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[Music]

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Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer.

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Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing series of conversations

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with spiritually awakening people. We've done just over 700 of them

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now, and if this is new to you and you'd like to check out previous ones,

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go to batgap.com, B-A-T-G-A-P, and look

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under the past interviews menu. While you're there at the site,

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poke around a little bit. We have a relatively new thing that I've been

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working a lot on this year, a BatGap AI chatbot that has over 40,000 documents loaded into

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it now and you can ask it all kinds of questions and have interesting philosophical conversations

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with it. It'll even tell you how to cook brown rice, but it'll also give you some spiritual

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tips at the end of that. All of this is made possible through the support of appreciative

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listeners and viewers, so if you appreciate it and would like to help support it, there

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There are PayPal buttons on every page of the site and a page offering alternatives to PayPal.

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Also we have a team of volunteers who are doing various things, so if you'd like to

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help in some way, get in touch.

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My guest today is my friend Kimberly Teresa Lafferty.

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Like many of my good friends, I've never met her in person.

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This way it is these days. I met her through the Association for Spiritual Integrity, which Jack O'Keefe and Craig Holiday

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and I founded about five years ago.

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Kimberly is now on the board of directors of the ASI, and I've always been very impressed

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with her clarity and brightness and creativity and positivity and so on, as you'll see in

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a minute. Kimberly is a seasoned teacher practitioner specializing in constructive adult developmental

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psychology and Indo-Tibetan Buddhism.

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She completed over 12 years of intensive Indo-Tibetan study, including the required retreats.

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She leads both open and advanced adult educational cohorts, aligning developmental psychology

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and Buddhist theory. She co-leads with Terry O'Fallon the penultimate MindsEye year-long developmental course through

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Stages International.

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Kimberly is a wife and mother living in a remote valley of the North Cascades of North

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America, Washington State, which deeply impacts her worldview and practice.

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So Kimberly, welcome. Thanks, Rick.

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This is going to be fun and welcome to all of you who are listening now and listening in the future. I'm glad you're here

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And tell us about this place where you live. Oh, oh, it's fantastic

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I first discovered this place. It's called Mazama, Washington Mazama. You can google it and I discovered it

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25 years ago

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When I was a corporate refugee

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And really first seriously got on the spiritual path

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It was the most beautiful place I've ever been. I'd been for a weekend

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For a mountain bike race at the time. I was in my early 20s and it was extraordinary

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It was like living in a paradise

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But I had a life to lead and a spiritual path to follow so I had to leave the valley and just about

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Oh 10 years ago or so. I was able to come back. So it's really a full circle time for me to

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live in this place, which is my chosen place once again. Forest is absolutely gorgeous.

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Yeah. So you and your family just live way out in the boondocks, right?

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Yeah. Surrounded by gazillion acres of forest and...

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Something like that. We definitely live at the end of the road. We're the last house in the

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northern end of the valley. Fortunately, culturally, there's a lot of extraordinary

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people here who have also made the choice to live here. There's good restaurants and a good

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bookstore and a nice art gallery and all the things that a post-post-modern girl could want also.

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So that's nice too. Wow, sounds great. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of like northern exposure or something.

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If you ever saw that show. Oh yeah. Would call yourself a corporate refugee. So you were kind of a

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Starbucks executive when you were in your 20s. Yeah, I was definitely on the executive track. I

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I graduated from undergrad university at 21 with student debt and needing to get a job and not

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sure what I was going to do. Starbucks was a very young company at the time. Gosh, I think there

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were less than 100 stores, if you can imagine. And it was a good job. And I sort of got caught

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in a good job. And it was a good company and was there for seven years. And it was wonderful,

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like nothing bad to say about. If you're going to do the corporate thing, it's a great place to do

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it. But there came a time I was 27 or 28 living in Boston, running a pretty good chunk of the

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operation out there. Had a fancy boyfriend, had a fancy salary, had a fancy apartment,

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and I was miserable. I was absolutely miserable. I'd done all the things you're supposed to do,

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and it wasn't working. And had a big spiritual experience, and that's what got me on the path.

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Tell us about that experience. You were miserable, so you started dancing,

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and then you went into some yoga poses or something and had a breakthrough.

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I did. I did. Spiritual experience is a first person experience. So when I'm talking about it,

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and I'm talking to you listeners, because I believe everybody's had profound experiences,

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even if maybe you've forgotten, but I was just in a low place. Again, I was 27, 28.

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Why wasn't I happy? I had the boyfriends I'd wanted. I was relatively attractive, it seemed.

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I was athletic. I had enough money, but why wasn't I happy? And I was really in a

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state of depression, although I didn't really know it at the time. And one day I just was

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miserable and I started to do a practice that I've been doing since I could walk, it feels like.

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I just was all by myself in my apartment and I started to dance. I put on some Annie DeFranco

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at once and I started to move and my mind, I was so miserable that I just let go. My mind dropped,

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my breath took over, my breath led the way and I found myself in what we call Pachimottanasana

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in Sanskrit. It's a forward fold. You're sitting on the ground, your legs are straight out in front

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of you and you're folded way down. Like touching your toes or nearly. Touching your toes and as

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I've said elsewhere I was a you know I was a pretty flexi girl but it was extremely blissful

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and extremely comfortable. It shouldn't have been that comfortable and I remember feeling like I had

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a choice to start thinking about why am I this comfortable? Why does this feel so good? Or just

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Let go and go for it. And I did

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My back actually started to undulate my breath got deeper and deeper

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slowed down and eventually stopped and

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The next thing I remember I was at the top of the ceiling looking down at my body and I had this

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sensation this sort of thought without thought or

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Words without word of am I safe like is it safe to leave can I park my body here?

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basically and leave and the feeling was yes, you can and

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I had what I believe as I said many people have had experiences like this

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Later, I learned we call it the clear light

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it was

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beyond time

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beyond space

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No thought no concept. We can only really use metaphors

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or words to try and point to this experience that is beyond words. It was exceedingly blissful

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and radiant and luminous and very aware and alive. Were you totally absorbed in that light or were

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you still observing your body down below you? At that point there was the light and there was me

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and there was no difference. And it wasn't me, it was everything. Now of course I wasn't using any

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of these words at the time. The next sensation I experienced was a sense of coming down.

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It was a very visceral sense of coming down back into my body. Again, my breath started

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up again. I realized I hadn't been breathing during that time. I had no idea how much time

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had passed because you're not in time. You know, I learned this later. Time is a relative

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thing. And again, breath slowly came out. My third eye was on fire. Like if you put your

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hand on my third eye. It was what we call the third eye here. It was hot. It was very, very

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hot to the touch. And I slowly came up and I grabbed my journal. I still have it, which

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is fantastic because we can look at it and do all sorts of analysis. I started to write

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down the implications of what I had seen, you know, these insights and tried to capture

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it. And I remember I wrote in my journal that the only words I could use to describe it,

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One is all things, all things you could possibly imagine, one is, and it's just orgasmic bliss.

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As if every existing thing in the universe was having an orgasmic experience.

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And orgasm is the only word I could find that was close to it.

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That completely otherworldly sort of beyond words blissful experience.

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And I had a series of insights and some precognitive notions about how I would use this experience

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It's almost like it was, well, very much was, it wasn't almost. I was in contact with a second

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person as a first person experiencer. I was in contact with what we think of as a spiritual

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company or I wasn't personifying them. I just called them the company. It was this deep,

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deep sense that I wasn't alone and none of us were alone. The insight was you're going to spend the

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rest of your life learning about this and teaching, teaching is the word I used,

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people how to experience this for themselves using yoga and Buddhism

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together, Tibetan Buddhism. Now the outside of a short little class in college, you

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know, I'd never studied Buddhism. I'd taken one or two yoga classes in my life.

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That was a real surprise for me. It was a very novel, especially those two together.

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I never heard of that at that point. This was 1997-98. I mean, there's a lot more to say about that, but that was the essence of it.

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I remember you saying that even when you're a little girl like four years old, you'd have these questions like, "How did I get here?"

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and "How come this guy is my father?" and you know, they were like asking all these deep questions, trying to make sense of your existence.

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Yeah, definitely. You know, I didn't have the easiest childhood. It wasn't capital T traumatic

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like many people. We don't want to get into a thing of comparing our trauma, but I had

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divorced parents and a single mother. We didn't have a lot of money. You know, it was hard.

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It wasn't what you see on the TV. And the gift of experiences like that is we do start

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to question, "Why? Why am I me? Why do I look like this? Why was I born in Stanford, California in

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1970? Why is this my family? What am I doing?" And I've learned since then that those challenges,

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the struggles, the pain, the suffering that was evident in my family of origin and all around me,

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not just my family, you know, walk into a classroom and you experience this, really gave me the gift

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of developing deep inner resources. And I'm not talking about disassociation, I'm not, I'm talking

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about this in a very healthy way. I had to start to go within. And so from a young age, I did have

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what we might call spiritual experiences. Back then, I called it the Holy Spirit, because that

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was the framework that was offered to me, I was going to Catholic schools, but I developed a very

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strong inner confidence and inner resources where I could find what I needed by going

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within and then finding company, knowing that I was not alone and none of us are.

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I heard you say in one of your recordings that trauma has a purpose, that there's too

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much opportunity for growth in it for it to be an accident, which I think you were just

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saying basically. Yeah.

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Zooming out a little bit, I just see the whole universe as an opportunity for growth and

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nothing is an accident whatsoever. And that can seem rather harsh if you consider some of the

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things that happen to people. But if you zoom out enough, there's an evolutionary agenda.

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Dr. Debra Hixson Definitely. And the zooming out can be such a refuge and such a gift. We talk to or tracking

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at the Association for Spiritual Integrity, it comes up in a lot of our conversations,

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this line between trauma and transcendence, this line between pain and joy. And could they exist

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without the other? Those polarities? I'm not sure. Well, we can talk about that more. Now,

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this company you've mentioned, you seem to be alluding to like some kind of guardian angels,

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or some sort of subtle beings, or something or other. Is that what you're saying?

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I am. I am. Even now, all these years later, and all the decades of practice, and all the decades

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of study, I'm hesitant to put some cultural trappings around them. Mostly because I don't know.

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Do I mind my social construction? What I was exposed to? How Kimberly, with her history

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and her experiences. And we tend to make meaning out of these extraordinary experiences or spiritual

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experiences based on those things. That makes sense. My sense now is the company, the insight.

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When I ask, I get an answer. When I need help, it comes. You have to ask, people. You have to ask.

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Please remember this, you have to ask. But if you ask, you shall be answered. It might not come,

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likely won't come in the way you think it does. But my sense now, if I were to frame it, is

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it's where we all meet. It's all of our ultimate self. Because it's out of time, it feels in a way

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like it's my best future self. And that sounds like a contradiction. But the being that I am,

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and the being I am becoming, both at once. And when I say I, I mean all of us. You know,

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we're these human beings walking around having these spiritual experiences every day. And one

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thing I've seen is where ultimately, you know, we walk around as these relative people with

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social security numbers and we're sick or have this issue or this issue, but ultimately, it's

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where we all meet. So it's less individual and more collective, if that makes sense.

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Yeah, a couple of thoughts. Firstly, what you were saying reminded me of that Bible verse of

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"seeking ye shall find, knocking the door shall be opened." Once you have the intention. I've seen

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that so many times. Sometimes people are literally, "I can't take it anymore," and they're on their

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knees praying, and then something happens. That's what happened to you. Yeah. Once the intention is

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sincere and ardent enough, "Okay, we hear you. We're coming."

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One of the messages I got, you know, when I sat up, it's wonderful to recall that experience too.

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So thank you for asking. It was probably the big one of my spiritual life.

