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Zero f***s given in this Facebook LIVE episode 🤭, we explore time, growth as illusion, spiritual mansplaining, why there isn't even consciousness, why nothing cannot stay nothing, the 10 Fetters Buddhist model from separate self to liberation, and more! Kevin Shanilec's interpretation and guide to the Fetters is here. Video archive, audio podcast, music, Supporter Tribe membership, email & more. Support us with a 1-time donation. 00:00 - Introduction: Zero Fucks Given, Social Security Disappointment 01:53 - Time as Flickering Light on a Timeless Screen 05:16 - How Is This Different Than a Dream? 08:00 - Fix the Fixer by Dissolving It 10:18 - Growth Is an Illusion: Nothing Takes Place 13:28 - Church Without the Priest: Feeling Christ Consciousness 16:32 - Spiritual Mansplaining to My Wife (Then She Woke Up) 24:37 - The Unborn: Everything Is Perfectly Managed 30:10 - Why Is Life Hard? (The Question Makes No Sense) 37:17 - Awareness Obsession: Then I Realized There Isn't Consciousness 43:25 - Nothing Cannot Stay Nothing (Why Appearance Exists) 48:13 - The 10 Fetters: Buddhist Model of Liberation 58:04 - How the Fetters Build Backwards from Delusion 1:06:12 - Total Wellness? The Question Falls Away 1:08:20 - Berkeley Meetup Plans, Jim Newman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A beautifully spontaneous Monday Zen LIVE (YouTube video here) that I intended as members-only but accidentally went public—and the accident was perfect orchestration by nothing for no one 🤡 We dive deep into identifying as awareness, exploring why it's a beautiful trap that feels like spacious liberation but is still an experience that comes and goes (disappears under anesthesia), and how Nisargadatta used "rest as I Am" as universal solvent until awareness itself dissolved into the magic space of nothingness. Core teaching: nothing takes place, nothing becomes real—all kinds of stuff occurring but never arriving, never becoming solid. I share a painful 3am dream where dream-self was fully mind-identified, seeking validation and connection, feeling "I will never be okay"—and how waking up allowed full feeling without secondary resistance, showing deep unworthiness conditioning still arising but now without stickiness. We explore accommodating all views without ultimate belief (genocide, shootings, political polarization), trauma integration requiring full acceptance and love, and the 2026 heart opening that's matured into natural service without seeking return. Practical experiments: energetic availability on hiking trails where open-hearted presence makes strangers spontaneously smile and greet you (reproducible N-of-1 trial), eye gazing as intimacy practice that breaks down defenses (harder with intimates where stakes are high), horses reading human micro-expressions better than we read each other, chronic illness healing or arising with awakening (body-mind changes, sensitivity increases), discovering Gospel of Thomas as Christian Zen ("kingdom of God spread upon earth yet men do not see it"), free will question collapsing into nonsense, what is your true nature inquiry ("just keep looking"), rich man/camel/needle as rich with concepts and beliefs, and pain practice at dentist using Bankei's "everything is perfectly managed in the unborn" to dissolve second arrow. See all the things, become a member and more here! 00:00 - Introduction: Fear of a Black Hat and Snowed In America 03:35 - Responding to Reality vs. Created Environment 06:11 - Identifying as Awareness: The Beautiful Trap 10:46 - The Unborn: Nothing Takes Place, Nothing Becomes Real 15:07 - Guided Drop Into Pure Awakeness (Meditation) 18:06 - Dream of Mind Identification and Validation Seeking 24:37 - The Magic Space of Nothingness 30:10 - Genocide, Gaza, and Accommodating All Views 35:41 - Trauma Integration: Feeling It Fully to Release 42:12 - Heart Opening and Being of Service Without Return 48:00 - Energetic Availability: The Hiking Trail Experiment 57:23 - Eye Gazing: Breaking Down Defenses Through Intimacy 1:08:53 - Free Will Question Doesn't Make Sense 1:11:11 - What Is Your True Nature? Just Keep Looking 1:20:43 - Gospel of Thomas: Christian Zen and Kingdom of Heaven 1:25:09 - Pain Practice: Second Arrow and the Unborn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What happens when the mind stops telling stories? We explore insomnia and radical acceptance, the trap of identifying as awareness, why "the world is waking up" is just another story, and my journey from Doc Vader to whatever the f**k this is 😂 All the things are here. Topics and Timecodes: 0:00 - Going Live & Technical Difficulties 1:26 - When You Can't Say Anything Anymore 2:31 - Karma Yoga: Life as Sacred Practice 4:14 - Sleep, Insomnia & Radical Acceptance 7:02 - Sleep During Awakening: My Experience 8:38 - Waking Up at Night: Working with Panic & Repressed Emotion 10:24 - No Distinction Between Waking, Dreaming & Deep Sleep 11:43 - The Mind Creates Reality: Manifestation & Reconditioning 13:29 - Free Will, Determinism & Letting Go 13:53 - Dreams, Vivid Experiences & Higher Planes 15:00 - When Desire & Attachment Start to Fall Away 16:03 - Meaning Is Created: An Existentialist View 17:01 - Watching Thoughts: The Mirage of the Mind 19:02 - Who Thought This Thought? The House of Cards Collapses 21:04 - The "I Want to Wake Up" Trap 21:52 - Who Is Awareness Appearing To? 22:17 - Getting Stuck at "I Am Awareness" 23:04 - What Is the Unborn? 25:00 - Wide Angle Camera Fun (Tech Break) 26:04 - The Universe Is Unfolding As It Should 26:31 - Absolute vs. Relative: There's No Distinction 27:25 - From Doc Vader to This: My Journey Since 2019 30:35 - Burning It All Down: Deleting Twitter, Losing Followers, Finding Joy 31:05 - Gratitude for Spiritual Friends: Angelo, Simon, Ishwar 32:03 - When Suffering Arises After Awakening 33:31 - Resilience Is a Story: Working with Negativity 34:06 - Processing Emotions About Iran & the Ayatollah 36:07 - Letting Things Be Unsticky Even When You Care Fully 36:36 - Talking to Conservative Christian Parents About Buddhism 37:28 - All Paths Point to the Same Thing 40:25 - Jesus Was Enlightened 41:13 - Identifying as Awareness vs. Non-Duality: What's Beyond? 43:05 - Resurrecting Jesus by Adyashanti (Book Recommendation) 43:42 - Is the World Waking Up? (Spoiler: It's a Story) 46:05 - What's My Meditation Practice? It Changes Daily 47:03 - When Seeking Falls Away 48:00 - Don't Force-Feed Awakening: Many Called, Few Chosen 49:00 - Energy Grounding & Chakra Work 51:03 - The Brutal Side of Awakening 51:26 - Apple Watches & Fitness (Curveball Question) 52:32 - What Is "The Story" vs. Reality? 54:53 - Closing: This Beautiful Satsang Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A spontaneous conversation between two friends walking the path together. Why 'you're already awake' can be harmful, the impossibility of bypassing the hard painful work, K-Pop Demon Hunters as dharma transmission, and much more. Full video here. Simon Brown's YouTube channel is here and his free Substack is here. Here's our earlier podcast on trauma. And here's our prior talk on compassion. Video archive, audio podcast, music, Supporter Tribe membership, email & more. Support us with a 1-time donation. More about Zubin. 