Chasing Dragons with Dr. John Campbell
Today’s episode is a lovely heartfelt conversation with an old friend in our Community Treasure, the ever elusive Dr. John Campbell.
John did us a valuable kindness in opening the program with a Tibetan prayer for the Dead. It is with a deep sadness that a mentor to Russell and dear friend Eugene Ruffin passed away of CoVid, shortly before this podcast was recorded. Valentine’s Day is Gene’s Birthday. So we honor him with this prayer.
John, Russell, and Gene founded the Jois Foundation together in 2011 with the hopes of providing under-served children with tools and techniques of yoga to help regulate their lives.
Of course the three of them (and Harmony too for that matter) all deeply struggled as children and it wasn’t until they were adults that yoga became available to salve their childhood wound. It is an irony that the damaged are often the best healers.
We spoke to John about his life, and how it all fell apart for him as he found himself seeking and using external substances to change the way he felt. And, of course the only way one can truly do that is is to sit and wait it out. Things move of their own accord, especially if we stop adding twigs to the flame. Certainly pouring gasoline on the fire doesn’t help either.
Even after practicing for decades, and finishing Advanced Series in Mysore with Pattabhi Jois, John found himself isolated, studying and writing his Ph.D thesis in Varanasi. Feeling alone, and confused in an alien environment, John found himself attracted to the darkness… And eventually lost himself in cycle of addiction. After returning to the States he turned to alcohol, once again seeking to alter and change the feelings that were arising to the surface. He was pulled into the downward spiral of secrecy and shame, hiding his growing addiction.
We explored together the mind-body connection in relation to substance use and addiction, gurus, the big Self, and how the practice can create a cycle of chasing dragons. Often, when we are involved deeply in a physically transformative practice like Ashtanga yoga, we experience deep openings that can leave us feelingly raw, slightly ungrounded, or destabilized. This might make one vulnerable to all kinds of unhealthy habits. In part, the value of the practice boils down to reducing our violent interaction within the world, and learning to cultivate more compassion towards ourselves as well as to others.
Hang on until the end because you’ll get the delicious treat of hearing John’s Ashtanga Yoga Origin Story (which is a true delight!).
John Campbell, Ph.D., has been practicing Ashtanga Yoga for the past 25 years. He studied directly with Pattabhi Jois from 1992 until his passing in 2009 and was Certified by his late teacher in 2002. A scholar of Sanskrit and Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, he is co-founder of the Contemplative Sciences Center at the University of Virginia, where he served as professor of Religious Studies until 2017.
He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 2009 with a doctoral dissertation on commentarial literature of Tantric Buddhist practice systems. John Campbell is an independent scholar, accomplished yogin, and translator of Sanskrit and Tibetan texts. His main areas of research are practice systems of yoga and tantra in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism and Hinduism. He is currently writing a book on the commentarial literature of Buddhist and Hindu tantric Buddhist practice systems in late first-millennium India. A former assistant professor of Buddhist studies at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, among other academic institutions, he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in the theory and practice of yoga (both contemporary and premodern), Buddhist philosophy in India and Tibet, and surveys of culture and religion in South, East, and Himalayan Asia. He is currently the director of Sanskrit projects for the Asian Classics Input Project, developing the digitization of classical Sanskrit texts on Buddhist and Hindu spiritual sciences. He also advises the research of advanced graduate students in UVA’s renowned Buddhist Studies doctoral program.
The Finding Harmony Podcast is hosted, edited and produced by Harmony Slater and co-hosted by Russell Case.
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Opening and closing music compliments of my dear friend teaching Ashtanga yoga in Eindhoven, Nick Evans, with his band “dawnSong” from the album “for Morgan.” Listen to the entire album on Spotify - Simply Click Here.
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