Spring Washam: Meditation, Ayahuasca, Trauma and Depression

just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this interview is Spring Washam, a well known meditation and dharma teacher based in Oakland, California. She is a founding member and core teacher at the

East Bay Meditation Center located in downtown Oakland. Spring is also the founder of Lotus Vine Journeys, and organization that blends indigenous healing practices with Buddhist wisdom. Spring is considered a pioneer in bringing mindfulness based healing practices into diverse communities. Her new book is a fierce Heart, finding strength, courage, and wisdom in any moment. If you're getting value out of the show, please go to one you feed dot

Net slash Support and make a donation. This will ensure that all five episodes that are in the archive will remain free and that the show is here for other people who need it. Some other ways that you can support us is if you're interested in the book that we're discussing on today's episode, go to one you feed dot net and find the episode that we're talking about. There will be links to all of the author's books, and if you buy them through there, it's the same

price to you, but we get a small amount. Also, you can go to one you feed dot Net slash Book and I have a reading list there when you feed dot net slash shop and you can buy t shirts, mugs and other things. And finally, one you feed dot Net slash Facebook, which is where our Facebook group is and you can interact with other listeners of the show and get support in feeding your Good Wolf. Thanks again for listening, and here's the interview with Spring wash them.

Hi Spring, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you for having me. It's my pleasure. As we were talking before we got started, We've had a couple of challenges getting this recorded, mainly on my end, so thank you for your patients. It works perfectly. Today is the day, all right? So our pod cast is based on the parable the two Wolves and And there's a grandmother who's talking with her granddaughter and she says, in life, there are two

wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the granddaughter stops and she thinks about it for a second, looks up at her grandmother and she's grandmother. Which one wins? And the grandmother says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work

that you do. Yeah, what's so interesting is before I even heard about your podcast, I used to use that poem in different ways. I was like, I think attributed to a Lakota elder, and I've heard it in various ways. But yeah, yeah, but I think the message is really important. What do we feed and how do we live our lives? What are the seeds that we're planting? And I think for myself living a spiritually based life service and practicing compassion and mindfulness and trying very hard not to act

from greed, hatred, delusion. I mean, of course we do in some various you know, unconscious ways, of course, and I try very hard to you know, be um an inspiration to others and to help them not to create harm. Yeah. The parable does very closely sort of follow basic Buddhist teachings, right. You know that that where you put your mind to a certain degree is what you get, and you know it talks, you know, about greed and delusion and hatred and all that. So you are a Buddhist teacher in

the East Bay area, correct? Yes, I'm I was trained by Jack Cornfield and I'm on the teachers council at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. So I've been teaching there for many years. But we started a center in downtown Oakland ten years ago, so I'm there a lot. I have two different worlds. Spirit Rock in downtown in Oakland, Huh. Yeah,

they couldn't be farther apart. But you know, that's life. Yeah. Well, and you've got a third world, which we'll talk about later, but it's the trips and retreats you lead in Peru, right, Yeah, that that is the third one. That's the best one. I think. Excellent. So let's start off. You have a fairly interesting story about how you got to Buddhism, so maybe you could just share your story about what led you to becoming a teacher. Well, I mean, I think,

you know, twenty years ago. Actually, it's so funny to think that it's been so many years. But I was practicing meditation, and as everybody in my life was horrible, you know, many people. I was depressed, I was working at I was literally with a man that we fought all the time, and this really bad neighborhood in East Oakland,

and I was confused, and I had a job. I was bad, and so I was trying to practice meditation during that time, and I realized I needed a teacher, and so I heard about to retreat these ten day courses um at the time, I didn't even know all they said. Where they are in silence and there's vegetarian food and they will teach you how to meditate. I knew I wasn't doing it properly, you know. I would sit there and basically think about my problems not feel

that much better when I got up. So I was like this, I don't think I'm doing meditation the way it's being spoken about by these great Hindu masters. I was reading books like that. So I went to the retreat and it was very life changing for me, and I basically just started um kind of living like a dharma bum they call it, just going from retreats and practicing and traveling. And I did that for many years, and the teaching came out of that. I actually had

no aspiration. I was just trying to feel better, you know, I was just looking at my own mind. That was a full time job for a long many years. It still is, but you know, yeah, I agree, looking after our mind is kind of a full time job. So you found your way into Buddhism and really kind of went for it, you know, very very aggressively, and then

you became a teacher. Um, talk to me a little bit about what some of the things that you think are most important when you're teaching you know, the basics of meditation or the basics of Buddhism, Like, what is it the heart for you of those teachings? I think for me, what's the heart of the teaching that I've come to my own understanding is self compassion, That somehow mindfulness being present with ourselves is an act of mercy.

I guess that's the word that's coming. Is to spend time to be with ourselves and more sad or angry or we're confused or we're triggered, to learn how to kind of come in and meet that experience of compassion, to remember to do that. One of the synonyms for

mindfulness is remembering. I just like remembering what to do in those moments, right, And so I think to be able to be present and then to evoke that loving awareness, that some kind of compassion for the moment when when it hurts, you know, and a lot of our lives are filled with moments that are painful, and how do we meet them? So I got very interested in compassion. It's that's really what drew me in was how do I how do I do this? How do I live

this life? It is a catastrophe on some level. You know our daily experience, you know. And I was like, Wow, how do I do this well? I can't imagine anything more important than developing sort of the loving awareness or compassionate mind state for ourselves first, and then of course that carries out to others, But at first it has to become from us. We have to know that feeling from the inside and practice that. Yep. It's amazing to me how hard sometimes it is to remember these things,

you know. I find myself spiraling off for a while and then I'm like, and then I just remember a couple of basic teachings. I'm like, oh, okay, I'm good. You know. So it is. Remembering is a big piece of it. And I like what you're saying about self compassion. I think the thing that a lot of people get into and I did, you know for years in a twelve step program and in learning meditation and mindfulness, is

to really be judgmental of how well I'm doing. It becomes a I don't want to say a contest, but I'm being you know, I'm grading myself on how spiritual am I and how mindful am I? And all that. And I think for me, mindfulness and meditation changed a whole lot when that kind of dropped away for me, and I really stopped thinking there was a particular result I was supposed to be getting. Um, I think, as you said earlier, there are ways to do it that

are more useful and skillful than others. But I stopped expecting a result out of myself, for expecting myself always to be happy or be compassionate or joyous. Yeah, I would agree with you. You know, I think sometimes we do a disservice. I always tease the Spirit Rock community that we paint this beautiful picture of a blissed out woman and sitting on a hill and full of light and a smile. That is actually I just ended a

nine day retreat at Spirit Rock teaching it. Most of the people walked around with old sweatpants on, crying tissues everywhere. I mean that that's the real retreat right in our in our mess, in our confusion and our reactivity. You know, at the end, yes, we get to this sense of feeling, you know, euphoria, but the process it's not that. And somehow I think we're you know, we're we're dreamers here like this new thing it's gonna give me the ultimate happiness,

you know. Yep, Oh, I think we all chase that to a certain degree. What's the what's the next thing, the next type of meditation, the next spiritual teacher, the right way to pose if I put my fingers this way than maybe you know, And and I think it is all to a certain extent, trying to change consciousness. Right, We're always trying to change consciousness, and I think it's just built into us. Um. I don't think there's any

like getting away from that. However, the more I'm aware that I'm doing that and allow the consciousness that's actually present to be okay, I'm just in much better shape. Yeah, I agree with you. Let's talk a little bit about your PREU retreats. So you are branching out from You're certainly branching out from the spirit Rock community in some of what you're doing there. So tell me about the PREU retreats and what you are trying to do and

accomplish there. Yeah. I definitely have become a little controversial, you know. It's like, uh, yeah, I would say that in a controversial in a good way. You know. It's kind of opened up a whole talk about where are we in our society, Um, what do we mean by plant based medicine? So I'll explain to little bit about sort of the origins of low dis fine journeys and why I'd like to talk about it and why I like to share about it, and the work that happens there.

