The Integral Stage Expanded Universe (ISEU)

Nish Dubashia, author and co-founder of Evolving Nexus, traces how humanity's spiritual ideas shifted from nature spirits to cosmic consciousness. He explores deep versus surface structures in religion. He discusses love evolving across stages, roles of shamans and priests, entheogens in religious origins, modernity’s impact, fundamentalism, and the need for a new integrative spirituality.

Blake Anderson, a therapist who helps people recover from narcissistic abusers and who was banned from an anarchic online space, talks about culture clashes in integral communities. He explores provocative posting, perceived conservatism in spiritual groups, free-speech tensions, how postmodernism gets co-opted, and practical policy tradeoffs like subsidiarity and UBI.

Pema Dragpa's new book, An Integral View of Tibetan Buddhism, is the inspiration for and ostensible focus of this conversation between Dragpa and Layman, but it is also just an excuse for them to get together to chat about their favorite dharma, meditation, and "transformative practice in a time between worlds" topics.Lama Pema Dragpa is a resident Dharma teacher at Padma Samye Ling (PSL), the main monastery and retreat center of the Padmasambhava Buddhist Center (padmasambhava.org). This institute was founded and directed by the Nyingma Dzogchen masters Ven. Khenchen Palden Sherab Rinpoche and Ven. Khenpo Tsewang Dongyal Rinpoche, who both trained and mastered the ancient traditions of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism. Lama Dragpa lives and teaches at Padma Samye Ling, and was ordained as a lama by the Ven. Khenpo Rinpoches. He is a senior editor of over 20 books on philosophy, meditation, and Buddhist tenets. Lama Dragpa graduated with honors in philosophy and religious studies from NYU in 2002, and is a certified Hospice volunteer. He has taught at Colgate University, Scranton University, and Binghamton Community College, and regularly travels to lead PBC events on traditional and contemporary Buddhist philosophy and meditationhttps://www.amazon.com/s?k=an+integral+view+of+tibetan+buddhism+pema+dragpa

Cris Beasley joins Layman in an exploration of alternative sensemaking to talk about the generative principles and practices that help her creatively navigate the challenges of life in this time between worlds.Cris founded a sustainable AI company nine years ago – well before it was the latest thing on the block. It was featured in a cover story of The Atlantic. She stopped Sequoia Capital from trying to build an AI that was obviously never going to work. It was obvious if you bothered to do the back-of-the-envelope math, which Amazon did not do. They attempted the same thing, failed, and wasted a few million bucks. They should've had someone like Cris on their team. Before that, she led the redesign of Firefox support, which resulted in an extra 7MM users per year finding the answer to their questions immediately. Cris was selected to be in the first cohort of ambassadors to the Interledger Foundation. Their $15k grant supported her project about Jungian emotional polarities, Becoming Dragon, which was covered in Forbes. She advises Earthcodes.org on strategy for their regenerative data cycles project, AI for Gaia, in partnership with the Biomimicry Institute. In her copious spare time, she convinces two mischievous black cats to come when they're called, paints with watercolors, makes AI-generated short films, and plays electronic music that takes you into meditative theta brainwave states.Cris Beasley portfoliohttps://www.crisbeasley.com/portfolio

Anne Sweet, experienced spiritual practitioner who cultivates shared intersubjective fields, and Peter Mitchell, author exploring relational awakening. They discuss how vulnerability and deep listening create a living field, how groups co-arise and stabilize transformative dialogue, role dynamics and humility versus authority, and practical considerations for holding and scaling these relational practices.

Steve McIntosh, philosopher and author focused on post-postmodern spiritual pluralism and value realism. He discusses why spiritual pluralism matters and distinguishes religion from spirituality. Conversations cover barriers like fundamentalism and reductionism, building pluralist social norms, epistemic humility, affirming interiority and value realism, and how science, philosophy, and spirituality can jointly support cultural emergence.

Mark Gaffney, professor, rabbi, and author exploring love, desire, power, and post-tragic frameworks. He distinguishes life stations from linear levels. Short takes examine power’s arc from willfulness to reclaimed moral force. Conversations touch on erotic dignity, integrity failures in transformation communities, and how post-tragic outlooks emerge over time and practice.

Geoff Fitch, coach and longtime facilitator of transformative growth, and Abigail Lynam, faculty in human and organizational development and experienced transformational facilitator, explore the Principle of Integration. They discuss embodiment, befriending fear and shadow, locating charged material in relationships and dreams, cultural and collective integration, and practices for releasing stuck energy while holding a sense of awakened wholeness.

In this new Integral Stage Author Series episode, Layman sits down with Dr. Jen Peer Rich to talk about her recently published book, The Alchemy of Being a House.In this poetic, fiercely honest memoir, Jen Peer Rich invites us inside the living house of her body shaped by early childhood cancer, trauma, chronic illness, disability, caregiving and decades of survival. Told through many rooms and different selves, this is the story of what happens when a person dares to listen to their inner voice and follow them home. Inside these pages lives Ruth, Jen’s loyal guide dog of cosmic wisdom. There are splintered selves and barking truths, mystical blueprints and healing thresholds. Through it all moves the question: What if I was never meant to be fixed—but listened to? The Alchemy of Being a House is not a linear story, it’s a circle. A memoir of multiplicity, spiritual embodiment, and transformation that resonates with anyone navigating trauma, chronic pain, intergenerational healing, or the longing to belong to oneself.Jen Peer Rich, PhD is an author, artist, and alchemist whose work explores healing, multiplicity, and the spiritual architecture of selves. Her debut memoir, The Alchemy of Being a House, is the first in The Circle of Selves Trilogy-a series of intimate, genre-defying books tracing the nonlinear path of trauma integration and homecoming. With a background in ecological philosophy and decades of lived experience as a disabled, queer caregiver, Jen brings a rare blend of insight, humor, and radical compassion to her storytelling. She writes in collaboration with her many inner selves-including Ruth, a loyal inner watchdog who speaks in barked wisdom-and lives in Florida beside a lake with her beloved wife, daughter, and rescue dogs.https://www.amazon.com/Alchemy-Being-House-Memoir-Trilogy/dp/B0FLWHZ829/

This is the first half of a discussion in which Layman and the Rabbi discuss the origins, nature, community use, philosophical necessity, and intriguing extensions of the tripartite concept of pre-tragic, tragic & post-tragic.