⚗️ alembic

Search

SearchSearch

614 - Meditation and Psychedelics

Jul 15, 2019, 71 min read

Program Notes

Support Lorenzo on Patreon.com
https://www.patreon.com/lorenzohagerty
Guest speaker: Mike Sapiro

Dr. Mike Sapiro

Date this lecture was recorded: July 8, 2019.

Today’s podcast features a conversation that I had with Dr. Mike Sapiro who is a clinical psychologist, meditation teacher and former Buddhist monk. He is the founder of Maitri House Yoga and a Fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences. His work integrates psychology, noetic sciences, nondual and Buddhist meditation, and social justice in the service of awakening.

Dr. Mike Sapiro’s website

Download free copies of
Lorenzo’s latest books

Previous Episode

613 - Iboga and Ibogaine

Next Episode

615 - Exploring DMT Space

Similar Episodes

Transcript

00:00:00 ►

Greetings from cyberdelic space.

00:00:19 ►

This is Lorenzo and I’m your host here in the Psychedelic Salon.

00:00:24 ►

And today’s podcast features a conversation that took place in last week’s live salon.

00:00:29 ►

And our guest then was Dr. Mike Shapiro, who is a clinical psychologist, meditation teacher, and former Buddhist monk.

00:00:37 ►

He is also the founder of Matri House Yoga and is a fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences.

00:00:43 ►

And, well, Mike’s work integrates psychology, noetic sciences, non-dual, and Buddhist meditation.

00:00:50 ►

So, as you know, we’ve been fortunate to have some interesting guests join us for our live salons on Monday nights.

00:00:58 ►

In fact, our guests tonight will be Daniel McQueen and longtime fellow salonner Kevin Thorbane, who will be discussing a protocol to explore ways to extend both the length

00:01:09 ►

and control the intensity of a DMT experience.

00:01:13 ►

And next week, our guest in the live salon will be author Eric Davis,

00:01:17 ►

who is also the person who conducted the last interview of Terrence McKenna.

00:01:23 ►

Following that, my guests will include Dr. Rick Strassman,

00:01:26 ►

author of DMT the Spirit Molecule,

00:01:29 ►

my old friend and cactus expert, Keeper Trout,

00:01:32 ►

and the producer of the movie Dosed.

00:01:35 ►

So if you’d like to sit in on any of those conversations

00:01:38 ►

and maybe even ask a question of your own,

00:01:41 ►

well, I’d be happy to see you there.

00:01:43 ►

And if all goes well, you’ll be able

00:01:45 ►

to hear a recording of those evening’s get-togethers. In fact, that seems like what we should do right

00:01:51 ►

now. So please join me and a few dozen of our fellow salonners, some from as far away as New

00:01:58 ►

Zealand and Canada, and see what we can learn about the differences and similarities between meditation and a psychedelic experience.

00:02:08 ►

I hope that you learn as much as I did when this conversation first took place.

00:02:13 ►

Welcome, glad to hear you.

00:02:15 ►

Thank you, thanks for having me.

00:02:17 ►

And you’re coming to us from Boise, right?

00:02:20 ►

Yeah, Boise, Idaho.

00:02:21 ►

Boise, Idaho. You know, Idaho is one of the few states I haven’t been to.

00:02:25 ►

Well, not one of the few.

00:02:26 ►

I’ve been to over half.

00:02:27 ►

But how did you wind up in Idaho from Illinois?

00:02:30 ►

Well, Illinois, that’s a long, long route.

00:02:33 ►

So after Illinois, Portland, after Portland, went to Thailand for Peace Corps, back to Portland, California, Alaska, and finally Boise.

00:02:43 ►

I did my fellowship here, postdoctoral fellowship at the VA.

00:02:48 ►

I’ve been really clearly instructed to tell everyone how terrible Idaho and Boise are,

00:02:53 ►

so no one keeps moving here.

00:02:58 ►

You know, we used to say that about Southern California, but due to the earthquakes,

00:03:02 ►

we don’t have to say that anymore.

00:03:04 ►

I’m sure people still go. I’m itching to move out there too.

00:03:09 ►

You know, we actually have somebody here from Portland too. And, you know, your route from

00:03:16 ►

Illinois is about as circuitous as mine has been. Plus, you were born and you were raised in Chicago, right? Yes, right.

00:03:26 ►

And, of course, I grew up in Elgin, which, you know, we always said Chicago because nobody ever knew where Elgin was.

00:03:33 ►

So we’re both from sort of the Midwest boys, I guess.

00:03:37 ►

Yeah.

00:03:38 ►

So you and I are two people here who have no accents.

00:03:42 ►

Actually, I got a little bit of Chicago on.

00:03:47 ►

Well, see, we don’t like to admit the Chicago accent. If the Blues Brothers are around there, I’m okay. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I was a big Blues

00:03:54 ►

Brothers fan. And as I mentioned in an email to you, you went, graduated from Illinois State

00:04:00 ►

originally, right? Yeah, my bachelor’s and my first master’s was from

00:04:05 ►

Illinois State. And that’s my aunt, who is sort of my second mother. We lived in her house.

00:04:12 ►

She got her teaching certificate from Illinois State in, I think, the 1920s sometime. But she

00:04:18 ►

was one of the most significant people in my life. And so I’ve always had a fondness for that part of

00:04:23 ►

the state. Well, I’ve enjoyed it and glad to be out of it at the same time.

00:04:28 ►

Yeah, I don’t really go back anymore. I went back to my 50th high school reunion,

00:04:32 ►

but that was about it. So haven’t haven’t made it since then. But you now have,

00:04:39 ►

you’ve done such a had such a varied career. And I’ve got some specific things we want to get into here in a little bit.

00:04:46 ►

But maybe we can just start out with you telling a little bit about where you are now and what you’re doing in your practice,

00:04:54 ►

and then we’ll kind of work backwards into how you got there.

00:04:57 ►

Sure. So I’m a clinical psychologist by trade.

00:05:00 ►

I also am a meditation researcher at the Institute of Noetic Sciences up in Petaluma.

00:05:06 ►

And I’m on faculty at Esalen Institute. So I teach courses out there. My main work is

00:05:13 ►

clinical psychology, seeing patients. So I see, you know, 20 to 25 people a week.

00:05:19 ►

I lead a sangha, a Buddhist sangha here in Boise. And so that’s where I spend most of my time.

00:05:26 ►

Then I will travel to Esalen or up in Petaluma and do work out there or travel to teach around the country.

00:05:33 ►

Teaching meaning offering workshops and retreats, integrating the Dharma, non-dual teachings, science and psychology.

00:05:43 ►

That’s quite a varied slate of interest. And, you know, Esalen rings

00:05:48 ►

a warm bell. I only was there one time, but Bruce Dahmer and I gave a workshop there in 2012

00:05:54 ►

and found it to be a very delightful place. It still is. Every time I get little tears of

00:06:00 ►

gratitude that I am able to teach there, it’s such an amazing tapestry of people who have created Esalen and the

00:06:08 ►

history of Esalen is fantastic.

00:06:10 ►

Even before it became Esalen with the people’s, the Esalen people,

00:06:14 ►

how they tended to the land. So there’s a really rich history there.

00:06:17 ►

And I know it was such an instrumental part of transforming the culture in the

00:06:21 ►

sixties and seventies.

00:06:22 ►

So I do get a little bit that heart swell when I get to be there thinking of who was on that campus teaching

00:06:28 ►

and kind of changing the minds of American populace, really.

00:06:34 ►

Well, you know, your background certainly fits into the Esalen standard.

00:06:39 ►

In fact, you were once a Buddhist monk?

00:06:43 ►

For a short time, yeah yeah i’ve studied for 22 years

00:06:46 ►

and um i did eight years of zen i was a lay resident for a year and then moved to thailand

00:06:53 ►

for the peace corps and um i got permission from my zen teacher to change to the theravadan

00:06:58 ►

tradition and i’ve since been there for in that tradition for 14 years and a part of my training

00:07:04 ►

was ordaining as a

00:07:05 ►

monk and living in the northern hemisphere of the northern part of Thailand that was obviously rich

00:07:12 ►

and rewarding I wouldn’t say super challenging because I didn’t keep the robes on that long

00:07:18 ►

but the the amount of change that came from just doing that experience, I was able to stay in a cave for a week.

00:07:25 ►

I can return to that cave now anytime I want.

00:07:28 ►

They let me practice meditation or I bring groups to Thailand.

00:07:32 ►

My wife, who is Thai, also a chef, we lead cultural immersion trips to Thailand,

00:07:37 ►

staying with host families, meeting monks, deep practice in the forest.

