Xochitl Ashe (01:21)
Welcome, welcome. Wow, what a treat. We have beautiful guests today and I wanna introduce her. I'm gonna introduce her in two ways. The first way I'm gonna introduce her is through the incredible work that she has done for the past at least 30 years. But a second way that I wanna introduce her is as an old, old friend.

We go back, I feel like, you know, in my 20s, which is crazy. And so this conversation that you are all about to witness is really a conversation between two old friends who have not seen each other for many, years or spoken for many, years and are now speaking when the world has completely changed. And so welcome to this conversation. I wanna introduce Deborah Eden Tull. She is the founder of Mindful Living Revolution. She teaches the integration of compassionate awareness into every aspect of our lives, bridging personal and collective awakening in an age of global change.

She is an engaged Buddhist teacher, spiritual activist, author, eco-Dharma educator, and facilitator of The Work That Reconnects, a field created by a Buddhist scholar and eco-philosopher, Joanna Mazie, for transforming our love and pain for the world into compassionate action. Eden teaches Dharma intertwined with post-patriarchal thought and practices, resting upon a lived knowledge of our unity with a more than human world. She has practiced meditation for over 30 years and trained for seven and a half years as a Buddhist monk at the Zen Monastery Peace Center, a silent Zen monastery in the Sierra foothills. She's been teaching for over 25 years and Eden has written three books in compassionate response to the ecological, social, and spiritual crisis of our time. Welcome, Eden.

Eden (03:54)
Thank you. I'm grateful to be here with you, old friend, at quite a wild moment in time for all of us. Let's begin.

Xochitl Ashe (04:08)
So I would, yeah, I would really love to invite you to open sacred space in how you do, because these conversations to me are very sacred. And the intention of opening sacred space for those listeners that are maybe driving, you know, just be present with your breath. But the intention of opening sacred space is so that you find medicine that is exactly for you, wisdom that is exactly for you through these moments that we are recording. Thank you, Eden.

Eden (04:49)
Thank you. wherever we are, wherever each person listening is, let's just take a moment to touch two foundational Zen teachings. First, dropping in together to beginner's mind, really acknowledging each moment as new, this moment as fresh, and making the choice to show up with curiosity and openness and allowing for the kind of deeper knowing that can come through these exchanges, which requires us to let go of what we think we know and to soften body and mind. And the second invitation.

really bringing heart to how we take our seats right here, right now. Giving the weight of our bodies to the ground below as a way of bowing to the earth, as a way of surrendering to the earth, a way of expressing our willingness to be here in a deep listening within and out that is non-extractive, that carries no agenda other than reverence and respect for life, the kind of deep embodied listening that comes through every cell of our body. And so just pausing together, friends.

connecting with the breath. acknowledging that even the air we breathe with each inhalation, the oxygen connects us to the forests and oceans, the rivers and phytoplankton, the stardust that make up planet Earth and equally to each other. So thanking the earth and the places that are holding each of us. And let's begin.

Xochitl Ashe (07:30)
It's been many years, Eden, since we last spoke and I wanted to invite you to our podcast because as I was sharing with you before we started recording, there's been a very potent call for me to start having these conversations with people like you about what's happening in our world. But more than what's happening is like how do we show up for this moment? And I think that everybody could show up in different ways and however we can. And yet there is, I would say like, folks that I'm being inspired by that are showing up in graceful and in just powerful ways with a lot of fortitude. And one of those people has been you. And I wanted to talk about that because there's a lot of people that share teachings and then it comes a time for all of us teachers where we are asked to practice these teachings to the highest level because of a life situation that has happened, a great loss, a great transformation that isn't always pleasant. So I just wanna start there. Like, how are you, for those of you that don't know, Eden and her partner Mark lost their home in the big floods of North Carolina. And, you know, wasn't too long ago that this happened, but I've just been seeing you really show up. So how are you? How is that experience?

Eden (09:51)
Yeah, yeah. So less than six months ago, my husband and I were at our home in the mountains of western North Carolina, outside of Asheville, a place we had moved about seven years prior. And one of the inspirations for moving there had just been in addition to our love for that land and the people a sense of, yeah, this is a pretty wise place to be in the age of polycrisis, in the age of climate change. This is a pretty wise place to be. The mountains are known to be really, really well protected. And that morning I was actually supposed to not be home. I was supposed to be at a Buddhist teacher's gathering on climate crisis. And certain circumstances and a really strong intuition had pulled me to end that trip early and come home. And so we were just preparing for like a gentle storm, Xóchitl, like we had bought extra candles and we're ready to just have kind of a relaxed weekend where people who like a good storm. Yeah. No one knew no one in that region knew that in the middle of the night, Thursday night, the storm had changed course and internet was down by that point and so no one knew that the hurricane was now making basically our region its bullseye, the place it was heading to. And so we had an experience that was unlike anything we had ever imagined in which, well, it started with my husband taking some time outside to take inventory of the land. I laughed with friends that he was outside checking out our land that we steward naked because there was just no point wearing any clothes in that much rain. And he started noticing how many areas of the land were starting to be dilapidated and were starting to sort of get impacted in ways we had never seen. And then there was a moment I was inside and he was outside. We're out of the blue where we had had a teeny tiny gentle innocent creek.

a wild river with trees and debris and shelters. Someone's home all came crashing through our property and took off my office before my eyes and we knew this was not the storm we had expected. And so yeah within an hour on a really wild series of events that required fierce presence it was certainly the scariest thing we had ever experienced. Our whole home, belongings, everything were taken by flooding and landslide. The house came down on us, mostly on me. He got to dive out the front just in time. And I got taken into a sort of tumult landslide underground. I just knew the house was on top of me and I was being rolled and thought I was being killed. And so I'll stop there in terms of the details of that day. But it was mind blowing. And then to have a slight opening, a crack of sunlight come in where I could slide through and save my life and hear my husband screaming my name and grab his hand when he found me and leave. So we spent the next week sheltering with a neighbor whose home was standing and just entering and experiencing a week of what it means to be surviving with community, unburying neighbors, making sure everyone's fed. We have three gardens on our land and one of them was untouched. So the brilliance of harvesting from your garden meals are tight in that kind of situation. And then the aftermath. And so, we're still in the aftermath, really. It's both been a personal ride of displacement and the disorientation any animal being would feel of losing their home and community in such a dramatic way, but also so soon after what happened to us, an acceleration of, I think, a spiritual displacement and a collective displacement that so many people are feeling through the recognition of acceleration of polycrisis, the social, ecological, political, spiritual crisis we're facing today. And just as a couple of examples, The day we left the East Coast to head west over the fall, we were in New Jersey with relatives and in November it was 70 to 575 degree weather with 10 fires. The day we left LA to come here to Hawaii where we are so blessed that community is sheltering us this winter, we looked outside of our airplane window and witnessed the Palisades fire, and which you've had direct experience of and which so many of our loved ones, including family, homes. And we should also drop into the pot of this conversation, the displacement that's occurred for so many people just through the disruptive and rapid changes in our country since January. So I'll pause there and I'll say I couldn't be more grateful for my practice and I couldn't feel more certain in the power of a practice and the teachings of Dharma in an age of so much uncertainty. Yeah.

Xochitl Ashe (16:37)
Yeah, I just want to just take a moment to really honor your experience. You know, I don't think that any picture or even video does justice, right? Because I did see I shared your your GoFundMe and I looked at the pictures and the videos and of course my heart was like, my God, you know, this is this is a big one. But there's No comparison to actually speaking to you and listening to the story of how it was for you. Like I really, I felt it, those moments. Well, one of the things that I appreciate also from your story is how community showed up in such a beautiful way. And To me that was so heart healing as I was hearing your story and many stories of what was happening because I believe that there's an agenda that wants us to believe that when there is crisis, we're all going to be like fending for ourselves and against each other. And then when it really happens in the real world, not just an idea that we have of what could happen. What we see is actually that people do come together. What we see is the goodness of people's hearts. Do you want to share some of that with us?

Eden (18:19)
Happily, yeah, this is so important. I'll say from my direct experience, the hurricane brought as much devastation and of course the region is still devastated. It's still truly in recovery as it brought awakening and we witnessed and experienced a collective awakening through the hurricane because The facade, the thin layer, many people are aware of, but they still sort of hold on to, or society rewards people for having this sort of overlay of the trance of separation, the illusion of distance between one and one's neighbor. Just maybe a thin film sometimes over the always open heart that's not letting people tap into the real recognition of interbeing, that who and what we are is interbeing, that we are not separate. Like, community is a verb, it's a way of showing up. And what I witnessed in the aftermath was that thin overlay, that tiny facade dissolved in everyone. It just dissolved and people showed up with such generosity, such profound love not just our neighbors and people in the region and everyone from an 84 year old man showing up with his tractor to rebuild the roads to people who were hiking in to help unbury those who did get buried in there by their houses. I got to escape. But also like strangers hiking in from, we live in the mountains. So this is serious terrain from Alabama and South Carolina and Vermont and it was extraordinary and the efforts continued. I heard so many stories from people in three states away coming down to deliver goods from their farms to a group in, I want to say and I hope I'm not botching this, the Netherlands delivering to the region wildflower seeds to replant and re sow. Like it was just really extraordinary. And let's keep it real and acknowledge that over time, one also hears some of those stories of some of the corruption that can come in in terms of land buying and selling or, but We heard so little of that, so little of that compared to the benevolence. And just to be clear, this happened almost six months ago. And we were still in contact all the time with our kin there. But even people that we met just that week, I got a text from someone this morning. We were never dear friends until that week going through this together. And we'll be friends for life. It changes people to go through something real like that and the point you made about there being certain forces in our world that want us to believe humans are horrible, would turn against each other, et cetera, et cetera. Those forces are strong right now. They're strong right now. So I feel fiercely that we need to be showing up in every way possible in our personal domain, in our relationships, in our communities, in the world at large to reweave the fabric of human relationship and not just with ourselves, with the more than human world because we have what it takes. It is who we really are. It is who we really are to know and trust connection, to know that we don't wake up in isolation, we wake up together. Yeah, yeah, I was really lucky to see it witnessed in our community and it did feel like a profound religious experience. Yeah, an altered state. Imagine an entire region took plant medicine altogether at once. And I might say one more thing about that. This might not be a popular perspective for some, and I'm sharing this from my heart, folks, but even when the storm took our house down, when it came crashing down on me, when I experienced nature's might to a louder degree than I've ever imagined I really got, I really got that these climate events are an ally for human consciousness, supporting our awakening the same way that I believe COVID was an ally alongside the destruction, the loss. I lost loved ones, many people did. We all hope for least amount of harm. As our allies work with us Human consciousness has had feet dug in for a long time, dug in for a long time to the trance of separation. So I do feel that these forces are allies that do shake up our world and are actually here on some level helping us to awaken. Yeah, I'll pause there.

