735: David Nichtern

Summary

Duncan Trussell Family Hour – Episode 735: David Nichtern

Release Date: February 2, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Duncan Trussell welcomes back his long-time friend and meditation teacher, David Nichtern. The conversation delves deeply into Buddhism, the nature of attachment and letting go, duality versus integration, working with one's own mind, everyday spiritual practice, the pitfalls of spiritual fantasy, and the dance between ordinary and sacred living. Listeners also get a peek into David’s mindfulness teacher trainings and the Buddhist perspective on facing neuroses and transforming daily life into spiritual wisdom.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Shifting Perspectives: Householder Life, Attachment, and Change

• Duncan reflects on his transformation after becoming a parent, explaining how his capacity for being around others expanded by necessity.
  “The me before I became a householder couldn’t stand being around anybody… Now it really doesn’t bother me.” [01:43]
• David uses the helium balloon metaphor—sandbags with faces of kids, dogs, and mortgages keep us grounded (and attached).
• The guests agree that “earth vs. sky,” or the duality between grounded and spacious, is an illusion that practitioners frequently confront and attempt to integrate.
  David: “It’s dualistic. But… we end up on this topic about the absolute and relative dimensions of things.” [03:17]

Earth as Prison or University? Buddhist Samsara, Liberation & Perspective

• Discussion of Buddhist cosmology: Is Earth a prison or a university for the soul?
  Duncan: “Isn’t that a bit of a distorted perception of things… isn’t that what Samsara means?” [05:24]
  David: “An incarnation in Earth is considered particularly auspicious because it’s a great place to work through your karma.” [05:03]
• Liberation is considered a mental process, not a question of location:
  David: “The most important element in the sense of liberation is one’s own mind.” [08:13]
• Happiness and suffering are consistently interwoven in human experience, regardless of external change.
  Duncan: “Every time… there was always some thread of happiness intermingled with a thread of suffering.” [07:17]

Psychedelics, “Sky Mind,” and Escaping the Mundane

• Duncan discusses his history with psychedelics as a means of reaching non-self-centered states, but notes the limitations of seeking transcendence purely by substance.
  Duncan: “There’s all these different outlets that aren’t meditative that one could use to at least get fleeting, temporary glimpses of a kind of non-self centered, fixed reality.” [10:22]
• David cautions about “attachment to spaciousness”—pursuing blissed-out god-realm states can itself become an addiction.
  David: “Attraction to that actually lands you in the god realm… not in the sense of spaciousness, because there’s a very dualistic relationship with it.” [16:47]
• Integration is key:
  David: “If you’ve joined heaven and Earth, there’s a sense of not really needing to hyperemphasize that distinction at that point. You’re integrated.” [14:32]

Sacredness of the Ordinary, and the Myth of “Special Conditions” for Realization

• Buddhist teaching emphasizes that realization is possible in any life circumstance—not only in ashrams or under austere conditions.
• Duncan humorously critiques the spiritual fantasy that enlightenment requires escaping regular life:
  “I’ll be at the sink washing dishes or something… Somewhere in the house there’s a howl, a scream from one of the kids and the dogs are barking… This wasn’t supposed to happen. I was supposed to be in a monastery.” [28:30]
• David underscores the path of the householder practicitioner:
  “You do not need those circumstances to achieve that kind of realization. The very circumstances that you’re in have everything that you need.” [31:02]

Meditation & Mind Training: Gentleness, Precision, and Letting Go

• Definition and purpose of meditation:
  David: “‘Gom’ means to become familiar with… having an individual consciousness and you’re placing that on a particular object of perception and trying to get to understand it better.” [31:49]
• David’s three core principles for practice:
  1. Gentleness (Don’t “bang your way out” of traps; be kind with your mind) [65:07]
  2. Precision (Clear understanding of what you’re doing in practice)
  3. Letting go (Maybe the hardest; not just letting go of problems, but attachment to spiritual techniques themselves)
     David: “If there’s a certain roughness or harshness in how you got there, it’s probably not going to be the best way to get out of it.” [62:57] Duncan: “The gentle approach is better—as long as you don’t gaslight yourself into thinking you’re being gentle when really you’re being lazy.” [74:38]
• The danger of new attachments: Alan Watts’ warning to Ram Dass—“You’re attached to emptiness.” [67:26]
• Letting go is especially difficult:
  David: “Letting go is… maybe the least technique of the three… it’s better just to push them off a cliff.” [68:52]

Facing Neurosis and Breaking Habitual Patterns

• The idea of “kleshas” — emotional afflictions or neuroses — is explored.
  David: “There’s a tendency to justify it… and then on top of that, you start to get pumped, your endorphins are pumping.” [48:54]
• Cultivating nonjudgmental awareness is vital, but challenging:
  Duncan: “How do you not judge that?” [55:16]
  David: “That’s renunciation… [it is] a certain amount of exhaustion or, you know, real regret that you have to keep going through this over and over again, right? And then surrender, you know, and then discipline.” [55:16]
• Renunciation is about recognition, not aversion:
  “It’s not like you’re just like, ‘I love this thing, and now I will stop because it’s distracting me.’” [56:53]

Everyday Life as Sacred Practice

• Practical stories about raising children, householder life, and recognizing the sacred in the mundane:
  Duncan: “If you stop hissing at the Earth realm, it stops hissing at you.” [19:36]
• David’s favorite teaching metaphor:
  “The sacred world is very tender, very sensitive. We don’t want to go stomping through it with combat boots on… If our greed and our aggression are just rampant and unchecked…” [43:11]
• Stories about letting go, both in meditation and in life, such as reading bedtime stories to children and facing the “end” of an experience.
  Duncan: “How many times have I been in the midst of a spectacular experience and I know it’s going to end, or a spectacular experience has ended and I can’t let it go? I want to go back to that.” [66:47]

The Path of Teaching & Dharma Transmission

• David discusses his teacher training and the importance of passing on the lineage:
  “Who’s going to take care of these things these days?… The wheel rotates. For me, it’s more obvious. I’m going to be 78 next month… Our Dharma Moon teacher training program is very much in that spirit of helping to pass through what’s really been helpful for me.” [75:59]

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On Liberation and Mind:
  David: “The most important element in the sense of liberation is one’s own mind, rather than the physical locus of the body.” [08:13]
• On the Sacred World:
  David: “You won’t find ordinary earth and rocks here, even if you look for them… all are actually the sacred world.” [21:25]
• On Meditation Practice:
  David: “‘Gom’… means to become familiar with something. So meditation is the art of becoming familiar with reality and with your own mind in a very direct way.” [31:49]
• On Renunciation and Change:
  David: “At a certain point you just have had enough of a certain thing and then you kind of renounce it and you… Then the work starts.” [55:16]
• On Gentleness, Precision, Letting Go:
  David: “Gentleness, precision, and letting go… gentleness means that we don’t try to bang our way out of whatever trap we feel we’re in.” [65:07]
• On Spiritual Fantasy:
  Duncan: “…this fantasy of assembling this peaceful conglomerate of things around me—at which point I guess I get enlightened. And now I see this as just utter horseshit.” [28:30]
• On Parenting and Letting Go:
  Duncan: “I’m reading…and realize [my son is] not even listening to the story. He’s looking at the pages as they change color when the chapter ends. And he’s getting increasingly anxious about when the chapter ends.”
  David: “What a great little Dharma lesson that is. Perfect.” [66:47]
• On Passing the Torch:
  David: “I’m strongly inclined to help train the next generation of teachers. You know, it’s definitely good to train students and practitioners… but who’s going to handle this?” [75:59]

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Important Timestamps

• [05:03] – Buddhist teacher’s anecdote about incarnation and karma
• [10:22] – Psychedelics and non-self-centered reality
• [14:32] – Integrating heaven/sky and earth/groundedness
• [31:49] – Definition and practice of meditation (“Gom”)
• [55:16] – On renunciation, exhaustion with habitual patterns, and discipline
• [62:57] – The “gentleness, precision, letting go” triad for mindfulness
• [66:47] – Letting go, parenting story, and the anxiety of endings
• [75:59] – The role of teaching, teacher training, and lineage

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Tone & Atmosphere

The conversation is playful, intimate, and rooted in mutual respect—balancing Duncan’s comedic honesty with David’s warm, wise perspective. Moments of humor (parenting, monkeys at the Sistine Chapel, “strong but wrong” tattoos, Stevie Wonder at a piñata) lighten dense topics, while both men frequently reflect on how Buddhist principles directly apply to real, messy, ordinary living.

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Closing Thoughts

Duncan repeatedly expresses gratitude for David’s teachings and their real-world impact. The episode closes with warm encouragement for listeners to check out David’s Dharma Moon teacher training (info session on February 10th), and a reminder that enlightenment is not an escape from everyday life, but a deeper contact with the sacred that’s always available, wherever you are—particularly when you remember to approach yourself and the world with gentleness, clarity, and the courage to let go.

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Links & Further Info

• dharmamoon.com for more on David’s teachings and upcoming teacher training
• Info session for Dharma Moon: February 10th

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Hare Krishna!

Transcript

[A]

Welcome, friends, to another episode of the dtfh. If you're a fan of the Midnight Gospel, you probably remember Clancy's meditation teacher, David. Well, David happens to be Duncan's meditation teacher too, in meetspace, and he has joined us here today for a fascinating conversation about Buddhism, attachment, and letting go. If you like David and you're interested in going deeper, I want to invite you to join David on February 10th for a free live online event exploring the profound practices of mindfulness and the journey of becoming a meditation teacher. All the links are going to be down below or you can go to dharmamoon.com to find that. So I hope you will check him out if you enjoy him. We've been friends now for years and years and he is certainly one of the coolest people I know. I hope you'll enjoy them too. So please welcome back to the dtfh, David Nichtern. David, welcome back to the dtfh. It's good to see you. I love your background.

[B]

Good to see you, too. Good to see you, Papa bear.

[A]

Thank you. Yeah, I'm breeding. I'm a breeding bird. Living things crawl on me every moment that I come home. It's either kids or dogs. Not the wife so much, but.

[B]

How many dogs do you have?

[A]

Two.

[B]

Two and four kids, right?

[A]

Four kids, two dogs.

[B]

I mean, that's a full house, right?

[A]

It is a full house. Yeah. It's a full house. Lots of. Lots of energy in there, you know. But, you know, what's interesting about it is like the me before I became a householder couldn't stand being around anybody, you know. Now it really doesn't bother me, you know. I mean, it's annoying, of course, to always have something climbing on top of you, but it's not like it would have been catastrophic to that other version of me. It's just fascinating the way people can just. You just shift according to your circumstances, you know?

[B]

You know how they keep those helium balloons down on Earth, right?

[A]

What do you mean?

[B]

Well, you know, it tends to rise.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

And go up into the stratosphere. But they put sandbags on it with little faces of kids and dogs and jobs and.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Bank accounts and mortgages and every sandbag has a little face on it, you know?

[A]

Yeah. It keeps you grow. It definitely keeps you in the earth plane and all the. But it does seem like that's sort of an illusion too, Right. Like when you start distinguishing, well, this is Earth, this is sky. Isn't that a bit of a confusion there? Isn't that a bit of a. A distorted perception of things.

[B]

It's dualistic.

[A]

Yeah, dualistic.

[B]

But, you know, we talk about this. We end up on this topic so often about the absolute and relative dimensions of things.

[A]

Hold on, wait. Say the last. I lost your audio for one second. Say that again. No, I'm not sure what that was. It was just a little blip.

[B]

Good now?

[A]

Yeah, we're good.

[B]

It puts you into a kind of relational truth modality. So. And for us, for the kind of journeyers that we are, the kind of practitioners we are, that's sort of adventitious, advantageous. That too. Adventitious means opportunistic.

[A]

Ah, okay. I see what you're saying. So you're. You're saying that sort of within that distinction, there's some. Some sort of energy or something you can get out of that.

[B]

Well, I'll give you an example. There was a. One of the great Rinpoche was visiting in New York, and they were asking about, you know, is there life on other planets and things like that?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And he said, there are billions of planets and life all over the place. But this is an incarnation on Earth is considered particularly auspicious and good because.

[A]

Hold on, David, do you have a compressor on your mic or something? Because you're like. You're fading in and out on me. Or maybe just turn your mic audio up a little bit. I'm losing, like, words, so it sort of sound and then like that.

[B]

Is that any better?

[A]

Yeah, we'll see what happens.

[B]

Is it louder?

[A]

It's louder. That should do it.

[B]

Okay, you let me know.

[A]

Start with the Rinpoche anecdote again.

[B]

Yeah, so I won't say who, but one of the, you know, Tibetan Rinpoches was asked about, you know, kind of different life on other planets and things like that. And he said, you know, almost matter of factly, of course, there's tons of it. But that this, an incarnation in Earth is considered particularly auspicious because it's a great place to work through your karma.

[A]

Right? Yeah, it's like that. That's an so. Okay, so this is really interesting. I'd love to know your thoughts on that. Because there are all these strange places where Buddhist mysticism and some fairly, like, weirdly popular, like, I don't know what you'd even call it, like, neo Gnostic ideas emerge into the culture. They're everywhere right now. One of them being that Earth is a prison situation. That prison in the sense that, well, you're shaking your head, but doesn't that kind of align with the Buddhist conceptualization of Samsara and no longer taking on birth at all. And the Earth is sort of. It doesn't just have physical gravity. It has a sort of spiritual gravity field that keeps you stuck in these sort of looping cycles. And so it sounds like what you're. What the Rinpoche is talking about is like, you know, it's not so much a prison as a university, a training academy or something like that. But you could just as easily say it's, yeah, you can get out of prison if you. On good behavior. You can, you know, if you sort of harmonize with the Dharma or whatever the particular. Right. Modality of living is, then there is some hope of no longer hanging out here in this realm.

[B]

Where would you like to be?

[A]

What's that?

[B]

Where would you like to be?

[A]

Well, I like it here. I mean, I like I'm happy here, but I might just, you know, sometimes I wonder. Well, maybe that's just because you're a fool. I mean, the. What I'm saying is when I look back at before I had kids, I was happy, you know, a different kind of happy, but I guess happy. When I look back before then, as far as I can remember, there was always some threat of happiness intermingled with a threat of suffering. So I don't know, I'd probably be happy, theoretically. I don't know. I often wonder, like, if I was in hell, would I be like, well, it's not the worst place. Maybe I'm just a fool.

[B]

Well, whether. Whether one is or not, the notion, clearly, since we're referencing the Buddhist framework, is that the most important element in the sense of liberation is one's own mind.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Rather than the physical locus of the body.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You know, so, you know, and that can be ranging from having a good attitude when you go to the dentist.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And not torturing yourself for the whole week before you go.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You know, and then, you know, the amount of mental, you know, confabulation of fabrication of construction that's happening in our minds could make a prison into university and a university into a prison, a.

