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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

My baby is now at senior prom, I got a splitting headache, and somehow this is the perfect moment to talk about no-thing-ness. A Friday Zen YouTube live (4/24/26) on retreats, the seeking apparatus burning out, no-thingness appearing as everything, and why the mind is a real a-hole 🕳️ Contact form, videos, links, and all the things here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices