This is a transcript from our podcast episode with Li-Anne Tang about meditation and integration.

Axel Wennhall
Hi and welcome to the podcast “Meditera Mera”, which in direct translation means “meditate more”. This is a podcast made by the Swedish meditation app Mindfully, and the podcast is produced by Gustav Nord and me, Axel Wennhall. I’m currently sitting in Stockholm, and I’m just about to call our next guest, Li-Anne Tang, to talk to her about how we can integrate mindfulness in our daily life. Li-Anne Tang lives in Australia. She has a PhD in neuropsychiatry and decades of experience as a psychotherapist and mindfulness coach. Li-Anne has practiced and drawn wisdom from several meditation masters, such as Sayadev Uthayania and Kula Dasa. She has developed this into a tried and tested framework to help people access true peace and wisdom. Liane is also the author of the book “Get Off Your Cushion! Weaving Meditation into the Fabric of Life”. And meditation and integration are exactly the topic for our talk. Why is it so important to be aware of our suffering? How can we reduce stress in a simple way? How is expectations connected to anxiety? How can we bring mindfulness into daily life? And what advice do Liane have for all of us who wants to live an awake and compassionate life? Okay, so I’m sitting here with Li-Anne Tang from Australia. It’s so nice to finally meet you.

Li-Anne Tang
Lovely to be here. Thank you for the opportunity.

Axel Wennhall
So we’ve been introduced by our common friend Magdalena Mecweld. And I know you briefly met at Bali, right?

Li-Anne Tang
We met in Sweden first and then in Bali afterwards.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah. And at Bali, you were at this, did you also go to this place where you were able to meditate?

Li-Anne Tang
Yes.

Axel Wennhall
At this house?

Li-Anne Tang
This wonderful villa in Bali where the person very generously left it in his will to offer meditation teachers across the world opportunity to sit self retreats. And yeah, it was absolutely marvelous.

Axel Wennhall
Wow. Yeah, I’m in a point in my life where that is, I told you before we started recording that I have two small kids. So I hope to do that in the future. But not right now. That’s not where I’m at right now in my life.

Li-Anne Tang
Your practice is going to be very daily, very moment to moment. And, and in fact, this is where the practice really comes to life, right? Yeah, because your wisdom in terms of how you respond to your children is going to affect them in a very, very big way.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah, they are definitely my best teachers at the moment. So, and I love that you brought that up because you have written this beautiful book, Get Off Your Cushion. And it’s about weaving mindfulness into the fabric of our lives. So I assume that the theme or the topic for our discussion today will be integration, which I’m also very interested in. That’s always been my kind of main interest. How can I kind of translate or bring in this peace, clarity, love, compassion into daily life? But before we kind of begin and talk, we usually have just a short section of a brief landing meditation. So would it be okay if I just guide a few minutes of meditation?

Li-Anne Tang
Of course. Look forward to it.

Axel Wennhall
So we are both sitting at home, even though we are very far away. Thanks to the digital media, we are able to sit here. And you who are listening to this, you might be out walking, you might be on a bus, on a train, perhaps even in a car moving. If you have the possibility for just a couple of minutes to physically stop and just be still with your body, I would recommend you to do that. You don’t have to sit, you can stand up. If you’re lying down, please stay in that position. And if you’re walking and you need to walk, please do that as well. So really, what I would like us to do is just to be very honest where our awareness is right now. What are you aware of? And usually for myself and most people I meet, the tendency is to be up in our heads, kind of being aware of the arising and passing of thoughts. So right now, I would just like to invite you to kind of shift out of this awareness of thinking. To just come into your body and experience your body from within. And just notice the difference between paying attention from the head to different sensations within your body, to actually just feel them, sense them, experience them from within. And while you feel the sensations from within in your body, see if you have any tendency to want the experience to be in any other way. And see for a moment if you can just let everything be as it is. Fully accepting this moment. Fully accepting the sensations. Fully awake. Fully aware. And whenever you notice that you’ve been lost in thoughts, see if you can just smile at the fact that when you realize that, you’re back. Aware. Awake. And again, just feeling your body. The arising and passing of sensations. The aliveness within. And perhaps this short landing meditation can also help you to kind of come back to our conversation whenever you realize you’ve been lost. And see if you can do it with a smile, rather than kind of judging yourself that you’ve been distracted. Okay. Thank you.

Li-Anne Tang
That was lovely. Thank you.

Axel Wennhall
So this is the first time we meet and I’ve read your lovely book and Magdalena have spoken very fondly of you. But I’m curious, where were you in your life when you when you discovered meditation and mindfulness?

Li-Anne Tang
I think when I first actually discovered meditation, I knew there were these people in monasteries who seemed to be calm and wise and kind, but and did something. But but at that stage, I was just a child, I didn’t really know meditation as such. I think when I really discovered it was late. So that when I was a child of eight or nine, I sort of knew of these monks in monasteries and I knew they did something. But the actual process of meditation and the real, real interest of mine only came a little bit later, maybe when I was about. probably about 16, 17, 18, where I was still suffering a lot and sort of really decided that I actually wanted to do something serious about it. Before that I was suffering and reacting and reacting some more to life stuff. But then that’s when I was in my late teens, that’s when I decided that I was actually going to do something about it. So I picked up a book on meditation and and tried unsuccessfully.

Axel Wennhall
It seems to me, and I’ve been speaking to quite a lot of people, that that’s still quite a young age to have that insight that I’m suffering and I want to do something about it. And also having the kind of knowledge that meditation might be a way to reduce the suffering.

Li-Anne Tang
Yeah, in all fairness, I was born in Asia and so there was this notion of there were temples around that I did go to. And so the fact that I was suffering was not a huge insight that was blatantly obvious. The fact that there were a few people in the world around me that I thought actually knew something more about life than everyone else around me, that was, I think, a very. I’m very grateful for that insight.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah.

Li-Anne Tang
And I’m very grateful for the insight that I, the realization that, oh, if they know something, I might be able to learn from them. So I think that was actually the point that was really, really pivotal for me.

Axel Wennhall
It strikes me that I kind of assumed from my own upbringing, living in a culture and a society where those role models are not that present, or at least wasn’t when I grew up in Sweden. And it strikes me that the importance of having people around you that kind of can show, like it did for you, show you that there is a way out of suffering, that it is possible. So you said that you started unsuccessfully. Where did you start to have success in your meditation practice?

Li-Anne Tang
Okay, just going back a little bit to what you said before. Yeah, I mean, I think it’s twofold. Actually having wise people around us, that’s actually that role model is really important. I’m sure there were good role models around you who are wise, maybe not meditation, they didn’t know about that. But they were wise and kind people around you. So that, I think having that is definitely really, really important. And the second thing is to actually recognize that. Like nowadays we’re exposed to so many, we have so many opportunities. They are around, especially with the internet. We have access to all these fantastic books, teachings, YouTubes, all those sorts of things, podcasts. We have that access to that wisdom. Are we able to recognize it and then take the next step of learning from it? I think that’s actually the important part. But back to your question about the meditation. I think I didn’t, yeah, no, it was terribly unsuccessful. It just, you know, it made sense when I read it. When I tried it, it totally didn’t work. I think I didn’t really fully get back into it. After my first child, when I was about 24, I started engaging in yoga practice. And in my typical kind of obsessive tendency, I really got into it. And so that’s when I actually really discovered meditation, initially through the asanas, through the movement, and then later on through the other aspects of what yoga really is about. And so that’s when I moved into that. As I progressed in yoga, I realized that actually the whole point is actually this meditation part. And so that’s when I went out of my way to find meditation masters across the world to learn under, because it seemed at that time that most of my yoga teachers were really good at teaching me to get into the meditation, but not progress within the meditation. So that’s when I, I guess, branched into exploring Buddhist meditation.

Axel Wennhall
Did you feel a pull to the Buddhist meditation or did you run into it by accident or how did you end up practicing? I know you’ve been practicing under a few Burmese teachers, am I correct?

Li-Anne Tang
Yeah, that’s right. I’ve practiced under a lot of different teachers actually, but one of the main traditions is the Burmese tradition. When I was a child, I was brought up by an Irish Catholic nun. So that was a big influence in my life. A Buddhist monk down the road was another big influence in my life. And my grandmother, who was the epitome of kindness is how I remember her to be, and she was a Taoist Buddhist. So I did have those influences there. In my mind, there was no difference between the nun who brought me up and my grandmother and the Buddhist monk. They had some wisdom that I felt that I wanted to perhaps soak in as much as I could. So I think the decision to sort of explore meditation through Buddhism was kind of a natural thing because I couldn’t explore it that much sufficiently for my liking through yoga. And so, you know, they’re the next most obvious meditators that I had access to. And at that time I was living in Australia, so I did need to travel to to find the teachers.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah. And what teachers has inspired you the most and would you kind of count as your mentors?

Li-Anne Tang
I think there were different phases. When I first started, the first meditation retreats I sat were Goenka in the Goenka tradition and they were wonderfully eye opening on the one hand, but on the other hand, it felt like this is what I’ve done all my life. Why are they, you know, it’s like it’s just crystallized what I had already been doing. Prior to that, I’d been in a, when I was 23, I was in a really bad car accident, or 22, 23, something like that. I was in a really bad car accident. So I spent six months or a year lying in pain and all I did was meditate on pain. So for me, that was really natural and it was not, there was no, I learned not to have an aversion to the pain that was there all the time that was waking me up with screaming pain. So it was just, so this was, this, my way of being had already shifted to a more aware, accepting and calm way of interacting with whatever I was encountering. And so when I first sat my, the first meditation retreats I sat, I thought, yeah, this is exactly what I’ve been doing, just a little bit more formalized. And then after that, I was exposed to the Mahasi method and the Burmese style. And so I sat under a lot of fantastic teachers there and that’s when I really discovered what these teachings were about in terms of the, in terms of the scriptures as well as the practice and how to actually integrate all these things. And then after that, I discovered C.R.U. Dejanier, who took my practice to the next level, really, to really bring it into daily life so that it was no longer a dichotomy between sitting in a monastery and interacting with any person I met. I could start seeing, I could continue the practice as I was interacting with people. After that, I continued exploring, sat retreats with Thinan Han and explored Tibetan traditions, explored Soto Zen and continued exploring really. Because it’s, it’s all different. For me, it’s all different perspectives on some marvelous teachings. Hmm.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah. I’m curious what you kind of experienced and what you kind of learned when you had that shift so you could more easily integrate it into daily life. What kind of insights did you have or what kind of kind of remembrance or practices brought you to that cultivation of mindfulness?

Li-Anne Tang
Yeah, I guess because my practice, my serious meditation practice only started with the birth of my children. It’s never been different, really that different from me. Yes, I go to a retreat and I do everything my teacher would tell me to do and be very, very different. But then the moment I stepped into the house, I was on, you know, I had to put the hat of mother again. And unless I continued my practice in some way, I just have to be one or the other. And that was not acceptable to me. Because this was very much my path. So I always brought the two together. And of course, they come together too. I mean, I remember my very first retreat in the Goenka tradition, I ended up speaking to the teacher and saying, look, my kids were quite young at the time. And I remember that I enrolled them in swimming lessons. They didn’t know how to swim at that time. And my husband was going to take them. So that was all fine. But I had this in the middle of the sit, I had this very strong image of my children dead from drowning in me. And so it was like this shock and, you know, the teacher was very, very kind and he said, Would you like to call to make sure they’re okay? And I sort of said, No, I don’t need to. I know this is my fear in my mind. I can see that. And this is what this practice is all about. So, you know, I think once life comes into the meditation, once meditation can go into the life as well, and I think that second part is not emphasized sufficiently, possibly because it’s mainly monastics who I learned from. So they didn’t have that extra thing, responsibility that they needed to work with. But, you know, I mean, I think it’s evident to anyone who meditates that, yeah, life stuff is there. That’s what you’re noticing.

Axel Wennhall
This coach, he kind of introduced meditation and the way he introduced this was really as a way to live a present life and more present than a wake life. So my introduction, I think it framed the whole practice for me that the purpose of the practice was to integrate it. It was never to reach any certain special states. They were, they could be nice, but the whole thing was about to kind of wake up, clean up and grow up.

Li-Anne Tang
Absolutely. Yeah.

Axel Wennhall
And I’m very grateful for that because it kind of when I read your book and listen to you now or listen to other teachers that resonates with me, there is this kind of down to earth, a very ground feeling that it’s and kind of just I just get this I get reminded all the time that it’s well, the practice has to be here that that’s where life is. I think you wrote it beautifully in your book. You wrote something like the practice or the spiritual life is not about letting go of life, it’s letting go of suffering. And it resonated very much to me. And where you found meditation is where I’m having my meditation practice right now. As we started in the conversation with two small kids and I had the kids this weekend for myself and I kind of realized that the wisest thing I can do when I have the kids by myself is to activate them. So I made a lot of plans to meet friends because especially friends with kids so the kids can play together and I can have a grown grown up conversation. And then my daughter got sick and it was really interesting because I was at the same time reading your book that’s really about becoming aware of the resistance in your mind and how you kind of and how how the mind states create the suffering and it was very interesting for me to see that okay wait a minute yeah it sucks for her to be sick she wasn’t that sick she had a small fever she was like small kids are they are full of any kind of diseases and she was like yeah I don’t know she was like small kids are they are full of energy anyway so she was quite fine but we couldn’t do anything we had to stay at home for a whole weekend and it was very interesting to see that it was very obvious for me that moment that the kind of the heaviness in my whole system was really down to me not accepting the situation and it’s kind of I know this in an intellectual level but it’s always completely different when you kind of experience it when you see it clearly clearly and and I can’t I can’t say that oh the weekend was thereafter super easy but it was easier and I think for me that’s also because in in my own practice I I’ve seen that I kind of put up sometimes and and kind of ideal that it should be a perfection rather than just have the small progress of like oh wait a minute it’s actually easier now and be happy about that yeah and and you’ve just described how expectations whether of of that lovely weekend that you’d planned or expectation of how your practice ought to be that’s actually what gets in the way to um and then and then but recognizing that uh I’m really you know there’s this is Dukka and that that resistance to that and the lack of acceptance is actually what’s happening right now that is very seems to be very related to what I’m saying and related to Dukka.

Li-Anne Tang
And then this realization, this awareness, ah, there’s that resistance. At that point of awareness, there’s freedom. Even with this awareness of a lack of acceptance, that awareness, there’s freedom there.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah.

Li-Anne Tang
This is a lovely, lovely illustration of the subtlety of these, these practices. Um, but really where the awareness is actually the key, because that’s where the freedom lies.

Axel Wennhall
It definitely does. And before we kind of jump into how awareness frees us and and explore that more, you mentioned the word dukkah, and we also been talking about suffering. Perhaps we should just lay out what you mean with dukkah in terms of those people who are not that familiar with Buddhist meditation. Sure.

Li-Anne Tang
I mean, dukkah is sometimes referred to as stress or suffering. Um, I like to encourage, I tend to just use the word dukkah because it’s not suffering as in, we don’t have clothes to wear, food to eat. That’s not, that’s not the sort of suffering we’re talking about. We’re talking about the mental stress and strain or the mental resistance to whatever is happening. So I tend to sort of move towards, um, encouraging people to recognize the resistance that seems to be happening, the lack of acceptance, as you were saying, um, and how that could possibly, you know, let’s just leave it as a tentative thing, could possibly be related to this word dukkah. So rather than having this heavy thing of suffering, which, which resonates with some people, but not with other people, let’s just explore what the felt sense of dukkah is with relation to perhaps some resistance to what’s happening right now for you.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah. When you express dukkah that way, kind of the word or the kind of picture that came to my mind was like a mental knot. There’s a small contraction somewhere that in your experience, your experience doesn’t flow freely. There’s some kind of like, yes, a mental knot. But I think it’s also very important to stress that dukkah doesn’t mean that life is free of pain, right?

Li-Anne Tang
No, no.

Axel Wennhall
So there can still be experience of pain. Or now when we’re talking in, we’re in a period in Sweden where it’s literally everybody I know, have a cold. Literally everybody I know have a cold. It’s ridiculous. And that kind of physical pain or contraction in your body, that’s not dukkah.

Li-Anne Tang
No, I mean, there’s a thing that gets said that pain is sometimes part of life, but the suffering part is optional. And what that is, is we’re talking about the mental add on to whatever’s happening. Just like I was describing that car accident I had when I was in my early 20s, I was in an enormous amount of pain. And then I noticed this add on of that resistance, that aversion to what was happening. I just didn’t want that headache to be there. I just started my PhD. I wanted to work on the PhD, but that headache was there. When I had that huge resistance to it, I was suffering an enormous amount. But I noticed that it wasn’t always like that. There were times where, yep, that headache is still there, but there was a sense of, that’s just the way it is. Okay, there was a sense of acceptance of the situation. And I was not thinking about that person who crashed into me, who’s refused to pay for my car, who’s doing all these things and all that sort of thing. I was no longer adding to all those extra things, nor was I even resisting the fact that I was in an enormous amount of pain. And then there was that freedom of, ah, that’s real acceptance. Not acceptance necessarily of a situation, the conceptual idea of a situation, but acceptance of the reality of the experience of this moment.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah. I want to try something out here with you and experience I’ve had or kind of an inquiry with acceptance. So you also write in your book that awakening is an accident, but you can be more probe to accidents by practicing. And I love that because that’s really my experience as well. And what I see in other people. So when it comes to acceptance and when you had your experience of accepting this car accident with the pain in your body and everything that comes with it, would you say that that was also an accident in terms of the acceptance kind of just happened? Because for me, I can also see that knowing intellectually, knowing this intellectually, wait a minute, I just need to accept this. But it doesn’t really work that way.

Li-Anne Tang
Because there’s an expectation that I have to accept it again, that expectation, right? Yeah. As opposed to, it’s like accepting, the acceptance is a feeling. Yes, it was definitely an accident that happened for me because I was so not into accepting things at that stage of my life. So absolutely. But, you know, I say that a little bit tongue in cheek because it’s not entirely true either. Even though I’ve always been a fighter, you know, a really feisty fighter ever since I was a kid, there have been many times where I’ve just accepted things as well. So even though we have a concept that, you know, I could have at that stage had a concept that I am feisty, I’m a go-getter, I’m angry, I’m not putting up with this and that, I could have had all these ideas, but I was not always angry. I was not always fighting people in life. I was not always. So being able to see the reality of the entirety of the situation, not just that tiny little, you know, that negativity bias that we have to only see the bad things about us ourselves. You know, bad in inverted commas, of course, because, you know, we have these notions that these things shouldn’t be happening. Again, this expectation that they shouldn’t be happening. So if we don’t, we can’t accept things right that moment, rather than the say to ourselves, I should be accepting it. Why don’t you just be aware that, oh, there’s lack of acceptance right now? Ah, smile to the awareness. Ah, yes, at least I know that there’s a lack of acceptance, rather than I’m just not accepting it.

Axel Wennhall
And in this awareness we speak of in this space and in this piece, there is a full, always a full acceptance of what is. And that’s where the freedom is, right? That’s the freedom.

Li-Anne Tang
Absolutely.

Axel Wennhall
And I just realized that there are things in my life that I noticed the shifts from starting to meditate, for example, sounds. I don’t get irritated at sounds anymore. It’s of course there can be sounds that I don’t feel as pleasant. It’s not that, but it’s just like it doesn’t affect me with the resistance anymore. But I can’t claim that I’ve been a successful meditator and now I’m able to accept it. It was just something that it shifted a day from one day to another, but I did practice it.

Li-Anne Tang
Yeah. Yep. It’s almost as if all we can do is set the conditions, but you can’t claim that you are successful in this. It just drops. And you know, all we can do is, as I say, just establish the conditions that help these accidents happen more. Often and also be aware of them when they happen. You know, it’s kind of like when I was saying right at the start, when I was, you know, not only did I have some good role models in my life, I was also aware that they were there. So I recognized them and then I took action. So I often talk to my students about the three things to do with this practice. And first one’s awareness, second one’s acceptance, and the third one’s agency. Once you know what’s happening and you accept what’s happening, we have a choice to make a wise action then. And that’s really important as well. Sometimes people get mixed up, they get confused with the word acceptance and they end up thinking it’s resignation. And you see the difference between acceptance and resignation is there is agency in acceptance. There’s a sense of I can take action. Whereas in resignation, you’ve gone down into this hole and you can’t take action. That’s the feeling of it. It feels very different.

Axel Wennhall
It definitely does. And I think it’s interesting with words. There was a previous guest called Frank Ostaseski, who’s been a Zen teacher and working a lot of with people dying in hospice in San Francisco. And he used the word allowance instead of acceptance. And it resonated a lot with me because sometimes acceptance can kind of, it can feel like you have to do something. But acceptance is really about non-resistance. It’s just kind of, ah, oh wait, yeah, this is the way it is. And it makes no sense for me to resist it. Yeah. It makes no sense at all, even if it’s painful. Yeah. Because the resistance will only add the suffering towards it.

Li-Anne Tang
So the word I mainly use for my students is allowing. Yeah. Because I like using, you know, verbs and present continuous tense. Cause that’s what you’re doing is acceptance is like this thing that it’s just a description of what has already happened. Whereas the process is allowing and now this moment allowing and now this moment allowing. So it feels really different. And I prefer to use language that helps students remember what to do in each moment.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah, that’s beautiful. So how would you, we’ve been speaking about dukkah and that is one way is suffering or this mental not resisting life. How would you also put in stress in that factor? And would you say that, do you experience and see in your students that stress is part of life? Or is this kind of stress factor more built in our minds in the resistance of things?

Li-Anne Tang
Yeah. Okay. So, I mean, I guess it really depends on the definitions of stress. Um, and different, you know, my, the various different students, I have students all over the world, so everyone defines it really quite differently. So for some people, stress is dukkah. It’s the same thing. It’s synonymous for some people. It’s like, yep, it’s a mental stress that goes on top of something else that’s happening. For other people, stress is what they define as what happens at work, because of work and because of family responsibilities and all that. And their experience is anxiety. Then, okay, then I, then we talk about anxiety for them and, um, and then we talk about, so for me, it’s more, it’s not so much how I would define things, it’s how I want to hear how each student defines things so that I can help them with that process of letting go of that in some way.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah. And, and about this process, you speak about, uh, free step process in your book. Would, would you like to elaborate on that a little bit? Because I, I found that to be really simple, which means it’s also very, really useful.

Li-Anne Tang
Yeah.

Axel Wennhall
And, uh, actually the process I use this weekend in terms of allowing my own resistance to be there and with the kids and being at home.

