The Mystical Positivist: October 2018

Saturday, October 27, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #307 - 27OCT18

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

This week's podcast features:

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

After the talk, Mystical Positivist, Stuart Goodnick, concludes with some reflections on the themes raised in the talk and a discussion of a spiritual perspective on the question of Free Will.

More information about Tayu Meditation Center can be found at:

Many Rivers Books and Tea Website: www.manyriversbooks.com
Tayu Meditation Center Website: www.tayu.org/~tayu/
Old Many Rivers Blog: www.manyriversbooks.com/blog1/

Saturday, October 20, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #306 - 20OCT18

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

This week's podcast features:

This week we feature an in-studio conversation with two of our favorite guests, Ken McLeod and Jim Wilson. Topics include Ken's work in progress on an expression of Vajrayana practice without reliance on a particular cosmological framework, the relevance of cosmologies in general to the transmission of spiritual traditions, the distinction of Faith and Belief, and spiritual traditions as a set of practices versus as a set of beliefs. We also have an extended discussion on rebirth, the differences in our views, and the relationship of such beliefs to practice.

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

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

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

Unfettered Mind website: www.unfetteredmind.org
On Trusting the Heart - A Commentary on the Xin Xin Ming: On Trusting the Heart
An Annotated Edition of a Guide to True Peace 2nd Edition: Guide to True Peace
Shaping Words Poetry Website: shapingwords.blogspot.com

Saturday, October 13, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #305 - 13OCT18

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

This week's podcast features:

This week we feature a conversation in the studio with Rev. Terri Daniel, MA, CT, a clinical chaplain, ordained interfaith minister and end-of-life educator certified in death, dying and bereavement by the Association of Death Education and Counseling. The focus of her work is to assist dying and grieving individuals to discover a more spiritually-spacious understanding of death and beyond. Terri conducts workshops throughout the US to help the dying and the bereaved find healing through meditative, ceremonial and therapeutic processes that focus on inner transformation rather than external events. Her work is acclaimed by physicians, hospice workers, grief counselors and clergy for its pinpoint clarity on the process of dying and grieving, and its heartfelt depiction of consciousness beyond the physical body. She is the author of three books: A Swan in Heaven: Conversations Between Two Worlds, Embracing Death: A New Look at Grief, Gratitude, and God, and Turning the Corner on Grief Street: Loss and Bereavement as a Journey of Awakening.

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

Spirituality and Grief website: www.spiritualityandgrief.com
The Afterlife Awareness Conference website: afterlifeconference.com
Conscious Grieving: Turning Loss into Light talk at Many Rivers Books 7 Tea: www.manyriversbooks.com

Saturday, October 6, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #304 - 06OCT18

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

This week's podcast features:

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

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

Alan Ramos Fitness Trainer at Coaches Corner in Sebastopol, CA: coachescornerfitness.com

"The Mystical Positivist" Radio Show

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

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.