0:00 Introduction - Spiritual Friendship Across the Atlantic 2:22 "You're One of the Dearest People I Turn To" 4:00 The Mind Creates the Abyss, The Heart Crosses It 5:00 The Relational Intimacy That's More Than Its Parts 7:00 Hell Is Other People vs. Recognition of Non-Separation 10:00 Opening the Clown Chakra (Becoming Baba Z-Dogg) 12:00 Why Ram Dass Makes You Cry Instantly 16:00 Alan Watts AI Warnings 18:00 Ram Dass's Journey from Harvard to Surrender 20:00 "He Can See All of Me and Still Loves Me" 23:00 Ram Dass's Decades of Practice (Not Just Surrender) 25:00 "Everything's Already Awake" - Why This Message Can Make People Sick 28:00 Unbearable Compassion and Meeting People Where They Are 33:00 Delusion as Seeing Incorrectly What's Actually Here 35:00 The Problem with One-and-Done Awakening 38:00 "You're Going to Die. Everyone You Know Will Die" 41:00 Ram Dass Holding Hands of Strangers as They Die 44:00 Only Sensible Response Is Compassion 47:00 Turn Towards the Unconditioned/Deathless 52:00 Society's Duality and Taking Sides 57:00 The Pure Freedom Beyond Conditions 1:00:00 Play, Spontaneity, and Shame 1:03:40 The Goldfish Bowl Story - How Play Gets Beaten Out 1:07:00 "This Really Hurt and I Love You" 1:09:00 The Trance of Unworthiness We All Inherit 1:13:34 K-Pop Demon Hunters as Liberation Teaching 1:16:00 Barbie Movie and Repressed Emotion 1:18:00 Perfect Days - Liberation Through Cleaning Toilets 1:21:00 "It's a Wonderful Life" and the Universal Heart 1:24:00 What's Gone That You Don't Notice 1:27:00 Taking the Exquisite Risk of Vulnerability 1:28:40 "Pee Here Now" - The Non-Dual Amusement Park Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We healthcare people love accomplishment, competition, clear instructions, and maps—which can make the awakening process feel like straight TORTURE 😂 From YouTube LIVE. 00:00 - Introduction: The Comparing Mind in Healthcare 01:37 - Bringing Your Own Folding Chair to Kiss God's Ass 03:06 - The Millisecond of Clarity vs. Macro Seconds of Ego 04:12 - You Can't Do Any of This Wrong 05:27 - 3 Levels: Gross Reality, Witness Consciousness, Absolute 08:22 - 3 Schools: Ram Das Work, Dogen Zen, Neo-Advaita 13:10 - All Three Approaches Have Their Place 16:08 - Nisargadatta: "I Am That" and the Absolute 19:07 - You Cannot Fuck This Up (The Perfection of Unfolding) 23:10 - Mind as Fabrication Machine: How Insights Recondition 29:50 - Spiritual Bypass: Go Ahead and Try It 36:47 - The Well of Grief: Drowning to Find Gold Coins 41:00 - Complex PTSD and Mismatched Jigsaw Mind 47:07 - Despair and Depression as a Stop Along the Way 53:23 - Extrasensory Powers, Dreams, and Karma 1:00:10 - Dreams Show You Have No Control 1:04:28 - The Paradox of Effort: Effortless vs. Mindfulness Practice Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An intimate Christmas Eve morning livestream exploring what we're really celebrating: heart-based amazement and love as the pervasive fabric of reality, not some Hallmark conception. We discuss sitting in the unknown without the constant churn of thought creating expectation, how an itch evolved from meditative deconstruction to just allowing what is, and why all religions—Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sufism—point at the same unsayable thing through different words. Includes reflections on Jesus's teachings about unconditional love and kingdom of heaven, Adyashanti's "Resurrecting Jesus," my grandfather's journey from atheism to experiencing God as absolute magic, and why free will versus determinism is neither/both/doesn't ultimately matter when you're here now. Video show archive, audio podcasts, music parodies, Supporter Tribe membership options, merch, social media, and email contact form: ⁠⁠https://lnk.bio/zdoggmd⁠⁠ Support us with a 1-time donation and get a personal email response from me: ⁠⁠https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/zdoggmd⁠⁠ More about Dr. Z: ⁠⁠https://zdoggmd.com/about-z/ Timecodes and topics: 00:00 - Introduction: Christmas Eve Live 00:36 - What We're Celebrating: Heart-Based Amazement 01:31 - Love: Human Conception vs. Pervasive Fabric of Reality 03:05 - Working Holidays as a Hospital Doctor 05:44 - Sitting in the Unknown Without Expectation 11:24 - How Do You Stay in the Unknown? 14:16 - Being Itchy: From Deconstruction to Just Allowing 17:04 - Societal Constructs: Taking Sincerely, Not Seriously 19:04 - Religions Pointing at the Same Thing 22:43 - Jesus: Unconditional Love and Kingdom of Heaven 25:49 - Resurrecting Jesus by Adyashanti 27:18 - My Grandfather in India: From Atheist to "God is Real" 29:43 - Free Will, Determinism, or Neither and Both 32:28 - Kingdom of Heaven Spread Upon the Earth 35:07 - Closing: Stay in the Presence Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From our Saturday night YouTube live conversation. Video show archive, audio podcasts, music parodies, Supporter Tribe membership options, merch, social media, and email contact form: ⁠https://lnk.bio/zdoggmd⁠ Support us with a 1-time donation and get a personal email response from me: ⁠https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/zdoggmd⁠ More about Dr. Z: ⁠https://zdoggmd.com/about-z/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Live conversation with Eshwar Segobind. We talk about why love skeptics become love advocates, the trauma response that becomes 'you,' why babies cry at birth (cosmic joke alert), and the nature of the clown chakra. Plus: there's a lot of duality in non-duality 😉 Our previous conversation is here. https://lnk.bio/zdoggmd for all the things. 00:00 Opening - The Creator and Clown Chakras 02:05 "There's a Lot of Duality in Non-Duality" 04:10 The Love Skeptic's Journey 07:00 Emptying to Be Filled with Love 10:00 The Child and the Immune Response 14:00 Seeing Love Everywhere 17:00 The Realest Fake Thing That Never Was 21:00 Trauma Response as the Self 28:00 Why Zubin Became ZDoggMD (Protection Mechanism) 30:14 "We're Already Dead - Now What?" 33:00 Devotion and True Prostration 39:00 The Cosmic Joke of Rebirth (Baby's First Cry) 42:00 Best Birth Buddies and Spiritual Gurus 45:00 Shadow Work Can't Be Avoided 49:00 The Child Calling You Home 56:00 Kathy Nails It: "Zubin is the Original Child" 1:00:00 Grocery Store Analogy and Payment Due 1:05:00 Buddhism and the Seeker's Problem 1:11:00 Everything Points Back to Love 1:17:00 Nihilism to Fullness Journey 1:23:00 The Projection Game 1:30:00 Depersonalization 1:36:00 2D Vision and Sensory Experiences 1:42:00 Two Nuts in a Sack (Closing) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A spontaneous live conversation about discovering an AI tool that pulls clips from long videos—creating decontextualized shorts that make me sound like an a*****e, which is exactly what the algorithm wants. We explore why Buddhist stories ultimately don't matter, how the spiritual circus is just the next level of illusion, the whole "suffering is optional" nonsense, the raft metaphor and spiritual bypass, non-dual therapy and somatic experiencing, DMT as serious business that's also nothing, and the massive relief when awakening itself—the last belief—finally drops. 00:00 - Introduction: Going Live on a Whim 00:39 - "Asian Intelligence "and AI Discovery 01:23 - Discovering Vizard.ai for Clip Generation 02:04 - The Problem with Decontextualized Shorts 02:50 - Tich Nhat Hanh Quote and Dependent Origination 03:38 - Why These Shorts Make Me Sound Like an Asshole 04:24 - Feeding the Algorithm Beast 05:09 - Mental Masturbation and Going Live as Therapy 06:04 - Mountains Are Mountains: Why Stories Don't Matter 07:23 - The Spiritual Circus vs. The Regular Circus 08:43 - Psych Patients and Meaninglessness 09:49 - Suffering is Optional? Shut the F**k Up 11:03 - Knowledge Acquisition and Adyashanti's Wall 12:03 - Psychedelics Discussion with Kids 12:52 - The Raft Metaphor and Spiritual Bypass 14:52 - Trust and Verify: Teachers Who Build Rafts 16:44 - DMT as Serious Business and Nothing 18:20 - How to Feel the Love Pouring from Awareness 20:33 - The Mystery of the Appearance 21:48 - Non-Dual Therapy: The Ultimate Paradox 24:30 - Somatic Experiencing and Bliss Sessions 25:22 - Radical Acceptance vs. Self-Love 27:04 - Watching Non-Duality Videos: "What's This Clown Saying?" 