Finding Fulfillment, Meaning and Resilience Beyond Achievement: Exploring the Philosophies of Ikigai & Buddhism with Tim Tamashiro.

“Happiness isn’t something you chase. It’s a byproduct of suffering less.” – Tim Tamashiro

Have you ever hit a point where you’ve achieved what you thought would make you happy, only to feel like something’s still missing? Or perhaps you’ve found yourself caught in a cycle of frustration, burnout, or lack of direction? In this episode, I sit down with Tim Tamashiro, a jazz musician, author, and former CBC radio host, who has dedicated his life to discovering what it means to live with purpose.

Tim is the author of How to Ikigai, a book that introduces the Japanese philosophy of finding meaning in the everyday by aligning our passions, skills, and values. His search for deeper meaning led him to study Buddhism in Thailand, exploring the roots of suffering and how we can move beyond it.

In this episode, we dive into the principles of Ikigai, explore the three roots of suffering, and discuss how to live with more intention and awareness. By the end of the episode, you’ll walk away with practical insights on identifying your own Ikigai, managing suffering, and shifting from a life of autopilot to one of purpose and fulfillment.

Key Topics Covered:
Understanding Ikigai – The four pillars of finding your purpose: what you love, what you’re good at, what the world needs, and what you can be rewarded for.
The Three Roots of Suffering – Anger, greed, and delusions, and how they shape our happiness.
Living with Intention – How meditation and mindfulness can help you move from default to design in your life.
The Power of Meditation – Practical tips for starting a meditation practice and using mindfulness to create space for clarity.
Suffer Less, Happy More – A philosophy for reducing suffering by letting go of attachments and increasing self-awareness.
Buddhism for Modern Life – How ancient teachings can be applied to our current challenges to find greater peace and happiness.
Equiluminance – How compassion for yourself and others can bring balance and light into your life.

Bio

Tim Tamashiro is a Canadian jazz singer, author, keynote speaker, and former national radio host. He is best known for hosting "Tonic," a nightly jazz program on CBC Radio 2, from 2007 to 2017. After leaving CBC, Tim pursued studies in positive psychology and ikigai, an ancient Japanese philosophy meaning "life's worth." He authored the Amazon bestselling book "How To Ikigai," which explores this concept. Tim's personal ikigai is "to delight," and he shares this through speaking engagements, musical performances, and storytelling.

Contact

Website:  https://www.timtamashiro.ca/

LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/timtamashiro/

Chapters

• 0:16 Introduction to the Contrarian Mindset
• 9:28 Understanding Negativity Bias
• 17:16 The Power of Neuroplasticity
• 26:00 Exploring Automatic Negative Thoughts

Transcript

[0:00] Music.

[0:06] Welcome to It's an Inside Job, the podcast where we equip you with actual skills to build resilience, enhance communication, foster well-being,

[0:14] and lead and coach with impact. I'm your host, Jason Lim, and every Monday we bring you expert insights and real-world stories to help you thrive and succeed. And with that said, let's slip into the stream.

[0:27] Music.

[0:34] Hey folks welcome to a fresh new weekend thank you for joining me on it's an inside job now i have a couple of questions for you have you ever reached a point in your life where you've accomplished what you thought would make you happy only to feel like something is still missing or maybe you've wondered why some people seem to find deep satisfaction in their daily lives, while others struggle with frustration, burnout, or lack of direction. Well, in today's episode, I sit down with Tim Tamashiro. He's a jazz musician, author, and a former CBC radio host who has spent years exploring what it truly means to live with purpose.

[1:14] Now, Tim is also the author of the book, How to Ikigai. It's a book that introduces the Japanese philosophy of finding meaning in the everyday by aligning our passions, our skills, and our values. But Tim's evolution of himself didn't stop there. Like with all of us, life happens, and he went through his own trials and tribulations. So his search for a deeper understanding led him to Thailand, where he spent 30 days studying Buddhism to explore the roots of suffering. So in our conversation today, we dive into the principles of Ikigai, how it can guide us toward more fulfilling, intentional life, And then we shift into Tim's exploration of suffering and how we can move past it. So by the time you finish this episode, you're going to walk away with a lot of practical, useful insights. Just three off the top of my head is how to identify and cultivate your own ikigai. We're going to be talking about the three roots of suffering, the causes of suffering and how to deal with it. We're also going to talk about how to shift from living on autopilot and to live with more intention and awareness. And so without further ado, let's slip into the stream and meet Tim Thomas.

[2:22] Music.

[2:34] Like to welcome everyone back to It's an Inside Job. Tim, welcome to the show. Oh, it's a real thrill to be here, Jason. It is an inside job, isn't it? Such an inside job. That it is. Where do we find you today? I'm in snowy Calgary, Canada, and it is minus 24 degrees today with a wind chill of about minus 32. And my dog took a very very short walk to go outside for his business today because he literally laid down he said this is too cold on my toes yeah and we're doing it from the comfort of your kitchen this recording so that's great tim for our guests could you kindly just introduce who you are and what you do yes so my name is tim tamashiro i'm the author of a book called how to ikigai and uh i think uh in general terms i'm a i'm a happiness uh encourager more than anything purpose and happiness in life and this is something i've really been passionate about all my life but especially since getting into my um more advanced years i'm 59 years old.

[3:46] But uh now i see that it's uh much more uh prevalent uh for a variety of reasons but it turns out that once you turn 50 happiness goes up so maybe we can talk about that a little bit down the line but so i'm i'm a happiness advocate definitely i think we need more and more of that in such a world full of friction and you know it's fractious but perhaps we could start with the Japanese philosophy of Ikigai. I find that philosophy fascinating. And I had the great opportunity of listening to your book, which is why we're here. But after we had our meet and greets, there was so much more to just Ikigai.

[4:28] But that's where I'd like to start. I was wondering, could you maybe define what Ikigai is quickly and what it's about?

[4:36] Yeah, so Ikigai is a lifestyle philosophy that comes from Okinawa, Japan. I'm half Okinawan. My father's parents were both born in Okinawa. This has been a part of their lifestyle and their philosophy, I guess, for the last couple thousand years.

[4:53] It was born from some very, very wise women called Amadivers. And these Amadivers were the ones who were hunter-gatherers for the communities around the islands throughout Southeast Asia, in fact. But in Okinawa, the women realized how passionate they were about it and how, I guess, accomplished at it they were. And they were the ones that came up with the concept of ikikai, which is life shell, essentially. The idea of being able to see the worth that they bring to themselves and to their community all kind of encapsulated into a shell and it eventually morphed into ikigai which is life's worth and this is something that is very prevalent in the okinawan i guess worldview although interestingly enough with the advent of social media and all this computer stuff and whatnot it's starting to disappear now i i find the the philosophy itself you know and i was looking at understanding a little deeper what it is and it's i also saw the definition of ikigai being a reason for being i think in a very modern fast-paced world that we live in you know sometimes we can get trapped up in.

[6:11] You know, the job, the success and such. I mean, we hear this quite, it's a quite a common saw that we talk about getting caught up in sort of the externals.

[6:23] But sometimes, you know, everyone can have success, they can have the right education, a brilliant family, but there's something that is lacking. There's this void, this vacuous, some maybe a little bit of an emptiness and where people are asking some is this all there is there's got to be more and that's why this kind of philosophy really kind of resonated with me because as we've talked about the heart of this podcast is about talking about resilience and i think understanding resilience also is having a sense of purpose it's understanding one's values those emotional states that we constantly strive four i was wondering could we maybe talk about more of the sort of the dimensions of ikigai.

[7:08] Yeah, certainly. So, Ikigai was encapsulated into a Venn diagram fairly recently by a gentleman named Mark Winn. And he basically took the four circles and had them stacked up in almost like a diamond pattern. And each one of the circles is a step and a map towards how you can figure out what your Ikigai is. It boils down to four steps. First step is do what you love and then do what you're good at, do what the world needs. And I say, do what you can be rewarded for. Now, many Ikigai diagrams will say, do what you can be paid for. But my own philosophy on this is that pay is an external type of reward. It's an extrinsic reward. Ikigai can be an extrinsic reward, but it's especially an intrinsic reward, a type of reward that we get from just doing more of ourselves, I guess you could say.

[8:08] And essentially, it's a way of being able to figure out what your purpose is in life, what your unique gifts are. And I would even go as far as to say that in the history of the universe, there's, 13.9 billion years or maybe more there's only been one you and we can figure out what what your unique gifts are by figuring out what your ikigai is and then this is something that will be uniquely yours to provide for yourself for your own well-being and for the well-being of others as well now i think what you're saying is very important is the intrinsic motivation that we have for something extrinsic motivations such as receiving fair compensation for work done and such is is important but it's the intrinsic where we can do something we don't have to be paid it's just this natural innate internal fuel that drives us whether we call it a hobby an art.

[9:04] Philosophy whatever and i think it's so and when i saw this venn diagram i was at you know do what you love i think that that's great if you can follow your passions but do what you're good at and those can be two separate things because you could be really good at something but not really love what you're doing because you've done it for so long and i think those are those are twins that go well and something that the world needs obviously then that makes you in a sense marketable if you're looking for a sense of purpose above and beyond that paid whether it's extrinsic or as you said the intrinsic motivation and i think that's a great exercise for someone to sit down with just asking each of those four questions and then that it could almost be something that a person journals you know each each of those questions each of those uh, cardinal points maybe i can call it there can be a lot of exploration there i mean is there can be i just i want to interject here for a second the four questions laid out on the sheet like that.

[10:06] Can be a bit overwhelming four questions to answer is uh that's that's like a that's a very a very deep conversation to have. With yourself. But if you just start with that first one, what do you love to do? That in itself is a question that could take a month or two months or a lifetime to be able to figure out. But it really is the core question for having what I would call an ikigai interview with yourself or an ikigai interview with somebody else. You know, we could do an ikigai interview for you if you're absolutely interested in it but it's going to start with just that one question what do you love to do and then we'll get into what are you good at that you have to be good at it because if you're not it's kind of like uh chasing waterfalls you know it's the idea of saying okay well it's great that you have that you're that you love something about your life and that you love something that you do. But if you're not good at it, it's kind of like saying like what Malcolm Gladwell said about Wayne Gretzky. If Wayne Gretzky was a young man in Florida who had the passion of playing hockey and he was good at it.

[11:36] And he loved to do it, but he wasn't faced with the opportunity to be able to actually get out and skate on a pond every day or an ice rink, then those skills would have been squandered, right? So. Yeah, I think it's very interesting. I think I'm quite fortunate to be doing what I've been doing for the last 25 years. And for me, it's not a job, it's a hobby. And doing this podcast for the last four years has also been fantastic. Almost in a sense, you know, where that Venn diagram overlaps, it's something that is kind of evolved. But I wholeheartedly concur with you that it can take a lifetime to figure out what you love. But I think we can start somewhere, but it becomes an iteration. As we grow older, as we have more experience and knowledge, it may become refined. It may shift. At least that's what it has in my five decades on the planet. Yeah well you know the interesting thing is is that figuring out what you love to do is the exact same process that any scientific uh process would go through mathematical physics all that is you have to get out there and do the research and figure out the answers for these questions and figure out uh yeah see if there are any patterns and base it on evidence uh the The beautiful thing about being in your fifth decade, what are you, 50?

