241. The Porn Addict Who Became a Monk

My guest today is one of the stranger resumes I've come across in a while.

Nobody walks away from a doctorate at Duke because things are going great.

In his case he was quietly suffering.

The temptation of pornography was taking control of his life.

I started to see There were certain ways that my mind was enslaved by lust, and I realized that that was the problem.

We live in a society where there are so many avenues to get that hit of dopamine, that stimulation.

You reach for your phone, check your email, check social media.

Basically, we do everything we can to avoid any amount of unpleasant emotions.

So much of our life is us being in prisons of our own making.

mental prisons of, you know, not wanting to be with the emotions that are coming up.

And so we create these self-imposed prisons that we have the keys to if we know how to access it.

Welcome to the Radically Genuine Podcast.

I'm Dr. Roger McFillan.

My guest today is one of the stranger resumes I've come across in a while.

Jeremy Litkovitz was several years into a PhD at Duke, genetics, genomics, systems biology.

He was studying the code that supposedly explains what a human being is.

And he left.

flew to Myanmar and became a Buddhist monk, fully ordained, you know, shaved head, robes, the whole thing.

And I'm always fascinated by what prompted such abrupt change in a person's life.

Transformational experiences.

Nobody walks away from a doctorate at Duke because things are going great.

In his case, he was quietly suffering.

He had a sexual compulsion he struggled to overcome when he was privately fighting for years while everything on the outside looked so pristine.

And like so many other men, the temptation of pornography was taking control of his life.

Nothing worked.

So eventually he stopped trying to fix himself from the outside and went and sat with his own mind for a long time.

That is the part I find fascinating.

He overcame this compulsion, this addiction, and there was a transformational aspect, one in which no expert handed him a protocol or a drug.

He went inward, which is the one direction almost nobody recommends anymore.

What he experienced in that state should interest all of us.

We've never had more professional help available and more people quietly falling apart.

Every framework you can name will tell you what is wrong with you and try to sell you the fix.

And almost none of them will say the simple thing, which is that you already have access to the thing you are looking for, that you are searching for.

Because what modern life actually is, it is the most sophisticated avoidance and distraction machine ever built.

Cut off from your creator, infinite content, infinite novelty, infinite reasons never to be alone with yourself, your mind, your emotions.

And then the moment you get still and you attempt this, It can get very loud.

There is always something within arm's reach to make the stillness go away.

Jeremy walked out of that deliberately and what he found on the other side, I don't think is a technique.

I think it's a different relationship with his own self.

And he spent the last decade teaching other men to do the same.

No religion required, no doctrine, no protocol.

thousands of guys at this point.

So I have many questions.

I want to know what he learned about his own mind.

I want to know about the monastery.

I want to know about what he was studying and why he went in that direction.

And I want to know what he thinks is actually underneath some of these horrific self-destructive patterns that we can fall into in our lives.

And I want to know what was waiting for him when he found silence.

Jeremy, thanks for doing this.

Welcome to the Radically Genuine Podcast.

My guest today is one of the stranger resumes I've come across in a while.

Nobody walks away from a doctorate at Duke because things are going great.

In his case he was quietly suffering.

The temptation of pornography was taking control of his life.

I started to see There were certain ways that my mind was enslaved by lust, and I realized that that was the problem.

We live in a society where there are so many avenues to get that hit of dopamine, that stimulation.

You reach for your phone, check your email, check social media.

Basically, we do everything we can to avoid any amount of unpleasant emotions.

So much of our life is us being in prisons of our own making.

mental prisons of, you know, not wanting to be with the emotions that are coming up.

And so we create these self-imposed prisons that we have the keys to if we know how to access it.

Welcome to the Radically Genuine Podcast.

I'm Dr. Roger McFillan.

My guest today is one of the stranger resumes I've come across in a while.

Jeremy Litkovitz was several years into a PhD at Duke, genetics, genomics, systems biology.

He was studying the code that supposedly explains what a human being is.

And he left.

flew to Myanmar and became a Buddhist monk, fully ordained, you know, shaved head, robes, the whole thing.

And I'm always fascinated by what prompted such abrupt change in a person's life.

Transformational experiences.

Nobody walks away from a doctorate at Duke because things are going great.

In his case, he was quietly suffering.

He had a sexual compulsion he struggled to overcome when he was privately fighting for years while everything on the outside looked so pristine.

And like so many other men, the temptation of pornography was taking control of his life.

Nothing worked.

So eventually he stopped trying to fix himself from the outside and went and sat with his own mind for a long time.

That is the part I find fascinating.

He overcame this compulsion, this addiction, and there was a transformational aspect, one in which no expert handed him a protocol or a drug.

He went inward, which is the one direction almost nobody recommends anymore.

What he experienced in that state should interest all of us.

We've never had more professional help available and more people quietly falling apart.

Every framework you can name will tell you what is wrong with you and try to sell you the fix.

And almost none of them will say the simple thing, which is that you already have access to the thing you are looking for, that you are searching for.

Because what modern life actually is, it is the most sophisticated avoidance and distraction machine ever built.

Cut off from your creator, infinite content, infinite novelty, infinite reasons never to be alone with yourself, your mind, your emotions.

And then the moment you get still and you attempt this, It can get very loud.

There is always something within arm's reach to make the stillness go away.

Jeremy walked out of that deliberately and what he found on the other side, I don't think is a technique.

I think it's a different relationship with his own self.

And he spent the last decade teaching other men to do the same.

No religion required, no doctrine, no protocol.

thousands of guys at this point.

So I have many questions.

I want to know what he learned about his own mind.

I want to know about the monastery.

I want to know about what he was studying and why he went in that direction.

And I want to know what he thinks is actually underneath some of these horrific self-destructive patterns that we can fall into in our lives.

And I want to know what was waiting for him when he found silence.

Jeremy, thanks for doing this.

Welcome to the Radically Genuine Podcast.