89 episodios
- David Germano is an educator, scientist, and renown Tibetologist. But to let his life and work be merely a list would be an irreparable simplification, inappropriate as framing for this conversation, and a blindness to the genuine teachings of care and loving-kindness that can be found and felt from deep in his work.
Origins Podcast Website
Flourishing Commons Newsletter
Show Notes:
Rainer Maria Rilke (05:20)
Gül Dölen and 'critical period' Nardou et al., 2023 (14:30)
Tibetan idea of breakthrough - Tregchö (16:00)
Dzogchen (16:30)
micro-phenomenology and Claire Petitmengin (19:30)
the Four Noble Truths (24:00)
Buddhist notion of emptiness (25:20)
David's dissertation & Geshe Lhundub Soba (27:20)
conception of flourishing (34:00)
The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman (39:50)
Danielle Allen (41:00)
the wisdom of difference (42:00)
Writing and Difference by Jacques Derrida (49:00)
Martin Heidegger (52:00)
collectives (53:00)
Truth and Method by Hans-Georg Gadamer (55:50)
Li-Young Lee (01:01:00)
Paul Farmer and moral clarity (01:10:00)
what does it mean to flourish? (01:11:00)
Dacher Keltner (01:18:00)
Émile Durkheim and Collective effervescence (01:19:30)
"The Next Buddha May Be a Sangha" by Thich Nhat Hanh (01:20:00)
Lightning Round (01:20:00) Book: Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke
Passion: Tibetan music (John Flower)
Heart sing: deep pursuit of understanding contemplation
Screwed up: assuming everyone else was fully and truly committed to the mission
Find David online: UVA
the Tibet Center (www.uvatibetcenter.org)
the Tibetan and Himalayan Library (THL, www.thlib.org)
Contemplative Sciences Center
Logo artwork by Cristina Gonzalez
Music by swelo on all streaming platforms or @swelomusic on social media - The Great Askers is an occasional Origins Podcast extra, where we nourish a sensibility of asking and cultivate great askers by exploring it with people who have singularly practiced it. Find the inaugural episode here.
So we occasionally on this show add to a series called ‘the great askers’ to center the philosophy and practice of asking questions. We do this by talking with the people asking the most meaningful, searching, even troubling questions and on their process for constructing those questions.
Here, the conversation continues with scientist Julio Ottino and philosopher C. Thi Nguyen.
Origins Podcast Website
Flourishing Commons Newsletter
Show Notes:
Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn (06:00)
Where do our concepts come from? (06:20)
Leonardo magazine (09:00)
Reiner Knizia (19:20)
mu (32:20)
Socrates' irony (33:00)
value capture (38:00)
art and technology and science (40:30)
theory about the difference between art and science (45:20)
Bernard Suits (47:30)
Victor Vasarely (56:00)
1905-1925 a pivotal period (57:20)
Autotelic experience (59:30)
technical activity v. game activity (01:00:00)
break-with v. breakthrough (01:04:00)
the flourishing of science (01:06:30)
The Spirit of Hope by Byung-Chul Han (01:10:45)
What are your hopeful questions? (01:11:20)
Maria Lugones (01:12:00)
Find Thi online: Website
Find Julio online: Website
Logo artwork by Cristina Gonzalez
Music by swelo on all streaming platforms or @swelomusic on social media Introducing Season Nine: Trailer and a meditation on the shadow side of vulnerability
19/06/2026 | 12 minCORRECTION: Season Nine will commence on July 7, not June 30
Origins Podcast Website
Hello friends, a new season of Origins arrives on July 7!
I can't genuinely describe my experience in the world right now without the term confusion.
Confused in a deep sense: feeling a growing distance between the world as I experience it and the world we seem to be creating together.
The appropriate response to bewilderment is not certainty but deeper conversation. That has always been the purpose of Origins: A person bewildered by the world turning toward another person and asking: How do you live here?
So strangely, out of vulnerability there is capacity. Out of confusion there is hope.
The episodes in this season are meant to be companions in that work. They are certainly companions in mine.
