Saturday, December 26, 2015

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #207 - 26DEC15

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:
  • Today hosts Stuart Goodnick and Robert Schmidt provide a year-end show, looking back on some of the remarkable guests that they’ve hosted in 2015 on the Mystical Positivist. They reflect on how these radio conversations have changed and informed their own personal experiences of spiritual practice. They also celebrate their own spiritual teacher, Tayu Meditation Center founder Robert Daniel Ennis, who died in 1998, and who would have been 69 years old on the day of broadcast, December 26th, 2015.

    Dr. Robert Schmidt, spiritual director of Tayu Meditation Center, met and began intensive, 24-hour study with Tayu Meditation Center founder Robert Daniel Ennis in 1977. After five remarkable training years, he received ordination as a minister of Tayu, and co-taught with his teacher until Mr. Ennis’ death in 1998. His work with Mr. Ennis included co-writing and publishing a book entitled God Is Gay: An Evolutionary Spiritual Work. Rob succeeded Mr. Ennis as Tayu spiritual director, a post he still holds, in collaboration with yours truly. With Stuart Goodnick and Jim Wilson he co-founded Many Rivers Books & Tea in Sebastopol in Sebastopol, CA, in 2002.

    Currently he’s collaborating with practitioners of many spiritual traditions to create the Conscious Family Festival, a community event scheduled for October 2016 in Santa Rosa, CA. Along the way, Rob completed a Ph.D. in anthropological archaeology at UC Berkeley, where he was co-editor with his grad student colleague Barbara Voss of the award-winning Archaeologies of Sexuality, the first academic edited volume to examine the phenomenon of sexuality as a object of knowledge in archaeological contexts.

    Stuart Goodnick, the Mystical Positivist, has been a practitioner of Tayu Meditation since 1985 and a Tayu Meditation instructor since 1993. He holds degrees in Physics from Caltech and UCSC, and has been an engineering manager in the electronics and software security industries since 1989. Stuart has also been a student of the shakuhachi (Japanese Bamboo flute) under Master Masayuki Koga since 1996. In recent years Stuart has been applying the principles of spiritual practice and transformation in daily life as a senior executive in both Silicon Valley start-ups and global industrial manufacturers. He co-founded Many Rivers Books & Tea with Robert Schmidt and Jim Wilson in Sebastopol in 2002.

    A frequent writer and speaker on spiritual topics, Stuart maintains that rationality is no way the antithesis of deep mystical experience, but is in fact a necessary ally. He is currently working on a compilation of some of his essays and transcriptions of talks to be released later in 2016.
More information about Tayu Meditation Center can be found at:
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Location: Sebastopol, CA, USA

Saturday, December 19, 2015

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #206 - 19DEC15

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:
  • A conversation in the studio with Ken McLeod, a senior Western translator, author and teacher of Tibetan Buddhism. He received traditional training mainly in the Shangpa-Kagyu lineage, through a long association with his principal teacher Kalu Rinpoche, whom he met in 1970. Under Kalu Rinpoche’s guidance McLeod learned the Tibetan language and completed two, traditional three-year retreats (1976-83). In the years that followed, he traveled and worked with Kalu Rinpoche on various projects and became a prominent translator of Buddhist texts. This includes a landmark translation of The Great Path of Awakening by Jamgon Kongtrul, a key text in the teaching of Lojong (the Seven Points of Mind Training).

    In 1985 he settled in Los Angeles to run Kalu Rinpoche’s dharma center. He did so until 1990, when he founded his own organization, Unfettered Mind. He teaches strictly traditional material but is recognized (1) for having pioneered a new teacher-student model, based upon ongoing, one-on-one consultations and upon small teaching groups that have a high degree of teacher-student interaction; and (2) for his “pragmatic” approach to teaching, translation and practice.

    The intent of “pragmatic Buddhism” is to preserve the essence of the teachings, unchanged, but to make them more directly accessible to the Westerner. It does so by bypassing the Eastern cultural overlay and using simple, clear language and methods that elicit direct experience in the practitioner. Also, it emphasizes an individualized practice path – with a key element being ongoing practice consults that allow the teacher to shape a path that’s tailored to each practitioner’s specific needs and makeup. McLeod has made this model available for others to use via the Unfettered Mind website, his teacher development program, and his publications – especially in his 2001 book Wake Up To Your Life, which lays out the Buddhist path & practices. His non-traditional commentary on the Heart Sutra, An Arrow to the Heart, presents a way into the material that’s poetic and experiential. His latest book, just published, is titled A Trackless Path, a commentary on the Great Completion (or Dzogchen) teaching of Jigmé Lingpa’s Revelations of Ever-Present Good.
More information about Ken McLeod's work and interests can be found at:
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Location: Sebastopol, CA, USA

Saturday, December 12, 2015

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #205 - 12DEC15

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:
  • A conversation in the studio with Amy Kittelstrom, author of the recently published Penguin Press book The Religion of Democracy: Seven Liberals and the American Moral Tradition. Amy Kittelstrom is an associate professor of history at Sonoma State University, and has published articles and reviews in the Journal of American History, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. She received her Ph.D. in history from Boston University and is a past fellow of the Center for Religion and American Life at Yale, the Charles Warren Center at Harvard, and the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton. Professor Kittelstrom is an historian of modern thought and culture who specializes in nineteenth-century American thinkers and their contexts. She is particularly interested in the lived intellectual connections between individuals and cultures of the past, how their ideas on religion and democracy informed one another, and how Americans engaged with books and thinkers from India, Great Britain, and the Romantic Movement.
More information about Amy Kittelstrom's work and interests can be found at:
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Location: Sebastopol, CA, USA

Saturday, December 5, 2015

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #204 - 05DEC15

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:
  • A conversation in the studio with Arnaud Delorme, Ph.D., , currently a research scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences in Petaluma, California, and a CNRS principal investigator in Toulouse, France, as well as a faculty project scientist at the University of San Diego California. In 2000, Dr. Delorme completed his PhD Thesis on visual categorization in humans, monkeys, and machines. Based on the results of his modeling work, he co-created with Simon Thorpe the Spikenet Technology Company, now a successful start-up. Dr. Delorme then moved to the Salk Institute for a post-doc in Terry Sejnowski and Francis Crick’s laboratory where he focused on statistical analysis of electro-encephalographic (EEG) signal recorded during various cognitive tasks. He developed the free EEGLAB software for advanced analysis of EEG signals in collaboration with Scott Makeig, software which is now amongst the most used software in EEG research worldwide. He was awarded a Brettencourt-Schueller young investigator award and a 10-year anniversary ANT young investigator award for his contributions to the field of EEG research.

    Dr. Delorme has a keen interest in the scientific study of consciousness and spirituality. He is a long term Zen meditator, and has taught in India on the neural correlates of conscious experience in a Master's degree program for the Birla Institute of Technology. Starting in 2002, he has developed a strong ongoing collaboration with Dr. Rael Cahn to look at brain dynamical changes underlying extra-ordinary states of consciousness as experienced during meditation and due to the effects of psycho-active agents. He is the co-director in Rishikesh, India of the Meditation Research Institute. In 2010, he started collaborating with Dean Radin on analysis of electro-encephalographic (EEG) signal recorded during presentiment tasks.
More information about Arnaud Delorme's work and interests can be found at:
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Location: Sebastopol, CA, USA

Saturday, November 28, 2015

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #203 - 28NOV15

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:
  • A conversation by telephone with William Mistele, author of Mermaids, Sylphs, Gnomes, and Salamanders: Dialogues with the Kings and Queens of Nature, as well as Undines and the forthcoming Mermaid Tales. Since 1975 he has been a student of Franz Bardon’s teachings on Hermetic magic, a system of training that includes the evocation of and communication with nature spirits. Mistele is devoted to integrating the wisdom of all spiritual traditions, along with transpersonal psychology, into Bardon’s system, which seeks to maximize the power and creativity of the individual.

    By way of self-description, he writes: “I graduated from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois with a BA in philosophy and a minor in economics. At that time, I began studying esoteric, oral traditions. In genuine mythology, individuals come into contact with the creative powers of the human spirit. Words and language possess a symbolic and imaginative quality that is magical. To understand an idea is to experience it from within. This involves a lifelong, transforming journey--if you change the self, you change the world.

    “As part of my field research, I lived in a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Berkeley, California. I next studied Hopi Indian culture and language at the University of Arizona where I received a Masters degree in linguistics. At that time I became the only accepted student of a Hopi Indian shaman.

    “While living in Tucson, Arizona I began studying the Western hermetic traditions and the nature religions of Wiccans and Druids. I worked with a number of extremely gifted psychics and parapsychologists whose primary focus was on experimentation and research. I also practiced evocation with a Sufi master.

    “I then moved to Hawaii in 1982. There I studied with the relocated abbot of a Taoist monastery that existed for over two thousand years in China, a Vietnamese Zen master, and one of the foremost Tai Chi Chuan masters of China.

    “I consider myself a spiritual anthropologist. Expanding on Bardon’s purposes, I am integrating into his system the wisdom of all traditions. To this end, I have created a new genre of modern fairy tales. These stories are not about belief or faith but direct experience. They open gates to other realms where we discover the keys to what is missing from life.
More information about William Mistele's work and interests can be found at:
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Location: Sebastopol, CA, USA

Saturday, November 14, 2015

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #202 - 14NOV15

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:
  • A conversation by telephone with Alex Tsakiris, an engineer turned podcaster, and author of Why Science is Wrong… About Almost Everything. In 2007 Tsakiris founded the podcast Skeptiko.com, an interview-centered podcast addressing the science of human consciousness. It covers Near-death experience science; Parapsychology; Consciousness research and the every expanding scientific understanding of who we are; Spirituality and the implications of new scientific discoveries to our understanding of it; Skepticism and what we should make of material reductionist sceptics.
More information about Alex Tsakiris' work and interests can be found at:
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Location: Occidental, CA, USA

Saturday, November 7, 2015

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #201 - 07NOV15

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:
  • A conversation by telephone with C.W. Huntington, Jr., a translator and interpreter of classical Sanskrit and Tibetan texts, and a professor at Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York. He is the author of The Emptiness of Emptiness, and of his recently published debut novel Maya, an extended meditation on the unravelling of identity, set in the turmoil of northern India in the mid-1970s. The novel recounts the experience of a young American scholar who is drawn to India not just to translate religious texts, but also to wrestle with his own internal demons. With an entertaining cast of hippies, expats, Tibetans, and Indians of all walks of life, Maya has a compelling authenticity that draws the reader in.
More information about C.W. Huntinton's work and interests can be found at:
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Location: Occidental, CA, USA

Saturday, October 31, 2015

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #200 - 31OCT15

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:
  • A conversation in the studio with Sam Webster, founder of the Open Source Order of the Golden Dawn. Sam Webster is a writer, Thelemite, a member of the Golden Dawn tradition, as well as an initiate of Wicca. Webster holds a Master of Divinity degree from the Starr King School for the Ministry at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, and a Ph.D in History from the University of Bristol. He is notable as one of the pioneers of open source religion - the use of the open source paradigm in the field of spirituality. He has authored a number of articles and essays on occult and Pagan topics, publishing both online and in periodicals such as Green Egg, Mezlim, Gnosis, and PanGaea. Many of his essays on PaganDharma and Thelema have also been made available online. In 2001, he was one of a number of Neopagans interviewed in Modern Pagans - An Investigation of Contemporary Pagan Ritual, a feature article in the counter-cultural journal RE/Search.

    He has founded (or cofounded) several occult and Pagan organizations, including the Chthonic-Ouranian OTO (1985), and the Open Source Order of the Golden Dawn (2002). Webster's book Tantric Thelema was published in 2010. His Ph.D dissertation, The History of Theurgy from Iamblichus to the Golden Dawn, was published in 2014.
More information about Sam Webster's work and interests can be found at:
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Location: Occidental, CA, USA

Saturday, October 10, 2015

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #199 - 10OCT15

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:
  • A conversation in the studio with This week our guests in the studio are Laura Morgan, MD, and Jim Sullivan. Laura Morgan is the author of Three Jewels, a natural history/field guide to three trail systems in west Sonoma County. Jim Sullivan teaches animal tracking, is a landscape painter, and is writing a book combining the newest information in the cognitive sciences with what he has learned from daily practice of our species' most ancient pursuit—animal tracking.

    Laura Morgan describes her spiritual background this way: “My father's father was to be the next "Mirshimun", the spiritual and secular head of the Assyrians and their Orthodox Church at the time of the Armenian/Assyrian massacre in northern Iran in 1915.

    “I was raised Episcopalian but had an enduring "born again" experience at age 16, the year I first laid eyes on the landscape of West Sonoma County. I came back to live here and attended Sonoma State, graduating with degrees in music and literature.

    “During my last year of college, I met Eknath Easwaran at the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation in Tomales and subsequently lived in the community for 10 years. He asked me to become a physician, so I did, through the UCB/UCSF Joint Medical Program. He hoped to perform research studying the effects of meditation. When difficulties led to an exodus of many community members in the '80s, I continued my residency at Community Hospital of Sonoma County, in family practice.

    “During the 30 years of medical practice that ensued, I stuck with passage meditation and trail-running as my anchors. I primarily worship nature. Austin Creek backcountry is my religion of choice. Jesus, the Buddha, Aunty Pema and Uncle Eckhardt also make daily appearances in my life.

    Jim Sullivan is a 4th generation Sonoma county native who lives near Occidental, California. A long time environmental activist, he also wrote a popular column for the Bodega Bay Navigator for eight years. He is perhaps best known for having led the campaign to open California State beaches for night access, and for serving as the first president of both the Rural Alliance and of the Sonoma County Farmlands Group, and for his involvement in a number of contentious land use issues. He also served on the boards of over a dozen other non-profits, from the Sonoma Land Trust and C.O.A.A.ST, to Native Species Network.

    A graduate of Notre Dame in biology, he also studied in Vienna, Austria, and did graduate work at several other universities and still takes--and teaches-- classes and workshops at Santa Rosa Junior College and elsewhere. He served 4 years in the infantry, including an extended tour in Korea with the United Nations occupation forces, where in 1962 he resigned his commission in protest over US policies in Asia. Upon return to the States, he lived in Santa Barbara, but by the mid-60s found himself in the Haight Ashbury where he became involved in the Civil Rights and Anti-war movements. During that time he also was instrumental in launching the Natural Foods movement, got married, moved to Marin county and raised 4 kids.

    Returning to Sonoma County with the back to the land movement in 1976, he settled on Joy Ridge, near Bodega, where his ancestors settled in the early 1870s. After a career as a landscape designer/contractor, he retired in the early 90s and has been painting almost daily since.

    In May, 2010, Jim was qualified by Mark Elbroch as one of about 600 internationally certified animal trackers. Currently he is teaching two monthly tracking/bird language classes a month, as well as frequent workshops and several lectures a year.
More information about Laura Morgan's work and interests can be found at:
More information about Jim Sullivan's work and interests can be found at:
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Location: Occidental, CA, USA

Saturday, October 3, 2015

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #198 - 03OCT15

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:
  • A conversation in the studio with Sky Nelson-Isaacs. He is a singer-songwriter, physicist and speaker with a unique vision. He communicates about the physics of synchronicity, encouraging people to worry less, trust more, and keep awareness open to the opportunities that are in constant motion around us. He offers a scientific model for understanding synchronicity that can lead to a new level of problem resolution. The model focuses upon an idea called “selfless confidence”, which is relevant in business, problem-solving in politics, or relating to family, as well as accomplishing personal goals. Sky is the author of the recently released eBook, What are the Chances: Science, Serendipity, and seizing the Moment.

    Sky speaks at Sunday services and afternoon workshops for Centers for Spiritual Living and Unity Centers around the country, as well as scientific conferences and business meetings. His peer reviewed articles have appeared in the Journal for Scientific Exploration, and the Conference Proceedings for American Association for the Advancement of Sciences. He has presented his work investigating quantum theory, special relativity and synchronicity at the Society for Scientific Exploration Annual Meeting (2010, 2012), Towards a Science of Consciousness (2010, 2012), SAND (2010, 2011, 2012) and the AAAS (2011). Sky’s popular writings have been published in Science of Mind Magazine and New Thought Magazine. Sky received a nomination in 2012 for the coveted Positive Music Award for his song Live in Love. His album of original music The World Ocean and his eBook What are the Chances are available for sale on his websie.

    Before studying physics at UC Berkeley, and careers in education, music, and software, Sky Nelson-Isaacs was a childhood student of Swami Satchidananda. Alongside calculus and electromagnetism, he found personal meaning and glimpses of a deeper truth in the sacred texts of Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism. In Fall 2015 he is returning to graduate school to study physics at San Francisco State University. Sky is a father and husband, living in Santa Rosa, CA.
More information about Sky Nelson-Isaacs's work and interests can be found at:
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Location: Occidental, CA, USA

Saturday, September 26, 2015

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #197 - 26SEP15

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:
  • An pre-recorded conversation with Jim Wilson, Quaker practitioner, poet, former Zen monk, abbot, and chaplain at an institution for the criminally insane. Jim is a co-founder of Many Rivers Books & Tea in Sebastopol, CA. We discuss with him the topic of becoming familiar with silence. Jim writes: “The practice of interior silence is a subtle spiritual path. Most of us have experience with exterior silence from hiking in nature or times of chosen solitude. How do we find the peace and serenity of exterior silence within, when our minds are so busy and raucous? The way of interior silence is simple and accessible to anyone: scholar and worker, monastic and layperson. It is a type of prayer that one can engage with at any time, under any circumstances.” Based on the Quaker tradition of silent prayer, and integrating other traditions' approaches to interior silence, Jim discusses his own journey into that realm of true peace.
More information about Jim Wilson's work and interests can be found at:
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Location: Occidental, CA, USA

Saturday, September 19, 2015

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #196 - 19SEP15

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:
  • An in-studio conversation with Russell Delman, founder of The Embodied Life School and The Mentorship Program. Russell began his study of body/mind perspectives and human potential in 1969 as a student of psychology. His lifelong commitment to awareness and freedom began consciously at this time along with his practice of Zen meditation. Through workshops at The Esalen Institute (1971), living at the Gestalt Institute of Canada (1972), travels in the jungles of South America (1973), being trained as a yoga teacher (1974) and studying Gestalt therapy with Dr Robert Hall (1975-1978), he deepened his self-knowledge. His training and deep personal relationship with Moshe Feldenkrais began in 1975, during the first professional training program offered in the U.S. In 1984, Russell became one of the first people in the world authorized to lead Feldenkrais® Professional training programs. Since that time he has taught in more than 40 of these programs internationally and directed or designed 10. Russell has helped in the training of more than 2500 Feldenkrais teachers. In addition, he maintains a private practice at his home in northern California and teaches public workshops throughout the world.

    Along with his wife Linda, also a Feldenkrais trainer, he created the Feldenkrais-India Project that brought the method to India for the first time. Through work at Mother Teresa's Missions, particularly in Calcutta, the Delmans taught the "Sisters of Charity" to work with brain-injured children. During this time they were blessed and influenced by numerous private meetings with Mother Teresa.

    In addition to all the above, perhaps the strongest influences on Russell's life are his more than 30 years of relationship with Linda and the journey of fathering his daughter, Lily. The formation of The Embodied Life™ School and The Mentorship Program is the fruition of a life-long trajectory.
More information about Russell Delman's work can be found at:
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Location: Occidental, CA, USA

Saturday, September 5, 2015

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #195 - 05SEP15

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:
  • An in-studio conversation with Tim Burkett, Ph.D., author of the recently published volume Nothing Holy About It – The Zen of Being Just Who You Are, and Wanda Isle, editor of Nothing Holy About It. The concise summary of Zen teaching Burkett presents in this book is expressed precisely in terms of what he found right in front of him: beginning with the delightful non-holiness he experienced in the presence of his original teacher, Shunyru Suzuki, and continuing through a lifetime of further teaching experiences.

    Tim Burkett, began practicing in spring 1964 with Shunryu Suzuki Roshi while attending Stanford University. At Suzuki's urging, Tim began a weekly sitting group on the San Francisco peninsula later that year, which Suzuki regularly attended. As this group grew in size, it was moved to the converted garage of a sangha member. Suzuki's talks to that group were later edited and published as Zen Mind Beginner's Mind, which has become a classic text and the gateway for many to enter Zen practice. After completing his BA at Stanford, Tim attended the maiden practice period at San Francisco Zen Center's Tassajara Zen Mountain Center in 1967 with his wife Linda, whom he met at San Francisco Zen Center. In 1970, Tim and Linda moved to Minnesota, where Tim continued his sitting practice. He was an early member of Minnesota Zen Meditation Center (MZMC) and was ordained by Dainin Katagiri Roshi in 1978. Tim was president of MZMC from 1978 to 1983, became a dharma heir of Karen Sunna in the Katagiri lineage in 2000, and succeeded Karen as abbot in 2002. He is also a licensed Ph.D. psychologist and director of an agency that supports people with mental illness. He and Linda have two grown children and two grandchildren.

    Wanda Isle's interest in Eastern thought and practices began in the early 1980's. She started a regular meditation practice at MZMC in 2005 and was ordained in 2009. She received Dharma Transmission in 2015. Wanda was drawn to the quiet, inward-looking nature of Zen. Her focus as a Zen teacher is helping people cultivate the capacity to express themselves completely by seeing through emotional barriers and opening up to the natural compassion and original freedom innate in each of us.

    Besides being the editor of Nothing Holy About It, Wanda is co-author of the upcoming book, Creating Awesome: Radiant Health as a Spiritual Practice, which focuses on mind/body healing. She is also currently editing a second book on the mystical teachings of Tim Burkett.
More information about RTim Burkett and Wanda Isle's work can be found at:
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Location: Occidental, CA, USA

Saturday, August 29, 2015

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #194 - 29AUG15

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:
  • Hour 1: A telephone conversation with Rev. Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, author of The Way of Tenderness: Awakening Through Race, Sexuality, and Gender. She is the guiding teacher of Still Breathing Meditation Community in East Oakland, California, and is a Zen Buddhist priest in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, ordained and invited to teach by Zenkei Blanche Hartman. Zenju combines Zen meditation, intuitive knowing, and indigenous ritual in a path of liberation. She has a keen capacity to apply spiritual teachings to our lived experiences in the context of race, sexuality, and gender and at the same time hold these experiences as gateways to absolute freedom.

    Rev. Zenju Earthlyn Marselean Manuel was born in Los Angeles, California to parents that migrated from Creole Louisiana. With the deep suffering of violence experienced as a child she became a poet at the age of eight. In college she joined a community of Pan-Africanists where there was deep healing for her. This led to the next spiritual gate opening within the African tradition of Yoruba, which was the beginning of her experiencing the vastness of things unseen and the world of divination. Forever grateful for their blessings, her deep experiences of suffering led her to the path of Buddha, without any desire to be Buddhist. After 15 years in the Nichiren tradition/Soka Gakkai, she eventually followed the path of Soto Zen for many years and was ordained as a Zen Buddhist priest in the Suzuki Roshi lineage.

    Her spiritual writing is steeped in ancient memories of her ancestors and therefore explores the deep inner spiritual journey of our human existence. She is the author of a popular Kindle free e-book Be Love: An Exploration Of Our Deepest Desire. In addition to her most recent published book, The Way of Tenderness, she authored Tell Me Something About Buddhism, which includes a foreword written by Thich Nhat Hanh, with poetry and illustrations by her. In addition, she is contributing author to many books, including Together We are One (Parallax), Dharma, Color and Culture: Voices From Western Buddhist Teachers of Color (Parallax) and Hidden Lamp: Stories from 25 Centuries of Awakened Women (Wisdom Publications). She holds Ph.D. in Transformative Learning from the California Institute of Integral Studies.

      
  • Hour 2: Hosts Stuart Goodnick and Robert Schmidt continue to discuss themes raised in the conversation with Rev. Zenju Earthlyn Manuel.
More information about Rev. Zenju Earthlyn Manuel's work can be found at:
  • Rev. Zenju Earthlyn Manuel's website: zenju.org
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Location: Occidental, CA, USA

Saturday, August 22, 2015

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #193 - 22AUG15

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:
  • An in-studio conversation with Rick Whitney, author of AlignIt: A Tale of a New Civilization. This sophisticated utopian novel, set in an imagined context on San Francisco Bay, posits a kind of reformed university that brings together ancient sacred sciences with contemporary, cutting edge sciences. The novel discusses many alternative ideas about economics, society, community, human nature, and the ultimate concern of human life.

    Rick Whitney is a pseudonym adopted for publication of AlignIt. Regarding the adoption of a nom-de-plume, on the AlignIt website Rick writes: “I chose a pseudonym to keep a fire wall between my public role at the university I work for and my private interest in writing and developing the ideas expressed in AlignIt…. At the university, I have a public role as director of an office. It's an externally facing role. People around the world Google me or look me up on LinkedIn prior to calling or meeting. And I have colleagues at the university itself, of course. It seemed prudent to keep the two distinct--my professional life and my writing life… AlignIt is fiction, not a guide for how I run the office, do my work, or meet with guests…. I articulated expansive views in AlignIt, including alternative models of university structure, research and technology transfer. They're experimental, hypothetical, fictional. To me, this is a worthwhile private endeavor. ”
More information about Rick Whitney's work can be found at:
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Location: Occidental, CA, USA

Saturday, August 1, 2015

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #192 - 01AUG15

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:
  • A telephone conversation with Dr. Michael Changaris, a clinical psychologist and a Zen practitioner with a specialty in the biological bases of behavior, stress physiology, and the neuro-anatomy of PTSD. He completed his post-doctoral fellowship with the child, family and adolescent intensive outpatient program with Kaiser Permanente. He continues to deepen his own practice through his work and his relationships with family. He is a member of the Steering Committee of the Conscious Family Festival, which is one of the ways that Rob and I have come to know and appreciate his quick intelligence, his copious energy, and his generosity of spirit.. We’ll be discussing his soon to be published book called Touch: The Neurobiology of Health, Healing, and Human Connection.

  • A review of the 2015 book, The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time by Roberto Mangabeira Unger, Harvard Law School, Massachusetts, and Lee Smolin, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Canada. Cambridge Books writes:

    Cosmology is in crisis. The more we discover, the more puzzling the universe appears to be. How and why are the laws of nature what they are? A philosopher and a physicist, world-renowned for their radical ideas in their fields, argue for a revolution. To keep cosmology scientific, we must replace the old view in which the universe is governed by immutable laws by a new one in which laws evolve. Then we can hope to explain them. The revolution that Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Lee Smolin propose relies on three central ideas. There is only one universe at a time. Time is real: everything in the structure and regularities of nature changes sooner or later. Mathematics, which has trouble with time, is not the oracle of nature and the prophet of science; it is simply a tool with great power and immense limitations. The argument is readily accessible to non-scientists as well as to the physicists and cosmologists whom it challenges.
More information about Mike Changaris' work can be found at:
More information about The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time can be found at:
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Location: Occidental, CA, USA

Saturday, July 18, 2015

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #191 - 18JUL15

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:
  • An in-studio conversation with Trina Marie Vega, a Native American Pomo Indian, a member of the Hopland Band of Pomo Indians in Hopland, California, a mother to 3 grown sons, 1 daughter and a loving grandmother to 17 beautiful grandchildren and 1 precious grandchild on the way! An intuitive reader for most of her life, Trina has offered readings on a professional basis for over 10 years. She is a Reiki master and teacher, earned her doctorate in metaphysical studies, and is an Angel Therapy Practitioner®, certified by Doreen Virtue, and is an ordained minister.
More information about Trina Vega's work can be found at:
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Location: Occidental, CA, USA

Saturday, July 11, 2015

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #190 - 11JUL15

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:
  • An in-studio conversation with Barbara DuBois, formerly a social scientist, psychologist and visual artist, for many years a practitioner and teacher of Tibetan Buddha-Dharma, and to many, a spiritual friend. She is the author of Light Years: A Spiritual Memoir. Now in her seventies, she holds no fixed points of reference, and experiences sweet, wild freedom.
More information about Barbara DuBois' work can be found at:
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Location: Occidental, CA, USA

Saturday, June 27, 2015

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #189 - 27JUN15

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:
  • An in-studio conversation with Peter Russell, a faculty member of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, a fellow of The World Business Academy and The Findhorn Foundation, and an Honorary Member of The Club of Budapest.

