New Books in Buddhist Studies

Cultivating Consciousness: A Conversation with Ronald E. Purser on Mind Space (2026)

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What does it mean to connect with mind and space without the typical baggage of contemporary meditation trends? In this episode of the New Books Network, Matthew Joseph O'Connell sits down with author and practitioner Ronald E. Purser to discuss his timely new book, Mind Space: Discovering Meditation Without the Meditator (Dharma Publishing, 2026).

Drawing from his decades-long engagement with Tarthang Tulku’s seminal 1977 work, Time, Space, and Knowledge, Purser offers a refreshing, experimental, and surprisingly playful guide to understanding our structural realities. Rather than preaching a prescriptive self-help routine, Mind Space serves as an experiential commentary that invites readers into a radical, non-dualistic inquiry of how we inhabit our lives.

Key Themes from the Episode

  • Beyond McMindfulness: How Mind Space transitions away from corporate, present-moment-focused trends and pivots toward a deeper, more expansive territory of human freedom.
  • The Anatomy of Mind and Space: An etymological and philosophical breakdown of mind as our generative source of knowledge, and space not as a passive, empty container, but as an active, alive, and accommodating dimension.
  • The Myth of the Inner Manager: A critique of the reflexive, modern impulse to over-manage every facet of our internal lives, and how to cultivate a state of un-management.
  • Digital Colonization: Confronting the psycho-physical compression, social comparisons, and anxiety induced by modern screens, and how the acceleration of time flattens our capacity for deep meaning.
  • The Playfulness of Inquiry: Why true contemplative practice thrives on curiosity, experimentation, and humour rather than rigid, sombre discipline.

    • "Space is not a thing. It is what permits experience to be experienced at all. When we realize space is projecting space into space, our rigid focal settings begin to thaw." — Ronald E. Purser

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    New Books in Buddhist StudiesBy Marshall Poe
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