The Visionary's Journey

Finding Creativity through Meditation w/ Zen Master Sebastian Rizzon

• Emily Falcigno • Season 2 • Episode 5

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Text us: What Vision do you want to manifest?

We explore the profound connection between meditation and artistic expression with Zen Master Sebastian Rizzon.  Through his Zen Art Center he navigates the synergy between creativity and mindfulness, unveiling how they can be gateways to deeper self-understanding.

Our conversation takes a celestial turn as we ponder themes of life, death, and artistic connections, inspired by the Buddhist Wheel of Life.

With a touch of serendipity and humor, we recount unexpected encounters and connections within the artistic community, inspiring creative and compassionate engagement with the world.

We discuss:

  • 2:20 A reason to practice Zen + a breathing exercise
  • 11:52 What is Zen? + Sebastian's Path to Art
  • 19:17 Life Paths for Individuals and Groups
  • 26:47 Getting through Writer's Block
  • 29:27 How Sebastian found Zen + started The Zen Art Center
  • 41:46 What is mind clutter? + The meaning of "Empty"
  • 46:28 Tour of The Zen Art Center + Energy of potential + Koans
  • 51:45 What are Koans? (pron. koh-ahns)
  • 57:15 Tip for Mental Hygiene
  • 1:02:02 Sebastian's New Book + How we met
  • 1:10:20 Wheel of Life Drawing Interpretation + What is the End?

 

Read About Zen Master Sebastian Rizzon:
The Zen Art Center


Other References:

"NPR Ladies" SNL Skit

I Heart Huckabees (Blanket Scene)

"The End" The Doors



(In all transparency, this description was written with the help of AI sourced from this episode's interview content.)

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Podcasting transformed Emily's career.

In Season 1, Episode 9, Emily processes her own Visionary's Journey.

It led to her Holistic Space Organizing business, Room to Transform.

We reorganize your space as a Walk-In Vision Board where you feel supported on your next phase of life, so you can manifesting your dreams.

Thanks for listening and good luck on your Visionary's Journey!

Emily:

Go ahead Signe.

Sebastian:

Testing one, two, three. Looking forward to the podcast.

Emily:

This is our eighth try trying to make this work and hopefully it works. We're using a new Zoom recorder. Welcome back to the Visionary's Journey. I am your guide , E mily Falsigno she her pronouns and this is season two. This season we're manifesting using your spaces. In season one, episode nine, I shared my own wiggly path. My intuitive journey inspired me to start my holistic organizing business called Room to Transform.

Emily:

Room to Transform is for situationally disorganized professionals who are going through a life or a career transition. Remember, have self-compassion. Life transitions are hard and one day we all have to turn and face the strange changes. So with our collaborative walk-in vision board process, you resuscitate your neglected life goals, clarify your life vision and reorganize a supportive physical space to jump into new things, jive with new habits in your next phase of life or career, or exciting new hobby. We'll gain insight from fellow journeyers who are identifying their values just like you. We'll also hear from visionaries who cross our paths. They'll show us how they embody their values, how they translate those values into physical spaces around them and how they take intentional action in their lives.

Emily:

Room to Transform's core value is to lead with compassion so that we can build more inclusive communities. This season we are doing a special Community Vision Board segment. I am asking each guest to contribute to our Community Vision Board on Pinterest. You can follow along at pinterestcom. Forward slash room to transform life is a big experiment, and so is this show. We embrace imperfections and learn as we go.

Sebastian:

Come on, our future selves are cheering us on so like there's a rim shot, I think it's like Thank you, thank you. I wasn't hearing on my Now I am. Can you talk into yours, so I?

Emily:

can. Yeah, I can hear it now. Ok, I can hear you too. Ok, I can hear you too. Oh, my God, I'm so brain dead right now.

Sebastian:

I know, is this going to work?

Emily:

Yes, hello, this is fresh air.

Sebastian:

Thank you, Terry.

Emily:

It's like my dream. Oh, terry gross. Okay, guys, this is my first time doing like an in-person podcast recording, so I'm also getting that SNL skit of like the NPR ladies.

Sebastian:

Okay.

Emily:

I don't think I've seen that one. Oh my God, it's hilarious.

Sebastian:

I do love a that SNL skit of like the NPR ladies. Okay, I don't think I've seen that one.

Emily:

Oh my god, it's hilarious. I do love a good SNL skit. It's kind of old-ish. It's maybe it's the 90s, but I think it's like early 90s, but they have voices like this.

Sebastian:

I know I gotta get some of those mics they're using. It sounds so velvety. Yeah.

Emily:

Yeah, all right. Okay, where were we? Okay, okay, all right, take five, welcome back. So we have this joke that I was going to tell you guys before, where Sebastian and I tend to have five-hour conversations, and this has literally turned into a. Well, we're at, we're at three and a quarter hour right now.

Sebastian:

How long we've been hanging out before recording this podcast well in attempting to record it as well. Yeah. So new equipment? We'll do that.

Emily:

Yeah, okay, so I'm going to take a minute, because we tried recording this an hour ago and it worked, and then the battery ran out and it didn't work, and then the battery ran out and it didn't work. So I'm in a headspace where I might come to a person like Zen Master Sebastian Risen to clear my mind. So it's kind of appropriate that we had to go through all of that trouble before, and now I'm kind of seeing a reason why one might practice Zen.

Sebastian:

Yeah. So one thing I would do sometimes when you're in that mind state is just tell you to take some slow and deep breaths before you get started. Try to bring all that energy from your head and your brain and bring it down into your chest and move it into your heart. And move it into your heart. You can even imagine that you're breathing with your heart. I call that mind-heart breathing, so it's to align your mind heart and body.

Emily:

That's interesting because I was. I do feel a lot of energy at the top of my head, like right here, like at the what do you call this? The crown? Yep. Yeah, the crown, and that really did help me like bring it, bring it down and like feel it more in my chest and my heart and not be on the verge of a headache, you know.

Sebastian:

Well, yeah, that's one I it's just a little technique I suggest to people that you can use to reset yourself. You know when you're moving from one thing into the next, you know if you're about to go into a meeting that's stressing you out, or you know if you're trying to fall asleep, or you know sometimes I will do that before we do a meditation, just to set the stage for your body to relax and sink into that meditative state.

Emily:

Thank you. That was really helpful and that's why, energetically, this was probably a better time to do a podcast interview. Yeah, somebody was trying to send us a message. The Visionary's Journey is about having an inspiration to do something and actually getting yourself to do that thing. I've got some, a few quick questions and then we can get into, like, more of the meat of what we want to talk about today. Excellent, where are you on the spiritual spectrum?

Sebastian:

Well, I would consider myself a Zen practitioner. I also consider myself a Buddhist, so Zen and Buddhist. I lived in a Zen Buddhist temple for 16 years so I became pretty immersed in that spiritual practice. Yeah, so I guess that would be where I fit. I try to keep an open mind and really focus on commonalities between forms of spirituality, so I don't think I'm super rigid. I believe the Zen practice can fit with any religion. You know, maybe not from the other religions perspective, but from my perspective there is no conflict. Zen is more about a specific practice and less about any types of metaphysical beliefs, and Buddhism, I think, has a little bit more metaphysical aspects. So that's kind of where I might draw a line between those two things. But as far as I'm concerned they complement each other very well.

Emily:

Did it originate in Buddhism?

Sebastian:

It did. But you know, there's a few different branches of Buddhism, I would say, and Zen kind of stripped out a lot of the metaphysical aspects of it and became more about focusing on the practical applications and the practice of. Less about, you know, the stories and the mythology surrounding Buddhism and more about doing what Buddha did, who Buddha was. You know the, the, the original teacher of this type of uh, philosophy.

Emily:

Okay, thanks. Thanks for sharing that. We'll get into Zen, obviously a little bit more later.

Sebastian:

Yeah, and I'll just say, like you know, the way I was taught and the way I also believe is is like I was saying that you can be a Zen Buddhist, a Zen Christian, Zen Jewish, Zen Muslim, Zen Atheist, Zen Agnostic. It really doesn't matter to me, because it's mostly about trying to understand the truth of nature, which is Dharma, and using meditation as a form of finding that.

Emily:

Okay, cool yeah, thanks. We're bleeding into a bigger question, but we're going to stick to lightning round for one second. Sure, besides family and friends, what makes your heart burst with joy?

Sebastian:

I think that's difficult because, you know, by eliminating family and friends, that's definitely one of the primary sources of things that makes my heart burst with joy. I think just making connections with other humans, you know, beyond family and friends, immersing myself in that human experience and sharing experiences with other people is something that I really value and it's one of the places I can quite often find joy. Also, making art and writing. You know, for some other activities maybe less related to family and friends, yeah, off the top of my head I would say those are probably the top things for me.

Emily:

Yeah, that's what I like to go with, like your instinct, because that's usually what you value most.

Sebastian:

yeah, say first I can find a lot of joy just riding a bike down the street too, though you know so all right going for a walk yeah, all right, yeah, good to know, good to know what. I was just asking if the sound is okay.

Emily:

Yeah sorry, I'm so like tired at this point.

Sebastian:

I wasn't close enough to the mic last time.

Emily:

I was looking at it to be like is it recording? Because we're at the 14 minute mark and I'm like, all right, um, the red light is still on. That's good, that's good. I'm not gonna keep checking it, I think I'm just gonna trust that it's recording.

Sebastian:

We can always do it again.

Emily:

We can always do it again. Oh, my God, okay, Zen , master Sebastian Risen. Could you please give me a little outlook of Zen under two minutes? Okay. For people who don't know what Zen is about.

Sebastian:

In Zen we study dharma, which is the truth of nature, um, and so we're trying to understand the truth of nature and the nature of ourselves. So we do that mainly through two main practices. One is koan practice, where koans are questions or statements which are made to cause you to think outside of your normal rational and logical thought processes. They're questions that don't have an easy answer, that may not even have a rational or a logical answer, that cause you to look deeper into yourselves. And then, since these questions don't have an easy answer, how do you find those answers? Where the meditation comes in and clearing your mind, using meditation to clear your mind so that the answers to these bigger questions can come in. So that's basically the practice.

Sebastian:

You know, one of the things that we're trying to understand in that truth of nature, it all comes through the filters of our experience, which comes through our minds. So we're trying to understand the foundation of our being, which is our mind. And that's another reason we meditate is so that we can clear our mind, so that we can understand what it is when there's nothing in it, no thoughts, no desires, and what's left when you clear it out. And that's that's how we would say you, you see your mind okay the mind you could.

Sebastian:

You could say it's, it's like a mirror and the thoughts are like dust on the mirror. So if you want to see what your mind is, first you have to clear out all of the dust and then when, when your mind is clear, it's like a clear mirror and then then you can see it you could see yourself well, if you don't have any thoughts, there is no self, because self is a concept, that's just a thought. So what's left when you get rid of that thought and that concept?

Emily:

Whoa Okay. So have you guys seen I Heart Harkabees? I feel like I might have already asked you that question. I don't think I've seen that one no. Oh, it's such a good movie Anyway, but yeah, they kind of they pull apart your thoughts in a very visual way. That's very interesting. Anyway, I'll link to that movie in the show notes. Okay, thank you for that synopsis. That was really good, and for the analogy. Tell us about your vision, or, like meditation that inspired your artwork.

Sebastian:

So I'm going to tell you about, kind of, how I came to my art and then what I see its purpose is, I guess in that that would be the vision of what it is. So, first of all, all of my art comes through my meditation. So I was never an artist. I was actually, you know, never really good at creating art, in that, like I couldn't clearly communicate things We'll use visual art for an example Like I couldn't clearly communicate the things I was seeing and imagining in a visual way through my drawings or paintings, you know. So that that is the baseline I was working from.

Sebastian:

And then, as I started to meditate and over many years of practice, something shifted, and I don't know, I could not pinpoint when this happened, but after years and years of meditation practice, one day I was sitting with some friends who were making art and I took some of their markers and I started drawing and all of a sudden I was drawing, you know, as close to photorealistically as I had ever been able to.

Sebastian:

But the representations were much closer to what I was imagining, even if they weren't exactly photorealistic. And what I realized is I could draw and it seemed to come out of nowhere. After I kind of reflected on what had been happening and was drawing more. I realized that what had shifted is that I was seeing the world differently. I realized that what had shifted is that I was seeing the world differently. And I directly attribute this to my meditation, in that I was trying to put down all of these thoughts, all of these conceptual boundaries, the lines that we draw around ourselves mentally that say like oh, this is a chair, this is a table, this is Emily, you know, and this is me. And so mentally, through conceptual reasoning, we draw these boundaries around things. And as you meditate in Zen, the practice is to try and let go of all of that. And so what happened is, over years of practice, I stopped seeing those boundaries.

Emily:

So visually boundaries. You mean what?

Sebastian:

Visual boundaries like the.

Sebastian:

You know, if you're going to draw a chair, you might draw the outline of a chair, like the lines that you imagine make up the outline of the chair.

Sebastian:

So that's the way I think I was previously seeing things. But what changed is I didn't see those lines anymore. I would see light and shadows, and so when I started seeing things those ways, I was able to just draw the shadows and then, you know, leave lighter spots on the paper where it's light, and then, all of a sudden, my drawing started to reflect what I was visualizing or what I was seeing, and it was a much better representation of those things. Yeah, so that that would be kind of how I came to art and as far as the visualization of it, I'm using my art now to try to communicate what I've learned about the mind through the visual process, and I'm also a writer, so I use imagery and writing and metaphors and things like that as well. So I it's an interesting loop, because I got my artistic skill through meditating and now I'm using that to communicate what I've learned through my meditation.

Emily:

Do you think there's like a bigger reason why that happened to you, or like I don't know? I don't want to be cheesy and say like were you chosen for this work, but well, um, I think that was my path.

Sebastian:

So I think every person has their own path and no one's is the same. So everyone and that's kind of what I'm trying to also help people understand through zen practices like how do you find your path? Well, if you can clear out your mind, then you can really cut out all of the chatter of what other people are telling you to do and what society is telling you to do, and then you can learn to actually hear your own intuition, which is, you know, I sometimes describe it as the voice of your heart. My teacher was Korean, so the in Korean the word for mind and heart are the same thing, so I sometimes use those interchangeably. So it's like your intuition is the voice of your heart what is the word in Korean?

Sebastian:

shim s-h-i-m is how they. You would write that in english letters shim but uh, yeah, it's, it's a.

Sebastian:

It's based on a chinese character, which I think is shin in chinese um, but yeah, so that that's where it comes from. So, for whatever reason, in in their culture they use the same word, but I think we use it too. But like we'll say, oh, you're like thinking with your heart, or something like that. So it's kind of I think we have a similar saying, but sometimes we differentiate those words. But I use them very interchangeably because I'm not talking about your brain when I say your mind.

Sebastian:

So, there's different words for different reasons, I'll say Because they have different meanings, and I guess what I'm trying to help people understand is how to listen to their intuition, find their own path, and everyone's path is different. I think other people all have something special that they're supposed to bring. The more people do that, the more we're going to really unlock the potential of humanity and what we're capable of as a group.

Emily:

Yes, that's why I was so interested in coming to your art collective.

Sebastian:

So, yeah, you came to the class that was the Zen Artist Collective. Well, it's really more of an artist group that I lead at the Zen Art Center, which is my school, based out of my art studio, where we just learn a little bit about meditation and how to use that in the artistic process, and then we just create together and share our creations. So it's more of a work group than a class, I guess yeah, like I like to call it an art study hall kind of yeah, I like that with a, with a, with a touch of meditation as well.

Emily:

Yeah, my side gig, which is my full-time side gig now. I work with seniors and when everybody's feeling a little on edge, I get everybody to calm down and do intuitive drawings together. You mentioned doing things in a group or manifesting as a group.

Sebastian:

Maybe you're meditating as a group and how we can affect humanity, you know, in a compassionate way I'm I'm kind of interested in what we can all do together yeah, yeah, I agree, and that's one of the reasons I want to have groups and not just be, you know, an artist locked away in my studio creating my own art is. A big part of buddhist practice is having a sangha, which is like your meditation community. One of the big goals with having this, what I call a school, the zen art center, is to have a physical space for a community of people who are all trying to accomplish the same things. We can inspire each other and encourage each other to stay on this path of trying to understand ourselves and nature and sharing techniques and how to do that.

Sebastian:

And I'm basically sharing the techniques that my teacher taught me that were passed down from teacher to teachers all the way back to Buddha. So you know it's just a string of teachers.

Emily:

Cool. So with this podcast and in the work that I do with Room to Transform it's in the name Like I help people go through a life transition, right through a life transition, right. So if they're going from one career to the next or they have like an urge to do something new with their art and want to shift their space, how do you reorganize your space to be like a walk-in vision board? I help people go through this transition. But sometimes you need a little nudge to like get on the path that you want to get on, because maybe your old path is just really comfortable and you know it, but like jumping into the unknown is is strange and you might not necessarily want to go there.

Emily:

So I love the in between point where, like what's the tipping point? I think it's like a Malcolm Gladwell book. I just love to think about like I'm making bracket signs with my fingers, like that little bracket in between the transition, Like what's that sweet spot? And I love how you describe when you started observing, when you were with your friends and you just started observing some things differently.

Sebastian:

Yep.

Emily:

That's a great little moment and, like, of course, being a photographer, I'm like I want to capture that moment.

Sebastian:

Yeah, I would say that that transition to the way I was observing things or seeing things had been happening for years. I just kind of recognized it when I started drawing and I didn't even realize that it happened until I drew something. And that's actually one of the reasons I really like art is because it can provide reflections of your mind. You can take what's in your mind which is not a physical thing and bring it out into reality, and then that gives you a little reflection of your mind, which is one of the ways you know that creative process. By creating, we can learn something about what's inside of our minds.

Emily:

Yeah, and so I guess that's what manifesting is. I guess, yeah, you know it's just like putting something from your brain into the world. Yeah, I guess it's a different creative process from your brain into the world.

Sebastian:

Yeah, I guess it's a different creative process, if you want to put it that way.

Emily:

And being around friends like helps that process. Or not even friends, just like people doing different things than you maybe.

Sebastian:

Yep, or if I didn't drop in on that group because I wasn't really a part of it, but if I wasn't friends with people in that group, I might not have sat down and picked up, you know, a marker to start drawing. That was not something I was like necessarily looking for, but it kind of fell into my lap via my friends and so that's what I would like to just kind of expose people to those types of opportunities. You know, if they come in for meditation, they can maybe join one of my creative groups I also have a writing group or if they are artists or writers, they can join those groups and learn a little bit about meditation and learn. You know, some of the things I think artists do struggle with sometimes is sources of inspiration and consistency, and so having a group practicing meditation can be a source of your inspiration. So, like you hear a lot about people having writer's block. So what do you do when you get writer's block? If you think about it too much, it usually doesn't help. But if you try not thinking and clearing your mind, that's a different pathway to kind of break free those creative juices. Also, it's really hard to be creative if you are stressed out or anxious or depressed, and I think having the tool of meditation can help you alleviate some of that and make it more possible for you to return to the creative process.

Sebastian:

I think there's a natural synergy between meditation, art, and when I use art, I use the term very loosely to mean anything that you're putting your heart into, which I realize is probably not a traditional definition. But when I say art, that's what I mean. My original art was martial arts, which is not typically thought of as an art, but it's a physical art, much like dance. So I have a very loose definition of that. I welcome all types of artists, but it's more about engaging in any creative activity, and then those creative activities as well can become a form of meditation.

Sebastian:

So if you're writing and you reach a flow state, or if you're drawing and you are focused on your drawing, your mind is not wandering off and thinking, it's focused on what you're doing and in that way, what you're doing can become a meditation.

Sebastian:

And that's one of the other things I'm trying to help people out through these groups and classes is that you don't have to sit down and just sit still and meditate to clear your mind. You can actually use anything you're doing to clear your mind. It could even be like doing your dishes or cleaning your room, something like that and I think using an artistic practice can help you make those connections. So it's easier, for instance, to if you're passionate or curious about art, it's probably easier to sit down and draw than it is to be disciplined and clean your room. If you're interested in something, it makes it easier to engage in that activity versus like trying to focus on something you don't necessarily want to be doing. But I think eventually you can learn to turn that focus to everything you're doing. But I just think art is a great gateway to that place.

Emily:

What prompted you to A turn to Zen and B? Start a community space of your own.

Sebastian:

Okay, yeah, and those things happened quite far apart chronologically in my life. There's probably a lot of ways I could go with that question, but I would say generally, in a previous part of my life I was working as an engineer with a pretty normal American lifestyle, not thinking much about spirituality, you know. It was just very much going to work, doing my job, and it was a good job and it paid well, but and it was, honestly, was the best job I had ever had in my life up to that point. So I don't want to diminish it at all, but for some reason I didn't feel fulfilled. And so I think, prior to that going, you know, mostly through mathematics and science in my education, I had some exposure to other things. I saw the world through that lens, but I also, as I worked for a few years in that job, I just felt like I wasn't, something was missing. I also kind of felt like I wanted to understand like my purpose better and it just didn't feel like going to this job every day was my purpose, right. So I wanted to understand that, but the only tools I had were what I learned in school and it was like so I, like I was saying math and science. I didn't have like a philosophical background or I didn't get too deep into the humanities in college or anything like that. So I didn't really have the tools to explore, like, what is my purpose. But I was still very curious about that and like I had read about meditation in books but I had a very hard time sitting down and meditating and something in that resonated with me when I read about it. But then when I would go to try to do it, it was very difficult for me, couldn't keep myself going with it.

Sebastian:

So I ended up training martial arts at a Zen temple. I had been directed there by a friend who knew I was like interested in talking about Eastern philosophy and that I had practiced martial arts before. So he was like this place has both of these things. It's right down the street from us, you should go check it out. And so I started practicing and it really seemed to fill in all the void of what I was missing, like I started to be joining the group, being part of this group that was into meditation and doing the martial art.

Sebastian:

Even the way it was taught there was as a form of moving meditation, so I had never been exposed to a moving meditation. I actually thought it always had to be done sitting down, so that was a revelation for me. That's probably what attracted me specifically to that school and something inside me clicked when I started doing it. My teacher would teach about the mind and what is is it the foundation of who we are, and also was introducing me to meditation practices through the martial arts and then also sitting meditation. That was part of the classes as well.

Sebastian:

So all of a sudden I was starting to see a path to understanding myself better and understanding like what my purpose is, and it really just resonated with me. And so that is what led me to zen, I would say I I had read about it in books, but this was kind of the catalyst, and so I ended up moving into that temple and living there because I thought it would just help me align all of these things I was trying to do, and it really it really did. And I ended up living there for 16 years and then, fast forward 16 years, my teacher passed away. At this point I had already kind of found the artistic practice within myself. So I was considering and I had written a manuscript of a book about Zen and my experiences at the temple and also a lot of these ideas that we've been discussing today, and so I was kind of visualizing how I can bridge all of the things that my teacher taught me and all of the discoveries I had made through my own practice and how I could forge my own path through all of this.