Xochitl Ashe (24:11)
Yeah, I love that you are bringing that into this conversation because I think as we show up for this moment, so many of us feel helpless. And you know, as you said, know, like when the waters came and just really feeling that level of Mother Nature's power. Yeah, that changes you in a profound way. And not everybody has felt that level, right, of nature's, I don't wanna say force, but like potent energy, just like at the highest level. And so what if, right, everything that is happening is an ally for us to awaken that from the nightmare of separation ultimately that we're living right now.

Eden (25:26)
Yes, and not in any way to let an interpretation like that become a story that supports bypassing the pain, the intensity, the grief, right, of what we're all witnessing right now, but also just providing a little bit of a frame that I know that for me, I am very clear that the spiritual path is not a casual path. It takes everything you've got. It will call forth all of you. It will call forth that you're willing to lean into discomfort again and again and again to metabolize the grief that comes through to walk your talk, to really, really bear witness to the unfathomable in our world in order to bring it into our hearts and to serve. And for me, the path really began when as a young person at age 11, I found out one day out of the blue that my dad, who I was super close to, who was an extraordinary human contemplative Christian, had one month left to live. And so that avalanche of impermanence hit my life then, and it's sort of been the fire under my belt since Impermanence is something that a lot of people find that they want to resist for a while. They don't want to sort of believe is reality until they have to. And one gift from this time, if I may, and I know it's painful, I there's been a lot of loss and there's a lot more loss to come, but at the same time, acknowledging the light and shadow in everything, that there's more awareness than ever right now of impermanence collectively even things changing in this country that we thought could never change. That impermanence can be the instigator, right, of growth, of willingness, the place we find our willingness to go deeper, to really wake up. Does some of that land with you as well in your experience?

Xochitl Ashe (27:19)
Yeah, well, I want to really appreciate you for speaking on the bypassing piece. Right. Because I think that part of our development as humans, and I've experienced this, witnessed this, is that we get to hold several concepts at the same time. Right. Like we get to hold that. I remember one of my spiritual teachers, she said, and you know, many teachers of mine have said this, but like God lives in paradoxes, right? And so I remember one of my teachers at Wingings and she said, you have to see that when you come to this earth, you are here to make it better. But simultaneously, have to understand that everything's perfect as is. And that has constantly been my reminder since I heard that of, there's work. There's work to be done. That's why we're here. And that work isn't always hard work. Sometimes that work is opening our hearts to more joy, opening our beings to more play, opening our spirits to more connection, right? So that work isn't necessarily always, right, like shadowy. It can be also more light. But regardless, it's, yeah, we're here to work, to make it a better place. And man, and then we look at all the things that are happening right now. And to be with that teaching of, like, and is, It's like everything is as it should be somehow. I don't understand the bigger picture in its totality, but I commit to having a certainty that we are all one, all there is is love, and I'm here to remember. And when I come to that place, it's like, okay, it gives me grace. And so I hear you with so much grace. I mean, but I've always I've always loved that about you. You know, because I know you as as Eden, my friend, and and I also like I'm knowing you as Eden, this beautiful you've always been wise, but a beautiful wise teacher. And one thing I've loved is that you've always had that grace ever since I met you. I was trying to think how much time has gone by since How our friendship started was that I was leaving to Brazil and I needed somebody to sublet my room. And Eden shows up and of course I was like, yes, perfect, you fit in this house. We had me and my brother, Serge Bandura, we had had this vision of living in community and living with conscious community. And we were really young and so we had an idea but we didn't really know exactly how that was gonna get executed. But what we did know is that we had to find a big, gorgeous house in LA and call in all the beautiful souls that wanted to be a part of this community. And so that's how 951, Michelle Torena came upon. And so in the midst of all the different things that community brings, we had some of the most incredible people stay with us. Eden came and stayed at the house while I was in Brazil. So I love hearing all the stories of what happened during that time, because I came back from Brazil and you guys, I mean, there was so much that happened during the time that I was away.

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