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Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Mark Nepo on What It Means to Live with an Open Heart | EP 713
01:09:22
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- [00:00]
John Miles
Why choose a Sleep Number Smart bed?
- [00:02]
Mark Nepo
Can I make my site softer?
- [00:03]
Interviewer
Can I make my site firmer? Can we sleep cooler?
- [00:06]
Mark Nepo
Sleep Number does that cools up to eight times faster and lets you choose.
- [00:10]
John Miles
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- [00:33]
Mark Nepo
If you're lonely, you say hello. Get out of the house. Doesn't mean that every interaction will be Some may be awkward, some may not work out, some may be irritated. But you're engaged in life. And so even as simply as instead of reading at home alone, read in a cafe where even if you never say hello to another person, you're around other life, you're exchanging presence and energy. So expand our sense of solitude to let others in so that the line between self and other blurs.
- [01:15]
John Miles
Welcome to Passion Struck. I'm your host, John Miles. This is the show where we explore the art of human flourishing and what it truly means to live like it matters. Each week I sit down with change makers, creators, scientists, and everyday heroes to decode the human experience and uncover the tools that help us lead with meaning, heal what hurts, and pursue the fullest expression of who we're capable of becoming. Whether you're designing your future, developing as a leader, or seeking deeper alignment in your life, this show is your invitation to grow with purpose and act with intention. Because the secret to a life of deep purpose, connection and impact is choosing to live like you matter. Hey friends, and welcome Back to episode 713 of Passion Struck. If you've been walking with me through the start of 2026, you know we've spent the last few weeks in what I call the Season of Becoming. We saw that before resolutions can stick, we need revelations. We reclaimed our worth. We practiced microchoices of courage. And just last week we looked at the Dunbar Reset, the radical idea of shrinking our world to the size our biology can actually handle. As we move into this first week of our new series, the Meaning Makers, a new question has emerged. Once we've cleared out the noise, what do we actually build in the space that's left behind? On Tuesday, we started to answer this question with Dr. Steven Post, looking at why pure, unlimited love is a biological requirement for health. But that shift brings us to an inevitable question. How do we inhabit that pure, unlimited love without losing ourselves in the process? Becoming gives us the capacity to move, but presence is what allows us to actually be where we are once we arrive. Without it, we aren't living a life. We are just managing a series of events. Today's episode is one that sits close to my heart. I've been wanting to have this conversation for several years, and it comes at a moment in my life where its lessons feel especially present. I'm joined by world famous poet, philosopher and cancer survivor Mark Nepo, whose work has guided millions through grief, awakening, creativity, and the long arc of becoming fully human. Before we began recording, I shared with Mark something deeply personal that after my sister Carolyn passed away from pancreatic cancer, she chose one specific poem to read at her memorial. Mark's poem Accepting this. Its lines captured her philosophy of life, and truthfully, it captures Mark's philosophy too. In our conversation, we explore what inspired those words and how, in a world marked by division, disconnection and noise, we can reclaim the simple human practices that awaken the heart presence, reverence, compassion, and the courage to hold nothing back. Mark takes us into the meaning of acceptance, not as resignation, but as cooperating with truth. He explains why the heart is our strongest muscle, how to recognize whether what you're engaging in is life giving or life draining, and why immersion is what brings us alive. We discussed the creative life as a spiritual practice, the differences between nostalgia and the purposeful use of memory, and the profound metaphor at the center of Mark's newest book, the fifth season, creativity in the second half of life that as we age and life wears away, what is no longer essential, we shine brighter before we dive in. A quick note On a project that mirrors these themes of inherent worth, we often spend our adult lives trying to rediscover the value of we should have been anchored in as children. My new children's book, you, Matter Luma is a bridge to that truth, a reminder that your significance isn't earned by your performance. It's a fact of your existence. You can pre order it now at Barnes and noble or umatterluma.com if this episode resonates, please share it with someone navigating a similar season. And if you haven't yet, a five star rating review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify helps these conversations reach the people who need them most. You can also catch the full visual experience on our YouTube channels. Passion struck Clips and John R. Miles this is episode 713 of Passion Struck. What does it mean to live a creative, open hearted life in the fifth season. And how do we become, as Mark says, students of the inside of everything. Let's begin the Meaning Makers with Mark Nepo. Thank you for choosing Passion Struck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now let that journey begin. Hey friends, it's the beginning of 2026 and if you're like me, you didn't come into the Shear to coast. You came to live with purpose, to show up with energy, clarity and intention. That's why how you start your day matters. And for me, that starts with Huel. Every morning, I reach for two things. First, Huel Daily Greens ready to drink. The peach and hibiscus flavor is crisp and refreshing with 42 superfoods, vitamins and minerals, all in just 25 calories and 1 gram of sugar. Then I turned to Hewell Black Edition ready to drink with 35 grams of protein, 27 essential nutrients, and no junk. It's a full meal that fuels focus, not fatigue. I start with Huel because I want to be present, intentional and ready, not just today, but every day. Start 2026 like a minute. Grab hewl today with my exclusive offer of 15% off online with my code passion15@huell.com passion15 new customers only. Thank you to Huell for partnering and supporting our show.
- [06:58]
Interviewer
It is my profound honor today to welcome Mark Nepo to Passion Struck. Mark, it's such an honor to have you on today. I've been wanting to do this conversation now for about four years, so thank you so much for being here.
- [07:11]
Mark Nepo
Oh, you're so welcome. Thanks for having me.
- [07:14]
Interviewer
And as we were chatting before we started today, you were in one of my favorite parts of the country, in Kalamazoo. I grew up as a kid going to Coldwater, and I always loved that area of the country. So I'm a little bit jealous. Although here in Clearwater, it's probably a little bit warmer today than it is today.
- [07:31]
Mark Nepo
It is, for sure.
- [07:35]
Interviewer
Well, before we dive in, I want to begin really with a personal note about the impact that your work has had on me and my greater family. Last year, my sister Carolyn passed away after a courageous battle with pancreatic cancer. And her final years, much like your own journey as a survivor, were marked by resilience, reflection, and an unwavering commitment to living a life anchored in love and meaning. Over the last 10 years of her life, she became a Buddhist and and living in the present moment was key for her. She during that Time discovered her calling after she got this diagnosis, actually enrolled in a master's program in social work at the University of Texas because she wanted to help other people navigate their very struggles that she had faced. And her life was really a testament to compassion, acceptance, and the quiet courage of showing up for others. So many things that you write about. When we were planning her memorial service, which she, in her typical fashion, dictated what she wanted, she made one very specific request, that your poem, Accepting this be read aloud. She felt it captured her philosophy of life more clearly than anything she could have said herself. And I wanted to say a couple lines that echoed through that chamber and through all of us. We were outdoors in Austin reading this, and as the Buddhist priest was saying your poem, a butterfly went over his shoulders and through the scene, which we all believe was my sister. And the words I wanted to say are, we cannot eliminate hunger, but we can feed each other. We cannot eliminate loneliness, but we can hold each other. We cannot eliminate pain, but we can live a life of compassion. And for those of us who were watching this, those words became not just a comfort, but a call to action that she wanted to ripple beyond her. For someone whose writing Mark has helped us through profound grief like that, and someone who has stood at the edge of life and death, you understand the necessity for that kind of acceptance and compassion. What inspired those lines in accepting this? And in a time where the world feels increasingly divided, how do we, what you call the small living things awaken in the stream, live into that final stanza?
- [10:06]
Mark Nepo
Thank you. Thank you. It's very touching for sharing that from your service with your sister. Well, I think let's back up a little bit. When we talk about our time and things are very difficult and acute and polarized. And I would back up and say that every generation, every age faces the same thing. The things that trigger us, the things that block us, are different in each age and each generation. But this is part of the archetypal journey of being alive, being human, struggling to be awake, to stay awake, to remember who we are to ourselves and each other. So I think from my cancer journey, I'm 74 now, and if I met someone my age when I was younger, I thought they were ancient. It doesn't seem so old now. In my early 30s, I almost died from a rare lymphoma. And through that, I was turned inside out and upside down. And through no wisdom on my part, I was jettisoned into learning a different way to be in the world and learning how acceptance we often misconstrue it. It doesn't mean resignation, it doesn't mean giving up, it doesn't mean just obeying whatever someone asks of us. Acceptance comes out of surrender. And I think surrender, I've learned, is cooperating with truth. So instead of fighting life, we stay in relationship with it, we work with it and that. So in a way, in the ancient one of all the spiritual traditions speak about this in different ways, but the Daoist tradition, the ancient Chinese tradition, dao simply means the way they don't even try to name it, but the metaphor for it, which I so love is that life is like an invisible river and every soul is a fish in that river. And so the goal of every soul, every fish, is to find the current so you can swim with it. And that's the proper use of our will. That's the work of acceptance and not fighting, not insisting on what I want, but seeing what am I being asked here to learn and contribute that will both feed my life and life in the stream of life.
- [12:47]
Interviewer
That is really beautiful and profound. As I have dived deeply into your work, one of the things I've heard you say more recently is that the heart is our strongest muscle and that its work is to keep us awake to life. When you look at the world today, what does living from the heart actually require of us?
- [13:09]
Mark Nepo
Well, it requires us. So let's also back up here to say that. And again, this is what every part of the journey of every soul that comes into being is. There's an age old argument, if you will. On the one hand, there's a tribe of thinkers throughout the generations who have said human beings are, you can't trust them if you don't have constraints and rules. They're gonna, they're gonna be cruel, they're gonna just go with self interest. So we really need to clamp down on these strange beings. And there's the other, which I'm a part of, that tribe of thinkers and feelers that says no human beings are innately good and left to their, to our own basic human nature, we will be kind and help each other and be more together than alone. And the things that block us come from. We can be blocked by others, by suffering, by the world we live in, by ourselves, by the wounds that we. But our job of awakening is how to repair from those blockages and wake up again. And the heart is, I believe, our strongest muscle, our strongest instrument. And the word trust literally means to follow the heart. And so we are asked not to bend life to us, but to inhabit life. And there was a Chinese philosopher, Mencius, in 300 BC and I loved, he had this wonderful metaphor for this. He said that water, allowed its true nature, will always flow downhill and join other water. It can be manipulated, can go even uphill or sideways or through a dam or a pipe. But allowed its true nature, it will flow and join other water. And he said so too. We allowed our true nature. We will flow and join with each other, we will help each other. We won't even think about it. It'll be just innate. But we can manipulate ourselves and be. And I think we live in it. Now to come back to where? To our age and our turn, this is. And this doesn't minimize the suffering, the cruelty, the lack of compassion that we're seeing in our age, globally. But it's our turn. Will we choose love over fear? Will we remove what's in the way? Will we remember, oh my God, it's you. Oh. So I think that there are many things in our modern world that have almost like an inadvertent perfect storm. I don't think anybody planned this, but we have the pandemic, we have technology, the insulation of social media, and we have this. I think one of the things that seems so simple, but it's so profound is many of us have lost our direct connection with life. And why is this important? Because when we are directly connected to life, we have a reverence for life. And if we have a reverence for life, we can't do harm. One of the things when we're not connected with life, our need to feel and be here doesn't go away. And so it comes out sideways. And in some ways violence is a desperate last attempt to feel. It's will do anything to feel. This is where the whole notion, the psychological self harm of cutting people who are so blocked from their heart, so have no access to what they're feeling into the life around them that they still need to feel, they still want to do something to open up. And it comes out in very hurtful ways. So. So I think. And all the traditions give us ways to reconnect with life and each other. And so it starts with taking a risk. It starts with when we're closed, how do we open? When we're numb, how do we wake up? And I think it always starts with the risk to be present, to hold nothing back for me. And so all these states, we will experience them because we're human, we're not going to eliminate them. But this is what it is to be A spirit in a body in time, on earth we're always course correcting. Oh, today I was too closed. Oh, today I gave myself away. Oh, today I listened and I lost myself. Oh, today I was stubborn. That's the work of self awareness through the heart. How do I keep returning to the corridor of aliveness? And this is why you and I could work at the same office for years. And, oh, we're cordial and. But we don't really know each other. And then one day after, shortly after perhaps you lost your sister. And shortly after, perhaps I lost my father. And then now we say hello, and those walls are down and we actually see each other. And I go, oh, my God, I had no idea it's you. Oh, here we are. Let's begin.
- [18:47]
Interviewer
What you have just captured is so profound, and it really is at the center of all the work that I'm trying to do. I see so many people today who are, whether you call it lonely, hopeless, nihilistic, whatever word you want to use, and I think the word I use for it is they feel invisible in their own life. They feel like they don't matter. And when you lose that central feeling of mattering, you are just filled with a profound emptiness and a lack of any direction that's giving you meaning. And I love your work on using the word love. Here I happen to have Joshua Green, who's a Harvard psychologist, and Dr. Rick Hansen, who you might be aware of, yesterday on the show, and we were talking about how to expand the circle of moral concern. And Rick, in this chapter of his life, has created this foundation called the Global Coalition Circle. And with this, he is trying to spread love through acts of compassion. And he's trying to get people to start compassion circles because we've lost this whole presence and connection in the communities that existed for millennia. So I'm completely in line with what you are saying and what you teach.
- [20:07]
Mark Nepo
Oh, thank you. And I think that one of the things that's important is when we think of the world, it's overwhelming. When we think of these huge. And it always has been. How do we reignite compassion all over the world? Well, when we think of it conceptually, it is overwhelming and it can make us feel insignificant. But when we feel it through our heart, we become a part of it. And that gives us resilience, and that's uplifting. And this is why ev. All of it begins with the smallest detail, the smallest step. So when I listen to you totally in your pain or whatever you're going through, then I Am casting a stitch in the fabric of humanity. I'll give you a personal example of this that was so profound for me. And this was. My father's gone now about almost 15 years. And toward the end of his life, he lived to be 93. And I was visiting him in a hospital, and he was. He had a stroke. And, I mean, he could talk, but it was so much work. He just didn't. And. But there I was all of a sudden, and it was not a private room, and there was all kinds of noise and things clanging and people everywhere, but all of a sudden, I was feeding him applesauce with a spoon. And it was a very bittersweet, beautiful, sad, wonderful moment. And I just fell in. My whole life was in that moment, slipping the spoon so it didn't hit his teeth and him trying to swallow the applesauce and tearing, of course. And then I was surprised because I fell into a moment of wonder by giving my all to that moment, that detail, I had tripped into the moment of every adult child who ever fed a dying parent. And I was not alone. And so it's changed how I understand resilience by being authentic and holding nothing back and giving my all not to change the world, but to the detail of the moment that opens to me. I can trip into the larger stream of the mystery of life. And that's where I was. Like a fish swimming in that stream. I was now by. Not by trying to swim in the stream, not by trying to fix the world, but by meeting what was presented to me with everything I had. I was in the stream with all of humanity. And so my encouragement is, care for what's before you with all your heart. And it matters. It matters because we do not know. We do not know which gesture of wholeheartedness will keep the world going. And so each day, we are challenged to be fully here and hold nothing back.
- [23:53]
John Miles
Before we continue, I want to pause on something important. Listening to Mark talk about swimming in the stream of life is one thing. Living it, especially when you're navigating the turbulence of the surface, is quite another thing. So many of you write to me saying, I want to be present, but I'm exhausted. I'm overwhelmed by the noise, and I don't know how to find the current. That tension between the pressure to perform and the desire to be present is exactly what the Season of Meaning is.
- [24:18]
Interviewer
Is all about.
- [24:19]
John Miles
That's why each episode in this series is paired with reflection tools inside the ignited life. We help you build the architecture, define your own current, asking questions like, am I acting as a glass bitter and small, or a lake expansive and fresh? In this moment, what parts of my outer life need to flake off so my inner light can shine brighter? Inside the ignited life? You'll find weekly reflection prompts that are tied to insights from our episodes and tools to help you move from the turbulence of the surface into the depth of being. You can join us@theignitedlife.net now a quick word from our sponsors. Thank you for supporting those who support the show. You're listening to Passion Struck on the Passion Struck Network. Now back to my conversation with Mark Nepo.
- [25:13]
Interviewer
I can completely relate to what you were going through in a different context. My papa, who was my hero growing up, when he got into his 90s, had developed dementia and we faced the same onset that you were going through where he had forgotten really how to care for himself. And it happened to me in a different way. Not through feeding him, but just seeing all the memories and this brilliant person who was the head of research at craft, that brilliant mind disappear was just so difficult to see from someone I respected so much. So I completely understand what you're saying here. And what I've heard you say previously is that immersion is whatever is before us and that's what brings us alive. For someone who's not in one of these moments that you and I are referencing here, but they're in their everyday life, what does that immersion look like and how do we know when we're holding back from it?
- [26:17]
Mark Nepo
I think in a very simple way, I use a very simple question to help me get a sense of that. And that is, is what I'm involved in, is what I'm giving myself to, whatever it might be, is it life giving and heartening or is it life draining and disheartening? That's like an inner barometer, especially when things seem complicated or tangled, I just come back to that question, is this life giving and heartening or life draining and disheartening? And if it's life giving, even if it's difficult while I'm in, but if it's life draining, what am I doing? And so likewise, if I don't feel what's before me and what's in me, well, there are usually two possible major kind of reasons for me, at least one is I'm blocked somehow. I have a wall or a wound or a fear or an anxiety that's not allowing me to be thorough and open. So then, okay, how do I identify where I'm blocked? That's the inner work so I can clear it out. The other is I may be just tired and I need to rest. I'm committed to being wholehearted but there's some days I'm half hearted. So it means it's like when you go to a famous museum and you want to take in everything and after an hour you're like oh my God, another masterpiece. Give me a break. No there's not. That's still a masterpiece. We're just tired, we gotta rest so we can refresh and take it in again. And that's part of our journey as well, is to tend things, not push to tend and not push. So I think that. And then also there is just that not everything every day is going to be while life is divine and always miraculous again because we're human, we come in and out of being able to fully apprehend it. There's a wonderful story from Einstein was recalling. It was a conversation with him about his early development of his mind. And he shared that at the age of 11 he In a glimpse of intuition grasped all of Euclidean geometry. And he said and I knew the next day would be dull of necessity. But we have these. It's like life is like the ocean. There's these crests and these swells and the waves crash. And because we're not always on the crest of a wave, it doesn't mean there's something wrong. And so by keeping the heart open, we can discover the extraordinary and the.
- [29:17]
Interviewer
Ordinary Mark, you have now written 25 plus books. I'm holding a couple up here in front of the camera that I think everyone knows the book of awakening or at least millions of people do. But I have loved your work for years. But as I have understood from hearing you talk, you knew you wanted to be a poet fairly early on in life. And I'm going to go into have you tell the story here in a second. But when I was early in my life I was serving as a naval officer, I was in Rota, Spain and over there it was really an interesting dichotomy between us Americans and the Spaniards who were in the military. And we would be in the office at 5:30 in the morning working till it was dark. And our Spanish friends would roll into work around 9am they'd take a two hour siesta in the afternoon and they would work into the evening. But I remember one of my close Spanish friends said to me, John, you Americans love to work and we work to live. And it reminded me of something that you said to your Parents that I'm going to live a making instead of make a living, which I just love. Can you think of that line?
- [30:37]
Mark Nepo
When I was undergraduate and actually just to back up a bit. So when I was in high school, I first started writing because my first love was a year ahead of me and went. She went to college and fell in love with someone else. And so it was my first heartache. And I was devastated. And I wasn't a loner, but I hadn't experienced a real friend yet until I got to college. And so I started writing as a way deal with the heartache. And I realized pretty quickly I wasn't just talking to myself. I had begun a conversation with life and with the mysteries of life and the difficulties of life and the wonders. And so that was the beginning of my writing. And then when I realized in college that I was a poet and I didn't. I hadn't really written anything much, but I just knew it and I was still learning what that meant. And I was the first in my family to go to college in the history of my family. A family of immigrants, Jewish immigrants, and my father, who was a master woodworker. My mother was a bookkeeper. But they were both highly intelligent, grew up out of the Great Depression, were very survival oriented for my brother and I. And they got a mystical poet for a son. Like we didn't really speak the same language. And I came home as a sophomore, I think in college, excited to tell them that I was a poet. And we were around the small kitchen table and we had the classic argument, my father escalating and yelling that how are you going to make a living? And I don't know where it came from in me. And I just said without missing a beat, I'm going to live a making. And it just frustrated the hell out of him. And I spent the next several years trying to understand what came through me from my soul and from the world of spirit was a deep instruction on how to move forward, to stay close to what it means to be alive. And I would share with you now, all these years later that I've discovered, I think over time that the creative process and the introspective process are really the same thing. I just happen to write it down because that's how I learn. And one of the reasons that I've been blessed to be prolific is that I've learned that writing is really listening and taking notes more than speaking my beliefs. And so I've been able to explore a lot because I write about what I Need to know not what I know. If I'd written about only what I know, I would have written very little. And so this raises a whole thing that's a paradox in life and that is we all whether the art is in living, not in what we produce. And so this starts to move into the fifth season, my latest book about creativity in the second half of life. Because really what I'm exploring there is not that. Well, now that I'm retired, I can paint more or I can write more. What I'm exploring there is our life is the work of art. And by immersing ourselves, by devoting ourselves, we take our place in the mystery of life. We live as fully as we can as holding nothing back. Our relationships become a work of art. And so another lesson from my father, which I learned a lot because he was a creative force as a master woodworker. And, and he built a 30 foot sailboat catch when I was a boy out of wood that I spent a lot of my youth on. And so I didn't learn a lot by him talking about creativity just by watching him. And. And I remember being 10 or 11 and we had a small home on Long island and the basement was where his workshop was and he was working because one of the things he would do as a hobby as well was he would carve half models. So what he would do is he would get blueprints for sailing ships from the 1800s and then he would build them to scale, maybe six foot long. And they were half models because he. You would only build half. And so you could mount them on a wall, so part of it was flat. And I remember watching him through the see through stairs of the basement and he was immersed in with a tweezer with black thread pulling two scale rigging through the masts and the. That what were dead eyes or turnbuckles, they call them now today. And he didn't know I was watching him and I didn't know what it meant. But I've come to understand he was showing me the secret life of detail. This goes back to dealing with the one thing that's in front of you. And I learned that he was so immersed, and this is interesting given what I learned by attending him when he was in his last years there in the hospital. But back then he was so immersed that he was in the moment of everyone who ever built a boat. And so while the work he did was excellent, it's about immersion, not excellence. Excellence is the byproduct of immersion. If you light a flame you don't have to work for it. It will give off heat by virtue of it being lit. And if we're immersed, we will do excellent work. But if we just strive for excellence, we may not be immersed. And we. And the reward for immersion is the experience of oneness and connection to life. And now we come back to reverence and doing no harm. One of the things today, when we get back to your question about someone who's not feeling connected, who's feeling numb, who's feeling isolated, what do you care about? What can you immerse yourself in? It doesn't have to be a big career. It may be caring for one plan. It may be bringing dinner to a neighbor. Who knows what it would be? It could be stamp collecting, could be working on cars. It doesn't really. Like the soul wants us to throw care on the fire of aliveness.
- [37:46]
Interviewer
Yes.
- [37:47]
Mark Nepo
So like any fire, a fire doesn't care what kind of wood you put on it. And I don't think the soul or the life of spirit cares what care we put on the fire of aliveness. Just that we care.
- [38:08]
Interviewer
I can completely relate to what you're saying. For so many years of my life, I was chasing success. I was trying to chase happiness. And I found the more I chased, the emptier I became. And that none of that comes from trying to chase it. It comes from meaning in our lives. It comes from those who we surround ourselves with. And I think Viktor Frankl got it right. We find meaning at work or in pursuing a creative element that we're passionate about. We find meaning in love. Love could be love of our partner, caring for someone who might be sick. Love of another human being. It could be a friend. It comes in suffering. And I think, as Dac or Keltner teaches, I think it can come in moral beauty by doing acts of kindness to others. So I agree with you that when you start pursuing those things and you immerse yourselves in. In them, that is the secret that I found in this chapter in my life is that is bringing me more happiness and success than I ever felt before when I was trying to chase it, it becomes a result of having meaning and purpose and service in life.
- [39:26]
Mark Nepo
Yeah, I think absolutely. Which doesn't mean that we don't do things. One of the things in our modern world, we have, rightly, an emphasis on heart and being because we're so out of balance with thinking and doing. But ideally, I think, like, you need two good feet to walk. Being and doing complement each other. And at their best when we're fully inhabited, they're one and the same. And just like when we're really there for each other, it's hard to know who's giving and who's receiving. They really become the same thing.
- [40:07]
Interviewer
Yes.
- [40:08]
Mark Nepo
And that is the reward for that deep immersion when. And there is an epidemic of loneliness in our age. And I know, especially with young people, and I was on it on an interview with a young editor in London, a young woman who asked about this. And. And I don't give advice. I just share. And you know, what I share are examples, not instructions. But I found myself speaking from my cancer journey in that. And what came up was, you don't interview ambulance drivers. You take the first one, and if you're lonely, you say hello, get out of the house. Doesn't mean that every interaction will be. Some may be awkward, some may not work out, some may be irritated, but you're engaged in life. And so even as simply as. Instead of reading at home alone, read in a cafe where there are. Even if you never say hello to another person, you're around other life, you're exchanging presence and energy. So expand our sense of solitude to let others in so that the line between self and other blurs.
- [41:27]
Interviewer
I want to go into the fifth season here in a second, but I want to ask you one more question about the Book of Awakening, which really was a turning point for millions of readers. And as I understand it, it's not something that immediately became a New York Times bestseller. It was out there for 10 years before Oprah discovered it, and then it had its own journey on the other side. But this book was written after your cancer journey. And what I've heard you say when you talk about it is you call the book short doses of what matters. Today. Looking back, what rises to the top of that list? What matters more now than it ever did before?
- [42:09]
Mark Nepo
Well, thank you for that question. I think I would return to that. What matters most is being as fully present and wholehearted as we can be, knowing that we can't do it all the time. But how do I behold the life that I meet? Because I think one of the things about the fifth season, to go to the latest book, it was the journey for every human being once we're here, is to awaken so that there's as little as possible between what lives in here and what lives out here. And why I speak so much about authenticity, is that I believe that when we're authentic, the practice and devotion to being authentic makes us a clear inlet between the inner life and the outer life makes us kind and useful, makes us receptive. And that's an endless one of my books, is the endless practice that staying that open is an endless practice because we're never done. And there's a great metaphor for this, which is in what's called an acequia. Now sequia in the south, it's actually the word comes from the Arabic because in desert climates, and you'll see what this means, but in the Southwest, Native Americans for centuries, and acequia is a sluice way or a natural water flow, let's say from the top of a mountain where snow after winter will create a water course to the bottom of the mountain and villages and tribes would, would settle there because there's a natural water source, it's right there. So. So, well, naturally, over a winter, debris would fill the acequia, trees, limbs would fall in it, animals would build nests, stones would erode, so that once a year at least, there was a ritual where the entire tribe, including children and elders, would take a few days and from the top of the mountain to the bottom, clear out the ecu. So nothing was blocking the flow from source into the world. Well, this is a fantastic metaphor for a spiritual practice and what both collectively in relationships and families and towns and nations, but in our own individual work and the acequia, the source, the waterway between spirit and our lives, gets clogged. Not because we're deficient or stupid, because it's natural. This is what experience does. And so we have to clear it out. So just like we would do a house cleaning every spring and at least once a year, we each need our own form of cleaning out the pathway, the sluice way between source and how we live in the world. So this gets back to what patterns, what patterns, what wounds, what patterns, what ways of closed minded and closed hearted thinking and feeling, what ways of assumptions and judgments. How do we make a practice of clearing that out so that we start with I don't know, rather than I.
- [45:56]
Interviewer
Told you, man, that really hit me and I think you're so right. As I was immersing myself into the fifth season, because I'm myself now, the second half of life. One of the things that struck me that I find so true is you point out that the years behind us grow longer than the years ahead. And when that happens, the proper place of dreams and memory shifts. And you say that dreams are the kindling of our aliveness. And I love that because given my work centers on mattering that Belief that our presence has weight, meaning and value is so important. So how do you think presence, what you were just talking about memory and dreams contribute to that feeling that we matter.
- [46:44]
Mark Nepo
Well, so this is one of the things as you from the book, a shift in our horizons and as we age. So I'm 74. I'm hoping to live to a hundred. Who knows? But even there's more years behind than ahead. One of the things that doesn't mean I don't dream anymore, but I. But often one of the liabilities of dreaming in our world is that without realizing it, we defer our better self to the future. Oh, when I do this, then I'll be whole. When I'm in that relationship, then I'll be happy. There's always a if then. Oh, yeah. But what we do is when we dreaming, we're actually putting forward some of our potential and possibility so that we can see it. So that the alive we can then see. Where is that aliveness in us right now? How can we bring it alive now? And I think I've been helped with this because almost dying from cancer all those years ago while I dream, it always boomerangs back. Well, okay, what I have is now. So if I'm dreaming that, how can I bring it alive now? And the same thing with memory, when we look back, which we tend to do as we get older. Okay, but the difference between what I try to uncover in the book as the helpful use of memory versus one that kind of entraps us, nostalgia entraps us. So nostalgia is when I look back to 20 years ago to a very wonderful experience, and I go, gee, well, I wish I could have that again. I wish I could go back there.
- [48:32]
Interviewer
Wish I could go back to Spain.
- [48:34]
Mark Nepo
Right.
- [48:35]
Interviewer
25 again.
- [48:36]
Mark Nepo
But what the helpful use of memory is, I go back to whatever that memory is to touch into what was alive then and trace it because that stream of aliveness is always there. Oh, where is it showing up in me now? So just like we go back in memory to say, oh yeah, where is that aliveness in me now? And I dream forward. Well, not forget going forward. Where can I trace it back? So that both memory and dream help us realize what is wants to be alive in us right now.
- [49:17]
Interviewer
I want to switch to celestial topics here for a second. I love how you use metaphors. And there's one of the meteor that I think is really profound. And the meteor is this idea that, yeah, as we burn through what doesn't matter, we shine brighter. And I thought that this is an extraordinary metaphor. How did that arrive for you and what does it.
- [49:43]
Mark Nepo
Well, I think, yeah, metaphor and again has been my native language. Even when I was a kid. I didn't know what metaphor was, but it was. That's how the world's always spoken to me, how spiritual spirit has always spoken to me now. And so what I would I want to share from that is every one of us has a gift. And part of our job of awakening and immersing and following our heart is to discover what our gift is and let it be our teacher. Let it be our teacher. So the metaphor. Just entering the second half of life myself and trying to understand from all the things I've been through this paradox of how while outwardly, yes, the body starts to wear away and we have limit physical limitations, but at the same time throughout our life of the spirit is deepening and broadening and expanding and illuminating. And if we don't become a student of that, then the limitations of the earthly body will take over and be way out of proportion. So it's not reframing, it's not turning from one to the other. It's allowing both to accurately right. Size what our experience is as a spirit in a body in time on Earth. So I guess trying to live into all of that, this metaphor came about the meteor. So we know that meteors, very few reach Earth because they burn up in the atmosphere. And so when a meteor starts, it's a certain size. And as it moves through the atmosphere, more and more of it flakes off and it gets brighter and brighter until there's nothing left but light. And that became a teacher for me that, oh, this is what it's like to be a spirit in a body. Over a lifetime on Earth, throughout our life, we through the life of experience and gravity and wonder and suffering and beauty and erosion, our outer life flakes off and we become more and more light till the spirit leaves the body. And so nobody likes the flaking off. A year ago I had major back surgery. I had fusion surgery. So I have those titanium screws in my back. And it's been my dad a blessing. You had that too?
- [52:27]
Interviewer
My father. My father.
- [52:29]
Mark Nepo
Oh, your father had that.
- [52:30]
Interviewer
And it was a scary moment, but he was in so much pain. That he said has given him a new release on life in some ways because he was in so much distress before that.