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This extraordinary experience I had. I started to get these little messages and the first one was

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ask the question you have to ask. And I'm surprised even now how often I forget.

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We sort of feel lost in the woods sometimes, but we're not actually asking.

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And then the second one was pay attention, pay attention to what's happening, you know,

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develop these senses of attention to what's happening in the moment. And that's served me

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well since then. Another thing that comes to mind as you were describing this structure of the

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reality that we're talking about, you know, in terms of its universality, how it's our shared

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ground state, you could say, is that it is that, but it also arises in impulses, like the ocean,

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you know, all the waves have a common source in terms of their ocean-ness, but then they also

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have their individual wave expression, and there are other waves which might interact with them

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in some way. For me, it's always useful to have a multi-dimensional perspective and not ever say

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that it's all this or it's all that. Yes, agreed, agreed. And the wave and ocean metaphor is a

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wonderful one to feel into what I'm trying to use words to describe. I just plunged full-on

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into the ocean in that experience and came back down as the wave.

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Wave now realizing that you have an ocean aspect to you. You're not merely a wave.

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Right, but was I enlightened? Was I fully awakened? Was I even awakened? I'm not so sure.

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Those are tricky words. We'll get into them. I have to do the work. I have to do the work for that.

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So you came out of this experience and it was were you like, OMG, what just happened?

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What should I do now? It must have altered your trajectory and gotten you going on things that

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you wouldn't have anticipated getting into. Yes, it did indeed. You know, it took a few weeks,

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a couple months for me to take a sabbatical from my job just to name check Starbucks again. They

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They were extremely kind to me, extremely generous.

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They allowed me to take a two year sabbatical,

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which ended up being leaving for good.

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But I knew I needed to go find others who,

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I didn't need someone to explain it to me,

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but I knew, obviously, I was not the only person

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who had had experiences like this.

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Clearly, I was not special.

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That was obvious. I'm not putting myself down.

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It was just reality. Other people had obviously experienced things like this.

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This is before Google. So I couldn't Google, Oh, orgasmic bliss experience, leaving your body.

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That wasn't something that I could do at the time.

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And I had been given the message, go study Buddhism, go study yoga and Buddhism.

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So within a few months, I moved to the most beautiful place I'd ever been.

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I had enough money, thanks to my well-paying job to take a couple of years off.

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and I started to try and meditate.

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And I found, Sounds True was a pretty new

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publishing company at the time. Amazon, just in the past two years, had started to,

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they were just shipping books back then.

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- Yeah, it started with books. - It started with books.

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And I found Ken Wilber also at the same time.

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So I started to read Pema Chodron books,

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for your listeners who may know, the Tibetan Buddhist books.

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The Dalai Lama was a bestseller at the time.

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He had written "The Art of Happiness" I think the year before.

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So I started listening, and as soon as I started listening to Tibetan Buddhism,

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and at the same time digging into

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Ken Wilber's "Integral Philosophy,"

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those two domains, they knew what I was talking about.

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And that's what I wanted to learn.

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It was so similar to my experiences,

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many of the things that these two arenas were pointing out,

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that I just started devouring these books.

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I tried to figure out how to meditate.

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I continued to have what we call state experiences,

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temporary experiences that are novel and extraordinary,

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but I was still Kimberly. I was still everyday Kimberly

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and figuring out how to have a life.

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I met my partner who ended up being my partner

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for seven years at the time, somebody who also studied Tibetan Buddhism

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and Wilbur's work deeply out here in the middle of nowhere

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in this beautiful valley that I now live in again.

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And we went to Nepal and went to the Himalayas,

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and I studied at Khopan Monastery.

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I found the arena where people were talking

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about what I wanted to talk about and asking the questions that I wanted

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to figure out the answers to.

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That's how I got particularly into Tibetan Buddhism very deeply.

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And then it went from there. But at that point, I went full on as a Dharma,

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we won't call it a Dharma bum, but as a Dharma, which is the study of spiritual wisdom,

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particularly Indo-Tibetan Buddhism.

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It's not just Tibetan Buddhism, it's Indo-Tibetan Buddhism,

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and got very seriously aligned with the lineage

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of the Dalai Lama as my particular domain study.

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- And so I presume they had translators in this monastery

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and you were able to read.

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Did you learn any Tibetan? - Yes, I did learn some Tibetan.

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I never was one of those people who completely got into translating, but I learned enough

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to read it simply. I learned a pretty extensive vocabulary, which you just learn after studying the texts for

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so long. My journey into Indo-Tibetan Buddhism.

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So this was now, let's see, I went to Nepal in '99, 2000.

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I remember because we did a trek to Everest.

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we went up to Everest base camp right after a six week retreat outside of Kathmandu in

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Bodnath. If anybody of your listeners have been to Bodnath, it's an enclave just outside of Kathmandu

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where there are many beautiful Tibetan Buddhist monasteries.

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Yeah, it was 99-2000 because I remember we were in Namtse Bazar, which is a town on the

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way up to Everest on New Year's Eve, 99-2000.

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I remember that Rick, it was like the world was going to end or something when it turned

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Oh, Y2K, right.

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Y2K, that was it.

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Yeah, I was out there in the middle of the Himalayas when that happened.

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Everything was fine though, wasn't it?

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Yeah, it turned out okay.

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It turned out okay.

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And at the time I was studying with Rinpoches.

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I was studying with Lama Zopa Rinpoche,

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who's well known in certain circles.

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Studying with Tibetan Buddhists.

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And it was wonderful,

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and it was exciting.

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And then I started to meet the next generation,

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the first generation of Americans

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Americans and Westerners that had also gone to India and also gone to Tibet and learned

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the teachings and brought them back. And it was really when I found a community of Western

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educated first and second generation American, let's just say for lack of a better word,

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Tibetan Buddhists, that it really took off. I think if I had stayed, you know, you go

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to these temples, it's all in Tibetan, there's a lot of cultural trappings, it's all beautiful,

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But that's not what appealed to me. It was the application of the wisdom and how we can apply it to our modern life, while

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also integrating modernity and what we know about modernity at the same time.

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So I found some American teachers and communities and started to study very deeply for the next

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12 years. And a lot of retreats, started teaching about halfway through that, encouraged by my teachers

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to do so. So I heard you mention retreats.

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How much long retreat did you do? Did you do them in some kind of monastic setting or were you just doing them in your little

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cabin and on your own?

23:55

What kind of experiences did you have on these long retreats?

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Well, if I added them up, it's years of solitary retreat.

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My traditional practice for doing solitary is I would do one to two, usually two, during

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this 12-year period, five to six weeks solitaries a year.

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So you go in for five to six weeks.

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These are what you call "lerams" or tantric retreats.

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Once you go through the Indo-Tibetan Buddhist study path and you do all of the purvakas

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and you have certain realizations, you enter the path of Vajrayana or the Diamond Way or

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Tantra. And when I say Tantra, people think all these things, it's not any of that, it's not Neo-Tantra,

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it's not what you Google. Vajrayana, Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Tantra, is an old, traditional, very well laid out path of practice.

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It has two different stages of it in my lineage, in the Anuttara Yoga Tantra lineage. There are deities,

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but when you enter that path and you get these tantric empowerments, you make a commitment to do

25:08

a certain amount of solitary retreats. So I would go in and I did it in sometimes I did it in...

25:13

Quick question. What does the word tantra itself mean if you translate it into English?

25:17

It means thread. Yeah.

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Like sutra in Sanskrit. It means sutra. Yeah, it's another word for sutra. It means thread and it means

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lineage. It means lots of different things, right? The main thing that it means.

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So to do these retreats, did you have to get some kind of approval or certification from

25:35

Teachers more experienced than yourself. I don't think most people would do this

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But if somebody without the proper training or understanding were to think I'm gonna do a six-month retreat

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I'll just go sit in a little hut someplace and do this on my own. I don't know if that would go too well

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Yeah, have fun. It would either be really boring or really dangerous or somewhere in between

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Believe me. I've done some of these long things to six months here six months there and you get pretty nutty at times

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You know, you really need some kind of stabilization and people checking on you and things like that. Yes and

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stable psychology which perhaps will come to later the need for

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Modernity as well to give us the gifts of what we know of psychological wisdom

26:18

Yes So these particular tantric retreats that I'm talking about I'm a Vajrayogini

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practitioner. Bhajagini is, if you think of it as like an archetype or a deity that you

26:29

practice. And so it's very rigorous. You're not just going into a cabin and thinking about

26:33

nothing. There's a ritual to go in, there's a ritual to go out. I would usually do it,

26:38

I'd find an off-grid cabin somewhere and there are various places around mostly the Southwest

26:44

that I did it. My first layaram again, that's a word that means to get ready to practice

26:51

later stages of Tantra practice, which have to do with your working with your wind, what we call

26:56

your winds, channels and drops, your subtle body, your energy body. You're doing very technical

27:03

visualizations and practices, working with the inner energies of your inner body, right? And

27:10

the mass of your inner body. So these Tantra retreats, you have a ritual that's like a 1500

27:16

year old ritual to go in. You're meditating four times a day. It's a four-part retreat.

27:23

You do a long meditation session before the sun rises, another before noon, a third before the

27:30

sun sets, and a fourth before bed. You're doing yoga, you're eating very healthy, you're not

27:35

seeing anybody, talking to anybody. I got to the point where I could hear the electricity,

27:40

the sounds of just electricity in the walls, I could hear and would be disturbing. So I would

27:45

I would usually do an off-grid cabin somewhere.

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There are many places if you know where to look. Sometimes you just rent a little house somewhere.

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And you go in and it's very rigorous.

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You don't see anybody, you don't have books,

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you don't have your phone, you don't have your computer,

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but you're busy. - You have to go into town to buy food?

28:04

- No, you don't see anybody. - How do you get your food?

28:07

- Yeah, so you learn how long cauliflower lasts

28:10

in a cabin. (laughing) In your cooler or your refrigerator

28:14

you're unplugging for your meditation sessions. There's different ways to do it. What usually

28:19

happens is you have a caretaker that does deliveries for you once a week or once every two weeks.

28:27

Some people like to go on retreat and have people cook for them and deliver food. I didn't.

28:32

That was way too distracting for me. I would start fantasizing about the person who was

28:37

delivering food and leave them notes and leave them like it was completely distracting. So

28:41

So I needed to be really on my own.

28:44

There are places set up for it. There's a town called Preston, Colorado, which listeners, there's wonderful retreat places

28:52

out there with caretakers that will give you deliveries.

28:55

And there's always a system, you don't need, we're not silly, right?

28:58

Let's not be silly. There's always a system where if you need help, if you're in danger, if you hurt yourself,

29:04

there's a way to alert somebody. So that's always the case too.

29:08

So what kind of experiences did you have on these things?

29:10

I'm sure it wasn't about this experience or that experience.

29:14

It was a higher, broader, more abiding purpose, but there must have been some interesting

29:19

things along the way. Oh yeah, we can talk about the interesting things.

29:23

Well, zooming out for a second, one thing I can say is over this course of 12 years

29:28

as I was doing these retreats, I know that I grew.

29:32

Kimberly, who has her personality and her parts and her shadows and her issues and her

29:38

traumas. I know that it helped me grow up psychologically. I'm aware of that and I got that feedback

29:44

that that was the case. So that's a good thing. In terms of the experiences, the first retreat

29:50

I did, the first lay-around retreat, I'd done a lot of other solitaries at this point, but

29:55

the first Tantric retreat I did where I went in, I was a new Vajrayogini practitioner.

