Vaisesika Dasa walked away from an ordinary life at 15 to become a monk, and his best case for why you matter is a screw that fell out of a museum wall.
There’s a screw in a museum wall. Small, cheap, the kind you’ve got rattling around a coffee can in your garage. It’s holding up one of the most consequential paintings in the world. Millions of people line up every year to stand in front of that painting, and some of them tear up when they finally get there.
The building runs dehumidifying equipment, and the equipment puts out a light hum. You can’t hear it. But screws work themselves loose given enough time, and one night this one drops to the floor. The janitor is cleaning up and it wedges into the crease of her shoe. She goes on vacation. Somewhere in another state, on a dusty road, the screw falls out.
Now somebody walks by and picks it up. All they can say is, what is this? Where do you belong? Try to sell it on eBay and you won’t get much for it.
Back in that wall, doing the one job it was there to do, that same screw was close to priceless.
His name used to be Will
That story came from Vaisesika Dasa, who got it from his own teacher years ago. He joined us on Men Talking Mindfulness this week, and I should tell you up front that before he took his vows, his name was Will. William. Never went by Bill. So for about an hour we had 2 Wills on the show, and one of them had become a monk at 15. (Our Will said part of him wishes he’d done the same, but he’s glad he played sports.)
Vaish, which is what he told us to call him, was the kid who couldn’t leave the big questions alone. What happens when we die. What’s out there past what we can see. Then he met a teacher who had left India for the first time in his life on a cargo ship, because he couldn’t afford passage any other way, to come teach in the United States. Vaish saw a man who had given up a lot so he could hand it to other people. He signed on.
His book is called The Four Questions, and his opening argument on the show was about punctuation. “Out of all the punctuation marks in any language of the world, the question mark is the most powerful.” Look at the shape of one. It’s a hook. He says a good question pulls closer the answers that are already sitting around you.
His 4: Where am I investing my attention right now? What is the lesson? What is my purpose? How can I be of service?
A show I don’t care about
Vaish calls attention our only real asset. Free will is deciding where to put it, and once it’s spent you don’t get it back. He compared it to compounding interest. Start investing one day earlier, and 30 years later that one day made a difference.
He has a friend who checks his watch in the middle of important conversations. It takes a fraction of a second. Vaish said it breaks the covenant between them every time.
I’m that friend, except with a phone. I’ve got 3 young kids, and I’ll sit on the couch next to them while they watch some show I couldn’t care less about, and I’ll scroll. I tell myself I’m there. They know I’m not. Kids can feel it, and so can my wife. When I put the phone down and start asking dumb questions (who is this guy, what’s he doing now), their faces light up. It costs me nothing and I still don’t do it every time.
Why we don’t catch ourselves was the subtle part of his answer. You don’t find out how scattered your attention is until you try to hold it on one thing. He pointed to David Creswell, who studies mindfulness at Carnegie Mellon, and Creswell’s phrase for what you feel when you sit down to focus and everything in you wants to be somewhere else: benign discomfort. Chase 2 rabbits and you don’t catch either one.
His fix is a question, asked over and over through the day. What’s the best investment of my attention right now? Sometimes the answer is tiny. Go pick up that piece of paper and put it on the right pile. Then the next thing.
Berries, by the way
The second question, what is the lesson, is the one he says is hardest to ask. You have to ask it right when you’re hurt and would rather take your bat and ball and go home. His frame is that life is a schoolhouse. A lot of us treat it like a bed and wear ourselves out trying to get comfortable, pulling the sheet over one side and uncovering the other.
Then he told us about berries. He used to dislike them. Too tart to count as real fruit. Then he read about how good they are for you and decided, flat out, that he was going to like berries. Now they’re about the only fruit he eats. He told that story to a business associate who had shown up with a list of everything going wrong and everybody doing it wrong. A week later the guy wrote him: “Okay, I’m back in.” What happened? “I decided to like berries.”
I don’t think it’s always that easy, and Will pushed him on it. What about the guy who’s been saying “why me” for 30 years? Vaish’s answer was less magic than the berries. A daily practice, and cleaning up your surroundings a little at a time: who you spend time with, what you listen to, even putting your things in order the night before. He still does that last one. He wakes up, sees everything laid out, and thinks, “Who did this?” Then he thanks the guy he was last night.
He also has a rule for marriage and every other relationship where you hit a wall: workarounds bring turnarounds. Never say “forget it, then.” Find another way around. Will asked me if I’m failing in that particular classroom. Dude, every day. I learn every day too. One of these years my kids will be old enough to come on the show and tell you how it really went...
What to do about it
Ask the attention question 5 times today. “What’s the best investment of my attention right now?” Then do the one next thing it points to, even if that’s moving a single piece of paper.
Leave your phone in another room for one show. Sit through the thing your kid or your spouse cares about and ask 2 questions about it.
Ask “what is this meant to teach me?” the next time something goes sideways. Once, in the exact moment you’d normally ask “why me?” You won’t want to.
Set up tomorrow morning tonight. One thing, laid out, so the morning version of you has less to decide. Say thank you when you find it.
Do one thing for somebody this week that can’t be traced back to you. No credit, no post, no mention at dinner. Then pay attention to what shows up when nobody claps.
This week on Men Talking Mindfulness
Vaisesika Dasa became a monk at 15 and has spent his life studying and teaching the Bhagavad Gita and the Vedic wisdom tradition, with an eye toward people who have jobs, families, and mortgages. His book is The Four Questions: A Pathway to Inner Peace, and you can find more of his teaching at vaisesikadasa.com. Will has read it cover to cover. I’ll be honest, I haven’t yet. I said on air that I would.
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Until next time,
Jon Macaskill and Will Schneider
Focus Now Training and Men Talking Mindfulness
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