00:07:42 ►

That cave has still significance for me.

00:07:45 ►

What was that like, living as a monk? You know, that’s something that I know many of us have been

00:07:49 ►

not necessarily tempted to, but we’ve thought about. And is that, do you really feel like

00:07:56 ►

you’re giving up a whole lot of things or do you feel like you’re getting more from it?

00:08:00 ►

Man, there’s no end to the getting and receiving because things quiet down so much that

00:08:06 ►

the vastness of the universe becomes much more palpable and present in the feelings in your body,

00:08:13 ►

the sounds and vibrations and the spaciousness which comes allowed me to tend to so much more

00:08:20 ►

of myself than I usually do in a very limited way because I’m busy, I’m working,

00:08:25 ►

I’m tending to other people. And so really being quiet in the forest allowed me to really tend to

00:08:31 ►

nurture this body and this being, which really longed for it. Most of us long for that kind of

00:08:37 ►

nurturance and self-care. We think self-care is just exercise, eating healthy, but it’s also about

00:08:44 ►

really nurturing ourselves

00:08:45 ►

deeply. And being a monk allowed me to start doing that in a way I couldn’t quite do being so busy in

00:08:52 ►

the States. Even though I even lived in a temple, I still couldn’t do it as well there.

00:08:57 ►

Well, you know, in a way, your focus on meditation and the meditation practice is sort of a continuation in my eyes of the

00:09:05 ►

Buddhist experience and that you do kind of move yourself away from the hustle and bustle of the

00:09:11 ►

day and get into a quiet place. The hope is that what I call bringing the forest to the city. I

00:09:18 ►

live in a small city. I travel to LA, San Diego. I travel to San Francisco, how do I bring the forest into the city? And

00:09:27 ►

that’s, that’s, it’s a challenge for most of us who have meditation practices and travel. And

00:09:32 ►

how do we bring the quiet simpleness of the forest or a village into our daily lives?

00:09:38 ►

And it’s really important to have, you know, a kind of discipline and really earnest, wholehearted, heartfelt practice that we can rely on to bring our self back down to that quiet that we might find in the forest or the village.

00:10:06 ►

You are one of the few people I’ve ever encountered who was a serious student of Buddhism who has not just totally refused to even mention the word psychedelics.

00:10:12 ►

I know I’ve had a lot of friends who were very sincere, dedicated Buddhists,

00:10:18 ►

and most of them found meditation and Buddhism through psychedelics,

00:10:22 ►

but then they didn’t want to talk about it.

00:10:25 ►

And I can understand that.

00:10:27 ►

I certainly understand that.

00:10:28 ►

And I don’t really think there’s a way that you can get some sort of a peaceful experience

00:10:34 ►

in psychedelics, but nothing like what comes from meditation and that you can’t get the

00:10:40 ►

stillness that you get in meditation.

00:10:42 ►

However, I’ve had two mentors, one a life mentor,

00:10:45 ►

and the other was my psychedelic mentor, who was Myron Stolaroff. And Myron lived into his late

00:10:51 ►

80s. He was in his late 70s when I first met him. I guess the age I am now. But he was an old man,

00:10:58 ►

I’m not. But Myron was the most dedicated meditator I’ve ever met.

00:11:06 ►

He meditated at least an hour every morning.

00:11:08 ►

He would take two week meditation retreats and he spent a significant amount

00:11:13 ►

of time dedicated to meditation as he did to psychedelics.

00:11:18 ►

And he was one of the first dozen people in the United States outside of the

00:11:22 ►

CIA’s MK ultra project to take LSD. And he wound up into

00:11:28 ►

Buddhism, meditation, and all through LSD. And then he ran the Menlo Park Clinic for a number

00:11:34 ►

of years in Silicon Valley. But he is one of the few people that I knew really well, who was deep into Buddhist meditation and psychedelics. And his practice was

00:11:49 ►

to be able to get an intensive psychedelic experience, what he called on the natch, or I

00:11:55 ►

think Terence McKenna said on the natch. And he told me that he’s been able to touch that a number

00:12:00 ►

of times. And I found, you know, I have a casual meditation practice. I spend, you know,

00:12:06 ►

half hour to 45 minutes every morning, but it’s not anything deep and serious, but I have been

00:12:12 ►

able to get myself to that space. And so I see that from my perspective, the importance of

00:12:20 ►

psychedelics as regards to meditation is they show you a place you can get to and keep working

00:12:26 ►

for and that’s just been my own personal experience how do you see the the interaction or

00:12:33 ►

or is there a crossover between the two oh for sure so from my perspective and i’m speaking both

00:12:40 ►

as a buddhist student teacher and then as a non-dual meditation teacher

00:12:46 ►

coming from the Kashmir Shaivism tradition of Northern India,

00:12:49 ►

there’s nothing we want to cast out.

00:12:52 ►

There’s no experience or phenomenon of the universe

00:12:55 ►

that we want to cast away.

00:12:57 ►

In fact, we want to welcome everything

00:12:58 ►

as it points back to the source itself.

00:13:02 ►

So there’s no information or material

00:13:04 ►

that needs to be thrown out. So there’s no information or material that needs to be thrown

00:13:05 ►

out. There might need some information that we discern is not valuable, important at the moment.

00:13:12 ►

And so the Buddha, and let me, one more thing, psychedelics give, I’ll say that they give us

00:13:18 ►

access to three realms of information is the way I conceive of it. One realm of information is the personal.

00:13:26 ►

Our either unremembered material or unconscious material arises. Then we have the universal

00:13:33 ►

consciousness, collective, unconscious kind of material that our ancestors experienced,

00:13:40 ►

images, metaphors, and symbols. Ralph Metzner writes a lot about this, about these kinds of symbols that come up in these experiences.

00:13:48 ►

And then we might have actual spirit information,

00:13:52 ►

living beings or living in the sense of out of the realm of this physical realm

00:13:58 ►

that we may access.

00:13:59 ►

So people speak about ayahuasca journeys and DMT experiences

00:14:03 ►

of really touching other realms of spirithood, spiritness.

00:14:09 ►

So using psychedelics gives us this kind of information.

00:14:14 ►

It broadens and widens the puzzle of the universe for us.

00:14:18 ►

And it also opens us up to psychic experiences ourselves.

00:14:22 ►

So we have maybe a greater clairvoyancy, telepathy,

00:14:27 ►

we might have prescience, we start tapping into spirits as a medium or channeler would.

00:14:34 ►

So these are kind of natural phenomenons we’ve seen and studied through the psychedelic experience.

00:14:39 ►

Buddha is very clear. He acknowledged these states of being. He acknowledged they’re called the cities, these telepathic clairvoyant experiences. He said, just be wary of claiming you do them on your own.

00:14:52 ►

Be wary of saying you’re the source of them. And also don’t brag about them. He actually,

00:14:57 ►

one of the 227 precepts talks about if you do brag about these psychedelic or psychic experiences,

00:15:03 ►

you will get kicked out of the order.

00:15:06 ►

There were a lot of people in India who were doing things like levitating,

00:15:10 ►

you know, predicting weather.

00:15:12 ►

And as they were working with the Buddha, he was clear that that’s,

00:15:16 ►

we’re going past that.

00:15:17 ►

That arises in deep practice.

00:15:19 ►

But yet what’s, where’s that coming from?

00:15:22 ►

And don’t identify so much with that.

00:15:24 ►

And so I don’t find it to be contrary at all to be a practicing Buddhist

00:15:31 ►

and also someone who understands and appreciates what medicine does for us.

00:15:36 ►

In the non-dual tradition, what we would say is all of those phenomenon,

00:15:42 ►

those experience arise from the source.

00:15:44 ►

So if we trace everything that

00:15:46 ►

arises including visions hallucinations images symbols we trace where they arise from we

00:15:53 ►

ultimately return to stillness and spacious awareness which is formless and then we see

00:16:00 ►

the arising of this psychic or psychedelic experience and we trace it right back to the

00:16:05 ►

quiet source where it comes from so either way we’re covered we’re good we can talk about as

00:16:11 ►

much as you want i guess to paraphrase the buddha is uh if you’re really enlightened you don’t show

00:16:18 ►

off it’s just like you know it happens so what how does this end your suffering or are you really

00:16:23 ►

attached to levitate you’re seeing things in nature he’s like it’s know, it happens. So what? How does this end your suffering? Are you really attached to levitate?

00:16:25 ►

You’re seeing things in nature.

00:16:27 ►

He’s like, it’s a natural gift.

00:16:28 ►

Your mind guesses expands, of course.

00:16:31 ►

And that’s what psychedelics do.

00:16:32 ►

They expand by adding pieces of the puzzle to our understanding of this vast, unlimited universe.

00:16:38 ►

Right.

00:16:39 ►

Even though they, of course, also add so many questions to our lives, too.

00:16:43 ►

They, of course, also add so many questions to our lives, too.

00:16:50 ►

One of my questions for you is, first of all, I’ll tell you a little about our audience.

00:16:53 ►

I’d say probably half the audience is 35 and under.

00:17:02 ►

There’s a lot of really interested young people who are interested in breaking out of the everyday world that we all seem to be in.

00:17:06 ►

But my guess is not many of them have been exposed a great deal to meditation. You know, that’s something that is the California New Age thing

00:17:12 ►

and all. But I, you know, yoga is everywhere in California and it’s across the United States and

00:17:18 ►

the world too. But it’s something that I think younger people are maybe not paying as much

00:17:24 ►

attention to as they once did when they were younger, because perhaps it’s something that I think younger people are maybe not paying as much attention to as they once did when they were younger because perhaps it’s become passe.

00:17:29 ►

How do you encourage younger people to at least explore the possibility of meditation?

00:17:37 ►

I have lots of patience, first of all.

00:17:40 ►

Not patience I work with.

00:17:41 ►

I mean patience to go.

00:17:44 ►

Go ahead. Keep exploring the way you’re

00:17:46 ►

doing, but watch what happens when you do that. What I’m busy doing in Boise with my friends and

00:17:52 ►

community that are younger is encouraging them not to reach for the peak experience after peak

00:17:59 ►

experience, thinking that’s going to be the thing that heals or tempers them or soothes them,

00:18:04 ►

thinking that’s going to be the thing that heals or tempers them or soothes them,

00:18:08 ►

but gives them a glimpse of what is greater than them.

00:18:14 ►

And then to really create a sustained long-term practice, whatever that is,

00:18:19 ►

whether it’s meditation, dancing, drumming, you know, something where you have a teacher,

00:18:27 ►

a guide, a community, and a language in which you’re kind of creating a larger sense of self because you’re seeing other people engaging in it, asking similar questions. So my encouragement to

00:18:33 ►

the younger community is actually really dedicate yourself to your own personal growth and well-being

00:18:38 ►

because I know out of that comes service to other people. And when you are starting to practice

00:18:43 ►

using plant meds, you have a container

00:18:46 ►

for your experience rather than this just crazy experience that blew your mind, but you don’t know

00:18:51 ►

what to do with it. You don’t have a language for it and no one’s guiding you through anything.

00:18:56 ►

So how I work with younger people is really encourage them to find their voice, whatever

00:19:01 ►

that might be, whether it’s music or art or film, but really do it as

00:19:05 ►

one would do a spiritual practice with guidance, instruction, community, and language. And then

00:19:13 ►

take these experiences of the psychedelic realm and integrate them into those daily practices,

00:19:19 ►

whatever they’ve chosen, because it will only enhance their understanding of music, art, dance,

00:19:23 ►

movement, whatever they’re doing.

00:19:26 ►

You know, I appreciate you mentioning also dance and like drumming circles for ways to move your consciousness to a different plane.

00:19:36 ►

I, for one, have found drumming circles to be really amazing to get you out of yourself.

00:19:41 ►

And I wouldn’t want anybody to ever see me. But there are some nights

00:19:46 ►

I put my wireless headphones on and I dance here in my bedroom. But, you know, if you’ve ever been

00:19:52 ►

to a festival or a rave or whatever, and you’ve danced to electronic music, usually on some sort

00:19:59 ►

of a substance, or if you’ve ever done that later, time without the substance you find that you can really

00:20:06 ►

get into that same spirit that that sense of being and uh and when i do my morning meditation

00:20:13 ►

what i focus on is well there’s a a movie is kind of a depressing movie called the unbearable

00:20:20 ►

lightness of being but i have a light i experience a lightness of being not an unbearable one but

00:20:26 ►

I really feel you know like I’m floating almost I’m my it’s not like I’m out of my body it’s like

00:20:32 ►

my whole body is there and so I I do uh appreciate you encouraging uh younger people to perhaps start

00:20:40 ►

with uh something like you say that they’re already into and turn it into a meditation of

00:20:46 ►

sorts. I wanted to just speak briefly on some research done at the Institute of Noetic Sciences.

00:20:53 ►

My colleague and really close friend Cassandra Vieten and two other researchers, they interviewed

00:20:58 ►

over 50 world religious spiritual teachers, Ram Dass from, you know, Jack Kornfield. They went to the Sufi tradition,

00:21:08 ►

native indigenous traditions. So they did this immense qualitative interview of over 50 world

00:21:15 ►

religious teachers. And they asked what was the process of transformation like in their tradition.

00:21:21 ►

And they did a content analysis pulling out all of these themes, which they found roughly

00:21:25 ►

eight themes about what transformation looks like, where it starts and where it ends. And it is a

00:21:30 ►

spiral that you kind of keep looping. It’s not one to another in this dualistic sense,

00:21:35 ►

because it can keep happening, this spiral. And the theme, what a practice looks like is there’s

00:21:43 ►

really four or five key points that I would love your listeners to kind of think about because it comes from each spiritual tradition around the world.

00:21:52 ►

A practice has all of these components.

00:21:55 ►

There’s intention.

00:22:06 ►

this practice, whether it be peace or safety with yourself or a relationship to God or oneness or dissolving the sense of self and merging with unity consciousness.

00:22:11 ►

Whatever your intention is, is where you’re now steering your ship of your life.

00:22:16 ►

And this can be a daily intention.

00:22:18 ►

Today, I just intend to rest in awareness.

00:22:22 ►

Today, I just intend to feel peace in myself or return to the breath.

00:22:26 ►

Or it could be a more deeper heartfelt desire, like I’m looking and I’m longing for community

00:22:31 ►

in my life. So intention, the second piece is attention, bringing your mental attention to

00:22:38 ►

one thing at one time, whether that’s drumming, dancing, singing, meditation, interacting.

00:22:44 ►

That’s drumming, dancing, singing, meditation, interacting.

00:22:46 ►

Intention is one.

00:22:50 ►

Attention is the second because you can’t grow if you’re not attending.

00:22:51 ►

You can’t remember.

00:22:55 ►

The third piece is repetition, doing it over and over again.

00:22:57 ►

And the fourth piece is getting guidance.

00:23:06 ►

So intention, attention, repetition, and guidance, and then community are the elements of any practice you choose. So when we’re talking about dancing on your own with your headphones, your intention

00:23:11 ►

might be to connect to your body deeply and let go of self-consciousness, being self-conscious.

00:23:18 ►

That might be one you’re doing, which I would suggest if we have time, we put on our headphones

00:23:22 ►

and dance while we do this like why not see it

00:23:25 ►

that’s amazing um so for whoever’s listening you know really setting this thing up with intention

00:23:31 ►

attention repetition and guidance is really the foundation of our daily practices um and it’s okay

00:23:38 ►

to shift your practice after a few years do something different whatever is called for

00:23:44 ►

whatever you’re attracted to.

00:23:45 ►

But I don’t suggest skipping from one to one to one, drinking the cream and saying, this is lovely

00:23:51 ►

until I have a hard experience and I want to move on to a different teacher, a different practice.

00:23:55 ►

That’s not what I want to encourage. Yeah, exactly. The hard experiences are usually the

00:24:01 ►

most important ones because that’s what you’re learn the most. And what you just described in those five steps is the design of a very perfect ayahuasca experience.

00:24:11 ►

So, you know, it’s exactly the same steps.

00:24:15 ►

And I think that our listeners who and this will go out in a podcast and reach a lot more people too. And, and I hope that they do take a little

00:24:25 ►

time to do what you said and, and put some intention in whatever they’re doing, if it’s

00:24:31 ►

dancing or meditating, of course they’d have intention, but whatever it is, I think that

00:24:36 ►

the focus, I think you’re one of the phrases I remember you saying in a talk I listened to is you talked about the respectful place of

00:24:47 ►

being, respect where you are. And I used to be a motivational speaker and one of my colleagues

00:24:52 ►

used to say, wherever you are, be there. And I think that if some of your practices, that’s

00:25:01 ►

exactly what you’re teaching. Yeah. And where else can we be? Where else does the universe thrive and feel and, and can be felt is right here. And so many people

00:25:11 ►

miss, miss the experience they’re looking for because they’re looking for it cognitively.

00:25:17 ►

What, what am I, what’s, what’s going on? It’s actually happening in the body.

00:25:21 ►

The body is sensing it. It’s, it it’s shimmying, it’s shaking.

00:25:25 ►

There’s pain, there’s pleasure. And we watch it. It’s the universe living through us, particularly,

00:25:32 ►

and are respecting the moment and actually what we call radical inclusion. Everything is included

00:25:39 ►

in the moment. The things we like, dislike, prefer, don’t prefer, we’re really welcoming them all in because they all point to the same thing.

00:25:47 ►

They point to a very beautifully quiet

00:25:50 ►

and still formless field that’s full of love,

00:25:54 ►

that is love without boundaries, without conditions.

00:25:59 ►

And so following any experience in the body,

00:26:03 ►

including thoughts that trigger sensations in the body, lead you

00:26:07 ►

right back to well-being and love. But it’s a practice and intention. It’s constantly reminding

00:26:13 ►

yourself, take this experience and lead yourself back to a place of quiet, which is full of

00:26:20 ►

well-being and love. And that’s hard for people with trauma who have dysregulated limbic systems

00:26:25 ►

and emotional systems. And so the more we intend to feel that, the more we say no to things that

00:26:32 ►

trigger us and yes to things that soothe us. So this isn’t, I’m trying not to be grandiose. This

00:26:38 ►

can be very, this is very practical for those of us with lots of things like PTSD, depression,

00:26:43 ►

anxiety. It’s not out of reach for anybody.

00:26:46 ►

It’s in reach more so for people who have more sensations.

00:26:49 ►

The issue is so many people don’t want to feel this thing,

00:26:53 ►

so we numb it, we drug it, we oversex it, we gamble,

00:26:56 ►

do things to not feel this instead of just really hold the universe

00:27:02 ►

that’s happening right here in our bodies. So that’s another piece of

00:27:07 ►

encouragement is learn to feel the universe vibrating through the body in any state,

00:27:11 ►

all of its included, and see what happens. You know, you touched on something there that

00:27:18 ►

is been important to me. And it’s the, perhaps the injuries that people might’ve had without

00:27:26 ►

knowing. I know a lot of people I’ve encountered say, you know, I’ve had this experience on such

00:27:32 ►

and such a substance and I felt pure love and all, but they have difficulty doing it without

00:27:37 ►

a substance or something. And they come to me and say, well, what’s wrong with me? Why don’t I do

00:27:42 ►

this? And of course I am not a therapist or anything

00:27:46 ►

like that. And so I usually send them to somebody. But my pedestrian untrained mind says something

00:27:56 ►

that struck home when I heard one of your talks, you talked about being raised or being in the

00:28:02 ►

home of your grandparents who were Holocaust survivors.

00:28:10 ►

And the download of all that does cause a form of PTSD in everybody.

00:28:15 ►

And I’ve maintained for a long time, I’m a Vietnam vet, and I know a lot of families of Vietnam vets who have suffered every much as PTSD as the service people have.

00:28:21 ►

And so today, look at Puerto Rico, that entire island

00:28:26 ►

nation is suffering from a form of PTSD. All the black people who are witnessing the young boys

00:28:33 ►

being shot, you know, this is a nation that’s awash in PTSD, without people realizing that

00:28:40 ►

there is something underlying their consciousness, that’s in the back of their minds

00:28:45 ►

that they’ve never cleared out. So how do you go about, I know you’ve done a lot of work with PTSD

00:28:50 ►

and this is too broad a question to really focus on, but for somebody that maybe isn’t even aware

00:28:57 ►

that they have it, what are some of the things they should look for to know that they maybe

00:29:01 ►

need some professional help? Sure. And first of all, I appreciate you referring

00:29:06 ►

because there are a lot of people who do medicine work or like talking about it as that’s the end

00:29:11 ►

goal. Like just do mushrooms and you won’t have this anymore. You’ll have this, do ayahuasca and

00:29:16 ►

you know, the trauma of your childhood will just slip away. And I think that’s unskillful

00:29:23 ►

and irresponsible. I agree. And so it’s really

00:29:26 ►

important to know, including if you’re a spiritual teacher to go, Hey, this is beyond the scope of

00:29:30 ►

this practice. Here’s something you can do to work with the psychology, the emotional systems that

00:29:36 ►

in your, your neurology to really amplify and magnify the wellbeing you’re looking for,

00:29:41 ►

rather than just taking a substance, hoping that dissolve everything because you know our brains are wired a certain way the chemicals they’re put out our

00:29:50 ►

immune systems are regulated a certain way and trauma and our trauma history informs how our

00:29:56 ►

bodies and brains react so we do want to encourage people who are recognizing things in themselves

00:30:01 ►

that don’t feel functional to get help and support.

00:30:05 ►

That’s amazing.

00:30:06 ►

If you can reach out and say, hey, I need help with this so I can be more optimal and function the way I want,

00:30:12 ►

that’s courageous and that’s showing yourself you care.

00:30:16 ►

So I just wanted to put that out there.

00:30:18 ►

And there are really good benefits to certain plant medicines and also synthetic ones.

00:30:23 ►

MDMA, of course, we have lots of studies done now on PTSD with veterans. And there is some really good data suggesting that MDMA with PTSD

00:30:31 ►

work has some great results, which makes sense because you’re taking this drug where you feel

00:30:36 ►

blissed out and feeling ecstasis, ecstasy, you’re feeling connected to yourself and others. And then

00:30:43 ►

you bring up information that’s really triggering for your body,

00:30:47 ►

but your body’s not doing that regular triggering thing.

00:30:50 ►

It’s not, it’s not freaking out.

00:30:52 ►

So now here you got some, your trauma narrative,

00:30:55 ►

but you don’t have the physical body freaking out.

00:30:58 ►

So you can go, Oh, I can handle this.

00:31:00 ►

I can, I can deal with what my bot with,

00:31:02 ►

with this narrative because my body’s relaxed I feel

00:31:05 ►

connected to other people there’s nothing going on right now but connection and love and this

00:31:10 ►

story is just a story I mean I’m simplifying it but this is really what ultimately happens

00:31:15 ►

to someone who’s using something like that so what if we use our own love and awareness and

00:31:22 ►

self-care to do the same kind of thing that MDMA can prompt us

00:31:26 ►

to. Now it won’t be as strong, but we can get into that state of well-being and love on our own or

00:31:31 ►

with guides and with the teacher. But your question is, how do you know you might have trauma? Well,

00:31:37 ►

first of all, all these things can be inherited. It’s intergenerational transmission of trauma.

00:31:42 ►

Your parents’ trauma is passed down through epigenetic changes in the DNA.

00:31:48 ►

And this is all well documented.

00:31:50 ►

People can read books like It Didn’t Start With You and, you know, really look these things up.

00:31:56 ►

But people who are traumatized generally are afraid.

00:32:00 ►

Just their body goes into fear mode, you know.

00:32:06 ►

afraid. I just, their body goes into fear mode. You know, I go into WinCo sometimes and my trauma response takes over and I look around like, where’s the danger coming from? I’m looking for

00:32:11 ►

people’s faces. What are their emotions? Are they safe? And my wife is like, you know, calm down.

00:32:17 ►

Do you need to leave? Or can you kind of walk around? Okay. And I’m like, no, I got it. I got

00:32:23 ►

it. I got it. And then I tend to myself and realize

00:32:26 ►

I’m going into that trauma response again. I don’t want to be in that state. I’m going to

00:32:31 ►

breathe through it. I’m going to love on this body that’s tense and I’m going to move forward.

00:32:36 ►

That’s how we train vets to go from combat back to society, back to, you know, baseball games.

00:32:42 ►

So they don’t feel like there’s insurgents everywhere.

00:32:48 ►

They know what their mind is doing and they tend to their body.

00:32:54 ►

So for those listeners out there who feel hyper startled and scared all the time or just looking around, that could be signs of trauma.

00:32:58 ►

We don’t want to diagnose on a show like this,

00:33:00 ►

but the first step is really becoming aware of your own body responses when

00:33:05 ►

you’re living your life. You know, something that I feel you said that was really important just now

00:33:11 ►

is because, you know, people like me look up to a professional like you and somebody, particularly

00:33:15 ►

with all the life experience you’ve had is, you know, you got your, you have your act together.

00:33:21 ►

To hear that, that you have moments every once in a while too, where you have to,

00:33:25 ►

you know, your wife reassures you or something. I think that’s very encouraging for all of us,

00:33:30 ►

non-professionally trained people to realize that even as, as much work as you do,

00:33:36 ►

you’re still going to have moments where this could be a difficult time for you.

