SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Beat the Prosecution, presented by Northern Virginia criminal defense and DUI lawyer Jonathan Katz, where we are here to regularly present you information and ideas for beating your prosecution as best as possible. Nothing on any of our media sources, such as our podcast or website, is legal advice. John Katz only provides legal advice to current clients or for individuals who have paid for a consultation. And now for your host, John Katz.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Hello, everybody. This is John Katz. I'm a criminal defense and DUI defense lawyer here in Northern Virginia. This is Beat the Prosecution. I'm sorry, I'm having much more trouble than usual containing my excitement over today's guest. It only took me over a year or so to get him to join us. His name is Chay Mang Tan. He also known as Meng, he's the author of Joy on Demand, that my wife Joy and Son in College adore, just as I do, which is a follow-up. The Dust Jack It's Gone, but he's also the uh author of Search Inside Yourself as well as oh my gosh, my handwriting. Uh Meng, Buddhism. Buddhism for all. So those are three books right there. Why am I interested in him? I first became aware of Meng when I found John Cabazin talking to Google on YouTube. And uh Meng uh introduced himself, saying his friends call him Meng, everyone else calls him Meng. Uh part of his uh, I think key to happiness is uh silly humor. Uh he ended up uh writing this book, Search Inside Yourself. Uh he helped introduce uh the mindfulness program at Google. It goes on and on and on. This is a man who revealed himself that until around the age of 21, he was doing great on paper with academics, for instance, but a very depressed person inside. You know, I don't like telling people stories myself, because he's here. Ming, please introduce yourself.

SPEAKER_03 2:16

Thank you, my dear friend. Hello, my name is Ming, uh, and I don't do anything useful in my life. Other than that, and I'm very good looking. Other than that, that's it. But you you want to hear my story? Is that is that of course what you like?

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Of course.

SPEAKER_03 2:34

Uh uh, do you want the long version or the short version?

SPEAKER_01 2:37

The version you want.

SPEAKER_03 2:39

Okay. So uh maybe the the middle-ish version is yeah, uh, as John said, uh maybe I start from the middle and then we go to the center. I mean, the middle was I I I work at Google. Uh I was one of the Google's early employees. I was uh employee 107. And then uh yeah, uh one day I was uh taking a walk uh outside the Google campus. That was in 2003, in in summer. So so I've been in Google for about three years. And so when back then, when we say Google campus, it means two small buildings in the industrial park. I was taking a walk, and then suddenly I I had this moment where I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, which was to create the conditions for world peace in my lifetime.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Excellent.

SPEAKER_03 3:32

World peace in my lifetime, that's what I want to do for the rest of my life. And so uh the question, the only question was how right and and eventually I figured it out. The way to do that is to uh scale inner peace, inner joy, and compassion worldwide. Because it's if these three mental qualities are worldwide, then with the conditions for world peace. And then the only question was how. And then I figured that out. It's like the way to do that is to align peace, joy, compassion with success and profits. Because if I were to go around the world talking about goodness, peace, joy, compassion, what happens? Everybody applaud, they go home, nothing changes. But if I would say, no, this is how you become successful, this is how you make more money. And peace, joy, compassion is the unavoidable side effect. All the people do, yeah, sign me up because they want to be successful, they don't mind being happy. Right. And so eventually I created this course called Search Inside Yourself in Google, uh, using mindfulness to create emotional intelligence whereby uh peace, joy, compassion, uh, unavoidable as side effects, and then uh selling selling success, but yeah, and and but good with goodness being the the key the key uh output, outcome. And it became a huge hit in Google. And then I wrote a book called Search Inside Yourself, and it became uh uh international bestseller, and then uh things are snowboarded from there, and then eventually I also uh at the same time. Uh maybe I go to tell you the other side, the other side of the story. So so in in search inside yourself is about uh peace from inside out, right? You start from inner peace, inner joy, compassion. Uh but there is also the other way, which is start from compassion, start from action.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:28

And then through action, we have joy, and then through joy we're in the peace. And so that's for what the other half of my work, which was uh an organization uh campaign actually called uh billion X for peace. 1 billion X for peace. And so we work together with 14 Nobel Peace Laureates to try to potentiate, instantiate 1 billion peace actions worldwide, so that we hope we can change the world so that uh taking action for peace is the default, the norm, uh whereas not doing anything is the exception. So these two combined. Uh this is basically uh my work. And uh recently I've gone uh even deeper. So it's like uh mindfulness. When I started, it was like it was uncool, right? Nobody nobody heard of it. And then 10 years later, it was on the cover, I mean it was literally on the cover of Time Magazine with a white woman. I mean, it became mainstream. Alright, so uh so after that I I decided that I've uh I've done enough. Uh the next step is to go deeper. So, what is even deeper than mindfulness or the teachings of the Buddha? And so I decided to go full monthly on Buddhism. I am Buddhist, and this is the next step to the to the uh deep practice. So this is where I am, and then that's how the book, uh Buddhism for all, came. And that's how and then started a website called Buddhism.net uh with a YouTube channel and and the whole enchilada. So that's my story.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

It's and it's a fascinating story, and everyone, you gotta read his three books to know more about Meng. Uh, the reason I have Meng on the show is the people who have been watching uh uh Beat the Prosecution know that I believe strongly in mindfulness uh and applying my Chinese martial art of Tai Chi Chuan uh to my criminal defense practice. And also I believe in helping my exactly helping my clients with mindfulness, uh, not so much by telling them to practice it, but by my clearing out my internal gunk to help them. And if they want to do mindfulness with me or ask me about it, that's uh that's just fine. Meng, when I um took the bar exam in 1989 at the age of 26, where did I land for my uh four-week Southeast Asian vacation the first time first time? Of course, I don't know how you pronounce the name of the airport, Changgi or Changji Airport. Changie. So this was 1989, there you go. And so if you were born in 1970, you were 19, you were on 19 years old at the time, and my understanding is that it wasn't really until you were 21 years old when you were still dealing with depression that you then started turning to mindfulness. So, what I'm very particularly interested in knowing is uh whether it just clicked with you more than other people, because you know, you're talking in your books about lessons I think I've generally known about before, including beyond what you've spoken about, focusing on the breath, focusing on the present, uh meta, right? Loving kindness, uh, including um uh hoping even for uh peace and happiness for those we don't uh care for, at least at the at the present moment, uh and also being happy through through generosity, uh gratitude, and compassion. And and even uh one of your later pages in Shaw and Man is that even if you felt like uh feces, uh you were would then turn to look at how you helped other people. So did this somehow, did this practice somehow click better with you more quickly than other people? Because I I meet up with plenty of people who practice mindfulness for years, and uh a lot of them still feel very much in the rut, it seems.

SPEAKER_03 9:32

I think so. So uh, you know, the like I mean, uh we are of the generation where when we were growing up, meditation was uncool, right? And Buddhism was uncool and so on. And and all of us uh in this generation came to meditation for one reason a desperation. We were all depressed and we didn't know what to do. I mean, you look at me today. I mean, my my my job title at Google was Jolly Good Fellow. And my book was my second book was called Joy on Demand. I mean, you look at this guy, you say, Oh, this guy is happy all the time, right? He must be born happy. But no, it was the exact opposite. As you say, John, I uh I I grew up depressed. I was so depressed uh when I was young, I was suicided. And I didn't talk about it uh for a long time until I was ready to run to run my second book because I was talking about joy, and then I decided I cannot hide. I cannot talk authentically about joy without talking about the struggle I went through. Right? So I was uh deeply depressed, uh suicided, and it got worse. It's worse than that because why why am I still alive? Uh because I was a coward. I'm too chicken to even kill myself. It's like that's how horrible, useless I am as a human being, right? So I struggled with that for a long time. And then I uh one fine day I I went to church. And so I went to Catholic school. I thought I knew what church was, and but I went to uh a Pentecostal church, so evangelical, very charismatic. And I saw them like like music, right? And then I saw people like uh collapsing on the floor, crying. I said, Whoa, that is cool. It's like I I didn't I didn't believe anything that the preacher was uh teaching, but that I could do. I can come here once every week and just cry my heart out and then relieve my stress and then go back for seven days more, six six more days of crap, and then come back on seventh day. I can do that. I found I found the solution to my problem. Let's let's tell myself. And then the week after that, I met a Tibetan Buddhist nun, uh Venerable Sange Kajro. And and I asked her, I said, look, I I went to church last week, I saw for myself how how they deal with suffering. I said, What do you have in your religion that deals with suffering? I was quite rude, by the way. And she said, All of Buddhism is about dealing with suffering. And I had that moment in my like whoa, and I couldn't explain it. I was like, I knew I was this close to the answer to seeking, but I didn't know how I know, and I didn't know how to get there. But I knew I was this close. So the week after that, the same nun uh was speaking in my university and I was in the audience, and she said one sentence in the middle of a talk. There's one sentence, she says, she says, It is all about cultivating the mind. And I was like, I had that moment where everything in my life suddenly made sense. Everything made sense in my life. And I decided two things at that moment. Decided number one, I'm going to be a Buddhist starting from here, right here, right now. And number two, I'm going to learn that meditation thing, no matter how hard it is. And it was hard, by the way. For those who think it's had it easy. No, I was literally the worst meditator on earth. I can tell you that why? Because imagine being so stupid you don't even know how to breathe. That was me. How stupid do you have to be? This guy. I couldn't breathe. So because every time I bring attention to my breath, I couldn't breathe. Like like how stupid like so so what to do? I just uh because why by the way, why can't I breathe? Because I was too tense. I was trying too hard.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 13:31

So what's the solution? Easy. Just keep trying harder. So I did that. It didn't work. So and but I I already made a promise to myself. I'm going to do this thing. And I kept trying and trying and trying, and I kept failing, and it didn't work. So one fine day I gave up. But I made a promise to myself, I'm going to do this. So the I gave up. The way I gave up was I'm just going to sit there and do nothing for 15 minutes. That 15 minutes I promised myself, I just sit there. And as I sat there, I uh caught myself breathing. And then uh yeah, and then that was the very first time I could bring attention to the breath and still breathe. All I have to do is catch myself breathing naturally. And then uh I sat there in that for a while, and I entered uh at that time was it felt like a profound uh uh experience, which was my entire body and mind was immersed in inner joy. And that lasted for about 30 minutes. And I came out of that meditation, I was like, I found it. This is the solution. It's the joy from the inside out. When the mind is calm and clear, the joy naturally arises, and that is the solution to my problem. And so I kept working on it, and turns out it was the solution. So that was the story.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

Excellent. You know, when I said some people are in ruts, that's I think the ones who aren't doing it right. But how long did it take for this to click with your case? So you decided you're a Buddhist, you're gonna do the mindfulness, but how long did it take for you to actually uh improve beyond those first 13 minutes?

SPEAKER_03 15:19

Uh uh so to get to the point where I can breathe, it uh took like I think months. And then and then so I I had experience of like the joy inside, like immersed in me, and then it went away. It went away, so I just continued sitting, but by that time I can I can breathe. And then the joy came back after a few weeks, and then it went away. And then it came back, and so uh the but the frequency of coming back, the time between coming back kept kept getting shorter and shorter, and then eventually I can do it on demand, just like that. So it became a skill. So happiness is a skill, it's something you train, it's not it's not something that's given to you or whatever. It's training. So, in other words, what everybody can do it.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

So, how do people learn to exercise mindfulness? A lot for a lot of people, I say uh watch John Cabazon's YouTube uh presentation at Google where you introduce him and and read uh his um what's his mindfulness book? Uh he's got a short mindfulness book. The name of it is escaping me, uh, but I'll I'll add on the liner notes. But but he has a mindfulness for beginners, I think it is, is a short one where he even talks about mindful moments when you're walking uh to the to the restroom, even you can have a mindful moment. But uh what what are the basics for people to learn mindfulness or or where are they going to turn to to learn it beyond having to read your entire books?

SPEAKER_03 16:52

Uh the very simple thing to do is to bring attention to the body. I mean this this body sustains us, it's been so kind to us, but we keep ignoring it. So just place a very gentle, but uh if possible, loving. But if not possible, just a very gentle attention to this body uh at all times while you're while you're talking, while you're drinking, while you're walking. Just attend to this body. Uh that's that's all, that's the practice. So that's that's for the big uh that's a start. Uh if you want to go even a bit more than that, bring attention to a specific aspect of body experience. And my recommendation is the breathing, the process of breathing, right? In breath, out breath, that's attending to this process. Imagine like doing it for the first time, like everyone like you are like some sort of god, you come to this body. What is it like to breathe as a human being? Whoa, this is the first time you're doing it. So have that experience. This is cool, right? So so uh uh why do that? So and okay, then if you want to do even more than that, sit there, bring attention to the breath in and out, and when it wanders away, you bring it back. Bring it back. So so why do we do that? We are training uh two parts, uh two aspects of the mind. If you when you do that, bring attention to the breath, bring it back. The first is attention, right? The uh ability to attend, so the ability to see something uh clearly in the mind. There's the ability to keep attention on something. So that's one attention. There's a second quality called meta attention, which is attention of attention. Yeah, what is meta attention? So meta-attention is the ability to know when you have lost your attention.

unknown 18:51

Right?

SPEAKER_03 18:51

So let's say I give you instruction, bring attention about breath, okay, after a while you just lost it. After all, you're just thinking about other stuff. And this part of your mind says, wait a minute, I'm supposed to do this, and you come back. There is something in the mind that does that, and that quality is meta attention. So part of the training is to catch yourself, like wandering away, and then bring it back. And every time you bring it back, it's like doing one bicycle for the mind, uh, specifically the prefrontal cortex. So if you do a lot of that, right, then this part strengthens, and then after a while, you become a master of your attention. You're able to like attend to any object you want to and keep it there for as long as you want. And after you do that, you can do that in addition to like attending to the body, something happens, your mind calms down, right? Previously, it's very agitated, the whole day is like but now you have a moment of and then that becomes life-changing because that basis of calmness changes everything else in life.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

Mang, is this whole approach gonna help put the mental health professionals out of business? Because one thing I found out after COVID was that a lot of the mental health professionals had long waiting lists because so many people felt they needed mental health counseling from the isolation they had from COVID.

SPEAKER_03 20:18

Uh better, actually it's better than that. So uh right now, our we don't have a health care system. We have a sickness care system. Same with mental health. There's no mental health care, there's a sickness care. So if imagine transitioning from sickness care to health care. The healthcare provider, what he or she actually does is not to cure your sickness, it's to keep you healthy. And that's by the way, that's what a Chinese doctor does. A traditional Chinese doctor uh in the old village, you pay them monthly, uh whether or not you're sick. So he's it's his incentive to keep you alive.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Right?

SPEAKER_03 20:56

Right. So, for example, what a healthcare person does is to check you regularly. I mean, maybe a Chinese doctor check your pounds, say, ah, uh, your kidney is weak, you need to do this, you need to exercise this, you need to take this herb, you need more vegetables, and so on. To keep you healthy. So uh if you're all healthy, we what we're not going to throw away the healthcare profession. We're going to change them from a sickness care to health care.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

Right.

SPEAKER_03 21:21

So they'll still be there, but they're doing even more meaningful work than they are now. They are now.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

Well, Chiang Man Shang, who is the man who developed my form of Tai Chi, and he was one of the key people for being Tai Chi to the uh uh to the West in the in the 60s, he was uh master of the five Chinese excellence, as you may know. Uh yes, I know him.

SPEAKER_03 21:42

I know of him, yeah. Right? Yeah, my uh my father was from his lineage, actually. Uh he's he's his top student became was my father's teacher.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

Your father practiced Chiang Man Chang style Tai Chi?

SPEAKER_03 21:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

Wow. And do do you um practice any uh I'm a poor student?

SPEAKER_03 22:05

I I do a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

Okay, so you do some Tai Chi. Do you practice do you do any um other physical exercises?

SPEAKER_03 22:12

Uh yeah, I I do I do the normally. I I do I do push-ups, you know, and so on. Kind of usual stuff. That's why that's why I'm in my 50s and I look like this.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

How how much uh resistance was there or not? It googled you introducing Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, which spells what? What does S-I-I-L-I-Z silly?

SPEAKER_03 22:36

Silly, yes. I thought it was silly at the reverse engineered.

SPEAKER_01 22:40

How much resistance or not was there to the program? And how much I forgot to ask Mirabai Bush when she was on when she was interviewed by me, what what uh to what extent she was working with you on that program, and to what extent was Daniel Goleman and any other people working on introducing that program? And if I I forget if Larry Brilliant had anything to do with it.

SPEAKER_03 23:00

Yes, uh, it was a team effort. I mean, the the world, the world, I mean I'm the I'm the pretty face of the operation, so the world like uh wrongly attributed to me, but it was a team effort. And uh all these people, Mirabai, especially Mirabai and Danny, uh Daniel Goldman, they are like essential to the effort. Uh couldn't have been done without them. So so in the beginning, uh and in Google, I I was very lucky. Uh so Google was uh at that time, probably maybe even still still now, a very open company, um, open-minded company. Uh so when I had this epiphany, oh no, the World Peace thing, the mindfulness, emotional intelligence thing, I went to talk to all my friends at Google. And uh my expectation was that people would say that's the stupidest thing I ever heard. But they didn't say that. The most common thing I heard from fellow Googlers is how do I help? Like, whoa, they're so open-minded. So uh by the time I was ready to start, uh I uh I wrote in some of my friends. So so I had this idea to do this emotional intelligence thing, and who are the most natural people? Mirror by Larry and Danny. So uh the that's that's the way to do it at Google. Uh you so first I there was a like buy-in. Everybody was open-minded to it. They they didn't oppose, I mean they didn't do anything, but they didn't oppose it. So that was important. Uh at the same time, I was very lucky. We were starting Google University at the time. And we later renamed as Google uh EDU. And uh you started and they need uh they need courses, and they were looking for something homegrown. And so at about the same time, right, I was like, it's like how do you do anything in Google that you don't know how to do? Easy. You get you gather some of the top expert, you sit in a room and you figure it out. So I invited Danny Mirabai and so on, uh, with a Stanford uh neuroscientist and uh Mark Lesser, who at the time was running uh Zen ZBA, Zen Business Administration Administration. We sat together in a room, we hammered something together, and we had a suggestion, we had a proposal. So I just talked to the uh person who was running uh Google University at the time. And uh the reaction was, what was the what's the engineer doing what's the engineer doing emotional intelligence? But uh they gave me a shot. Uh part of the reason is because uh uh Peter, who was running Google University, had a common friend of with me rabbi. So they kind of knew each other through a common friend. So everything just worked out, and so they give they allowed me to give it a try. So I gathered the teachers, I I I invited 50 of my best friends in Google, and we had a pilot class. And then from then on, it just worked. So yeah, the answer to your question is uh no resistance because of the quality of Google as an open-minded company, and because I was lucky to have the right people at the uh and have everything doing it at the right time.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

Was Google one of the first large corporations in America that had a mindfulness program? And did that then uh lead to a bunch of the other large corporations uh doing uh mindfulness programs as well?

SPEAKER_03 26:21

Before Google, there were two efforts that I was aware of. One was at General Muse, uh from this uh and then the other was uh at uh Monsanto. So Monsanto was Mirabai. So General Muse, and but they didn't they didn't like spread beyond the confines of the company. And so uh when I started uh searching inside yourself, uh the the express goal was that we are to create conditions for world fees. We're not gonna keep it in Google. We're gonna spread it out. So in Google, it caught like a wildfire. So I guess that's the maybe one of the first differences, right? It was like uh maybe in in in like Monsanto, it was it wasn't a thing. But in Google, uh Search Inside Hell became so popular, it became the most popular class in Google, outside of the mandatory classes. I mean, the mandate is that how to manage within the law, that kind of thing. But uh outside of the mandatory ones, SIY was the top class. And then after that, uh yeah, it spread beyond the walls of Google, and then it became the gold standard of mindfulness in the corporate world.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

Yeah. Great. Well, the the name of this show is Beat the Prosecution, and um I don't believe in forcing mindfulness or any self-development on other people because I believe I'm working on myself, but I do tend to think that if there was a quiet room in courthouses to do mindfulness, and if there were opportunities for judges to join with uh criminal defense lawyers, prosecutors, civil uh litigators, maybe even the defendants, that uh that might actually catch on. Do you have any ideas for that? Or is does this sound a little far out for you?

SPEAKER_03 28:06

I love that. I love that. Yeah, uh, I mean, meditation, I mean, in that in addition to mediation, there should be meditation in in the legal system.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

Right.

SPEAKER_03 28:16

Maybe I'll tell you a story. Um, so uh so uh Google University uh was was part of HR in Google. And so I became the first engineer in the history of Google to move from engineering to HR. So yeah, I mean, of course, they're like, why we have an engineer in here? So anyway, I I moved there. And then uh my direct boss, uh so my bosses, uh, they were like the the VP in charge of HR and and his and his people. So they're at the top of the structure. And because of what we were doing, they decided to give you a try. Uh so uh they tried the simplest thing in in the Search Insider Cell book, which is two minutes of silence. So uh Lars Law was his name. Uh last uh he was uh VP of NG of people operations, basically HR. So uh he told his team, I know this, let's let's try this. I think it was one minute even, one minute of quiet uh mindfulness. Uh not everybody was on board. There was like there was uh some people go like okay, some people were were groaning. Uh one particular person who we all expected to have a reaction going, uh that's the stupidest thing ever. But we are an innovative company, we try things. So so the idea was okay, let's try this for uh every every uh HR leadership meeting for a month. A month's time, we we re-evaluate what happens, what to do. So they did that. They start every meeting with I think minute of right. And uh a month later, okay, let's let's boss was like, let's let's re-evaluate how was this? Shall we continue? They all looked at that person who was like, she was like, of course we should what and she said uh what she said was she didn't know what happened, but when after they did that, the quality of the meetings improved. Wow. Somehow, uh yeah, she didn't get she didn't understand why, but she could notice the difference. Well, there is a law. Imagine yes, imagine doing this at the at the at the level of lawyers. I mean, it's it's a very high, high stress, uh, emotional and the adversarial system. Right? Right, yeah. Imagine we started with just a minute of us silent breathing. I think the whole dynamics was shift.

SPEAKER_01 30:50

Well, the closest I've been able to see that come to anything was there is a lawyer's mindfulness movement. It's not so much uh formally organized. I was actually the uh uh the coordinator for the uh contemplative lawyers group of the DC area from 2012 to 13. We meet once a month. And there are judges who are right out there that they practice mindfulness, even uh uh former justice, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, he may not have called the meditational mindfulness, but he would sit down on his couch or in the chair and just be quiet for a little bit. And uh Gretchen Rohr, who is a DC magistrate judge, she uh is a mindfulness practitioner. And in a in uh an interview, she talked about checking in with herself. Um I just let people know hey, I'm I'm available for this. You know, if you want, you want to do it by Zoom or in person. My office is right across the street. We can join in my office before court. But what I do myself, I use mindfulness for me to feel totally comfortable where I'm going. So let's say I go to a new courthouse, for instance. If I have time, I might walk around the courthouse three times if I have as much time to do it three times. Now I'm feeling all the more at home. Uh and a friend of mine shifted, speaking of shifts, to saying, uh, don't do Tai Chi outside the courthouse, because when I do Tai Chi out at the courthouse outside, I feel like I'm present there. I I might I might not do it for jurors to see, but then a year ago he said, no, do Tai G outside the courthouse.

SPEAKER_02 32:24

That's cool.

SPEAKER_01 32:27

Now, how we've had Thupton Show Drone on uh as an interviewee, and I understand that you have uh a friendship with her. Um what is your connection with her, at least in terms of uh presenting uh mindfulness to people or or about you you learning from each other?

SPEAKER_03 32:47

Um so so first uh we are friends, and I I I consider her my one of my teachers. Uh she might she might scoff at that because I'm such a bad student. I learned a lot from her. Uh the connection, uh so as you might know, I I started uh Buddhism.net. It's a website. So let's go to Buddhism on that on the browser. And uh the thing about it is it's uh it's non-sectarian because it's it's focused on early Buddhism. It's where Buddhism started and it spread to today, where there are multiple uh schools and sects. And so because of that, we feel that we are like kind of like the United Nations of Buddhism. We are we are friends with everybody. And so part of that, part of that effort is I want to introduce to my viewers like masters from all the different schools. And also because they're all my personal friends, I want to show people my friends. So uh we have a show, for example, called Vibe with Venerables, where where uh it's a live show where people can uh join in and talk to the masters. And uh yeah, and uh Venerable Chodon is one of the uh people who come by often. In fact, with her monastery, uh they take up like one quarter of the year just from the monastery. Now, of course, we try to have people from other traditions, so so it's not just uh Tibetan Buddhism. But yeah, so uh that's the friendship we have, and I we have similar friendship with masters from all the other schools, and I hope that through doing that, everybody has exposed to everything. So you know you know what the range is, and you can choose whatever works best for you.

SPEAKER_01 34:26

I'm gonna veer into a tangent. Uh, you like posting on your social media, I think a picture of you and Barack Obama, for instance. Uh can you tell a little bit about your friendship with him, maybe other world leaders? And uh, you know, feel feel free if you if you want to throw in uh uh one or two minutes of your political views, because you you've certainly been certainly been posting that on your social media recently.

SPEAKER_03 34:52

Okay. Uh yeah, I have some friendship with some uh world leaders. Uh I mean these are things we can't we can't talk about, uh especially with monarchs, right? I mean, even I mean precedents we can talk about it, but monarchs is completely no uh royalty. We completely cannot talk about it. So, but uh so so that's one aside. Uh so that that picture with Barack, I have to, I have to confess, uh I'm not uh we we don't have a friendship. Uh so what happened was this. What happened was uh there is this institution in Google called Minks War. So it's a warm. Yeah, it was uh behind, it was uh it was at the Google lobby. It's a picture with me, with every famous person who has visited Google, including including uh Barack Obama and Hillary Quint and Joe Biden. So it's just me. So it's like, wait, how did that uh tradition come about? So it started in uh uh 2001 when uh there was this this guy who ran for president, his name was El Gore. Uh he lost by a single vote in the Supreme Court, and so he didn't get to be president, and so he and then so uh he had time, and then uh he had time to visit Google. And so I asked for a picture with him. I mean that was 2000, nobody had cameras, right? So I just went hunting for a camera. Mr. Gold, can I have picture with you? So we took a picture. And then a couple of months later, uh I was sitting in my office, so I had a corner office with a window that looks out. And I was sitting in my office, I was just looking out the window, and I noticed police cars uh hiding under the tree at all the entrances in the in the office complex. So wow, we're surrounded by the police. Something is happening. And then I went around inside the building, I saw big men with black suits and dark glasses and earpieces. I was like, oh, somebody important is in the building. And so I asked them who is that, and of course they refused to talk. Right so I just sat at the lobby waiting for somebody important to show up. Just sat there, and then uh President Carter showed up.

SPEAKER_01 37:05

Oh, I loved when I met him in 1992.

SPEAKER_03 37:08

I know he's so nice. So I asked, I asked President Carter for a picture. Uh nobody had a camera back then. Uh Larry Page, the CEO of Google, had the only person with the camera. So I asked, Larry, can you take a picture for us? I was like, fine. So I took pictures, and then once I took pictures, I put them uh on the wall outside my office. And once I did that, it became a thing, right? Anybody who's famous to come by say, Oh, get a picture of Ming. And then it became like a big wall in an office cell, and it became an institution and a Google tradition.

SPEAKER_01 37:43

You have um focused a lot about humor and a lot of it's very silly humor. Uh, I think you even didn't you once have some sort of social media page called Meng Stupiditis?

SPEAKER_03 37:56

Yes, I had a blog called Mang Stupiditis. Yes, it's a condition I catch. It makes me stupid.

SPEAKER_01 38:03

And how much does has that actually helped you uh to to be in the in the happy scale, to engage in that type of humor?

SPEAKER_03 38:12

Oh, uh uh tremendously. Yeah, I mean, part of life, right? I mean, in life we all suffer. There's always suffering, no matter how rich, how whatever, how rich, how powerful, you always suffer. And one, the couple of things that can help with suffering. One is, of course, calming the mind with mindfulness. Uh, the other is kindness, like you say, being kind to other people. It helps with your own your own suffering. But another big piece I found was humor. Being able to laugh at yourself, especially when the I can't say that on the show on the show, especially when you screw up. This is a family-friendly show. So, and I mean this guy, I screw up a lot, and I discover that if every time I screw up, I I think it's funny, then life is a lot easier.

SPEAKER_01 39:02

Right. Well, we criminal defense lawyers and criminal defendants often deal with very stressful situations, and uh, we have a wide range of judges. Some of them uh uh try to be reasonable, and some of them uh uh really make our jobs unnecessarily difficult. For instance, trying to schedule uh lawyers for uh trial dates when we tell the judge we're uh we're not available that date. Um, you know, you've uh benefited, I guess, by um uh doing well from your uh Google stock options or whatever they are. But what recommendations do you have for people who are working these 60 to 80 hour weeks and then dealing with additional stress on top of it? And what kind of suggestions do you have for the criminal defendants, many of whom are facing the risks of a lot of time behind bars, and if not time behind bars, losing their jobs over their cases, being deported, losing their security clearances?

SPEAKER_03 40:04

Wow, that's a big question. Uh let's let's take it, let's tease it down and take in multiple pieces. Uh, I think maybe overall, uh a lot of people feel very stressed uh at their jobs. And I I don't want to minimize it. Uh at the same time, uh there's something that I think is worth pointing out, which is that if we compare ourselves to how we used to live, like 200 years back, even not that not that far back, like most people were very poor. Like food was very expensive. So like poverty rate was like 90 plus percent. And in those days, and I mean for me, even my grandfather, my grandparents lived in that world. So it's not that far from from where from my life. In that world, uh, if you can feed yourself at least twice a day, it's a victory. It's a yay, I get to eat. I have a roof. And if we look at ourselves today, uh most of us we live the quality of life of a prince from two, three hundred years back. We have we don't have to clear our own shit, for example. I mean, in the old days, if you're royalty, somebody clears a shit for you. Now we have to flush it, we have indoor plumbing. We don't have to go to the well for water. Again, if you have royalty in the old days, people go to the well on your behalf, now you have that water. You don't worry about food. So forth. So if you compare yourself to the quality of life of a prince, I mean most of you living that life of a prince. Right? So given that, and then you look at your own stressful life. I'm I'm I'm trying to I'm trying to work so hard, right, to earn a million dollars, whatever the amount that you sell for yourself. And I like to invite you to ask why. Is this worth it? Maybe again, this is a suggestion. Maybe it's a better use of your time if you uh give yourself less stress but live more. Like spend more time with the kids. Uh I I went I I made a decision myself and in at the stage of my life. I decided to live in a rental one room, one room apartment so that I can have more time with my daughter. And so I sacrificed, I mean I was lucky later, but I did make a decision, sacrifice uh money uh more income to have more time with family. So maybe that's could be something you think about. Uh yeah, uh taking care of your mental health, taking uh working less, right? Going to the gym more rather than making more money. Maybe. I mean, we all we all I don't want to minimize people's suffering, but this is something to think about from a big picture perspective. So that's one. And then if you are stuck there because you have a mortgage, you have a family, you have college kids, what to do? Right. Again, uh, first principle, again, uh take care of yourself, take care of your your health, your mental your own physical and mental health. That's the most important.

SPEAKER_01 43:12

Right.

SPEAKER_03 43:12

So if there are things that you don't have to do, then you don't have to do. I mean, if it is within your power. I mean, if uh I'm lucky, I have I run my own business now. Uh I'm overwhelmed every day, but I do have the ability to say, I'm not doing this today, I'm gonna let it slip. You'll cause I know what you'll cost me, but I'll let it slip. So and my and my my people, I I give them that power. They do tell me I can't do this today. I I I'm not feeling I say let it slip. It's okay. I will just tell the rest of the team this is slipping. So uh wherever you have that ability to make the decision, uh yeah, don't be shy to make that decision. So that's one. But if you have no choice, and I know this is real life, sometimes we have no choice. Uh I would say Suggest uh using this as an opportunity for practice.

SPEAKER_01 44:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 44:08

I mean it's a practice, so even like uh the practice of mindfulness on the body. The practice of uh kindness. I mean I know I know you deal with a lot of very difficult people, even your own clients, I imagine. And I imagine you practice kindness a lot.

SPEAKER_01 44:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 44:25

Yeah, yeah. So uh yeah, so do that. I and and my I I don't know your work, but I can I can guess with 99% confidence that when you apply kindness in your job, everything became easier for you and for them and for the whole situation.

SPEAKER_01 44:40

Very much so.

SPEAKER_03 44:41

Yes, so so yeah, so for those listening, uh do that. So mindfulness, calmness of body, calmness of mind, and kindness. So that's that's what I suggest.

SPEAKER_01 44:54

You know, uh Ram Das would say so often, we can't work on to change other people, we have to work on ourselves. So that's what I keep doing with myself. And uh Michael Carroll, uh, who was an interview of mine, I don't know if you know about him. Yes, I know you know, he points out the time to start engaging in mindfulness is not when you're in crisis, you start practicing mindfulness now so you're resilient and you're strong when those stressful times happen. Yes, correct. And then, as far as, you know, like you say, you know, there was that time in Singapore when there was all that uh uh, you know, it was a big deal to even be able to eat uh twice a day, maybe even to eat once a day sometimes. And when I asked my uh teacher, Junia Asuda, who did the calligraphy uh behind me, I said, you know, what do you do when you get sick? Because you said you don't tend to uh uh visit a doctor, uh except maybe to get your eyeglass prescription done. She said, I thank the Buddha for letting me understand the suffering of others more.

SPEAKER_03 46:02

Yes, that is true. So it is uh yeah, it's also, like you said, it's an opportunity to practice compassion in addition to kindness.

SPEAKER_01 46:11

Yes, and of course, Fleet Mall, who you may be familiar with, who served about 15 years in prison until 1999. Perhaps he would have done a much longer sentence if the uh uh if the harsher sentencing scheme existed. He would uh he was, of course, uh a student of Chogam Shungpa Rinpoche, and he would go into a closet and apparently sweat like a pig to be able to do meditation every day. And that was when he was in prison. And he found a way to serve others because he was in a unit that helped uh people with HIV, prisoners with HIV. My wife wanted me to bring up with you that uh she believes very much that practicing mindfulness and attention is a uh is a great way to uh develop our inner beauty and have our inner beauty shine. And she was so powerfully and positively influenced by those peacewalking uh monks from Fort Worth, Texas. I don't know what they were thinking that you know they would do anything to get uh to DC within 108 days, which is the number of beads on on the on the mala, uh, on the mala necklace, you know, without without rest. And we were actually in their presence. I was in their presence with my wife once, and she was in their presence uh twice, but that peacefulness that they exuded just meant so much to her. And that just gets back to that when we do the practice, we can emanate outwards to help others as well while we're helping ourselves.

SPEAKER_03 47:47

Yes, I definitely agree.

SPEAKER_01 47:50

Yeah, um you talk about your uh one of your projects called One Billion Acts of Peace.

SPEAKER_03 48:01

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 48:02

Can you tell us more about that?

SPEAKER_03 48:05

Yes. So uh we're trying to flip the we're trying to make a creative paradigm shift. So uh right now in the world, uh to do nothing for the world is the default. And and as an exception, you take an action for peace. And we are hoping to flip that so that the default is to take an action for peace, and the exception is to do nothing. And we figured the way to do that was to start with the first billion X of peace. And I'd like to take credit for that idea, but I cannot because it wasn't my idea. Uh it came from it came from our father Tutu, uh, Archbishop Desmond Tutu. So uh he challenged us with that. So uh uh shall I tell you the story how I be how I became got involved in this?

SPEAKER_01 48:53

Excellent.

SPEAKER_03 48:54

Okay, so so there uh there was this organization called Peace Gem. Peace Jam brings together uh lot Nobel Prize winners and young people. Uh it started as so that you know, so that the peace laureates can influence the young. It turns out it was also the other way around. The young people gave the the Nobel a lot of energy. Yeah, give them a lot of optimism and so on. So uh it went on, and then they eventually they gathered 14 Nobel Peace Laureates. And uh so they get they gathered, and then um Father Tutu challenged them. Father Tutu was like, okay, we have been no, we've been talking to young people, blah blah blah, and all that. But what is the action? So he did something he called the global call to action. Start with one billion piece actions. And so what the the whatever I just told you, that was his idea. One billion piece actions. So uh at that point, roughly, at that point, I I met the uh the founders of PGM, uh Dawn and Yvan. Uh I met them at a conference. Uh they were at the conference, they were the mountain view, and when they stepped on the stage, they were talking about they were talking about what they were doing. They stepped on the stage. I went to them, I bowed to them, and said, My name is Ming, I'm gonna kidnap you. So I kidnapped them. Uh we went to Google because the food was better. I showed them around, and then we just want to talk for like an hour, we can go back to the conference, but we end up talking the rest of the day. And so uh they invited me to uh so they told me I do this thing. And they told me, I asked me why I felt. I said, global call to action, that is a that's a lousy name. We should rename that. And they said to what? I said one billion extra piece. That's the name of the campaign. They was like, no way. You you go convince you go convince a father to do. I said, no, you go tell father to do one billion extra piece. And they did, and father to do said, yes, it's a good idea. So that was the name. And then they just came back to me and they just asked, kept asking me for uh suggestions. And one thing led to the other, and then I went to the UN and spoke on behalf of billion X to the UN. I mean as a as a as a what you as a favor for a friend, and then one thing led to the other, and then I became co-chair. What one billion X of P. And then one thing led to the and I became a board member of PCM. So that's how that's how it happened. Uh the last count we had, the last I chat, we had about 200 million that was locked into system. So yeah, so I think I'm like 80% failure, 20% success. That's the story in my life.

SPEAKER_01 51:37

And what does the organization do specifically and how can people get involved?

SPEAKER_03 51:43

Yes, uh, go to billionx.org. Billionbox.org. I'd like to encourage all of you to uh take an action for peace and log it on billionx, tell so that everybody can be inspired by what you do. And yeah, and also uh don't be shy to talk to the people and the organization in billionx. We're always looking for like uh young uh leaders who want to take charge and change the world. Uh and yeah, we I mean we have 14 Nobel peace stories. We can provide mentors, we can provide advice, you know, and we can provide a community.

SPEAKER_01 52:18

Um regardless of what one's political opinion is of the uh the war going on right now in Iran, how do we apply this 1 billion acts of peace to any uh unsettling uh feelings that uh I'm sure millions at least are having about this war that's going on there and anywhere else for that matter?

SPEAKER_03 52:41

I'm very inspired by uh one of my teachers, Roshi Joan Halifax.

SPEAKER_01 52:46

I adore her.

SPEAKER_03 52:48

I adore her, I love Roshi. Uh so so you have, I mean, I don't know about you. I mean, I had this this stereotype of a of a monastic, of a Zen master who's always there. And whatever happens to the world, yeah, whatever. The world, the world may suffer. I don't see. I mean, Roshi is like the river, she's she's in the world, right? I mean, her practice is very deep. And you can look at you know just by looking at her, those eyes of like compassion. And you you may know she she counsels uh uh death, uh death rogue inmates, for example. Yeah, she talks to like the worst criminals on earth, uh, and she knows what they do. She so she doesn't excuse the what they do, but she still she loves them. Right. So that's she found a balance that I cannot find. She found a balance of not minimizing the evil that people do and still love them. She also found a balance of in this situation, which again I cannot do and I admire, of being of not separating from the problems of the world and still not losing her balance. So when I watch her do what she does, uh it gives me uh it helps me, it helps me to learn. So for in this uh case, for example, if you look at her social media, uh she tells you how she feels. She feels in pain when people are bombed, right? She feels sadness and so on. Uh she takes action. She uh she went, she was protesting in in the capital, I think, with with a full zen ropes, and she allowed herself to be arrested by the police. And peacefully, of course, everything she does is peaceful. So there is a balance, there is a place where we can have a deep uh practice and uh not be disconnected from suffering the world and take action for global at the same time. And again, frankly, I I haven't reached a balance myself. But uh watching watching the greats do it, uh my suggestion is first uh first and foremost, uh here, right? Calmness. Right calming the calming of mind, equanimity. Equanimity means you are at peace even when you clearly see and you're clearly affected by suffering. So that's one. The other piece, again, Roshi does it, and the Buddha taught taught it is uh don't be don't hate people who call me evil. Continue to love them. And the the way the Buddha put it was very drastic. And I I mean I can tell you I can't even approach that. The Buddha said, Imagine and I tell him the monks, by the way. So not maybe not normal people, telling monks, imagine a guy uh cutting cutting you on the limb. Yeah, as as he's cutting your limbs. If you have any thought of hatred towards these people, then you're not my disciple. That one I didn't know. Yeah, like world. So so yeah, loving kindness, uh, in uh there's there's a there's a Tibetan master who does it in a way that I was uh deeply admiring. Uh so this is a slight tangent. So the the Dalai Lama, uh there were after after there were monks, Tibetan monks who were jailed by the uh Chinese secret police, and then uh one of them, um a master, uh after uh he was let out after some number of years, and he met the Dalai Lama. And Dalai Lama asked him, While we were being tortured in prison, how was that experience like? And the master said, uh the entire time I was tortured, I was very afraid. And Dalai Lama asked, What were you afraid of? He said, I was afraid I would lose my compassion for my torturer.

SPEAKER_01 56:30

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 56:31

Yeah. So so yeah, I mean I can't I haven't touched that with hand foot pole, but it's that far away from me. So yeah, so so first uh mindset, calmness, equanimity, love, and then uh take action in the way that is speak out. Like Roshi speaks out. Uh, I know there are people who probably you'll lose you'll lose audience. I mean, I speak out, I I know I lose half my audience. Half my readers will not read because the because I speak out. Maybe because I speak out, I speak out. Maybe I'm not as as gentle in my words as you. Maybe that's why. But do speak out uh and take action. Uh take action in the way that you're most comfortable with. So I'm not asking you to go on the street if you're not comfortable with that. Maybe talk to people, maybe help people somehow, maybe contribute your money, whatever you're most comfortable with. Do that. So uh yeah, that's my suggestion.

SPEAKER_01 57:29

I'm happy you spoke about action. I'm not gonna name her, even though she uh spoke on a podcast openly about this. There's a famous actress who's lived for decades, and she says she's been living with uh depression. You may know who I'm talking about. And she said one way she deals with the depression is she continues to work for social justice. I mean, she could have just retired and and and and settled back. And then I want to loop this back to you. Does the depression ever ever come back and and and and challenge you, or or has it totally left you for the rest of your life?

SPEAKER_03 58:04

Uh maybe because I'm because I'm such a flawed human being, uh, it comes back all the time. So it's it's a condition I have to manage. Uh and uh eventually I think it can be eradicated. But right now, I just I manage it, I manage it well enough that it doesn't affect uh my day-to-day life. So uh one example of managing is uh I'll be I'll be honest, uh I still I still have the inner voice that uh says some very nasty things to me like every single day. And some percentage of some percentage of a percentage of time I just laugh at that guy. Very funny, bro. Some percentage of time I just no, uh uh accept it. I yeah, I mean this I did I did I did screw up in that way. That was me. What can I do? I'm human. Some percentage of time I just do the acronymity and calmness and do the joy thing. So I manage it every day.

SPEAKER_01 59:07

I'm I'm happy you answered that straight on because I think that helps a lot of people who are, you know, a lot of people deal with it like you know, the alcoholics deal with it as each day sober is a big achievement, and people who have depression, each day that they've uh conquered the depression is an achievement.

SPEAKER_03 59:24

Yes, thanks for saying that. That's a that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 59:28

This has been amazing. I could go on and on if allowed, but I told you we'd be together for an hour, and we're at that point. I want you, Mang, to be able to say anything you haven't already said, including to remind people of your websites, books, anything else.

SPEAKER_03 59:49

Um for those of you who have done mindfulness, I mean, for those who haven't done mindfulness, uh try it. Uh for me it was life-changing. And my guess is it will be life-changing for everybody who tries. And for those of you who have already done mindfulness and you're wondering what's next, what is even deeper than that? What is what are states of profound inner peace? What are the states of love and so on and so forth? What is what is the end of suffering? I mean, those type of if you have those type of questions. I want to recommend my latest book, uh, Buddhism for all. And uh it it's I try to be uh non-religious uh in a sense, so so anybody from any region can read that because I mean Buddhism when it started, uh the early Buddhism, which is the focus of book, is is in a sense non-religious. Because the Buddha, the Buddha did not say you have to worship any God, he also didn't say you cannot worship God, and everything he taught was like for example, the practice of mindfulness and body loving, they're all like in the sense secular. So it's a book that everybody can read. So I yeah, I suggest for those who have done mindfulness when exploring what next, that that will be the book for you.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:05

Wonderful. Everybody, you've heard from uh Chain Mang Tan, the author of Search Inside Yourself, Buddhism for All, Joy on Demand, and he's got his website or his organization's website, Buddhism.net. I recommend you check out all of them. Thank you so much, Mang. I have had a lot of trouble containing my excitement over this the entire time. This is John Katz, I'm a criminal defense and DUI defense lawyer in Fairfax, Northern Virginia. This is Beat the Prosecution because there is no other way. Stand by, Mang. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:44

Thank you for listening to this week's episode from Beat the Prosecution. This is a regular podcast giving people a leg up against police investigations and prosecutions. Nothing discussed on our media sources, such as our podcast or website, is legal advice. John Katz only provides legal advice to current clients or to individuals who have paid for a consultation. We welcome you contacting us via email at infobeatheprosecution.com by calling our office at 703 383 1100 or texting us at 571 406 7268.