28:26 - The Orchestra Concert and Family Life 28:49 - Awakening: The Last Belief to Drop 29:41 - Closing: My Beloved, Peace Out, Only Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, make dinner for your kids and have them complain about it 😉 From my Friday Night LIVE show on YouTube. Here's a link to all the things. 00:00 Why Friday Night Zen Live? 01:13 The Adolescent Phase of Selfing/Not-Selfing 02:27 Alternating Between Self and Empty Radiance 05:04 Suffering and Core Unworthiness 10:03 Why Therapy's "Reframing" Misses the Point 14:00 Living in Story Land (Trump, Veganism, and Meaning) 17:20 Everything Driven by Unworthiness 22:21 Time Is a Story - This Has Always Been 26:04 Attachment to Outcomes and the Separate Self 30:14 The Primary Human Operating System: Unworthiness 35:31 What About Love? 41:03 On Medicine and Health 3.0 49:33 The Compulsion to Make Videos for No One 52:02 "After Awakening" - The Mind's Favorite Story 57:13 The 5-MeO-DMT Revelation: "It's Just This" 1:01:02 Privilege, Causation, and Different Gates 1:05:12 The Weather Pattern of Seeking 1:09:24 Music as Pure Emotion Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We spend our entire lives pretending to be something we think we really are—until one day the mask slips. In this live Facebook conversation we explore what happens when identity unravels, how negative self-talk might simply vanish, and how the body keeps the score even when the mind lets go. From Shakespeare's stage to the Bahiya Sutta, from catastrophic thinking to kundalini energy, we examine the deepest taboo in the human collective: that we might not be what we think we are. ALSO: f**k Halloween! 😭🎃 Video, blog post summary, and ways to join the Supporter Tribe here. Video show archive, audio podcasts, music parodies, Supporter Tribe membership options, merch, social media, and email contact form: ⁠https://lnk.bio/zdoggmd⁠ More about Dr. Z: ⁠https://zdoggmd.com/about-z/⁠ Chapters and timecodes: 00:00 - Halloween Childhood Trauma 01:45 - The Human Costume: Living Behind the Mask 04:12 - When Identities Start to Unravel 07:18 - The Peace That Passes All Understanding 09:17 - Why Words Can't Capture "Reality" 10:52 - Shakespeare's Stage: All the World's a Play 13:43 - Belief in Thoughts as the Root of Suffering 16:48 - Beginnings and Endings Have No Middle 18:01 - Dread as a Self Knowing Texture 21:39 - Longchenpa: "One May Well Burst Out in Laughter" 23:05 - Catastrophic Thinking and Email Anxiety 25:29 - Can We Control Our Minds? The Illusion of Choice 28:28 - The Disappearance of Negative Self-Talk 31:00 - No Positive Self-Talk Either: Beyond Good and Bad 33:00 - Trauma, the Body Keeps the Score 35:27 - Kundalini Energy and Awakening Experiences 39:00 - Tai Chi in Flushing, Queens Botanical Gardens 42:00 - Yoga, Weight Loss, and Letting the Body Be 46:42 - We Are Everything: Control and Influence 48:10 - The Descriptive-Prescriptive Fallacy 52:04 - The Bahiya Sutta: "In the Seen, Merely the Seen" 57:16 - Thoughts Are Just Bird Songs 58:26 - Gratitude for Co-Creating This Space 01:00:12 - Two Types of Acceptance: Mind vs. Innate Reality 01:03:09 - Closing Thoughts and How To Support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On what would have been my father’s 86th birthday, I found myself reflecting not just on loss, but on the nature of belief itself—and how our attachments to ideas can become the very weapons that tear us apart. Originally from a conversation I had on Facebook live. Watch the video and read a summary here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode of The ZDoggMD Show was recorded in front of a live studio audience...on Facebook. Which is always a little bit of magic 🪄 What happens when the appearance that seems to construct our sense of self, our sense of the one who EXPERIENCES experience...just stops? A (previously) live interactive exploration of what's left when YOU leave (listen to find out what the hell that means 😂). Full video with a great AI summary of everything covered, click here. Video show archive, audio podcasts, music parodies, Supporter Tribe membership options, merch, social media, and email contact form: ⁠https://lnk.bio/zdoggmd⁠ Support us with a 1-time donation and get a personal email response from me: ⁠https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/zdoggmd⁠ More about Dr. Z: ⁠https://zdoggmd.com/about-z/⁠ Topics and chapters: 00:00 - Introduction: What is Freefall? 01:47 - Pure Experience and Centerless Wonder 03:15 - Flow States and the Dropping of "Me" 04:50 - The Spirituality Story Problem 06:38 - Speaking from Silence 08:29 - The Illusion of Self and Awakening 10:03 - When the "Me" Starts to Crack 14:23 - The Impossibility of Words 16:05 - Direct Experience vs. Conceptual Knowledge 18:04 - Birds Birding, Trees Treeing 21:06 - Problems with "Aware Space" Concepts 24:42 - Criticizing Spiritual Teachers and Concepts 27:11 - The Perfection of What Is 28:25 - Questions About Existence and Determinism 30:14 - Aging and Letting Go 32:40 - The Jupiter Storm Metaphor 34:18 - The Great Defeat: Personal Story 39:04 - Free Will vs. Determinism Discussion 41:14 - Exhaustion as Your Best Friend 44:00 - Life Without "Me" 46:06 - The Spiritual Seeking Trap 49:33 - Rick and Morty References and Mr. MeSeeks 52:31 - Final Thoughts and Closing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When the threads of awakening drop and spirituality itself falls away, what's left? Peep our earlier introduction interview on the Multidharma Threads model ⁠here on YouTube⁠ or ⁠here on Apple Podcasts⁠. And a deeper dive into each thread here. ⁠⁠Dr. Pierce Salguero⁠⁠ has studied spirituality through decades of practice and scholarship, specializing in hathayoga, meditation, shamanic rituals, spirit healing, Thai medicine, and Buddhist philosophy. He is now a professor researching Asian history, religions, and healing traditions. His Multidharma framework distills the lessons from a lifetime of exploration of spirituality, providing a novel framework for modern seekers. Here's a⁠⁠ deep dive into the Multidharma Threads model⁠⁠⁠⁠. ⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Pierce's books and more⁠⁠. ⁠Pierce's newsletter to get notified when his full-length Threads book drops.⁠ ⁠And here's a link to zoom meetups that discuss the Threads model. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kogen is a Zen priest in the Soto tradition, in the lineage of Tangen Harada Roshi. Find his books, retreats, and more here and follow him on YouTube here. In this conversation we talk about Kogen's Japanese Zen monastic background, the intersection of traditional monasticism and modern spiritual practices, the differences between early Chinese and later Japanese Zen, the format of the student-teacher relationship in Zen, monk life in a Japanese monastery, interpersonal dynamics among monks, the difference between spirituality and dogmatic religion, a deep pointing to non-separation as a relief for human suffering, the need for multimodal modern support for issues such as trauma in spiritual settings, two fantastic books Kogen has translated/edited, and much more. Watch the video here. Video show archive, audio podcasts, music parodies, Supporter Tribe membership options, merch, social media, and email contact form: ⁠https://lnk.bio/zdoggmd⁠ Support us with a 1-time donation and get a personal email response from me: ⁠https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/zdoggmd⁠ More about Dr. Z: ⁠https://zdoggmd.com/about-z/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices