The Mystical Positivist

Podcast: This week's podcast features:This week on the show we converse in the studio with Wu Ming Chuan (aka Jacob Newell), an ordained Daoist priest with a quarter century experience with Buddhist and Daoist meditation & qi-cultivation. He resides with his family in Santa Rosa, California and is the author of These Daoist Bones, a book of contemplative poetry. He writes the blog, Daoist Blog of Nameless Stream, and runs Old Oak School of Dao. On the website for Old Oak School, he writes: “My wuweidao teacher was Liu Wen Ming, a Euro-American who inherited an aristocratic family tradition from northern China. I was also ordained into an offshoot of the Dragon Gate school, and I am closely connected to the Ruyu Taiji School and Korean Zen. I am also an avid student of Russian Systema. Thank you so much to all my teachers!”  More information about Wu Ming Chuan's work can be found at: Daoist Blog of Nameless Stream website: www.oldoakdao.org/blog/ Old Oak School of Dao website: www.oldoakdao.org

Podcast: This week's podcast features: This week on the show we converse by telephone with Shawinigan Ungaia (aka Guillaume Gauthereau), Shamanic healer and founder of The Sanctuary Healing Center in the Catskill Mountains of New York. In this conversation we cover Guillaume's unique spiritual path, shamanism, trauma & healing, and the depth of the calling when we feel our soul pushed for another life. After a career that scaled the heights of corporate success as a CEO of global companies, Guillaume reached a turning point in his life – material success and trappings had not necessarily made him really happy or fulfilled. He had the big degree, big job and success that most people aspire for, but he was not happy. Guillaume decided to completely change his life and embarked on a journey of self-exploration and meditation that took him from working with Mother Teresa’s mission in India, to the jungles of Peru in search of finding meaning in life and fulfillment beyond the material demands of society today. Through seeking to transform his own life to live with a higher purpose, Guillaume made a life-changing commitment to helping others in their search for peace, harmony and happiness. During his last 10 years of transformative journeys across Asia & South America, Guillaume had rare opportunities to study and meditate with master healers and teachers of all faiths. He is trained in Shamanism, Plant Medicine, Medical Reiki, Sufi Healing, Sound Healing, Meditation, and Herbalism. In 2015, Guillaume opened The Sanctuary Healing Center on his property in the Catskills where he does in depth work with clients, hosts workshops, and cultivates the land for organic vegetable farming, plant medicine, and honey bees. Born and educated in France, Guillaume also holds a PhD in Veterinary Medicine & Surgery from Maisons-Alfort, France. Guillaume resides at The Sanctuary in the Catskills and travels to New York City and all over the world for his work.  More information about Shawinigan Ungaia's work can be found at: The Sanctuary website: www.thesanctuaryheal.com Shawinigan Ungaia on Facebook: www.facebook.com

Podcast: This week's podcast features: This week on the show on the show we feature a pre-recorded conversation with Christopher Ives, a professor of religious studies at Stonehill College, and author of the recent title from Wisdom Press: Zen on the Trail: Hiking as Pilgrimage. In his teaching and writing he focuses on ethics in Zen Buddhism and Buddhist approaches to nature and environmental issues. His other publications include Imperial-Way Zen: Ichikawa Hakugen’s Critique and Lingering Questions for Buddhist Ethics; Zen Awakening and Society; Divine Emptiness and Historical Fullness; a translation (with Abe Masao) of Nishida Kitaro’s An Inquiry into the Good; and a translation (with Gishin Tokiwa) of Hisamatsu Shin’ichi’s Critical Sermons of the Zen Tradition. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of Buddhist Ethics and is serving on the steering committee of the Religion and Ecology Group of the American Academy of Religion. In this wide range discussion we cover the question of ethics and Buddhism especially as it arises in contexts such as Imperial Japan. We also go deeply into the subject of pilgrimage and our opportunities to encounter the sacred in natural settings.  More information about Christopher Ives' work can be found at: Zen on the Trail website: zenonthetrail.com Christopher Ives at Stonehill College: www.stonehill.edu

