The CyberSangha Podcast

Sleeping, Dreaming & Well-Being: a Scientific & Spiritual Exploration of Sleep, Part 1

Episode 69 · Series 4 — 2024 CyberSangha Dialogues
With Danny Lewin, Ph.D., and Geshe Tenzin Wangyal.
How do modern science and ancient Tibetan wisdom define the different states of sleep? What is the best advice for improving sleep and circadian health and being more aware while dreaming? What can researchers learn from the ancient practices of dream and sleep yoga? Psychologist Danny Lewin, Ph.D., former director of Clinical Sleep Medicine at the National Center on Sleep Research, joins Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche in an in-depth discussion of the health implications of sleeping and dreaming of the deities.

11 Ways to Support Your Sleep Health

Episode 68 · Series 4 — 2024 CyberSangha Dialogues
With Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
Sleep is very important for our health on all levels, physically, mentally and spiritually. In an online talk, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche discusses 11 key points we can all follow to sleep better each night.
The 11 points are:
Go to sleep and wake up around the same time every day. A regular sleep schedule is key to sleeping well at night.
Get regular morning exercise, at least half an hour per session. Even better is to combine exercise with sun exposure, such as taking a brisk morning walk, to set your circadian clock. Morning exercise plus sunlight is one of the two primary keys to sleeping better.
Dim the lights in the evening. Just as morning sunlight received indirectly by our eyes is a wakeup cue, less light and lower light exposure in the evening prepare us for sleep.
Reduce evening exposure to blue light from screens. Try putting your phone away and turning off the TV, or wearing blue light-blocker glasses 90 minutes to 2 hours before retiring.
Avoid caffeine after midday, and alcohol in the evening. Both can affect our sleep quality.
Skip dinner or eat a lighter dinner no later than about 3 hours before bedtime.
Keep your bedroom at a comfortable temperature based on your physical needs. Our body temperature normally lowers as we fall asleep and rises as we awake. At night it’s generally recommended to keep the room quieter, darker, and cooler, around 65F/18C.
Short power naps of 20 minutes or less can be good for our health. But longer naps can have a negative affect on our nighttime sleep. If you have problems falling asleep or staying asleep, avoid napping and see if that helps.
A regular sauna and cold shower or cold plunge are said to have a lot of benefits for both our health and our sleep. What works or doesn’t may depend on your physical condition.
Meditate to help to calm your mind, balance your breath, and reduce stress and anxiety. Anxiety is the main cause of sleep problems, so meditation may help you to enter into deeper sleep and remain asleep.
Choose delicious healthy meals rich in melatonin and having other sleep-promoting properties, such as a dessert of cooked rice, milk, goji berries, banana, pistachios, and jaggery.
Whatever steps you take to improve your sleep, be sure to apply them according to your own physical condition and to consult in advance with a medical professional.

Beyond the Yoga Mat: How Mind-Body Practices Can Transform Your Life

Episode 67 · Series 4 — 2024 CyberSangha Dialogues
With Lorenzo Cohen, Ph.D.; Alison Jefferies; and Alejandro Chaoul, Ph.D
Discover how yoga, tai chi, massage therapy, and other mind-body practices can contribute to your health and wellbeing well beyond the simple relaxation response. Cohen and Jefferies, co-authors of Anticancer Living: Transform Your Life and Health with the Mix of Six, will discuss the latest scientific findings along with practical advice for expanding these practices into six key areas of your life.
The more profound results, for example, come when the physical, energetic, and mental effects of mind-body practices start filtering into our sleeping and eating habits or our social consciousness. Lifestyle improvements have a way of influencing all aspects of brain function and biological processes. They have increasingly been recognized for their role in preventing and treating cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, respiratory diseases, cognitive disorders, and most other non-communicable diseases.

The Problem of Identity in Buddhism and Psychoanalysis, Part 2

Episode 66 · Series 3 — A Year of Body, Speech & Mind
With Mark Siegert, Harvey Aronson, and Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
This video begins with Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche’s sweet offering, “I Am No One.” For some this may be enjoyed as a poem, a creative expression; others may recognize it as a pointing out instruction which can be experienced as well as understood.
Rinpoche and his guests then discuss their sometimes similar and sometimes differing views on identity as well as the processes for dealing with painful identity. This group speak as therapists, practitioners, teachers. All agree that spaciousness is desirable for goals of both Buddhist practitioners and patients of psychotherapy, regardless of the ultimate goal.
When pain and inner struggle are engrained and become so familiar, they are not necessarily even experienced as pain but rather are simply experienced as “me.” How do we find the path back to natural mind or even to ability to enjoy life? What are the obstacles to being able to host our pain with self-compassion? While the goals of psychotherapy and dzogchen meditation may be very different, just how do the approaches differ? Can they complement one another? How can the psychotherapist’s view allow for the possibility of spontaneous recognition?

Self-Transcendence: Dissolving Pain, Overcoming Addiction

Episode 65 · Series 3 — A Year of Body, Speech & Mind
With Eric Garland, Fadel Zeidan, David Vago, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche and Alejandro Chaoul-Reich
In this fascinating conversation our distinguished presenters share neuroscience discoveries and effects of powerful interventions such as mindfulness, reappraisal and savoring that enable health-enhancing changes in one’s perspective and habitual mindsets. Learn also what brings these scholars to study the effects of ancient meditation traditions on pain relief, opioid addiction and human suffering. Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche joins the conversation from Nepal with less than ideal internet service. He is however totally present and connected.

The Problem of Identity in Buddhism and Psychoanalysis

Episode 64 · Series 3 — A Year of Body, Speech & Mind
With Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, Mark Siegert and Harvey Aronson
Just what is one’s identity? One Western meaning is that identity is a single, healthy part of development required for a happy, successful life. Another view, both in Buddhism and in some aspects of Western psychotherapy, is that identity includes multiple identities, and under extreme pain, especially with a history of prior trauma, these identities can lead to severe distress. In psychotherapy, this level of distress, under certain conditions, may potentially lead to serious mental disorders such as dissociative identity disorder (formerly known as multiple personality disorder). But even in the absence of a significant mental disorder, identity can still be problematic to living. Western psychotherapists and Buddhists both work with all of these, but in very different ways with different goals. In both, they aim to increase self-knowledge and free up problematic areas. But in Buddhism, the goal goes further, all the way up to full liberation.

Spaciousness as a Door to Your Inner Refuge: Entering the Nirmanakaya

Episode 63 · Series 3 — A Year of Body, Speech & Mind
With Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
According to the dzogchen teachings, abiding in the spaciousness of our mind can be our doorway to the refuge of the nirmanakaya — the pure movement of energy and genuine warmth that arises from the inseparable openness and awareness of our true nature. In a live online broadcast, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche helps us to enter through the door of spaciousness.

Inner Heat Practices: Tummo and Wim Hof Method

Episode 62 · Series 3 — A Year of Body, Speech & Mind
With Wim Hof, Elissa Epel, Geshe Tenzin Wangyal, and Alejandro Chaoul-Reich
Tibetan tummo is an ancient method for cultivating inner fire — the joy, bliss, and warmth of our being. We all naturally have these qualities within us, but they are often unreliably available because we have not learned to access them or to stabilize our attention in open awareness. With practice, tummo is said to produce the “inner fire of realization.”
How is this inner fire produced? Does it manifest as actual heat?  How does this inner fire heal?
To find answers to these and other questions, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, who among many Tibetan practices also teaches tummo, Alejandro Chaoul-Reich and their guests discuss these and other practices that generate inner heat. Dr. Epel shares some of her ongoing research into the Wim Hof Method and breathing practices. Wim Hof enthusiastically describes how breathing practices, in cold environments, improve the body’s ability to handle stress and slow aging.