30:01

And Vajrayogini is this archetype of bliss. She's a feminine wisdom. She's what we call

30:08

a bikini, she's considered the feminine Buddha of all the Buddhas, like the awakened feminine

30:14

energy and that she uses desire and passion and love to awaken herself and help others

30:22

awake, wake up and grow up both. She's very sexy and she's very alive. She's got these

30:29

little teeth and she's considered semi-wrathful. She's not one of those wrathful deities like

30:36

Kali where she's going to cut your head off or something. She's just a little bit wrathful.

30:41

Perfect for me. Just very attracted. And you're calling on this, yes, second person deity,

30:49

which the texts say actually exists, right? You can believe it or not out there, but they exist

30:55

as actually a dimensional being in the world. They exist as the realization of bliss wisdom itself,

31:03

and they exist as who we are becoming. In Tibetan Buddhist Tantra you take these energies and these

31:10

archetypes and you absorb them into yourself and that's what people either love about it or don't

31:14

love about it. You're taking these energies and you're bringing them into yourself so that you

31:19

are becoming a deity yourself like that. An awakened being, not a deity like "oh i'm a goddess,

31:25

i'm so great" nothing like that. It's this awakened love bliss wisdom. So I went on my first lay around

31:31

My first retreat was Vajra Gini and by the way, she's red. She's the color red and the texts say

31:38

that she's like light like she's shining in this sort of ruby red light. The texts say she's red

31:44

because she's in love with you and love with all beings which is really sweet like she has a crush

31:49

on you. My first retreat was at a cabin, a little cabin off grid in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

31:56

My friend Brian kindly let me use his cabin.

32:00

You had to hike in like a mile.

32:03

And it was hiking in with my water and going back

32:07

and getting another load of things and going back in.

32:09

And I had just closed, it's called a sum boundary.

32:13

I had just closed a boundary.

32:16

It's an energetic boundary. Tibetan Buddhism, I say it often,

32:19

it's a mashup of Indian Buddhism,

32:23

Meeting bone shamanism, which was the religion of Tibet at the time like in a hill tribe

32:30

religion, um, very shamanistic

32:32

A lot of spirits and nature spirits and I love all that stuff. I grew up catholic. I love saints and

32:39

incense and deities and

32:42

Mysticism and I also grew up in the new age, right?

32:45

So all of that stuff fit me very well

32:48

But I went in and I closed my boundary where you walked the four corners you walk the four directions

32:53

And you set this energetic boundary and you make offerings and you ask

32:57

Any spirits inside or out right inside or out that are going to?

33:01

Create obstacles in your retreat you ask them to leave

33:04

And you ask your own yeah, you can think of them as guardian angels or ancestors

33:09

My grandmothers are with me on these retreats both of them

33:15

You asked them to support you and be there with you and I closed my retreat and I went back to my little

33:20

Cabin, I still remember it so clearly

33:23

And I looked up into the sky

33:25

And there was this red fireball like bright red and I had just done these prayers to

33:32

This red lady to be to teach me and to help me grow up and wake up in our secular language

33:39

And there was this red fireball with my eyeballs

33:43

I was totally sober, totally straight, not on anything.

33:47

You know, I'm like, "Am I seeing what I'm seeing?"

33:49

And it was quite large and right above my head,

33:53

and it floated across the sky.

33:55

And it was a little terrifying. It was a little terrifying.

33:59

You know, in my body, I didn't start to spin stories about it,

34:04

but I had just done this long ancient prayer

34:06

to this red lady. I remember it was kind of getting close to bedtime,

34:11

And I went inside and I kind of put myself to sleep, like, it's going to be okay.

34:16

And I had amazing dreams that night.

34:20

And that was one of the most powerful retreats, you know, the first one that I

34:23

did, and there were other extraordinary experiences, anomalous experiences, which

34:28

later became a field of study in the next era of my life after this particular era.

34:34

I started to study extraordinary experiences and how we make meaning of

34:39

them based in large part on the experiences that I've had.

34:42

I remember you saying at one time you didn't set the boundaries properly or something and

34:47

you kind of came under attack and the window shutters were flapping even though there was

34:51

no wind and there was all this crazy stuff going on.

34:54

Yeah, that was the second lay-around, the second retreat.

34:58

And this one was in an old guardhouse on ancient Apache land that was fought over.

35:07

very, very sad, tragic story of what happened to the Apache and what the American military

35:15

did to them, of course, and their land. And this land was very bloody. There's a lot of

35:20

blood shed on this land. This little stone guardhouse, 150 years old at least, was right

35:27

by a spring. And the spring, this is in the Chiricahua Mountains, the spring was guarded.

35:32

They had to guard the spring and keep, you know, keep it for the military and keep anybody

35:36

else away from it. And I went in, it was just a little bed, you know, it was a tiny room.

35:42

And I went in and I'd had such a good first retreat, and I'd had a lot of realizations

35:47

and I could feel myself growing and I took a very Sapha Mark approach to this. I didn't

35:53

do all of the rituals that you're supposed to do to protect yourself because even now

35:57

my modern mind is like, oh, do I need to make those particular cakes you need to make in

36:03

Tibetan Buddhism, you have to make these cakes and you make them out of bread and flour and milk.

36:09

You know, imagine getting a bunch of Wonder Bread and tearing it up and putting stuff in there and

36:14

forming it into certain things and then cutting up this processed cheese and sticking it on there

36:19

with toothpicks. I was like, "Is this cultural trappings? I mean, do I really need to do this?

36:23

I'm waking up and I'm growing." And I didn't take it very seriously because I was such a great

36:29

practitioner and so advanced you see and I went to sleep that night and I had a dream I still see it

36:36

so clearly in my mind where I was staying at some beach house and I left the sliding glass doors

36:42

open like I literally left the doors open and I remember still can see his face I remember this

36:47

if we think of it as sort of a demon-like creature like a scary looking monster-like creature was

36:52

coming to the glass door and looking in and looking at me and I knew I was dreaming it was a lucid

36:57

dream. And so I woke myself up in the dream and yes, there were papers flying all over the place.

37:05

This old window was flapping open. I went outside, there's no wind, and I could hear again with my

37:12

ears, with the five senses, not a meditative hearing, but a hear with my ears chanting.

37:20

And you know, I might say it's Native American sounding chanting, I don't know,

37:24

But that's how it sounded to me how I classified it deep chanting. I was afraid I wasn't scared

37:31

But I knew it was a lesson to take things seriously

37:34

And I went back inside and I did the mantras I was supposed to do and I purified things

37:39

And the lesson there for me, it wasn't that oh

37:42

You did it wrong. They're attacking you

37:45

It's that the way we treat our practice our practices, you know, we say in Buddhism. It's empty

37:51

It's empty of any self-existence of its own. It has no power from its own side to wake us up

37:57

It has no power from its own side to harm us whatsoever

38:01

But the way we treat our practice equates to the results we get and so if I take my practice

38:08

Seriously, of course, I'm gonna get better results, right if I cut corners and think I'm so great and

38:15

Lack humility and lack vigor and rigor in my practice and what kind of results am I gonna get?

38:22

It's just like anything else like you're married. I'm married. Of course our quality of our relationship

38:29

Depends on how we treat it

38:31

If we treat our relationship with reverence and joy and honor, of course, we're gonna get better results

38:39

So what I took from that lesson, it wasn't some oh, they're gonna hurt you or it was treat your practice

38:45

Practice seriously. Do it well. And that's going to create the results that you get.

38:50

Interesting. Yeah, I was on a six-month course one time led by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and we

38:55

were in Biarritz, France at that point. And one day he said, "Keep your windows closed."

39:00

And then when I went to bed that night, I thought, "I like fresh air. I'm going to leave my window

39:03

open a little bit." And that night, I actually had some kind of dream where I was attacked

39:07

by some kind of witch-like creature. And I started doing a Sanskrit puja in my mind and

39:12

that kind of dispelled it. But I thought, okay, I'll put a little in those.

39:18

Yeah. And also, I believe after all of these years, it's a multi dimensional universe.

39:23

It's populated with many things known and unknown. And we are obviously not alone. Right?

39:31

And that has proven to me in my own experience through the decades.

39:37

Is there anything more you want to say about your whole Tibetan Buddhist area? You and I

39:41

I could do an interview every day for a month and we wouldn't run out of things to talk

39:45

about. But is there anything you want to say about this chapter before we move on to anomalous

39:49

experiences and some other things?

39:52

I know many of the listeners, Tibetan Buddhism, Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, for me is an absolutely

39:58

precious, precious gift to humanity.

40:03

It is the most complex spiritual technology that I'm aware of that we have.

40:08

It was a whole culture. It was a whole social system devoted not to making money or devoted not to advancing technology

40:17

as one of my teachers says, "Yeah, Tibet's technology didn't get much more advanced than

40:22

yak butter." I think it was Ken Wilber is the one who said that.

40:26

However, spiritual technology is the most advanced out there and I have found that to

40:30

be true. So it is a precious gem that part of my mission is to preserve it, save it, and get the jewels

40:38

because I feel like I got the jewels. It also, as Americans or Westerners, as, you know,

40:45

not monks in a monastery somewhere, it needs updating and it needs integration with psychology

40:52

and with the gifts and tools that we have now. And that's what I'd like to see because there can be

40:59

abuses and there can be problems and we, many of us have heard of those. I certainly am not blind

41:05

to the issues of Tibetan Buddhism with gurus who have not dealt with their shadows and I have my

41:11

own stories. Again, that could be a whole other podcast about that. And yet, such precious

41:18

opportunity for evolving and developing our waking up process. And for me, waking up and growing up

41:26

are deeply intertwined. You may know the word "kavach" in Sanskrit, which means like an armor.

41:33

it's said that there's perhaps an individual coverage which we're kind of just talking about in terms of your preparation for that retreat and

41:39

There can also be a an irrustria coverage or a national

41:42

armor in a sense that is created sort of by the coherence or the spiritual potency of the

41:49

Collective consciousness of the people so one wonders. Well, what happened to the bet?

41:54

There was there's some kind of corruption in there which caused them to be susceptible to the chinese

42:00

invasion or was perhaps the Chinese invasion some kind of cosmic play to get them out of

42:05

Tibetan more into the world so the rest of the world could partake of their wisdom?

42:10

Yeah, I mean I've been educated, I've had education that is comparable to a Geshe.

42:16

Geshe is like having two PhDs in Tibetan Buddhism and if

42:20

1959 didn't happen, if diaspora didn't happen, I would have never had that opportunity.

42:26

So what is it really, Rick? Is it true that they were corrupt or is it true that it was meant to be?

42:32

Well, what functions? What's most effective? What is the best way we can see this

42:39

that is the most true for us? And for me, I think I just answered that question. If the diaspora

42:45

didn't happen, if my teacher didn't walk over the Himalayas and go into India and then start to

42:52

spread this wisdom that was surrounded by the Himalayas and held secret for so long, I never

42:58

would have had the opportunity or to find beings and people that could help me figure out and

43:05

integrate that experience I had in Boston. Uh-huh, interesting. So thanks Mao Tse-Tung.

43:10

Yeah. However you pronounce your name. Yeah, it's interesting. Sometimes there are these really

43:16

horrible, catastrophic things that happen, but then the consequence is that humanity seems to

43:21

to learn a lesson and something good comes out of it.

43:24

Trauma to transcendence. Yeah.

43:26

What's going on there?

43:28

Okay, so, spiritual development from modern research and ancient tradition does waking

43:33

up automatically grow us up?

43:35

Is that what we want to talk about next? Sure, we could.

43:38

Do states of consciousness and states of ego development intersect?

43:42

And my answer to the first question is, sorry, I used to think that waking up automatically

43:46

grew us up, but there's precious little evidence of it.

43:50

Yes, well, I think the mistake that we make often is we have this extraordinary

43:57

say unity experience, experience of oneness.

44:00

And it can happen with children.

44:02

Children have experiences of oneness maybe with a mountain or with

44:07

swimming with dolphins.

44:09

And adults too, right? We have these experiences with trees or in nature

44:13

or maybe we take some substance and we feel in our being, in our body,

44:18

our body, how our body is connected to everything and we are all one.

44:22

And that's wonderful, right? It's glorious. It's a wonderful experience.

44:26

And then later we start to wake up to the realization that

44:31

we are socially constructed beings,

44:33

that Rick is Rick and what he calls himself based

44:38

on how he was raised, the content and context that you were exposed to as

44:44

you were growing up your whole story, which I'd love to ask you all about sometime,

44:49

that got you to France and got you into the Tian movement

44:52

and all of these things. And we are constructed based on our exposure

44:58

and experiences as we are growing up.

45:01

And we start to see that we're also not that,

45:04

that there's something perhaps below that or under that

45:08

that is more our true nature. And we start to see that we can release

45:12

the social constructions, we can release our context,

45:14

we can release these beliefs of what we are.

45:18

And that identity of self continues to grow.

45:22

And eventually we begin to see that we are awareness itself.

45:27

And we are aware of awareness that I am,

45:32

you are, the you looking through your eyes into my eyes

45:36

and me looking out through your eyes

45:38

is this same awareness that we share

45:41

and that everything I could possibly perceive

45:44

you could possibly perceive in this room and listeners in the room you're sitting in, all

45:49

that you perceive is arising in you, the big you, the capital Y you, not the little you

45:57

with the social security number. Even say your name to yourself is arising in your awareness.

46:03

And so we see, and this is where our study at Stages International and constructive developmental

46:10

theory comes in, we can see from the science side, from the research side, how our identity of what

46:18

we call ourselves evolves and grows through our lifespan and is tied to these continuals throughout

46:26

our lifespan waking up experiences. So to answer your question, no, like spiritual teachers that

46:32

go out and like, "Oh, I had this experience and now I'm fully enlightened." I don't quite believe

46:36

there's a fully enlightened, personally. There's no end point. We have these experiences and then

46:42

we come back down from them and almost always we're still the same person that we were.

46:47

But those waking up experiences we're finding tend to be natural. They happen to virtually

46:54

everybody. They might not call it that, but this developmental pattern we see of how our identity

47:01

changes is something we all share as humans. No matter what our culture, no matter what our

47:07

background, if we have educational opportunities, we can progress perhaps faster or farther,

47:15

but there is this deep intersection we notice between waking up and change. Our identity

47:23

continuously changes, like who you are today, Rick, and how you see the world and how you see yourself

47:30

is obviously very different than when you were 10.

47:33

And different, I would say, when you were 20.

47:36

That's for sure. When you were 30, and on and on.

47:39

Now, an interesting question is, let's say, if I had not been doing spiritual practice all those years,

47:46

how different would I be than what I am now?

47:50

I think I wouldn't even be alive, but presuming I had lived,

47:53

I also think I would be very different.

47:56

But some people argue that the growth that we experience through spiritual endeavors

48:02

is just normal maturation and we're putting some kind of spin on it with all of our spiritual

48:07

lingo that we've immersed ourselves in.

48:09

- Mm-hmm, could be. You know, I could see that argument.

48:12

- That would be an interesting area for scientific study if that could be measured somehow.

48:16

- Yeah. Well, it's interesting. We find that there are certain things that are necessary

48:23

but not sufficient for growth. And part of it is this cognitive maturity that happens

48:31

in terms of subject-object, in terms of how we're seeing ourselves and how we see the

48:36

world. The transformational process, I think, is of the, we'll call it identity or the ego,

48:43

was explained very beautifully by the educator-scholar Robert Keegan, Bob Keegan, out of the Harvard

48:49

School of Education. He's really a great leader in this field and he described the subject-object

48:55

process. That transformation happens when what was previously hidden from us becomes an object

49:01

of our awareness. What was previously subject becomes object and a new subject is replacing it.

49:07

So that's a lot of fancy words for saying, let's say this, we're all going around looking at the

49:14

world with a pair of colored glasses on that we're not aware that we're wearing.

49:20

That's a metaphor for the subjective state of mind.

49:24

The transformation process of our identity or in this case let's call it our ego.

49:28

Now everybody when I'm saying ego it's not a negative thing.

49:32

I'm using it as a neutral term so just think of it as a neutral term like identity.

49:38

The transformational process is when we take off those glasses or maybe they fall off or

49:43

or maybe someone takes them off and hands it to us.

49:45

That's kind of the mystery of how that happens.

49:47

But we take off those glasses and we look at them

49:50

and we see, I've been seeing the world through this way.

49:53

And now it's an object. And we have a new pair of glasses on that we can't see.

49:57

And that's the subject object process. And as we continue to take off our glasses

50:03

throughout our lifespan and see, oh, I've been seeing the world this way.

50:06

We might not use those words.

50:08

That's how we actually continue to evolve and grow.

50:12

And that's very well tracked. And I encourage everybody to check out Stages International

50:17

and the courses we're doing there. I'm not getting a kickback from that.

50:20

It's not a financial benefit for me, nothing like that,

50:24

but it really is the best developmental framework

50:27

that I'm aware of that answers this question.

50:30

And we're continuing to explore this question

50:32

of how that waking up and growing up process intercepts.

50:36

What is that process of evolution of our identity

50:40

as we grow? I don't think we're anywhere near there yet, but it'd be interesting if all these stages

50:45

of development that both psychology understands and spiritual traditions understand could be

50:51

thoroughly mapped and correlated so that we can figure out how the language connects between

50:56

different cultures that are actually describing the same thing, and also correlated with neurophysiological

51:02

measures as waking, dreaming, and sleeping have been.

51:06

Yes, indeed. And there are some fantastic maps out there.

51:10

Whenever we do a map in these areas, it's like everybody has a way of, one of my teachers

51:14

said sort of, cutting up reality and talking about it, right?

51:18

The work of Ken Wilber has some beautiful maps that he's the great synthesizer and he

51:22

puts all the different theoretical maps together so you can look and see, oh this map is measuring

51:27

identity, this map is measuring spiritual intelligence, this map is measuring cognitive

51:32

development, because they're all measuring different things.

51:35

I love what you're talking about, neurobiology too.

51:38

And these maps are really a matrix of consciousness, you know, how our consciousness evolves, how

51:44

our consciousness develops, and that's really the research that we're doing.

51:48

Great. Let me get a couple questions in here that people sent in.

51:54

This is from Marty McConnell in Chicago.

51:56

How do you reconcile or connect such an ancient practice as Buddhism with modern thinking,

52:02

with science and technology and even therapeutic approaches?

52:06

How do you connect the two? How do you reconcile and connect, juxtapose and harmonize this ancient knowledge that you've been

52:13

studying with modern knowledge, which you've also been studying? Yeah, thanks, Marty. Because that is

52:19

the work, the mission, the experiment of my life and what we're doing at the Confluence

52:25

Experiences. We're looking at how we can bring together in a confluence these two great traditions

52:32

of spirit and mind, of spirituality and psychology, how we're figuring it out. One thing is to

52:39

release the nonsense, the cultural trappings or the parts of Buddhism that just don't function

52:47

or work well in modernity and doing that very carefully and very cautiously. For example,

52:53

the practice of Guru Yoga, the whole Guru thing. There's so much silliness in it and yet there's

53:01

also a point for the ego having something, somebody to bend its knee to, to actually

53:08

admit to our modern mind, our individualistic mind that thinks we have everything figured

53:12

out that somebody else can teach me something, right? That itself is difficult for the modern

53:18

mind. For example, Guru Yoga, how do you not throw out the baby with the bathwater, to

53:24

use a common term, but yet let go of the cultural ridiculousness for us, right? The stuff that

53:31

doesn't really apply anymore and keep the gold. You know, throw out the dross, keep the gold.

53:36

And then psychology... Before you get off that point, I would say one of the biggest challenges

53:40

there is on the guru's shoulders to have the maturity not to have all the adulation go to

53:48

his head, which 95% of the time it seems to do, causing all kinds of problems. Yes, we'll get

53:54

there, but this is a huge part of our mission and work at the Association for Spiritual Integrity is

53:59

How do we help and support our spiritual teachers of multiple denominations or non-denominations

54:05

to do that well? And a lot of teachers these days are trying to adopt a non-hierarchical

54:12

approach, even in the way they arrange the chairs. And it's still obvious that they're

54:15

kind of the leader, but there's an attempt to sort of say, "Hey, we're all in this together."

54:20

Right. We could talk about it a lot. This is what we're experimenting with and doing at the

54:26

confluence experience. I started a tantra group, a Vajrayana cohort. We're a year in. For the first

54:32

time in 12 years, I started one. And there is a horizontal power structure in terms of, "I'm

54:39

Kimberly. I'm vulnerable. I don't have anything to hide. I'll tell you about the argument I had

54:45

this morning with my husband. I'm clearly doing shadow work. I'm there with you as a fellow

54:51

spiritual aspirants. And yet, and yet, my job is to be the holder of that seat. My job as the lineage

55:00

holder is when I am giving, say, a tantric empowerment, which I'm doing in a month,

55:04

if I don't hold that as not Kimberly, it's not Kimberly holding it. If I don't take that seat,

55:10

then I can't help anybody. And I didn't spend those 15, 20 years. What good was it? Right? So

55:17

It's this flex flow between a horizontal power structure when it's appropriate.

55:23

People hate the word, but it's not a power hierarchy.

55:27

It's an experience hierarchy.

55:30

Yeah, and kind of a knowledge-wisdom hierarchy.

55:32

A knowledge-wisdom hierarchy. And then in our circle, I'm not making the business decisions.

55:37

Somebody with more business experience is making the business decisions

55:40

because they hold the seat in that case.

55:43

Our AI expert in the field is making the AI decisions.

55:47

So we're experimenting with this flex flow structure where when it's appropriate, it's

55:53

horizontal. When it's appropriate, the person who has the most experience in that domain is the

56:00

one who's leading us because then we're leaderless and you can't go very far.

56:05

And that's the way the world works.

56:07

You don't spend tens of thousands of dollars to go to university to study with a bunch

56:11

of people that don't know any more than you do. The whole assumption is that these guys

56:15

really know something and that's why I want to spend time in their presence. But then,

56:19

on the other hand, it doesn't grant these professors the liberty to do whatever they

56:24

want and to dismiss you if you question what they're doing. Like if they want to sleep

56:28

with all their female students or something, their knowledge of physics does not excuse

56:34

that kind of behavior. And I would say the same should be true of any kind of supposed

56:37

spiritual attainment. Because you know, you and I have heard these stories about people saying,

56:42

"Oh, I'm not sleeping with the women, it's God doing it, and I'm just an instrument of God and

56:47

yada yada." Yeah, oh please, oh please. Just to get it on the tape, every spiritual teacher,

56:52

so those of you out there, you want to progress spiritually, you want to increase your spiritual

56:57

intelligence, your spiritual wisdom, have waking up experiences, wisdom, love, care, compassion.

57:04

It's like learning anything else go find a community a teacher

57:08

That help you learn and that teacher whoever it is or that community

57:13

Should have some sort of feedback process

57:16

Should be doing their own

57:19

psychological shadow work therapeutic work

57:21

Should also be a person be human

57:25

You can be human and divine

57:27

At the same time and that actually we all are and that's part of the path that we walk. Yeah

57:34

And just one more point to throw in here is that I've had people actually argue with me that there is no correlation between

57:40

awakening and

57:43

Behavior you can be an awakened drunkard you can be an awakened womanizer or whatever and I disagree

57:48

Like in the beginning you were you starting to use the terms of awakening or enlightenment?

57:53

Things like that a little bit and we both sort of got a little skittish when we use those words

57:57

But if we're going to use them, then we shouldn't just be referring to some inner state of consciousness

58:03

we should be referring to a holistic development that has somehow occurred in which you are

58:08

really walking your talk and all the various purifications have taken place in whatever

58:14

way that is understood. It's understood differently by different traditions, but most traditions

58:18

do emphasize the importance of an ethical foundation and a real purification of one's

58:24

whole mind-body system, emotional system, and shadow system, and all that other stuff,

58:29

you're really going to be a fit reflector or receptacle for this higher consciousness.

58:33

Yes, yes, you said it right. Two points I want to make about that. You can truly tell

58:39

spiritual wisdom by behavior. It's about behavior. Does behavior change? And people, you go out,

58:48

say you have some psychedelic experience, you have some awakening, whatever experience,

58:53

your behavior change? It's all about am I kinder? Am I wiser to self and others? You're a person too.

59:01

Am I kinder? Am I wiser? Am I more compassionate? Am I starting to take off those glasses

59:06

and see with new eyes? The other thing, and this is very, very strong in the lineage of

59:12

Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, the big goal is to see what we call emptiness, which has a lot of meanings in

59:20

itself that is an evolving thing, or ultimate reality, or a satori, right, where you perceive,

59:26

you pierce reality directly and see how reality functions for yourself. Nobody can tell you or

59:32

tell you to believe it. It's not really a belief system. It's a path of practice where you see

59:38

and experience realization for yourself. Yeah, it would be absurd to say, "I believe I'm holding a

59:45

pen here. It's obvious.

59:47

Exactly. So in the old

59:50

reperche to my own lived

59:53

experience of this, there's no disagreement. You know

59:56

you've had a real experience of wisdom. You've had a

59:59

real capital R realization. It's called a

1:00:02

tokpa. It's an embodied realization like the

1:00:05

real deal, awakening and whatever. If

1:00:08

automatically, spontaneously

1:00:11

naturally, your heart opens. And

1:00:14

there's a, "Oh my gosh, I've got to change the way I do things. Oh my gosh, I want to

1:00:20

care for other people. Oh my gosh, I want to be loving and more compassionate and more

1:00:25

forgiving of selves and others." So if that compassionate side and experience doesn't

1:00:32

immediately follow the wisdom side, then we're off base somewhere. The two go together like

1:00:39

two wings of a bird. Yeah, now bring in the chakra model. I think that there could be awakenings in some chakra,

1:00:46

maybe the head chakra or whatever, without a corresponding awakening in the heart chakra.

1:00:50

So it can be a partial development or partial awakening. And some of these things can be very

1:00:55

intoxicating and convincing. And you know, one can jump to all kinds of conclusions about one's

1:01:01

state of development or completion. But that's why, as you said earlier, there is no end to it.

1:01:07

I think we're all works in progress. It's like the word education. Are you educated? Yeah, I'm educated

1:01:12

Could you be more educated? Of course, you know, I could always learn more

1:01:15

Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah, that's really true

1:01:19

And it's interesting too about the chakras because in my practice and in the tantric vajrayana practice that we do

1:01:26

the you know very loosely you

1:01:29

Develop wisdom cognitively and through embodied experience develop compassion

1:01:34

start to change your behavior. And then once that foundation is laid, once the what we call shadow

1:01:40

work is done, you know, once we've done a lot of healing of our early childhood stuff and the things

1:01:45

that have happened in our life, and we've applied the psychological tools that we also have at our

1:01:50

disposal, as modern complex humans, then you start to work with opening up those chakras,

1:01:56

which are not pretty little flowers, they're choke points in our body. And this is the system,

1:02:01

the technology of Tibetan Buddhism that we have an energetic subtle body and you start to work with

1:02:07

shooting energy and opening energy up to open the heart, to ground and to open up different areas of

1:02:13

our body. Good. The point you just made might relate to a question that Alyssa from New York

1:02:18

State asked. In practicing both Western psychological development lines and a Tibetan

1:02:24

Buddhist Vajrayana worldview, I struggle with the fact that a lot of Western developmental psychology

1:02:29

models are defined by social, educational, economic norms, many of which I don't necessarily

1:02:35

agree with, and more importantly, they are not uniform across cultures, versus the transcendent

1:02:40

model of Buddhism. It's a great point. It's a great point, Alyssa. I mean, no doubt you could argue that these

1:02:48

developmental models were created in the context of the frame of Western-educated, usually

1:02:55

white people, you know, creating these models and doing these studies, mostly with Western

1:03:01

educated white people, that is certainly true. And the social context and constructs that

1:03:07

we have, that's relative reality. And that's what creates our relative reality. So fair

1:03:11

point. On the other hand, there is so much data and research that is cross cultural that

1:03:19

these human waves that we go through or stages or structures. You can think of it like rungs on a

1:03:26

ladder or as one of my teachers more accurately defines it, it's like a balloon. Like we were

1:03:33

talking about, Rick now is very different than he was in other areas of our life. Our growth is more

1:03:38

like a balloon. And there is quite a lot of evidence that all humans all around the world

1:03:45

go through these waves or structures of human becoming in a very similar way. They're deep

1:03:53

features similar with surface structures that look different. And there really isn't argument in,

1:04:00

again, yes, it's the academic world. It's going to have its own sort of rules and languages and

1:04:06

ways of seeing, but there's been just literally dozens and dozens and dozens of studies that are

1:04:11

cross-cultural that validate this data. Let me ask you a couple of questions from Rin Esser in Turkey.

1:04:19

And Rin makes a point that she's a female because we wouldn't necessarily know that from the name.

1:04:24

So first question, why does non-duality make so many people impractical in daily life as if

1:04:31

in a vegetative state? It puts me in this space of non-thinking and being non-engaged with life.

1:04:36

Oh, well stop doing it, girl.

1:04:39

What a beautiful question and thank you for asking it.

1:04:42

You know, non-duality is a big topic.

1:04:44

There's a lot of things we can be non-dual with.

1:04:47

Who's the looker? What's the object? What's the subject?

1:04:50

But if anything is bringing you to that place,

1:04:53

then I would try something else.

1:04:55

Yeah, I would encourage you, Rin,

1:04:57

to watch my interview with Jessica Eve.

1:05:00

We talked about this at great length.

1:05:02

And there's a verse in the Gita. It says, is Yoga Karma Sukhosalam. Yoga is skill in action. And yoga is non-duality. It's union.

1:05:09

So if you're really experiencing non-duality, you should be actually more dynamic, more

1:05:13

skillful, more effective in action. And if you're not, then something's missing.

1:05:18

Yes. And here's a second one from the same person. What does it mean when you say you can find

1:05:24

anything by going inside? As a non-awakened human, when I look inside for guidance, I

1:05:30

I feel confused and not finding answers to my questions.

1:05:34

What can I do to get clear guidance?

1:05:37

- Thank you for that. I appreciate the opportunity to clarify that.

1:05:42

So thank you for the question. Speaking of my personal lived experience,

1:05:46

when I go inside, I find the cosmos.

1:05:49

And by cosmos, I mean capital K Cosmos,

1:05:53

which is beyond space and time.

1:05:55

So by going inside, it's much more than my individuality.

1:05:59

go inside to find the outside, then the two are not one. So, Ren, I would ask you to keep asking the

1:06:07

questions, to find a teacher or a community that you can connect with, that you obviously have a

1:06:13

lot of passion and desire, and the internet provides a lot of opportunity if you're not

1:06:17

finding it in the town that you live, to, you know, connect with me, connect with others, to

1:06:23

keep exploring this, you're not alone. You're not alone. That's what I want to tell you as well.

1:06:30

Good. Okay, unless you have anything else at the tip of your tongue, let's start talking about

1:06:36

anomalous or extraordinary experiences, which you've been researching a lot lately and very

1:06:41

interested in. So anomalous experiences is just another way of saying extraordinary or out of the

1:06:49

ordinary experiences. They're defined as in the literature, meaning in good, grounded

1:06:57

psychological literature, different categories of anomalous experiences. You might find like

1:07:02

that fireball I saw in the sky that one time, things like UFOs you see in the literature,

1:07:08

or craft, or things that you see that seem to be outside of you. Other categories of anomalous

1:07:14

experiences are around time and space, where we have maybe

1:07:20

precognitive dreams, there's lots of good research on data on

1:07:25

people having a dream where they see something in the future, and

1:07:30

then it happens, maybe somebody dies, or there's a car crash.

1:07:34

There's anomalous experiences around death is very common.

1:07:38

Somebody close to you dies, and maybe you get a visitation, or

1:07:42

you know the moment they die. You sit up in bed and you had no idea they were sick, you know they died.

1:07:48

Or around extraordinary experiences, around near-death experiences, those who report near-death

1:07:53

experiences. Lucid dreaming can be categorized as an anomalous experience. What we call non-human

1:08:00

entities, people have encounters with beings that do not seem human. So this is not weird, people.

1:08:08

This is part of our human story. If you look through our literature, through all of our humanities,

1:08:14

it is riddled with these extraordinary experiences, which are not only mythic,

1:08:20

they're not only story, right? Most of us, almost everybody I've ever sat down and talked to and

1:08:26

really started to question have had something, an experience they can't explain. And so I explained

1:08:31

a couple of them. Things that were non-ordinary, that were classified as extraordinary. And I've

1:08:37

had them most of my life. So after my 12 years deeply studying Tibetan Buddhism, I had a calling,

1:08:44

I had a deep call to that that era of my life was complete and that I had sort of gotten stuck. I

1:08:52

plateaued in my own growth and development and I had a very clear vision and call. It was actually

1:08:59

precognitive moment, which perhaps I can get to, where when I met my now husband and I saw

1:09:08

that my future, the next era, was going to involve having a child, being a wife, and getting

1:09:15

out of my precious little bubble and being out in the world. That was a big surprise to me. I did not

1:09:20

expect that this was going to be the next era of my life. And during that time, I went back to

1:09:24

graduate school, I got degrees in human development, I did long years of doctoral work, and I picked

1:09:32

as my dissertation topic, I studied anomalous experiences and how we make meaning of them,

1:09:37

because at the time, as a spiritual teacher I'd been for many years, I am the recipient

1:09:43

of these stories. You have something really wild happen to you, who do you tell? People are going

1:09:48

to think you're crazy, right? Well, I hear the stories. That's the gift I get of holding the

1:09:54

the seed I do as a spiritual friend for people.

1:09:57

And I knew I wasn't crazy. I knew other people weren't crazy, so I wanted to know.

1:10:02

And my research is not about proving

1:10:05

whether that red fireball was really up there,

1:10:07

or proving whether there were really ghosts or spirits

1:10:11

in my retreat cabin, or proving if you get a visitation

1:10:15

from a being of light, whether it's real or not.

1:10:17

I'm not interested in that. - It's also very problematic

1:10:20

because this stuff is really hard to prove.

1:10:23

Even if half the population say they have experienced these things, how do we know it's not hallucination?

1:10:28

You know, how do we know they didn't dream it up? You can't prove it as easily as you can the fact that the earth is not flat, or something

1:10:35

like that. Yeah, true.

1:10:37

As I was digging into this research and into the modern Western psychological research,

1:10:42

it was very clear there's good work being done, that the majority of people who report

1:10:47

these types of experiences are sane.

1:10:50

They don't display mental health issues other than our normal everyday mental health issues

1:10:55

that we all have.

1:10:57

These are normal, everyday functioning people in the world who, when you sit down and talk

1:11:02

to them, most everybody has a story that they can't explain.

1:11:07

And what happens when we have these experiences often is we go into a sort of ontological

1:11:13

shock. Rick, maybe you have one that you can share with us.

1:11:16

But you have it sort of out of the ordinary experience and ontological shock just means

1:11:22

how do I make meaning of this?

1:11:24

It's like the mind searches for how to frame this.

1:11:28

What does this mean? What does this mean about reality?

1:11:31

What does this mean about myself? And so I started to study the different types of anomalous experiences that people had and

1:11:38

I listed some of them.

1:11:40

And more importantly, I started to look at how the meaning making we make of it, like

1:11:45

how it impacts us and how we frame it to ourselves tends to change as we grow, as we evolve in

1:11:53

our child and our adult lifespan. You know, how we think of it when we're young becomes

1:12:00

different than how we think of it now. And I started to really look at that because it's

1:12:05

also a big part of our humanness, right, is these extraordinary experiences.

1:12:12

And I can hear some people thinking, "Well, don't many different spiritual traditions

1:12:16

and teachers say that such experiences are distractions and you shouldn't pay any attention

1:12:20

to them? How come she's so into studying this stuff if it's a distraction, if it's a cul-de-sac?"

1:12:28

Yeah, I can understand that.

1:12:30

Well, it's part of our human gift.

1:12:33

It's part of our human story.

1:12:35

And I believe that these extraordinary experiences that we have give us big clues and indicators

1:12:41

of where we're headed and where we're becoming in our human evolution. Because often there's

1:12:47

signs from our future self, these experiences, these encounters that we have start to make

1:12:55

more sense the more we mature and as we go. And that's something that I've definitely seen happen

1:13:02

in this research that I've been doing. And the fact of the matter is people have them,

1:13:07

You're going to have them even if you're not seeking them. I mean, obviously I think you can get obsessed with stuff like this and start seeking it to the

1:13:14

neglect of Something deeper and and more abiding

1:13:18

but even if you're just going straight for that you're going to have these experiences along the way and

1:13:24

I think on the one hand we could say maybe they're there to be enjoyed

1:13:29

Or to teach us something like if you're driving to california

1:13:33

you might want to stop and see the largest, world's largest ball of string or world's

1:13:37

largest frying pan. Waldrug in western South Dakota, you see the signs for hundreds of miles

1:13:45

before you get to it. So these things are not necessarily, and if they were mere distractions,

1:13:51

why would they be discussed in such great detail in so much spiritual literature? Why

1:13:56

would so many saints and sages have written autobiographies and described those experiences?

1:14:02

Indeed, one of the main takeaways of the study and just listening to people's stories that

1:14:08

relates to everything I've learned in my own spiritual work as well and also in the psychological

1:14:15

work and study that I've done is we think consensus reality is so real.

1:14:20

We think that the way we see things is exactly the way they are and my political view is

1:14:26

true and yours is not true.

1:14:29

We get so boxed in.

1:14:31

It's almost like we're living in our own little phone booths of reality.

1:14:35

And when these experiences happen, like the phone booths gets blown up.

1:14:39

It's like, we start to see that this consensus belief system that we're

1:14:44

operating in, that there's something more, something else is going on.

1:14:49

And that's the why. It's a way, because these are experiences that so many people have had

1:14:55

outside of any spiritual tradition. Right?

1:14:58

These are mostly ordinary people living their life.

1:15:01

They're not running off to Tibet or running off to the monastery.

1:15:04

They are ordinary people living their life and something extraordinary happens to them.

1:15:09

And so what is going on? You know, one of the, this question I've been asking since I was a little kid,

1:15:15

who am I? What is real?

1:15:17

Why are we here? I believe that by exploring these anomalous experiences, by taking them seriously and

1:15:25

understanding that they're actually pretty normal, you know, that we can find a clue

1:15:31

in our human story to answer those questions that I've been seeking since I was a kid.

1:15:36

I thought of this as you were telling your initial experience in Boston, that sometimes these

1:15:42

experiences are ways of God or whoever zapping us to create an imprint that we can't forget,

1:15:49

and that is going to impel us to continue to search, kind of like Richard Dreyfus when he

1:15:53

He was a telephone lineman in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

1:15:56

He got zapped by the bright light from the UFO and then it was a brain implant.

1:16:00

He couldn't forget it. He obsessed about it until he finally reached the goal that it had implanted in him.

1:16:08

Yep, piling those potatoes. Yeah, right.

1:16:11

This means something. This means something.

1:16:13

Yes, I love the way you describe that, Rick, because that to me is more real than this getting

1:16:21

up, going to work, arguing with your neighbor, arguing over politics, what is right, what

1:16:27

is wrong. That to me is capital R real, right? And what is going on there? It's so universal,

1:16:34

it's so steeped in who we were as humans and who we're becoming. That for me, it's like

1:16:40

the golden fleece of wisdom. And we have a lot to learn.

1:16:44

One of my biggest, earliest ontological shocks was the first time I took LSD when I was 17.

1:16:51

And the main takeaway from it was that the shock,

1:16:55

actually shocking realization that everyone saw the world differently.

1:16:58

I always assumed everyone saw the same world.

1:17:00

That morning after being up all night, we went into a donut shop and we're buying donuts.

1:17:04

And I was just kind of like marveling at how I appeared to be seeing the world

1:17:08

just compared to the women selling us the donuts.

1:17:10

And I was thinking, wow, we're just all in different universes.

1:17:13

And one thing I sometimes wonder

1:17:15

and people have suggested this is that the psychedelic Renaissance

1:17:19

seems to be taking place now as as untethered as many aspects of it are could be a kind of a

1:17:25

collective jolt to enable lots of people to realize that there's more to life than meets the eye. And

1:17:32

you know, I don't think it's any kind of ultimate solution. They're going to have to get on to more

1:17:36

natural practices and so on, but it could be a sort of catalyst initially, which otherwise the

1:17:41

millions of people who are doing that might not do in any other way. Indeed, yeah, I mean, we can

1:17:46

certainly talk about that, that it is common and I did not include psychedelic experiences in my

1:17:52

study because they're really a category of their own. So the experiences that I was codifying

1:17:57

happened with a "normal state of mind" and more recently really been looking at the psychedelic

1:18:04

renaissance as you say and what a gift it can be to have exactly the experience that you described,

1:18:10

which is taking off those glasses individually and collectively and you looked and saw, wow,

1:18:16

This is how I saw before and now I see differently. It can be very, very useful for that.

1:18:23

And I believe that the psychedelic renaissance seems to be really doing a lot more good than

1:18:28

harm right now. The danger of it is misuse just like everything else and using psychedelics as a

1:18:36

path where this is how I'm going to have this experience instead of learning to do it myself.

1:18:43

If you learn to do it yourself, you can replicate it. So I am pro psychedelics. I'm not saying I'm

1:18:48

against psychedelics. I think the usefulness is very much there. And we need to be really cautious

1:18:53

at the same time, just like anything, right? Anything can be abused. The other thing we see is

1:18:58

with overuse of psychedelics, what we call the self can get dissolved and deconstructed and

1:19:04

blown out again and again and again, so that the self can't quite coalesce. And by self,

1:19:09

I mean, like your identity, your healthy persona, your healthy identity. So we want to make sure

1:19:16

that we don't overuse it. It really is something that should be used as it was intended in our

1:19:21

traditions, including the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, use of substances as a sacred,

1:19:27

rare, precious opportunity that you do, you have an extraordinary experience like you did,

1:19:34

and then you go integrate it. Yeah, some teachers say that it actually damages the subtle body in a

1:19:39

a way. I think Carlos Castaneda's teacher, if he was a real person, and if that's a real

1:19:44

story, said something similar. He kind of gave that to Carlos as a way to kickstart his journey,

1:19:51

but then he said, "Okay, if you keep doing this, it's going to do you harm. Now you have

1:19:54

to do it without." Yes, exactly right. That's exactly right.

1:19:59

I hear stories of people who don't heed that warning and just going on and on with the stuff

1:20:04

and who just get pretty out of it.

1:20:07

Indeed. Okay, what next?

1:20:09

You know what, we can talk about the ASI.

1:20:12

We've alluded to some of that stuff, but let's say more.

1:20:15

The Association for Spiritual Integrity I've been working with for two years.

1:20:19

It's the first time in over a decade and a half that I was called to work with a nonprofit

1:20:26

and work with an organization that is focused on supporting, educating, bringing conversation

1:20:32

around spiritual work in the world, specifically how we support spiritual teachers, spiritual

1:20:38

communities in the world. The importance of ethics, you know,

1:20:42

really is about as we go forward as spiritual aspirants, where is

1:20:48

the place of ethics in our practice individually and

1:20:52

collectively do communities that we are involved with have

1:20:55

ethical standards. The ASI we have ethical code that we

1:21:00

encourage and ask our members to commit to individually, whether

1:21:05

they're spiritual teachers or spiritual students, and then we

1:21:08

have organizational codes of ethics as well.

1:21:11

I want to just actually say that I'm the one who puts up the list of all the members and

1:21:16

everything and we have, I think, quite a bit more than 600 individual members now and I

1:21:21

think 32 or 33 organizational members.

1:21:25

So it's growing. So what have you noticed in your years of work with ASI?

1:21:30

What do you see are the sort of the best practices or the big problems out there that you're

1:21:34

noticing? Well, the ASI started because I think it was the 2018 Science and Nonduality Conference.

1:21:42

Jack O'Keefe, Craig Holliday, and I all gave talks on this similar topic, unbeknownst to

1:21:46

one another. We hadn't coordinated them.

1:21:48

Jack and Ellen Emmett attended my talk, among other people, and we got together for lunch

1:21:55

afterwards. And over lunch, I don't know if it was Jack, it might have been Jack's idea, we decided

1:22:00

we should start an organization, which originally we called the Association for Professional

1:22:06

Spiritual Teachers, but I wanted to broaden it a bit and add the word "integrity."

1:22:12

I like the term "spiritual integrity" because it doesn't exclude students, which I think

1:22:16

are an important component in the whole thing.

1:22:20

So issues I've seen, obviously it almost seems like the norm rather than the exception

1:22:26

that spiritual teachers from the East are ethically compromised. They perhaps were raised in an

1:22:32

ashram, didn't have any kind of shadow work or psychological work or training, and assumed

1:22:38

certain things perhaps about their own development, which when they got into a Western culture,

1:22:44

just crumbled. They discovered they had all kinds of drives and impulses they didn't realize

1:22:48

they had. I'm just conjecturing about their inner motivations. But personally, I feel

1:22:53

that spirituality is the hope of the world. It's the most fundamental thing that a person

1:22:59

can experience, and if it can be experienced more broadly, more collectively, it will be

1:23:05

the most pivotal or fundamental thing to bring about change in the world. And therefore,

1:23:11

when I see so many spiritual teachers violating basic ethical codes that you shouldn't even

1:23:18

violate if you're a teenager, much less an adult, much less a spiritual teacher, I feel

1:23:23

it sabotages the whole enterprise of spiritual awakening in the world, and it also disillusions

1:23:31

spiritual seekers. I know instances of people committing suicide, they were so disillusioned,

1:23:37

or at least getting off the spiritual path because they decide that it's a whole, it's

1:23:41

a bunch of bunk if their teacher could behave this way. And I think that's tragic, both for

1:23:46

them and again, for the whole world. And so that's a bit of a long answer, but that's

1:23:51

my orientation. Yeah, we've done some. And thank you. Thank you for starting the ASI because I feel like

1:23:59

we're growing quickly, we're evolving quickly, and we're also only just beginning. And if

1:24:03

you hadn't had that lunch at the time, we wouldn't be seated here. So I want to thank

1:24:08

the past you for doing that.

1:24:10

And especially I think we should thank Jack who has been, this thing wouldn't have gotten

1:24:14

off the ground without her. She's like this dynamo, Jack O'Keefe.

1:24:17

Jack O'Keefe. We all acknowledge her as the leader of it.

1:24:20

Yeah, we love you Jack. Thank you. Keep doing the good work. We've done some developmental

1:24:25

psychological sort of a psychometric assessments on

1:24:29

spiritual teachers

1:24:31

A lot of spiritual teachers out there and the vast majority of them

1:24:34

I'm speaking very generally here speaking as a spiritual teacher myself

1:24:39

They're not as advanced as they think they are, you know

1:24:42

Developmentally just to sum it up and someone might say who are we to judge?

1:24:47

Perhaps you could answer that question, but personally my attitude is it's much safer to underestimate your level of advancement

1:24:54

Consider yourself a beginner because compared to what is possible. We all are

1:24:58

Absolutely. And again spiritual teachers what we want to encourage what we want to educate in ourselves and others

1:25:05

Is to keep doing the work any spiritual teacher should also have a therapeutic

1:25:10

Process or practice at some point in their life. They should also have shadow work

1:25:14

They should have peer review and peer feedback. And if that's not happening, then there's a real

1:25:20

danger to get stuck, to get developmentally stuck, to not think you need to grow. And that's where

1:25:26

problems start to come in. So that's what we want to avoid. And we have peer groups in the ASI,

1:25:32

don't we? We do. We have peer groups in the ASI, which is something we're going through a pilot

1:25:39

it with. We put dozens and dozens of people through and look forward to launching that

1:25:44

in a wider scale and our membership probably in the next 18 months or so. I myself am involved

1:25:50

in a peer group of other spiritual like teachers. It is we're on year two. It is one of the

1:25:57

most precious areas of my own development where I can show up with other spiritual teachers

1:26:03

or leaders in their field and talk about things that you can't talk about elsewhere. To share

1:26:09

issues that you have as a teacher thematically, individually, collectively, and that's a precious

1:26:16

opportunity. Who was it? I think it was Kant who said, "You know you're in modernity when you don't

1:26:22

want to be caught praying. You don't want someone to walk in the room and catch you praying."

1:26:27

Modernity is thrown out sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for not so good reasons,

1:26:33

are religious traditions because there has been a lot of nonsense. There is a lot of abuse.

1:26:38

We acknowledge this. And yet, these spiritual traditions are this precious, as I started

1:26:44

this call, gift of humanity. And life without a spiritual life, at least for me and for many of

1:26:52

us, is flat. It's flat land. What's the meaning? What's the purpose? Is it just to eat more? To

1:26:58

have another great vacation? I mean, I love good food. I love vacations. Don't get me wrong.

1:27:03

He who dies with the most toys wins, right?

1:27:07

Right. I mean, I wish it worked. I wish it worked. But after you

1:27:12

get to the point and the great classic text, the Heart Sutra,

1:27:15

which is something that I'm going to be teaching publicly the

1:27:18

first weekend in May. So I'm inviting anybody to come check

1:27:23

that course out if they'd like it outlines it's just one of the

1:27:26

great classic texts of Buddhism, perhaps the classic texts, it's

1:27:30

the most taught, it's the most quoted, it's the most

1:27:34

misunderstood is the most mysterious. I mean, it sounds

1:27:37

like an acid trip. How does it go? Is there isn't

1:27:40

there like one verse that is most famous from the form? Yeah,

1:27:45

what the heck does that mean? Well, fortunately, due to the

1:27:48

kindness of my teachers, I got a

1:27:51

word by word understanding and translation and teaching on what

1:27:54

it means. And when you dig into it, it's profound. And not only

1:27:58

is it profound in terms of everyday application to your

1:28:02

life, but it lays out the path of practice, how to actually

1:28:06

practice. So it's this gem of spirituality is and I agree with

1:28:10

you. It doesn't have to be a tradition. It doesn't have to be

1:28:13

Buddhism, but a human life without our spiritual life, what

1:28:17

kind of human life isn't. And so for example, the heart sutra

1:28:20

leaves out these milestones and the steps of how to practice and

1:28:25

the first step, the way to even begin to step on the path and

1:28:30

start your spiritual journey is you realize that you want to, you realize that you have to, that

1:28:36

there's something more than having the most toys and dine, then getting that next promotion, then

1:28:41

making more money, then getting the boyfriend. It's like what happened to me in Boston. That

1:28:45

blessing, what's happening in Boston. If I wish this worked, I wish the fancy apartment and fancy

1:28:53

boyfriend and the fancy... It'd be great if it did, but there's something missing. And that first step

1:28:59

is yeah, Nyingjun in Tibetan is renunciation, is to get serious about the spiritual path.

1:29:03

And the Heart Sutra lays that out, lays that out very, very clearly how to do that.

1:29:08

And that's really beautiful. - I did a panel discussion with Mukti, who's Adyashanti's wife, and Francis Bennett and

1:29:15

Locke Kelly at one of the S.A.N.D. conferences, all about the Heart Sutra. So people can find

1:29:20

that on Batgap if they want. But what you're saying here is very important because this

1:29:25

spiritual stuff is real and it actually is like if we want to use the ocean analogy again,

1:29:33

the apartment and the boyfriend and the money and the this and the that, those are the waves and

1:29:38

there's nothing wrong with waves, but we're missing out on the whole ocean beneath the waves

1:29:43

if we don't probe into this deeper reality that spirituality enables us to probe and therefore

1:29:51

we're unfulfilled. Yes, yes, yes. And we have to see it for ourselves. Nobody can tell us.

1:29:56

No. It's not a belief. It's not like, "Oh, I believe it or I don't believe it."

1:30:01

Our mind, our hearts, are the nature of the ocean already. But until we see that for ourselves,

1:30:08

you know, until we experience that for ourselves, it's just an idea, right? It's just a belief.

1:30:15

Once we do experience that for ourselves, everything changes. Everything changes.

1:30:20

one of the descriptions of Brahman or ultimate reality, one of its attributes is said to be

1:30:25

bliss. And it's said that any happiness we derive from outer circumstances is just sort of a

1:30:31

reflection of that inner bliss bouncing off the outer thing, the way the moon reflects sunlight

1:30:37

to us at night. And that's why it can't really be that illuminating as the direct cognition of that

1:30:43

bliss is, after which then everything is seen as that.

1:30:46

That's right. Yes, after which everything is seen as that and we practice we figure out how our behavior

1:30:54

Creates more bliss and more happiness for ourself and others and how it does it we figure out how to be a better wave

1:31:02

So to speak how to be the most evolved relative another word for the wave is a relative self

1:31:08

Relative reality we are walking around

1:31:11

minds and bodies and social security numbers, and that too can evolve. That's the growing up part.

1:31:18

We're not stuck in these phone booths. We can blast out and evolve and become something

1:31:23

extraordinary because we see the claims of say, example, Tibetan Buddhism and also yoga,

1:31:28

like Patajali's Yoga Sutra, I've studied deeply, deeply, deeply, and it lays out a path of practice

1:31:34

about how we can evolve our minds, evolve our bodies into something else.

1:31:39

You know, obviously a lot of people when they think of spirituality, they think of monks in caves.

1:31:45

And, you know, basic attitude of the monk is apparently, "Well, the world sucks and I don't

1:31:50

want anything to do with it, so I'm just going to stay in this cave and marinate in my inner

1:31:54

experience." But there's a cool verse in the Gita which goes, "Contact with Brahman is infinite joy."

1:32:01

And we could use the analogy of lying still in a bathtub and it doesn't feel that warm,

1:32:06

or sloshing around a bit and all of a sudden you feel the warmth. So if one is able to access that

1:32:12

inner reality and engage in an ordinary life, you know, like you were doing, then that life

1:32:19

serves as something to slosh up the bathtub with. It stirs up the bliss.

1:32:23

And actually you end up with something that's more than the sum of its parts.

1:32:28

More fulfillment than you would have just sitting with your eyes closed in a cave,

1:32:32

or just engaging in the world without experiencing the inner reality, somehow the two together you get 200%.

1:32:38

Oh yes, you preach yes, yes, and yes again.

1:32:42

And that is what you just define Tantra in my word, that's my Tantra and my path.

1:32:47

And what we're doing in our Tantric communities that the confluence experiences,

1:32:51

coming together in community and supporting each other to slosh around in that bathtub.

1:32:57

and to be in the world yet be infused with wisdom and bliss and kindness and care and compassion

1:33:04

and to live fully alive lives as spiritual human beings in this world. Doing our gifts,

1:33:09

you know, the topic path is about stepping into your gifts, finding your deepest callings,

1:33:15

stepping into your power and using it for good. And you're not only infused with the bliss,

1:33:21

but you infuse it into the world as an infusion tool.

1:33:26

As you move through your life, you kind of radiate that kind of influence.

1:33:30

When I was a kid, I saw this thing where they had a whole room full of mousetraps

1:33:34

with ping pong balls on the mousetraps.

1:33:36

And they just kind of set off one of the mousetraps

1:33:38

and then ping pong ball flew, set off another one,

1:33:40

that set off others, and it's the whole next thing, you know, the whole room was popping.

1:33:44

So I think that we have this influence on everyone

1:33:47

and it's mutual. and the more people begin to exude the kind of influence we're talking about here,

1:33:53

the more exponentially it will grow.

1:33:56

That's gorgeous. Yeah. One of the terms I use for that is mutual enactment.

1:34:00

You know, each moment we are mutually unfolding reality. We are mutually enacting reality.

1:34:08

The great Buddhist scholar we were talking about him earlier, perhaps before the call,

1:34:11

Robert Thurman. Did you say you did a call with him once?

1:34:15

I've done two in-person interviews with him at the S.A.N.D. conference.

1:34:18

Same idea, he had a beautiful metaphor. I just started laughing. He went into this thing about DMT suppositories

1:34:27

on my first interview with him. That's good. Okay.

1:34:30

Well, this is another bath. We're bringing it back to the bath because somehow it's all

1:34:36

connected with the suppositories. But his metaphor was it's like bubbles in a bath.

1:34:41

you know, you're in a bath and it's full of bubbles and one bubble lights up.

1:34:44

What happens to the bubbles around it? Yeah, they all light up.

1:34:48

Right. So yeah, similar analogy. So that's the why. We want our human lives to be full of meaning,

1:34:54

to be full of depth, to step into our greatest gifts and our greatest power. And sometimes these

1:35:01

spiritual experiences happen out of nowhere. Like I described what happened to me in Boston,

1:35:05

Right. It was like a blessing and it came out of nowhere. But the rest of the any sort of progress that I've done

1:35:11

Has come from practice

1:35:14

You know come from putting my attention on it

1:35:16

Taking it seriously not just kind of sitting around waiting for things to change or evolve

1:35:21

Taking it seriously and that's what I really encourage your listeners to do is get on a path of practice

1:35:28

It doesn't have to be mine. It doesn't have to be what you were raised with

1:35:33

It doesn't even have to look like a traditional spiritual thing, but find

1:35:36

really what you want to learn spiritually in a community that you want to learn with because we are

1:35:43

harmed in relationship and we are healed in relationship, right? We want to be in a

1:35:48

relationship with perhaps a lineage and a community that really suits us.

1:35:53

So there is a plethora of opportunities out there now in this world.

1:35:57

on the resources on backgap there. I don't know how many hundreds you have of different types of

1:36:03

opportunities to study, but find what really calls you and don't waste the time.

1:36:07

Yeah, and don't be a dilettante. If something doesn't seem to be working, move on, but also

1:36:13

don't feel honor bound to stay with something that isn't working. So in other words, you don't want

1:36:19

to flit about, but you have to take things seriously, but there's no harm in sort of

1:36:23

of moving around a little bit until you find what really works for you.

1:36:27

Absolutely. Absolutely.

1:36:29

Yeah, check it out. You know, I agree completely.

1:36:31

And even for me, the path of my spiritual practice and my work and particularly Tantra,

1:36:39

I use the metaphor of Tantra, you know, it can be dangerous.

1:36:43

You know, you're doing things like working with power and working with energies in your

1:36:48

body and working with being in the world.

1:36:52

It sort of felt like making my way across a minefield at times, especially with these ancient

1:36:57

old ideas and traditions.

1:36:59

But I made my way across that minefield. Luckily, I didn't get blown up.

1:37:03

Some people did get hurt. You had a friend who died in a kind of a conclusion thing.

1:37:09

And you know, we've heard the term spiritual emergencies.

1:37:12

And we often get contacted for people whose kundalini has gone haywire, and they can't

1:37:16

hold down a job anymore, and they're living with their parents.

1:37:19

So safety first. That's always a good proviso.

1:37:25

But on the other hand, it's a journey that we must take.

1:37:27

I mean, you know, if Frodo just wanted to stay safe in the Shire, then that whole story wouldn't

1:37:33

have happened. Sometimes you have to just go out and do it.

1:37:37

Oh yeah, but it's true. No, the hero's journey isn't easy, right?

1:37:41

You've got the dragon. And I made it across the minefield and I got the gold.

1:37:45

And it wasn't without mistakes and it wasn't without issues, but I got the gold and that's

1:37:50

That's what the journey takes. It takes walking this path of practice.

1:37:54

Which is still not to say that something could happen, you know, you still have to be like

1:37:57

Padmasambhava said, you know, view as vast as the sky, karma as fine as a grain of barley

1:38:03

flour. We have to be on our toes because we're never beyond the possibility of making some kind

1:38:09

of error. Absolutely.

1:38:11

Yeah. And then there's the dangerous spiritual bypassing where we use our spirituality to bypass psychological

1:38:17

work that we need to do, which is why we always, and I've learned in the past 25-30 years to

1:38:23

pair the spiritual work with the psychological grounding. And so now I don't do one without

1:38:29

the other. They're both like the key to the work we do with the Confluence Experience and

1:38:35

my real mission and my calling. That's great. Have you said as much about that as you wanted to say?

1:38:40

Well, what else do I want to say about that? If you're interested in the work,

1:38:45

you can check out the website. As I mentioned,

1:38:48

I am teaching the heart Sutra in early may.

1:38:50

I'd love people to come and give feedback and reflections and learn what they

1:38:54

can about that. There are other traditions out there and find one that appeals to you

1:39:00

and always look my friends who are listening,

1:39:03

look for that psychological grounding as well in any spiritual endeavor that you

1:39:08

do in any spiritual work that you do.

1:39:10

When you're doing psychological work,

1:39:13

make sure that you include spiritual work as well, however that means for you. Whatever kind of

1:39:20

calling you particularly have to spiritual work, grounded as well. Calling you have to psychological

1:39:27

work, fine. Where you're headed, where you're going. You know, spirituality is like about our future,

1:39:32

right? It's about what happens after we die. It's about where we're headed. Psychological work is

1:39:37

more about our past, where we came from and how we were constructed. And when we do both of those

1:39:44

together, we really are in that magic spot. How does a person find a good therapist to work with

1:39:51

that understands the spiritual dimension? Yeah, it's exactly what you said about the

1:39:55

spiritual life. You've got to check out a few. Most therapists will give you a freebie. They'll

1:40:02

talk to you or go to one session, ask them the hard questions, interview them. They're not all the same.

1:40:09

Transpersonal therapists are certainly out there. I mean, I have people I can recommend.

1:40:14

If anybody wants to reach out to me individually, there's certainly amazing psychotherapists I know

1:40:20

that include the spiritual work as well. I'd be happy to provide lists for people.

1:40:24

Yeah, you can contact you. I'll have your website stuff on your page. And there is the whole category

1:40:30

on the categorical index page on BatGap of psychologists and therapists too, people like John Prendergast

1:40:36

and many others. Another thing I wanted to throw in here, we have a little bit more time, this kind of

1:40:40

loops back to something we were saying.

1:40:43

I think that it's easy to get depressed or discouraged when you see what's going on in

1:40:47

the world with so many things, climate change and politics and Gaza and Ukraine and so many

1:40:54

other things, fentanyl and potential for nuclear war.

1:40:58

And if all you know about the world is what you get on the news, I don't blame you for

1:41:02

being depressed. But, you know, as I was saying earlier, and as you and I have been saying for the last

1:41:06

two hours, there's a deeper reality underlying all this.

1:41:10

And I think that the key to resolving all these manifestations of incoherence in collective

1:41:16

consciousness is to create coherence in collective consciousness, which spirituality does, first

1:41:21

for the individual and through individuals for the collective.

1:41:25

And that's been my most fundamental motivation since I was in my 20s, or early 20s, and one

1:41:31

of the most fundamental motivations for starting Batgap is to somehow propagate the understanding

1:41:38

and popularity of spiritual practice so that it can have an impact on the world.

1:41:44

Because it's touch and go, we could blow ourselves up, there could be catastrophic climate change.

1:41:49

I just read an article the other day that there's some ice shifting in Antarctica that if it

1:41:53

breaks loose could raise sea levels by five meters, which would pretty much inundate hundreds of

1:41:58

millions of people in coastal cities around the world. I don't know if spirituality can stop that,

1:42:03

but it could at least help us deal with the, well, possibly get sensible about changing

1:42:09

our influence on the climate. And also if we do face huge societal catastrophes, to do so with

1:42:16

greater sanity and with greater mutual support rather than every man for himself. Thank you.

1:42:23

Yeah, and I do believe that spiritual, in my experience,

1:42:26

the spiritual and psychological growth and development,

1:42:30

if we all grew up our ethics,

1:42:33

if we grew up our spiritual wisdom,

1:42:35

if we continue to grow our psychological health

1:42:40

and heal our traumas and transform them

1:42:42

into transcendent experiences,

1:42:45

we would have the capacity to meet this meta-crisis

1:42:49

that we have, this crisis of crisis,

1:42:51

these multiple crises that we have.

1:42:54

There's a fantastic developmental researcher

1:42:56

who used the stages model, Gail Hojaka.

1:43:00

She did studies on climate change

1:43:02

and how people perceive climate change

1:43:05

as they evolve through these stages of development

1:43:07

I'm talking about. And she found in the most mature,

1:43:10

I'm speaking this just in my language,

1:43:13

so forgive me Gail, she would say it more gracefully.

1:43:16

But as our wisdom grows, as our cognition

1:43:21

our development and our identity evolves, the despair lessens. Creativity comes in, creative solutions.

1:43:29

We are no longer paralyzed by this meta-crisis that we're facing. It's easy to be paralyzed by it. I

1:43:36

feel it. I understand it. What could we possibly do to address these issues? It's depressing.

1:43:43

I take a lot of news breaks because it's so depressing. We find if we can evolve this,

1:43:48

grow up and waking up as I'm talking about it. We can do our work to grow ourselves psychologically

1:43:53

and spiritually. Amazing insight, creativity, reduction of despair is actually what we're

1:44:00

seeing in the data. Irene and I are always wrestling over the TV remote because I want

1:44:04

to watch this news story. No, no, I can't stand it. Let's fast forward. Let's mute it.

1:44:09

The pace of change is continuing to accelerate and AI is coming along. That's going to accelerate

1:44:15

things exponentially even more. So in a way Darwin was right, survival of the fittest

1:44:21

is the law of nature. If a donkey is carrying a load that's too heavy, you either have to

1:44:26

lighten the load or strengthen the donkey. And I don't know if we're going to be able

1:44:30

to lighten the load in terms of the onslaught of change that the world is experiencing and

1:44:37

is going to experience. So we have to be fittest, so to speak. We have to strengthen our individual

1:44:43

donkey. Get those muscles.

1:44:45

Yeah, you know, then you can meet the challenges.

1:44:48

At least you have more capacity to meet whatever life brings your way.

1:44:52

Yes, and I'm optimistic because of it.

1:44:56

I'm optimistic that we could, oh good, you know, that we can build the muscles of these donkeys

1:45:02

through the work that we're doing here. And as humans, who are humans having a spiritual experience every day, I believe,

1:45:10

find the answers to these and save our human condition and human story as we go forward.

1:45:15

By saying we're optimistic, I don't think we're saying, at least I'm not saying, that there aren't

1:45:21

going to be some difficult situations as there currently are and will continue to be. But we've

1:45:26

got a good hand of cards here that the other players aren't seeing in that we realize there is

1:45:31

this spiritual dimension, which is not something that those who are worried about world problems

1:45:37

generally are counting on to make any kind of difference, but I think it is making a

1:45:42

difference and will continue to make an even greater one as more and more people participate

1:45:47

in exploring it. Absolutely. I mean, I have learned that we can literally recreate our reality, not the

1:45:56

way we think, not the way we tend to think of it, but through mutual enactment together

1:46:01

individually and collectively, we can change things very quickly.

1:46:05

Yeah, good. I'll let you have the last word in that and having said that. Okay, so I will be putting

1:46:13

up a page on Bath Gap and it will have your website and any other contact information you

1:46:19

want me to put up there. And obviously you're starting a course in the beginning of May,

1:46:24

did you say? I did, yeah. We'll be doing a weekend retreat on the Heart Sutra, which outlines the

1:46:29

the path of practice goes into these deep esoteric topics in a very pragmatic way.

1:46:35

Online retreat, right? Online?

1:46:37

It's an online retreat. Yeah, first weekend in May.

1:46:39

Everyone's invited. Yeah.

1:46:41

And of course, here we are, and this is, what is this, February of 2024, and people might

1:46:46

be watching this five years from now, but hopefully you'll still be doing good stuff,

1:46:50

and people can just go to your website and see what you're up to, probably get on some

1:46:54

kind of mailing list. Absolutely.

1:46:57

Please do. Please do.

1:46:59

Great. Well, thanks, Kimberly. And I'm glad that we'll continue to be seeing each other and interacting

1:47:04

through the ASI, you know, which otherwise is like, "Oh, we're finishing the interview. I'll

1:47:08

never talk to Kimberly again." But we'll have our little monthly things and we'll stay in touch.

1:47:12

Well, to be continued. Thanks, Rick.

1:47:15

Thanks. And thanks to those who've been listening or watching. And my next interview is going to be

1:47:20

a doctor named Neil Theis. He's actually some kind of a kidney doctor, but I met him at the

1:47:26

Sand Conference and boy I wish we still had those Sand Conferences. Those were so much fun. They

1:47:31

were such great get-togethers. Anyway, he's a wonderful guy, interesting person, and that'll

1:47:37

be the next one. So if you go to the BatGap website, you can sign up to be notified of each

1:47:42

new interview that's posted. You can subscribe to the YouTube channel to get notifications.

1:47:46

Check it out. You know, if you haven't been there before, check out the website and see

1:47:50

what we've got. I even have a humor page where there's many, many funny spiritual cartoons.

1:47:55

That's the best part. Thank you so much for your work through the years and bringing this into the world, Rick. Thank you so much.

1:48:01

Well, we're all doing what we can as the Beatles sang.

1:48:04

Yeah. All right. Thanks, Kimberly. All right. Thank you.

1:48:08

[Music]