Loch Kelly is a meditation teacher and author.  He teaches a nondual approach to relieving suffering that he calls Effortless Mindfulness.  This approach is based in the Mahamudra teachings of Tibetan Buddhism, and Loch has studied with two great teachers of this tradition, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche and his son, Mingyur Rinpoche. He has also studied with the American meditation teacher Adyashanti, who first suggested that Loch teach others.  Today we talk about Loch’s approach to the direct path of awakening.

Evan Thompson is a philosopher and professor at the University of British Columbia. He specialises in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science, as well as in cross-cultural philosophy, with a particular interest in Chinese and Indian philosophy and the dialogue between Buddhism and the Western philosophical tradition.  He’s the author of several books including Mind and Life, Why I’m not a Buddhist, The Embodied Mind, co-authored with Francisco Varela and Eleanor Rosch, and Waking, Dreaming, Being.  Today we discuss the idea that all life is conscious, known as biopsychism, and the issues it raises form a philosophical perspective.

In this AMA I discuss the the neurobiology of trauma & the ethics of obtaining illegal drugs.

Rick Hanson is a psychologist and a Senior Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center.  He is the best-selling author of several books including Buddha’s Brain, Hardwiring Happiness and Neurodharma.  Today we discuss mediation and its relationship to the brain.

James Maffie is senior lecturer in philosophy at the University of Maryland and an affiliate of their Latin American Studies Program.  He is the author of Aztec Philosophy: Understanding a World In Motion, a book that details the nondual metaphysics of the Aztecs and other Mesoamerican peoples.

David Nutt is a neuropsychopharmacologist specialising in the research of drugs. He is the chairman of Drug Science, a non-profit which he founded in 2010 to provide independent, evidence-based information on drugs.  He is professor of neuropharmacology at Imperial College London is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Academy of Medical Scientists and was formerly the President of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology.  He has worked closely with the UK government to provide an evidence-based approach to classifying drugs based on their harms and was famously fired for stating the facts of drug harms as they are known to science.  He has written several book on the topic, Drugs Without the Hot Air: Minimising the Harms of Legal and Illegal Drugs, Drink?: The New Science of Alcohol and Your Health and most recently Cannabis: Seeing through the smoke.  In addition to this work he has been a key figure in the revival of psychedelic research across the world. Today we discuss the harms and benefits of alcohol, cannabis & psychedelics as well as both rational and irrational approaches to drug policy.

In this AMA I discuss the martial arts, boxing & brain injury. Research paper discussed: Reviews from 2020:

Liz Carlisle is an Assistant Professor in the Environmental Studies Program at UC Santa Barbara, where she teaches courses on food and farming. She’s the author of three books, Lentil Underground, Grain by Grain, and Healing Grounds: Climate, Justice, and the Deep Roots of Regenerative Farming, all of which explore regenerative agriculture and agroecology.

Richard Doyle is Professor of English and of Information Sciences and Technology at Pennsylvania State University. His books include On Beyond Living: Rhetorical Transformations of the Life Sciences, Wetwares: Experiments In Postvital Living, Darwin's Pharmacy: Sex, Plants, and the Evolution of the Noosphere, The Genesis of Now: Self Experiments with the Bible & the End of Religion, Into the Stillness: Dialogues on Awakening Beyond Thought. His work integrates a wide range of subjects, incorporating non-ordinary states of consciousness, ecology, technology and rhetoric, all of which we discuss today.

Keith Frankish is a philosopher who specializes in the philosophy of mind, psychology, and cognitive science. He has affiliations with the University of Sheffield and The Open University in the UK as well as the University of Crete in Greece. He is known for arguing that consciousness is an illusion, which is what we talk about today.