Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 593: Trudy Goodman & Jack Kornfield

Episode Date: December 11, 2023

Trudy Goodman & Jack Kornfield, two of Duncan's favorite teachers on earth, re-join the DTFH! Jack Kornfield is one of the top spiritual teachers on earth, and his books are life-changing. You can learn more and see his entire catalog on JackKornfield.com. Trudy Goodman was one of the most sought-after therapists at Cambridge and is one of the leading spiritual teachers in the world today. She leads spiritual retreats around the world, which you can find on her website, TrudyGoodman.com. Original music by Aaron Michael Goldberg. This episode is brought to you by: Uncommon Goods - Visit UncommonGoods.com/Duncan for 15% Off your first order! FÜM - Visit TryFUM.com and use code DUNCAN at checkout to get 10% Off your first order!

See your uncle on the couch, got him or then he just passed out See your mom and brother fight, will he make it through the night It's the holidays again, and you are doing fine my friend Even if you think you're not, you're doing better than that Prashing through the veil of time You came like a cannon ball One day the score all makes sense Until the disc forgiven all Forgive your aunt for a sticky forest

Forgive your dad for not liking your art Forgive yourself for wanting to kill The family dog and throw it in a well. It's the holidays again and you are doing fine. My friend, even if you think you're not, you're doing better than that. That's Tamson Greer's holiday classic. It's the holidays, my friend. Speaking of holidays, I want to tell you all the good things that I've been doing.

I just got back from a soup kitchen where I was giving delicious gravy soup to so many hungry people. After that, I was with help a lad wrap a gift and I helped a lad wrap a gift, which was a beautiful experience. A lot of lads don't know how to do proper gift wrapping. They get the corners wrong.

After that, I was at the Austin trolley ride for fundamentally dissatisfied humans gave trolley rides to fundamentally dissatisfied people. They didn't like the trolley rides that much, but it's good to just try. And of course, I did the annual Austin hand job thing down in the park. Lots of hand jobs were given out.

And that was an incredible experience for all involved. I hope you are out there doing good deeds, most importantly filming those good deeds and putting them on your social media to get those likes and views. People really love watching other people do good deeds. I've noticed, speaking of good deeds, two of my favorite teachers on earth did a good deed by spending an hour with me for this episode of the DTFH Jack Cornfield and Trudy Goodman are here with us today. Before we dive into what might be the best DTFH of the year,

let me plug some dates. I'm gonna be at the Comedy Zone in Charlotte, North Carolina, December 14th through the 16th. After that, I'm at the Comedy Works downtown, January 11th through the 13th. And then January 25th through the 27th, you can find me at the Helium Comedy Club in Indianapolis.

All those tickets can be found at DunkinTrustle.com. I've also got a Patreon. If you had over to Patreon.com for its last DTFH and subscribe, you'll get commercial free episodes of the DTFH. And we hang out as much as possible. I want it to be once a week, but sometimes we don't make it every week. You can hang out as much as possible. I wanted to be once a week, but sometimes we don't make it every week. You can hang out with us. We have a meditation that we do, a family gathering, and most importantly, you will be hanging out with some

of the most brilliant, beautiful, powerful people on the earth. Trudy Goodman was one of the most sought after therapists at Cambridge. She's also one of the leading spiritual teachers around the day. She gives retreats all over the world, but perhaps most importantly, she was Trudy, the love barbarian on the midnight gospel. You can find everything you need to know about her out of connect with her by going to trudygoodman.com. Jack Cornfield is also one of the top spiritual teachers on earth.

His books are life changing. I highly recommend starting with a path with heart or just go to jackcornfield.com. There are lots of free teachings that you can get there, lots of meditation practice you can get there. And if you want to do a weekly group with Trudy, she does one every single week, you can find that at TrudyGoodman.com. But now everybody, please welcome back to the DTFH Trudy Goodman and Jack Cornfield. It's the dumping trust of the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, Jack and Trudy, welcome.

So can you tell everybody where we're recording from right now? Yeah, hi everybody. We are recording from Ramdosa's study on Maui in Hawaii and it's actually on the north shore near Haiku but what's really cool I'm going to show you is see that portrait of Ramdoth behind me that's his chair or he spent much of his time he would sit in that chair and gaze out the window where he would look at. I don't know if you can see. He was amazing. He was at the trees and the sky and the ocean and he could see. He loved looking at the clouds. Today it's all blue sky. Some white caps on the ocean. A papaya tree in the foreground.

on the ocean, up a pia tree in the foreground. And you can see, wait, I'm going to move my head so you can see his, a picture of his teacher, his guru, named Karole Baba, they're big on the wall. And see that plaid, it looks like a massage table, that tuck it, is where Ramdas, well he used to get all his massages there, and it's where he was laid out after he died. And so that blanket and you can see there's some fruit on there. It stays decorated with fruits and flowers every day as a kind and and it's really it's amazing that you can his presence was so strong and he spent so much time in here that you can really you can really feel it you can feel it. Yeah it is it's it's like just being in a very still deep well of love.

Wow. You this is this is his this is, too. I'll just show more. The kids are behind delken. Oh, he's behind you, too. Yeah. We got back. Well, I don't know if you would call my studio a deep well of love. Unfortunately, it's a well of chaos, but sometimes love pops in here and there. But it looks like Maharajini and Coralie Bob that is laughing. So chaos was like, you can go with that.

Yeah, I like that picture, because he's sort of twinkling. His eyes are twinkling. When there's something, you know, when Ramdas passed, it made me think about something that is, to me, really disconcerting. And I think I may have mentioned this during a podcast in front of the retreat, and he, in a funny way, mocked me for it, but I still don't feel like it's that funny, which is that, you know, the hard questions they call it, the Disciplix Succession, the sort of transmission gets passed from teacher to student to on and on and on.

But when the teachers die, it's really a scary moment. Because you and Jack and all the teachers that there are treats and all the teachers that I know of, you know, any time it crosses my mind that at some point you won't be in your bodies anymore. I don't get some kind of spiritual feeling at all. Just a kind of a die, don't get that. I hope not. I'm really sorry.

Came on this podcast. I'm sorry bad news. Duncan, this is bad news. I don't want you to. The eight Duncan. What's that? I said, we're only 78. Come on.

Only 78. You're still spring chickens. I'm saying, you know, based on where things are going with AI, protein, folding, the injections will probably have the rejuvenators completely. Maybe you'll make it to 500. But still, you know, maybe you too could talk about that, because I know that you have experienced the loss of your teachers, including Ramdas.

And maybe you can talk a little bit about what that felt like to you. And do you feel some responsibility? Is there a sense of having to move this knowledge forward into the world to honor them? Yes, there is that sense. But I don't experience it as a sense of responsibility as much as It doesn't feel like a should like I should do this I'm responsible for doing this which would be like a kind of

Theoretical idea put on top of my experience for me. It feels like a generous Natural generosity like wow this this changed my life this helped me so much Why wouldn't I want to share it with other people and I think that's the impulse that a lot of people have to teach like this is so meaningful to me and out of love for life and everyone and the knowledge that if Everybody could open their hearts and experience their belonging to each other, the world would be a much different place. So it's really that impulse, I think.

Right. For me. And here we are at Ramdha's house, which has turned into a little temple or ashram, and there's this community of people who come and stay here. You can come and stay for a while. There are little places, little cottages here. And so the spirit of Ramdha is still quite palpable here, as well as his books and things like that, and Trudier.

And I were in San Francisco with Tiktahan toward the end of his life. He had a huge stroke and we would go in in the morning and there would be a meditation circle sitting in. He would be brought in a wheelchair. He couldn't speak. He could hardly move even one arm. And afterward we were sitting in the kitchen with one of his senior nuns. And I said, there was supposed to have been a big Tick-N-Hon retreat down at his center in San Diego, but now he won't be able to teach there is anybody gonna go.

And she said, oh, it's over full. I said, I said, wow, and she said, he taught us that we are him and he is us. So we don't need his body there. We are Tiktok Han coming together and expressing the liberation of the heart and the timeless teachings Tiktok Han said, you can look for me. I didn't die.

I was never born, right? King, if they're in the wrong direction. And that it was a beautiful moment to say he taught us when you're him. So then nothing gets lost. Right. Yes. What is that though? If you had to define it, what is that thing that isn't lost? Love, awakening consciousness, which is what we are. Consciousness is born into this body. You're not clearly not your body, you know,

because it keeps changing form, right? And you're certainly not your emotions. We hope, right? And you're your thoughts that would be worse. Right? So who are you? You are the one that's aware. You are the awareness itself. And being awareness, that's outside of time. If you go in the bathroom and you look in the mirror, right? And you notice that you've aged. This is pretty common for people.

Yeah. But the weird thing that people also Experiences that they don't necessarily feel older like it gets older at sags or it loses its fur all that stuff But you go well look what happened to it because you know when you look in the room that some part of you is the witness of it is the awareness Is the consciousness itself. Which does not change. Like we teach change and impermanence, and like Jack said, he's looking the mirror, look at your kids.

You know, you set me, this is really this beautiful photograph of a child asleep in the car seat, and then a baby in the car seat next to it. And, you know, next to him. Yeah, yeah. Next to him. Well, maybe he wants to choose his own pronouns when he can. But anyway, those were my kids, by the way.

I just took some pictures of some random kids. So I left in their car. And I know you're okay. Well, whatever, whoever kids they are, they're kids. And if you look at kids over time, they change. If you have any doubt, if you can't see it in your own face, looking in the mirror, just watch children. Their teeth fall out.

They get new teeth. They get, you know, everything's changing. Yes, everybody understands that. But there is something that doesn't seem to change. And that's consciousness itself, awareness itself. The contents of awareness are always changing. But I really resonate with your question of how do I tap into that when the teachers are gone. And Ron did it by, he surrounded himself with pictures of his teacher, so he would remember. And he used his imagination and the powers, I mean, we have these amazing powers with our brains.

You know, we can move our attention around, we can imagine things that can be very real. And to the unconscious part of our minds, imagining something is exactly the same as experiencing it, you know, in real time. Right. So he's surrounded himself with all these reminders. That's one way. There's a teacher love, serve, remember. It's hard to remember.

Hard to remember. It's hard to remember. Hard to remember. But this the the witness, op-men, or there's so many different names for it. I want to talk about something peculiar that I've discovered in like, you know, recognizing that aspect of identity or that thing that identity is within. And it's just what you said, you know, one of the things I have not heard as much about in parenting is the grief that happens not, you know, if something terrible happens to the child, but when the baby goes away and then the toddler goes away, and then the toddler goes away, and then the seven-year-old goes away. And the major goes away and you're really grateful.

Ha-ha-ha-ha. That's what I hear too. You know, there's this beautiful, I don't know. I wish I could, it's a piano, I don't know what the style of classical music is called Jim N'ipedia. And I know y'all, if I played it for you, it would recognize that it's very sweet.

Yes, I did. Yes, I did. And I was, I'm so fascinated by it that I was looking it up. Like, what does this mean? What's this about? And there's theories that it was based on a poem that was about light, I think, in the

late afternoon on bricks, slowly fading out. And so in that song, it captures that it's a beautiful song. It's so sweet, but it also captures this kind of sadness. It's poignant. Poignant. It's got that sweet, poignant quality. Yes. No, I know. And that, you know, what you're talking about, Duncan, I have It's poignant. Poignant. Poignant. Poignant their hair. You can smell when you walk through the classrooms in school. Yeah. It's why they had purity and their their

bio starts to smell like that. I know the smell. There's these increasing separations. You know, you're a nursing mom and your baby is so close and you hold her against your heart. So she can hear your heartbeat and then she starts to be able to walk and she can walk away from you. And maybe she's not nursing anymore. And that intimacy is lost. But father always turns around and checks in. They don't go to the car. always turns around and checks in. They don't go to our, they turn around and check in.

Yeah. Uh, you know, and then we get to where they don't do that anymore. Yeah. So it's increasing degrees of separation. And it is, I really am happy you brought this up. There is Greek associated. It's like these increasing losses, which we celebrate. Oh my gosh, they learn to walk. Oh, they learn to ride their little bike. Oh, they learn to read.

I mean, right? Yeah. All of these things. And children, I feel like children intuitively know it, I feel like children intuitively know it. Like before they make a big developmental step, some milestone like learning to read, or learning to go to the toilet. They usually regress. They go through a period, maybe those people wetting their bed before they read, or do you know they'll go through a period of regress?

Yeah. They like they know. This episode of the DTFH has been supported by Squarespace. Squarespace is your go to zone. If you wanna make anything on the worldwide web, they have an incredible toolbox that you can use to build a beautiful website in almost minutes.

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Like before they make a big developmental step, some milestone, like learning to read or learning to go to the toilet. They usually regress. They go through a period, maybe they'll stop wetting their bed before they read or do know they'll go through a period of regress. Yeah. You like they know. They sort of, you know, it's like my granddaughter when she was, I guess she was around three.

Her brother was a few months old. He'd been nursing for a while. It was driving her nuts because she had stopped nursing but kind of wished she hadn't. Right. She was holding her dolls like this to her breast. And then she came to a realization. And she said, it's okay. Because when I'm a baby again, it'll be my turn again. Whoa. Wow. That's beautiful. That is, they're so tuned in. They just know. They're already aware of things that most people forget and rediscover. But this, see, this is the, I don't mean to like throw a monkey wrench into this beautiful

conversation, but having caught glimpses of the witness and what I like to imagine. It's like, oh, this is what they're talking about. This is emptiness. This is it. If I can't hold it very long, it's not stable. I want to, when it appears, it's wonderful. But there's a kind of confrontation that seems to be happening between that untainted, perfect, pure reality. And all this other shit inside of me that is generally like angry like when I like sati Probably had a kid or I don't saw someone's kid and recognize this bitter sweet Thing that is happening and composes this beautiful song

All I feel is pissed. Like in Wuromda's died, I just felt pissed. Like I just get mad at it. And that seems completely unethetical to those glimpses I've caught of what I think must be emptiness. And it's the thing where once you catch it, it's gone. But when you know, you know that there's this sudden remission of the neurosis of it. It's like, this is it, such a relief.

And then there it is again. And then in that place, I don't know. I don't have an enlightened, like, bone in my body when it comes to dealing with the confluence of this seemingly perfect state and everything else where they meet where my ocean touches the beach is not like a happy place. It seems to be at odds with it. And I'm sorry for going on and on, but maybe I would love it if y'all could help me understand what that is, or does that sound like anything you've heard before?

So Duncan, one of the kind of almost miraculous things about hanging out with Rambdas, and today we're talking about Rambhas because we're sitting in his seat in his study. One of the most beautiful things that was said after he died, we were part of these memorials for him. And Krishna Doss who goes around the country chanting and many people love his teaching and his work, described how he had first met Ramdhas when Ramdhas was fresh off the boat So to speak back in his guru when they went to India and Ramos had his Beard in his white robe and was very kind of like a prophet and

Christian does said at the memorial he said the beautiful thing is that round us became the person We thought he was when we first met him. Right. It's gorgeous because he, you know, he had a, he was brilliant and witty and deep, but he also, as he, part of his specialty, was to reveal his neurosis as he were doing. And then laugh at it. That was the other little trick we'd be near him. And we'd go, he'd say, I fell out of the course and you'd go, we all fell out of the course.

Thank you, Robert. Yeah. And he became so loving that when the experience is that you describe the poignancy of life, that we are married to a dying animal or chained to the eyes. I think that's oh it's a line. He would say you've got to love that. Remember your, your mooded nature, your true nature and your social security number, take care of your body, you know, and remember that it's just temporary. And so you're describing it and you're describing the anger underneath anger. There's

usually fear or pain on the face. So yeah, so there's loss or pain. And he would say, I love it. It means we really love life. And he wouldn't try to take it away or judge it. He said, that's how much we love it all. We love it all. We are. So you're giving us this deep spiritual teaching, even though you don't know it. But that's why we need each other. That's why we have Sangha, Satsang, community, listeners, you know, that we connect

with. That's why we need each other because you can't see it in yourself. I can't see it in myself. I think you can see it in yourself. All right. Well, we see it in myself, of course. Yeah. But also, excuse me. Also, I want to say, I see the evil all the time, dear. It's divine, yes. Yes. But I interrupted you, sorry, dear. You should be very smart.

Men do, yes. Yes. What was like, okay, what I was going to say that I really felt when you were talking, when you were talking about your anger in this place where the ocean, I love that image, the ocean where it meets the beach is not a happy place. To me that is exactly the kind of description that I was talking about where before kids make a developmental leap there's sort of a regression. Before you make that leap into being able to catch a glimpse of the big mind, the vast consciousness that, you know, we're all a manifestation of you get mad because you're feeling so locked into we all get locked into.

Yes. No reactivity and the fact that we're not divine. Yes. I don't still define there's no divine bone in my body blah blah blah. Right? Yes. It's that same and that anger or that grief, it actually is then it becomes kind of like a clue or a signal. Oh wow, I'm actually longing to be connected to that which is within myself. And that longing is, that's another expression of devotion or bopty or the surrender that we get to come to, that we get to come to when we're opening our hearts

because it's too miserable, live with them closed. Right, right. Yeah, I see what you're saying. It's just, and you know, yes, that is a description of it. And it's very frustrating. I probably like, I remember, you know, one of my earliest memories is learning to walk. And I remember how attuned I was to being on carpet or brick. And because brick, you fall on brick, it hurts a lot more than carpet.

So I would go on Remember that it's a brief flickering memory of being so frustrated walking on brick knowing I was inevitably was gonna wipe out and it was gonna hurt but It's something like that. It's it's you you what formerly was this was just me just this pissed off Dude and I was pissed. Suddenly now there's a little vacation, a micro vacation from that. And then there, there, and, but this is where the self becomes fragmented because now great. So now I'm at war with my, now I'm at war with myself. And now I am rejecting that part of myself, which seems completely the opposite of everything I've read. So that brings me to the next question, which is, if emptiness is love, or if, as you've said, Jack, if this thing remains in place of Brahmedos's body is love,

in place of Ramdha's body is love. Then what's the other stuff? What is the anger? Like, what is, is it a energy blockage? What would be the description of all those modalities that seem to block or divert from experiencing that big mind that you mentioned. I'm listening to you with a lot of sympathy because you joined the zillions of people who were trying to figure this out.

Right? Like, why is it this way? What is the meaning? How do we put, you know, the timeless and form, the fact that we are born and we live in these limited bodies? How do we put them together? The Buddha's response was to say, those are the questions that Buddhists don't answer. I only answer one question. I answer the question of, how do we suffer? Or it caught question of how do we suffer or it caught and how do we come free or love. That's the only thing I speak to the rest of it. He said, you're just in your mind when you do that. I want to live in a way that's love

and free. So you're naming this universal question. And instead of trying to figure it out, he would say, take a deep breath, drop into your body right now. Here these sounds, it's a mystery, the fact that I can shape my cheeks, make vibrations, then get picked up by the microphone and go through you know Kazaak stand on its way and the internet come out and this speaker vibrates

into the little thing in your ear does and then your brain goes and I say picture Rondas writing on an elephant in Bodhgaya right and you convey the completely insane that it exists at all. Yeah. And that by completely, and we kind of forget, we think we're real in some more solid way, and it's just a mystery. So here we are, I forget even where I started. There isn't an answer to it.

There's a reality. And when we claim a lot and want to figure it out and make it this way, and don't like that our babies are going to grow up by the way they look at you and say, what are you nuts? I want to grow up. They do. I want to drive. What do I get my life's so?

But this is just, this is what incarnation is. And so you can marvel at it. And more deeply, you can love it because Knowing that it's tentative knowing that that baby you hold your rest isn't going to be nursing, you know in 25 years It's just not going to happen Makes it you make it beautiful. It makes it so special that each day each moment becomes like, wow, look at what the mystery is giving me. And instead of the grasping, there's a sense of freedom and love. And Rambas grew into love for everything. You know, the stained carpet on his floor. I love it.

I love that it got stained because, you know, it means we used it and it served us and everything was something to love. All right. Yeah. The Trudy and Rafa. I know. And Trudy and Wambas would kind of, but their arms are out each other and snuggle up and just dissolve into love. He loved that. He really, yeah, yeah. And I love that too because he wasn't, it wasn't about transcending our physicality, it wasn't about transcending our humaneness,

it was really about embracing all of it. The, you know, the angry, messed up, Why can't I experience Nirvana 24, seven, yourself? And just what it is to be a human being, it brings so much compassion, Duncan, yeah, so much compassion. Like, oh my God, this is what we live through. Trudy, here's a question for you in the same vein of what we're talking about. Well, Trudy, here's a question for you in the same vein of what we're talking about. When do you need therapy? Like, at what point is it, is it, is it, uh, is it time for therapy versus time for meditation? At what point is it time? Wait, wait, whatever it is that you're experiencing within your field of awareness?

When is it time to go to a doctor? Because, you know, for me, like, I, I, I'd spent the only spiritual, with a real spiritual advice Ramdas gave me was you need a therapist and I didn't listen to him. I, because I didn't want that. I wanted the mantra. I wanted some, you know, magical thing. And then I finally went to a therapist. It was one of the best things I ever did. But in, I'm written and I realized, oh, he wasn't joking. Like he was like, he knew therapy, which I did. But when do we know that it's not?

I think that's a great question. It's a great question, Duncan. And I want to also just say, you know, hats off, thanks for your courage to go to therapy. It's not easy thing to go to therapy. I wasn't. You know, the key is magic, what you said. We want the magical solution that, like, you know,

the magic wand that will banish our demons and will just be all cool and happy and calm and centered because that's what meditation does. Yeah, meditation allows you to be centered in the middle of whatever experience you're having. It may not be a good one either. Right. It be where the ocean meets each.

But the question of when do you need therapy? First of all, I just want to make a sort of, I don't know, a bid for both meditation and therapy. As a sicker, you do both. Is so powerful. And therapy is, like let's just look at say when you're meditating you have all these thoughts. And in meditation, you know, we let them go or we do a mantra, we do a practice that helps us drop down before that thinking and not be just lost in it.

In therapy, that thinking, you look at the content of it. You don't just look at the process of how thoughts arise and that's a way what helps you drop in to another dimension of your being that isn't ruled by thinking. In therapy, you look at the content of those thoughts and you start to see your patterns, your emotional reactivity

and you come to understand, I think therapy really also helps you understand the kind of attention you received when you were young from your caregivers and how that molded your own personality and thinking and emotional patterns. Thank you, Better Elp, for supporting this episode of the DTFH. Regardless of your families, gift-giving tradition, the best gift you can give yourself and probably your family is therapy.

So whether it's starting therapy, going easier on yourself during the tough moments or treating yourself to a day of complete rest, remember to give yourself some love, this holiday season. It just so happens that we've been talking about therapy on this episode, but I'm telling you guys, it's one of the best things I ever did for myself.

And I hope that if you have been contemplating it, that this pushes you over the edge, or off the edge, depending on what your edge happens to be. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give better help, a try. It's entirely online designed to be convenient, flexible're thinking of starting therapy, give better help and try. It's entirely online designed to be convenient, flexible and suited to your schedule. You just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist. You can switch therapists

anytime for no additional charge. And the season of giving, give yourself what you need with better help. Visit betterhelp.com slash Duncan today to get 10% off your first month. That's better help, h-e-l-p.com slash Duncan. Thank you, better help. I think therapy really also helps you understand the kind of attention you received when you were young from your caregivers and how that molded your own personality and thinking and emotional patterns. You know, I'll give you, and that's really important because when you understand them, you feel compassion for yourself. Instead of just resisting and fighting and we know that when you resist something, it persists. What you resist persists, it gives it power. You pour energy into it, even if you're eating it.

But just to give you a little example, like I saw once, my parents have passed away long gone, but I was visiting them once as a young adult and they were showing some home movies. And I saw a movie of my mom with me as a baby on her knee. And she was kind of jiggling me and talking to her sister in this home movie. And then everyone's in a while, you know, I was just there, baby. And she would just sort of turn to me and look at me and kind of tickle me

And then she would go back to her sister and talk and I I God, oh my gosh. This is what happens in my meditation I'm just quiet. I'm just being there and then something swoops in anxious being there and then something swoops in with this anxious interruption. Wow. I call these thoughts swoopers. Wow. Then a swooper comes because my mom was suddenly anxious like oh are you okay? Yeah. Yeah. She's been in her conversation. So even in that one little frame of a home movie

I saw a pattern of my own consciousness echoed in the care I received. Wow. Brings a lot of compassion, compassion for my mom, because that was the way she knew how to, I mean, she didn't really trust that I was okay if I wasn't crying. She had to keep kind of intruding. And you know, like, and compassion for the baby who was just being fine and then so got rattled.

Oh my God. You know, this confirms. These are the kind of things you learn about understanding in your therapy. You don't have to go back to infancy, but that's just a little tiny example. See, we have email accounts set up for the kids, and I think I'm going to do it. I've thought about it. I'm not that's too dark, but I've thought about sending them emails like for your therapist, this happened today. In case you forget, this is what we did. And I'm so sorry, but you can bring this to your therapist when you're an adult and have a clear picture, at least from my perspective, of what happened. Your mom was wrong again, and I was right, as usual.

what happened. Your mom was wrong again and I was right as usual. Of course and that would be very important except that what really is healing and therapy is not remembering the specifics of what happened to you. What's really healing and therapy is the emotional tone, the atmosphere you lived in and that your therapist has a loving relationship with you. So whatever parts of you that, you know, didn't get the love you need, or the attention you deserved, they can be healed in relationship with your therapist. Wow. That's cool.

Forget about your parenting crimes. We've all had them. Okay. Okay. Thank you. It's a really resilient. There's resilient. Yeah. I mean, we always talked about putting money in my daughter's therapy fund from when she was little. Sure. We think we're good parents, but we know she's going to need this. But, you know, part of what makes that synergy Trudy is talking about of therapy and meditation

is if it's good therapy, therapy is like a paired meditation. Because you sit and if you get quiet, a lot of stuff doesn't even come up. You get spacious, peaceful. But when you're in relationship with somebody, all of a sudden, those patterns become more apparent or revealed. And with what Trudy described with the therapist who basically loves and accepts you and says, all right, let's understand what's under the hood here, all the two get caught in. You can't often, you can't do that alone. Right, you actually need somebody else outside. And then in that paired meditator,

they say, pay attention to this. You're meditating. This is a paired meditation. Now, how are you holding this aversion, anger, you stuck in it, a whole no, all that with kindness and see, oh, that was your way of surviving. Thank you. Thank you.

And then this tenderness grows and you're like, oh, I've done this. I've survived. I can do it. Right. We each other in some way. I mean, maybe it's like the poor man's goo or something like that in our modern modern therapy. I don't think that's therapy. You guys are like couple. I mean, you know, you can diss your work if you want.

But mine is not, you know, the lesser vehicle or the lesser teaching. And I feel like, and yours isn't either. I guess, you know, I feel like therapy is what one of my teachers called a bridge to the absolute therapy is like what gets you out of the sand and into the water. Yes. And then once you're in the water, you get all the meditation teachings about how to swim. But I feel like, do you see what I mean? That's the thing. No offense, Jack. I'm on board with you, Trudy. When I got therapy and realized that this was having

such a profound effect on my life, on my relationship, with Aaron, on my ability to parent, I honestly was like a little annoyed with the spiritual stuff because it did it did not do that the meditation to the psychedelics did not do that. But just a few months of this like EMDR trauma therapy and it was I'm still it was a permit change like it you know it really like got some dust out from under the bed I didn't even know it's there

So yeah, your question when do you need therapy? I would say you need therapy when you're Your emotions or your patterns of relationship are interfering with your ability to have a relationship with another human being Or your inability to do your work to learn and succeed at work. Yes, yes. When you can't do those things, you need help and meditation. You can meditate your ass off, and it's not going to change your relationship patterns. In fact, I was talking the other day with a really, really fine meditation teacher who was saying that they had absolutely ruined a new relationship with their rage and that they knew that they had to go back to therapy.

Yes. I'm so down with that. And I think it's a trap. You can get stuck in because therapy is, like, meditation's not easy, but therapy. Oh, every time I went to that therapist, I almost drove out of the parking lot with some excuse. I was so good at coming up with excuses

to not go in there and I was always glad I did. Okay, okay, I have another question. We've got about 20 minutes left. Well, something, because, you know, I made a joke at the expense of something that I don't even believe it's not just poor man, although the truth is, as a therapist, which both of us have done for years, decades, I wanted in some way to not only be there, but in another way, you know, Rambas would talk about his guru and how his guru would gaze at him, being able to read his mind, which, you know, I can intuit things with his complete off the

chart level, and love him completely anyway. Rondas was shocked by that. Somebody who could know all that and still love me. And actually that is part of the dance of being a good therapist. It's actually embody that in some fashion, rather that wisdom and to do it in that dance. So it was a false separation that I made. And in fact, when I was early on as a teacher, 40, 50 years ago when I was first starting,

because I had also done, or was finishing my PhD in clinical psychology, I got a lot of flack about therapy by from all these people who said, yeah, sitting in Zazen, and so that will do it, from all these people who said, yeah, you know, sitting Zazen and so that would or these Tibetan or this teravada, but that's what the Buddha taught. That's low-class Dharma to go to therapy, you know. So I got a lot of flak. Now, I could tell you the names of the therapists of most of the senior teachers in America.

Like us, they discovered, oh yeah, whoops. What I discovered, I came back from the monastery and I was so calm and so pure-hearted and then I got into a relationship. And all the old habits and patterns that didn't happen in the monastery. Oh, our God, it's all still here. It's so frustrating. It's so close to deposit. And that pairing that Trudy talked about actually, you know, it saved me. But you have to have done your own work. And that takes a lot of courage. It takes a lot of courage, say, to be life in the form of Duncan, sharing all of who you are

with your listeners. And that's what people love about you. And that's what I love about you. And I love the people that come to my Sunday morning group because of you. And it takes courage, takes courage to meditate because, let's say you haven't had therapy, you may meditate and discover things that are troubling because you're taking the time to actually be with yourself honestly I think both meditation and therapy make you feel worse first before you feel better but it's like that anger you have

it's like that same anger that becomes the source of I don't want to be like this I want to you know I want to let it go. Yeah. The other thing about therapy that I want to say is that I don't really works with spiritual practice too, but I don't know how to, I didn't, I didn't know how to get to that without therapy. I felt way too crazy in my 20s to do deep meditation. I had to have therapy first. And you think that when you have something you hate about yourself or your life, that it would be easy to let it go.

You have an addiction or you just whatever hates some part of yourself, that it would be easy to let it go. But again, that hatred or that aversion actually makes it stick around longer. It's sort of like kids, you know, you're too young, but when your kids grow up and leave home, you think that kids who've had, you know,

really difficult home, maybe there's abuse or violence or just in parents who drink and don't pay attention because they're too drunk or stoned or whatever. You know,'d think that for those kids it'd be easy to leave home. You want to get out of there and go to school or go to work, just get out of there. But it actually turns out that those kids have the harder time leaving home than the kids who've had it okay, childhood, and okay, now it's time to go. And it's the same, I think, with our, you know, our patterns that when therapy helps you, like we've been talking about the view, those parts of yourself that you hate or learn

to come to terms with your addiction, it isn't through hating, it's through compassion, it's through what Jack was saying, that tenderness, the loving, not just awareness. People often say, well, I'm aware, but it doesn't help. It has to be loving awareness, like what Amdust said. A tremendous thank you to Lumi Labs for supporting this episode of the DTFH. My friends, you've probably heard of microdosing. Lots of people talk about it, but when it comes to THC, I think most people don't know how to microdose THC and are terrified of eating it. And who can blame them? Who can blame them? Because one day they were at a holiday party and they thought it'd be a great idea to eat that THC cookie and they plunged into Dante's

Inferno for 10, 12, maybe 15 hours. Thank God for microdose gummies because the alchemist at Loomy Labs have discovered the perfect dose of THC. I take half of one and I am fine. It's great. No paranoia, no freakouts, just a knife, swarm, just a nice, warm euphoric buzz and I love them so much. It helps me fall asleep. I can take them on the road because they're legal nationwide so you

don't have to worry about getting busted at the airport. To learn more about microdosing THC, go to micredose.com and use code Duncan to get free shipping and 30% off your first order. Again, that's micredose.com code Duncan. Micredose.com code Duncan for 30% off. Thank you, loomy labs. People often say, well, I'm aware, but it doesn't help.

Has to be loving awareness, like where hum dust is said. Well, this is, let me ask you this. So I still consider myself a neophyte meditator. And I have said these rules for myself regarding meditation that I've gathered from the books I've read and talking to David and Maybe they're right. Maybe they're wrong, but upon like witnessing some negative emotional state To I feel like the moment I want to start introducing compassion into the picture in that place, that

I'm adding an extra thing. That's that I shouldn't do that. The introduction of me thinking, okay, now love this cyclone of inexplicable anger inside is putting lipstick on the fish. Now I'm just trying to dodge it. Finally, I'm experiencing it. So now if I'm like, okay, I'm gonna love you, I'm again coming up with another way of evading

the suffering that I need to just fully be in without telling a story about it, reacting to it, trying to fix it. Is this an incorrect view? It's a beautiful question because there's a kind of intelligence behind it. One of the teaching patterns that we use is called rain when things are difficult, which is to recognize.

So now are you're seeing the demon inside that's angry and not and then a is to accept it. And that's before anything else. And kind of what you're talking about is if you try to do compassion to get it to go away, which is from here to here, then it's accepting it at all. Okay, right. Right. So you actually have to accept it. Gotcha. You have to pay attention to, am I doing something because I really don't want to accept

it and feel it, which is not accepting. I've recognized it. But when you say, okay, this is how big it is. And you know, you might inquire, how's it feel in your body? If you let it be as big as it would be, how is it like the size of a hurricane? What is it? What stories does it tell?

So you actually, you recognize, you accept, and you get interested, you investigate, that's the eye. Say, oh, what is this energy? And then, then you can bring in the compassion. What's the end? Nurture, not identify, not being identified with it, you see it with compassion, and that brings it kind of nurturing. Okay.

No, not identify as kind of a technical term that not everybody listening might understand. What it means is don't make this state that you're in a story about who you are. Right. You know, I'm a Rachel angry person. No, there's, there's some anger and some rage that are here and there will morph into something else if I don't get caught forever thinking that that's who I am. I'm an angry, Rachel person that that's who I am. I'm an angry, rageful person.

That's the non-identification. Where does the loveing compassionate part kick in in there? Or is it supposed to be a spontaneous compassion that emerges? You can add it and that's the end part, you know, nurture, loving compassion. You see it, you know, nurture, loving and compassion. You see it, you don't take it so personally,

because it's, you know, it's condition, responses. And you just see the conditioning, and then it becomes a natural sort of, a pretty same compassion or tenderness. Oh, wow, look at everything we've lived through. And here we still are. And I don't love everything. Sometimes it's more like, well, they would say serenity in the 12 steps.

You know, sometimes it's more like just saying, okay, it is what it is. I can have some anonymity about it. I'm not going to love it. But I can at least accept this is how it is right now. And the key is right now. Got it. Thank you. This is a different subject,

but it's a question I had for both of you. And it sort of came up when we were talking at the retreat. And it's a big question, and we only have about 14 more minutes, I'm sorry for that. This is a word that gets thrown around a lot in spiritual communities, which is Bodhisattva, the Bodhisattva.

I'm going to save all sentient beings. And in the dedication of merit at the beginning of a sit, and I think after there's something you might say, which is like, may this benefit all beings. I lately am really recoiling at this idea, at this concept. I used to just you to hear it so much like yeah I want to benefit all beings. You don't really think about what that means or how ridiculous that sounds and how completely inaccessible it sounds. ridiculous that sounds and how completely inaccessible it sounds. And so I wonder if you could help me understand how am I seeing this? I must be seeing it incorrectly that I would suddenly be bristling it, Bodhisattva's, not a good sign, not a good sign through the first. Yeah, I want to say something about that. First of all, I just love your honesty, Duncan, because you know,

I just love that you are willing to question these sort of sacred teachings, and not just say, yeah, of course, I want to say, well, be a servant, of course. I mean, wouldn't I be a jerk if I didn't want to? Yeah. And to question it, that's the practice to inquire the question and not to just, yeah, so thank you for that. Thank you. And in Zen we have these four vows, the bodhisattva vows, and the first one is, sentient beings

aren't, this is a translation that's usually used, sentient beings are numberless. I vow to save them all. So translation that I prefer is Sension beings are numberless. Yeah, we can see that. I vow to free them all. Okay, so how am I going to free all Sension beings by not laying my trips on them? You know, I vow to be mindful, let people be free to be who they are. And I'm going to fix change and increase. And I mean, I have to go to Allen on every time I realize I just want to fix change and improve you. I'm going to lay, jack, my daughter, my grandkids. I mean right that is so cool That's how I understand it's saving them from myself. That's so cool I get that now that makes so in other words

I'm going to stop projecting my bullshit on everything that crossed that the projection is trapping them keeping them from being liberated who they really are wow that fixes the completely fixed it because in my mind it's like a you know fixing their plumbing going around and like i'll just all the stuff whatever it is getting their cat out of a tree how do we do this but this

totally makes sense and is completely accessible. And you can still help people get their cat out of the tree or fix their plumbing, but never. It's just a different mindset. No, I love that. That, thank you. That's, I did not expect such a perfect answer to that question.