Li-Anne Tang
Yep, yep. So there, there, I have several three-step processes depending on the circumstances. So first I’m wondering which one you’re talking about, but, but perhaps before that we can sort of talk about, you know, I mean, I think, I think what’s sometimes forgotten in, in meditators is they, um, they think that they need to apply the same thing for every circumstance. And that’s not the case. You know, if there’s a lot of stress in the mind or a lot of dukkah in the mind, what will happen is you’ll be, there’ll be tension in the body as well. So the best thing to do at those times is to take it down a notch. Kind of the part two of my book basically talks about that over and over again. You know, recognize what’s happening. Again, this awareness, acceptance and agency. Recognize that there’s tension in the body, like know that that’s okay, and then take action straight away. Take a few deeper breaths, take it down a notch. Usually when people talk about meditation, they talk about letting go of thoughts, um, which is great, but I see that as the second stage. First, I feel people need, need to learn how to relax their bodies. Because there’s so much tension built in their bodies that they can’t let go of thoughts because that’s actually what the main problem is, this tension in their bodies. So I really think, I really emphasize, and that’s why I spent a whole section of the book, a whole part of the book, really hammering the point in. But I felt like it was, it was useful. I mean, I certainly have received messages from people from across the world whom I’ve never met saying, I’ve never met you. And by the way, my name is not Peter. But the character that I put in my book is, my name’s not Peter, but you seem to be describing me to a T. It’s like there’s a certain pattern that I’ve seen in a lot of people. And I think that part, that first part is really, really important. Even before letting go of thoughts, learn to relax your body, feel the effects that you can actually release. So the three step process for that is to notice what’s happening. Give it enough, give your stress or anxiety level a number. Take a few deep breaths, take action. Take a few deeper breaths, especially a longer out of breath. And then smile to yourself, give yourself a pat on the back for a job well done. It’s like it’s a, it’s like it sounds so simplistic, but actually this is, you know, hacking into the, the, the feedback loop in the brain. This is hacking into that positive reinforcement, which is the best way our brains can work. So usually we have stress, you know, work stress. I have a lot of students in Silicon Valley. They have incredibly demanding jobs. And so they’re on call, they’re on, they’re having to sort out major issues and all that. So that’s, that does bring a lot of strain in the system. So when they recognize that their shoulders are like that and they’re gritting, they’re grinding their teeth, they give it a number, usually something like seven or eight, sometimes even nine. Recognize that. Okay, now straight to the next step. Take it down a notch. Take a few deeper breaths. Deeper breath in and even longer breath out. Do that a couple of times, maybe even three times. Now give it a number. Notice what number is it now? Oh, it’s gone down from eight to seven and a half. Great, well done. I always talk about things going in the right direction. You don’t have to take your stress all the way to zero. That’s unrealistic. Those pressures are still there. At least give yourself a reprieve by taking it down a notch over and over again. You get good at that. After not very long, usually a couple of months, my students regularly report that, yeah, that’s just become habit now. Now they’re ready for the next stage of the practice. And so the reason why I emphasize that so much is because I think most even very experienced meditators don’t know how to use their mind and body to reduce the stress in their minds and bodies. So irrespective of how they want to define stress.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah, as said, like the simplicity, I think is the, the brilliancy here because, and I think the way you frame it and put it, that success is not going from eight to two. Success is going from eight to whatever number is below eight. And that’s, that’s the way to practice and, and to really enjoy that, that you’re able to do that. Yeah, I think that was, that was what I brought with me from that simple process of, of there, there, there were definitely parts of the character Peter in your book that I resonated with as well. And I think, I think one tendency for, for people who get into meditation is that when we have an awakening experience, which can be very open and where freely we kind of get a glimpse of, of something very profound, of, of a life without stress and compassion and, and the kind of consciousness becomes almost like thicker in a sense because, but I also seen the real danger with that in terms of that, that leads again to an expectation that this is the goal.

Li-Anne Tang
Or this has to happen right now. It’s not happening. I don’t like it. And you know, there’s the resistance right there and they’re not catching that resistance. It may well be that that becomes more of a regular thing for them, but not catching, not being aware of the, aware, um, of the expectation. Not being aware of the resistance. That’s where they fall back into Dukka.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah. And, and really having that positive reinforcement is so important. And, and I, I, I kind of, I really like how you are breaking down the meditation in just a small, small part here because it’s, that can really help integrate. And I spoken a lot about kind of ending your meditation with a positive reinforcement, really being great for that. You took this time that you, it didn’t matter how, how busy your mind was, but that you actually took the time and say thanks to yourself for doing this also as a way to help yourself get back on the cushion. For some people, that is the, the struggle. I mean, a lot of, as you know, a lot of people, usually the, the question I get most is not how do you meditate? How do you get a practice of meditation? How do you get a routine of meditation? So it’s interesting that there are different problems facing different people at different stages, but, but just the positive reinforcement wherever you are is so important.

Li-Anne Tang
And, um, I go, I go a few steps more than that, even, you know, with my students who want to sort of, I, you know, I really want to establish a regular practice, they say to me. It’s like, okay, so, you know, as you’re walking towards, you know, so I encourage them to set a timer, you know, decide what time they, it’s reasonable to meditate and then listen to the timer, you know, it goes off every day at that time. Don’t hesitate, just go there. As you’re walking towards that, smile to yourself, really congratulate yourself. Oh, yeah, I’m keeping to my, my appointment with myself, you know, all my students are incredible at what they do and the various different things they do. They always keep appointments with other people. Show up for yourself. Be really pleased that you’re keeping this really important date with yourself. So as they’re walking to their whatever room or cushion or chair, they’re already smiling to themselves throughout. I encourage them to smile. And at the end, I also encourage them to reflect on how great it was that they actually kept up with that promise. So, you know, it’s like lots of positive reinforcement right the way through. And I think it goes a really long way. I’ve got this lovely student who, um, who ended up, you know, um, he’s, he’s from America and he kind of just did this fist pump every time. It’s like, yeah, in his mind, every time he noticed his mind wandering, he did a fist pump with awareness. Thank you for noticing, you know, that aha moment that the mind’s wandering. Just keep making it fun for yourself. You know, this is meditation should not be something you dread. You should notice how great you feel afterwards and during it. Because that’s a whole point.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah, it really is. And I would say in my own meditation practice, I, I, I never felt asleep as much as I do right now.

Li-Anne Tang
You’re sleep deprived. It’s different.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah. And also with a sleeper mind, I, I, I really noticed that the mind is kind of wandering off more often. Like it’s, that’s really happening. And, but I had the similar experience to your student that I was just every time I noticed it here when I had the chance to meditate during the weekend, I was just smiling and I was so happy. And it comes down to what you also write about in the book that appreciating and getting the positive reinforcement of awareness itself. And you write something like you’re not smiling that you’re sad, but you’re smiling that you’re noticing that you’re sad. And that’s such a key difference that it’s like, oh, yeah, I’m sad and I’m aware of it.

Li-Anne Tang
Yeah. I’m conscious. I’m conscious about it. It’s not happening in my unconscious and making it play out. So you’re sad or you’re angry. And if you don’t, you’re not conscious that you’re sad or angry. Every word that comes, you know, if you’re sad, you’re going to probably say quite pessimistic things and see the world in that sort of, sort of way that you’re not even aware of. But then if you’re aware you’re sad, then, you know, you go to a different three-step process. May as well go through that now. So, you know, for example, sadness, because this is something that we all encounter. And anyone who says that sadness is not necessary is, I think, perhaps missing our humanity. Sad things happen. Sad things happen in life. It’s, you know, it’s like to be able to allow yourself to feel that sadness, make space for it, find a space of okayness in it, and then allow the next moment. So the three-step process, uh, what I was saying was what I say for that is notice what’s happening. Notice what’s happening in your body, you know, really notice the, tightness or the movement or the stillness that happens in different parts of the body that indicate that you’re sad. That’s number one, that’s noticing. Number two, find a space of okayness, just for one moment. I’m not saying the situation. I’ve had two messages from students today with really, really awful life situations happening. But what I encourage people is to find that space of okayness. Notice I didn’t use the word acceptance because at that point, acceptance is so far from your situation. You’re going to be thinking I’m saying, accept the fact that this awful situation has happened. It’s like, no, no, no. Accept the fact that you are feeling sad. Find that okayness just for one moment, not a moment more. And in the next moment, number three, notice what’s happened. Maybe that tightness has gotten worse. Maybe it’s gotten less so. Maybe there’s a tightness somewhere else. Maybe there’s a heaviness somewhere else. It doesn’t matter. Then find that space of okayness for that one moment. I’ve worked with a lot of patients with cancer and have been in really awful situations because their lives are threatened and they have to think about how to care for the children should something happen to them. And, you know, the really, really awful, difficult life situations, you can’t say that that won’t bring sadness into someone’s life. But finding that space of okayness in one moment and then the next moment empowers them to more regularly rest in that space of okayness, rest in that space of allowing, of awareness. And it’s within awareness that wisdom arises. So seeing this in so many people who are non-meditators, who are willing to, and I guess brave enough to allow themselves to do this exploration, has really encouraged me to be able to say, actually, yeah, anyone can do this. Anyone can do this.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah, I’m sitting here thinking about, because in your book you also write that we have to stop denying our suffering because how could we otherwise transcend it? But it’s, I’m sitting here thinking if this is a little bit like the hen and the egg situation where you kind of, because when you, when you see this for yourself, that this is a way to reduce your suffering, then it’s also so much easier to open up and be curious about where you suffer. And, and it kind of like there’s a shift happening when you kind of like, oh, wait a minute, this is possible. I know how to do it. I can succeed at this. I know how to do it. And then that insight kind of makes you lean in and kind of explore or be more curious about, oh, there’s a mental knot here. Let’s, let’s look at that.

Li-Anne Tang
Yes, yes. But that can only happen after you’ve learned how to do things in a certain way. And that’s why I say the practice changes at different times. And even though that’s really interesting and you, that’s your practice at one point, suddenly something might happen in your life and there was a lot of stress or a lot of sadness, a lot of anger, whatever that’s arisen, then that’s what you need to be working with. So it’s like the appropriate practice for the appropriate situation.

Axel Wennhall
You also write for your, in your own life that self-compassion was a missing part and had tremendous value in your own experience. How did you practice it? And kind of like, how do you, how do you teach self-compassion in your own teaching?

Li-Anne Tang
I think it really does need to be recognition first that you are suffering. You know, if, you know, as long as students continue to deny that, you know, I’ve had students who say, I’m not suffering at all, I just want to be awakened. It’s like, you realize this doesn’t actually make sense. It’s like, you know, let’s, let’s go through the four noble truths again. And it doesn’t really matter. You know, they just fixated on, I just want, so really what they’re really saying is, I want some experience that I think is what awakening is, but I cannot feel anything else in between. And that it doesn’t work that way. The Buddha started with the first noble truth that there is suffering. And if you can’t see the first noble truth, you can’t see, you will not be able to see how the way out of suffering will happen. So I think that first step is to actually allow, encourage people to be truthful with themselves, to open to the possibilities that there are times, not always, but there are times where they do get angry and grumpy or maybe just a little bit irritable at someone. Or they do get, you know, those times where they may be sound to other people, that they may be passive aggressive, there might be some irritability there. You know, it’s like, it’s a gentle thing to not accuse someone of anything because I don’t know for sure. But, you know, usually if I suggest something, if someone is really willing to take on this practice, they will not get offended whatsoever. They will say, okay, I see what you’re wanting me to explore a little bit more, awake to a little bit more, be aware of a little bit more. Or there are times that they are going to feel sad, or there are times that they’re going to feel a little bit scared, or very scared, we don’t know, or a little bit anxious. Just being okay with those ups and downs of emotions, you know, emotions are not talked about in meditation enough. And I keep having this awful thought that I’m going to write a book about it, but I don’t want to because it’s too big a topic. But yeah, it seems like people don’t know how to even notice their emotions, to be with their emotions and to not act purely from their emotions. And I think that’s a real shame. Because we could have a lot kinder and wiser and more compassionate world if people were more willing to use these practices to open up to these facets of our humanity. Yeah.

Axel Wennhall
I like to see working with emotions or mindfulness on emotions is one of the most challenging aspects because it’s so easy to be hijacked and there can be a lot of resistance meeting them. And I’ve kind of seen it as a little bit, emotions can kind of, as a metaphor, feel like a wave coming towards you. And what usually happens, you get scared and you run away and it just kind of sweeps you away. But for me, mindfulness practice, one of the most profound things, learning to observe, being with, also having the perspective that I wasn’t identified with the emotional pattern or the emotional mind states that came, was that I really had a feeling that, wait a minute, it feels so scary, but if I just meet it and be with it and sit with it, it’s like diving through the wave and I just come out on the other side. And it was like, I’ve been kind of resisting this my whole life. I haven’t really been able to experience this my whole life because I was so afraid. Yeah. And now when I’ve done it, it’s just a bit like, but it wasn’t such a big deal. And I also think that word you use, humanities, that’s what I feel most. I feel so alive when I’m in, when I’m in contact with my emotions and we’re speaking about sadness. For me, sadness is one of the feelings that now, what is it like eight years through meditation? Now I’m starting to actually connect with sadness because there’s been like a blockage. It feels like it’s been a kind of blockage in my heart, but it’s, it’s opening up more and more. And I, I can, I can, I just feel like me, I just feel like being alive, being human. It’s this tender life and it’s, uh, it’s neither good or bad. It’s just, but it’s beautiful.

Li-Anne Tang
It’s beautiful. That’s the thing. It’s beautiful. People think it’s something to fear, but it’s beautiful because if you can connect with your own sadness, wow, you can connect with someone else’s sadness. That’s real compassion, isn’t it?

Axel Wennhall
Yeah.

Li-Anne Tang
This is what this practice is about connecting. So if we can’t connect with ourselves, there’s no way we can connect in any meaningful way and in any, um, deep meaning, deeply meaningful way with other people.

Axel Wennhall
This practice is about connecting. Yeah.

Li-Anne Tang
Yeah.

Axel Wennhall
That really resonated with me. So, uh, I’m curious, if you don’t mind, how do you experience suffering in your life now? Or how is your relationship to suffering?

Li-Anne Tang
Yeah, again, it’s depending on definitions, right? You know, do I feel a resistance to what is? No. Do I, does, does it hurt sometimes when things, awful things happen, um, to people I care about? When I, you know, in one of the messages, actually both messages I received from my students today, and it’s like these awful things where they just wanted, they saw this enormous suffering in their loved ones and they couldn’t do anything about it. When I see that in my loved ones, does that hurt? Absolutely. You know, when I see my loved ones put themselves in these situations where they really identify with what’s happening and I insist that that’s what’s happening and it’s causing even more suffering and I can see that so clearly and I know that they’re not open to anything I say, yeah, that hurts. Do I resist that pain? No, I don’t. I let it be there. Do I know the best thing to do at that point? Sometimes not immediately, sometimes it needs to sit there, sometimes that pain needs to sit there for days. And then some strange sort of idea coming from left field comes up and it’s like, okay, I’ll try that. Seems to be coming from good space. I can see the intention. Maybe that’ll work. Maybe it won’t. There’s no expectation that what I try will work. I just try my best to word it in the right way or be skillful into when I say something. But there’s no expectation that it will work. There’s no expectation that my actions are going to have any impact whatsoever on this other person because I can’t actually control other people.

Axel Wennhall
There was this part in your book that really inspired me when you write about your own experience. I think you write something about that you have a feeling that there’s an elephant sitting on your chest. Yes. What kind of inspired me was your response to that. And your response wasn’t, when will this move away? I can’t really remember now, but it was something just more open and humble in terms of like, Oh yeah, I think I said something like, I wonder if it’s going to move or something like that.

Li-Anne Tang
It was just a curiosity. I wonder if this is going to be very different or something like that. I remember the feeling at the time.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah, and it was just this really reading in through the words, the sense, feeling of going from like, Oh no, this has to change to Hmm, I wonder if it will change. And it kind of inspired me a lot to see like, okay, this is the practice. This is spirituality in a very mature way where I can see my own fantasy, where I thought this might be leading. And it just takes it down to this being fully human, being, I think that shift really highlights the integration for me.

Li-Anne Tang
But that can only happen later on. It’s like, because your practice has obviously matured to a level that you understood what I was saying there. Whereas a practitioner, you know, and I think I started saying there’s sort of different types of practice at different stages. And when I say different stages doesn’t mean that if you’re back to stage one, you’ve regressed in some ways, just the circumstances of life. It’s an important thing to master. So the first one, you know, that ability to recognize the stress in the mind and body and take it down a notch, that’s really important. Have that as your base foundational practice. Once you’re able to do that, be able to notice the proliferation of the mind, the bhajpaanca, and let go of it. That let going of, let go of it is really, really important. But then you’ve already, it seems to me that you’ve already mastered those two stages quite well. So that’s why the third one makes sense to you. You’re able to see the patterns of your thinking and not identify with it or notice when you are identifying with it and then be curious about how to let go of that identification. That’s really important at this point. And so this is where this comes in, in terms of, yeah, being curious as to, oh, it’s there, not, oh, this awful feeling in my chest, I can’t breathe that, it feels awful, I feel awful. It’s not that identification, but that recognition that you can be curious about it and notice the patterns of your mind if it starts identifying, when it starts identifying, notice when it actually can let go. And then there’s a whole practice around that. And then finally, I guess, just to complete this whole thing, there’s a cultivation of awareness to just be more and more aware of the habitual patterns of mind and increase that nuance of awareness to allow for spiritual insights to happen. So it’s not something that you do apart from continue to be curious, continue to be more aware, and then you wait to see what unfolds. And I think this is the exciting part of this practice because a student asked me a couple of weeks ago something about what would I do when I’m fully awake or something like that. And I said, well, I hope that you continue learning about life and growing in wisdom. Because, you know, wouldn’t it be awfully boring at the age of, I don’t know, 38 or whatever age the student is to write, I get it, okay, I can, you know, it’s like you continue learning. This is where the fun begins because you get to explore more and discover more and help more hopefully as well.

