Saturday, October 27, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #307 - 27OCT18

The Mystical Positivist is now a weekly radio show on KOWS-LP 107.3 FM, Occidental, CA. Listen live on Saturday evenings from 4:00 - 6:00pm, PST, via the web at KOWS Live Stream.
This week's podcast features:
  • This week we feature a pre-recorded talk that Rob Schmidt and Stuart Goodnick gave at Many Rivers Books & Tea in September called What Is Spiritual Freedom? To value, admire, and revere freedom is the price of admission to American identity. Yet that price implies little or no commitment to ask ourselves what we mean by “freedom”. Is freedom a simple matter: the right to get to do what we want, perhaps unhappily balanced by considerations of freedom for others? What about the many species of freedom: freedom of expression, religious freedom, economic freedom, political freedom, social freedoms like the freedom to marry? While the evening’s discussion may touch on these questions and others, we will focus upon what “spiritual freedom” might mean. More importantly, we will consider what an examination of spiritual freedom can accomplish in the experience of our lives in the world. For example, how meaningful is it to imagine freedom in the realm of spirit that is somehow disengaged from the experience of living in and as a human body? Is it part of the mind’s delusion for people to manifest a version of spiritual freedom that is somehow unrelated to the embodied realities that we live out day by day? If so, how might we remedy that? Is spiritual freedom balanced by a corresponding responsibility to pay attention to both our interior and exterior lives? The commitment underlying this discussion is to contemplate serious questions, leavened at times by humor that does not take serious questions too seriously.

    After the talk, Mystical Positivist, Stuart Goodnick, concludes with some reflections on the themes raised in the talk and a discussion of a spiritual perspective on the question of Free Will.
More information about Tayu Meditation Center can be found at:

Saturday, October 20, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #306 - 20OCT18

The Mystical Positivist is now a weekly radio show on KOWS-LP 107.3 FM, Occidental, CA. Listen live on Saturday evenings from 4:00 - 6:00pm, PST, via the web at KOWS Live Stream.
This week's podcast features:
  • This week we feature an in-studio conversation with two of our favorite guests, Ken McLeod and Jim Wilson. Topics include Ken's work in progress on an expression of Vajrayana practice without reliance on a particular cosmological framework, the relevance of cosmologies in general to the transmission of spiritual traditions, the distinction of Faith and Belief, and spiritual traditions as a set of practices versus as a set of beliefs. We also have an extended discussion on rebirth, the differences in our views, and the relationship of such beliefs to practice.

    After learning Tibetan, Ken McLeod translated for his principal teacher, Kalu Rinpoche, and helped to develop Rinpoche’s centers in North America and Europe. In 1985, Kalu Rinpoche authorized Ken to teach and placed him in charge of his Los Angeles center. Faced with the challenges of teaching in a major metropolis, he began exploring different methods and formats for working with students. He moved away from both the teacher-center model and the minister-church model and developed a consultant-client model. Ken is the author of Wake Up to Your Life: Discovering the Buddhist Path of Attention, The Great Path of Awakening, An Arrow to the Heart, Reflections on Silver River, and his most recent book, A Trackless Path.

    Jim Wilson was a monk and abbot under the direction of his teacher Seung Sahn, a Korean Chogye sect Zen master. He served as a Buddhist Prison Chaplain, studied western philosophy, co-founded Many Rivers Books & Tea in Sebastopol, conducts a website devoted to syllabic form Haiku, and has penned and published many books of poetry. In recent years his spiritual practice has centered on the Quaker Christian tradition. In addition to his many poetry volumes, he has published several books on spiritual matters, including On Trusting the Heart, a commentary on a famous poem by the third Zen patriarch, and An Annotated Edition of a Guide to True Peace.

More information about Ken McLeod and Jim Wilson's work can be found at:

Saturday, October 13, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #305 - 13OCT18

The Mystical Positivist is now a weekly radio show on KOWS-LP 107.3 FM, Occidental, CA. Listen live on Saturday evenings from 4:00 - 6:00pm, PST, via the web at KOWS Live Stream.
This week's podcast features:
  • This week we feature a conversation in the studio with Rev. Terri Daniel, MA, CT, a clinical chaplain, ordained interfaith minister and end-of-life educator certified in death, dying and bereavement by the Association of Death Education and Counseling. The focus of her work is to assist dying and grieving individuals to discover a more spiritually-spacious understanding of death and beyond. Terri conducts workshops throughout the US to help the dying and the bereaved find healing through meditative, ceremonial and therapeutic processes that focus on inner transformation rather than external events. Her work is acclaimed by physicians, hospice workers, grief counselors and clergy for its pinpoint clarity on the process of dying and grieving, and its heartfelt depiction of consciousness beyond the physical body. She is the author of three books: A Swan in Heaven: Conversations Between Two Worlds, Embracing Death: A New Look at Grief, Gratitude, and God, and Turning the Corner on Grief Street: Loss and Bereavement as a Journey of Awakening.

More information about Terri Daniel's work can be found at:

Saturday, October 6, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #304 - 06OCT18

The Mystical Positivist is now a weekly radio show on KOWS-LP 107.3 FM, Occidental, CA. Listen live on Saturday evenings from 4:00 - 6:00pm, PST, via the web at KOWS Live Stream.

This week's podcast features:
  • This week we feature a pre-recorded conversation with Alan Ramos, a former evangelical youth pastor, and subsequently, an Orthodox Christian priest. After struggling for decades with homosexual impulses, he eventually left ministry when he could no longer ignore the promptings of his inner life in the context of his role as a priest and confessor. The conversation touches on Alan's evolution from an Evangelical pastor to an Eastern Orthodox priest, the contrast between the Western Christian tradition and the Eastern Christian tradition, and the nature of authenticity in both giving and receiving confession.

More information about Alan Ramos's work can be found at: