Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: So is this like the third one of these we've done.
[00:00:04] Speaker B: You know, we've done several. I think we. We probably have done two I Thou video series, but we've done other.
I think we did some shows not necessarily tied directly to I Thou.
So I think we have. We have, I don't know, maybe five conversations there. Approximately. Five conversations, yeah.
[00:00:25] Speaker A: That's what I was getting at.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:00:28] Speaker A: So we're.
We have a history.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: We do, yeah. You know, I often try to reflect back the profound impact that you've had on my trajectory, my life, personally and professionally.
You are a extremely generous mentor who ask for no return. You know, you ask for no return.
[00:00:56] Speaker A: The world is shaped by your ideas of the world.
Would you agree with that?
[00:01:02] Speaker B: Well, it's actually. I mean, is it the cart of the horse? Right. I mean, this is very fascinating, what you just offered.
Which is shaped by which?
Do my ideas shape the world or the ideas of the world shape me?
Well, is that the correct understanding?
[00:01:20] Speaker A: I agree with you that it's a.
It's a yin yang kind of thing.
[00:01:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:26] Speaker A: So when the Native Americans were living here and the first European ships came over.
[00:01:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:33] Speaker A: If you were on the beach with one of them and you said, what is that on the horizon? They would say, that's nothing. Ignore it.
Because the idea that a ship would be coming was not part of their ideology.
However, as time went on, it changed. Like, oh, that's trouble.
[00:01:56] Speaker B: Right.
[00:01:56] Speaker A: See?
[00:01:56] Speaker B: Very much. Very much.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:58] Speaker B: A question arose in me that I wanted to start with.
May I ask you this question?
[00:02:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I like questions.
[00:02:06] Speaker B: All right. So I just want to ask this question, Richard.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:02:11] Speaker B: I'm going to ask the question as it should be asked, and then I have to provide context to it because it may not open in the ways that it should with just this question. So here's the question.
What is.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: Question mark? Like what is.
[00:02:32] Speaker B: Yeah, that's the two words. So the explanation is, what is existentially?
[00:02:43] Speaker A: There should be one word after that.
[00:02:45] Speaker B: I don't think so.
You want to define subject or object. No, but I'm not.
[00:02:49] Speaker A: The word ly.
Existentially means. It's like describing another word.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: It's describing the. Is.
[00:02:57] Speaker A: Oh.
[00:02:58] Speaker B: What is existentially?
[00:03:00] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Okay.
[00:03:02] Speaker B: Does that make sense?
[00:03:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:04] Speaker B: Yeah. What is existentially?
[00:03:06] Speaker A: Well, that ties into what we just said about your thoughts affecting the world and the world affecting your thoughts.
So that. That's always changing. Panta Ray.
P A N T A R H E A Everything changes.
[00:03:23] Speaker B: Is that Latin?
[00:03:25] Speaker A: Yes. No, Greek.
[00:03:26] Speaker B: It's Greek.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: Greek, yeah.
[00:03:28] Speaker B: It is Greek. It sounds Latin.
[00:03:31] Speaker A: Might be Latin from certain perspective. But, you know, Greek and Latin are kind of interrelated.
[00:03:37] Speaker B: The roots are.
[00:03:37] Speaker A: It's from Heraclitus.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: No, But I've been grappling with this, I think, in different iterations my whole life of isness.
[00:03:52] Speaker A: So give an example where it would pop up.
[00:03:57] Speaker B: Who am I?
[00:03:58] Speaker A: Identity or.
[00:04:03] Speaker B: Relationship to identity, I would say.
[00:04:05] Speaker A: Oh, that's a huge one. Yeah. I just read today that you can understand free will by understanding identity.
[00:04:17] Speaker B: Can you tell me more about that?
[00:04:18] Speaker A: Sure.
So once your identity starts to separate you from everything around you, you're kind of cutting that off from you.
[00:04:38] Speaker B: That's true.
A deeply generous and unconditional mentor you have been toward me and that you ask for no return.
I've never heard you ask for any return. On all your offerings and the many ways that you offer home and shelter, emotional support and understanding, validation for many of your. What I call sangha here at home of the future. And I've been beneficiary of that. I think I've benefited from that in some.
Some measure. And one of the most profound, tangible, professional ways that you've impacted me is through unraveling Religion, which Gary Serbano. It's had a birthday. I think a 40th birthday party, and you were there with a microphone, a recording device, taking the histories for posterity and sentiment.
How do you know Gary? Right. And I gave a little spiel, and then I was. Then, you know, I gave some.
It was probably 45 seconds or a minute, maybe a little more.
At the end of that, you said, would you ever like to do a radio show?
I was like, oh, hell no.
No, I don't. I don't. What are you even talking about? Radio show, you know.
[00:06:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:01] Speaker B: But that question lodged in me for about six to eight months.
And during the course of those considerations.
Where does this come from? Right.
One day, I don't know where it came from. Unraveling Religion. I hadn't even decided to do the show. I hadn't even really thought about it. I think I was thinking, like, oh, if I did it, I would call it Unraveling Religion, and I don't even know why.
But in 2007, I had major Reagan on as the first guest, and I just reissued that talk with edits in an introduction maybe two years ago. It's a fascinating talk, but the tagline or slogan of Unraveling Religion comes from Mage. And Mage's Major offered this to me as a kind of teaching or consideration, which is what you are is more than what you want.
[00:07:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I have trouble understanding what that means.
[00:07:06] Speaker B: Let me say it again. Really, you have to sit with it.
[00:07:09] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:07:09] Speaker B: What you are is more than what you want.
Yeah, but he's talking about the deepest elements of.
I guess just a kind of consciousness. Our consciousness is greater than the things we desire. Is what he. Another way of translating that. The consciousness we are is greater than what we desire.
[00:07:36] Speaker A: Now it makes more sense that you explained it that way.
[00:07:39] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
The question then becomes, how do we get people to recognize that what they are is greater than what they want?
[00:07:50] Speaker A: That's a tough one.
[00:07:51] Speaker B: It is.
[00:07:54] Speaker A: I mean, is it possible to get somebody to recognize something?
[00:07:58] Speaker B: Boy, I don't know.
I guess we start here.
How do we recognize things? And does something have to be true in order to recognize it?
[00:08:14] Speaker A: No, because there's so many things that are not true that are recognized.
[00:08:18] Speaker B: Do they last? Did the untrue things last?
[00:08:22] Speaker A: No, they.
[00:08:23] Speaker B: They don't.
[00:08:23] Speaker A: But. Well, does anything last?
[00:08:24] Speaker B: The true things last. True things last.
[00:08:28] Speaker A: If you could tell me something true that lasts, that would be. That would support your claim.
See, I don't think there are true things in that sense.
[00:08:40] Speaker B: Well, what time frames are we looking at as far as supported the validity of sustained relation to something?
[00:08:51] Speaker A: So you're talking about in terms of a person's lifetime something being true.
[00:08:56] Speaker B: It's a good qu. I don't know. I don't know that I have any preconceived notion of what that time frame looks like. I'm kind of trying to figure out what it is for us in this conversation.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: Oh, well, considering that the Ponte Re everything changes.
That includes our ideas on how the world works.
[00:09:20] Speaker B: Here's the issue that I have with the. What is it called? Pontifere.
[00:09:24] Speaker A: R H E a Ponta Rey.
[00:09:26] Speaker B: Ponta Rey. Okay.
My issue with the Ponta Re and the argument that everything changes is that.
And we don't even see this as a metaphor for all things in human existence, is that you don't even recognize that that argument that everything changes.
[00:09:46] Speaker A: Is.
[00:09:47] Speaker B: Consistent because there's an element that provides consistency for that question to be asked.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
[00:09:54] Speaker A: Yeah. You're talking about how logic is the basis that can't be questioned.
[00:09:59] Speaker B: No, I'm not saying that.
I'm saying if everything changes, if change.
If the basis of everything has changed.
[00:10:08] Speaker A: Does it include that statement?
[00:10:10] Speaker B: What is the backdrop that holds that there's a backdrop that if everything changes, that question would Change, too.
[00:10:17] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:10:18] Speaker B: But there's a backdrop, a sustained backdrop that allows that question to arise. It's like one of the most brilliant things that I've ever heard Eckhart Tolle say.
The author of the Power of Now and a new earth and a brilliant consciousness or soul.
He said he, you know, he. He came to his great awakening and grappling with a massive depression, and he'd really contemplated suicide.
And the question, in a deep grappling, in one of the worst nights of his life, he could not stand it any longer.
Literally, he said this to himself. I cannot stand this any longer.
And then this insight arose into him.
He said, are there two of me? What is the I that cannot stand what I am?
And then he thought, if there are two of me, maybe only one is real.
And then he fell asleep with that kind of resolution of a koan and woke up the next morning. Everything was bathed in a delicious light. He said everything was fresh and new, like the Buddha had saw the morning star.
Fresh and new, as if it appeared for the very first time.
But that. That's the same issue that I'm talking about here, that everything changes. But that's true. And yet there's a backdrop that holds that question.
Are there two of us inside of what we are, or is there an identity and a real self?
I think that there's an identity and a real self, and they can interplay in healthy ways.
But I would really say that that only comes through the fruition of a great amount of work to understand one's relationship with one's identity.
[00:12:12] Speaker A: Well, I like your idea that there is an identity and a real self.
[00:12:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:19] Speaker A: Got to write that down. It's so good.
[00:12:20] Speaker B: Sure. I mean, that's not mine.
That's replete throughout all of the world's explorers of the minds and hearts.
Everyone talks about that.
[00:12:30] Speaker A: Well, I know Kierkegaard does.
[00:12:32] Speaker B: Yeah. What does Kierkegaard say about it?
[00:12:33] Speaker A: He says you have three cells.
You have your.
I used to know this by heart.
[00:12:40] Speaker B: Do you want to look it up on your computer? Yeah.
[00:12:44] Speaker A: Let's see.
But one of them is true self.
[00:12:49] Speaker B: Right.
[00:12:50] Speaker A: So true self.
Well, I haven't looked at. These are. These are called my sleep notes.
[00:12:56] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:12:59] Speaker A: So Kierkegaard said you have a self that you deal with when you interact in the world.
So, for example, a lot of people, their job is. Is that type of self.
