Nuance of Wonder: Joan Tollifson

Joan Tollifson returns to the podcast three years after her first conversation. We talk about her June essay Two Inseparable Truths, on the relative and the absolute and the trouble with getting stuck in either one. Along the way: the silence of many nondual teachers in a dark time, what cancer and an aging body insist on that philosophy cannot, and why "I don't know" may be the answer closest to truth. She closes by reading her essay 'Radiant Light in Dark Times' in full.

Topics

00:00 Introduction

00:04 From political movements to the Zen Center

00:06 Politics on Substack, and what bypassing looks like

00:11 Two inseparable truths: stuck in the relative, stuck in the absolute

00:19 Why she refuses final conclusions

00:21 Old age, sickness and death as visceral teaching

00:25 Cancer and what the body insists on

00:28 Zooming out and zooming in: two ways through pain

00:33 Why she has never used AI for writing

00:39 Siri, and what a machine can evoke