Duncan Trussell Family Hour - EDDIE PEPITONE

Episode Date: February 28, 2015

The Bitter Buddha, Comedian EDDIE PEPITONE (EDDIEPEPITONE.COM) joins the DTFH and we talk Buddhism, Ram Dass, and Self forgiveness.    Check out his special IN RUINS

Ghost Towns. Dirty Angel. Out. Now. You can get Dirty Angel anywhere you get your music. Ghost Towns. Dirty Angel. Out Now. New album and tour date coming this summer. It's that time again. Prepare your brains to get infiltrated by the raspy lesbian voice of America's top podcaster. The Skrillex of podcasting himself. No ass, one ball, and ready to yap. He's uncertain that this entire dimension isn't a CIA experiment, and he thinks we all may be in some kind of solitary confinement being injected with massive amounts of psychedelics that have made us hallucinate this entire reality. He's a stinky little man who loves fiber pills in the days.

He wants to play guitar but doesn't have the discipline. And now he's coming to you. Live ish. From the internet. Put a crown on your grandma and rub your dog's paws. Here he is, loosening to your ear buds like Nutella in the vagina of the queen. It's Duncan Trussell! Hello, it's me, Duncan Trussell. And you're listening to the Duncan Trussell Family Hour podcast.

And did you know that at this very moment you could be making memories for your future children? It's true, and it's science. This is from the Telegraph UK. I'll post the link on the comments section of this podcast. Memories can be passed down to later generations through genetic switches that allow offspring to inherit the experience of their ancestors, according to new research that may explain how phobias can develop. Scientists have long assumed that memories and learned experiences built up during a lifetime must be passed on by teaching later generations or through personal experience. However, new research has shown that it is possible for some information to be inherited biologically through chemical changes that occur in DNA.

Researchers at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta found that mice can pass on learned information about traumatic or stressful experiences, in this case a fear of the smell of cherry blossoms to subsequent generations. The result may help to explain why people suffer from seemingly irrational phobias. It may be based on the inherited experiences of their ancestors. This is a pretty awful experiment. They took these poor little mice and they would fill the air with the smell of cherry blossoms while electrocuting them. And then the offspring of these mice freak out whenever they smell cherry blossoms. So the idea that memories, phobias, fears can be passed down genetically from one generation to the next,

obviously opens up the doorway to so many psychedelic ideas that so many different people from new age movement to. Clarevoyance to, you name it, have been saying for a very long time, which is encoded within us, is this kind of library of information. And the name of that library is the Akashic Records. If you don't know what the Akashic Records are, I'm just going to go to our digital Akashic Records Wikipedia. It says that in theosophy and anthroposophy, the Akashic Records, a term coined in the late 1800s from Akasha, the Sanskrit word for sky, are a compendium of thoughts, events and emotions believed by theosophists to be encoded in a non-physical plane of existence known as the astral plane. Has science discovered the Akashic Records are not in some hokey crystal-gazing astral plane, but in fact exist somehow within our very genetic structure? Is it possible that science will eventually be able to uncode and to unravel all the memories of our ancestors locked into our DNA?

What are these memories? Are they memories? Is it some kind of genetic switch that gets turned that somehow encodes within the depths of the chromosomes, of baby mice, of fear, of cherry blossoms? What does that look like? How does it work? Does this point to the idea that there is no time and that at every single moment we are connected to all the ancestors who are currently existing in the multiverse and a kind of multidimensional sandwich of happening? Could it be that in the future, super advanced computers will actually be able to do a genetic scan and show us memories of those that went before? On metaphysical mumbo jumbo aside, there is something incredible about the idea that there is the possibility that certain experiences that we have will continue to move through time genetically into the future as long as we have little babies.

It's also incredible to think that the experiences that we inflict on other people don't just end with those people but have the potential for moving into eternity. That really is crazy to imagine that decisions that Hitler made are continuing to roll through the chromosomes of all those who are affected by his monstrosities. It's also a hopeful thing to imagine that the wonderful experiences that we allow other people to have could potentially continue to reverberate genetically through time like some kind of chromosomal bell ringing through all the positive actions of those who have been encoded by whatever experience that was good that we helped to engender. It's a really amazing thing to imagine. This really lends credence to all the religions that have some component of ancestor worship or praying to the ancestors. And there is also a very small but real bit of comfort that comes from knowing that within you exists all of the loved ones that you may have lost that somewhere inside of me maybe there are some of my mother's memories hiding out in my chromosomes or the memories of my mother's mother or mother's father. Wild stuff.

Thank you science for helping to affirm my basic belief that we exist in a spectacular universe and that your unraveling of the great mysteries of this universe don't lead to dullness or stasis or stagnation but actually only increase the beauty and novelty of this incredible dimension that we happen to be floating on a genetic raft through. We have a lovely podcast for you today with the bitter Buddha himself, comedian Eddie Pepitone, but first some quick business. It's time to tear your juicy little meat bodies out of the comfort of your soft chairs and come see a live Duncan Trussell Family Hour podcast. Come mingle with the family and listen to a live podcast. I've got some great dates coming up with some amazing guests. I hope you come to one of these shows. I'm going to be in Winnipeg on the fourth.

St. Paul is sold out. I'm going to be in Madison on the sixth. Chicago on the seventh is sold out. There might be six tickets left for that. But right now it's sold out. You can probably maybe get tickets at the door. Columbus, Ohio. I'm going to be there on the eighth.

In Winnipeg, I'll be there with Johnny Pemberton. St. Paul, Danieli Bilelli. Madison, Danieli Bilelli. Chicago with David McClain. Columbus with Emil Amos. And I'm going to be in Hollywood on the 18th at the Improv for a live podcast. Arlington on the 22nd for a live podcast. Cambridge on the 23rd for a live podcast.

Philadelphia on the 24th. Brooklyn the 25th and Brooklyn the 26th. I'm also going to be doing live podcasts at the Ram Dass Open Your Heart in Paradise or the Ram Dass Spring Retreat. So you can go to ramdass.org to find out about going there. So those are all the dates. I hope to see you guys in the near future. And thank you so much for buying tickets to these shows.

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Thank you for letting me have this as a job. I love you and I will never stop putting these things out. All right, let's get this show on the road. Today's guest is the brilliant comedian Eddie Pepitone. You can find out everything you need to know about him by going to his website eddypepitone.com by watching an awesome documentary about him called The Bitter Buddha,

or by picking up his new comedy album which is located on iTunes. It's called In Ruins. So now everybody, please welcome to the Duncan Trussell Family Hour podcast, The Bitter Buddha himself, Eddie Pepitone. Eddie Pepitone, welcome. Thank you so much for being on the show, man. Thanks for having me.

It's been too long, my friend. It has been too long. Yeah, we tried a little bit, but it's hard, man. It's hard. I was just talking to a friend about, you know, the intensity of schedules and just the intensity of life, like how much we have to do as comedians, you know. Other people, you know, screw them.

I think people who aren't in show business are cowards. I've always said that if you're not in show business... Very popular opinion. And I'm talking about everybody. Firemen, policemen, like they're just cowards. I think that's what Obama ran on for most of his election, isn't it? That concept. Yes.

He was like, it was the Broadway platform, like, you know, if you're not in a play, you're not living. That's it. Yeah. But anyway, it's the tyranny of, like, the tyranny of, like, all the stuff we have to do, because of the internet, for instance, we have to promote, like, it seems like it's endless work to do. Yeah.

You know, like, oh, go on Twitter, go on Facebook, promote. You know, like, be funny, be funny on all these forms, all these social media forms. Yeah, there's that pressurized... I think that's such a... That's one of those things where, when that thought oozes into my mind, before shame follows, thinking of the... Shame is never far behind.

Whatever I do, you know? But I do think about that kind of, like, you know, there's the comfort that comes from a job where you get a paycheck every two weeks, and you know for sure it's coming. That weird comfort you get, and it's a very nice comfort, too, where, you know, like, shit, man, at the end of this two weeks, I'm getting this exact amount of money. It's what I always get.

I know where the money goes. I can't even imagine that as you're talking about it. Yeah, well, I mean, it's crazy. For us, there's always this creeping feeling, you know? Are we ever going to get any money again? Yeah, well, it happened again. Is this going to keep happening, or are we at the precipice of destruction? And that can be a real mindset.

It's amazing how you have to kind of put all that in abeyance and, like, leave it and just trust. Like, okay, I'm just going to do what I do, and then just trust that it's all going to be okay. That's a big issue for me, is trust. I'm always like, I'm always trying to control everything. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Like, okay, if I do this, then I'm pretty sure I'll get this. And you know what? Never fucking happens. Never happens. The way I think it should. You know what I mean? Like, if I tweet this about my album, then I'm going to get all these people to get this album.

No way. No way. Doesn't happen like that. I've noticed that things tend to work out more for me when I am spending time on things that don't have anything to do with what I want to succeed. I think you're right about that. It's a weird law of friction or something,

where if you apply a repetitive action, like a meditation practice, exercise, daily writing, or any kind of thing like that, if you apply this kind of repetitive action, then other parts of your life start heating up. And my friend, Mikey, was telling me, he saw in a, I don't know what weird movie he saw, but one of the characters was giving advice to the other character

and he said, if you do any one thing every day, if you've come up with anything to do, no matter how absurd the act is, and he gave the example of pouring a glass of water into the toilet every morning, if you just do that and stick to that every day, magic will start happening in your life. Interesting. Interesting.

That must be something about discipline. Like when you're disciplined, that form that you bring into your life enables other things to come into it somehow. Like by adhering to a form, it enables content to come through. Whereas if you're formless, I don't know. I can't figure it out. And that formlessness is one of the dangers of being a comedian, right?

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And I kind of work form, like I do a lot of formless stuff on stage when I stand up. Like I like to like just go where my mind takes me. And sometimes that's a danger too, because I'm not structuring anything, you know? And I feel lost.

I feel lost. How much of your act is planned out versus written? You know, when I go on the road, I plan a lot of it because I feel like, well, I don't know this audience when I'm here in LA, which is my home base lately. I don't plan anything. But when I'm feeling a lot of love on the road,

then I really kind of just go with everything as well. Like I can just be in my present moment if I'm really feeling good. You plan nothing. Right. I try not to plan it. Like that's, no, I have stuff that I can go to because as you know, when you get in front of crowds,

there can be a point where, holy shit, they're not going for this little mind bubble I'm into. Yep. And I can, you could panic and go, whoa, whoa, they're not digging the old Eddie. So let me go to this tried and true stuff. You always have to have kind of a bag of tricks to go into. Do you start with an opener usually,

or do you start with improv? You know what? I always think it's a good idea to have a good solid like opener. So they're immediately with you. Lately I've taken to, I just come screaming on stage, why do they keep taking Liam Neeson's kids? I mean, I understand they're filming, taking four. Is it just that he's in a tent of like,

without even saying hello, I think that's a cool way to like, whoa, the audience is like, oh, shit. Yeah. You know, he doesn't care about us. And I love that. He's so confident. You got to, you kind of have to instill confidence in people. Right.

If you come out like, oh, hi. Yeah. Oh, well, this is a funny weird thing, huh? Yeah. People, that's the one that people do respond to confidence. It's almost like confidence is more important than being funny. And that's one of the people, that's like the black,

the black magic comedians are the ones who figured out that if they just emote this confidence, they can get away with so much. You know, that's, That's true. It's almost like people are laughing at their rhythm and tone. Yeah. Instead of the content, which is the opposite of what standup

should be in a way, but that's the way it goes. Right. Well, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, that's the cool. Yeah. It does seem like technically on paper standup is supposed to be about sort of well written jokes.

Yeah. But then when you think about it, sometimes confidence is one of the funniest things ever in the, in the sense that we are in a universe where everything is going to die, dissolve, be destroyed. The profession of comedian is, come on. It's like, what are you doing? Really?

You're, you're hypnotized. It's a, it's a form of like, Yeah. That's a great way to put it. Like it's a form of hypnotism and it really is. And again, getting back to the trust issue, it's like the confidence is based in the fact that you trust that you're funny enough, just as is.

But that's a tough thing to do for me sometimes when I'm traveling because travel takes it out of me and I've been traveling a lot. I get on fucking planes. Like I get on a, you know, a six, an eight a.m. flight at LAX and I can just be, you know, really kind of tired and stuff. And, you know, sometimes I feel shaky when I'm over

tired. And it's like, I don't have that like confidence or trust in that I'm funny because I don't feel funny. You know what I mean? Right. And that's when, you know, material, like the, like the material you know works can like catapult you. Okay.

Okay. Now I feel good again. You know. Yeah. You need that, you need that feeling of that initial launch pad feeling of like, okay, they like me. Now I can fully be myself. Right.

It's the same thing as being an insurance adjuster. If you walk into your office and you are like, oh boy, there's no coffee. Don't it. Where are my pencils? Yeah. Damn it. That's it.

You know, you're going to other people in the office and I'm sure all the insurance and just adjusters listening to this are going to be like, yeah, I wonder if people think I'm really arrogant, you know, like boy, he really thinks comedians are the be all and end all. I promise you that people, that there are a few people out there who think that you're arrogant because on the internet, there isn't at least like 5% of any people

consuming media on the internet are the most poisonous cunts that I've ever seen. I've run into a few of those on the internet and it's kind of disturbing, but. Well, they're disturbing and kind of like is an individual that the troll, the classic troll, is an individual is like, it's like getting to see like a very deadly ASP at the zoo. And you're like, oh yeah, this class is separating me from this

ASP and you look at it, but then when it gets sinister is when you imagine what would happen if by some accident in the universe by some catastrophe, any one of these people managed to get real power. Just so you know, then then we then we enter into you mean like Dick Cheney. Exactly. And his ilk, all the people who run the war machine.

Yeah, yeah. Well, right. They did it and the media. They did it, but I'll tell you, man, in some ways, and this is a, forgive me for saying this, but in some ways I would almost rather Dick Cheney have control over a nuclear arsenal than some internet trolls who have tweeted to me because Dick Cheney.

Oh, you don't think Dick Cheney started criticizing like people like Louis C.K.? Imagine if that's how like Paul Wolfowitz got started. In the early days, you look back at Wolfowitz's tweets. Right. And he was just going after Carlin in prior. Yeah. You insufferable hack.

I don't know who you think you are. You're just an insufferable hack. Insufferable hack. But that's the other aspect of the internet troll is that the language choices that they make are straight out of days of our lives. They always talk like a soap opera millionaire would talk. For some reason, that's their affect.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Never in my life have I encountered such an insufferable hack. You know, you know, do you engage them? No. Because I know some comics love fucking with them, which I

think is great, but I'm one of these guys. I can't engage them because, you know, I just feel the attacks too personally sometimes. Yeah. Sometimes. And I'm just like, because whenever I've engaged them, it always turns out to be a bad thing. Just like when you invite a vampire into your house.

Yeah. It's the exact same concept. Yeah. You never invite a vampire into your house and you generally, unless it's like. Unless you have a lot of garlic. A lot of garlic or you're just ready to go or you've got some info on the troll that they're not aware of.

Like you've gone a little bit deeper. So you know their real name, for example, or you can connect somebody to their job. Then you could like. Yeah. Yeah. Like really do it, but ultimately even that activity will only lead to more negativity in your life.

Right. So I have a. The moment I get a dart from somebody, I just block or even better. That's what I do. Better than blocking. Muting. I saw somebody tweet about how the satisfaction they get from

knowing that the trolls think that they're getting through and it's just going into a. Oh, how do you do that? You can just press the little gear and click mute. Oh, really? Yeah. So they think that they're like, you make me. Oh, that's nice.

I didn't know about the mute thing. Yeah. So that's another way to really. So like if that's another way to torment the trolls is they. Do you get a lot of it? No, thank. Well, no, because I think I don't get a lot of it because I have a troll blocking policy, which is I immediately block

them. And I think by now there's, there's very few left. Right. Right. I just immediately just. Oh, okay. Right. Oh, you wish that my, your hope is that my mother suffered the

most painful death that anyone ever suffered. Oh, I'll just block you from my existence forever. It would be funny if you were one of these people and there are people like this who go, I want to thank you for your response about my mother's death. But I disagree, but thank you for your input. That's another way to fuck with them. Thank you so much for your comments.

I've often felt that way about my mother as well. So I understand that you could feel this way. I like that. My one of, one of my favorite verses from the Bible, maybe it's not even a verse. I just heard it in an action movie is vengeance is mine. Sayeth the Lord. I love that because it said, you know, it means really any

vengeance that you think you can inflict upon your enemies is obviously going to be such a weak vengeance compared to the vengeance that they're already, that is already being inflicted upon themselves. I always say that, you know, I always say that punishment in this world is immediate. Like in other words, if you throw out negative energy, you're already cutting yourself off from life.

Yes. Right. I've done it. You know, I've attacked you online without you knowing it. You know what I mean? Like, you blocked me, but I actually make many. We find out that we're just the only trolls attacking. We both are making fake accounts and we've been attacking each

other nonstop. We are the only two trolls on the internet. Like that's the twist of this whole conversation is that we are responsible for all negative YouTube comments. How amazing would that be? How amazing. We are like, we barely have time to do this podcast. Yeah.

We got to get back. We're actually looking at our phones right now, putting. I got it. I got it. I got to get on Yelp and slam a Mexican restaurant. But that thing. Think of that impulse. I like to think about that impulse because you know, man, this

actually reminds me of something I was thinking, which is that the so these, the object of hate, right? So you have like a Twitter critic or Yelp critic or whatever the thing is. Yeah. The object of hate is like the top of a weed, right? So if you have, what do you like to consider? Like everybody has, or most people have, not everyone, many

people have probably a top three list of people that come into their mind and they think about in a negative way. Like that person's a fucking prick. People have lists of like hundreds, but I'm going to guess that a lot of people have three recurring characters in the, in their mind. Yeah. When those, when those people pop in, there's usually a negative

feeling or there's like, I've noticed certain people have a person they like to bring up in conversation like, you know, blah, blah, blah. Did that again? Yeah. That thing, right? Yeah. And I know I've been that stuff.

Me too. Me too. So gossipy shit. And usually there's like one sort of character, the symbol for all that. But if you follow that character down, like if you look deeper into that character, don't, don't the roots of that thing always lead to that kind of undigestible thing inside of yourself.

Absolutely. Where you're identical to that person, but you can't accept the fact that you have those. Where you're identical. That's interesting. So you're basically hating yourself. Oh yeah. You're hating on yourself.

Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, that's a good, like you're attacking a person, but the reason you're attacking them is because you embody that exact quality that you're attacking. Exactly. And you don't know it though. Yeah.

You don't, well, you can't, you can't accept it. Right. You don't know it. You do kind of know it. If you just, that's why meditation is great. Right. Cause if you spend just a little bit of time sitting still, and this is another cool thing I like about this idea is that all of

a sudden it turns all of these symbolic entities in your head that you'd loathe and despise into X marks the spot on the treasure map where it's like, oh, dig there, dig there. Because if you dig in those spots, it's like giving Nancy Grace a map of a forest where toddlers are buried and how happy that would make it. She would be out there every day with the cameras digging up a new toddler corpse in the same way you dig down into those X's

where your enemies in your mind exist or your genesis or people you think are, are bad. And you always will find that it's like, oh, not only it's usually it's like I'm that person, but I'm angry at the person in the external world because they're less subtle than I am. You know, and here's the thing too is I heard that ego, our ego always needs something to hate and to fight. We always, our ego in order to survive our ego, which seems

to run 99.9% of the planet ego instead of the real self, you know, when people listen to your podcast, I think we'll know what I'm talking about. And if they don't, I think right now they should go kill it. No, they don't. Our ego needs, needs enemies because if our ego doesn't have enemies, it's got nothing. In other words, we think we're quote unquote great or special

because there are other people who aren't. We can only think we are greater special in comparison. Yes. Yeah, that's right. That's it for sure. Yeah. And that's why we attack others so we can feel good about ourselves.

Yeah. Yeah. Because if we don't attack others, then we have to just sit there and go, hmm, I've got a lot of issues with things like really face the truth about another words, another words by attacking others. Here's the crux of it. By attacking others, you don't have to face the truth about

yourself. Yeah, that's it. It keeps you well in, in, in, right? Yeah, I think so. And your attack on the others or your mental attack is usually most people are not overtly attacking a person. Maybe they are doing it anonymously through Twitter, through Yelp reviews or whatever, but ultimately it's like an anonymous

but really the, when you consider just the neurological framework for an enemy, it means that somewhere in your brain on the molecular level is some kind of chemical pattern, which represents whoever the person is that you think did you wrong. You are literally, you know, it's like a little, in the circuitry of your mind, there is a circuit or two that your mind has sewn together or plugged in, which represent, it's a representational neurological corollary for a thing that exists

in the external universe. So you are literally hating yourself in the sense that that particular reflection that's been captured chemically in your brain is a reflection in your own brain. And that, that sector of your brain that is meshed or formed the image of the thing that you hate most in the world, you are literally hating that sector of your own brain. Yeah, it's kind of, it's trippy.

And I, I though have a problem with, because, you know, I do that, like I have a problem with people's success. And I look at this like when I, when I see other like comedians, other particular comedians get some big thing, I always, like I immediately think, God, like my first thought is fuck. And that's so ridiculous. Like I think their success is gone is somehow a reflection of, of me not being as successful or something like that.

Like in other words, their success means fuck, there's something wrong with me, but I will hate on them and hate on the system. But where I do have a problem with stuff is when I think I really do have a reason to like hate the government, hate the military establishment, hate the Wall Street establishment that, you know, creates poverty and suffering. I'm thinking, well, that is a good thing to hate. And I don't know if, I don't know if hate is the right thing

even at that level. Well, yeah. What do you think of that? And it's draining and it's negative. That's what I'm dealing with lately. Yeah. Well, I think it's exactly goes back to the same thing that you were saying before, which is that this is all distraction

techniques that you're using to try to turn your eye inward to find out where the little poisonous nugget is inside of you. You know, like the inevitable tweet from an animal rights person of the inside of a seagull's stomach, inevitably at least once a month, someone will tweet. They dissected a seagull. Look what these, they're eating your trash. So inside the seagull, wedding ring, condom, hypoderminal.

Can't digest these things. And so in the same way, it's like, I think the psyche is like that where there are all these things that you, that are inside of you, the desire for power, the desire for control, the desire to conquer. It would be funny if we cut open a seagull and we found the desire for power, the desire for control. Like, holy shit.

Do you see what's in this seagull? No, but I have a problem though, because I am a big animal rights activist and they are abused. They are abused. Now, literally they are. So what do you do with that anger at that? Well, it's never, I mean, anger is, I've very rarely, if I've seen an angry person.

Get anything done? No, it almost de-legitimizes a person when they're like raging. But anger fuels some of them. Anger is a fuel if used properly. Well, yeah, I mean. For good, if you can, if you can, you have to be an alchemist. You know, use the anger that you feel, you know, the injustice in the world to the powerless.

That's my thing, like picking on the powerless. I think that that is the equivalent of fossil fuels. Anger is the psychological fossil fuels. It's incredibly powerful. It will get a lot of shit done, but ultimately it's polluting your own environment to get these things done so that... But, you know, but here's my thing and I've been asking this to a couple people, you know, like how do you stay aware in the

world, like aware of what is happening, you know, like the war machine, the war on terror, you know, all the people in poverty because of the inequality of wealth. How do you stay aware and know why that is and yet not get furious at it? Man, I... Do you just not give a shit? No, so you...

Yeah, and you're like, ah, fuck it, you know, it's the way... Like, that's the thing, like, I think, like for, you know, like when people say, ah, that's just what is, you know, well, doesn't that then abdicate you of, you know, all this responsibility? Here's a question for you. What's the most positive, one of the most positive things in your life right now? My dogs.

I knew you were going to say that. You did? Yes. And the... And they're just unconditional love. Yeah. And think about the impact that has on you being around these beings who, they're not, you know, they're intelligent in a

different way, but they're not, they don't have human level intelligence, but the healing power... Thank God. Thank God. But the healing power of that love that comes out of them unconditionally for me, like when I come home, if I'm feeling freaked out and this little poodle and my little Chihuahua meet me at the door and they're dancing.

I know. They're dancing. They're dancing. That's a great way to put it. They dance when you come home. Yeah. And that feeling of poison that was inside of me, if there was one when I'm coming in, it is like lesson.

It's an immediate healing force. So think of the impact that these little guys have on your subjective universe with only loving you. So in the same way, if you think of the impact you could have on the world and all these things in the world that you, that are disturbing you, if you could figure out a way to actually, honestly, not holier than thou, bullshit love, but if, but in some way, you could beam that same kind of love in the

direction of all these things that are so awful, including the seagull murders or even worse. The seagull murders. The fucking assholes. Ladies and gentlemen, please do not adjust your sets. The seagull murders will be right back. Or ISIS, you know, like think of like these pictures of ISIS. They're like, I saw this awful footage of these bastards cutting

the throat of this woman, the shirtless woman and draining her blood into a bowl because she was a Christian. How do you love that? Right? How do you love that? I don't know how you do. Do you? Well, I think that it has to.

But genuinely not, not intellectually say, okay, I'm sending love to that, but really heart feltly being able to take that in that brutality and then transforming it. You know what I mean? What does, what does Ram Dass say about that? I know he does stuff to say about that. Well, Ram, Ram Dass' foundation is called the Love Server Member Foundation.

So. Boy, is that arrogant. Go ahead. The guy, the guy trolling the Ram Dass love serve foundation. Oh, God, they do that. You know what? Hey, Ram Dass, nice. Hey, you know what I wish on you?

No, I got one of those, you know, because I'm doing this. I'm doing podcast at this retreat coming up and I already got this terse tweet from somebody going. Nothing worse than a terse tweet. A TT, I call them. I got a TT. The TT was, so I can't remember. I'm sure this is going to be more than however many characters

are alive, but it was as the thing was, how come some of the major universities allow people to go there for free, but the Ram Dass retreats charge money for people to come if they want to go to the retreat. Oh, the money angle. Yeah. The response to this is name the university that's giving away free Hawaiian vacations, because that's what this is.

It's a Hawaiian vacation. And if you can find a place where you're getting that for free or that weird idea that. How much is it, by the way? $70,000. I think it's a bit much. And I would send a terse tweet. Can you put a price on awakening?

I'd like to, here's the commercial for that. Have you been awakened this month? Come on down. Come on down and get awakened here and away. $70,000 and you're done. You're done. You're enlightened. All your baggage is gone.

You're hating people no more. You ain't hating anybody no more. Come on down. We're up at $24.7. Yeah. But the idea is love everyone. So, so hard. Love everyone.

Tell the truth. Love everyone and tell the truth. That's what Neem Karoli Baba said to Ram Dass. Ram Dass. His guru? His guru, Neem Karoli Baba. There's a great story because Alpert Ram Dass was a really angry guy. In India, he was like around all these people who had been drawn into the gravity of this

Neem Karoli Baba. He just sensed all their bullshit, all their ego. Yeah. He didn't like them. He started hating them and he freaked out and like, I think he like threw something or he just had this fit because basically a guru, you know, everyone thinks that a guru is someone where you get around them and it's like, I think that, well, they either think a guru is someone you get around and they end up like having sex with your wife

and destroying your life. Right. Which is not a true guru. That's not a true guru. Unless he's really satisfying your wife. $70,000. Then you got to tip your hat to him. Thank you.

So the theory behind the thing and I have never been around, you know, I've never been around a true, like being like Neem Karoli Baba. I only know about them from stories, but the idea is that they are, because they understand them, they've gone through the work, countless incarnations, understand themselves all the way through, have forgiven themselves all the way through. They're capable of understanding you all the way through, seeing the nuggets of indigestible psychic shit floating around in the lower levels of your ecosystem and recognizing those things and seeing them not as a reason to hate you, but as actually something that they can convert

and heal by emanating this love. Now I'm adding all this mind shit to them. What people say about this guy is that when you got around him, it was just like being around a nuclear blast of love and it was just you around him and you just are all that shit inside of you that you've hated yourself for. He seems to be able to see it. He loves it. He loves you.

And something about that creates this healing because if this guy loves you, you're going to start loving yourself too. And then from loving yourself, that's when you're able to start loving everybody else because you can't do it until you love yourself. If you don't love yourself and you're down on yourself and you hate yourself and you loathe things about you, then all that's going to happen is everyone around you is going to, you're going to hate them too. How could you not?

It's like having a water filter with shit inside of it. Your water is always going to taste like shit. So that's the, so yeah, I think you can do it, but it, you know, I don't know. There's a lot of, you know, people talk about this all the time, which is like, when do you fight? When do you pick up the gun? When do you kill? When is there war?

When is it okay to go to war? When do you, when, how do you, can you love and kill the Bhagavad Gita set on a battlefield? Yeah. You know, like is it? And the real wisdom is, I think the real wisdom is there really isn't a time like no fight, don't fight. Like I love the word surrender. I love that.

What, like sometimes when I'm just flipping out, no, I'm just, and, and I flip out a lot, meaning I just have so many fucking thoughts. Like it's just, look at this. What the fuck? Hey, there's a hummingbird. That's beautiful. Hummingbirds are really, really fucking beautiful. What the fuck is over here?

Why is this fucking, why is this fucking fence? It's just, it's just the most minute. It's just the most trivial shit. Why is this fence like who the fuck left the fence like this in the middle of the fucking road? You know, like I just go and then, and then from there I'm like, boy, I had a good tweet a couple of minutes ago. You know, like, yeah, on and on and on.

And then I think of one word surrender. And that sometimes word, like sometimes attached to a word is a healing vibe. Love, love, love, it doesn't have the same, it doesn't have the thing I need right now. I think different words, you know, certain words too, in certain times of your life. But right now for me, it's surrender. Like, I just want to surrender, you know, to everything because I've been fighting everything for, for so long. Greatest quote I ever heard at one of these Ram Dass retreats is from Sarah Swaddy Marcus,

who teaches the yoga classes there. The bridge between suffering and grace is surrender. Isn't that cool? The bridge between suffering and grace is surrender. Yeah. Cause, you know, grace, of course, being that place where the synchronicities are happening, the birds are singing, suddenly you're back in the Garden of Eden and suffering being the essential state of human, the human condition.

And then the moment you release, you do just give up the fight. Like you just give up, you give up the big battling, the big wrestling match that you're having with. It's tough because, you know, a guy like me, I grew up in an unsafe environment and I've carried that with me. So I always feel like I have to be on guard, protecting, you know, my family. You know what I mean? Yeah. And it's the opposite, I think.

You should be alert, but you don't have to be like, who is that? Oh, hi Al. It's always like that too. I'm always like, oh, what do you want? What? Oh, thank you very much. Yeah. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Yeah, totally. You're being, it's like on one level, because all these things are happening at once. So like on one level, you're being devoured by the universe. And we are going to die. You're actively dying right now. All right, take it easy. No, trust me.

Are you done with your tea? Trust me. Did you finish the tea? Trust me. You drank that tea. You're dying. You ever hear the course in miracles? Yeah.

Where they say nothing real ever dies. And you, meaning your ego, was never born. Yeah. It's all just, it's all just life. That's grace. That's grace. That's grace. And that's where you want to get.

And you are there right now. Because the focus, it happens to generally land on the... Can I just say this? Please buy my new album? No. No, because that's the trip, you know, that the ego gets in. It's like, yeah, you know what keeps you from grace is like, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. I got this going on.

Even the quote unquote, good shit is a total trap. I got this going on. I got this going on. I got this. I'm doing this. I am this. I am this. And they just tell you to say, I am.

Not I am this or that. Do you do course in miracles work a lot? No. No. But when I'm all spun out and I'm on the computer and I'm having to do shit, I'll like Google in course in miracles. And yesterday I just looked at it and their basic message is to realize that your thoughts are just total bullshit.

All of them. All of them. Yeah. You know, just all of your fucking, you know, all thinking, you know, I need to say, you know, obviously you have to think to get things. You have to like have practical thinking. But when you start getting it wrapping it up and, you know, ego and stuff and the way we see that they deal with a lot of course in miracles, like our perceptions are completely

prejudiced. Like we never see the tree for what it really is. We see what we think is a tree because we have a preconception of a tree, you know, that's how they work. It's a little, it's a little, it's a, they kind of try to retrain your mind to let go of all preconceptions and just be here now. How often do you hit places like that in your life? I try to do it at least a couple times a week, three times a week, four times a week, five

times a week, six times a week, seven times a week, no, every day I have to do something spiritual. My friend, Eddie, another friend of mine is like, you know what, people like us, meaning really tightly wound people. He said, if we don't fucking do spiritual shit every day, we're fucked. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, when you're tightly wound, man, you gotta combat that shit.

Well, it's like, you know, when people say you go off your meds, it's like go off your meditation. Same. That's great, by the way. Same. I'm off my meds, meaning meditation. I'm not meditating and whatever that means for you, but if you're not taking a little bit of time each day, but this is like, you know, I think this is one of the, this is

a cool thing. One of the things I love about the teachings Ram Dass gives us is this very gentle thing where he says, listen, if you're off your meds, if you're not meditating, if you're not being spiritual, if you're not doing whatever, just watch that too, study that pattern. Don't judge it. That's another thing. There's three things they say not to do every day. Do not judge, do not attach and do not resist.

If you could do one of those three things for a minute each day, like don't attach to anything, meaning, okay, just as a stupid mundane example, but what I do, like if you tweet something, don't expect people to love you and say, how great this tweet, just tweet it and don't attach to it. Yeah. Yeah. That'd be funny using Twitter as a complete metaphor for spirituality. He would have, Buddha would have done that for sure because he, and I, and that is a really

beautiful thing about Buddhism is that it all gets used, like anything in the external universe could totally be used. Buddha definitely would have tweeted and he definitely would have some kind of pride. There would be the scripture of the tweets or there'd be the tweeting. Yeah. Well, you know, tweeting, you know, tweeting, it's all just that there's a Leviathan of technology right now. I mean, just technology and the particularly specifically digital internet age that we

live in is all consumed. It's a huge thing to deal with. It's consuming people. I mean, there's been studies about how it's rewiring the brand. I mean, it's consuming people. You know, it's, I mean, talk about the ego, talk about instant gratification. See, that's an enemy too. And I'm really, really susceptible to that.

Like, like I love instant gratification, like I just want to be pleasure. And pleasure is a trap. Yeah. I mean, you don't want pain, right? So pleasure and pain are two sides of the same coin. You've heard that, right? It's like, so if I constantly want pleasure, which is my fucking Achilles heel, and I guess a lot of people's, but I want pleasure.

You know, I want to go on now. I want to go online. I want to look at porn. And then I want to buy things online, and then I want to, you know, look at how great I am online. And you know what I mean? Like that's a fucking trap, man, because you're, you know, I don't know, the, the enlightenment, the stillness, the grace.

Grace is not pleasure. What is it? Go fuck yourself. I don't know. You tell me. It's your podcast. The hell is this? I don't know.

Grace is not pleasure. Grace is, um, what is it, grace? Grace is, is just being absolutely fine with what is instead of being like, see, pleasure, and I get overstimulated. Like, you know what I mean? I think, I think, I think the digital age and all this computer stuff and everything on our fingertips, it overstimulates us and ultimately makes us fucking miserable and drains us.

Yeah. It gets you out of your head for sure. It's, it gets you out of your heart, into your head. It's all mental. It's all, it's in the, it's always in, when you're online, you're generally always in your head. I think so. Yeah.

But this, you know, I really love this, um, practice of mindfulness because what it, what it, the idea is, uh, even when you're in your head, you know, there's all these great like, I can't remember the scripture. It's in this Joe, I'm reading this great book, Mindfulness by Joseph Goldstein. I've been reading it forever. It's amazing. I know that book. It's great.

Is that a great one? It's great. But it, it's, uh, sort of commentary on the scripture that the idea of mindfulness emerged from, or one of the, I'm sure it emerged from a lot of scriptures. What particularly mindfulness basically just means being, uh, being the witness to what you're thinking. Right. And that's always difficult for me too.

That is a very difficult thing. And it's a basic tenet of mindfulness, but it's always so hard for me to step back from my thoughts because I believe I am my thoughts. Well, you, you, so it's, it's a kind, there's a aspect to it called noting where instead of trying to step back from your thoughts, um, which is another trap, you're, Oh really? This is my, you're, you're, you're enlightening me now because that's what I do because then think about that.

When you're stepping back from your thoughts, it's like a, you're running away from yourself and there's the implicit judgment that I'm, this part of me must be malfunctioning. Okay. So tell me what's to be done. Okay. So God, I'm glad I came here and penetrate your bro. There's different states of mind uses kind of noting. And so you would think like, so when you're, when you have an impenetrable, impenetrable

mind, when you're in a state of this is not going to get better, I feel so awful and shitty today. It's not getting better. The, the, the definition of depression is what that is. Impenetrable, impenetrable. So you would think an absolutes like I'm stuck for good here. So then you would think, Oh, I'm stuck and that's it. And then, and then when you're not stuck and you're in a flowing, open, graceful mind,

you go, Oh graceful mind. And then when you're sitting and meditating, when I, when I'm breathing in, I'm breathing out. I'm breathing out. So it's just a very basic sort of not trying to change the state. If you're, if your mind's going crazy and you're up in your head and it's all going nuts, it's not step back. It's just be aware of like, Oh, mind going crazy.

When my note it, note it, it's called noting. And when the mind isn't going crazy, you think, Oh, mind not going crazy. And even those labels are considered to be an intermediary state to get you to this place of, which now is theoretical for me, but it's the idea is universe perfect. We exist in a perfect universe, non malfunctioning universe. I am part of the universe. Therefore, if the universe is perfect, then I am perfect and I'm not perfect because of what I'm going to be after a million lifetimes of meditating.

I'm perfect because of where I am right now. And every single thought that I'm having or the proliferation of thoughts is also a part of a perfect universe. And the surrender would be not trying to change those things, but just being like, Ah, this is what's happening. Ah, look at it go. Look at the thoughts go. Here we go again.

Here it comes. And then somehow from that, just awareness of the thing, it does begin to shift. I think that's the, you know, don't judge, don't resist, don't attach. I think that's don't resist. Don't resist what's going on in your head and don't judge it, you know, don't treat it the way that your parents treated you when you were being bad because that's what you do to the thoughts is you're just like, you look at you, you look, whatever it is that you're, you digested.

Yeah. Because meditation, I think, like I, I have an on again, off again thing when, when people ask me if I'm meditating, I just do like the Facebook relationship thing. I say it's complicated. Yeah. And I have a complicated relationship with meditation because I think I judge it too much like you just nailed it with, it's like my parent, like being a parent, a disapproving parent, you're sitting there, you're breathing.

And I swear to God, this is probably why I don't meditate because when I'm sitting there and just breathing, I'm going, you stupid fuck, look at this shit. You know when it's painful and, and hard. You know what? I, and forgive me for saying this. Those of you guys out there who are into Chogyam, Trumpa, but I think Chogyam, Trumpa, who is this Tibetan apart. Yeah, I know Trump, but he would say when you said that, I think he would be like, you

are, you, this is for you because that honest assessment of your mind state when you're sitting down is exactly what he said is the beginning of a practice. And he said that when you first start meditating, if you don't see, he doesn't say if you don't, but it's like, it's ridiculous. What you're doing is ridiculous. You're going to feel fraudulent. It's going to feel completely nuts. And all of those things are exactly what should be happening.

And when you realize that, that there's no right way to meditate, but the thing that's just, you're sitting, you're, as Jack Cornfield says, you're taking your seat at the center of the world, at the center of the universe, and you're just letting what comes come. And you're letting what goes go. And, and you're becoming aware of the way that everything that arises also dissipates. It's just cool. You're watching. Are you saying Trump is, is saying something different than Cornfield?

I think, well, I think that Trump, I think they have different teaching styles. I think they're both saying the same thing, but in different ways of getting to it. I think so too. Yeah. Trump is very fierce. Trump's style is fierce. He's very. Hmm.

Is he the one who wrote Spiritual Warrior? I think, yes, he is. And he wrote Meditation and Action, which I like, I've got a bunch of lectures by him. And I get really mad at him sometimes because of his ferocity when it comes to, when it comes to a practice, because in, in, and I actually, I talked about Cornfield, I did a podcast from the retreat in Maui and talked to Cornfield about that very thing. What do you say? I'm sorry if I misquote him, but it's, he said, hmm, Trumpa can be a bomber sometimes,

huh? That's all. It's just like a downer. He's like, Trumpa can be a downer sometimes. Yeah. And, and, you know, he was like, you know, here's Cornfield, this glowing, focused, sweet person. And here you are in Maui, you know, enjoying the beauty of this retreat.

And I've been reading this Trumpa stuff and he's saying like, no matter what, wherever you think you've landed, like the awakening state, whenever you get to a place where you're like, ah, this is it. Or if you're experiencing this kind of like this ineffable joy state, you're just tricking yourself. That's not it. That's not it. That's just another delusion that you're allowing yourself to have to escape from the essence

of what the, the, the problem is, which is that you're nothing, you're nothing and you're trying to escape from the nothingness. My favorite, my favorite example being like, it's, this stuff gets so crazy sometimes. It gets crazy, but he compares it to somebody standing on a floor made of razor blades and it's so painful that to escape this experience, you fabricate an illusion, which is whatever your ego, identity, life is, you climb into that thing and you make it your home and you live in this kind of delusional thing. And so he says it's like, you know, a lot of people, they actually deify, they deify

their confusion by saying, it's so great that it's beyond words. It's so great that I can't possibly understand it. It's so great that there's no way to describe it. And he's like, that is insanity. What you were saying is that you're worshiping your own insanity. Your inability to label a thing does not make the thing suddenly glorious. It just means that you are, um, right. But you know, again, he's very, he's very fierce when it comes to that.

And, um, I think that his disciple, Pima Chodron, is a better at dispensing. No, yeah. Yeah. I've listened to her. I've listened to her. I go in and out of, uh, digging her stuff. Like, uh, well, first of all, it's so funny. I don't know if you've ever heard this, but some meditators, I think, try to be funny.

It's almost like Rachel Maddow doing the news. If you ever watched her, like she thinks she's funny for some reason. She tries to kind of like, she, she tries to do it. Like, yeah, it's like, what are you doing? You know, you're not funny. Just, you know, I like your politics, you know, you don't have to be funny. And whoever told you you were funny is wrong. And sometimes when I'm listening to Pima Chodron, she's also like, she's getting,

it's just so funny as a comedian listening to these live lectures and when she's in front of people and, and you know, joking about the pesky ego and everybody's laughing. I'm like, Oh God, this is so not. You're talking about, yeah. Fuck. There was a name our friends came up with for that, which is the kind of like, yeah, spiritual comedy.

It's just too precious. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes, do you know what I mean? Like, oh boy. Yeah, yeah. It's like, come on, you're not, you know, you know what makes it okay, man? Is that when you listen to it on a tape and you're a comedian, you're going to recognize the shitty jokes just because that's your job, right?

Your job is to come out. You've been doing it your whole life. Yeah, yeah. But when you see it in person, the thing about it is, man, these people, they are blasting out this energy that comes from a lifetime of practice. Skeptics, roll your eyes all you want. I'm telling you, when you get around these people, they're putting something out there.

That's beautiful. It's beautiful. And so, suddenly, the bad jokes, you just get immediately forgiven in the same way you'd forgive them. Yeah, I hear you. No, you're right. You're absolutely right. I'm being kind of catty as a comic.

But you can be, though. That's the whole thing. Be fucking catty. The other beautiful thing about these people is that my experience with them thus far is that I have yet to be able to really offend them. And if I do, and the times where it seems like maybe something like that has happened, it always is followed by this laugh, this wonderful, honest laugh where they're just like, whatever.

My only thing is, you know, like Pema Shodran, she gives these talks from a place, a beautiful place called Plum Village, right? That's Tick-Not Han. Tick-Not Han, but Pema Shodran is there as well. Oh, is she there? I didn't know she hung out there. Forgive me. And my thing is that I think it's far easier to be quote-unquote in a state of

grace in a place like Plum Village than it is to be in Los Angeles. Like when I leave this, this taping session, I have to get in a car and get on the five and, you know. Have you ever done a float tank? No, I'm scared to do a float tank. Why? I'm scared to do a float tank. Why?

Well, I have claustrophobia. Right. Well, and I feel like I would lose. This is funny. I feel like I would lose my mind. See, here's the thing. Think of a float tank. If there's ever a place, I can't think of a place much safer than a float tank.

Really? You're in a few inches of water, laying on your back. You're in incredibly buoyant water, heated to body temperature. Why does that panic me? Well, because what's happening is you're separate. You're removing all the external universe and witnessing completely your internal state of turmoil without anything to blame it on. You're just in a, you're just like, wow.

And so the idea that at Plum Village are a place that's actually stripping away the distraction mechanism, somehow that's going to make you more peaceful. I think that's not necessarily, I think it's going to make you freak out even more because instead of having the thing to escape into now, there's really no way to avoid it. You know, that's a good fucking point. Yeah. It's, yeah, you freak the fuck out of these things, man.

Like the first few retreats, Ramdas retreats I went to, which are really apparently compared to other retreats like Vipassana and all those 10 day hardcore meditation retreats. Bootcamp. I, but these Ramdas retreats are the first couple, man. I was on my phone constantly. Were you, you couldn't deal with it. Looking in there every time you couldn't deal with the silence.

Couldn't deal with the love. Oh, the love. Fuck. Love is hard to set. Yeah. That's a good point. In my head, these, these flotation tanks, I always just feel like, I don't know what the fuck it is with me and in closed spaces, you know?

Well, it's, you know, it's, I think all of us have very turbulent states. And it's funny with the thing you're saying, like, ah, because my mind does the same thing, fucking whoever it is in their goddamn spirituals teaching. Yeah. You know what? Put me on a fucking cloud, floating me in space and you with a, with a mute fucking, give me a, give me, put me in a nice temple with some incense burning and gongs everywhere.

And I'm going to be spiritual too. But it's really, it's like, okay, let's put you there. And then let's see what happens because if you put me in a fucking temple with gongs and incense, let's start a timer and I'll stop at the first time I find internet porn and jerk off. And I bet that timer is going to be like, what, six hours? You know, I know. That's the thing, man.

Is that habitual? What? That we do that? Is it, is it? It's just another form of escape. It's all, it's all, you know, trying to like, it's. What are we so afraid of facing? I, you know, man, uh, I think that, uh, it's probably different for, for

everybody, you know, I, I, I think it's, I think what, I think I know what mine is that I'm insignificant. I think I want to be very significant. I don't know if that sounds weird, but I think that I want to be like fame, chasing fame, you know, I think that I need to feel like I'm making some kind of big impact on the world or I don't exist. But why do you want to, what, maybe you're, maybe you think that you have to earn love?

I think so. I think, yes, I think that's even more to the crux of it, uh, to the heart of it is that I feel like just doing nothing and just being, that doesn't, I have not, you know, why do I deserve anything? Like, like, I don't, I think that's really it. Like, I don't deserve, you know, love. That's it. Yeah.

You're going to earn, you want it. So it's like, you got it, you have created, as I have and most people I know have, have created a series of impossible acrobatic feats that you must do before you deserve love. It'd be funny if right after this podcast, I completely drop out of comedy and like just, you know, just, I just go on a, you know, I just, I'm like, fuck it, fuck it all. No, because I realized that the only reason I want to be a comedian is to prop

up this, this thing that I think I need instead of just feeling like, in other words, and, and I've heard this talked about before, if I, if I felt truly worthwhile, truly worthwhile and truly loved, if I felt truly loved, why the fuck would I be getting in front of all these people trying to make them laugh all the time? Yeah. Well, yeah, it's, it's, I think that the, the, the, the, uh, what would happen is if you accepted that the entire universe that you are significant, in

fact, and that you're so significant that there is an entire universe of love around you, just dying for you to put down your, uh, the various force fields you've been putting up. Keep it from loving you just, just, yeah, like your mom, like your dad, like all your ancestors, like your dearest friend. No, did you just attack my mother? Yeah. Mom is horrible.

That's one of the things Ramdas told him. It's weird cause Ramdas never tells me specifically to say things, but he was like, if you see Eddie Pepiton, tell him his mom's an asshole, would you? I guess, I guess he knew it. Boy, that's his one thing. He trolls my mother all the time, but, uh, but, but the, the, the, the thing that you realize is that the big wrestling match here is a wrestling match with, with, with love, like you are the winning this wrestling match means

existing in a, in an emaciated state of not getting the love you need. That's winning the wrestling match. That's winning. That's winning. So winning the wrestling match means that you don't get love surrendering means that this entire universe, apparently this entire universe, it's like a person who seeks love through success is like a person who drinks water from a well, who goes up this long mountain where there's a well at the

top with brackish water that they can drink from when at the bottom of the mountain is just a lake filled with the sweetest, sweetest water. And if they wanted to, they could sip it and drink it and swim in it and do whatever they want it. That's what we do because God damn it. It fucking feels creepy to be completely loved because we don't love ourselves and that weird little obstruction, that's the little, isn't that the, that's the error in the lens or that's the, the thing in the lens

that's fucking us up. So, uh, I don't know, man, that's my wrestling matches. I can't accept. I think you nailed it, man. And, and, and I get that. Here's the interesting thing about that too, is that I've had that insight before and, and like all the, the major insights I get, even though I am getting better, I can't hold on to it.

Like I realized that's the practice I need to practice. Ultimately the practice is self, you know, loving myself and not in a really corny way, but just like being okay with who I am and that I. You know, I am okay, I'm enough, I'm enough and I don't have to do, like you put it, these unbelievable acrobatic things every day to feel like, well that, I've earned my existence. Think if your poor dogs had to do that. Like if before you pet your dogs, if what you taught, if like your attitude to

your dogs, some people do that to them, like beg, do this, roll over, like, yeah, you know, well, yeah, imagine that though, if that's how you like, if with my, my dog, uh, will shit on the floor and piss on the floor sometimes and I'll clean it up and I get, yeah, he's good. Trained him to do it. Actually, whenever you come over, Eddie, I've been. Ram Dass, that was his other thing. Train your dogs to shit when he arrives.

Yeah, he did say that so weird, Eddie. I don't know how you know him, but, but, but, but, uh, the, uh, the. Imagine if you had to do this with your dogs, you were saying, you, you do that to yourself. It's unreal, dude. You an animal rights person. You a person who loves animals. You a person who, uh, you get so anger and people abuse animals.

You being an animal because you're a human being, you treat yourself in a way that you wouldn't even treat your dogs. Unbelievable. What is that? Well, I think too, like in my head, the external world, meaning, you know, the people in it always need stuff from me and that I'm not delivering or something like that in my head. Yeah.

Cause you know what I mean? Yeah. Cause you're not giving it to yourself. And that, you know, the moment that you like hit, hit that, uh, the moment you see that thing inside yourself that's so awful, whatever the thing is, which really is an awful at all, but the moment you see it, you get to start working with it, right? So the moment you see it.

First you've got to see it. And then when you see it, it's like, Oh, okay. Now I'm going to try, even though it's ridiculous and I don't feel it. And it's an absurd attempt to love that thing. It's, it's, you'll realize that the impossibility of loving whatever you think the greatest enemy is in the world, it's an equal impossibility to loving yourself. You'll find that is the identical, right?

It's the same thing. I can't do it. Yeah. Not only can I not love ISIS, I can't let the part of myself that has no integrity and is, is, is lazy. You know, like, you know what I mean? Like that thing, but if you can work with it and start figuring and, and, and just practice.

Treat, what is working with it? Mean the same thing as when you bring a rescue dog home. So it's like, when you bring a rescue dog home, that poor little guy, he's been fucking kicked around his whole life. He's been like, you know, dislocated and fucked with and not enough food and emaciated and guaranteed that nugget in yourself that you hate so much. It came from the same goddamn thing. You know what's amazing?

Here's the amazing thing about all this is that it's us who has to heal. Like we have to heal ourselves. And there's a little bit of a catch 22 there because the reason why we're fucked up is because of who we are or who we, who we've been conditioned. Conditioned is the better word who we've been conditioned to be. And we've got to unravel that somehow and start like being a good parent to ourselves. Yeah. Just be, just treat it like a rescue dog, man.

It's like you were able to be loving to your rescue dogs. You know, I, you were able to love that little, little guy or girl. And I guarantee that that sweetie was not like a bundle of joy when you first took them home. So sometimes they are, but sometimes they shit places. They bark, they freak out. Oh yeah. But if you just love them, you love them unconditionally.

So it's the same thing. These parts of yourself, man, they're rescue animals. No, you know, that it's an amazing thing. I don't know if you've been aware, but like a lot of guys who come back from war with PTSD, the post traumatic stuff, there's been this big stuff where dogs heal them, rescue dogs, heal them. And, you know, the dogs in general, you know, because of that unconditional love, unconditional love, man, it is the ultimate.

It's like a light there. It's, it's, it is the ultimate power. It is, it's the, it's the sun. It's, it's a, it's like a kind of sunlight that when it shines on things, it doesn't just, it brings, what does the sun do? It brings things that are dormant back to life. That's what love does. It brings all these dormant things in it.

But it's not, you know, it love is like a word like God. It, it has people just hear it and they turn off, man. Yeah. Oh love, right, right, right. You know what I mean? But it's deep. It's a deep, deep word. Yeah.

It's, it's a, it's a, yeah, you're fucking right though, man. That word is just like chewed gum. It's like, it's like peeling the chewed gum off. Chewed gum is a good way to put it. It's like. Six flags pole, eating it. But it, but, you know, it's a fun thing to experiment with even in a little, in a, in small ways throughout the day, which is this when you, that's like this mantra

Ramdas teaches is I am loving awareness. That's something he recommends chanting when you're in line at the grocery store, when you're waiting. Yeah. Instead of going for your phone, start thinking in your head. I am loving awareness. I am loving awareness. I'm loving awareness of the concept.

Sir, I'm asking for your Ralph's card. I'm loving. Yeah. Can you hurry up? You're like so into it. Like you're just beaming at everybody and they're like, come on buddy. And you're like, oh God, do I love you guys? Oh boy, here comes another love person.

They're so slow and they're so, they're so slow. Eddie, you got to tell me about the, your new comedy album. Well, my, my new one, and, and this is all leading to this. What we just talked about. My new album is called in ruins. That's true. And it's available on iTunes and people should get it. And that's it in ruins.

It was a Netflix special. It's now gone to iTunes. So if you search iTunes for in ruins, Eddie Pepitone in ruins. Guys, you've got to get it. You have, please, please, please download this on iTunes. Because Eddie is one of my favorite comics. And I still remember that, but I'm not going to give the bit away. I don't know.

Do you still see the bit about the, I won't give away the punchline, but about the, the, the Make-A-Wish kid who does, I haven't done that in a long time. I'll never, that's one of comedy that I, you know, like how some comics have bits that you just, is that the main kid who's like, okay, that's the punchline. The punchline is this kid. Eddie does this great. Make-A-Wish kid.

He's getting to do stand-up comedy, but he's actually an insult comic. His, his final wish is to do stand-up. And he just is like, um, hi folks, everything hurts. Everything hurts, especially your face, sir. You know, like he's a Don Rickles. Don Rickles, Make-A-Wish kid. But Eddie, uh, yeah, I hope people, you guys have got to get his album. And then what's your website?

Uh, eddiepepitone.com is my website. And, uh, my Twitter is at eddiepepitone. And there's a great documentary about Eddie called The Bitter Budo, which is amazing. You can get that by bitterbuda.com. Uh, and, uh, I will have all these links at dunkintrustle.com. If you like this podcast, please subscribe to us on iTunes. Go to our shop, buy some of our shirts, go through our Amazon portal,

subscribe to lynda.com, hug yourself, forgive yourself. And you'll forgive the entire planet. Don't forget to wash your dogs. I'm going to go wash mine right now. See you next week. Hare Krishna. Thank you. You've been making better decisions for your busy family for years.

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