Ep. 28 - Lama Tsomo

This is synchronicity. This is synchronicity. This is synchronicity. This is synchronicity. This is synchronicity. This is synchronicity. [MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to episode 28 Synchronicity. Welcome for your first time if you're a new listener. And welcome back if you've been listening. So glad you're returning. My guest this week is Vajrayana Teacher, Lama. Lama Somo. I found out about Lama Somo from an earlier podcast I did with Sharon Salzberg, also excellent Dharma teacher. And I asked her what she was reading. And she said she was looking forward to reading this book called, Why is the Dalai Lama Always Smiling?

And I was like, oh, that sounds interesting. And Lama Somo happens to be the author of that book. So it got in touch. She sent me a copy of the book. And I will say this. Definitely doing the book giveaway this week, it's this book. Why is the Dalai Lama Always Smiling? But if you don't win, and how do you enter the book giveaway contest? Great question. I'm glad you asked. Go to synchpodcast.com. That's syncpodcast.com. And join the community. It's on the right side. Might be a pop up if you haven't been there before. Join the community automatically entered. You can get a book. Talk to the other people who've already did it.

There's a forum on synch podcast if you want to talk about if you're a winner of one of those books. And maybe you read the book. Maybe you liked it. But yeah, I'm giving away a copy of this book this week. An excellent, excellent, excellent practical guide to Tibetan Buddhism, including basic introductory explanations and explications of various meditation techniques. Shamata, Tonglan. Very cool, very easy to understand. And just like a very beautiful book, it's just you can tell there's a lot of thought and care and attention that went into it, and it shows. And meeting Lama Somo and speaking with her, it's not surprising.

It's one of the clearest and most direct communicators of concepts that admittedly can be a little bit tricky. We go into some weird-- or not weird, but we go into some archetypal stuff, some Jungian stuff, and relating it to Tibetan Buddhism. So if those are two of your interests, I think you're really going to like this episode. But even if you don't. She's just like she can explain things in such a clear way using beautiful metaphors that just make sense. So really, I had an excellent, excellent time speaking with her. I'm looking forward to having her on again. Also, she's part of a lineage, and there's a website you can go to.

And we talk about lineage in this episode as well. And it's nomchock.org. So that's N-A-M as in Mary, C-H-A-K.org. And she's doing a free e-course. And I know everyone's doing e-courses. And there's going to be more e-courses. And some of them are good, and some of them are not. I vetted this one. I joined it. I've been doing it. It's great. All it is is every week you get an email. And then there's a link to a very nice and functional website. I got to say, great job to nomchock.org. You go there, and there's the videos of Lama Somo giving really clear and direct instructions. And practical things.

Shit, we can actually do. That to me is a big part of this. There's a part of this conversation where we talk about being spiritual samplers, but then also picking a path and committing. And I admittedly am a big time spiritual sampler. I like finding out, learning about, trying new things. But I also recognize there's a benefit to picking a path and making progress on that path. So you're not kind of circumlocating. Is that a word? Circumlocating, circumlocution, circumlocation. OK. Circumcision, I didn't want to go there, but I'm having a baby soon, right? Talked about this enough, I know. And you've got to do a bris.

You're going to do a bris. They're going to cut the foreskin off. Is this to gruesome? Is this to gruesome? If you think this is gruesome, read the PDF that comes along with what you have to do after this happens, because it's not like you cut it off and it's done and it's all good. Yeah, it's like a medical thing after that. So, yeah, sorry for the circumcision digression there. But what I was referring to is you don't want to go around the mountain, right? There's many paths up the mountain, but the view is the same. We're going to agree on that, right? But you don't want to just keep walking around the mountain.

Like, sometimes the goal, if there is a goal, depending on how non-dual or non-non-dual we want to get, if there is a goal, and let's call that goal enlightenment, and let's say the point of that goal is to get enlightened not only for yourself, so you can see suffering and maybe be of help, but for all sentient beings. So, everything, everyone, be enlightened. What a great place that would be, right? So, it's important to kind of find stuff that resonates with you and then really pursue that actively. And then whenever your level of commitment is there, you jump in full heart, open minds, clear eyes, clear heart, can't lose.

So, that's it. That's all I got this week. I'm going to keep it short, right? I know these, these intros have been creeping up in length. If you want to talk, my time, fuck the talk of me, I was going to say you can email me, but I know once this baby comes, it's just going to be a lot of people disappointed that I'm not responding because I don't have no idea what's going on, but please, please write and review if you're so inclined on iTunes, Stitcher, wherever else you consume your podcast. Take a look at the sinkpodcast.com website. I'm trying to put new stuff there, like music playlist, music I like.

Tell me some music you like. Seriously, let's get involved. Let's have this be an interactive thing. There's a lot of people already doing it, but I'd love to see more of you doing it because it's fun to talk about these things and share stuff. And I've alluded to in a previous podcast and in my newsletter that goes out, I don't like calling it a newsletter. My communications, the things I send out every Sunday, there are going to be some changes with minepodnetwork.com and minepodnetwork overall in general. And I will be announcing those shortly in the coming weeks and it will be substantial and it will be cool.

And I think everyone who's listening to this podcast are really going to like the things that are going to be coming down the pipeline. So that's it. That's it. Well, I'm a soma also, I just want to say one more word. Really, truly, I know just one of my favorite guests so far. She, I re-listen to this episode and just her parts. I don't love to listen to myself talk on the episodes again, but her directions, combined with her book, combined with this e-course, I gotta say, I am not a very disciplined meditator and I have found these particular meditation practices of Shimata, which is like kind of restful awareness, calm abiding and tongue-in, which is kind of like a meta meditation, if you've done that, where you actually visualize taking in these black clouds, dark clouds of suffering from yourself and other people, even the world, into your heart.

Directly, you're visualizing this with the in-breath and then the out-breath is visualizing those clouds then purified and back out into the world. And just to give you a sense of what this book is about, and I know it's gonna wrap this up, but this is one of the examples of metaphors that she provides in the book, which is a lot of people get freaked out when you hear about taking in black, dark clouds of pain and suffering into your heart, right? If you believe in a mind-body connection, it's like, wait a second, do I really wanna be doing that? Great question, and I think that's natural and that was actually what I was thinking when I was reading it, and the way she describes it is, the heart can also be a natural purifier, kind of like a tree, you know, takes in carbon dioxide, which is poisonous to us, we can't breathe that, and then turns it into oxygen, which we can breathe, so thank you trees, and also thank you heart for being able to trans, not transmute, we also get into this discussion about how this isn't really a transmutation, but actually stripping away kind of like a murky windshield and allowing it to be clear, this is its natural essence.

This episode is fucking great, basically, so I'm gonna shut up now, and I'm gonna let you listen to it. Enjoy this episode with Lama Somo. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)

Okay, can you hear me?

Yeah, and I can hear you perfectly, yeah.

Oh, we don't have to do any futzing?

No, no futzing.

Futs-free.

Futs-free?

That is, it's a futz-free zone. (laughing) So yeah, we'll start again. Thank you again truthfully though for coming on. I know I've said this now twice, but I really, when I get, especially books from people with written books, and I get a chance to read them before interviewing, sometimes I finish them, sometimes I don't. This one I did, I really get a sense, 'cause I can only imagine I've never written a book, but how the process of writing a book is just probably such an amazing experience in its own right, and it really is a great way of getting like a sense of who someone is. And you mentioned Jung in the conversation, I bring it up, this podcast is called Synchronicity because of Carl Jung, his principle of synchronicity and a causal principle of orderedness, you know, the whole thing.

So I love throughout the book that he's peppered throughout, and I was hoping we could actually start, not to jump right to it, I mean, we are gonna jump right into it and we'll probably trace our way back, but I really wanted to start with these three, the Dharmakaya, the Sambo Gakaya, and the Nirmanakaya, and I loved your description of the Sambo Gakaya as kind of the archetypal realm, where a lot of these kind of symbols and grooves and things exist, that to me is a fascinating, that realm, that unseen realm that we don't experience with our five senses, I think is like actually a lot more real in a lot of ways than what we actually experienced here, which is a weird concept.

So I'd love if you could just give like a little exposition on those three concepts and how they kind of relate to our everyday lives and some of the archetypal stuff.

Yeah, so the three Kaya's, first of all, Kaya means body in Sanskrit, and we, everything, absolutely everything in creation, has all three of these facets and they're really not something you can sort of take apart from each other. So it is one whole, but in order to be able to understand it, we human beings need to break it down into facets and concepts and analyze it. So I just wanna start by saying that. The other thing I wanna say right in the framing is that there are sort of two versions of each of the Kaya's. There is the pure version, how it actually is, and then there's our version as we look at it through a warped, splattered, tinted windshield.

And so what we think is the nirmana Kaya, which is the manifested one, that's more the very complex, for example. What we see is actually not how it is in ultimate truth. So I now have to kind of get into the two truths because I'm talking about-

Absolutely, absolutely, sure.

Yeah, and so we're getting into these two ways of perceiving the Kaya's. One way is the impure way through that windshield that I mentioned, and the other is no windshield at all. So realize Buddha is see the three Kaya's as they actually are, and that's absolute truth. And then there's relative truth. So for example, the way you and I see a piece of wood is very different from the way a termite sees a piece of wood. They think a piece of wood is home. It's also dinner, right? And it's a very different world for them. It's their whole world. For us, it might be a leg of a table. That's a simple example.

Another example would be water to a fish. So we can't breathe water to them. That's what they breathe, and so on and so forth. So here we're in the relative truth end of things. So now I'm gonna talk about the distinctions between the three Kaya's just so that we understand we've got these two different frames. So from a here like absolute truth frame, the Dharma Kaya is the one single awareness, this pregnant, empty awareness out of which everything comes. Kind of like the way the ocean by its very nature makes waves, and I talk about that in the book. And well, I wish I could say I made it up, but it's a classic Buddhist metaphor, and I just love it because it really works for me.

So, and metaphors really help us to bridge the gap between our conceptual minds and reality as it really is. So that's another reason I like to use metaphor, and of course, why I love you. We'll get into that in a little later.

Yeah, yeah.

Anyway, so in the absolute truth, there is this pregnant emptiness that is one thing. And is that one tap root that is the root of all manifestation just as the one big ocean makes all of these waves and there are countless waves. We couldn't even say millions of them. That would be ridiculous. And yet each and every wave is unique. So you are unique, I am unique. And yet we come from the Dharma Kaya. And when I say that, it sounds like there's a time lapse. There was the Dharma Kaya, and then there was no one, and then there was Somo. But that's not actually how it is. It's simultaneous all the time.

So how do we get from that vast, pregnant emptiness? Which by the way is also complete love and compassion because there's complete unity connectedness.

And that I think not to cut you up, but it's so incredibly important of a thing because I think when a lot of people engage with Buddhism and you hear two things. One, everything is suffering. Oh my God, that's horrible. And then also there's this emptiness principle. It's like, oh my God, there's a void. It's nothing, I'm nothing. But the love and compassion that actually emanates is such a critical part. So I'm not to cut you off, but that's super duper important. I love that you brought that up.

Oh, absolutely. And I'm really glad you're like filling that out a little bit 'cause I kind of wanted to take a little side track into that too, 'cause it's not really a side track. It's a quality of that emptiness. And it's a knowing emptiness, it's conscious. So if it's aware and it's fully compassionate, then obviously it's not an empty void, but that's what people are afraid of.

Yes.

Like there is a secret terror of it, actually. And some people can't stand being alone in a room. I don't know if you've heard of those experiments where people are willing to take a mild electric shock rather than just sit alone in a room with nothing to do.

So do you think, and I want you to continue on this too, but do you think that fear of the void is really us experiencing kind of ego dissolution and that small part being obliterated is actually what we're afraid of, not kind of merging into this knowingness or love or compassion, is that what we're showing?

