The Mystical Positivist: February 2025

Saturday, February 15, 2025

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #427 - 15FEB25

Podcast:

This week on the show we feature a pre-recorded conversation with Lama Lhanang Rinpoche and Mordy Levine, authors of The Beginner’s Guide to Karma – How to Live with Less Negativity & More Peace, published recently by New World Library. Twenty-six centuries ago, the Buddha fleshed out the universal law of the spiritual realm: karma. The law of karma holds that our actions, our words, and even our thoughts inevitably produce effects that return to us in some form — in this lifetime or a future one. Today, most Westerners have a passing familiarity with the concept of karma, which amounts to “what goes around comes around.” This is true as far as it goes, but it merely scratches the surface of a complex and fascinating topic.

In The Beginner’s Guide to Karma, Lama Lhanang Rinpoche and Mordy Levine encourage readers to forget what they’ve heard about karma and look at the subject afresh. Delving into Buddhist scripture and tradition, the authors give a comprehensive outline of karma that incorporates psychology, ethics, and metaphysics. Using everyday language and real-life examples, they clear away myths, illustrate how karma works in daily life, and offer daily practices to build positive karma. The Beginner’s Guide to Karma neatly sums up the Buddhist worldview and makes a compelling case for Buddhism as a way of life that nurtures compassion, joy, and inner peace in an uncertain world.

Born in the Amdo region of historic Tibet, Lama Lhanang Rinpoche received a traditional monastic education and later studied under several respected Tibetan lamas. Today, he teaches Vajrayana Buddhism at the Jigme Lingpa Center in San Diego, California, where he lives with his wife and child. Mordy Levine is an entrepreneur, a meditation teacher, and the president of the Jigme Lingpa Center. He also created the Meditation Pro Series, a meditation program designed to alleviate chronic health issues. He lives in Rancho Santa Fe, California, with his wife, Elizabeth.

More information about Lama Lhanang Rinpoche and Mordy Levine's work can be found at:

Jigme Lingpa Center website: www.buddhistsandiego.com,

Institute for Balance and Movement website: www.mordylevine.com,

The Beginners Guide to Karma at New World Library: newworldlibrary.com.

Saturday, February 1, 2025

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #426 - 01FEB25

Podcast:

This week on the show we feature a pre-recorded conversation with Roger Jackson, author of Saraha – Poet of Blissful Awareness, published this year by Shambhala as part of its Lives of the Masters series. Saraha, “the Archer,” was a mysterious but influential tenth-century Indian Buddhist tantric adept who expressed his spiritual realization in mystic songs (dohas) that are enlightening, shocking, and confounding by turns. Saraha’s poetic verses served as a basis for the exposition, in Tibet, of mahamudra, the great-seal meditation on the nature of mind that permeates every tradition of Buddhism on the Tibetan plateau. This is the first book to attempt a thorough treatment of the context, life, works, poetics, and teachings of Saraha.

Roger Jackson is Professor Emeritus of Asian Studies and Religion at Carleton College. He has nearly 50 years of experience with the study and practice of Buddhism, particularly in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. His special interests include Indian and Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, meditation, and ritual; Buddhist religious poetry; religion and society in Sri Lanka; the study of mysticism; and contemporary Buddhist thought. Roger is a highly respected and beloved scholar, Dharma teacher, and writer. He has authored many scholarly books and articles, and is a frequent contributor to Lion’s Roar, Buddhadharma, and Tricycle magazines.

More information about Roger Jackson's work can be found at:

Saraha at Shambhala Publications: www.shambhala.com,

Roger Jackson at Lion's Roar: www.lionsroar.com,

Roger Jackson at Tricycle: tricycle.org,

Roger Jackson at Carleton College: apps.carleton.edu,

Roger Jackson on The Mystical Positivist #398: mysticalpositivist.blogspot.com,

Roger Jackson on The Mystical Positivist #348: mysticalpositivist.blogspot.com.

"The Mystical Positivist" Radio Show

The Mystical Positivist is a weekly radio show on KOWS-LP FM 107.3 Occidental, CA, and on the web at KOWS-LP Live Feed, Saturdays from 4 - 6pm PST. Coming up on The Mystical Positivist:

March 1: A pre-recorded conversation with Bob Noha, co-editor of and contributor to Aikido – The Art of Transformation: The Life & Teachings of Robert Nadeau, published recently by Park Street Press, a division of Inner Traditions. A widely influential figure in the development of Aikido in America, Robert Nadeau is known as one of the few American direct disciples of Aikido’s founder Morihei Ueshiba O-sensei. Now an 8th dan Aikido master teacher, Nadeau has taught generations of students, and several have become prominent teachers in their own right. However, he has never written about his life or philosophy, always reserving his most pointed lessons for those who practice with him in person.

This book tells the story of Robert Nadeau’s life journey and his distinctive approach to teaching Aikido as a way to access the inner energetic aspects of the art, a transformational approach with universal applications in daily life, even for non-Aikidoists. The authors explore Nadeau’s early interest in martial arts and all things spiritual as a teenager in California in the 1950s, his seminal training under Morihei Ueshiba at Aikido Hombu Dojo in Tokyo in the 1960s, and the following six decades of training, experimenting, refining, and teaching as he worked to introduce Aikido to the wider world, even beyond the traditional dojo. They lay out Nadeau’s core concepts, describe his simple-but-effective practices for personal development, and convey his time-tested approach to the inner training at the heart of Aikido in a very accessible way. They also include first-person accounts from Nadeau’s students, including Dan Millman, Richard Strozzi-Heckler, Peter Ralston, and Renée Gregorio, who recall their personal experiences of training with him, retell conversations with him, and describe insights and lessons learned, sharing how he affected their lives, sometimes quite profoundly.

Bob Noha, 6th Dan, began practicing Aikido in 1966 in Mountain View and shortly thereafter began training with Robert Nadeau Sensei, which started a lifelong friendship. Bob opened the first Aikido school in the Washington, DC, area in 1970 and taught arrest/restraint tactics to US Military Police at Andrews Air Force Base in 1974. Then, in 1975, he established the first Aikido school in Buffalo, New York. He founded Aikido of Petaluma in 1983 and continues to serve as its chief instructor. Bob traveled to Japan to further deepen his Aikido training in 1998, 1999, and 2006. In addition, he is also a devoted student and teacher of t’ai chi and has a background in several other martial arts.