Founder of Fireside Project, Joshua White, reflects on becoming a ‘loving rock’ and how Ram Dass’s teachings sparked his creation of a psychedelic peer support line.

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This time on the BHNN Guest Podcast, Joshua White outlines:

• How Joshua grew up feeling alienated from his Jewish roots
• The realization that we truly can just be observers of our own thoughts
• The inner knowing that there is more to this world
• Service as the highest form of psychedelic integration
• Being a ‘loving-rock’ for people in a psychedelic experience
• Becoming an environment in which someone can come up for air
• Connecting with our sense of ‘enoughness’ rather than brokenness
• Active listening and simply showing up for another person as a loving witness
• Welcoming all emotions and not referring to any as ‘wrong’

About Joshua White:

Joshua (he/him) is Fireside Project’s founder, the world's first psychedelic peer support line. He is a lawyer, peer support advocate, and psychedelic researcher who believes in the power of peer support and the role of support lines as foundational components of an equitable mental-health ecosystem.

Prior to founding Fireside Project, Joshua volunteered for many years as a counselor on Safe & Sound’s TALK Line and a psychedelic peer support provider for the Zendo Project.

Before devoting his life to the psychedelic field, Joshua spent more than a decade as a Deputy City Attorney at the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office, where he focused on suing businesses exploiting vulnerable communities, serving as general counsel to City departments, and co-teaching a nationally renowned clinic at Yale Law School. He also clerked on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and practiced civil litigation at Conrad | Metlitzky | Kane.

“Ram Dass’s experience encountering Maharaj-ji and having these magical experiences with him and all of the impact LSD and other psychedelics had on him, really showed me that these substances could be responsible tools for profound inner work.” –Joshua White

About The Host, Jackie Dobrinska:

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

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Buddhist teacher David Nichtern explains that making friends with the mind and internal world is the first step to relating better with the people around us.

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LIVE from the 2024 Ram Dass Summer Mountain Retreat, David Nichtern explores:

• How our minds shape the reality we experience and perceive
• The importance of positive mantra versus focusing on negativity
• Taking comfort and refuge within our own minds
• Understanding restless, “hot” boredom versus calm, “cool” boredom
• Musical examples for how we relate to one another
• The bridge between the everyday world and the internal, spiritual experience
• Mental patterns that destabilize us and hinder resilience
• Becoming open to our environment during mindfulness meditation

“Mindfulness meditation would be good because you’re developing patience and familiarity with yourself that’s accepting, not rejecting. It is, in a way, making love to yourself. It’s being intimate with yourself; it’s just you and your mind. You develop a kind of willingness to be where you are.” –David Nichtern

About David Nichtern:

David Nichtern, founder of Dharma Moon, is a senior Buddhist teacher who has been practicing and teaching meditation for over 40 years. He was one of the initial American students of renowned meditation master Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and studied closely with him soon after his arrival in the United States in 1970. He is also a business consultant with companies creating a variety of offerings integrating meditation in a larger health and well-being context. David is also a multiple Grammy-nominated and Emmy award-winning musician. David’s journey has crisscrossed with the Maharaji/Ram Dass sangha for decades. He has produced multiple Krishna Das albums and frequently joins the Bhaktettes live on guitar. He considers himself to be a first cousin and honorary member of the Bhakti community.

“If you examine the self-talk, the narrative dialing through our minds, there’s a lot of criticism, harshness towards our selves and others. We start with kindness and gentleness, that’s it, if you can’t get anywhere else, that’s really a good place.” –David Nichtern

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Vipassana teacher Trudy Goodman explores how trusting in the dharma and in ourselves leads to a more peaceful, present life.

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In this episode, Trudy Goodman gives a lecture on:

• The dharma as our reliable refuge
• Trusting the simple process of being alive
• Offering metta (loving-kindness) to ourselves and others
• Practicing mudita, aka, taking joy in the joy of others
• How the principle of sila (ethical conduct) protected the Buddha from his demons
• What to do when we are swayed by temptation
• Concerning ourselves only with what our minds are doing in this very minute
• Living in the way instead of worrying about a result
• Making each thing we do the most important thing in the world
• Using our karma instead of being used by it

This recording was originally published on Dharmaseed.

About Trudy Goodman:

Trudy is a Vipassana teacher in the Theravada lineage and the Founding Teacher of InsightLA. For 25 years, in Cambridge, MA, Trudy practiced mindfulness-based psychotherapy with children, teenagers, couples and individuals. Trudy conducts retreats, engages in activism work, and teaches workshops worldwide and online. She is also the voice of Trudy the Love Barbarian in the Netflix series, The Midnight Gospel. You can learn more about Trudy’s flourishing array of wonderful offerings at TrudyGoodman.com

“Trust yourself then, to this simple process of being alive, letting go of all elaborations and returning to the body, the breath, step by step, moment by moment, just returning to this simple basic fundamental fact of our own aliveness—our embodied being.” –Trudy Goodman

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