Well, absolutely. And the fear that maybe it isn't this vast loving compassion and everything. I think that's particularly true for us Westerners who don't feel love and compassion for ourselves. There's some kind of cultural disease that we've all caught. And people from Asia are like, what are you talking about? I have a funny story about that, but let me get back to the love and compassion that is a quality of this pregnant emptiness. So here's an analogy I like to use. When we bang our elbow into the door jam as we go through, our whole self suffers, right? So when one part of reality suffers, then this vast ocean of awareness can't help but be aware of it.

And compassion means suffering with, it means feeling with. So it's a natural, it's not at all a sentimental thing. It's simply how it is.

It's how it is, yeah.

It's how that beautiful awareness is. When I talked to my rabbi who I grew up with and was a friend of the family and everything and he's still around and still very sharp, I asked him. So how would you describe, let's not call it God, let's just call it the source of everything. And he said, well, first of all, I don't like to call it God. I like to call it the mystery.

Yeah, and he also was aware that it was aware and completely loving and compassionate because there's no separation at that point. It's complete utter unity, 100%. So then how do we get from that to all this complexity that we see around us? And so there's a middle bridge that is sort of like it's a template through which that one empty awareness comes. And so when we, and again, I'm sort of doing like it's time lapse, but it's not. It's not linear, but as we are bringing our minds through this little journey from Dharmakaya to Samokwakaya, the first thing we come to is that the timeless awareness, Yeshe as it's called in Tibetan divides into five facets.

And I talk about those five facets in the book as you remember and have a chart of them and everything.

Which are amazing. Yeah, the chart by the way, amazing. I'll talk about the book after this, but it's so beautifully laid out and made. It's just, it shines through the intent of what the book is. It's very clear just from like the physical appearance of it. So yes.

Yeah, thank you. Well, I want to make it accessible to Westerners and we Westerners love charts, right? I did a color coded chart, you know, 'cause their colors associated with each of these facets. And so that's really what we're made of. We're made of the Dharmakaya. We're made of the Samokwakaya and these five timeless awarenesses and those then weave themselves together into endless, beautiful patterns. And those who have cleared their windshields completely have seen those patterns and just marveled at the beauty and been struck with bliss and joy and awe and the love, they can just feel it passing through them.

And the Bodhisattvas of course are on that level and they are pass throughs for the ultimate compassion of Dharmakaya and they just have just enough of an individual wave sort of awareness left that they can be total open door pass throughs for compassion in manifesting it for us. And this is why Tibetans love to work with the archetypes of the Bodhisattvas and so on and the masters because it's tough for us to move into this. You know, I talk about, as you know, the fact that we're stuck on a particular channel and we have lost the channel changer. So what do we do? How do we find a channel changer so we can get to some of these things that are a little bit nicer and better and more wholesome?

That's a word that you've probably heard a lot regarding from Buddhism in general. And wholesome is a funny word in English but I don't know a better word. So maybe you can help me think of one. But it's a more pure reflection of how it really is which is so wonderful and heart-filling and satisfying and joyful. You know, it's kind of like, why would we stay on this kind of miserable little channel we're staying on? But it's because of the ego and we think, you know, that's who we are and that's the mix up. So, you know, to unconfuse ourselves, it's gonna take some sort of like wearing away at the stone and this is the importance of doing daily practice.

And this is why for my daily practice, I keep returning to and I really kind of stick with Vajrayana because I find it so efficient for me in particular, especially since I understand how they're using archetypes to affect, first of all, to enlist many more parts of the brain and also to affect transformational change. And I hesitate to use that word because really in Vajrayana, it's not transformation. It's clearing away the confusion and bringing forth our true nature.

It's a named Krolli Baba, Rambhasa's guru, my guru has a term for it, which is polishing the mirror, right? Polishing the mirror until it's clear we can reflect back the true reality of the situation. And I think that's a great metaphor again for it. Again, for the listeners, one of the best things about this book, I am one of these people who loves practical implementation of content. I love reading about concepts. I love hearing about them and them validating experiences I've had, both mundane and transcendental, but then actually being able to apply that, which, so there's two things I wanted to talk about relating to daily practice with you, probably more, but just two that I'd like to focus.

One is setting the intention before starting the practice. I've been on, again, off again, meditator. A lot of different types of meditation, some Mahayana, some Tara Vad, and some Vajrayana. And this book really re-peaked by interest in Vajrayana, especially the connections you were able to draw through Jung, the archetypal stuff, like that resonated and crystallized something from being in a way that I don't think had before, how to use these archetypal images and how they relate to the daily practice. But what I loved is you also, in this opening kind of intention before starting any practice, is you're trying to get enlightened for two reasons, right? One is for yourself, and one is for the benefit of all sentient beings.

And maintaining that awareness throughout the practice is such a critical component. So could you talk a little bit about that and why those two things are so important?

Yeah, well, just quickly the answer. Book ending the session with that intent, which aligns with the intent of the real Dharmakaya and Saboka Kaya, not to mention Narana Kaya, which we haven't fully gotten to, but it's okay. Anyway, aligning with that compassionate intent already empowers the practice. Because otherwise, you're sitting there, and if you don't have the target in mind, you're pretty likely not to hit it. So to have that intention very clearly set each and every time you sit down, just for a moment to remember, oh yeah, this is why I'm doing this. And sometimes it takes more than a moment.

Sometimes it's like, well, I told myself I would, and so I have to. Okay, well, that's not fully aligned yet. Let's see if we can go a level deeper. And I mean, I could do that little process with you, if you like, right now.

Of course, definitely, definitely.

And I think then that'll illustrate how it can empower your practice.

Yes, yes, absolutely.

All right, so this morning, did you meditate?

I did, I actually did a hybrid of, I did the nose blow, the Tibetan nose blow, and then I looked at a picture of Papa Sambaba. I was staring at the eyes for a while, which is very different than my normal, kind of quieting the mind, some proportion of insight type things. So yes, I did meditate briefly, five, 10 minutes this morning.

Okay, well, you didn't have to divulge how. That could have been our secret. Anyway, so when you sat down to meditate, what was your intention that was foremost in your mind? 'Cause I'm gonna get to layers down. I think there were layers of it, but what was foremost in your mind?

So what was foremost in my mind was actually trying to bring the intention of getting enlightened for myself and the benefit of other people. But that's just because I had read your book. (laughing) This is actually what I'm trying to do, but what I will say is typically in my mind is I'm looking, I think, like a lot of Westerners for a better way to engage with the thoughts that pass through my mind so I can have a little bit more space to operate in throughout my day. So I'm not reacting to everything that comes up.

Okay, so why would you wanna do that?

Right.

The reason I-

I can ask you some stupid questions.

That's super great, I totally get it.

The reason I wanna do it is I found I feel better and I'm able to bring the qualities that I really wanna extend into the world. I can bring those out more easily, not all these, but more easily if I do that. So if I am really making a focus on creating space, I'm not as reactive and not such a schmuck all the time. So that's basically, yeah.

So that's already the two purposes right there, but I'd like to ask you one more question behind the question. I can't guarantee it's just one, but anyway. So you wanna have a little more space, be less of a schmuck to others and hopefully react from this better place. It was what I'm hearing.

Yeah.

Why? What does that serve, yeah?

Well, ultimately, I mean, this is, because of my work daily, I work with a lot of spiritual and meditation and just kind of concepts that I ultimately think the benefit of getting the material out from teachers like you, teachers, a lot of people, my paying clients and everything, I think it helps people in general, right? If we can instill these core values of honesty, transparency, compassion and get those out, especially on the web, that's a really, really good thing to do 'cause the web and life isn't always a place that reflects that back. So that's ultimately, I view it as serving kind of, my meditation practice, I really hope serves my overall mission of service, which is trying to get this stuff out there, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you really are coming from the two purposes in its fullest sense, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's true.

Yeah, so, but we often, you know, it's such an ongoing thing. We sort of forget it. And so this is really just about bringing that foremost in our minds again when we sit down to meditate. And so, you know, you can have that internal conversation as many times as you like. And if I take, you know, little bits of twists and turns depending on how we're feeling that day and what's going on and all that kind of thing, but it always seems to come down to just what you were talking about. I wanna help as many people as possible as much as possible so that they can be happy.

And then I always try to add to that in a way that doesn't drive me or other people crazy. Because I recognize at least with myself that if I am as clear as can be, right, not a lot of muck on the windshield, I will be of much greater service to those around me and myself. And it's like this nice little interplay between those.

Yes. - Can I ask? So this is amazing because...

Oh wait, I wanna say one more thing now. So there's the cumulative thing to this. If you do this every day in the way we just talked about and then you follow it with whatever your chosen meditation is, what ends up happening? Can you imagine this is a meaningful life? And what could be more satisfying than a meaningful life? And I think many people define that as helping as many people as possible. That's what feels good. Why? Because we are from the Dharmakaya and the Samboka Kaya and so on. Our true self is utterly pure. That windshield isn't us, right? So our truest motivation is this. And Dooka actually doesn't mean suffering.

That's how it's always translated. But in the foreign noble truths when he uses the word Dooka, it means an inherent unsatisfactoriness that life tends to be if we're just focused on the surface things of getting the car we want and getting the sweetie we want and getting the house we want and getting this and that that we want. And oh, then now we're sick and isn't this terrible and all this kind of thing. If we stay on that level, right? We never bring in the whole of ocean, but our mind, our heart can be the doorway to all the power and joy and compassion and love of that whole ocean. You just look at His Holiness the Dalai Lama and it's not a mistake that I had His name in the title of the book.

He's a totally open door.

Right, right.

And he's living a very meaningful life. Despite the fact that he lost his country, you know, there's a program to eliminate the culture and religion of his country. And yet he is smiling, if not 100% of the time, a whole lot of the time. And what an amazing life he's living.

So you touched also and that's just, I mean, the book is called "Why Is the Dalai Lama?" All the smiling and that is a great question, especially when you frame it and like, yeah, you're right. There's a country out there who's literally trying to wipe his entire culture and philosophy and everyone who knows off the planet. Like that is actively and has been going on, but yet he's still not only resilient, but has this amazing outlook. And so does your teacher, your, your lama at Rinpoche, I mean, he was imprisoned and I mean, that to me always, that's another level that I can't understand because I know that just when I go to the dentist, I'm consumed by like all these negative emotions.

So like being imprisoned is another level and tortured is another level of it. So I wanted to touch on those two concepts, wisdom and compassion, mind and heart and another way of putting it because there was something, another excellent, excellent thing in the book. And you kind of break down the two meditation practices associated with the Chamata and Tongwen, which is the compassion one. And then you said something so incredibly insightful that I loved and this is something that I'm faced with very, very often in this new age movement that has developed over the years. He said, you know, wisdom alone can develop something like the atom bomb.

Like pure wisdom and knowledge can create this thing, but it has destructive capabilities. And compassion, I don't think you wrote this explicitly, but the way I interpret it is if it's just compassion, things can get a little mushy, right? It can be kind of altruistic, something that Chogyam Trungpa refers to as idiot compassion.

Exactly, I think I quoted him on that.

Yeah, exactly. So could you talk a little bit about why those two things are obviously individually important, but the interplay and the relationship between them is where the real kind of alchemy, well, you say union term to how they really come out from that?

So just to carry forward a little bit of what you started to go into with the Mushik Donglin, you know, compassion aspect. I'm going to give an example of a friend. I can't remember if I wrote this in the book at this point.

Yeah, I'll let you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. 'Cause some things I considered and then I didn't do and, you know, that kind of thing. But anyway, so I had a dear friend who, she had sort of this mushy compassion and a really sweet person, not a lot of, she didn't bring a lot of insight, you know, and she said it was not the sharpness of the mental insight aspect. And so she got together with some people and this was a pattern I saw over and over again with her. She was living in their little community and she just let them use her computer and let them, you know, use everything of hers and everything. And then they just sort of walked all over and didn't appreciate it at all.

And it wasn't really being put to good use and she realized actually this community was a little weird. And so she tried to go and they wanted to like keep her computer and keep all this stuff. And suddenly there was a real problem and she finally was able to, you know, sort of pull her stuff together and leave, but no benefit came from her kindness and generosity and compassion. So that's an example of, you know, compassion without wisdom and she would help people all the time out of compassion and this sort of thing kept happening and she was ineffectual 'cause she didn't actually aim the compassion very well.

