Thanks for tuning in to Gen and Tantra. As always, please subscribe and share. We once again have the utmost pleasure in having on Professor Robert Thurman. He is a talented popularizer of the Buddhist teachings and the first Westerner to be ordained by His Holiness the Dalai Lama as a Tibetan Buddhist monk. A charismatic speaker and author of many books on Tibet, Buddhism, art, politics, and culture, Professor Thurman was named by The New York Times as the leading American expert on Tibetan Buddhism and was awarded the prestigious Padma Shri Award in 2020 for his help in recovering India's ancient Buddhist heritage. Time magazine chose him as one of the 25 most influential Americans in 1997, describing him as a larger-than-life scholar-activist destined to convey the Dharma, the prestigious teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha from Asia all the way to America. His own search for enlightenment began while he was a university student at Harvard. After an accident in which he lost the use of an eye, Professor Thurman left school on a spiritual quest throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. He eventually found his way to India, where he first saw His Holiness the Dalai Lama. After learning Tibetan and studying Buddhism, Professor Thurman became a Tibetan Buddhist monk. And some years later, however, offered up his robes when he realized he could be more effective in the American equivalent of a monastery, the university, and thus returned to Harvard to finish his PhD. A quote from Professor Thurman. I invite you to embrace a new reality. I invite you to awaken to the infinite life you already have, no matter what your worldview. I invite you to take up responsibility for your own destiny. I invite you to take advantage of your priceless humanness to make a definitive turn towards ultimate security, complete freedom, and unbounded happiness.

Welcome to Gin and Tantra. Spirituality with a twist. The podcast that takes Tantrism, Buddhism, Daoism, Sufism, Kabbalism, Shamanism, Chinese medicine-ism, and all of the other-isms we've been influenced by. And blends them into a tall, crisp, cool cocktail your spirit has been longing for.

to get together.

Now, isn't that refreshing?

[music]

I want you to get together.

So, you know what hits me about what you're saying there, too? And I mean, it's part of one of the things we knew we wanted to ask you about was, you know, you've talked a little bit You talk in the book and it's come up a couple of times of the Buddha is kind of a a little bit of a rebellious figure in some ways cuz he had to he had to resist the things. And I had an interesting experience since the last time we talked. I was thinking how to ask this question cuz it's one of the deep ones again, I think. Uh you know, so the funny thing was I kind of became uh sort of semi pen pals with the writer George Saunders, who wrote like Lincoln in the Bardo. As it turns out, I want to have him on the have him on the podcast hopefully eventually, but it we we grew up not only in the same town, we grew up on the same street, I found out.

know him, really?

Yeah, as we were talking.

Lincoln and where did he get that Bardo idea? That's so cool. I didn't read the book, but I'm it's on my list.

Yeah, yeah. Yo, she's a she's a Buddhist.

Oh, I see. Okay.

Yeah, it's so it's interesting talking with him and he was trying to describe, guess what I call the George Saunders problem. So I thought I'd get your opinion on this too, uh, Professor Thurman.

Okay.

I asked I unlike your writer friends are going to say anonymous, he said it was okay that I I gave his name.

[laughter]

I wrote him back and said, "Is it okay if I use your name?" He said, "Yes." So, okay. So, he said this thing and I'm I'm quoting I said, "Can I quote from something you wrote me?" He said, "Yes." So, he said he said, "You know, for me it was like this exactly." He said, "Getting married and having kids changed everything for me." He said, "It also made my hometown make more sense." That's our hometown. He said, "I sort of understood why everyone was engaged in these even these lives of quiet desperation around our street, Central Avenue and 155th Street, lives of manic happy drinking."

[laughter]

Then he said, "It occurred to me that this explained the whole country. People feeling love for them those close to them, trying to provide, being thwarted in various ways. So, it was a useful measure of the sanity of the culture. How directly does a given person feel like they're able to provide service for their beloved?"

Yeah.

he says, "When you look at the culture that way, you got a problem. You basically have what what I Wilhelm Reich would say, you got an emotional plague. You got a socio-cultural problem."

Yeah.

And then people feel overmatched by life. So, I guess when I was reading your book, I kept thinking, "Okay, Professor Thurman is providing a solution to this." You know, he's trying to say, "Okay, here's a path to follow." But I think for a lot of people that I know, they feel so trapped in their lives.

Yeah.

You know, their lives are kind of a trap around them. So, the question I that, you know, was like, "Okay, so people have to rebel on some level."

Yeah.

And I guess the question I would ask you is how how much do you have to rebel because you lived partially as a monastic, partially living in American layperson's life? And then, you know, in what ways do you talk about people with this to suggest, "Okay, here's how you can start to concretely break this up. Here's where the rebellion is that you can do that will work for you and bring you to something more happy. You know, out of desperation or manic happy drinking, you can break out of that dichotomy.

