Upcoming Session

Shinzen will be leading a retreat in California on February 5, so there will be no LPP session that week.
Join us when we resume with guest John Silkey on Feburary 12!


Wednesday, February 12, 2020 :: John Silkey

8AM PACIFIC / 9AM MOUNTAIN / 10AM CENTRAL / 11AM EASTERN

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#threelittleknownfacts

  • John loves to cook but can't follow a recipe.

  • As a kid, he couldn't stand sci-fi / fantasy books, but today that's his favorite genre.

  • He says, “I'm unable to complete lists of more than two facts about me....” (Ha!)

John Silkey is working as a management consultant and writer in Portland, Oregon. He’s lived all over, but he says “the Northwest feels like home.”

I was born and raised in New York, and I've since lived in every corner of the U.S., plus Tennessee, Sweden, and Mexico. But the moment I began living out here in the Northwest, I had a sense that these mountains and waters are medicinal for me.

He’s lived in as many places as he’s had careers, and he beautifully described his big-picture view on his work life.

My resume makes no sense at all. I've worked on Wall Street, I've been a high school teacher, I've worked in sustainability consulting, I've been a bartender, and I took a two-year sabbatical to do creative writing. Though these may all seem disconnected, strangely, each thing has somehow built into to the next thing, even when I felt the most lost or unfulfilled. I'm about to embark on my sixth career--this time in management consulting and writing in the areas of energy efficiency and climate change. I’m entering this new stage carrying all of this experience and perspective with me.

John shared a big shift in motivation during his early experiences with meditation, and how his practice has evolved from what he calls a “choose your own adventure” approach.

When I began meditating, I wasn’t aware at the time that I was going through a transition. I had been a very heady, intellectual person, and I'd always been praised and rewarded for intelligence and problem solving. As a result, I had a somewhat overactive mind. At a certain point, I realized this was getting in the way of who I actually was. I knew of meditation and mindfulness, and I thought “that's what I need, something to quiet my mind.” But I quickly realized it was more about integration and bringing these other voices back to the table besides just my intellect.

I didn't really have any teachers, so I was just out there picking apples from different meditation trees as I found them, trying those out with what I coined “choose your own adventure” meditation. I practiced what worked for me at that time and let go of what didn't work. About four years ago, Thomas McConkie suggested Shinzen's work, and I’ve since incorporated See, Hear, Feel and some other Unified Mindfulness techniques into my daily practice.

John shared some of the benefits he’s experienced from practice.

I’m able to step back and look at thoughts and emotions as objects rather than being consumed by them and “being” them. This has given me more balance in the moment. Another significant shift has been around compassion practice. I used to always start with compassion for others. I didn’t realize that I didn't have compassion for myself, and that without compassion for myself, there was only so far I could go. Now I experience compassion for myself, which leads to compassion for other people.

In the past decade, I’ve also been able to see and relate in new ways to organized religion. It's not this thing I have to push away and try to discredit. Instead I realize it’s really useful for some people. I realize that, as a kid, I was just getting a filtered messaging of Christianity. Now I can see the fundamental seeds of it, and think, "oh, there's truth there"—truth that I can connect to. It's been fun to explore. 


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