Podcast Episodes

September 10, 2021

We’re back with Season 3 of the show, starting with renowned meditation teacher, author, and creator of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Jon Kabat-Zinn. This spacious and personal conversation is full of insights on a wide range of topics, including:

• what drew him to meditation;
• his development of and vision for MBSR;
• the mystery of the line between the inside and outside of any system;
• adapting Buddhist practices for Western audiences;
• how mindfulness has been taken up in society, and science as a main driver;
• self and other—moving from “me” to “we”;
• the challenges of repeatability in scientific studies of meditation;
• weaving together art and science;
• and how 50+ years of meditation has changed him.

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August 13, 2021

In this bonus episode, we’re sharing a special presentation from environmentalist, physicist, and eco-feminist Vandana Shiva. This session is from our Summer Research Institute, held in June of this year, entitled The Mind, the Human-Earth Connection, and the Climate Crisis. We’re adding this to the podcast feed because Vandana speaks powerfully about how the mind contributes to so many of the world’s current emergencies, including health, hunger, poverty, climate, extinction, and injustice, exclusion, and inequality. Countering these outcomes of disconnection, Vandana offers Earth Democracy as a worldview, paradigm, and practice based on the recognition that everything is interconnected. She covers a lot of ground, touching on topics such as:

• the intellectual architecture of disconnection;
• the many ramifications of Cartesian dualism;
• the colonialist mindset of conquest and mastery;
• mistaken frameworks that try to dominate nature;
• how dead carbon leads to wars;
• food and our microbiome;
• quantum physics and interconnectedness;
• statistics and updates on the science of climate change;
• the economy of earth care;
• and the power of self-organizing systems within nature to heal ourselves and our world.

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July 9, 2021

In this bonus episode, Wendy speaks with evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson. This episode is being released in conjunction with Mind & Life’s new film, Evolution of the Heart — a short documentary covering conversations between the Dalai Lama, David Sloan Wilson, and social scientist Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela from a 2019 Mind & Life event in Dharamsala, India. The theme of that gathering was Compassion, Interconnection, and Transformation. David’s work extends beyond genetics to include personal and cultural evolution, and sheds light on how we can move forward as a global community. In this conversation, they discuss many topics, including:

• the role of competition, cooperation, and prosocial behavior in human evolution;
• how evolutionary pressure operates at both individual and group levels (multilevel selection);
• the possibility of conscious evolution;
• what it means to be part of a group;
• expanding the notion of the self;
• becoming “bilingual” in scientific and spiritual perspectives;
• the need to create a system of ethics for the whole world;
• and core design principles for creating more egalitarian and compassionate communities. 

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May 21, 2021

In this episode, Wendy speaks with environmentalist Dekila Chungyalpa about her views of nature, the climate crisis, and her unique collaborations with faith leaders. Their conversation covers many topics, including:

• growing up in the Himalayas and being interconnected with nature;
• the dominance of dualistic thinking in the West, and the dangerous separations it creates;
• embracing a framework of interdependence;
• the role of indigenous wisdom in conservation;
• her own experience dealing with eco-anxiety;
• working with faith leaders to move the needle on environmental issues;
• weaving together Buddhist values and activism;
• bridging science and religion;
• and the need for compassion and community in facing the climate crisis.

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May 7, 2021

In this episode, Wendy speaks with clinical researcher Peter Wayne about his work on mind-body and movement-based interventions like tai chi. Their conversation covers many topics, including:

• how a background in ecology informs his research;
• embracing multiple causes of any outcome;
• how to do non-reductionist science;
• removing the hyphen from the mind-body system;
• harnessing the wisdom of the body through contemplative practice;
• the value of first-person narrative in research;
• safety and trauma in the body;
• the relationship between physical and emotional patterns;
• how the concept of the subtle body relates to Western views;
• the role of integrative medicine in dealing with climate change;
• and bringing together multiple perspectives to investigate the mind & healing.

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