Founder of Shambhala Publications, Samuel Bercholz, reflects on a lifetime of dharma and encourages us to challenge our often distorted perceptions of reality.

Check out Dharma Moon’s free online talk this September, Light & Shadow on the Spiritual Path.

This time on the CSM podcast, Samuel and David explore:

• Samuel’s new book, Rude Awakenings: An Unconventional Guide to the Buddhist Path
• Shaking up our concepts of reality and social phenomena
• Working with our addictions and habits
• The unpredictability and spontaneous manifestations of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
• Learning how to walk the Bodhisattva path
• Intergenerational dharma and having an enlightened family
• Practical Buddhism and simply being ‘dharmic and decent’
• How Buddhism has traveled from East to West

Sign up for Dharma Moon’s world-class 100-hour mindfulness meditation teacher training and join Dharma Moon this fall to learn about The Business of Teaching Meditation.

About Samuel Bercholz:

Sam Bercholz is the founder of Shambhala Publications, one of the leading independent publishers of Buddhist and Eastern spiritual literature. He started the company in Berkeley in the late 1960s and later moved it to Boulder, Colorado, where it grew into a major publishing house for authors like Chögyam Trungpa and Pema Chödrön. A senior teacher in the Nyingma and Kagyu lineages of Tibetan Buddhism, Bercholz studied closely with both Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and Thinley Norbu Rinpoche, who empowered him to teach dharma. He has taught Buddhist philosophy and meditation across North America, Europe, and Australasia for over forty years, and is also the author of the new book, Rude Awakenings: An Unconventional Guide to the Buddhist Path.

“The way I perceive and most humans perceive is 180 degrees from the way things actually are. For the most part, we live in a fantasy world of make-believe, and we believe it.” –Samuel Bercholz

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Reflecting on a lifetime of practice, Joseph Goldstein explores how an intimate investigation of suffering can open the doorway to liberation.

Join Dharma Moon for a free online talk Key Elements of Teaching Mindfulness Meditation

In this week’s episode, Joseph and David explore:

• Joseph’s spiritual lineage and tying the concept of bodhicitta to his motivation for practice
• The inseparability of compassion and emptiness
• Holding an intense interest in whatever we are experiencing
• A tip from Joseph: ‘Don’t waste your suffering’
• The mental energy it takes to investigate our suffering
• Teaching from the heart of Buddhist suttas
• ‘Tuning in’ to the gratitude channel and thanking the universe for the blessings of our lives
• Utilizing Ram Dass’s concept of ‘how can I help?’ as the north star of life

Join Dharma Moon this fall to learn about The Business of Teaching Meditation.

About Joseph Goldstein:

Joseph Goldstein has been leading insight and loving-kindness meditation retreats worldwide since 1974. He is a co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, where he is one of the organization’s guiding teachers. In 1989, together with several other teachers and students of insight meditation, he helped establish the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. Check out Joseph’s podcast on Be Here Now Network or one of his numerous books.

“When my mind is distressed in some way or other, it piques my interest. I want to understand what the cause of the suffering is. That’s a little different than enduring it until we get to a happier place; it’s using the suffering as fuel and as the impotence to investigate.” –Joseph Goldstein

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Honoring both psychological and spiritual work, Trudy Goodman explores how she built resilience through years of dharma practice.

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In this week’s episode, Trudy and David explore:

• Trudy’s voiceover work on The Midnight Gospel, playing ‘Trudy the Love Barbarian’
• How meditation and dharma practice strengthen resilience
• Both Trudy and David’s work in Buddhist Psychology
• Looking inwards through both therapy and mindfulness
• The three personality types within Buddhist Psychology: deluded, greedy, and aversive
• Hitting the “jackpot”: Jack Kornfield and Trudy Goodman’s love story
• Reflecting on life as an answered prayer and Trudy’s upcoming memoir

“To come back to resilience, I really credit the dharma. I think through meditation and dharma practice, we open our consciousness, our hearts, our awareness.” –Trudy Goodman

Join Dharma Moon this fall to learn about The Business of Teaching Meditation.

About Trudy Goodman:

Trudy Goodman, PH.D., is the founding teacher of InsightLA and cofounder of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy. She has taught at universities and retreat centers worldwide for over 40 years. Trudy has trained in Insight meditation and Zen since 1973, holds a graduate degree in developmental psychology from Harvard, and was one of the first teachers of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction with Jon Kabat-Zinn. She is a senior Buddhist teacher in the U.S., a faculty member at Blue Spirit Costa Rica and a psychotherapist who is widely known for her role as the voice of Trudy the Love Barbarian in the Netflix series "Midnight Gospel”. Trudy is a contributing author: Clinical Handbook of Mindfulness (Springer, 2008); Compassion and Wisdom in Psychotherapy, (Guilford Press, 2011); Mindfulness and Psychotherapy, (Guilford Press, 2013). Learn more about Trudy at TrudyGoodman.com.

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Contemplative Scholar Andrew Holecek joins David Nichtern to delve into the powerful practices of dark retreat, bardo yoga, and dream yoga.

Grab a copy of Andrew’s book, Total Eclipse of the Mind, to discover more about the power of darkness for creativity, healing, and transformation.

In this episode, Andrew and David explore:

• An inquiry into the nature of mind and reality
• How asking questions is much more important than having answers
• Going into dark retreat and practicing bardo yoga
• Entering spiritual teachings as if immersing into a different realm
• The Buddha as the ultimate lucid dreamer
• Dream interpretation and liminal dreaming for insights into the self
• Working mindfully with artificial intelligence
• The balancing principle that darkness represents
• Becoming sensitive to other beings and archetypes when in dark retreat

Join Dharma Moon to learn about The Business of Teaching Meditation

About Andrew Holecek:

Andrew Holecek is an interdisciplinary scholar-practitioner in Tibetan Buddhism and other nondual wisdom traditions. He is the Resident Contemplative Scholar at the Institute for Advanced Consciousness Studies, and a research consultant for the Cognitive Neuroscience Program at Northwestern University. His work involves studies on dream yoga and the practice of dark retreat. Dr. Holecek is a member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, the author of nine books, and a concert pianist. He has completed the Tibetan Buddhist three-year retreat and is a frequent subject in scientific studies on meditation and lucid dreaming. His work integrates ancient wisdom traditions with contemporary perspectives, aiming to help individuals navigate spiritual challenges and end-of-life experiences. He is currently writing two books on dark retreat. Holecek holds degrees in classical music, biology, and a doctorate in dental surgery. Learn about his upcoming retreat events.

“I have died so many times with psychedelic experiences, with extended meditations; I’ve been doing dark retreat for 30 years. This is what dark retreat is largely about; it’s fundamentally a bardo yoga designed to bring about highly concordant experiences with the death process.” –Andrew Holecek

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M.J. Schwartz explores how to meet perfectionism with mindfulness and heal the cultural messages that keep us striving for impossible standards.

Help us celebrate 10 years of Be Here Now Network and support the next chapter of Ram Dass Here and Now. Gifts are matched dollar for dollar through June 30. Learn more and give here: BHNN 10th Birthday Fundraiser

In this episode, David and M.J. chat about:

• M.J.’s introduction to mindfulness and meditation
• How mindfulness was incorporated into M.J.’s work as a doula and midwife
• Learning how to wisely deal with perfectionism
• Healthy striving versus tethering our identity to a certain result
• How childhood parentification can lead to adult perfectionism
• Other-oriented perfectionism and criticizing those who do not meet our expectations
• Picking up perfectionism from the world around us
• Perfectionism’s role in eating disorders and the obsession with body size in our culture
• Synchronizing the mind and body

Join Dharma Moon’s for their Body of Meditation Training or learn about The Business of Teaching Meditation

About M.J. Schwartz:

M.J. Schwartz is the founder of Studio138 Family Yoga and Mindfulness. Having started practicing yoga and mindfulness at age twelve, M.J. is passionate about sharing these modalities with families of all stages and configurations. As a parent and grandparent themselves, they understand the nuances of a practice that evolves alongside life's many changes.

M.J. holds a B.A. in psychology from Smith College, where they studied perfectionism with a leading researcher in the field, along with certifications in mindfulness, yoga, and Intuitive Eating. Before returning to school in midlife, they worked as a doula, childbirth educator, and midwife, and continue to teach pregnancy and postpartum classes that blend mindfulness with evidence-based information. Check out M.J. on Substack.

“Other-oriented perfectionism goes hand in glove with self-oriented perfectionism. If a parent is hyper-perfectionistic, there is a chance that they are then very hard on their children.“ –M.J. Schwartz

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With both insight and vulnerability, Author Annette Knopp explores how our earliest attachment experiences shape the way we love, relate, and walk in this world.

Help us celebrate 10 years of Be Here Now Network and preserve the complete Ram Dass Here and Now archive. Gifts are matched dollar for dollar through June 30. Give here: BHNN 10th Birthday Fundraiser

In this episode, David and Annette chat about:

• Connecting to our own personal experiences within a creative process
• The intersection of healing and liberation
• Annette’s journey through complex post-traumatic stress disorder
• How our unhealed parental projections create issues within our relationships
• Attachment trauma and somatic healing work
• How our psychological blueprint begins as early as the womb
• The theory of being a ‘good enough’ parent 30% of the time
• Offering repair and having a baseline of secure attachment
• Working with our unmet needs through awareness and observation
• Looking at the message (imprint) rather than the messenger (trigger)
• The motherly presence that is within the path of healing

Join Dharma Moon’s for their 100-hour course on teaching mindfulness meditation or for a course on meditation and embodied wisdom

About Annette Knopp:

Annette Knopp is the author of Mystic Nomad: A Woman's Wild Journey to True Connection and co-founder of Blue Spirit Retreat Center in Costa Rica. A meditation teacher, somatic educator, and nature mystic rooted in 30 years of personal contemplative practice, she weaves Indo-Tibetan meditation, Andean earth-based practices, and modern Western approaches to trauma resolution into transformative teaching and mentorship. Her work bridges ancient wisdom and contemporary healing in service of human dignity, wholeness, and embodied connection.

Grab a copy of Annette’s book, Mystic Nomad: A Woman's Wild Journey to True Connection, or join her in Costa Rica for an upcoming retreat.

“These imprints are laid down in phases before we have the brain development to have even a narrative around it. When we work in trauma with people, it’s all about making what has been implicit, explicit.” –Annette Knopp

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Dr. Sará King and Kierstin Gray join The CSM Podcast to discuss their tech company, MindHeart AI, which uses an interactive map of human awareness for personal health and planetary well-being.

MindHeart AI is a liberatory technology company centering the neuroscience of well being as a catalyst for intergenerational planetary healing. Utilizing the Systems Based Awareness Map, the world’s first interactive map of human awareness, they are building a scalable, equitable platform combined with experiences that they call MindHeart Activations - in person events that support collective healing through combining culturally relevant forms of somatics, contemplative practices, land-based rituals and retreats, music and art. MindHeart AI is designed to create an infrastructure of care as a loving response to the rising loneliness, stress, isolation and depression experienced across the world.

In this episode, David, Sará and Kierstin:

• Taking responsibility for the technology we create
• Reducing the harm that human beings are doing to the planet and each other
• AI as a reflection of ourselves for better understanding of our emotions and identity
• The way that humans influence AI, for better and worse
• Empowering others to create MindHeart Activations in their community
• The connection between water scarcity, trauma, and AI
• Dr. Sará’s contribution to the documentary Every Living Thing
• Holding collective grief and sadness while still tapping into our agency

Join Dharma Moon’s for a free online talk about embodied wisdom on Thursday May 14th or sign up for their 100-hour course on teaching mindfulness meditation

About Dr. Sará King:

Dr. Sará King is a Mother, a neuroscientist, political and learning scientist, medical anthropologist, social entrepreneur, public speaker, and certified yoga and meditation instructor. She is an internationally recognized thought leader in the interdisciplinary field that examines the relationship between complementary alternative medicine, social justice, art, and mindfulness from the perspective of neuroscience. Dr. King is the co-founder of MindHeart AI.

Keep up with Dr. King on Instagram or HERE

About Kierstin Gray:

Kierstin Grey is the program director at Argodesign and the co-founder of MindHeart AI. She is a consultant specializing in using technology and service design thinking principles to bring about transformative change for her clients. She has designed a framework that centers around the building of narratives that use existing talents and skills within an organization to enable innovative change to resolve business problems. Combined with the best practices of design and delivery, she helps businesses implement products and projects that meet their business objectives and cultivate deeper and more efficient engagement with customers.

“If we’re confused, AI is going to be confused. That’s the reason why it's important for us to be clear on who we are, what we believe, who we value, how we love, how we relate to each other—those things influence how we design emergent technologies like AI.” –Kierstin Gray

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