The Everyday Awesome Project
The Everyday Awesome Podcast is your mega dose of multivitamins for building your mental muscles, physical body and an empowered life. Your hosts Polly and Sam are on your dream team; lifelong coaches in business, health & fitness and human potential. They are on fire to ignite change in the lives they touch.
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The Everyday Awesome Project
65: Discovering Buddhism - Practices in the Art of Living
"There are thousands of pathways up the mountain, and all of them have the potential to reach the summit." These epic words from Buddhist teachings perfectly capture the spirit of this deep tradition - which is not a religion, by the way y'all. Coach Sam learns that Buddhism is simply the ART OF LIVING and jumps in! Woohoo!
Listen in this week as Coach Sam shares her recent trek to a Buddhist monastery near San Diego, where she participated in a walking meditation with over 100 strangers in complete silence. What struck her most wasn't the spiritual practices formality one might expect, but rather the joyful, welcoming atmosphere created by the beautiful monks and nuns. Their teachings weren't about perfection or right and wrong judgment but were deeply centered on mindfulness, presence, and cultivating that inner connection that leads to greater connection to all living things.
The revelation that walking meditation as a common Buddhist practice highlights how spiritual truths often already exist within our daily lives. We don't always need new techniques or complicated systems; sometimes we simply need to recognize and intentionally embrace what already resonates deeply with us. Sam knows this all to well from her ultra distance running and hiking experiences that were days filled with meditative states. But beyond meditation, inside this deep long tradition and it's teachings, is simply put "a way of life to find inner peace and outer connection to the good in our world."
Both Polly and Samantha explore how their personal paths, though different, have led them to similar realizations about living authentically. Samantha tells of the book The Eight Realizations of Great Beings—principles including knowing oneself, understanding desire, living simply, and befriending all living things—as practical guideposts rather than rigid doctrines. At its core, this approach to spirituality isn't about escaping life but fully engaging with it through awareness and love. Book: https://amzn.to/4bD2YE
What emerges is a profound yet accessible understanding that beneath our various seeking and practices lies a simple truth: when we strip away conditioning and distractions, what remains is LOVE. Our suffering often comes from forgetting this essential nature and projecting our internal conflicts outward. The practice, then, becomes remembering who we truly are and living from that awareness—moment by moment, breath by breath.
What spiritual practices might already be part of your life without formal labels? How might approaching your life's journey as art could alter your everyday experience? Join us on this journey of curiosity and discovery as we explore the beautiful possibilities of practicing the art of living.
To visit or learn more about Sister D: https://deerparkmonastery.org/
Follow Coach Polly @getbusythriving and Coach Sam @thesamanthapruitt
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hey, superstars, welcome back polly here and sam, what's up? Beautiful humans, oh my best beautiful friend. What are we talking about today?
Samantha Pruitt:well, we're talking about some things, but how I perceive the conversation is what you and I both are getting up to right now in the world, and it is we're practicing the art of living, which is who we are in learning, exploring, understanding and becoming more knowing in our own interbeing about certain subjects that have to do with who we are in the world, how we live our life, and really understanding not just ourselves but humanity. But we have to start with ourselves first. So we're both on this really kind of deep, inquisitive path Different paths, but yet they're very, you know, related.
Polly Mertens:And I would say, you know, one of the things we said before we went on air is about how it's just, we don't know Like it's not like. Oh, I've got this direct map to New York and every little, you know, every little turn, left turn and right turn is identified and I'm just following it. It's more like there's this thing I've heard about called New York and I want to go there and you know, let's just get in the car and see where we go, right, and it's or or there's this thing called the United States that I want to see and let's get about seeing it and who knows what left or right. And I think one of the things I've been getting from a guy who does some channeling is he says follow your excitement, like that's the ticket. I was like, hey, I can take that advice. That's usually actually how I live Follow your excitement and what excites you. And he says like, even, just like, 10% more than the other thing, like if you've got two things that are like either they're both or they're both super exciting, well, which one's? 10% more, like that's the thing for you, right?
Polly Mertens:And so one of the things that I most want to talk about, you know, I love how you opened up with the practicing the art of living, which is like mic drop right there, like that phrase when you've texted that to me and when you've described that to me that originates from buddhism. Right, is that? That's like the study of buddhism is like the art of living, and you've talked about how like life is art and we're creating our art, and I had this quote that I sent you this morning. That was like you know, some people paint with a paintbrush or sculpt with a you know clay or they, you know, create music with a guitar. And then there's some people that I would say you, you and I, we don't have the art of a hobby, if you will, that creates.
Samantha Pruitt:Well, we've got this podcast, which is word art.
Polly Mertens:Right, right. And this particular person that was on this article was like he's a doctor, you know, and like that's his art, right, and so yours is. You know the things that you're up to in the world, and mine and's all crafty and crazy. So, if we step back at the 10,000 foot view of our life, there's this beautiful tapestry that our life weaves, and the people in it and the colors of it, and the places we've seen, and the music scapes, and the faces and the moments and all of that, and that's creating our, our art, our life, if you will, and especially the ones that we touch right like through, like through this podcast.
Samantha Pruitt:Well, everybody gets the opportunity to make art and however you decide you're going to perceive your own life is by choice. I think, first of all, let's just start with that. It's by choice how we decide to wake up every day and perceive our life. It's so mind blowing the simplicity of that statement, because many of us feel like, well, this is just what it is, and somebody else is scripting it and I'm like an actor in the play and I'm going to be, you know, doing the roles and da, da, dah, dah, dah, no, just just no. So if I decide that my life is art, I'm also talking about the last 55 years and let me tell you a lot of it was a mess, it was chaos, you know, explosions of color and broken glass and all that, but that's okay. I don't mean that everything was beautiful and and it's like Picasso and this is a masterpiece. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that it's all been part of the artwork. I am the creator.
Polly Mertens:Hmm, well said, and I do want to give a nod, because I think one of the things you maybe lose track of and sometimes I do too is not everyone plays the game the way that we do, right, I think there's a lot in our society through conditioning, through old patterns, through fears, through the way society tells us to be or whatnot, and if you tune into that channel what's not the channel we listen to it can look a little bit more gray and white, you know, a little more vanilla, not so many bright colors or magic moments, and sometimes it doesn't even feel like the painting you want to be drawing or you want to be creating.
Samantha Pruitt:Oh, many times, I mean and I totally can relate to that too as part of my journey, for sure, for sure, so many years were black and white Grayscapes, like literally. I feel like I lost years of my life not even remembering some of the things that were happening because they were so not great, right. But then at the same time, like in hindsight, and through them and generally through the darkness and out the other side, there was always this deep kind of knowing that it was okay and it was all part of it. Yeah, yeah.
Polly Mertens:Well, and some people just come out, you know, kicking in and and feeling that path earlier than some others of us, I think, you know. I mean, there's some painters that, like, they come out and they just paint, or they're supposed to be a doctor and they just doctor, you know, and but they love it, not like a having to, a getting to a joyfully expression. And you know, some of us we try this or we try that, or we follow someone else's. Well, maybe this will work for you and it's like, oh, no, no, that's not, that's not what I want, right, and so all of it's great and it gets us to where we are. And you know, one of the things you and I see ourself is like, if you're, if all of our listeners are a sound bowl, you know we're like ding, you know like.
Polly Mertens:So this is another episode, yet again, of like ding. We want to ding your sound bowl and reawaken you to the inner vibration that you are. You're the inner artist, the sculptor, the painter, however you want to describe it, practicing the art of living, and what I think would be beautiful is if you share with people. Let's talk about this journey that you've been on, that most recently led you to a walking meditation, which you aren't likely to do. I've never known you to do a single moment of meditation, let alone a whole day. So what the heck got you there Totally? Where were you Paint the picture so like what is this place and who is this person that you went to see?
Samantha Pruitt:Well, I've got to go back a few years. Okay, or I get to what just transpired this weekend.
Samantha Pruitt:Let's do that. I didn't really ever see or witness or have any understanding for my mother, but she in a religious context, except for she was raised in England. Both of my parents were. They were children of the war. All kinds of crazy things were going on, and when they were growing up, my mom in particular was sent to Catholic schools and so she had a very bad experience over the course of that time and so was really anti-religion At the time. They immigrated to America and I was born on American soil. Religion was not at all part of my upbringing and if anything, there was a real negative attitude and connotation around religious organizations and so forth. So never experienced any of that. But she had also, over the course of my lifetime, collected these little Buddhas and so I, when she passed away, I received four of them. One is a big garden one that I have that's kind of crumbling and falling apart, but it's still really beautiful, and then these three little ones. So I have one right now actually on my desk.
Samantha Pruitt:Yes, you do A wooden one, I have a jade one, and then I have a little stone one, and so it's ludicrous to me now why I never had conversations with her about why in the hell do you have these?
Samantha Pruitt:Because I never saw her practicing Buddhism or anything. But I was having a conversation with my brother. It was like how fascinating that we didn't know this piece of our mother. Anyway, so long story short, I always after I inherited these and they became part of in my home skating, been around my life. I had some curiosities. And then I had some adult friends who I just love. They're just amazing humans in the world. They're just beautiful, amazing humans doing really magnificent work with their life and they practice Buddhism. And so I had some curiosities. I would have some conversations. There's lots of different types of Buddhism to practice and I found out a little bit and then I read some books about the different types. So I was really just more like a curiosity, a learning I'm a constant learner A little osmosis?
Samantha Pruitt:Yeah, I want to know about things in the world, and especially if there's some thread of it where, where it keeps reoccurring, almost like it comes into my stream, the universe drops things into my space where it's like okay, now I've heard about this three or four or five times. Yeah, you've sparked my curiosity, universe, you've got my attention.
Polly Mertens:Yeah, especially when it comes through people, or from people that you admire and you respect or you love and you know have for you're like. Well, if that person is wonderful and I love them and they, you know, are attracted to you know whatever a musician, a piece of art or whatever it's like, tell me more about that, right totally.
Samantha Pruitt:It's like a friend turning you on to a good book, like you said, a piece of music, a good movie. You know, it's the same kind of thing Like oh, we share a value system and it resonates, so maybe I'd be interested in this as well. So, anyway, I started checking things out and then I was listening to a podcast one day recently and I heard this woman being interviewed and she's a Buddhist nun. She's called Sister D, and so I bought her book. So I have this book. Interviewed and she's a Buddhist nun, she's called Sister D, and so I bought her book. So I have this book.
Polly Mertens:Flowers in the Dark.
Samantha Pruitt:And she is a author, very talented author, and that interview, by the way, is on the 10% Happier podcast, Dan Harris, 10% Happier. Her name is Sister D and so that interview is on there if anybody wants to listen to it. I was listening to her while I was out doing my long walk run hike one day and, oh my gosh, just her energy coming through. The broadcast was so beautiful and she was, in particular, talking about this new book and trauma. So this is a book for healing trauma.
Samantha Pruitt:And it's basically she's a doctor, an MD and the integration of all of her knowledge of the human body and brain and how we function as humans, and then her Buddhist practices integrated into some ways for people to heal their trauma, and it's in this book. So it's really beautiful, highly, highly recommended, and I've been reading that and in the course of reading that, following the thread, I found out that there is a Buddhist monastery over the hill two hours from me the only one in California, by the way, and one of the very few in the United States of America practicing this type of Buddhism. Right, and she often stays there and I'm like, excuse me, I mean obviously I need to get in my car and drive over there. So in doing my research, I realized that you can't just show up in these places. I mean, it's like your house, you know. This is again. This is me learning, like how this all goes.
Samantha Pruitt:Yeah, and what I found is they do have some days that are open to the public. They call them mindful days and basically there's opportunities to come onto the property, be with the nuns, the monastics, the nuns and the brothers and basically the monks, and be with them in practice. So of course, I immediately signed up for a ticket to go there. I mean, it was free, but like to be on the property and to share the experience. And that was just this last weekend. Yeah, it was super cool.
Samantha Pruitt:I went by myself and I just like again, I just followed my inner, knowing, my inner curiosity, which, in a way, of course, that's what we call a calling, or that's what we call, you know, the law of attraction, or however people perceive how the universe and them communicate. You know everybody has ideas about that, that we believe that there's energy, right. So I really feel a pull to the understanding of these philosophies, this way of life, and when I learned the simplicity of it all and I slowly have unpacked how incredibly simple it actually is this practice, that it's not in fact a religion, it is a practice in the art of living I was like they're talking to me. I already know this to be true.
Samantha Pruitt:And pretty much everything I have read and experienced so far I already knew to be true, like these are deep truths within me, so I think that vibration is stronger and stronger and stronger because it so resonates. There's no questioning. There's no, I don't understand. There's no resistance. That happens with a lot of religions and people in religions with belief systems.
Polly Mertens:Well, yeah, it's like I find that there's a lot of people that you know like sinning. It's like, well, you wouldn't have sin if there weren't these expectations. Or like you know things that people felt against right, you know, whatever, call them moral or whatever, you know don't do this, don't do that, don't do this. And yet you see a lot of people doing those things right, and so they're not in alignment with those ways of being. It's like, well, maybe there's something else out there for you, you know, or do you want to look at this? Is there something that's causing you to behave in this way? But what I get, what you're saying, is like it's just a it's not a prescribed expectation like do and don't. It's like, hey, did you notice this about the world? Hey, did you notice like you're? You're, you're a being that has a life and a death, and I don't know, like, teach us some of the things that you've discovered, you know and Well, there are disciplines, so it isn't like a completely untethered way of being Well practicing.
Polly Mertens:Obviously there's some discipline. If there's practice, it's like.
Samantha Pruitt:I mean, in fast summary, it's the discipline and practices around being a good human being. I mean, it's literally that simple, and I don't know anybody who doesn't want to be a good human being. I mean even people who are committing horrible crimes, atrocities to other humans and animals and so forth. I believe at their core they actually do not want to be that person.
