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Dan Kennedy (1:09)

Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy. This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com, the Internet's leading provider of audiobooks with more than 75,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature. For the Moth listeners, Audible is offering a free audiobook to give you a chance to try out their service. One audiobook to consider is Blood, Bones and the Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef by Gabrielle Hamilton. Narrated by the author, the book is described by food guru Anthony Bourdain as straight to the point and pretense free like Hamilton herself. That's Blood, Bones and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton, available from Audible. To try Audible Free today and get a free audiobook of your choice, go to audible.comthemost that's audible.comthemost the first story you're about to hear by Jack Hannibal was recorded live at our first ever Grand Slam in Los Angeles. The theme of the night was When Worlds Collide. A little warning the the sound quality of this recording isn't great. We were just getting things worked out, but we think it's worth it and we hope you'll agree.

Jack Hannibal (2:26)

Okay, so I was new to Los Angeles from New York and a friend invited me to a party in Topanga Canyon. It was a reception for a Tibetan monk who had just given a teaching in Santa Monica. I'd never met a monk before and I had never been to Topanga Canyon. So I get to this house. There are all these fancy cars lined up out front, and there are all these people in robes, and they're running around and they're behaving like it's 1967. And I think, oh, God, no. The monk arrives with this huge entourage of translators and handlers, and the people at the party just start freaking out. They're smiling and bowing and nodding and everything. It's like this Barney birthday party for adults. The monk is completely unaffected by everything that's going on around him. Striking. It's like he literally looks like a hologram. Like he's not even there. It's like we're watching this image of a quiet monk that's being beamed into the room. I have these couple of cool exchanges with him, but cut to the end of the night. The whole party has moved outside. Everybody's packed in, sitting and standing around this fire pit. And I'm trying to get to Tim, the guy who's the host, to thank him and say goodnight, but he's sitting on the ground in the middle of this thing, and he's smoking a joint. He's telling this long rambling monologue about the preciousness of life and birth and death and karma. And I'm like, oh, fuck it, I'm out of here. I'll call the guy tomorrow. But I start to leave, and it's like somebody in the crowd stumbles. And I just instinctively grab them, and it's the monk, and he's looking right at me. And I look away from him, and my first thought is, oh, my God, he's gay. I'm like, these fucking monks are just like the priests. They're awful. So, like, I look at them like, you know, what's up? You know? And I'm like, waiting for him to, like, wake or, you know, Groucho, whatever. And he doesn't do anything. And then it hits me. He didn't do anything because he's not doing anything. He's just goofing around. He's saying hi, he's being friendly. And in my reaction to him, I get this portrait of this guy that I've become since I moved to Los Angeles. I am so judgmental. I am so suspicious, and I am so defended that I don't even recognize a simple guy fooling around. I just take it this completely wrong way and it hits me. And the monk says, oh, sad. He sounds like E.T. so I laugh and I go, I am sad. But, you know, it's okay. It's good sad. And he goes, good sad. And then he shoves me. So I shove him back and he goes, do you know computer? I said, yeah, a little bit. He goes, opc on Mac. So we go into the house and I help him read his emails. I'm saying medicine. Sogin's mother is very sick. They've smuggled medicine to her in Tibet, but even if she gets it, it doesn't look like she's going to live. Sogin gets very quiet. And I said, sogin, you must miss your mother very much. He says, oh, yes, very much. I said, when was the last time you saw her? 20 years ago. I said, so again. Why so long? It was out of my mouth before I thought it. And he goes, tibet. Not seifa monk. I said, oh, I know. I'm sorry. I didn't. It's okay. So we chat a little bit. And I asked him, how did you become a monk? The Dalai Lama had a dream. In this dream, he saw the reincarnation of Sogen. Rinpoche had been born and was living in this little village by the Yellow River. He sent these monks out to go find him. They did. Little boy named Pema. It was too dangerous to move him out of Tibet, so the monks disappeared into the woods. But they started educating him in secret. When he was 18, the monks came back and they smuggled him out to Dharmsala, India, to the Dalai Lama's palace. When he was 28, his teacher gave him the nature of mind. My understanding of the nature of mind is that when your teacher deems that you're ready, they have the ability to transmit to you a direct experience of divine nature. So that happened. And then so goes to a cave for three years by himself to contemplate this experience. When he returns, the Dalai Lama sends him to San Francisco to learn English and teach. He's been here four months. He tells me this story as simply and straightforward as I'm telling you now. But as he is speaking, I swear to God, the walls start to bend. And I got so lightheaded I had to sit down. He tells me that tomorrow Tim is going to drive him back to San Francisco. He's going to go up along the coast because Son has never seen it. I said, oh, that's great. I've always wanted to do that. He goes, oh, you come. Next day, we're in the car, we're driving up the coast of San Francisco. Tim is hilarious. He keeps hitting the monk, going, look, man, I don't want any gas money, but how about just a little bit of that? Nature of mine, just give me a little glimpse of it. Late in the afternoon, we get to Big Sur. We run down to the beach. The ocean is just wild. It's like smashing. These huge thunderclaps. The wind is howling. It's whipping all of the sand up into the atmosphere. The setting sun is blocked by these pastel bands of orange, red, purple, blue and black. We huddle under these blankets in this sort of makeshift fort. And it's like cacophonous around us. It's a perfect moment. And then Tim goes into one of his fucking monologues about how precious life is. And we have to wake up. And it's, like, embarrassing. I want him to shut the fuck up. And I look over at the Monk, just to, like, check in with him. And Sogin is looking right at me. And in the middle of Tim's speech, he goes, dream. And I can never do justice to the way this guy said that word. But when he said it, something went right through me. And in that moment, everything that I have ever thought, felt, my entire life story that gave everything, everything that I think is me disappeared. And I realized that what Sogen is, is he is, though he is physically right in front of me. He is inhabiting a world on the other side of that dream. His being is a lighthouse calling us all home to our true nature. And I think, no wonder the Chinese want these fucking guys dead. We can't have that going on. So I go. It lasts like an instant. I go, whoa. And Jim goes, what just happened? Did you give him nature mug? He goes, I drove the next day. I'm laying in the back seat. We have all the windows and the sunroof open. I'm watching Sogin's robes whipping out the car window. And I'm thinking to myself, why is this my life? I mean, of all the lives I could have been born into, why have my mind, why has it converged this moment right now? I mean, is it chance or is there meaning? And I say to Sogun, I said, sogun. Is this karma? Is our being here together Karma? And he turns around with his big fat round face and he goes, everything, Karma. And then he smiles this big smile and he goes, this very good karma. Thank you.