In Week 4 of our Summer Internship, the interns were asked to drop into their own wisdom.

They did this by doing 20(!) minutes of silence in the morning and night, practicing mindfulness and doing RAOKs every day, and reflecting on their current and future day every night.

From there we had some beautiful reflections on our Interns Feed, and in the spirit of brewing that collective tea, the call began!



Amit opened by asking an open, but important question: "How are you doing right now? What's at the top of your mind?"

Apurva began by saying that he was enjoying sitting in silence! "It allows you to tune out, all the noise and things going on." And he felt that things were surprisingly okay! Amit commented that he could feel how well Apurva was doing through his smile :)

Maya was enjoying a beautiful sunset in Utah, after going around national parks for a couple days. The previous day, she had walked for miles in a river, a hike she really enjoyed :)

Isabel was feeling happy after eating a huge burrito :) (Amit says food makes him happy too!)

Shyama had a hectic week training to be a manager for her store, and joined our call after a 7.5 hr job shift, and despite extracurriculars and college apps, she made time to be at the Awakin Circle in Santa Clara the previous night! And she even ran into a friend there, what a small world.

Priya is missing out on her family vacation, and is in peak mode with her med school applications - all 9 of them! Still, she feels that it's nice to check in and have a break from writing essays :)

Audrey is all good! She's feeling very grateful to be part of the circle (and we are all feeling very grateful to her for anchoring it!), and has been reflecting on the idea that wisdom and age aren't correlated (a reading from Adam Grant). Also pondering how it's so easy for wisdom to come out in some spaces and not in others.

Amit has been in a few countries and a few states over the past week - great opportunities, but it's a lot to do (more on how he does that next week, in our call on the theme of "Energy"!). He had a great conversation with an air hostess about how we don't have to be in positions of power to help people, and even brought up Gandhi! Unexpectedly nourishing :)

Circle of Sharing: Is there one piece of wisdom that comes to mind that's changed your lens forever?

Wow, Amit is not going easy on the interns...

Shyama has learned from this quote:

"Watch your thoughts. They become words. Watch your words. They become deeds. Watch your deeds. They become habits. Watch your habits. They become character. Character is everything."

Shyama's mom told her "watch your thoughts!" and she's been through some experiences where she didn't do that, and ended up with some bad consequences. Nowadays, she's trying to see whether her actions are both morally correct, and fit the situation.

Amit shared further on reflection - how he "peels back the onion" on his actions, and says "why?" as much as possible, to arrive at a deeper reason - was his intention as pure as he thought? Many times, he learns to change his action or communicate differently.

Maya has learned not to dwell in emotions - she was hiking in the river with her brother, and her brother went ahead without her chatting with a new friend. She felt upset with him in that moment, but realized that the source of that feeling was her expectation that her brother would stay with her. Her new discipline is to try and identify her expectations and hold them lightly :)

Amit: What do you do when you have an expectation of a family member or friend? We don't always communicate it, but they're there - do we purge ourselves of all expectations?

Maya: I can't expect someone to do something for me without me telling them what I would like from them. Having no expectations is not the way to go, but there's a balance where you can expect something, but then look at things from their point of view, and see why your expectations are there.

Isabel has learned that giving is great... but you can't leave yourself out of the list of recipients! At one point, she had been giving to all of her friends in college so much that she couldn't move out of bed, and felt extremely tired! Her mom reminded her to keep a piece of her and give it back to herself.

Amit: How are you actively giving back to yourself right now?

Isabel: If I'm tired, why am I tired? How can I take care of myself, and recognize that being tired and grumpy doesn't help anyone, despite what I would like?

Apurva felt that he would have "gone insane this week if he didn't have silence". There was this thought in his head like "why should I be in silence - it doesn't really matter..." but after doing it, he felt great!

Priya resonates with the idea of self-care! It's so important to give to yourself :)
Four years ago, she was doing an internship at Stanford where she learned about human anatomy. In the morning, she would learn from slides, but when she got the chance to touch the structures on a real cadaver (eg, performing a tooth extraction) it became real! Priya tries to complement all her theoretical knowledge with intellectual knowledge as well.

Amit: As a Vipassana practitioner, how does that wisdom evolve for you?

Priya: I learned to pick up on the subtle nuances of my own body, and became more wise and self-aware as a result.

When Audrey really thinks about wisdom, it's caught, not taught! She's learned wisdom by being around people who embody it. A quick story:
Audrey's mom a few years back had to get cataract surgery, and did one eye at a time, and after a week, she went to go see her regular eye doctor (rather than the surgeon). The regular eye doctor was upset that Audrey's mom went to someone else, and the doctor couldn't make any money at the appointment. The doctor tried to get Audrey's mom to pay money (the details are lost to time)... and Audrey's mom came home in a rare upset mood. Audrey asked her mom, "What did you do?" And Audrey's mom said "I said 'thank you'".
Why? Because "these kinds of small things don't matter. It's best to just send positive energy."
Now we know where that quiet humility of Audrey's comes from. :)

As Amit says "That was an awesome power hour!"

Open Mic:

What holds us back from wisdom? Does fear hold you back, or is it a tool to get to deeper wisdom?

Maya: Bravery isn't no fear, it's overcoming your fears. So wisdom can come out of fear, and we can work on our fears and learn from them. Fear of being judged is so common - but overcoming it can teach you more about yourself, and improve your confidence!

Priya was walking home after a whole day of working, and she picked up a pizza from Pieology and was looking forward to enjoying it. She happened to walk past people's park in berkeley, where there are many homeless people. There have been incidents of robbery at this park, and so the students were advised not to engage. Priya saw a woman wrestling with her dog, and something about the demeanor of that person made Priya felt cautious. The lady asked "Could you spare a slice of pizza?" and Priya's response was "Oh, no, I'm sharing it with someone else"

Reflecting on it, Priya felt bad - why not give? She's still struggling with this question - in a complex environment where there are real safety concerns, when do you stay cautious and when do you override that fear?

Amit: If you could go back, what would you do differently?

Priya: Probably, I'd give her a slice. I was in a public enough place where it would have probably been safe.

Shyama shared how in India the culture is to not give any money to the beggars that come up to the cars on the street, and how one time her mom and her gave someone an apple, and the person receiving it started cursing them saying "I hope your daughter (meaning Shyama) dies for Christmas." At that moment, she felt very afraid, but she later learned that the person was in a custody battle for her daughter with her husband. The whole experience helped her understand that people do things for a reason - even if they don't know it. Shyama tries to just approach them with kindness and keep that in mind.

Priya: Maya's quote from last week: "everyone's fighting their own battles" - you don't know that Amitbhai has been in 3 countries over the last week - we just don't know about people's intentions!

From Priya: Are we working towards our own truth, or are we working towards a shared truth? Is it personal, or universal?

Isabel: My mom always says that all the religions are just different paths leading to the same goals - one mountain, many journeys :)

Apurva: From Jainism, we are all working to remove all karma and enter a state of being omniscient or awake. All living beings have this potential - it's the ultimate truth that I believe, religiously. However, it's really abstract - Apurva prefers not to dwell on that day to day, but in this present circumstance, there are different people with different struggles and situations that carve their own experience, and their own wisdom.

Another story - Apurva got a haircut, and he told the hairdresser, "Don't cut it like this," but the person did anyway. And he's feeling "What will people think - I look like an idiot!"
Audrey: "I think it looks very sharp!"

Apurva's wisdom says that people don't put as much importance on the appearance has he might :)

Maya: We come from different backgrounds and perspectives, and we're all going towards different things. I [Maya] grew up not rooted in any religion very strongly. She still feels not rooted in any faith tradition, but she knows some friends are rooted very strongly in their tradition. Everyone has their own experiences - friends can motivate you, but they can't walk your path for you, or with you :)

From me: How do you spend your time, in those moments where it's really your choice? Say an hour on a Saturday, or 5 minutes waiting for the train stop?

Maya: I would spend it happily. There's a lot of anxiety for future - many of her friends are stressed about SATs or building a college profile. Maya says "If I can't be happy now, how can I be happy in the future?"

What a wise answer!

This might have been the end of our words, but let's not forget the wisdom inherent to the virtual circle, in all the smiles and space, in all the participants listening to each other, and the invisible threads holding it all together.

Audrey's closing thoughts: It's so funny that we use internet and social media and fancy technology, but there's something about these calls - I feel like I'm using technology and having a feeling of sitting around a camp fire.
It's like aspen trees - when you walk into a forest, it looks like tons of trees. But all the trees are connected to one root structure - above the surface they're individual, and below the surface they're all connected! An individual tree lives for a couple hundred years, but the roots live for millennia :)

We are all living our lives, but below the surface, we're connected to so much more.

What a beautiful way to end a call on wisdom - with nature! It feels so complete, I'll just leave it there.

If any of these seed questions inspired something in you, feel free to share in the comments! I think the interns would really appreciate the perspectives.

Onward to Week 5, Energy!