One Teacher, One Path: Building "The Way" App for Awakening w/ Henry Shukman and Jack Shukman
I sit down with Zen Master Henry Shukman and his nephew Jack Shukman to discuss the creation of The Way—a meditation app designed to guide users on a single path of practice toward awakening. We also reflect on the spiritual journey itself: the tension between longing and arrival, the beauty of staying with one path or teacher, and the intersection of business, integrity, and awakening in a modern world. As someone who’s been practicing with the app for months, this conversation was so fun!
Takeaways:
Why removing choice might deepen your meditation practice
How spiritual experiences can shake your life—and what helps integrate them
The behind-the-scenes decisions that shaped The Way app’s structure
Why the “next big spiritual moment” might not be what you actually need
The quiet power of lineage in a modern world.
I'm hosting Tad for a free workshop! Sign up for 7 Fundamentals of Ethical Marketing Here: https://shorturl.at/PSjhu
GIFT FOR YOU
If you’re a meditation teacher or coach who wants to create unique meditations people listen to over and over again, enroll in my free course Meditation Script Mastery
Music Credit: Nova by River Roots - https://www.youtube.com/riverroots
Podcast Transcript
Lou: Hello there, dear listeners. Welcome to the Art and Business of Meditation podcast. Today we have a special first time on the podcast having two people. We have Henry and Jack Shookman, who are the co founders of the Way, a first of its kind meditation app that guides the user on a single pathway of training toward the deeper possibilities of meditation. Henry is an author, poet, and authorized Zen master in the Sanbo Zen lineage. He's the spiritual director emeritus of Mountain Cloud Zen center in Santa Fe, and he's the author of the new book Original Love 4 ends on the path of Awakening. Put in other words, he is the real deal. He is joined with nephew and co founder of and CEO of the Way, Jack Shuchman. Jack spent 10 years in the corporate world before a chance experience while hiking in The Pyrenees in 2022 radically changed his view on meditation. I'm sure we'll get to that. But first, just welcome you two to the show.
Henry: Great to be with you, Lou. Thanks so much for having us on. It's really sweet for the two of us to be on together like this. Thank you.
Lou: Yeah. So I've been practicing with the Way app since August. Now I'm on retreat 23. So excited to share a little bit of my journey and to share with. I don't think anyone listening even knows that I've been using this app, so I get to share the app with people. And Henry, when you're speaking, if I sporadically drop into some different state, I might just be a Pavlonian response to listening to you every morning. But seriously, it's so refreshing to just have one. To know that I know what I'm doing the next day. There's just one path. Sometimes you sprinkle in those little teachings and videos and they're just enough to not be like, I'd want to listen to an hour Dharma talk before I get to the next thing. So just the way that you set it up in that mini bite size talks and, you know, to really support the meditations, kind of gamifying the app with the trails and the retreats. And so it really feels like there's like a progress happening and then just the design and the aesthetic is really, really sweet. So I'm a fan and I. I'd love to hear. I don't know how long the app has been out, but for, you know, for either one of you to take this first, how has it been since the app has been out so far? What has surprised you? Anything you want to share about what's unfolded since it's Been out.
Henry: Jack, you're the boss. Do you want to lead with that?
Jack: But the boss. Yeah, that's a, that's a beautiful question, I think. Well, you know, the first thing that comes, comes to mind is that, you know, we, we took a really big gamble. People said that we were kind of crazy. You're going to make an app with no choice, but choice is good. And we really kind of stuck to our guns that actually know when it comes to learning, when it comes to a journey, when it comes to kind of acquiring new skills and really going somewhere that actually as a user, it's unfair to make the user make all those decisions. Right. The burden, responsibility should be on us as the designers to lay out a path of development for you. So, so that was the kind of the, yeah, this kind of crazy idea we had and we really didn't know how it was going to be received. So one of the things that, you know, has, has kind of has happened, has evolved is that, yeah, we've seen actually it's really resonated and there's been some beautiful stories we've heard from, from our students who are using the app of getting through difficult times in life or having, yeah, kind of quite powerful, revelatory, you know, kind of cosmic experiences with it and, and most importantly of all, yeah, having kind of consistent deepening practice, which is really what we set out to do. So yeah, that's been a really, really rewarding journey for us.
Henry: Yeah. Can I just add something onto that as well from. You know, we had this hypothesis that a lot of people are kind of on again, off again with meditation practice, which is quite a large demographic. I think if they know what the deeper possibilities are of a longer term path of meditation that makes such a difference. To not think of meditation as a sort of brief intervention when I need it, but you know, which is, which is how it's been framed a lot in the world of mindfulness based stress reduction. Basically, you know, a hit to reduce my stress. I mean, that's great, but, but if you understand that it is, it can be a path of transformation. It's a. And in order to do that, it has to be a long term consistent thing that motivates daily sitting. You know, the consistency of it. You have to, you sort of have, you need a reason to do it long term and to do it consistently. And so we built that in from the very start. Look, hey, there's much more than just stress reducing mindfulness. That's absolutely great and right. But it's kind of Foundational or a gateway to much more. So I think the fact that we put that in, we framed that as part of the process from the beginning helps people. It helps to motivate people to keep going along with the no choice path. It's sort of. They all work together. It makes sense to have no choice if you're being led and trained and kind of, you know, help to develop skills that will take you to something or set of things that are thoroughly, thoroughly worthwhile beyond what you're able to access right now.
Lou: How do you navigate the desire for that experience? Because I, you know, and maybe I could speak for myself too. It's like, okay, I'm going to follow this, you know, Zen master has laid out this trail. And I'm just like, waiting for that, you know, that kensho moment or that, you know, waiting for some, like, awakening moment to happen. And it's not coming. And it's like, okay, is this really working, like. And so it's that, you know, there's an attachment. And I know it's all about being with what is. But how do you navigate not selling people on it, but inviting people into those deeper possibilities while at the same time they might not be experiencing those possibilities? If that makes sense.
Henry: Yeah, I'll just say a quick word and then turn it over to Jack. But from my point of view, it's like really helping people be aware not just of that, but of other aspects of meditation practice that are intrinsically helpful anyway. So there's a risk in meditation for vast majority of people that they have too small a view of its possibilities, that it's just about nervous system regulation, which obviously is a great thing. I don't want to do that down or they're too focused on. I got to get this non dual thing. I got to have this experience that I don't exist the way I thought I did, that I'm part of the whole cosmos or whatever. And actually it's not just one or the other of those. It's very much both. And more. There's a lot of development that can happen within the world of mindfulness beyond just stress reduction. We can really start to parse out our experience in very helpful ways that are deeply enriching. When we understand the sense experiences more clearly, we understand thinking, we understand feelings, and we get much more adept at hosting them rather than being taken out by them and so on. And we can discover our connectivity in a deeper level that we're always in, in a kind of dialogue with the world around us. And if we get too tightly focused on just me and my view and my life, you know, it's going to be. There's going to be suffering there. Whereas if we open up more and live in a kind of open conversation with the world around us, that's intrinsically more fulfilling and more enriching and so on. And then there's flow states as well, which are profoundly helpful. And so there's. There's a lot of intermediate material that's really good. There's not yet a blinding awakening experience, you know, and so we really emphasize that as well. But. Yeah. Jeff, any, any thoughts on. Yeah, we're just too goal focused, you know, whatever.
Jack: Yeah, but I, Lou, I. I definitely deeply empathize with that point because, you know, it's something that's come up in my own, my own practice. You know, I hear about Henry talking about these incredible kind of kensho experiences and you can't help feeling, oh man, I want that. Right. That's just such a natural kind of human reaction to it. And then there's the, there's the sort of the. There's the next layer which is. Well, the. I know that the more I want it, the more I strive, the more it's probably going to be out of reach. And so there's this kind of vicious cycle. And of course you have to stop striving. The way we do that in the app from a kind of design perspective is we actually, we return to topics again and again. So as a user, when you're going through, you always, you know, this is never the last chance you have to get this. This is in the spirit of exploration. Something may happen, something may not. More likely than often it will not, but that's totally okay. And we're going to, you know, we're going to return to it and we're going to give, give, have more and more chances to, to kind of let it unfold naturally.
Lou: Jack, I'm curious what it was like for you growing up with Henry as your uncle and maybe him being on his path and like, is not every uncle is a Zen master. I think a lot of people's uncles are a lot different than that. And so, you know, in growing up is how does that, does that impact you or is Henry like the weird uncle that's on his like, you know, spiritual quest or something?
Jack: Yeah, you know, I'm, man, I'm a little bit embarrassed to admit it now, but the fact is, is that for most of my kind of, yeah. Teenage and teenage years and twenties, Henry was kind of, you know, boring old Uncle Henry kind of going on about this thing called mindfulness that I just didn't see any relevance to my own life. And, yeah, back then, I worked in kind of high pressure jobs, and I had worked in a kind of culture, a work culture, that it was kind of taboo to talk about mental health, and if you can't handle the heat, get out of the kitchen. And meditation was for wimps. And I'm very honestly, very embarrassed to say this now, but that's kind of. That was how I felt. And then, yeah, about three years ago, that all changed, luckily for me. And I went from realizing, like, oh, my God, like, omg, I have an uncle who's a Zen master and a meditation teacher. This is a wild privilege. And then when I started getting into meditation, yeah, I was able to, like, yeah, just have a. Have a speed dial number to a Zen master. It was really quite amazing for getting my practice going. And actually, that was one of the first motivations for the app was, man, that amazing experience of being able to have that guidance and clarity and reassurance that I got from Henry. How can we kind of package that into an app so that many people could share what that was like?
Lou: What was the experience in the Pyrenees? I had an experience 10 years ago after just getting into meditation for a few months that really opened me up and really started me on this journey that I've been on for the last 10 years. And so be curious, what was the experience in the Pyrenees?
Jack: Yeah, well, I'd love to hear more about what, what you experienced 10 years ago as well, Lou. But, yeah, for me, I actually, at that point, I had. I'd never really meditated. I had, like, maybe tried it like three or four times. You know, I kind of knew it was kind of good for me somewhere along the line. Along the lines. But I had. I had recently quit my job to take some time out to go traveling. I was walking with a friend, and we had downloaded a bunch of podcasts. And, you know, they were like. When we had a little speaker with us as we were hiking up these. These, These hot kind of dusty mountain trails, and we had podcasts on, like, politics and sport, and. And there was this one called on the. On. On Free Will. I was like, yeah, that seems interesting. I have no idea what that's about, but cool, we'll. We'll listen to it. And we played it. And there was a line in that podcast that went, you are not standing on the bank of the river of consciousness.
Lou: You are.
Jack: Are the river of consciousness. And as I heard those words, something clicked or fell apart maybe in kind of my perception of the world. And I suddenly realized that things that I had taken to be true were maybe question, were questionable or like, I wasn't quite sure what was true anymore. Like, and it was very confusing. And a few days later, when I got back from the hike, I called Henry. I was like, hey, this kind of thing has happened and I don't really know what I should, should do about it. And I was hoping he would say, hey, there's here's a book or here's another podcast. It's going to clear it right up and you can just kind of move on with your life. But basically what he said was, well, man, you've got to meditate. And so that was for me the start of. Yeah, of, of the, of the path of practice.
Lou: Beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah, I, I had just to respond to that experience because it kind of leads into a question I think I had for Henry around awakening because I had an experience. I thought there was probably three meditation teachers in the world. I just found this thing. I was doing it because I was in a group where successful people, quote, unquote, meditated to, you know, to reduce stress or to get an edge. So don't, you know, quote unquote. And through meditation, I wasn't spiritual. I wasn't looking for anything spiritual. But it kind of found me on this hike that I was on by myself. And I had this whole experience where I decided to quit drinking and go sober. And just this, this whole world opened up and this cathartic, like really beautiful, ecstatic moment. And some of those, that opening led to a few more of these experiences happening in the days that followed, which culminated in me quitting my job with no plans, no money saved. It was just a 180 degree like, flip of my life that just threw me into this other world. It was like a clear, you know, the experience that I had the day that I quit my job was so intense that it was such a clear, like who I was before that day, who I was after that day. And I had no support. Like, I didn't know what was happening to me. I, I thought I was. And Henry maybe had experience or seen students like this. I thought I was special. Like I had this special spiritual experience happening to me. And you know, for good or bad, I somehow I think things could have ended up a lot worse than they did. I somehow was supported by the universe. It was the highest of highs, the lowest of lows the only thing when I would do research around it was like a Kundalini awakening. Every time I would look at, look at that experience, I was like, it's something like this, how abrupt it was. And so that word awakening, I've. I used to tell people like Lulu, what happened to you? And I was like, well, I had a spiritual awakening. And I've actually been less using that word because after I, you know, doing more study and just being around more people with, you know, humbling myself as much as I can, I tend to try me. I need humblings a lot. But as I humble myself and listen to people like, you know, you, Henry and other people talk, you know, people that are really steeped in a lineage, I'm like, was that awakening like. Or is that an opening? So I tend to use like an opening. It was an awakening in some sort. So to. To move that into a question, Henriette, when. How do you describe, you know, you talk about awakening like, if you hearing my experience, does that feel just like a spiritual experience on the path? Or how do you define awakening? I know it wasn't a no self awakening moment like that. It was definitely different than that. But yeah, just would love to hear how you define or think of the states and stages. I don't know if you know Ken Wilber's work that talks about having a state versus being in like a stage. And so, yeah, anything that you could, I'm sure you could share, you know, hours on that, but anything on that that feels relevant.
Henry: Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, first of all, you know, there's great. It sounds fantastic that you had that kind of shift in the way you understood yourself and your life. That's, That's a critical thing. And likewise with Jack, you know, sudden, suddenly seeing. And often it is sudden, actually. There's. There's one. One man. It's a huge topic. But let's. I could say this. Like, different traditions have different ways of understanding awakening, actually. But there's. I. I think in Buddhism it's. It usually coalesces around some glimpse that what I've taken myself to be hasn't been what I thought it was like. I thought it was a fixed thing called me, a sort of entity of some kind that's somehow here in me and that, you know, I have been this as long as I can remember, and this is me. This is what I am. And the world is all around me, happening outside of me, and I'm navigating through it. And in some sense this me That I am is sort of separable from everything else. And in an awakening experience, I think broadly, as it's understood in Buddhism, because there's many different streams of Buddhism, it would be to see that that has actually been no more than an idea. It's been really no more than a thought. And, you know, thoughts come and go and it seems like it's not. It's permanent, it's solid, it's fixed, it's been here all along. But actually, no, it's just been an oft repeated thought. And to see that is quite dramatic. It may not sound like much. You know, it's just recognizing a thought. It is. But actually it's huge because it's a thought that has become an. A sort of solid preconception and assumption about life that I've almost been walking on, like, on a concrete floor, and suddenly that floor is gone. And it's very, very liberating in the right context. It can also be very destabilizing. And this brings me to the point you mentioned about support. I think it can make a vast difference what context we're in when a shift like that happens and what kind of support we can reach out for. I mean, really, that's one of the things that I'm very motivated by. I had a. An awakening experience. It was sort of like that. It had other dimensions to it. When I was 19, without any interest at all in spiritual matters or, you know, any. Nothing at all like that was a thoroughly logical, rational, or seeking to be thoroughly logical, rational, empiricist, you know, and it just. But I couldn't deny the reality of what I'd just seen about my very unconsciousness when that happened to me. I've written about it in my book One Blade of Grass, actually. And I had no support. I had nowhere to turn. I. I was initially euphoric for some weeks afterwards and, you know, felt like I suddenly understood the nature of all things, you know, and. And in some sense, I don't. I don't. I don't repudiate that now. I think I sort of had understood something very important, but I just had nowhere to go with it. And it was only when I got into meditation that I started to get this essential other piece of the equation, which is having some way to integrate whatever we've realized. And I do think that I don't know whether meditation is the best way to have these kinds of experiences. It certainly is a. Is a tried and tested way to make us more liable to having these kinds of insight. But I'm pretty sure that it's the best way of integrating them. And so because I occasionally see people who've had psychedelic experiences that did open something up. I think there's a lot of noise in psychedelic experience as well, but you can get a good signal sometimes it seems to happen. But what are you going to do about it? I think you got to have some kind of long term practice that can help you integrate it. So. And, and along with that. Yeah, support and you know, so usually if you get into meditation, you're gonna to some degree have some kind of support system around it. So I, you know, I'm, I'm really very dedicated. I mean, I've dedicated my life in latter years to trying to help, you know, help people come to know themselves in new ways and, and have a way of integrating it so it becomes a meaningful change in their life that actually changes how they, how they live day to day.
Lou: Yeah. Speaking of like the, you mentioned the different strands of Buddhism and the lineage that you come from and having like that, that lineage of support, that transmission. I think that's something that I've come to appreciate more and more and come to yearn for more and more. Like something that goes back a long time. I tend to be spiritually polyamorous, I guess you could say, where it's like I take this thing and this thing and this thing and there is always a longing for like my teacher or my path. And you know, if I feel called to anyone currently tends to be. I really loved Richard Rohr giving a plug for your book because I'm a. I've done a lot of work with his center and just really appreciative of like his, you know, growing up Catholic and having just that kind of connection. I've been reading a lot of Thomas Merton recently, so really feeling connected to that kind of Christian mysticism lineage. But still it's like, what do I, you know, when I had that experience, Henry, I actually thought about, it's like, well, what do I do now? Do I either join the Peace Corps or do I join a monastery? Like, those are like the questions that I was thinking about. And then I, you know, did what probably you would say shouldn't do. And let me just start sharing meditation with people without any real, like actual training. Let me just start sharing with my friends because they're like, well, Lou, what happened to you? I was like, you got to try this thing. This was, I did this thing on a mountain and this happened. And so like, that's kind of how I got started in sharing meditation, but all that to say, like, Sanbo. I was actually less familiar with sandbo. I had my first Rinzai experience just in the fall. I did an Intro to Zen weekend at Daibosatsu Zen Monastery in New York. And it was. I had done some Theravada retreats, and it was very different. Very. And I've heard Rinzai to be like the samurai, so very strict, very methodical. Everyone's doing everything together. And it was actually like, in some ways, maybe what I needed. But I also was very averse to. It was like, I don't like this Theravada. At least at Insight Meditation Society, those feel like a vacation. Like, I can do my own thing. I can sit down and meditate. But the Zen practice felt like I'm in a, you know, training. It was just an intro weekend. So can you speak more to Sanbo Zen and, like, also maybe bringing this back to the app? Like, is that what you're teaching in the app, or is it a commodulation of many different things?
Henry: Yeah, I'll just quickly speak to that. So Sambo Zen is. Is. Is not monastic. And it really stripped out a lot of the ceremonial and more traditional cultural sides of Zen. It made that decision in the 1940s to be more open to. To. To anybody. You didn't have to be a monk or a nun, and to be more open to foreigners as well, you know, non Japanese. And. And it became quite influential in the west in the 60s. There was a book called the Three Pillars of Zen that came out. And alongside sort of stripping out more of the cultural trappings, it also put an emphasis on. This is a practice to help you understand your own mind, your own nature and your own relationship with the world. It's not about liturgy and, you know, doctrine, and it's not, in a sense, basically, they'd say it's not religious. It's actually a way of coming to know yourself deeply by understanding, you know, what you are and what you aren't, and. And therefore your relationship with the world more clearly. So people don't wear robes. You know, I happen to have a very short hair because I'm bald, but you don't have to have a shaved head. And so that, to me, was much more congenial. I wasn't really interested in adopting foreign cultural trappings. You know, that wasn't of interest to me. And. And, you know, of course there's a lot of people like that. But the app is much more than just Sambo. Zen, because what's good about Samba Zen is it's very single minded. It's all about Kensho. And kencho is an experience, you know, by the way, it means seeing your own original nature. So it is, it is a moment of, of a kind of revelatory awakening experience or a deep, deep insight into the nature of who you've been all along. And that kind of experience doesn't happen often in a person's lifetime. You know, it may be that intensity of experience. It may be, you know, a handful of times at most for most people. And for Sambo Zen that's a, there's actually further insights you can have beyond that, but it's always about integrating them. So I thought that was quite a good approach, a sort of practical approach really. But the app is much more than that. It's really trying to say, hey, there's these, there's broad categories of benefit you get from meditation. Not just that, that is probably kind of the, the deepest it can, the way it can help you, but there's a whole lot along the way that you want to learn regardless, you know, and, and you also need these other sides to it if you're going to integrate that kind of awakening anyway, you know. Yeah. Do you say anything about the app, sort of overview of all that? Yeah, yeah.
Jack: Well, I think that, you know, one of the, one of the big, the big parts to consider with this question is, is Zen co. An. Right, because you know, that's, that's a method of training that is very, is a big part of Sambo Zen. And, but you know, Zen coans and obviously. Yeah, Lou, please, please feel free to. We can kind of explore more on Zenkans if you'd like to. But you know, that's. These, these are potential kind of little portals to awakening moments that you know, handed down through, through centuries, if not millennia. And so that's, you know, so we do have Zen coans in the app, but they are quite far down the single path. So, you know, we have someone go through quite a lot of training in mindfulness, in support, in flow to get them to a point where, you know, to our best guest, they're kind of ready to kind of explore these. These, yeah, these kind of riddles, riddles for the mind to stop your mind working. And so that's kind of one way where we're drawing on elements of traditional Zen but doing it in a way that we think is, we hope is kind of going to be more accessible and applicable for someone who's kind of Starting a journey with us.
Lou: Jack, do you feel specifically, like, called towards more like, Zen or, like, Buddhism? Like, does that kind of speak to you more than, let's say, you know, other sort of religions or spiritual paths, or do you find yourself, like, curious about other things, too?
Jack: Yeah, that's such a good question. I definitely, you know, I. I also, like. Like, Henry kind of, you know, grew up in a. Yeah. Kind of like a. With a rationalist, you know, a kind of empiricist, sort of scientific kind of background and mindset. You know, I read, you know, Richard Dawkins and. And those kind of books when I was a teenager, and so it's been a bit of a transformation for me, actually, to, you know, start to. I wouldn't say I study in any formal way, but, you know, as part of just the job and the. The work of the app, like, to kind of get. To get to know parts of. Of Buddhism. But I do. Yeah, I do. Do think that there is, of course, there are still based on the kind of tradition we're talking about, there are lots of religious trappings that I would kind of be a bit hesitant about, you know, like reincarnation or something like that. But it does seem to me like there is a really deep and meaningful core in that teaching about the nature of who you really are that doesn't, at least to my knowledge, exist in other major world religions. And, of course, other major world religions have many good things to say. But that kind of core, I think, is. Is really what is unique and. And powerful about. About Buddhist teaching.
Lou: So, Henry, I listened to your. I don't know if you want to respond to that, Henry, but if I listen to your podcast with Sean Fargo, and he mentioned something about, like, you know, having that deep training, like, being steeped in some sort of training where it's hard to, you know, it's hard to become, you know, really embodied, I guess, in your teaching or your practice without that at least. And I totally, like, believe that. But I'm coming back to that question of, like, whether it's one path or multiple paths. Like, what would you say to me or to anyone listening that might be, like, more, you know, taking from this and this and this. Like, what are we losing out without having one. One tradition or one lineage?
Henry: Yeah, well, I mean, I think we. We can all do what we want to do. You know, that's okay. I mean, it's more. It's more like recognizing what the pros and cons are of different approaches. I think to be quite eclectic can be very helpful in, you know, you'll have a broader toolkit, you'll have, you'll expose yourself to different ways of doing this. And that's an important part of a learning, I think. On the other hand, if you're, if you're at some point called to follow one particular path for a while, you get the benefit of going deeper. And to me what that really means is you, you get to have, you get to bump up against things in yourself that are difficult and you don't get to shy away from them by going to something else that's more comfortable. You get to work through them because you're sticking with one pathway. I think that's probably in my own case. I mean, I was pretty eclectic to start with. Then I had a long phase of being pretty single minded about my path of practice and now I'm more eclectic again. But if I hadn't done that drilling down deep and you know, I wouldn't have worked through things that were uncomfortable out of, shied away from them and veered towards what made me feel better short term. And actually, I think it, I mean, for me anyway, it's been really important to go through difficult stuff and, and to see that a single path of training can do that has had, has meant that I feel my training has gone deeper in my being. You know, it's been more thorough. I'm sure it's not perfectly thorough. There's more to work on, but it's, it's certainly went deeper than I ever could have imagined. That was for sure. It, there were of course, times when it was very hard and I'd rather been doing something else, but I sort of stuck with it, you know, and I'm, I'm glad I did. So that's just a couple of thoughts on that. But I do want to say actually something about the religious thing. I mean, I feel that our app is not religious at all. It's really an approach to understanding human life and human experience and human consciousness that does draw from these old traditions, but it also has some scientific inflection as well. Science based inflection. And, and I think we're in a great time right now where, you know, science is being brought to bear on the very things that these ancient traditions have explored. The ones that are focused mainly on the nature of consciousness. And Buddhism is preeminent among them just because at least some branches of it have had much less religiosity. I mean, Zen, for example, doesn't say anything about reincarnation. It just doesn't go there. And although some stanzas then do have more religiosity in their ritual and stuff, you know, some don't. And, and that's true of modern vipassana largely as well, although some of them seem to believe in reincarnation. But, but generally, I think we're in an incredible time when the insights of those deep meditation traditions are available without having to go deeply into that particular religious doctrine and practices. And I think that's a great thing because we're, we're sort of getting what we really want, which is the. What can help us with our human life and our human existence.
Lou: Yeah, I'm glad you spoke to that because I know or I've seen some teachers kind of rail against what they would call the McMindfulness of like, let's strip down everything from these traditions and let's kind of make it palatable. And my, my perspective on that was always, well, this is an introduction. This is someone's in like, yes, it might be. Maybe there's some culture, something that has a more robust, you know, background to this. But as someone, I actually, for four years I was teaching mindfulness in schools and teaching teachers and students and doing a lot of work in mindfulness in schools. That was like a big focus of my work for a while. And obviously you had, you know, you, you weren't, you know, I have my spiritual interest and I would talk differently to, you know, outside of schools. And you have to have a secular space. And for me it's like, well, they're introductions. And I always felt like if just one person was like, oh, we did this thing in school, like, let me go deeper. It's like they can then go deeper and if they want to go and, you know, wear the robes and do the things, like, it gives them an introduction. So it's, it seems like this app for, for many people, you know, can be the, that introduction if they were to even. I mean, I think it, it sounds like it's going to take them, can, can take them all the way if they want to. To go through it. But. So, yeah, I just appreciate you sharing about that. Jack, do you have any interest in teaching? Like, is it, is it too soon to like, go on that path or you're just, just on the business end?
Jack: Oh, man, that's. Yeah, that's, that's too soon. I mean, I've, I've loved learning and feel really, really grateful to get the chance to work with Henry and kind of. And learn from him. And you know what? I've I've done one or two mini guided meditations with a couple of friends, but that's the limit. That's the limit of my. Of my teaching. And. But yeah, I think for the moment it's just. Yeah, I have. I can. Yeah, I just. I see a long, long kind of path of learning ahead before any kind of decision on that side.
Lou: So I'll admit I'm kind of like a rogue meditation teacher. I actually don't use that teacher label as much. I'd use it sometimes, but when I'm around someone like you, Henry, it doesn't feel right to actually use teacher because I see the way that meditation has lived in my life has been a form of how a singer sees a song. I have some emotional thing that I'm going through, and so I will do a little talk about it in like, you know, a recording and I just will go through what I feel like is supportive for me through this thing. And so I've. I feel like I can. I have an endless amount of trove for like, creating unique meditations. And I know that that's. Yeah, this is how I've seen it as an art and I've let myself just be like an artist in it and just create without. Yeah. But I also understand there might be some boundaries of, like. Yeah, there might be some boundaries to that. And regardless of that, you know, with the. The ability to get a mindfulness certification, you know, over the weekend or, you know, online, what. What are your thoughts around, like, getting trainings like that versus, you know, maybe you've already spoken to it versus, like, the training that you went through. Like you.
Jack: The.
Lou: You know, I love that it's. You can't get anywhere. You can't just go and sign up to be an authorized anything or an authenticated anything that takes like, a certain level of like, real deal commitment in a way that a certification which you can go and get, you know, you don't have to necessarily have the practice experience. So do you. Are you supportive of the general, like, mindfulness movement to get more teachers out there, or do you feel like there should be more. More guardrails as far as, like, a deeper training for it?
Henry: Yeah, I honestly, I have sort of mixed views on it. I think. On the one hand, of course, it's great that the more. The more that there is of this out in the world, the better. The more that we're aware that we have something called a nervous system and that it can be more dysregulated and it can be more Regulated. The more we're aware of that, the better. The more well regulated nervous systems there are in the world, the better, you know, the more we understand, you know, reactivity and, and, and how to not be led by it into destructive behavior. The more we understand the mechanisms that create suffering versus the mechanisms that create well, being, the better. At the same time, I know from personal experience that it's really hard to know how much I don't know, it's really hard to get some sense of the limits of my own understanding. And that's one of the great things that a deep teacher can help with. They can actually see, oh yeah, you've got that. And it feels like the whole universe, but actually it's one little quadrant. It's a little quadrant within a quadrant. There's much, much more. And I can't really tell you what that more is because your frame of resonance, your frame of reference isn't yet open to it, you know, so, so I mean, I, I, I'm, I'm, I, I assume that I'm still there right now, that some greater teacher would see where I'm still stuck in a, in a box that feels like the whole universe, but it's not, you know, and so I think that, that, that, that's one of the great things that a long relationship with a teacher or teaching or, or the willingness to constantly be humble, I guess, you know, about it, which, I mean, I am, I'm, I mean, to the best of my ability. I don't know really where I'm not as humble as I should be, you know, but I do still have a teacher. So I'm very, I have, you know, I have various mentors and one teacher that I'm really glad I still have them, you know, because it's a constant reminder there's more. There's always more. There's always more. They say actually Buddha is still only halfway there. They say that in Zen.
Lou: Yeah, it's a beautiful, just reminder, I think for anyone wherever on their path is like to, to continue asking or continue knowing that we, we don't know and opening to find, find that out. And I know in my path, when I have felt like I've gotten some sense of, let's say kind of third chakra energy, like some power or some feeling like, okay, I got some, some things figured out. Those are the times where, yeah, I get leveled and the 10, if we don't try to be humble, I find that we're continually humbled. So, you know, the, the checks and balances sometimes work out in that way, but at the same time, there's a lot out in the world. And yeah, trying to, you know, part of this podcast is a conversation of doing this work with integrity. And I had a teacher on here who's a Theravadan teacher, Jessica Mori, and she almost, we, you know, she almost didn't want to do the podcast. Actually. We were about to, like, abort, which was. Was going to be an interesting one to sit with afterwards. But, you know, she had, you know, her. And the reason was, is because, you know, the business of meditation and I, And I'm well aware and having this title of this podcast that I'm sure, you know, there's going to be some judgments. Some people would see it and have some views upon it, for sure. I totally understand that, and I welcome that. And that's part of why I want to have these conversations. For me, when I quit my job, like, I quit my job, I didn't have money saved. Like, so making a living and something I loved, like, meditation, like, they were both happening at the same time. And so it's like, well, yeah, like, well, how do I, how do I bring this into the world and support myself in this life and how. And then do something good? And I know in Buddhist lineage, the teachings are for free. Like, meditation is free. Like, you don't pay for it. And so as two people who run a meditation app that does have a fee to it, like, how do you think of the balance, like, the business of meditation and just both in, in. Both in, like a moral or integrity sense and just, you know, coming to market in a crowded business meditation app world. So there's a lot. So I'll let you take wherever you want to take that.
Jack: Yeah, well, Hemi, maybe I can start then. And then you can kind of, kind of chime in. But it's something. I really appreciate the question because it's something that we think about a lot, and I don't know if we have it right. And so kind of, yeah, it's something that we want. We want to keep thinking about and keep, Keep working on. But, yeah, you know, like, there are some. There are some kind of insurmountable facts. Like, we have a. Have a team, it's a small team, but we have a team of engineers and designers. And so we need to pay for them to, you know, to have a salary and keep a job. And we also have really big, ambitious plans for how to expand the app, include more teaching, expand the pathway, add more features that will help people with their practice. And so, you know, that's gonna like, we need to have some income to help, to help realize that. At the same time, we completely agree that financial reasons should never preclude someone from getting access to this teaching because that can be so helpful in their lives. So how do we, how do we reconcile those two things? Well, the approach that we've taken today is that we offer 100 scholarships. So if anyone can't afford it, all they need to do is email us and we won't ask any questions. We guarantee 100 of those will get, will get, will get, will get given out. And so, but of course, if someone, you know, can afford it, then that's wonderful because then that helps to keep our kind of our little company alive. So that's like one way in which we try to kind of thread that needle. But yeah, it's not, it's not easy like to be, you know, we're operating in a, in a market system and there are certain constraints around that. But yet we're trying to really like, our mission is to, is to offer this teaching to the world. And so in the end we have to, you know, keep, as a CEO, I have to keep one eye on the numbers, right? Are we going to have enough coming in to meet the outgoings? But at the same time, we kind of try and answer every question with first thinking about our mission and like, what's good for the mission, what's going to help support the mission. And we sort of hope that if we get that bit right, the financial picture will by and large take care of itself.
Henry: Yeah, that's great, Jack. Another point I would make is like, in terms of the accessibility that we've created versus what it was like before when everything was in an in person center and then when everything was on zoom calls, we've expanded that accessibility hugely and at the same time we've reduced the cost even for those who can afford to pay very, very dramatically. You can get, you know, for $90, could you even get a one hour coaching session on mindfulness? I don't know whether you could get that. I'm not sure. It probably cost more than that. And our entire year's pathway costs $90. If you're paying full, full whack. And as Jack said, anybody can have it for nothing if, if they need to. So I mean, just from my point of view, from looking at the teaching I've done over the last 15 years that I've been a teacher, I mean, it's by far the most Accessible thing I've ever offered, you know, and been in a position to offer. If you wanted to be in training at the Zen center, you know, you had to be a member. Well, that already cost three times as much then for a year. And then. And then you had to pay for retreats and, you know, you And. And so on. So it just. I think it's. Yes, it is a. It is a business model, but we use that in order to just greatly increase accessibility to the teachings that we wanted to make as widely available as possible for those who will benefit from it. We're not trying to force it on anybody, but we want those who would find this helpful to be able to get it more easily in all ways.
Lou: Yeah, I think that's beautiful. To use the funds and people have the funds. Great. If they don't have the funds, that's welcome too. Yeah. And supporting. Like, I think there's. I think money can be a steward of really great things and obviously can also be people attached to it as the means to an end. And so in the spiritual world and the meditation world, it's always a thing. Fascinating exploration and topic to explore. So I appreciate you sharing a little bit of the background of how you're thinking about it.
Jack: Yeah, I think it's like, what's the end goal here? Is it money for its own sake? That, to me, feels like a red flag. But if it's money as a temporary means to then further a project or further a mission or make it more accessible, that's so completely. That's like the money is the means to an end. And I think that that feels like a very different kind of objective and like. And kind of energy with what, you know, what we're. What the money is for.
Lou: You remind me of my favorite analogy around money is that it's, you know, in with business and the work, I guess even the work that you're doing, it's like road trips. It's like you. You don't go on road trips to tour gas stations. You go on road trips for the journey. Right. So you were not, you know, you're not sharing this meditation app just to make money. You're sharing it because it. It's support. It's fueling. It's fueling it getting out there to more people, seeing more people, having more experiences. I always find that just a good frame to come back to.
Henry: Yeah. Hey, Luke, can I just add to that, that also that's true of meditation. Meditation isn't for its own sake. It's for the Sake of living in this world in a more harmonious and helpful way. It's the sake of understanding the so called three poisons of greed and hate and. And ignorance or misunderstanding, delusion, you know, and. And so that we live differently so that we can both individually and collectively make a more compassionate and wise society and global society.
Lou: That's beautiful. We have a couple minutes left. I want to be respectful of both of your times. Is there anything around the app that you want to share that we didn't get to. Honestly, I was curious like how long, Henry, did it take As a someone who records meditations, how long did it take you to record all the content is like a more, you know, technical question that I was curious about. So you're welcome to answer that or not. But yeah, any, you know, even your day to day roles. I know. Jack, you're the CEO. Henry, I'm curious now that you've recorded everything, like are you having roles in the app like I feel or you on the back end side of it? So wherever you want to take our last few minutes, I'll welcome it.
Henry: Well, I'll just say that I'm far from recording everything. I'm still, you know, with this.
Lou: Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Henry: Wow. Yeah.
Lou: Amazing. Yeah. Yeah. No one's gotten like caught up to you yet. Like they're like, hey, there's no.
Henry: Yes, you have.
Lou: No way.
Henry: Laying down. We're laying down new track all the time.
Lou: Yeah, that's so as wild. Okay, cool.
Jack: Yeah, we've got a kind of vision of making it like roughly a three year program. So kind of like, you know, like an undergraduate degree. At least in the uk, undergraduate degrees tend to be three years. I think in the States they're often four. But you know, like that kind of length of time which would be kind of like the full expression of. Yeah. Like the teaching that Henry would want to do in that format. And then there's other kind of other areas that we're like exploring. We've started doing some in person events where we bring app users together in some of our bigger cities and those are just really beautiful. Kind of amazing energy in the room and some. Yeah. Sitting and chance for people to connect. And so that's kind of like another. Another area. Another piece that we want to try and figure out how we bring the online and offline worlds together with like a kind of global sanger.
Lou: Beautiful. So everyone go check out the way app. And you're probably like wondering Lou, don't you? Aren't you always on Inside Timer. And this is just. Maybe you guys appreciate knowing this, but what I do, because I use Insight Timer a lot for the timer because I have like, you know, you know, a bunch of meditation already recorded on it. So I will go in the morning, I'll go on Inside Timer, I'll start my 30 minutes, and then I'll jump over to the Way app and then I'll listen to the Way. So I have two Meditations app apps happening at the same time just to track meditation. So go check out the Way. If you're looking for. If you're like, wow, overwhelmed by, you know, Insight Timer or other apps to. To, you know, to really follow one teacher that has walked the path, I. I highly encourage, if you're looking for a different support, to check out the Way app. Is there anywhere else you guys want to point people to? Henry, any. I know. I think you have a event or a teaching coming up soon. I think online too. So. Yeah, any. Welcome to share where. Where people can find you.
Henry: Well, I've got a couple of books relevant to practice, One Blade of Grass and Original Love. And yeah, if you check out the wayapp.com or henryshootman.com you'll find upcoming events both in person and online.
Lou: Awesome. Well, thank you.
Henry: Anything out?
Jack: No, that's all good. That's all good. Lou, I just wanted to say congrats on reaching. You said retreat 23, right?
Lou: 23. Yep, yep.
Jack: Yeah. Nice, nice, nice progress. That's. That's really, really cool. Lovely to hear that.
Lou: Thanks. Yeah. I appreciate you guys. All right, take care, friends.