Intro
Welcome back to Meta Zen—the meditation for game changers and future generations. I am Marc Bubel.
This is the 4th of five episodes in the series. 
Objective effort
We’re getting back on track with the Ariya Eightfold Path and are now at the 6th fold, which is called effort.

Throughout our lives, we encounter dualities, narratives, or points of view that range from the trivial to sheer oppression. Naturally, we manage the trivial narratives as part of our objectivity. Eventually, we encounter significant narratives that put us face to face with our morality:
Do we attempt to unravel narratives and risk the witch hunt of negative points of view 
Or do we play along with the narratives and give up any hope we have to become liberated?
Naturally, we want to unravel narratives and circumvent the witch hunt. This takes a level of effort beyond what we have done before. A level of effort that would make Nelson Mandela proud.
Naturally, this effort is perseverance.

Go to the Ariya Eightfold Path in your journal, strike through effort and write perseverance.
With perseverance, you're not telling people what to do. You are enabling people to make up their own mind and you're not letting anyone make up your mind for you.
In this episode, I'll describe perseverance in more detail and add mindfulness and concentration, the 7th and 8th folds, to the discussion. 

Narratives 
I will be sharing a few narratives that are right under our nose. They’ve been under our nose for longer than we can remember. 

As you listen, you will be exercising mindfulness as I’m bringing our attention to a few 800-pound gorillas. 
If you are wondering what that term is, it’s an expression that says something obvious is so intimidating that we play along with the charade. Like the subjects to the emperor with new clothes.
These narratives will make us realize the effort involved in unravelling them. Unravelling them will be an uphill battle because they are everywhere. But, when we create a critical mass of people that are objective, we’ll make progress and benefit future generations…maybe even our generation. 

Noble
If you agree the word noble is an inappropriate word to describe the two central mnemonics of Buddhism, which I presented in episode 1, you have an idea that it will take a level of perseverance beyond a single person to unravel. 
Do we persevere to be counted among the critical mass that unravel narratives 
Or do we think, it’s not my problem, and leave the unraveling of points of view for our kids and future generations?
The first choice is tough as it might initiate the witch hunt of negative points of view. This might explain why we play along with the indoctrination we were born into.
This latter choice is concerning as this is what the generations before my generation have done. We’re just stockpiling indoctrination, which makes it harder for future generations to unravel.

Color blind
I’m labelled colorblind, and I’ve never liked the term. I have to explain I do see colors and how I see colors when the topic comes up, which is tiring. 
I much rather be labelled color limited. Then, I won't have to explain it to people. This also means people would see me and not how someone from 200 years ago sees me.
The challenge with fixing this misconception is that, in our youth, we trust what we've been told and are never seriously encouraged to be curious. Instead, we're encouraged to do what we're told and when we express curiosity, we're either told we are wrong or to not waste our time.
Why? 
Because our parents did it this way and they turned out alright. So did their parents and the generations before them. 
This is the lineage of indoctrination we are born into. No one alive today is accountable for our indoctrination, yet we are all accountable for not doing our part to break the lineage. 

It would be great if eye experts seriously cleaned up this dated term for the benefit of color-limited people. And I mean seriously. Like getting wikipedia updated so that the world knows.
Why contribute to stockpiling dated points of view?

Sauna hat
Centuries ago, people would wear their winter hats in their saunas to insulate their head from the heat. Sometimes they would dip their hat in water to help keep their head cool.
Their goal was to bake their body, not their head. 
This is because our head is the most sensitive part of our body to heat. Without insulating our head, we become uncomfortable sooner as we subconsciously feel the early signs of heatstroke.
Wearing a winter hat in a sauna really works. You should try it. Apparently it's even good for the health of your hair. Once you try it, consider buying a sauna hat. You'll look sophisticated.

Why is this technique only known by a small fraction of my generation?
Did people before my time think it was a fashion faux pas or did they think they knew better without even trying it?
Think about it. 
When I first introduced this topic, every listener should instinctually turn on their curiosity…not their inflexibility.
Look at your notes for the 5 mechanisms of consciousness, which I shared in the previous episode. What level of consciousness is curiosity and what level of consciousness is inflexibility?

Chess
In the game of chess, an initial rule says white moves first. 
Isn’t that curious?
 
Did you know if black moves first, the game is an irrelevant mirror image of itself from left to right?
The white moves first rule appeared 1,000 years after the conception of the game. The rule appeared when slavery was prevalent. It was formalized soon after slavery was abolished. 
It became an official rule in France one year after abolition and 15 years after abolition in the United States.
If the game is an irrelevant mirror image of itself from left to right, why do we continue to use something that seems to obviously express an outdated point of view?
We could use a coin flip like they do for football matches. A coin flip expresses sportsmanship, maybe even zen.

Notice, we play along with the narrative without knowing we do because we've been indoctrinated. 
Like someone saying, come on Marc, white moves first is just a rule. Yes, but what if one black person is bothered by the context, what do we say to this person? Stop drinking the Kool-Aid maybe?

Enjoying food
A close comparison to the tea ceremony is how we eat food. We have etiquette for eating food much like the tea ceremony has its ways. 
Imagine, on our plate, we have a bone with meat on it that we just can’t get with a knife and fork. 
Do we use our hands to enjoy our food
Or, do we feel using our hands to eat food is uncivilized?

What is uncivilized? 
Eating our food with our hands
Or thinking people who do things differently are uncivilized?

I’ll ask the question a different way:
Who is closer to zen? People who sometimes eat their food with their hands or people who look down on others?

Pro life pro choice
You know the decades old pro-life and pro-choice debate.
They don’t listen to each other. They argue their point of view.
Why waste time arguing for decades on end when we can use that time to work together and fix what causes people to make that choice.

