Arete House Podcasts - Inspired Thinkers Series

So I am firmly suggesting that Vikalpa is kind of the thing in the way. It is the thing we need to deconstruct. Vikalpa is like: a wall being continually built, by you, by your mind, by your thinking and discursive activities......kind of all the time; it is the notion that you are something of [...] The post 015 Episode Fifteen – What’s The Thing In The Way? appeared first on Arete House.

Insight meditation is really a critical process. A process of negation – one is trying to actively undermine something; to tear down a solid wall; to uncover something which has been concealed. To find something which is normally hidden. So in most traditions, it is a deconstructive process, not a process of building something up. [...] The post 014 Episode Fourteen – Insight Meditation appeared first on Arete House.

In shamatha meditation, nothing is being added, and nothing is really being taken away. It’s just a point where stillness and stability may be discovered as part of the functioning of your mind; alongside all the other crazy, interesting, dirty, strange stuff. It is at precisely such a point where the Dharmic traditions offer a [...] The post 013 Episode Thirteen – Taming the Swarm of Bees/Mind appeared first on Arete House.

In this episode we begin our investigation of the mind by asking 'how do we know what the mind is?' And I invite you to examine those often unexamined predicates about how we know what the mind is, by widening and going beyond the sense that brain and mind are simply synonyms. The post 012 Episode Twelve – Knowing the Mind appeared first on Arete House.

When we have an actual technique to work with, such as tonglen, this will only work in the context of intention and repetition. There is no magical panacea, a technique that you find or someone gives you that just kind of magically works. It is by the sheer weight of accumulation that it works. How [...] The post 011 Episode Eleven – Spiritual Technique appeared first on Arete House.

Once we steer our thinking away from the notion that love is something innately ‘there’; or that it is something we ‘get’ from other people, or that it is something we choose by swiping left on Tinder or finding someone attractive at the bar. Once we cut through all of that illusion, and realise that [...] The post 010 Episode Ten – The Ethics of Love appeared first on Arete House.

The great ethical traditions –  the virtues traditions of ancient Greece and Rome, the Shramana traditions of ancient India and the Confucian stream of ancient China – are for all their differences, united in seeing a causal relationship between present mental dispositions, virtues, vices, character and future possible happiness or flourishing.   The post 09 Episode Nine – Harnessing the Reality of Causation appeared first on Arete House.

If you can’t see what kinds of constraints you face, then there is no hope for gaining freedom from them. So, we must find a way to gain that sight – and this implies to simply see, very clearly and nakedly and without excessive embellishment, the exact nature of the causes and effects which are [...] The post 08 Episode Eight Clearly Seeing Causation appeared first on Arete House.

In this episode I make a very strong claim about the relationship between causation and our ordinary lives - it is this: that success and failure, happiness and depression, confidence and fear, enlightenment and ignorance, a good life and a bad life, virtue and vice......all, absolutely, 100% depend on thoroughly mastering causation in the context [...] The post 07 Episode Seven Mastering Causation appeared first on Arete House.

In this episode we turn from 'how do we know?' kinds of questions to one of the most fundamental questions that we can frame: what is reality? And the starting point for answering this is rather down to earth: causation.   The post 06 Episode Six The Nature of Reality appeared first on Arete House.

Once we discern where the limits of reason might be, the question becomes: what lies beyond it? In this episode we investigate three modes of knowing that lay outside reason's domain: intuition, shabda pramana (Skt: verbal testimony) and prajna (Skt: direct insight). In some way or another, all the theory, analysis, knowledge that you acquire [...] The post 05 Episode Five Beyond Reason appeared first on Arete House.

It doesn’t take a Socrates to figure out that there may be some kind of connection between all those tools of knowledge spoken of in the last episode, and reason. In that the process of acquiring good knowledge very often entails using logic to determine truth from falsity, consistency from inconsistency, and contradiction from non-contradiction. [...] The post 04 Episode Four Reason and its Limits appeared first on Arete House.

Intellectual diligence, patience, hermeneutical awareness, basic insight into the discipline of epistemology and balance between excessive naivety and caution are all essential tools of knowledge that anyone can cultivate and utilise. They are not just for philosophers or scholars. To quote Shantideva, the great Indian master of bodhicitta, if whole world is covered in thorns [...] The post 03 Episode Three Essentials of Knowledge For Spiritual Life appeared first on Arete House.

One of the most well known stories about Socrates is the one where he went to the Oracle of Athens  and asked her, ‘who is the wisest person in all of Athens.’ To which she replied ‘Socrates.’ And he thought, ‘that can’t be right, because I don’t know anything.....’ This episode is about the inherent [...] The post 02 Episode Two Problems of Knowledge and Spiritual Life appeared first on Arete House.

In essence, the series is about making the case that a range of philosophical tools, disciplines and practices are necessary in order to live a fruitful spiritual life – which is something many of the ancients east and west basically took for granted, but which I suspect we have lost sight of. The basic premise [...] The post 01 Introductory episode appeared first on Arete House.

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 east & west, and Buddhist politics. Please Donate—It takes [...] The post 011 Contemporary Spiritual Life – Philosophy, Buddhism and Meditation: Tensions and Harmonies. Part II appeared first on Arete House.

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 Buddhist practice and the epistemological status of meditation [...] The post 010 Contemporary Spiritual Life – Philosophy, Buddhism and Meditation: Tensions and Harmonies. Part I appeared first on Arete House.

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 less than 2 [...] The post 008 Contemporary Spiritual Life – Freeman Treblicock on Tibetan Buddhism, Myth & Film Making appeared first on Arete House.

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 [...] The post 020 The Yogic Way—Understanding as the Root of the Path appeared first on Arete House.

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 [...] The post 007 Contemporary Spiritual Life – What Does it Mean to Be Spiritual? appeared first on Arete House.