Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 585: Robert Ryan

Episode Date: October 8, 2023

Robert Ryan, world-famous tattoo artist and fascinating Shaivite, re-joins the DTFH! Click here for all of Robert's links, including his latest work with SOMA, books, and documentaries! Original music by Aaron Michael Goldberg. This episode is brought to you by: Brickhouse Nutrition - Visit TakeLean.com and use promo code DUNCAN at checkout for 15% Off your first order! Lumi Labs - Visit MicroDose.com and use code DUNCAN at checkout for 30% Off and FREE Shipping on your first order!

Greetings to you, my beautiful children of light. It is I, D. True Cell. This is the Ducatruscle Family Hour Podcast in today's episode. As one of my favorite guests, not that I like to create some dark, stupid hierarchy of guests on the DTFH, but Robert Ryan is incredible. Not only is he a world famous tattoo artist, he also is a shy-vite who built his own beautiful temple and he is one of the most disciplined spiritual people who I've ever met in my life. Unfortunately, the very beginning of this episode got cut off, which really sucks, because we're having this fantastic conversation

about squirrel motivations. And because of that, I just want to share with you what we were talking about, even though it has nothing to do with the rest of the podcast, I assign benevolence to the animals in my yard. It's probably a mistake. I don't assign it to the insects. I don't assign it to the mosquitoes, but for some reason the squirrels, the rabbits, the deer, the hippos, the hippos, the Portuguese swans, the limping turtles, they don't really let much of the name of them. They're very rare.

The wood-ringed peacocks and the orangutans and the beautiful pony that I just gave to my daughter as well as the stallions that we keep in the barn and the eagles in the hatchery and the falcons, and I even assign benevolence to my Falcon trainer, Bertrand. But sometimes the assignment of benevolence backfires on you. And of course, we shouldn't assign human ethics to squirrels and we can't anymore thanks to the supreme court. Let's go Brandon. It's illegal now. You'll get arrested,

but regardless, I just have always thought the squirrel in my yard was sweet. I don't know why. You look sweet. I guess they're kind of scary if you think about it, but I mean, if they're giant, I guess that's any animal. Like you enlarge a cat 10 times the size of a cat. You know, that's a that's a lion. And they're they're a mess. And except for my lions, I forgot to mention them. They're not a mess. We keep them highly sedated on a cocktail of Xanax and MDMA, which allows my children to literally sleep on them for nap time sometimes. They're adorable and they are just wonderful when they're drugged. This squirrel, I, no, I just always thought it was like clever and sweet. And the other day, sitting on the back porch

with my wife enjoying a 1798 rosé, it was one of the last bottles of its kind on Earth. It was given to Ben Franklin by a witch that lived near him. And I saw climbing up the tree, this wonderful squirrel with a squirming mouse in its mouth. This thing was going to carry that thing to eat it. I mean, you can only assume that. I can't imagine there were friends and it was like, God, let me show you what it's like up here. Just poor mouse clutched in the

mouth of a squirrel, you know, and squirrels, I don't think they have like poking teeth. Like most carnivorous animals, I don't think they just kind of like, I don't know, I've never looked at this teeth, you know, he's pretty good at hiding from me, like goes on the other side of the tree, but pretty sure they have like kind of like, like those old dentures you find in graveyards, broken and jagged, but not sharp enough to kill right away, but just can't even imagine what that mouse was experiencing, as it got carried up into a tree by a squirrel. So that's what we were talking about and that's what got cut off.

But luckily for you, I re-told it. And you can see why. It's a very important story. Robert Ryan is incredible. If you're lucky enough to live in Philadelphia and you're looking for a tattoo, he's the man. I have all the links you need to find in my dogatrustle.com, but you could just google his name and see the incredible tattoos that he creates. He also makes beautiful art. If I ever do get a tattoo, Robert Ryan will be the person who puts that needle right above my butt.

Cause I've always had a dream of just like a wonderful sort of, I'm not gonna say tramp stamp. I hate that term, it's insulting. It's like degrading to tramps. And as a tramp, and I've been a tramp for a long time, there's more to us than just having like a tattoo on our butts that you, you, you people can ogle over as you use our bodies. There's deeper dimensions to tramps. Trust me. Trust me.

I've had my heart broken so many times. So many times. And that's why, you know, I just want it. It's my not tramp. I mean, you know what? I'm going to reclaim it as my tramp stamp. I want it to say, don't leave me please. Right above my butt so that when I am being ridden in the night by some lusting man lady you ever decides to climb on board the heartbreak train they're gonna look down at it and they're gonna know what my heart is telling them please don't leave me please please stay with me just just one more night I'm not the angel of the morning. I need commitment. I need you to love me and hold me. Tell me stories at night.

Bottle feed me. Let me suck on your feet and take long urine bath with you. Don't just do that thing. Don't do that. Don't throw me away. I might put that somewhere else. Maybe right right above my penis, don't throw me away. And on the back please don't leave me. Anyway if one day I decide to get those tattoos Robert

Ryan is definitely going to be the person that I choose to do that very important work for me. This is a really great conversation. We covered a lot of ground. You know, like I have a sporadic, embarrassingly sporadic meditation practice. Robert Ryan diligently pursues Eastern mystical traditions in a way that I've only seen in monks, in our Christian temples, and I've been lucky enough to be friends with him for a while, and to watch the effect that level of discipline is had on his life.

He's super cool, and I think that you really can enjoy this conversation about mantras, about the ancestors and about Vedic traditions. It's definitely one of my favorite podcasts in a long time and I took a lot out of it and I think you will too. So get ready. Come see me do live stand up. I'm going to be at Helium, Philadelphia, the 12th, 13th and 14th of October. I hope you will come out to a show after that. I'm going to be at the Spokane Comedy Club on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th of November. And I would love it if you would come and see me to stand up. Also, I've got a Patreon, it's patreon.com for slash DTFH. You will get commercial free episodes of this podcast, the opportunity to hang out with

me and your beloved DTFH family once a week. I'm trying to get it together friends. I want to do it once a week, but it's been wowed with a new baby in the house. Don't know why I said it like that, but I hope you'll subscribe. It's patreon.com forward slash DTF H. Okay, everybody get ready. Strap on. Here we go.

Let's dive into this conversation with Robert Ryan. You know, one of the ways it, it starts with like a kind of interest that has like a sort of academic quality that has built into it, a condescension or something that you might not even be aware of. You know what I mean? Because you're kind of thinking like, well, you know, these, you're not thinking it consciously, but these superstitious fools. You know, they've, they, they, they're, you know, larping. They've gotten wrapped up in something and it's giving them some,

it's mitigating their fear of death. And so, but then, I mean mean I'm talking this is like I was so cynical and then you know the more you sort of look into it You want it like you think to yourself. I want to experience the mantra Well, is it hypnotic? What is it you start doing these mantras and And then the strange things starts happening where you'll wake up in the morning and you'll want to look at the bag of a guida or something. You know, and this thing starts growing. And then suddenly, it goes from being a kind of academic intellectual pursuit to you begin

to realize that I don't, I think think this is there's something here more than just some like hypnotic, trans state you're putting yourself into as you connect with these stories. And then that's when it gets really interesting because all this cool stuff starts happening. And do you know what I mean? But you're thinking you've gone from the sort of dock and style existential examination of the thing to I want that to happen to me again. The out of body experience, the dream about the God, the vision that I had. You know what I mean? And then you're in another soundtrack, right? Like you get stuck again.

And you know what I'm talking about? Like as the past progresses. So can you talk, like do you remember when you first became attracted to Eastern mysticism? And what your path was from that point to you having a temple and a guru and a deep disciplined practice. Yeah, to really start from where you began with what you just beautifully express that I think most people go through in the, I think this is something everyone experiences in this path in life

through a lot of things because throughout as we discuss it, we can kind of see how all those same things that you just described will manifest in different aspects of your regular life, not your quote unquote spiritual life. And you start to, when you do start to practice, you see how those things are in tandem. But yes, so the sudden that I've been practicing recently and for the last couple of years,

but really trying to go deep into it in the last few weeks, is that of meditations on a deity, a goddess called Tripura Sundari, and she is the manifestation of all creative capacity and like all language, all music, and creative capacity like having children too. You know, like all any all creative things that happen on the planet are happening through her. What's her name? These meditation.

It's Lily to trip or to Sundari. Okay. And it's the chanting of the Lily to Sahasur is the sad now, which is her 1,000 names. So you're going through all these different aspects of her creative capacity. So anyway, she's holding a noose and a goad. So, you know, the noose will pull you forward and then the goad will like push you along the path, you know. Well, it's two of her attributes. So at some point when you start to develop a taste for these kind of things, she's there to pull you in.

And if you start going astray, she's, she's able to push you. So she's pushed, she's constantly pushing and pulling you through this path. And she stands in the center of that. She's holding up one with her left, one with her right. So she's equilibrium, you know. She's the balance of those two things. So when you start to chat these magical formulas, these mantras that becomes in balance,

and then you start to see that manifest in your life. So that's like one of the ways that I think we can look at this as like, okay, is there this goddess that's there with a a noose and a like a poking chain, though like, you know, God, you're around. It's not too much different than the devil on your shoulder, you know, to write at, you know, or it's not, oh, devil on your shoulder, you know, for that, you know, or it's not, oh, I think that's a westernized aspect of it. The push, it's pushing and pulling constantly. It's a news like a strangling news like what you hanged me. No, it's a news like you would guide, you know, like the, it's the on Kush and the Pasu. It's for, for elephants, one, you would

pull the elephant with and the other you would. Okay. What the goat is got it But for her it and then Pasha Pati, which is like Is the is the little guy Suis of all the beasts that are led, you know, Pasha Pati is a name for Shiva and that are led, you know, Pasha of Pate is a name for Shiva. And so she teased the leader of anything that is led through that noose that she is guiding us with. What a great way to symbolize the creative process. Like because sometimes you feel like it's pulling you, which is the best, you know, when you're being drawn into it. And then sometimes you just, you're nothing's pulling you

at all. Yeah. Or, and you're being pushed away, you know, you're being like, yeah, I leave this alone for a while, you know, or you're not going in the right direction, you know. Yeah. Yeah. So when you start chanting these mantras, you start to develop that dialogue with the true self that you are, that you should follow some of those instincts, or you should investigate those instincts, or you should look at them and observe them. You know, you don't necessarily have to act upon them.

Right. Yeah, I mean, that is like, you know, when it comes to making stuff, that's so frustrating because you, it, you, you know, in the West, especially, grind culture, you have this idea of like, I need to keep hacking away at this thing no matter what. Like, and it's hard to trust stepping away from it part. You think you're worried you're gonna give up?

Yeah. Like you said, there's always that part of you is like, why am I doing this? You know, what was this even mean? You know, and that's those are the thoughts, you know, that's your mind producing thoughts. And like, if you start to go down that path, it will just accumulate at a break next speed. And all of a sudden, you have anything you can possibly do to keep you between you and what you truly want of a... Right.

Now, what's one of these mantras? What are they said? I'm like, do you have a memorize? Have you allowed to say? No, I wouldn't say it just because I'm not qualified to give it to anybody else. Oh, okay. Right.

That's another interesting thing about mantras. Some of them, they're not, you can't find them. They're given, they're transmitted from guru to student, which is really interesting. Like little passwords or something that you only get when you're ready for them. Yeah, well, they know the effect that it can have and like it's a responsibility to the mantra that these gurus keep to, you know, in order to not like not dilute them or have them wind up in the wrong hands or, you know, they know the power of them.

And that's why they're treated with such delicacy. But yeah, so what I'm doing though, I can say is that I'm chanting the her 1000 names. Wow. And there's so much revealed in those thousand names. I barely, I'm just on the surface of them, you know, because my English Sanskrit isn't that great at all. So, you know, and I do have an English interpretation But I'm really just trying to work through the pronunciation at this point I want to thank Brick House Nutrition for supporting this episode of the DTFH. Friends, you've heard about those weight loss injections that produce incredibly fast results, right? They work by lowering glucose, reducing fat and curbing appetite.

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But I think you're gonna really be happy with the results you get from me. Thanks, Lean! What would happen if I translated the names to English and said them in English would they still have the same resonance? Yeah, probably even better, you know, because what a mantra is doing is it's instilling something, it's establishing something in you, you know, and it's establishing, it's got the ability to change your point of view. And that's truly what magic is, you know, a magician has the ability to, you know, change your point of view and lead you in a different way. So yeah these mantras I don't know where I was going with that but they are magical formulas, you know.

Right. Yeah, and this is something that maybe you don't, many people don't know. that maybe you don't, that many people don't know. We're going. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, good. In English, what it's doing is, it's, you're telling yourself something, you know, that this goddess lives inside of me. This god lives inside of me.

I have these strengths. I can overcome this through the help of this god. You know, so it's like going to the gym, psychically, psychically. Right. It's kind of like shining a light or something on a specific form that it can get lost with all the other stuff going on inside of you. So you're sort of recognizing via the mantra,

this is what this thing is. It's solidifying crystallizer, like going from background to foreground, right? There's so many other things. Yeah. That we live a life beyond just our gross material body, you know, beyond that body, there's a subtle body and there's a causal body. So, you, it's the, the in between and then also the consciousness, you know, so, you know, when you're starting to awake those things up in yourself, you know, you might be able to navigate through those three worlds that we have to live in, you know, every moment of our life. Now, some mantras are just in the public domain. Are Krishna, Muhammad, Ram, Ram.

Like these are all there for anybody. And this is I think some people don't know that like when you set off on one of these paths, if you're lucky enough to find a teacher, a guru, they recognize in you sort of like I guess you could say manifestations of progress. And they know when you're ready, okay, here's the next thing because they don't want to give it to you before you're ready because it will be confusing potentially, you know, dangerous in some way.

And so that's part of their job, if you want to call it that, is like knowing when the student is ready for the next step. And the, I think in most books that you find, like, you know, at least at the bookstore, it's always the first step. You know, those books give you, here's the entry-level stuff. Sure. You know, it doesn't, usually, it doesn't have within it, the next thing, which is kind of an exciting thing when you're working with someone and they give you something. And they say, and they tell you, this is between you and me, this is not for public consumption,

which is a really cool moment. Yeah, it makes it very esoteric, but also it really is like trying to teach algebra before you teach addition and subtraction. Right. And when you start to learn, when you start to go deeper into a lot of these practices, there's a ladder being built for you spiritually and what you could take. Also,

you're not going to learn these long-form mantras if you can't even do one syllable mantra of day. So you have to build up that thing. So yeah, a lot way it's taught, because it's very precise. And it kind of operates on precision. The manifest is very, you know, the engine is like very nuanced. And if one thing's out of balance, the whole thing doesn't work. That's right. That's why they teach it in that way. But you know, I think, you know, this is another interesting aspect of this stuff is that at least for me, you think you understand it or know it.

Just going into it because you've listened to some autobols or you've read some books or you've seen some documentaries and not understanding that what you're seeing is the driveway. You're not even in the like past the front gate yet. This is the driveway in and you look at that and people look at those things and draw opinions based on that. Not realizing that most people don't even know that, not realizing that most people don't even know what it actually is. Most people don't even know, they only know the most shallow end of the pool, which is, you know, really interesting to me. Looking at my thoughts on Buddhism now versus my thoughts on Buddhism, like back when I was in college, it's two different. It's the same, you know, basic RGB fundamental principles, but there's so much more that there's

no fucking way anyone could have talked to me about it because I wouldn't have understood it at all. It would have just, I would have just heard blah, blah, blah, blah. It wouldn't have made any sense at all. There's no way to get there, but through some kind of practice, there's no way. Yeah. Sometimes it's a whole life of just destroying your preconceived notion of what you thought a practice might be. You know, and if you look at it as something that's happening in many lives, which a lot of these Eastern practices are kind of this the fundamental principle of it, that you know, this is like a, you know, this is your entire existence that you're not going to stop experiencing it when you die. So, if you look at it like that, you have a whole lifetime just to even kind of rid yourself of anything that's been holding you back this lifetime. So hopefully the next lifetime, you'll be in a better position to continue on the journey. I want to thank Lumi Labs for supporting this episode of the DTFH. Guess what we got?

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you end up falling for the classic. Oh my God, it's a cookie. How could that be dangerous? It's a delicious chocolate chip cookie. Cut to you in the shower, curled up, trembling in the fetal position. You got Neil Young playing because you think it's gonna calm you down, but it's not calming you down.

It's not calming you down because you start wondering is that a, are there coded messages in this or something and then if you're lucky you fall asleep you wake up in the morning and you become one of those people who's like I don't take intervals and I don't blame you. Why would you? It's like a psychedelic demon grenade that you threw into your brain and splattered your consciousness all over the walls of your shower. I'm only saying that because if you're someone who's had that experience, I have to. Which is why I love microdose gummies.

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Links can be found at DuncanTrustle.com in the show description. But again, it's microdose.com code Duncan. I would not lead you astray. This is the rule to you. You're so lucky. But genius chemists, looming labs, have given our planet this wonderful edible treat. Thank you, looming labs. You have a whole lifetime just to even like kind of rid yourself of anything that's been holding you back this lifetime.

So hopefully the next lifetime, you'll be in a better, you know, better position to continue on the journey. Right. So, yeah. I love see that's the other thing is you know I was having a conversation with some friends the other night and they're like so you believe in reincarnation and you know there was a time when I'd be I wouldn't know how to answer that but now it's like yeah yes I do absolutely and because that perspective even even though, you know,

embudism, the emphasis is more on this, you know, this nowness of things. Like if we get too caught up in past lives or future lives or whatever, then you miss this life, which is the one you're experiencing. So worry about this one. Now, you know, with an emphasis on, because you're going to die. And when you die, you

want to have some, you want to be prepped for what that's going to be like when you don't have a body anymore so that you can, you know, maybe make us smarter. You don't want to do for your next life what you do when you get out of a shitty relationship. And like, you know, I mean, immediately like jumping to another relationship because you're lonely, which I think is like the pattern that happens when people die is they are so eager to get a body that they just dive right back in. You know, the, you know, the, you know, there's people are doing rebound lives. You know what I mean? There's no rebound.

It's like, you's no rebound. It's like, dude, you've got to like, see. Yeah. It's truth. It's 100% truth. It's funny. You know, like the reincarnation thing, what else in nature just ends, you know, and I mean, everything changes. It's constantly changing. Where there was a building, there's now a tree where there was a tree, there's now a building, you know, every season we watch the the plants produce life and die, you know, but it continues it continues it continues continues, and we're part of that continuum, the continuum, it is a continuum, it doesn't end. So this experience we're having in this body, in this, what we think is this life, it continues, no matter what, even if it's a completely different

point of view, it's going to continue. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. Right. Well, from the, you know, the hyper materialist perspective, it's like, okay, sure, like, atomically, we continue. But, you know, the argument against reagordation, I think there's like a lot of great arguments against it. Primarily prove it. You can't. I mean, I'm sure there's all the kids who like, remember their past lives. But also, I think that with reincarnation, people get confused about people like us, when we say we believe in it, because their perspective is we're again trying to come up with some again, trying to come up with some metaphysical bomb to sue the existential horror, which is the

the materialists day-to-day reality, which is like you're a fucking mistake, basically. I mean, your universe burped out your meaty, sentient ass. You don't have enough time to figure out what the fuck's going on here. And then you die in some painful, awful way. Would there be no meaning and pure absurdity in your life? And you know, so they think because that's what they believe that people like us, it's like, okay, idiots, does that make you feel better? Does it do fairy come and carry carry your show into the finishing line and give you a new body? And whereas from like, at least the Buddhist perspective

is like, we don't want that to keep happening. Like, where's that culture? We're trying to like, we recognize the fundamental suffering of this situation. And the idea is to like relinquish our attachment to always having to be in a god damn body and to get to spend on that to keep getting on the same fucking carousel like some idiot that affair, some dummy who's like, oh, good news time, I'm gonna ride the unicorn and then I'm doing a penguin and then I'll do the dragon and then I'll do the chariot

and then I'll do the horse and then you know, on and on and on, it's like it's dizzying. It's the same damn fucking loop. It's just different things you're sitting on. In this case, the different things are your body. So yeah, it's not, you know, I think that's an important note is it's like this isn't like necessarily some way out of the reality, the finality of death.

It's just pointing out that many people who think they're so logical and rational in their belief that upon the dropping of the body, there's pure absolute blissful, infinite nothingness. That's heaven. It's like that's, you believe in heaven. That's just as ridiculous as I'm. Then you go up there, there's a gate, a dude with a pen,

and you go and it's golden roads. Everybody gets a mansion and you know what I mean? It's just a different form of the same wishful thinking. Some instant mitigation of infinite lifetimes of karmic reactivity via the absolution of oblivion or some like getting a great high-rise condo in heaven. It's, you know what I mean, like both of these things are bombs. They're not mutually exclusive though, you know? It's like we're, if we learn to live

happy and content and peaceful, that if we are forced to take our next life again or pen more, we can we can approach it with like, okay, here's another one, let's do it again. Let's do the dance again, you know, it's really truly mastery, you know, it's when you master that, you know, we're like, you limit your needs, you make a very small sandwich for the God of death. You know, you don't want to be a huge feast when Mahakal is chewing you up at the end of your life. You don't want to have a ton of regrets, you don't want to have to struggle through this process. You go happily knowing that, hey, maybe there's another chance. Maybe I'll have, you know, like, maybe I'll live in a whole another amazing magical experience like this one, you know?

It's like when we get so like, oh, you know, like, I know, yeah, I want to get off this wheel. It's fucking hard, man. Every single day, nothing is easy. nothing happens without tons of effort, even more so now than ever. But it still is a magical, beautiful, wonderful place and we still have the ability to live amazing lives. Oh my God. I see it all such a gift, you know. And even the suffering can be a gift. Well, absolutely. I mean, as a parent, it's like, absolutely.

It's the greatest suffering you could have and at least from my perspective. And also, absolutely. It's the greatest suffering you could have, and at least from my perspective. And also, I think it's important to note that built into these ideas is the notion that you are, it's only the carousel, that you're only riding on the carousel. But another aspect of these practices is that you reveal to you, you're alive and dead simultaneously. Like the oblivion you're so worried about, that's you too. You're all there, you're in it. The void that Shannesthesia that saves you

from the pain of death. One of my favorite Richard Dawkins quote. It's already happening to you. So you, it's like you think you're not dying and you think you're not dead now. Bad news. Bad news for you friend. You're as dead as you've ever been. And as you always will be in the sense that the carousels have the thing for the carousel. It's been, it's got to have space around it. And it's not going to spin anymore. It's got to have space around it. And it's not going to spin anymore.

It's got to have this neutral, empty space for the building to go where the tree was, the tree to go where the building was. There has to be inertia inertia. Yes, yeah. So this it's happy you're it's happening now. And to me, that's the relief that you get. That's the where you realize, oh right, like the thing I'm afraid of, I already am.

I'm already this emptiness. It's already here now. We're part of it. We are it. We're experiencing it. It's of us. And we're like right now, this time of year is right before we celebrate two called Navaratri's one in the spring, one in the fall.

And it's the waking of consciousness and it's the putting to sleep of consciousness. It's like when the crops die. And right before it, we worship the ancestors for a number of days. And the meditation is going back to seven generations of your ancestors. So you're meditating on your grandfather's, grandfather's, grandfather's, grandfather's, grandfather, you know, stuff like that. And as you're doing it, man,

you're really starting to come into view on what part of this track you've been through this whole, you know, and how, if they took one, what you're doing is you're taking on their deaths. That's one of the, one of the mantras is like, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm here to absolve you of any karmic debt you've built up over this time. Any, any things that went unanswered, you know, any of these sends, I'm here to tie those up for seven generations. But like, and an idea is like, if one single one of those relatives took

a different turn, your life would not be the life it is right now. So you're paying a lot of this of that. And it's love that. It's a really beautiful I never meant I think my great-grandmother was the oldest that went on and that was just one of four of them, you know, that is so beautiful. It's so counter the way people the Western people like they're so pissed at their parents. They're so fucking pissed at their parents and the idea They're so pissed at their parents. They're so fucking pissed at their parents. And the idea of taking on the debt of your abusive, alcoholic, relative or whoever abused your parents to make them abuse you

or whoever abused your parents' parents, it's so beautiful because in there is some kind of forgiveness. It's like, okay, I'm not only going to like work on my own shit here, I'm going to do everything I can to alleviate you of all the bad decisions you made that made your life full of suffering and made our relationship messed up. And there is a real, that's a beautiful man. That's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard. That's incredible. It's a 5,000 year old magical formula for the prescription of seven generations of familiar abuse and trauma. You know what I love? It's built into all these traditions. What you just talked about, it shifts the me-centered attitude to how can I help? Instead of how do I help myself, which when you're

pissed at your parents, and many times rightfully pissed at your fucking parents. There's a lot of self-centeredness in it. You know what I mean? You're not thinking about them at all because you're angry at them. You the last thing you're thinking is, how do I help them? Fuck them, they abuse me, fuck them, they confuse me, fuck them.

They were narcissists. Why do I have to give a fuck about them? All this anger and right, right, I get it. But the moment you shift, you're thinking into, okay, okay, I'm going to help them. I'm going to do, I'm going to try to purify the mistakes they made because I am now paying for them anyway. You know, like if you've got trauma from your parents, you're paying for those debts, whether you like it or not. That is the experience of paying your parents debts is every day waking up sort of depressed, miserable, disconnected. Your relationships are fucked up. You had a bad model. So it's like shifting that into, okay, they were imperfect.

Now I am imperfect. They're in going back that far. You know what I mean? It's just, suddenly it just shifts that heavy sludge like feeling that comes from you're being victimized to a hero's attitude. Now you're the fucking hero because the hero saves everybody. You know the the hero does what the hero can do to save as much as possible. the Europe does what the Euro can do to save as much as possible. The last line in that meditation for the ancestors is you are the link in the healing. Wow. Wow. So it's powerful.

It's powerful to think about. And you have to come to a place where you love yourself before you're able to forgive and all the things that have happened, you know, and that's what you're constantly working on, you know. But like you said, why suffer through all those things that you've had to already suffer through, you know, to get to where you are, where the start, it's you can live beyond it, you know, there, you always can. And if you have to strive for it tenaciously, then that's, that's the work that needs to be done. Some people get it a lot easier,

you know, but everybody has dealt deals with it. Yeah. And but even, you know, like, parent, children and parents, the relationship between them, it's a very complicated, weird thing, you know? So no one's a stranger to those problems. You know, there's amplified on different levels and different frequencies, you know? Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. You, you know, and you might not have like Bukowski's childhood, where his dad was just beating him with a belt and trunk and burning him. You might just have like a parent who didn't know how to say, I love you or I'm sorry or you know, a basic shit like that.

Yeah, but it's still, you know, it's still the same pattern. Just it's the same math, just a little less extreme. Yeah. And then, you know, like we were talking about earlier, the only way to break that pattern is to repay the, you know, just to pay the debt, just to like not continue it and move on and let people know that you can become a being of love out of the most severely hateful situation. Absolutely. Because, you know, it's like, it's an interesting thing when by rejecting something, you become the thing you're rejecting via their rejection.

You know what I mean? Like, if you look at most miserable people, part of their misery is they have a vengeance plan, right? And they're reject, part of the vengeance, one of the ways they get revenge is some form of rejection of the perceived attacker. I'm punishing you by rejecting you and doing that because it's the right thing to do to teach you a lesson, and they don't realize that they've embodied the aggressive thing via the rejection that now they're mirroring. They're not, they're not, there's no transformation at all. It's just you're repeating it in a different way. And this stuff is like helping you

get out of that awful trap. It's a, you know, I just, I'm listening to this great audio book on Buddhism and they talk about the near enemy of things and the far-fetched things. The near enemy is where you don't realize that you have brought into your reality something that is destructive. And the way that it becomes the near enemy is that you have gotten confused. And you think the destructive is actually constructive. You know what I mean? So it's the most confusing because you don't even see it's destructive. That's the near enemy. The far enemy is like the obvious stuff that is easy to see. That's fucked up. I'm not going to do that. That's bad. Or the near enemies are the ones that get us. And my God, talk about near enemies.

That's your bad thing. Damn. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The nearest, the closest, the ones that know you the best are the most dangerous. You know, when do you do that practice? When, when does that start up? I've started it. It's been in about five days and it goes to Navaratri, which is the end of, or it's another like 10 days. So be about 14 days of doing it. Wow. You mean you've been doing the creativity one is 48 days, which is usually, I think we might have talked about this once before, they're called sun culpas. So, sun culpas means a determination. So you make a termination that you're going to do this mantra for this long. So this one I'm doing is for 48 days, and then the ancestors one is 14 days within that and just starts before it. in there and just starts before it. Gotcha. Okay.

Another question that I have for you. I just read this, I don't know. I had no idea that in Japan, if you have tattoos, you're a fucking outcast. You can't go to the spa, you can't go here, you can't go there. They don't like tattoos. No, I had no idea So I was wondering is there like does that show up like with your guru and And what you do

Putting this beautiful art on people's bodies is this considered Haram? No, no, not at all. Actually, there is a mystical tattooing that exists in the Tantras. You know, it's a tattooing of the body of mystical symbols. A lot of folk cultures in India practice tattooing. And that's kind of in tandem with a lot of their spiritual beliefs. Okay. In Japan, I know about this because I'm a tattoo artist for those, anyone listening that doesn't know that, that's why I do for a living.

I know a little bit of the history. It's because it's associated with organized crime with the Yakuza. That's why. And the thing is, the country politically can't get behind it, but underground is the coolest thing ever. And there's bath houses for people with tattoos. And the Yakuza bath houses, you know, Japanese mafia bath houses is going to be like probably the coolest, most insane bath house you're ever going to go to, you know, like, oh, it's not, I want to fuck up the issues of bath houses

because there's probably some shit I won't do or what you have to tell it. Next thing, you know, when I'm drunk of a car. What I'm saying though is that the Japanese tattoo culture has informed the entire world of aesthetically out of principle. There's a whole art, there's a whole canon of design that goes along with it and it's in step with the Japanese woodcutting art. So, you know, like, you know, it's just a it's a rich history that has only been in the last maybe hundred years where it's been come like, you know, that's it they just associated with organized crime and then it has this it carries it's hard there. But yeah, but yeah, so most there's always, you know, in the United States, it's been banned in certain cities over time, you know, it's always kind of the wrong side of the tracks, kind of city,

underworld, but obviously now it's popular, there's 10 TV shows about it, and, you know, it's right now a slow time for the business, just because everything's slowing down. But it's one of the more popular ways of commercial are currently, you know, most artists I know who make a living commercially are tattoo artists, you know, like visual artists. I mean, okay. We have a few minutes left. I, and I'm sorry, I even asked this, but you know, I've had this fantasy of you giving me a tattoo forever. And something got in the way that fantasy. I saw a picture of lymph nodes that had tattoo ink in them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That happens. Yeah. Yeah. He's Christ.

