Interview Transcript

History and Discovery

I would have to say, I mean, I was brought up Roman Catholic, you know, an Italian church and Agron, which is a small town office. Springfield, Mass. Very Italian neighborhood. And you know, it was an Italian-American. And I asked questions all the time. And I was the first. Girl to ever wear pants suit to her first communion because I refuse to wear a dress, I was like, No, I’m wearing. And my mom had to make me a special suit and it broke all the rules and they were just like, they were just like, Oh, this has. This has never been done, ever. And I was like, Yeah. So I wore my pantsuit and created waves. And then for my first confession, I did the same thing because you’re supposed to have a witness and the witness is supposed to be women because you’re women. And I was like, No, I’m having my uncle, Johnny. And another wave went on and I get kicked out of catechism because 

I ask too many questions or like, maybe it’s time for you to move on. And I was like, Yeah, yeah. And I mean, the the final final line for me was I was I went to mass and I think I was in the beginning my first year in college. And I remember walking in the door and the priest was up and he up front and he said, You’re all sinners. And I said, No, I’m not. And I just turned around and left and I was like, OK, I’m done with that. But I also understand the community around and, you know, the community feel and what advantages that there were with that. But it was in my senior year. So I was kind of floating for most of college. But in my senior year, I had a marketing professor who gave me a book on Zen and I and I picked it up and I read it and I went, Oh, this philosophy feels aligned with my values, aligned with what I want to do. And so it started with Zen. But reading and finding out more about Zen, it was like really dry and they woke up really early, and I don’t want to wake up early, and it’s almost like me screaming in the library like I everybody. Come on, smile. You know, was like, I’m a very alive person. And maybe that wasn’t the right fit. So when I got back to Maine, I found this church. It was called the National Spiritualist Church, and I don’t know. I just like, showed up one day and it was so fascinating because what it deals with, it deals with death. And, you know, after having some experiences, I was curious and wanting to know about death, and they deal with death all the time. They were mediums and they spoke with the spirit worlds and and I was like, You can’t do that. And they’re like, Yes, we can. So for like ten years, I would study Zen Hinduism, but also spend time with these people and learned fascinating things about. Dead people, the spirit world, and they taught me how to table tip like put your hands on the table and not on the table, but above the table and call for spirit. And the thing would walk around the room all by itself and tip over on and on end and hover above the floor and nobody’s touching it . And you would ask this. Table questions, and it would actually, you’d say, tip once for no, twice for yes, and the thing would answer your questions and it’s like, how can you explain that? And how can I explain someone or medium to very, very well trained, which is different from a psychic? These mediums would talk about my dead grandfather or some of my ancestors without even knowing me.

Reason why I wanted to dove and in order to dove in,
I felt like ordaining would take all this distractions away.

 Right? And give me scenarios that have happened in the past, and they are always right on to that to me fascinated me. So the combination of Zen Hinduism and this was was really kind of opened my world because the Hinduism would talk about the spirits and. And when I started to understand that Tibetan Buddhism, they had this understanding a spirit world and they worked with them, and they use the mala beads to extract spirits from houses. And, you know, there’s all kinds of different things, and they were very superstitious. So that got me reading on Tibetan Buddhism, but it didn’t do anything then because I was still studying the music, the Vedas and the Hinduism and the fascist and the yoga sutras. Really, the the basics very beginning of written down Hindu scriptures. So it wasn’t until I ran the it’s almost like I ran through the knowledge I ran through. All that I could learn and all that I could meditate on in the Hindu realm. I got to the Mohammadu and this was back in maybe 2008. nine or eight? That. I wanted to learn about the Mohammadu, and I found that, oh, it was the Buddhist who wrote down these teachings. I found the Hindu teachings. I got some oral teachings on the momager, which were amazing experiences with these mass meditation masters. I was very fortunate to meet them and they weren’t like the the oh, popular. Hindu massacres, these were tucked away in the small villages that were so profound and so in the state of bless. And you can only sit in there in their halls and their classrooms or sit within their company, and you would feel this energy and happiness. And I felt, Ah, yes, this is what I have inside of me that I’ve had inside of me all my life and that no external circumstances can really take that away. It’s not that I didn’t feel anger or sadness or grief, but I knew beyond all of that was this inner core of happiness. And so going to India finding these masters, I, you know, it’s like, right? Yes, this is who I really am. So when I had a teacher that died that I was exploring with the mohammadu, and so I was like, Oh, I need. I need teachings. OK, well, it’s Buddhism. Buddhism wrote all this down, they have many books. And I just said my wishes like, please, please give me a meditation master who is stainless in his actions and clear in his words, without any drama, without wanting popularity. And so. Yeah. And one day I just walked in to this Buddhist center, I was on a walkabout in town and just walked in and sat down, and it was the teachings of Jason Copper. And it. I thought at that time that that was the place I needed to be and that I could really dove in to the teachings, to the mohammadu teachings, to some sort of devotion because without devotion, devotion kind of cracks your heart open. And put you on your knees and get you ready to be able to open to who you really are in that world. Yeah.

 

please give me a meditation master who is stainless in
his actions and clear in his words, without
any drama, without wanting popularity.

Taking Refuge

After reading a couple of the books. Of this particular tradition, I felt that especially the mother, I just went right into the Mamuju books. I felt it was really clear it was different from some of the other, like Naima Cargo Teachers, and I thought, Oh, this is really interesting. And. Noticing that. Like, men and women were equal in this tradition, and that doesn’t span the whole Tibetan tradition, right? We’re still making avenues for women to. Be more educated and equal, so that kind of drew me, it’s like, OK, this is this, this may work. I think I can do this and why I wanted to dove deep is I wanted to be able to understand my own mind, to be able to explore what is the mind and how it’s malleable and how it’s all what I think and how can I train that? And so that’s what brought me the teacher or particularly at the center was not it was the the larger Lama that was ahead of the tradition and his books. So. I was giving enough, I would say, teachings and so I could dove into the retreats, I could understand that tantric pujas, I could understand the tantric rituals and and. How those can also. Transform the mind. Which transforms your life. So that was my but my basic. Reason why I wanted to dove and in order to dove in, I felt like ordaining would take all this distractions away. And I felt it was really time for that. And those distractions being, you know, career relationships and a new. A new relationship to the to the world, actually. And it took a wider world and just kind of narrowed it a bit for a while. And that enabled me to by not having those distractions, it’s almost like if you were to think about like a snow globe. And actually, I saw a fog globe at the De Young Museum. I love that. I loved the fog globe. So you pick it up and there’s this bridge, right? It’s the Golden Gate Bridge and you shake it up. And there’s like all kinds of fog and eventually the fog settles. And then there’s the bridge again. And I just felt like that was ordaining would kind of bring down the fog. And I can totally concentrate on fully on really understanding what is this life? Why am I here? What is my mind and what kind of choices really do I have as far as how to weigh what is my viewing lens of of life and.

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