This week on The Mystical Positivist, we feature a pre-recorded conversation with two of our favorite guests, Ken McLeod and Jim Wilson. Speaking from our respective bunkers of the California Shelter-In-Place order, we will touch upon the relevance of spiritual practice in an age of social distancing, as well as the possibility and freedom inherent in moving discourse beyond mere critique and contradiction.
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 founder and director of UnfetteredMind.org. He 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.
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 founder and director of UnfetteredMind.org. He 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.
Just listened to this podcast. Excellent content, as always. This is a tweet that happens to be making the rounds today (April 7), quoting Isaac Asimov, that speaks to some of the points made: “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
ReplyDeleteI want to add, in context of the speculation about the post-pandemic world, that this planet came out of the most brutal, extended nightmare shock of World War I - a conflict much more shattering than COVID-19 could ever be - calling it The War to End All Wars. We get very dramatic in the midst and just after crises, and make statements like that. Clearly, World War I was nothing of the sort. I believe there will be a rush to return to the pre-pandemic normal in all respects. Our species learns very, very slowly. The change we hope for in a few years or months actually takes millennia, or more.
ReplyDeleteHi Sam, though I tend to agree that at the individual human level, people will be quick to try to return to the pre-pandemic norm (at those will who have that economic luxury), a global shock like this may well set in motion systemic changes that will play out in the decades to come. I had shared your point with a friend of mine, who reminded me:
Delete"WW1 may not have been the war to end all wars, but it did change the world dramatically. It effectively destroyed aristocratic life as it had been known up to that point. It signaled the end to the Austria-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire (though that took a little longer), and one other, I think. It unleashed Communism (Lenin was financed by German money to instigate a revolution in Russia to destroy the Franco-Russian alliance). The modern advertising and PR industries came directly out of WW1 as the US government used modern advertising methods for the first time to sell war bonds, and the corporate leaders took note of how they did it. In other words, it changed the world in more fundamental ways than most of us realize today."
I agree that the COVID-19 crisis may loom large now, and certainly does not rise to the level of devastation that WWI did in terms of social impact, but it likely will shape ways in which global society evolves. As with all things, that shape could be largely positive, largely negative, or some admixture of both.
What's the name of the song that plays at the beginning where they are counting?
ReplyDeleteHi Pat! The piece we use for the intro and outro for the show is from Philip Glass' opera, "Einstein on the Beach". The particular track is called Knee Play 5 (solo violin, soprano and alto chorus, electric organ).
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