Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 302: Jason Louv

Episode Date: August 25, 2018

Jason Louv, [Ultraculture](https://ultraculture.org/), [magick.me](https://www.magick.me/), joins the DTFH to talk about death, grief, and the metaphysical plasma that connects all of us. This episod...e is brought to you by: * [Squarespace.com](http://www.squarespace.com/) * [Simple Contacts](http://www.simplecontacts.com/) * and [Stamps.com](http://www.stamps.com/)

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Ghost Towns, Dirty Angel, out now. You can get Dirty Angel anywhere you get your music. Ghost Towns, Dirty Angel, out now. New album and tour date coming this summer. This award-winning episode of the DTFH is brought to you by Squarespace.com. Head to Squarespace.com, Ford slash Duncan for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use Africa Duncan to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
Starting point is 00:00:33 It would be willing to share with us the experience that you had with the care provided by SouthernCare Daphne. Do you have a moment to answer? Shit, that was crazy. That was my dad's hospice just called SouthernCare Hospice. They're amazing. Hospice is amazing, but SouthernCare Hospice is pretty cool. And they just call to check in on you to make sure you're doing okay. Because people just don't...
Starting point is 00:00:59 Like in the West, we're so... Most of us, many of us in the West, we are so oblivious to death and especially to the effects it has on our psyche. It's like you don't even think about it. I didn't think about it. Like when I was... When I went to be with my dad, I wasn't thinking about the week after at all. I was just like, all right, I got to get down there.
Starting point is 00:01:20 Got to make sure he's okay. Got to make sure he's comfortable. Got to make sure he's got care. Got to make sure that the forms are filled. There's a million stupid forms. And I just wasn't even thinking like, oh, the next... When you get back to LA, you know, you're going to be... You're going to be feeling it.
Starting point is 00:01:40 I think a lot of people do that. So when I got back home, you know, I was... My wife had a friend staying over and we were all like... Oh, let's all go to a movie. And then like I hadn't even felt it. It hadn't even happened. And then bam, then just a grief wave, tsunami level grief wave. And it's like, you don't want to be a bad host by like breaking down a sobbing mess in front of your wife's guest.
Starting point is 00:02:11 So I ended up, you know, mildly freaking out, getting in an Uber, going to a hotel, which is like, you have this stupid instinct. It's like a dog that wants to crawl under a porch or something. And then went to the hotel, melted down, just eating like, just like eating shit, eating just garbage from the wet bar. And then just shoving my face full of food and then laying down and then crying. And then like, just a mess, just a fucking mess, laying in the bathtub. And then suddenly, oh, I feel totally fine.
Starting point is 00:02:49 That's how grief works. And right in the midst of recording this Southern care hospice was calling and that, you know, hospice workers are really like good. They know how to deal with bereaved people. So she's like, you know, this, everyone has a different grieving process, but sometimes people report starting crying and feeling like they can't stop. And then I was able to tell her, yeah, I know what you're talking about. That's definitely, I land in that category, but lately I've been okay. Don't worry about me, friends.
Starting point is 00:03:25 I'm not, this isn't some kind of like sympathy call or anything like that. I'm just reporting in from the zone that I'm in right now. And it's a magical place. And that was one of the things Roshi Joan Halifax, this wonderful Zen Roshi said to me was, when you're grieving, it's like a window opens up, but we'll talk about this more with Jason Louvre. I'm not going to keep rambling about this now, but I'm sorry for those of you who are death adverse in the sense that this stuff feels like nails on a chalkboard. And I invite you not just because I'd like you to listen to the entirety of the podcast,
Starting point is 00:04:07 but also I think you might find that like turning towards the fear and going in the direction of the thing you might be trying to avoid, you might find that it actually has the opposite effect than what you expected that instead of scaring you, it helps you potentially dispel a shadow that might have been following you around for a while. If you're someone who's been ignoring your own mortality, which is something I spent a long time doing. So that's it, man. We're going to jump right into this episode with Jason Louvre. But first, some quick business.
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Starting point is 00:06:44 Friends, I have 2020 vision. I actually was studied by the CIA because I can look at Jupiter and other planets and see all the way through the atmosphere to the ground. I know about the technologies on Jupiter, thanks to my incredible eyes. But unfortunately, my wife's vision isn't military great to put it simply. So she has used SimpleContacts and she loves it because she doesn't have to go to the doctor to get a prescription. She can actually just go online to SimpleContacts and save the trouble. Here's how it works. Using your phone or computer, you can take the SimpleContacts vision test in five minutes from literally anywhere.
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Starting point is 00:09:19 My father passed away on the 12th and I blew out my voice because all the stress that was happening around that, which is what happens in this very strange culture that we are lucky enough to have incarnated in when somebody passes away. And I just got back into town, gashed my fucking finger, man. I was reaching into a box at my dad's apartment. And there was a piece of glass that I had placed there and forgotten. I was in a complete haze, which is what happens when you go into grief. I guess right after somebody dies, it's like, I don't know if grief is what it is. It's some kind of weird shock that you go into and shit gets so foggy and dreamlike.
Starting point is 00:10:13 And it's like you're covered in bubble wrap. You don't know what's happening. Everybody's looking at you like, are you all right? And you're like, I'm fine. I'm totally fine, but you're not fine. But you feel fine because your body's produced some kind of, I don't know what it is, shock. I mean, it's like something definitely is released in your body to help you deal with it. It's got to be like that, right?
Starting point is 00:10:40 Let's do a little bro science here. People have been dying for a long time. It's been really in fashion since I think people have existed to die. And that means that there's got to be some coping mechanism that's sort of burned into us to deal with losing someone from the tribe, the family, friendship circles. There's got to be something built into us. That's what they call grief. And there's all kinds of theories that I've been developing lately as I sort of float through grief land again.
Starting point is 00:11:18 This is the second time my mom died in 2013. And it's a very similar experience. It's pretty much identical in form in the sense that you end up in this kind of like, sometimes you end up in this like mood that's too good. I don't want to call it manic, but you end up in this kind of like, I don't know how to put it, like you end up in this like sort of joyful bliss state. And that precedes the rationalization for the state. So in that joyful bliss state, I've been like, man, I must be happy because my dad had had a good death,
Starting point is 00:12:07 let go of his body is now free of that form and can transition to the next incarnation. And then, but it's afterwards, you kind of feel like shit, I bet I'm making up a reason for feeling like this when maybe it's just some physiological reaction that's trying to balance out the other side of the coin, which is that you will get triggered by a memory, seeing something, the growing realization. It's like your mind begins to meter out this truth, which is that you're not going to see that person's body again. And you're not going to call that person again, and you're not going to hear that person's voice again in this incarnation. You'll see them in dreams, but you're not going to see the physical manifestation of that person ever again.
Starting point is 00:13:05 And so that I mean, I can say it right now, and I'll almost start crying, but that pops into your head at random times. And then what that does is it just opens this faucet of grief, and then you start crying. And it's not normal like tears that you get. It's like you get sobbing tears. So, but this is the problem with it is that it happens randomly. You know, you can't predict it. There seems to be structurally some kind of physiological process that is deliberate and underneath the conscious mind when it comes to grief and all kinds of tricks you do to sort of avoid it. And I think that maybe is the if there's any control that you have over it is to whenever you get the chance to start crying, do it.
Starting point is 00:14:05 If any of you out there dealing with this stuff, don't like push it back. Just like if there's a chance to start doing waterworks, do them. Fuck it. You're in a gelsons. Just do it. Fuck it. You're driving on the street. Just do it.
Starting point is 00:14:18 Fuck it. You're sitting with your wonderful wife watching the shining and something makes you think about your dad. Cry. It's okay. Don't hold it in. I think that's pretty much all you can do is just try to not not cry. And and then that's it. Everything else your body is taking care of.
Starting point is 00:14:43 I'm lucky because of my job. I'm able to like go full fucking crazy right now. So I haven't been outside that much. Yesterday I managed to shuffle to a bike shop and buy a bike because my other bike got stolen by some demon. It's a different podcast intro, but if you steal bikes, my God, my God. Oh my God. Better than a fucking millstone tied to a millstone was tied to your neck than to steal a bike. I just can't even I don't get that.
Starting point is 00:15:22 That's a different thing altogether though. But I went and bought a bike because that has been an antidote in past times when I've been feeling low is to just ride my bike. And so I was pedaling around on my new bike and yeah, it definitely it definitely helps. But it's not going to it doesn't work. Nothing can work. No antidote. There's really no cure for grief. You don't want there to be if there was a cure for fucking grief.
Starting point is 00:15:54 We'd be we'd be some kind of awful alien praying mantis species. You know, how sad would that be if the pharmaceutical companies started doing advertisements for this shit? Like, have you noticed random fits of sobbing when you think of a deceased relative? Do you find yourself walking around as though someone had painted your bones with titanium lead? Does it feel as if the gravity of the earth has been turned up? Are you foggy? Do you feel like maybe this universe isn't even real? Then you could be grieving.
Starting point is 00:16:39 You're suffering from what doctors are calling. I think my fucking parents are dead syndrome and we've got a wonderful cure for that. Grief away. Grief X. They'd come up with a better name for it. Sorry. Off the cuff pharmaceutical commercials, whatever. It'd be some it'd be like they're not going to sit.
Starting point is 00:17:05 They're not going to put grief in it. Like when they sell depression medication, they don't put depression. It's like depression X. It's so lazy. That's to fall out for. They call it like, you know, like ambient, you know, it helps you sleep. Ambient. It sounds like ambient lighting.
Starting point is 00:17:22 Relaxing. Viagra. It sounds like vitality. So something that helps you stop grieving. It's going to like, it's going to be the opposite of grief. So it's like, it'd be like. Joidal. No, that sounds to you.
Starting point is 00:17:43 That doesn't sound right. Joy. Joy. Joyara. Joyara. Try some joyara. It will help you stop grieving. Joyara, it will cover your chakras with a metaphysical tar and make it so that not only the feelings
Starting point is 00:18:03 of grief, but all feelings related to the impermanence of the universe. Don't make it up to your brain. Your body will still feel them, but your brain will be free and clear. So yeah, it's a, it's also one of those things where, you know, there's actually, there's, there's a story and I cannot remember if this is a story of Buddhism or a Hare Krishna story or a Hindu story, but there's a story. I think it's a Buddhist story. I just can't remember.
Starting point is 00:18:36 Maybe it's a Buddhist story. Who knows? These are all just stories. Anyway, make up our religion. Say it's a story for that. Make it a Superman story. Superman story for this, this case, but there's a story about Superman where Superman was in a village and there was a grieving woman who had lost her child and she was crying
Starting point is 00:19:00 and crying. And Superman said to the, the woman said to Superman, can you, I don't know how to stop this pain. Is there anything you could do to make me stop weeping? And Superman said, well, there is something that can be done. And it's, it's a thing that you can eat. All you need to do is the main ingredient is a grain of rice. And I want you to go door to door through the village and surrounding villages.
