Speaker 1: Mindfulness. Being present with ourselves is an act of mercy.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the one you feed throughout time. Great thinkers
Speaker 1: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes
Speaker 1: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 1: think ring true, and yet for many of us, our
Speaker 1: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us. Our guest on this interview is Spring Washam,
Speaker 1: a well known meditation and dharma teacher based in Oakland, California.
Speaker 1: She is a founding member and core teacher at the
Speaker 1: East Bay Meditation Center located in downtown Oakland. Spring is
Speaker 1: also the founder of Lotus Vine Journeys, and organization that
Speaker 1: blends indigenous healing practices with Buddhist wisdom. Spring is considered
Speaker 1: a pioneer in bringing mindfulness based healing practices into diverse communities.
Speaker 1: Her new book is a fierce Heart, finding strength, courage,
Speaker 1: and wisdom in any moment. If you're getting value out
Speaker 1: of the show, please go to one you feed dot
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Speaker 1: and if you buy them through there, it's the same
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Speaker 1: and you can interact with other listeners of the show
Speaker 1: and get support in feeding your Good Wolf. Thanks again
Speaker 1: for listening, and here's the interview with Spring wash them.
Speaker 1: Hi Spring, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you for
Speaker 1: having me. It's my pleasure. As we were talking before
Speaker 1: we got started, We've had a couple of challenges getting
Speaker 1: this recorded, mainly on my end, so thank you for
Speaker 1: your patients. It works perfectly. Today is the day, all right?
Speaker 1: So our pod cast is based on the parable the
Speaker 1: two Wolves and And there's a grandmother who's talking with
Speaker 1: her granddaughter and she says, in life, there are two
Speaker 1: wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One
Speaker 1: is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and
Speaker 1: bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 1: the granddaughter stops and she thinks about it for a second,
Speaker 1: looks up at her grandmother and she's grandmother. Which one wins?
Speaker 1: And the grandmother says, the one you feed. So I'd
Speaker 1: like to start off by asking you what that parable
Speaker 1: means to you in your life and in the work
Speaker 1: that you do. Yeah, what's so interesting is before I
Speaker 1: even heard about your podcast, I used to use that
Speaker 1: poem in different ways. I was like, I think attributed
Speaker 1: to a Lakota elder, and I've heard it in various ways.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, but I think the message is really important.
Speaker 1: What do we feed and how do we live our lives?
Speaker 1: What are the seeds that we're planting? And I think
Speaker 1: for myself living a spiritually based life service and practicing
Speaker 1: compassion and mindfulness and trying very hard not to act
Speaker 1: from greed, hatred, delusion. I mean, of course we do
Speaker 1: in some various you know, unconscious ways, of course, and
Speaker 1: I try very hard to you know, be um an
Speaker 1: inspiration to others and to help them not to create harm. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The parable does very closely sort of follow basic Buddhist teachings, right.
Speaker 1: You know that that where you put your mind to
Speaker 1: a certain degree is what you get, and you know
Speaker 1: it talks, you know, about greed and delusion and hatred
Speaker 1: and all that. So you are a Buddhist teacher in
Speaker 1: the East Bay area, correct? Yes, I'm I was trained
Speaker 1: by Jack Cornfield and I'm on the teachers council at
Speaker 1: Spirit Rock Meditation Center. So I've been teaching there for
Speaker 1: many years. But we started a center in downtown Oakland
Speaker 1: ten years ago, so I'm there a lot. I have
Speaker 1: two different worlds. Spirit Rock in downtown in Oakland, Huh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they couldn't be farther apart. But you know, that's life. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: and you've got a third world, which we'll talk about later,
Speaker 1: but it's the trips and retreats you lead in Peru, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that is the third one. That's the best one.
Speaker 1: I think. Excellent. So let's start off. You have a
Speaker 1: fairly interesting story about how you got to Buddhism, so
Speaker 1: maybe you could just share your story about what led
Speaker 1: you to becoming a teacher. Well, I mean, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, twenty years ago. Actually, it's so funny to
Speaker 1: think that it's been so many years. But I was
Speaker 1: practicing meditation, and as everybody in my life was horrible,
Speaker 1: you know, many people. I was depressed, I was working
Speaker 1: at I was literally with a man that we fought
Speaker 1: all the time, and this really bad neighborhood in East Oakland,
Speaker 1: and I was confused, and I had a job. I
Speaker 1: was bad, and so I was trying to practice meditation
Speaker 1: during that time, and I realized I needed a teacher,
Speaker 1: and so I heard about to retreat these ten day
Speaker 1: courses um at the time, I didn't even know all
Speaker 1: they said. Where they are in silence and there's vegetarian
Speaker 1: food and they will teach you how to meditate. I
Speaker 1: knew I wasn't doing it properly, you know. I would
Speaker 1: sit there and basically think about my problems not feel
Speaker 1: that much better when I got up. So I was
Speaker 1: like this, I don't think I'm doing meditation the way
Speaker 1: it's being spoken about by these great Hindu masters. I
Speaker 1: was reading books like that. So I went to the
Speaker 1: retreat and it was very life changing for me, and
Speaker 1: I basically just started um kind of living like a
Speaker 1: dharma bum they call it, just going from retreats and
Speaker 1: practicing and traveling. And I did that for many years,
Speaker 1: and the teaching came out of that. I actually had
Speaker 1: no aspiration. I was just trying to feel better, you know,
Speaker 1: I was just looking at my own mind. That was
Speaker 1: a full time job for a long many years. It
Speaker 1: still is, but you know, yeah, I agree, looking after
Speaker 1: our mind is kind of a full time job. So
Speaker 1: you found your way into Buddhism and really kind of
Speaker 1: went for it, you know, very very aggressively, and then
Speaker 1: you became a teacher. Um, talk to me a little
Speaker 1: bit about what some of the things that you think
Speaker 1: are most important when you're teaching you know, the basics
Speaker 1: of meditation or the basics of Buddhism, Like, what is
Speaker 1: it the heart for you of those teachings? I think
Speaker 1: for me, what's the heart of the teaching that I've
Speaker 1: come to my own understanding is self compassion, That somehow
Speaker 1: mindfulness being present with ourselves is an act of mercy.
Speaker 1: I guess that's the word that's coming. Is to spend
Speaker 1: time to be with ourselves and more sad or angry
Speaker 1: or we're confused or we're triggered, to learn how to
Speaker 1: kind of come in and meet that experience of compassion,
Speaker 1: to remember to do that. One of the synonyms for
Speaker 1: mindfulness is remembering. I just like remembering what to do
Speaker 1: in those moments, right, And so I think to be
Speaker 1: able to be present and then to evoke that loving awareness,
Speaker 1: that some kind of compassion for the moment when when
Speaker 1: it hurts, you know, and a lot of our lives
Speaker 1: are filled with moments that are painful, and how do
Speaker 1: we meet them? So I got very interested in compassion.
Speaker 1: It's that's really what drew me in was how do
Speaker 1: I how do I do this? How do I live
Speaker 1: this life? It is a catastrophe on some level. You
Speaker 1: know our daily experience, you know. And I was like, Wow,
Speaker 1: how do I do this well? I can't imagine anything
Speaker 1: more important than developing sort of the loving awareness or
Speaker 1: compassionate mind state for ourselves first, and then of course
Speaker 1: that carries out to others, But at first it has
Speaker 1: to become from us. We have to know that feeling
Speaker 1: from the inside and practice that. Yep. It's amazing to
Speaker 1: me how hard sometimes it is to remember these things,
Speaker 1: you know. I find myself spiraling off for a while
Speaker 1: and then I'm like, and then I just remember a
Speaker 1: couple of basic teachings. I'm like, oh, okay, I'm good.
Speaker 1: You know. So it is. Remembering is a big piece
Speaker 1: of it. And I like what you're saying about self compassion.
Speaker 1: I think the thing that a lot of people get
Speaker 1: into and I did, you know for years in a
Speaker 1: twelve step program and in learning meditation and mindfulness, is
Speaker 1: to really be judgmental of how well I'm doing. It
Speaker 1: becomes a I don't want to say a contest, but
Speaker 1: I'm being you know, I'm grading myself on how spiritual
Speaker 1: am I and how mindful am I? And all that.
Speaker 1: And I think for me, mindfulness and meditation changed a
Speaker 1: whole lot when that kind of dropped away for me,
Speaker 1: and I really stopped thinking there was a particular result
Speaker 1: I was supposed to be getting. Um, I think, as
Speaker 1: you said earlier, there are ways to do it that
Speaker 1: are more useful and skillful than others. But I stopped
Speaker 1: expecting a result out of myself, for expecting myself always
Speaker 1: to be happy or be compassionate or joyous. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: would agree with you. You know, I think sometimes we
Speaker 1: do a disservice. I always tease the Spirit Rock community
Speaker 1: that we paint this beautiful picture of a blissed out
Speaker 1: woman and sitting on a hill and full of light
Speaker 1: and a smile. That is actually I just ended a
Speaker 1: nine day retreat at Spirit Rock teaching it. Most of
Speaker 1: the people walked around with old sweatpants on, crying tissues everywhere.
Speaker 1: I mean that that's the real retreat right in our
Speaker 1: in our mess, in our confusion and our reactivity. You know,
Speaker 1: at the end, yes, we get to this sense of feeling,
Speaker 1: you know, euphoria, but the process it's not that. And
Speaker 1: somehow I think we're you know, we're we're dreamers here
Speaker 1: like this new thing it's gonna give me the ultimate happiness,
Speaker 1: you know. Yep, Oh, I think we all chase that
Speaker 1: to a certain degree. What's the what's the next thing,
Speaker 1: the next type of meditation, the next spiritual teacher, the
Speaker 1: right way to pose if I put my fingers this
Speaker 1: way than maybe you know, And and I think it
Speaker 1: is all to a certain extent, trying to change consciousness. Right,
Speaker 1: We're always trying to change consciousness, and I think it's
Speaker 1: just built into us. Um. I don't think there's any
Speaker 1: like getting away from that. However, the more I'm aware
Speaker 1: that I'm doing that and allow the consciousness that's actually
Speaker 1: present to be okay, I'm just in much better shape. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree with you. Let's talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: your PREU retreats. So you are branching out from You're
Speaker 1: certainly branching out from the spirit Rock community in some
Speaker 1: of what you're doing there. So tell me about the
Speaker 1: PREU retreats and what you are trying to do and
Speaker 1: accomplish there. Yeah. I definitely have become a little controversial,
Speaker 1: you know. It's like, uh, yeah, I would say that
Speaker 1: in a controversial in a good way. You know. It's
Speaker 1: kind of opened up a whole talk about where are
Speaker 1: we in our society, Um, what do we mean by
Speaker 1: plant based medicine? So I'll explain to little bit about
Speaker 1: sort of the origins of low dis fine journeys and
Speaker 1: why I'd like to talk about it and why I
Speaker 1: like to share about it, and the work that happens there.
Speaker 1: I started going to Peru eight years ago, and I
Speaker 1: was already teaching many retreats. I started East Bay Meditation
Speaker 1: Center and was there all the time. And I went
Speaker 1: on a three month course meditation retreat and I kind
Speaker 1: of fell apart, and I realized I had all this
Speaker 1: unresolved trauma, really difficult childhood, and all kinds of things happen,
Speaker 1: and I have a book coming out about that and
Speaker 1: people can read about it there. But I realized that
Speaker 1: I couldn't address it in that form, being in a
Speaker 1: silent retreat, seeing a teacher every couple of days, very contained.
Speaker 1: That I needed something different, and so the thought of like, wow,
Speaker 1: I think whatever is going on was so disorienting. I
Speaker 1: actually could not, for the first time, really be mindful
Speaker 1: with something. It was just mind states of this complead
Speaker 1: desolation and hopelessness and despair and oceans of tears. And
Speaker 1: I was very overwhelmed. So I left and went back
Speaker 1: to California, and I was on the East coast during
Speaker 1: the retreat, and um I met with a friend of
Speaker 1: mine who was a psychologist, who I told her, I said,
Speaker 1: all these trauma's coming up, as it always does for
Speaker 1: people who are serious meditators. They can't get blocked by
Speaker 1: this like old unresolved traumatic wounds. So she told me
Speaker 1: about ayahuasca, and she had been working with this plant
Speaker 1: called ayahuasca, and they were doing a ceremony a very
Speaker 1: small group of psychologists. And I really highly respected this person.
Speaker 1: She was someone I admired and wasn't flaky or she
Speaker 1: was just just amazing human being. And so she invited
Speaker 1: me and I went that night. And I had nothing
Speaker 1: to lose at that point. You know, when you're in
Speaker 1: that state, you're just a rock bottom. I was willing
Speaker 1: to try anything. I had been trying everything of it
Speaker 1: to that point, you know, And so um, I had
Speaker 1: an amazing night, and I felt in that one night
Speaker 1: I understood more about myself than I had the whole
Speaker 1: three month retreat that I had just went on. It
Speaker 1: was such an amazing experience for me, so immediately knew
Speaker 1: I would go to Peru and I would kind of
Speaker 1: study it in its most direct way at the roots.
Speaker 1: And so that's what I did for several years. I
Speaker 1: started going doing retreats there, sometimes spending one month, sometimes
Speaker 1: two months. Um then I decided to live there for
Speaker 1: a year and in the Amazon with a Shapebo community
Speaker 1: and really study what is this that's happening. I saw
Speaker 1: people being healed from all kinds of things, and I
Speaker 1: always felt like I was an intuitive healer. So it resonated.
Speaker 1: I came back from that trip and I realized that
Speaker 1: I wanted to offer something to the spiritual communities and
Speaker 1: my Buddhist communities for people that also felt stuck, because
Speaker 1: there's a kind of a plateauing that happens that I've
Speaker 1: seen over and over. You have all these openings in
Speaker 1: the beginning of your spiritual path, right, people go, Oh.
Speaker 1: When I was in India in the seventies with Bama,
Speaker 1: so and so, I felt But then they come home
Speaker 1: and they're like kind of plateau. They don't feel their
Speaker 1: heart opening. They go to retreat after retreat and something's
Speaker 1: just not shifting and there's like a stuckness. And so
Speaker 1: that's what happened to me, and that's what I have
Speaker 1: been seeing for years in spiritual communities with people going
Speaker 1: forty retreats all over the world, and they said they're
Speaker 1: still struggling with the same issue, maybe self hatred, maybe
Speaker 1: you know, the same behaviors, or they're just not happy
Speaker 1: and they don't understand there's something blocking them. So that's
Speaker 1: kind of the demographic I was looking to serve, like
Speaker 1: why are we getting blocked? How do we move past
Speaker 1: these traumas? And this is something I felt to be
Speaker 1: extraordinarily helpful, incredibly helpful. So that's kind of the story
Speaker 1: line of the idea where it started. Settle down, don't
Speaker 1: hit that fast forward button just yet. I've got a
Speaker 1: pretty cool announcement. I've been recording some extra footage. Is
Speaker 1: that footage of its audio? Well, I don't know. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I've been recording some extra post interview conversations with our guests,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to start releasing those and it will
Speaker 1: be available to people who support the show on Patreon
Speaker 1: at the ten dollar a month level. So if you're
Speaker 1: supporting the show already at that level, thank you, and
Speaker 1: if you'd like to sign up at that level, you
Speaker 1: will start getting post interview conversations with guests. Matthew Quick
Speaker 1: will be coming out tomorrow, as will several of the
Speaker 1: other ones over the next few days. I don't have
Speaker 1: it for every interview, but I'm trying to do it
Speaker 1: with each one. Now. Sometimes a guest has got to run,
Speaker 1: but I'd say out of the last five or six interviews,
Speaker 1: I've got it for probably them. So we'll start posting it.
