Episode 10: The Middle Way — Balance, Effort, and the Path Between

“Lay your deadly doing down, down at Jesus’ feet.”

What happens when effort becomes a trap? When we mistake striving for strength, control for care? This episode explores the fine line between showing up fully and losing yourself in the pursuit.

From the exhaustion of gig work to the pressure of parenting, from trying to meditate “perfectly” to just trying to pay rent—this is a real-time reflection on burnout, surrender, and the strange freedom that comes when you loosen your grip. I talk about raising my son Trent, quitting habits, and missing him after he left home. About sales jobs that drained the soul. About delivery apps, long hours, and that haunting moment when I wondered if it would be easier not to exist.

But in that low, I found a spark—what the Buddhists call virya, spiritual energy born from the ashes of striving. I speak about wu-wei, the Taoist art of not forcing, and how I try to bring that into everything: from meditation to Overwatch to pretending I’m a hostage while my son plays Batman.

Along the way, I weave stories from the Buddha, the Bhagavad Gita, Psalm 46, the Tao Te Ching, and that one quote from Gandalf that always gets me. I share a terrifying childhood dream, the moment I first “woke up” to mindfulness at Taco Bell, and the bittersweet beauty of learning to parent better with each child.

This isn’t a guide to doing nothing. It’s about doing what you must with clarity, not compulsion. Showing up fully—and letting the rest fall where it may.

So if you're tired of pushing, if you're caught between too tight and too loose, this episode is for you. May it remind you to breathe. To notice. To return.

“When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.” 🕊️ 

Chapters

• 0:00 Beyond Effort (Opening Reflection)
• 3:46 The Sleep Cat and Parenting Trent (Metaphors for Surrender)
• 8:32 Sales, Gig Work, and Burnout (When Striving Becomes Survival)
• 14:48 Gaming, Mindfulness, and Middle Way (Too Tight or Too Loose)
• 20:21 Spiritual Energy and the Rock Bottom Spark (Virya Awakens)
• 21:49 Wu-Wei and the Demons We Resist (Effortless Action)
• 29:39 Mindfulness at Taco Bell (Beginner’s Mind)
• 41:26 Striving vs Stillness in the Scriptures (Exodus, Psalms, Gita)
• 50:45 Letting Go, Fully Showing Up (True Non-Attachment)
• 53:45 Striving as a Signpost (The Final Realization)

Transcript

Jacob: 0:17

Mahamudra is beyond all words and symbols. But for you, Naropa, earnest and loyal, must this be said. The void needs no reliance. Mahamudra rests on not. Without making an effort, but remaining loose and natural, one can break the yoke, thus gaining liberation. Hello, and welcome to the 10th episode of the Standing Nowhere podcast. This is your host, Jacob Buehler, and I am happy to be back with you guys. This is a little milestone for me in the podcast. The first episode, I called it, I don't know what I'm doing, because honestly, I don't know anything about podcasting. It's like, I woke up After the last episode, episode nine, and I had all these ideas about this episode. So I jotted them all down, you know, and I made an outline of what I wanted to talk about. And it really took the form of effort, really. You know, what is the difference between effort and striving, overthinking? Because did you ever notice that the harder you try, the less things seem to work out? Yeah. I don't know if that's just true for me or for you guys, but the more I am attached to the outcome of something that I'm doing or my actions, the more I seem to F it up. And there's this weird paradox that when we relax in life, everything seems to flow just fine. It's like, if only we could get out of our own heads about things, you know? I mean, even right now, as you guys are hearing me record this, I get nervous when I sit down and record. I like to do one take, maybe do a few edits, but I just like to let it flow so that way I can be spontaneous and I can be as authentic with everyone listening as possible, genuine. My busy schedule has not allowed me to do interviews just yet, and that will be nice when they eventually come because I'll have somebody to riff off of as opposed to me staring at my sound panels on my wall. But I wanted to frame the theme of this episode that we can use effort or striving as a pointer and learning to let go of it, essentially. Using it as a reminder. Oh, I'm striving again. Time to relax. I'm doing that right now as I record this. So, I can feel the nerves come and go. I turn into a motor mouth, if I'm honest, when I get nervous. And it gets really bad when I'm trying to sleep. We all experience striving in our everyday lives, especially for sleep for a lot of people with insomnia. I wouldn't say I have insomnia, but quitting some of my habits I've been speaking about recently has caused me to not get to sleep as easily as I used to. Let's just say that. Sleeping is kind of like you're chasing a cat around the house and it's just running away from you. But I've noticed with sleep, if you stop trying to go to sleep and force it, the cat just jumps in your lap before you even realize it and it's purring and you're sleeping. That's my little metaphor. When I go to sleep now, if it's hard for me to drift off, I just acknowledge it and say, you know what, sleep, I'm not going to chase you. I know that you'll come when you're ready, and I'm just going to lay here until you are. And then boom, there it is. It's the same thing, you know, in my experience with parenting through life. I've got three amazing kids and my son, Trent, he is the youngest, excuse me, the oldest. So he was the first, you know. There's a seven year gap between each of my children as well. My oldest is 19, my youngest is four, about to turn five. And my oldest, he got all of my parenting years of me learning how to parent. And in the context of striving too hard to be a good parent or to make him... to shape him into something, I've made mistakes and everyone does it. If you're listening and you have kids, I'm sure you can relate. Parenting is not easy. These are like brand new human beings that you're bringing into the world. And it's up to you to make sure that they can interact with the world in a way that won't cause them to get run over by people they encounter. or to function in society in life. And we can try too hard sometimes to make sure that that happens. And in the process, they lose their natural beauty. When you shape kids to be what you want them to be, instead of allowing them to be what they want to be naturally. So there's this balance. You can't be absent as a parent and do nothing and let them do whatever they want. But at the same time, you have to step in and, you know, You know, be the guardrail for them and also allow them to be what they're going to be. And I had plenty of challenges in doing that with my oldest. And fortunately, I started to realize that I needed to loosen up a little more in Trent's later years. And because of my experience with him, I can be that much better of a parent to my daughter and my youngest son, Leon. But there was a lot of times where I really tightened the bolts down and I look back, not with regret, not to berate myself, but to say, I did my best and I learned something. And I'm proud of who he is, and I'm glad that I'm in a position now where I can embrace his own wisdom. When he was 18 or just after he turned 18, he decided he wanted to move out and move to Vegas and pursue some opportunities out there, and I miss him dearly. But I did not try to stop him. I brought up maybe some concerns in a gentle way, but I completely didn't try to fight him on it. And how could I? He's 18. So he could leave as a friend and a son who respects me and I respect him, or I could have chosen to fight him on it the whole way and say, you're making a mistake and blah, blah, blah. Who am I to say if it's a own damn life we all are so there's this balance this middle way that we all have to walk especially with our kids you strive too hard and you're going to make them lose respect for you resent you nobody wants to be that parent You know, it's the same thing in my work world. I did sales for 15 years, 15 years doing sales. And I was good at it. I was really good at it. I'm going to toot my own freaking horn here. You know, whatever sales job I was in, I crushed it. Absolutely crushed it. But man, I got burnt out, really burnt out. You want to talk about a job where you have to strive just to survive? Sales. You can never relax. It's always the next sale. You look at everyone not as human beings, but as sales opportunities. And gig work, you know, what I do now, there's... Oh, so much effort that goes into gig work. It's a really weird place in society right now The term gig work or gig worker is almost like propaganda. In a way, it gets you to look at someone not as a human being, not as a laborer, but this special new tech app person that doesn't deserve benefits, doesn't deserve overtime, can be hired and fired on the spot for any reason. any false report, no one on your side, you don't know your coworkers so you can't band together, And just like sales, every sales job I had, they were constantly, constantly nerfing how much money I was making. I remember for two months at my last sales job, they quote-unquote restructured the compensation plan, and I went from about $750, $800 a month in commission all the way down to about $5. Wow. And the whole department was about to walk out the door. And eventually they apologized and changed it back. But by that point, we'd already lost two months worth of commission. And gig work has been by far the most burnout experience of my life. I started with Uber and Lyft, and I'd have to wake up at 3.45 in the morning so I could hit the road by 4 a.m. to pick people up going to the airport. And I made good money doing it for a while. So the last eight years that I've been doing gig work, which I've also been very good at, I've made pretty decent money doing it because I didn't want to do sales anymore, but I have no other sarcastic quote skill that will pay me a living wage after these horrendous cost of life increases. You rent almost doubling for me personally, the cost of my car going through the roof and insurance. I mean, it's been a financial nightmare, shitstorm, part of my language. And gig work during this entire inflation and cost of living increase has done nothing but gone down and down and down in pay. The point I'm making is I have been striving more and more and more just to survive and burning out. It's what led me to this whole introspective journey, as I've mentioned on several episodes in the past, especially the first one. But The point is that while I'm striving and was numbing the pain with bad habits before, now I'm clear, a lot more clear-headed and focused, and I've realized that instead of striving in this endless... nightmare. I need to put effort, not striving, but effort into getting out of it and finding something else. Because my brain just didn't want to accept the fact that these companies could treat me this way so continually. Each time they'd lower my pay, I'd say, it can't get worse. And it would get worse and worse and worse. And it's to the point now where I can't even believe the amount of work that needs to be done for as little as they As little as I've ever been paid before. And yet, while I'm working, doing these gigs, these gig apps, I have the option of not... allowing the striving within internally to continue. In other words, I can get out there and I can know, yes, I've been shafted on pay and I have to do a lot more labor to get a fraction of what I used to make, yes, but I don't need to have... I don't need to have this endless striving presence inside of me, this negative striving energy. I can simply accept reality as it is and do the best I can with what is. So I still show up and put the effort in. I get ready in the morning. I get out on the road at 8 a.m., I drive all the way through 8.30 PM with an hour break in the middle. So I show up and I put the effort in that I need to. I juggle the multiple apps that I need to, to do deliveries. I drive safely. I do all of that, but I don't need to have this internal conflict where I need to be going faster, driving faster, chasing more orders and all of that. I can be with what and let go of the results. It's the same thing if you look at sporting events or gaming. The more concerned you are with the outcome, the less energy and focus you have during the actual event. I do some eSport gaming online. I'll play competitive shooters like Overwatch. They're a lot of fun. You get to put your mind against other people out there and it offers you an experience you don't normally find in single-player gaming. And I have plenty of games where I am so concerned with winning that I just blow my top. In fact, it's one of my biggest weaknesses, I would say, with staying mindful, calm, and centered. I've gotten a lot better at it, let me tell you, but I still really struggle with forcing the win, choking under pressure sometimes, being more concerned with my competitive player rating than the actual experience of the game. And I like to game with my wife. She likes to game with me and we have a lot of fun together, but it quickly turns into a drag when I get in that mindset. And she's amazing at staying calm and just enjoying it. And she always reminds me to come back to center like, hey, it doesn't matter if we win. You can't win them all. You can't stop the waves, but you can learn how to surf. And it's the same thing even in practice. I've been meditating for three years now, just about. And when I sit down on the cushion to meditate, and for many of you listening, you can probably relate to this. But when you try too hard to keep thoughts away, essentially, like you sit down to meditate and you say, okay, I'm not going to think. I'm not going to think. And then thoughts come all the more. So there's this striving that we can find even in our practice of trying to be mindful. And on the opposite side, you can be a little too loose. You can sit down on the cushion and just think and think and think and fantasize. And it's like, what the hell am I even sitting here for? I'm not even trying. There's a middle way. And the Buddha, he talked about this, if you've heard that middle way before, especially when it comes to practice. There's a story of somebody named Sona who was a monk named Sona Kolivisa. He practiced... basically so zealously that he wore himself out. And he came to the Buddha discouraged, and the Buddha asked him about his days as a musician. And he said, Sona, when your lute string was too tight, what happened? It snapped. And when it was too loose, it would not play. And when it was tuned just right, it made beautiful music, he said. Ah, in the same way, apply effort. Not too tight, not too loose, but balanced. That parable, I love. And it's actually, Sona was a historical figure, but it points to even when we practice mindfulness, we can practice too tightly. Oh, I've got to be centered. Oh, just focusing on my breath. Oh, a thought took me away. No, come back. That's no way to practice. But on the flip side, if you just plop down on the cushion, yeah, I'm practicing. I'm kind of mindful. Not really. You see, there's this middle path on effort and striving. In Buddhism, there's a term called virya. And virya in Buddhism means spiritual energy or effort, but not forcing. It's about cultivating enthusiasm and vitality in practice. It's described as balancing energy so it's not too lax, but not too tense. Channeling courage and persistence in the face of obstacles. Letting effort be joyful, not grim duty. And I can relate to this on many levels. Sometimes when I sit down to practice, it is very, very difficult. And this is why a lot of people don't want to meditate because they don't want to sit down and see what the hell is going on inside of their minds. But it's a wonderful process. They say virya is the steady flame that keeps practice alive without burning you out. And I've mentioned it on past episodes. I like to call it spiritual enthusiasm. I would say I gained my own virya, my own spiritual enthusiasm and energy in that moment that I described to you all in that first episode when the thought had finally popped into my head that it would be easier to not exist than to exist. And that was a chilling, haunting moment for me. I had never, ever thought that way before. I mean, some might say that borders on suicidal ideation, but I, honest, hand to heart, I had no intention of ending my life. But it was the first time I'd ever thought to myself, it might just be easier not to exist. And out of that came a spiritual enthusiasm, virya, where I said, I have reached a low that I have never experienced before, and it is time. At 39 years old, I think I was, 38 or 39, I said, it is time for me to turn and look within and see what is life about. What is going on here? What is going on inside my head? And I said, it is time. On the flip side of virya, there is, in the Taoist thought, something called wu-wei. And wu-wei is described as effortless action. It's sometimes translated as non-doing. But I think a more accurate translation of wu-wei is not forcing. Effortless action, going with the flow, going with the grain of things instead of against it. It doesn't mean that you're doing nothing. but you're letting life move through you naturally, like a river flowing or a tree growing. There's an old Zen poem that says, sitting quietly doing nothing, spring comes and the grass grows by itself. It really sets the image when you look outside at nature. Do you see striving anywhere? even in animals. Yes, they exert themselves, especially when you see a lion on National Geographic chasing down its prey, which is everything because it's the top of the food chain. It looks really intense, but that's just in the moment effort. It's not a striving. It's just being itself. Same with birds. When you see them scavenging and collecting happy to eat scraps outside of of a fast food restaurant or drinking pooled water on the ground, they're not striving. They're not forcing. They're just following their nature. But us humans, well, we have the fortunate and also unfortunate gift of foresight and hindsight. which can be wonderful tools but terrible masters when we focus more on them instead of being with what is and going with the natural flow. So what is striving really? Like if you're hearing me right now and you look within yourself, can you try to find somewhere within yourself where there's striving or worry? Sort of a, like I've got to, got to make sure this, what about that thing? What is that? And don't answer the question with words, but look at it. Look at the feeling of it. Feel it. What's the problem right now? What is striving when we really look at it? There's a story of Milarepa, a Tibetan yogi from the 11th century who spent years meditating in mountain caves. And one day he returned to find his cave full of demons. First, he tried driving them out. But they stayed. And then he tried teaching them the dharma. The dharma is another word for sort of the divine way of things. So he tried teaching them the dharma and they just stared at him. Finally, he bowed and said, I open myself to what you have to teach me. At that moment, all but one demon vanished. A last fierce demon remained. Milarepa placed his head in its mouth and said, eat me if you wish. And the demon bowed and dissolved into space. This reminds me of a dream that I had as a child in California. I think I was about five or six years old. And in my dream, there was this terrifying, dark panther, just black as the night. And he had those two scary yellow eyes looking at me. And he was in my closet. I could hear him growling. And I don't know why, but for some reason, I felt compelled to just jump out of my bed and run up to him and sit down and look at him and say, here I am. What do you want with me? Please come in, have some tea. I mean, I didn't think those thoughts, but in my dream, I just walked right up to the panther, not even as confrontational, perhaps confrontational in a sense of overcoming the inner fear that I had within myself, but really just looking directly into his eyes like, how can I help you? What would you like to teach me? Like Milarepa, I open myself to whatever you have to teach me. And when all the demons disappeared, that last one, fierce as it was, he stuck his head inside of its mouth and said, eat me if you wish. And the demon bowed and dissolved. I love that story. What demons do you have in your life that you've been looking away from or running from? Can you relate anything in your life to that story? I know I can. My big demon right now is applying for jobs. I've been doing gig work for eight years and I'm about to go back into the belly of the corporate beast. I mean, I'm already there with gig work. But I've got to face it. I've got my resume touched up. About to shoot out those apps. I'll keep you guys posted on how that goes. There's a verse in the Tao Te Ching that says, in the pursuit of knowledge, every day something is added. But in the pursuit of the Tao, every day something is dropped. Less and less is done until non-action is achieved. When nothing is done, nothing is left undone. When nothing is done, nothing is left undone. Non-action. You see, he's not saying, well, just go limp and fall to the floor and everything will be fine. No, you still show up. You still do what must be done, but you are not striving. You are going with the flow. Non-action. I remember the first time that I really started practicing mindfulness almost three years ago. I remember that day so vividly. In Zen, they call it beginner's mind because it's the first time that you're really starting to wake up to the vividness of life. And I remember I was doing a delivery, picking up at Taco Bell. And I remember just watching myself, watching my body drive the car. the motions as I turned left into the parking lot, the feeling of the motion as the car pulled me to the right. And then when I got out of the car and walked into the restaurant, I watched myself. I watched the feelings inside of me as I walked into the restaurant and interacted with people. I noticed a little bit of anxiety that I had never noticed was there before. I remember the feeling of the bag in my hand as I carried it to the car. No thoughts. The feeling and texture of the handle of the bag as I slid it into the back seat. The pressure of my left hand as I closed the door. It makes me emotional just remembering it because... It was one of the first times that I'd really actively practiced mindfulness on a moment to moment continuity. I felt like I was floating. I felt like a choreographed dancer, but the choreographer was the one thing of this whole universe, this whole life, this whole dance, the Tao. They call it the Tao. The Tao means the way of things, the watercourse way, the way things flow naturally. And I felt in tune with that. I felt a lightness in my step. And I notice it now when I move around unmindfully, how I might... twist on a joint more than I normally would. You know, it's especially useful now that I'm in my 40s to be mindful of my movements of my body. You ever see somebody move around unmindfully and they bump into this and bump into that? I mean, we all do it. We're all human, but it's like their body's there, but their mind is far away. And this non-action... Lao Tzu spoke of in that verse I just read you, it's really exemplified in the Taoist archer from Zhuangzi, or Zhuangzu, you can pronounce it either way. He writes, when an archer shoots for nothing, he has all his skill and When he shoots for a brass buckle, he is already nervous. When he shoots for gold, he goes blind. He sees two targets and is out of his mind. His skill has not changed, but the prize divides him. Being more concerned with the outcome than the actual process. That's where I was when I was at my lowest. I was concerned so, I was striving so much to just survive that I had forgotten about just being, being with what is. I had no space in me whatsoever. I was at the whim of wherever reactions would come up. K.C. Tiwari, a devotee of Neem Karoli Baba, he has a famous little quote that a lot of people that knew him would always talk about. And he would say, if you think that you're the one doing it, you are lost. And what he's doing here with that saying is he's reminding us that there is a force behind everything that is. Some call it the Tao, some call it the Dharma, some call it the Holy Spirit. Pick your flavor. But there is a master orchestrator behind everything. And when you think you're separate from that, You're completely lost. You're not with it. You view yourself as a separate, infinitesimally small thing, cut off and separate from the universe, and that you have to push your environment around. Otherwise, your environment is pushing you around, and you forget you're a part of the whole dance. If you think you're the one doing it, you are lost. If you want to see an example of this, just watch your body. Notice how... You might see your leg tap once in a while. You might notice that you go to scratch something. All these little micro-movements that your body does, notice them. They're real easy to miss and overlook and take for granted. And then by extension, Understand that everything that your body is doing, even your thinking, is all part of that natural process. But somewhere in the middle of that, you create this artificial outline of a separate me that's the one doing it. There's a little person inside your head pulling all the levers and gears to animate your body. instead of understanding that you are part of one continuous flow. Do you ever see a wave at a sporting event? When people do the wave, quote unquote? Is the wave each individual person at that moment? Or is there just the wave which is comprised of the whole? In other words, if you look at a wave in the ocean, do you separate it? There's the ocean and there's the wave. Because in just the same way, you are a wave that the universe is doing. It's saying, hello, I'm Jacob this time. Hello, I'm Joe, Joe Doakes. Hello, I'm Mary Jane. Hello, pops up and then it goes back into the ocean. But along the way, we've created this false notion that I'm a separate self from the universe. When I die... Oh my gosh, when I die, what's going to happen to me? I mean, sure, I came out of that state, but oh, I'm so afraid of going back into that state again. Oh, I don't mean to laugh at death. Death is a little freaky, but do we need to strive against it? You know, when people are dying in the hospital, people show up, oh, you'll be better soon. It's going to be okay. even when they know it's not the case. I remember, I love that trilogy, the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I don't know if you guys have ever seen those films. They're wonderful. You can learn so many life lessons from them. There's so much wisdom in them. And sadly, a lot of people dismiss them because they're in the fantasy realm. But I assure you, they are closest to real life that you will ever get in a film trilogy. And the main character, Frodo, one of the main characters, he is about three and a half feet tall, maybe four feet tall. And he is tasked with the most important mission or quest that anyone could ever partake in to destroy the ultimate evil. And you see him start in this wonderful place that you could describe as almost like heaven-like. They live in the hills, in the shire, and he goes through literal hell just about. He sees friends die, and there's a point at the end of the first film, he's overwhelmed with grief and all the struggle, and tears are streaming down his face, and the music swells in the background. And if you have a pulse, you'll probably cry at that scene like I do every time I see it. And he just says to himself, I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened. And the voice of his friend Gandalf, who is kind of like a loving mentor to everybody, he says, in his head, he says, so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. Life is tough. or can be perceived that way and feel that way. Right now, it's tough for me. I'm in the home stretch of the month, trying to make rent. Not entirely sure if I will. And if I don't, it'll be the third month in a row that I'm late, which does not look good for me. I need to apply for jobs as I go back into the corporate world, into an economy that does not value the labor force or pay them a fraction of what they deserve. And there's all kinds of fear popping up in my mind about it, but... All of that is not for me to decide. All I have to do is decide what to do with the time that is given to me. Touching up my resume. Getting my Google voice number ready for when I apply for jobs. Making sure I have some nice clothes for an interview. You know, hopefully the interviews go well and I find something, but I can't control that. In the book of Exodus, in the Bible, Moses was leading the Hebrews out of Egypt, who were enslaved for several hundred years. They were starving, they were scared. They had an army, Pharaoh's army, behind them, and they had the Red Sea in front of them, rocking a hard place. And Moses said, Yahweh will fight for you. You need only to be still. And to be still in the ancient Hebrew context can be understood perfectly well today as cease your striving. In the very next verse, he says, lead them onward. So yes, we maintain and cultivate that stillness, but we still take the next step. I still work my insane hours. I still try to outline and plan