Starting point is 00:19:34 And when you find the villager who has never lost anyone in their life, get a grain of rice from them and cook a meal and eat it. And that grain of rice will make you no longer suffer. And obviously she goes from village door to village door and it begins to slowly realize that it is a universal phenomena that we lose our loved ones. And that her suffering was, is not isolated or suffering. She doesn't have to suffer alone. This is the other problem is that people are grieving.
Starting point is 00:20:17 I'm lucky. I have a community. I'm friends with some hilarious comedians when I need like completely irreverent conversations about losing a father. And I'm also connected to people who have a lifetime of like, then a lifetime of spiritual work when I need to talk about the sorrow and then also have a great fucking therapist. So I'm, I'm lucky, but some, some of you out there, I think you, you carry your grief alone and that is not smart or good or that's not going to do much for you health wise.
Starting point is 00:20:56 And it, and also you're sort of one of the things that happens is you start connecting with other people who have lost someone recently and you all start comforting each other and you can all just call and be like, holy fucking shit. Is this, is this happening to you? Are you feeling this? And they'll tell you like, yeah, I just, you know, took my dad's stuff to the goodwill. And I feel like I'm like destroying him, stuff like that. And you could say, no, you're not or whoa, holy shit, or just listen.
Starting point is 00:21:33 It's better to just listen. The last two made up responses maybe aren't the best, but the best thing is just to do whatever it is that you feel like doing as long as the intention behind it is to comfort. So then this, this podcast that you're going to listen to today might, might make you slightly uncomfortable because it's about death and more than likely the next few podcasts are going to have something to do with death. And I know, man, you know, I was just at the last Ram Dass retreat, which was about death. And I was like, I felt like they were setting me on fire every time they talked about death.
Starting point is 00:22:19 Because I guess I was not in close proc. I tricked myself into thinking I wasn't in close proximity to some imminent death, which is a really easy trick to pull on yourself. But now that it's happened and I'm sort of like in it and dealing with it and feeling it. I wish I could go back in time and like sit through that retreat again. But it makes sense, you know, like it makes sense to have an aversion towards what we think is extinction, especially if you have not quite worked out in your mind how you actually feel about what happens after we die.
Starting point is 00:23:09 And I, you know, I spent probably the first half of my life being terrified of death. Not just like normal, like, whoa, I definitely wouldn't want to die today. Kind of, but like debt, like fucking freaked out. Like I would try not to think about it. I would try not to consider that my parents were going to die. I try not to consider that I was going to die. I would be so flipped the fuck out by it. And because of that, anytime I took a psychedelic, inevitably, I would think I was going to die.
Starting point is 00:23:42 Invariably, I would feel like I would have a death trip, not in every time, but you know, one, I was like always rolling the dice, like, shit, I wonder if this is going to be the one where I think I'm going to die, man. And in those days of psychedelic use, I, nobody was calling LSD or psilocybin a healing medicine that I was around. I was just like, let's trip, man. Nobody had identified that marijuana and these psychoactive chemicals can are healing forces in the universe, at least around me.
Starting point is 00:24:22 They had, I just didn't have the internet at that time. I'm old. I'm 44. We had the fucking West Henderson High School Public Library. And let me tell you what was not at the West Hendersonville Public Library in the 80s. The emperor wears no clothes. You're not going to find that book there. You're not going to find a book on shamanism, I don't think.
Starting point is 00:24:46 And you're certainly not going to find a book related to the potential for psychedelics to heal people. So we were just taking them to get high. And then what would happen is the psychedelics would start doing their work, which is they start showing you things in the same way a great therapist shows you your blind spots. That's what a great, well, I don't know what I'm sure every therapist is different. But everybody has another way to put it. A great therapist helps you find your blind spots on your own.
Starting point is 00:25:24 And in the same way, psychedelics, they like show you your blind spots. They show you the thing you've been trying to turn away from, whatever it is. And some people have been turning away from the fact that they were maybe abused. And some people have been turning away from the fact that they're actually not happy. And some people have been turning away from the fact that they're going to die. That's one of my main, in the past, one of my main turnaways. So I would take a psychedelic, I would get stoned, I would eat mushrooms, maybe take LSD. And suddenly I'd be like, oh my God, I'm going to die.
Starting point is 00:26:09 My fucking body's going to die. I'd see skeletons in the walls, skulls undulating in the waving breathing walls. Or I'd be hovering above a cemetery watching as my parents put my coffin to the ground. Or I would imagine that I was having a heart attack. All of these various extinction fantasies would come over me. And then, because I was just a kid and didn't know anything about psychedelics, except that they were fucking fun and scary, I would try to control my mind. Because at the time I had no idea that I'd never heard the Jack Cornfield saying,
Starting point is 00:26:57 your mind creates thoughts in the way the tongue salivates. So I still believed then that my thoughts were real and that I could control them. And so suddenly on a psychedelic, my mind started producing some thought. And especially if the thought had to do with death, then I would do the opposite of what you should do, which is I would desperately fight against that thought. And I would do anything I could to try to make the thought stop, try to distract myself, try to like, you know, there's so many dumb tricks. And then what would happen is, of course, the thing would amplify.
Starting point is 00:27:40 The resistance would produce some kind of amplification effect. And then the next thing, I'm like deep in a bad trip, which I have been party to a few. And what was happening was just there was a sort of healing medicine inside of me that was trying to get me to face my fear, was trying to get me to face my own mortality, that was trying to get me to look into the fact that, as the flaming lips say, everyone that I know one day will die, including me. The including me, I don't think that's in the song. So, you know, half a lifetime spent, a little less than half a lifetime spent avoiding that truth.
Starting point is 00:28:43 A lot of energy invested into coming up with tricks to avoid facing that reality, such as, maybe they'll invent a medicine. Maybe I'll upload my consciousness. Maybe I'll be able to get my head put on a fresh body. Maybe this reality is actually a dream and there really isn't a death. Maybe, you know, like when you get to the place where you're about to die, you just sort of come to and you're like young again. Lots of tricks I've played on myself to try to deal with something that is ultimately completely unknowable.
Starting point is 00:29:29 We don't know. It is like when in the video game, where you get to the point in the horizon, depending on the video game, and you just, that's it. You're not going past that point. You know, there's just some shitty video games. It's just an invisible wall. You just hit it. That's it.
Starting point is 00:29:50 And it can't go past there, at least with the character that you're playing. And that's the situation that we're all in. Like if we were in a simulation, death and the contemplation of death is one of the boundaries of the simulation. Once we get to it, once we get even close to it, we start feeling weird. And then if you face it full on, it's like you suddenly just, well, you can freak out until you surrender, not to death, but to the fact that you're not going to know for sure what's going to happen.
Starting point is 00:30:36 You're not going to know. You don't know. We don't know. We can speculate. And today's podcast is an examination of one form of Buddhism's explanation of death, which is detailed in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. But ultimately, it's a big question mark. And there's no answer to it.
Starting point is 00:31:12 So one wonderful tool that I've been using as I wonder where my father is now and how he's doing. And when I'm not looking through the lens of the bardo concept, which is that there's 49 days that the soul sort of works out karma and has the potential to transcend birth and death, which I really connect to that concept. And I think you'll hear as we, Jason and I sort of break this down that there's an obvious connection between the bardos and psychedelics.
Starting point is 00:31:57 But one of the tools that I keep referring to comes from Roshi Joan Halifax. I would like to give a deep heartfelt thank you to all of my Patreon subscribers. Thank you guys so much for helping to support the DTFH. My sweet friends, if you're annoyed with the commercials, if you just want a commercial free episode of the DTFH, and if you want to get it before it hits the main feed, all you got to do is go to patreon.com forward slash DTFH and subscribe. No more commercials, just the interview.
Starting point is 00:32:32 And also I put extra stuff on there, including an extra opening ramble a month at least. So if you want to go over there and hear like the deep details of what's going on in my existence, particularly what happened in Alabama with my dad, if you want to go over there and get access to our Discord server, which is a place where fans of the show can hang out and meet and connect, then I invite you to do just that thing. We also have brand new merch at our shop. If you go to dunkintrustle.com and click on the shop link,
Starting point is 00:33:10 your eyes will look upon completely new amazing shirts that have never been available in the shop before. And much thanks to those of you who use our Amazon link. If you feel like buying anything that you hear us yapping about on the show, just click on that link. If you click through that link, then what ends up happening is we get a very small percentage of it, whatever you buy, and it costs you nothing. There's all these things I'm not allowed to say. And I keep forgetting it's a very strict thing with Amazon, but there's an Amazon link there. Just click on that link, friends.
Starting point is 00:33:48 Just go through that link. Just go through that link and just do me a favor, go through that link and buy a fucking supercomputer and figure out a way to teleport us to a planet where there's forests and infinite food. Make us photosynthetic. Go through the Amazon link and get the components you need and the machine you're going to use to make every human being photosynthetic and able to breathe underwater. Thanks for using the Amazon link. Now, without further ado, let us welcome today's esteemed guest who really, man, you know somebody's amazing
Starting point is 00:34:27 if they come to your rescue last second. When I realized I didn't have an episode recorded for this week because of the turbulence in my existence, I called him up and he was willing to come over here after moving all day and record this stellar episode of the DTFH. I love chatting with this guy, whether it's on microphone or off microphone. He is a really brilliant human being. He's an occultist. He is an author who has written some amazing books, including most recently John D. The Empire of Angels, along with Generation Hex, the Ultra Culture, Culture Journal and Monsanto versus the world.
Starting point is 00:35:09 He's also started a new podcast and I will have all the links you need to get to Jason Louvre.com at DuncanTrussell.com Until then, stretch your mycilial beams of metaphysical plasma into the bardo that connects all of us so that Jason Louvre and whatever temple, masonic lodge, church or mosque he happens to be meditating in can feel their sweet tickle. And welcome to the DuncanTrussell family, our podcast, Jason Louvre. Welcome upon you, that you are with us. Take care, no need to be blue. Welcome to you. It's the DuncanTrussell family.
Starting point is 00:36:06 What that? You think that you need to restore dog painting? Oh my God. I love it too, man. And that freaking dog painting, it started off with a... I love that thing so much for so many different reasons, but one of the main reasons is when I bought it and took it home, I didn't even notice it on the back. They taped a little baggie that had a tuft of the dog's hair and the dog's chip implant. You know, that was someone's beloved dog and they had like saved a little bit of the dog's hair and like the thing that was in the GPS track, whatever the thing is, where if they find it, you know?
Starting point is 00:36:49 So not only did the dog died, but clearly the owners had died. Because you know, you don't give away your precious dog picture with your sealed tuft of dog hair in it unless you've also died. That's why I love thrift stores. Jason Louvre, welcome to the DTFH. What's up? What's up? You know, like thrift stores are, you know, I was talking to guys, just so you know, Jason... I was texting Jason last night.
Starting point is 00:37:23 I had a little bit of a podcast drought because as many of you know, my father passed away. I'm grieving right now. I'm a little fucking crazy. And because of that, I didn't... I suddenly just ran out of podcasts and I realized that like, oh my God, I need to start recording podcasts. And so I texted Jason and was like, can you do a podcast with me this week? It is I. I have returned.
Starting point is 00:37:49 Hello, everyone in Duncan Trussell Universe. I love you all very, very deeply. And thank you so much for welcoming me back to this incredible space. And I'm happy to be back with Duncan in this shared universe with all of you. Jason, thank you so much, man. Like, Jason asked me, what do we want? What do you want to talk about? And I was like, death.
Starting point is 00:38:13 Let's talk death. Because like, and I'll start with this, man, Roshi Joan Halifax said this beautiful thing to me after my mom died that I'll never forget, which is right now a window has opened for you. When someone you love dies, a window opens and it doesn't stay open. It shuts. In other words, the heartbreak that comes from death, or this is how I interpreted it, the heartbreak that comes from death opens up or connects you to the transcendent in a way
Starting point is 00:38:53 that nothing else does. And in particular, what I've heard is that there is a certain number of days that a soul goes through these bardo realms in Tibetan Buddhism. That's right. 49 days. That's 49 or 39? 49. 49.
Starting point is 00:39:14 49 days. So can you just sort of walk me through the Tibetan book of the dead? Absolutely. So the bardo. Okay. The let's start from brass tacks, right? Enlightenment. So what is enlightenment?
Starting point is 00:39:35 It depends on who you ask. If you ask the Buddhist, the Tibetan Buddhists, enlightenment is understanding that everything is empty and impermanent, right? So what do I mean by this? 2,500 years ago, excuse me, 2,500 years ago, or maybe it seems like 2,500, you know, it could have been yesterday. It's outside the circles of time. It doesn't matter when it happened, right?
Starting point is 00:40:07 But in linear time, 2,500 years ago in Sarnath in India, the Buddha meditated under a tree for seven years to attain enlightenment. On his enlightenment, he realized something that nobody, at least in recorded history, had realized before, which is the true nature of the self. Prior to the Buddha, of course, meditation had been massively practiced all over the Indian subcontinent, and of course, all of the Indian yogis and the sadhus and all of them, right? They all have different techniques.
Starting point is 00:40:46 Most of the Vedic techniques relate to focusing on shapes, focusing on Kundalini, parts of the spine, focusing on things, but moreover, largely rely on the metaphysics of the idea that there is a true self that can be attained or Atman, right, in Sanskrit. So the Atman, in Hindu magical thinking, is the core unbreakable is-ness of a being. That's Bhagavad Gita Chapter 2. It cannot be burnt, it cannot be cut, it cannot be withered by the wind, it is never coming to being, will never come into being. It does not exist, that thing, right?
Starting point is 00:41:31 That's the one. So it's, if I were to describe Atman, it would be something like the fact of even existing at all, just the fact that this is happening, right? Similar to Kether in the Kabbalah, right, Godhead, right? But Indian metaphysics, Vedic metaphysics- Wait, hold on, I'm sorry. I did that thing, I'm very sorry. I did the thing where I go, okay, Kether in the Kabbalah, I don't- wait, describe it. Kether is that the very, that's the very top part of the tree of life.
Starting point is 00:42:04 And so that's the sort of, what's the word, the monad, the- Yes, absolutely. Okay, so, okay, got it, got it. So it's the- The number one, right, the first saffron. So okay, so the Atman and the Kether, I thought there was a difference because is the, isn't the Atman differentiated? Like, isn't there like the individual soul, the Atman, and then the Pahra Atman, which
Starting point is 00:42:33 is the- Ah, yes. Well, here we get into the fun thing of Vedic metaphysics, where it ultimately, when you chase Vedic metaphysics to there, as far as you can go, you get the answer, it depends on who you ask. Because India has this very interesting thing going on, where depending on who the local guru is, the local guru determines reality, and his might be different from the guy down the road.
Starting point is 00:42:59 But in India, and in, you know, Veda Vedanta, or excuse me, Sanatana Dharma, there's kind of this understanding of truths can coexist. I call it multivalent truth. That's my word, my phrase for it, right? It's like, reality can be different, and that's okay. And that's why in India, for instance, there are more religions in India than the rest of the world put together. Right.
Starting point is 00:43:28 Right. So, and that's why Hinduism has survived for so long, because it's not actually a belief system, and it just absorbs whatever comes at it. It's like, so the Christian missionaries, it's like, oh, you worship, you know, the Jesus Deva, right? Or Islam, things like this. Hinduism is very good at absorbing. It's not just absorbing, it's not exactly absorbing other faiths, it's seeing the truth
Starting point is 00:43:55 in them, right? There's the verse in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna is saying, whatever you have faith in there, I will be. It's something along those lines, so I don't remember the exact, I don't have it memorized. It's something on the lines of, you know, if you, that thing that you're devoted to, what you're devoted to, that's God. You're, if like, I am so merciful, then instead of making you find me, I will be inside of everything you love.
Starting point is 00:44:30 And but I'm not going to be like, hey, it's me, God, here in the fucking PlayStation. Right. I'm just going to let you connect in this way right now until you, you know, over the course of millions and millions of incarnations begin to realize, wait a minute, it's not the PlayStation. Right. It's something, there seems to be something behind the PlayStation, something behind the muscle car.
Starting point is 00:44:56 There's something behind the dollar. Well this is animism, right, which is close to shamanism. But Hinduism and Sanatana Dharma in specifically is that, right? It's the recognition that everything is God and it's, everything's okay because everything is God. Yeah. Right. Now, the further we get into this conversation, the further we stray into delusion.
Starting point is 00:45:22 Oh yeah? Help me. Help me. Yeah. How's that? So here's, here's where Buddhism comes in. So the Atman, right? The idea that there is a core self or a God or a true self or a true divinity and of course
Starting point is 00:45:42 in Hinduism, the idea is that there are many, you know, every conscious being in a sense is, you know, has an Atman and Atman equals Brahman. So the God in everything is equal to the God of everything. Right. Yes. It's like everything is God. Yes. The enlightenment of the Buddha under the Bodhi tree in Sarnath, he sees through this.
Starting point is 00:46:09 He sees through the whole game. Yeah. So yeah, if you look at any of the religions in the world, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, all that, they all posit the monad. They all posit that there is some type of divine oneness, one taste, as they say. Yeah. The Buddha realizes you've all been looking for something that doesn't exist. All these yogis have been sitting all over India, trying to focus on Tatvas or images
Starting point is 00:46:36 or doing pujas, rituals and or focusing on Kundalini, things like this. And none of this is real. It's all fabrication. Why is it not real? It's not real because they're looking for essence, right? They're looking for something that is essentially true. So here's what the Buddha realizes. There is no such thing as a true self.
Starting point is 00:47:02 There's no core of any being. The Atman does not exist. It's Santa Claus. Why is this? Now, this I feel is like the discovery of quantum physics or something. It's a gigantic leap or the discovery of, of what do they call that, you know, fractional reserve banking or, or, you know, maybe the theory of relativity, right? It's a discovery in spirituality, regardless of whatever sector, you know, religious thinking.
Starting point is 00:47:31 It's not about religions. It's a discovery in the field of consciousness that is a massive quantum leap for humanity and that we're still struggling to catch up with centuries, millennia later. Basically, what he says is this, and by the way, the whole of Western philosophy since the 1700s, since Hume and Berkeley and Western philosophy is still struggling to catch up with this, right? What the Buddha realized 2,500 years ago. So he realizes that the, there's no core self.
Starting point is 00:48:04 What there is, is interconnections between beings, right? There's no. That's called interdependency. Exactly. Yeah. And I think I've said this on your podcast before, but, you know, we're having this moment where we're talking, but this moment would not be happening if we were not both here discussing it and everyone listening out in the multiverses was not here listening to
Starting point is 00:48:31 this, right? Without you, the listener and you Duncan, the host and the millions of people potentially, you know, who, who could hear this, this moment would not exist. Therefore, it's not a function like I'm talking right now, but this is not a function of some essential core, Jason, right? I'm playing a role right now. The role is determined by the network, right? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:48:58 Does it make sense? Absolutely. Well, it, it, it, yes, it does make sense. It's like the, it kind of reminds me of the jeweled net of Indra or the, you know, we're all being rippled. We're ripples. We're being rippled. And that the, like, I guess the one cool way I've heard it described, Jack cornfield
Starting point is 00:49:19 talks about this. He says, um, you know, some Buddhist monk was meditating and having all these crazy experiences, he's becoming telepathic, he could levitate, whatever, you know, he's setting tigers on fire. I don't know if that's true. I'm adding that on. He's got powers. He goes to this master and he says, he's describing like, man, I've been like, dude,
Starting point is 00:49:41 I'm setting tigers on fire now. That's how fucking powerful I'm like, I'm having visions. I'm seeing the, the, I'm seeing the entities. I'm seeing, I'm seeing the, the gods. I talked to Indra and the master said to him, oh, that's great, but you've, you've missed the, you missed the mark here a little bit because the question isn't like, what's happening? The question is, who is it happening to? And that seems to be the, uh, one of the questions that is, is answered in Buddhism in a way
Starting point is 00:50:29 that for an individualist can be infuriated, deeply unsettling, terrifying. Yeah. Right. So, so Indra's net, right? So let's talk about Indra's net. So the Hindu concept of Indra's net is that all the consciousnesses in the world are connected in like this giant, imagine like a, you know, a blue lit up blockchain type pattern connecting the all consciousnesses.
Starting point is 00:50:57 The Hindu view on this is that it's the nodes that are important, right? So you get a giant, just imagine a giant net, like a glowing blue net in infinity and the points on the net, the connections between the lines, those are consciousnesses, right? Those are Ottmann's. Yes. Well, those are, those are, you know, the Ottmann is conscious. It is consciousness and it, each individual consciousness is God. Yes.
Starting point is 00:51:25 And in its own way is the totality. It's the soul of a butterfly, the soul of a caterpillar, the soul of a, of a, I don't know, like a single celled organism, a bacteria to the soul of like the Dalai Lama to the soul of some as of yet uncontacted, hyper entire, all through the God, the gods themselves. Yes. Like every soul is like sort of like photons coming out of the sun. And, and so yeah, okay. Right.
Starting point is 00:51:54 This is the Hindu theory. Yes. So the Buddha looks at Indra's net and it's basically the same topography, but he says it's not the nodes, it's the connections. The nodes are an optical illusion created by the network. You only have the illusion that you're a separate self because it's a point you're a point of at which a network converges. Cool.
Starting point is 00:52:19 Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. We think that we are, we think we exist and therefore we suffer, right? But we think that there's something essentially true about reality, but there's not.
Starting point is 00:52:36 The important distinction here also is this is not nihilism. It's not nothing is real. It's that everything is empty of inherent quality, meaning not, not essentialism. There's no essential one true Duncan. There's no essential one true Jason. Right. There's no essence of anything. There's no monad.
Starting point is 00:52:55 There's only infinite connection. Right. Now this is spiritual maturity in my opinion. Right. Yeah. So the, the Tibetan Buddha is called as the clear light, the perception of the primary clear light, understanding the essential non-existence of everything. Now to ground this in, in my life, you know, the way that I've experienced this is on
Starting point is 00:53:18 DMT. Right. So December 21st, 2012, I did a tremendous amount of DMT while engaged in sexual antics with multiple people. Wow. Cause what do you do on December 21st, 2012? You got to go out with it. You got to, you got to go out in style.
Starting point is 00:53:37 You know, It comes on DMT. I've never tried that. I didn't even know that was a thing. It's tricky. It's, it's actually, well, you can't quite do them at the same time. Yeah. I mean, it seems real.
Starting point is 00:53:49 But I guess like, yeah, I guess it's man. That's, I don't know how like the last thing I'm thinking when I'm on DMT is about sex, you know, cause it's so, you're so pulled into this. Whoa. What is that like? Well, you don't have consciousness of your body anymore. So basically the sex part stops during the DMT experience, but, you know, in between you're having sex, it's more about the environment in which the DMT is experienced.
Starting point is 00:54:19 Right? So it's like you are, it's some like DMT orgy or something. That's, yeah. Yeah. We'll go with that. Why not? You're ready for the apocalypse, man. I'm me.
Starting point is 00:54:33 It's 2012. What are you going to do? You think the world was going to end? I was just, I just wanted to show up and see what happened, you know, it's like, so New York, you know, looking out over the skyline. But in the DMT space, I had the experience of perceiving the fundamental emptiness of everything. And I described it recently in a podcast I did with Bailey J as nothingness, but shining.
Starting point is 00:55:01 And what I realized was the self obviously doesn't exist, but the self is also a burden and is a source of suffering. The French call the orgasm, the little death, right? But what I realized in the DMT trip is that death is actually the big orgasm, right? The relinquishing of a self. The relinquishing of the idea that you have an individual self is the ultimate orgasm. It's the perception of emptiness and the fundamental clear light of existence, right? Oh, if there's nobody there to suffer, there's no suffering, right?
Starting point is 00:55:40 It's an optical illusion. Yeah. Now, let's take this out of my wacky life and back to 2500 years ago. The Buddha had this insight. This was his enlightenment. And of course, this drove everyone in India crazy because it was heretical, Buddhism is a Hindu heresy. But yeah.
Starting point is 00:56:00 And in fact, you know what? Let me tell you, let me just add to that. I've spoken with, you know, and when I say it, this is not all Hare Krishna's, it's not all people who are into into Vaishnaiva Bhakti Yoga. But you know, like all religion and Vaishnaiva Bhakti Yoga is the name for ISKCON, which is the Hare Krishna movement. And ISKCON is one branch of Vaishnaiva Bhakti Yoga, which has many branches. But I can, I remember speaking with a member of ISKCON, maybe listening to us, a talk they
Starting point is 00:56:38 were giving, and they were saying, Buddhism is spiritual suicide. And I believe I can't write, they have a name for it, my, my avadi or something. There's a name for the Buddhist. It's it and it's a, not it's not good. It's not good, but it was essentially, it's like that by, by allowing yourself to be, this is just to underline what you're saying here about there being a stigma in some branches of Hinduism, not all of them, in some branches of Hinduism. And also in, in, in the branches tend to be fundamentalists, like the, what I love about
Starting point is 00:57:19 the Ramadas retreats that I go to is that here we have, and I'm one of them, devotees of Nirm Kurali Baba, we have Bhakti Yoga, we have Bhakti's there. And then we have matter, the Bhakti, Bhakti love can, like that I want to be a soul so I can love you. I want to be an identity so I can connect to you from my specific Atman to your Atman. And yeah, sure, it's a fucking impermanent web that maybe we'll be over a millennia of disassociating, but right now this is love, man, and I want it. So he takes that, and he takes people who are very good at articulating Bhakti Yoga and
Starting point is 00:58:01 way better than what I just did, and he throws them in with like Zen Buddhists, like Roshi Joan Halifax. He puts them on stage together. You know, Robert Thurman, you know, he puts Robert Thurman, Ramadas is on stage with Robert Thurman at the last retreat, which was about that. And what I loved about it is Robert Thurman gets on stage and he sets up the first thing out of his mouth as they're introducing him for the first other treat. He's like, I cannot do a Robert Thurman and Bob Thurman approach.
Starting point is 00:58:35 I love that guy. But he's like, be here now. What does that even mean? He's like, practice, practice, practice. Everyone's talking about practicing, practicing, practicing. He's like, I'd like to see somebody play for once, right at the beginning of the retreat. Just punch, like cutting through all the like congealed nonsense and like trying to find the pure, like, isness.
Starting point is 00:59:00 So anyway, what I'm saying is yes, in Hinduism, some forms of Hinduism, Buddhism is stigmatized. But certainly not all forms and bringing the two together and watching the way they interact is one of the most hilarious, hilarious sweet things, especially when on both sides, there's love. Right. So, continue. Yeah. And these are games that have been played for thousands of years.
Starting point is 00:59:28 And remember, I mean, I started my spiritual training, not started, but you know, I trained as a Shaman in Nepal and the Nepalese merged them both, right? Hinduism and Buddhism are seen as create this like psychedelic Megazord. Oh, what? And like a, like a, or what's that called in power rangers? Oh, okay. Cool. And I mean, I'm glad it's power rangers that I was praying that you had just added to my
Starting point is 00:59:55 lexicon of some fucking new spiritual term called Megazord. Power Rangers. Yeah. It's not Sanskrit. Um, so 2,500 years ago, uh, people start practicing Buddhist techniques and people start waking up out of the dream of their individual suffering all over Northeastern India. Oh, I thought that I was a suffering woman whose child had died and that I would be in that utter grief for all exists, you know, the rest of my life and that there would be
Starting point is 01:00:29 nothing but grief and suffering and sit down and meditate for 10 days. You know, Vipassana is a good way to do it. Sure. And, and Buddhist meditation is you're not trying to get anywhere. You're just sitting with yourself. That's it. That's it. You're not imagining God's.
Starting point is 01:00:45 You're not focusing on trying to become something that you're not. You're not trying to, you know, become more pure. You're not trying to become more spiritual. You're just sitting with the feeling, the feeling that you try to get away from all damn day long, right? Whether it's through Xbox or what, you know, drugs, whatever, you know, work, you know, drama, interpersonal drama. That's a big one.
Starting point is 01:01:09 Whatever it is that you do to get away from the feeling. The Buddhist meditation is sitting with the feeling until you notice that the feeling is changing of its own accord and the fundamental nature of everything is changed and is impermanent and is emptiness. And the whole dream of your life that you thought was real was just a dream until you wake up and say, Oh yeah, I thought I was a woman whose child is died and everything was suffering, but it was just a dream. And now I'm awake and people all over North Eastern India started doing this until the
Starting point is 01:01:47 whole damn mass of North Eastern India was awake, right? That's the first turning of the Dharma. Things got crazier from there, historically speaking, because then we got the Muslim incursions into India and there was, you know, the Mughal invasions and things like that. The history is insane. It kind of makes me think of like, it's like this like very, very long virtual reality experience that had been going on so long people forgot they were doing virtual reality. And then all of a sudden a huge swath of the player characters began to realize like, wait
Starting point is 01:02:31 a minute, wait a minute, I'm not sure that actually, wait, hold on, wait, I'm not actually Kratos the god of war. Hold on a second. Wait a minute. Wait, who's playing this? Like, wait, he's pushing the buttons on this thing. Wait, what am I really? And then there's that popping out.
Starting point is 01:02:48 I like to think of it as some kind of, that we're some kind of, it's like, it's like we're these amnesic spiritual amphibians that like, you know, pop in here and when we pop in, we assume an identity and when we pop out, we, this is what I used to think actually. So, you know, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine and he was using the term over there and I used to use that term to the spirit world over there. It's like, there's a place. There's like a, some perimeter, you cross the veil, you pass through the veil, there's the spirit world or there's the whatever the fit.
Starting point is 01:03:40 These days, I've been thinking more in terms of, and I said this to another friend and he said, don't call it a meat snorkel, but I've been thinking in terms of meat. So it's like, it sounds like a dick, but I've been thinking in terms of a meat snorkel, which is that we're this appendage that is protruding into matter and in the way that a snorkel like sticks into the air so that you can like exist for a little bit of time under the sea, you know. And similarly, we've like protruded into this realm and we like have this experience, but we start thinking we're the fucking snorkel, right?
Starting point is 01:04:16 That's in fact part of the experience. You think you're the snorkel, you forget there's this thing underneath, I guess a better way to put it would be, you have the mushroom that grows from the mycelial network, you know, or there's a million different ways of expressing this very temporary thing that seems to have with it a bunch of qualities and one of the qualities are identification with the self, identification with the body, identification with the mind, identification with the thoughts and an amnesic state or an inability to access the matrix of emptiness, whatever you want to call it, the network, the grid, the singularity, the whatever sources
Starting point is 01:05:01 some say, the monad, not an inability, but some difficulty because of our fixation on the self. Well, let's take the meat snorkel, right? I mean, let's let's go with that one, meat snorkel, who took my meat snorkel, the worst snorkel, that's a good good metaphor is any work like I don't I'm sorry, I'm not going to go on a fucking weird stupid tributary, but like, if you took like a big chunk of sausage and baked it and then like drill the hole through it and formed a snorkel, you theoretically could swim around sucking air through salty meat.
Starting point is 01:05:44 Fucking horrible. I love coming to Duncan's house. It's great here. How pissed would you be if you're swimming you look over and there's just a fucking salami sticking out of the water and some assholes like just the whole fucking the air just stinks of pepperoni and coral reef. I like the phrase pork snorkel that sounds got a certain ring to it. Pork snorkel, the worst invention ever made.
Starting point is 01:06:17 And now a quick word from our sacred sponsor. This episode of the DTFH is brought to you by stamps.com. These days you can get practically everything on demand except for love and enlightenment. You've got to find that yourself and open your heart to it, but almost anything else you can get it on demand. Did you know that you can even get postage on demand? All you need is stamps.com. With stamps.com you can access all the services of the post office right from your desk by
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Starting point is 01:07:27 You can weigh your letters and packages and print the exact amount of postage every time. I've used stamps.com. Stamps.com is amazing we use it to ship merchandise for the DTFH and it's just exactly what you think you print it out. I don't know if you remember the time you would have to schlep down to wherever to get postage but it was incredibly annoying and over 30% of Americans get into traffic accidents or are kidnapped on their way to pick up postage outside of their home not to mention the radiation being blasted at us not just from the sun but from within the earth by
Starting point is 01:08:04 the gray aliens that live there and are trying to wipe out our civilization. Don't get radiated by the gray aliens by going outside to get stamps when all you got to do is go to stamps.com. I don't want to I don't want to porkle I want to so go ahead man sorry a porkle we're porkles. So we're we're misidentifying right we have a case of mistaken identity we're here in this whatever this experience is we think it's real and we think that we are somehow inherently real and it's a case of mistaken identity. So this is the Buddhist perspective at least.
Starting point is 01:08:43 So from this perspective let's consider spiritual practice whether that's Hindu spiritual practice magic hermeticism Sufism Islam any of these things right any spiritual practice that's like trying to get to something I'm going to become more spiritual I'm going to become more loving I'm going to become more this I'm going to become different I'm a and I want to be it be and I'm going to make some change and I'm growing or gaining I'm getting points somehow I'm changing Buddhist perspective is dude you're grinding in World of Warcraft that's a great step the fuck away from the computer wake up it's just a game you're fucking grinding in World of Warcraft you're trying all these spiritual practices are you're trying
Starting point is 01:09:39 to add experience points to a character that doesn't fucking exist you forgot that you're playing a game dude you're dehydrated drink some water you've been playing this freaking game for like 20 hours straight to the point that you forgot it was a game you're fucking harvesting that's what they're called I just remember at some point my World of Warcraft addiction it's so funny dude I can remember being so addicted to World of Warcraft I'm fucking did you play World of Warcraft Jason a little bit I did have a massive Starcraft addiction okay which I think we have in common let me just look this up in World of Warcraft there is an actual economy right yeah fucking Arcanite for sure and like and you can like like basically
Starting point is 01:10:34 use a skill called alchemy to form various oh yeah yeah I remember this yeah so like and I don't know what it's like now because I haven't played in a while I'm afraid to even even look it up I just wanted to make sure Arcanite was a thing but I don't even look at it in the way like a crackhead doesn't even want to look at sugar I don't even want to like come close to it but the you can like you end up like harvesting sort of what's it called components you know for some weird alchemical metallurgy I guess I don't remember it's been a long time but you could essentially produce Arcanite bars I think and the Arcanite at one point was it was an economy man and the Arcanite would go up it would go down and you could sell that fucking Arcanite
Starting point is 01:11:19 for um for gold and you could use that gold to buy cool shit and like you're like you're out there you're you're if you're me you're it's like 4am and you've been just like you're you're warlock undead warlock death rack has been creeping through this swamp or that place or this place just to try to gather the necessary components to fuse together to make the fucking Arcanite bars and sell the fucking Arcanite bars or trade them for this thing or that thing I can't remember but yeah like at some point it's like you merge with death rack you merge with the warlock you're not even dunking anymore you're not a fucking dunking you're a fucking death you're literally undead you're in the swamp and doesn't that make the game so much better right like that's
Starting point is 01:12:12 kind of the idea of the game right to merge or even let's say even watching a movie you it's suspension disbelief why are we building these crazy virtual reality rings we want our virtual realities to be as real as possible now they're gonna have magic leap all this stuff it's like we want to be that's like the great quest of media to have an experience so powerful and overwhelming and artistically satisfying that you forget that it's not real we want to repeat what's already happened it's not enough that we we're in our bodies and we've identified with this player character we want to continue pushing into the simulation it's like whereas buddhism is pulling out it's like we've got virtual reality goggles on and we're in a game and now we want to put on
Starting point is 01:13:00 another set of virtual reality goggles and then not only do we want to put that on but then we want to add to that another augmented reality thing and then another so this is like um uh this this kind of like infinite is ingress throughout an infinite pushing into matter yes time and infinite and and in that kind of pushing in a matter in time we're desperately trying to avoid taking off the virtual reality goggles we're why are we desperately trying to avoid it because we don't want to feel that feeling what feeling the feeling i am as i am right the feeling of everything that you do the addiction the addiction to maya is to not feel your inherent suffering yeah right because it sucks to have a body it hurts the fact that we live in the fact that everything is impermanent
Starting point is 01:13:58 is a cause of suffering old age sickness and disease and death yeah right everything we live in a universe in which time exists and therefore everything will disintegrate and be gone and the suffering of that is unbearable yeah it's not is it bearable it's bearable i mean if it was unbearable we wouldn't be bearing it we're bearing it right now we're just pretending we're not right isn't that the idea like the idea is it's like so here we this is this is like all right here's what we got suffering right and so you're fucking suffering man i'm suffering this is duke wobbly wheel wobbly wheel is how i've heard it is the basically the way i've heard it described is this the way i've heard it described i'm not even mysterious about it my meditation teacher david
Starting point is 01:14:48 nick turn told me wobbly wheel so it's like uh you're riding your bike and one of the wheels is a little deflated right and and so it's not going to be a great ride you're gonna ride your bike it's not gonna be a great ride i was actually i just praise god i got a new bike today because some demonic fuck stole my bike such bad karma such bad karma um bike theft and they were inflating the tires and i was thinking of duke because because my teacher like uses this great comparison and the you know he's like you know what you keep it between i can't remember i always forget the psi as soon as i fucking walk out he's like 70 80 50 so keep it between this area it's going to be a rough ride
Starting point is 01:15:38 so the psi of this universe that we're in or the experience itself it's at the wrong psi so to speak it's wobbly wheel which means that there is a fundamental wobble in everything every single thing it's just always a little off and the suffering this is how i've come to understand it which means it's probably wrong but right now this is where i'm at the suffering is coming from would be like me on a bike with a fucking deflated wheel pedaling around having this shitty ride and thinking to myself like well maybe if i like maybe if i fucking turn the switch this gear this gear that gear this thing or this will make it better this will make it better this i'm expecting the fucking thing to not be wobbly anymore the analogy is rotten because
Starting point is 01:16:26 like i could just fill the fucking wheel up with air right but in this situation it's like well you have to surrender to the fact that it's not going to it's really not going to work out and which is why i love when my teacher started teaching me the first thing he said is i really i want you to know this and chogym trompa rempache my teacher said to me and he meant this he meant this and i'm feeling you right yeah he meant this this is hopeless this is hopeless yes i see i'm at the part of my life now where where that's a relief i've gotten past the part where like i'm in a disney movie where hope is like you know chipmunks singing about like no hope tortures your fucking ass hopelessness now the hopelessness sounds really rotten when you
Starting point is 01:17:35 if you haven't really explored just how much you've been using hope as a flog a flog you just been fucking whipping your back with hope just beat yourself up with hope now one fucking second you let yourself be hopeless let go hope let go what a great place to be let go the game is not winnable right so here's grudge have called this the terror of the situation by the way really the terror of the situation the terror of the situation hopelessness you mean the first podcast i did with you and i told the story about the vision i had of the inherent suffering of all existence right oh yes yes yes as a hell realm yes that's probably an over overly dramatic way of putting it but here's the deal it's just a game right everything changes everything is impermanent
Starting point is 01:18:57 everything is shifting and this whole story you've constructed about this person that you think you are the the voice in your head that tells you it's a real thing it's a person that voice that sits in your head nini nini nini nini nini the one that that speaks to you and convinces you that it's you that speaks to you with your voice that speaks to you with your name yeah that you think is you is not you it's just a delusion yeah that's good it's just it's it's um the fundamental nature of reality is emptiness it is empty of inherent meaning and then of course that means that any meaning whatever can be constructed from it it's it's infinite chaos in a way in the best in my most creative sense yeah but the buddhist perception is when you think the
Starting point is 01:19:57 game is real you suffer right if you've if you've identified with your world of warcraft character and then your world of warcraft character gets nerfed you suffer because you think it's real yeah right right now now this point is important this is something wrong that talks about and i it's important so you and i sit down and play a game of fucking monopoly you know i do not want you jason live every time we roll the dice to be like you know this is just a game Duncan it's not real i want you to be like i'm gonna take your money right bitch and i and i went out because that's how you play monopoly right monopoly is not meant to be played in some kind of like monopoly is a is a vengeful game which is obviously one of the most hilarious critiques of
Starting point is 01:20:47 capitalism in existence that nobody got it was actually created by socialists right it's hilarious so it's really and and and it like just naturally turns everyone playing into like either cheaters deal dated they every everybody turns into like we're like everyone's like looking at like Donald Trump like oh my god i can't talk about life this is like what are you talking about it's like it really is it's like someone pulling a fish out of the ocean i mean like oh my goodness gracious i can't believe how wet this fish is what you fucking think it's a fish right it's funny how nobody got the the point of that game the point is it's like yeah yeah the point is to demonstrate that the game is rigged and this is kind of the buddhist critique right
Starting point is 01:21:33 it's like addiction right addiction is a great metaphor oh wait i'm sorry let me sorry i'm gonna dive i'm sorry very quickly i'll finish the point my point is this one level rigged game that's okay too that's okay rigged game okay suffering okay world of warcraft okay death rack addiction okay that's the thing because if we're applying if we're if we're saying not okay to this thing that we're in right now then we've applied meaning to you know what i mean so it's a perfect not okay i guess well everything is perfect right this is my this is this is my perception the universe you know matter matter energy space time as they say you know everything is perfect the universe is constantly fulfilling it is like the god is constantly fulfilling
Starting point is 01:22:33 our every desire like everything is there everything is manifested everything you know what all kinds of experiences my god you know just since you were born how many insanely colorful psychedelic incredible experiences have you had just being alive awesome it's the ultimate drug it's the ultimate addiction existence right maya samsara addiction yes addiction oh i just want to see what happens next i just want to see what happens next i just want to see what happens next and on and on and on into infinity yeah right but it's all inherently meaningless it's just a fucking trip it's just a light show sure but it's fun this is that this is this is that this is like what i mean and god forgive me all ramdas people listening i you know this is my own interpretation but this is what i
Starting point is 01:23:19 love about these retreats is that this conversation we're having right now it happens and on one side you've got yes i love it it's great or what ramdas does is he goes he goes yum yum yum yum yum which is actually a mantra by the way and um yummy yummy it's good it's um you know and i'm speaking that's one of the chakras i can't remember which one it's a chakra and there's a sound yeah but i um you know having now lost both my parents and grieving it's still like you know this place that we're in right now it's really quite delicious it's like it is a game that's right it is a game for sure and by getting all serious about the fucking game and being like you know if i'm playing monopoly with you with
Starting point is 01:24:19 you jason and i want you to take it seriously and i would really love to like watch your like the the in fact someday we should because i would like to watch your the the character that you play as you're oh i have a ruthless strategy to complete i can ruin any monopoly game really because i i hacked the monopoly right i figured out how i i'm not going to give away the secret but there's a way to completely destroy the game already mad at you but but think about it this way like why you why do people find real spiritual practitioners annoying right like or for instance i mean let's not get over dramatic but the whole thing of okay like christ was crucified right it's like spiritual practitioners are fucking dicks they're dicks why are they dicks because they're basically
Starting point is 01:25:07 running around like imagine like eight people are playing monopoly and then jimmy shows up and is like this is a game stop playing this game and just starts like hitting the pieces these aren't real what are you doing hey why did you guys crucify jimmy okay well we are playing fucking monopoly and this son of a bitch is coming around like trying to give all the pieces away and play i don't know it's a different game it's like dude we know it's a game like just like don't you wrote your great it's i actually another world of warcraft metaphor griefing you know the phrase griefing yeah of course so griefing it's like spiritual practitioners you know it's like we grief people we fuck with people's games till they wake up this is crazy wisdom there is a verse in the
Starting point is 01:25:46 Bhagavad Gita which says do not disturb them there it's in there it says don't fuck with them they're asleep don't be a dick it's like so so you know you see somebody sleeping for example my wonderful beautiful pregnant wife she can sleep late she's pregnant she i think she could sleep till like 10 sometimes if like i can't do that anymore i got a 44 year old's brain i got a 44 year old's pickled burr big my brain just got burrs and cat it's like i'm gonna wake up early i'm gonna wake up at like six or seven and that's fine with me i'm okay with it i accept it i like the morning ps but me waking up at that time man to then like fucking like wake my wife up hey wake up erin time to get up i'm up don't you want to see the beautiful
Starting point is 01:26:47 bonding don't realize how beautiful bony is god the sanctimonious the sanctimoniousness of a fucking morning person talk about crucifying fuck crucify crucify a morning person fresh dew on the flowers and the prawnas of the bitch fuck you i want to sleep like the night it's okay right or like somebody running into a movie theater screaming you know you're just watching a movie yeah yeah exactly like we so so there's a a certain level of etiquette which is that if you find yourself waking up and this is of course one of the neophyte uh phases a neophyte who's just barely starts waking up will start immediately i've done it certainly and and and that's one of the and and and and then but then as it progresses
Starting point is 01:27:56 what ends up happening is you find your satsang which is like people who are waking up and want to oh yes people playing the game i'm waking up but not actually waking up okay that's a good one that would that would the we're pretending to wake up game that's enough that's very chogym trump of you and that and that's a that's a i think that's a phase of it but for sure man because of the quality of existence here we need a community around us of you know and and like and even if you are you you at least need to be around people who can say to you hey wait wait a minute are we playing the game of waking up are we waking the fuck up what's happening here what's going on here what is it are we doing that thing we're like pretending we have or not
Starting point is 01:28:40 that's good because my experience with it where i'm at right now is that you kind of wake up and go back to sleep you know there's a there's a there does seem to be a a process happening you know and the process is um oh my god i'm gonna quote the grateful dead sometimes the lights all shining on me other times i can barely see you know that's it lately it occurs to me what a log i have a bad voice straight trip it's bad but the point is like sometimes you're up sometimes you're not and what i what i love is that when i fall asleep i've i'm lucky enough to have teachers who like let me you know all right go back to bed you want to go back to bed go back to bed and in fact one of the coolest my first contact with
Starting point is 01:29:41 Ahari Krishna's was with this um wonderful devotee named Bada Hari Das and he had a student a friend my brother and i were meeting him and he was going to read the Bhagavad Gita to us and the it's this devotee had not woken up he was asleep and i remember like my brother's like where i can't remember who it was i don't remember which devotee's name he was he's like where is where is this devotee and Bada Hari Das is like oh he's sleeping if people are sleeping we should let them sleep and i thought ah that's so fucking cool that's so fucking cool i'm asleep even if they were awake before let them go back to sleep now we get Mahayana Buddhism oh you mean like pure land Buddhism or what do you know so this works what you've just described as a perfectly functional
Starting point is 01:30:36 framework you let people wake up if they want to wake up it's okay it's really great to hang out with other people who are awake it's okay to go back to sleep in fact in fact everything's pretty much okay now Mahayana Buddhism Bodhisattva vow i will continue to reincarnate until all sentient beings are liberated from suffering and the causes of suffering yeah right everyone has to wake up and i will continue to keep reincarnating to grief these motherfuckers until they're all awake grief that is now this is not the right word i don't think it's grief i think i think that i think this is a misinterpret skillful means a pya skillful means like skillful means yeah because because yeah it's like uh it's um but yeah that is the body that is it and i love i i think
Starting point is 01:31:26 that concept so beautiful you know i i i'm still you know a friend of mine once gave me what i considered to be a very great compliment and he said to me you love it here and i do i like i like this place i like it i like this zone you know it's cool man i like this little like whatever this is it's pretty cool i know it's impermanent i'm not attached to it i'm not afraid to die anymore i used to be terrified but uh it's it's wonderful here right now you know and and um um i love loving people i'm more boxy than uh but i'm also i love buddhism too but i'm more i'm i'm jnana in case you haven't guessed yet you know i i hadn't guessed i was wondering mental
Starting point is 01:32:20 yeah but yeah i mean look human life is the most precious thing in the universe really right because in the sense that it's the best game to play of all the games in the universe uh that you could play being a conscious at least semi-conscious at least semi-conscious person during in a human incarnation during a time of pretty amazing economic well-being and ability to have incredible human experiences whatever one thinks of whatever political turmoil happened appears to be happening which is really kind of minor in the grand scheme of things if you look at history it's like a fucking fart in the wind if you look even 400 years ago so um yeah people who are it's sorry not to cut you off people are angry about people who are upset about trump or are upset about people
Starting point is 01:33:10 are upset about trump seem to have forgotten their bodies are aging you know what i mean it's like dude why don't we fuck what you need to be worrying about the fact you're going to get old what about that have you thought about that yet you're gonna get old your bodies are gonna get wrinkly and withered and you're gonna shit your pants pretty soon like in your upset about the president the people who are freaking out about and yes trump is is awful but the then why are you wearing a maga hat right now i'm wearing a fascia haircut uh no no no no what was my oh so the people the whole trump thing right um it kind of reminds me of people who are tripping and think that it's going to last forever you're like oh my god it's going to be like this forever i'm having such a horrible trip
Starting point is 01:33:55 it's like everything changes everything's impermanent everything like will slowly change right unless a fascist dictatorship happens a good lot it's like the their fear is that though like so it's it's on both sides the terror is this one side deep state takes out trump installs spokesperson for military industrial complex slash satanism slash some kind of like like underground like i don't know like fucking you know it's all the q and on shit like some like dark like hollywood like perversion and uh and that they're gonna kick trump out so that they can install someone who is more connected to malloc that's one side coup the other side you gotta do this you gotta do this in alex jones voice uh oh they're gonna
Starting point is 01:34:49 they're gonna okay i'll try it's uh they're they're they're they'll they'll worship a fucking owl fucking goddamn goblin owl goblin likes to it's raping kids and setting yeah we got we got to get the interdimensional child molesters in there they're they're they're they're riding around on owls shooting fucking lubricant on babies and blasting fucking and then they're gonna cut that's that's that's like one one side and then on the other side is um uh you know the the incredible to me like the thing that really did give me one of those dizzying like all right not only have i apparently walked into a simulation but i didn't have enough money for like the well written simulation or i've got bad taste for this because this particular video game appears to be
Starting point is 01:35:40 written by somebody who is the opposite of subtle because today going to jet i don't know if you read about this in prison today was the person from the nsa who leaked that the russians hacked the election and you know what her name is reality oh reality winner yes yeah yeah so our the united states government just put reality in jail it's like okay come on are you really like like come on that can't just you that can't the odds i i know the odds of someone like whistle blowing and saying hey dude our election got fucked with you know those are those are pretty good odds that's gonna happen if like someone's fucking with the election but the fucking odds the person's name is reality winner and that the person who's president was a reality show host it's just bad writing
Starting point is 01:36:34 lila bad writing yeah it's just a game you know all this all by the way i'm sorry i'm sorry whoever wrote it i love it here i'm telling you it's i i'm just saying it's funny it's just funny and like a kind of like a cheesy way which i respect it's cool i don't mean insult whoever's writing this stuff you guys i mean you know if you have it is it really america you know whoever wrote the american dream right now the current dream the current delusion the current nightmare is uh you know it's it's it's pretty trailer park yeah it's like it's it's like good i love that show trailer park boys it's very like trailer park boys you know like antifa versus fascists and right trump and all the trashy stuff going on in the in the in the white house
Starting point is 01:37:14 stormed daniels stormed daniels and the payoff and the it's like the you know it's like the it really is really cheese it's like cheesy it's very like uh what's the word it reminds me of like um those you know not not xxx but an x-rated kind of it's kind of x-rated cheesy like simulated sex level cheesy there's something some something more creepy about simulated sex than actual sex you know like right right right no great porn seems like somehow you know creepier than actual fucking somehow i don't know i'm off on a real tangent so it's a game we're in a lila this is some kind well yeah i mean it's like we look at all this when you look at all this stuff from the if you meditate long enough to develop the the mentality of an advanced meditator i mean you
Starting point is 01:38:04 just look at this stuff and it just looks like keystone cops you know it's like those old movies of you know uh people chasing each other through a hall going opening doors and closing doors and chasing each other around doors and it's hilarious it is and the compassion right what is compassion it's like it's such a misunderstood term in a way it's like compassion is understanding that everyone is already enlightened and choosing to play this game and the compassion is it's like i have compassion for all life and all sentient beings because that's all an extension of we're all the same thing we're all this this consciousness right parts of our consciousness are incarnating into really weird games right like incarnating into i don't know whatever whatever happened in you know
Starting point is 01:39:05 you know the crazy breakdown of democracy in america the insanity that goes on in various places of the world it's like human beings play some really weird games yeah right but ultimately it's all we are still all this consciousness which is itself empty of any inherent quality just experiencing a light show so the whole thing about spirituality is that it's really not that special right because all that it does is it allows you to step away from the computer right it's like oh yeah that's world of warcraft right yeah right oh right oh it allows you to wake from the dream and in awaking from the dream it allows you to remember that your suffering was also a dream but that also all of your joy and your love and all everything was a dream
Starting point is 01:39:53 but here's where i'm confused so and this is brings us to probably the last question one second that's the dog scratching itself perfect it's the drum it's the drum um here's my question my final question and it brings us back to what we were talking about in the beginning the bardo states so you're talking about this waking up not being in the video game not being in the game anymore but every time you talk about this you're still a thing you know you're acting as though as you you wake up and then and then now you're you're a you know what i mean you're a you're still a thing you're like oh i'm not going to do that anymore but you're still an i you're still an i um and your description of buddhism which is which i think was really really good