And I thought we still have more time. Incredible. Jack, do you have anything to add to that? Well, you know, that is a course you do. I always do. I always do. That sentient beings are numberless. I vow to save them all.

So people get excited when they hear, OK, now I'm going to be a bodhisattva. Say, all right, who are you going to save? All right, you go home. One of the first things you discover is that the people you live with don't want to be saved by you. No, they don't.

So you realize that there has to be a different meaning, which you, you know, truly just articulated beautifully. I also like to think of it as setting the compass of your heart. It's not to say that you're going to go around and save everybody, spare them. Please, you know, but it's that it's setting the compass of your heart toward compassion or love for all beings. You know, whatever I encounter, may I encounter that with respect, with love, with care. And that carries you everywhere. And I guess to add to the question,

what's, you know, sparked it in my mind was that it's just a book I'm reading progressive stages of emptiness and medicine. I can't remember the exact name, but it was saying that the bodhisattva thing is down the line, man, this isn't something you do at first. Like you, you you it's ridiculous they even think about doing that.

I would say everything you don't think. I'm saying you start with it some say you end with it some say you'll never fulfill it. You know book to you what there's what 108 thousand books which one do you want to read? Well it is actually later than I thought. It's 255. You have a plane to catch, Jack. Here's a cheesy question, and I'm sorry for it. What do you think Ramdas would have to say to us now?

What do you think he would say to us? You know, so much has changed since he left his body? You know, what do you think is he would say it was so good at encapsulating the zeitgeist in this beautiful way and alchemizing it in this kind of actionable form that inspired all of us. So if, and I'm sorry to put you in the position, but you are in a study.

What do you think you would have to say to us today? I'd be sorry. I read something and be here now that book that changed certainly our generation and generations to come. I read something in that book that feels, and that was the early 70s, that feels so attuned to this time,

especially with this recent war and all the incredible polarization around it. And he said, he was talking about protesting and confrontation. And he said, there's nothing wrong with protesting, you know, things that go counter to your values. And there's nothing wrong with confronting people. He said, but here's what he said. He said, you can protest if you love the person you're protesting against

as much as you love yourself. Wow. All for it. Protest. But if knowledge here we are in our common humanity while you're protesting, what you care about. Ah, Jack. College campuses would be different place if this was the teaching. That's a tough one. I think Grombas would look at you, don't you say I'm so glad you did therapy. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Beautiful. Thank you, Rhamdaz for speaking through my friends here. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha you can get more true to the jade triti gillman dot com things sunday well it's Sunday

morning in california but Sundays I have a group that anybody can join through inside la dot org what time and well in specific time it's ten to eleven thirty okay and it's defaults to register my website okay triti gillman dot com or

inside la they go there or. And I also want to thank you, Duncan, because you're reaching a lot of folks and the work that you're doing really, I think Rondas, I mean, he loved you. He invited you to those retreats to on the stage with him. I love this. Thank you for being so honestly, courageously you. Thank you, Chair. Yeah. In a way you carry this indomitable honesty that people would like to, oh my God, he said that we all think of it. But he actually said it out loud and it makes everybody say, hey, we are in this together. So you do that really beautiful. You are all.

Thank you all. Thank you. And I love you, Duncan. I love you, Duncan. I love you. How do you appreciate that? Thank you. And Jack Cornfield.com, for those who are listening,

they're also these beautiful and some of them quite free. Lots of meditations of truities or mind, loving kindness practice, compassion practice, 40-day, you know, course in meditation for free. Join us or join CloudSongo where you can sign up for a small group every week, also a beautiful thing. Duncan, you're sort of, you've opened the gateway for so many people. Oh, it's very easy. It's just pointing to ice cream. It's no big deal. It's like, look, there's good ice cream here. It's delicious. And I'm happy that I get to do it. Jack.

Well, thank you. I also want to say that because thank you, Jack. I always forget the part, this part. I have a newsletter. It only comes out occasionally so it's not going to clutter your inbox but you can sign up for it on my website and that's a nice thing too. Wonderful. All the links will be at dungertrustle.com if you didn't have a chance to write them down. Jack, safe travels back home. Trudy, thank you so much and I love you guys. Thank you. Love you too. Bye. Bye. like ultra precise radiation therapy and special people specialized in their fields and passionate about your care. Yes, Sunnybrook is special just like you learn more at sunnybrook.ca slash special. That was Trudy Goodman and Jack Cornfield. It's TrudyGoodman.com, Jackcornfield.com, to find everything they mentioned. A tremendous thank you to our sponsors,

and thank you for listening. We are back from Hyatus, and we'll be doing weekly episodes, going forward for at least a decade. I love you guys, and I hope that you are having a wonderful holiday. wonderful holiday.