[13:01] Almost 56. Almost 56. So, oh, he looks very, very young.

[13:07] I'm 59, as I mentioned. And the nice thing is about being more senior now is that now we have the luxury of what I would call a golden ikigai. We have the ability to be able to look back at our lives and go, okay, yeah, I did the love thing and the marriage thing and pursue relationships and that kind of thing, raised kids maybe, had a successful career, built resources and whatnot, and now we turn 50, and now we kind of look back on that and we go, you know what I have now? I have wisdom. Then I can add to that mix. And they also have more freedom because maybe the kids have flown the coop. So to be able to have this luxury of wisdom and more free time, now is the time where we could really take our ikigai and put it into full action and to utilize that as a tool to be able to maybe make the last chapters of our lives even more purposeful and rewarding. You've also, Tim, just talked about the golden Ikigai. Whether it's someone of our age or someone younger, are there some practical steps you would recommend

[14:21] for someone trying to discover their Ikigai? I mean, it really does come down to research, you know.

[14:29] And doing the things that you're interested in. Finding a hard yes or no on whether it's something you'd like to do again.

[14:39] So I use rock climbing as an example. There was a young woman that I talked to who was really, really passionate about the idea of being a rock climber. And she went to the university and did the rock walls and the climbing walls and give it a shot and thought, this is really, really cool. I'm going to go out into the mountains and try this out. And so she went out to the mountains. And now you're in the real world. You're not faced with no wind and no external factors and all this kind of stuff. And she ended up hating the climbing experience. But what she figured out is that there was something a little bit later on that she realized is that what she was really fascinated with was the safety aspect of rock climbing.

[15:24] The carabiners and the ropes and the support that people get by the harnesses and all that kind of stuff. So by simply going down that road of saying, I love rock climbing, I want to give that a try. She ended up finding a fork in the road and going, oh, you know what? It's the safety aspect of the rock climbing that I'm really, really passionate about. So this is something that we've done many, many times in life. Chances are we did it a lot when we were younger but then real life snuck in that real life really is a joy sucker isn't it we have to make money in order to be able to, have a roof over our head and food in our bellies and raise our children all this responsibility comes.

[16:13] In the times, when you're really growing up and so this is what I love about this concept of golden ikigai is that now we have the freedom and the flexibility and the wisdom in order to be able to go out there and figure out who we really are and how we can use that as a tool for our days forward. Just to ask you, because I think that's, my brain just kicked. You know, we have whatever retirement age in whatever country, 65, 70, whatever it is.

[16:42] You know, a lot of the times research shows that once someone retires, unless they have a hobby they dedicate themselves their job has been a huge part of their identity what they produce absolutely what they did how can those people let's say in their sixth decade or their seventh decade use the golden ikigai philosophy of yours to help them find to to find again reignite a sense of purpose a sense of being yeah.

[17:16] Well, they have to, I use the word, maybe have to is probably inconsiderate. I would encourage a growth mindset throughout life because a fixed mindset, it really has an attachment to my way or the highway. And that is a challenging mindset to be able to progress in life and to find joy in. However, this whole growth mindset of constantly learning and trying new things out and having connection with people, if we are able to think about things that we can do for ourselves in the service of others, that is the key to Ikigai, no matter what decade we're in. That is the key. Ikigai, I always say, is a boomerang. And a boomerang, as you know, you throw it out and it comes back to you. In order to be able to really experience more purpose in life, you have to be serving somebody with something, with your expertise, your knowledge, or your witty repartee, or your friendliness, or your perspective, or your wisdom, or whatever the case. This is something that is really important in the whole world of Ikigai and just in life in general.

[18:40] I think that really is a very astute point. It's being in the service of others. Because we are social beings. Our brains are an organ that thrives on the richness of the relationships we develop. Whether it's investing time, whether it's investing knowledge or experience or helping people out, I think that can really rekindle someone's sense of purpose. Because when you see how it helps other people, how it lights up other people, how people feel connected.

[19:15] You know, when I went originally into clinical psychology, it was that. It was to be in service of others. Running my consultancy, MindTalk, as a coach or as a sparring partner, it's also in the service of others. I don't get filthy rich doing what I do, right? But what you said really, really resounds with me. You know, it is. It is. It's such things. I can't actually see myself retiring. I might not be doing exactly what I'm doing as much as I'm doing, but I see to some extent, I see a portion of what I'm doing moving forward, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you just landed on a very important point about life in general. You know, we have this tendency in North America, especially to look at this concept of retirement, saying that that is the end goal. But I feel that I might be a little bit like you, actually, Jason. I don't think I'm ever going to retire. I'm just always going to do things that are rewarding and that are interesting and that are not only about my own well-being but also in helping other people as well. That is the essence of business, really.

[20:26] That is the essence of any business, when you think about it, of any educational pursuit, of any community, is to do more you and in the service of others. I really like that. So when we were talking, there's an evolution in your mind, your mindset, there's an evolution, if I can call it that, in your focus where you've moved from Ikigai, which is an important foundation of what you do and who you are,

[20:57] to two words that you talked about, suffer less and happy more. And as you said you're an advocate or an ambassador of happiness i was wondering could you could we explore those terms suffer less and happy more and i'm also curious before maybe we do that if we backtrack what was the what created this shift for you towards suffer less and happy more from Ikigai.

[21:23] So I've led a very, I would say, a very interesting life, and I'm very happy with it.

