Richard Rudd

rw-book-cover

Highlights

Rudd's Introduction to Human Design

In Maui, Richard Rudd met Chaitan Parkin, a human design reader, after seeing him in a health food shop.
This encounter led to a profound human design reading and sparked Rudd's interest in the system. Transcript: Richard Rudd I was living in Maui in my 20s, and I spotted a guy in a health food shop, and he had a big beard, and I was immediately attracted to him or something about his face. And so I just, I didn't kind of do anything about it. I just saw him, and I just thought, I'm really interested, and I felt a draw to this man. Anyway, a couple of days later, I saw a picture of him up on a notice board. And he was, yeah. And so I saw a picture of him on a notice board. And he was advertising these things called human design readings, which I knew nothing about. And so I called him up. And he came over to the little house I was living in. And his name was Chaitan Parkin. And he's written several books on human design now. And he's a really great teacher. And he gave me this human design reading session in this little house in Maui. And it was really a profound moment. I just, it caught my, caught something in me it caught my imagination was this poor early 90s yeah i had no idea it's been around that long yeah well yeah ra the founder ra who he kind of received The teaching in ra ra yeah yeah uh and he's really interesting character um he received the teaching or the transmission of that in 1987. And then it took him some years to kind of pull it together into a system and start teaching it. Rick Rubin Do you know what his background was? Richard Rudd Yeah, a little bit. He was a maverick. You would have loved to interview him. He was a kind of genius, I would say, an intellectual genius. I don't know, I think he'd been a businessman and he was Canadian. His original name was Robert Krakauer. And he had a successful business of some form. Anyway, his story, he told beautiful stories, was one day he was driving somewhere to pick up something for his interview he was doing or something. And he left the car running and he went into the shop to pick something up. And he just had this moment and he just said to the person behind the till, do you have a back door? And the guy said, yeah, sure, that way. And he just walked out the back door of the shop into another street and never came back. Left his car running and never came back. And he just left his life. He had a, maybe he had a wife, I'm not sure. And he just, he headed off as a nomad. He disappeared from the world. Everyone, you know, wondered what happened to him. He ended up on the Isle of Ibiza in the Mediterranean, living on someone's roof. Just followed, you know, he didn't take any money with him and he just had to kind of… Do you know how old he was at this time? I'm guessing he was like 30s, yeah. Anyway, so he ended up living wild on the island of Ibiza and living in a tree is what he used to tell the story. He's like, he got this chair and he pulled it up into this tree and he lived in this chair in this tree. And I think he was experimenting with several kind of plant medicines and things. And he went really out because he cut himself off from the world that he knew and had vanished. And so in that state, he received this huge teaching, this huge transmission that lasted eight days. And he received it from what he called the voice. That was all he ever said, the voice. It was kind of scary how he talked about it as well. And there's loads of good things online listening to him tell the story. He tells it way better than me. He's a wonderful storyteller, beautiful voice, speaking voice, resonant, deep voice. And then out of that journey, he started eventually, he's kind of a misanthrope, Ra. He had this kind of very cynical about the world and people in general. He really liked people. He was a real recluse. He loved animals and dogs, and he had this beautiful dog. And he loved nature, and that's why he lived out there. Yeah, so that was the story of Ra receiving this massive kind of teaching. And then he started to put it together and slowly went to Germany, ended up in Germany, started teaching it in Germany with this guy called Jürgen Sauper, who was one of his first students. And I met Jürgen, he's a lovely man. And eventually he started, you know, it started to form a little community around it. It started to kind of become quite crystallized. (via) ^rwhi886949206

Ra Uru Hu's Transmission

Ra Uru Hu, the founder of human design, had a transformative experience in Ibiza after leaving his old life behind.
This eight-day transmission from "the voice" formed the basis of the human design system. Transcript: Richard Rudd Early 90s yeah i had no idea it's been around that long yeah well yeah ra the founder ra who he kind of received the teaching in ra ra yeah yeah uh and he's really interesting character um He received the teaching or the transmission of that in 1987. And then it took him some years to kind of pull it together into a system and start teaching it. Rick Rubin Do you know what his background was? Richard Rudd Yeah, a little bit. He was a maverick. You would have loved to interview him. He was a kind of genius, I would say, an intellectual genius. I don't know, I think he'd been a businessman and he was Canadian. His original name was Robert Krakauer. And he had a successful business of some form. Anyway, his story, he told beautiful stories, was one day he was driving somewhere to pick up something for his interview he was doing or something. And he left the car running and he went into the shop to pick something up. And he just had this moment and he just said to the person behind the till, do you have a back door? And the guy said, yeah, sure, that way. And he just walked out the back door of the shop into another street and never came back. Left his car running and never came back. And he just left his life. He had a, maybe he had a wife, I'm not sure. And he just, he headed off as a nomad. He disappeared from the world. Everyone, you know, wondered what happened to him. He ended up on the Isle of Ibiza in the Mediterranean, living on someone's roof. Just followed, you know, he didn't take any money with him and he just had to kind of… Do you know how old he was at this time? I'm guessing he was like 30s, yeah. Anyway, so he ended up living wild on the island of Ibiza and living in a tree is what he used to tell the story. He's like, he got this chair and he pulled it up into this tree and he lived in this chair in this tree. And I think he was experimenting with several kind of plant medicines and things. And he went really out because he cut himself off from the world that he knew and had vanished. And so in that state, he received this huge teaching, this huge transmission that lasted eight days. And he received it from what he called the voice. That was all he ever said, the voice. It was kind of scary how he talked about it as well. And there's loads of good things online listening to him tell the story. He tells it way better than me. He's a wonderful storyteller, beautiful voice, speaking voice, resonant, deep voice. And then out of that journey, he started eventually, he's kind of a misanthrope, Ra. He had this kind of very cynical about the world and people in general. He really liked people. He was a real recluse. He loved animals and dogs, and he had this beautiful dog. (via) ^rwhi886949180

Studying with Ra

Richard Rudd traveled to New Mexico to study with Ra Uru Hu and experienced the unique energy of his teachings.
Ra lectured, smoked joints, and drank black coffee, fostering a sense of fresh revelation. Transcript: Richard Rudd So, you know, he was a wonderful teacher to be around. I went and met him in New Mexico. Rick Rubin So from Maui, you had the experience first. Yeah. And then you went to seek him out? Richard Rudd Yeah, I think it was maybe a year later, a couple years later, when I got back to the UK, which is where I lived. And then I thought I was going to go and study the system, learn more about it. And so I went to New Mexico to do a course. And I did this course. It wasn't with she was with another woman called Zeno, who was sort of one of his main kind of proponents at that time. How many other practitioners were there at that time? It was establishing itself. It was sort of the early days. So I'm guessing there were a few hundred, but there was a, no, it had that kind fresh, wild sort of wisdom feeling. And there was this community gathering around it and they were really interesting people. And there was this feeling that we've kind of all found something really magical. And it was emanating from this man who kept kind of coming out with new layers and it was all inside him. It didn't, you know, he would just sit down in a room and he just, he had a subject and he would just teach from this voice that came through him. And it was an amazing thing to be in his presence. There was a palpable kind of energy sitting with him. You felt like you were in the field of a revelation that was fresh and that was emerging. And the first time I met him, I sat in the back of one of his classes and he would just lecture that was his he just lectured everyone was silent he just talked there was no interaction or There might have been some questions at the end maybe if you were lucky and then he'd sit around afterwards or in between smoking joints and just drinking black coffee. And people would gather and that's where you would have dialogue and ask him questions and converse with him. So it was kind of wild. It was a wild teaching that came into the world. (via) ^rwhi886954495

Human Design Strategies

Human design provides life strategies based on individual charts, often emphasizing patience and waiting.
Life will come to you through responses, allowing things to flow naturally. (via) ^rwhi886955438

