The Monk on a Motorbike – Details, episodes & analysis

Today I'm talking to meditation teacher, Yanai Postelnik about old age, sickness, death and the Dhamma

Yanai was diagnosed with bowel cancer just over a year ago and so has a very personal experience of both the Dhamma and ill health.

He has led retreats on the subject and talks very openly and candidly about what he has been through, so far from being a morbid conversation I personally found hearing his story to be deeply inspiring Yanai is a mainstay of the teaching community at Gaia House Meditation Center in Devon in the UK and has been on the show before when we did quite a deep dive into his life and Dhamma background.

So if you’d like to know more about him please listen to the episode entitled Love in the Time of Extinction, where he also talks about his activism aimed at fighting climate change

Today my guest is Ayala Gill. Ayala has been committed to a path of insight and awakening since her early twenties. She has been practicing Iyengar yoga since 1977 -aged just six years old- Insight Meditation and Dhamma since 1995, Insight Yoga (including yin yoga and psychospiritual enquiry) since 2001 and the animistic practices of the Andean-Inkan Holy Mountain tradition since 2017. She says she is humbled and fascinated by the potential of these practices to inform and enhance our relationship to body, heart, mind and spirit – and passionate in her commitment to translate this potential into everyday life.

She has been teaching for 25 years, guides silent retreats in Europe which include yoga, meditation and ceremony, and is currently writing a book about integrating these practices into daily life. She has received authorisation to teach Insight Meditation from Martin Aylward, with whom she continues to study dharma. Ayala lives with her husband and their 3 children between London and Dorset, where they are using regenerative farming methods to enhance biodiversity. 

I first met her at London insight retreat day. I was struck her commitment to both yoga and meditation. There are a lot of yoga teachers out there who teach a bit of meditation and meditation teacher who include yoga to  their practice but not many who have really combined the two. And then branched off into shamanistic practices as well

I really enjoyed hearing her story. I hope you will too

Enjoy!

If you’re interested in Magick, what it is, and just as importantly what It isn’t, then you have to tune into this interview with Daniel Ingram

This is the second time Daniel has appeared on my show. Daniel is famous for his teachings on Buddhist meditation and his controversial views about meditative attainments-but is less well known as a practitioner of Magick, something which he has been doing for years

As  a former critical care doctor and  a data-crunching researcher, he is a well-grounded in scientific rationalism as well as being an expert in conservative, systematic meditation practices So I figured it would be very interesting to get his perspective on a subject that many, if not most people, would consider pretty out there if not downright scary or wrong or evil or all of the above

This is a fascinating interview and its really turned my head around to the reality of Magick and has me fired up to start some practices as well as realizing how much I am already practicing it without knowing

I’ve divided the interview into three parts. Each part builds on the other so it’s worth listening all the way through. Feel free to stop and start. There are show notes on my website -www.monkonamotorbike.com - with timings so you can pick up where you left off or go back and forth

If you enjoy this interview please take a little time to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Thanks

If you’re interested in Magick, what it is and just as importantly what It isn’t, then you have to tune into this interview with Daniel Ingram

This is the second time Daniel has appeared on my show. Daniel is famous for his teaching on Buddhist meditation and his controversial views about meditative attainments-but is less well known as a practitioner of Magick, something which he has been doing for years

As  a former critical care doctor and  a data-crunching researcher he is a well-grounded in scientific rationalism as well as being an expert in conservative, systematic meditation practices So I figured it would be very interesting to get his perspective on a subject that many, if not most people, would consider pretty out there if not downright scary or wrong or evil or all of the above

This is a fascinating interview and its really turned my head around to the reality of Magick and has me fired up to start some practices as well as realizing how much I am already practicing it without knowing

I’ve divided the interview into three parts. Each part builds on the other so it’s worth listening all the way through. Feel free to stop and start. There are show notes on my website -www.monkonamotorbike.com - with timings so you can pick up where you left off or go back and forth

If you enjoy this interview please take a little time to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Thanks

Today my guest is Nir Eyal. Nir is a bestselling author, tech entrepreneur university lecturer and investor who literally wrote the book on how to build habit-forming products

The model he described in his first book Hooked has been used by countless tech startups such as Fitbod to build a huge customer base

But in is his latest book, Indistractable, he explains how to stop getting distracted by tech and get on with the business of living a fulfilling life

Here he talks about his own journey to becoming indistractable, how getting on with our stuff is less about the external distractions than about out our own inner state and how wasting time isn’t always a waste of time

If you find you can’t keep away from Facebook or Netflix and knuckle down to do whatever it is you’d really like to be doing then listen in

As always there are show notes on my website www.monkonamotorbike.com. 

Enjoy

Today I'm talking to former Buddhist monk, therapist and climate change activist, Suvaco. Suvaco spent twenty years living as a monk in the jungles of northeast Thailand, getting up before three in the morning, meditating for many hours a day and walking for miles to beg for one meal a day.

Born in Denmark and raised in Italy he now lives in the UK and works as a psychotherapist. Here he talks about the benefits and limitations of his tough monastic training, why transformation is always messy, and why in the current global crisis we need to follow our conscience and our hearts and do what we are here to do, not what we are told to  do by society

This is  a long interview so feel free  to pick it up and put it down. There are show-notes on my website www.monkonamotorbike.com with timings of what is being said and when

May you be happy!

This time round I’m talking to shaman and healer, Ya’Acov Darling Khan. Ya’acov is very much a 21st century shaman. Based in Devon in the UK, he is a bestselling author and founder of the School of Movement Medicine. He has devoted the last 30 yeas of his life to bringing together ancient shamanic practices from different indigenous cultures around the world to make what he calls everyday shamanism

Here he talks about the benefits of being buried alive,  Coronavirus, cultural misappropriation, plant medicine, the need for occasional heartbreak and how shamanism can be used to help heal and change our lives

For shownotes and more see my website www.monkonamotorbike.com

If you’ve ever wondered what happens after you die, how the world looks when you’re enlightened, or can’t understand why you’re spending all this time meditating but still seem to get anxious and angry, then you absolutely, positively, 100% have to tune into this episode of the Monk on a Motorbike podcast

This time around I’m talking to former critical care doctor, Daniel Ingram, who very controversially claimed he was an arahat or fully enlightened a number of years ago.

Here he talks about how being enlightened isn’t all its cracked up to be, the uproar his announcement caused, why he did it, magical powers, life after death, psychedelics and pretty much anything else connected with this long and winding spiritual path we are all walking

Daniel knows more about meditation and other spiritual practices than practically anybody I’ve met and he’s articulate and funny and explains things in a way that are really easy to relate to

We ended up talking for a long time and I’ve divided the episode into four parts so do yourself a favour, whether you’re stuck at home on lockdown during Coronavirus or wondering what the f*ck is going on in these dark days, use your time well and  tune into some of this awesome wisdom!

If you’ve ever wondered what happens after you die, how the world looks when you’re enlightened, or can’t understand why you’re spending all this time meditating but still seem to get anxious and angry, then you absolutely, positively, 100% have to tune into this episode of the Monk on a Motorbike podcast

This time around I’m talking to former critical care doctor, Daniel Ingram, who very controversially claimed he was an arahat or fully enlightened a number of years ago.

Here he talks about how being enlightened isn’t all its cracked up to be, the uproar his announcement caused, why he did it, magical powers, life after death, psychedelics and pretty much anything else connected with this long and winding spiritual path we are all walking

Daniel knows more about meditation and other spiritual practices than practically anybody I’ve met and he’s articulate and funny and explains things in a way that are really easy to relate to

We ended up talking for a long time and I’ve divided the episode into four parts so do yourself a favour, whether you’re stuck at home on lockdown during Coronavirus or wondering what the f*ck is going on in these dark days, use your time well and  tune into some of this awesome wisdom!

If you’ve ever wondered what happens after you die, how the world looks when you’re enlightened, or can’t understand why you’re spending all this time meditating but still seem to get anxious and angry, then you absolutely, positively, 100% have to tune into this episode of the Monk on a Motorbike podcast

This time around I’m talking to former critical care doctor, Daniel Ingram, who very controversially claimed he was an arahat or fully enlightened a number of years ago.

Here he talks about how being enlightened isn’t all its cracked up to be, the uproar his announcement caused, why he did it, magical powers, life after death, psychedelics and pretty much anything else connected with this long and winding spiritual path we are all walking

Daniel knows more about meditation and other spiritual practices than practically anybody I’ve met and he’s articulate and funny and explains things in a way that are really easy to relate to

We ended up talking for a long time and I’ve divided the episode into four parts so do yourself a favour, whether you’re stuck at home on lockdown during Coronavirus or wondering what the f*ck is going on in these dark days, use your time well and  tune into some of this awesome wisdom!