Ram Dass Here And Now

Ep. 269 – Ram Dass and Stephen Levine: An Opportunity to Grow

Jan 20, 2025

Stephen Levine, an influential poet and Buddhist teacher, joins Ram Dass in a profound discussion about life, death, and spiritual growth. They explore how every experience, including dying, offers an opportunity to awaken beyond the illusion of separateness. Levine shares a moving story about an AIDS patient learning to approach pain with love rather than anger. They also talk about the importance of shared experiences and love in healing, and how embracing vulnerability can lead to deeper connections and personal transformation.

45:34

Episode guests

Stephen Levine

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Episode notes

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Quick takeaways

Viewing life's challenges, including death, as opportunities for spiritual growth fosters resilience and acceptance of our deeper identities.

Shared trauma can create profound connections through empathy, transforming individual pain into collective healing and mutual support.

Deep dives

Embracing Growth Through Life's Challenges

Viewing life and death as opportunities for growth is essential for personal development. This perspective helps reduce the feeling of burnout by framing life's challenges, including death, as chances to evolve spiritually. The idea is reinforced by the notion that everything, including the process of dying, should be seen as a path towards awakening and growth rather than merely an end. This philosophy invites individuals to reconsider their identities beyond their physical forms, suggesting that recognizing this deeper nature can foster acceptance and resilience in the face of mortality.

Intro

3min

Managing Stress and Embracing Spiritual Growth

7min

Embracing Life and Death: A Path to Growth

2min

Embracing New Beginnings and Community Connections

2min

Embracing Vulnerability and Healing

29min

Embracing Humanity: The Path to Enlightenment

6min

Ram Dass and Stephen Levine explore how all the experiences in our lives, including the process of dying, can be an opportunity to grow and awaken out of the illusion of separateness.

This episode of Here and Now is part two of a talk by Ram Dass and Stephen Levine in San Francisco in the 1980s during the AIDS crisis. You can listen to part one on Ep. 268 of the Here & Now podcast: The Heart of Healing.

Ram Dass talks about how we are being healed out of our separateness through our shared caring and our shared heart. Everything in our lives, including the process of dying, is an opportunity to grow. He explores how we need to shift our perspectives to touch the possibility that we are more than our bodies.
Stephen addresses the AIDS crisis and the sense of anger and self-hatred that gathers around the pain people experience as they come closer to death. He shares the powerful story of one AIDS patient he was working with who started to meet his pain with loving kindness instead of with hatred.
Ram Dass talks about opening not just to physical pain but to psychological pain as well. He shares some of the heavy learning he’s had to do in order to allow himself to need help from others. To do the work he really wanted to do, Ram Dass needed to acknowledge the fullness of his own humanity first.

About Stephen Levine:

Stephen Levine was an American poet, author and Buddhist teacher best known for his work on death and dying. He was a friend and colleague to many Be Here Now Network Teachers. Along with Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg, Stephen is responsible for making the teachings of Theravada Buddhism more widely available to students in the West. Find more talks and writings from Stephen at levinetalks.com.

The Ram Dass community gathers regularly to engage in meaningful discussions about the podcast. We invite you to join us and share your curiosities, insights, and wisdom. Visit Ramdass.org/fellowship to sign up for the General Fellowship, and you'll receive event invitations directly in your inbox.

“And at the simplest level, I’d say the statement is the antidote to burnout is the perspective that you are a growing being and that everything, including your own life and your own death, and approaching death, is an opportunity to grow.” – Ram Dass

Sponsors of this Episode:

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