Podcast: This week's podcast features: This week on the show on the show we feature a pre-recorded conversation with The Very Rev. Donald P. Richmond, Doctor of Divinity, a Priest-Oblate with the Reformed Episcopal Church and Order of Saint Benedict. He is a graduate of several colleges and seminaries as well as the Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies and the Maryvale Ecclesiastical Institute. Having trained in Byzantine Iconography, Father Richmond has a keen interest in the intersection of Theology & Liturgical Arts. Author of chapbooks and over 500 published articles, poetry and art in a wide array of respected periodicals and journals, Father Richmond has published extensively on the Ancient Future Faith Network under either "The Abbey" or "The Inner Monk" and at seedbed.com.  More information about Rev. Richmond's work can be found at: Rev. Donald Richmond on the SARTS website: www.societyarts.org Rev. Donald Richmond on the Ancient Future Faith Network: www.ancientfuturefaithnetwork.org Rev. Donald Richmond on Seedbed: www.seedbed.com

Podcast: This week's podcast features: This week we feature a pre-recorded talk that Mystical Positivists, Rob Schmidt and Stuart Goodnick, gave at Many Rivers Books & Tea on Thursday Jan. 3, entitled To Create and Sustain a Habit of Open-Heartedness. The pre-talk publicity describes the talk this way:  The meme of our time is obsession with human perfection. Focusing upon perfection, we soon find how pervasively we fall short of our high standards. Unconscious acceptance of this meme leads to fixation on our compulsive habits, faults and failures, along with the existential despair that asserts compassion and love are simply words people use to manipulate one another. It leads to a gnawing sense of restlessness operating just below the surface of awareness.  For some, redirecting attention toward drugs, video games, careers, or other distractions more or less succeeds in numbing the growing restlessness with the gulf between ideal and real. Another common strategy to address this restlessness imagines that its resolution will be found in the application of the latest quick fix technique of mind or body. The industries of 'personal growth,' 'healing,' and 'transformation' focus upon 'consumers' seeking immediate change. By so doing, these consumers strive to experience bliss, joy, and satisfaction by attuning themselves to readymade truths linked to a variety of modalities and practices deriving from spiritual and therapeutic traditions. For such industries, quick fixes are the stock-in-trade. Yet how many customers truly find what they seek? Authentic training in the Alchemy of the Heart that transforms unconscious habits into food for a genuine expansion of consciousness requires time, commitment, sweat, discomfort, and persistence. It cannot be bought, but must be paid for. Join us for a discussion of how a sustainable habit of open-heartedness, in contrast to a habit of grasping after growth, might be created. After the talk, Rob and Stuart add some concluding observations from the studio. More information about Tayu Meditation Center can be found at: Many Rivers Books and Tea Website: www.manyriversbooks.com Tayu Meditation Center Website: www.tayu.org/~tayu/ Old Many Rivers Blog: www.manyriversbooks.com/blog1/

Podcast: This week's podcast features: This week on the show on the show we converse in the studio with Tibetan Buddhist nun Ani Samten Palmo. Ani Samten Palmo is a monastic at Lotus Mountain Gompa and a student of Lama Lena (aka Yeshe Kaytup) and Lama Wangdor Rinpoche of Tso Pema, India, both teachers of Direct Mind Perception Meditation and lineage holders of several Tibetan Buddhist traditions. Ani-la has been a monastic since 2001. She offers one-on-one teachings and sessions with smaller groups. Her teachings focus primarily on mind training and how we create our own reality in combination with open heartedness, compassion and connecting with other beings. This includes some emphasis on the somatic experience of trauma and emotions to help in the process of letting go and release. Such an approach benefits our ability to open up and stay in the moment, to stay in the heart. A native of Lucerne, Switzerland, Ani Palmo holds a Doctor of Chiropractic degree from the Life University in Marietta, GA, and currently lives in Guerneville, CA  More information about Ani Samten Palmo's work can be found at: Ani Samten Palmo on Facebook: www.facebook.com Lama Lena Teaching Archive: lamalenateachings.com Venerable Wangdor Rimpoche website: www.customjuju.com Ani Samten Palmo email address: anipalmo @ gmail.com

