An American Buddhist with Peter Coyote

Peter Coyote is an accomplished actor in more than 130 films, an Emmy Award-winning narrator of over 200 documentaries and 17 audiobooks, and author of Sleeping Where I Fall, The Rainman's Third Cure, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Meet Buddha, and a book of poetry titled Tongue of a Crow.

Here he shares his observations from over 45 years of conducting acting improvisation workships with practitioners of Zen Buddhism. He points out that wearing masks almost inevitably has the temporary effect of liberating individuals from their ego-bound consciousness. He likens this experience, in some ways, to taking psychedelic drugs. He points out that meditation offers a more permanent way of attaining liberated states of awareness. He also observes that psychotherapy can play an important role in freeing one from unhealthy behavior patterns.

New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in "parapsychology" ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is also the 1st Prize winner of the 2021 Bigelow Institute essay competition regarding the best evidence for survival of human consciousness after permanent bodily death.

(Recorded on November 15, 2021)

[amandaterrio]

I got sober using a Buddhist program called refuge recovery. I have never known that the inner peace and serenity that I have now was even possible. This was a great interview

[kathrynyoung]

This is an excellent interview. Very helpful. Thank you Jeffrey.

[cindyarnold]

I enjoy listening to Peter explain what he has learned about our human condition. I could listen all day! Thank you for this interview!

[kjerstinludvigsen]

Wow! Thank you both Peter Coyote and Jeffrey Mishlove. This was music for the soul <3 Love from Norway

[TraceDaAce]

Inspired!.. So much to learn. Thank you Peter Coyote. Many blessings and much love.💝🧘🏼‍♀️🎭

[robsamartino]

I greatly value your interviews Jeffrey. Occasionally we get a glimpse of your political convictions and those of your guests and I thought I’d mention that I almost invariably disagree with them while still appreciating the deeper perspective that you offer. I find it consoling to discover that those who at first may seem to be my ‘opponents’ are actually engaged in the same struggle of life. Peter made this point very well when discussing hatred, we all need to contain the fire within!

[primajump]

Very interesting and eye opening conversation. Gave some of the issues I am dealing with new perspectives. All the best of luck to both of you with your line of work. Would like to see and hear Peter again.

[khoney]

Good stuff! Thank you Jeff and Peter!!!

[peopleunite]

Wonderful. Loving Peter. We are not our bodies. Our body is an avatar.

[alexislou]

Just finished reading The Rainman's Third Cure." Seems we all have to go through the fire before reaching some kind of understanding of ourselves. Buddhism certainly helps with that.

[theoversouls]

Excellent, thought-provoking interview!

[TheTalkWatcher]

Love Peter Coyote. I had no idea he was a Buddhist. He starred in KIKA one of my favorite movies.

[JCPJCPJCP]

"Man is least himself when he talks
in his own person. Give him a mask,
and he will tell you the truth."

--Oscar Wilde

[tyanite]

Another exercise that I know of that seems get you a little past your personality is currently championed by Richard Lang and is called The Headless Way. Strange name, but really neat if you allow yourself to participate.

[TheWayofFairness]

When someone is unfair to someone the unfair person will have problems in the future. Unfairness is evil. Fairness workers unite. The light and/or the dark can be very unfair.

[chancerest]

there are enough great reads from Jeffrey and friends to last a few lifetime.

Must create a AI to read these for me....

[oguardiaodosaber]

Thank you so much for shared! (And, i have side questions... Do you read and translate Pali? Do you know how many times Sakamune quoted the ADJECTIVE Anatta in the Nikayas, i mean, did you read and try to translate the Pali Canon? Do you know what Brahmayama is? We turned an ADJECTIVE into a proper NOUN because of our historical ignorance about the ancient lógos-logical method?) Soul-or-Self is X: so If X is not A, If X is not B, If X is not C: I can't say that X doesn't exist, thats my view Jeffrey... I still don't know what I like but I know exactly what I don't like. And this is all about subjectivity, the soul, the self... If I can synthesize my subjectivity I can isolate and measure it, to reintroduce the objective (or the object, denied by the synthesis of its subjectivity in ANATTA modality) and harmoniously merge here... (that is dual in atomistic view, but consubstancial in monistic logic): this is Dialogue for Plato, the Nous of the Lógos in phenomena natural world.