Then you have an imaginary self, which is the self that you aspire to be.
[00:13:25] Speaker B: He calls it imaginary.
[00:13:27] Speaker A: Yeah, because it's in your Imagination.
[00:13:29] Speaker B: No, I know, yeah. It's interesting. Is it that a translation of something?
[00:13:33] Speaker A: Oh, sure, yeah. I think he wrote in. He wrote in. I know he wrote in German or wherever he was from.
[00:13:42] Speaker B: Excuse me.
[00:13:43] Speaker A: So, you know, there's the.
The practical self, the imaginary self. And then he said the third one is the true self.
And he said the true self is the one you don't know, but you discover.
[00:13:56] Speaker B: That's beautiful.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: Doesn't that sound like something you would say?
[00:13:59] Speaker B: Well, I don't know. I think it's been said in different. You know, the Zen master, Dogen Dogenzenji says there are many languages but one tongue.
So we're all taking different.
Using different language for one shared.
Well, one shared wellspring. All human beings dip into one shared wellspring.
It's one, not two, one. So, yeah, I just like that question. What is.
[00:14:30] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. So anyway, the second thing that you inspired me with what you were talking about is the question of first principles.
So for a lot of people, the first principle is that it's something you don't question.
They have it in mathematics, where there's certain things you don't question, they're called axioms.
And in logic, there's the same kind of thing. You just don't question it. That something.
[00:15:08] Speaker B: It'S de facto. It doesn't need to be proven. It's a fact.
[00:15:11] Speaker A: Well, in order to move forward, you have to assume it.
So if you, for example, say that the laws of logic, that's why I brought up logic, are subject to question, what can you possibly say about that?
Because when you question something, you question it using the laws of logic.
[00:15:36] Speaker B: Right?
That's absolutely true. It's kind of. Yeah, it's a conundrum. It's a coan.
[00:15:43] Speaker A: So you are questioning what are the first principles, and you're just substituting one with another.
[00:15:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:51] Speaker A: But you're still declaring a first principle, which you called the backdrop.
See.
[00:16:00] Speaker B: I honor where you're coming from, but I will respectfully disagree with. It's the presupposition where you're coming from is not the full understanding of the spirit of what I'm trying to express.
[00:16:15] Speaker A: You haven't proved anything because what you've done is substituted one word with another word.
[00:16:24] Speaker B: I mean. Yeah, I mean, we're getting into pretty vast terrain, you know, why do we have discussion? Why do we have arguments?
Is it for one another? Is it to go beyond community into what is true, like truth in human existence?
These are good questions. Framer said better a good Question than a bad answer.
A Jewish. Jewish theologian.
So, yeah, I mean, Unraveling Religion was born in 2007 with Mae Dragon.
It's what it's. It's in. We're going on 2026. So it's. We're talking 20 years.
[00:17:01] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:17:02] Speaker B: Of Unraveling Religion. And, you know, you launched it. You helped me launch it from Think Twice Radio, which it still has a page on.
[00:17:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:10] Speaker B: That hasn't been really kept up, but the shows at the time of launch are still there and.
But I took it onto the major podcasting platforms and you taught me how to edit with software and, you know, do all that myself.
And so it's just a source of great meaning for me because I feel like I'm in my existential exploration. How do we sharpen one another? This is how we sharpen one another.
[00:17:41] Speaker A: I agree.
[00:17:42] Speaker B: Richard asked me and I asked Richard, and we sharpen one another in this way.
[00:17:45] Speaker A: So as a Hegelian, I would put it differently.
[00:17:48] Speaker B: How would you put it?
[00:17:49] Speaker A: The conflict of ideas is a reliable path to truth.
[00:17:52] Speaker B: I love that. Yeah. That I fully agree with the subsections of definition in there we've disagreed with on previous conversations that we've had. But the overall arching riding spirit of that is true. That's great.
Hevruta. In Judaism and Jewish traditions, hruta is the ways in which two students study Torah. You know, they sharpen one another by going back and forth, but you really. You're embodying the text with your understanding, which brings it alive and changes or alters your understanding. And then when you butt up against your. Your partner's perspective or paradigm.
Oh, yeah, no, yeah. Oh, I didn't, you know, and so there's something wonderful about that. Hruta.
[00:18:38] Speaker A: Are you familiar with Thomas Aquinas?
[00:18:41] Speaker B: A little bit.
[00:18:42] Speaker A: So when he lived in the 1200s, he was the most sought after teacher in the world at the time.
And so cities would make huge donations to the Dominican order with a string attached. We'd like you to assign Thomas Aquinas to come and teach at our university.
So he taught at Paris and then he taught at Florence, he taught at Rome, wherever the order sent him. He probably didn't see a penny of that. But he had a lot of power.
[00:19:14] Speaker B: Hopefully he didn't care.
[00:19:16] Speaker A: He had a lot of power.
And so he could do things nobody else could do.
And one of the things he would do is say, okay, class, for the next class, we're going to be discussing, say, the God's immortality.
Now, this side of the class you're going to come in tomorrow and you're going to tell me why it's possible and this side is going to tell me why it's not possible.
Namely, God does not have the power to commit suicide, for example.
So he always believed in that.
Both points of view.
[00:19:48] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:19:48] Speaker A: Ideas clashing with ideas. Yeah.
[00:19:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:51] Speaker A: Which is why I'm not surprised at the last thing he wrote before he died.
[00:19:55] Speaker B: What was what?
[00:19:56] Speaker A: Everything. Well, he wrote a lot. He wrote the equivalent of two Bibles.
And the last thing he wrote was, I just made a realization today that everything up to this point that I have written is like straw.
[00:20:09] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:20:10] Speaker A: Put his pen down. Never wrote again for the next four years. And then he died.
[00:20:14] Speaker B: We talked about this. We talked about this. I think we've talked about. About this previously. This and this because you can recognize through certain kind of like, awakening experiences, that recognition that relationally, words versus expanse, I guess.
[00:20:36] Speaker A: Words versus expanse.
[00:20:37] Speaker B: Expanse.
[00:20:38] Speaker A: Expanse.
[00:20:40] Speaker B: Expanse. Like expansive. Expansion. Expanse. Just expanse is a noun.
[00:20:45] Speaker A: Wow.
E, X, P, A, N, S, E.
[00:20:49] Speaker B: Yeah, expanse is a noun.
Like awakening consciousness and awakening, you can be just an expanse.
[00:20:58] Speaker A: Huh.
[00:20:59] Speaker B: Another.
Another way to look at that is not just expanse, but I, you know, I. I teach meditation in prison through the Rochester Zen Center. I teach meditation to prisoners at Attica. Or I did. The program's been on hold for over a year.
But one of the things when I teach there is that I say, I try to help them understand why we want to meditate.
And so in the deepest heart way, I try to share.
You are, you are.
You don't observe. You're not observing.
Observing as a noun, you are, as a noun, observing. That's what you are. Just the word observing. You are observing. Really getting people into this framework to shake the filter of the identity in the mind and the construct of the mind, observe it.
Observing. Now, that's all.
[00:22:07] Speaker A: Okay, I gotta write that down because I see it as a verb.
[00:22:13] Speaker B: Excuse me, you see it as a verb?
[00:22:16] Speaker A: I do.
[00:22:17] Speaker B: Why?
[00:22:18] Speaker A: Because it locates it in time. You know, the most famous book of the 1920s was being in Time by Martin Heidegger. That's what he said. Said you can't talk about existence without talking about time, past, present and future.
[00:22:34] Speaker B: I don't know that that's true. I don't know. I can see that that's partially true. I don't think that's a complete set.
[00:22:40] Speaker A: Well, I mean, I can't. I just can't. I just. I just summarized the book this thick in the one sentence.
[00:22:44] Speaker B: No, no, No, I know, but what I, I mean, this is the point of the, you know, when we go back, I always go back to this because this is my kind of my karma. But you know, the Zen practice is not solely bound in time. I mean, that's the whole point of the genuine expression of a Zen practitioner transcends, can't transcend time.
[00:23:09] Speaker A: Well, we think differently on that.
[00:23:12] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm so, I don't mean to, you know, this is just my paradigm. And of course, like I defer to. You have your own.
[00:23:21] Speaker A: Well, I can't think of anything that exists outside of time.
[00:23:25] Speaker B: So an example of something, an expression that exists outside of time is there was a great Chan master, Joshu.
Joshua was probably the greatest Chan master of the time of Chan in China, from the time of Bodhidharmas, bringing Chan from India to China.
You know, Shaolin, Shaolin was.
Shaolin was enhanced by Bodhidharma's arrival where he taught, he developed and taught qigong to the farmers, the martial arts of Shaolin also influenced by Bodhidharma. But primarily Bodhidharma was known as the blue eyed wall gazer. He was a very large man and he was in a cave. He just meditated for years and years and years and end in a cave.
And what he was really trying to do is return Buddhism to the true spirit of what the Buddha taught, which was just meditation.
So meditation or Dhyana in Sanskrit. When Bodhidharma came from India to China, Diana, the word meditation became Chan Ch A n ch. What does it mean in Chinese? Meditation.
So it's return. It's the mind only school. Buddhism, Zen Buddhism or Chan Buddhism is the mind only school.
But from the time of Bodhidharma throughout, until, and obviously Chan remains in China. But Dogen took Chan from China to Japan and it became Zen.
And that whole time, Joshua was probably one of the greatest, if not the greatest master.
He studied until the age, the ripe old age of 80.
He was affirmed and approved and validated to teach so many times within that 80 years, refused to teach until he himself felt he was ready to teach. And that was not until he was 80 years old.
And then how long did he teach for? At 80 he lived to be 120. He taught for 40 years.
But one of his koans, you know, a koan developed in China. It is a Chan. It was born in China in the Chan teachings of Buddhism.
And someone asked out of deep, deep, deep questioning, does a dog have Buddha nature?
We're very familiar with this. This is the most widely used koan in America. The answer he gave, which is just.
[00:26:17] Speaker A: Moo.
[00:26:19] Speaker B: So that that answer, the response moo, his uttering of it may have been in part in time, but he pierced something that was timeless.
So Heidegger's example that everything that we say is related to space and time is not fully a complete set. Because I think Joshu's response to does a dog have Buddha nature? Along with many other koantum using this as an example is not totally bound in time, and that's why it continues on.
[00:27:00] Speaker A: What would you think of somebody who had moo put on their tombstone?
[00:27:09] Speaker B: Can you frame contextually the question? I'm not sure what's being asked.
[00:27:13] Speaker A: Well, I know of somebody who had in their will that on their gravestone, that's all they wanted was that word.
[00:27:26] Speaker B: Do you know what moo.
Moo means?
[00:27:32] Speaker A: According to the way it's been explained to me, it means nothingness.
[00:27:39] Speaker B: You could say. You could say it that way. It's hot. It's sort of like when we were trying to translate earlier on, like we were trying to translate something and I was like, I had to like, reframe it in a way that was more understandable. But it's really the spirit of moo is negation.
What else? Richard Wicca.
[00:28:00] Speaker A: I'm following the thread that you're, that you're unraveling.
[00:28:10] Speaker B: So I'm trying to think, like, what, in what other ways have I deeply benefited from your mentorship?
I'm often, you know, I have no money and like, I live. I kind of live in ways that.
[00:28:24] Speaker A: Are.
[00:28:27] Speaker B: Very well trodden for people who are interested in the things I'm interested in, which is not necessarily money making, but. But it is much more a deep exploration of my existence and how can I relationally serve that relationship with my community, nature, the world and other people and community? How can I best serve that?
So it's not always that I am seeking to.
I'm not really thinking about where my paycheck's coming from. I'm really trying to investigate how might I best serve here. And so you've been very generous. Like, you loan me $20, you know, and that. That's a big deal to me and it may take me longer than I should to pay it back because I just don't have it. You're always.
There's never any element of shaming or, you know, you gently remind me and you hold me accountable and then you let it go.
You know, these things are not to be taken Lightly, the way you handle that stuff, I mean, that's a skill.
That's a boundary and a skill and a generosity, which is important, you know.
[00:29:33] Speaker A: Well, this came up in a conversation with somebody just two days ago.
[00:29:37] Speaker B: What's that?
[00:29:42] Speaker A: Inserting economics into friendship.
[00:29:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:49] Speaker A: And I thought of When I was 13 years old, my father said to me, he said, well, I managed to get your uncle, who would be his brother in law, a job at the factory where my father works.
Not only did I get him a job, I pick him up right at his house every day, take him with me to work.
Okay.
So he would take them to the factory where he works.
He said, you know what bugs me about your Uncle Ted? I said, what? He said, never once did he ever say, here's some money for your gas, or, I'd like to do something for you because you take me in every day.
I think he gave him a ride home too.
He said, so let me tell you something about life.
He said, whenever somebody gives you a ride more than once, find out what it is that they like.
Do they like candy, do they like KitKat, you know, whatever they like. And then every time that they give you a ride, have one to give to them.
[00:31:03] Speaker B: That's a very thoughtful thing to do. Yeah.
[00:31:07] Speaker A: He said, watch. Watch how it's gonna change the way they relate to you. I said, okay. So then when I was in school, somebody offered me.
They said, you know, I go home and I have a car and yours is on the way. Would you like me to drop you off? I said, that would be great. And after the second time they did that, I found out what it was that he liked and I brought it to him and I saw how his spirits.
Right.
And.
And I did that every time I got a ride. And then he would actually look for me when I was leaving school, like he was waiting so he could give me the ride.
[00:31:50] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's so interesting.
[00:31:51] Speaker A: So I'm a believer that there is this economic foundation underneath everything. And we have to acknowledge that it's interesting.
[00:32:01] Speaker B: You've described that we've had this argument so many times over the years that economics is the basis of consciousness. Your understanding, the way you just described it is transferred or translated to me in a way I understand and I can translate back to my understanding of that essential principle, which is that is economics, the basis of consciousness. I would not put it that way, but I would say that if you look at economics as energy. So when we talk about energy or currency, currency is a kind of energy.
What Is currency.
Currency is a fascinating word.
Currency is time. It is current.
Currency is electricity or energy.
A current money is also currency.
[00:32:58] Speaker A: Yeah. Symbolic. Yeah.
[00:32:59] Speaker B: All forms of energy. They're all forms of energy. So if you translate economics to energy or currency, I couldn't agree with you more.
Energy is the basis of the reciprocity of energies. Or if I honor you with good energies, maybe I give you 100 bucks, ask nothing for it, that makes you feel good.
Maybe I offer you a blessing of energy that makes you feel good. Or maybe I just witness you, that makes you feel good. These are all ways in which we can bless or honor one another.
There's something in many people that when you honor them, they want to reciprocate.
This is the basis of healthy community, of healthy human existence. That reciprocity is the basis of healthy human existence.
[00:33:54] Speaker A: That's exactly why I don't have a car.
[00:33:57] Speaker B: Tell me about that.
[00:33:58] Speaker A: It dawned on me after years and years and years of people saying, gee, you've done so many things for me. What can I do for you? And I would say, I can't think of anything, but I'll let you know.
[00:34:07] Speaker B: I just did that today. I was like, richard, what can I bring over for you today? I know you don't have a car.
[00:34:11] Speaker A: And then when my lease ran out one year, I said, what would it be like to not have a car?
[00:34:19] Speaker B: And.
[00:34:19] Speaker A: And then whenever anybody would say to me, can I do. Yeah, you could take me to the supermarket, you take me to the doctor, I said, I'm going to give it a try. And the person at the dealership said, it'll never work out.
I'll see you back here in a month. Well, that was five years ago.
[00:34:36] Speaker B: Right.
Right.
No car insurance, no gas, no car payment.
[00:34:42] Speaker A: And then I also. I developed this bond with people because the circle became complete.
I did something for them, they did something for me. You see what I mean?
[00:34:55] Speaker B: That reciprocity is the basis of healthy human existence.
[00:34:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:59] Speaker B: I really feel that very deeply. Yeah. Now, there are people who don't recognize that.
And so I'm really grappling in my existential explanation explorations. How can I support people who don't recognize the value, benefit, and necessity of reciprocity?
They just take, you know, people who just take.
[00:35:22] Speaker A: Right.
[00:35:23] Speaker B: I'm really trying to.
[00:35:24] Speaker A: I think it's a good idea to call to their attention.
[00:35:27] Speaker B: Some people do not care.
[00:35:30] Speaker A: I know.
[00:35:32] Speaker B: And it goes that. That's like a good or a moderate example that goes way worse than that in human beings. Like in Consciousness.
I mean, it can get really bad. Some of the paradigms and phenomenology of human beings is not good. It's very.
[00:35:47] Speaker A: Well, I think it has to do with maybe the trauma they've experienced in their life.
[00:35:52] Speaker B: It could be. It could be something deeper than that, though. I think that that's true, that there are elements of trauma that impair people from recognizing the need for reciprocity. That's true.
[00:36:02] Speaker A: Well, you know about Abraham Lincoln's wife?
[00:36:04] Speaker B: No.
[00:36:06] Speaker A: Mary Todd Lincoln, she had this kind of breakdown after her baby died.
[00:36:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:36:11] Speaker A: And so the president was always cutting her slack.
So when she would like, say to a secret Serviceman, take me to town, I want to buy a pair of gloves. And she would buy like 20.
And then Lincoln would say, look, she. She's going through all this. Well, she had these other quirks that divided developed in her. Like at one point, Lincoln ordered. He didn't order. He invited General Grant and his wife to come over for a meal. And Lincoln said, look, and then after we eat, we can discuss how the war is going, the Civil War.
Grant said, great. So he brought him over. They had the meal. Lincoln said to Grant, let's go in the other room, discuss what we were going to discuss.
Everybody else is in this room. Julie Grant gets up, goes over, sits down next to Mary Todd Lincoln, and she goes, how dare you sit next to the first lady without asking my permission first.
So it didn't sit too well with Julia Grant.
So she told her husband, I'm never going back to that. To that house again. I don't want to be in that woman's presence.
I don't care what she went through. I just can't stand to be treated that way.
So when the war ended and then Lincoln said to Grant, hey, let's get together. I'm going to this play tonight. Would you like to sit in a box with me?
Julie said, you go alone because I'm not going with you.
And Grant said, well, if you're not going, I'm not going. I'll make an excuse why we can't make it.
But, yeah, there are people who've had like, some kind of. Maybe they've been cheated a lot in their life, so now they feel due this.
[00:37:50] Speaker B: Ah, interesting. Interesting perspective. I'm due this whole notion of desert. I don't like this notion of desert. I deserve. Oh, I have a problem with that. I have a big problem with that.
Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, you know, it's like the notion of propriety.
I don't like that. The notion of propriety. I don't like that.
[00:38:11] Speaker A: Yeah? What's an example of that?
[00:38:13] Speaker B: I own this phone.
This phone's mine. Don't touch my phone.
Posted land.
[00:38:20] Speaker A: It becomes an extension of their identity.
[00:38:22] Speaker B: Well, posted land, I'm gonna shoot you if you walk over on this blade of grass.
[00:38:26] Speaker A: Carl Sandberg's poem.
[00:38:27] Speaker B: Yeah, but tell me about Carl Sandbag.
[00:38:29] Speaker A: It's a short little poem. It goes like this.
Hey there, get off my land.
Oh, yeah? Who says it's your land? It's my land. My daddy gave it to me.
Yeah? How'd your daddy get it? He got it from his daddy. Where'd he get it from? His daddy fought for it.
Oh, well, then I'll fight you for it.
Was the early Carl Sandberg. Yeah.
[00:38:54] Speaker B: Yeah. I wouldn't go so militant on land ownership, but I would ask myself, the notion of propriety and sharing and welcoming, you know, if you're under threat, if your being is under threat, that's one issue. But when you seek to harm others because you think they're threatening something you own, that you're getting into a nebulous territory there where it's very problematic because then that's carried way too far too often, especially in this culture and community that is so commoditized, so materialistic, where we think we are the things we own. And even the advertising is like. So, you know, I constantly see love and products deeply in advertising, bound together like love and Subaru.
Well, if you get a Subaru, then you're loved. Like, there's this element of like.
And so people who are lonely. There are many lonely people in our culture and community because we're divested of a lot of the spiritual meaning of existence. We don't have frameworks to nurture and grow that. So there's a lot of existential loneliness and individual, like, psychological loneliness in people. And so these products and the advertisings share, like, if you want to feel loved, buy this item. And it just exacerbates the loneliness.
[00:40:21] Speaker A: Yeah, the diamond people really get into that. If he gives you a diamond, it means he loves you.
[00:40:26] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's much better to receive, like, a genuine, affectionate hug rather than a diamond is much more valuable than a diamond. A hug, a true hug, is much more valuable than any diamond, I feel, if it's from the heart and genuine and fully for the other person. Yeah.
So, yeah.
So, yeah, I guess, you know, and wondering about what is and what is existentially, I think about friendship and mentorship and I Think about you, Richard, and I think about the many years you've been doing this through the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s teens. This is 60 years you've been doing this. Right.
[00:41:14] Speaker A: Yes. I haven't really reflected on it.
[00:41:18] Speaker B: Nice of me to point out. Right.
But, you know, I just. I.
[00:41:24] Speaker A: There.
[00:41:24] Speaker B: There was that wonderful movie that I don't. I don't. You know, I just. The mess of. The Spirit of It was. The spirit of it was so wonderful. Mr. Holland's opus. You know, I wonder about that in relation to you.
[00:41:35] Speaker A: Yeah. I've refreshed my memory on the plot.
[00:41:38] Speaker B: The plot is sort of like this music teacher who does a wonderful teacher, and. And at the end, it all returns to him in a kind of, like, recognition of his impact on so many different lives.
I wonder. I wonder. I wonder how you might reflect upon the impact you've had on so many people. You may not, because there's an element of humility in you that you may tend to diminish your impact.
It is not a small thing you've done here in the world, and it's not over yet. I mean, I don't mean to, but, like. Yeah. For me alone, I mean, the unraveling religion has been really an important part of my life. A steadfast staple of something that I don't have to turn to regularly, but I may take time off either for whatever reasons, and then return to it. It's always there, and I can build and grow on it. It's something nobody can take away from me.
[00:42:39] Speaker A: So when I first suggested the idea of you doing your own show.
[00:42:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:42:45] Speaker A: At first you were like, no, why would I do that?
[00:42:48] Speaker B: Right.
[00:42:49] Speaker A: Because it was outside your identity. Right.
[00:42:51] Speaker B: It was a ship coming at me and I was on land.
[00:42:53] Speaker A: Yeah. There's nothing there.
[00:42:55] Speaker B: I was like, what are you talking about?
[00:42:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
And. But then as time went on on, you somehow allowed the idea to infiltrate into your life.
[00:43:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I did. I did. Yeah. I'd always been curious about spirituality, but it's really deepened by spirituality, and it's open to me, to some amazing teachers, you know.
[00:43:14] Speaker A: Well, that last guest you had, the.
[00:43:16] Speaker B: Irish guy, Padraic Otuamo. Yeah.
[00:43:19] Speaker A: That was great.
[00:43:19] Speaker B: He's a poet and theologian.
[00:43:22] Speaker A: He mentioned he did a podcast where he read the poem, he interpreted it. And you read it again. I went and listened.
[00:43:28] Speaker B: You did?
[00:43:29] Speaker A: Yeah, to his podcast.
[00:43:31] Speaker B: So he has a podcast. But, you know, Krista Tippett's on Being.
Do you know Krista Tippett's on Being about her tagline. Is about the big questions, the big questions of existence.
[00:43:42] Speaker A: So there's this person named Krista Tippetts.
[00:43:45] Speaker B: Yeah. She has a podcast for many years.
Her initial podcast was Speaking of Faith.
[00:43:52] Speaker A: And then maybe.
[00:43:53] Speaker B: I don't know if it was 20 years ago, give or take, she developed On Being, which just the heavy hitters of poets and artists and thinkers and philosophers. The heavy, heavy hitters.
[00:44:06] Speaker A: Oh, look it up.
[00:44:07] Speaker B: Yeah. And then a subsection of On Being is Poetry Unbound, which for many, many years Padre Koh Tuma has hosted.
[00:44:15] Speaker A: Oh, I see.
[00:44:16] Speaker B: So one.
[00:44:17] Speaker A: That's the connection.
[00:44:18] Speaker B: That's the connection is that he's hosted Poetry Unbound. But there was this wonderful. This one talk given by this father.
I don't remember his name, but he.
[00:44:33] Speaker A: Father.
[00:44:34] Speaker B: Like a priest or like a priest, yeah. But in la he had worked with gangs and I think this one podcast he had done had like 20 million listens.
It was just a very well listened.
[00:44:48] Speaker A: Is it part of On Being?
[00:44:49] Speaker B: Yeah, it's.
It's actually an extraordinary. It's such an extraordinary.
Let me see if I can find it.
Yeah.
On Being a Gang Father and Father Greg Boyle, who founded Homeboy Industries, which employed. I don't know if it's. I hope to God it's still going.
Homeboy Industries would employ individuals who were previously in gangs or struggling to leave gangs, or he would give them work and family like he was a father to them, like he would mentor them. And. And so he did this one talk that was so astonishing.
Here it is. Yeah.
So I don't know, he just did another one in 2019.
The calling of gangs, service and kinship.
Kinship, family and these. This guy is like what a heart and just is built to do this and does it very, very well. He really.
He's a great example of what I would imagine a true Christian to be, but another example of a mentor. In the same way you provide mentorship, he's providing mentorship very important in the world.
I had a talk with Chris Barbera, activist for homelessness.
[00:46:20] Speaker A: But he used to do the teaching that you do at Attica, didn't he? Chris?
[00:46:24] Speaker B: Well, he did letter writing, so.
[00:46:27] Speaker A: Oh, he taught a different subject.
[00:46:29] Speaker B: He did it a different way. So he.
Jesus, the Liberator Seminary, did letter writing, correspondence and education, religious education and philosophical education with inmates. Yeah, but yeah, Chris. Chris is amazing. And then.
So I was going to say I lost my thread.
[00:46:55] Speaker A: Well, there is this author who wrote the book called In Search of the Historical Jesus.
And this author brought up a lot of points like how Could Jesus have been born in Bethlehem? If Bethlehem. Archaeological evidence shows that it was founded 200 years after he was born, you know, there was no Bethlehem.
So things like that, which are casting doubt that maybe Jesus is a mess made up story. So I was asking people who professed Christianity, what if you discovered that the whole Jesus thing was like a made up story to embellish the religion?
Would you still be a Christian? Everybody I asked said no, except for Chris Barbera. He goes, yeah, why wouldn't I? It's the principles that matter. Right, Right.
There's a historical figure.
[00:47:42] Speaker B: He's an amazingly deep thinker and a beautiful.
[00:47:45] Speaker A: I've always respected that he's a very deep thinker.
[00:47:49] Speaker B: But, oh. So we, we had done a podcast. I had a bunch of talks, three talks from him that I reissued. They were archived. I edited them, reissued them, and we did a trailer, we did a trailer about these three reissued talks, which I released one month at a time.
I, I issued the trailer and the first talk and then the next month, the second and the third talk.
We spoke about mentorship, the power of mentorship and really why. In Judaism, the preeminent emphasis is on the widow, the stranger and the orphan.
But the orphan is for the Lubavitcher Rebbe who passed in 1994. Orphans were preeminent in his care. In his purview to take care of children who did not have parents or models to teach how to relate to the world was the most. He felt most incumbent upon himself to guide and invest his energies in supporting experiences of people who are orphans. And so why is this? In Torah it's taught there are 10 commandments. And so the first one, two, three, four and five are between God and man.
Six or 10 are between in the community.
How the communities to relate to one another, one through five is between God and man. Six or ten community. What is the one that links them? The fifth commandment bridges that because honor thy father and mother, God has given you these parents to teach you how to relate to the world and how to relate spiritually to God. And so when you don't have a father and mother in the ways to teach you how to do that, people who are called to do that must step in and provide that support of that sort of support for people who are in need or have the potential to step into their lives and provide that kind of mentorship. It's very transformative for people. I've been transformed. I'm well now because of good mentorship. Yours, Major?
My father's all These things are very vital. And so when I think about mentorship and I think about the power and importance of mentorship, I think of you, Richard. I think of Major Reagan. I think of many people who I won't name and their positive impact on my life. And so it becomes incumbent upon me to offer that to others in the ways that I can. You know, that's my obligation, is to give back what I've been given.
The reciprocity, the currency and reciprocity.
[00:50:22] Speaker A: So I wanted to relate something to you.
[00:50:27] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh.
[00:50:28] Speaker A: I came across an interesting thought experiment.
[00:50:32] Speaker B: What's that?
[00:50:33] Speaker A: No, it's not a thought experiment. People, they actually did this experiment.
And let me tell you, the experiment. And then how would you relate to the experiment?
And it goes like this.
I'm the researcher. I put out a call for people, come to my experiment. You'll get $100 for your trouble.
So people would come in, and he would bring them in two at a time, and he'd say, got a hundred dollars here.
Okay.
And I want to give it away.
Here's my offer.
I give you 20, and I give you 80.
All you have to say is, you accept it. Then you walk home with the 20, and you walk home with the 80.
But if you say, I don't accept it, it's unfair.
Now the ball is in the other person's court, and they can say, hey, if they don't accept it, I'll take the whole 100. Or they can say, I don't accept it either.
And then I say, okay, so now you both get 50.
What would you do if you were the first person?
[00:51:44] Speaker B: Well, it's a great experiment because you're.
[00:51:47] Speaker A: Banking on the other person being good also. You see what I mean?
[00:51:52] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:51:53] Speaker A: So it has to do with your view of human nature, doesn't it?
[00:51:56] Speaker B: It definitely does. Yeah. I don't know what I would do. It's a fascinatingly designed experiment. I don't know what I would do.
[00:52:04] Speaker A: Well, the results were 60% of the people said.
They both said, it's not fair.
[00:52:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:52:12] Speaker A: Then they got to split it.
[00:52:13] Speaker B: Oh, interesting that. That gives me hope.
[00:52:16] Speaker A: That means that there are 40% who said, hey, I'll take the whole hundred. Yeah, I don't care what the other person does.
[00:52:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:52:23] Speaker A: Well, we got to say goodbye to the people.
[00:52:25] Speaker B: Richard, thank you so much for this time.
[00:52:27] Speaker A: Okay.