Polly Mertens:Yeah, I agree. I think there's people that are healthy and unhealthy in their mindset. Things have traumatized them or they are seeking out patterns that are harmful to themselves and others, not because they necessarily want to. It's either a compulsion or a escape or a coping or something like that.
Polly Mertens:So yeah, I love this, practices in the way of living and disciplines. You know, and and what that tells me is you know there's levels to this, right. There's like the more time you spend doing these things, the better you'll get at it. You're not expected to be just like, oh yeah, you just kind of the idea.
Samantha Pruitt:It doesn't happen quickly, though, but, yes, totally, totally so. So this is, in particular, um the one I'm studying the type of buddhism I should say that I am studying and technically practicing, and apparently I've been practicing for a really long time and I've had no idea. Um it's zen Master, thich Nhat Hanh, which a lot of people are very familiar with and the practice is the Plum Village practice.
Samantha Pruitt:Plum Village is in France. It's the main monastery when everybody left. Yeah, I mean, that's where they went and started to, you know, practice under him. But there's a whole history to all religions, including Buddhism, and in fact it started on the Silk Road and it started in India, but then it quickly went to all the stands, so Iraq, iran and every single one of the stands they were practicing Buddhism and it was traveling along the Silk Road, not just there's three Silk Roads one is on the water and then one is over water and one is through land. And as those humans were moving across these passages towards China, buddhism was traveling with them. So the origins are not in China, it's just so much. It just blows your mind when you start thinking about these really incredibly beautiful humans of all types around the globe. This resonated with deep in their core, who they wanted to be as humans in the world.
Samantha Pruitt:And now we think of these countries, as you know, poisoned and dangerous, and there is war and conflict and there's atrocities happening, Like like I said. I mean, of course, that way of living is all gone.
Polly Mertens:And I think when you, you know, it's interesting. I have a friend in Pakistan and she's Muslim and she's like one of the most gentle, loving, caring people. I know and I and I'm like you know what I've heard of Muslim. You know Muslim religion. I don't know enough about it because obviously she's amazing. You know, and I'm just like there's there's more to the story. You know like unfolding, you know, like study this, but with Buddhism I haven't known anybody.
Polly Mertens:I haven't heard any bad things about Buddhism, likeism, like I don't know of any warring buddhists or um no aggressive, let's just put it under aggressive. You know, I don't know any aggressive, it's more and it's not passive, I mean, it's quite active.
Polly Mertens:the practices are um intentional they're not just like passive, like lazy, intentional oh, no, deep intention, and especially I mean one of the hardest things I think they teach is about Intentional. They're not just like passive, like lazy Intentional. Oh, no, deep intention, and especially I mean one of the hardest things I think they teach is about presence.
Samantha Pruitt:You know, like just freaking being present. They use the term mindfulness right Mindfulness. I can read that real quick Mindfulness, the natural capacity to be present and direct our attention to be present and direct our attention.
Samantha Pruitt:Mindfulness of something, of our breath, of our steps, of our feelings, of our motivations and so on. So being mindfulness, practicing mindfulness which is, you know, their biggest underscore is like just have awareness. Be freaking awake, walk through life awake. Know what's happening you and I talk about this every freaking week. Know what's happening in your body. Know what's happening in your crazy mind and thoughts that are just running rampant trying to run the damn show. Like, if you don't have awareness, they run the show.
Polly Mertens:You know, all of this stuff that we live by really already and I think some of the practice and I don't know it and I'd love to hear more about your experience being around it is, um, you know, it's a little bit of the slowing down because some of the fast pace, the speed of life, the distractibility right slowing down they and the prescription is simplicity at its utmost core.
Samantha Pruitt:So, being on this monastery and I you also know, listen I've lived tiny, tiny. I love the simple life like.
Samantha Pruitt:It also resonates deep inside of me and has for a really long time you know, like if we're out, you know, in a backpack, and all we have is all of our belongings in your backpack. I couldn't be more thrilled that I just have my. All of my possessions are in this you know 30 pound bag or whatever, or in this small living space, or you know. That kind of lifestyle is so beautiful and that's how the monks and nuns live. Of course. That's how the monks and nuns live, of course, because all of the extra stuff needs to be stripped away so they can make their practice their priority.
Samantha Pruitt:That isn't realistic for most of us, where we're just bombarded with obligation and the economic status of our well-being and jobs and families and responsibilities and so forth. But in particular in this type of buddhism, basically what they're asking of us lay people is to practice, and what we mean is like study the practice and learn about it and then for an hour a day and then spend the next seven hours practicing the thing. Whatever that is, you know, whether it's one of the disciplines or one of the philosophies or one of the teachings there's so many that you can. You know whatever really interests you and, like I said, the learning and the understanding and the exploring is ways to live as a really a great human. I mean, it's really that simple. This book I'm really look at this one. I'm reading the eight realizations of great beings. What? Okay, that's just like what is that.
Samantha Pruitt:This is so good Is that from her too, or something. No, no, no, I should put that up.
Polly Mertens:Brother Hi, it says okay, got it.
Samantha Pruitt:The eight realizations of great beings. This is like the core foundational Eight things to understand To be a good person. Literally, it's so simple, I mean, there's nothing crazy going on here at all. This is all stuff we all know.
Polly Mertens:By the way, do you have them, or do you know a couple of them that you could uh share with us, or I could look them up?
Samantha Pruitt:okay, I can read them. Are you ready? Yeah. The first realization. It's called the four foundational insights. Oh yes. So, basically, it's insights about knowing the self. The second realization, the nature of desire Know thyself the nature of desire.
Samantha Pruitt:Third realization basic and simple. So it's a way of living, keeping your life very simple, your needs simple, your lifestyle basic, and really it's so you don't have distractions, right? The fourth realization good energy. Ooh, that's probably going to be your favorite polly love it love it. Yeah, yeah, the fifth realization. This is what you're deep into right now deep listening and vast learning oh okay.
Polly Mertens:deep listening and vast learning, ah, okay, okay. The Best learning, ah, okay, okay.
Samantha Pruitt:The sixth realization love, generosity and forgiveness. Wow, the seventh realization be free where you are. Wow. And then the eighth realization befriend all living things. I mean what Dude.
Polly Mertens:Say them again Know thyself. Was that the first one? Know thyself.
Samantha Pruitt:Yeah, it's called the four foundational insights, but it's basically you, understanding, your. It's called interbeing. So interbeing is the term that's used and it's about us, you, me, each of us humans, whoever's listening, interbeing, understanding. We are simply one cell in the body of all.
Polly Mertens:Got it.
Samantha Pruitt:Yeah, we are all part of everything yeah, aren't we though?
Polly Mertens:yeah, all right. I don't know if I teach that in the bible in the crowd. I don't know. Maybe I haven't, I haven't read it, but that sure is a. I mean, if nothing else you know, the more we learn about metaphysics, the more we know that's. They're pointing to that Exactly. Science is pointing back to this. It's called real science. Yeah.
Samantha Pruitt:All right, and that's the next one the nature of desire.
Polly Mertens:Nature of desire. Interesting way of saying that.
Samantha Pruitt:It's like the things that our nature as a human species and things that drive us and motivate us, and and how to understand that.
Polly Mertens:Not let our desires manage us I'm just going to say, when you said earlier, like it stuck out at me, mindful of your motivations, like that phrase, mindful of your motivations, if nothing else, I have a feeling the root of so much suffering and just anything that's not workable. In your life there is a motivation that you're unaware of or haven't yet tapped into, or is running you instead of you being mindful of it. You know something? Like that and I'm saying you, but like me too.
Samantha Pruitt:So yeah, and they talk about all things you know, um, money, food, sex, uh any, and all things that people feel and what can become dysfunctional very easily. You know that start to take over and rule their motivation. Um, the third is basic and simple. So basically it's a way of of living and understanding what your true needs are.
Samantha Pruitt:The fourth is good energy. It's so cute because we did this walking meditation, I'll tell you. But then they kept saying after you know they would sort of prompt us before and after things, but in between everything was silence. But make sure you smile and they'd all be. They're're so beautiful, these monks and nuns walking around in their robes, totally bald, smiling, everybody's smiling. I couldn't help but smile. It's very contagious, totally deep listening and vast learning oh gosh this is.
Samantha Pruitt:I'm so into learning right now. Uh, love, generosity and forgiveness. Very good good words. I love those brief, be free where you are and then befriending all living things so good. So I end up at this monastery and I had no idea what to expect, and also this is a little bit how I live, but how I want to be consciously living more of is following these callings, these interests, these curiosities, that energy pull, not, I don't know what to expect, not a lot of planning. Just, you know, because I've lived most of my life not that way, out of necessity or survival or fear-based or anxiety and trying to like squelch all that. So, you know, using, um, my mind to control things or plan things or structure things to create more comfort in the unknown Certainty yeah.
Samantha Pruitt:Well, certainty is a joke, because that never really worked out. But pretending that I had any clue what might be happening or that I had some control over it and the older I get, the less I give two shits about that. But also, I don't really want to be living that way every day because it's so confining. It's so restricting.
Samantha Pruitt:It causes so much more stress, right, because things never really go as planned. You know I'm a list queen and I'm a schedule queen, but I find that as I age, I do want less of that and I want more free flow in my life. You know, to be able to be aware and have time and space and stuff like that life. You know to be able to be aware and have time and space and stuff like that. So I drive there by myself and I get to the gate, so I'm basically this is back in the East County of San Diego, and so I went through these neighborhoods and then I'm on these dirt roads and then I'm basically coming to this back kind of like wild country where there's all these mountains and stuff and there's a gate and the gates closed, closed, but there's no cars there or anything. And I mean I'm kind of on time, at least what it says, that the property opens. You know, a few minutes earlier, whatever, just how I like to do things. I was a little bit early and then another, and so I'm just kind of parked there like I don't really know what to do. You know, I guess I'll just wait and see if someone comes to open the gate, so I wait, and then another car comes and so I get out and I talk to these people behind me and I said, do you know what we're supposed to do? And they said, no, we don't know, we've never been here before. And they drove up all the way from LA or, I guess, down from LA, uh. And so we're like, well, we'll just wait and see if someone comes to open the gate, and then at eight o'clock the gate just opens. Nobody comes with, the gate just opens, and we're like, oh yeah, that's so cool, we're going there. Wow, you know.
Samantha Pruitt:So we drive slowly down this really you know horrible road. It's bumpy and it's like, you know, we're just going into the wilds here, basically, but it's a beautiful piece of property in the mountains. We're just going into the wild here, basically, but it's a beautiful piece of property in the mountains. They're just full of natural plant life and scrub and all that kind of stuff. And we're just kind of winding up. And you said, on this day it was like foggy. Right, it was so foggy and it was sprinkling, but the fog was so dense you could barely see. It was really magical and totally beautiful. And then just kind of a light drizzle, not anything too crazy, but just enough to get you, like your car, wet and things like that. Um, and as I am winding through the property, you know there's nobody around except for this car that's following me and for all I know, we're the only two people that are going to be here today, and I see one of the nuns literally on the road running. She's jogging along just getting her morning exercise.
Polly Mertens:I'm sure she's not in her lulu lemons or something like that no, they're in full dress.
Samantha Pruitt:They dress very conservatively and they have brown robes and hats and all the things. But she's just jogging along and I'm like she's a runner there's a run club here, totally. Anyway, went and parked Again, there's nobody in the entire place. This other car comes and parks and we just get out. We don't really even know where to go. I mean, there really is very little signage and their signage is more like messaging and quotes and things that are just more beautiful and inspiring. So the other people are kind of messing around their car, figuring out if they should have an umbrella and jackets and whatever their thing is.
Samantha Pruitt:And I just got out and started walking up the road because I figured well, park here, you walk up the road. Maybe on top of the hill is like a check-in office or something. Anyway, I walk up this hill and I see another person, a lay woman also, who's a little bit further up, and I don't know how she got in, cause I didn't see her before me, if she was staying there or whatever. But she's in lay person's clothes and she's just walking up the hill. So I just decided I'm going to follow her and there's an office and it says check in and there's a bookstore and there's. So there's a few like buildings starting to pop up. So I go that way, but she just keeps walking up the mountain like onto the dirt road and like into away and I'm like all right, I don't think we're supposed to go there, but she must know what she's doing anyway.
Samantha Pruitt:There's not a human around. Wow, nothing, everything's closed. I don't see, or, and I'm like what is going? Going on, not a soul.
Polly Mertens:I love the unknowingness.
Samantha Pruitt:You know it's not like wandering around and I didn't feel nervous or scared or uncomfortable or whatever. I'm just looking at the gardens and kind of just peaceful the whole thing. And so I basically kind of hung out in this really beautiful garden in the monks' hamlet so, where the men live in one area and the nuns live in a separate area, because you know they practice chastity and they don't none of this mixing of sexes and different things like that. But nobody ever came. So now it's like 830. This thing is going to be starting, supposedly, I mean, they let you on, but then there's like a schedule for the day that they sent us walking meditation. So then I just started to walk back down the hill and I totally was blown away because I come walking back down the hill and there's all these people walking up now. So I just was an early bird, but there's over a hundred people, oh geez, walking up to where the first check-in, check-in it wasn't even a check-in.
Samantha Pruitt:Nobody ever checked us in, nothing. Basically there was a circle that had formed, there was a couple monks and many nuns and basically they were going to facilitate the morning practice, which is a walking meditation and basically everyone's kind of standing around and very quiet and peaceful and 100 and something strangers. Here we are and there's the nuns and the monks and everyone's just in silence, just basically hanging out waiting, and it's like everybody else knew what was going to happen and I was like I don't know what we're going to do, but I'm totally in.
