one of the things I did in university was study. I got a grant one summer to study different intentional communities all around the western U. S. I went to tons of them and, in that sort of research about different communities.
One of the things I found was that the ones that were spiritual seemed to be the most put together and functioning on all kinds of levels, like places where they had a really strong sense of shared values, shared direction and clear sort of, belief system. And ones that had actually, like, structure seemed to work better than, like, anarchist sort of eco communities.
And also ones that were, like, very connected with the community, like, either close to town or, like, had people coming, they seemed to be better off. And so all these things were, like, threads of what was going on in my life.
And so I got disillusioned at my Wired science job. I quit. I decided to go work on a farm in New Hampshire. And that's, I think I just wanted to, like, do something tangible.
And I, I was thinking about sort of becoming, like, a back to the lander. You know, I had this vision with my boyfriend at the time. We were gonna, like, grow our own food and, you live our values and, maybe have like an eco community somewhere.
We're sort of hippies, you know, and, I discovered that growing food is really hard. I have like the most respect for farmers you can imagine. They're just unbelievably hard working and passionate about what they do.
And, it's really hard to grow food, organically, especially. So when I was living at the farm is when I started going to the Zen monastery. And the minute I arrived there, it was like all these things came together somehow.
Like my interest in Buddhism, which was sort of developing and meditation and the sense that, like, I really needed to find a teacher and people that could really teach me that, like, you can't really learn meditation from a book.
And. It's really hard to find a great teacher, actually. There's not that many wonderful meditation teachers, like, really practiced meditation teachers in the world.
And the community was so functional. And the people that I met who had lived there a long time, like some people have been there 20, 30 years, they just seemed so at ease in themselves and happy and friendly and, well adjusted and I don't know, they just seem very inspiring.
And I thought if that's the result of being here, I want to be like that. I felt like, yeah, it was very ecological living there also, like you're living a simple life. You're not traveling around.
So at the time that was also very important to me, and I mean still is I think about it, but I've kind of softened my views maybe a little bit, but yeah, it was just kind of fit a lot of different threads of what I was interested in.
And because I've been to so many different communities, when I arrived at Zen Mountain and saw how well it was working and how great the people were, and I just felt like I clicked. It wasn't like, oh, maybe I should keep looking around. It's like, I, I'd already done a lot of looking. So when I arrived there, it was just very clear. I wanted to keep going.
Adrian: Nice. I want to hone in on one thing you said there a moment ago, which is the importance of having a good teacher. And it really wasn't just the kind of thing you could learn from books.
And want to zero in on that because I think a lot of people, we've got like a DIY culture, right, in, U S and, or just the West, you know, and I think a lot of people that's not intuitive to them.
Especially with like, Good meditation apps and there are some good ones out there, I think, you know, why can't I just learn this on my own? What would you say to them?
Jess: Yeah, I think there's a lot to that. I mean, I, apps are kind of this interesting in between, cause you have like, You sort of have a living person talking to you. but yeah, mean, meditation is, um, in some ways it's very simple, right? Like it's not that complicated and yet it's quite subtle, to get it.
it's easy to miss the main point, and I think meditation is like a little bit like an art form, or like a sport. You learn how to meditate through the instructions, but you also learn kind of like by just being around someone who's been doing it a long time.
From a great teacher, there's so much that's taught that has nothing to do with the words. It's about like how they are. Because when we're talking about meditation, it's not about what you're doing on your cushion.
I mean, that's important part of like the instruction and the practice, but like ultimately we're talking about transforming how you are all the time in every situation and every moment.
And, otherwise what's the point, you know, it has to be transforming your life. And I think when I'm around someone like my meditation teachers, it's like just seeing how they walk, seeing how they smile at people, seeing how they hold themselves, seeing how they...
there's something that is like shared through that that you can't get through a book or a podcast and it, it's infectious somehow in a good way. To the community and to, to me, like to the student. And there's also this sense of like, it being like a, a living tradition that for me is quite, has become increasingly important the longer I've been in this path.
Which is this feeling that like, meditation and, the teachings are handed down from like human being to human being through time. And that to really learn it, it has to come from someone who's learned it and practiced it themselves, and like, and it's held, that way.
In an app, I think, mean, it's not to say that apps can't help, I mean, they're a wonderful place to start, and so many people start with apps, but I think there's a point where you're like, okay, now I want to go deeper, and to go deeper really helps to be able to talk to someone and be able to ask questions and say, this is what's happening for me.
Am I going the right way? you know, what would you suggest? And to have them go, yeah, yeah, you're on the right track or no, you've gotten lost here. You need to, you need to correct. And sometimes when you're on your own, it's hard to even know if you're veering off the track.
And a podcast isn't going to tell you necessarily, you know, or like the, the app, you know, headspace is like the same, it's going to be the same meditation for everybody. But, I think the longer you practice, the more you sort of have to learn, like, how to adjust yourself. And, like, oh, I'm being too tight right now, I need to loosen up, or I'm a little too relaxed, I need to tighten or maybe I'm a little too dull and I'm not quite getting it.
So, that kind of clarification, it's really helpful to have, someone living, you know, who's, who's been there, who can, you can talk to. Of course there's different kinds of teachers too, right?
Like especially in our modern Tibetan Buddhist world, for example, like, I have two main teachers, Mingyur Rinpoche and Tsoknyi Rinpoche, and they're both really, really busy. And they have tons and tons of students.
And I can't just ask them about, well, my meditation is like this, what do you think? I hardly get to talk to them ever privately, you know, and, um, but then I have, like of thinking of them like spiritual friends, you know, like teachers, mentors that are on the path, but further down the path than me, and I can ask them.
And, um, yeah, and then I mean, slowly over time to there's a point where you develop your own confidence and then the relationship with the teacher changes over time, because you feel more like I can adjust and learn what I need to learn.
At the beginning, I remember like what I really needed from my teacher was just to have them say, carry on. You're on the right track. You're doing well, you know, just that encouragement. The nice thing about living at the Zen Monastery is like, I was living with my teacher. So I got a lot of encouragement.
Yeah,
Adrian: I'm glad he was an encouraging teacher who believed in positive reinforcement.
Jess: Yeah, he really was, yeah.
Adrian: Nice. Nice. Yeah. So one thing, you know, I'm just hearing in what you're saying, I think in a lot of ways, what it, boils down to an essence is feedback. And I've really thought about this as a teacher.
I was a trained teacher myself and taught in schools. And, that was really emphasized, you know, when we were being trained to be teachers was that the number one thing research shows in terms of how people improve is feedback.
And it talked about the apprenticeship model and that's really how many people learn things. And so I think that's really what's missing from most apps and that's one thing for example that really stands out. I think about the Tergar Offerings is that you have the opportunity to schedule an interview with a teacher.
Jess: Yeah, feedback is really important from the teacher and from the community. I mean, that's the other amazing thing about living in a community is you get a lot of feedback from the people around you.
And, I mean, of course we get feedback in our world and our day to day life. If we're really going off the rails usually our partner or f amily or friend will go, you know, Jess, you're being an idiot, but it's not... maybe it's directive and specific to how we can improve from a meditation standpoint.
Adrian: I want to ask, when Dharma gets translated to a secular approach, so, you know, people have talked about this a lot with the mindfulness movement. The joy of living is another good example.
You know, I think why taking a secular approach exists is sort of self evident, which is there are a lot of people who can benefit from the teachings who really might not interact with them if they saw them as religious or from a religion different than their own. And I think for a lot of those within Buddhism, we really see that these are universal practices and insights we can have about the nature of mind. And so, there's clear benefit in trying to translate it to a secular approach.
I'm curious, in your view, what gets lost, if anything, when it is translated from a traditional approach, to the secular approach. And particularly what gets lost that can be really beneficial, perhaps in your own experience or in what you've observed in others.
Jess: Yeah, so in Tergar, Mengyur Rinpoche sort of divided the path into two segments, and we, everyone starts with the joy of living, which is focused around awareness, loving kindness, compassion, and wisdom, like, seeing things as they are.
And those are all qualities that, like you said, everybody has. Everybody has awareness. Everyone has loving kindness and compassion. They may not recognize it. And everyone has this capacity for, for wisdom and, seeing things as they are.
And then beyond that, for those who are interested in Tergara, they go into something called the Path of Liberation.
And that's when it's more explicitly Buddhist. But of course the joy of living in many ways is very Buddhist. It's just, it's open to everybody, but it is also the foundations of the Buddhist path. And so it's sort of, secular in the sense that it's open to everyone to join, whether you're Buddhist or religious or atheist or anything. And so that's been really wonderful. And we do get people who come from all different religious backgrounds and non religious backgrounds, which I, like you said, I think is great, but what, does get lost, I mean, I think there's very specific things that we don't discuss in Joy of Living, and one is like, what happens when you die? All of that. What happens when you die and everything afterwards, you know, are you just dead or are you reborn or are you in heaven?
I mean, that's really where religion, I think, comes to the fore. Right? And, I find the Buddhist view on death personally, extremely helpful.
And I think, I would really miss that if that wasn't part of my worldview and my understanding of what life's about, and where this is all going.
So that's one piece that gets lost.
And then, of course, what happened before you were born is also part of the equation on the other side.
Where do you come from? Where have you been before? None of that gets discussed in the secular Buddhist world very much. Because I don't think you can discuss that in a secular way. It just becomes another religious viewpoint. Even if the viewpoint is nihilism or atheism, that's just another religious kind of view in a way.
And then I think the view on karma, which of course is part of what happens after or what happens before, it's also what's happening every moment with your actions. And what's the implication of that? And, in the secular context, we usually don't talk about karma. But karma was, like, at the very heart of the Buddhas... an understanding of karma and cause and effect was, so pivotal in the Buddha's own awakening. And, really distinguished Buddhism from Hinduism and from what he'd been doing, the world that he'd come from in terms of his religious background.
I also find karma extremely helpful as a concept. And then it ties into ethics. we don't talk a lot about ethics and joy of living and secular Buddhism. Because in Buddhism, karma is the basis for ethics in many ways. And so we sort of hint on it in terms of, like, being kind and living with awareness. And the ethics come out of being in tune with your basic goodness and with who you really are, but there's a lot of interesting discussion about ethics that maybe, we kind of de emphasize, I think, in, in secular Buddhism.
So I think those are the things that, to me, kind of stand out as the main things that get put aside. And then, I think the other piece, actually, that, for me, on a day to day, level is that in the joy of living, we don't talk a lot about refuge.
And, um, in Buddhism, that's really like pivotal also is like taking refuge in the three jewels. Taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha.
And where are we putting our hope? Where are we putting our sense of reliance? Are we relying on our physical material world? Our family and friends? And our work? And I don't know, our self identity and our bank account as like things that are we can rely on or are we relying on, are we kind of like turning our mind and hearts towards a reliance on the buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, the three jewels. I mean, that's something we don't discuss in the joy of living.
And when we get into Tibetan Buddhism, it gets even more like a sense of like really relying on, the guru and all the manifestations of that, and the sense of like, kind of, um, the other, these other dimensions of reality that we can't see.
And, personally, I feel like I, lean on that quite heavily in my day to day life. And, I can't really imagine now, having to, like, practice meditation without all of that stuff. So, to me, it seems like a little bit of a, I don't know, like, there's a reason I'm into the whole Buddhist thing, not just secular meditation.
But I do think it's a really wonderful place. and for some people that's like, I think it's so personal what people are looking for and what they, want. And, there's so much that we can learn just through practice of the awareness, loving kindness, compassion. I mean, I love the joy of living.
It's not to say that I don't, but I love all of all the other stuff too.
Adrian: Thank you for that. I confess it was a leading question. I also agree with you. That a lot gets lost, but I was, you know, hoping you'd clearly lay out, just for people to think about, why they might consider, even if they still want to identify as an atheist or another religion or agnostic, studying something like, Vajrayana online, Nectar of the Path, more formal tradition, and I think you said that very well, so thank you.
I think one thing in particular I'd like to ask you to elaborate on is the idea of karma and why that might be helpful for people to understand, even people who might not necessarily believe in rebirth reincarnation because I think it gets conflated a lot.
So I'm wondering if you can talk about what the value of understanding karma might be even for a atheist or a religious skeptic.
Jess: Yeah. Well, I think, one of the most helpful things about karma is that it really puts the, power in your hands to change your life and your future. And there is a sense for me with karma that I'm no longer the victim of my life and kind of a, a helpless, passenger in my future voyage, you know, like that I can't really control what's going to happen to me.
And of course, there's a lot that we can't control. All the causes and conditions, the world, right? Like I can't, I can't, I'm not saying that suddenly I have control of the world.
But with karma, there's this feeling of like, if I can change my own, mind my own actions, my own way I react to the things happening to me in my life. And if the actions I do and my intention changes about what I'm doing, and I have a positive intention of wanting to do good things and be kind. that my future will be different.
Actions motivated with a positive intention of love, kindness, wisdom, lead to good results at some point in the future.
Even if they're not...
it's not, of course, that simple. Like, you can be the best person in the world and bad things still happen to you. But for me, it, it's been a very helpful to feel like I actually have some capacity to shape my future.
And of course, it's common knowledge also, like a kind of, we have an intuitive sense, like if I do good things, it'll lead to good results.
But then also, like, there's the other side of it is when difficult things are happening to me, with a karmic view, it's like, okay, this is the result of my past actions.
And now I have a choice. I can either, repeat the same kind of, uh, negative response that led to this happening, I can just keep having this happen again, like get super angry and react in a very negative way, or I can, take whatever is happening and either just accept it or use it to generate love and compassion or to practice with and have a sense that like now that negative karma is like, ended. That cycle is now over.
Whatever needed to happen, now I've made something useful of that obstacle, of that difficult challenge. To me it's much nicer to feel that way than to just feel like the victim of life, you know? To feel like, oh, everything that's happening to me is an opportunity to purify my negative karma from the past or generate positive karma for the future. And, so I think in that sense, the karmic view is quite helpful.
Adrian: And on a related topic, why contemplate death, and offering this perspective, perhaps to a Western audience in cultures where in my sort of experience comparing it to Asia, at least, we're really not encouraged to contemplate death and perhaps to kind of sweep it under the rug.
You had mentioned that you found the Buddhist teachings on death very helpful, and I'm wondering if you could say more about that.
Jess: we're all gonna die. It's unavoidable.
Adrian: So there's that.
Jess: Um, why contemplate death? I mean, because it really highlights what matters in life. When you remember and think about the fact that you are going to die.
And you don't know when. Could be today. Could be tomorrow. When you remember that life is short and precious, it really highlights, like, what is important.
And I think on a day to day basis, it's very easy to get wrapped up and feeling super stressed out and anxious about all kinds of things. And when you rethink, like, "What if I died tonight? Would this matter?" It can be very clarifying. You know, like, actually, not such a big deal. Feels like a big deal right now, but actually, it's not.
And, you know, things that are, are short lived, we naturally know that they're, have a sense of their beauty. Like even I have a flower at my desk right now, and it's opening up, and I know that it's only going to last today or tomorrow and so it feels precious. It feels like extra beautiful and I know like it was closed and it's just opened up today and like I know by tomorrow it may be dead.
And, so it's special. And, I appreciate it. And, I think it's the same thing with our life. when we think it's going to last forever. Or forget that death is imminent. Even if it, we don't know how imminent it is. It could be 50 years off, or it could be less, you know.
it really makes us appreciate every day, even when it's a bad day and you're sick and it's raining and the bills are due and you don't have enough money or whatever is happening. When you think, maybe this is my last day, suddenly it's like, wow, I'm just really grateful to be alive.
And that can really like cut through a lot of anxiety, a lot of stress. And make us appreciate the people in our life too. You know, my grandmother's 90 years old and it's especially clear. Like who knows how long she has. She's in good health right now, but it really makes me appreciate when I have time to spend with her and, to try and make that time meaningful. So we're not just watching a movie, but talking about things that matter and connecting heart to heart and. I don't know, trying to make the most of that time.
Adrian: Yeah, One thing I'm hearing in your response is contemplating death can elicit a sense of perspective also relaxation. And relaxation is something that's really emphasized a lot in Tibetan Buddhism and other schools as well, but especially a path like Dzogchen or Mahamudra and yet I think it can be tricky sometimes to impart that to people In this North American or Western culture or other cultures that are just very productivity, achievement oriented.
People sort of think, okay, great, now, like, how do I relax? I'm developing a plan. Like, what's the, the 80, 20 on how I relax? And, um, aside from contemplating death, I'm wondering how you guide students or practices you suggest for eliciting a more relaxed approach to meditation on and off the cushion.
Jess: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting, I think contemplating death can make us more relaxed about things that are maybe not as important, and potentially more enthusiastic and energetic about things that we want to get done.
You know, like, if you realize, wow, I might not live forever and I really want to accomplish X, better do it. I better not put it off till tomorrow, right? And so, I think like the relaxation is sort of the relaxation towards like maybe things that are less important. And, putting things in perspective.
And I think that relaxation is really connected to what we call wisdom. Like seeing, seeing what's important and what's not important. Seeing things as they really are. And when we talk about death, it's part of recognizing things are impermanent. And that's actually the quality our world, you know. So everything is always changing.
I think like the other irony here is that I think people think contemplating death is really dour and sad and, um, actually can bring a lot of joy. You know, when we're talking about the flower, like is joyful, like life is beautiful, it's joyful. So recognizing death actually can make life more wonderful, happy, you know. So, I think that's, uh, an irony that, you know, it isn't all sad. Yeah, but, sorry, I'm not sure I answered your question.
It
Adrian: was the right answer. It's what you felt in that moment. And I also think it was very pertinent. I do. Yeah. So, Jess, I'mnscious of your time and I just want to thank you so much for your time. And I want to give you an opportunity to let people know about any upcoming offerings you have and where they can find you.
Jess: Thank you. You know, I just wish everyone all the best who's watching this. Thank you for taking the time to tune in. Thank you for being interested in meditation and, for me, I'm teaching a month long retreat in September to October in Portugal. If anyone feels like coming for a month of retreat, it's going to be the whole Joy of Living Path, 1, 2, 3, and all the homework.
And so, it's never been done before in this way, but Mingyur Rinpoche, it was his idea. And so, we're gonna start mid September to mid October and, uh, be in retreat.
And, um, yeah, I mean, I, I would say for those who are, like, getting into meditation, maybe you've been doing this for a while, and you've been listening to apps, and you've been doing different things, making time to go on retreat, maybe not starting with a month, but a weekend or a week, it really, really makes a difference.
Like when you're just practicing a little bit here and there and in the midst of your busy life, it's, it's hard to feel like you're making much progress sometimes.
And I think going on retreat, again, it, it's kind of like putting things in perspective, uh, when you're talking about death. I feel like going on retreat is kind of like a mini... sometimes it feels like a mini death because it's like you kind of leave everything behind that is normally your habits and you're distracting you and putting yourself in a different space where you're just practicing and kind of tuning inward instead of always focused outward.
And, it's amazing how when we give ourselves time to do that. And I've been in retreat with a lot of people is like, you just blossom. Your natural qualities of love and kindness and awareness, wisdom, they just emerge spontaneously. Give them the space to do that. And, it's so beautiful. I love retreat.
And, it can really inspire you to keep going. It's like not to always be in retreat, but you, you come back to your daily life and have a different perspective. And so for me going in and out of retreat has been really, really important, which is why I'm, I've been so focused now on trying to create opportunities for people to do retreat.
And, um, I'm quite involved in something called Teragar Retreats, which is a new, um, new organization under Mingyur Rinpoche that's focused on retreat practice within the Teragar lineage. Yeah, so, if you are interested in retreat, I'm always happy to talk about that, but that's sort of what I'm focusing on these days in terms of my teaching.
And probably next fall I'll start doing some online courses again when I get back.
Adrian: Well, Thank you. so much for your time.
Just really appreciate it.
Jess: Thank you. Thanks for talking.