Be Here Now Network Guest Podcast

Jackie Dobrinska speaks with devotional musician Benjy Wertheimer about dharmic shifts, discovering how our unique gifts can evolve into deeper forms of selfless service.
Today’s podcast is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self.
This time on the BHNN Guest Podcast, Benjy and Jackie explore:
Benjy’s unconventional journey from music and technology to spiritual service
The idea of a “dharmic shift” and how life can redirect our path
Ram Dass’s influence on Benjy’s music and spiritual calling
Using our unique gifts in service of something larger than ourselves
Walt Whitman’s shift from poet to Civil War nurse
Deep practice as a form of service and connection
Balancing personal gifts with humility and non-attachment
Listening, finding common ground, and navigating disagreement
Grief, anger, self-care, and “healing the healer”
Service as an evolving practice of love and compassion
“The Dharmic shift that I went through from that point, somebody who was maybe helping a lot of people with computer systems, and I was maybe pretty good at it, but I never would have been great because my heart wasn't there, was suddenly called into service with music and with the practice of kirtan, using whatever gifts I could bring to honor something bigger than myself.” –Benjy Wertheimer
About Benjy Wertheimer:
Benjy Wertheimer is an award-winning devotional musician, composer, vocalist, producer, and multi-instrumentalist equally accomplished on tabla, congas, percussion, esraj, guitar, and keyboards. Benjy’s connection to Ram Dass predates his birth. His father, Professor Michael Wertheimer, was Richard Alpert’s Masters Thesis adviser at Wesleyan in the early 1950s. Some half a century later, Benjy joined Ram Dass and Krishna Das in Berkeley for a joint program in 2002, and since 2003 Benjy - along with his wife Heather - has often provided music and kirtan for Ram Dass pilgrimages and retreats in Maui. Keep up with Benjy on Instagram.
About The Host, Jackie Dobrinska:
Jackie Dobrinska is the Director of Education, Community & Inclusion for Ram Dass’ Love, Serve, Remember Foundation and the current host of Ram Dass’ Here & Now podcast. She is also a teacher, coach, and spiritual director with the privilege of marrying two decades of mystical studies with 15 years of expertise in holistic wellness. As an inter-spiritual minister, Jackie was ordained in Creation Spirituality in 2016 and has also studied extensively in several other lineages – the plant-medicine-based Pachakuti Mesa Tradition, Sri Vidya Tantra, Western European Shamanism, Christian Mysticism, the Wise Woman Tradition, and others. Today, in addition to building courses and community for LSRF, she leads workshops and coaches individuals to discover, nourish and live from their most authentic selves.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

With compassion and presence, Trudy Goodman teaches listeners how to bear the unbearable through our own willingness to hold it.
Today’s podcast is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self.
https://youtu.be/TwYZlCsBKnc
In this episode, Trudy Goodman offers her perspective on:
Learning to be present and okay with our strong emotions
Recognizing our emotions as the first step in working with them
Allowing difficult emotions without being swept away
Surrounding our pain with compassion
Noticing the bodily sensations that arise with strong emotions
Self-regulation and soothing the startled heart
The powerful statement “it’s like this”
Merging with the world of intuitive wisdom
This was recorded at Spirit Rock and was originally published on Dharmaseed
About Trudy Goodman:
Trudy is a Vipassana teacher in the Theravada lineage and the Founding Teacher of InsightLA. For 25 years, in Cambridge, MA, Trudy practiced mindfulness-based psychotherapy with children, teenagers, couples and individuals. Trudy conducts retreats, engages in activism work, and teaches workshops worldwide and online. She is also the voice of Trudy the Love Barbarian in the Netflix series, The Midnight Gospel. You can learn more about Trudy’s flourishing array of wonderful offerings at TrudyGoodman.com
“By allowing reality to be as it is, since it is that way anyways, we’re making a relationship with it that’s based on clarity. It is a paradox that I think most therapists know: that by allowing something and accepting something and even by positively connoting what needs to change, not struggling with it, surrounding it with metta and compassion, we actually stop our war with reality. When we stop resisting what’s true, we aren’t fixating on it, and it’s free to move and change. This is called radical acceptance.” –Trudy Goodman
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sharing meaningful stories from a life of practice, Gil Fronsdal chats about the impact of spiritual community, simplicity, and generosity.
