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DESIRE, ACTION, TIME [YES & NO 5]
May 26, 2019
In this podcast, I continue to explore the matter of human desire. I relate it to our embeddedness in time, to suffering and to our motivations to act. [Free. 26 minutes.]
DESIRING TRUTH [YES & NO 4]
February 16, 2019
This podcast is a commentary on the poem Desiring Truth from Songs of No and Yes. The poem outlines the enormous philosophical difficulties encountered in the quest for the truth about truth and contrasts them with the ease with which we employ our ordinary, common sense, adequationist notion of truth very effectively in everyday life. In the commentary, I draw on Patanjali's account of truth and knowledge in the Yoga Sutra, finding nothing problematic in our ordinary truth telling whilst suggesting that our various encounters with the ineffable, samadhi, have a valuable but unstateable truth content. I also note Patanjali's method of uncompromising truthfulness as an approach to the ineffable as encountered in the microcosm in the practice of self-study. [Free. 28 minutes.]
LAO TZU 16
January 12, 2019
In this podcast, we elucidate Chapters 27 and 28 of the Tao Te Ching. Both chapters deal with the character of the sage and how s/he might operate as a ruler who can bring about harmonious social organisation. The wisdom of the sage is considered to be different from what is ordinarily understood as goodness. In Chapter 28, the meditative approach that is associated with sagacity is outlined. It's emphasis is on receptivity, letting be, yin energy, flow and oneness whilst not denying the value of creativity, practical activity and taking care of people. [Free. 29 minutes.]
EMBRACING THE HUMAN [YES & NO 3]
December 31, 2018
In this podcast, I elucidate Embracing the Human, one of the Songs of No and Yes. The discourse mostly takes the form of a recommendation against espousing asceticism and passive nihilism in the name of 'spirituality'. [Free. 27 minutes.]
EXPERIENCE [NO & YES 2]
December 10, 2018
This podcast is the second in the series Songs of No and Yes. It revisits the theme of the previous one, that of sitting meditation. The perspective is a little different and there is a strong 'no', or sealing off of escape routes which we are likely to attempt when the rawness of sitting is encountered. It also repudiates metaphysical speculation, grand-narratives, and other such hubris, seeking to point towards the ineffable rather than attempt to 'eff' it. [Free. 17 minutes.]
SITTING [NO & YES 1]
November 30, 2018
This podcast is the first in a series of commentaries on my own poems in Songs of No and Yes. These are primarily for yoga people, particularly those who would 'teach' others. The first one deals with sitting practice and the productive dialectical tension between self-study and the call of the world. It deals with the suffering of self and others and the temptations to let 'spirituality' settle into escapism. [Free. 32 minutes.]
LAO TZU 15
September 7, 2018
In this podcast, we comment on Chapters 25 and 26 of The Tao Te Ching. In the first part, we elucidate Lao Tzu's cosmology and the categories of earth, heaven, the human and the Tao. We particularly highlight how, for Lao Tzu, the transcendent and the immanent are mutually dependent and how this precludes life-negation. Lao Tzu, we take it, arrives at this tremendous vision through his own contemplation and goes on to point out to us how we might do the same and how simple that task is. We flesh out Lao Tzu's contemplative [non] method, hopefully with some practical pointers. [Free. 37 minutes.]
LAOTZU 14
July 9, 2018
In this podcast, we consider Chapters 23 and 24 of The Tao Te Ching. We tease out Lao Tzu's advice that meditation is best approached with a light touch. [Free. 21 minutes.]
LAOTZU 13
June 22, 2018
This podcast deals with Chapters 21 and 22 of The Tao Te Ching. Chapter 21 is poetry impelled by Lao Tzu's encounter with the ineffable and Chapter 22 outlines the non-doing doings that can allow us to experience a similar encounter. [Free. 29 minutes.]
BEING INTO IT
June 14, 2018
In this podcast, I examine the state of being 'into it' with respect to both creativity in writing and painting and receptivity in listening to music, engagement with dynamic creative projects, the flow of life itself and meditation. I contrast 'being into it' with its creative partner, critical distance, and its meditative other, self-cultivation - in order to recommend it. [Free. 16 minutes.]
