Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 562: David Nichtern

Episode Date: April 24, 2023

David Nichtern, author, founder of Dharma Moon, and Duncan's meditation teacher, re-joins the DTFH! On Tuesday, May 9th, 2023, Duncan will join David for a FREE live online discussion about Artificial Intelligence, Buddhism, & the Future of Mindfulness. Click here for more info and to reserve your spot. They will also discuss the popular Dharma Moon Meditation Teacher Training beginning in June 2023. Click here to register directly for the Dharma Moon 100 Hour Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training. And on Thursday, April 27th, 2023, you can join David Nichtern and Eve Lewis Prieto, the main voice and teacher on the Headspace app, for the start of a special four-week online course on the Foundations of Mindfulness. Appropriate for beginners and more advanced practitioners, this course will explore the core Buddhist teachings underlying mindfulness and meditation practices and examine what is actually happening when we sit down on the cushion and pay attention to our minds. Click here for more info! Original music by Aaron Michael Goldberg. This episode is brought to you by: Athletic Greens - Visit AthleticGreens.com/Duncan for a FREE 1-year supply of vitamin D and 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase! Lumi Labs - Visit MicroDose.com and use code DUNCAN at checkout for 30% Off and FREE Shipping on your first order!

I love living independently at home, but sometimes I need a little help. That's when it's nice to know that I have an angel by my side. It won't last, it won't last, you'll get old, you'll get fat. Filled with parasites from your cat, stinky cream upon your back. Look at Johnny Rotten, all you cool kids in despair. He still has orange hair, but now he looks like Cher. It won't last, it won't last, you'll get old, you'll get fat. Filled with parasites from your cat, menthol cream upon your back.

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Try to be kind instead of cool while you're still in human school. Visiting angels, America's choice of home care. Greetings friends, that was Candies, Ladies, Feet friends and that's a track of their new LP Blaster. You can find that on Spindler and I think it's streaming for free on Crexel. Welcome, today we have a wonderful podcast with David Nickturn. Before we jump into that, I want to invite you, if you're having to be in the North Carolina area, to come and see me and William Montgomery. We're going to be at Good Nights in Raleigh.

Then the next week, coming right up, going to be at Helium in Portland. Our shows are about to sell out. So get your tickets in advance, please. It makes me feel good. It's comforting. It feeds my ego and it bloats me out like an old bloated ego fly. What a show we have for you. Oh shit, one last plug.

I forgot. Patreon.com forward slash DTFH head there for commercial free episodes of this glorious podcast. Won't you? Also, we hang out generally once a week. We have a meditation and what we call a family gathering. It's just yapping. Our community makes the folks at Spawn Ranch look like assholes. I guess it comes as no surprise to you guys that I am in love and probably always will be in love with sweet THC,

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He runs a wonderful foundation called Dharma Moon. He's also my meditation teacher, and of course, he's David from the Midnight Gospel. And on Tuesday, May 9th, David and I are going to have a free live online discussion about artificial intelligence, Buddhism, and the future of mindfulness. That's May 9th. I hope that you will sign up. We're also going to talk about his Dharma Moon meditation teacher training beginning in June 2023. All the links you need to find that will be at DuncanTrussell.com. Also, if you like David, you can join him and Eve Lewis Preto, the main voice and teacher on the Headspace app for the start of a special four week online course on the foundations of mindfulness.

Again, all those links at DuncanTrussell.com. Now let's dive in. Welcome, David Nickturn. My editor, Aaron's out of town, so I don't have a theme song. Welcome, welcome all of you. Welcome to you. It's the DuncanTrussell Family Hour. Welcome back, David.

It's so great to see you. I've been looking forward to our conversation all day. How you doing? I'm very happy right now. All right. Congratulations. I don't know why, but when you asked me, I thought I'm going to check right this moment how I am. Not tell you how I've been for the last days or weeks or anything like that.

That's amazing. Of course, it's great to see you. That always brings me joy. Great to see you. Now, as a Buddhist teacher, as a teacher of meditation, do you think you could quantify happiness to unhappiness in your life? Happiness versus what percentage of unhappiness? Well, a Buddhist teacher who does not talk about suffering is not worth their salt. So all this happiness, this happiness, that, to me, the big topics are suffering and freedom from suffering.

That's like right to the Four Noble Truths there. And that's the first time out of the barn with the Buddha mind. So happiness could be pretty relative, don't you think? Yeah. Can you give an example of a combo suffering, happiness, state of consciousness? Easily comes to mind. Relative happiness is like you have a nice bowl of soup that was in the fridge, but it was in the fridge for too long. So while you're eating it, you're happy.

And right after you feel happy. And three hours later, you don't feel so happy. It's so easy to make us happy and take our happiness away that it's almost, you wonder why we didn't invest so much time in it. And that's something I've been thinking about, which is life is process. Looking at life as a process versus framing it as this is exactly what's happening. So if you could get your third eye a little bit above the time space continuum, so that instead of seeing just what's happening right now, but look at the future and the way you have memories, then what you're talking about would become crystal clear, which is that yes, right now you're happy or you're unhappy right now,

but you would recognize this is leading to potentially the polar opposite condition. But we can't do that. We're in the present moment, so it's easy to trick yourself into thinking, I'm going to feel great about this soup for the rest of the night. Well, that's why like, you know, to me, this has all been iterated kind of perfectly already. So not to put anybody off like thinking that there's somebody kind of clearly stated what's going on. But the four kinds of suffering, you know, you know, one is not getting what you want. Two is getting what you don't want.

It's really good, right? Yeah. Three is alternation, the pain of alternation between getting what you want and not getting what you want. That itself is painful. And the fourth one is all-pervasive suffering, which is just the undertone of kind of like, even in the most peak moments, even in the worst moments, it's just a sort of general sense of dissatisfaction. You know, you just described Las Vegas. Well, that's what I was trying to do.

I've never heard a more perfect description of Las Vegas in my entire life. Yeah, the alternation, you're getting what you want, then you're not, then you are, then the whole thing sucks. When you really like take a moment, look around Las Vegas and all the people who came there ready to experience the peak of their lives. And it's a scam, a fraud. So underneath all the drunken revelry, there's that pure suffering of suffering. Then you see, the last time I went there, a guy at a slot machine next to me hits the machine and yells out, I worked so hard for that money. And you're just like, what the fuck did you think was gonna happen?

You're playing Wizard of Oz slots with like money that you care about? But still in that moment, he was fully like in the alternation because truly like 20 minutes before his friends were around, they're sharing, they're like, yes, the look in his eyes like, oh my God, my life's about to change for the better. Yeah. Well, you know what the real meaning of Las Vegas is, right? You know the translation or not? No. It translates roughly to something like this, obviously samsaric, clearly samsaric.

Right, right. And for which you could kind of dig it in a way. You go like, okay, this is really a chance to blow the whole thing up to the point where you're seeing the engine of the beast in a way. Yes. But it's no worse than any other place. It's the same, basically. It's just on high alert, high relief. I don't mind it there at all.

And personally, do you like it? Well, once I learned what you just said, once I learned, I would go there with this idiot mentality of resisting Las Vegas. I don't gamble. It's like, well, why did you come for the shows? You want to see Circus. Well, I don't really enjoy strip clubs. Oh, really? So you're in Las Vegas.

You know, it's like saying you don't like baguettes in Paris or something like that. So once I realized you just completely surrendered to the samsaric, throw yourself in completely decadence, insanity, madness, within reason, then it can be really... Well, you're just outlining Duncan. You're just outlining the two extremes, you know, right? You mean Paris and Las Vegas? No. Las Vegas. I love it.

I'm in it. I dive all the way in and I'm not... I don't gamble. I don't get it. I don't like it here. So, you know, I've outlined kind of the gutters and the bowling alley of experience. Now, in between there, there's experience unfolding in real time that probably is as worth noting there as it would be anywhere else. Because the art is not getting in the right situation.

The art is perfecting the art of awareness, right? Isn't that what we're sort of tuning into? Yes. Sure. Whichever of the six realms you're in, the key is awareness, right? Right. Now, but, you know, can you... Let's talk about awareness in detail, in the sense that, like, when I...

Initially, you hear awareness and you feel like... And I imagine it does mean this. You feel like it means a kind of, like, tuning into specific components of your reality, phenomena. Like, tuning into sort of the pixels of phenomena around you. Is that what you mean by awareness? Wow. That's kind of a pointillist approach. You know, I'm sure, you know, some of the Impressionist painters were very happy that you said that.

Yeah. Pixels of awareness, right? Yeah. And, well, that raises a really interesting question. Is awareness digital or analog? Is it a high-resolution digital experience, or is it a flowing fluid experience? I think that takes us right back to what you were texting me about earlier, which is continuity and discontinuity. So, is awareness continuous or discontinuous?

You know, I'm going to say that it's discontinuous in the way rivers are above ground and underground. That because you're not seeing the river doesn't mean it's not there. Or because, you know, like, for example, it's tragic in California. All these people, because of climate change, they build all these farms. They build all these structures in a dried-up lakebed. But the snows came, the rains came. Now it's turning back into a lake, and they're fucked because they built in a lakebed. And roads and, like, things that just, they thought, well, this lakebed is never returning.

Even though it's a lakebed, the water will never come back. So, you know, what your question reminds me of that, that it's, you know, awareness, unawareness being the opposite of that, or, you know, you lose your keys, where was I when I lost my keys? Did I exist at all? Versus coming back and experiencing the moment as fully as you can. Well, I think we train, you know, like the way you and I are training with meditation type of practices is to train in digital awareness, meaning just you want to be as focused and clear as you can about one moment of iteration of the experience of consciousness, right?

You want to just be right there with it as it bubbles up to the surface, and they call it now. And then you relax, and then you catch the next one, so that you're constantly developing a muscle of coming back into the present. Yes. Okay, yes. Is that what your practice is like? That's sort of what mine is like, to keep coming back. Yes, but it, you know, and there definitely seems to be a pattern within that, which is that the, first, just the recognition of what that even means, you know, you don't even know if you're doing it or experiencing it, or if this is it at first, you get hit with it.

And you, and it's like, this seems like something, and then if you're my dumb ass, you're like, shit, I just got enlightened, baby. This is great. I'm enlightened. And then it just goes away. The lake dries up. Nothing's there. You're back to the thing that you were before. So it's like, it's almost like a little crack appears or something, a little light pops in into a cave in or something.

And you're like, shit, is that what I think it is? And then it's gone. And then you start recognizing that as something consistent. At least that's, that's been my experience, and I'm fully prepared to be, and probably am wrong. Well, tell me if this reminds you of what you're saying in any way. So it's a short, short anecdote. The guy is rehearsing for a play, right? And he has one line, big actor, you know, one, one line, the whole play.

Okay. And what happens is that when the cannons are fired in the play, his line is, Hark, I hear the cannons roar. That's his one line for the whole play. So of course he takes it very seriously as one would. And then they're having rehearsal after rehearsal, and he's rehearsing at home. He's walking around Hark, I hear the cannons roar, and he's trying with different accents and different flavors. And of course, then they don't actually fire the cannon off in rehearsals because it would be, you know, wasting bullets, so to speak. And now he's in the actual first performance of it after the dress rehearsal and all the rehearsals.

And they actually fire the cannon off, and it's so loud. And he's like, what the fuck was that? So is that like practice? Yeah, yes. I think practice is more like that, in a way. Yeah, and I'll tell you that to me, that's like the big, that's the double-edged sword of, as far as I could tell, all spiritual techniques. Is that it gives you an idea, you think you know what cannons are going to sound like. So you're always looking for that.

And then the natural cannon fire, fill in the blank, whatever you want it to be, it can't be, if you've never heard a cannon, it doesn't matter how good you are at imagining or extrapolating or picturing. Well, I know what a loud noise is, you will never be able to perfectly replicate a cannon. So that can become very confusing for people, because you're always looking for extrinsic affirmation of this very personal, very natural state. And that's where you get lost. That's where people get, also where they get railroaded and horn swoggled, because they find somebody who they think will affirm an intrinsic state. Yeah, and you'll follow anybody if you're that confused. Absolutely.

Like being lost in the desert, you go like this person says, there's water over there. It's kind of the situation that we're in, partly, would you agree? It's sort of where we find ourselves as the curtain goes up a little bit. What do you mean? You know, a little bit bewildered. But what's going on? What's not going on? Yeah, I mean, I think that's a natural, a very natural way to be. It makes sense.

Look at how bewildering everything is designed to bewilder. It's, depending on your definition of bewilderment, I mean, you know, the word for it is misinformation these days. That's the new word for Maya. Misinformation. We've got to protect everyone from misinformation. Label shit that this is misinformation and that person's deceptive and this person's deceptive. Deceptive algorithm. And it is.

They're not wrong, but they're missing the root, the root of the issue, which is like pretty much as everything. If you are fixated on it as being a constant is going is misinformation. It's bewildering. You're in anything telling you this is a constant is misinforming you like to finish the point. I love car commercials because they are the most incredibly manipulative things you've ever seen in your life. They want you to not you. You can't sell a car to Aaron. They're car people who love cars, but I don't.

And so I see them as they are. They all look the fucking same to me. It's a joke with Aaron. She'll be like, what kind of car is that? I have no idea. I don't know. It's a car. It's a buggy.

They all look kind of dumb. Some of them are a little more sleek, but that's embarrassing. So the car companies know this. You can't do a commercial like fuck it. Just buy this car. It's like they're all the same, but ours is sort of different. So you got to add to it. You're not just buying a car, buying safety for your family.

You're going to start going outside once you get this car. You're you're everything's going to improve with your car. But one thing they show the assholes. They've taken their fucking car to the Mojave Desert. Their marriage is now working out because of this car. They never show five months after you got your stupid car. There's a diet coke bottles laying around ashes in the car. You don't give a shit about the car anymore.

The car is nothing. So to me, bewilderment. Bewilderment is the idea that that car is going to give you the new car feeling for the length of the lease or whatever you got into with it. Instead of realizing you're going to get high on this for about six months. If you're lucky, paint of alternation, paint of alternation. So yes, bewilderment. Absolutely not while we're in the car.

Take another little drive with me. We left the theater with the guy yelling what the fuck was that. And now we're driving home, which I was, let's say, probably 35 years ago and was driving from Vermont to Montreal snowing, blizzard, bad idea, bad idea. The snow is now, you know how sometimes the snow will go like horizontally? It's like you don't even know which is up and which is down. That's kind of snow.

A wiser person than me at that time would have said, all right, we're going to be late. Let's not worry about this. Let's park somewhere. But I didn't. We had to be somewhere. Now we cross over into Canada. And we're on the Canadian side of the border.

And I'm driving and the wheels go into a skid, right? And I did everything right. This is the thing you go like, OK, I screwed up. I break fast. I didn't break. I turned into it. I did everything right. And then nothing.

And then there was a moment of like, you could say almost orgasmic release without the pleasure element of it. It was just a feeling like diving into the void, right? Yes. And the car went like this. And then the railing just bent the wheels up under the car. And we went down an embankment about 40 feet. Oh, my God.

I kind of saw him asking, who's my wife at the time? And asking, are we OK? Did we make it out of this? But there was a moment of the glide going into the oblivion of not knowing anything. And knowing that you were not knowing at that moment. Yeah. It is close to the basic bewilderment.

It's also close to the primordial awareness. So all I want to throw out there is that the basic bewilderment, if you don't try to stack stuff on top of like a Chinese acrobat, you know, plates on top of it spinning, but you just go with the basic quality of it, it has already some quality of fundamental knowing and not knowing at a very primal level already in that. Wow.

So then just to add another layer to it of the kind of poetry of the world, we're sitting down there and somebody came by and they saw us. So they came walking down and said, you guys all right, we can take you to a hotel and then you can get ready, you know, take your car in the morning. And they drove us back to a gas station. So guess who that was that stopped by and picked us up

just by a total accident? Who? The local undertaker. You can't make this stuff up. Yeah, that makes sense. He hangs out by that bad curve. That's all. No, no.

He's fishing. Now that's fishing for him. Trust me, the guy hangs out there during those storms just to pick up customers. What better? Find the most deadly, was it a hearse that he had you in? Are you? You know, it might have been his car.

You know, it might have been his professional vehicle, that I don't remember. But the point, I guess, was that in that moment of glide, of losing control, which is there are states that we entered in which we are losing control, dream, orgasm, the bardo states that we've talked about before, in which you are not driving the car anymore. Right up until then you were driving the car.

Soon after that you'll be driving it again. But that moment is a moment of vivid bewilderment and vivid awareness simultaneously co-emerging. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, you know, the only thing I could think that happened to me recently like that is forest went galloping out in front of my car towards the road and a car was coming. And yeah, I wasn't there.

Like I am not a dexterous person. I'm not athletic. But without me being involved at all, I like went into ninja mode and just snatched him. Like there was no way he could have gotten out in the street. It would have been important. But it wasn't me. Like if I'd spent a millisecond thinking about what I needed to do,

it could have been, it wouldn't have been great. I mean, honestly, I think the lady like saw him and break, but still it was like that moment of like, shit, I see what you're saying. Like who did that? Where after the point you're thinking, who was that? Like what, where is that person all the other times I've tried to do athletic things?

What was that? Where was, who was I in that moment? Because it wasn't me. But if you look at the layering of your mind and what you would call your ordinary state of being you, right, having the identity. I mean, we've studied this, but you can look at it. It's layered from that basic ground of kind of not knowing

or also kind of in not knowing being very presently awake because there's not a lot of knowing to cover up the awake. And then layering on top of that thought after thought after thought by the time you get to the 19th thought you had, you're way far away from that basic ground. You're not, you're not in touch with the ground of bewilderment or of awareness. Okay, so this is what I want to talk to you about

is that the basic ground of awareness. I'm curious about this only because, you know, quite often it gets described as groundlessness. And yet there seems to be a quality to it that is more grounded than anything else, that it is fundamentally stable. There isn't a... In fact, it's so fundamentally stable

that if anything amplifies the instability, you know, it demonstrates more how whatever the thing is in the natural world or in the world or whatever it is that you're looking for is this is an example of, this is my rock. All of those things seem like transparencies compared to it. So I think it's a little confusing in that it gets described as groundlessness.

Yeah, it's beautiful, isn't it? Yeah. Because otherwise you'd latch onto it in a certain way, you know, and that's the groundless part. There's nothing to latch onto in it and collaborate on it. Sure. We used to get in comfort and security from our elaboration on that basic quality of, you know,

not knowing or vividly not knowing, yet still there's some kind of clear intelligence operating and clarity of mind at the same time. So from that point of view, it's groundless, it's unlayered, there's nothing to grasp onto. And from the other point of view that you're talking about, it has some strange, they call it the mother and child reunion, actually, in Tantra.

No way. Yeah, it's like the mind is coming home to some sense of space that is very familiar to us at the same time. Yeah. And you could, you know, you could say, you know, I played with K.D. last weekend up at Garrison Institute. He got one in his talk, he said one thing about

that the mantra, at a certain point, the mantra starts to feel like home and the wandering mind feels like, you know, vacation. Yeah. It reverses, you know. And I thought, yeah, that's true. The natural mind, at a certain point, you could, without all the elaboration,

you could become familiar with it enough that it feels like, ah, well, just ah, you know, it feels like you've arrived at something that is stable in the way that you're talking about. Yeah. In fact, there's words used for it beyond stable. Like what? Like, well, in the great Buddhist, you know,

comedy club of all time, permanent is one word is used. What a bait and switch. Oh, no kidding, man. You've got to be kidding me. That's a bait and switch, the whole bait and switch there. That's the layer. And that's very funny, though. That is very funny.

Yeah, it is funny. There's other words, though, just to be fair. Like what? Which would be, well, like clear. There's clarity, quality. Luminous. Sure. There's a kind of brightness of energy around that.

It's unobstructed. Brilliance, if you like. And, you know, unshakable or, you know, some kind of feeling, it's not based on a relative, you know, if this happened then that would happen, then this would happen. It's just kind of stable in a certain way. Yeah.

Yeah. The, I think that what's funny about it and the reason I said the underground river thing is just because I don't, I don't, and we're talking about continuity specifically, but because one of the words is permanence, then it would imply that regardless of how absolutely bonkers you have been, it's always been there. Even if you were fixated on this or that your whole life.

Or lifetimes. Lifetimes. It wouldn't negate this thing. Eons. Yeah. Yeah. And then safe. What about safe?

Is that word get applied to it? That's a tricky word. It seems more relative, at least the way it sounds to me is like safe from what? Death. You can't be safe. Period. You're safe from something.

If a lion's chasing you, you're safe from that. I mean, the way, the way Ram Dass says dying is completely safe. Oh, I don't know. I, I, I'd have to, we have to get him back so we can have that conversation. It's going to be hard. One more year. One more year. Yeah.

You know, one more year we're going to have everyone back. Don't worry. AI is bringing everyone back for better or for worse. You know, actually that, and we don't have to talk about this because I'm excited about the talk we're going to do about it and I don't want to ruin anything that we're going to talk about. Well, can, and can we just mention that right now? Yeah, sure.

May 9th, these two gentlemen, Duncan Trussell and David. Where? Oh, us. That's us. We'll be having a workshop online about AI and Dharma, basically. So we're going to not get into it tonight, but if you're, if you're able to register for that on May 9th at DharmaMoon.com, you can come and hear us get that topic.

And if you register, even if you can't come to the live thing, you'll be able to get the recording. So I'm looking forward to that. I think we're going to like open, you know, a kind of interesting window by talking about that. I already had some interesting thoughts about it, but we're going to wait until May 9th to do that, right? I'm going to blow one thought, though, because this is, yeah.

A teaser. So my friend sent me some article about how like in a year, we're looking at a year or two, you know, digital replicas of our parents. And I, I gotta tell you, man, I mean, I love my mom. But for a quick second, I was like, fuck, do I really want an infinite mom? Do we really want that? It's going to be great at first. But like how long before, like how long before all like, wait a minute.

Can I delete my mom? Like do I do I anyway, we'll talk about this more in the, in our conversation. But yeah, I, you know, I think that the, all of the world, all the paths kind of like tinker around with this idea of coming home. Christianity. You get the prodigal son, the prodigal son goes, goes out. One son stays home. Does every does everything right.

The other son goes and like goes to brothels and just fucks his life up ends up becoming like a pig. I don't know what you call it. What's a pig shepherd? Is that a thing like he takes? It's a good title for an album or something. You know, pig shepherds or a band, the pig shepherds. The pig shepherds, but he has to take care of pigs, which apparently, I don't know if

there's ever been a time that they're supposed to be so smart. I don't know if they need to be taken care of that way. They just need to be, you need to feed them. I think keep the dirt, wet, throw in sloth. But like, yeah, so he like his whole, he basically destroys his life, comes slouching back to his father's home, destroyed, and his father, and he comes to his father and says, I'm sorry, and expecting rejection or something. And though, though, because I look deeply into this, I love this parable, but before

he could finish his apology, his father is embracing him. So like he can't even keep saying, I'm sorry. It's just instantly embraced. And then his father basically says, we are throws this decadent party that and his son, his other son, he's like out in the fields, comes back and is like, what the fuck, like really? Like you're throwing a party for this asshole. We win is my party.

It's literally what he says. And his father says something on the lines of like, you've been alive this whole time. But that which is dead has now come back to life. That's why we're throwing the party. And so isn't that cool? In relation to what we're talking about is like that that that that tantric reunion between mother and child has wrapped up in it. All of the beauty of watching, you know, after a child has done some destruction and has

been scolded by the parent is reabsorbed is reabsorbed. The hug is there. No hard feelings. Everything's fine. You know, that's a beautiful, that's a beautiful thing. And I think in relation to this thing we're talking about, if we are going to talk about this groundless ground, it's truly the most incredible thing that that's a possibility that you get to go flopping around, getting become a pig shepherd out here, get lost,

shoveling shit to pigs. And the any moment when if you wanted to, I think that's the in italics part of it. You got you kind of have to want to. Right? Like you can. Well, for example, just, you know, they say that samsara, which is sort of we're talking, that's the part where it's sort of endless cycling through, you know, kind of stages and levels of bewilderment and confusion, and taking it for, you know, basically mistaking

a rope for a snake, you know, not seeing things as they are, and just on and on with one bumble after another and one, you know, one confusion leading to the next one. They said that's endless. Yeah, that process is not self relieving. So with what you're saying, there needs to be something intervening in order for the process of undoing that to become to get underway. Now, what that is, is that some kind of hitting bottom? Is that some kind of insight?

Is that meeting somebody? Is that reading a book? That idea has to be introduced. And in most of the realms, it's not there. That's called the dharma. It's just not there. There's nothing interrupting the hell realm. For example, hell realms can go on for eons.

Wow. Holy shit. That's terrifying. Yeah. But that's why there's a Buddha in each of the realms. A Buddha is not a person in that case. It's a sort of intelligence. In each realm, there's some kind of intelligence that's saying it's possible even in this context

to recognize the nature of the experience as being causal. You know, one thing is causing the next thing is causing the next thing is causing the next thing. And the next thing that's happening to it is by recognizing the gap. Right. Right. Every realm has a gap. See, I think that's the key word here, is recognition.

Recognition. Yeah. Versus discovery. You know, it's being able to identify the thing to really know the difference between a cannon and a bird tweeting. You know, to understand those two differences, I think, and then having feedback from people like you. I think that you do require, like, there does need to be a community around it or something.

I mean, I think it would be very difficult, but not impossible, minus a community. But I think the community aspect of it is where you really need that. Not just to be like, was that a fucking cannon I just heard? You know, but also to the other experience of, I don't hear the cannon anymore. What happened to the cannon? Well, but you're iterating the three jewels. That's Sangha. Right.

And, you know, it's not that easy to recognize. Also, you're saying recognize is a big word. It's the right word, actually, for mindfulness. And the word in Sanskrit is smirty, which the Val police have attacked because there's not enough vowels in that word. It's like SMR. Come on, give me a break. Give me a vowel.

Can I get a vowel? Yeah. And it means recollection or recognition. Yeah. You're remembering something, which is the quality of being, that you're noticing that you're distracted and the quality of kind of simply returning. And, you know, I think people make, you can miss it by making too big a deal about it. That's why I call it ordinary mind, too.

It's just not that big a deal. Now, you know, I would say the ordinary mind thing is problematic in that I feel like when I hear that initially, at least, I always say this people, I don't know why I can't tell you how I, when I, my friend, a very good friend of mine said, dude with one ball and a fucking weird beard. A dude with one ball. It's like, there's a guy with one ball. He heard that and found it off-putting.

I hope it didn't off-put the other ball. That's all I've got to say about it. Off-putting in the sense, yeah, that's how he lost his ball, man. It's off-putting in the sense that in the world, we equate ordinary with not good. Yes, that's right. It's dull. So when you hear, well, here's some goal or whatever. It's very ordinary.

You will be like, why the fuck do I want that? I need a fireworks show. I want high-fidelity, I want something wild, man. You know, or like, you know, sometimes Forest will say to me, I want to go somewhere new. So you hear it and you're put off by it a little bit, maybe, because it makes it sound like you're going to be in a DMV waiting area or something. Yeah, I mean, it's true. The language is very particular in that way,

and you want to adapt the language to who you're talking to. And you know how people, they're speaking in a foreign country, or to somebody who does not speak English and they just start talking louder? Yes. That's not that smart, you know what I mean? That's not the problem. So we do that in a lot of different ways, probably, right? Right.

Yeah, yeah. But I mean, like, what could be more ordinary than that? And what's interesting about that, though, is that somehow in that descriptor, is an implication that actually the Samsaric world or the world of getting, like, all up in your head and immersed in the stories is extraordinary. That we, in fact, if you're just living in a normal sort of life of suffering, that's extraordinary that you have gotten into that situation. That's an extraordinary situation to be in.

If the reality is that you're, as much as anything else, part of this very ordinary, groundless state. We're going to cut to a quick break. Vitamins. Nobody really likes them. They're compressed, horrific pills. Many of them have hard, sharp edges. Rip your throat as you try to swallow them down. 100% of the time they taste like shit and they make your burps smell.

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There's nothing to be hunted after. So really, probably most people, most of us could arrive at it out of disappointment, out of letting go, you know, rather than achieving some kind of high, you know? It's very tricky because, you know, the engine of samsara is basically the notion that you could add something to the situation that will complete it. Yeah, right. The thing we're talking about, there's nowhere to hang your diploma. Like, otherwise it'd be covered. And I think that's kind of one of the, when they talk about liberation or, you know, a terminal talk about revolution. In a way, you could say it's revolutionary only in the sense that it's inaccessible to target.

Like, it's inaccessible to branding. It's inaccessible to anybody who wants to lay claim to it or make it theirs. This is my groundless state of emptiness or welcome to the Starbucks tent in the realm of emptiness. In that way, there's a truly liberating quality to it if you've gotten sick of, like, being constantly drawn into infinite scams, generally self-perpetuated scams. Infinite self-perpetuated scam world. Yeah, infinite self-perpetuating scam world. Eventually, you get so sick of it. That's literally what they say is, there's, when I first learned that word, renunciation, which is part of the Buddhist path, is, the actual, I believe in Tibet, it's like something like Chinook.

And it sounds a lot like Chinook. Yeah, it's amazing. Chinook. But it means nauseated. Yeah. And that feeling, you know, when you are about, when you get nauseous, it's like a feeling you just can't abide it anymore. You can't hold it down anymore. And that's what they say is that the renunciation is recognizing that quality in samsara, is that you've been there long enough, you've done it long enough.

You've been up and down long enough, you've been disappointed long enough, you've been exhilarated long enough, and, you know, beginning to look for maybe something more stable quality, you know. Yeah. And then in looking for that, you can't find anything solid to hold onto there either, so you get a chance to feel the groundlessness, you know, there, before you touch the ground of that open space, you know. You know, that's, you know, do you get in a Jean-Paul Sartre at all? As an English major at Columbia College, I did. You know, that's his most famous book, right? Naja, the description of, that's what he called it, like he identified it that way too. Just like, and people hear that, and I think with him, you could argue he was quite pessimistic in a certain way.

But, you know, people hear all this stuff and they feel like it sounds so pessimistic. It sounds, you know, oh really, you're going to call this nauseating. Are you kidding? Have you seen the new season of Succession? It's incredible. That episode made me cry. How dare you call this nauseating? I had a wonderful time in Costa Rica.

Nauseating? Why would you say that? That wasn't nauseating. You Buddhists are so fucking bitter. You're, you know, and that, to me, I think that's where it gets really interesting is that in a lot of the descriptors, you're not hearing a critique of the world or of life or rejection of life as much as like a big sire relief from people who are like, oh fuck, that was nauseating. Like, you know, you go to, when you get off the roller coaster, you know, and you're sick, and then finally that nausea dissipates. What's a better feeling than when finally, oh my god, oh that was fucking nauseating.

So I think sometimes in these descriptors, you're getting, you're confusing some, it gets confusing for people. An off-putting, it maybe even has the opposite effect. Sure. Well, you know, it could be that often Buddhism is the last stop on the train. Like you're riding around on the train, and you know, somewhere deep in the bowels of Brooklyn, it just, the train stops. There are no more stops. No more options. And you're just kind of sitting there.

Unfortunately, that's sort of the Buddhist stop in a way. It doesn't offer more entertainment. And you know, it can be presented that way. And there is certainly a magnetic dimension to having given up and given in that much so that you're not grasping at phenomena anymore as a solution to a basic underlying problem of what is my identity. So I'll grasp it more phenomena in order to stabilize my sense of identity. And so there is a kind of definite desolation to it that's been spoken about quite a lot by different teachers. And then there is, you know, there are kind of things about it that can be presented in a magnetic way. And probably the role of a teacher is to be not a desolate the way you're talking about all the time.

Well, you're not. For example, it's the ultimate sense of humor is at that last stop in the bowels of Brooklyn. You want to get some funny jokes. That's where you're going to get them. Right. Yeah, well, I mean, there is something innately funny about it. I mean, it actually is the four, you know, there is something within it that is incredibly comedic, but only because, like, it's not so goddamn funny when you haven't even when you have maybe haven't caught quite a glimpse of it. It's not funny at all.

That's a tragedy. That is not a comedy. That's hell. That's a tragedy. It's just what you're talking about. But you catch that glimpse of the thing and then suddenly, yeah, it can become comedic or romantic or just poignant. It can become quite poignant. And yeah, yeah, I get I get that.

I just I think that the mother and child reunion thing, that's a good way to describe, like, you know, like, think of when you come home from college, you know, you're college, you're on acid, you're banging girls with hairy legs. I'm sorry I said banging. You're making love to girls. You're making love to girls with hairy legs and you I don't think I've ever banged a day in my life. I don't even know if you call it making love. It's more of like a quick pop than a bang. Anyway, I don't have to get any details about that. You know, you come home and you have, you know, you've gotten your college.

You've got you've convinced yourself. You're Dostoevsky or some shit. And then, you know, you come home and there's something incredibly boring about that. You're not looking forward to it even maybe you're like, I've got to go home. This is here we go back to home. But then you get home and your mom's in the driveway. My mom will come out in the driveway and she hugs you and, you know, and you smell your house and you get this. Something you just can't get.

You're not going to get anywhere else. And so I think that is a perfect descriptor. It's like, except at home, you're not Dostoevsky anymore. You know, you're the kid who's you're still you. You're the person whose diapers were changed and who went through all the various phases that you were seen for and then that you're just you. That's you don't get the same if you've managed to like stir up some controversy about you in college or wherever you are getting off on that narcissistic twist that you've learned. You won't get that kind of generally. You don't get a order for that.

There isn't that. So it's mundane. It's boring. But it's the best thing ever. People. It's harder to bullshit people because they know you pretty well. No more bullies. Your mother is extraordinary.

Your mother. Let's just take a moment and just bow deeply at the feet of your mother. Thank you. What an extraordinary person that the communication you had with her is is not to be taken for granted. You know, most people don't have it. No, I got lucky without one. I was a good one. I share it with people like us, you know, who go, wow, that was some conversation there that you had.

And for people who don't know what I'm talking about, you know, I'm talking about the last episode of the midnight gospel in which you are sharing your heart and mind with your mother in the most vulnerable moment possible, which is her begin to leave the world. And boy, I left a big imprint on me and I'm sure other people too. It's worth appreciating that for a minute. Wow. You know, mothers get short shrift in our society, you know, in the same way that like what you're talking about, the primordial awareness gets short shrift. In fact, you could almost say it's like an identical discarding of the damn thing, you know what I mean? But here is this thing that is completely, completely there for you, always there, there. And I mean mother archetype.

I know some of us don't have that kind of mom or right now you don't have that kind of mom. But you know what I mean? But it's so there. Well, you're right. If you don't have it from your physiological mother doesn't doesn't diminish the principle of it. Because somewhere in this world there is that bank of energy that is nurturing supportive, you know, unchanging in terms of not not fickle. Yeah, in terms of the affection and everybody has a right to find a place like that. Even if it's a friend or a counselor or, you know, a dog.

How do people have that with their dog? Yeah, yeah. Well, but it's, it's, you know, I do think it's like the first trick that the world wants to play on you is to get you to forget about your mom, to like forget about that quality, what you came from, all of it is the first trick. And in fact, in horror movies, my friend was telling me he took a seminar on writing horror scripts. And in horror movies, a repeating pattern in horror movies is you can't talk to your mom anymore. So like what was your, when was the last time you saw Alien? Oh, I've seen that. Do you remember what the name of the ship was?

I forgot. Mother. Oh, right. Okay. And losing contact with mother. Holy mackerel. Yeah. So that plays into like the deepest primordial.

Well, it goes deeper than that because the, the most ferocious alien is the mother, right? What? Which one? In the aliens, the one who she has the most endless battle with is the mother of the aliens. Right. Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, right. So they even from that perspective of like what you think is hostile and aggressive, they've got a mother.

I mean, acid and you know, protecting them. Yeah. Don't fuck with mothers. I mean, the, the, the, the, you really shouldn't. I mean, this is a, you know, again, like I don't care what the animal is. You find a chipmunk. Try to fuck with the chipmunks babies. Watch that chipmunk.

The chipmunk will come, come so wrathful. We don't picture chipmunks is wrathful. And honestly, I'm just free ball and free ball. And is that a thing? I'm, but I'm guessing spitballing, I think is what they call it. Not free balling, spitballing free balling is very different. Right. If you stick your finger into a chipmunks nest where there's babies, you're going to bring back a bloody finger.

And the chipmunk isn't thinking it's a giant doing this. So in the, in the description of mothers, which is what I love about Eastern traditions is they really cover all the angles of the mama. You know, it's, it's not just the loving, embraceful mother. It's the wrathful, protective mother. It's the mother that's scolding you mother. I was just talking to my friend about this. It's the sexy mother. You know, the whole picture gets covered.

So I think if we're going to say this groundless primordial awareness state is a mother and child reunion situation, would you argue that within that primordial emptiness, those qualities somehow still exist? Well, yeah, do they exist in it as embedded as potentiality without a doubt? They're unmanifested at that level, but then they very quickly manifest a rise from it and take those forms that you're talking about. And dissolve back into the bigger space. So there is, I think, a space that's beyond what you're talking about. That's non-dual in nature. But it's very potent and for it to express itself even slightly, it has to manifest in polarity, which is what I think Tantra really is about. It's not really, the practicing end of it is dual.

It is polarity. It is understanding the dynamic of that. And it's expressed as masculine and feminine. You can think of that in different ways if you need to. And you certainly don't have to associate it with the physical body of the male and the female. When you visualize the deity, that's a masculine and feminine deity in union. It's just you, an individual, visualizing it. And they're inseparably interlinked.

And they're both aspects of yourself. So there's no attempt to sort of, let's say, have a sociological depiction of it. That could get you down the wrong tube. But there is polarity. And I think that's where people, that's where I balk at sometimes the new age, or some of the traditions go, you know, they are so much drawn to the non-dual, the blended quality of reality. But really, if you look at the challenge or the energy sparking, it comes from polarity. Now, these days, the polarity has gotten too stiff and too tight and it's not really dancing, you know? How do you mean?

Well, you know, it's like, I've noticed this recently, like all kinds of arguments are arising in which one side has a very hard left and one side has a very hard right. So it's like the stereo image is too severe. Right. There's not like that nice blend of, oh, that creates a pastiche, that creates a diorama, that creates a kind of playful but powerful and challenging field of activity. It just creates warfare. Okay. What you just said reminds me of the story Krishnadas talks about. I can't remember.

It was one of the, I can't remember which person it was hanging around with Neem Karoli Baba. One of Neem Karoli Baba's close associates. And Krishnadas tells the story of how they would have screaming philosophical fights in India, screaming at each other. But underneath it is just love. Like underneath it, which is my favorite kind of philosophical argument where with someone you trust and you love, you're able to trust each other enough to get into those kinds of like, absolutely. One of my best friends when we were in India, we were in a terrible argument. He flipped a table. He was like, when were you guys, we're going to stop this.

You know, and it was the best and we're best friends to this day. But it was like, we loved each other enough that we could go to that level with each other and know at the other side of that. We're friends. Like it's not going anywhere. And I think what you're talking about is like, people are having those screaming fights minus the love. And then they're shooting each other quite literally. It's beyond a metaphor at this point. It's like, you go knocking on somebody's door and they come out with a shotgun.

It's like, we're in crazy town right now. I mean, a lot of people are just living some kind of like measured existence and with consequences and things like that. But I think a lot of people I know feel like the train is slipping off the rails a little bit. Do you have that feeling? Well, yeah. I mean, I think the problem is that we haven't gotten to the last stop yet and the train is slipping off the rails. But I think the change is terrifying. Change is terrifying.

And when people are afraid, they get angry instantly. And so like, you know, like today, I think we were just out during I laughed about it because we're having this nice text about emptiness. And some mother decided to do that thing where they have stick out of the turning lane instead of going all the way in the turning lane. A relatively minor offense in the world of driving and certainly when I am very guilty of. So I think I had just responded to you with voice text, some some bullshit about emptiness. This person does that. And I'm like, I played on the horn instantly. I didn't think about it.

And then I'm driving and I'm laughing because I'm like, Jesus Christ, like I didn't think when I did that. Like I was looking back at that. I'm like, there was no, I'm going to teach this person a lesson or I need to really this person should understand the danger that they're presenting. Sure. Or the selfishness or it was just pure rage. Right. So that when you do when you go out in your of your house and shoot somebody or in your yard and shoot somebody. That means you have to think about the state of consciousness preceding the event.

You know what I mean? That like there you're pretty wound up, man. You're pretty fucking wound up. I'm guessing. I don't know, but I imagine that my laying on the horn moment for them, it's shooting someone. Yes, that's right. I mean, it's like they're not there. And then they have to then add that's why they always have that weird look on their face after they've done it.

Yeah, they're trying to work out in their mind. Yeah, how they managed to shoot somebody for going in their yard. You know, and so that I think the reason you're going to see upticks and uptick. I think you could just predict the more terrified people become, the more you can expect violence, the more completely freaked out people become the more. And then that creates the feedback loop, doesn't it? Because the more violence, the more terrified people become. And there's the Kali Yuga. Right.

That's the idea. And the flip side of it is, I don't, you know, it's all terrible. And I saw that young teenage boy who just went to the wrong address by mistake to pick up his brother and sister. And all you have to do to really connect is think, what if that was my son? Yeah. Everybody could just for a minute put it all down and think, however this happened, what if that was my son? He went to the wrong address to pick up his brother or sister and innocently and somebody shot them. How would you feel?

That's all you need to know. I mean, you need to know that it could be your son or your daughter and then you're going to have a different attitude towards it. Let's stretch it out to even more blasphemous terrain. Think of all the sons and daughters who were engaged in shit they shouldn't have been engaged in and got shot for it. Does that make it any better? I mean, is anything here good? Like, does it make it like, you know, everyone's like, you know, of course, it's a fucking tragedy that that happens by accident. It seems to be happening over and over.

But anytime it happens for whatever, I mean, think of like the pregnant woman who was shoplifting at Walgreens or whatever and got shot. Like, does that somehow make it's a softer blow that somebody thought that was the right decision in that moment? No. No, like, think of the justified war, you know, the, you know, like, so does that make it better when we're watching like Russian soldiers get exploded by drones? Is suddenly that great when we're seeing someone in their last moments looking desperately up at the sky knowing they're about to die? No, no matter, no matter what the fact that this is a is where we've come to in our ability to have conversations regarding properties. Safety, justice is that this is the resort. Just some brutish, stupid violence.

