Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 476: Devendra Banhart

Episode Date: November 25, 2021

Devendra Banhart, one of the greatest folk singers ever and occasional audiobook narrator, joins the DTFH! Check out the audiobook for Cynicism and Magic by Chogyam Trungpa, narrated by Devendra. You can also check out Devendra's website for his music and tour dates! Original music by Aaron Michael Goldberg. This episode is brought to you by: Upstart - Visit upstart.com/duncan and see how Upstart can help you with your debt. Feals - Visit feals.com/duncan and get 50% off and FREE shipping on your first order. BLUECHEW - Use offer code: DUNCAN at checkout and get your first shipment FREE with just $5 shipping.

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You went through it all, and found your way around. In the cockpit, I'm bearing myself. I can't let you see through the darkness of the night. I can't see through it all, and found your way around. You went through it all, and found your way around. You went through it all, and found your way around. You went through it all, and found your way around. How to like it, a poem by Stephen Dobbins.

These are the first days of fall. The wind at evening smells of roads, still to be traveled. While the sound of leaves blowing across the lawns is like an unsettled feeling in the blood. The desire to get in a car and just keep driving. A man and a dog descend their front steps. The dog says, let's go downtown and get crazy drunk. Let's tip over all the trash cans we can find.

This is how dogs deal with the prospect of change. But in his sense of the season, the man is struck by the oppressiveness of his past, how his memories, which were shifting and fluid, have grown more solid, until it seems he can see remembered faces caught up among the dark places in the trees. The dog says, let's pick up some girls

and just rip off their clothes. Let's dig holes everywhere. Above his house, the man notices wisps of cloud crossing the face of the moon, like in a movie. He says to himself, a movie about a person leaving on a journey. He looks down the street to the hills outside of town and finds the cut where the road heads north. He thinks of driving on that road in the dusty smell

of the car heater, which hasn't been used since last winter. The dog says, let's go down to the diner and sniff people's legs. Let's stuff ourselves on burgers. In the man's mind, the road is empty and dark. Pine trees press down to the edge of the shoulder, where the eyes of animals, fixed in his headlights, shine like small cautions against the night.

Sometimes a passing truck makes his whole car shake. The dog says, let's go to sleep. Let's lie down by the fire and put our tails over our noses. But the man wants to drive all night, crossing one state line after another and never stop until the sun creeps into his rear view mirror. Then he'll pull over and rest awhile before starting again. And at dusk, he'll crest a hill and there,

filling a valley will be the lights of a city entirely new to him. But the dog says, let's just go back inside. Let's not do anything tonight. So they walk back up the sidewalk to the front steps. How is it possible to want so many things and still want nothing? The man wants to sleep and wants to hit his head again

and again against a wall. Why is it also difficult? But the dog says, let's go make a sandwich. Let's make the tallest sandwich anyone's ever seen. And that's what they do. And that's where the man's wife finds him. Staring into the refrigerator is if into the place where the answers are kept.

The one's telling why you get up in the morning and how it is possible to sleep at night. Answers to what comes next and how to like it. We got a blazer for you today, my loves. Here with us is the incredible DaVindra Bannhart. We're going to jump right into it. I got to tell you something before we jump into it. I almost fanboyed out.

Maybe I did a little bit in this one. I love him. I love his music. I've been listening to his music for a long time. And I got to chat with him for two hours about a variety of topics that are very dear to my heart. Tibetan Buddhism, simulation theory, hot sauce. It's all mixed in to this conversation

you're about to listen to. We're going to jump right into it first this. This podcast is supported by BetterHelp. Is there something interfering with your happiness that's preventing you from achieving your goals? Like, I don't know. Maybe the first five years of your life were very similar to what would happen

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Visit their website. Read their testimonials that are posted daily. Then visit betterhelp.com forward slash Duncan. That's better H-E-L-P and join the over 2 million people who have taken charge of their mental health with the help of an experienced professional. In fact, so many people have been using BetterHelp

that they're recruiting additional therapists in all 50 states. Right now, my dear listeners will get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com forward slash Duncan. Thank you, BetterHelp. Here's another great poem. It's from a member of the DTFH community, Shred Mininar. And the name of the poem is Mountains of Come.

High on the mountain, chance upon a lonely goat, it's Satan. It's Satan, we fuck. Mountains of Come, along with a lot of other great cryptid erotica, is going to be compiled in an upcoming anthology, which is the first collaborative creation of the DTFH family. If Mountains of Come appeals to you,

if you feel the pull of the collective mind, the gestalt of the DTFH tribe, then why not head over to patreon.com forward slash DTFH and subscribe. You're gonna get access to our Discord server. And if you wanna participate, then you could join us once a week for our weekly meditation

and once a week for our family gathering. And the last few family gatherings, we have been mostly just dedicated to finishing up this incredible book of cryptid erotica that's coming out. But it's lots of fun and we miss you. We want you to come home to your family over at patreon.com forward slash DTFH.

It's too late to participate in the cryptid erotica anthology, but as soon as we get this baby up in the air, we're gonna be collaborating on another project, which we haven't figured out what that's gonna be yet. Regardless, head over to patreon.com forward slash DTFH. You're gonna get early access to episodes, commercial free episodes,

and you're gonna help the episode that you call your human incarnation by connecting with the mycilial network of glorious beings that is the DTFH Patreon family. Also friends, from time to time, people ask where they could find some of the music that they hear on this podcast. They look up the album, they can't find the artist.

Some of these are very obscure artists that I find during my many long, prolonged crate picking sessions. One of my favorite things to do is take someone who isn't into records at all into a record store and tell them I'm gonna only be here for like 10 minutes. Then I stay in the record store for hours and hours

and hours and look up every once in a while from one of my crates and just, I really just get off on the sort of despair that slowly creeps into their body and goes into their eyes. And sometimes if I do it long enough, their eyes will even jaundice up and get yellow. And I just love that, it makes me really hard

and sometimes it makes me come right there in my leather pants right in front of the records. And I just love coming in my leather pants in front of old records. Anyway, the point is some of these albums that I find, some of these artists that I find, they are difficult to find, they're not online. So I have compiled a lot of them

over at my SoundCloud. If you just look up Dunkin' Trussell SoundCloud, you should be able to find it. Okay, so I've been listening to this incredible audiobook which I highly recommend for anyone who's interested in Buddhism, it's called Cynicism and Magic. And today's guest was the narrator of that book. He isn't just an audiobook narrator though,

I'm sure you already know who he is. He is one of the greatest folk singers ever. I've been listening to him for a long time. So when I started, when I realized he was narrating Cynicism and Magic, I was thrilled because Cynicism and Magic is a compilation of lectures given by Chogyam Trumpa Rinpoche. And anyone who's been listening to the podcast

for any amount of time knows that one of my teachers, David Nickturn, was a student of Chogyam Trumpa Rinpoche. You know David from the Midnight Gospel or from his awesome books. So it was an incredible pairing to hear one of my favorite folk singers reading transcripts of lectures from Chogyam Trumpa Rinpoche. So you should definitely check out the book,

it's called Cynicism and Magic. It's on Audible. It's obviously you can get it in print too if you don't like audiobooks, but highly recommend it because DaVendra is just like the perfect spiritual audiobook narrator. It brought me back to when I used to listen to like Ram Dass lectures with my mom.

So anyway, check it out. So I reached out to him on Instagram just to say, whoa, you did an incredible job reading this book. And we started talking a little bit and then somehow the grace of God, the powers of some as of yet unquantified alien love force, some incredible good luck. Maybe the thing really is just a simulation

and part of what I dialed into my simulator was that I got to have this conversation with one of my musician that I have a good, look, I'm gonna just say it, okay? I almost fanboyed out here. Anyway, I'm not gonna keep rambling. With us here today is the incredible, the mystical, the amazing, the beautiful DaVendra Banhart everybody.

Welcome to DaVendra Banhart to the DTFH. Give him a round of applause, wherever you may be, and keep it going for the length of this episode. Welcome. Welcome, welcome, welcome on you that you are with us. Shake hands, glory to be blue. Welcome to you. La, la, la.

It's the Duncan Triton. So I'd like to say that on the record, everything I say is off the record. Oh, shit. Well, it's going to be a real long, empty space. It's going to be a challenge for my editor, but he can handle that. Aaron, did you get that?

You're going to have to cut everything out, he says. Do you still cry when you get home from the road? I cry all the time, all the time. I cry more and more, and I cry like in that same way that I can't fall asleep. If I tell myself to fall asleep, the minute I say don't cry, the water works. Just, I'm just immersed in tears, you know?

And it's always like, in not in a cool place or in a cool way that someone might see me crying. Yeah. It's always, you get waiting in line at the post office or something. Oh yeah, yeah. It's not, I mean, it's in the last place. You see, if you see.

Just someone being nice. It's a good sign when you start doing that, right? I think, I think it feels good. I think so. I think it's better to be somebody who cries often than I can't remember the last time I cried for sure. Don't you? Oh, yeah.

Ramdas, he would just water works. Like he would just cry. It was just like Hawaii, his face was like Hawaii where I'll just randomly just start raining, you know? And he would just cry and it was, it wouldn't even, wouldn't do the thing I do if I'm crying where I didn't go into some awful, weird, like wiping, do I wipe my tears?

Cause then I seem like I'm doing performative crying. Do I ignore the tears? Well, then I seem like, look, I'm the person who just cries. So I get very neurotic post-tear. I don't know if it's true, but I heard that there've been some studies on tears and their chemical makeup and how it differs based on the type of tear.

So I don't know if that's bullshit, but we know that there's types of tears. So like to be raised to tears is really different to be than being like, you know, descending into the oblivion hopeless tears, you know? And Ram Dass, when I think of him, he makes me cry because he's radiating a state that for most of us we need to take

a lot of psychedelics to get to. So just footage of him swimming in a pool and just going, this is like liquid love here. I'm just, yeah. And that's something I wanted to talk to you about is like, tell me everything because you motherfucking got to meet Ram Dass. And I had tickets to go to Hawaii,

to one of the retreats before he passed away. And I was so excited. And I know that you went to many of those and knew him. And I just want to hear every detail possible. You got him. I mean, you got him. That's the, you got it. You got it.

That is him. The tears, that's him. You got it. It's the same. I mean, the body, being around his body was amazing. It was amazing because you would get really high. And it's the best kind of high because you're not, you get so high around him that you,

once I remember walking out of where he was and thinking, wow, this is like amazing MDMA, amazing. Like I'm so, and then being like, fuck, I didn't take any MDMA, but I'm just as high. And then that was disconcerting. Cause it's like, wait, when the, when do you come down? Like, you know, when you take MDMA, you know, when you come down, when you're around like someone like that,

well, how long does the buzz last? You want it to last forever. But so that's, there, there's something there. But I think that the, the love that you feel is him. And that was what it was like to be around him. Mixed in with, it was like, I guess another way to put it, you know, when you're around a dying person, you know, like when, and there's this level of real seriousness,

it's not like somber seriousness necessarily, but this sort of seriousness to it. So even though there could be lightheartedness around someone who's dying and usually, often there is serious, this, like it wasn't just like love and radiant stuff. There was another, there was an edge to it that was somebody who was really in the moment, which a dying person is.

So it was like, even when he was years away from his death, there was that, it was something like that too. It made me think of being around a dying person, but someone going through a good death, you know? So yeah, that, I, yeah. And how did you, how did you even, did you grow up with be here now? Yes, that's it.

That's when I wasn't, thank you for interviewing me. I, I love it. I'm so glad you are. I, you had, you were born in your incarnation, you come into a family with a guru. So you have this amazing incarnation. And I've, I'm not doing like hierarchical incarnations or anything like that, but how cool, you know,

because we folks like me, we had, we stumbled upon them a little bit more, you know? Like you find be here now, or you find like Yogi Ramachiraka. My mom had this like book by a, he was a fake. Yeah, I mean, no, he's a fake Yogi. He called himself Ramachiraka. His name was like Stephen Williams.

He was British and he knew Ramachiraka with some more books. But you find these things, and I think it, it like, a part of you remembers. And then that part of you is like, what is this? And then you could get lured in. So yeah, for me, it was a combo, be here now, some Jack cornfield. Cause my mom after her second divorce

started dating new age hippies, you know, Birkenstock hikers who, if you had a fake gun or be like, throw that away, what are you doing kid with that thing? And so thank goodness, because that is how I got connected. And so, but tell me about your experience. You were, you were born- But do you remember?

But do you remember how that copy would be here now? I do. Like were you at a book store? Did someone give it to you? Okay, so the beer now came in college, but it's actually a tapes. It was tapes. My mom had these tapes.

Do you remember those? Did your folks have those? Those, the tape boxes, you know? I mean, they had little briefcases, you know, the briefcase with the cassettes. Yes. You know, little cassettes, a lot briefcases. Yes, yes, yes.

That was like, it was always, it was always a khaki colored, you know, khaki or a light brown kind of briefcase for your cassettes. Oh God, I haven't thought about the case. And since I, since, oh God, that added this weird office-y professionalism to these new age tapes and my mom would open them up on the way to, to go, when we would go up to the beach

to visit her, her, my grandparents, and we would listen to Ram Dass. And I would just look out the window with this look of just scorn on my face because I didn't want to like it because my mom liked it. And I was being an asshole teenager, but man, I would listen to his voice and be like, wow, I know that guy.

Like it was this familiarity, you know? And then when I finally saw Neem Kohli Baba for the first time as picture, I didn't know that was Ram Dass' guru. I looked at him and thought, who, I know him. That's like my uncle. He reminds me of my uncle or something. So that, that, you know,

that thing that your soul does where it's like, it remembers, you don't remember. When you meet, you know, the satsang or, you know, it's like, oh, hey, well, good to see you again. And then you kind of unravel the, whatever it is, you know? So it was like that. And then these retreats were happening. I wanted to go.

You know, I had my, my mom had a dream. Was she, and this is when she was dying of cancer. She had a dream and she said, Ram Dass, this will make me tear up. She said, Ram Dass was in my dream. And he was saying, where are you Duncan? Ask Duncan where he, he's late. Tell Duncan he's late.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was cool. It was cool. I don't know. What do you think that is?

I think there's definitely something to, you know, recognize the recognition, the karmic recognition, you know, some sort of recognition that goes back you know, it just goes back. And I tend to, at this moment, look at all of the, even, you know, reincarnation and so the CDs, all the superpowers, the yogic superpowers, try to just bring them into like a just day to day.

So how can I climb to day to day thing? Yes. You know, so, so how does that work? And a day to day thing, like it made me reincarnation isn't real, it's not, maybe it's not real at all. But if I spend the day thinking of everyone as at one point having been my mom, I'll just be like less shitty to people.

Yeah. So, okay, how can I just apply it in this kind of, regardless of if that's real, but then again, if it is real, then of course, you've been constantly going on this journey towards your own heart and you've been searching for a teacher to show you how to get to that place. Yeah.

And you've been searching for a spiritual community. You know, you've been searching for your sangha and you've been searching for the teaching, let's say the branch of wisdom from this tree of truth. So whatever, however that looks, if it's true, it's true. And that's when you brought up Jack Cornfield because he told the story recently that I love so much which is about this like, is a, this Western person

who's studying with this Theravada, this Theravada teacher and they're really into it and they're doing it. And then suddenly they just disappear in the middle of the night and they leave for a couple of years and they go full Christian and they come back and they're like, oh, there's Buddhist shit is all fucked up, bullshit.

Jesus is the way, Jesus is the way. Like screaming this to this yogic Theravada master and all the disciples are freaking out. This lady's nuts. What are we gonna, we gotta get out. Oh, this is nuts. This is nuts. And like fending the teacher

and then this teacher looks at her and goes, oh yeah, maybe you're right. And that's it. Completely, you know, all of the, it just ends the discussion. Maybe you're right. Okay. Anyways, I just love that story

because it's like the older I get, like the more either, you know, the more I, when I was a kid, I thought that my job was to know everything. Yeah. You know, and my job was to be super certain about everything. And then it turns out that really it's,

it's like, oh no, maybe you're right. Maybe you're right. Thank you Amazon music for supporting the DTFH. My listeners, clearly you have incredible taste in podcasts. And if you want more podcasts, you can find them on Amazon music. Even better, you can find them early. You want to listen to the true crime podcast,

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Amazon.com slash trussell. Subscribe, please, my friends. I want to be invited up in the rocket. This renews automatically. You can cancel anytime, terms apply. Thank you, Amazon music. I got to talk to you about this. This is just what I've been thinking.

I'm so glad you brought it up. Because every once in a while, it happens now about every couple of years. I have this wonderful moment where I think, what if I just throw the spirituality shit out the window? And it's, you know what I mean? And I do it for a second, where it's all the fungal creep of all the stuff

that I've read, it's gone for a second. And you see where Trump or Rinpoche would talk about disowning. And how powerful a thing it is to do that, to just be like, yeah, no, I don't know any of that stuff anymore. Like I don't think, I don't know. Not even that it was wrong so much as yeah.

And then for a second you're left without any of it. And then that is an exciting moment, because something depressing can happen when you get too entrenched in this stuff. I mean, that's kind of the essence of spiritual materialism, which somehow people are more familiar now with spiritual bypass.

But what that really means is, I'm actually strengthening my ego by being so spiritual, you know? So it's basically you're missing the boat because you're a spiritual materialist as somebody who's trying to, I'm so much better now that I'm spiritual. I'm so much better now that I meditate for an hour.

And you're not even conscious of it, because the ego is so smart. And so you start to trip out on like, I'm like so non-materialist. I don't even have anything, you know? And then, you know, and I'm a good, all these things are all in fact separating me from everyone else, because I'm so much better

and I'm so much more spiritual. And I don't need anything. And even the Dharma becomes a form of, you like start to use the shadow side of the Dharma for the benefit of your own ego by saying, I'm so spiritualist, I don't need anybody or anything else, nothing. And that becomes a division.

Then I'm of no use to anybody. And I just like basically sit around thinking, I'm just like the best. And that's spiritual materialism. You know, it's strengthening my ego as opposed to eradicating it, as opposed to connecting it with other people. And as opposed to having that attitude of maybe you're right.

Like if I was totally wrapped up in my, let's say spiritual bypass thing, which is my thing, my thing, my thing, this is the only thing. Then this lady or this person comes up to me and goes, Christianity is the way. I go, how dare you say that to me? And they go, how dare you?

And Dharma's the best and the Buddhism's even way better. You know, you get into that trip. But if you're really in that place of my only kind of general mainline spot to be in is how is to not, it's not to have a dualistic attitude, you know? It's like, then I can go, oh, okay, maybe you're right. You know, that's skillful. And I don't know, wait, how did we get into this?

I don't know how you do it though. What is your hat? It says nukes. It's a hot sauce. It's a hot sauce that my company, my friend makes hot sauce. He sent me this cool hat. I'm in love with it. It's just two people blowing out a nuclear mushroom cloud.

And I like the shitty spelling of nukes. Nukes. Look, I gotta ask you, I'm sorry if I do like an interview question. I love this talk and I wanna jump right back into it, but I gotta ask you this, just because I've been studying you a little bit, not to be weird, but it's like you're a monk or something,

but you ended up this famous musician. You're on the road all the time, all the time, but you're like a monk or something. And I feel like, but also in one of your interviews, I can't remember which one you're like, don't go to someone's trying to analyze one of your songs. You're like, a lot of these, I'm just trying to get laid.

And I love the honesty in your answer there. It was such a beautiful, it reminded me of like at the Ram Dass retreats when Bob Thurman would come on stage and be like, what is beer now even mean? What is this even mean? No one even knows it. Is this nice?

Truth is so beautiful in that way. But that's not all you are, obviously. So tell me, how do you manage the absurdity of having the incarnation of the beautiful famous musician and also the ego annihilating constant sort of repetition of this message that comes from the lineage that I think you associate yourself with or one of them, that this is any of this stuff, all this stuff,

it doesn't last. And if you don't watch out, you can really crystallize into this form, whatever it is you think you are, how are you balancing these two? Because I think it's difficult for a non-famous person to do this, but how are you doing it

from where you're at in your life? Well, the spiritual side of my life isn't really the some side, right? It's not a compartmental thing, right? So I kind of look at it like I've been really fortunate to have a career and be able to make art and make music. And I do it in a public platform,

but it does feel like Ram Dass has that great quote, which was just as revelatory as when I was a kid and I heard John Cage say, I have nothing to say and I'm saying it. I thought, oh, that makes a lot of sense. I have nothing to say and I'm saying it. And then around that time, Ram Dass came across that quote that said,

the spiritual experience is a continual falling down in our faces. And I thought, oh, thanks, man, because being on stage is just humiliating. I'm just like really embarrassing myself because I'm not reading a script. I'm just trying to go, it's horrifying to me to think

that I'm gonna repeat myself. Like I wanna say something new and kind of have some anecdote that was fresh each set, each show. Wow. But I often say that so many stupid things, so many stupid things. I'm so embarrassed on stage.

I'm not like, oh, this is me, I'm finally myself here. I love playing, I love improvising with these musicians. I love it. And I love the challenge of getting to kind of, not fuck up because it's constantly fucking up for me. And the last show I played was one of the last shows that I've ever played.

So I've been really beating myself up about it because I was stiff, I wasn't skillful, I didn't like go with, I didn't, there was a lot of technical problems and I didn't just kind of like, I didn't rise up to the occasion. And so I've really been feeling a lot of shame for clamming up and kind of going in my shell.

But of course you learn from it. And not really your question, I guess I would say that my practice and then my career, I couldn't really do one without the other. And it's just been a whole bunch of embarrassing experiences and fuck ups. But all the while, very aware that if I'm not,

like trying my best to be as honest as possible and as vulnerable as possible and kind of follow that fear, because fear, whatever fear I have is the thing I need to be looking at. So whatever is scary to me is gonna be the most rich in terms of what I'm gonna write about or sing. And so if I'm not putting myself in that spot,

I'm gonna write some shit that people can't relate to and people can sense it's bullshit because subconsciously we can sense if the person means it or not. Right, yeah. God, that's so interesting. It's so painful though, that fear, and it's so insidious,

the ability to think you are going into the fear when you're not, you know, like the fact, like I love what you said about these aren't cool tears. These are tears of embarrassment. This isn't like this fucking right time tears. You're getting tears of people like, shit, what is going on with you tears? And it's like, it's so easy to seem to do cool fear.

You know what I mean? It's so, you can just look and what would be cool to be afraid of, but like the real fear stuff, I don't know, man. I mean, I try to do that, you know, but God, sometimes when I'm looking down in the coal mine, I'm like, I don't know if I'm gonna

exhume that corpse down there, you know what I mean? Like it's not, because it is, I think it's just not real fear. It's just not fashionable, is it? It's a good story later on, but when it's happening, it's really, it's really ugly. See, the lineage that you're studying, that I think you're studying, forgive me,

because I keep saying that, but you know, with Marpa, and I've heard Trump or Rinpoche call it the mishap lineage, and I love that because, you know, for me, you know, when my wife's getting fucking pissed that the kids are screaming, and you've got like breast milk puke on your shirt, and you're like, but you're managing not to turn into a demon in that moment,

because everything around you happens to be screaming. To me, that is, that's it, and it doesn't, and then, but somehow when it gets translated into Doctor Strange or whatever, you know, you've got like very symmetrical people and some very clean temple, I don't know what those are, and it's like, holy shit, man,

that's just not my experience at all. You know? But God, do you got the monastery fantasy? Do you have the fantasy of going up in the mountains? I know you just did it, but do you have the fantasy of going up there and meeting a saint and becoming a saint? The thing is, my fantasy is to basically live

in a Himalayan cave, but have postmates and caviar on my phone. I just, I want to get delivery. I want to make sure I can get, like, bigger fish delivered to my guy cave. God, and drones, drones though, not people, so you're not disturbed, a nice, silent drone flies through. No, I've never heard of that.

A drone, maybe with a little bell, and you're whatever you ordered is there. Yes, God, that's it, man. Yeah, because the reality of the cave, see, whenever my cave fantasy, you know, it's the exact, when I met Ramnath the first time I said to him, are you my guru? And he goes, yeah, now what?

I was the best. He's like, now what? Okay, so, and I think for me, my cave fantasy is identical, which is the fantasy is very much Bill Murray, Razor's Edge, you go up to the cave, somehow, and also part of the cave fantasy is my narcissism, because like,

they're like, we've been waiting for you. Then they take you to the cave, and then they're like, okay, see you later. And then that's as far as my cave fantasy goes, because after that, it just sucks. You're stuck in a cave, you're just sitting there. Now what? You know, that's the problem.

That's why I really love that movie Soul, the cartoon movie. Yeah. Did you see that? I loved it. Like, that was the first time I saw in a movie, let alone a children's movie, a Pixar film, I guess that's a family film.

Like this person has a dream that they want so bad, which is to like, be a musician, and not just be a teacher, but be a famous, whatever it is, they had that dream. And halfway through the movie, they get the dream, the dream comes true. Halfway through the movie, it comes true. And then, and they're standing there going like,

so now what? And then the singer of the band goes, well, tomorrow we play another show. You know? And so I thought, this is so valuable. Most movies don't, halfway, you don't see that after you get the thing, you just are getting the thing. So it's kind of like even, for me,

it was trying to get, take refuge in Buddhism, because I was like, obsessed. I needed to get, to take refuge, I need to take refuge. And I imagine once I take refuge, all right, I'll be levitating, rainbow body right up ahead, good to go, walking through walls. Yes.

And then of course, they'll you take refuge. Okay, do I feel, that suddenly like now I have more responsibility. Yeah. You know, like, it's kind of like, I imagine, you know, it's like falling in love. Everything will be perfect once I meet the person that makes everything perfect.

Now, I would love to talk more with you about this taking refuge thing, you know, when I brought it up with my meditation teacher here and there, and he's sort of explained to me what it really means to take that vow. You know, it's a, and I, you know, and then I would go and study Chogum Trumper more and realize, oh yeah, the reason I want to take refuge

is not because I want to take refuge, it's because I want to say I took refuge, you know? And I, you know, and those are two very different, different things, you know? And when it's been explained to me from people who have, they say, no, no, no, this is refuge as in refugee. This is like that. This is the thing like that.

And that's where you need to be. Not, oh my God, spiritual materialism. Look, I took, guess what I did yesterday, everybody? I took refuge, come to my, I took refuge party. It's going to be incredible. The Van Der Van Hart's going to play. It's going to be amazing. It's not like, you know what I mean?

It's not that. It's, it's something deeper than that. Can you talk a little bit about how you knew that you were ready to take refuge? You know, you just said something so interesting that I've actually never thought about, which is, but you really made it, you just laid it out in such a way that I can so relate to it.

You just have never verbalized. And it is that once I get to, once I take refuge, I will have basically attained refuge. I now have refuge. So this is the attitude, but the reality is, of course, now the journey towards, towards yourself begins, let's say, right? So now the journey of basically you're, like you said,

you're a refugee. Now, now the journey towards home begins. And of course, home is yourself. And what, and then you can start to, and then you use the dharma is like this incredible guide map that essentially is like someone with like a dowsing stick, but the dowsing sticks are compassion and wisdom. And so you just, almost every action,

is this compassionate, is this wise? You know, cause I'm not wise. I'm not a wise person, but I have some sense of, is this action wise or not? I can get a sense, you know? And I, and a big part of the dharma too, is it goes so against, or let's say whatever, let's just say wisdom teaching,

cause we don't have to say the dharma anymore. Let's say whatever wisdom goes against everything that I was taught as a human being, growing up in South America and then in the United States, as just human beings living in samsara, this phenomenal world, like a big part of the dharma is never giving up on anyone because the bodhisattva vow that you take after refuge

is about foregoing enlightenment until everyone else is enlightened. Now that seems insane and impossible. And for me, I can flex, impossible, but I can have that attitude. So I can have that attitude. And so I've given up on people in my life. I've given up on people with fucking,

fucked me over so many times. I'm just done with it. I give up on you. Leave me alone. But can I still maintain an attitude of never giving up on anyone? So that's an important place to, where it's useful in the anyways.

I had this attitude of never giving up on anyone is it seems like to be a really integral part of not creating these divisions. And I don't know, I don't know. It's just so amazing. Like, you know, in the world and not of it, you know, how can I be of service? You know, this amazing, amazing story of this guy

that's up there and living in a cave for like 40 years, doing everything, just 40 years of just pure practice, whatever that means. I'm imagining that they're constantly levitating. And yeah, you know what I mean? Talking to all the deities. And then they finally come down. They've done it all.

And the Dalai Lama hears that there's this incredible yogi who's been living for 40 something years practicing. He wants to meet him because he's so famous. And he meets this person. This happened in the 80s. And he says, why are you wasting your time? Like, why don't you go help some other people?

Why don't you go help someone? And the guy's like, oh, piss. Like, how dare you? And then they realize, oh, no, I see their point. And then they realized that there was this, you know, they had some, a niece who had been, oh, you know, like, some thrown into some sex slave ring or something like that. And then they made it there.

They saved them from the situation. I don't know, they were just able to be of use. They put this stuff to use is my point. You know, so it's almost like, I can put it to use to separate myself from the world or I could put it to use to, you know, connect, get closer to the world and get over myself. This. OK, to underline what you just said,

this is a definition of enlightenment because my ego, a gas always wants enlightenment. And I was talking to Bob Thurman. He's his definition of enlightenment is being useful. That's it. Not romantic. Nothing sexy. Nothing. No, this fucking. I don't know where the walking through walls thing. By the way, that would be so annoying to know

someone who could walk through walls, like, use the fucking door. Use the door. I don't care. I don't care. You fucking didn't knock on the wall. But the yeah, being useful, usefulness. It's not sexy. There's nothing sexy about washing dishes or cleaning up or picking up or getting up early with the kids or any none of this stuff. But my God, how much is society going to fucking change

if people can walk through walls? You know, it's good for one. Doormakers are fucked. It's going to ruin an entire ancient industry. You know, but number two, nothing really changes. Minus the fact that now we have no privacy. The whole walking on water thing, nothing fucking changes. Just angry people walking on water, people running across the ocean

to kick someone's ass. That's it. And that's why this is so important to talk about, because we as people that are into spiritual stuff kind of hold those things up as these ultimate goals, and we never actually really and they seem so improbable and insane. And you have to be such a like super yogi to achieve that you never really go. Oh, OK, so I have that thing and now what? OK, so I can walk through walls and now what? Well, actually, it's a drag and I'm freaking people out and I'm like,

you know, it's like it's really important to think about that thing that seems to be so far away and you're working so hard towards. And then it's like, but now now what? Now they have it now what? You know, I think even think about Eckhart Tolle telling the story about like, OK, so you live like just imagine yourself having all of the physical things you've ever wanted and just sitting in your gigantic mansion house. OK, here I sit and now what are things that different?

I don't know. And so it's like, you know, it's this incredible. It's an incredible thought exercise to do. So I appreciate it. Thanks for doing. Oh, I love that. Thanks for saying the thought exercises. My hope is with VR, maybe that's going to be one of the potential offerings that when we get advanced neurologically connected VR, you can instead of just fantasizing it, give it to somebody.

And it's like, oh, you want to know what it's like to fuck 50,000 people simultaneously? Here you go. Now you've experienced that not just the you've experienced like Krishna level humping. Now look where you're you're still where you were at before, you know? And this is so is this is this like is this what they mean? This is what they mean with some when they say some sorry, right? Like it's like we're in a kind of inescapable predicament here

that disguises itself sometimes as pleasure. But it's like there's it's still always got this element of of pain to it or suffering. Is that what they mean by samsara? Oh, well, you know, the Buddha said everything is burning. And and I used to just think that's the line. Everything is burning. And I was like, that's so hardcore.

That's so intense, right? It's so just OK, everything is burning. But actually, the rest of the line is everything is burning with craving, with desire, with hatred, with anger. And samsara is like and the thing is the two is the samsara is is just as real as as as nirvana. Samsara is just as real as enlightenment. It's just kind of the obscuration, let's say, right?

And then, of course, I feel like I live in it so much that I can't even see it. I live in it so much I can see. And so that's why I meditate to get a sense, to remember that I'm in samsara. Because if I don't meditate, then I'm then there's no distance between me and my own thoughts. So I start to believe them. And I started to either think that, whoa, I'm like having shamanic hearing other spirits, which is actually just my thoughts,

because I know they're my thoughts because no one be so mean to me as my own fucking mind and and and and and also to just not take some samsara, you know, to take it seriously, but not so seriously in a way. And that thing you're saying about like, you know, walking through walls and all these, you know, things like when I was a kid, I'd watch my parents meditate and I think, wow, like they're floating through clouds. Like I wonder what they're seeing. They must be like just going through this like wormhole of neon light,

where there are all these like wild, incredible, like Vishnu and Krishna and Garudas and Herukas and just like flying through them. They must be just somewhere else. They have no idea I'm even here creeping around the house. This is my my thought as a kid, right? Yeah, I imagine my thing. And the thing is that some people are having these incredible visions. So that's also not that's also a big maybe trap is to just basically what

ableism is, which is to just assume that people are just like you. Just to assume that everybody's like, like we are all fundamentally the same. We're all light and energy. Sure. But we're such different people in the way you perceive the world is so different, just even to the point that a friend of yours gets pissed off because you didn't text them back because they can't conceive that you put your phone away for an hour a day. That's inconceivable to some people.

So therefore you're just an asshole for not replying to them. Right. Right. So it's like I, the reality of meditating went later on. It turns out it turns out for me because that's the thing. I don't want to say that some of the people are having that different experience. Like it's very easy to feel like, OK, someone in a wheelchair, I see that they physically have to be in a wheelchair, their legs don't work. And they're, you know, they have a different experience of the world.

They maneuver through the world physically in a different way than I do. I see this person in a wheelchair and I can see that it's not easy for them to jump on this on the on the bus. Yes, I can see that. But all the people that are in like men emotionally in a wheelchair, mentally in a wheelchair, you don't see that. Oh, my God. Any you can't see the wheelchair.

Have you ever had like a psychotic episode or like a nervous breakdown? I must. I think I'm constantly having one. Out of the womb. I say out of the womb. Oh, my God, you know, any time I have one or any, you know, maybe I've eaten too much weed or some or I'm having like some like just midlife crisisy thing or any if I this is the gift of my so far mindfulness and all this meditation bullshit has not prevented these episodes.

Yet sometimes mid mid paranoid fantasy mid. What the fuck? Why didn't he text me fucking back? I guess I pissed him off, lost another friend, selfish me. What the fuck's wrong with me? Of course you would. Why would anyone text you back if I can just get a little bit of mind, bring the mindfulness I can at least think, oh, this is every day for some people who are completely paranoid. This is every moment.

This is a hell realm experience. My shit generally will end. Well, it doesn't. But some people, I just love what you're saying because it's like, you know, anytime I'm like really getting raring up and getting ready to judge somebody, I remember like, oh, they're probably like two years into a psychotic break right now, and you're a demon because you're looking at them mid psychotic break and being like, what an asshole.

Have you ever seen such a shitty psychotic in your life? What a dick. So I love what you're saying. But can we talk and maybe this isn't in you, but can we talk about the weird aspect of being human that doesn't want to let go of the ability to have that fun, the aggressive judgment thing? Like it's a really vulnerable place to go from, oh yeah, you're wrong. He's wrong.

That guy's wrong. That guy's right. That girl's right. That person's wrong to everyone's just having their own experience. And I'm going to try to help all of them. Oh, oh my God. That's a big surrendering of a lot of power for some people. Yeah, but that's really so important.

That's where it's at. And that's a practice too. You don't make that decision to do that. And that's it. Then I never had to do it again. That is a constant as such, but such an important practice. Hey, you know, people are just having their experience. You just said it so beautifully, because if not, I start to take the whole world

personal and the whole world is something for me to fix. And the whole world is, yes, is fucked. And I know what to do. And then I'm just, you know what I mean? That's, that's like these certain words really do are so seductive. So like, if only, so this is fine. If only, if only is so powerful. So can you imagine removing it only from the dialogue?

And imagine removing it isn't fair. Oh my God. This happened, but it's not fair. Whoa, if there was no, it's not fair. Then it's just like it's, it accepts accepting and let's see how we deal with it. But we don't even get to that stage because I'm just stuck and it's not fair. And of course, it's easy for me to say because. You know, because everyone's pain is so subjective.

Yeah. So this advice means nothing because no one else knows my pain. Right. This is a very interesting, if only, if only this is what you this is what the screams of how when you hear people screaming and how 80% if only I wasn't in hell. I, I, I, only they hadn't done that to me. Yes. Yes.

Oh God, I love it. This is how you, I'm trying to think of a good version of if only, and I, I can't, I can't think of a good anytime I'm muttering if only to myself. It's like a bad, I'm having a bad day. Yeah, I, I love, I love like the experiment. I'm just trying. Only I was having a really shitty day. If only things weren't so good, that's actually happens though.

I get that one too. If only things weren't so good because, you know, it's better when it's only it's no good if only there's no good if only if only there wasn't if only then it's just now that's somewhere cursive bullshit. If only there wasn't if only yeah. I, I, I, I, when you first encounter, first of all, oh yeah. Okay. So the if only thing, by the way, in cynicism and magic when, and I was so

excited when I realized you were reading it and what a great job you did. What a great job you did. But speaking of if only in the beginning, uh, Shogum, Trump or Rinpoche is saying there's a risk when I'm talking about this with people because it basically saying there's a risk of me creating fascists with this. Like if you take this the wrong way, then the if only thing, you know, suddenly as you become like some charismatic, great teacher, you have the ability to exert the if only into the world.

And the exertion of the if only is fascism. And that's what I love that. Do you remember the part in the very beginning in the intro where Chugum, Trump is saying you're not going to be successful in like trying to become some kind of whatever the, the, uh, super powerful meditator person is. But sometimes it does work. Some examples are Hitler and Mussolini. Do you remember that part?

Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. Wow. And, and, and, and like, you know, I don't know if you've read Dune or if you've, if you've read Dune or not, but the, this was what, like, did you read Dune? Yeah, those are those books that are based on this movie that just came out. The movie's better than the books. Yeah, some asshole, Frank Herbert, when quickly wrote some trill billion books

about just leave the movie alone, leave the fucking movie alone. But you, like, you know, this, the, uh, um, Paul Atreides, this is his big struggle. Is he's like being sucked into the becoming this Messiah thing that, and he knows how many people will die if it happens. If only, um, is the mother of fascism, I guess. Wow. That's so interesting. I mean, I just kind of randomly opened it to page three, but it says here, usually

we feel that if there is a me, I am going to benefit by it. We think that I can become great, powerful, a great powerful person. That has become a problem. The question we have to ask at this point is supposing so-called you becomes enlightened, then what? Of course, automatically the answer is that you will become a Buddha and enlighten one. You think I will preach the law.

I will proclaim my wisdom to people. There is an enormous snobbishness involved with that approach to put it lightly and deception. You might find such snobbishness very light and harmless, but actually it is extraordinarily deadly and powerful. You are about to become an egomaniac. You are becoming an egomaniac. You think that you could become the Buddha himself and preach the law and

gather all kinds of disciples and glow your halo all over the place. You think you could command people to do this, do that, don't do this and don't do that. It's very tricky, extremely tricky and extremely dangerous. That's exactly what you were just saying. The danger of becoming a fascist through your own egoic. That's actually, I keep referencing these strange pop culture things, but you're just whatever.

I remember seeing like in the movie, like Ant-Man 2, I think. Like the main bad guy is the tall bald handsome man from House of Cards, I think. And he says, he's a bad guy in the movie. This is a Marvel movie. And he's like, earlier this morning, I was meditating and blah, blah, blah, thinking about how I was going to kill the world, whatever the fucking thing is. But I thought, this is so cool in a way. Like they also put in, they threw in something very kind of subtle, which is

that we can also use these things for tremendous egoic destruction. And typically it's just ourselves. We just become like real kind of megalomaniacal assholes, right? But we can also use it to create incredible harm. And then of course it happens even with, it happens in the teacher-student relationship as well. I want to thank Disco for supporting this episode of the DTFH. I'm going to be honest with you until very recently, I thought skincare

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I talk about sugar and Trumpa, I'll get messages from people who are upset that I'm talking about sugar and Trumpa. Um, how do you, how do you square like still, you know, all the controversy surrounding him and Shambhala? I don't, I love him so much. And when people email me, I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say. I never, I don't want, I'm except I'm sorry.

If something happened, how do you work it out in your head? How do you, you know, and it's not just joking. Trumpa, it's like the entire, um, patriarchal sort of, um, models, student teacher that, that has been going on for a long time. How do you work it in your, how do you make it work? How do you make the math work? Well, I have those similar thoughts. I have those similar questions and I ask those similar questions.

To my own teacher, I've asked those questions and, um, I have that same feeling of, I, how do I reconcile, uh, some of these stories with some of the wisdom? And it's really case by case and some people it's just unpardonable and they're, and it's just unpardonable and their behavior is unpardonable. And fortunately, I haven't really had any connection with some of those teachers. So I just can see that story and, and, and go, wow, I had no connection and that's a bummer. And I'm just not interested, but this is so sad.

I hate this is such a bummer. But then with someone like chugging Trumpa, who I really respect and is to me so such a important person in my life. And then I know that that's not the case for other people. I just know that based on my experience, which is the documentaries and books and talks and lectures, and then also being friends with many of his disciples, yes, my impression is, because of course I asked them firsthand. And my impression is that this was an incredibly wise and unconventional

person and I just wasn't there. You know, so I don't want to put down anybody's experience and, you know, I don't want to put down any of his experience, but I can put just mine is that, that I certainly know that what is known as crazy wisdom when done unskillfully can really confuse people. And when done super skillfully, it can really confuse people. Yeah. So, so I don't know.

It's like, you know, it's not from really me to say, except that I have those exact same questions. Yeah. And I love what you know. For me, it's like people, disciples, students, they're mirrors. And it's like you can see the reflection or the thumbprint of the teacher on them. And, and, and that reflection that I've seen is just so beautiful and funny and so loving that, you know, it's a bummer when you hear otherwise.

But I think you've got to go by your own personal experience. And that doesn't mean that someone else's isn't is invalidated by that. It's just a confusing situation. I wonder sometimes about this crazy wisdom in the world these days. I wonder how could it even work now? Could it even work now? I, you know, the, it is so unconventional. And I think that part of the ego is it wants to reign in the teacher.

And then that, you know, because it's scared, it's like you, you don't want to be obliterated. You don't want you. And so you, the idea, so to reign in the teacher, you say, okay, here's the rules you're going to follow because this is the way I've decided that teachers behave. And in the moment you do that, you've kind of fucked yourself because you're, it's like going to a doctor and telling the doctor, okay, here's

how you're going to do the surgery. I'm not a doctor, but I kind of tell you how to cut my tumor out because I don't know about you, man. You know, so do you wonder, do you think about that in the age of the cell phone, how in the age of like, how, how does this being even function the way that, at least in the stories, these beings interacted with people? There's so many levels to that, but, and I certainly do think about that. And if I try to picture who's a very well-known popular teacher who kind of

embodies that kind of crazy wisdom, exactly what you just said, kind of throws it back on people and can feel confrontational, but you know that there's so much compassion behind it. Who's doing it really skillfully is Zangzar Jamian Kienze, Rinpoche, who has written many incredible books, incredible books. And so I highly recommend Zangzar Jamian Kienze, Rinpoche. And, you know, and then at the same time, it's our, it's basically somebody who isn't willing to just like mime our projections, isn't willing to act

out our projections for us. So like I was, I went to this, before I got into Vajrayana, I was a Zen, Zen was my thing and I was at a, at a monastery and I always sit in the quiet table. I don't want to talk to anybody anyways. Yeah. The drone, I want the Postmates in my cave to be a drone as well, you know, yes, but I'm sitting there eating my, whatever, brown rice and broccoli, which is actually tastes so good because these people know how to cook really

well and go to hungry, you know, monastic food is really tasty. And I'm just eating my food. And then I go, you know what, what's wrong with me? Why am I such an asshole that I think I can't just talk to human beings? Let me go sit in the non-talking table. The second I sat down, I regretted it. The second somebody started talking to me. It was like, this is so painful, but nothing to do with them, just my own trip.

But I, but, but yeah, I remember somebody saying that, like mentioning that this teacher, this one, you know, Zen teacher was a real asshole. And I said, oh, interesting. Well, why were they an asshole? And they said, well, I went to the, all the way to their retreat center and, and, uh, and I'd read all their books and, um, and I went up to them and I said, you know, Hey, here I am. Nice to meet you.

And like, well, my name is Dada, and they were just like, oh, nice to meet you. And, and walked away. And they were so pissed. Like what an asshole. Because they're, they're, and then I saw right then that their, their story, it just did, their story was that I'm so connected with the wisdom in this book that when we meet, they're going to say what you actually got from Ram Dass. Most, most people don't, which is I've been waiting for you.

Well, that was in my mom's dream. Actually, let me, that was in my mom's dream. They're real, they're real. I wish that it happened. You put that closer. It's not closer. Yeah. Okay.

Oh, most people don't get that. I mean, most people get just, no, nice to meet you. Welcome to the work. But that's already so that turns to some people that is like, how dare you do that to me because I was sure that we were going to be like, yeah, you know, Milarepa and, and, and, and, and that, and you're going to just like challenge me because I'm so special. I'm going to, you know, that's, so it's an interesting, and you must have that too

with people that are fans of your work. And they just go, Oh my God, I'm just, I get this guy gets me, this guy gets me. And so you meet and they go, Hey, what do you want to do later? And when are you, when am I moving in? Right. Nice to meet you. But suddenly you were an asshole because you didn't become a meat. You didn't become best friends.

You did. Yeah. It's so, it's, I know you get it way more than I do, but I feel like that now with you, I want to move in, but the, the, um, you're very magnetic, but the, um, the, uh, the, I think that's why that's a good, that's compassion for the teacher to do that, right? Because it's like, Oh, let me just disappoint you right from the get go. Because, and I, and I think that's where people get, that's where the guru quote,

quote, guru is getting trouble is because when the person comes, they don't do that. They're like, Oh, at last you arrived. I projected into your mother's dream and I brought you here. And now, you know what I mean? And there's like so much, so much bad shit that can happen if you support someone's dream of getting accolades for coming into the spiritual path. Chote is cutting through spiritual materialism in the intro. As I recall, I'm sorry if that's not the Rinpoche book.

Doesn't he say, don't do this. I think he pretty much says, if you can avoid getting into this stuff, it would be better to just kind of avoid it. Cause once you start going in, you got to go all the way through. So if you can like bet, maybe the better, I just interviewed Jack cornfield and he's like, stop reading these books. I'm asking him all these spiritual questions. He's like, yeah, maybe just take a break from this stuff.

And, and, but I do think that, don't you think that's compassion? But hey, I've got the book for you. It's about stop, it's called stop reading these books. It's actually a course. It's a seven year course. Yeah, I, yeah, I love, I love that. Anytime I've like that's, and that's to me, that's the gift of, of, of a real teacher is they're like, yeah, I'm going to disappoint that shit out of it.

I mean, what do you want? What do you want from me anyway? But what did Joe game jumper, Bershey called it spiritual hitchhiking? I think, you know, it's like, he said, you don't need to get in someone else's car, you have your own car. It's your incarnation. It's your life. And, and, and that he would always talk about loneliness.

Can you talk about loneliness? Just a little bit. Um, well, I just finished reading a book called The Friend. Um, and in it, the author writes about how some other famous author had said that any writer has to carry a banner their whole life. And the banner says loneliness. And the beauty of that is that I'm not alone in my loneliness. I'm so, I'm a lonely person.

I mean, I, I, I am, I'm a lonely person that I'm, I'm lonely with people and I'm lonely when I'm alone and I need pretty much need to be alone to, to, to get any work done. Yeah. And so, you know, so much of art is to remind people that we, that you're not alone in being alone. You know, Hey, I've been alone too. Cause so much of art is to remind people that we, that you're not alone in being alone. You know, Hey, I've been alone too. So much of this experience is so lonely.

Um, and that's why humor is so important. Yeah. Right. Like humor is so important. And, and when you say like spiritual hitchhiking, that's almost, that's also the shadow version. So when I say shadow version, let's say bizarro Superman version, just like the, the fucked up version of the thing. But there's another thing which we can't talk about, which you, which is you

experienced by being near, for example, Ram Dass, some of these people that are so comfortable in themselves that are, that are so really like whole people, say a whole human, you know, I was talking about this the other day. It feels like there's professional people and they mostly are just very professional at being human and I don't get it. And then there's kind of these disaster people that I find myself to be. And then there's kind of like whole people, you know, and a whole person, uh, is so comfortable in themselves and is so rare that that's basically when all those, you

know, during that revolutionary time in the sixties, when it's all about, you know, really radical feminism and socialism and communism and, uh, just every ism, it's all exploding and this incredible interest in Eastern wisdom is kind of like flourishing and that thirst for something more than all these material things that they, you know what I mean, but society thrown on them, et cetera, all of these young kids go to India and it happened all over the world, but particularly in India. And let's just hone in on these young hippie kids. Meeting, uh, Miraji, Neem Karoli Baba is there.

And suddenly, you know, they have, uh, you know, a glimpse into a completely different world that completely changes them, completely changes them. And that's still, you know, we have this, it's more accessible than ever in a way. And, you know, when I wrote to you about, you know, Ram Dass and what's it like? I want to know what it was like to have known Ram Dass. You know, you, you kind of get that sense that they manifest everywhere since they're passing, since they're physical passing. And my, I have two teachers and one of my teachers is named Miraji.

So when I was a little kid, I'd be like, Oh, Miraji, and then there's Miraji. Ram Dass is Miraji. And I guess we have a Miraji, but I didn't realize Miraji just means King. And it's just a title that you get. And his name is Prem Rawat. Prem is his love, actually lover, Prem Rawat, Miraji. And that's who taught me how to meditate. And he always says that if you expect to see this like fat, bald, bald man walking

down the street with a sign that says Buddha, or you're saying, hi, I'm the Buddha. You will never see the Buddha. You will never see the Buddha. You will, you will, but if you see an act of compassion, an act of kindness, an act of awareness, you know, that's where you'll see the Buddha. You will see the Buddha manifest through these things. And so therefore the Buddha is everywhere. And that's, and that's, that's, that can sound insane or very utilitarian, really

applicable, right? And, you know, that's, and that's how you maintain that relationship. It's so beautiful. It's so beautiful. Like I, like my neighbors must think I'm nuts because I'm like, I'm jogging around the neighborhood and I'll like bow at certain trees because I've read about those trees in the sutras and therefore I bow because that tree reminded me of the Buddha and so I'm grateful that I was reminded of the Buddha.

So I'm just bowing, but it just probably looks like I'm a nut who worships trees, which is nothing wrong with that. The older I get, the more I want to be a guy who wants to, to hug a tree as for as long as I can. Oh my God. You know, that when my kid, when I took him up into the forest, he just started hugging every tree and kissing them and calling them babies. It's so beautiful.

You'd hug them or you'd point to a tree and like, want to kiss that baby. Like, but this, this is to me that, that, that, what you're describing bowing the trees, that consciousness or knowing like, yeah, stop looking for the Buddha in this, in the, in the, in that, that think of the Buddha more as like, uh, that, uh, call a caldera, like a, when a volcano just, it's like maybe the opposite of a volcano because a volcano is all destruction. This is suddenly something comes blasting out of you that you're like, what, or in, or in the connection between when you're being useful.

It can, you know what to bring it full circle. It happens when you're being useful. This creates a circuitry through which the Buddha appears, you know, not as a being necessarily, but as that moment where you're like, oh my God, I didn't do the thing this time. I didn't freak the fuck out on someone this time. It wasn't pretty, not patting myself on the back. Don't deserve a Nobel Peace Prize, just cause I didn't like start screaming

when everyone else in the house was screaming, but I didn't start screaming. And then, you know what happens after that? Suddenly that's when you're getting the text from your wife saying, I love you so much. You're a great dad. And you're like, oh wait, it didn't stop there. All of a sudden now my days a little better and her days better and the kids days better. And then if that happened to everybody all around the planet, that's when we enter into the great new age awakening or the Maitreya comes or whatever.

The Maitreya doesn't come, maybe the Maitreya, I'm sorry, I'm ranting and you're on. The Maitreya doesn't come as a being. The Maitreya comes as this like cumulative compassion shower or something that's pouring out of people all over the planet and they're around, whoever they're around. Oh God, I'm sorry for the rant. You brought it out of me. I'm sorry. Well, you know, Maitreya, actually it's Robert Thurman who told, who said that,

was mentioning that Maitreya at this moment manifests as dogs and cats. Wow, God, he's such a mindblower. They're just non-judge, they don't judge us and they just love us and they're just looking out. And I thought that was quite helpful because there's a dog that yaps at me while I do, while I practice my sadhana out in the garden. It's just screaming at me the whole time while I'm doing prostrations and trying to meditate. And so I just remember, oh no, this is the manifestation of Maitreya. And it's just guiding me along.

It's just going, yeah, you go girl. All money, bad my own. You got this. Oh my God. So it kind of helps. I couldn't do it. But that kind of perception is so, you know, it's difficult to, it's one of these things, like so much spiritual practice is simple but extremely difficult.

And to get to that place of one taste, you can't, you know, one taste, how liberating would be one taste. And you could give me some dog shit and you could give me like the most delicious dish on the plate. I can't even tell the difference. It's all the same thing to me. That sounds insane, but that's a real superhero. You know, I remember this story about my teacher going on a little retreat,

traveling through the Himalayas with Dilgokinse Rinpoche. Wow. And they stayed in this, some like little hut that they were, they were, but it was a nice, it was a very poor little village, but the night, the nicest place was still like a little hut, you know, in dirt floors. And there's, but they're, it's the nicest thing they've got. And they give it to the, the, the, the retinue and all the people. And they're sitting in there and, and my teacher who's quite young at this moment,

whose name is Netan Chokling Rinpoche, is him and all the other Rinpoches are like, in hell, there's a billion mosquitoes covering every inch of their body and it smells and it's uncomfortable. It's super hot and they're just like, uh, miserable. And they look over Dilgokinse Rinpoche and he has this huge smile on his face. So calm and he's looking around and he was like, do you don't see these incredible dakinis everywhere? And he's, and he's talking about the mosquitoes.

Whoa. Like he's perceiving these mosquitoes as angelic beings, like beautiful fairies. Okay. Imagine like little fairies that are like singing a melodious song to you. And he's just, that's how he is perceiving that. And that, and so it's like, whoa, this is probably the true meaning of when we say, I want to give you empowered and I, and what's my part?

Like, whoa, you know what I mean? And, you know, and, and so at the highest level, you're seeing mosquitoes as these melodious fairies at the lowest level, at the simplest level, at the first base level, it's forgiveness. Who, how about, who can I not forgive? You know, and there's a long list usually, right? Parents are usually on there, but like, like forgiveness is like, and actually this is one of the, my favorite quotes in the Bible, before you enter the temple, forgive.

Uh, yeah. God, it's so hard sometimes. I mean, it's like a, how do you, I get so confused about that term. By the way, we've done a minute, it's an hour and nine minutes. Do you have more time or do you need to go somewhere? Because I would love to talk about forgiveness with you. Of course. I want to talk about nukes.

By the way, not some cheesy sponsor, just a friend. He's got, but it doesn't sponsor me. He's just a friend. I feel cheesy now, but nukes is, is a delicious hot sauce, but not a sponsor. Um, uh, it's freaking good. Forgiveness. I don't, at this point with forgiveness, with the people I can't forgive, I try to forgive them. I don't even know how to do it.

I can't, the company, especially like people, you can't really have a con, you know, those people, I don't know if you have these people, you probably don't, but people are like, I can't have a conversation with you without, if there's no conversation to be had anymore. And then I want to forgive them. And then I imagine, I guess I forgave them, but I'm still pissed. How do you know when you forgiven? Yeah, that's a good question. You know, and then, and then how do you know when you, well, forgiven and forgive is different

though, right? And sometimes we are forgiving in order to be forgiven. And then it turns a little bit like that's the dark side of forgiveness. When it's kind of just doing it for our own, because it is for us, because some of those people will never forgive us. Yes. And some of those people are dead. Yes.

And so forgiveness is for us because they can't hear me saying, I forgive you. But at the same time, do I want forgiveness only so I can feel better? You know, so there's some, I know this sounds like I'm saying the same thing, but there's a distinction there between like genuine forgiveness and the forgiveness that is only, that is coming from a kind of more selfish spot where it's like, I just want to look like I'm a really good person and not feel the guilt and shame anymore. So I'm going to forgive in order to be forgiven. It's not so much liberation there.

It becomes a little bit more of a trip. Yeah, totally, totally. And it's like, it's almost like a place to start is who is just, can I not forgive? Yeah. Maybe you start with that and then, and then try to look at how it would look like to forgive someone because it also turns out it's a practice too, forgiveness. Cause it is, you know how we do that often? Like I have, you know, maybe some weird thing with my mom and it'll be like,

oh, how are things with your mom? Oh, good. I forgave them. So we're good. And it's more, it's a, it's such a process. Right. It's such a process. You know, so it's almost like I am, I realized that I, I'm having a hard time forgiving them

or it's going to take a long time to forgive them or you know, so it's an interesting thing. I love that. What would it look like if I did that? That's the key. That's, that's perfect. That's a perfect answer that solves. Honestly, that does solve a riddle for me that I've been kicking around for a while now. That I don't know.

I never even thought of, of just imagining. Oh yeah. What would it look like if you weren't like, but it's all, it relates to what we're saying. What would it look like if I could walk through walls? Oh, well, I guess I can, like what, what is it? I can just go through the door. Like it means nothing.

Yeah. You know, so what would it look like if I forgave them? And what would it look like if I had an attitude of never giving up on anyone? So this person's been an asshole over and over and over again. And I can go, you know what, I burn my hand. I mean, I, I'm just, because me and my attic brain, I need to feel the fire and annihilate my hand and I have to burn it 20,000 more times in order to get it through my head. You know, okay.

Thank you so much for giving me your time today. Oh, I feel like, should we start the interview? Oh, I would listen. I'll talk, I, I feel, I'm very, I'm feeling very sensitive about your time here. I could go on forever. Honestly, I, um, I know. Thanks for taking the time. I hope, by the way, yeah.

So like I said, everything is off the record. Delete everything I just said. Okay, fine. I really will. And then I want to ask you about the synthesizer. Then I get to, which one? Well, behind you, the synthesizer. Yeah.

Have you, are you tracking today or often? For my podcast, I, so I like to make songs at the beginning of my podcast, just fun, stupid songs. I love making music. I'm not a musician. I love making music. I've got over here, I've got a ton of modular synthesizers, which just, I just sit and make noises on them and all my musician friends, especially like, like producers are like,

they look at them with some pity generally, because they're so chaotic. You can't dial anything in. And, but yeah, it's a Moog one. That's a sub 37. That's a Moog Voyager in the background there. And I'll just tinker around. You know, it's like, at my age, you either get into like cutting wood. You know, you become a carpenter or something.

Are you getting a modular synthesizers? Go to, you ever go to Perfect Circuit? Do you go to Perfect Circuit in Burbank ever? Do you ever go there? It's all people my age just coming in and buying like weird fucking synths, because that's what we do. You can, you just sit and you make noises and it's so liberating. That's what it, that's what it is.

And then you get better at it. You know, it's like, I'm learning how to play piano. Like it's, your neurons start changing or something like, you know, like I'll come back to the piano at home and realize, holy shit. I'm like playing piano now. Like I, my hands are doing it. You know, cause you, I guess you grew up studying music. You must have.

When did you start playing music? Oh, I have that has yet to happen. Yay, great, great. That makes me feel better. Right. Yeah. I mean, it's just, I can't believe what a cool thing to the thing is also here's the other thing.

I get to sit in my studio and fiddle around on this Mogue one and I don't have to finish a song. No one expects me to make good music for my podcast. I've been tormenting people with shitty songs on my podcast for years now. I was like expecting it to get better. So, so, um, but you, my musician friends, my God, I remember when I, my friend Emo, when I came to see him play and then I was like, come, come on, let's go out. And he's like, I, I can't go.

I've got to unload all the equipment, take the equipment off the stage, put it in the truck. And then I realized, oh, it's a, you're a moving company. You're, you're moving every day. You're moving gear on stage and you're having to do these sound checks and then you perform and then you got to unload the gear and do whatever you do after. And then you got to get back to your hotel, but you got to wake up early the next day because then you got to get to the next show. And it's like, I get to be in the studio and just fiddle around.

I mean, it's, it's heaven. I don't think the touring musician thing, man. Fuck. Are you working on a record? That seems rough. Is there a record on the horizon? I have. Okay.

Now you're dialing. Okay. Come on. You're, this is my every question. It's a real question. I have a secret fantasy of one day making a record. I have a ton of songs that I've made and I'm getting better. But my feeling with that is I want to, to, to get a little better at, I'm like, I want

to start taking some vocal exercises and like get a little better so that the record is more than just like, so that it isn't, so that maybe it will surprise people. You know? Is there an album that you aspire to, to, to that, that feels like that's in the territory of what you would like to make? Yeah. Like Daniel Johnston, you know, like some, like, like that kind of stuff. I really love that kind of folk music and Sebado I really love or like, you know,

if I could really aspire to make great music though, it would be more like ween or, you know, the flaming lips or something like that, you know, like, but this is an aspiration, you know? I mean, like I could never make music like you make because my voice is horrible and I can't fucking play guitar. So like, I'm never going to be able to do your guitar. That is literally the definition of, that's if you like, that's not the definition of what I do, by the way, but whatever.

No way. Come on. You don't, you can't, so you're saying you can't play guitar. Come on. Well, you know, I don't know what I'm doing. It's a, it's a, it's still a mysterious instrument to me. I don't know. I don't know how this can work.

Get out of here. Am I going? Give me a break. Oh, that works. I've been researching you. I've been watching you sitting, playing beautiful guitar and like beautiful studios, like you're so calm and you're beautiful. Oh, damn.

I fell for it completely. Is that an app that makes it seem like you can play guitar? I want that app. I need that in my life. I would do that. I, I mean, that is coming. That is coming. We're all going to be synthesized, you know, and just like have more talented versions

of us being replicated on various media feeds that aren't even us, just some viral contagion AI version of us that's like spreading and. I mean, that's a really fun thought. You know, like the amount of things that were inconceivable to a human society a hundred years ago that we possess now, they're just inconceivable. And if they saw physically, if they saw some of these things, like what we're doing right now, they would have a heart attack. Yes, for sure.

Like they would have a heart attack fully. They'd go like and then some sort of breakdown and then maybe like like catatonic or something just because it's in, it just, it's so wild. It's just so inconceivable. There's this mini person I'm talking to at the same time. And then the thing on the screen, this just makes no sense. So it's just so, and it's, it's just so obvious that if the human race is still around, there'll be these things that are just deeply inconceivable to us.

So it's so fun. That's basically the science fiction, right? What, what is, what are those things that are just so inconceivable? So, so, so, and then here's the beautiful paradox. How can you conceive of something that's inconceivable? You can't. But that's the fun game. And then it's like what behavior today is going to be so fucking insane to people in the future.

There's obvious ones like racism, but then it could be something like, they wait, look at the way, look at these people. They used to hold cups, like, they used to hold cups. Like how could they think that that was okay? Yeah, we have no clue as to what is some of the, there must be some, there are for sure some things that we cannot even conceive that we're doing that the human, future humans will be like, we'll just go like, how on earth did they think that was okay? They fucking touch plastic.

They touch plastic. They're gonna, that's gonna be one of them. They drink out of fucking plastic and everyone's like, what's this cancer? Why do we all have cancer? They were drinking out of fucking plastic. The whole species just slurping back, fucking play with just buy a plastic cup or go to a store and they would get a plastic cup and put a plastic straw at it and slurp it. And then they'd be like, why?

Why am I getting so sick? I don't understand what's happening. You're drinking a fucking like hardened chemical that was made somewhere you don't even know. I think that's gonna be one. Probably the other one's gonna be like social, like they're gonna be like, they let the algorithm control social media. They were just like, no, there were no regulations about algorithms. They were letting an AI hijack their nervous system and they were just like,

why do I feel like shit every time I go on Instagram? You were getting hijacked. But then yeah, there's gonna be other stuff too, like the coffee handle or just kind of like, my God, how did they do it with only two arms? And they didn't have the prosthetic arms that did whatever. But it has to be inconceivable to us and sound. So, so we'll actually know it doesn't work that way. I was gonna say something like they don't like once a day you have to by hand pull one of your

teeth out. That's a completely normal behavior. And that's just how it works. It's crazy they didn't do that. It could get worse like that. They know it's like they wondered why is the human lifespan only 80 or 90 years? Well, it's because they weren't pulling their teeth out. They weren't doing the teeth pulling Richard.

The teeth were killing them. I know you mean like the singularity or the contemplation of whatever is on the post, the horizon after chips get to a certain speed. We can't come up with it there. There's no, I mean like Kurzweil says we, have you ever had the singularity is near by Kurzweil? Yeah. Okay, I don't know how long it's been since you read it.

Revisit it, check out the predictions and goose bump city because it's like he predicted the mRNA stuff that's happening right now. That was one of the lead ups to like right around the corner is a computer that's as fast as a human that works as a human brain. And then right around the corner after that is a computer that works like every human brain on the planet. And then right around the corner after that is the during the all diseases cured.

And then right around the corner from that is the ability to reconstruct your at your atoms or something at an atomic level. And then, but I'm sorry, I did have a question earlier. Do you ever worry that this is the, we think we're in the bar, the human, the bardo of becoming the human bardo. But in fact, we're in the bardo thought all in that the technological stuff is actually just the hallucinatory experience, proceeding our next incarnation. Great question.

I actually don't go that far. I sometimes do think that in any moment, like I'm actually in a, like a yoga studio in Sebastopol and the shaman who's probably from Santa Cruz, but went to Peru once is like going like, Hey, hey, wake up, wake up. Yeah. And I've just been on like ayahuasca and they threw in a little ibogaine in there. And that's been happening for the last 20 years. So maybe I'm just having that kind of experience.

But then the thought that, you know, some teenager is going to click on this level of, of this year, because I'm inside of a little chip. Like I'm in Sims and there's a, you know what I mean? And it goes up to like the year five billion, but I'm just one little program in the year to 21 November 22nd. And then I'm just going to see this giant teenager in the sky, like playing my neighbor. Yeah. Is a fun thought.

That's for sure. But then in terms of like, you know, what you're talking about, how you keep continuing, like, let's just say like the evolution of humanity and how that, you know, basically you're just applying logic to such a high and incredibly intelligent academic degree that it seems prophetic, but really you're just applying like a cause and effect. And that's one of the most interesting things when like Vedantic myth and teachings start to co-emerge with really, really high end, you know, mathematics and science. My fantasy is that we do get to the point when like, like string theory is kind of proven.

And so this, what is now a concept that there's an infinite amount of universes that are almost identically the same could, could theoretically could be literally we're having this conversation, but your hat is blue is the only difference in that universe. But at the same time, that also means that there's a version of you, that there's a Hitler version of you, you know, there's an entire version of Duncan where you were that, what, how we think of as Hitler, yeah, that exists on a planet. But then how to apply that today is when I walked down the street and there's this like a homeless person that's covered in shit screaming at the screaming or not, they're not, they're passed out.

And I could, and I can, and just to remember that there's a version of me in another planet that's exactly in that position. Yes. So once we get that, if that becomes, even if that is no proof of that, that can be so useful. And of course, Vedantically, that's Indra's net, these jewels that are strung by a net, you know, yeah, and there's the intimate unit. So I can, I can apply some of these, like myth, creation theories, or other world theories, or, you know, future versions of us, I can just abuse that today in some sort of compassion building capacity, you know, because it's just fun to think the human, human future, yes, humans in the future, super fun to think about. And even thinking about that reminds me that there's this great

tick not Han quote, which is, you know, when you're having an argument with someone, just imagine that in 100 years, you'll all be ashes. They'll be ashes and you'll be ashes too. So it makes it really hard to have this fucking, but I'm pissed and I'm still mad at you and like just to continue the, the, the fight. Oh my God. You know, you've been, you lived in Paris. God, that's cool. Didn't you live in Paris? A little bit. You have been to the catacombs, I'm sure. You've been to the catacombs, right? And you look at those skulls and you, just what you're saying, you look at them and you're like, these people thought that they were, some of them thought they were the most important fucking thing ever. And now they're just skulls. No one knows their

name. No one, these people were annoyed. There's guaranteed somewhere in there is skull that was pissed off at another fucking skull. And now they're down in the catacombs just sitting there with tourists like stealing their femurs and shit. But like, you know, yeah, I love that as an exercise. You have to remember like, it's the, it's one of the funniest things when people get really puffed up. And you know, it's like yours. You're dead meat. You're not going to, you're going to be a, you're going to be a fucking, some dogs probably going to be carrying your rib cage around the way shit's going these days. But I took it to get to the multi person. Oh, yeah, it's, it does. I mean, I don't want to be irrelevant ties by the, you know, turning into a skeleton. It's an anomaly,

like, like getting whatever part of the hard drive I'm on, getting it white. But the, the multiverse idea, to venture the, I want to talk about it more from a technological perspective than a philosophical one, the idea of like, no, no, no, this is how it works. And it's not just other planets. It's this planet. It's like layers, sedimentary layers of possibility that you, your consciousness shifts through. So it's like, right now, your consciousness is sort of within this particular node or whatever you want to call it, but it could shift into any time you change or with every action, your consciousness is kind of penduluming or undulating between these almost perfectly identical onion skin layers of reality. But the potential in there gets really interesting

because there's some sense of like, could I shift my consciousness through enough versions of me that I move from climate disaster, pre-fascist COVID reality to an increasingly friendly planet that it's not that the matrea comes, Jesus comes, but that you go via the shift of consciousness, you know, and then it becomes consensual. Instead of it being like, you're just hanging out on some shit planet and that thing appears out of the sky. It's like, then it becomes like, no, you, you need to swim upstream, so to speak, you know, you've got to swim up through these different reality layers. And then if you keep doing that through the exercises that you're talking about, bowing to trees, opening your heart, being compassionate, then you literally create this

weird might. Now the sangha is not, it's migratory. You're in this migratory group of souls, shifting consciousness through the multiverse to whatever that place is that we hope is quote coming. Does that, do you vibe with that? Does that make sense? Oh, I love that. I love that. And that's using language, you know, it's using the sign, the language of science and then the language of selling Palo Santo and Venice Beach, but both of those are languages that we need to hear that are easy to understand. And it's a beautiful and I think very correct aspiration. And that's what I mean. Aspiration is the same thing as attitude. And that attitude can be a shift in an entire, in your entire world. And then it's also really bizarre because COVID kind of

shook how much we assumed the world was this fixed, steady thing. And we were the thing that was moving through it. Not this thing, not this, not this, like interest net, not this in this intertwined web that we are a part of. It's really this thing that's fixed the world is the way it is. And just I'm the one living my life through this world. You know, it's just not the case. And that really, it was, it disrupted that fallacy, disrupted that delusion. But these kinds of this, what you said is so beautiful, which is, it's not that Maitreya is going to come down. This is Maitreya, people don't know is the following Buddha. There's been many. The last one was Shakyamuni Buddha. And then the second Buddha was actually Padmasambhava,

Guru Rinpoche, who brought, you know, basically Buddhism to Tibet and then established Vajrayana. And then the, so the second, the kind of Buddha or the next Buddha, not the second, is Maitreya. And that's according to Robert Thurman, that's, he's not gonna, and of course for him, he's just a genius. It's, yeah, I mean, really, he's also, by the way, somebody, when you said, you, when you had that Ram Das and you saw Ram Das, I kind of had that with Robert Thurman, where I was like, oh yeah, you, can I please, will you, can I come home with you? And can I, I'm in your family. You're, you're my uncle. Are you my uncle? You're my uncle. You might mean my dad. I don't know what, but like, I just need to be around you constantly, please. But you know,

the idea point is that we're moving towards that. We're moving towards that. And not that that's moving towards us. Like we are moving towards that is a very beautiful thing. At the same time, it's already here too. You know what I mean? It's already here. And I love this great quote. Lama Surya Das says, if God ain't here, she ain't anywhere. Oh, yeah. You know, because we have this thing God somewhere over there. And I, it's just God somewhere over there, whatever this God thing is, it's somewhere over there. And of course, these words have such baggage, but like, for example, Guru is a really intimidating word to a lot of people. Guru in Sanskrit just is Gu and Ru. Gu is dark. Ru means light. So it is that,

which takes you from the dark to the light. That is all Guru means. That's cool. Yeah, it's definitely one of those words. It's got a lot of baggage around it. These, like, you got to go to one of these retreats. You're talking about all the people at the retreats. You would, the only thing you wouldn't like about it is that you got to talk to people. And it's, you know, there's a lot of people they did. Listen, I went through it there. I remember walking by these freaks, dancing, all right, Krishna, you know, I, in there like someone was like, come dance. And I said out loud, I cringe when I think about, I go, not in this incarnation. And I sat down by myself in a kirtan. I was like, I'm never going to fucking dance

