Catherine Ingram is the author of In the Footsteps of Gandhi, Passionate Presence, and A Crack in Everything. Since 1993 she has internationally led public events called Dharma Dialogues as well as retreats focusing on secular ways of inducing more wisdom, service, and well-being in one’s life. She founded and is president of Living Dharma, an educational nonprofit organization and she serves on the boards of The Burma Project (a human rights organization) as well as Global Animal (an animal rights organization).
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The third World Made By Hand novel
!! Is available !!
(The Fourth and final is near completion)
“Kunstler skewers everything from kitsch to greed, prejudice, bloodshed, and brainwashing in this wily, funny, rip-roaring, and profoundly provocative page- turner, leaving no doubt that the prescriptive yet devilishly satiric A World Made by Hand series will continue.” — Booklist
My local indie booksellers… Battenkill Books (Autographed by the Author) … or Northshire Books…
or Amazon…
Also: Published as an E-book for the first time!
The 20th Anniversary edition
With an entertaining new introduction by the author
Bargain Price $3.99
Amazon Kindle …or … Barnes & Noble Nook …or… Kobo
Great show what a find. Hope she is on again. Action does overcome all. Thanks to Jim and Catherine! !
James, et al.,
Why does the break up of the nation state seem to petrify everyone? (Granted, nuclear weapons pose a problem as to who gets them, etc.) But overall why does the revocation of a 400 year old idea (Treaty of Westphalia and others) scare the piss out of everyone?
Here is a story that illustrates a post-Enlightenment mind struggling with re-enchanting to world, doing a dance to save her wilting corn. Did it work? Who knows? Was it worth feeling silly? Clearly. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/what-body-knows/201506/the-art-farming
Great episode. It was refreshing to hear from someone that broke away from dogmatic buddhism, particularly in the Kabat-Zinn era of buddhism-light AKA mindfulness within reach (just after a few paid classes and certificates). People will sit for hours over years letting thoughts pass, calming the mind, focusing on breath only to realize that there is no epiphany and that sleeping whilst sitting does not make one enlightened. In the end, be in the now, carpe diem, understand that you can only control what you can control and will fail at that as well (thanks Seneca) and there are lot of unknowns that will forever be unknown. Faced with it, you can overcome the tragedy of consciousness at your own or hands, or you can witness the beauty of now for the bride time you have it and live with it…
Jim,
this was a wonderful interview/conversation! It’s nice to hear such a calm, rational response to the very troubling times we live in. As an anthropologist I wonder if we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again in the future of the human species (assuming there is one and I tend to side with you on being optimistic about our ultimate survival) or can we somehow construct a society that nurtures the great strengths of our collective human nature and neutralizes the equally great flaws that we collectively possess.
Why should we really be concerned with the future of the human species, another stunted twig on the evolutionary branch? Imagine Lucy’s species rooting for the continued success of Australopithecus (although, most assuredly, they’d be less a threat to the planet). I think the point in general, is to accept our flaws, the flaws of our conscious-bound linear-time focused predicament (an evolutionary mistake unique to our species), take care of what we can while we can and hope that something better, robotic overlords or Pandas with big brains, comes along and does a better job. Accepting the fact that the world would be far, far, better without us is part of the process. One of our strengths is admitting that we are not cut out for the task.
There is no why. Why is a limitation brought by human thinking. Why does not exist.
Edgar Cayce was known as the sleeping prophet. He could diagnose people’s ailments in his sleep from a distance. His readings are well documented and many had witnessed them and their success, and that too is well documented. He could not be disproved. Cayce never got rich with his gift, although he could have. At the end of his life he did what was called life readings that revealed peoples’ past lives. What he revealed of his own was astonishing. There are works about his life.
“Dreams are today’s answers to tomorrow’s questions.” Edgar Cayce
There is a River…
How tragic that the India of your guest’s memory did not remain locked in the past for her travelling enjoyment. Of course I am being sarcastic! What a bundle of contradictions is the guest. One being that she considers herself to be so environmentally ‘conscious’ yet so willing to hop a plane to India 10 times as well as other of the world’s beauty spots for a little bourgeois amusement. Self described “progressive” North American boomers have always considered travel to be some mystical and enlightening pursuit, when in fact it’s just another way to consume and have fun (made possible by general material prosperity and a whole bunch of relatively cheap fossil fuels fuel), just like collecting cars, racing motorcycles or shopping at the local Big Box.
Lovely conversation. The talk about Ladakh reminded me what a great book Jerry Mander produced in “Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television”. Hope you adn your guest have met that book, or if not, at least check out the Wikipedia page on it.