[21:34] But like every single person on the planet, I suffer. You know, I suffer in my mind a lot. And we all do, you know. And what I've kind of come to realize over the last four or five years, partially through the complete meltdown of my mind, is that it's not my fault that I suffer in my mind. In fact, I would go as far as to say that it's my default. And this is something that's true for every single person. It's not my fault that I'm suffering. It's the default. It's the way that the brain works, the way that the mind works in order to be able to survive. This is a survival mechanism that's been built into our brains since back in caveman days when there are dangerous animals that will eat you. And there are other people that will harm you. And there are things you have to be aware of. And this is just something that our brain has not evolved past, but now it's worried about negative comments on social media. And now it's worried about news stories and the elections around the world, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So even though our minds have not evolved, we still suffer.

[22:55] So uh i came to this realization after suffering terribly and i'll delve into a little bit of a story here during the pandemic i suffered like eight billion other people suffered in my case uh my suffering manifested itself in the loss of my career and uh the loss of connection with people and a lot of what I would call doom scrolling or anger-tainment that I'd been witnessing in the world, a lot of negativity in terms of, you know, Black Lives Matter, stop Asian hate. There was just so much negativity. And all this doom scrolling essentially took me to the point where I completely had a meltdown. And essentially had two medical incidents, I guess you could say, that were very traumatic and ended me up in the hospital.

[24:03] In suffering, I came to the realization that I need to understand my own suffering. So I went from default mode into more of a design mode for my own well-being. So that ultimately ended up in me chasing more information through my therapist.

[24:33] Through investigations online and books and that sort of thing and i started delving deeper into buddhism now buddhism as many people might have already made the connection i hear so many people go, you know what? I'm not a religious person, but if I had to choose a religion, it would be Buddhism. And Buddhism is not, in fact, religion. It's a self-help program. It's a type of philosophy that helps us understand that through our human nature, we all have four truths, and they're called the Four Noble Truths. It's the essence of Buddhism. The first noble truth is, if you're a human, you suffer. The second is, if you suffer, there has to be a cause for it. The third is, if there's a cause for it, there's a way for you to reduce your suffering. And the fourth truth is, this is the way to reduce your suffering. And it's essentially something called the Eightfold Path.

[25:34] Live a life that is wholesome. Have wholesome thoughts. Be mindful. Have a wholesome career. have a wholesome understanding of the world, be compassionate. Things, you know, real straight ahead, common sense ideas. And this really resonated with me. So as the algorithm does, you know.

[26:02] As the algorithm does, I was suddenly being presented with all these different videos from different monks from around the world. And one of these monks was this young monk from Thailand named Lungphi Nick. Lungphi is brother, by the way. And this was Nick, who was from San Diego, and he was part of an organization called an International Ordainment Program in Thailand. And it was a place where men from around the world could go to Thailand and ordain as Buddhist monks for a short period. And that's what Buddhist monks do for the most part is go and ordain for short periods. But you could do it in English. So I immediately went to the website and I looked into it and put in an application fully knowing that I wouldn't be able to go there because there was a pandemic on. But they reached out and said, when the pandemic lifts, we're going to reach out again and we'd like you to have an interview. And it turned out to be a real transformative moment because I agreed that once the restrictions lifted, I would go to Thailand to ordain as a monk. So I did that in 2022.

[27:12] I went in September of that year and I went to Thailand to ordain and to live in the robes as a Buddhist monk. And that was such a transformative experience for me. Personally, but I also kept on thinking while I was there, what lessons can I bring back for me to live with more grace and ease in everyday life? And how can I communicate those in ways that are not really Buddha-ish or Buddhist-focused? Instead, I wanted to come at it with more of a Buddhist-ish approach. Do you get me? Just basic lessons, but put into modern context, I guess. Yeah, okay, that's what you mean by putting it in a modern context for our contemporary challenges. Yeah, I don't want to force any ideology or any quote-unquote religion down anybody's throat. But these are pretty profound lessons that have been utilized for the last 2,500 years, And they've helped a lot of people understand their own suffering and find ways to work past it, to let go of that suffering.

[28:27] Music.

[28:32] In the first half of our conversation, Tim and I explored the concept of Ikigai, a Japanese philosophy that helps people find purpose and meaning in their lives. He broke it down into four key elements, what you love, what you're good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for. And when these align, well, you create a life that feels fulfilling and sustainable. You know, Tim emphasized that Ikigai is not a fixed destination, but an evolving journey.

[28:59] He explained that small intentional steps, not drastic life changes, well, they lead to a more meaningful existence. Beyond personal fulfillment, we explored how Ikigai is deeply rooted in community and human connection. Tim shared how our relationships shape our happiness and purpose, emphasizing that it's not just about what we do, but also who we share it with. Ikigai as a philosophy, well, it requires curiosity to explore different aspects of ourselves. You know, it reminds us that as we head down this path that we call life, it can help if we create our own signage. And that comes from introspection, from self-awareness about what we love doing, what we like doing, what we're good at, what the world needs, and what we can get paid for, where we can add value. Now, important caveat is that we also discuss the dangers of defining Ikigai solely through external achievements, such as what we get paid for. Tim pointed out the true purpose isn't about striving for an end goal, but about creating a life rich with our own meaning in the present moment. He highlighted the importance of appreciating the process rather than being

[30:09] consumed by the pursuit of the final destination. So now let's slip back into the stream with part two of my fascinating conversation with Tim Tamashiro.

[30:15] Music.

