“ If you are beyond all grasping at an object and at a subject, that is the monarch of all views. If there is no distraction, it is the monarch of all meditations. If there is no effort, it is the monarch among all conducts. When there is no hope and no fear, that is the final result, and the fruition has been attained or revealed. ” - Tilopa After a 30 minute meditation session, we decided to sit down and share our thoughts on what meditation is. Philosophy and history have the luxury of offeri...
Jul 15, 2022•22 min•Season 4Ep. 3
" How can we forget those ancient myths from the beginnings of all peoples, the myths of the dragons who turn into princesses at the last minute? Maybe every dragon in our life is a princess, just waiting to see us perform a beautiful, courageous act for once. Maybe every terror is, at absolute bottom, only something helpless, wanting our help. " - Rainer Maria Rilke This quote is a lot to deal with, overturning our image of the monster as the angel. The dragon as a terrifying creature is most d...
Jul 03, 2022•34 min•Season 4Ep. 2
It's been a while and so the 仙島 Headless Thinking team decided to sit together and discuss a topic we've been studying the past few months: Kabbalah . While this tradition isn't a big secret anymore, it still has a mysterious aura to it. In this episode, we try and dispel some of the basic misunderstandings that exist about this discipline and school of thought in Jewish mysticism. Because while many people have an opinion on it, very few know what it is actually and fundamentally about. This ep...
Jun 11, 2022•19 min•Season 4Ep. 1
"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound ?" Most likely everyone has heard George Berkeley's famous thought experiment, which has led to at least three centuries of metaphysical ponderings on the nature of perception and observation. But we want to ask a different question for this episode and swing it to perhaps equally metaphysical levels, although the question might look like a joke at first: " If you haven't posted anything on social media, has it re...
Apr 10, 2022•1 hr 15 min•Season 3Ep. 1
We aren't living in the most prudish of time periods, but we certainly haven't been trail blazing as much as we think we have. A lot of ideas that were explored more than half a century ago are still realms left unmapped. In " The Doors of Perception " by Aldous Huxley, we get, next to a dive into what Huxley would call a visit with the antipodes of our reality, also a manifesto that argues for a serious undertaking into the chemical wedding that takes place in our heads when we exhaust the body...
Mar 06, 2022•19 min•Season 2Ep. 3
The digital world loves trailblazing, but it's only a few in number who really manage to upset the consensus. In this episode we'll look at a book I recently finished, "La Sorcière" (Satanism and witchcraft, a study in medieval superstition) by Jules Michelet, who definitely did his fair share of trailblazing when it concerns reimagining a loathed figure into a character worthy of our interest and empathy. I found it to be an exciting read and that's why I want to share some of the ideas found i...
Feb 20, 2022•42 min•Season 2Ep. 2
Without mentioning the events that occured around this time a year ago and the uncertainties around other things literally floating around since late 2019, let's just say that among people there's a general distrust in the main story. Conspiracies have been springing up like mushrooms, some causing the mind to bend more than others, as a way to cope for the lack of coherence many perceive when they see the events, or the dominant stories being told about these events, not line up with their own ...
Jan 15, 2022•1 hr 39 min•Season 2Ep. 1
The holidays are a time when people gather and share a nice meal and a bunch of stories to fill the night. Cultures, being made up of people, also like to share stories. In fact, stories might just be the DNA of a culture. One cannot imagine a culture without a set of core stories it tells itself and puts centre stage. We all know what happens when the conversation turns dull, but what happens if that occurs on a collective level? In this episode we explore what has happened to our stories the p...
Dec 25, 2021•2 hr 45 min•Season 1Ep. 5
We all need to chill out. Especially in a world that resembles a Bosch painting more than some inviting picknick scene in 19th century France. But we also need to do more than just chill out. We need to do absolutely nothing. If you're imagining a guru on top of a mountain saying this, you're not far off, but it's not as vague and mystical as it sounds. It's the first and crucial step in every and any development. If you don't halt what you're doing, how can you ever change paths? And not just p...
Dec 11, 2021•19 min•Season 1Ep. 4
After some people-watching with the street dogs of Greece and having our craniums sweat insights with the help of the gymnasium of philosophy, we continue our city trip to the polis by having a closer look at the origins of this entire culture of rational reflection. "Know Thyself" is one of the three main maxims inscribed on a column in forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. A lot more was probably going on there than a bunch of fancy tarot card reading sessions that inspired Socrates to ...
Nov 27, 2021•23 min•Season 1Ep. 3
Philosophy is often thought to be the very opposite of a mind at peace. Many people even avoid it as they assume it will only lead to restlessness, a mind caught in a storm of thoughts. An unlikely bunch of philosophers known as the Cynics, the “Dogs”, show how this is wrong. For more information, please visit our website: https://headlessthinking.wordpress.com Intro track: Graal - Kroon VII
Nov 11, 2021•29 min•Season 1Ep. 1