(X is the Soul and Pitágoras know This... in the ancient world the sages were concerned with All, the Whole, with The-One, the Absolute. It makes no sense to develop a Wisdom about the Whole by denying the Soul. The axis of the question is to harmonize intuition with logic, rescue the apophatic theory of the domain of theology, and bring it to the rise of the epistemology, explaining the soul mathematically, monistically, since atomism has already given its opposite position. that's why Plotinus says that arithmetic is one thing and mathematics is another, arithmetic is not a branch of mathematics but mathematics which is a branch of arithmetic; and, that therefore there is an arithmetic of theology too, which I see as real cosmology, of course, in harmony with physics... The Self-or-Soul (i.e. Oneself) exists, is this Principle, but the ego no, ego is atribute. I'm working on a book about this here in Brazil, lets work together? )

Atta’sarana as a refuge with none other as refuge” DN 2.100
“Atta’ ca me so saranam gati ca” Soul is the refuge that I have gone unto” Jatakapali 1441 Akkhakandam
"Soul the refuge (Saran.am.attano)" DN 2.120
Jataka-2 #1341 “tattha atta’ va sarathi” Soul is Charioteer”

The Buddhist term Anatman (Sanskrit), or Anatta (Pali) is an adjective in sutra used to refer to the nature of phenomena as being devoid of the Soul, that being the ontological and uncompounded subjective Self (atman) which is the “light (dipam), and only refuge” [DN 2.100]. Of the 662 occurrences of the term Anatta in the Nikayas, its usage is restricted to referring to 22 nouns (forms, feelings, perception, experiences, consciousness, the eye, eye-consciousness, desires, mentation, mental formations, ear, nose, tongue, body, lusts, things unreal, etc.), all phenomenal, as being Selfless (anatta). Contrary to countless many popular (=profane, or = consensus, from which the truth can ‘never be gathered’) books (as Buddhologist C.A.F. Davids has deemed them ‘miserable little books’) written outside the scope of Buddhist doctrine, there is no “Doctrine of anatta/anatman” mentioned anywhere in the sutras, rather anatta is used only to refer to impermanent things/phenomena as other than the Soul, to be anatta, or Self-less (an-atta).
Specifically in sutra, anatta is used to describe the temporal and unreal (metaphysically so) nature of any and all composite, consubstantial, phenomenal, and temporal things, from macrocosmic to microcosmic, be it matter as pertains the physical body, the cosmos at large, including any and all mental machinations which are of the nature of arising and passing. Anatta in sutra is synonymous and interchangeable with the terms dukkha (suffering) and anicca (impermanent); all three terms are often used in triplet in making a blanket statement as regards any and all phenomena. Such as: “All these aggregates are anicca, dukkha, and anatta.” It should be further noted that, in doctrine, that the only noun which is branded permanent (nicca), is obviously and logically so, the noun attan [Skt. Atman], such as passage (SN 1.169).

What has Buddhism to say of the Self? "That's not my Self" (na me so atta); this, and the term "non Self-ishness" (anatta) predicated of the world and all "things" (sabbe dhamma anatta); Identical with the Brahmanical "of those who are mortal, there is no Self/Soul", (anatma hi martyah [SB., II. 2. 2. 3]). [KN J-1441] “The Soul is the refuge that I have gone unto”. For anatta is not said of the Self/Soul but what it is not. There is never and nowhere in sutra, a ‘doctrine of no-Soul’, but a doctrine of what the Soul is not (form is anatta, feelings are anatta, etc.). It is of course true that the Buddha denied the existence of the mere empirical “self” in the very meaning of “my-self” (this person so-and-so, namo-rupa, an-atta, i.e. Bob, Sue, Larry etc.), one might say in accordance with the command ‘denegat seipsum, [Mark VII.34]; but this is not what modern and highly unenlightened writers mean to say, or are understood by their readers to say; what they mean to say and do in fact say, is that the Buddha denied the immortal (amata), the unborn (ajata), Supreme-Self (mahatta’), uncaused (samskrta), undying (amara) and eternal (nicca) of the Upanishads. And that is palpably false, for he frequently speaks of this Self, or Spirit (mahapurisha), and nowhere more clearly than in the too often repeated formula 'na me so atta’, “This/these are not my Soul” (na me so atta’= anatta/anatman), excluding body (rupa) and the components of empirical consciousness (vinnana/ nama), a statement to which the words of Sankhara are peculiarly apposite, “Whenever we deny something unreal, is it in reference to something real” [Br. Sutra III.2.22]; since it was not for the Buddha, but for the nihilist (natthika), to deny the Soul. For, [SN 3.82] “yad anatta….na me so atta, “what is anatta…(means) that is not my Atman”; the extremely descriptive illumination of all thing which are Selfless (anattati) would be both meaningless and a waste of much time for Gotama were (as the foolish commentators espousing Buddhism’s denial of the atman) to clarify and simplify his sermons by outright declaring ‘followers, there is no atman!’, however no such passage exists. The Pali for said passage would be: ‘bhikkhave, natthattati!’; and most certainly such a passage would prove the holy grail and boon for the Theravadin nihilists (materialists) who have ‘protesteth too much’ that Buddhism is one in which the atman is rejected, but to no avail or help to their untenable views and position by the teachings themselves.

Outside of going into the doctrines of later schisms of Buddhism, such as Sarvastivada, Theravada, Vajrayana, Madhyamika, and lastly Zen, the oldest existing texts (Nikayas) of Buddhism which predate all these later schools of Buddhism [The Sanchi and Bharut inscriptions (aka the Pillar edicts) unquestionably dated to the middle of the second century B.C.E. push the composition of the 5 Nikayas back to a earlier date by mentioning the word “pañcanekayika” (Five Nikyas), thereby placing the Nikayas as put together (no later than) at a period about half way between the death of the Buddha and the accession of Asoka (before 265 B.C.), as such the 5 Nikayas, the earliest existing texts of Buddhism, must have been well known and well established far earlier than generally perceived. Finally proving the majority of the five Nikayas could not have been composed any later than the very earliest portion of the third century B.C.E.], anatta is never used pejoratively in any sense in the Nikayas by Gotama the Buddha, who himself has said: [MN 1.140] “Both formerly and now, I’ve never been a nihilist (vinayika), never been one who teaches the annihilation of a being, rather taught only the source of suffering (that being avijja, or nescience/agnosis), and its ending (avijja).” Further investigation into negative theology is the reference by which one should be directed as to a further understanding of this 'negative' methodology which the term anatta illuminates. It should be noted with great importance that the founder of Advaita Vedanta, Samkara used the term anatman lavishly in the exact same manner as does Buddhism, however in all of time since his passing, none have accused Samkara of espousing a denial of the Atman. Such as: “Atma-anatma vivekah kartavyo bandha nuktaye”“The wiseman should discriminate between the Atman and the non-Atman (anatman) in order to be liberated.” [Vivekacudamani of Samkara v. 152], “Anatman cintanam tyaktva kasmalam duhkah karanam, vintayatmanam ananda rupam yan-mukti karanam.””Give up all that is non-Atman (anatman), which is the cause of all misery, think only of the Atman, which is blissful and the locus of all liberation.” [Vivekacudamani of Samkara v. 379], “Every qualifying characteristic is, as the non-Atman (anatman), comparable to the empty hand.” [Upadisa Sahasri of Samkara v. 6.2], “the intellect, its modifications, and objects are the non-Atman (anatman).” [Upadisa Sahasri of Samkara v. 14.9], “The gain of the non-Atman (anatman) is no gain at all. Therefore one should give up the notion that one is the non-Atman (anatman).” [Upadisa Sahasri of Samkara v. 14.44]. In none of the Buddhist suttas is there support for "there is no-atman" theories of anatta . The message is simply to cease regarding the very khandhas in those terms by which the notion of atman has, itself, been so easily misconstrued. As has been shown, detaching oneself from the phenomenal desire for the psycho-physical existence was also a central part of Samkara’s strategy. There is, hence, nothing in the suttas that Samkara, the chief proponent of Advaita Vedanta, would have disagreed with.

[mikesoussan]

I hope for many more interviews with Peter ...

[bennguyen]

Regarding the 6m30s mark on psychedelics, Swami Sarvapriyananda, without the proper preparation you don't get the long-term benefit (see his 10/24 video 28m mark)!

[snowman-v]

Ah finally we can see the face to the voice! Carlos Castaneda!!