Diego 'Yung Pueblo' Perez

I just kept going back and it's been wonderful. So I started with 10-day retreats and now I'll go away still to 10-day courses, but also 20, 30, 45 days long. And I've put a lot of energy into really investing in my mind.

This is one of the many different types of Vipassana. This one is taught by S. N. Goenka. He's an Indian man of Burmese descent. And he basically was given this technique by another man, Oba Khin. And it basically originates from the Buddhist teaching. And what's really powerful about it is that Vipassana teaches you how to see reality as it is.

This is one of the many different types of Vipassana. This one is taught by S. N. Goenka. He's an Indian man of Burmese descent, and he basically was given this technique by another man, U Ba Khin, and it basically originates from the Buddhist teaching And what's really powerful about it is that Vipassana teaches you how to see reality as it is.

And one thing that became really clear when I started meditating was that I'm not actually looking at reality clearly. What's happening is that all the things that I felt in the past, they're really clogging up my perception. They're making me see the present through the lens of the past. And that makes it really hard to make good decisions, be able to really connect with people.

And I think that's one of the powerful things is that if you can train the mind, because when I go to these retreats, it feels like I'm going to the mental gym. We're literally cultivating the qualities of awareness, cultivating non-reaction, cultivating compassion. And then when you make these qualities that are within everyone's minds, but they're not necessarily strong.

You have to make them stronger. Life changes dramatically after that.

I would say even a little more subtle. You are feeling your emotions without reacting to them. It's almost like you're creating space to just observe them as opposed to suppressing it or letting the emotion swallow you up. So there's a very subtle middle ground. It teaches you that things aren't just black and white. There's a gray area.

I would say even a little more subtle. You are feeling your emotions without reacting to them. It's almost like you're creating space to just observe them as opposed to suppressing it or letting the emotions swallow you up. So there's a very subtle middle ground. It teaches you that things aren't just black and white. There's a gray area.

It's cool to talking with you about it because you have the context from the activist background. So there's always this idea of liberation, right? Constantly where so many groups of people have come together to either make certain values true or to break the chains of oppressors and whatnot and just recreate their history. I was always fascinated by that idea. And when I started meditating...

there was this idea of internal liberation, literally the freedom from suffering, the freedom from misery and the misery that we cause ourselves. And a lot of that, that's what shocked me because it's true. When you're moving through life, sometimes there are people who hurt you and that affects you deeply, but ultimately the person who hurt you is not going to heal you. And

What's really causing a lot of tension in your mind is your own perception and your own reaction to that heaviness that's inside you. So I'm grateful that I've been walking on this path because it really ultimately helps you stop all that craving, all that aversion, and just helps you observe and act as opposed to react.

What I'm really hoping, and I think what I've seen in myself and in others is that if you really focus on the internal dynamic, because this happens often to a lot of people who are activists and are out there trying to change the world for the better, is that it quickly leads to burnout because you're not healing the tension and the rough parts of your own ego.

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