Episode 8: Abundant Living Here-Now with Joan Tollifson


Show Notes - to leave comments/questions click on title above.
Joan Tollifson writes and talks about being awake to the aliveness and inconceivability of Here-Now—being just this moment, exactly as it is. Rather than relying on outside authorities, traditional ideas, acquired knowledge or beliefs, this is about direct, immediate seeing and being. Joan has spent time with many teachers, exploring Buddhism, Advaita and radical nonduality, but she does not identify with or represent any particular tradition. She is the author of Bare-Bones Meditation: Waking Up from the Story of My Life (1996), Awake in the Heartland: The Ecstasy of What Is (2003), Painting the Sidewalk with Water: Talks and Dialogs about Nonduality (2010), Nothing to Grasp(2012), and Death: The End of Self-Improvement (2019). (Adapted from Joan’s website.)
Joan Discusses
-  When is it contemplative
-  Is there spirituality and does it develop
- The pathless path leading to the gateless gate
-  Maps and conceptual constructions – help, hinderance or both 
-  Religious doctrine, dogma and beliefs vs. teachings
-  How science and religion approach beliefs and direct experience
-  The value of not knowing and groundlessness
-  Suffering vs. pain and stories and identification with thinking as sources of suffering
-  There’s no there there: self as fiction arising from thoughts and the paradox
-  Here-Now defined and impermanence and presence as aspects
-  Thinking as “mental chewing gum”
-  "Dissolution" of my inner/outer boundary
-  Freedom – what’s thought and thinking got to do with it
-  What’s problematic – having thoughts or believing in them
-  Non-Duality, unicity, making something an other (dualism)
-  Taoism, Yin/Yang and being at peace with everything - more paradox
-  Aging: natural loss and more wisdom, love, joy, peace, and beauty found in simple being
 


When is it Contemplative? A Reflection on Contemplative Mind

Transcript: In Episode #1, I provided an introduction to the podcast and mentioned that guests would be discussing what they mean when they say "contemplative". I did not however say what I mean. While there may be diversity in understanding, a commonality is how our usual, familiar mind is viewed and treated in contemplative practices. 

Implicit is the idea that while this mind, the one we usually think of, is necessary for survival and well-being, and is developed and valued for its ability to accumulate information and to analyze it, to think critically, to use complex language, and to anticipate and plan for the future, etc., it is not the sole means for knowing that is at our disposal as humans. When, for lack of a better expression "thinking mind" dominates, other ways of knowing go unrecognized and unappreciated. 

For instance, if I wish to see the beauty, uniqueness and elegance of my visual world as it is in all its plentitude versus what I think it is, I will need to let go of thinking mind (my thoughts, concepts, opinions, judgements) and be open and receptive to unfiltered and unmediated seeing. Or speaking religiously, if I wish to know god or have a closer relationship with god, I will need to let go of what I think god is and open to receiving information that is not solely based on thinking mind including what others might have said and alleged to be true. In so doing, we're residing in "contemplative mind" so to speak.