Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 301: Anne Lamott and Raghu Markus

Episode Date: August 17, 2018

My dad, Julian Trussell, passed away 2 days ago and this conversation about death with [Raghu Markus](https://beherenownetwork.com/category/raghu-markus/) from the Love Serve Remember Foundation and GENIUS award winning author [Anne Lamott](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Lamott) seemed like the perfect episode to upload in his memory. This episode was made possible by CASPER and Mack Weldon

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And you are listening to the Dugga Trussell Family Hour podcast. Number one, I'm sorry about my voice. I know it sounds more cracked and broken than usual, but I'll explain. My dad just passed away, and I'm sitting in a hotel in Daphne, Alabama after having spent several days helping my father transition and having a few breakdowns along the way.

Don't worry, I'm fine. Literally fine, not fake fine, not saying I'm fine. I'm fine. Thank God for the Ram Dass retreats, and thank God for all the things that they have taught me about how to be with dying people and how to deal with my own grief, and mostly how to get myself out of the way to let the dying person have

their death, which is an easy thing to not do. You'll notice when the next time you find yourself sitting with a dying person, you'll find there's a wide variety of reactions to death, from complete avoidance to turning the entire fucking thing into a play in which the dying person is an extra. I got a call last Monday that my dad had taken a downturn. COPD is one of the number one killers of people on the planet

based on my internet research. It's a shitty disease. Your lungs just gradually stop working, and as part of that, you can end up getting confused in the last stages, which is what was happening with my dad. And so I knew I had to get down there, so we took a red eye. My wife and I took a red eye and got to Alabama

and got to my dad's place and spent the next few days making sure that he was comfortable and letting his friends know that he had gotten really sick. My dad was the eternal optimist and the epitome of the Southern gentleman, and he was not going to let you know if he was feeling bad. And that's a double-edged sword, man. That's a double-edged sword.

And he didn't want his friends, who he had a great many, to be worried about him in his last days. So he just didn't let him know. And they were all taken by surprise, but once they found out his house suddenly filled up with some incredibly delicious Southern food and some very wonderful people who all spent a little bit of time with my dad.

And he would say to them, after spending a little time chatting with them, you would say, if you don't mind, I think I'm just going to take a nap now for a couple of hours. And this is going to sound like I don't mean it or like I'm passively feeling sorry for myself, and I really mean it, and I'm not feeling sorry for myself. But both of my parents, I just am so blown away with the grace that they transitioned out of this universe.

And to be honest, I haven't been around that many dying people. Only 7,000. I haven't been around that many dying people, so I don't know how people die. Maybe all people die peacefully. But man, my parents, in their own way, really made it easy on everyone around them. It's one of the things that the hospice teaches you.

The hospice that took care of my father was Southern care hospice. They did a wonderful job. And these people are angels. I don't know how anybody could do that job, man. But they're so good at keeping this aura of peacefulness in a situation that can very quickly get really dramatic and sad.

And one of the things that they tell you is that when a person's dying, it's good to convey to them that it's OK for them to die. Because if somebody loves you or if they feel worried about you, they will prolong their death. Now, that seems to imply that you could live forever just by worrying that the people around you are going to be sad. It's not like that.

But you can extend your death, I think. You can't cling to this world longer than you need to and suffer a lot more than you need to. If you get the feeling that you're leaving too soon or that people in this realm still need you, so that's one of the things they teach you is how to say goodbye. And honestly, do it honestly, which

I was fortunate enough to do that with my dad. And to really tell him how much I loved him and tell him I was going to be fine. And I got to watch his friends do the same. And I got to watch his wonderful cousin do the same. And my brother do the same. And it was a really sweet thing to watch. And I hope that doesn't sound morbid or weird.

But I mean, I hope this isn't a spoiler, but everybody dies. And when you get really close to it, you realize it's natural. The thing is water running downhill or rain or wind or anything of the natural world. What isn't natural about it is all the fucking forms. And I'm not going to get into how absolutely obscene and horrific it is to find yourself simultaneously

trying to connect with your father and allow him a peaceful passing while filling out forms related to what's going to happen with his body or dealing with his car, the bank, or just all the obscenities of the modern world that go along with it. Holy shit, that's another podcast intro. I'm not going to go into it too much. But since I was 15, my father has

said that he wanted to donate his body to the University of Alabama. When you're 15, you don't really listen to that. That's a thing you just immediately tune out. Number one, you don't think your dad's really going to die. Number two, you don't want to imagine your dad's body being shipped off to be autopsied by a bunch of fucking college kids, which is how I pictured it when I was 15,

my dad's body next to a kegger. But that was my dad's wish since I was 15, and it continued to be his wish. So we donated his body to science. And I'm just scanning the forms that you have to sign. And those are some pretty dark forms, friends. Those are some pretty dark forms. And I think I could talk about it now,

because I think my dad would think it was pretty funny. But one of the clauses in there is just something on the lines of not in this language. Just so you know, your dad's body doesn't say your dad's body, but that's how I read it. Your dad's body might be used for weapons testing, among other things, including plastinization. So that was a fun thing I got to do,

is imagine that possibly at this moment, my dad's body is being used to train robot DARPA dogs. My dad's body could easily be being devoured by a swarm of metallic bees and some subbasement of DARPA. I kept thinking about the forms. The forms are what bothers me. I've been talking to David Graber on Twitter. He wrote this great book called The Utopia of Rules,

and just the strangeness of forms and bureaucracy. And I can't wait to talk to him about the particularly unnerving place where forms and death meet. But that was a very small part of this experience. I'm sorry for the bummer intro. But Jesus Christ, what do you guys want? My dad just died, all right? Whoever you are.

If there's literally somebody out there thinking, what a fucking bummer. Come on, man. Lighten this one up a little bit. Do you really have to talk about your dad's body being attacked by robot fucking bees? I'm sorry. Here's the thing.

My dad loved life more than anybody I've ever met. As far as I'm aware, he didn't meditate a day in his life. He didn't read the Bhagavad Gita. He didn't read the Bible. But he read a lot. And he loved a lot. And he was reckless and wild. But he was filled with joy.

And his phone is just pictures of dogs and recipes and loving texts to his friends. And his body stopped working for him. And now one of the sweetest souls that I've ever encountered is free. And that's good news. And I'll tell you this. If there is an afterlife, then there

are a lot of happy dogs that are currently swarming my father. Because that man loved dogs. And dogs loved my dad. And I can't think of a much greater compliment than that. So rest in peace, puppy. I love you, dad. And I'll be seeing you.

But hopefully not at a museum where they plastinated your body. OK, we're going to jump right into this podcast. But first, some quick business. This episode of the DTFH has been supported by Mack Weldon. Friends, I'm going to read to you everything that I'm supposed to read for Mack Weldon. But I did the ultimate product test of Mack Weldon.

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Today's guest is a genius, an author who's written some incredible books. The one I'm reading right now is called Hallelujah Anyway. She was at the Ram Dass Retreat, and we did this interview with her in the midst of the retreat. She was kind enough to give us an hour to sit down and talk with her. This is a podcast that was done for Ragu Marcus's amazing

podcast, Mind Rolling, but he's given me permission to upload it here. So everybody, please welcome to the Dunkin' Trussell Family Hour podcast, Ragu Marcus and Annie Lamont. Well, we're sitting here at this lovely Ram Dass Retreat. I'm sitting here with my partner, Dunkin' Trussell and Hi, Duncan. And luckily for us, Ann Lamont, Annie, welcome.

Thank you. This must be a pretty good scene, though, right? We have a retreat around no death, no fear, yet we are going snorkeling in the ocean. Turtle watching and overeating while we're still here on the mortal quail. So let me ask you, you came here. I don't even think you had no idea about anything.

You just wanted to come and hang, right? We wanted to come be with you in Ram Dass. So I was at a doing an event in Seattle and a woman who makes stuff for the jewelry to sell. The story came up to me and said who she was, and she was involved. Somehow I said, I was going to call Ragu this morning, or I was going to tech, which I really had.

And she wrapped this bracelet around, so sort of like tying a string around your finger in big time. And I came home and I wrote to you and I said, hey, Ragu, you can kneel, my partner and I come see you in Ram Dass. And you said, oh, why don't you just come be our guest at the retreat? So we said, OK. And we got tickets the next day.

And then a few hours later, we were here. Unbelievable. And then, of course, you had no idea about no death, no fear. No, we had no idea. And now, what's your feedback, all of a sudden, being in the midst of Roshi Joan Halifax, Frank Osteceski, Ram Dass, Christian Dawson, Bob Thurman, in terms of that particular teaching.

Because I've been hearing, he's been talking to a lot of people, Duncan. And there's a lot of young people here. And he's been saying, this is really scary stuff, especially if you're in the younger generation. You're not thinking about death. And you probably have not necessarily been next to somebody in your family or whatever.

Maybe not even a pet that's passed. So we've been trying to address that a little bit. Fortunately, Mr. Truss will provide some levity to the occasion. And then Bob Thurman did as well. But what's your take on the theme? And what are you getting? Well, I've actually had a lot of deaths in my life.

If you've read my stuff, you know my dad died and very tragically a brain cancer 40 years ago when I was young. And my best friend died. And after I had my baby. And I've just been somebody that if someone in someone's family is going to die, they know I've been through it. So I've always been sort of summoned

because I don't feel scared about it. I mean, I feel scared that my son or my grandson will die or my dog panic-stricken really. But mostly I don't. And Neil, my partner, is a hospice volunteer. He's always coming home from people he's just visited. And we have a very dear friend who died while we were here, actually, yeah, two days ago.

And we've been with her a lot. And he's done a memoir with her. And so we've been immersed in her illness and being there and visiting. And so I thought it was funny, yeah, because there are so many young people in everywhere. They went, it was like death, death, death, rot. Because when you're a kid, too, when you're young,

there's a lot more worms involved in the discussion of death, right? And there's songs that go with it. The worms crawl. Yeah, right, right, right. But when I was young, well, when I was young, my dad was Scott, so sick when I was 23. And this is in the mid, late 70s.

And you literally didn't mention death. It was a bad manners. And it really wasn't until the AIDS epidemic that you could talk about death. And that death at someone's time was really short. You were supposed to not notice that they weighed 70 pounds. And they needed oxygen. And you were supposed to like, because we were polite.

We were children of the 50s. But when my dad got sick, Neal's heard this 1,000 times. But we had a really dear friend who also had cancer at the time, Susan Dunn. And he just didn't say the word. It was like a buzzkill, right? So they would sit outside the coffee house in Belenus. And dad would say, well, Susan, how's your cancer today?

Really loudly, you know? And then my dad would say, well, Susan, say, well, my cancer's OK. I think, Ken, how's yours? And he'd say, well, I think I'm a little weaker. And so my first novel was called Hard Laughter. And it was about laughing about this very hard stuff. It's easy to laugh when it's delightful or neurotic

or really universal and kind of kicky. But when you can laugh about this thing, like when my dad died, it was like a nuclear bomb was falling on my family because he was the center of our life. I have older and younger brothers. And so I kind of got stuck with it early on. But there wasn't this consciousness.

There wasn't this spiritual nomenclature that we're talking about soul as opposed to the broken down old car that's finally run its course. But then I got involved with reading Ram Dass' books early on. And that took away a ton of your year very, how old are you? Do my am I asking? 44.

Are you really? God, you are so great looking. You have beautiful skin. It's a blessing. There's no reason to feel embarrassed. It's a blessing. I think probably God just loves you more than other people. That's how it works.

That's a Christian path. There is a hierarchical love with God, right? But you may get a much nicer seat in heaven because of it, too, like near the dessert table or the cheeses. You're not pulling me in. No, it's true. The cheeses. The cheese, the cheese and the baguettes.

God loves Dick Cheney. Exactly the same as he loves me. I've written that. I have written that I would wash Dick Cheney's feet, and I believe he would wash mine. But anyway, so I think it's scary. It's kind of tough stuff. But if I were young, oh my god, if I

had had this information at 30 and 40, my whole life would have been quantifiably better, easier, much more free, much more everything. Because everything in us, via the culture and our parents, is to be terrified and shut down and not be with it. Because first of all, it's bad manners. And second of all, it's just so defeating that you have this beautiful life,

and you've kind of conned some people into loving you, and you've roped a man. And they're going to die. I have a grandchild who looks like God, and he may die. I'm not positive, but he may die someday. But to have known this and to have been able to dance with it, instead of to hide from it, would have changed my life literally more than any other

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and using promo code family hour at checkout. Now, back to the DTFH. Everybody listen out there. I got it. Everybody that's listening right now, this is exactly. I mean, this is what I said to you the other day when we talked about this, that it's, first of all, everything you just said is so apropos.

I wish I would have started earlier. I would have been able to be a lot more friendly towards the fear and walk towards it rather than run from it. But the other thing is, in this whole thing, we're talking about, and I read this thing of Milarepa, where I went to conquer my fear of death. And he sat in the cave forever.

And I found the deathless state. Or that which. When you said that, you know what I thought? How about Milarepa? You get strapped into a radiation, one of those radiation machines. I had testicular cancer. I know.

Hey, Milarepa, you get strapped into a radiation machine when they're playing Tina Turner. When they decide to play Tina Turner and they're blasting your lymph nodes, then let's talk about death. Oh, you went to a nice cave, beautiful with a great view, and you're a monk, and you're not attached to anyone, and you're wandering free and clear.

What about the fact that, like, you get, you know what I'm talking about? What about that Milarepa, where you've got to make the phone call to your family and be like, oh, yeah, one of my balls has death inside of it. Then do a nice koan, Milarepa. That being said, I'm so grateful for these teachings, because it certainly helped.

I don't mean to sound cynical or jaded. What I'm talking about is also it creates an environment where we can start to relate with that thing in us, whatever we want to call it. Soul, Buddha mind, whatever, nirvana, that is not subject to this fear. It's like Ram Dass' talk about you've got to operate on more than one plane at a time in this life.

So that's very important. And by the way, Milarepa could have been in the MRI, the radiation machine, whatever. Guarantee he wouldn't. He didn't drink Diet Coke. He didn't leave his laptop on his balls for five years straight. And may I ask you a question? You were saying you wish that you

had this when you were younger. So many artists that I've talked to, particularly comedians, when they're confronted with this stuff, they say, I'm afraid this is going to destroy my ability to be funny. Do you think if you encountered this earlier on, would it have affected your writing in some way? Does that thought ever come into your mind

that these kinds of positive transformations, I know much of what you write about is faith, and it's beautiful. But looking at the stream of your evolution as an artist, do you ever think, well, wait, maybe if I encountered this early on, I wouldn't have been such a great writer? Well, yeah. I just want to say something before I answer your question,

which is I totally love that you're resistant and that there's nothing on a bumper sticker that's going to throw the lights on for you. And you're going to go, oh, well, that was then. And now I'm sorry, but the Greek can hit me with your best shot life. It's not appropriate. It's appropriate.

It's very human. Just to be afraid of what we love, love, love most, we can't reach each other by phone after a point. And that's what I hate. And I loved last night. I forgot who was talking. Maybe it was Mr. Thurman when he's, or I don't know who it was. But they said, I don't want all that love.

I want him back. I felt, and it's all truth is a paradox. And when Pammy died, I felt a lot of incredible spiritual support. I felt like I was in a basket of spiritual support. And I was enraged. And it took me over 10 years to stop being grief-stricken mad. And I hate that the culture tells you

that you will get over it. And that you should have a more evolved take on it all. It's just a crock of shit. And the stuff that enlivens us and heals us doesn't come on bumper stickers. It's hard fought. But a conference like this means that we're available for it. We show up.

And before I turned on Woody Allen, he said 80% of life is just showing up. And we show up for it. And some of it gets in. And some of it doesn't get in. And some of it you think, that's ridiculous or not for me. Thank you, though. Thanks so much.

But I think not. But anyway, it's like people are always saying, let go and let God. And I just want to stab him in the head with a fork, like a baked potato. Like if I could let go of this right now, believe me, I would. I don't love being in this clenched, raschy state. But if somebody says to me, God never gives us more than we

can know, it's like, well, God didn't say that for one thing. And that's just so patronizing. And it's just so arrogant. But thanks for sharing. But we're not friends anymore. Because now, wherever I see you, I will run. But thank you. And so anyway, for me, it was very, very evolutionary.

I had all the Rom-Doc books in my head. And it's like the E. E. Cummings poem. Plato told him. Lao told him. Even General Yes-Man Sherman told him. It took a Nipponite bit of the old 12th Street L to tell him about death. Everyone can tell you about death.

It takes death to help you let go and go, OK, fine. This is my usual, my beautiful moment of surrender with God, as I say, with enormous bitterness. OK, fine. And that's sort of how I could come to the point with death going, OK, fine. But anyway. I love that.

That's so beautiful. That's so pure and real. Good mantra. Yeah, that's a mantra. Yeah, OK, fine. Whatever. You know, I wrote a book of the three, I forgot. Help, Thanks, Wild, The Three Essential Prayers.

And I thought a great fourth prayer would be whatever. Whatever. Whatever. Whatever. What's your acronym for God? There's so many. One is Good Orderly Direction. That's kind of for our Hindu and Buddhist friends,

but we don't buy that for a second. The one with despair. I don't know. There's a good gift of desperation. That's it. That's a great one. Well, that's a very recovery-based one. And that's a very dark night of the soul one.

That you don't do the work if things are going really well and no one's mad at you and you're doing fine financially and you've kept your weight down, then there's no reason to do the deep dive into the truth of our spiritual identity, which is, you know, eternal and dual citizenship of eternal and immortal and here with our Swarfi, you know, in our testicular cancer

and the whole holy enchilada. And I think that's what Houston Smith called it. But back to your question from 10 minutes ago, which was a good one. Do I think that having made friends with death earlier than I did, would it have changed my writing or that kind of sense of urgency that I think probably artists are talking about when they say that this or that

might have kind of either calmed them so much that they didn't get that very, very edgy writing going that made people respond? I always felt I got sober 32 years ago. But by the time I was sober, I had four, I think, four books out already. And I had a career. I had this whole thing.

I still live in the county where I was born and raised. I'm 64. You know, everyone I love and need, my aunts and uncles, my mom and dad and cousins, and everybody was there. So I was loved out of all sense of proportion. And I felt terror that if I stopped drinking, I would never write again. Because I needed the misery.

Because I needed that edge. And I needed the shame. And I needed the raging, sick ego. And I felt that without those, and then with 10 or 11 cool, refreshing beers at night to relax with, I wouldn't be able to. I wouldn't be sufficiently crazy enough to even be funny anymore.

But that's one of the lies of the disease or of the ego, that if you are well and if you're happy, the jigs up. Because you agreed when you were a little kid not to be too big or too juicy because it makes everybody else look like they're not doing that well. And if you're doing too well, I don't know. The whole psychological thing. I think this in Christianity, this is the one of the really

cool things about Christianity is that you get to use the word Satan. And I can't think of anything truly more satanic than that thought, a force in the universe telling you that should you become happy and healthy, then the thing you love doing the most will suck. That's straight out of an imp's mouth. Well, the disease of addiction and black belt

codependence and gambling and sex and love addiction, all of it, and I don't use the word Satan, I can tell you very often, but I would say it's satanic. And I would say the drug cartels. I don't think Trump is satanic. I feel like the raging narcissism inside of him is disease. He came from a family of disease.

He had a violent father. His brother died of the father. His brother died, suicide by alcoholism, and Donald Trump is still alive, but it's like a form of very agitated, caffeinated death that he brings to the common well. But I wouldn't say it is satanic. I would say the disease of the self, the raging, hateful ego and addiction to power is satanic.

And I've been with Neil a year and a half, and he's never, I don't think, heard me say the word Satan before, because then you always think church lady, and you're like, well, isn't that special? Yeah. But yeah, no. And then the funny thing is that when you heal the shame and when you heal the raging, broken, wounded ego,

I mean, it's a ping-pong game, right? I know you're just like me in probably all important ways that it's a constant ping-pong game between narcissism and the self-doubt and the self-loathing. And the jig is about to be up probably Wednesday, right after lunch, right? I don't get to be a writer anymore. I have to be an accountant or something.

It's going to be really a stretch for me, because I'm a dropout. But so it's constantly a doubt that I'm going to be this huge, this thing. And as it heals and you sort of settle down into the silt, I actually turned out my windows got washed. And it was like the Huxley thing, doors of perception, but not approached from a psychedelic point of view.

