Saturday, December 31, 2016

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #246 - 31DEC16

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 Wendy Garling and Ayya Tathaaloka.

    Wendy Garling is the author of the recently published book Stars at Dawn: Forgotten Stories of Women in the Buddhas’s Life, a retelling of the ancient legends of the women in the Buddha’s intimate circle. In Garling’s book, lesser-known stories from Sanskrit and Pali sources are for the first time woven into an illuminating, coherent narrative. The narrative is interspersed with original insights, fresh interpretations, and bold challenges to the status quo.

    Ayya Tathaaloka Bhikkhuni is an American-born Theravada nun, scholar and Buddhist teacher. She is the first Western woman to be designated as Theravadan Bhikkhuni Preceptor (Pavattini/Upajjhaya), and she has contributed to the going forth and full ordination of women as bhikkhunis in the USA, Australia, India and Thailand. Ven Tathaaloka currently serves as the founding abbess of both the Dhammadharini Monastery in Penngrove and the Aranya Bodhi Hermitage on the Sonoma Coast in Northern California. She also teaches where invited around the greater San Francisco Bay Area, in other states, and internationally.
More information about Wendy Garling's work can be found at:
More information about Ayya Tathaaloka's work can be found at:
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Location: Sebastopol, CA 95472, USA

Saturday, December 17, 2016

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #245 - 17DEC16

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 our guest in the studio is Myosho Virginia Matthews. 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 16 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 45 year marriage and the mother of 3 grown sons.
More information about Myosho Virginia Mathews's work can be found at:
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Location: Sebastopol, CA 95472, USA

Saturday, December 10, 2016

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #244 - 10DEC16

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 our guest in the studio is Robert Meikyo Rosenbaum, co-editor of the book recently published by Wisdom Press entitled What’s Wrong with Mindfulness (And What Isn’t). Robert Rosenbaum, Ph.D., is a clinical neuropsychologist and psychotherapist in the San Francisco Bay area, a Zen practice leader and senior teacher of Dayan Qigong, and a mountaineer. He brings a lifetime of practice to the moment-by-moment harmonization of body, mind, and spirit.

    Bob began Zen practice in 1971; since 1988 he has practiced at the Berkeley Zen Center in the Soto Zen lineage of Shunryu Suzuki. Bob's dharma name is Meiko Onzen ("Clear Mirror, Calm Sitting"). He was given lay entrustment by his teacher, Sojun Mel Weitsman, in 2010 and has since been active in the Lay Zen Teachers' Association of North America. He is the founding teacher of the Meadowmount Sangha in the Sierra foothills.

    Bob received authorization to teach Dayan ("Wild Goose") Qigong in 1999 from Master Hui Liu of the Wen Wu School in the tradition of Grandmaster Yang Mei Jun. Bob regularly teaches qigong at the Wen Wu school and the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Ten years ago he began the first qigong program to Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Oakland; since then it has spread to many other medical centers.

    In order to devote himself full time to Zen and Qigong practice, Bob recently retired from 25 years in Kaiser Permanente Medical Centers, working in the Departments of Psychiatry, Behavioral Medicine, and Neurology. While there he served as chief psychologist and as the head of assessment services, and developed a mindfulness-based program for patients with chronic pain. Bob initiated training programs in neuropsychology, hypnosis, and brief psychotherapy and held grants researching dementia and adult attention deficit disorder.

    Bob is the author of numerous journal articles and the books Zen and the Heart of Psychotherapy and Walking the Way: 81 Zen Encounters with the Tao Te Ching.

    Bob has been a Fulbright Professor at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuroscience in Bangalore, India; director of the psychology doctoral program at the California Institute of Integral Studies; and was active in the Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration. He has given presentations and workshops around the world, including in Nepal, India, Australia, Japan, Europe and South America.

