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Robert Thurman & Isa Gucciardi Interview
Rick Archer: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer. Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing series of interviews with spiritually Awakening people. I’ve done over 420 of them now. And if this is new to you, and you’d like to check out previous ones, please go to batgap.com Bat gap, and check out the past interviews menu. This show is made possible by the support of appreciative listeners and viewers. And if you would like to support it and you appreciate it, go to BatGap and you’ll see a PayPal button on every page of the site. So I’m at the science and non duality conference finally, and I’m going to conduct an interview today with Robert Thurman and Isa Gu GRT. Robert is a recognized worldwide wide authority on religion and spirituality, Asian history, world philosophy, Buddhist science into Tibetan Buddhism, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama, with whom he is a friend, Robert is a eloquent advocate of the relevance of Buddhist ideas into our daily lives. And in so doing, he has become a leading voice of the value of reason, peace and compassion. He was named one of Time magazine’s 25 Most Influential Americans, and has been profiled by the New York Times and People Magazine. Rob Robert has just written a book which we’re going to be talking about, entitled man of peace about the Dalai Lama showing up and so we’ll start by talking about that. But first, I want to introduce my other guest. He’s a good GRD PhD. He says the founding director of the foundation of the sacred stream, the school for consciousness studies in Berkeley, California. She is also the creator of the spiritual counseling model depth hypnosis and author of two books coming to peace, which we’re also going to talk about and return to the great mother. In addition to her teaching schedule that includes teaching classes and applied Buddhist psychology, applied shamanism, integrated energy medicine and depth hypnosis. She has active practices in depth hypnosis and applied shamanic counseling in San Francisco, California. And her website is sacred. stream.org Bob’s is what is it? Robert thurman.org. Bob, Bob Derman dot r. Okay. great.org or.com.com.com, Bob thurman.com. And I’ll be putting this information on the website and linking to those sites and linking to the books and so on. So if you’re driving your car listening to this, you don’t have to get in an accident trying to write it down. So thanks, and welcome.
Robert Thurman: Thank you, Rick, nice to be here with you.
Rick Archer: Good to be with you. I interviewed Bob a couple of years ago at the sand conference. If people would like to see that one. You’ll you’ll find it on that. Yep. So what’s your relationship with the Dalai Lama? How long have you known him?
Robert Thurman: I’ve known him since 1964. And he’s, he made me a monk originally, we had a lot of… he downloaded my Exeter, Harvard, sort of pseudo education into in Tibetan, but since I spoke Tibetan already by that time, and 54 years ago, so we’ve been shopping together over this China and Tibet and the whole thing. He’s and he’s rebuilding and preserving the culture. Then he asked me and my wife about 30 years ago or more to preserve the culture to recreate it to us, and which is located in New York at the moment where I’m from. But we’ve always wanted to have a branch out here actually, as well. And I think this is a sort of Buddhist city. And this is dharma city of San Francisco. So or San Jose, San Francisco. So that maybe I’ll do that before. I’ve been to croak. Because I’m not allowed to crow. He told me I can’t cook. Until I’m 107 in his most, his most venomous moment, and it is more mild, but when he said 97, and then but it was that was based on him promising to live to 113 or 103 contest, but it’s a contest so not really a contest. It’s just that his different llamas you know, who talk about his health and his energy and everything. They say he could live to that. And then the Tibetans want him to know they won’t let it let him off his his hard work thing for them. So he’s sort of accepting to try to do it, but you know, nobody wants to see their body when it’s really creaky and too painful time to trade and the cheapest possible rejuvenation strategy is to die and go find a nice room of a nice mom in a nice neighborhood with a dad who is not too obnoxious. And then you get a whole new body, a whole new round. And those llamas, they apparently supposedly know how to do that. Yeah. So it’s a real burden to stay up and 100
Rick Archer: It is. I had a great aunt who lived to be 107. Your dad, my my great aunt instructed her in meditation when she was 91. And she carried on to 107.
Robert Thurman: That’s amazing. Yeah. Did you interview her Buddha at the Gas Pump? No,
Rick Archer: that was before this. Oh, well, you
Robert Thurman: should interview her now. If she’s meditating like that. You must be there in the Bardo something.
Rick Archer: Secret I have to find a talented medium. That’s great. Yeah. So I don’t know a heck of a lot about the Dalai Lama. Of course, everybody knows about the Dalai Lama, right. And I’ve heard you know, some people regard him as a saint as a as a realized being some people just think he said about political figurehead, you know, and without any actual genuine realization, he’s very self effacing, when anybody asks him about his own state. So how would you describe the man not only in terms of external appearance and activities? But is his interesting? What’s your estimation of him?
Robert Thurman: Well, I know you can’t really tell, because you have to be enlightened to recognize the light in person really, for sure. And I don’t claim to be enlightened. Although my wife would acknowledge I’m a little more enlightened than I was 51 years ago, when we married
Rick Archer: through her influence. Due to her influence, no doubt, Oh, definitely.
Robert Thurman: She’s been my guru. And, but I listened to more and more her teachings as I grew older, and I managed to absorb more of them. And I was resistant at first, like all of us males. We think we know better. I don’t know. That’s how stupid we are. And anyway, so. So the thing is that basically, what was the question?
Rick Archer: The Dalai Lama, you’re assessing.
Robert Thurman: And I’ve seen him and when I first met him, he was kind of a buddy, you know, and he denied me my teacher, but he kind of took care of me. And he read it reminded me to his teachers. And then when we would meet, he would we would talk about Freud or nuclear nuclear weaponry, or, you know, plutonium or English or the American bicameral legislature systems. And because he was so curious about everything, yeah. And then I noticed incremental leaps that was in those early 60s In what regard? Well, it, he would deflect questions about deeper philosophy and, and then by 1970 71, when I spent a couple of years with him as a layman, he was really sharpened the philosophy. I mean, he was like razor like, really deep. And I think we’re getting more deep, right, but still kind of jolly and youthful and so on. And then I didn’t see him for a period of time, I had to come here back here and get tenure and deal with my family and do a whole thing. And then in the late 70s, I saw him again, and then he really developed I think, powerful presence. You know, thanks to the kind ministrations of Henry Kissinger and others, he was denied really going around anywhere, because because he suddenly he was kissing up to China kissing up to China kissing growing up to adulation of mouth. And then so he was denying every tell everybody to deny visas. So that was good, because then His Holiness, got to do a whole bunch of retreats. And he really put some of his deeper you know, tantric teachings to work you know, some Algeria Manteca, these kind of things of your Yogini. And by the end of the seven years, he was like, super power, even tremendous, really real, a real sit down, you know, master, and of that, and, and then, you know, he’s continued to grow. And every time I’d meet him every year or talk, sometimes several times a year, I go to his, like, basic public talk or something, and there’s always new things. I always learned something new, you know, even going back to the fundamentals that he comes out of in a different new way, you know, so he’s still growing. People who think he’s just a political they they don’t know what they’re talking about. On the other hand, they’re part of the reason they probably do that is because they think that if you’re enlightened and something, then you wouldn’t care about the political you’re because you’re way above it. Because they have some stupid dualistic idea about the spiritual that it doesn’t it they don’t care about the world, right? Which is totally ridiculous. Non duality means that the spiritual is in the world. And if there’s injustice and suffering here, that’s all you’re here for. Exactly. Otherwise, if you can just phase out the blessing of who needs it. Yeah, don’t need the world except that people need your help. That’s the whole point if you get a little edge update, and he does that, and he’s really important. So so this book I just did about him with with seven or eight colleagues, five artists and a couple others. Alright, here’s although I was the one who was president and a lot of the things and I’ve been setting in for 50 years now it almost looks like a comic he never it is. So it enables people to follow his life in the context of the how the planet has been, even in his previous incarnation since 1904, it really begins after the British invaded Tibet, which sort of started Tibet engagement with the whole world. And he’s written autobiographies and stuff. But he never presents himself. Like you said, he’s very self effacing. Yeah,
Rick Archer: exactly. Which is kind of a tradition isn’t
Robert Thurman: like, he’s kind of humble. Yeah. And he’s, he’s a simple Buddhist monk that routine yet, but actually, so he doesn’t present himself as a heroic figure. And I was tired of that. And I wanted to show that and I’m also taught was also tired two books ago or two or three books ago, about how people say, Oh, non violence. Oh, yeah, it’s all nice, you know, but it was get crucified or shot or, you know, Martin Luther King Ghandi. And they never end violence is that, you know, Army military power, you know, that’s the whole thing. And then they say, and besides it in Tibet with his non violence, what are they ever gotten out of it? You know, they China’s just crushing themselves? So my answer to that is how they’re doing in Afghanistan. Yeah, in Syria in the Middle East, like anywhere Vietnam, how was that? No, violence doesn’t actually work anymore. What
Rick Archer: were the Tibetans supposed to do go to war against the Chinese, they
Robert Thurman: had tried some guerrillas tried to keep them low level of support, and they harass people for a while. All I’m gonna say don’t do that. It’s not gonna work. It’s a bad idea. And I’m into non violence. And that’ll work more power that’s more powerful than work for Gandhi. But the problem, of course, is how long is the long run now? Yeah, that’s kind of irritating, because it’s kind of long. But we are looking to changes in the world now very soon and very optimistic. But what his heroism is, he never gives up. He doesn’t ask for revenge, he loves his enemy, he wants to talk to them, he wants to visit that we want them to visit him. He wants to go to Mecca, with all the Muslims, he wants them to come dollar, Buddha Buddha’s praises, and he wants to know more religious complex, and he works on that. And he actually really is heroic. And so this book shows him like a superhero in his own quiet way, kind of Yeah. And I was a little nervous when he would see it that he were like, Why are you doing? Because one time when he wrote ethics for the new millennium around the turn of the millennium? Yeah, I was really pleased with it, because it calls for a spiritual and ethical revolution of the planet, which I was very pleased with, and said, Okay, you’re ready to speak truth to power and be a prophet? And how are you? He says, No, I don’t want to do that. So I was a little nervous, but actually, he likes it. Even when he was being live streaming a ritual. And he was praying and praying his bell and meditating. The book was on the table over here. And he’s like, I wave sort of trip. And then quickly back. So I know he likes it. And his and his secretaries like it. So therefore, I know he likes it, because they always say there was critical of everything that anybody but named out soon, right? And so we’re happy about it. And it goes very well with my friend, he says Book, coming to peace, in that elements argument is this 21st century cannot be another century of violence, like the 20th century. And all on his own, he comes up with that. And we have to have dialogue with enemies, you have to talk to them. You have to get the art of the deal, our deal maker has to get off the head to competition to Kim Jong moon. And they have to sit down and make a deal, you know, and I would not be a problem. I know that Kim, the Kim Jong Un’s dearest wish, is to come to the East Village and join the village people and sing with them. You know, the guy with the Indian cowboy hat hairdo. He wants to have fun with people, it is boring to be a dictator. It’s totally boring. Everybody comes in grumbles to and then you kill a few of them here and there. And that’s no fun. You know. And so dialogue is secret. And then her book is about our dialogue, how to do dialogue and how to dialogue with your inner things. But actually, I’ll let you talk about it. What about it? So your book coming to Pete is, is the way you know, Dalai Lama’s way to fulfill tamas slogan, which is world peace through inner peace. Yeah. So here’s what here’s how to get to inner peace.
Rick Archer: Yeah, let’s talk about that. Because it seems to me that the individual is the unit of World of the world. I mean, there is 70 something billion of us. And if the vast majority of them are not peaceful within themselves, we can’t expect to see a peaceful world. So the only way like a forest you know, I mean, all the trees are great and whether there’s going to be a great forest and you have to have green trees if you want a green forest so that people peaceful people to have a peaceful world right And I imagine the Dalai Lama would agree with that. Certainly would agree with that. And so does your book isa have some kind of practical prescriptions for finding inner peace?
Isa Gucciardi: Definitely, definitely, actually, there’s two different levels of conflict resolution that the book describes. And the book is based in conflict resolution methods that you find in different shamanic cultures around the world, including Ubuntu, which is the basis for the truth and reconciliation in southern West,
Rick Archer: Sonoma, from South Africa, so interesting.
Isa Gucciardi: And also oponopono, which is practiced throughout the Pacific. And then, of course, the caucus making processes of the Iroquois league that Benjamin Franklin and George Washington actually modeled the state’s rights and federal government’s relationship through the way in which the Iroquois League was organized. So in all of these places, you find a very similar method for conflict resolution, which actually, interestingly enough draws on Buddhist principles of mutual respect, personal responsibility, and the connection with inner wisdom as a basis or a container to begin the dialogue for the resolution of conflict. And so people sit in a circle, there’s a talking stick, or a talking stone that’s past, and there’s no interrupting, you’re not allowed, no, there’s no cross talk, you have to wait for the talking stick to come to you in order to speak. And if you’re not able to maintain personal responsibility, or mutual respect, or a sense of equality with everyone else, then you are asked to take a timeout and to spend some time with inner guidance. And so there’s a the one of the problems with conflict is that it often doesn’t have a strong enough container, in order for all of the parties to be heard. And in order for everyone to actually learn what their truth is of the conflict and to be able to communicate it effectively. And so what the coming to peace process does is it offers that kind of a container, and very strong volatile emotions can be held within the container, simply with the with the health of these, again, Buddhist concepts of mutual respect, personal responsibility, and that remaining connected to inner wisdom.
Rick Archer: So the key elements of this container are the things you just mentioned, mutual respect, personal responsibility, and so on. And, but doesn’t go deep enough. I mean, because they have a group of people, and they’re doing their best to be mutually respectful and personally responsible and so on. But what if there’s just a lot of inner turmoil still within them, they haven’t really plumbed the depths of their inner of their being, and found that deep source of peace, which lies within everyone, you still seems like you’re still gonna have a bunch of agitated mind sitting around or doing their best, but not necessarily,
Isa Gucciardi: no, no, the whole idea is to allow all of that agitation to come out the whole idea. So it gets it gets it gets spoken about, and people then have their own, you know, everyone who else is everyone, all of the other people that are part of the conflict, then have their response to whatever the agitation is, that the person is dealing with. So for instance, in Hawaii, when someone was physically sick, the the Kahuna or the, the shaman would not begin any kind of physical healing processes until her opponent upon a pono was called where all of the family members and community members came together and sat in a circle. And there was a question, you know, who is holding grudges? What kinds of resentments are there and that all goes around and all of that gets purged? And then the physical healing can begin was pretty
Rick Archer: good. I can think of groups of meditators who have been meditating for years or decades, who have presumably tapped into some degree of inner peace, who are still filing lawsuits against each other, and stuff like that. So obviously, there could be something on a more manifest level that could be conducive to greater harmony and peace within even such a group.
Isa Gucciardi: Well, clearly, they haven’t come to peace. Yeah. So they wouldn’t be you know, one of the one of the issues I mean, we’re just teaching this workshop on shamans and Siddhis here at the science and non duality conference. And one of the issues that I have as a longtime Buddhist practitioner, longtime shamanic practitioner is that there there can be spiritual bypass with a with a meditation or a Buddhist practice that is not focusing, the one pointed focus that one attains was shamatha into, of upasana, a true of the past and a type of process where you are going deeply within the self, Bob often calls it the diamond drill using the mind as the diamond drill to go into the issues. And this is what the inner coming to peace process is designed to do. So, one of the things that is one of the things that drives external conflict is internal conflict. And the inner coming to peace process allows for the establishment and the reification of different parts of the self that are in conflict with one another. So, in an altered state of consciousness, people are guided to identify where they feel one particular point of view is established in their body. And another point of view is established in their body, they’re asked to establish an image for each of these parts. And then the same dialogue that would happen between two people happens between those two parts. And so there’s deep you can address a deeply held conflict with with this kind of method, and you can’t really escape, you know, with meditation, you can often kind of space out or, you know, you know, all you have to do is look calm, and everybody thinks you’re calm. It’s like, you know, it’s like, you really can’t escape that when you’re having a dialogue where both parties are required to tell their truth, to maintain personal responsibility to offer a forum for the other party to be able to express what is true for them.
Rick Archer: Now, you mentioned that this is this reconciliation of conflicting streams within oneself is achieved by in an altered state of consciousness, what kind of altered state you’re talking about?
Isa Gucciardi: Well, people are assistant, first of all, one of the first things that happens, either an outer coming to peace or an inner coming to peace, is that there is a guided meditation where people are guided to connect with what’s called a part of themselves that knows their own truth. And so that that connection is that kind of idea is a very shamanic idea where you are connecting with an inner guide, and that becomes a safe harbor or anchor for the conflict to to to ground the conflict as it emerges. And then again, in an altered state of consciousness that is attained with suggestions for relaxation and focusing inward into the body, the different emotions that the conflicting emotions, say, for instance, in the in the inner coming to peace process that I described, at one point with a stepfather who was trying to establish more peace with his stepdaughter, he found that he had an inner conflict between two parts of himself that had very different relationships to responsibility. And one part was trying to take responsibility, trying to make things better for everyone. And the other part was resistant to that, because it felt like he was martyring himself and abandoning himself, that as it turns out, so he had all this kind of congestion so that when he went to try to make things better for his stepchildren, he was he got aggressive and frustrated with them when when they would not go along with his agenda, because it made him feel like he was failing to take responsibility. So I could read you what that dialogue look like. It’s it’s it’s an interesting dialogue between the parts if you wanted me to, I could do that. And if
Rick Archer: you like, if it’s not really long, and and while you’re while you’re finding that, I mean, so are you saying that he went through this process and somehow reconcile those conflicting parts within him, and then that resulted in a big change in his behavior and relationship with his family?
Isa Gucciardi: It totally changed it. And then the outer coming to peace process. It was really interesting with the family because there was a lot of hostility between him and his stepdaughter. Yeah. And they had been in Raging fights for a long time. And one of the things that happened as the stick went around was it became evident that, you know, they, you know, she called him a jerk. And, you know, you know, he said he was sorry, and she called him a jerk again, and, you know, it went on like that. But then finally, he said, You know, I, you know, I realized that I get frustrated with you because I’m not making I’m trying to make it better for you and because your dad is dropping out And that was like this huge revelation. And she said, You know, I think I, I’m think I’m angry at dad too for dropping out, and we’re taking it out on each other. And it wasn’t until they had the time to go around and like really like, you know, let the the aspects of their anger expressed themselves as strongly as they needed to, and that they were able to get to some kind of understanding about where the anger was coming from.
Rick Archer: It was good. I mean, a lot of people practice meditation, sometimes for many, many years. And they kind of assume, or even are told that just doing that is going to work all this stuff. And then, decades later, still getting divorced and having fights this problem, that problem. So I really do feel that in many, many cases, if not all, some supplementary things like this are,
Isa Gucciardi: well, this is shamanism.
Robert Thurman: To say that’s a fundamental misunderstanding, in how meditation has been taught in the Buddhist tradition, which is one of the master traditions about and I think Hindu tradition has the same idea. The thing that liberates you is not meditation, but wisdom. And that’s a famous thing in Zen for the Sixth Patriarch. Meditating by itself does not get you there at all you need to,
Rick Archer: and meditation, to prepare the ground for the wisdom.
