Ep 228 | John Churchill
Taking Love Seriously: What Ancient Wisdom & Modern Psychology Say About Interconnectedness
Description
A growing chorus of psychologists, contemplatives, and systems thinkers argue that most of us, and most of our institutions, are running an outdated psychological and spiritual “operating system,” one never built for the converging ecological, economic, and cultural crises we face. Technological and policy responses absorb nearly all of our attention and resources, yet the maturity of the humans making the decisions may be the most needed and least prioritized intervention of all. Could ancient contemplative traditions, paired with modern psychology, offer a map for the kind of collective growing up this moment demands?
In this episode, Nate welcomes Dr. John Churchill, a psychologist and former Buddhist monk, to explore a map of human development that runs from “first-person” perspective of the isolated self all the way to a felt, embodied sense of interdependence with the planet itself. Drawing on decades spent synthesizing Tibetan Buddhist contemplative science with Western developmental psychology, John walks Nate through why our centers of power remain frozen at the level of third-person individualism. John also explains why “love wisdom” (the integration of heart and mind) may be the missing ingredient in how we respond to our more-than-human predicament. Along the way, Nate presses him on whether this maturation applies to individuals, cultures, or our entire species, and on how a 2,000-year detour through empire and the carbon pulse pushed these traditions to the margins. The conversation ranges from the lost sacred academies of Alexandria to a simple attention practice anyone can do, and it keeps circling back to a single throughline: that beauty, truth, and goodness are load-bearing structures for whatever comes next.
What do beauty, truth, and goodness have to do with finding alternative paths toward a more flourishing humanity? How would it feel to be truly at one with the planet, and how might it change the way we act? And what can an individual do, this month, with the time and resources they actually have, to begin living into that shift?
About John Churchill
John began his in-depth study of Buddhist Psychology while a Buddhist monk at Samye Ling Monastery in Scotland. He then spent 15 years training and teaching in “Great Seal” meditation in an Indo-Tibetan Mahayana lineage under the mentorship of the late senior Western teacher, translator, respected author, and clinical psychologist Dr. Daniel P. Brown. He is also a founding member of the Integral Institute led by esteemed Transpersonal/Integral philosopher, Ken Wilber.
John has received advanced training in: attachment therapy, hypnosis, positive psychology for peak performance, and the “Pointing Out” style of Mahamudra meditation. For the last 25 years, John has developed the Fourth Turning Planetary Dharma which includes: a redesigned Nine Stages of Calm-Staying practice path, and a somatically based contemplative practice path; Embodying the Open Ground, that integrates psychodynamic healing, adult development and meditation. John holds a Doctorate in clinical psychology from William James College, and is a practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
Show Notes & Links to Learn More
Download transcriptThe TGS team puts together these brief references and show notes for the learning and convenience of our listeners. However, most of the points made in episodes hold more nuance than one link can address, and we encourage you to dig deeper into any of these topics and come to your own informed conclusions.
00:00 – John Churchill: Planetary Dharma, Integral Institute
03:51 – “The next Buddha is a sangha”, Thich Nhat Hanh, Sangha
04:09 – Contemplative traditions as psychotechnologies of development
04:32 – Hierarchy as sacred order
05:47 – Multi-level selection (more info), E.O. Wilson, David Sloan Wilson (The Great Simplification appearance), Evolutionary psychology
06:05 – The Carbon Pulse, Possible future shapes of the Carbon Pulse, Future growth scenarios
06:32 – Developmental oscillation between individualism and collectivism
07:30 – Individuation
08:31 – Perspective-taking through the orders of consciousness, Ego-development theory
09:19 – Might is right (from tantruming child to warlord)
09:44 – Concrete operational stage, Fundamentalist cognition
10:04 – In-group/Out-group
10:46 – Birth of perspective in Renaissance art
11:30 – Scientific method, Objectification of the human body and nature, Algebra
13:14 – Wall Street, Empiricism, Cartesian dualism
13:41 – Fourth-person perspective as a pluralistic view
14:35 – Postmodernism, Modernism, Traditionalism
15:13 – Commodification of nature
15:52 – Vertical and horizontal dimensions of development, On stages of development, Spiral dynamics
17:29 – Fifth and sixth person perspectives
17:51 – Language as a construct
18:00 – Non-duality, Ground of being
18:22 – States vs. Traits
19:16 – Planetary intelligence
20:03 – Logos and logoic consciousness
20:18 – Holon and the holonic whole system
20:44 – Interdependence (ecology), Interbeing
21:16 – Systemic and meta-systemic cognition
21:50 – Dan Brown and Mahamudra
22:50 – Library of Alexandria
23:19 – Neoplatonic synthesis and the Sacred Academy
23:39 – Druids
23:51 – Mahayana Buddhism born in Gandhara
24:55 – Entheogens and the Inquisition, Psychedelic plant medicine burned by the Inquisition
26:00 – Meditation as contemplative technology, Techne
28:19 –Tibetan Buddhism
29:14 – Gaia Hypothesis by James Lovelock
29:21 – Subtle body
30:02 – Jung‘s collective unconscious, Objective psyche
30:30 – Shamanic journeying
33:17 – Transcendentals
34:09 – Iain McGilchrist reaching the same conclusion (The Great Simplification Episodes: #217, #165, #85)
34:54 – Old-growth forest
35:24 – Buddha nature
36:07 – Nate’s recent Frankly on non-duality
36:54 – Heart-mind and love-wisdom
37:42 – Heart as the central relational organ, The heart’s ‘little brain’
38:46 – HeartMath research on heart coherence
39:10 – Heart’s field in resonance with the planet (Heart-base resonant field theory)
39:55 – 8.3* billion ultrasocial primates and unrealized potential
41:02 – Issues with current education, Education in the Metacrisis, The Great Simplification Episodes on such: RR#25, #180 & #122
42:15 – Intergenerational trauma, The cultural shadow
44:35 – Philosophia as love of wisdom
45:32 – The body as mostly empty space at the level of electrons, Probability patterns of electrons
48:44 – Nate’s Frankly on median vs. mean of human behavior (Skewness)
47:43 – The more-than-human predicament
50:32 – A deliberately developmental education project: Training kids to serve the superorganism (The Great Simplification episode on such)
50:56 – Mindfulness
51:22 – The Eleusinian Mysteries
53:08 – Kalachakra tantra: The wheel of time
53:38 – Gregorian calendar as a representation of chaos
54:43 – Starting a government-in-exile
56:38 – Tektōn, the sacred architect
57:15 – Dionysian and Orphic mysteries
58:48 – Zak Stein (The Great Simplification appearances: RR#25, RR#20, #180, #120)
58:52 – The Great Simplification Reality Roundtable with psychology experts on Dark Triad traits
59:23 – Dark triad
1:00:17 – Sun Tzu’s The Art of War
1:00:51 – Epstein files, Strait of Hormuz Crisis
1:00:58 – ‘Fossil labor’ (more info)
1:04:15 – Cognitive behavioral therapy, Humanistic psychology, Psychodynamic therapy
1:04:21 – Metacognition
1:05:29 – Early attachment structures, Attachment theory
1:05:54 – The shadow, The psychological shadow, Emotional intelligence
1:07:10 – Developmental trauma
1:08:33 – Factory farming
1:10:48 – The Emperor’s New Clothes
1:12:00 – Vision as the dominant sense
1:12:41 – Attentional system vs. open awareness
1:13:47 – Convergent thinking
1:15:37 – Soul and personality: wholeness versus particulars
1:16:30 – Neurons that fire together wire together
1:21:37 – Decentralization
1:24:00 – Bodhisattva path
1:25:00 – Mystery play and metamodern theater
1:25:52 – Recovering individual agency
1:26:52 – Mycelial web of relationality
1:27:22 – Imagination vs. reality in the brain
1:29:52 – Hospicing modernity and midwifing the new, Vanessa Andreotti
