Buddhist Geeks

In this episode I'm joined by my old friend and colleague, Rohan Gunatillake. Rohan is the founder of Mindfulness Everywhere, a creative studio combining meditation, technology, & design. Mindfulness Everywhere is perhaps best known for it's popular meditation app buddhify, and for it's innovative-indie approach to developing digital mindfulness products. 

In this conversation we talk about the importance of making mindfulness accessible, about the discontinuous changes that have happened to mindfulness as it enters a capitalist-based system, two different ways to scale mindfulness, Rohan's Designing Mindfulness manifesto, buddhify's new social meditation feature Transmission, and "the missing middle" of mindfulness between the for- and non-profit sectors. 

Memorable Quotes:

“Meditation, mindfulness, Buddhism has always changed. It’s a history of innovation, from the Buddha’s awakening onward.” - Rohan Gunatillake

“Mindfulness & meditation has become a content business, as opposed to a wisdom business.” - Rohan Gunatillake

Episode Links:

• 🔗Mindfulness Everywhere 
• 📱buddhify
• 📖"Modern Mindfulness" by Rohan Gunatillake
• 🔗The Blogisattva Awards 
• 🔗Designing Mindfulness 
• 📱Headspace 
• 🔗Center for Humane Technology 
• 📰Why Transmission Matters 
• 🔗Become a Buddhify Member 
• 📰The First Alexa Board Game is Both Fun and Terrifying 
• 🔗Siempo: Use your phone, not the other way around
• 📰Google and the Rise of ‘Digital Well-Being’ 
• 📰The Second Generation of Mindfulness

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I discovered Christoper Vitale's writing after doing a google search on the "philosophy of networks." At the time I had recently started doing the Buddhist Geeks podcast again and had formulated a new tagline for the project: Dharma in the Age of the Network. I wanted to dive deeper into what networks are, not in a specific sense (of say a "computer network"), but in more general & philosophical terms. 

What I discovered in Chris' writing was a clear philosophy of networks, and a generalized way to under what is common among all networks. I was also somewhat shocked to find that he had studied Buddhist philosophy in Nepal and had several articles on his personal site about dharma & networks!  

In this episode, which was originally a prep call, we explore the very interesting relationship between Buddhist philosophy & networks, and discuss some of the topics related to his Networkologies project. Look for more from Christopher on Buddhist Geeks soon!

Memorable Quotes:

“All the binaries start coming down when you start thinking in terms of networks, because there’s nothing binary about a network, nothing dualist.” - Christopher Vitale

“Consciousness is just what happens when really complicated matter feels itself from the inside. That’s what a brain is.” - Christopher Vitale

Episode Links:

• 📖"Networkologies" : A Philosophy of Networks for a Hyperconnected Age
• 📰Buddhism Beyond Buddhism : Reimagining Tibetan Buddhism as Virtual Praxis for the Networked Age
• 🔗The Santa Fe Institute
• 🔗Pratītyasamutpāda ('interconnectedness')
• 🔗Madhyamaka
• 🔗Graph theory
• 🔗Panpsychism
• 🔗Sreedevi Bringi

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In this episode I was joined by my dharma friend Lama Karma. During our time together we explored his time in Peru, using the native plant medicine ayahuasca. He said he couldn't help but relate to his experience through the lens of his vajrayana training, and shares some of how he makes sense of the experiences he had while using ayahuasca ceremonially.

We also get into a heart-felt conversation about Lama Karma's teacher, Lama Norlha, who recently passed away and who at the very end of his life was embroiled in a controversial storm with his community regarding widespread allegations of sexual misconduct. Karma shares his experience of being at the center of that storm, torn by paradox.

memorable quotes:

"For me it was this simultaneity of insanity and openness.” - Lama Karma

episode links:

• Milarepa Retreat Center
• Shanghai Kagyu
• Ayahuasca 
• Lama Norlha Rinpoche, founding abbot of Kagyu Thubten Chöling, dies at age 79

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This episode comes from a live event on "Waking Up with Psychedelics" that occurred in Los Angeles, co-hosted by InsightLA. I was joined in this dialogue by Trudy Goodman, Spring Washam, & Dr. Charles Grob. Ram Dass joined us at the end of this dialogue, and his talk is on available for Buddhist Geeks Patrons as a bonus episode.

Memorable Quotes

"An untrained mind may go into panic, but a mind that's steeped in wisdom can start to say, 'Oh, this is the teaching right here.'" - Spring Washam

"It's a practice to be able to let the conventional self just dissolve into the not yet known." - Trudy Goodman

"Isn't it remarkable how we ingest plants in order to learn how to be human." - Ralph Metzner

Episode Links:

• Psilocybin: A Crash Course in Mindfulness with Dr. Roland Griffiths
• The Utter Perfection of Everything with Trudy Goodman
• Collective Wisdom Rising with Spring Washam
• "A Fierce Heart" by Spring Washam
• "Be Here Now" by Ram Dass
• Lotus & Vine Journeys
• East Bay Meditation Center
• Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS)
• Ecstasy as a Remedy for PTSD? Your Probably Have Some Questions.
• "Island" by Aldous Huxley

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I’m joined in this raw & intimate conversation by meditation teacher & author Spring Washam, as we discuss the integration of Buddhist contemplative practice with the Peruvian plant medicine ayahuasca. We begin with Springs dharma journey and the way that silent practice no longer served her deeper healing journey, and how the ultimately brought her to the jungles of Peru. I share parallels on my path of working with psilocybin and healing ancestral trauma, and we go into how a deeper collective healing process underlies each of our personal journeys. Spring shares an interesting perspective on how these “medicines of the earth" can be understood as collective wisdom rising from nature itself at a crucial point in our time on this planet.

Memorable Quotes:

“For me insight and healing are one and the same.” - Spring Washam

“I think a big part of what we are unpacking collectively is our ancestral suffering, our community suffering, our collective karma.” - Spring Washam

“Yes, our lineages are alive! Your great-great-grandparents are alive in you.” - Spring Washam

Episode Links:

• 🔗 Spring Washam
• 📖 A Fierce Heart: Finding Strength, Courage, and Wisdom in Any Moment
• 🔗 East Bay Meditation Center
• 🔗 Lotus Vine Journeys

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I don’t want to over-hype this episode too much, but listening back over it today and preparing these notes, I was left feeling that this was perhaps the most intimate, raw, & profound conversation I’ve had throughout the Meditating on Psychedelics series so far.  It might have something to do with the fact that my guest is Trudy Goodman, who is also one of my teachers.  My wife Emily & I had the great honor of being authorized to teach by Trudy last year, at her center InsightLA, where we lived for a short time so that we could train more closely with her.  

I always describe Trudy as a living koan, because she demonstrates the teachings, lives the teachings, and in those moments of living them simply IS the teaching.  Seeing someone be the teachings of kindness, wisdom, & generosity, as you've probably experienced, is much more impactful than hearing people talk about them.  In Zen they call this, when it’s voiced through words, the difference between “live words” and “dead words.”  I hope you enjoy these live words from one of my most favorite people in the world.

Memorable Quotes:

“Why do I have to be stoned to have this experience?  This should be an experience that we can just have, we’re human beings, we have this capacity.” - Trudy Goodman

“I learned from all of those experiences, and yet the experiences themselves don’t exactly help you so much afterwards.  I stopped doing them because I didn’t like the feeling of being kicked out of the garden of eden over and over again.” - Trudy Goodman

“What is it that brings us into a more committed engagement with the mystery?” - Vincent Horn

“Meditating can help the mystical experience, or the opening, that people have on psychedelics become not just a state, an experience that is after all only a memory, but can help make those insights and awakenings present in our everyday life.” - Trudy Goodman

“We ask our students to be vulnerable.  And I don’t think we should ask our students to be doing things we aren’t doing.” - Trudy Goodman

Episode Links:

• Trudy Goodman
• InsightLA
• “In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts” by Gabor Mate
• Ram Dass
• Meditating on Mushrooms with Roland Griffiths
• "Psilocybin-occasioned mystical-type experience in combination with meditation and other spiritual practices produces enduring positive changes in psychological functioning and in trait measures of prosocial attitudes and behaviors”
• “Leopard Warrior: A Journey into the African Teachings of Ancestry, Instinct, and Dreams” by John Lockley
• The 4 Unmentionables: Sex. Money, Power & Race Series
• Father Greg Boyle
• Tristan Harris
• Center for Humane Technology
• Filter bubbles

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On this episode I had the great pleasure of speaking with Buddhist teacher, Zen priest, anthropologist, and pioneer in the field of end-of-life care, Roshi Joan Halifax.  One of my previous guests, Raghu Markus, recommended I speak with her as part of the Meditating on Psychedelics series, and so that's where the conversation began.  

I think it's fair to say that by the end of our discussion it had expanded out quite a bit to include broader questions about the relationship between contemplation & action, and how the Mahayana emphasis on bodhicitta requires that we integrate our understanding with contemporary issues, of which psychedelics is just one.

Memorable Quotes

"I wouldn't say that I'm ambivalent with regards to hallucinogens, I'd say I'm discerning." - Roshi Joan Halifax

"I have a lot of respect for entheogens.  I have more respect for my mind." - Roshi Joan Halifax

"I want to live in a country that loves our children, more than they love our drugs." - Roshi Joan Halifax

Episode Links

• Upaya Institute and Zen Center
• Be Here Now Foundation
• Meditating on Mushrooms w/ Roland Griffiths
• Bodhicitta
• Stanislav Grof
• "The Human Encounter with Death" by Stanislav Grof & Joan Halifax
• William Richards on Erowid
• The Dependent Co-Arising of Psychedelics & Meditation by Vanja Palmers
• John Dunne on Language and Non-Duality

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In this episode I'm joined by one of my favorite productivity writers, Tiago Forte. Tiago is part of a new generation of productivity thinkers, whose exploring new ways of working in the digital age. I've found his writing both refreshing and insightful, and when I discovered that he also has a serious interest in meditation & spirituality I knew I'd have to invite him onto Buddhist Geeks.

The first part of our dialogue explores Tiago's background and work, and then we get into the relationship between network thinking, productivity paradigms, and different types of meditation.

Memorable Quotes

"You can't understand a paradigm from within it." - Tiago Forte

"What we can borrow from, network metaphors, telecommunications, the theory of constraints, mindfulness & meditation, to make the way the world is going into an opportunity instead of a threat?" - Tiago Forte

Episode Links

• Tiago Forte (https://www.fortelabs.co)
• "The Untethered Soul" by Michael Singer
• "Design Your Work" by Tiago Forte
• Building a Second Brain
• RibbonFarm : experiments in refactored perception
• The Throughput of Learning by Tiago Forte
• From Multitasking to Multiplexing by Tiago Forte
• The Rise of the Full-Stack Freelancer by Tiago Forte
• "Networkologies" by Christopher Vitale
• "Deep Work" by Cal Newport
• Metcalfe's law 

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In this episode we speak with meditation teacher & author Michael Taft about his experience of meditating on LSD. Michael describes himself as someone who has likely done more LSD than anyone you've ever known, while also being a hardcore meditator, a skilled teacher, and one of the more high-functioning & well integrated adults that you're likely to meet.

In addition to discussing the potential dangers and downsides of using LSD, Michael also shares his unique experience of the 3 characteristics of the LSD experience, Impermanence, Suchness, & Meta-Rationality, each of which mirror what can be found through Buddhist meditative training. 

Memorable Quotes:

"For this stuff to be powerful it has to be powerful." - Michael Taft

"It's like opening a door in your mind you did not know is there." - George Harrison

Episode Links:

🔗 Deconstructing Yourself (Michael's Website & Podcast)

📖 "The Mindful Geek" by Michael Taft

📖 "Cosmic Trigger" by Robert Anton Wilson

📖 "Dharma Bums" by Jack Kerouac

📖 "The Doors of Perception" by Aldous Huxley

🎙 Pattern and Nebulosity

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This week we speak with Albert Grabb, an LA-based radiologist & meditator, who was one of the 1st legal participants in a Johns Hopkins study of seasoned meditators using psilocybin (aka "magic mushrooms").

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