00:33:39 ►

Yeah. It’s funny. I’m sure my wife’s listening in the other room going moments.

00:34:06 ►

Yeah, it’s funny. I’m sure my wife’s listening in the other room going, moments? Let me talk about Mike for a second. No, man, it’s all the time. This body’s, you know, I’ve got PTSD and I’m anxious and I’m intense. And my patients and students are like, no. And I’m like, a little bit different is a true wholehearted dedication to practice,

00:34:11 ►

which then gives the medicine my body and mind need so that I become more transparent for the lightness that you were mentioning.

00:34:14 ►

The reason I have this vitality is because I’ve been working so long at going from cloudy

00:34:20 ►

to more transparent.

00:34:22 ►

Mike is still here, but I’m more in charge of Mike now

00:34:25 ►

than I’ve ever been. And I get to soothe him and care him. And I get reminded by my wife to be like,

00:34:31 ►

hey, care for yourself. You’re using a tone. So it’s really helpful to have people on our team,

00:34:36 ►

but it’s also the most helpful to have a dedicated practice because eventually I’d

00:34:41 ►

like to be transparent and just have that light of source coming right through. And Mike gets that just as much as everybody who comes in contact with him.

00:34:50 ►

That’s really wonderful. And I hope that more people will pick up on some of the things that

00:34:57 ►

you’re saying simply because, you know, we’re living in a truly unusual time. I mean, this, you can say that about many periods in

00:35:06 ►

history, but I think that the fact that it’s quite obvious that the United States system of

00:35:11 ►

government is no longer operational, you know, that Congress can’t do anything about the insane

00:35:16 ►

guy in the White House, that the government has become non-functional and we, the people,

00:35:22 ►

can waste a lot of time, you know, politicking and running for office and helping people.

00:35:29 ►

Or we can start working on ourselves and then on our friends, families and neighbors.

00:35:34 ►

And I think that the action that we need to have in the current age is individual action, personal action.

00:35:43 ►

And I do agree with the community, but I’m,

00:35:45 ►

I used to be a really big political activist and most all the causes I’ve, I worked on are still

00:35:52 ►

causes, you know, they’ve not changed much. They’ve gotten worse for the most part. And I’ve

00:35:56 ►

spent a lot of money and time doing that. And now I really think that it’s more important to

00:36:03 ►

find individual people here, there, and everywhere who kind of agree with the way I like to live and they want to live the same way.

00:36:11 ►

And we help each other out with things that we find and ways that we can find to live.

00:36:16 ►

And I think that’s kind of what I picture that you’ve essentially been a searcher all your life. I mean, you haven’t just settled on one thing.

00:36:25 ►

And I’m really pleased to hear you give that advice to other people that they shouldn’t get locked into a single thing if it isn’t really their vibration anymore.

00:36:34 ►

So I think that’s really important that you pointed that out.

00:36:37 ►

Well, it’s helpful.

00:36:38 ►

It gives people permission because a lot of us are overly rigid also and stick to things that might not be healthy for us.

00:36:44 ►

Relationships, habits with food and drugs, you know, we’re always feeling the disconnect,

00:36:53 ►

but still going forward in the relationship or with the food or with the drug and or with

00:36:57 ►

the teacher.

00:36:58 ►

Now, you know, I did spend eight years in one school and 14 in another and 20 some in the yogic world.

00:37:05 ►

But I have been really lucky to meet teachers along the way that I found myself resonating with.

00:37:12 ►

And then I would ask the other teacher, do you mind if I go here?

00:37:15 ►

Because this is what’s pulling.

00:37:17 ►

And because those teachers understand how the universe flows and things shift, they didn’t take that personal.

00:37:23 ►

They said, yes, please go explore

00:37:25 ►

who you are now becoming with this new teacher.

00:37:29 ►

And so for all of us who are,

00:37:30 ►

and I’m no longer seeking.

00:37:31 ►

I don’t feel like I’m looking for anything.

00:37:33 ►

I feel very much at home.

00:37:35 ►

I do keep refining myself.

00:37:37 ►

I’m not done.

00:37:39 ►

Mike will not be done.

00:37:40 ►

I don’t know how long it takes for this guy,

00:37:42 ►

but I do know I’m at home.

00:37:44 ►

I’m resting. I’m not looking for anything anymore. I don’t know how long it takes for this guy, but I do know I’m at home. I’m resting. I’m not looking

00:37:46 ►

for anything anymore. I don’t have many questions. And when I do, what I do is ask my teacher,

00:37:52 ►

and then they give me a practice that might take one to two years to actually embody, become

00:37:57 ►

embodied. So the question I ask isn’t an intellectual answer I’m seeking. It’s a felt embodied

00:38:03 ►

experience I’m seeking. And so I asked my teacher. It’s a felt embodied experience I’m seeking.

00:38:06 ►

And so I asked my teacher how to have that felt embodied experience. And then they lead me to a

00:38:11 ►

practice that I dedicate to until it’s there. And I’m like, Oh, I got it. I understand. And then it

00:38:16 ►

drops away, the questions not there. So I don’t want to encourage skipping that part, you know,

00:38:21 ►

I want to encourage people staying with it to answer their questions.

00:38:30 ►

Eventually, there might not be seeking, just being. And being does all the work. Being can do the work for us. I’m glad to hear you say that. And I didn’t mean to imply that you jumped from one

00:38:36 ►

thing to another, because eight years, 12 years, you know, 20 years, that’s a lot of time. But what

00:38:41 ►

I was commenting on is the fact that you weren’t so rigid that you said,

00:38:45 ►

I’ve got the right way. And there are teachers like that, as you know.

00:38:50 ►

Yeah, yeah. My joke, I talked over you, but I said, I’ve done too many drugs to be that rigid.

00:38:57 ►

Honestly, like, well, you know, one of the things that Terrence McKenna says about

00:39:02 ►

doing psychedelics is that if you want to be a psychedelic person, you have to accept the fact that you’re never going to have all the answers.

00:39:09 ►

There’s always going to be a lot more questions than answers.

00:39:11 ►

And you have to live with questions, you know?

00:39:13 ►

Yeah.

00:39:14 ►

So I appreciate you noticing the non-rigidity.

00:39:17 ►

I mean, I’m working on that as a personality trait, you know, letting people be late and not being so tight about that.

00:39:23 ►

But in terms of my relationship to the universe, I, I, it’s all a mystery.

00:39:28 ►

I am just watching and waiting and I’m,

00:39:31 ►

I send out my intentions and it comes back in ways that I can’t predict,

00:39:35 ►

but I can see, Oh, here’s the form it’s coming back to me. And now,

00:39:40 ►

so I’ve left my rigidity with the universe quite a while ago.

00:39:44 ►

That’s, that’s really a beautiful place to live.

00:39:47 ►

You know, you mentioned three things in one of your talks.

00:39:52 ►

Perseverance, awareness and vulnerability.

00:39:55 ►

Would you like to talk about any of them?

00:39:57 ►

Yeah, yeah. It’s presence, awareness and vulnerability.

00:40:00 ►

That’s funny as I didn’t know what you were going to ask me tonight.

00:40:02 ►

But that’s one thing I really enjoy talking about presence awareness and vulnerability I wanted to I wanted to really

00:40:10 ►

make it as simple as I could so I can experience it as I’m talking so I don’t want to be verbose

00:40:16 ►

about it but each one is a very unique kind of experience vulnerability to me is our willingness to say the truth of what we’re experiencing right now

00:40:27 ►

and without judgment and without blame that means being vulnerable like i’m hurt i’m upset i’m angry

00:40:35 ►

i’m feeling something in my body something’s not right for me to be willing to speak our deeper

00:40:42 ►

truths for the human truth i’m saying saying, the one we’re experiencing.

00:40:46 ►

Because once we start being vulnerable, there’s a real freedom that starts happening for us. We

00:40:52 ►

start recognizing I don’t have to hide anymore. There’s a liberation that comes with speaking

00:40:57 ►

our truth, and we need to be vulnerable to speak our truth. But something else happens too. So I’m

00:41:03 ►

always speaking on the relative human

00:41:05 ►

side and then that absolute consciousness side. What happens on the human side is we learn to be

00:41:11 ►

open hearted, we share who we are, we connect deeper with other people, we start nurturing

00:41:16 ►

ourselves because we’re saying what’s true for us. But vulnerability also starts letting,

00:41:22 ►

it’s like opening a portal to that other side, which is truth itself, which is light, which is love itself, that can only come through us through presence when we’re vulnerable.

00:41:35 ►

So vulnerability is like opening up Superman’s shirt and we see what’s underneath that, this kind of empowered, radiant symbol of his more deeper self and being present, not just being present, but exuding presence,

00:41:51 ►

which is a lightness and love and kindness that comes forward can only happen when we’re really

00:41:56 ►

vulnerable. So the first thing is to be vulnerable. That doesn’t mean put ourselves at risk. You know,

00:42:03 ►

when I talk to vulnerability to my veterans, they say, not fucking doing that i’m not gonna you know no way bro like i’m not vulnerable that’s

00:42:10 ►

that leads to being weak and i’m like not don’t put yourself in a place where you’re gonna get

00:42:15 ►

hurt emotional vulnerability starts letting our light forward and so presence for me represents

00:42:23 ►

the source of light and love and i don’t mean that in a new age

00:42:27 ►

way i really mean like when you’re with a person who’s full of presence you feel good you feel

00:42:33 ►

kind you feel rested and relaxed so for me presence is like the portal between our human

00:42:41 ►

and that kind of divine conscious world that’s behind all of this.

00:42:47 ►

And awareness, there’s two levels of awareness.

00:42:50 ►

One is the human awareness, what are we aware of?

00:42:53 ►

Emotions, sensations, thoughts, perceptions, beliefs.

00:43:00 ►

And then pure awareness, which is the container that holds all of this.

00:43:03 ►

It’s the formless field from which everything arises and returns.

00:43:15 ►

So presence, awareness, and vulnerability all work together to really integrate the human and that kind of beyond human right in the present moment.

00:43:25 ►

And I totally agree with you that if most people would be that way, they would certainly get along a lot better.

00:43:26 ►

Oh,

00:43:29 ►

it’s just so full of love to be not only be like,

00:43:29 ►

well, just be present with one another.

00:43:31 ►

Look at each other’s eyes.

00:43:33 ►

There’s a usual discomfort,

00:43:35 ►

sit through the discomfort and start resting in the presence of another human

00:43:40 ►

being.

00:43:41 ►

And what tends to happen is the personality dissolves a little bit and being

00:43:48 ►

meets being. As my teacher says, Richard Miller, love loves love. It’s beautiful. It’s radiant.

00:43:58 ►

I try to greet everybody this way and it’s not effortful. I just look in the eyes and I drop the personality a bit and just

00:44:06 ►

allow being to meet their being. And all of a sudden there’s this connection and heat. Maybe

00:44:13 ►

oxytocin comes a little bit. We feel a little bonded. And now we’re in the presence of love

00:44:18 ►

that is beyond the human conditional love of attraction or desire or wanting from or giving to,

00:44:25 ►

but this truly deep sense of love that’s beyond us, expanded well beyond us,

00:44:30 ►

now permeates through us as presence, being to being.

00:44:35 ►

If we did this more often, imagine the fields around our communities

00:44:39 ►

that would start being felt.

00:44:42 ►

Yeah, you know, as you just said, that it radiates. I know I’ve had experiences where

00:44:48 ►

I’ve made eye contact with people, and not just women, but men and women, to where

00:44:53 ►

there’s something about them and our eye contact that you just know that you both feel the same

00:44:59 ►

way. And it’s a radiation of love reverberating back and forth between you and and it it it goes

00:45:07 ►

unsaid most times i mean especially men on men we don’t like to talk about things like that

00:45:12 ►

but i’ve had contacts with with with essentially strangers i met for the first time we’ve looked

00:45:17 ►

into each other’s eyes and it’s like we knew each other forever and uh i think that that goes back

00:45:23 ►

to the root of the human experience yeah yeah and i would i’d say you do know each other forever. And I think that that goes back to the root of the human experience.

00:45:25 ►

Yeah. Yeah. And I would, I’d say you do know each other. You are each other. There is no other in

00:45:31 ►

that moment. It is love, loving love. And you may have a person, you might be cloaked in Lorenzo’s

00:45:37 ►

body, face and personality, but what’s fueling, what’s the source of that? And the source is never changed, never moved.

00:45:46 ►

So source is coming through both of us.

00:45:49 ►

Love is loving each other through the cloak of our personalities and bodies and temperament.

00:45:55 ►

And we can see that when we’re really in presence with one another.

00:45:59 ►

And we lose our fear of being judged and things like that.

00:46:02 ►

And, you know, as you said earlier, fear is really

00:46:05 ►

what divides most of us. Giving into that fear. And there are times when that fear is founded,

00:46:12 ►

when you like, hey, this is a message I want to listen to. I’m getting out of this relationship.

00:46:16 ►

Right. And there are other times fear is not founded. And we have to be really conscious of

00:46:21 ►

discerning the difference there. So that when we’re sitting face to face

00:46:25 ►

with someone and the fear of being judged arises, we know we are just looking at, we are looking at

00:46:30 ►

the same person having the same experience. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s funny that

00:46:40 ►

all, all of us, I think, want to create a better world, want to create better societies, and yet it’s hard to know how to do it.

00:46:49 ►

How do you start building a community among people when you don’t really have one?

00:46:56 ►

Like you’ve got a community going now that you’ve spent years putting together.

00:47:01 ►

How do you – somebody that’s just, you know, a young guy or a young

00:47:06 ►

lady who’s finding out some of these things for the first time, and they want to find some more

00:47:11 ►

people and maybe talk about these things. How do you engage people to start building a little

00:47:17 ►

community of, say, people that want to meditate together? I would say first, just know other

00:47:23 ►

people want the same thing. If your

00:47:25 ►

impulse is arising, it’s coming from the universe asking you to do this thing because other people

00:47:31 ►

will be meeting you. You’re going to be contributing to your own well-being and others’ well-being

00:47:35 ►

by following the impulse to create or be in community. So trust yourself. There’s a fear

00:47:41 ►

there that I’m not good enough. I won’t be liked. I might be rejected.

00:47:45 ►

I’m going to embarrass myself. All of these fears come up pretty regularly for people who are

00:47:50 ►

looking to start engaging. One of the easiest ways in is find your most passionate gift or

00:47:59 ►

like to do a lot, whether that be bike riding or playing cello and really start going the thing

00:48:06 ►

you’re most comfortable with, because then you don’t have to learn something new and go with

00:48:12 ►

that kind of the tension of learning a new thing while learning about new people. So the first

00:48:18 ►

thing I would suggest is just follow what your passion already is inviting you to do, whether that’s music, dancing, drumming, meditation.

00:48:27 ►

And every place I’ve been in the world has communities that are doing these things, whether it was Thailand and Peace Corps.

00:48:34 ►

I meet groups all over the country.

00:48:36 ►

I’ve met people in Canada that all have these different kind of varieties of groups, people meeting each other just where they’re at.

00:48:44 ►

So really allow your passion to speak for you, follow that and engage with groups. I just tend

00:48:50 ►

to be good at forming groups. So I’m like, Hey, I want to do this. I’m going to invite a few people.

00:48:54 ►

And if it’s wanted, it’ll grow. And that’s how my Sangha, my community was developed.

00:48:59 ►

It was here in Boise after Trump was elected. I said, how do we work with discomfort in ourselves? How do we keep working for justice or for consciousness in our society? We have to be with ourselves

00:49:13 ►

first. So I just did this talk. Find what you really love and join people doing it. Start

00:49:20 ►

because we all need it. We need you. I need you. We all need each other to step up and go,

00:49:25 ►

here’s a group I want to form or join.

00:49:28 ►

You know, that’s something I realized a long time ago,

00:49:31 ►

what you just said,

00:49:31 ►

is that I’m not different from anybody else.

00:49:34 ►

I feel the same thing.

00:49:35 ►

And when, especially if somebody irritates me,

00:49:39 ►

I have to stop and think,

00:49:41 ►

what is it about me that they’re reflecting

00:49:44 ►

that’s irritating me?

00:49:45 ►

Because I think we can all be much more successful in life if we realize that what we want is also what other people want.

00:49:53 ►

And then we can find ways to get them together.

00:49:57 ►

I want to mention and show you this picture before we run out of completely run out of time tonight.

00:50:03 ►

I’m going to put it up on the screen.

00:50:06 ►

This is a picture of Myron Stolaroff.

00:50:09 ►

And when I would stay with him,

00:50:11 ►

he lived up in the high desert.

00:50:14 ►

And in the mornings, I’d get up early and walk.

00:50:16 ►

And when I’d come back from my walk,

00:50:17 ►

I’d see Myron sitting there on his deck,

00:50:19 ►

staring at the high Sierras.

00:50:21 ►

And he’d sit there for over an hour

00:50:22 ►

every morning meditating.

00:50:24 ►

And he was in his 80 over an hour every morning meditating. And he was in

00:50:25 ►

his 80s when I took this picture. And Myron became really my psychedelic mentor. And he

00:50:31 ►

had a habit or whenever he met somebody new, and he was striking up a conversation,

00:50:40 ►

the first thing he’d ask him is, what do you think about psychedelics?

00:50:42 ►

the first thing he’d ask him is, what do you think about psychedelics?

00:50:48 ►

Back in the 70s and 80s, that was kind of iffy, you know.

00:50:52 ►

Today, I encourage people, if they want to start that conversation, to say,

00:50:57 ►

what do you think about the fact that Johns Hopkins is studying magic mushrooms now, things like that. But I would add another thing now that people can also say on a much even easier plane is,

00:51:04 ►

what do you think about meditation? I’ve been thinking

00:51:07 ►

about starting it myself. Have you ever done it? Just starting a conversation like that with a

00:51:11 ►

stranger can lead to amazing things. Some people who I just met casually as strangers are now

00:51:17 ►

important in my life, you know, and I just happened to strike up a conversation with them.

00:51:21 ►

So I think things like what you’re saying, engaging with people, finding a way to engage with them. And it doesn’t have to be our community here in the

00:51:28 ►

psychedelic salon is largely interested in, in psychoactive compounds that alter your consciousness.

00:51:34 ►

But meditation also alters your consciousness as does drumming and running and all kinds of

00:51:39 ►

exercises. So what we’re talking about is shifts in consciousness. And what you’re really teaching people to do, in my estimate, is teaching them how to permanently start shifting this consciousness and not keep slipping back into old habits.

00:51:56 ►

Right.

00:51:57 ►

That’s the most important piece.

00:51:59 ►

And I am an advocate of plant medicines because they give us glimpses of things and add again add pieces

00:52:05 ►

to the puzzle and I’m more of an advocate of love and loving yourself and then radiating

00:52:13 ►

that outward toward others because there’s nowhere else it can go and doing this long term

00:52:19 ►

and knowing you can glimpse at a person and stare into them and they’re needing that so much.

00:52:25 ►

Each of us needs to feel connected and seen.

00:52:29 ►

And, you know, we have that experience in the psychedelic realm.

00:52:33 ►

We’re with trees.

00:52:34 ►

We’re with bugs.

00:52:35 ►

How many of us have been looking at ants going, that is the most divine, fascinating thing I’ve ever seen.

00:52:41 ►

And then having the experience of moving with the ant and becoming in harmony

00:52:46 ►

with that thing.

00:52:47 ►

Why does that have to end after we’re done with that experience?

00:52:51 ►

What could we do that would facilitate a sustained relationship to everything

00:52:55 ►

around us so that it doesn’t drop away when the meds wear off?

00:53:00 ►

That’s the gift we can give ourselves in the world around us.

00:53:04 ►

And that’s, and that’s what people mean when they talk about doing the work,

00:53:08 ►

you know, that, that people,

00:53:09 ►

I think of a psychedelic tourists are ones that’ll take a 50 or a hundred

00:53:13 ►

mics of acid one time in their life. And they say they’ve done LSD,

00:53:17 ►

but the people who do the work will, will have a few bad trips.

00:53:21 ►

They’ll come back and spend a year or two thinking about it and maybe never do it again

00:53:25 ►

or maybe get the courage up to do something else.

00:53:27 ►

But that’s doing the work.

00:53:29 ►

And I’ll admit, I came to these substances because I enjoyed them.

00:53:34 ►

There’s pleasure in it too.

00:53:36 ►

But once the pleasure kind of, you go through that pretty quickly and you realize that if

00:53:41 ►

I’m going to keep doing this, I’m going to have to put some effort into it and bring something home.

00:53:46 ►

Yes.

00:53:46 ►

For us, for our families, our communities, our planet.

00:53:50 ►

And then there’s work to be done.

00:53:51 ►

We see things about ourselves that it’s time to refine, start caring for and working on.

00:53:56 ►

Because we deserve it.

00:53:58 ►

We deserve to be taken care of.

00:53:59 ►

And we’re the only ones who can really do that in the end.

00:54:02 ►

We’re the only ones who can really do that in the end.

00:54:14 ►

So that’s what psychedelics can lead us to is a care and love that’s so deep that we know I need to do my work now so that I can be the best of myself for myself and other people.

00:54:19 ►

And I’m not advocating that everybody in the world use psychedelics.

00:54:24 ►

I think that it’s a very small percentage of people who are really going to be drawn to them and willing to do the work. But those are important people. Because of people who have been drawn to psychedelics,

00:54:28 ►

we now know about DNA, for example. The internet and computer revolution and a lot of science has

00:54:36 ►

come out of people who have had a psychedelic experience or practice. So there are uses for it. And I think mainly that what I would like to

00:54:47 ►

accomplish with this little podcast, not this particular one, but all of them is to get people

00:54:54 ►

to not necessarily say, oh, I’m going to try psychedelics, but to say, well, I understand why

00:54:58 ►

people are using them. And they are good for some people. And they’re not just demon drugs like the

00:55:03 ►

opiates are, you know. So I think that it’s very refreshing to see a professional like yourself,

00:55:09 ►

who has a wide range of experience, to not totally just negate them,

00:55:14 ►

particularly because you’ve dealt with a lot of veterans who I’m sure had some drug issues.

00:55:18 ►

Oh, yeah, for sure.

00:55:19 ►

And I really wish they, I mean, it would have been great if they could do the right kind of drug experiences, the healing ones, the ones that tend to the soul and help forgive, help them have self-forgiveness, forgiveness of others.

00:55:34 ►

And the plant meds we’re talking about really can lead us to those experiences, of course.

00:55:38 ►

Those psychedelic experiences do naturally kind of tend to that inner soul garden.

00:55:44 ►

do naturally kind of tend to that inner soul garden.

00:55:47 ►

And that’s where love and tenderness and forgiveness,

00:55:51 ►

compassion are already in bloom, already in bloom.

00:55:52 ►

Right.

00:55:55 ►

You know, I’m kind of curious here tonight.

00:55:59 ►

Usually the people who join us are pretty talkative and they’re always joining in

00:56:00 ►

and nobody has asked a question

00:56:03 ►

or raised their hand or anything.

00:56:04 ►

What’s up with you guys tonight? I have a question or raised their hand or anything what’s up with

00:56:05 ►

you guys tonight i have a question okay let’s go ahead please um i mean meditation and psychedelics

00:56:14 ►

um how do you kind of integrate psychedelics into a meditation

00:56:20 ►

practice because of the drastic experiences between the two?

00:56:27 ►

Is there any kinds of recommendations you’d give?

00:56:32 ►

Well, you know, I come from a meditation background,

00:56:35 ►

although I have a strong plant med history and background too.

00:56:39 ►

Meditation for me would be the container because it gives you awareness, attention regulation.

00:56:46 ►

It gives you spaciousness around all kinds of phenomenon in your own body and mind that are constantly rising.

00:56:53 ►

So when you have a psychedelic experience, you’re both in it and actually watching it.

00:56:57 ►

It is a fascinating place.

00:56:59 ►

And I do this in my yoga nidra meditation practice.

00:57:02 ►

I’m fully asleep.

00:57:04 ►

I’m snoring, but watching it.

00:57:07 ►

So when you’re at that place in your meditation practice where you can watch your body sleeping

00:57:12 ►

and snoring and even dreaming, but watching it, you can also do that in your psychedelic

00:57:17 ►

experience.

00:57:17 ►

Now you’re greater consciousness.

00:57:19 ►

You’re the greater awareness that’s holding everything.

00:57:22 ►

So you’re at once the experience, the experiencer,

00:57:26 ►

and the witness of all of it. So I always recommend really getting attuned to your

00:57:31 ►

meditation practice. And if you’re going to have a plant med experience, to really get into it,

00:57:38 ►

have it, but also play with that witness at the same time. Because coming out of that experience,

00:57:43 ►

you still get to play witness no the same time. Because coming out of that experience, you still get to play witness

00:57:45 ►

no matter what happened. You’re essentially saying you observe the observer. Yeah, it’s you can do

00:57:51 ►

that. And then now you start doing that in your normal waking life too. And sometimes the dose is

00:57:56 ►

too high and you’re just blown. You can’t sustain consciousness, which I would say, I wonder if what

00:58:01 ►

what is it? Is that the right dose to take? It depends on the intention. What is the intention of the person trying to integrate

00:58:10 ►

meditation and psychedelics? And that’s where intention plays such an important role because

00:58:15 ►

you can intend what this experience is about. You can’t call in what happens, but you can

00:58:23 ►

intend and tell the universe universe I’d like this to

00:58:25 ►

happen I’d like to keep greater consciousness awake and rare no matter

00:58:30 ►

what my experience is you know as as as a lawyer I know we really have to be

00:58:35 ►

careful about some of the things we say and I’m not going to ask you if you

00:58:38 ►

would recommend anything but of the the patients that you’ve had that have used a psychedelic or two in their meditation practice,

00:58:48 ►

are there any psychedelics that they have used that seem to be more effective than others?

00:58:53 ►

You know, I’m in Boise, Idaho.

00:58:56 ►

We are conscious here, actually.

00:58:58 ►

It’s an amazing group of people.

00:59:00 ►

I have a lot of ex-Mormons coming.

00:59:02 ►

And so there are greater amounts of people not having had that experience than, of course, when I lived in California.

00:59:11 ►

I would say, and I’m a licensed professional.

00:59:15 ►

I do not recommend taking plant medicine.

00:59:18 ►

I can’t prescribe it.

00:59:20 ►

Only people who can legally take it are those in the studies at Johns Hopkins and other areas, you know, working with math.

00:59:26 ►

But people do tell me of their experience and they’ve heard my podcast and will seek me out for integration care.

00:59:32 ►

And a lot more people have more healing experiences with psilocybin or magic mushrooms and a lot more deregulating or like kind of disorienting experiences with acid and DMT.

00:59:46 ►

And ayahuasca is an interesting one.

00:59:48 ►

A lot of people have powerful experiences that they feel good for a few weeks

00:59:53 ►

after, but then dissolve, you know, return to exactly where they started.

00:59:58 ►

And that’s not one I, you know, that, that’s,

01:00:02 ►

these are all different categories of experiences.

01:00:04 ►

So psilocybin seems to be the more gentle one that opens people up to the more tender healing aspects of things.

01:00:11 ►

That’s what I’ve heard. Well, what I’ll add my own personal experience.

01:00:15 ►

And as I said, I’m not a serious professional meditator.

01:00:20 ►

I spend a half hour or so every day doing it. But over the years, I’ve learned that

01:00:27 ►

I don’t like to have any substance, even marijuana in me when I’m meditating. I like to have that

01:00:33 ►

experience without any substances because the substances kind of distract me from other things

01:00:38 ►

because of so many experiences I’ve had. So my personal recommendation is don’t use anything

01:00:44 ►

when you meditate because that’s the purpose of meditating is to get into your mind had. So my personal recommendation is don’t use anything when you meditate, because that’s

01:00:46 ►

the purpose of meditating, is to get into your mind yourself. So I just wanted to throw that out,

01:00:51 ►

because I know that in your practice, particularly with veterans, you would have come across a lot

01:00:55 ►

of people who are, you know, using substances. Yeah, and there’s appropriate times to say,

01:01:01 ►

hey, let’s not do this today. It’s not the right time. And I’ve had patients come in high and I can tell immediately the difference,

01:01:07 ►

even if I can’t smell it. I’m like, you’re, you’re there.

01:01:11 ►

The consciousness shifts, you know, there’s a dulling.

01:01:14 ►

There can be an enhancing factor too, but really the work we need to do,

01:01:18 ►

we want crystal clear consciousness and awareness.

01:01:22 ►

And so if that gentleman who asked me the question was wondering,

01:01:31 ►

should you integrate psychedelics and meditation? I’m of your school. And I think, I mean, you can,

01:01:36 ►

people can do that and they can witness what happens in that experience and see when you’re doing it without and with what’s different in your mind. But I’m not going for experiences.

01:01:42 ►

I’m going to be the witness of experience.

01:01:58 ►

And so if something’s in my way of becoming the witness and being awareness, I don’t want to do that because my intention is to dissolve into spacious awareness rather than just look for one particular kind of experience.

01:02:05 ►

Well, you know, that also gels with my mentor, Myron Stolaroff, who was very much into psychedelics particularly LSD and meditation and he never mixed the two he told me that the

01:02:11 ►

the reason that he he occasionally still did LSD was so that he could remember

01:02:18 ►

that space and then he’d shoot for it when he was meditating and I asked him

01:02:22 ►

if he ever made it and he smiled and he Oh, there’s a few times I’ve touched in there. So that’s what Terrence said on the

01:02:29 ►

so it can be done. And like I say, he was, he was the pinnacle for me of both meditation and

01:02:36 ►

psychedelics. And he never mixed them. He was serious about both of them. So that would be my

01:02:41 ►

my advice until somebody gets really good at both of them to use them one at a

01:02:46 ►

time. Well, we’re, we’re about out of time here tonight, Michael, Mike.

01:02:51 ►

And, and by the way, I, I love calling you Mike.

01:02:54 ►

That was my little brother’s name and he died in 2010,

01:02:56 ►

but I still think of him every day.

01:02:58 ►

So it’s nice to have another Mike to talk to.

01:03:04 ►

We’re about to wrap up here is there is there any

01:03:06 ►

closing words you’d like to leave with us or words of wisdom oh man don’t put that on me

01:03:13 ►

that’s an awful thing to put on me i know i’m sorry about that

01:03:17 ►

oh i’m just i’m just really really honored to be on your show and to be with you and all

01:03:23 ►

everybody on here.

01:03:28 ►

I didn’t know what to expect, and I didn’t know if we’d get more questions.

01:03:31 ►

If people do have questions, they’re welcome to reach out.

01:03:33 ►

MichaelSapiro.com is my website.

01:03:34 ►

They can do that.

01:03:38 ►

Happy to answer questions or field comments.

01:03:57 ►

The way I love to end everything is just reminding us how precious we are, how precious this human experience is, that we’ve been given a very unique set of ideas and beliefs in our brain and our neurology and our immune systems and our body is so unique.

01:04:01 ►

And yet we’re all grounded in the same source. So it’s both we’re coming from the same place and we’re absolutely unique manifestations of that.

01:04:07 ►

And to take yourself and who you are seriously,

01:04:12 ►

because it might be the only time this form

01:04:14 ►

in this way ever exists then.

01:04:17 ►

And we’re all so precious

01:04:18 ►

and have so much to give to one another.

01:04:21 ►

Oh, I feel teary just thinking that,

01:04:23 ►

that we’re all so precious.

01:04:25 ►

I mean, every being is all so precious. I mean,

01:04:32 ►

every being is the most precious being I’ve ever met. And to treat yourselves well with care and tenderness because we’re so, we’re not special in the sense of narcissistic special. We’re special

01:04:37 ►

because we’re so unique and only you can do what you’re meant to do. So tend to yourself, love on yourself, play with meds if you need to,

01:04:47 ►

and practice meditation, find a practice to nourish and nurture who you truly are

01:04:52 ►

because we need you.

01:04:54 ►

We need you.

01:04:55 ►

That’s all I’ll end with.

01:04:57 ►

Well, that’s a perfect ending, and I don’t know how anybody could have done it better

01:05:01 ►

because we often do forget how truly unique human beings are and what a role we have in the universe.

01:05:09 ►

So let’s hope that we all leave kind footprints behind us here.

01:05:14 ►

That’d be lovely.

01:05:15 ►

Well, listen, everybody, I appreciate you being here tonight, even though there was a dearth of questions.

01:05:20 ►

I can’t understand that.

01:05:25 ►

Earth of questions. I can’t understand that. Next, next week, Kevin, we’re going to be here with, with your colleague,

01:05:27 ►

and we’ll be talking about the extended DMT experience.

01:05:31 ►

The week after that, Eric Davis is going to be here with us.

01:05:34 ►

So it’ll be a few weeks before we get back to just the general,

01:05:37 ►

the psychedelic salon where we all hang out and, and, and jaw a little bit.

01:05:42 ►

But I really think that we get a lot more out of these nights when somebody

01:05:46 ►

like Michael is so kind to give us his time.

01:05:49 ►

So thanks again,

01:05:49 ►

Mike.

01:05:50 ►

I appreciate it.

01:05:51 ►

And everybody until next week,

01:05:52 ►

keep the old faith and stay high.

01:05:56 ►

Good night.

01:06:02 ►

And for now,

01:06:03 ►

this is Lorenzo signing off from Cyberdelic Space.

01:06:06 ►

Be well, my friends.

01:06:10 ►

Transcription by ESO. Translation by —

Graph View

Backlinks