[A]

Prison into a university, university into a prison. You're still fading in and out a little bit. You know, what, can you turn it just to your max recorder instead of your headphones? State of mind is the determining factor in one's encounter with reality.

[B]

Well, for example, whether you consider the situation Samsaric, nirvana or neutral, wouldn't you say? Day by day, that really is a heavy reflection or mirror like reflection of.

[A]

Your state of mind, absolutely. Yeah, 100%.

[B]

So that's what we work on.

[A]

Yeah, 100%. And that's where to go back to what we were talking about in the beginning. That's where I guess I would get into a question regarding that distinction between earth and sky. Because somewhere there that distinction seems to stop existing in such a clear way. The when. Because, you know, from my own fascination with sky mind, which is a term David uses, I think another way to put it might be like the astral realm, things not of this earth, expanding one's consciousness, taking shit tons of acid to try to merge in with all reality. You know what I mean? There's all these different outlets that aren't meditative that one could use to at least get fleeting, temporary glimpses of a kind of non self centered fixed reality. And one of the most available to people is psychedelics. And so what starts happening when you begin to realize a shifting of one's own perception or even deeper than that, when you start realizing you're sort of looking at your mind around you, that you can't get out of your mind, you're inside your mind at any given moment. To me, the earthrealm stuff, it becomes a little less solid, I guess is the best way to put it.

[B]

Yeah, so the sky dimension is spaciousness. You know, unobstructed spaciousness, which is a more of a kind of.

[A]

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[B]

Attitude, you could say, or kind of a, you know, view. Right. The Earth is sort of like there's stuff to deal with, but it's workable.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then we talk about joining heaven and Earth all the time, which is to mix the spaciousness with. With the four kids and the two dogs and the wife in whatever mode she's manifesting for your benefit and to see if you can mix some spaciousness in with that form realm and if you can also not get attached to the vagueness and voidness of the spaciousness, so that it has a kind of fungible and, you know, realistic kind of dimension for you. And then that would be non. Dual. If you've joined heaven and Earth, there's a sense of, like, not really needing to hyperemphasize that distinction at that point. You're integrated, right?

[A]

Yeah. That's an interesting place, that integration, because. Yes, the, you know, the spacious pov, as you were calling it. Yeah.

[B]

Pov. Good. Yeah.

[A]

The spacious pov. It's nice. You know, if only that was it. But inevitably, if you're wandering around Earth, there's shit that has to be done. You've got to feed yourself. It's almost like a cosmic joke. We have to shit. We have to eat and we can either get too cold or too hot, forcing an infinite loop of action. If you want to stay alive, and we want to stay alive, that's the main thing.

[B]

Because I think this is a highly conceptualized framework of it. For example, personally myself, I ate a nice bowl of yogurt this morning. And right before I talked to you, I did have a shit.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Good. And no problem.

[A]

Oh, yeah, no problem. I'm not saying that's a problem. I'm just saying that. This. These are things that I'm assuming black holes don't have to worry about. You know what I mean? A black hole isn't like, ah, I gotta eat another star. Holy shit, it's hard.

[B]

I see, I see. So there's a. There's. You're talking about an attraction to that kind of vastness. Absolutely, yeah. So one thing to consider about that I. I can understand that. Is that an attraction to that, an attachment to that actually lands you in the God realm in terms of the six realms, not. Not in the sense of spaciousness, because there's a very dualistic relationship with it.

[A]

Which, which you're describing because you're running away from something.

[B]

You're trying. Yeah, exactly. Or. Or you're trying to get closer to something else. You know, it's like. Yeah, so. So that would be the subtle twist of this spaciousness, is that it can. If. And. And you could say the same thing for the drugs and so forth, that there's an attraction, a draw towards being drawn towards this kind of, you know, unobstructed and kind of spacious, universal kind of thing, and you become addicted, basically.

[A]

I have noticed an attraction to drugs in my life, But this. I think what's really beautiful of the Buddhist. What's beautiful about the Buddhist framework is that you do sort of get a little bit of a surprise party. I guess I wouldn't want to call it that because I would never want a surprise party. But you do get this sort of experience if you are someone who has been attracted to the God realm stuff, when you start realizing, oh, wow, I don't necessarily have to go through all of these sometimes expensive, sometimes dangerous, sometimes embarrassing trips to get to this place. This place is sort of omnipresent and within the whole picture. It's not like it's in some corner of reality that you have to trek towards. It's not like you have to get on a helicopter to get to Everest and then hire a bunch of Sherpa to get in line to get to the top of a peak that is covered in human excrement to have some sense of.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. I think you understand it, right?

[A]

Yeah, I do, I do. Yeah.

[B]

That's why Buddha's touching the Earth as sort of a directional vortex for, you know, serious spiritual practitioners. Maybe make contact with common sense, with the grounded reality that you experience as being a seat of wisdom and opportunity to, you know, manifest wisdom and compassion. All the good qualities.

[A]

Well, for me, I guess that part of me that loves drugs and is drawn towards. I hate the term paranormal. Strange high weakness. It becomes really interested in experimenting with the malleability of earthrealm stuff. Not from the normal sort of way you can move earthrealm stuff around, but from, you know, if this is my mind, which I'm fairly certain it could be, and I can control my dreams, and clearly if I stop hissing at the Earth realm, it stops hissing at me. You know, there's a direct relationship in my state of mind and how the world seems to function and operate. That's where it gets interesting to me because you just start wondering, wait a minute, how much of this can I control? How much of this can anyone control? For that matter, how impressionable is reality? Not from the normal perspective of lift up a rock, stack a rock on top of the rock, you're going to get a stack of rocks. We all know that works, and that is your mind doing that. You're controlling your body with your mind. But how. I guess what I'm saying is there's some sense when you start stumbling upon this knowledge that magic could be quite real, that a lot of the stories you hear about miracles and cities are probably not bullshit.

[B]

Yeah. So as we're talking about this, I'm thinking about a practice that my teacher, Trungkara Rinpoche wrote called the Sadhana of Mahamudra, which is a liturgy that you practice and you recite it. And there's one phrase that bubbled up into my mind as we're talking, but you won't find ordinary earth and rocks here, even if you look for them. And then it goes on to say all the rivers, all the mountains, all are actually the sacred world.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So it's not. We're not saying that Earth is kind of from that perspective. It's not disappointing. It's wonderful and also challenging. Which do you want to live? Challenge free. That's okay. You go to the God realm for a couple of eons, no challenge.

[A]

It just feels like what you're talking about, that facet of reality, it's hiding from you as much as you're hiding from you.

[B]

Exactly as much.

[A]

Yeah, exactly as much. And the less you're hiding from yourself, the more it shows you. And this sort of, as above, so below relationship, it applies to everything. And this is the dream. This is the archetype in so many different stories. Gandalf shows up at the hobbit's house. The adventure begins. A treasure map is found leading to an incredible journey. You go through a wardrobe. You're in some other realm. The looking glass. You go through the looking glass. All of these are different ways that creatives have articulated, I think, what we're talking about, which is, number one, the absurdity. And I guess I'm just talking about this because I've been watching this incredible documentary that you should watch. You will love it. It's called Miru. It's on Netflix. It's about these super professional mountain climbers, alpinists as they call themselves. And so, you know, they look down on people who climb Everest. This is bullshit. You can hire people. It's bullshit.

[B]

Is that literally they look down.

[A]

They don't really. Oh, I didn't mean it like a dad joke, but that's hilarious.

[B]

No, I meant.

[A]

That'S so bad. But no, they're just sort of like. They were just saying, like, look, with Everest, you hire people. You can hire people to set up your tent, you can hire people to carry your shit. You hire people. This is about them trying to be the first people to climb Mount Meru, which apparently no one has made the ascent. And I just love watching these adventure docs. But it's incredible because they are really describing this zone of risk that professional mountain climbers are disciplined to not go beyond, which is why they stay alive. If, in other words, it doesn't matter if you're one inch out of this zone of safety, you don't do it. So spoiler, skip ahead three seconds. It starts off with them making this ascent. They're within 600ft of the peak of Mount Meru. They could see it. It's right there, right above them. But yeah, they couldn't do it because it was getting dark. And they're like, we're not climbing that at night and we're tired. We'll die. And so they all, they just look at each other like, and just, yeah, start heading back down. But the reason that sounds like the record business, it's like a lot of things, it's a lot of things are like that. But I'm only bringing it up because here you have these. They're all incredible. People, you could just see their vibrance and their connection with the natural world and their complete fearlessness. Like they are so tuned into the reality they might not come back, they might die, their friends have died. And so there's a mystical quality to them. But. When you're.

[B]

Well, isn't it also a little like those guys who surf the hundred foot waves? Isn't it a similar.

[A]

Yeah, I had one on my podcast.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Yeah. But you're sitting around in your comfortable house with all your kids and your dogs, and from what we're talking about, there's some sense where I'm thinking, I don't feel like I need to buy $100,000 worth of climbing gear and ascend a peak to get to the place I think that they're going for. Now, that just might be wishful thinking. I don't know, because I'm never going.

[B]

To.4Kids is by far to repeat decline.

[A]

I feel like that. I feel like that because I feel like it does. But I don't think that you need four kids or a mountain. I think you just, if you have, you know, two arms, two legs and a head, a brain, a nervous system, that's. That's enough. You're contending with enough just from that perspective. And that's what I love about, you know, what you've taught me and you know, what I've gathered from the Buddhist path, is that it sort of opens up that for everybody without necessarily having to spend shit, tons of money flying a bunch of planes to get there.

[B]

Yeah. And also there's some flip of beginning to respect your karma that the situation that you're in, the time you're born in, not struggling to live another, a different life, you know, if only. There's only that. But working with the energies of the situations that have sort of arisen for you is a kind of, you know, real wisdom in that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, not trying to postulate some extreme circumstance in which you could become enlightened or whatever you want to talk about, but that the various very circumstances that you're in has everything that you need if you are able to have the right set of tools to work with it in a way that illuminates the process of your own mind.

[A]

Okay, let's talk about that, what you just said, because I love it, because this is definitely a hilarious thing that creeps into my mind. I'm sure it creeps into many people's minds, which is, I'll be at the sink, Washington, washing dishes or something.

[B]

Infinite dishes. 108,000 dishes. Right.

[A]

Washing dishes. Somewhere in the house there's a howl of who knows what's happened. A scream from one of the kids and the dogs are barking and the doorbell rings and the dogs bark more. And I'll think to myself, you know, this wasn't supposed to happen to me. I was supposed to be in a monastery. I was supposed to be sitting by a waterfall somewhere or just what you said. I postulate the preconditions of enlightenment and they always happen to be somewhere far away from where I'm at. This fantasy of assembling this sort of peaceful conglomerate of things around me. At which point I guess I get enlightened. And now I see this as just utter horseshit. But I wonder if you could talk about that a little more because I think so many people look at their lives where they're at right now, they look around and they think, this ain't no Bodhi tree. There's no. I'm not out in the woods. I'm not. I haven't done the fasting. You can't circle my spine with your. I haven't emaciated myself. I haven't had visions of the great angels or devas or gods. I'm never getting there in this place. And then they try.

[B]

But you have done stand up comedy.

[A]

True, true.

[B]

And they haven't.

[A]

Yeah, that's true. But don't you know what I mean? This is, I think, one of the poisons that creeps in as a direct result of encountering any of these paths that have at their nucleus a being who went through severe austerities of one sort or another to achieve realization or an orbit around them of other enlightened beings who also lived non standard lives. It haunts people who come to this stuff in the midst of what from the outside might be looked at as a fairly normal standard human life.

[B]

Yeah, beautiful, isn't it?

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

I mean, because you're hitting a nail on a head and you're realizing it appears to be two nails, but it might be one nail. And that's the thing is that from the. And to strictly doctrinally speaking as a Buddhist student and practitioner, the teaching would say you do not need those circumstances to achieve that kind of realization. And there have been many iterations of householder pathways towards what you're talking about. They require a kind of discipline in post meditation practice that you hold the view in your post meditation practice.

[A]

What's meditation?

[B]

So meditation has a lot of. It's a great question. And a lot of people Would say a lot of different things about it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, remember that movie Rashomon, which had the different perspectives in the forest? I never saw murderous committed. Anyhow, the long story short is everybody's going to have something different to say about this, But I can say something about it, that one of the generative terms about meditation in Tibetan is gom g O m, which simply means to become familiar with something. So you have a sense of having an individual consciousness. Right. And you're placing that on a particular object of perception and trying to get to understand it better. For example, you could be placing it on the breath. Right. And so now you're just feeling the breath. You're feeling through that. You're feeling the quality of present awareness, which is easier to access because you only have one thing to work on, one equation to work on. And you're also noticing, you know, the activity in the mind, which is something we don't always notice, that the mind is kind of like doing this and fluttering and telling stories. And you're noticing that without judging it, which is nobody's ever done.

[A]

Right.

[B]

That's. That's complete science fiction from the point of view of the average person.

[A]

Right.

[B]

But you just notice what your mind is generating and not try to manipulate or judge it. So, as you know, in our trainings, this is the hardest job we have, is to turn the course of study from everything else to just having a clear view of what one's mind is generating without judgment or manipulation. So that's interesting in itself. So meditation is the art of becoming familiar with reality and with your own mind in a very direct way. And so it includes a lot of different techniques, for example, different methods. Some of them have more focus and kind of intentionality, and some of them are a little bit more open, you know, just like, you know, just feel the space or something like that, you know?

[A]

Right.

[B]

Depends on. On the mind of the student or the person who's practicing it. What's. What are they going to be able to connect with?

[A]

Right.

[B]

It's fly fishing, Duncan.

[A]

Right.

[B]

From a teacher's point of view, it's fly fishing. You catch them, you throw them back.

[A]

That's cool. That's cool.

[B]

But you have to have a lure that looks like something that they would want to bite into. Right.

[A]

So somewhere along the way, you find a practice and you dig in.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then it happens. Something will happen that is initially extraordinary. And from my perspective, I know that the way this is talked about is carefully, it can be confusing, but I cracked open A an old grimoire. I have my favorite book of magic, Crowley's Liber4 and I almost brought it to read. The opening of the book is prior to getting into the magical systems is really an incredible course in meditation. That's the opening of the book is this is the first you have to deal with your mind before any of this other bullshit. Start with your mind. And I was curious your thoughts on one point he made which is that Buddha is in India. This episode of the DTFH has been supported by Ethos as a maximum level breeder. I gotta have life insurance. Like, look at me. If I kick the bucket, I'm leaving four beautiful children and a wife in just a precarious, terrible shit situation. Now maybe you're one of those people who's sick of life insurance commercials or you hear it, you're like, you just don't want to listen to it. I used to be one of those people, honestly. But I got to tell you the moment somehow my old ass got a life insurance policy, you just feel better. It's weird how much you attach to dying that doesn't have anything to do with you and how much you like some part of you recognizes like, if you kick the bucket, what happens to your family. I'm not trying to scare you guys or anything. I'm just saying some weird magic happens when you get life insurance. You just strangely feel a little less freaked out about kicking the bucket. Ethos, forgive me, I'm not sure if that's exactly what you wanted me to say, but that's the truth. That is how I feel. Ethos makes getting life insurance fast and easy. It's 100% online. You can get a quote in seconds, apply in minutes, and get same day coverage. There's no medical exam, which is incredible. When I got life insurance, I can't tell you how much blood I had to give. It's insane. You just answer a few simple health questions, you can get up to $3 million in coverage. Some policies are as low as $30 a month. And as of March 2025, Business Insider named Ethos the number one no medical exam, instant life insurance provider. Ethos has 4.8 out of 5 stars on Trustpilot with over 3,000 reviews. Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos now by going to ethos.comduncan in as little as 10 minutes, you can get your free quote and up to $3 million in [e-mail] Duncan that is ethos.com Duncan ethos.com Duncan application times and Rates may vary. Thank you. Ethos. Figures out a good. Well, he's talking about postures, finds a good meditation posture, goes into a deep meditation, has an extraordinary experience which people call enlightenment. This experience non different from the experience that Jesus had or from the experience that any other person had, except that that experience gets populated with the gods, deities, ways of articulating it according to the times. So Jesus, he starts talking about some Jewish desert God. It's the best way he can articulate this experience. Buddha's story is Mara and all of these things the best way he could articulate it. It's like he's going to talk about it in the cultural language of some other part of the world. But the experience itself, identical. Arjuna, Bhagavad Gita. When Krishna reveals the universal form, this is another depiction of the identical phenomena which happens the moment you are no longer encumbered by the mind. And I was just wondering your thoughts on that. Do you think he's on point?

[B]

Well, I don't feel qualified to do a cross reference of different, you know, teachers and great masters and things like that as to whether their experiences were basically the same or different. So. So I can't say that part, but when you talked about Buddha and said he had an extraordinary experience, I would actually dispute that. Okay, yeah, so just. Can I just zero in on that one?

[A]

Yeah, please.

[B]

And that I would say he had a super ordinary experience.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Which is different than extraordinary. Well, okay, no, wait, I want to say why.

[A]

Go ahead.

[B]

Because there's some actual possibility in any of the circumstances that you're describing for any of us, any sentient being, to recognize on the spot that the ordinary experience they're having is complete, contains all the possibilities of good living, magical circumstances, good companionship, good society. It's all embedded and anybody could recognize it at any moment if they would just tune in.

[A]

Okay, okay, I got you. I think that's fair enough. Because when you say extraordinary, it makes people. Oh yeah, once in a lifetime fantasize about some fireworks show or I don't know what, elves or I don't know, some DMT style encounter. But you know, this is in the Bhagavad Gita, when Krishna decides to like, take off his clothes, so to speak, and shows Arjuna who he really is. Mm. The commentary afterwards from Arjuna is, I'm sorry, I'm sorry for any way I offended you. They were friends, they'd been hanging out, they were just pals, they'd been playing games together, joking with each other, doing Normal stuff friends do. And then suddenly your friend turns into like this thing that's more effulgent than a billion suns with saints bowing down to it, you know, praying. And you're like, whoa, man, I'm so sorry I called you a fucking idiot the other day. I was just. Didn't know. But I feel like that is pointing towards what you're talking about. That when you do begin to realize this place that you've been in, hanging out in, you know, doing all the things that you do in, is in, as you once told me, a temple. There is some sense of like, holy shit, I can't touch anything ever again. Oh my God. I don't want to move. Are you kidding me? You know what I'm saying? So it's not as though it's extraordinary in the sense that you've recognized it for what it is, which is from your. That. That perspective.

[B]

Yeah. But the idea that there's something very sensitive in the. In the sacred world. And that responds very much to your level of awareness and. And care and consideration and intentionality.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And also that, you know, can. Can open up gateways to a sublime sensibility. So it's the same. This is just a metaphor. I hope everybody understands. I'm just using it as a metaphor. The sacred world is very tender, very sensitive. We don't want to go stomping through it with combat boots on. In this case, the stomping through it with combat boots means that we just are relentlessly operating from a clay point of view. And our greed and our aggression are just rampant and unchecked. So we don't want to treat the sacred world that way. I agree.

[A]

Probably even worse. But it's like a. Imagine, I don't know, like I was showing my kids videos of monkeys. They're so funny and they're funny and they're just so disgusting. They're cute and everything, but, you know, I was showing them the monkey scratches its ass, smells its finger, passes out and falls off a branch. Famous.

[B]

Hilarious.

[A]

Hilarious.

[B]

That's so funny.

[A]

It has to smell so bad. It knock. It's shocked and it falls off a branch. Or the classic the monkey at the zoo shits in its hand and just nails a grandmother watching. Just dead on perfect. Like professional baseball level zinger right at this grandma throws it. The oldest, most vulnerable person. The screams of people. They can't believe it. But imagine you take a classic monkey, right? Put that.

[B]

Which is us, in this case.

[A]

Exactly. Monkey in the Sistine Chapel suddenly gains awareness that it's been throwing its shit all over the Sistine Chapel. You know what I mean? That there is a sense of. But I think that's a little more precious than it needs to be. I'm just saying that this glimpse of a super mundane reality, even though it's a super mundane reality, a super normal reality, it still could be one of the most incredible experiences a person has in their lifetime.

[B]

And it invites an attitude of respect, consideration and care. Yeah, it invites that. So the thing that we have to. In terms of coming back to the idea of tuning into our own mind and how it's operational, there's embedded in most of our minds what's called the seventh consciousness, which is the Kleship aspect of the deeper rooted negative patterns and habits that we have. And they bubble up to the surface largely unconsciously. We're not really aware. Like if we get into a rage on the road or something like that, or we, you know, or we have some kind of craving that's we can't manage, you know. So largely these clashes are, you know, kind of driving the car periodically. And it requires like some real intelligence about how to work with that reality, which is that those are unprocessed pieces of karma that we all carry in our seventh consciousness. And so therefore the respect for the sacred world invites us also to take a very respectful attitude towards our own neurotic patterns and towards our own how we work to, without judging, without condemning, to just refine ourselves more.

[A]

Wouldn't you say? Like, there seems to be some direct relationship between getting any even the slightest glimpse of this and those Clacias being subdued. I'm not saying eradicated necessarily, like a magic wand or something. But there seems to be some relationship between this view and those. You know, I could think of my own life of just like God, like, you know, you look back at these cliches, which I think it are vernacular, we call them neuroses maybe or like clinical terms for these things. But a kind of schmaltzy relationship can develop with one's kleshas, a kind of embarrassing sentimentality towards one's quirks as being a kind of like, you know, a jagged edge that people just have to learn to live with something. This is what I'm like, you know what I mean? Or a real sentimentality towards. Okay, display, like people who like to fart in front of other people or something. Yeah, you know, like.

[B]

So consider this formulation, okay, because this is a thread that I'm working on a lot right now. Is this seven. This kind of clay Consciousness and then the nearly adjacent. Just sort of ordinary storytelling mind and the fact that they leak into each other and all of a sudden you're just telling an ordinary story and you're in enrage, you know, or you're. You're deeply saddened or craving something.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That this is our life. To become more aware of this is very important. So the first thing is to become aware of that without judging it. You can't, if you're ready to judge it and manipulate it, you. You don't even have the option of seeing it clear.

[A]

Right.

[B]

But then the second thing is be aware of the tendency that we also have adjacent to it to justify it.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right, right.

[B]

Okay. And then there's a. A third tendency, which is probably also could be pointed out to feed on it.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

So there's the Klesha, which is kind of weirdly innocent in a way. It's just what we are carrying, you know, it's like in your open your knapsack and you see it in there. Then there's a tendency to sort of justify. Oh, yeah, you know, I yelled at that guy because he was a schmuck. You know what I mean? And everybody thinks he's a schmuck and blah, blah, blah, blah. And then on top of that, you start to get pumped, your endorphins are pumping and you feel like, I like this feeling. I'm going to be addicted. So those three have to be dialed recognized and kind of, as you said, liberated or dialed back.

[A]

Let's talk about the justification part, because I think that's a good one, isn't it? That's a good one. Why do you think people feel the need to justify a particular set of behaviors that keep manifesting in their lives as opposed to others? Like, I don't have to justify going to sleep. I mean, I'm tired. I don't have to justify eating. I'm hungry. I guess a better way, I don't have to justify breathing.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

I don't have to give an explanation to anybody about why I keep breathing in and breathing out.

[B]

Although yogis justify exaggerated breathing, that's for sure.

[A]

They sure do. But you know what I mean. Like these things as opposed to other manifestations of behavior, people that isn't that red flag right there. When you have some aspect of how you've been behaving that you feel the need to justify, if not to anyone else, to yourself.

[B]

So I'm drawn right back to junior high school when we talk about this Remember you used to say wrong but strong?

[A]

No, but that's hilarious. And dumb. Wow, that sounds like the dumbest person on earth said that.

[B]

Yeah, it's just like wrong but strong, baby. Or sometimes strong but wrong. You know, you could say it the other way around too, but the idea is it's a double. You know, you just double faulted in a championship tennis match.

[A]

You know, actually, did you know that's the new motto for ice? If you heard that.

[B]

What is it?

[A]

Strong but wrong ice.

[B]

Yeah. Sad.

[A]

Strong but rogue. Yeah. I mean, that is sort of the definition of fashion, of like true fascism, isn't it? It's like 100% strong.

[B]

And the third. And the third one is a big factor. Remember feeding on that energy as if it was, you know, malamars or something like that.

[A]

Right, right.

[B]

Like there's some kind of pumping up the same way you get pumped up by watching the super bowl or something like that.

[A]

There is definitely. I wonder. God, this is where we need all information in the universe. This is where we need access to the Akashic records. Because I need to know how many people have strong but wrong tattooed on their lower back right above their ass. I'm going to guess more than. More than 5,000.

[B]

And get the pictures too. We want, we want documented proof. No AI, no Photoshop. We know. We'll know.

[A]

Oh, my God. Go on. Sorry, I've just never heard that before. And it is so funny these days especially.

[B]

And it really, you know, it really calls out a certain operating mode. And on top of that, I really think the energy people are. You know, we eat food, we eat air, you know, but we eat energy. We eat energy. Like if somebody's loving, like if you watch your kids, they're eating energy coming from you. It's almost like if you can see energy clearly the same way you can see matter, you see that it's almost, almost fungible and, and we can get very full up on excitement and, you know, play and, you know, competition, all those things. And there is probably a healthier version of it, but, but it can become just a kind of toxic waste dump of like feeding on that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And all of us have it. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's. We shouldn't think of it as just only certain people have. These are kind of general traits that we all share, I think, in a way. Or tendencies. Possible tendencies.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's just the, it's just interesting because it's such an encumbrance, you know, The beginning of mindfulness, or what you're talking about is, at least for me, it's a clumsy relationship with going in and out of awareness regarding things that you're doing that are probably not benefiting you or other people around you. And you sort of. The justification, it could manifest as I was angry, or it could just be you just shove that part of your life under a car, under an imaginary rug and pretend it's not there. You try, you hide. You hide it from yourself or something, and then. But then you just begin to recognize that every time this thing appears, it fucks up your life. Every time this thing appears, it fucks up your life in subtle ways or incredibly powerful ways. And that's where the non judgmental stuff becomes quite difficult.

[B]

Yeah, difficult.

[A]

Very difficult. Because how do you do that? How do you stop ignoring some bullshit you've been up to, you know, your little game, you know, I love the Lojong slogan. Don't do things with a twist. Yeah, I love that. And you've been doing things with a twist your whole life. You've been doing a little, you know, your little thing. And you start becoming increasingly aware of that little thing you do. And it's not a little thing. You begin to realize it's a manipulation, it's a grift. It's. You know what I mean? It's. Yeah, it's not real. And it starts becoming appalling. It starts becoming like shit on your shoe or, you know, like you start noticing how messy your room is and you can't stand it anymore, you know. How do you not judge that?

[B]

Well, technically we would call that renunciation, which is the. In the Kagu lineage. And renunciation is the foot of meditation, as is taught. So. And the word in Tibetan, I always found this was interesting, translates somewhat to like nausea. Like at a certain point you just have had enough of a certain thing and then you, you kind of renounce it and you. Then, then the work starts. That's. That's, that's almost like the, the orchestral prelude is. That has to happen. This is a certain amount of, you know, exhaustion or, you know, real regret that, that you have to keep going through this over and over again, right? And then surrender, you know, that you. That you go. And then discipline.

[A]

See, this is an interesting take on renunciation because I think most people, when they hear renunciation, they think of it in terms of, I'm going to stop smoking or I'm going to, you know, put away something that I, you know, I'm gonna stop eating Sugar. You know, the things people do on Lent or whatever, you know. But from this perspective, what's going along with the renunciation isn't a. An aversion or a recognition.

[B]

A recognition, too. Recognition.

[A]

Yeah. So it's not. It's not like you're going cold turkey is, you know.

[B]

Yeah. Lent. It would have to be bigger than Lent.

[A]

It seems like it's more like when you've been on a boat booze bender, and you look at yourself in the mirror and you're all puffy and you stink and you're disgusting, and it just. You're. You don't want to do it anymore.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's not. It's not like you're just like, I love this thing. And now I will stop because it's distracting me.

[B]

And then on top of that, you need discipline because that habit is very strongly ingrained.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And that's where karma, understanding karma is very helpful. That. That it's not. Yes. It's empty. Fundamentally, all these patterns and habits don't have any real substance, but they are deeply ingrained at a relative level. And it's going to take some, you know, steadfastness. That's why there are vows, there are practices.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

There are schedules, things like that. There's, you know, there's teachers and, you know, so that you have some chance of kind of shifting the habit.

[A]

Well, it's. It's vital.

[B]

Not so easy to do.

[A]

This is the. Like. You know, I think maybe the cruel joke of all of this is that you. You keep taking the collar off and then realize that you're putting it back on, you know, and it's somewhere in there. Just that alone feels so nuts. You know, there's something. So. This episode of the DTFH has been supported by Aman Tara. Listen, for all of you psychonauts out there, if somehow you missed Amanita, then you gotta check out Amantar. Listen, I've loved psychedelics my entire life. It's something that. It's just always been there for me. And it's been very useful for a lot of different purposes. And I'd heard of Amanita muscaria, as many of you have. No doubt. I don't know, I just always thought it was probably bullshit until I was sponsored by Amantara and they sent me actual Amanita muscaria. Now, I'm saying actual because I've seen some of this shit, like chevrons, and I will admit I might have tried it and I don't remember what gas station was at. It's my fault. What am I doing buying fucking psychedelics at a gas station? What's wrong with me? Point is, the comparison between whatever the fuck that was and the Amanita Muscaria Amantara sent me night and day. Holy shit. It's incredible. It affects the GABA receptors. These are the same. This is the same part of the brain that I think benzos work on. So my experience of it was this really wonderful, psychedelic, chilled out feeling that lasted around five hours. I guess this is going to depend on dose. And what's really cool about Amantara, and which I highly recommend, and I should emphasize, is when you go on Amatara, they have guides that you could check out. This is real. That's the thing. This is a very powerful substance. And just because it's legal and you can order it online doesn't mean that it isn't authentically psychoactive. It's freaking powerful. So definitely, definitely look at the guides that they have there for the right dosing for you. The point is, these are purveyors of the best Amanita Muscaria out there. And if you're somebody who in the past has maybe enjoyed benzos, but you also like mushrooms, this is a match made in heaven. It's a great alcohol alternative. I love it. And that's for real. Not just because they're sponsoring me. If you're curious, you can check them out at www.amantara.com Godunkan and use code Duncan22 for 22% off. I recommend starting low, seeing how it feels for you, and just treating it like you'd recommend something to a friend with curiosity and respect. Thank you. Amantara Hare Krishna.

[B]

It's disheartening.

[A]

Yes, thank you. It's disheartening because you get this experience of your life. If you hadn't been a raving rabid, Suddenly you go through weeks of not exhibiting this, whatever the clay is. You know, for me it's always been anger, but so you go through weeks, months maybe, where, holy shit. What's going on? I haven't gone into an explosive rage in so long. And everything starts smoothing out and your mind isn't being disturbed in the way it was. And then all of a sudden you feel that gnawing things start showing up again and you're like, fuck, fuck. It's like. It's like Covid or something, or like, you know what I mean? Like, you fuck. How long is this gonna last? I thought. I thought I shook it well and it isn't like Covid. I don't know why.

[B]

This is why. There are certain encoded remedies, you know, like if you read the contents on the cough syrup, you know, like in the practices, there are encoded remedies. And like, for example, we say at Dharmamoon, we always say gentleness, precision, and letting go, which. That formulation came from Pema children. So the idea of being gentler about the whole thing, because if there's a certain roughness or harshness in how you got there, it's probably not going to be the best way to get out of it.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You know, and then the precision aspect is something, you know, I find I'm very drawn to that aspect of teaching and really clarifying what exactly is somebody doing and how to do it. And.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, so that it's not just kind of like I call the absence of precision sometimes. This Stevie Wonder and the pinata approach to meditation, which I realized when I said it, it has a certain valence to it. But the fact that he's already blind. And then you blindfold him on top of that.

[A]

Okay, first of all, I don't think.

[B]

Spin him around, David.

[A]

I'm sorry, I'm gonna blow up your Stevie Wonder and the pinata thing. Not because clearly you hate Stevie Wonder and you hate blind people.

[B]

Well, wait, I love Stevie Wonder. He played on a song of mine.

[A]

I'm joking.

[B]

He played on a song of my.

[A]

Duncan. I'm joking. You what? Hold on, we'll get to that. Wow. When.

[B]

Stevie, I love you. If you're listening.

[A]

When was the last time you were around kids in a pinata?

[B]

Oh, shit. I've been made. Long time ago.

[A]

Because you put a fucking blindfold on the kids.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So why. Why does Stevie Wonder. It's anyone in a pinata is all I'm saying. You see, you don't.

[B]

That's the joke is that if somebody's already blind, on top of that, you blindfold.

[A]

Oh, I'm the idiot.

[B]

On top of that, you spin them around. On top of that, you say, now go hit the target. And I meant to be talking about precision. No, it doesn't rain.

[A]

No, it's too many questions. If you're like. Well, first of all, like. Too many questions. Talk about. If you're going to talk about precision, make your analogy precise. Your analogy is confusing. And Steve, it's. Let me. Hold on. Let me fix it for. For you talking about thrashing around blindly. Ah, fuck, I don't know.

[B]

Well, let's. Let's reduce it to the real point, which is that gentleness means that we don't try to bang our way out of, you know, out of whatever trap we feel we're in.

[A]

There you go. Yeah, soften it.

[B]

Soften into it. Precision means we have some clarity about the process.

[A]

You could save yourself a lot of time.

[B]

I just did.

[A]

Here you go.

[B]

Yeah, but there's a third one.

[A]

What's that?

[B]

Letting go, which is what we're about to do of this whole topic.

[A]

Yeah, right. Yeah, that one's scary, too. I mean. Yeah, the letting go part. It's like I was reading to the middle child and we're doing these five minute stories before bed. It's great, these books. Every chapter is five minutes. You know, parents out there, you know how that is. You don't. Your kid's gonna pick, like, Moby fucking Dick if they can for the bedtime story because they don't want it to end. And so I'm reading, you know, and I realize he's not even listening to the story. He's looking at the pages as they change color when the chapter ends. And he's getting increasingly anxious about when the chapter ends. And then I just stopped. I'm like, you know, the whole time, you haven't even heard the story.

[B]

Oh, gosh.

[A]

You've been worrying about the chapter ending, and you can't even enjoy me reading the chapter right now.

[B]

Well, look at you, being a Dharma teacher to your own kids.

[A]

I know.

[B]

What a great little Dharma lesson that is. Perfect.

[A]

Well, he didn't. I don't know if he heard it or not, but it made me think. I only brought it up because I was thinking, how many times have I done that? How many times? If I'd been in the midst of a spectacular experience and I know it's going to end, or a spectacular experience has ended and I can't let it go. I want to go back to that.

[B]

Well, this is why. That's the third element. The gentleness, precision. Letting go is the third element. Because without that, we will simply attach to the method of liberation as our next set of imprisoning ideas.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is that famous thing Alan Watts said to Ram Dass. You know this? He apparently told Ram Dass, you know what, Ram Dass? You're attached to emptiness. And, you know. So, yeah, you just. That's where it gets interesting. We've got this new baby. And it's fascinating, you know, seeing all the things that come hardwired into a new human are really interesting. The ability to breastfeed, to eat. And the startle response. So that thing, some people do it when they're falling asleep to this day, suddenly the baby throws their arms out, you know, like. Like that. You know what I mean? It's called the startle response. There's probably another name for it, but it's interesting, the things that are built in, the reflexes that are built in. But you start witnessing this response, I guess you could say just being in the universe, which is this, that you keep trying to grab some shit. Like, no matter what, you just keep clutching and clutching and clutching. And that, to me, is the hardest thing to reprogram. That.

[B]

Well, it comes back to letting go, right? It keeps coming back.

[A]

That's what I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

Letting go is, you know, maybe the least technique of the three things that we iterated there. Like, you know, gentleness. You can use certain visualizations, certain analogies, you know, like a feather touching a bubble or something like that. You know, like. Like when you label thinking in your meditation practice, come back to the breath just to do that, like, with it, with. As if you were like, you know, doing with a child. You know, there's a way to, like, incur, to invoke gentleness. Precision is like. There's many metaphors you could use for that. But letting go is harder to program in, isn't it? It's better just to scare people.

[A]

Feels like the most ingrained.

[B]

It's better to just push them off a cliff.

[A]

Well, for sure.

[B]

I mean, sometimes that's what I meant by letting go. You want to get this student back. So we don't want the big letting go to happen too soon. You see what I'm saying?

[A]

Oh, my God. I tried this on my kid. Sorry. Please. I learned my lesson. This is a true parental regret. Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. It's cough cold and flu season. Do not get caught feeling under the weather. Get back to feeling good with savings on all your cold and flu Essentials now through February 24th. Shop in store or online to stock up and save on items like Mucinex, Fast Max liquid gels, Vicks Dayquil and nyquil combo packs, Hall's cough drops and Tylenol Children's liquid. Offer ends February 24th. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details. The holidays are expensive. You're paying for gifts, travel, decorations, food, and before you know it, you've blown way past what you were planning to spend. Don't Start the new year off with bad money vibes. Download Rocket Money to stay on top of your finances. The app pulls your income, expenses, and upcoming charges into one place so you can get the clearest picture of your money. It shows how much to set aside for bills and how much is safe to spend for the month so you can spend with confidence, no guesswork needed. Get alerts before bills hit. Track budgets and see every subscription you're paying for. Rocket Money also finds extra ways to save you money by canceling subscriptions you're not using and negotiating lower bills for you. On average, Rocket Money users can save up to $740 a year when using all of the app's premium features. Start the year off right by taking control of your finances. Go to rocketmoney.com cancel to get started. That's rocketmoney.com cancel rocketmoney.com cancel we're at Disney World. The middle child is not wanting to go on certain roller coasters. My dad did this to me. My wife's dad did it to her.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

So we. The assumption being not. I want my kid to suffer. He's gonna like it. Get him to go on the roller coaster. He's gonna like it. It's fun. It's safe. It's a roller coaster. So we go on. I don't remember what it was, T Tiana. I think for those Disney people out there, you know what I'm talking about? It's gotta drop at the end, man. And he's having fun until we get to that drop. And the thing is, like, we got.

[B]

Aren't we all?

[A]

Then the drop happens. He's like, what the. He didn't say this, but he's looking at me like, you wa. And then, you know, it was very sweet. The oldest is comforting in the right ends. He was so, like, fine. But after that was the problem, because any ride we're like, no, we're going to go on. Pirates of the Caribbean doesn't have a drop. He's like, yeah, sure, dad. And so that's what you're talking about. You can't do that. I learned you can't do that.

[B]

So I had a very similar experience with Ethan and at a ride at Disneyland. But, yeah. So letting go, you know, you could then look at. You could introduce the idea of mixing letting go with gentleness and gradually help somebody let go. You could mix the idea of gentleness with precision. Right? That gentleness is not just this sloppy, you know, kind of mushy thing that has some kind of Precision element to it. So between those three things, though, there's a lot to go on there.

[A]

You know that song?

[B]

We use that as a foundation of our teacher training program.

[A]

You know that song, Box of Rain, David?

[B]

No.

[A]

It's my favorite Grateful Dead song. I can't. I'm not sure which one wrote it, but it was for their dying parent. It's a song about dying. And my favorite line is they chose box of rain instead of Box of rain is supposed to be the earth, but he's saying it's just a box of rain. I don't know who put it there. Believe it if you need it or leave it if you dare. It's so cool. And you know, that kind of letting go, not just of. You know what I mean? Like of the whole thing. If you want it, it's there. Go ahead, go ahead. Hold on. But if you see what happens if you let go, if you leave it. Yeah, I get it. The gentle approach is better. As long as you don't gaslight yourself into thinking you're being gentle when really you're being lazy.

[B]

Well, that's where the precision comes in.

[A]

Right, right.

[B]

They intermingle. But it's three, you know, it's three good parameters to kind of use as a guideline for any kind of practice that you're doing.

[A]

What a great teacher you are. This has been such a joy. And I know you have another teacher training coming up. Am I doing another podcast with you for that thing? I love doing those things. It's so fun.

[B]

This is it.

[A]

Oh, good.

[B]

Yeah. So maybe we can just say a nice word about it, if you have one.

[A]

Well, I mean, you know, the truth is, David, that you like, my life is infinitely better from being friends with you and having you articulating this stuff to me. I mean, for me, it's a slow boil and. But wow, you know, I'm always thinking about our conversations. It's wild how ingrained our conversations are in my sort of day to day assessing of reality and how many imaginary conversations I have with you. Maybe they're not imaginary. Maybe we're actually. But yeah, I do hope people listening who feel drawn to what David's talking about take the leap. And also, I've met many people after shows and stuff who've done these trainings and it's really had a big impact.

[B]

On them, as have you. We do have an info session that I'm just going to talk about the program itself on February 10th, so maybe we can put a link to that in the show. Notes and people can come and find out more about it. But the general idea is that I'm strongly inclined to help train the next generation of teachers. You know, it's definitely good to train students and practitioners. That's always. You always want to do that. But who's going to handle this? You know, my teacher, Drungkra Mimpce, looked at me one time, and he said, who's going to take care of these things these days? Like, when I was very young and it was an aside, and I, at the time, didn't really register, but the idea that the wheel rotates for me, it's more obvious. You know, I'm going to be 78 next month. It's unbelievable when you experience that. And so just bringing along the next generation. So our Dharma Moon teacher training program is very much in that spirit of, like, helping to pass through what's really been helpful for me.

[A]

That retreat was so fun. What a great group of people you have there, too. It's really incredible. Really exceeded all of my expectations, which are inevitable.

[B]

Well, we have another one at the end of April coming up.

[A]

Oh, really?

[B]

I'll send you the deets.

[A]

Please do. All right, well, everybody, there you go. Dharma Moon teacher training program. Check it out. The info sessions are cool. There's a lot of what we just talked about there. It's not just like, I don't know, scheduling stuff. It's great. And you get to meet some of the people who are involved in Dharma Moon. And what is that again? February. What? 10th, 10th? Four days before February.

[B]

February 10th.

[A]

All right, David.

[B]

Well, that's one way of looking at it. And nine days before my birthday.

[A]

Wow. Okay. All right, David, thank you so much. This is a wonderful conversation. Thank you for all you do.

[B]

And congratulations again. You had a girl. You've had four kids now. You're like a black belt. Dad. Duncan, you're getting a black belt.

[A]

You always feel like a beginner. It's always. But it's wonderful. I love. I'm very lucky.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Thank you, David.

[B]

Yeah, love to Aaron, too. In the whole situation there. It's. It's.

[A]

It's.

[B]

I'm sure these are going to be. What's that?

[A]

Well, we're divorced. I'm just kidding.

[B]

Is that what you mean by letting go?

[A]

Yeah, baby. I'm off to be the. Well, thank you very much, David. You're the best. And we will. All the links you need to find David will be down there. If you're on YouTube or in the description, on AudioBoom, wherever you get your podcasts. David, thank you so much for being on the show.

[B]

Thanks Duncan. Great to catch up.

[A]

That was David Nickturn, everybody. Check out his free live online event on Tuesday, February 10th. Links down below. God bless you. Please like and subscribe and I'll see you next week. Until then, Hare Krishna hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Are you feeling those winter blues? Well, do not worry, they've got you covered with ways to boost your mood. Add a little sweetness to your day with big savings on all your favorite sweets. Shop in store or online and save on items like Gummy Savers, five Flavors, Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Sour Patch Watermelon M and Ms. Party Size Stand Up Bags and Ferrero Rocher Mixed Variety squares. Offer ends February 24th. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details with an AMEX card. My benefits suit me, so I earn on both big and little things in life. And so can you. Are you a foodie who dines in.

[B]

Or one who takes out?

[A]

Maybe a traveler searching for new destinations and travel perks? Saving rewards for something big or maybe for someone small? There's an AMEX card waiting for you. See if you pre qualify for an American Express card with no impact on your credit score. Learn [e-mail] Tech4OFFERS. Your credit score may be impacted if you accept a card. Terms apply. Your teen's faith will be challenged. It's not a matter of if, but when. Summit student conferences help students stand firm with a clear biblical worldview. Spots are limited. Go to summit.org and register your teen today.