In this episode two Buddhist philosophers – Martin Kovan and Toby Mendelson – continue their formal dialogue around the relationship (and tensions) between philosophy, Buddhism and meditation practice. Topics covered in part II include: karma and rebirth, pitfalls and possibilities in ‘western’ Buddhism, anatman/atman, comparative philosophy ea ...…

In this episode two Buddhist philosophers – Martin Kovan and Toby Mendelson – conduct a formal dialogue around the relationship (and tensions) between philosophy, Buddhism and meditation practice. Topics covered in part I include: the role and task of philosophy, idealist experiences, modernist/secularist vs traditionalist approaches to Buddhis ...…

In this episode we are joined by young film maker and lifelong Tibetan Buddhist practitioner, Freeman Treblicock. With beautiful candor and openness, Freeman talks about the profound influence of his spiritual teachers, the relationship between myth and psychology, and his transition from child monk to mature film maker. Please Donate—It takes ...…

Prejudice and fear alone prevent the person entering into foreign domains of knowledge. The cocoon of the familiar is a prison of contempt. Wisdom is born from understanding; understanding is born from knowledge; knowledge is born from entering into the unfamiliar in a spirit of openness and with a willingness to learn. This is an axiom on the ...…

In this episode we ask two questions which are highly elusive: what does ‘spiritual’ mean and what does it mean to live a spiritual life? Although we do not arrive at a clear and concise answer to these questions, we do uncover some fascinating connections (and disconnections) between spiritual life and freedom, work, religion and happiness. Pl ...…

Being anchored in bodhicitta is the only true insurance. It is the only uncorrupted thing you can hold. It is at once the path and the telos, the reality of causation and the freedom of its cessation. It is at once emptiness and phenomena, morality and transcendence, compassion and wisdom. Parting from it ensures being utterly lost in the sea, ...…

In this episode we speak with Carl Asuruf about the discoveries he has made about techniques of embodiment and how they coalesce indivisibly with emotional, psychic and intellectual habits. We explore this particularly through the lens of Feldenkrais and Traditional Chinese Medicine, and discover that both are less about treating specific ailme ...…

When imbalance is experienced, the common error is to attempt to create or construct balance. And these attempts of control are endless and fruitless. The art of balance is ruthlessly simple: hold nothing. The mind that abandons holding itself dissolves the cause of imbalance. It co-emerges into the emptiness of appearance and so everything is ...…

To recognise the reality of emptiness, one has to find the thing to be relinquished. It cannot be found in any text, philosophy or teaching. It is the grip itself, the part of you that holds the mind and holds the body. Do not look for an ego, a self, an essence, a false consciousness. Do not look at all. Feel for the part of you that grips. Yo ...…

In this episode we are joined by Matthew Sharpe – Associate Professor of Philosophy at Deakin University – in order to explore the tremendous richness of ancient western contemplative techniques and practices. In particular, we explore the views and practices of the Stoics and rescue the ancient meaning of the philosopher as he or she who loves ...…

The loftiest goals are actualised on the wings of perseverance and patience. With those two attributes any goal – worldly or spiritual – can be attained. Patience is the sky and space around the jumbo jet, perseverance is the engine power. Without the sky there is no possibility of moving forward, without the power there is no momentum. The two ...…

Being true is a verb not a logical statement. Truth is living, porous, manifest. The search for truth is the search for refreshing water in a desert. A necessity which is nonetheless hard to find. Truth is distinct from inclination, instinct, habit, language. It is hard enough to encounter that few persist. Those that do must unravel themselves ...…

Everyone knows about yoga, and many people participate in it. But as we mentioned in the earlier episodes, there seems to be a rather large abyss between the Indian tradition of yoga – which has its roots in the early Upanishads (perhaps even earlier) and flowered especially under the hand of Patanjali in the 8th century – to what we see and ma ...…

This podcast explores a classic text The Art of Loving (1956) by Eric Fromm a renowned psychoanalyist, social theorist and Marxist of the 20th century. Fromm regards love, not as something that simply happens, or that we fall into, but the crowning achievement of a mature individual, demanding of us the greatest of human qualities and attention ...…

Simplicity is synonymous with clarity, elegance and precision. A tamed, concentrated mind always expresses itself in this way. Complexity is never ignored or covered up. It is seen clearly, directly, precisely. But nothing much is done with it – it is not grasped by the mind and turned into a complex conceptual-symbolic order. It is just seen a ...…

There is nothing quite so dangerous on the spiritual path as abiding in mere belief. Such a danger lurks in every tradition and on every path. Abiding in mere belief is always a choice. One does not know, so one chooses to cross the gap with mere belief – usually built out of the currents of fear, hope, desire, wish fulfillment, pride or weakne ...…

This is a small clip from a longer podcast exploring Erich Fromm’s masterpiece The Art of Loving (1956). This small segment explores a trinity of ideas not usually associated with each other — Activity, Love & Meditation — which are far more deeply integrated than most imagine. Please consider donating the cost of your coffee or lunch. It means ...…

True compassion arises out of the mirror-wisdom, the seat of Truth. Those who act compassionately before such an attainment are indeed acting. They are mistaking their sentiments and affections for compassion, disguising their attachments and aversions as altruism. The world is filled with compassion actors, but is almost entirely bereft of the ...…

Such a truth [that yogic life entails immense will] goes deeply against common opinion, which associates spiritual life with passivity, and meekness, and the surrender of ambition. It mistakes the silence of the heart and the serenity of samadhi for the dissolution of will. But in truth, the will becomes devastating, potent and intoxicatingly i ...…

The mind’s eye is used to gazing ahead. It looks horizontally, through the immanent tides of the day. It knows the conditions and tries to discover the causes. It sees the unfolding of time and intuits the final decay. Always, it looks ahead, like the driver of a car. What happens when the driver stops, lays upon the grass and lets his focus fa ...…

Imagining or conceiving of subtle luminosity is radically distinct from perceiving it, from basking in its delightful actuality. The act of imagining or conceiving is the very thing in the way of perceiving it. For subtle luminosity dawns precisely in the same way as the sun rising – one does not need to do anything to perceive and experience a ...…

The world of causation is immutable. The successful and accomplished know only one truth, and it is thus. Paying heed to causation, they are precise and meticulous. Being precise and meticulous, they undertake good actions and accumulate a manifold of virtues and success. Because they understand the nature of the process, they always master the ...…

The lost mind is untamed, unruly, uncontrollable – these are effects of the cause. The cause is that the mind is lost. The mind that is lost apprehends objects, but not itself apprehending. This is like seeing an orange and forgetting that it is the eyes which look. Most of us look this way, we have lost our eyes. Most of us apprehend this way, ...…

Avidy? (basic ignorance) is the ontological space of ordinary mind. It is not an absence of knowledge or a lack of intelligence. It is the background, ever-present, all-encompassing lived experience of reality. Its character is heaviness and dullness – a comforting shade which always blocks the radiant sun…… Please Donate—It takes less than 2 m ...…

The knot of the heart is the root cause of constraint. So long as it is there, freedom cannot be. The knot of the heart is made of an unwillingness to serve others. It is tied by the ropes of self concern. Where there is concern with the self, the knot tightens. Where there is concern for others, the knot loosens. This is the oscillation of hum ...…

Relinquishing desire is not a giving up of pleasure for the morality of temperance and moderation. Nor is it an asceticism for its own sake. It is analogous to giving up gambling for a fruitful investment. The pay off is immense. When nothing is needed, the mind is freed from chasing empty phantoms and in that freedom, the possibility of bliss ...…

Tranquility Meditation for turning inward This practice aims to cultivate tranquillity and concentration by drawing one’s attention inward to a single object of meditation. Potentially effective in helping for people experiencing mental distraction, hyper-activity and insomnia. The guidance provided here is deeply indebted to and drawn from Tib ...…

A Light Touch (Heart) A simple and very short technique to help reconnect to your body, your heart and your calm mind, to adopt in a short space throughout your day, to connect with your heart, to energise and to stabilise. This episode combines description, inspiration and direct guidance for the meditation. Please Donate—It takes less than 2 ...…

Meditation beyond the cushion Keeping your meditation alive throughout the day One of the greatest frustrations regarding meditation, beyond what actually happens on the cushion, is rapidly loosing one’s presence of mind after leaving the cushion. This episode presents a very simple and effective way to keep elements of your meditation practice ...…

Healing Meditation For letting go of anxieties, desires, obsessions. For healing body and mind and for cultivating a radiant and peaceful mind. Involves visualisations and contemplations. Please Donate—It takes less than 2 minutes and means we can keep producing Free content for you! Want to go deeper? Do so by taking the following course: .fus ...…

The desire-body seeks peace, rest, happiness. It works like a factory to achieve this, but only rarely finds brief moments of respite. The soft milky sweetness of maitri melts away all such ceaseless ambition, because it is the purified energy of desire itself. But when you need and want this elixir of the gods, how is it found? Please Donate—I ...…

