Ayurveda
Interview with Michael Green
I had heard about Ayurveda but knew nothing about it.
Perplexity describes it this way:
Ayurveda is an ancient holistic healing system that originated in India over 5,000 years ago. The term "Ayurveda" comes from Sanskrit, meaning "the science of life" or "knowledge of life". This traditional medicine system takes a comprehensive approach to health, focusing on achieving balance and harmony between the body, mind, spirit, and environment.
You had me at “holistic.”
Predatory Cartel Medicine has worked tirelessly to memory hole or discredit traditional, holistic healing modalities. These were the original low cost, necessary, safe and effective interventions.
I recently came across Michael and his work and I’m very glad he agreed to shed light on the subject for us.
With thanks to Michael Green.
Michael Green's Substack | Substack
1. Michael, could you please share a bit about your journey from living in New York and Los Angeles to settling in Bali and becoming an Ayurvedic practitioner and meditation teacher?
For nearly 20 years, I wanted to be a novelist. I spent 13 years in New York City, writing in the mornings and waiting tables in the evenings. In Los Angeles, I wrote scripts and waited tables. Meditation had been a large part of my life since I stumbled into my first Vipassana retreat in India in 2007. I was interested in health and wellness—hobby-like, in fits and starts—but it increased every year, particularly after my sister passed from breast cancer at 35.
After 20 years, however, rounding 40, still waiting tables, and with writing rejections deep into the triple digits—and now Covid—I had to admit that my interests and passions had changed. Buddhism, the dharma, meditation, spirituality, Ayurveda, mental and physical health in general, and natural ways of healing had outpaced my passion for literature. Fiction wasn’t as insightful or as interesting as it had been in my early 20s. If I was published, maybe I would’ve felt differently. It’s impossible to say.
At 40, I decided to pivot. Ironically, the ease of movement was possible because I gave writing everything. I wrote two novels, several pilots, more shorter things than I can recall, and napalmed all other career opportunities for it. I put in the unsexy work of querying agents, submitting to journals, networking, and all the business-y things like seminars, educating myself about the industries—whatever. Once I saw that and gave myself credit for busting my ass, the friction or fear of walking away dissipated into the excitement of cultivating right livelihood, practicing in these deep wisdom traditions.
2. What initially drew you to Ayurveda and meditation? Was there a pivotal moment that set you on this path?
Curiosity at first, then results. For meditation, it was that initial Vipassana retreat I stumbled into in India in 2007 that rewired my relationship to self. There are many other instances—and continue to be—where meditation thoroughly shredded my self-conceptions and worldviews, in relationship to self and, through that, the world. I sometimes say that meditation saved my life, and I’m not being hyperbolic. It really has. Just being able to navigate the human body with an operating manual sourced from deep traditions whose stated intention and service is to provide the human being with the skillful means to be at ease, breath by breath, moment by moment, to reduce suffering and increase compassion, has been—and continues to be—a blessing that still keels me over with gratitude and astonishment that I even found the dharma, growing up in a secular Jewish household in the Jacksonville, Florida suburbs.
My journey to Ayurveda was more circuitous. I was vegan in my early twenties, then vegetarian for a decade, increasingly interested in how what I ate changed the way I feel. This seems rather obvious now, but it’s not emphasized in the US. Over the years, I’ve gradually come to understand that health is almost entirely preventative and diet-and-lifestyle related. With this came a shift in worldview—from reactive, triage health, and outsourcing wellness to so-called experts, to preemptive and proactive dinacharya (daily routine in Ayurveda), where Ayurveda thrives.
This perspective was seeded in me 15 years ago when my older sister passed. We were fortunate to consult with one of the best breast cancer doctors in the country, then at Sloan Kettering in Manhattan. I remember sitting in his office, listening as he went over chemotherapy protocols. Toward the end, I asked if there were any foods she should eat or avoid during treatment. He just shrugged and said, “eat healthy.” Even then, I found it unbelievable that he didn’t recommend something simple, like eating organic or avoiding fast food. This guy was at the top of the game, at one of the best hospitals in the country, on TV shows, etc., and diet and lifestyle had nothing to do with cancer treatment for a then-healthy 33-year-old.
It took me years to understand the impact that moment had on me. It’s not that western medicine sees diet and lifestyle as auxiliary modalities to surgery and pharmaceuticals—it’s that they’re completely illiterate on the topic. It’s not even considered. This is changing a little, but it’s still pronounced.
3. For those new to Ayurveda, how would you explain the concept of doshas and their role in maintaining balance?
We’re all bioindividual. What works for you may not work for me. A superfood for me may be toxic to you. What works for me today in Metropolis may be contraindicated next year in Gotham City. We are all different, but all made of the five elements—space, air, fire, water, earth. Some of us have more air, more fire, more earth. This is the doshas: Vata (air and space), Pitta (mostly fire), and Kapha (earth and water).
At first, it felt impractical, philosophical, and abstract, with little phenomenological utility. Yet the beauty of understanding Ayurveda, in the beginning, is its simplicity, most notably the concept of like increases like and opposites balance. For example, if you’re a dominantly Vata constitution, whose two elements are wind and space, your natural qualities are coldness, dryness, roughness, and mobility (characteristics of wind). You’ll likely often get cold, have dry skin, and may be prone to constipation. The opposite qualities of warmth, unctuousness, and stability will balance you.
If a Vata consumes popcorn or dry crackers, for example, and it’s winter in the desert, the cold and dry qualities of the food and climate increase an already cold and dry constitution, leading to drier skin, digestive issues, dry eyes, and dehydration. A warm, unctuous curry and warm, humid weather, for example, balance Vata.
Pittas, mostly fire, are prone to overheating, anger, sweating, and short tempers. They’re balanced by cooling foods and cooler weather. Kaphas, earth and water, are imbalanced by heavy, cold, and slimy foods like excess dairy, for example, and balanced by sharp, hot, and penetrating foods like spices, bitter greens, and warm, drying climates.
A way I like to see it is that Vatas are balanced by the warmth and moisture of a steam room, Kaphas are balanced by the warmth and dryness of a sauna, and Pittas are balanced by the cold plunge.
4. Ayurveda is an ancient practice. How do you adapt its principles to address contemporary issues like EMF exposure or stress from digital overload?
Many problems of the 21st century, such as glyphosate, pesticides, phthalates, PUFAs, seed oils, EMFs, pharmaceuticals, household and environmental toxins, GMOs, antibiotics, screens—you name it—weren’t around even a century ago. This is where the biohacking and functional medicine world excels: modern labs and modern solutions for modern problems.
Ayurveda is thousands of years old. Its origins are buried in the mists of history. No one really knows how old it is. Whatever its age, none of these stressors existed. You could make a convincing argument that a 27-day Panchakarma—Ayurveda’s main detox procedures—could solve most of these issues, but it’s not feasible for most. Ayurveda’s dinacharya (daily routine) can assist with modern pollutants, but if I have heavy metal toxicity, I’ll look into chelation therapy. If I get into a car accident, I’m going to the ER to see a western physician, not an Ayurvedic practitioner.
5. You emphasize the importance of removing the root cause of imbalances. Can you share an example where this approach profoundly transformed a client’s life?
Gastroenterologists and specialists in New York diagnosed a client of mine, suffering from digestive and malabsorption issues, with IBS and sent him on his way. My intakes are very detailed—sometimes they take two hours. We were reviewing his diet and lifestyle, and he was active—a high Pitta (fire) individual who ran, hiked, surfed, and did yoga every day. He also practiced intermittent fasting, so when his eating window opened, he ate quickly. He was hungry because of exercising and fasting, but Pittas also have faster metabolisms and thrive on small meals throughout the day because they burn through fuel quicker than Vatas and Kaphas.
I didn’t think he was chewing his food and told him to dial back the fasting. Two weeks later, I received an email from him, in all capital letters, saying he was 80% better just from putting his fork down and not picking it up again until he’d thoroughly chewed his previous bite. Since then, I’ve seen several clients whose digestive issues stem from not properly chewing food. Mindfulness—and sometimes a little ginger—is all it takes.
I fell in love with Ayurveda because of its simplicity. I have many other stories where the smallest, simplest, cost-free adjustment changes everything, like avoiding liquids 90 minutes before bed to reduce the number of times you wake up to use the restroom. This not only increases sleep quality but also boosts energy the next day. As they say in the meditation world: ‘so simple our minds refuse to believe it, too close to see, so clear we look right through it, and too good to be true.’
6. Many people struggle to start or sustain a meditation practice. What advice do you have for overcoming common challenges like frustration or distraction?
When we start meditating, it’s perhaps the first time we notice how active our minds are. This can be disconcerting and discouraging, but from the meditation perspective, we’re actually bringing awareness to a hyperactivity that was playing out without our noticing. It’s an essential first step, but one that, without guidance, often leads people to quit because they feel their minds are all over the place and they’re just not cut out for it. Few are. We’re reprogramming our minds, attention, and brains from a lifetime of pursuing distractions, which our society incentivizes—particularly nowadays.
It’s also quality over quantity: four minutes per day of meditation, breathing, intention setting, gratitude, prayer, or whatever your practice is, equals 24 hours per year. Meditation helps us become more patient, kind, and compassionate with ourselves—benefits which translate to others around us—so sometimes it’s helpful for beginners to view meditation as an act of service to others. A better me is a better you.
I view meditation as a radical, punk rock act of opting out of society’s pernicious cookies that few of us consented to. Attention is our most valuable commodity. It used to be oil, then data, now it’s attention. It’s what every advertisement and app is after, and the root cause of every dollar spent. Meditation used to be attractive for spiritual insight and self-inquiry—and it still is, of course—but now, at its fundamental level for beginners, it helps us reclaim our attention.
Our presence, attention, mindfulness—whatever your name for it—is essential to every aspect of life: work, family, love, relationships; driving, eating, walking the dogs. The quality of our actions is predicated upon our attention and engagement. There’s no way around it.
7. You mentioned that modern science is catching up with ancient meditation practices. What scientific discoveries about meditation excite you the most?
There’s tons of compelling, peer-reviewed data out there about the good it does for you. I’m sympathetic to the view that a skeptic or two may be convinced to try meditation because it down-regulates the amygdala or can reduce blood pressure, but there are thousands upon thousands of years of tradition, history, and results, replicated and replicated to the hilt over the millennia. So I bristle a little and take umbrage with modernity’s claim that that data isn’t good enough, and they’re going to do it again and again—but with their instruments, studies, and scientists.
The irony is that the data will likely never be good enough for academia, skeptics, or vested interests. The most beautiful thing about Buddhism and meditation is that it’s not a religion but an injunction—the scientific method. If you want to achieve x, perform y. Balancing brain hemispheres or reducing anxiety is great, but these are stepping stones on the path to full-blown realization.
In cynical moments, I accuse scientific materialists of once again concretizing formless awareness and trying to control and measure something they don’t understand. But after coffee, I see how this research can entice people into dipping a first toe in the shallow end and following the well-painted arrows to the depths of the psyche and existence itself.
8. With statistics showing we spend a staggering amount of time on screens, how do you suggest people create balance in their lives?
One thing I do every day—and that I advise almost every single client to do, whether they’re Ayurveda or meditation clients—is to keep your phone in airplane mode for an hour after you wake up. For me, it’s non-negotiable. This is the time to meditate, exercise, make coffee in silence, read dharma, Ayurveda, or spiritual texts, and get ahead of the day—asserting my agenda for my time rather than someone else’s, which is what emails, texts, and notifications are.
When you wake up, your brain transitions from theta to alpha, which means your unconscious is a bit more programmable. Checking the phone first thing also disregulates dopamine for the rest of the day, making us want more of it.
9. You often highlight paradoxes in health and wellness. Why do you think embracing paradoxes is crucial for growth and healing?
Encoded in almost everything is its opposite. For example, in freedom, limitation. As the writer Bruce Tift says in his masterwork Already Free, ultimate freedom gives us options to choose from, but when we make a choice, we choose limitation.
Brené Brown popularized how vulnerability—defined as not knowing the outcome of a behavior, emotional display, or action—is courageous. Courage can be defined the same way: not knowing the outcome of a behavior, emotional display, or action. It takes courage to be vulnerable, and we’re vulnerable when courageous.
In Buddhism, craving and aversion mean different things, but craving means aversion to the present, and aversion means craving for things to be different. As Alan Watts said, you can’t have crests without troughs or troughs without crests.
Understanding the bizarre nature of paradoxes has helped me see more nuance and shade instead of binary blacks and whites.
10. You describe meditation as requiring vulnerability and courage. How can people embrace these qualities in their daily practice?
A favorite meditation cliché is ‘open front, strong back.’ Openness signifies vulnerability—to feel, observe, and accept whatever arises. The strong back is the courage to look at and observe it.
In most cases, what we choose (and I use ‘choose’ intentionally) to not look at or feel is what we most need to. Also, the metric of quality in a meditation or mindfulness practice isn’t about feeling good or bad, blissful or anxious—it’s about the level of attention and mindfulness we bring to whatever arises.
11. What are some common misconceptions about Ayurveda or meditation that you encounter, and how do you address them?
The misconception about Ayurveda is that it’s just diet, when diet is a small component. It’s lifestyle, exercise, yoga, breathing. It’s how you live your life, your purpose on this planet, how you treat others, your ethics, and your moral and social responsibility, as well as your spiritual practices. It’s also detox and rejuvenation, astrology, the design of your home, gemstones, nature, and more.
The more I study Ayurveda—whose stated goal is to ‘protect health and prolong life’—the more I understand that there’s little that isn’t Ayurveda or Ayurvedic. Anything that’s an ally to your health and healing—a healthier and happier you is a healthier and happier spouse, child, coworker, or family member—is, in my opinion, Ayurveda.
For meditation, the biggest barrier is what I mentioned earlier. We believe that we’re not good at meditation or not a good fit for it because our minds are hyperactive. Once that barrier is skillfully tended to, often daily, other misconceptions arise. One is that meditation is something you do for a specific period of time on a cushion, like it’s an elliptical machine, when it’s meant to be brought into life.
Attention and mindfulness are essential to every aspect of life, and once we start plugging meditation into driving, conversations, eating, meetings, disagreements, layovers, leaky roofs, leaky guts, vacations, or hospital stays, our worldviews and self-relations undergo tectonic shifts. As the trope goes, ‘first gradually, then suddenly.’
12. You often discuss balancing Vata to reduce stress and anxiety. What are some simple ways people can start this process?
To quote Caraka: ‘removing the cause of an illness is in itself the best treatment.’ To the best of your ability, remove the stressors. Waiting an hour in the morning before turning your phone on reduces rajas—the overactive mind—regulates dopamine, and reduces cortisol (every app, social media platform, and news site is designed to raise cortisol).
Meditation, pranayama, massage, and self-care practices are essential to balance Vata. So are daily routines, such as keeping your body warm and lubricated by doing abhyanga (self-oil massages) and bastis (medicated enemas), walking barefoot on the Earth to discharge positive ions and static electricity, eating a Vata-balancing diet, and relentlessly dropping self-criticism while cultivating self-compassion.
13. How does connecting with nature play a role in both Ayurveda and meditation practices?
In New York City and Los Angeles, nature was something I read and heard about or escaped to once in a while when the city boiled over. I had the good fortune to leave Los Angeles and work in Thailand for a while, in a remote part of Koh Phangan with no roads. I didn’t wear shoes for a year and a half. Going barefoot was a huge quality-of-life enhancer and an anatomic game changer—it’s actually been hard wearing shoes. I take them off every chance I get.
Swimming in the sea, getting sun every day, walking barefoot, minimizing screens, and living in a temperate climate exposed to the elements with no AC or heating—it changed me. One day, hiking barefoot on the mountain in just my swimming trunks, the sweat dripping off me, happy to be alone in the forest, I remember thinking something along the lines of, “this nature thing—damn.”
Back in New York, I thought we could outsmart or out-tech or out-innovate—or at least mitigate—nature deficiencies. I wouldn’t have disputed the power or majesty of nature, but I thought I was a sophisticated coffee shop, bookstore, and cocktail-bar guy, because that’s how New Yorkers think.
Now, I understand that the true cornerstones to sustainable mental and physical well-being are the simple things: nature, sun, fresh air, clean water, family, community; a good sleep, a good poop, healthy food.
14. How can readers stay in touch with your work, learn more about Ayurveda and meditation, or join one of your upcoming sessions?
I’m based in Ubud, Bali. I teach meditation a few days per week at Radiantly Alive, a local studio, and do Ayurvedic workshops and see clients around town. I also do Ayurvedic consultations and private meditation online. I have a Substack I send out not nearly as often as I want to (michaelgreenayurveda.substack.com), and I post dharma and Ayurvedic content on Telegram (t.me/michaelgreenayurveda).
My email is writeview@protonmail.com, my website is: www.clearlight.me
Michael Green's Substack | Substack
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Dear Unbekoming
Thank you. I will publish on Tuesday.
Mark
This is terrific. Such simple wisdom, explained beautifully. I've loved Ayurveda for years, yet Michael's explanations still brought more clarity. Thank you!