Rob Burbea
I’ve been hearing a lot about Rob Burbea’s work on meditative practices. These are some notes on my learnings from his work so far. The notes from different resources below are sorted in order of my encountering them.
If you’re looking for a starting point, I’d offer two links:
- Tasshin wrote a beautiful introduction to Burbea’s work: Rob Burbea: Ordinary Guy, Werewolf, Eternal Wanderer. It is a lovely place to start because you can see the personal warmth and love of connection that Tasshin has with Rob’s work. Also, he helpfully included a list of suggested talks to begin exploring Burbea’s seemingly endless body of work, along with a map of how he sees Rob’s ideas. Start here!
- Michael W. Taft did a podcast interview with Rob, which is actually the first encounter I had with Burbea’s ideas. I recommend it, and my notes on it are below.
Podcast: Deconstructing Yourself
Michael W. Taft interviews Rob Burbea on his podcast, Deconstructing Yourself, back in August of 2018.
- Burbea spoke about his origin of interest in this field as being rooted in dissatisfaction of most spiritual answers today about emptiness. While not quite the same, it resonated with me because my own exploration of philosophy and spirituality is rooted in dissatisfaction with the strict religious answers I was taught growing up. In particular, there is such a huge obsession with Heaven and God (above / in the skies), whereas I am more interested in what’s within, the nature of reality itself (below / on the ground).
- Burbea’s explanation of “fabrication” and the grip our stories of anxiety/desire have on us is so powerful. I was listening to it while lost in a thought-loop about something I felt anxious about, and it immediately helped me break out. I’m eager to try out some of his practices from talks / his book.
- I like his invitation to break out of this thought cycle for liberation, but also to see it as a game; it’s play. I internalized it as “Laughing for Liberation.”
- Need to look into more of meta-rationality by David Chapman. Host described it as a way of choosing different conceptual frameworks based on what is most useful and beautiful at the time. I’ve often struggled with my interest in many different religious and full psychical approaches, such as Buddhism Sufism Taoism and so on. It comes with a bit of guilt that maybe I’m not “committing“ to one of them. I’ve actually heard this from peers as well, finally decided to double down on one. But overtime I feel it is more valuable and interesting to dance between them.As Burbea describes it, “Soul-making as an art, not a technique.” Lovely.
Three-Part Talk: Overcoming Awakening, Buddhism Beyond Modernism, In Praise of Restlessness
(I’m listening to this series at the moment…)
- What even is awakening? What is its goal? What is our goal of “freedom” in our reality? Rob leads us through foundational questions that help us reflect upon and refresh our view of what the modern goals of mindfulness, enlightenment, and awakening have come to be. With this in hand, we can begin to decide what we want our own journey to be.
- Is “escape from suffering” enough of a goal for all of our “work” on meditation, mindfulness, etc.?
- Interesting note that the idea of a final awakening that ends the cycle of rebirth has been lost. It makes you wonder, well if there is no end to the cycles, what really is the goal of the work? What do we want in “freedom”?
- He gives an example of someone who came up with a code-based logging technique for meditation. A bit extreme. Reminds me of when people go nuts / too far with note-taking tools … just overdoing it, and losing the essence of what you’re supposed to be doing. But then again, it works for him?
Book: Seeing that Frees
Burbea has a book out called Seeing That Frees which I want to read soon.
Related
- If you like Rob Burbea, you might also enjoy the work of Alan Watts, who is my favorite spiritual teacher and philosopher. I have note(s) for him too: Alan Watts