Saturday, March 3, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #284 - 03MAR18

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, co-host Rob Schmidt flies solo this week while Stuart Goodnick, the Mystical Positivist, is away on business in Europe. Rob reads passages from the manuscript of a book that he is putting together, and offers some personal comments and recollections. The book collects talks and writings of Robert Daniel Ennis, founder of Tayu Meditation Center, and Stuart and Rob's spiritual teacher.

    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 Stuart Goodnick on an edited volume of talks and writings of Tayu Meditation founder, Robert Daniel Ennis. 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:

Saturday, February 10, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #283 - 10FEB18

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’s show features a conversation via Skype with Ocke de Boer about his new book Two Souls. His previous book is called Higher Being Bodies. Ocke de Boer is the engine of a Work-group in Holland which has been in existence since 1990. He studied esotericism in Amsterdam for 4 years at a Raja Yoga School for Universal Thinking, which is non-dualistic thinking. Mr. de Boer gained a general education in philosophy, religion and esoteric systems without getting lost in any of them. His center of gravity is in the Fourth Way, “our Work” as he puts it, which he refuses to call the Gurdjieff Work. In his own words: “Gurdjieff was and is a very big guy in the Fourth Way, but he did not invent it.”
More information about Ocke de Boer's work can be found at:

Saturday, February 3, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #282 - 03FEB18

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 speak by telephone with Albert Flynn DeSilver and discuss his recent book from Sounds True called Writing As A Path To AwakeningAlbert Flynn DeSilver is an author, poet, artist, workshop leader, and speaker. In addition to his most recent book and his memoir Beamish Boy, he is the author of several books of poetry including Letters to Early Street, and Walking Tooth & Cloud. Albert served as Marin County's poet laureate from 2008-2010. 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 now teaches at Spirit Rock, The Omega Institute, Shambhala Mountain,1440 Multiversity, and at writing conferences nationally.
More information about Albert Flynn DeSilver's work can be found at:

Saturday, January 27, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #281 - 27JAN18

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 guest on the show this week is Carl Jones, aka Awo Fabukola, a spiritual teacher in the Cleveland area who combines a 40+ year deep immersion in the Gurdjieff work with a dedicated practice as a priest and elder in the West African IFA spiritual tradition. In 1993 he was initiated into the IFA tradition and is a Baba-a-láwo or Priest of IFA. Carl is the author of A Notebook on the Fourth Way: The Work of Man #5. He works with individuals in Cleveland, Ohio area. Carl represents a rare combination of the very Western oriented Fourth Way tradition with an African mystical and divinatory tradition.
Carl Jones can be contacted at at:
  • Carl Jone's phone number: 216-870-4838

Saturday, January 13, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #280 - 13JAN18

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 discuss the modern Western Self-Help movement and the question put forward by New Yorker Staff Writer, Alexandra Schwartz, as to whether self-improvement is making us worse. We follow with a discussion on the most effective ways for transmitting the Teaching to the modern spiritual consumer and seeker.

    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 is collaborating with Stuart Goodnick on an edited volume of talks and writings of Tayu Meditation founder, Robert Daniel Ennis. 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 industrial motion control 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 2018.
More information about Tayu Meditation Center can be found at:

Saturday, December 2, 2017

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #279 - 02DEC17

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, co-host Rob Schmidt flies solo this week while Stuart Goodnick, the Mystical Positivist, is away on business in Europe and India. Rob offers an eclectic mix of musical selections plus inspirational quotations from the world’s great spiritual literature, and what books he has have been reading lately.

    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 Stuart Goodnick on an edited volume of talks and writings of Tayu Meditation founder, Robert Daniel Ennis. 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:

Saturday, November 25, 2017

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #278 - 25NOV17

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 reflect upon themes that have come up in some of their conversations with recent guests including the distinction between an ontological and epistemological interpretation of the Projection-Only school of Buddhism, whether the book Single White Monk with its raw descriptions of monks breaking the rules actually pushes away potential practitioners, spiritual teacher sex scandals in the 20th/21st century and the associated Dharma sex panics, plus more.

    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 is collaborating with Stuart Goodnick on an edited volume of talks and writings of Tayu Meditation founder, Robert Daniel Ennis. 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 industrial motion control 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 2018.
More information about Tayu Meditation Center can be found at:

Saturday, November 18, 2017

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #277 - 18NOV17

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 Shozan Jack Haubner, author of the recently published book Single White Monk: Tales of Death, Failure, and Bad Sex (Although Not Necessarily in that Order). The Shambhala publisher information describes the book like this:

    Think the life of a Zen monk is all serenity, peace, and austerity? Think again. Here, Shozan Jack Haubner gives an often-hilarious, always-candid account of what it’s really like behind those monastery walls. Haubner’s adventures include memories of his dysfunctional Midwestern family that drove him ultimately to declare, “I think I should be a monk!” to a madcap account of the night he got stoned and snuck out of the monastery, alongside more sobering accounts such as his life-threatening brush with illness, the profound impact of a dear friend’s death, and reflections on the controversy that rocked his Zen community. That he finds timeless wisdom in both the tragic and the absurd is a tribute to Haubner's gifts as a writer and humorist, and to his clear insights into the nature of self and what the practice of Zen is all about.

