The Secret to Happiness & Inner Peace: Anattā
Women Road Warriors
In this episode of Women Road Warriors, host Shelley Johnson and guest Michael Schauch, award-winning author and alpinist, explore the Buddh
Key takeaways
- Inner peace comes not from achieving more but from loosening our grip on rigid self-identities.
- Anattā is not about losing oneself but recognizing interdependence and impermanence in all things.
Main topics
- Anattā (non-self) in Buddhist philosophy
- The role of nature in spiritual awakening
Notable quotes
"What if happiness and inner peace aren't things you have to chase—but something you uncover when you stop holding so tightly to who you think you're supposed to be?"
"The mountains are like elders of the earth. They are our teachers."
Conclusion
By embracing the concept of Anattā—non-self—individuals can move beyond suffering caused by
Transcript preview
Speaker 5 (0:01) This Speaker 2 (0:01) is Women Road Warriors with Shelly Johnson and Kathy Takaro from the corporate office to the cab of a truck. They're here to inspire and empower women in all professions. So gear down, sit back and enjoy. Speaker 5 (0:23) Welcome. We're an award-winning show dedicated to empowering women in every profession through inspiring stories and expert insights. No topics off-limits on our show. We power women on the road to success with expert and celebrity interviews and information you need. I'm Shelley. And Speaker 4 (0:42) I'm Kathy. Speaker 5 (0:44) Many of us spend our lives trying to become somebody. Stronger, more successful, more secure, and more certain of who we are. But what if some of our suffering comes from gripping too tightly to the person we think we have to be? What if inner peace is actually a strategy? A source of clarity that helps us stop reacting, protect our boundaries, and respond from strength rather than fear? Michael Hsiao has searched for answers in places where the noise of everyday life falls away, from Himalayan caves and Alaskan ice walls to the sacred temples of Japan and the profound stillness that follows loss. Michael is an alpinist, a member of the Explorers Club, and an award-winning author. For 15 years, he's also mentored and supported Tibetan Buddhist youth in Nepal and young people in Canada. His first book, A Story of Karma, grew from a failed climbing expedition that led him to an unexpected family and an entirely new sense of purpose. His new book, Anati, Heart of Wisdom, explores the Buddhist concept of non-self, not as disappearing, surrendering our identity, or making ourselves smaller, but as releasing the fears, wounds, and stories that keep us feeling separate from one another and from life itself. Through extraordinary adventure, grief, family, Buddhist wisdom, and experiences that defy easy explanation, Michael invites us to stop searching for every answer outside ourselves and become still and rediscover the wisdom of the heart. Today, we're going to talk about finding peace without surrendering our power and letting go without giving up and learning what becomes possible when we stop trying to control everything. And people like to do that. Kathy and I wanted to explore how those ideas translated to real life. So we invited Michael to join us. Michael, welcome to Women Road Warriors. Speaker 3 (2:41) Thank you so much, Shelley and Kathy. And thank you for having me here. And Shelley, thank you very much for that kind introduction and very comprehensive. I mean, I was thinking, wow, can you come on my book tour with me? Speaker 4 (2:53) Well, you're pretty amazing. So yes, welcome to the show. Yeah, I Speaker 1 (3:00) appreciate that. Speaker 5 (3:00) Oh, my goodness, Michael, you have covered so many things here. And this book has so much to offer. I was wondering, before we discuss all of this, could Speaker 4 (3:12) you describe yourself in 60 seconds or less? I mean, how did you come into all Speaker 5 (3:18) of this wonderful knowledge? The whole idea of the heart of wisdom and all of these things. I mean, you've been a Speaker 4 (3:27) mountain climber and you certainly have seen so many parts of the world. You've got a lot to offer our listeners. Speaker 5 (3:33) It doesn't literally have to be 60 seconds, but just a summary, if you could, because we have so many wonderful things to cover here. Speaker 3 (3:41) Yeah, yeah. No, Speaker 5 (3:42) I Speaker 3 (3:42) appreciate that. I appreciate that. And I think if I tried to do it justice, it would probably take me longer than 60 seconds. But suffice to say that. my connection to nature has been critical. I would say two things. One is my connection to nature has been critical in terms of identifying that deeper sense within myself and just being able to reflect on how we're parts of a much more complex and bigger world out there. And sometimes we can get caught up in the stories, like you mentioned in the intro. Sometimes we can get caught up in the stories that we attach to. And so we can delve more into that. But I think nature has been a reflective tool or a reflective mirror almost to help me understand myself better. And so spending time in nature and especially the mountains has been very, very important. The mountains are like elders of the earth. They are our teachers. They are perhaps some of our greatest teachers that we have out there. And so that has been very important and has informed. Yeah, and formed my life for decades. And then the other thing I would say is my mom has been very, very instrumental in terms of who I've developed into. And there's a story. Actually, I begin, I open the entire book with a story from my mom. And it's a story that she used to share with me from her childhood. And just briefly, she grew up in post-Second World War Hong Kong. And she grew up with her mother and her older sister. But when her mom, when my mom was six years old, her mother died of tetanus and very, very unexpectedly. And that sort of, you know, crashed my mom's entire world. And so there's just one thing she shared with me when she was sleeping. So what they did was they, her and her sister, they lived in a shared space and they created a little shrine in their living, their shared living room. And there was like some butter lamps and incense and a photo of her mother there. And every night they would sleep there in front of the shrine. They'd pull the mattresses out and put them there. And one night my mom felt... uh, her, her, uh, like a hand stroking her forehead and a voice said, I have to go now. And so, and my mom awoke and she saw her mom, her mother, uh, over, over her. Um, and her mother stood up and went through the threshold of the doorway. And, and my mom, you know, she was only six years old. She ran after her. At that time they had these big, they didn't have locks like conventional locks, but they had like big beam, wood beams to bar the door. And so she lifted the beam off and dropped it to the ground and she ran out into the open night after her mom and saw her mother at the bottom of these hundred stairs. And then her mother disappeared into the shadows and my mom was just sobbing there. And eventually somebody heard her and brought her back home. But my mom never repressed that memory and never kind of dismissed it as something, you know, there may be a thousand. different explanations in terms of what that was, but my mom always knew it was her mother and her mother's love, which shielded her throughout all kinds of hardships that she would have to endure throughout her life. And that love then passed to me as well, I feel, and has influenced the connections that have, you know, shaped my life. over the years. And we can get into that as well. You've Speaker 5 (7:15) got so much to talk about here, Michael. Your wisdom is amazing. And I know that your perspectives on life, our listeners really can really learn so much from the concept of anatta. It means non-self. Am I correct? Speaker 3 (7:32) That's correct. Yeah. So that's the title of the book, Anatta, Heart of Wisdom. And anatta is an old... Pali word. Pali is the language of the time of the Buddha. And so the word, as you say, the word means non-self, or I like to think of it as non-attachment to permanence. And if we think what that means, we, well, I guess if I back up one step, you know, if we think about where does our, where does our suffering come from? You know, where does our dissatisfaction in life come from? And it comes from this central idea that we are an independent self. But if we can start to understand ourselves as not an independent self, but as I said, like as a highly complex interbeing with the world, we inter-exist with everything around us, then we can start to dissolve this illusion that we are an independent self and dissolve a lot of the suffering and stories that come with that as well. Speaker 5 (8:37) We are so self-oriented and this is something that I think that more people need to really grasp. How do we accomplish that? Because I think that that does create a lot of dissatisfaction. Speaker 2 (8:52) Yeah. Speaker 3 (8:53) I mean, it's not a, it's not an easy path and it's an ongoing practice. And so, first of all, I think it's about spending time in. For me, it's been about spending time in nature. As I said at the beginning, nature or the mountain has been that reflective mirror for me for many, many years. And if I were to put it like this, I mean, imagine you're looking at a mountain and somebody asks you, what is the mountain? And if you have this particular view, you would describe the mountain as you see it. and this is the shape of it, and this is what it looks like. But somebody on the other side of the mountain might have a totally different view of that. And those are just two views. And then if we were to take a step even further back and maybe look at the mountain from the perspective of the earth, I mean, then we would see the mountain as a ripple on the surface of the earth, just as we would see a ripple of a wave on the ocean. And that's something that's moving, that's shifting, that's changing, that's been shaped for billions of years through glacier activity. And it shapes the world around it. And it's got depth all the way down to the core of the earth. And so it's this ongoing, shifting thing. It's not even one thing that we like to think of conceptually as a mountain. And so we can understand that intellectually when we're talking about a mountain. But when we try to apply that to ourselves, it's much harder, even though it's the same idea. And so the more, you know, I spend time with nature and the more I spend time, you know, reflecting on that inter-existence that we are all a part of, the easier it is to kind of dissolve that or I guess see through or transcend that sense of independent self. Speaker 2 (10:45) Stay tuned for more of Women Road Warriors coming Speaker 1 (10:49) up. Speaker 1 (10:53) Dean Michael, the tax doctor here. I have one question for you. Do you want to stop worrying about the IRS? If the answer is yes, then look no further. I've been around for years. I've helped countless people across the country, and my success rate speaks for itself. So now you know where to find good, honest help with your tax problems. What are you waiting for? If you owe more than $10,000 to the IRS, or haven't filed in years, call me now at 888-557-4020 or go to mytaxhelpmd.com for a free consultation and get your life back. Speaker 2 (11:26) Welcome back to Women Road Warriors with Shelly Johnson and Kathy Takaro. Speaker 5 (11:35) If you're enjoying this informative episode of Women Road Warriors, I wanted to mention Kathy and I explore all kinds of topics that will power you on the road to success. We feature a lot of expert interviews. Plus, we feature celebrities and women who've been trailblazers. Please check out our podcast at womenroadwarriors.com and click on our episodes page. We're also available wherever you listen to podcasts on all the major podcast channels like Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon Music. Audible, you name it. Check us out and bookmark our podcast. Also, don't forget to follow us on social media. We're on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, and other sites. And tell others about us. We want to help as many women as possible. Kathy and I are here with Michael Hsiao, and we're talking about a word I need you to sit with for a second. Anata. Non-self. Now, if you're like many people, your first reaction to let go of the