[30:30] So um so that's that's where i'm at right now you know that's where this whole idea of suffer less and happy more has come about is that these are now philosophies about saying, well it's saying this is the shortcut if we suffer less we happy more so how do we suffer less and i guess maybe we can take the conversation from there yeah let's let's explore that I'd like to know the, you know, from the Buddhism and how you've kind of contextured in your own life and you've created your own maybe bespoke way of interpreting that Buddhist philosophy, as you said, is 25 years old, but how to apply it to our modern day challenges and the complexities that our lives are. Let's go there. I'd like to discuss. Open up that box of suffer less and to learn some of those skills or share that with our listeners. With your clinical practice, you see people coming in all the time suffering from one thing or another, right? Yes, correct. Yes. And I'm going to guess, and please tell me if I'm wrong, but there's a lot of anxiety. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[31:46] Yeah, anxiety and not always clinical depression, but I don't work in those things. But the clients that I meet, there are some levels of anxiety and some level of, you know, depression around the complexities of their professional and private lives. Yes. And the world. And the world, especially now. Yeah. I like to say that Suffernless and Happy More is about finding a way to be able to find light in a world that is heavy. And that's really profound for me to even say out loud because the world is heavy in so many ways, not only for our own survival and careers and AI and relationships, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But, you know, all of this suffering boils down into three specific types of suffering. In Buddhism, they describe it as the three defilements, the three things that ruin our happiness. Now, when you defile something, it's kind of like saying, okay, well, you have a cup of coffee there, and I'm going to ruin it by spitting into it. Yes. So it ruins it for you, but it also ruins it for me because neither one of us wants to consume that coffee after. No, no. I spit in it, right?

[33:06] But defilements are things that we do to ruin our own joy. And again, these are not things that we consciously do. It's just our survival mind that does it. So the three defilements in Buddhism are anger, greed, and delusions.

[33:25] So when we get mad we are defiling our own happiness and we attach ourselves to the type of anger that uh to any type of anger we say ah somebody's done us wrong and we are mad about it essentially right i'll use a little proverb that uh kind of describes this beautifully it was two monks who were walking by a river and they came upon this young woman who wanted to get across the river, but she was scared to do it by herself. So the monks, one monk said, I'll carry you. So he put her on her back, put her on his back and carried her across the river and set her down on the other side. And then, and then they parted ways and walked away. Well, Buddhist monks are not supposed to touch people, or people aren't supposed to touch Buddhist monks. So as the two monks walk further down the river, the monk that did the carrying was all joyful and happy. He was able to help somebody out. But the monk who didn't carry the young woman was getting madder and madder and madder, more seething almost, right? And he says, I can't believe you picked up that young woman. You let her touch you, and you carried her across the river and whatnot. And the monk who did the carrying turned to him and said, well, I set her down on the other side of the river, but you're still carrying her.

[34:48] This type of attachment is the thing that anger does to us. We hang on to past traumas or past things that other people have done to us or even anger like somebody cuts us off in traffic or something along those lines. And by clinging to it and getting angrier about it, it is causing us suffering. So being mindful of the fact that somebody cut us off and, oh, somebody just cut us off. I don't have to be mad about it or anything. I can just notice it happened and just keep on with my happy life.

[35:26] That's very essential. So there's anger. Greed is something that we face on a very regular basis, and goodness knows we are a consumer society, but we do lust for more stuff and even more happiness is a type of suffering, really, wanting more happiness, more family pets, more pictures hanging on the wall, more, more, more, more. This greed is a type of clinging as well that really affects our happiness. But the third one is probably the one that I'm most fascinated with, Jason, and it is a doozy. And that is delusions. Delusions. Isn't that a great word?

[36:11] Delusions. Delusions are thoughts and beliefs that we attach to ourselves, our personality, our ego, that we say, unless somebody else agrees with the way that my worldview is, then that is going to cause me suffering. I'm going to be so attached to it that it's going to cause me some form of suffering.

[36:39] So these delusions could be anything, and we see a lot of it in the world today, especially around politics, right? Politics have become, or political identity has become such a core part of who we are as a society, that it's a delusion that can tear families apart, can tear apart relationships, can ruin lifelong friendships, all sorts of different things. But it is just interesting enough to attach to our own ego. But those three defilements, anger, greed, and delusions, are the three biggies that really present themselves on a daily basis. That with awareness, mindfulness, when we notice one of those is causing us suffering, we can see it for what it is, not judge it. We can just see, oh, you know what? I'm mad.

[37:42] Interesting. And let it go. Give it space. Oh, you know what? I'm lusting over a new piano.

[37:49] Oh, notice it and give it space. Same with delusions, personality traits, whatever the case oh you know what i'm i'm really attached to this whole political or religious or to the idea that garbage has to be picked up on tuesday afternoons not wednesday, that once we can just notice it and give it space this is the beginning of the possibility of peace, so how do we do that so i'm self-aware i see that i'm hanging on to anger let's say some sort of grudge someone did something or someone slighted me in a certain way or greed that i don't have whatever the common thing i don't have the latest iphone and i want that and i don't appreciate actually what i have i don't have that gratitude how does one actually nuts and bolts give space is it is it sort of a temporal thing is it sort of allowing the day to pass and then coming back to it, sleeping on it, how do you give space so you can let go?

[38:56] So, this is a two-step process. Yes. And for anybody who just tuned out right now, because they said it was a two-step process, hang in there with me, okay? Yeah. This is just the way that our brains are built. Again, you know, remember right at the very beginning of this, I said, it's not your fault, it's your default, you know? So the key is to move past living in default and move more towards deliberation and thinking about a little bit more and then eventually getting to the point where you can live by design and go, you know what, I don't need any of that stuff.

[39:36] So when I say it's a two-step process, it is rewiring your brain through meditation and utilizing mindfulness in your everyday life as the tool that you've worked on through your meditation. Let me describe that. So meditation, as we know, is such a powerful, well-researched, documented, proven skill or a practice, I will say, that can help us reduce suffering. It literally rewires our neural pathways to go from default mode to a more thoughtful approach to life. It takes it from the amygdala of the human brain, which is like the fight or flight mechanism, and it actually rewires it so that you can put it into the prefrontal cortex, the big chunk of your brain that's right there in your forehead, and so you can actually deal with things with a lot more thoughtfulness and grace and ease. So this is what meditation is for. Meditation is essentially just taking all of the craziness that is happening in your life. I like to describe it as a sparkle jar.

[40:48] A sparkle jar. A sparkle jar. It's just a little jar that's filled with water and sparkles, and we're always shaking it up every day. We're constantly shaking it up. And even when we're resting, we're shaking it up, you know? But what meditation is, is the opportunity to put the sparkle jar down and to just watch what happens with all those thoughts and those ideas and worries, et cetera, et cetera. They are still there, but they just settle to the bottom of the jar. And what we're left with through this meditation process is just a space of calm and clarity, even if it's for just two minutes. But this helps us realize when a thought pops up that might be negative or any thought pops up and we just let go of it and allow us just to have that little space and calm and clarity. So meditation is a training process to be able to create space, calm, and clarity, right? Mindfulness, on the other hand, this is all your training put into use in regular everyday life. Mindfulness is just the noticing when you're out at the grocery store and somebody took that last can of beans that you really, really needed.

[42:02] But to catch yourself almost immediately then go that's just beans i'll use a different kind of beans i don't have to get tied up into this i don't have to have an experience that is negative so uh so what this allows us to do is to suffer less right and suffer less when you suffer less the byproduct of that is that we have more happiness happy more so by reducing our anger by reducing our greed by reducing our delusions especially this wokeness which is slowly dying out thankfully what we have is that we suffer less because because of self-awareness because we we meditate on our thoughts and we let it go as they call it like sports fishing you catch the fish and then you let it go back right good analogy yeah yeah yeah and then you have the mindfulness which allows us in our day-to-day process to actually take time to notice things and to let go and so by dropping the suffer less the automatic uh i guess dividends of that is the happy more the increase of the happy more yeah yeah that's exactly it so if i may come back to the meditation i mean you you've you've studied with the buddhist you've you've thought about this for quite a while since I think it was September 2020.

[43:30] 20 or 22? 22, yeah. Let me ask you, when it comes to meditation, I know there's many ways, but if someone's thinking, okay, meditate, and how long do I have to do it? Is it something I can do in five minutes? Or is it going to take me an hour? How often should I do it? What have you found? I know it's different from person to person, but in a generality, what is sort of a meditation practice that can help a lay person build into that practice?

[43:58] The answer is yes.

[44:03] Dodging bullets. Okay. Well, no, the answer is yes. I'm kidding. And if that means, if it means two minutes, then it's two minutes. If it means an hour, that means an hour. You know, the, what I can say is when you practice meditation, and it is just, it's a practice. That's all it is. The dividends that come out of that, of letting all those sparkles settle, can be so profound that it's something that you almost crave, I would say. Now, I'm not going to sit here, Jason, and say that I wake up every morning and then I sit cross-legged on my living room floor for an hour every day. No. I did that when I was a monk. Did it four times a day. Did it for four hours at a time. But that was exquisite training for my mind to be able to be constantly aware of what was happening in my mind, whether that is any form of suffering or any form of bliss, for that matter, but to just be constantly mindful of what was happening. So the short answer to your question, as I jokingly just said, yes, is that any amount of meditation is going to help establish a greater sense of awareness for yourself. And there's a bajillion types of meditation.

[45:31] Meditation that you can try the type of meditation that i do i always call it a stillness meditation that is just my own term that i that i like to use, that stillness meditation is just simply a three-step process and i'll tell you those three steps right now the the first step is to get comfortable that means sit in a chair we are north americans we don't sit on the floor uh we don't sit cross-legged and so sit in the chair that allows you to be able to to put your butt right to the back of it and sit straight up and down and let your body melt into the chair so step one is get comfortable step two get focused, so by focusing our mind counting our breaths from one to ten in being one out being two and just even just imagining what those numbers might look like in your mind. And then starting again at one, going all the way through 10 again, we're focusing our mind. And what we're doing is we're allowing our mind, we're letting the sparkle settle.

[46:38] And by focusing our mind, we give ourselves the space to be able to finally get to the third point of what I call, just see what happens. So the steps are get comfortable, get focused, and then just see what happens.

[46:54] That just see what happens aspect of meditation can be really, really magical. It can bring up almost dreams. It can provide you with just absolute nothingness. It can be little thoughts that might just kind of turn into stories in your mind, but they're not stressful. It's just like a sense of flow. It can be peaceful, it can be traumatic. But essentially, what we're doing in the meditation process is just going through those three steps. Because every time, so when we get comfortable, we're focusing. When we're focusing, we're focusing. And when we let it go, what we're doing is we're just waiting, we're just enjoying whatever peace that we can have out of it. And, this is the key, when you notice a thought, a worry, or anything pop up in your mind, you just gently guide your attention back to the meditation. Don't have to judge it. Just notice that it's there and just gently guide yourself back to the meditation.

[48:10] So two minutes, five minutes, 20 minutes, 50 minutes, whatever the case, whatever brings you the greatest success. Joy bliss flow then then that's up to you i think it it circles around to what you began at the trailhead of our conversation about grace and ease right it's this detachment if i can call it that from the three sufferings of anger greed and delusions delusion delusion delusion it brings you grace and ease and obviously happiness is not something that you know it's like a solid state that we could have all the time it happiness is one emotion but as you said there is there is.

