Episode 1 · November 21, 2023 · 1h 6m
The Bodhisattva Way
with Ben Duffy
Ben Duffy traces his path from childhood and intergenerational trauma through psychedelics, a dark night of the soul, and a retreat insight that turned him toward service. He and Tyzen explore the bodhisattva way: trauma held in the body, and giving as the practice that loosens the cage of self.
Chapters
That self which can be such a cage starts to loosen, and you start to open up to maybe what I am is not just this body, maybe what I am is everyone around me.
Show Notes
- Growing up in Rochester with intergenerational trauma, weed as numbing, and never fitting the cultural box
- Psychedelics open Ben at 15, followed by a dark night of the soul where resisting his gentler parts created anxiety and depression
- A fasting retreat and mushroom journey reveal the limit of a self-only path and point him toward service
- The bodhisattva turn: hospice, re-entry work, contemplative psychotherapy at Naropa, and trauma held in the body
- Closing freestyle flow on getting out of your own way to let the soul move through
Key Takeaways
- The spiritual path that stays all about you eventually hits a ceiling. Service loosens the solidified sense of self that becomes a cage.
- Trauma lives in the body alongside its intelligence, so the body can be both the most painful place to be and the seat of presence and knowing.
- Healing is not always conversation. Simply witnessing and holding space for another, as Ben did in hospice, is itself a form of healing.
- Comparison and sympathetic joy share the same trigger. A minor tweak in how you see another’s life turns contraction into inspiration.