Transcript: #154: Kory Goldberg is Along The Path

Following is the full transcript for the interview with Kory Goldberg. This transcript was made possible by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and has not been checked by any human reader. Because of this, many of the words may not be accurate in this text. This is particularly true of speakers who have a stronger accent, as AI will make more mistakes interpreting and transcribing their words. For that reason, this transcript should not be cited in any article or document without checking the timestamp to confirm the exact words that the guest has really said.

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Host  00:16

Whether one is listening to this in Myanmar or from outside the country, we know it's a very difficult time for those of us who hold the golden land and its people in our hearts and trying times like these we can all use a bit more care and compassion in our lives. So on behalf of the team here at insight Myanmar, I would like to say in the traditional way meta as offer, may you be free from physical discomfort may you be free from mental discomfort may You not be dangerous or enemies May you live a peaceful and happy life and May all beings be free and come out of suffering. And with that, let's move on to the show. In my way that I I absolutely hate and it is sad. Really excited for this episode of insight Myanmar podcasts to welcome author, teacher, meditator. Probably some other professions there as well, Corey Goldberg, share some of his story and his experiences in perspective. Corey, thanks so much for taking the time to join us today.

Kory Goldberg  02:08

Thanks, Host. It's a real honor to be with you today. It's a real privilege. I really love the work that you've been doing. I've been following your podcast. And you're better Burma Project Insight, Myanmar, that Burma Dhamma and all these things. So it's great to finally sit down and talk to you about these things. Yeah,

Host  02:29

absolutely. I'm you're definitely someone I wanted to have on for some time. You've You've done so much in, in your life, both professional and personal and meditative is we'll get into, and actually let's just jump into that right now. So just just take us from where you're from and how you grew up and where your spiritual path began.

Kory Goldberg  02:49

Okay, well, right now I live in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, that Southern Quebec just on north of the Vermont border. And I run permaculture farm with my wife, and that are rooted in principles of dharma and permaculture and I tried to blend that together. I'm also teaching in the humanities department at a small college called Champlain College. And so that's, that's where I'm at right now. And I'm still practicing in the going code tradition. And, yeah, I have two kids, a 13 year old and a 16 year old and they are my greatest teachers. At the moment. Yeah. So I've been sitting in with the Glencoe tradition, since 1997. I did my first course in Dharamsala, dharma secara. And I've been just sitting in serving courses ever since then. Obviously, since having a full time job, and children, and farm and all this, my implications of are not what they used to be, but I do what I can and I integrate the Dhamma into into my daily life as much as I can. So I grew up in Montreal. I grew up in a small Jewish community, English speaking Jewish community. Most of Quebec is French, but I grew up in a small English enclave. And my family, we were mostly secular. Although we practiced the culture. We did some of the standard practice some of the standard holidays, but we weren't religious by any means. But the religious aspects always did have a place in my heart. And as I grew up, and I was trying to find deeper spiritual meaning in Judaism, I just wasn't able to find it. There were a couple of books out there but just from a practice perspective, teacher person Fact of nothing really connected with me. And then once I got to college, I started reading books about different spiritual traditions. I did my undergraduate degree in anthropology, and international development studies, but I did have a minor in Religion. And so that brought me to reading about Buddhism and yoga, and Sufism and different mystical traditions. And when I was about 19, I started traveling in India, and came across different kinds of practices. And I just experimented with many different practices in Buddhist and yogic traditions. And then finally, in 1997, I took my first course. And when I took that course, I remember sitting on the cushion on day zero. And I heard going to GE, start the course with Namo, tassa, bhagavato, Arahato, samma, Sambuddhassa. And when I heard that, I said, this, this is what I was looking for. And from that moment, there was just something that that resonated so deeply with me, and receiving those on upon instructions on that day zero, I knew altered the rest of my life over the course of the rest of my life.

Host  06:24

But that's interesting, because I'm just smiling because I know many dedicated men, many dedicated meditators who will reference the first time they heard the chanting, and will say, when I heard that chanting, I was like, What the hell am I doing here? I'm going to call it I need to run away. Then though, you know, then they go on. And they become developed in the practice, and they realize the value of it. But yeah, for for so many meditators, I've talked to you, they have the opposite reaction. So it's interesting that connected with you from the start.

Kory Goldberg  06:53

Yeah, I think it depends where you're from. And I could see that happening for and I do meet a lot of people who have that experience, especially when they're doing their first course in the West. But at the time, I was I was a free spirit, I was not to say, I'm not a free spirit, now, a much freer spirit or a different kind of free spirit back then, you know, 17 1819, and actually, on my, I did that course on my second visit to India. My second visit to India, I was 19. And I was there for a year, I was doing a study abroad program in international development studies with the University of Minnesota. And when the program ended, I realized, Hey, I still have six months left on my visa, I still have some money in my pocket. There's no way I'm going back to school right now. Like I'm gonna I'm gonna travel around and, and just keep seeking out for whatever I was seeking out, you know, the truth, a path to ultimate truth, connectedness, interdependence. I was just looking for something and I was also looking for a teacher. In the early parts of my travels, I had heard about Vipassana, it did attract me. But the opportunity never arose. And I, I was at the low star, I was able to take a break from my studies for a month, and I went to the low Star Celebration, that Tibetan New Year celebration, where His Holiness, the Dalai Lama gives a teaching at that time. It was he usually gives at that time. He was in a two week or three week teaching, and he was giving a commentary on some meditation texts. And I went to that every day. And I came across a monk who was actually Canadian in the Tibetan tradition. And I actually met him several months before I had spent a couple of weeks in Bodhgaya. It was like, one of my first weeks in the country before my program started. And I went to this place called the root Institute of wisdom and culture. It's a meditative socially engaged meditation center in the tradition of Lama Zopa. And there was a retreat going on. And you know, this was before the internet, this was actually so this is 99th, December 1996. And I'm standing in line hoping to take part in this retreat, I really wanted to learn meditation. And I was actually in Varanasi before that. And somebody just came back from board guy and said, Oh, they're giving this meditation retreat in Bodhgaya. If you're interested in meditation, you should go. So I hopped on the train, and I went to Bodhgaya I went to the route Institute. I was waiting in line, I was the very last person in line. I don't remember how many people they took, say 25 people or 30 people, and I was number 31. They're like, sorry, you know, registrations closed and courses full. But they said you could stay here if you wish. We do have lodging, but there's no space for you on the course. So I had a little cootie. And I tried to practice by myself. And there were two monks running the course. One was a monk from the Thai Forest Tradition. He was a German monk, I believe his name was venerable stardust. And then there was this other, this Tibetan monk, who, whose name is escaping me right now, his English name was Graham, but I can't remember his monastic name. And the monk gave me You know, I saw him walking after the meal. And I said, Oh, I really want to join the course. But it was full. Can you give me some instruction. So he said, and he just said very easily just follow your breath, pay attention to the inhalation, and the exhalation. And whatever your mind wanders, just come back to that. So I said, Okay. And I went to the Bodhi tree at the Mahabodhi temple, and I sat under the tree. And I was never able to meditate for longer than two or three minutes, my mind was such a mess at the time. And I sat down and I closed my eyes. But before closing my eyes, I saw a guy in the distance. This this man, a western man with long hair, and he was sitting like a Buddhist statue, and I said, Ah, one day, I want to sit like that guy. And I closed my eyes. There were to Tibetan ladies next to me, it was very quiet at the time, not like today. And I must have sat an hour and a half or two hours, I couldn't believe it. It was such a powerful place. And I opened my eyes. And sure enough that that western man was sitting there. And once I went back to my, to my little cootie, at the root Institute, and tried to practice but didn't have much success. After that, it was sort of beginner's luck, that first time it got me into a concentrated state. And so several months later, I'm in Dharamsala, and I meet this Tibetan monk. He's also at the low side teachings. And I really asked him, I say, Please, can you teach me meditation, teach me meditation. So he says, Okay, come to my come to my room at such and such an hour. So I go, we sit down, and he offers me tea, and we talk and he was from Canada. He also went to McGill University. And so we just talked, and after about a half an hour, he said up, my time is up, I gotta go. So I didn't get much instruction. I saw him again. The next day. I said, Oh, we didn't get to sit. Can you please teach me meditation, he said, Sure. Come to my apartment. When I went to his apartment, not his apartments or his room, when I went to his room that following day, he had just received the horrible news that the Dalai Lama's tutor had been assassinated. It was really horrible. And this tutor of the Dalai Lama's was this monks primary teacher. And he was just a wreck. So he was in no shape to teach me. But he said, You know what, why don't you go do one of these Vipassana courses, these 10 Day Vipassana courses. So I said, okay, and I couldn't do it at that moment, because I had to go back and continue my studies. And then I had some friends come and my mother came to India, and we traveled but so I made an appointment. I signed up, I registered to sit, of course, several months later. And I did that course. And that was in August 1997. And it was, it was really a transformative and very memorable moment in my life.

Host  13:42

How so what do you remember about that course,

Kory Goldberg  13:44

I just felt like I was at home and at peace. I sat in the coat cushion. Everything seemed familiar. The chanting even though it was the first time I heard going could use voice. It just it sounded familiar, it resonated. It seemed protective. I just felt at ease. And I hadn't felt that at ease in a long time. You know, traveling in India, it was, although great, it wasn't always easy. And just going here and there and wandering around which which was fun. It was a great experience. But at that moment, I was I didn't want to move around anymore. I just, I needed a place to be a little bit more stable and and then going to the center as like, this is a place I'd like to be and so I set that course and then I got to stay a little bit and serve another course. And then go to Dhamma Giri and sit at my second course and going he was actually there for that second course, which was also a very rare and precious opportunity to see the teacher live and to meditate in His presence. So yeah, it was just I guess the what was really special and what stands out in my memory is just how, how much at ease I was and how familiar everything felt.

Host  15:10

Right. That's, that's nice to hear. And so then how did your spiritual path develop? After that you mentioned you served again in Dharamsala, you went to da McGarry. So I mean, you're in India, taking your first course and getting just diving right into the Indian going have a passionate community with serving and sitting meeting all students and teachers and residents and such. And you're already somewhat familiar with India having gone there at that at that time and that young age. And so from that point, how did you get more deeply involved in that community in practice?

Kory Goldberg  15:45

So I went back, I came back to Canada to finish my undergraduate degree. And in that year, I would do there was a weekly group sitting in Montreal, but in at McGill, in the Faculty of Religious Studies, there were two Buddhist studies professors who led morning meditations every day, there was one teacher who did mostly on upon up based work, he practiced in the Tera Vaada, slash Western Buddhist order tradition, and the other was a Zen monk. And so I meditated with them every morning. And so, although like I felt the Posner the Glencoe tradition was my tradition, I still was very much inspired by, you know, these other teachers, these university professors, and these are the people I was with on a daily basis. So I was sitting with them every day. And, and then at that summer, I set a course and served a course at a non Center site in Quebec. And then the following semester at university. I just continued sitting at university and doing the weekly group sittings. And then I graduated. And after I graduated, I spent about a year and a half at the different centers. So I spent overall maybe five months at Damodara in, in Massachusetts, then the Quebec center had just opened in Sutton set a new location in Montebello now, but I spent maybe a month and a half there, I spent three or four months at dama Mojave, and I in California, near Yosemite National Park. And so I just spent that year and a half, going from center to center sitting in serving and making great friends, dharma brothers, Dhamma sisters, and there was one person in particular, who I really connected with, and we met on and off in that time traveling around the US together. And when we weren't sitting or serving, we would go on these long, eight, eight or 10 day hikes, either in the Appalachian Mountains or, or in Utah, Colorado. And so I knew we would practice in nature. And so that was also a really formative time for me. And then right at the very end of that, that year, I was going, I was going to start a master's degree in Buddhist studies at McGill University. And at the at that end of year, so almost a year and a half of sitting and serving. I thought, Okay, I'm going back to Montreal, I'm going to settle down. I really am ready to meet my my DOMA partner. This was on a 10 day course my last 10 day course of that stint, and right after that 10 day course going, he was there for a science and spirituality conference. There were a few different speakers. And I told myself at the end of that course, okay, now I'm ready to meet my partner. And lo and behold, it's, it's met today. And there's a lot of people at the center because going koji just arrived as well. He had given the final meta instructions of the course. And I saw a friend who said to me, Oh, there I just served, of course in Quebec with this with this with this young woman named Michelle, you should really meet her. She's just standing over there in the corner. And I turned my head and I looked at her and I said, Oh, that's my wife. And, and then we met and sure enough, like, when is it? 2223 years later, we're still together. And so in that time, you know, we've been a great support for each other, sitting in serving together a lot, especially before we had children. And then we'd gone to India together. We did the partner one year poly program at DOMA Giri where we studied poly and and did a lot of service and meditation. And then after we did that poly program, we spent And a lot of time traveling, and, and that's when we decided to write the book called along the path, the meditators companion to the Buddhist land.

Host  20:12

Right. So before before getting to that, that book, to just to set the book up, because in order to write a book that becomes a guide for meditators going to India, you have to have quite a bit of experience and expertise in those places. And so So you you've you finished up your schooling in Canada and spent some time going to the centers and courses in North America and meet your future wife. And then you mentioned how you the future, from that point holds quite a bit of time in primarily India, but also Burma. Can you share a bit about what you were doing during those years? How you benefited from it, what you learned, and certainly the meditative aspect and the experience of being in going through a passionate community, but also the experience of being in those cultures of being in Indian and Burmese cultures, which are those, even within the Glinka organization that go into community and organization. Those geographical regions have their own type of culture and relations that one can can learn from and grow from. So what were those experiences? In those years that you spent in those places? What were you doing? And how did you learn and benefit from it?

Kory Goldberg  21:27

Sure. So that first year, we were mostly at dama. Gary, doing the poly program, although Michelle and I did go for a month long course, at dama, Sindhu, in Kutch, and the west coast, west coast of India. And then right after that course, we flew to Kolkata, and then on to Myanmar. And that's when I think going he had done three big pilgrimages throughout the golden land with meditators. So this was the second one, I think it was the largest one, there are about 500 people. And so we spent a month in Myanmar doing that tour and visiting all the places and meditating, doing, of course, at the majority. And we continued our poly program. And then from there, we we went up to Nepal, we spent some months over there, we sat another long course. And we do a lot of hiking through the Himalayas. And it was just an exciting time with Michelle and I spent about two and a half years continuous in India, Nepal, and Myanmar. constantly going from one country, mostly in Nepal, in India, actually, we only went to Myanmar during that one pilgrimage, but it was mostly Indian, Nepal, back and forth. And one beautiful thing at the time was the community. There were just a lot of young meditators, travelers like us, who were just sitting and serving. And this was such a great inspiration, we would meet each other different centers. And even when we weren't at centers, if we were doing, you know, spending time doing yoga, or trekking, we would always meet other friends who would participate in these activities. So that was it was such a special time when you're in your young, your early 20s. And all you have to worry about is is what's on your back, you're gonna get your next meal, but in a real privileged way, you know, not in a way where life has forced us into a terrible situation, right? We were free. And by our own, it was really our own volition to live in that in that way. So we felt very monastic like in that sense, very monka yogi, like, we didn't have, we hardly had any worldly responsibilities. And we were able to get by with a little bit of money in our pocket and make it go for a very long way. And actually, during that time, it was actually right after we came back from the pilgrimage in Myanmar with 500 people we saw, we saw that a lot of people just didn't know how to behave with the local culture in an appropriate way. Not to say we were experts. We were I mean, maybe we were so called experts in traveling, you know, in other countries. We had traveled. I traveled all over North America, my wife had traveled all over Europe together. We had been all over India for quite a number of times in Nepal. And so even though it was my first time in Myanmar, I felt like and maybe it was also my training and anthropology. There was a certain sensitivity on On, on how to engage with a local culture. And we just found that a lot of people didn't, there was just a lot of inappropriate behavior. And there was a small group of us who thought, Hey, we should put together a little guide for meditator. So as we were traveling and speaking with local people, you know, we had made some we we made quite a few local Burmese friends during that Yatra during that pilgrimage, and we were just asking them, okay, you know, what's the right thing to do in this situation? Or that situation? How do we address the monks, the nuns, etc, things like that. And we were taking notes. And you know what, we'll put it, we this would be a great service, we're going to put out a little booklet for meditators who are going to Myanmar. And fortunately, you did a way better job. Yeah, our booklet would have been maybe five pages. It was really just the basics, right. Anyways, so we head back to Don McGarry to continue the poly program. And we're at that moment, I think a 45 day course had just ended. And we were sitting with Paul and Susan Fleischman. And we're chatting, we're talking. And Carl friends comes to join us. I don't know if you know who Carl is. Do you know Carl friends?

Host  26:30

I don't. Okay, so

Kory Goldberg  26:32

call friends is also a travel writer. Oh, him and his wife Lorena, they wrote the book called The People's guide to Mexico. It's probably in its 14th or 15th. edition by now. I'd sold you know, over a million copies. This is the ultimate travel guide. And so if you don't know it, you you definitely need to get get yourself a copy. And so they work as tour guides in Mexico. They work as tour guides, and they write articles and they put together this, you know, in my way, in my opinion is probably the greatest travel guide ever written. And so we So Paul and Susan introduced us to Carl and we were chatting. And then some Burmese fellow comes and joins us. I don't know who he was, but they knew him. He was a senior at or maybe an Acharya from dama Jyoti, but whose name I don't want to call his name. And he says, Carl, when are you going to write a book about Burma? And he said, Well, I don't know anything about Burma. And he says, Well, what about India? We will you know, as Burmese meditators. We want to travel around India, but there's no good guide. Are you gonna write a guide about India? And he said, India, I said, All I know is done McGarry. So Paul says, Why don't you guys write the book, have some experience? And in our innocence? That sounds like a good

Host  28:03

idea. Sounds familiar? That sounds familiar.

Kory Goldberg  28:07

And then we spent the next seven years working on this book. And it was great at having Carl as an advisor at first, you know, I sent him some early drafts of some early chapters. And you know, he said, This is just terrible, terrible work, nobody's gonna want to read it. It's not publishable. And, and rather than then getting defeated, and depressed, feeling defeated or depressed, I said, Okay, let's just keep working on it. And, and he sent us a copy of his book, because we didn't have a copy. And we're like, Ah, okay, this is a great approach. So actually, the entire first section of our book, the first 100 pages or so, are really derive all its inspiration from a people's guide to Mexico. And, and then from there, we just spent a lot of time going to the different pilgrimage sites. We, in all manner of what you know, sometimes we went in private vehicles, but we also did it. We hitchhiked, we went by train, we took local buses, we wanted to really experience pilgrimage in all its different forms and possibilities. And we spent a long time just going back and forth to the sites. And then sometimes in Bodhgaya, was sometimes we'd spend, you know, one month, two months, three months over there, working on the book, and then it just it was it was a long process. And then once our time was up, we returned to Canada. And I started a PhD in the anthropology of religion at the University of Quebec in Montreal. And around that same time I started teaching part time in the humanities department at Champlain College and And our son was born. And we got we bought our first property. And actually a couple of years later, we bought our first property.

Host  30:09

Yeah, that's so interesting. I have so many thoughts going in different directions with all the things you mentioned about the process of guidebook writing about different cultures interfacing and about taking on a project of that scale. I'm not sure where to go with with all of them, I guess the thing that stands out first and foremost, is looking away from the actual guidebook process itself, which I want to come back to. But looking at it from the angle of a westerner who is in a land that is the the origin of the Buddhist teachings, where everything's spread from there and trying to make it more accessible. I don't know how much you've thought about this. And I'd be curious to know, but I mean, your book stands in a historical line of the last several 100 years of Western travelers, colonial administrators, spiritual seekers that are trying to uncover in greater and greater detail. Who was the spiritual figure? What did he teach? Where do we teach it? And how can we understand this in our language in our context, and culture? I don't know if you've heard of the great, great book in search of the Buddha. I can't remember the author offhand. But it's right, right. It's an amazing book that describes the British, mainly the British colonial administration and some other Westerners there as well, who are trying to understand decade after decade, who the Buddha actually was and what he taught and because they're, they're undercover, they're, they're digging up archaeological remains, and they're trying to piece together teachings and translations. And every generation of colonial administrators just puts together this puzzle a bit more to try to understand you know, back in those days, there's no Wikipedia, there's no, there's no book, you can just no encyclopedia, you can get off the shelf, there's, there's no access to this information. And it's amazing to think of that time really not so long ago that people in all of our countries and cultures did not know anything about who this figure was or what He taught. And they're trying to put it together and make it more accessible. Just put the building blocks together. And of course, in the 19th century that with Orientalist and others, they, the poly tech society, there's, there's, there's work that they're doing that is trying to bring these teachings more and more and make them more accessible. And you're very much I mean, your book is very much in that line of a Westerner coming to an origin site of, of these teachings. And carrying on that step a bit further. So before your book is written, And we should mention this up to this point, the name of your book is along the path. So that's something that that listeners should should definitely check out. That's, that's what we're constantly referring to here is the the book along the path, that before along the path comes out. There are hordes of Western and as well as Asian visitors that are coming in, obviously, around the world as well, but mainly from those regions that are coming to, to the sacred Buddhist sites in India, trying to understand, okay, what happened here? And why is it meaningful? And what do I have to go see, and as well as how should I act, and there's a lot of scattered information to try to piece this together and understand, but there's no, you know, online and from, from fellow travelers that have come before and written notes from, from various books pieced together, but there's nothing, there's not just one text that's just like, this is where I should go. And this is what happened here. This is what to think about. And this is the specific sites in this region to see and this is the history of, of what we know about what happened here. It's another step in that historical line dating back centuries, to make this more accessible and understandable, and really even possible for people to, to come and have an experience. And so I'm wondering if like in your process of of writing and publishing and everything else, if you ever saw yourself in line with some of these historical events and an academic attempts before that, you were you were building one more step in that progression?

Kory Goldberg  34:30

Not Not really. Although now that you say it, I could I could see that but I didn't have that awareness or consciousness or even intention at the time, although I was very much aware of the work of the orientalist. And we do acknowledge how much they've contributed to the rediscover the discovery of rediscovery of these sites. These people Alexander Cunningham and William Pepe and all these other Orientalist these administrators, Buchanan and Prince up. Yeah prints out all the all these guys. They were following the seventh century monks his name Schwann saying they were falling into one Schwann sayings, travelogue in in finding all these places so these guys had, you know very little to go on besides the seventh century tech. This is a Chinese pilgrim we should say Right? They chant, yes, the Chinese pilgrim Schwann saying, I think he was in India for about what was it 15 or 20 years, around 625 to 640. Around that time, I don't remember the exact dates. And so they were they were following his work to discover all these places, because this, this monk went from place to place to place he eventually settled down for some time to learn and then teach at Nalanda University in New London. So it's quite incredible. At the same time, I mean, these orientalist, they were these European colonial administrators, it's debatable whether they should have been there and had that much power in the first place. But besides that, without getting too much into the critical side of things, I can say that I really appreciate all the work that they did, because without all their efforts that they you know, they had so much responsibilities, they were building roads, and building bridges, and managing finances and Manning, managing political conflicts, these guys worked from early morning to late at night. And then whatever free moment they had, they would spend doing this archaeological work, which was really incredible that these people were so talented, because, you know, some of them had, they had military training, and they had political training, and training and economics. And they knew so many languages, I think James princip knew something like 20 different languages, which is just incredible. And then they were driving, there were no cameras back then. So they're drying everything. If you look at some of their artwork, it's just unbelievable. So they were taught that these were very multi talented people. And then, even though they weren't Buddhist, or practitioners of the Dhamma, they were they were still very sympathetic. And for some of them, I'm sure it went beyond just intellectual curiosity, I think, philosophically or spiritually, something must have connected with them, you know, something must have resonated, which is why they did all this work. And yeah, you're right. So but beyond their work, there wasn't too much out there. When we decided to write our book, there was Middle Land, middle way by venerable Shabbos, travesty Dominica, which was a very good book. And that helped us and we used it, but it's a very thin book. And there are some references to the Pali canon. And it's very much rooted in history. But as a travel guide itself, there were some features lacking, especially for people who wanted to really connect the teachings of the Buddha to the places themselves. So I really liked the book, but we thought, okay, let's, I think we can build a build on this book, we can use this book, middle and middle way, as a stepping stone for our work. And our work, it took a very long time. And we definitely didn't do it alone, we had so many people contributing, sending us information about new places that we hadn't even heard of, or different ways in which you can travel and different hotels and accommodations and references to different texts, and things like that. So then we had lots of people who helped with the editing, and the artwork, and the layout and the graphic design and there was a lot of people who had their fingers in the pie, we can say, I'm very grateful to all those all those people, and very grateful to the people who gave us time and space to write. That was a really interesting process. Sometime in Dharamsala there was one place, this family that we became quite close with and we would just stay with them for three months. We did that maybe three or four times and just use used our room as a writing space. Incidentally, the book Jesus lived in India was also written in the same room while we wrote that we wrote a long In the past amazing, yeah. And a lot of time in Bodh Gaya staying in different monasteries. And we're just really fortunate to have good good spaces. So there's a lot of people involved. And after we're, you know, after public IP, we publish the book, I think the first edition came out around 2009 2009. Yeah, just or to 2009, I think it was shortly after our daughter was born, and I was working on my PhD at the same time. And I thought, okay, I really like, you know, this book is an important book. But it's really just written for practitioners. And the more I went back to India and Bodhgaya, I thought and I did my PhD research. in Bodhgaya, on a completely different subject, it was looking at how modern Western pilgrims are how some modern Western pilgrims are engaging with local charitable projects, such as opening schools or working in schools or clinics, vocational training centers, things like that. And so I was riding along, you know, we were riding along the path. On the one hand, and at the same time, I'm doing all this academic critical academic work. And so shortly after, you know, shortly after we published the book, I kept working on the PhD, and did the research and we lived in Bodhgaya, for nine months, and going to boat a place like Bodhgaya for a few days or a couple of weeks, gives you one kind of perspective. And when you start to spend months on end, in a place, then you see all the nuance and complexity, right, and local politics and relationships between pilgrims, foreign pilgrims, and who are mostly Buddhist or sympathetic to Buddhism, and local Muslims and Hindus, the place becomes much more complex. And so my PhD thesis, which is called Buddhists without borders, transnational pilgrimage, social engagement, and education and Bolkiah, this is a completely different work. And it requires completely, a completely different kind of mind, then writing this pilgrimage guide, so the pilgrimage guide is is, is very straightforward. You know, this happened here. And to get to this place, you take this bus and that train, right and go eat at that restaurant, etc. But doing, you know, critical academic work was was much more challenging and more complex. And so it allowed for a lot more nuanced understanding of these places. So just to come back to the question, Did I ever see myself, you know, as a continuation, or somebody continuing the work of these these academics? Or these these orientalists? Yes, or No, I mean, it's complete, it's just a completely different time a completely different setting. I'm a completely different person with completely different background and upbringing. But it is, as you asked the question, I think, Okay, well, maybe I do have a place in a long line of mostly Western scholars who are looking at these places along the Buddhist circuit in India.

Host  43:48

Right, um, one of the things I'm thinking as you contrast that thesis with the guide, you did it because really, you're talking about a contrast, or you're looking at the same thing in the same place, but in one regard, you're looking more reverentially and trying to aid in the the spiritual access and appreciation of those that are making this journey. And on the other you're being as you said, critical, you're being very, you're looking at it very, very hard and asking difficult questions and telling the story as it as it really comes out. And I'm wondering if those two worlds ever ever conflicted and caused a kind of gonna be the word cause some some confusion in you or some some hesitation how to deal with it. And one of the reasons I'm asking that is, I mean, of course, there's so much for us to talk to in terms of our respective projects of the guide book that you wrote in, in India for meditators and the one that I worked on in Burma and that is, there's very various stage of stages of that, that works completion. But in regarding this particular point, this is definitely something I fail Yeast is starting to write a book with only a guide, I should say I like that term better than than a book because that's that was the intention at the time wanting having an intention to write a guide, that was reflecting the deeper appreciation and knowledge that I had of certain Burmese Buddhist sites that I saw meditators and pilgrims, foreigners coming in, that were trying to figure everything out that, you know, I was a few years ahead of my head was a few years above the water, you could say, from where they were at, and wanting to bring a more reverential and appreciative an informed understanding of, of these things. And certainly, as I went about that, many, many cases that that happened, you know, and in really tracking down well WebU say it, you know, he, this is the reason why he came here, and this is where he slept. And this anecdote happened on this day. And this person has written this and starting collect all of these stories and translations, recollections as well as physical attaching them, in many cases, to physical places. This is where this thing happened, that that really, no one I think, outside of Myanmar had really ever heard before. And that part was really, really exciting. And to this day, it's still exciting to know that that some of those stories and knowledge I've put in I'd helped to put into the world and, and bring a deeper appreciation and understanding. At the same time that I also learned about the more difficult underlying underbelly of some of these things that that it's not how it seems and, and that sometimes, the reverential is happening as a layer simultaneous to something that is far more unpleasant, but not seen or talked about, sometimes the reverential is not actually true. And it's as you It appears to be so but as you see what it really is, it's it's it's really, it's somehow a facade. In other cases, it's the the story definitely exists. But it's it's far more complicated. And there's, there's there's far more nuance to have to untangle and figure out and see the consequences of different kinds of actions and events than than meets the eye. And so it was, as I was personally going through collecting and telling the stories, this conflict started to take on a greater and greater role in terms of who I was and what I wanted to express and how to be where my boundaries were, and yet to also be honest, and I think, honestly, I think my complexity was, my guess is it might have been a bit more complicated than yours, not to in any way, underestimate what you you uncovered, but by the fact that Burma is such a living and thriving Buddhist community, and where both Gaia is, is living and thriving, in some ways, it also has a past, which in some ways as finite, we might never get to the end of that finite Ness. But at least we know that that these things happened. Whereas in Burma, it's constantly evolving. It's, there's, there's no one who knows everything that's going on in terms of the spiritual traditions in Burma, the most scholarly books start by acknowledging how little is known and how how segmented and narrow their focus is and, and with in regards to everything else that that that's happening there. And there's, there's reasons for that, obviously, the close nature of the country, which is another aspect that differs that makes these work differ is the the openness and being able to do it. But in any case, in Burma, the the difficulty of of starting to learn these greater complexities and to balance that with the reverential intention that it started it. And that was still there. In some ways, it was just a lot more complicated. It brought up a lot of questions and confusions that that had to be worked out. So I'm wondering, for you, I mean, you, you wrote two different books. So maybe in some ways, maybe that helped to be able to say, this mind is writing this and this mind is writing that, but I'm just wondering if you ever felt like you were holding contradictions or confusions or, or, or uncomfortable intersections or not, or maybe it was just very straightforward that this is for this, and this is for that

Kory Goldberg  49:17

to begin, I think you're right, Myanmar is the situation in Myanmar is way more complex. And I think I pointed that out, you know, really early on in our relationship when we first started chatting about your book, especially, and after that first pilgrimage to Myanmar, is that there's so many there's so many traditions, there's so many living traditions. When you look at India, for example, you want to learn meditation. It's pretty much Vipassana, as taught by SN Goenka are nothing. Sure. I mean, there are a few Western teachers Those who come and leader, you know, the occasional annual retreat like Christopher titmus, or some other people. But in general, in India, if you want to learn meditation, you're going to learn this one kind of practice. Whereas in Myanmar, there, there's, you know, hundreds and hundreds of, of masters, and traditions. And so it's like, you have this whole buffet that you can choose from. And obviously, when you mix in with the lung, culture, cultural tradition, and new mix in the political tensions and conflicts, it's just it's just a very different story because it's so much more dynamic and alive. Where when you when you go to the pilgrim and circuit in India, sure, yes, on the one hand, yes, you only have the the centers and practices taught by going koji. But also, these places have only been recently discovered within the last century or so. And the local population isn't Buddhist, either. It's all Hindu, and some Muslim. And so all the places that are popping up are really popping up like the Buddhist places I'm saying are really popping up purely for pilgrimage or religious touristic purposes. And so it is it there's there's it has its own set of complexities, but but not nearly the same as what you experience. In Myanmar. It's almost like the whole country is just filled with you know, mini pilgrimage routes, whereas in India is just this, this this one main route? And to come to the question, Have I felt a tension or a disjuncture between my spiritual work in my academic work? Yeah, at times, it's very difficult in the academy, to declare yourself as a practitioner, I think it's easier if if you're, let's say, a rabbi, and you're studying Jewish Studies, it's permitted, or you're a minister, and you're teaching Christianity at university or theology, it's accepted. If you're a practicing Muslim, and you're teaching in the university, it's accepted. But as soon as your quote unquote, convert, you know, as a Buddhist, or Hindu yogi or a Sufi mystic or anything like this, it's not real, it's frowned upon. And so a lot of people who are in and this is this is obviously changing. But when I was doing my PhD, it wasn't really it was kind of frowned upon. And then and so in terms of the work that I and I write about this in my PhD dissertation, and I never published the dissertation as a whole, but I've published maybe five or six chapters, pretty much every chapter has been published in different journals, and books, academic books. And there is quite a bit of a postmodern reflection in that work, where I tried to be honest, and say, Well, this is my spiritual practice. This is my intellectual history. This is my ethnicity. This is my family life. This is the way I see things. And I acknowledge that all of this is going to color, the way I'm framing my questions and interpreting my data. So I think it's really important, to be honest. And I think that goes, you know, on both sides, even in spiritual practice, to avoid spiritual bypass, and avoiding what's really happening and avoiding the tough questions, all in the name of meditation is problematic. And I feel like my academic work and critical academic work has helped me shed light on my biases on my opinions. Even on some of my shadows, like it through that reflective process really brought a lot of these things to light. And I was able to use them as as tools, or objects of investigation in my meditation, practice, my contemplative practice. And then on the flip side, I feel like the meditation really helped me ground myself in my practice, and helped me frame questions that were useful, and they were going to be useful and help For for other people, either that whether they're meditators or other academics, or people who were involved with in filling philanthropy or are going to work in some kind of charitable project or start up a charitable project, I really tried to make my research, I came to my research from the perspective as an engaged academic, it wasn't just critical analysis for the sake of critical analysis, I really wanted it to be useful, in some sense. And I feel like my meditation practice really helped me do that. And my meditation practice also helped me be, I feel very open, more open minded when I was interviewing people. Sometimes when we get stuck in a when stuck, but when we stay involved with just a single tradition, we are thinking can get narrow, no matter what the tradition is, I think this is true for practitioners of almost any tradition, when you're only hearing one type of discourse, your mind tends to think that way. And it becomes very easy to be judgmental of other practices and traditions. And so I feel like a lot of my also, maybe this is more of the academic work helping my my spiritual practice, the academic work really promoted a sense of open mindedness. And I thought maybe the meditation practice really helped me embody that open mindedness. And because there was a lot of investigation of my own mind, I could see, there's bias here. There's judgment here up, you know, I have I look at these prejudices coming up, oh, look at these preferences coming up. What's going on there, so it helped me with the questioning. So it was really like a back and forth in the process. The the thesis itself, and the articles, the ensuing articles, I felt, gave me a lot of perspective on on boat guy, especially because the thesis was really about Bodhgaya, not so much the whole pilgrimage circuit. It's really about Bodh Gaya. And when I would be bringing groups, we can come back to this later. But when I started bringing groups with power Yachty in 2013, I believe, to the sites. Right away, I see I submitted my dissertation, I finished my PhD in 2012. And then in 2013, I led my first group to along the Buddhist circuit, to all these sacred Dhamma sites. And especially when I was in Bodhgaya, or I knew so many people, I knew the all the local hawkers, and I knew the street kids. And I knew all the restaurant owners, and I knew all the scam artists and the thieves. And I and people involved in the various various social organizations, like I really knew a lot of people there. And I knew a lot of what was going on. A lot of the work that was going on was very kosher, but there was also a lot of sketchy things happening. And so I constantly had to make decisions, what to share with the group, right? Do I want to share the whole picture? And if I do share that whole picture, what purpose is that going to serve? People are coming for a meditative experience. They're only here for a few days, I can't. So in five days, they can only receive a little bit of information, not a lot of information, especially on that level. So I would really limit my where I took places and the things I said, two things that were directly connected to meditation and the spiritual life. But I also allowed people the opportunity, if they wanted to ask questions privately, or after the pilgrimage, if they wanted to have, you know, other kinds of discussions, I kept that open. And I did. You know, for people who are interested, I sent them a link to my dissertation if they wanted to have more information. So some people were interested in that side of things and other people weren't. And that's kind of the beauty of pilgrimage. Because we're not when we traveled to the sacred places, often as an act of spiritual devotion. There's more multiple meanings. People have different sets of expectations. People have different reasons why they're going. People have different interpretations. And they're attracted to different things. And so some people were just really interested, I just want to do this, I just want to go to the Bodhi tree and a couple of other sites and just meditate, other people wanting to visit schools and clinics and other charitable institutions. So sometimes I would able be able to direct them in that direction as well. And so, I found although I had a certain trajectory for the pilgrimage, I always left doors open to for small tangents if people wanted to go in that direction. Or have a little side journey.

Host  1:00:53

Yeah, and I it's bringing up memories of the periodic pilgrimage we did together in Burma. And I believe I remember you saying during that, definitely someone said this to me, if not you it was someone else. But it was a comment that was a realization that when you do a pilgrimage in in India, you are really the master of your group. And if it wants to, if you want it to be a Thai Forest, tradition, pilgrimage, or going to a pilgrimage or a Zen, Buddhist pilgrimage, or New Age, whatever pilgrimage, if it's a bunch of traditional Sri Lankans, whatever your group is, you because you're visiting sites of history, you can really keep the vibe and the discourse and the methodology of your group alive and consistent. While you're also interacting with these sites from the past, but in Burma, you cannot and I and that was a realization from that pilgrimage. And what was so interesting was even in that Burma pilgrimage, we were basic besides for big sites like Shraddha gone or Maha Mooney, the the Burma pilgrimage was pretty much limited to two sites within the Glencoe lineage. The principal teachers of CI Juba can say Apogee when we say it, lady say it out. However, based on the work I had done at that time, and uncovering a lot of not just sites where those principal teachers had lived and taught, but also sites connected with other offshoots of those lineages, and in an effort to try to understand those teachers to a greater extent. And because every site we were going to was a part of the fabric, the living fabric of the dynamic Burmese Buddhist Society, which was alive in the moment, as well as representing the trajectory of the years before that had led to that moment. It was, it led to one can say some confusing encounters of, of having to negotiate how you take an insular and insular discourse and in an internal understanding into a very alive culture, where those figures and sights are still existing, but they're not existing within that insular narrative, that everyone talks about their existing within a Burmese Buddhist narrative, and context and culture and people and, and how to have that conversation how to, to go with an appreciation for, for what one has been told, and what one has reverence for. And to see it in an environment where there's things that one hasn't been trained for, and even has aversion or suspicion about, you know, with things that seem quote unquote, religious or Buddhists that that a Western practitioner has has prided themselves on being secular and not taking these on. You know, I think one of the most vivid examples of that which I've heard this anecdote repeated, I think this is kind of gotten some wings and I don't even know how it's where, how it started to be shared and spread. But I've heard this over the years, from different places, and it was something I experienced, where we took I don't think this was the one you were on. I think it was a subsequent one we took a group to Hansa Whitey monastery in Yangon. This was a place I had found was established by a monk who had learned under stategy, who was the teacher who can and hunts Awadhi monastery was the first practice site of a theology disciple. So it was quite an important place to visit. It was established in the waning days of World War Two and it was a monk who was teaching strategies technique and when we came he just he because this was so off the radar and I just discovered it recently. He no foreigners had ever made their way there and when he realized who we were and what lineage we came from, what background he just welcomed us with open arms and And, and did a group meditation together and gave us all kinds of treats and snacks and, you know, just kept proclaiming your, your my long lost relatives like your, you know we we found each other again and just so much excitement, enthusiasm and as he was was giving this kind of joyous remark he said, you know, we have courses a couple times a month and it'd be so wonderful to have you here and you know, please, like you've, it's so great that we're reacquainted again and that we come from the same lineage, please come and take my courses. And as the students fall back on the bus, a teacher stood up and said, Anyone who takes those courses will be disqualified from from long courses and face the consequences of the the organizational rules and such. And so it was, there was no greater dichotomy than that moment, which represented both the joy and the reverence of connection as well as the confusion and negotiation of, of an insular culture meeting a living vibrant culture, which in society, which doesn't happen in India. Another of the things I remark on, I've remarked on a number of times, which I think is just a fascinating and very troubling incident to reflect on in terms of what its meaning is that say, I do have a Ken who is the Teacher of Blanca, the the way that he was able to start his teaching career was that who knew which was the president at the time, he made the very controversial decision to proclaim Buddhism as the state religion. The result of that decision started the Christian rebellion, but Christians who are Christian, decided to break away from the union and rebel from their their their disgust, that they were going to be living in a state that was not going to give the same preferences to their religion and was going to mandate another state religion. Because of that state mandate. Cedric McCann, who was a government minister, was allowed in his government office to have a Buddhist shrine not just to have a Buddhist shrine, but to bring speakers to give discourses to encourage following the precepts to, to give short on upon instructions. And indeed, the before IMC was developed the first meditation instructions happened inside the government office by his own clerks who were encouraged to attend. For many Western meditators who are quite progressive and hold quite liberal values and a strong adherence and church and state and when we would see incidences today and our countries have of living in a Christian majority country of trying to make Christian incursions into curriculum or government service or, or state buildings or whatnot, we are righteously incensed that this, this would happen. And yet, as we go back and trace the history of IMC and newbiggin, this, we we are beneficiaries of a state mandate that was giving preferential treatment to Buddhism and providing numerous state resources to propping it up, which was hurting and harming all the other non Buddhist peoples in Myanmar to the extent that it actually caused a rebellion that hasn't been quashed to this day. And so that's just another example of like, how do you take this like, how do you when you learn this complicated history, and you have on one hand, holding this great reverence for what you begin was able to do and how that for for those people in the Glencoe lineage and going students to realize that Uber kins actions was what allowed them to get a Dharma that transform them live their lives, and how valuable that is, but then balancing that with the, why mobikin was able to do this, and this complicated history, and the complicated history of Buddhist nationalism and anti Muslim sentiments and anti foreign sentiments, I mean, the Muslim and or the Indian and Chinese populations that were there, and, and on and on, I think one can easily say, Well, I, I'm just a Western practitioner, and this doesn't concern me, I this is politics. I don't need to know about this. And yet also, that's not really fair to say if, if you if you have reverence for what say I do, but kin did, and yet you want to close off the part of the mind. That is the history of how he was able to do it, this all becomes just very, very complicated. So I'm sorry, I'm throwing a lot at you right now. I think I've given you three different connected anecdotes. I'm not even going to ask a question. I'll just I'll just leave my my ramblings there and pick up from from from anything that I said.

Kory Goldberg  1:09:31

Sure. Yeah. There's a lot to chew on there. I don't have really the historical knowledge to comment what the impacts of the President or Prime Minister making Buddha's in the state religion so I'm not going to shy away from making any comment because I don't have enough knowledge about that. But one thing I will say I do remember are reading little pamphlets when little pamphlets put out by Ooba kin, that when he was offering these courses, he was also offering them to non Buddhists. And he made a point to say these are open to I think Christians and Muslims, and Hindus, if I remember correctly. So he was trying to bring in people from all backgrounds, all traditions, and emphasize the the universality of the practice that he was teaching, at least at the basic level. So I don't know, if he was, you know, conscious of the he must have been conscious of the privilege that Buddhists had. And so he was trying to smooth that over by bringing everybody or making his courses or his classes or his sessions available to everybody. I'm just taking a guess here. I don't really know. Yeah, I feel like sometimes looking at these, these different situations through a theoretical framework, can be be helpful. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the work of Victor Turner. So he writes an anthropological analysis of pilgrimage, using these different concepts which he calls liminality, and Communitas. And I feel this is very helpful to understand the process of pilgrimage. And in a straightforward way, versus ways that get very complicated. So Victor Turner's approach to pilgrimage was very straightforward. Basically, he says, All pilgrimages all pilgrims go through some sort of initiation, purification, and then a transformation. And the liminality that he talks about, refers to the condition of the pilgrim, who leaves his or her mundane world who leaves his or her structured life, and enters into a world of anti structure which he calls bit Twixt in between. And in these incidents, all social rules dissolve, and everybody becomes marginalized, socially marginalized, geographically market marginalized. And when that happens, it creates a bond like what she called Community tests. And all these qualities of pilgrims is all these qualities sort of mixed together? Whether you know, and they become a homogeneous group, which allows for a sense of egalitarianism and comradeship, and even a sense of sacredness? Because all classes and castes are temporarily suspended. So this is an attitude I often see on the pilgrimages in India. Okay, like people are coming from all over. You know, I remember that first pilgrimage, I did, there was maybe 30 People from about a dozen different countries. And there was a lot of senior teachers, Ceri, as assistant teachers, and a handful of people who weren't assistant teachers, but all those roles and all those those titles disappeared. And we all went through this process, where we were initiated into the pilgrimage. And then this, you know, the, the, what they call the, when he caught Turner calls purification. So for me, this is all the going to different caves to meditate and having different discussions and doing one day courses and all this stuff is coming up. And then afterwards, you know, we're transformed in one way or another. And it's difficult to say how but we do have some transformation that takes a long time to process. And we really feel it when we go home. And so this is a very standard way of looking at pilgrimage. Now there's these scholars named John eid and Michael cell. No, I don't know if you're familiar with their work, but they wrote a very famous book in the early 90s called contesting the sacred. And they're critiquing Turner's work because Turner had these preconceived ideals. And in their work, they said, well, it doesn't always sometimes Turner's framework works. But there's always these diverse and discrepant instances that happen on pilgrimage, which kind of highlights what you were just talking about. And so when we only pay attention to this sort of collective mutual piety, in some ways that could be very accurate. But in other moments, it could be misleading because we all have these different cultural backgrounds. We have different political positions, sometimes manifest in the crowd, as in the example you just gave. We have different expectations, we have different motivations. And the and these are often very different. Another example, we actually did go to that Hunter Wadi meditation center on the first pilgrimage, we can come back to that later. But what were these divergent attitudes that I'm talking about? I don't know if you remember on the first pilgrimage. You know, we were meditating a lot. And I remember, one morning, I think we're going to Mahamuni pagoda in Mandalay. And we said, okay, you know, be ready for eight o'clock after breakfast, we're going to the pill and pagoda. And there were a couple people were like, ah, more meditation. I'm sick of meditation, I just want to go jogging. And I don't know if you remember that. But there were a couple of people who decided to skip meditation and go jogging. And I know, that bothered us at the time, and there was another person or two people, they were sick of pagodas and monasteries, they wanted to go visit different schools, I think one of these people is a school teacher. And she just wanted to visit schools, she was she was done visiting pagodas. And so in a sense, I remember. You know, we're both of us in and even snow are a little bit disappointed. But, you know, upon further reflection, thinking about, you know, this idea of contesting the sacred and how all of us have different motivations. It really shows how these boundaries are constantly shifting, they're constantly moving. And instead of creating these generalizations, it's sometimes important to focus on the specifics, because there's not just a single, specific discourse that is applicable at all times. But there's often these conflicting discourses. And so in Burma, in Myanmar, it's like, there's all this, these different things going on. Yeah. And all the participants have different expectations, and motivations and responsibilities. So I'm imagining, I mean, I wasn't there on that second pilgrimage. But I imagine if one of the, you know, the leaders in the organization said something like that, maybe the person's name, I don't know, if you spoke to the person. And we don't have to get into that here. But, you know, I'm hoping that the motivation was less sectarian, and more just saying, just to let you know, these are the sorts of rules and like, there's a lot of people who want to sit long courses. And if you go and sit here, and there's nothing wrong and sitting in this place. But if you do retreat, in this sort of side branch tradition, then you'll probably have to wait your two years before you can do a long course, in this tradition. So sometimes I'm wondering if it was just for information purposes, rather than sort of authoritarian or sectarian positioning? I don't know I so I can't really say, but I guess my point is, is there's this is what's so interesting about pilgrimage, but also makes it really challenging for a pilgrimage leader is there's all these different ways of seeing things. And I did, even though it is less, it's more straightforward in India, on the very first pilgrimage that I led, I had suggested that if people wanted on their own free time to go visit a particular Tibetan monastery, because the artwork was was exquisite, like that tongue goes that were hanging, and just the walls and the columns just had all this beautiful, intricate Tibetan imagery and floral patterns. And all this, it was just, it was really magnificent. And it wasn't part of our itinerary. And there was a lot of free time and boat guy. And I said, Well, if if you want to, you know, take a break from meditation, go check this place out. And there were, you know, some areas on the tour who did go, and they just loved it. They said, Wow, this is this is out of this world. This is some of those beautiful artwork I've ever seen. And then on the other hand, there were, you know, a couple of, you know, very senior people who were like, Oh, you shouldn't, you know, tell people to go visit this place. It's not part of our tradition. It's not even within the Tera Vaada world. So maybe you shouldn't be saying these things. So I was getting such different responses from such senior leaders in the organization, which goes to show it's like, you know, human beings are so complicated and everything is so messy, and then when you put yourself in the position of a guide to these places, you need to navigate everybody's stuff. So there's there's just there's no easy answer. Yeah, and

Host  1:20:08

I think my, my experience is a pilgrimage guide was a little short lived. And and so my interest now is not so much. I mean, I'm definitely interested in the pilgrimage experience and very interested in hearing yours. But my personal question is not so much on how to lead a pilgrimage to those places, it's more, how do you hold this? How do you talk about it, and being between these worlds of, of a reverent practitioner base in the West, that has benefited so much from this, and that hears the stories of their older teachers, or those teachers who transported the teachings to them, or their short time experience of actually being in those places, and learning and, and is has their own internal framework and messaging and discourse about how they hold it. And then the things that they don't see, or they don't know, or they purposely avoid and bypass. And knowing where these come together, knowing how to how do we acknowledge the existence of both of these in a way that doesn't undermine one or the other. And I'm, as you're talking your your story about encouraging the practitioners, the pilgrims to go to the Tibetan monastery, that reminds me of when I was invited to go to Australia and New Zealand and to Glinka centers going to have a passionate center specifically and give some presentations about the research I was doing in Burma, the pilgrimages, I was leading and, and everything else. And I remember. And I spoke to the organizers of the different senators, when I went and tried to, I knew I was very conscious that I was a guest that was being invited into a into one's own community, and whatever, whatever my background or views like I wanted to be very sensitive, and how, what I was able to talk about there and not ruffling feathers or, or whatnot, since I wasn't invited guest and someone in, in this community. So I was careful with that, and, you know, receive the answers from the people that were inviting me and worked on the presentations according to those guidelines. And one of the things I found in giving some of those presentations, like for example, let's just pick one, you know, a couple hour presentation on lady saved his life and his sights and talking about lady say it in a bit more of a, a dynamic and flexible and open way of of how he adapted the teachings, how just how dynamic he was in his approach, how much he did and some of those dynamic qualities of what he did and how he lived and how he taught in some ways. They're, they're not talked about in the discourse of the going communities and in other ways, they actually directly contradict what those discourses are. And so it's a very difficult balance to thread. But I tried to do so carefully without really discussing the implications of it. But more just sticking with what I know as facts and what I've what I've seen what I've heard, what I've what i've what I've understood, and after some of those presentations, the response and this goes also to speak to your, your observation of how diverse these communities are, that they're not monolithic, that there's so many different intentions among the members of it. And I remember after one particular talk, I had one senior teacher come up to me and almost in tears and say like, this is the most important thing I ever heard. And she went on to describe how she had her husband was just not really falling in line with the course, regulations and not really wanting to fit into that system. And she was just really distraught with this and really wanted him to, to be to be a regular core sitter and doing the two hours a day and everything else and was causing tensions in their marriage. And she explained to me that hearing the dynamic qualities of Lady said he was not trying to fit everyone into some narrow space that that everyone had to conform to, but was really working with who people were and how they can understand. It made her realize and reflect that she was really not behaving the right way to her husband. And that it was she was really trying to force him to be something that he didn't need to be or want to be and that it wasn't black and white. It wasn't like you're a good passionate meditator and we're aligned or you're outside and and we're on different paths. And that that talk gave her the the the insight and the ability to realize how she could be flexible and how she she could she could adjust the way that she was relating and her expectations and everything else and it just gave her this sense of liberation like a weight being removed. Really lovely and beautiful to hear. And then there was a another teacher and other practitioner who had a very different reaction, and without going into specifics of it basically wanted me out, you know, wanted to be silenced, wanted, wanted a retraction and, and and was just, you know, deeply offended that that I was saying things that did not go directly according to the the line of discourses and in some ways even contradicted it even though I was very careful not to discuss the implications or to, you know, highlight those, but just how can you avoid it when, you know, when, when at lady's birth monastery, there is a building called there was a building, which translates from Pali, into meaning walking meditation, it's a long it's not a hallway, but it's it's a, when you when you see the building, you can realize why it was constructed for the purpose of walking meditation. And everyone there says this is related, say to did his walking meditation. And if, you know, in the blanket discourses today, walking meditation is explicitly described as something that that is not useful. And yet we have, there's a building named walking meditation and Monywa. What do you do with this? How do you how do you present this knowledge and be comfortable with it? And so that diverse reaction, I think, speaks to also what you were saying of the different ways that people hold this and different intentions and so on.

Kory Goldberg  1:26:21

Yeah, that's right. So I guess the question was, how do I hold these contradictions? Am I right, that that's what you were asking, in the beginning. And how I hold these contradictions, contradictions, is just by being aware that human beings are filled with contradictions. And that we change because, you know, at one point, early on, when I was a meditator, I'm not in a, I'm not in any position of leadership in the tradition. So I'm in a very different place than a lot of people and have maybe a little bit more freedom. But I just, you know, I am a teacher, a college teacher, and I have children, and I have neighbors, and I'm part of a community and everybody has their own perspective, whether their perspective is grounded in fact, and evidence or, or not, is another story. But just by the and this is a practice that whenever, whenever I'm encountering people, and especially during the COVID, 19 pandemic, and seeing people have all sorts of ideas about vaccinations, and vaccination passports and the science behind it, they're just opinions were flying, left, right and center. And so I just try to recognize that we're all faulted human beings. We're, if we're unenlightened, we are steeped in wrong view. And I just tried to develop empathy, and compassion, for the views that are plaguing conflict, I used to be more reactive, and try to fight against any view that didn't align with mine, or a view that I thought was, you know, just completely false. But I recognize that that usually has little impact, and just creates more tension, and even confusion. So like, in that instance, on the pilgrimage, I just I just smiled and said, okay, and then I'm just going to do what I think is right, according to the position, the role that I've been given. And, you know, incidentally, I also gave a talk at a center on lady cited some years back, and I had two very similar reactions from two senior teachers. One was like, Well, I hadn't realized how open minded and broad this person was Lady Seido was and the teachings that he gave, and it's so inspiring that this person was just such a giant. And another person said, you know, whether this stuff is true or not, it just shouldn't be talked about. And this is from from two people who are seniors. And in both cases, he said, Okay, fine, you know, like, I'm going to speak what I think is important. And I'm but at the same time, I'm not going to rock the boat too much, if it doesn't serve much purpose. And if people are interested in hearing you know, the truth of a matter or hearing my perspective on the matter whether it's wrong or right, then then I'll be happy to share with them But if I'm going to make some people uncomfortable, and the majority of the people uncomfortable, then I'm just going to avoid saying that kind of thing, whether it's on a pilgrimage, or in my community or in the classroom.

Host  1:30:15

Yeah, that's, that's skillful. That's well said. Yeah, I want to I want we've been talking about this kind of in, in, in collaboration with some of the other bigger themes and tensions that we've been exploring. But we got a little bit away from your trajectory that I want to go back to specifically we were talking we had led up to the point that we talked in depth about this, this guidebook, this groundbreaking guidebook that you you wrote along the path, which, which guides meditators and helps them in knowing what to see and what the value and importance is. And then you became a pilgrimage leader. And we've talked a bit about some of the incidences and somatic way of the pilgrimages that you led and what stood out. But I want to return to that looking at more generally, of what it was like to transition from a place you were living in, you're writing about, you are reflecting and thinking deeply about, to a place you were taking newcomers that we're seeing for the first time and what that experience was like and leading a pilgrimage of meditators from a dozen different countries, as you mentioned, to the sites that you had research. So well, what you learned as a pilgrimage leader, what insights that brought you as a practitioner, and then also the contrast between India and Burma. I know you did a lot more work in Burma, both in terms of writing and living and researching and lead pilgrimages as well. But you did lead one pilgrimage in Burma. So you do have that contrast. So just looking at your your background as a pilgrimage leader, and what that brought you. Just for the record,

Kory Goldberg  1:31:51

I didn't lead the you lead. And it was just your support.

Host  1:31:59

I learned a lot from you. Let me say,

Kory Goldberg  1:32:01

Yeah, I definitely, you know, I did not want to pose myself as a leader, because I definitely didn't have the knowledge or experience to be to be a leader. But what have I learned as being a pilgrimage leader in India? I learned a few things I learned how to manage people's expectations. I learned how to manage time. You know, in the beginning, it was very easy to just try packing in way too much, you know, as soon as we did. I don't know if you remember, but on that first pilgrimage that we in Burma. I mean, we were just as insane as it was. Yeah. And and if you remember, we had a meeting at the very end. And I slashed about 40% of visits.

Host  1:33:04

Yeah, right, rightly so.

Kory Goldberg  1:33:06

So managing time is really important time and people's energy. Because people want to do everything. Making optional things doesn't work. Like here, here and here. And you can either rest in your room, or we can go to this place. I don't know if you know, the the acronym FOMO. Fear Fear Of Missing Out, right. And a lot of people suffer from fear of missing out. And nobody, no matter how they only the wisest people, the wisest or just completely sick people in their room, most people just want to soak in everything, because you know, they've, they've dedicated this time and they've spent this money and they'll probably never come back again. So it's a once in a lifetime opportunity. Let's just get in as much as possible. So learning how to manage that and not create too much expectation. Because another thing is, you know, especially in the beginning, it's so easy to say, Oh, wait till we get to this place, the vibration is so pure, it's so powerful. And then we go to that place, and some people feel it and people say I don't feel anything. And then it just it just makes you look. It just or me it just makes me if I do that, if I make those kinds of statements and set up expectations. I think it's unprofessional. And it shows maybe a little bit of lack of skill or wisdom on my part. So I try not to set up too much expectation. managing conflict is really it's a skill that it's not something I deal with so much in the classroom, but you definitely develop the skill a lot as a parent or as a community member, especially during a time of a pandemic, and, and on a pilgrimage, because it's, it's exhausting right there. And like you said, people have different motivations for coming, they have different intentions. And I found it was even more. So maybe it was just the luck of the draw, or maybe it was because of the country. But it was, it was much more so the case, on the pilgrimage that we went on, that was the most challenging pilgrimage, I've never been on and even yearn, who's, you know, quite an experienced pilgrimage guide is actually much more experienced as a guide than I do. He also says to this day, that was probably the most challenging pilgrimage he had been on, because there's just so many people from not just from different backgrounds, but just different intentions and expectations, and desires. And I feel like a lot of the people who it depends on the group, you know, sometimes you go in a group and everybody's very experienced meditator. And maybe they've already been to India, so it just flows more easily. If somebody's never been to one of these countries, and they're actually a relatively new meditator, then you have to learn how to manage that, as well. So time management, expect to fix expectation management, conflict management and resolution. Not. And it's like, when you're managing the conflict. And in Burma, if you remember, we weren't just in the middle, like, we were part of the conflict, like people had issues with us, which was, for whatever reason, some of it might have been justified, some of it wasn't justified. And so as a pilgrimage guide, some you have to not only be prepared to deal with emergencies, you know, mental health, emergencies, physical health emergencies, which I've had to do, or conflicts between different pilgrimages of different pilgrims. But sometimes people are directing their negativity towards you for this reason, or that reason. And it's important to have the difficult conversations, and to clear the air and be transparent, to help overcome the discomfort and the negativity. But you also have to know how far you're willing to go. Because sometimes, if in that very charged setting, if you go too far down the rabbit hole, it's going to drain you, and then that's going to impact all the other people who you're responsible for. Yeah. Right. And so that that's, that's really important. And so that that was, you know, definitely learning learning on the job process. Because it's not like there's formal training, I guess there is formal training for tour guides. But myself, I was just learning on the spot. So yeah, it was a steep learning curve.

Host  1:38:27

Yeah, yeah, pilgrimage is different than tours.

Kory Goldberg  1:38:30

It's different for a tour, and you know, maybe it would be helpful to go to tourism school. I'm not sure. But I think you know, it's important to have a good solid practice, and really be able to maintain your equanimity. In these various instances, you know, you're aware of everything that's going on, you know, outside of the group, that can influence the group, be aware of everything, of all the dynamics, internal dynamics within the group, and, and develop equanimity, and patience, and empathy, and metta and compassion, because as soon as those qualities start to fade away, it just creates imbalance and chaos in the group. So it's really important. And that's one of the one of the things I just loved. On the various pilgrimages that I've led. Was, was the was the challenge was the test, you know, of course, like a meditation, it's a meditation course in action, right, a meditation course in movement. It's obviously it's not the same as attend a course. But you have to really be prepared to face the sound cars that are coming up.

Host  1:39:55

And how about the difference between India and Burma between your your your role in Um, if you're not, you don't want to say you're a leader, you're definitely playing some kind of leading role and organizer, and both of them, but just in having done so much in India, and then just one in Burma, not on the pilgrimage end, but on the organizational end, what what did you find was similar and what was different and how were the challenges and inspirations, also manifesting.

Kory Goldberg  1:40:22

I mean, like, we like we spoke earlier, one of the, you know, in India, it's simpler, because it's just, there isn't the same level of historical and political complexity, or even cultural complexity. They pilgrims are going to be faced with, you know, in India, you're going on a route, the places are distinct. But because they're all there, they're mainly archaeological sites, with a few practice sites scattered about. And whenever we're going to places to meditate, they're, you know, historical or archaeological sites, or their, you know, the pasta centers in the going koji tradition. And so, there's, there's a familiar when, especially when you're always going to just like the going cost centers, if there's a familiar familiarity. That makes it easier. Whereas in Myanmar, it's just, there's so much going on so many different traditions and so many different practices. And we're meditating and all these different places, and there's so many different forms of Vipassana. Sure, when you're on the pilgrimage route in India, you are encountering other traditions. And it's very lovely to, you know, you go to some stupid remains, and you're meditating. And next you there's a group of Thai Forest monks on one side and Cambodians on the other side, and maybe some Tibetans are doing some prostrations behind you. But like, it's, it's there. There's all these different people from different Buddhist worlds, right. Whereas in Myanmar, it's like, everybody's in this, you know, Tera, Vaada, and Burmese Buddhist world with all these little nuanced differences. But for most meditators in the going to tradition, when we think, you know, a lot of people thought, Oh, we're going to Burma, it's like, everybody's practicing the going method. Right? Right. Yeah. And if they're not, it's still very similar. It's all like, you know, this kind of sensation based practice. And then, but then they're exposed to all this different stuff. Right, and that are also called Vipassana. And so that made it challenging. I mean, some people found it fascinating. Yeah, were they, you know, loved learning about it, and other people, you could see it was very disruptive to them. So having to manage that was what was or just be exposed to that and, and explain it, that sometimes that was, was a challenge that we don't really see in both places. What other differences? You know, another big difference is just the I'd say the, a huge difference is the interaction with the local community, because in India, the local community is not Buddhist, for the most part. When we find Buddhists in India, they're more towards the south, south central India, in in Maharashtra, or in Uttar Pradesh. But even though the bill Buddhist circuit is the pilgrimage circuit is part of it, it's a lot of it is in Uttar Pradesh, it doesn't necessarily touch the actual living Buddhist communities, or there's a lot of living Buddhist communities up in the Himalayas. So when we're encountering locals, most locals are Hindu and Muslim. And they just see us as their customers. Right? It's very business relationship. Like, although, when we're in India, we'd rather be staying in centers, or or we would stay in some kind of monastery. But even the monasteries were still very much a guest house. So it was like a sort of a spiritual business, if we can call it that. It's not like purely like a traditional monastery that we'd find in a host Buddhist country because they're monasteries, but they're actually it's more accurate to call them pilgrimage rest house. is, and a lot of them are are business oriented. And and the people who are working there, maybe the manager might be if we're staying in a Burmese monastery, maybe the managers, Burmese, or if it's in a Tibetan monastery, the managers Tibetan, but for the most part, everyone working there cooking and cleaning, etc, are local Indians and so they just see us as these clients, whereas in Burma it's like we were their visitors. And sure, there might have been some business aspect. But people were just so happy to have us come. And that was what was just so beautiful, like, the cultural pride that people had in Burma. Compared to India. It's it's, it was just it was one of the most beautiful things to see is this pride that the people of Myanmar have in their culture. And that the fact that here's this group of international people, you know, when we went on our pilgrimage, I think we were from 12, or 13 Different countries were like, maybe 2325 people. And people were just so happy to see us, no matter where we went. people's arms were just open. Especially when we dressed in the traditional pilgrimage clothing. I remember. Yeah, I remember it was like, I think it was on the first day or second day. And we got our brown monkey. And our when they were asked to bring white shirts and our Taavet the sash was a brown sun. And we went, I think we went to show to show to gie Chatterjee. And I remember when you and snow passed around the loan keys and the sashes, and, and a lot of us were feeling really uncomfortable. wearing the uniform wear uniforms. I like my freedom of individuality. I express my individualism like what is this uniform? Nonsense? Yeah, we're like, Okay, we're gonna do it. You know, just this one's for snow. Yeah. And, you know, we all put it on and we sheepishly fall off out of the bus. And all these Burmese people just looking at first, I'm like, so embarrassed. Can you see that picture? You're smiling. shake our hands and talk to us and ask us where we're from. And you're so happy. You're just so happy. And so honored. That here's this group of people from who knows what, like, we're, for all intents and purposes, we're from another planet, you know, is these aliens coming dressed the way they do? In their most sacred attire lay attire. And so they were just so happy and, and even though we're like, awkward, and we're like wearing our lungs wrong and inappropriate things, because they're just, they're just so happy that we're we're just showing interest in a very sincere way. And they recognize that our intentions are good and pure, and they're in the right place. So you know that that kind of thing. Like I remember one time it was it was after the first I went on to pilgrimages in Myanmar. The first one I think, was 2003, with going kanji, which I said, and ours was 2014. And I remember, after the pilgrimage in 2003, or maybe it was in the first few days, we spent in the end gone. And there was a small group of us, we went to su Lai pagoda to meditate. And when we come out of our meditation, we're surrounded by drinks and chips, and chocolate and fruit. And they were so quiet. You know, like, I didn't even hear anybody do anything. So and when I opened my eyes, we were maybe five or six people. We open our eyes, and we're just surrounded by all this, this Donna, it was just Wow. Amazing. Amazing. So this, this pride and this culture of Donna, we don't see you know, we might get some glimpses here and there in India, but nothing like in Myanmar nothing. It's really it's out of this world. I another story is I remember we, on that first pilgrimage. We were going from Mandalay to Monywa to the lady side our monastery in Moni Juarez Santa Monica, I can't remember exact location, you probably know better than I do. But it was a long drive. And don't forget, we're 500 people on 15 different buses. And if one bus stopped, we all had to stop. I don't know, the drive is supposed to be worth a couple of hours between the two. Do you know offhand

Host  1:50:22

mentally to Monywa? Maybe like, three hours or so? Yeah, two to three hours, something like that. Yeah,

Kory Goldberg  1:50:27

it probably took us like double that. Yes, losses breaking down and all this. And some and we were late. And somehow the people in Monywa learned that we didn't have our lunch. So that like a group of people from Monywa, you know, a few cars, drove to meet us halfway to offer us snacks, water, and fruit and chips and all these, you know, snacky foods because they thought we'd be hungry because we didn't have a chance to eat lunch. And we were 500 people. That's a lot of snacks. It's not like just a small group. We were a lot of people and they brought, you know, 500 of everything. So it was just that that level of have given that ability to just give yourself over to somebody else. It just produces such an they were just so happy to give. And then just as a recipient so much joy. So much PT was produced by seeing how happy they were in giving to us. It was just such a memorable lesson that that I've always, you know, kept with me. I don't know if you remember, but we went to the on our pilgrimage we went to the on Zaboo. Talia, I don't know if I'm pronouncing where they have some Japanese donor gave 300 precious statues. And so when we were there, the abbot closed off the exhibit, right? Yes, so that we can enjoy. Observe, observing and pay attention and meditating with the statues, quietly and mindfully without the disturbance of all the tourists. I remember outside. There's like hordes of people waiting. And they closed it off completely for our little group. And there's these few nuns in the corner who were chanting some burritos to enhance the atmosphere. It was so beautiful. And then afterwards, you know, we go outside, and there was a tea shop. And so we were having some tea. And one of the people on our group in our group had a bag with lots of money in it. And this person, we get down, we have our tea, we left them we get on the bus we leave. And she's like, Oh my God. I left my my bag with all my money. And we're like, Oh, no. And moments later, the Avid called your phone or snows phone and said, I think somebody left their bag filled with valuables. Come back and pick it up. I'm 99% sure if that happened in India, right? Forget it. That bag would not have been seen. Yeah, but the people were so there she the Sheila is there such an importance and Sheila and ingratitude that they saw here are were hosts to these foreign visitors. They fell into trouble, let's help. And that was so beautiful that the person the person was there wasn't one penny missing. Everything was there, that the person who founded at the tea shop, you know, had the the mindfulness and compassion to go to the Abbot and say, I think this belongs to you know, the foreigners. Amazing,

Host  1:54:07

just right. And that wasn't just several $100, even several $1,000 That was actually 10s of 1000s of dollars in that purse, which makes it all the more stunning and remarkable and your memory of of all these details. It's really wonderful to recount and to, to recall when you were referencing your first trip in 2003, and the bus breaking down, in the support you receive the thing that came to my mind was when we visited sai png the birthplace of lady say it Do you remember that encounter? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Tell us tell the audience how we were greeted and go into that little village.

Kory Goldberg  1:54:48

Yeah, that was that was an interesting visit. I remember well, we got we go into the shrine room or was a demo Hall and like all this food was prepared for us

Host  1:55:02

even before that, even when we were on the road. Do you remember what happened on the road?

Kory Goldberg  1:55:06

Like was that like were we stopped by police?

Host  1:55:09

No, that was um, there was a turn off to go to this little village this is the the village where lady Santa was born you can see his birthplace and and there's some other famous sights associated with the miracle of his birth and the stories when we were we turned off on this road. They had sent like a greeting party at the head of the road to like formally greet us and welcome us and it was basically like, we were like paraded it was like, like people on both sides of the road with at least two or three people filming everything on video camera, like massive video cameras, and like I don't know if it was like the local station or, or whatever. But it was this enormous festival ground of of welcoming leading, leading on the road to the monastery village. And as we got off yeah, then then your your memory kicks in where we they then had this huge feast prepared for us inside the monastery and, and just this incredibly welcoming almost carnival atmosphere. And as we sat and looked at the relics of lady's life and paid respects and everything, all the villagers were just their faces just pressed against the window and the building outside and just just staring endlessly fascinated by by why we should come from all corners of the world to their little humble village. And and then what was funny was the the next pilgrimage that you weren't on, but I was, I was really curious what they were going to do, because they had already laid out this, this red carpet and such incredible ways. Like how are they? How are they going to respond the second time and what was so funny was they I mean, they welcomed us quite generously a second time as well. But instead of video cameras recording us, they had televisions playing the tape from last month, like like as we were they're paying our respects. We're also like watching the feed from the previous month's visit. So that really cracking.

Kory Goldberg  1:57:07

That's so funny. And I remember I don't know if it was police or the military, because I know it was a politically sensitive spot. There were some police who showed up and they're like, you know, who are these people are the government spies, what's going on? And they were watching the they they were quite Stern. And they were watching the Sangha Donna that we had offered. And we had, you know, done the movements, and we were repeating after the Seidel and we were chanting the blessing. And we just got everything like so we were so off key, everything. And like everybody was just laughing. It was so humorous. That and that everyone was giggling like the police couldn't contain or the army soldiers couldn't contain themselves as well. And they also started laughing. And then like, from that moment on, everything was okay. It's like, okay, these people are sincere. Pilgrims, devotees of the great lady side. They're not here to cause any trouble. Yeah, that was that was a really special place as well. I actually have a little altar at home. And I have a little twig from the tree. It's a tamarind tree, maybe?

Host  1:58:29

Can't remember. Yeah, the famous tree. It's tamarind. Yeah, it's

Kory Goldberg  1:58:32

a tamarind tree. So I have like a little, you know, maybe three, four inches, a little branch that was on the ground. So I had that, you know, on my altar, next to next to the Buddha statue that that snow had actually given me at the end of the tour. Yeah, it's just the sense of Donna, the culture of Donna. It's just so so wonderful.

Host  1:58:57

It is and they really celebrate meditation and all forms so there's really no barriers between some other Yogi's progress and dedication and they're supportive it it's really a absolute no boundaries, rejoicing of anyone who's choosing that path. And I think that's what makes it you know, in better times, which now is definitely not that's what makes Myanmar such a special spiritual experience of those who go to spend time is that this activity which can look so weird and ostracize, well, maybe not so much in 2022 Definitely, we're making headway with, with with how, how practice is becoming normalized, but still to some some extent there's there's it's not something that's really embraced and integrated into the culture. Whereas in Myanmar, there's just anywhere you can go to to practice pagodas open open places, it's, as you mentioned, you go you go to this pagoda and meditate with your eyes closed you you open them and there's no There's a host of snacks and treats to support you just pure happiness and giving and rejoicing really, and really seeing how you you doing this action benefits me as well. And I want to give. And so that's that's really profound I do have to balance that with I mean this is the again the the rational and critical rational is the wrong word the the more critical part coming in to not just give this romanticized version to leave people with. But to balance just the the nuanced and difficult reality because all of this is true. Everything we were saying here, this, this is what actually happens. And people do rejoice to great extents. And you did close your eyes meditating and have snacks given to you this, this all really happened. And yet, I have to balance that with a story I heard last month and a podcast we published with length that who was a political prisoner, and he describes a scene in prison where he he was meditating. And after one meditation session, they, the prison guard beat him. And three days later, that prison guard died in a car accident, just coincidentally. But because the other prison guards who were all Buddhist, they started to suspect that he had some magical power of inflicting karma back on him immediately after this happened. And so they became terrified. Whenever they saw him meditate, and he was on death, he's on death row for eight years, he ended up surviving, and he's now one of the leaders of the democratic movement. But for those eight years on death row, whenever the the guard saw him meditate, they would take them out of the sale, and beat him to a pulp. And he would explain to them, what I'm doing is not for the revolution, I'm doing this for my peace of mind. And you will also benefit in this you as a Burmese Buddhist knowing well, to rejoice in meditation, this is also good for you, this is word for word, what he said on our podcast interview, this is something that that is just trying to help me have a peace of mind and a balance. And by having that I will make the atmosphere in general better. And so you'll also benefit from this. But they didn't understand and they just they, I mean, can you imagine just every to be deprived of everything except the ability to sit in silence. And then they also try to take that away from you. And they also a regime that justifies its existence to protect Buddhism is then beating people who practice Buddhist meditation. And so this is, you know, and it's like some hesitation I share this, even though it's already been shared on my platform. Because I don't want to take I don't say that to challenge the existence of this reverence, or of this rejoicing, which is very true. And I don't want to dirty that picture of the reality of so many foreign meditators who come to the country, and are just anywhere, there they go. They're told you keep up this practice, you can stay for life, I will take care of you I'll you dedicate yourself to this and leave everything else to me, you stay as long as you want. This is my privilege to be able to support you with as little as I have. It's my privilege to be able to give you this spiritual path. That is true. And it's also true that this happened in prison, and we can't, you know, I think at a time like this, we can't not acknowledge that happening. We don't want to be a party pooper. But we also, you know, it's, we need to somehow be mature enough that we can hold both those realities somehow.

Kory Goldberg  2:03:36

Yeah. How do we square that circle? It's it's, it's, it's horrible. You know, it just makes me just want to cry out when I hear those kinds of stories. It's just Yeah, it's such why high level, high level of ignorance and fear and hatred. And I mean, this is the work that we're doing. This is the work that we're doing ultimately, is to, to diminish and eradicate our craving or aversion. Our ignorance. And, you know, what you just just described is the highest form of ignorance and fear and hatred. And yeah, I mean, I just, I can't possibly imagine what it's like to be in such a horrible situation. And my heart goes out to that person and obviously to the people of Myanmar. And I can say, I'm going to, you know, I said met, and I talk about the issues with people, but it's still it's still never enough. And yeah, it just, it just comes back to what I was saying earlier. hurts. We're human beings, unenlightened. You know, sleeping human beings just live very complicated, messy, messy lives, and just perpetuate more of the more of the poison. And we see how these poisons go from the sort of internal psychological level, and they manifest, you know, at the level of individual behavior, and collective behavior and even systemic. Yeah, I just, I don't know what else to say about that. It's, it's, it's really horrible.

Host  2:05:40

Yeah, yeah. I

Kory Goldberg  2:05:41

mean, there's shows and it shows, I guess it does show that you're right. You know, nothing, nothing is neat. So we have, on the one hand, and and this is, this is what I love about, you know, obviously, you know, what I always say why people say people always ask me, Why do you love going to India and I say, in some ways, there's like, so much extremes. And I learned so much from it, you have the highest wisdom, and you have the lowest ignorance, you have such great richness, and you have such poverty. And there's such wisdom and ignorance and all this. And we see the same thing. In Myanmar, we have these, you know, enlightened meditation masters doing so much good for the world. And the repercussions, travel out ripple out across the globe. And at the same time, we have these really dangerous, dangerous, ignorant people causing so much trauma and pain and grief and suffering. And it's like, you have both of them side by side. You have the Dharma energy and you have that moral energy. And it's, it's really, that's, that's just the reality as it is, and it's, you know, those negative sides. It's just very painful to see. And so how can we bear witness to that? And stay around it? Same time?

Host  2:07:11

Yeah, it was extremely difficult to hear. I mean, I get emotional even thinking about it. No, I was almost in tears hearing the description. I just, yeah, it I've heard a lot of terrible stories from Myanmar from from prisons, from, you know, anecdotes, from podcasts, things behind the scenes, I'm I can never share it with confidentiality. I've been broken down several times this year. With the horrors that that had been told, and some of the horrors that have been inflicted on where the horrors come into line with with dama. You know, another story that comes to mind is, um, a nunnery with a number of young young nuns in the sky and hills, you know, children that were nuns with that, for some reason, on some tip, the military or actually, they weren't even dressed in fatigues, young men in weapons, climbed the walls and stormed through the nunnery at midnight. And when the abbess came out to ask what they were doing, they simply beat her with the butt of the gun in front of the children, and beat her until she couldn't get up. And, you know, I saw pictures of those robes, I saw videos, audio and video of the beading taking place. And of the the people screaming out and the way the nuns were, the young nuns were so traumatized. And yeah, that was another thing that just completely broke me hearing about such defenseless kind people that, that were being beaten to that extent. And it just and I get choked up just thinking about that one. And, you know, just realizing that there is no other explanation of this than fascism. I mean, this is just an example of a fascist ideology, that does not make sense in the human the humane way we look at the world. But this story of length Danton prison, this was also another order. I mean, you think of, as I said, on that interview with him, you think of meditation or yoga as being these things that open the body and mind up and make it vulnerable and, and it's a courageous act to come come in contact with something that you're you're not facing in your consciousness, and to to welcome that vulnerability, and then to be beaten physically, every time you do that. I mean, he was beaten every meditation. You know, every morning, he would wake up at four in the morning, he would prostrate to do recitation sutas. And, and then he would, and then he would meditate, and then they would see him and they would drag him out, and they would beat him. And, and, and this happened day after day. And the particular you know, I didn't even know what to ask him. I just I had the horror of that contrast. It was like, you'd like to think that if you're in a cell so small, you can't even stand up. That meditation is Truly the one thing that can't take away from you, you know, you'd like to think that, that that's, that's the thing you're left with, that's your refuge. And, and they didn't take it away from him, but I don't know, I don't know how he held on you know, there's, there's not many stories I hear that I think, well I would have been done, you know not that I'm a courageous person where it's like I could have done that or I could have done that. But when I heard this one, I was like, I would have been done eight years on death row, not seeing the sun or the moon, not having personal interaction not being given edible food, and then being beaten for meditation, I would have given up hope I'm sorry, I would have just, I would have said, I carried this on as long as I could. I'm done. And you know, the flip side of that story of the horrible story of being beaten, assaulted for meditation, is that he didn't stop. And not only did he not stop meditation, but he said, I have never held hatred for these people who did this to me not for the jailers, not for the generals, not for the warden, no one on a day in my life, if I held hatred, because I know this is this is toxic, and I don't He said, If one other activists hear me say this, they'll they'll be angry at me, you know, for for like degrading the revolution, that I don't have this hatred for them. But I honestly I don't, and I can't. And to make that contradiction, even more compact confounding for those of us outside, he's also in full support of the armed rebellion. He's not just supporting it philosophically, but he's, he's in a position to ensure that the local defense forces are able to efficiently kill the tatmadaw soldiers as, as, as effectively as possible, seeing that, as the only solution for an evil that is not responding any other way. And so, you know, this man who is is beaten day after day, year after year, and doesn't hold hatred to his his Buddhist guards who are giving him the beating, is also helping to, to see an armed rebellion happening that knowingly is going to cost it's going to have a toll of human life. And so these are, you know, I think, I think bearing witness is the right word for this because we are so our lives are so privileged and so removed from having to make any of these decisions that to sermonize. Or to remind of, of Orthodox, scriptural teachings, from our place, it is just, it's not something I can do. But to listen and to ask and to want to know these stories and tell these stories to know this is happening. And to understand the why. I think, as a as a practitioner at this time to not bypass the place and the people where so much of these teachings have come from, I think, I don't know, I'm still struggling, what is the most that we can do? And what is the most that I can do? But But certainly, I think that's part of it.

Kory Goldberg  2:13:08

Well, I mean, I think that's where your podcast has been fantastic, formidable. That it's allowing a space for people to tell their stories and share it with the rest of the world because it's virtually impossible for most people on the outside to be in contact with people on the inside. So having these stories available to us is such a great service that you're doing so I really applaud you for that when I hear the story of this gentleman who's been in prison for so long facing death row to me is he's just such a the his Adi Tana his his strong determination to just keep practicing no matter what is just it's, it's, it's almost unbelievable. And it's so inspiring. You know, it's like, if I am too tired at night, maybe I don't want like for now, I'm just gonna think of him every day if he can meditate, man, I can meditate. And on the other hand, like, he's just such a great I don't know him, but just and I don't I haven't heard of I haven't heard that podcast, and so I'm not familiar with who he is, but just from what you're telling me. He just seems like such a powerful symbol of equanimity. Right? I mean, we hear stories in the in the canon of a monk getting beaten, and he's just sending metta or there's the story of this man who wants to rape a nun because these things our eyes are so beautiful if she like, you know, removes her eye from her eye socket and hands it to the guy, what's so beautiful about this, like, who can do that kind of thing. And this is a living example of, of these deep teachings that seems so far removed from reality. You're actually seeing the teachings in their most in the hardest contexts, your most challenging contexts. Like, how it can't get harder than that. Yeah, right. Right. And so when I see these people actually meditating, it's it's so inspiring. It's, it reminds me of the story, I when, when I did that study abroad program, to go to India that the first trimester, it was through the University of Minnesota, and I had to I was in Minnesota for a couple of months. And there was a Tibetan monk, who came and gave a talk at the university. And he had been in prison for 20 years. And somebody asked him, like, what was your biggest fear. And he said, his biggest fear was losing compassion for the prison guards. That was his biggest concern while he was in prison for 20 years. And I thought to myself, Man, is he this person is just practicing on a whole other level. Like, I just, it's so hard to understand and relate to what he's saying, and I, and I just, I hope, one, I hope I never find myself in that kind of situation. I don't want anyone to ever have to find themselves in that situation. But if I ever do find myself in a time of great difficulty, I hope I can maintain my my level headedness and my compassion for whoever's creating these conditions of suffering for me. So it's, it's, and, you know, it's, I don't want to, I understand how people get might get upset in Burma, when people on the outside say, Oh, they're just so resilient, you know, wonderful, I understand how that could be insulting. If it's not said, from a place of authenticity, like I think it all depends on on who the speaker is, and what position the person is speaking these words from. It can just be as it can be used as just a way to bypass action or serious reflection. But on the other hand, it can also be expressed as a genuine, sincere observation of what these incredibly strong people are going through, and how they're responding to the situation with wisdom. So, you know, it's complex. And you're right, there's just there's just, you know, I hate to say it, and I don't want to sound you know, in the former as the former speaker, the people who are going through this, it's terrible, but they're providing, you know, a such a great lesson. Because the world is moving in a very dangerous position, and a very dangerous place with, there's so much division. There's so much conflict everywhere, even in North America and the US. And look, we see what's happening with the political scene, the polarization between the left and the right, we see some of this in Canada as well. And I just live I live in in a very quiet, tranquil, rural rural area. And some of my neighbors, you know, really symbolize the tranquility of the other of the area, and some are very loud, Rowdy gun toting individuals. And, you know, if things go bad, I could see people reacting in very harmful ways. And when I see the people, when I see what the people in Myanmar are going through right now, some of them are just responding in such courageous ways that I hope that if I'm ever in that position, that I could be as strong as they are. So I thank them, I thank them, you know, for all the trouble they're going through. They're still serving as teachers for me. I learned so much when I was there. And I'm still learning so much about equanimity and non violence. And even the people who are taking you know, there's people who are practicing non violence. There's people who are practicing guerrilla warfare. I'm not judging, you know, one or the other. I have no right to judge. All I could do is observe and And pay attention to the best of my ability of what's going on. I'm not making any evaluations, but people are doing what they think is right and in face of this horrible situation. And it's just another way. They're just, they're just demonstrating another great way to put the Buddha's teaching. In practice,

Host  2:20:19

yeah, well said, and I think that's probably a good place to end let's there's some powerful thoughts and, and good to touch upon the, the current situation and our, our thoughts and awareness of and support of, of what that is. And yeah, boy, really, really thank you for taking the time to talk so much about about your life, and especially the role of along the path and the pilgrimages you lead and observations and just really appreciate it all this.

Kory Goldberg  2:20:46

Yeah, thanks. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's been a nice, nice opportunity to chat with you and talk about this, this place that that's really even though I've only been a couple of times for about a month. But you know, Myanmar is definitely close to my heart. And it's, it's the quality of interaction, not the quantity. It's, yeah, it's a place that I love and, and I really do hope to be able to go back one day when when things eventually get better. Whatever that may be.

Host  2:21:24

Yeah, definitely. Well, thank you again, thank you for for coming on and sharing your background.

Kory Goldberg  2:21:29

Yeah, great. Thanks for having me.

Host  2:21:59

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