Right. Right. Well, I think that we did rebel. You know, America is based on the rebellion. And that's why I love America. And this was a rebellion against the British East India Company and the British Empire, you know. And the idea that domination of others is the way to happiness and the way to live. And we rebelled against that. And initially, Washington and Jefferson, they knew about the Iroquois Confederacy in New York State and in Canada, you know, the Algonquins, Tuscarora, Onondaga, Mohawk, Iroquois. And [snorts] who had made a peace giant peace treaty before the whites came, before the westerners came. Actually, I don't think of whites, I call us pinks. Before the pinks arrived, we were we have to really shift that white category to pink because only somebody in in in whiteface, you know, like a clown is white. We are pink. And that that would help us, I think, to notice that that we're all pink.

Lose that idea of like an artificial

I'm trying to start a meme, my own small country is to start a meme of that we're pinks. So, there should be pink supremacists rather than white supremacists.

It'll make us all pink.

supremacist. I mean, they should bother to be supremacist at all. But, the point is So, we rebelled against this domination thing. The idea that you could dominate others for your own happiness. Which you can't. Because if you dominate someone else, then you are avoiding dominating yourself. And you're weakening yourself by having to depend on the people you dominated. And you can't do this and you can't do that because you have someone else who's delegated to do it. So, we rebelled and then Jefferson managed to get in that declaration, you know, all humans, which he called men at the time, all humans are created equal, meaning that they have soul equality. They don't have status equality, they don't have financial equality, they don't have ability equality. They're all different, but they have a soul equality, so they should have equality of opportunity. And their opportunity should be to pursue happiness. And but and even there you can see a little the quiet the seed of the quiet desperation is in pursuing it, you'll never find it.

[laughter]

You're going to be [clears throat] pursuing forever. And then we'll keep eluding you. And but that's because they were not I mean they were beginning to see that they could somehow find it within themselves. But because why? A better version than Darwin was not available. Even Darwin was not available to Ed Jefferson, but a better version than of Darwin, but like Darwin, but that that the ancient Indian people had, that Buddha discovered, which is that we have evolved to become humans as individuals, not just our genes, but we personally. So, the the the form of the body of humans is evolved in in a in an environment to adapt to an environment. But we as individuals have chosen during our bardos which form we're going to adapt, and we're many times we were dinosaurs, we were lizards, we were tigers and lions, we were scorpions, we were many different things. We've all been because the past is beginningless, contrary to this Big Bang crap. And we've lived on other planets already, many times, because at the soul level, the soul travel level, mind travel level, you can go across galaxies in split seconds, like what did we Einstein call what do they call those quantum people? Queer motion at a distance or strange motion at a distance.

spooky action at a distance.

Spooky action at

Spooky action at a distance. Spooky action at a distance.

spooks lots of times and we've had action at a distance and we've and but we have now chosen to be human and and we have to also been gods and angels and there we've never been a creator god because there is no such thing. No one being is blameable for all of this. You know, we all make it mutually. It's a it's a mix we make like it's a it's a group group group creation, you know. And gods are very powerful in the in the doing of it. They're all Don't ever think that Buddhists are atheists. They are not. That's wrong. That's a mistake. They just don't believe in a creator, a monotheistic kind of it's all one guy. And they were asked Buddha was asked by Brahma, who the other Indian people at that time thought was the creator. And Brahma said, "Would you please tell them I'm not the creator. I just showed up here ahead of time and I'm very powerful, but I didn't create everything. So, I'm not to blame when goes happens to them. I don't mind when they're happy and then they say, 'Oh, Brahma, thank you.' I don't mind that. That kind of flatters me. But when they're really screwed up and their kids get killed in front of their face or something, I don't like I'm never going to let that happen. It sucks. I hate them. And I don't like that from masses. I don't like the vibe. Please tell them I do my best and we're all in it together and they should also do their best. We're all inter-responsible, you know. That's a such a beautiful thing. So, Jefferson didn't have that. But if you have that, then you realize that we are just between the gods and the sort of lower beings who have who are really stuck in their niche, you know, in their environment. They can't really They have some freedom of choice, too, but very slight. It's like a tiny It's like It's like a swerve of a female lioness who's about to pounce on a juicy pregnant deer who's fallen behind a wildebeest or something who's fallen behind the herd because she's pregnant and 8 months pregnant or however many months they gestate and she's about to pounce on it looks really fat and juicy and then she somehow subliminally senses that she's in that she's a pregnant and she also is a mammal and has little cubs in there sometimes so she sort of identifies tiny with the food. She sees it as alive and she swerves and eats some stringy old creepy dried up goat wildebeest and has and brings that back to the family and the husband complains and whatever cuz he's more stringy but it that's a tiny sense of empathy she has where she expands her identity to feel the empathy toward the the pregnant wildebeest and so there's no much free choice there's only that kind of almost subliminal thing whereas we and then if we're gods when we were gods we had party the party level in the lower heavens what they call the desire for a moment is so intense the East Village you know the gay bars like you know like Jeffrey Epstein's weird like like weird spreads you know whoever they were they're nothing compared to the bliss level that they have in those places and we've done that and we got bored and then the highest one is where you're so bored you don't even have a a lustful impulse anymore here's have kind of fantasies and you're just so satiated that you you you just really burned out you know and that type of release you know of orgasmic and fooling around with others you know so then we're in the middle and we have the sensitivity and we're not very strong in any particular one thing we have no claws no fangs don't spit poison course we're smart we can talk we talk to each other because we don't eat each other the minute we meet.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It wasn't eat and you know, eat and greet and eat. No, greet and chat. That's what humans do. And we we're mammals and so we come out of mom, so she knows that beings even share bodies. And then we have a breast to suck, really fun for a few years in case it or a bottle if she suck up time. And and you know, so point is we are right there, we have that but we also so self-critical and we're vulnerable. So we want to find out what's going on. We don't kind of just stay in a 10,000 year jacuzzi or something. We're going to find out. And we and we and the and in the middle of the middle is even better. We're happy up to 100 grand. After that we start freaking out because people we think someone wants something or they want my stuff. No, no, no, they're scamming me, you know. And we start losing friendships and things. You you win the lottery and you lose all your friends, right? Because they want to share.

[laughter]

And you don't. So [snorts] so my point is we're this magnificent human being like Eric Baker and Daniel with the hat and the monk's head, the Buddhist monk. Beautiful Dalai Lama head you got there, Dan.

Thank you.

And [laughter] you know, you're you're looking for purpose and you're looking for meaning and you want to talk to Lincoln in the Bardo and Bob and Wisdom is Bliss and you I bet you have other really great guests in your thing and you bring that to everyone and that's and you happy making them happy with happy things to and deep meaningful things and that's really awesome as a human. And not only that, but you can become where you really what you can really conquer is yourself. That is you can get where you don't No one can push your buttons. You are free. You really can make choices of what you how you going to spend your day and what you're going to do. You can rebel against some You don't have to go and be like Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times, a cog in a wheel in this and that factory. And and you don't get saddled with having too many servants who then you know you you have to live to please them, you know, and I get them to do what they want to do. You're really a free being. And then family is then then you then family's hard because then you do have to serve the kids and this and that and then you have to get them somewhere and and and then and then it's hard to bring them up to rebel because they they have to rebel against you. And yet but you have to learn to be able to do that and hang in there, you know. And to be free they have to be able to not be afraid of you and so you have to get them to do the right thing without using coercion in the in any harsh way. So So but you need a little firmness here and there but you you you you don't want to intimidate them and have them be afraid of you.

Professor Thurman, can I can

really it's really great to be human. I mean it's it's a most amazing Yes, what Daniel?

So so you we we kind of been talking a little bit about rebellion and I you know I'm I'm always interested in you know we asked you a little bit about your story last time. When would you say you know looking back would you say was the first kind of time that you consciously rebelled against kind of what your family wanted for you or what society wanted for you or what you even thought you wanted for yourself? When when was that? How how did that look for you in particular?

Well, uh I think I used to I had a I would used to keep a kazoo to apply a batteries and I had all the Duma novels and Rafael Sabatini and I mean Walter Scott etc. and I used to read them late at night even sometimes all night. Somehow I had a lot of energy and I would still be fine through the day in school.

Mhm.

And I would hide under my bed if father would catch me reading. I'd be I'd be in another world, you know, in the often dealing with pirates or being a pirate, if that was necessary to deal with the nasty Spanish galleon, slave holder, or whatever it was. And, uh, I started doing that, you know. And, um, right away. And then I behaved myself, kind of, and I cuz I enjoyed I enjoyed learning a lot. I I really liked learning. And I memorized my Latin and from early age. I went to a kind of English school, this and that. And I joined different things. And, um, but I think I guess the first time I really broke but and then I sort of I did I didn't go to class as much. And I did, you know, when I could avoid them. And I would read on my own always. And I I felt there was something wrong with this culture. And I wouldn't wouldn't fully participate in but the the the sort of earthquake type thing happened. And it was amazing it was predicted when I was like 6 years old. Uh, or 5 years old by an astrologer to my mother who made notes of it. I never met the guy. You know, and uh, I never did meet him. But I found her notes and he predicted that on April 17th or 18th, 1958, there would be an earthquake in my life and career that would freak her out and but she shouldn't freak out and it would work out. Because what it was was I dropped out as a pretty successful senior uh, at Exeter, you know, I was an eight-letter man, what they call what we called those days. We didn't have girls in those days except when they would bring them meat wagon over [laughter] for a dance. What we called the meat wagon. So, bad male thing, really. Horrible. And, you know, occasionally it was not coed, you know. And, um, at that time, in the '50s. And, um, I was a senior. I had been admitted already to Harvard as a sophomore. And I had a national merit scholarship and I was this and that. I was co-captain of the lacrosse team. And suddenly, my Mexican friend of mine and I, we left school with with a pistol. You could take a pistol on a plane and a briefcase in those days. And we got on a plane and flew to Miami Beach. And we tried to enroll in Fidel Castro's army. To overthrow Batista.

[snorts]

And thank thank god, you know, and thank Buddha and god both for not They they they spurned our sign up, you know. We were like I was like 17. And my Mexican friend was about the same. And um 18 maybe. And he was 5'2" and 175. I was 6'3" and 155. And we walked into this bar where they were recruiting mercenaries. And they laughed and they said when we said what we were about. And they said, "Sancho Panza and Don Quixote coming to save the revolution? Forget it, you guys. You'll get killed in 2 minutes." And so forth. And then then we went to Mexico. Then we were thrown out of Ecuador and then we went to Mexico. So then I had to you know then I had So that was the first real shocking thing of feeling that you know of really rebelling in a certain way, you know. But it was it and then I learned Spanish. I lived in Mexico for a year. And then I I finally went back and went to Harvard for a while. But then I left again to go to India from Harvard. And then I had was in the pattern, you know.

You did talk about last time you were on camera.

I dropped mescaline when it came my way right away. Now I didn't have one tiny hesitation, you know. And then that was another rebirth, you know. And but I didn't do it all the time because I realized that was not the thing. That just showed me what you need to do learn to do with your own mind, with your own internal neurotransmitters so to speak. Although we didn't use that language in those days. And so these these these are what people should do, you know. They should they should drop out of the conventional indoctrination of the culture and they should learn things that we couldn't teach I then taught them in the colleges for 50 years, nearly 50 years. And um I was sad and embarrassed that that we never taught people sort of how to control themselves except by example indirectly through literature. You know, and uh and if you did and I tried a few times to get a class to meditate for 10 minutes or something and then this became a big problem, you know, like oh he's bringing religion into the classroom. It has nothing to do with religion. It's just to do with how to control yourself as a person. And um and so now that I'm just getting started now that I retired 2 years ago and I'm teaching more in a practitioner's level, you know? But not as a not to I'm not missionarizing Buddhism on the other hand. That's but it's a very hard to break out of that, of course, because the base of knowledge, my encouragement about what a human being can make of themselves comes of course from the Buddhist tradition, but but but it's the Dalai Lama has is leading the way and making it available for secularists. He especially loves them among religious people. He likes scientists and secularists. He's you know, he also loves other religious people when they really try to practice it and not just are sort of doctrinaire, you know, about their whatever it is, you know? He doesn't because because religions are you know, the founders, Jesus, Muhammad, Moses, uh Buddha, Lao Tzu, Confucius, uh the Yajnavalkya, there's no really famous because they Krishna they think but those are gods. So actually the Yajnavalkya, the greater Upanishadic people and some names that people won't recognize. In India, so many holy people in India because it was the richest country so there were many people knowing that wealth is not going to make you happy by itself, you know? A little bit enough is important, but otherwise doesn't make you happy. So, so, you know, that's the following that I'm I'm going to try to teach in a in a in another way. And actually there is, you know, there were there were for 1,000 years there were great universities in India. The core curriculum of which was how to control your emotions and your mind. When I left for India from my in very much senior year at Harvard, same way leaving, uh I I was when people asked me where I was going to go, I said, "I'm going to look for some people who have a yoga of the emotions, a yoga of mind." I knew a little bit of physical yoga and I did some karate and things, but I wanted the yoga of the mind and especially of the emotions, how to manage them. You know, anger, you know, obsession, jealously, you know, the the the usual group, you know, of what I call emotional addictions. How to deal with them. And they don't teach you that. You graduate, you become a bachelor of arts, and you're and and you The Dalai Lama said it very well when he got honorary degree at Columbia, 20 years ago or 30 years ago, 25 years ago. He said, "Thank you very much for making me an honorary causa doctor of humane letters. I really appreciate it and I'm especially honored because I think education is the most important institution in the world. It's so important that everybody be well educated. And but I'm a little worried about your form of education here," he said, "because you're very good at and you focus on creating a clever brain. And you do a good job with that. But you ignore creating a good heart. And [clears throat] a clever brain without a good heart is dangerous for the person who has the clever brain and might get themselves into not having such a good life. And the person and they might be also harmful to others because using their cleverness without goodness. So, I hope you will think about that. And then everybody in the the the all the trustees and the and the deans and the presidents and all the big shots and the faculty they oh, that's so good. Thank you very much. You're so right. And they didn't change one iota of their the pedagogy. You know? Although they do have a little meditation instruction in the infirmary for people who get overstressed, you know, things like that. But they they don't really teach people how to use the mind to the full. They but they teach how to be skills of manipulation of the outer world but teach really well.

Well, we you Professor Thurman, you mentioned this in you mentioned this in the book a little bit actually. You're talking about using mindfulness actually in in the in the culture and we have a episode on this. We talk we talk about Jonathan Kabat-Zinn.

Oh, yeah. He's a buddy of mine.

Yeah, using MBSR. But I and we you know, we we do our pros and cons with it, but I think to your point a lot of times meditation and these techniques are kind of like life hacks or used to ways to to calm anxiety, but rarely in the in the culture do we have opportunities to use meditation as development not just a not just a medicine to calm the the the ills of a person and I think this sort of falls in line with how we view therapy in general and that when I have my hand cut off, I go get a new one put on and now I get some pills and some surgery and then I move on with my life. But never do I learn how to like connect with the parts of me that aren't cut off that I can make them even more improved, you know, like getting a software update without needing something to be replaced.

Yes, yes, you're right. Well, I agree with you and um I do agree with you and um but but on the other hand medicine is a kind of development.

For sure.

And Johnny, he's very big because he wants to go big on not being connected with regular doctrinaire Buddhism, but he was trained in his Zen center like like Eric here.

Mhm.

And with that Seung Sahn Sunim, you know, in Providence, you know, great Korean Zen master who is Sunim master they call him Korean. And they're very macho. They say the Japanese when they try to come to our Korean Zen center they would carry out on a stretcher 3 days.

[laughter]

They're very macho

the Koreans.

You know, they they like to be

Sure.

And so John is so he's great and he has helped so many people with their health in that way and then also with their mind. But yes, I agree the way mindfulness is taught they don't teach it where it is a developmental thing like right away for example, the first focus of mindfulness and they mistranslate it as foundation of mindfulness. Focus on my of the four focuses of mindfulness, the first one is the body. And that body scan that John Kabat-Zinn teaches to become more aware of your body, he doesn't push it to where you would be you're supposed to become revolted about your body. You're supposed to like notice the in your intestines or the ready to almost the urine in the bladder. You know, the impurity and the imperfection of the all the mechanism of the body

[snorts]

and the funkiness of it in order to diminish your attachment to your you know, your say your obsession with yourself, you know, like like either erotic or even just you know, narcissistic or something. So it's meant to be a cure of narcissism which is a very big very big thing to develop your way out of and get out of. And it gives you and and then and then you're you're you move to the next thing because you're not supposed to take it to the degree where you become depressed. You you become more free is what it is. You're not really obsessed about your body if something a little bit goes wrong you you can take it in stride, you know. And then you move to the sensations, you know. And you get to where you can you can tolerate a lot more difficulty. As Eric knows, I know from meditating, you learn where you can dissociate from particular small pain in the leg or the knee. And you can you can sort of float and almost get out of body in your body, you know. And you can control more your reactions to things rather than jump instantly at some input and some stimuli. And and so there it's very much very much developmental mindfulness when fully taught. But they don't want to do it fully because they want to help people do that initial sort of thing, which is okay. It has a usefulness and it's nice. And there are some there are some Buddhists and scholars of Buddhism who get very irate about the the shallowness of the way mindfulness is often taught. And as a fad, you know, and they have a point, but on the other hand they shouldn't be so so fussy and so purist, you know, I think. Because any little bit of self-awareness that people get is good. And it helps them and then they'll they'll go deeper naturally or they'll shy away from it and that's their that'll be their their prerogative until something happens to them in life. Like for example, one thing I can't claim to just be a good old rebel. I also lost my eye at 20. And that also helped me in my second rebellion cuz I had a family by then. I had a daughter small daughter baby daughter and a wife. I tried to take them with me on my on my vacation or twist quest. But they wouldn't go. So then I had to leave them. Then I identified with Buddha. Which was silly. But anyway, that happened. But I did lose an eye, you know, and that made me what that did was was like a little bit of a death experience ahead of time. So I had a midlife crisis at 20 instead of at 40.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And that's better to have one at 20 cuz you can learn some new things a little more energetically still at 20, you know. At 40 it's like you're kind of in you're a little bit routinized, you know. Hard to But you can change even at 80. I'm finding I can change. I'm learning new stuff. I'm learning from Eric and Daniel.

Mhm.

No, you guys are very cheery and I like it, you know, I'm bringing coals to Newcastle to you guys. I realize that.

Let's do it.

I want I hope you can help me get other people to cheer up.

That's our mission statement.

That's it, man. That's That's why we do it.

Really?

That's why we do it.

