Mindrolling With Raghu Markus

Roshi expounds on the transformation of doubt, rootlessness, suffering and meaninglessness into a true “refuge of truth.” At this time of the horrific terror events in Paris, Beirut and Mali, how do we come to terms with severe crisis, either individual or societal? How does the Romantic poet John Keats’s “negative capability” fit into this unavoidable, desperately difficult dynamic of living? Roshi explores the moment of the shock of recognition and how it can change us from the depths. Even the Dalai Lama spoke of those moments of extreme doubt and pain, or as Mr. Dylan sang “Even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked…” Roshi’s upcoming book “Standing At the Edge” is about just this – it’s not all light and love, and yet somehow things can open up after adversity, “the lucky dark” as Roshi wrote.

Early 70’s adventures in the East, leading Michael Daner overland through Europe to Afghanistan and eventually India. What was going on here? This mindboggling journey could never happen now, given the state of the world, but back then, it was a scenario starring many so-called hippies and genuine smugglers, some yearning for the exotic, some desiring money, money, money, and some - Michael, in particular - who eventually graduated from smuggling to seeking…and finding. Included in this tale is an example of Neem Karoli Baba’s wondrous bi-locational capability…plus, as an added extra, a 1980 conversation between David and Bruce Springsteen about his CD “The River”…so please enjoy this picaresque podcast…

Mindrollers and friends in Manhattan, with a far-ranging conversation about the incredible scrolls of St. Issa in Tibet and India; Maharaji telling the Westerners to meditate like Christ; the dismissal of mysticism by modern organized religion; David being accused of black magic by Evangelicals, Raghu being dragged into a “men’s group”; tales of sixties Rajneesh followers copulating in the kitchen…and finally, a Shambala Sun inspired rap on the task of making friends with yourself.  Somehow, we end with an anecdote around the amazing Kalu Rinpoche.  It’s all in there and quite a bit more…

What is real love?  What isn’t?  The Mindrollers turn for inspiration to HH The Dalai Lama and the super intense poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, who said “For one human being to love another, that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks”…talk of cultivating inner spaciousness as the ultimate antidote. Jumping off from a Tricycle article, David confesses Johnny Depp envy while Raghu remembers the perverse joy in jealousy…the answer to these neurotic pulls seems always around finding the freeing route to the heart, your own heart.  Sometimes, instead of fervently reaching for another soul, a spell of serious solitude might help that journey.  Speaking to youth, Rilke says: “They have to learn it.  With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered close about their lonely, timid, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love.”

The Mindrollers challenge a Zen sentiment that teachers are expendable, passionately citing life-transforming personal teaching guidance encountered by both of them. They move on like madmen to the bizarre concept of stool replacement banks for micro biome worries – will Amazon ever offer “good” stool on sale? Once again, we analyze the entropic dangers of too much social media creeping into everything. Do we only know “bits and pieces” of people now? David quotes the the prescient words of Seneca (the Roman humanist saint in Christ’s time) about fecklessly squandering your life away on nonsense, thereby ending life shocked and downed by suffering and mortality. From the horrors of the Coliseum to YouTube addiction, R & D investigate Western civilization’s entertainment obsession. There’s actually even more…check it out for yourself, your Self…

Embrace everything - bad and good, pleasurable and horrible. Chris’s new book, Everything Mind, comes out today. R & D talk with him about its prescient premise that everything – the whole kit and caboodle – from Trump to Ramana Maharshi to the suffering migrant millions to the iPhone 6S Plus - is a legitimate part of the spiritual reality: G-d, The One, whatever, and that this is a necessary and healing component of the spiritual/philosophical inclusion clause – everything is grist to the mill. Even a harsh and hurtful text insult message, even true pain and adversity, even hideous stuff - within you and without you - even Kimye! Chris’s own words on his book: “What I've Learned About Hard Knocks, Spiritual Awakening, and the Mind-Blowing Truth of It All.” Plus David recalls his amazingly counter-intuitive 9/11 kindness experience.

Ecstatic kirtan singer/violinist Jahnavi Harrison is with us on the podcast. She tells her unique life story - as a child raised at the 700 year old Bhaktivedanta Manor home in the Hertfordshire countryside. Beatle George Harrison (no relation) had donated the estate to ISKCON, the Krishna movement, in 1973.  Jahnavi talks of her devotional trajectory from being a child brought up in idyllic rural England to singing to Krishna all over the world.  We talk about the cleansing power of the Maha Mantra, her whole life singing kirtan, and finding that back-and-forth love therein and the universal magnetism of Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Hare Rama Hare Rama.  You will hear her sing live and from her new CD, “Like A River To the Sea."

Ram Dev (Dale Borglum) of the Living Dying Project explores surfing the edge of the heart approaching consciousness transformation, in life…and death. Who dies anyway? How do we change annihilation fear to being right here, still confidently in the heart chakra? “All fear is fear of death” he maintains, “being trapped in separateness” and how the deeper fright is resistance to death rather than death itself. We talk through wholeness and healing for the living as well as those passing and those immediately affected. This seems like heavy stuff, but the end product in this hour is light and insight…into living.

Experience John Lockley’s journey into authentic shamanism after intense and intensive training and initiation.  How did a South African Irishman become a real  Xhosa sangoma - “dreamer”?  What is a shaman anyway?  John talks with R & D about using your dreams to heal your deepest psyche’s wounds and traces his path from soldier/medic to Zen to yoga to Nature-master medicine man.  He tells us in depth about his healing via dreaming, dancing, chanting and plant-ing…

“My yellow in this case is not so mellow” Jimi Hendrix sang. Is it ever cool to be angry? R & D’s wary warnings about the seductively enjoyable taste of anger. Maharaji’s words about anger’s reality, with the crucial caveat to never throw anyone out of your heart. Raghu’s anger is analyzed by… Raghu. David recalls learning to love right wing friends, especially conservative William F. Buckley Jr. Then we talk about Mark Epstein’s take on anger and his very do-able way of dealing with it. David reads a Tom Waits poem about Keith Richards. Finally we dive deep into Trungpa’s Gap - "the space between out breaths” (Pema Chodron) the spaciousness between internal chatter and the sudden glimpse of awareness, openness and absence of self - which scares the shit out of us.

Uber useful conversation with wisdom writer Sylvia Boorstein: her clear and helpful grasp of present-ness… her words on true mindfulness cut with goodwill…her thoughts on thoughts, seeing them as always potentially co-operative and not so bad after all.  Making friends with the present is just that, even if it startles you, “relax, take a rest, calm down” – R & D listen, interrupt, and have a fine time with Sylvia…

Gelek Rimpoche is our honored guest.  A reincarnated tulku, a lucid and unpretentious disperser of essential knowledge, Gelek is a treasured being we are so lucky to have in the U.S.  Because of the ruthless Chinese invasion, Gelek was forced to leave his beloved homeland in 1959.  Tibet’s tragedy became our great fortune.  Hear what he has to say about wiping out negative emotions and achieving equanimity.  His honest-to-the-bone words about his own basic humanity is a balm for all of us.  Rimpoche shares his own Allen Ginsberg stories with David, who was also a friend of the legendary poet/kind soul.  The Mindrollers are so pleased to present this famed and revered Rimpoche, a sacred yet approachable transformative being, there for all of us.  

The Mindrollers with Duncan Trussell and Noah Lampert host our panel guests from our Indiegogo event. Brian, Brian and George. We get an idea of their awakening triggers, pretty heavy ones at that- and they shine a light on the importance of intention. We all talk about practice and how difficult it is to motivate daily unless you are really up against the wall! Duncan admits to his fall down on learning the Hanuman Chaleesa when he can’t even remember his phone number. David regales us with sacred chants - Raghu relates his story of doubt - And finally Duncan pulls out his trusty Bible and leads us in a Bible study group.

Forgiveness wisdom from George Pitagorsky (Balaram) who demonstrates the huge upside of being able to authentically forgive, and how forgiving often benefits the forgiver maybe even more than the forgiven. Is it weakness for a Holocaust victim to embrace one of her tormentors? Wasn’t it incredible for the afflicted Charleston families to espouse forgiveness immediately? George, via both Dzogchen (Great Perfection) and common sense, helps to heal the hating …David apologizes for getting ridiculously irate about a lost bottle top, along with Raghu lamenting his legendary impatience…

R&D travel down diverse roads to happiness, encountering on the way 50 years since Dylan’s Newport electric war cries; Aristotle’s eudaimonia; Jefferson’s iconic requisite declaration; the crazy off-ramp into consumerism and “the cycle of escalating desire”; Andy Puddicombe’s mega mindfulness app; Google’s Chade-Meng Tan…and the rewards of real seva. Check this out, Pharrell…

Raghu and David bring up a very timely topic - prison reform. BJ Wasserman and Jared “Gagan” Levy discuss Inside Circle, a nonprofit organization that helps prisoners and parolees heal from the inside. We talk about “operational transformation” of men in Folsom prison as a model for the entire prison system. Robert Allbee, founder of Inside Circle, created a concept for the word “spirit” or “God” which the Dagara tribe in Africa call “Yielbongura” - “The thing that Knowledge can’t eat.” This phrase sums up the spiritual core from which Inside Circle operates. Where are you imprisoned in your life? The process that the prisoners go through in revealing their deep authentic truths create an atmosphere of trust that is dramatically changing the static model of prison reform.

Can we learn to become a Bodhisattava, and what is a Bodhisattva, for G-d’s sake? Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s simple yet brilliant instructions on this path of treating everyone as your “guest”…plus chat about meditating away the neurotic “escape routes” polluting our inner calm, and reactions from both Raghu M. and Ramana M. about being attacked by angry hornets. Finally, David’s thoughts on an irate Facebook comment putting down the ancient sentiment “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle”…

Mindrolling through the toll of role playing; the dark art of Trumpism; the Rolling Stones revisited; the Karmapa chanting; spiritual practice as heart/mind rehearsal; the dis-ease of the wandering mind; the magic of Biocentrism & intelligence preceding matter; the amazing Swiffer...plus thoughts on suicide’s sides, Jimmy Carter’s lust in the heart, and the generosity of our listeners…listen…

Thupten Jinpa, HH The Dalai Lama’s English translator, is our truly honored guest. Anyone who has been present at any one of His Holiness’s live events knows how vibrant and deep Jinpa’s translations always are. Jinpa’s new book, “A Fearless Heart: How The Courage To Be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives” totally knocked out the Mindrollers, and we are so very pleased to visit with him on the podcast. Just check out Jinpa’s markedly unpretentious yet potent teachings on the real nature of compassion.

Raghu and Duncan Trussell have a relaxed hang out with Roshi Joan Halifax, Abbot of Upaya Zen Center. They discuss Roshi’s involvement and history with Nepal, and the recent work she’s done there related to the earthquake. Then they have a lively back and forth around the dualistic Bhakti tradition vs. the sublime Zen tradition. Roshi gives credit to what she calls “the juicy love”…