Groundless Ground Podcast

Eric Garland, PhD, LCSW, is a rare combination of rigorous researcher and compassionate clinician. His unique integration of CBT and mindfulness led him to create Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE), an integrative group intervention for treating chronic pain, stress, and opioid misuse. His attention to detail and methodology has made him a trusted researcher. In 2019 he was appointed to the NIH HEAL Multi-Disciplinary Working Group to help guide the HEAL initiative on pain and addiction. Our dialogue was exciting for both of us. We share a sense that helping patients attend to savoring and insight is key to moving beyond the murky grasp of addiction.

Eric Garland, PhD, LCSW,  is Distinguished Endowed Chair in Research, Professor, and Associate Dean for Research  in the University of Utah College of Social Work, Director of the Center on Mindfulness and Integrative Health Intervention Development (C-MIIND) and, Associate Director of Integrative Medicine in Supportive Oncology and Survivorship at the Hunstman Cancer Institute. Dr. Garland has had over 150 scientific articles and book chapters published in respected, peer-reviewed outlets, and he currently serves as Associate Editor for the journal Mindfulness.

Are non-human animals conscious? Do non-human animal minds have concepts, intelligence, memory, intentionality, ethics, and social behavior? Kristin Andrews, professor of philosophy, author, and pioneering researcher in moral cognition, discusses non-human animal consciousness and the ethical problems of using non-human animals, like rats, as research subjects. To celebrate the newly released Second Edition of Kristin’s seminal textbook, The Animal Mind, we dive deep into philosophical inquiry on animals and consciousness—how and what animals think, what skills they possess, what moral and social structures they create and live by, and throughout our conversation she tackles the minefield of ethical questions about animal rights and using animals in scientific and medical research. Kristin also candidly describes how she conquered obstacles most women face navigating and succeeding in the largely male-dominated world of academic philosophy. This episode will broaden your perspective on our animal brothers and sisters, and how closely related we truly are.

https://kristinandrews.org/   

Psychedelic-assisted interventions appear to be all the rage these days. Though there are many psychedelic evangelists I wanted to find a credible medical resource to discuss these treatments. Deep gratitude to my friend Ron Purser who introduced me to my esteemed guest, Sylver Quevedo, MD, a pioneer in integrative family and internal medicine, assistant professor of medicine at Stanford and UCSF, co-Founder of Polaris Insight Center for Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, and Principle Investigator in the FDA clinical trials on MDMA for Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. Our conversation was enlightening and it was fascinating to hear about Dr. Quevedo’s long history of work in public health, his devotion to providing medical care for indigenous populations in the American Southwest and Africa, and his enduring personal and professional interest in clinical use of psychedelic plant medicines. He beautifully explicates the biologic mechanisms of psilocybin, MDMA, ketamine, ayahuasca, mescaline and how these substances differ in effect and usefulness in psychotherapy. Dr. Quevedo is limited in discussing outcomes of the current phase 3 MDMA trials but he shared results of previous MDMA for PTSD trials, as well as use of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for end-of-life anxiety, depression, and ketamine-assisted psychotherapy for suicidal depression and chronic pain. So sit back and enjoy the journey this amazing physician takes us on.

https://www.polarisinsight.com/

https://maps.org Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies 

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ NIH MDMA Studies

Sylver Quevedo, MD, Internist Polaris Co-Founder and Medical Director has been in continuous practice of medicine for 40 years and practices nephrology, family, internal, and integrative medicine. He serves as Assistant Professor  at Stanford and UCSF.  He has played pivotal roles in several global health projects, including planning and development of medical and nursing school in Africa. The staff at Polaris Insight Center are dedicated to the ethical and compassionate clinical use of ketamine-assisted, and psychedelic-assisted, psychotherapy. Our founding members are all MAPS (Multi-disciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) trained clinicians who have participated in both Phase 2 and Phase 3 clinical trials of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD.

Lisa Dale Miller, psychotherapist and dharma teacher, shares three invaluable daily practices for maintaining sanity in our “new normal” of staying at home all the time. 
1) Three Gratitudes Practice
2) Awareness Breaks for when you feel agitated or anxious
3) Diligence and Renunciation Practice as helpmates to get good sleep, exercise everyday, and eat healthy food.

Lisa's website: https://lisadalemiller.com

The COVID-19 outbreak is the very time for meditative practice because chaos and uncertainty are the rich soil of awakening! Of great help is to shift your mindset into a compassionate stance with respect to social distancing and spending more time at home. Lisa Dale Miller, psychotherapist and dharma teacher, shares advice and easy practices for doing this right now, in your life, in the midst of suffering. Learn how to be kind, patient, generous, wise and consider those who are less fortunate.

Lisa's psychotherapy website

Psychiatrist James S. Gordon pioneered a mind-body methodology widely used around the world for healing psychological trauma. His latest book, The Transformation: Discovering Wholeness and Healing After Trauma, offers a comprehensive evidence-based program anyone can use to reverse the psychological and biological damage caused by traumatic experience. Dr. Gordon interweaves the latest scientific research, inspiring recovery stories, timeless wisdom and 50 years of clinical experience to help readers suffering with PTSD to meet the challenges of healing trauma, while rediscovering joy, meaning and purpose. Dr. Gordon touched me deeply and our dialogue  expanded my clinical knowledge and skills. I am recommending his book to all my patients who are struggling with the effects of trauma.

James S. Gordon, MD , a Harvard-educated psychiatrist, is internationally recognized for using self-awareness, self-care, and group support to heal population-wide psychological trauma. He is founder and executive director of the nonprofit Center for Mind-Body Medicine in Washington, D.C., a clinical professor at Georgetown Medical School, and was chairman (under Presidents Clinton and GW Bush) of the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy. 

Depression is a relapsing disease and preventing future depressive episodes is critical for lifelong mental health. Psychiatrist and UCSF Professor Emeritus Stuart Eisendrath’s new book, When Antidepressants Aren’t Enough: Harnessing mindfulness to alleviate depression, is a layperson’s guide for depression relapse prevention. His book offers detailed psycho-education on depression and anxiety (something most patients rarely receive) and features an easy-to-follow program of targeted breath exercises, meditations, and innovative visualizations from Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), an evidence-based, 8-week course offered for many years at the UCSF Depression Center. It was a great honor to have time with Dr. Eisendrath and I know this conversation will be deeply informative for both clinicians and people suffering with depression and anxiety.

Stuart Eisendrath, MD, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry, UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences is a psychiatrist who cares for patients with depressive disorders and treatment resistant depression, and was  UCSF Depression Center's founding director. A distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, he has authored many books on psychiatric disorders and using mindfulness to treat depression.

Last week a patient greeted me with these words, “2020. Clear vision.” That declaration of clear knowing, exemplifies every wish I have for our world as we step into a new decade. See clearly, care deeply, act wisely. Though I infrequently feature two dharma talks in a row on this podcast, this one epitomizes the power of imparting wisdom at a time when our world is in such disarray. As part of a series of talks on the Four Noble Truths, I was tasked to teach on the First Noble Truth: the Buddha’s clear seeing of inherent unsatisfactoriness and its key role in giving rise to all forms of human suffering. True understanding of this teaching liberates habitual tendencies to harm oneself, others and our world. May this dharma talk awaken as many beings as possible to the interconnected nature of our human existence, and set an equal number on the path of Seeing clearly, caring deeply, and acting wisely.

Lisa Dale Miller, LMFT, LPCC, SEP is licensed to practice psychotherapy in California. New York. Oregon, and is a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner. Her office is located in Los Gatos, CA. In 2014 Lisa authored Effortless Mindfulness: Genuine mental health through awakened presence, a highly regarded textbook on Buddhist psychology for mental health professionals. Lisa has been an outpatient clinician for the Veterans Administration San Jose and a teacher of Mindfulness-based Interventions. She presents at conferences and trains clinicians in the clinical applications of mindfulness and Buddhist psychology. Lisa is a dharma teacher and has been a yogic and Buddhist meditation practitioner for over four decades. Lisa is the creator and host of the Groundless Ground Podcast.

Welcome to the end of the year, the end of the decade, and the last episode in GG Season Two. From the creator’s side, GG Season 3 looks like the best is yet to come.

It’s been a challenging year globally in so many ways. And certainly climate disruption tops the list of 2019’s human failures: We utterly fail to comprehend the consequences of our continued denials, delayals and complacency. America is truly the worst offender and I suspect this is because temperature rise is always described in Celsius; a numbering system Americans don’t relate to conceptually or emotionally. We speak Fahrenheit. A 1° Celsius rise doesn’t sound like much to Americans. A correlative 33° Fahrenheit rise sounds terrifying.

This is a dharma talk I gave in September 2019, which lays out the hard truths of inhabitability that come with climate disruption and temperature rise (all numbers are given in Fahrenheit) and offers a Buddhist psychological view of humanity’s continuing denials of and complacency about climate disruption. None of what you are about to hear is conjecture or climate science’s worst case scenario. Nonetheless it is alarming. And I try in this talk to make sense of what about our human evolutionary wiring and our kleshic perceptual habits, that makes it so hard for us to truly comprehend the enormity of destruction we are causing our planet and its inhabitants. I pray this episode inspires others to renounce denial and fully embrace individual and collective actions in this next decade that can, in some way, mitigate the horrors of climate disruption.

Visit Lisa’s website to download more of her dharma talks, view her 2020 Bay Area Teaching schedule, and learn more about her psychotherapy practice and publications.

Listen on Lisa's Youtube Channel

If it is not by now fully apparent how much I love science, this conversation, well more accurately this rare chance to sit at the feet of a science master, is proof that there is nothing more surprising and profound than the physics of space, time, information, and quantum reality. Cosmologist, UCSC physics professor, science activist, and author Anthony Aguirre, generously discusses the intricacies of deep reality he shares in his astonishingly creative new book titled, Cosmological Koans: A Journey to the Heart of Physical Reality. His book transported me into a multifaceted explanatory world of historical fiction, mathematics and mind-blowing truths about our cosmos and the nature of reality itself. It should be at the top of everyone’s gift giving book list. Anthony is a rare jewel. In addition to his teaching and research, he has co-founded two seminal institutes: One supporting cutting-edge physics and other focused on the evolution of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Biotech, energy and climate disruption. Links to both websites are included in the show notes and I urge every listener to visit these resources. The last part of our conversation probes the perils and promise of AI, a tidal wave of change every human should be both excited and concerned about.

Listen on Lisa's YouTube Channel

Anthony Aguirre is a professor of physics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the associate scientific director of the Foundational Questions Institute a nonprofit organization that he co-founded and co-runs He is also co-founder of Future of Life Institute. Anthony received his doctorate in astronomy from Harvard University in 2000 and then spent three years as a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton before accepting a professorship in the physics department of the University of California, Santa Cruz. He has worked on a wide variety of topics in theoretical cosmology (the study of the formation, nature, and evolution of the universe), including the early universe and inflation, gravity physics, first stars, the intergalactic medium, galaxy formation, and black holes.