Be Here Now Network Guest Podcast

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Ep. 172 - Three Foundations of the Eightfold Path with Trudy Goodman Jun 10, 2024

Show notes

Focusing on Sila, Samadhi, and Prajna, Trudy Goodman explains how the Eightfold Path can carry us through all of our life experiences.

In this episode of the BHNN Guest Podcast, Buddhist teacher Trudy Goodman offers a lesson on:

The Eightfold Path as an expression and fulfillment of awakened life
Sila, Samadhi, and Prajna
Establishing ourselves in goodness and the gift of fearlessness
The bliss of blamelessness when we are free from guilt and regret
How committing to wise intention naturally improves our life
Noticing what’s here in the present moment and gathering the fragmented pieces of ourselves
The limitless portability and applicability of mindfulness
Mindfulness as the steady and accepting love of grandparents
Falling in love with the miracle of our own being
Being drawn into the practice and allowing it to carry us
Having receptivity to the unfolding of things

This talk was originally published on Dharmaseed

About Trudy Goodman:

Trudy is a Vipassana teacher in the Theravada lineage and the Founding Teacher of InsightLA. For 25 years, in Cambridge, MA, Trudy practiced mindfulness-based psychotherapy with children, teenagers, couples and individuals. Trudy conducts retreats and workshops worldwide.

Learn more about Trudy’s offerings at trudygoodman.com

“Mindfulness helps us notice what’s here so that we can start to gather and bring back all these scattered, fragmented bits of ourselves and our experience. As we bring them into our awareness and as we bring them back home to the heart, to more wholeness, these bits and pieces of our life experience and ourselves begin to coalesce and settle down and peacefully co-exist. We can have love, we can aversion, we can have likes and dislikes, and they can peacefully live in the same heart. There doesn’t have to be any conflict.” – Trudy Goodman

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Ep. 171 - Stream of Refuge and Confidence with Gil Fronsdal May 31, 2024

Show notes

Gil Fronsdal discusses having confidence in what the Buddha represents within ourselves and being a refuge for all beings.

This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self.

This time on the BHNN Guest Podcast, Gil Fronsdal explains:

How the Buddha defined confidence and fate
Instructions from the Buddha on making oneself a refuge
Being a refuge and support for all beings
Personal worth and finding yourself in community
The benefit of having confidence in ourselves and in our practice
The imperfections that stain the mind
Having confidence in that which the Buddha represents within ourselves
Reflecting on the times when our minds are not caught
How the dharma is visible here and now, not there and then
The balance between responsibility and allowing natural unfolding

About Gil Fronsdal:

Gil Fronsdal is the co-teacher for the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California; he has been teaching since 1990. He has practiced Zen and Vipassana in the U.S. and Asia since 1975. He was a Theravada monk in Burma in 1985, and in 1989 began training with Jack Kornfield to be a Vipassana teacher. Gil teaches at Spirit Rock Meditation Center where he is part of its Teachers Council. Gil was ordained as a Soto Zen priest at the San Francisco Zen Center in 1982, and in 1995 received Dharma Transmission from Mel Weitsman, the abbot of the Berkeley Zen Center. He currently serves on the SF Zen Center Elders’ Council. In 2011 he founded IMC’s Insight Retreat Center. Gil has an undergraduate degree in agriculture from U.C. Davis where he was active in promoting the field of sustainable farming. In 1998 he received a PhD in Religious Studies from Stanford University studying the earliest developments of the bodhisattva ideal. He is the author of The Issue at Hand, essays on mindfulness practice; A Monastery Within; a book on the five hindrances called Unhindered; and the translator of The Dhammapada, published by Shambhala Publications. You may listen to Gil’s talks on Audio Dharma.

This 2014 talk was originally published by Dharmaseed.

“The reference point for having confidence or faith or trust in the Buddha is not in the great power and wisdom of the Buddha, but rather something that we can know for ourselves, that we realize is reflected in the Buddha.” – Gil Fronsdal

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Ep. 170 -Insight into Ourselves, Outsight into the World with Bruce Damer & Jackie Dobrinska May 26, 2024

Show notes

Jackie Dobrinska and Bruce Damer chat about insight into ourselves and outsight into the world in this recording from the Ram Dass Explorers Club.

The Ram Dass Explorers Club is a free virtual group wherein members delve into pivotal movements within the psychedelic renaissance while paying homage to the enduring legacy of Ram Dass. Join HERE to embark on explorations of expanded consciousness, guided by the themes of awe, transcendence, union, and beyond.

Today’s episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self.

In this episode, host Jackie Dobrinska speaks with Bruce Damer about:

Ram Dass’ work and how he continues to inspire others
How Bruce came to know Ram Dass
The way that Ram Dass hits on the center of things
Albert Einstein and thought experiments
Entering flows of connection and time
The etymology of psychedelics
How we create our own realities
Coming into embodied wisdom and the serpent of the internet
Ram Dass as a beacon to the reality we need
Navigating psychedelics and having adequate preparation
Knowing that we are always held by love

About Dr. Bruce Damer:

Dr. Bruce Damer is a scientist, psychonaut, and humanitarian. Dr. Damer is Chief Scientist at BIOTA Institute, UC Santa Cruz. He is an astrobiologist working on the science of life’s origins, spacecraft design, psychedelics and genius. Dr. Bruce has spent his life pursuing two great questions: how did life on Earth begin, and how can we give that life (and ourselves) a sustainable pathway into the cosmos? A decade of scientific research with his collaborator Prof. David Deamer at the UC Santa Cruz Department of Biomolecular Engineering resulted in the Hot Spring Hypothesis for an Origin of Life published in the journal Astrobiology in 2019. Dr. Damer also has a long career working with NASA on mission simulation and design and recently co-developed a spacecraft to utilize resources from asteroids. You can keep up with Dr. Bruce Damer on Twitter.

About Jackie Dobrinska:

Jackie Dobrinska is the Director of Education, Community & Inclusion for Ram Dass’ Love, Serve, Remember Foundation and the current host of Ram Dass’ Here & Now podcast. She is also a teacher, coach, and spiritual director with the privilege of marrying two decades of mystical studies with 15 years of expertise in holistic wellness. As an interspiritual minister, Jackie was ordained in Creation Spirituality in 2016 and has also studied extensively in several other lineages – the plant-medicine-based Pachakuti Mesa Tradition, Sri Vidya Tantra, Western European Shamanism, Christian Mysticism, the Wise Woman Tradition, and others. Today, in addition to building courses and community for LSRF, she leads workshops and coaches individuals to discover, nourish and live from their most authentic selves.

Learn more about Jackie’s work at asimplevibrantlife.com.

“We can create our realities. We’ll determine whether we are constricted or opened at every moment by our choices of what we produce for our fellow humans.” – Bruce Damer

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Ep. 169 - Acquiring Stillness of the Mind with JoAnna Hardy May 09, 2024

Show notes

Moving through the senses, JoAnna Hardy guides listeners in a meditation to acquire stillness of the mind.

Today’s episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self.

In this episode, JoAnna Hardy guides us through:

The benefits of having clarity and a still mind
The breath-body central focus
Gaining self-trust
Paying attention to the sounds and sights around us without assigning meaning
Working the muscle of awareness
Reengaging with the breath when the mind gets busy

This recording is from the Vallecitos Mountain Retreat Center: Mindfulness for Educators.

About JoAnna Hardy:

JoAnna Hardy is an insight meditation (Vipassanā) practitioner and teacher; she is on faculty at the University of Southern California, a meditation trainer at Apple Fitness+, a founding member of the Meditation Coalition, a teacher’s council member at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, a visiting retreat teacher at Insight Meditation Society, and a collaborator on many online meditation Apps and programs. Her greatest passion is to teach meditation in communities that are dedicated to seeing the truth of how racism, gender inequality and oppression go hand in hand with the compassionate action teachings in Buddhism and related perspectives to social and racial justice.

“It’s important that we start that way, with this breath-body central focus, to really collect, gather, and sustain the capacity of our mind to be more still. From that stillness, this really beautiful self-trust comes. We can trust ourselves more because we are not at the whimsy of that chaotic mind.” – JoAnna Hardy

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Ep. 168 - Big Flower, Small Flower with Gil Fronsdal May 02, 2024

Show notes

Distinguishing commentary from direct experience, Gil Fronsdal helps us break free from the conventions and comparisons that the mind makes.

Today's episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self.

In this episode, Gil Fronsdal speaks to listeners about:

Paying homage to those who have purified their hearts
Direct experience versus attempting to describe things
The way that comparison arises
Self-image and appreciating our own suchness
Resting in the part of ourselves that is not an idea or a concept
The conditioning that can happen from society
Wisdom from sitting with physical pain
Living in the present moment instead of the stories we tell ourselves
Letting things be as they are
Seeing God in our simple, direct experiences
Coming back to the breath and practicing all throughout the day

This 1998 talk was originally published on Dharmaseed

About Gil Fronsdal:

“Most of us know the wonderful smell of a rose, but if you could try to describe in words what that fragrance is, you’d have a hard time I think. The actual sense, the direct experience of smell, is something we can all experience; seeing this flower as it is. In Buddhism, there is a lot of emphasis on seeing things as they are.” – Gil Fronsdal

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Ep. 167 - Serving the Multitude with Nani Ma and Nina Rao Apr 11, 2024

Show notes

Nina Rao interviews Nani Ma about her deep devotion to serving her guru and her service work with Ganga Prem Hospice.

If you are interested in donating to Ganga Prem Hospice, you can do so through a donation to End of Life Care International with a memo specifying you would like it to go to Ganga Prem.

Today’s podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/beherenow

This time on the Be Here Now Network Guest Podcast, Nani Ma shares with us:

Her religious upbringing into Christianity
Being pulled to India from a young age
Seeking liberation from suffering and pain
The story of meeting her guru, Babaji
The beauty and power of the Ganges river
Her daily routine and how she meditates
How to deal with difficulties by watching our breath
Reaching one-pointedness through chanting single-worded mantras
Moving through the physical death of a guru
Forming cancer clinics in India and Ganga Prem Hospice

About Nani Ma:

Nani Ma is from the United Kingdom and sought spiritual enlightenment at a very young age. One day, she realized that serving the multitude and helping the needy is also an aspect of spiritual practice. So, she started taking care of the terminally ill cancer patients in the hospital, guiding the people who are suffering from pain and death to embark on a new journey. Together with Dr. A. K. Dewan, she established the Ganga Prem Hospice. Ganga Prem Hospice is a spiritually-orientated, non-profit hospice for terminally ill cancer patients. The Hospice has been constructed at the foot of the Himalayas on the bank of the river Ganga.

Krishna Das is offering two benefit kirtan concerts in Rishikesh October 2024 - details on KrishnaDas.com/Events

“When we watch our breath, it slows down. The breath and the mind are connected. Either the breath slows down and the mind slows down, or the mind catches hold of one thing, which is the name, and the name has its power by itself. The name has its own power.” – Nani Ma

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Ep. 166 - The Play of Awakening with Trudy Goodman Apr 05, 2024

Show notes

Guiding listeners through the seven factors of enlightenment, Trudy Goodman shows us the play of awakening in daily life.

Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/beherenow

In this episode, Trudy Goodman holds a talk on:

Loosening our grip on self-involvement
Living lovingly and joyfully in our daily lives
The seven factors of enlightenment
The things that torment us and connect us
How nature offers metta to us
Remaining poised amidst little catastrophes
Equanimity and being balanced
Trusting in the unfolding of reality

About Trudy Goodman:

This 2011 talk was recorded at Spirit Rock Meditation center and originally published on Dharmaseed

“Being a Buddhist or practicing these Buddhist teachings is to live lovingly and joyfully without getting so caught or identified with the suffering self. And not just out in some fantasy mountain cave that we might imagine ourselves in or on meditation retreat at luxurious Spirit Rock or in the monastery, but in the midst of whatever we’re doing.” – Trudy Goodman

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Ep. 165 - Meeting the Dharma in Ourselves with Gil Fronsdal Mar 28, 2024

Show notes

Taking us on a pilgrimage through Buddhist teachings, Gil Fronsdal describes meeting the dharma in ourselves.

This recording from Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on Dharmaseed.org

Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/beherenow

This time on the BHNN Guest Podcast, Gil Fronsdal teaches on:

Meeting the dharma in ourselves through direct experiences
Going into the world with a phenomenal capacity for non-harming
Looking at what really motivates and drives us
The story of the Kalama Sutta
Recognizing what brings welfare vs. what brings harm
Breath as a form of assurance and how our easeful, relaxed breath can be our teacher
Hindrances and what keeps us removed from ourselves
Coming home to our selves, our bodies, our sensations
Allowing the flow of experience to move through us
Releasing all of the things we hold onto

About Gil Fronsdal:

“It is so simple and so basically human, the capacity to recognize that we’re suffering or that we’re happy. In relationship to grand religious philosophies and ideas, it can seem maybe inconsequential to base one’s religious life on being able to recognize where is harm and where is welfare. But that relates at the heart to what the Buddha was pointing at. It points to something that we are able to experience and see and know for ourselves directly.” – Gil Fronsdal

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Ep. 164 - How to Hold the Complexity of Life with JoAnna Hardy Mar 21, 2024

Show notes

In a dharma talk on relative and ultimate reality, JoAnna Hardy discusses how to hold the complexity of life.

This lecture was recorded at the Insight Meditation Retreat for 18–32 Year Olds and originally published by Dharmaseed.

Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/beherenow

In this episode, JoAnna Hardy offers a talk on:

How and why we keep returning to our suffering
Dominant paradigms and what is out of our control
The way that the Buddhist experience introduces us to ultimate reality
Relative reality and what is happening on the ground
How we are all invited to be free via the Four Noble Truths
The ways we struggle with trying to control other people
Anatta, identity, and the way we hold onto our self-hood
How we show up in the world through our speech, actions, and thoughts
The Eightfold Path as the things we can control
Paying attention to who we spend our time with

About JoAnna Hardy:

“I’ve really worked on this practice of looking at a person; I’m not only looking at them. I’m looking at probably thousands of people who stand behind them, who have created them, who have created their way of thinking, their way of being. Every teacher, every friend, every person they come into contact with creates this being that is in front of us.” – JoAnna Hardy

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Ep. 163 - The Power of Yin with Jamie Catto & Jackie Dobrinska Mar 12, 2024

Show notes

In this recording from the Ram Dass Fellowship, Jamie Catto describes surrendering to the power of Yin in our daily lives.

To learn more and sign up for the Ram Dass Fellowship, visit RamDass.org/Fellowship. To support this free offering, please consider leaving a donation at RamDass.org/Donate.

Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/beherenow

This time on the BHNN Guest Podcast, Jamie and Jackie explore:

The difference between Yin and Yang
Surrendering to the flow of Yin
The benefits of yin parenting
Listening receptively in love making
Dancing as an example of Yin
Curiosity as a quality of Yin
The power of Yin in allaying our overworking imaginations
Our culture’s avoidance of negative emotions
The emotional plumbing system of the body
Forging paths through the forest of worry and anxiety
Embodying peace for the world
A guided mindfulness meditation from Jamie
Practicing loving awareness and self-love

About Jamie Catto:

Jamie’s mission is to make self-reflection hip enough to save us from ourselves. Jamie Catto is the director of the 2019 film Becoming Nobody, the quintessential portal to Ram Dass’ life and teachings (BecomingNobody.com). He is an author and musician running transformational workshops and events to reclaim all the treasure we edited away into the shadows and facilitate everyone daring to be more real, more fallible, more tender, more intimate. His mission is to create a world full of ‘walking permission slips’ where we all lighten up and enjoy the unpredictable human path together with humor, playfulness, and a healthy dose of irreverence. Jamie’s workshops and 1-1s provide a refreshing approach to inner work with the right dose of playfulness and depth. Keep up with Jamie on his website or on Instagram.

“So much of the treasure, creativity, lovemaking, parenting, laughing, dancing, the flow of the life is to be experienced when we allow ourselves to be moved and practice the qualities of Yin, which are curiosity, surrender, welcomeness, listening, spaciousness, all of those kinds of things where we let life live us and we become in the flow of the greater river of life.” – Jamie Catto

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