I started going to Peru eight years ago, and I was already teaching many retreats. I started East Bay Meditation Center and was there all the time. And I went on a three month course meditation retreat and I kind of fell apart, and I realized I had all this unresolved trauma, really difficult childhood, and all kinds of things happen, and I have a book coming out about that and

people can read about it there. But I realized that I couldn't address it in that form, being in a silent retreat, seeing a teacher every couple of days, very contained. That I needed something different, and so the thought of like, wow, I think whatever is going on was so disorienting. I actually could not, for the first time, really be mindful with something. It was just mind states of this complead desolation and hopelessness and despair and oceans of tears. And

I was very overwhelmed. So I left and went back to California, and I was on the East coast during the retreat, and um I met with a friend of mine who was a psychologist, who I told her, I said, all these trauma's coming up, as it always does for people who are serious meditators. They can't get blocked by this like old unresolved traumatic wounds. So she told me about ayahuasca, and she had been working with this plant called ayahuasca, and they were doing a ceremony a very

small group of psychologists. And I really highly respected this person. She was someone I admired and wasn't flaky or she was just just amazing human being. And so she invited me and I went that night. And I had nothing to lose at that point. You know, when you're in that state, you're just a rock bottom. I was willing

to try anything. I had been trying everything of it to that point, you know, And so um, I had an amazing night, and I felt in that one night I understood more about myself than I had the whole three month retreat that I had just went on. It was such an amazing experience for me, so immediately knew I would go to Peru and I would kind of study it in its most direct way at the roots.

And so that's what I did for several years. I started going doing retreats there, sometimes spending one month, sometimes two months. Um then I decided to live there for a year and in the Amazon with a Shapebo community and really study what is this that's happening. I saw people being healed from all kinds of things, and I always felt like I was an intuitive healer. So it resonated.

I came back from that trip and I realized that I wanted to offer something to the spiritual communities and my Buddhist communities for people that also felt stuck, because there's a kind of a plateauing that happens that I've seen over and over. You have all these openings in the beginning of your spiritual path, right, people go, Oh. When I was in India in the seventies with Bama, so and so, I felt But then they come home and they're like kind of plateau. They don't feel their

heart opening. They go to retreat after retreat and something's just not shifting and there's like a stuckness. And so that's what happened to me, and that's what I have been seeing for years in spiritual communities with people going forty retreats all over the world, and they said they're still struggling with the same issue, maybe self hatred, maybe you know, the same behaviors, or they're just not happy

and they don't understand there's something blocking them. So that's kind of the demographic I was looking to serve, like why are we getting blocked? How do we move past these traumas? And this is something I felt to be extraordinarily helpful, incredibly helpful. So that's kind of the story line of the idea where it started. Settle down, don't hit that fast forward button just yet. I've got a pretty cool announcement. I've been recording some extra footage. Is

that footage of its audio? Well, I don't know. Anyway, I've been recording some extra post interview conversations with our guests, and I'm going to start releasing those and it will be available to people who support the show on Patreon at the ten dollar a month level. So if you're supporting the show already at that level, thank you, and if you'd like to sign up at that level, you

will start getting post interview conversations with guests. Matthew Quick will be coming out tomorrow, as will several of the other ones over the next few days. I don't have it for every interview, but I'm trying to do it with each one. Now. Sometimes a guest has got to run, but I'd say out of the last five or six interviews, I've got it for probably them. So we'll start posting it. You'll be able to listen to it in your podcast player,

just like you would anything else. It's available for people who support the show at the ten dollar level, So go to one you feed dot net slash Patreon support us at the ten dollar level and get free extra conversations with me and the guests. So I'm pretty excited about it when you feed dot net slash support. And now back to the rest of this interview. Tell the listeners who aren't familiar what ayahuasca is. Well, ayahuasca is a plant. It grows in the Amazon. It's a vine

and it's considered to be a plant spear it. Now, for Westerners, this is very unusual. It's like planted spirits, plants being alive. What's going on here? I guess I could describe ayahuasca as a doctor. That's how it's been referred to by the indigenous for thousands of years, hundreds of years. I think they found a cup recently in Ecuador and the Jungle and Ecuador of an ayahuasca residue in a cup that they estimated to be two thousand

years old. So it's a medicine and um and you partake in this medicine in a ceremony in a safe place. Ideally you have a healer's a group of supportive people, and then you take it and it helps you. It's like a spirit doctor. And that's also probably a new concept for some people, a doctor of spirit. What do you mean? It's hard to explain. When you take ayahuasca for those hours, you go into a hospital setting and

it cleanses your body on multiple levels. So from a Western point of view, it's considered a hallucinogenic, right, It's considered something that causes a pretty dramatic alteration of consciousness. And it is also considered and more and more research seems to point to it is exactly what you're saying. It becomes very healing. So what is that like? What happens in that period of time that ceremony that you think helps to clear lots of old trauma, like what

what's happening to you during that period? Some of it sounds physically unpleasant. I don't think it's a you know, I don't think you describe it as a party drug. Right. It sounds like it's a pretty intense. The period of time you're on it is is pretty hardcore. So what's happening in that window? Well, that's a great question. So hallucinogenic, Yeah, that's kind of a Western word. Mpagon, I think is a better description for Ayahuaska, a more modern you know.

Definitely for people who have taken Ayahuaska, they would only describe it as metas and at that point, so what happens it's so different from for everybody the experience. But what ayahuasca is trying to do or what happens is that, you know, there's four levels of the human system. We have the physical level, mental, emotional, and then I would say vibrational level, you know, the level of g or energy just pure energy. So what ayahuasca does is it

cleanses all for those levels of our system. So sometimes people come and they don't know why they're depressed. Some people come and they don't understand why they have chronic pain that they've been all over the world and there was just debilitated by a back pain and can't walk

but there's no medical cause for it. Or people feel suicidal and they don't understand they're happily married, they have children that what could be causing me to feel so awful, Or they have different illnesses, or they have cancer where they have just all kinds of reasons why people seek

out to work with ayahuasca. So what ayahuaska does is is the nickname of ayahuasca where it scares people, the indigenous, the indigenus called la perja, right, So it's meant to cleanse your system of energies that are causing harm, and so that could be energies from abuse. For me, it was, you know, experiences that were very abusive once I was attacked as a teenager. All those things we've imprints on your body and your spirit, and it's like it's aspects

of post traumatic stress. We carry them and if we're not aware of them, they actually have a very huge effect on our everyday life. They color the lens of how we view reality. They create we get afraid, we act from fear, we get more afraid, or we get very sad. We don't understand that we're feeding that sadness. And so what Ayahuaska does is it hell apposed to understand the roots of the suffering. It goes down into that level. How it works, it's a mysterious process. I

myself have been amazed for eight years. I've participated it over three hundred ayahuasca ceremonies. I facilitated at least a hundred and fifty, and every time I'm always amazed. I don't know how to describe it as a gift from Gaya. That's what I've been saying. Now, it's Gaya. It's the Earth trying to help. That's what I truly do believe. Now, So this is something that you do it once and

you get pretty substantial results. It sounds like it also sounds like this is something for you that's been ongoing kind of year after year after year. Help me understand if it's so quick in healing, why the ongoing process. And I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm just really trying to understand. No, those are really great questions. It's not like one ayahuasca experience is going to heal somebody. It can be very eye opening, it can be very healing.

But like any kind of treatment plan, it's not instant. Just like you know, our one retreat. You know, people talk to my seven day retreat, Am I Am I done? It's like, well, now you're you're you know, we're just starting here. What ayahuaska can provide and why I keep working with ayahuasca is that it's an acceleration of consciousness. It it opens something in our awareness and helps us

to see the truth of the way things are. So rather, you have insights into into connectedness, you understand the nature of reality, you understand emptiness. You actually see these spiritual insights not so much in an intellectual way, but they become body based wisdom. Right. You feel it's so deeply you're one with the entire jungle. You never forget that experience, and it shapes how you then perceive your world. Right, You have such a powerful shift in those moments that

it slowly changes you. Now, is it going to enlighten you know, because that's not its job. This job is to help us wake up, And for those who are ready, it's a wonderful tool. Is it right for everybody? No, it's not. It could be too intense. It's not good for people with extreme levels of mental illness. It's not good for certain types. But those who are ready, able and open, I think that's the big thing. Open to something else, understanding um more to this reality than what

we perceive daily. Then it can be a very valuable tool, as it has been with Indigenous for hundreds of years. They've used it in many ways. Is there any history of abuse with it in indigenous cultures? Yes, as in all things is the abuse really comes from people who become powerful and shamans who become then predatory. So you have the whole myth of the dark shaman you know, who become you know, and that is a big problem

in Peru. I call Peru the new India. Everybody is going to South America, backpackers, seekers in the forest, in the jungle, looking for guru. It's the same thing that happened in the sixties, right, you have all these guru, some good, some fake, right, some having sex with everybody is part of their It's the same kind of scene

that gets a little bit set up down there. You have people coming and they're I think the shaman is going to save them from everything, and they have powerful experiences, and then maybe the shaman's like, hey, do you have a few hundred dollars I could have? Or Hey you wanna get married, or hey you wanna you know, So that's where things get complicated. Is there any history of substance abuse with it? Is it a substance that becomes like you know, alcohol or other substances. I know it's

in doably intense. I'm just curious in the indigenous population if it's if that is a risk. No, because ayahuasca doesn't let you. And that's why it's honestly, because it's intelligent. So ahuasca is considered even though gender has no bearing in these states of consciousness. It appears in like a feminine they called the grand mother Yeah, and other plants they referred to as the Grandfather Peyote and sam Pedro,

the great cactus up in the Sacred Valley. They refer to that it appears in the form of masculine energy. Getting addicted to ayahuasca would be very, very difficult because the nature of it is to wake you up, so it has a built in intelligence. Sometimes it doesn't work. You could drink a huge amount and it doesn't come on. Sometimes it will make you purge that desire out to use it to be manipulative, so it maybe you're sick

for ten hours purging. And if something that you can manipulate in that you know, it's not like beyond our graphs, you don't get a consistent effect, like if you'd have a couple of drinks or you you smoke a joint and even other how did you say it? And anthagen's antheagens, So our mushrooms considered an antheagen, is LSD considered an antheogen? What falls into that category? I think LSD and musitions would fall into that category. It's basically, you know, something

that reconnects you to your divine nature. I think one of the challenges with LSD is people often get hurt because of all the issues was set and setting and um and people who are not maybe ready for that kind of experience. There's no guide. The thing I really like about ayahuasca was it's it's always been held in a sacred ceremony. It's not something you would drink and wander around town. I mean it would be I just

can't even imagine it. I don't. I don't know. And somebody who did that wouldn't It wouldn't be a fun night, you know. It's not like that. Yeah, Yeah, I'm fascinated by all the research that's happening on anthiagen's and their ability to heal. I find it fascinating. I'm also a recovering drug addict and alcoholic, So I look at those things and I think, to myself, it's very fascinating to me.

I'm very interested in it. And then I look at it, what's my what's my risk profile look like with those things? Because you do hear people using those sort of things to cure addiction in certain cases, and so, you know, it's just for me, it's one of those things that I'm evaluating from the outside, and I can't tell if my fascination is a genuine interest in the healing or if there's some little part of me that's like I'm

going to get high again somehow, right. And again I'm not saying that's at all how most people use it. I just know for me, you know, I did I did psychedelics or antheagen's back in my day, and I did them sort of in a recreational way. I can look back and see how those could have been transformative, positive experiences if I had done it in a different way.

You know, I still see those as very powerful moments in my life, but my intent was very different, right And I I so appreciate you bringing this up, because this is the debate with Buddhism. You know, It's like, is this you know, as we know that in the dharma, there's these precepts that we follow, non killing, non stealing, being aware of our sexual conduct, our speech. The fifth precept is around intoxican and that is at the very core.

Is this an intoxicant? Is this a sacred medicine? Does this leave people down the path to addiction or does this liberate them from addiction? You know? And people don't know, and it's being debated. All I can say is in my experience of working with people, and I've met people from all walks of life have come on retreats, not only with me, at other healing centers where I was

there learning and working. You know, from alcohol to drugs that there was like a significant reduction in that the desire to use became less, the dire to escape became less is not really what we're talking about. That is what we're talking about at a moment. So we're we don't want to be here, so to work with the plan.

Suddenly it's like you come more into contact with your true nature, so to speak, your goodness, your wholeness, your interconnectedness, and we're getting out some of these other, you know, forces in us, our demons. Rastle around with them in the jungle for a while, and we sort of start to allow them to move. We suddenly want to be here. So there are a lot of ayahuasca treatment places. There's a place right near where I host my retreats called

TAKEIWASI that has excellent results working with hardcore acticts. Yeah, I've certainly seen it with heroin abuse. I mean that was my drug way way back when I've been off that for a long time, and I've been sober, a been sober a decade now, in a long time before that. And it's just it's an interest to me in that way because I see it as treating addiction and yet to your point, is it a intoxic Yeah, and it's worthy to think about that. It's a very important conversation

that I deeply respect at spirit rack. I understand the complexity, and I understand the confusion and understand the fear fully' is the reason that most of this happens in Peru because the jungle is so important or is a lot of it because of legality and law. So if you, for example, could use ayahuasca to heal here in America, would there be more of that or is it really important that you're there and in the jungle. Well, I think there's two things to that. First of all, South America, UM,

it's legal almost all the South America. Ecuador, Brazil just called Ayahuasca National Treasure. UM. There are ayahuasca churches there that that makes Christianity with you know, they have church services in drink ayahuasca and urban areas and they found that this was really wonderful. They're even administering it in prisons. Yeah, yeah, you can look that up. I have some links to it on on my Facebook page for Lotus Fine Journeys.

And I've been and also very interested in all the research and huge amounts of research around healing all kinds of things. So the jungle is interesting because of buys a backdrop. The vine grows in the heart of the Amazon. It comes out of this indigenous The Shapibo people are sort of the medicine carriers. There an ethnic group that lives around the Ukulali River, about a hundred thousand of them. You often see their artwork associated with ayahuasca. It's been

stolen a lot, their art and their imagers. You know, they don't think to mind the ones I talk. They like their artism the internet and people are wearing bikinis made out of their artwork. But so there's something a really beautiful one can do it here, yes, but there is something really beautiful about doing it in the wild in its natural element. You know, we're so used to like propagating things, stealing it out, taking it. If there's

something very interesting about doing it in that setting. Now, that does not mean that people couldn't do it in the US, and in fact, many people do. But it's sad because it takes some of them magic out of it, and people maybe are leading circles that aren't They don't have this lineage of hundreds of years. They don't really have the sort of the power that a lot of these amazing people have. There are doctors I work with a beautiful maestro and my retreats. He is a doctor

and very powerful one. So you may have people doing it here and they might be playing music and other things, but there's something about the roots and the lineage and having that experience of being in the natural world with it. It's a different experience in a home in New York City than being in the forest. However, it can be helpful, and there is people getting a lot of help from