But from a cleaner windows and easier, healthier breath, and cleaner lungs. And also the weird thing that you agreed not to do as a child and you signed a contract for to not pay attention, right? Because if you're paying attention in an alcoholic home, you're seeing stuff that they can't bear for you to see or to even know. And so if you grew up with sick parents,

with mentally ill parents, the first thing you agree is not to see what's going on. And I have a mother who's passed, but who's English. And so the English tradition and the alcohol tradition, my father was that, we're raging asians, the whole thing, is their life depended on us agreeing not to see what was going on. And so it's very, very hard to trust

the narration of your own life, whether you're writing novels or memoirs or just being a truth teller in the world, just being an instrument of the truth as it comes through you. It's very hard, and that's where writers have to begin, because you've been told that what you see is not actually going on. And because my mother was English, by extension, what

you felt was not actually what you felt. And they would explain to you that you weren't feeling the two, well, women in the 50s, you did not do anger. You did not do anger. You did not do grief, because grief made people crazy. And there was no death. So if you were crying because an animal had died, or my grandfather, it was like the big eraser came and got him

when I was six. And we didn't talk about it. And so if you were having feelings, you went to your room and you didn't eat. And all the women I know have eaten, including me, have had massive eating disorders in body, because if you had feelings, you were wrong. If you thought that this was going on, you were wrong.

And you were wrecking everything for everyone, no matter. No wonder mom and dad had an unhappy marriage with you spewing all these crazy hallucinations about their drinking or their mental illness. And so when I got sober, I hated it. I mean, I have always said that this place has not been a good match for me, because I was in the 50s. There was this book called The Overly Sensitive Child.

And I was very, very sensitive. I had migraines. I had a sickness that wrecked the family further. And I was sensitive. And there wasn't the consciousness. It was post-war. The consciousness was that you bottle it up, and it's Eisenhower, and you mow the lawn, and it's madmen, and all that.

And there wasn't this consciousness that to have a big open heart and big, goggily eyes that are seeing everything and taking it in was a beautiful thing. To grieve for a friend's lost dog was a beautiful thing. And it wasn't. It wrecked everything. It's like, oh, the battle cry at our house

was, oh, for Christ's sake, Annie, now what? I'm sad about India. There are pictures of children on the cover of the National Geographic, and there's bugs on their eyes. And we're at the pound, and we're going to get a cat. But there's 30 cats. And this is very upsetting for me. I know we can't take them all home.

And I would have to go outside and do it, because I felt the whole suffering of the world. And it was like, no, it's just ridiculous. There's nothing you can do, they said. Do you buy the stuff Thurman was saying about we choose our parents, and do you play around with the concept that, for whatever reason, you dropped into this dimension choosing parents that were going to squelch your, I don't.

OK, wait, you've got to just frame this a little bit more than this concept. You're up there, and you're, oh, yeah, they'd be good. This is the complexity of karma, and what actually happens is beyond rational mind. He was simplifying this in that moment to give people an idea that you came in, and you described this intense, intense family

life with illness, and so on. And the kind of neuroses that piled up. I could give you maybe not as big a pile, but a pretty big pile that would compare to your pile. He probably could as well. And there is something to the fact that this is what we did need for you to be able to share the way that you share with people

would not have been possible without that pile of neuroses, probably. I mean, I'm sure of it, because I read your books, and I see myself in so much of it as many people do, which is why they buy the books. We should talk about that. One thing Thurman did say, Bob did say, he talked about how we indulge our neuroses as well.

I mean, and that's something that we never talk about. And you mentioned a little bit in terms of grief and how it's been many, many years that you've grieved over this person, right? And he talked about, OK, we got to realize that we're indulging our neuroses at some level. We've got to say, OK. I mean, he was very glib about it in that moment yesterday,

but I remembered it because I was thinking of my friend, Ramesh. I don't know if you're Ramesh and Kate. I had breakfast with him. So they lost their 14-year-old in a bike accident. And I was thinking about her, who's had a tough time for these last four or five years. So yeah, what do you think about how our neuroses,

how we kind of pile on whatever it is that we are dealing with and we pile on? Is there, do you feel there's an indulgence? Well, I just also want to say that a few times I've heard you express things or doubt or do you really think or whatever? And you always seem to get shamed for it. And I think it's a little bit shaming to cut him off as if he didn't quite understand.

I mean, he was, everyone's using shorthand. So sorry. Yeah, I think it's a little shaming. But because no one knows. And Bob Thurman is not the boss of me. And I saw a girl at the Last Women's March and she had a t-shirt on it said, I obey no authority, but my mom.

That is so awesome. And what I think is I don't have a clue. And that there are times where, like when my friend Pammy died with a little baby, which if I were God's West Coast representative, this would not have happened. This was a mix-up. It was supposed to be Donald Rumsfeld.

And yeah, it was like pay for work, foul up. And I can't get OK with it, but all truth is paradox. And I accept it. And when she was dying, I was, do you know Dale Borglum? Of course, sorry. You know Dale Borglum? He was her living dying coach. Yeah, so that's how I knew.

Yeah. Now I remember. And so he was kind of coaching me, too, because it was the end of the world for me, too. We've been best friends since high school. And she helped me raise my child for a couple of years. And so he was of your ilk, Ragu, of your icky ilk. Yes, he was icky with us back in the day.

He was icky with you back with Maharaji. And so he had a reincarnation feeling. And he did never try to correct my thinking. I feel like people keep trying to correct your thinking. And I saw it on stage a couple of times. And I mentioned it to Neil. And I thought that was kind of shaming. But anyway.

It is part of our shift. Yeah. May I respond to that quickly? Just because I know that it can seem like that. And I know some people interpret it as that. But that is the shtick that you're mostly seeing. I do not feel ashamed by them. And it's good to hear that, though,

because I don't want people to feel uncomfortable as though I'm up there thinking, oh, my god, these people are shaming me. Because the truth is, they've really helped me. And embraced you. So much. And embraced me. And helped me open up.

And honestly, whatever they do to smack me down, it doesn't even matter. Well, that's what Neil said. Neil said, that's not what's going on. That's kind of like my projection of being a little kid where I was feeling corrected all the time or that. But also, by the same token, they're all really old. And they're going to die soon.

And you're still young. So who cares? Like, bore me later, Ragu. Well, I don't see that. Because what you're doing, I think to myself, what he's saying, too, I look at these things as lenses to look at things through. True or false, who knows.

But I think, have you ever heard the idea that Terrence McKinnon says, a shaman is a sick person who's healed themselves. Have you ever heard that before? No. And how all, just this brief chance to chat with you, it's like, oh my god, I feel liberated. And it's because you did it.

You did it. And because you did it, you've done it for so many of us. You suffered for us. I mean, that is Christianity, isn't it? Do you have a particular past you're on? Oh, I chant Hare Krishna and Raham. Oh, you do. But I love Jesus.

You're a chanty guy. I love chanting. Yeah, yeah, I love Jesus too. I mean, how can you not love Jesus? It's like not loving ET or something, right? But I want to say two quick things about the question, too, is, so anyway, when I was with Dale, and he was really, he was kind of like birth coaching me

through this death. And he's great. He is amazing, living dying project in Fairfax. But so I would kind of, as I said, dance with the reincarnation a little bit. And wonder and find solace in the fact that maybe Pammy had known before she got here, before she got assigned her biography or whatever,

that she was going to only live to 37. She'd have a baby. She'd have us. And that she signed on for it because it was exactly what she needed to get free and to get into union with God. And it brought me a lot of solace. And I didn't just plug into it like a software or something. It feels absolutely true, but it's not my past.

And then, and so I would kind of, you know, it's part of me. It's like a weave. I'm like a fruitcake. You know, I mean, I hate fruitcake. But I'm like, yeah, it's not even an edible. But anyway, then there was this, there's two things. One thing I wanted to share with you because I think you would love it is that this guy that

was not an alcoholic, a priest who helped a agate off the ground said, sometimes I think that heaven is just a new pair of glasses. You know, and so you were talking about lenses. You know, you see the lens, you see through this, you see through Bob Thurman's lens. And it's all true. And then I kind of resist.

And I can't stand when people think that they have the truth. And I thought it was the truth. I don't disagree with anything Bob said. And yet I kind of bristled so many things and kneeled at it all the time. And then I always have to smack him down. Neal is here, by the way. Neal is here.

And I am so in love with him. But he'll think that how he was healed is the way, the best, the only healing path. But the other thing I wanted to say was that years after Dale and I worked together, I read that book by Carolyn Mace. Have you ever read it called Sacred Contracts? It's going to blow your mind. And you are going to owe me forever.

All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is why I'm doing this. Why I'm doing this. Yeah. And I'll call in that chit at some point. But you read that book, right? It's Sacred Contracts.

But I know of it. Well, when you're in it. Yeah. My mom loved her. Yeah, she's fabulous. I love that she's so brilliant and she's so cranky. You know, that just adds such a realm of authenticity to it. She's lovely.

She's hilariously funny. She's judgmental. She's bossy. She's cranky. And she's sharing the truth. And it's just like with Bob Thurman. That's not, I don't, I mean, I grok it, but I don't always weave it into my clothing.

But this book blew my mind because it was that before you came around, came here with, you know, God assigned the body and the biography that you, like there's somebody I just can't stand. There's a couple of people. I want to write a book called All the People I Still Hate, A Christian Perspective. Wouldn't that be great?

Wouldn't that be great? But with these people that really have hurt us or continue to hurt us or continue to just make us nuts because of their behavior, which is awful, awful, awful, objectively, you can start to see that you made some kind of contract with them before you got here. And you say to the woman, say to the woman in this case, this hypothetical case, I am going to need you to mess with

my family at a level I'm not even sure you're willing or able to do. And it's going to be a massive financial attack on us. It's going to be legal and it's going to be public. You're going to go big. It's going to involve media. And then she would say, oh, no, I could do that. I think that would be fun.

Are you sure you go, yeah, yeah, let's do that. And she said, well, what I need for you to do, you're going to win. And that's going to make me crazy. And I'm going to have to take some of this underground. And it's going to cause some stuff that I don't know if you're prepared for. And I go, no, I'm in.

I'm in. And I have had an experience of two people that have hurt me and my family at the deepest, deepest possible level. And once while meditating, while thinking about this sacred contract and sitting on the floor with my back up and my knees drawn to me, I felt her literally beside me in labor. And it didn't, it felt absolutely as real as you right here with your skin, you know, and I felt her and I started to laugh

out loud because I got it that it and that she and I could feel her laughing too. Wow. Right. And you know, I don't need to ever see her again. This isn't about wanting to have lunch with someone. This is about this deeper kind of cosmic quantum. Healing and release into the, into the good, you know, instead

of that cramped, clenched, rashy, you know, ugliness that makes us part of what is so excruciating in the current government. So that's a book I think you would love. And you don't have to take it all. There's nothing that you sign at the end, you know, but it and it's like what we were talking about with reincarnation that it kind of comes through exactly when you need it and you get it and it's true and it bathes you in itself and the truth of itself

and you can breathe again and then you're home. Right. As soon as you can breathe again, that's home. Did you ever, did I ever tell you because we just, I don't think we've ever really talked about Christ when we've had chats. Did I ever tell you that when we went to see Maharajinim Karoli Baba literally in the first few times, all he talked about was Christ?

Did you know that? No, I've known that from the other north. Yeah, and you said something about it yesterday with the mic in your hand, I think. Yeah, or Krishnadas tells the story of the Canadian guy, meaning me, who went because I met my guru. So you figure Hindu guru, get a mantra, you're fine. And I said, well, so how do I meditate?

Because I was thinking mantra meditate. I didn't even know what I was talking about. He's meditate like Christ when he was nailed to the cross. He felt love, not pain. He was lost in love with everything. And then the next day we went back and Ramdas, I got Ramdas to say, well, how did he meditate, which is this famous story. And he just went back, closed his eyes and tears came.

And right then we experienced Christ in that moment. And we were all Jewish, who had no relationship. I had never read the New Testament. And then after he used to say, do you read his book? Who? His book, Isha, which is Jesus in Hindi. So there is a tremendous teaching that we got around Christ in India before anything.

It was Christ and Hanuman, they're the same service to me. Anyway, I never told you this, so I won't. I just because it made me think about it. Thank you. Elemental to us. And one of the things that Bob, our friend Bob, said yesterday, which really struck me was about what this fabric is that we are connected to by love, which is a tough word because it means

romantic love to us here in the West for the most part. And he said in, I guess, the Tibetans, how they approach it is love means how happy you can make another person. Was that great? I mean, I really love that. And I get that feeling in your writing and in your books. Oh, thank you. Well, I really love that thing.

Rumi said that through love, all pain will turn to medicine. And that has really guided me as a storyteller because the medicine of the people that I have been given life by really has sprung from pain. And all great comedians, it's sprung from pain. There's a new book on Robin Williams coming out next week. And it springs from this intense isolation. All of that huge world that was Robin Williams

springs from an attic with 300 toy soldiers and giving them different personalities and voices and situations. But through love, all pain will turn to medicine. And Jesus says, everything I can do, you can do. And he goes up to the blind man. He puts dirt in his hand and spits in it and makes mud and puts it on the guy's eye.

And he doesn't say, what do you plan to look at now that I've given you your sight back? He just heals because he's got us like Neil will call it a parlor trick. He can heal. And so we can heal too. But the way that people like us would heal is just by telling the truth and being kind of playful with it

sometimes, but not at the cost of trying to make it cuter and more digestible than it is. But because we're funny, just because that's a gift and a defense and all that. But it's also just such a gift, such a blessing to have a sense of humor and one that is transmittable. But I was thinking also what one of you guys said, there's a story of a little child, a little girl who's

scared to death to go to sleep in the dark. And she keeps calling out for her mom. And her mom will come in and say, Jesus is right here with you. Don't be afraid. And then the mother goes out to her bedroom. And after the child calls her again, and the mom comes in and says, Jesus, right here on the bed with you, there's no reason to be afraid.

You can't be anywhere where Jesus says, this goes on and on. Finally, the last time the mother comes in, she sits down with the child and says, Jesus, right here with you. And the child says, I need someone with skin on. Yes. And that's what we need here sometimes. Most people aren't going to get to India,

to the Hanuman temple. But that someone with skin on, there's no difference, right? Because there's no difference between me and anyone. And that if I just sit with you, I mean, that is a miracle that at some point we learn to listen. I mean, that was not a huge part of the toolkit that our parents shared with us. The thing was about being conversational,

being brilliant, being erudite. And now this whole thing from the 60s and the 70s of listening as the great medicine of saying, yeah, I got a minute, what's going on? And then my parents did not correcting what the person thinks is going on and saying, well, no, here's another way. Here's a better way to look at it.

Just listening and nodding, going, yeah, you know, me too, yeah, I know exactly. You know, that is the technique in psychedelic harm reduction in the trainings that they do for festivals is just what you said is when someone is having a really bad trip, the last thing you want to do is correct or judge or anything with their experience. If you just listen compassionately, they'll calm down.

But I wanted to ask you, this is what Neem Karly Baba said about Jesus. He's, will you say that again? Well, when finally he said, tears came down and he said, you don't understand. He kept repeating, you don't understand. He is one with every sentient being. He's lost in love. The thing on the cross,

the thing on the cross. He felt no pain, only love. What do you think about that? Cause I hear that sometimes in my version of Jesus is this broken, terrified youth. He had a very human death and it is the grimace, shittiest death. They could come up with that at the time and he's killed next to criminals too, right?

It's the most ignominious and excruciating death. But he and God are, he's in labor, you know, and God never leaves him for a second. And he, you know, there's a song we sing only love held him there on the cross. And it says, he could have called 10,000 angels to come to his rescue. Only love held him there at the cross.

And he just was going through labor, like you have not gone through labor and yet. It's a big yet for you. It's a long time down the road. But about halfway through, you realize you don't like children, you know? And that, but then, but you're not alone. And you're with people who are helping you

not believe that you're thinking is where the buck ends, you know, and they're giving you ice chips and extremely cold apple juice. It's communion. And people, my younger brother was there. My best friend, Pammy, was there. And nurses and doctors, and so when you forget that you don't like children,

they take your mind off that, that you're just in a process. It's contraction and release and breath and peace. Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, here, it's back, it's back. It's okay, remember the last one? You contract, you constrict, it hurts really like a mother. And I think that's where that comes from.

And then, and you constrict and then you release and you breathe and you relax and you rest. And it's what heaven will be like, a new pair of glasses and they give you ice chips and some very cold apple juice. Yeah, and then you know what comes out, new life. And that's what Jesus was saying. He was saying, I'm gonna do this. Only love is holding me here.

And I love you so much that I've stretched my arms out as far as they will go. And they nailed them to the wood. But if you, you know, the tradition is that if you were the only person on earth, Jesus would have died that humiliating and excruciating death because he was in labor. And he had this labor coach, you know, mother God.

Beautiful. Beautiful, wonderful. Okay, we're pretty close here, but I wanna give you, do you have one more something that you want to get some words of wisdom from him? How do you follow that? Well, I'll tell you another story that you will really like. Okay, okay.

You know, the great Barry Lopez said, sometimes we need stories more than we need food. But I heard a story on the radio. So this is not from like some brilliant Hindu holy woman or man, but it was a story of the man who was speaking had a brother who was five when he, when the speaker, whoever it was was born. And the five year old brother just,

it was like the end of the world as it was for my older brother when I was born. Cause he was like the prince. You know, he had it all in place. He was the first of the grandchildren. It was all perfect. And me, his first words to mom and dad were, take it back. And anyway, so this little boy,

the five year olds waiting for the mother to get ready to go to the hospital. And he's just so scared and sad. His parents are in the bedroom next door and they're a religious family. And he calls out to the dad, daddy, are you there? And the father says, I'm right here. I'm always right here.

It's like Jesus calls God, Abba father for daddy. He calls him daddy. It's very, very intimate. And he says, daddy, are you there? You know, I'm right here. I'm always here. I'm always here. And there's a long pause.

And then the little boy says, is your face turned toward me? Wow. And that's my Jesus experience. Wow. You know, somebody said, some writer said, the greatest, absolutely the greatest gift you can give anyone is your full, absolute attention.

That's right. And so hard for most of us to give partial attention, and especially in these times. And I've said this a billion times. We had a whole retreat around trust the last time we were here. And I told, and I think I was with Duncan and Ramdas. And I said, when I first met Ramdas,

I opened the, I knocked on the door to an apartment in Montreal where I was. And he opened the door. And he gave me the most attention I had ever been given in my, maybe when I was a baby, my mother might have given me. But after, you know, that was easily forgotten. And I was like astounded that somebody

who didn't know me would do such a thing, you know. To this day, that has, you know, that led me to trust him enormously, 100% and go to India right away. I followed him to India right after that. But to this day, and I, you know, as the director of Love Serve, remember I'm fielding all the stuff

that would come to Ramdas because at this point, you know, he's just not going, you know, he cannot do that. He doesn't have the bandwidth for it. And every time I have him in mind to give, I mean, and I can't, and I'm not there yet, but I'm getting better. I tell him this all the time.

You're in my mind all the time as a model to give attention to people and not dismiss it no matter what. Which as you see, he does not, right today. And that's today. He wants to go give that attention to every person. And, you know, of course it's a problem because he doesn't have the energy.

But he doesn't care about himself. And it's that, you know, letting go of caring so much about ourselves, which is really the key to this. Thank you, Annie. You're welcome. Thank you so much. Thank you Duncan.

You're welcome. Thank you. Are you kidding? I can't believe I get to be here. My favorite people, I'm lucky. Thank you. So lucky. Thank you.

I'm so glad to know you now. Do you believe it? What a scam, right? I know it's like with the God thing, what's the catch? And it's like, that's the catch. There's no catch. Yeah, right.

Just is, love is. Yeah. There you go. Thank you. Whoa. Thanks for listening everybody. And a big thank you to Ragu Marcus for letting me use this episode

of the Mind Rolling podcast. And a big thank you to Annie Lamott for this wonderful conversation. And a tremendous thank you to all of you. Thank you for bearing with my cracked, broken voice. And I apologize for the gallows humor up front. I hope you're having a wonderful week. And I'll see you real soon.

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