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- [00:05]
Diego Breto
You want to travel the world and make a documentary about the Buddha? And she was like, are you serious? Like, don't do joke with me like that. And I was like, no, I'm serious. So we said, okay, let's go and check, you know, the sacred places and on the way, see what we find and let the journey make their own decisions. We find out that the Buddha does different practice for different people. And there's like 40,000 different discourses. They kind of all claim that they have the, you know, the original path of the, you know, the pure teaching of the Buddha. That's a classic. Yeah, definitely. My practice changed a lot. Now my practice really depends on how my mind is.
- [01:05]
Better Burma Announcer
Many longtime listeners know that our podcast platform was initially focused on interviews about the many spiritual paths that Myanmar offers meditators and monastics. But when the coup hit, we couldn't
- [01:16]
Joa (Podcast Host)
in good conscience continue to tell those
- [01:18]
Better Burma Announcer
stories with so many monastic sites on fire or occupied by soldiers, soldiers and
- [01:23]
Joa (Podcast Host)
the Burmese people living under the military's reign of terror. So we expanded our mission to cover
- [01:28]
Better Burma Announcer
a wider range of post coup Myanmar stories. Still, some guests have a unique insight into the intersection of the spiritual with the worldly, allowing a deeper understanding of both planes.
- [01:40]
Joa (Podcast Host)
Today's guests fit squarely in that category,
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Better Burma Announcer
as you will soon hear.
- [01:48]
Diego Breto
Sam,
- [02:56]
Joa (Podcast Host)
I'm so pleased to be joined today by Diego Breto. Along with Camila Arias, he led a monumental multi year media project creating a documentary that spanned many countries and interviewed leading scholars, monks and meditation teachers. The film's mission was to explore the legacy of the Buddha and the relevance of his teachings in the 21st century. In his own words, Diego has described the work as starting in India and its neighboring countries. Diego and Camila follow the footsteps of the historical Buddha, searching for teachers who have embodied his teachings. In these times. The journey takes an unexpected turn when Diego will have to confront his own ghosts in a meditation retreat and will have to put everything he has learned into practice. End quote. I'm really excited to get into the conversation that follows and I also want to highlight to listeners that there is quite an unusual aspect of this talk. So while we will be releasing this episode as we normally do with any other episode of Insight Myanmar podcast on our feed, Diego actually has another underlying purpose for our conversation. As the film has not yet been released at the time of our interview, at least sections of this talk will be added to the narration of the film itself. So what you're hearing is kind of an art in the moment with a free flowing discussion forming the basis of the very film that we're going to be reviewing. In any case, let's get right to it. So Diego, it's great to have you on here. We've spent the better part of a year planning for this talk and I'm so glad it's finally happening.
- [04:33]
Diego Breto
Yeah. Thank you, Joa.
- [04:34]
Joa (Podcast Host)
Right, so first let's get into a little more about your background. I know you're from Chile. Which part of the country you're from?
- [04:43]
Diego Breto
I'm from Santiago, which is the capital, but I grew up more like in the mountain side. So since I was a child, I was, you know, normally walk all over the mountains and kind of my only connection to the world because, you know, Chile is like pretty far away from everything was through documentaries that, that was my connection to Europe, to Asia, to the world basically, since I was pretty young.
- [05:08]
Joa (Podcast Host)
Right, so you grew up watching documentaries and accessing the world that way and then you, you made your own. I understand Chile is also quite a Christian country. What was the religious backdrop of your own family?
- [05:20]
Diego Breto
Yeah, pretty much Christian. My school, my family, their. My family still a very, very strict Christian, but very open minded. So they really support me and you know, they really ask me a lot of questions about my point of view of life and religious and spirituality, but they don't like force me to believe what they believe. So that was pretty cool.
- [05:46]
Joa (Podcast Host)
Right, and so you had mentioned that you grew up between the mountains and the documentaries and soon after that you had the travel bug pretty early on. And I'm wondering what shape did your early travels take and why was it important for you to see beyond your community and home country?
- [06:03]
Diego Breto
Well, like watching documentaries, I kind of realized that even though from generation we humans try to like share with other generations, like our mistakes and our achievement, but, but somehow we keep following the same mistakes again and again. So I was wondering if I travel the world and I get to know all these different cultures, maybe I will find not maybe a solution but the why. I was really wondering about why we fall in this trap. Like we fall in all this, like patrous behaviors that are really, I don't know, lead us into suffering somehow.
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Joa (Podcast Host)
Right, so that was part of your early reason for traveling, even before you got into meditation. Where did you actually go when you first started your travels?
- [06:52]
Diego Breto
So my first plan was just to travel around South America. I was with no money, so I just, with my little saving, I bought a camera and I don't know, I wanted to travel with my camera even though I'm not a filmmaker. I mean, I didn't study that, I study architecture, but I love cameras and taking pictures. So I decided, okay, I will travel with my camera and maybe, you know, make some interviews and that maybe I will do something with that. But few weeks before I was ready to travel to Argentina, I lost my camera in a square. So I was with no camera and no money two weeks before my journey start. And then the same day, just before I lost my camera, somebody told me about Australia and the working holiday journey, you know, that you can go and work there. So after I lost my camera, I checked my account, my bill account, and I realized I have exactly the same amount of money that you need to apply for the visa in Australia. So I did it. I applied and I went there with no money and start working there too. And it was pretty cool because I could buy a better camera and more equipment and save a lot of money and then just keep traveling around, you know, Southeast Asia and Europe. And yeah, at the end, I think it was more than 20 countries or 22 countries, something like that.
- [08:14]
Joa (Podcast Host)
Oh, wow, that's quite a bit of travel for someone who hadn't really left your home region before. And so you went to all these places, you had a secured as route to get to Australia, and then from there went on to Southeast Asia and Europe. But 20 countries, as you say. But you mentioned that part of your reason for wanting to travel was you were looking for answers. You wrote about that separately from our interview. And yet when you came back home to Chile, you said that you came with more questions than answers than when you even left. So what happened on that trip?
- [08:48]
Diego Breto
So, yeah, I was very curious about spirituality and religion, so I was like taking all the courses that I found on the way. So I was, I don't know, I. In Australia one weekend, I did a chakra healing seminary. And then, you know, after four days I was, you know, reading chakras and making healing. And then next few weeks I was doing the Reiki course and I was, you know, level one or level two, and I was doing Reiki and like this, I was just trying everything. I was trying so many different meditation, from yogis to, you know, all different cultures. I did retreat in, in Central America, in Guatemala, and I learned, you know, Kavala and astral journeys and so many, so many different things. And somehow none of all this technique or meditations really give me the answer that I was looking for. I was like, really, really looking for a source, you know, something very, very deep. And somehow all these practices for me was Very fun. I love it. But it was not like deep enough from what I was looking for. I don't know. That's my, my perception. Maybe for others is deep enough, but for me it was. Didn't fulfill my search.
- [10:06]
Joa (Podcast Host)
Right. So after all that travel, you came back to your home country and it was there that you ended up going to a local vipassana center in the tradition of S.N. guenka, and you took a ten day silent retreat. So did this experience back home finally start to give you some of those answers you'd been searching for?
- [10:25]
Diego Breto
Yes. While I was traveling, I was hearing this retreat of Goenka, 10 days retreat. And I didn't felt ready at that point. I hear about it 10 times, you know, again and again. It was like so many times people talking about that and I was like 10 days silence. You know, I'm very good on talking and moving. And so I was not feeling really ready for that. But after coming back home and hear that you can do that retreat very close to my parents house, I said, okay, I think I'm ready. You know, I tried so many different things and now I'm back here. Let's try it. And yeah, it was pretty special. Pretty special because you are there 10 days, no cell phone, no books, no writing, no drawing. I'm like drawing all the time, so no pencil for me. And you just there for 10 hours a day with your clothes most of the time. And every night you hear like a discourse about the teaching of the Buddha. And yeah, definitely, there's something click inside me. It's like I have this puzzle with all these, you know, pieces flying in the air and then suddenly like the, they start to, you know. Yeah, it was something very, very special for me, definitely.
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Joa (Podcast Host)
Right. So after all this travel, just right around the corner from your parents house, you found a practice that spoke to you and how did this impact your life going forward after that course?
- [11:57]
Diego Breto
Yeah, after that course I really wanted to get deep in that. And for me that's something very strange. You know, I'm not really good on to, you know, get deep in things. I'm, I'm always moving from one thing to another. I, you know, I played tennis and then I like skiing and then I like other things. And the same with spirituality. I was just for, I don't know, all my life just jumping from one thing to other. And suddenly I was very curious to get deep on this one. So I was meditating two hours a day for many years. I think four years every day. Like even when I went to parties and I come back at 4am I'll sit there and meditate for one hour, like very, very strict, like never before. And doing retreats every, I don't know, four months again and serving, you know, like helping in the kitchen and stuff. So, yeah, I really took it very seriously for many years. Yeah.
- [12:52]
Joa (Podcast Host)
Okay, so let's get right into this great documentary you've been working on. There are many people that are deeply impacted by meditation. They're inspired by the Buddhist teachings. But you've gone above and beyond this to actually engage in study and art to better understand as well as disseminate this. How did the idea come on to take a project on of this nature?
- [13:13]
Diego Breto
Well, you know, as I said before, my way to connect to the world is it's been through documentaries. So once I start getting more deep into meditation, I really want to know more about the theory and the teaching of the Buddha. And normally I've been very lazy with books, so I always start first with documentaries. So I was searching for a documentary about the teachings of the Buddha and I look everywhere and I couldn't really find one that explained about the teachings. You find some, you know, btc, very historical and very boring. And then there's a few ones that they're more like, well done, but they talk more about the life of the Buddha and they don't even like, said, where did they take the information? You know, they don't really get into the source of what they're saying. So I was like. And then I was meditating and the idea came in my mind, maybe you should do a documentary about the teaching of the Buddha. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no. I was like, I'm an architect from Chile. Nothing related with a filmmaker who make a documentary for me, the most amazing guy in history. So yeah, my first impression was, no, definitely not. But then every single meditation, this idea was coming in my mind for, I don't know, many months. So at one point I realized I have to do something, otherwise I will not able to meditate anymore. So I said, okay, let's make a deal. I will do something. I will just travel, learn, and maybe after, with all the information, I can make a PowerPoint and show it to my family. So that was the, the first idea to just calm my mind and come back to meditation.
- [14:55]
Joa (Podcast Host)
Right. So this is now a massive undertaking that you're getting into. And I think I can sympathize to some extent because like you, I had this seed of interest in creating a meditator's guidebook to Burma. It was growing in my own mind. And yet when I finally took the steps to get the project the ground, it was something that was kind of overwhelming about the journey in front of me. So in your case, how did you and Camila begin the preliminary work?
