Dr. Bookless & Friends: On Durian
Dr. Bouklas & Friends
Episode 333
Topic: Durian Fruit
Special Guest: Dr. Durian
Dr. Bouklas: Hi everybody. Today I’d like to welcome my friend Dr. Durian back to our program.
Dr. Durian: It’s really nice to be here again.
Dr. Bouklas: For our new readers, Dr. Durian is a licensed health practitioner based out of Malaysia. The transcript of his last appearance on the program can be read here. His work applies the idea that we know how to participate in our own healing, physically and emotionally.
Dr. Durian: Medicine is changing. We don’t think of the body as a machine, with parts that wear out and have to be fixed or replaced. We understand that the health of the body is determined to a great degree by our mental processes: what we think of life and especially of ourselves, at both the conscious and the unconscious levels.
Dr. Bouklas: As our body of knowledge and understanding grows, so does the healing practice. Resisting change in this regard is an affront to science.
Dr. Durian: Yes. As for today, I’d like to talk about my business a little bit more.
Dr. Bouklas: Please, continue.
Dr. Durian: First, some information about durian. First, I’d like to clarify a popular misconception that durian fruit is not delicious. Durian is, in fact, amazingly delicious and has been unanimously declared the King of Fruits by the ancient masters of Asia. Durian seems intimidating because it weighs like four kilos and has sharp thorns all over its thick shell. However, after thanking the fruit for its sacrifice and eating, one will feel the benefits of durian. Durian fruit contains many healing properties that allow for rapid ascension of energy. In contradiction to its medieval appearance on the outside, durian flesh is actually soft, delicate, and creamy. Durian fruit can be eaten with a spoon, much like a firm custard. But I prefer to eat it as if it were a leg of chicken or something, without regard for mess or manners. It is really really delicious.
Dr. Bouklas: Wow. But what about the smell? It’s like literally banned in many public places in Asia.
Dr. Durian: The durian fruit’s awesome smell only smells repugnant to those who are not well acquainted with its masterful aroma. Orangutans – which by the way are totally super cool animals – can smell durian from a distance of five kilometers.
Dr. Bouklas: You said they weigh four kilos?
Dr. Durian: The trees are very large. Durian trees grow so tall that like so many nets must be produced to protect workers on the ground. A good durian has around 13 grams of fat, 357 calories, and 66 grams of carbohydrates per cup. Durians are super duper nutritious. No saturated fat and tons of fiber, minerals, and vitamins. It is a natural source of magnesium, manganese, potassium, copper, folate, thiamin, and other elements.
Dr. Bouklas: Did you bring any durian cheesecake with you?
Dr. Durian: Of course.
Dr. Bouklas: May I?
Dr. Durian: My mission is to share durian with the world.
Dr. Bouklas: Thank you.
Dr. Durian: How do you like it?
Dr. Bouklas: So good.
Dr. Durian: Durian fruit also contains a high level of tryptophan. Eating durian produces euphoria. The high level of estrogens found in durian fruit is thought to make women more fertile; the durian is considered a strong aphrodisiac in Indonesia and other places.
Dr. Bouklas: I heard you’re not supposed to drink alcohol while eating durian. Is that true?
Dr. Durian: Talk to most people in South East Asia and they’ll tell you mixing alcohol and durian can kill you. Small to moderate amounts won’t really do any harm, although it’s better not to do this at all. Traditional Chinese medicine states that alcohol should be avoided after eating durian fruit. Consuming alcohol after eating durian causes the blood pressure to rise and a general unwell feeling. A Japanese study found that the high sulphur content, thought partially responsible for the durian’s strong smell, interferes with aldehyde dehydrogenase – the body’s process of processing toxins when drinking alcohol. People have been known to die from mixing excessive alcohol consumption and eating several durian fruits. In general, it’s best to avoid the combination of the two things. It’s better to combine durian with the Queen of Fruits, the mangosteen, for optimal cellular performance.
Dr. Bouklas: Wow. Ok. If I wait a while after eating durian before imbibing, will I be okay?
Dr. Durian: After four hours you’re basically in the clear but I highly recommend eating another type of food, like rice, before beginning alcohol consumption.
Dr. Bouklas: Good to know. So, I should go get some durian soon.
Dr. Durian: You should know what to look for. There is no right way to choose a good durian because the preferences are different in every region and can vary from person to person. If the durians are relatively young, the flesh inside will be crisp in texture and the flavor will be mild. It’s much better, I think, when very ripe. The fruit is ripe when the husk begins to crack open on its own and starts to smell very pungent. Overall, look for a big, strong stem to indicate freshness, and make sure you can hear the seeds inside when you shake it.
Dr. Bouklas: Star advice, cheers.
Dr. Durian: I’d like to discuss durian’s distinctive aromatic characteristic. Scientists have been trying to nail down the intricacies of durian’s great aroma since the 1970s but there’s still work to be done in that regard. The latest effort, published in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, added 24 previously unreported chemical compounds the inventory, while also confirming 20 or so old standards. After glancing at the long list of old and new chemicals comprising durian’s signature perfume, my colleague – Dr. Papa Giorgio – and I were quick to point out that two of the highly volatile compounds had the distinction of being listed as hazardous air pollutants by the EPA under the Clean Air Act – acetaldehyde (fruity) and hydrogen sulfide (rotten egg). We examined the potency of the individual volatiles. This is measured in flavor dilution (FD) factor. It’s a fairly straightforward technique – just take your volatile and dilute it until the smell is no longer detectable. The FD factor is a number indicating how many rounds of dilution were needed to subdue the stink of any given odorant. Based on FD factors reported in the latest study, the durian’s top 5 aggressively strong smells are as follows:
fruity [ethyl (2S)-2-methylbutanoate, FD factor 16384]
honey [ethyl cinnamate, FD factor 4096]
roasted onion [1-(ethylsulfanyl)ethanethiol, FD factor1024]
a three-way tie between sulfury/onion, caramel, and soup seasoning (all at FD 512)
another tie, this time between fruity, skunky, sulfury, and roasted onion (FD 256)
So basically, a person might say that a durian smells like a mixture of fruit, onions and rotten eggs, garnished with honey, “soup seasoning”, and a dash of skunk spray. It’s easy to see why this fruit has something of a niche audience. Regardless, the durian is a masterful wonder of nature and must be shared with humanity in order to promote planetary healing. One should travel to areas that grow durian and then eat durian. The trials can be rough at first. It takes a few tries to get the hang of it. Once initiated unto durian, one will know and feel and understand how a lifestyle including a diet of durian can support a conscious state of joy in one’s life experience.
Dr. Bouklas: So durian fruit is involved in your healing practice?
Dr. Durian: A significant aspect of my healing practice involves consumption of durian fruit. First, let me tell you more about myself. I was born in Western France in 1974. My father was a baker, my mother a cellist. As a young boy, I remember going to my mother’s cello recitals. Father would walk down the aisle with his large wooden breadbox and sell delicious baked goods to the theatregoers. I would help father in the bakery shop. It was here that I learned how to bake. Then came the 1990 Attaque du thé tueur which devasted the baked goods economy in France. Like all men my age I joined the local resistance, les croisés de thé. To make a long story short, we boarded a Dutch ship en route to Malaysia to start our new lives. I befriended a local medicine man deep in the jungles. He initiated me into his tribal village. I taught him out to bake, and he taught me the secrets of Gaia. I also DJ’d Deep Jungle House music during this period.
Dr. Bouklas: Fascinating. So, what about durian?
Dr. Durian: Right. I worked as a baker in Malaysia for some years after I decided to stop DJing and living in the deep jungles. I wanted to show the world what the ancients in the forest knew, and combine that with my expertise de la cuisine française. The Baked Durian Cheesecake was much loved by the people. I will share with you my secret recipe.
Baked Durian Cheesecake
Biscuits base (mix all together)
170g digestive biscuits (crushed)
30g brown sugar
30g desiccated coconut
50g corn flakes
180g butter (melted)
Durian (1 or 2 is ok)
500g cream cheese
100g icing sugar
20g corn flour
200g sour cream or natural yogurt
150g whipping cream
4 eggs
500g durian (mashed)
Method
Press the biscuit base into a springform pan 23cm (9in) and set aside.
Preheat oven to 150 degrees Celcius.
For durian filling, beat cream cheese and icing sugar until smooth, dissolve corn flour in sour cream, and mix into the cheese mixture.
Blend in cream until mixture thickens and slowly beat in eggs one at a time.
Open your durian and say thanks for its life force which it joyfully shares with you. Imagine a happy durian. Scoop out all its gooey insides. Plant the seeds in your garden and start your own durian forest. Durian trees will grow several stories high, so when they are mature you must hang nets under the durian for safety precautions. Or you can be a bad ass and forget the nets and just climb durian trees. You could even build a tree fort and keep a durian cutting station inside as well as books, a soft LED lantern, and a sleeping bag.
Lastly, add in the durian and mix until just combined.
Pour filling on biscuit base. Place cake pan in water bath and bake for 50-60 minutes until filling is set but still wobbly at the centre. Turn off the oven.
Leave cake in oven for 30 minutes with the door ajar.
Remove cake from water bath and allow the cake to cool before refrigerate overnight.
Unmold the cake and garnish as desired.
Serve.
Dr. Bouklas: Wow. That sounds delicious. I love cheesecake.
Dr. Durian: I love cheesecake, too, bro.
Dr. Bouklas: Yeah man.
Dr. Durian: But really though I love durian fruit even more. The medicine men in the forest introduced the Durian fruit to me soon after welcoming me into the jungle tribe. The Jedi women would consume durian as part of their sacred durian dancing ceremonies. From them I learned the techniques I apply in my healing practice. In order to know ourselves in waking reality, we should be able to identify when we are dreaming. The durian fruit guides us in the path of directly altering our experience to conform to consciously dreaming a dream, labeled as dream lucidity. If it is true at all that reality is dream-like then it must be true right now. In the room you are apparently in, at this very moment. So look around. Furthermore, your own body and thoughts must themselves be dreamed, along with every other experience you are having. All of this must be arising within an open dream space made of mind, of awareness. All of this experience is you.
Dr. Bouklas: It doesn’t usually feel that way though, does it? Why not? Are you going to say it’s because I’m not eating durian fruit?
Dr. Durian: Even if we understand intellectually that everything is consciousness and the world is undivided, we still usually feel that there is an inner and an outer to experience, that we are “located” and separate, except during certain peak experiences.
Dr. Bouklas: What is the nature of this feeling? Can we tackle it directly?
Dr. Durian: I say we can. I’ve been cooperating with Dr. Papa Giorgio. In addition to owning and operating Papa Giorgio Pizzeria in Western France, he is the founder of Le Rêve Enfants, a specialized dream clinic for assisting young adults. Basically what he does is teach his students how to use The Force, involving certain techniques or guidelines that may allow them to overcome false perceptions and enter a full world of free waking reality, abundant in joy, love, and peace. As a teacher, he allows them to learn, on their own, how to be the puppeteer of the dream space. Lucidity.
Dr. Bouklas: Well, that sounds great. Why aren’t more people doing this, then?
Dr. Durian: People are getting stuck. Usually this is first impression people seem to get – being stuck in your head – and it can be surprising. People meditate, work on letting their thoughts pass and so on, get some success – all the while not realising they have circumscribed their world into this little area. It doesn’t really give any ‘content’ much room to arise and dissolve – no wonder people find themselves so “thinky”. They are effectively “clenching their being” constantly. And tense, unmoving patterns spew out thoughts, no matter where they are in the body-space. Another side-effect is that they are living their lives in “blind-sight”. You are not truly out there in the world, you are only seeing it through a peripheral view, actually experiencing your thoughts-about rather than your direct-sensing. I suggest this disconnect arises because over time we accumulate forms of experiential-debris in our dream-space. The ideas we accept, the thoughts we have, the other encounters in the world whether passive or active – all leave traces which, when repeated and reactivated, gradually solidify. There are many implications of this, but the important ones at the moment are Stuck Thoughts in the dream. These are basically thought structures that have solidified in your space rather than naturally dissolve. These may be located in your body area or beyond. This sense of division between body and world is one such thought. We also have Incomplete Movements in the dream. These are intentions which were resisted or aborted before they followed through to completion. This might be a suppressed startle response, a decision to do something which you then halted by tension or a reverse intention, and so on.
Dr. Bouklas: For sure, neither of these would arise or be a problem if we lived in open non-resistance. However, most of us are holding on to – identifying with – certain patterns in awareness, and this prevents the natural passing and dissolving of these structures. This leads to a sense of clutter, constraint, and tension.
Dr. Durian: Right. Our attention is not a torchlight. To get clear – because your consciousness is actually always everywhere – let’s call it attention for now. The problem you have is that your default attentional-profile, its extent in space, has become defaulted and constrained to a certain area. You can temporarily force it out, but it’ll spring back for two reasons: One, you are trying to move it, when attention is not something that is to be moved – because it is not thing. The metaphor of consciousness being a torch-light is incorrect, it is more like a 3-dimensional spatial filter, a profile varying the intensity of experience across space. And two, you have accumulated structure/habit in your world where your attentional profile always settles into that shape, that location, probably with a felt-sense boundary. Basically, you’ve ended up with a little valley in this area of your world.
Dr. Bouklas: One should adopt this assumption: Your natural state is to be completely open, without even an attention boundary – no localization. This is a meditative practice.
Dr. Durian: Precisely. Following the passive approach regularly, in which you don’t concentrate and simply let go, your tensions and division would eventually unfold by themselves, and your attention would become increasingly open. But this takes patience, and you have to do it every day, and you have to not mistreat yourself – by forcing and pushing – in between times, ideally.
Dr. Bouklas: Eating the durian fruit aids with this process? Is that the secret?
Dr. Durian: Eating durian contains properties which may assist the student in this practice. I learned this deep in the jungles of Malaysia, where I lived for over fifteen years. The secret to doing this more deliberately is: You do not move your attention to an area of experience, rather you expand it to include that experience in your area of attention. The area you include doesn’t need to be adjacent – what you are effectively doing is increasing the intensity of attention at that point – but it’s initially helpful if it is.
Dr. Bouklas: We want to avoid deliberately narrowing our attention, and find ways to encourage and allow it to open up without forcing it – since forcing it tends to paradoxically fix the current pattern in place.
Dr. Durian: Right. So, next time you’re lying down, discovering you are constrained into your head area, let it be. Then feel out the tips of your toes, and include them. Gradually, feel out your whole body, bit by bit, in this way. Then feel out the space around you body, and beyond.
Dr. Bouklas: So, I, David G. Bouklas, will expand my consciousness with this technique?
Dr. Durian: Remember, you are not really moving or expanding consciousness – that is already everywhere, what your experience is and is made of. You are basically including aspects of experience more fully in attention, and eventually dissolving the boundary of attention – the habitual valley – completely.
Dr. Bouklas: Fair enough. I actually kind of enjoy the smell of durian now that I’ve been eating your durian cheesecake for the last ten minutes. I didn’t want to say anything before. It was foreign to me. But I see how people can get into it.
Dr. Durian: You’ve taken your first step into a larger world.
Dr. Bouklas: Thank you for your eloquent thoughts, Dr. Durian, as always. And I am honored and privileged to have experienced your delicious durian cheesecake. I will be on the lookout for durian fruit during my next trip to Southeast Asia. I will pay a visit to you at your clinic.
Dr. Durian: Au revoir, mon ami. Vivre la résistance. I leave you with a song I used to sing for my patients and students on acoustic guitar.
Good Morning, Dr. Durian
by Dr. Durian
G C
Good morning music
G C
Good morning sol
G C
Good morning magic
D G
Good morning Dr. Durian
Dr. Durian holds a private holistic practice in Malaysia and can be reached at www. Dr Durian . com