Crazy Wisdom for a Crazy World with Wes “Scoop” Nisker

Program Description

A conversation with Scoop Nisker is a funny, smart, enlightening foray into physics, spirituality, and the oddities of life as we know it. In this wildly entertaining yet informative interview, you’ll hear a new spin on atomic theory, meditation, politics, evolution, and more. You’ll even hear a song about the big bang, and lively banter about why “the here and now” was invented. Best of all you’ll chuckle at Mr. Nisker’s unique analysis of how our world is made, what’s real, and what’s not. He says, “Everything we perceive is made of atoms, and atoms are 99.999% empty space. There’s hardly any matter to matter. So why don’t we just fall through the floor and through the earth? Because it’s just a magic act that’s going on here. It’s a sleight-of-hand, sleight-of-stuff. If your body’s made of atoms, and atoms are mostly empty space, what is holding your clothes on? Not only does the emperor have no clothes, the clothes hardly have any emperor.” Beneath the humor, though, is the wisdom of a man who sees life for what it is, and celebrates it for all it can be.

Wes “Scoop” Nisker is a Buddhist meditation teacher, author, radio commentator, and performer. He is founder and co-editor of the Theravada Buddhist journal, Inquiring Mind, and an affiliate teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California. He travels the world leading retreats and workshops in insight meditation. Mr. Nisker is the author of The Essential Crazy Wisdom (Ten Speed Press 2001), The Big Bang, the Buddha, and the Baby Boom: The Spiritual Experiments of My Generation (HarperOne 2003), and Crazy Wisdom Saves the World Again! Handbook for a Spiritual Revolution (Stone Bridge Press 2008). To learn more about the work of Wes “Scoop” Nisker go to www.wesnisker.com

Topics Explored in this Dialogue:

• Why our government should have a Department of Wisdom
• What might happen if all the gods had a summit meeting
• Why radio is the “happy medium”
• How we can prove the world doesn’t really exist
• Why reality isn’t just random chaos bumping into itself
• What spiritual message we can find in evolution

Program Number: 3284           Host: Michael Toms            Interview Date: 10/24/2008