    At Cambridge University (UK), he studied mathematics and theoretical physics. Then, as he became increasingly fascinated by the mysteries of the human mind he changed to experimental psychology. Pursuing this interest, he traveled to India to study meditation and eastern philosophy, and on his return took up the first research post ever offered in Britain on the psychology of meditation. He also has a post-graduate degree in computer science, and conducted some of the early work on 3-dimensional displays, presaging by some twenty years the advent of virtual reality.

    In the 1970s, he was one of the first people to introduce human potential seminars into the corporate field, and for twenty years ran programs for senior management on creativity, stress management, personal development, and sustainable development. Clients have included IBM, Apple, Digital, American Express, Barclays Bank, Swedish Telecom, ICI, Shell Oil and British Petroleum. In 1982 he coined the term "global brain" with his 1980s bestseller of the same name in which he predicted the Internet and the impact it would have. His other books include -- The TM Technique, The Upanishads, The Brain Book, The Creative Manager, The Consciousness Revolution, Waking Up in Time, and From Science to God.

    His principal interest is the deeper, spiritual significance of the times we are passing through. His work seeks to distill the essence of the world's spiritual traditions and present it in ways relevant to the current times.
More information about Peter Russell's work can be found at:
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Location: Occidental, CA, USA

Saturday, June 20, 2015

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #188 - 20JUN15

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:
  • An in-studio conversation with Christine Skarda. Born in Appleton, Wisconsin in 1952, Christine Skarda was educated in the United States and Europe. She received her Ph.D. in philosophy in 1982 and subsequently taught internationally. In 1982, Skarda was invited to join the innovative Sloan program at UC Berkeley and MIT that brought together experts from diverse fields to study intelligence; she thus became a pioneer in the movement later known as cognitive science. Skarda's interest in perception led her to investigate its physiological basis. She held post-doctoral positions in a neuroscience lab at UC Berkeley from 1984 to 1992 and a fellowship in Cognitive Science at the École Polytechnique in Paris between 1986 and 1988.

    By the early 1990s, Skarda's own neuroscience research and her analysis of decades of data from the research of others convinced her that the theoretical model of perception prevalent in neuroscience was flawed. Instead of the perceptual system constructing internal representations of a fundamentally separate external world, Skarda presented an alternative model. Reality starts out as an unbroken web, which a perceptual system breaks up. All the data she had analyzed convinced her that our sense of ourselves as subjects completely independent from objects is created by perceptual activity; it is not an actual state of affairs. In fact there are no gaps between the perceiver and the world.

    To gain access to this undifferentiated level and to understand how the perceptual process breaks it up into the world we experience, Skarda then turned to Tibetan Buddhism. This tradition offers systematic methods to explore this foundational state. Since 1992, she has been using these methods to investigate where the model prevalent in neuroscience has gone wrong. To this end, Skarda has spent the last sixteen years in meditation retreat in India and the United States under the guidance of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, His Holiness Chetsang Rinpoche, and Khen Ngawang Jimpa Rinpoche. She now also teaches Buddhism, drawing from her background in Western thought and science to explain even the most subtle and difficult points of Buddhist philosophy by using the language of the modern world.
More information about Christine Skarda's work can be found at:
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Location: Occidental, CA, USA

Saturday, June 6, 2015

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #187 - 06JUN15

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 and on the Mystical Positivist we continue our conversations with a panel of guests who are all presenters at the Conscious Family Festival 2015 event coming up in Santa Rosa on Saturday June 13, 10am—5pm at the Finley Community Center at the corner of College and Stony Point avenues. The diversity of the work that our panelists offer at the Conscious Family Festival bespeaks the amazing array of contributions that the Festival is bringing together.

    In the first hour we’ll speak in person with Myosho Virginia Matthews, Zen Teacher and Mother. Myosho finds her life support in the three pillars of family life, spiritual practice and her work as dancer/choreographer/teacher. Also in the first hour, we’ll be speaking by telephone with Regina Sara Ryan, author, editor, and seminar/retreat leader. A former Catholic nun, Regina has studied contemplation and mysticism throughout her adult life. In the second hour, we will speak by telephone with Theresa C. Dintino, a 20 year practitioner of earth-based spirituality, who was initiated in 2011 as a diviner in a West African tradition, and Jill Nephew, founder and creator of Life Constellation, a software platform for discovering, articulating and sharing life wisdom.

    • Myosho Virgina Matthews finds her life support in the three pillars of family life, spiritual practice and her work as dancer/choreographer/teacher. She has been a student of Rinzai Zen master, Kyozan Joshu Sasaki for 40 years, taking ordination in 2000 and dedicating the last 14 years to co-creating family Zen practices and leading women’s retreats. Concurrently she has had a professional dance career and has taught dance to all ages, from 3 to 73. She is the director of The Downtown Dance/Art Space in Sebastopol where she teaches dance, Pilates mat class and offers meditation through Dharma Heart Center. She is a graduate of The Buddhist Chaplaincy Program and is featured in the book, The Unknown She: Eight Faces of Emerging Consciousness. She is in a committed 43 year marriage and the mother of 3 grown sons.

