The Mystical Positivist: The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #371

Saturday, September 26, 2020

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #371 - 26SEP20

Podcast:

This week on the show, we present a telephone conversation with Barbara Du Bois. Barbara Du Bois, Ph.D., longtime teacher of Buddhadharma, is known for the clarity, freshness, humor, and fearless love with which she shines a frank Western light on the path. Her principal gurus are Padmasambhava, Milarepa, Machig, H. H. Dudjom Rinpoche, and H.E. Garchen Rinpoche. Barbara’s lifetime of service includes work with disarmament, African refugees from colonial regimes and genocide, United Nations social development, feminist scholarship and teaching, and initiating an indigenous women’s peace movement during active civil war in Africa. She holds the doctorate from Harvard University and has taught at undergraduate and graduate levels as social scientist, psychologist, and psychotherapist. Barbara is also a visual artist and author of Light Years: A Spiritual Memoir (Laughing Vajra, 2011) and the newly published Brave, Generous, & Undefended: Heart Teachings on the 37 Bodhisattva Practices. She currently resides in Arizona.

More information about Barbara Du Bois' work can be found at:

Barabara Du Bois at White Cloud Press: www.whitecloudpress.com,

Brave, Generous & Undefended at the Garchen Store: www.garchen.store,

Light Years on Amazon: www.amazon.com.

1 comment:

AnonymousOctober 17, 2022 at 9:39 AM
This is a beautiful discussion with Barbara Du Bois. However, it seems to come to a abrupt stop, mid sentence, at approximately one hour 24 minutes and 16 seconds.
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"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.