The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #359 - 25APR20

Podcast: This week on The Mystical Positivist, we feature a pre-recorded conversation with Zoketsu Norman Fischer about his 2019 book The World Could Be Otherwise: Imagination and the Bodhisattva Path. More prescient than Fischer could have known when he wrote it, the book offers an imaginative approach to spiritual practice in difficult times, through the Buddhist teaching of the six pāramitās or "perfections"--qualities that lead to kindness, wisdom, and an awakened life. Fischer points out that in frightening times, we wish the world could be otherwise. With a touch of imagination, it can be. Imagination helps us see what’s hidden, and it shape-shifts reality’s roiling twisting waves. In this inspiring reframe of a classic Buddhist teaching, Zen teacher Norman Fischer writes that the pāramitās, or “six perfections”—generosity, ethical conduct, patience, joyful effort, meditation, and understanding—can help us reconfigure the world we live in. Ranging from our everyday concerns about relationships, ethics, and consumption to our artistic inspirations and broadest human yearnings, Fischer depicts imaginative spiritual practice as a necessary resource for our troubled times. Zoketsu Norman Fischer is an American poet, writer, and Soto Zen priest, teaching and practicing in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki. He is a Dharma heir of Sojun Mel Weitsman, from whom he received Dharma transmission in 1988. Fischer served as co-abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center from 1995–2000, after which he founded the Everyday Zen Foundation in 2000, a network of Buddhist practice group and related projects in Canada, the United States and Mexico. Fischer has published more than twenty-five books of poetry and non-fiction, as well as numerous poems, essays and articles in Buddhist magazines and poetry journals. We spoke with Fischer previously on The Mystical Positivist about an earlier book: Training in Compassion: Zen Teachings on the Practice of Lojong. More information about Norman Fischer's work can be found at: Norman Fischer's website: www.normanfischer.org, Everyday Zen Foundation website: everydayzen.org, Norman Fischer on Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org, Norman Fischer on The Mystical Positivist: mysticalpositivist.blogspot.com.