Emerge: Making Sense of What's Next

The host reflects on a transformative journey after a decade of exploring culture and consciousness. They highlight the importance of meaningful relationships formed over the years. With a sense of gratitude, they embrace the call for deeper connections and actionable insights. Though the podcast concludes, the exploration continues on Substack, inviting listeners to join in navigating these uncertain times together.

Jane Weintraub from Imaginisma discusses living with a life-threatening condition, the value of 'being local,' and the importance of physical connections. They explore 'holy work,' rediscovering humanity's basics, and hope for younger generations. Delving into pain, love, and 'aliveness,' they contrast modern tendencies with the richness of local relationships and purposeful growth.

The podcast explores the relationship between Attachment Theory and awakening, blending Buddhist and developmental psychology. Topics include the heart's development, levels of attunement, finding trustworthy teachers, and community building. It delves into healing the attachment system, right relationship, and the Bodhisattva path.

Jordan Hall discusses his recent conversion to Christianity and the evolution of his worldview. Topics include the tension between innovation and tradition, Game A and Game B, the search for deeply connected communities, the importance of grief, the evolution of modern Christianity, cultural attitudes towards Christianity, and the power of committing to truth.

After a long career using many therapeutic modalities, for more than a decade, Bob Falconer has devoted his practice exclusively to Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy. Bob has completed all levels of IFS training and continues to study with many of the senior IFS trainers. He co-authored the book Many Minds, One Self with IFS founder Richard Schwartz and has helped to train more than a thousand people in IFS.  For the past several years, Bob has been devoted to completing the extensive research and writing of his new book, The Others Within Us, which deals with “unattached burdens,” “guides” and what has sometimes traditionally been referred to as spirit possession. In this episode, Daniel and Bob discuss Bob’s personal trauma and the historical fight for the cultural and professional recognition of abuse, trauma and PTSD. They then delve into the history of psychotherapy and its connections to capitalism and colonialism and Bob’s perspectives on Internal Family Systems (IFS). While exploring the major themes of Bob’s book, they discuss the porous nature of mind, differing cultural models of mind, psychosis and spirit possession, Bob’s personal experiences with “the others within us,” the imaginal realm, and how Western psychology might shift from a “mono-mind” perspective to a “porous mind” one in the future. Timestamps 03:39 Intro 05:29 Bob’s Abusive Upbringing and Early Spiritual Experiences 11:07 How Internal Family Systems Has Helped Bob Become a “Man of Joy” 13:37 The History and Evolution of Modern Cultural Conceptions of Abuse, Trauma and Mind 21:03 Competition, Capitalism and Colonialism in Psychotherapy 23:42 Internal Family Systems and Multiplicity of Mind 28:43 Bob’s Book and His Perspectives on The Porous Nature of Mind 31:48 “Something Foreign In My Mind”: The Client Who Changed Bob’s Perspective 39:09 “The Others Within Us”: The Core Claim of Bob’s Book 45:36 Generational Trauma and Different Cultural Approaches to “The Others Within Us” 49:19 How Forces Not Clearly Linked To Our Personal History Might Get Into Us 52:53 Limitations of the Western Conception of Mind and Differing Cultural Interpretations of “Psychosis” 57:39 Possible Portals To A More Widespread Recognition of The Porosity of Mind 1:00:05 Navigating The Imaginal Realm 1:03:51 How Coaches and Practitioners Can Make Space for Porosity of Mind and The Others Within Us 1:09:20 Closing The Others Within Us

Daniel talks with Tasshin, an online pilgrim, about living one's vow and effective coordination. They discuss bottlenecks, clarifying purpose, and the interconnection between inner and outer work. Other topics include productivity, psychology, ethics, and the pathology of trying to solve the world's problems. They also reflect on their friendship and collaboration at the Monastic Academy.

John Churchill, Doctor of Psychology and teacher of Buddha Dharma, discusses the three paths of awakening: individuation, identification, and initiation. They explore the integration of Western and Eastern traditions, the shift towards inclusive thinking, and the importance of stability, insight, and metacognition in developmental processes.

Vince Horn and Daniel discuss the evolution, benefits, and potential of social meditation. They explore the new meditatewith.ai app created by Vince and Interbeing Inc. co-founder Chris Ewald. The app allows users to practice social meditation with an AI partner, with the ultimate goal of deepening the realization of human interconnectedness in everyday life. Vince and Daniel discuss how social meditation can affect relationships and networks, and how the practice might help address core issues of alienation from self, other, and world at the heart of the meta-crisis. Vince Horn is part of a new generation of teachers translating age-old wisdom into 21st century code. A computer engineering dropout turned modern monk, Vincent spent his 20s co- founding the Buddhist Geeks project while doing a full year of silent meditation practice on retreat. Timestamps 3:54 Intro 5:36 Intro to Social Meditation 11:23 Evolution of Social Meditation 16:33 The Role of Language in Meditation 21:50 Significance of Meditation Moving into the Inter-Relational Context 24:53 Social Meditation’s Effects on Relationships 26:04 The Meditatewith.ai App & The Issues It Addresses 30:11 Intra-Connection, Interconnection & How Social Meditation Can Impact Groups 34:19 Vince’s Inspiration For This Work 38:43 How AI Is Used in the App 49:09 Social Meditation and the Unfolding of the Spiritual Path 53:36 Creating and Refining a Protocol for Social Meditation 57:30 Value of Social Meditation for the Meta-Crisis 1:01:12 Next Steps for the App 1:03:09 Wrap-up Try the app at meditatewith.ai

In this conversation, John, Bonnie, and Thomas discuss various frameworks on what wisdom is, how it functions, and the different types and scales of complexity in which wisdom may arise. The conversation explores themes of wisdom and complexity with both depth and breadth, navigating the topic philosophically and pragmatically, and ultimately arriving at wisdom's relationship with the "It" beyond all relationship. This conversation is brought to us by the Respond Network. The Respond Network is a distributed research network focused on addressing the meta-crisis by researching and cultivating wisdom. Respond Network Practitioners taking place August 7th – 12th, 2023 in Bergerac, France Daniel's Patreon Timestamps 0:00 - Intro 5:59 - Virtue Reactivation 8:19 - Wisdom vs. Development & Complexity vs. Rootedness 12:47 - Wisdom as a function of Domains of Complexity 17:48 - Wisdom as a function of Relationship 20:30 - Wisdom as the Interplay between Sophia & Phronesis 25:35 - Moving between Scales of Sophia & Phronesis 30:37 - Vertical and Horizontal Axes of Wisdom & Complexity 35:41 - Letting Go of Complexity into New Emergence 38:35 - Receptivity to Spontaneity 40:20 - Reorientation Towards Rootedness 42:50 - Accessing What is Fundamental Through Rootedness 49:59 - John Explicating Bonita's Demonstration of the Topic 51:22 - Mindfulness Mirroring 56:27 - Recognizing the Exemplification of the Sacred as a Function of Wisdom 1:02:34 - The World as a grounding agent for Wisdom 1:05:24 - When and How did 'It' show up? 1:12:10 - The 'It' is Beyond Relationship 1:24:14 - In Story'ing 1:26:14 - Mindfulness Mirroring II

In this conversation I speak with Jill Nephew. Jill, a former AI black box algorithm engineer with extensive experience in developing software architectures, holds a highly heterodox perspective on the risks associated with LLM AIs. In this conversation we explore Jill's argument that using LLMs like ChatGPT or Bard are like eating plastic for your cognitive agency and natural intelligence, how it is that AIs could cause the rise of new 'supercults', and how another world is possible, if only we learn to ask the right questions. If you enjoy this podcast and want to support it please consider becoming a Patreon supporter. [3:52] The critical difference between cognition and thinking [9:49] Why is using LLMs like eating plastic for our cognition? [16:04] What LLMs represent in the context of the meta-crisis [24:51] How LLMs signal trustworthiness and use randomness to confuse us and unground our cognition [36:00] What we can expect to see as LLMs introduce more plastic into our cognition [38:29] What ways of interacting with LLMs might be safe? [47:52] What are cults and how do they function in relationship to our cognition? [53:29] The possibility of an AI 'supercult' [55:27] The most dangerous thing we do to each other [59:48] The deep meaningfulness and richness of grounded cognition, going beyond trauma healing, beyond the monkey mind [1:07:17] Technology to reclaim natural intelligence, the practice of inquiry, the difference between 'good' inquiry and 'bad' inquiry [1:12:31] The rigorous engineering behind good inquiry forms [1:13:29] The power of inquiry, the feeling of insight, how to achieve a quiet mind [1:18:29] Jill's advice for how to respond to the acceleration of planetary destruction Jill's Conversation with Layman Pascal on the Integral Stage⁠ Inqwire, the software Jill has developed to help people reclaim their natural intelligence. Support Daniel on Patreon