    Bob has been a lifelong avid backpacker in the Sierras and Cascades. Since 2000, he has spent one or two months each year in the Himalayas. He assisted his friend, Robin Boustead, in the development of portions of the Great Himalaya Trail across Nepal and India. Bob is the proud father of two grown daughters who are enthusiastic climbers, lovers of the outdoors, and committed to social justice.
More information about Robert Meikyo Rosenbaum's work can be found at:
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Location: Sebastopol, CA 95472, USA

Saturday, November 26, 2016

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #243 - 26NOV16

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 Stephen Batchelor, a contemporary Buddhist teacher and writer, best known for his secular or agnostic approach to Buddhism. Stephen considers Buddhism to be a constantly evolving culture of awakening rather than a religious system based on immutable dogmas and beliefs. In particular, he regards the doctrines of karma and rebirth to be features of ancient Indian civilization and not intrinsic to what the Buddha taught. Buddhism has survived for the past 2,500 years because of its capacity to reinvent itself in accord with the needs of the different Asian societies with which it has creatively interacted throughout its history. As Buddhism encounters modernity, it enters a vital new phase of its development. Through his writings, translations and teaching, Stephen engages in a critical exploration of Buddhism's role in the modern world, which has earned him both condemnation as a heretic and praise as a reformer.

    Stephen was born in Dundee, Scotland, in 1953. He grew up in a humanist environment with his mother Phyllis and brother David in Watford, north west of London. At the age of eighteen, he travelled overland to India, settling in Dharamsala, the capital-in-exile of the Dalai Lama, and studied at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives with Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey. He was ordained as a novice Buddhist monk in 1974. He left India in 1975 in order to study Buddhist philosophy and doctrine under the guidance of Geshe Rabten in Switzerland, and in the following year he received full ordination as a Buddhist monk. In 1979 he moved to Germany as a translator for Geshe Thubten Ngawang at the Tibetisches Institut, Hamburg. In April 1981 he travelled to Song-gwang-sa Monastery in South Korea to train in Zen Buddhism under the guidance of Kusan Sunim. He remained in Korea until the autumn of 1984, when he left for a pilgrimage to Japan, China and Tibet.

    He disrobed in February 1985 and married Martine Fages in Hong Kong before returning to England. From 1990 he has been a Guiding Teacher at Gaia House meditation centre in Devon and since 1992 a contributing editor of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. In August 2000, he and Martine moved to Aquitaine, France, where they live in a small village near Bordeaux with their cat Zoë. While at home he pursues his work as a scholar, writer and artist. For several months each year, he travels worldwide to lead meditation retreats and teach Buddhism. He is the translator and author of various books and articles on Buddhism including the bestselling Buddhism Without Beliefs and Living with the Devil: A Meditation on Good and Evil. His most recent books are Confession of a Buddhist Atheist and After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a Secular Age.
More information about Stephen Batchelor's can be found at:
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Location: Sebastopol, CA 95472, USA

Saturday, November 19, 2016

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #242 - 19NOV16

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 on the show an in-studio conversation with author Theresa C. Dintino, an ancestral Strega (Italian wise woman), Earth worker, and initiated diviner. For more than 20 years Theresa 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 Tree Medicine Trilogy which includes: The Amazon Pattern: A Message from Ancient Women Diviners of Trees and Time, Notes From a Diviner in the Postmodern World: A Handbook for Spirit Workers, and Teachings from the Trees: Spiritual Mentoring from the Standing Ones. Theresa is also the author of The Strega and the Dreamer, a work of historical fiction based in the true story of her great grandparents, Ode to Minoa and Stories They Told Me, two novels exploring the life of a snake priestess in Bronze Age Crete, and Welcoming Lilith: Awakening and Welcoming Pure Female Power.
More information about Theresa Dintino's can be found at:
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Location: Sebastopol, CA 95472, USA