Today’s podcast is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self.
This week on the BHNN Guest Podcast, Gil Fronsdal outlines:
Honesty, communication, and understanding as an alternative to LSD
The impact of reading Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, and going to the San Francisco Zen Center
The importance of doing spiritual practice with other people and finding community
Finding freedom within simplicity and generosity
The practice of working through fear and becoming relaxed
Gil’s mindful founding of the Insight Meditation Center, balancing the commercial forces of society
How growing up in wartime inspired Gil’s interest in nonviolence and civil disobedience
About Gil Fronsdal:
Gil Fronsdal is the co-teacher for the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California; he has been teaching since 1990. He has practiced Zen and Vipassana in the U.S. and Asia since 1975. He was a Theravada monk in Burma in 1985, and in 1989 began training with Jack Kornfield to be a Vipassana teacher. Gil teaches at Spirit Rock Meditation Center where he is part of its Teachers Council. Gil was ordained as a Soto Zen priest at the San Francisco Zen Center in 1982, and in 1995 received Dharma Transmission from Mel Weitsman, the abbot of the Berkeley Zen Center. He currently serves on the SF Zen Center Elders’ Council. In 2011 he founded IMC’s Insight Retreat Center. He is the author of The Issue at Hand, essays on mindfulness practice; A Monastery Within; a book on the five hindrances called Unhindered; and the translator of The Dhammapada, published by Shambhala Publications. You may listen to Gil’s talks on Audio Dharma.
This recording was originally published on Dharmaseed
“When I went to the Zen center, people didn’t participate; they didn’t pick up the cues and act accordingly. They became a mirror for me, and I said, ‘This is fantastic’, to be able to see myself clearly through other people. I wanted that mirroring to be seen. In that time of living at Zen Center, I am very confident that I couldn’t have practiced as much as I have done over the years without the support of the community that I was with.” –Gil Fronsdal
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Expressive artist & healer Phoenix Song explores the voice as a path to freedom and a means of releasing trauma.
Today’s podcast is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self.
This week on the BHNN Guest Podcast, Phoenix and Vincent chat about:
Connecting to our full emotional life via voice work
The preciousness (and difficulties) of being born into this incarnation
How breath impacts your speaking voice and your singing voice
Phoenix’s profound experience during an ancestral healing ritual at Plum Village
Focusing on voice work after recovering from dengue fever in India
The journey to reclaim and inhabit our own bodies
The invitation to ask yourself “what season am I in?”
Crafting rituals for others and for yourself
The importance of taking your time and healing at your own pace
This conversation was originally recorded on the Paths of Practice Podcast. Listen to more episodes HERE.
About Vincent Moore:
Vincent Moore is a creative and creative consultant living in San Francisco, California, with over a decade of experience in the entertainment industry and holds a graduate degree in Buddhist Studies. For years, he performed regularly at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, an improv and sketch comedy theatre based in New York and Los Angeles. As an actor, Vincent performed on Comedy Central, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, The Late Show with Seth Meyers, Above Average, and The UCB Show on Seeso. As a writer, he developed for television as well as stage, including work with the Blue Man Group, and his own written projects have been featured on websites such as Funny or Die. Additionally, he received a Masters of Buddhist Studies from the Institute of Buddhist Studies with a Certificate in Soto Zen Studies and engages in a personal Buddhist practice within the Soto Zen tradition. Vincent is also the creator and host of the podcast, Paths of Practice, which features interviews with Buddhists from all over the world.
About Phoenix Song:
Phoenix Song is a queer, nonbinary Korean American adoptee teacher, performer, writer, and healer featured in SF Magazine’s Best of the Bay for yoga music. Phoenix was initiated on the spiritual path at Plum Village with Thich Nhat Hanh and is a dharma teacher at East Bay Meditation Center and Spirit Rock. They believe that everyone can sing and love to help people free their voices and rhythm in private and group classes.