Sebastian:

And then when my teacher passed away, I had been visualizing this, but that was kind of the catalyst to me starting my own school where I teach all of these things that we've been discussing, and my first thought was I have a feeling like this will resonate with other people and I'd like to create a space where a community can form around these ideas and create some real momentum and also like using art and writing and different art forms to reach other people as a form of communication.

Sebastian:

You know, talking about philosophical ideas and spirituality is one way to reach people, but I feel like the thing that really changed me and got me on the path was reading a book. And then other things that had reached me and had big impacts on my life were certain films I had seen and books I had read and music I listened to, and so I made a connection, that art is one of the things that can really change people and it's one of the ways you can communicate to people that kind of brings them out of their normal way of viewing the world and gives them a different way to see things. So I realized it was a very effective way to communicate in that if I could establish a community that's creative, that we could really reach a broader audience and make a bigger community. Like I said, my vision and my belief is that if everyone in the world finds their path, that most of the problems we have as society are going to solve themselves.

Emily:

Hopefully a peaceful path yeah.

Sebastian:

But it's like we have, you know, so many problems. You know, if we want to find, like a, a cure for cancer or something like that, like whatever we're doing now isn't working, so we have to be more creative. Someone out there now might have that answer inside of them, and it just needs to be. Their path has to be revealed to them, and it might not be someone who goes through a traditional medical school, because that's only one place. You know, true innovation has to be be unique, so it has to come from somewhere else.

Sebastian:

And this is near and dear to my heart, because my teacher had cancer, so you know, and there was there was nothing I could do to help him and nothing I could draw would help them. But like it made me want and wish that someone was out there who could deliver on these things, and I know that might sound a little far-fetched.

Emily:

I don't think so. Okay. Because there are like kids coming up with solutions for things and they're not in medical school, they're, you know, in a robotics class or something you know.

Emily:

Yeah, but even like I used to go to the gym and I always tell people and I said this in another podcast in season one where we talked about like problem solving One way that I've found problem solving to work for me is working on two things at the same time. So I'll have two paintings going, I'll let one dry for a little while and then I'll be working in purple on another one and say, oh, this is actually working on this one. I wonder if it would work on the first one. Or I went to the gym and people would donate magazines and so we got everything from like hunting magazine to aerobics magazine, to like men's health, to women's health, to a swimming magazine or plants, and I remember reading something about duck hunting and it helped me solve a problem in photography. Like a great kind of think tank would be get somebody from all different walks of life to solve a problem, you know and let people speak their mind.

Sebastian:

Yeah, think sometimes, uh, we get shoehorned into positions in life or jobs that maybe don't fit us because that's what's available and or that's what everybody's telling you to do and so that's why I think clearing your mind and hearing your own voice, your intuition, can really help us break through that, and I really believe we're not really tapping in to all of the mind power we have available to us.

Emily:

Oh my god, I think that institutionalized, like religion, was meant, so that we don't do that.

Sebastian:

Yeah, I think sometimes institutions in general, they start to result in things that perpetuate the institution but don't necessarily always have the best interests in the people in the institutions in mind, or even the people they're supposed to be serving. So I think that's a, it's something you got to be aware of, is like kind of constantly re-evaluating, like what's, what's the purpose of this?

Emily:

yeah, so organization like like, why do I go to church? Like I used to go to church? Somebody just told me about um, the Greek Orthodox Church, and she was like we went to socialize, to like see other people also, to like pray and everything, because praying is very important. But there's another element to it and I maybe what you're saying is like focus on what's important to you and reevaluate every Sunday.

Sebastian:

So, and in a certain way I can't bash organizations, because groups of people can accomplish great things together. Right.

Sebastian:

So and I'm just trying to. You know there's pitfalls with everything. There's pluses and minuses, and I can't. I certainly can't. You know, some people think of Buddhism as a religion, right. So in a certain way I'm part of that and I was brought up Catholic, so so I have that too.

Sebastian:

I think the important thing, you know, with the, the organization or group or community that I'm trying to form, is I really want compassion to be at the foundation of it. And when I say that I mean helping other people and in the Buddhist terms they would say to alleviate their suffering, so helping other people to suffer less, so helping other people to suffer less. And I think that is what the heart of Buddhism is and the heart of what the organization I'm creating here that's really the purpose of all these communications is. When you find your path and you understand yourself and you understand the broader ramifications of being part of nature and the world and the universe, then you create an alignment within yourself and all of those things and you suffer less. So that's really the purpose. That's why I don't really think of what I'm doing as a business. I think of it as a service that is just trying to help people in the way I know how.

Sebastian:

You know there's so many ways you can help people, but this was the path that I found when I cleared out my mind. Like I said, everybody has their own and you're the really the only one who can tell yourself what that is. Through my experience, the best way to find that is through understanding yourself and clearing your mind and then then you can really hear that voice of your intuition. Because I think a lot of people come to me and they say, like I've spent my whole life doing this and I'm not really, like, happy doing this, and I can't give you the answers to why that is, but I think you can find them in yourself, and I had the same issues. These are the techniques I used. Try these out. At worst you'll end up with a better focus and a clearer mind and you can make better decisions, even if it doesn't get you all the way there, but I really do believe if you stick with it, it will. It will bring you much closer to the place you're seeking to be okay.

Emily:

Yes, I was about to ask what is mind clutter mind clutter.

Sebastian:

How does?

Emily:

how does zen practice address it? Like if you, you talk about the empty mind a lot and how it's different than the open mind and artists tend to have an open mind, but like what's an empty mind?

Sebastian:

well, I'll take it one step further. What is the mind?

Sebastian:

empty oh, that's a. That's a great answer, I think, uh, but that that's just a. That's just a word, and it's actually a word that's really hard to define. What empty is right? So the mind is empty, but it's different than this room being empty, because you can put things in this room and fill it up. If you put enough furniture in here and junk, you can fill it up to the ceiling. So that's one way we can conceptualize emptiness. But your mind, you can put this room in it, you can put me in it, you can put a mountain in it, you can put a city in it, you can put your friends, your family, your parents. It's still empty, it nothing has changed, like there's no. It hasn't gotten bigger or smaller, the volume hasn't changed, it doesn't weigh anymore. So it's a different kind of emptiness. There's nothing else like that. So what is that though? Like that is so.

Sebastian:

This is a koan that I give to all of my students what is your mind and how can you understand that? Your mind can be cluttered, though, right? So, like you were saying, you were asking about cluttering your mind. So when you let things roll around in your head and thoughts and different things happen, they get stuck in your mind. You can't stop thinking about them. And I'll give you this analogy. It's one my teacher had used.

Sebastian:

But when you go around and you go to work and you come home after the day, your body is dirty. It gets dirt on it. You may not even see it, but there's dirt on your body. What do you do? You take a shower. Then your body's clean All day long. Your mind gets dirty, it gets cluttered. So how do you clear your mind? You meditate, so it's like taking a shower, but for your mind it clears everything out. You don't take a shower all day, but you do have. You know, most people shower regularly. So I don't want to generalize too much, but yeah, but that's how you keep your body clear.

Sebastian:

And then, if you want to keep your mind clear, you have to learn how to have a routine of clearing your mind. And that's one of the things I'm trying to impart to people is putting meditation into your daily routine. Do you have to sit and meditate? I mean, that could be. I think that's a great, great way to practice.

Sebastian:

But I also think, if you are focusing on your actions in a very focused way, um, not letting any thinking come between your mind and what you're doing. So if you're doing something and your mind is wandering, that's not meditation, but if you're completely focused on what you're doing, that is a form of meditation. A lot of, I think, describe that as like a flow state where things just seem to all fall into place as you're moving through doing some kind of activity. I've felt it prior to doing any meditation. I felt that doing different sports I was engaged in and I felt it doing art and I felt it in even academic endeavors like writing or doing math. You can reach that state doing those things. That would be how I explain meditation and how you can use that to clear out your mind and help remove some of that clutter.

Emily:

I want to describe to everybody what your space looks like. So we're sitting in. How big is this? Do you know?

Sebastian:

I think it's uh, around 900 square feet, something like that okay, sometimes that's hard for people to gauge, but anyway it's like a.

Sebastian:

You asked I only know, because I think it was on the lease. Yeah, oh it's on the lease um so I would say it's the size of like a if you can imagine a a one-bedroom apartment with a kitchen and a living room. Okay, and then you took out all the walls androom apartment with a kitchen and a living room. Okay, and then you took out all the walls and you took out the kitchen and the bathroom and it was just open space.

Speaker 3:

Yes, yes, yes An open space. That's a good way to visualize it.

Sebastian:

It's not a square room, but I think that's size-wise and it has high ceilings. That's one of the things I like, so there's a lot of volume in here.

Emily:

It's like a long T like with a long hat and a short standing leg.

Emily:

Yeah, okay, okay, anyway. So, um, oh, so I should be talking to the microphone. I'm going to take it over here. Oops, am I Okay? So you walk in through the door and in the first part of the space it's there's like a invisible delineation between where Sebastian keeps his desk and where he keeps his art and where he holds his classes. So in the first part of the room I would say they're like shelves of things that he uses to teach himself things, and I'm seeing like mugs and artwork that he's done and balls, and like a mat and a desk, and that part of the room I kind of equate to outside things, a transition from being out in the hallway of Joy Street Studios to like coming into Sebastian's space. And then there's this doorway that you walk through, but it's very wide, it's like probably 10 feet wide, yeah, and then you enter this space that feels more like an art gallery, slash altar yeah yeah, I have a buddhist there and this is the space where I hold the classes.

Sebastian:

I also have padding on the floor for training martial arts here as well. Yeah, so I, if I can interject, I don't want to take away from your description. It's interesting, interesting. But yeah, I have divided it kind of into my workspace and my group space where we practice together. So I hold the meditation classes and the art groups and the writing groups here and um, and yeah, this is uh like my little uh space.

Emily:

You know where the there's a buddhist altar, so, um, you know, that's more for, like, some of the buddhist rituals I I do, um, such as like bowing and chanting and things like that my observation of sebastian space is you've got like outside of the mind and then, because he keeps talking about the mind being empty, there's this big open space that he keeps that has mostly just art in it, and then what I like to call negative space for doing the thing that you do. That negative space has a purpose. This part of his space is the empty mind.

Sebastian:

I like that metaphor. I think I do keep it empty more for practical reasons than metaphorical, because I use it as a space to teach and I need it to be flexible. So I have tables that I can set up for the various classes, or I can put meditation mats down for the meditation classes. So there's a very practical reason.

Sebastian:

It's like this, um but focused yeah, I think having space like you described as negative space, or, you know, like having things neat and not cluttered or organized, that creates space when things are organized, and then I think that that space or emptiness, it creates an energy of potential.

Emily:

Wait, wait, wait, wait. I have to do something, have to do something.

Sebastian:

we're using this new device that has, like mixer sounds already programmed into it that's a very simple soundboard.

Emily:

Yeah, yeah, what did you even say?

Sebastian:

I got so lost, uh, I said that the emptiness creates an energy of potential yeah, yeah, like emptiness, like a like, a like a vacuum sucks things into it, right. So it kind of like that empty, like having an emptiness of a vacuum or a void brings things into it oh, okay, that yeah.

Emily:

I'm glad we had this conversation um because, yeah, like we talk about in manif. We talk about, like, saying a clear no to something that you don't want to do, so that it creates space for something that you do want to do. So energetic space.

Sebastian:

Yeah, I'm going to piggyback off of this a little bit because it relates to what I teach a little. Going to piggyback off of this a little bit because it relates to what I teach a little. So, one of the things with with like koans, which are these questions or comments that are asking you to look deeper into finding the truth within yourself those are like seeds that you plant. It's like if you're farming in a field, you have to, you have to plow the field first for anything before anything can grow, and so that meditation is like plowing the field. It creates the, the space for these things to grow.

Sebastian:

That's what zen, in a more metaphorical sense, is.

Sebastian:

It's, it's this idea of just planting seeds and creating space for them to grow, and they can be little seeds, like smaller things in your life you want to manifest, or they can be what I think is like the biggest seed you can plant is what is your mind, and so I think all of those things can be part of your Zen practice.

Sebastian:

But also, you know, like the little seeds will grow quicker, but the bigger seeds sometimes take a longer time for them to grow and blossom and produce that fruit, and I think you can apply that to like a lot of different art forms as well. You know, so you have an idea and then you put a splash of ink on the paper and then you grow it out of that blank page. So I think this is a metaphor you can kind of extend through, and metaphors are also providing us a reflection of our mind. So these are one of the ways we can learn more about our mind and how they work. I think everything is creating, maybe just giving you a glimpse of one angle of it, but it's all part of it.

Emily:

Yeah, I'm going to share something that I've found in helping people with dementia do art, and people who have been able to do art in the past and now they're losing the ability to do it, so they tend to be very self-critical. I've told them the best way to never make a mistake in art and they're like what, what, what is it? What is it, you know? And I say to look at it as an experiment, to just play.

Sebastian:

Yeah, I think that's a good lesson to take to heart, because I think some people get stuck before they get started Because they want it to be a certain way and they get very attached to the results rather than the process, and I think the process is actually more important. If you go through that process enough, eventually you're going to create something that you're pleased with, yeah, but if you're engaging that process a lot, you're inevitably going to create stuff that you're not pleased with. If you're, if you're doing it every day and this was like with my something I experienced with my martial arts practice every day wasn't a great day. Some days you don't feel good, some days your body hurts, some days you're injured Things happen.

Sebastian:

I always made a point to practice that every day and practice through things, even if I was taking it easy and going soft. I wasn't trying to prolong injuries and things like that, but I always tried to do a little bit every day and over time I improved at doing that. The process became way more important to me than you know, doing a technique that impressed someone. You know, it was ultimately for me Like it was, because it made me feel healthier and it made me feel like I had a more clear mind, and those things really gave me more value than anybody's reaction to anything I was. I would do, you know, and sometimes, when I would do, like a performance of some sort, but then eventually the performances I had to do became much more consistent too. It does work to move the needle in the direction of of what you're trying to do with your art and give a more like true representation of what you're visualizing in your mind yeah, right.

Emily:

so improving, trying to get as close as possible to yeah, what you're trying to accomplish is good, but don't beat yourself up about it so much, to the point where you get stuck before trying the consistency is the most important thing.

Sebastian:

It's not. Some days when you're meditating it's hard to clear your mind. It feels like it's not working, you know it feels like you sat for 10 minutes and your mind never quieted down so, but it's like anything you're practicing Like. Some days it's easier than others and if you have a routine then over time it gets better and better and you get better at clearing your mind.

Sebastian:

But it's not a straight line, you know it's up and down up and down, but usually that you know, if you stick with it, the trend is usually going up. It's a little different with, you know, perhaps like a physical exercise, like martial arts. With you know, perhaps like a physical exercise, like martial arts, you can have physical decline which doesn't necessarily reverse itself. There's still a value in that practice For yourself, For yourself and for your health and, honestly, that is the number one thing. Aside from, you know all of the philosophical things I've been talking about, the number one thing that my teacher imparted to me was the importance of consistency and not, you know, like not trying to do it all in one day, not trying to, you know, over time, build a practice and then build it. And then, you know, keep trying to move things in that direction that you're trying to go.

Sebastian:

Yeah, which is why I keep this podcast going, even though I've been very inconsistent with this podcast, but I'm making up my own way to be consistent with it is to do it when I feel like doing it, or do it when I meet somebody who inspires me to have another interview, you know yeah, and, like I said, doing a little is better than not doing anything, um, but you know, like, with my practice and the things I was doing at the temple, the key for me, I think, to getting getting to a point where it was really transformative for me was my teacher set this example he would train every single day. So he would do martial arts and meditation training every single day, and then, I started to just copy what he was doing.

