Deep Transformation

Ep. 5 (Part 1 of 2) | In this inspiring and empowering conversation, Rick Hanson spells out how we can use positive, self-directed neuroplasticity to hardwire our brains in order to become happier, cultivate virtues, deal with cravings, become deeply grounded, turn our desired states into stable traits, and more. Neurodharma is Rick’s conceptual creation: a marriage of neuroscience, psychology, and contemporary wisdom that offers individuals who are out to make a change for the better an impressive and effective brain hacking toolkit. Rick’s own gentle wisdom, compassion, clarity, kindness, and humor shine in this truly groundbreaking (for most of us) dialogue, making him a wonderful exemplar of the peaceful, loving, altruistic, and effective person practicing neurodharma can help us to become. Recorded September 20, 2021.

Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is an expert on positive neuroplasticity, a clinical psychologist, a New York Times best-selling author, and a Senior Fellow of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. His books include Neurodharma, Resilient, Hardwiring Happiness, Buddha’s Brain, Just One Thing, and Mother Nurture, and have been published in 30 languages. He has lectured at NASA, Google, Oxford, and Harvard, and taught in meditation centers worldwide. Rick's work has been featured on the BBC, CBS, NPR, and other major media. He began meditating in 1974 and is the founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom. Rick loves wilderness and taking a break from emails.

• Introducing Rick Hanson: kindness, books, philanthropy, forging the discipline of neurodharma (01:50)
• What are Rick’s most important takeaways from his life’s work? (05:35)
• Frictionless contentment: grounding unshakeable happiness in the body (05:52)
• We have the power to use our mind (direct our mental activity) to sustain lasting changes in the brain and we cannot escape the responsibility for using (or not using) this (08:41)
• Why do we need neuroscience when meditation does this anyway? (11:34)
• 3 benefits of grounding our practice in neuroscience (13:08)
• To provide sustained motivation (13:17)
• Gives us a common framework of enquiry that helps us operationalize when we’re doing our practices (13:56)
• Highlights the tools that correlate to each individual’s highest priority so they can zero in on what matters the most (15:05)
• Our brain’s negativity bias (16:26)
• How tuning into internal sensations helps steady our mind, stabilize attention, and pull us into the present (17:20)
• Helps identify new methods like neurofeedback (21:10)
• Knowing we are hard-wired to focus on negative experiences helps our own inner work, reducing guilt and extending our compassion (23:08)
• The challenge of stabilizing altered states into enduring traits (24:54)
• How to address craving: building the enduring trait of open-heartedness in the present using neuroplastic change (27:41)
• How do we anchor this? Rick leads a micro samadhi concentration practice (34:32)
• Deliberately resting in the felt sense of nothing wrong steepens your growth curve (41:31)
• Many of the beneficial traits we want to grow in ourselves involve states that aren’t actually that enjoyable. (44:55)

• Rick Hanson, author of Neurodharma, Resilient, Hardwiring Happiness, Buddha’s Brain, Just One Thing, and Mother Nurture*
• Founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom, whose mission is to offer skillful means for changing the brain to benefit the whole person and all beings in a world too full of war.
• Senior Fellow, the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley
• Spirit Rock meditation center board member
• Joseph Goldstein, American mindfulness teacher, co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society, author
• Evan Thompson, professor of philosophy, author of Why I Am Not a Buddhist, Mind in Life, and Waking, Dreaming, Being*
• T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding (poem)
• Huston Smith, religious scholar, The World’s Religions, quotes*
• Journal of Positive Psychology
• Milarepa, Tibetan sage and poet

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos

Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Ep. 4 (Part 2 of 2) | In this riveting, mind opening (and bending) conversation, philosopher and peak performance expert Jamie Wheal takes our existential metacrisis head on, asking and often answering the biggest questions we, the human race, face today. “How do we do this human thing with our heads up and our hearts open and not get crushed by the tragedies and absurdities of it all?” “How can we tune into the wisdom, the transpersonal heights?” More than inspirational, this conversation is like an infusion of the energetic, coherent, transpersonal potential of human beings. Guaranteed, you won’t see things the same way after listening. Recorded on September 15, 2021.

Jamie Wheal is the author of Recapture the Rapture: Rethinking God, Sex and Death In a World That's Lost Its Mind and the global bestseller Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work. He’s also the founder of the Flow Genome Project, an international organization dedicated to the research and training of human performance. Jamie’s work and ideas have been covered in The New York Times, Financial Times, Wired, Entrepreneur, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Inc., and TED. Jamie has spoken at Stanford University, MIT, the Harvard Club, Imperial College, Singularity University, the U.S. Naval War College and Special Operations Command, Sandhurst Royal Military Academy, the Bohemian Club, and the United Nations.

• Die before you die and come back open-hearted with a hell, yes! (03:52)
• A plug for good, old-fashioned human love and rootsy wisdom (06:05)
• How do we come together in “healthy” (ethical) cults/communitas? Collective coherence (08:02)
• The Lucifer effect in “culty” cults and the golden shadow (17:12) 
• Jerry Garcia channeling quicksilver starlight: what was that? (25:21) 
• Peak experience technologies need to be scalable and open source (26:43)
• The Quaker influence (27:47)
• What is group coherence? Something happens when we sync humans together. (30:23)
• What is the non-corporeal information and inspiration layer that people access in their breakthroughs and how do we get there? (31:25)
• What’s next for humanity? A new operating level: a transrational space (33:00)
• Letting the mystery stay the mystery and premature cognitive commitment (41:23)
• Radical hope and the courage of mice (and men) (43:01)
• The future of humanity: soul force or bust (45:01)

• Jamie Wheal, Recapture the Rapture*
• Huston Smith, religious scholar, Cleansing the Doors of Perception*
• The Ten Ox Herding Pictures from the Zen tradition
• Hafiz, “A Hole in a Flute,” The Gift*
• JRR Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings*
• Anthropos, Greek word for human. Mystical sense of perfected, integrated, balanced human
• David Foster Wallace, postmodern author and professor
• Zachary Stein, Education in a Time Between Worlds*
• Genpo Roshi and Diane Hamilton, the Big Mind process
• Jerry Garcia and the The Grateful Dead
• Elton Trueblood, Quaker author and theologian
• Hameed Almaas, founder of the Diamond Approach*
• Andrew Huberman & Stanford University School of Medicine colleagues’ study what switches on courage in the brains of mice
• Ramakrishna, Hindu mystic and religious leader
• Jamie Wheal, Stealing Fire*
• Jamie Wheal, Recapture the Rapture*
• Jamie Wheal’s The Flow Genome Project

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos

Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Ep. 3 (Part 1 of 2) | In this riveting, mind opening (and bending) conversation, philosopher and peak performance expert Jamie Wheal takes our existential metacrisis head on, asking and often answering the biggest questions we, the human race, face today. “How do we do this human thing with our heads up and our hearts open and not get crushed by the tragedies and absurdities of it all?” “How can we tune into the wisdom, the transpersonal heights?” More than inspirational, this conversation is like an infusion of the energetic, coherent, transpersonal potential of human beings. Guaranteed, you won’t see things the same way after listening. Recorded on September 15, 2021.

Jamie Wheal is the author of Recapture the Rapture: Rethinking God, Sex and Death In a World That's Lost Its Mind and the global bestseller Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work. He’s also the founder of the Flow Genome Project, an international organization dedicated to the research and training of human performance. Jamie’s work and ideas have been covered in The New York Times, Financial Times, Wired, Entrepreneur, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Inc., and TED. Jamie has spoken at Stanford University, MIT, the Harvard Club, Imperial College, Singularity University, the U.S. Naval War College and Special Operations Command, Sandhurst Royal Military Academy, the Bohemian Club, and the United Nations.

• Getting off the grid not to survive but to thrive (01:52)
• Facing the challenges of our time is a cycle: remaining open, learning to fall gracefully, maintaining center (03:25)
• Jamie’s practices, the 4 M’s: Music, Mountains, Mushrooms, Marriage (09:02)
• The beautiful American, antinomian, mystical tradition (10:32)
• Who throughout history really got “into the pudding”? (13:55)
• Jamie’s dark night of the soul (16:52) 
• The psychedelic renaissance, reconciling repeat transformations, and the question “How much do we change, really?” (20:20)
• Our mythic lives vs our biographic lives (22:24) 
• The universal agenda and Chris Bache’s LSD and the Mind of the Universe (24:06)
• The “information layer” that comes from Source; baffling precision along with evidence of the trickster (27:25) 
• Wrestling with the existential situation using the mountaineer’s “risk triangle” (30:30) 
• The only question we should be addressing: Can we get onto an S curve of a renewable, sustainable, and equitable economy? (32:05) 
• How can we use peak experiences? How can we tune into our highest, best life? Hedonic engineering (36:48)
• How to create a flywheel effect: practice daily, weekly, monthly, seasonally, annually (40:36) 
• The Ten Suggestions (vs The Ten Commandments): An update (43:15)
• The false certainty of the newly converted (46:46)
• Recultivating the elements of mystery and the trickster of the divine (47:41)
• The weak link: after opening consistently to mystical states...what do you do Monday morning? (Stabilization of states to traits) (48:19)

• Jamie Wheal, Stealing Fire*
• Jamie Wheal, Recapture the Rapture*
• George Leonard, Mastery, The Way of Aikido*
• Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now*
• Jamie Wheal’s The Flow Genome Project
• Howard Thurman, The Living Wisdom of Howard Thurman*
• Jerry Garcia, Robert Hunter, The Merry Pranksters, Tom Wolfe
• Emanuel Swedenborg, Swedish theologian, scientist, philosopher & mystic
• William Blake, poet, painter, mystic
• The Book of Enoch, ancient Hebrew text
• The angel Metatron
• Kurt Fisher, author, neuroscience and education researcher at Harvard
• The Constructive Developmental approach, Kegan and Kohlberg
• Chris Bache, LSD and the Mind of the Universe*
• Ed Viesturs, No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World’s 14 Highest Peaks*
• The Bhagavad Gita
• Rober Anton Wilson, hedonic engineering
• Suzuki Roshi, “Each of you is perfect the way you are…”
• Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy*
• Susanne Cook-Greuter’s ego development stages*
• Ramakrishna, Hindu mystic and spiritual leader
• John Lilly, neuroscientist, psychoanalyst, psychonaut, philosopher, writer, and inventor

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos

Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Ep. 2 (Part 2 of 2) | A candid conversation with endearing, brilliant, and optimistic Integral pundit Jeff Salzman of The Daily Evolver podcast, ranging from global current events to personal spiritual turning points. This talk delves into culture wars, polarization, discernment versus condemnation, how our psychological development determines political attitudes and values, and how Integral perspectives help us understand them all.

Jeff Salzman is a current events junkie who delights in interpreting emerging politics and culture through a lens of consciousness evolution, presented in his lively and informative podcast, The Daily Evolver. For three years, Jeff worked with Ken Wilber in developing the Integral Institute and their historic seminars on integral application in business, psychology, and spirituality. Jeff is also on the board of philosopher Steve McIntosh’s think tank, The Institute for Cultural Evolution, and co-founder of CareerTrack Training, an adult education company. A long-time practitioner in several spiritual traditions, Jeff has taught meditation and led many retreats. He has a master’s degree in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism from Naropa University.

• Afghanistan best case scenario and Integral fundamentalism (00:52)
• All fear drops in the new developmental tier (03:38)
• On integrating multiple perspectives; cultivating discernment and fostering acceptance simultaneously (05:32)
• How mindfulness practice can go bad (10:52)
• Peter Levine and somatic releasing: spiritual practice alone doesn’t do it (13:04)
• Finding God, faith, a don’t know space, 2nd person practice (13:47)
• On being in the zone and Ken Wilber’s early flow days (24:21)
• The practice of remembering God (27:12)
• Making friends with death (31:36)
• How Ken Wilber’s Integral illuminates reality (33:17)
• Current metatheories and the developmental lens (39:08)
• One’s own suffering becomes a portal into the suffering of others: the Bodhisattva aspiration (46:51)
• Physical body, energetic body, spiritual body (51:11)

• Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion: West and East, Vol II*
• Dan Lawton, When Buddhism Goes Bad
• Peter Levine, Waking the Tiger*
• Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled*
• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow*
• Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass*
• Rabbi Meshulam Zusha of Anapoli
• Critical realism
• Edgar Morin, Complexity Theory*
• Jeff Salzman’s The Daily Evolver podcast
• Jeff Salzman’s The Post-Progressive Post podcast

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos

Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Ep. 1 (Part 1 of 2) | A candid conversation with endearing, brilliant, and optimistic Integral pundit Jeff Salzman of The Daily Evolver podcast, ranging from global current events to personal spiritual turning points. This talk delves into culture wars, polarization, discernment versus condemnation, how our psychological development determines political attitudes and values, and how Integral perspectives help us understand them all.

Jeff Salzman is a current events junkie who delights in interpreting emerging politics and culture through a lens of consciousness evolution, presented in his lively and informative podcast, The Daily Evolver. For three years, Jeff worked with Ken Wilber in developing the Integral Institute and their historic seminars on integral application in business, psychology, and spirituality. Jeff is also on the board of philosopher Steve McIntosh’s think tank, The Institute for Cultural Evolution, and co-founder of CareerTrack Training, an adult education company. A long-time practitioner in several spiritual traditions, Jeff has taught meditation and led many retreats. He has a master’s degree in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism from Naropa University.

• Bringing Integral theory, big-picture, deep-picture, multiple perspectives to current events: that’s Jeff! (03:59)
• Stages of development and how culture wars & our current polarization is necessary for our evolution (09:00)
• Our individual cosmic address, integrating stages of consciousness, the mythic self, and the new tier emerging from post-modernity (10:55)
• Jeff’s own life stages — the tribal stage, the red f*** you phase, modern Jeff vs. traditional Jeff vs. postmodern Jeff and how Integral can make all of it work for all of us (13:58)
• MAGAstan vs. Woke-astan (21:39)
• Traditionalists, modernists, and postmodernists dysfunctional sides: welcome to evolution (28:35)
• The agenda of the universe (40:55)

• Jeff Salzman’s The Daily Evolver podcast
• Jeff Salzman’s The Post-Progressive Post podcast
• Ken Wilber, One Taste*
• Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead*
• Fifth studio album by English rock band Yes, Close to the Edge*
• Ken Wilber, Up from Eden*
• Joseph Campbell, The Hero’s Journey*
• Clare Graves, the Sensitive Self, adult developmental stages psychologist foundational to Spiral Dynamics

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos

Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Visit our website deeptransformation.io to learn more.