1min Snip Transcript: Richard Rudd But then there were certain groups of people who didn't have to wait, right? So Ra began to kind of categorize different types as… But it was all based on this chart yeah and based on their birthday exactly yeah and it was always a little bit strange that because rai was really not into astrology yeah and had no real Rick Rubin Training in it and i think was a bit embarrassed about that aspect of it's so fascinating to have that trust in something and to doubt aspects of it as not making sense yet in practice it Works yeah you know it's like getting past any beliefs or baggage that we're carrying and seeing well in practice this is working it's just interesting it is interesting yeah and it Richard Rudd Was really interesting that it came to him. (via) ^rwhi886955527

Diverging from Human Design

Richard Rudd felt constricted by human design's rigid language and categories, diverging from the system.
He recalibrated the language, leading to tension with the community and his eventual departure. Transcript: Richard Rudd You know, that's another story He was a really interesting man. I think I knew him to a fairly good degree. Yeah, and then my relationship with that system changed over the years. The school I developed became quite successful. It grew. We had some trainings, and I laid out a kind of program for people. I got really into it and did a really good job of it. But then what happened to me is I started to feel constricted by its language and by the kind of categorizations and the narrowness. And I kind of felt like everyone's just going out and parroting this stuff. And it was true. People were just parroting Ra. You'd have a chart and you'd say you'd have the same reading from him as you'd have from someone else. And it just felt a bit kind of rigid, even though the strategies and things were really useful, I think. I mean, I applied them in my own life and things took off for me. But what was ironic is I applied them in my own life and then I started to diverge from the system naturally. And I wanted to explore it in a wider way. So I felt uncomfortable for several years with that and I didn't quite know what to do. And I began to tinker with the language a little bit and open it up. And I think Ra was quite for that. He saw that I was reading the formulas really well, because it was a system built of formulas, formulae, in terms of language formulas, because it was analyzing the change. It was like a framework, and you were building on the framework. Rick Rubin Exactly. Richard Rudd But then I wanted to innovate more because I was frustrated with the language and I felt like the language wasn't, well, it wasn't fair. So in other words, you'd have someone and they'd have a chart. And if you followed the language, you'd give them quite a negative sounding reading. And if you had someone else and they had a different kind of chart, they'd leave with quite a positive sounding reading. And I felt like the language that he'd used in this basis, it was arcane for one thing. It's very difficult to understand some of it. But the other thing was that it just didn't feel like it had a balance. You know, it kind of, you know, like an example is I might say, oh, to someone, you have the channel of struggle. Right. So you're designed, human design, you're designed to struggle in life. And that's a pretty intense thing to say to someone. And then another thing you might say to someone, oh, you can't trust in your intuition. And that's also a pretty heavy thing to say to someone. And so I couldn't say those things. And so I started to question it. So I was a person very highly trained in it, deeply questioning it, which was interesting. I was one of the only people really doing that. One or two others begun to. And because I was in this position of authority, it was a bit tricky. And then I started to formulate a whole new language for it. And that was when… Rick Rubin It's still rooted in the same principles, but changing the language to be more as you saw it actually working. Yeah. Richard Rudd I mean, I'm a language lover, right? I'm a linguist. I was trained in literature and poetry. And, you know, I've written a lot of poetry and had some awards and things. So I kind of really love language. And so I started to apply that love of language into the system and into the I Ching. And essentially what I did is I recalibrated the entire language. But then what happened was that I started to feel pushed out of the community because it was a kind of human design community. I started to feel squeezed out of the community by not even so much Ra, but the people around him, they weren't approving of my language. I'd kind of diverted from the dogma, essentially. So what happened is I kind of had this very difficult situation where I just realized I had to leave and start anew. And I built this thing. I had a successful school. So anyway, I decided I'm going to go to Ra. And what I'd also seen is that I'd seen him break with many other people. He was a difficult man. He wasn't particularly empathic. He didn't really want to hear people. He just would cut them off, you know, if they didn't, if he didn't agree with them. And so there was a lot of littered kind of messy financial relationships that he left behind. And there was a lot of scandals and things. And I decided I was not going to let that happen. And so I went to Ibiza and I met with him and stayed with him for a couple of days and just talked it through and said, look, I'm going to have to leave. And I want to go my own way, but I want to give you back the rights because you gave them. And I could have sold them, you know, they were worth something, but it felt clean, like he gave them to me, I gave them back to him, and with a recommendation for someone to take over as Well, and he had the same, you know, he agreed with the person who took over it from me. So it was kind of a clean break, and then I set off and started to create something completely new, which in time became Gene Keys. And (via) ^rwhi886955861

Mystical Experience

Richard Rudd had a spontaneous mystical experience lasting three days, characterized by freedom and no resistance.
He traveled, felt cosmic consciousness, and received answers about the universe. Transcript: Richard Rudd And that sort of informed where I was going. Tell me about that experience. That was in the 90s. And just get the order right. Yeah, this was it was before I met Ra. I woke up one morning in my bed into an altered state of consciousness spontaneously. I woke up out of sleep into a fully awakened state, which I'd never, I recognized, but I'd never been in one before. I was interested in those things, but I hadn't taken anything. I, you know, it was just a spontaneous thing. And it was a beautiful metaphor. You wake up out of sleep into awakeness. And that stayed with me for three days. And I traveled around. How was it different? Tell me how it felt different. There was no resistance in my body. Like all, it's like all resistance or fear had just been taken away from my body. I mean, I can't explain that, but I felt for the first time ever utterly free because I, there was no definitions. There was nothing clinging to me. There was no fear. There was just no resistance. So I felt energy flow pouring through my body in a way that I can't explain. I felt cosmic consciousness pouring through my body. It wasn't even my body, but I was a localized kind of point of it. And I had no idea. I mean, I didn't question it at the time. I just like, I mean, I remember having a thought, I wonder if this is going to last forever. I hope so. That was my thought. I remember that thought. I really hope this stays. Yeah. And no idea what brought it on. Idea it's completely spontaneous a causal in that sense and um yeah later i had some insights about it but you know it's still a mystery so for those three days and three nights because I didn't really sleep all i did is drink a lot of water i didn't eat anything and i just traveled through the cosmos and I just made the most of it, actually. I didn't know it was going to last three days, but I just, something in me was saying, you need to learn as much as you can out of this state. And so I just traveled with my kind of higher mind into the fractal universe. I asked so many questions, and the answers were just instantly there. And I was, there were places that, I mean, I asked questions about my future, and some of the answers were there, other ones weren't. You know, there were definitely areas where it's not permitted. I was like, I'm really interested by that. Like, oh, so omniscience even has its kind of blind spots. You know, I thought there was something beautiful about that. But bigger things I could see, more local things about me and my life or my love life or those kind of things. I didn't see everything, but I did see big stuff like this is how the universe works. You know, this is our relationship to the cosmos, to the void and the time that we're in and the epochs and, you know, our ancestry and our lineages. (via) ^rwhi886956219

Developing the Gene Keys

Rudd developed the Gene Keys by contemplating I Ching hexagrams, discovering gifts, shadows, and siddhis.
The process, inspired by a train conversation and a mystical experience, took seven years. Transcript: Rick Rubin Tell me how the Gene Keys is arranged in the book. Richard Rudd Well, it's simple, really. I took the I Ching and I decided to kind of illuminate these words that I had found. So I'd found, as I said, 64 shadow words, 64 gift words, and 64, I call them siddhis. That's the Sanskrit word, siddhi. Some may have heard of that. There wasn't a word in English to describe like an enlightened, realized state that was different to other states. So 64 siddhis. And that I called the spectrum of consciousness. And that was the language framework that then became this book. And I decided just to write each of those hexagrams and explore them. I took them at random. I didn't take them from one to 64. I just thought I'm going to start with 10, just because it was the first one on the top of my head. I don't think I did start with 10, actually. I just contemplated it. I didn't refer to any old texts or I Ching books. When you contemplated it, did you contemplate the word? Rick Rubin Yeah. Did you look at the hexagram or no? Richard Rudd Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, but I didn't analyze it. I didn't go, oh, that's heaven over earth. I just looked at it. I kind of had an understanding of those things. I had studied with this incredible man, Huacin Ni, Chinese master, master of the I Ching. He's got a wonderful I Ching book, Huacin Ni, one of the best books on the I Ching. And he was like an old, I think he's a 74th generation teacher of the I Ching, like really long lineage. You know, reading his books has a certain energy signature that he weaves into the books. And I think as you read his books, you get a sense of his enlightened consciousness. Where is he based? He was based in the sort of Oregon area, West Coast somewhere. He's two sons who now run a kind of Chinese medicine university. So he taught a whole load of Tao teachings. And I met him when I was out in the US and kind of became one of his mentors. He called them mentors, like not one of his mentors, but like under, I was, you know, he kind of permitted me to teach in his name, if you know what I mean. Yeah, and he was an amazing man. He was like this golden orb of a man and beautiful presence to be in. He had this incredible wisdom. Rick Rubin Have you always hunted down great teachers? Richard Rudd Not always, but some came to me. They seem to be Taoist teachers. The other one was Mantak Chia, who's a completely different kind of teacher who I studied with for many years doing Qigong. He was much more technique-oriented teacher. I read his books. Yeah, great, great, kind of crazy man. I love his way of teaching. Very technical, very practical. But also the Tao, that seemed to be, I had a strong draw. I mean, I went to India and those places, and I also explored the chakras and those kinds of teachings, and a bit of Buddhism, and Tibetan Buddhism. But it seemed to be the Tao that had a deep hold on me, these Chinese sages. Yeah, so that's how I wrote the… So I contemplated each key, and however long it took me, before I felt like I had something to say. But what happened for me was it came alive. So I took three keynotes, and I contemplated them, and then they came alive in my life in some way. So something happened, like an event or if it was failure or something. Suddenly I met someone who had just failed dismally in something and there was this whole story. Or sometimes it was my own experience. Something came up for me. Rick Rubin You would have an experience that would give you insight into the subject. Exactly. Richard Rudd So that's how I wrote the book, out of a living understanding. So some keys came quite quickly, and others took a long time, months before. And until something had happened, I couldn't rewrite about it. And yeah, so it was a real process. And it took about four or five years of writing the first pass of the book. And then I got hold of an editor who helped me refine. And then I wrote another whole layer to it because it didn't have depth. It didn't have enough depth. So I then kind of went in and I did another rewrite, which was more focused, you know, all in one burst. Rick Rubin But it took a couple more years. And then so in total, it took about seven years. Did having all 64 in front of you help the refining process? Richard Rudd Yeah, definitely. Definitely. It actually had the strangest feeling when I put the final full stop on the last one. I was happy. And the last one was Gene Key 22. It was one that I was never happy with. And then I suddenly got it after I'd been very, very sick. And it's the key of dishonor and grace. And it's really like a master key. Those double digit numbers are like there's something special about them, 22, 11, 33, and they have some special kind of teaching in them. Anyway, so I'd been sick. My whole family was sick. And I was sort of trying to care for my young kids while they were sick, while I was sick. And it was just a miserable, miserable time. And my wife was sick and, you know, we were all stressed and it was awful for like two, three weeks. And then out of coming out of that sick period, I wrote the 22 and then finished the book. And it was all about the nature of suffering. You know, that's what it's about, that one, the kind of core nature of suffering and what I call the sacred wound. And when I finished, I had this strange experience of like, wow, I've somehow taken the experience I had in the 90s, that three-day experience, and I put it in a book. (via) ^rwhi886958877

Reward of Pausing

Insight is a gift of contemplation that brings lucidity of mind.
A lucid mind transforms challenges into creative opportunities.
Contemplation creates spaces between thoughts, fostering inner spaciousness.
This spaciousness brings confidence, transmitting positively to others.
Contemplation reveals an inner light, connecting to intuition and enlightenment. Transcript: Richard Rudd Reward of pausing, right? The mind of light. Your new gift of insight can bring some extraordinary rewards into your life. Chief among these is lucidity of mind. After some time, you will find that your mind grasps the essence of any particular problem spontaneously and effortlessly. The main hallmark of a lucid mind is its ability to transform any challenge into a creative opportunity. As you learn the art of contemplation, you will even find that your thinking itself begins to pause as little spaces begin to open out between your thoughts. A clear mind repels both doubt and confusion. This new sense of inner spaciousness can give you a fresh confidence in the power of your own mind that you will transmit everywhere you go and in everything you do. I'll just say one more bit. In Japan, where the art of contemplation has been perfected through the incisive practices of Zen Buddhism, one of the characters used for the word contemplation is, and there's an Image of the character, the literal translation of these two characters light flashed through the mind. Many human beings have intuited that the mind operating at its highest potential is connected to the notion of light. We speak of flashes of intuition, of illumination and enlightenment. All the great mystical traditions allude to this inner light that exists in a state somewhere just beyond our ordinary mind. The highest goal of the art of contemplation is ultimately to reveal this inner light. So that's you know, that's the reward of learning the art of pausing, which is the foundation principle of learning to contemplate. Rick Rubin So in contemplation, are the spaces between the light as important as the light? Yes, absolutely. (via) ^rwhi886959496

The Importance of Contemplation

Contemplation is key to understanding the Gene Keys and life itself, according to Richard Rudd.
Practice pausing, which leads to lucidity, wisdom, and flow in all aspects of life. Transcript: Rick Rubin Not a strategic word. In some ways, the book on contemplation is a how to read the gene keys. It is. Richard Rudd It's how to do anything. It's how to do anything. It doesn't even mention the gene keys, that book. There's no jargon in it. It's how to do anything. In a way, if I've ever written a masterpiece, I'd say it's that little book. Because it's just distilled and it's practical and anyone can learn to pause. (via) ^rwhi886959626

Embrace Anti-Efficiency

Today's focus on efficiency is detrimental; embrace the anti-efficiency of pausing and contemplation.
Ironically, pausing leads to greater efficiency by promoting lucidity and reducing wasted energy. Transcript: Rick Rubin That so much of today's society is about efficiency. And this is the anti-efficiency message, which is really helpful. It is. Richard Rudd But ironically, it actually creates more efficiency. Yes. Because you don't waste energy because you have lucidity. So rushed decisions lead to wasted energy. You know, stressful decisions lead to wasted energy. (via) ^rwhi886959972

Triple Flame Technique

Use the "triple flame" technique: pause every three hours for three minutes.
This simple practice cultivates pausing throughout the day, impacting biology, psychology, and emotions. Transcript: Richard Rudd So the triple flame is a little pausing technique that's a bit more structured. And we created an app for this, the triple flame apps on the app store. And it just requires every three hours for three minutes. So really simple. I don't think there's anyone that can't do that. It's that simple. So 3, 6, 9, 12 o'clock, you pause for three minutes. And the app just gives you a little ding. And you can either choose to do a little guided three minutes meditation or chanting or whatever you want. Or you can just sit quietly. Or if you're in the middle of an activity that you can't stop, you do it for three minutes in really intense state of kind of relaxedness and awareness, mindfulness. So you start to create these little pauses throughout your day, and then you start to string them together day after day after day, week after week after week, month after month after Month. And it starts to have a really strong, subtle impact on your biology, on your psychology, on your emotions, on your, you know, you start. That's why I said that the reward of pausing is eventually you have those experiences of the mind of light. You begin to see things in real lucidity. You actually begin to inhabit a meditative state because you've kind of tricked your body into pausing. And what will happen is you will pause outside those three-hour windows. You're training yourself to be able to pause. Exactly. And then you will also probably what will happen is you'll stretch out those pauses because you enjoy them so much. Yes. And so you might stretch it to 10 minutes or even an hour if you're really, you know, good at it. I learned this method (via) ^rwhi886960195

29th Gene Key: Leaping into the Void

Rudd explains the 29th Gene Key, leaping into the void, highlighting half-heartedness as its shadow.
He emphasizes the importance of full commitment in all areas of life, leading to devotion. Transcript: Rick Rubin That becomes the thing they contemplate. I'm going to pick one at random now. Cool. And I want you to tell me about whatever comes. Okay. 29th key, leaping into the void. Yeah. So the shadow of this key is a lovely word. Richard Rudd It's not lovely, but it's half-heartedness, right? And the gift is called commitment, and the city is called devotion. I love this one. And the original I Ching name for it is the abysmal, you know, which is a great word. I love the poetic words, the abysmal, the abyss, leaping into the void. And so if you're going to leap into the void, you can't do it half-heartedly, right? And so this key is all about saying yes and how we don't say yes fully. So think about relationships. I discovered this through default in my own way, right? I discovered that there was a part of me as a man that always held a bit of myself back in relationships. Like I was, and one of my teachers said to me, you know, he was a relationship counselor teacher, and he said, in a relationship, 99% commitment is the same as 1% commitment. That really blew me away. He said, because you're either committed or you're not. If you're holding something back, you're not fully in it. Well, I might meet someone better. There's a little part of me that's like, yeah. That, that I wasn't fully in it, I finally realized that was the moment I fully committed. You can't make that decision. It just happens. And it's not just in relationships. It's in everything. It is in everything. It's in creativity. It's in everything you do. If you do something half-heartedly, it's bound to fail, if. Rick Rubin If you know what I mean. Or not be good. Either way. Richard Rudd It's just not going to lead to fulfillment. Yes. Okay. But also, it can teach you. It has value. Every shadow has value, right? Because it's going to teach you where you're not committed. If there's something you're doing in your life and you're doing it half-heartedly, really look at that thing and contemplate it and realize that through that area of your life, energy Is leaking. And that leak is causing you pain. It's causing your biology pain. It might be causing problems in your biology. It will be, because everything's connected, like we said about the body. So half-heartedness is a great thing to find in yourself. If there's anything you're doing half-heartedly, realize it, and then… You can recalibrate. You can recalibrate and… And either not do it or do it. Exactly. So commitment is about where you then give yourself 100%, and commitment leads to devotion. You know, it leads. It's a transformation. It is the process of transforming half-heartedness. That's what it is. The gift is the process of transforming the shadow. It arrives at the city, right? So it arrives. You do something with utter devotion. It's like you as an artist. You see so many artists and musicians. And that devotion is like it's the only thing they want to do. The only thing they can think of. That is when things just really kind of hum because you're doing your life's work. You're doing something you're designed to do because every cell of your body's behind it. That's devotion. So it's a beautiful key that teaches us about half-heartedness and lack of commitment and commitment and then full devotion. (via) ^rwhi886968631

Phases of Contemplation

Contemplation involves pausing, pivoting (breakthroughs), and merging (pattern transformation).
These phases facilitate insights, emotional breakthroughs, and physical transformation (epiphanies). Transcript: Richard Rudd And the addiction has been transferred to a higher level. It's like a thing with addiction is you don't really get rid of it. You transfer it to a higher level. It's the same with these shadows. You don't really get rid of them. You transfer them to higher frequencies. There are higher frequency functioning of our DNA. So we can't pull them out. We have to burn them. And then they, like phoenixes, they become something higher, if that makes sense. Yes. So the merging is a beautiful, subtle experience where we gradually return to our source, you know, to the cosmic consciousness. So contemplation done over a lifetime starts to kind of give you a merged experience with existence. You know, like that experience I had at the beginning where I was merged, you know, some of us have had those experiences, but contemplation lowers us into that state very gently. It's a very, very gentle practice. That's why I love it. It's not intense. I mean, it can be intense. The pivoting experiences can be very intense, but in itself, it's very subtle. It's very background. But creating those pauses actually is all you have to do. It's all you have to know. But I lay out in the book those three phases. I call them also insight, breakthrough, epiphany. Those are the three kind of signposts. Like an insight is something that occurs through the mind, like that mind of light, suddenly you understand something mentally that you didn't. That's the thing about epiphanies. Rick Rubin I'm only coming to realize this now listening to you speak that an epiphany is not really a discovery. It's a recognition of something that is. It's just being able to see something that is that you couldn't see before. Yeah, exactly. Richard Rudd A breakthrough, I see it as an emotional kind of realm where something emotionally has to move through. And then the epiphany, which is a deeper, it connects more to the merging, is a physical. It's when something, a pattern, is physically transformed. You remember I said earlier that the physical body takes the longest. The merging takes the longest because this is the coarsest matter. So for patterns to actually change at a fundamental physical level, it's like we have to have an epiphany. And epiphany makes it sound like it's something mental, but it's not. It'll be a physical experience. You may sweat. You may go through a diet change. You may go, you know, something occurs in your body, a response where you have to shake off the pattern. And sometimes it could be intense tears. I've seen epiphanies in people sometimes. I've seen a woman break down in one of my contemplative courses and just see her racked by kind of shaking. Sometimes it's not always like that. It can be very subtle, but sometimes it is very physical. Often the most common thing is tears. And they can be tears of joy or awe, or they can be tears of grief. But tears almost always come with an epiphany. Where (via) ^rwhi886985163

Epiphanies as Recognition and Physical Transformation

Rick Rubin realizes that an epiphany isn't a discovery but a recognition of something that already exists.
Richard Rudd explains that a breakthrough is emotional, while an epiphany is physical.
Epiphanies involve the physical transformation of patterns and take the longest to manifest because the physical body is the coarsest matter.
Physical responses like sweating, diet changes, or intense tears can accompany an epiphany as the body shakes off old patterns. Transcript: Richard Rudd That's the thing about epiphanies. Rick Rubin I'm only coming to realize this now listening to you speak that an epiphany is not really a discovery. It's a recognition of something that is. It's just being able to see something that is that you couldn't see before. Yeah, exactly. Richard Rudd A breakthrough, I see it as an emotional kind of realm where something emotionally has to move through. And then the epiphany, which is a deeper, it connects more to the merging, is a physical. It's when something, a pattern, is physically transformed. You remember I said earlier that the physical body takes the longest. The merging takes the longest because this is the coarsest matter. So for patterns to actually change at a fundamental physical level, it's like we have to have an epiphany. And epiphany makes it sound like it's something mental, but it's not. It'll be a physical experience. (via) ^rwhi886985090

Intuition vs. Learning

Richard Rudd emphasizes intuition as the primary source of his worldview, with learning playing a supporting role.
His morning contemplations, often before dawn, facilitate profound intuitions. Transcript: Rick Rubin How much of your worldview comes from something learned versus something intuited? Richard Rudd Yeah, it's mostly intuited. The learned stuff is just the kind of storyline, the narrative. The deeper stuff is intuited. In my morning contemplation, as you know, I love tea, and I sit with my little tea in the morning, my little Chinese teas, and I contemplate for like an hour. And in those morning contemplations, usually before dawn, in the gloom, as the light's coming. My intuition is at its peak, what the ancients called the Yi, the wisdom mind. There's always like 10 minutes of throwing stuff out, of just clutter. You wake up and there's clutter. And so I just let the clutter leave. And then I kind of start entering into, and the tea helps actually, because it helps kind of propel you a little bit quicker. And then you go into this wisdom mind. And I just wait sometimes in that state and I get profound intuitions about stuff. Sometimes it's universal, sometimes it's quite emotional, but just deep things that I kind of remember are revelations. And sometimes I often just let them go. I just let them pass through. Do (via) ^rwhi886986127

Tea's Energetics

When drinking tea, focus on the energetics and its effect on you rather than just the taste and smell.
This mindful approach enhances the experience and reveals the tea's deeper impact. Transcript: Rick Rubin Starts with an idea and then you work from there. Yeah. When did your relationship to the tea ceremony first begin? Richard Rudd One of the guys I worked with, Elijah, his name is, he is a kind of tea monk. And so he learned from his teacher, who's a great guy called Poe, who lives in Portland. And Poe's studied tea for like 30 years. But as this real character, he's a Jewish guy from New Jersey, but with a real kind of great of humor. But he's absorbed in all the different tea traditions and I guess built up a kind of reservoir of knowledge. And he's quite respected in the tea world as well. But he's a kind of maverick tea master. So he doesn't follow rules of the traditional schools. And he's just, he basically, he serves love from love. That's what it's all about. And so he's just himself. And he doesn't bother about all the perfect kind of ways of pouring. And he's learned all that and forgotten it all. So I'm kind of of his lineage in a way where we don't really, we don't, it's very, very (via) ^rwhi886986419