Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 36: Spring Washam, Meditation and Dharma Teacher

Episode Date: September 28, 2016

Spring Washam was selling timeshares and struggling with depression when she decided to embark on a journey to work on her mind. After looking into psychology texts, self-help books and various forms of meditation, she eventually attended a 10-day meditation retreat that she says changed her life forever. Washam is now a well-known meditation and dharma teacher who started the East Bay Meditation Center, bringing mindfulness meditation practices to the diverse communities in the Oakland, California, area. She also has a somewhat controversial project involving trips into the Amazon jungle and the drug Ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic plant-based tea mixture. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It kind of blows my mind to consider the fact that we're up to nearly 600 episodes of this podcast, the 10% happier podcast. That's a lot of conversations. I like to think of it as a great compendium of, and I know this is a bit of a grandiose term, but wisdom. The only downside of having this vast library of audio is that it can be hard to know where to start. So we're launching a new feature here, playlists, just like you put together a playlist of your favorite songs.

Back in the day, we used to call those mix tapes. Just like you do that with music, you can do it with podcasts. So if you're looking for episodes about anxiety, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes. Or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes, or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist for that. We've even put together a playlist of some of my personal favorite episodes. That was a hard list to make. Check out our playlists at 10%.com slash playlist. That's 10% all one word spelled out. dot com slash playlist singular.

Let us know what you think. We're always open to tweaking how we do things and maybe there's a playlist we haven't thought of. Hit me up on Twitter or submit a comment through the website. My guest in this episode is a very good sport. Such a good sport that it really reaffirms my conviction that meditation is good for you. Her name is Spring Washam.

And if you read my book, by the way, if you haven't read my book, it's available at fine book stores everywhere. But if you read my book, you met her in the chapter where I go on a 10-day silent meditation retreat. She was one of the meditation teachers presiding over what I call day Zen Death March. In the chapter, I make fond of spring in a pretty unsuttle way. Here's what I say, quote, spring, who appears to be at some indeterminate point in her 30s is the embodiment of everything that most bothers me

about the meditation world. She's really working at speaking softly thing. Every S is sibilant, every word is over-enunciated. She wears shawls, she's probably really militant about recycling. Now in my defense, and in spring's defense defense really, she does go on to become the hero of the chapter. She's the one who gives me key advice at a low point in my practice that allows me to have something of a breakthrough. Nonetheless, I was pretty peacont in my description

of her. So, and I was worried about that. So, before the book came out, I actually tracked spring down. We didn't really know each other. I had met her that one time on her treat. And I tracked her down and I sent her the chapter and I offered her a chance to, you know, let me, I would change her name if she was offended or whatever and she got back to me and said, no, no, she thought the chapter was hilarious, don't change the thing.

And at that moment, I realized a fresh how cool spring is. And my suspicion is that meditation is probably part of why she's so cool, but we'll find out for sure when we talk to her. And we also want to talk to her about I didn't mean to use the royal weed there. I also want to talk to her, but a fascinating new project she's embarked upon that involves the drug ayahuasca. It's also it's kind of controversial and she's been doing a lot of journeys into the Central

American jungle. But first, from ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Thank you for being here. Aw, thank you. What a nice introduction. I love it. My pleasure.

This is gonna be fun. I'm so glad you agreed to do this. Thank you. Yeah, of course. So let me start with a question I always ask, which is when, where, why did you start meditating? I mean, you know, when I think about my journey with meditation, I really think about this retreat I went on when I was about 23.

And I had got into meditation just suffering. I mean, I started studying psychology in my late teens. I went through a lot of depressed periods and I realized right away, something's wrong with my mind. Like, this is very clear. It was no, it wasn't a mystery. I kept thinking I need to work on my mind.

So I started studying on my own reading books. I got involved in self-realization fellowship with Parma Hasa Yogananda. Ali Smith, who was on our show recently grew up in that church. Oh, yeah. And I was really, I loved it. And I would study all the material. And I would go to this temple locally here. And we would do three hour meditations. Whoa. But it was bad. I had no instruction.

They didn't give you any instruction. That was the problem. They would just say, open to God. Love. That was all you got. So you could imagine that for three hours. That's your instruction. My mind would go crazy.

After maybe two hours, it would eventually calm down. And then I would think, okay, maybe I am meditating now. So, but eventually I needed more instruction and I was getting more depressed and I was in this tortured relationship. I was selling time share at the time, which was horrible. I have a hard time imagining you selling time share.

