Antidote: Surviving Samsara

Death and the transitional periods written in culture and religion around death, specifically, dia de los muertos and those preparations offered by the Tibetan Book of the Dead are looked at alongside one another in this episode in preparation for the annual celebration in Mexico. Sharing both their personal experiences of loss, funerals and rituals around death, to the way the celebrations in Mexico offer a broader celebratory feel to honor familial life, Fausto and Emily cover death in both the experiential and textual. Fausto offers a detailed account of the Bardo Thodol and its corresponding rave rooms and electronic music corollaries. This barely scratches the surface of a topic to which we all can know so little of directly and yet are so driven by. If you have death, bardo, Tibetan Book of the Dead or perhaps death drive related questions or comments you'd like to share, we'd love to hear from you - antidotecast@gmail.comRecommendations:Find Fausto VI at @Faustosexto on IG for tattoos, prints, books, poetry, music and classes on Buddhism. Find them at www.antidote.mx and antidotecast on IG.Email questions and comments to antidotecast@gmail.com.Please subscribe, share, review and support the podcast.Thank y'all so much for listening. 

Discussing the book Poison is Medicine: Clarifying the Vajrayana, Fausto and Emily engage topics that range from the name of their show and parables around turning poisons to medicine to practices particular to Vajrayana. Covering the relationships of teacher/student relationships in traditional lineage practice, Emily and Fausto bring out some of their own thoughts around the relationship of study and support. Looking towards skillful means as a method for engaging experiences while understanding and not running from the intensities and emotions of life, this book provides some interesting insights for the reader and podcasters to cover in the episode. If you have additional questions or comments you'd like to share, we'd love to hear from you - antidotecast@gmail.comRecommendations:Poison is Medicine: Dzonsgar Khyentse Rinpoche Not for Happiness: Dzonsgar Khyentse Rinpoche IMDB: Dzonsgar KhyentseFind them at www.antidote.mx and antidotecast on IG.Email questions and comments to antidotecast@gmail.com.Please subscribe, share, review and support the podcast.Thank y'all so much for listening. 

Covering the topic of western culture picking up the mantle of Buddhism from highly isolationist cultures, Fausto and Emily take on the integration of Buddhism into western culture, practice and life. From consorts and enlightenment to removing our fear around loss of culture rather than cultural change, these western buddhists cover the possibilities of new applications and potentialities of buddhism in western life. Discussing the role of emptiness and the relationship when two become one, Emily and Fausto engage the question of origins and dissolution. If you have additional questions or comments you'd like to share, we'd love to hear from you - antidotecast@gmail.comRecommendations:Poison is Medicine: Dzonsgar KhyentseFind them at www.antidote.mx and antidotecast on IG.Email questions and comments to antidotecast@gmail.com.Please subscribe, share, review and support the podcast.Thank y'all so much for listening. 

Listeners have submitted questions and we have more questions and maybe even some answers to respond and offer a fuller conversation with our dialogue. Our norteño brothers and sisters, from Monterrey to Texas made a strong showing with questions from "What is a Bodhisattva and when do they come back; are they basically like Jesus, Buddha and Allah?" to "What is love in Buddhism?" to  "How do we leave dualistic moralism and find the medicine in the poison?" to "What are the reasons some people may be turned off to Buddhism?" Susan, Mallory, and Fernando thank you for providing us such thoughtful questions.  We are so appreciative and look forward to more question and answer sessions in the future. If you have any questions or comments you'd like to share, we'd love to hear from you - antidotecast@gmail.comRecommendations:Find them at www.antidote.mx and antidotecast on IG.Email questions and comments to antidotecast@gmail.com.Please subscribe, share, review and support the podcast.Thank y'all so much for listening. 

Sartre? Satan? Fausto and Emily explore a question posed by a friend and listener, "Does one need to have an existential crisis in order to become enlightened?" The hosts touch on Sartre, Camus, and Kafka before turning to the story of Shakyamuni Buddha's enlightenment. Grappling with their own existential questions and moments of doubt, they wander through the possibilities provided by the realization of impermanance. If you have questions or comments you'd like to share, we'd love to hear from you - antidotecast@gmail.comRecommendations:Bob Thurman: The Politics of EnlightenmentAllen Ginsburg on dying while dying. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozRiREMYo4UShows: Messiah The Gift Find them at www.antidote.mx and antidotecast on IG.Email questions and comments to antidotecast@gmail.com.Please subscribe, share, review and support the podcast.Thank y'all so much for listening. 

Popular understandings of karma would limit our understanding to people getting their 'just desserts,' rather than the most simplistic idea of it as action. Emily and Fausto take on the term in its pop culture, Vedic and Tibetan Buddhist understandings, laying out some important differences in establishing structures for  subjects, relationality and opportunity. Dancing with our little interior tyrants, the possibility in all responsibility, and the opportunities available in all our causes and conditions, they play with the broader ranges of karmic potencies and western thought.  If you want additional resources, reach out and let us know. If you have questions or comments you'd like to share, we'd love to hear from you - antidotecast@gmail.comRecommendations:Karma- Traleg KyabgonWater: Deepa MehtaFind them at www.antidote.mx and antidotecast on IG.Email questions and comments to antidotecast@gmail.com.Please subscribe, share, review and support the podcast.Thank y'all so much for listening. 

Having smoked the cigars of father Freud for many years, Fausto and Emily look at the intersections and differences of psychoanalysis and vajrayana. Both schools of thought provide systematic analysis of the mind and our relationship to it but leave us with varied and complimentary practices. Fausto and Emily talk about some of the controversies surrounding Freud, as he established the field of psychoanalysis and therapeutic practice. They bring Lacan, affect, death and loss to the party and the corollary ideas in Tibetan Buddhist thought and practice as well as blackouts and some dream yoga.   If you want to know more about therapy or the availability of psychoanalysts in Mexico City or want additional resources, reach out and let us know. If you have questions or comments you'd like to share, we'd love to hear from you - antidotecast@gmail.comRecommendations:Sigmund Freud- Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality Diane D. Davis: Inessential SolidarityRob Preece- Preparing for Tantra: Creating the Psychological Ground for Practice Michael Eigen- The Psychoanalytic MysticMark Epstein- varied books and talks on Buddhism and therapyTJohn Welwood: Toward a Psychology of Awakening: Buddhism, Psychotherapy, and the Path of Personal and Spiritual Transformation Freud Art can be bought hereFind them at www.antidote.mx and antidotecast on Instagram. Email questions and comments to antidotecast@gmail.com. Please subscribe, share, review and support the podcast. Thank y'all so much for listening. 

Meditation as a mindfulness practice for relieving anxiety and clearing the mind is well established in the Americas but it can often become another competition of the self and weight that guilt ridden westerners hold over their own heads. Emily and Fausto discuss the many and vaired practices of meditation within Vajrayana for facing strong emotions, embracing bodhichitta, emptiness, and visualizations that can help process those memories and attachments that bind us in samsara. If you are interested in hearing more about a particular meditation practice or want additional resources, reach out and let us know. antidotecast@gmail.comRecommendations:Books: Chögyam Trungpa Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism Will Johnson" Breathing Through the Whole Body Giorgio Agamben: Potentialities Music: Jacob Banks Sharon Van Eton and Angel Olsen - Like I Used To Find them at www.antidote.mx and antidotecast on IG. Email questions and comments to antidotecast@gmail.com. Please subscribe, share, review and support the podcast. Thank y'all so much for listening. 

Jammin out ideas around the impact of aesthetics on our beliefs, Em and Fau open up questions of connection and identification with one's teacher and lessons, evaluating the ramifications of Asian culture on Buddhist practices in the west. Touching on fetishization, piracy, and desire with cameos by Frida, Diego Rivera, Ayn Rand and Jamba Juice, the episode is a carnival of examples and ideas. From commodification and proliferation of product based Buddhism and advertisement to the attachment to symbols for authenticity, the hosts want to understand what a spiritual practice is once it is stripped of its cultural aesthetics and determinant attachments. Recommendations:Thangkas by tsherinsherpa on IG and at http://www.tsherinsherpa.com/The 14th Dalai Lama: A Manga Biography Tetsu SaiwaiFind them at www.antidote.mx and antidotecast on IG. Email questions and comments to antidotecast@gmail.com. Please subscribe, share, review and support the podcast. Thank y'all so much for listening. 

Emily and Fausto evaluate what both is and is not samsara in terms of Tibetan understanding of reincarnation and karma. Differentiating understandings of reincarnation from Hinduism and evaluating the differences in different religions' approaches to death, they sketch a picture of samsara as cyclic existence. Hitting on toxic relationships, I Heart Huckabees, and the joys and pains of metacognition and confirmation bias, they cycle through the podcast opening many questions, only answered with many additional questions. Hope you are all doing your best to survive samsara. Recommendations:The Bhavachakra image for the episode is a thangka available through lama_thanka on Instagram. Their work is beautiful and you can also get more of it here: http://www.thangkanepal.com/ Find them at www.antidote.mx and antidotecast on IG. Email questions and comments to antidotecast@gmail.com. Please subscribe, share, review and support the podcast. Thank y'all so much for listening. 

Fausto and Emily open a conversation around "the stock market of semenal fluids" and the use of tantra as limited term to sell weekend sex workshops and eye gazing practices. Differentiating the practices that can be learned outside of workshops, from those vajrayana practices that engage karmamudra, the hosts walk through a variety of ideas, contemplations, and experiences around sexual practice. Tantra as continuity rather than a practice of temporary prolongation allows for both an individual and partnered practice. Recommendations: Laura Mulvey Visual Pleasure and Narrative CinemaLinda Williams Power, Pleasure and the Frenzy of the Visible Find them at www.antidote.mxantidotecast on IGEmail questions and comments to antidotecast@gmail.com. Please subscribe, share, review and support the podcast. We are ever grateful you listened. 

Emily and Fausto discuss their individual paths towards Buddhism and how each grew up in very different environments from practicing Buddhists and from one another. Growing up in largely Christian environments both discuss their previous religious upbringing, philosophical explorations, and intensive adult practices that incorporated Buddhism, theory and much personal experience. Recommendations: Chogyam Trungpa: Meditation in Action Pema Chödron: When Things Fall Apart Gendun Chopel: The Passion Book Fredrich Nietzsche: The Genealogy of Morals: on Good and Evil Houston Smith: The World's Religions The Dhama Pala Allen Ginsberg Find them at www.antidote.mx  and antidotecast on IG. Email questions and comments to antidotecast@gmail.com. Please subscribe, share, review and support the podcast. We are ever grateful you listened. 

Fausto and Emily discuss wellness culture's commodification of mindfulness, meditation and other Buddhist foundational concepts. They discuss recent quick fix items being sold as shortcut or spiritual bypass to the challenging personal work required for release, growth and alleviation of suffering. They discuss celebrity versus source credibility and the ever growing expansion of products sold as anesthetics to life's suffering. They discuss allowing emotions to guide us in practice and the varied parts of Tibetan practice, that help facilitate this ongoing lifelong process of self excavation and expansion.Recommendations: Not For Happiness by  Dzonsgar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche Poison is the Medicine by  Dzonsgar Jamyang Khyentse RinpocheTarde Que Temprano by Fausto Alzati FernandezDeath of the Truth by Michiko KakutaniFind them at www.antidote.mx and antidotecast on IG. Email questions and comments to antidotecast@gmail.com. Please subscribe, share, review and support the podcast. We are ever grateful you listened.