Blissful Thinking

Blissful Thinking is a podcast wherein I ask people of color the big questions: What is life? What happens when we die? Why are we here? What does "god" mean to you? How do you get through each day? What have your biggest struggles been?

Blissful Thinking #17: Vimalasara Mason-John - "Life is to be of Service" 08/16/2020

Blissful Thinking #17: Vimalasara Mason-John - "Life is to be of Service" 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. /episode/index/show/blissful/id/15628043

Blissful Thinking #16: Mita Mistry - "Life is a Gift" 08/01/2020

Blissful Thinking #16: Mita Mistry - "Life is a Gift" 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 . /episode/index/show/blissful/id/15440255

Blissful Thinking #15: Kevin Martin - "Life is Interconnection" 07/18/2020

Blissful Thinking #15: Kevin Martin - "Life is Interconnection" 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. /episode/index/show/blissful/id/15255947

Blissful Thinking #14: Kadija George - "Life is Living Your Best Life" 07/04/2020

Blissful Thinking #14: Kadija George - "Life is Living Your Best Life" 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. /episode/index/show/blissful/id/15082943

Blissful Thinking #13: Dean Dorsett - "Life is about Getting Better at Being More Loving" 06/26/2020

Blissful Thinking #13: Dean Dorsett - "Life is about Getting Better at Being More Loving" 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. /episode/index/show/blissful/id/14967509

Blissful Thinking #12: Thomas Davis - "Life is a Process of Discovering Who You Are" 06/19/2020

Blissful Thinking #12: Thomas Davis - "Life is a Process of Discovering Who You Are" 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. /episode/index/show/blissful/id/14894102

Blissful Thinking #11: Guilaine Kinouani - "A Good Life is Feeling Connected to the World" 06/12/2020

Blissful Thinking #11: Guilaine Kinouani - "A Good Life is Feeling Connected to the World" 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. /episode/index/show/blissful/id/14796947

Blissful Thinking #10: JJ Bola - "Through Spirit We Are Always Alive" 06/05/2020

Blissful Thinking #10: JJ Bola - "Through Spirit We Are Always Alive" 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. /episode/index/show/blissful/id/14710292

Blissful Thinking #9: Roger Robinson - "I Don't Need to Define What Life Is" 05/30/2020

Blissful Thinking #9: Roger Robinson - "I Don't Need to Define What Life Is" 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. /episode/index/show/blissful/id/14627027

Blissful Thinking #8: Mauricio Barriga - "Life is Just What It Is" 05/23/2020

Blissful Thinking #8: Mauricio Barriga - "Life is Just What It Is" 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. /episode/index/show/blissful/id/14537525

Blissful Thinking #7: Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi - "Life is a Preparation for Death" 05/15/2020

Blissful Thinking #7: Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi - "Life is a Preparation for Death" This week's episode is with writer, editor and translator Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi. It's wide-ranging! We talk about Islam, spirits, tarot, ayahuasca, vipassana, and mostly about life's purpose, and social justice, and the necessity of speaking out, and why. Is it possible for one person to be happy and at peace when others are suffering? And why are we here, and who will we be when we die? /episode/index/show/blissful/id/14433320

Blissful Thinking #6: Giorgia Alexander - "Life is the NeverEnding Pursuit of Unconditional Love" 05/08/2020

Blissful Thinking #6: Giorgia Alexander - "Life is the NeverEnding Pursuit of Unconditional Love" This week's episode is with the extraordinarily insightful poet, storyteller, healer, clairvoyant, tarot reader, and psychic, Giorgia Alexander. This is a deep, sensitive, and most of all wise exploration of some of the key issues that face us all: trauma and how to heal from it, narcissism, sociopathy, and, last of all, how to develop our psychic powers. /episode/index/show/blissful/id/14343569

Blissful Thinking #5: Mutlu Ergün - "Life is in Our Invisible Relationships" 05/01/2020

Blissful Thinking #5: Mutlu Ergün - "Life is in Our Invisible Relationships" This week's episode is with former rapper and novelist Mutlu Ergün who is a currently an anti-racist trainer, travelling across Germany. Usually with his brother, he runs People of Colour empowerment workshops, and anti-racist trainings for white people, in which he aims to gently, lovingly, separate white Germans from their whiteness, making them aware of their own racisms. It's a spiritual approach to racism that we very rarely hear, and Multu is an expert. /episode/index/show/blissful/id/14238539

Blissful Thinking #4: Rikki Beadle-Blair - "Life is Understanding" 04/25/2020

Blissful Thinking #4: Rikki Beadle-Blair - "Life is Understanding" Welcome to our third interview with the truly inspirational Rikki Beadle-Blair who explains the importance of self-love, positivity and gratitude and how to get there. /episode/index/show/blissful/id/14139818

Blissful Thinking #3: Nayomi Munaweera - "Life is This Moment" 04/18/2020

Blissful Thinking #3: Nayomi Munaweera - "Life is This Moment" Award-winning novelist Nayomi Munaweera talks with us abut childhood trauma, abuse and her "spiritual toolbox" of vipassana meditation, therapy, twelve-step, and ayahuasca. Her advice to us all at this time is to be soft with ourselves, and to remember that this moment is all we have. /episode/index/show/blissful/id/14039699

Blissful Thinking #2: Fannie-Lee Lowe - "Life is a Magical Mystery Tour" 04/09/2020

Blissful Thinking #2: Fannie-Lee Lowe - "Life is a Magical Mystery Tour" The first interview! And it's with my dear, wise, loving 82-year-old friend from San Francisco, Fannie-Lee. Here she talks about death, about pain, and love, and gives beautiful gentle advice to us all about how to survive this mysterious wonderful thing called life. This one is about everything, and ALL about love. /episode/index/show/blissful/id/13924127

Blissful Thinking #1: An Introduction with Rajeev Balasubramanyam 04/04/2020

Blissful Thinking #1: An Introduction with Rajeev Balasubramanyam In this first episode I, your host, Rajeev Balasubramanyam, explains what the Blissful Thinking podcast is and how he came to spiritual practice. He discusses the need for people of colour to talk about pain and trauma, and to share ways of healing, and offers offers suggestions on how to live life under lockdown with awareness. /episode/index/show/blissful/id/13844057

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