- [52:41]
Mark Nepo
Exactly. And I felt it was so difficult since my cancer journey, it was the most difficult thing I've been in. And the surgery has been a tremendous success. I'M so blessed. I thankful that I and that was a flaking off and I'm brighter for it. So there's just again, it's not to deify suffering. It's like everyone has to deal with gravity. This is part of gravity. This is part of. But the opposite of the outer world has the force of gravity and the inner world has the emanation of spirit. And these two, four, we live subject to these two amazing forces in the world.
- [53:23]
Interviewer
One of the things before we close I wanted to make sure we talked about is throughout the book you have stories of saying yes to life. And they're really powerful. I wanted to ask, in your view, what does it mean to say yes to a life in a way that affirms I matter, this moment matters and what I give of myself matters?
- [53:45]
Mark Nepo
Yeah. So I think that saying yes to life is again, is not being obedient. Often we need to say no to situations and relationships and patterns in order to say yes to life. Saying yes to life and I come back down to means leaning in when pain and worry and fear push us away. It means holding nothing back when we hesitate. It means loving again after we've been burned by love. It means never. And you may be familiar with Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah song. Yeah. So he talks about a broken hallelujah there and saying yes to life. This coincides with what I think the real meaning of the story of Job is. I don't think it's a blind obedience to God. I think it's a saying yes to life by accepting and not turning away from all the hardships. That there's a mystery, there's a paradox. You and I could be on a raft at sea and a huge wave comes and smashes the raft, and we're hanging on. That's not a good day for us. And it doesn't diminish the majesty of the sea. And whereas to hold both, that's the broken hallelujah, not just a everything's wonderful, don't worry, it'll work out. No, the fact that saying yes to life is there is a incomprehensible mystery that we're a part of. This is why you've heard the old proverbial question, is the glass half full or half empty? Well, that is really not helpful for me because it's always both. And our job in the broken hallelujah in saying yes to life, in facing life and embracing life, is how do we relate to both? How do we let both be a teacher? How do we open our heart to the mysterious wholeness of life that is both fragile and gentle and at times harsh and can break us and break us open. And that's where the work of being a spirit in a body and time on earth is. And no one knows how to do this, which is why we need each other. I think that I've come to think that life is made just difficult enough so we need each other to ensure the journey of love and bouncing back and forth from positive to negative, from true to false, from. Is again, like that question. It's not helpful. Yeah, because it's always both.
- [56:38]
Interviewer
Yeah, it's definitely both. And one of the most important shifts I think we need to make that is a much bigger part of Eastern thinking than it is for us in the West. Or it's more either or, which I found throughout my career. Well, the last thing I wanted to talk to you about, Mark, and you've talked about this already in the way you wrote about in the book, which is one of your most profound ideas, is shift in horizons. And you've talked about how much of life we look for forward and then we look back. But I want to talk about shifting horizons a little bit differently. I have a really good friend of mine who I've. I went to college with, I've known him for three decades now, who was the chief astronaut at NASA. And he, he tells me that one of. Yeah, one of the most profound things for him was being up in the ISS and having that opportunity to look down. And he said it completely shifted the horizons in his life because he started to realize the true idea of a ripple of kindness or a ripple of love or a ripple of compassion when you're looking from above, how it could impact the world. And from that moment on, he would do these things that no one knew about, where even if he was up in space, he would telephone or find out about a sick child who might be suffering from cancer and he would call them just to brighten their day. Or he'd go on treks in the Amazon forest to bring awareness to climate change, or he would kayak to help bring awareness to suicide in veterans. He would do all these things, but so much of us don't have that opportunity that he did. How can more of us shift our horizons?
- [58:27]
Mark Nepo
I think that certainly. And those are amazing things you shared. Certainly we can ready ourselves, but I don't know that we can will a shift in horizon. And so this is where I think that great love and great suffering have always been the great teachers and we Usually grow human beings by two major ways. Many, but two major. One by willfully shedding and the other by being broken open. And if you don't want to willfully shed, don't worry, you'll be broken open. And it's usually a combination of both. And what, you know, your friend had shared, which I totally agree with, is when we are broken open or we are loved open, or we willfully shed the parameters of what we know so that we can grow, we glimpse the wholeness of life, like seeing the earth from space. And that changes everything. Because while we want to live the moment that we're in, seeing things from the whole changes. And again, it's both we talk about. This is where the Native Americans are famous for saying every decision needs to be considered from the perspective of seven generations. But we're still chopping wood to warm the fire, to keep the family warm. To only see from above or beyond is conceptual. And to only be in the moment is to be at the mercy of the turbulence of life. And we are asked to inhabit both. On a way that I understand this, another metaphor from the sea is we look at any part of the ocean, we see the surface and we see waves. Well, actually, if you look below, you can't tell where a wave stops in the deep begins. It's all one water. But if we only stay on the top 18 inches or 2ft, we will be bounced around in the turbulence of the surface, which is always being disturbed by weather, by living in the world if we feel we don't leave the surface. But if we allow all of that water, if we we. So I would say to you that top foot or two, that is the waters of our psychology that meets the world every day. But now, if we are allowed to go below, we are allowed to go into the depth of life. We are allowed to go beyond just the framework of our opinions, whether it's going out to see the earth from space or in to see all like my father, in that moment of applesauce, everyone who ever fed a dying parent in the depths, that depth takes the edge off the turbulence of the surface. And that is the depth of spirit and being when we live in the surface. And so what happens when we're living is we're talking about this. We're more in the depth right now. Now we'll get off this wonderful talk and I may take the garbage thing down to the curb and trip and skin my knee. And now I'm. By its very nature, I'm drawn into the surface. But I don't have to stay there. I can feel. I can't. It's not running from it, but by going back into the depth of being that right sizes. And we have to live in both. So let me give you, like, an example and a story. So the example is I go back to when I was going through, especially before my back surgery, the incredible, as your father knows, pain that I was in. I'd never experienced chronic pain before. I was right here at my desk, my studies on the second floor in our home. And I could have worked on the first floor. I wanted to be in my study. Well, during that time, it took me like a half hour to get up the stairs because I had to take each step, wait for the pain to stop, lean on the banister. Okay, so an example of what we're talking about now is I would sit here and I couldn't escape the pain and the fear that was in me. But I had to start to ask, okay, the whole world and life is not in pain and afraid right now. I am. So where is the nearest thing to me that's not afraid or in pain? It was the floor beneath my feet, the ceiling of this study. It's the sky above the ceiling. It's the earth that's holding up the foundation of our house and not escaping my pain and fear, but allowing myself to feel it. And what is holding it is akin to your friend helping a child, but seeing the earth from space. So the story, which is a. I love these anonymous teaching stories from centuries. This is an ancient Hindu teaching story about how to meet pain and fear, which also speaks about this in a very wonderful way. So in this story, it's an ancient Hindu story, there's a master and a apprentice always. And the master, of the truth be known, finds the apprentice very annoying because all he does is complain about life. So the master says to him, I want you to get a handful of salt, put it in a glass of water and bring it to me quietly. So he does. And the master says, drink from the glass. So he drinks. He spits it out. And the master says, what's the matter? And apprentice says, it's bitter. Master says, I want you to get the same exact amount of salt, cup it in your hands and follow me quietly. And he does. And the master leads him to a lake. He says, put the salt in the lake. He does. He says, now drink. So this student kneels, he scoops some water. It dribbles down his chin. Master says, well? And he says, oh, it's fresh. And the master says, stop being a glass, become a lake. Stop being a glass, become a lake. Look from the whole perspective of the earth, from the ocean of spirit, be where you are, but let everything in. Because what that ancient anonymous story is saying is we will never eliminate fear and pain, but we can right size it by enlarging our sense of things. By enlarging our sense of things so we may hear this story, people who are listening with us and say, well, it's not good to be a glass. I won't do that. Well, yes you will. And I will. And you will. Because that's how fear and pain say hello, but we don't have to stay there. So the practice question, the daily practice question is what experiences, relationships and practices. Yes, experiences, relationships and practices are in your toolbox to enlarge your sense of things when you stumble into fear and pain and worry and numbness and despair so you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Yeah. And even there may be times when I know what I need to do and I can't do it. And then I got to call you up and say, help.
- [66:56]
Interviewer
Mark, it has been such a profound honor to speak with you today. If you could leave one thing for listeners to carry with them as they're entering the fifth season, what do you hope they will finally release?
- [67:14]
Mark Nepo
Well, I think what I would offer do we go back to the heart being our strength, strongest muscle, and our finest instrument is to trust our heart. And I encourage people not to think that everything that's in the way is a problem or a deficiency. But a teacher, we're in our world, modern world, we've been mistaught to think we're entitled to a obstacle free existence and no obstacles. Nobody loves obstacles, but they're not demons. They're teachers. And what's in the way is the way and that's how our light goes brighter and how our heart shows up for each other.
- [68:04]
Interviewer
Mark, thank you so much for joining us today on Passion Struck. I know this will be a fan favorite. Thank you so much for everything you have done for so many people throughout these 27 books of knowledge that you have put out in the world, which I know as you were writing them, I know you hoped that they would touch people, but you probably never in a million years thought they would touch as many people as they have.
- [68:27]
Mark Nepo
Not at all. It's beyond anything I imagined. I'm just so grateful and thank you, John. Wonderful to be with you.
- [68:35]
John Miles
That's a wrap on today's conversation with Mark Nepo. What stood out to me most from today's episode is his definition of surrender, not as giving up, but as cooperating with truth. It's the realization that we don't need to bend life to our will. We just need to inhabit the life that is already here. When we stop fighting the current and start swimming with it, we don't just find ease, we find aliveness. But that brings the next structural challenge. How do we know what is actually true? In an age of misinformation and divided minds, how do we distinguish between our own intuition and the knowledge that we've been fed? That's exactly what we explore next in our upcoming episode. Next Tuesday, I'm joined by Steve Sloman. Steve is a cognitive scientist and author of the Knowledge Illusion. We're going to deconstruct the boundary of the mind, exploring why we think we know more than we do and how the illusion of knowledge can actually prevent us from finding true meaning. If Mark Nepo helped us explore the spirit of presence, Steve Sloman will help us understand the cognitive mechanics of how we perceive our world.
- [69:39]
Interviewer
If you really want to make good decisions, you need people with contrasting views to yours, right? You don't necessarily need them to generate ideas to generate hypotheses, but you need them to test those ideas. Like, the best way to perfect your own thinking is to describe it to someone who disagrees with you vehemently. And that way you'll construct really good arguments.
- [70:09]
John Miles
Before you move on today, I'd encourage you to pause, look at the one thing right in front of you, the smallest detail. Can you give it your full immersion in just 60 seconds? That small stitch is how we repair the fabric of the our lives. If you want to support these ideas, join me inside the ignited life@theignitedlife.net and remember to check out umatterluma for a reminder that you are significant just as you are as we move through the meaning makers. Remember, significance doesn't come from doing more. It comes from doing what aligns consistently and with care. Until next time, I'm John Miles. You've been passion struck.
- [70:47]
Mark Nepo
Sa.