Robert Thurman: Suddenly, there’s two levels of the wisdom is wisdom, born learning, wisdom born of critical reflection, analysis, insight, and, and doubt and questioning and inquiry. And then then meditation can become fruitful. And so the way it’s been taught here, it’s like just meditate without learning anything, without really, you know, debating getting into yourself using doubt, to deeply go in and find out where the imbalances and then and especially having to do with the self, the sort of rigid, fixed idea of the fixed self, of the fixed self that people have, like, I have this unchanging Self. And that’s just me, you know, from whence their irresistible impulse has come from. And the key thing ever is the self. Because even though you meditate, and you suppress your normal thinking, and you get a little bugs out of that, because your mind is quiet, when you get back engaged with people, then you read the it comes back, and your egotism emerges. That’s the reason you have all these scandals after many years of meditating, because they refused to learn something. And also in America with a lot of other people who do that are highly educated, they’ve been excluded for years, they’ve gotten PhDs, and they’re still miserable. So they think, well, all these concepts are useless. So I don’t need to learn anything. I mean, why they didn’t learn the right things about themselves. So meditating is a useful tool, but you know, Buddhism, shamanism, these things are not just meditating, it depends on what you meditate is, is a neutral tool. You know, like in the military, you can meditate on being vicious and insensitive, and, and killing people. And then you’re better at it, if you do it, whether you’re
Rick Archer: talking about a contemplative form of meditation, as opposed to one that kind of results in transcendence or Samadhi.
Robert Thurman: Isn’t transcendence of shutting down your sense of your habitual sense and let you unravel it
Rick Archer: cleaner that line from the Yoga, you know, yoga, chitta, Vritti Nirodha. It’s the it’s the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind, settling down of all the agitation to a more to less excited or least excited state.
Robert Thurman: Oh, that’s nice. And as I said, it gives you a buzz. The education Yeah, it does. And people think that must be Enlightenment, because they’re not used to that
Rick Archer: taste of it. I say it’s a glimpse of something. Enlightenment, we’re far more mature development than that initial, yeah, but
Robert Thurman: it doesn’t come from just shutting down your mind. Okay. That’s not alignment. That’s just getting out of the like turbulence of it. Yeah, but the structures that caused the turbulence are intact out there. And that’s why, you know, people come in as narcissistic, egotistical people, they decide they want to be really hip and meditate. They meditate for long they shut down their surface thinking about themselves as egotistical thing. And in meditation, everything’s cool. And then they go out and somebody like, bangs into their BMW, and then they completely freak out because, and even they’ll jump up 30 years later, after meditating deeply and then say, Guess what, I really am great. I’m the greatest, and therefore I want to be a guru and therefore I need to me.
Rick Archer: I can’t deny any of that. I’ve seen it happen. All that stuff
Robert Thurman: was even a short meditation, even in a dialogue with your daughter in law for your stepdaughter and your stepfather. If you’re using, you’re being exposed, you know, your inner habits and things and you’re dealing with the unknown. So you dissemble through the shamanistic idea that she’s the master of you disassemble the different components of itself, and the ones that are incorporated from some negative, domineering kind of thing and it’s not and then you can debate between them between And then your mind, and then you can begin to find more openness in your mind. And then you could change much more quickly than 30 years. You know, if your use your intelligence, you know, and then it harnesses meditation to the intelligence after having learned something, not just suppress it
Rick Archer: from listening to this, and I’m trying to put myself in the in the shoes of the average listener on this show. And they’re there thinking, Well, this sounds kind of interesting. But what do I actually do? It sounds kind of complicated. I couldn’t do it based on what I’ve heard so far. I mean, what if somebody actually wanted to apply this in their own life? What steps would they take?
Isa Gucciardi: Anyone could anyone who reads this book, have some ideas about how to do that steps are very clearly laid out? The way you set up the circle, the intentionality that everyone is asked to bring to it. And the method of course, it’s helpful to have, you know, I’ve had a lot of people try it. Without a facilitator depth hypnosis practitioner, as a facilitator. Coming to peace is actually the couples and family counseling piece of depth hypnosis, which is a transformational counseling process that I developed that combines shamanism and Buddhism, with hypnotherapy and energy medicine and
Robert Thurman: Hypnosis is meditation. Meditation is hypnosis.
Rick Archer: It’s a form, maybe
Robert Thurman: It’s like hypnosis,
Isa Gucciardi: It’s a different way of attaining…
Robert Thurman: It can be applied more rapidly,
Rick Archer: some similarities, maybe. It’s interesting. I find it interesting that there’s this hybrid kind of approach where various tools from various cultures and various times and so on, are able to augment one another.
Isa Gucciardi: I mean, we call it applied shamanism, because we’re taking these ancient tools, and we’re applying them to the modern problem. Yeah. And we taught we call it applied Buddhist psychology, because we’re taking Buddhist principles, and we’re applying it to the modern conundrum, I think
Rick Archer: there’s really some value to this cross fertilization idea. I mean, here we are at the science and non duality conference where a bunch of scientific types are conversing with a bunch of spiritual types. And there’s those two streams of knowledge have something to offer each other. And by the same token, what you’re saying here is, you know, shamanism and depth hypnosis, and Buddhism, and those things can can cross fertilize each other. So kind of like in this day and age with all the communications that we now have, and none of these streams of knowledge as as isolated as it would have been, Oh, of course,
Robert Thurman: in the inserting in the Buddhist Buddhism is a kind of spiritual science. Yeah. And Hinduism to you mentioned, the Yoga Sutras. And you know that when you say science types, you’re assuming that material science types are the science types. But there’s mental science. And one of the real big things dilemmas very big on dialoguing with the material sciences, but and the dialogue side has to do with their set of imprisoning themselves within their dogma of materialism. They’re all sitting there as minds engaged with exploring reality, but they’re denying that they have a mind. They’re trying to reduce it to the brain and brain activity heads the brain or their biology or their genes or something, anything that isn’t their own mind that they can be responsible for. That’s very, very key. And we used to teach a course at Amherst College. I was there called Darwin, Marx and Freud. That was the absolutely you had to do to be liberally educated, you had to take that course. And most of the liberal arts colleges have a thing like that. But think about it. Darwin, you’re helpless victim of your genes, you’re running around dumping them somewhere, and then you had it and then forget about it. And they go on Marx, you’re like a victim of your social position. And you’re just like, you know, you’re in your class. And you think whenever they think, Freud you’re unconscious, you’re the tip of the iceberg. And you’re really helpless. And your unconscious is making all the decisions. So that suppose a great modern individual is totally helpless. Yeah. And therefore there’s in such a bad situation, then when you hear oh, meditate means shut your mind down, then my mind is an illusion, it isn’t a real thing anyway, I want to get rid of it and they want to lose lose their mind. So naturally, they don’t lose their ego when they lose their mind. They just lose the tools with which they can understand how the ego works. And but then that’s okay. Because, you know, our whole culture tells us that the whole thing is impossible anyway. Depressing doctrine, and they were very bad president until we have a really bad one, but element would have been no good, dude. So it doesn’t matter. You know, that’s our we’re brainwashed into thinking that the world doesn’t work. Why we liked it all. Allama Jnana piece is that he keeps alive, heroically, it can work. You know, my favorite thing in the Gandhi movie, which really happened in life, to remember that movie. Remember the British guy, that little sort of Papa J guy with a writing prop when they’re having a negotiation in the house of government? Yeah. And the guy says, Mr. Raja, You really don’t think I’ve told we’ve done? Yeah. But we’re going to walk.
Rick Archer: You said yes.
Robert Thurman: Actually, you could take the train, walking will do the job. And he just took it on a completely easy level. And that’s like, we could have beat you couldn’t drop that bomb. Oh, you can stop saying these insults or something. Yeah, he’s the person who keeps that alive. Yeah, like, like women and families, they keep alive. The idea of dialogue, right? Men and families often read each other’s throats. Right father son, with the Oedipal they all do with their outputs they have to write. And then the ladies who didn’t mean that year, don’t see that the owner no known him like they’re doing them too hard. There was in the middle of it, they’re the ones who keep that alive. And that British guy,
Rick Archer: the British guy in the movie, obviously thought that Gandhi was a silly little man and a loincloth who couldn’t possibly have any influence whatsoever against the British Empire. You know, and I’m sure that you know, the people in that battle thought that David was a silly little kid with a slingshot that couldn’t have any effect against why people thought that Martin Luther King was just this sort of dreaming preacher who wasn’t really going to affect any sort of social change. So I mean, all these people are always naysayers. And, and yet, for time, and again, in many instances, at least, it’s proven that, you know, that approach ends up being far more powerful than something more manifest more gross, more violence.
Robert Thurman: Absolutely, I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Rick Archer: I’m sure you could have.
Robert Thurman: But if you were gonna get the Dalai Lama to the gas pump,
Rick Archer: I would love to you can you arrange that
Robert Thurman: No, no…
Rick Archer: Try! Dana Sawyer was going to try to pull some strings one time and I was thinking of going to Indianapolis
Robert Thurman: Yeah.
Rick Archer: But if I if he could have swung it, but he ended up meeting with Hillary Clinton and I don’t know, Cher or somebody.
Robert Thurman: But you know, you never know.
Rick Archer: I did interview can say done. Rinpoche, you know him he was he’s a friend of Dana’s kgN TSE Anna Rinpoche, who was in the Dalai Lama’s circle of
Robert Thurman: priority. Well, I’m
Rick Archer: not sure which one anyway, that would be a nice feather in my cap. That would be good. So what else have we discussed that you need to be? You’re going to read a passage?
