Singer-songwriter Devendra Banhart is a guest host on this episode featuring publisher, author, and Buddhist teacher Sam Bercholz for a warm, searching, and frequently hilarious conversation about wakefulness, suffering, friendship, and the unruly business of being human.

At the center of the episode is Sam’s new book, Rude Awakenings: An Unconventional Guide to the Buddhist Path, a book that resists polished self-improvement in favor of meeting life’s confusion, failure, and “muck” directly. Devendra reflects on the relief of finding a spiritual book that makes room for messiness rather than just asking you to become a better version of yourself.

Together they explore Buddhist ideas of deity, compassion, habitual patterns, death, and no-self without losing sight of the everyday comedy of distraction. The two consider how easily we miss the suffering of others, how social and personal habits become convincing stories, and how compassion may arise naturally when perception begins to clear.

Devendra also revisits Sam’s graphic memoir A Guided Tour of Hell, where their exchange turns to an intimate conversation about mortality, spiritual teachers, and the rare warmth of encountering genuine wisdom.

Watch this interview or read the episode show notes at shambhala.com/podcast.

Timestamps 

• 00:00—Introduction

• 01:18—Deities, Wakefulness & the Mess of Life

• 13:20—A Guided Tour of Hell & Seeing Others’ Suffering

• 19:51—Tantra, Wise Teachers & Guru Devotion

• 23:40—Death, Intimacy & Rude Awakenings

• 28:45—Advanced Buddhist Teachings

• 31:24—What Is Frivolous—and What Actually Matters?

• 34:17—“Don’t Buy It and Don’t Blow It”

• 39:36—Sam’s Next Book & His Wild San Francisco Years

• 44:12—How Devendra Became a Dharma Person

In this episode of This Very Moment, we are joined by author and Zen teacher Cuong Lu for a deeply personal conversation about freedom, grief, spiritual practice, and finding one’s way home through it all.

Born in Vietnam, Cuong moved to the Netherlands at age twelve. After his father died just two years later, he found himself grieving, disoriented, and searching for a way to live peacefully in an unfamiliar country. At eighteen, he met Thich Nhat Hanh. What struck him first was not a particular teaching but Thich Nhat Hanh’s presence. Cuong saw a Vietnamese person who seemed truly at home, peaceful, and free.

That recognition set the direction of his life. Cuong was drawn to Plum Village, where he entered monastic life and spent 16 years studying and practicing under Thich Nhat Hanh. His teacher’s guidance was both tender and compassionate, like a father and, uncompromising like a true spiritual teacher.

The conversation follows Cuong through the painful decision to leave monastic life and the identity he had built around it. Though it felt like losing his teacher, his community, and his place in the world, he eventually discovered a freedom beyond the pursuit of happiness itself. In releasing the need to be happy, spiritually accomplished, or seen as a teacher, Cuong found a much deeper peace.

Today, Cuong’s work includes service as a Buddhist chaplain in Dutch prisons and his teaching through the Mind Only Institute. He continues to share the message that “suffering is not a problem at all. You don’t need to transform suffering; you just need to come home.”

Watch this interview or read the episode show notes at shambhala.com/podcast.

Timestamps

00:00 – Introduction to Cuong Lu

00:44 – At Peace, Filled with Joy & Rethinking the Dhammapada

06:10 – Tradition, Truth & “Non-Buddhism”

13:15 – Growing Up in Vietnam & the Impact of War

18:24 – Discovering Meditation & Meeting Thich Nhat Hanh

24:37 – The Path to Plum Village

29:44 – Becoming a Monk & 16 Years of Practice

34:07 – Leaving Plum Village & Becoming “Nobody”

40:51 – Working as a Buddhist Chaplain in Dutch Prisons

50:32 – Life After Prison Work & the “Invisible Monk”

Select Books by the Author

At Peace, Filled with Joy

Wait

Happiness Is Overrated

In this warm and wide-ranging conversation, Pema Chödrön reflects on her life, practice, teaching, and making Buddhist wisdom accessible in everyday experience as the milestone of her 90th birthday approaches.

Pema shares what “winding down” looks like for her, and why, at the urging of Anam Thubten Rinpoche, she continues to teach. At the heart of the conversation, Pema unpacks her new book’s (Another Kind of Freedom) central question: what does freedom actually mean? It’s not the conventional idea of escaping one situation for a better one, but a deeper, unconditional freedom found by moving toward experience rather than away from it.

The conversation touches on counterintuitive teachings on disappointment and boredom as spiritual signposts, the art of working with people without getting overwhelmed, and why praise and blame are equally superficial, illustrated by a perfectly timed airport story.

Pema also offers a memorable image for “inviting all sentient beings as guests” without overwhelming our nervous system and shares how, in this later chapter of her life, formless practice and the aspiration to live free from fixed mind guide her day to day.

This heartfelt conversation is a profound look at what lifelong practice can become.

Watch this interview or read the episode show notes at shambhala.com/podcast.

Another Kind of Freedom: https://www.shambhala.com/another-kind-of-freedom.html

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction

00:37 What Pema is up to at This Very Moment

04:32 What is true freedom?

08:44 Teaching from experience instead of theory

12:28 Why Pema wrote her new book, Another Kind of Freedom.

15:46 Encountering the Myth of Freedom for the first time

17:02 Working with praise and blame

21:22 What Pema’s focusing on in her teachings

23:00 Working with disappointment and boredom as a tools

27:30 Working with people, the good and the bad

34:05 Pema's personal practice