David Nichtern and Duncan Trussell return to the Mindrolling Podcast for a conversation about understanding the real value of emptiness and recognizing the active role we play in our own ignorance.
How can we cultivate the ability to see through the distortion of our own thoughts and emotions? In this episode, the group explores what the Buddhist teachings around dependent origination and emptiness can teach us about seeing through the fabrications of the mind.
Links from this episode: Creativity, Spontaneity & Meditation w/ David & Duncan
Show Notes
A Way Out of Illusion (Opening) – The group addresses the illusions of the mind that keep us trapped in a prison of thought and emotion. Together the three try to simplify the concepts of dependent origination and emptiness.
Explore dependent origination, emptiness and more with Raghu and Lama Surya Das on Ep. 267 of the Mindrolling Podcast
What Are You Ignoring? (20:00) – The ignorance associated with dependent origination might be better understood as our wrong knowing or even our own disregard for reality. How are we actively ignoring the truth in our own lives?
“Trungpa Rinpoche used to call ignorance ignoring, he turned it into a verb. In a similar way to what Professor Thurman was saying, that there is some kind of active process that is being engaged, rather than a purely passive one. You are solidifying something without sufficient evidence. What are you ignoring would be a really interesting question when you talk about ignorance.” – David Nichtern
Cultivating Awareness (35:50) – The group looks at the ways in which a regular spiritual practice cultivates qualities, like compassion and wisdom, that are within each of us. They look at how cultivation through practice allows for a natural arising of these qualities that have been exemplified by countless great teachers and realized beings.
Full of “Me” (44:25) – What does emptiness really mean in the Buddhist tradition? David breaks down the three aspects of emptiness and what they can teach us about identity and how we relate to things. The group explores different practices and perspectives that enable us to gradually cultivate emptiness.
“On a day to day we are sticking to everything, our thought and emotions. The whole thing of dependent origination, we are going for it. Everything that comes sliding into us, we are grabbing onto it. This to me is the most practical antidote is to be empty of being stuck in anything.” – Raghu Markus
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Image via Bruce Rolff