Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 529: Yoshin David Radin

Episode Date: September 23, 2022

Yoshin David Radin, teacher at the Ithaca Zen Center and zen master (according to Duncan), joins the DTFH! You can learn more about the Ithaca Zen Center on their website, and you can find David's book, A Temporary Affair: Talks on Awakening and Zen, wherever you buy your books! Original music by Aaron Michael Goldberg. This episode is brought to you by: Herb Stomp - Use code DUNC15 at checkout to receive 15% OFF your first order! BLUECHEW - Use offer code: DUNCAN at checkout and get your first shipment FREE with just $5 shipping. Squarespace - Use offer code: DUNCAN to save 10% on your first site.

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Oh, I got sand in my diaper. If you don't think that's cure-move, then a problem must be your pull. I got so sand in my diaper. Roll the instruments of my own. Come on, let me have my own and we'll make it loud. Let me have my own and my own tonight. This is the Duncan Trussell Family Hour Podcast. What you just heard is Sand in My Diaper by Greg Chang. It's an incredible song. I think a lot of us can relate to it. And maybe if you've got sand in your diaper, today's podcast might be the menthol bomb you're looking for. Zen Master, I'm calling him that. He doesn't call himself that. Someone has to call him that. Yoshin David Raiden is here with us today. We're gonna jump right into it. But first this, I want to thank Herbstomp for sponsoring this episode of the DTFH.

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We will do the rest. Also, come see me live. I'm going to be at Cobb's Comedy Club in San Francisco. That's if you're listening to this on the week, September 21st. If you're not listening to this on the week of September 21st, maybe by the time you listen to this, time machines will exist and you can come see the show. I'm going to be in Salt Lake City the week after. All the other dates, you can find them at DuncanTrussell.com. I'd love for you to come see me live. And now with us is, holy God in heaven, who is this person? I don't know how I get to talk to people like this. His name, Yoshin David Raiden. He is a teacher at Ithaca Zen Center and he blew my mind during this conversation. If you aren't familiar with Zen, then this is the introduction you deserve. He is a beautiful, brilliant human. And I really hope you will check out his new book. It's called A Temporary Affair. Talks on Awakening and Zen. This is a collection of Dharma talks that he gave at the Ithaca Zen Center as he was undergoing kidney failure.

Fortunately for all of us, he got a new kidney. One of his students gave it to him. And so now we have him in this particular swath of the multiverse. If you like him, definitely order his book. That's A Temporary Affair, Talks on Awakening and Zen. And also, if you're interested, he gives weekly talks at the Ithaca Zen Center. You can go to IthacaZenCenter.org to find him and find the schedule. Now everybody, here we go. Let's dive in to nothingness and everythingness. Welcome to the DTFH, Yoshin David Raiden. Yoshin, welcome to the DTFH. It's a real pleasure to meet you. Pleasure to be here. Thank you.

Wow, you have been through a lot. How are you feeling? How are the kidneys treating you? Yeah, I feel really well. Everything's worked out. And the ideal wasn't really all that much. Do you ever wonder to yourself, if somehow your life and if your karma, whatever you want to call it, hadn't led you to Zen, what do you think the experience of having kidney failure would have been like compared to what it was like from a lifetime of study? Having happened the way it did, I'm not permitted to reflect on those things. Cool. That's awesome. I will if you want. Oh, I would love it. Yes, I would love it. I would have had to wait to stumble into something else that told me that it is indeed impermanent, the physical stay here.

It just depends when you meet it. It's inevitable to meet it because it's inevitable to die. So at some point you're going to get something that says, yeah, that's true. And then you have to decide whether you're going to just ignore it or try to understand it and integrate it. Had you in your life prior to this encountered that reality? Did you make it this far kind of incredible that you made it this far without some physical something popping up that rang the bell? So when you say kidney failure wasn't the first introduction for me, there were many events way before. I had 50 years of since the first time, you know, something pointed me in that direction. Yeah, I just, I really, no matter how much I meditate, I still really don't want to die.

And anytime I brush up against that, and even though it's in all of the everything, remember, you're going to die. You're definitely going to die. I mean, depending on what scripture it's some of an entire poem could be, you're going to die. You know, you're going to die, right? What are you doing? You're going to die. You will definitely die. Something about brushing up against that. I mean, it's obviously it's really more poetic and coming from an enlightened mind. But wow, anytime I really brush up against that via some contemplation, a doctor visit. It is the still the worst thing I can I can think of it is still. Oh, is it like that for you? Either a circumstance will happen that forces the issue. In other words, suppose you get into a car crash, and you don't know if you're going to survive it. Right.

So then what you'd rather experience or not experience is moot. Yeah. It's right there in front of you. Right. Or if you meet somebody who you trust more than you trust your own mind, that would be a spiritual teacher when you are willing to accept somebody's intelligence as a replacement for your own. Wow. Okay, that sounds a little worse than death. The second part. Well, let's describe it differently then. You fall in love with a teacher. You fall in love with someone who's trying finally going to has the capacity to have it all make sense. Yeah. And it's it's it's really an evolutionary thing. It's not controlled by your will.