Much of Phoenix’s life has been about exploring identity issues and healing ancestral, racial, sexual, and gender wounds. They offer tools that have helped them by leading ancestral healing, grief, and diversity/solidarity workshops and trainings that use expressive arts and somatic processes. To learn more about their sound healing offerings, classes, and performances, please visit phoenixsongmusic.com.
“By doing more voice work, people start to shake up their breath, their emotions, their body instruments so more of their colors, emotions, personality, what’s happening with them, can come through their voice, you start to hear a more expressive, free, emotional voice. It starts to feel like more colors are coming out than just a few.” –Phoenix Song
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Duncan Trussell joins Raghu Markus and Kelly Rego for a heartfelt conversation on Ram Dass’s enduring legacy and the auspicious experiences that brought the Be Here Now Network team together.
Help us celebrate 10 years of Be Here Now Network and support the next chapter of Ram Dass Here and Now. Gifts are matched dollar for dollar through June 30. Learn more and give here: BHNN 10th Birthday Fundraiser
Today’s podcast is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self.
In this episode, Duncan, Raghu, & Kelly discuss:
Duncan’s introduction to Ram Dass: swimming, playing, and seeing the light again
How Ram Dass helped Duncan process the loss of his mother
Spreading Ram Dass’s love and legacy through the Be Here Now Network
How the universe guides us right to where we need to be
Moving through a dark night of the soul
The lasting love we have for those we have lost
The profound generosity of giving our full attention to another
About Duncan Trussell:
Duncan Trussell is a stand-up comedian, podcaster, and actor. His popular podcast, The Duncan Trussell Family Hour, has been downloaded over 25 million times and is known for its blend of humor, fringe ideas, eclectic guests, and great interviews. The DTFH is the foundation for Duncan’s Netflix animated series, The Midnight Gospel, which he co-created with Pendleton Ward in 2020. To learn more about Duncan’s work, visit his website at duncantrussell.com.
“An ex-Ivy League acid-head runs into a guru in India, and now we’re at the point where that convergence of minds is being technologically amplified around the planet. We live in an algorithmically controlled world. My algorithm, oh my god, the horror that I have seen. The more of Ram Dass’s lectures, the more Kornfield, more of the people in this community that you signal boost out onto the world, I don’t think there’s any way to quantify the benefit of that, what that’s doing for the world.” –Duncan Trussell
About Kelly Rego:
Kelly Rego is an Integrated Marketing & Media Specialist. An Emerson College alumni, Kelly has over 15 years experience of facilitating projects into reality. She has worked as a Peace Corps Volunteer with women’s groups and dairy cooperatives in Costa Rica, a media strategist and buyer in New York City, and has produced a full-length documentary.
Kelly is the Marketing Director for Ram Dass’s Love Serve Remember Foundation, as well as the project manager of Be Here Now Network, a podcast network dedicated to spirituality, mindfulness, and personal growth.
“Ram Dass had this ability to listen on such a deep, deep level, that is how he was able to reflect such interesting things. He was so much in his heart space that whatever you were expressing with your words, he was able to go down deeper to where your heart was coming from. It’s rare to feel so listened to these days; people can be so distracted. He was so one-pointed with that attention. That was part of the magic of being next to Ram Dass.” –Kelly Rego
About Raghu Markus:
Raghu Markus spent 18 months in India with Neem Karoli Baba and Ram Dass. He has been involved in music and transformational media since the early 1970s, when he was program director of CKGM-FM in Montreal.
In 1974, he collaborated with Ram Dass on the box set Love Serve Remember. In 1990, he launched Triloka Records, which established itself as a critical leader in the development of world music. For 17 years, Triloka was home to such artists as Krishna Das, Hugh Masekela, Walela, Jai Uttal and transformational media projects that featured Ram Dass, Deepak Chopra, and Les Nubians.
Raghu lives in Ojai, California, and is the Executive Director of the Love Serve Remember Foundation. In 2016, he co-founded the Be Here Now Network, where he hosts the Ram Dass Here & Now podcast, as well as his own Mindrolling podcast. He is the producer of Becoming Nobody, a Ram Dass documentary feature film that was released in 2019.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.