Isa Gucciardi: Sure. Okay. So this is after the coming to peace process with the family where the stepdaughter and the and stepfather realized that they were angry at the biological father and they were taking anger out on each other. And so Joel realized he really the stepfather’s name was Joel. And he just he really needed he realized he really needed to understand the dynamics of his own inner conflict. And so we used a guided meditation to help Joel connect with his inner wisdom. And once Joel connected with his guide, a yellow column of light, he continued the meditation to guide was a yellow column
Rick Archer: of light, which just happened to be his particular vision that bubbled up
Isa Gucciardi: so that this is this is the this is the aspect of shamanic practice that depth hypnosis makes more accessible. And shamanic practice when you are using the altered state to connect with what in shamanism is called a helping spirit. You’re generally using a sonic driver, some kind of repetitive sound, like a Mantra or something drum. Drum, okay, so you’re drawn or chanting a didgeridoo. And in that case, the the end the helping spirits are generally understood to be forms of nature, the unseen
Rick Archer: power like Davis or entities of some, some subtle beings of some sort, that are helping to orchestrate creation, that
Isa Gucciardi: kind of thing, that kind of thing. And they usually take the form of something like the spirit of the tree or the spirit of the dog, or sure, that kind
Rick Archer: of thing and Findhorn where they were actually seeing these things and interacting with them and that kind of stuff.
Isa Gucciardi: Right? The nature spirit. Yes. Right. So in shamanic practice, which shamans do is they establish a relationship with unseen powers of nature, that are then the basis for the work that the shaman does in terms of healing or divination or the guiding of souls? And it’s actually the helping spirit that does the work of whatever the shaman is asked to do. The shaman really becomes like a channel conduit when shaman Like practice, it’s called Becoming a hollow bone. So, and in general in shamanic practice, that process is accomplished in order to what is called gather power. And so you’re you’re establishing relationships with these different helping spirits. And they in turn, provide the shaman with the tools with which to do the the practices that the shaman is asked to do for the, for the people and the culture that these he or she is working in.
Rick Archer: As you’re saying all this I presume that you that these are rather universal principles, whether we’re talking about South American shamanism or African or Hawaiian or
Isa Gucciardi: whatever, you’re absolutely all work the same way. It’s very interesting to see how similar shamanic practices across time and space Yeah, it’s very interesting,
Rick Archer: it is considered these cultures have no communication with one another, you know,
Isa Gucciardi: exactly.
Robert Thurman: Good San Francisco psychotherapist.
Isa Gucciardi: And I mean, of course, the common denominator here is the earth herself. Yeah. Right. So, and the shamans task is to learn how to speak the language of the earth, to understand her wisdom and to bring it to bear upon the affairs of human beings. So, you know, this is the whole process of connecting with inner guidance is for that purpose, but shamans
Rick Archer: kind of interrupted your reading.
Isa Gucciardi: It’s Okay.
Rick Archer: Well, I just wanted to ask, and we’ll get back to your readings here. But um, so in terms of your background, how did you like do some kind of apprenticeship and with a traditional shaman,
Isa Gucciardi: multiple, multiple
Rick Archer: In different parts of the world, like Africa and South America and this and that,
Isa Gucciardi: that’s right.
Rick Archer: Wow you really made a focus of it, didn’t you.
Isa Gucciardi: I did, I did. And I have a, I have a degree in cultural anthropology and linguistic anthropology. And that’s as close as you can come to majoring in shamanism. Because you’re studying you’re studying indigenous cultures should generally that’s cool. Yeah. So, but I’ve, as I say, I’ve created this counseling model called Depth hypnosis, which brings the shamanic principles into the therapeutic setting in a modern environment. And sometimes I’d say that depth hypnosis is a good front end, because you can work with the principles of shamanism or the principles of Buddhism. For instance, the Four Noble Truths, the teachings on the nature of suffering and Buddhism are actually used as a diagnostic tool in depth hypnosis, and practitioners are taught to learn how to identify where is this person attached? Where is this person in a version? Where is this person operating out of misconceptions. And those are the places that the practitioner is trained to go for, to break up the crystallization of thought patterns that are driving those versions as attachments and those misconceptions and that that process of breaking up those crystallization is done in an altered state, because people’s conscious mind would defend, of course, that’s what people are all about. Right? You know, their whole personalities are based on their aversions, their attachments, and their wrongdoings, and they have to be suffering enough with that in order to be able to allow that to be challenged. But even when that happens, they still need a little help, which is the altered state getting beyond the defenses of the conscious mind. And then the establishment of a relationship with an inner guide to help support and, and ground that internal transformation process. So so so you know, again, you’re seeing how depth hypnosis combines Buddhism and shamanism, but in terms of the guide, in depth, hypnosis, it doesn’t have to be in a form of nature. So we’re adapting it to a modern time. So it could be a mythic or angelic being, or it could be a light or a sound that the person encounters, rather than having to focus. Okay, I’m looking for helping spirit in the form of an animal, right? Yeah.
Rick Archer: You see, to me, it would make be more effective if you didn’t have a preconception of what it was supposed to be, but just, you know, put yourself in the appropriate state and then whatever came That’s exactly right. Yeah, I am for from what you’re saying that this your approach doesn’t involve entheogens or hallucinogens or anything. It’s all depth hypnosis, natural processes.
Isa Gucciardi: I mean, I always say there’s nothing you can’t do with the shamanic journey. There’s nothing that you can’t do with plants that you can do with the shamanic journey, that your shamanic and
Rick Archer: you’re meant to say there’s nothing you can do with plants that you can’t do with this shamanic.
Isa Gucciardi: It’s nothing that you can’t do with the shamanic journey that
Rick Archer: you can do with plants. In other words, whatever plants can do, shamanic journey can do. Yes. in positive terms. Yes. Thank
Robert Thurman: you. Meditation, it’s a learning that is key to then the deepening of the experience concentration, hypnosis plans, whatever. If you don’t have the learning and the orientation and the openness, and then those two tools won’t work. Yeah, probably won’t take you in the wrong direction. Have a bad trip.
Rick Archer: Nice. All right, let’s get back to your story. I’m sorry for taking us off on a tangent, but I
Robert Thurman: So what is Joel doing now?
Isa Gucciardi: Okay, so he’s connected with this column of light as its basis, this kind of anchor. And then he in and out, he’s in an altered state. And we identify two parts of himself that were with odds with one another over the issue of responsibility. Joel identified one part as a soldier that was located at the back of his head, and the other part as a Red Bull in his stomach. So he that’s the reification. Because a lot of times we have this internal conflict. Go ahead. Do you want to say something? You’re interrupting yourself? Oh, sorry. I thought you were interrupting me.
Rick Archer: You’re interrupting her interruption.
Robert Thurman: That is MIT Media Lab definition of a good conversation. Okay. High level of mutual interoperability. Did somebody they came up with her sign scientists came up? I’m sorry. So that was one of the what happened to Joe?
Isa Gucciardi: Yeah. It’s pretty exciting. So so that reification of these different parts is pretty important. Because a lot of times
Rick Archer: when we’re edification, just for people’s understanding my own means that it takes something abstract and makes it more concrete and solid and specific.
Isa Gucciardi: Exactly, exactly. And the reason that that’s helpful is a lot of times we have internal experience that we can’t really identify or know what it is, you know, he just felt, for instance, Joel just felt very congested and frustrated all the time. But he didn’t know what was causing that. And by by finding one part of himself that had a particular feeling about responsibility and another part of himself that had a different feeling reifying them and then having a conversation, that congestion became clarified, which is exactly what happens in external coming to peace circles, people’s congestion becomes clarified as they communicate about it. Right. So the practitioner says, I’d like you each part, to state your position on responsibility. The soldier says it’s important to take responsibility, you have to do your duty, you have to protect the weak. The red ball says I am sick of responsibility. Give me a break. practitioner, and how do you each respond to the others position regarding responsibility? The soldier says, You are irresponsible, you don’t have what it takes. And the red ball says you are just a jerk. boyscout every damsel in distress that comes your way tools you around. It this is pretty much word for word what happened? practitioner Joel, can you ask what the guide has to say about the situation? The guide, the the column of light says, I think it would be helpful if you both thought for a moment about the effect your words are having one one another. So there’s an example of where the two parts are given a timeout, because they’re like, screaming at each other. Right, which is what happens with conflict. So there’s a silence and the red ball says, Okay, I’m sorry. I just don’t think you consider what you’re doing. You’re just you just rest. You just rush into the burning house without thinking about how the fire got started. Soldier, you have to take care of the problem. You can think about how it got started later. Red Ball, I disagree. You need to think about how things happen. You just rush in and you always get burned. Soldier. It doesn’t matter what happens to me. Red Ball. Yeah, it does. Because what happens to you happens to me, soldier, what are you talking about? Red ball. You are so busy going around saving every cat up a tree that you don’t think about taking care of us. You are overweight, you’re still smoking and you don’t exercise. How do you think that affects me when I’m trying to take responsibility for health? You think I don’t take responsibility? You need to think twice, buddy. So
Rick Archer: let me interrupt. So this whole dialogue is taking place in this guy’s head.
Isa Gucciardi: Not their seat saying it out loud as it happening is that he’s saying it out loud. Okay, so
Rick Archer: you’re recording it? Okay. I just wondered how this got recorded.
Isa Gucciardi: No, yeah, no, he say it out loud. So I actually then I would I would actually be saying red ball. What do you have to say to the soldier and soldier? What do you have to say to that each time the guy would respond with and then when he goes back and forth. And it’s interesting, because when we’re out here, it seems kind of weird, you know, to think we have these different parts that are going on inside of ourselves. But once you get into an altered state And once you allow for the possibility that there could be multiple parts that are in conflict, it all kind of falls into place.
Rick Archer: I mean, when I hear it, I think, Well, I would really have to be in an altered state to come up with something I said I’d never come up with all these statements. And I’m not that imaginative or something, you know. So it’s interesting. Yeah. It’s
Isa Gucciardi: it’s not actually imagination. It’s actually giving something real as being words to something that was beyond kind of
Rick Archer: articulation. Yeah, I didn’t mean to imply that. He’s just fabricating the whole thing.
Isa Gucciardi: But even if he were, it still would work. But I’ll show you in under certain circumstances. Yeah. So the soldier says, Oh, the red ball says, yeah. Oh, the soldier says, Okay, I see what you mean, after a silence. But I have to make things better. I have to protect the weak red ball. If I hear that one more time. I’m gonna puke. protect the weak. Think about protecting us. Soldier. Oh, red ball. Yeah. Oh, there’s a silence soldier. I think I just don’t know how to stop smoking. And whenever I try, you are not cooperating. Red Ball. That might be true. I think I don’t cooperate with you on anything. Because all your schemes are so stupid. I don’t even pay attention to you to what you want anymore. I think that’s true. I have to admit it. Soldier. Well, maybe you need to listen to me sometimes. Red Ball. Well, maybe you need to listen to me sometimes. Soldier. Okay. Red Ball. Well, okay. And do me a favor. Take a look at what you have to say everyone except yourself.
Rick Archer: Cool. So this whole process took place and a big resolution happened for this person? Yeah.
Isa Gucciardi: I mean, there was more, more more, I mean, the PS sessions, but he his level of anger went way down. And he his level of self care went way up. And his sense, you know, he was getting the issue for him as he was getting a sense of self esteem from helping other people. And he was abandoning himself, right. And the part of himself that was abandoned was angry. Right. And so in by shifting that whole balance, he became more at peace within himself and the family came to peace.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Great
Robert Thurman: Sounds a bit like me and my wife.
Rick Archer: Is there anybody that we have for people watching here? Is there anybody who has been listening to the all this who has any input or questions or anything based on what these people have been saying? Kristin, do you have anything you were saying? Like, sometimes you have
Kristin Kirk: so much, but I wasn’t thinking about speaking.
Rick Archer: Okay. Well, if something comes, let us all hand you the mic.
Isa Gucciardi: Well, one thing that I’d like to point out that Bob pointed out earlier, which is about the way in which the two books kind of intersect. Yeah. And, Bob, do you want to talk about that what you were talking about? How
Robert Thurman: are ya? So as I mentioned, Bella Lama is the hero of world peace to inner peace. And of course, all of Buddhism is about helping people create, it’s sort of people the, the stereotype of Buddhism, it’s only about inner peace. But actually, Buddhism had a very powerful impact in a society where it ever performed its services. And therefore world peace is of course, its major favorite as well. And sometimes people in order to get inner peace, they when they’re being like the soldier, it’s, it’s fine for them to kind of say, well, you know, you can’t do anything much about the outside, it’s just gonna go into Kali yuga sort of thing, as they say. And that puts the focus on the inner one. But if you look at the overall movement of Buddha’s institutions were to start to put his teachers totally involved in world peace. And then check in with the Buddha himself was, and all of his people have been at the end, even, you know, it’s an interesting thing. But you know, the people like Sri Aurobindo in India, and various Chinese intellectuals in the second millennium, they blame Buddhism, for allowing China and India being conquered by other more aggressive people.
Rick Archer: Why is it Buddhism?
Robert Thurman: Because Buddhism made people too peaceful and vulnerable and weaken their military fiber whereas
Rick Archer: the Hindus had their chakras and, and so on. What the Hindus had their chakras, you know, there
Robert Thurman: and you actually there’s an element of that in the Gita. Arjuna doesn’t want to fight right? And then yet he’s convinced to fight for Siddhartha, whatever, before he was good. I know the prince. He said forget it. I’m not gonna release kingdom. So there is a feeling that I think it’s historically true. That way if you go into your inner peace and make it your focus, as as preliminary as you’re getting out and doing something in the world, you will become vulnerable in the world. In a society that will be vulnerable. And in a way you could say that the colonialism and the victory of the more barbaric Europeans over the Asians was what isms fault in the sense that they made them generally not perfect because no one’s perfect, but generally more peaceful. Chinese invented gunpowder, composts, they had ships 10 times bigger than Columbus’s ships, they went to Africa, and probably America and South America. But they didn’t go in genocide, everybody, they went back to eat and eat their good Chinese food at home. And so
Rick Archer: in a way in half an hour, they’re hungry again and half an hour. I know.
Robert Thurman: But But my point being that until this time in history, the skill of being more peaceful and being open to be more vulnerable and making the choice of being more open hearted and therefore being vulnerable. was a little difficult for you. Because there was so many aggressive people ready to jump on. Yeah, so many aggressive nations ready to jump on you. But we’re now working to see where every station is armed to the teeth, nuclear weapons all over the place. Everybody’s got their own Nuke, right? Even the guy the hair two guys each have a look in your hair. Dude. He wants 10 times more. Yeah, well, they all do. But the point is, none of them can be used anyway. Yeah. So therefore now the survival instinct is the instinct to be vulnerable and make peace. There. I have this slogan, which I think Dalai Lama doesn’t share my slogan. But I think anyway, he is the hero of that slogan, which is shift from mad to mud. Mad is mutual assured destruction, right. And that made me destruction. Mud is mutual unilateral disarmament. And that means you know, you have pistols wire to each other’s temples, either one squeezes the other one’s death, throw him squeeze, and both will be dead. Okay, that’s a new situation on the planet. So then each one says, let’s stop holding our hands like that. So we can deal with cards or whatever. And you start putting it down, and the other ones putting it down, and you’re looking at like a hawk. Because each one who picked me do it, but you put down and then there was one point where you have to take a risk, two sides, that’s a mutual unilateral disarmament,
Rick Archer: friend of mine told me this example of, you know, nation’s armed with nuclear weapons are like little couple of boys standing in a pool of gasoline. And one boy thinks he’s more powerful because he has more matches than the other.
Robert Thurman: Perfect. So the skill now is to be more open hearted and to make a choice, you’re going to be open, you’re going to be more happy, even in a more peaceful inside. And even as I haven’t seen in my previous book, since which was called why the Dalai Lama matters. Publisher asked me to put 10 points of hope in the back. Because you know, anyone who has hoped that this can all work out, nobody else does. So he asked me to put them. So my last statement in there is, we have to choose happiness, and love and take a risk. And in fact, our duty is to be so happy that even if they kill us, we’ll die happy. You know, it’s tempting, though, usually chuckle when I say
Rick Archer: doesn’t take much to make me chuckle. But the, like I say, it’s easy to it would make it might be easy to dismiss, all this talk is being kind of pie in the sky. Yeah, here, here we are a bunch of people sitting in a little hotel room talking about these dreamy things. Meanwhile, there’s this big bad world out there where all this crazy stuff is happening. But But I think that this thing is really gaining some traction, there’s more and more momentum building, or some realistic, optimistic realization or manifestation of the kind of principles you’re talking about. And it’s a multi pronged approach where all kinds of people doing all kinds of things are in a loosely confederated network, contributing to global awakening.
Robert Thurman: That’s how I take hope from the massive incompetence and pathetic nature of the leadership of these old World War Two kinds of machineries that are so destructive and so expensive and so wasteful. And I take heart that they’re so hopelessly out of touch with what’s really needed. And what actually most of the people in the countries really warm. None of them want to walk. None of them want his first they want like, they want to remain a peace they want they want to go to conference, they want to, they want to have a little chocolate, they want to like have a little fun, and what’s the matrix are their lives, right? And so, point is that the democracies are not working. And therefore even there’s even a theory like the dictators are saying, I see we’re much more effective, but actually there are people are ready to blow up at every minute. meant to keep them all on their Gulags at all times. So the point is that, you know, there has to be this turn around. And I think it will, it’s happening. And it has to do with the raising of consciousness of people. Yeah. And the fact that, you know, you can watch somebody puke in Beijing, because it’s too smoky. On Facebook, at 10 million people can walk, some people can then realize, gee whiz, they’re getting sick over there, you know, and the Beijing people can see us old sick with because we’re freaked out by we have a weirdo in the White House. And we’re completely panicked about it. So somehow, we have to all of us should stick to whatever it is that makes us happy. Yeah. And develop our inner peace and see that as part of creating outer peace, and also be active and vote and get back to our roots in 2012. And send you know, McConnell Ryan trum, pens, all of them off to a spa. In like the Baja Yeah, you know, to have surfing lessons and massages. The last time I spoke down there for some real some Reichian therapy. Yeah, so we can have a little fun with a rubber dog doesn’t doesn’t really feel something himself, and doesn’t have to grab everybody and Melissa,
Rick Archer: yeah, last time. He said something about DMT suppositories or something? Well,
Robert Thurman: that was kind of helpful. That’s a little extreme. I have to go gradually. Shama, get them a pillar of light, and talk to it and have a Red Bull on there somewhere, quietly work in different rooms is a little extreme.
Rick Archer: But it might accelerate the process.
Isa Gucciardi: You need the integration. Coming to peace process works well with that as well, to help integrate when you have like, big, like spiritual emergency kinds of problems. Yeah, this kind of process creates the container to be able to look at that as well. But you know, Bob, I really think that, you know, when you’re talking about the, you know, the the possibility that, that people are turning toward peace. The most wonderful thing about this book is that it gives them a template for peace, because in describing his holiness, you have really shown how a being develops the courage to be able to be around these forces of war. And
Robert Thurman: he’s he’s, he’s happy camper, you know, it takes pleasure in small things. I almost fainted as a small thing on YouTube. Short thing and he’s talking to her, there’s a lady of omnivore, where it is, it’s some sort of peace conference. And he’s on the stage with his translator, and there’s a lady as a moderator over in the corner. And they’re kind of chatting about, you know, about needs. She’s asking me, what about you and this and that, how we got to that? Is the Dalai Lama, the holy Dama. He’s sitting there, and he always puts a funny hat because he was funny. He says, Well, you know, one day since I travel around around a lot to know, and you know, different kinds of foods, and sometimes, you know, you get like hats and your something. And then it says, in an airplane, it’s kind of embarrassing. People are all around, he said, and then so therefore, sometimes it’s good to be unbearable, he said, and then you look around, he says, and you’re looking around, and then you and then he was like this, you kind of let one out.
Rick Archer: Well, he probably flies it first.
Robert Thurman: Lady did and you can hit audit. Oh, they’re all freaking out. Completely. That is posted. Hi. Instead of acting like I’m a holy, whatever. Yeah, he’s it many kind of kind of problem that we all do get into? Well, we all chose humanity, same
Rick Archer: binary functions. Yeah.
Robert Thurman: I almost fainted myself. That’s kind of healthy. I mean, to realize that, I mean, this is a great day, it relates to a joke I was telling about these bad girls who get like, all inflated because they’d had a little experience of stopping their mind temporarily, you know, and then it starts up again, they weren’t long things. And you know, then they get into their they get trapped in Jen. It’s called, they get trapped in the demon ghost cave, of thinking that they’re enlightened. Right. And then once that happens, as I say, they get a really it’s a trap, because, you know, you have to fart Chanel number five. And if you fail to rationalize it, and you have to beat up your followers, so they have to pretend it’s number five, or some sort of stinky thing in reality, but you can’t admit to that because you’re like, that. Alignment is there to be that’s why I say da Lama is a true practitioner. Yeah. And he really He really shows that you can be there, and you can care, and then also do the thing. I’m also fed up, I think about all but what’s it getting the Tibetans are still being crushed and all this. And that’s true, too. What’s his non violence? And but my answer to that is, how are things in Afghanistan? Right? How’s the Middle East? Do
Rick Archer: it? What did violence do?
Robert Thurman: What is violence doing nowadays? It can’t do anything. Yeah, it’s completely ridiculous, is a complete waste. And, you know, it’s just hopeless. So, you know, he says long term thing. And non violence, that’s the great thing about non violence is when the when the violence you’re receiving, it sort of absorb. And then you keep coming back and you want to have a conversation and you want to talk you want to see a pillar of light or whatever it is, you know, then there’s no further wave of it. You know, there’s no, there’s no vicious circle, it stops the vicious circle. Yeah. That’s why Buddha and Jesus and confusions and all of them, Isaiah, and Zoroaster, and Socrates, they were all really on top of it. They were not unrealistic, idealistic, they just took us out, to listen to them. That’s all.
Rick Archer: Did anyone think of any questions they wanted to ask? Do I, do you have something?
Kristin Kirk: Appreciate?
Robert Thurman: What’s the question?
Kristin Kirk: No, I didn’t have a question. I just had a deep appreciation, or what you’ve been speaking about, of bridging the inner world and the outer world, and the that there’s no difference between the two, and that your book is addressing the inner world, that when it’s addressed impacts the outer world, and that the dealing with the outer world, still impacts the inner world, and that that relationship between the two. And then the other piece about what you were sharing in your book, and then your comment about the shamanism or therapy or hypnosis, and all these different things coming together. Is that oh, well, yeah. And that, that, in my experience, it’s all the same thing. And so it’s not so much different things all coming together, it’s just the truth of the nature of human capacity and consciousness at play with itself. And then, because we do have all these different avenues for communication on all these levels, that this kind of thing is coming forward, you know, and in my personal experience, is just what’s present, all those things are all in union. So it’s just so exciting for me to Yeah, to be present and to see the inner and the outer addressed in these books. And in both of you and the beauty that’s here, both in what you’re putting out in the world, and the inner relationship that’s also happening. So just just a little appreciate. Yeah, yeah.
Rick Archer: Question that. That was Kristin Kirk, this is Sean Webb, have a
Sean Webb: Question for Isa. So I am really interested in the content of your book now. And I’m gonna pick it up and read it. But the multiple voices speaking to each other, in the one mind, you know, we have the scientific proof that there are, you know, split brain patients have multiple levels of consciousness that come two completely independent answers, if you ask them the same question and psychological sciences is proven, we have multiple levels of that consciousness. And so it’s certainly scientifically valid, that, you know, multiple voices can exist within one human mind. And even like the, my friend, Miguel Ruiz, Jr, he’s told me this, they have a word in the Toltec tradition called metodo of the 1000 voices inside your one mind, what brought you to this, developing this treatment and this, this strategy to get those voices talking and get those resolutions within your own mind? At at equilibrium?
Isa Gucciardi: Well, I saw how powerful the external processes of coming to peace were when you were working with individuals with parties with different viewpoints. And, you know, in depth hypnosis, we’re always working very deeply within the self. And that’s why I called it depth hypnosis, right. And so, you know, when I started realizing, as we were working with the external conflict, that there was often a mirror internally within each of the parties that was engaged with the conflict where they were actually projecting an inner process that was going on inside of themselves out into the external world. So a really good example of that is the victim perpetrator diet that I go into here. I call it the victim perpetrator inversion where Do you have an external relationship where one person, let’s say you have two people that express judgment toward one another, and two people who feel victimized by the others judgment, right? So you have that kind of that kind of relationship is a conflict related to conflict laden relationship. And I was actually working with a couple the other day where they were, they both had their own ways of judging and harming the other. And they each had their own victim that would respond in a kind of collapsing way, right. So when I broke them apart, and I help them look internally, it was very clear that each one of them had a process they both came from religious orthodoxies where it was very important to always be right and to always know where God was and what your relationship to God was. And if you’re, if you’re, if you are not in the right place, you wouldn’t be judged harshly. So they had grown up with these religious orthodoxies, and they had developed these internal judges that were trying to keep them on the straight and narrow. And then they had this parts of them that were receiving that message of judgment, which was almost always pejorative. And they felt victimized. So they had each that had that going on inside of each other. And they would take turns playing, projecting the victim out onto the other at one moment and projecting the judger into the other the other moment, and it that working with people that just sort of became evident that this kind of thing was happening. And also within the Hoonah tradition, which is a tradition that is much older than the Hawaiian Islands was developed somewhere else and is held there, the oral history of how it’s held there, it’s very interesting. I call the Hoonah tradition, the first psychology I know Bob, you call Buddhist Buddhism, the first second, but I call him an athlete, I mean, we can we can. And so but in that particular psychology, the definition of the self is that the human being is consists of two spirits, who come together to evolve in a single physical body, sometimes with the help of a third spirit. And the first spirit is a student of the physical and material processes. And the second is a student of the emotion or the will. So you have a roughly Mind Body dyad there, roughly. And the third spirit, which participates in different ways with different individuals is the guide for the higher self, right, and some people are connected to that, and some people are not, and in Buddhism that would be expressed as the Buddha nature, right? So I work with that I teach classes on Hoonah, in Hawaii, and I, I’ve been working with that concept. And I had, I really began to see, and this is not stated in Hoonah. But the thing that I started to see, as I was working with this concept, teaching people about it was that the relationship between those two spirits was the basis for all the relationships that the person had in their external life. And that was like really revelatory for me. And that I saw that the external relationships offered information about the nature of the relationship between those two inner spirits. So it became really evident that there was really very little boundary between the internal world and the external world. And that’s, you know, Bob, when you talking about the self becoming, you know, you become identified with this much larger experience of the Self where you are, you know, you you are more at one with other people’s experience, and you identify that experience, not as separate from your own. This model that I just described, it really is the nuts and bolts of what you’re talking about, because it becomes very evident that there is no, I mean, there are boundaries between parts of the self and other beings, but there is, but they’re, they’re just connecting points, actually. They’re not actually boundaries, right? And so, right, exactly. And so, you know, the definition of the self telescopes out immediately, externally, and it also telescopes deeply, inwardly. And pretty soon you realize that this process of relating is, is just this major, major pageant of, of consciousness at play. And, and, you know, you still telescope it out that way. But then you bring it back down to the parts and then how are we relating? I’ll be doing a talk on this actually. Tomorrow afternoon on this call. relationships and karma. Oh, yeah. So read the description that. Yeah, I’ll be doing a talk on that tomorrow. So stay tuned.
Rick Archer: Well, anybody else have any comments or questions or anything? Hang on.
David Buckland: One says,
Rick Archer: You disagree?
David Buckland: I very much agree.
Rick Archer: Oh, very much agree. Okay, great.
Michael Rodriguez: Do you have any experience of applying these techniques for healing on social or political levels?
Robert Thurman: Yes, often off it actually. We sponsored a group of monks, from the garden shards, a monastery. In a national tour, that sacred stream, the foundation of the sacred stream, it’s the school of consciousness studies that I found it. And we were asked by Jinpa, His Holiness is it made the main English language interpreter to sponsor this national tour for this group that got insurance Aikido con. And so they were having a lot of issues among themselves. They’re monks, they’re human beings, incredibly amazing people, but they were having some pretty strong difficulties, one of the one of the members was having some difficulties adapting to the tour. And it’s a difficult it’s a really difficult thing. You’re constantly on the constantly on the move, you get into this van and women that you’re in Oklahoma, the next minute, you’re in Ohio, the next minute, you’re in Florida, and you’re sharing your culture, and you’re eating all this weird food, you know, it’s you know, it’s hard. So I actually, we actually did coming to peace with them and help them resolve it was a circle of eight monks. And of course, they’re used to, like internal, under, like, understanding themselves internally, and we were able to bring peace, that it had gotten really kind of hot. And, you know, and of course, they were contained. And, you know, they were, you know, but but there was tension, and there was kind of grumpiness, you know that the people who they were sharing their culture with had noticed, so it was getting to be a problem. So we were able to we were able to do this, and I don’t I’m not I don’t mean to be I mean, I am not being critical of this, them in any way that they were having this conflict, everyone has conflict. But that was a big social level. I mean, that was among among the monks. And then between the monks in the monastery, the monastery in the larger community, I mean, we pulled in this whole, all these different levels, and we were able to bring peace and in the tour was able to continue for much longer than it would have if we had not done that. So there’s an example.
Michael Rodriguez: urban environment.
Isa Gucciardi: Oh, in an urban environments, yes, the thing that you have to realize is that people have to want to participate. So that’s the thing, a lot of times people are in conflict, and they actually don’t want peace. And what becomes very evident when people sit down and accompany the peace circle is who is dedicated to war and who is not. And people who are dedicated to war are out at it. And then everyone in the in the circle has their time to say, what their experience of being in relationship with someone who’s dedicated to war, and they get information that they would never have gotten in any other way, if it wasn’t the kind of container that they that coming to be at peace provides so that they can they have the opportunity to make other choices in an informed way, you know, so, you know, and that’s, I mean, a lot of times, people, you know, people are caught in vengeance cycles. And, and that’s a lot of what happens in urban kind of gang environments, right? So identifying the vengeance cycle, having everyone a lot of times when people, people don’t realize that they want to step they’re not interested in stepping out of making war, until they realize the effect that it’s having on others around them. And the coming to peace process offers a forum for everyone to speak truthfully, and honestly, about the effect. So it does work. I mean, people who, again, people who are dedicated to war and stay dedicated to war, it doesn’t work with them. But the good news is with the inner coming to peace process, people who have thought that they need to wait for the warmonger to make peace with them, in order for them to come to peace, realize that they actually need to do inner work in order to wean themselves off of the connection with the external warmonger. And they can do that work within themselves and free themselves from grudges from vengeance cycles, all kinds of things without the party dissipation of the person who’s generating the negativity, which is it’s a revelation for a lot of people, they think that they have to have the participation, they think they have to have the forgiveness, for instance of someone they may have wronged, or they think that the person has to that they have to act, that person has to grant them forgiveness, but actually, and they stay stuck in a sense of guilt, shame. And they tend to create that same congestion and other relationships. But when they realize that, in the internal process of forgiveness, for instance, the first thing they have to do is to forgive themselves. And so then all of the noise about getting the other person’s forgiveness dies down, as they deal with their own inner resistance to forgiving themselves. And then those parts have the opportunity to speak to one another. And they are able to free themselves from the tyranny of someone who would not forgive them, and as well as freeing themselves freeing themselves from the tyranny of their own lack of self forgiveness. Right. So yeah, hopefully that was helpful.
Rick Archer: If you few questions that somebody emailed me that they wanted me to ask you, unrelated to everything we’ve been talking about here, but maybe you’ll find these interesting. And if you think it’s sort of too arcane, or not interesting, we’ll just skip over them. So the first one is, is the Tibetan Buddhist yoga Chara view more or less equivalent to the view of Advaita Vedanta? Instead of just the question
Robert Thurman: it’s really a completely different sort of
Rick Archer: area. I told you, it’s gonna be different. But
Robert Thurman: the view is the idea that everything in the world is mental.
Rick Archer: Okay,
Robert Thurman: basically, what do you mean by
Rick Archer: projection of our minds?
Robert Thurman: Yeah. But there are other people that are lots of minds are projecting different things. And those projections are intersecting.
Rick Archer: Yes.
Robert Thurman: And it raises with the center’s view, which is the which is the other big, but it’s you. Middle Way view, central view, is doesn’t really reject that, but it just says it’s not convenient to think of it as only minds, minds interacting with the physical. And, you know, it’s, it’s a very deep thing to see things as really ticularly but because if you see everything made by your mind in one way, of course, it interacts with other minds. It makes you more responsible for how they are, it’s a way of taking responsibility for shaping what happens to you know, and not just externalizing and blaming other people for it happening to you. And Advaita Vedanta is similar, but you know, the, the Hindu thing is actually based on actually both yoga Chara on Madhyama. Actually, the Buddhist one is actually the one that generates the Advaita Vedanta, a few grand teacher of Shankar was a man called Gowda pada. And God abidance salutes the Buddha before he salutes you know about that I know who wrote the Brahma sutra and all the techniques developed by the Madhyama centers and the yoga Chara or Abyanga Gardens are used in the Vedanta. And so they really pretty similar, except the one thing is that the highest achievement, the Hindus, the brahminical, Hindus say, is Nirvikalpa samadhi. So actually, they kind of they’re like to Tera Vaada Buddhists, who think that nirvana is a state outside of the world. And so when you say Advaita, is also different from a Dwyer. Advaita is a past present participle, so it means the undeniable reality. So it’s only the absolute, you and Brahma are there. And if you’re a Brahman, and you’re here today, as the human Brahma, realize that this always world of suffering is nothing but a dream of promise, and it’s unreal, is an illusion. It’s Maya. But the Buddha’s never say it’s only an illusion. It seems like an illusion. Yes, it’s very close. But then they also never say that the ultimate reality is something apart from the relative reality non dual, not non doubled. But non dual means that the relative the absolute is the relative actually, that’s what emptiness means. Instead of Brahma up there is emptiness everywhere. So Mama is also just another relative being. That’s huge one. So, this connects to social issue. Two Brahmins are Brahmins. They think, well, I can’t really help all those untouchables and the dogs and the cats and the women and this But we Brahmins we’re born with Brahma. If we know that it may be karmically, then they can rise in caste after many lifetimes, if they serve us, but they don’t even get into that really, and, and they don’t like, for example, the karmic thing, then you can be reborn as an animal. If you behave like an animal, you’re likely to become a rhinoceros, or tiger or a lion. If you’re a killer, you know, that that body is more suited for killing, you know, tiger, tigress, actually, to Tiger males are lazy. And so. So the point is, it’s the difference has to do therefore with wisdom and compassion. If you’re truly not dual, where it’s all one, but we’re all here, and the untouchables are here, and therefore they’re all one with us, too. And they all have Buddha nature, and therefore, we are blissed out and there, but they will sit and notice that they’re not, then all you have to do is help them figure out what they really are, which is not really touchable. They also won with clear light of the void. They’re also one with Buddha nature. So there is that difference, and you’ll see it reflected in Indian society. And it explains why when the Muslims destroyed Buddhism, and monasticism in India, although the Hindus came up with monasticism versus Islam is illegal. And India said, you have to be a householder. Then you send the acid later, and developers who good restaurant with your wife, and then sannyasa, you go out just by yourself and get ready for death. But you’re not supposed to not produce children and be a householder and pay taxes and so on. So the British thing is against that, you know, like you can put your life into Sun Yat Sen right away, who’s younger, you can learn more, and you can develop more, and anybody can join the Sangha from any class. And even females can, although Britta was hesitant about females, and people only think he was because he thinks that females are less liable to Enlightenment. And I see he didn’t bother to do that. They’re more quick to enlivenment, A and B, they’re the slaves of the males in the patriarchal brahminical Hindu society. And so if lots of females leave because their life is tougher, enjoying the summer, then they won’t be supported by the society. And they’ll shut down and sorry, actually, they did. So female monasticism India was a flood in Buddha’s time, in spite of him expressing hesitation, and then it ended more shortly and amongst managed to go on another few 1000 ended 1000 years, but only about 1000 years, the female monasticism really lasted. And in Sri Lanka, they don’t have female monks, in Tera Vaada countries, they don’t even have it. It’s some kind of normalcy or some kind of like just a wait, are they waiting on the male monks, because like they were waiting on the householders in their house. So that’s a difference, you know, it’s the other one’s really, really similar. But when you say that the ultimate reality is God, then you sit and then you get into all those kinds of theories about God is more than the world, you know, the artists absolute outside the world and then you Brahmins can join with God outside the world. It’s like the Brahmins desperate not to have to go back in the kitchen. To Brahmins not wanting to be women and have to have babies, they want to just be pure and clean Brahmins, you know, and even in Sanskrit, put a jar for the soul, you know, in suncare, dualism Purusha also means the male, and then the female is associated with my you know, with the, the illusion, you see. And whereas in Buddhism, they’ll only say like illusion, right? Even in terrible. I mean, yoga, Chara and Madhyama are not different about that. And so the Buddhists are pests? Because they say, Yeah, sure, you can have Nirvikalpa samadhi. But that’s not absolute. Let’s you could have Nirvikalpa samadhi, right here now working in a soup kitchen among untouchable leopards in Calcutta, and be feeding them as being one with Brahman. Or if you can do that and be at Nirvikalpa samadhi while you’re feeding the lepers Be my guest. But if you want to have you ever come to mind in a pure state outside and leaving the lepers to fend for themselves. There’s something dualistic about that yeah. That’s the difference.
Rick Archer: Okay. Good. Same question. The three of them. What is the purpose of reincarnate lamas? Is this just a political organizational phenomena? That is something that has practical value only or is it real in the sense of reflecting actual yogic or enlightened power,
Robert Thurman: right? Everything relatively real is only relatively real. That’s a great thing about Buddhism. It’s all theories about relative relative things are relative, which doesn’t mean there’s no true and false but it’s only relatively true and relatively false, not absolutely, but pure negations like emptiness itself. Business, those are more like a little bit dogma, they’re a little bit definitive, you could say because they lead you into freedom. Although you can’t ever grasp it negation, you know, it just you don’t find what you’re looking for templates negated. And then your mind is open to whatever else there is. So, so that’s the kind of wonderful Buddhist scientific thing. Like all rules and regulations are kind of good for specific situations right? Now, I will tell a funny story. There’s one get one that Lama was another incarnation in official Tibetan reincarnation, but he was a great teacher a lot. My students really loved him. He actually sat in trilite, for a few days when he died. So he had been doing esoteric stuff, they didn’t realize. And they asked him at one point, they were feeling devotional bacteria. And they said, Oh, you’re so pure, and so kind and so intelligent. So how come you’re not a reincarnation? And he said, Well, I always wanted to be, but all the good ones were taken. So my point is, yes, of course, there is a definite type of being who has gone to their unconscious, and it’s not driven by blind impulse of blind lust, to be reborn in a womb or as a human or as entity, you know. And they could just float in space forever, in a way towards their own drives go. But the problem is, when they reach that state, they become sensitive to others difficulties, and therefore they will respond to them in a helpful way, you know, and it’s called a body of emanation and they will be present. That’s what that’s what reincarnation is body of emanation, they say. And they’re genuine stuff like that. And I use, my original teacher was a Mongolian from a tribe or a nation of the Mongolians in the West, who refused to have an official reincarnation system, like they did in Tibet, and an Outer Mongolia is a Western Marvel. And the reason they did was they were in more dangerous territory for them. And they wanted to keep chosen power in the Warchiefs the chariots, and they and the Lama said, if someone seems to be extremely extraordinary, as a child, we’ll imagine they are reincarnations. And we’ll take every care of them and send them to study. And we’ll get the benefit of their blessing later as they grow up. But we will not they will not inherit their own estate. And they will not be right away. They will not have political and social responsibility or power in that tribe. So my teacher was like that. So I thought reincarnation was just very corruptible sort of thing as he did kind of, and we were not really into it. And then I studied history. And then I got to know also the Dalai Lama as he grew up more, and he became more really walked his talk and really, really, really upset I think, for sure. And, and then I realized that the reincarnation leadership, in place of the family dynasty leadership was a really important element in Tibet successful at militarizing militarization of Tibet, extreme demilitarization that they accomplished, and then also the fact that for the majority of the Mongols, they accomplished extreme demilitarization among the people who had the greatest land empire in history, but incredibly, aggressively traders when they were fighting. And so it’s a very, it’s a, it is a valuable social institution, I think. But like any human institution can be corrupted. And even in the 17th century, the great Fifth Dalai Lama, who was a marvelous leader and reincarnation, etcetera, etcetera, and Yogi had realized prison. He wrote in his thing, he was like, we had to do something to reform the reincarnation choosing system, because he said those treasures, and you know, the accountants in the different states of the great lamas, when the Lama died, the flow of donations would dry up, didn’t have to go look for one, so they can find one in a local Rockefeller family, they would rush off to do it, and they wouldn’t necessarily make all the tests and really be clear about it. And then sometimes that little bread would turn out to be a brand. And sometimes not. Somebody might reincarnate into a wealthy family, that wasn’t gonna happen. But he said that temptation to corrupt the system is so high, that we really have to be clear about and really mobilize the psychics and the articles and tests and exams, and we really have to do a job. And he’s expressing we’re already in the 17th century. He was actually the poll did. The old Buddhist societies have reincarnation or rebirth it’s like normal for them. It’s not even a mystery. It’s not a mystical thing. But a conscious choice of one beings to do that is a specialty they developed in Tibet, having to do their sentence, which you can find in the Mahayana sutra. That bridge that a Buddha can’t leaves the two human beings or the animals in suffering states, without me enveloping them in their full attention forever. And for the Buddha forever means the future moment is right now to so they’re not abandoning anybody they bought something that would be broken if they did. And the Tibetans more emphasized that. So the idea that seemingly ordinary persons could be actually Buddha emanations to them as they feel the nearness of the presence of Buddha in a way that in the more pluralistic societies where Buddhism was countercultural, and they still had their Hindu sacrifices, and their Vedas and their kings and their armies, and so all of these Asian countries were like that they’re shoguns. And then they couldn’t really go that far with with it. They didn’t Tibet, you know. So Tibet really became the ultimate Buddhist social experiment. And therefore took all the Indian Buddhist teachings, monastic, universal messianic, I call them our universalistic, and esoteric super neuroscientific inner chakras, and that whole thing, took it to the extreme, and they kept it alive, and there and there, and then it was broken open by industrial militarism. We don’t blame the Chinese. The Chinese are just imitating the west with Marxism than imitating the west with industrialism. Before that on horseback. They never could, nobody could settle down in Tibet, no way. It’s like three miles high. The horse will say, get me out or give me an x bar. I’m having mountain sickness horse. So they couldn’t go up there. But with trucks and planes, and they did it. And they’re, they’re futilely trying to colonize, but they’re not going to be able to live there because they can’t import more air, right? Temporarily stuck on some things on oxygen. And women can’t form placenta in the womb. They don’t have the body chemistry because that’s why it was empty that plateau. Interesting when all those Chinese were like overpopulate Hill, their valleys, you are the
Rick Archer: What do they want the place for?
Robert Thurman: what
Rick Archer: What do they want the place for?
Robert Thurman: it gives them you know, they wanted to be a global power rival Russia Dementors did mentor empire. So they wanted space in Central Asia, and Tibet, its headquarters of everybody’s river. So it’s a real power position. And now they have missiles in there that rain in India and whatever. So it’s like a geopolitical thing. Guys in Beijing see a flat map. And they see huge face like, it looks like the Louisiana Purchase bigger, much bigger than the Louisiana Purchase. And they want to keep it short, they have to trash all the people on it, right? Nevermind, they’re gonna keep that land and brought to their own people, they’re not gonna be able to live there. So no one would man the ship actually would become like a desert wasteland. And then that would ruin all their own rivers. Yeah. So it’s actually stupid, you know, and therefore, they will wake up to it. They’re really smart to Chinese people. They’ll give it a break. But the commies, you know, they were like, a little bit, you know, they were thugs, you know, gangsters. You know, they were, I don’t think the current ones, all of them are still a mixture among their leadership. And we’re waiting for the good leader to emerge who will be sensible. And we think actually, he almost has good will let you know, but right now, you know, there’s new leadership thing going on in Beijing this minute big, huge national people,
Rick Archer: because they’re, like forging ahead, new policy, aggressive environment, you know, alternative energy things, solar panels, battery technology. Yeah, there seem to be they’re outstripping? Yeah, really? Okay. Final question. What is the value of the elaborate rituals of Tibetan Buddhism? Does it really make sense for Western students to be reciting texts and chanting in a language Tibetan that they don’t even understand?
Robert Thurman: No, I think that doesn’t make sense. Okay. That should be translated nicely. Those who really want to do it. And you know, the elaborate rituals are beautiful, actually. And magical. The Mandala initiatory thing, they’re really beautiful and magical. And people will appreciate small numbers of people really, they shouldn’t be, they wouldn’t be giving them all to these mass people, except for the call Chakra which has a special permission to do so. Like a mass, you know, but otherwise, they wouldn’t do that. Because the other people can’t use out. No, they have to have a huge parameter. If you don’t understand selflessness, and someone tells you you’re a Buddha, you’re the ad, and then you’re gonna go on behaving badly. And you become an egomaniac, right? But if you if you understand emptiness, and you realize that whatever your personality is, it’s something that you shape yourself in interaction with others, and then you don’t get stuck in any particular version of it. But if you’re stuck on your original one, and somebody tells you, now you’re Muda, then you don’t want to pay your parking tickets. You don’t want to work traditions, you become a painter. And I know a few people like that, and they shouldn’t be doing so broadly. It was esoteric for a reason. Yeah. And they but they do it because they are exiled and they want to build culture. They want followers, and they unfortunately do that, then it blows up in their face later. Yeah. Because we’ve noticed,
Rick Archer: right. Okay, So that about wraps it up any final words, either of you would like to say by way of conclusion, obviously you will, we’ve announced your website’s sacred stream.org and Robert thurman.com, top seven.com Cigarettes, game.org, pop them.com. I’ll be linking to those from this page on BatGap that I create for this view, and linking to your books and so on. I guess we’ve pretty much covered it. Any
Robert Thurman: covered University just came out from the east. And the thank you very much for having us. Appreciate it. And I’m very happy to work with these about all these things. Yeah. And outer peace, inner peace. I think it’s really nice. And she’s been very helpful to his holiness and in his own his work. And, and thank you for that. Yeah, thank you for that. And thank all of the people who are on your technical assistance. And thank you, and you have John Lennon over there. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. That is oh, this is a dreamer like John Lennon. And it will happen actually imagine, imagine when the President of China embraces the Dalai Lama, and then the Dalai Lama helps the Chinese be understood by the Westerners. We don’t have to have world war three, when That’d be nice. Yep. You know, and then, of course, the Westerners I’m talking about who are nearest the Chinese or the Russians. And they have a worse problem with the Chinese than we do for sure in psychologically and culturally very intense.
Rick Archer: Let’s not get started on the Russians. Let’s not get started on the Russians,
Robert Thurman: No no we love the Russian
Rick Archer: Yeah.
Robert Thurman: Oh, the Russians.
Rick Archer: Oh I know. They’re great. They helped Trump win
Robert Thurman: the Russians. Okay.
Isa Gucciardi: Well, I just want to thank you so much. Together. I know that you had a lot going on to get here today today. And just really thank you for the opportunity for us to be able to talk about his holiness and His holiness, His teachings and, and talk about peace.
Rick Archer: We’ll be seeing you again a few days or in our panel discussion, which will include David Buckland and Michael Rodriguez.
Isa Gucciardi: All right, Alex.
Robert Thurman: Thank you so much.
Rick Archer: And thanks to those who are listening and watching to this, okay, see, you in the next one.