What we do now will be oriented toward creating those sites at which vulnerability becomes capacity: belonging and solidarity. I hope each episode becomes an encounter with flourishing.
Flourishing Commons NewsletterDennis Snower and David Sloan Wilson - Rethinking economics for flourishing people and planet
31/03/2026 | 1 h 16 minThe fundamental challenges confronting humanity are not the failure of particular nations or institutions or businesses or civil organizations, but rather the disconnect between our economic, political, and social systems. Dennis Snower and David Sloan Wilson, converging economics and evolution, have a plan to ameliorate the decoupling of economic prosperity and political success from social and environmental prosperity, a decoupling that destabilizes our planet.
Origins Podcast Website
Flourishing Commons Newsletter
Show Notes:
paper that frames this conversation: "Rethinking the Theoretical Foundation of Economics"
British postal strike (09:20)
Amos Tversky (10:30)
Sloan Wilson (11:00)
Theodosius Dobzhansky (12:00)
This is Water (15:00)
David Whyte (16:00)
Thomas Singer (18:20)
Evolution Institute (19:20)
Eric Beinhocker (20:00)
Mont Pèlerin Society (21:00)
Philip Anderson More is Different (26:00)
rethinking wealth (26:30)
multilevel selection (29:30)
Elinor and Vincent Ostrom (31:00)
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn (42:10)
Thich Nhat Hanh and engaged Buddhism (01:00:40)
flourishing (01:08:10)
Find Dennis online: https://www.global-solutions-initiative.org/person/dennis-j-snower/
Find David online: davidsloanwilson.world/
Recommended books:Dennis: Tolstoy and the great works of literature
David: Teilhard de Chardin and people/places achieving positive cultural change 'hiding in plain sight'
Logo artwork by Cristina Gonzalez
Music by swelo on all streaming platforms or @swelomusic on social mediaGuru Madhavan - Systems consciousness, repairing what is worn, and life-instilling creations
03/03/2026 | 1 h 13 minGuru Madhavan reverences the world and all that is in it. Guru is an engineer, but his conception of engineering is more vast than we typically assign to the role. To it he brings a systems consciousness that widens the field in recognition of its entanglement with the social and cultural.
Origins Podcast Website
Flourishing Commons Newsletter
Show Notes:
David Sloan Wilson on Origins (02:05)
systems consciousness (06:40)
problematizing the term 'technology' (11:00)
jirnoddhara - 'repairing what is worn' (13:30)
Charles Vest (15:20)
Applied Minds Guru's first book (21:20)
'lessons from the scrapheap' (24:00)
Spanning Space by Claude Claremont (25:00)
Cloaca Maxima (29:00)
Wicked Problems by Guru (31:00)
"How to be a poet" by Wendell Berry (31:00)
"The Grind Challenges" by Guru (33:00)
Evolution for Everyone by David Sloan Wilson (41:50)
Flourishing Salons and the event Guru referred to (43:00)
FOCUS (45:20)
Elinor Ostrom (46:30)
The Disuniting of America by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. (55:20)
Paul Virilio's 'inverted miracle' (56:30)
What does it mean to flourish? (57:30)
Why War? letters between Einstein and Freud (01:00:30)
Lightning round (01:05:10)Book: The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit
Passion: cubist painting
Heart sing: latest bookThe Wisdom of the Desert by Thomas Merton
Screwed up: communication
Find Guru online: LinkedIn
'Five-Cut Fridays’ five-song music playlist series Guru’s playlist
Logo artwork by Cristina Gonzalez
Music by swelo on all streaming platforms or @swelomusic on social media
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Origins are conversations with thought-leaders across an eclectic mix of disciplines (science, engineering, art, and design), crafted specifically for the category-defying society that we live in. We explore the thoughts, passions, and stories that defined these pioneers’ fascinating trajectories, arriving at the origins of the pivotal moments across their lives. Draw inspiration for your own trajectory from the intellectual and spiritual electricity of these eclectic conversations.
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