    • Regina Sara Ryan is an author, an editor, and a seminar and retreat leader. A former Catholic nun, Regina has studied contemplation and mysticism throughout her adult life. After leaving the convent in 1971, she explored other religious traditions and was inspired by the lives of the great women of Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and Sufism who had lived these ways. Since meeting her own spiritual teacher, the Western Baul master Lee Lozowick in 1984, Regina continues to follow what she calls a path of “unashamed devotion” in which she works to bring her life of contemplation into action. Her books include: Wellness Workbook, co-authored with John W. Travis, M.D.; The Woman Awake: Feminine Wisdom for Spiritual Life; and Praying Dangerously: Radical Reliance on God. Regina is the managing editor for Hohm Press/Kalindi Press, and a writing coach for aspiring authors of all ages. She lives in Paulden, Arizona with Jerome Pramuk, her husband of 42 years. While she has no biological children, Regina is a former HeadStart, elementary school, and homeschool teacher dedicated to all children, and brings to the Festival her passion for bringing sacred form into all aspects of our lives.

    • For more than 20 years Theresa C. Dintino has studied and practiced an earth-based spirituality. In 2011, she was initiated as a diviner in a West African tradition. She currently helps others reclaim their personal lineages through her divination work. Theresa is the author of The Strega and the Dreamer, a work of historical fiction based in the true story of her great grandparents, and Ode to Minoa and Stories They Told Me, two novels exploring the life of a snake priestess in Bronze Age Crete. Her latest title, just released, is Welcoming Lilith: Awakening and Welcoming Pure Female Power. For more on Theresa or her work, visit thestregaandthedreamer.com and ritualgoddess.com.

    • Jill Nephew is the founder and creator of Life Constellation, a software platform for discovering, articulating and sharing life wisdom. She is very passionate about hacking social interactions so that every voice is heard, every life imagined into, and everybody spirited - young and old. Her work is deeply informed by the actual wisdom part of wisdom traditions, and highly constrained by the latest research and scientific understanding of human social dynamics and cognitive evolution. She brings to her work a 30 year meditation practice, extensive training in physics and scientific modeling, and a career in developing complex software systems and models to tackle some of the world’s hardest problems.

More information about The Conscious Family Festival can be found at:
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Location: Occidental, CA, USA

Saturday, May 30, 2015

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #186 - 30MAY15

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 and next week we interview a panel of guests who are all presenters at the Conscious Family Festival 2015 event coming up in Santa Rosa on Saturday June 13, 10am—5pm at the Finley Community Center at the corner of College and Stony Point avenues. The diversity of the work that our panelists, both this week and next, will offer at the Conscious Family Festival bespeaks the amazing array of contributions that the Festival is bringing together. In the first hour we’ll speak with Elyse April, author of several books for children and parents, and the director of the Baul Theatre Company. In the second hour, we will speak with Beth Rachel, founder Intuitive Kids, and Dr. Robert Schmidt, spiritual director of Tayu Meditation Center and co-chair of The Conscious Family Festival.

    • Elyse April is a licensed (New York State) early-childhood educator, with a degree in Theatre Arts and an M.A.in Early Childhood Education. A private school elementary teacher for ten years, Elyse has more recently taught theatre classes in a special program for youth-at-risk. She is a freelance publicist working on books for children and parents on family health issues. She is committed to the promotion of breastfeeding as a national priority. She is the author of several books for children and parents, including bi-lingual editions of We Like to Read, We Like to Eat Well, We Like to Move and most recently, Ready to Wean.

      A thirty-year student of Lee Lozowick, author of Conscious Parenting, Elyse is the director of the Baul Theatre Company, which has performed for years at a Renaissance Festival in Arizona, as well as in venues the U.S. and Europe. An actor and screenwriter, Elyse continues a serious study of improvisation with Alan Arkin, and conducts workshops in this field.

    • Beth Rachel writes: “Growing up I was a sensitive child and I experienced a barrage of what many would consider paranormal or psychic phenomenon. I would see my teachers aura and have preemptory moments like the time my dad forgot to turn his headlights on and I saw that we would be pulled over. I saw beings without bodies, I experienced frequent overwhelming emotions that made knots in my belly and regular tingling at my third eye and palms of my hands which was uncomfortable and itchy. My mom would try to help, she introduced me visualization and grounding. As I grew older I chose to study these things on my own. At age 17, I began a more formal education starting with dream work, tarot and stone study. I went on to attend the Berkeley Psychic Institute, deepening my ability for psychic reading. I was then certified as a Bikram yoga instructor and massage therapist, with complimentary elective courses in cranio sacral work, Breema shiatsu, and jin shin Jyutsu. I then went on to expand my education in metaphysics, intuitive anatomy and energy healing with 3 teaching certifications in Theta Healing TM. I have also been licensed to teach Vianna’s Rainbow children course. Since 2006 I have held a private practice consisting of private bodywork and Theta Healing TM sessions as well as teaching workshops in Theta Healing TM. It is a core belief of mine that energy awareness is the healing our world needs. As we become more attuned with ourselves, so do we with each other and nature, making the world a more harmonious place.”

    • Dr. Robert Schmidt, spiritual director of Tayu Meditation Center, met and began intensive, 24-hour study with Tayu Meditation Center founder Robert Daniel Ennis in 1977. After five remarkable training years, he received ordination as a minister of Tayu, and co-taught with his teacher until Mr. Ennis’ death in 1998. His work with Mr. Ennis included co-writing and publishing a book entitled God Is Gay: An Evolutionary Spiritual Work. Rob succeeded Mr. Ennis as Tayu spiritual director, a post he still holds, in collaboration with yours truly. With Stuart Goodnick and Jim Wilson he co-founded Many Rivers Books & Tea in Sebastopol in Sebastopol, CA, in 2002.

      Currently he’s collaborating with practitioners of many spiritual traditions to create the Conscious Family Festival, a community event scheduled for 2015 in Santa Rosa, CA. Along the way, Rob completed a Ph.D. in anthropological archaeology at UC Berkeley, where he was co-editor with his grad student colleague Barbara Voss of the award-winning Archaeologies of Sexuality, the first academic edited volume to examine the phenomenon of sexuality as a object of knowledge in archaeological contexts.
More information about The Conscious Family Festival can be found at:
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Location: Occidental, CA, USA

Saturday, May 23, 2015

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #185 - 23MAY15

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:
  • A telephone conversation with Taigen Dan Leighton, a Soto Zen priest and Dharma successor in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. Taigen first studied Buddhist art and culture in Japan in 1970, and began formal everyday zazen and Soto practice in 1975 at the New York Zen Center with Kando Nakajima Roshi. This led to his returning to graduate in East Asian Studies and study Japanese language at Columbia College. Through the 70s Taigen was also an award-winning documentary film editor in New York and San Francisco, including work for NBC News and Bill Moyers Journal. While editing TV news, it was necessary for Taigen to learn about the one who is not busy. Taigen left his filmmaking career in 1979 to work full time for the San Francisco Zen Center at the Tassajara Bakery, and he was ordained in 1986 by Reb Anderson Roshi.

    Taigen practiced and resided for years at San Francisco Zen Center, Tassajara monastery, and Green Gulch Farm Zen Center. He also practiced for two years in Kyoto, Japan, 1990-92, translating Dogen with Rev. Shohaku Okumura, and practicing with several Japanese Soto Zen teachers, including one monastic practice period. Taigen founded the Mountain Source Sangha meditation groups in Bolinas in 1994, then added branches in San Rafael and San Francisco. He received Dharma Transmission in 2000 from Reb Anderson.

    Taigen is author of Zen Questions: Zazen, Dogen, and the Spirit of Creative Inquiry, Faces of Compassion: Classic Bodhisattva Archetypes and Their Modern Expression, and Visions of Awakening Space and Time: Dogen and the Lotus Sutra. He is co-translator and editor of several Zen texts including: Dogen's Extensive Record; Cultivating the Empty Field: The Silent Illumination of Zen Master Hongzhi; The Wholehearted Way: A Translation of Dogen's "Bendowa" with Commentary; and Dogen's Pure Standards for the Zen Community: A Translation of "Eihei Shingi". He has also contributed articles to many other books and journals. His latest title is Just This Is It: Dongshan and the Practice of Suchness.

    Taigen teaches online at the Berkeley Graduate Theological Union, from which he has a Ph.D., and he has taught at Saint Mary's College, the California Institute of Integral Studies, University of San Francisco, University of Creation Spirituality, and in Chicago at Meadville Lombard Theological Seminary and most recently for four years at Loyola University Chicago. Taigen was an elected member of the Board of San Francisco Zen Center, which he chaired for three years. He has been active in many interfaith dialogue programs, including conducting Buddhist-Christian dialogue workshops, and he also has studied Native American spiritual practice. Taigen has long been active in various Engaged Buddhist programs for social justice, including work against the Death Penalty and sustained Peace and Environmental activism.

    At the beginning of 2007 Taigen relocated to Chicago, and now is Guiding Dharma Teacher for Ancient Dragon Zen Gate. He lives with his wife in the north side of Chicago, and enjoys the lively cosmopolitan qualities of Chicago. Through his sangha, Taigen works to develop accessible practice and training programs in the Chicago area.
More information about Taigen Dan Leighton's work can be found at:
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Location: Occidental, CA, USA

Saturday, May 2, 2015

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #184 - 02MAY15

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:
  • An in-studio conversation with Andy Ferguson, author of Zen’s Chinese Heritage: The Masters and their Teachings, a book in which he translated the teachings of more than 150 ancient Chinese Zen masters. The book is widely used as a reference book in academic and religious culture circles. Andy Ferguson graduated Phi Beta Kappa in Chinese studies from the University of Oregon in 1973. The same year he moved to Kyoto, and subsequently to Taipei, where he studied Japanese and Chinese respectively. He first entered and traveled in mainland China in 1978, before the economic reforms, and subsequently lived in Singapore and Hong Kong where he worked as the Manager for East Asia for a US company. At that time he began locating and studying a wide variety of Chinese historic cultural sites, especially temples related to the Chinese Chan tradition. 
    He has also produced a two hour video DVD about Chinese history and culture. He lectures frequently on Chinese culture to community groups in North America and is one of a few Americans who gives lectures in China to groups on topics of historical interest. With his long-time friend, author and translator Red Pine, Andy has photographed sites for virtually all the early Zen masters of the Chinese Chan tradition, from Bodhidharma down through many generations of teachers. He was the first American to attend the annual ceremony honoring Bodhidharma at his burial temple, Empty Form, in North China. His recent book,     Tracking Bodhidharma: A Journey to the Heart of Chinese Culture, traces the life and influence of Bodhidharma, the First Patriarch of Chinese Zen.

    Currently Andy is working on climate change issues, especially issues related to Sonoma Clean Power. He advocates for new heat pump technologies that could transform the energy scene in the West County area, making people’s lives more comfortable while moving off fossil fuels entirely.
More information about Andy Ferguson's work can be found at:
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