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.]
Friday Jul 14, 2023
LAO TZU 60
Friday Jul 14, 2023
Friday Jul 14, 2023
In this podcast, we discuss Chapter 73 of Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching. Themes covered include; the paradoxical and contradictory nature of the text, the practicality and creativity of alignment with the Tao, the meditation on forgetfulness, and more. Particularly, we describe how this chapter is a reminder against dogmatism. [Free. 35 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.]
Monday Dec 10, 2018
EXPERIENCE [NO & YES 2]
Monday Dec 10, 2018
Monday Dec 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.]
Friday Nov 30, 2018
SITTING [NO & YES 1]
Friday Nov 30, 2018
Friday Nov 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.]
Monday Jul 09, 2018
LAOTZU 14
Monday Jul 09, 2018
Monday Jul 09, 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.]
Friday Feb 23, 2018
EVERYDAY MIND
Friday Feb 23, 2018
Friday Feb 23, 2018
A Zen master was asked,"What is the Tao?" He replied, "Your everyday mind." How can this be? Shouldn't the Tao be something exhalted, unlike the most ordinary everyday mind? In this podcast, I attempt to dissolve this conundrum in the hope that it may help someone. [Free. 15 minutes.]
Saturday Sep 09, 2017
LEFT-RIGHT: PART TWO [COSMOPOLITANISM, ETHNO-NATIONALISM, HEIDEGGER, NIETZSCHE]
Saturday Sep 09, 2017
Saturday Sep 09, 2017
In this podcast I compare and contrast cosmopolitanism with ethno-nationalism. I discuss the use of Heidegarian tropes by alt-right ideologues to justify their stance which regards cosmopolitanism as the cause of all the ills of the modern world. I show how this move is easily countered and that Heidegger's view of 'the self' can actually be used to counter the notion that cosmopoitanism leads to the modern carelessness with the environment and 'rootlessness'. What is missing from the alt-right reading of the Heideggarian human 'self', I argue, is the questioning nature of this 'self' which in turn leads to the yoga questions: 'Who and what am I?'. At the very least, if we are honest with ourselves, the answer is that of Diogenes the Cynic: 'I am a citizen of the world'. At the same time, the beauty of one's particularity is revealed, even as one might rhapsodically experience oneness with everything. I trace some of this path of thought through a brief discussion of Heidegger's relationship to Nietzsche, to whom he dedicated four thick volumes of reflection and criticism. [Free. 43 minutes.]
Monday May 29, 2017
HOMO ECONOMICUS: COMMENTARY ON ROB URIE'S 'ZEN ECONOMICS'
Monday May 29, 2017
Monday May 29, 2017
This podcast is almost a review of Rob Urie's Zen Economics (2016). The thesis of Urie's book is that contemporary economic theory is a pseudo science which functions as an ideological mystification of consumer capitalism and bases itself on a spurious metaphysical conceptualisation of the human being along Cartesian lines. Urie marshals Zen and the work of Heidegger to mount his criticism with interesting results. [Free. 44 minutes.]
Thursday May 18, 2017
THE GATELESS GATE OF HUMAN PASSION
Thursday May 18, 2017
Thursday May 18, 2017
In this podcast we tease out the implications of the proposition that all phenomena are pure. [Free. 17 minutes.]