So that benefit could actually end up happening for the person. So if we have the compassionate intent and then bring the sharpness of wisdom in Maundry, who's an archetype of wisdom has a sword over his head, a flaming sword, right? And that's not an accident, that's very intentional because he can cut through the, you know, mush and get to, okay, what is really gonna be helpful? He's totally 100% motivated from compassion and he aims it very well. So wisdom and compassion together create a powerful force of good in the world.

Yeah, and I mean, to me it's almost like they have to go hand in hand to really affect some type of, again, not to use the word change or transformation, but evoke the qualities that are maybe existing that we can't see as clearly. Yeah, I think that's, I've noticed this at least in my work life, right? And the domain of professional life is when I initially started my, I just wanted to help everyone. I didn't care, I didn't care how much it was getting paid, I didn't care whether the results were being appreciated. I was just help, help, help, help, help, help, help, help. And you see people do this in their lives all the time.

And that to me is a recipe for burnout, getting upset, angry, and you know, I just hadn't worked out. And then when I started to really like reflect on what was going on and a better way to do it, things got a little bit easier for me. They started to manifest in a way that was more productive for me and people I was working with and I love that. And I just reminded myself of something I wanted to ask you, anger. So you also talk about how there are positive essences in the poisons that exist. And one of them for anger is this mirror-like awareness that can come, this clarity that can come from it.

So could you talk a little bit about, I don't know, would you use the word transmuting the poisons or is it just kind of, yeah, how would you describe that?

I would describe it as clearing away the ego-tinged melodrama around the anger that's causing all of the, you know, painful emotion. And by the way, schmutz on the windshield. So if we can just sort of hold it gently in our hand and peel away those layers, we can get to the pure essence that's actually there. We don't have to like make it up or change anything. You see, it's already there because we have the five timeless awarenesses inside of us already. And we can use the anger to get right down to that one.

That's the thing I love about Vajrayana is it's a very intensive and direct path. But I have to say, you need to have a llama.

I wanted, you plucked it out of my head. So I was hoping you could talk a little bit about specifically Vajrayana and how that relates maybe to some of the other forms of Buddhism and then your particular lineage and how that's not just like an aside and kind of actually important for all of this.

Well, yeah, yeah, because this kind of medicine that we're talking about is a don't try this at home without a llama medicine. And when I say a llama, I'm really a junior llama and I wouldn't be the one I would recommend for the kind of profound relationship that we're talking about that we Americans have no idea about. I mean, I had no clue until I just sort of stumbled upon Tukusangakarimpache and he was very patient with me while I sort of figured it out. And the more I grew in the practices and the practices worked on my mind so that I was able to see more of the pure side of things. And I was cleaning off my windshield and stuff.

The more I could see the nature of his mind after lifetimes of doing this and just even in this lifetime what he's done, he's just an amazing example poster child for these methods. And so seeing a glimpse of the Dharmakaya and the love and compassion that are qualities of that Dharmakaya and the awareness, the quality of awareness, it was through my relationship with him that I was able to see that. And then I was able to see who he was more. And I had this amazing moment with him. And also, the llama will help you when you get off track because peeling away those layers of ego when we're kind of this ego tinge person.

So you've got the befuddled mind working to purify the befuddled mind is a little tricky. And so the llama's a key ingredient to get out of that catch 22. But anyway, so I was just going into my relationship with him. There was a specific part of it though that I wanted to share with him to that little side track that I wanted to go into. Oh, yeah, a story early on I was doing guriyoga because that is a very important thing in Vajrayana so that you can connect with the llama's mind in a very profound way almost more profoundly than any other human relationship, honestly. That's what I've sort of stumbled into, I who knew.

So I was doing my preliminary practices which is an early set of practices in Vajrayana. And one of them, when you go through the little routine every day, you end up with guriyoga and then you go into freestyle meditation whether you pick Shama to Vipasana or Dzokchan or whatever it is. And it's called preliminary practices because they come before that, the actual meditation. So it's not to be belittled at all. It's transformative, it's stunning.

It's more like foundational than preliminary like before, just kind of like--

It comes before to kind of set the stage for then the meditation because then your meditation is gonna be so much more pure and aware and settled and all the things we want. So otherwise, in a 20 minute meditation, people complain, well, the last five to 10 minutes with the good stuff, how can I just skip to that?

Right, right.

And the Tibetan nose blow helps but so do the preliminary practices. So anyway, so I was doing that and then ending up with meditation every day. And I, at the time, didn't speak to that. And so through a translator, I was talking to Rinpoche and I said, something strange is happening. I'm doing my daily practice and my meditations, my awareness is like not just when I'm normally able to do under my pristine, what's going on here? I mean, it's wonderful, I'm not complaining, but what is happening? And he sort of chuckled and said, well, just for you meditate, you're doing guriyoga, right? And just melting into the meditation and joining with the guru's mind and going into meditation.

I'm like, yeah, he said, well, so, I mean, he didn't quite say it like this, but I'll say it in colloquial English. You're piggybacking on my level of realization. And it was like he just put two wires together and it completely made sense to me. That was the only explanation that could make any sense to me for what I was experiencing. So I backed my way into the meaning of the llama student relationship in things like that.

And it's so important too, because one of the things that I'm always looking at on the landscape that's out there with spiritual practices, be it Buddhism, any Vedic stuff, anything, is there's a lot of people who've popped up over the past 10 years and enabled by the internet who are all of a sudden a teacher, a meditation teacher, this type of teacher. And I was actually talking about this with Sharon. I think in the podcast where she was like, who's your teacher? And she'll ask the teacher that and they'll be like, what do you mean? It's like, what do you mean? Who's my teacher? I might teach her, I learned in the book.

And, you know, there's two levels of this. One to people, I'm very anti-authoritarian in one level. If people are telling me to do something, this probably harkens back to school. Like I have a natural adverse reaction to that, which is I don't, but I also recognize that there are people out there who have done this, whether in this life or in previous lives who've really put in the time and the practice to get to a certain level. And it doesn't hurt to learn from them. And one of my favorite things about Buddhism is that the Buddha said, don't take my word for it. Like anyone who says, take my word for it.

