Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 545: Trudy Goodman

Episode Date: January 4, 2023

Trudy Goodman, AKA Trudy the Love Barbarian from The Midnight Gospel, re-joins the DTFH! Trudy works with a great nonprofit, iACT! iACT provides evidence-based and trauma-informed education, sports, and leadership programs co-created with and led by people affected by conflict. You can learn more, including how you can help, at iACT.ngo! Original music by Aaron Michael Goldberg. This episode is brought to you by: Lumi Labs - Visit MicroDose.com and use code DUNCAN at checkout for 30% Off and FREE Shipping on your first order! Rocket Money - Visit RocketMoney.com/Duncan to cancel your unwanted subscriptions and start saving! Athletic Greens - Visit AthleticGreens.com/Duncan for a FREE 1-year supply of vitamin D and 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase!

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Gonna big bang my way back to you, my love. Gonna big bang my way back to you, my love. Happy New Year, everybody. It's D Trucelle and you are listening to the Duncan Trussell Family. Our podcast, of course, that was Going to Big Bang Again by Barry Flance. You can find that at the Liedl Liedl Lunsley Liquidators. It's that new Amazon challenger, I guess you could say, an incredible website, LiedlLonglyLonglyLiquidators.com. I think right now they're offering a golden album special, which means you're gonna get

five MyPillows and two Giza dream sheets with every order of that album. Friends, we have got an incredible podcast for you today. Trudy Goodman, aka Trudy the Love Barbarian from the Midnight Gospel is back with us today. We had a wonderful, very futuristic conversation about artificial intelligence, the selfishness of service, and a wonderful foundation that Trudy supports called iAct. Before you listen to the episode, if you're in front of a computer, why not check out iAct.ngio. They are actively helping refugees all over the world.

If you feel like chipping in, they could definitely use your help. Also, Trudy is one of the teachers at Insight LA. This is a wonderful place where if you're interested in taking courses in meditation or mindfulness, you can do that there, not just with teachers like Trudy, but with all of their incredible teachers that's InsightLA.org. As long as I'm plugging things, I would like to invite you, if you happen to be living in Madison, Wisconsin, to come and see me. I'm gonna be at Comedy on State.

You can find ticket links at DuncanTrussell.com and you can also Google Comedy on State, Madison, Wisconsin. It's going to be the 19th, 20th, and 21st of January. I hope you'll come see me perform. You can also subscribe to our Patreon. It's patreon.com. DTFH. We've got a weekly meditation group along with a weekly family gathering.

We hang out every single week. You subscribe. You're gonna get commercial free episodes of the DTFH along with access to our Discord server. And now, everybody, welcome back to the Duncan Trust. Trussell Family Hour podcast. The incredible Trudy Goodman, aka Trudy the Love Barbarian, aka Trudy Underscore Goodman on Instagram to the DTFH.

Trudy the Love Barbarian, welcome back to the DTFH. It's great to see you. So happy to be back, Duncan. How are your holidays? You all do, what do you do? Do you do Hanukkah, Christmas? What is? Yeah, we do Hanukkah, Christmas.

I actually love the principles of Kwanzaa because it descenders white people, it's totally for black people, but so therefore we don't do that one. But we celebrate Hanukkah and Christmas because Hanukkah for my Jewish family, Hanukkah Christmas for Jack's family, which is a mix. Okay, so you get it all. I mean, that's nice. Both of them seem nice. I'm sure your grandkids love that.

That's a lot of gifts, right? Because Hanukkah, what's the deal with Hanukkah? It's a gift every day or something? It's eight nights, but you know, I remember from my parents, like the first night you would get something you really wanted, the last night you'd get a pair of socks. Bomber, what kind of refers that? What's the theory behind that? You don't gradually degrade into less.

Why? They ran out of ideas and I guess they didn't want to start out with the socks and underwear because that would be a little disappointing for a kid. Yes. Yes. I mean, Erin was, we gave the kids clothes and just watching the way they just tossed them, tossed them aside like refuse. Like, what is this beautiful sweater?

Why would you even show this to me? I want a car. I don't want to wear a sweater. Yeah. I don't even want to put on my jacket. Trudy, I wanted to share with you. You know, I'm so happy to help you in any way. It's thrilling to me.

When you reached out to me, it was thrilling to me that you wanted to use my Instagram to help promote iACT and we talk about that organization in a second. But you know, as I'm looking through my Instagram messages, one of them was furious that I was promoting this anti-genocide organization and it was a quick message, very angry, essentially Duncan used to be funny, now you're all woke. And to me, I found that to be very funny in its own right just because to imagine the mind state of somebody who is offended by a very lazy attempt on my part to help promote an anti-genocide organization in the sense that it's easy to use Instagram.

I'm not out there working with refugees like you do. I'm not out there. It's just a simple thing, but this was this push this person to the point of like having to confront me about it. And that got my wheels spinning as I started thinking about how there really is a force, a social force. I don't know what it is in the world that pushes back against attempts to help. And I wonder if you have ever thought about what that force is or why it exists or why

it feels embarrassing. There's there's some aspect of service reaching out to help other people that even though you know this is how what we're supposed to do, it feels a little like, oh, I'm showing off, I'm an SJW, a social justice warrior. Why am I doing this? I just want accolades. This isn't real. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Yeah, I mean, you've mentioned a lot of the reasons right there. First of all, the idea that we're supposed to be good and we're supposed to help other people, it just, it's kind of smarmy. It's max of, you know, being lectured or church or stuff like that. That is pretty phony or can feel, you know, your heart isn't in it. And then the idea that you're doing it just to get approval or recognition. Honestly, nothing we do is just for one reason. If I help people, I do it also because I'm going to feel good.

And I wanted to tell you, I've been playing with the chat, GBT, the open AI. We, you and I played with it some together. Yeah. So I asked open AI. I was like, okay, you, you help me with this question. Like, why, why should you bother helping other people? Yeah. Why bother?

