Delson Armstrong - Awakening Beyond Spiritual Idealization | Elevating Consciousness Podcast #61

Welcome to Elevating Consciousness, the podcast that brings you mind-expansive conversations into the heart of what matters most. I'm your host, Artem Zen, and our guest today is Delson Armstrong, a maverick meditation teacher and author. At the age of 16, disillusioned with conventional life, he embarked on a pilgrimage to the Himalayas, where he spent six to eight hours a day practicing various forms of meditation, studying sacred texts, and receiving guidance from masters across multiple lineages. Through this intensive training, Delson developed the rare ability to enter Nirodha Samapatti, a meditative state marked by the complete cessation of perception and feeling, for extended periods of time. These claims have been rigorously examined through neuroscience research, with findings published in a 2023 paper titled Cessation of Consciousness in Meditation.

He is also the author of A Mind Without Craving and a five-volume series on Dependent Origination. Delson currently teaches the Optimal Mind System, a synthesis of diverse practices designed to align the body, mind, energy, heart, and consciousness to catalyze deep insight and transformation. Although deeply informed by traditional models of awakening, Delson takes a universal approach and does not adhere to any single doctrine or path. He believes that idealized systems rooted in specific cultural norms and structures must be reimagined and innovated to meet the needs of a modern world. In this episode, we explore Delson's experience working with and integrating different traditions and spiritual practices, how coming across integral theory has helped them recontextualize the spiritual path, whether it's possible to end suffering, psychedelics and how they differ and overlap with meditation, the pros and cons of being open about spiritual attainments, creating healthier dynamics with spiritual teachers, and so much more.

Enjoy. Delson Armstrong, welcome to the show. Thank you. It's good to be here. Yeah. So I want to set some context before we dive in. You've been interviewed quite a bit. So my aim today is to guide this conversation into some fresh territory while giving some newer listeners enough context to follow along. And I'll link to some of your previous interviews for those who want to explore more of your backstory.

But I also want to share a bit about my own experience with discovering you and following your journey. Like many others, I first came across you through your initial Guru Viking interview and was struck by your story and commitment to spiritual practice. You were born in India, but moved to the United States at five years old, I think. And you spent some of your early years living in New Jersey and New York.

And I'm from Brooklyn. So, there's some kidding. Yeah. So there's some additional resonance in hearing about somebody from my part of town going deep into spiritual practice, particularly at such a young age. So, you know, in listening to your Guru Viking interview, my thoughts were, here's this guy probably a bit younger than me who at like six years old just heads off to the Himalayas to do intensive practice, six to eight hours a day for years, mastering various yogic systems, developing the capacity to shut down his mind and demand, entering cessation for days at a time. Honestly, it reminded me of that Autobiography of a Yogi. It was like one of those stories that sounds almost mythical.

And yet, you came across as very sincere and genuine to me. So it was very inspirational for me to hear your experiences, as it kind of stretched my sense of what might be possible through practice. And from there, I began to follow your journey. I read your book, A Mind Without Craving. I started to listen to some of your Dharma talks. I even considered doing a retreat with you, although it didn't work out. But over time, something started to feel off, not with you, but with how the teachings landed for me. There was something that felt very like by the book and a little dry, and also this sense of some of it being out of reach for me to realize anything close to what you described, that I'd have to leave my life behind entirely.

And around the same time, I came across a presentation called From Sutra to Tantra with two meditation practitioners, Charlie Aubrey and Jared Janes. And this really helped me to understand the distinction between a sutric view, which is one that prioritizes renunciation, and a tantric view, one that is more life affirming. And it became clear to me that at the time you were predominantly teaching from a sutric view, which probably wasn't the best for a householder such as myself. So with that realization I took a break from your content for a while. Then a little later I ended up coming across this five-hour video critiquing you and the TWIM community, which initially threw me off because it was really detailed, it seemed well researched, and it seemed like it was raising some valid points. But eventually, as I watched more of it, it started to feel more like a takedown than honest inquiry.

So something about that didn't sit right. And I didn't know who this other person was. So it was just kind of, this whole thing. And not long after that, I saw your video about you renouncing your attainments, which I found rather courageous, because there was a kind of humanness that showed up in that moment. And maybe that's one of the core tensions with spiritual teachers, this pressure to appear perfect.

And you stepped back from some of those claims that you initially made. It felt like a challenge to that dynamic. So that's just kind of, there was a lot there, but that was just kind of my overview of experiencing you and your journey. And there are many threads that I'd love to explore more in depth today. But I also want to give you some space if you want to respond to anything that I just said.

Yeah, no, thank you for that. I think that's a very astute way of looking at things, a pretty concrete summary of my own journey as somebody who's now in the field of providing the Dhamma, as you can call it, a teacher, a mentor, whatever it is. But yeah, I think that's a great summation of my experience so far. And I will say that my experience with the suttas was immediately after I did this first retreat, and only retreat in my life, in terms of a Buddhist retreat mentored by David Johnson, who was a direct student of Bhante Vimalaramsi. And I remember watching Bhante's videos on the suttas.

So he read from the suttas and then he explained according to how he understood it. And I remember trying to dive deep into the suttas, couldn't make any sense out of it. And then I did this retreat, had some amazing experiences. Using that understanding, using that experience, going back into the suttas, a lot of things made sense, I think. What really enchanted me with the suttas was the systematic way in which things were being discussed. There is a certain kind of order to how the technique or the path is laid out. But I didn't understand the culture of

the idea of being an Arahant or being a stream enterer or being all of these things, until getting further deeper into the practice and seeing what it's all about. So that's sort of my inner experience of this whole process. And I was not setting out to be like this perfect machine, although it was quite tempting. It was quite tempting to be that. It was another idealization that I kind of fell in love with. But over a period of time, it didn't feel right. It didn't feel corresponding to my experience. Initially, it felt like it. I may have even kind of hypnotized myself into thinking that, oh, this is where it is.

These are the 10 fetters. These are gone, and so on and so forth. But as I started to go back into the lay life, into the world, because I'd been so induced in practicing meditation for so long, for so many hours, as you said, every day, that was my obsession. I wanted to know techniques from Vedanta, from yoga, from Zen, from Theravada, from wherever, and really understand it.

And I kind of fell in love with the TWIM practice because it was a great community. It is a great community. It's very supportive. But I also see certain limitations in terms of the blind spots, which I myself was part of and had. And I think now, coming back into life, and I know you recently interviewed Adore. I saw that interview. What a great interview. He and I have an interesting connection. And he spent some time with me last year in the mountains in India. That really provided more clarity for me. He was like a mirror that reflected the Tantric path. In fact, I remember a message he sent me on WhatsApp.

He said, are you interested, something to the effect of, are you interested in the Tantric path? Do you want to follow the path of Tantra? And I said, hell yeah. And that was a very interesting prospect. And it's been a journey for me to be able to imbibe both qualities of sutra and tantra, because I think there's some great valid beauty in the sutras in terms of the systematic order in which things are done. But because it comes from a monastic standpoint, which if you're for that, that's all great, you know, but I'm somebody who wants to continue exploring life. I want to have more experiences. I want to have more understanding of how relationships work. I almost feel like an alien in this life now, in terms of really exploring my emotions, really exploring my reactions, really exploring the relational dynamics that are happening. And I think Tantra is a great path for that. So, and I say Tantra in a very broad way, because I've been exploring deeper aspects of South Indian Tantra, which is I think

um not really mentioned a lot but it's it's very it's a lot of fun yeah i appreciate um you kind of unpacking that and you know one of the things that you said was that kind of all practices have like their own blind spots and um you know their own benefits and their own blind spots and this is one of the things i wanted to ask you is you know you've worked within a range of different traditions and spiritual practices over the years and you know you've gone very deep into both kriya yoga and the jhanas um i remember you mentioning doing something like a hundred million kriya repetitions which apparently even led to scar tissue for me in your back.

So I thought that was a fun fact to mention. So yeah, it seems like every practice comes with certain affordances and certain limitations. What do you see as the gifts and blind spots that can emerge from specific methods like Kriya or jhanas? What role do these different practices play for you? How do they come together in your current approach that you call the optimal mind system? Oh yeah, so the way I see it is all of the different practices that I have done personally have come from a certain kind of cultural bias, primarily, let's say, in the Indian culture. And when we talk about Buddhism, especially Theravada Buddhism, or even Mahayana Buddhism, and to some extent Tibetan Buddhism, because they have their own culture in terms of the Tibetan practices, they all have their roots in ancient India.

There's a certain kind of cultural context in there that over a period of the last 5,000 years, because if you take into account Vedanta, Kriya Yoga, the Upanishads, all of these different practices that have evolved through India and the culture, there are certain kinds of biases. And those biases are then taken by certain teachers, whether they're from India or elsewhere, and it becomes further fossilized.

And that sort of calcification of a certain cultural mindset or perspective then just becomes seamlessly embedded into the practice. And one of the beautiful things about Kriya Yoga as I've learned it from Forrest Knudsen, he has some great videos out there, he has a channel, and he's learned it from the lineage of Panchanan Bhattacharya, who was one of the first lay students of Lahiri Mahasaya. In fact, what was interesting is Lahiri Mahasaya told him, if you want to learn from me, you need to become a lay person. He was actually a monk who went to him and asked him for the Kriya initiation. He said, go renounce your monkhood, go into the lay life, start earning some money, and then I'll start teaching you Kriya.

He was very adamant that it should be a householder technique and process. And Forrest has done a very beautiful job of laying out the practice in a way that is for the modern context, without all of the fluff of Indian mysticism and cultural biases. And I really appreciate that. I myself was kind of stuck in those biases when I was getting so obsessed by the different Kriya practices that are from other lineages as well, and even Vedanta. And when we talk about Buddhism, I've seen how Buddhism operates as such in places like Cambodia, and where I spent some time in places like India. And my personal experience with that is Buddhism is to Asia in the same way that Christianity is to the West.

Because nobody is necessarily a practicing Christian. They're just going to church maybe every Sunday or on the main holidays or whatever. Or even if you're Jewish, you know, you don't necessarily go to synagogue every time. You just go on the High Holidays and that's pretty much it. So the depth of practice in Buddhism, ironically enough, I found more in the West than in Asia.

My experience with that has been with Bhante Vimalaramsi's teachings. He was frustrated with the Vipassana stuff, the Vipassana community that he was practicing from, specifically in Burma. He saw that it was creating a lot of aggravation and tension in his mind. A lot of people went for 10-day retreats, 20-day retreats, 40-day retreats, three-month retreats. They came back and said, oh, this is wonderful. But there was no real personality change as such. And so he came from that perspective that there must be something else.

And he went back into the suttas under the guidance of another great teacher, Bhante Punnaji, who I never had a chance to meet, but I've seen some of his videos. He actually came to Dhamma Sukha once, and he lived in the same cabin that I'm staying in now. He was also of the nature of going back to the suttas, the original Pali Canon. But the one blind spot, of maybe many blind spots, is that again it's coming from a certain culture. We have to understand that if you look at the character of the Buddha, he was a prince, or he was from a princely family, and so he was a kshatriya. They have a different idea of what that means for life. You have the four so-called castes, brahmins, kshatriyas, vaishyas and shudras, and there's a certain way of behaving and a certain way of looking at life. So it can actually be difficult to divorce or decouple the culture from Buddhism.

And I think the Buddha in some of the suttas, the culture shows through. The cultural parts of it show through, and culture, as we know, is an evolving process. It continues to change over time. But the facets of Buddhism which are universal to anyone who has a human mind can be applied, whether you're living in India or living in the US or at some point living on Mars. Because the essence is what I'm always interested in, and that's what my journey was about, to find those strings of commonality outside of the cultural conditioning and outside of this dogmatic sort of view that I am better than you, or this particular tradition is better than this particular tradition. I still see that in TWIM, and I don't think I want to do that battle. I will just do what I can in terms of my teachings, so that I can tell people, hey, this is what I've learned, but there's much more that you can look at, and maybe you might want to look at this or that.

So those are the sort of, let's say, blind spots that I see, some of the things that I see from my experience and from seeing people in the community. Again, I'm not bashing them. I'm just saying it's a long process of cultural indoctrination that has seeped into these different traditions. But in terms of the techniques themselves, in terms of the practicality, practical aspects of Vedanta, yoga, Sankhya and Buddhism, there is a wonderful sort of relationship that's had between teacher and student or mentor and protégé, where there's direct

giving of knowledge which then transmutes into wisdom through the practice through the step-by-step processes and this is what i like about the eightfold path or the eight limbs of yoga is that they're not based in any or very little i should say based in the cultural norms of gods and goddesses and you know it should be done this way and should be done that way it's like no this is the universalities don't be an be a good person you know and then you have a more uh stable mind and then you're ready to practice. And then you'll experience these altered states that are happening because of your mind that is collected. And from there, because of that mind, you'll start to see insights into the nature of reality.

And those are universals. Yeah, it's interesting what you were saying about going to Asia and there being more of this cultural Buddhism, which is kind of similar to how, in the West, we have this notion of the cultural Christian. We're all culturally Christian, whether we practice or go to church or not. A lot of our foundations and a lot of our beliefs are based on Christianity. So when I once went to Thailand, I definitely got that kind of vibe. Everybody's kind of steeped in Buddhism, but it's in a very exoteric, not esoteric, way. It's this very cultural, outward-facing kind of thing.

It's like, oh, Buddhism is the right thing to do. This is kind of how we are. This is the morality, but it's not necessarily tied to the practice. So that distinction is interesting. There was something else you were saying, the fact that this notion of superiority that you sometimes see in different traditions.

And are you saying that you still feel that there's something like that with TWIM? Like this notion of, this is the way to awakening, or this is the best way to awakening, or something like that? Oh, for sure. For sure. I mean, I don't think it's rampant throughout the community, but I know that among certain leaders of the TWIM community, they feel that it is better than Vipassana, or it's... Because their emphasis is on a more relaxed state of being that is collected, so that your mind can start to be in these jhanas. But they're sort of against the idea of the hard jhanas, which come from suppressing the mind and so on.

And they use suttas as references for that, to say that this is not how the Buddha taught it, and so on. And so I still find a lot of great benefits from the TWIM practice, because it's so methodical. That's what I appreciate about it. And there is a certain culture that comes from the TWIM practice that becomes part of this almost reverential attitude towards Bhante Vimalaramsi and then towards the Buddha and so on and so forth, which is, to an extent, appreciated. But sometimes it can get into the territory of, no, he's the savior of Buddhism, and things like that. He rediscovered the path to this process.

And I don't mean this in a fascistist way, I'm just saying that this is how I see it. It's not something that turns me on, you know, and I don't mean it just for TWIM. I've seen it in Christianity, because I've done Christian mysticism as well. I've seen it in Hinduism. There's this sort of guru worship without calling it guru worship, which can become abusive. That's not happening in TWIM, not at all. But when I start seeing little threads like that, I stay away from that and just focus on the practice. Yeah, this notion of idealization, and yeah, I feel like we could definitely circle around to that. I think I remember reading

I'm trying to remember when I first came across TWIM, but I think the first thing I read was David Johnson's book. I think it was called The Path to Nibbana, which I really enjoyed. And then I think towards the end there was something, and I've read this, this was a couple of years ago, so maybe I'm forgetting, but I think I remember something towards the end like, "Oh, this is the true path, or this is the right path." Something about it was like, "Ah," like it felt kind of like, "Oh, come to us, we've got what you need," kind of thing. And it was, but it's also interesting. I think you had a conversation with Daniel Ingram, I mean you had several with him, and one of the things he was saying in one of those conversations was this notion that every kind of tradition and every kind of sangha, they kind of say, "We've got the best thing." It's kind of like the marketing thing, and everybody

just like maybe me. The wapasta and Mahasi Sayadaw, like his method was like that was the main thing, and they were like, "We're taking students to awakening." And then Bhante Vimalaramsi comes, and it's like, "No, they were missing this one piece," of smiling the smile. That's the thing he would talk about, having the smile on the face and just really relaxing. So maybe there is something. It's this kind of competitive nature that's there, of like, how can we improve, how can we do better? Yeah, yeah. What I would say also is I think that can be found in pretty much

many different techniques or schools of techniques, maybe not as explicit or blatant as how we're talking about it in terms of, let's say, Mahasi versus TWIM or anything like that. But there's always, when I see that and I notice that, like, okay, this thing, you could just let go of this thing. You don't need this thing of saying we're better. Let the technique speak for itself. We don't need to create this dichotomy of us versus them, and I think that's a deeply ingrained human process that happens sometimes. In the sutras you might see that as well, where the Buddha criticizes other views that are not in alignment with his particular view, let's say about life or existence, and sometimes it can be a bit ferocious. So there are times, and it's so interesting with the sutras, and I read that there are some moments where you see the Buddha just being like

human you know he's just he gets pissed off at someone he's like how can you say that you're like this or you're like that he criticizes and in other points he talks about like views you know let's not get attached to views like let's go let go of views and so on and uh i try to direct people in that direction whenever i start to see that like oh we're better than them and be like let's just get let go of that view you know and let's also see this part which is the buddha could get annoyed he could get tired he was a human he did all kinds of things that were human and so this perfectionist attitude or this idealization of what it means to be awakened and what it means to be enlightened um

is not helpful it's not and by the way it's not just in buddhism it's in vedanta as well it's in yoga as well you know uh vedanta has the idea of the jivan mukta which means one who is liberated by living and therefore for such a person they won't do a b c d and e they won't eat meat they won't do this they won't do that and all of these things and and yoga as well like this notion of being vegetarian for example it's it's a cultural thing it's uh it's an indian cultural thing i remember one time

I was in India and I'd been meeting with this potential student who wanted to meet with me in Delhi, and he invited me to the JW Marriott, a really nice hotel, and we went there and we ate at the buffet. He had a friend of his, or somebody who called himself a yogi, a yoga teacher. We spent a lot of time, then we went out, went upstairs. He said, "Let's go to the spa," and he treated me to, you know, getting a massage. So I got a massage and everything, and we relaxed, and we went back to the lounge and just talked. And he went, he retired somewhere, and then the yogi that was there, he was talking to me, and he said, "Don't you feel ashamed of yourself?" And I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "How could you just eat all this chicken?" Yeah, I remember seeing him eyeing my chicken like it was a very bad thing, and then he's like, and then you're getting massages, you know, you're letting women touch

your body like that, and he was like, "If this was the Himalayas, I would have taken my sword and chopped your head off." And so that's crazy. Yeah, yeah. So it's everywhere, you know, that kind of perspective, that they hold on to certain views, and the only thing we can do is allow each other to reflect off of those views and be mirrors for that blind spot. And I think teachers get the brunt of that. There's a lot of transference that happens, there's a lot of projection that happens, and you become the parent that the student never had. You become sort of the daddy that they never had, and then that becomes very problematic. You don't intend to do that as a teacher, but it just happens psychologically.

And one of the things that has happened is these five-hour videos that have come up, where I might have failed to be the person that they were expecting me to be. And that creates an extremist view, like they go from idealizing. I remember there was this one student who just thought I was God, you know, and he would say that to everybody, and then because I did something or said something, or a series of things that he didn't like, he went in the opposite direction, and he produced this five-hour video about how terrible I am and all of these things. I can't control that, but it is something that people should be aware of: you are your own teacher. I say that all the time, you are your own teacher. Your mind will show you your own blind spots if you are open enough to see them and open enough to allow for criticism. I'm open enough to allow for criticism as much as I can, until it gets belligerent and just, you know, unhelpful.

And that has helped me grow, that has helped me grow, you know. One of the things, it's so funny, because I was in a phase where I wasn't speaking with Door for a while, and I'd been just with myself. And he met with Andrew Holecek, who's another great teacher. I don't know if you've had a chance to see any of his work, but he attended one of Andrew's events, and he was talking, and my name came up at some point, and through Andrew he suggested I read this book called Finding Radical Wholeness by Ken Wilber.

And I thought Andrew suggested it, and later on Door told me that he had suggested it to Andrew for me to check out. But in any case, I'm very grateful to Door for doing that, because it's so helpful to see those different buckets of, you know, waking up, showing up, cleaning up, growing up. All of these things are just so integral. I mean, that's why it's called the Integrated Path to our Evolution on this planet.

Yeah, no, I appreciate you bringing it up. And that's definitely something that I wanted to bring up as well, as I was going to come to this later, but since you mentioned it now, yeah, you mentioned in another interview about this, like coming across Ken Wilber and integral theory and perhaps this notion of shadow work as being a vital part of the path of awakening. And personally, I found the most comprehensive elucidation of the psycho-spiritual journey through those who go deep into meditation but are also aware of integral theory and developmental stage theories. Wilber's book, The Religion of Tomorrow, I think does a good job of framing Buddhism through a developmental lens, like how it just develops on itself.

And Dan Brown and Dustin DiPerna are long-time, they're my meditation teachers, and they're long-time collaborators of Ken Wilber, so I find that a lot of their perspective was informed by that. Aside from the notion of shadow work, is there anything else you're finding that integral theory is opening up for you? Perhaps an even more comprehensive view of the path of awakening, and maybe, oh for sure, like you mentioned

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think what I love about that book, and I think probably it's just the way Ken looks at awakening, is that he somehow is able to reconcile the Buddhist and the Hindu path. Which means that there's the path of emptiness, which is the ultimate realization of Buddhism, and then there's the path of wholeness, or becoming one with everything, which is, you know, the highest level of that. Or, I don't want to qualify it as the highest, but let's say one of the highest levels is the Advaita Vedanta tradition, which is the non-dual Vedanta, which is like atman becomes brahman. It was never different from brahman, and so brahman is sort of the all, everything. And in that book, and I think he probably does this everywhere, in other books as well, is that he says those two are compatible.

Which is beautiful. To me, that is a wonderful sort of reconciliation, because emptiness denotes the idea of no self, or the lack of an inherent self. He takes you through that, and he shows you the egolessness of the mind. But then the other part of that is realizing that there is an interconnectivity that happens, which is brahman, or which is the universal consciousness, or whatever it is. That dichotomy for me was completely shattered. I don't see a difference between the notion of emptiness and the brahman, Advaita Vedanta, non-dual experience. They're just different angles of looking at the same thing. They're like different doors leading to the same room.

Yeah, it's this notion of integrating true self and no self. A lot of times you hear there's a lot of disagreement about that, right, depending on what your tradition is. I've seen debates and conversations, somebody coming more from a Vedanta background, or somebody coming more from a Buddhism background, and the metaphysics gets imported somehow, and then the arguments become around the metaphysics, rather than what is your direct experience?

So I think this is a big question for a lot of people on the path. This is the question of suffering, and what it is, and to what degree it can actually be alleviated through spiritual practice. It might even be the main question people ask themselves on the spiritual path. For many people, suffering is a big word that describes something devastating. But from the Buddhist perspective, suffering is any clinging, any attachment, any subtle dissatisfaction we experience.

So even deep practitioners likely feel some subtle discontent, even if someone has the capacity, such as yourself, to access cessation. You can't stay in that state forever, and unless they're a monk, they have to navigate worldly matters, which almost always brings some kind of dissatisfaction, even if it's subtle. Jiddu Krishnamurti once said, "Do you know what my secret is? I don't mind what happens." I've sat with that line for a lot, and I could relate to it to some degree. The fewer desires and attachments we have, the more free we are. But at the same time, what parent could honestly say, I don't mind if my child dies, right? So while teachings like that could sound very profound, sometimes I wonder, who can genuinely live like that?

And even if we could, is that even desirable or psychologically healthy? I can definitely say that meditation has helped me suffer less and has helped me create less suffering for others. But I can't say it's ended my suffering. Some might say, well, you just haven't gone far enough on the path, and fair enough. But then there's someone like you. You've meditated over 30,000 hours, you've gone deep into multiple traditions, probably gone far deeper than most people ever will.

In one interview, and I think this was with one of your conversations with door, you mentioned still experiencing pain, grief and suffering like anyone else. You also talked about your attachments to your mom and your sister, and to me that sounds like being human. So yeah, I really love to hear your perspective on suffering and this whole idea of the end of suffering. Do you think that's truly possible, particularly for householders, and what might that look like? That's a very good question, and there's a lot to unpack there, because the notion of suffering is laid out in the sutra model as being three kinds of categories, right? One is dukkha dukkha, which is the suffering of suffering. There's viparinama dukkha, which is the suffering of change, and there's sankhara dukkha, which is the suffering of an inherent, existential kind of suffering.

And yeah, I tend to agree with the idea that suffering as a translation is a bit too dramatic. It's too heavy, you know, that's way too heavy. But I like Leigh Brasington's way of looking at it, which is, "It's a bummer, things can be a bummer." That kind of softens the blow. The word dukkha really means that things are kind of out of balance. There's a certain level of imbalance in the way things are happening, because dukkha really is like that. I always give this analogy: when you're shopping in the grocery store and you take one of those carts, there's always one wheel of the shopping cart that's just a little off, and you're trying to just push, and that's dukkha. That's one part of life that's just a little off, and you can't escape that. Something or another is going to happen, right? But what we can

help alleviate is our perception of what's happening, so we can learn to continue to transform our perceptions of whatever is arising. I'm not talking about spiritual bypassing. I'm talking about real looking. Okay, I'm suffering because I'm looking at it this way. Is there maybe... it's my blind spot, maybe it's my trauma, maybe it's a trigger that's causing me the suffering in this moment? Can I transcend that somehow without suppressing it? So the human existence is suffering. It is going to be there whether you want it or not. And to be awakened

is the realization that you've been suffering. Like some people I see in some circles of my friends from high school and elsewhere, where you can see that they're suffering but they're blind to that suffering. That's a certain level of ignorance, and they suppress that through abusing their body, abusing their mind with certain substances, or getting addicted to certain things, whether it's traveling all the time or buying the next best product, whatever it is. These are all different ways of trying to deal with that suffering. And so the Buddha comes along and says, first, we have to understand that there is suffering and accept that there is suffering.

That's the first noble truth. The second is there's a cause and condition for this suffering, which is namely craving. What is that craving? It's an obsessiveness of the mind to either want something, to push away something, or to identify with something as me, mine, or myself. That's a very simplistic way of looking at it, but basically what he's saying is there are certain causes and conditions, but there's also a cessation of suffering, which is an experience of wisdom. It's that cloudless sky mind, as I call it, where the mind is free of any kind of obscurations

free of any kind of concepts, contrivances, and that space is a nibbana mind, and that's accessible to each and every one of us. But does that mean it's going to stop us from suffering at all? I don't believe so. So the fourth noble truth is trying to perfect that path, the eightfold path, the cultivation of continually imbuing the mind, imbuing our life with that non-contrived nibbanic field, the nibbana dhatu, the element of nibbana, as it were. And I think so long as you have a body, so long as you have a mind, you're going to suffer. You're going to suffer. But you will be able to recognize that suffering much faster, I believe, and you'll be able to understand how do I let go of the suffering, how do I transform the suffering? Is there a lesson to be learned here? Is there a way in which I can

transmute it somehow, or can I just stay with it? That's another methodology, right? It's to acknowledge, stay with it, and see if anything comes from learning with it. I'm not talking about vipassana, like just watch the suffering, watch the pain and observe it. You can do that if you want, but it's a deeper level of recognition that there's suffering going on in this moment. Where did the suffering come from? So that's yoniso manasikara in Pali, which is the attention rooted in reality, as I translate it. The yoni means wound, the source. So what is the source of this particular suffering I'm experiencing? And that is the awakened path, that's the awakened mind. There are people who might not

find that attractive, and that's fine, but I believe that an awakened mind will continue to suffer. And I agree with Jiddu Krishnamurti, by the way, where he says the secret is I don't mind at all. But there are times when you will mind something, and so how do you navigate that? That is really the tools that you're given through this process of meditation, whether it's yoga, Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta or tantra. Yeah, so it's fair to say that the teaching of the end of suffering is kind of like an ideal to aim for, and potentially in any given moment we might be meeting that ideal, and there might be moments when we're not. There might be moments of remembering, moments of forgetting, moments of expansion, moments of contraction. Absolutely, absolutely. And the one thing I would add is that if there's one thing we should let go of, it is idealizations.

And that's probably a big cause of a lot of suffering, because it creates these expectations in the mind: once I get there, once I reach that, everything will be perfect. My mind will be purified, or I will attain to supreme emptiness, or whatever it is. Again, concepts of the mind, conceptual proliferation of the mind. And so I really, in my experience, see a mind without craving. I mean, that title of the book, A Mind Without Craving, just means a mind that is not reflective of any kind of need for things to be one way or the other. And it's an evolutionary process. It's a process, which means it's not static, it's not fossilized. It can't be turned into a thing. It is a process that you continue to go through and continue to transform through. And with, yeah, I think that's a beautiful way to orient to these teachings.

And it also feels like a relief, because I think a lot, I definitely have that tendency to kind of idealize stuff like that. And actually, the other practitioner that I mentioned, who kind of introduced me to the sutric versus tantric view, they would say that, yeah, there is, you're going to suffer as long as you have a body. As long as you have a body, you're going to have some suffering. So yeah, it's just, yeah, just coming to terms with that. And it's like, okay, how do we suffer better? How do we learn from our suffering? How do we reiterate on these cycles of contraction and expansion, and just kind of ride those waves more skillfully? Maybe. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Um, it's like again that notion or analogy of the shopping cart. What do you do with the shopping cart? You might find another shopping cart, but every single shopping cart might still have that third wheel or fourth wheel that is just somehow unstable.

So what do you do with it? You learn how to navigate with it. You learn how to, you don't stop shopping. You actually continue with life and you continue doing what you need to do. You just find better ways of navigating. I wanted to ask you this a little bit earlier, but you mentioned working with Lama Lena and studying within Vajrayana traditions like Dzogchen and Mahamudra. I've actually had the chance to study a bit with Lama Lena too. She's a very interesting, very profound teacher. And I work mostly within Mahamudra. And my understanding is that Vajrayana is a development of the earlier vehicles of Buddhism.

And I'm kind of curious what made you, for a lack of a better term, go back to Theravada and to study with Bhante Vimalaramsi and the TWIM community. And this is also not to discount Theravada, because there's a lot of profound things in Theravada and Mahayana and Vajrayana. Like, there's this development. But I think this is something Daniel Ingram also said in one of your conversations, like, Vajrayana is like full spectrum. It's more so full spectrum.

And yeah, it does feel like there is this kind of development. So it's interesting that you've went and studied within Dzogchen and Mahamudra and then, you know, returned. And I think you mentioned that there was something for you about finding different methods and seeing where there's overlap, and when there is an overlap, what's kind of the benefit. But yeah, I'm just kind of curious how that played out, because for me, it was more coming to Theravada and more of the sutric lens first, and then moving into Vajrayana and Mahamudra and seeing, wow, actually, this works so much better for me. So I'm just curious how that played out for you.

Yeah, this is interesting because, well, for one, I was kind of inspired by Ramakrishna Paramahansa, who was considered one of the greatest spiritual sort of teachers of the 19th century, actually. And he was Swami Vivekananda's teacher. Swami Vivekananda, his works were the first foray for me into spirituality. Like, after I got expelled from school, that was when I went to the Himalayas.

And my yoga teacher, the guy who took me there, he gave me the entire collection of Swami Vivekananda's works. And I was a voracious reader. Like, I loved reading. So I went through it back and forth. And Ramakrishna Paramahansa was somebody who was a universalist in that approach. He went through each and every path as much as he could and tried to get to the end of each of those paths. That was sort of my inspiration: to just, like Ramakrishna Paramahansa, go through each path and really see the similarities, see the commonalities, see what they have to offer. So I was in San Diego at the time, and in San Diego I had a lot of free time on my hands.

So I would spend a lot of time practicing meditation. And I decided I would go back into the Yoga Sutras. So I had my foray into Mahamudra and Dzogchen and all of that. But then I wanted to go back to seeing it from the lens of what I had learned, and going back into the Yoga Sutras.

And there is a chapter in the Yoga Sutras which is called the Vibhuti Pada. It's the section in which you deal with samyama. Samyama is like collecting the mind around a certain object and experiencing the fullest extent of that object, to the point where you might even awaken certain siddhis. My goal was not to awaken siddhis. My goal was just to experiment as an investigator: how does this process actually work? And one of the things that he talked about is the four brahmaviharas, the loving kindness, the compassion, the joy and the equanimity, which are ways of stilling the mind. I said, how would you cultivate that? How would you cultivate these four particular brahmaviharas? So I went online, searched for this thing, the brahmaviharas, and who's teaching it. I came across Sharon Salzberg. It didn't really interest me then. I came across Bhante Vimalaramsi's videos, and then I remember listening to one of his videos about nibbana, and he pointed it in such a beautiful way. It was like, oh my god, I have to try this out for myself. So that was my

entry point into the TWIM practice and going back into the Theravada practice. Before then, no idea what Theravada was, no idea, in terms of the suttas, in terms of the content of Theravada. I knew that there was the distinction between Theravada, Mahayana and all of that, but not really delving deep into the suttas. So that was sort of my entry point, doing these experiments with the Yoga Sutras and then going and finding a suitable teacher who could show me the path of the brahmaviharas.

And then the rest is sort of, you know, somehow it took a life of its own, and karma being karma, it unfolded in the way that it's unfolded. And I've become a TWIM teacher, but not just a TWIM teacher, which I realized thanks to my sort of year, about 16 months off from teaching, where I realized I have a lot more to provide. I have a lot more to give from my experiences with Dzogchen, Mahamudra, Kriya, Vedanta, Sankhya, all of these different practices. So what that's helped me with, as a guide, as a teacher, is that I can look at a person, see where they're coming from, understand what their perspective is, and then, like a doctor, prescribe them a specific methodology, and then walk in hand hold with them to a certain extent.

And then be a reflector, be a mirror to what they're presenting. And so it doesn't just have to be TWIM. It just doesn't have to be Kriya. It could be wherever you're coming from. Of my craziness to try to get to the end of all of these different so-called paths. The way I'm looking at it more and more, and I've seen it in the beginning intellectually, but experientially I'm starting to see that it is like what the Vedas say. It's like different rivers leading to the same ocean. So we get caught up in the river and we forget that the ocean is there.

Yeah, this might be related also to how awakening is understood differently between Theravada and Vajrayana. But what would you say is the difference between accessing Rigpa and accessing cessation? Is there something about the cessation, like the non-experience, that's particularly beneficial? Because it seems like there could be a lot of people that practice in Vajrayana and maybe more of the householder stuff, people that aren't going on long retreats, that aren't necessarily experiencing cessation.

So I'm just wondering how those, the notion of Rigpa and cessation in your experience, is different and what they afford. So when we talk about cessation, especially in the TWIM practice, it's a cessation of perception and feeling, and Bhante added this word consciousness: a cessation of perception, feeling and consciousness. But in the original suttas it just says cessation of perception and feeling. I have the ability to go into this particular space in which there's total lack of any kind of consciousness. But the more I have understood it, and the more I see it based on the evidence of the research that I was part of as a subject of these couple of research programs investigating into the jhanas and investigating into the cessation of consciousness, I think it's more about the cessation of perception itself, which is the mind continues to conceive notions and ideas, and that's how we have the prediction of what we see: we create an image. And so the cessation of perception and feeling is we are completely void, our mind is completely void of any predictive modeling systems.

So that we are just seeing things as they actually are, and at a certain point the mind might just drop completely. Like that. It feels like there's a lack of awareness, that feels like there's no awareness there. But I think what happens, if I were to interpret it, is that there is still mind there, there's still a body there, there's still stuff going on. It's just that all of the conceptualizations that have happened have ceased or are on pause. So it's not like the cessation of consciousness, it's the cessation of all notional activities. And what that feels like is there's a break in the system, there's a reboot process that happens. It's like the film reel, there's some footage that's missing because there was no perception possible there. Rigpa is the

In my perspective, it's the fundamental consciousness. It's the consciousness that is not vinnana, that is not dependent upon the eye, the ears, the nose or tongue, the body, the mind, in terms of everyday activity. It's what's left after you let go of all things through the perspective of emptiness, and that thing that is left is the nibbana tattoo. So rigpa, the clear light mind, nibbana, whatever you want to call it, Brahman, it's just whatever is left. But it's not a concept that the mind comes up with. It's like a de-layering process that comes to this thing, and then whatever we call it, our conceptualization of it, is our perception of it after the fact of experiencing it. So we might call it rigpa because that's the kind of territory we're coming from. We might call it Brahman because that's the territory we're coming from. We might call it the nibbana mind or the nibbana dhatu. We might call it the luminosity, the luminous mind, and so on. So cessation is a process

which creates that gap for us to like stop all notionalizing all conceptualizing to get to get to that space which we can call rigpa which we can call the nibana field yeah but then also cessation is not a requirement for that for that realization the realization of rigba right it's it's a process it's one of the processes that you know comes through from the twin process which is you let go you let go you let go and then at a very deep layer you let go to such an extent that you see emptiness immediately because then when the when the reboot happens you start to see how mind makes its own concepts right and then that wisdom allows you to kind of just relax back generally it takes it takes a few times or a few tries for people to really stabilize in it but again like you said it's not necessary it's just one pathway it's just one way of doing it um another way is through inside practice you know uh for example the process of via negativa you know the um

the ramana rishi method where he talks in jnana yoga he says neti neti neti not this this is not it this is not the self this is not the self this is not the self and you come to a space where you find s uh self with a capital s which can't be irreducible it's It's unconditioned. It has no composites. It has no components. It is its own irreducible substrate.