Axel Wennhall
And I’m just so happy and proud that I’m on level three.

Li-Anne Tang
And you noticed that. And that’s the point.

Axel Wennhall
And that’s why I’m on level three that I noticed it.

Li-Anne Tang
That’s right. And you could laugh about it. You know, that lightness of beings there already, you know, do you remember before when you noticed that and you thought, oh, I can’t believe I’ve meditated for so long and I still, and I still will, whatever. It’s like now you can laugh about it. There’s a sense of lightness and humor about it.

Axel Wennhall
Exactly. So if you want to go from level one or two, you have to laugh that you are at level one or two. Then you directly go to level three. That’s the paradox, right? Yeah.

Li-Anne Tang
But you know, all of it is just more appreciation of awareness because it’s all subtler forms of awareness. And then you let the awareness do the magic.

Axel Wennhall
I have probably 10 other things that I would like to talk to you about, but I think letting awareness do the magic, it’s a perfect way to end it. And I hope to reconnect with you another time and explore more because it’s been wonderful talking to you.

Li-Anne Tang
It’s been lovely talking to you. I really enjoyed meeting you.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah. And we have kind of a last section in the podcast that I would like to do with you before I’m going to hand over the mic to you. And you’ve been kind enough to guide a meditation. And this section is called five quick questions. So just the first thing that comes to mind. So if you had a possibility to invite three people that could be either dead or alive, which three people would you like to have dinner with?

Li-Anne Tang
Oh, let’s go with the Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad.

Axel Wennhall
What’s your favorite place on earth?

Li-Anne Tang
Wherever I am.

Axel Wennhall
It’s you and all the non-dual teachers. That’s the answer I get all the time.

Li-Anne Tang
I know is so predictable. Having said that, I enjoy. I enjoy visiting different places because I get to discover different ways of thinking.

Axel Wennhall
Third question, which book or documentary would you like to recommend?

Li-Anne Tang
Um, apart from my own, I tell you what I don’t, I haven’t finished reading it. I just picked up this book today and I just started it today, but I’m really enjoying it. It’s from Swedish authors. Um, factfulness.

Axel Wennhall
Ah, Hans Rosling. Ah, nice.

Li-Anne Tang
I haven’t, I’ve only read a couple of chapters, but it’s like, I just love it. You know, it’s just the whole misconception of the world is divided into two. Yes, that’s the whole problem. You know, the, the, the, the negativity bias, the guilt world’s getting worse. Yeah, that’s the problem. So I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s in line with what I’m teaching. I haven’t read the rest of the book yet, but I’m really enjoying it.

Axel Wennhall
What’s the best advice you got?

Li-Anne Tang
For other people?

Axel Wennhall
Or from, from, from someone that you received?

Li-Anne Tang
Know that everyone’s got their own perspective. What you are feeling is real, but not true. Not the truth.

Axel Wennhall
Yes. That’s a good one. Last question. What are you grateful for right now?

Li-Anne Tang
I’m actually really grateful that I’m alive because I’ve been very, very sick for a long time. So I’m actually really grateful that I can breathe easily right now. And, um, and I have the opportunity to meet interesting people like you.

Axel Wennhall
Okay, so thank you so much. And, um, I’m handing over the word to you. So if you would like to guide a meditation, that would be awesome.

Li-Anne Tang
I’d like to encourage listeners to start by just noticing how you’re sitting or standing or walking. You don’t even need to stop walking if you don’t want to right now. Just notice how it feels to be in your body right now. Notice whether it’s hot or cold. I mean, I’m sure it’s very hot, very cold where Axel is right now and it’s very hot where I am right now. So it doesn’t really matter what the temperature is like, but see if you can be conscious of that. Keep your eyes open just for a little bit of an exploration. Notice what it feels like to tune into how you feel. How you feel as you’re seeing whatever’s in front of you. As you’re hearing whatever else you hear apart from my voice. As you feel whatever movement or stillness that’s in your body in this moment. Can you put a smile on your face and see if you feel any different? Doesn’t have to be better, doesn’t have to be worse, but is it different in some way? No matter what you’re noticing in this moment, can you find a space of okayness just for one moment? And now what’s happening? What can you notice? Can that be okay as well? If you notice your mind wandering off into thinking, smile to the awareness that that’s what’s happening. Ah, thinking is happening. And then allow your awareness to rest back into what else there is in your body, in your mind, in terms of how you feel. Can that be okay? What’s happening now for you? What is it like to be you in this moment? Can that be okay? Can it be quite lovely to be conscious, to be more fully conscious of whatever you’re experiencing in this moment? It’s marvelous to be able to be aware. It’s marvelous to be able to be alive. Can you feel that? Just for a couple of moments, if you’re in a safe place, close your eyes and see if you can be aware of more or less things right now. What’s it like to be you in this moment? Put a little smile on your face and see if you feel any different. Now, in a moment, I’m going to ask you to open your eyes, but as you open your eyes and let the light come through your eyes, see if you can continue to be aware, just as aware as before. Now, open your eyes slowly, letting the light in and allowing yourself to continue feeling your body, hearing the sounds. And now also seeing. Can you enjoy your marvelous existence? Thank you.

Axel Wennhall
Thank you, Li-Anne. I really, really loved the seamless way you approached the meditation with open and closed eyes. It’s also worth of a topic to discuss in terms of integration. Thank you so much for taking your time and enlightening us here at Meditera Mera. It’s been a pleasure talking to you.

Li-Anne Tang
It’s a pleasure talking to you.

Axel Wennhall
Thank you for listening to Meditera Mera with Leann Tang. We hope you have been inspired by our conversation and by Leann’s meditation. The world needs more people who wakes up to awareness and compassion. So if this talk has resonated with you, please share it to your friends and family. And if there’s anything we will bring with us from our conversation with Leann, is it to be aware of our stress, take it down and really enjoy the success of doing that. Take care and be well.