Episodes
Wednesday Oct 11, 2023
CHUANG TZU - AN INTRODUCTION
Wednesday Oct 11, 2023
Wednesday Oct 11, 2023
This podcast is an introduction to our forthcoming series on the work of Chuang Tzu, and which builds on our long series on Lao Tzu. [Free. 27 minutes.]
Thursday Aug 18, 2022
NATURAL LIBERATION
Thursday Aug 18, 2022
Thursday Aug 18, 2022
In this podcast, we jump off into the matter of spontaneous, natural liberation from a consideration of the text The Natural Liberation Through Naked Vision. We discuss the practicalities of this way of being, its resonances with Zen, the question of asceticism and Nietzsche's take on it. Amongst other things! [Free. 26 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.]
Monday Apr 27, 2020
LAO TZU 17
Monday Apr 27, 2020
Monday Apr 27, 2020
In this podcast, we return to our long project of commenting on the Tao Te Ching. This time we comment on Chapters 29 and 30 which speak out against hubris in leaders. The character types of typical leaders is taxonomised and contrasted with that of 'the sage'. The sage, we are told, is without pride, false charm and greed and leads with a light touch. Consequently, his leading style avoids environmental destruction. Lao Tzu also speaks out against warlike behaviour in leaders and spells out the destructive consequences such as famine. We suggest that these lessons are very relevant to our current political situation. [Free. 22 minutes.]
Thursday Mar 26, 2020
PANDEMIC TRAUMAS
Thursday Mar 26, 2020
Thursday Mar 26, 2020
In this podcast we identify four types of trauma that the global CORVID19 pandemic is inflicting on individuals and societies. They are to do with isolation and restriction due to lock-down, fear, anxiety and panic, increased awareness of death, and political / economic disillusionment. In the second half we attempt to discern how these traumas will continue to act in the future when the pandemic has subsided. [Free. 38 minutes.]
Saturday Jan 25, 2020
THE YOGI AND THE COMMISSAR: REVOLUTION?
Saturday Jan 25, 2020
Saturday Jan 25, 2020
In this podcast I question the nature of revolution, particularly as to its ultimate ground, which for some should be consciousness, and for others, the power structures of society, particularly materialistically understood. I outline the thought that both must be involved as it is found in the ongoing historical conversation. This includes Freudian Marxism, and the existentialism of Simone de Beauvoir, who gives us the figures of the yogi and the commissar to imagine. [Free. 28 minutes.]
Saturday Jan 25, 2020
RESILIENCE: INTERVIEW WITH GODFREY DEVEREUX
Saturday Jan 25, 2020
Saturday Jan 25, 2020
In this interview renowned Yoga Teacher Godfrey Devereux about a recent turn his work has taken. Godfrey has dropped the language surrounding contemporary Yoga to talk instead about resilience and how it is a consequence of a certain meditative self-enquiry. I ask Godfrey to elucidate this and particularly in the context of impending ecological catastrophe. I give my own take on these matters which is more inclined to speak up for activism. Listen to the following podcast, The Yogi and the Commissar, in which I explore some of the themes that emerged and in the light of Simone de Beauvoir's existentialism. [Free. 32 minutes.]
Sunday Jun 09, 2019
DESIRE & THE FUTURE [YES & NO 6]
Sunday Jun 09, 2019
Sunday Jun 09, 2019
This podcast, recorded in November 2018, continues with commentary on the Songs of No and Yes, and explores the theme of desire further. As well as asking if determinism universally applies, I ask what would be the existential consequences if it did. I conclude that metaphysical issues, like free will - determinism are probably undecidable, and, in this case, of no existential consequence. The upshot for meditation practitioners is that they are well-advised to be engaged with the world and to make efforts to make a future of flourishing for self and others, rather than repudiating creativity, politics and altruism because "what will be, will be." (If such is their bent.) The practice of letting be with bright awareness, I argue, should be understood as applicable to all aspects of lived experience, including the active, creative and passive. The role of determinism in the scientific method is briefly considered. [Free. 18 minutes.]
Sunday May 26, 2019
DESIRE, ACTION, TIME [YES & NO 5]
Sunday May 26, 2019
Sunday 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.]
Saturday Feb 16, 2019
DESIRING TRUTH [YES & NO 4]
Saturday Feb 16, 2019
Saturday Feb 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.]