Podcast: This week's podcast features: This week on the show on the show we converse in the studio with Hal Blacker, founder of Real Dharma, an organization dedicated to helping people find inner freedom through directly recognizing their true nature. Hal teaches nondual wisdom and meditation and has until recently lead a meditation and study group in Marin County, California. Hal believes that direct liberating knowledge of one’s true nature is available to everyone without the need for dogma, priests, authoritarian structures, ritual or elaborate practice. This kind of liberating knowledge is not the end but is a new beginning for most of us–the beginning of a life lived without the bondage of fear and unnecessary sorrow. Hal has been authorized to teach in the traditions of Advaita Vedanta and Tibetan Buddhist Nyingma Dzogchen. Recently he has primarily focused on teaching traditional Advaita Vedanta, which he studied under Dr. Carol (Radha) Whitfield and her guru, the late Swami Dayananda Saraswati. He also was initiated by and studied Advaita Vedanta under Sri Ranjit Maharaj, a master in the lineage of Sri Siddharameshwara and Nisagardatta Maharaj. Hal studied Nyingma Dzogchen primarily under Anam Thubten and was authorized as a holder of that lineage in 2010. He began his studies of Buddhism under the Venerable Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche, in the early 1970s.  More information about Hal Blacker's work can be found at: Real Dharma: realdharma.wordpress.com Anam Thubten and Dharmata Foundation: www.dharmata.org Arsha Kulam Advaita Vedanta site: arshakulam.org

Podcast:  This week's podcast features: This week we feature a pre-recorded conversation with Hokai Diego Sobol. Hokai started practice and study of Buddhism in 1985. After 10 years of exploring Buddhist thought and practicing martial arts, while broadly learning from sources Eastern and Western, mainstream and fringe, Hokai became a practitioner and eventually instructor in the Shingon esoteric tradition of Japanese Vajrayana, under private tutelage of Ajari Jomyo Tanaka. Hokai founded the Mandala Society of Croatia in 1999. Continuing to explore and cultivate his own Buddhist practice, Hokai maintains an ongoing conversation with a number of teachers and senior practitioners. Starting from 2012, he focuses on mentoring individuals to deepen their practice in the context of their lives – those who pray, learn to meditate; and those who meditate, learn to pray. Hokai’s areas of special interest include mystical principles and esoteric practices in daily life, sacred apprenticeship, and deep semiotics. He is based in Rijeka, Croatia.  More information about Hokai Diego Sobol's work can be found at: Hokai Sobol's website: hokai.eu Hokai Diego Sobol on Twitter: @hokaisobol

Podcast: This week's podcast features: This week on the show we feature a pre-recorded conversation 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: J. Jaye Gold's website: justingold.net J. Jaye Gold on YouTube: www.youtube.com

Podcast: This week's podcast features: This week on the show our subject is the recently published book, The Fragrance of Emptiness: A Commentary on the Heart Sutra. We replay an interview recorded two weeks ago with the author, Tibetan teacher Anam Thubten, and then we continue the discussion with a live interview in the studio with the editor of the book, Laura Duggan. Anam Thubten grew up in Tibet and at an early age began to practice in the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. He is the founder and spiritual advisor of Dharmata Foundation, teaching widely in the U.S. and abroad. He is also the author of various articles and books in both the Tibetan and English language. His books in English also include No Self, No Problem; The Magic of Awareness; and Embracing Each Moment: A Guide to the Awakened Life. The Fragrance of Emptiness: A Commentary on the Heart Sutra is his latest book. Laura Duggan has been a student and practitioner of Vedanta, Kashmir Shaivism, and currently Tibetan Buddhism for the past 38 years. She actively engages in self-inquiry and meditation on a daily basis, and loves to discuss the application of philosophy to daily life. She currently is the volunteer retreat coordinator for meditation retreats with Anam Thubten in the Bay Area. She is the author of An Inquiring Life: Weekly Contemplations, and editor of The Fragrance of Emptiness.  More information about Anam Thubten's work can be found at: Dharmata Foundation website: www.dharmata.org Anam Thubten on Facebook: www.facebook.com More information about Laura Duggan's work can be found at: Inquiring Life website: www.inquiringlife.com Nicasio Press website: www.nicasiopress.com