I mean, we have problems of our own. I can barely keep my own life in order. Right. So I want to tell you what it said. Okay, great. Can I read it to you? Please, I can't wait. All right.

Listeners, listen up. Um, do you often find yourself, this is AI generated. Do you often, and, and it was generated instantaneously? As soon as I asked the question, the print came out. Wow. Do you often find yourself wondering why you should bother helping others? After all, you've got your own problems to deal with, right? Well, fear not, dear listener.

We're here to tell you that helping others is a totally selfish act. War on the surface, sure. It might seem like you're being selfless and doing it for someone else. But when you really think about it, helping others is all about getting that warm, fuzzy feeling that comes from feeling good about doing something nice for someone else. You know, that feeling of joy and satisfaction that comes from knowing you've made a difference in someone's life and let's be real.

Who doesn't love feeling good about themselves? But they go on, Duncan. It's not just about the warm, fuzzy feelings. Helping others can also have some pretty sweet perks. For example, have you ever noticed that people who are known for being kind and helpful have more friends? It's true. When you help others, you're more likely to return the favor,

which can give you more friends. They say, wrong goes to stronger social connections, supportive social network, all that stuff. And we know that friends and support are the key to a happy and fulfilling life. So next time you're considering whether or not to help someone out, remember, it's not about being selfless. It's about being selfish. Do it for the warm, fuzzy feelings and the awesome perks that come with it.

You won't be sorry. That's the chatbot response. What? That's amazing. That is really unnerving and amazing and true. That is true. Added charm of being true. Yeah.

Wow. That is so cool. Whoa. We could talk about the science and how when we engage in acts of kindness, our brains release oxytocin, the feel good hormone, and then we get healthier. I mean, we could talk about all that, but isn't being selfish more fun? Yeah, I guess so. I mean, it's just, it's like from that perspective, which is really fascinating.

It's sort of saying, look, everything you're doing is probably selfish in the sense you have a self, you have to eat, but taking care of other people, it actually does more for you than just taking care of yourself. Because my many experiments and selfishness, serving myself, my God, I should start an organization just for serving myself. This is my life, actually. I'm always tending to myself, cloaching myself, trying to get that feeling that the AI is talking about.

And truly that feeling for me does not activate as much when I'm doing it for myself, but the moment I'm doing anything, which is great about having kids, because my God, you're always having to serve other beings. It's like you're, it's suddenly you're in heaven. You're, it's joy. It's chaotic joy. It's incredible. But why, Trudy?

Why do people get angry at you if you sort of publicly mention it? If you, you know, and I feel it too, like when I see those YouTube videos of people filming themselves, helping, oh, yeah, disgusting. It's really embarrassing. Yeah, that's harsh. That is, that's harsh. I mean, look, there's obvious ego and then there's the subtle ego, which I prefer. But, um, yeah, but seriously, I think that all these programs, you know, 12

step programs of all kinds, everybody knows that when people are depressed or feeling isolated or disconnected or just down, that actually doing something kind or good for others, it lifts that mood. And I think the reason somebody might get angry is either, either, you know, there's this kind of perverse pleasure of enjoying when you're feeling like shit and enjoying a kind of dystopian view of the world and it being cynical and stuff like that. And so if you challenge that, it can make people angry.

It can make them feel guilty or ashamed that they're not doing something. And then they get angry at you because really they're mad at themselves. Right. So they're just sort of projecting their own sort of inner sense of like, well, I'm just repeating. I'm looping here. I'm stuck in the mud. They, they're demonstrating a way out.

And also, you know, there, I think earlier you were talking a little bit about any time it comes off as corrective, you know, where it's not just like you're helping other people, but then also you're trying to like, maybe that's, maybe that's the problem is that it's like sometimes service is actually aggression. It's not just trying to get warm and fuzzy. It's underneath it is like, look, I'm better than you. Look at all the good I'm doing in the world.

While you're sitting there playing video games or staring at the internet. But, but you're doing it with a smile, but people feel that aggression underneath. Yeah. No, that, that, that is really, um, that's actually, I would get angry at that too. I really would. It's sort of noxious, but, you know, I'm coming more from a place of, for example, with IAC, this group that I have supported, um, because it was founded by people who just could not stand.

It was the time of the Darfur refugees and the genocide in Darfur. Unfortunately, there have been, you know, several genocides in the world, but it was, and they, they just couldn't stand it. And they went over there just with this little handheld recorder and they met, they just hung out with the refugees and said, what would, you know, what would be most helpful to you? Is there anything that we could do to help you over here when we're so far away over there and, um, like what, what possibly could we do?

And they listened. And that's what was so different from, you know, helping the idea of helping. Like my first teacher that, uh, who was a Soto Zen monkey said, I asked him once because I was working with severely dysregulated children and I was like, uh, and their parents who were tearing their hair out are also very crazy themselves. And I would say, how can I help them? And he said, no idea of helping.

Oh, shit. That's deep. Yes. It's deep. It was a, it was a calling for me for years. Like, Oh, right. Not to separate myself out. Like I'm the goddess of giving over here.

Right. You're the pitiful recipient of my faith over there. No, that's it. Right. That's it. So they just humbled themselves. They just went and listened to the refugees and said, what do you need? I mean, they knew their community and they were, they were just these few people.

So tiny groups. So they didn't, they weren't, um, constrained by having to do these top down things like the UN, you know, all the big refugee organizations. Right. Listened and the refugees said, we need preschool and soccer. We want education and we want to feel like we actually belong to the world instead of being those open prison camps, stateless people. We want to play soccer and they sent a team to, to an international soccer.

I don't know as much about the soccer because I went to help with the preschool when I worked in the refugee camp, but teaching them mindfulness. But we taught the soccer coaches too. They wanted mindfulness to help them deal with the stress of their situation and develop some coping skills to work with their flashbacks. I mean, I was like, where is mindfulness on the hierarchy of human needs? Right. All right.

So. Mindfulness or any kind. I, I, I get how that would be something that would be incredibly useful for people who are going through something like that. My God, I just watched this. I don't know why I do this to myself. Just this, uh, vice, uh, did a piece on this, the last family. And I think the Ukrainian city is about Kut or something.

And it's just getting blown to shit right now. And, uh, you know, it's when you have kids, especially, it is a little girl living with her parents in this city. And all you could do is think that's my, that could be my kid. Why wasn't that my kid? Why, why is that not my kid? This kid is sort of normalized this situation that she's in. She's putting her dad, daughter to put like a big jug of water in front of the

window so the glass, the window doesn't blow open when the bombs hit. And then she's sort of showing down in her bomb shelter, they go to what she does for fun, which is like jumping off of a little ledge into a hula hoop. And then you, and you're watching the parents are broken. They're trying to, I don't know why there's, they're, they have their reasons for staying there, which to me seemed, I don't know, but who am I to judge? My God, I don't know. Anyway, you, you, you watch something like that.

And, uh, aside from the fact, it just feels like the end of the world. You do want to help you do and certainly like, I guess mindfulness is, if you're going to help people deal with like recovering from that sort of reality. If you ever can recover from that kind of reality, mindfulness seems like it would be incredibly helpful. How do you do that though? Like, how do you teach children who speak another language who have gone through hell on earth?

How, what, what would a beginning class on mindfulness look like from you? Okay. So the, the little kids in the camps did not witness the genocide, did not witness the killing and, uh, other horrible things that happened. Um, with the little kids, we taught them mindful games and I had to have translator. I don't speak Arabic. There are many different languages in the Darfurid people, but Arabic is the common one.

And so I didn't have a, you know, somebody, uh, we had a wonderful community leader, Umd Atarbash, and he, he would translate for us or this other guy, Ahmed. And, um, but for the people who have witnessed all this trauma, where do you begin? Well, first of all, we'll come in with, you know, our Western stories about mindfulness. You come in with, looking at their community and what do they do already that takes a lot of mindfulness? Like the women learn to walk with these huge, like be done with these jugs of water on their heads to carry water.

You, you know how strong your neck has to be? Cause I was like, Oh, teach me how. And they just laughed. They were like, your neck is falling off. You'll snap, you'll snap to carry things on your head. But the balance that it takes to walk and then they don't hold their hands up like this, walk around with it on their head. So, I mean, there's mindfulness or the way that they, um, I was at somebody's,

somebody's home of grass hut and, uh, they asked me if I could cut a tomato. And I was like, of course, I know how to cut a tomato. You know, I, and they said, well, here's how we cut a tomato. And they put the tomato in their hand and they cut with a blade toward the hand and really fast, like, and the tomato is diced and their hand is not hurt. And I was just like, Oh my God, but these are things that take focus and concentration and illness. So we started by just picking up on the things that people already did.

It's not like we're trying to teach them something they don't know. We're all human beings. We know how to focus and be present. We just have to train our minds and hearts to do that. And so, yeah, so we just started where people are. And we played games like rolling a ball, we'd get in a circle and then, and I want to give a shout out to Susan Kaiser Greenland, because it was her book, Mindful Games, which wasn't even out yet.

She let us use, um, her material. You sit in a circle and you, let's say I roll the ball to you and you're one of the little, um, one of the young women who teach the preschool and everybody when they get the ball, they say, what's going on in their mind and what's going on in their body. So mindful of your state of mind and mindful of the condition of your body. And they would say, you know, um, my mind is happy. My body is aching and or one person who even said, and I have malaria and no,

you know, everybody was not in good health, but everybody was so happy to be learning and to be playing games and to be learning how they can help the kids and have fun with them. Honestly, it was so joyful to be there in that bleak, malnourished. Uh, yeah, it's an open prison camp, really. Uh, and there's, you know, hundreds of thousands, I think 350,000 in 12 camps along the borders with Sudan. And this is just one place in the world, Duncan, right, that is hurting.

And it can be so overwhelming. And you think, well, you know, what can we do? And so that's for me, what, when I get upset about the world and feel so much grief or anger about social injustice, et cetera, et cetera. And I, you know, I'm just, I'm just talking about the unfairness of life. Essentially, when I get upset about that, what helps is for me to do something. I just need to do something. Yeah.

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But again, that's microdose.com code Duncan. What helps is for me to do something. I just need to do something. In this case, I went to the refugee camp, but you don't have to go to a refugee camp, buy somebody's coffee, you know, the person behind you in line. You can do sweet things. Okay, I'm sorry to do this. I mean, maybe again, this is just the way we are.

I just read something and forgive me anyone listening. If this is not the case, Starbucks employees are like, please stop doing that because they have to keep track. And it's this huge pain in the ass. It's a huge pain in the ass. It's like just buy your own coffee. And then like, if you want to give the person money for their coffee, do that. But this play it forward thing, it's hard enough now that they're doing

all the Uber Eats orders. They've got to deal with this nightmare. And now suddenly a charity line forms. Okay, please not pay for somebody's coffee, but maybe you could pay their toll of the car behind you or something like that. I don't know. I get, but I get the spirit of it. Yeah, I, it's like minimize it, you know, doesn't have to be big.

You don't have to go be gone. You don't have to go do a salt march. There's little, little things that you can do that maybe you'll get the ball rolling to bigger things. Is that what happened to you? I mean, Trudy, was there ever a time where you were just like, a little more cynical, a little more selfish, where you knew that there were people out there actively trying to help others, but you were like,

oh, whatever, that's not me. I'm like that a little bit every day, Duncan. I look around the world and sometimes I'm just like, we are F'd. And, you know, and sometimes I, my 12 year old grandson, I can use the word, right, because he said it, you know, he was learning about climate change. And he's like, maybe we are fucked. I mean, I look around it all the time too. Come on.

That's why I have to do this stuff to keep playing out of the, you know, abyss of despair and cynicism and negativity that, yeah, sure, of course. Yeah, I can go there too. But aren't we, aren't we fucked no matter? I mean, like, and again, I'm not saying this cynically. I mean, to me, it's at some point you, you come to this realization of even if somehow peace, global harmony, we still got all these nuclear weapons everywhere, we still have God knows what, wherever, and the way the world works

as things will inevitably get out of balance and cause horrific suffering. And then even if that doesn't happen, you're still getting old. You're going to die. Everyone you love is going to die. You're fucking away. So, so, so then it just boils down to, okay. So in the midst of that reality, what is the philosophy that's going to sort of carry you through until you drop your body?

What is the right philosophy? And I, you know, there's lots of arguments about that. Some people are like, oh, it's debauchery, it's hedonism, absolute selfishness. Don't fall prey to this bullshit morality out there. There's no morality. There's no morality in the face of the abyss. What are you going to, what are you out there giving soup to people? You should be having orgasms and getting high and getting rich and having lots

of stuff, and then you lived, baby, you lived. And then you, you, I don't know, you die in your Porsche or something. And you're, so that's one of the real philosophies in the world. I sort of made it a little bit, uh, non-sophisticated. But the philosophy, it is a philosophy. And I think what you can do is look at the folks, you know, how's it working for you as a therapist, as a spiritual teacher? I, I see these folks all the time, they come to me and they're beautiful,

brand new, light gray, coolest color Porsche and pour out their misery. And they have everything. Right. So I just say, try it, try it, try these different paths, see what works for you. Try it in the laboratory of yourself. And that's all the Buddha ever said, try my teaching. See if it works for you. The whole thing is about what leads to happiness and what leads to unhappiness.

And for me, I just discovered, look, I guess I was the slightly weird kid too, because I, I remember when I was around eight years old, I had, I used to sit on the curb, I wrote about this in my memoir. I used to sit on the curb and wait for my dad to come home. My mom was nice, but she was depressed and I was eager to get out of the house and wait, so he would walk home from work and I would wait. And in those days, it was the fifties and a lot of the dads would get dropped off by, you know, their public transport and then they would walk home and I would

sit and see all the dads coming home. And I could always tell which ones were sad, like which ones were going to a house where it wasn't a happy home. As a kid, I had made a list of the sad dads. Now, you know, most eight year olds, sad dad list. I think maybe who knows, I could give psychological, maybe I was a tune to it cause my mom was kind of depressed at that time, blah, blah. I don't know.

But I just think that I, for me, what I discovered instead of just cause I, it was depressing, you know? But what I discovered is actually including the sad dads, quote, unquote, all those people in my consciousness, it helped me in some way. And I think that, you know, when I ask, when you say, what is the philosophy? I'm going to give an answer that might give people the creeps, but it's true. And the philosophy is love. There really isn't anything else.

Yeah. You know, sis, I talked about this at the retreat. Sister Helen Preijon, who was the dead man walking the, the nun who worked with the death row inmates and their families. She said, she said, you know, human beings, she would be the last person that that condemned person, her face would be the last face that they would see before they were executed. And she said, human beings at the end, their last words are words of love.

They become loving beings. And, and so her, she dedicated her life to working with the most excluded, marginalized, like, okay, death row inmates and their families. Again, we don't have to go that far. There's plenty of excluded people right in front of us. But, but she talked about how, you know, we, we freeze, we fix people in this certain identity for the worst thing they ever did in their life. Yes.

No path to redemption. But I think love and trust, I'm sorry if people don't want to hear these words. But honestly, it's they're very alive words. They're about processes that are alive, that are always changing and happening. Sometimes my love, okay, I'm married to a wonderful man. You love him too. I do. But sometimes my love turns to hate and we joke about it.

Right. Has that ever happened to you with Aaron? I don't know. Probably never. Never, never has that ever happened. And I've never heard such a thing, Trudy, in marriage that that should happen. Yeah, sure. There's times when we're not getting along.

There's times when, you know, yeah, definitely, definitely that has happened. So, you know, if you consider that love and trust that these are like their processes, they include their life, they're always changing there, you know, they include all the feelings that go along with it. And then I feel like, okay, I want to be on the side of the outcasts in my own heart, the exiles that Dick Schwartz calls them in his internal family system. And the more I'm on the side of the exiles in my own heart, Duncan, the more it just doesn't need to be inclusive to others.

Okay. You mean the exiles in your own heart? You mean like the parts of yourself that you have been, wow. Yeah, sure. Oh my God. Yeah. Self that get in my way, the parts of myself that do things I wish she wouldn't and say I wish she wouldn't.

Exiles in your own heart. That is genius. Oh my God. Like the, just the banished, sad. What is it? I don't remember which cartoon it is. The island of discarded toys. You know, I, I just was watching this creepy show.

It's like, I can't remember what it's called, like Christmas train or something, polar express, horrible animation, uncanny valley. But yeah, it's creepy. There's like a, some sad room of toys. Kids don't play with anymore. This, yes, this I get rabbit. You can go to that story too. Oh, don't even mention the Velveteen rabbit.

That's a hammer. That's a soul hammer. But yes, yes. Right. Yes. So that's beautiful. So, so yeah. Okay.

So you start by loving the remember, I'm sorry, go ahead. No, please. I'm just summarizing what you said. You start by loving the exiles, the discarded or the suppressed or barely suppressed parts of yourself that are also part of you. And then it's just, I don't know. It's just kind of more natural. Do you remember, um, uh, Krishnadas, uh, put in one of his, uh, chance, these

beautiful prayers that he sings in his Kirtan, um, he put the words to a zen prayer called the gate of sweet nectar. He put them to music and I'm not Krishnadas, but I just want to remind you what they are because to me, this is actually, this is actually what is very moving to me. He says, um, okay, excuse me. No harmonium, no Krishnadas calling out to hungry hearts everywhere through endless time, you who wonder, you who thirst, I offer you this heart of mine.

Calling all you hungry spirits everywhere through endless time, calling out to hungry hearts, all the lost and left behind, gather round and share this meal. Your joy and your sorrow, I make it mine. So my dear Duncan, your joy, your sorrow, we're not separate ultimately, you know? And in the Buddhist tradition, they have these refuges and they're really sources of guidance and wisdom that if you want to be a refuge from the materialistic, conventional consumer, you know, all the things we know that are wrong with our society, it's being a different kind of refugee to the heart.

And, you know, to me, this is a spiritual path when we talk about sharing our joys and sorrows as human beings. And you're so good at that. You're so open-hearted and you share everything. You don't have anything back, Duncan. It's called oversharing, Trudy. I'm a professional oversharer. But look, look, it helps people because you talk about and I do it too.

You know, I'm not like really the same as a lot of my colleagues as spiritual teachers talking about what most people don't talk about. Giving, when we talk about the voiceless, we're not just talking about, you know, oppressed people who have no voice. We're talking about those parts of ourselves that aren't allowed to speak. I want to thank Rocket Money, not just for supporting this episode of the DTFH, but for going through all of the literally infinite subscriptions to things I don't use anymore and cancelling them.

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Right. I never thought of that. But, you know, I think there is a cultural prohibition on even kicking the idea around that you, with all your stuff, could also be a refugee. Even though at night sometimes I might be laying there thinking like, my God, what is, well, I'm none of this stuff is really mine anyway. I don't get, I'm not going to die with it. And then also the, the situation of coming into a world where your parents die, a world

where you, you, you are innately confused. It's a confusing place and where there's trickery. Mixed in with all of it, where it isn't all compassion and your beautiful song that where there's people who are, and that's, that's something that happens to refugees. That's one of the many awful things that happens to refugees is that on top of the, all the other shit they're having to deal with, people will like abuse them. People will exploit them. People will enslave them.

People will just do, just juice them. For whatever it is they think they can give from them. So, you know, I get that, I get it. Look, I'm sorry, but we're all refugees. Would I, if I had to pick between refugee in a nice house with a job he likes, healthy, and like the refugees that you are going to help, obviously I'm picking this life. So I'm not trying to make some, that it's an equal situation. Not comparing yourself to people fleeing war and persecution and genocide and human rights abuses.

I mean, but we all need support and assistance and we can all help each other and helping them actually remember that warm fuzzy selfish feeling. That's why I wanted to talk about IACT and Insight LA, the nonprofit that I founded for, you know, mindfulness and Buddhist training and education. You know, we have a part called Insight in action because what do you do with these feelings? You know, we have a whole branch of our work that is really giving people the chance to have some outlet for this wish because there is a lot of work that we have to do to help others. The more we have a good relationship with or let's say the more we have maybe a

handshaking acquaintance with our inner life, including all the exiled parts. Yeah. It actually is, I think you can see it in children. If somebody's crying, they want to comfort them, right? I think it's a wired in capacity for compassion. Yep. It is. You know what?

Maybe with IACT in particular, I think one of the challenges they are up against, aside from the thing that they're obviously up against, is that I'm not positive that a lot of people are fully aware that genocide is happening now. Like I'm not sure. And if they in brushing shoulders with that, I'm not sure. Happening now, like I'm not sure. And if they in brushing shoulders with that, that while while you,

whatever your life situation may be, assuming you're not in one of these countries where genocide is happening, while you're like having your coffee and paying it backwards, it's Starbucks tormenting the baristas. While you're doing that, there's people who are in the midst of things that will be written about in history books. They're not written about yet because it hasn't trickled around the planet all the way and it gets met with this, I think, of an active force field of, look, I don't want to think about that.

I just don't want to think about that right now. I'm too busy. Now I want to think about this, that there are children right now whose parents were murdered in an organized fashion. I don't know. Any time I. Well, even when you say it, I don't want to hear you say it even. It's so painful. You know, right?

That that you know, I don't this podcast. Yeah, you're supposed to be funny. What is this Duncan? Yeah, that that that because it's like there's something about like, OK, I'm going to go, you know, not that working at a soup kitchen or any of the classic cliche, like here's what you do to help things are bad. It's that those people aren't suffering. But my God, it's like I can sort of like sit with the reality of

classism and the disparity, the wealth disparity. But God, when I run up against that, that other thing you're talking about that on this planet right now, this massive planet with all these people. That that is still happening and no one's coming to help. I mean, nothing's stopping it like it's just going to happen. That's just going to work. The powerful people are going to use violence to wipe out other groups of people that they have invented lies about only for their skin

color or only for their last names or only for their geographic where they were born, holy shit, holy shit. Now that we fixed all that. So I don't know. I act, I think is running into that too, where people are like, I'm sorry, I just can't deal with that right now. Yeah, how do you cut through that? I think that the only way to cut through that is to link it to our personal grief,

personal anger, personal fear, the personal sense of being overwhelmed by all the stuff in the world. And by that, I mean, offering people, offering my, you know, for me, like I said, when I talked about helping people, it was because I was suffering, Duncan, because I was grieving. And I think that, you know, you and I did a podcast about grief not too long ago. Yes. And this stuff is actually an antidote to grief, not just because you think, oh,

oh, well, you know, there's not bombs raining on my house. I just lost my, you know, dog that I loved for 18 years or my precious partner or, you know, my beloved friend. OK, so do I still have a right to be sad if I don't have bombs raining down on my house? Yes. And I think understanding that this stuff is it's linked, that our personal grief and suffering is not separate actually from the suffering of the world and that it actually, you know, the antidote is so counterintuitive. The antidote is to turn toward the suffering, whether it's in our own hearts or

it's in the world. And that's not easy to do. That's why we have to have community and podcasts and Duncan and people to help us laugh about it, but we can join hands anyway. Oh, OK, I want to talk to you about this. And because I've read about it in Buddhism night and I. I it's beautiful. And when I remember it, when I'm like, you know,

when like that unexpected grief wave hits, which I still get about my mom, my dad, just today, my dog, Fox, just out of the blue. Oh, just missing that sweet Chihuahua so much. And I didn't remember when that happened. But when you remember, oh, wait, it's like a key on a piano. Like this is a resonance or something, a tone, a human. Like what you're experiencing is is simultaneously happening in countless millions and millions of people at that

exact time, like some kind of choir of grief or something. And you're one of the singers in it in that moment. And in that, whenever I remember to do that, something about that, it does help. It is beautiful, even though I'm not able to talk to the others in that moment. It's like, oh, my God, we're all together right now. We're all here.

Yeah. And one of the things like grief, for example, it's so isolating, you know, because I might be at the Hanukkah party and all I can think about is yeah, that my parents would have given anything to see these grandkids. They would have been their great-grandkids. You know, they would have they would have given anything. And so I'm thinking that and everybody else is, you know, having a drink and happy to see each other. And so it's isolating.

And what you're saying, you know, this is so isolating. This is a teaching that that I teach all the time. And I think other, you know, other teachers do too, which is that when you're having a moment of grief, it can be a moment of rage. It can be any moment that you are willing to actually identify the feeling you're having and feel it. Yeah, okay. Providing that moment of your courageous willingness to actually feel a feeling

to be able to say, this is what it's like to be a human being who is angry, a human being who is sad, a human being who is depressed, whatever it might be, that's hard to bear. And like you said, you can't talk to other people, but you suddenly are connected. You're connected to human life being exiled from the table, you know, sent away to your room to just, you know, go eat worms. Does that help? Because I never, you know, I'm a little dense in a lot of places, but

somehow in all what you just said, I never realized that aspect of it. It is so isolating to, you know, obviously, I think that about my mom and my kids. So to be in the midst, there's the beautiful Christmas tree. There's the presents. There's the smell of Christmas in the air. And all your feeling is like the abyss. Like there is nothing I can possibly do to show my mom this life I'm in. There's no way to go back in time.

There's no way to do it. And then and then everyone's like happy or absorbed in Christmas. And you're suddenly like just you might as well be in some tower alone with a wind blowing your cape and gray hair and wrinkles and just sort of staring off into Mordor in those moments. It's so yeah, yeah. But here's the thing, even if you think to yourself, OK, well, she's up in heaven and she's watching and, you know, she's enjoying this up in heaven.

But that's not like being with her and seeing her face and seeing her pleasure at observing her grandchildren open their presents or whatever it might be. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so so in those moments, there's this possibility where you realize like this is now you're now you're really a human like this is the human. This is it like this is the thing backstage of capitalism, the consumerism of, you know, the constant like festival of self-sense gratification.

This is what's really going on. This is what everyone will face. This is it point. So if we can talk about it and even laugh about it and just connect with each other about it, it really helps. You know, it's like what did the Buddha say? His assistant, Ananda, asked him, you know, his his friendship, you know, spiritual friendship, supportive, good friendship,

important in spiritual life, his friendship, important. And he said he said it's not half of it. It's really the whole of it. It's all of it. Friendship is really important. OK, it's a podcast. I don't know really who's out there. I'm not really friends with you all, but I feel connected to you when we're talking

like this and that connection is important. It makes me feel good, too. And I hope it's useful to some of you all who are listening. But it's it's it's community in some way that we have today that we didn't have before. That's right. And it's so proud. I mean, you know, this is sort of God, I don't know why I did. I ordered this book, The Fourth Turning.

It's so creepy. It's just, you know, saying there's a seat. There's like a longer sort of seasonal shift to the like to civilization and inevitably, you know, empires rise, empires fall. But it's very predictable and sort of charts out that we're like in the middle of the fourth turning, the like fall from an empire. All of the like that were were experiencing that collapse right now. And I don't I don't know why I tune into books like that.

But and who knows, it could be complete garbage. But I think that those things, whatever they may be, technology is so disruptive that it could there is, you know, like in our community, in the spiritual community, everyone goes on and on about the Kali Yuga. We're in the Kali Yuga, the age of disintegration. You're just like, OK, fine. We're in the age of disintegration. But I play around the idea, but just maybe it doesn't have to be that.

Just maybe thanks to this technology and the ability to have, you know, community and to have conversations where you're batting around ideas like that and where you can tune in to this benevolent community that is very alive. And some of us are definitely more active than others as far as being benevolent, but definitely alive if we're not actively benevolent, there's a sense of like, I want to help something about that. That's where the cosmic giggle comes in this sense of like, but wait, is it really the Kali Yuga?

Does it have to be the fourth turning? Just maybe not, maybe not. And there is a possibility of something bursting out from the abyss that isn't a Cthulhu that doesn't have tentacles and things, but is, in fact, something more incredible than anything that maybe we've seen in history. I don't know what that might be. Oh, listen, we got a little glimpse of it with this new chatbot AI. Yeah, that that can I read you the letter that I had?

I had the Buddha right to Jesus. Yes, please. Let's hear it. You know, this is new stuff. We didn't have this before. I'm with you and even on a personal level, I could say, well, God, I'm in the disintegrating part of life. I'm 77 years old.

My body, I mean, it's only downhill from there. And my joints are already starting to hurt a little bit after I do a intensive workout and I could get, but I feel so much joy and so much aliveness. And who knows what's going to happen? So, OK, this is just one of the tip, the tiniest tip of an enormous iceberg that, you know, of AI that this is not even like its recent capabilities that they're out there just testing stuff that they had years ago. OK.

I asked AI, all I said is please write a letter from the Buddha to Jesus. Oh, it was Christmas Day. Dear Jesus, I hope and remember the answer comes instantaneously. Yeah. Dear Jesus, I hope this finds you well. I've heard much about your divine birth and the great things you've done and are continuing to do for the people around you. As you may know, I too am a spiritual teacher and I've spent much of my life

studying and teaching the path to enlightenment. One of the key teachings in Buddhism is the concept of non-self or the idea that there's no permanent unchanging self or soul. That means that essentially all beings are empty of any inherent essence or self-nature, which leaves us free to be anything we really want. I'm adding that because it's true. Wouldn't be liberating otherwise. It would just be, I don't know, nothingness.

With this in mind, Jesus, I understand that your birth may be seen as a divine event by some, but I hope to offer a different perspective. From a Buddhist point of view, all beings are constantly changing and interconnected. And there's actually no separation between one being and another. This means that your birth, like the birth of any other being, is a natural and interconnected part of the process of life. Each being is a divine birth in that way. I do not mean to diminish the significance of your birth or the great things you've

done, Jesus, rather, I hope to offer a different way of understanding these events. I wish all the best on your spiritual journey. And I hope that our paths may one day cross. What? That is crazy. That is crazy. I mean, you you see why so many people, I had one of them on my podcast, are saying these things are it's sentient, it's this thing is aware that to put so many ideas together

that are very deep, weave them together in a way that's kind of a sweet letter and has this like nice, buoyant, happy energy to it. That is astounding. I mean, this is astounding. Now humans in our sentiency have trained AI to do this. Right. And of course, there's all the, you know,

disadvantages that we know, it's kind of racist and sexist and, you know, there's problems, there's obviously problems because humans aren't perfect either. But to me, the birth of this kind of different intelligence does offer tremendous possibility for us to change in our world that we can't even imagine. Right. Right. Yeah. This is well, this is, you know,

I got, I've talked about this a few times, but I got to visit Singularity University ever. I think you, if you heard of them, they're up in San Francisco. Right. I want to go, but I haven't been. Oh, you should go give a talk there. I mean, it's incredible. But they, yeah, so they're dedicated to sort of understanding like how technology can help the world. They're really into like going upstream, as they call it, which is, you know,

what, let's figure out a way to get clean water. You know, things like that, if we can go upstream using technology, then we really can't fix a lot of the world's problems. I think it's, his name is Peter Diamandes, I believe, along with Kurzweil and some other people, but this technology, they've been predicting that it was coming and then here it is. And then to see what happens when it's the person talking to it is you and the way it responds is really incredible.

Yeah. We don't, so I think there's something there. There is a, you know, if you're looking for a a way out of the feeling of being caved in by the Kali Yuga, like you're, you're completely trapped and stuck and there is nothing's going to change. Everything is going to be horrible. I think that stuff like that will, and also we have a super, whatever you want to call it, we have a super intelligence on the planet that we all have access to.

And that is not spitting out, I want to destroy all humans or what is, you know, articulating big, dharmic ideas in a way that dharma teachers are impressed by. I mean, that is. Yes. So, so there is, I don't, I don't like to use the word hope because I've been reading because I read Joachim Trump. It would be an idea of hope being like, you know, I do understand why hope is not necessarily the best thing, but there's another kind of hope, this kind of hope.

It's like, look, things can change for the better just as quickly as they can change for the worse. That possibility is there too. And, and you can participate in that in some way or another. And when you were reading Trump, and he's talking about hope and fear and Tibetan Buddhism, hope, like fear, they're continued, they're understood to be obstacles to be present, you know, as if you're hoping for some, you know, I'm hoping for a better moment.

I want to get out of this one. Yes. That kind of thing, that, but he's not, he also talks about sunrise mentality or sunset and he talks about the great eastern sun rising, you know, these teachings coming and, and that's illuminating joy and cheerfulness and what do you call it? Optimism. Yes. That's different from hoping that somehow I'll get out of this moment because I'm

already in the next moment and I'm still hoping to get out of that one too, etc., etc. Thank you for making the distinction. And that rising eastern sun, that things like this make me think of that. And also, you know, look, time frames that have been, you know, created a long, long time ago regarding like natural cycles. Who knows how time works even? Like who knows potentially time is speeding up, meaning that, you know, that Kali Yuga won't last as long as the other ages.

You know, it could be that because of this accelerating technology, things are zipping by faster than they were before. Who knows? I don't want to get bogged down in some metaphysical, temporal, schematic here or anything like that. I just mean, yeah, there is hope in the rising sun sense. And there are like things that you can do and you are connected. We're all connected through this, whatever it is. I mean, what is the name? What do you call it?

Satsang Sangha? What is your... I think community, just the sense of the community of all beings, you know, we're all connected. I look at it as a more maha, you know, a bigger, a bigger, like, like when Rondas, you know, your teacher and friend, mine too, once I asked him, like, what do you do when you meditate? I was so curious. And he said, you know, I take my blanket or my shawl

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mine too, once I asked him, like, what do you do when you meditate? I was so curious. And he said, you know, I take my blanket or my shawl and I just wrap it around the whole cosmos. That's cool. That's the bigger community. Wow, right, right. And do you think, I guess I'm going to go back in the metaphysics.

Sometimes I get the sense when I'm meditating that it's not just like you're connected to suffering beings that there's another bandwidth of beings who are like enlightened or realized that are also sort of sending signals through whatever that is and you can. Yeah, we were only talking about being connected to the suffering beings as a way to not feel so isolated when you're grieving and upset. But the connection that comes with the meditation is to a whole

another dimension of our being that everybody could have access to and make sometimes call it through nature, Buddha mind, spirit, soul. Ramdas called his soul. But it's beautiful, peaceful, loving, not separate, completely ensconced and held in a place in the universe, in the cosmos. This little I think of it sometimes as like the infinite tenderness of the universe of life itself manifesting as just this being me, Trudy,

you know, this particularity or singularity or just this being Duncan. But it's like a little, you know, the beautiful analogy that's always used a wave in the ocean. Like you're that beautiful curl emerging from the ocean, but still made of water and part of it and coming back down into it. Is that Nirvana? Is that when they talk about Nirvana or when they talk about? Is that what they're talking about?

Is that that that, you know, again, I've only cut glimpses of it. And anytime I catch the glimpse of it, I weirdly just jump out of it right away. It's incredible. But then I will somehow, you know, I do the. The classic, which it's like you start thinking about the thing that just happened. And then somehow you're gone. But my thoughts on it are like it's it's so

counter to what I understand about vacationing. Like you get in the plane, it sucks. You fly to some place, spend way too much money or stress about the money you're spending, it's beautiful, but what am I doing? My God, this is nuts. And then you fly back and then it's over. But this place, it's like that. It's like so reductive and dumb, but it's like what you're going for on a vacation.

It's like perfect, natural, beautiful, but you're you're not surrounded by like Hawaiian scenery or like some whatever you fill in the blank of where you like to go. It's just your messy studio where you're meditating. But there it is. Cleat, perfect. But then I don't know. I can't hang out there that long.

I mean, it's I abandon ship almost within seconds. That's a huge what you're bringing up now is actually huge, Duncan. It's huge. It's another podcast, unless we have a home of their own. OK, it's huge because, yes, we jump away from it. How many times was I sitting in a meditation retreat in one of these states of just the utter perfection of everything? And then I hear the bell for lunch. Do I stay with the state I'm in?

Or do I think, oh, I better go get lunch. And I leave. You know what I mean? Like how many times was I almost totally completely enlightened and then I won't have lunch instead? Like if Buddha had been a little more hungry, we might not have Buddhism. That's right. That's probably why the monks are only allowed to eat one meal a day.

Trudy, I guess, not to do a lazy, like tying it back to what you're talking about. But couldn't you argue that if we are going to say we're all kind of refugees? That's what we're refugees from, that there is that place that is the space that is just right there for you. But through whatever our particular karmic circumstances are, we're disconnected from that in and we have some sense that it's there. We know we felt something on your kids at the very least. You like, I know when I was a kid, I think I was pretty happy.

There were there was that moment. And so now what, you know, now what, now, now what, how do we tie all this together? Personal refugees from some fundamental goodness that we've disconnected from. What are we supposed to do about this situation? Well, that's sort of what I've devoted my whole life to Duncan. You know, working with a spiritual path that can help us transcend that limitation of feeling little and small, compressed, suffering, being disconnected from the vastness

and beauty of what's possible for the human heart. And, you know, when we talk about refugees again, I want to make it clear that it's a metaphor, yes, talking about the actual experience of losing your home and everything you've ever known in law. Thank you. Not talking about that, friends. Definitely a metaphor. Please don't yell at me. I obviously don't consider myself a refugee in that sense.

My God. Just yeah, let's make that totally clear. You know, my sense, Duncan, is that a glimpse is super important and it's not that hard to have a glimpse of this truth in yourself. If you put yourself in a situation of doing know what what what, you know, some good therapy, some meditation, some yoga, whatever practice you're drawn to,

but that you would do consistently because then you learn about yourself because you don't want to keep doing it and you resist it and what happens if you listen to that voice and what happens if you actually do it anyway and you learn all this stuff and and then you get more skillful and the more connected we feel, one feels to this bigger perspective, the more natural it is. We don't have to talk about doing good or is it smarmy or is it ego? It's just the natural movement of the heart.

Just as natural as waking up in the morning and rubbing your eyes. Love it. I think, Trudy, you are so brilliant. And I just all day, I told Aaron, I get to talk to Trudy today. She's doing the podcast. And I was like, ah, lucky, you know, it's you're such a you're just so wonderful. And and well, I love you and Aaron and Forest and Dune. I don't know if people knew your kids' names, but now they do.

That's fine. They know that, you know, and they got to swim with you, which was so cool. But before we wrap up, friends, Trudy is a teacher and a friend of mine. And I really want to help her with IACT. So if you have any, if you feel anything from this conversation, I really want to invite you to participate. And could you tell everyone how they can connect? Yes.

And, you know, we did that. We did that sort of campaign on the social media to raise funds for IACT. But and it raised some money. Thank you to any of you who may have contributed really. Thank you with all my heart. But what was really more important for them is it raised awareness and they got a lot more followers on their social media who are now going to learn more about their work and I want to thank you.

You can follow them. Just go to their website, IACT.ngo. And you can learn about different ways to volunteer if you feel like it or anything. Or just learn about them. That's enough, really, just to learn. And I would encourage you to do the same thing for Insight LA and Insight in action. If you feel moved to donate, fantastic. But there's lots of ways to give.

And and some people say giving of your time is actually more meaningful than giving your money, but sometimes it's easier to give your money, depending on where you're situated in the socioeconomic scale. So, yes, thank you, Duncan, because I really believe that, you know, Insight LA is working closely with IACT, and that's why I bring them up together. We have eight of our teachers who are currently working with IACT and several who have gone to the refugee camps, not just me. You know, in fact, just recently,

Tracey Gress came back from Chad, from Eastern Chad, from visiting several of the camps. We have so it's a very we're working together. Wonderful. Trudy, I love you. Thank you so much for being on the show again and all the links you need to find IACT and Insight LA and everything we talked about will be at DuncanTruzzle.com. Thanks, Trudy. Oh, Duncan, wait.

Yeah, I also want people to follow my social because yeah, we talk about things like this as well as just, you know, teachings. So can you put that information? Absolutely. Y'all follow Trudy Goodman, aka Trudy the Love Barbarian from the Midnight Gospel on our Instagram. Do it. Trudy, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Duncan, thanks for this great conversation. That was Trudy Goodman, everybody. You can check out IACT.NGO. You can follow Trudy on Instagram, Trudy, underscore Goodman. All those links are going to be at DuncanTruzzle.com. A big thank you to our sponsors and thank you for listening. We will be back later on in the week with a deep conversation with Romnev. Until then, Hare Krishna.

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Next stop, JCPenney. Family get-togethers to fancy occasions, wedding season two. We do it all in style. Dresses, suiting and plenty of color to play with. Get fixed up with brands like Liz Claiborne, Worthington, Stafford and Jay Farar. Oh, and thereabouts for kids. JCP.com. All dressed up everywhere to go.

JCPenney.