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I sent a kid off to college and a some sort of crazy adult came back 🫣😂 WARNING: contains spiritual ego collateral damage and one ANGRY cat named The Mitch! From our YouTube Live conversation. Nina (Z-Pupp) is home from Vassar for fall break, and the live is for Nai Nai to see her Why Nina left California for a school where she knew no one Double majoring in music and econ, and why she didn’t go to NYU for the music business Chamber music, her professor, and live-streamed orchestra concerts watched at home on the big TV Mendelssohn, and the screen photo texted to her mid-concert Making friends, her surprise roommate, and the case for a small liberal arts college Poughkeepsie versus New York City, and the train into the city A violin lesson in San Francisco, playing a Sarasate duet, and favorite composers The one dining hall, the bagel place, and the acai bowl shop where strangers pitched Vassar to her on the college visit Winning a concerto competition, and Nina’s opinion of Vivaldi The campus petting zoo and its ferret, chinchilla, and baby kangaroo The Mitch the cat: escape attempts, getting caught, and Nina the cat whisperer Professors’ outfits, music theory capes, and the jean jacket comeback The Cocteau Twins, and whether they count as emo Whether the Mitch is fat or just fluffy, and “you can’t win with women who know everything” What Nina misses most about home (her car), and feeling stuck in Poughkeepsie San Francisco tech bros, cappuccino art, and the vocal fry of Pacific Heights Dining hall slop, the freshman 15 in reverse, and joining a squash class and biking How Stanford benefits help pay for tuition Drop-off night, hotel bourbon, and a musician tip from the chat Professor Navega’s threat to “snap her neck” for being late Affluent classmates, generational wealth, and debutante parties Parties, Halloween weekend, and Zubin’s freshman 15 at Berkeley Nina’s take on the awakening stuff: “we just gotta live in the here and now, even though that doesn’t exist” Zubin agrees that awakening talk is nonsense, and why he keeps talking about it Vermont hippie colleges and the leg hair debate Crying (or laughing) at drop-off, and doom scrolling in the rental Volvo Halloween costumes: a chicken onesie and a Love Island robe with dollar store snakes Is college worth it in the age of AI: connections, Swiffers, and learning to be an adult Side hustles, and “what is a Zubin” showing up in Shorts feeds Donald Hoffman, conscious agents, and the homunculus Whether the kids had an awakening: telling Nina “nothing is real” during COVID and her existential crisis at 10 Spiritual ego, and why a “me” with a new insight wants to inflict it on its kids Watching Nina grow up on the channel, the Big Pharma video, and Dr. House of Cards “Gaffes” and “C’s get degrees” versus “P equals MD” The stumbling block of teaching what you just learned Amenemope, the Bhagavad Gita, and Nina’s plan to take it next semester Using AI, just not for art or music Zubin’s Zoroastrian upbringing and chanting from the Avesta at 11 Zubin’s “it’s all just this” take on oneness and consciousness Arjuna, Krishna, and killing your brother’s army AI flattery, and Zubin’s British lady Claude voice in the car Nina’s cognitive science class, “Chat with Pat,” and why the chatbot folds under pushback Whether Claude is conscious, and who is having the experience Saying please and thank you to AI, and older people finding company in chatbots Waymos, who is liable when AI goes wrong, and the doomer argument Dallas hospitality, a midnight hotel check-in, and an Uber ride into the MAHA conspiracy Chatty Ubers in Poughkeepsie and New York Whether Dallas counts as the South Wrap-up, solfege, and sending Nina back to school (she’ll be back in December) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tobias Ricardo spent 15 years as a Hindu monk and had pretty much every spiritual experience on the menu: kundalini fireworks, blissed-out “I am” states, retreats, the works. The real freedom turned out to be seeing that all of it was happening to and for a “me” who was never actually there. If you’ve had glimpses that never seem to stick, and you keep thinking you just need one more retreat, maybe check this conversation out 😉 Click here for all my usual links, music, videos, podcast, Supporter Tribe and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I sat down with Tim Cliss to talk about how nobody's home, how there's no prize at the end of the "spiritual" search, and how compassion works a lot better once there's no "you" left to get in its way. Also featured: psychedelics, ego death, and the surprisingly good news that hope is doomed 🥳 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I got an email this morning with the subject: "I died and you helped. Thanks." 😳 Here's the resulting YouTube LIVE discussion! Topics covered: Reading an email from a longtime viewer describing two years of awakening, contraction, and finally the realization there was never anyone on the journey Why the end of seeking is surprising precisely because it's so ordinary, not some mystical attainment Why "unconditional love" and other spiritual language are imperfect pointers, and what they're actually gesturing at A follow-up phone call with email author, and what it's like when nothing lands or sticks between two people who've been through this Losing the impulse to fix or save other people once agency is seen through Compassion as natural, unforced acceptance of everything, including one's own conditioning The nuclear reactor analogy for how unworthiness gets walled off in childhood, and what happens when it melts down Processing anger and grief, including a viewer whose son is becoming homeless, and why there's no such thing as spiritual bypassing Revisiting the fury felt at the Hiroshima museum and how it naturally resolved Money, financial fear, and how the drive to "keep hustling" has changed Why the VPZD show and other seemingly contradictory activities still arise and make sense How the self attaches itself to actions after the fact to preserve the illusion of free will and agency The self described as a verb ("selfing") rather than a fixed thing Heaven, hell, and why eternity of any single experience, even pleasure, becomes hell Marriage, kids, and whether family changes how someone relates to death Closing reflections on watching a daughter start college, liberal arts education, and the peace out Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The sense of self may die, but these termites eating my house are still VERY much alive 😉 My recent livestream on TikTok. Some of the topics touched on: Beliefs as an endless, dissolving process. The VPZD show as a dance of conditioning between hosts and audience. Fighting for a cause as really fighting for identity. Communicating needs with a partner. Book recommendations for exploring non-duality. A partner's neediness as a mirror for one's own conditioning. Doctor as just another fallen-away identity. Finding meaning in a meaningless existence. Why human consciousness defaults to negativity. Letting go of the belief that you should be positive. Getting contradictory antivax and pro-vax accusations back to back. Substituting one identity paradigm for another. Reflecting on the 30s, 40s, and 50s as different flavors of seeking. Flu shot risk tolerance and personal choice. The shingles vaccine decision. Nothing is happening, yet the characters keep playing their story out. Political yard signs causing friction with a spouse. Sitting with the shock of losing a friend badly. What is the point of any of this. Termites, relative and ultimate reality. Letting go of tribal fighting. The Macklemore and Ed Sheeran controversy revisited. Viewers sharing Macklemore songs and other political art. Richard Wagner as beauty coexisting with bigotry. Working with insects as a way to understand fear. Closing thoughts on why this TikTok live feels accepting. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A live YouTube conversation about dropping our oldest child off for college, ending with an overpriced bottle of hotel Jim Beam drunk out of plastic cups by a Homewood Suites firepit. Yeah, enlightenment ain't what the gurus have been selling us 😭😅 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Back from Japan to talk about being "alone together," why the "loneliness epidemic" is something engineered by the "me", and how bliss, grief, Fauci, and a three-dollar vintage shirt all fit into the same perfect unfolding. Video show archive, audio podcasts, music parodies, Supporter Tribe membership options, merch, social media, and email contact form: ⁠https://lnk.bio/zdoggmd Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A live Q+A wandering through our Sunday zoom meeting with the awakening group, to Jesus Christ Superstar, to the death of "ZDoggMD" as an identity, through moral injury, openness as the prerequisite for everything, why spirituality is a beautiful farce, and what it's like when worry about the future just stops sticking. Health 4.0 son! Contact me, watch all the videos, and join the Supporter Tribe for future zoom meetings here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I tell ya, there's something about these ephemeral TikTok live conversations that just gets this Zubin character all lit up 🔥 Here's a recording just for y'all who listen to the podcast (these live shows normally go POOF immediately after airing on TikTok). As always, you can hit me up hello at zdoggmd.com, and check out all the things here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A two-hour conversation with a fellow "Z" that's for no one and goes exactly nowhere. Perfect! 😅 We talk about addiction as hole-filling, and the hole that can never be filled; the seeking energy and what it actually wants; the dying process of identity deconstructing in reverse order; why the sense of a separate self is not a thought but an embodied energetic misunderstanding; why there's no practice because the person can't get rid of itself; what's actually longed for (not what the mind thinks); hopelessness as freedom... the real kind; the solidity trap and why making things real is the suffering; the sense of separation as the literal root of all suffering; what happens when you die; compassion as simply this communication; the end of the comparing mind; all the struggle of me for nothing; patterns falling away spontaneously; grief and loss and awe; and liberation as the end of the need for liberation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No subject, no object, just phenomena arising. From my TikTok live on consciousness, hope, meaning, the freefall of no belief, and what it's like when the self-critical voice quietly stops showing up. Plus: row your boat. Contact form, more videos, and membership options here. https://lnk.bio/zdoggmd Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One phone call with cardiologist and recovering alcoholic Rishi Menon and BOOM: we're instant Stepbrothers 😂 We dive into failing med school, 20 years of proving worthiness, recovery, suicidal ideation, burnout, the Enneagram as software, body changes after letting go, and why practice probably isn't causative but shows up anyway. Full video here. ⁠Click here for website, contact form, links to all the things, and more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There's really only two questions. Exploring the first can lead to a more comfy prison cell, and REALIZING the second shows there never was a prison cell at all. Both are ABSOLUTELY PERFECT. Live conversation from the Z-Shed! Click here for website, contact form, links to all the things, and more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"You" can never really trust this moment. And yet THIS, here, now, IS pure trust itself. A Friday Zen Live on the unconditional acceptance of what is, why the separate self can never surrender into this, the second arrow that never landed, and an old biker dude who took the longest dump in trail bathroom history 💩 ⁠⁠Contact form, videos, links, and all the things here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What goes up must come down, and for the spiritual seeker, that pendulation is one of the most specific and painful flavors of suffering there is. This Friday Zen LIVE from YouTube explores why the ups and downs are the same no-thing, what natural compassion looks like when you never practiced or play-acted it, Douglas Harding's headless way, and much more. ⁠Contact form, videos, links, and all the things here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices