Welcome to first episode of The Freedom Place podcast! This is a platform for distributing interviews with and teachings of Traktung Khepa. Spiritual adept, visionary, poet, farmer, Traktung Khepa is an American-born sage who has taught students in America, Europe, and Cuba since 1990. For 30 years he has guided Tsogyelgar, a contemplative community outside Ann Arbor, Michigan. Equally able to explore the most esoteric aspects and methods of the Tantric path or discuss Existentialism, Santeria, Alchemy, Political Philosophy, or Art History, t.k.’s style of teaching is immediate and relevant. As a child, t.k. traveled with his parents from Marrakesh to Istanbul exploring modern and ancient cultures, museums, churches, whirling dervishes, gypsy caves, healers in the Black Forest, and mysteries of Greek ruins. As a teen he had encounters with spiritual aspirants and adepts of every sort from Jesuit priests and Franciscan monks to Krishnamurti, 32nd degree Freemasons, Sufi and Zen masters and more. At the same time he picnicked on the White House lawn with Reagan and joked with Nixon and Kissinger as they played Happy Birthday for his mother on the piano. t.k’s lifelong passion for exploring spiritual traditions and life’s meaning has seamlessly melded with his profound realization accomplished through the non-monastic Tantric path. The Adept Thinley Norbu Rinpoche repeatedly encouraged him to share his wisdom and realization to, “Help Westerners clarify the inner meanings of Tantra without distortions.” t.k. lives outside Ann Arbor, Michigan with his family. My name is Greg Kaminsky and I'm honored and blessed to be your host. I've been a student of Traktung Khepa for a little more than 2 years and I can attest that he is the most authentic teacher I've ever met. It is with great anticipation and joy that we have begun preparing a series of recordings, both teachings and interviews, with t.k. to share with a larger audience. Today's recording is from a teaching that was given on Sunday, May 26th, 2019 at Tsogyelgar near Ann Arbor, Michigan. The topic of this teaching was the starting point of the Buddhist path. Rinpoche describes this talk as a LamRim teaching, which encompasses the stages of the path from beginning to the end. This is the starting point--where the basic problem of being human (suffering) meets an intuition of the Divine. Feel free to leave comments or questions below or send them to [email protected] The intro music is "Devotion" by David Modica and the outro music is "Six Happy Ways" by Honey Rain. The name of this podcast, The Freedom Place, is taken from one of t.k.'s poems: I am only love This room where I live is only mystery And here I will live with you Without beginning or end Without defining In this freedom place https://www.tsogyelgar.org/ http://www.traktungkhepa.com/