going to circles here. It's just a different So for me, what I like to offer people is something very authentic, because I love that authenticity and I feel like that it's very powerful and it kind of reconnects people to the earth, and unless we do that, we're going to destroy ourselves on as we realize we are connected, not just mentally, not just just a good idea, but you

feel it in your bones. Yeah, it's funny that that sort of mirrors the discussion that has happened around Buddhism and mindfulness to a certain degree, where you know, are you pulling mindfulness out of Buddhism, Are you losing the authenticity? Are you losing the lineage? You know, as you were saying that, I was like, I think I've heard this this discussion, this discussion before, and I think just like

that discussion, there's there's nuanced points. It's like, is a little bit of something that's really good for you better than none of it? Or is you know, it's kind of like the meditation or mindfulness debate, like, well, if you're not gonna be in the lineage, you're not gonna go all always still meditating for five minutes a day better for you probably, And so it's just it's I don't think there's right answers. I just think it's interesting, and I'm sure that the debates at Spirit Rock are

very interesting. And it's funny because I would imagine most of those people there was a period of time where they were experimenting in similar ways. Yes, it's you know, and and on any group of a council, you have people who got exactly half of them may be experimented, and those were some of the most profound. The other half is saying, what about the lineage? Is this thing where the complexity is about me being there on the teachers council? Is that I so agree with both perspectives.

They don't know what to do with me, right now, I mean, we love you so much, and I totally understand this precept. Maybe this isn't terrib out of Buddhism when I'm doing down there, maybe this, but yet I'm gonna keep offering it. So your perspective then would be, this is not an intoxicant, as you said before, it's

a antigen. It's an antiagent. Stumble over that word. But I think you also called it a doctor, right, So it's not an intoxicant in the sense of I think the Buddhist precept against intoxicans has something along the lines of its clouding your brain and it's making it harder for you to see the truth. And what you're saying is that you believe in this case that it actually

makes it easier for you to see the truth. Yes, actually, because we you know, the thing about lotus fine was that I named it that because it's the lotus of the Buddha and the fine of ayolascas this amazing mind. And then the journey is coming to Peru and doing the inner work. Um, but that's exactly it. I tell our groups are amazing a lot of meditators, yoga teachers, doctors, and we I say Okay, here we are. We're gonna sit in a circle, and this is ultimate meditation. Can

we be present for the next six hours? And of course I'm here and our team is here, you know, we have a maestro and healer's going and they're singing and all this stuff is going on. But basically, I said, let's be here, Let's be with whatever arises for these hours, no matter how intense, whatever is happening. So I treated like an ultimate meditation. If one can learn to embody those experiences, be present for that, there's some kind of

very profound acceleration eric happening there. Even if we take ayahuasca out of it. I think the general point, which is that sitting on a cushion mindfully is a wonderful I found it to be an incredibly useful tool in my life. It's not the only tool, and often we need different things. I mean, my if I call it healing process. Over the years has been a lot of different things. Meditation and mindfulness in the Buddhist tradition has

been a big part of it. Twelve step programs who are a part of it, you know, some degree of trauma work and and really getting into that stuff. Was part of it. I think that taking care of my body in certain ways has been part of it, and so I think it really is even if you look at ayahuasca saying, all right, that's not really the right path for me, but I still think it points to the fact that there are different things that different people

might need to do depending on where they are. You know, when I was in twelve step programs, it was like a lot of people are like, this is all you need. If you do this, you're and I was like, I don't you know, that wasn't true for me. And I think you can see that in in mindfulness and meditation and Buddhism, think anywhere you go, you can see that, like if you just do this right, and my experience has been that, you know, one tool isn't always the

right thing for all situations. I agree with you. I mean, when I came back from living in the jungle for a year, I went into therapy, you know, I got into a relationship and then I was like, oh, wait, all this other stuff I thought I got rid of. Nothing like a relationship to remind you of where you've got work to do exactly, And then I went, oh my god, I'm at the beginning again. It was just

another facet of my psyche, you know. And now I'm back doing early childhood attachment work with a very profound therapist, you know, and and I and I and I grew so much and you know, I integrated that. It's always like, I wholeheartedly agree, it's not a one tool operation. We need money, and we need them at different times. And there's aut sharees at different times that resonate and we feel inspired by then we make me move on from that,

you know. So this is just one tool that I feel like in my heart, I feel like the planet is offering us. It's not only the rise in this particular medicine, it's actually all of them. Rather, it's the Native American church and winning the right to use peyote and healing their tribes and from their own addictions. Or there's also a very big cultural bias against it too,

that this is a legitimate path of healthcare. There certainly is, and I think, um, you know, without going into US drug policy discussions, which are you know, take us, you know, take us way off track, I think, yeah, you're right, I mean, I do think there is definitely a bias against it. I have a question for you, because I wrestle with this a lot, and listeners of the show

will have heard it fifty times at this point. But it's really about on one hand, what you're describing is this attempt to in certain ways change who we are, right, We're trying to evolve and become different things. So there's that. There's that direction on one hand, And then on the other hand is the I'm fine just the way I am. How can I accept the moment I'm in? How can I be okay with who I am where I am?

Those things to me feel like, at least in my life, they feel like there's a little bit of tension there, And I'm just curious how you think about that. Yeah, that's a great question, right, because it's all about except the moment. But then here we are always working on something, right. But you know what, I have a very clear view

about that. When I first got into Buddhism, I was very inspired, having grown up around mostly Christian philosophy, and when I heard sort of this teaching about your Buddha nature right that you already are enlightened, you just forgotten basically, that was very hopeful. I found that to be very inspiring.

You know, it's like versus your flawed forever and you better walk across the desert on your knees and maybe at the end of thirty years of you'll you know, I thought, wow, I'm already awake, but I just forgot So for me, it's more of uncovering the jewel. That's how I look at myself. There's this innate perfection there

and it's often obscured. Yes, if there is that innate perfection, it is definitely obscured for sure, And a lot of us well, yeah, I find it interesting because I tend to land sort of like on the middle of everything. It's like, if I take any personality test, is like, is there a dead center? It seems to be where I am, And that's where I look at original sin versus you know, perfect Buddha nature. I feel like it seems to me that we've got all that inside of us,

and it's back to the parable. It's you know, what are we feeding, where are we focusing? What what plants within ourselves are we choosing to grow in? Which weeds are we choosing to pull out? But I do definitely think for me it was a big change to to hear the Buddhist idea of perfection was so different. It's a very interesting perspective and was very helpful to me

in a lot of ways. Oh, I agree. I think when you if you have the perspective that in you are innately good and beautiful and and and whiz wise and compassionate, but that it's just at your core you are that that that you you set your life in a different direction if you believe that that actually, that belief itself, I believe changes the whole path I do.

Because if you believe at your core something is very bad and wicked and wrong and disturbed, that's a belief that sort of I believe undercuts all that you try to do. It's like a poison, and a very deep poison and a well right, but if we we our lives are different when we think that, it gives us some kind of confidence in our goodness, and we'll want to reveal that more if we we believe that there we we will naturally I think feed that side. Well Spring.

Thank you so much for coming on the show. I've enjoyed this conversation a lot. I'm you're very interested to see what I get from our listeners on this one because it's been a little bit different, but it's a topic I've wanted to talk about for a while, so I'm glad we got the chance to do it. Um. I will have links on the website to your website to all the different things that you're involved in, so folks want to learn more about you, it will all be right there and they can find you. Thank you

so much for having me. It was really fun, and I love this conversation as well, and I love what you're doing and how you're inspiring people. So I'm honored. All right, thank you, Okay, bye bye. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a donation to the one you Feed podcast. Head over to one you Feed dot net slash support