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PODCAST

Meaningness Podcast

🚞 Trains of thought 💭 captured as sound🎙️; monologues on diverse ⁉️ topics, and conversations 👥 too! meaningness.substack.com

religion & spirituality buddhism

All Episodes

7:26

You can just bless things

Meaningness Podcast ·

2026/04/04

TranscriptYou can bless things. It’s easy! You can do this!You just go around blessing things.You don’t need a clerical collar, you don’t need a fancy hat (although the hat might help).This is a non-denominational practice. It’s not particularly religious; you can be of any religion, or no religion.There’s no prerequisites. It’s easy! You just do it.This is a practice of perception, of appreciation, of connection, of expanding benevolence.It’s not a metaphysical practice. The point is your

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13:24

You can’t sell enlightenment

Meaningness Podcast ·

2026/03/31

Transcript (ish)Dzogchen is the branch of Buddhism that I’m most influenced by; that I love most. It’s extraordinarily compelling and exciting and beautiful. It’s in some sense the basis of pretty nearly everything that I write.It has several serious problems, though. One is that you can’t sell it. And this problem is nearly fatal. Every religion has to have some economic basis. This is something we resist in the West; going back to Martin Luther, whose slogan was “Every man his own priest.” His

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14:36

The unaltered state

Meaningness Podcast ·

2026/03/24

Many people in the West pursue meditation in order to experience altered states. Meditation is sometimes considered a safer alternative to taking psychoactive drugs, with roughly similar effects. The jhanas are altered states of consciousness, for example. Buddhist tantra also produces diverse altered states, using various methods.In Western Buddhism, the usual idea is that enlightenment itself is a special kind of experience. It’s an altered state of consciousness, also in the way that psychedelic

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53:42

Personal experiences of sacredness & community

Meaningness Podcast ·

2025/12/06

A facilitated discussion of how the participants find sacredness in the actual world—and in community.This Vajrayana Q&A session is an Evolving Ground online discussion I co-hosted with Jared Janes. You can get some sense of the eG style here. We don’t go in for “dharma talks,” much less lectures. All our meetings, both in person and online, are highly interactive, mainly created in the moment by the participants.There’s a transcript below. But first: several announcements!I’ll co-host the next

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0:19

Dzogchen Street Preacher #0: Kadag

Meaningness Podcast ·

2025/11/18

“Dzogchen Street Preacher” is the overall title for a series of performance pieces I planned in 2009. This extremely brief one, “Kadag,” was meant to introduce the whole thing.I was on the verge of recording them when there was a mundane emergency that took all my time for a year. When I had the opportunity to work again, the Meaningness book seemed more important.But less fun! There’s a bit of slack in my life now, and yesterday I decided to take a few hours to record this one. That was fun, and

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111:49

Maps of Meaningness

Meaningness Podcast ·

2025/11/04

Before controversy and fame, Jordan Peterson was a psychologist theorizing myth and meaning.Jake Orthwein points out striking similarities in Peterson’s work and David’s. Along with them, fundamental disagreements: partly due to Peterson bringing a Christian perspective, and Chapman a Vajrayana Buddhist one.Nihilistic catastrophes ※ Chaos and order ※ Reconciling myth and rationality ※ Interactionist cognitive science ※ The purpose of lifeJake intercut our conversation with brief relevant clips from

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8:50

What's the connection between gender and...

Meaningness Podcast ·

2025/06/26

Rationality is stereotypically masculine. What about meta-rationality?Transcript:Charlie: What’s the connection between gender and meta-rationality?David: I had never thought to ask that!The systematic mode of being, or the rational mode of being, is male-coded, or masculine-coded. Meta-rationality involves an openness that surrounds systematicity, or rationality; or may just completely transcend it. And that is possibly feminine-coded? Or at any rate, it’s either feminine or non-gendered.Charlie:

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12:49

Priests and Kings

Meaningness Podcast ·

2025/04/30

The common civilizational pattern of a separate priesthood and aristocracy casts light on current political dysfunction.This video follows “Nobility and virtue are distinct sorts of goodness.” You might want to watch that one first, if you haven’t already.These are the first two in a series on nobility. There will be several more. Subscribe, to watch them all!TranscriptMany successful civilizations have two elite classes. They hold different, complementary, incommensurable forms of authority:

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7:56

Nobility and virtue are distinct sorts of goodness

Meaningness Podcast ·

2025/04/28

Nobility is the wise and just use of power.Nobility is not moral virtue. They are not in conflict; they may correlate, but they don't always coincide.Nobility is the proper matter of politics.TranscriptSermonetteNobility is the dark matter of society. The pull of dark matter holds galaxies together. Without it, stars would spin off into intergalactic space. Nobility holds societies together. Without nobility, societies disintegrate.Once, the now-dark matter of nobility was brilliant, and shone

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35:40

What is stage five (like)?

Meaningness Podcast ·

2025/04/26

A visual, kinesthetic, embodied experience 𐡸 A fish-eye lens and a magnifying glass 𐡸 The little clicker wheel 𐡸 Nurturing a plot of woodland 𐡸 Becoming the space, unstuck in time 𐡸 Freed up to playLike most of my posts, this one is free. I do paywall some as a reminder that I deeply appreciate paying subscribers—some new each week—for your encouragement and support.TranscriptWhat is the right question?“Stage five” is a concept in adult developmental stage theory. That is—or used to be—a

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8:53

Stage five is nothing special

Meaningness Podcast ·

2025/04/19

A nine-minute radio sermonette.I think I may be doing a bunch of these. Subscribe to get all of them!Possibly I’ll create one every day or two! And maybe you don’t want that many emails? So I could post these as Substack Notes, and collect them into emailed posts, sent once a week maximum?What do you think?TranscriptIn the 1970s, researchers in cognitive developmental psychology discovered something that may have great practical power; and is underappreciated, I think.The researchers applied Jean

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8:32

Fivefold confidence

Meaningness Podcast ·

2025/04/17

Emptiness, form, and the Big Bang 𐡸 How understanding creates students 𐡸 Buddhism outside institutionsThis short video explains two stanzas from the Evolving Ground invocation liturgy. The first is an origin myth, and the second explains the prerequisites for successful Buddhist teaching. Each reworks traditional themes and scriptural motifs in a contemporary worldview.The video is extracted from a recording of an Evolving Ground Vajrayana Q&A session. I host those monthly, and they’re free for

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7:11

This is it!

Meaningness Podcast ·

2025/04/14

A seven-minute radio sermonette.I think I may be doing a bunch of these. Subscribe to get all of them!Possibly I’ll create one every day or two! And maybe you don’t want that many emails? So I could post these as Substack Notes, and collect them into emailed posts, sent once a week maximum?What do you think?TranscriptThis is it! We’re actually here. I’m here in this room you can see behind me maybe, if you’re watching, not listening. You can hear my voice. I’m in a place. I’m in this world.You’re in

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7:13

Rigpa and ethical nihilism

Meaningness Podcast ·

2025/04/11

Rigpa is Dzogchen’s word roughly equivalent to “enlightenment.” But what is rigpa, actually? And what does it imply for ethics? A conversation with Varun Godbole.This is a clip from the monthly Q&A I host for Evolving Ground, a community for contemporary Vajrayana practice. Participation in the Q&A sessions is free for Evolving Ground members, and membership in Evolving Ground is also free. Our next Vajrayana Q&A is tomorrow, Saturday April 12th, 2025!TranscriptThat’s rigpaVarun: I’m still not sure

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58:08

The incomparable value of being wrong

Meaningness Podcast ·

2025/01/28

What is learning math good for? — Robert Kegan and “meaning-making” — Existentialism’s error — Narcissism and tyranny — How can we avoid radical relativism? — My experience of teachingThis is the video from my January 2025 monthly AMA (“Ask Me Anything”).As a cine auteur, for previous AMA recordings, I have insisted on the director’s cut, editing both the video and text transcript carefully, out of respect for viewers, listeners, and readers.The CFO of the studio, Nebulonic Media Productions Inc.,

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21:00

When the proof comes as white light and angels

Meaningness Podcast ·

2024/12/30

The felt experience of mathematics — witchcraft and black magic — “Shut up, kid!” — what is a real number? — shocked and embarrassed — clouds all the way down — a choir of angels singing — painting Cthulhu’s third eye on the walls of our mathematics and science departmentsVideo from a monthly live Ask-Me-Anything!The transcript is below. The web page adds fun illustrations, and a wonderful comic strip, as mentioned in the video!But first, how to join us next time:It will be Sunday, January 26th, 9

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44:40

Myth, adult developmental stages, and entrepreneurship

Meaningness Podcast ·

2024/11/28

How thoughts work — goddesses at the origin of philosophy — inspiration in adult development — how myths transform society and culture — Spock and Jimi Hendrix — entrepreneurship, purpose, and valueVideo from a monthly live Ask-Me-Anything!How to participate next time, and more info: https://meaningness.substack.com/p/myth-adult-development-entrepreneurshipUnexpected connectionsEverything is connected to everything else; and this is very inconvenient! It’d be much tidier if everything would stay in

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20:47

Vajrayana, Ultraspeaking, and adult stage transitions

Meaningness Podcast ·

2024/11/09

Following our earlier conversation about Ultraspeaking and Vajrayana, we add adult developmental stage theory to the mix: three transformational frameworks in synergy.We recorded this when Charlie was in Berlin on a Chinese martial arts retreat. Charlie had had been away from home for more than a month, after teaching several Vajrayana retreats in New York. The video signal was not good, so this is audio only.TranscriptCharlie: I was thinking about the kinds of changes that occur through this kind

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43:41

Ask Me Anything! October 2024 edition

Meaningness Podcast ·

2024/10/24

“What do you think you’re doing? And, um, why?”This is a recording of a Substack live video AMA (“ask me anything”) session I hosted two days ago. Around fifty people attended! I enjoyed it, and hope everyone else did too.We had a preliminary discussion in the subscriber chat, which was very helpful for collecting questions and getting the conversation started.I’ll do these monthly, for as long as there is interest. To participate, you need to subscribe (free or contributing), if you haven’t

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2:16

Why Tibetan bureaucrats replaced battlemages with monks

Meaningness Podcast ·

2024/10/15

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit meaningness.substack.comThis video is for paying subscribers only. There’s a brief “teaser” for free subscribers that ends in in a cliff-hanger. This comes in the “too much fun!” category of paid posts.Military use of Buddhist Tantra helps explain why it is so weirdI extracted this seven-minute video from my September 2024 Vajrayana Q&A. In that session, we discussed the weirdness of the Buddhist Tantra we have inherited; and how it

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