Cory Muscara
speaker
84 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2025
last heard May 2025
Cory Muscara’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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I think in terms of the earlier part of that journey of being able to focus and allow what's happening, we have to be aware of what's happening. We can't just be in the unconscious reactivity that's the habitual nature of our mind and what we've been in the past. And of course...
as it doesn't capture the whole picture, but meditative practices like Vipassana can allow you to widen the gap between the stimulus and the response and cultivate the capacity for equanimity in the face of any sensation and experience that is so invaluable to have that. Arguably, one of the most transformational things for our consciousness is our ability to simply sit quietly and
and not need something special to happen in the next moment and to be able to just essentially be with what is period end of story um not meaning that we don't take action or we don't change you know what's happening but but that ability is really powerful and just to kind of close out the and put a ribbon on on your story of of meditating for 14 hours a day for six months there are these
like latent faculties that we just don't get to experience because we're scrolling on TikTok all day. Like because we haven't been immersed or shown the kind of user manual of the human body and mind and what's possible when your mind is so concentrated. and how blissful it can be to simply be sitting down. When you taste that, I think your perception of life radically changes.
You stop being under the illusion that your ultimate happiness and key to fulfillment is somewhere external because you've experienced it. You've tasted that full satiation internally that wasn't attached to anything happening outside of yourself. And that's one of the most liberating things I feel like we can experience as a human being. And so what was it like? Share like maybe a peak moment.
I know you had lots of difficulties throughout the time, but I know when you're focusing that much on a contemplative practice like that, you discover faculties and like capabilities as a human being that you just were not privy to. And I think it's an important reflection. So what was that like?
um the coming back was that's where the work started i think it's a one more thing important thing to come back to was uh the awareness of how even meditation itself can become a behavioral compensation and coping mechanism to not have to go into the story and that perspective that you can be with anything that you can be your own best friend uh
It's like you described it as like an inner coziness. I love that. It's just like a sort of warmth that... there's less friction between these noises in your head. You know, it's like, we can be with this, we can work with this because I think when people say like, love yourself or be your own best friend, it can kind of sometimes seem like this fragmented thing.
There's like you, and then there's, there's a voice in your head and you're trying to like talk with that instead of just recognizing as that's like all part of one thing. Yeah. And just making space for that to feel safe.
And so I'm just curious, because you've been doing this work also with so many different people on both sides of it, like how much of our efforts, both through meditation, through our behavioral compensation of so many different things, are really our subtle desire to just feel safe?
ability to give reassurance to yourself, it's such a switch to where I think culturally it's kind of conditioned to be in the pursuit. I mean, it's literally written in the Declaration of Independence, the pursuit of happiness. It's the extraction of joy from something outside, right? And instead of the sharing of joy from the inner wellspring that you have, it's a different orientation. And
different things come out of both of those experiences separately.
And I think as you start to deepen in these practices and awarenesses, you start to see how your sensitivity raises and your ability to listen to more subtle whispers in yourself about things that are happening within your own psyche, about intuitive impulses to move in certain directions career-wise, a certain level of resonance and ability to see if somebody in a relationship dynamic is meant for you or not.
Like all of these things you start to attune to more. And that is an incredible place to live life from instead of just the wants and desires from ego. And so what's the difference of texture from desires that arise from stillness versus desires that arise from ego?
It's a really important reminder, too, that, of course, we can do this work before getting into relationships. And the unique capacity a relationship has, especially romantically, for being a mirror to our inner core vulnerabilities that would not have otherwise had the safe space to be held for is really real.
And maybe no other space would we feel safe enough to really experience and even just witness and see what those kind of core patterns are, except for romantic relationships. They have that unique capacity to kind of reveal those things for us. I'm curious, do you have any...
With your own relationship dynamic and coming to these awarenesses and choices, I'm curious about your journey because when it comes to making choices from the place that feel like they're actually not choices, they're almost like the choiceless choice.
when it's coming from stillness, when it's coming from joy, the way you described it experientially, I really liked because it resonates with me as truth that there isn't this back and forth in convincing. There's just kind of this deeper knowing and receiving and accepting of what is.
And the Buddhists also have a term for the sort of intuitive knowing called direct non-conceptual valid cognition. Mm-hmm. You know, meaning direct, it's right there. It's immediate in the experience. Non-conceptual, it's not of the mind in terms of formulation of thoughts or the intellect or logic. Valid, meaning obviously it's true. There's coherence to it.
And cognition is like being aware of it, right? So it's like this level of intuitive, of knowing for things that are meant for us, for directions we want to go, choices we want to make. and many different impulses that can arise from our deeper sense of knowing. Like we think of the mind as just the intellect, but the mind is a vast sea that's connected to all life.
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