I don't need the money. I have a pension. I worked hard. I'm fine. I'm not after like being famous and rich or anything. I don't know I just want a lot of people to cheer up. I like Buddhists to get less pompous and serious. I'm a Buddhist. I'm And you know the one religion that I also Dalai Lama likes the secularists most and I kind of like them but but I have a problem with them which is their fantasy that they're going to be nothing when they die. That's such a freaking joke. You know, nobody can be nothing. I yeah I asked them I have a question for them. Which one of you your people got the Nobel Prize for discovering nothing? And because you guys only go for what you discover. You don't go on theory. You're anti-dogmatic. You have Carl Popper has given you the methodology or analyzed it. All theories are hypotheses awaiting falsification based on evidence. So, what evidence you have for the existence of nothing? Who discovered it? Did Carl Sagan get it? Did he get it? I didn't hear that he got the Nobel Prize for discovering nothing. Who did it? They just get mad.

Yeah.

Because in fact nobody can discover nothing. You would you would know right away that that's not possible cuz it isn't there to be discovered.

That's right.

Nothing is a non-referring term. It's just the opposite of something cuz our mind operates in a binary way. So, it's the what thing that has no referent. So, it's not a place. It's not a tomb. It's not a little dark space you can go sleeping in. No one can get to it cuz it isn't there. So, therefore, the reason they're scared of dying, even them who are guaranteed have no consequence if they behave like a pain ass bastard in life, that there'll be no consequence in the future, it's not really a good guarantee. And therefore, the reason they're scared of nothing is not because they believe in nothing really, because they subliminally know that everything is continuity. They're scared of being a pain that might happen to them after loss of control when they go unconscious. And they've gone of course they've gone unconscious a million times in a normal life by falling asleep. And they're scared that something will happen, so they lock the door and they turn off the lights and they get everything all nice. And And they have live in a gated compound if they're a little wealthier and they're paranoid. But the point is uh nobody's going to be nothing. So, that's my beef with them. Otherwise, I like them.

[snorts]

But the ones that the ones that bother me are pompous people. And the ones I really like are is Judaism. I have really gotten into Judaism in a big way and I find rabbis have the best sense of humor. They are so funny sometimes. And they and they take it very I mean, I guess there's some super Orthodox guys who are really into it. But I've my experience has been that they are the most fun of the sort of religious leaders and ministers and things. They tend to be the most fun. Very good sense of humor. And very relaxed about things. And they're able to laugh easily at themselves and at other things.

I found the

I had a colleague at Columbia, David Weiss Halivni, was a great rabbinic scholar. He knew the whole Talmud by heart. He was a He was a cellmate in the concentration camp with Elie Wiesel. So, he's very very respected in in those circles. He still He retired, but and he's mostly in Jerusalem, but he's still He's still around. And he was so great. And he was such a humor, and he told me about this incident where Zipporah [snorts] saved Moses' life. And it's just And then I I couldn't believe the humor of them It apparently the Midrash, the commentaries by the rabbis they they even make fun of God. They just make so much fun of God. They think God is so funny. No, really. Do you know that story? You read it

I don't know if I I don't know if that if I know that particular story. They do They Their relationship with God is really funny cuz they debate and they argue.

Oh, totally.

[laughter]

And then you should know you should know you should know the story.

Oh, okay.

God sends him over there on this fool's errand of telling Pharaoh to let them let his the slave people go let his people let Israel go. And then he says, "But I'm going to make Pharaoh not agree." So, you know, he won't let you Well, why are you sending me there? Well, okay, I'll I'll work it out. You just go. So, he does go. And he's on the way and he's in a motel in in Jeddah or some place on the way to to Egypt, you know, cuz he was in Arabia. He was in lived And Zipporah is not Jewish. She was some Arab person, you know, like a like a Berber or something. Zipporah, his wife. They had a couple of kids. And um she said that she's awake and and he's snoring, you know, Moses. Then God comes storming in the room in a humanoid-looking body. And he says, "Where's that Moses? I'm going TO KILL HIM." AND SHE SAYS, "WHAT'S the matter with you? What do you going to kill him? He's He's doing what you asked, you know, what's your problem?" He says, "Well, I found out he's not circumcised. I'm going to kill him." And she says, "Well, what's a what? He's not circumcised. He He He brought up by the Egyptians. Don't you know the bull rush story? What's the matter with you? He was born It's not his fault. Why are you going to kill him? He's going to do your thing. I but I don't care. He's not so I'm going to kill him. So then she makes a deal. And she says, "Look, he's too old. He'll probably be beat to death. You know, it's I can't do that to him. Otherwise, I would to save his life. But you know what? I have two boys and we don't do that in our tribe. But I'll circumcise them. So you'll have two for one. Okay, how's that?" Oh, that's great. Good idea. And then God splits. And the rabbis discuss this. I think you're all I was hysterical in laughing. When when David told me that. And and then and then he also he told me that traditional rabbinics believe multiple lives. And that people always argue about Rabbi Akiva is reincarnated as who? And was he Maimonides? Or was he this? Or was he that? And and the Kabbalists do too. Isaac Luria and all those guys. So I really And Jesus was a rabbi for crying out loud. Yeah. Well, well, they should get that through their head all those pink supremacist anti-Semitic people. Jesus was a rabbi. Okay?

I have a I have a copy of the Gates of Reincarnation from Isaac Luria sitting on the shelf. You know, it's really interesting. Yeah.

I didn't know he even has a book with that title. That I did not know.

Yeah, it's really amazing.

Really?

Yeah. And I actually found like I had little epiphanies from the Kabbalah about Buddhism, you know, about Buddhist Tantra. There's a part in the Bahir.

sorry. It's called the Gates of Reincarnation.

of Reincarnation. Yeah.

Wow.

I'll take a picture of it. I'll send it to you, Professor Thurman, afterwards. It's really interesting.

Do they have it in English?

English English translation. Yeah, you can get it probably in Amazon. It's It's very interesting.

That's so cool.

It's very interesting. Yeah.

So that's my I'm really interested in that.

Yeah.

And I'm I'm I'm totally excited about it.

Well, there's the the great book of the the Jew and the Lotus about the Dalai Lama inviting you know these Jewish leaders.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was made by Blue Greenberg who was one of the rabbis there. I was made a female rabbi. I was made a honorary rabbi.

Oh, no kidding.

But but I would cuz that wasn't my role. I was there as to translate and mediate, you know, their discussions with the Dalai Lama all these rabbis from variety of all different types of Judaism. And um but then they were he asked them when he asked them the big question which for him was so important how did you keep your culture so many centuries in exile? When we Tibetans I think we're going to lose it in two or three generations practically. I'm very worried about it and but they haven't I said but I am very worried about it. So then they're all giving different different reasons, you know. And Blue gave a household ritual and others gave this and that. And then one of the reasons they all came up with was that they don't ever agree with each other about anything. And I was almost surprised. What do you mean you don't agree? He said you all believe in God, don't you? He said no, no, we don't all believe in God. That Genesis no, that's a myth. We don't A bunch of them are saying then some of them are saying yes, we do. What are you talking about? We believe it. They were they were starting to debate right then and there in front of him.

Yeah.

And then finally they almost agreed that they never agreed. And then they noticed that they had agreed that they never agreed. And so they decided that they they did agree on not agreeing and then they were

[laughter]

but anyway that but anyway in the middle of all of those reasonings that they gave to the about why they survived their culture so many so many centuries from from AD 170 or CE 170. Um I then piped up and I said I couldn't stand it anymore. It was so cuz it was so fun but anyway I had to pipe up. So I said well, one thing none of you guys ever mentioned. And they said well, what do you mean? The a I said that you survived your culture all this time with dementia. Although Blue Greenberg came closest. I said, "Well, what do you mean?" And I said, "None of you mentioned the Jewish mother."

[laughter]

I said, "And then And then Blue Greenberg said, 'Right, you're right. So, you should be honorary rabbis,' he said. But Roger didn't write that. He didn't put that in the book. But uh Blue liked that. And uh Blue's husband is Orthodox, Yitz Greenberg. And he told me in our off-campus conversations, he said, "We don't mind our young people studying Buddhism." He said, "As long as their feet are nailed to the synagogue floor."

[laughter]

But anyway, I As far as that, you know, in following the Dalai Lama's advice to learn from other religions and and etc. And not [snorts] to convert anybody to Buddhism or to any And then they should not try to convert Buddhists etc. or Hindus and Christians or whatever group it is. Uh I The one that I'm most interested in actually now that his is Judaism. I'm really excited about.

I had a great experience with this book called the Bahir. It's one of the Kabbalistic books, the Book of Splendor. And I kind of credit it for

the one

The Book of It's like the Book of Splendor, I want to say. The Bahir. It's one of the great old books. I'll send a picture of it to you.

I have the I have the 14 volumes of the Zohar.

Yeah, I got that one, too.

Daniel Matt. Daniel Matt says it's

Yeah, great translation. Yeah, great translation.

I I've only read small parts of it, although I love the beginning where the different letters come to God and say they want to help with the creation and he keeps he keeps not accepting the help and then he comes up with whatever he wants. And I thought that was so cool because it was like the Indian thing about how mantras create the universe, you know. Not Not the first creation, of course, because it's a cyclical thing. It's been going on beginninglessly, but each time that the that a local universe arises from the state of dissolution, which I spent 20 kalpas in or 20 aeons in, and they arise for 20 aeons, and they exist for 20 aeons, and they collapse for 20 aeons. Cycle like that. And they have a big thing about letters, mantras, rather than atoms. Created, you know.

Well, in this uh

The word, you know.

And by here, it really reminds me of your work, uh Professor Thurman, because the point that they make in the first chapter in the commentary is about this. They basically say, "From one point of view, everything kind of looks like the world around you, but from another point of view, the divine point of view, everything just looks like the divine."

[laughter]

So, everything is just some big sea of bliss. Yeah, it's the same idea. Same idea. Yeah. And I was I was amazed, and I had this thought that so much like at the time when I read it, it so speaks to me in your books, too, because I was like, "Well, I can't I I can believe that this is all the divine around me. I can believe it's a sea of bliss. I just can't see it yet."

[laughter]

Right. But, you know, you can develop that confidence.

just like Buddhism does, it teaches a method of where you can learn Maybe you can't see it, but you can be it. You can merge with it. That's where the bliss is. When you give up give give in to it, where you let go, and you you you And there's a plane sort of at the surface of the realization of what we call clear light, transparency. Uh which you Transparency means you discover you are also transparent. So, there's no one who sees it as an object. There's no subject outside of it that sees it as an object is the in the realization. Which I think the mystics in theistic mystics also have same thing, actually. They do. And but there's a surface thing where there is a luminous white light and a and a reddish light and a dark light. So, and then the transparency is beyond the duality of light and dark. Is there So, so that there is a light there's light there, but but it doesn't leave out dark actually. So, it's transparency. You know, I I learned that just in in promoting this book and having talks with people.

Uh-huh.

I learned that, you know, you know, the Western materialists dogmatically entrapped materialist scientists who otherwise in their analysis and investigation are wonderful, but they're trapped in that dogma. But anyway, they found out their their standard model of the universe has collapsed completely except for 97% dark matter or dark energy. Which say [laughter] which has to be there or the thing is finished. And yet they haven't seen it yet cuz it's dark. Yeah. Well, that's this is the meeting point of what we might call spirituality because there's two kinds of things you can't see. Not just one.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

see in the dark, yes, but you also can't see something that's transparent.

Mhm.

And especially if the seer is equally transparent, you're never going to see it in a conventional subject-object way. But you can melt into it and then you and then you you do what in a way we do every night. We melt into it. We go unconscious and then something renews our cell energy. Something sweeps the plaque out of our brain at least for a few years, two decades. Something makes us feel better about it in the morning than we fulfilled it when we passed out. So, that means that there is a transparent plane of energy that can give of itself to ourselves. Yeah, that's nice.

Yeah.

And that means that that means that transparent matter and transparent energy is maybe 100%.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

What do you think?

Everything. I'm with you. Everything.

Yes.

Yeah.

Are we good? Are we good?

Yeah, yeah.

Daniel?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're we're good. We're good. Yeah, everything is there.

I know I talk too much. I'm very bad.

No, no, I'm taking I'm I'm taking notes, Professor Dharma, cuz I want to make sure that I, you know, can keep all the everything

All right.

Kind of Daniel's our Daniel is our scribe.

They told me at the end I should hold up the book.

Yeah, hold it up. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm so for, you know, for all of our listeners and and people who are here, I'm going to this will all be mentioned in the beginning. We'll put links to the book. Um, I'll I'll put that in the in the description of the podcast.

can you can tell you can tell that the sub subtitle to your audience the invisible sub subtitle is cheer the F up.

Yes. Oh, yeah, for sure. That that's going to be the name of our podcast, for sure.

[laughter]

That's the title of this episode.

That damn right, you know.

But in order to do wait a minute. In order Wait, one last thing. I know we're good, but one last thing.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, we have time. We have time, Professor Dharma.

sessions. We went on a paradigm. But one last thing. Yes, there's horrible things going on. We have to be activists to deal with. So, I don't mean in some solipsistic manner cheer the F up and ignore the nasty things going on.

Right.

You know, and the pink supremacist there's and the crazy people, you know, and the dictator of Russia who's messing up the beautiful nice Russian people I love so much. And then the weird guy who would be emperor in China except he's got Karl Marx sitting on his head. Otherwise, if he was emperor, he'd be nicer. And he he should adopt the old Confucian thing and be an honest nice emperor. That would be better. But but anyway, you know, so we should be activists about all that, human rights, you know, political vote, everybody vote, etc. And [snorts] um But you do all of that better, protest even. You do that better when you're cheery.

Mhm.

That's why my favorite protest in history was the hat march. And because that's that has to be cheery when you have a on your head. Uh you know, that's really cheer, good cheer. But the problem is that they went back every day. They went back more often because they were busy, you know. That's America keeps you busy so you won't be free. So so my point is uh so I'm not ignorant and I am a activist, especially environmental Greta Thunberg activist, and a vote activist, and a democracy activist.

[music]

I want you to get together. I want you to get together. What you say?

[music]

Get together, now. I want you to get together. [music] I want you to get together.