Show notes
Taking time to look back and move forward. Conversations With KD episodes are derived from the recordings of KD’s online events from his home during the 2020/ 2021 days of social distancing and quarantine from the onset of COVID and beyond.Call and Response Special Edition – Conversations With KD December 19, 2020 “Wherever we are, we are always held in this vast presence, which is our own true nature, and which is the nature of the divine. A real love. Spiritual practice is our way of beginning to remember how to see this space, how to turn towards it again and again, and by turning towards this, we let go of our stuff. We release our thoughts. We release anything that’s between our seeing what is right here all the time.” – Krishna Das Hello everybody. If you’re here, we’re still here. If you’re not, well, I hope everything’s okay wherever we are. So, as we sit here, we’re aware of a lot of things, our bodies, our thoughts, different sounds that we hear. But for a moment, just become aware of the space in the room that you’re sitting. This space is not a thought. It’s not a sense input. It’s not an emotion. It’s something we are aware of without any help from our senses or thoughts or any concepts about what is this and what this isn’t and who am I and what am I and all that shit. This is just a space. Now expand that space to the sky. Just see yourself sitting in the space of the sky, the sky that we feel, this vast space that we sense without our senses. This is like our nature. It’s like our soul. Everything happens within this space. It can’t be anything outside of this space. The space is everywhere. I hear a plane flying through the sky inside of this space. When we’re lost in thought, when we’re caught in emotional distress and pain, when we’re lost in pleasure, we lose the awareness of the space. Stuff comes and goes like birds flying through the sky, like clouds through the sky. But we are this awareness, this space, and when that space is obstructed by our stuff, we suffer, we’re limited. We’re glued to our stuff. The space is presence, with a capital “P,” being with a capital “B,” and anything we’re thinking about it, isn’t it. But that doesn’t mean it’s not here. Wherever we are, we are always held in this vast presence, which is our own true nature, and which is the nature of the divine. A real love. Spiritual practice is our way of beginning to remember how to see this space, how to turn towards it again and again, and by turning towards this, we let go of our stuff. We release our thoughts. We release anything that’s between our seeing what is right here all the time. This is Maharajji, always present. This is Hanuman. This is Ram. This is Krishna. This is the essence of all those great beings, and it’s also our essence. The only difference is their awareness is not obstructed any longer. They’re free. All of our practice is to loosen up the way we hold on to our stuff, where we identify with that stuff and allow us to sit at ease in this presence. We don’t have to make this up. This is who we are. Ram Dass called this, “Loving Awareness.” Loving awareness. One time, he and I were sitting together after breakfast in Maui at the house, and we started having a great conversation, deep conversation, but surrounded by a lot of space. We’d say something and then there’d be long silences, 10, 20 minutes maybe. And it just so happened I was recording it. I think towards the end, we said, “Wow, this was really intense.” And he said, “Yeah.” I said, “You know, I think I recorded it.” And he said, “Yeah, we could call it Dick and Jeff’s journey to Soul Land.” Dick and Jeff’s journey to Soul Land. Okay. Well, let’s examine all the bullshit that we use to beat ourselves up with. Q: There was a story you had share, I heard on Spotify, about waiting in an airport and a Lama that you had really wanted to meet for quite some time was coming through. That Lama was Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, the oldest son of Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, who was one of the great, great, great masters of the previous generation, and he had four sons who were recognized also as great masters, great reincarnations of great masters. And in fact, the second oldest son just left his body a day ago. His name was Chokling Rinpoche, and he was a great Lama. I mean, these beings are so extraordinary. They are so wide and deep and vast and present. It’s just extraordinary, astounding to even know about them and to get a feel for where they live. So, yeah, Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche was somebody I wanted to meet for very long time, and I had been in Denmark and I was on my way somewhere else in Europe, and Danny Goldman, my friend had been at a retreat with Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche in Denmark and they were traveling with Rinpoche to another place, and it turned out that we were going to be in the airport at the same time. So, I said to Danny, I said, “Look, I really want to meet Rinpoche. Can we figure that out?” And he said, “Yeah, yeah.” He said, “We’ll meet at such and shuts place in the airport at around this such and such time.” Right? So, I got there and I was waiting and waiting and I didn’t see Danny and I didn’t see Rinpoche, but I figured they hadn’t come through security yet. So, instead I walked all the way down the other end of the airport to the security where you come through and I just stood there. Now, the funny thing is, I had just finished getting all this work done on my, I had rotted my teeth out with Ricolas which I use to keep my throat moist when I’m singing, and so I had an extraordinary amount of dental work done, just finished maybe a month or so before this, just so you know. Okay. So, I’m standing there outside of security and people are coming through, and then here comes Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, but he’s by himself. Danny and Tara were nowhere around. So, I stood there and he came out and he got his bag and he turns around and I went, “Rinpoche. And he goes, “Oh, hi. Oh, hi.” I said, “Hi, Rinpoche. How are you?” He said, “I know you.” I said, “Well, we haven’t met, but I know you.” I said, “Well, thank you. My name is Krishna Das. Danny and Tara told me that I could, we could meet here.” “Oh Good, come on. Let’s go.” So, we start walking and he said, “So what do you do?” And I said, “Well, you know, I chant with people.” “Oh yeah, you chant, what are you chant?” I said, “Well, you know, Hare Krishna, Sri Ram Jai Ram.” “Hare Krishna? Hare Krishna?” he said. He grabbed, he locked his arms with me and we, and we started storming through the, the high class, the very rich shops area where everybody does their shopping, but it’s really the really super rich shops, right? And there’s all these people walking around and he’s dragging me down this hallway and he’s going, “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna,” and then he would elbow me. He said, “Come on sing, come on, sing.” And all these people are looking at us, oh my God. And I’m trying to hide. He’s elbowing me. “Come on, come on and sing. Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna!” So, then we got to the place where we were supposed to meet Danny and Tara, and as we, about 50 feet from that place, they were sitting there and all of a sudden he changed direction and he took me to this little quiet corner and he looks at me and he says, “When you chant with people, do you talk to people?” I said, “Yeah, a little bit.” And he said, “Yeah. Okay, good. You should talk about peace. Peace is really important, peace of mind, really important. You should talk about that.” I said, “Okay.” And then he said, “If I write a song, will you sing it?” I said, “Sure. If you write a song, I will sing it.” “Okay, good.” And then he dragged me over to where Danny and Tara were. And so now, this was 10, 12 years ago, every time I see him, he looks at me, and he goes “Hare Krishna!” Like he’s sitting in front of a whole group of people ready to give a talk or something and he sees me, he goes, “Hare Krishna!” That’s the story. So, you know, these guys are so, these beings are so extraordinary. He said, “When you said, when you talk to people, tell them about peace of mind. That’s very important.” So, consider yourself told. Peace of mind. Big thing. Very big thing. So yeah, that’s the story. And his nephew was actually the son of the Rinpoche who just left the body, Phakchok Rinpoche, who is just an extraordinarily beautiful being. Somehow or other, we met at someone’s house at a dinner party, so he knew I chanted. He said, “Do you have any chants to Shiva?” And I said, “Yeah.” And so, I sent him a whole bunch chants that I did to Shiva. So now every time he sees me, he goes, “Namah Shivaya!” Like right before a class. “Om Namah Shivaya!” Great. When I first met Lama Gyurme, who I’d been listening to for 15 years already. He’s the Lama who lives in Paris, who recorded those CDs. One of them is called the Lama’s chant and it’s one of the most beautiful things you’ll ever hear in your life. So, I was in Barcelona and some friends knew that I really loved Lama Gyurme, and he was giving a teaching about an hour outside of Barcelona. So, they came and picked me up and drove me out there, and so I got there, and we were taken upstairs. The Lama hadn’t come down yet. He was just, I think he was taking a shower or something. He just arrived. So, we waited in his room and he came out and he sits down and, “Hello, how are you? Yes,” he said, and he said, “What do you do?” So, I said, you know “I lead chanting.” “Oh yeah? What kind of chanting?” I said, “Well, you know, Sri Ram Jai Ram, Hare Krishna.” He said, “Oh.” He said, “You sing to the masters.” And I went, “Oh.” I never thought of it that way. You know, because in India, they don’t see it that way. They see these beings, those deities as gods, but that’s just another word. You know, these are our elder beings. These are the beings who have transcended where we are and where they originally came from, and they are elder, they are elevated. They are living in a whole different way than we live. So, yes, and since they are divine beings, but the way they see them that way, he said, “You sing to the masters.” “Oh, okay. Very cool. Very cool.” So yeah, that’s the story. There was also another story. You said you had asked in a class, “What does it mean to be enlightened?” And I forgot the name of the Lama, but the answer was “not asleep.” Not sleeping. No, this was another one of the four sons of Tulku Urgyen, Mingyur Rinpoche. Chokling Rinpoche was the only one that I unfortunately could never meet, but I’ve been with Chokyi Nyima, Mingyur Rinpoche, and also Tsoknyi Rinpoche. Those are the three other brothers who were recognized as reincarnations. So, it was a course on, one of the teachings in Tibet, Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism is called Dzogchen, or Mahamudra, and this is resting simply in your natural being, in your simple awareness, natural awareness, with no concentrating and no manipulating and no trying. It’s very simple, but it’s of course the most difficult thing for us to do. So, it’s usually taught at the end of a long, many years practice of the different types of meditation. But the previous Karmapa, the 16th Karmapa ordered or asked Tulku Urgyen, who is the father of these four Lamas and other great Rinpoches, to start teaching these very advanced practices because they were needed now. And because people, especially Westerners didn’t have the time or the inclination or the ability to do all these other preparatory practices, but they could still get, they could still be helped tremendously by this Dzogchen, the Mahamudra teachings. So, the point is, there was something called the rigpa, which means your natural awareness, pure awareness, or not pure in the sense of pure and impure, but just natural, spontaneous, what’s the word they always use? “Unmanipulated” is the word. Anyway, so somebody asked Rinpoche, you know, everybody was saying like, “So what, is it rigpa? Is it this? Is it rigpa, if that? Is it awareness of this?” So, he just said, he said, “Well, just think and just think to yourself, ‘not sleeping.’” Wow. I don’t know if you feel that, but in other words, you just noticed, “I’m not sleeping,” and then you feel something. You feel just simple being there. Almost, there’s no thoughts actually happening at that moment. All there is, is the awareness that you’re not sleeping. It’s different from saying “I’m awake,” which is thinking about it. “Yeah. I’m awake.” Well, maybe, maybe not, but when you say “not sleeping…” So anyway, that’s that story. Not sleeping. So, we’re always not sleeping when we’re not sleeping, but we’re usually not paying attention. We’re usually lost in thought. So, we remind ourselves to look and that’s the practice of Dzogchen Mahamudra. There’s techniques that they teach you to see your true nature, so to speak. To become aware of it by dropping thought or by dropping, yeah. But it’s a very, it’s, it’s such a subtle practice, it’s just, it’s very it, you know, I’m in kindergarten myself. I don’t know about you, and this we’re talking about, you know, PhD classes here, you know, and I haven’t learned how to count two and two yet. So that’s what we’re talking about. But, “not sleeping.” Q: Hey. First of all, you know, I’m a fan. Thank you. All that. I love you. It’s embarrassing. We have three questions and you can answer whatever you want. I appreciate that. Thank you. Just three. So, the first one is, can you tell the story about Maharajji and a thorn in my side Bible verse? And then, I’ll give you all three, and then you can pick. The second one is, in the Chalisa, the line, “Aura Devataa chitta na dharaee,” that we only need to praise or think of Hanuman and no other deities, if you could just talk about that a little bit, like what about the other deities? You know, like Ram. And then the third one is, if you could describe what it was like to touch Maharajji’s feet. And yeah, that’s it. Those are the three, whatever you want. And I don’t want to take up more time. So, pick whatever. So, that verse in the Chalisa, you know, Hanuman is our special friend. He’s here to help us. Ram is everywhere all the time. Know what couldn’t be anywhere, is the doer of everything anyhow, but Hanuman is here as our special helper and Hanuman is that doorway into Ram, and he’s also the remover of obstacles and the purifier of our hearts and cleaning up our karmic situation that allows us to connect with the deeper place within us. So, “Aura devataa chitta na dharaee,” you don’t need to hold other beings, other deities in your mind. Everything, you’ll get everything from Hanuman. He’s the one that connects us to everything. Hanuman and your prana, your energy and your body are not even different. So, in that sense, Hanuman is specifically a part of our incarnation and exists to help us find the deeper reality within us. So in that sense, Hanuman is our helper. He’s here to help us. He’s our special friend. He does. It also says, what’s that line in the Chalisa where, “Ram is the Supreme, the ascetic king, beyond, beyond, beyond. But you do all his work.” So, Hanuman and Rama are not separate, and neither is Hanuman far from us. So, that’s what we’re talking about. And Maharajji used to say, also, you can only reach the formless through the form. And Hanuman is very close to us. Hanuman actually, he lives in our prana, in a sense, and prana is not just energy. It’s also conscious energy. There’s awareness in the prana, but we’re not aware of that ourselves beause we’re stuck in our physical bodies and our minds, our thoughts. But Hanuman is deeper. He’s always available. He’s ready to help us find Ram at all times. And he is that flow of grace that awakens us and that connects us to that deeper reality, Ram, Krishna, all the so-called deities. So, yeah, so one day I had walking in Vrindavan back in Maharajji’s time, I stepped into a hole in the road and I snapped my knee really badly. And when I woke up the next morning, it was like…
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