A New Vision of Reality - TSK for the 21st Century (Ep. 1: Jack Petranker)

A New Vision of Reality: TSK for the 21st Century is a new series exploring the Time-Space-Knowledge vision, which is a secular or "post-metaphysical" path of spiritual inquiry first introduced by the Tibetan lama, Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche. TSK starts from the radical suggestion that deep, open-ended, sustained inquiry into time, space, and knowledge, as fundamental facets or elements of our being, can have a profoundly transformative impact on our ways of being and knowing in the world. As we head now into the third decade of the 21st century, many people are realizing that we have become caught up, rather surprisingly, in various crises of meaning and sense-making. And as a secular path of transformative inquiry and non-dual insight, open to science and psychology as much as to contemplative disciplines and Socratic dialogue, TSK is powerfully resonant with and relevant to the various integral, metamodern, and other communities that are attempting to articulate and address these crises. In this series, then, we will explore TSK in depth, talking to many of its teachers and long-time students, considering its origins and intentions, its key insights and practices, and looking forward also for whatever wisdom and ways of working it might offer us in the century ahead.

In episode 1, Bruce Alderman is joined by Jack Petranker, the founder of the Center for Creative Inquiry, the editor of many of the TSK books, and one of the foremost teachers of the vision. For the inaugural episode of the series, they discuss the nature and focus of the Time-Space-Knowledge vision, its origins and early reception, and its evolution or unfolding over 40 years through various books and seminars. Jack also shares some of his experiences working with the texts or exercises, and a number of his thoughts on secular spirituality, the practice of inquiry as "love of knowledge," the art of contemplative reading, the relevance of TSK for addressing the meta-crisis, the possibilities for a "politics of presence," and much more.

Jack Petranker is the founder and director of CCI and regularly offers programs and online courses. A student of Buddhism since 1973, he is also the director of the Mangalam Research Center for Buddhist Languages and a faculty member at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute. He served as Dean of the Institute in Berkeley from 1988-1991 and as North American Vice-President of the World Fellowship of Buddhists from 1988-1992. He is the author of When It Rains, Does Space Get Wet? (Dharma Publishing 2006), and has written numerous academic articles in consciousness studies, organizational change, political transformation, and the value of work as a spiritual practice. Jack holds a BA from Stanford in political science, an MA from the University of California at Berkeley in political theory, and a JD from Yale Law School. He has been a member of the California Bar since 1971.

Center for Creative Inquiry website

Full Presence Mindfulness website (and Upcoming "Adventures in Knowledge" Course)

Time-Space-Knowledge book series

Please consider supporting The Integral Stage on Patreon to make more of these conversations possible!

The torus fractal that forms the base of the cover image was generated by GeoKone.

[zachariahz]

I really like TSK and am diving deeper into these teachings, they are golden. but I have to say, they don't seem any more "secular" to me than other teachings. It seems like the Dzogchen view taught in a more secular manner, but at heart I would have a hard time separating the two.

[DarkMoonDroid]

Loved the stories of Rinpoche.
Looks like this has potential for interfacing with the Post-Metaphysical Sense-making folks. You may have to lay down the path, tho, Bruce. You can see the way.

[johndavis]

Perfect timing! I studied these books back in the '90s. Luckily, I did a workshop with Jack and learned lots. After a decade of deep immersion in these books, I have been away from them for a long time, exploring Integral Theory and other approaches. So I am delighted that Bruce has taken up the challenge of introducing these enigmatic texts to Game B and The Stoa. I'm eager to tune into these rich metaphorical landscapes once again. Jack told me I was one of the few people he'd met that had read all of the books. I find that amusing as I'm not a scholar or academic but I have had considerable para-normal experience which this Integral Stage podcast has sensitively investigated. I imagine that a review of T, S, K during this current crisis and while considering the recent happenings in UFO studies that this could make for some interesting communiques from the field. I look forward to this series. Thanks!