Podcast Summary

Podcast: New Thinking Allowed Audio Podcast

Episode Title: Truth, Love and Psychedelic Healing with Michael Ryoshin Sapiro
Host: Leanne Whitney (Guest Host)
Guest: Dr. Michael Ryoshin Sapiro
Date: January 5, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode features a deep and heartfelt conversation between guest host Leanne Whitney and Dr. Michael Ryoshin Sapiro—a clinical psychologist, Zen Buddhist monk, psychedelic psychotherapist, author, poet, and meditation teacher. The discussion centers on the themes of truth, unconditional love, intergenerational trauma, shadow and shame, wholeness, and the role of psychedelic psychotherapy in healing and awakening. Dr. Sapiro brings both personal experience and clinical insight, weaving the spiritual with the psychological to address individual and collective transformation.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Personal Story and Origins

• Early Mystical Experiences and Buddhist Practice
  Dr. Sapiro shares how mystical experiences with psychedelics at a young age opened him to deeper levels of reality and suffering. Buddhism entered his life at 18, providing a language and path for understanding his experiences and traumas.

  "I had some mystical experiences when I was younger ... [Psychedelics] showed me things behind the masks of reality … gave me a sense that there was something greater ..." (04:17)

• Intergenerational Trauma and Healing
  Coming from a Holocaust-surviving family, Dr. Sapiro describes inheriting both trauma and resilience, shaping his drive for service and understanding in his work.

  "We had tremendous trauma in our background ... But also lots of fear and dread that ... also passed down to me." (04:58)

2. The Nature of Truth as Medicine

• Living Truthfully
  Truth is positioned as a unique, inwardly-felt quality beneath conditioning, while living and expressing it fosters empowerment and healing.

  “When people really feel their truth, that rings like a bell in the body ... There's empowerment, embodiment, confidence.” (09:34)

• Truth vs. Psychedelic Substances
  For Dr. Sapiro, the real healing agents are truth and unconditional love, not solely the substances used in therapy.

  "The two medicines are unconditional love and truth. Not the substances. Not ketamine, not psilocybin, not DMT, not ayahuasca." (10:22)

3. The Process of Healing: Integration Over Experience

• The episode emphasizes not the ‘flashy’ psychedelic visions, but integrating the lessons and truths that arise.

  “Our field right now is really hyped up on the experience itself, and I’m more interested in what arises … that we can use for healing and growth.” (11:54)

• Personal and spiritual truths must be discerned and lived, not just experienced.

4. Wholeness, Non-Dual Awareness, and the Inner Terrain

• Buddhist and Yogic Frames
  Both traditions point to an innate, untouched awareness—‘wholeness’—beneath conditions and trauma.

  “That awareness itself is ineffable ... it exists as something innate that's innocent, that's unconditioned ... That in essence is the most healing thing you can do.” (13:35)

• Self-Compassion as a Practice
  The lack of self-love and constant inner critique perpetuate suffering and harmful behaviors. The root of healing is to foster grace, patience, and compassion inwardly.

  "Can you love your body, yourself—even the mistakes you've made? Do you have grace? Do you have patience? ... Are you kind to yourself? No. Well, that creates a whole cascade of really negative behaviors..." (17:28)

5. Concentric Circles of Influence: Family, Culture, Self

• Dr. Sapiro encourages examining where beliefs and self-concepts come from—ancestral, cultural, familial, or personal.

  “Our culture, our ancestors, our parents, and our own beliefs are all operating simultaneously...” (19:53)

• Psychedelics and meditation help clarify these influences, allowing more conscious choices.

6. Obstacles to Living Truth: Red Flags and Questions

• Addictions, staying in abusive relationships, or dissociative patterns are often surface symptoms of an inner misalignment or lack of self-value.

  "Symptoms of not liking ourself look like addiction. Symptoms of not caring for ourselves look like choosing abusive partners ..." (25:00)

7. Shadow Work, Jungian Influence, and Archetypes

• While not a Jungian analyst, Dr. Sapiro values depth psychology, archetypes, and shadow work as vital concepts in transformational work—naming the darkness and using it for growth.

  "The shadows are not negative. The demons are not negative ... In many cultures in Tibetan Buddhism, demons bring messages." (31:48)

8. Approaching the Unknown: The C.O.S.T. Mnemonic

• Curiosity, Openness, Surrender, Trust
  This stance supports clients in facing difficult or mysterious experiences, especially on psychedelics.

  “The stance that I teach ... curiosity, openness, surrender, trust ... when you're facing the unknown, when you're facing potential dysregulation ...” (31:48)

9. Integration, Non-Dual Experiences, and Everyday Life

• The challenge after mystical insight or ego dissolution is to reintegrate, live, and communicate newfound truths skillfully and kindly in everyday relationships.

  "How do you help someone integrate [a non-dual] experience into their daily waking lives? ... It’s great that you had it ... but how do you just go back and do the laundry?" (41:20)

10. Truth, Communication, and Interdependence

• Discovering personal truth is not enough—communicating it skillfully fosters collective growth and healing.

  “How do you communicate in a way that increases the likelihood both of you grow? ... Both of you heal?” (48:56)

11. Welcoming All Parts, Including Shame and Demons

• Wholeness requires embracing all parts, even the uncomfortable or shameful. Shame can be transformed through humility and compassion.

  "Shame is the immature version of remorse ... shame disappears naturally in the embrace of humility." (51:41)

12. Hope, Wholeness, and the Commitment to Service

• Dr. Sapiro finds hope not in changing the world all at once, but in individuals and organizations doing genuine inner work, extending loving-kindness outward, and walking their talk.

  "When we love and care for ourselves and then we naturally start doing that for others, that's the met. We're bringing medicine to the world that is hurting ... That is the platform for extending peace and healing outward as much as we can." (56:04, 59:04)

• Balance vs. Wholeness The focus is on fostering wholeness—embracing all aspects of self, not merely achieving external balance.

  "I'm not doing this to balance hatred in the world. I'm doing it to bring wholeness to the world." (60:22)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Finding Personal Truth:

  "When people really feel their truth, that rings like a bell in the body. ... There's empowerment, embodiment, confidence ... That's our nature too. That's our most fundamental nature."
  (09:34, 13:35 — Dr. Michael Ryoshin Sapiro)

• On Self-Compassion and Practice:

  "We punish ourselves for our mistakes instead of going, 'I'm here, I know you did that. I wish we didn't do that, but we did.' So I'm going to apply grace, understanding, patience, tolerance, support."
  (36:13 — Dr. Michael Ryoshin Sapiro)

• On C.O.S.T. Mnemonic:

  "Curiosity, openness, surrender and trust are the stance that I teach ... when you're facing the unknown ..."
  (31:48 — Dr. Michael Ryoshin Sapiro)

• On Integration After Non-Dual Experience:

  "How do you help someone integrate an undual experience into their daily waking lives? It's great that you had it ... but how do you just go back and do the laundry?"
  (41:20 — Dr. Michael Ryoshin Sapiro)

• On Hope and Service:

  “I do have faith that everyone who comes to my office that does their work, all the organizations I work with— that is the platform for extending peace and healing outward as much as we can.”
  (56:04 — Dr. Michael Ryoshin Sapiro)

• On Wholeness:

  “In a practice of wholeness, nothing’s excluded ever and everything’s included.”
  (61:36 — Dr. Michael Ryoshin Sapiro)

• On the Message to Listeners:

  “You as listeners are important enough to do whatever work is calling to you, you’re valuable and you’re worthwhile ... The effort you put in is like tending a garden. You’ll get such a beautiful version of yourself just with some effort”
  (66:19 — Dr. Michael Ryoshin Sapiro)

Important Timestamps

• Dr. Sapiro's Background & Early Mystical Experience – 04:17
• On Intergenerational Trauma – 06:49
• On Truth as Personal Medicine – 09:34
• Buddhist & Yogic Perspectives on Awareness – 13:35
• The Harm of Inner Critique and Self-Compassion Practice – 17:28
• Concentric Circles: Source of Beliefs – 19:53
• “Red Flags” for Lack of Inner Truth – 25:00
• Shadow Work, Jung, and Archetypes – 28:15
• C.O.S.T. Mnemonic Explained – 31:48
• Integrating Mystical Experiences – 41:20
• Communicating Truth Skillfully – 48:56
• Welcoming Shame and All Aspects – 51:41
• Hope and Service – 56:04
• On Wholeness and Balance – 60:22
• Final Message to Listeners – 66:19

Final Reflections

The conversation is a rich blend of clinical wisdom, spiritual insight, and practical tools for listeners—whether engaged in psychedelic healing or other forms of self-discovery. Dr. Sapiro’s gentle, honest tone invites listeners to begin with self-inquiry: “Do you like yourself? Do you love yourself? Do you take care of yourself?” (25:00) Layered throughout are reminders that truth and unconditional love—lived and expressed—are the deepest medicine, supporting wholeness and compassion both within and between us.

For more information about Dr. Sapiro and his work, listeners are encouraged to visit his resources and explore his book, Truth, Healing and Living Authentically through Psychedelic Psychotherapy.