a podcast in what little time I do have. And I do the best I can. And the episode may or may not come out good. I still have to apply for jobs, however that may turn out. And I maintain that stillness while I take that action. That woo-way, going with the flow. That way I can still come home and be completely with my son as he pretends to be Batman and I pretend to be a hostage that he's rescuing, as he's zip-lining us to the roof of a building, as we play make-believe in the living room. That way I can be there for him and not in my head about the shit storm on the outside. And I don't even have to look at it as a shit storm. I can understand that it is all part of this divine dance. And damn it, sometimes the dance is crazy. But I show up and I do what I have to do. And I'm there for my son and my wife. I'm with her. I'm not in my head about the gas bill that may be shut off in a couple of days. I better remember to call them. I'm not making that up either. When my son is Batman and he's rescuing me, I am fully in the role of the hostage being rescued. I am not in my head about the Southwest gas bill. And if the Southwest gas bill happens to pop up as we are zip lining to the roof of a imaginary building, I just say thank you for reminding me, brain, but you can relax right now. I'm being rescued by Batman and I will pay that bill when it needs to be paid. or when it can be paid. In the book of Psalms, David, I believe, was the one who wrote Psalm 46, and it says, be still and know that I am God. I'm exalted among all nations and all the earth. And again, that be still can be translated as cease striving. And it also translates as let go, relax. taking action with stillness along the way. Isaiah, the prophet, later in the Bible, elaborated on this. He said, "...in returning and rest you shall be saved, in quietness and in trust shall be your strength." In returning, that word is shuv, later translated as repent, which has a different connotation in modern times. But back then, it simply meant to return. In returning and rest, you shall be saved. It is not about feeling guilty for what you've done. It is simply being aware of it and turning within yourself. in quietness and in trust shall be your strength. This is also echoed in the Hindu tradition in the Bhagavad Gita, verse 12, 12. Better than mechanical practice is meditation. Better than meditation is renunciation of the fruits of action. For with renunciation comes peace. Renunciation can also be understood as non-addiction or non-attachment. You're not addicted to the results. You're not attached to the outcome. Better than meditation is renunciation of the fruits of action. The whole concept of the Bhagavad Gita is releasing the results to God. I'm going to do my best, damn it, my very best, and I am not concerned in the slightest with the outcome because I'm doing my best. To quote Tony Horton from P90X, do your best and forget the But that's what Krishna was saying to Arjuna in that book. With renunciation comes peace. It is August 26th as I record this, and at this moment, I do not know if I will be able to pay my rent on September 1st. I do not know as of right now. I'm fairly confident. I'm like 75%, 80% sure I will, but I'm not 100%. There's a lingering part of my brain that says you might not make it. Because with gig work, sometimes you have a good day and sometimes you have a really bad day. That's another reason I'm getting out of it. In addition to the pay cuts, the income is highly unstable. So I do not know. But I am releasing the fruits of my action and my hard work to come what may. I will show up and do the best I can. I will apply for jobs and hope for the best job I can get. When I sit down to practice, I'm not going to be attached to the idea that it has to be a perfect session because there is no such thing. There's an old hymn, and I love hymns. I grew up in a Baptist church, and we used to sing hymns all the times. We had little hymnals, and I love the way hymns sound. It's almost like a mantra. It's very similar to Eastern tradition in Hinduism, where they would do chants and mantras and stuff, but with a Western flair. And there's a quote in one of the hymns called, "'Lay your deadly doing down.'" It says, lay your deadly doing down, down at Jesus' feet. Stand in him, in him alone, gloriously complete. I wish I could remember the melody. Lay your deadly doing down, down at Jesus' feet. Stand in Him, Him alone, gloriously complete. I don't remember. Hymns are awesome, though. And there it is. You know, ancient Hebrews will tell you. Modern Christian churches will tell you. The Bhagavad Gita will tell you. Gandalf will tell you. The Taoist Chinese way of thought will tell you, lay it down. You can't do it. You can only do, you have the rights to the fruit of your action. Let me quote that exactly, actually. It's from the Bhagavad Gita. You have the right to action alone, but never to its fruits. Let not the fruits of your action be your motive. nor let your attachment be to inaction. Just to repeat that, you have the right to action alone, but never to its fruits. Let not the fruits of action be your motive, nor let your attachment be to inaction. So how do we let go? How do we take action, not be concerned with the result? As I've hopefully made clear in this episode, letting go is not the same as passivity. You know, like that image I gave you earlier of a child who is throwing a temper tantrum and their whole body goes