Strangely, I was good at it though. Really? No, that doesn't surprise me. I think it was a good idea. I think it was a good idea. I mean, I ain't it though. Yeah, I was surprised. I was surprised. I was surprised. I mean, I ain't going to buy it. It was terrible. I was talking to people in these palms, spring, time shares.

Anyway, I hated it. I was miserable. I was getting more depressed. And I heard about, it was before Spirit Rock actually had land. And I heard about this for sure. Let me just jump in for a second. So Spirit Rock is the Med meditation center where you and I met

right in 2010. And so you heard about spirit rock before they actually started. Yeah, they had bought the land and they were doing things on the land. And they were in the process of finishing the beautiful hall that you were in for your retreat. Suffering. Suffering, right? And they were renting facilities. That's how they did the retreats. They would go to different places and rent and they were waiting for the hall to be done. So they could then open the year round retreat part of the center. And I heard that they give you instructions. And there's teachers there. And I was like, that's it. I need help. I was kind of having a meltdown. And honestly, I was the night before the retreat.

My boyfriend and I had this huge screaming break up. I packed up stuff in my car. And for the next 10 hours, I drove to the desert, saw being drinking diet, mountain dew, and chain smoking. I almost crashed many times as you can imagine a hysterical woman driving. But luckily, it was in the desert. And I got to the retreat center and I remember I almost collapsed at the registration

table. This is really true. I was so exhausted and it was a 10 day retreat and I knew nothing about it. I didn't even know it was Buddhist. All I knew was they gave you instructions and somebody had recommended it. And I somehow got the money together, went down there and it was life changing. And I didn't even know that Jack Cornfield was the leader of that retreat. Jack Cornfield, the famous meditation. Yeah, I didn't know who was there. He was, he was, I knew, is the founder of spirit rock, but this was, again, in the desert, not at their current property in North of San Francisco. And so what was life changing about it? What changed so much for you?

Well, it was like when I got there, I was so exhausted. And the retreat was a 10-day retreat. They used to do these 10-day retreats for beginners. So there it was with 150 newbies. We were all a mess. And there was these teachings on being present and that was something that I hadn't learned at Self Realization Fellowship. They never talked about living in the present moment. It's a beautiful tradition and I love it, but it was more about sort of focus on love and God. And I didn't I couldn't figure out, but what about my mind? Yes, I love God. I love

this idea of love. Of course, whatever that means to you, God, whatever consciousness. But I didn't know how to work directly with my mind. And so when I got there and they gave these instructions, I follow your breath. Oh my gosh, follow my breath, doing walking meditation and the desert for hours. walking meditation and the desert for hours, my mind finally began to calm down. And I had these moments there. I could really, I really say, and I'm writing about this now, that retreat was kind of an awakening experience. For days, my mind became quiet, peaceful. I was in hours walking, sitting, and the teachings. I heard just, it was like some deep, some deep remembering like, oh, I know this. And I know it was very emotional. I can remember I'm walking in the desert and just oceans of tears falling with each step. And at the end of that retreat, I walked up to this little

area, it was kind of like a little mountain in the behind the retreat center in the desert. And I kind of like ordained myself. And I was like, I will follow these teachings until the very end. It was really powerful. And after that, I really changed my life. It was like direct course turn shift. Wow. No more time shares. You were so amazing. No, I was done. And I was, yeah, I basically was like, this is what I want to do. And I just started going on retreat after retreat and working at places just to get money to go back on retreat. And I was thinking of our dating as a nun, like a whole bunch of things are set in motion. But I just, at that point, sound myself as a yogi.

Like, I'm in this world, but I'm going to just practice. This is such a powerful path. And it was helping me. Your hair was on fire. So let me just step back for once. Like you said, you had a lot of depression. You think that was strictly neurochemical or were there events in your life during your childhood that had created this? I think it was more coming from the circumstances of my life at that time. I was sort of estranged from my family. I'd had this really, really painful childhood

and there was things I had in dealt with, trauma, all kinds of things. And as I got into my late teens, it became debilitating where I went up for a long period when I was in my late teens. I was living with a family friend, luckily, and I was living in Los Angeles, and I couldn't get out of bed for months, and I would just cry.

And so then it's then that led me to psychology because I was like, something's wrong with my mind, and I started reading a lot of self-help books, Wayne Dyer, anything I can get my hands on. And then actually another turning point was I started to go to this church called Agape with Reverend Michael Beckwith. And it was very small, then it's a whole movement now. I've interviewed him. Yeah. And he was so charismatic. I would go on Wednesdays and Sundays. And we would meditate. And that also, again, he was planting the seeds like,

okay, it's my mind. But again, there was something missing, right? I needed more direct instructions. Like, how do I actually do this? What do I need to apply? And it was the moment to moment awareness, the mindfulness that for me was a huge ingredient that was missing from a lot of other traditions.

A training. A training, actual training. An actual training. And then let's do it. You know, that meant a big thing to me to learn how to do that and to be guided and to know there was a lineage of awakened beings who applied that. That to me was also very important. Who else has done this and does this really work? And then looking at the traditions, and was like, wow, this is really it.

But what made you believe is you just used to serve some trigger words there for me as a skeptic, awakened beings. What made you believe that they're, so what they say they were at these awakened beings? What made you believe that these people actually existed and that awakening was possible, whatever that even means?

Well, I knew reading Parma Hasa's biography that his mind was different than my mind. Parma Hasa, again, was the founder of this. Self-realization fellowship. So that was like the first experience I had with what you would call a awakened, or some kind of awakened mind. And it is really.

No, it's mind is different. You could have been full of crap. Yeah, you're right. And it is. It's really cheesy, the word, awakened and enlightenment. I mean, you know, it's everywhere now. It's in commercials. It is.

I didn't really know. But what I knew was that after that 10 days, something had happened to me, that I was something fell away. I was able to be with myself in a different way. I was able to tap into something. Similar to what you kind of wrote about in your book, like something happened. And that in me produced a lot of faith.

Well, I would say what happened for me was not mystical or magical. It was more just that the chattering moron in my skulls quieted down. I was able to just be aware of whatever's happening right now. And that was accompanied with a pretty big blast of serotonin. quite a down, I was able to just be aware of whatever's happening right now. And that was accompanied with a pretty big blast of serotonin. And I think that you can, the more you can, and what also became clear for me is that there is a methodology to just increase the likelihood that you'll be awake in any given moment.

And it's just this tradition of mindfulness and meditation. That's what, for me, created, if you want to call it faith or trust or confidence or whatever, that I wanted to go forward. But there was nothing, I still don't, you know, nobody's offered me an indisputable truth that A, the Buddha existed or B, that he was awakened and that, you know, never got into a bad mood or that, I, I remain sort of skeptical. I, I agree.

And in moments, I get really skeptical too. Like, what is this, the big hoax, or I'll just, you know, sitting here meditating and, but the thing about it is that I looked at how I felt inside and living in the present moment. So when I say someone is awakened, okay, let me just clarify that. I mean someone who doesn't lose track of that awakened state, someone who's not identified with the psychopath in their head, that to me is a being that I trust. Someone who is

out sort of living outside of that, not caught in that. And granted, we all get caught in that. I think this is the training, is to more and more moments of freedom. But... Freedom from that voice in that, where you're not being a kid. Freedom from the psychopath, yeah. Yeah, and we can say the insane part of our mind,

there is a total craziness in our minds, that's no doubt about it. But someone who is living awake and living from that state of moment to moment awareness. So rather, there's a guy named Buddha out there who did that or other teachers, but the more I traveled when I was younger and I would go to different places, the more I started to believe that this was the path that was leading me to that because the more awake I was, the happier I was, the more free I felt was the more free I felt the more loving I felt the more innate compassion was there the more altruism naturally arose. And for me, that's important to be

going more in that direction. Yeah. And I think it's hard to want. Once you, once you wake up to this thunderous truism that you're happier when you're aware of what's happening as opposed to the lost and delusion and rumination and projection. It's hard to turn back. Yeah. You want to see it. It's hard to turn back. In my view, although people fall off the wagon as meditators all the time, but we can

talk about that. So anyway, you have this first experience. It sounds like it was huge. You throw yourself into it, become a meditation teacher. And I may be leaving things out, which you can fill in whenever I shut up. But what I'm trying to get to next is the fact that you started a very interesting center called the East Bay Meditation Center. Do I have that right?

Yeah. Which is right in the middle of it, I would say, not a Yuppie neighborhood. I wish to agree with that. The downtown Oakland is that yet be, although it's changing, you know, it is changing fast. And there's a lot of people. Anyway, that's a whole nother conversation about what's happening in urban places. Yeah, so, you know, 10 years of practice, squeeze in there. And then out of that was this desire to be of service,

to teach people, to go to where they are, and right in the middle of it, and just start working with the community. I think that's a really important thing to do. It's accessible. When you walked in, I think it is too. Absolutely, it's an amazing thing to do. But when you walk into a community like that

and say, all right, we're going to teach you guys how to meditate. Are people receptive to that or how does that go down? Well, at our center, we open the doors and who comes, comes. We didn't do any heavy advertising. We weren't out there flyers. You got to come. This is the new thing. We didn't do any of that.

People just start showing up. It was all word of mouth. People would come and they'd bring their five friends the new thing. We didn't do any of that. People just start showing up. It was all word of mouth. People would come and they'd bring their five friends the next week. And then they'd say, you know, you gotta be here. You just gotta practice this. You just work with it. And a lot of what we did was we're giving teachings

that really were focused on that community. So I was thinking of lofty teachings on the empty nature of reality and all that. I was talking about the heart, how to live in this moment when you're heartbroken or when you are terrified or when you are so depressed, you can't even get up or when, you know, I was talking about what was really happening or when you're witness violence or when they had to sit with you have trauma, what happened. So it was teachings applied to that community. I was referencing quotes that they knew, people they

knew. I mean, we have an image right now, beautiful picture of Dr. King. He's been on our All Terstens Day one for people that resonates, right? That's that is the awakened heart. That is a heart. That is that's something that they something that they want to be like that. So, I mean, we'd all like to be like that on some level. I hope, you know, to have that kind of courage. So I would imagine that you're, this is a population that doesn't come and, you know, Lulu, Lemon, Yoga, Pants, and these are not, you know, whole food shopping, NPR listening, traditional meditators, which I actually want to talk about

in a second, but so can you give me some stories of who you're serving here and any and what kind of results you've seen? I mean, we, okay, so we have, I guess you could describe our communities and mix of all that. So there are people who, you know, are do shop at Whole Foods, but they don't really consider themselves like a lululemon wearing, you know, they're more the hipsters, soul, soul tribe, I guess, whatever you want to call it, right?

They're natural and, you know, so- By the way, nothing against Whole Foods. I shop there too, I'm just saying that- No, we don't. It's a, it represents something, and I know what you're talking about.. I'm just saying that. No, it represents something. And I know what you're talking about. Yeah, there's definitely a, yeah, I get it. I mean, you know, I think the stories are so varied

if people who come there. I've worked with people who were homeless and started coming there and later shared with me. You know, I came here out of hearing about this place, I was living in my car, but somehow I would just come here spring every Thursday and you'd be here. And I started working with my mind

and doing the meta practice and taking responsibility and learning and doing, and their whole life would change. Within a few years, that's somebody that we're now thinking, hey, that could be a future teacher. Wow. I just want to quickly jump in change within a few years. That's somebody that we're now thinking, hey, that could be a future teacher. Wow. I just want to quickly jump in and define a few, you talked about meta practice, ME, TTA. That's loving kindness, meditation. You were the first person ever to teach me how

to do that on retreat back in 2010 and I now do it all the time. Even though I found it unbelievably syrupy and annoying initially and still do on some levels, it is I think very good for you. please therapy and annoying initially and still do on some levels is I think very good for you. Let me just get back to this whole whole food discussion because this is one of my frustrations. But I'd like to hear your views. What do you think about the state of diversity in the meditation world? My view is that it's not nearly where it needs to be. And do you agree with me? And if so, what can be done? I do agree with you. I mean, hello, Dan. I was practicing at Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts. Yes. 18 years ago. I was the only person, young person, everyone was 65 then. And I was the only person, and I would go through...

I went person of color. Only person of color. And I would go through so much suffering, and I would leave my colorful community in Oakland, and then I would go there, and I would just add so much faith it didn't matter. But I was complaining about this to Joseph Goldstein all the time. I go... Who founded Insighting Meditations? And I would go, I...

This is so painful. What is wrong with the Dharma? And I would go on and on. And it was it was out of that that the desire to create an urban community. It was that suffering. I felt so alone. And it wasn't anything against the people that were there. They were just everybody was there working on themselves and meditating. But the lack of diversity was so painful.

It was a lot of suffering for me. You can correct me if I'm wrong about this. My view in the last decade or so, IMS, Insight Meditation Society and Spirit Rock have labored, I think, quite, they've done a lot of work to try to boost diversity. I don't know, I'll hear, eager to hear your view on whether enough has been done.

But if you look at the board of directors at IMS, for example, it's a pretty diverse crew and there are people of color retreats and I know because I know Joseph quite well that it's on his mind at a huge variety. I'm more talking about this sort of meditation generally in the broader culture and the cover of Time Magazine when they did their mindful revolution cover and it was this beautiful blonde, you know, floating off into the cosmos with meditative bliss. That's part of my problem with the cover. But the other problem is this person clearly just doesn't look like the rest of us and definitely doesn't look diverse. She's certain sort of, you know, it looks like she could be my neighbor on the Upper West Side of Manhattan,

and I'm going to the whole foods with me. I consider myself in some ways like a part of the problem, you know, so I don't know what you think in terms of, so on one level, you've got the Dharma centers, I am at the Spirroch, and what they're doing or not doing. And then at a level, you just have the sort of broader, cultural view of the practice. So I'll stop talking and let you say whatever you want to say about either or for both.

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figuring out how to make drinking water from air and sunlight. Together they discuss their entire journey from day one, and all the skills they had to learn along the way, like confronting big challenges, and how to lead through uncertainty. So if you want to get inspired and learn how to think like an entrepreneur, check out how I built this, wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and add free on the Amazon or Wondery app. Well, I agree with you that Insight Meditation Society and Spirit Rock have done a lot.

I mean, they've both been really, especially Spirit Rock has been trying for years to have conversations, to dialogue. But you know, one of the things and they've done a lot, I actually applaud them for what they they have attempted to do, what they're trying to do. They just had a huge three day diversity training. That was mandatory for senior staff, board and all teachers. Man, send you a go. Very important work.

And it's just such a painful topic though, Dan. You know, the whole thing when we talk about diversity and who's in and who's out and inclusion and exclusion, it brings up power, it brings up privilege, it's painful. And that's the thing that I didn't understand early on. I would be like, we're in a diversity training. Why are all these older middle age white people curled up in the fetal position? All right?

So they couldn't deal with it. It was so painful. So I've been come to understand that just resistance or this fear, it's just a complex issue of how to make our communities more diverse. And it's something I'm really interested in. And so that was a big motivation to go into communities and create it from within.

And it also has a lot to, they people need to see themselves mirrored. Right, well, so what about, so picking up on that exactly, what do we do to change the broader cultural view of meditation, whether it's Buddhist or secular or Hindu? How do we make that not seem like such a upper middle class pursuit? Well, the Mindful magazine cover didn't help. There was a lot of backlash. You tie magazine. Yeah. Yeah. The time magazine cover didn't help that much, right?

Because then again, it's propagating who this is for, a 22 year old supermodel. Yeah, it doesn't help, right? It doesn't show a snapshot of the real practitioners. But I think, you know, it has a lot about teachers. It's a lot about their awareness, their training, how they are. We create inclusion and exclusion a lot by language,

how we frame things, how they are. We create inclusion and exclusion a lot by language, how we frame things, how, you know, um, teaching teams, you know, in the Western Vapasna model, there's this really beautiful group of teachers who collectively teach. That's pretty unique to the West. That's not how it's done in Asia. There's kind of the guru, the teacher. He's a lone force, you know, and, but we have this new model. And I think what we're doing is we're creating new models all the time. I feel really hopeful about this, based on what I've seen in Oakland,

about a diverse community coming together, because some of my events are so incredible. And they're the most diverse. And we still, at our center, we still attract a lot of, you know, whole foods, wearing yoga, lululemon, where, you know, we get that crowd too, but they're so delighted to be at EBMC. They're like, oh, this is so great.

You know, which has pluses and minuses. There's kind of this like, oh my God, you know, this kind of overdoing it, but that's touching, you know, and I myself am biracial. My mother's it, but that's touching, you know, and I myself am biracial. My mother's white, my father's African American. So I myself understand I'm certain bridge for these two cultures. I have this down home Baptist African American family on the east coast. And then there's this California side on the west coast. So on some ways I feel like, this has always been my topic.

Yeah, you were like put here to deal with those. I was put here to deal with this in this time, in this place, and try to bring people together. There's so many other things I want to talk to you about. Okay, so why were you so cool about me making fun of you in the book? I mean, you were so cool about it making fun of you in the book? I mean, you were so cool about it. I thought you were going to be, God didn't know you.

I thought you were going to be pissed, you know? And you were so, so cool about it. Is do you think that's just because you're just cool at baseline or because you've had meditation in your life allows you to not take yourself so seriously? Talk me about that. Okay. I thought the chapter I laughed for so long when I read it. I was, this is perfect.

This has to go out every word. Okay, that was my thought because I was you on my first retreat. Those every single thought that you had, I had about all those teachers. It was brutal. My mind would sit there and go, oh my God, what is she wearing? Who are these people?

Like, I don't want granola anymore. I want, you know, I had every, I just saw myself. And I think there is something funny about the meditation community in the whole vibe. There's something hysterically funny about it. There we are sitting and then I love you and you talk about binging on rice cakes and it was like, exactly, there's nothing else here to eat.

No, exactly. Whatever. And there is something you have to have humor with that. But I wasn't humor in general was humor at your expense. I didn't feel like that. Okay. If it to me it was the archetype. Yeah. You know, yes. And as I said in your defense, you swooped in at my moment of most dire need and gave me incredibly clear advice that

really led to the single most memorable time I've ever had as a medicine in my brief meditation career. So it's not like I was picking on you egregiously. I don't think at least, but, but you were you really handled that very well. And so let me ask again, do you think on some level, if you had stayed, uh, change smoking, drinking diet mountain dew and selling time shares and never encountered meditation and somebody had made fun of you, how would you have handled it differently? Or were you always kind of just cool about that type of thing? I think I probably would have ticked more personally, probably, but it was, I don't know,

I just thought it was so funny. And I loved that we could have that experience and that you could make a shift like that. It didn't just stay like that. Oh, the whole retreat, because sometimes people don't switch, right? And it's like, they project on the teacher. And I just knew it really wasn't about me.

It was something it represented. It was some kind of like, we're struggling with this in ourselves, like, how to live a spiritual life, but it's not cheesy, it's real, right? And who are they? Are they real? Are they not, right? Isn't that really the question?

Is this all fake? She's probably, you know, and so so for me it was like also forgivable. I saw my own mind do that a billion times Are you kidding the only thing to do is project on teachers on long retreats? Because you're you board out of your mind you're board out of your mind They look your irritable that this is somebody saying something or doing something and so I saw myself You know, and I think the real sort of something or doing something. And so I saw myself. And I think the real sort of poetic part of it was that in the end, I come to realize that the jerk

or the foolish figure is me, not you at all. So, okay, so let's move on to that. Thank you for that. Yes. You have this incredibly interesting new project that you're doing. And also by your own description, quite controversial, uh, it has to do with ayahuasca and teaching it in Peru. So I was wrong when I said central America, it's actually South America. I thought you'd spent some time in Costa Rica, but I guess it's true. Okay, so it's central in South America. Okay, a million questions about this, but how did you get interested in ayahuasca? And what do you think it does for you? Okay, so this is the topic of, we'll say plant medicines is controversial,

but the topic about psychedelics in Buddhism and Zen and all these religions, it's not a new one. You know, there's all kinds of teachers who have had, if you, you know, from Ramdoth. Yeah, Ramdoth got fired from Harvard. Right. Well, he was a bit extreme, right? I think as after he's had students in the LSD house for days at a time. So not very responsible. But he admits the whole thing was perfect. You know, that needed to happen. So I want to say that I'm not propagating psychedelic use. That's not really what I'm doing. I feel that the plants, the spirits that I feel that are teachers. So when people say drugs, yeah, this is going to sound a little

glance spirits. Well, um, I guess you could say in some way they're teachers. I know this is a far. This is, okay, so maybe we don't we don't have to go there yet. Let me just back up to why I got interested in ayahuasca, because I think we can set the groundwork and then it'll seem a little some people are like, what, this is really out there. But will you do whatever you can co-op this

with some logic in the gants of this year? Yeah, I'll get logical first. That's in both. It's the same thing. I had been meditating for years. I had probably done at least two and a half years of silent retreat. I'd spent months and months at IMS Forest Refuge,

the other center that's in the woods for long term. I had done every type of therapy that you could from Halle-Chophic Breathwork to rebirthing to traditional therapy to you name it. I did a vision quest all night prayers, everything. Soul retrieval. Soul retrieval. Soul retrieval. You were reading.

You went in with dolphins? I had never been with dolphins and asked them for help, but I would have though if I hadn't found this. Even after two and a half years of silent, not two and a half years of meditation, but two and a half years of silent recovery. In very intense retrieval. So years of real time.

You were still in a lot of pain. I was still suffering. And it was like the beginning of your Dharma practice is the grosser levels you meet first. So you meet the psychotic one that's so obvious. They're screaming loud and you're like, wait, I can see you, I can hear you, okay. And you heal that level.

And then you can take a breath and go, wow, okay, I'm doing better. But what happens over time is those deeper ones, Dan, the demons that are really dug in these habitual ways of thinking, belief systems that are really rooted in just suffering, start to emerge. And I had never, I thought I had dealt with a lot of the trauma I had from my childhood, I thought I had dealt with it. But there was this residue that was still there.

And I had went on this long retreat and I was doing the loving kindness practice where I was doing actually in a very concentrated way. Okay, so I was going very in these exalted states, right? Bliss and love, and then I would come hurling down and such as a hell realm. My mind had two places I went. Heaven, hell, and it was in a way I got kind of blown out.

They used this word when you, you're not, your mind is not stabilized in a meditative way. It's too hard to be mindful. It's too extreme. So I left the retreat a couple weeks early and went into a long period of just kind of a decent, into the underworld and sorrow and sadness and emotions. And I felt physically ill and I couldn't figure out what was going on. And I heard about from a dear friend who has been a long-term practitioner and a psychologist, she said, why don't you come and join us for this weekend.

We're working with this plant called Ayahuasca. It's a medicine. And she had asked me about it like a year or two before I was not interested. And I think we were that as illegal or just I just thought that's not the answer. It was just like this. How could that help me? And I don't yeah, I don't want to be with let I hit bees and Santa Cruz and I was like,

I'm going on retreat. I'm going to sit with it. That was what I thought at the time. I'm going to bear down and I'm going to be with this this thing. And I felt very strong. I know how to meditate, I'm gonna bear down and I'm gonna be with this thing. And I felt very strong. I know how to meditate, I can do it. It's a side of me that can get very still. And, but somehow having come from that retreat

and not not having, I wasn't able to meet myself, scared me. It was like I met a challenge I couldn't deal with. It was like, whoa, something open and this one's over me. And that scared me. It destabilized my faith. I can't be with this. What's going on? I've always been able to be with everything, no matter how bad it is. And so I just felt like I need help from some other source or higher power. And I don't know. I was just open, and I was so much grief. I was willing to do anything.

It was that kind of level of just, I have no refuge. And so I went and it was really life-changing that first night. Now, I've never done I, Weska. What I know, it makes you puke and you feel like you're dying and it sounds terrible. So, am I wrong about this or kind of half right? I think, I think you can have an experience where you puke and feel like you're dying at a period

in the ceremony. When you take ayahuasca, it's as if you have just entered into a hospital with a healer. And this is hard for people to understand because in their reality, we're entering with ayahuasca, we entered the realm of shamanism. And shamanism is different than our normal state of reality. It's a different level of consciousness where we've entered into another reality

that's close to this one, but not quite it. So we're not in our normal state of mind. So what Iowaska is how the indigenous believe it to be, I'll say, is that it's a doctor, and it's a living doctor. And when they're sick, they give it to the villagers. When they themselves need to understand something, they drink it. When they need to understand a divination

or some kind of, they want to know where they can hunt or where they can go, they take it. When they need to understand a divination or some kind of they want to know where they can hunt or where they can go, they take it. When they want to understand the root of someone else's illness, they take it and look and they can see. So for them, for the indigenous, they give it to people who are sad, they give it to people who have like a fright, they call it, which we would say is PTSD, some kind of effect, right? That person has a fright. Okay, let's give them the medicine. And then they'll sing to them for five or six hours in a ceremony. And then the person's like, wow, I feel so much better. And I know what I'm going to do.

And I saw a vision of how I should proceed with my husband. This is greater. I, and that's how it's been used in the Amazon in Peru, Brazil, South America. Okay. So. And so you did it this first time. Right. And you felt like it was great. Like a party drug fun. You were like jumping around with no, you're definitely not in a party mode. It there's impossible to take ayahuasca in a party mode. You'll, you'll, I can't, it's nothing like that. You're there for healing and truth. This is not that kind of, if you try to take it like a party drug, you will have a night of the hell. Hours of puking your brains out because that kind of disrespect and delusion

is what she's like, all right, or the she. Well, they say it's a feminine, a grandmother. So one of the nicknames of it is a feminine spirit. I know, this is all an indigenous, coming from an indigenous perspective, yet thousands upon thousands of people see and feel the same thing. Then it's a grandmother spirit, not gentle at times. We're talking quanian and kali mixed, kali being the destructive, you know, destroyer of all delusion, right? A lot of chomping going on. So people can get sick, but the purging, they call it la purja,

it's also a nickname for ayahuasca, la purja. It removes toxins out of people's bodies and also the energy of the negativity they believe gets purged out. So as you're reliving traumatic memories and you'll go right there, it's like you're getting it out of you. What did it do for you? Well, that first night when I did it, it was held in a beautiful ceremony. It was seven other people. We were in a beautiful space in the bottom of this house of in the middle of a Redwood forest. And there was a my stroke, someone leading the ceremony. And my friend, who was the the psychologist was there providing support. And we all went into it in a meditative way. We drank the medicine and for the next, I would say 13 hours. That's how long it doesn't traditionally last that long.

But it was basically a review of my entire life and things that I had done wrong and things that was leading to the suffering that I was feeling that I couldn't see. See, I didn't know why I was in that state, but it was as if it was like, here's all, here's what has led up to all this difficulty. And it was so clear and so profound, and it was definitely darmic to me. It never has been anything but that. I felt like it was like, oh, a 10 day retreat condensed in those 13 hours, the understanding that I got. So like speed you towards enlightenment. It's acceleration. It's an accelerator. I would for sure say it's an accelerator. It cannot

liberate you because only you can do that. But it won't explain the term there. Can't liberate you. Moody mean by that. It can't give you enlightenment. I think there may be some myths about, oh, if I go down to the jungle, it's gonna enlighten me. No, it's not. It's too intelligent to do that. You have to choose that.

You have to do that. What it can do is it can help you remove the blocks that you're not seeing, and it can show you many things. And it can help move these energies of trauma and stress. Like there's a lot of really beautiful work happening with soldiers right now, drinking ayahuasca.

And people who have been victims of rape and abuse and they that energy is stuck in them. They can't move past it. It's like it just keeps coming up and they can't sit with it so well either. Those types of incidences leave a mark on you, rather you want to call that karmic residue, whatever it leaves something there. And this particular plant removes that residue. your plant removes that residue. So you're now leading retreats in Peru that are a combination of traditional Buddhist meditation and ayahuasca. How does that go down among your fellow teachers or people like, oh, that's so cool, go for it

or people like you're encouraging drug use. No, this podcast is probably going to give me a shovel, Dan, but I'm going to talk about it. No, it's not something that that organizations that I work for are saying, we love that you're doing this. It's actually a point of consideration because it is controversial

because people don't understand what ayahuasca is. Okay, so they leap into the drug category because it contains DMT. So it's controversial because of that. And because also teachers, you know, they were all teaching the Dharma as, you know, awareness in mindfulness as a path to freedom. And so I'm not saying anything but that as well.

I believe I am so committed to this path of Buddhism. But what I've seen is this so helpful for people also to work with at periods when they're called to also get help from ayahuasca. And that's people who there's so much documentation about the health benefits of it. I mean, so many healings living in the jungle for a year. I saw people walk away. You lived in the jungle for a year. I lived in the jungle for one year across my heart. No, I believe you. But in that time, you saw some incredible things. Yeah, I had been seeing it for years because I started going to Peru

right after that first night. I wanted to go down. I wanted to understand where it was coming from, who was practicing it, and it was there that I fell into working with Shapibos, who are the indigenous community around the Yucalailly River. They are generations, hundreds of years of what plant pharmacist. And when I say plant pharmacist, they don't only work with ayahuasca. They work with 15 or 1500 other plants. They know in the jungle and they use them like an herbalist. That's what they would consider as a herbalist. You have a problem. We'll help you. This is a medicine. That's how we refer to it because there's no, once you take it, you would never refer to it anything but that again. You just wouldn't. When you come out of your mouth, you're like, whoa, this is the sacred medicine.

Thank you. I mean, most people, even if they have a hellish night, but I, you know, it's not right for everybody. And I understand that there's fear because we do have a fear of being out of control. We don't want to have a dark night of the soul. Even if we need one, we don't want one, right? That would be the last thing we would need, but I have so much faith that we only get what is truly

going to be supportive for us. Have you, how many times have you done it? A lot. Many. OK. Have you had some hellish experiences? Yeah, of course. I've had hellish nightmarital meditation retreats,

dark night of the soul. Oh, yeah, I work with people who are like disassociating, go, you know, I mean, I've seen it all on a meditation retreat terror fear. I mean, I could tell you stories of being at the forest refuge and freaking out in 3 a.m. wandering around the kitchen. Yeah, I can it's all your mind. So it's not like you're going to take this and how, but totally it's you, you amplified. And there is a lot of scientific research being done, but it's very hard to do scientific research in the way that people want to do it, because they want to prescribe this that everyone's going to have the exact same experience. It's impossible.

What you can experience on what I can be experienced are gonna be radically different based on what you need. In that moment to evolve you, it's gonna be very different. So I could sit with 18 people, all having ayahuasca and there's 18, totally different experiences.

So it's hard to create a kind of one all, here you go, you know, it's just, and that's why pharmaceutical company would like to do and it's impossible. Thank you very much for coming on. Thank you. Yeah, it's a joy always. All right, there's another edition of the 10% Happier Podcast. If you like it, I'm gonna hit you up for a favor. Please subscribe to it, review it, and rate it. I want to also thank the people who produced this podcast, Josh Cohan, Lauren Efron, Sarah

Amos, and the head of ABC News Digital, Dan Silver. And hit me up at Twitter, Dan B. Harris. See you next time. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.