with those hippies, not a million years. And because, but over time, I found myself dancing here and there. And you melt slowly into it, you know, but we are similar in that sense of like, ah, just leave me alone. I want to, I want to radiate love. Get the fuck away from me. I want to feel pure love and joy. But, you know, but you know, I'll tell you, I've seen some of the teachers are really good at getting back, darting away very quickly, you know, at their like, you know, because it, how do you talk to everybody? How do you, how do you completely like open up when you're supposed to be giving like lectures and teaching? How do you like, I don't know how they do it really. I mean, well, that's actually, I, earlier I was talking and I

kind of hit a wall because I got distracted and I forgot what I was trying to say. And I now remembered which is that some of these stories that we're telling about meeting people like Ram Dass and talking to Jack Cornfield and, and, you know, these, you know, living teachers, you know, maybe you've been around Pema Trojan or, you know, these people, there's such a thing as Darshan. And, and now, and that's why I was trying to say all these young kids go to India, they meet, they meet Neem Karoli Baba and they had never experienced being around a truly awakened being. And I think Maraji was totally that. Neem Karoli Baba is, is like, this is a, this is a, this is an extraordinary being. Yes. And to be around that is so different from talking about

what it's like to be around that. There's nothing, it's me telling you about a drug and you're doing the drug. There's a big difference. Here's a glass, here's a photograph of a glass of water. Here's a glass of water. Try it. Big difference between those two things. So being in the, in the, even in the presence of somebody who's the real deal, let's say, you feel that is a fucking tangible physical experience and you just want more, you just want more because you get a little bit of that contact high and that contact high is called the, it's called actually just bliss. It's like a blissful feeling. It's a full body orgasmic bliss feeling where finally I feel comfortable in my body. That's valuable. That's valuable.

You know, so that makes, gets it all the more so when people fuck that up and take advantage of that. Sure. But that's not the case. Oh, that's, that's, that's, that happens. But the majority, I mean, when it's the real teacher, that's not going to happen. And you're going to get that bliss sense. And that's so incredibly like, Whoa, go searching for that, please. I'll never forget having this book of a Buddhist book right next to a cookbook. And at that moment, I was like, Holy shit, this cookbook has no food in it. And this Buddhist book has no Buddhism. I'm not going to get it. I'm not going to get the food from that book. You know, this is how to prepare the meal, but it's up to be. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, yeah, you know, my teacher says regarding that, he says, we do this in real time. And that's, I didn't know anything about Buddhism until I started talking with, you know, practice practicing it. And it's not in the books. How could it be the book? It's, I know that's a beautiful thing. And, you know, when you see the playfulness, the joy, the way like, the way it looks in real time. And so, you know what I mean? It's so, it's so beautiful. It's so fun. It's funny. It's like, it's, it's, it's definitely not. It's like what we were saying earlier about like the technological singularity, not being able to imagine what it is. You know, my encounters with it, when I've gotten to really, when I've gotten is like, oh, fuck,

this is not what I was in these books. This is way better, way, way better. I couldn't have imagined it in a million years. If I tried, I couldn't have come imagined it. So yeah, I know, you have to, you have to go, you have to go to it and ask for it too. I mean, that it's very polite. It's not going to come stalking you. Yeah, is this very true? It definitely wants to be, it requires your participation and your collaboration. And I was talking to my friend Sam, who was one of Chagrin Trangpa Rinpoche's students. And he was saying that, that, that Rinpoche was extraordinary and ordinary at the same time. And that's what made it so, made him so extraordinary, you know, extraordinary and ordinary at the same time. And that he,

and Rinpoche made him feel safe and comfortable while having his ego scorched. This is, I've heard this too. And that's the ordinariness of it. But, but I'm so far from any of those zones. Like when you say like, we're moving towards Maitreya and this like incredible, I mean, of course, out of the fucking pandemic, what is the fundamental philosophical question is what will be better humans? That's the hope. What will be better humans? Yeah. But I'm so far from being there in my life that I have to return to certain teachings like Charlotte Joko Beck is a wonderful Zen teacher. And she has this amazing thing about just like adding the extra face, like the extra face, which means like the extra, like I'm suffering today,

I'm going to suffer. She's going to go wrong. But the extra that I add to it is where I can kind of be conscious and it can be just as fucking simple as holding this cup. Like you ever, you ever noticed you're like talking on the phone and then you kind of look down at your hand and it's like, it's like kind of really tense. Yes. It's like you're holding the cup like way harder than you need to in order to get a cup in your hand. I'm clenching a pin right now. You notice, you go, whoa, wait a minute. So like, let's just like not add the extra face. Right. We're adding the extra here. So it's like, just kind of spend the day being like, where am I adding this extra shit, this extra tension, the extra thing? We just

subconsciously do that. So I'm at that level. This is very infantile. Am I infantile infant, but it's like, oh, fuck, can I just like, like, why is my butthole like just like a pin? Let's just relax. Oh my God. That butthole awareness is really intense when you're like, what am I doing with my asshole? It's like, what? There's like no, there's no threat. What am I doing? There's always trying to throw rocks into my ass right now, but I'm clenching it like there's a knife thrower and it's the bullseye. Like, you know, what, what is that? That is the true. May you, may you practice BA butthole awareness through the day. The famous bulls. May your butthole, may your butthole be free from suffering. May your butthole be full.

May your butthole be safe. Yeah, I love that. I am so bad at that. I'm such a ball of tension all the time. It's like to like, I get scared when I relax too much, you know, like it's, I get worried. It means I'm failing. If only, if only I was more uptight. If only I wasn't so relaxed. Yeah, I know. I know, I'm, I'm, I don't like wearing sweatpants. I'm a never new. Anytime I start like, slowing down and getting calm, I get like freaked a little bit, like, but I'm working on it, you know, I'm working on it. It's just yeah, I'm there. Look, I'm in the very, I'm, I'm not even, I'm not even in the beginning phase yet. I'm, you know, I'm,

my meditation teacher once said to me, Duncan, am I a medic? Do I, what do I do? What am I? And I'm like, well, you're my meditation teacher. And he goes, do you meditate? And I'm like, no. And he goes, well, then what does that say about me as a teacher? Oh, how, how, you know, what I love though is like, I was reading this Buddhist text and it was talking, there's some realms where the Buddha hasn't appeared at all. And how lucky we are that we live in a place in a realm where it even happened at all. Because sometimes in some of these multiverses, there is no Buddha. It's just a void of any Dharma. And, and that, and the cool thing for me, at least about the Dharma is that I kind of think I could

be any religion and still totally find the Dharma applicable. So therefore I, I'm happy to be Buddhist, but it doesn't feel that way. It feels like I can just use some of this information to be reminded of that. And one of those ways to do that is the four thoughts. The four thoughts is a really, really big part of Buddhism. And the four thoughts, four, four, four thoughts, which we're supposed to kind of always keep in mind when the first one is precious human birth, you know, to be born a human being, because, you know, an animal is kind of constantly being hunted or hunting or just working on instinct. A ghost, of course, is just like a ghost. And of course, in Buddhism, there's the pretas that have these tiny little throats and they're giant stomachs and are starving

and they try to eat, but it doesn't go through the hole. And, you know, it's just that's torturous, obviously, place to be. Then there's the demigods. And they're just kind of like, wow, we're demigods and can do anything we want. And so we don't have that much of an interest to try to like, you know, become enlightened because we're kind of ready to demigods. Plus, they're busy being jealous of the gods, just the other realm. And they have nothing to be bothered because it's perfect, even though over eons they will die. But it's so nice and pleasant to be a god that you're not really tripping out so hard. So we're like basically Goldilocks in terms of like anxiety and neurosis and desire and thirst and potential, right? So it's like, wow, I'm so fortunate to be born a human.

So that's the first thought. I was born a human. The next thought is, of course, impermanence. And like, who can argue with impermanence? Everything is impermanent. And our suffering is born from wanting things that are impermanent to not be impermanent and wanting to keep, you know, so it's so impermanence. I mean, that's enough. We can have a, we can talk for 5000 hours about impermanence. But that's just the second thought, right? So precious human birth, impermanence, karma, okay, karma and suffering. And it's like, how can I just keep that through the day? Just like earlier, you can ask yourself, is this action wise or compassionate? Is this action wise or compassionate? Doesn't mean that I'm compassionate or I'm wise, but I can ask

myself if my action is wise or compassionate. And then through the day, I can remember, okay, here are the four thoughts, precious human birth, impermanence, karma, and suffering. And I don't need to be Buddhist for that to help me. I don't need to be Buddhist in order for that to help me, you know, kind of gauge whether this, this activity is going to be of any use, it's going to be of any use. So, and this brings it back, being of use, being of use, you know, like being of use, that's such a great answer. Such a great answer. This has been fabulous. You gave me two hours. Thank you. Speaking of being, that's incredible use for me. I am so happy to have met you. I hope we keep talking. I'm going to move in with you.

I'm coming back to the West Coast, just in my whole family too. I've got adorable sons. You're going to love them. And a wonderful wife will all get married and live together. Wonderful. I can't wait. I'll see you at, I guess, 4 a.m. is probably pretty good over here. Yeah. I'll need that much time to get it all, everything in order. And, okay. Yeah, great. And really, really looking forward to hearing your album. Okay. Thank you. I think many people are, and now I am really, really, really, and I'm, and you better not fuck it up and you better make it real good. All right. You better not let me down. I will not. Listen, now I have someone to make the music for. So, you know, that's the next,

that's my first album. It's going to be for you. And, and I won't let you down. So, yeah. And we need to give a shout out to our sponsors. Nukes. Nukes. Thank you. Thank you, Nukes. This is some hot stuff. You'll love it. Nukes. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Duncan. You're the best, man. You're the best. Thank you. Anytime, really. Thanks, buddy. That was DaVinci Bandhard, everybody. Obviously, you can find him anywhere. Check out his newest album, Refuge, and listen to Synthesis and Magic. It's awesome. Big thank you to our sponsors. Happy holidays to you, my dear listeners. You can do this. You can do the holidays this time. I'll see you in a few days with another episode of

the DTFH. Until then, Hare Krishna. All dressed up everywhere to go. JCPenney. A good time starts with a great wardrobe. Next stop, JCPenney. 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 up with brands like Liz Claiborne, Worthington, Stafford, and Jay Farrar. Oh, and thereabouts for kids. Super cute and extra affordable. Check out the latest in-store, and we're never short on options at JCP.com. All dressed up everywhere to go. JCPenney.