Speaker 1: You'll be able to listen to it in your podcast player,
Speaker 1: just like you would anything else. It's available for people
Speaker 1: who support the show at the ten dollar level, So
Speaker 1: go to one you feed dot net slash Patreon support
Speaker 1: us at the ten dollar level and get free extra
Speaker 1: conversations with me and the guests. So I'm pretty excited
Speaker 1: about it when you feed dot net slash support. And
Speaker 1: now back to the rest of this interview. Tell the
Speaker 1: listeners who aren't familiar what ayahuasca is. Well, ayahuasca is
Speaker 1: a plant. It grows in the Amazon. It's a vine
Speaker 1: and it's considered to be a plant spear it. Now,
Speaker 1: for Westerners, this is very unusual. It's like planted spirits,
Speaker 1: plants being alive. What's going on here? I guess I
Speaker 1: could describe ayahuasca as a doctor. That's how it's been
Speaker 1: referred to by the indigenous for thousands of years, hundreds
Speaker 1: of years. I think they found a cup recently in
Speaker 1: Ecuador and the Jungle and Ecuador of an ayahuasca residue
Speaker 1: in a cup that they estimated to be two thousand
Speaker 1: years old. So it's a medicine and um and you
Speaker 1: partake in this medicine in a ceremony in a safe place.
Speaker 1: Ideally you have a healer's a group of supportive people,
Speaker 1: and then you take it and it helps you. It's
Speaker 1: like a spirit doctor. And that's also probably a new
Speaker 1: concept for some people, a doctor of spirit. What do
Speaker 1: you mean? It's hard to explain. When you take ayahuasca
Speaker 1: for those hours, you go into a hospital setting and
Speaker 1: it cleanses your body on multiple levels. So from a
Speaker 1: Western point of view, it's considered a hallucinogenic, right, It's
Speaker 1: considered something that causes a pretty dramatic alteration of consciousness.
Speaker 1: And it is also considered and more and more research
Speaker 1: seems to point to it is exactly what you're saying.
Speaker 1: It becomes very healing. So what is that like? What
Speaker 1: happens in that period of time that ceremony that you
Speaker 1: think helps to clear lots of old trauma, like what
Speaker 1: what's happening to you during that period? Some of it
Speaker 1: sounds physically unpleasant. I don't think it's a you know,
Speaker 1: I don't think you describe it as a party drug. Right.
Speaker 1: It sounds like it's a pretty intense. The period of
Speaker 1: time you're on it is is pretty hardcore. So what's
Speaker 1: happening in that window? Well, that's a great question. So hallucinogenic, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's kind of a Western word. Mpagon, I think is
Speaker 1: a better description for Ayahuaska, a more modern you know.
Speaker 1: Definitely for people who have taken Ayahuaska, they would only
Speaker 1: describe it as metas and at that point, so what
Speaker 1: happens it's so different from for everybody the experience. But
Speaker 1: what ayahuasca is trying to do or what happens is that,
Speaker 1: you know, there's four levels of the human system. We
Speaker 1: have the physical level, mental, emotional, and then I would
Speaker 1: say vibrational level, you know, the level of g or
Speaker 1: energy just pure energy. So what ayahuasca does is it
Speaker 1: cleanses all for those levels of our system. So sometimes
Speaker 1: people come and they don't know why they're depressed. Some
Speaker 1: people come and they don't understand why they have chronic
Speaker 1: pain that they've been all over the world and there
Speaker 1: was just debilitated by a back pain and can't walk
Speaker 1: but there's no medical cause for it. Or people feel
Speaker 1: suicidal and they don't understand they're happily married, they have
Speaker 1: children that what could be causing me to feel so awful,
Speaker 1: Or they have different illnesses, or they have cancer where
Speaker 1: they have just all kinds of reasons why people seek
Speaker 1: out to work with ayahuasca. So what ayahuaska does is
Speaker 1: is the nickname of ayahuasca where it scares people, the indigenous,
Speaker 1: the indigenus called la perja, right, So it's meant to
Speaker 1: cleanse your system of energies that are causing harm, and
Speaker 1: so that could be energies from abuse. For me, it was,
Speaker 1: you know, experiences that were very abusive once I was
Speaker 1: attacked as a teenager. All those things we've imprints on
Speaker 1: your body and your spirit, and it's like it's aspects
Speaker 1: of post traumatic stress. We carry them and if we're
Speaker 1: not aware of them, they actually have a very huge
Speaker 1: effect on our everyday life. They color the lens of
Speaker 1: how we view reality. They create we get afraid, we
Speaker 1: act from fear, we get more afraid, or we get
Speaker 1: very sad. We don't understand that we're feeding that sadness.
Speaker 1: And so what Ayahuaska does is it hell apposed to
Speaker 1: understand the roots of the suffering. It goes down into
Speaker 1: that level. How it works, it's a mysterious process. I
Speaker 1: myself have been amazed for eight years. I've participated it
Speaker 1: over three hundred ayahuasca ceremonies. I facilitated at least a
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty, and every time I'm always amazed. I
Speaker 1: don't know how to describe it as a gift from Gaya.
Speaker 1: That's what I've been saying. Now, it's Gaya. It's the
Speaker 1: Earth trying to help. That's what I truly do believe. Now,
Speaker 1: So this is something that you do it once and
Speaker 1: you get pretty substantial results. It sounds like it also
Speaker 1: sounds like this is something for you that's been ongoing
Speaker 1: kind of year after year after year. Help me understand
Speaker 1: if it's so quick in healing, why the ongoing process.
Speaker 1: And I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm just really
Speaker 1: trying to understand. No, those are really great questions. It's
Speaker 1: not like one ayahuasca experience is going to heal somebody.
Speaker 1: It can be very eye opening, it can be very healing.
Speaker 1: But like any kind of treatment plan, it's not instant.
Speaker 1: Just like you know, our one retreat. You know, people
Speaker 1: talk to my seven day retreat, Am I Am I done?
Speaker 1: It's like, well, now you're you're you know, we're just
Speaker 1: starting here. What ayahuaska can provide and why I keep
Speaker 1: working with ayahuasca is that it's an acceleration of consciousness.
Speaker 1: It it opens something in our awareness and helps us
Speaker 1: to see the truth of the way things are. So rather,
Speaker 1: you have insights into into connectedness, you understand the nature
Speaker 1: of reality, you understand emptiness. You actually see these spiritual
Speaker 1: insights not so much in an intellectual way, but they
Speaker 1: become body based wisdom. Right. You feel it's so deeply
Speaker 1: you're one with the entire jungle. You never forget that experience,
Speaker 1: and it shapes how you then perceive your world. Right,
Speaker 1: You have such a powerful shift in those moments that
Speaker 1: it slowly changes you. Now, is it going to enlighten
Speaker 1: you know, because that's not its job. This job is
Speaker 1: to help us wake up, And for those who are ready,
Speaker 1: it's a wonderful tool. Is it right for everybody? No,
Speaker 1: it's not. It could be too intense. It's not good
Speaker 1: for people with extreme levels of mental illness. It's not
Speaker 1: good for certain types. But those who are ready, able
Speaker 1: and open, I think that's the big thing. Open to
Speaker 1: something else, understanding um more to this reality than what
Speaker 1: we perceive daily. Then it can be a very valuable tool,
Speaker 1: as it has been with Indigenous for hundreds of years.
Speaker 1: They've used it in many ways. Is there any history
Speaker 1: of abuse with it in indigenous cultures? Yes, as in
Speaker 1: all things is the abuse really comes from people who
Speaker 1: become powerful and shamans who become then predatory. So you
Speaker 1: have the whole myth of the dark shaman you know,
Speaker 1: who become you know, and that is a big problem
Speaker 1: in Peru. I call Peru the new India. Everybody is
Speaker 1: going to South America, backpackers, seekers in the forest, in
Speaker 1: the jungle, looking for guru. It's the same thing that
Speaker 1: happened in the sixties, right, you have all these guru,
Speaker 1: some good, some fake, right, some having sex with everybody
Speaker 1: is part of their It's the same kind of scene
Speaker 1: that gets a little bit set up down there. You
Speaker 1: have people coming and they're I think the shaman is
Speaker 1: going to save them from everything, and they have powerful experiences,
Speaker 1: and then maybe the shaman's like, hey, do you have
Speaker 1: a few hundred dollars I could have? Or Hey you
Speaker 1: wanna get married, or hey you wanna you know, So
Speaker 1: that's where things get complicated. Is there any history of
Speaker 1: substance abuse with it? Is it a substance that becomes
Speaker 1: like you know, alcohol or other substances. I know it's
Speaker 1: in doably intense. I'm just curious in the indigenous population
Speaker 1: if it's if that is a risk. No, because ayahuasca
Speaker 1: doesn't let you. And that's why it's honestly, because it's intelligent.
Speaker 1: So ahuasca is considered even though gender has no bearing
Speaker 1: in these states of consciousness. It appears in like a
Speaker 1: feminine they called the grand mother Yeah, and other plants
Speaker 1: they referred to as the Grandfather Peyote and sam Pedro,
Speaker 1: the great cactus up in the Sacred Valley. They refer
Speaker 1: to that it appears in the form of masculine energy.
Speaker 1: Getting addicted to ayahuasca would be very, very difficult because
Speaker 1: the nature of it is to wake you up, so
Speaker 1: it has a built in intelligence. Sometimes it doesn't work.
Speaker 1: You could drink a huge amount and it doesn't come on.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it will make you purge that desire out to
Speaker 1: use it to be manipulative, so it maybe you're sick
Speaker 1: for ten hours purging. And if something that you can
Speaker 1: manipulate in that you know, it's not like beyond our graphs,
Speaker 1: you don't get a consistent effect, like if you'd have
Speaker 1: a couple of drinks or you you smoke a joint
Speaker 1: and even other how did you say it? And anthagen's antheagens,
Speaker 1: So our mushrooms considered an antheagen, is LSD considered an antheogen?
Speaker 1: What falls into that category? I think LSD and musitions
Speaker 1: would fall into that category. It's basically, you know, something
Speaker 1: that reconnects you to your divine nature. I think one
Speaker 1: of the challenges with LSD is people often get hurt
Speaker 1: because of all the issues was set and setting and
Speaker 1: um and people who are not maybe ready for that
Speaker 1: kind of experience. There's no guide. The thing I really
Speaker 1: like about ayahuasca was it's it's always been held in
Speaker 1: a sacred ceremony. It's not something you would drink and
Speaker 1: wander around town. I mean it would be I just
Speaker 1: can't even imagine it. I don't. I don't know. And
Speaker 1: somebody who did that wouldn't It wouldn't be a fun night,
Speaker 1: you know. It's not like that. Yeah, Yeah, I'm fascinated
Speaker 1: by all the research that's happening on anthiagen's and their
Speaker 1: ability to heal. I find it fascinating. I'm also a
Speaker 1: recovering drug addict and alcoholic, So I look at those
Speaker 1: things and I think, to myself, it's very fascinating to me.
Speaker 1: I'm very interested in it. And then I look at it,
Speaker 1: what's my what's my risk profile look like with those things?
Speaker 1: Because you do hear people using those sort of things
Speaker 1: to cure addiction in certain cases, and so, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just for me, it's one of those things that
Speaker 1: I'm evaluating from the outside, and I can't tell if
Speaker 1: my fascination is a genuine interest in the healing or
Speaker 1: if there's some little part of me that's like I'm
Speaker 1: going to get high again somehow, right. And again I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that's at all how most people use it.
Speaker 1: I just know for me, you know, I did I
Speaker 1: did psychedelics or antheagen's back in my day, and I
Speaker 1: did them sort of in a recreational way. I can
Speaker 1: look back and see how those could have been transformative,
Speaker 1: positive experiences if I had done it in a different way.
Speaker 1: You know, I still see those as very powerful moments
Speaker 1: in my life, but my intent was very different, right
Speaker 1: And I I so appreciate you bringing this up, because
Speaker 1: this is the debate with Buddhism. You know, It's like,
Speaker 1: is this you know, as we know that in the dharma,
Speaker 1: there's these precepts that we follow, non killing, non stealing,
Speaker 1: being aware of our sexual conduct, our speech. The fifth
Speaker 1: precept is around intoxican and that is at the very core.
Speaker 1: Is this an intoxicant? Is this a sacred medicine? Does
Speaker 1: this leave people down the path to addiction or does
Speaker 1: this liberate them from addiction? You know? And people don't know,
Speaker 1: and it's being debated. All I can say is in
Speaker 1: my experience of working with people, and I've met people
Speaker 1: from all walks of life have come on retreats, not
Speaker 1: only with me, at other healing centers where I was
Speaker 1: there learning and working. You know, from alcohol to drugs
Speaker 1: that there was like a significant reduction in that the
Speaker 1: desire to use became less, the dire to escape became
Speaker 1: less is not really what we're talking about. That is
Speaker 1: what we're talking about at a moment. So we're we
Speaker 1: don't want to be here, so to work with the plan.
Speaker 1: Suddenly it's like you come more into contact with your
Speaker 1: true nature, so to speak, your goodness, your wholeness, your interconnectedness,
Speaker 1: and we're getting out some of these other, you know,
Speaker 1: forces in us, our demons. Rastle around with them in
Speaker 1: the jungle for a while, and we sort of start
Speaker 1: to allow them to move. We suddenly want to be here.
Speaker 1: So there are a lot of ayahuasca treatment places. There's
Speaker 1: a place right near where I host my retreats called
Speaker 1: TAKEIWASI that has excellent results working with hardcore acticts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've certainly seen it with heroin abuse. I mean that
Speaker 1: was my drug way way back when I've been off
Speaker 1: that for a long time, and I've been sober, a
Speaker 1: been sober a decade now, in a long time before that.
Speaker 1: And it's just it's an interest to me in that
Speaker 1: way because I see it as treating addiction and yet
Speaker 1: to your point, is it a intoxic Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: worthy to think about that. It's a very important conversation
Speaker 1: that I deeply respect at spirit rack. I understand the complexity,
Speaker 1: and I understand the confusion and understand the fear fully'
Speaker 1: is the reason that most of this happens in Peru
Speaker 1: because the jungle is so important or is a lot
Speaker 1: of it because of legality and law. So if you,
Speaker 1: for example, could use ayahuasca to heal here in America,
Speaker 1: would there be more of that or is it really
Speaker 1: important that you're there and in the jungle. Well, I
Speaker 1: think there's two things to that. First of all, South America, UM,
Speaker 1: it's legal almost all the South America. Ecuador, Brazil just
Speaker 1: called Ayahuasca National Treasure. UM. There are ayahuasca churches there
Speaker 1: that that makes Christianity with you know, they have church
Speaker 1: services in drink ayahuasca and urban areas and they found
Speaker 1: that this was really wonderful. They're even administering it in prisons. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can look that up. I have some links to
Speaker 1: it on on my Facebook page for Lotus Fine Journeys.
Speaker 1: And I've been and also very interested in all the
Speaker 1: research and huge amounts of research around healing all kinds
Speaker 1: of things. So the jungle is interesting because of buys
Speaker 1: a backdrop. The vine grows in the heart of the Amazon.
Speaker 1: It comes out of this indigenous The Shapibo people are
Speaker 1: sort of the medicine carriers. There an ethnic group that
Speaker 1: lives around the Ukulali River, about a hundred thousand of them.
Speaker 1: You often see their artwork associated with ayahuasca. It's been
Speaker 1: stolen a lot, their art and their imagers. You know,
Speaker 1: they don't think to mind the ones I talk. They
Speaker 1: like their artism the internet and people are wearing bikinis
Speaker 1: made out of their artwork. But so there's something a
Speaker 1: really beautiful one can do it here, yes, but there
Speaker 1: is something really beautiful about doing it in the wild
Speaker 1: in its natural element. You know, we're so used to
Speaker 1: like propagating things, stealing it out, taking it. If there's
Speaker 1: something very interesting about doing it in that setting. Now,
Speaker 1: that does not mean that people couldn't do it in
Speaker 1: the US, and in fact, many people do. But it's
Speaker 1: sad because it takes some of them magic out of it,
Speaker 1: and people maybe are leading circles that aren't They don't
Speaker 1: have this lineage of hundreds of years. They don't really
Speaker 1: have the sort of the power that a lot of
Speaker 1: these amazing people have. There are doctors I work with
Speaker 1: a beautiful maestro and my retreats. He is a doctor
Speaker 1: and very powerful one. So you may have people doing
Speaker 1: it here and they might be playing music and other things,
Speaker 1: but there's something about the roots and the lineage and
Speaker 1: having that experience of being in the natural world with it.
Speaker 1: It's a different experience in a home in New York
Speaker 1: City than being in the forest. However, it can be helpful,
Speaker 1: and there is people getting a lot of help from
Speaker 1: going to circles here. It's just a different So for me,
Speaker 1: what I like to offer people is something very authentic,
Speaker 1: because I love that authenticity and I feel like that
Speaker 1: it's very powerful and it kind of reconnects people to
Speaker 1: the earth, and unless we do that, we're going to
Speaker 1: destroy ourselves on as we realize we are connected, not
Speaker 1: just mentally, not just just a good idea, but you
Speaker 1: feel it in your bones. Yeah, it's funny that that
Speaker 1: sort of mirrors the discussion that has happened around Buddhism
Speaker 1: and mindfulness to a certain degree, where you know, are
Speaker 1: you pulling mindfulness out of Buddhism, Are you losing the authenticity?
Speaker 1: Are you losing the lineage? You know, as you were
Speaker 1: saying that, I was like, I think I've heard this
Speaker 1: this discussion, this discussion before, and I think just like
Speaker 1: that discussion, there's there's nuanced points. It's like, is a
Speaker 1: little bit of something that's really good for you better
Speaker 1: than none of it? Or is you know, it's kind
Speaker 1: of like the meditation or mindfulness debate, like, well, if
Speaker 1: you're not gonna be in the lineage, you're not gonna
Speaker 1: go all always still meditating for five minutes a day
Speaker 1: better for you probably, And so it's just it's I
Speaker 1: don't think there's right answers. I just think it's interesting,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure that the debates at Spirit Rock are
Speaker 1: very interesting. And it's funny because I would imagine most
Speaker 1: of those people there was a period of time where
Speaker 1: they were experimenting in similar ways. Yes, it's you know,
Speaker 1: and and on any group of a council, you have
Speaker 1: people who got exactly half of them may be experimented,
Speaker 1: and those were some of the most profound. The other
Speaker 1: half is saying, what about the lineage? Is this thing
Speaker 1: where the complexity is about me being there on the
Speaker 1: teachers council? Is that I so agree with both perspectives.
Speaker 1: They don't know what to do with me, right now,
Speaker 1: I mean, we love you so much, and I totally
Speaker 1: understand this precept. Maybe this isn't terrib out of Buddhism
Speaker 1: when I'm doing down there, maybe this, but yet I'm
Speaker 1: gonna keep offering it. So your perspective then would be,
Speaker 1: this is not an intoxicant, as you said before, it's
Speaker 1: a antigen. It's an antiagent. Stumble over that word. But
Speaker 1: I think you also called it a doctor, right, So
Speaker 1: it's not an intoxicant in the sense of I think
Speaker 1: the Buddhist precept against intoxicans has something along the lines
Speaker 1: of its clouding your brain and it's making it harder
Speaker 1: for you to see the truth. And what you're saying
Speaker 1: is that you believe in this case that it actually
Speaker 1: makes it easier for you to see the truth. Yes, actually,
Speaker 1: because we you know, the thing about lotus fine was
Speaker 1: that I named it that because it's the lotus of
Speaker 1: the Buddha and the fine of ayolascas this amazing mind.
Speaker 1: And then the journey is coming to Peru and doing
Speaker 1: the inner work. Um, but that's exactly it. I tell
Speaker 1: our groups are amazing a lot of meditators, yoga teachers, doctors,
Speaker 1: and we I say Okay, here we are. We're gonna
Speaker 1: sit in a circle, and this is ultimate meditation. Can
Speaker 1: we be present for the next six hours? And of
Speaker 1: course I'm here and our team is here, you know,
Speaker 1: we have a maestro and healer's going and they're singing
Speaker 1: and all this stuff is going on. But basically, I said,
Speaker 1: let's be here, Let's be with whatever arises for these hours,
Speaker 1: no matter how intense, whatever is happening. So I treated
Speaker 1: like an ultimate meditation. If one can learn to embody
Speaker 1: those experiences, be present for that, there's some kind of
Speaker 1: very profound acceleration eric happening there. Even if we take
Speaker 1: ayahuasca out of it. I think the general point, which
Speaker 1: is that sitting on a cushion mindfully is a wonderful
Speaker 1: I found it to be an incredibly useful tool in
Speaker 1: my life. It's not the only tool, and often we
Speaker 1: need different things. I mean, my if I call it
Speaker 1: healing process. Over the years has been a lot of
Speaker 1: different things. Meditation and mindfulness in the Buddhist tradition has
Speaker 1: been a big part of it. Twelve step programs who
Speaker 1: are a part of it, you know, some degree of
Speaker 1: trauma work and and really getting into that stuff. Was
Speaker 1: part of it. I think that taking care of my
Speaker 1: body in certain ways has been part of it, and
Speaker 1: so I think it really is even if you look
Speaker 1: at ayahuasca saying, all right, that's not really the right
Speaker 1: path for me, but I still think it points to
Speaker 1: the fact that there are different things that different people
Speaker 1: might need to do depending on where they are. You know,
Speaker 1: when I was in twelve step programs, it was like
Speaker 1: a lot of people are like, this is all you need.
Speaker 1: If you do this, you're and I was like, I
Speaker 1: don't you know, that wasn't true for me. And I
Speaker 1: think you can see that in in mindfulness and meditation
Speaker 1: and Buddhism, think anywhere you go, you can see that,
Speaker 1: like if you just do this right, and my experience
Speaker 1: has been that, you know, one tool isn't always the
Speaker 1: right thing for all situations. I agree with you. I mean,
Speaker 1: when I came back from living in the jungle for
Speaker 1: a year, I went into therapy, you know, I got
Speaker 1: into a relationship and then I was like, oh, wait,
Speaker 1: all this other stuff I thought I got rid of.
Speaker 1: Nothing like a relationship to remind you of where you've
Speaker 1: got work to do exactly, And then I went, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I'm at the beginning again. It was just
Speaker 1: another facet of my psyche, you know. And now I'm
Speaker 1: back doing early childhood attachment work with a very profound therapist,
Speaker 1: you know, and and I and I and I grew
Speaker 1: so much and you know, I integrated that. It's always like,
Speaker 1: I wholeheartedly agree, it's not a one tool operation. We
Speaker 1: need money, and we need them at different times. And
Speaker 1: there's aut sharees at different times that resonate and we
Speaker 1: feel inspired by then we make me move on from that,
Speaker 1: you know. So this is just one tool that I
Speaker 1: feel like in my heart, I feel like the planet
Speaker 1: is offering us. It's not only the rise in this
Speaker 1: particular medicine, it's actually all of them. Rather, it's the
Speaker 1: Native American church and winning the right to use peyote
Speaker 1: and healing their tribes and from their own addictions. Or
Speaker 1: there's also a very big cultural bias against it too,
Speaker 1: that this is a legitimate path of healthcare. There certainly is,
Speaker 1: and I think, um, you know, without going into US
Speaker 1: drug policy discussions, which are you know, take us, you know,
Speaker 1: take us way off track, I think, yeah, you're right,
Speaker 1: I mean, I do think there is definitely a bias
Speaker 1: against it. I have a question for you, because I
Speaker 1: wrestle with this a lot, and listeners of the show
Speaker 1: will have heard it fifty times at this point. But
Speaker 1: it's really about on one hand, what you're describing is
Speaker 1: this attempt to in certain ways change who we are, right,
Speaker 1: We're trying to evolve and become different things. So there's that.
Speaker 1: There's that direction on one hand, And then on the
Speaker 1: other hand is the I'm fine just the way I am.
Speaker 1: How can I accept the moment I'm in? How can
Speaker 1: I be okay with who I am where I am?
Speaker 1: Those things to me feel like, at least in my life,
Speaker 1: they feel like there's a little bit of tension there,
Speaker 1: And I'm just curious how you think about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a great question, right, because it's all about except
Speaker 1: the moment. But then here we are always working on something, right.
Speaker 1: But you know what, I have a very clear view
Speaker 1: about that. When I first got into Buddhism, I was
Speaker 1: very inspired, having grown up around mostly Christian philosophy, and
Speaker 1: when I heard sort of this teaching about your Buddha
Speaker 1: nature right that you already are enlightened, you just forgotten basically,
Speaker 1: that was very hopeful. I found that to be very inspiring.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like versus your flawed forever and you
Speaker 1: better walk across the desert on your knees and maybe
Speaker 1: at the end of thirty years of you'll you know,
Speaker 1: I thought, wow, I'm already awake, but I just forgot
Speaker 1: So for me, it's more of uncovering the jewel. That's
Speaker 1: how I look at myself. There's this innate perfection there
Speaker 1: and it's often obscured. Yes, if there is that innate perfection,
Speaker 1: it is definitely obscured for sure, And a lot of
Speaker 1: us well, yeah, I find it interesting because I tend
Speaker 1: to land sort of like on the middle of everything.
Speaker 1: It's like, if I take any personality test, is like,
Speaker 1: is there a dead center? It seems to be where
Speaker 1: I am, And that's where I look at original sin
Speaker 1: versus you know, perfect Buddha nature. I feel like it
Speaker 1: seems to me that we've got all that inside of us,
Speaker 1: and it's back to the parable. It's you know, what
Speaker 1: are we feeding, where are we focusing? What what plants
Speaker 1: within ourselves are we choosing to grow in? Which weeds
Speaker 1: are we choosing to pull out? But I do definitely
Speaker 1: think for me it was a big change to to
Speaker 1: hear the Buddhist idea of perfection was so different. It's
Speaker 1: a very interesting perspective and was very helpful to me
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways. Oh, I agree. I think
Speaker 1: when you if you have the perspective that in you
Speaker 1: are innately good and beautiful and and and whiz wise
Speaker 1: and compassionate, but that it's just at your core you
Speaker 1: are that that that you you set your life in
Speaker 1: a different direction if you believe that that actually, that
Speaker 1: belief itself, I believe changes the whole path I do.
Speaker 1: Because if you believe at your core something is very
Speaker 1: bad and wicked and wrong and disturbed, that's a belief
Speaker 1: that sort of I believe undercuts all that you try
Speaker 1: to do. It's like a poison, and a very deep
Speaker 1: poison and a well right, but if we we our
Speaker 1: lives are different when we think that, it gives us
Speaker 1: some kind of confidence in our goodness, and we'll want
Speaker 1: to reveal that more if we we believe that there
Speaker 1: we we will naturally I think feed that side. Well Spring.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for coming on the show. I've
Speaker 1: enjoyed this conversation a lot. I'm you're very interested to
Speaker 1: see what I get from our listeners on this one
Speaker 1: because it's been a little bit different, but it's a
Speaker 1: topic I've wanted to talk about for a while, so
Speaker 1: I'm glad we got the chance to do it. Um.
Speaker 1: I will have links on the website to your website
Speaker 1: to all the different things that you're involved in, so
Speaker 1: folks want to learn more about you, it will all
Speaker 1: be right there and they can find you. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for having me. It was really fun, and
Speaker 1: I love this conversation as well, and I love what
Speaker 1: you're doing and how you're inspiring people. So I'm honored.
Speaker 1: All right, thank you, Okay, bye bye. If what you
Speaker 1: just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a
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