Saturday, November 12, 2016

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #241 - 12NOV16

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:
  • With regular host, Stuart Goodnick, the Mystical Positivist, out of town once again this week, co-host Rob Schmidt flies solo on today’s show. He writes:
  • With Stuart’s absence, and as responses to the 2016 US national election emerge all around the world, on this week’s show I have decided that continuation of last week’s focus on “something different” is in order for this installment of the show. As I said last week, the conversation about who’s up and who’s down in our social hierarchies and distribution of power distracts us from contemplation of those questions that will always remain larger than the ups and downs of wins and losses. I don’t at all mean to suggest that the political questions at stake in the aftermath of the election are trivial; far from it. What I want to create in this installment of the show is a reminder that there are contexts even bigger than politics, bigger than the zero-sum game of human social hierarchies, the game where I believe that if I win, you must lose, and vice versa. So instead of our usual fare of conversation, this week the Mystical Positivist offers an eclectic mix of music, interspersed with readings of short quotes and longer passages from books, literature, and sacred texts that I appreciate. I’ve brought along a big bag of books, and a bag of cds, and don’t know what I’ll play and what I’ll read. We’ll let ourselves discover all that together in each moment during the next two hours. For now, I invite listeners to relax in whatever way seems appropriate, and let a more contemplative, generous space open among us.
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.

More information about Tayu Meditation Center can be found at:
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Location: Sebastopol, CA 95472, USA

Saturday, November 5, 2016

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #240 - 05NOV16

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:
  • With regular host, Stuart Goodnick, the Mystical Positivist, out of town this week, co-host Rob Schmidt flies solo on today’s show. He writes: 
  • With Stuart’s absence, and as the paroxysm of the 2016 US national election draws to its close this coming Tuesday, I have decided that something different is in order for this installment of the show. The national conversation about who’s up and who’s down distracts us from contemplation of those questions that will always remain larger than political wins and losses. I don’t at all mean to suggest that the political questions at stake in this election are trivial; far from it. In fact I am persuaded that the great dis-ease of politics we are currently experiencing, in both the US and abroad, offers both profound dangers as well as enormous possibilities for the future. Yet I also want to create in this installment of the show a format that can be helpful to remind us that there are contexts even bigger than politics. So instead of our usual fare of conversation, this week the Mystical Positivist offers an eclectic mix of music, interspersed with inspirational short quotes and longer passages from some of my favorite spiritual/religious literature. I’ve brought along a big bag of books, and a bag of cds, and I am not even sure, at the moment, what I’ll play and what I’ll read. We’ll let ourselves discover all that together in each moment during the next two hours. For now, I invite listeners to relax in whatever way seems appropriate, and let a more contemplative, generous space open among us.
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.

More information about Tayu Meditation Center can be found at:
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Location: Sebastopol, CA 95472, USA

Saturday, October 29, 2016

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #239 - 29OCT16

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 and Kagyu lineages 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 respected interpreter and translator of Buddhist texts.

    After Kalu Rinpoche’s passing in 1989, McLeod established Unfettered Mind in Los Angeles as a place for those whose path lies outside established institutions. In the early ’90 his private practice model of one-on-one consultations on Buddhist practice roiled the Buddhist world, only to become an accepted model for Buddhist teaching in the West. McLeod has always been concerned with translation, including the translation of texts, of rituals, of practices and of teaching methods. Currently his interest is in presenting traditional Buddhist teachers to bring out their mystical basis and orientation. His books include The Great Path of Awakening (1987), Wake Up to Your Life (2001), An Arrow to the Heart (2007), Reflections on Silver River (2014) and most recently A Trackless Path (2016).
More information about Ken McLeod's work and interests can be found at:
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Location: Sebastopol, CA 95472, USA

Saturday, October 22, 2016

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #238 - 22OCT16

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 Alexandra Pfohlmann. Alexandra Pfohlmann has over twenty-five years experience in the study and practice of Buddhist philosophy and meditation. For the last fifteen years she has lectured at the Buddhistiche Academie Berlin-Brandenburg and for the last three years she has also served as a meditation teacher at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig. Now, through workshops and lectures, she offers a range of guidance and perspective for people engaged in spiritual practice. In doing so, she takes a highly individual approach. She writes: "For a long time, I felt that Buddhist practice, and more generally spiritual practice, had to take place within the spheres defined by the great spiritual traditions. While I have a deep respect for these approaches, the circumstances of my life have shown me that at a certain point, one has to embark on one's own path, and it is that transition that interests me in my work with people today."
More information about Alexandra Pfohlmann's work can be found at:
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Location: Sebastopol, CA 95472, USA

Saturday, October 15, 2016

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #237 - 15OCT16

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 on the show we converse in the studio with Kalia Chan, author of the recently published novel A Treasure of the Heart: A Journey of Satsang, Awakening, and Evolution. In 2003, after sitting with Adyashanti for a couple of years, Kalia Chan experienced a “recognition”. He continued to sit with Adyashanti for another five years. In 2009, the skillful means of Vajrayana awoke an ongoing process of energy and penetrating awareness. A few years ago, another “recognition”, this one brilliant luminosity, occurred in the presence of Ammachi, the “hugging saint.” Kalia currently lives near Sebastopol, California with his cat, Lion.
More information about Kalia Chan's work can be found at:
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Location: Sebastopol, CA 95472, USA

Saturday, October 1, 2016

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #236 - 01OCT16

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 on the Mystical Positivist, hosts Rob Schmidt and Stuart Goodnick speak about the upcoming Conscious Family Festival happening on Saturday Oct. 8 in Santa Rosa, California. In the second hour, riffing on some of the themes emerging from the first hour, they discuss personal, institutional, and spiritual authority. How do spiritual practitioners identify their own impulses toward bullying others, and toward being complicit in others bullying them?

    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 95472, USA

Saturday, September 10, 2016

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #235 - 10SEP16

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 Christopher Hareesh Wallis, author of Tantra Illuminated. Christopher Wallis, also known as Hareesh, was introduced to Indian spirituality at the age of seven and initiated into the practice of yogic meditation at sixteen. His degrees include a B.A. in Religion and Classics from the University of Rochester, an M.A. in Sanskrit from U.C. Berkeley, an M.Phil. in Classical Indian Religions from Oxford, and a Ph.D. on the traditions of Saiva Tantra from Berkeley. He received traditional education at yoga ashrams in upstate New York and India in meditation, kirtan, mantra-science, asana, karma-yoga, and more. He currently teaches meditation, yoga darsana (philosophy), Tantrik philosophy, Sanskrit, mantra-science, and offers spiritual counseling. 
    Hareesh is the Founder and Head Faculty of the Mattamayura Institute. His teachers, mentors, and gurus, in chronological order, include: Gurumayi Chidvilasananda (diksha-guru and mula-guru), Paul Muller-Ortega (Shaiva Tantra and Classical Yoga); Alexis Sanderson (Shaiva and Shakta Tantra and Sanskrit); Marshall Rosenberg (Nonviolent Communication); Somadeva Vasudeva (Shaiva Tantra), Dharmabodhi Sarasvati (Tantrik Yoga); and Adyashanti (Meditation). Hareesh is the author of     Tantra Illuminated: The Philosophy, History, and Practice of a Timeless Tradition. This conversation was recorded at Tayu Meditation Center in Sebastopol, CA.
More information about Hareesh's work can be found at:
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Location: Sebastopol, CA 95472, USA

Saturday, September 3, 2016

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #234 - 03SEP16

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 Andrew Harvey, Founder Director of the Institute of Sacred Activism, an international organization focused on inviting concerned people to take up the challenge of our contemporary global crises by becoming inspired, effective, and practical agents of institutional and systemic change, in order to create peace and sustainability. Andrew was born in south India in 1952, where he lived until he was nine years old. It is this early period that he credits with shaping his sense of the inner unity of all religions and providing him with a permanent and inspiring vision of a world infused with the sacred. He left India to attend private school in England and entered Oxford University in 1970 with a scholarship to study history. By 1977, Harvey had become disillusioned with life at Oxford and returned to his native India, where a series of mystical experiences initiated his spiritual journey. Over the next thirty years he plunged into different mystical traditions to learn their secrets and practices. In 1978 he met a succession of Indian saints and sages and began his long study and practice of Hinduism. In 1983, in Ladakh, he met the great Tibetan adept, Thuksey Rinpoche, and undertook with him the Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva vows. Andrew’s book about that experience, Journey in Ladakh, won the Christmas Humphries Award.

