A conversation with the former chief editor of Esquire magazine, who abandoned all that outer success to become a ful-time yogi. He is now a renovned meditation teacher and author.
This is some of what we speak about:
Phillip tells us how in his early life he was both a work aholic as an entrepreneur, but at the same time he never put aside his interest in his inner life, which back then was expressed in his yoga practice.
his big concern was always what gives meaning to life
Phillip tells us how he took over Esquire magazine and converted the failing magazine into a success. And how then... in the middle of a meeting, he had a revelation flow through him: he had to follow a different path.
These revelations that have come to Philip regularly, he calls intuition.
He says, we must trust our body, feel ourselves embodied, that will lead to intuition
How challenges are more fun than just managing success
How it is so easy to become complacent in your life, when you are successful and life is easy
We talk about how each of us needs to find our path of wellbeing, which means finding authenticity, meaning, continuity and coherence in our life - and how this is a continuous path... you never arrive... because of the radical impermanence
Phillip talks about the basic conditions of this human realm, and how it is not a mistake, that there is suffering in this realm, but also, that we can work with this suffering...
we speak about the causes of suffering...
living a values-based life, based on wise view and vise intention - in each step living your values.
having a life of integrity and dignity is a satisfaction in itself
The nature of this realm is difficult
when you don't accept the basic reality as it is, you are more likely to create more suffering and unskilful actions
staying positive doesn't mean that you don't deeply accept suffering
There are two types of suffering, neurotic suffering and necessary suffering.
When we are in that reactive state we have bad judgment, and can't see clearly, we can't even see the happiness that is possible in life
The nature of this realm is desire, so we do need to work skillfully with them - it is the grasping and attachment to the outcomes of those desires which can easily become unwholesome
If you have a desirous mind, it is always going to be in that kind of state, no matter how much it achieves and gets.
The jungian notion of the second half of life, where we move away from building up the ego, and start seeing more clearly the reality of how things really are
There is nothing wrong with ambition, but what are the motives behind that ambition?
Life is always dancing around us, and we can participate in that dance in a skillful and joyful way. We can learn to be a good dance partner... We always have some choice to realign, to adjust our course.
It is not skillful to collapse or become bitter under all the suffering in the world, then we just add to the suffering.
So much of living is an art, where information must become knowledge.
We add to the suffering of the world when we resist reality
Phillip explains the four noble truths and how they truly are ennobling
Mindfulness without intention doesn't have direction, and intention without mindfulness forgets itself...
Phillip Moffitt's websites: www.dharmawisdom.org & https://lifebalance.org/institute/
Link to my course, Rewilding the Soul - Restoring Lifeforce & connecting to aliveness through nature & mindfulness: app.mastermind.com/masterminds/29462
My website : www.duritaholm.com