- [15:19]
Diego Breto
Well, yeah, exactly. My first idea was, I have to do this with somebody. You know, this is just definitely. Even though a PowerPoint for my family, it was too big to do it to myself. So I was thinking, like, who will want to travel with me around the world with no money, just little saving? I was, you know, from working as an architect and, you know, spent all that time, and I was thinking, and then suddenly Camila. Yeah, Camila is a very strong meditator. She loved traveling and she studied filmmaking. So, yeah, it was pretty obvious. And she was in India at that time. So I called her and I said, hey, Camila, you want to travel the world and make a documentary about the Buddha? And she was like, are you serious? Like, don't do joke with me like that. And I was like, no, I'm serious. She's like, okay, let's do it. And, yeah, that was the beginning, you know.
- [16:12]
Joa (Podcast Host)
Right, right, right. So that's quite a bit that you have to take on. And what challenges did you face along the journey of trying to create this documentary? What happened that surprised you that you had to find a way to respond to and continue the project?
- [16:27]
Diego Breto
Yeah, our first plan was going to India because, you know, we knew Buddha born there and spend all their life there. So we said, okay, let's. Let's go and check, you know, the sacred places and. And on the way, see what we find and let the journey make their own decisions. Something like that. And we were very lucky that since. Since we arrived. Well, the first challenge we have is, like, how we're going to move with all our film equipment. You know, there's pretty heavy and Steadicams and three cameras. We have a drone. And that time it was pretty big. Now they're very small. And finally we choose the least recommended option, that is buying a car in India, you know, so we bought a car as foreigners. And finally we travel, I think more than 10,000 kilometers driving in India. And so that was pretty. Pretty amazing. Like, now I felt like a really professional driver after that.
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Joa (Podcast Host)
Yeah, I can imagine. Personally speaking of the 30 or so countries I've been to, the traffic in India is definitely in a class of its own. Even riding in a car, let alone crossing a street, is an experience enough. And yet you guys decided to purchase a car and drive yourself. So how was that?
- [17:41]
Diego Breto
It was crazy. Like, in Chile, I never crashed, never in all my life. In India. The first week, I crashed four times.
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Better Burma Announcer
Wow.
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Diego Breto
Yeah. So you're driving and then motorbikes start to just get into. In. In your way. So I was, like, trying to stop and crash a motorbike. The motorbike crashed a lady. The lady falling the ground. I said, like, oh, man, I will get deported. And then people start to scream and coming to me, like, trying to hit me. But then when they realized I was a foreigner, everybody start smiling and say, like, hey, hey. It was pretty funny. Yeah. Yeah. And we were very lucky because the first week we get there, we met Daniel Stewart that you know pretty well, just by chance. So Dan is a scholar and also a practitioner in Buddhism. So he was a key part of the documentary because he kind of gave us, like, he kind of opened our eyes in the whole spectrum of Buddhism. So it was from the very beginning, it was much easier for us to know more or less the context of how did Buddhism get here, you know, after 2,500 years? And it was easy to ask for, to know where to go next.
- [18:58]
Joa (Podcast Host)
Yeah, that's great.
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Better Burma Announcer
That's great.
- [18:59]
Joa (Podcast Host)
You were able to connect with them. So you met him in India originally?
- [19:02]
Diego Breto
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we met him in India. We. We've been with him few times. The. The second time, it was in us when we were doing another interview. But the first time was in India, as I said, just the first week I arrived there. So, yeah, it was very important in our process.
- [19:18]
Joa (Podcast Host)
Right, yeah, that's great. He and I actually met back in 2003, and we were on a satipatthana course in Thailand. So he was just. The pilgrimage that Sn Ganka was leading throughout Burma had just finished, and he was. He and a group of others had come to Thailand to sit in Sadapitana. I had come down from Japan, where I'd been living for three and a half years, to also set that same course. And my first trip to Burma was just about a week after that. And Dan actually gave me my very first lungji. He had had an extra lungji that he had. He had bought when he was over there. So I think I might still have it to this day. So.
- [19:55]
Diego Breto
Really,
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Joa (Podcast Host)
I might. I might. I. I keep things that have special meaning. So, yeah, that was very first lungji I ever had a week before I went to Burma. So. So let's talk about the places that you actually visited for the Film, where did you end up going and how did you select that itinerary?
- [20:14]
Diego Breto
So, yeah, for us was naturally to first go to the sacred places like the pilgrimage that normally people go. So we really want to see with our own eyes. And actually in some suttas, the Buddha said that it was very important for someone who want to pay respect to the Buddha to visit that place. So it was kind of important for us. And we went to all the sacred places, you know, from Lumbini, we started there and actually it was pretty funny because we took the car to the border and we said to the guards, you the. In the border, can we park the car here? And then we just keep going walking and take a bus maybe in Nepal, you know, because you have to cross the country. And they said, but why you don't go with your car? And I said, no, it's like I bought this car to a friend that he bought it to an Indian. And I don't have even the paper. I have just a photocopy from the last owner. And he looked at the photocopy, it was in really bad condition, and he said, no, that's okay, you can go.
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Better Burma Announcer
So.
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Diego Breto
So we just keep driving into Nepal with no problems. You know how it is there.
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Joa (Podcast Host)
Yeah, yeah.
- [21:19]
Diego Breto
And like this. Yeah, we have many adventures driving. We. We filmed with our drone and then we realized it was illegal and they want to deport us and things like. Things like that. But. Wow. Yeah. But the thing is, after traveling around all these sacred places, it was very inspiring and we met a lot of very nice people there, but we felt like we want to know more about the practice, you know, or even though more about the theory. And talking with Daniel, he said to us that in Sri Lanka, there was a place where the Buddha's teachings were supposed to written down for first time. So we were very curious about that. So, yeah, after traveling around India, we really wanted to know more about this. These suttas that they. They wrote them down into palm tree, I think, or banana. Banana leaves. Yeah. So we crossed to Sri Lanka and we went to visit that. So, yeah, that was like the first place outside India we went.
- [22:22]
Joa (Podcast Host)
Right. And related to this, you also spoke to a wide number of people. So what factors went into the list that you crafted? What kinds of qualities were you looking for in those interviews?
- [22:35]
Diego Breto
So, yeah, once we get to Sri Lanka, we really wanted to learn from our own. So we. We hear about a library that have like so many different books, and so we start to, you know, like study, you know, just me And Camilla and reading. And reading. But there were like more than 20,000 publications in the. In. In Sri Lanka and the. I forgot the name of the library. But it was pretty, pretty big. And we realized it was impossible for us to grasp all that information. So we talked about it and we realized that maybe it was a better idea to go and interview people and experts of the field that they've been studying all these texts for decades and try to interview experts from different traditions. So we will have. Trying to find, like, a common view, you know, something in between all these different traditions. There are so many traditions and trying to find like, kind of a core of the teachings, something we didn't want to go really deep into the details. We want to grasp, like the general idea, but to know that they're like, kind of original from the Buddha. So that was our strategy, to go and interview this expert from different traditions and see what they can say about the teaching of the Buddha and see how they connect between each other.
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Joa (Podcast Host)
Right. And these guests that you interview, they're all quite big names in their own right. Was it difficult for you to secure interviews with all these people?
- [24:07]
Diego Breto
It was pretty funny, you know, because the more respect we have from one of the interviewers, it was easier to grasp there, you know, to get to there. So normally, Camila make the work to send them mails and talk about the project. But the one that we most wanted to interview, they were agreeing immediately. And the one that we were not very, you know, sure about it, they were like, really? Like, nah, I'm not sure. Maybe, maybe not. So, yeah, it's like, yeah, it was pretty funny how the ones that we really most wanted, it was like. Yeah, like a highway.
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Better Burma Announcer
Right.
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Joa (Podcast Host)
So the energy return from what you were sending out and among these many hours of interviews that you're conducting with this wide range of people, were there certain moments or things that people said or exchanges that really stood out that you think of now of exchanges that you had with someone that really profound to you or shifted something in you.
- [25:10]
Diego Breto
I would say the first things that really impressed me is was that also Bigubodi and Analayo, both really expert on the, you know, on the theory and the like, kind of archaeologist part, like the reading of the text, they're both like. They explain us that all these different traditions come out from maybe, I don't know, they separate, like after 100 years, after the Buddha died, and they really spread around the world very far away, and they don't have, like, you know, in that time, they didn't have like the connection that we have now. So they really separate from each other for many, many, many years. And now you can connect that and you can overlap all the different teachings that they carry on with all these years, and you can compare them. And it's amazing how many of these courses are like, very, very, very similar, although they've been separate from each other for 2500 years. And especially one discovery they made in, in Pakistan, I don't know if you hear about the Gandari text, they found that they, they, they, they, they said they are like from one or 200 years after the Buddha and they're like, intact. You know, they make a carbon 1514, I don't know. And, and they, they, they said that there's one sutta named the rhinoceros. Sutta, I think. And they compared that sutta, that discourse, with the discourses of the Chinese version, the Pali version, the Tibetan version, and they overlap perfectly. So that was the first thing that really, really caught my attention because. Wow. Like, it's hard to find something like that, like in Christianity, for example. Very, very hard. So, yeah, that was very impressed and gave me a lot of faith also in, in the teachings.
- [27:08]
Joa (Podcast Host)
Yeah, that's great. And when you were deciding who you wanted to talk to and then what you wanted to ask them, what kinds of information were you especially interested to learn and what did you want to impart to your viewers?
- [27:21]
Diego Breto
Yeah, and the part that we, me and Camilla were studying, we find out that in many different books there's like this element of morality and concentration and, and insight or wisdom. So these, like three major topics was very important for us because we find out that they're very important in all the different traditions. So we, we start asking about that main topics and, and see how they explain it and see how they understand it. And it was very interesting how a Tibetan nun start to overlap with a Theravada monk and you know, talking about the same thing but in different angle. And then while I was, while I was editing. Sorry. While I was editing the documentary, I started to connect the different conversation and how it was like a conversation they will have with each other. And it was beautiful. Yeah, yeah. So we focus in these major three topics, morality, concentration and wisdom. And also meta. That is like compassion. And so that was like the kind of the four major elements of the interviews.
- [28:36]
Joa (Podcast Host)
Right. So concerning all these people that you're speaking to, it sounds like there was definitely a common ground of these four basic elements. Did you find other connections or similarities throughout the talks?
- [28:50]
Diego Breto
Yeah, Yeah, I mean, it was very interesting because once they get into the details of how they explain this concept, they explain in different way. But once you look at from outside, you can see that they're talking about the same thing, but with different angles. So it was, for me personally, I was, like, grasping concepts from different views, and it was like my mind was getting more and more information about how to look something from different ways. So it was not that they are saying the same thing in the same way. They're saying the same thing in completely different way sometimes. And that was very interesting for us to understand Buddhism from a complete different angles and see the whole picture of it. And, yeah, it was pretty intense. Also to change from a preconception of Buddhism and then start to open your mind to something completely different. You know, it changed a lot. Like, what is Buddhism for me now is completely different from what it was four years ago.
- [30:02]
Joa (Podcast Host)
Right. I can imagine. So how did that change? How if Buddhism is different for you now than it was before? What shifted?
- [30:09]
Diego Breto
Yeah, actually, something very important was about the practice. So after we did the interviews, we felt like we wanted to learn more about the specific practices, like different traditions they have. And so even though we were practicing every day and doing retreats, we really want to know if we can find, like, a living master. You know, we been hearing about enlightenment all this time, like reading about enlightenment. And so we tried to find out if there's still living enlightened master in the world. And so the first place we went after the interviews was actually Myanmar, where we met you, because we hear about Webu Sayado, that he was supposed to be an enlightened master. So we went there and we met one of the disciples, Umandala, and he was very kind to let us stay there and explain us how it was a place where a living, you know, enlightened being was teaching to so many different people. And we, were, like, so excited about it, and we were meditating there for many days. And, yeah, it was very, very interesting. And, like, asking here and there. We hear that there actually, in Thailand, there were teachers that they're supposed to be enlightened right now, and they are teaching right now. So that was, like, the next step for us was, okay, let's take a look, and let's see from our own eyes. Who are these people? So, yeah, that was something very big and very important also in the documentary.
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Joa (Podcast Host)
Right. So you went in Thailand after you were in Myanmar, and who were you able to meet in Thailand? What did you do during your stay there?
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Diego Breto
Well, we hear about, well, there's supposed to be many Thai teachers that they're like, well known to be enlightened. But there were two that were very open. They are very open to Western. That's Ajansuchart and Ajanan. And they actually live very close. Even though they're like kind of from different teachers, they live very close together. So it was pretty obvious that we have to go that way. And so we spend some time with both. We stay there, we meditate with them, we get to know them pretty well. And yeah, it was a really, a really mind blowing experience. Yeah.
- [32:37]
Joa (Podcast Host)
Yeah. So how did you find the practices and monastic traditions different between Thailand and Burma? Because they're both practicing Theravada Buddhism and yet they're completely different cultures. So when you were staying in remote Thai monasteries, actually I should say remote Thai meditative monasteries and then remote meditative Burmese monasteries. So what distinction did you find between them?
- [32:59]
Diego Breto
Yeah, they have few difference, but in generally, like, because in both places we were in, you know, outside the city. So I find out that when they are like kind of forest monk, the way they live is not too different, but once you get into the city, they change a lot. And that's applied for both for Thailand and Myanmar. So when you met monks on the city in Myanmar or in Thailand, they're more relaxed with the rules. And yeah, it's pretty. They're more like, I don't know, I would say they, they put more focus in other things. Sometimes they get more into the theory and the pariyati part that is more studying and they get more relaxed about the, the meditation and also the rules. But yeah, I find out that in the forest they, they're very serious about meditation. And I will say maybe the, the main difference that they don't. In Thailand they don't put much like attention in, in the deep theory. I think in Myanmar they're more serious about learning, you know, like all the suttas and by memory or by heart. They said in Thailand they were more like just practice, practice, practice, practice. You know, if you want to follow your breath, that's your object. Just keep with that. And that was something that really impressed me that they like kind of get the knowledge from inside. And once you talk with them, especially with ayans to chart and ayan and you can ask them anything, anything about your girlfriend, about money, about. There's no limit. They are there and they're, you know, they just listen to you and every time they answer you, you're like, whoa, that's so obvious how I didn't see that, you know. So yeah, I can't say they are enlightened because you know, I'm not able to distinct that. But I can say they're very, very special beings. Like I get the feeling that they are normal people and we are so messed up and such crazy people. I felt that way. I feel like, wow, I'm such a crazy guy because that's normality. You know, you see him sitting there, no rush with such a wisdom and yeah, it was pretty, pretty amazing experience to be with them.
- [35:24]
Joa (Podcast Host)
Right, right. And I would probably guess that those, the experiences you had were more reflective of like the Thai force tradition and that standard Thai Buddhism probably falls under somewhat of a different category in terms of its more of its standardization and an organization and such. I did want to go back to some of the teachers that you were talking to that you interviewed and we talked a bit about their similarities and what they had in common. I guess what I'm curious about is one wouldn't necessarily expect that all these different teachers and scholars, many coming from these diverse traditions, would be in full agreement about the life and teachings of the Buddha. So looking at their differences and their distinctions, what did you encounter in terms of what was different between their outlooks?
- [36:12]
Diego Breto
Yeah, I found few things that really impressed me. Like some things about morality. Like you find out that some monks, for example, use money in some countries, like in Tibet for example, they're not like they are not so strict with that. And for example in Thailand they were very, very strict with that. Like in the forest tradition you don't see any monk carrying money at all. And sometimes you see that for example in Theravada in Myanmar. So it was things that maybe it's not too much about tradition but it's depend really on the places and other things about. For example, it was the approach to vegetarianism. Like I was very impressed that a lot of these Buddhist countries, they eat a lot of meat and they give me to the monks and I understand monks will receive it because they're monks. But I was impressed how like in Thailand or Myanmar they eat a lot of meat and they give the monks meat and you ask them why you do it and they say no, because I didn't kill him or kill it. So that really impressed me. And for example Western monks, they're really strict with that and western lay people are very strict with that both. So yeah, it seems like Buddhists that come from Western background, they took very serious like things like money and not Killing people, something. Yeah, something like that really impressed me.
- [37:58]
Joa (Podcast Host)
Right? Yeah, absolutely. And in talking to them, were there any personal doubts that you found that you were able to clarify through these conversations?
- [38:08]
Diego Breto
Yeah, well, with Ayansu Chart, actually I was, you know, talking about my practice and because I was doing Vipassana for so many times, so many years, and I was struggling with Vipassana a lot. It was very hard for me. Like I was kind of compare myself to my friends that, you know, Camila and all my other friends that now they're all teachers of meditation, some are monks and they were like doing, you know, like 60 day retreats with no problems and, or been in monastery for many months and, and I was struggling a lot with that. And I asked Ayansu Chart and he said, oh, don't go to Vipassana, you know, you just stay with Anapana and you need more mindfulness, you know, increase that mindfulness. Don't get into Vipassana. And I kind of hear him. But somehow at that point my craving for enlightenment was so strong that like his recommendation was not able, able for me in that moment to grasp it. I grasp it later on. So after being with him, I went to do a 20 days retreat, Vipassana retreat in India. And the documentary was almost done. We kind of filmed everything we needed. So I wanted to just get more into the meditation. So I went to this retreat and I was like working, very, very serious. I was on my cell just working and working for the Janas and working for enlightenment. I was like kind of very focused but maybe not very equanimous. Actually not equanimous at all. And somehow I get to a point where I was seeing a lot of visions, you know, like demons and kind of. I think maybe it was like past life but not from the heaven, you know, it was like kind of a past life stories from the hell. So I really freaked out. And after a few hours about that experience, I get into a panic attack, very, very strong. And I start to have more and more panic attack during the course. Every five minutes I have one. And so I was talking with the teacher about it and he was trying to guide me. And after a few days I really think I thought that I was going crazy. So the teacher said, okay, you need to calm down. And he put me with the gardener and start, you know, taking care of the plants during the course, inside the course, you know, area. So I was doing the course, but instead of meditating myself, my meditation practice was, you know, planting and making holes and things like that. And that helped me a lot. And then I realized, and I remember a young su chart and I was like, whoa. Yeah, I was going to vipassana without mindfulness. So then I realized that, yeah, meditation without a proper guidance and without taking very serious, the guidance of your teacher can be very, very dangerous.
- [41:05]
Joa (Podcast Host)
Right. So do you think that panic attack was in any way affected by or informed by all this work you were doing to the documentary, that there was all this information you were gathering somehow was contributing to a way that you approached meditation different on that course? Or do you think that these two things were not related so much?
- [41:25]
Diego Breto
Yeah, it took me a while to understand why this happened to me. And I think there's like combination of many, many factors. Like normally panic attack. Now I kind of an expert in panic attacks. You know, it was so strong that I kind of study a lot and I work out how to come out from it without medication. So I can say that one big part is you have like, you are on your mind a lot and so you're like kind of not grounded at all. So that's very common in panic attack is you're really on your mind and you're thinking too much and, and you're. I was traveling. I was with no really plans for my life more than maybe becoming a monk. So I was like really on the air, you know, So I was like flying in the air, but at the same time with no mindfulness. So when you don't have mindfulness and you, you get to a very deep place, that means you don't have the, the way to control your mind and keep with your object. So once I get buried and I get into these strong visions, my mind just went everywhere and I couldn't control. And that's, that's when all this panic attack, that is something very physically came out, but at the same time it's something very spiritual because you, you kind of get in a place where you are in between your physical body and your astral body. So even though it's something that medicine recognize as something very physically, once you experience it, it's very spiritual because you don't feel here. Actually, that's one of the things you recognize when you are in a panic attack is you don't feel reality. You are like in between. So it was a very strong experience. And I think it was a combination for many factors and mainly not developing mindfulness. That, that is my major conclusion because that may happen to many people, you know, have panic attack is not something very rare actually happened to one third of the population. So it's something common, especially in this generation, that we are so much in the mind. So it's like a. Like this equilibrium, you know, of the mind. So, yeah, I will say mindfulness was something very important. And I think Ayansu Chart could see that in me briefly and said to me, but, yeah, I couldn't grasp it at that time.
- [43:51]
Joa (Podcast Host)
Right. Have you had any experiences with panic attacks after that?
- [43:56]
Diego Breto
Oh, it took me like two years to come out from that panic attack experience, you know, because I was having it every five minutes on the course. But after the course it was maybe three a day. And then.
- [44:09]
Joa (Podcast Host)
Oh, wow.
- [44:10]
Diego Breto
Yeah, and then that. Yeah, and I decided to. Came back to Chile to, you know, to stay with my family and, and, you know, like, find a way to come out of it. And like, what helped me a lot was work with plants. Like I was doing a veggie garden and making sport. And the hard part for me was that I couldn't meditate for, like, few months. I was not able to sit and meditate because I see they close my eyes and boom, I get into panic attack. And so, yeah, I started talking with teachers and yeah, they recommend me to just stop meditating. And so that was very, very hard for me because I was so, you know, on the way to becoming a monk. And suddenly I was, you know, being a gardener and playing tennis. So, yeah, it was.
- [44:57]
Joa (Podcast Host)
Wow.
- [44:57]
Diego Breto
Yeah, it was very hard for me. But, yeah, I understand that. Actually, I was going to therapy and the therapist said to me, but if the goal of Buddhism is to detach, you suppose now to detach to your ideas of becoming a monk or becoming enlightened. And I was like, oh, yeah, maybe that's what I have to do now, detach from my plans, because they were not real. You know, my plans to becoming a monk or, you know, becoming an enlightened being was just in my mind. It was just an idea. My reality that I was on the city, you know, living with my parents, that was my reality. So, yeah, that was part of my. My spiritual journey in the last two years is to detach from that and work slowly. And now, now I'm able to meditate every day and. And I'm kind of coming back into that path, but with a completely different angle, you know, a completely different perspective of Buddhism.
- [46:00]
Joa (Podcast Host)
Right. So you came from practicing vipassana in the Goenka tradition. You interviewed some people within the tradition for your documentary. You also interviewed different scholars and practitioners from. From many different, different lineages. And traditions. And you had one of the most impactful personal relationships with Ajahn Suchat of the Thai Forest tradition, who gave you advice. That sounds like it's still resonating to this day. So having that experience of talking to different people from different backgrounds and your practice has been, and sounds like continues to be within the passion organization as taught by us and Goenka, has it been challenging to integrate these different kinds of advice and feedbacks coming, or on the contrary, has it been kind of helpful to be able to have different approaches and different ways to understand what the practice is?
- [46:53]
Diego Breto
Yeah, it's been kind of challenging to come back from. I was, you know, practicing before my journey. So in here, the Goenka community is very strong, and there's no other community than that in terms of Theravada Buddhism. And after, like, meeting all these different monks, I'm still resonating myself more with Therapada Buddhism. And I don't think Theravada is better than the other ones. It's just the one that I feel more connected with. You know, I feel they're all equally valid. But so as there's no other tradition in South America or especially in Chile, it's common to come back to all my friends into the Goenka tradition, that they're, like, all very, very committed and very nice people, and they're very, very good friends. But, yeah, it's been challenging because now I have different views that, you know, I have with me, and I can't, you know, be silent about that. I like to talk about it. You know, I love to be open about it. And sometimes it's very challenging for them also to. To hear that. And I can see that they. They're not really, you know, easy with some of the things that I said. So that's. So I'm trying to just be more quiet and. And see what is better for each of my friends when I'm talking about Buddhism.
- [48:20]
Joa (Podcast Host)
Right. So I understand that being back in your home country and area, that being involved in the Vipassana tradition of Sn Gwenka is the only option you really have. And yet you did do all this travel where you got to experience these other ways of practice and formulating the teachings, and that now that you're back there, you. You can't really talk about that, or maybe you have. You can talk about different parts with different people, but where does that place you internally? So although you're integrated into tradition and you're. You're engaging externally according to circumstance and condition, what is the internal formulation with that? Where. Where are you at with all of the learning that you've done, all the people that you've talked to, all the. All the meditative advice that you've also learned through these experiences, so through your internal practice and understanding. And I'm sure this is influenced by coming out of two years of panic attacks, which I had no idea that it was something that serious that you had to spend that much time trying to come out of. And that, of course, also affected your spiritual life and plans and meditative practice as well. But all of this cumulatively, your travel, your experience, the documentary, the community you're in now, the overcoming of the panic attacks, everything else, where does that leave you now as a practitioner, as not just someone who practices, but also someone who reads and thinks and interprets what different traditions and teachings were? Where. Where does that leave you internally after all this?
- [49:54]
Diego Breto
Yeah, definitely my practice changed a lot. Now my practice really depend of how my mind is. So what I'm doing is I'm meditating and suddenly I felt my mind is getting into passion, for example. And then I remember talking with someone said, oh, the medicine for passion is to think about the disgusting part of your body. And I said, ah, okay, that's, you know, that's the medicine for that. And then when that is done, I realize, oh, now I come back to my breath. So the breath is kind of my. Still my major object. But now when my mind is on onto something else, before I was just fighting, you know, against the mind. Now I have a lot of new tools to. To give the medicine to that problem and then come back to my breath. And kind of all these different practices and technique from different teachers allowed me to now have like, more like a, I would say a stronger equipment of tools to fight the defilements. So that's, that's a big change in my personal practice now. And I try to be more easygoing with myself also. That's. That's something very different from before. So. So sometimes I realize that none of all these other tools works. And so maybe I just need to just go and walk, you know, and stop meditating. So, yeah, I think now I have more tools, but at the same time I'm more relaxed with the practice.
- [51:24]
Joa (Podcast Host)
Oh, that's great. That's great. So all the travels and experience and talking to different people that gave you this wider sense of what you can do in this situation or that one. Whereas before you were coming from. It sounds like a bit more of a, of a, of a Structured place where you had to do the same thing every time in different kind of situations and just keep hammering it. But this, this experience of traveling and talking and studying and then disseminating, actually creating something gave you a bit more space and flexibility for looking at when different situations came up in the mind, being able to meet them in different ways, and perhaps being somewhat like playful and creative and experimental as well. Whereas before perhaps it was more formulaic. Would that be fair to say?
- [52:15]
Diego Breto
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, pretty much. And, and actually I realized after all this journey and traveling and meeting all these people that I couldn't find like a formula. You remember I was saying, like, I want to find this core teaching of the Buddha, you know, and yeah, we couldn't find any of that. We find out that the Buddha does different practice for different people, and there's like 40,000 different discourses of the Buddha to different people or group of people. But even though when there was a group of people, it is said that he was kind of appointing one in specific that he was ready to grasp and he was just direct this because we are so different, we have such a different background. So, yeah, I think the Buddha was pretty clever in to choose the sack teaching for the sack person in the right moment. So, yeah, that's why now I'm not really into finding this one formula that's happened a lot with different traditions also, you know, like, they have like, this is the major formula that the Buddha told, you know, at that times, and they kind of all claim that they had the, you know, the original path on the, you know, the pure, the pure teaching of the Buddha. That's a classic. And yeah, I, I'm not sure about that anymore. I'm more into find like if the Buddha was still alive, what will be my advice? I'm looking for that, you know, like, considering my personality and my background, what, what could be the proper teaching for me? That's kind of my search right now.
- [53:54]
Joa (Podcast Host)
Right, right. So the Buddha was so open in terms of looking at what a person's or community's background was, he was able to fashion this core teaching of what the path of liberation was, but deliver that with kind of fill that with different flesh it out and different accoutrements so that it was most meaningful to the type of person and community he was talking to. And so many years later and many centuries later, as the teachings have remained alive throughout time and also have traveled to different parts of the world that they've never been present in historically that, that these teachings have never gotten to at all that there are still features or parts of them that different lineages or traditions or cultures are able to find some meaning in this giant umbrella. They're able to take one part of it and derive an entire tradition or teaching around that, and that in another place they might look at something else and fashion something else with it. So that's really interesting that in your search for creating this documentary of looking for like a core, like a central thing, there wasn't really any there. There it was. It was just different people and traditions and practices that were drawing on different parts of it. And I suppose for some people that could be a little bit disappointing or intimidating or hard to grasp. But for you, and as for me, I should say as well, when I started down that path, and I also found in the case of Myanmar especially, that some of the core things I was holding on to really weren't so. And it allowed me to let go of those and open up. Rather than creating a loss of confidence, in some ways it created a greater confidence because it showed me the kind of playfulness and experimentation and critical thought and, and, and creativity that I could have in my own practice that I, I, through my understanding before, I just simply didn't know that that was possible. I thought that it was more formulaic, it was more step by step. And so when things weren't, weren't really working, I didn't really have a big toolbox for being able to look at them. But when, when that opened up, rather than feeling like, well, what is there to grasp? What is there to, to really look at as this is the one thing I have to do, I didn't feel a lack of confidence or a loss of faith. It was rather like, oh, I could bring so many more parts of my being into this practice than I had known before. So I don't know if it was similar to you at that point as well.
- [56:27]
Diego Breto
Yeah, absolutely. Perfectly. Yeah, yeah, I think the same way. And yeah, it's amazing how actually when you get to that point that your minds plod and you say like, well, there's nothing to hold here, you know, there's no this. Where is this formula? There's no formula here. There's no, there's no guideline. You know, there's like all these concepts that we tended to put it together in a specific order. But that's something we human do more than Buddha himself, because he didn't put together like, that's like kind of the job after people do. They took all the different discourses and Say, oh, he repeat so many times this thing and this thing, and they start to create this map.
- [57:10]
Joa (Podcast Host)
Right.
- [57:10]
Diego Breto
That is like an. It's an amazing map. So it's like too hard to don't do it, you know, because it's super complex and brilliant math. But he never did it, actually, we did it. But then you find out that there's nothing really on the essence that is an essence at all. And that really go together with the teaching of the Buddha that in the third, I mean, the three characteristics of existence, the third one is not existent, not being. So it makes sense. It makes sense that there's no formula to get out of the formula. You know, if you're coming out of life itself, there shouldn't be a formula because otherwise the Buddha will tough that formula before and he didn't. So it makes sense for me. Give me more confidence, actually.
- [58:05]
Joa (Podcast Host)
Right. If there was one formula or one technique, as many traditions claim today, I think the Buddha would have been very clear. This is my. This is my formula.
- [58:13]
Diego Breto
Yeah.
- [58:13]
Joa (Podcast Host)
And you don't find that. Yeah, yeah, right, right, yeah. So we were talking a bit about how you were affected by the documentary. Looking at the documentary being finished and as it starts to come out, how will the documentary affect others, do you think, what do you think the documentary is able to provide to society, to practitioners, to different traditions as it comes out and people are able to watch it?
- [58:37]
Diego Breto
Yeah, well, my view of the impact of the documentary now is very different from what I thought it will be at the beginning, because as I said before, I thought that will be like kind of a. A recollection of the different traditions, trying to find a common element to say, okay, these are the essence of the, of Buddhism or the teaching of the Buddha. And now I think the documentary is swift in more like a motivation tool, you know, to say, okay, maybe I should make that journey myself and see what is Buddhism for me. You know, I think that that could be something very, very unique of this documentary, and I hope it will take that kind of way, is make people really wanted to explore and to find out what. What they. What they will find out with his own journey. And we will try to, you know, share with them all that we find out, but there's definitely more there and maybe they will share with us a lot of other things. So, yeah, we're really excited about what's going to happen with this documentary. We have no idea.
- [59:45]
Joa (Podcast Host)
Yeah, right. I think that once the documentary comes out and people start to watch it, that'll just be wonderful. And of course we're talking here before the documentary is aired. Probably part of this conversation will actually be in the documentary. So it's a bit of an ironic experience with that. And people will be listening to this after it's already come out and they've been able to watch it. And I'm really excited to see what people think of it when it's out in public. It's been your kind of baby for so long of thinking about it, working on it, going through different stages. So I'm sure that once it comes out for you, it'll be a real sense of personal fulfillment and satisfaction that you've completed what you set out to do. And it's just been really great to be able to talk with you about it on here and learn about the process of doing it. And hopefully this conversation will also alert more people about the work that's already out. They'll be able to check it out and to see it themselves.
- [60:44]
Diego Breto
So.
- [60:45]
Joa (Podcast Host)
So, yeah, so thank you so much for being able to take the time to join us and to talk about that in detail and. And yeah, you spent so many years working on this. You looked at so many parts of it. Was there anything else about the work or about the process or the completed version that you wanted to touch upon before we leave?
- [61:04]
Diego Breto
I think we already talk a lot, so I maybe think that will be interesting to finish this interview with one minute of meditation so we can apply what we've been talking about. So, yeah, I would say let's close our eyes for one minute and just observe our breath. Yeah, that's it, bro. We made it.
- [62:30]
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