Starting point is 01:40:49 uh this sort of uh the interdependency the no self it seems to kind of negate the idea of the soul and and not doesn't seem it does you know or at least like makes the soul another temporary phenomena so what is it then that is experiencing these bardo states aha what what what is what are the 49 days what what's going through that so here's where it gets really fun so i opened up by saying well let's get down to brass tacks and then we went off on this huge tangent about what is what is reality what is enlightened right so the bardo so think about it this way right you're living your life everyone's living their life out there and thinking that it's real and then they die right yeah in the bar when you die
Starting point is 01:41:53 according to the now this is in the the bar oath at all right so it's the i believe the nima buddhism right so the the first school of tibetan buddhism uh the original school of tibetan buddhism uh explored this in great detail and you can you can verify all this by reading it this is how the bardo works when you die you trip for 49 days right because here's what happens when you're in a body you're experiencing all these different hallucinations but as my sufi teachers told me as long as you have a body you're able to modulate your frequency right as long as you have a body you're able to change the frequency at which you're experiencing reality if this is why human life is so fucking precious yeah it's why human life is so important
Starting point is 01:42:56 it's why human incarnation is the best of all possible incarnations because yes in theory you could be born as something greater an angel a god something like that and yes you could be born as something lower a demon something like that but the the thing about humanity human being has a choice a human being can choose and other things in the universe cannot right so as long as you have a body you have the ability to choose make new choices and make new decisions which modulate your frequency when you die you lose that ability so think about it like this your life's a trip let's say your life is horrible awful you live in a war zone your entire life yeah right you're resonating at that frequency you you know over the course of however long you live in such a
Starting point is 01:43:54 such an existence you have various opportunities to hopefully to change and transform that energy into something else people get out of war zones all the time they you know get people get out of refugee camps things like that or whatever it happens to be right human beings are experience choosing machines we choose experiences to have and then we identify with that experience that game right who chooses well ultimately nobody right but the the but this is our the previous point of our conversation where we were we were talking about um you know games everything's a game when you see things everything is a game that this is in ramdas ramdas's experiments in truth he talks about this is the idea of burning off karma and it's it's like it seems to clash with the
Starting point is 01:44:45 impersonalist perspective in the sense that but so so what you're talking about is like and i have though i do love the idea and the older i get the more i think it's probably true they don't completely understand it but i kind of do get it uh the so like the idea is like all right i mean i'm coming back i'm going i'm gonna become the meat snorkel again this time i'm gonna i'm gonna be a uh um this time i'm gonna be i don't know i'm gonna be a palestinian and i'm gonna be born and i'm gonna live to be three because i end end up getting shot or bombed and i'm gonna experience that just terror for most of my existence and this in some way or another is going to refine or teach or burn off or help me get closer to
Starting point is 01:45:43 source or become something uh something divine or it is per it's a perfect expression of the thing and and you just saying it it's like fuck that that fucking bulls that's just another bullshit religious rationalization to make sense of the incomprehensible inconceivable suffering of the world right and so the great example that i've heard is like you know think of a squirrel and a fire and a forest that just like it was just a squirrel it didn't even do it did nothing it didn't it just there's a forest fire the squirrel got burned it didn't kill it and now the squirrel's lying on like scorched black and charred ground twitching and and slow death agony and so the idea is like well the squirrel picked it it decided to be that squirrel it wanted to be the squirrel
Starting point is 01:46:43 it chose to explore the universe is just expressing itself through that charred twitching squirrel and uh and i guess that's perfect huh hippie right right so and and and the answer to that question on one level and it's really hard to hear it's really hard to say is yes yes that too but holy fucking shit don't say that around the wrong person definitely don't say it on a podcast so i'm i'm overcome with great compassion and love for all humanity i love you all so much all of you we we are all one being you we are all one consciousness experiencing itself through different locuses all over the multiverse yeah we are one being i love you all you are all my greater self we breathe the same breath
Starting point is 01:48:07 no matter who you are anywhere in the world breath is the same i love you all and we keep coming back and coming back and coming back to this experience because we enjoy it because we love it because we love each other we want to see each other again we keep coming back it's like david bowie said on i think he then one of one of his later albums some of us will always stay behind it's okay you could say i like that we keep coming back yeah so the bardo right yeah all right so as long as you have a human be as long as you have a body you have the ability to modulate your frequency okay when you die you lose the your your let me put it in tripper language right when you're tripping you're and you have a body you're a body having a trip when you're
Starting point is 01:49:09 dead it's just the trip right it's just the energy modulation cool right the body's not there so it's just the psychedelic space now here's what happens in the bardo and listen to me closely because this is very very important it's actually the most important thing there is in the entire universe the whole point of the bardo experience which is the intermediary experience between lifetimes is to remember the fundamental primary clear light meaning everything is empty everything is inherent a fundamental essence it's empty of existence nothing is actually real right it's the fact that we identify with the illusion it addicts it us to it yeah we are addicted to the trip we are addicted to the illusion and so we keep coming back to experience it yeah yeah that's
Starting point is 01:50:12 the bardo so but let's break that down a bit more so in the bardo the soul okay somebody dies yeah Tibetan theory the soul leaves the body what is the soul well according to the Tibetan theory the soul is really an aggregate of various things that think it's it's an aggregate of this is this gets really technical but this is a fascinating question right because the idea is that the Tibetan view is it's all these it's kind of this packet of forward momentums yes that's how i've already described yeah i've heard it like that or it's like when you hear any tone or something it's like all the you're hearing in a tone all these different frequencies and it's just it's like sound or something yeah so if you all all that karma is right is action carried forward yeah right it's
Starting point is 01:51:14 just uh it's inertia i think it does inertia it's like energy going forward into the future if you do something and you keep doing it you keep doing it you keep doing it it it cuts a groove into reality yeah so for instance if you work out every day every day every day keep working out keep working out then you cut a groove you have you create a karma of working out that will carry you forward and and it will be harder to stop working out right because you will keep working out into the future yeah it's the same with lifetimes right if you keep incarnating as a soldier soldier soldier soldier wow you're building the the inertia of carrying the identity of a soldier forward into existence right but all that that is is a matter and it's it's a matter of energy
Starting point is 01:52:02 space time all that that is is a ripple going forward into the future right it's like you do enough do soldier for long enough it builds its own momentum and it goes forward into the future and you keep incarnating i'm in the revolutionary war i'm in the i'm in the civil war i'm in you know world war one i'm in world war two i'm in vietnam you know you keep and keep reincarnating in the soldier lifetimes space force right totally now you're fighting zerg on planet trestle yeah so it's just that's what karma is it's not like this it's not we over christianize it we turn it into a thing of sin and guilt and all that hell i know i know it's not that it's just energy pushing forward into the into the future that which stays in motion you know it's it's the
Starting point is 01:52:48 laws of thermodynamics it's like the thing you're doing right now you're probably going to do it tomorrow like whatever the thing is you're doing you're probably going to do it tomorrow the way you know what i'm talking about the thing you're doing the thing i run into people all the time and there's got a thing you know it's the thing that keeps happening or the blah i was always this groundhog day yeah yeah yeah so it's like yeah exactly so it's like so so this is some sort of like um amalgamation of a variety of like uh who knows what forces pushing forward and so and there's some sentience there right there's some differentiated sentience or something right and it and it goes into this bardo this like trip trippy dream state but it's not quite nothingness
Starting point is 01:53:29 is it it's still a something or it wouldn't be able to experience the bardo so the bardo so when you enter the bardo you're just the trip and what you experience in the bardo is just your karma relieving itself by experiencing itself as a psychedelic trip outside of the space of the body yeah right so what that means practically is this when someone enters the bardo they're experiencing a series of virtual realities in which their karmas are being reflected back to them yeah meaning the events of their life yeah right like all of their karma is now trying to work out in this intermediary step between bodies yeah so they're having these kind of virtual reality experiences where they're meeting goddesses and gods and demons and and angels and all this
Starting point is 01:54:26 hallucinatory stuff and all that is is a consciousness trying to talk to itself trying to remember that it's awake right so uh jacob's ladder is a great movie that really really demonstrates this so when you're in the bardo the whole point of the bardo is now you don't have a body and now your karma is kind of this free-floating packet that's mirroring back its own experiences to itself to try and wake itself up right it's like a free-floating satellite in the ether yeah it's trying to wake itself up yeah okay so um can I like add like to this a little bit like the one one way I've pictured is like you know how like um like in uh old like medieval times or movies fantasy movies the king's got this fucking sigil on his ring and he pushes it into wax and there's a mark
Starting point is 01:55:21 in the wax the mark of Baratheon or whatever and they fucking mail the fucking thing and you know it came in the king it's got the sigil of the king it's this impression in the wax in the bardo realms I imagine what may be happening is that your karma is the ring and all the surrounding potentiality is the wax and you're seeing this impression that you've been making in the human life all around you in the form of like whatever it may be you know and that can be really really fucking horrifying if you were not if you were like if you were an asshole yes particularly if you're an asshole so think about it this way let's say somebody enters the death experience in anger and rage yeah well the bar their bardo trip is going to be anger and rage they're going to be you
Starting point is 01:56:14 know they're going to be seeing their frequency mirrored back to themselves so the whole point of the bardo so the bardo lasts 49 days and it's a series of hallucinatory experiences in which the soul is given opportunities to remember itself right so if you read the bardoth at all it basically says the point is remember the fundamental clear light that's what you need to do in the bardo meaning remember that existence is empty and nothing none of this is actually real remember that it's a game wake up even if you're not in between in between lifetimes if you can wake up in between lifetimes you don't have to reincarnate because you remember it's a game at which point you can choose to not have to reincarnate right that's why the Tibetans practice dream yoga
Starting point is 01:57:05 that's why they meditate in their sleep that's why they do bardo yoga right because they want to it's like when you train yourself to have a lucid dream to wake yourself up in a dream they're training themselves to wake up after they're dead so death is actually like a like a like it's like a chance you might be able to jump into a different subway car except in this time it's not like it's a jump out of a subway car it's a chance to jump jump out it's a chance to let go of this never-ending ceaseless pattern of yes reincarnating in a matter think of it like this life is the ultimate addiction incarnating into it into existence is an addiction when you're not in a body you have a brief moment of time in which you can
Starting point is 01:57:52 remember that you're addicted to incarnating in human bodies and just stop right that's that's the nigma buddhist kick right it's like that's what they're talking about they're saying it's like just stop incarnating remember that it's an addiction will you just fucking stop incarnating ronald it's getting annoying so but but and yes in theory you can you you could wake up enough in the bardo to choose maybe a more favorable lifetime but ultimately it's all suffering anyways because it's all no matter what you choose it's all illusion it's all delusion right it's like you want to make take another role on the roulette wheel the wheel of fortune go right ahead but at every single position it's exactly the same at some point you got to stop
Starting point is 01:58:39 mining arcanite right now i want to tell you this dream i had last night and then let's wrap it up i just want to hear what you hear what you think about it i had the best fucking dream about my dad last night now my dad has lived a really great life but he uh a really great life and he fucking he loved life man and but you know he was never a guy i had like tons of bodies he lived in apartments a lot i was growing up we go visit him always there was an apartment that he lived in he uh it was he he but that was part of like yeah i don't know it was his karma and his karma i think was pretty good and because he was a really like joyful being and he it didn't matter that he was in where he was wherever he was he liked it he'd figure out a way
Starting point is 01:59:29 it was cool so i had this dream last night and i'm at an apartment complex that's where my dad died in an apartment i'm at an apartment complex except this one's on the beach it would be it was not it's nice and this is my dad's living in a new apartment and he's showing me his new apartment he's like this is on the beach and he and he would like that that'd be cool to him right and he's saying to me in this dream he's like dunk it these two asians upstairs these two asians upstairs might like been like show me around and uh i see him right he's like i like him he's like i don't know if they're asians or they're aliens and i look at him and it's like to bet and it's like just to bet and monks to to bet and monks and um he's like uh he says to me he goes
Starting point is 02:00:23 they're they keep telling me they want me to teach you how to dance right that's so beautiful thanks yeah it's a cool dream man what does it mean well what was i mean it's beautiful what was coming to me while you were saying that is to tell you that uh i have been like i was trained by the name of buddhist to read the bardo right so when you read the bardo though it all the book of the dead yeah you read it for people who have passed and you chanted in to bed and and the point is you're trying to communicate to the other side you're telling the person on the other side it's your it's sound i can't i'm not going to do it on the podcast but you know because i don't have it in front of me but it's like you know what you're hearing is
Starting point is 02:01:12 you know like to bet and chanting but what the words actually mean of the bardo is you're trying to reach to that person on the other side while they're in the bardo and be like dude wake up it's just a game right if you wake up you don't you can you can choose to come back if you want but you have a choice it's like becoming lucid in the dream right okay okay right we're trying to wake you up so that you remember you have a choice and i you can choose to not come back at all if you want you can just choose to relax into the infinite nothingness that is shining if you want right but also you can keep coming back if you like if you like it's completely volitional but the point is to wake the person up so because if somebody's in because here's what happens
Starting point is 02:02:04 if somebody's in the bardo and they're having a nightmare it's just like the dream state they're having a nightmare and the nightmare is that they're being tormented by the karma of the actions they of their life right they were anger war aggression destruction rage all of that yeah tell realm karmas they're experiencing it and they think it's real it's not real it doesn't matter it's like uh you know this is where the christians get it completely wrong the whole idea of like oh there's an eternal hell you must go to if you where you will suffer oh there's an eternal heaven you must go to where you will be eternally it will all be wonderful yeah no no no that's those are trips those are just trips they're not real right the point is you have to remember
Starting point is 02:02:53 that it's fucking world of warcraft right so but what happens is okay so let's look at two different scenarios best case scenario in the bardo is that somebody remembers the primary clear light they remember that it's just a dream they remember that this whole thing is just world of warcraft and they're like oh yeah right and then they get on with their day right they don't have to continue reincarnating into the matrix gotcha right second best scenario by the way is that if they can't fully do that the best thing to do is to chant the name of the guru or one's own yiddim personal guardian deity or holy guardian angel as we say in the western magical tradition yes right so the the worst case scenario not worst case scenario but the standard issue scenario right is that the
Starting point is 02:03:42 person in the bardo is unable to remember that it's a dream or does not want to what happens okay let's trace this back jimmy is angry he's born angry angry angry angry he lives an angry life he's a soldier he goes he fights in vietnam he kills a bunch of people anger anger anger his entire life is is colored and characterized by anger yeah when he dies he's angry he's angry at god why did you give me this life why did you give me this life of anger and suffering why you know why did i have to kill people why why why war why why why anger anger rage when he loses when jimmy loses his body he goes into the bardo and it's just the trip of anger and rage and all of his anger and rage is now personified to him as demons and wrathful wrathful deities and all this stuff
Starting point is 02:04:29 and all the wrathful deities are trying to do is mirror his own state back to him so that he'll recognize himself and wake up so if he wakes up you'll remember that he was just playing world of warcraft and it's really not that big of a deal and the universe is infinite and loving and empty and what you know it's his choice however if he does not now here's where this gets really squirrely if he doesn't remember if he doesn't either remember the primary clear light or remember to chant the name of the guru or the guardian spirit he then must return to rebirth now remember what i said about frequency jimmy has a certain frequency frequency in life when he's in the bardo he has a chance to wake up out of that frequency or at least change it you know
Starting point is 02:05:14 at least try to see through it but if you don't have a body you can't really fully change the frequency you can just try and wake up out of it so jimmy's angry in life he's angry in the bardo so when he reincarnates where do you think jimmy reincarnates he jimmy's angry spirit finds a place to reincarnate he is attracted to the world and finds parents of the same frequency right you think about people who are born into war born into abusive situations things like this now here's okay this is almost like too hot for tv but here's the really really squirrely part about this and i swear i'm not making this up this is actually in the bardo though at all what the tibetans say is when you be if you go transit the 49 days of the bardo and you do not remember the primary
Starting point is 02:06:00 clear light you don't remember it's all a game and then it's all an illusion etc etc and you begin the it's like uh you begin re-entry the re-entry process yes begin to re-enter into the human loka or the animal loka or whatever other loka you've been attracted to yeah uh because of the law of karma you can't just go anywhere you have to go somewhere that matches your frequency but the reason this happens this is so this is cosmically hilarious the reason this happens is because the the addiction to sex right sure so now here's freudian beyond freudian that i swear the tibetan say this what they say is the reason that people keep incarnating is they're so addicted to the experience of sex that they witness their future parents having sex and are sexually attracted to
Starting point is 02:06:49 it and enter into the contract right but it has to be parents that are at the same level of vibration as them because they're not really able to perceive anything that's not at their same level of vibration so if you imagine like the re-entry experience as like a non-incarnated spirit watching this gigantic like porn hub of like everyone on earth fucking yeah and like seeing the ones that are like it and becoming sexually attracted to that and then incarnating as the child of that couple oh wow that's what the tibetans say i mean that what are you gonna do with that smart dude i'll tell you once a long time ago i had a one-eyed stand in a condom broke and i can remember laying there and like trying to send out psychic signals to any soul emerging from the bardo and being like about
Starting point is 02:07:40 i guess it would have been too late by then but being like don't this isn't don't come into this right now this isn't what you want um man that is so cool that's i've heard it described that i've that's a way better description than what i thought it was because you've studied it i thought it was like you could eat and you get chased by demons into people having sex so i i my my my my version of it was more in terms of like you're running from demons you're running from something you see people fucking you dive into them as a form of escape but where you what you're describing is like way kinkier which is more like you're being chased by demons but then also you see people fucking and you're like well well well what do we have well the demons are just projections of the
Starting point is 02:08:25 mind because everything's a projection of the mind right yeah but uh yeah i mean how Freudian is it it's like you know is that why people like do you think maybe like one of the porn addiction is just trying to make a better parent choice like when we're watching porn we're just like it's some instinctual bardo memory we're like god damn it i'd rather them be my fuck oh my wow the type of fucking porn you watch wow was your parents were oh my god Duncan i wish my parents were feet Duncan where do we go with that one i'm i have entered the the emptiness of i've nothing i have no more to say i mean the primary clear light of fuck dude listen man you are a really really
Starting point is 02:09:17 wonderful friend and i'm so grateful to have you mob jason thank you so much for this it was so enlightening thank you how can people find you oh my god thank you Duncan that was the i think we just read the bardo but that's got to be the most demented reading of the bardo of all human history can we just can we can we package it like that i i and i'm telling the truth by the way i have been trained to read the bardo cool right so i think that was like the most that was maybe we were just reading the bardo for your dad right what is what that my dad is like how's that reading the bardo from my dad what does it mean that my dad's gonna reincarnate as like a porn i don't like that reading it's the remembering of the primary clear light but it seems to have already happened
Starting point is 02:10:06 because you said that you dreamt of your dad with tibetan monks so it happened before we ever even had this podcast you think that's part of that's him in the bardo like maybe getting a little bit of extra help well it's because my teachers gave me this prayer to read to him as he was dying and so i was able to like and it was a tibetan prayer and and like uh before he died he read the tibetan book of the dead and also before he died um i he was i taught him um and he died with these uh tulsi beads in his hand that uh came from ababa in india so there are a lot of good forces to help his momentum and also beyond all that stuff he was happy when he died you there's a lot of love wonderful yeah so my hope is that that dream means that he's got some friends over there
Starting point is 02:10:55 that's what it sounds like to me i hope so where can people find you uh well let's see so jasonleve.com so i i've at dunkins insistence i've i've started a podcast uh or i'm well into a podcast at this point you can find it at jasonleve.com slash podcast and uh my my book john d and the empire of angels has been juggernautting around the world that i from what i heard i think mitch horowitz told me it went through four printings in its first month wow you heard that from the publisher that's great so i and dunkin has a quote on it so you can find that on amazon and everything's at jasonleve.com so you can find the podcast there and then of course i've got a free course on magic that you can get by texting
Starting point is 02:11:44 the word shaman sh-a-m-a-n to the phone number 44222 and all of the secrets of magic will be unveiled to you but also it didn't also if you call the white house number and say shaman you get connected to your magic class right absolutely jason you're the best thank you so much thank you so much for listening to this episode of the d t f h my sweet friends a huge thank you for jasonleve for coming through in a pinch all the links you need to find jason will be at dunkatrestle.com thank you squarespace thank you stamps.com and thank you simple contacts for sponsoring this episode and thanks to all of you for continuing to listen to the d t f h if you enjoyed this episode don't forget to subscribe don't forget to prescribe great medications to your friends and most of all
Starting point is 02:12:38 my prescription to you is to tell as many people around you as you can just how much you love them even if it makes them roll their eyes or feel a little weird because man my sweet darling darlings this thing we're on the river of time it moves fast into the great unknown cave of oblivion and on the way into that cave why not yell to your fellow boats people how much you love them because it's a fun thing to do and i love you guys and i'll see you real soon until then Hare Krishna you a good time starts with a great wardrobe next stop jc penny family get-togethers to fancy occasions wedding season two we do it all in style dresses suiting and plenty of color to play with get fixed
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