Sebastian:

When I would go away and leave the temple, he would say okay, when you're away, I still want you to bow and chant every single day. At first I was like why do I have to do that? But then I just did it and all of these things doing them every single day transformed me. And it created this like ritual or routine that I was engaging in every day. That was helping me clear my mind and was helping me stay healthy, and I made it 16 years, every single day.

Emily:

How long do you do it every day?

Sebastian:

I go for an hour. There were days where I've been sick, like really sick. There's literally been like two of those and I would just do like a half hour, but generally it's about an hour. Some days it's a lot longer. I would just do like a half hour, but generally it's about an hour. Some days it's a lot longer than that, but at least an hour.

Sebastian:

That's kind of my baseline I try to maintain. There's been in almost like 20 years. I've missed four days because I was had something happen a medical issue where I was in the hospital for four days and as soon as I got out I started training the next day.

Emily:

Wow, that's dedication. Yeah, and that would make what makes a good teacher or Zen master right.

Sebastian:

Yeah, that's. I think it was just as important as any lesson he told me. And really having that form of commitment Like most people will brush their teeth every day right? Like most people are okay making that kind of commitment why not? Why not commit to meditating one teeth every day? Right? Like most people are okay making that kind of commitment, why not? Why not commit to meditating one minute every day?

Sebastian:

Mental hygiene, yeah yeah. Why don't we start treating our mental health the same way we treat our dental health? Right? So, in a certain way, like your mind is probably the most important tool you have. So why can't we commit a minute to that every day? That's one of the things I try and teach and I don't think you have. So why can't we commit a minute to that every day? That's one of the things, um, I try and teach it. I don't think you have to do an hour every day, but I think a minute is a good place to start and then you don't overwhelm yourself, and if you do that every day, that's 365 minutes a year hey, yeah that's good.

Sebastian:

and if you start to double that two minutes after you get, after you do it for a few days, you know exponentially starts to add up. So that's how I teach. You know it's just baby steps, I like to call it. Yeah, yeah. Take little baby steps in the direction you want to go, and then keep moving in that direction, and then keep moving in that direction.

Emily:

Sounds good. We have a community vision board on Pinterest this year, so we are putting up visuals of what we want to achieve, or like quotes or anything like that. Do you have anything where, like, you want to make an impact?

Sebastian:

I'm not even sure what Pinterest is, but Wow, oh my god, pinterest is so fun seen what it is. I've seen like the icon for it, but I actually have no idea what it is.

Emily:

I've never used it it's like an internet bulletin board okay, um like, you cut out things from different websites and you put it on your pin board yeah, so do you have anything in your mind that you wanted to achieve this year that, like we can help you manifest?

Sebastian:

yeah, um, I'd say like one of one of my primary goals in life is to try and get my book published oh, oh, yeah, so tell us about your book.

Sebastian:

So yeah, I have it's in a manuscript form right now and it's been pretty well edited. I think I'm ready to put it out into the public. It's called Into the Mind, the Handbook of a Zen Master. It's a bit of a narrative about my life. I would say it covers about the first 13 years of my life at the temple and kind of what led up to me moving into the temple, things like that. And then the narrative is pretty brief in there and then it has some narrative about Zen and Buddhism, but a lot of it is lessons told in verse or poetry about the different lessons I learned in Zen and Buddhism. So it's a kind of flips between narratives and then like related lessons which are told in poetry, and it's meant to be a handbook for a Zen master or someone who wants to become a Zen master. It is my personal handbook, but I think the I think the reason I've made it into a book is because I think it could be a guide for other people as well.

Emily:

And okay, right, because in earlier conversation we talked about how there's not like a, like a Bible for Zen.

Sebastian:

There isn't a Bible and I I actually um. Zen is an oral tradition which is generally taught from teacher to student, so there's a lineage of teachers and students and you know that's how the lessons are passed on. So there is no authoritative scripture on Zen, and my book is not meant to be that at all. Okay, so I just want to be that at all.

Sebastian:

Okay. So I just want to be clear and I say that in the book it's meant as a guide, you know, and probably more as a way to introduce the ideas and inspire people to start on their path. You know, because it's telling my story and the steps along the way and the lessons that were, you know, important to me. But you can't learn zen from reading a book. You can learn the process, but the heart of what it's trying to teach you you have to experience through questioning, through koans and meditation. So that's why it's always taught from teacher to student.

Sebastian:

The teacher is supposed to help you stay on the path, on the path of this internal journey that you're supposed to be going under. You know, and I called it into the mind in my book so that that is the journey. It's kind of the journey into your mind and trying to find out what that is. You can have a guide which kind of points you in that direction, but you really have to be the one to take the steps. No one can go in there with you saying there's tons of Zen poets and books on Zen and books on koans and things like that and different books about the philosophy and conversations between teachers and students. So there are records like that that exist which can be helpful, but also I think it's important not to think that those will bring you to where you need to be.

Sebastian:

They're just examples yeah, so, like my teacher's teacher wrote a book called the Compass of Zen, a great Zen master, sung San, and it's a long book and there's a lot of stories. It traces the whole history of Buddhismdhism and zen and the types of buddhism and it's kind of intertwined with different stories and and stories about ancient zen masters, things like that. In the last chapter he said this book is just words. You need to put all those words down and meditate to find the answers to be able to understand at all what this book is about.

Emily:

So um, oh, that's funny because I'm thinking in my head like I never liked to read when I was little. I'd rather just do something, but maybe the combination of the two. You need a little bit, well, I think.

Sebastian:

Uh, zen is probably one of the few religions I don't. I don't I actually don't really like to call it a religion. I don't think it is a religion, but it's one of the few things you can learn where you don't have to read anything if you don't want to.

Sebastian:

Because it's generally an oral tradition. Okay, you'll probably need some guidance along the way you could, or even just inspiration, because, like any endeavor, there's days that are harder than others and some days you just want to quit because you don't see progress. And I think that's really the function of a teacher is to try and keep you moving and staying on that path and prompting you to get back on it, and encouraging you and inspiring you, and so that's that's kind of what I see. My role is right now as a teacher is just to help other people find the path and stay on the path. And when I say the path it's, it's your own path, it's not the path I'm proposing. I'm just I have some tools that you can use to help you get there, like I can give you, uh, some rope to climb the mountain, but I can't climb it for you. Yeah.

Sebastian:

And uh, and the path that I took up is is no longer there, so you have to find your own. Ha ha.

Emily:

But you do have like YouTube meditations, Right.

Sebastian:

Yeah.

Emily:

How can people find you there?

Sebastian:

I'm on YouTube At Zen Art Center is my handle. All of my social media is at Zen Art Center.

Emily:

Is it art singular, not arts.

Sebastian:

Yeah, art singular At Zen Art Center, not arts. Yeah, okay, art singular at zen art center. Okay, um, my web page is zen-artcentercom. All that stuff is there, so you can find links to all my stuff at either of those locations. I think it's all linked on my youtube page too, um, so if you're looking for any information, I have some basic meditation techniques. I really only teach very basic meditation techniques and then a lot of what we call Dharma talks, which are lessons about Zen and Buddhism and Dharma. Dharma is another. I said natural truth, but it's also the teachings themselves. I said natural truth, but it's also the teachings themselves. You can find some things there, and it's mostly the talks are mostly meant to inspire you on your own journey into your own mind and trying to understand yourself and the nature of yourself and how you fit into this world and this universe.

Emily:

Love, love these conversations. I also want to little tiny side note. I usually talk about how we met on this podcast okay and it's very interesting because I didn't know the name of your book. The name of my painting is into the blue.

Emily:

All right yeah, so we met at Somerville Open Studios, had a show called First Look, and it was a collection of all the Open Studios artists, paintings or artworks that they'd made that are part of their. What do you call it? Not collection, but I'm like ensemble, no, right, and there's a word for it portfolio, portfolio oh, there's like a fancy. There's a French word for it. Anyway, I'll find it later. Um and Sebastian had a painting. Oh, it was like the wheel that's over there right.

Sebastian:

Oh yeah.

Emily:

One of those.

Sebastian:

Yeah, I do a lot of these with markers, so a lot of people think they're paintings, but they're drawings with alcohol-based ink.

Emily:

Oh they blend.

Sebastian:

They blend, though, and most people don't understand like I've never seen markers that can do that. So it's a little um. So a lot of people think sometimes they're painted, but it's kind of um, very similar. A lot of like comic book artists use those types of markers, but I, I, so that's the medium, I guess, and so my drawing is called Manja, which is the wheel of life, or Manja, that's the Korean word for the wheel of life, which is a Buddhist concept.

Emily:

Concept which? What is the wheel?

Sebastian:

of life. Does it relate to chakras? Chakras well, yeah, this is. You know, I'm going to uh have to delve into a area that's, you know, a little touchy and sensitive for a lot of people, including buddhists. But the wheel of life was originally represented as a swastika and, oh, the nazis used that, but it had been existing in these asian buddhist cultures. Uh, it's actually a sanskrit word. I don't know that swastika is the german version of it, but so that's how it's usually represented. But if you go to like a, if you go to a korean buddhist temple, they have those on their flags everywhere and a lot of.

Sebastian:

You'll see a lot of statues of buddha have that symbol on them. My drawing looks you would never guess that from looking at it. Obviously I don't really like to use that symbol, just because I don't want to cause confusion, right, yeah, but in a certain way this is my kind of way of reclaiming that meaning.

Emily:

Okay yeah, so yours looks kind of like a nautilus.

Sebastian:

Yeah, it's kind of like almost like a red and blue yin and yang something like that, but it's not.

Sebastian:

The wheel of life, though, is just like the cycle of life, okay, and I guess I can only really give you my interpretation of it as I've represented in my drawing. So what you see is kind of like a blue and a red, almost like a blue wave that's curling over in this drawing, and it's curled up with a symmetrical red wave and it goes from dark red to light red, to white, and then the blue goes from dark blue to light blue, so these are in a circle, and then on the outside of the circle there is a purplish or aura around that and then there's a dark line forming the circle. The circle is actually also a spiral, so it's spiraling towards the middle of the page and the red and the blue are wrapped, wrapping around this spiral and kind of following the same shape. The wheel of life could be thought of as the the cycle of birth, life and death.

Sebastian:

Okay, and in buddhism that they say it's a cycle, it's also related to the karmic cycle, because you keep going through a cycle of birth, life and death, and they believe in reincarnation. So that that's part of something that's in buddhism. It's not always necessarily taught in zen, but it's part of buddhism and I am a buddhist, so I I believe all of this, and they're very rational reasons that I believe all of this, which I could get into, but that might be a whole other podcast.

Emily:

We're going to do a five-hour podcast? No, we're not, because we have deadlines.

Sebastian:

Yeah, but basically the circle that's encapsulating the blue and the red is supposed to represent the elemental aspects of life, like the fire and water and the elements that you're exposed to in your life when you're living, and then the spiral, the circle that is around the outside. That's the circle that encapsulates your life. So while you're in that circle is when you're alive okay and then that line it goes around the outside of the perimeter of the circle, and so each life makes a circle Birth life, death, birth life, death.

Emily:

Oh, like the rings of a tree.

Sebastian:

Yeah, but the spiral starts outside of the circle, makes the circle and then keeps spiraling inwards to a point where you can't see where the spiral ends and at some, and in the very inside circle, it becomes dark purple like a black hole like a black hole. It goes from dark purple to black and what is the end?

Sebastian:

so that's it right, so you can see the, the red and the blue and the color that comes with life. Outside of the circle, towards the perimeter of the page or the paper, there's also color, but you can't see really where that's coming from. So where did you come from before you were born? And then when you go through the circle in the middle, that's death. Where do you go after you die?

Emily:

but there's a line that keeps going and you just can't see where it goes so like we are the cosmos because I heard that the the sun is moving, so we're actually going in a corkscrew, like the earth is going in a corkscrew around the sun, because the sun is actually moving- yeah, I, I went in a different direction yeah, well, and I could very easily follow you in that direction, but we're gonna end soon, so um, yeah, with the.

Sebastian:

The point is, like, what I'm trying to represent with that is that we understand the life and the colors and the emotions that come with life, but I think I was born with a sense that I came from someplace. I don't know if you feel that way, I can't speak for everyone, but I had that and that's what I'm trying to convey with that drawing. Like there was something before you came through that birth canal. Like yeah, like where did, where were you before that?

Emily:

right, yeah.

Sebastian:

I think that's uh, or did you just appear out of nowhere? Some people, I think, might believe that, but right, but there's no proof either way, honestly. So that's another koan. Where were you before you were born, right? Where did you come from?

Emily:

which is like a question.

Sebastian:

I've always asked and science doesn't have that answer, right. So where do you find that answer?

Emily:

And also it doesn't have the answer of what is your mind.

Sebastian:

Absolutely. Some people will argue that, but I think it's a very much more clear thing to say to someone well, you don't know where you came from. Before you were born Did you come out of nothing?

Emily:

You can say that you came out of nothing, but there's zero scientific proof that proves that oh my god, what if wait a minute, what if we were literally just a thought, like our parents were, like not everybody had the preconceived notion, they just had the action and then the baby came. But maybe we're, we're just little thoughts.

Sebastian:

Perhaps the other thing is we don't know where we go when you die. Is it just all over? Is it nothingness? I don't believe that. I don't either, but that's what my art is trying to convey.

Emily:

Yeah right, it's asking a question.

Sebastian:

There's something before and there's something after. You can't perceive it and I can't prove this to you either. So I mean, I'm just telling you. I would say it's a belief. But to be honest, for me it was an experience, this cycle of life.

Emily:

So you like have a feeling that you were somewhere. I had a feeling when you were little. Yes, before I could really understand this and I was always like one of the first. This is going to be another podcast episode, One of the first questions.

Sebastian:

I asked my mother I didn't think of it as religious, but I was like, where do you go after you die? And she said, well, she gave me a very like oh, you go to heaven, or something like that. You know, like a very superficial answer that I don't even remember. Parents say to kids yeah, it was kind of like, I don't think, in my mom's defense I don't think she knew how to answer it. Yeah, to a little kid like.

Emily:

What do you say?

Sebastian:

Or even, like I think, most people don't have an answer to that question unless they really have a lot of faith in whatever their religious beliefs are. Yeah. But I think, even if you're giving an answer, it's based on faith generally.

Emily:

Yeah, definitely, because we don't have the answers, because we don't have proof, right?

Sebastian:

But what I would say to you, that the idea of life and death are words and they're concepts and they're ideas that we made up in our mind. We artificially drew a line at where we said life is and we artificially draw a line at where we say death is. We don't really know that. That is a line, just like the line around objects, like we were talking about. It's a conceptual line, but that line does not exist. And when you meditate and you put down everything you put down all of the words and all of the concepts those lines disappear too and you experience a realm that transcends life and death. And that's when I said it was an experience for me. That's what I meant.

Sebastian:

Okay, yeah, I'm nodding my head because I've had that experience too in meditation so yeah, I mean, if you haven't experienced this, there's no reason for you to believe me and I I grant you that, but this is something I experienced through meditation and it's one of the things that informed specifically that piece of art.

Emily:

That's really cool.

Sebastian:

But you know, it's actually like a pretty simple art piece.

Emily:

Yeah, I would have never gone there with it.