That wouldn't happen. It wouldn't happen to you from one tattoo. It happens to people that have like three layers And like you using like you know, it's it's a heavily regulated industry But there's still people just putting you know, you can buy shit on fucking Amazon tattoo machine and tattoo ink. You don't know what's in it and just tattoo people. You know, and that happens all the time. So it's done. If it's done properly, and you have one tattoo, I think you'll be safe. Yeah. Also, I'm an old man who gives a fuck, right? I don't have that much long. I say it all the time, you might not need a tattoo. Like, you know, people, a lot of times people say, I don't have any or whatever.

And, you know, if you haven't gotten one yet, maybe you just didn't need one. I have one. You know, it's not a requirement. I have a tattoo. I have a dot in my solar plexus that they put for the radiation machine to blast one of my lymph nodes. I already have a tattoo and that's always been, I've been like, oh, we got to finish this

tattoo. Like they just put one dot, you know, we got to expand that thing a little bit. It's like a, the dumbest tattoo. It's like a tattoo you get at a slumber party with a pen, which my idiot friends would do and jam the fuck pin into your stuff. Well, it's a it's a survivor's tattoo. So I think it's it's probably one of the coolest ones. I know that we could talk about a minute or you cut or you coming out to so deltia to you, him.

Yeah, I would love to. Right. Yeah, I got some stuff going on the night before, but I think I'm going to make it if I'm there the whole weekend. So any day. Awesome. Great. Yeah. I want to come. And folks listening who want to visit your shop, how booked are you right now? Is it tough to get in there? No, it's really easy right now. I was like I was saying a little bit earlier. It's it's a our slow-over time of year. So you can come to As bit earlier, it's a, it's a, our slow retirement year or so. You can come to Asbury Park, Electric Tattoo,

and come get a tattoo from me. I'm gonna get a tattoo and get some of the greatest conversation you've ever had in your life while you're getting the tattoo by someone who's chanting a variety of secret mantras when they're not giving tattoos, A.K.A. the coolest person ever. Ha, ha, ha, ha. It is so great catching up with you, man. I love you and I'm so happy

your friends. Thank you for doing the show. Oh, man, it's always a pleasure and thank you so much for having me and we'll talk soon. I'll see you in Philadelphia. See you in Philadelphia. Awesome. Bye. All the links you need to find Robert are going to be a Dunkin Trussell dot com. What's your website? Robert Ryan dot com. I don't even think I have a website at this point. Instagram is probably the best way to find me. The shop has a website electric tattoo NJ dot com. Okay, great. Beautiful. All right. Howdy Krishna. Howdy Krishna. We interrupt this commercial break for an important news bulletin. Desiardin Insurance was spotted downtown helping everyone in its path, unpredictable weather, fallen tree branches,

wayward baseballs flying towards second story windows. Desiardin Insurance is helping Canadians through it all. Is there nothing this large and friendly ally won't do for neighbors in need? Never before have we seen insurance with our hearts so big it shows. Dazardin Insurance, home and auto, learn more at Dazardin.com-slashheart. Toyo Tires provide traction, safety and comfort. From Toyos Observe Winter Tires to the Celsius and Open Country Lines of All Weather Tires, Toyo has a cold weather solution for you.

Toyo Tires, Making Tires for Your Road. Find your nearest Toyo dealer by visiting tirediscountergroup.ca slash locations. That was Robert Ryan everybody. Other links you need to find them will be at DunkinTrustle.com. If you do get a tattoo from Robert Ryan, I want you to send me a picture of it. He's an incredible artist and if you're lucky enough to have him put some art onto you, I want to see it. Thank you to our sponsors and as always, a big some art onto you. I wanna see it. Thank you to our sponsors,

and as always, a big thank you to you for listening. I'll see you next week. Until then, Hare Krishna. We interrupt this commercial break for an important news bulletin. Desjardin Insurance was spotted downtown, helping everyone in its path, unpredictable weather, fallen tree branches, wayward baseballs flying toward second-story

windows. Desjardin Insurance is helping Canadians through it all. Is there nothing this large and friendly ally won't do for neighbors in need? Never before have we seen insurance with our hearts so big it shows. Desjardin Insurance, home and auto, learn more at Desjardin.com slash heart. Toyo Tires provide traction, safety and comfort. From Toyos observe winter tires to the Celsius and open country lines of all weather tires, Toyo has a cold weather solution for you. Toyo Tires, making tires for Your Road. Find your nearest Toyo dealer by visiting

tirediscountergroup.ca slash locations. Tirediscountergroup.ca