    A former monk in the Rinzai Zen tradition, Shozan Jack Haubner is also the author of Zen Confidential: Confessions of a Wayward Monk, published by Shambhala. His writings have earned him a Pushcart Prize, and his essays have appeared in periodicals including Buddhadharma, Tricycle, and The Sun.

More information about Shozan Jack Haubner's work can be found at:

Saturday, November 11, 2017

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #276 - 11NOV17

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 speak by telephone with Ben Connelly, a Soto Zen priest and dharma heir in the Katagiri lineage. He is a professional musician, and also teaches mindfulness in a wide variety of secular contexts, including police and corporate training, correctional facilities, and addiction recovery and wellness groups. He is based at the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center in Minneapolis, and travels to teach across the United States. He is the author of Inside the Grass Hut: Living Shitou’s Classic Zen Poem, and more recently Inside Vasubandhu’s Yogacara: A Practitioner’s Guide, the subject of our discussion today
More information about Ben Connelly's work can be found at:

Saturday, October 14, 2017

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #275 - 14OCT17

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 authors Regina Sara Ryan and Shinay Tredeau with a lively consideration of the roots of “never good enough.” This subtext, so common for both men and women, undermines our dreams and goals, our work, our relationships, our accomplishments (or lack of them) and our spiritual progress. The invitation is to acknowledge the lie, to bring humor and gentleness to this longstanding habit, and even to celebrate the sense of “never enough” as an indicator of our spiritual longing.

    Regina and Shinay are coauthors of the recently published book, Women Challenge the Lie: 8 Radical Moves to Get Beyond “Never Good Enough” (Hohm Press, 2017). Regina Sara Ryan is a freelance editor and writing coach, and author of many books in the fields of holistic health and spirituality. Shinay Tredeau is a dancer, a yoga instructor, a professional cook and a poet.

More information about Regina Sara Ryan and Shinay Tredeau's work can be found at:

Saturday, September 30, 2017

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #274 - 30SEP17

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 deep and interesting conversation with two of our favorite guests, Ken McLeod and Jim Wilson, pre-recorded on Saturday September 2nd. The conversation addresses the topic of Buddhism as a Mystical Path, and What That Means.

    Ken McLeod met his principal teacher, Kalu Rinpoche, in 1970. After completing the preliminary practices and learning Tibetan, he translated for 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, is a poet and writer on religious and spiritual topics, and a co-founder of Many Rivers Books & Tea in Sebastopol. He is the author of at least 15 poetry titles, including A Night of Many Sonnets and Hiking the Quatrain Range. In the spiritual realm, Jim has written An Annotated Edition of A Guide to True Peace, Communion in the Manner of Friends: A Manual for Quaker Communion, and his latest work, On Trusting the Heart: A Commentary on the Xin Xin Ming. This latest book was predominantly written thirty years ago, when Jim was acting as a teacher in the Korean Chogye Zen tradition, after having spent six years as a full ordination monk in that tradition, under his teacher Seung Sahn. Jim went on to become a Buddhist Chaplain at an institution for the criminally insane, and he eventually transitioned from Buddhism to the Quaker tradition, his current spiritual home.

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

Saturday, September 23, 2017

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #273 - 23SEP17

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 speak by telephone with Barbara Haynes,a long time student of spiritual teacher EJ Gold. Barbara is the author of the recently published book Every Day A Holy Day: Exercises, Experiments, and Practices for Mindful Living.

    Barbara Haynes was born in 1950 to a tenant farming family on the plains of west Texas. Her mother was a devout Christian and instilled in Barbara a sense of spiritual values and a belief in an existence beyond what we can see. She spent her early adult years searching for a spiritual “home”. In the spring of 1984 she received an invitation to attend, what was for her a pivotal, invocational dinner at which the work of E.J. Gold was presented and studied. She found the works of E.J. Gold and his presentation of the ideas to be very practical and useful in everyday application. After working with Mr. Gold and some members of his community at a jewelry show in Los Angeles in 1985 Barbara made the decision to move to California to live and work with the community working with Mr. Gold. In November, 1986, Barbara moved to Grass Valley, California and has been working closely with Mr. Gold for the last thirty years.
More information about Barbara Haynes' work can be found at:

Saturday, September 16, 2017

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #272 - 16SEP17

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:
  • Co-host Rob Schmidt, flies solo this week as the Mystical Positivist himself, Stuart Goodnick, is out of town. This week on the show Rob speaks in the studio with Lama Jampa Dorje, aka Richard Lee Denner. Lama Jampa Dorje is a poet-printer-yogi-monk, who lived in the Sebastopol area for ten years before moving to Tara Mandala Retreat Center, in Colorado, to do a traditional Tibetan three-year solo retreat. As a younger man, Richard Denner taught himself to write poetry over decades, including stints attending UC Berkeley, raising a family in the Alaskan wilderness, and operating a bookstore in a small town in rural Washington. He has been a serious student of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism for more than two decades, and was the first American-born student to complete the traditional Tibetan three-year solo retreat in the US. He publishes D Press chapbooks available at www.dpress.net. We last spoke with Jampa on this show in late December 2013, a conversation that was first broadcast on January 11, 2014.
More information about Lama Jampa Dorje's work can be found at:

Saturday, September 9, 2017

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #271 - 09SEP17

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, co-host Rob Schmidt flies solo while the Mystical Positivist, Stuart Goodnick, is out of town. Rob speaks by telephone with Dani Antman, author of Wired For God: Adventures of a Jewish Yogi. As an internationally known energy healer and interfaith minister in Santa Barbara, CA, Dani Antman has been at the forefront of energy medicine and healing since 1992, when she graduated from the Barbara Brennan School of Healing. She has also completed over five years of training at the Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute, to support the healing of trauma and PTSD.

    Dani was a senior teacher at The School for Nondual Healing and Awakening for over nine years, and has led workshops at the Esalen Institute, La Casa de Maria, and The Lionheart Institute for Trans-personal Energy Healing. She also is a spiritual guide, helping others to navigate the spiritual path.
More information about Dani Antman's work can be found at:

Saturday, August 19, 2017

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #270 - 19AUG17

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 speak by telephone with Ji Hyang Padma, Ph.D., who has been practicing and teaching Zen for twenty years, 15 of these as an ordained nun. She has completed several 90-day intensive retreats in Korea and North America. While her practice has been situated within the Korean Zen tradition, she has had the benefit of studying with teachers across a wide spectrum of Buddhist lineages. She is gifted at finding an entry-point into practice for people who are just beginning their journey.

    Ji Hyang has combined an academic career with her work as a Zen teacher. She holds a doctorate in psychology from Sofia University. Her dissertation research focused on consciousness & healing, through the lens of traditional Buddhist healing practices. She currently serves as Director of the Comparative Religion and Philosophy Program at California Institute for Human Science in Encinitas.

    Her dissertation, Visions of Wholeness: Narratives of Traditional Buddhist Healers, explored the relationship of worldview to Buddhist healers’ praxis, using an indigenous psychology lens. She serves on the board of Education as Transformation, an international organization that works with educational institutions to explore the impact of religious diversity and the role of spirituality in the learning process.

    Her first book, Living the Season: Zen Practice for Transformative Times, was released by Quest Books a few years ago. Her reflections have also been featured in the collections Our Neighbor's Faith: Stories of Interfaith Encounters and Arts of Contemplative Care: Pioneering Voices in Buddhist Chaplaincy. Ji Hyang has just sent to her publisher the completed manuscript of a book on traditional healing practices.

    Ji Hyang is a mesa carrier in the Andean tradition of shamanic healing. Ji Hyang also is a professional astrologer: her intuitive astrology illuminates the journey of the soul so that we can live our life to its fullest potential.
More information about Ji Hyang Padma's work can be found at:

Saturday, July 29, 2017

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #269 - 29JUL17

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 speak by telephone with Livia Kohn, Ph. D. Livia Kohn graduated from Bonn University, in Germany, in 1980. After six years at Kyoto University in Japan, she joined Boston University as Professor of Religion and East Asian Studies in 1988. She has also worked variously as visiting professor and adjunct faculty at Eötvös Lorand University in Budapest, the Stanford Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto, Union Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio, San Francisco State University, and the Taoist College Singapore.

    Her specialty is the study of the Daoist religion and Chinese long life practices. She has written and edited 35 books and over 100 articles, as well as translated works from the German, French, Chinese, and Japanese. She retired from active teaching in 2006 and now lives in St. Petersburg, Florida, from where she continues to write books, serves as the executive editor of the Journal of Daoist Studies, and manages Three Pines Press, the Western voice of Daoism. In addition, she still serves on numerous committees and editorial boards, leads Daoist Qigong and Core Health workshops worldwide, and is the lead organizer of a series of major international conferences on Daoism, the latest of which took place at Boston University in May 2014; the next conference is scheduled for Beijing in 2018.

    Her books include Taoist Meditation and Longevity Techniques (1989), Early Chinese Mysticism (1992), God of the Dao (1998), Daoism Handbook (2000), Monastic Life in Medieval Daoism (2003), Cosmos and Community (2004), Daoist Body Cultivation (2006), Meditation Works (2008), Sitting in Oblivion (2010), Daoist Dietetics (2010), A Source Book in Chinese Longevity (2012), Zhuangzi: Text and Context (2014), and —most recently— Pristine Affluence: Daoist Roots in the Stone Age (2017).

    In terms of self-cultivation, she began practicing Taiji quan in the 1970s and dedicated herself to Vipassana Meditation for 20 years, beginning in 1981. She is also a certified instructor of Kripalu Yoga, Qigong, and Scottish Country Dancing. Most recently, she is a leading facilitator of Core Health and co-author of Core Health: The Quantum Way to Inner Power (2012).
More information about Livia Kohn's work can be found at:

Saturday, July 22, 2017

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #268 - 22JUL17

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 speak by telephone with spiritual teacher J. Jaye Gold, author of Justin Time: Autobiographical Stories from an American Spiritual Master, Another Heart in His Hand: A Spiritual Anomaly, and Highway of Diamonds. In his younger years, J. Jaye Gold studied at a 500-year-old experimental Naqshbandi Sufi school in northeastern Afghanistan. He believed that the methods he learned in this school needed to be modified for people in affluent Western cultures. He took on this challenge, developing tools, dynamics, and explorations of consciousness to help lead Westerners toward “intimacy with the ultimate reality, in order to become true servants.” J. Jaye Gold has been assisting people in their search for inner meaning for 35 years.

    He is currently living in the Sierra foothills of Northern California where he works with several dozen seekers of truth. Over the years he has deliberately resisted the trend to become a “traveling guru” with thousands of followers around the world in favor of preserving an element that he considers precious — that of maintaining opportunities for developing an actual teacher/student relationship. He is available to anyone who seeks his guidance.
More information about J. Jaye Gold's work can be found at:

Saturday, July 15, 2017

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #267 - 15JUL17

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 speak in the studio with Jeff Tipp, a psychotherapist and spiritual teacher and practitioner in Sebastopol, CA. Jeffrey Tipp was ordained as a monk in an order of Christian mystics in 1968, entered into the Dharma with Lama Tsultrim Allione in 1973, met Zen Master Seung Sahn in 1978, and founded Blue Heron Zen Community, an urban residential Zen Center in Seattle, in 1980. He received Inka from Zen Master Ji Bong in 2006, and permission to teach from Lama Tsultrim in 2010. Jeff is an authorized Feeding Your Demons Psychotherapist.

    Tsoknyi Rinpoche and Kilung Rinpoche have both trained Jeff in the highest Dzogchen practices, having completed the Barchey Kunsel Ngondro and many extended group and solo retreats. Jeff’s 45 years of contemplative practice and teaching inform his whole life and his Psychotherapy practice. He is a Marriage and Family Therapist in private practice and lives with his wife Roberta in Sebastopol, CA.
More information about Jeff Tipp's work can be found at:

Saturday, July 8, 2017

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #266 - 08JUL17

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 Sam Webster and Jim Wilson on the subject of Immanence and Transcendence in spiritual practice.

    Sam Webster, PhD, M.Div., Mage, has taught magick publicly since 1984. He graduated from Starr King School for the Ministry at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley in 1993 and earned his doctorate at the University of Bristol, UK, with a thesis on the History of Theurgy from Iamblichus to the Golden Dawn. He is an Adept of the Golden Dawn, and an initiate of Wiccan, Druidic, Buddhist, Hindu and Masonic traditions, publisher at Concrescent Press, and author of Tantric Thelema. In 2001 he founded the Open Source Order of the Golden Dawn, in 2013 founded the Pantheon Foundation, and serves the Pagan community principally as a priest of Hermes.

    Jim Wilson studied Buddhism in Korea, Japan, and the US, principally under his teacher in the Chogye Zen tradition, Seung Sahn. Jim is a former Prison Chaplain, and one of the founders of Many Rivers Books & Tea in Sebastopol. Currently a practicing Quaker, Jim has published a critical edition of A Guide to True Peace, a manual for the practice of Quaker Silent Prayer and an Annotated Edition of A Guide to True Peace, which traces both sources to and changes in this foundational text. He has published many books of poetry, and his most recent title is On Trusting the Heart: A Commentary on the Xin Xin Ming.
More information about Sam Webster and Jim Wilson's work can be found at:

Saturday, June 17, 2017

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #265 - 17JUN17

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 Daniel Terragno, Roshi, of Rocks and Clouds Zendo in Sebastopol, and Ken McLeod, a teacher, writer and translator in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.

    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 founded Rocks and Clouds Zendo in Sebastopol, California; he 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.

    Ken McLeod met his principal teacher, Kalu Rinpoche, in 1970. After completing the preliminary practices and learning Tibetan, he translated for 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.
More information about Daniel Terragno and Ken McLeod's work can be found at: