Welcome to A State of Mind

In-depth conversation with Dr. Carla Clements, PhD. in which we discuss her work as lead researcher for the Boulder area MAPS study on using MDMA to treat PTSD and her current research with DMT, the definition of Transpersonal Psychology, the importance in transpersonal psychology of our relationship with the environment and ecology, the role of ritual and how transpersonal psychology is unique in cultivating ego transcending experiences in order to effect transformations of not only our own consciousness but in how we relate with the world. 

Julian and Kelly discuss her book The Blindspot Effect: How to Stop Missing What's Right in Front of You along with different approaches to Mindfulness practice and using mindfulness to work with trauma. Kelly shares about her work developing and teaching Mindfulness courses with the U.N. and her experiences visiting refuge camps in the Middle East and her experience with the Prison Yoga Project where she worked with inmates serving decade long to life sentences. Kelly also helped develop Search Inside Yourself, a mindfulness and emotional intelligence training program pioneered at Google and now taught around the world.

Learn more about Kelly at https://www.kellyboys.org
Learn more about Search Inside Yourself at https://siyli.org

Erric and Julian have a deep, far ranging discussion about happiness, it's causes and the role that meditation and mindfulness practices can play in cultivating genuine happiness for ourselves and those in our lives. They discuss the role of a teacher in one's spiritual path as well as the subject of psychedelics and Erric shares some surprising considerations on the use of such substances. They offer some useful criticisms of the modern popularization of mindfulness. 
   Erric is a former Silicon Valley executive & successful entrepreneur. He is also a long time meditator with over 40 years of experience in the practice and study of meditation. He has studied with many of the greatest meditation masters of our time, including Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche and others. He eventually gave up his lucrative career in Silicon Valley to focus on meditation and completed a traditional 3 years retreat in the Buddhist Dzogchen lineage.
   Throughout his career, Erric has been interested in understanding the mind and how it functions, both as a user experience designer and as a mind hacker. He studied Artificial Intelligence at MIT as a teenage intern and got to learn coding from some of the top scientists there.
   Erric has been an invited speaker leading seminars and retreats in corporate settings — such as the World Bank and Silicon Valley tech firms—as well as in prisons, temples and Buddhist centers across the US and Europe.

Erric co-authored a book with his friend Phakchok Rinpoche called Radically Happy: A User's Guide to the Mind, Shambhala Publications 2018
https://radicallyhappy.org