Pedram Shojai: Cultivating Your Own Identity and How to Live Presently

Align Podcast

Aaron Alexander

Health & Fitness, Alternative Health, Nutrition

4.8 • 900 Ratings

🗓️ 26 January 2021

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

If time is relative, how can we dilate it to live presently? How can you improve your focus to bring more time, energy, and money into flow? What does a monk think of money and what financial advice does he give?

In this episode of the Align Podcast, I have a conversation with Pedram Shojai, a.k.a. The Urban Monk, about the very fundamentals of meditation, how to be present and mindful, and how you can go as far as you can with the means you have today.

Plus, we talk about the concept of identity and how so many of us nowadays find our identity structure through ideology groups. We also discuss the value of rites of passage and the importance of wilderness, which often seems to be a missing component in urban life.

Pedram is a master herbalist, licensed acupuncturist, and wellness consultant. He is a dynamic teacher, Taoist minister, and lifelong student of various Alchemical Traditions. Pedram is also a Filmmaker and author, father, and husband.

What we discuss:

03:55: Pedram’s experience of studying with the Dalai Lama

04:47: Explaining educational and philosophical differences between Tibetans and Westerners

06:51: How and why Pedram became a Taoist monk

10:16: How to self-reconcile

12:53: Best practices for optimal focus

14:55: Why do we spend so much time online and how can we stop doing that?

20:08: The value in rites of passage

26:41: Money is trade

29:28: Financial advice from a monk

33:15: Being able to re-write our own story

38:42: Can meditation have different forms?

40:32: How to meditate effectively

44:17: Dissecting the perception of time and how to dilate it

:51:44: Dealing with imposter syndrome

53:55: Transitioning to a bigger game in life

To learn more about Pedram Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com

Instagram: @official_urbanmonk

Book: The Urban Monk

Podcast: The Urban Monk Podcast

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the Line Podcast. This is a place that we bring together the world's
0:05.3	leading experts in all things health and wellness to help you optimize your mind, body,
0:08.8	and movement and it's about 845. I'm here at my place, I'm drinking some tea, and I'm reading about the term
0:17.0	Wu Wei, or I believe it's actually pronounced U Wei, which is a Chinese term meaning effortless action.
0:24.0	The term is utilized in both Confucianism and Taoism and probably other places as well,
0:30.0	and is a fabulous concept to integrate in one's life.
0:34.4	I got a quote from Jean-Francois-Billetté.
0:38.4	He describes it as a state of perfect
0:44.0	efficaciousness and the realization of a perfect economy of energy.
0:49.0	So swimming with the river as opposed to upstream and all of the plethora of different
0:55.9	analogies that you could I'm sure come up with in your own mind. So homework
1:00.1	for the week. If you want it, start to pay attention to how life is happening for you.
1:09.2	Is there some way that you are perhaps perceiving the world to be happening to you, to be a victim,
1:17.8	to be having to struggle and work and all that, as there's some way to start to align yourself with your daily
1:26.1	experiences so that you are moving with the flow as opposed to continually
1:31.2	struggling to paddle upstream against it.
1:34.0	U-Way.
1:36.0	Today's guest was my buddy, Padram Show-Chai.
1:40.0	Padre is fantastic.
1:41.0	I'm looking at his bio here on the internet. He's a film producer,
1:44.7	Taoist minister Uweh, lifelong student of various alchemical traditions,
1:49.4	master herbalists, licensed acupuncturist, he's a badass, New York time best-selling author.
	...

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