No, like all of it across the board is indicative of a massive amount of terror in the zeitgeist right now. A massive amount of fear, a massive amount of confusion. You know, I'm not that's not to say that when things are calmer, this shit doesn't happen. But yeah, I know. And again, I'm always speaking from my own personal experience with rage. It's going back to the earlier part of our pre conversation here before we started recording this. Just hello, everybody out there. Let's just join in wishing Duncan a happy birthday today.

It's his birthday and April 20th. Yeah. And is it okay to say how old you are? Do you mind? Yeah, I don't mind. Okay, so 49, which is a big birthday because of the seven sevens and what I got seven sevens. I didn't even think of that. God, that explains why I'm feeling so good lately.

It's a it's a big cycle moment. And they say you, you know, at that point, you can start spiraling up or spiraling down in terms of comically, you know. But that's a little esoteric thing. And then funny, you should say that because my friend for my birthday gave me heroin and a heroin needle. Right after we have this conversation, I was going to shoot up for the first time. Well, that'd be hopefully. That's an up spiral. Yeah.

I'm just kidding. That's a bad joke. I'm sorry, David. But and here to make matters worse, what we shared is that it's also Adolf Hitler's birthday. God damn it. So how's that for co-emergence that you, the angel of light that you are and well being have shared the same origin point, birth point as probably one of the more obvious demonic manifestations in history. It's very annoying because we also, and again, I don't know why I'm making this podcast so freaking testicular. But apparently, apparently Adolf Hitler only had one ball.

No. So we don't just share birthdays. Oh, is that true? I've looked it up and it's sort of like we don't know if that was propaganda or if that's real. Is it the same ball? I don't know. I've never seen Adolf Hitler's balls. I don't think there's a picture of them.

Nobody knows which ball he didn't have. How weird would it be if he trimmed his bush with the same stupid mustache right above his junk? Adolf. Yeah. Adolf, 420, Columbine. It's a real, like it's a mixed birthday to have because there's all kinds of like shitty things that happen. Or I think Oklahoma City bombing right around now. We got to own him.

We got to own him because I'm Jewish, you know. This is a big deal for me. Big, big deal. We can still be friends. People talk about, you know, challenging traumatic experiences. You know, this is the big, big, as big as it gets in my personal psyche. But, you know, we can't say he's another species from another planet. We can't really say that.

He's one of us and he went that way and a lot of people followed. That's something to be really aware of. Nobody like that could do it on their own. Impossible. No. So we all have some of that, you know, whatever that energy is of wanting so hard to be right. I mean, it's sort of trivializing what that is all about. But at some level, it's the opposite of the mother and child reunion.

Well, yeah. It's, you know, it's just a classic, like. It's the child killing the mother. Yeah. It's the, what's the story? There's the famous philosopher. I can't remember his name. It doesn't matter yet.

Another famous Greek philosopher. He was renowned. And I think it was Caesar takes out his whole troop, his whole entourage, golden chariots, all the bullshit to go see this philosopher. I think was living next to a river. I think it was Diogenes, maybe I'm not sure, but living next to a river, eating out of a, I think he ate out of a dog bowl. And so Caesar comes and is standing before him and says to him, I will give you anything

you want. And apparently this philosopher, I think Diogenes says, could you move a little to the right? You're blocking my light. Cause he was standing. Ultimate burn. Ultimate emperor burn. Roasted. Roasted.

Like brutalized by this philosopher who's like, get the fuck. You're not buying me, motherfucker. Get out of here. Is that true? Is that true story? Yeah. Yeah. Look it up.

It was the ultimate just refutation. The similar story when, you know, they try to trap Jesus by asking if should we pay taxes? Right. And he said, show me a coin. And whose face is on that coin? Caesar. And he said, give unto Caesar that, which is Caesar's.

Another slap in the face. Which is like, yeah, take your stupid discs. You can have all of them. Take your little metal discs. You can have as many as you fucking want. You know, but that, you know, the, the, the enlightened ones, they're always doing that to power. And Hitler obviously is an example of someone trying to be the son, trying to be God, trying

to be the sum total of everything. And, and, and, and that what sucks is, you know, the sun, the sun doesn't wear cool outfits, you know, so people get confused by it. The, the, the, what we're talking about, which I think you could argue as a kind of sun, primordial awareness. You know what I mean? Sun is good. Yeah.

Even sun burns out faster than primordial awareness does though. Yes. Right. It's that kind of notion of time is embedded there. So, so the, the Hitler situation I think would be a person trying to trick people into thinking they're primordial awareness or they're the son or they're creating a completely unnecessary intermediary, right? That's, that's the issue.

And, and religious, religions are famous for doing that too. Creating that intermediary and the intermediate intermediary by mistake or, you know, collusion or whatever happens, tries to lay claim to the primordial. Yeah. Yeah. Right. That's it. And then, in desperation, you go, well, okay, you are my source for the primordial.

But that's like a very subtle point that, you know, you can have very potent and strong teachers who are smart and learned and, you know, deeply trained, but they don't own the primordial. That's a mistake. Yeah. Right. They don't own that access. They don't have it.

You can't package it. No, they point to it. Yeah. They point to it. But don't, yeah. And I think that's where it gets interesting is like, I think, I don't know for sure about this, but I don't think there has to be any particular ethical, moral component to like, to recognize that thing that we're talking about.

That's the, you can recognize it, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you're in that recognition. You're necessarily going to be making great decisions all the time, especially if you just catch a glimpse of it. Right. That's a super important point there. It's almost like a whole nother podcast, but you catch a glimpse of that. Yeah.

If you're catching glimpses of it, it means it's not stabilized as your reference point. So therefore you're flickering, it's flickering on and off and all kinds of things are going to happen. But even, even if it's somewhat stable and the person has a kind of grounded groundlessness, you're right. That does not equate necessarily to the development of skillful means in action. That could be a separate learning curve. And I, you know, I don't, I know we only have a little bit more time here, but you know,

I don't know why. I know I'm doing it now because I'm reading this great Charles Manson book, but I started watching Charles Manson videos again. And when you, what I think was so incredibly confusing about him as I think when you see him, you do see someone who seems to have caught a glimpse of this thing. You do see someone who's not faking it. You do see someone who's like really in the moment and someone who's like really just right there and yet not all like completely violent, completely power hungry, completely

wanting to be the son. I mean his name was literally Manson, like wanting to like be the, the sum total, you know, it's a different spelling of son, obviously. But you know what I'm saying is like, this is a big, I think people, this is where people get really in trouble is because. Well, and it's a notion of rudra hood, rudra, the Tantra student who killed his teacher and became a kind of cause because there's it, once there's a certain amount of understanding or even cities, even little, you know, talents and powers that manifest because the person

is kind of strongly moving towards some kind of wakeful situation at that glitch where they begin to freeze that up and kind of like see it as a power struggle. That's the most dangerous people that you have on the spiritual path, actually. Yeah. There's warnings about becoming that is the biggest warning I got and, and, you know, how to deal with it. So it's not, you know, it's not saying don't go for it, you know, but it's saying there has to be a system of checks and balances, which is usually teacher and that's why when

Rudra killed his own teacher, he removed the system of checks and balances that he there was no one or anybody who could tell him he was wrong. Right. He got rid of the one like last like thing that was protecting him and then fuck your fuck like I maybe this is why in some traditions like Kabbalah or whatever they say you can't study this until you get to a certain age and the reason is because, you know, by the time you get to be my age, you're too exhausted to run a cult. You know what I mean?

You're so fucking tired. You're not going to like, you know what I mean? The odds of you getting all mants and out by the glimpse or something like that or you're just like, you just want to nap. You want to roll a pina colada, you want to fucking pina colada, not, not a, not a chalice of LSD surrounded by filthy hippie girls humping each other. That sounds the opposite of fun to you when you get to my age. You're so old already.

I'm only 49 today and look how, look at how I'm, I'm, well, I got kids. So it's like the whole orgy thing kind of goes out the window and you know what I mean? Like your, your priorities shift, you know, you, you, you just want to get home from dinner in time to watch a show and go to sleep. You know, so that, that's, and I like that. Yeah. I, I find that to be really wonderful. I did.

It was not fun in the days of hungry for orgies and chalices of acid. I mean, it was fun, but not the same kind of fun. Well, you know what's happening is you're sort of fully getting boring. Well, no, you're, you're literally moving into the human realm, which it, which it's hard to see it, but it's, it's not one of the liberations. It's another realm, but it has this, it has a possibility because it's, there's not so much confidence or desolation. There's something between the two, which makes you a little more vulnerable to, um,

you know, um, seeing the nature of the experience as it is, uh, but it's also a trap. Great. Another fucking Buddhist trap. I mean, you know, Buddha was in the human realm and then he had to go out and do a whole lot of practice, you know, look, I'll take human realm. It's a pretty great place. I mean, well, it's the only place, according to Buddhism that you can really do to have the conversation we're having right now.

Right. Like, that's the only place. If we're jealous gods, gods, we can't have this conversation. If we're in hell realm, we can't have it. Yeah. If like Brian Wilson is like, if you're kissing Brian Wilson's feet or whatever your filthy ass is doing, you know what I mean? Like it's, what are you, what are you doing?

What's going on here? What's, what are you, what are you up to here, Manson? Didn't anyone just take him aside and say, what's going on here, man? What are you doing? What's your plan? I guess if you did that, he'd be like, my, what is my plan? You are my plan. You, you make my plan, my plan.

Some bullshit. Well, you know, even in nature, there are poisonous spiders, deadly poisonous snakes. You know, not every creature is meant to be, you know, handled with a kind of innocence and naivete as you, as you connect with them. Yeah. And I think the reason I get attracted to that story is because I recognize in me someone who would be like talking to a friend and be like, you've got to meet this guy I met, he is so fucking cool.

His name is Charles Manson. He's got a ranch not far away. Let's go up there. If at the very least he's got like cute girls around him, good acid. Like I could just see me and he completely pulled in to, to that daddy figure that he was, you know, the like, has he played the daddy role or the like. But he was never an actual father, though. Oh, yes, he was.

He had children. Yeah, Manson had. Yeah, you think he didn't have kids? He had a lot of kids. I don't know. He just didn't raise him. But yeah, I mean, David, this is a different podcast. We have a few minutes, but I'll, I'll send you, I'll send you.

The funniest thing was there was this dude in LA claiming to be Manson's son and trying and having some band like that was like based on the theme that he was Manson's son. And then I think a paternity paternity test. They like he like he got pressured into doing a paternity test. And he was not the son of Charles. In fact, I think Manson's kids intentionally. It's that's not the first thing you're going to put on your resume.

Like they intentionally avoid identifying him as their dad. You know, well, in honor of all the. Potentially misguided and, you know, kind of badly constructed human beings who've caused so much harm to other others and recognizing that we all have the potential to manifest that or manifest some kind of wise wisdom and compassion and that takes intention. It takes effort in that spirit. You know, we can recognize that without eschewing it and thinking it's not part

of our ecosystem, right? Right, right, it should be recognized. And and that's why I think the dark side has to be kind of the shadow aspect has got to be worked with in your spiritual practice. Yeah, it can't be. It can't be just brushed under the rug and it doesn't have to be glorified. But I think we just got to bring awareness to the whole damn thing. You know, who are we?

I agree, David. I think that's a that's a really sad thing when you don't want to just recognize that little Charlie Manson living in your heart. Let alone, you know, yeah, they're all hanging out in there, having a horrible, horrible time. David, let's so let's remind folks, everyone, I'm very excited about this day. You know, if you listen to this podcast at all, you know, I'm obsessed with AI and I love Buddhism and the idea of having a chance to sort of.

Philosophically have a philosophical conversation with David about where the Dharma and AI meet or what the future might hold for us regarding. Buddhism in the era of AI or spirituality in the era of AI. I think these are just interesting, important things that we should be exploring as we. As we push the accelerator towards the singularity. So I'm excited about this. Will you tell everybody when it is again, David?

OK, so that's going to be on May 9th coming up and it's going to be a 90 minute workshop and it's going to be combined with so you can. We'll put the link in the in your in your text scroll attached to this podcast so people know how to do it. But all you otherwise you can just go to Dharma moon dot com. Great. And it's also going to have a short info session as part of it for our upcoming 100 hour mindfulness meditation teacher training program, which starts June 23rd.

And so we'll also be just talking a little bit about that and how people can check that out if they if they want to. So those those two events are connected. Is there a fee for it? I can't remember. No. So that's good. Thank you.

That's very good to mention. It's free. You know, so I just removed your final, you know, obstacle to attending. And you can also register for it. And then if you're not available during the real time that it's happening, you'll get the recordings automatically in your email. Beautiful. Great.

That's the hunt. That's for that session. And then that pre pre shadows the the entrance into the 100 hour mindfulness meditation teacher training, which you can also learn about at the website. We'll put a link for that in the in the text. And, you know, I gotta say, Duncan, we have one going on right now, which has at least 20 or 25 people who love you dearly, who are, you know, kind of wonderful have come into this situation through following you and

podcasts and our conversation. So it's really gotten to be a kind of family kind of energetic to it. And I say it every time, but I like to acknowledge those kind of things every time. It's a good thing. There's there's a lot of people who are following you who are watching how you explore things and kind of getting a sense of humor from it, a sense of intelligence from it. And and, you know, then they start to explore their world in the same way that

you've been exploring yours. And it's a good thing. I'm glad to hear it. I'm glad that's good. Anybody who like gets connected with you and Dharma Moon, that makes me happy because it certainly has had a positive effect on my life. And I can't wait for our talk. I'm so excited about it.

I'll I'll try to maybe I'll see if I can like whip up some AI stuff that we could show or something like that. So people can kind of see where it's at. David, until next time. Thank you so much. And I'll see you real soon. Talk to you soon. Okay.

Bye, Duncan. Bye. Okay. What's the number one reason you should try Instacart shopping over 1.5 million unique products from over 1000 retailers and get everything delivered right to your door and as fast as one hour all in one app. So you can spend more time with the ones who matter most. Visit instacart.com to get free delivery on your first three orders.

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