I know what's going on. Like, look at them a little weird. Like don't take that. Those are the people you should be checking with. Direct experience is a big part of this. So, yeah, I just think it's so critically important for people, it's fine to investigate. It's fine to, I'm a big sampler. I look at a lot of different paths. I'm a big fan of the mystic, Ramakrishna, who basically said, you know, many paths up the mountain, the view is the same. But I still think you gotta pick a path. And then if you pick a path, you have to have a teacher.

It's interesting.

Yeah, just to take that analogy a little bit further before you go on here, the next thing. If you keep going sideways on the mountain from one path to the other, you're not making any progress toward the top.

No, you're not.

So, I love that metaphor. And I just wanted to add that piece. It goes with what you're saying.

It's so true. And I have, in my personal experience, that I'm sure people listening can relate to this. I've done a lot of sampling for a really long time. And I fundamentally do believe that everything is the same. But I think I look at my life in the paths and Tibetan Buddhism, Vajrayana, specifically. I got this, I'm showing this bowl, this Tibetan singing bowl, I don't know, 10 years ago. And I had no idea why. And I started reading, I think I read So-Go Rinpo Chays, you know, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying and really started getting into a lot of Tibetan things. And it's something that resonates with me very, very strongly.

And so I think I'm getting closer to picking a path, if that's maybe what I'm saying. But I think that's really important. The lineage. And then the other thing I love about Buddhism, especially Tibetan, is this concept of reincarnation, which I know is very foreign to a lot of Westerners. It's like, well, how do they really know? How do they know, like when there's a kid who, and they're saying this is a tool crew and they're reincarnated, how do they know? But there is a science to this stuff too. It's not.

Oh, they tested out.

They tested out and it's validated, which I think a lot of people, especially in the West would just turn off and say, well, they can't really test that. How are they doing, but they are. So could you-- - Well, as a Jew, I like to answer that with a question just right off the bat. - Yeah, yeah.

Can you prove that it doesn't exist?

Right. Well, this is the Socratic thing, right? I mean, this was Socrates. He proved this in a very logical and real way. He says, listen, what you are describing is knowledge and learning something. I can prove is just remembering. Like, if it wasn't already in you, you wouldn't be able to do that. And he did this with a famous logic experiment in Plato's "What Is It?" I forget. But that's a great thing. Can you prove it's not true? And to me, it makes a lot of sense, especially the reincarnation thing. It's like, well, we go to sleep every night and we know something is happening in there and we wake up, but can we say it's not real?

Can we say that that's not actually happening? So yeah, just to talk about the lineage stuff, I really do think that's important. And also a teacher, so if you want to play piano really well, there are a few things you have to do. I mean, you could just do it all around and then read a book on it and then start teaching other people and saying, I can teach piano. That's maybe not optimal. What might work a little better is finding somebody who plays piano really well 'cause they probably studied from somebody else who played really well. And you can stand on the shoulders of the shoulders of the shoulders of those who came before you.

How wonderful. And this lineage goes back thousands of years. We can trace it back to the Buddha. So mouth to ear, one master to a student and so on and so forth. I got to receive this. That seemed to work a lot better for me than reading from a book and sitting there trying to figure out what the heck to do with my mind on a cushion. So that's one thing. Another thing is the teacher needs to be somebody who has cleaned their own windshield enough. And so you have to be discerning. This is where the wisdom piece comes in and you spend some time in the watch and try on for size. How are the methods working for me?

Is this my pack? 'Cause I did this mortgage board approach too. And during that time, here's another thing I did which might help. I knew I needed a teacher. So I could really learn that was gonna be the fastest, most efficient way to learn is get a teacher. So I, at the beginning of each meditation every day, I sounded a note. And if the universe truly is non-local, why wouldn't this work? So talk about intention. So first of all, I wrote on a piece of paper. These are the qualities I want in my teacher. I don't really care what flavor, but who the teacher is, is the key thing for me 'cause I wanna study closely with them.

So I listed all kinds of positive qualities, must be a really accomplished practitioner, needs to know the scholarly background 'cause I'm gonna have a lot of questions. And so on and so forth. And I forgot to put on the list, must speak English.

So you had to learn Tibetan.

I had to learn Tibetan, he still to this day does not speak English. I know, but I'm so grateful I learned Tibetan because actually it's a great metaphor for changing the pathways in our mind and making the little pathways into thoroughfares and that kind of thing and the old pathways that are more leading to major reactions that cause the schmuck effect that you were talking about earlier, that's instinctual. And there's some of that there, but we can really diminish that and build a bridge. I can show you literally the parts of the brain where it bridges to the frontal lobes and brings in our compassion and our resourcefulness and our wisdom, all of that to bear in challenging situations in life.

We need to kind of go to the practice room and practice our piano before we go and play with the quartet, you know what I'm saying.

I completely know, it's funny because I learned to play saxophone growing up from a teacher and I am still pretty good at saxophone even though I don't play anymore. I taught myself guitar. I would never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever think of teaching someone guitar, but I used to tutor people in saxophone. Like, and I can play guitar and I'm accomplished and I'm good, but I didn't learn it from someone who knew what they were doing. I taught myself based on principles I've learned. So I think that that's a great, great, great, great metaphor.

I love your metaphor and I might steal that.

Yeah, yeah, take whatever you want of course.

I'll quote it, I'll quote it.

You touched on some of the physiological aspects and kind of the neuroscientific stuff that meditation and these practices can actually help us do and you also touched on one of my favorite things about quantum physics is this non-locality type thing and that the universe is. So one of the things that I always found fascinating with this is, or neurotransmitters, right? There's these gaps in between these synapses and the quantum world is defined as anything that's less than one 1,000th of an inch. It's like a plank unit. And the gap between our synapses is one 1,000th of an inch. That to me is a mind blowing fact, literally because what it means is the place where we're generating or theoretically this physiological mind stuff is coming through is actually in this place where this quantum world dominates, not this macro big Newtonian world.

