This Very Moment

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

In this episode of This Very Moment we are joined with Larry Mermelstein, a longtime student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and a founding member of the Nalanda Translation Committee.
Born in Pennsylvania and raised in Rochester, New York, Larry recalls growing up in a Jewish household with mixed religious observance. His father, raised Orthodox with a Hasidic grandfather, described himself as a “non-observant Orthodox Jew,” while his mother came from a Reform background. Larry attended Hebrew school reluctantly but found genuine engagement in the musicality of Jewish prayer during his study for bar mitzvah. However, as he grew older and began reading the English translations of Hebrew prayers, he found the meaning uninspiring, and his interest in Judaism faded.
As a teenager Larry found refuge in a spiritualist minister in New Jersey, who opened him up to the idea that this reality is not the only reality. He continued studying with him through his last two years in high school.
Watch this interview or read the rest of the episode show notes at shambhala.com/podcast.
Timestamps
00:00:00 — Introduction Larry Mermelstein on Buddhism, translation, and the early days of the Trungpa community
00:01:47 — Little Larry: Growing Up Jewish Childhood, family, faith, and early influences
00:05:59 — The First Spiritual Disillusionment Why Judaism stopped feeling alive—and what came next
00:18:57 — From Mysticism to Buddhism The path from spiritual seeking into the Dharma
00:30:12 — Meeting Trungpa Rinpoche The first encounter that changed everything
00:40:58 — Becoming a Translator How language and Dharma became a life's work
00:49:04 — Who Was Ugyen Shenpen? Remembering a pivotal figure behind the scenes of Tibetan Buddhism
00:58:39 — Building Naropa and the Early Community The pioneering years of Buddhist education in the West
01:04:53 — Why So Many Jews Found Buddhism Exploring one of the great demographic mysteries of Western Dharma
01:09:47 — Does Buddhism Have a Future Here? Translation, culture, music, and reaching new generations
01:17:48 — What Inspires You Now? Larry on legacy, younger practitioners, and what's alive today
01:19:38 — The Future of the Trungpa Lineage Tulku questions, succession, and Rinpoche's predictions