Joined by Foundation for the Sacred Stream’s Isa Gucciardi Ph.D. Robert AF Thurman in this podcast discusses the power of creative and humorous rudeness as taught by Shantideva, Tibet’s Dalai Lama and by his beloved teacher: wife of fifty years Nena von Schlebrügge.

This two part podcast begins with Professor Thurman recounting personal stories from the Fourteenth Dalai Lama discussing the illusion of American Democracy, Mammon-ocracy (The Worship of Money), identity slippage and the origins of Shantideva’s name Bhusuku.

Guiding a thought experiment on the Royal Reason of Relativity, Robert Thurman examines the self identifying habit which without the development of empathy and direct experiential understanding of the interconnected nature of reality can lead to selfish absolutism and much of our every day suffering.

Second half of podcast begins with Isa Gucciardi Ph.D. inquiring about reincarnation as taught in the different schools of Buddhism and by the Dalai Lama

Podcast includes an overview of the Buddhist Biological point of view on evolution, how to develop empathy, the model of compassion found in the films of Bill Murray Films and Lutheran perspective on changing the world as heard on public radio’s A Prairie Home Companion.

This episode include a special teaching of Professor Thurman’s “trademark” Sleep Yoga which is given to over-night visitors to the Tibet House US Retreat Center and to Menla Retreat and Dewa Spa in Phoenicia, New York.

“Creative + Humorous Rudeness” is an excerpt from the panel discussion Foundation for The Sacred Stream‘s “Learning from Dying: Buddhist Understandings of Consciousness and Death with Isa Gucciardi Ph.D., Eve Ekman and