    In 1984, Andrew Harvey began a life-long exploration and explication of Rumi and Sufi mysticism in Paris with a group of French Sufis and under the guidance of Eva De Vitray-Meyerovitch, the magnificent translator of Rumi into French. Andrew has written three books on that subject: The Way of Passion, The Celebration of Rumi, and Perfume of the Desert, an anthology of Sufi mysticism. In 1990, he collaborated with Sogyal Rinpoche and Patrick Gaffney in the writing of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. In 1992, he met Father Bede Griffiths in his ashram in south India near where Andrew had been born. It was this meeting that helped him synthesize the whole of his mystical explorations and reconcile eastern with western mysticism.

    Andrew has since lived in London, Paris, New York, and San Francisco, and has continued to study a variety of religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity. He has written and edited over 30 books. Among Harvey’s other well-known titles are: Dialogues with a Modern Mystic, Hidden Journey, The Essential Mystics, Son of Man, The Return of the Mother, The Direct Path, and The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism.
  • Hour 2: Hosts Stuart Goodnick and Robert Schmidt review themes of the conversation in Hour 1 with Andrew Harvey with a particular focus on the nature of Sacred Activism and the Student/Teacher relationship in spiritual practice and development.
More information about Andrew Harvey's work can be found at:
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Location: Sebastopol, CA 95472, USA

Saturday, August 27, 2016

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #233 - 27AUG16

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:
More information about Jill Nephew's work can be found at:
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Location: Sebastopol, CA 95472, USA

Saturday, August 20, 2016

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #232 - 20AUG16

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 with Siddhartha V. Shah. Siddhartha Shah received his BA in art history from The Johns Hopkins University (2000) and his MA in East-West Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies (2003) with an emphasis on Hindu philosophy from a Jungian perspective. He has been an art dealer for 15 years, specializing exclusively in Hindu and Buddhist art of the Kathmandu Valley since 2005, and has written for numerous publications including Art Asia Pacific Magazine, Marg, Namarupa, and Orientations. Siddhartha is currently a Ph.D student at Columbia University. His academic interests include theories and uses of Indian ornament in Britain and British India, Tantric cults of the Divine Feminine, and late 19th century French and British painting. Siddhartha is also a yoga instructor and serves on the Editorial Board of Illumine, a Chicago-based publication focused on yoga, wellness and psycho-spiritual development. He is a recipient of the Steven Kossak Graduate Fellowship in South Asian/Indian Art (2014 & 2016), the Dr. Lee MacCormick Edwards Doctoral Summer Fellowship (2015), a Foreign Language Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship (2015), and an Honorary Mention for the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching by Graduate Students (2016). This conversation was pre-recorded at Tayu Meditation Center in Sebastopol, CA.
More information about Siddhartha Shah's work can be found at:
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Location: Sebastopol, CA 95472, USA

Saturday, August 13, 2016

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #231 - 13AUG16

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 author, entertainer, and two-time former guest on the show, Rick Lewis, in which Rick turns the tables and interviews hosts Rob Schmidt and Stuart Goodnick about aspects of their Tayu spiritual practice, including the admonition Follow Your Dread. 

