The Mystical Positivist: The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #195

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:

Minnesota Zen Meditation Center website: mnzencenter.org

No comments:

Post a Comment

"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:

April 20: A pre-recorded conversation with Ken McLeod, Buddhist teacher and author of the newly released book, The Magic of Vajrayana. In this conversation, we plan to explore a compelling quote from Ian McGilchrist's The Matter with Things: If you had set out to destroy the happiness and stability of a people, it would have been hard to improve on our current formula: remove yourself as far as possible from the natural world; repudiate the continuity of your culture; believe you are wise enough to do whatever you happen to want and not only get away with it, but have a right to it—and a right to silence those who disagree; minimise the role played by a common body of belief; actively attack and dismantle every social structure as a potential source of oppression; reject the idea of a transcendent set of values.

One of the more innovative Buddhist teachers today, Ken McLeod is known for his clear explanations, poetic translations, and pragmatic approach to practice. He is one of the first generation of Western teachers in the Tibetan tradition and one of the few to be authorized to transmit the full scope of these teachings to students. In particular, his approach resonates strongly with those whose path lies outside established institutions.

After graduating with a degree in mathematics, Ken cycled across Europe to Istanbul and then continued his journey overland to India. In 1970 he met his principal teacher Kalu Rinpoche at his monastery near Darjeeling. There Ken began a study and practice in Tibetan Buddhism that lasted more than twenty years. He completed the traditional three-year retreat program two times, translated for many teachers, and helped set up Buddhist centers in Canada and the United States. After his teacher's passing, Ken moved away from the hierarchical structures of Asian Buddhism to explore new approaches.

In 1990, he founded Unfettered Mind in Los Angeles. His approach of one-on-one consultations roiled the Buddhist world in the early '90s, but was quickly recognized as a viable way to teach and guide students in the West. He made individual interviews a central feature of the many retreats he taught in California, New Mexico, and British Columbia. Through numerous small groups in Southern California, he developed the materials that became the encyclopedic meditation manual, Wake Up to Your Life.

Now retired from formal teaching, he lives in Northern California where he hikes and writes. His writings and translations include The Great Path of Awakening (1987), Wake Up to Your Life (2001), An Arrow to the Heart (2007), Reflections on Silver River (2014), A Trackless Path (2017), and The Magic of Vajrayana (2022), as well as a corpus of articles and translations in Tricycle and other Buddhist magazines.