In this episode of Cloud9 Online’s MediMindful Moments Podcast, co-hosts Judith Dreyer, Jeff Nelder, and Henry Edinger interview David Nichtern, a senior Buddhist teacher, meditation guide, musician, four-time Emmy winner, two-time Grammy nominee, and the founder of Dharma Moon and 5 Points Records. David talks about the three dimensions of life being fully integrated, what we can learn from Buddhist practices during this time, and how to utilize mindfulness as a tool in our state of mind.
Listen HERE!
Episode Highlights:
● Judith introduces David Nichtern. (00:39)
● David thinks that his most significant aspect is being eclectic. (1:36)
● David mentions his book that he wrote entitled Creativity, Spirituality, and Making a Buck. (1:47)
● David leads the MediMindful exercise. (4:24)
● David mentions that if you go to a pure view of the phenomenon, everything is unprecedented. (16:20)
● David shares that from a Buddhist point of view, it’s a great time to practice. Because what was always true is now obvious. (16:35)
● David shares that mindfulness is the best tool for our state of mind, and it enables us to perceive grounded information and the truth of the situation. (18:51)
● David mentions that impermanence is considered to be one of three vital descriptions of life as it is. (21:41)
● David mentions that there are three marks of existence, and only one is impermanence. (24:10)
● David feels that the contemplative element is significant at this moment. (26:51)
● David shares that Sister Pema Chödrön is an excellent meditation teacher and she has a book entitled Start Where You Are. (29:24)
● David thinks that everyone needs some time to play, and creative solutions come out of a sense of less tension, more openness, more sense of play. (32:53)
● David mentions that in some very advanced Buddhist traditions, they say that noticing, recognizing, and remembering is the main practice. (38:02)
Key Quotes:
● “Expressing yourself creatively and relating skillfully to everyday life and livelihood and things like that have equal weight. So, you can see as you travel through different communities that sometimes, one is weighted more than the other significantly.” - David Nichtern
● “Impermanence just simply means that there's a fundamental dimension of reality in which that's just simply true. The condition part of reality it's simply true, you can observe it if it's given as a contemplation to us, everybody should just think about it for five minutes.” - David Nichtern
● “As a meditator, just start where you are, you sat down, you took your seat in the middle of a thunderstorm, in the middle of chaos, in the middle of a prison camp, if that's where you are, just tune in to your body, speech, mind, and work with it from there.” - David Nichtern
● “Everybody in the entertainment industry knows you're only as good as your last movie, and that's true of meditators. There's no accumulation pot for your experience, it's fresh every time, and people who are going to tune their mind to that freshness, then there's a certain kind of sense of creativity and facing adversity.” - David Nichtern
Resources Mentioned:
