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.

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 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.

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.

“At the time, I was living in a roach motel. Literally roaches everywhere, sleeping on a mattress on the floor, super depressed. I would just lie on this mattress listening to Ram Dass; it was really helping a lot. LA can be so lonely and weird. On the website, it said you can arrange these phone calls with Ram Das—I signed up. All of a sudden, Ram Dass is on the screen...beaming out from Hawaii into this garbage apartment” –Duncan Trussell

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Meditation master and teacher Orgyen Chowang Rinpoche explores tools for success from Tibetan wisdom on mindfulness, gratitude, and more.

Get your own copy of The Tibetan Book of Success HERE.

This week on Mindrolling, Orgyen and Raghu discuss:

• What life was like for Orgyen growing up in a remote village in Tibet
• The Tibetan Buddhist leader Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok
• Reframing the construct of ‘success’
• The 10 powers that lead us to success: wisdom, integrity, decency, mindfulness, fairness, reliability, gratitude, hopefulness, faith, generosity
• Lessons from Mipham Rinpoche
• The necessity of respect for good communication
• Navigating conflict through mindfulness and decency
• Self-awareness as the number one tool for good communication
• How inner emptiness shapes how we see the world
• Discriminating awareness, deciding what to accept vs. what to reject

About Orgyen Chowang Rinpoche:

Orgyen Chowang Rinpoche is a meditation teacher and master in the Nyingma lineage of the Buddhist tradition residing in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is the author of Our Pristine Mind: A Practical Guide to Unconditional Happiness, and is known for his accessible, passionate, and joyful approach to personal transformation. Rinpoche teaches regularly in the Bay Area, and travels throughout the world speaking to a broad range of audiences about how to improve their lives through meditation. He received his education and training for nine years starting at the age of fourteen at Larung Gar in Serta, eastern Tibet, with his teacher, the great Jigmed Phuntsok Rinpoche, who is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest Dzogchen masters of the twentieth century. Learn more about Orgyen Chowang Rinpoche’s work and his non-profit, The Pristine Mind Foundation.

“Even if someone is in conflict, you need to be mindful, reliable, you need to be a decent person at the same time. Then, it works. If your mind is in conflict, if there’s anger, resentment, that totally destroys communication.” –Orgyen Chowang Rinpoche

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Be Here Now Network invites you to listen to this special look back at Dr. Robert Thurman’s many appearances on Mindrolling. We hear about Ram Dass, surfing reality, keeping an open heart, and so much more.

You can help continue Dr. Thurman’s life’s work to preserve Tibetan culture. Visit Tibet House to learn more.

Spanning 10 years of collaboration with the podcast, Dr. Thurman talks about:

• His decades-long friendship with Ram Dass
• Unclamping the heart and seeing our connection with all people
• Clearing out the poison of fear and judgment
• The precious gem of our human embodiment, the waking bardo
• Surfing through reality, rather than trying to control it
• A realistic take on the Eightfold Path and right livelihood
• How releasing selfishness actually benefits us and creates joy
• Lessons on altruism & education from the Dalai Lama
• Cultivating both a clever mind and an open heart

About Dr. Robert Thurman:

Robert Thurman (1941-2026) was an American Buddhist author and academic who wrote, edited, and translated many books on Tibetan Buddhism. He was the Je Tsongkhapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University before retiring in June 2019. He held the first endowed chair in Buddhist Studies in the West. After education at Philips Exeter and Harvard, he studied Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism for almost thirty years as a personal student of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He wrote both scholarly and popular books and lectured widely all over the world. As President of the American Institute for Buddhist Studies, he convened the First Inner Science Conference with His Holiness the Dalai Lama at Amherst College in 1984. He was also a founding trustee of Tibet House New York. Check out his most recent book Wisdom Is Bliss: Four Friendly Fun Facts That Can Change Your Life.

“When you’re not generous enough, when you’re not open-hearted enough, when you haven’t cultivated opening yourself, then you shoot right past it, just like we shoot through our life. At the moment of death, people report, ‘My life flashed before my eyes in a split second.’ What that means is they didn’t live lucidly. They ran around making money, getting pleasure, doing things, and they have only one split second of quality time when they were there now somewhere” –Dr. Thurman

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