Hello and welcome to Mindfulness Plus. Thank you for downloading us today. We are here again with Shenzhen Young. If you haven't heard the conversation from last week, I highly recommend it.

Shinzen is one of the great teachers of our time and in my opinion,

one of the pioneers in the field right now, not just in Buddhist studies, but in bringing

Western science to bear on Buddhist practice and helping to mainstream this practice for the benefit of humanity.

So last episode, we talked a little bit about Shenzhen's background, how we got into Buddhism.

We also talked about what initially spurred his interest in science and this possibility of

bringing Western science and Eastern contemplative practice

into a deeper union. And we wrapped up the conversation talking a little bit about enlightenment.

And here we are back with Shinzan Yang. Shinzen, thanks for being here again.

So I've got a question, and this comes from our conversation earlier.

You were talking at the end of the last episode about enlightenment.

And you've done some pretty serious practice in Asia.

And I know some listeners will hear this and think, well, I would love all of the benefits of a

mindfulness practice I'd love to raise my IQ and my emotional intelligence and

whatever enlightenment is I'd love a taste of that and a lot of people think that if

they don't speak seven canonical languages in the Buddhist tradition and spend

several years as a monk in Asia that enlightenment's

not even a possibility for them. I wonder what you have to say about that.

I would say that in general, of course, if you do an intense dedicated practice, if you're living in a monastery, that you're likely, as a general principle, to move more quickly.

However, it is also true that someone that is living a householder's life that is not a full-time

practitioner can expect to get some pretty dramatic effects in their life if they structure

things in a certain way.

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