True thinking is a dance with the sword of prajna. The dirty mess of conceptual proliferation is sliced open, and whatever jewels of knowledge and insight exist are strung into the necklace of understanding. The swordsman engages – he enters into the terrain of thinking, unafraid to touch ideas with his blade. But he never grasps an idea. He le ...…

This is not a task of philosophy. It is a task of speaking of things which arise out of true silence. To attempt to give voice to the ineffable is obviously fraught with tension – silence itself is always the truest way. But words can be like a gentle breeze or even a gale – they can lead the mind towards and into silence and those ineffable tr ...…

East-West Spiritual Encounters—Historical Reflections Contemporary spiritual life is unimaginable without yoga mats, Buddha statues and mindfulness practices. In order to unmask this, we undertake a brief recent history of East-West dialogue or transmission. Beginning in the 19th century, we examine the way Indian and East Asian spiritual tradi ...…

East-West Spiritual Encounters in the 21st Century Where Are We Now? In this episode we (mostly) leave aside the history of east-west spiritual transmission, and ask ‘where has it actually led us to?’ We examine the relationship between Buddhism and science, Yoga and the body and the New Age connection to ‘wellness.’ In doing so, we uncover a v ...…

Conclusion: Do I Contradict Myself? Very Well, I Contradict Myself In this final episode, I formally admit that the nine thinkers in this series – all who have deeply influenced and shaped my understanding – do not fit together with very much coherence or consistency. And I make the claim that this is a good thing – that philosophy should be ab ...…

Aristotle: Areté Aristotle (300’s BC) was the most prolific philosopher of Ancient Greece, and arguably the most influential. His contributions crossed virtually every domain of human knowledge which existed then, and endured as the benchmark for great periods of time in many of them. In this episode I pay homage to this immense historical lega ...…

Maimonides: Flirting With Judaic Rationalism Moses Maimonides was a 12th century Spanish Jew, whose work remains the pillar of Judaic rationalism. His magnum opus – The Guide of the Perplexed – attempts to reconcile the revealed and prophetic sacred texts of Judaism, with the rigorous metaphysics of ancient Greece, via an engagement with some o ...…

Sigmund Freud: The Unconscious Logic of Love and Hate Sigmund Freud was one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century across any discipline. Now in the 21st century, Freudian psychoanalysis is definitely on the wane – but in this episode, I make the case that there are Freudian insights which might help us to understand and potential ...…

Karl Marx: Capitalism, Contradictions and Communists Karl Marx was the infamous 19th century critic of capitalism, animator of socialist revolution and shaper of the political world. Because of the very real entailments which followed from his philosophy, Marx is almost universally either deeply reviled or intensely loved; few can remain dispas ...…

Immanuel Kant: Sapere Aude – Daring to Use My Own Reason Immanuel Kant was an 18th century Prussian/German philosopher, who made extraordinary contributions to epistemology, ethics and political philosophy. His work is too profound and systematic to characterise in a breezy sentence or two; it suffices to say that although many enlightenment ph ...…

Chogyam Trungpa & The Kagyu Mahasiddhas: Immanence & History Chogyam Trungpa was a 20th century Tibetan Buddhist lama, who was part of a lineage called the Kagyu, which extends back to 10th century India. The central idea of the Kagyu lineage is known as Mah?mudr? – which is simultaneously a philosophy of co-emergence between mind and phenomena ...…

Friedrich Nietzsche: Wildfires of Inspiration and Conceit Friedrich Nietzsche was a 19th century German philosopher, often considered the father of post-modernism. His works challenged some of the most central axioms of western philosophy, from epistemology and metaphysics to ethics. My relationship with Nietzsche mirrors the inconsistency inhe ...…

Nagarjuna: I am not I N?g?rjuna was an ancient (150CE) Indian Buddhist philosopher, at the forefront of the Madhyamaka (Middle Way) tradition. His philosophy of ??nyat? (emptiness) is notoriously difficult to master, and my own attempts do so are best defined by the countless errors I have made in the pursuit of that understanding. And yet, wha ...…

Martin Buber: I and He Martin Buber was a 20th century German-Jewish existentialist philosopher, most famous for his philosophy of dialogue or relation. His beautiful book, I and Thou counts as one of my most treasured possessions, partly because it actually contains treasures, and partly because it sits nostalgically at the very beginning of a ...…

Inspired Thinkers by Dr Toby Mendelson The purpose of this podcast series is to contemplate the thinkers who have most influenced my philosophical, moral, political and spiritual development – the thinkers I am most in debt to, and who have most shaped my relationship to the world. Although this series is somewhat embarrassingly framed around m ...…