Episodes

Thursday Aug 26, 2021
LAO TZU 40
Thursday Aug 26, 2021
Thursday Aug 26, 2021
This podcast deals with Chapter 40 of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching. We concentrate on the amazing relevance this chapter has to our current political, economic and spiritual emergencies. In a few short lines, Lao Tzu diagnoses the condition of the working people of his time as subjection to violent and militarily oriented 'robber barons' whilst they themselves are the creators of value and the necessary goods to sustain life. This is exactly our condition too. Lao Tzu offers a meditation to counter the fragmental [non-holistic, non-systemic thinking] which is the ideological counterpart to a kleptocratic economy. [Free. 29 minutes.]

Sunday Jul 04, 2021
EYES - COMMENTARY ON A VERSE
Sunday Jul 04, 2021
Sunday Jul 04, 2021
This podcast is a commentary on Eyes which is a verse from Songs of No and Yes explicating a meditation on the human face. [Free. 15 minutes.]

Wednesday Jun 16, 2021
QUESTIONING QUESTIONING
Wednesday Jun 16, 2021
Wednesday Jun 16, 2021
This short podcast offers some preliminary reflections on questioning and curiosity. [Free. 13 minutes.]

Sunday Jun 06, 2021
LAO TZU 38
Sunday Jun 06, 2021
Sunday Jun 06, 2021
This podcast deals with Chapter 53 of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching. We draw out resonances between this chapter and our current state of affairs and explain Lao Tzu's contemplative communism. [Free. 17 minutes.]

Saturday May 29, 2021
LAO TZU 37
Saturday May 29, 2021
Saturday May 29, 2021
In this podcast we discuss Chapter 51 of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching. This chapter deals with Lao Tzu's vast vision of the cosmos and its origins. We suggest that this vision is acquired through a particular meditation which we recommend as both useful to us collectively in our current situation and as a beautiful and sublime good in its own right for individuals. [Free. 15 minutes.]

Monday Apr 26, 2021
LAO TZU 36
Monday Apr 26, 2021
Monday Apr 26, 2021
This episode of our Lao Tzu series deals with Chapter 50 of The Tao Te Ching. The chapter outlines Lao Tzu's strategy for living well, particularly when it comes to preserving life in the face of the world's dangers. [Free. 19 minutes.]

Saturday Apr 03, 2021
LAO TZU 35
Saturday Apr 03, 2021
Saturday Apr 03, 2021
In this podcast we engage with Chapters 48 and 49 of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching. These chapters clarify the nature of wu wei or non-doing. [Free. 20 minutes.]

Wednesday Mar 24, 2021
LAO TZU 34
Wednesday Mar 24, 2021
Wednesday Mar 24, 2021
This podcast engages with Chapter 47 of The Tao Te Ching which deals with solitude and meditation. The style of meditation alluded to is a letting be rather than a cultivation and gives rise to an intuitive knowledge, a sense of the bigger picture. We suggest how acquaintance with this wonderful meditation can produce social goods and is sorely needed in these interesting times. [Free. 16 minutes.]

Wednesday Feb 03, 2021
REASON ON REASON 4 - MADNESS
Wednesday Feb 03, 2021
Wednesday Feb 03, 2021
In this podcast we examine madness or the loss of reason to further our picturing of reason. We start out with the fact that madness, like reason has a history which offers us a variety of causal explanations of madness, treatments for it, and accounts of its meaning. We also give a brief account of nosological drift. Both of these preliminaries serve to cast suspicion on the notion that we can discern madness through contrast with a supposedly sane consensus reality. Accordingly, we are drawn to consider madness in terms of suffering people and to appraise crazy social and political situations through the employment of a critical awareness rather than accepting the status quo understanding as a yardstick. That critical awareness, we claim, entails acquaintance with ones own potential for irrationality. [Free. 54 minutes.]

Monday Dec 14, 2020
LAO TZU 32
Monday Dec 14, 2020
Monday Dec 14, 2020
This episode of our Lao Tzu series deals with Chapter 45 of the Tao Te Ching. Here we find Lao Tzu in teacher mode. He gently points us towards the Tao, counsels against perfectionism, and recommends tranquillity. [Free. 18 Minutes.]