Susan Piver, meditation teacher and writer of the nuanced book The Buddhist Enneagram, merges concepts of Buddhism and Enneagram, emphasizing how the Enneagram is a spiritual tool and not a self-help program, personality typer, or life hack. She talks of our 3 centers of intelligence (mental/head triad-delusion, heart/emotional triad-grasping, and body/instinct triad-aggression) as the 3 poisons. And arrows of integration and disintegration as peaceful and wrathful deities. We just grazed the early chapters of her very helpful book, with my dog Wendell repeatedly groaning in her lap. There is much more to dig into.

Also, when I talk about “centering” myself in this podcast, I am talking about the compulsion to see myself as the center of my experience. I am not talking about centering prayer or grounding oneself. I am literally talking about overfocusing on self and individual identity.

End music is by artists Adam Hilton and Henna Chou created in collaboration with my exhibition Treespell (3:35pm, clearing not far from camp on the album Forest Meditation)