Professor and Investigator Dr. Quevedo is hosted by Jackie Dobrinska for a philosophical talk on interrelation and psychedelic therapies.

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In this episode, Dr. Sylvestre Quevedo and Jackie Dobrinska explore:

• The qualities of love within the heart
• How the chemical components of MDMA aid in social bonding and heart-opening
• Touching into transcendent realms and the divine
• The importance of our worldviews
• Navigating difficult experiences when using plant medicine
• Turning to sacred texts to glean understanding
• Ram Dass’ perspectives on psychedelics
• How the Bhagavad Gita can help us
• The Indigenous 7 generation teaching
• The efficacy of MDMA in PTSD treatment
• Awareness and appreciation for nature
• The importance of community and being in connection
• The uses of psychedelics beyond the medical model

This conversation was recorded as part of the Ram Dass Explorer’s club. To learn more and sign up to join a Ram Dass fellowship gathering near you, visit RamDass.org/Fellowship.

About Dr. Sylvestre Quevedo:

Sylvestre Quevedo is currently Associate Professor of Medicine at UCSF and a Principal Investigator in an FDA trial of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD with the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies and UCSF. He earned his medical degree at the Harvard Medical School and a Master of Public Health degree at Harvard School of Public Health. After postdoctoral training in family and community medicine at the University of Arizona, he spent four years developing community health center programs in underserved communities in Colorado, Washington and California. He returned to postdoctoral education with studies in law and public policy at the Stanford Law School, followed by internal medicine at Stanford and a fellowship in nephrology and medicine at Stanford University Medical Center, where he was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar.

Learn more about Dr. Quevedo HERE.

About 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.

“The defining characteristic of a medicine carrier is his/her relationship with the medicine. These are not just chemicals or herbs, these are sentient beings that you’re in communication with.” – Dr. Sylvestre Quevedo

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In a stimulating talk on reincarnation, ego-death, and other dimensions, renowned Sufi teacher Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee bridges this world and the next.

Today’s podcast is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self.

This week, teacher Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee returns to explore:

• The unknowable essence of death
• Lessons and instructions from the Upanishads
• Dying to the ego before we die to this physical world
• The transcendent dimension of our own being
• Having choice in the afterlife if one transcends their ego in their life
• How relationships with spiritual teachers can last lifetime after lifetime
• Reincarnation and unfinished spiritual lessons
• Journeying through other dimensions
• Death as a friend and destination
• How easy it is to be caught in the distortions of the world
• Learning the lessons of our individual souls
• Being surrounded by an all-embracing light

About Llewellyn:

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Ph.D. is a Sufi teacher in the Naqshbandiyya-Mujaddidiyya Sufi Order. He is the author of Sufism, the Transformation of the Heart, and the founder of The Golden Sufi Center. Check out his new podcast Working With Oneness.

“The further one travels along the spiritual path, the more life and death are intertwined. The mystery for me has always been how life covers over so much of our true nature, which

death reveals.” – Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

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Describing writing as an act of faith, author Anne Lamott offers a workshop on connecting to our inner longing for creativity.

Today’s podcast is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self.

This week, Anne Lamott joins the BHNN Guest podcast to teach:

• Following our creative lives and childhood callings
• Meeting our creativity half-way
• How all of us start at the beginning
• Making time for writing in our lives
• Figuring out what it is we want to write and making a list
• Owning everything that was done to us and everything we have seen
• Accepting that our first drafts will not be wonderful
• Why we should not worship perfectionism
• Finding a writing partner or local writing group
• Taking everything sentence by sentence
• Paying attention to ourselves and all that dwells within us

To read the poem Anne recites, Monet Refuses the Operation, click HERE.

About Anne Lamott:

Anne Lamott is the New York Times best-selling author of many books, including collections of essays, novels, and long-form non-fiction, including the classic writing manual Bird by Bird and child-rearing memoir Operating Instructions. In addition to being a novelist and nonfiction writer, Lamott is also a progressive political activist, public speaker, and writing teacher. Keep up with Anne on Instagram.

“Isn’t that amazing what is inside you that wants you to midwife it? It needs a doula. It needs you. It has no pens. It has no paper. It needs you to birth it. So here is what you do, you stop not writing.” – Anne Lamott

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Live from Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Trudy Goodman offers insight on skillfully working with the breath by infusing mindfulness with lovingkindness.

Today’s podcast is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self.

This time on the BHNN Guest Podcast, Buddhist teacher Trudy Goodman discusses:

• Keeping the breath company with our attention from start to finish
• The breath as a rudder to navigate our inner experience
• Staying attuned and connected to the movement of the breath
• Finding safety and relaxation in our breath
• Alternative practices for those with asthma or other breathing concerns
• Studying the birth and death of experience
• How the Buddha practiced mindfulness of breath during his great awakening
• Feeling the breath within the breath
• Returning to the breath when our attention strays

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 and workshops worldwide.

Learn more about Trudy’s offerings at trudygoodman.com

“We’re really looking at and studying the birth and death of experience, how a breath arises, moves, and passes away.” – Trudy Goodman

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This week, Buddhist Teacher Gil Fronsdal explores our quality of well-being and how we can cultivate ease, happiness, and contentment on the path to inner liberation.

Today’s podcast is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self.

In this talk on cultivating well-being through Buddhist practice, Gil touches on:

• Happiness as something we do not pursue, but cultivate by creating and recognizing conditions for it
• The “three breath journey” meditation practice, which helps to shift perception and be present
• Developing clarity and ease through mindfulness practice
• Transforming challenging emotions and experiences by befriending them non-judgmentally
• Physical presence and awareness in the body as a part of cultivating well-being
• Experimenting with different mindfulness techniques to find what brings you joy and ease

“We create the conditions for happiness, and we learn to recognize the conditions that bring it forth. But we try not to be the cause of happiness, but we are cultivating happiness and well-being.” – Gil Fronsdal

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Describing the man-made wall between humans and divinity, Llewellyn reminds us of our own divine nature and how to access the light.

Today’s podcast is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self.

In this episode, returning guest teacher Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee discusses:

• “The Wall” between ourselves and the Divine
• The spiritual merging of the lover with the beloved
• Separation as a consequence of human consciousness
• Llewellyn’s book, Darkening of the Light
• The slow process of spiritual life and lifting the veil
• The wall that has been built between humans and divine
• How Christianity eradicated pagan beliefs and strengthened the wall between worlds
• Communism and capitalism as the twin demons of the world
• Accessing the light through our higher spiritual centers
• Going beyond the world rather than dismantling it
• Re-learning how to be sincere, responsible, and open
• Our shared evolution and a better, possible future

About Llewellyn:

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Ph.D. is a Sufi teacher in the Naqshbandiyya-Mujaddidiyya Sufi Order. He is the author of Sufism, the Transformation of the Heart, and the founder of The Golden Sufi Center. Check out his new podcast Working With Oneness.

“The Sufis describe how we need a separation between the worlds, 70 veils of light and darkness or the glories of his face would burn away everything. As I know from my own experience, the light of the divine is too dazzling to perceive it directly. Its energy is too strong. This is one of the reasons why spiritual life is a slow process, a gradual lifting of the veils as one develops spiritual strength, becomes more and more able to bear the light.” – Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

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Reflecting on the inevitable truth of suffering, JoAnna Hardy explains what we do have jurisdiction over: our action, speech and mind.

Today’s podcast is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self.

This time on the BHNN Guest Podcast, JoAnna Hardy explains:

• Recognizing the first noble truth of suffering all around us
• Breaking down what we cannot control in life
• How resistance toward the inevitable causes suffering
• Reflecting on our ability to control our internal world (priorities, attitudes, etc.)
• How our speech and actions are in our jurisdiction
• Cultivating a wise, steady, and skillful heart and mind
• The mind as our sixth sense
• The way we latch on to the stories we tell ourselves
• How one mind-state can feed into another
• Retraining the phenomena of our habits
• The relief we can feel when we let go of what we cannot control

About JoAnna Hardy:

JoAnna Hardy is an insight meditation (Vipassanā) practitioner and teacher; she is on faculty at the University of Southern California, a meditation trainer at Apple Fitness+, a founding member of the Meditation Coalition, a teacher’s council member at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, a visiting retreat teacher at Insight Meditation Society, and a collaborator on many online meditation Apps and programs. Her greatest passion is to teach meditation in communities that are dedicated to seeing the truth of how racism, gender inequality and oppression go hand in hand with the compassionate action teachings in Buddhism and related perspectives to social and racial justice.

This recording was originally published on Dharmaseed.org

“When we sit here and deeply pay attention to this process of the mind, it’s so fascinating. What is under my control, what can I control? Pay attention every time you have a mind moment to what you do with it and to it, and how you hold it, and what you decide your next mind moment is going to be.” – JoAnna Hardy

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Ram Dass taught that every moment is the perfect teacher. How is this possible when things are groundless – i.e. uncertain and constantly changing? How is this possible when we find ourselves anxious, angry, too tender, or even working with big traumas?

In this episode, psychotherapist Ralph De La Rosa sits down with Jackie Dobrinska, Ram Dass Fellowship Director, to discuss these questions. Together they look at how we can combine the inner technologies of East and West in a way that allows us to heal and thrive and even find joy in the most challenging of times – by uncovering the boundless qualities of the heart.

This conversation was recorded as part of the Ram Dass Fellowship’s regular online gatherings. To learn more about the Ram Dass Fellowship and sign up to join a fellowship gathering near you, visit RamDass.org/Fellowship.

Today's podcast is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self.

About Ralph De La Rosa

Ralph De La Rosa (he/they) is a teacher of human spirituality, internationally published author, and trauma-focused psychotherapist. is the author of two internationally published books. He is a psychotherapist in private practice and seasoned meditation teacher known for his radically open and humorous teaching style. He is personally mentored by Richard Schwartz, founder and developer of Internal Family Systems.

Learn more about Internal Family Systems therapy: IFS Institute

Ralph began practicing meditation in 1996 when he first stumbled upon Ram Dass’s “Cookbook for a Sacred Life” in the back pages of Be Here Now. He was a student of Amma’s for 16 years, has studied Buddhism since 2005, and began teaching meditation in 2008.

Learn more about Ralph and check out his latest book, Don’t Tell Me to Relax: Ralphdelarosa.com

About 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 interspiritual 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.

Learn more about Jackie’s work at asimplevibrantlife.com.

"If we were to escape, if we were to find that way, to just make the switch and go to the joyful end of the spectrum and never, ever, ever or walk on the shady side of the street ever again, we would be missing the biggest opportunity." - Ralph De La Rosa

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