[49:03] Joy there is bliss there is satisfaction there's a rainbow of these these emotions and what i like to talk about on this show is that excuse me emotions are not good or bad there's a valence they're either uncomfortable or comfortable but each emotion it serves a purpose it's a communication from our physiology to our psychology because our psychology we have grammar we have syntax the body doesn't have that when it's communicating to the mind it comes in the form of modulators and hormones and and transmitters and it's these combinations that we call emotions emotions being to evoke motion we either move towards something or away from something but all emotions i always think they are messengers and we it's to pick them up but it's not to allow the messenger to completely control us and that's why i really like what you said tim about the two-step process of meditation and then mindfulness and letting go of the three sufferings that we all as you said eight and a half billion of us or whatever how How many of there are us? We all go through. It's part of our neural wetware programming from whatever, 2 million years ago.

[50:19] Yeah, I would even go as far as to say that meditation is what I call attention training. And what I mean by attention training is when you're meditating and something comes to your attention, you're just noticing it. That is the training. You're noticing it and letting go of it. Mindfulness is the attention training in action in everyday life. So with all the noise that's happening around us, outside right now I've got this great big snowstorm happening. I could take my dog for a walk and notice that I'm strobing over the fact that I forgot to pay the electric bill. That is mindfulness.

[50:59] I like that. If we can come back. So someone's thinking, you know, what Tim is saying really resonates with me. It's such solid advice. But right now I'm going through a degree of adversity that I've never faced before. And it's creating anxious thoughts. and no matter what i try i'm lost in rumination i'm lost in overthinking i'm lost in negative thinking i need a lifeline here what you know because as you said you went through your own degree of suffering during the pandemic where you you were hospitalized because of it i mean considering your past experience considering the wisdom that you've learned and that you apply on a daily if not weekly basis what would you say to that person if she or he was sitting in front of you and said Tim what can I do I understand what you're saying but what can I do, well first of all my compassion I know that there are people out there that are experiencing that type of trauma yeah.

[52:14] I would encourage those who may be listening that are experiencing that to notice that it's a sign. That peace is possible, but it's going to take practice.

[52:31] When we hit rock bottom, that's the time that we're probably most apt to do something about it. So we have two choices, really, right? We can remain at rock bottom or we can go, we can elevate our own understanding and this is going to take practice. I really encourage the help of therapists. I really encourage the help of friends and family. But there's one person that can dig yourself out of that trauma and it is you. And it can happen by recognizing your suffering. Recognizing you are suffering. Is it anger? Is it greed? Is it delusion? Those three are the biggies. And there's a reason why they're the biggies. It's because they encompass essentially all suffering.

[53:30] So it's about recognizing what your suffering is and then making some steps towards reducing that suffering out of compassion for yourself.

[53:45] Well said. And there's something also you've talked about before, equal luminance. I was wondering if you can sort of elaborate or operationally define that for our audience today. That's a beautiful segue. That's a beautiful segue, Jason. Thank you for bringing that up. So this is a term that I actually had ChatGPT invent. There's a concept in Buddhism called equanimity. And equanimity still is a word that is a $3 word in my own mind that I know carries a lot of power and carries a lot of meaning. But it's still one that just doesn't click in my brain. So I asked TPT to create a new word that is based on the concept of equanimity, and it came up with that term equiluminance. Now, equiluminance, think about it. It means, when you break it down, it means equal light.

[54:44] I imagine an Edison light bulb. You know, those little light bulbs that kind of glow orange, and they got wires in them and whatnot. I imagine that little Edison light bulb.

[54:55] In my chest area, my mind area. And what that little light bulb is doing is it's providing equal light for my own suffering and the suffering that is happening 360 degrees around me. It's about having enough compassion for myself and compassion for the others that are surrounding me, the rest of the world. It could be for, you know, compassion for my dog that's resting on the chair in front of me, but it could also be compassion for the building that I live in, for everybody that's here, for everybody that's in my community of Calgary and Canada and North America and the world. Uh equiluminance is absolutely abundant and uh but it has to start with uh enough light enough compassion for yourself so that you can share it with other people around you it's the it's the light version of put on your own oxygen mask first i like that you know what i mean yeah yeah, so uh equiluminance is something that is uh can be very very powerful because it's not just about you it's about uh it's about the whole world and being able to spread compassion uh and and light and warmth and joy uh and it's never-ending it is like it's like the fuel from the sun.

[56:24] You know if if to capture you know we're coming to the top of the hour but as you said you know back to the ikigai or the golden ikigai it's being in the service of others it could be a business it could be volunteering our time our knowledge but being in the service of others to help other human beings to get through whatever adversity or conundrum by and you're doing it for yourself though too at the same time exactly because by me helping someone.

[56:52] There, there, there is a, it's, it's a two way road. We both, I don't like the term a win-win, but we both, we both benefit, we both benefit from it. But the other things you've talked about when it comes to it's self-awareness, that's important. It's the ability to step out of our subjective state and objectively look at our thoughts to understand what our emotions are communicating, maybe how we're acting and what have you. Then there's self-compassion, Another very important key thing that you brought up when it comes to equiluminance, and that is we sometimes turn on the faucet of compassion for others, but sometimes we just self-flagellate, we just whip ourselves so we're bleeding in our backs. But what you've just said so eloquently, turn that compassion on yourself, right? As you serve others, serve yourself too. And I think what you said also when I asked you about adversity and anxiety and someone's in some sort of dark hole, right? It's that you have a choice. And I think this is where self-efficacy comes in, where you can apply the effort. Maybe you need someone to help you out. That's okay. I mean, that's why we are families and teams and communities.

