Welcome to our Thursday gatherings today happens to be Earth Day, which is an auspicious day I just listened to Joanna Macy, you know who she is, she's like 93 years old. I think I saw Karen's name there I think yeah some some people I see her there. She's a rock star. She's written a number of books she's really like the queen of
the whole
tourism ecology movement and she wrote a book. Quite a few decades ago that really had a big impact on me, mutual causality, Buddhism in general systems theory it's a big complex title, but it's brilliant. It's really great and so yeah she gave this really lovely poignant riff. What's happening today, right. So along those lines, I watched her very powerful film the other day that I asked Andy we're gonna watch it out on one of the upcoming Saturday night, movie nights where, well, maybe you've seen it already, CSI CSI, a CA, and then like isn't suicide. It's a really good, really challenging document I had to watch it, to sit two nights, it was so intense, Because of the just how much he reveals really disturbing in a good way. If there is such a thing as a good way to be disturbed. So if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it but we're gonna, we're gonna show it because I was thinking, you know, sometimes I think about oh this isn't the right platform you know we have to do all the spiritual stuff we have to stay on the meditation track. But it's like my friend David Loy writes about in his book eco Dharma Buddhist teaching to the ecological crisis that if we can't apply what we're doing to what's happening in the world today, you know just social thing but all the isms racism, you name it, in the in the ecological situation and what relevance, are these teachings you know what, why are we doing that stuff just to feel better to escape. So, anyway, on this Earth Day. It's nice to bow a little bit towards Mother Earth because, on behalf of us, she's in the Hebrew hurt. And we need to do something about it, really. So, I have a flight and a couple hours so I have to keep this particular session, maybe on the 15 minute mark and because of that, I'm going to go right to some of the questions that were submitted. So those of you who want to ask questions can certainly get that in mind. Usually I do a little bit longer riff and then transition over, because after fly out, I just wanted it mostly what we do here, we've done it for a year, is just hang out and talk about stuff. So, A couple questions came in and so I'll start with those. And then if anybody has anything else live chat or something in the chat, a live question, raise your hand. Otherwise you can put something in the chat or ping at the end and he'll put it in the doc, so. Okay, so let's start here, and then see where this takes us so from someone, anonymous. Hi Andrew recently I met a respected teacher Lama. And I was really struck by the impact he had on me I felt intense energy in my body to stay for a long time after this meeting with him. It increasingly became difficult to focus on work or even sleep. I kept waking up all through the night. And by the seventh after this meeting I was exhausted from the lack of sleep, and the anxiety that that ensued. I was a bit worried for myself by the end of the week because I found myself quite a dark place. Finally after a lot of pain. And I'm assuming mostly self created suffering, I was able to do tunneling for myself and the pages vanished. Very cool. I feel like I was possessed by a demon that whole time. Any idea what might have been going on. Why such an extreme reaction. I'm also curious about the energy display it was almost a passion and a desire to possess. I didn't feel any agitation just a pure feeling of passion and a very vivid way. I'm kind of confused with the whole experience because I had no control over most of it. Both the initial euphoria of the meeting and the subsequent bar like endless misery that continued, I'm thinking also that my reaction may be habitual contraction, like you mentioned in the early chapters of your dreams a black book any understanding any help understanding and experience. Okay, well thank you for the courage to share this. Who's tricky one. Right, well level above my paygrade. And by this, what I mean is I'm not a therapist, so I don't want to kind of be a dilettante and tap into things that I've just not trained to work with but I can give you perhaps some general overarching impressions. And one thing I you know a little bit like it's a little bit like, you know everyone I think I might have shared it every once in a while I actually do read the Dear Abby thing and my paper just, I don't know why. Just for the heck of it right.
Sometimes that lead magnet to clickbait clickbait is enough that it clicks me and and so I you the one thing I appreciate about her I don't even know who it is anymore Dear Abby, I don't know who the person is but you get the dear IV person. What I do appreciate about this, her responses is very, very often, she says. Nice thing is a cop out but it's not a cop out. You know he really would be good to work with a therapist or a counselor or somebody in a professional capacity and so I do say that, actually, with some seriousness, but then I'll give you some general first hits on this, because of the overwhelming impact of this, some of which was so so called negative. I think there was, you know, and this happens, unbelievably commonly especially with charged teacher, student relationships, I'll say a little bit more about that in a second. Most assuredly some kind of projection transference thing going on. I mean, this happens like all the time and we're always projecting we're always engaged in this transference countertransference thing either shadow boxing or shadow hugging and by this what I mean is that shadows. This is a you know, Young's phrase for elements that are kind of held within the unconscious unconscious mind, these are not the shadows are not always dark you know that the implication seems to be that it's just all the shadow boxing, you know what, we're projecting all these negative shadows but sometimes it's what they call the golden shadow, where what you do then is not only do you project your negative BS on people we do this, like all the time. But we also project, our golden qualities out to people, and when we do this kind of shadow hugging thing. And so one of the little Maxim's that I read decades ago, that really has traction for me still, is that when something affects you. More than it informs you, You're probably dealing with a projection, right, something affects you more than it informs you and so you are profoundly affected. So projection was involved. And when that projection is involved and like we've talked about in the dreams of light book What have you done you've unwittingly imbued this person with a power they don't inherently have. So it happens in a heartbeat sometimes and I'll tell you where some of this actually can be large and how it comes up and what actually may trigger this for you. But the reason it had such an impact this person does not have this power over you unless you somehow conferred upon them. So in a very rapid fire away. You know you imbued this person with this power. And then you know what you reveal about the grasping passion thing also reveals a little bit more of this, this kind of shadow work. And, you know, the fact is this desire to possess so that's definitely you know sort of ego, raising its head getting involved in the mix this stuff gets really tricky, really tricky when you're, when you're working with teachers, especially as you put it a respected teacher, who I'm sure has tremendous, you know, really great qualities. And so, again, like what we do is we, we just plaster this per person, poor person with all our stuff and then so we're back, we're actually working with our own material projected onto this the intensity of that certainly suggests. And so what's happening. You know the also what came to mind quite immediately when I read this was, there was some scar was triggered right so I've read quite a bit about these some scars. These are super important topics, it's basically Buddhist, Hindu ways of talking about these and digested and metabolized on processed psychic cysts residues that are lodged in the unconscious mind. And so whenever something has this kind of disproportionate effect. There's definitely some scar being triggered so somewhere in the past who knows what right some karmic thing, who knows. This is where the really a therapist can really help you tease, tease this apart. There are some digested and metabolized unprocessed material and so somehow karmically or whatever. The some scar was triggered. Because obviously, you know, a ton of other people
would probably need the same person and have nothing like your reaction. So you're bringing your history right to this person, and so if it was all like, super positive stuff. That's more shadow hugging, there's a little bit of that but this is more shadowboxing, to me that's why I left you with this kind of bitter taste. And so it's also very interesting here about how you felt powerless. I had no control over it. Well that's because you gave your control away, whether you know it or not, Nobody has this kind of power to control you unless you unwittingly conferred upon them. So, this is really delicate, you know, I'm definitely not trying to become a therapist here, but this is the sort of stuff. Honestly, I find this super interesting. And honestly, if I were you I would talk to somebody who can help and I if you want to behind the scenes, write to me, Randy, I can refer you to some extremely gifted therapists, I don't work with them, that can maybe you have perhaps helped me tease this apart because you know the the reactivity was was disproportionate to the actual event, and so therefore some history, you know, was definitely triggered. So the details of that, I can't say I mean this is something that really has to be picked apart in with real authenticity power and someone who knows what they're doing, but the underlying processes the underlying mechanism phenomenology I think is somewhere along these lines that you know when there's this, this really powerful reaction. There's combination of projection transference, and also your triggers of you some scars. So, you know, the fact that you did Tomlin for yourself is fantastic, and that the pain just kind of vanished. I mean you say some very insightful things here and that's really pretty darn good. You know that there was a way for you to kind of ride that experience and so maybe I'll let that go for now. Thank you for sharing it takes courage to do that in a platform like this. But that's what that's what first comes to mind on this, and if I were you I again write to me, right d&d I'll give you the name behind the scenes of some people that I either work with very personally or people I know that are really good in this area that can help you tease this apart. Because otherwise, those processes are probably still there. They are for all of us, and there'll be triggered in another event some other time. So, yeah, I think if you read the dreams of light book right, I think there's several, I think I can't remember. I know for sure if you didn't there's stuff in some of my sound like a cheap car salesman here, but I recently posted some classes where I talked a lot about projection. And the viewing of this power is called Shenlong into that and other power, where we you know, again we we transfer this power on to others that they don't inherently have we do it all the time. So that's what comes to mind here and probably the best I can do a good for now. Okay, from Kathy, could you please ask Andrew Yes. If space has consciousness. Because I know physics explains the cosmos is made of over 99.9% 99% space. Yeah well it's actually more than that it's 99 point, followed by 13 zeros, space, right. So it's almost all space but this is an interesting one, if you're talking about physical space, you know, this is one of these yes no questions that on one level, what you're talking about is, is a form of Pan psychism where this is a kind of a view that everything has mind properties consciousness everything, you know, it's like it's a turtles all the way down, even even to so called empty space. I think one has to be really careful with this sort of thing.
Because,
well let me let me just say something before I forget about just space itself, so called physical space. Before I talk about mind space because there. This is where it gets interesting because they're not the same nor are they different. And so if we talk about physical space, space doesn't have consciousness if we talk about space as mind space that's where it gets a little bit more interesting, but physical space itself is not empty. It's just, you know loaded in the place to go here, you know, read the work of David Boehm right, especially wholeness in the implicit order. This is what the obligate order is all about, you know that in a thimble full of space there's more energy than like all the matter in the universe or some like ridiculous amount is called the zero point energy field in physics. So right off the bat empty space is not empty, it's actually full of tremendous energy. And it's also full of infinite forms of information, you know, trillions of neutrinos are flowing through it, this is we're talking about pure physics, countless forms of electromagnetic radiation, magnetic radiation from super long radio waves to super short gamma waves, what we call empty space is just saturated with information, but it's not conscious, in that sense. And this is why I'm a massive fan of Pan psychism is just one of two extreme ways to try to solve the mind body problem. The other way is idealism, so you either with Pan psychism you infuse mind into matter in this case space in an idealism, you, you do it the other way around. It's just the opposite of that and so I don't adhere to the principles of Pan psychism. So that level of space is not conscious but if you're talking about now about space, awareness, from awards ocean Mahamudra point of view, then that's a different story. But again, it's not the same as physical space, I mean this this is not conscious, it has no responsibility, it has no sentience sentience is a subset of consciousness and that's defined by that which can perceive pleasure or pain well I can burn bomb cut this space and there's no reactivity to that so it's not sentience is that conscious in that way. But there is a deeper, more subtle exploration of the space. When he started talking, which you mentioned in your second question, which I'll now turn to that, maybe can add a little bit of interest to you. From a Hindu perspective so this is the second part of your question. When we generate bodhichitta bliss and dedicated to all beings are we investing into this space. Okay, or so different appearances can arise. No, I don't think so. In other words, can we say space is stored karma. Again, no, not physical space, but this is where, again, things get really interesting so don't reduce everything into, so called physical space, because if you do it the tenets of what you're saying don't hold my opinion. But one area where you can look here and if I were you I'd recommend it is. In Vedic philosophy, where they talk about the Akasha, you know, I'm not, you know, super informed in this but I knew a little bit about it. I remember in fact many, many years ago. We're talking decades ago actually, I had a very powerful experience with what's called an Akashic mediator, so I'll come back to what Akashic records are and Akashic mediators, you may know this but this is if I were you I would bark up this tree, where in the demonic Hindu traditions you know Brahma is this kind of unmanifest energy of Creation, it infiltrates everything, and so on one level, you'll see from this perspective you can say Brahma Dharmakaya in Buddhist language dharma.to infuses absolutely everything. So you can't say it's physical space but you can't say it's not physical space, it's, it's beyond categorizations. But where it gets somewhat interesting and I invite you to look at it is that what's called a Catia AKSAKSH Catia Akasha is really the first manifestation of this Brahman energy actually coming into so called form it would be somewhat akin to what we call symbol the Caya in the Buddhist tradition, and this is a subtle energetic basis, you know, it's really easy to conjoin it with it's called the zero point energy field and physics, isn't the same thing,
I don't know if anybody can answer that question. But there are you know they, the word sound the same, they seem to refer to the same thing so I'm agnostic. This is an open question for me, but if I were you I would look here, look at the Akasha look at things like the Akashic records, because this is where according to this view of reality, everything is fundamentally stored it's kind of a collective in Buddhist terms that kind of collective Alia VGR this collective consciousness. It's a field that stores everything at least according to the political point of view, so I'll probably let that go, because I'm not, you know, an expert in Vedic approaches to this but it's, it's just to me, Get the it's a would raise your gaze. And don't try to reduce everything into so called physical space, you know, look at the relationship of space to space awareness, realizing what we call physical space. And I've said this many times just like light. It's not the same as the space of the mind, but it's also not different, and that's why this question, you know, you can't just throw the whole, you can't throw the whole thing away because then you throw the baby out with the bathwater. So just one has to be really careful to make these kind of connections. They're very tempting to do, but they also can lead to some kind of mistake called category errors and things like that where you think they're talking about the same thing because they're using the same words but they're not. So, unless you have something else you want to say about that, that's where I would go read about the zero point field energy stuff if you want to read about it, you know the science behind it is not so simple. People who do talk about it with some regularity Deepak Chopra actually riffs on this quite a bit. Again, anything, Vedic deep philosophy and the Akasha riffs on this sort of thing. So, the implicant order in David bones work, that kind of thing. That's where I would go if you want to know more. Okay, from Tim. In my understanding of projection, in my understanding projection is an unconscious process, which we need to withdraw to become more complete and whole. So in a way is not our whole spiritual journey withdrawal of projections. Great comment my friend requests yes on one level, absolutely. Yeah, so here's, here's the way this works, this is a colossal topic. This is so interesting to me so let's go to the very source of this for a second, this is worth riffing on. In a certain sense you can say it starts on the Bartos but remember the Bardo is a bi directional, you know that there is no single point source. In other words, what happens in the Bardot's is just another iteration of what's happening now, but let's use the Bartos is an exaggerated instance of this and then you can start to extrapolate how it works now. And that is that in the luminous Bardot Dada, you when you return to this primordial space light of mind. Then what takes place is just the absolute utter radiance of the mind, radiance, where in the bottle of dermatitis, it's radiates out, this is not a projection. This is radiance, where the lights of the mind shine and then the deities shine and all the four stages of that border shine.
But then what happens
is because we don't recognize that radiance, then we flip into the comic bar, it will be coming where radiance is perverted into protection. And then right there. The whole exactly like you're saying, this is the start of the whole samsaric agenda where mind reality, then gets lost in its display. So in, in aluminous Bardo down on top of that, the essence and the display are unified. That's the light state, but we don't recognize that as such and so then the display breaks away from the essence, the luminosity breaks away from the essence and then we get it, We get basically addicted to light, really we're all on a deeper level we'll all, we're all light junkies, really, we're addicted to frozen mice. And so the display breaks away from the essence, it's and then it's projected out in a way, this is the leaping over the mother and child luminosity when the child jumps out of the lap of the father, so the cosmology here is super interesting and I want to say this, this may seem a little bit abstract, this because this is the root of all debris all projections start from this. And so, so then upon that prime primordial projection of other otherness, you know duality is instantly created, and we lose the essence of the display, we lose it on the projection. That's what throws us out of the Dharma tie into the Bardo becoming that's what throws us out of the Bardo becoming into life. That's what throws us away from the diameter, right now, moment to moment every time we leave after a thought image thing whatever we're basically running after our projections. And so the projection principle is extraordinarily powerful and multifaceted there's so many layers of it so the first primordial archetypal projection is in fact the projection of duality. The projection that there is an out there out there, there isn't even in physics, right, you've heard me say this, John Wheeler physicist student of Einstein, there is no out there out there. There is no out there out there
a lot.
But we project we freeze, and so this is the primordial projection of duality. And then upon that, then ego builds it's very sick church right, so then you have all these other layers of projection, the psychological things all this stuff we're talking not just gets heaped on top of that layer after layer after layer. Based on these unconscious processes, all of which are based on ignorance. And so, just like you say to in exactly that, exactly that way, the spiritual journey is about owning up to projections doing. Now I actually like integral approach to this, what they call three to one shadow work, or you can read about it in real life practice this book is really clever really very insightful way to take ownership of our projections, mostly from a psychological stance but he can actually take you back to this ontological projection so what you're saying absolutely is the withdrawal of the projections all the way back and these layers is this multi layered wedding cake, right, this is the marriage to duality, the marriage to samsara, this multi leveled wedding cake. What a great image of projection on top of projection on top of projection. And just like you're saying, the path is withdrawal from that and so this is also why psychological work shadow work really becomes handy, because it's part of this process of ownership, owning up and taking responsibility, and so it takes a lot of guts to do this because we then discovered through this work that we can't blame anybody for our suffering or our happiness. We can only look in the mirror, because we're the ones that project the world in our image. And so, great comment, the whole thing absolutely you can look at it as withdrawal ownership projections for sure.
Okay, Evelyn.
During the recent parallel weekend with men law, you said you could spend a whole weekend unpacking the son of Mahamudra, oh yeah, easy. Would you please do spend a weekend unpacking this other. Ah, yeah, maybe, Let me think about it and when I used to teach on this, this thing quite a bit years ago. For those of you who may not know this masterpiece. This is an unbelievable composition, it's like what's called a Terumah, which means it's a treasure text, discovered by Trump Burbidge here, it was actually written in what's called mind space there's that term again by the tantric Buddha partners and Baba, and there's so much to say here but, you know, just like the Tibetan Book of the Dead was, was kind of co authored or channeled by karma link but it was written by Padma Sun bhava that the channel co authored by karma link but southern Babu was written by purpose of mother be channeled co authored by Trump MPJ it's a, it's an absolute masterpiece it's by far the most profound liturgy I've ever come across. And the fact that it is in the public domain is just breathtaking. This is my desert island liturgy, I don't know anything is powerful, is this practice. And so what Evelyn's referring to is when we did this tantric puroland we get it. I use that is because on one level, the sadhana Mahamudra is tantric puroland practice it's also a protector practice, It's also a glue yoga, it's everything if there's, it's just unbelievable. So, so let me think about it. Um, let me think about it again I used to do it a ton, I don't have any of that stuff recorded or if I do somewhere it's probably on a cassette or something, you know, it's probably actually written in palm leaves somewhere. I taught it so long ago. I don't even think they have electronics in those ages, I think, just like the sutras, it was carved in stone or putting in palm leaves so somewhere so let me see if I can find the palm leaves. I love to do it, it's just a matter of how many people would actually come to it because it's it's it's somewhat esoteric, but it is beyond profound so I'll plant the seed that will lead and then we'll see if it comes to fruition. Okay, it's an amazing piece. Okay, from Glenn. Any comments on the work of Michael 11 on electrical communication structures guiding the growth of cells into body parts and normal and abnormal organisms.
And when you crack me up, dude.
Again, I'm laughing with you not at you it's like. In short, no I don't know this person. It sounds really cool. Maybe if you're here, you can come on and say a little bit of why you're interested in this, but I don't know about electrical communication structures gliding guiding the grill cells into body parts. It sounds. It sounds super cool.
Unfortunately,
but this one draws a total blank for me, so please fire away what moves you on this one. Well,
so my YouTube feed said we should see this new Ted interview I guess the TED Talks turned into 10 interviews during COVID. And it's with this young professor. I don't have a biology background, I mean I have the background to understand, but what it appears that he and his laboratories have done his tests apart the a tadpole. For example, and, and break its early formation into cells into a lot of different separate parts. And then what they observed before they break it apart, is there's actually electrical communication occurring between all the cells as if the cells are neurons and been able to manipulate those electrical communications and produce absolutely bizarre organisms or take some of the stem cells and fiddle around with their electric things and produce these brainless intestinalis objects that go around and move, and it's it's a sense that there's an electrical field operating on a series of cells that basically controls the growth completion termination of the growth, and which is independent of DNA, although not necessarily independent of RNA so I've never come across it before and this is amazing it's an electrical field concept, controlling growth. Right, so.
Oh that's awesome I mean tongue in cheek were totally came to mind is when you said that it creates bizarre beings that are bright brainless. Well, that's probably what happened to me, that's how I came into existence, a bizarre brainless being so I should I should learn about what brought me into existence.
But what what does come to mind.
I love this kind of stuff, and thank you for bringing it to my attention. It does a little bit click into some of the epigenetic stuff. And again, I think was Bruce Lipton I'm not sure. It's really interesting way of talking about something akin to this when he talks about the wonderful play on words, you know how that Candace pert says something quite similar that each one of our 50 trillion cells, they should actually be looked across a look upon is actually 50 trillion little brains. And, in fact he has a wonderful play on the word membrane actually should be meme B ra di n, that there's a whole lot going on, that is, is, I can't even think I'm not not sure you can say trans genetic I'm not sure that's the right word, but there's you know there's something interesting happening in in electrical arenas and field arenas and that sort of thing. So again, I'm not a biologist either. But I think what you're sharing is really cool and, you know, it's something that, what's the name of the guy who did what's the name of the TED.
Michael lemon. Oh yeah, Michael, go to YouTube you'll find all sorts of stuff I guess he's one of the hottest new young scientists surrounds,
so what, what's his background, is he a geneticist or molecular
everything he's, yeah, yeah, he appears to be everything, a polymath, he's a biology, he's a bio engineer, he's a programmer. There he's phrasing, a lot of it in, in neural net stuff. Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, cool. Yeah, I'll check it out I don't know anything about it so thanks for Thank
you find something, let us know. Yeah, I'm
sure it's what brought me into being as a dark brain was being, like, go look for mommy,
so.
Thank you, glad.
Okay, so from Kira. Is there a luminous part of damata and the descending sleep process, meaning is there a luminous place, we fall, we fail to recognize in our nightly travels, for sure, absolutely, yes, it's correlative to deep, dreamless sleep, and in fact can be accessed with things like sleep yoga. So absolutely 100% You know this is the cool thing about bertos barter principle is their fractal nature their reiterative nature that we look at when we talk about the you know the Bardo does have the end of life that's just the most pronounced example demonstration of Bardot's that occur every night when we fall asleep and, and even more nuanced between each and every thought. So, this is the reiterative quality. It's actually called the principle of universality in philosophical circles, where you have these echoes of these processes occurring at all these different dimensions. And so absolutely. That's why the practice is actually called and Tibetans called ersel, o s e l, en la over the O which means luminosity so sleep yoga is actually luminosity yoga. So when, when you fall into deep, dreamless sleep with awareness, you fall into this black light and parenthetically, you know I'm involved in, you'll hear this in the interview. We just released yesterday with Benjamin Baird because he's a neuroscientist, who's actually really smart guy, who's working now with a bunch of other people to actually try to substantiate you know this claim for ages, that you can maintain awareness and deep, dreamless sleep that has not been scientifically proven yet it's super hard so I'm a little bit involved with these people trying to study, you know create study designs and thanks for that, but in short, absolutely, positively. But, again, to make it even more intimate, immediate, you don't even have to wait to fall asleep, to see the data. It buys between each and every thought, really, really, if you pay very close attention to you by and in fact, certainly MPJ says that the space between your thoughts, beautiful images your passport into the bottles, because that is exactly if it's a micro instantiation of what you're going to experience at the end of your life. So, absolutely 100% So Virginia. Yeah, I heard the Joanna Macy thing too, it was really beautiful. What a, again, I started with some comments about her. She's a rock star. That guy just gave a boy just gave me her most recent book, wild was for the world, which actually is an anthology. In honor of Joanna so she's a She's a superstar so anyway I just heard join it, I did two is the keynote celebration for Earth justice day. She spoke about work that we can do on the inner level, as we, as well as work we need to do on the outer level, so that we can achieve environmental, social justice, can you speak to these inner and outer levels in terms of what is most helpful for us as practitioners brand Buddhist practitioners, but probably many of us are also environmental racial justice seekers and for him. So in other words, can you speak to these inner and outer levels, what is most helpful to do in this lifetime.
Yeah,
I can't a little bit. First of all, it's, it's the work of our time. This is the work of our age, because if we don't do it, we're done. Really, the more the more data watch this movie CSI, I mean, watch or read the book uninhabitable Earth uninhabitable Earth read David Lloyd, I mean there's so much of this stuff. This is, you know, if you if. Here's the deal, it's a little bit like teachings on emptiness, if you're not shocked by what's happening to this planet. You don't know what's happening to this planet, they can't, I don't mean to get on my soapbox and preach, I'm sure everybody here knows, but I think I'm pretty well informed, and then I watched something like CSI, or read another book and it's like every time I read it. It doesn't get better. It gets worse. And it's happening faster so we're in the sixth mass, mass extinction, for sure, all the previous five, not our fault this one. Totally our fault, is because we have technologies that are not correlative to the intelligences that harness them and work with them. In other words, you have a bunch of idiots who have their hands on these, you know, look at what they do with with fishing industrialize mass genocide of the sea. If the sea dies, we die, we came from the ocean, we're killing the ocean. That's, hence the word CSI, the ocean is dying, and that means we are dying. And so I used to be, you know, maybe you missed my rant at the beginning, much more kind of spiritually correct right, oh, oh, don't say that it's not you know don't don't ruffle my spiritual feathers. I think for all of us here now we're turning that tide because now we really sensitive to it. So really for me. This is the work of our age, because if we don't do it. We're done. I mean really, we are done. And the earth will scrape us off like a cancer, and then, you know, the earth itself will heal just like when you excise the tumor, but we won't be around. So, the Earth is in super deep trouble. And so, what Joanna says, and, and so many other amazing eco Sophos eco ciphers say, You know the outer work starts with inner processing. So, the reason it's so left up out there is because the people who that have so much power, have not done the inner work they see the world in a completely distorted fashion as a natural resource to be abused polluted. Everything is happening. And so fundamentally the trajectories here are, in fact, just like you're saying they're twofold. We work on both the inner and outer because if we don't, if we don't do some inner work. Then again we get lost in projections and we get, we can get aggressive and violent like the people you know, I was skiing in Vail. A couple of weeks ago and was reminded that a couple of years ago this you know stunningly beautiful Lodge was completely burned down by these eco terrorists, I mean that's not the way, that's not what you do. I mean, what good is that right. So we work we do both tracks. We work on the outer we work on the inner, this is, this is really another reason when I finished my riff of the tantric pure lands with with Bob Thurman, that's where we both webs that this is actually his traction in the Pure Land principle, but right now the world is impure because we're impure. And so as the Dalai Lama says, you know, in terms of disarmament we work within a disarmament first, and then we work with external so yes it's a it's a twofold vector, it's twofold trajectory where you work with the outer and the inner and and don't wait to achieve your version of some lofty spiritual state to start working with the outer. In other words, you know, you can start doing it right now. And there's, again, there's so much to be said and done here. I'm going to refer you, Virginia, if you haven't read David Loise most recent book eco Dharma, Buddha's teachings for the ecological crisis I highly recommend it. This is really one of the better ones. And but one of the reasons I really like it is at the end of the book again so much beyond our scope of what we can talk about here. He talks about things we can do very directly. So I highly encourage you to recommend to read David's book. He's into this in a massive way as as Joanna, but good for you for listening to it I think really for each of us.
We got to do something here, and that's the good news that David shares and there is a little bit of light, that there are, you know, hundreds of 1000s of these small pockets of sanity, no call emergent with this darkness there is some light so that that doesn't mean we should give up hope. It means just we really do need to do something because you know we're inextricably connected to this planet and the deepest of ecologies and by not taking care of yet, we're just going to wipe ourselves out so you understand, so I would do both, you know, read David's book, read Joanna's work, engage in the inner purification processes, that's what the path is about. And then, you know, get off your question and work in the world of vegan don't eat fish don't eat meat, you know I'm, it's not easy. I like fish. Not anymore. It's just don't just literally stop eating fish I'm not kidding,
don't eat meat, I
mean you know what this does that the agriculture industry, one of the major sources of carbon pollution. Unless you think you're eating good clean fish no way because the, you know that hundreds of trillions of tons of plastic that's dumped into the ocean breaks down and guess who eats it the fish. Yes Who eats the fish, we do. So these levels of toxicity again, this is why it really is fundamentally tantamount to suicide so I you know I probably ought to back off. Actually, maybe I shouldn't, but maybe I will. We, none of us should back off at this point, because especially if you have kids. What kind of a planet are you going to leave, right. It's like these kids are going to look back upon this time and say, What the eff were these people thinking, right, right, that'd be that'd be us that'd be our time so it is time for us to get off our cushions, engage, be active politically, be active personally, cut the plastic thing. Cut the meat thing become a vegan really. I got a joke so we don't take this stuff all like too heavy super serious. How can you tell if there's a vegan in the world in the room have you heard this one. How can you tell if there's a vegan in the room, they'll tell you. So anyway, I throw that little bit gallows humor in here, so I'll let I'll let that go for another Virginia but thank you so much for bringing it up I think we as spiritual practitioners need to be a little bit more fearless about this, otherwise what we're doing is just a feel good strategy. It turns into spiritual bypassing I've in fact occurred I think Ken Wilber shared the story with me that he you know he was talking to some, some big spiritual person. And this, this guy actually said the candy yoga you know about that really that concern, I'm going to a pure land when I die, I mean, what really. So that's the near enemy of of spiritual practices spiritual bypassing. Oh, it's all an illusion, it's all a dream. Who cares what happens I'm going to FedEx and just to kava tea when I die. Oh good lord.
I mean, no,
no, it's it's right here right now and it's time for us to do something. So thanks for the opportunity Virginia to riff on that a little bit more dive into it act personally, you know think globally, act locally that stuff works. You know, I think you know the implementation strategies but if you don't read David Loise book he gives you a ton of really good information about what to do, now's the time to do it. Otherwise, you know, it's not just the Dharma that's not going to survive the seam of this human Homo sapiens sapiens KVS. I think it was a you all know a Harare or somebody says I can't remember what you know over like 95% something plus of species goes extinct. Why should we be any different. We're not, we're killing ourselves. Okay. Charles II were you born intestinalis less, as well. Oh yes. Where are you, then born intestine less as well yes gutless, I was born a little godless, but now I have more guts, and that's why I'm riffing on exactly what I said because I do have a little bit more guts. It's time to stand up and take some shots and just do what needs to be done. So yes, I would have to say I was born a little gutless, for sure. Poverty mentality, but I've changed that, you know, I think we actually all do have a lot of power. So, Anyway, that's my little political reference today. Anybody else before I got, actually I don't have a ton of time together. Let me see if something came up here is the movie you're referring to see spear see. Let's say see your side Oh see that's a four Yeah. Oh it is see a side. I think it is. It is the Sarasi Yeah, should be it should be called suicide, but uh your eyes look trying to look it up. No, thank you for correcting me. My bad. Yes, it's called CCRC right. Yes. Sorry, my mistake. See spirity as in conspiracy, so check it out on Netflix, and we are going to show it in a couple weeks when I come back. And, you know, it's intense, it's really disturbing I had a very hard time watching it. It's a heavy movie, but it's real, I mean this it just depicts this guy's this guy's a rock star this young kid who put it together is just really gritty about like what's happening and it's not easy to watch which is why, you know Al Gore nailed it inconvenient truth. People don't want to see what's happening. So yes, see Spira see we'll watch it in a couple weeks and then we can you know all rant and rave together at the same time, and maybe do something about it. Okay everybody, unless there's one final thing I have to kind of head out. Get it do the airport thing a little bit, but on this Earth Day, Let's, you know, raise our gaze. Again, think about what our impact is our carbon footprint, not just our karmic footprint our carbon footprint. And let's just be, you know, really let's be responsible. There's so much we can do individually and collectively to step forward, it's incumbent upon us, really, I think so, we need to do it. So thank you everybody, really appreciate your time. I'm actually gone next week I think Joseph is going to help me out. But stay tuned lots of things are cooking interview is Ben Baird was released yesterday. Terrific interview with a really sharp guy called each other readers physician I got her we were going to be talking at Monday morning, she wrote this really beautiful book called Sound medicine. So we're going to talk about her relationship between Ayurvedic medicine, Western medicine neurology and the power of sound. Ian Baker, Heart of the world, wonderful scholar on the, what's called Hidden lands or Bejo first weekend March, Claire Johnson so if cool things are coming up but for now. Gotta run all the best everybody dedicate the merit send it to this planet that needs it on this day and I'll see you guys around.