607. Stephan Bodian, 2nd Interview

Buddha at the Gas Pump

Rick Archer

Religion & Spirituality, Philosophy, Spirituality, Society & Culture

4.7 • 695 Ratings

🗓️ 22 July 2021

⏱️ 107 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Stephan Bodian is a teacher in the nondual wisdom tradition of Zen, Dzogchen, and Advaita Vedanta and the founder and director of the annual School for Awakening, an intensive six-month program of exploration and study. His offerings are noted for their humor, warmth, spontaneity, and intimacy and combine direct pointers, lively dialogues, silent sitting, and guided self-inquiry. He’s the author of several books, including Wake Up Now: A Guide to the Journey of Spiritual Awakening and Beyond Mindfulness: The Direct Approach to Lasting Peace, Happiness, and Love. Stephan spent a decade practicing Zen intensively as a monk but left the monastery because he sensed that the rigorous practice of meditation was obscuring the truth he was seeking. After studying Dzogchen for several years, he met his guru, Jean Klein, a European teacher of Advaita Vedanta, who told him to stop meditating and instead discover the meditator. Shortly after meeting Jean, he had a profound awakening to his true identity as timeless presence. After Jean’s death, Stephan met Adyashanti, and in 2001 Adya gave him Dharma transmission and invited him to teach. Trained as a psychotherapist, Stephan also offers individual spiritual counseling and mentoring sessions to people throughout the world. His approach blends direct, experiential, nondual wisdom with the insights of Western psychology to support students in realizing who they really are while inquiring into the stories and patterns of thinking and behaving that continue to cause suffering. Website: stephanbodian.org Other books: Meditation For Dummies, w/Audio CD (Also available in various languages.) Timeless Visions, Healing Voices: Conversations with Men & Women of the Spirit Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group. Summary and Transcript of this interview. First BatGap interview with Stephan. Interview recorded July 11, 2021 YouTube Video Chapters: 00:00:00 - Introduction to Buddha at the Gas Pump 00:05:20 - A Shift in the Locus of Identity 00:10:00 - The Vastness and Dream States 00:15:05 - Roshi's Uninhibited Behavior and the Fall of the Center 00:20:18 - Bodhidharma's Precepts and Acting in Integrity 00:25:13 - The Ugly Truth and Confrontational Behavior 00:30:15 - Dealing with the Shadow and Integrity 00:35:01 - Narcissism in Spiritual Teachers and the Direct Path 00:39:53 - Awakening and the Role of the Teacher 00:44:51 - The Role of Teachers and the Need for Discernment 00:49:48 - The Impressionability of the Mind 00:54:19 - The Interface Between Science and Spirituality 00:57:59 - The Direct Meeting and Potential for Transmission 01:01:23 - The Pitfalls of Spiritual Teachers and Sex 01:05:31 - Boundary-crossing and predatory behavior 01:09:01 - Spiritual Teachers and Dark Triad Qualities 01:12:56 - The Importance of Care in Spiritual Evolution 01:16:34 - Relationships and Higher Callings 01:19:59 - The Literary Invention of Crazy Wisdom 01:23:47 - Compassionate Being and True Crazy Wisdom 01:27:12 - Starting a New University 01:30:43 - The Strange Fit Between Narcissists and Spiritual Teachers 01:34:16 - Embracing Human Relationships 01:37:51 - Giving Power Away and Seeking Enlightenment 01:41:49 - Being Your Own Authority 01:45:11 - The Horse and the Whip 01:48:28 - Different Spiritual Teachers and their Teachings 01:51:57 - The True Guru Within 01:55:49 - The Awakening Journey 01:59:32 - The Role of a Spiritual Teacher 02:03:10 - School for Awakening

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	The Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump.
0:28.0	My name is Rick Archer.
0:30.0	Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing series of interviews with spiritually awakening people.
0:35.8	I've done over 600 of them now. And if this is new to you
0:39.1	and you'd like to check out previous ones, please go to batgap.com, BAT, GAP, and look under
0:46.4	the past interviews menu. This program is made possible through the support of appreciative
0:52.2	listeners and viewers. So if you appreciate it and would like to help support it, there's a PayPal button on every
0:57.8	page of the website, and there's a page explaining some alternatives to PayPal if you want
1:02.8	to pursue one of those.
1:05.0	My guest today is Stephen Bodian.
1:08.1	Stephen was on Batcap.
1:10.0	When was it, Stephen, 2014, 2017, maybe.
1:13.8	Oh, 14, I think it was 14. Okay, way back. I listened to our previous interview during the
1:19.5	week, and I thought, well, we covered a lot of interesting stuff. And we'll try to cover
1:24.1	somewhat different stuff today, but, you know but you might want to watch that one also.
1:28.5	You'll find it on Backgap, and I will link to it from the Backgap page of this interview.
1:35.7	Stephen, why don't you just go ahead, rather than me read a prepared bio that he sent,
1:40.9	it might be more interesting if you just sketch out a little bit of your history.
1:46.4	Well, first of all, I'd like to say that I'm a teacher in the non-dual wisdom tradition of Zen,
1:52.8	Advaita, and Zoghchen, Mahamudra, which are all traditions that I studied,
1:57.7	although primarily Zen. I was a Zen monk for 10 years, then spent 10 years with
2:02.3	Jean Klein. In 2001, Adjashanti told me to go teach, and I've been doing it ever since. And I'm also
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Rick Archer, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Rick Archer and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.