[58:11] Reach out, ask for that help, because that's part of also self-compassion, thinking that, you know, within my vulnerability, there's a strength and courage in me to do that. But then it comes back down to self-awareness. You need to be, you will want to be self-aware. And if we can liberate ourselves from, to some extent, anger, greed, and delusion, then it's less, suffer less and more happy more. So everything is sort of contained in a sphere. We've just kind of teased it apart today, or you've been very eloquent and articulate about teasing each of these fundamentals today. Having a different way of just looking at the world, and I encourage everybody to have their own way of being able to look at the world and whatnot, with the caveat of saying, this is about me suffering less.

[59:08] This is about me feeling happy more. That sort of thing. You know, the great Thich Nhat Hanh, who is a wonderful Buddhist teacher and a master of compassion, has this beautiful way of dealing with, of having conversations with people like what you mentioned, you know, somebody who might be in really, really deep pain. And the four steps are, the first one is, I see you. This is you talking to the person that is in pain. I see you. And then, I see you, and I know you suffer.

[59:56] And the step is, I see you, and I know you suffer, and I am here for you. And the fourth step is, and I think this is the big one, I suffer too.

[1:00:10] You looked up at me like it was like oh this is that 360 degree we are all in the exact same boat some of us are suffering more but we all suffer and this is the key to this equiluminance and this idea of compassion and and being able to utilize the good in ourselves or the joy in ourselves as a tool to make the world a better place one person at a time.

[1:00:41] We just have to be aware of those delusions and notice when we are faced with experiencing one of those and suffer less. And that kind of brings me full circle. How do you feel adversity has shaped your outlook on happiness and fulfillment? Absolutely, it has. And that is the human condition, is that we are, again, we are all on the exact same playing field. We will all face diversity, but how we can take adversity and turn it into something that is profound and that can really change our lives is up to each one of us. And I consider myself lucky that I had really, really traumatic experiences. I really do. Because it's allowed me to be able to see my existence with a new set of eyes. And also see the potential for spreading that and letting it grow.

[1:01:50] Adversity is being a teacher for you, a hard teacher. But it wasn't, I guess, a good or a bad thing, but it was, in a sense, a wake-up call to find what is truly significant or important to yourself. Yeah, absolutely. And even the lessons of the Buddha, You know, Siddhartha, who is a young prince, he went through adversity in order to be able to become enlightened. You know, it's any transformation story that you've ever seen on Disney or Paramount or X-Men or whatever, you know, it's all a transformation. This is a transformation from challenges to a new way of living life. So you've shared a lot of your insights on happiness and resilience today with us, Tim. What message do you hope our listeners take away from this conversation today?

[1:02:50] That shortcut. The shortcut. Sufferless and happy more. I mean, I couldn't put it into a more succinct strategy and transformation than those two words. That is the strategy. Suffer less so you can happy more. Happiness is a byproduct of suffering less. It's not something we pursue in a trip to Fiji or that we pursue in the purchase of a new sports car. Happiness is something that is a byproduct of suffering less so suffer less and happy more that's I couldn't say it any clearer, it's simple but there is a deep and profound elegance to that Tim thank you very much for your time today it's been brilliant to connect between Oslo and Calgary but thank you very much Tim for your sharing your wisdom and your insights and your experiences with us today, absolutely Jason it's been a real joy to be on.

[1:03:47] Music.

[1:03:58] In the second half of the conversation, Tim talked about how life happened. How life happened to him as it happens to all of us, where he went through his own adversity. And that led him to Thailand, where he spent 30 days studying Buddhism to better understand his own suffering. What he discovered was something deeply human, that we all suffer. But that suffering comes from within. Now, Tim broke down suffering into three forms. The first was anger, the grudges we hold on to, the resentment that keeps us stuck. The second, greed, the endless chase for more instead of appreciating what we already have. And the third, delusion, the beliefs we carry about ourselves and others that lead to frustration when reality doesn't really line up with our expectations. But here's where things shift. Tim didn't just study suffering, he learned how to move through it. And he shared two powerful tools, meditation and mindfulness. And these aren't just buzzwords. As Tim said, we don't have to live by default. We can live by design. And that requires living with more intention, with more self-awareness. Tim used the brilliant metaphor to explain it. He said, imagine a jar filled with sparkles. When we're overwhelmed, when motions take over, it's like shaking that jar. The sparkles cloud our vision, but with meditation mindfulness we give ourselves the space to let those sparkles settle.

[1:05:26] Clarity comes when we stop reacting and we start seeing. And the process? Well, it's simple. He said, get comfortable, get focused, and see what happens. Because it's not about forcing change. It's about creating space for clarity, for awareness, and for a life that's more about design than by default.

[1:05:47] Tim didn't leave Buddhism behind in Thailand. He brought it back to Calgary, shaping his own working philosophy. His core message was this. suffer less, happy more. The less we cling on to anger, greed and delusion, the more space we create for happiness. By understanding our suffering, we gain the power to reduce it and in doing so, we open the door to a much more enriching life. I think the philosophy of Ikigai and the philosophy of Buddhism are things that are hundreds if not thousands of years old and And that we can learn from that deep knowledge to apply it to ourselves to find psychological strength, resilience, tenacity, to work through life's tribulations and trials. Tim, a personal thank you from me to you for spending some time with me today. I love the conversation and I am curious to explore more in-depthly these two philosophies. So thank you very much. Folks, I will leave Tim's links in the show notes if you wish to reach out to him. And I highly recommend picking up his book, How to Ikigai.

[1:06:56] Well, folks, thank you for showing up for another episode. I will see you Friday for Bite Size Fridays. And until then, keep well.

[1:07:04] Music.