I’ve reflected on this and put my concentration to work.
Here is one way to minimize people having to make this choice.
Let’s inform everyone about Natural Family Planning, which is tracking the woman’s cycle. This will greatly reduce unprotected sex. 
My partner and I used this method for 7 years. We were objective and acutely aware of her fertility zone. When she was in the fertile zone, we used condoms. Then, when we wanted a child, it was as easy as walking through an open door.

The only people who are negative toward tracking cycles…are people who are afraid of their own shadow, metaphorically speaking.
And please, if someone gets pregnant and you decide to blame me for mentioning Natural Family Planning, what were you doing? Natural Family Planning is easy. Yes, you’ll be apprehensive close to the zone so err on the side of caution as you develop your skills. 
Plus, men, don’t put the weight of the responsibility on the woman’s shoulders. Exercise your moxie and show her…she’s found herself a keeper. 

Anti-intellectual
Do you know what the term anti-intellectual means?
At the time of this writing, the definition tells us an anti-intellectual is a person who scorns intellectuals and their views and methods.
I can’t help but wonder if a quote anti-intellectual end quote wrote this definition.

I’ll explain:
An intellectual welcomes conversation, even with misinformed people because of a few reasons:
It is the intellectual’s responsibility to demonstrate how to listen. Otherwise, she has yet to become an intellectual.
When she is able to inform others so that they have an aha moment, it confirms to her she is an intellectual.
She knows that sometimes, through the conversation, she will have an aha moment. This means, by welcoming a conversation and becoming more informed, she knows she is staying on the path of an intellectual. 
An intellectual knows saying we don't have time to discuss the options is a copout. It's an abuse of power. Plus, it creates repercussions that take more time to fix.
An intellectual knows, one way an anti-intellectual avoids conversation is by calling someone, or thinking someone is…
…an anti-intellectual.
Calling someone an anti-intellectual is a way of saying, I’m choosing not to listen. This encourages others to become frustrated, which means the anti-intellectual is encouraging a heated discussion.

Here is how I define anti-intellectual:
As a noun: A person that accuses others as being anti-intellectual or some other derogatory term.

The definition for the word uncivilized also needs revision.

Every word that expresses a negative point of view is propagating dualities like the words anti-intellectual and uncivilized do.
We are drinking the Kool-Aid when we accept words that express a negative point of view as valid.

Notice, to be mindful, we have to consciously accept we have been drinking the Kool-Aid. When we do this, we wake up from our slumber and find our consciousness. 

Look at your notes for the 5 mechanisms of consciousness.
To get to the third level of consciousness, we have to exercise moxie when it is due as it puts our perseverance in motion to stop propagating points of view.

How do we remain mindful when every dictionary and unenlightened person preserves negative points of view? 
We aim to create awareness without arguing…and make Nelson Mandela proud.

Notice, mindfulness is the second level of consciousness. To get to the third level of consciousness, we have to exercise moxie, persevere and express generosity under the umbrella of the metanarrative. This takes concentration, which is the eighth fold. 
Mindfulness is an effort to unravel points of view in our consciousness. It’s a higher form of objectivity.
Concentration is the development and launch of a plan to unravel points of view.
Go to the Ariya Eightfold Path in your journal and, beside mindfulness, put an equal sign and write unravel points of view. In the line below that, write a higher form of objectivity.
Similarly, beside the word concentration, put an equal sign and write the word, ambition. On the line below concentration, write, develop and launch a plan to unravel points of view.
We’ll discuss ambition in detail in the next episode.

Conclusion
How are you doing? 
Does it feel like someone has asked for a volunteer and everyone but you had taken one step back? 
It takes perseverance to maintain objectivity when it conflicts with the status quo.
Why? Why does objectivity sometimes take perseverance?
Well, people in a position of authority sometimes feel inferior, which is normal. Yet, when in a position of authority, the feeling of inferiority can be devastating. It can be so devastating, we choose to validate our authority by formalizing something, anything, like the white moves first rule in chess. 
When a formalized point of view is questioned, it becomes defended through arguing and maybe it comes with some bullying tactics, like calling someone an anti-intellectual. This turns some into ignorant people with crab mentality. 
I, for example, spent most of my life ignorant and silent to the outdated point of view in chess as I was born into indoctrination. It happens to us all the time.
To unravel a single point of view like the centuries-old white moves first rule, it takes perseverance. So much perseverance that we could very well end up giving into crab mentality and we begin playing along like it doesn’t propagate an obviously outdated point of view.
That's why objectivity sometimes takes perseverance.


Throughout this episode, you were exercising mindfulness to unravel the points of view we were indoctrinated with.
You also saw a couple ways to use concentration to start unraveling points of view.
Sometimes we close our eyes to concentrate and sometimes we use a journal or computer. Either way, we are meditating.

Ultimately, the only way to make this a better world for our children and future generations is to unravel points of view and here is one way we can do it.
Build awareness of this podcast. Put Meta Zen in your social media profile, let others know about this podcast, and use the hashtag Meta Zen. 
Do little things against the grain. Wear a winter hat in a sauna, put different color laces in your shoes, when you play chess, tell a story, play devil's advocate, listen, be creative with your objectivity and exercise your moxie.
Visit moxiefrontier.com, buy Meta Zen stickers and put them where people can see them. I know this might feel like you are picking sides, which is a point of view. It’s not, however. It’s nonduality. We just have a lot of unraveling to do and neurohack #8 quickens our pace.
Imagine, you are in a conference room and others have the Meta Zen sticker on their laptop and on the corner of the whiteboard is a Meta Zen sticker. When you see this, you know you are within a critical mass. 
The next step is to use our concentration to develop and launch a plan that elevates the metanarrative, nondualities and objectivity. This takes ambition, which I’ll explain in the next episode.
Through the perseverance of our generation, future generations will thank us.