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0:02
Rufus Pollock
So welcome to the Life Itself Second Renaissance podcast series. I'm really delighted today to be joined by Benita Roy. And, you know, we're just going to have a discussion covering the free form structure that we like. So I wanted to start, Benita, to ask you a little bit about like, how do you grow up?
0:26
Like how did, you know, one of the things we're very interested in is like the journey. How do people end up maybe on this unusual path that they are now. And how did that begin? Did they have, you know, a special childhood or was it pretty ordinary?
0:39
So yeah, I'd love to hear a little bit about, yeah, how your life- You're interested in life itself. Yeah, exactly.

A Conversation with Bonnitta Roy

From Factory Town to Philosophical Pioneer

In this episode of the Ordinary People series, Rufus Pollock sits down with Bonnitta Roy to explore her extraordinary life journey, from her early days in a Connecticut factory town to her groundbreaking work in neuroscience, philosophy, and spiritual practice. Bonnitta recounts her adventurous childhood, her academic achievements, and the profound moments of introspection that shaped her worldview. As she navigates her college years and early career, Bonnitta shares the transformative experiences that led her to leave a promising scientific career and dive into the world of philosophy and art in San Francisco.

Bonnitta also delves into her spiritual awakening, recounting intense experiences that deepened her understanding of herself and the world around her. Her story includes a powerful psychological split that allowed her to see the world in a new light, ultimately leading her to innovative approaches in horse training and teaching.

About Bonnitta Roy

Bonnitta Roy teaches insight practices for individuals who are developing meta-cognitive skills, and hosts collective insight retreats for groups interested in breaking away from limiting patterns of thought. She teaches a masters course in consciousness studies and transpersonal psychology at the Graduate Institute. Her teaching highlights the embodied, affective and perceptual aspects of the core self, and the non-egoic potentials from which subtle sensing, intuition and insight emerge. Through her company, APP-AI, Bonnitta is developing applications that can visualize changing patterns as teams work through complex problems. Her research shows how simple but powerful protocols that underlie these patterns can be used to represent various dispositional states of human systems. Bonnitta is the author of the popular Medium publication Our Future at Work. She is an associate editor of Integral Review where you can also find her articles on process approaches to consciousness, perception, and metaphysics.

About Rufus Pollock

Rufus Pollock is an entrepreneur, activist and author as well as a long-term zen practitioner. He is passionate about finding wiser, weller ways to live together. He has founded several for-profit and nonprofit initiatives including Life Itself, Open Knowledge Foundation, and Datopian. His book Open Revolution is about making a radically freer and fairer information age. Previously he has been the Mead Fellow in Economics at the University of Cambridge as well as a Shuttleworth and Ashoka Fellow. A recognized global expert on the information society, he has worked with G7 governments, IGOs like the UN, Fortune 500s as well as many civil society organizations. He holds a PhD in Economics and a double first in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge. Find out more about his work on his website: rufuspollock.com.

Ordinary People is a podcast series as part of The Life Itself Podcast that delves into the lives of individuals who have defied societal expectations and embarked on extra-ordinary paths despite their seemingly ordinary backgrounds. Join us as we dive deep into their lives, uncovering their motivations, beliefs, practices, and moments of transformation. We demystify hero worship and share accessible narratives of real individuals who have transcended societal expectations and norms. Each guest delicately navigates the balance between introspection and worldly engagement. Listeners are offered empowerment, kinship and inspiration for embarking on their own extra-ordinary journey.

Chapters

5:07 Childhood experiences & self-awareness

12:23 College culture, social games, & personal growth

25:47 Power dynamics & inauthenticity in a college setting

32:31 LSD use & academic career choices

39:35 San Francisco & New York in the late 80s & early 90s

46:09 Personal experiences with poverty & homelessness

1:02:20 Spiritual experiences, limitations of the self, & the perception of beauty

1:14:00 Using Qigong & horse training to understand fundamental nature of reality

1:30:15 Cultivating inner capacities & awakened perception

Discussion about this podcast

St Anthony -- Italian kids, obviously

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Bonnitta mentioned two books -- both by Tibetan Buddhist masters. The first reference was to Chogyam Trungpa's Spiritual Materialism, which she bought for the plane trip to Boulder. The second book was by John Whitney Pettit, Mipham's Beacon of Certainty. This is a translation and a thorough-going academic treatment of Mipham Rinpoche's (1846-1912) poetic text The Beacon of Certainty.

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Life Itself
Life Itself Podcast
Welcome to The Life Itself Podcast where we sit down to have conversations with thought leaders of the Second Renaissance. Through personal stories, deep enquiry and animated discussions covering culture, wisdom, technology, politics, spirituality, community life and much more, we aim to share wisdom and insight to create a wiser, weller world.