Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:14 Welcome to my Bob Thurman podcast. I'm so grateful and some good friends enabled me to present them to you. If you enjoy them and find them useful, please think of becoming a member of Tibet house us to help preserve Tibetan culture. If that house is the Dalai Lamas cultural center in America, All best wishes. Have a great day.
Speaker 2 00:00:48 This is episode 281 a conversation with Dr. David kitty.
Speaker 4 00:01:13 I have introduced my dear friend, David and my colleague and student, and, um, cattail, you know, is Russian for China, Chinese, but he's not Chinese, but he descends from a long line where they were living in Asia and everything. He knows Arabic and Zach, and I don't know what Tibetans Sanskrit he's like amazing had. He's a PhD. He's a smart lawyer, but he's got some PhD from Columbia translator of a wonderful book. We have out there called the five drug rosary, 10 trial, and he had his questions are better than the book now.
Speaker 5 00:01:52 Um, but way better. But I have to ask you first now look, Bob, you need no introduction what a privilege to be, you know, have been with you for . Thank you. Thank you. Now you have written many books, right? The central philosophy of Tibet that we studied in, in grad school. Wonderful scholarly, fantastic. Um, you know, Tibetan book of the dead, which I assigned to every class, because I think your introduction is maybe the best introduction to Buddhism and know 81 pages. And it's great. Yeah. And then, and then you came to Harlem and you spoke about your book on anger, one of the deadly sins, and then loved it.
Speaker 5 00:02:49 And of course you've translated visual acuity and so many other things. And I got to tell you from reading some Tibetan with Bob, oh man, does he to Ben? It's really, really, really something. It's great. So anyway, so, so, so this, I read this the other day and it's, it's brilliant. It's down to earth, it's poetic, it's moving. It's amazing. But so, but it's very different than your other books. This, why, why did you write this book, which is so geared to, you know, somebody who just is coming and say, what is this thing? Food is,
Speaker 4 00:03:36 You know, as I said, in the introduction, you know, I'm not, so I'm not, uh, I'm hoping people can read it without taking their reading about Buddhism, but I'm wanting him to know about Bush instead of Buddhism. And, uh, after all, when Buddha himself attained, enlightenment or awakening, enlightenment, whatever you want to call it, feeling at one with the universe and happily. So, um, and feeling kindly toward all beings and joyfully. So, uh, he went out to teach, to cheer people up and he, there was no such thing as Buddhism. And he didn't say I'm a sabotaging Buddhism. He said, I wonder if help you free your mind. And people had, at that time, they were involved in a religious practice run by some professional priest, caste or class. And they were shipped certain gods had, they were scared of those gods and the eggs very evolved around the sacrifice and to giving gifts to these gods to show they would be nice to them.
Speaker 4 00:04:55 And, um, and the Buddha completely was a revolution about all of that, about, about sort of being underneath some sort of God that is domineering you, and you had to sort of keep it at bay by making an offering. And so that's what Buddhists thing really is. It's a curriculum, it's a path. Cause the great thing about Buddha was he said, oh wow, finally, I got it. I know everything. I know what I am. I know what the universe is. I know what everybody else says. I know everything. I'm so sorry that I can't really explain it to anyone because they won't be able to get it just from what I say, because it's something beyond words, actually the actual reality of it. But people can understand it by following certain methods and disciplines and pals and meditations and behaviors and so forth. And I can help them with that. Do you know what I mean? But I don't expect, they shouldn't think that because I say this that's the way it is.
Speaker 5 00:05:57 This is so different. The way you present this, you talk about four friendly, fun facts. I mean like
Speaker 4 00:06:06 Really like how had to talk to us about that? And you talk about the bliss and
Speaker 5 00:06:13 religion.
Speaker 4 00:06:18 Well, you know, I was talking to earlier today and that's why I'm hoarse. I've been reading this other textiles on Saturday night, it's available and it's broadcast on Saturday night. And, um, uh, we're taught and people in the Eastern societies also are taught to be scared of reality. I think the dominant thing in all the human cultures is to frighten the population about reality. I, some professional, uh, bosses, either high priest or king or president or prime minister or general secretary, whatever, it might be some sort of tyrant. And they want people to be scared of their neighbors. They want them to be scared of nature and they want to, or they want them to be scared of it all personified as a wrathful God. And then they become the mediators for those people. And therefore people will obey them. So they bought some like that by scaring them.
Speaker 4 00:07:24 And Buddha's discovery along with Jesus, I'm sure. And many shamans in indigenous societies and how mad and Moses and all of them, the great teachers of humanity, what they discovered the secret. And they discovered that reality is great. It's not scary that even death is not bad. Test is an opportunity. I mean, when you garden, you've worked your way to being a human being along the scale of evolution, you have any unique opportunity as a human to understand the situation like I did. Like he set that example and many other people have. And so you should prolong that human life as much as you can. But if you, if you're in charge of your mind, if you're in charge of the subtler layers of your being, which is what goes when the body no longer can serve it, then you can navigate the great river of life that you meet at death.
Speaker 4 00:08:30 So death is not the opposite of life at all. Tess is where your life becomes more than your particular body can handle because it's old, it's decrepit or it's damaged in an accident or jumped somebody just crushed it or killed it, or whatever happened to it. It's still longer able to swim in the ocean of life. But the life ocean is a great ocean. It's a bliss ocean. And it's like, it's a kind of tricky thing a little bit. And that's why he said nobody could quite get a tremendous thing you say, because if you stopped, for example, right now, each one of us here thinks we're a finite being, right? Yeah. I'm the definition of finite. Like I is my skin. This is not me out here. That's the table. Okay. You're not me or somebody else I'm finite. On the other hand, each one of us is also infinite.
Speaker 4 00:09:21 Why we can't exclude infinity or it wouldn't be infinity. If it didn't permeate our affinity, right. It's in us. Yes. We're all in sin. And so, and then we make an arbitrary boundary. This is me. But you know, then if we, if we, the future preventatively or be free cognition, we know about that. And so it's kind of arbitrary what we, how we demarcate, what we are. For example, when you go outside or you wake up in the morning, you go outside, you look up in the sky. And when you look up for a moment, you're out there in the sky. Vision is very prized by us because when you see something, you go there to, what you see was the way you separate yourself, from what you see, as you say, oh, sky me, you start you, your concepts come down. And that concept for you and my eyeballs and my brain, my optic here and so on. And then sky is out there and that's not me, but that's all your construction in a way. You are the field of everything you see around you. So, but, but you don't think like that because we think it's all given like that. Dave, and talk about the given, you know, who's giving it even scientists who don't believe in God that say, given the, given the book, the book actually is just pretty much how you talk.
Speaker 4 00:10:55 It really is. It's, it's kind of, well, it's pretty good. But my main point, the whole main point is reality loves you. I just had a dear friend. I've known him since I was 13. And Tom Griffin, Tom, I know you're there, but you don't have your camera. He also to record a lot of my lectures just lately, since he got older, he did a lot of other great things in his life. He marched with the civil rights people in the south, in the sixties, you know, he studied a lot and he did many great things and um, he just died and his body was no longer serving. He was not happy yet. And he's surprised now I hear from him really. I, I, when I started reading book of dead, Jeremy, something, I can feel his presence. He tells me stuff. He is surprised that he's having such a good time.
Speaker 4 00:11:51 Of course, he misses the people he left and he had a project. He wanted to finish the ultimate teaching video school on video. You know, he wanted to teach, he made me do something before I left Columbia, a course on ed ex that teaches basic introduction to Buddhism. And he wanted to make it perfect and bring it all online video that he been in his body, but he's fine. He knows we'll do it. And he's not, it's not a problem for him. And that's why, uh, in Tibet and funerals, they don't freak out. You know, because that's more about the person who lost the person. The Tibetans generally are focused on the traveler who's going and you don't want to alarm them. I'm sure you all hear. So as the movie goes in the old days written by Bruce Rubin. So that guy, Bruce Rubin, I know him, he studied the book of the dead and that's describing what it's like when you die. And remember the guy who died, he was, he would go up to his ex wife from my wife and he would try to warn her about the bad guy member, but she couldn't see him. And nobody knew he was there and he was all sad about it. And they say, don't be upset if you try to talk to people and they don't respond because they don't see you lucky, Whoopi Goldberg him.
Speaker 4 00:13:14 So, so that's, so once you know that death is just, and you know, the Western people, so they don't know what death is. Slats line heart is not beating flat line in the brain and then say zip someone up. And then two days later, they're pounding. I'm trying to get out of the bag. And they said, they'd been with Jesus for a week. So they don't quite know the definition of death. But what is science definition of death is when do your super subtle mind, which is more in the heart brain than in the head grain, the head grade. A lot of it has to do with the senses and the phase. That's a heartbreak. And that one is in touch with the deeper river of life. That's what gives us our vital energy. It's a source of it's like, you could call it the soul level of the mind.
Speaker 4 00:14:05 And, and it's always changing too. Like everything else. It's only relational. It's not an absolute separated thing, but it's in touch with the deep river of the, of life force. But you see, that's like infinity, the deeper life force, it's an infinite energy. So it can be drawn on by anything that has need infinitely without exhausting it, but it doesn't do anything itself. Does it? Doesn't create things doesn't impose itself because it's infinite. So therefore it's considered as everything done already. Perfect. Right. So, but we feel it's imperfect. We can draw. If we know about it, if we looked in, if we found that source, we can draw on it and do actually miraculous things, which unfortunately I can't do all right. I'm not claiming that I have such ability, but I think I could succeed. I can see the range as possible, and I could imagine it and I'm going to be able to do it, but believe me, if I could do it, Kristen cinema and Joe mansion would bracket to filibuster.
Speaker 4 00:15:08 We would put in four new, honest judges to calm down the fanatics up there, we would pass the voting rights act. We would shape top, you know, we would shape up to, so we would push back the neo-fascist and we would send them my son, who's a director here. He has a wonderful destination, was a Trumpees and that is, he calls it the Benedict on-road museum of us treason. And we've surrounded him it's to be built in Okefenokee, swamp. And it's surrounded by all the Confederate statues that they've taken down from everywhere. They're all put there all around it. Like, I was like a protective or heartbeat. I said, inside, we have about all the lunatics, you know, who don't want you to wear a mask and they don't want you to get vaccinated and they wanted this and that and the other. And they want Trump to be, you know, high on Trump, Trump. It didn't, he was a furor. They weren't Trump to do the tour and they're not going to succeed, but they have us running scared right now. So if I had those abilities, I would be chatting with Chris and cinema. And him,
Speaker 5 00:16:20 Have you in the book though, you know, in the book you give some great biography. So I wanted to ask you, you know, you talk about all, you know, Ms, Ms. Buddha holiness, this chefy now the great mother, white Buffalo woman, you know, and all the different variations of religions and, and, and faith, how, you know, how did you choose Buddhism of all this? And, and why did your wonderful teacher tell you to stop meditating?
Speaker 4 00:17:02 Okay. And that didn't happen early. Well, it was a weird thing. I'm a new Yorker. I was born in Manhattan, 89th street and York avenue and the doctor's hospital, 1941, right after I was born, then world war two, it had already started, but S was not in it yet. And so, um, uh, then, you know, went to different schools. And so, you know, I was kind a little bit crazy. I got married at 18, 17, 18, like crazy somebody into an older woman, beautiful daughter, and so on.
Speaker 5 00:17:39 So at that point, if you hear about Buddhism,
Speaker 4 00:17:42 Not much a little bit, I was doing a little reading about it, has to sit our nature, um, Carl, uh, this sort of thing, and a few of translation, hard to, you know, the, some parts of the apartment to suture a little bit. I was drawn to it, but I was also interested in Sufism and . So I like, and so then I then accident and I lost one eye and, uh, that was a shock, but I was out for a couple of days. And then in, um, I had this weird vision that I remember from when I was semi-conscious for a few days. And, um, and then the vision, I was in a room of like a home of mirrors. And then in the mirrors, there were all those white, the bus that you see in, in, from Gill libraries, you know, like around the thing.
Speaker 4 00:18:38 And then just to shoulders and like Thomas Jefferson or Plato, or, you know what I mean, somebody like that, you know? And there was a huge row of them quite up and down, like a limitless row of this kind of white looking statue and then mirror surfaces. And then it was all right. And like, that screen was this green and orange, is this a dream? I don't know what a vision, you know, I'd never even smoked pot or anything. At that time I drank, I would drink tequila and just this green and orange, like energy later, I recognized some it's like Tibetan, fierce, not raffle, but yeah. And it was like, they were circling around and the minute I regained consciousness minus Tai, I asked my wife at the time, where's my nature. Where's my Herrmann headshot. I'm going to India. I can't waste time anymore at this college or anything.
Speaker 4 00:19:37 I'm dropping out. I believe he I'm leaving. And they were saying, oh, he's having a problem. And then I had someone, I had a motorcycle PSA's seven 50 super rocket. And I insisted a hundred right here from 76th street, Lenox hill hospital up park avenue. And it was crazy because everything was like this, you know, I had no depth perception, but I still did it because I'm stupid. So then anyway, I left then after a while there also, I took some Mescalin after that, I might not have taken that if it hadn't been for that. But about two months later, I dropped to hit a Mescalin. I started reading about psychedelics. And that was really helpful. I said to people who were in two or three people in the room with me at that time, someone gave it to me and I said, okay, that's great.
Speaker 4 00:20:24 I'm going to die now. See you later, half an hour later, I woke up and I was in paradise in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Joan Baez was singing, whatever. I went and hugged the lady who was cleaning up his Bickford within the two in the morning. And it was legal. It wasn't illegal at that time. And I was here that helped me too. And, but between those two things, I definitely was slept for India. Then my former wife wouldn't go, she refused and we broke up. Then I went off. Then I was like, that was, I was taking by bus. I be like, and so you were, you really got into meditation, but then why did ?
Speaker 4 00:21:10 I know. So Sophie's and Krisha mistakes and swamis and all sorts of people over a year's period of time. And, um, and, and I liked a lot of them and I learned things, but I didn't stick with any of them. And then my father passed away in New York and my mother insisted, I come and I had just met the Tibetans in India, the end of 62. And I knew they, I mean, I met them. I knew that was, that's what I want. They knew what I wanted to, I thought, you know, but I didn't know for sure, but I'd be pretty sure it was that. So then I came back for the funeral with a round trip to go back to India, to start studying with the Tibetans in their refugee camps. And just by chance, two days before my return flight, I go to New Jersey because I saw there was this Mongolian Lama there who had three or four young llamas that he wanted to have an English teacher for.
Speaker 4 00:22:04 I did not plan to do that. I had a job waiting for me in India, teaching teaching, and I thought I should go see him since he lives near my home city, that people would ask me, did you meet him? And blah, blah. But when I met that guy, I was like, I couldn't move. I tried to run away. Actually, when the car pulls with me, it took a long time finding this little house hinder in the New Jersey pine Baron flats, near Bruce Springsteen's home area and where the Mongolian refugees in Russia, refugees work. And, uh, but when we parked in front of it and I actually saw it, I felt the vibe was this huge vibe. It's like a dragon. And he was like, yeah, we'll come back. That's the sort of special in there. But, but I I'm too impure. I was smoking BDS, you know, these Indian cigarettes.
Speaker 4 00:22:54 And I was so dressed up right here. I wonder, you know, fuck here. But he wouldn't leave. He said, are you crazy? We drove down here, say hello. So then they dragged me in. And then a minute I met that guy I had to study and you know, someone telling people about it, it's not in the book, but there's Mr. Me gay gay man, the guy in the karate kid, he was like that he had his little kimono and he wasn't wearing big a Lama and your little goatee. And I saw it. He was the secretary of the big Lama who must be sitting on a dragon swear, like, like doctor that doctor, a doctor, what's his name? Yeah. The movie, big Lama in the back. It turned out to be him first. I thought he was the secretary. Then he moved it and he sat across the room and I thought that's where the energy. So then he gave me some tea and he sent me back to India and said, go study there. And I said, what do you want? He says, I was telling tide. And then I said, try it.
Speaker 4 00:24:05 I want to find out higher self says, oh, that's a really difficult path. He says, you could never get there. If you couldn't even come to from New York to New Jersey without getting arrested. He said, because I was wearing baggy pants, I forgot any pens had like some kind of weird sheepskin thing. And I had no eyes, socket, iPads, and wild hair. And it was scraggly beard. And he said, Hey, you here, you couldn't even pat do the path from New York to New Jersey to clean up. I'll just say, no, no, you've got to go back to India. You have a job there. He said. And finally he said, and he, so he really, he really would shoot cold water on my, on my thing. And um, so then, um, one day he said, if you, you see those books over there, he pointed to a bunch of books.
Speaker 4 00:24:56 Like those books behind the boat over there, it two bed and books, you see the ends of them there in that room. He said, if you learn to read those, I think it'll help you. He said, I didn't get a light. Neither. He said, I'm getting the old monk. But you know, I'm reading those books that helps me. He said, so you could go back to your new, you learn to read those books. I said, no, I'm going to come and learn them here. I said, no, I can't keep you here and say crazy boy. And it must as a monastery monk. And I said, I'm coming back anyway. I'll be back next week. I'll tell you it's on me. So then I'm leaving. And my friend says to me, why didn't you say, you're going back there. You're going to India. I have a flight to India.
Speaker 4 00:25:33 I go there. I said, cause he's my teacher. I said, what do you mean? He says, go away. He talked to you. I said, I don't care what it tells me. I know he's my teacher. I could trust him. He's going to really teach you guys. How do you do that? And I said, because he's not there. Not really. That's how I know he's there, but he's not there. And I didn't even know what that meant, but that's true. What did that mean to you when you said he's there, but he's not there? Well, what it meant, I sit from my former lives intuition that he was there for me. Of course, he wasn't all full in a certain way. He was very practical. He had a pizza pie and he was telling me this, that you can't travel. But in a certain way, he had a, there was a door in his heart, an open door of openness, Tuesday.
Speaker 4 00:26:32 And you connected with the world, which is how I would describe it. Now in that time, I had no idea how to describe it, but I sensed it. So that means it's like, you see your reflection in a mirror. Okay? Yeah. So that's you in the mirror, but in a way you're not somewhere else. And so enlightenment means you realize that if you press down on any point of your fields of experience by concentration and by critical insight, it will open up. It will dissolve under analysis and you will discover emptiness, which is not nothingness. It's just an openness. It's like space. Space is not nothing, nothing. This is not a space. Emptiness is different from nothing. And you discovered that. So then when you see things, you see them differently because you know, they would disappear. You press on that. And so they're there and you're kind of illusory way. And then initially you get a little detached from them in a certain way, but ultimately you realize that there at the emptiness is there as them. And then,
Speaker 5 00:27:44 And you don't get now I got to ask you a question. Okay. So this is a great story.
Speaker 4 00:27:50 Yeah. Right. Oh wait, no,
Speaker 5 00:27:52 No, no, no, no. It's all right. No, this is a great story. But now what about what I liked about this? Okay. Is it, it had great appeal to me if, for someone fresh to the subject, in other words. So, so you met cachet, Juan Gail, and it was an amazing experience. Right? Right. But, but like, you know, sitting here, like, you know, in the midst of the pandemic, in the midst of, you know, 20, 21, you know, as, as more ordinary people and I think this kind of speaks to it, what should we do? I mean, we should, should we go around looking for our guests or should we, should we learn some basics? What was,
Speaker 4 00:28:47 Well, the thing is it's I think yes and no. Yeah. You know, I think that, as I said, my real motive, which I wasn't even sure about the whole story of how this book came to me is that I was Tory, but I wasn't even sure. I was just sort of what I've kind of found after 50, 60 years, 60 years. And, but I realized what I really want to convey to people is because I want to convey it to myself is reality loves us. We are completely beloved. We are totally fine. You see all these tyrannical cultures, they have, you know, like, you know, those people in carcass on, in France, the outfit Jensen's I think they will go, the Pope sent an army and they threw them all off a cliff because they were saying, well, Jesus is here and we're just really happy.
Speaker 4 00:29:41 And we're not gonna go with part flagellate ourselves and worry about Satan and all that. We're happy because Jesus came. And so the world is a fine, it's safe. Everything's perfect. And, and that was dangerous to the authority system. So they were cause, cause because they didn't trust people, those bosses. So therefore they thought if people think everything is all right, there are going to be problems. Cause they won't. So then they went and killed them and that's been history. So I want to say, but so, and in a way, maybe it was good sometimes for people to feel a little scared, so they wouldn't let out their bad habits. But today the way the world is, we're not going to solve this problem of the climate and the people and this and that. By being scared of everything, we have to be fearless in the sense that as I said, in my Alma Mater's book at the end, when challenged by the publisher, we have to be so happy personally, wherever it whatever's going on, that even if they come and kill us, we'll die.
Speaker 4 00:30:44 That's our nursing. Because once you not afraid, they can't mess with you. And you know, I consider it black lives matter, for example, except for people set in by the fanatics from different sides to try to stir up violence about it. Because those are the people who don't believe there could be done anything. They're desperate people, but to Maine, people were walking peacefully and they were walking white and black and whatever color you can find. And they were kind of walking like this and then somebody comes and start shooting at them or beating on them or what, and then it gets them scuffling. But I'm saying that was also the case after Bush and Cheney stole the presidency of this one country that has it. It is trying to live up to its ideals, however badly it is not succeeding, but it's still trying. And they stole the presidency, right?
Speaker 4 00:31:36 They started this thing of I'm the president by this gerrymandering and by this and that, and by sending brown shirt, not say like people from Texas into Florida and preventing blacks from county, their votes in Dade county, in Miami and squeak pat and stupid Lieberman, surrendered immediately and Gordon. But I'm saying they stole it. Okay. And, and uh, and, uh, so what, before they invaded Iraq, that's what I'm saying. 40 million people in Tokyo, in London, in South Africa, everywhere. They went out with baby carriages, with balloons to families went, it wasn't a violent protest. It was a loving protest. This is silly. Let's not do this, but they, they, the media blanked them out and they, and th they had pushed them over the street and that street. And they went into the, the middle east, which there, which is what they did. They ripped out place.
Speaker 4 00:32:30 And it's been a mess ever since. And so that's what I'm saying, but that kind of attitude is where our population on this planet has reached. We are the people who are being pushed around and mess around with, by the fossil fuel tyrants are nice people and they're locked up and they, but the thing is the ones who are crazed for power. Like the Russians, it flipped out since they dropped the Soviet union. They, I love the Russia. I've been in talk with it. They're so nice and wonderful, intelligent language, great engineers, computer. It's like amazing people, dancers. Like they were great artists, but who wouldn't let go of them. Change GB. KGB is still, those oligarchs are old KGB FSB. They call it. I don't want to say it by that acronym me. And because the power craze ones are so miserable and wretched that they want power. And so, and they're scared of nice people. So, so
Speaker 5 00:33:36 This happiness, this, you know, I want to know that you say wisdom is blessed. Everything is great. And so you say that you have to know it really, because what I, what I see on our blue coast and the other blue coast is there's a lot of despair. You know, there's a lot of things are so problematic. We're afraid of this and afraid of battle. Are you saying that this Buddhist path, these fun facts, the sun, everything is bliss. Reality is bliss. That's right. Is a way to unlock kind of activism. Yes. And so how, but how do we do it? What's the step by for ordinary people like us. What's the step by step. If, if this, this Buddhist teaching that you found so wonderful is so, so good and can be so energized again, what, and I'm asking this because in the book say what you should do, but what should we do? How should we approach?
Speaker 4 00:34:46 Well, w the key I think, is to shift our perspective. And unfortunately like, like myself, as people say, you know how, when they ask me this, I've been doing online book tour, kind of people say, how can you be so cheery when all this is happening? It's all going wrong. Trump is freaking out who put in my detective gray and tomorrow, blah, blah, blah. China's going to grab Taiwan's. And, uh, I say to him, well, I break out too. And I get very worried and emotionally very expected, worse. Cause that's how we're all, we're all indoctrinated to expect the worst and be scared of everything. But if I talk about this, if I read the suit, I see it all different and I feel better. So keep asking me Christian, that I'm talking. I feel that. So we have to keep saying our mantra or reading our public, you know, nowadays I completely freaking out because I am on page 600 approximately of a 1500 page book, which I, which is called the flower ornament Sutra.
Speaker 4 00:35:58 And it's translated from NGO in Chinese. It's the Chinese translation of the Sanskrit translated into English by a dear friend of mine who also died this year, Thomas Cleary. So I started, I had read it different parts of it. It's Kim dare. And I skipped that. I know the main gist of it long time ago, but I decided in honor of him, I was going to read the whole thing. And I lately have been doing some audio books. Like I read the record here and I didn't read the character officially, but I read some of the books. You've read this far. I read a few others that I wrote and I told the publisher of this, I'll read it for you. You just have to hire a studio. And he already, never finished the day where all be dead before it finishes. He didn't want to spend the money.
Speaker 4 00:36:45 So anyway, I just kept doing it anyway on my self recording it. And it's not a good quality maybe, but it's fine. And, but then I got into it and I keep reading this. And the last time I read at like last Tuesday, I'm telling you, I was really what the board is. Sanford does. That's why I'm hoarse. There's I do about three or four hours of the days. I'm allowed to do it. And, uh, the board is set for what they give this. They wish for that. And they want the other, and they would never give this. But not that other incredible saying about how, when you decide, when you can first imagine that you can become a being capable of miracles, you can become so happy yourself. And so plus out that you don't show up, you are really capable of sharing that with whatever it takes.
Speaker 4 00:37:38 It might take looking miserable with someone, someone else might be happy if it looks whatever you do, you'll do it perfectly. And if you realize that's what a Buddha is defined as, or even about itself above a certain degree is find that just be our presence. People feel a hundred percent better and it goes on and on and he was lengthened describes it. And normally when you read it, because when you read something that you're looking for, the message, because you want to get done because you got to do it the next day. And so for some reason, I'm just reading it, just to read it. Yeah. That's where I fall into it. And the last time when I was reading that I got into the mind of, I wait right past your mansion. And I got to Kristen cinema and she was present and this shooter was flowing over her head.
Speaker 4 00:38:28 And I don't know if it hit her heart, but I really school. She has a mother's heart. And I don't even know if she has kids, but she has a potential mother side. So she does that. And also she needs some fashion devices and she needs, she needs to feel more loved by progressive people, not hated. And she just says she doesn't resort to selling out to the scared people who are richer, which is where she stuck. But I mean, the, the shooter, I was not calculating anything about her, but she was there and I was like, praying to her, like, stop the filibuster, get the John Lewis voting here too. And the suture was saying, that's what part is, they want everyone to be happy to do? And the people are happy when they do something for someone else. That's when they're really happy, not when they worry about what they're getting for themselves, that makes them miserable.
Speaker 4 00:39:20 And because they're never satisfied with what they're getting, right. That's a shot. Did they have a thing? So the suture went there. I swear. And then I was having, I was concentrating. So this whole scenario, it was quite hot and guy was filming. It was he, I was very concentrated. I wasn't my mind wasn't wavering and wondering, but it was happening. And I was wondering if I should go down and start reading it in the street, in front of our office or something, but I don't think so. It's on another plane. Yeah. And, and, uh, maybe, I don't know, it's a, it's a be broadcast on Saturday night. I haven't said it's all being broadcast every Saturday night at seven 30, another hour and a half of this 1600 bridge. I'm about one third of the way through. And uh, I said time, I get to the end.
Speaker 4 00:40:04 I'm having a fantasy though. So stuff to fill it up. So was no more, let's get back a little bit. Now. I want to say one thing about fun facts when I didn't answer your question. Cause I'm too stupid, but that was a good question when I, I would start. So then I went back in case you want to go accepted me, found me a place to live with a Mongolian family. And my friend also joined me and we rented a room. And then I sold my ticket for the money that my return ticket, those days you could sell a return ticket. And, um, and I went there and trained up shaved, you know, cut my hair and got to do jeans and t-shirt or whatever. And, um, and uh, went back and he hired me to teach. And then he in exchange taught me to bet and he would read me, Nagarjuna is friendly, led her to the king.
Speaker 4 00:41:02 And it was like liquid gold letters. It would go right in my heart. I didn't know Tibetan, but I learned it. I was fluid in six weeks and I was speaking classical Tibetan, kindness IQ and your classical Arabic. And, uh, but then I, and then when we would come to a section on some verses on how to meditate, he would say, or you don't need this and he would skip it. And he would go on to the wisdom part. And then I would know, what do you mean? I don't mean no, no, skip it. And then I'd read it myself. Then I go and meditate and then I'd be meditating. I would say heaven. And then I would just be about to slip out of my body into sort of a, a plane goes in light or something like that. And he would show up outside my room.
Speaker 4 00:41:48 I called the phone would ring. I mean, whatever. He would interrupt me every time. And then later when I moved over to the monasteries, like a novice monk, sort of, uh, you know, uh, after four or five months of study, I would sneak out and go under a tree in the woods in this New Jersey area. And he would walk, pretend he was walking the dog at three in the morning. What are you doing out here? And he would just block my meditation all the time. And I was so frustrated. And, um, but years later I read, I found, I found the thing in the technical texts. There's something where you can achieve the cessation of conception and sensation at the wrong time. That is you can go into a sort of quiet Ty's space and be aloof from your sort of anxieties and the what's going on before you've developed a strong sense of total inter-relatedness and then it'll become a trap where you'll just want to get away from it all.
Speaker 4 00:42:55 And you will not, you'll be calm actually. And you'll get a kind of enlightenment, but you will not make it not do. You will not do it in the midst of the, of the struggle you will. Your compassion will wither because you'll excuse yourself from the stress. If you follow me, you'll become addicted to the Stressless, peaceful, quiet state. And he didn't want that to happen to me. And I suppose probably cause I was highly strong, but, um, but I, but he, but it was so wonderful that he forced me to do it because then that forced me to really develop and learn a lot more before I really got into that,
Speaker 5 00:43:33 That, that ignorant, miss snowing awareness that ignorant miss snowing awareness sat video video is described on page 1 37 of this book. And it's, um, you know, what I, what I really liked about what I really like about you is how you describe all of this stuff. So personally, but we don't lose it. So no, it's, it's, uh, you know, so then, you know, I had to ask you stopped you from meditating and yet your description in this book of the Ford Deanna's is so poetic
Speaker 4 00:44:21 And moved to
Speaker 5 00:44:22 Them, you know? So, so, so, so you, so you really combined a lot of personal stuff. It's like you're doing tonight with, with some really great insights on the side of wisdom.
Speaker 4 00:44:43 And I believe again, it's like me saying, Hey, he's not there so I can trust that. I don't really know what I'm saying. Yeah. You know, it's amazing. You it's because it's the luck of having previous affinity from previous life. I said, things I don't even really know for sure, but when I speak, but somehow it just flows out and it seems right. And, um, and then of course I did meditate more, but I still, haven't probably meditated.
Speaker 5 00:45:09 When did, when do you, when did you get to the point where, when did you get to that point where, where you could speak really without the stage managing a lot of it beforehand, where you had that kind of, that, that kind of feeling. And I keep coming back to keep coming back to here. We all are, each of us has our own karmic history.
Speaker 4 00:45:40 It's the couch should its own cup of, should we do it? I think that our tuna, sankalpa their kindness of these great, great, great teachers, great human beings. And there's the way that they gave us like a path and a handle, you know, and actually this scaling number two here, it's very helpful to me in some way, at some times, you know, and we, unfortunately that we couldn't work together as much as we could have showed up, probably because of whatever circumstances are tell he also is, he was very good and he helped me a lot later on. And there was someone called Tara Toko, although the foundation was then, and his holiness also has been very, very helpful remotely. And in a way there's a kind of thing where he kind of they're all his emanation. I can kind of see it right there. But, um, so the reason I think I could write about those four, four immeasurables states or as I would call them now, immensities, you know, the word immense, I think is it means they measurable it mentors, men, there's like a table of music injury. So immense immensity is a more normal word. I like it. It meant to for immensities. Yeah.
Speaker 5 00:46:49 I love that. I loved the book and also your tables describing the path of meditation and not only in terms of the stages of subtlety and death, but in terms of the, the four immense cities. Yes.
Speaker 4 00:47:06 So the thing about it is I think the reason is why he stopped me from that time is that, you know, the projecting power of the mind is huge. And that's why some people will have experiences where they think they experienced nothingness like existential, but, but they said someone who by reasoning comes to sort of a notion that nothing, that is the final reality, which is, uh, which is the base of our irresponsible culture. Actually, the material is culture that we live in and it's destroying the planet actually, because in fact, the thing is there is no such thing as nothing. So there's no thing, no, it's not a resting place, but anyway, people can have an experience as if it is because the mind will project what you might think, nothing, and then you can feel you're experiencing it outside place. So the reason he stopped me from going to immensities is because when you do it as a novice, those four immeasurables or immensities love, compassion, joy, equanimity, and impartiality, or acronymity you think there are places.
Speaker 4 00:48:09 And in a way they are they're heavens they're gods who go there. And those are people who are yogis and then projected these places. And then they ended up going and living in their projections. But when you discover that it's inside yourself, you haven't miserable. Love inside yourself. You haven't measurable compassion inside yours. You have a measurable joy, saw yourself, or got some everywhere, not just China, fairly organized as Freud would say, total your heart muscle. Then you're alone in your hurt. And your chin, your teeth have everywhere. You know, that's the joy and then measurable, equate, quality. Everything is that joy, you know, and that's all, every human being, every living, animal dinosaurs,
Speaker 5 00:48:55 So special project, right? But the four fun facts, usually when we, we learn about them, it's the four noble truths. Life is suffering. There's an origin of suffering. Fortunately, there's a way out. And it's the eighth, you know,
Speaker 4 00:49:21 The
Speaker 5 00:49:21 First one this I know, but how did those, how did those overwhelming, um, terrifying facts become the four fun facts? How's that going again?
Speaker 4 00:49:36 I have to give my friend Alan Hassenfeld. It's salute. He is the CEO or the creator of Hasbro toy company. And now he's executive chairman, not the CEO anymore. I know him from non-private and he gave a fun fact that it dinner, that that's why I've been know the expression in front of them. And he said, well, my fun fact is I'm the executive chair of the Hasbro company. You know, everyone knew that he found that that was his company. And he said, unless you think that's a big deal, I want you to know. The fun fact is being executive chairman of a company. Even one that you founded yourself is like presiding over a cemetery. There are many people beneath you, but no one is it's so cool. I think it's so great. So Sharon Salzberg challenged me on that one. I did a podcast with her on the book, which I don't think she's brought chest. I don't know why it's not fun enough. Maybe. Cause she says, how can you say it's a front? She says, but now how can you say something? And then I reminded her that in her book, her face,
Speaker 4 00:50:52 When she told her own life story, it's such a difficult childhood. She had really terrible time, really awful. And what attracted her to Buddha was at Buddha said, life is suffering. And she said, yeah. And I liked that guy. Cause she said, otherwise, everybody made her feel. Something was bad about her because she was having so much suffering because your father was crazy. Mother died, brought up my grandparents, people were like collapsing and bleeding out right in front of her. When she was a little kid, it was really difficult. So she said, wait, I heard that somebody acknowledge that life is suffering. So I said for you, dad was a fun fact, that's it? Because that's what you were facing. Right. And she had to admit that she admitted. So it became in fact, so the point is the point is this, the Dalai Lama likes to say the first noble truth is simply acknowledging the symptom of our, in the Buddhist.
Speaker 4 00:51:49 Like a doctor is not like a prophet. He's not, I'm going to save you. I'm God. And I'm going to save you or something. You know? He said, he's the doctor. So he looks at you, what's the symptom. Oh, you're like dissatisfied. Oh, you haven't painted yet chest. All your knee hurts. Oh, I stubbed your toe. Oh, somebody doesn't like you or you're not popular at school. Oh yeah. You can't get, you don't know how to dance. You know, you're a wallflower at the party. Nobody takes you to the prom. Yeah. That's your suffering. Right. So, okay. He says, yeah, you're suffering and that's normal because you don't know what's going on. But that's my fun fact. Yes. Because the third one is his discovery. His discovery is that that's fun because it isn't real. It's less real than Nirvana is the only one of the four noble Jews.
Speaker 4 00:52:42 That is reality is the third one. It's Nirvana. It's the reality. And the reality is the cessation of suffering is a freedom from suffering. Freedom is the reality. Remember George Bush w said freedom. Well, he doesn't even know what he's freedom. You know, he takes it to be in Texas and not wearing a mask or getting mad. You know? Like that's crazy. People hate him. His freedom is his life. You know, if everything is fine, no matter what you do, actually, it's fine. But if you do nasty things and harm other people, then you're, it's going to be, you're not going to be able to find, enjoy the fun. It'll be hidden away. You'll you'll, you'll, you'll hide it away from yourself. Cause you'll be so distracted by people wanting revenge against you and you fear them and we're harming them more and all this kind of thing.
Speaker 4 00:53:40 So point is if you're still fully, probably once, you know, everything is fine, then you start navigating on that basis. And then you, the minute you too, who shows so much better, like, why are you like, why do you like falling in love? Did you ever fall in love? I hope everyone here has fallen it up. Why did you like that? Because someone loved you. Oh wow. That made their friends, gene Kelly. That's pretty beautiful. Dan singing in the rain, you know, he's raining on him. He's dancing, beautiful dancing. You know? Cause he's in love and in love. What really making him happy is he thinks someone loves him. Mom, when you're a baby and mom is nursing you or giving you a bottle or whatever, or she hires a nurse to do it. If she's unfortunately too wealthy to, I get to treasure it.
Speaker 5 00:54:35 And then you love your nurse.
Speaker 4 00:54:40 And you know, all those racist people in the south, they all love their black nannies and nurses actually. That's why it's so twisted. Those people. They really loved them because their moms are all like free prison for going out drinking and Joel and may alcoholic and not having good sex with their ridiculous whip slave with the husband. So, so they're, they're, you know, but they, so they had somebody it's like Strom Thurmond, my remote cousin, M O N D Thurman. He had a mistress a long time. And yet he was, racistly acting like a jerk.
Speaker 5 00:55:15 You know, this, this energy permeates this and you know what may, it's what makes Bob very different and wonderful kind of Buddhist teacher, because you can feel it. And it, and it's throughout the book. You can feel it that this, this delight and this energy becomes liberate is crushed. It becomes liberating. And it it, and how, how we see here, how it applies to our political situation, our climate situation. And yet it all comes. It all comes it's. So
Speaker 4 00:56:00 Isn't it great.
Speaker 0 00:56:20 This episode of the Bob Thurman
Speaker 2 00:56:23 Podcast is brought to you in part the generous monthly support of the Tibet house, us Menlo membership, community, and listeners like to learn more about the benefits of Tibet house membership and about upcoming programs with Dr. David , please visit thus.org Tashi. Thanks for tuning.
