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The Mindful Cranks

Shortly after my Huffington Post essay “Beyond McMindfulness” went viral, a popular mindfulness promoter accused me of being a “crank”. So why not own it? Alas, The Mindful Cranks was born. The Mindful Cranks was the first podcast to critique the mindfulness movement. Conversations with guests soon expanded in scope to include critical perspectives on the wellness, happiness, resilience and positive psychology industries - sharing a common concern that such highly individualistic and market-friendly techniques ignore the larger structural and systemic problems plaguing society. Whether these be trendy Asian spiritualities such as mindfulness or yoga, or other interventions from therapeutic cultures, The Mindful Cranks will call them out without mercy. I am very fortunate to engage with my favorite journalists, authors and public intellectuals whose works that I admire, as well as educators and spiritual teachers who I have learned from — fellow cranks who don’t simply accept the way things are. They’re modern muckrakers who dare to question the unquestionable. But being cranky can be critically wise and compassionate. Casting a wide net around the impending meta-crisis, The Mindful Cranks also explores with leading thinkers how the problems of our times are deeply entangled with our ways of knowing and being. Rather than just retreating from such problems by sitting on cushion, doing yoga or listening to a meditation app, I believe using our minds is not necessarily a bad thing if it challenges the limits of human knowledge.
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Now displaying: April, 2017
Apr 13, 2017

Barry Magid, MD, is a psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City. He received Dharma Transmission from Charlotte Joko Beck in 1998 and has been teaching Zen at the Ordinary Mind Zendo for the past twenty years.

In addition to co-editing “What’s Wrong with Mindfulness (And What’s Not) with Bob Rosenbaum, he is the author of three books integrating Zen and psychoanalytic theory and practice: "Ordinary Mind"; "Ending the Pursuit of Happiness", and "Nothing is Hidden” all published by Wisdom Publications. He has also edited (with Hugh Witemeyer) a volume of the correspondence of poets William Carlos Williams and Charles Tomlinson, as well as "Father Louie: Photographs of Thomas Merton by Ralph Eugene Meatyard,"  and “Freud’s Case Studies: Self Psychological Perspectives.” 
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