This Very Moment

In this candid conversation, Ivan welcomes Lodro Rinzler, Buddhist author and teacher, to the podcast. Friends for more than two decades, they bring an easy warmth to an exchange that moves naturally between humor, personal history, and Buddhist practice.
Lodro reflects on growing up in a Buddhist household and the retreat experience that made meditation feel like a path of his own. He speaks about his father’s long illness and how practice helped him remain present through loss. Ivan and Lodro also revisit the early years of Lodro’s teaching and writing—including the publication of The Buddha Walks into a Bar . . .— and consider what it means for a book to make a difference in even one person’s life.
Turning to his newest book, You Are Good, You Are Enough, Lodro explores the teachings of basic goodness and how the view that we are fundamentally whole, even when we make mistakes, changes the way we may view our relationships in a culture that’s quick to judge both ourselves and others. Lodro also shares how fatherhood has changed his sense of identity and deepened his practice of paying attention.
The episode closes with Lodro sharing two simple daily practices: the importance of offering your full attention to the person in front of you and beginning the day with a moment of gratitude.
Watch this interview or read the episode show notes at shambhala.com/podcast.
Timestamps
00:00-Meet Lodro Rinzler: Buddhism, Friendship & Humor
04:32-Growing Up Buddhist & Finding His Own Path
12:38-Loss, Impermanence & Being Present for His Father
17:09-Becoming a Meditation Teacher at 18
21:32-The Story Behind The Buddha Walks Into a Bar
30:01-From “Cool Kid Buddhist” to Fatherhood
33:24-You Are Good, You Are Enough: Rediscovering Basic Goodness
41:36-Parenting, Patience & a Toddler’s Playlist
45:49-Finding Joy in Small-Town Life & X-Men
48:18-Everyday Practice: Presence, Gratitude & Starting Your Day
Books by the Author
The Buddha Walks into a Bar…
You Are Good, You Are Enough
The Buddha Walks into the Office
Sit Like a Buddha (also an online course)
Love Hurts

Guest host Sah D’Simone sits down with Sam Bercholz for a candid, funny, and deeply moving conversation on awakening amid the messiness of ordinary life.
Together, Sah and Sam explore deity practice, ecstatic dance, compassion without performance, basic goodness, and the foundations shared by Hinayana, Mahayana, and Vajrayana Buddhism. Sam also shares stories of his teachers, the natural world, political anxiety, humility, and the importance of not making oneself “somebody special.”
The conversation turns tenderly toward aging, death, rebirth, and how Buddhist practice can help us meet impermanence without giving in to hope, fear, or spiritual certainty. Through it all, Sam offers a simple orientation: Dharma is not about becoming holy. It is about being present, kind, and available to others.
Theirs is a conversation for fellow travelers seeking spaciousness, honesty, and a more awake way of living.
Watch this interview or read the episode show notes at shambhala.com/podcast.
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction & the Story Behind Rude Awakenings
03:57 Letting Go of Self & Awakening Compassion
18:32 Trump, Political Anger & Basic Goodness
27:05 The Three Paths of Buddhism
33:13 How Decades of Dharma Practice Change You
46:51 Mystical Encounters with Buddhist Masters
55:17 Sharing the Dharma & Staying Humble
1:00:40 Facing Death & Near-Death Experiences
1:04:48 Rebirth, the Bardo & What Comes After Death
1:11:23 Living Without Regrets & Preparing to Let Go
Books by Sam Bercholz
 A Guided Tour of Hell: A Graphic Memoir 
Rude Awakenings: An Unconventional Guide to the Buddhist Path

Singer-songwriter Devendra Banhart is a guest host on this episode featuring publisher, author, and Buddhist teacher Sam Bercholz for a warm, searching, and frequently hilarious conversation about wakefulness, suffering, friendship, and the unruly business of being human.
At the center of the episode is Sam’s new book, Rude Awakenings: An Unconventional Guide to the Buddhist Path, a book that resists polished self-improvement in favor of meeting life’s confusion, failure, and “muck” directly. Devendra reflects on the relief of finding a spiritual book that makes room for messiness rather than just asking you to become a better version of yourself.
Together they explore Buddhist ideas of deity, compassion, habitual patterns, death, and no-self without losing sight of the everyday comedy of distraction. The two consider how easily we miss the suffering of others, how social and personal habits become convincing stories, and how compassion may arise naturally when perception begins to clear.
Devendra also revisits Sam’s graphic memoir A Guided Tour of Hell, where their exchange turns to an intimate conversation about mortality, spiritual teachers, and the rare warmth of encountering genuine wisdom.
Watch this interview or read the episode show notes at shambhala.com/podcast.
Timestamps 
00:00—Introduction
01:18—Deities, Wakefulness & the Mess of Life
13:20—A Guided Tour of Hell & Seeing Others’ Suffering
19:51—Tantra, Wise Teachers & Guru Devotion
23:40—Death, Intimacy & Rude Awakenings
28:45—Advanced Buddhist Teachings
31:24—What Is Frivolous—and What Actually Matters?
34:17—“Don’t Buy It and Don’t Blow It”
39:36—Sam’s Next Book & His Wild San Francisco Years
44:12—How Devendra Became a Dharma Person

In this episode of This Very Moment, we are joined by author and Zen teacher Cuong Lu for a deeply personal conversation about freedom, grief, spiritual practice, and finding one’s way home through it all.
Born in Vietnam, Cuong moved to the Netherlands at age twelve. After his father died just two years later, he found himself grieving, disoriented, and searching for a way to live peacefully in an unfamiliar country. At eighteen, he met Thich Nhat Hanh. What struck him first was not a particular teaching but Thich Nhat Hanh’s presence. Cuong saw a Vietnamese person who seemed truly at home, peaceful, and free.
That recognition set the direction of his life. Cuong was drawn to Plum Village, where he entered monastic life and spent 16 years studying and practicing under Thich Nhat Hanh. His teacher’s guidance was both tender and compassionate, like a father and, uncompromising like a true spiritual teacher.
The conversation follows Cuong through the painful decision to leave monastic life and the identity he had built around it. Though it felt like losing his teacher, his community, and his place in the world, he eventually discovered a freedom beyond the pursuit of happiness itself. In releasing the need to be happy, spiritually accomplished, or seen as a teacher, Cuong found a much deeper peace.
Today, Cuong’s work includes service as a Buddhist chaplain in Dutch prisons and his teaching through the Mind Only Institute. He continues to share the message that “suffering is not a problem at all. You don’t need to transform suffering; you just need to come home.”
Watch this interview or read the episode show notes at shambhala.com/podcast.
Timestamps
00:00 – Introduction to Cuong Lu
00:44 – At Peace, Filled with Joy & Rethinking the Dhammapada
06:10 – Tradition, Truth & “Non-Buddhism”
13:15 – Growing Up in Vietnam & the Impact of War
18:24 – Discovering Meditation & Meeting Thich Nhat Hanh
24:37 – The Path to Plum Village
29:44 – Becoming a Monk & 16 Years of Practice
34:07 – Leaving Plum Village & Becoming “Nobody”
40:51 – Working as a Buddhist Chaplain in Dutch Prisons
50:32 – Life After Prison Work & the “Invisible Monk”
Select Books by the Author
At Peace, Filled with Joy
Wait
Happiness Is Overrated

In this warm and wide-ranging conversation, Pema Chödrön reflects on her life, practice, teaching, and making Buddhist wisdom accessible in everyday experience as the milestone of her 90th birthday approaches.
Pema shares what “winding down” looks like for her, and why, at the urging of Anam Thubten Rinpoche, she continues to teach. At the heart of the conversation, Pema unpacks her new book’s (Another Kind of Freedom) central question: what does freedom actually mean? It’s not the conventional idea of escaping one situation for a better one, but a deeper, unconditional freedom found by moving toward experience rather than away from it.
The conversation touches on counterintuitive teachings on disappointment and boredom as spiritual signposts, the art of working with people without getting overwhelmed, and why praise and blame are equally superficial, illustrated by a perfectly timed airport story.
Pema also offers a memorable image for “inviting all sentient beings as guests” without overwhelming our nervous system and shares how, in this later chapter of her life, formless practice and the aspiration to live free from fixed mind guide her day to day.
This heartfelt conversation is a profound look at what lifelong practice can become.
Watch this interview or read the episode show notes at shambhala.com/podcast.
Another Kind of Freedom: https://www.shambhala.com/another-kind-of-freedom.html
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction
00:37 What Pema is up to at This Very Moment
04:32 What is true freedom?
08:44 Teaching from experience instead of theory
12:28 Why Pema wrote her new book, Another Kind of Freedom.
15:46 Encountering the Myth of Freedom for the first time
17:02 Working with praise and blame
21:22 What Pema’s focusing on in her teachings
23:00 Working with disappointment and boredom as a tools
27:30 Working with people, the good and the bad
34:05 Pema's personal practice