So could you talk about some of the effects and you talk about it in the book, but some of the interplay between the neuroscientific physiological components, study of the brain in mind and, you know, the non. (laughing)

Uh-huh, yeah, ah, we're gonna start with that. One place I'll start, I think, is because we've been talking about archetype, the Tibetans use imagery a lot and which is, they use archetypal images and archetypal sound, i.e. mantra. So this is all helping you, you know, those of us who have lost our channel changer to tune into the green Tara channel, if you will, or the Guru Rinpoche channel who is like this archetype of a master of transformation. And reminds me a little bit of the magician card in the Tarot, for example, which is a great archetype. So I love the Guru Rinpoche archetype. You know, and he's a little bit fierce, not totally, but, you know, you wouldn't wanna mess with him.

(laughing) Of course, I wouldn't suggest messing with any of them 'cause they have their raffle versions.

Yes, yes.

But anyway, so you're, so that brings me to the work of Stephen Costland. Are you familiar with him?

No.

He did a bunch of experiments for years on imagery and how the brain works with it. This is at Harvard. And he found that basically, if you imagine something, you know, visualize it, how do you wanna say it, the brain behaves as far as which parts light up and dance with each other. Pretty much the same as if you actually saw that thing. So without having heard of these experiments, the Tibetans, and actually the Buddha 'cause he was the one who revealed this lineage anyway and so on and so forth took this idea and ran with it because now you can set up the perfect experience for yourself every day that you sit on the cushion.

So these practices that have been developed by the Vajrayana masters and, you know, and brought to them in visions and so on and so forth really in a profound way that we can't understand in a linear way, but I think we're messages directly from the pure absolute truth parts of things. And so they were receptive to them 'cause they had cleared their windshield enough and they could download those, they hid them and knew when they should be, well, mainly it was Pama Sambaba who did that, aka Guru Rinpoche. So he hid those and then those were, he predicted who would find them and when 'cause he had very particular intentions with each of them and it keeps having come to pass for hundreds and hundreds of years.

So our lineage is an example of a whole cycle of teachings from start to finish, from rap beginner all the way through Buddhahood, there's everything you need and lots of practical stuff in between. So these practices, many of them take it, most of them take advantage of the brain behaving this way so that this particular practice can set things up just so so that it takes us on a particular journey of experience while we're sitting on the cushion right then and take us to a place that drops us off in ultimate truth.

It's like planting the seed and then cultivating the soil around it to allow it to grow. I love this. I gotta say, I knew based just on reading the book that our conversation would be this awesome and we barely touched on, I have a couple more questions but we barely touched on one of my favorite people, Carl Jung. Can you just talk to me a little bit about how you got into Jung and how that has kind of influenced how you relate to the Buddhist aspects of this and then just your life in general? 'Cause to me, there's this weird thing and people like actually have studied it in school or whatever, just read like I have.

The Jungian people, I'm always energized whenever they meet each other, I feel like, 'cause a lot of people don't really know about him that much which blows my mind, it's Freud Freud Freud Freud. And Jung had such a different conception of psychology and just like the psyche. So could you talk a little bit about Carl Jung and what he's kind of meant to you throughout your life?

Yeah, great question. He's met a lot. So I first heard about Jung from the high school counselor because she was studying to be a Jungian analyst. So that was a karmic connection, it was pretty amazing. I was 15.

Yeah, cool.

And I heard about Jung. So she recommended a couple of beginner books and I read "Memory's Dreams and Reflections" which was a wonderful introduction.

That's my first time I read "Ben Mann and his Symbols" actually, yeah.

Of course, that was the second one. And his collected works are a little steeper climb.

Yeah, just a little bit, just a little bit.

Yeah, and I have to say, they're vast and I've only dipped into some of that, just a small percentage of it. But I did study with Jungians for years as part of my degree program 'cause I picked one that I could design myself and so I designed lots of Jungians to it.

The thing that I think I first so appreciated about Jung was that he brought the psyche back into psychology. So here was a consummate scientist who had done the association experiments where he proved by pure scientific method, objective observation that the brain works on association. But then he also included the psyche that this is a being with consciousness. And that wasn't acknowledged by anybody else I was reading. Anybody else? I actually had to leave college because after psychology 101, it was too painful to study. Skinner was very popular then.

Sure.

But he raised me. My gosh, yeah. So I just went off and did the homesteading and the country thing and then found a degree program through Antioch that I could design myself and I included lots of Jung, but not just Jung. I also included Gestalt and of course in psychoses and just from a university. I was able to weave together a full program that I felt was what I needed before I sat down with somebody with troubles with their mind and they're trusting me to help them. I thought, you know, this is what I, and actually I did the equivalent of a second degree with actually Zen teachers. And I did try Zen during that time who were also very good psychologists and they brought in body-centered psychotherapy, which I love, but doing all this body-centered therapy, still I was seeing people still stuck.

So the body and the mind can create a vicious cycle and to turn that around to a virtuous cycle, you have to find many entry points I believe. So Jung was brilliant at the context piece. We need to heal the context or if we're still seeing through the same lens, we're gonna fall into the same patterns anyway. So I think that was a place where he had genius and the other is that here was somebody who had mastered the objective form of exploring truth and the mind and the relationship between the two perhaps and then subjective truth because that's true too. There's finally the, you can analyze things to death and it's like, but what about the ouch?

What about the fact that I'm feeling this or seeing this? What about the consciousness who's experiencing this? So he went very deeply into the subjective experience to also explore truth in that direction and he did his own three year retreat and drew a drew mandala's everyday. Yes, yeah, so he really fully did both and that balance created this wonderful alchemy if we may use that word to create something quite new and different in the West and had I not had that background and that understanding of the use of archetype to enlist deeper parts of the brain and deeper parts of ourselves for a much fuller transformation of our view and so on.

I could not have understood what Tibetan Buddhist practice was doing for me. So when I was sitting there in a retreat doing a deity practice and people are like, oh, this is so weird all these deities. What's going on? They've got I teeth hanging out and the flames for hair and what is going on with this. But those are just fierce archetypes and we have peaceful ones and fierce ones and all of them inside of ourselves, which the Tibetans knew. And so we're invoking that principle of reality and evoking it from within ourselves and really tuning into that channel even though it's so hard for us to perceive the true archetype.

That's why we use archetypal image, archetypal sound. They have archetypal incense for Tara and the medicine Buddha and white Tara and all these things. Anything and everything they take our senses and our feelings and our passions and all of that and help us to find a way to bring that onto the path of happiness and fulfillment and ultimate enlightenment. Yeah, I mean, that has also been my experience with Jung. He gives, to me, he is the consummate bridge builder. He was someone who recognized his place and his other concept of not exoticizing things, but engaging with them where you are is just something else I always loved from him.

Again, we see that with a lot of the new age stuff. It's really easy to exoticize something like Buddhism or Hinduism or something like that 'cause it's foreign and it's alluring. We don't know about it and maybe I'm also, I grew up Jewish, right? So I didn't naturally gravitate to kind of what was being presented in Hebrew school and Sunday school and I got in 10th grade. Yeah, it didn't, didn't. We could start up a support group. Yeah, I mean, it's really nuts. I mean, but then-- I was like, where's the meaning? Where is the meaning? And there is meaning, but they didn't bring it there. It's there and when I really started to kind of have my eyes opened up, a lot with Judaism is when we start getting to more of like the Zohar and the mystic aspects of it.

I think there's a lot of heart that still remains there even if it's not very accessible. But yeah, I love that. All right, I'm gonna stop it here for two reasons. One, I wanna do this again 'cause I have a million more questions and I'm having an amazing time and this has been awesome. I think I have a great time too. It's super fun, but I wanted to leave it. So at the end of every podcast, sometimes in the middle, I ask each guest for some practical tips that have helped them on their paths and journeys and your book is chock full of them. And I'm gonna extol, it's many, many virtues before this podcast and after it.

So those will be there, but if you were communicating one or a few just practical things that people could do who are listening, that would be awesome.

Okay, so I think I already mentioned about if you wanna change the habits of your mind and change those brain pathways and patterns of the dances that the different parts do together, it doesn't have to be a lot of minutes every day, but it has to be every day. And, you know, as automatically as we brush our teeth or, you know, splash water on our face or whatever, you know, and I actually find inserting those few minutes into the things we're already habitually doing to start the day or wind down for the day. Those are two really opportune times when we can insert it and get that habit as, you know, just part of a string of habits 'cause the brain does work on association so that as I'm waking up and, you know, about to brush my teeth, this is the moment I insert the meditation and then go on to brush the teeth.

So I've just hooked it up to the things on either side of it. So that's one very practical thing that I found essential. And I just had to find that it is huge.

I noticed notice it 'cause I started taking long walks at first and now jogging about two months ago and I started putting it in at certain times and now it just has cascaded Rolling Stone gathers no loss. You keep going and keep putting it in.

Yeah, exactly. Well, so now I just wanna mention a couple of other things.

Yeah, 'cause as many as you want and there's no cut-off here.

All right, wonderful because I actually finished the book well before I released it because I didn't wanna just throw it out there into the world and then people would read the book and then kind of like, "Ah, now what?" So we completely redid our website so that it's more supportive of people like saying, "Okay, how do I continue this? "How do I make this a part of my life?" 'Cause that's what we're talking about. Even if it's only a few minutes a day, it's still this thread that weaves through your life that affects it and more perceptively over time than you might think. So we redid our website.

We did an eight-week e-course and so every week you get a little present in your inbox and it's just a little video of a teaching that I give along with a little bit that I've written and that is on the Buddha Dharma Sangha theme. So Buddha is meditation. Sangha is a little bit of background. I mean, sorry, Buddha and then Dharma. Sorry, Dharma is the, how can I say, the map? If you're trying to get somewhere, you need a guide who's been there.

Yes, I love this. - You need a map and you need a community to do it with. People are not, I'm sorry, I've just seen this over the now almost 20 years I've been teaching. People don't continue if they don't have fellow travelers.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

So it's really huge and we have methods for helping people to practice with each other on how to do ourselves better in a group of people and have satisfying healthy community. I really believe it's not as hard as complicated as people think. Our relating to each other can be simple. I really have experience--

I believe that too. I definitely believe that. There's a lot of complexity, but there's also a lot of simplicity.

That's right. So if we do our own homework at home, like practicing at home and then practice with a band together and have tools, which my friend, my dear friend, Erin Stern, is an expert at those tools. Long time Zen practitioner, by the way. So he is working with us to deliver those tools so people can have satisfying healthy community. And so that supports us as human beings and we talk about something more substantial than usually talk with people about at a party, right? But regularly, again, regularly, meeting with each other, you develop, I've just seen beautiful relationships, deep relationships developed with people.

So I guess in many ways, I'm trying to help people to lead a satisfying life, which brings us back to the intention for your meditations that you talked about, which I think we all share, we all feel that.

I love it. Well, it's like you gave a little synopsis of how to create a healthy Dharma ecosystem, which I love. (laughing)

Very important.

Yeah, thank you so much for coming on and taking the time to do this. I definitely want to have a conversation again. So thank, I really, really, I appreciate it so much. Thank you.

Well, thank you for having me. Take care, bye-bye.

Bye-bye. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) ♪ Told you it was a good episode ♪

It was, right? Really good, especially if you're into any of that stuff, like Tibetan Buddhism. And even if you're not, maybe you are now. Again, I'm giving away a copy of Lama Tsomah's book, which is really, it's really, really excellent. (laughing) And again, you do that by joining the Synchronicity community, which you do by going to syncpodcast.com, S-Y-N-C, podcast.com, join the community, join over 10 million other people who have already done that, in just a month. It's pretty incredible. I don't really want to brag about it, but 10 million. It's pretty, it's pretty amazing. So join the community.

You're automatically entered in that contest. It's a random drawing. I put it in an Excel sheet and I randomly draw an email. So yeah, that's it. Rate and review, I'll see you next week. Baby, who knows if the baby comes, then maybe not. But I'm trying to get a lot of these done in the can, so I will probably see you next week. Bye-bye.