Be Here Now Network

Ram Dass explores the paradox of suffering a spiritual person lives with, the perfection of it all, better living through chemistry, how we’re touched by grace, and the path of service and love.

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This episode of Here and Now continues the talk from Here and Now Ep. 254—The Up-Level. It was recorded at a meeting of the San Francisco Christian Community in 1978: https://youtu.be/l0DdPR6-F2k

Ram Dass begins by explaining the paradox a spiritual person lives with when it comes to suffering and the perfection of all things. He touches on karma and righteousness.

Ram Dass talks about how he came into spirituality through his experimentation with psychedelics and better living through chemistry. He explores the power of the mystical experience, motivations for service in the face of suffering, and the limits we place on ourselves by defining who we are.

Ram Dass touches on our attachment to our methods, and how we’re all touched by grace. We can fight it all we want, but we can’t fall out of grace. He tells the story of how he began to give up his anger and ends the talk with an exploration of love. For Ram Dass, his path was simply one of service and of love.

“We have been touched. We have been touched by grace. That’s what we’re doing here. That’s why we’re in this room rather than at movies or out getting more and more sensual gratification at a punk rock concert or whatever. The reason we are here is because we’ve touched something. That is the grace, that is the thing. It has happened.” – Ram Dass

Teaching a nature retreat amidst softly chirping birds and cooling rain, Jack, Pema Chödrön, and Ajahn Sumedho illuminate joyful insights of monastic life.

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"Mostly what draws people to monastic life in the healthiest and best sense is its joy." – Jack Kornfield

In this special outdoor retreat, Jack, Pema Chödrön, and Ajahn Sumedho explore:

- Chanting the powerful seed syllable mantra, "Ah"

- Joys and misconceptions of monastic life in modern times

- Why someone would take vows and become a monk or nu

- Kabir's poetry, being human, and walking the spiritual path

- Sexuality and celibacy in spiritual communities

- Relating to both ultimate and relative reality

- Dealing with the body in physically taxing situations

- Working with injustice, inequality, and hierarchy within monasteries and spiritual institutions

- The nature of change and how our present creates our future

- Open-heartedness and open-mindedness

- Living the Dharma every second of our existence

- Letting our issues be our teachers

- A surprise Q&A appearance from Heart Wisdom family, Brother David Steindl-Rast, along with Ajahn Sundara, and Sister Columba

"Quite clearly the future is the result of how we work with our minds now. To the degree that we open our hearts and minds to the present moment, that creates our future." – Pema Chödrön

"I like to reflect that the Buddha only taught two things: suffering and the end of suffering." – Ajahn Sumedho

About Pema Chödrön:

Pema Chödrön is a Buddhist teacher in the lineage of Chögyam Trungpa. She served as the director of Karma Dzong, in Boulder, until moving in 1984 to rural Cape Breton, Nova Scotia to be the director of Gampo Abbey. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche asked her to work towards the establishment of a monastery for western monks and nuns. Check out her new book, How We Live Is How We Die, and learn more at PemaChodronFoundation.org

About Ajahn Sumedho:

Ajahn Sumedho is a prominent teacher in the Thai Forest Tradition of Theravāda Buddhism. He was ordained in 1967, trained under Ajahn Chah, and has been instrumental in helping bring Buddha's teachings to the West. Learn more about Ajahn Sumedho in Teachings of a Buddhist Monk, including a forward by Jack.

This Dharma Talk recorded on 5/26/1990 on the land which would become Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.

Writer and meditation teacher, Henry Shukman, joins Raghu to discuss his forthcoming book, Original Love, and how love is the true foundation of our life.

In this episode of Mindrolling, Henry and Raghu journey through:

Henry’s background, travels, and witnessing joy among those without materialistic riches

Recognizing how we are a part of everything in the universe

How meditation helped Henry stop limping through life

Transcendental meditation and being religious about our practice

Acknowledging our suppressed emotions and working through them with the help of therapy

Henry’s time as a trombonist in London calypso bands

Taking on an altruistic perspective to improve your life

How meditation does so much more than mitigate stress

The early Buddhist view of mindfulness

Interrupting our constant mental commentary by focusing on bodily sensations

The experiential reality of unity, emptiness, and boundlessness

Breaking open our hearts through any religion or experience

Tapping into unconditional love for ourselves and others

About Henry Shukman:

Henry Shukman is an English meditation teacher, Zen master, poet and author. Shukman teaches mindfulness and awakening practices. To learn more about his offerings, check out his website HERE. Shukman’s new book, Original Love, is coming out on July 9th and can be ordered HERE.

Check out The Way app for guided meditations from Henry Shukman

“Each of us is that very jewel that’s a boundless, loving oneness. We don’t need to be some sort of special person to find it.” – Henry Shukman

Kicking off a multi-part course on the teachings of the Satipatthana Sutta, Joseph offers insight into how we can apply the wisdom of this ancient Buddhist discourse on mindfulness to our daily lives and practice.

This episode is the first part of an in-depth 48-part weekly lecture series from Joseph Goldstein that delves into every aspect of the Satipatthana Sutta, one of the most celebrated and widely studied discourses in the Pāli Canon of Theravada Buddhism.

In this episode of Insight Hour, Joseph Goldstein delves into:

Meditation as the simplest way of looking at the mind and body

Vipassana’s roots in the Satipatthana Sutta

Breaking down the translation of Satipatthana

The four foundations or abidings in mindfulness

Focusing on the attitude of being aware

The variety of meanings for Dukkha

Craving as the cause of suffering

Strengthening the quality of ardency for our practice

How transience can spur feelings of passion and care

Reflecting on the weight of our actions

Wisdom and clear comprehension

Why our practice is not just for ourselves alone

Grab a copy of the book Joseph references throughout this series, Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization, HERE

This recording was originally published by Dharmaseed

“The last reflection that helps establish us in ardent practice is realizing that the only things that can be said to truly belong to us are the actions that we perform and their subsequent fruits.” – Joseph Goldstein

Reflecting on the inevitable truth of suffering, JoAnna Hardy explains what we do have jurisdiction over: our action, speech and mind.

This time on the BHNN Guest Podcast, JoAnna Hardy explains:

Recognizing the first noble truth of suffering all around us

Breaking down what we cannot control in life

How resistance toward the inevitable causes suffering

Reflecting on our ability to control our internal world (priorities, attitudes, etc.)

How our speech and actions are in our jurisdiction

Cultivating a wise, steady, and skillful heart and mind

The mind as our sixth sense

The way we latch on to the stories we tell ourselves

How one mind-state can feed into another

Retraining the phenomena of our habits

The relief we can feel when we let go of what we cannot control

About JoAnna Hardy:

JoAnna Hardy is an insight meditation (Vipassanā) practitioner and teacher; she is on faculty at the University of Southern California, a meditation trainer at Apple Fitness+, a founding member of the Meditation Coalition, a teacher’s council member at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, a visiting retreat teacher at Insight Meditation Society, and a collaborator on many online meditation Apps and programs. Her greatest passion is to teach meditation in communities that are dedicated to seeing the truth of how racism, gender inequality and oppression go hand in hand with the compassionate action teachings in Buddhism and related perspectives to social and racial justice.

This recording was originally published on Dharmaseed.org

“When we sit here and deeply pay attention to this process of the mind, it’s so fascinating. What is under my control, what can I control? Pay attention every time you have a mind moment to what you do with it and to it, and how you hold it, and what you decide your next mind moment is going to be.” – JoAnna Hardy

For episode 243, we are continuing the Fireside Chat Series on the Metta Hour with guest Tuere Sala.

This series features intimate conversations with longtime dharma teachers about the early days of their practice and the most impactful moments with their own teachers. Hosted by IMS Online, the third episode in this series. Tuere Sala is a Guiding Teacher at Seattle Insight Meditation Society and the founding teacher of the Capitol Hill Meditation Group. She is a retired prosecuting attorney who has practiced Vipassana meditation for over 30 years. Tuere has been teaching since 2010 and has a long history of assisting others in establishing and maintaining a daily practice. The conversation begins with a guided meditation from Tuere.

In this episode, Sharon and Tuere discuss:

What drew Tuere to the Dharma

Tuere’s work as a prosecutor

Finding steadiness without fixing things

How sangha supports practice

Spiritual practice is not just about fixing what we don’t like

Death is not a failure

Suffering as poetry

Sympathetic Joy

How gratitude cultivates energy

Tuere’s Christian faith

The three refuges

The effects of guilt in our lives

Tuere’s challenges with compassion

What Tuere’s practice looks like

The Thai Forrest Tradition

Sharon’s favorite Dharma quote

You can learn more about Tuere’s work on her website right here. Learn more about IMS Online right here.

Jack and trauma expert, Peter A Levine, PhD, map the path to healing through imagination, curiosity, somatic experiencing, and loving awareness.

Want fresh Jack teachings delivered to your inbox? Join Jack's newsletter for weekly free content from JackKornfield.com – guided meditations, Dharma Talks, articles, and more! Sign up at JackKornfield.com/newsletter

“Healing has to be coming together through the minute particulars in the body and in the story that’s actually our experience and not some idea about it.” – Jack Kornfield

In this fresh conversation, Jack and Dr. Levine dive into:

- Mapping trauma and the path to healing suffering

- A relaxing Jack “Just Here: Guided Meditation” on loving awareness

- How An Autobiography of Trauma led to Peter’s powerful healing journey

- Working with the astrological and Jungian archetype of Chiron, the Wounded Healer

- Somatic Experiencing and the roots of healing trauma in the body

- The transformative aspects of meeting trauma with loving kindness and persistence

- Curiosity as a necessary factor of enlightenment

- How the gift of Jack’s childhood trauma led him to discover Buddhism

- Imagination and Peter’s mystical meet-ups with Albert Einstein

- Miracles, intuition, and psychic premonition/knowing

- What Jack shared with his scientific-materialist atheist father on his deathbed

- Our inseparable connection and recognition that it’s always “us” in this web of life

“The whole notion that we are separate is a fabrication. We are in a field of consciousness.” – Jack Kornfield

About Peter A Levine, PhD:

Dr. Peter A. Levine has worked in the field of stress and trauma for over 40 years, is the developer of the Somatic Experiencing method, and founder of the Ergos Institute of Somatic Education. To connect more with Peter’s teachings, pick up a copy of his illuminating book, An Autobiography of Trauma: A Healing Journey, and sign up for his upcoming classes and programs at SomaticExperiencing.com

This conversation was originally filmed on 5/24/24 by the Ergos Institute of Somatic Experiencing as a community health somatic support benefit for MathMoms in Cape Town, South Africa. Learn more about this compassionate initiative here at mathmoms.co.za

In a talk from 1978, Ram Dass explores stepping onto the spiritual path, different planes of consciousness, the process of awakening, and the spiritual up-level game we can get caught in.

Today’s podcast is also brought to you by Magic Mind, a matcha-based energy shot infused with nootropics and adaptogens designed to crush procrastination, brain fog, & fatigue. Use the code RAMDASS at checkout to get up to 50% off your subscription: Magic Mind

This episode of Here and Now comes from a 1978 recording of a talk Ram Dass gave at a meeting of the Christian Community of San Francisco.

Ram Dass begins by speaking about the ups and downs of stepping onto the spiritual path, and how the nature of his personal journey had to do with the relationship of thought forms to the universe. There are more ways to know the universe beyond the rational, analytic mind, including intuition.

Using meditation as an example, Ram Dass explores how we can lessen our identification with our thinking mind and start identifying more with our awareness. He talks about the different planes of consciousness on which we exist, from the physical and psychological planes to the plane where we’re all one.

Ram Dass describes the process of awakening as a process of extricating ourselves from attachment to any of these planes. He talks about the confusion people encounter as they jump from plane to plane and the spiritual up-level game that people can get caught in. Ultimately, what we have to realize is that there’s no place to stand. We’ve got to allow it all, all of the time.

“‘Peter, it’s your turn to do the dishes.’ Peter answers, ‘We’re all one.’ Now, it is true we are all one, and it’s also true that it’s your turn to do the dishes. That’s what would be called a confusion of levels, you see. That’s what was known as the up-level in the original jargon of the consciousness movement. That was the up-level. You up-level everybody. Whatever they said, you just jumped one level up. Then you get the penultimate where somebody is saying, ‘It’s all nothing, it’s all empty, there is nothing, there’s nowhere.’ Then you’d say, ‘Yes, but do the dishes.’ And that would be your new up-level, that would be the twist.” – Ram Dass

OG Mindroller David Silver reunites with Raghu to discuss the themes of consciousness and spirituality that lie at the heart of Hermann Hesse's literary work.

This week on Mindrolling, David Silver connects with Raghu over:

Inspiration from Hermann Hesse

The book Siddhartha and embarking on a spiritual search

Descents into decadence and an attachment to the material world

Embracing everything that is in front of us

Comparing lessons from Ram Dass and Hermann Hesse

The inevitability of suffering

How World War II likely influenced Hesse’s understanding of suffering and isolation

Living on more than one plane of consciousness

The book Steppenwolf and Carl Jung’s conceptualization of the shadow

Fear and owning up to ourselves

Raghu’s experience at the Garchen Buddhist Institute

The problem with media and accessing constant information

Assuming an altruistic perspective

About David Silver:

David Silver is the former co-host of the Mindrolling podcast. He is a filmmaker and director, most recently coming out with Brilliant Disguise. Brilliant Disguise tells the unique story of a group of inspired Western spiritual seekers from the 60s, who in meeting the great American teacher, Ram Dass, followed him to India to meet his Guru, Neem Karoli Baba, familiarly known as Maharaji. Two days before he left his body, Maharaji instructed K.C. Tewari to take care of the Westerners, which he did resolutely until the day he died in 1997. K.C. Tewari—in the guise of a headmaster of a boys school in the foothills of the Himalayas—was secretly a High Yogi, frequently able to go into altered states of trance, known as Samadhi, at any moment.

“Hesse’s novels created for me a world that I aspired to but didn’t understand in any way at that time, in the sixties. It just fitted in with the flashes of wisdom that would come with an acid trip.” – David Silver

Exploring the themes in his new book, Confidence, Ethan Nichtern chats with his dad, David, about vulnerability, truth, and the state of the world.

Check out this upcoming course from Ethan Nichtern based around his new book HERE: https://www.dharmamoon.com/confidence-and-windhorse

In this episode, we learn about:

Ethan’s new book and what real confidence is

False confidence and manipulation

The current political environment and seeking the truth

Why authenticity is so important

Examples of people who radiate confidence and light the candles of others

How sadness can be an authentic response to the state of the world

The Eight Worldly Winds and practicing confidence

How we are all vulnerable to imposter syndrome

Awareness and tuning into our inner knowing to avoid being caught in emotions

Remembering our powerful and tender hearts

About Ethan Nichtern:

Ethan Nichtern is a Buddhist teacher, and is the author of the acclaimed book The Road Home: A Contemporary Exploration of the Buddhist Path, which was selected as one of Library Journal’s Best Books of 2015, and one of Tech Insider’s “9 Books That Define 2015.” He also wrote The Dharma of The Princess Bride: What The Coolest Fairy Tale of Our Time Can Teach Us About Buddhism and Relationships and most recently, Confidence: Holding Your Seat through Life’s Eight Worldly Winds.

For the past 20+ years, Ethan has taught meditation and Buddhist psychology classes and workshops around New York City and North America and Europe, along with working with students privately. He has primarily studied in the Shambhala and other Tibetan traditions, but has also studied Theravadan and Soto Zen Buddhism. He is also an avid yoga practitioner. He served as Shastri, or Senior Teacher-In-Residence, for the Shambhala Meditation Center of New York, from 2010-2018. Continue listening to Ethan on his podcast, The Road Home.

“I think there is a compassion element to genuine confidence where you’re using your own confidence to light other people’s candle.” – Ethan Nichtern