I love reading Buddhist scriptures stories. I'm taken by the forward in all of these that I've been looking at. Shanti Deva way of the Bodhisattva. Many of them I can't remember the these are Vajrayana Tibetan Zen, we, whoa. But I'm taken by the general. In the beginning, the author will say, you know, I have a clumsy mind. I'm, I'm not enlightened. And then they're considered to be the examples a watermark, what someone you would want to replace your mind with. Have you ever met anyone who just said I'm, I'm enlightened. I'm actually in light. I'm enlightened. You didn't have that beginning thing of like, Oh, no, I'm not even close. To, to be an eye, okay, to be an individual makes enlightenment impossible. Never be such a thing. It never has been. It never has ever been an enlightened individual.

Enlightenment even the Buddha. Worst of all, even worse. We got to die. I'm just, I'm just playing, you know, it's even the Buddha would say you shouldn't mistake the finger pointing at the moon for the moon. So even if somebody's enlightened, he may not be of any use. Enlightened means enlightened, we can use, you know, tentatively use enlightened as someone who's passed through the fear of death. Someone who has died and come back or near death, come back and seen that there is an essence within us. Beyond the death of the individuality.

And that person gives a testimony, so to speak. Yeah, that person will teach the gospel or the sutras, which is an attempt to describe what the transcendence of death looks like. But words can't catch it at all. So, you know, it's, it's not good to try to figure it out because the thinking mind cannot approach. It has to be the dissolution of the mind that is identifying itself as a body. And then that mind will suddenly realize I am the mind. I am, I actually am the same. I am the eternally existing one.

But the, the individuality was just a mistaken functioning of the mind that I existed as an individual was took place only because the mind thought that the body was itself. And therefore that mind that's thinking the body is the, is the identity can never attain enlightenment because that very mind has to grow quiet or dissolve. Bad news for the mind. They can also be you. That's right. This episode is sponsored by Bluetooth. Listen. I love Bluetooth. I'm a 48 year old cancer survivor.

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That's bluetooth.com, promo code Duncan, to receive your first month free. Visit bluetooth.com for more details and important safety information. And I thank Bluetooth for sponsoring the podcast. What you're saying I have read and which is essentially the you that wants to get enlightened will not be the you that gets enlightened. So it's a paradoxical desire. Not quite right. Oh good. The you that asks the question is the you that will become enlightened.

But it will stop and will have stopped wearing a garment that was identifying its, it was identifying as itself and it will see itself face to face. It will know, here I am. I am the truth. I am the way. None cometh to enlightenment. It will know that. Instead of knowing itself with the garment, I am the body. I am David.

The same mind. So is this an issue of circumference? Is this an issue of just the circumference of identity naturally gets wrapped up in the body. And within that all the suffering happens because you have to defend the body, feed the body, make the body look pretty and do all the things and it's all the suffering. So if you if that circumference either is eliminated or even expanded, then then you would expect whatever it was you thought you were to change with that expansion. But that depth, the depth into which the ignorance has settled in the mind makes it very difficult, very difficult. Ever since ever since you appeared in this world from the very first moment you appeared in this world, you were told that you had a name and a body. That's the first thing you ever learned.

So the mind is building a structure based on an assumption that it takes to be a reality and not a misinformation. It's a lot of coding, a lot of programming, a lot of coding. And therefore, since it is so deep in the mind, the loss of that thought is the fear of death. It's the same thing. As soon as you receive the name and identity, you're also implanted with the fear of death, the natural. That's why it's so deep. That's why, you know, very difficult. Is it, I mean, this is, I'm sorry if this seems like a softball question, but is it kind of hopeless? I mean, this thing you're talking about, isn't it just in this, that thing you're talking about, doesn't it go beyond just somebody gave you a name and told you what a good boy and a bad boy is and you went into the world and all that stuff. Isn't it somehow much deeper than even that?

Like we're talking, you know, when you see those depressing videos of landfills where they're just like, you know, compressing garbage on top of garbage on top of garbage. Is it more like that? Yeah, probably worse. I mean, you know, for those of us who were raised in the West, there isn't, especially going back to my childhood in the 40s, 50s, there wasn't even a fragrance of these teachings out there. Nothing. There was nothing. For me, when I went to parochial schools, we think it would have some smattering of spirituality, but it had none. And it wasn't until my psyche was threatened during drugs usage that the need to see into the nature of the mind became the primary activity of my life, but if I don't know what I knew in that moment, then I'm going to waste my life on futile activities. So that kind of experience happened to me in the early 20s, and then, you know, things followed after that. I played Hansel and Gretel, pick up the breadcrumbs. I kind of liked that.

I mean, you really found some great crumbs. You... I had good teachers. But you're a renowned teacher of what I consider to be of all the forms of Buddhism, the most frustrating and confusing, and most of them are frustrating and confusing to some degree. But Zen, wow, it's just so simple. Yes. Yes? I suppose you met a beautiful woman. I'm assuming that's the gender you prefer to be intimate with.

Yeah, I'm married, I can't... Oh, okay, so suppose you meet a beautiful woman and she looks back at you with some inviting glance or open glance. And you approach her just looking at you. Effortless activity. You wouldn't have to read a book. What do I do next? You wouldn't have to read a book. Gee, where's this? What did Plato say about it? You just, hi. Yeah.

That's how it is when you see it. You could have read a thousand books on Vajrayana, Minayana, Mayana, Zen. It will have nothing to do with anything. Yeah, like those are all just sort of romance, but I mean, you know, you can read a thousand romance books, but until you have experienced what is the core of them. Let me share with you an old friend of mine, younger, you know, he was a kind of peripheral student of mine. He's probably now up the 30s, 40. So he was driving down the highway, and there was a huge pile up. He was in a five-car collision. Part of it was a trip, an 18-wheeler and things. And he was right smack in the middle of the five cars when his car was crushed.

And when he opened his eyes, his bones were sticking out through his skin, and he had lost all of his flesh on one side of the body. And they told him that they wouldn't be able to get him out for an hour. So he was in huge, huge pain. And then, because we spoke together after. He had remembered a teaching that said when you have physical pain, move towards it, not away from it. Okay, so that's what came to him. And he might have heard it as a sentence once longer. But he moved towards the pain of his body being in this unbearable pain.

Yeah, so he moved towards it. And he said as soon as he moved towards it, he was catapulted out of the body and was sitting on the roof of the car looking at his body in that position. And then the pain came back so bad that he was doing so he had to go back into breathing himself into me. And then again catapulted out. He was making that circle for an hour. And he wrote to me, he can't believe how fortunate he was to have that experience. He said, before that happened, no one could have given me a billion dollars to go through that experience. And now that I went through it, even if somebody offered me a billion dollars for that experience not to happen, I wouldn't take it.

Because now I saw the whole thing clearly. Now I saw the nature of reality. I saw where I go to after death. I saw the death of the body was not the death of the self. I saw it all. And he was just crying in joy. But a billion dollars he would have paid not to have to go through that. Because the pain was so intense.

That was just a few weeks ago, a few months ago. How's he doing now? Is he better? He's feeling out in Santa Cruz, surfing. He put him back together. He put him back together in four months he was walking around. What about effortlessness? Effortlessness. Why is that, at least from the outside, why does that seem frustrating to some people, this effortlessness that you're talking about?

Why does that upset people? People are addicted to solving problems through thinking. And then when you have a practice that's designed to dissolve, to relax the thinking activity, let's just say it. Thinking, thinking you can't believe it, it doesn't know how to do it. I can't do it. It's very frustrating. People cannot meditate. People are that which makes meditation impossible.

You mean not that people can't meditate, but the being a person makes meditation impossible. Correct. And so when, as a person, you sit down on the cushion, you're doing something impossible. Correct. Impossible for what you take yourself to be. It's the calming, the calming of the mental conversation. And you can't calm it through activity. You can make certain gestures, you know, count the breathing, breathe out through your left nostril, pull your belly in, push it out.

But none of that will awaken you. Awakening is actually the simplest thing that you can do. It's not a complicated thinking activity. Thinking is what people rely on and the nature of thinking is suffering. It is not that thinking can cause suffering. Thinking is suffering. So you're using a vehicle that is suffering to try to find the way out of suffering. And that can't be done.

Is happiness a flavor of suffering? That's my one. Happiness is only, happiness is, no, suffering is a form of happiness. Only if you're very happy when you suffer. I mean, the two, the... That's great. I'm curious about the... If there is a connection between the awakened mind and the thinking mind.

It's sort of like, even if it's, you know, in reverse, like the idea that if I see a thing and then I turn it into, I think of it's opposite. Or if, and maybe this is impossible because you're saying you're not going to think your way out of this. But I'm, or you shall know the father by the son. So can from the, even the most sort of annoying, intrusive, meaningless thought, is there some possibility of extrapolating from that the awakened mind? Yeah, I suppose. It's not, it's not something that, that you lack and then you suddenly discover you have. It's something that you are from the beginning.

How do you realize what you are, what you originally were, sometimes called the original phase? How do you realize your original phase? There is no way to just, it's not hard. Look, when you're sitting on the cushion, okay, imagine you're sitting on a meditation foot and you're breathing. Okay, and you're, you're aware of the breathing. That which is aware of the breathing is the awakened mind. It's not complicated. When you are walking, when you are aware that you're walking, that awareness is the Buddha mind.

It is the original nature of mind. The mind falls into the, I am walking being the body. Not, I am the awareness of the walking body. It's starting to make a separation between the body and the witness of the body, which is not a spatial separation, I would say. No, no, really no separation. What makes a separation is thinking. Right.

But then the mind, you know, body and mind then have to be recognized based on this new information. In other words, the mind, the thinking of the one who's pursuing the wisdom inside. Okay, the one who's pursuing it is, wait a second. I have been calling myself a body, but now that I've been practicing, and I realize that I am that which experiences the breathing. And the breathing is an object I am experiencing. Clear as daylight, the same way you see a tree, you see the breathing. The mind is starting to recalibrate.

Now, so wait a second, how does this all work? My nature is the awareness. So what's the body doing now? What happens to the body before it was myself? Now, wait a second, it's an object that I'm looking at. So recalibrating that is, you know, that's what fills up sutures. Recalibrating, not the, okay, that makes a lot of sense. When you caught a glimpse of this in a stable way,

did you kind of feel like not talking about it or did you feel shy? Did you feel shy about it or a sense of like, I don't want to say anything. I don't want to jinx it or something. Yeah, that's why people talk about how important silence is. Because it's only in the silence that you awaken and become aware of the awareness. The awareness becomes aware of it. The parking is going on, or even some degree of thinking is going on. Then your awareness gets lost in the object it is experiencing.

So in order for it to see clearly, then it needs to be some level of silence. So theoretically, there are countless people out there who have had this simple yet somehow unattainable or rare encounter and have just chosen to not talk about it for their whole lives, maybe. Just never say a thing. Until they got a good offer from YouTube. Until they started it. No, I mean, even if you have the vision, even if you have it, it gets covered over. So you have to learn, even after you have the experience, you need to learn how do I function in this world now knowing this.

How do I function? That's also part of the journey. I'm interested in this. If anyone who's on the, whatever you want to call it, anyone who gets caught by this stuff, there is a great deal of writing about, I'm so happy it's there, about your practice. Here's a form and here's how you might sit. Here's where you rest your attention. But the, after the glimpse or whatever you might call it, I really can't bring to mind specific instructions of like, now this is, this is how you calibrate as you said.

That would be a mistake. That would be a mistake. Because once you start conceptualizing and conceptualizing the experience, then it's not the experience. So as long as you're there, you cannot have the experience in its forms. That's why our teachers had retreat times. There were times when you have a retreat, where you set up a situation where silence and there's no need for thinking. The fundamental nature of a retreat environment is there's no need for thinking so that you can arrest the mind. But really when you live out everyday life, it's better to just be simple, be gentle, be kind, be forgiving.

You never want to hurt your mind because you realize your mind is God incarnated. That is how God incarnates through the human mind or through the mind. And so you should treat the mind as divine. You would never treat something that you love and honor in a way beyond anything humanly imaginable. There's no way you would want to let anger into that environment. There's no way you would like to have aggression come into that environment. There's no way that you would do anything that would pollute the psychological state. I mean, what did teachers say, love thy neighbor as thyself, be a peacemaker, be the children of God, the meek shall inherit the earth.

This is telling me how to function before and after. Before you can't even do that. I can love everybody better than him. Right. No. So before and after those things apply. Those would be the guides to have them there. Not remembering the experience and trying to reproduce it because you can't reproduce it out of the past. You need the essence of the present moment. So there's no climbing in. There's some backstair. I'm going to find one.

There's my way to the other group. Backstair, please. Thank you, Squarespace for supporting this episode of the DTFH. Squarespace is the all in one platform for building your brand and growing your business online. Stand out with a beautiful website, engage with your audience and sell anything, your products, content you create, even your socks. If someone who sells their socks online, I could say so many glowing things about Squarespace. And I will because it's in the stuff that I need to read here. But the most important thing is if you go to dunkintrosil.com, you will witness the Squarespace website. That says it all. I've been using them for years and they're only getting better and better and better.

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And when you're ready to launch, use offer code Duncan to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain. I love them. We'll never stop using them. And I hope you'll try them out. I think you'll be quite thrilled. But let's let's talk a little bit more about this landfill situation. Is the landfill God? I mean, is the you know that.

Yes. Please elaborate. Okay. When you have a dream at night. Okay. Are you the dream or are you not the dream? The entirety of the dream or not? No, not both.

I would say, I mean, in the sense that that's the answer. Yes and no. The mind essence never incarnates. But when God manifests, it manifests as the oneness of all appearances. In other words, the dream doesn't have separate souls and there's only one source of existence of the characters in the dream. That source is the dreaming mind. And when you see that the seat in the waking state, the existence doesn't sit inside the body.

Okay, so now I'm going to say something that you might want me to explain. What's actually sitting inside the body is the entire universe. Yes, I would love for you to explain that. Okay. When you see, when you hear a bird. Okay. Where do you, what do you actually hear? Sound waves.

You're actually hearing the vibrations of the sense organ of the body, correct? Correct. What you are hearing is the vibration of the eardrum that gets transmitted through a very complex structure. And then the bird sound appears. What created the bird sound? Human body appeared as the bird sound. That is, yeah. When you see a tree, yeah, what are you seeing?

What you're actually seeing is your retina. The body creates the tree. The body and the tree are not separate. The only reason that you think that the tree is over there and you are in here is because thinking has inserted a self inside the body and claims that it is doing the seeing, but it's not doing the seeing. You don't see the tree. You know, when you say things like that, do you know these days what you're supposed to say before it? Spoiler alert. Spoiler alert.

Spoiler alert. People know you're about to wrecking ball their entire, their entire reality. It's a love note. I know. Don't be afraid of the dissolution. Start to develop a fondness for fear. Start to develop a fondness for corpses. Start to develop a fondness.

Turn your mind around. Fear is the invitation to the transcendment. It's the ego's last stand. The last ditch effort of the mind that's calling itself the body. It's sent you from exposing its non-existence. And so start whenever you find fear in your life. Whenever, you know. Whenever you find fear, stop and honor it.

And be there with it. You not want it to go away. The wanting of fear not to be present like what empowers the fear, the experience, that makes it more and more dominant and impossible to deal with. So any, any time that comes into your mind, you know, a fearful moment, breathe. Try to resolve it in thinking or in emotion. Try to resolve, try to use awareness, be aware of its existence and aware of the breathing and that you're going to stand empty and non-reactive behind with the breathing

and experiencing the nature of the experience in fear itself. That's how we start to approach it, prepare. It's one of the practices. It's why in the old days people, part of the practices would be to go meditate in cemeteries and things like that. But you don't have to do that. Anytime fear appears. Don't regard it as something you want not to happen. What is the difference between fear and bliss?

Is there a difference? Is fear just some, like if we're, you know, if we're some kind of synthesizer of possible experiences, fear just a key. As you're saying, just running through the same circuit board. In other words, if you start, as you were instructing, being with the fear, not running away from the encounter with it and then spending time with it, is there some possibility that you would get to realize it wasn't even, that's not fear. That's bliss or joy or some other thing altogether. Well, you're married. Yes.

Fear and bliss are the same. But let's talk about a little bit differently. The joy is the moment the mind realizes that it can handle it. Never thought it could handle it. It always was panicked and run away as you've decided, okay, have me fear. You can take over my mind. I am not leaving or turning you away. The mind will be there in this intensity of fear.

And then it will gradually, the intensity will start to fade. And it will become more wordy than energy. And then the mind will realize, I have nothing to fear but fear itself. I don't need to fear fear. It's one of the famous practices of the path, making trends with fear. Making trends with all negative emotions. When you make friends with fear, is it still fear? As one might say, oh, you're gay.

You know, it's what it is. I can't tell you. Fear is the name that the mind puts on an energy. But fear is never fear. Fear is always intensity. It is an imbearable intensity. So we call it fear because we put names on everything. We put a word love on something.

Is that word love of anything to do with the actual experience of being loved? No, it's not. Fear is better to describe as intensity. And usually fear can be described as the desire not to have this experience under any circumstances. Or definition. Never. Yes.

And then you suddenly realize that that's not true. You are capable of having that experience. But in order to do that, you have to be very, very open and still, you know. I'm really intrusive for that practice to be totally accomplished. You have to, if you want to get your spiritual student of the month award. I do. I would love one. And then it's even in the face of loss of life.

Like my friend, you know, who would want to go through an experience like that. But then having the hell that he had a nature that was untouched by what was going on was worth more than a billion dollars of gold. It's like, how much money would you pay to never have the fear of death? Right. How much? A lot. A lot.

One of the lengthier times I had was the kidney failure situation. So there were times when it got a little bit... more acute than it was supposed to because my daughter was going to donate a kidney. And so the doctors didn't want to put me on dialysis because the transplant was so close. So they were walking on a fine line because if your kidney fails beyond a certain point, then you have to have dialysis when you're dead. And they were pushing that line. I think when the surgery was finally happening, I had something like 100%,

like 7%, 8% of the kidney function, like 6%, something. And then my daughter developed a urinary tract infection on the day that he was supposed to have the transplant. And that completely disqualified. And she had an incompatible protein. So another friend in the Zen Center said, here, let me do this. I would love to donate kidney. So it takes about...

they put her on very fast track, like to try to... a lot of tests that a donor has to go through to make sure that it's okay. And so it's fast-tracked, but by the time even the fast-tracked before it got clear, I had crossed the line. We had to have dialysis. So they had to put in a temporary port to do dialysis. And sometimes it reached really challenging moments, you know, tricks to the emergency room because of the kidney failure,

blood pressure, heart condition. So there was all this stuff going on that had a potential for fear in it. But I never experienced fear. And it was so surprising to me. I was laughing because I was laughing because I thought, how powerful the Dharma teachings are, how incredible the wisdom is. You can go into the emergency room and the people, very, very, very well.

And you're just completely unbothered. That to me was a very powerful affirmation of the Dharma teaching and the Dharma wisdom. Yes. That was okay. That was that. And then the kidney transplant worked well. And so now my health is pretty good. And that was three years, three and a half years.

Three and a half years ago. So these, I never wrote a book, you know, this book, the book of talks that Rick was recording. And I was just giving talks to the community. I have one. I've never written anything like that. I wanted to ask you about your talks. I was curious only because I think maybe this is just stuff you hear.

I don't know. But how much do you prepare for your talks when you go to give a talk? Do you have a set plan or are you purely spontaneously sort of emanating from that place? I feel like my whole life is a preparation to give a talk. I usually don't, I never talk from a text. It's like, okay, today we're going to study the Diamond Sutra. No, it's too dry for me. It's not alive.

It's like, I don't know. Darling, I want to kiss you. Let's put on masks on. Let's do it. That's beautiful. I'd rather have COVID and kiss you with a mask. Quick, let's go get tested. Let's strike while the iron is hot.

I have swabs. Are we allowed to be this silly or is this going to ruin all of us? This is the best. Yeah. What are we talking about? I just am so happy. Oh, we like to prepare for talks. Yeah, preparing for talks.

Essentially, when I give talks, and these talks especially, because these talks were given in the proximity of fifth stage kidney failure. Yes. End stage renal failure. At that time, I thought, well, I can just share with the community, this is what it's like to have end stage renal failure, in light of the wisdom of self not being defined by the body as its identity. So I would just talk about that from different angles,

mostly, or different things like that. I think in the book, and the book Rick recorded all these talks, wrote the preface. When he was saying now, he was surprised, I never seem to show up with notes. Yes. But I don't need to have notes to talk with you. And talking to my students is like talking to you.

Wow. Well, suppose I said to you, you know, I don't know what, but suppose you had a question, and I said, well, let me look it up. That would be ridiculous. Yeah, I didn't think of that. You're right. That would be really...

I'm asking that not just because of how, you know, from the outside it's impressive to be able to do that, but I'm also curious regarding sort of the... Dharma is frequency. In other words, as you said, so someone gains realization, and then when they're talking, it's the Dharma. It's just this coming out of them.

You know, you see those beautiful sand mandalas that the Tibetans do, and they throw them in the river. And sometimes I look at that, and I'm thinking, I don't know if they memorize that. I feel like they're just doing it, that it's just coming out of them. Is that BS? Is that not real?

Or is this a memorized thing? But also when someone like you begins speaking, as you said, there's no notes. And yet, you know, it's okay. You're checking off all of these answering questions. It's sort of helping you align bits of a puzzle that have been scattered all over your table. So I guess I'm...

Is it that you're sort of like a radio now? In other words, like you're tuning in this thing that is this omnipresent sort of reality, truth. And then when you start talking, it just, that's what comes out. Not to say it would always be truth that comes out of your mouth. It wouldn't surprise me, but I guess, is it...

Where is it? Are we talking about some cosmic radio signal? What is this thing? I suppose you walk into the Louvre? Yeah. Is that where Mona Lisa lives? That's the Louvre. You go into the Louvre,

and you're looking at Mona Lisa, okay? Then someone says to you, you need to describe the Mona Lisa for me. Then you say, well, don't look and use a book. You describe the Mona Lisa because you see it. Yeah. So once you've seen it, you're just describing what you saw.

Not describing... It's not like you're reading a text and you took notes on what you saw. Not coming from the notes of what you saw. It comes from the actual seeing. Yeah. Well, if I go in, I say... I don't know.

I never know what I'm going to talk about, but usually I see people sitting in front of me. It depends on... It just depends on the situation. Most people are helped more... Most 95% people are helped more by a teaching that says, never respond aggressively

when something hurts you. 95% of people will get more benefit from a teaching like that than they will from the self-nature that resides outside the human body and mind. They're not inside. They're teaching. So there's a whole collection of teachings.

How to prevent the mind from what it considers justified negativity. In other words, if somebody does something outrageous to you and aggressive response appears to be natural, if I don't respond this way, I'm being hypocritical and sincere, and all that sort of mind will be making arguments to produce negativity.

100%. And to go against that, to realize that the quality of my life is going to be what I do at this moment, if I respond with anger. That's my making my life angry. It's a hard work experience. So therefore...

I just... Thank you. So therefore, I should cultivate an awareness of my emotional state, that my mind becomes painful. I should realize that it's my responsibility. The quality of my mind should not be in the hands

of external people or circumstances. The quality of my mind. I am protecting my mind from going into negative experiences and the most powerful protection that which enhances your ability to do that and is the willingness to lose. This is problematic for me.

And you have described, if you mapped it out, here's my fear. Especially these days, there's lots of talk. Boundary. Healthy boundary setting in a relationship.

Boundary setting with kids. Boundary setting with everything. Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries. And the encroachment upon these boundaries that you have set. Generally, healthy boundaries. Expectations that seem normal. Like, is it wrong that I want my wife and children

to fully prostrate to me when I walk through the door? Come on, this is what I deserve. I want a bow, bells, incense. I can't get them to do that. They generally inform me. There is one way, there is one way that you can get them

to bow to you in gratitude. As for divorce. Ouch! A roast from a sin master! A roast from a master! Ouch! That's too... Laughing so hard,

it's got me crying over here. I hope you, I hope you have a good editor. You think I'm going to edit that out? That's going on a highlight, real friend. But I'm sorry for my lame joke, which was followed by a well-deserved roast. But, you know what I mean?

The healthy boundary setting. And within that, if an argument emerges in most relationships, whether it's between countries or friends or husband and wife or brother or sister, usually there's some sense you've encroached upon this boundary

and it's unacceptable. And I need to speak up for myself. And you need to apologize or there should be some recognition of a misstep here. And that if one or the other decides to say, all right, fine.

You can, what you did was fine. To lose that over time this behavior will result in a kind of oppression, the possibility of being so backed into a corner that you,

there's no escape and you're just sort of not who you were anymore. You're some kind of, you know, a henchman or something, a non-autonomous henchman who's just like,

not fully being themselves. So how do we, in those situations, I mean, how do you, you know, with, not to like over dramatize it, but we certainly with Hitler, I mean, thank goodness we weren't like, you know what,

we're going to lose this one. You know, so how to, can you simultaneously lose and win or how do you maintain boundaries while allowing yourself to be wrong? Well, there is room for common sense

in the human world. And if, if you have to take action based on compassion, that you have to take action to avert a greater evil, you know, that you can do that suppose somebody's coming with a knife

to kill somebody, capable of hitting that person with a car and you're driving, for example, that would be a compassionate act. Hitler thing is so far downstream. It's so hypothetical for us to talk about it,

but people like to play the Hitler card. So let's scratch it from the record. It's a hacky interview question. Scratch it from the record. Let's bring it down to earth. You, this didn't happen to me, but let's say you wake up, you make breakfast for the kids,

but you weren't paying attention to the clock and you didn't make breakfast in time. And let's say that your wife is like not happy because you weren't paying attention to the clock. You wanted to make biscuits for the kids and you felt like saying, look, I was trying to make biscuits for the kids. Are you mad at me?

Don't you see I was trying to make biscuits for the kids? Wrong. That's not what you say. What do you say? You say, I'm sorry I'm such a schmuck. I can't even keep track of time. I did the best I could and I'm really sorry. I'm sorry I let you down, kids.

Missed the school bus and I got to come late into class. Everybody's going to make fun of you. I'm sorry. Think what the energy of the situation is. When you say it was my fault, it was real. I just didn't pay attention. I'm sorry, that's all I can tell you. And that'll create a certain environment

and you say, I did the work. Think of the environment that leads you. It's learning how to take care of the quality of the emotional situation rather than taking care of the circumstances. When your focus is only on the circumstances, then you want your performance to be acknowledged. But if you're focusing on what's going to make a harmonious environment to live in,

then you take the blame. Then everybody feels better. Everybody knows you're sorry, you take your power. I wrote, there was a time, probably about seven, eight years ago, I had some really skillful, a long story. You can delete out what you wanted this story with. I had a friend, a brilliant blues guitarist. He was at this kind of health retreat that we sometimes had.

A brilliant blues guitarist. He didn't want to play rock or blues anymore. He only wanted to play flamenco. He was a brilliant blues guitarist. He had a big heavy metal band in the 80s. Then he went into Zen and he thought flamenco is more spiritual. Something like that. Anyway, so I said to him, if I wrote you a blues song,

would you write the music for it? And he said, you didn't need to write a blues song. Can you just sing a play the blues? I said, no, I feel like writing a song. So I wrote a song that night, a long song. And it goes something like, the lyrics go something like, I got the runaway blues and you're tracking me down. I got the runaway blues and I know I've been found.

I'm down on my knees, you can take me now. I will cut off my head if you just tell me how. And you smile, maybe shed a tear and say, that's what I've been waiting to hear. And you pick me up and put me down. It goes on to a point of how could I ever thought how happy I would be lying in a guy. It's a long song.

It's not a CV. It's amazing. I started writing for a while. Yes, I listened to some of your poems. You all about losing. Well, practice how to lose. That was one of the songs on that CD. Practice how to lose.

Practice how to lose. Doesn't matter what you want or what you'd rather choose. That was the chorus. Practice how to lose. Then others, they're all about that as a way of life. The meek shall inherit the earth. You'll see that when you refuse to get into a struggle in any situation, if you don't want to go along

with the situation, you can just remain silent. If you have sufficient, if the situation is just right for a certain willful act, you can do it. But basically, you can show the environment by your opening. Everybody else is struggling for a piece of the winning action. Right.

You no longer are because you've already won. Won by the fortune of who you are. You don't win in the ego realm. There's no winning in the ego realm. Ego is a temporary, impermanent identity. An identity where you gain your victory and everybody applauds you and then the answer won't bother you. This has been my favorite podcast, I think, ever.

Thank you. You have truly just been so generous with your time. Thank you for this. Folks around you, and I think if someone hears this, can they come see you give Dharma talks? I give Dharma talks every Sunday still. And then we have retreats now. These health and physical and spiritual,

they're called body, mind, restoration retreats. Your stories help your body and mind. And I give a talk each night. These are done live or via Zoom? I know you're at IthakazinCenter.org. Only live. Wow. Only live.

And then, oh no. Sunday morning is Zoom. So on Sunday morning, they can see you on Zoom. Are these also, is there meditation involved with the talks? Are you doing any online meditation with folks? Most of the people who come to the Zoom lecture are sitting there with a coffee and a Danish. That's awesome.

It's my impression. When I look into their eyes, I see nothing. But the people come, you know, and they get what they get. And sometimes you repeat something a hundred times, and maybe one time something happens in life that affirms what you've been told. The Dharma protects you from the seductiveness of aggression.

And you feel food. I think there's a scripture somewhere that says the happiest moment in the life of a yogi is when he lets go of an aggressive response where before he knows he will have the happiest moment of life. I get it. I get why that would be. The spiritual world has different causes for happiness

than the material world. The material world happens with its pleasure and money, and the spiritual pleasure is a tranquil mind. And really, though I don't mean this in the wrong way, but it's the glory of God. The ultimate glory of God is that God, the pure consciousness, the human mind, that it can bestow life on a human being. And that human really doesn't exist, but can think that he exists.

And that's if he exists. He doesn't exist. Greatest glory of God. Create existent, non-existent future. Apparently existent. All human beings are born from that function that the divine performs. It sends the Holy Spirit, so to speak, into the human mind. And the Blessed Virgin receives the Holy Spirit and starts to exist.

All that's a metaphor for how it all takes place. Wow. Thank you. Yeah, that's a happy moment. When you realize that even these holy, screwed up scriptures have secret meanings in them. Yes. Yes, it is.

I know. It's exciting. It's also exciting to have someone like you to confirm certain intuitions with. You know, it's nice to bounce ideas around with someone like you. In fact, sometimes I feel like my podcast is some kind of trap for people like you, but somehow I get lucky enough to talk, to get in an hour, over an hour to process things with you. I can't believe I get to do this.

Thank you. No, thank you. For me to be with someone who's interested in the Dharma, one of my happiest times. Well, after this, you are going to, many people are going to reach out to you because this is a mind-blowing conversation. You know, two very close friends of mine have moved on interviews with. They both wrote endorsements of the book that was published. Trudy Goodman and Jack Coimby.

Yeah, I believe it. I mean, I can see how you all are friends. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, yeah, when any time I get a chance to talk with him, I just feel really lucky. Yeah, I got to stop being such a jerk, man. I'm so aggressive. I got to stop.

Oh, he's trying to win. Like even when I think I'm not trying to win, I'm trying to win. It's under the shirt. It's like very deep. It's, it's not, I mean, like I get what you're saying. Like I can, I can sort of stuff it down. Yeah. But I know it's still present.

It's still visible. It's like when you don't take a shower and you have BO and you try to put, you know, deodorant over your smell. Did you take deodorant? I was soaking. Yeah. But you know, it's like, because they're bubbles coming out of your arm.

Foam. Foam. Yeah. Foam. That's, you know, but that is what I mean. I do think that like, or, you know, when you have a cavity, you can brush your teeth. You can floss, but if you've got a rotten tooth,

it's people can smell it. And this aggression you're talking about an emanation of the landfill or something, even if I'm like, all right, I'm going to lose this time. I feel like somewhere in there is an air of it, a sense of, of it. They don't buy little though. Once just seeing the path is joyous. Maybe it can't walk it. I know I can't walk it yet.

I know what the path is now. Right. I can, I know how to work with my mind to keep it. If I get into any time, you should, you know what, you can look at it this way. Any time you experience stress or painful mental state, you did it. And you can undo it. It's not the circumstances or the other people. I have the capacity to calm my mind.

And you can do it by going for a run or jumping in a pond or whatever, you know, don't be attached to sitting in medication as the path to get rid of it. It's just a clogging, it's a clogging of energy that needs to be unclogged. Going for a run is really, or whatever. Anyway, please take good care of yourself. It's been a pleasure speaking with you. I pray that we get to do this again sometime. I would love to have another conversation with you any, any time you're, anytime.

And I will, uh, uh, oh, where can people find your book? Amazon.org? Oh, Amazon. Okay. I will have all this. Target. It's a target. That's awesome.

I will have all the links, uh, to, uh, to, I'm sorry. Sometimes, you know, these get you folks like you leave me stammering a little bit. So thank you for this. I really appreciate it. And, um, uh, what a joy. Thank you. That was the ocean. David Raiden.

Again, if you want to check him out, you can find him at the if it gets in center.org or you can order his awesome book. It's on Amazon and everywhere. It's called a temporary affair. Tales on awakening and Zen. A big thank you to our sponsors and a big thank you to you for listening. We'll be back next week. Hope you have a wonderful whatever or wherever you may be.

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