Be Here Now Network Guest Podcast

In this intimate dharma talk, Mirabai Starr and Rameshwar Das explore the healing power of spiritual community and soul-level friendships.
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.
Join the Ram Dass Fellowship virtual community and learn about other opportunities for connection HERE.
This week on the BHNN Guest Podcast, Mirabai Starr and Rameshwar Das explore:
The concept of beloved community and why it matters so much in today’s world
Satsang, soul pods, and other forms of spiritual support
Ram Dass’s book of self-discovery, You are the Universe
The universal soul consciousness which links all people together
Accessing the depth of our being that Ram Dass called “the loving witness”
Releasing the lone wolf mentality and cultivating conscious community
The Three Jewels of Buddhism and becoming a refuge for each other
Healing through shared grief, trauma, and deep spiritual friendship
Navigating introversion and finding community in unexpected places
This talk was recorded at the 2024 annual Ram Dass Legacy retreat in Maui, Hawaii. Join us for another retreat this summer in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains! Click HERE to register and get more information.
"We invite you to connect with your heart, yes, but that part of your heart that is burning with yearning for union. Union with God, union with the beloved, and especially, yearning for the divine within each other." –Mirabai Starr
About Mirabai Starr:
Mirabai Starr is an award-winning author of creative non-fiction and contemporary translations of sacred literature. She taught Philosophy and World Religions at the University of New Mexico-Taos for 20 years and now teaches and speaks internationally on contemplative practice and inter-spiritual dialogue. A certified bereavement counselor, Mirabai helps mourners harness the transformational power of loss. Check out her many books and learn more at MirabaiStarr.com.
About Rameshwar Das Lytton:
Rameshwar Das is an author and longtime collaborator with Ram Dass, known for capturing and conveying the essence of spiritual teachings through storytelling and photography. Rameshwar Das met Ram Dass in 1968 soon after his return from India, and learned yoga and meditation from him. He traveled to India and spent time with Neem Karoli Baba from 1970-1972. His working life has been primarily as a photographer, including freelance work for the New York Times and other publications. He taught photography and photo-journalism, and also worked as an environmentalist and writer. Ramesh collaborated on several projects with Ram Dass including the original collection of manuscripts that became Be Here Now and the Love Serve Remember box set of recordings. He is the co-author of Ram Dass’s newer books, Be Love Now and Polishing the Mirror, and most recently Ram Dass's memoir, Being Ram Dass.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

From interfaith practice to ancestral wisdom, Kaira Jewel Lingo and Vincent Moore explore how engaged spirituality across traditions supports collective awakening.
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 on the BHNN Guest Podcast, Kaira and Vincent discuss:
The Beloved Community for Engaged Spirituality: developing a monastic space for Buddhist/Christian/non-denominational practice in upstate New York
Receiving Lamp Transmission from Thich Nhat Hanh
Contending with hostility, wars, and climate crises
Ancestral wisdom and honoring those who came before us
Skillful means and working with people in denial around the current troubles of our time
Enjoying practice, allowing individuality, and letting go of rigidity
Remembering that everyone has the capacity for awakening
This conversation was originally recorded on the Paths of Practice Podcast. Listen to more episodes HERE.
About Kaira Jewel Lingo:
Kaira is a mindfulness meditation teacher, author, and mentor who guides people to transform and heal through embodied presence, stillness, and play. She is a Buddhist teacher who has spent decades weaving mindfulness and meditation with social justice. Check out her book, We Were Made for These Times, to learn about navigating change. You can keep up with Kaira on her website.
About Vincent Moore:
Vincent Moore is a creative and creative consultant living in San Francisco, California, with over a decade of experience in the entertainment industry and holds a graduate degree in Buddhist Studies. For years, he performed regularly at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, an improv and sketch comedy theatre based in New York and Los Angeles. As an actor, Vincent performed on Comedy Central, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, The Late Show with Seth Meyers, Above Average, and The UCB Show on Seeso. As a writer, he developed for television as well as stage, including work with the Blue Man Group, and his own written projects have been featured on websites such as Funny or Die. Additionally, he received a Masters of Buddhist Studies from the Institute of Buddhist Studies with a Certificate in Soto Zen Studies and engages in a personal Buddhist practice within the Soto Zen tradition. Vincent is also the creator and host of the podcast, Paths of Practice, which features interviews with Buddhists from all over the world. Learn more on Vincent’s website HERE.
"Whenever I read the Christian mystics or any mystic, really, it's like the mystics are in touch with this space that is beyond the confines of one tradition. They're in the groundwater, not in the well. All the mystics seem to get to that place of oneness, emptiness, or total interconnection." –Kaira Jewel Lingo
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Trudy Goodman explains the healing power of mindfulness in helping adults be authentically present with children—fully entering their creative, playful world.
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, Trudy Goodman talks about:
Trudy’s own life as a mother and grandmother, witnessing many stages of growth from different perspectives
Becoming inspired by the playfulness, openness, and curiosity of children
Approaching the world with beginners mind: approaching all experiences as if they are new
A sonar for presence: how children can tell when we are present and when we are not
How the capacity to meet ourselves often goes back to the parent-child relationship
Striving to be ‘good enough’ as a parent rather than perfect
Ordinary devotion and maintaining a sense of routine care for our children
Learning to be alone and getting acquainted with our inner lives
Resting in presence and allowance rather than always trying to ‘fix’ our children or ‘correct’ their play and creativity
Trusting the insubstantial nature of that which bothers us
How our own expectations, concepts, and ideals, affect children for better and worse
This episode 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, engages in activism work, and teaches workshops worldwide and online. She is also the voice of Trudy the Love Barbarian in the Netflix series, The Midnight Gospel. You can learn more about Trudy’s flourishing array of wonderful offerings at TrudyGoodman.com
"Our mindfulness practice really offers us a way to know deeply what's going on with children and this knowing often comes in nonverbal moments of just seeing, just realizing. It's such a powerful way of staying present with what's happening with all the strange and wonderful creatures that emerge both in ourselves and in our kids." –Trudy Goodman
More Be Here Now Network Podcasts:
Lama Rod Owens covers the dharma of freedom, loving ourselves, ancestral work, and the power of meditation: Dedication to Liberation
JoAnna Hardy shares a guided meditation all around the first foundation of mindfulness – mindfulness of the body: First Foundation Guided Meditation
Through bearing witness, love & service, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee shares how we can collectively heal the crisis of disconnection & ecological devastation: Love & Service
Buddhist Master Thich Nhat Hanh explores how we can joyfully bring mindfulness into everyday activities like phone calls, driving, and walking: The Ojai Foundation Presents: Under the Teaching Tree with Thich Nhat Hanh
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Gil Fronsdal invites us to see Buddhism not as a doctrine but as a lived experience where insight, trust, and letting go give rise to genuine freedom.
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 on the BHNN Guest Podcast, Gil Fronsdal dives into:
How the twelve steps of dependent origination fit into the schema of Buddhist practice
The stark difference between an insight and a belief
Buddhism as a path to walk rather than a doctrine to believe in
Turning from suffering and clinging to peace
Finding out how Buddhism is meaningful to us individually
How we have all been liberated from something in our lives
Appreciating the relief and clarity that comes from letting go of clinging
The profound act of trust that it takes to be open and present
The door of the wishless, when the mind stops desiring
Looking at things exactly as they are rather than trying to conceptualize
About Gil Fronsdal:
Gil Fronsdal is the co-teacher for the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California; he has been teaching since 1990. He has practiced Zen and Vipassana in the U.S. and Asia since 1975. He was a Theravada monk in Burma in 1985, and in 1989 began training with Jack Kornfield to be a Vipassana teacher. Gil teaches at Spirit Rock Meditation Center where he is part of its Teachers Council. Gil was ordained as a Soto Zen priest at the San Francisco Zen Center in 1982, and in 1995 received Dharma Transmission from Mel Weitsman, the abbot of the Berkeley Zen Center. He currently serves on the SF Zen Center Elders’ Council. In 2011 he founded IMC’s Insight Retreat Center. He is the author of The Issue at Hand, essays on mindfulness practice; A Monastery Within; a book on the five hindrances called Unhindered; and the translator of The Dhammapada, published by Shambhala Publications. You may listen to Gil’s talks on Audio Dharma.
This episode was originally published on Dharmaseed
"How deep and thorough can we let go? Can we liberate ourselves? The challenge that Buddhism offers us, more than a doctrine, it offers us a challenge that it is possible to get into the very deepest roots of the clinging in our hearts and uproot it, to become free from it." –Gil Fronsdal
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Guiding listeners into bliss, Dr. Robert Thurman explores how emptiness, renunciation, and compassion reinforce our oneness with all beings.
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, Dr. Thurman offers us:
A lovely translation of an 18th-century poem written by a Tibetan lama
Finding ‘mother emptiness’ and reinforcing our oneness with all beings
Lessons from the Buddha on emptiness and relativity
Understanding renunciation as self-compassion
Prioritizing the dharma rather than what society makes us feel we need to do
What happens to the mind and body as we begin to renunciate things
Differentiating sympathy, empathy, and true compassion
Realizing how precious we are as human beings
How compassion arises from our own inner bliss
Releasing our need to achieve and cultivating a tolerance for ambiguity
The synergy of all elements along The Eightfold Path
This episode was recorded in 2020 during the Love Serve Remember Wise Hope Virtual Retreat: Day 2. Check out upcoming retreats HERE.
About Dr. Robert Thurman:
Robert Thurman is the Jey Tsong Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies in the Department of Religion at Columbia University and President of the Tibet House U.S., and is the President of the American Institute of Buddhist Studies. His new book, Wisdom Is Bliss: Four Friendly Fun Facts That Can Change Your Life, is now available.
"Renunciation is true self-indulgence. It's a real connoisseur’s thing to be detached, to have less baggage, less things." –Dr. Thurman
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.