You know, what's, I think what's really interesting about the notion of cessation is this, like, you can't, it's like, you can only speak about it, like reflecting back, right? It's like, like you said, it's like the cutting, the film gets cut and there's nobody or nothing there yet. You can still kind of reflect back on it. Like afterwards, I was like, oh yeah, this happened. So there was like a, there's a sense of, you know, there's an awareness that's there. Something is, there's gotta be some notion of something that's aware for you to be able to like reflect back on like, this is what happened.

I think you, I think you were speaking about in one of your interviews, one of your later interviews that you're like working on the micro phenomenology of cessation that you're working with somebody like to figure out what exactly like getting really nuanced like what exactly is happening when that happens and then they're coming back and then they're reflecting on it yeah I don't know if you could say more on that yeah yeah this was actually with a researcher actually they're working in tandem with Ruben Lauconen who who headed that research in the netherlands and uh it's an ongoing project um but what can i what i can say about it is yeah it's it's a lot of fun um it can be a little bit of work because you know this microphone

this micro feminologist is like literally like no no tell me what happened just a second before tell me what happened there let's zoom into that particular moment and then tell me what you saw what you experienced and you know did was this particular light that arose or was it this or that and so it's really building the the model of what happens after cessation from my experience and um i think the initial sort of uh findings from that are available on youtube um elaine slechter who's one of the lead researchers of the netherlands research group um she created a presentation and i'll find the link and i'll send it to you maybe you can put it in the the for sure yeah so so show notes and uh there she kind of shows some of the findings from that but it's an ongoing process and it might take a while uh but it's very fascinating because it really is like okay what happened right now in this moment what happened in this moment you know and it's just like it's like you're slowing down the film reel to such an extent that you're really

I'm curious, have you ever tried any psychedelics? Because I don't think I've ever heard you speak about that. You know, it's so funny, because I remember Guru Viking, Steve, asked me, have you taken any, have you had any experience with psychedelics and drugs? But I'm going to set the record straight and say yes, I have, because that time I said no, but I apologize. I didn't want people to get influenced by my idea that, okay, psychedelics are great, because for some reason people, this is my experience, some people really take every word that I say and they take it very literally, and it's very difficult to be in public life where some words are taken in such a way, right? I'm not excusing myself for basically lying about that, but again I apologize. But the reality is I have taken psychedelics.

Um, and I've had experience with mushrooms, with psilocybin, and not really a psychedelic, both in and entactogenic, which is MDA and MDMA. My experience with mushrooms was great. The first time I did it was not as great, because there was a lot of anxiety that was sort of induced, and I had to then go and start writing what I was experiencing, and that helped to hone in on what was going on. It was a small dose, but then the next dose was a really good dose. It was a good amount, and that one was really interesting. So I remember just sitting on my bed. I took that, waited for about 20 minutes, sat on my bed, and just went into meditation.

And the first thing I saw was the Great Pyramid, and on top of the pyramid was Hanuman dancing with a disco ball. And I'm like, okay, it's starting to hit. I go downstairs and just try to figure out what's going on, and I start to see those little sort of patterns and things in the air, and then the kitchen I'm in starts to turn into the console of the Starship Enterprise, and there's stuff going on. So I start to go to the backyard and sit with nature. I'm just sitting, looking out on this beautiful valley with trees, and the sun is there and some clear blue sky, and there's some music playing in the background, and I'm looking at the grass and it starts to kind of dance to the beat of the music. I'm like, okay, now I should probably just relax, take a few breaths, and then go inward. So I go inward.

And it was a trip, it was a real trip. I mean, I experienced all kinds of entities, and snakes and spiders and aliens and golden swastikas and all of these different things that came and went through my conscious field. But in the end of all that, I found myself sitting on a rock under the tree meditating. I don't know how I was able to just get from where I was and walk there, but at some point that happened. And at the end of the trip my realization was: the earth is my mother and the sky is my father, and life is as it is. There is nothing to do but to surrender into every moment of your life. That was the insight that arose from that. For me, that was one of the most beautiful experiences.

Was this sometime recently or a while ago? No, no, this was while I was in San Diego, maybe 2014, 2015, something like that. And yeah, I mean, I have experimented with different kinds of drugs, let's say. My first experience with THC was a very interesting one, because I had been doing a lot of kriya back then. So I was still practicing a lot of kriya, all of these different breathing practices, and they already sort of elevate your mind and your senses.

So I was partaking in some cannabis with friends, and I said, "It's not hitting. I don't feel anything." All right, why don't you just take a really big toke? And I did that. I held it in, let it out, and like 5, 10, 15 minutes later I'm like, things are changing here. I feel like I'm floating, I feel like I'm out of my body, I feel like I'm not going to come back. And it was about an hour and a half, maybe two hours, of an experience where it was just like, wow, this is unreal. I can't feel my face, I can't feel my body, and everything is still hyper-aware, hyper-realistic. So that was fun, that was interesting, but

yeah i i would say the psilocybin experience was one of by far one of the best i would love to do 5 meo dmt at some point and i know one of my one of my friends and students uh she does that kind of facilitation so when i have a chance i will be doing that that would be fascinating because i was actually that was probably why i asked you about the psychedelics is because this is some because i've had that experience with the 5 meo dmt three times years ago and it's so interesting because i read about the notion of a cessation it was in um chill das's book the mind illuminated and when i read that i i was like is that what happened to me and i haven't and i still don't know it's like it's because that experience is so

profound and and it does seem like there's something like maintaining your awareness because i see that some people have that experience and they don't know what the hell happened they're just like they can't really reflect on it i feel like i can reflect fairly well but it's still like there's still aspects of it that maybe i wasn't able to retain. And when I read cessation, when I read this notion of cessation, I was like, is that what happened? Was it like everything kind of shut off, but there was still this notion of awareness and then it was coming back and everything was kind of rebooting. And I have no clue. I actually wanted to bring this up in my conversation with Dorr because maybe he had the experience too.

So I'm trying to find, like, Deep Med. I spoke to Daniel Ingram about this too. I brought that up to him, but he never had the experience. Now, because I want to talk to meditators who have had cessation experiences through meditation, because I haven't. And then also, who have used 5-MEO, and then being able to compare that and see what the differences are. What is afforded through these psychedelic experiences that maybe isn't afforded through meditation, or is it a similar type of stuff?

So it's interesting that you brought that up as well well you know it's it's uh i was offered that uh back in 2022 by the same person and i just didn't feel ready yet uh and and so now it's a different it's a different ball game for me because i i i have a friend a really good friend of mine who's also a meditation uh teacher and he he had an experience with it and he was telling me about he was telling me about his experience and i said oh this is very interesting it sounds a lot like you know um like niroda and then like the experience of unification with brahman and you know it's it's a very non-dual experience that he was sort of describing so um i said i want to try it at some point uh but i i didn't have a chance to at that point because

um it wasn't something i guess karmically i was ready for um and i didn't have any availability for it so now when things come in the right place and you know it's the right space the right setting i'll do it and you know i'll report back i'll let you know how it how it goes um but you know i also want to say because i think there's a responsibility as teachers to also let people know like look it's your own mind it's your own life you can do what you want but please like be respectful of these substances like don't do them because you're going for some kind of uh experience just do it when you feel like you're ready for it you know and i think it's very important to mention this because i know that some people's minds are just not ready yet so and and there are some who have done these experience had these experiences done these psychedelics and then come to meditation and then come to the process of buddhism and and so on so yeah so that was me that was my path yeah

yeah and i appreciate you bringing up that word of caution and i also want to mention like um my teacher dan brown he would he would say there is a risk of getting attached to these experiences and i've definitely experienced that, particularly with the 5-MEO DMT. People say you can't get addicted to psychedelics, which you can't, but you can still get attached to the experiences.

And my teacher, Dustin, says it's not necessary for awakening. So that's just something to keep in mind for people. It's not necessary. I do think there's maybe other things that are afforded through these experiences, particularly my experiences with ayahuasca. I feel like you can definitely release a lot of trauma and stuff like that. Like I've experienced releasing trauma from my body from using that medicine. So I do think there might be different things that are afforded, but once again, I don't think psychedelics are necessary for awakening. Yeah.

And that's an interesting point because um you know the way i look at psychedelics is they are okay so i have a i have a personal theory of how spirituality came through and it might not be my own theory it might just be because i've seen and it's just the mind has kind of taken that and created that theory and um you know i was watching this documentary called a story of india uh by a guy named michael wood it's a really interesting documentary but the very first episode talks about this substance called soma uh in the vedas s-o-m-a soma and it's uh you know the the rishis the sages would drink copious amounts of it and then like start uh writing these poetic verses that then became concretized into the vedas you know these hymns to the gods and and all of these interesting sort of philosophical discussions

and so you know michael in the documentary is very fascinated by he's trying to find the source of where the soma is and he goes to turkmenistan he finds himself in turkmenistan where uh victor serianetti who who um was a soviet air archaeologist discovered this sort of um terrain and then this terrain was like a mausoleum and like burial of horses and all of these things but there was also like this bowl an offering bowl and in it were the ingredients for what they thought was soma or maybe could have been the ingredients for soma and so he asked him straight you know straight off like what are those ingredients and he said it's it's cannabis opium and ephedrine and so it might have been we don't know exactly what the ingredients are but my my take on it is i think at some point our in our evolution humanity was basically inspired by

these psychedelics by these substances by these medicines to connect with different dimensions and bring in and download certain information about life existence the gods the different realms and so on and this is where we have now mythology which then turn into you know religion for some case in some cases you know shamanistic communities and so on but i think at some point at least in ancient india the the source ran out you know the source of these psychedelics ran out and my personal theory is that that's how meditation developed which is can we repeat these experiences and these processes without the use of these substances and And I think that's where the beginnings of meditation came from.

Yeah, that's interesting. And I think a lot of what you're saying, there's actually two books that talk about similar stuff. There's a book called The Immortality Key by Brian Morasko, something like that. But I think he also speaks about this and how psychedelics played the role they played in religion. And there's another one called The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross and kind of speaks about how a lot of Christianity was influenced through psychedelics. And, you know, people have different opinions about that, but yeah, there's definitely seems to be this kind of idea that psychedelics did play a role in humans connecting to spirituality and religion and these kinds of things. Also, one more thing, one more thing to add is, you know, in the Yoga Sutras, when you read the Yoga Sutras, you know, what I really like about the Yoga Sutras is that it's so nonjudgmental.

Like it's probably one of the texts which is as non-culturally biased as possible because it's basically like Patanjali kind of distills everything that was there at that point in time and then creates like this compendium of like these are the techniques you can use. These are the methodologies. This is the lifestyle that you may want to, you know, prescribe for yourself and all of these things.

and then there's a point where he says there are many different ways to get to samadhi so samadhi in that notion is the is the uh is the experience of the non-dual state or you know other states like in altered states and he says very non-judgmentally you could also use aushadha in sanskrit is herbs but herbs could be any kind of medication drugs psychedelics substances that induce these experiences so you know yeah you could get to these states but again they're temporary they're they're not necessarily going to help you in the long run but they might give you a little glimpse might give you a little preview that gets the ball rolling so for those of you who are psychonauts and love to explore that territory i would just say

try meditation try doing it without the psychedelics and see what insights arise for you it might take longer um but patience will be rewarded with a beautiful experience yeah wise words and i do think putting them together is i do feel like the fact that um well i was already meditating before i had some of the psychedelic experience i feel like I feel like psychedelics was like the rocket fuel. It was like, it was like opening certain things up. I'm like, all right, that gave me a lot of motivation to go deeper. But I do think having a practice, uh, like as a base actually will make your psychedelic experiences better and you'll be able to retain a lot more than otherwise you would.

My gateway into pragmatic dharma was Daniel Ingram, actually, after I had all these kind of big experiences, particularly with 5-MeO-DMT. I've went into some dark night stuff, and it was definitely like, how do I make sense of this? His book, Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, had a big impact on me early in my journey. And I think partly why I gravitated to you is because, like him, you also shared so freely about your realizations.

However, there are many other teachers who view the public sharing of attainments as highly problematic, partly because they can contribute to this dynamic of pedestalling. And I imagine there's other teachers or deep practitioners out there who are having certain realizations, and maybe they feel conflicted about how much to share. Based on your own journey, what do you see as some of the pros and cons about speaking publicly about spiritual attainments? And if you could go back, do you think you would have approached your own sharing in a different way?

I can see how problematic it has been from my own experience, because of, as you say, the pedestalling. But I was contributing to that as well, because obviously it was a good feeling to be validated, to be accepted, to have lauding fans and people who really wanted to learn from me. That's just my human nature to be that way. But I think it also has come with a great deal of criticism, of which part of it would be valid and part of it would just be people who are disturbed by the fact that somebody would even claim something like that.

And if I would have done it differently, I probably would have waited until I had some more experience with seeing the ins and outs of being in this community, the ins and outs of understanding this practice of TWIM, the ins and outs of my own personal emotional journey, and then come to a conclusion whether I really wanted to talk about it or not. In reality, it was a great marketing tool. It has been a great marketing tool. People come to me and they want to know more from me. And sometimes that's a double-edged sword, because they just come out of the curiosity, which is a very, it can be an innocent curiosity, but it can also be a little annoying, because you want to be able to talk about these deeper topics, but people just are there because they want to be in your presence or they want to spend time with you or whatever.

And it's not necessarily something that I can afford to do all the time. But having said all that, I think if you have had a valid experience, and if the context is right for you to talk about it, then why the hell not? I think what Daniel has done from his own experience has sort of laid the foundation for more people doing this from their own experiences. And it's not just Buddhism. Claiming full awakening, claiming enlightenment, has always been seen as a taboo in most spiritual circles, if not all, whether that's Buddhism, Vedanta, Hinduism, whatever it is. It's just, you think about, that's a different level altogether, let's say, or a different context. But if you were to claim yourself to be the son of God in ancient Judea, we saw the result of what that led to with the story of Jesus Christ, right? I'm not comparing myself to Jesus. I'm just saying from that context, claiming these things, and if they are real, they're real, but it comes with the price.

The people that are really genuinely interested will be inspired by it and will want to come and learn from you, and that's one of the pros of it. Also, I think it's great to mess with the system. One of my missions in life is to mess with the system. I call myself the anti-guru, because I find myself sometimes mischievous in that way. I see the of people, and I kind of call out on that, especially the traditionalists and especially the monastics. I have no enmity against the monastics, but there is a certain level of double standards that happens in the monastic community. We talk about being in the lay life and its challenges. I've spent a good deal of time with monks, and I have seen the level of politics and denigration and things that can happen. Does that mean all of the monastic community is like that? Not at all, but the ones that I know are like that.

Have been for me a representation of the monastic community, and say for one or two people, maybe three at the most, that I know who are monastics, are very genuine in their understanding and genuine in their application of the monastic life. So, speaking of monastics, I know that Daniel has had a lot of criticism from the monastic community for what he's done in terms of claiming arahatship, but what I love about him is that he says, well, let's look at it, let's investigate it. He's putting his money where his mouth is, and he's saying, all right,

anybody who claims to do this, why don't we go through the MRI? Why don't we have a rigid scientific study of this, if possible? And that might help challenge some of the fossilized notions of these idealized levels of perfection. Yeah, it's kind of a double-edged sword, because it puts you in the arena and puts a target on your back, to speak freely about this, because now people want to actually challenge you. But there's also something for me that, it's like, if you really have the realization, like, that's the whole thing, get in the MRI. Because a lot of times it can be very cryptic. Teachers won't talk about it, and you sometimes wonder, well, what is your experience? And they might not share and be kind of very secretive about it. So there is something that's very, I think, refreshing and liberating

for students, and just for practitioners in general, to have this kind of openness. And I do think it's, there's a lot of challenges around it that we're now running into. You ran into it, Daniel ran into it, and others are going to run into it. But it's almost like a necessary movement towards, yeah, just the new development. It's like a new development in spirituality and spiritual practices that goes against a lot of the traditional notions of what you're supposed to or not supposed to do as a realized being. Yeah, yeah. And I think it's an ongoing process. One day we'll all be dead, and there'll be a whole other generation of people who will be going through the same process, and they'll be having their own conflicts about it. But we may contribute to informing them of what might be the best option, our best, to discuss these so-called secretive topics.

I feel like we've touched on this multiple times, a little bit, in the interview. And this is something I think about a lot. That's like, how do we create healthier dynamics between spiritual teachers and students? Like I mentioned earlier, I've been deeply inspired by your journey. And I think at the beginning, like kind of seeing some of those interviews, there was some idealization, some placing you on a pedestal.

And that may have been partly how those early interviews were framed. But I also think that there's a natural human tendency to elevate teachers in that way. That's why it's been so refreshing to see you renounce some of your earlier attainments and share more of your humanness. Because it really kind of takes the pressure off the idea that we have to be perfect. But it also makes me wonder, though: is some level of idealization inevitable in the student-teacher relationship? How do we navigate, like, the vertical dimension, acknowledging that there's real differences in skills or realization while also maintaining a horizontal connection, kind of being grounded in the fact that we're all imperfect, valuable human beings?

And it seems like the kind of vulnerability you've shown recently is a big part of the answer. But I'm curious, what else do you think helps create healthier, more grounded teacher-student relationships? So one of the things I'll say first and foremost is it goes both ways. For teachers, like in my own perspective, in my own experience, like I said earlier, it felt really good to have that applause, to have that sort of limelight, and have people come there every beck and call of yours, and offer you gifts, and all of these things. And then of course the dynamics of you being respected for you being a teacher and so on. Like I have seen in my own experience where before a very small example, but before

I'd go into the meditation hall and everybody would have to stand up and then bow and all of this stuff. But nowadays I'm like, just screw all that. Just let me come in, give my talk, and I'll leave, and you guys can decide what you want to do. So that's for me is refreshing, that for me is liberating in some sense, because I don't have to put on an act. I don't have to put on some kind of airs and things like that. There was a Substack that I wrote. I'll send it to you. I think it was about this particular thing, which is the guru worship that happens, the idealization of a teacher and that student-teacher relationship. But I also find that very valid, what you just said, the idea, the possibility that some level of idealization may be helpful.

And how do we navigate that? How do we actually help and help ourselves understand that? Well, I think it's by setting healthy boundaries. So in other words, what can happen, especially in these different kinds of cults, or you hear all of these scandals where the guru worship is so strong, especially in India, that it goes to a point where you break boundaries of a student. So creating healthy boundaries between the teacher and student is going to be very important, which means there are certain expectations of you as a student to be somewhat respectful of this relationship. There's a certain expectation of you to see and respect that this teacher is providing you some level of knowledge and understanding that has taken decades of his life, his or her life, to give you. So that level of respect, I think, or at least acknowledgement, is important for the student, and to listen. There's a certain kind of

lack of contempt towards the teacher, for lack of a better word. There's a certain kind of acceptability: okay, this is somebody who knows what they're talking about, so I better not mess around with them. On the other side of that, the teacher should understand their responsibility, which is you're only here to be a vessel of knowledge. You're only here to be the framework in which the student can grow and develop, but you're not going to do anything for them. You're going to show them, you're going to hold their hand for a bit, and then they have to start to walk on their own with you helping them along the way, just a bit. That's it for you to do anything beyond that, and be daddy or mommy, or be this sort of great god figure who's an avatar and representative of God's divine message.

You are abusing that student's trust, right? So I think these parameters need to be set, and then the student can work within that framework, and the teacher can be guided by those kinds of boundaries. Yeah, I think often too, the difficulty there is something different about being just any kind of teacher and a spiritual teacher. It's like, oh, you're an expert on everything. You're gonna tell me what to do in every aspect of my life. It's not just meditation. Oh yeah, you're gonna tell me about my health, you're gonna tell me about my relationships, you're going to tell me how to deal with money. And I think Daniel Ingram spoke about this.

It's like, well, these realizations, these insights, they don't necessarily translate to every domain of life. So it's like knowing this, it's like staying in your circle of competence, the teacher staying in the circle of competence, and the student also understanding this is what the person does. Just like if I might come to a business coach, they might help me with business, but that doesn't mean they're going to help me with everything else. That's right, that's right. That's a great way of putting it, actually. And I would just add to that: students should be empowered to understand this as well. You should be able to question your teachers, and you should be able to ask them things within their lane. So if you feel like there's something that they're saying that you're not understanding, or you have a different perspective, just because there's this notion of guru worship that you do not question the words of the guru.

No, you have every right to do that. You have every right to ask them that. And just to your point, is that we as teachers, yeah, we don't have everything put together. We are experts in our field, which in this case, spiritual teachers in navigating these higher territories of the mountain of spirituality, in terms of jhanas or enlightenment or whatever you want to put across as, and so we should be able to stick to our lane. I can tell you my frustrations with that. I've had students who kind of, and this happens a lot in India because of just the way the culture is, students like to bow in front of you and they touch your feet and all of that.

It's just part of the culture, and then they go beyond that and they're like, my wife is having an affair and she lied to me about this. What should I do about so and so? And I'm like, don't ask me, dude. I can't tell you for sure. Yeah, great. Well, Dustin, really appreciate you and appreciate this conversation. I feel like we covered a lot. We spoke about integrating different traditions, some of the differences in the Theravada of Adriana, Rigpa, cessation, the end of suffering, spoke about being open about spiritual attainments and the pros and cons of that, and as well as how we can create healthier dynamics with our relationship to spiritual teachers.

Is there anything else you want to mention before we wrap up today? Yeah, I like to close off by letting people know that you are in control of your own spiritual destiny. That means that you are also responsible for how you decide to take on that destiny, so be mindful of that, be aware of that. People don't like me saying this, but I'm going to say it anyway: you're already liberated. We've just forgotten it. That's a good note to end on. Thanks so much, Delson. Thanks, Hardin.