143. Mindfully Embracing the Unexpected: Advice from a Zen Teacher with Flint Sparks

Conspiracy of Goodness Podcast

If you or someone you know is struggling with a complexity that seems irrevocably stuck, our guest today—Flint Sparks—will point you in some new directions. He’s been a professional psychotherapist for four decades, and he is also a Zen teacher: a wonderful combination that brings a level of timeless wisdom to the table that adds a path to freedom we may not find any other way.

00:00 Intro & Welcome

02:13 Spiritual Maturity

• Flint spent many years as a psychotherapist and is now a Zen teacher.

• Flint leads retreats all across North America and Europe

• Flint’s tagline is ‘Softening Barriers to Love’.

06:28 Growing Up and Waking Up

• Social and cultural evolution happened much faster than biological evolution.

• We are out of sync in some ways.

• Spiritual growth allows us to meet everyday mundane things with greater intimacy and courage.

• Spiritual maturity has nothing to do with a belief in anything.

• Spiritual maturity is endless curiosity and willingness to turn toward everything.

• Maturing ourselves as human beings never really ends.

• True meditation is letting go of all the ways that we manipulate ourselves.

12:56 The Ground of Being

• The ground of being is unconditioned good in the midst of the joys of the greatest moments and also in the last minutes as you pass away,

• Happiness is found by removing the conditions for being happy.

• The foundation to anchoring ourselves comes from steady practice.

• Practice is preparation to do the real thing.

• The real thing that we are practicing for is life.

• The practice must be grounded in reality.

16:41 The Ground of Being

• Dr Srikumar Rao appeared on Episode 5 of The Conspiracy of Goodness Podcast and spoke about the concept of ‘good thing / bad thing’.

• The ‘good thing / bad thing’ concept speaks to the way we label occurrences as either good or bad based on our perception.

• Flint agrees with this concept and encourages us to consider saying ‘now this’ rather than labeling something as good or bad.

• Flint compares spiritual practice to jazz musicianship.

• Jazz musicians play boring scales over and over again for many years.

• When jazz musicians play they are able to apply what they practiced without much conscious effort.

• We can also develop the same improvisational virtuosity as great jazz musicians by practicing spirituality more consistently.

• We can develop the muscles to respond rather than react.

20:39 Break

23:40 What is Discipline?

• According to Flint, discipline is ‘remembering what you want’.

• What is most important to you? What are you called to do?

• If you want to know what your disciplines are, just look at your life and what you’re actually doing.

• Waking up is about deciding if the things you do are the person you want to be.

• What you are doing reflects what you want.

26:31 Tolerating Mystery

• Mystery is the capacity to be open to the unknown and not demand answers to the unknown.

• We can stay with questions longer and respect the mystery.

• It’s not about belief, it's about discovery.

• We can learn from life without trying to make life our way.

• Being okay with mystery is challenging to people.

• A Tibetan teacher Trungpa Rinpoche said the spiritual path is walking between hope and despair straight into the face of uncertainty.

• The spiritual path feels like vulnerability in the human body.

• Most people want to turn despair into hope.

• The universal solvent for problem solving is curiosity.

31:22 Responsiveness vs. Perfection

• Be wholehearted and continue with dignity.

• Our ‘okayness’ isn’t on the line.

• We have to be easier on ourselves.

• The process to mastery is a pretty good walk.

• We can appreciate our lives with all of its flaws and difficulties.

37:42 Going Fast

• If you want to get somewhere fast, go slow.

• In order to respond appropriately we need to be more attentive.

• Spiritual practice helps us become more present and attentive.

• We are made new in each moment.

• Life is miraculous and full of awe even though it looks ordinary most of the time....