    Rick Lewis is an author, speaker and entertainer who has taken the title “professional misbehaver” to describe what he sees as his role in the world - reminding others that we are born to break our own rules and the unconscious limits of our culture. Rick is a father of 3, the husband of 1, and an over-fastidious control-freak who meditates regularly so he can appear to be a normal person when not on stage. Rick travels extensively presenting to corporate and non-profit organizations on the subject of professional and personal growth. He is the founder of Break a Rule Presentations and Trainings, www.FreedomHabits.com, and is always working on finishing his next book.
More information about Rick Lewis' work and interests can be found at:
More information about Tayu Meditation Center can be found at:
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Location: Sebastopol, CA 95472, USA

Saturday, August 6, 2016

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #230 - 06AUG16

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 on the Mystical Positivist, hosts Rob Schmidt and Stuart Goodnick discuss the topic of Hope as inspired from a variety of sources including the Gurdjieff Work, the Prayer of St. Francis, and the writing of Andrew Harvey. Originally we were scheduled to be in conversation with Andrew Harvey himself today, but he had to reschedule until September 3rd due to a family situation in India.

    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 95472, USA

Saturday, July 16, 2016

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #229 - 16JUL16

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 Alan Francis, author of the book Secrets of the Fourth Way. In his preface to the book, Francis writes: “For many years now, I have sought out and spoken to people who actually knew Gurdjieff, and others whom I respect for their dedication to the Work. Of course I asked them questions that were important to me personally, but I also tried to find out what in the Work was most vital for them. What was, in their opinion, the most important idea, method, form, direction, meaning, and how did they weight them? Finally, what was the sense and aim of this Work? Why does it, and why should it, continue to exist? What is, as Michel de Salzmann asked, the specificity of the Work? What does the Work touch and develop that the many other teachings do not? This inquiry inevitably led to trying to understand this particular phase of our Work and what is required of you and me if the Work is to evolve, that is, to continue. This moment is connected with the whole life of the Work, yet it cannot all be lumped together. It is like building a house or raising a child; each phase must be attended to and respected."

    Alan Francis began Fourth Way work with Jim and Norma Flynn in 1969 at the Los Angeles Gurdjieff Foundation. In 1999 he founded the Oregon Gurdjieff Foundation with Norma Flynn, with the approval of Michel de Salzmann. Commensurate with his work with the Foundation, Alan was the founding director of Turnaround, a skid row social services center that specialized in the treatment and rehabilitation of alcoholics and drug addicts. In 2006, Alan founded the Russian Center for Gurdjieff Studies and now leads groups in Moscow.
More information about Alan Francis' work can be found at:
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Saturday, July 9, 2016

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #228 - 09JUL16

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 John Francis, author of the 1998 book The Mystic Way of Radiant Love: Alchemy for a New Creation. John Francis, has been meditating and practicing hatha yoga consistently for the past forty years. He has had many influential teachers, both Eastern and Western, during that time. John’s spiritual journey began with a near-death experience in 1975. Since then he has been decoding the Bible’s hidden teachings through heart-centered meditation and esoteric numerology. In 1978 he cofounded the Spiritual Healing Center in San Jose, California. At the Chicago “Parliament of the World’s Religions” in 1993 he gave a talk entitled: “The Biblical Symbols of the Soul.” His book, The Mystic Way of Radiant Love, postulates that the Bible conveys contemplative-practice teachings using metaphors, numbers, allegories and parables. He has given many talks on the radio, at expositions and in bookstores on the subject of contemplative practices. He has also been active in Buddhist-Christian dialogues in the San Francisco Bay Area.

    Several years ago John retired from his thirty-year position as a college mathematics professor. His specialty was experimental design and statistical analysis. He did come out of retirement from mainstream-academic education to teach a semester-long course in sacred geometry at Ananda College. He has also written several e-books on contemplative practice, which will soon be published.
John Francis can be contacted at:
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Location: Sebastopol, CA 95472, USA

Saturday, June 25, 2016

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #227 - 25JUN16

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 Solala Towler, author of a book recently published by Sounds True called Practicing the Tao Te Ching: 81 Steps on the Way. Solala Towler has taught and practiced Taoist meditation and qigong for more than 25 years. In addition to Practicing the Tao Te Ching, he is author of Tales from the Tao, Tao Paths to Love, and more. Solala is the editor of The Empty Vessel, a widely respected journal of Taoist philosophy and practice. He teaches qigong and sound healing at conferences and workshops around the country.
More information about Solala Towler's work can be found at:
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Location: Sebastopol, CA 95472, USA

Saturday, June 18, 2016

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #226 - 18JUN16

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 Aaron Krumins and Thad Malik. After visiting India in 2004, Aaron Krumins decided to stay and continue his pilgrimage which has been a story of words and paintings. Traveling from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin, he has been painting his experiences and his stories of India. Aaron settled for seven years to practice his art form in the pilgrimage town of Tiruvannamalai in Tamil Nadu, home to mystics such as Ramana Maharishi, Yogi Ramsuratkumar, Seshadri Swami, and many others. Aaron presently splits his time between Austin Texas and Tamil Nadu.

    Thad Malik is an inspired yogi and poet. He has practiced and taught yoga in the suburbs of Detroit and remote Himalayan Hideaways. He is a former yoga studio owner and a current nomadic yogi gypsy. Wherever Thad’s adventures or heartfelt yoga classes lead (which is many places) they invariably come again to the juiciest of moments: Now!
More information about Aaron Krumins and Thad Malik's work can be found at:
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Location: Sebastopol, CA 95472, USA

Saturday, June 4, 2016

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #225 - 04JUN16

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 Daniel Terragno Roshi, and Christine Skarda. Daniel Terragno, a native of Chile, is a teacher in the koan tradition of the Diamond Sangha, which was founded by Robert Aitken Roshi. Daniel is the dharma heir of John Tarrant Roshi of the Pacific Zen Institute. Daniel started his spiritual practice in 1967 studying the Gurdjieff Work with W.A. Nyland before taking up Zen. Daniel received authorization to teach Zen in 1995, and in 2001 received dharma transmission from Tarrant Roshi. Daniel also teaches and leads sesshin in Ohio with Yellow Springs Dharma Center and Zen on High in Columbus, Ohio; with Grupo Zen Viento del Sur (Southern Wind) in Argentina, based in Buenos Aires, and also in Santiago, Chile.

    Christine Skarda is an ordained Tibetan Buddhist nun, a philosopher and scientific theorist whose professional career has spanned the fields of philosophy, neurophysiology, and cognitive science. She has both drawn on and contributed to the insights of these fields in her quest to understand the nature of perception. This quest eventually propelled her out of the research laboratory and onto a meditation cushion, where Skarda turned to methods of inquiry drawn from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition to study the perceptual process from another angle. An ordained nun, Skarda has by now spent over a decade and a half in meditation retreat in the United States and India under the guidance of some of the greatest living members of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition including His Holiness the Dalai Lama and His Holiness Chetsang Rinpoche. She returned to America in 2007 and continues her retreat in California. Occasionally she leaves retreat to lecture or teach to a diverse audience, offering her scientific background to Buddhists and her Buddhist insights to scientists and philosophers.

More information about Daniel Terragno and Christine Skarda's work can be found at:
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Location: Sebastopol, CA 95472, USA

Saturday, May 28, 2016

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #224 - 28MAY16

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 pre-recorded conversation with Brother John Martin Sahajananda, a member and present superior of Shantivanam ashram community in Tamil Nadu, India. This ashram was founded by two French priests Jules Monchanin and Henri Le Saux in 1950. Fr. Bede Griffiths, a Benedictine monk and well-known author, took the leadership of the ashram in 1968. Brother Martin has been very much inspired by the vision of Shantivanam. He was one of the close disciples of Bede Griffiths. His passion is inter-religious dialogue, particularly Hindu-Christian dialogue. He is invited to Europe every year to lead seminars and retreats on the vision of Christianity for our times and on inter-religious harmony. He has written several books, including: You Are the Light – Rediscovering the Eastern Jesus; Truth Has No Boundaries; Fully Human Fully Divine; New Annunciation - A Universal Call to be Virgin Mothers of God; The Ganges and the Jordan Meet: Reincarnation and Resurrection.
More information about Brother John Martin Sahajananda's work can be found at:
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Location: Sebastopol, CA 95472, USA

Saturday, May 21, 2016

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #223 - 21MAY16

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:
  • Our guests in the studio today are Kelsang Chogyop and Kelsang Labsum, both of the Mahakaruna Kadampa Buddhist Center in Penngrove CA. Kelsang Chogyop is a modern Buddhist nun and 13 year practitioner in the New Kadampa Mahayana Buddhist tradition. She is the resident teacher at the Penngrove Mahakaruna Kadampa Buddhist Center. Kelsang Labsum is the Administrative Director of the Penngrove center and has been studying under the guidance of Ven. Geshe Kelsang Gyatso since 2007. He has been ordained since 2012. He demonstrates how a modern Kadampa monk integrates Buddhist wisdom into one's daily life. The main emphasis of New Kadampa Buddhism is to maintain the purity of Buddha's teachings and to make these teachings very practical, accessible, and relevant in the modern world. The New Kadampa Tradition was founded by Ven. Geshe Kelsang Gyatso in 1991. Geshe Kelsang has written 22 books and in each of them he strives to make Buddha's very profound teachings practical and tangible so that anyone, Buddhist to not, can benefit from them, whether by simply learning how to meditate or by studying very closely in a teacher-guided study program.
More information about Kelsang Chogyop and Labsum's work can be found at:
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Location: Sebastopol, CA 95472, USA

Saturday, May 14, 2016

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #222 - 14MAY16

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 on the Mystical Positivist, hosts Rob Schmidt and Stuart Goodnick speak in the studio with one another on spiritual news and other topics relevant to the show that have been on our minds in recent weeks. Some of the books and topics discussed include:
    • An obituary for Zenkei Blanche Hartman Roshi
    • Whether spiritual growth requires a teacher or if no teacher is necessary
    • The topic of “spiritual children” and what that term might mean
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 95472, USA

Saturday, May 7, 2016

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #221 - 07MAY16

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 Mystical Positivist co-host, Rob Schmidt, is joined in the studio by Albert Flynn DeSilver, author of the forthcoming book called Writing as a Path to Awakening, as well as the autobiographical Beamish Boy. Albert Flynn DeSilver is an author, poet, artist, teacher, speaker, and publisher, born 1968 in Norwalk, Connecticut. In addition to the book titles already mentioned, he is the author of several books of poetry including Letters to Early Street, and Walking Tooth & Cloud. His writing has appeared in more than one hundred literary journals worldwide. He taught for many years as a California Poet in the Schools, and at numerous venues nationwide; from Creedmore Psychiatric Institution, in New York, and San Quentin State Prison, in California, to the British Institute in Paris—from an Alzheimer’s Clinic in Marin County, to The University of California—Davis. He has also taught for many years in the Teen and Family Program at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. In 2008 he was named the very first Poet Laureate of Marin County, California. He is currently the Director of Visiting Angels, a Senior Homecare agency franchise in Santa Rosa, California.
More information about Albert Flynn DeSilver's work can be found at:
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Location: Sebastopol, CA 95472, USA

Saturday, April 30, 2016

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #220 - 30APR16

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 on the Mystical Positivist, hosts Rob Schmidt and Stuart Goodnick speak in the studio with one another about perspectives regarding spiritual practice that have arisen for us recently in meditation, in readings, and in conversation. Some of the books and topics discussed include:
    • After Buddhism: rethinking the dharma for a secular age, by Stephen Batchelor
    • An Arrow to the Heart: A Commentary on the Heart Sutra by Ken McLeod
    • The Spiritual Child: The New Science on Parenting for Health and Lifelong Thriving by Lisa Miller, Ph.D.
    • Julian’s Gospel: Illuminating the Life & Revelations of Julian of Norwich by Veronica Mary Wolf
    • Daughter of Fire, by Irina Tweedie
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 95472, USA
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