Blissful Thinking #9: Roger Robinson - "I Don't Need to Define What Life Is"
Release Date: 05/30/2020
Blissful Thinking #17: Vimalasara Mason-John - "Life is to be of Service"
Blissful Thinking
Vimalasara (Valerie) Mason-John, an award winning author of 9 books, including her latest, I'm Still Your Negro. She is the co-founder of the Mindfulness Based Addiction Recovery MBAR and of Eight Step Recovery and one of the leading African Descent voices in mindfulness approaches to addiction.
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Blissful Thinking #16: Mita Mistry - "Life is a Gift"
Blissful Thinking
My guest this week is Mita Mistry, a writer, mindfulness-based cognitive therapist, and acupuncturist. Mita is an incredibly sensitive and empathic person, and in this episode she introduces us to Taoist five elements acupuncture, along with many other subjects including narcissism, codependence, and abuse south Asian families. Her website is below, and you can also find her articles at https://muckrack.com/mita-mistry/articles. She tweets @mitamistry .
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Blissful Thinking #15: Kevin Martin - "Life is Interconnection"
Blissful Thinking
My guest this week is my friend Kevin Martin. He is a native of the Bay Area and a practitioner of vipassana and, more recently, a student in the Dharmacharya Program under the teachings of Venerable Pannavati Bhikkhuni and Venerable Pannidipa Bhikkhu. Kevin is a Dharma Community teacher at Insight Richmond. Kevin's take on the world is always original, and he has those essential qualities for the path: curiosity, honesty, humour, warmth, and humility.
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Blissful Thinking #14: Kadija George - "Life is Living Your Best Life"
Blissful Thinking
This episode features Kadija George! She's a legendary figure in the Black British literary world, writing under the name Kadija Sesay. A literary activist, poet, short-story writer and publisher of Sable LitMag, which is on hiatus but will be back. Kadija's achievements are huge. She has helped so many writers, soooo many, and has been rewarded with the Cosmopolitan Woman of Achievement and multiple other honours.
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Blissful Thinking #13: Dean Dorsett - "Life is about Getting Better at Being More Loving"
Blissful Thinking
Dean Dorsett is my oldest friend! He was my comrade-in-arms during our 3 years at Oriel College, Oxford, in the news now due to the Rhodes Must Fall campaign. In this episode we try to understand Oxford's intellectual culture, its racism, and Dean describes his transition from Jehovah's Witness in Dominica to medical student at one of the most right-wing institutions in Britain. He explains how his experience as a doctor aligns with everything else he has learned about western civilisation.
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Blissful Thinking #12: Thomas Davis - "Life is a Process of Discovering Who You Are"
Blissful Thinking
This week's episode is with my friend, the dharma teacher Thomas Davis. Thomas graduated from the Spirit Rock Community Dharma Leader Training Program, and after co-founding the the Insight Richmond Meditation Group, moved to Los Angeles where he now teaches at Insight LA. Thomas combines warmth, calm, and love with acute political insight and has one of the best laughs of anyone I know. I love him dearly, and I'm sure you will too.
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Blissful Thinking #11: Guilaine Kinouani - "A Good Life is Feeling Connected to the World"
Blissful Thinking
This week's episode is with radical psychotherapist Guilaine Kinouani, an expert on the impact of racism on the mental health of people of colour. We had an extraordinary conversation in which I learned so much about how to understand this current moment from a psychological perspective.
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Blissful Thinking #10: JJ Bola - "Through Spirit We Are Always Alive"
Blissful Thinking
This week's episode is with poet, novelist, and writer on masculinity, JJ Bola. We speak about traditional African spirituality and the importance of communicating with ancestors in revolutionary movements, as well as imperialist attempts to suppress such practice, and we speak about today's situation in the United States and how it is as much a spiritual struggle as a material one.
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Blissful Thinking #9: Roger Robinson - "I Don't Need to Define What Life Is"
Blissful Thinking
Roger Robinson is a poet and vocalist for the musical crossover project King Midas Sound. I've known him for 20 years as one of the biggest-hearted, most generous writers around. This year, everything has gone his way, in terms of success, so I wanted to ask him how he has remained grounded, what his secret is. Here he explains, stressing the importance of doing the right thing, bigger true to your inner voice.
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Blissful Thinking #8: Mauricio Barriga - "Life is Just What It Is"
Blissful Thinking
This week's episode is with my dear friend Mauricio Barriga, a schoolteacher originally from Mexico, now living in Santa Ana in Orange County. Mauricio and I met at Deer Park Monastery, CA, which is where he learnt his practice of meditation in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh and here he explains the essence of this practice and how it transformed his life. Simple, honest, authentic and beautiful, Mauricio is the living embodiment of the teachings of the Buddha.
info_outlineRoger Robinson is a poet and vocalist for the musical crossover project King Midas Sound. I've known him for 20 years as one of the biggest-hearted, most generous writers around. This year, everything has gone his way, in terms of success, so I wanted to ask him how he has remained grounded, what his secret is. Here he explains, stressing the importance of doing the right thing, being true to your inner voice.
https://rogerrobinsononline.com/
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/16/ts-eliot-prize-winner-roger-robinson
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/nov/02/a-portable-paradise-roger-robinson-poem-of-month