Be Here Now Network

"The Hidden Artists podcast is about people who haven't been discovered yet—entrepreneurs, musicians, someone who is creative in what they do. People have all these talents, but they don't all have an opportunity to be known for what they do. I just want to give these people a chance to be able to do what they love for a living." – Natalie Dayan

In this episode, Raghu and Natalie dive into:

- What it's like for Natalie being born Jewish, being raised in India, and now living in Los Angeles

- Exploring the various parts of your identity

- The inspiration behind starting her podcast, The Hidden Artists, which helps artists and entrepreneurs get discovered

- Obtaining her Masters degree in Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine

- Working with feeling lost in life, and using fear as a way to motivate yourself

- The similarities and crossovers between Hinduism and Judiasm

- How we are not our thoughts, we are not our story

- Raghu's adventures through India, and learning Sab Ek (All One) wisdom from Maharaj-ji

- Having faith that the universe is always working for you, as well as helping you be of service

- ZaChoeje Rinpoche's wisdom to "stop struggling with struggle"

- How with people like Natalie, the future is going to be okay

"You're not your story, you're not your thoughts; who you are, of course, is way behind all of that." – Raghu Markus

Speaking about the power of the path of devotion, Krishna Das tells us how to take care of ourselves and others through practices like the Hanuman Chalisa to polish the mirrors of our hearts.

Learn to sing the Hanuman Chalisa and dive deeper into its meaning here: https://www.krishnadas.com/lyrics/hanuman-chaleesa/

In this episode of Pilgrim Heart, Krishna Das offers his thoughts on:

- Honoring our feelings without allowing them to destroy us

Balancing being of service to ourselves and others through self-care and healthy boundaries

- Asking “how?” instead of “why?”

- How opening to the path of devotion can dust off the mirrors of our hearts

- The meaning of the Hanuman Chalisa and how his recent epiphany helped him deepen even further into the practice of the 40-line mantra singing the praises of Hanuman

“The less separate we feel from other human beings, the more we naturally want to help them. If we desire a way to help, we will find a way to help. But if you’re dying of thirst, you have no water to give anybody else either. So we have to find a balance.” – Krishna Das

Joseph Goldstein talks about working with and opening to fear as he pinpoints the three types of deeply conditioned fears that keep us from recognizing our own Buddha nature.

“What happens as proceed along this journey of practice is that we come to our edges, we come up to our boundaries of what is acceptable; what is acceptable in terms of physical sensation, what is acceptable in terms of mind states or feelings or emotions. And those are our boundaries at which fears in the mind begin to reveal themselves. Can we go beyond these boundaries? Can we go beyond the edges? Is there a way of working with fear and understanding it so that it is no longer a limitation for us?” – Joseph Goldstein

In this episode, Joseph explores:

- How the practice of Dharma is a path of opening, but fear is often something that closes us down

- How fear is a manifestation of aversion

- The three types of deeply conditioned fears that keep us closed down: fear of pain, fear of insecurity, and fear of death

- How we can work directly with the mind state of fear through loving acceptance and discriminating wisdom

“So we learn how to open, we learn to come to our boundaries, our edges, our limitations; we see the fear that may be operating there, and we learn to work with the fear, we include the fear in our practice.” – Joseph Goldstein

This dharma talk from November 11, 1985, was originally published on Dharma Seed.

Directly following Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche's death, Jack offers perspectives on the life and dharma of one of spirituality's most impactful and controversial figures.

"Lama Govinda said that of all the young tulkus, of all the young incarnate lamas to leave Tibet, there was none as bright as Trungpa Rinpoche—bright in the sense of his field of his being and his energy. Lama Govinda, even at a point when he wasn't very happy with the way Trungpa Rinpoche was behaving, said that he still had to admit there was no one who walked across the Himalayas and came out who had that light more than Trungpa." – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack dives into:

- A celebration of the life, teachings, and impact of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

- The Vimalakīrti Sutra, and how certain Bodhisattvas teach as householders so that their message can be best understood by the world

- How Jack being invited to teach alongside Ram Dass, Sharon Salzberg, and Joseph Goldstein on the faculty of Trungpa's Naropa University in Boulder, CO sparked their teaching careers in the West

- Lama Govinda's view on Trungpa's innate radiant brightness and his "lion's roar"

- The traditions, trainings, and spirit of Shambala through the metaphor of the rising sun

- Meeting our life and practice with an openness and fearlessness

- Buddhist personality types and their unique seeds of awakening

- Trungpa's discipline for practice, and his deep devotion for his teachers and dharma lineage

- Ping-ponging between Ram Dass's and Trungpa Rinpoche's dueling - - Bhakti and Buddhism sessions the opening summer at Naropa

"Trungpa Rinpoche gave himself as fully to the West as any Buddhist teacher that I know that has come. And in a more remarkable way, he absorbed our culture, our language, our customs, who we are, into himself and said, 'Alright, let's play! Let's take the seed of the Dharma and really make it sparkle and alive in the West.'" – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk on 4/01/1987 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.org

Raghu’s longtime friend, Daniel Goleman, returns to Mindrolling to catch up on his book co-authored with Tsoknyi Rinpoche, Why We Meditate.

“There’s more than normal consciousness. There are other possibilities that have their own kind of richness. There are paths to those possibilities.” – Daniel Goleman

In this episode of Mindrolling, Raghu and Daniel chat about:

Wild stories at Raghu’s family farm when they returned to the West

How Danny’s wife, Tara Bennet-Gorman’s book, Emotional Alchemy, along with traditional Tibetan practices served as Tsoknyi’s inspiration for addressing the things that get in the way of our lives, particularly as Westerners

Tsoknyi’s various methods for mindfulness: the handshake method, dropping practice, and more

How Ram Dass came up with the term, “little shmoos”

Cultivating a sense of “okayness” with things as they are

The different types of love on the spectrum of “essence love”

“These kinds of practices get integrated into your being. They're a resource for that intuitive trust.” – Raghu Markus

Open a copy of Daniel Goleman and Tsoknyi Rinpoche's new book, Why We Meditate, here.

Pick up Emotional Alchemy, written by Daniel's wife, Tara Bennett-Goleman here.

If you’re interested in general teachings of Tibetan spirituality, check out Blazing Splendor.

About Daniel Goleman:

Daniel is an internationally known psychologist and author. His New York Times bestselling book, Emotional Intelligence, was named one of the 25 “Most Influential Business Management Books” by TIME Magazine. Daniel is also a board member of the Mind & Life Institute, an organization that fosters dialogues and research collaborations among contemplative practitioners and scientists. Daniel has organized a series of intensive conversations between the Dalai Lama and scientists, and further merged Dharma and science, coauthoring Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body. Learn more about Daniel’s work at danielgoleman.info

Joseph Goldstein explores the relationship of our meditation practice to the establishment of world peace by helping us understand the tendencies of the mind obstructing that peace.

This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/insighthour

“There is a very powerful effect; it’s not just for ourselves that we practice, it is for ourselves and it is for everyone else, as well. Because as we free our minds from craving and wrong view and conceit, when we reduce this tendency, this attitude of mind to expand and grab and take and exploit, when we can purify our own minds of these tendencies, we establish peace in ourselves, and it becomes a force of peace in the world.” – Joseph Goldstein

In this episode, Joseph explores:

- The relationship of our meditation practice to the establishment of world peace

- How we can better understand the three tendencies of the mind that are the root causes of the conditions that obstruct peace: craving, wrong view, and conceit

- How the practice of mindfulness can help us uproot those three tendencies of the mind by deepening our insight into impermanence, suffering, and the selflessness of phenomena

This dharma talk from October 18, 1985, was originally published on Dharma Seed.

Rewiring our brains around difficulties, emptiness, fear, and longing, Jack highlights how we can connect our practice with our deepest love.

Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/heartwisdom

"When you get afraid or things are difficult, fear is simply the signal that you're about to learn something new. When you feel afraid it's like the little light comes on that says, 'About to grow.'" – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack contemplates and explores:

- The times in our lives where we feel truly connected to our hearts

- Ajahn Jumnian, motivation for practice, spiritual thirst, and working with addiction

- Bringing awareness to the truth of emptiness and nature of joy and sorrow

- Reincarnation and seeing everyone in the world as your mothers, fathers, and children

- Finding that what we really want is simple heart connection

- Emptiness, longing, and feeding the hungry heart

- Stillness and living from our fundamental nature of love and caring

- The difficulties in life as part of the spiritual path

- Seeing life as a continuous flow of mistakes to learn from, and fear as a signal that you are about to grow

"To study emptiness means to accept without resisting, to not push away or not distract ourselves from the emptiness that's within us that we half-feel and keep trying to fill up through all of our sense of longing and deficiency. Instead, it's to sit and say, 'Alright, let me feel that longing, that emptiness, that space, that deficiency. Let me feel how deep it is, how big it is, and not just try to fill it right away.' When we stop running and feel that, then something new comes alive in us." – Jack Kornfield

Discussing the power of the present moment, Krishna Das empowers us to make a difference in our lives by redirecting our negative habits into positive changes.

Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/beherenow

“You have to find out what you have to do to make your life what you want it to be.” – Krishna Das

In this episode of Pilgrim Heart, Krishna Das discusses:

- His thoughts on reincarnation and karma

- Going after the things you want in life

- The lesson of betrayal

- The western fantasy of romance compared to the spirit of unconditional love

- Being alone with our thoughts and emotions

Dr. Shamini Jain connects with Raghu Markus to discuss harmonizing our autonomic nervous system via an integration of the mind and body.

“What we know now is that our emotions have a deep effect on our physiology; they're very interconnected. We can create health simply with our breathing, with our connection with energy, with our connection with a deeper core of who we are.” – Shamini Jain, Ph.D

In this episode of Mindrolling, Raghu talks with Dr. Shamini Jain about:

- The multiple ways to experience God within our consciousness

- Jainism and the main tenant of non-violence

- The nature of vibration and its relationship to the healing process

- Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) and the mind-body connection

- How we can prevent disease by harmonizing our autonomic nervous system

- The subtlety of sound and Dr. Shamini's research on using music to heal

- Reiki, Chi Gong, meditation and other traditions of vibrational practices

“If you transform polarization inside yourself, you probably transform the development of cells that are in opposition to each other.” – Raghu Markus

About Dr. Shamini Jain, Ph.D:

Dr. Shamini Jain is a psychologist, scientist, and social entrepreneur. She is the founder and CEO of the Consciousness and Healing Initiative (CHI), a nonprofit collaborative accelerator that connects scientists, health practitioners, educators, and artists to help lead humanity to heal ourselves. Dr. Jain also serves as adjunct faculty at UC San Diego, where she is an active member of the UC San Diego Center for Integrative Medicine’s Research Committee. Her bestselling book, Healing Ourselves: Biofield Science and the Future of Health, via Sounds True Publications, is available at booksellers worldwide.

Learn more about Dr. Shamini and her upcoming events/courses/books at shaminijain.com

Exploring practices for embodied mindful awareness, RamDev shines light on the five stages of the journey of awakening.

This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/beherenow

“Enlightenment is not something that is achieved. It is the revealing of what has always been here.” – RamDev (Dale Borglum)

In this episode of Healing at the Edge, RamDev dives into:

- The 5 different stages of the path of awakening: motivation, trust, compassion, tantra, and wholeness

- Grounding as the antidote to fear and anxiety, and a practice for integrating embodied mindfulness

- Centering as the antidote to guilt and shame, as well as judging and grandiosity

- Being with feelings exactly as they are in the body, mind, and heart

- Several practices for playing with non-duality