Old friend and former host of Mindrolling Podcast, David Silver, is back to talk about correcting our own wrong knowing with compassion and wisdom.
Resources from this episode: Outing The Ego w/ Sharon Salzberg, Mark Epstein + Robert A.F. Thurman | Yogic Deities: Archetypes & Self Realization with Dr. Manoj Chalam | Jonathan Haidt TED Talk | Stay Happy, Stay Weird Clothing
Show Notes
Seeing Each Other (Opening) – David shares a recent story about a very unlikely Uber ride with a Tibetan Buddhist. He and Raghu reflect on the intimate connection that comes when we connect with another person over something that is close to both of our hearts.
Ignorance is Suffering, Knowledge is Bliss (14:55) – We look at Robert Thurman’s teachings about the Buddhist philosophy of dependent origination, which leads to a larger conversation around ignorance and identity.
“If you go back to the cause of suffering, it is ignorance. Ignorance is the cause of everything, that is what the Buddha found – it is the first thing he talked about with suffering. But that means it is unreal, because I ‘think’ it is bad; because I don’t understand its true nature, I misknow it. Ignorance doesn’t just mean I don’t know something, it means I wrongly know something.” – Robert Thurman, Outing the Ego
Righting Wrong Knowing (29:13) – How can operating from the heart of compassion, which each of us posses, allow us to counteract our own ignorance? Raghu talks about his own mistakes and misjudgments, offering wisdom from H.H. the Dalai Lama around confronting ignorance with compassion.
“Ignorance isn’t just based on not knowing what the hell is going on – it is when you wrongly know what is going on. More and more lately I have looked at myself, as much as possible from the nonjudgmental witness, and gone, ‘I have no idea if this is right.’ Within my lexicon of patterns and beliefs and projects I have no idea, I am acting on it, but I am becoming more and more aware of this.” – Raghu Markus
Archetypes and Right View (39:58) – David shares what he learned from scientist and scholar Dr. Manoj Chalam around what the archetypes represented by Indian deities can teach us about right view. Why it is that so many Westerners are relating to these kinds of archetypes more than the image of God that is presented in their own culture?
“We are not going to misknow if we realize that these archetypes can help us be free of these trillions of anxieties and preoccupations we have throughout our lives. Dr. Chalam says that meditation is important in this, because meditation creates stillness and then Ganesha or Saraswati or Buddha or any of them can enter you. They will not enter you if you are not still.” – David Silver
Listen to Raghu’s exploration of mantra, mythology, and archetypes with Dr. Manoj Chalam on Ep. 257 of the Mindrolling Podcast
Subscribe to Mindrolling Podcast on iTunes: SUBSCRIBE
Image via Bruce Rolff