limp and falls to the ground. The ego loves to frame things like that, especially here in the West. Oh, non-action? You're saying I should do nothing? Well, I've either got to strive and be stressed out to the max or I'm not going to do anything. Okay, you can take that mindset and throw it in the trash can. You can show up and put in your effort and you can let go of the result. When I sit down to meditate in the morning, excuse me, I have no clue if it's going to be a good session or not. What is a good session? I'm sitting down to look at and be with what is. A couple episodes ago, I was telling you guys, I was streaming tears down my face and sobbing hysterically during a 30-minute meditation session because I missed my son. I had just quit some habits that were blunting the pain of him being gone and they started to come up something fierce during that session. I had no idea. That feeling was there in me all along and I had no idea until I sat down to look at it. And there's more subtle ones that you miss too. So letting go, again, is not passivity. It's showing up fully with just what you're doing, unconcerned of the results. It's the middle way. It's not too tight. It's not too loose. Like we talked about with the Buddhist example with Sona. Tighten the guitar string too tight, it snaps, right? If you're striving too hard, you're going to snap. I've snapped plenty of times, and it's not a good feeling. Too loose, you become a limp rag, jelly. You're avoiding what needs to be faced. It's like Krishna says in that verse in the Bhagavad Gita, do your work wholeheartedly, but release the fruit to God. Same thing in that hymn. Lay your deadly doing down at Jesus' feet, gloriously complete. Let him have it. My burden is easy, my yoke is light. Or my yoke is easy and my burden is light. I forget the verse. The point is, do what you can and don't worry about the rest. You know, when I'm... When I notice that they're straining, when I'm straining or striving, I use that as a pointer, as I mentioned earlier in the episode, to soften into awareness. I say, oh, there it is again. I look at it like the universe is doing a specific dance in this moment, and my task is not to judge it or force it, but just to notice it. So if I am on the road and somebody cuts me off and I notice myself getting tense and I want to speed up and get ahead of them, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, oh, there it is again. You got me. Notice when you get caught. Notice when you're striving. Notice when you're very concerned with how something's going to come out and use that as a reminder to soften into just being aware of it. Don't try to shove it away. Just be aware of it. You know, when I released episode nine, the last episode, I noticed when I was listening to it that striving was very much creeping into that episode. And I'm not here to critique my past episodes. You know, I'm in my first 10 episodes. I'm still learning for crying out loud. But I noticed And it didn't make me feel good. And then I noticed that feeling of striving creeping in. Like, man, can you just relax, Jake? Can you take a breath? Let some silence pass between your thoughts so that you can... know what you're going to say next and let your audience digest what you just said? I was being really hard on myself, but I used it as a pointer. Oh, you're being hard on yourself. Relax. Do I hang my head low and give up? And why am I doing this in the first place? To help people. To say, hey, this is what I'm going through and this is how I'm dealing with it. And not just dealing with it, but dancing with it. It's a paradigm shift. This whole podcast. I'm not standing on a concept anymore about life or anything. I'm standing nowhere. I'm just dancing with what is. If it's raining, I'm dancing in the rain. Effort, in particular striving, is not the enemy. It's a teacher. When you notice the striving within you, use that as your signpost to come back to just notice it. Watch it. When that intense effort or striving arises, don't suppress it, but see through it. I'm going to close out here with a little poem from the book of Job and the Tao Te Ching. But real quick before I do, please reach out. I'm 10 episodes in and it's just radio silence out there. I know it takes a while to build a podcast, but I'd like to hear from you about what you're going through, spiritual practices you find useful, feedback, whatever you want to do. But to close out, And the link's in the description, by the way. To close out, first from the book of Job. But ask the animals, and they will teach you. The birds of the air, and they will tell you. Ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you. And the fish of the sea will declare to you, who among all these does not know that the hand of Yahweh has done this? And he His hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being. And from Lao Tzu, Blessings to everyone. Have a wonderful rest of your day.

Music: 58:16

Thank you for listening. No promises made Just a whisper that won't Don't be afraid Stand in nowhere and it feels like home No flags to wave, no need to roam Silence speaks louder than war ever could And I've never felt so understood The static is kind, it leaves me alone No orders to follow, no keys The sky's turning amber The clock's all reset And I haven't stopped walking just yet Standing nowhere in white Chains no name No destiny The road dissolves The sky Turns white I'm still here Nothing