Sebastian:

I don't think you look at it and think all these things, but that was really like the inspiration for it, the inspiration. So, yeah, I got into the life and death. I wasn't thinking this conversation was going to go there. Oh God, I go there first.

Emily:

I always am like what's death? Oh my gosh. I love this stuff, which is why I hang out with people who are about to cross to the other side.

Sebastian:

Just to bring it to a lighter note when does your mind go when you're dreaming or when you're sleeping?

Emily:

Oh my God, I've been having the craziest dreams lately. Well, I also teach them a dream interpretation. Oh, we can get into dreams. Um, there are a lot of different ways that you dream. Dream dreams help you process words, which is interesting that you were talking about like things are just words anyway, whoa, we're not gonna go there because it's like a total like yeah, I think we could spend a whole nother hour talking about dreams.

Sebastian:

Yeah, I have my own a lot of experiences to share about that realm as well. Oh, my God, we're going to have a part two. I'll leave it at that.

Emily:

But I think it's just really interesting that I'm going to go back to where we met, because we were at an art show. It was the closing show and my friend was looking at my artwork and I think you came over like I just had my cliff diver painting like print, and I think you just came over and was like, oh, cliff diver tell me about your cliff diver.

Sebastian:

I'll be honest, like I don't get a chance to meet a lot of the artists. Uh, there's a lot of events for artists, such as Somerville Open Studios, and I'm always working those days in my studio welcoming the community in, but I don't get a chance to go out and see the other artists. And I'm really into art and I think artists are some of the coolest people that you can hang out with, yeah, so, um, I was trying to meet other people in the art community because it's like it's one of the rare chances I have where, um, I get to be around them. Yeah, and so I think I just introduced myself and asked what your piece is. I don't know if you were carrying it or I might have. Um, I don't know I also.

Sebastian:

I go to the open studios or the. I go to the museum and check out all the pieces and I'm always wondering like, who did this? Yeah, right, so I was trying to connect a face with a name and a face with the pieces because a lot of them. I see a lot of art that I like and I'm just like, oh, I wonder who in this crowd did this piece?

Emily:

Right, oh, that's interesting yeah.

Sebastian:

So trying to connect those dots but then also meeting, you know the people behind it is usually, 99% of the time, more interesting than the art itself.

Emily:

Yeah, definitely yeah, because that's just one little piece of what you're what you're about, yeah.

Sebastian:

So that that was like my motivation. I think I approached you to find out which piece was yours. And then we struck up a conversation.

Emily:

It went straight into it was because I'd heard about you from I'd gone to something at joy street. It was like a community meeting and somebody had mentioned you. So when you said your name was Sebastian and you were at joy street, I was like, oh, I know who you are. And then we started talking about meditation and we were like, oh, our energy is just like synced yeah, so that I remember that too.

Sebastian:

And um, yeah, I was happy to like hang out, get to know you, and I think the first time we hung out after that we just started talking about you mentioned doing a podcast and I was like, oh, I have a YouTube channel, we should collaborate and interview each other on that.

Emily:

Yes.

Sebastian:

So, yeah, I think I want to start. I I've mainly just post my Dharma talks right now, but I I really do want to start doing some interviews on there too, so maybe the next interview can be on my podcast.

Emily:

Oh cool. Yeah, or about the tennis ball back and forth.

Sebastian:

Yeah, so right now actually it's technically not a podcast, it's a YouTube. So we'll, we'll, probably, I'll probably make you have to get on camera for that one.

Emily:

That's okay, I'm used to that, being a photographer and all.

Sebastian:

Yeah, I think it just makes people more likely to watch it on YouTube if it has video with it.

Emily:

But I do watch some stuff there that just has a still picture and it's a podcast.

Sebastian:

I do need questions ahead, though. Okay, well, full disclosure. You gave me some questions ahead of time and I read them once, and I don't think we covered, like most of them.

Emily:

So we, we did. I've gotten um better at weaving things in when they come into the conversation, because I'd rather keep it like conversational.

Sebastian:

Yeah, no, I felt like this was a conversation, so I wasn't. Uh, I honestly was so long ago. You gave me the questions, I didn't remember them, but I just read them and was like oh yeah, I, these are okay yeah, I didn't think about it too much yeah yeah, well, we did cover everything.

Emily:

So this is the end. That's a Dora song. I recognize it. I don't remember the rest of it. How's it go?

Sebastian:

I knew you were looking at me for that. I was trying to think of it.

Emily:

My friend.

Sebastian:

Something like that. It's something like that, yeah.

Emily:

So we'll leave you with the question what is the end?

Sebastian:

or is it just infinite?

Emily:

you got to see our harcubes. Oh my god, it's like the way I was just looking into your eyes. I was like looking through you, kind of like into your empty mind and like into the wall behind you. So that's like to infinity and beyond.

Sebastian:

That's like a theme or a motif that runs through my art and my writing is that the pupil of your eye is like a portal into the mind. Your eye is like a portal into the mind. So, um, I'm sure david lynch has like used that visual?

Emily:

yeah, I don't think it's.

Sebastian:

Oh, we should get david lynch on here probably not an original thought, but I think it's uh, I think it's one most people can relate to like instantly, because when you look someone in the eye you're kind of like. I feel like that's when you mostly connect with people and what's a connection? It's something we're sharing mentally, right? It's a. It's a. It's not physical, right I mean, unless you're touching them, but like it's one of the people you. One of the ways you connect with people is like eye-to-eye contact.

Emily:

It's funny because when I look at your eyes, I'm looking and thinking at the same time and I'm trying to get to where my mind is going, but I'm also, at the same time, I feel like I'm almost in a meditative space. When I'm having a conversation with you, when I'm having these kinds of conversations, I feel like I'm in a meditative space. Maybe it's because we're trying to answer the biggest questions.

Sebastian:

Yeah, and I consider that somewhat of a compliment because you know it's something I'm trying to communicate to people through what I'm talking about a lot of times and, um, it's nice to know that it's working. You know, I'm not trying to induce meditation into you or something, but I am trying to like open people's minds to these types of ideas so well.

Emily:

I think, yeah, part of it is, and I've heard that this comes with a lot of meditation people that meditate a lot. I feel like it creates more of a trusting energy, and so I feel safe, like having a conversation like this with you, even though this is the only the like fifth time we've gotten together, you know.

Sebastian:

Well, thank you. I like to be able to make these connections with people, so I try to be, you know, have an open mind and an open heart, so that these types of connections can be made.

Emily:

Yes, we have come back to the word shim.

Sebastian:

Shim.

Emily:

Shim Cool, you're a righteous dude, no, no what is that that's from a? Oh, it's from ferris bueller's day off, oh my god anyway, I was thinking bill and ted's excellent adventure.

Sebastian:

Don't they say stuff like that?

Emily:

yeah, yeah, oh, we're like 90s kids.

Sebastian:

Yeah, yeah, I'm dating myself now.

Emily:

Okay, anyway, cool, so we'll see you guys on the other side of this wall.

Sebastian:

Yeah, I just want to say thank you for this opportunity. It's been great to have this conversation. I'm glad we recorded it. I probably would have enjoyed the conversation just as much as if it was not being recorded, but, uh, hopefully, hopefully some other people will resonate with uh, some other people too.

Emily:

Yeah, I think it will. I think it will. Yeah, I think it will, I think it will. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you gleaned some helpful ideas to apply to your own visionary's journey. One action step you can take right now is to download our gut alignment PDF. The link is in the show notes. By reflecting on your values using our journal prompts, you'll start to see how your values are in and out of alignment. Remember, aligning your values is the first step to manifesting more easily. When you need help taking action to reorganize your spaces around your values, reach out to me at roomtotransformcom. Forward slash about. There's a contact page there and I would love to hear your ideas. Ciao for now, my visionaries. See you next time on the visionary's journey.

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