Polly Mertens:It's so liberating to do stuff like that, by the way I was going to say what a beautiful, not intentional making you uncomfortable, but just like, yeah, like this is happening and they weren't in control of you, but they were, you know, in their own way, signaling to you this is okay, like yeah, and what I quickly figured out or summarized in my own brain because I make things up whether they're true or not, like we all do is that, oh, everybody seems to know what we're doing.
Samantha Pruitt:I just don't, cause I'm new, but like whatever, I'm just going to follow suit. Like I'm so open to experience whatever is going to happen today, I'm just like totally have zero agenda or expectations, none. So one month starts and basically they start singing songs, which I don't know, any of these songs, but it's totally fine, I'm just listening and half of them seem to know and half of them. So people are singing and they're just kind of creating an energy, a space for everybody to be in the circle together. And it was really beautiful, totally beautiful.
Samantha Pruitt:Now it starts raining and it's kind of drizzling and and then after that another monk speaks and he's going to be the one to lead the walking meditation. Again, I have no idea what to expect, but basically he instructs us. He was so hilarious, by the way, they're really funny. So a lot of how they deliver themselves to the world and to the public and just who they really are at their core is very humorous and lots of joy and lots of smiles and all that stuff, not, it didn't ever feel intense or intimidating or judgy or strict, like there was just this very giggly almost giggly. Yeah, yeah, he was hilarious.
Samantha Pruitt:I can't remember half of what he said, but it was comical, like he was joyful living.
Polly Mertens:Yeah, joyful living has laughter and smiles in it instead of you know strict and punishment and you're doing it wrong or judging and all that no no, none of that.
Samantha Pruitt:So he took us on a walking meditation and basically 125 or something of us walked for an hour in silence, one footstep at a time, very slowly, and all we focused on was our own breath. That was it. And we walked out of that area up the road again it's quite steep, I mean, this is all mountainous area onto a dirt trail and up to the top of a mountain and I thought, are some of these people gonna make up the? I mean, it was all different ages and shapes and sizes, and you name it, you know and to the top of the mountain and then again no one is saying a word, nothing, Zero, complete silence, 100 people.
Samantha Pruitt:Yeah, more than 100 people. It was just the most interesting experience. And then at the top, everybody stopped and there were some statues and some things going on up there. It's quite beautiful and the view and everything, and a lot of people observed the view and some people sat down and did some prayers or whatever they did. They were their process and then we turned around and walked back. That was it, the whole thing in silence, and it was at least an hour long, and we walked back to exactly where we started and then we got on with the rest of the day I was gonna say was there any sharing?
Polly Mertens:or did he tell you what absolutely pay attention to? Or it's just like this is what we're doing, and do it and then breathe the instructions were focus on your breath, and he did give an instruction of like.
Samantha Pruitt:Ideally, you would walk three steps with an in-breath and three steps with an out-breath, but it wasn't like a strict thing that this is how you had to do it or not. When we came back then, basically they explained the rest of the day. So there would be a dharma talk in the main hall, which was right there, and, and it was absolutely beautiful. I've got some pictures I'll show you Just frigging gorgeous. A Dharma talk is basically a sharing of the learnings, and anytime there's a Dharma talk, it's somebody is imparting their wisdom upon not only the brothers and the sisters, but the laymen that are in the environment also, or the practicing Buddhists that are there right, so it's just part of them learning more and exploring. So, and that was hilarious he basically talked about nutrition for the body and I thought this was going to be a very spiritual thing. By the way, he didn't speak English. He spoke only Vietnamese, so the whole thing wasn't Vietnamese, but we had a translator and we had an earpiece that we wore that translated it into English as he spoke. I'm telling you the whole thing was just beautiful. Wow, he was hilarious.
Samantha Pruitt:Wow, the monk that was up there, yeah, sitting so and just for an hour he spoke to us Dharma talk and it was funny and joyful and curious, and so I thought he was going to talk about, like, spiritual nutrition and things like that. No, he talked about food and how they're going to start farming and growing their own food and how he was the shopper of food for the entire community. Wow, he was the shopper of food for the entire community. Wow, and what that meant to him and how he felt about that and how they fed themselves and how it became funny. Sometimes people wouldn't eat and sometimes they'd eat more than they should and they'd run out of food and sometimes they didn't like the food. I mean, it was just very like about real life, because they're real humans living there, having a real experience, but how they use their practice to handle these things and how this went.
Samantha Pruitt:The whole thing was quite entertaining. And then, when that was done, we took a break and we then came back into the room because you know it's raining and people are outside kind of milling around and then going to the bathroom or whatever and they had rearranged the room for the actual like service, if you will if you think of it more as a um traditional service, and so then it felt like more of a traditional religious experience at that point, because the monks and the nuns were like in formation and they were in front. We were all seated on mats. By the way, I can't believe I sat on the floor for hours and hours and hours.
Samantha Pruitt:Nice, it was terribly uncomfortable many moments and I had to squirm around quite a bit because this body and these hips are not quite you know but, it was still really good for me to like okay, let let me see how this feels. But there was singing and really they were reading. So we all had a book and we could read. It was in different languages, including English, but they didn't read it, they sang it. So everything was not a chant, but it was literally like they were singing.
Polly Mertens:The words of the script if you will or however you want to perceive the blessings or the teachings or something.
Samantha Pruitt:Yeah, yeah, it was amazing. And so then we went through what was called the 15 disciplines and basically it was like what we were speaking about earlier this is how we choose to live our life, and these are things we should be all practicing as a community. And it would say for laymen, it's this, and for the monks, or the monastics, which is, the nuns and the monks, it's this. So it would have to, like, you know, obviously we laymen are married, we have relationships're producing children, you know. So there were some instances where it would describe the disciplines but one way of life for the layman and one for the other. You know that kind of thing. It was fascinating, dude. It was fascinating. And then we had lunch, oh, which was a vegetarian, of course, and also it was totally in silence. Wow.
Samantha Pruitt:And then everybody washed their dishes themselves, put them away, and then basically the day was over and I just went to the bookstore and bought this book and a lot of people just kind of hung out on the property. It was really awesome.
Polly Mertens:Yeah. So, as you were driving away or just walking back down the hill, what was coming to you? Were you pondering anything? Were you reflecting on anything, any things that you've discovered since then?
Samantha Pruitt:I mean it's not any different than how it already was before or after is that I still have just this curiosity, and I think it was really incredibly enjoyable to be in such a beautiful place with these beautiful humans, I mean surrounded by people, so, and the people who were there to also visit like me, I mean there was every shade of color of skin, every different type of person, every age group, and you just felt that everybody was there with this intention of love for themselves and each other and just wanting to be really free.
Samantha Pruitt:I mean, that's really what it felt like and that's the environment that was created. You know, even when there's certain disciplines and certain practices, you know, the whole thing is a practice in the art of living. Right, this one thing, because it's in this book, and I highlighted it for a reason, because I just think it's so beautiful, but I continue to be really empowered by this, this curiosity I have, and then this study, particularly of buddhism, and then just deciding to see where this goes. I have no idea where this is going to go yeah.
Samantha Pruitt:Yeah, I have no expectations at all.
Polly Mertens:It's just unpacking more of you, really. I mean exactly, it's just giving you a little bit of framework or a little bit of roadmap or some hints or some ideas or things you might try on, whether you know wherever you get your inspiration. You know you, we talk about my cards. You know my little tarot cards and stuff. It's like each card has little insights or whatever. Or you could have a poetry book, or you could listen, like I have a dear friend who's really getting into music right now, writing music and creating music, and it's like whatever that nurtured you.
Samantha Pruitt:Right, exactly, it's creating time and space for the curiosity that you have about yourself and understanding yourself. Is there nothing more important, by the way? I mean, what in the hell we think? All these things we run around and spend time, energy and money on? Are really important. What in the hell have we got ourselves terribly confused about? I mean, it's just so nutso.
Polly Mertens:You know, I think one of the things that I like about what you're sharing, that's coming to me as you talk and I just look at my life and the things that I've been curious about and have pursued or whatever is it's like our life has a certain percentage of it where it's us with us, and then it has a certain percentage where we're with us with other people one person, a whole bunch of people, new people, same people, whatever.
Polly Mertens:Yeah, and I think what I have discovered for myself and as you were talking, I was like these approaches, these insights, these callings that we have, these approaches, these insights, these callings that we have, help us when we're with ourself, know ourself, because we're all, if you ask me, seeking to be better versions or the real us with each other. You know, and it's like you know, I'm studying all this communication stuff because communication is me out in the world, right, I have those breakdowns interacting with others, interacting with others, and I find it fascinating when I have these breakdowns, it's like some of it is what I'm listening for. You know, I have a paradigm or whatever that's broken down inside me that I am have made this person up to be this certain way and then they're that certain way and so I listen to them that way, right, or I have a paradigm inside of me that I'm this way or something's wrong with me or whatever you know, and then I act from that and often it's subconscious, it's kind of running the show and we get these interactions breaking down. So that's just one dimension of the things that I've been looking into about myself. And you know, all these things is, I think the us that is who we are when we're alone wants to be with the collective us, more joyfully, more, wholly, more heartfully, more. And the word more isn't it just fully, like fully from our heart, fully ourselves, fully interconnected, like they talk about, like you said, befriending all living things, love, generosity, forgiveness, it's like that's. If you ask me, there's all of. Everything else is just shit on top of the truth and it's like the truth of who you are. I just see it over and over again.
Polly Mertens:Whether it's my spiritual work or whatever, it's, the essence of every soul is love and anything else is just a distraction or something. But when you get, get, get, get, get to the core, core, core and you get one-on-one with every human being, if you can get them to peel away everything. There really is only love. You know, and you know me and all the NDE stuff that I've been studying with near death. It's like you pop out of this body like boom. Once you're out, it's all a joy, love fest. It's like, oh my God, I feel amazing, love, love, love and it. Oh my god, I feel amazing, love, love, love. It's like if we can remember that when we're inside of this form and then be that with each other, that's really what I think we're all seeking. And then there's stuff that gets in the way, the busyness and stuff, and what I most love about buddhism or any practice that is a slowing down, is a quiet simplifying, is hey, remember you and remember them and you're interconnected and love is what is between you.
Samantha Pruitt:What is so awesome is at the core of any type of practice like this, whether it's this or any other type of spiritual journey people might be on, whatever they choose, is a desire to get to know the self and understand the self right, and then your place in the world and with others and in that, finding that really unconditional love and acceptance, first of the self, because you can't give it to anybody else if you don't have it for yourself.
Samantha Pruitt:And so suffering is really that. Suffering gets created from people creating conflict with others and in the world, and misunderstandings, all these things, miscommunications, but it comes from within each of the individual humans, right? So they're walking around carrying their own suffering and then they just basically throw it at other people. And then next thing, you know, we have arguments and we have wars and we have all kinds of things that are going on in the world right now Because that one person didn't take the time to do the work to make peace with really knowing themselves, and so they carry that all around and throw it at other people.
Samantha Pruitt:It's really quite simple and ridiculous that it can't be resolved.
Polly Mertens:Yeah, because I think you know and this is no judgment on anything that anyone would ever want in the world but you know the varying levels of wanting or varying levels of acting out or varying levels of pursuing things.
Polly Mertens:You know, sometimes you know like you like to get up to hike or whatever, like we just love to feel good and stuff. But you know, some of these things that we've got ourselves distracted with is because it's an escape from or, you know, not really realizing what's inside of us and what could truly authentically be between a human being and a human being. If we're not faking something, carrying something, holding on to something that's guided inside. It's like the true nature of who we are is I'm love, you're love and we're love together, and it's like everything else is that's just on top of it. And if we know that then it's like sweet, go, go, do those things.
Polly Mertens:You know, like one of the things you and I've been talking about in the past is like the unconditional love of friendship, right, and the friends that we have and that see anything and everything that we're up to is like it's unconditional, get after it. Like whatever you're doing, you know. And then there's the conditional that we sometimes have with some people in our life that aren't, you know, kind of tuned into their love and and the love that every human can have religion can be the same way.
Samantha Pruitt:Yeah, yeah judging in a practice of any sort that has conditions to it or a relationship with your practice or other people. Where are their conditions? That's not love, it's an obligation made out of judgment and fear and shame. I mean we should all be running the other way. Get back to love.
Polly Mertens:Let's get back to love. Somehow some beatle songs are going through my head right now.
Samantha Pruitt:Imagine all the people you know what is also is a psychology. It's a psychology which I'm really big on understanding the mind. You know what makes humans tip and it's like why do we do the things we do?
Samantha Pruitt:And there's no judgment at all. It's literally like huh, that's interesting. Humans seem to do these things, wonder why, and then let's have a conversation about it. And then I wonder why, maybe if we wanted to change those behaviors because they weren't good for ourselves or humanity or the planet, how would we go about dealing with that? Okay, here's a few practices. Literally, it's so dude, it's so simple, it's so simple and it's just, yeah, it's fun.
Polly Mertens:It's fun and that's really. I mean, life is not meant to be this voracious torment of suffering. Right, it's created. It's created by us because we're absent to the love, you know, and it's like you have love inside and you have love and you see love in other people and it's flowing. Hey, that's pretty fun.
Samantha Pruitt:Like let's move towards it and then you and I want to be, um, you know, whatever calling disciples or whatever. We want to be people out in the world delivering this to other humans, especially the fun we we feel it, we taste it. We are not every day up in it like we have our struggles. This is going to be forever, until the day we die. That's why it's called a practice, because we're going to be practicing for a long time, my friend. But we also want to help bring it to other people as an option, as an opportunity. So we show up into our work life or into our relationship life and we want to be the one delivering the possibility for the other human who we're looking into their eyes an invitation
Polly Mertens:an invitation or an invitation to love and to simplify and to let go of the meaning and the story and the judging and whatever else is in the way of the love between you and that human right, and and to practice. You know, and I think, um, the more um people feel on a vibration with somebody or they they're like, oh yeah, that person, you know that, I just knew them, or something like that um, the easier it is to welcome that love from that person. It's like, oh, I just feel like I've known you my whole life, kind of feeling like, oh, um, and I think the the beauty of these humans in the world that practice, the deep, deep practice in these monasteries, is to show us, like you know, they welcome anyone to come onto that property. It's like, oh yeah, come, come. They don't have a, they don't have a list of nope, can't do it.
Samantha Pruitt:It was free. It's free, dude. They never collected money, never asked for money. There's no even conversation. Fed us, taught us, invited us onto the property, hosted us.
Samantha Pruitt:They're building a farm there, which I'm going to try and get see if my husband can get involved in that, because he knows a lot about farming and they want to grow their own vegetables and they're like just come be with us for a little while and help us farm. Anybody want to farm some vegetables? I'm sending calling. I'll pull the weeds. I don't know how to grow anything, but I mean what.
Polly Mertens:Yeah, it's so good, and it's just those places in the planet, that center and ground the rest of us, that are distracted.
Samantha Pruitt:Beacons of light.
Polly Mertens:Always there for us.
Samantha Pruitt:It also helps me really understand. So I did forget a piece of the story, which is when I first had my health mental and physical health crisis and I was coming out of that, I started to study holistic health as a way to heal my body and brain that were broken, and on that journey, I got exposed to spirituality, which I really didn't know anything about. And then, on that journey, I got exposed to meditation, and even what that was. So I did take some meditation classes, you know the traditional kind where you sit on the mat and then do these things, and you got to monitor all this stuff. Oh my, I could not do. It Couldn't do it.
Samantha Pruitt:And then I started studying Ayurveda Ayurvedic medicine as part, which is ancient from India, to try and understand the healing of my body. I wanted to naturally figure this out and I went to the Deepak Chopra Center and I met Deepak Chopra and David Simon. It was amazing and I was trying to heal this really toxic, poisoned body and brain that I had and I had some great experiences there with them and also in that, but I'm just sort of laughing at that.
Samantha Pruitt:And after that I said well, I could never meditate, I just can't, because I can't sit in one place and I don't like it, it's uncomfortable and I'm on the floor and I can't get in that position, like all these stories, right. And then here I find this type of Buddhism where walking meditation is their primary.
Polly Mertens:You're already meditating and I'm like I've been.
Samantha Pruitt:How many? You want to know how many thousands of miles I have been in walking meditation, literally for 25 freaking years I have been doing walking meditations, sometimes slow, sometimes fast, but I listen to my breathing, I listen to nature, I allow my body and brain to process all the complications of the world and I arrive back a better person every time Exactly.
Samantha Pruitt:I call it the church of sweat, you know like that's what it is for me, but little did I know there was going to be something. Later in life I would discover where that was just perfectly acceptable. I didn't have to sit on the mat for two hours and right and a mantra and whatever, whatever well, I think, um, I want to say a couple things about that.
Polly Mertens:So, when you were, so on sunday, when you were there, I was with my one of my buddhist friends and I was telling her. I was like, oh, my friend samantha, she's at, uh you know, this monastery. I think she's gonna do walking meditation, and I described you and I said and she probably is going to learn that like she's been fucking meditating for like most of her life, like she doesn't realize it, but I think she's going to find that out because, guess what, I want to tell a little bit of my meditation journey, if I could, because I haven't really gotten too much into Buddhism, although I have a funny story now that you were telling your story.
Samantha Pruitt:You're already living it. I just I listen. I know you incredibly well. You've been living it way longer than I've been, so anyway, okay, go.
Polly Mertens:I can remember. I think this was shortly after college I moved to Berkeley, which is a very hippie, hippified place, and this was in the early 90s, so it wasn't the 60s. This is, you know, fast forward a little bit, but still had some hippifiedness for sure. And I can't even remember you talk about the calling like you pick up a book or something. I was like I found myself. I mean it's everywhere, but I mean it's like all you know, like now it's you can get yoga and healthy food stores and smoothies and stuff all over the US. Well, that was not a thing.
Samantha Pruitt:This was not a thing in the nineties.
Polly Mertens:Yeah, the nineties. This was a place that looks like a lot of you know Santa Barbara and you know these San Diego, whatever now.
Samantha Pruitt:Yeah.
Polly Mertens:Anyway. So I was like, oh sweet, check it out. You know, and I wasn't all hippified, I just got out of college, you know, I was like business major, whatever.
Samantha Pruitt:I can't even remember how I show up in your polo shirt and your penny loafers. Hey, what's up?
Polly Mertens:So that night. So I get to this room that's upstairs and you know, free, come on in and there's just chairs. I can't remember. There was hundreds of chairs, how many people were there, I don't know, and it was there for meditation. I was like meditation, I've never heard of this thing, right, and they hand you a candle and like look at the light and just quiet your mind, right, yeah, that was not happening in this spot. I was like what the freaking my mind was just going? Next one was here's a flower, like it's just a little daisy, and then just look at the daisy and, um, I walked out of there and I can't think of a face that I saw in the room or what it was. I mean, maybe it was Buddhist, I have no idea, but I was like damn, that meditation thing. I just don't think I can get it.
Polly Mertens:You know, like I gave it a good college try, I did two hours, or, you know, one hour in the flower or whatever. I was like, hmm, fast forward, like I don't even know five years later. So I was in a different. I wasn't living in Berkey, I was living somewhere else in the Bay Area, san Francisco Bay Area, and I liked taking little night classes, like I took a class. This was like pre-internet. I took a class on the internet and I took a class on computer, you know, like that little continuing ed. So I there was a class on guided meditations and I was like what if I should take this guided meditation thing? I was like I should take this guided meditation thing and we get into this little room and I want to say there's maybe 10 of us, you know, and and what he did was turn out the lights, just get comfortable in your chair, and he just told us a story and he just took us on a visual guided visualization meditation. Nice, samantha blew my mind.
Polly Mertens:I could not wait every week to come back to that guided meditation. He'd take us on little paths through the forest and out into you know, and I, like you said you go out on your run and you come back at the end and you're a better human. I would walk out of there with my heart not even in my body. It was like it was in the room. It was like palpable, probably. It's like okay, well, she's obviously opened up, you know, and I was like what is this guy? And I wouldn't say that like, oh, you know, I didn't become a nun, I didn't like go after it or whatever. But I always remember that and, you know, fast forward many, many years later. So now I don't sit with candles, I'm not.
Polly Mertens:You know, there's stuff I've tried like I remember 10 years ago, oh, I want to do this meditation again, get my miracle morning going, okay, and I would just sit there with like nothing for five minutes. You know, the five or 10 minute quiet meditations. It was a non starter for me. It just was like this is not, you know, and so I finally found my way. I was like how do I want to do this, you know, just trying different things, and I finally, nowadays part of my and it changes but part of my practice now is I listen to a little bit of a prompting for questions, of remembering times of love and gratitude in my life and so I really just get in the space of gratitude and love and then I just I do.
Polly Mertens:There's a particular song that I like that has no words, it's a woman's voice or whatever, and it just opens my heart and I just let whatever's there for five minutes. Like you know, sometimes, who knows, maybe I'm talking to my guides, maybe I'm not, sometimes I'm just receiving things. Sometimes it's like I hear things. Sometimes I just focus on somebody in my life that I love and I'm just winging it. Who knows? But it's that time, that center time of like me and me, me and all me, or whatever, and it damn well feels good. So who cares?
Samantha Pruitt:Exactly, and that's how it should be, you know. And the other interesting thing about this religion is you don't have to be invited. Yeah, and again, it's not a religion. I have to stop.
Polly Mertens:It's not, it's a practice.
Samantha Pruitt:You don't have to be invited, even to be come a monastic, it's by choice. You're not recruited. There isn't some kind of resume, certain like a calling yeah, they're actively recruiting, by the way, like, please, anybody. Like, right, we gotta heal the world right now. We're in a bit of a global crisis, right? Um, and the people are really intelligent. Oh man, the amount of stuff going on in these brains and so many of them are authors and poets and artists, and it's just crazy. It's really beautiful. But for you it's so funny because, yeah, I do think of you, as I mean, you've just been practicing this way of life for a really, really long time and you and I both came to. You know art, as you know, our life being art and this practice, uh, in the art of living through pain and suffering, it's how we discovered that we were the artists of our own life, not because somebody blessed us on the head and sent us into a building and you know, whatever the hell we literally came to it are in it through pain and suffering.
Polly Mertens:And I think it's the tuning in that you and I have chosen to do. We just keep dialing back into ourselves, back into ourselves and tuning into you know, like I said in that earlier, it's like what excites you, like, what turns you on, what interests you, what are you fascinated by, what are you hungry about, what are you hungry about, what are you open to? And do that Like, oh, you know, like I can remember being sporadic, I'm going to go to this place and I'll go there, you know. And sometimes you know like your experience was heartfelt and beautiful that you shared about this past weekend, and sometimes I'll just go there. I'm like, oh, it was a little like flat, but I was supposed to go there.
Polly Mertens:You know, like, okay, I did whatever. And you, just, I just follow that trusting of the steps that you took were the steps that you were supposed to take, the people that you met along the way, the confusion, the am I in the right place? The is this all there is? Or that was amazing? Any degree of that is part of your art journey, because I have a feeling, if you interview any artist, whether actor, painter, whatever, like there's no perfect, always Like they're not, always just like the writers, you know, they get that writer's block. Or the painters get, you know, frustration. The piece isn't quite finished or done, or you know it's not, or they're not inspired or whatever, and yet they still get back at the paint or the pen. You know, and that's us being in our life, right, it's like I'm gonna stay curious and right now I'm in the conversation called team and managing and leadership and communications and that just feels like enlivening and underneath it, I know, is the core of love, because I know this, this organization, I'm like they're up for people having greatness, like, like themselves be great and loving themselves. So, yeah, and you're, and being around that community, yeah, yeah, and and knowing that, like you know, the team, if you will. And so I just came in this quarter two weekends ago, and so this new leader, um, but I think she's a Thai and so English is in her first language and so she's, you know, fumbling some words or whatever, but like the love of the community, that is, like she's so put herself on the line and so wants this growth in this direction.
Polly Mertens:She doesn't want to, like, her daughter killed herself six years ago, so she was like, she's like I lost myself. You know, she just lost who she was, and when she did some of these courses she found herself again. And now she's like and now I want to be out in the world, I want to be with people. I don't want to be hiding out. That did happen, that was tragic, that was traumatic, that whatever, but it doesn't mean my life ends, I'm still here, what can I learn and grow from? And so she's just putting her out in this container of love where people are like, okay, she's not doing it perfectly, okay, whatever. It's like she's practicing what she wants. Practicing her what, what she wants to overcome, what she wants to be up to and be about right, and it gives us all permission to.
Samantha Pruitt:It gives us all permission exactly because if other people around you, in your space, in your life are willing to just show up, no matter how messy, imperfect, chaotic, all the things, you'll do the same damn thing you know and god, the liberation that comes with that is just phenomenal really.
Polly Mertens:Yeah, wow so this is a sweet. Well, I just really want to encourage anybody, whether you've got like oh, maybe try on meditation, or pick up one of these books that Samantha's talked about. So what's?
Samantha Pruitt:our one thing.
Polly Mertens:Well, I want to read this.
Samantha Pruitt:This will be my closing. One thing Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. And these are called sutras. So basically, any time you're reading any of the teachings, Okay. Basically. So this is one of the things that says oh, this sounds like what we live and breathe every day. You're going to love this. And they call it on the path. Right, we call it the work, they call it the path. Please notice that I say a way, not the way on the path A way, not the way on the path.
Samantha Pruitt:There are thousands of pathways up the mountain, and all of them have the potential to reach the summit. I feel that the role of a good spiritual friend is to help create an environment in which the other person can discover ways to transform their situation for themselves. This is empowerment. This is why we're here. Yeah. I can't think of anything more important to do with my life. Yeah, once I figure this person out, empowering others.
Polly Mertens:Yeah.
Samantha Pruitt:Yeah.
Polly Mertens:Well, and I think that's where we, when we take those steps, when we become the leader and the coach in our own life, like self-coaching is the most important. Self-leadership, you know, not self-criticism, self-love, right. When we are that way with ourselves, we demonstrate and we give it's magnetic, it it's contagious, it's like the smile, it's like, wow, that person obviously feels good about themselves. Wow, that person obviously enjoys, you know, living. It's like we give people permission to love themselves, to enjoy living. Like, get after it, get the hell after it.
Samantha Pruitt:So this has been so.
Polly Mertens:Ah, get curious. So we'd love to know what you guys think was this helpful to you or any practicing buddhists out there. Anything you want to share or add to it? Yeah, we'd love to hear from you. Love to hear from you, so all right sister posted on our journeys, yeah, yeah and I think this, like we talked about, I was like I want to do so right now. You're not like this practicing know-it-all buddhist. You know, got them all like tattooed on your arm.
Polly Mertens:No, it's like yeah, you're on the path, but we wanted to like, benchmark this and say, okay, this is where we are right now, and five years from now and then five years from then, where are we at? So thank you for sharing all of this. It's beautiful, absolutely All right. What are we reminding our beautiful humans today? Breathe.
Samantha Pruitt:A new one, guys. One of the cool things I did adopt is they ring bells and every time there's a bell rung, everybody stops and they just breathe and they basically are clearing themselves, their mind, their body, and then they move on. It's quite beautiful. Yeah, we say to our beautiful humans out there, how their life feels is more important than how it looks.
Polly Mertens:And every day is your opportunity to find your awesome.
