Saturday, May 27, 2017

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #262 - 27MAY17

The Mystical Positivist is now a weekly radio show on KOWS-LP 107.3 FM, Occidental, CA. Listen live on Saturday evenings from 4:00 - 6:00pm, PST, via the web at KOWS Live Stream.
This week's podcast features:
  • This week on the Mystical Positivist we converse in the studio with Shozan Jack Haubner, a priest in the Rinzai Zen tradition. He studied Zen for years with his Roshi, and is the author of Zen Confidential: Confessions of a Wayward Monk, published by Shambhala. His writings have earned him a Pushcart Prize, and his essays have appeared in periodicals including Buddhadharma, Tricycle, and The Sun. A former screenwriter and standup comic, he moved to a Zen Buddhist monastery in the early aughts. He was drawn to the rigors of Zen practice, the deep insight of the tradition, and the fact that Zen monks do not have to refrain from cursing or drinking alcohol. A year into his life as a full-time Zen monk he discovered that Buddhism is fundamentally about "not self." He is still wondering if an exception can be made in his case. Besides Zen Confidential, he is also the author of upcoming book, Single White Monk: Tales of Death, Failure, and Bad Sex (Although Not Necessarily in That Order).
More information about Shozan Jack Haubner's work can be found at:

Saturday, May 20, 2017

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #261 - 20MAY17

The Mystical Positivist is now a weekly radio show on KOWS-LP 107.3 FM, Occidental, CA. Listen live on Saturday evenings from 4:00 - 6:00pm, PST, via the web at KOWS Live Stream.
This week's podcast features:
  • This week on the show we replay a talk that Mystical Positivists, Rob Schmidt and Stuart Goodnick, gave at Many Rivers Books and Tea on Thursday May 11, 2017, entitled Intelligence, Consciousness, and Slack. After the talk, Rob and Stuart continue to discuss the ideas addressed in the original talk. The published talk description is the following:
  • We have the habit of thinking we know what intelligence is. After all, didn’t I get higher grades in school than my neighbor (or the other way around)? Yet deep inquiry into its nature reveals that intelligence resists unambiguous definition. Is intelligence defined by the capacity to comprehend and manipulate symbols, or must we also consider so-called “emotional intelligence” and even body awareness as attributes of intelligence? So too with consciousness. Surely dogs and dolphins are conscious, yet is their consciousness undifferentiated from that of humans? Can we speak meaningfully about intelligence and consciousness in systems or processes larger than individual biological organisms like individual human beings? Even recent materialist writers like Yuval Harari (Sapiens and Homo Deus) acknowledge that consciousness too resists unambiguous definition. In this talk, we ask how the concept of the “third force,” or to use another formulation, “slack” can help us recast how we think about, and how we embody intelligence and consciousness. Slack is the “X factor” or space that enables us to move past our own mental and emotional habits so that we move around obstacles like water moving around a boulder in a stream.
More information about Tayu Meditation Center can be found at:

Saturday, May 13, 2017

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #260 - 13MAY17

The Mystical Positivist is now a weekly radio show on KOWS-LP 107.3 FM, Occidental, CA. Listen live on Saturday evenings from 4:00 - 6:00pm, PST, via the web at KOWS Live Stream.
This week's podcast features:
  • A conversation by telephone with Estelle Frankel, MFT, a practicing psychotherapist, spiritual guide, storyteller, and seasoned teacher of Jewish mysticism and meditation, who blends the healing wisdom and spiritual practices of Kabbalah and Musar with depth psychology. She was ordained as a rabbinic and spiritual guide by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. She has taught Jewish studies in Israel and throughout the U.S., in both academic and religious settings, for over forty years, and is part of the spiritual leadership team at Chochmat HaLev in Berkeley, CA. Estelle is the author of numerous essays on Judaism and psychology and the groundbreaking book on the integration of kabbalah and psychotherapy, Sacred Therapy: Jewish Spiritual Teachings on Emotional Healing and Inner Wholeness. Her latest book, just published by Shambhala, is The Wisdom of Not Knowing: Discovering a Life of Wonder by Embracing Uncertainty.
More information about Estelle Frankel's work and interests can be found at:

Saturday, May 6, 2017

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #259 - 06MAY17

The Mystical Positivist is now a weekly radio show on KOWS-LP 107.3 FM, Occidental, CA. Listen live on Saturday evenings from 4:00 - 6:00pm, PST, via the web at KOWS Live Stream.
This week's podcast features:
  • A conversation with Jim Wilson, a poet and writer on religious and spiritual topics, and a co-founder of Many Rivers Books & Tea in Sebastopol. Jim is the author of at least 15 poetry titles, including A Night of Many Sonnets and Hiking the Quatrain Range. In the spiritual realm, Jim has written An Annotated Edition of A Guide to True Peace, Communion in the Manner of Friends: A Manual for Quaker Communion, and his latest work, which will be the subject of our conversation on today’s show: On Trusting the Heart: A Commentary on the Xin Xin Ming. This latest book was predominantly written thirty years ago, when Jim was acting as a teacher in the Korean Chogye Zen tradition, after having spent six years as a full ordination monk in that tradition, under his teacher Seung Sahn. Jim went on to become a Buddhist Chaplain at an institution for the criminally insane, and he eventually transitioned from Buddhism to the Quaker tradition, his current spiritual home. Jim has appeared on the Mystical Positivist multiple times.
More information about Jim Wilson's work and interests can be found at: