Links for Lunch: My iPod Overfloweth

Books. I've been reading 'em.
And podcasts. I've been listening to 'em. Lots. And it occurred to me tonight that I should do a post on a few of the podcasts I've discovered recently, because some of you might find them interesting as well. Though I do listen to other podcasts like The Moth and RadioLab, the ones I'm going to focus on today have Eastern spirituality in common.

First, allow me to introduce you to The Storytelling Monk. As with all of these, you can listen to the recordings on his website, or you can subscribe to his podcast via iTunes. "Welcome to your home for wisdom tales, sacred riddles, spiritual tips, holy humor and more." the Storytelling Monk begins, "Ready?" He has an endearing French accent and loves to laugh. His stories come from a variety of religious backgrounds with a metaphorical interpretation in the tradition of the Kriya yoga masters. I recommend his 8 part series on Spiritual Stress Management (which I listened to while at work, stressed, just yesterday).

Another series of podcasts I've been recommending to lots of people is the Krishna Sunday temple talks by Caru Das. You don't need to be an ISKCON devotee to appreciate the basic wisdom this great public speaker shares from the Lotus Temple in Spanish Fork, Utah while his pet birds chirp in the background (the grounds of the temple are also home to a small animal park, as the Hari Krishnas, like all Hindus, practice Ahimsa, non-harming/non-violence towards both people and animals). I've heard some inspiring talks on dealing with anger, stress, fear, and depression, as well as living both your heart's desire and a purposeful life. In the most recent episode, The Hero Within, Caru stresses the important differences between a "celebrity" and a "hero" and suggests a path for becoming more heroic in your own life by gaining control over your desires and senses (and explains why doing so is important from a Hindu perspective).

The tag line of the Buddhist Geeks podcast is "Seriously Buddhist, Seriously Geeky." From their website, "Buddhist Geeks was born out of a conversation between two friends, Vince Horn and Ryan Oelke, at a local coffeeshop in Boulder, CO. At the time, both Vince and Ryan were Religious Studies students at Naropa University, a Buddhist-inspired liberal arts school." Podcasts like I'm not Babysitting Your Ego, Self is is a Network Phenomenon, and The Buddha Didn't Have a Credit Card offer a fresh perspective on being a modern-day Buddhist practitioner. Good stuff.

If you're interested in kirtan but aren't sure where to start listening and learning I can't recommend Kitzie Stern's bi-weekly New World Kirtan podcast highly enough. Each one is built around a thoughtful theme (New Voices, Kirtan to Snooze To, Ganesh is Fresh) and she's introduced me to some amazing artists.

Learning more about Vedic Mythology, Mantras, and Music is easy with the help of podcasts by Ben Collins, with an emphasis on spirituality and humor as he tells the ancient and imaginative tales of Shiva, Saraswati, Navarati, Rama, and more. Each episode ends with an appropriate chant/mantra by Brahman priests, some taken from historical recordings. This site also offers great podcasts on Ayurvedic Living and Jyotish, Vedic Astrology.

And finally, the Urban Guru Café is dedicated to providing professionally-produced interviews with those who are expressing what we call Nonduality today, and they even have themselves a spot over on (at?) Second Life, for those of you who spend time in that virtual world. Personally I can't even get my Second Life avatar to walk without banging into door jams and clumsily falling down virtual hills, so I stay in this world where I'm only slightly less klutzy. As for Nonduality, I wrote my very first Philosophy paper on it, though it's pretty clear, looking it over 20 years later, that my excitement for the subject didn't translate to very much understanding. I'm hoping this podcast will help.

My final link is to an article published recently in The Independent, Heaven: A Fool's Paradise. There are presently 232 comments on the piece, and I found it interesting to read through some of them and observe the passionate arguements both for and against both the concept of an afterlife and spirituality in general. Mike at Annotated Margins recently wrote an inspiring series of posts that pertain to this subject. Using the example of a card that has conflicting statements written on either side of it ("God or No God," for example, or in the case of the article above, "Afterlife or No Afterlife") Mike writes:

Two conflicting sides of a single card, a paradox, and yet I have no conflict, because I know what is stated on both sides of the card, and I know which side of the card pertains to me.

No conflict. I choose which side of the card pertains to me, and I go with it. I choose to eliminate the paradox. I know side one, and I know side two, but I operate from a single perspective, without doubt, knowing what I know and forgiving myself for it. Knowing that I may know something differently down the road.

Read his whole series, especially if you end up mired in the comment section of The Independent article for as long as I was. You'll need the refreshment afterwords. The point is, right now there's absolutely no way for us to scientifically prove the existence of either a higher power or an afterlife, but some choose to believe the statement on one side of the card and others choose to believe in the opposite side. Whichever side you choose, be confident in it. Whichever side someone else chooses, respect it. What else can we do?

In her book Faith, Sharon Salzberg writes:

"The tendency to focus on big, unanswerable questions — "Is there a God?""How does karma work?""Was there a beginning to the universe?" was characterized as "a desert, a jungle, a puppet show, the writhing entanglement of speculation" by the Buddha. Our obsessions with such questions would lead only to personal resentment and sorrow, not to wisdom or peace, he said. Whenever feverish disputes on such issues rose up around him, instead of joining in and offering a theoretical answer, he urged everyone to find answers for themselves, in a way that would help them resolve the suffering in their lives. To arrive at that resolution of suffering is the point of skillful doubt. "

The Buddha also advised that the distinction between faith and beliefs lies in testing what we are told. "Put it into practice," the Buddha said, "and it you find that it leads to a kind of wisdom that is like looking at a wall, and then the wall breaks open and you se in a much more unbounded way, then you can trust it."