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Awakening
Learning from Death and Dying: Lessons for All of Us from Zen Hospice with Frank Ostaseski (Part 1)
“Dying is not predominantly a medical event, and we ought to stop treating it as if it were.”
Ep. 193 (Part 1 of 2) | Frank Ostaseski, Zen hospice pioneer, founder of the Metta Institute, and author of The Five Invitations, speaks with us about the profound wisdom and potential for transformation that is unleashed in the process of dying. “Suppose we imagine death as an unprecedented opportunity for transformation, he says, adding, “so why wait until we are dying?” In attending over a thousand people in hospice, Frank has often seen them experience a real sense of discovery in the dying process; there is a time of acceptance, a time of letting go, and then a deeper state of surrendering to something larger. The walls that prop up the self start tumbling down, Frank explains, and a larger connection emerges that is always there.
Frank would like to see the process of dying brought out of the closet—shared about, learned from, and not reduced to a medical event. It’s important to meet death with don’t-know mind and trust the dying process to teach each of us what we need to know, he explains. And some of what we can do right now to open ourselves to the wisdom of death is pay attention to how we end things, and to how we love. This far reaching discussion delves gently into the divine mystery of death and dying, touching on radical acceptance, transcending self, don’t-know mind, everyday compassion and boundless compassion, grief as an expression of love, and creating rituals to mark this passage and all passages. We are left feeling unexpectedly comforted and liberated at the same time. Recorded December 5, 2024.
Read MoreA. H. Almaas Wisdom Series (Dialogue 11, Part 2) – The Boundless Dimension of Divine Love: A Potential Available to Us All
“The love is what makes us human—you can’t be really human without heart.”
Ep. 190 (Part 2 of 2) | The eleventh Wisdom Series dialogue with A. H. Almaas brings us to the second turning of his teaching, into the boundless dimension of divine love. Hameed explores this nondual dimension in detail: its qualities, what it’s like to experience firsthand, and what the effects of such an experience are likely to be. This boundless dimension of loving consciousness is the first of the five boundless dimensions, though love continues to develop throughout them all. Hameed gives a beautiful account of his initial experience with this dimension, when divine love and light permeated all of reality. “Why don’t more people experience this if love is always there? asks co-host John Dupuy, and Hameed explains that it’s always there in potential form though not always manifest; the experience is there for when we are ripe for it.
Having awakened to this dimension, one can’t help but want everyone to feel this way, Hameed says, and this is the main reason spiritual teachers teach. Hameed describes the obstacles that prevent us from experiencing the reality of divine love, how it challenges our perceived separateness, and tells us that after experiencing this unity, returning to separateness is not a choice. It turns out that experiencing boundless love is not a panacea for enlightenment, but creates an upwelling of obstacles and a state where our boundedness feels even more restrictive than before. Hameed also relates how hatred and greed can exist in this reality of pure goodness, and tells us that it is here, in the ocean of love and light, that they are transformed. A wonderfully numinous, illuminating conversation. Recorded May 1, 2025.
Read MoreA. H. Almaas Wisdom Series (Dialogue 11, Part 1) – The Boundless Dimension of Divine Love: A Potential Available to Us All
“Full nonduality: not just nonduality between subject and object…but where nothing is separate from anything else—one indivisible medium of loving consciousness.”
Ep. 189 (Part 1 of 2) | The eleventh Wisdom Series dialogue with A. H. Almaas brings us to the second turning of his teaching, into the boundless dimension of divine love. Hameed explores this nondual dimension in detail: its qualities, what it’s like to experience firsthand, and what the effects of such an experience are likely to be. This boundless dimension of loving consciousness is the first of the five boundless dimensions, though love continues to develop throughout them all. Hameed gives a beautiful account of his initial experience with this dimension, when divine love and light permeated all of reality. “Why don’t more people experience this if love is always there? asks co-host John Dupuy, and Hameed explains that it’s always there in potential form though not always manifest; the experience is there for when we are ripe for it.
Having awakened to this dimension, one can’t help but want everyone to feel this way, Hameed says, and this is the main reason spiritual teachers teach. Hameed describes the obstacles that prevent us from experiencing the reality of divine love, how it challenges our perceived separateness, and tells us that after experiencing this unity, returning to separateness is not a choice. It turns out that experiencing boundless love is not a panacea for enlightenment, but creates an upwelling of obstacles and a state where our boundedness feels even more restrictive than before. Hameed also relates how hatred and greed can exist in this reality of pure goodness, and tells us that it is here, in the ocean of love and light, that they are transformed. A wonderfully numinous, illuminating conversation. Recorded May 1, 2025.
Read MoreMiranda Macpherson (Part 2) – Wake Up and Love: Becoming Vessels of Grace
“Being human is a grace delivery device.”
Ep. 186 (Part 2 of 2) | In this lively, mind and heart-opening conversation, Miranda Macpherson, contemporary spiritual teacher and author, shares the extraordinary wisdom she has gained from experience—both from the initial life-changing transmission of boundless love she received in Ramana Maharshi’s cave, and from the subsequent need for integration of the deeper truths that were revealed upon being called back “down the mountain,” back to the West to teach and serve. For her, the trick of navigating ordinary life without reconstructing an ego boiled down to three words: What’s needed now?
Miranda discusses how to show up in the world of today and not let resistance to right action win. “Wake up and love,” she offers. “Take inventory, ask, is there anything in the way of me being openhearted and awake in this moment?” She explains a practice she developed called ego relaxation, emphasizes the power of devotion—the source of strength, love, courage, and motivation—and shares several of the key questions she asks herself in her own practice to keep her receptive to existential grace. Miranda’s inspiring teachings are infused with her foundational sense of divine benevolence; “Grace is alive!” she tells us. And being human, we can embody grace; we can become “grace delivery devices.” Recorded November 1, 2024.
Read MoreMiranda Macpherson (Part 1) – Wake Up and Love: Becoming Vessels of Grace
“There’s always more evolution, openness, clarification, expansion, and possibility—because God is exponential.”
Ep. 185 (Part 1 of 2) | In this lively, mind and heart-opening conversation, Miranda Macpherson, contemporary spiritual teacher and author, shares the extraordinary wisdom she has gained from experience—both from the initial life-changing transmission of boundless love she received in Ramana Maharshi’s cave, and from the subsequent need for integration of the deeper truths that were revealed upon being called back “down the mountain,” back to the West to teach and serve. For her, the trick of navigating ordinary life without reconstructing an ego boiled down to three words: What’s needed now?
Miranda discusses how to show up in the world of today and not let resistance to right action win. “Wake up and love,” she offers. “Take inventory, ask, is there anything in the way of me being openhearted and awake in this moment?” She explains a practice she developed called ego relaxation, emphasizes the power of devotion—the source of strength, love, courage, and motivation—and shares several of the key questions she asks herself in her own practice to keep her receptive to existential grace. Miranda’s inspiring teachings are infused with her foundational sense of divine benevolence; “Grace is alive!” she tells us. And being human, we can embody grace; we can become “grace delivery devices.” Recorded November 1, 2024.
Read MoreA. H. Almaas Wisdom Series (Dialogue 10, Part 2) – Opening to the Absolute: The Mystery That Liberates
“The idea is to be free. Inwardly.”
Ep. 184 (Part 2 of 2) | In the tenth dialogue of the A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series, Hameed Ali addresses what co-host Roger Walsh calls perhaps Inner Journey Home’s most profound chapter of all, the chapter on True Nature, as well as subjects he writes about in his autobiographical fragment, Luminous Night’s Journey. In the second turning of the Diamond Approach teaching, we transition from exploring individual true nature to boundless true nature—the absolute, ground of all manifestation. Following the mystery of truth, you come to absolute truth, Hameed tells us, and you find a mystery that not only liberates but makes everything happen. Hameed describes the absolute as the radiant blackness before the light, its luminosity awareness, and relates how, in the absolute, the feeling of intimacy is palpable. Here, the soul recognizes “I am home.”
Hameed relates how being and nonbeing are integrated, and about how time and space emerge out of true nature. Every moment is a new creation, he explains, not formed by the past or present, but new, instant to instant, from nonbeing to being. Hameed says true nature is the essence of freedom, and that in these troubled times the important thing is to recognize “I am free” and ultimately indestructible, and to be ourselves, grounded by the truth of our inner nature. Towards the end of the conversation, co-host John Dupuy asks Hameed, “What motivates you? Why aren’t you simply hanging out being true nature?” Hameed laughs and responds, “I am.” Recorded April 10, 2025.
Read MoreA. H. Almaas Wisdom Series (Dialogue 10, Part 1) – Opening to the Absolute: The Mystery That Liberates
“In the absolute, everything dissolves; the absolute is the universal solvent.”
Ep. 183 (Part 1 of 2) | In the tenth dialogue of the A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series, Hameed Ali addresses what co-host Roger Walsh calls perhaps Inner Journey Home’s most profound chapter of all, the chapter on True Nature, as well as subjects he writes about in his autobiographical fragment, Luminous Night’s Journey. In the second turning of the Diamond Approach teaching, we transition from exploring individual true nature to boundless true nature—the absolute, ground of all manifestation. Following the mystery of truth, you come to absolute truth, Hameed tells us, and you find a mystery that not only liberates but makes everything happen. Hameed describes the absolute as the radiant blackness before the light, its luminosity awareness, and relates how, in the absolute, the feeling of intimacy is palpable. Here, the soul recognizes “I am home.”
Hameed explains how being and nonbeing are integrated, and about how time and space emerge out of true nature. Every moment is a new creation, he says, not formed by the past or present, but new, instant to instant, from nonbeing to being. Hameed says the essence of freedom lies in the absolute, and that in these troubled and times, the important thing is to recognize “I am free” and ultimately indestructible, and to be ourselves, grounded by the truth of our inner nature. Towards the end of the conversation, co-host John Dupuy asks Hameed, “What motivates you? Why aren’t you simply hanging out being true nature?” Hameed laughs and responds, “I am.” Recorded April 10, 2025.
Read MoreJohn Prendergast (Part 2) – Opening to Our Deepest Ground: Illuminating the Journey of Healing and Awakening
“We are on the wave of life waking up to itself through humanity.”
Ep. 180 (Part 2 of 2) | In this podcast, John Prendergast, spiritual teacher, depth psychotherapist (retired), and prolific author, eloquently lays out the territory we encounter on the spiritual path as we move towards opening to our deepest ground. John defines deepest ground as “ungraspable and unfathomable, something we can know intimately as a quality of awareness, unbounded and open.” “When we touch into this,” he continues, “we move from a place of love, peace and groundedness.” In working with students and clients over four decades, John says the presence or absence of ground has been the most important theme.
John has a gift for communicating exactly what is most useful for a spiritual practitioner to hear: taking an integral and nondual approach different from traditional psychotherapy, he invites us to evoke presence—welcome the experience, welcome the fear of annihilation—let go of ordinary knowledge and allow a translucent, transformative space to emerge around ordinary mind. Blending archetypal wisdom and guidance with spacious emptiness, John explains that opening to unbounded awareness supports the process of individuation and actualization; he also weaves in an intriguing version of the hero’s journey, where the hero emerges from the underground, not as a figure of accomplishment and victory, but as a simple, humble being, void of ego. The rich wisdom and gentle guidance offered here is invaluable, worthy of listening to many a time. Recorded November 7, 2024.
Read MoreJohn Prendergast (Part 1) – Opening to Our Deepest Ground: Illuminating the Journey of Healing and Awakening
“Transcendence is a beautiful first step… but there’s a very important process of embodying awareness more and more deeply, in the physical body, in the subtle body.”
Ep. 179 (Part 1 of 2) | In this podcast, John Prendergast, spiritual teacher, depth psychotherapist (retired), and prolific author, eloquently lays out the territory we encounter on the spiritual path as we move towards opening to our deepest ground. John defines deepest ground as “ungraspable and unfathomable, something we can know intimately as a quality of awareness, unbounded and open.” “When we touch into this,” he continues, “we move from a place of love, peace and groundedness.” In working with students and clients over four decades, John says the presence or absence of ground has been the most important theme.
John has a gift for communicating exactly what is most useful for a spiritual practitioner to hear: taking an integral and nondual approach different from traditional psychotherapy, he invites us to evoke presence—welcome the experience, welcome the fear of annihilation—let go of ordinary knowledge and allow a translucent, transformative space to emerge around ordinary mind. Blending archetypal wisdom and guidance with spacious emptiness, John explains that opening to unbounded awareness supports the process of individuation and actualization; he also weaves in an intriguing version of the hero’s journey, where the hero emerges from the underground, not as a figure of accomplishment and victory, but as a simple, humble being, void of ego. The rich wisdom and gentle guidance offered here is invaluable, worthy of listening to many a time. Recorded November 7, 2024.
Read MoreA. H. Almaas Wisdom Series (Dialogue 9, Part 2) -The Diamond Vehicle Revelations: True Nature’s Messages and Messengers of Wisdom
Ep. 178 (Part 2 of 2) | In the ninth dialogue of the A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series, Hameed gives a fascinating account of how four distinctly different wisdom teachings came to him in succession, directly from true nature, embodied in the form of diamonds. “In the beginning, I didn’t know…what the hell were these? Is it my imagination?” Hameed laughs. But then his colleagues and students experienced the diamondness too. Like angels of revelation, each diamond vehicle brings a different type of wisdom: the first diamond vehicle, Guidance, brings clarity and initiated the practice of inquiry; the second embodies the wisdom that pleasure is what we are, bringing an understanding of pleasure from a spiritual perspective; the third diamond vehicle holds the wisdom of how to conduct our lives from a place of truth, and the fourth the wisdom of true knowledge—knowing by being—the knowing that is needed for awakening.
Not only do we hear marvelous stories of how the diamond-shaped wisdom messengers appeared to Hameed, but he also imparts a wonderfully comprehensive yet succinct rendering of the teachings they brought, and the conversation flows from embodying wisdom to embodying pleasure, the inward turn, and why bliss must be combined with emptiness for enlightenment to occur. Also, how to live a life of truth with the inner compass provided by the third diamond teaching, the pitfalls of the ego’s tendency to accommodate others, how being is inseparable from knowing, and lots more. A very full, warm, rich conversation, filled also with humor, sparkle, and delight. Recorded January 30, 2025.
Read MoreA. H. Almaas Wisdom Series (Dialogue 9, Part 1) -The Diamond Vehicle Revelations: True Nature’s Messages and Messengers of Wisdom
Ep. 177 (Part 1 of 2) | In the ninth dialogue of the A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series, Hameed gives a fascinating account of how four distinctly different wisdom teachings came to him in succession, directly from true nature, embodied in the form of diamonds. “In the beginning, I didn’t know…what the hell were these? Is it my imagination?” Hameed laughs. But then his colleagues and students experienced the diamondness too. Like angels of revelation, each diamond vehicle brings a different type of wisdom: the first diamond vehicle, Guidance, brings clarity and initiated the practice of inquiry; the second embodies the wisdom that pleasure is what we are, bringing an understanding of pleasure from a spiritual perspective; the third diamond vehicle holds the wisdom of how to conduct our lives from a place of truth, and the fourth the wisdom of true knowledge—knowing by being—the knowing that is needed for awakening.
Not only do we hear marvelous stories of how the diamond-shaped wisdom messengers appeared to Hameed, but he also imparts a wonderfully comprehensive yet succinct rendering of the teachings they brought, and the conversation flows from embodying wisdom to embodying pleasure, the inward turn, and why bliss must be combined with emptiness for enlightenment to occur. Also, how to live a life of truth with the inner compass provided by the third diamond teaching, the pitfalls of the ego’s tendency to accommodate others, how being is inseparable from knowing, and lots more. A very full, warm, rich conversation, filled also with humor, sparkle, and delight. Recorded January 30, 2025.
Read MoreKimberley Lafferty (Part 3) – The Path of Wisdom, Heart, and Ethics: A Developmental Perspective on the Journey of Awakening
“How can I reconstruct myself to be truth, goodness, and beauty?”
Ep. 176 (Part 3 of 3) | Longtime spiritual practitioner, gifted teacher, Tibetan Buddhist lama, and developmental psychology specialist Kimberley Lafferty integrates contemporary psychology and wisdom tradition in this lively, luminous conversation about the process of awakening, the evolution of ethics, and the extraordinary capacities that come online as we mature into later stages of development. What do developmental perspectives have to add to our understanding of human nature and to spiritual practice? Our meaning-making shifts radically as we develop, Kimberley says, and because of that our reality itself shifts. This is why communicating with people with very different points of view can fail so miserably—one person’s reality is simply not the same as the next person’s reality. We need to discern, what is their meaning-making reality in this moment? What is ours?
Throughout, Kimberley grounds the discussion in practical, real-life scenarios; she also shares intriguing research on later stage development that has found that as we mature, our senses evolve: our hearing evolves to deep attunement; our seeing evolves to witnessing, our capacity of touch evolves to embody presence. It’s exciting and inspiring to see the road ahead, to acquire new insights and tools to improve communication across cultural (and age) divides, to have the concept of bodhicitta unpacked so deftly and common misperceptions about emptiness corrected—and to witness Kimberley’s wise and zesty approach to life: “What connects us all is our luminous, aware consciousness,” she says, “and if we can lean into the messiness, I think we can find our way through.” Recorded October 3, 2024.
Read MoreKimberley Lafferty (Part 2) – The Path of Wisdom, Heart, and Ethics: A Developmental Perspective on the Journey of Awakening
“If we have no traditional spiritual boundaries to teach our children, we end up raising narcissists.”
Ep. 175 (Part 2 of 3) | Longtime spiritual practitioner, gifted teacher, Tibetan Buddhist lama, and developmental psychology specialist Kimberley Lafferty integrates contemporary psychology and wisdom tradition in this lively, luminous conversation about the process of awakening, the evolution of ethics, and the extraordinary capacities that come online as we mature into later stages of development. What do developmental perspectives have to add to our understanding of human nature and to spiritual practice? Our meaning-making shifts radically as we develop, Kimberley says, and because of that our reality itself shifts. This is why communicating with people with very different points of view can fail so miserably—one person’s reality is simply not the same as the next person’s reality. We need to discern, what is their meaning-making reality in this moment? What is ours?
Throughout, Kimberley grounds the discussion in practical, real-life scenarios; she also shares intriguing research on later stage development that has found that as we mature, our senses evolve: our hearing evolves to deep attunement; our seeing evolves to witnessing, our capacity of touch evolves to embody presence. It’s exciting and inspiring to see the road ahead, to acquire new insights and tools to improve communication across cultural (and age) divides, to have the concept of bodhicitta unpacked so deftly and common misperceptions about emptiness corrected—and to witness Kimberley’s wise and zesty approach to life: “What connects us all is our luminous, aware consciousness,” she says, “and if we can lean into the messiness, I think we can find our way through.” Recorded October 3, 2024.
Read MoreKimberley Lafferty (Part 1) – The Path of Wisdom, Heart, and Ethics: A Developmental Perspective on the Journey of Awakening
“Applying a developmental understanding and developmental education is essential to any situation that we have.”
Ep. 174 (Part 1 of 3) | Longtime spiritual practitioner, gifted teacher, Tibetan Buddhist lama, and developmental psychology specialist Kimberley Lafferty integrates contemporary psychology and wisdom tradition in this lively, luminous conversation about the process of awakening, the evolution of ethics, and the extraordinary capacities that come online as we mature into later stages of development. What do developmental perspectives have to add to our understanding of human nature and to spiritual practice? Our meaning-making shifts radically as we develop, Kimberley says, and because of that our reality itself shifts. This is why communicating with people with very different points of view can fail so miserably—one person’s reality is simply not the same as the next person’s reality. We need to discern, what is their meaning-making reality in this moment? What is ours?
Throughout, Kimberley grounds the discussion in practical, real-life scenarios; she also shares intriguing research on later stage development that has found that as we mature, our senses evolve: our hearing evolves to deep attunement; our seeing evolves to witnessing, our capacity of touch evolves to embody presence. It’s exciting and inspiring to see the road ahead, to acquire new insights and tools to improve communication across cultural (and age) divides, to have the concept of bodhicitta unpacked so deftly and common misperceptions about emptiness corrected—and to witness Kimberley’s wise and zesty approach to life: “What connects us all is our luminous, aware consciousness,” she says, “and if we can lean into the messiness, I think we can find our way through.” Recorded October 3, 2024.
Read MoreA. H. Almaas Wisdom Series (Dialogue 8, Part 2) – Navigating the Inner Journey Home: To Presence, With Presence, In Presence
“Presence is the ground of all reality.”
Ep. 173 (Part 2 of 2) | In this 8th dialogue in the A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series, Hameed Ali gives a clear, colorful description of the three stages we go through on the spiritual path: the journey to presence, the journey with presence, and the journey in presence. “There’s much more to the journey than just being free of suffering,” he says, “in the journey with presence, there’s a whole universe to discover—unexpectedly we find there is a whole realm of splendor, beauty, freedom, and liberation.” In the third journey, the journey in presence, the stage of actualization, we are swimming in the ocean of presence or we are the presence itself. Hameed relates how impeccability, strong and pure like stainless steel, is an important part of actualizing presence, embodying our essence in our daily lives. “The ‘I am’ can function in the world as a person,” he explains, “I can be the vastness, an infinite, black, luminous night, completely formless, but still walk in the street as a person.”
Hameed also talks about the “pearl beyond price”—the individuated self that brings a functional capacity to the isness, which is why it is of incomparable price—and the point of existence, point of light, or pure I-ness. He discusses the individuation of the soul and the realization that the nature of the soul is the nature of everything: this is the nondual experience. This dialogue is another treasure trove of spiritual transmission by Hameed—with humor, clarity, precision, and beautiful metaphor, his teachings, even as deeply profound and mysterious as they are, come as wonderful revelations for us to grasp onto, leading us forward on the inner journey home. Recorded January 3, 2025.
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